During the electoral campaign for the general elections held on 22nd September 2013 the lobby group representing the tenants proposed a rent regulation in the housing sector concerning also new contracts for existing housing beyond social housing. This proposal was immediately included into their political agenda by the social democrats (SPD) and very shortly afterwards also taken as a position by chancellor Merkel as leader of the Cristian Democratic Party (SPD), although many doubts were expressed within her own party. Only the liberal party opposed to any type of rent control, but did in the end not enter parliament. After elections a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Cristian Democratic Parties was established and the implementation of the rent control fixed. This paper analyses the political reasons for the behavior of Angela Merkel, looks at the expected results from this rent control concerning the allocation of flats, the proportion of home-ownership, the ongoing segregation within cities, and the future construction of new housing.


A resonance apparatus for the characterization of viscoelastic materials will be described. Measurements have been made of modulus values as low as 0.1 MPa and as high as 70 GPa and loss factors from 0.003 to 2.5. Material properties are determined as exact (numerical) solutions of the wave equation with no simplifying assumptions. In particular, the loss factor is not calculated from the half‐power point and is valid for large values of loss factor. By bonding the sample to the driver, clamping errors common with other instruments are eliminated. For any given measurement temperature, the frequency range of the measurements is about 1.5 decades centered at about 1 kHz. Depending on the sample length and modulus, data can be obtained from 100 Hz to 25 kHz. Once measurements have been made as a function of temperature, the data are shifted to form a master curve and fitted to an analytical model. Illustrative data will be presented for a high‐loss and a low‐loss polyurethane. [This work was sponsored by th...


Healthcare organizations have recognized that there are potential limitations with their clinical information systems. Interoperability barriers between different systems have resulted in medical information being collected by different people or systems which has made it difficult to understand, compare and exchange. There are many health data standards to try and overcome these issues, but in many developing countries these have not been adopted. This paper investigates health data standards and their roles in Saudi tertiary hospitals and provides insights into the issues, and recommendations which can be used by academics and practitioners to develop the planning of health data standards.


An important task in exploring and analyzing real-world data sets is to detect unusual and interesting phenomena. In this paper, we study the group anomaly detection problem. Unlike traditional anomaly detection research that focuses on data points, our goal is to discover anomalous aggregated behaviors of groups of points. For this purpose, we propose the Flexible Genre Model (FGM). FGM is designed to characterize data groups at both the point level and the group level so as to detect various types of group anomalies. We evaluate the effectiveness of FGM on both synthetic and real data sets including images and turbulence data, and show that it is superior to existing approaches in detecting group anomalies.


Statistical models attempting to predict who will disaffiliate from religions have typically accounted for less than 15% of the variation in religious affiliations, suggesting that we have only a partial understanding of this vital social process. Using agent-based simulations in three "artificial societies" (one predominantly religious; one predominantly secular; and one in between), we demonstrate that worldview pluralism within one's neighborhood and family social networks can be a significant predictor of religious (dis)affiliation but in pluralistic societies worldview diversity is less important and, instead, people move toward worldview neutrality. Our results suggest that there may be two phases in religious disaffiliation: (1) the early adopters initially disaffiliate regardless of social support, and subsequently (2) disaffiliation spreads as support for it within local social networks widens and it appears more acceptable. An important next step is for sociologists to confirm or correct the theoretical findings of this model using real-world social-network data, which will require overcoming the measurement difficulties involved in estimating each individual's degree of local network pluralism.


This paper provides theoretical background and empirical research on state's role in financial sector development, focusing on state's role in achieving pro-poor economic growth through its activities in development of the financial sector.
To this end, in the theoretical part of the paper it is explained that pro-poor growth depends on the strong private sector, while at the same time private sector development is dependent on the degree of financial sector development. Defining pro-poor growth as a set of policies aiming to reduce poverty, it is argued that pro-poor growth is dependent on financial sector development both, directly and indirectly. Financial sector development contributes to poverty reduction directly through improvement of the access to financial products/services to the poor, and indirectly through private sector's better access to financial sources which as a consequence impacts the overall economic growth of the country. By analyzing theoretical approaches, it is shown that government policies and actions in financial sector development might positively impact private sector development, and therefore (indirectly and directly) contributes to pro-poor growth.
The empirical part of the paper discusses the role of the state in financial sector development and its contribution to economic growth and poverty reduction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), arguing that this growth needs to be pro-poor oriented as BIH is the poorest country in Europe. In order to assess state's role in financial sector development and its implication to pro-poor growth in BIH, surveys among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and government representatives were conducted. The aim of the surveys was to analyze the perceptions of private sector participants and of government institution employees perceptions about the government role in development of the financial sector oriented to SMEs.
The research shows significant disagreement between the two surveyed groups about the efforts currently being implemented by BIH government in supporting the private sector through financial sector development. It is concluded that government needs to work more closely with the private sector as well as with the financial sector so as to better identify the private sector needs and then create policies and take actions necessary for the private sector to develop, which would consequently lead to poverty reduction.


