Climate change through altering the hydrologic regime would affect water supply in various parts of the world. Dry regions of Canada, such as the semi-arid Prairies, would be affected harder under the project climate change scenarios. This chapter reviews water availability and demand for the province of Saskatchewan, located in the semi-arid region of Canada. Implications of climate change for value of water and other socio-economic issues are also identifi ed. In the study region, it is inevitable that climate change would bring forth lower water availability, change in the seasonality of precipitation and its form, higher water demand for agricultural production plus other related implications. The latter type of implications may include health impacts, regional and local confl icts, and interregional migration of people. Under the future water stress levels, it is imperative that integrated water management, including demand management, is undertaken. Although climate change may be a factor that would affect future water resources, equally important are factors such as population, technology, people's attitude about water use and wastage.


In multibeam satellite systems, there is a growing need for signal processing techniques able to mitigate the interference among beams, since they could enable a much more aggressive spectrum reuse. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the absence of perfect Channel State Information (CSI) at the receiver end of the multibeam satellite return link. Under the assumption of a large number of beams, random matrix theory tools are used to obtain closed-form expressions of the performance for a given channel matrix and different profiles of estimation errors.


In The Death Camps of Croatia , Raphael Israeli shows that throughout Yugoslavia during World War II, anti-semitism was both deeply rooted and widespread. Israeli distills fact and historical record from accusation and grievance, noting that seventy years later, the gap in research and the collection of data, memoirs and oral histories has become almost irreparable. This volume meets the challenge, basing its conclusions on evidence from participants from the period. The battle between the Serbs and the Croats is not likely to be settled any time soon. Both sides have accused the other of the wrongdoings that everyone knows occurred. While the German Nazis, Croat Ustasha, Serbian collaborators, Cetnicks and Bosnian Hanjar recruits are often seen as the wrongdoers, there were individuals who helped the Jews, hid them at great risk, and enabled them to survive. These people absorbed the Jews in their own ranks, and gave them the means to fight; they were the only people who helped the Jews. This volume is not about judging one side or the other; it is about acknowledging the evil all sides inflicted upon the Jewish minority in their midst. Serbs, Muslims and Croats continue to dominate the ex-Yugoslavian scene. It has been their arena of battle for centuries, while the flourishing Jewish minority culture in that area has all but come to a historical standstill and has almost completely vanished. Yet the struggle over the historical record continues.


Biological interactions between organisms have long been believed to be very important in structuring communities and, when scaled up over geological time, in the evolution of organisms. Investigations of palaeontological evidence for predator–prey interactions have been popular pursuits, and a number of attractive hypotheses have been proposed which link increased predation pressure with a wide range of morphological and ecological changes which are apparent over the course of the Phanerozoic. In particular studies of fossil drill holes and repair scars in shelly prey have been common targets for research. However, the nature of some of our data has been rather anecdotal and restricted in range. Perhaps we should be more concerned that we are not picking up the true range of natural variability. This paper aims to highlight the sources of variability in our data and, going forward, to urge the collection of quantitative data from many more samples and (palaeo)environmental settings in order that we might properly be able to separate the intrinsic natural variability in our data from robust temporal or spatial trends.


Fair representation learning is an attractive approach that promises fairness of downstream predictors by encoding sensitive data. Unfortunately, recent work has shown that strong adversarial predictors can still exhibit unfairness by recovering sensitive attributes from these representations. In this work, we present Fair Normalizing Flows (FNF), a new approach offering more rigorous fairness guarantees for learned representations. Specifically, we consider a practical setting where we can estimate the probability density for sensitive groups. The key idea is to model the encoder as a normalizing flow trained to minimize the statistical distance between the latent representations of different groups. The main advantage of FNF is that its exact likelihood computation allows us to obtain guarantees on the maximum unfairness of any potentially adversarial downstream predictor. We experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of FNF in enforcing various group fairness notions, as well as other attractive properties such as interpretability and transfer learning, on a variety of challenging real-world datasets.


Niamh Greene's new novel "Coco's Secret" is a deeply moving reinvention story that will be enjoyed by fans of the modern day fairytales of Cecelia Ahern. Throw in Niamh's unique brand of heart-warming storytelling and readers are in for a real treat. Coco Swan has always been embarrassed by her name. With a name like Coco, she thinks people expect her to be as exotic and glamorous as the famous designer, not an ordinary-looking small-town antiques dealer who could win an award for living cautiously. But when a vintage Chanel handbag turns up in a box of worthless bric-a-brac, Coco's quiet world is turned upside down. Where did it come from? And is it just coincidence that it's the same bag Coco's late mother always wanted for her? When Coco discovers a mysterious, decades-old letter hidden in the bag's lining, she sets off on a quest to piece together the story behind it, stumbling across secrets that span three generations as she goes. Could the beautiful Chanel bag be about to teach Coco more than she wants to learn? Or will it show her just where her heart can take her if she lets it lead the way? "Coco's Secret" is a gripping and thoroughly satisfying story about a young women finally finding courage to become the kind of woman she always had it in her to be. It will go straight to readers' hearts just like her previous bestselling novels, including the bestselling and award-nominated "Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife". Her other novels are "Confessions of a Demented Housewife", "Lessons from a Love Rat", "Rules for a Perfect Life" and "A Message to Your Heart".


Researching and designing Internet infrastructure solutions in rural and tribal contexts requires reciprocal relationships between researchers and community partners. Methodologies must be meaningful amid local social textures of life. Achieving transdisciplinarity while relating research impacts to partner communities takes care work, particularly where technical capacity is scarce. The Full Circle Framework is an action research full stack development methodology that foregrounds reciprocity among researchers, communities, and sovereign Native nations as the axis for research purpose and progress. Applying the framework to deploy television white space infrastructure in sovereign Native nations in northern New Mexico reveals challenges for rural computing, including the need to design projects according to the pace of rural and tribal government workflows, cultivate care as a resource for overworked researchers and community partners, and co-create a demand for accurate government data around Internet infrastructures in Indian Country and through rural counties.


Cell-free prepns. from ferrous ion- and sulfur-grown T. ferrooxidans prepd. under neutral (pH 7.5) or acidic conditions (pH 2.0) were compared. Under neutral conditions, the ferrous ion-oxidizing system of T. ferrooxidans was membrane-bound. At acidic conditions, the enzyme system became partially solubilized. In ferrous ion-oxidizing membranes of ferrous ion-grown cells (neutral conditions) a1-, c- and b-type cytochromes were present. The acidic prepns. contained only cytochrome a1 and c. At least 3 acid-stable c-type cytochromes (Mr 60,000, 30,000 and 25,000), an acid-stable protein with non-covalently bound heme group (Mr 20,000), and an acid-stable protein (Mr 16,000), probably rusticyanin, were detected in ferrous ion oxidizing prepns. Membranes of sulfur-grown cells prepd. under neutral conditions still oxidized ferrous ions, and contained a1-, b-, c- and in addn. an aa3-type cytochrome. Cytochrome b and aa3 were acid-labile.


Drawing on examples from human mobility research, I argue in this article that the advent of big data has significantly increased the role of algorithms in mediating the geographic knowledge production process. This increased centrality of algorithmic mediation introduces much more uncertainty to the geographic knowledge generated when compared to traditional modes of geographic inquiry. This article reflects on important changes in the geographic knowledge production process associated with the shift from using traditional "small data" to using big data and explores how computerized algorithms could considerably influence research results. I call into question the much touted notion of data-driven geography, which ignores the potentially significant influence of algorithms on research results, and the fact that knowledge about the world generated with big data might be more an artifact of the algorithms used than the data itself. As the production of geographic knowledge is now far more dependent on computerized algorithms than before, this article asserts that it is more appropriate to refer to this new kind of geographic inquiry as algorithm-driven geographies (or algorithmic geographies) rather than data-driven geography. The notion of algorithmic geographies also foregrounds the need to pay attention to the effects of algorithms on the content, reliability, and social implications of the geographic knowledge these algorithms help generate. The article highlights the need for geographers to remain attentive to the omissions, exclusions, and marginalizing power of big data. It stresses the importance of practicing critical reflexivity with respect to both the knowledge production process and the data and algorithms used in the process.


This paper explores the degradation of a model pollutant, 2-(4-thiazolyl) benzimidazole by electrochemical process. The degradation of the real Agricola effluent is followed by COD abatement and UV spectroscopy. The electrochemical oxidation of fungicide thiabendazole has been studied on boron doped diamond (BDD) electrodes on acid medium by bulk electrolysis. The influence of several operating parameters, such as applied current density, effect of electrolytes (NaCl), effect of concentration and effect of temperature was investigated. UV spectroscopy and chemical oxygen demand measurements were conducted to study the reaction kinetics of thiabendazole mineralization. The results showed that the rate of the electrooxidation increases with increasing current density and decreasing NaCl. The overall results indicated that BDD electrode exhibited the best performance.


Removing natural gas from subsurface bedrock by the process of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," can lead to several environmental harms that are dangerous to human health. Some of these harms have the potential to create externalities beyond the border of the state in which the fracking occurs. Because fracking is not yet federally regulated, regulation of these externalities is at the discretion of the individual states. Piecemeal state regulation often results in regulatory gaps and ignored interstate externalities, as there is no federal body to offer oversight and the states are mostly interested in what goes on within their own borders. The doctrine of common law public nuisance has been used throughout history to counteract regulatory gaps caused by fragmented state regulations. This Note argues that common law public nuisance can be similarly used by states in order to control interstate externalities arising from fracking. The remedies provided by courts in public nuisance suits are equitable, and sometimes compel the defendant state to impose some sort of regulatory control to address the externalities. By requesting these remedies in equity from the courts, states can compel their neighbors to more adequately regulate fracking.


