The analysis of time varying correlation between stock prices and exchange rates in the context of international investments has been well researched in the literature in last few years. In this paper we study the interdependence of US dollar exchange rates expressed in euro (EUR) and three European stock prices (DAX30, CAC40 and FTSE100). Focusing on different phases of the Global financial crisis (GFC) and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis (ESDC), we adopt a multivariate asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation EGARCH framework, during the period spanning from January 1, 2002 until December 10, 2013. The empirical results suggest asymmetric responses in correlations among the three European stock prices and exchange rate. Moreover, the results indicate an increase of exchange rates and stock prices correlations during the crisis periods, suggesting the different vulnerability of the currencies. Finally, we find some significant decreases in the estimated dynamic correlations, indicating existence of a "currency contagion effect†during turmoil periods.


This article articulates and defends a global normative paradigm of religious freedom: a minimum standard of respect for religious freedom that is rooted in human dignity and consistent with a variety of cultural and constitutional frameworks. This paradigm is fleshed out in three arguments: an argument about transcendence; an argument for a certain dualism about religion and politics, and an argument regarding regulation. The first focuses on the concept of religion; the second, on that of freedom; and the third, on rights. The first shows that, though the concept of religious freedom has rightly been expanded to protect nonbelievers as well as believers, all legal systems and constitutional frameworks should be open to the idea of transcendence as such, in order to protect the transcendent dimension of the human person. The argument for dualism calls for an interdependent dualistic structure that guarantees autonomy for both political and religious communities while imposing limits on the principle of laicite and to theocratic impulses. Finally, the argument for regulation defends the power of political communities to regulate specifically those religious matters which affect the public sphere.


Destabilization of Atg7 mRNA by the CCR4-NOT complex prevents p53-dependent cell death in the heart. Protecting the heart by destabilizing mRNA The removal of polyadenylate tails from mRNAs by the CCR4-NOT complex marks these mRNAs for degradation. Yamaguchi et al. (see also the Focus by Das) found that this activity of this complex was required to prevent cell death in the heart. Mice deficient in a component of this complex suffered from cardiac dysfunction and died of heart failure due to cardiomyocyte death. The CCR4-NOT complex deadenylated Atg7 mRNA, which encodes a protein required for autophagy, a process by which cellular constituents and organelles are digested. The increase in Atg7 in the mutant mice resulted in activation of cell death–associated genes by the transcription factor p53. Drugs that increase autophagy have been explored for the treatment of various diseases, but the authors note that their results raise the possibility of cardiovascular side effects for such drugs. Shortening and removal of the polyadenylate [poly(A)] tail of mRNA, a process called deadenylation, is a key step in mRNA decay that is mediated through the CCR4-NOT (carbon catabolite repression 4–negative on TATA-less) complex. In our investigation of the regulation of mRNA deadenylation in the heart, we found that this complex was required to prevent cell death. Conditional deletion of the CCR4-NOT complex components Cnot1 or Cnot3 resulted in the formation of autophagic vacuoles and cardiomyocyte death, leading to lethal heart failure accompanied by long QT intervals. Cnot3 bound to and shortened the poly(A) tail of the mRNA encoding the key autophagy regulator Atg7. In Cnot3-depleted hearts, Atg7 expression was posttranscriptionally increased. Genetic ablation of Atg7, but not Atg5, increased survival and partially restored cardiac function of Cnot1 or Cnot3 knockout mice. We further showed that in Cnot3-depleted hearts, Atg7 interacted with p53 and modulated p53 activity to induce the expression of genes encoding cell death–promoting factors in cardiomyocytes, indicating that defects in deadenylation in the heart aberrantly activated Atg7 and p53 to promote cell death. Thus, mRNA deadenylation mediated by the CCR4-NOT complex is crucial to prevent Atg7-induced cell death and heart failure, suggesting a role for mRNA deadenylation in targeting autophagy genes to maintain normal cardiac homeostasis.


Background & Objectives: Characterization of the metabolic disruptions that precede the onset of T2D is critical for the screening of high risk individuals and hence the implementation of effective early interventions to prevent/delay the onset of T2D and its complications. Currently available predictors fail to grasp the complex etiology of T2D. Metabolomics profiling opened new horizons for biomarkers discovery; and associations of metabolomics and genotyping studies offers new prospects for the understanding of the physiology of complex traits like T2D. The aim of this study was the screening for novel predictors for T2D and the identification of associations between metabolic SNPs and metabolites as functional intermediate phenotypes. Methods: We used plasma collected from 1214 subjects from a 9 years follow up cohort for Non-targeted metabolomics. For genotyping we used a metabochip that assays nearly 200,000 SNPs of interest for metabolic disorders. Results, and Conclusions: We identified 491 named metabolites that are involved in 65 metabolic pathways. With a false discovery rate set at 5% (q<0.05) and after adjusting for BMI, sex and age, 109 metabolites were found to significantly associate with incident T2D (p<0.05). After adjusting for fasting glucose, 23 out of the 109 metabolites remained strongly associated with incident T2D (p from 3.12x 10-3 to 1.7x10-6). Of these, 1-palmitoylglycerol, 1,5-anhydroglucitol, 1-oleoylglycerol, mannose, alpha-ketobutyrate and gamma-glutamylphenylalanine showed the strongest associations ( p from 1.310-5 to 1.7x10-6). When using the metabolite ratios between year 9 and baseline after adjustment for fasting glucose, the metabolite 1,5-anhydroglucitol showed the strongest association with incident T2D (p=1.2x 10-9). Moreover, our analysis revealed a strong association of the metabolite mannose with the rs1260326 in the GCKR locus (p=8.8 10-40). The GCKR gene is considered a susceptibility gene candidate for T2D. We found associations of other metabolites with 8 different SNPs but none of them with known T2D loci.


We developed the Alcohol Pharmacology Education Partnership (APEP), a set of modules designed to integrate a topic of interest (alcohol) with concepts in chemistry and biology for high school students. Chemistry and biology teachers (n = 156) were recruited nationally to field-test APEP in a controlled study. Teachers obtained professional development either at a conference-based workshop (NSTA or NCSTA) or via distance learning to learn how to incorporate the APEP modules into their teaching. They field-tested the modules in their classes during the following year. Teacher knowledge of chemistry and biology concepts increased significantly following professional development, and was maintained for at least a year. Their students (n = 14 014) demonstrated significantly higher scores when assessed for knowledge of both basic and advanced chemistry and biology concepts compared to students not using APEP modules in their classes the previous year. Higher scores were achieved as the number of modules used increased. These findings are consistent with our previous studies, demonstrating higher scores in chemistry and biology after students use modules that integrate topics interesting to them, such as drugs (the Pharmacology Education Partnership).


We have characterized a mutation affecting the Arabidopsis EARLY IN SHORT DAYS 7 (ESD7) gene encoding the catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase epsilon (epsilon), AtPOL2a. The esd7-1 mutation causes early flowering independently of photoperiod, shortened inflorescence internodes and altered leaf and root development. esd7-1 is a hypomorphic allele whereas knockout alleles displayed an embryo-lethal phenotype. The esd7 early flowering phenotype requires functional FT and SOC1 proteins and might also be related to the misregulation of AG and AG-like gene expression found in esd7. Genes involved in the modulation of chromatin structural dynamics, such as LHP1/TFL2 and EBS, which negatively regulate FT expression, were found to interact genetically with ESD7. In fact a molecular interaction between the carboxy terminus of ESD7 and TFL2 was demonstrated in vitro. Besides, fas2 mutations suppressed the esd7 early flowering phenotype and ICU2 was found to interact with ESD7. Discrete regions of the chromatin of FT and AG loci were enriched in activating epigenetic marks in the esd7-1 mutant. We concluded that ESD7 might be participating in processes involved in chromatin-mediated cellular memory.


Abstract:Media, both new and traditional and both Russian and Ukrainian, played a major role in the EuroMaidan story from the very outset. On 16 January 2014, parliament passed the infamous "dictatorship package," a set of eleven laws meant to curb freedoms of association and expression. The "package" was in effect an attempt to seize control of the Internet by means of Russian-style measures such as blocking critical websites and requiring online publications to register. But President Viktor Yanukovych was trying to put in place overnight the kind of autocracy that Vladimir Putin in Russia, like Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus, had spent years building. His hasty effort backfired, as protests against his dictatorial legislation exploded, with fierce clashes breaking out in central Kyiv that cost some demonstrators their lives and Yanukovych his hold on power. The new government must now turn its attention to institution-building and the safeguarding of Ukraine's democratic advances.


Processes of intensification lead to some unforeseen consequences. One such unplanned consequence is the rearrangement of existing buildings in new or revised spatial patterns. In pursuit of higher densities, large lot suburban development inherited from previous generations – the quarter-acre section is "intensified" by cross-leasing rear gardens. The site frequently has greater commercial value than the existing buildings. Where the existing house is below the value expected by the market a house mover can be contracted to saw the building into sections, and truck it away to another, lower value site. In larger developments several houses may be shifted off a site to clear space for higher density new housing. Houses subjected to this rearrangement are known as "re-locatables". They are displayed in "relocatables yards", from which they can be purchased for re-use elsewhere. The practice is known in other countries where timber frame construction is a standard house-building method, but is thought to be a more popular habit in New Zealand, where up to 10% of the annual housing supply is affected by moving buildings. There are casualties in this process including historical reliability of the urban landscape; but there is also an argument in favour, since analysis shows that the practice of re-cycling has merit as a sustainable building supply methodology. This paper explores the increasingly temporary nature of the built environment in New Zealand's cities: the temporary reality of suburbia as a phenomenon of, on one hand, a socio-cultural disinterest in permanence of place, and on the other, a building culture of light-weight construction that can readily relocate its products.