This paper evaluates momentless, or funicular, arches designed using Bernoulli-Euler beam theory and evaluates the errors associated with the Bernoulli-Euler and straight-beam approximations. When arches support hydrostatic pressure imposed by water of finite depth, the funicular arch shape depends on the ratio of the water depth to the arch height. Shallow momentless arches [in which the arch height is less than (1/10) the arch span] under deep water (where the water depth is greater than 10 times the arch height) are nearly parabolic in shape. On the other hand, tall momentless arches [in which the arch height is almost (1/2) the arch span] under deep water are nearly semicircular in shape. Momentless arches of intermediate aspect ratios are neither semicircular nor parabolic. The error arising from using straight beam theory (for the bending stresses only) is less than 5% for ratios of beam-depth to radius of curvature less than (1/2). Analyses including bending, shear, and axial deformations and hydro...


When Michael J. Weiss's seminal work, "The Clustering of America," appeared nearly ten years ago, it had a profound effect on the retail banking industry. At a time when direct marketing concepts were just beginning to filter in, his work helped shape and define the way financial institutions conducted direct marketing campaigns. Ten years later, banks are still regularly applying his principles. But are they the right principles for modern times? Important new techniques are now emerging that promise to bring unprecedented precision to database marketing. No longer do advanced bank marketers rely on generalized demographic profiles to determine their best prospects. Nor do they market to whole zip codes at a time. Instead, using new databases and software tools, they zero in on prospects house by house, creating demographically precise profiles that exactly match characteristics of their own existing best customers. Using these new approaches, banks are already enjoying reduced printing and mailing costs, increased response rates and higher rates of return. Longer term, they are building clearer pictures of their customers, their competitive positions and their own profitability. Psychographic and Geographic Clustering To understand these new techniques, we need to review the old models that still dominate the direct marketing landscape. Typically, when prospecting for new customers, bank direct marketers first determine key characteristics they believe future customers will share. They may develop profiles using marketing software, by gleaning ideas from nationally available marketing sources, or just by gut feel. Often, lifestyle factors such as the kind of car potential customers drive, what kinds of food they eat, how much they travel, etc., are key considerations. Such psychographic data elements are seen as important predictors of future buying behavior. Next, marketers locate neighborhoods where residents match the characteristics of targeted prospects. Called geographic clustering, this technique is based on an important assumption: people of the same demographic profile share the same neighborhoods. Using traditional marketing software tools, marketers section neighborhoods down to the level of zip code or zip + 4. The software -- and the marketer -- assume that everyone living in a particular zip code (or zip + 4) share similar characteristics and, hence, similar purchasing behaviors. With a list of zip codes in hand, they complete the process by purchasing a mailing list of all the households in the target clusters. There are obvious limitations to this technique. Say, for example, the marketer seeks all local neighborhoods where household incomes are above $100,000. Using zip + 4 as the basic neighborhood unit, typical clustering software tools will produce a list of all neighborhoods matching the profile. But in a given zip there may be widely varying income ranges. For example, 30 percent of the households may have incomes between $50,000 and $75,000; 34 percent between $75,000 and $100,000, and 36 percent above $100,000. The software program identifies the entire zip code as a $100,000 plus neighborhood because such households are the largest category. If the marketer now mails to all households in the zip code, 64 percent of the mailings will go to the wrong targets. That means 64 percent of the mailings were a complete waste of printing and postage. Suppose in the same example cluster, the marketer seeks households with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000. This time the software produces zero targets because the income range is in the minority. The marketer completely misses these prospects. Marketers often compensate for this deficiency by mailing to any cluster where a significant percentage matches the criteria, even if in the minority. But, in the example zip, it means 70 percent (34 plus 36) would get mail that, to them, is junk. …