SUMMARY: The red and blue shrimp, Aristeus antennatus, inhabits deep shelf waters in the Mediterranean Sea, where the shallower portion of its distribution supports a large commercial fishery. Recent prospecting surveys in the western Mediterranean have detected virgin stocks dwelling at more than 1000 m, but the extent of gene flow between the exploited shallowdwelling stock and the deep-dwelling stock is unknown. To investigate the genetic structure of the population and estimate the depth component of gene flow, a portion of the mitochondrial DNA 16S gene (547 pb) was sequenced for 321 individuals from four different depths (350, 700, 1100 and 1500 m) at a location in the Catalan Sea. Haplotype and nucleotide diversity values were low and did not significantly differ across depths. Analysis of molecular variance showed no significant genetic differences between depths. Mismatch distribution and neutrality tests indicated that A. antennatus has undergone recent demographic expansion in the two shallowest layers. Our results suggest that the species is genetically structured as a sort of metapopulation in which gene flow that occurs during the larval and juvenile stages, when larvae are carried downstream and juveniles are carried upstream by cascading, plays an important role in the resilience of the exploited layers.


Detection of urban objects in very high resolution (VHR) satellite imagery is challenging due to the similarities in the spectral and textural characteristics of urban land cover classes. Therefore, additional information such as elevation data is required for a proper classification. In this study, instead of LiDAR data, elevation information generated from satellite stereo images is used to assist the urban land cover classification in VHR imagery. RPCs are used to generate the elevation information. The classification process is performed using a fuzzy inference rule based system. This method is tested on GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 satellite imagery. Preliminary results suggest that urban land cover classification is substantially improved by adopting elevation information from the stereo imagery, after it is transferred to the image domain.


Cholesterol plays an important role during brain development, since it is involved in glial cell proliferation, neuronal survival and differentiation, and synaptogenesis. Astrocytes produce large amounts of brain cholesterol and produce and release lipoproteins containing apoE that can extract cholesterol from CNS cells for elimination. We hypothesized that some of the deleterious effects of ethanol in the developing brain may be due to the disruption of cholesterol homeostasis in astrocytes. This study investigates the effect of ethanol on cholesterol efflux mediated by ATP-binding cassette (ABC) cholesterol transporters. In fetal rat astrocytes in culture, ethanol caused a concentration-dependent increase in cholesterol efflux and increased the levels of ABCA1 starting at 25 mm. Similar effects of ethanol on cholesterol efflux and ABCA1 were also observed in fetal human astrocytes. In addition, ABCA1 levels were increased in the brains of 7-day-old pups treated for 3 days with 2, 4, or 6 g/kg ethanol. Ethanol also increased apoE release from fetal rat astrocytes, and conditioned medium prepared from ethanol-treated astrocytes extracted more cholesterol than conditioned medium from untreated cells. In addition, ethanol increased the levels of another cholesterol transporter, ABCG1. Ethanol did not affect cholesterol synthesis and reduced the levels of intracellular cholesterol in rat astrocytes. Retinoic acid, which induces teratogenic effects similarly to ethanol, also caused up-regulation of ABCA1 and ABCG1.


Abstract Exploring patterns in the evolution of seed plant reproductive morphology within a functional context offers a framework in which to identify and evaluate factors that potentially drive reproductive evolution. Conifers are a particularly useful group for studies of this kind because they have a long geologic history and their reproductive organs are borne on separate structures with discrete functions. Multivariate analysis of morphological data collected from pollen-producing and seed-producing cones of Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and extant conifer species shows that seed cones underwent a significant expansion of morphological diversity that began during the Early–Middle Jurassic and has continued into the present day. In contrast, pollen cones show significantly lower levels of morphological diversity and exhibit similar basic morphologies throughout conifer evolutionary history. The increase in seed cone diversity through time is primarily the result of two novel structural and organizational features that evolved independently in different conifer families during the Mesozoic: robust, tightly packed cones in members of Araucariaceae, Cupressaceae sensu lato, and Pinaceae, and highly reduced, fleshy cones or solitary seeds in Podocarpaceae, Taxaceae, and some members of Cupressaceae sensu stricto. In extant conifers, these cone morphologies are associated with species that have strong interactions with vertebrate seed predators, seed dispersers, or a combination of both. This suggests that increases in the strength and complexity of biotic interactions in the Jurassic and Cretaceous were a primary driver of conifer reproductive evolution, and that patterns of character evolution relate to the increasing importance of cone tissue in seed protection and seed dispersal through time.


The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified a number of legislative good practices in Latin American asylum and refugee laws. At the same time, academics and policy-makers have long called for cross-regional comparative analyses of policies and laws to allow different regions to learn from each other's best practices. In this article, we compare refugee legislations of Latin American countries with European Union protection standards based on UNHCR's legislative good practices across three areas: (i) Core Principles and Scope of Protection; (ii) Procedural Safeguards and Guarantees for Vulnerable Groups; and (iii) Integration. We find that six of 19 refugee laws in Latin America provide more expansive protection than the Common European Asylum System framework, whereas other Latin American countries fall behind. The gap between Latin American legislations and European Union protection standards is closer regarding procedural safeguards, the protection of vulnerable groups, and integration provisions. Finally, Latin American countries, on average, score significantly below the European Union regarding the core principles of asylum and the scope of protection. In the second part of the article, we engage in a qualitative discussion of these legislative good practices to allow for cross-fertilization, and deliver policy recommendations.


Bone morphogenic protein-4 (BMP4) and fibroblast growth factor-8 (FGF8) are thought to have opposite roles in defining epithelial versus neurogenic fate in the developing olfactory/vomeronasal system. In particular, FGF8 has been implicated in specification of olfactory and gonadotropin releasing hormone-1 (GnRH) neurons, as well as in controlling olfactory stem cell survival. Using different knock-in mouse lines and Cre-lox-mediated lineage tracing, Fgf8 expression and cell lineage was analyzed in the developing nose in relation to the expression of Bmp4 and its antagonist Noggin (Nog). FGF8 is expressed by cells that acquire an epidermal, respiratory cell fate and not by stem cells that acquire neuronal olfactory or vomeronasal cell fate. Ectodermal and mesenchymal sources of BMP4 control the expression of BMP/TGFβ antagonist Nog, whereas mesenchymal sources of Nog define the neurogenic borders of the olfactory pit. Fgf8 hypomorph mouse models, Fgf8neo/neo and Fgf8neo/null, displayed severe craniofacial defects together with overlapping defects in the olfactory pit including (1) lack of neuronal formation ventrally, where GnRH neurons normally form, and (2) altered expression of Bmp4 and Nog, with Nog ectopically expressed in the nasal mesenchyme and no longer defining the GnRH and vomeronasal neurogenic border. Together our data show that (1) FGF8 is not sufficient to induce ectodermal progenitors of the olfactory pit to acquire neural fate and (2) altered neurogenesis and lack of GnRH neuron specification after chronically reduced Fgf8 expression reflected dysgenesis of the nasal region and loss of a specific neurogenic permissive milieu that was defined by mesenchymal signals.


An investigation on the periodontal disease profile and its treatment implications was conducted on a sample of 12-year-old Swazi schoolchildren of the Kingdom of Swaziland using the CPITN index. Only 1.9 per cent of the pupils in the sample were free of periodontal disease and 64.5 per cent had calculus. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the frequency of calculus accumulation between rural and urban pupils. The mean number of sextants with bleeding and calculus was 4.9 and 2.0 respectively while 98.1 per cent of the pupils required TN1 and 65.4 per cent TN2. It would appear that calculus accumulation occurs at a relatively early age amongst children in Swaziland. Moderately trained dental auxiliaries should constitute the backbone of the primary oral health care service in Swaziland.