These Proceedings contain plenary and invited lectures as well as contributed oral and poster presentations of the Joint International ISFD-11th-RCBJSF Symposium, which was held in Ekaterinburg, Russia, August 20–24, 2012. The symposium combines 11th International Symposium on Ferroic Domains and Microto Nanoscopic Structures (ISFD-11), and 11th Russia/CIS/Baltic/Japan Symposium on Ferroelectricity (RCBJSF-11) simultaneously with the International Youth Conference "High resolution microscopy" and the exhibition "Nanotechnology Equipment". Both ISFD and RCBJSF were eleventh in a series. The first ISFD was organized in Volgograd, USSR in 1989 by professors Lev Shuvalov and Vaclav Janovec and later was held in even years in between International and European Meetings on Ferroelectricity. Previous host cities were: Nantes (France, 1992), Zakopane (Poland, 1994), Vienna (Austria, 1996), State College, Pennsylvania (USA, 1998), Nanjing (China, 2000), Giens (France, 2002), Tsukuba (Japan, 2004), Dresden (Germany, 2006), Prague (Czech Republic, 2010). The first RCBJSF was held in Novosibirsk, USSR in 1976 under the joint efforts of the honorable Nobel Prize winner Alexander Prokhorov (Russia) and professor Jinzo Kobayashi (Japan). The following symposia have been continuously held in: Kyoto (Japan, 1980), Novosibirsk (USSR, 1984), Tsukuba (1988), Moscow (Russia, 1994), Noda (Japan, 1998), St Petersburg (Russia, 2002), Tsukuba (Japan, 2006), Vilnius (Lithuania, 2008), Yokohama (Japan, 2010). Joint International ISFD-11th-RCBJSF Symposium was organized by Ferroelectric Laboratory and Ural Center of Shared Use "Modern nanotechnology" of the Institute of Natural Sciences at Ural Federal University. The objective of ISFD-11th-RCBJSF was to achieve an international and interdisciplinary exchange of information on various topics related to domain structures and processing, characterization and applications of ferroelectrics, multiferroics, piezoelectrics, pyroelectrics and other functional materials thus leading to efficient cooperation among scientists from various universities, government and academic laboratories. The International Youth Conference "High resolution microscopy" allowed young scientists to take part in two high-level scientific forums and gain knowledge and improve skills in using high resolution microscopy for studying ferroelectrics and multiferroics. More than 260 participants from 24 countries including Armenia, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, UK and USA presented their results. Forty four invited key speaker lectures, forty six contributed oral presentations, and twelve short oral presentations of young scientists were delivered. A poster session was held with 167 presentations given. The five plenary lectures highlighting research areas of strong and emerging interests were delivered by: professor Yasuo Cho "Atomic electric dipole moment visualization using scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy", professor Xiaoqing Pan "Probing the domain dynamics during ferroelectric switching", professor Vladimir Shur "Domain nanotechnology in lithium niobate and lithium tantalate crystals", professor Marty Gregg "Flux-closure


Abstract. During the last century, many large irrigation projects were carried out in arid lands worldwide. Despite a tremendous increase in food production, a common problem when characterizing these zones is land degradation in the form of waterlogging. A clear example of this phenomenon is in the Nubariya depression in the Western Desert of Egypt. Following the reclamation of desert lands for agricultural production, an artificial brackish and contaminated pond started to develop in the late 1990s, which at present extends for about 2.5 km2. The available data provide evidence of a simultaneous general deterioration of the groundwater system. An extensive hydrogeophysical investigation was carried out in this challenging environment using magnetic resonance sounding (MRS) and ground-based time-domain electromagnetic (TEM) techniques with the following main objectives: (1) understanding the hydrological evolution of the area; (2) characterizing the hydrogeological setting; and (3) developing scenarios for artificial aquifer remediation and recharge. The integrated interpretation of the geophysical surveys provided a hydrogeological picture of the upper 100 m sedimentary setting in terms of both lithological distribution and groundwater quality. The information is then used to set up (1) a regional groundwater flow and (2) a local density-dependent flow and transport numerical model to reproduce the evolution of the aquifer system and develop a few scenarios for artificial aquifer recharge using the treated water provided by a nearby wastewater treatment plant. The research outcomes point to the hydrological challenges that emerge for the effective management of water resources in reclaimed desert areas, and they highlight the effectiveness of using advanced geophysical and modeling methodologies.


Background and Purpose: Spiritual health is one of the important aspects of health status that may be influenced by QOL. Researchers have shown the relationship between spiritual well-being & a person's general health, so that religion and spirituality are considered the important resources for coping with stressful life events. This study aims to identify the relationship between spiritual well-being and quality of life in hemodialysis patients. Method: In this descriptive analytical study, 72 hemodialysis patients were selected using convenience sampling method. Information was collected by Paloutzian spiritual health and quality of life questionnaires (SF36). Data were analyzed by using descriptive and analytical statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient, t-test, ANOVA). Results: In line with these findings, the quality of life of the patients (47.8) 88.47 and their spiritual health scores (21.13) 88/91, most were moderate.There was no significant relationship between spiritual well-being and QOL. But there was a significant positive correlation between spiritual existential aspect of well-being and the dimensions of fatigue (P=0.02, r=0.26), emotional health (P=0.003, r=0.34), social functioning (P=0.01, r=0.29) and general health (P=0.01, r=0.29) and social performance (P=0.01, r=0.27). Also social performance had a significant positive correlation with spiritual well-being. Conclusion: According to the results, a significant relationship was observed between some aspects of quality of life and spiritual well-being. In order to understand the factors affecting the quality of life, exploring strategies to improve it and strengthen some aspects of spiritual well-being that affect the quality of life in hemodialysis patients is emphasized.


This Article presents a novel understanding of pragmatism in the New Haven School of international law. The New Haven Jurisprudence is wrapped in layers of mystification and the scant accounts of its pragmatism in the literature are either entirely mistaken or only partially helpful, betray a vernacular or truncated understanding of pragmatism, and fail to engage with the internal, epistemic structure of the policy-oriented jurisprudence. In response, this Article uncovers a contradictory form of foundationalist pragmatism in the Yale Jurisprudence in a peculiar relationship between its contextualist and problem-solving promises and its unreflective normative commitments to a set of postulated values of human dignity. In doing so, it foregrounds a 'foundationalist antifoundationalism' and its crippling impact on the pragmatist promises of policy-oriented jurisprudence. Against the worn-out accusations of the New Haven Jurisprudence of U.S. imperialism or disguised affinity with natural law, understanding its foundationalist pragmatism offers a new appreciation of both the genius of Yale's policy-oriented approach and the promises of pragmatism for policy thinking in international law.


This essay is about "madness" in higher education. In Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability in Academic Life, Professor Price analyzes the rhetoric and discourse surrounding mental disabilities in academia. In this essay, I place Price's work in a legal context, suggesting why the Americans with Disabilities Act fails those with mental illness and why reform is needed to protect them. My own narrative as a law professor with Borderline Personality Disorder frames my critique. Narratives of mental illness are important because they help connect those who are often stigmatized and isolated due to mental illness and provide a framework for them to overcome barriers limiting their equal participation in academic life.


We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel flexible optical network unit (ONU) internetworking architecture over a wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON). By employing our designated wavelength assignment and remodulating the downstream differential phase-shift keying signal as the ONU internetworking carrier, one ONU can broadcast its own message to all other ONUs, with negligible signal interference. Moreover, the inter-ONU communication can further be partitioned into arbitrary virtual private groups of ONUs by employing designated RF tones for identification and control. It was experimentally demonstrated that the performance degradation due to the introduction of RF tones is negligible compared with the full broadcast case. Our proposed scheme can provide high flexibility and practical implementation for WDM-PONs.


Objective: To assess the extent, pattern and determinants of non-prescription medicine use in an urban area of eastern India. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey with total 392 subjects was carried out for 3 months by a structured questionnaire to assess the extent, pattern and determinants of non-prescription medicine use amongst the patients at a community retail medicine shop and a pharmacy running in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in a government hospital. Results: Our study found that 61.4% of the consumers indulged in the practice of self-medication. The commonest reason for self medication was a prevailing tendency in the community followed by cost-saving and convenience. The most commonly used medicines were antacids (43.4%) followed by analgesics-antipyretics (42.6%). It was found that only 12.5% completed an ongoing course of antibiotics. Consumption of ORS was commoner in diarrhoea than vomiting and only a few (13%) of the patients dissolved the ORS powder as directed. Only 9.7% of the subjects thought non-prescription medicine use is safe. Regarding the various types of medicine preparations used by them from the two types of pharmacy, a significant difference was noted only for eye drops (p = 0.003). This result might have been obtained due to prevailing ocular infections in the selected study population and underreporting at the Ophthalmology OPD of the nearest hospital. Conclusion: The current study has documented the extent of, factors associated with, and the pattern of non-prescription medicine use resulting in a surge of self-medication practice in urban area. Key words: Non-prescription medicine use, Self-medication, PPP model, Retail pharmacy, Survey.


