The safety level of herbal drugs especially those that are produced in developing countries are of great concern to all stakeholders in health care system. The effects of aqueous extracts of five randomly selected locally produced antimalarial herbal drugs in South Western Nigeria on the biochemical and heamatological parameters of the blood of wistar albino rats were examined. Thirty three rats of both sex and of weight range 180 -200g were acclimatized for two weeks, after which they were randomly distributed into six groups (control,1,2,3,4 and 5 respectively) and each group containing three rats. The rats were then fed with standard animal feed (Adose animal feed) and water. Exactly 2 mL of the aqueous extract of each herbal drug was administered to the rats using annular syringe at doses of 200mg and 400mg/kg/day for a period of two weeks. At the end of the treatment, the rats were sacrificed and biochemical and heamatological analyses of their blood performed. The value of heamatological parameter examined in this study (Red blood count (RBC), Mean cell volume (MCV), Heamogobin and packed cell volume (PVC)) fell within the standard ranges but there were significant differences in all the values of heamatological parameters of control and test rats (p< 0.05) except PCV. All the biochemical parameters of the test rats showed a significant difference in the acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase and the albumin compared to the control (p< 0.05) except total protein.


This doctoral thesis 'Real Estate Development: a Customer Perspective', mainly concerns questions that are related to why consumers make a choice and what they are looking for. The first part of this thesis is the result of the research project 'Models for the Construction Sector' (MoPo) and the second part is the result of a collaborative project between KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Construction Sector Innovation Centre (BIC), five private companies[1] and four municipalities in Stockholm County. Since the Latham report (Latham, 1994), there has been considerable debate about the need for an increased focus on the end customer in the construction process. The housing sector in Sweden has a strong tradition in focusing on construction and project management issues and less on customer satisfaction. Similar findings have been reported in 'Skarpning gubbar' (Swedish Government Official Report, 2002) and recently, 'Sega gubbar' (Byggkommisionen, 2009), which show that attitudes and processes in the housing sector in Sweden have not really changed since the initial report in 2002. From the perspective of consumer-oriented research in residential development, this issue concerns the ability to understand why customers buy (cognition), what they want (the product) and how the message, relating the product to the consumer, should be formulated (marketing). Investment decisions could be improved if developers ask what kind of values have proved to be important for residents and buyers for a specific type of residential development, what the functional and psychological consequences they are looking for are, and then ask what kind of product attributes can be provided, given economic constraints. Paper one shows the main activities in how to provide needed facilities and their relationship to the end users' core business. Paper two shows how the laddering technique can be used to elicit buyers' beliefs about the built environment, according to the means-end chain theory. The means-end chain theory postulates that buyers purchase a product because it satisfies personal values and desired consequences, which from their perspective are more important than product attributes. Paper three shows the development of a multi-item attitude scale. This scale identifies five key dimensions that are important for the customer when deciding to purchase an apartment in a residential development. The dimensions are: urban environment, architecture, safety, relaxation and liveliness. Paper four shows structural modelling evidence supporting the theoretical assumption that personal values have an impact upon expectations and perceived performance. The structural sub-models show that if perceived performance is increased, customers' satisfaction will be positively affected. During our research, we have not found any current knowledge in the construction industry in Sweden on how to investigate and measure customers' values and their beliefs, or how to model customers' evaluation of product performance using structural equations. [1] Besqab, JM, NCC, Stockholm municipality, Solna municipality, Sollentuna municipality, Swedbank, Upplands-Vasby municipality, Veidekkke.


The thesis speculates upon the three movements of Concerto da Camera II (1987), scored for Bb clarinet, string quartet and piano) in these four aspects: 1) the formal structure, 2) the manipulation of the notes of whole-tone, octatonic, and chromatic scales in octave displacement, 3) the potential combination of subsets that present different levels of pitch transformation in melodic and harmonic structure, and 4) the usage of intervals of minor seconds, tritones, and perfect fourths or fifths which dominates the linear writing. All of these features demonstrate that the music has strong structural elements in form, motives, and sonorities, which unify the piece in an aurally coherent style as an organic whole.

This study should provide more insight into the understanding of Ran's unique compositional technique and style.


Improvement of soilless media by incorporation of Trichoderma (UPM 23)
for the production of cauliflower under Protected Environment Agriculture (PEA)
system was attempted. Three soilless media; coconut dust (CD), palm oil empty fruit
bunch (EFB) and peat (P) singly and as mixtures; coconut dust + peat (CDP) and
palm oil empty fruit bunch + peat (EFBP) were used in the study. The physical,
chemical and microbiological properties of these soilless media showed that their
properties were suitable for growth of cauliflower and proliferation and survival of
Trichoderma. They have good pore size with bulk density within the range of
mineral soil (1.0-1.8g/l). CD and CDP have high water availability of 15.18% and
13.99% respectively. However, they have low microbial populations comprising
mainly of the genera Penicillium, Aspergillus and Rhicopus. No beneficial microbes were detected The effect of soilless media on survival and proliferation of Trichoderma
was carried out by either adding the inoculant as an additive to the soilless media or
as bio-seed treatment. Trichoderma population in EFB, EFBP and P was reduced
more than 50% after 3 days of application. However, in CD and CDP the reduction
was only 16.7 % and 34.7% respectively throughout the 21 days of experimental
period. Trichoderma population was higher on the roots after day 10 of sampling,
suggesting that the antagonist can colonize the germinating roots and live on the root
exudates. Incorporation to soilless media was a better delivery system for the
antagonist as it gave better distribution and easy contact with the growing roots.
Therefore, CD and CDP were selected as substrates to evaluate the effect of airdried
preparation of UPM 23 on growth of cauliflower; applied as additive to
germination mixes.
Trichoderma inoculant at the rate of 30 x 106 cfu/g dry weight substrate have
a significant effect on seed germination and seedling emergence of cauliflower.
Seedling emergence was 81.3% and 86 38% in CDTV and CDPTV as compared to
40.36% and 42.63% III CD and CDP respectively. Initial establishment and growth
of the seedlings were better in Trichoderma amended media, as shown by the
stomatal conductance and net photosynthesis rate However, there was no significant
difference III vegetative growth, nutrient status and peroxidase activity between
treatments, probably due to the dilution effect of Trichoderma inoculant in the
substrate with time The plants were also supplied with full strength Cooper Solution
at rate of 600 ml/day


In 2005 Congress created a new copyright formality: preregistration. Preregistration addresses a growing phenomenon in which copyrighted works are leaked to the Internet prior to official release. Preregistering a work allows copyright owners immediate access to courts and an expanded menu of remedies. Based on an originally constructed dataset coupled with user interviews, we study how preregistration has been used from its 2005 inception to the end of 2012. Over 6,000 works have been preregistered in six eligible categories. Several lawsuits were filed in reliance on preregistrations. Most preregistrations are of motion pictures and literary works. Substantial commercial use of the system has been limited to the movie and TV industries. The music, publishing, and computer software industries virtually have not used it in the ordinary course of business. A few particular users have preregistered a great number of works. Different from the use anticipated by Congress, preregistrations were often obtained after infringement (or even a business dispute) had already started. Most preregistrations were made by individual, small-entity, or other one-time users. The Article recommends that: (1) the duration of preregistrations should be limited; and (2) preregistration (and other copyright) fees should vary with entity size. It offers lessons for formalities and copyright reform: (1) Digital-age formalities may not give rise to the distributional concerns that characterized old formalities; (2) newly minted formalities may limit, rather than expand, access to expressive works; (3) the rates of subsequent registration of preregistered works vary across categories and can inform copyright lawmaking; and (4) the Copyright Office's views may be affected by its institutional interest.


Women's Centres are an important legacy from the feminist movement of the 1970s.
During the years before the Conservative election victory in 1979, the political and
fiscal climate, particularly at local government level, enabled the establishment of
women's centres (or well-women centres) in many UK towns and cities. During the
1980s, funding for these centres became increasingly difficult to attain or maintain
and, by the end of that decade, many had closed or reduced their capacity to a bare
minimum of mainly voluntary services.
Calderdale Women's Centre (CWC) grew directly from the Calderdale Well-Woman's
Centre, which was based in Harrison House on Harrison Road and had survived the
adverse climate for such centres to still be providing mainly volunteer and healthrelated
services into the new millennium. CWC has developed and expanded its
services during a period when few other surviving centres have been able to do so,
mainly as a result of assiduous and forward-thinking funding applications and
partnership working, particularly with health, local authority and law enforcement
agencies. In 2004 – 2005, the Centre received funding from 15 separate sources,
the amounts ranging from £5,000 per year from Calderdale Teenage Pregnancy
Strategy to £986,000 over 5 years from the New Opportunities Fund (NOF).
In 2003, the Centre moved into larger premises in the centre of Halifax after securing
the grant from the NOF, and at the same time, the number and range of employed
personnel was increased. Volunteer workers (of which there were 54 during
2004/05) add a great deal of value to the work of the Centre overall, and play a key
role in some CWC services, notably the Drop-in and the Counselling Service.
Calderdale Women's Centre is thought to be the largest women's centre in the UK at
the present time.
4
The Centre provides a range of services, most of which are linked to its specific short
or medium term funding arrangements with various agencies. Current services focus
on counselling services, learning and skills and a broad and complex range of support
for women and children experiencing domestic violence. There is also a non-specific
daily drop-in, free pregnancy testing, a creche to support Centre activities, and
outreach activity in both the St. John's area and Todmorden. A busy Advice and
Guidance Service closed due to the end of its funding contract in June 2005.
Activity in all service areas is subject to the ebb and flow of funding and many paid
posts are part-time and short-term. Nonetheless, there is a relatively constant
availability of support for women in Calderdale in Halifax town centre during the
working week. As a result, there is a huge throughput of users: there were at least
8,000 usages of the Centre by women and children in 2004-2005 (figures based on
CWC Annual Report 2004-2005). As will be seen later in this report, some usage is
short-term and/or light whilst other women use the services intensively and/or over
longer periods of time.