I. Background Like many of his predecessors, Richard Wilhelm was a Protestant missionary and a sinologue. In modern history, however, Catholic missionaries were the first to enter China, and the first translation of the Confucian canon was published by Pere Philippe Couplet, Confucius Sinarum Philosophus. (1) However, the Catholic reception of Confucianism practically ceased with the Chinese Rites Controversy, which ended in 1742. The dissolution of the Jesuit Order forty years later did not help the matter either, and so the Western world had to wait for more than a century before the Protestant reception occurred. In 1861, the first volume of James Legge's The Chinese Classics was published in Hong Kong. (2) The last volume came out in 1872. It was the first time that the complete Chinese classical canonical works were rendered into a European language and, consequently, set the standard for all subsequent renditions. Legge was a Protestant missionary who pursued sinological studies, while as "le Legge francais," (3) Seraphin Couvreur, who translated and published Les Quatre Livres, was a Catholic missionary. (4) Translation involves interpretation, which is more an art than an exact science. The subject--that is, the translator--interprets a given text and renders it into his or her own language. The farther apart the linguistic and cultural background of the two entities are, the more subjective the process of interpretation. After all, we all interpret the world, ourselves and the others, from our own acquired perspectives, be they conditioned by our personal experiences or our cultural heritage. Perfect objectivity is as elusive as beauty, existing only in the eyes of the beholder. Invariably, value judgment based on our own view slips in. Similarly, there is no perfect balance between a missionary and a sinologue. One element becomes predominant. In the case of Legge, he was a Protestant missionary first and judged Confucianism from the Christian perspective, as we shall see. He, of course, thought he was objective, taking the middle position between extreme panegyrics (for example, Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Pauthier) and negative critique (that is, the position taken in the Chinese Repository). (5) Richard Wilhelm can be considered a "German Legge." Michael Lackner seemed to entertain this idea when he wrote, "In terms of quantity" Wilhelm's "work can only be compared to the accomplishments of James Legge." Although Lackner did not compare the quality of their respective translations, he did point out the major difference: "Legge, however, did not feel compelled to 'love China' (he maintained a good deal of sometimes rather malevolent skepticism), whereas Richard Wilhelm displayed a commitment to China that was almost without reserve." (6) This comparison merits substantiation. Therefore, in the present essay, we shall first present Legge's position before studying Wilhelm's reception of Confucianism. As a conclusion, we shall compare and contrast Wilhelm's concept with Max Weber's critique of Confucianism. Thus, we may get a clear picture of Wilhelm's (1873-1930) position in light of his time, for Legge (1815-97) and Weber (1864-1920) are both his predecessors and his contemporaries. II James Legge Let us first examine Legge's fundamental position toward Confucianism. He commented: Confucianism is not antagonistic to Christianity, as Buddhism and Brah-manism are. It is not atheistic like the former, nor pantheistic like the lat-ter. It is, however, a system whose issues are bounded by the East and by time; and though missionaries try to acknowledge what is good in it, and to use it as not abusing it, they cannot avoid sometimes seeming to pull down Confucius from his elevation. They cannot set forth the Gospel as the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation, and proclaim the supreme love of God and of Christ, without deploring the want of any deep sense of sin, and of any glow of piety in the followers of the Chinese sage. …


It is known that a newly formed glass container will only possess a very small
fraction of its theoretical strength. This suggests that damage occurs on the surface
of the glass melt during the forming process due to glass to mould contact and hot
glass handling. It might be expected that any damage inflicted on the surface of a
glass article during manufacture would heal at the elevated manufacturing
temperatures used, however this does not appear to be true. Therefore, the actual
mechanism by which glass strength is reduced during forming needs to be fully
understood and the work presented in this thesis addresses this problem.
Experiments, therefore, have been carried out here which simulate the formation
of glass articles using an experimental pressing rig by systematically altering
processing parameters such as the mould material, surface fmish of the mould,
pressing temperature and atmosphere. Processing parameters that are used
industrially for the formation of glass containers were generally reproduced
wherever possible in order to investigate the glass-to-mould interaction.
The interaction of both a cast iron mould material and carbon-carbon composite
materials with a soda-lime-silica glass were examined using the techniques of
scanning electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force
microscopy in order to determine the type and extent of surface damage formed. The surfaces of the pressed glass samples made were found to contain defects of
embedded particles and indented dimples. The embedded particles found were
usually due to bulk material transfer from the plunger material used. The texture
found on the surface of the pressed glass samples was found to be directly affected
by the surface fmish of the plunger. Pressing glass samples using a cast iron
plunger at an initial plunger temperature below 450°C resulted in a randomly
rippled 'chilled' surface. As the initial temperature of the plunger was increased,
the surface texture of the pressed glass became a closer replica of the plunger
surface. The use of vacuum assistance to form the glass samples also resulted in
the surface of the pressed glass becoming a closer replica of the original plunger
surface, even at lower pressing temperatures.
The surfaces of the cast iron and carbon-carbon composite plungers appeared to
have been affected by the initial plunger temperatures used. As the initial pressing
temperature was increased, the amount of oxidation for both material types
increased. In the case of the carbon-carbon composite materials investigated, both
the matrix and fibres were found to have broken down at the pressing
temperatures used.
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, of the pressed glass surfaces and the plunger
materials indicated that sodium ions had migrated from the glass melt to the
plunger surface during forming.


ABSTRACT In the present paper, we carry out a deep analysis of the functional anatomy of the long bones of the fossil, wolverine-sized mustelid Ischyrictis zibethoides (Blainville, 1841) in comparison with that of several extant related species. The study reveals that this animal lacked specific adaptations for either climbing or running, probably being a terrestrial predator that foraged mostly on the ground. Thus, some features of the anatomy of its long bones suggests that I. zibethoides required a strong control of those articulations involved in terrestrial locomotion, such as the elbow or the coxofemoral joint. Besides this, the gentle caudal inclination of the ulna resembles the morphology exhibited by typical cursorial carnivorans, whereas the absence of lateral torsion in the olecranon suggests flexion-extension movements of the elbow in a parasagittal plane. Other small details, such as the small attachment area for the m. biceps brachii, points towards a general adaptation to terrestrial locomotion. Besides this, another set of features, shared with extant small arboreal mustelids, probably indicates a primitive, retained morphology from arboreal ancestors, rather than climbing abilities, although is very likely that I. zibethoides would be able to climb trees with some skill looking for food or shelter.


Published In World Libraries Document Type Post-Print Publication Date 1-1-2003 Subjects Cuba, Cuban Library Association Abstract The past few years have seen a marked increase in the level of interest about libraries in Cuba. Twelve years ago, a rare glimpse was given in an American Libraries article which piqued some peoples interest, but travel restrictions at that time left many interested in visiting but having no way to do so. However, a relaxing of travel restrictions under the Clinton administration permitted "people to people" and cultural exchanges, thus allowing more people to get a look at this country through formal tours. Several successful library tours were organized and led by people such as Rhonda Neugebauer from U.C. Riverside, Susan Weber from Vancouver, B.C., and Joyce Holmes of Friendship Tours (also from Vancouver B.C.). Much of the impetus for the organization of these tours, was in fact a reaction to several writings and e-mail posts by Robert Kent, of the "Friends of Cuban Libraries" who made multiple claims of harassment and imprisonment of so-called "Independent Librarians" in Cuba. This controversy also led to a "fact-finding" tour by a joint ALA/IFLA group in May of 2001. Much has already been written about this issue, and while it is not the focus of this report, it is an important background note for those who may wonder why some of us are so interested in this small island nation to our south. Many fine articles have also been written about libraries and the library profession in Cuba. While the tours led during 2000-2002 provided incredible experiences for all who participated in them, an opportunity to engage with our library colleagues on a deeper level presented itself in 2001. When the INFO 2002 conference was announced, the organizers extended a warm invitation for North American librarians to submit papers for consideration. Following this conference, several of us were invited back to participate in the second ASCUBI (Cuban Library Association) Congress in 2003. I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in both of these conferences, and what follows is a brief report on each. Description NOTICE: This is the author's version of a work accepted for publication. The final publication is available at World Libraries (http://www.worlib.org/) Persistent Identifier http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/8457 Citation Details Siegel, Gretta E., "A Tale of Two Conferences – Cuba Style" (2003). Library Faculty Publications and Presentations. 59. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/ulib_fac/59  Download


This important work considers in detail the changes in the forms and responsibilities of the corporate form. It will develop and deepen the reader's understanding of the key concepts involved and analyse the contemporary debates regarding the significance and influence of the evolving company. The text aims to promote awareness of the changing environment in which business decisions are made and implemented. There is in-depth consideration of the philosophical and institutional basis of business incorporation, and the need for legitimacy, accountability and long-term sustainability are also discussed. Finally, a possible proactive approach to operating within the changing business environment is outlined.
The book is written for postgraduate students on business and management courses.


Symmetrical diarylalkynes were obtained from propiolic acid (or 2-butynedioic acid) and aryl halides in good yields. The optimized reaction conditions were 2.0 equiv of aryl halide, 1.0 equiv of propiolic acid, 5.0 mol % Pd(PPh(3))(2)Cl(2), 10.0 mol % 1,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)butane (dppb), 2.0 equiv of 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene (DBU), and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as the solvent. The coupling reaction of 2-butynedioic acid with aryl halides required 110 °C. The coupling reaction showed tolerance for functional groups such as ester, ketone, and aldehyde and exhibited chemoselectivity. In the coupling reaction of propiolic acid with aryl bromide, the diarylated product was the major one at 80 °C, even though 1 equiv of aryl halides was employed. However, among the monoarylated products that were formed predominantly at 25 and 50 °C in the coupling reaction with aryl iodide, more Sonogashira coupling product was obtained than the decarboxylative coupling product. Unsymmetrical diarylalkynes were also synthesized via this method, in which all reagents, including propiolic acid, aryl iodide, and aryl bromides were added at the beginning of the reaction.


Composing software is notoriously difficult, especially when it is concurrent. Two fine-grained locked operations may for instance easily deadlock upon composition. One of the most appealing features of transactions is, on the other hand, that they compose. Indeed they do so, but only in their original, orthodox, form. As we discuss in the paper, as soon as we slightly relax the model to enable more concurrency, we incur the risk of breaking encapsulation.


