Contemporary trusts and estates law is built on the premise that individuals can and should have fixed intentions with respect to the disposition of their property at death. These intentions can and should be fixed in a written document, and that document can and should be fixed against other outside evidence of intention. Experience with end-of-life health care decision making gives reason to question these premises. In the health care context, intentions have proven to be fluid, and the documents purporting to record individuals' wishes have often proved unreliable.

This paper examines the implications for wills of the literature on end-of-life health care decision making. Advance health care directives and property wills are alike pre-commitments, attempts in the present to bind the future, but studies in the end-of-life health care decision making context show there are serious issues with this process. Individuals simply do not care to decide about post-competency treatment, those who do make such decisions often change their minds, and cognitive biases operate to limit individuals' ability to predict accurately in the present what they will want in the future. Many of these issues arise also in the context of end-of-life property decision making and unsettle many of wills law's fundamental premises about intention.

The final part of the paper suggests avenues for further empirical study and explores the practical significance of this potential research for estates law, particularly the potential to displace the vision of the estates attorney as a passive scrivener who simply asks what the client wants and writes it down. It may be that the wishes expressed in a will may be formed in response to, and shaped by, the attorney's questions rather than being brought out by those questions. The paper concludes by asking whether there might be a way to honor fluid intentions in the property context that does not destroy the utility of testamentary documents as a safe harbor.


The PRODIGY project is primarily concerned with the integration of planning and learning. Members of the PRODIGY research group have developed many learning algorithms for improving planning efficiency and plan quality, and for automatically acquiring knowledge about the properties of planning domains. The details of the PRODIGY planning algorithm, however, have not been described in the literature. We present a formal description of the planning algorithm used in the current version of the PRODIGY system. The algorithm is based on an interesting combination of backward-chaining planning with simulation of plan execution. The backward-chainer selects goal-relevant operators and then the planner simulates the application of these operators to the current state of the world. The system can use different backward-chaining algorithms, two of which are presented in the paper.


In much of the literature devoted to face recognition, experiments are performed with controlled images (e.g. manual face localization, controlled lighting, background and pose); however, a practical recognition system has to be robust to more challenging conditions. In this paper we first evaluate, on the relatively difficult BANCA database, the performance, robustness and complexity of Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), 1D- and pseudo-2D Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based systems, using both manual and automatic face localization. We also propose to extend the GMM approach through the use of local features with embedded positional information, increasing performance without sacrificing its low complexity. Experiments show that good performance on manually located faces is not necessarily indicative of good performance on automatically located faces (which are imperfectly located). The deciding factor is shown to be the degree of constraints placed on spatial relations between face parts. Methods which utilize rigid constraints have poor robustness compared to methods which have relaxed constraints. Furthermore, we show that while the pseudo-2D HMM approach has the best overall performance, classification time on current hardware makes it impractical. The best trade-off in terms of complexity, robustness and discrimination performance is achieved by the extended GMM approach.


Abstract This paper re-examines why global collective action problems persist, and how to overcome them. Drawing on 140 interviews with campaigners, politicians, and businesses in 10 European countries, it suggests that many activists are stuck in a despondency trap. Never seeing radical reform, they lower their ambitions, and invest in more feasible but sub-optimal alternatives. This creates a negative feedback loop, in which the dearth of radical reform becomes self-fulfilling. But if reformists see advances at home and abroad, they may become more optimistic about collective mobilisation and break out of their despondency trap. This is shown by tracing the drivers of ground-breaking legislation. From 2018, large French firms must mitigate risks of environmental and human rights abuses in their global supply chains, or else be liable. This bill – the world's first of its kind – was vociferously contested by businesses. But French campaigners and politicians persisted for four years, because they saw reasons for optimism. These include growing international support; public outcry; the French political culture (state intervention, and distrust of multinationals); together with a Centre-Left Government. Optimism galvanised relentless mobilisation. Legislative success in France then delivered a positive shock to activists across Europe, who were emboldened to launch similar campaigns and escape their despondency trap.


In the U.S., unlike much of the rest of the world, the mixing of banking and commerce is largely prohibited. One exception is industrial loan companies (ILCs), state chartered depository institutions some of which are owned by commercial parents. In 2006, the FDIC put a moratorium on the chartering of new ILCs pending resolution of a controversy sparked by Wal-Mart's application to start up an ILC in Utah. Wal-Mart subsequently withdrew its bid. This paper reviews the major arguments that have been raised against the mixing of banking and commerce, finding most to be theoretically weak or lacking in empirical support, and discusses several efficiencies that may arise from the integration of banking and commerce.


Recent hostilities have witnessed the unprecedented involvement of voluntary human shields (VHS). As international humanitarian law (IHL) stands at the moment, VHS find themselves in the theatre of war without authorisation to participate in hostilities and accordingly enjoy no special protected status as combatants, non-combatants or civilian contractors. Current IHL does little but presume that VHS retain their civilian status until a competent tribunal dictates otherwise. I argue here that the status afforded VHS's turns very much on the hotly contested notion of what exactly amounts to impermissible direct participation in hostilities. This notion of direct participation is informed to a large extent by the sites (military, civilian or dual use) which the VHS are found to be shielding. I conclude that whatever finding a competent tribunal might reach, IHL law demands that VHS who are captured be treated humanely in accordance with basic fundamental guarantees. Where VHS are found to have been participating directly in hostilities without authorisation, they might be held to account for their unauthorised actions.


Data with low-dimensional nonlinear structure are ubiquitous in engineering and scientific problems. We study a model problem with such structure—a binary classification task that uses a deep fully-connected neural network to classify data drawn from two disjoint smooth curves on the unit sphere. Aside from mild regularity conditions, we place no restrictions on the configuration of the curves. We prove that when (i) the network depth is large relative to certain geometric properties that set the difficulty of the problem and (ii) the network width and number of samples are polynomial in the depth, randomly-initialized gradient descent quickly learns to correctly classify all points on the two curves with high probability. To our knowledge, this is the first generalization guarantee for deep networks with nonlinear data that depends only on intrinsic data properties. Our analysis proceeds by a reduction to dynamics in the neural tangent kernel (NTK) regime, where the network depth plays the role of a fitting resource in solving the classification problem. In particular, via fine-grained control of the decay properties of the NTK, we demonstrate that when the network is sufficiently deep, the NTK can be locally approximated by a translationally invariant operator on the manifolds and stably inverted over smooth functions, which guarantees convergence and generalization.


Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been successfully applied to the surface characterization of carbon materials such as highly oriented pyrolitic graphite, pyrolitic graphite, glassy carbon, diamond, and carbon fibers by the evaporation of Ag island films onto the surface. The surface chemical and morphological structure of carbon materials has been parallelly characterized by electron energy loss spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and field-emission scanning electron microscope. Raman scattering from the outermost surface of carbon materials is found to be remarkably enhanced by the presence of Ag island films (50–100 Å). The chemical and crystal structure change of graphite and diamond by argon-ion etching has also been studied by the enhanced Raman spectra. The obtained results demonstrate the possibility of using SERS with the Ag overlayer method as a new high-sensitivity surface probe for various kinds of industrial materials.


Jiahong, Fu. M.S.M.E., Purdue University, December 2016. Uncertainty Quantification on Industrial High Pressure Die Casting Process. Major Professor: Amy Marconnet, School of Mechanical Engineering and Matthew Krane, School of Materials Engineering. High pressure die casting (HPDC) is a famous manufacturing technology in industry. This manufacturing process is simulated by commercial code to shed the light on the quality of casting product. The casting product quality might be affected by the uncertainty in the simulation parameter settings. Thus, the uncertainty quantification on HPDC process is significant to improve the casting quality and the manufacturing efficiency. In this work, three uncertainty quantifications and sensitivity analyses on the A380 aluminum alloy HPDC process of intermediate speed plate are performed. The material thermophysical properties, boundary conditions of the model, and operational as well as artificial parameters with their uncertainties, are considered as the inputs of interest. Uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analyses are investigated for the outputs of interest including percent volume of porosity result, percent volume of fraction solid less than 1, and the percent volume that solidified during multiple solidification times. The most influential input parameter for predicting the outputs of interest is the boundary condition of metal-die interfacial air gap.


For nearly a century, the training of ballet and modern dancers has followed two divergent paths. Modern practitioners felt ballet was artificial and injurious to the body; ballet teachers felt that modern dancers lacked the rigorous discipline and control that comes only from years of progressive training. Ballet Beyond Tradition seeks to reconcile these age-old conflicts and bring a new awareness to ballet teachers of the importance of a holistic training regimen that draws on the best that modern dance and movement-studies offers.


Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assist those in the relatively new field of place management to undertake sound and appropriate research for which there is a current need. Approach: This paper identifies and provides an interpretation of key terms associated with research in the social and behavioural sciences and then recommends the case study methodology as being appropriate for research in place management. Findings: Based on a review of the literature this paper offers a viewpoint about the meaning and application of the terms 'methodology', 'methods,' 'ways', 'strategies' and 'approaches' when they are applied to research. Research implications: The work contributes to assisting new researchers generally and specifically those researchers and practitioners involved in place management. Practical implications: The paper is of use to practitioners in that it identifies some areas of research and would be of assistance at the very least in the commissioning and interpreting of research reports. Originality/value of paper: The paper is of value to new researchers seeking to comprehend the varying interpretations of research terminology and to assist with academic research and best practice in place management.