Whether one approaches the concept of culture shock from a psychological perspective, from whence the term originates with Oberg (1954) who first coined the phrase, from an academic, socio-cultural or anthropological standpoint, or from a more comprehensive approach, there is consensus on the notion that a period of adjustment is experienced by all involved in immersion experiences in a new culture. The initial phase of adjustment in a new country corresponds with the negative and stressful periods which can manifest in symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, irritability and a longing for a more predictable and gratifying environment (Church 1982). However, the predictor variables affecting the process of adjustment and duration of difficulties may vary dramatically for each individual. When one succeeds in transcending these transitional conflicts in intercultural contact situations, the experience offers the potential for authentic growth and personality development (Adler, 1975; Kim, 2001; Ward, Bochner et al., 2001). Although the Francophone sojourners adapted successfully in Australia, a certain degree of culture shock was registered by the majority of respondents in spite of the many parallels between Francophone and Australian cultures. However they may not have perceived this state using the traditional term. The main indicators of culture shock were discernible in examples of pre-existing, negative cultural stereotypes, behavioural differences, academic practices and linguistic experiences


A novel method to measure the effective cavity length of distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) fiber laser with fiber Bragg grating (FBG) Fabry-Perot cavity as the resonator is proposed. The effective cavity length of DBR fiber laser is accurately measured by measuring the frequency spacing of two adjacent longitudinal modes in the cavity without the precise physical length of FBGs. The measuring accuracy as high as 10-5 mm can be obtained by setting the resolution bandwidth of the spectrum analyzer.


Monitoring of macrophytes, macroinvertebrates was conducted in spring 2005 and autumn 2006, and for mussels in autumn 2006, under the Basslink Monitoring Program.
Macrophytes were surveyed in November 2005 and May 2006 at six sites in Brumbys Creek and ten sites in the lower Macquarie River (five upstream and five downstream of Brumbys Creek). A survey was conducted in each season, as required under the Basslink Monitoring Program, with all sites surveyed using:
- Boat-operated viewers, assessing % cover of dominant macrophytes at 2-5 m intervals across established, fixed transects in Brumbys Creek weirs 1 and 3;
- 1 x 1 m quadrats, spaced at 1m intervals from an arbitrary head peg on transects across the channel edge in the lower Macquarie River, assessing % cover of dominant macrophytes.
Macroinvertebrates were sampled in Brumbys Creek, Westons Creek, and the lower Macquarie River as follows:
- Quantitative surber sampling, with 10 sample units taken per site placed randomly in mid-riffle habitats, in Brumbys Creek (downstream of Weir 2) and Westons Creek (a reference site);
- Rapid bioassessment (RBA) kick sampling, with live-picking on-site in riffles at the above Brumbys and Westons Creek sites, and in edge habitats in the lower Macquarie River at three sites upstream and three sites downstream of the Brumbys Creek junction. Two RBA samples were collected at each sampling location on each sampling occasion.
The former samples were used to generate data on abundances of individual taxa, total abundances and diversity (as number of taxa) for Brumbys Creek and the Westons Creek reference. The latter samples were used to derived O/E values for each site, using the RIVPACS models developed by Davies et al. (1999) for Tasmanian Hydro catchments and the DPIWE NRHP AUSRIVAS models, as appropriate.
Patterns and trends in macrophyte and macroinvertebrate abundance and diversity and in macroinvertebrate O/E values were similar to those observed in 1995/96, 1999/00, 2001/02, 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05 with:
For Brumbys Ck -
- Dominance by the same macrophyte species (Isolepis, Myriophyllum, Chara/Nitella, Potamogeton) as in all previous years of sampling, with seasonal shifts in cover;
- Number of taxa and total macroinvertebrate abundance being lower to that in Westons Creek, and with very different community composition;
- Macroinvertebrate O/E values falling in the significantly to severely impaired band in Brumbys Ck, and in the reference to above-reference band for Westons Ck;
- no significant differences between macroinvertebrate O/E values for 2005/06, 2004/05, 2003/04, 2002/03, 2001/2002 and 1995/96.
For the lower Macquarie River –
- Significant differences in dominant macrophytes between the sites upstream and downstream of Brumbys Creek, as a result of sustained differences in environmental conditions, as identified in the IIAS report for Poatina, in 2001/02, 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05;
- Sites upstream and downstream of Brumbys Creek had highly different macroinvertebrate community composition, as in 2001/02, 2002/03, 2003/04 and 2004/05;
- The number of macroinvertebrate taxa in edges upstream of Brumbys Creek was severely reduced compared to previous autumns and other seasons, but with little change downstream of Brumbys Creek. This may be caused by the Blackman River dam breach in 2005.
- O/E values falling in the significantly impaired band, and with a decline upstream of Brumbys Creek relative to previous years.
Mussels were surveyed in the lower Macquarie River at seven sites downstream of Brumbys Creek. Surveys were conducted by scuba on fixed transects across the river. Mussel densities remained at levels observed in the 2002 and 2005 surveys. The presence of new recruits (< 75mm shell size) indicates that a spawning and settlement event occurred in 2005.
Data collected in this survey will form part of the database used to assess changes in instream conditions associated with changes in flow regimes resulting from Basslink.


The Chinese banking system is critical to the functioning of the Chinese economy, being the main conduit through which savings are allocated to investment opportunities. Banking activity in China has grown rapidly over the past decade in association with the expansion of the Chinese economy, and the Chinese banking system now includes some of the world's largest banks. Chinese banks have become more commercially orientated over this period, although the Chinese Government retains considerable influence over their activities. This article examines the size and structure of the Chinese banking system and the key characteristics of banking activity in China. The regulatory and institutional arrangements for banking in China are also outlined.


The increasing availability of electronic health records (EHRs) creates opportunities for automated extraction of information from clinical text. We hypothesized that natural language processing (NLP) could substantially reduce the burden of manual abstraction in studies examining outcomes, like cancer recurrence, that are documented in unstructured clinical text, such as progress notes, radiology reports, and pathology reports. We developed an NLP-based system using open-source software to process electronic clinical notes from 1995 to 2012 for women with early-stage incident breast cancers to identify whether and when recurrences were diagnosed. We developed and evaluated the system using clinical notes from 1,472 patients receiving EHR-documented care in an integrated health care system in the Pacific Northwest. A separate study provided the patient-level reference standard for recurrence status and date. The NLP-based system correctly identified 92% of recurrences and estimated diagnosis dates within 30 days for 88% of these. Specificity was 96%. The NLP-based system overlooked 5 of 65 recurrences, 4 because electronic documents were unavailable. The NLP-based system identified 5 other recurrences incorrectly classified as nonrecurrent in the reference standard. If used in similar cohorts, NLP could reduce by 90% the number of EHR charts abstracted to identify confirmed breast cancer recurrence cases at a rate comparable to traditional abstraction.


We present the results of the first ice sheet model intercomparison project for higher-order and full-Stokes ice sheet models. These models are compared and verified in a series of six experiments of which one has an analytical solution obtained from a perturbation analysis. The experiments are applied to both 2-D and 3-D geometries; five experiments are steady-state diagnostic, and one has a time-dependent prognostic solution. All participating models give results that are in close agreement. A clear distinction can be made between higher-order models and those that solve the full system of equations. The full-Stokes models show a much smaller spread, hence are in better agreement with one another and with the analytical solution.


The hydroxyl value is an indicator for the stages of esterification reaction. Instead of the wet chemistry titration method, the near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic technique was utilized to monitor the hydroxyl values during the reaction. Because of the various raw materials and reaction conditions, the shifting of the -OH absorption band in the NIR spectra of esters was observed. The molecular structure, the reaction environment, and the state of the -OH groups are the most likely parameters responsible for the shifting of the -OH band.


Strikingly absent from the entire corporate governance and corporate litigation debate is a unique feature of American civil procedure that deserves special attention: the modern civil discovery regime. This Article attempts to fill this gap. We argue that modern discovery — first established by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938 — has had a profound impact on the evolution of shareholder litigation, corporate governance, and the culture of corporate disclosure in the United States. This Article shows that (1) litigation discovery, and its threat, have driven and structured the process of corporate shareholder litigation; (2) the information generated by discovery has stimulated the development of case law defining shareholder rights and managerial duties; (3) the episodic legal demands for detailed corporate internal information (and the threat of discovery) have induced incremental improvements in corporate governance practices, including more exacting decision procedures, internal monitoring, recordkeeping, and disclosure; (4) highly developed, continuously evolving discovery practices have established templates for independent corporate internal investigations by boards and regulators; and (5) discovery has given regulators steady insight into changing corporate internal practices and patterns of wrongdoing to which regulators have responded with broad legal and regulatory changes. This Article concludes that litigation discovery serves, inter alia, as a form of ex post disclosure, which complements and enforces ex ante disclosure under the federal securities laws. These observations have important normative implications for legal transplants and the enforcement debate. Among other things, this Article cautions against legal transplants of U.S.-style securities disclosure, aggregate litigation mechanisms, and other enforcement mechanisms without considering appropriate tools for investigating corporate internal wrongdoing ex post, and points to problems in the empirical literature on U.S. shareholder litigation outcomes. It also questions current proposed reforms to the federal discovery rules.