Background: Only limited data concerning hepatitis B (HBV) and C viruses (HCV) coinfection are available. Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) may be more effective for HCV clearance than interferon (IFN)-based regimens with a risk of HBV reactivation. Methods: We retrospectively enrolled 40 HBV/HCV-coinfected patients to evaluate their clinical profile and treatment outcomes. Results: Chronic dual infection was present in 25/40 (62.5%) patients, acute HCV superinfection in 5/40 (12.5%) patients and acute HBV superinfection in 10/40 (25%). Twenty-five patients (62.5%) were treated: 16/25 (64%) with IFN, 4/25 (16%) with nucleot(s)ide analogs (NUCs) and 5/25 (20%) with DAAs. Of the 16 patients treated with IFN-based therapy, 6 (37.5%) achieved both sustained virological response (SVR) and HBsAg clearance. Of the 4 patients treated with NUCs, one (25%) achieved both SVR and HBsAg clearance. All five patients treated with DAAs (100%) achieved SVR, while one case of HBV reactivation was recorded. Fifteen of the 40 patients (37.5%) did not receive any treatment. Eight of them (53.5%) presented with acute HBV superinfection: spontaneous HCV clearance was recorded in 5/8 (62.5%), while HBsAg clearance occurred in 6/8 (75%). Three of them (20%) presented with acute HCV superinfection; spontaneous HCV clearance was recorded in one of the three (33.5%). The other four patients (26.5%) presented with dual HBV/HCV infection. Conclusions: A significant proportion of patients presented with active HBV replication. Treatment with DAAs seems to be efficacious for HCV eradication. However, clinicians should be aware of HBV reactivation. HBV superinfection may lead to both HBsAg and HCV clearance.


A new computation framework (BIOMOD: BIOdiversity MODelling) is presented, which aims to maximize the predictive accuracy of current species distributions and the reliability of future potential distributions using different types of statistical modelling methods. BIOMOD capitalizes on the different techniques used in static modelling to provide spatial predictions. It computes, for each species and in the same package, the four most widely used modelling techniques in species predictions, namely Generalized Linear Models (GLM), Generalized Additive Models (GAM), Classification and Regression Tree analysis (CART) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). BIOMOD was applied to 61 species of trees in Europe using climatic quantities as explanatory variables of current distributions. On average, all the different modelling methods yielded very good agreement between observed and predicted distributions. However, the relative performance of different techniques was idiosyncratic across species, suggesting that the most accurate model varies between species. The results of this evaluation also highlight that slight differences between current predictions from different modelling techniques are exacerbated in future projections. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the reliability of alternative projections without validation techniques or expert opinion. It is concluded that rather than using a single modelling technique to predict the distribution of several species, it would be more reliable to use a framework assessing different models for each species and selecting the most accurate one using both evaluation methods and expert knowledge.


The stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans (L.), has been considered one of the most serious biting flies of confined and pastured livestock. The economic losses caused by the stable fly to the cattle industry in the United States exceed $2 billion annually. Current practices for managing stable flies using insecticides provide only marginal control. Insecticide resistance has also been recently reported in stable flies. The present study reports the use of plant-based insecticides, for example, essential oils, as alternatives for managing this fly pest. The toxicity of several plant essential oils and selected ingredient compounds was evaluated by contact and fumigant toxicity bioassays. Catnip oil (20 mg dosage) showed the highest toxicity against stable flies, the shortest knock-down time (∼7 min), and the quickest lethal time (∼19 min). Toxicity levels similar to catnip oil were found among three insect repellent compounds (N,N-diethyl-3-methylbenzamide, 2-methylpiperidinyl-3-cyclohexene-1-carboxamide, (1S,2'S)-2-methylpiperidinyl-3-cyclohexene-1-carboxamide). No differences in knock-down and lethal times were found among the catnip oil and its two active ingredient compounds. Similar stable fly mortality was observed using a 20 mg dose of catnip oil in a modified K&D system and a fumigant jar. When catnip oil was topically applied to stable flies, the least lethal dose was 12.5 μg/fly, and a 50 μg/fly dose resulted in 100% mortality. The blood-feeding behavior of stable flies was also negatively affected by the topical application of catnip oil, and the effect was dose-dependent. This study demonstrated that catnip oil has both contact and fumigant toxicity against the stable fly and thus has the potential as an alternative for stable fly control.


Electoral competition is essential to democracy. Yet the incumbency rate in state-house legislative campaigns is nearly 95 percent. This report examines campaign contribution limits and the impact limits can have on electoral competition. The research on which this report is based was inspired by a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned low contribution limits. The data presented here refutes the Court's assumptions that low contribution limits damage challengers and shows that the lowest contribution limits, those set at $500 or below, enhance challengers' ability to campaign against incumbents in state legislative races. Though public financing systems also increase electoral competition, the Brennan Center's research suggests that incumbents nonetheless continue to opt for public financing systems. Of course, enhanced competition under low limits is only one factor to be considered. Competition, after all, is one key goal in electoral reform, but not the only one. We may wish also to encourage citizen participation and voter engagement. But if we are looking for reasons not to enact low limits, a deleterious impact on competition is not one of them. For this reason, the Supreme Court was wrong in Randall v. Sorrell. Our joint findings make it plain: low contribution limits and public financing substantially narrow the gap between incumbents and challengers. These reforms can be mutually enhancing as reasonable contribution limits are central to a well-functioning public financing system. Incumbency will continue to provide electoral advantages. However, decreasing the vote margins between votes cast for incumbents and their challengers signals greater electoral competiveness and, as such, strengthens democracy.


This study shows similarities between Daniel's and Revelation's structural combination of genres (narrative vision, prophecy-apocalyptic, epistle-vision), and explores similarities between their characterization of the central characters and of some divine figures. It analyzes the effect on structure of the distinctive outlook of each author: horizontally through history in Daniel and vertically upward in imminent expectation in John's vision. Part I deals with the genre, chronology and historicity of Daniel, and suggests a new approach to the problems of "mixed genre" and "historical errors," showing the literary unity binding Daniel's narratives and visions together. Part II discusses the prophetic, apocalyptic, and epistolary characteristics of the Book of Revelation and provides a literary analysis of the whole as a unified work of art. Part III analyzes Daniel and Revelation intertextually, focusing particularly on similarities in the structural and thematic unifying features of the works. There is also a consideration of the influence of each book on English literature.


This article identifies some of the multiple processes of capitalist development through which access to common property resources and their utility for communities are undermined. Three sites in upland Asia demonstrate how patterns of exclusion are mediated by the unique and selective trajectories through which capital expands, resulting in a decline of common property ecosystems. The process is mediated by economic stress, ecological degradation and political processes such as state-sanctioned enclosure. The first case study from Shaoguan, South China indicates how rapid capitalist industrialization has depleted the aquatic resource base, undermining the livelihoods of fishing households yet to be absorbed into the urban working class. At the second site, in Phu Yen, Vietnam, capitalist development is limited. However, indirect articulations between capitalism on the lowlands and the peasant economy of the uplands is driving the commercialization of agriculture and fishing and undermining the utility of communal river and lake ecosystems. In the third site, Buxa in West Bengal, India, there is only selective capitalist development, but patterns of resource extraction established during the colonial period and contemporary neoliberal 'conservation' agendas have directly excluded communities from forest resources. Restrictions on access oblige them to contribute subsidised labour to local enterprises. The article thus shows how communities which are differentially integrated into the global economy are excluded from natural resources through complex means.


The application for GIS advances the ability of data analysis on remote sensing image. The classification and distill of remote sensing image is the primary information source for GIS in LUCC application. How to increase the accuracy of classification is an important content of remote sensing research. Adding features and researching new classification methods are the ways to improve accuracy of classification. Ant colony algorithm based on mode framework defined, agents of the algorithms in nature-inspired computation field can show a kind of uniform intelligent computation mode. It is applied in remote sensing image classification is a new method of preliminary swarm intelligence. Studying the applicability of ant colony algorithm based on more features and exploring the advantages and performance of ant colony algorithm are provided with very important significance. The study takes the outskirts of Fuzhou with complicated land use in Fujian Province as study area. The multi-source database which contains the integration of spectral information (TM1-5, TM7, NDVI, NDBI) and topography characters (DEM, Slope, Aspect) and textural information (Mean, Variance, Homogeneity, Contrast, Dissimilarity, Entropy, Second Moment, Correlation) were built. Classification rules based different characters are discovered from the samples through ant colony algorithm and the classification test is performed based on these rules. At the same time, we compare with traditional maximum likelihood method, C4.5 algorithm and rough sets classifications for checking over the accuracies. The study showed that the accuracy of classification based on the ant colony algorithm is higher than other methods. In addition, the land use and cover changes in Fuzhou for the near term is studied and display the figures by using remote sensing technology based on ant colony algorithm. In addition, the land use and cover changes in Fuzhou for the near term is studied and display the figures by using remote sensing technology based on ant colony algorithm. The causes of LUCC have been analysed and some suggestions to the development of this region were proposed.


Smooth tracking and efficient reaching for moving objects require the ability to predict the velocity and trajectory of the object. This skill is important to be able to perceive human action and object motion in the world. This thesis explores early visual motor development in full term and preterm infants. Study I showed that horizontal eye tracking develops ahead of vertical (full term infants at 5, 7 and 9 months of age). The vertical component is also more affected when a second dimension is added during circular pursuit. It is concluded that different mechanisms appear to underlie vertical and horizontal eye movements Study II-IV compared the development of the ability to visually track and reach for moving objects in very preterm infants born <32 gestational weeks to healthy infants born at term. The development of horizontal smooth pursuit at 2 and 4 months of corrected age was delayed for the preterm group (Study II). Some infants were catching up whereas others were not improving at all. A question raised by the results was whether the delay was caused by specific injuries as a result of the prematurity. However, the delays persisted when all infants with known neonatal complications and infants born small for gestational age were excluded (Study III), indicating that they were caused by prematurity per se. At 8 months corrected age preterm and full term infants were equally good at aiming reaches and successfully catching a moving object. Nevertheless, the preterm group used a bimanual strategy more often and had a more jerky and circuitous path than the full term group (Study IV). In summary, preterm infants showed a delayed visual motor development compared to infants born at term. The results of these studies suggest that there is additional diffuse damage to the visual motor system that is not related to neonatal complications as diagnosed today. Measuring smooth pursuit could potentially be a new method for early non-invasive diagnosis of impaired visual function.