Synergistic interactions between task/resource allocation and stochastic planning exist in many environments such as transportation and logistics, UAV task assignment and disaster rescue. Existing research in exploiting these synergistic interactions between the two problems have either only considered domains where tasks/resources are completely independent of each other or have focussed on approaches with limited scalability. In this paper, we address these two limitations by introducing a generic model for task/resource constrained multi-agent stochastic planning, referred to as TasC-MDPs. We provide two scalable greedy algorithms, one of which provides posterior quality guarantees. Finally, we illustrate the high scalability and solution performance of our approaches in comparison with existing work on two benchmark problems from the literature.


Observational searches for dual active galactic nuclei (dAGNs) at kiloparsec separations are crucial for understanding the role of galaxy mergers in the evolution of galaxies. In addition, kiloparsec-scale dAGNs may serve as the parent population of merging massive black hole (MBH) binaries, an important source of gravitational waves. We use a semi-analytical model to describe the orbital evolution of unequal mass MBH pairs under the influence of stellar and gaseous dynamical friction in post-merger galaxies. We quantify how the detectability of approximately 40,000 kpc-scale dAGNs depends on the structure of their host galaxies and the orbital properties of the MBH pair. Our models indicate that kiloparsec-scale dAGNs are most likely to be detected in gas-rich post-merger galaxies with smaller stellar bulges and relatively massive, rapidly rotating gas disks. The detectability is also increased in systems with MBHs of comparable masses following low eccentricity prograde orbits. In contrast, dAGNs with retrograde, low eccentricity orbits are some of the least detectable systems among our models. The dAGNs in models in which the accreting MBHs are allowed to exhibit radiative feedback are characterized by a significantly lower overall detectability. The suppression in detectability is most pronounced in gas-rich merger remnant galaxies, where radiation feedback is more likely to arise. If so, then large, relatively gas-poor galaxies may be the best candidates for detecting dAGNs.


Despite the rapid expansion of U.S.-China trade ties, the increase in U.S. FDI in China, and the expanding amount of economic research exploring these developments, a number of misconceptions distort the popular understanding of U.S. multinationals in China. In this paper, we seek to correct four common misunderstandings by providing a statistical portrait of several aspects of U.S. affiliate activity in the country and placing this activity in its appropriate economic context.


Network genomics is an emerging area of bioengineering which models the influence of genes (hence, genomics) in the context of a larger biomolecular system or network. A biomolecular network is a comprehensive collection of molecules and molecular interactions that regulate cellular function. Molecular interactions include physical binding events between proteins and proteins, proteins and DNA, or proteins and drugs, as well as genetic relationships dictating how genes combine to cause particular phenotypes. Thinking about biological systems as networks goes hand-in-hand with our ability to experimentally measure and define biomolecular interactions at large scale. Once we have catalogued all of the interactions present in a network, we may begin to ask questions such as: How many different molecules are bound by a typical protein? What is the topological structure of the network? How are signals transmitted through the network in response to internal and external events? Which parts of the network are evolutionarily conserved across species, and which parts differ? Perhaps most importantly, we can begin to use the interaction network as a storehouse of information from which to extract and construct computer-based models of cellular processes and disease.


In today's world, the need for more energy seems to be ever increasing. The high cost and limited sources of fossil fuels, in addition to the need to reduce greenhouse gasses, have made renewable energy sources (RES) attractive in today's world economy. However, the fluctuating and intermittent nature of these RES causes variations of power flow that can significantly affect the stability and operation of the electrical grid. In addition, the power output of these RES is not as easy to adjust to changing demand cycles as the output from the traditional power sources. To overcome these problems, energy from these RES must be stored when excess is produced and then released, when production levels are less than the required demand. Therefore, in order for RES to become completely reliable as primary sources of energy, energy storage systems (ESS) is a crucial factor. The impact of the ESS in future grid is receiving more attention than ever from system designers, grid operations and regulators. Energy storage technologies have the potential to support our energy system's evolution, they can be used for multiple applications, such as: energy management, backup power, load leveling, frequency regulation, voltage support, and grid stabilization. In this work, an overview of the current and future energy storage technologies used for electric power applications is carried out. Furthermore, an assessment of the dynamic performance of energy storage technologies for the stabilization and control of the power flow of emerging smart grid will be presented. The EES can enhance the operation security and ensure the continuity of energy supply in future smart grids.


This PhD thesis presents the development of a methodological framework to analyse potential climate change impacts on a high mountainous water resources system and to quantify the associated modelling uncertainties. The main objective is to show whether state-of-the-art hydrological modelling techniques driven by currently available climate change scenarios enable a prediction of the long-term evolution of the analysed system. The case study is a highly glacierized catchment feeding a hydropower plant located in the Swiss Alps. The climate change impact analysis is based on a classical simulation approach: The system behaviour is modelled for an observed control period (1961 to 1990) and for a future period (2070 to 2099) characterised by a modified (predicted) climate. The climate change impact on the studied system is assessed through the comparison of some key characteristics of the system for the two periods (e.g. the mean annual discharge or the hydropower production). The system simulation is completed through a set of four models, a water management model, a hydrological discharge model, a glacier surface evolution model and a model for the production of local scale meteorological time series (precipitation and temperature) based on global and regional climate model outputs. The local scale models have been specifically developed for the purposes of this thesis. For each of them, an appropriate statistical method for the quantification of the inherent modelling uncertainties has been developed. A special emphasis is given to the modelling uncertainties induced by the conceptual hydrological model. A method has been developed to quantify the statistical and the multi-objective modelling uncertainty in a multi-model framework including several equivalent model structures. This method has been specially designed for the quantification of the prediction uncertainty in climate change impact studies but it is transposable to other hydrological modelling contexts. The overall prediction uncertainty and the contribution of each source of modelling uncertainty is quantified through Monte Carlo simulations of the system behaviour combining successively the different sources of modelling uncertainty. It is shown that the uncertainties induced by the prediction of the climate evolution are much higher than the ones induced by the local scale models of the system behaviour. The uncertainty related to the use of different regional climate models is however nearly as important as the one due to the choice of the underlying global climate model and the green house gas emission scenario. Using a fixed hydrological model structure, the predicted climate evolution induces a significant reduction of the hydropower production performance due to a considerable hydrological regime modification. The available data, the current discharge modelling techniques and the knowledge about the underlying processes are however not sufficient to chose an objectively best model structure. Considering the multi-model approach (including different hydrological model structures), an unambiguous prediction of the hydrological reaction to the analysed climate change reveals impossible at the given temporal horizon.


Zeeman effect data are given for 152 lines of La I and 506 lines of La II in the wave-length range 2257A to 7484A. Spectrograms were made at fields of 81,230, 83,370, and 86,570 oersteds using a Bitter electromagnet, and the 24 plates obtained with three diffraction gratings operating simultaneously were measured with an automatic comparator. g values are given for almost all of the classified terms of La I and La II, and the determinations from various lines agree usually to within 0.004 g unit. This makes available an array of unusually precise data for the evaluation of perturbations in typical rich two-electron and three-electron spectra. The g-sum rule of Pauli is verified in a number of cases to within a few tenths of a percent.


Focusing on employee retention is vital to increase organizational performance and strengthen a nation's economy. Employee turnover leads to high unemployment and slow economic growth around the globe. The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons and motivating factors that cause employees to remain in hospitality despite the high turnover rate in the industry. The data for this study were collected using semi-structured interviews, conducted with hospitality employees in South Florida. The study employed a qualitative phenomenological method to acquire the lived experiences of participants. The findings were in accord with the employee retention approach. The findings revealed that creating a good working environment including management support, reward, and incentive programs would lead to employee retention in the hospitality sector.


Abstract Evening primrose (Oenothera paradoxa Hudziok) seeds are a rich source of not only a valuable oil containing an essential fatty acid - ᵧ-linolenic acid (GLA) - but also polyphenols which can be obtained from the biomass remaining after oil pressing. The aim of our studies was to evaluate the influence of a polyphenol extract from defatted seeds of evening primrose on human colorectal adenocarcinoma Caco-2 cell proliferation and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) synthesis and activity. To assess the effect of evening primrose extract on Caco-2 cell proliferation, crystal violet staining and sulforhodamine B (SRB) assays were used whereas mRNA expression and activity of MMPs were evaluated by RT-PCR and gelatin zymography. The results revealed that the examined polyphenol extract had little influence on Caco-2 proliferation, but effectively in a time- and dose-dependent manner inhibited MMP-1, MMP-7, MMP-9 and MMP-14 mRNA synthesis induced by TNF-α and TPA. Additionally, zymographic analysis revealed that after 24 h, the polyphenol extract at a concentration of 50 μmol/L GAE caused a 10-fold reduction in MMP-9 synthesis. Moreover, this extract might be a potent inhibitor of MMP activity. The results showed that polyphenol extract from evening primrose inhibited PBMC-derived MMP-2 and MMP-9 enzymatic activity in dose-dependent manner. The obtained results indicate that the polyphenol extract from evening primrose seeds could be an inhibitor of proteases involved in tumor progression and metastasis.