I. INTRODUCTION: HAS BUSINESS LAW BECOME PUBLIC LAW? Recent regulatory reforms, particularly the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, (1) have led many commentators to argue that the federal government is improperly intruding into the traditional province of state law. Similarly, recent reforms have been criticized for imposing excessive regulatory intrusions upon the structure and organization of business relationships, a matter traditionally relegated to private contract. These complaints are both true and false. They are false in the sense that disclosure obligations, accounting standards, and financial reporting have been regulated by the federal securities laws for more than seventy years. Whether or not the United States has the most efficient level of mandatory disclosure--and whether or not mandatory disclosure is even appropriate--it is clear that uniform financial reporting standards are both necessary and appropriate for national securities markets. Securities regulation has been a species of public law since at least 1934, when Congress established the Securities and Exchange Commission to administer the operation of the capital markets "in the public interest and for the protection of investors." (2) Although securities transactions are private contracts, they take place in public markets and have effects extending far beyond the specific parties involved. Moreover, there is a general societal interest in strong capital markets. The strength of the U.S. capital markets, due in part to their relative safety and transparency, has been a fundamental component of this country's economic growth. Indeed, the U.S. capital markets are sufficiently attractive that they regularly attract listings from foreign issuers, some of whom appear to view compliance with extensive U.S. regulations as providing their securities with something like a good housekeeping seal. (3) This public nature of business law is the central focus of Sarbanes-Oxley. Similarly, it is misleading to view the auditing of publicly-traded companies as a matter of private law. When Congress initially adopted the federal securities laws, it considered bringing the auditing process explicitly into the public sector. It opted instead to provide the SEC with the authority to oversee the accounting industry and to promulgate uniform accounting principles. The SEC, in turn, has left the development of this important check on the quality of public disclosure in the private sector, with the understanding that the preparation and review of financial statements would be subject to government regulation and oversight. (4) Subsequently, despite the importance of financial disclosure to the efficiency of the public securities markets, the accounting profession was able to maintain control over the standards of disclosure and the principles of financial disclosure evaluation. (5) Nonetheless, the accounting profession was always understood to be serving a quasi-public function when it reviewed public company financial statements. In this light, the structure of an audit and the relationship between an issuer and its auditor were not really part of the issuer's internal self-governance. (6) Historically, the regulation of business has been split between corporate law and securities law. Corporate law is contractual, enabling, and administered by the states; securities law is national, mandatory, and administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the self-regulatory organizations. Accordingly, regulation of disclosure, the securities markets, and financial reporting are neither new nor, from a federalism perspective, particularly troubling. Sarbanes-Oxley, however, together with the increasing involvement of national regulators in the regulation of corporate governance, reflects a breakdown in this division of responsibility. (8) A similar breakdown is reflected in the enforcement actions undertaken by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer with respect to analyst conflicts of interest and abuses in the mutual fund industry. …


Each year, in January, the CES or the Consumer Electronics Show displays and debuts some of the latest and greatest consumer electronics at the Las Vegas Convention Centre in Las Vegas. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), producer of CES, projected a growth in the industry of 3% - a projected revenue of $209.6bn. 2012 saw revenues in the order of $204 billion, up 5% from the previous year. This is all good news to investors, but what can consumers expect to see in 2013?


Letter is an important tool for an institution, because a lot of important information is contained therein. Based on observations and interviews with one of the public relations staff at FTK that handles the letter, there are some difficulties found from the management of the letter made, among others: 1) The data entered into the letter is not reusable. For example lecturer data already inputted to a type of mail can not be reused for the same type of letter. The officer will re-enter the lecturer's data for the same letter type. 2) Recording of any letter issued and letter numbering is still done manually. Incoming and outgoing letters are still recorded in the letters. This will also be very difficult in searching the letter. 3) Tracking of issued letters is difficult. The faculty has no record of the history of letters ever made by students, lecturers, or employees. 4) Mail archiving, both incoming and outgoing mail, is still done physically (hardcopy) so it will be constrained place and difficulty searching or retrieval. Archiving for documents supporting letters has not been done well. 4) No uniform format and the contents of the letter for the same type of letter. 5) Difficult to do progress check of letter making. The above problems can be solved by a system for distributing letters and the management of letters in the FTK.


Disinheriting the Jews is a scholarly work of great interest and significance for both Christians and Jews. Jeffery Siker shows how strongly the figure of Abraham has shaped our religious identities. He also uses the portrayals of Abraham by early Christians as a new means of understanding the dynamics involved in the church's separation and estrangement from Judaism. Siker argues that the separation was precipitated by historical contingencies more so than by Christian identity, and in so doing suggests self-corrections that could mend the rift between Christianity and Judaism.


Abstract Environmental crisis in the rural areas of developing countries is increasingly becoming an important cause of cross‐border migration of population and South Asia is no exception to this phenomenon. Such movement of population in the Indo‐Bangladesh context is generating a range of destabilising socio‐political, economic, ethnic and communal tensions in India. It has embittered Indo‐Bangladesh relations, causing tensions between the two countries. This paper focuses on environmental crisis as a reason for the continued migration of people from Bangladesh to India. It shows that scarcity of land and water in the rural areas of Bangladesh, caused by rapid population growth, environmental change and unequal resource distribution and development, are causing widespread landlessness, unemployment, declining wages and income, growing income disparties and degradation of human habitat. The affected people, unable to satisfy their needs in an economically less‐developed Bangladesh, are increasingly moving to India where the prospect of life appears to be better. The study suggests that this flow of population would continue unabated, perhaps at a greater rate, unless remedial measures are taken in the places of origin of the migrants.


Background. Dermatomal somatosensory evoked potentials (dSSEPs) not only provide a neurophysiological readout comparable with conventional SSEPs but also provide an opportunity to track changes in sensory function corresponding to individual dermatomes (ie, a single spinal segment) above, at, and below the level of spinal cord injury (SCI). Objectives. This study aimed to determine the reliability and responsiveness of dSSEPs and electrical perception thresholds (EPTs) to monitor changes in sensory function after cervical SCI. Methods. Initial and follow-up dSSEPs and EPTs were recorded from cervical dermatomes (C4-C8) of patients with traumatic tetraplegia (C3-C8; ASIA Impairment Scale A-D) during recovery after SCI (n = 18). Results. Follow-up examination of 74 initial dSSEPs unaffected by SCI (n = 18) revealed no significant change in latency (Δ = 0.0 ± 1.4 ms; P = .9) or EPT sensitivity (Δ = 0.1 ± 0.8 mA; P = .3). In 41 dSSEPs initially delayed after SCI (n = 14), latencies significantly decreased on follow-up examination (Δ = -3.1 ± 2.9 ms; P < .01) without a corresponding increase in sensitivity of the EPT (Δ = 0.2 ± 3.4 mA; P = .7). dSSEPs that were not measurable initially were subsequently recorded in 11 dermatomes (n = 5) on follow-up examination. This conversion of abolished-to-recordable dSSEPs was often preceded by the perception of an initial EPT and associated with a concomitant recovery of EPT at follow-up. Conclusion. dSSEPs and EPT can be reliably recorded to monitor changes in sensory function for each individual spinal segment after cervical SCI. dSSEPs may be potentially useful to monitor the safety of a therapeutic drug or cell transplant in early-phase (I/II) clinical trials as well as document the potential efficacy of interventions where the standard neurological assessment might not detect subtle therapeutic effects.


Fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) is a heparin binding protein that plays a role in a range of biological functions such as wound healing and bone regeneration. Heparin, a highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan, is required for FGF2 to bind to its receptor. Therefore, polymeric mimics of heparin are widely studied for their ability to manipulate FGF2-induced biological interactions. It is known that altering the degree of sulfonated monomer incorporation and size of heparin-mimicking polymers can affect protein-receptor binding. To elucidate the relationship between degree of sulfonation and receptor binding for the heparin-mimicking polymer, poly(styrene sulfonate-co-poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (p(SS-co-PEGMA)) a library was synthesized to contain nine polymers with degrees of sulfonation ranging from 0-100%. Kinetics of the polymerization was evaluated and reactivity ratios compared to literature results. These polymers were then tested for their ability to enhance FGF2 binding with its receptor as both covalent conjugates and as excipients. In a receptor based enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA), as well as a cell-based study, the polymer with 81% SS incorporation enhanced receptor binding compared to FGF2 alone, and to a greater extent than the other polymers. Therefore, another library of polymers was prepared maintaining the degree of sulfonation at 81% and changing the size from 41 to 390 monomer repeat units. The polymers were again tested in receptor based ELISA and cell studies, and all of the different sizes performed similarly, except for degree of polymerization 295 and 390, which had reduced response in the cellular assay. These results provide important information for the use of pSS-co-PEGMA as a potential heparin-mimicking therapeutic.