Environmental degradation can no longer be handled by means of traditional local remedies in the face of the current global environmental crisis. The author outlines specific ways to overcome the crisis through international means, obliging each individual nation to reduce its own hazardous production, while enjoining a collective effort to confront the challenge of global environmental deterioration. Only through policy-making based on the recognition of shared danger and international commitments to reduce damage can we achieve a shared moral responsibility for environmental protection.


Augmented reality technology has experienced great improvement in recent years and it has been successfully applied to industry and entertainment settings. However, its application in everyday contexts such as shopping is still very limited. One of the requirements to seamlessly incorporate augmented reality into everyday tasks is to find intuitive, natural methods to make use of it. Due to the inherent capabilities of augmented reality to work as a visual aid to explore and extend the knowledge a user has of the surroundings, this paper proposes the combination of AR technology and product advisors in a novel approach for product comparison. The user's awareness of the differences between multiple physically present objects is enhanced through virtual augmentations, supporting an intuitive way of comparing two or more products while shopping. To assess the validity of the concept, a prototype for an AR-based shopping assistant for comparing vacuum cleaners has been implemented and evaluated in a user study, testing different methods of visual comparison and interaction.


We developed a noninvasive rapid fluorimetric method for the investigation of growth of adhering (benthic) phototrophic microorganisms. The technique is based on the sensitive detection of the in vivo fluorescence of chlorophylls chlorophyll a and bacteriochlorophyll a and monitors increases in signal over time as an indicator for growth. The growth fluorimeter uses modulated excitation light of blue-light-emitting diodes and a photodiode as the detector. The light-emitting diodes are mounted geometrically in an aluminum housing for efficient and uniform illumination of the bottoms of the growth containers. The fluorimeter was characterized with respect to detection limit and dynamic range. This system is capable of resolving in vivo chlorophyll a concentrations of 0.5 (mu)g liter(sup-1) in cyanobacteria and 0.03 (mu)g liter(sup-1) in diatoms as well as in vivo bacteriochlorophyll a concentrations in phototrophic bacteria of 0.3 (mu)g liter(sup-1), which points to an extremely high sensitivity compared with that of similar available techniques. Thus, the new fluorimeter allows the determination of growth at extremely low cell densities. The instrument was used successfully to measure the growth of several adhering isolates of the filamentous cyanobacterium Microcoleus chthonoplastes from benthic microbial mats in seawater of different salinities. The data obtained demonstrate broad growth responses for all strains, which thus can be characterized as euryhaline organisms.


Culturally attuned marketing and consumer research theories suggest that commercial companies and marketplace cultures co-create value over time through co-constructing brand meanings. Existing research suggests that commercial retro marketers and historic brand marketplace cultures play disparate value creating roles. Despite this, their efforts seem to serve the same end; namely, sustaining a branded experience over time. In response to this anomaly, this paper offers a mythical-level framework for philosophically and empirically interpreting this phenomenon. It contends that survivalue creation and revivalue creation are two strategically discrete, ideologically antithetical, yet complementary cultural value creation processes which sustain brand experiences over time. Survivalue creation defines the cultural conservation process which strategically preserves historic brand experiences. Revivalue creation defines the cultural reproductive process which strategically revives historic brand experiences. Both strands of value creation form the essence of a brand's cultural DNA; the code which enables its functioning, development and reproduction over time.


Inverter dead-time effects have been investigated in detail in the past for three-phase drives supplied from a three-phase voltage source inverter (VSI). A similar study has never been conducted in conjunction with multi-phase (more than three phases) drives, supplied from multi-phase VSIs. Regardless of the type of ac machine and its number of phases, the power supply of the drive is typically a two-level VSI, which requires a method of PWM for its operation. If a multi-phase machine is with sinusoidal field distribution, the PWM technique must generate sinusoidal harmonic-free output voltages in order to avoid appearance of low-order stator current harmonics. Recently a great deal of research has concentrated on PWM methods suitable for multi-phase VSIs. All of these PWM methods theoretically produce sinusoidal output voltages with no low order harmonics. As a consequence, rotor flux oriented control of multi-phase ac machines with sinusoidal MMF distribution can be theoretically realised by using only two current controllers in the synchronous reference frame. The paper shows that despite using a PWM method that does not produce low-order harmonics, in practice they do appear in the output voltage, and consequently currents, of the multi-phase VSI. Simulation studies show that low-order harmonics are generated as a result of inverter dead-time and that the effect of such harmonics on a five-phase ac machine can be significant due to the low machine impedance presented to these harmonics. Experimental results collected from a five-phase induction motor drive laboratory prototype are presented which reinforce this hypothesis. The paper further suggests a modified current control scheme that is able to fully compensate inverter dead-time effect and thus provide practically perfect sinusoidal currents. The proposed current control scheme is validated via simulation and experimentally.


Cities are embedded within larger‐scale engineered infrastructures (e.g., electric power, water supply, and transportation networks) that convey natural resources over large distances for use by people in cities. The sustainability of city systems therefore depends upon complex, cross‐scale interactions between the natural system, the transboundary engineered infrastructures, and the multiple social actors and institutions that govern these infrastructures. These elements, we argue, are best studied in an integrated manner using a novel social‐ecological‐infrastructural systems (SEIS) framework. In the biophysical subsystem, the SEIS framework integrates urban metabolism with life cycle assessment to articulate transboundary infrastructure supply chain water, energy, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission footprints of cities. These infrastructure footprints make visible multiple resources (water, energy, materials) used directly or indirectly (embodied) to support human activities in cities. They inform cross‐scale and cross‐infrastructure sector strategies for mitigating environmental pollution, public health risks and supply chain risks posed to cities. In the social subsystem, multiple theories drawn from the social sciences explore interactions between three actor categories—individual resource users, infrastructure designers and operators, and policy actors—who interact with each other and with infrastructures to shape cities toward sustainability outcomes. Linking of the two subsystems occurs by integrating concepts, theories, laws, and models across environmental sciences/climatology, infrastructure engineering, industrial ecology, architecture, urban planning, behavioral sciences, public health, and public affairs. Such integration identifies high‐impact leverage points in the urban SEIS. An interdisciplinary SEIS‐based curriculum on sustainable cities is described and evaluated for its efficacy in promoting systems thinking and interdisciplinary vocabulary development, both of which are measures of effective frameworks.


While both India and Brazil are seriously affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, each country has chosen a different approach to providing affordable pharmaceutical treatment.Whereas the Indian government has paved the way for market-driven solutions, Brazilian public authorities are strongly involved in the research and production of HIV/AIDS medication. Brazilian regulations permit comprehensive and free provision of HIV/AIDS drugs, whereas the majority of the affected population in India does not receive adequate pharmaceutical treatment. To explain the different policy outputs, we draw on the developmental state literature. Efficient decisionmaking structures, a devoted bureaucracy,and effective policy instruments enable public authorities to provide public goods even in the context of relative scarcity.We show that the assumptions of developmental state theory have to be complemented by the assessment of civil society actors' potential to trigger governmental interventions in the market.


The relation between individual and society is very close. Essentially, "society" is the regularities, customs and ground rules of antihuman behavior. These practices are tremendously important to know how humans act and interact with each other. Society does not exist independently without individual. The individual lives and acts within society but society is nothing, in spite of the combination of individuals for cooperative effort. On the other hand, society exists to serve individuals—not the other way around. Human life and society almost go together. Man is biologically and psychologically equipped to live in groups, in society. Society has become an essential condition for human life to arise and to continue. The relationship between individual and society is ultimately one of the profound of all the problems of social philosophy. It is more philosophical rather than sociological because it involves the question of values. Man depends on society. It is in the society that an individual is surrounded and encompassed by culture, as a societal force. It is in the society again that he has to conform to the norms, occupy statuses and become members of groups. The question of the relationship between the individual and the society is the starting point of many discussions. It is closely connected with the question of the relationship of man and society. The relation between the two depends upon one fact that the individual and the society are mutually dependent, one grows with the help of the other. The aim of this paper is to show the questions: how a man is a social animal and how individual and society affect each other?


1. Ongoing intensification and fragmentation of European agricultural landscapes dramatically reduce biodiversity and associated functions. To sustain ecosystem services such as ant mediated pest control, the enhancement of perennial non-crop areas holds great potential. 2. To study the potential of newly established grasslands to enhance ant diversity and associated functions, we used hand collection data to investigate differences in ant community composition (a) between cereal crops, old grasslands, and new grassland transects of three years age; (b) depending on ant functional traits; and linked to (c) natural pest control services quantified through predation experiments. 3. Ant species richness did not significantly differ between new and old grasslands, but was significantly higher in grasslands compared to cereal crops. Contrary, ant community composition of new grasslands was more similar to cereal crops and distinct from the species-pool of old grasslands. The functional trait space covered by the ant communities overlapped between old and new grasslands but was extended in the old grasslands. Pest control did not differ significantly between habitat types, and therefore could not be linked to the prevalence of functional traits related to biocontrol services in new grasslands. 4. Our findings show trends of convergence between old and new grasslands, but also indicate that enhancing ant diversity through newly established grasslands takes longer than three years to provide comparable biodiversity and functions. 5. Synthesis and applications Newly established grasslands can increase ant species richness, abundance, and pest control in agroecosystems. However, three years after establishment, new grasslands were still dominated by common agrobiont ant species and lacked habitat specialists present in old grasslands, who require a constant supply of food resources and long colonization times. New grasslands represent a promising measure for enhancing agricultural landscapes but must be preserved in the longer term to sustain biodiversity and associated ecosystem services.