Marek's disease virus is a herpesvirus of chickens that costs the worldwide poultry industry over 1 billion USD annually. Two generations of Marek's disease vaccines have shown reduced efficacy over the last half century due to evolution of the virus. Understanding where the virus is present may give insight into whether continued reductions in efficacy are likely. We conducted a three-year surveillance study to assess the prevalence of Marek's disease virus on commercial poultry farms, determine the effect of various factors on virus prevalence, and document virus dynamics in broiler chicken houses over short (weeks) and long (years) timescales. We extracted DNA from dust samples collected from commercial chicken and egg production facilities in Pennsylvania, USA. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used to assess wild-type virus detectability and concentration. Using data from 1018 dust samples with Bayesian generalized linear mixed effects models, we determined the factors that correlated with virus prevalence across farms. Maximum likelihood and autocorrelation function estimation on 3727 additional dust samples were used to document and characterize virus concentrations within houses over time. Overall, wild-type virus was detectable at least once on 36 of 104 farms at rates that varied substantially between farms. Virus was detected in 1 of 3 broiler-breeder operations (companies), 4 of 5 broiler operations, and 3 of 5 egg layer operations. Marek's disease virus detectability differed by production type, bird age, day of the year, operation (company), farm, house, flock, and sample. Operation (company) was the most important factor, accounting for between 12% and 63.4% of the variation in virus detectability. Within individual houses, virus concentration often dropped below detectable levels and reemerged later. These data characterize Marek's disease virus dynamics, which are potentially important to the evolution of the virus.


This paper presents a novel algorithm, based upon the dependent Dirichlet process mixture model (DDPMM), for clustering batch-sequential data containing an unknown number of evolving clusters. The algorithm is derived via a low-variance asymptotic analysis of the Gibbs sampling algorithm for the DDPMM, and provides a hard clustering with convergence guarantees similar to those of the k-means algorithm. Empirical results from a synthetic test with moving Gaussian clusters and a test with real ADS-B aircraft trajectory data demonstrate that the algorithm requires orders of magnitude less computational time than contemporary probabilistic and hard clustering algorithms, while providing higher accuracy on the examined datasets.


Background/Context When Ladson-Billings described the pedagogical practices of successful teachers of African American children and consequently conceptualized culturally relevant pedagogy as an analytic resource to describe and make sense of pedagogical practices of teachers, her discussion was situated in a frame that examined instructional moves of teachers, especially with Black students. Since the introduction of this pedagogy, researchers and theorists have broadened Ladson-Billings's conceptualization to include various other factors. However, race is no longer as central as it was when the framework was introduced. Purpose/Objective I examine published literature on culturally relevant pedagogy in mathematics and English language arts that has considered race in some form. The purpose of this synthesis is to highlight patterns across the literature and to consider potential future areas of study to strengthen and encourage focused research on race and CRP. Setting I reviewed established literature to examine the intersections of race, culturally relevant pedagogy, and mathematics or English language arts. Research Design I analyzed research articles in the areas of mathematics and English language arts that examined race in some form between 2004–2014 to determine how race is situated and connected to the core of culturally relevant pedagogy. Conclusions/Recommendations Although race was a critical component of Ladson-Billings's conceptualization of culturally relevant pedagogy, research studies in the area demonstrate a marginal, at best, emphasis on race. Studies in the areas of mathematics and English language arts that do include race tend to focus on superficial aspects of race. Future studies should return to the root of the theory and include race as an essential component of empirical studies that draw from culturally relevant pedagogy as an analytic tool to describe pedagogical practices of teachers.


David Hume was one of the most important British philosophers of the eighteenth century. The first part of his Treatise on Human Nature is a seminal work in philosophy. Hume on Knowledge introduces and assesses: * Humes life and the background of the Treatise * The ideas and text in the Treatise * Humes continuing importance to philosophy


Within the East Coast Deformed Belt there are a number of Late Neogene sedimentary basins with relatively deep-water sediments which, at places, contain abundant radiolarian skeletons. The region was subject to relatively open ocean circulation patterns during the Neogene which, combined with the input of rhyolitic glass shards, has enhanced the siliceous microfossil preservation. A short review of the silica budget is presented and discussed in relation to the preservation of siliceous microfossils in the New Zealand sequences. Techniques were developed to extract and quantitatively study fossil Radiolaria from some of the relatively barren shelf/slope sediments. One hundred and thirty-eight radiolarian taxa are described, most of which can be assigned at the generic level, but thirty-one of which can not be assigned specific names and may eventually prove to be new species. The radiolarian zonation presented is based on detailed analysis of 155 samples from 26 sections and sites ranging in age from basal Tongaporutuan (early Late Miocene) to middle Nukumaruan (early Pleistocene). Sediments of the Kapitean (uppermost Miocene) were generally deposited in shallow water environments or are missing in unconformities in the East Coast Deformed Belt, consequently the radiolarian zonation is based on very poor data in this time segment. Also upper Opoitian and Waipipian (middle Pliocene) sediments, although at places deposited in relatively deep water, generally lack siliceous tuffs, and radiolarian preservation is poor. Five major radiolarian zones can be recognised: Diartus hughesi Zone, Didymocyrtis sp. A Zone, Didymocyrtis sp. A Zone, Didymocyrtis tetrathalmus tetrathalmus Zone, Lamprocyrtis heteroporos Zone, and Lamprocyclas gamphonycha Zone. In samples with good radiolarian preservation six subzones can be identified. The Diartus hughesi Zone can be divided into the Heliodiscus umbonatum Subzone, Didymocyrtis laticonus Subzone, Heliodiscus asteriscus forma large pores Subzone, and Anthocyrtidium ehrenbergi pliocenica Subzone. Additionally the Didymocyrtis tetrathalmus tetrathalmus Zone can be divided into the Lychnocanium sp. aff. grande Subzone and Lamprocyrtis hannai Subzone. The bioevents that define the zonal boundaries are discussed along with other biostratigraphically useful radiolarian datums. These zones and zubzones are correlated to the foraminiferal zonation which in turn has been related, in part, to the paleomagnetic time scale. Correlation are then made with other radiolarian zonations in the north Pacific, tropics, and southern ocean. Points to emerge from these correlations include the apparent provincialism in the transition from Stichocorys delmontense to Stichocorys peregrine in the tropical Pacific. This transition has been reported to occur during approximately 1.5Ma but in New Zealand occurs over a time segment of at least 5.5Ma. The first appearance of Lamprocyclas gamphonycha appears to be an isochronous datum level in temperate radiolarian faunas of the northern and southern Pacific. The last appearance datum of Diartus hughesi at about 7.5Ma is in good agreement with its level in the tropics. The presence of this taxon in lower Gilbert Antarctic cores suggests either a grossly diachronous event between tropical/temperate areas and the southern ocean or, more probably, a misinterpretation of the paleomagnetic signature from key southern ocean piston cores. If the latter situation is the case then the real age estimates on the "Pre middle Gilbert" southern ocean diatom and silicoflagellate stratigraphies are questionable because they are based on the same key cores. Statistical faunal analysis shows that during the Miocene there was not much change in the radiolarian faunas with time and a major change, probably climatically controlled, took place across the Miocene/Pliocene boundary. Variability in preservation has probably affected the faunas to obscure more precise time variation although post-Miocene faunas indicate that some is present. In conclusion, the Radiolaria, although not as common in the fossil record as the foraminifera, definitely contribute to New Zealand Late Neogene integrated stratigraphy and suggest that our knowledge could be greatly enhanced by the study of other siliceous microfossil groups.


The Council of Europe, the European leading human rights organization, has been engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights since its foundation. In addition to legal actions, over the years it has undertaken a number of awareness-raising campaigns. The analysis is conducted on a corpus collected from the Council of Europe's website. It includes different text types – posters, leaflets and booklets – which belong to the most significant campaigns launched in 2006. This study focuses on the linguistic and visual manifestations of argumentation across a range of different genres looking at the way in which they interact to produce a persuasive message. Against the theoretical framework of visual argumentation, in particular Roque's classification of mixed media argumentation (2012), and multimodal discourse analysis, the research aims to explore how the Council of Europe promotes human rights issues through argumentative-persuasive techniques and to what extent these strategies interact in the campaign material allowing for an expansion of the theory of argumentation.