The approximate number system (ANS) is thought to be a building block for the elaboration of formal mathematics. However, little is known about how this core system develops and if it can be influenced by external factors at a young age (before the child enters formal numeracy education). The purpose of this study was to examine numerical magnitude representations of 5–6 year old children at 2 different moments of Kindergarten considering children's early number competence as well as schools' socio-economic index (SEI). This study investigated estimation abilities of large numerosities using symbolic and non-symbolic output formats (8–64). In addition, we assessed symbolic and non-symbolic early number competence (1–12) at the end of the 2nd (N = 42) and the 3rd (N = 32) Kindergarten grade. By letting children freely produce estimates we observed surprising estimation abilities at a very young age (from 5 year on) extending far beyond children's symbolic explicit knowledge. Moreover, the time of testing has an impact on the ANS accuracy since 3rd Kindergarteners were more precise in both estimation tasks. Additionally, children who presented better exact symbolic knowledge were also those with the most refined ANS. However, this was true only for 3rd Kindergarteners who were a few months from receiving math instructions. In a similar vein, higher SEI positively impacted only the oldest children's estimation abilities whereas it played a role for exact early number competences already in 2nd and 3rd graders. Our results support the view that approximate numerical representations are linked to exact number competence in young children before the start of formal math education and might thus serve as building blocks for mathematical knowledge. Since this core number system was also sensitive to external components such as the SEI this implies that it can most probably be targeted and refined through specific educational strategies from preschool on.


The σ profile is presented as a tool to analyze the organization of systems at different scales, and how this organization changes in time. Describing structures at different scales as goal-oriented agents, one can define σ ∈ [0,1] (satisfaction) as the degree to which the goals of each agent at each scale have been met. σ reflects the organization degree at that scale. The σ profile of a system shows the satisfaction at different scales, with the possibility to study their dependencies and evolution. It can also be used to extend game theoretic models. The description of a general tendency on the evolution of complexity and cooperation naturally follows from the σ profile. Experiments on a virtual ecosystem are used as illustration. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate an algorithm based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) that can calculate rational values of phase angle (o) and moduli of the variants of asphalt mixtures for the data obtained from the different frequency sweep tests. o and moduli for ten different asphalt mixtures resulting in over 690 data points collected from both USA and Sweden were computed using FFT. Theoretical observations revealed that there were significant differences for o between FFT and other methods to the order of 10-50%; however, there was no difference in moduli estimates for any mix and was independent of the test. Precisely, the FFT method produced rational o for mixtures that deviate from conventional mixture properties. Furthermore, statistical comparisons corroborated the predicted o estimates indicative of significant differences between the analysis techniques; but, the moduli were unaffected by the analysis methods. The study successfully illustrated the FFT technique, a user-friendly analytical procedure that can obviate the errors in the rational estimation of the acutely sensitive viscoelastic parameters.


Photo privacy has raised a growing concern with the advancements of image analytics, face recognition, and deep learning techniques widely applied on social media. If properly deployed, these powerful techniques can in turn assist people in enhancing their online privacy. One possible approach is to build a strong, automatic and dynamic access control mechanism based on analyzing the image content and learning users sharing behavior. This paper presents a model for contextdependent and privacy-aware photo sharing based on machine learning. The proposed model utilizes image semantics and requester contextual information to decide whether or not to share a particular picture with a specific requester at certain context, and if yes, at which granularity. To evaluate the proposed model, we conducted a user study on 23 subjects and collected a dataset containing 1'018 manually annotated images with 12'216 personalized contextual sharing decisions. Evaluation experiments were performed and the results show a promising performance of the proposed model for photo sharing decision making. Furthermore, the influences of different types of features on decision making have been investigated, the results of which validate the usefulness of pre-defined features and imply a significant variance between users sharing behaviors and privacy attitudes.


Experiments were performed to investigate a twin vortex draft tube surge in a homologous model and the prototype 700-MW turbines installed at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Grand Coulee Third Powerplant. Model tests were conducted on a 1:40.3 scale model turbine located in the new Turbine Research Facility at Colorado State University. Two pressure transducers were mounted 180° apart at the throat of the model draft tube, and pressure fluctuation data were collected with a dynamic signal analyzer and oscilloscope. A BASIC language computer program recorded the operating status of the model turbine. Recent tests have confirmed the presence of the twin vortex in the prototype.


Trapped field characteristics are one of the key factors in the application of high-temperature superconducting bulk, such as magnetic levitation systems, motors, bulk magnets and so on. The immutable trapped field is required in superconducting bulk applications as a quasi-permanent magnet, however, the trapped field is influenced and changed by a time-varying external magnetic field in a realistic operational environment of electrical devices. This means that shielding current distribution within the bulk is changed by the time-varying magnetic field and the transient magnetic flux movement results in temperature rise and finally reduction of the trapped field. In this study, we observed the abrupt reduction of the trapped field for the external AC magnetic field in the range of frequency up to 50 Hz. And we also performed the numerical simulation using a newly developed computer program based on the finite element method (FEM). In the simulation program, the voltage-current (E–J) characteristics, which depend on the irreversibility temperature are taken into account. From these results, it can be considered that the abrupt reduction of the trapped field is caused by the temperature rise due to AC loss.


New image citation standards need to be developed in order for college and graduate students to meet visual literacy standards. The MLA Handbook , 8th edition, and Chicago Manual of Style , 16th edition, do not adequately clarify how to caption, attribute, and cite images. Other image captioning and citing resources are available, but refer to the MLA and Chicago manuals. Image captions from scholarly journals vary widely and cannot be used as examples for students to follow. Recommendations are also provided for future editions of the MLA Handbook and Chicago Manual of Style .


Alternaria alternata pv. citri is the causal agent of Alternaria brown spot on tangerines and their hybrids and infects young leaves and fruit of all ages. In South Africa, repeated high volume (∼9000 L/ha) fungicide sprays on susceptible cultivars are the only effective control measure of this disease. The effect of runoff on spray deposition and biological efficacy was largely unknown. The aims of this study were first to characterise spray deposition and runoff on fruit and leaves, and second to determine the effect of runoff on biological efficacy. Mature Nova mandarin leaves (upper and lower leaf surfaces), Valencia Late oranges and Eureka lemons were sprayed with different volumes of, or dipped in, a mixture of water and a yellow fluorescent pigment. Sprayed parts were illuminated under black light, visualised under a stereomicroscope and digitally photographed at 10magnification. Quantitative and qualitative deposition assessment of the spray deposition was performed by means of digital image analyses. Hoerl regression curves were fitted to quantitative and qualitative deposition values on upper and lower leaf surfaces over spray volume (R2-values >0.95) and trends clearly indicated that deposition on young or mature leaves and fruit improved as spray volume increased, but only until the point of runoff was reached, thereafter deposition quantity and quality decreased. Deposition values following dip treatments were in all cases significantly subordinate to those of the best spray volumes. Mature upper leaf surfaces and Eureka lemon fruit generally retained less spray deposits than lower leaf surfaces and Valencia Late orange fruit, respectively. In order to determine the effect of runoff on biological efficacy of copper hydroxide against Alternaria brown spot, young Nova leaves were treated in a similar fashion and subsequently drop-inoculated with a virulent strain of A. alternata pv. citri and incubated for 3.5 days in moist chambers at 25°C. Biological efficacy of sprays followed a quadratic trend over spray volume and clearly demonstrated the detrimental effect of runoff on biological efficacy of fungicide sprays. Sigmoidal regression analyses of mean infection percentages against quantitative and qualitative deposition on upper and lower surfaces of young Nova leaves yielded very good fits indicating the correlation between biological and deposition data.


The world is awash with ethnic and religious conflict. Nearly 5 million people have lost their lives and more than 50 million have been displaced in the maelstrom of intergroup conflict since 1990. During that same period, there have been about 60 civil wars and war-like intrastate battles. While ethnic, religious, and cultural fratricide remain a constant global theme, there are regions where preventive diplomacy has avoided, limited, or restrained such hostilities. In some situations, early warning was timely, but no one listened. In others, early warning was converted into effective action. What lessons can be learned for the future of early warning, early action, and preventive diplomacy? This volume examines whether those lessons can be discerned, whether continuing hostilities around the globe can be held in check, and in particular whether nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can contribute to peace through preventive diplomacy. The contributors explore the role of NGOs in reducing ethnic and religious conflict and diminishing bloodshed and killings in troubled countries. Using case studies on Burundi, Guatemala, Macedonia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and the Sudan, they explore theory and practice, drawing out lessons for preventive diplomacy and early warning. The cases reveal that preventive diplomacy represents ambitious efforts on the part of both local and international NGOs. They also illustrate that early warning embraces a kaleidoscope of early, not-so-early, and belated signals. In Rwanda those signals were heeded too late; in Macedonia, and Burundi, early warning has been sufficient. The case studies represent a combination of failures and successes and of differentand significant lessons for enhancing the effectiveness of early warning, early action, and preventive diplomacy. In addition to Rotberg, the contributors are Melissa E. Crow, International Tribunal for Rwanda; Francis M. Deng, the Brookings Institution; Alison L. Des Forges, Africa Watch; Eran Fraenkel, Search for Common Ground, Macedonia; Darren Kew, Council on Foreign Relations; Tom Lent, Save the Children; Rachel M. McCleary, Georgetown University; Kalypso Nicolaidis, Harvard University; Clement Nwankwo, Constitutional Rights Project, Nigeria; Violeta Petroska Beska, University of Skopje, Macedonia; Richard A. Sollom, Tufts University; Neelan Tiruchelvam, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka. A Brookings Institution and World Peace Foundation copublication


Historically, developmental psychology has been split into the areas of social development and cognitive development, with the cognitive area most recently dominating the field. Nevertheless, basic questions about development often require more integrative approaches, cutting across social and cognitive areas, while taking advantage of recent discoveries in psychobiology and our knowledge of general principles of development. Presenting recent advances in the study of temperament as an example, it is suggested that rather than emphasizing distinctions between areas, it may be preferable to offer general training in developmental psychology, with a student's specializations organized around research questions rather than area boundaries. Advances in temperament research include refinement of our understanding of basic dimensions of temperament, identification of the construct of effortful control, and making links to the neuroscience of development.