Identifying soon-to-be-popular items in web services offers important benefits. We attempt to identify users who can find prospective popular items. Such visionary users are called observers. By adding observers to a favorite user list, they act to find popular items in advance. To identify efficient observers, we propose a feature selection based framework. This uses a classifier to predict item popularity, where the input features are a set of users who adopted an item before others. By training the classifier with sparse and non-negative constraints, observers are extracted as users whose parameters take a non-zero value. In experiments, we test our approach using real social bookmark datasets. The results demonstrate that our approach can find popular items in advance more effectively than baseline methods.


. This year the task of the UvA Rescue Team is to break up the monolith architecture of the control architecture. On the one hand this will make the existing modules reusable by other researchers; on the other hand it opens the possibility to incorporate e(cid:14)cient modules from other research groups. A (cid:12)rst attempt will be to incorporate 3DTK - The 3D Toolkit which provides methods and algorithms to process 3D point clouds.


Synopsis The c. 58 Ma Ardnamurchan Central Complex represents the deeply eroded roots of an ancient volcanic edifice that purportedly formed during three discrete phases of igneous activity. Although only a relatively small component of the first phase of magmatism (Centre 1), the Glas Bheinn Porphyritic Dolerite provides important insights into igneous emplacement mechanisms and age relationships on Ardnamurchan. New field observations combined with anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility analyses, which allow primary magma flow patterns to be reconstructed, suggest that the Glas Bheinn Porphyritic Dolerite consists of numerous inclined sheet intrusions that, overall, have a flower intrusive structure. Vertically ascending sheets that do not appear to be related to the Centre 1 focus are proposed to have been deflected into the inclined sheets and sills by the load of the overlying volcanic edifice. Cross-cutting relationships further suggest that some sheets of the Glas Bheinn Porphyritic Dolerite are later than several Outer Centre 2 cone sheets. These observations suggest that the Glas Bheinn Porphyritic Dolerite cannot be attributed to Centre 1. Supplementary material: AMS block sample locations and magnetic data are available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18562


A generalized empirical approach to the problem of the prediction of intermittent lake ice cover for climate‐change studies is presented and applied to historical ice data from Muggelsee, a shallow lake in northern Germany that experiences either no ice cover, intermittent ice cover, or continuous ice cover, depending on the severity of the winter. The approach presented allows the total duration of ice cover in any winter to be estimated in terms of an air‐temperature probability function. Advantages over traditional empirical methods based on the mean air temperature during a fixed period or on the computed number of negative degree‐days are: (1) it is valid for both continuous and intermittent ice cover; (2) it is not necessary to specify a fixed time period for integration in advance; (3) the results emerge in time units, allowing them to be directly compared with the measured duration of ice cover without prior calibration; and (4) it is based on statistical properties of the ambient air temperature that are routinely forecast by climate models, making it easy to apply predictively. Regional climate model forecasts for northern Germany imply that for Muggelsee, the percentage of ice‐free winters will increase from ≪2% to over 60% by the end of the current century.


The Nordic Council of Ministers has set up the Nordic COP 15 Group to help achieve a successful outcome in the climate change negotiations at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. The Nordic COP 15 Group have identified key elements in the negotiations where efforts are needed to ensure a good outcome, i.e. adaptation to climate change, technolo-gy transfer, legal issues, sinks and deforestation. This report explore ways to adjust the current accounting rules on sinks into rules that would create better incen-tives for actively managing lands, in order to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and/ or to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Different proposals for the treatment of the LULUCF-sector (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector) are compared and analysed.


Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are well suited for trading in student-managed investment funds (SMIFs). Unlike other forms of security selection, ETF trading provides efficient trading of portfolios by asset classes, subclasses, investment style, countries, regions, and sectors. The learning experience from trading ETFs based on global macroeconomic themes enhances the learning experience of economics students by requiring application of macroeconomics, industrial organization, international economics, and econometrics. This article presents the structure, tools, and results of an ETF trading program implemented by the economics and finance departments at the University of Richmond. Although this SMIF example uses ETF funds as a learning medium for undergraduates, the investment process with ETFs is also well suited to small individual investors.


Congress passed the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925 to counter widespread judicial refusal to enforce arbitration agreements. (1) The courts were not necessarily hostile to arbitration of driven by ideology. Often, they considered themselves bound by longstanding anti-arbitration precedent, which would need to be overturned legislatively. (2) Last year, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court held that the FAA prohibited states from refusing to enforce arbitration agreements merely because they did not allow class arbitration procedures. (3) In the past year, dozens of courts have enforced arbitration agreements containing class waivers. (4) Nonetheless, an administrative body and a growing handful of courts have struck down arbitration agreements, finding them unenforceable where they contained a waiver purporting to prevent the signatory from bringing class proceedings either in arbitration of in court. In particular, many of these courts have reasoned that arbitration agreements with class waivers are unenforceable where they would effectively prevent plaintiffs from vindicating their statutory rights. These lower courts have refused to enforce arbitration agreements based on their reading of Supreme Court precedent. In several cases, the Court held that federal statutory claims were subject to arbitration so long as federal substantive remedies were available in the arbitral forum. (5) In another case, the Court held that the plaintiff had the burden of proving that prohibitively expensive arbitration-specific costs would prevent her from vindicating her federal statutory rights. (6) But the Court has never struck down an agreement for interfering with a plaintiff's statutory rights, nor has it clarified what sort of arbitration agreement would meet that standard. This Note describes when, if ever, class waivers render otherwise valid arbitration agreements unenforceable because they would prevent plaintiffs from effectively vindicating their statutory rights. Part I describes the doctrinal framework established by the Court in Concepcion, Green Tree, and Mitsubishi Motors. Part II argues that claims that class action waivers nullify state statutory rights cannot invalidate arbitration agreements after Concepcion. Part III considers several different arguments that class waivers undermine federal statutory rights in certain contexts. It argues that, although most such arguments should fail after Concepcion, there are two that might succeed. First, some federal statutes might establish a substantive right to class proceedings. Second, there is a difficult issue of whether proof that class proceedings are the only economically feasible means of vindicating statutory rights should invalidate an arbitration agreement. Even here, any exception to Concepcion is narrow and likely to become narrower still. Finally, this Note concludes that a very narrow subset, at most, of arbitration agreements undermine statutory rights merely by waiving class proceedings. I. DOCTRINAL FRAMEWORK The FAA mandates that arbitration agreements "shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract." (7) The Act embodies a "liberal federal policy favoring arbitration," (8) and requires courts to "place arbitration agreements on an equal footing with other contracts...." (9) The Act's saving clause instructs courts to invalidate arbitration agreements for the same reasons--fraud, duress, or unconscionability--as they would any other contract but forbids them to invalidate arbitration agreements based on reasons "that apply only to arbitration or that derive their meaning from the fact that an agreement to arbitrate is at issue." (10) In Concepcion, the Supreme Court held that the FAA preempted California's Discover Bank rule, which conditioned the enforceability of most arbitration agreements on the availability of class procedures. …


We discuss how to simulate numerically the far-field propagation of the spectrum of light by propagating the cross-spectral density for a planar light source with a given coherence model. To test our approach, we performed simulations for two source models: a Gaussian Schell-model source and a nonuniformly Gaussian-correlated source. We show that our algorithm correctly reproduces the theoretical solutions by Emil Wolf for planar Gaussian Schell-model source, namely, the spectral shifts of spectral lines due to source correlations. Our approach can be used for two-dimensional source models in which the spatial coherence components are frequency independent. It can also be used for nonhomogeneous extended sources of partial coherent light.


The quantum statistical model (QSM) is used to calculate nuclear fragment distributions in chemical equilibrium. Several observable isotopic effects are predicted for intermediate energy heavy ion collisions. It is demonstrated that particle ratios for different systems do not depend on the breakup density\char22{}the only free parameter in our model. The importance of entropy measurements is discussed. Specific particle ratios for the system Au+Au are predicted, which can be used to determine the chemical potentials of the hot midrapidity fragment source in nearly central heavy ion collisions.


Silver nanoparticles embedded in a dielectric material have strong scattering properties under light illumination, due to localized surface plasmons. This effect is a potential way to achieve light trapping in thin‐film solar cells. In this paper we study light scattering properties of nanoparticles on glass and ZnO, and on silver coated with ZnO, which represent the back reflector of a solar cell. We find that large nanoparticles embedded in the dielectric at the back contact of amorphous silicon solar cells lead to a remarkable increase in short circuit current of 20% compared to co‐deposited cells without nanoparticles. This increase is strongly correlated with the enhanced cell absorption in the long wavelengths and is attributed to localized surface plasmons. We also discuss the electrical properties of the cells. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Aim: The objective of this study was to identify the expression of eosinophils in sinonasal tissue of chronic rhinosinusitis patients with nasal polyps. Methods: This was a descriptive observasional study which involved chronic rhinosinusitis patients in Otolaringology Clinic of Dr. Sardjito Hospital during year 2013. The eligible criteria were men or women any age, have no sinonasal or leucocytes malignancy. Eosinophils count was obtained from patient's nasal polyp's tissue under light microscope with 400 X magnification on 5 high power fields consecutively. Information about chronic rhinosinusitis was obtained from medical record. The data obtained was descriptively analyzed. Result and conclusion: There were 90, 47% of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps tissue has eosinophil count less than 5 cells per high power field.