Imagining Peace. A History of Early English Pacifist Ideas, 1340-1560. By Ben Lowe. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1997 Pp. xiv, 362. $60.00 clothbound; $19.95 paperback.) Ben Lowe's work is a welcome addition to the scholarly analysis of peace movements and ideas in Europe in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. There are many things to like about this book, Over the past generation we have seen "peace studies" pass from a marginal endeavor-dismissed by many historians as special pleading and misreading of the evidence-into a highly developed field of study, albeit still one incorporated into far too few history departments" offerings and too few surveys' pages. Acceptance of the facts still remains hard-- won; and while not even the most devoted peace-studies scholar would question the realities of war in any minimally acceptable introductory text, many historians still raise eyebrows when the reality of peacemaking and peace discourse (to borrow Lowe's phrase) is documented by serious scholars. Lowe's work builds on much previous research to focus on English ideas from the start of the Hundred Years' War in 1337 to the Peace of Chateau-Cambresis in 1559 and does much to bring a living tradition of thinking and writing about peace to a contemporary audience who might not have considered the possibility before. The book is the outcome of research Lowe completed for a doctoral dissertation, and he has also published several articles on war and peace in the Elizabethan period. Imagining Peace offers introductory chapters on the just-war "ideology" and the development of the law of arms in the later Middle Ages, and then surveys "anti-war" and "peace" discourse during the Hundred Years' War and the ideas on war and peace of the English Humanists, material earlier covered in such works as Robert P. Adams's groundbreaking" The Better Part of Valor (1962). Lowe goes on to discuss early Protestant "negotiations" of war and peace, and concludes by examining these issues in the Elizabethan period. The author contends that while the just-war theory remained the dominant-one sometimes gets the impression from this book, the only legitimate-- Christian approach to war and peace in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, toward the end of the Hundred Years' War sufficient opposition had formed among many elements of English society to allow the fruitful development of an intellectual tradition that began to reject just-war thinking as an appropriate Christian response. Lowe assembles and weighs enough evidence to argue his case convincingly that by the time Humanism reached England the way had been well prepared for the efforts of the London Reformers and their Renaissance critique of war. The Humanists, in turn, paved the way for the English Protestants and their ideas of peace based on "biblical exegesis.'' The book includes an English Complaint of Peace" in an appendix and a good bibliography. Lowe draws on a variety of sources: sermons and liturgies, episcopal visitations and inquisitions, public and private correspondence, state papers, registers, chronicles, literary texts, explicit treatises on war and peace and a wide-ranging command of the secondary literature to place his study and his judgments upon sound scholarly footing. There are some things to question from a methodological and conceptual point of view that do not diminish the value of Lowe's work but that highlight both the limitations and the thought-provoking aspects of his approach. …


Highly ornamented males are often thought to be better able to provide females with resources, parental assistance, or good genes. Individual variation in such male abilities may override the costs of polygyny and therefore largely explain within-population variation in mating patterns. We investigated the influence of variation in male ornamentation and the environment on the costs of polygyny for female collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis), using data from a long-term study involving 2733 breeding attempts over 19 years. We show that females suffer reduced reproductive success when mated polygynously but that the costs of polygyny depend on an interaction between male ornamentation and timing of breeding. Among early breeders, polygynously mated females experience higher reproductive success when mated to less ornamented males, but among late breeders, females mated polygynously to highly ornamented males were more successful. We suggest that a high effort spent on obtaining extrapair matings early in the season renders highly ornamented males less able to assist two females in caring for the young. Thus, a male's ability to simultaneously gain from extrapair matings and polygyny may be limited through direct effects on female reproductive success. Given such limitation, extrapair matings may be expected to be less frequent in species with biparental care and a high level of social polygyny. Copyright 2003.


The antibiotic activity of nonactin is sustained by its ability to transport K+ across lipophilic phases, e.g., the cell membranes. Such a feature can be traced back to a specific ionophoric behavior and to a balanced hydrophobicity modulated by the formation of a cation complex. In this study, the dominant conformations and coordination arrangements in the alkali cation complexes (Na+, K+, Cs+) of nonactin are characterized by means of action vibrational spectroscopy and quantum chemical computations. The low energy conformers of the complexes comprise compact inclusion structures, in which the cation interacts with a varying number of oxygen atoms of the carbonyl and oxolane ring groups of the nonactin macrocycle. The spectroscopy experiments indicate that the three alkali complexes explored are formed in a S4 conformation. This is in contrast with previous crystallography studies, which concluded that the symmetry of the most stable conformer of the complex changes qualitatively with the cation size, from C2 for Na+ to S4 for K+ and Cs+. Computations with different hybrid density functionals lead to contradictory predictions that appear to be quite sensitive to the modelling of the long range interactions in the coordination arrangements. The stabilization of the nonactin-Na+ complex in the C2 or S4 forms emerges as a subtle feature that may be tuned with an appropriate control of the environmental conditions, and constitutes a challenging benchmark to confront novel computational methods for supramolecular systems.


Web services are integrated software components for the support of interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Web services have been widely employed for building service-oriented applications in both industry and academia in recent years. The number of publicly available Web services is steadily increasing on the Internet. However, this proliferation makes it hard for a user to select a proper Web service among a large amount of service candidates. An inappropriate service selection may cause many problems (e.g., ill-suited performance) to the resulting applications. In this paper, we propose a novel collaborative filtering-based Web service recommender system to help users select services with optimal Quality-of-Service (QoS) performance. Our recommender system employs the location information and QoS values to cluster users and services, and makes personalized service recommendation for users based on the clustering results. Compared with existing service recommendation methods, our approach achieves considerable improvement on the recommendation accuracy. Comprehensive experiments are conducted involving more than 1.5 million QoS records of real-world Web services to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.


This book attempts to articulate the nature of a secular society, describe its benefits, and suggests the conditions under which such a society could emerge. To become secular, argues Fenn, is to open oneself and one's society to a wide range of possibilities, some interesting and exciting, some burdensome and dreadful. While some sociologists have argued that a "Civil Religion" is necessary to hold together our newly "religionless" society, Fenn urges that there is nothing to fear-and everything to gain-from living in a society that is not bound together by sacred memories and beliefs, or by sacred institutions and practices.


If you could leave color management to the pros, you probably would. But with the proliferation of desktop systems and devices, everyone (regardless of role) is expected to get color right these days- to do that, you need to know about a lot more than just tools and software. Lucky for you, this hands-on guide delivers, describing precisely how to apply color consistently and correctly across various hardware, software, and output devices using a Windows-based workflow. By matching color workflow to color use (for example, photography and image capture, page layout and content creation, and output to desktop or press), author and color management pro Josh Weisberg distills a complicated process into its need-to-know essentials. Whether you're an artist, illustrator, designer, photographer, or hobbyist, the series of illustrated steps, instructions, and advice contained in this full-color volume will have you mastering color management in Windows XP environments in no time.


The separation thesis associated with the legal positivist tradition in legal philosophy holds that the legal validity of norms depends only on their sources, not on considerations of merit or value. In this essay I show that the separation thesis comes under pressure from cases in which an answer to the question: Is o an F? partly depends on the values associated with the nature of F. This is certainly the case when we try to determine whether an object is a work of art, for example. In response, proponents of the separation thesis would want to resist the analogy with art, and maintain that the ascription of legal validity to a norm does not involve any evaluative dimensions. I argue that this line of response is not very firm, and a better way to defend the separation thesis is to see it as an answer to the question of what makes it the case that an o counts as an F in the relevant society. I try to show that this latter type of question follows from the theoretical context in which the separation thesis comes up, namely, a reductionist explanation of legal validity. My purpose here is to show how a proper construal of the separation thesis, in the context of legal positivism's reductionist ambition, goes a long way in supporting its truth.


This thesis evaluates the contribution that the co-existential nation and Community trademark systems are likely to make toward the stated aims and objectives of the internal market programme.

The inauguration of the Community Trademark (CTM) creates an unprecedented facility for acquiring and enforcing unitary trademark rights. The territorial character of nationally based trademarks has inhibited the potential for economic integration. By removing barriers to inter-State trade, in principle the CTM system enables all undertakings to adapt their trading activities to the Community scale.

This thesis argues that trademark decisions must be wary of granting broadening rights based on classifying trademarks as 'property'. The resultant deduction that trademarks proprietors should be endowed with wide powers may encourage monopoly rights in the marked goods. Protection must only reflect the inherent economic value of trademarks: the informative and identificatory function. The practical exploitation of other protected attributes, which merely reflect that the trademark has value may jeopardise inter-brand competition and the fulfilment of internal market objectives.

Developing national and community case law is tested against the economic arguments established to judge how trademark decisions are dealing with the enduring tension between trademarks and competition. To achieve a level-playing field, there must be convergence of substantive national and Community laws. This must try to avoid the problems of over- and under-protection by establishing balance between protection of and access to trademark rights. To do so, decision makers must resolve the fundamental challenges of 'What do we want to protect in a trademark?' and from this, 'What is the content and scope of an efficient system of trademark protection?'. Of particular importance is how the small- to medium-sized enterprises, the cornerstone of Europe's economic future, respond the the new system.


Three decades of rapid growth and structural change have transformed China into an upper-middle-income country and global economic powerhouse. China's transformations over this period wielded increasing influence over the development path of other countries, either directly through bilateral trade and financial flows or indirectly through growth spillovers and terms of trade effects. Looking ahead, as China embarks on a new phase in its development journey, a phase characterized by slower but higher-quality growth, the economic landscape facing the developing world is expected to be redefined yet again. As China changes, so will its interactions with the outside world. China is expected to remain both a market and a competitor, but its changes are likely to lead to new opportunities for many and new challenges for some. Key questions in this respect are: (i) how will the level and composition of China's import demand evolve as its economy slows and rebalances; (ii) to what extent will the presumed out-migration of labor-intensive manufacturing materialize and create new opportunities elsewhere; and (iii) how quickly will China move up the value chain and redefine its competitive advantage in the global marketplace? How these uncertain long-term developments affect individual countries will depend on differences in total supply chain costs, resource availability, and innovation capability. As in the past, China's transformations are expected to put formidable pressure on countries to adapt and reform, requiring both political will and entrepreneurial capacity, in a collective race where success will be measured against a rapidly moving frontier.