The purpose of this study is to assess the status of home energy efficiency in Kalamazoo as well as the reasons why (or why not) a homeowner adopts energy efficiency and what their incentives and barriers are. In order to address these questions this study first relies on a literature review to offer insight on this complex topic and reveal the main incentives and barriers to energy efficiency already found by homeowners. Next a survey is completed by a total of thirty participants, fifteen homeowners from two separate neighborhoods of Kalamazoo, using socioeconomics as a variable. Where Milwood neighborhood acts as the lower socioeconomic income area and Westnedge Hill acts as the higher socioeconomic area. These questions are further explored during the survey using two educational prompts, which are also being tested as effective educational tools or not. An energy efficiency brochure, which was created by the Kalamazoo Climate Change Coalition. The brochure acts as an educational catalyst for homeowners of all demographics, providing information on adoptions of all prices and expertise levels. As well as an educational metaphor which assesses whether the term "climate change" has a negative bias on survey answers. The four study hypotheses include two questions regarding the influence of socioeconomics on home energy efficiency and another two regarding the educational prompts effectiveness. The responses gained from both the higher and lower socioeconomic class neighborhoods were then analyzed and further studied. Ultimately one hypothesis concerning socioeconomics was proven true while another was found false, and both educational hypothesizes were found inconclusive at this time. Results of this study found Kalamazoo residents have a good understanding of energy efficiency along with a general concern for climate change but overcoming found barriers, such as time and money, will be the next step in the advancement of home energy efficiency.


MOTIVATION
A number of statistical phylogenetic methods have been proposed to identify type-I functional divergence in duplicate genes by detecting heterogeneous substitution rates in phylogenetic trees. A common disadvantage of the existing methods is that autocorrelation of substitution rates along sequences is not modeled. This reduces the power of existing methods to identify regions under functional divergence.

RESULTS
We design a phylogenetic hidden Markov model to identify protein regions relevant to type-I functional divergence. A C++ program, HMMDiverge, has been developed to estimate model parameters and to identify regions under type-I functional divergence. Simulations demonstrate that HMMDiverge can successfully identify protein regions under type-I functional divergence unless the discrepancy of substitution rates between subfamilies is very limited or the regions under functional divergence are very short. Applying HMMDiverge to G protein α subunits in animals, we identify a candidate region longer than 20 amino acids, which overlaps with the α-4 helix and the α4-β6 loop in the GTPase domain with divergent rates of substitutions. These sites are different from those reported by an existing program, DIVERGE2. Interestingly, previous biochemical studies suggest the α-4 helix and the α4-β6 loop are important to the specificity of the receptor-G protein interaction. Therefore, the candidate region reported by HMMDiverge highlights that the type-I functional divergence in G protein α subunits may be relevant to the change of receptor-G protein specificity after gene duplication. From these results, we conclude that HMMDiverge is a useful tool to identify regions under type-I functional divergence after gene duplication.

AVAILABILITY
C++ source codes of HMMDiverge and simulation programs used in this study, as well as example datasets, are available at http://info.mcmaster.ca/yifei/software/HMMDiverge.html.


We examine the apparent disorder which seems to characterize the spatial structure of soil moisture by analyzing large-scale experimental data. Specifically, we address the statistical structure of soil moisture fields under different scales of observation and find unexpected results. The variance of soil moisture follows a power law decay as function of the area at which the process is observed. The spatial correlation remains unchanged with the scale of observation and follows a power law decay typical of scaling processes. Soil moisture also shows clear scaling properties on its spatial clustering patterns. A well-defined organization of statistical character is found to exist in soil moisture patterns linking a large range of scales through which the process manifests itself and impacts other processes. We suggest that such scaling properties are crucial to our current understanding and modeling of the dynamics of soil moisture in space and time.


There had been little essential change in Australia's form of governance and accompanying conventions of accountability by the 1970's from the form inherited from 19th century Britain. As a consequence, Australian Commonwealth state audit experienced few major difficulties and was largely immune from challenge. This changed when the attention of state audit turned to the management performance of public service administrators. State audit came to experience a level of stress and threat never previously encountered. Using insights from processual analysis as developed by Turner, to demonstrate the pressures on state audit, the paper focuses on the principal events constituting the short life of the new Efficiency Audit Division (BAD) (1978-84) which had been established within the AAO to develop efficiency auditing methods and to carry out efficiency audits. It documents for the first time a level of Executive intrusion in state audit which contradicts the image promoted in Westminster democracies of a robustly independent state auditor and highlights the political nature of state audit.


Brimming with workflow efficiencies for the experienced editor, The Avid Handbook teaches you the hows and whys of operating the system in order to reach streamlined, creative end solutions. The book emphasizes time-saving techniques, shortcuts, and workflow procedures- the true keys to getting a job done.The book has also been updated to include new information on HD formats and workflows, color-correction and grading capability enhancements, MXF media standardization, and much more.Also new to this edition are an 8 page 4-color insert, adding depth to the color-correction lessons, as well as running sidebars throughout the book, calling out time-saving tips and techniques.* New information on High-Definition tools and production workflows, allowing you to complete your HD projects in the most efficient manner * New details on product updates and innovations such as HD, color-grading and capabilities, file-based video formats, and file-based instead of tape-based output* The new edition features sidebars throughout that call out time-saving tips and techniques, as well as a new 8 page 4-color insert for more effective display with the color correction lessons


Dependence measures based on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, also known as Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion and denoted HSIC, are widely used to statistically decide whether or not two random vectors are dependent. Recently, non-parametric HSIC-based statistical tests of independence have been performed. However, these tests lead to the question of the choice of the kernels associated to the HSIC. In particular, there is as yet no method to objectively select specific kernels with theoretical guarantees in terms of first and second kind errors. One of the main contributions of this work is to develop a new HSIC-based aggregated procedure which avoids such a kernel choice, and to provide theoretical guarantees for this procedure. To achieve this, we first introduce non-asymptotic single tests based on Gaussian kernels with a given bandwidth, which are of prescribed level $\alpha \in (0,1)$. From a theoretical point of view, we upper-bound their uniform separation rate of testing over Sobolev and Nikol'skii balls. Then, we aggregate several single tests, and obtain similar upper-bounds for the uniform separation rate of the aggregated procedure over the same regularity spaces. Another main contribution is that we provide a lower-bound for the non-asymptotic minimax separation rate of testing over Sobolev balls, and deduce that the aggregated procedure is adaptive in the minimax sense over such regularity spaces. Finally, from a practical point of view, we perform numerical studies in order to assess the efficiency of our aggregated procedure and compare it to existing independence tests in the literature.


We discuss several classes of integrable Floquet systems, i.e. systems which do not exhibit chaotic behavior even under a time dependent perturbation. The first class is associated with finite-dimensional Lie groups and infinite-dimensional generalization thereof. The second class is related to the row transfer matrices of the 2D statistical mechanics models. The third class of models, called here "boost models", is constructed as a periodic interchange of two Hamiltonians - one is the integrable lattice model Hamiltonian, while the second is the boost operator. The latter for known cases coincides with the entanglement Hamiltonian and is closely related to the corner transfer matrix of the corresponding 2D statistical models. We present several explicit examples. As an interesting application of the boost models we discuss a possibility of generating periodically oscillating states with the period different from that of the driving field. In particular, one can realize an oscillating state by performing a static quench to a boost operator. We term this state a "Quantum Boost Clock". All analyzed setups can be readily realized experimentally, for example in cod atoms.


Monitoring the road condition has acquired a critical significance during recent years. There are different reasons behind broadening research on this field: to start with, it will guarantee safety and comfort to different road users; second, smooth streets will cause less damage to the car. Our motivation is to create a real-time Android Application RoadSense that automatically predicts the quality of the road based on a tri-axial accelerometer and a gyroscope, show the road location trace on a geographic map using GPS, and save all recorded workout entries. C4.5 Decision tree classifier is applied on training data to classify road segments and to build our model. Our experimental results show consistent accuracy of 98.6%. Using this approach, we expect to visualize a road quality map of a selected region. Hence, we can provide constructive feedback to drivers and local authorities. Besides, road manager can benefit from this system to evaluate the state of their road network and make a checkup on road construction projects, whether they meet or not the required quality.


Notwithstanding the promises it provides for the future of software engineering,the object paradigm suffers from a lack of development methods focusing on the coordination between objects. The distinction of coordination and computation mechanisms is an important separation principle for increasing the management and understanding of the interactions among objects and the configurations of objects on the target systems. This paper shows that contextual coordination must be introduced during the object oriented analysis in order to early take into account the inevitable constraints of the concrete implementation. This contextual coordination leads to a hierarchical model composed of imbricated execution contexts of objects.