Cellular metallic glasses (MGs) can be good candidates for structural and functional applications due to their light weight, enhanced ductility and excellent energy absorption performance. Motivated by the size-dependent mechanical properties of MGs, we perform molecular dynamics simulations of uniaxial compression testing on MGs with nanoscale cellular structures, focusing on the influence of cell size, shape, pattern, and ratio of the cell size to the spacing on the deformation behaviors. With increasing cell size, a clear transition in failure mode from localized plastic deformation to homogeneous plastic deformation is observed. Furthermore, we show that MGs with circular cellular structures exhibit higher strength and energy absorption capacity than those with hexagonal cellular structures due to the reduction of the stress concentration in the honeycomb's joints, in agreement with recent experimental studies. Finally, with decreasing the cell size to spacing ratio, shear band (SB) formation is observed when the shortest distance between the neighbouring cells in the diagonal direction reaches a value comparable to the SB thickness. Our present results not only provide an in-depth atomic understanding of the deformation and failure mechanisms of MGs with nanoscale cellular structures, but also propose an effective way to attain optimized material properties through controlling the cell features.


Australia is among the most fire-prone of continents. While national fire management policy is focused on irregular and comparatively smaller fires in densely settled southern Australia, this comprehensive assessment of continental-scale fire patterning (1997-2005) derived from ∼ 1k m 2 AdvancedVery High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery shows that fire activity occurs predominantly in the savanna landscapes of monsoonal northern Australia. Sta- tistical models that relate the distribution of large fires to a variety of biophysical variables show that, at the continental scale, rainfall seasonality substantially explains fire patterning. Modelling results, together with data concerning seasonal lightning incidence, implicate the importance of anthropogenic ignition sources, especially in the northern wet-dry tropics and arid Australia, for a substantial component of recurrent fire extent. Contemporary patterns differ markedly from those under Aboriginal occupancy, are causing significant impacts on biodiversity, and, under current patterns of human popula- tion distribution, land use, national policy and climate change scenarios, are likely to prevail, if not intensify, for decades to come. Implications of greenhouse gas emissions from savanna burning, especially seasonal emissions of CO2, are poorly understood and contribute to important underestimation of the significance of savanna emissions both in Australian and probably in international greenhouse gas inventories. A significant challenge for Australia is to address annual fire extent in fire-prone Australian savannas.


When the computing environment becomes heterogeneous and applications become modular with reusable components, automatic performance tuning is needed for these applications to run well in different environments. We present the Active Harmony automated runtime tuning system and describe the interface used by programs to make applications tunable. We present the optimization algorithm used to adjust application parameters and the Library Specification Layer which helps program library developers expose multiple variations of the same API using different algorithms. By comparing the experience stored in a database, the tuning server is able to find appropriate configurations more rapidly. Utilizing historical data together with a mechanism that estimates performance speeds up the tuning process. To avoid performance oscillations during the initial phase of the tuning process, we use improved search refinement techniques that use configurations equally spaced throughout the performance search space to make the tuning process smoother. We also introduce a parameter prioritizing tool to focus on those performance critical parameters. We demonstrate how to reduce the time when tuning a large system with many tunable parameters. The search space can be reduced by checking the relations among parameters to avoid unnecessary search. In addition, for homogeneous processing nodes, we demonstrate how to use one set of the parameters and replicate the values to the remaining processing nodes. For environments where parameters can be divided into independent groups, an individual tuning server is used for each group. An algorithm is given to automatically adjust the structure of cluster-based web systems and it improves the system throughput up to 70%. We successfully apply the Active Harmony system to a cluster-based web service system and scientific programs. By tuning the parameters, Active Harmony helps the system adapt to different workloads and improve the performance up to 16%. The performance improvement cannot easily be achieved by tuning individual components for such a system and there is no single configuration that performs well for all kinds of workloads. All the design and experimental results show that Active Harmony is a feasible and useful tool in performance tuning.


In host cells, viral replication is localized at specific subcellular sites. Viruses that infect eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells often use host-derived cytoskeletal structures, such as the actin skeleton, for intracellular positioning. Here, we describe that a prophage, CGP3, integrated into the genome of Corynebacterium glutamicum encodes an actin-like protein, AlpC. Biochemical characterization confirms that AlpC is a bona fide actin-like protein and cell biological analysis shows that AlpC forms filamentous structures upon prophage induction. The co-transcribed adaptor protein, AlpA, binds to a consensus sequence in the upstream promoter region of the alpAC operon and also interacts with AlpC, thus connecting circular phage DNA to the actin-like filaments. Transcriptome analysis revealed that alpA and alpC are among the early induced genes upon excision of the CGP3 prophage. Furthermore, qPCR analysis of mutant strains revealed that both AlpA and AlpC are required for efficient phage replication. Altogether, these data emphasize that AlpAC are crucial for the spatio-temporal organization of efficient viral replication. This is remarkably similar to actin-assisted membrane localization of eukaryotic viruses that use the actin cytoskeleton to concentrate virus particles at the egress sites and provides a link of evolutionary conserved interactions between intracellular virus transport and actin.


Introduction: Previous studies have reported contradicting results about the effect of medication therapy on attribution bias and jumping to conclusion (JTC) bias in schizophrenic patients. This study aims at analyzing the effect of medication on attribution bias and JTC bias in schizophrenic patients. Methods: This study is an ex post facto and casual-comparative research. 28 people including 14 schizophrenic patients, who have not used drugs already, and 14 schizophrenic patients, who have used drugs at least for past 4 weeks, were selected and they did not show any significant difference in terms of age, gender and education level. Computer-based similarities task and Internal-Personal-Situational Attributions questionnaire were used for analyzing jumping to conclusion bias and attribution bias, respectively. Results: The independent T-test was used to analyze data. The results showed that schizophrenic patients, who had used drug at least for 4 weeks, gained higher scores in similarities task in contrast to patients, who did not use drugs; however, they did not show any significant difference in score of personalization subscale in Internal-PersonalSituational Attributions Questionnaires. Conclusion: Jumping to conclusion bias was reduced after medication therapy, so it is a postural trait whereas personalization bias was not reduced by medication therapy, so it is a character-based trait.


Social Work in Mental Health brings together a range of scholarly reflections and writings on the different roles of a social worker in the field of mental health. It provides a holistic picture to introduce readers to the wider issues of social work and mental health practice.

The book offers a detailed discussion on the theoretical and practice frameworks that are based on social justice and human rights perspectives. It not only provides an overview of intervention strategies but also directs readers' attention to an alternative way of addressing mental health issues.

The author presents a cross-cultural and global perspective of mental health, but with specific references to India and Asia. He also addresses some of the recent debates in recovery, partnerships and strengths-based practices. The book has been specially designed for social work students, human service professionals and mental health practitioners and academicians.

Areas of Practice, Challenges and Way Forward offers the readers an exposure to the many different contexts within which social workers come into contact with those experiencing mental health concerns. The specific needs for particular community groups, including children, young and older people, are identified.


The nonlocal means (NLM) algorithm is one of the best image denoising algorithms because of its superior capability to retain the texture details of an image and is widely used in remote sensing (RS) image preprocessing. However, the time complexity of the algorithm is very high due to its nonlocality when searching for similar pixels. As a result, the NLM algorithm cannot satisfy the near real-time requirements of some specific applications. To resolve this issue, a parallel NLM algorithm based on Intel Xeon Phi hardware with Intel's many integrated cores (MIC) architecture was designed and implemented in this paper. The parallel algorithm achieved satisfactory speedup, but the speedup obtained showed a step-like distribution for different image sizes. This result was not expected based on the theoretical analysis, which predicted that the speedup should be independent of input data set size. To address this problem, the parallel algorithm was further optimized by adding pretreatment approaches and cutting down the number of nested loops in the MIC. Finally, experiments using the standard and optimized versions were carried out using the RS images of different sizes. Several conclusions could be drawn from the experimental results: 1) the standard parallel algorithm can obtain better speedup with only one MIC card and 2) the optimized parallel algorithm can completely eliminate the step distribution of the speedup and can also accelerate RS image processing significantly.


Human scene understanding uses a variety of visual and non-visual cues to perform inference on object types, poses, and relations. Physics is a rich and universal cue which we exploit to enhance scene understanding. We integrate the physical cue of stability into the learning process using a REINFORCE approach coupled to a physics engine, and apply this to the problem of producing the 3D bounding boxes and poses of objects in a scene. We first show that applying physics supervision to an existing scene understanding model increases performance, produces more stable predictions, and allows training to an equivalent performance level with fewer annotated training examples. We then present a novel architecture for 3D scene parsing named Prim R-CNN, learning to predict bounding boxes as well as their 3D size, translation, and rotation. With physics supervision, Prim R-CNN outperforms existing scene understanding approaches on this problem. Finally, we show that applying physics supervision on unlabeled real images improves real domain transfer of models training on synthetic data.