Interventions which accelerate the fruit maturation of olives planted in cold climates are necessary to advance the harvest and not allow the fruit to be exposed to early freezes which may have negative effects on the quality of the oil. In Autumn (28 April) 2006 we applied 0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 mg-L-1 abscisic acid (ABA) to trees of the variety of Arbequina at the beginning of veraison in an orchard in Melipilla, Metropolitan Region, Chile, in order to evaluate its effect on the acceleration of fruit maturation. The experimental design was completely randomized; the means of the treatments were compared by ANOVA and Tukey's test (p<0.05). The application of ABA produced a strong defoliation of the trees, together with a marked fruit fall, especially at 300 and 400 mg-L-1. Fruit maturation was retarded, expressed as a delay in the development of color for trees treated with 400 mg-L-1 ABA. The treatments did not produce an effect on the oil content measured as a proportion of dry weight. The following year (2007), those trees treated with 300 and 400 mg-L-1showed a significant reduction in fruit harvested per tree, which may be due to an effect of the ABA applied on the processes of induction or initiation of bud differentiation


Recent research shows that people perceive and treat robots not just as machines, but also as their companions or artificial partners. Person-robot communication, viewed as a complex interactive system (CIS), is based upon three basic principles: interactivity, equifinality, and multimodality. Classification of artificial creatures from the robopsychologist's point of view divides them into two major groups: assisting robots, which are oriented toward industrial, military, research, medical, and service activities, and interactive stimulation robots, which are designed for social, educational, rehabilitation, therapeutic, and entertainment purposes. The latter class is considered the primary subject for the robotic psychology and robotherapy, approaches that have been developed by the authors. These new fields consist of a concept that places the relationships between humans and robots into a psychological, rather than technological, context. Conceptual and experimental results of implementing the robotic psychology and robotherapy concept into the study of human-robot interactions concern basic operational definitions, theoretical framework, and the design of a unified assessment tool named the Person-Robot Complex Interactive Scale (PRCIS). A study with a robotic cat provides the first results of cross-cultural analysis of person-robot communication, as well as findings on the robot's use by children, young and older adults, and elderly persons with dementia.


Since the Second World War the world has seen an economic growth spurt unprecedented in history. Economic growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving human development, or in other words, economic growth is an important pre-requisite for the ultimate goal of human well-being. The four empirical essays of this book add to the general debate concerning dynamics of growth, poverty and inequality over the past 40 years from four different dimensions. The first chapter analyses the dynamics of the cross-country per capita income distribution and the existence of convergence clubs. The second chapter focuses on the dynamic development of the global income distribution and resulting implications for global income convergence, poverty reduction, pro-poor growth and the evolution of global inequality within and between countries. The third chapter investigates the deterministic relationship between ethnic fractionalisation and growth in a macro cross-country regression framework. Finally, the fourth chapter adds to the understanding of micro determinants of growth and poverty in the context of Indonesia.


In this paper, the optimized decomposition method, which was developed to solve integer-order differential equations, will be modified and extended to handle nonlinear fractional differential equations. Fractional derivatives will be considered in terms of Caputo sense. The suggested modifications design new optimized decompositions for the series solutions depending on linear approximations of the nonlinear equations. Two optimized decomposition algorithms have been introduced to obtain approximate solutions of broad classes of IVPs consisting of nonlinear fractional ODEs and PDEs. A comparative study was conducted between the proposed algorithms and the Adomian decomposition method by means of some test illustration problems. The implemented numerical simulation results showed that the proposed algorithms give better accuracy and convergence, and reduce the complexity of computational work compared to the Adomian's approach. This confirms the belief that the optimized decomposition method will be used effectively and widely as a powerful tool in solving various fractional differential equations.


The purpose of our study is to investigate the way particles are accelerated up to supra-thermal energies in the cusp diamagnetic cavities. For this reason we have examined a number of Cluster cusp crossings, originally identified by Zhang et al. (2005), for the years 2001 and 2002 using data from RAPID, STAFF, EFW, CIS, PEACE, and FGM exper- iments. In the present study we focus on two particular cusp crossings on 25 March 2002 and on 10 April 2002 which demonstrate in a clear way the general characteristics of the events in our survey. Both events exhibit very sharp spatial boundaries seen both in CNO (primarily single-charged oxy- gen of ionospheric origin based on CIS observations) and H + flux increases within the RAPID energy range with the magnetic field intensity being anti-correlated. Unlike the first event, the second one shows also a moderate electron flux in- crease. The fact that the duskward electric field Ey has rel- atively low values <5 mV/m while the local wave activity is very intense provides a strong indication that particle en- ergization is caused primarily by wave-particle interactions. The wave power spectra and propagation parameters during these cusp events are examined in detail. It is concluded that the high ion fluxes and at the same time the presence or absence of any sign of energization in the electrons clearly shows that the particle acceleration depends on the wave power near the local particle gyrofrequency and on the per- sistence of the wave-particle interaction process before par- ticles escape from cusp region. Furthermore, the continuous existence of energetic O + ions suggests that energetic O + populations are of spatial nature at least for the eight events that we have studied so far.


A revised water-assisted synthesis system (RWAS) was used to fabricate carbon/water nanofluids (CWNFs). The CWNFs were manufactured by heating graphite rods at different temperatures (700, 800, 900, and 1000°C). Aspects of the CWNFs and suspended nanocarbon, such as the morphology, structure, optical characteristics, and production rate, were fully characterized. Furthermore, the suspension performance of the CWNFs was controlled by adding a dispersant (water-soluble chitosan) at different concentrations. Finally, the CWNFs were determined to assess the influence of both the heating temperature of the graphite rod module (process temperature) and the dispersant concentration on the fundamental characteristics of the CWNFs. The results showed that the nanocarbon was a mixture of nanocrystalline graphite and amorphous carbon. Heating the graphite rod module at higher process temperatures resulted in a higher production rate and a greater nanocarbon particle size. Furthermore, adding dispersant could improve the suspension performance; increase the viscosity, density, and specific heat; and reduce the thermal conductivity of the CWNFs. The optimal combination of the process temperature range and dispersant concentration was 800 to 900°C and 0.2wt.%, respectively, based on the production rate, suspension performance, and other fundamental properties of the CWNFs.


In the fish retina the interplexiform cells contain dopamine and provide a centrifugal pathway from the inner plexiform layer to horizontal cells of the outer plexiform layer. Dopamine application reduced the responsiveness and receptive field size of cone horizontal cells, as did a prolonged period of complete darkness. Other results suggest that the interplexiform cells may release dopamine after a prolonged period in the dark. The interplexiform-horizontal cell system may modify the strength of the antagonistic surrounds of retinal neurons as a function of time in the dark.


In high dimensions, the classical Hotelling's T2 test tends to have low power or becomes undefined due to singularity of the sample covariance matrix. In this article, this problem is overcome by projecting the data matrix onto lower dimensional subspaces through multiplication by random matrices. We propose RAPTT (RAndom Projection T2-Test), an exact test for equality of means of two normal populations based on projected lower dimensional data. RAPTT does not require any constraints on the dimension of the data or the sample size. A simulation study indicates that in high dimensions the power of this test is often greater than that of competing tests. The advantages of RAPTT are illustrated on a high-dimensional gene expression dataset involving the discrimination of tumor and normal colon tissues.


Investigating and quantifying the mechanisms that underlie behavior change is essential to understanding what drives effective interventions. Cigarette smoking remains a critical concern for public health, and increasing basic knowledge of smoking behavior change can directly lead to improved interventions. This series of six studies represents a comprehensive evaluation of the mechanisms of smoking behavior change with statistical mediation analysis. All studies utilized combined data from five tailored interventions based on the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) for participants in Precontemplation (PC; N = 1145), Contemplation (C; N = 1243), and Preparation (PR; N = 499). Statistical mediation models under investigation were autoregressive, three-wave models (baseline, 12 months, and 24 months) developed within each stage of change. The ten Processes of Change for Smoking were used as independent variables, Pros of Smoking, Cons of Smoking, and Situational Temptations to Smoke were used as mediators, and a behavioral smoking outcome was used as the dependent variable. Studies 1, 2, and 3 investigated single mediator models at PC, C, and PR, respectively. Across the three stages, a total of 25 single mediator models, each with different combinations of variables, demonstrated evidence of statistical mediation. Studies 4 and 5 refined, consolidated, and extended the conclusions from these single mediator models. Study 4 found evidence of statistical mediation in multiple mediator models, and study 5 found evidence of statistical mediation in models with multiple Processes of Change for Smoking, resulting in a total of 20 final models. In study 6, the final models were tested for the presence of statistical moderation. Factorial invariance techniques were utilized to evaluate differences across subgroups for age, education level, gender, race, and original study. The statistical mediation models demonstrated equivalence across subgroups, and this suggests that the models describe mediating mechanisms that are robust across demographic and study-related variables. The 20 final models, as developed in studies 1 through 5 and further validated by study 6, highlight combinations of Processes of Change and mediators that are most related to smoking outcomes. Pros, Cons, and Situational Temptations were all found to mediate smoking behavior, with different combinations of processes, for individuals in both PC and C. The most important Processes of Change for individuals in PC included Consciousness Raising, Dramatic Relief, Environmental Reevaluation, Self-Reevaluation, and Social Liberation. The most important Processes of Change for individuals in C included Counter Conditioning, Consciousness Raising, Dramatic Relief, Environmental Reevaluation, Self-Reevaluation, Social Liberation, and Stimulus Control. Only one combination was found to demonstrate statistical mediation for individuals in PR; Self-Reevaluation was found to mediate smoking behavior through Situational Temptations. Based on the results from the series of statistical mediation analyses, these strategies for smoking behavior change should be emphasized in smoking cessation interventions. Modern interventions can be developed to maximize relevance of intervention contacts and improve effectiveness by tailoring to focus on key behavioral mechanisms. Future interventions can be further refined through new series of statistical mediation analyses.