In the organization of city traffic there is a historical link between the various transport modes, particularly between the road and rail systems (tram, metro and railways). Each particular system operates autonomously and independently of one another, while at locations of mode changing (stops) time integration of various modes into a single integrated system is performed. Rail systems are the backbone of an integrated system because of the capacity and speed they can provide. Railways are particularly interesting because they integrate urban, suburban, regional and intercity traffic. Railways are traditionally monopolistic, but, since 1990, the European Union has implemented legal, organizational, technological and technical measures in order to achieve full liberalization of railway transport. The liberalization of railway transport is particularly successful in freight, while in passenger traffic the change is slower ; particularly interesting are the changes in the regional railway traffic in Germany and in intercity traffic in the Czech Republic. How well railways are successfully integrated into urban transport systems can be evaluated in several ways, but the most important method of assessing is by a survey of users – passengers. The whole integrated system is established with the aim of enabling higher levels of mobility for the user – passenger. Today, mobility in cities is a conditio sine que non of the population. Therefore, the public transport system must be evaluated through surveys. This paper analyses the mobility of passengers by railway in the area of the small town of Varaždin (Croatia). In addition to standard questions about the provision of services (demography, the beginning and end point of travel, duration of travel, types of tickets), questions were asked about changing the mode of transport in the last 5 years. This set of questions produces data on how many new passengers came to the railway and what are their reasons for changing their habits.


The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools-and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States. When in June 1971 President Richard M. Nixon initiated the modern war on drugs, he did so with rhetorical flourish and force, setting in motion a federal policy that has been largely followed for more than three decades. Using qualitative and quantitative measurements, Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates examine presidential proclamations about battling illicit drug use and their effect on the enforcement of anti-drug laws at the national, state, and local level. They analyze specific pronouncements and the social and political contexts in which they are made; examine the relationship between presidential leadership in the war on drugs and the policy agenda of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorneys; and assess how closely a president's drug policy is implemented in local jurisdictions. In evaluating the data, this sophisticated study of presidential leadership shows clearly that with careful consideration of issues and pronouncements a president can effectively harness the bully pulpit to drive policy.


The aim of this study was to investigate the ability of Carbosulfan (the effective ingredient in Marshal, a carbamate insecticide/nematocide), Ethyl Carbamate (EC=carcinogen and Ethyl Methanesulfonat (EMS=mutagen) separately and in mixtures to induce sister chromatid exchange (SCE) in human lymphocytes and to nivestigate whether the test substances, as a mixture had any syn-ergistic or antogonistic effect. Carbosulfan separately weakly induced SCE during the 48 hour treat-ment. Although EC separately could not induce SCE, EMS separately induced dose-dependently SCE at 24 and 48 hour treatments. EC increased the RI, while Carbosulfan and EMS decreased it during the 48 hour treatment. The mixtures of Carbosulfan+EC and Carbosulfan-EMS induced the SCE at all con-centrations and treatment times and decreased the RI compared with normal and solvent controls. In addition, there was synergism between the mixtures of Carbosulfan and EC and also between the mix-tures of Carbosulfan and EMS on the induction of SCE and also on the decrease in the RI.


We present a new matched-filter algorithm for direct detection of point sources in the immediate vicinity of bright stars. The stellar point-spread function (PSF) is first subtracted using a Karhunen-Loéve image processing (KLIP) algorithm with angular and spectral differential imaging (ADI and SDI). The KLIP-induced distortion of the astrophysical signal is included in the matched-filter template by computing a forward model of the PSF at every position in the image. To optimize the performance of the algorithm, we conduct extensive planet injection and recovery tests and tune the exoplanet spectra template and KLIP reduction aggressiveness to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the recovered planets. We show that only two spectral templates are necessary to recover any young Jovian exoplanets with minimal S/N loss. We also developed a complete pipeline for the automated detection of point-source candidates, the calculation of receiver operating characteristics (ROC), contrast curves based on false positives, and completeness contours. We process in a uniform manner more than 330 data sets from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey and assess GPI typical sensitivity as a function of the star and the hypothetical companion spectral type. This work allows for the first time a comparison of different detection algorithms at a survey scale accounting for both planet completeness and false-positive rate. We show that the new forward model matched filter allows the detection of 50% fainter objects than a conventional cross-correlation technique with a Gaussian PSF template for the same false-positive rate.


This study was meant to identify factors affecting accessibility of credit by women through financial institutions in Kenya. Improving availability of credit facilities to women is one of the incentives that have been proposed for stimulating growth and realization of potential contribution to the economy. Despite this emphasis the effects of existing institutional lending terms and conditions on access to credit facilities have not been addressed. Although formal credit institutions have proved relatively successful in meeting the credit of women in some countries their limited resources restrict the extent to which they can effectively and sustainably satisfy the credit needs of these women. The government recognizes that economic growth alone doesn't lead to sustainable development and elimination of poverty. Such growth must be accompanied by good governance, active participation of the population in socio-economic and political life and equitable distribution of resources. Development is a process that should lead to the betterment of people's lives by not only providing basic needs but also providing opportunities to choose a fuller and more valued existence. The government has identified women and has channeled finances to financial Institution's for on lending to these women in order to reach their development goals. This study sought to examine accessibility of this credit and tried to critically examine factors affecting accessibility. The research was carried out specifically in Kibera Toi Market, which is located in Nairobi. Primary data was collected by administering questionnaires which consisted of open and closed ended questions. The research adopted both explanatory and descriptive research design. The sample from this study was drawn by use of stratified random sampling. The population of this study was the women traders ofToi market. Data was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques with the aid of SPSS.


The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis focuses on the argument that rising prosperity will eventually be accompanied by falling pollution levels as a result of one or more of three factors: (1) structural change in the economy; (2) demand for environmental quality increasing at a more-than-proportional rate; (3) technological progress. Here, we focus on the third of these. In particular, energy efficiency is commonly regarded as a key element of climate policy in terms of achieving reductions in economy-wide CO2 emissions over time. However, a growing literature suggests that improvements in energy efficiency will lead to rebound (or backfire) effects that partially (or wholly) offset energy savings from efficiency improvements. Where efficiency improvements are aimed at the production side of the economy, the net impact of increased efficiency in any input to production will depend on the combination and relative strength of substitution, output/competitiveness, composition and income effects that occur in response to changes in effective and actual factor prices, as well as on the structure of the economy in question, including which sectors are targeted with the efficiency improvement. In this paper we consider whether increasing labour productivity will have a more beneficial, or more predictable, impact on CO2/GDP ratios than improvements in energy efficiency. We do this by using CGE models of the Scottish regional and UK national economies to analyse the impacts of a simple 5% exogenous (and costless) increase in energy or labour augmenting technological progress.


Higgs, F and Winter, SL. The effect of a four-week proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching program on isokinetic torque production. J Strength Cond Res 23(5): 1442-1447, 2009-Flexibility is widely accepted as an important component of fitness, yet flexibility training can be detrimental to muscle performance particularly where a high number of stretch cycles are performed. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether chronic proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretch training could successfully improve the knee flexion range of motion without having a detrimental effect on the peak isokinetic torque of the quadriceps. The minimum knee angle in flexion and the peak isokinetic quadriceps torque were measured at 120 and 270°·s−1. Subjects then participated in a 4-week quadriceps flexibility training program consisting of 3 cycles of PNF stretching performed 3 times a week. The range of motion was recorded before and after the first stretching session of each week. At the end of the 4-week period, the peak isokinetic quadriceps torque and flexibility were again measured. The mean (SE) improvement in the knee flexion range of motion over the whole program was 9.2° (1.45°), and typical gains after a single stretching session were around 3°. Post hoc analysis showed that the pretraining session range of motion was significantly improved in week 4 compared with the pretraining session range of motion in weeks 1 and 2 (p < 0.05). There was no change (p = 0.9635) in the peak isokinetic torque produced at 120°·s−1 (week 1: 121.9 (4.6) N·m; week 2: 121.9 (5.2) N·m) or at 270°·s−1 (week 1: 88.1 (3.4) N·m; week 2: 88.6 (4.9) N·m). These findings suggest that it is possible to improve flexibility using 3 PNF stretch cycles performed 3 times a week without altering muscle isokinetic strength characteristics.


There is significant ambiguity around the definition, usage and function of the word 'wellbeing',
not only within DCSF but in the public policy realm, and in the wider world. This has implications
for DCSF. Essentially, wellbeing is a cultural construct and represents a shifting set of meanings
- wellbeing is no less than what a group or groups of people collectively agree makes 'a good
life'.
The meaning and function of a term like 'wellbeing' not only changes through time, but is open to
both overt and subtle dispute and contest. There is evidence that the discourse of 'wellbeing' -
how, for what purposes, and with what effects the term is being used - is at present particularly
unstable in the UK. Given the importance of the term to DCSF's policy and communications, we
recommend a low key but deliberate strategy to manage the DCSF position within this ambiguity
and instability.


Abstract. In this study we simulate the climatic mass balance of Svalbard glaciers with a coupled atmosphere–glacier model with 3 km grid spacing, from September 2003 to September 2013. We find a mean specific net mass balance of −257 mm w.e. yr−1, corresponding to a mean annual mass loss of about 8.7 Gt, with large interannual variability. Our results are compared with a comprehensive set of mass balance, meteorological, and satellite measurements. Model temperature biases of 0.19 and −1.9 °C are found at two glacier automatic weather station sites. Simulated climatic mass balance is mostly within about 100 mm w.e. yr−1 of stake measurements, and simulated winter accumulation at the Austfonna ice cap shows mean absolute errors of 47 and 67 mm w.e. yr−1 when compared to radar-derived values for the selected years 2004 and 2006. Comparison of modeled surface height changes from 2003 to 2008, and satellite altimetry reveals good agreement in both mean values and regional differences. The largest deviations from observations are found for winter accumulation at Hansbreen (up to around 1000 mm w.e. yr−1), a site where sub-grid topography and wind redistribution of snow are important factors. Comparison with simulations using 9 km grid spacing reveal considerable differences on regional and local scales. In addition, 3 km grid spacing allows for a much more detailed comparison with observations than what is possible with 9 km grid spacing. Further decreasing the grid spacing to 1 km appears to be less significant, although in general precipitation amounts increase with resolution. Altogether, the model compares well with observations and offers possibilities for studying glacier climatic mass balance on Svalbard both historically as well as based on climate projections.