Background: The role of safe spaces on university campuses for gay and lesbian students remains a contested issue. This is attributed to the fact that the visibility of these students on university campuses presents a duality: On the one hand, the creation of such spaces provides a sense of communal belonging, safety and visibility for these students which could contribute to de-mystifying stereotypes. On the other hand, such increased visibility may further exacerbate a backlash to those who disclose their sexual identity, which manifests in verbal and/or physical homophobia. Aim: The article reports on an explorative sociological study on the need for such safe spaces for lesbian and gay students on North-West University's Potchefstroom campus. Setting: The focus of the research was to explore the need for safe spaces on the North-West University's Potchefstroom campus. The aim was to investigate the perceptions of self-identified gay and lesbian students on the importance of providing such spaces. Methods: A qualitative research design, informed by the meta-theoretical principles of social constructionism, interpretivism and queer theory, was applied. Probability and snowball sampling methods were used along with 20 semi-structured interviews with 10 self-identified gay and 10 self-identified lesbian students. Thematic analysis was used to code the data. Results: Participants expressed dualistic narratives regarding their experiences on campus. Some indicated that they did not experience any discrimination whereas others recalled particular incidences of homophobia. These differences notwithstanding, participants provided particular definitions of such spaces, identified its preferred formations and reasons for being in favour of and against its implementation. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the introduction of formal policies is essential in deciding on whether safe spaces are necessary and to inform the decisions of students require this to disclose their identities.


Drawing on insights from Latin America, this paper examines the factors that contributed to the use of populist strategies by political parties during recent presidential elections in Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia. Specifically, the paper argues that the nature of party competition in Africa, combined with rapid urbanization and informalization of the labour force, provided a niche for populist leaders to espouse a message relevant to the region's growing urban poor. Simultaneously, such leaders employed ethno-linguistic appeals to mobilize a segment of rural voters who could form a minimum winning coalition in concert with the urban poor and thereby deliver sizeable electoral victories. While such strategies are similar to those used by Latin American populists, the paper highlights key contrasts as well. By combining crossregional and sub-national perspectives, this paper therefore aims to contribute to a better understanding of how demographic and socioeconomic changes in Africa intersect with voting behaviour and political party development.


Ethiopia is susceptible to frequent climate extremes such as disastrous droughts and floods. These disastrous climatic events, which have caused significant adverse effects on the country's economy and society, are expected to become more pronounced in the future under climate change. To identify the potential threat of climate change to the Ethiopian economy, this study analyzes three major factors that are changing under global warming: water availability under higher temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, the impact of changing precipitation patterns on flooding, and the potential impact on crop production of the carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilization effect. These issues are analyzed based on an existing multi-market-sector model for the Ethiopian economy, with a focus on agriculture. Our analysis finds that the major impact of climate change on Ethiopia's economy will result from more frequent occurrence of extreme hydrologic events, which cause losses in both the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors. To adapt to these long-term changes, Ethiopia should invest in enhanced water control to expand irrigation and improve flood protection.


A firm's discounting policies over a single product raise concerns analogous to exclusive dealing in two situations. First, the firm may offer conditional discounts structured in such a way as to induce customers to take most of their requirements for a given product from the defendant. In addition, a firm may employ "slotting" fees or similar allowances paid by manufacturers to retailers, with the possible result that rivals have difficulty obtaining access to shelf space. Neither practice is literally "exclusive dealing," because neither involves a condition that the purchaser not deal in the goods of a rival, although they may create a pricing incentive for it not to do so.Most quantity discount programs are undoubtedly designed to reflect the reduced costs of larger transactions. But suppose that a discounting program is clearly in excess of anything justified by significant savings. For example, suppose that the program gives incremental discounts stretching up to very large volumes and permits the aggregation of all purchases over a lengthy period, say one year. If exclusive dealing under equivalent structural conditions and subject to equivalent defenses were lawful, the discount arrangement should be lawful as well. But the competitive impact must in fact be less because any equally efficient rival can take the customer by bidding a better price and even compensating the customer for the loss of the discount from the defendant. Some discounts take the form of upfront payments from producers to grocers or other retailers for access to the retailer's shelf space. For example, a grocer may wish to allocate scarce display space to only two of the three major brands of prepared baby food. These allowances are generally paid to retailers in order to induce them to carry and display a product whose prospects are uncertain to the retailer. The special characteristic of the slotting allowance that gives it this risk-transferring property is that it is a discount that diminishes as the volume of goods sold increases, effectively making the supplier share in the risk that a product will not succeed at retail.Challenges to above cost discounting, where the engine of exclusion is price, must meet more severe structural requirements than exclusive dealing. Indeed, predatory pricing is a "monopolization" offense requiring significant market shares in at least the 60-70% range, and it would be perverse to assess stricter structural requirements in cases involving below cost pricing than in those challenging prices that are above cost.


In 2002, AFL Queensland and the Brisbane Lions Football Club approached the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (Queensland) for advice on improving their Premier League sports fields. They were concerned about player safety and dissatisfaction with playing surfaces, particularly uneven turf cover and variable under-foot conditions. They wanted to get the best from new investments in ground maintenance equipment and irrigation infrastructure.

Their sports fields were representative of community-standard, multi-use venues throughout Australia; generally 'natural' soil fields, with low maintenance budgets, managed by volunteers. Improvements such as reconstruction, drainage, or regular re-turfing are generally not affordable. Our project aimed to: (a) Review current world practice and performance benchmarks; (b) Demonstrate best-practice management for community-standard fields; (c) Adapt relevant methods for surface performance testing; (d) Assess current soils, and investigate useful amendments; (e) Improve irrigation system performance; and (e) Build industry capacity and encourage patterns for ongoing learning.

Most global sports field research focuses on elite, sand-based fields. We adjusted elite standards for surface performance (hardness, traction, soil moisture, evenness, sward cover/height) and maintenance programs, to suit community-standard fields with lesser input resources. In regularly auditing ground conditions across 12 AFLQ fields in SE QLD, we discovered surface hardness (measured by Clegg Hammer) was the No. 1 factor affecting player safety and surface performance. Other important indices were turf coverage and surface compaction (measured by penetrometer). AFLQ now runs regularly audits affiliated fields, and closes grounds with hardness readings greater than 190 Gmax. Aerating every two months was the primary mechanical practice improving surface condition and reducing hardness levels to < 110 Gmax on the renovated project fields. With irrigation installation, these fields now record surface conditions comparable to elite fields. These improvements encouraged many other sporting organisations to seek advice / assistance from the project team. AFLQ have since substantially invested in an expanded ground improvement program, to cater for this substantially increased demand. In auditing irrigation systems across project fields, we identified low maintenance (with < 65% of sprinklers operating optimally) as a major problem. Retrofitting better nozzles and adjusting sprinklers improved irrigation distribution uniformity to 75-80%. Research showed that reducing irrigation frequency to weekly, and preparedness to withhold irrigation longer after rain, reduced irrigation requirement by 30-50%, compared to industry benchmarks of 5-6 ML/ha/annum. Project team consultation with regulatory authorities enhanced irrigation efficiency under imposed regional water restrictions. Laboratory studies showed incorporated biosolids / composts, or topdressed crumb rubber, improved compaction resistance of soils. Field evaluations confirmed compost incorporation significantly reduced surface hardness of high wear areas in dry conditions, whilst crumb rubber assisted turf persistence into early winter. Neither amendment was a panacea for poor agronomic practices.

Under the auspices of the project Trade Mark Sureplay®, we published > 80 articles, and held > 100 extension activities involving > 2,000 participants. Sureplay® has developed a multi-level curator training structure and resource materials, subject to commercial implementation. The partnerships with industry bodies (particularly AFLQ), frequent extension activities, and engagement with government/regulatory sectors have been very successful, and are encouraged for any future work. Specific aspects of sports field management for further research include: (a) Understanding of factors affecting turf wear resistance and recovery, to improve turf persistence under wear; (b) Simple tests for pinpointing areas of fields with high hardness risk; and (c) Evaluation of new irrigation infrastructure, 'water-saving' devices, and irrigation protocols, in improving water use and turf cover outcomes.


This study aims to empirically validate an innovative work behaviour-enhancing model of employability in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to examine possible moderating effects of age.,Data have been collected from 487 pairs of employees and their immediate supervisors who worked in 151 SMEs. Structural equation modelling (SEM) has been used to investigate the predictive validity of employability on innovative work behaviour using a multi-source approach. The moderating effect of employee age on the relationship between, on the one hand, self-ratings and supervisor ratings of employability, and, on the other hand, innovative work behaviour has been tested using multi-group SEM.,Results suggest that self-rated employability correlates positively with supervisor-rated innovative work behaviour, and that supervisor-rated employability correlates positively with self-rated innovative work behaviour. Age appeared to have a weak influence on the relationship between employability and innovative work behaviour; more specifically, in case of a higher age, the relationship was stronger.,The cross-sectional design is a limitation of this study. Another limitation relates to the generalizability of the study findings outside the context in which the research has been undertaken. The relational meaning of employee age might be different in other cultures.,Supervisors appear to play an essential role in providing an age-friendly working life for employees. Moreover, as SMEs often do not employ professionals to manage human resources, supervisors themselves have to carry the responsibility to encourage aging employees to develop themselves the enhancing innovative work behaviour.,This study is the first to investigate the predictive validity of employability on innovative work behaviour and the effects of age on this relationship.