This paper presents the antenna G/T degradation incurred when communications systems use very inefficient receive antennas. This work is relevant when considering propagation predictions at HF (2–30 MHz), where it is commonly assumed that antennas are efficient/lossless and external noise dominates over internally generated noise at the receiver. Knowledge of the antenna G/T degradation enables correction of potentially optimistic HF predictions. Simple rules-of-thumb are provided to identify scenarios when receive signal-to-noise ratios might be degraded.


Mapping field environments into point clouds using a 3D LIDAR has the ability to become a new approach for online estimation of crop biomass in the field. The estimation of crop biomass in agriculture is expected to be closely correlated to canopy heights. The work presented in this paper contributes to the mapping and textual analysis of agricultural fields. Crop and environmental state information can be used to tailor treatments to the specific site. This paper presents the current results with our ground vehicle LiDAR mapping systems for broad acre crop fields. The proposed vehicle system and method facilitates LiDAR recordings in an experimental winter wheat field. LiDAR data are combined with data from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors to conduct environment mapping for point clouds. The sensory data from the vehicle are recorded, mapped, and analyzed using the functionalities of the Robot Operating System (ROS) and the Point Cloud Library (PCL). In this experiment winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in field plots, was mapped using 3D point clouds with a point density on the centimeter level. The purpose of the experiment was to create 3D LiDAR point-clouds of the field plots enabling canopy volume and textural analysis to discriminate different crop treatments. Estimated crop volumes ranging from 3500-6200 (m3) per hectare are correlated to the manually collected samples of cut biomass extracted from the experimental field.


Understanding the origins of wealth inequality is critical in the debate over what, if anything, to do about it. In this note, we propose a simple model which is still rich enough to reproduce observed patterns of wealth inequality. We call it the Concentrated Asset Betting (CAB) model. A key element of CAB is a phenomenon known in the gambling world as "over-betting the edge." The model we propose is based on the observation that a high fraction of investors have experienced sub-par growth in their savings, after allowing for consumption and philanthropy, relative to the tremendous long-term growth in the public stock market. Some of the reasons put forward to explain the shortfall in investor returns include investment fees, commissions and taxes. Our model suggests there may be something even larger and more insidious at work – pervasive and systematically poor money management.


Statement of the Problem: This study focuses on the quality of teacher educators and teacher-training programs. In Turkey, both education instructors and teacher candidates have complained about teachertraining programs, courses, lack of a good education, and lack of readiness for the teaching profession. Therefore, the current researcher has examined the quality of courses and the efficiency of instructors in the education program at a university in Turkey. Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study was to determine teacher candidates' perceptions on the education program at their university in Turkey. Method: A total of 441 teacher candidates majoring in various disciplines during the 2011–2012 academic year participated. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire consisting of 20 questions in two sections. The first section covered instructors' qualifications (ten questions), and the second dealt with the education programs in various departments and the courses offered (ten questions). Between March and May 2012 the data were collected at the university. Data were analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings: According to the results of the study with regard to instructor effectiveness, almost all teacher candidates indicated that instructors were unqualified to provide progressive, practical training. The teacher candidates' responses revealed that they expected more practical courses instead of predominantly theoretically based courses. Additionally, the results of the study showed that there were significant differences among  teacher candidates' perceptions according to their gender, class, and the departments in which they studied. Conclusions and Recommendations: In conclusion, teacher candidates are the customers of education programs and the ones who will teach future generations. In this study they were asked whether they thought that the instructors and the education they received were effective. Overall, they were unhappy with their educational programs and critical of the quality of instructors. Therefore, university administrators should work to improve the quality of instructors and education programs at their schools. Teacher candidates require as much practice as theoretical knowledge, which has been the case throughout the history of Turkish education. Keywords: Teacher training, quality of curriculum, instructors


Infiltrating T cells secrete inflammatory cytokines that stimulate tumor progression. Chronic inflammation is associated with cancer, and the immune system is rapidly emerging as a critical factor in determining tumor progression. McAllister et al. (see coverage by Vonderheide) and Kryczek et al. (see coverage by Koltsova and Grivennikov) identified key cytokines released by infiltrating T helper (TH) cells that stimulated cancer progression in pancreatic neoplasia and colorectal tumors, respectively. In tissue from patients with pancreatic cancer, the abundance of interleukin 17 receptor A (IL-17RA) and infiltration of IL-17–producing TH17 and γδ T cells increased with the stage of the disease in the sample from chronic pancreatitis to acinar-ductal metaplasia (ADM) and pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN). Infiltration of IL-17–producing T cells in mice with chronic pancreatitis and the abundance of IL-17RA on PanIN epithelial cells were increased by pancreas-specific mutation of the GTPase Kras, a frequent mutation in human pancreatic cancer. Injecting the pancreas with an adenovirus encoding IL-17 accelerated ADM and PanIN formation and early signs of epithelial-mesenchymal transition after conditional pancreatic expression of mutant Kras, whereas lesion formation was reduced or prevented by either treatment with a cocktail of IL-17 and IL-17RA antibodies or genetic ablation of hematopoietic IL-17 production through bone marrow transplantation. In colorectal cancer (CRC) patients, another cytokine, IL-22, was identified as a protumor culprit. IL22 expression was increased in the tumor compared with adjacent normal tissue or peripheral blood cells and was restricted to CD4+ memory TH cells in the tumor microenvironment. The initiation and growth of patient-derived xenografts was delayed and reduced, respectively, in mice treated with a function-blocking IL-22 antibody, whereas exogenous administration of IL-22 accelerated and increased tumor formation and growth in mice and increased the expression of stem cell–associated genes in various CRC cell lines in culture. The addition of IL-22 to CRC cells in culture induced sphere formation and activated the transcription factor STAT3, which bound directly to the promoters of stem cell–associated gene SOX2 and methyltransferase-encoding DOT1L. DOT1L di-methylated histone H3 Lys79 (H3K79) in the promoters of SOX2 and other core stem cell genes. In patients, the expression of IL22, DOT1L, and SOX2 were positively correlated with each other, with the abundance of H3K79me2, and with poor survival. The two studies show that paracrine cytokine signaling from infiltrating TH cells exacerbate cancer progression. F. McAllister, J. M. Bailey, J. Alsina, C. J. Nirschl, R. Sharma, H. Fan, Y. Rattigan, J. C. Roeser, R. H. Lankapalli, H. Zhang, E. M. Jaffee, C. G. Drake, F. Housseau, A. Maitra, J. K. Kolls, C. L. Sears, D. M. Pardoll, S. D. Leach, Oncogenic Kras activates a hematopoietic-to-epithelial IL-17 signaling axis in preinvasive pancreatic neoplasia. Cancer Cell 25, 621–637 (2014). [PubMed] I. Kryczek, Y. Lin, N. Nagarsheth, D. Peng, L. Zhao, E. Zhao, L. Vatan, W. Szeliga, Y. Dou, S. Owens, W. Zgodzinski, M. Majewski, G. Wallner, J. Fang, E. Huang, W. Zou, IL-22+CD4+ T cells promote colorectal cancer stemness via STAT3 transcription factor activation and induction of the methyltransferase DOT1L. Immunity 40, 772–784 (2014). [PubMed] R. H. Vonderheide, Tumor-promoting inflammatory networks in pancreatic neoplasia: Another reason to loathe Kras. Cancer Cell 25, 553–554 (2014). [PubMed] E. K. Koltsova, S. I. Grivennikov, IL-22 gets to the stem of colorectal cancer. Immunity 40, 639–641 (2014). [PubMed]


Abstract Density limit studies over the past 10 yr on DIII-D have successfully identified several processes that limit plasma density in various operating modes. The recent focus of these studies has been on maintenance of the high-density operational window with good H-mode level energy confinement. We find that detachment and onset of multifaceted axisymmetric radiation from the edge (MARFE), fueling efficiency, particle confinement, and magnetohydrodynamic activity can impose density limits in certain regimes. By studying these processes, we have devised techniques with either pellets or gas fueling and divertor pumping to achieve line average density above Greenwald scaling, relying on increasing the ratio of pedestal to separatrix density, as well as density profile peaking. The scaling of several of these processes to next-step devices (e.g., the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) has indicated that sufficiently high pedestal density can be achieved with conventional fueling techniques while ensuring divertor partial detachment needed for heat flux reduction. One density limit process requiring further study is neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) onset, and techniques for avoidance/mitigation of NTMs need additional development in present-day devices operated at high density.