At the age of 17, Donte Lamar Jones shot and killed a store clerk as she laid down on the floor during a robbery. He was spared the death penalty by agreeing instead to die in prison at the end of his life. Two years later in Virginia, 12 individuals were murdered for doing nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those individuals were killed by Lee Malvo and John Muhammad, better known as the "D.C. Snipers." While John Muhammad was given the death penalty for his heinous crimes, Lee Malvo, who was 17 during the murder spree, was given a life sentence. What these two cases have in common is one issue: as juveniles they were both condemned to die in prison. What separates their cases is their legal challenges and how two different courts have ruled — one federal, one state. While the facts of their cases might be different, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases across the United States that reflect similar legal proceedings, and until the Supreme Court clarifies its position, more state and federal courts will reach different conclusions.


CCS (carbon dioxide capture and storage) is an issue which has received increasing attention in the debate on climate change over the last several years because of its relative technical simplicity and very large potential in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The absence of secondary benefits and uncertainties associated with this approach, however, would require analysts to conduct fine cost-benefit comparisons vis-a-vis other mitigation options. The paper is to provide a perspective on future cost-benefit discussions of CCS by highlighting the optimality of CCS use viewed as a non-renewable resource with a limited capacity. Scarcity of CCS (storage) capacity should involve a shadow price which could raise CCS's effective price – this is a fair assumption given the technological assessments of CCS so far, but no economic study has explicitly investigated this characteristic before. By using a simple analytical dynamic optimization model, we examine the optimal paths of CCS use, CCS's real price inclusive of the shadow price, and their difference from the operational price. A particular implication of the model is that if all else is equal, the shadow price of CCS could make the technology relatively less attractive than renewable energy due to CCS's reliance on scarce reservoirs and the resultant shadow value. This serves as a justification for giving differentiated incentives to different CO2 reduction options: more precisely, more encouragement should be given to renewable energy in comparison to CCS.


Archaeal transcription is generally regarded as simpler model of eukaryotic transcription (BALIGA et al., 2000). Relatively little is known about the interaction of gene-specific regulators and the basal transcription apparatus and about how transcriptional regulation in Archaea helps to confer fitness across a broad range of environments, including hostile ones. Multiple forms of the general transcription factors (GTFs), TBP and TFB, are commonly found in Archaea (LANGER et al., 1995). It has been suggested previously that multiple TBPs and TFBs might function similar to bacterial sigma-factors, which regulate transcription in response to environmental changes (PAYTUBI & WHITE, 2009). In the group of Crenarchaeota, only TFB1 from S. solfataricus and S. acidocaldarius (BELL & JACKSON, 2000) and recently, TFB3 from S. solfataricus (PAYTUBI & WHITE, 2009) have been studied biochemically. However, the role of TFB2 in Crenarchaeota is still unknown and no tfb knockout mutants are available for any of the crenarchaeal TFBs.
The hyperthermophilic crenarchaeon T. tenax genome encodes one TBP and four TFBs. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that Ttx-TFB1 harbors a Zn-ribbon motif, B-finger and two cyclin domains similar to other TFB homologues in Archaea, however, Ttx-TFB2-4 possess significant modifications in secondary structure. In order to study the function of Ttx-GTFs, recombinant proteins were expressed in E. coli. EMSAs were performed using the fba-pfp promoter and revealed that Ttx-TFB1, as classical TFB, binds to DNA stable in a TBP-dependent manner whereas Ttx-TFB2 and Ttx-TFB3 shows stable DNA binding independent of TBP. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a TFB homologue binding DNA independent of TBP.
Exo III footprinting analyses using the fba-pfp promoter (encoding fructose-1,6-bisphophate aldolase and PPi-dependent phosphofructokinase in T. tenax (SIEBERS et al., 2004)) illustrate that Ttx-TFB1 binds to the core promoter (from position -38 to -21), which is stabilized by Ttx-TBP. However, for Ttx-TFB2, no binding to the BRE/TATA box of the fba-pfp promoter region and no influence of Ttx-TBP is observed. Furthermore, Ttx-TFB1 and Ttx-TFB2 bind in addition to a sequence (from position -101 to -84) with high similarity to BRE/TATA box of the archaeal consensus promoter (SLUPSKA et al., 2001). Mutations of the fba-pfp promoter region affected the stability of the binding of Ttx-TFB1/Ttx-TBP complex to DNA suggesting that the complex binds unstable to the region -101/-84. The stable binding of Ttx-TFB2 to the region -101/-84 suggest that this region might function similar to an upstream activation sequence (UAS) for the fba-pfp promoter of T. tenax. Therefore, these results suggest that Ttx-TFB2 does not function as basal transcription factor (i.e. typical TFIIB), but rather as transcriptional activator; similar to the function of Sso-TFB3 (PAYTUBI & WHITE, 2009).
Multiprotein bridging factor 1 (MBF1) is a transcriptional co-activator that bridges a sequence-specific activator and TBP in Eukaryotes. MBF1 is absent in Bacteria, but is well- conserved in Eukaryotes and Archaea and harbors a C-terminal Cro-like Helix Turn Helix (HTH) domain, which is the only highly conserved, classical HTH domain that is vertically inherited in all Eukaryotes and Archaea. Phylogenetic analyses revealed a common distribution of MBF1 in all Archaea with available genome sequence. The main structural difference between archaeal MBF1 (aMBF1) and eukaryotic MBF1 is the presence of a Zn-ribbon motif in aMBF1. The function of co-activators from Archaea has been not studied so far and the biological role of aMBF1 as multiprotein bridging factor has not been documented.
In yeast the MBF1 mediated activation of histidine synthesis by the bZIP-like activator GCN4 has been well studied (TAKEMARU et al., 1998). To study the function and therefore the evolutionary conservation of MBF1 and its single domains, complementation studies in yeast (mbf1Δ) as well as domain swap experiments between aMBF1 and yMBF1 were performed. In contrast to previous reports for eukaryal MBF1 (i.e. Arabidopsis thaliana, insect and human), the two archaeal MBF1 orthologs, TMBF1 from the hyperthermophile T. tenax and MMBF1 from the mesophile M. mazei were not functional for complementation of a yeast mutant lacking MBF1 (mbf1Δ). From 12 chimeric proteins representing different combinations of the N-terminal, core domain, and the C-terminal extension from yeast and aMBF1, only the chimeric MBF1 comprising the yeast N-terminal and the core domain fused to the archaeal C-terminal part was able to restore full wild-type activity of MBF1. The yMBF1 mutant lacking the C-terminal part was also able to restore MBF1 activity, suggesting that this part is not important for MBF1 function.
The absence of bZIP-like proteins in the archaeal domain, the presence of a Zn-ribbon in the divergent N-terminal domain of aMBF1 and the complementation experiments using Archaea- yeast chimeric proteins presented here suggests no obvious conservation in biological function of MBF1 within Archaea and Eukaryotes. It is tempting to speculate that aMBF1 might act as a single regulator, which directly interacts with DNA for transcriptional regulation via its Zn-ribbon motif. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental study to gain insight about the physiological function of MBF1 in Archaea.


New techniques in manufacturing, popularly referred to as mechanization and automation, have been a preoccupation of social and economic theorists since the industrial revolution. A selection of relevant literature is reviewed, including the neoclassical economic treatment of technical change. This incorporates alterations to the mathematical production function and an associated increase in the efficiency with which the factors of production are converted into output. Other work emphasises the role of research and development and the process of diffusion, whereby new production techniques are propagated throughout industry. Some sociological writings attach importance to the type of production technology and its effect on the organisational structure and social relations within the factory. Nine detailed case studies are undertaken of examples of industrial innovation in the rubber, automobile, vehicle components, confectionery and clothing industries. The old and new techniques are compared for a range of variables, including capital equipment, labour employed, raw materials used, space requirements and energy consumption, which in most cases exhibit significant change with the innovation. The rate of output, labour productivity, product quality, maintenance requirements and other aspects are also examined. The process by which the change in production method was achieved is documented, including the development of new equipment and the strategy of its introduction into the factory, where appropriate. The firm, its environment, and the attitude of different sectors of the workforce are all seen to play a part in determining the motives for and consequences which flow from the innovations. The traditional association of technical progress with its labour-saving aspect, though an accurate enough description of the cases investigated, is clearly seen to afford an inadequate perspective for the proper understanding of this complex phenomenon, which also induces change in a wide range of other social, economic and technical variables.