This thesis offers a new way of understanding the history of Italy and of Venice during the period 1494-1530. Using newly examined manuscript and printed materials as well as older secondary sources, it seeks to demonstrate the close connection between religion and politics through the biographies of the Venetian clerics Vincenzo Querini (1479-1514) and Gasparo Contarini (1483-1542). Chapter 1 provides the first comprehensive biography of Vincenzo Querini and introduces the major themes of this study the pan-European nature of Venetian politics and religion, and the relationship between the active and the contemplative lives. The exchange of letters between Querini and Contarini during 1511-14 (considered in Chapter 2) can only be properly understood in the context of these themes, Querini's biography, and the centrality of his friendship with Contarini. Querini's role in monastic and curial reform is highlighted in the third and fourth chapters, and particular emphasis is placed upon his Florentine connections especially with the piagnoni. In Chapter 5 Contarini's work on the ideal bishop (De officio episcopi) is placed in the light of Querini 's reform thought and is also examined in order to show its affinities with Contarini's treatise on the government of Venice (De magistratibus et republica Venetorum). Chapter 6 establishes for the first time the pre-publication circulation of the work, and examines its audience. Chapter 7 consists of a close textual reading of themes of harmony and discord in the book thereby establishing Contarini's debt to Thomist ecclesiology, and to Aristotelian political and moral theory. The final two chapters consider these themes in relation to Contarini's Florentine connections, and within the context of Florentine and Venetian republicanism, and of Florentine exiles in Venice.


Abstract. Flood prediction systems rely on good quality precipitation input data and forecasts to drive hydrological models. Most precipitation data comes from daily stations with a good spatial coverage. However, some flood events occur on sub-daily time scales and flood prediction systems could benefit from using models calibrated on the same time scale. This study compares precipitation data aggregated from hourly stations (HP) and data disaggregated from daily stations (DP) with 6-hourly forecasts from ECMWF over the time period 1 October 2006–31 December 2009. The HP and DP data sets were then used to calibrate two hydrological models, LISFLOOD-RR and HBV, and the latter was used in a flood case study. The HP scored better than the DP when evaluated against the forecast for lead times up to 4 days. However, this was not translated in the same way to the hydrological modelling, where the models gave similar scores for simulated runoff with the two datasets. The flood forecasting study showed that both datasets gave similar hit rates whereas the HP data set gave much smaller false alarm rates (FAR). This indicates that using sub-daily precipitation in the calibration and initiation of hydrological models can improve flood forecasting.


Objectives: To contribute to furthering the understanding of how people with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) reason about physical activity as part of everyday life, with a specific focus on the meanings attached to such activity. Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 individuals with mild AD. Qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the data. Results: The analysis revealed three sub-themes reflecting interrelated perspectives on how people with mild AD reason about physical activity: (1) striving to be physically active, mirrors the concrete approaches used for handling the consequences of having AD in relation to being active; (2) perceptions of physical activity, reflect how their thoughts and beliefs regarding written and tacit norms encouraged them to remain physically active, and (3) physical activity as a means to well-being, alludes to feelings and emotions related to the performance of physical activity. Interpretation of the underlying patterns in these sub-themes revealed one overarching theme: Physical activity as a means to selfhood maintenance, which suggests that physical activity can help to shift the focus from the dementia diagnosis (i.e. ill health) to a more healthy and able self. Conclusion: The findings suggest that physical activity, apart from maintaining body functions, can be a way to sustain well-being and selfhood in mild AD. This aspect of physical activity is important to consider in research, policy and practice when addressing the needs of people with dementia.


A Geminid fireball with an absolute magnitude of −13 was observed over the south of Spain on 2009 December 15. This extraordinarily bright event (the brightest Geminid ever recorded by our team) was imaged from two meteor observing stations operated by the SPanish Meteor Network (SPMN). The bolide exhibited fast and quasi-periodic variations in brightness, a behaviour typically associated with the rotation of the parent meteoroid. The inferred tensile strength of this particle was found to be significantly higher than the typical values obtained for Geminid meteoroids. The fireball penetrated in the atmosphere till a final height of about 25 km above the ground level and a non-zero terminal mass was calculated at the ending point of the luminous trajectory. In this way, the observational evidence points to the existence of a population of meteoroids in the higher end of the Geminid mass distribution capable of producing meteorites. From the relative chemical abundances inferred from the emission spectrum of this bolide we conclude that the Geminid-forming materials are similar to some primitive carbonaceous chondrite groups. Then, we conclude that in meteorite collections from cold deserts, capable of preserving meteorites of a few tens of grams, some rare groups of carbonaceous chondrites could be coming from the Geminid parent body: (3200) Phaeton.


Annually more than 80% of the overall budget of the uran solid waste management system in Iran is allotted to collection and transportation of the solid wastes. The main objective of the current study is to evaluate the external costs associated with solid waste collection, transfer, and transportation in Tehran for the period of 2018 to 2032 based on the current situation. Waste guidance system as well as Energy and Environment software were applied to anticipate the external costs. Results of the present study indicated that more than 535 million US dollars would be required during the next 15 years in the solid waste collection, transfer, and transportation sector to supply necessary machinery, manpower, fuel, maintenance and other relevant expenses. The principal fraction of the required budget (i.e. 48.99%) should be allocated to provide collection and transportation equipment costs. Manpower, fuel, maintenance, and miscellaneous expenses require 30.34, 7.37, 12.78 and 0.5 percent, respectively of the overall expenses in the solid waste collection, transfer, and transportation sector. In the context of global warming impact, more than 970 million tons of carbon dioxide will be anticipated to be emitted by solid waste collection, transfer, and transportation sector in Tehran during the studied period imposing 23.1 million US dollars to compensate its external effects.


Human evolution in the Plio-Pleistocene occurred in the context of a community of large-bodied terrestrial primates which may have shaped aspects of australopithecine ecology. Ecological theory would predict a degree of niche separation between these closely related sympatric species. Here, data from published biogeochemical paleodiet studies are used to test this hypothesis. The use of biogeochemistry in approximating niche width has been suggested on the basis of its reflection of an average of the total diet of an organism and its linear comparability between observations (Bearhop et al. 2004). Data on two measures, δ13C, which indicates the photosynthetic pathway of the dominant plants in the trophic chain of an organism, and Sr:Ba ratios, which can indicate trophic level, were analyzed using ANOVA and Tukey's test for significant difference in 8 PlioPleistocene primate species and groups of C3 browsers and C4 grazers. In δ13C, three groups were distinguished: grazers and Theropithecus; Australopithecus, Parapapio, Papio, and Cercopithecoides; and Papio, Cercopithecoides, and the browsers. In Ba:Sr, two groups were distinguished: A. africanus, A. robustus, and Papio; and A. robustus, Papio, and Parapapio. Due to the significant degree of overlap between genera in both metrics, with the exception of Theropithecus, there is a lack of support for a strong degree of niche separation in this sample. It is possible that these taxa were able to coexist by adopting seasonally or spatially variable feeding behaviors, or their diets were less similar than appears from these biogeochemical indicators alone.


This project, which was undertaken in collaboration with the Faculty of Law at Monash University, provides a comprehensive insight into the Victorian community's understanding of and attitudes towards the state's infringement penalty enforcement system and it's role in supporting road safety, traffic management, and other areas of social regulation. The aims are to identify factors which can enhance compliance with the underlying laws and the administrative arrangements for enforcing them. These research aims are in line with several of the broad outcomes describing the Government's longer term aspirations for the community and which are associated with the Victorian Department of Justice's strategic objectives, namely that 'the legal rights of all persons are protected through a just, responsive and accessible legal system in which the Victorian community has confidence' and that 'offenders in Victoria are treated in a just and humane manner and encouraged to adopt law abiding lifestyle' (Strategic Directions for Justice in Victoria 2001-2006, Department of Justice, victoria, November 2001). In addition, the research meets the objectives of the Department's Strategic Research Plan 2001-2005 in relation too the need for collaborative applied research into alternative criminal sanctions and their enforcement.


Grotesque or damaged bodies play a central role in a number of Flannery O'Connor's most powerful stories. One route for interpreting their significance is to approach them by way of a rare psychological condition that has been named apotemnophilia. Apotemnophiliacs experience an overwhelming desire to amputate one of more of their perfectly healthy limbs. Among the things that make the condition particularly mysterious is the challenge it offers to our standard conception of what constitutes a "whole" body. Two of O'Connor's most celebrated stories, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" and "Good Country People," have at their center amputated bodies, those of Tom T. Shiftlet and Hulga Hopewell respectively. Evans argues that those incomplete bodies are intended to contest the notion of "wholeness" as a spiritual or existential ideal. On the contrary, O'Connor's stories drive her characters towards a necessary recognition of their incompleteness. Finally, the allegorical form of O'Connor's fiction itself constitutes a parallel to the amputated and imperfect condition of the bodies that inhabit them. Just as the bodies point insistently to their own incompleteness, so the stories advertise their own inadequacy, forcing upon the reader a kind of hermeneutic phantom pain, an importunate demand for interpretation that can, however, never be fully satisfied.