The goal of constructing artificial molecular machine systems able to perform mechanosynthesis is beyond the immediate reach of current laboratory techniques. Nonetheless, these systems can already be modeled in substantial detail, and existing techniques enable steps toward their implementation. Mechanosynthetic systems will rely on mechanical positioning to guide and control the molecular interactions of chemical synthesis. The effective concentration of a mechanically positioned species depends on the temperature and on the stiffness of the positioning system. These concentrations can be large (> 100 M) and localized on a molecular scale. Background concentrations can approach zero, thus enabling precise molecular control of the locations and sequences of synthetic operations. Researchers have developed concepts for mechanosynthetic systems and defined general technology requirements. One approach to the fabrication of molecular machine systems is the development of AFM-based mechanosynthetic devices. These would position molecules by binding them to (for example) antibody fragments attached to an AFM tip. Development of suitable monomers, binding sites, and reaction sequences would then be a basis for the fabrication of complex mechanical structures. Biological molecular machine systems rely on the self-assembly of folded polymers. A review of progress in protein engineering suggests that we have the means to design and synthesize protein-like molecules with well-defined structures and excellent stability. Success in this effort provides a basis for the design of self-assembling systems, and experience with the design and supramolecular assembly of smaller molecules is encouraging regarding the success of this next step. Development of a molecular machine technology promises a wide range of applications. Biological molecular machines synthesize proteins, read DNA, and sense a wide range of molecular phenomena. Artificial molecular machine systems could presumably be developed to perform analogous tasks, but with more stable structures and different results (e.g. reading DNA sequences into a conventional computer memory, rather than transcribing them into RNA). Self-assembling structures are widely regarded as a key to molecular electronic systems, which therefore share an enabling technology with molecular machine systems. Finally, studies suggest that the use of molecular machine systems to perform mechanosynthesis of diverse structures (including additional molecular machine systems) will enable the development and inexpensive production of a broad range of new instruments and products. Laboratory research directed toward this goal seems warranted.


The current investigations on hyper-heuristics design have sprung up in two different flavours: heuristics that choose heuristics and heuristics that generate he uristics. In the latter, the goal is to develop a problem-domain independent strategy to automatically generate a good performing heuristic for the problem at hand. This can be done, for example, by automatically selecting and combining different low-level heuristics into a problem specific and effective s trategy. Hyper-heuristics raise the level of generality on automated problem solving by attempting to select and/or generate tailored heuristics for the problem at hand. Some approaches like genetic programming have been proposed for this. In this paper, we explore an elegant nature-inspired alternat ive based on self-assembly construction processes, in which structures emerge out of local interaction s between autonomous components. This idea arises from previous works in which computational models of self-assembly were subject to evolutionary design in order to perform the automatic construction of user-defined structures. Then, the aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology for the automated design of heuristics by means of self-assembly.


This Introduction to AP's third special issue seeks to provide context and rationale to the study of 'public mortuary archaeology' before reviewing the development of the volume. Building on the presentations of the first Public Archaeology Twitter Conference of April 2017, these articles comprise a wide range of original analyses reflecting on the public archaeology of death, including evaluations of fieldwork contexts, churches and museums. These articles are joined by discussions of the digital dimensions to public mortuary archaeology, an appraisal of ancient and modern DNA research as public mortuary archaeology, and the relationship between mortuary archaeology and palliative care. Together, the articles constitute the state of current thinking on the public archaeology of death, burial and commemoration.


Five waves of longitudinal data from a sample of minority youth living in extreme poverty were used to examine the impact of chronic exposure to violence on chronic violent behavior. Given the rapid rate of developmental change during adolescence and the lack of multiyear studies of exposure to violence, semiparametric group-based modeling was used to identify trajectories of chronic exposure to violence (7% of youth), chronic violent victimization (9% of youth), chronic vicarious victimization (39% of youth), and chronic violent behavior (12% of youth). The multivariate findings revealed that (a) youth with chronic exposure to violence were 3,150% (or 31.5 times) more likely to engage in chronic violent behavior and (b) chronic vicarious victimization was a significant predictor of chronic violent behavior, after controlling for the effects of chronic violent victimization. The theoretical and policy implications of these findings as well as areas for future research are discussed.


The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is often thought of as a relatively liberal Muslim country - the quintessential "moderate Arab Muslim ally". However, Jordan has paradoxically made a disproportionate contribution to the phenomenon of modern Islamist terrorism, both in terms of leading figures and foot soldiers. On a per capita basis, Jordan has made a very strong contribution to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Islamic State. Jordan is also a country which from its foundation has had a weak sense of identity. This article takes as its premise that Jordan's own heavily Islamic, quasi-jihadist education system has aggravated the identity problem, making Jordan more vulnerable to recruitment. It examines three versions of the core curriculum Islamic studies textbook used in universities to both provide a baseline for how Islam is conceived and show that Jordanian authorities recognised that this was a problem. The textbook used up to 2014-2015 set forth a classical Islamic view of the role of the state and jihad as a means of expanding Islamic rule, a view much closer to the world view of al-Qaida than the modern Jordanian state. A new 2015-2016 edition made substantial changes, de-emphasizing jihadist-friendly teachings. A 2017-2018 edition has completed the transformation, finally bringing the university Islamic curriculum in line with the "tolerant, moderate" vision Jordan's leaders espouse.


An array of federal district court judges frustrated with the limited scope of the Supreme Court's approach to constitutionally mandated disclosure - otherwise known as the Brady doctrine - has reinterpreted it so as to eliminate the materiality requirement in the pretrial context. After witnessing the prosecutorial abuse and chronic underdisclosure that Brady's materiality requirement invites, as well as observing the failure of discovery reformers to remedy the doctrine's shortcomings through other channels, these judges have provided a judicial solution by ignoring Supreme Court precedent in order to avoid the limitation on the government's disclosure obligation that the materiality requirement creates. This practice amounts to nothing less than an abrogation of stare decisis based on the view that policy concerns necessitate this much-needed reform of the criminal discovery system. The question that remains - and that I explore in this Essay - is whether the instrumentalism underlying their decisions is acceptable, or even desirable, in light of the constitutional and normative foundations upon which stare decisis rests. This Essay proceeds in three parts. Part I provides a brief introduction to the Brady doctrine with a particular emphasis on the problems caused by the materiality standard's application in the pretrial context, and then discusses the unsuccessful efforts that have been made to reform the rules of discovery governing the pretrial disclosure of evidence in criminal cases. Part II first contrasts the Supreme Court's post-Brady cases with the doctrinal approach that some trial judges have taken to eliminate Brady's materiality requirement in the pretrial context, and then concludes with a discussion of several federal district and appellate court decisions that have rejected this approach to Brady reform. Part III presents the doctrine of stare decisis and discusses its constitutional foundations as well as the rule of law and judicial economy benefits it redounds to our legal system. With these benefits in mind, I then explore the viability of the instrumentalist approach to stare decisis employed by the trial judges who have eliminated the materiality requirement. I conclude that it is not viable, and that criminal discovery reform must therefore proceed through other means.


Nitrous oxide (N2O) has become a routine intervention in contemporary American dental practice, especially in the management of children. However, routines translate to confidence which in turn may lead to overconfidence, such that possible risks and misuses are insufficiently acknowledged. This article ethically evaluates the use of nitrous oxide as a practice routine in treating children. Nitrous oxide administration is analyzed in reference to three internationally acknowledged principles of dental ethics: nonmaleficence, beneficence, and patient autonomy. In reference to the principle of nonmaleficence, the potential for adverse effects of N2O is discussed, particularly when it is administered in conjunction with other sedatives and anesthetics. The importance of abiding by clinical protocols is emphasized. Next, in reference to the principle of beneficence, the authors address the problematic application of N2O for the benefit of individuals other than the patient (e.g., dentists and parents). Finally, the importance of respecting patient autonomy is discussed, specifically the need to obtain explicit consent for N2O. The article supports the continued use of nitrous oxide but advises greater attention to how and why it is administered. Four recommendations are offered for an ethically sound usage.


This symposium Essay uses the private law notion of a "false conflict" of laws to develop a coherent and normatively sound legal framework for evaluating the exercise of universal jurisdiction by states in the international legal system. The Essay suggests that properly exercised, universal jurisdiction creates no conflict of laws among states because, as a matter of prescriptive jurisdiction, universal jurisdiction is never really extra-territorial, and thus never generates the possibility of conflicting, overlapping laws. Rather, universal jurisdiction comprises a comprehensive territorial jurisdiction, originating in a universally-applicable international law that covers the globe. Individual states may apply and enforce that law in domestic courts, to be sure, but its prescriptive scope encompasses all territory subject to international law, i.e. the entire world.Because the justification for exercising universal jurisdiction is an entitlement to apply international law, a number of limiting principles follow from a false-conflict view: (i) states must faithfully apply international law, or else risk violating both other states' sovereignties and individual rights; (ii) the international law of sovereign immunity applies; and (iii) non bis in idem or double jeopardy protection attaches to bar successive prosecutions based solely on universal jurisdiction.