We present the AGILE-GRID (Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini LEggero – Gamma-Ray Imaging Detector) monitoring of Cygnus X-3, during the period between November 2007 and July 2009. We report here the whole AGILE-GRID monitoring of Cygnus X-3 in the AGILE "pointing" mode data-taking, to confirm that the γ-ray activity coincides with the same repetitive pattern of multiwavelength emission and analyze in depth the overall γ-ray spectrum by assuming both leptonic and hadronic scenarios. Seven intense γ-ray events were detected in this period, with a typical event lasting one or two days. These durations are longer than the likely cooling times of the γ-ray emitting particles, implying we see continuous acceleration rather than the result of an impulsive event such as the ejection of a single plasmoid that then cools as it propagates outwards. Cross-correlating the AGILE-GRID light curve with both X-ray and radio monitoring data, we find that the main events of γ-ray activity were detected while the system was in soft spectral X-ray states (RXTE/ASM (Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer/All-Sky Monitor) count rate in the 3−5 keV band 3 counts s −1 ), that coincide with local and often sharp minima of the hard X-ray flux (Swift/BAT (Burst Alert Telescope) count rate 0.02 counts cm −2 s −1 ), a few days before intense radio outbursts. This repetitive temporal coincidence between the γ-ray transient emission and spectral state changes of the source turns out to be the spectral signature of γ-ray activity from this microquasar. These γ-ray events may thus reflect a sharp transition in the structure of the accretion disk and its corona, which leads to a rebirth of the microquasar jet and subsequent enhanced activity in the radio band. The γ-ray differential spectrum of Cygnus X-3 (100 MeV–3 GeV), which was obtained by averaging the data collected by the AGILE-GRID during the γ-ray events, is consistent with a power law of photon index α = 2.0 ± 0.2. Finally, we examine leptonic and hadronic emission models for the γ-ray events and find that both scenarios are valid. In the leptonic model – based on inverse Compton scatterings of mildly relativistic electrons on soft photons from both the Wolf-Rayet companion star and the accretion disk – the emitting particles may also contribute to the overall hard X-ray spectrum, possibly explaining the hard non-thermal power-law tail seen during special soft X-ray states in Cygnus X-3.


There is a robust clinical literature on how issues of race and gender may influence all aspects of the clinical setting: the relationship between student and client, the relationship between student and student, the relationship between student and clinical supervisor, the attitude of the fact-finder toward the clinical client. But there has been virtually no attention paid to the role of sanism in the clinical setting. Sanism is an irrational prejudice of the same quality and character as other irrational prejudices that cause and are reflected in prevailing social attitudes of racism, sexism, homophobia and ethnic bigotry. It permeates all aspects of mental disability law, and affects all participants in the mental disability law system: fact finders, counsel, expert and lay witnesses. Its corrosive effects have warped mental disability law jurisprudence in involuntary civil commitment law, in institutional law, in tort law, and in all aspects of the criminal trial process. Sanist myths exert especially great power over lawyers who represent persons with mental disabilities. The use of stereotypes, typification, and deindividualization inevitably means that sanist lawyers will trivialize both their clients' problems and the importance of any eventual solution to these problems. Sanist lawyers implicitly and explicitly question their clients' competence and credibility, a move that significantly impairs their advocacy efforts. These phenomena are especially troubling in the clinical setting, in which students are exposed for the first time to the skills that go to the heart of the lawyering process: interviewing, investigating, counseling and negotiating. All of these are difficult for us (and our students) to learn, but this difficulty is significantly increased when the client is a person with mental disability (or one so perceived). The difficulties can be further exacerbated when the clinical teacher - either overtly or covertly - expresses sanist thoughts or reifies sanist myths. And sanism problems continue at every "critical moment" of the clinical experience: the initial interview, case preparation, case conferences, planning litigation (or negotiation) strategy, trial preparation, trial and appeal. This paper will explore (1) the meaning of sanism, (2) the general impact of sanism on the representation of persons with mental disabilities, (3) the special problems faced when sanism infects the clinical teaching process, and (4) some tentative solutions to this dilemma.


The aim of this paper is to explore the longitudinal alignment between performance measures and business strategy. Moreover, the paper will probe the role of business improvement models as a key catalyst in this alignment process. Since the late 1980s performance measurement has become topical with ever‐increasing interest in the subject. The increasing interest has been driven by the rapidly changing business environment and strategy, in both the private and public sectors. A literature review covering the current issues concerning performance measurement was undertaken, emphasising the development of performance measurement in relation to business strategy. The continual alignment of performance measures and frameworks with business strategy is stressed. Also, business improvement models are reviewed as possible mechanisms for enabling this alignment. Following this review, a longitudinal case study approach, based on a five‐year university/industry learning partnership with an international aerospace organisation, was used to investigate alignment between performance measures and business strategy. The findings of the study confirm that performance measures linked to strategy are more effective. Moreover, the alignment between the measures, measurement framework and the strategy must be continually reviewed and treated as a dynamic and complex issue, rather than a linear mechanistic relationship.


Bayesian Model Selection Approaches are flexible methods that can be utilised to investigate
Genetic Association studies in greater detail; enabling us to more accurately
pin-point locations of disease genes in complex regions such as the MHC, as well as
investigate possible causal pathways between genes, disease and intermediate phenotypes.
This thesis is split into two distinct parts. The first uses a Bayesian Multivariate
Adaptive Regression Spline Model to search across many highly correlated variants to
try to determine which are likely to be the truly causal variants within complex genetic
regions and also how each of these variants influences disease status. Specifically, I
consider the role of genetic variants within the MHC region on SLE. The second part
of the thesis aims to model possible disease pathways between genes, disease, intermediate
phenotypes and environmental factors using Bayesian Networks, in particular
focussing upon Coronary Heart disease and numerous blood biomarkers and related
genes.
Bayesian Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline Model:
Genetic association studies have the problem that often many genotypes in strong linkage
disequilibrium (LD) are found to be associated with the outcome of interest. This
makes it difficult to establish the actual SNP responsible.
The aim of this part of the thesis is to investigate Bayesian variable selection methods
in regions of high LD. In particular, to investigate SNPs in the major histocompatibility
complex (MHC) region associated with systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Past studies have found several SNPs in this region to be highly associated with SLE
but these SNPs are in high LD with one another.
It is desirable to search over all possible regression models in order to find those SNPs
that are most important in the prediction of SLE. The Bayesian Multivariate Adapative
Regression Splines (BMARS) model used should automatically correct for nearby associated
SNPs, and only those directly associated should be included in the model. The
BMARS approach will also automatically select the most appropriate disease model
for each directly associated variant.
It was found that there appear to be 3 separate SNP signals in the MHC region that
show association with SLE. The rest of the associations found using simple Frequentist
tests are likely to be due to LD with the true signal.
Bayesian Networks for Genetic Association Studies:
Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is one of many diseases that result from complicated
relationships between both genetic and environmental factors. Identifying causal factors
and developing new treatments that target these factors is very difficult. Changes in
intermediate phenotypes, or biomarkers, could suggest potential causal pathways, although
these have a tendency to group amongst those patients with higher risk of CHD
making to difficult to distinguish independent causal relationships. I aim to model
disease pathways allowing for intermediate phenotypes as well as genetic and environmental
factors. Statistical methodology was developed using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). Disease
outcomes, genes, intermediate phenotypes and possible explanatory variables were
represented as nodes in a DAG. Possible models were investigated using Bayesian regression
models, based upon the underlying DAG, in a reversible jump MCMC framework.
Modelling the data this way allows us to distinguish between direct and indirect
effects as well as explore possible directionality of relationships. Since different DAGs
can belong to the same equivalence class, some directions of association may become
indistinguishable and I am interested in the implications of this.
I investigated the integrated associations of genotypes with multiple blood biomarkers
linked to CHD risk, focusing particularly on relationships between APOE, CETP
and APOB genotypes; HDL- and LDL- cholesterol, triglycerides, C-reactive protein,
fibrogen and apolipoproteins A and B.
Overview:
I will begin by introducing the topics of genetics, statistics and directed acyclic graphs
with a background on each (Chapters 2,3 and 4 respectively). Chapter 5 will then detail
the analysis and results of the BMARS model. The analysis and results of Bayesian
networks for genetic association studies will then be covered in Chapter 6.


`Simple fall' is a forbidden expression on my ward rounds. Falls are common causes of admission of old patients; they are usually complex. The possible causes are legion and important contributory factors are often overlooked.

A new work, Falls in Older People by Lord, Sherrington and Menz1, corrects many misconceptions. Falls are not a non-specific accompaniment of ageing. They are poorly correlated with `dizziness'. Patients may be convinced that they did not lose consciousness when falling, but people with syncope may have retrograde amnesia. The presence of loose rugs in the home is not a predictor of falls: the homes of fallers are no more hazardous than those of non-fallers. Well-meaning therapists may tack down carpets, remove loose mats and relocate furniture. These alterations can annoy the older person (who later may reorder her furnishings in the way she prefers them). The finding that making such apparently sensible modifications to the house causes a reduction in falls outside the house is counterintuitive. Another surprise: there is no direct link between drinking alcohol and falls in old age. Current drinkers have fewer falls than abstainers.

Falls do not occur at random—there is no Poisson distribution. One-third of people over 65 will fall at least once a year. Most falls occur on the flat; falls on the stairs or in the bathroom are relatively rare. Old women tend to fall in the house, old men in the garden. In `care homes', many falls occur on the way to or from the toilet. Only one in a hundred falls results in a hip fracture, but one-fifth cause serious injury. Of those who fall and lie on the floor for hours, half will be dead within six months. Lord and his co-authors carefully analyse the published work on risk factors and prevention. The risk of falls is doubled in dementia. There is also an increased risk with depression; we do not know why. The more drugs an elderly person takes, the greater the risk of falls: the principle of minimal medication is often contravened. Visual impairment is an important risk factor: patients who use eye-drops for glaucoma have a three-fold increased risk of falling; those with cataract are more at risk of breaking a hip. The importance of footwear in the genesis of falls is emphasized: high heels (favoured by many old ladies) reduce stride length, alter toe propulsion and increase lumbar lordosis. Loose slippers can also be a factor in the genesis of falls.