To determine how asset values of older workers affect their future retirement decisions, it is important to take into account how asset values change over asset cycles. This study uses HRS data from waves 1992 through 2008 together with restricted SSA data on geographic location to estimate a model of the age at first self-reported retirement for the subsample of married males. The model covariates include demographic variables, workplace variables, non-housing financial wealth, housing equity and size of mortgage. The proportional hazard estimates are, for the most part, significant and of the correct sign. The estimated models replicate the decisions of the sample members for the period from 2000 to 2007. The models do not replicate the sharp drop in the aggregate retirement rate in the year 2008, the final year of the sample, which is also the first sample year in which non-housing financial wealth and housing equity both declined throughout the United States.


Active strike-slip and normal faults along the eastern margin of the Sierra Nevada primarily accommodate northwestward translation of the Sierra Nevada–Central Valley (i.e., Sierran) microplate with respect to stable North America. Strike-slip faults bordering the eastern Sierran microplate are subparallel to small circles about the Sierra Nevada–North American Euler pole. Normal faults of the Sierra Nevada frontal fault system strike ∼45° clockwise of the small circle trajectories and exhibit well-defined, left-stepping en echelon patterns, consistent with formation in dextral transcurrent regime. Major graben bordering the northeastern Sierran microplate are located in regions where the locus of range-front deformation steps abruptly eastward in a releasing geometry relative to Sierra Nevada–North American motion. Crustal shortening occurs at the northern end of the Sierran microplate, where a component of northwest dextral shear steps westward in a left-restraining geometry across the Sierran crest to the Sacramento Valley. Kinematic inversions of earthquake focal mechanisms from the Walker Lane belt bordering the eastern Sierra Nevada indicate that seismogenic deformation primarily is characterized by horizontal shearing and oblique crustal thinning. Directions of macroscopic dextral shear inferred from the inversions are subparallel to the trajectories of small circles about the Sierra Nevada–North American Euler pole. Normal faulting along most of the eastern Sierran range front thus appears to primarily accommodate microplate translation rather than Sierran uplift or regional Basin and Range extension.


A Japanese travel journalist Kanetaka Kaoru (b. 1928) is best known for her weekly television documentary programme Kanetaka Kaoru sekai no tabi [Kaoru Kanetaka's "World around Us"] which ran from 1959 to 1990. On her sixth filming trip in 1961, she visited the South Pacific islands for the first time – when foreign travel was still beyond the reach for many Japanese people. Her itinerary included Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG). The trip resulted in several programmes and a travelogue, Sekai no tabi: Oceania [Travel around the world: Oceania] (1962). Kanetaka's travel-writing is noteworthy for her candid aesthetic judgements on women she met in Fiji and PNG. The presentation asks what messages and implicit assumptions of beauty her writing conveys. While Kanetaka is flattering about Fiji's women's natural beauty, she is concerned the encroachment of western aesthetic values would harm the women's self-worth. At the same time other episodes underline commonality between her aesthetic values and the western imagining of 'the South Seas maiden'. Kanetaka's aesthetic vision is challenged by the sight of the women in PNG. She then asks herself "What is to be human?" Her conclusion – however problematic it may be – informs us how she attempts to resolve her seemingly inconsistent, if not paradoxical, aesthetic judgements.


Lithium sulfide (Li2S) has drawn special attention as a promising cathode material for emerging energy storage systems due to its high theoretical specific capacity and great compatibility with lithium metal-free anodes. However, Li2S cathodes urgently require a solution to increase their poor electrical conductivity and to suppress the dissolution of long-chain polysulfide (Li2Sn, 4 ≤ n ≤ 8) species into electrolyte. To this end, we report a free-standing Al2O3–Li2S–graphene oxide sponge (GS) composite cathode, in which ultrathin Al2O3 films are preferentially coated on Li2S by an atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique. As a result, a combination of high electron conductivity (from GS) and strong binding with Li2Sn (from ultrathin Al2O3 films) was designed for cathodes. The newly developed Al2O3–Li2S–GS cathodes are able to deliver a highly reversible capacity of 736 mA h gLi2S−1 (427 mA h gcathode−1) at 0.2C, which is much higher than that of corresponding cathodes without Al2O3 (59%). Also, the long-term cycling stability of Al2O3–Li2S–GS cathodes was demonstrated up to 300 cycles at 0.5C with an excellent capacity retention of 88%. In addition, combined with density functional theory calculations, the promotional mechanism of ultrathin Al2O3 films was elucidated using extensive characterization. The ultra-thin Al2O3 film with optimal thickness not only acts as a physical barrier to Li2S nanoparticles, but provides a strong binding interaction to suppress Li2Sn species dissolution.


The scenery changes as we sail from busy port to icy Arctic, through stormy seas, on into an idyllic sunset. But it's what lies under the ocean that will surprise and thrill you the most. From the creators of In the Forest comes a new book that combines awe-inspiring pop-ups with cutting-edge illustration and design in a celebration of the splendours of the ocean. Anouck Boisrobert is an illustrator and graphic designer, and Louis Rigaud works across multimedia as well as illustration. Their first book Popville won the Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year 2011.


SUMMARY. Pediculosis is a worldwide head infestation caused by Pediculus humanus. The treatment for this infestation is use of topical insecticides and there are studies which show that the insect may be resistant to chemical active ingredients. The insecticidal properties of Sambucus australis, Melia azedarach and Ruta graveolens are not known if they have pediculicidal properties as well. The aim of this study is to evaluate the insecticide activity of treatments using extracts of S. australis, M. azedarach and R. graveolens against the pediculosis. The results showed that lice are sensitive to the treatments used, and M. azedarach extract presented the most efficient results.


Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) is a method for collecting multiple sensor data from distributed mobile devices for understanding social and behavioral phenomena. The method requires collecting the sensor data 24/7, ideally inconspicuously to minimize bias. Although several MCS tools for collecting the sensor data from an off-the-shelf smartphone are proposed and evaluated under controlled conditions as a benchmark, the performance in a practical sensing study condition is scarce, especially on iOS. In this paper, we assess the data collection quality of AWARE iOS, installed on off-the-shelf iOS smartphones with 9 participants for a week. Our analysis shows that more than 97% of sensor data, provided by hardware sensors (i.e., accelerometer, location, and pedometer sensor), is successfully collected in real-world conditions, unless a user explicitly quits our data collection application.


Test generation using fault algorithms is a complex procedure. This paper presents a hierarchical approach for test vector generation, which searches for a compact set of test patterns, in an otherwise large search space. Genetic algorithms (GAs) have been effective in solving many search and optimisation problems. Since test generation is a search process over a large vector space, it is an ideal candidate for GAs. The GA evolves candidate test vectors and sequences, using a fault simulator to compute the fitness of each candidate test. Various GA parameters are studied, including population size, fitness function and mutation rate, as well as selection and crossover schemes. The search for fitter members is possible by modifying a reference table. The main focus in this paper is on the hierarchical expansion of the module into its constituent modules and the fault analysis would be performed only on those submodules which give faulty responses. The variable crossover and mutation rates help in not being trapped in local minima. The different award numbers allows us in focussing on those test sets which give superior detection possibilities with respect to others.


EcologyThe same fungus that has devastated bat colonies in the northeastern United States has been identified for the first time in Europe—in a healthy bat. So far, no mass casualties have been detected among Europe's species. Now the challenge is to figure out why most European bats are not infected and why those that are remain healthy—and whether that knowledge can be used to help ailing bat populations in the United States.


The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has emerged as a global fish producer, owing to the rapid growth of aquaculture in Southeast Asia and its large offshore fishing fleet. Fish is a regional commodity that is traded globally, and this region is at the frontline of the global trend toward meeting seafood demand by 2050. Fisheries and aquaculture are increasingly becoming a primary source of protein and micronutrients, foreign exchange, livelihoods and well-being for the population in the region. Therefore, it is imperative for ASEAN decision-makers to enhance policies nationally and regionally to maximize the synergies between socioeconomic development and protecting natural resources and the environment in the region. This paper presents a baseline (business-as-usual) projection of fish supply, net trade, consumption and nutritionin the ASEAN region to 2050.


This study examines the process of student empowerment for social work practice that promotes social justice as it occurs in field education. Seventeen in-depth interviews were conducted with qualified field instructors and a model was constructed using grounded theory methodology. The model reflects perceptions of the meaning of social justice among field instructors. It also provides concrete practice and pedagogical strategies aimed at equipping future social workers to engage in the promotion of social justice, a foundational professional value. Environmental supports and barriers are also presented that significantly impact the process. Implications are provided for social work education, practice and research.


A previously healthy 8-year-old boy presents to the dermatology clinic with a progressively worsening elbow rash over the course of the last week. The rash does not itch. He spent the previous weekend sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. His pediatrician prescribed a course of cephalexin as well as a trial of topical antiviral ointment, neither of which improved the rash. The patient denies any other new exposures.