We report Magnetospheric Multiscale observations of high‐frequency electrostatic waves in the vicinity of the reconnection ion diffusion region on the dayside magnetopause. The ion diffusion region is identified during two magnetopause crossings by the Hall electromagnetic fields, the slippage of ions with respect to the magnetic field, and magnetic energy dissipation. In addition to electron beam modes that have been previously detected at the separatrix on the magnetospheric side of the magnetopause, we report, for the first time, the existence of electron cyclotron harmonic waves at the magnetosheath separatrix. Broadband waves between the electron cyclotron and electron plasma frequencies, which were probably generated by electron beams, were found within the magnetopause current sheet. Contributions by these high‐frequency waves to the magnetic energy dissipation were negligible in the diffusion regions as compared to those of lower‐frequency waves.


Substantially, "Tasawuf" as the way towards God had been existing since the prophet age; but it was just at the end of the second Hijriyah this term that was known as zuhud became then popularly known as tasawuf. After Islam develops, marked by variety of traditions and sciences as the result of the contribution of various culture expressed through knowledge, tasawuf becomes clear in Islam. Some intellectuals don't see tasawuf as pure Islam, because some teachings related to certain rituals reflect some tradition and culture. Many intellectuals agreed to Nasr's opinion, and there are many western intellectuals know tasawuf (Sufism) better than Islam. Now tasawuf has been considered by many people as a universal spiritual value and it is as eternal as Islam. Syawqi Doif, an Arabic intellectual who wrote a lot about the history of Arabic culture and literature, in his book entitled al-Tarikh al-Adab fi al-Ashr al-Abbasyi al-Tsani, especially about zuhud and tasawuf. This paper discussed about tasawuf followed by poems written by mutashawwifin discussing about sufi's terms. Many sufis left behind them literary works which describe the way they believe. The writer quoted and discussed some poems based on his understanding. Keywords


Hypoglycaemia was the third most common reason for admission of term babies to neonatal units in England in the period 2011–2013.1 Of those babies admitted with 'hypoglycaemia', one-third had a blood glucose level higher than the WHO threshold of 2.6 mmol/L, while half did not require intravenous dextrose.1 These findings suggest that a significant number of babies may be separated from their mothers inappropriately. There is also significant variability in defining at-risk groups and intervention thresholds.1 Guidance should seek to minimise the risk of potentially devastating brain injury that can result from severe neonatal hypoglycaemia, without exposing large numbers of babies to the harm of unnecessary interventions, separation from their mothers and neonatal unit admission.

The British Association of Perinatal Medicine published its framework for identification and management of hypoglycaemia in term newborns in April 2017.2 The working group was made up of neonatologists, midwives, an infant feeding coordinator, officers from National Health Service Improvement and the Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative and a parent representative. They reviewed published literature and used national audit data and themes arising from cases of litigation to formulate the guidance. Professional consensus was used when there was insufficient evidence.

There are many consensus guidelines covering neonatal hypoglycaemia including WHO guidance (1997),3 an American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report (2011)4 and the 2015 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline5 (table 1).

View this table:

Table 1
Key guidance prior to BAPM framework for practice

### Prevention of hypoglycaemia in at-risk babies

Newborns at risk of hypoglycaemia are identified in box 1. They should be managed proactively to prevent hypoglycaemia. This includes providing thermal care, regular monitoring and intensive breastfeeding support with a maximal feed interval of 3 hours. The first feed should be offered within the first hour of life and the first blood glucose level checked before the …


This unique textbook--the first to offer balanced, comprehensive coverage of all major perspectives on the rational justification of religious belief--includes twenty-four key papers by some of the world's leading philosophers of religion. Arranged in six sections, each representing a major approach to religious epistemology, the book begins with papers by noted atheists, setting the stage for the main theistic responses--Wittgensteinian Fideism, Reformed epistemology, natural theology, prudential accounts of religious beliefs, and rational belief based in religious experience--in each case offering a representative sample of papers by leading exponents, a critical paper, and a substantial bibliography. A comprehensive introductory essay and ample cross-references help students to contrast and evaluate the different approaches, while the overall arrangement encourages them to assess the full range of philosophical positions on the issue.Carefully selected to provide both a comprehensive overview of current work and a series of modern perspectives on many classic sources--Swinburne's detailed discussion of Hume's critique of the design argument, for example, as well as an entire section evaluating and extending Pascal's famous Wager--the essays also provide a uniquely readable survey that will be useful in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of religion and epistemology.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns of Salmonella isolates from feedlot cattle.

DESIGN
Cross-sectional study.

SAMPLE POPULATION
263 Salmonella isolates.

PROCEDURES
Fecal samples were collected from the floor of 2 pens in each of 100 feedlots. Two hundred eighty Salmonella isolates were recovered after bacteriologic culture from 38 pens. Of these, 263 isolates were available for antimicrobial susceptibility testing to 16 antimicrobials, using microbroth dilution breakpoint plates.

RESULTS
Less than 5% of isolates were resistant to any of the antimicrobials tested, with the exception of sulfamethoxazole (15; 5.7%) and tetracycline (61; 23.2%). Most isolates (197; 74.9%) were susceptible to all antimicrobials tested, whereas 18 (6.8%) were resistant to 2 or more antimicrobials. The percentage of isolates with resistance to any antimicrobial varied by serotype. The percentage of isolates resistant to various antimicrobials was not related to concurrent use of antimicrobials in the feed.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
With the exception of tetracycline and sulfamethoxazole, resistance of Salmonella isolates to any of the antimicrobials was uncommon. Most isolates were susceptible to all antimicrobials tested. Antimicrobial resistance was not related to the presence of antimicrobials in the ration being fed at the time of sample collection.


This paper examines the causal relationships between energy consumption, income and energy prices for the African countries using Johansen's maximum-likelihood test of cointegration and error-correction model (ECM). To have a reliable estimate, only countries having data availability for a minimum period of 25 years were considered. This requirement reduces the sample size to 26 countries only. Out of these, a long run cointegrating relationship was found for a total of six countries, which was then subsequently analyzed to confer on the direction of causality. Out of the reported five countries, we found the existence of bidirectional Granger causality for Ethiopia, Morocco and Mozambique. The result for Angola suggests unidirectional Granger causality running from income to energy consumption while no Granger causality for the case of Tanzania. Findings suggest that countries regardless of their level of income and development should direct their energy conservation policies on the basis of the energy-output causality relation.


Protecting the privacy of user data is crucial for text generation models, which can leak sensitive information during generation. Differentially private (DP) learning methods provide guarantees against identifying the existence of a training sample from model outputs. PATE is a recent DP learning algorithm that achieves high utility with strong privacy protection on training samples. However, text generation models output tokens sequentially in a large output space; the classic PATE algorithm is not customized for this setting. Furthermore, PATE works well to protect sample-level privacy, but is not designed to protect phrases in samples. In this paper, we propose SeqPATE, an extension of PATE to text generation that protects the privacy of individual training samples and sensitive phrases in training data. To adapt PATE to text generation, we generate pseudo-contexts and reduce the sequence generation problem to a next-word prediction problem. To handle the large output space, we propose a candidate filtering strategy to dynamically reduce the output space, and refine the teacher aggregation of PATE to avoid low agreement due to voting for a large number of candidates. To further reduce privacy losses, we use knowledge distillation to reduce the number of teacher queries. The experiments verify the effectiveness of SeqPATE in protecting both training samples and sensitive phrases.


We explore the possibility of detecting and characterising the warp of the stellar disc of our Galaxy using synthetic Gaia data and two available proper motion catalogues namely UCAC4 and PPMXL. We develop a new kinematic model for the galactic warp. With Gaia, the availability of proper motions and, for the brightest stars radial velocities, adds a new dimension to this study. A family of Great Circle Cell Counts (GC3) methods is used. They are ideally suited to find the tilt and twist of a collection of rings, which allow us to detect and measure the warp parameters. To test them, we use random realisations of test particles which evolve in a realistic Galactic potential warped adiabatically to various final configurations. In some cases a twist is introduced additionally. The Gaia selection function, its errors model and a realistic 3D extinction map are applied to mimic three tracer populations: OB, A and Red Clump stars. We show how the use of kinematics improves the accuracy in the recovery of the warp parameters. The OB stars are demonstrated to be the best tracers determining the tilt angle with accuracy better than ? 0.5 up to galactocentric distance of ? 16 kpc. Using data with good astrometric quality, the same accuracy is obtained for A type stars up to ? 13 kpc and for Red Clump up to the expected stellar cut-off. Using OB stars the twist angle is recovered to within < 3? for all distances. In this work we have developed a first and simplified kinematic model for our Galactic warp. The simplicity of the model has allowed us to evaluate the efficacy and limitations of the use of Gaia data to characterise the warp. These limitations have been fully explored and quantified. From the work done so far, we expect that the Gaia database, together with the methods presented here, will be a very powerful combination to characterise the warp of the stellar disc of our Galaxy. Moreover, We introduce LonKin methods that help us detect the kinematic signature of the warp in the vertical motions of stars as a function of galactic longitude. Applying this method to the UCAC4 proper motions, we do not obtain a similar trend as the one we expect from our warp model. We explore a possible source of this discrepancy in terms of systematics caused by a residual spin of the reference frame with respect to the extra- galactic inertial one. We also look into a deeper proper motion survey namely the PPMXL. The effect of systematics in this catalogue was reduced using hundreds of thousand quasars present in this survey. An analytical fit to the vertical velocity trend of red clump stars suggests a vertical oscillation in the southern warp with a rather high frequency that tends to decrease the amplitude of the warp. We analysed this trend in the context of our warp model and an abrupt decrease of the warp's amplitude in a very short time of about one hundred Myr could explain this trend.