I have nothing but praise for this monograph. The Australian authors—a physiologist, a physiotherapist and a lecturer in foot mechanics and gerontology—recognized that textbooks have dealt with falls superficially and that no-one had methodically analysed and interpreted the published work. They write elegantly and apply academic rigour to the data, highlighting the gaps and uncertainties in our knowledge and generously providing many research ideas for readers to pursue. Each chapter has a succinct summary.

There are over 1000 references, helpful illustrations and very useful tables. We learn about large-scale studies of the effectiveness of multifaceted approaches to falls. There is some evidence for the benefits of specific approaches: after a fifteen-month Tai Chi programme there was a 50% reduction in the risk of falls. The authors make a plea for clarity in the words we use: dizziness can mean many things; drop attacks are not necessarily synonymous with syncope. The list of which risk factors can be modified and which intervention strategies work should be in every geriatric ward and accident and emergency department. Who knows, it might inhibit clinicians from mentioning `simple' falls.


This work deals with the design and development of a multimedia game for the assessment of oesophageal voice during the learning stage of the rehabilitation process. Patients who have undergone a laryngectomy as a result of larynx cancer produce oesophageal speech. The game consists of a graphic interface specially designed to use in local and remote PCs. In this application each user can access the session by introducing an identity card number and password. Therefore, each user's database will not be changed for the data of other users. Once the user is authenticated, he/she can interact with the game. The user can record his/her own voice in different sessions. After that, the voice assessment can be obtained by measuring the most relevant parameters accepted by the international community: Pitch, Jitter, Shimmer and HNR (Harmonic to Noise Ratio).


Three mutually uncorrelated economic disturbances that we measure empirically explain 85% of the quarterly variation in real stock market wealth since 1952. A model is employed to interpret these disturbances in terms of three latent primitive shocks. In the short run, shocks that affect the willingness to bear risk independently of macroeconomic fundamentals explain most of the variation in the market. In the long run, the market is profoundly affected by shocks that reallocate the rewards of a given level of production between workers and shareholders. Productivity shocks play a small role in historical stock market fluctuations at all horizons.


Background: The primary purpose of this retrospective study was to report on a consecutive series of 102 patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) who underwent transtibial amputation (TTA) for chronic infections and nonreconstructable lower extremity deformities. A secondary aim was to compare the outcomes of TTA patients with end-stage renal disease on dialysis (ESRD) to patients without ESRD, and to identify risk factors for mortality after TTA. Methods: This cohort involved a consecutive series of patients who were treated by a single surgeon. The TTA patients were divided into 2 groups for analysis. The study group included those patients with ESRD who underwent TTA, and the control group included those patients who did not have ESRD. Results: At the time of final follow-up, 64 of 102 patients were ambulatory with a prosthesis. There was a significant improvement in ambulatory status after amputation (preoperatively 45.1%, postoperatively 62.7%, P = .02). Wound healing complications (infection and/or dehiscence) occurred in 31 of 102 patients and led to a transfemoral amputation in 4 patients. After TTA patients with ESRD were significantly more likely to die (52.4% vs. 23.5%, p <0.05) and significantly less like to ambulate (42.9% vs. 67.9%, p <0.05) than patients without ESRD. Contralateral foot problems after the TTA occurred in 33 of 97 patients and resulted in 10 patients undergoing a contralateral transtibial amputation. Excluding patients with bilateral amputations (5 prior to and 10 after the index amputation), 64 of 87 patients with successful unilateral transtibial amputations were able to ambulate with a prosthesis. Thirty of 102 patients (29.4%) died during the follow-up period, and 6 of these deaths occurred during the perioperative period (within 30 days of surgery). There were no significant differences between the 2 groups with regard to the use of staged TTA, need for transfemoral amputation, or wound healing problems at the amputation site. Patients who were unable to walk postoperatively had a calculated 5-year survival rate of 30.1%, whereas those who were ambulatory had a 5-year survival rate of 68.8%. Cox proportional hazards model demonstrated a 62% reduced risk of mortality in patients who were able to ambulate after LEA compared with those patients who were not able to ambulate. Conclusion: TTA in patients with diabetes was associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Risk factors that were significantly associated with an increased rate of mortality were the presence of ESRD, age ≥56 years, and inability to ambulate postoperatively. Level of Evidence: Level III, retrospective case controlled study.


ABSTRACT The purpose of the paper is to describe the processes undertaken to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Italian translation of a new instrument developed to measure purpose in life among a sample of Italian adults: the Purpose in Life Scale (PILS). The specific psychometric processes used were: construct validity using factor analysis, reliability and internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, convergent validity of the PILS and the longer established Purpose in Life Test (PILT). The exploratory factor analysis revealed one factor for both tests confirming the monofactorial structure of their construct. Reliability analysis indicated that the PILS is reliable: Cronbach's alpha was .86 for PILT and .90 for the PILS. Convergent validity of the PILS and PILT revealed a good correlation coefficient of .67. The Italian version of the questionnaire seems to work properly for the Italian population as its psychometric properties indicated that it is valid and reliable.


Recent open-domain dialogue models have brought numerous breakthroughs. However, building a chat system is not scalable since it often requires a considerable volume of human-human dialogue data, especially when enforcing features such as persona, style, or safety. In this work, we study the challenge of imposing roles on open-domain dialogue systems, with the goal of making the systems maintain consistent roles while conversing naturally with humans. To accomplish this, the system must satisfy a role specification that includes certain conditions on the stated features as well as a system policy on whether or not certain types of utterances are allowed. For this, we propose an efficient data collection framework leveraging in-context few-shot learning of large-scale language models for building role-satisfying dialogue dataset from scratch. We then compare various architectures for open-domain dialogue systems in terms of meeting role specifications while maintaining conversational abilities. Automatic and human evaluations show that our models return few out-of-bounds utterances, keeping competitive performance on general metrics. We release a Korean dialogue dataset we built for further research.


Abstract Launched in 1999, the European security and defence policy (ESDP)/common security and defence policy (CSDP) was not conceived as a tool to fight terrorism. This threat was traditionally considered as being of an internal nature and, thus, deemed to be addressed under the European Union's (EU) third pillar. However, the events of 11 September 2011 contributed to a shift in this approach, with several documents acknowledging the importance of the contribution of CFSP, including ESDP, in the fight against terrorism. At the rhetorical level, this idea has been consistently conveyed in the EU's framework documents and policy papers since then. Yet, both civilian and military missions undertaken in the CSDP's realm have not been systematically used to fight terrorism. Against this background, this article aims to examine the lack of impact of such missions in the framework of the Union's counter-terrorism and to discuss developments arising from the Lisbon Treaty's CSDP-related provisions. Based on an analysis of both EU missions' mandates and EU official documents, this article demonstrates that CSDP has not been used to fight terrorism nor has been transformed by the emergence of an EU counter-terrorism policy. It further puts forward three tentative causal explanations for this paradox while arguing for the existence of room for a change in this regard.


Providing audio feedback to assessment is relatively uncommon in higher education. However, published research suggests that it is preferred over written feedback by students but lecturers were less convinced. The aim of this paper is to examine further these findings in the context of a third year business ethics unit. Data was collected from two sources. The first is a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with three lecturers providing audio feeback for the first time in Semester One 2011. The second source of data was drawn from the university student evaluation system. A total of 363 responses were used providing 'before' and 'after' perspectives about the effectiveness of audio feedback versus written feedback. Between 2005 and 2009 the survey data provided information about student attitudes to written assessment feedback (n=261). From 2010 onwards the data relates to audio (mp3) feedback (n=102). The analysis of he interview data indicated that introducing audio feedback should be done with care. The perception of the participating lecturers was mixed, ranging from sceptism to outright enthusiasm, but over time the overall approach became positive. It was found that particular attention needs to be paid to small (but important) technical details, and lecturers need to be convinced of its effectieness, especially that it is not necessarily more time consuming than providing written feedback.
 For students, the analysis revealed a clear preference for audio feedback. It is concluded that there is cause for concern and reason for optimism. It is a cause for concern because there is a possibility that scepticism on the part of academic staff seems to be based on assumptions about what students prefer and a concern about using the technology. There is reason for optimism because the evidence points towards students preferring audio feedback and as academic staff become more familiar with the technology the scepticism tends to evaporate. While this study is limited in scope, questions are raised about tackling negative staff perceptions of audio feedback that are worthy of further research.


For small hydro projects, it is all too common for the spec writer to use a convenient off-shelf spec usually written for a much larger unit. Minor modifications (primarily ratings) are made and the spec is issued. Consequently the large functional/design requirements do not always fit the small unit and the resulting compromise tends to inflate the generator price without any increase in value of the unit. Experience has shown that in writing a specification for a small hydro project, a good practice is to approach it from the viewpoint of using motor type construction. For most small hydro projects, the generator size and rating is similar to motors in a utility power plant. The use of motor style construction for a generator can produce a quality product with long-term reliability and a shorter delivery cycle.