Background: Aim of current study was to investigate the effect of changes of lumbar posture on postural balance in non specific choronic low back pain patients while applying axial load. Methods: In this experimental analytic study, 10 Non Specific Choronic Lo Back Pain NSCLBPwomen patients and 10 healthy volunteers that were matched together, evaluated. Postural sway of participants in neutral, lordotic and kyphotic posture of lumbar with and without axial load and with closed and opened eyes evaluated. Antro-posterior range, Antro-Posterior standard deviationMedio-Latral rangeand Medio-Latral standard deviation was evaluated in this study .Also for studying the patient's avoidance belief and disabilityو three standard tools Fear-Avoidance Belief Questionnaire (FABQ), Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) and Roland-Morris Questionnaire were used.Tha data were analyzed with Mix model ANOVA. Results: Mix model ANOVA revealed in neutral posture AP rang (P=0.045) and APsd (P= 0.029) in LBP group, were significantly higher than healthy group.In LBP group AP range (p=0.015) and APsd (p=0.008) in kyphotic posture, were significantly lower than neutral posture and APsd (P=0.046) in lordotic posture was higher than kyphotic posture. Conclusions: In LBP person's fear of movement and pain also locating in end of range of lumbar posture. In kyphotic and lordotic posture were limitations for CNS and joints which control postural sway so persons with LBP limited their postural sway in these postures.


This note contains the results of flight test conducted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics on a low-wing monoplane equipped with leading-edge slots extending over the entire wing and flaps extending only to the ailerons, to find their effect on the lift and drag characteristics of the airplane. Curves are given showing the lift and drag characteristics of the airplane for the following conditions of the slots and flaps neutral; slots closed and flaps down; and slots open and flaps down. In addition, the high and low speed in level flight and the climbing characteristics are given. The results show that the slots used alone increase the maximum lift coefficient 54 per cent; the flaps alone increase it 38 per cent; and the slots and flaps in combination decrease the landing speed from 60 to 43 m.p.h.; increase the speed range of the airplane 40 per cent; and increase the glide angle at landing speed 4.2 degrees.


Meaningful places offer a vital counterbalance to the forces of globalization and sameness that are overtaking our world, and are an essential element in the search for solutions to current sustainability challenges. In Native to Nowhere, author Tim Beatley draws on extensive research and travel to communities across North America and Europe to offer a practical examination of the concepts of place and place-building in contemporary life. He reviews the many current challenges to place, considers trends and factors that have undermined place commitments, and discusses in detail a number of innovative ideas and compelling visions for strengthening place. Native to Nowhere brings together a wide range of new ideas and insights about sustainability and community, and introduces readers to a host of innovative projects and initiatives. It is a compelling source of information and ideas for anyone seeking to resist place homogenization and build upon the unique qualities of their local environment and community.


The Biological Sciences are flourishing, with an abundance of fresh, exciting discoveries that continue to spur the development of powerful new techniques and expand creative scientific investigation. And the core challenge of deeply understanding cells, tissues, and whole organisms promises endless possibilities for controlling human disease and rescuing the environment. But in this very exciting time to be a biological scientist, there is an ominous sense of a major crisis brewing. Budget realities have begun to constrain scientific progress across the board, with an especially heavy impact on the careers of young scientists. Beyond advocating for larger budgets for scientific research as a critical investment in each nation's future, how should the scientific community respond?


Naphthoquinone compounds have received attention for their ability to regulate diseases from bacterial and parasite infections through to chronic human diseases. Inflammation is widely considered to be at the root of many chronic diseases. The reports of anti-inflammatory activity of naphthoquinones, including vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) and vitamin K2s (menaquinones), are of interest due to their very low toxicity. Most of the evidence for the anti-inflammatory mechanisms of vitamin K suggests a role in the inhibition of the cell signalling complex nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB).


Armed conflicts and other humanitarian crises impact mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. In contexts of overwhelming need and overstretched government health systems, nongovernmental organisations may play important roles. In this paper, we reflect on the role of Nepali nongovernmental organisations in providing mental health and psychosocial support services. In Nepal, nongovernmental organisations have provided a range of trainings, implemented interventions, organised awareness raising campaigns and conducted research on mental health and psychosocial issues in the context of political violence and natural disasters. Some have been able to capitalise on the emerging interest of humanitarian donors in mental health to strengthen the platform for sustainable mental health reforms. Nongovernmental organisations taking on such tasks have demonstrated strengths as well as presented challenges. Strengths included easy access to local communities, better understanding of local contexts, quick and flexible response mechanism and access to marginalised populations and under served areas. Challenges have included a lack of programme sustainability, weak collaboration and high staff turnover. Similarly, due to a lack of accreditation of training courses and rigorous monitoring of services, it has been difficult to independently verify the quality of services provided by nongovernmental organisations. Based on observations, the authors highlight the importance of: the integration of mental health into the broader humanitarian, health and social systems; strong partnerships with governments; strong alliances between nongovernmental organisations for more effective advocacy with policy makers; a focus on monitoring, evaluation and research; standardisation of training curriculums and clinical services; and a focus on anti-stigma interventions.


Abstract. In about 1375, Jewish cartographers from Palma (de Mallorca), Cresques Abraham and his son Jehudà, have produced an outstanding work of the Majorcan cartographic school of the fourteenth century, the Catalan Atlas. The atlas contained the latest information on Africa, Asia, and China, therefore it was considered to be the most complete picture of geographical knowledge as it stood in the later Middle Ages. There was also some up-to-date information. One of the most important innovations has concerned the port of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and its shift from the mainland (Old Hormuz) to the island of Jerun (since then named Hormuz). My paper compares information about Hormuz in the Catalan Atlas with that in the original texts just before and after the relocation of the city and port.


Comic book paper sculpture is a 3-dimensional art that can attract viewers to be more involved more in sculptural art. This research study looks at the importance of comic books and the development processes of making comic book paper sculpture artwork. In this study the instruments used in the data gathering process are art-based research from the media, materials, and
techniques. This research has explored the use of a variety of materials taken from comic book images and characters. Then the researcher recreated them from two-dimensional to three-dimensional art by using mixed media work. In the end, the research study had shown that the researcher must be encouraged to explore on the use of materials , techniques and creativity more so as to make comic book paper sculpture as the most interesting paper sculpture. The researcher found out that the transfer of ideas, out-of-the-box thinking to visualize form on paper was a process fully artistic creativity and critical thinking. The researcher also tried to experiment and explore the use of
different materials to produce artworks. The benefits of this research study toother artists, viewers, students, children and society at large are that they can gain more knowledge, skills and new ideas in making paper sculptures. It is recommended that every researcher embarking on paper sculpturing should try
to continue some elements of art in order to obtain more effects into every design project. In conclusion, there is hope for the researcher and future researchers to do more research on paper sculpturing in order to develop a better art product for the future.


Managing risks in supply chains is challenging for most companies given that the globalisation process is strengthening production constraints and also introducing more procurements risks. This is difficult for smaller companies in particular as they lack the resources necessary to develop specific expertise or buy expensive tools. Our research aims to address these issues by proposing an easy to use, yet powerful, tool-supported methodology. As a first step, we conducted a survey of the relevant industries, which were mostly based in Germany and Belgium. The goal of the survey was to assess the current state of risk management practices and identify the associated requirements specific to our SME target. This paper presents the outcomes of our survey based on the results collected from a representative sample of 70 participating companies. These results yield interesting observations regarding the characterisation of the people in charge of risk management, their perception of the importance of risk categories, the current ways to manage these risks and the tooling used. We also collected several recommendations for how tools could better support risk assessment and drive the rest of our research.


Economic growth of developing countries often relies on strategic support from their governments, who have the ability to utilize their late developing advantages and reduce transaction cost. An important factor influencing corporate finance and economic growth in China lies in its government sponsored industrial policies. Examining China's strategic five-year plans during 1991-2010, we find that state-owned firms in government supported industries enjoy faster growth in initial public offerings and higher offer prices. Further, they enjoy faster growth in loans granted by major national banks. However, this preferential access to capital by state-owned firms appears to be achieved at the expense of non-state-owned firms which are crowded out. Government support induces moreinvestment but also brings more overinvestment, which mainly comes from the non-state sector. Finally, supported industries have higher stock market returns and cash flow growth that dampen when state ownership increases. However, government supported industries have a higher ratio of non-performing loans.


The local Message Bus (Mbus) is a light-weight message-oriented coordination protocol for group communication between application components. The Mbus provides automatic location of communication peers, subject based addressing, reliable message transfer and different types of communication schemes. The protocol is layered on top of IP multicast and is specified for IPv4 and IPv6. The IP multicast scope is limited to link-local multicast. This document specifies the Mbus protocol, i.e., message syntax, addressing and transport mechanisms.


In 1619, Marie de Medicis sought to regain her seat on the royal council by leading an armed revolt against her son King Louis XIII of France. She sought noble support through a pamphlet campaign attacking the king's advisers, and the king responded with his own series of pamphlets. The king's pamphlets were more widely read and more influential than his mother's because they responded directly to the problem of resolving the crisis. He portrayed himself as a young warrior king acting decisively as head of state, and his mother as a weak, confused woman who had abandoned her natural role as a mother and was being manipulated by selfish, quarreling great nobles. She did not counter with a convincing explanation of what she was trying to accomplish, and her supporters began to switch sides in large numbers during the autumn of 1620, thus resolving the crisis.