This research has as its theoretical framework the notion of the teacher as an agent for change in schools. The research is based on a study of 137 practising primary teachers (75% female) recruited across the Fiji primary school Years of 1 to 8. The investigation used survey methodology in the Republic of the Fiji Islands. It examined the teachers" perceptions associated with assessment practices since the abolishing of the formal primary school exanimations in 2009 and the transition to more Class Based Assessment (CBA) practices. In this model, assessment and learning are considered linked in three different but related ways. These are: assessment of learning (i.e., tests and examinations of the students); assessment for learning (i.e., feedback to the teacher to design appropriate program for the students involved); and assessment as learning (students reflect on what they are learning and how).
On average, teachers in this study agreed that CBA had helped them to be more innovative and creative in their teaching. The indications, are that teachers who brought examples of their students" work along to moderation and assessment meetings to share and discuss their teaching and students" learning, gained more from those meetings and were more confident about their ability to design CBA assessment tasks.
The participating teachers reported that CBA had enabled them to be better able to report to the parents of the children they were teaching about what was occurring in the classroom in terms of their students" learning and the classroom program of study. There were no significant gender or years of experience effects in the data, with only one question demonstrating some school Year differentiation. Teachers in Years 6 to 8 reported some advantage in the end of Year 8 formal examinations, compared to teachers in the middle and lower primary school Years.
The findings are discussed with reference to the need to reliably link classroom programing and classroom assessment and for the Fiji teachers to receive more professional development about different forms of assessment and measurement techniques, as well as more opportunities to share and discuss assessment issues between themselves. In this research the teachers identified the advantages of CBA, but how it was being implemented and interpreted in Fiji was a concern, with too great a focus on a set number of assessment items. The primary school teachers were looking for more leadership and professional in-service to facilitate a version of CBA that would be more manageable and focussed more on formative as well as summative assessment. The findings are, however, supportive of the use of CBA assessment practices in Fiji primary schools with little real evidence that teachers wanted to return to the formal examinations of the past.


by Sylvia Barack Fishman. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 242 pp. $17.95.The inexorable reach of globalization has profoundly impacted all cultures with its unimaginable novelty. It has challenged the cultural patterns of all Americans who are living at the cusp of global innovation, and understandably therefore among them, the cultural patterns of American Jews. As we Jews well know because of our repetitive historical experience, the challenges of novelty we are facing now must result, as their counterparts in the past with varying degrees of adaptation always have resulted, in one of three generic responses: withdrawal, consisting of a rejection of the new in order to retain the inheritance, itself a product of development, now frozen into its latest state; assimilation, consisting of a rejection of the heritage in the hope, often illusory, of full participation in the new environment; and accommodation, in which various efforts at synthesis of cultural heredity and cultural environment are blended to form some sense of continued identity.That American Jews are in the process of confronting the transformative characteristics of globalization renders all the more timely the penetrating analyses in Sylvia Barack Fishman's latest work. Her book, the sixth in a series of monographs entitled American Jewish Society in the 1990s, and based on the National Jewish Population Survey of 1990 conducted by the Council of Jewish Federations, focuses on the social psychology of the Jewish community of the United States and its adaptation to the manifold changes in American life. Fundamentally this adaptation moves between two poles, on the one hand that of compartmentalization of the Jewish cultural heritage, in the fullest sense of the concept, and the novelties of American life, which, as the author recognizes, is increasingly influenced by the contributions of Jews, and on the other, a coalescence between the two, at different levels to be sure for both individuals and groups.For her study, Fishman has marshaled a breathtaking abundance of quantitative and qualitative cultural data covering the most important data of contemporary American Jewish life. Her book is divided into an introductory section, which provides a thorough explanation of her methodology, and eight numbered chapters, each devoted to a major dimension of American Jewish life. These chapters deal with issues such as the coalescence of American and Jewish values; the occupational and educational patterns of American Jews; the varieties of Jewish educational instruction and achievement; the expanded contours of the American Jewish family; American Jewish religious observance within and outside the home; and the implications of the involvement or non-involvement of Jews in Jewish organizations.Each of these areas embraces a tapestry of interconnected corollary studies that probe into every significant comer of American Jewish life. These studies enable the author to dilate upon such varied issues as the role of coalescence, as witnessed, inter alia, in the conflation of contemporary secular ecological ideology with traditional Jewish beliefs and the incorporation of egalitarianism in Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jewish practice; Jewish occupational achievement and the consequently changing nature of the Jewish labor force; the role of secular education in the reinforcement of Jewish cohesiveness; the increased political involvement of Jews in American life; the shifting emphases and disparities in Jewish education in various segments of the Jewish community; the modes of self-identification of secularized Jews, often through their participation in Jewish organizations; the increasing significance of women in Jewish education and scholarship, and, in general, the growing influence of women and feminism in American Jewish life; the impact on the Jewish family and community of two-career households, single parent households, abusive households, lesbian and gay households, the rising tides of divorce and intermarriage, the "segmented religious identity" of the children of mixed marriages, and the distinctive needs and lifestyle accommodations of the growing segment of our elderly population. …


This article explores the expression of placement and removal events in Moroccan Arabic, particularly the semantic features of 'putting' and 'taking' verbs, classified in accordance with their combination with Goal and/or Source NPs. Moroccan Arabic verbs encode a variety of components of placement and removal events, including containment, attachment, features of the figure, and trajectory. Furthermore, accidental events are distinguished from deliberate events either by the inherent semantics of predicates or denoted syntactically. The postures of the Figures, in spite of some predicates distinguishing them, are typically not specified as they are in other languages, such as Dutch. Although Ground locations are frequently mentioned in both source-oriented and goal-oriented clauses, they are used more often in goal-oriented clauses.


The purpose of this study was to describe registered nurses' (RNs') perceptions of factors influencing care for patients in the palliative phase of end-stage heart failure (ESHF). Seventeen senior RNs across 3 acute care and 5 community centres in metropolitan Adelaide, Australia, participated in the study. In this descriptive, exploratory research project, we analyzed audiotaped indepth, semistructured interviews, using a computer-assisted (NVIVO) thematic procedure. According to participants, the care of patients with ESHF is dominated by a focus on symptom management and optimal pharmacologic therapies, with a perceived deficit in other aspects of palliative management. Key mitigating factors against quality palliative care for this population included the difficulty in recognising ESHF and reluctance by physicians to negotiate end-of-life decisions. In the acute care sector, nurses believed ESHF was medicalized and characterized by paternalistic care, with treatment generally curative to the last breath. Nursing care and patient advocacy were also negatively influenced by a lack of awareness in patients and families concerning the inevitability of death in ESHF until the last few days or hours before death. Involvement of the palliative care team was often an afterthought rather than an integral component of care. Nurses in acute care settings embraced the concept of a multidisciplinary team approach, but stressed the need for the cardiac team to be the overall coordinator of care for the ESHF population. Care of patients with ESHF should promote the amalgamation of technological and pharmaceutical advances in the treatment of heart failure with more timely end-of-life care. All involved parties must work toward advancing a common middle ground for appropriate end-of-life care for patients with ESHF. Recommendations for practice include the need for greater education for patients and their families and greater collaboration between the members of the multidisciplinary healthcare team to assist patients with ESHF and their families prepare more timely for the final trajectory of the illness.


We present detailed design considerations and performance of a singly resonant cw mode-locked optical parametric oscillator based on KTiOPO4. The oscillator is synchronously pumped by 2.2-ps, 1.064-μm pulses at a 75-MHz repetition rate with 4-W average power generated by temporal compression of pulses from a lamp-pumped mode-locked Nd:YAG laser. We obtained output pulses 2-3 ps long with hundreds of milliwatts of average power from 1.57 to 1.59 μm in the signal branch and from 3.21 to 3.30 μm in the idler branch. At three times above threshold we measured the pulse width of the 1.573-μm signal to be ~2.8 ps, and the corresponding spectral width was ~1.5 nm, indicating that the time–bandwidth product is 0.51. The total conversion efficiency as measured by the pump-pulse depletion is 15%. With active stabilization of the pump laser, the amplitude fluctuation of the oscillator is <15% peak to peak.


Thanks to their massive computational power and their SIMT computational model, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have been successfully used to accelerate a wide variety of regular applications (linear algebra, stencil computations, image processing and bioinformatics algorithms, among others). However, many established and emerging problems are based on irregular data structures, such as graphs. Examples can be drawn from different application domains: networking, social networking, machine learning, electrical circuit modeling, discrete event simulation, compilers, and computational sciences. It has been shown that irregular applications based on large graphs do exhibit runtime parallelism; moreover, the amount of available parallelism tends to increase with the size of the datasets. In this work, we explore an implementation space for deploying a variety of graph algorithms on GPUs. We show that the dynamic nature of the parallelism that can be extracted from graph algorithms makes it impossible to find an optimal solution. We propose a runtime system able to dynamically transition between different implementations with minimal overhead, and investigate heuristic decisions applicable across algorithms and datasets. Our evaluation is performed on two graph algorithms: breadth-first search and single-source shortest paths. We believe that our proposed mechanisms can be extended and applied to other graph algorithms that exhibit similar computational patterns.


We propose to solve the combinatorial problem of nding the highest scoring Bayesian network structure from data. This structure learning problem can be viewed as an inference problem where the variables specify the choice of parents for each node in the graph. The key combinatorial diculty arises from the global constraint that the graph structure has to be acyclic. We cast the structure learning problem as a linear program over the polytope dened by valid acyclic structures. In relaxing this problem, we maintain an outer bound approximation to the polytope and iteratively tighten it by searching over a new class of valid constraints. If an integral solution is found, it is guaranteed to be the optimal Bayesian network. When the relaxation is not tight, the fast dual algorithms we develop remain useful in combination with a branch and bound method. Empirical results suggest that the method is competitive or faster than alternative exact methods based on dynamic programming.