Between 1998 and 2008 European countries experienced the first continent-wide increase in the period total fertility rate (TFR) since the 1960s. After discussing period and cohort influences on fertility trends, we examine the role of tempo distortions of period fertility and different methods for removing them. We highlight the usefulness of a new indicator: the tempo- and parity-adjusted total fertility rate (TFRp*). This variant of the adjusted total fertility rate proposed by Bongaarts and Feeney also controls for the parity composition of the female population and provides more stable values than the indicators proposed in the past. Finally, we estimate levels and trends in tempo and parity distribution distortions in selected countries in Europe. Our analysis of period and cohort fertility indicators in the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden shows that the new adjusted measure gives a remarkable fit with the completed fertility of women in prime childbearing years in a given period, which suggests that it provides an accurate adjustment for tempo and parity composition distortions. Using an expanded dataset for ten countries, we demonstrate that adjusted fertility as measured by TFRp* remained nearly stable since the late 1990s. This finding implies that the recent upturns in the period TFR in Europe are largely explained by a decline in the pace of fertility postponement. Other tempo-adjusted fertility indicators have not indicated such a large role for the diminishing tempo effect in these TFR upturns. As countries proceed through their postponement transitions, tempo effects will decline further and eventually disappear, thus putting continued upward pressure on period fertility. However, such an upward trend may be obscured for a few years by the effects of economic recession.


NAFTA and its side agreements created an environmental regime within the context of a trade agreement. While the regime has failed to resolve environmental objections to increased economic integration, its failure in that respect should not obscure its relative success as a path-breaking attempt to promote sustainable development throughout the continent, particularly in Mexico. Although even in this light its achievements may appear minor, its provisions on technical cooperation, financial assistance, public participation, and independent monitoring provide a basis upon which later efforts to promote sustainable development could build.Unfortunately, the United States has ignored the lessons of the NAFTA environmental regime. The United States has required its trading partners to accept environmental provisions as a condition to entering into each of the twelve free trade agreements it has negotiated since NAFTA, but instead of improving on the original template, the post-NAFTA agreements do just the opposite. They copy elements from the NAFTA regime that have proven ineffective and they fail to include, much less strengthen, more promising provisions. As a result, the later agreements are weaker than the NAFTA environmental regime, and they are far weaker than they could have been had its lessons been taken into account.This article is part of a symposium issue on labor and environmental protections in U.S. free trade agreements.


Spectral singularities are among generic mathematical features of complex scattering potentials. Physically they correspond to scattering states that behave like zero-width resonances. For a simple optical system, we show that a spectral singularity appears whenever the gain coefficient coincides with its threshold value and other parameters of the system are selected properly. We explore a concrete realization of spectral singularities for a typical semiconductor gain medium and propose a method of constructing a tunable laser that operates at threshold gain.


"Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books" is an insightful compilation of the best design books of the last 100 years. It covers a huge range of material historic titles from pioneering type foundries to the best of recent monographs from today's leading studios and provides a unique insight into the evolution of graphic design in the twentieth century. Classic graphic design manuals by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Muller-Brockmann are included, alongside pioneering instructional titles on advertising and the impact of the avante-garde. Monographs designed by and covering the major individuals and studios of the era from A.M. Cassandre and Alexey Brodovitch to Stefan Sagmeister and Peter Saville are detailed, along with groundbreaking anthologies on trademark design, Polish film posters, corporate identity and more. All the books, whether classic histories of Bauhaus design or rarely seen sourcebooks of symbols and type, are illustrated with a wide selection of spreads and covers, all in colour. In addition, leading international designers have provided lists of favourite titles from their own libraries.


Transient orbital resonances have recently been identified as potentially important to the inspiral of small bodies into large black holes. These resonances occur as the inspiral evolves through moments in which two fundamental orbital frequencies, $\Omega_\theta$ and $\Omega_r$, are in a small integer ratio to one another. Previous work has demonstrated that a binary's parameters are "kicked" each time the inspiral passes through a resonance, changing the orbit's characteristics relative to a model that neglects resonant effects. In this paper, we use exact Kerr geodesics coupled to an accurate but approximate model of inspiral to survey orbital parameter space and estimate how commonly one encounters long-lived orbital resonances. We find that the most important resonances last for a few hundred orbital cycles at mass ratio $10^{-6}$, and that resonances are almost certain to occur during the time that a large mass ratio binary would be a target of gravitational-wave observations. Resonances appear to be ubiquitous in large mass ratio inspiral, and to last long enough that they are likely to affect binary evolution in observationally important ways.


BACKGROUND
Associations have been reported between gastroesophageal reflux and a variety of upper and lower respiratory tract conditions. Respiratory conditions and GER are common and would be expected to coexist in many patients. Whether there is a relationship between GER and these conditions and its nature remain controversial. The purpose of this paper is to review the relationship between GER and these conditions.

METHODS
Searches of the 1966 to 2000 MEDLINE database were undertaken to identify appropriate studies. The terms gastroesophageal reflux, medical antireflux therapy, and antireflux surgery were combined with rhinitis, sinusitis, laryngitis, laryngeal stricture, croup, apnea, dental caries, aspiration pneumonia, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, asthma, COPD, chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis and cough.

RESULTS
Papers were identified that related any of the above respiratory conditions to gastroesophageal reflux or to antireflux therapy. Most suggested a causative relationship between GER and these conditions but only a few of the studies were controlled. Controlled studies demonstrate a strong association between GER and asthma and cystic fibrosis.

CONCLUSIONS
A strong association between GER and some respiratory conditions has been demonstrated in controlled trials. It is uncertain whether the association is due to GER causing respiratory disease or vice versa. It is clear that further properly powered, controlled, randomized trials of the relationship between GER and antireflux therapy and respiratory disease need to be conducted.


As the world moves towards being increasingly dependent on computers and automation, building secure applications, systems and networks are some of the main challenges faced in the current decade. The number of threats that individuals and businesses face is rising exponentially due to the increasing complexity of networks and services of modern networks. To alleviate the impact of these threats, researchers have proposed numerous solutions for anomaly detection; however, current tools often fail to adapt to ever-changing architectures, associated threats and zero-day attacks. This manuscript aims to pinpoint research gaps and shortcomings of current datasets, their impact on building Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) and the growing number of sophisticated threats. To this end, this manuscript provides researchers with two key pieces of information; a survey of prominent datasets, analyzing their use and impact on the development of the past decade's Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and a taxonomy of network threats and associated tools to carry out these attacks. The manuscript highlights that current IDS research covers only 33.3% of our threat taxonomy. Current datasets demonstrate a clear lack of real-network threats, attack representation and include a large number of deprecated threats, which together limit the detection accuracy of current machine learning IDS approaches. The unique combination of the taxonomy and the analysis of the datasets provided in this manuscript aims to improve the creation of datasets and the collection of real-world data. As a result, this will improve the efficiency of the next generation IDS and reflect network threats more accurately within new datasets.


This essay offers guidelines for courts to follow when engaging in extralegal decisionmaking. It begins by hypothesizing that the remedial decision in Bush v. Gore - the decision not to permit Florida to engage in further recounting - is best understood as an example of such a decision, i.e., as a case where the Court ordered an outcome it thought would serve the country's interests despite being unjustifiable by reference to traditional legal standards. The essay argues that the courts' usual practice of limiting themselves to decisions they can support with plausible interpretations of legal doctrine helps to constrain judges and provides a partial, but useful, brake on the temptation to make undemocratic and unwise decisions; as judges abandon doctrine in favor of more bluntly pragmatic grounds for decision, it becomes important for them to observe other constraints that can serve the purposes normally furnished by an adherence to more traditional judicial methods. The essay suggests a series of such constraints and considers whether they were observed in Bush v. Gore. First, such decisions should be reserved for cases where the harm to be averted is unambiguous, i.e., where the costs and benefits of the proposed judicial action are sufficiently uncontroversial to serve as impartial bases for decision. This was not the case in Bush v. Gore, as it was both empirically and conceptually difficult to determine in a politically neutral way whether the benefits of the Court's remedial decision outweighed the costs. Second, such decisions should be taken only to address problems with which actors and institutions cannot effectively cope, and should do so in calibrated ways that allow other actors to check the court's judgment. In Bush v. Gore there were other actors in a position to deal with the problems that the court's remedy was intended to address, and the remedy left inadequate room as a practical matter for those other actors to check the court's power. Third, such decisions should be avoided where there is a risk of self-dealing; they also should be bipartisan - especially where the risk of self-dealing cannot be avoided. The stakes of Bush v. Gore included the selection of the figure who would fill any vacancies on the Court for the subsequent four years, and the Court split along customary partisan lines in making its decision. In these circumstances the Court should not have ventured into extralegalism if it was unable to rally more than five votes to do so - and particularly THOSE five votes. In its favor, it can be said that the remedial decision was a limited strike; it did not create a precedent that is likely to set a bad example for the Court or for other courts, or against which public opposition will be able to accumulate. I conclude that in light of these considerations, the Court's remedial decision in Bush v. Gore was ill-taken if understood as an exercise in well-intentioned lawlessness, or as a study in a judicial pragmatism that subordinates fidelity to doctrine to practical considerations. The prudential constraints that can serve as substitutes for doctrine were not observed.


Questions of power relations have long been central to archaeological study of culture contact, with colonial relationships exciting particular interest. However, current frameworks do not account for the adoption of foreign material culture by cultures that are politically stronger than those from which they adopt. The wide variety of Egyptian material culture forms on display at first millennium BCE royal sites in Nubia such as the cemeteries of el-Kurru and Nuri is one such example of non-colonial cultural interaction which is not adequately explained by the postcolonial theories currently popular. This paper argues that the Kushite royal adoption of Egyptian forms was not based in concerns of ethnic identity or subaltern resistance, but instead reflected native Kushite state structures and value systems. It argues that theories of state structure and economy, including prestige goods economies, are more useful for understanding the nature of culture contact in non-colonial situations.