Advances in isolating, controlling and entangling quantum systems are transforming what was once a curious feature of quantum mechanics into a vehicle for disruptive scientific and technological progress. Pursuing the vision articulated by Feynman, a concerted effort across many areas of research and development is introducing prototypical digital quantum devices into the computing ecosystem available to domain scientists. Through interactions with these early quantum devices, the abstract vision of exploring classically-intractable quantum systems is evolving toward becoming a tangible reality. Beyond catalyzing these technological advances, entanglement is enabling parallel progress as a diagnostic for quantum correlations and as an organizational tool, both guiding improved understanding of quantum many-body systems and quantum field theories defining and emerging from the standard model. From the perspective of three domain science theorists, this article compiles thoughts about the interface on entanglement, complexity, and quantum simulation in an effort to contextualize recent NISQ-era progress with the scientific objectives of nuclear and high-energy physics.


liminarily identified as a phlebovirus transmitted by the sand fly Lutzomyia anthophora. RGV is not known to cause disease in humans, but it could be detected by assays designed for HRTV or other phleboviruses. The goal of this study was to determine antigenic cross-reaction between RGV and other phleboviruses. A commercially available ELISA based sand fly fever antigen detection kit was tested for the ability to detect RGV and other New and Old-World phleboviruses, including attenuated Rift valley fever virus (RVFV) strain MP12, Punta Toro virus (PTV), Toscana virus, Aguacate virus, Anhanga virus, Arumowot virus, and Chagres virus. Immunocytochemistry and Western blotting were used to detect cross reactions between RGV, MP12, and PTV using rabbit anti-RVFV nucleocapsid protein and glycoproteins GC and GN, mouse monoclonal anti-PTV, and sheep polyclonal anti-MP12. The ELISA test detected cross reactivity for all phleboviruses excluding RGV, but Western blotting detected the presumed RGV nucleocapsid protein (N) using rabbit anti-RVFV-N serum, RGV-infected cells were also identified when labeled with this antibody. Our findings demonstrate assay specific antigenic cross reactivity between these phleboviruses, thus further characterization of the molecular targets of the cross-reaction is required for proper interpretation of serological assays.


Positive psychology research has shown that fostering well-being in the workplace is connected to healthier and more engaged employees as well as improved organizational performance. But government has largely taken a backseat as a subject of study in this field. Over 22 million people are employed in the public sector in the United States alone, warranting closer attention. To that end, in this paper I review relevant positive psychology literature, examine some of the unique attributes of public sector work, discuss an analysis of survey data representing over 600,000 state, local, and federal employees, and present a qualitative study of public servants' best experiences. I use this information to present strategies to cultivate more fulfilling and impactful work in the public sector. I suggest that instead of focusing on making bureaucracy less bad, we should focus on making good government even better. The field of positive psychology has demonstrated that people's lives can be full of positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, and the same should be expected of government work.


Ethics and safety research in artificial intelligence is increasingly framed in terms of "alignment'' with human values and interests. I argue that Turing's call for "fair play for machines'' is an early and often overlooked contribution to the alignment literature. Turing's appeal to fair play suggests a need to correct human behavior to accommodate our machines, a surprising inversion of how value alignment is treated today. Reflections on "fair play'' motivate a novel interpretation of Turing's notorious "imitation game'' as a condition not of intelligence but instead of value alignment : a machine demonstrates a minimal degree of alignment (with the norms of conversation, for instance) when it can go undetected when interrogated by a human. I carefully distinguish this interpretation from the Moral Turing Test, which is not motivated by a principle of fair play, but instead depends on imitation of human moral behavior. Finally, I consider how the framework of fair play can be used to situate the debate over robot rights within the alignment literature. I argue that extending rights to service robots operating in public spaces is "fair'' in precisely the sense that it encourages an alignment of interests between humans and machines.


Obtaining support from grant-making trusts is a crucial element in the fundraising strategies of many third sector organisations. But while there is an extensive literature on crafting successful grant applications and on the funding policies of trusts, there has been little consideration of the attitudes of funders and fundees and the impact of these attitudes on the application process. Churches are one, relatively unstudied part of the third sector, especially in terms of external fundraising. This article considers the relationships between churches and grant-making trusts, based on attitudinal data from both parties. The findings show that, while in general grant-making trusts will fund churches undertaking community projects, the onus is on the churches to prove they are not proselytising. It was also found that the ability of churches to explain their charitable status effectively, and thereby demonstrate that they are within the scope of trust funding, is limited through their own poor understanding of this status.


This paper describes a new chemical sample preparation methodology for palynological analysis with the concentration of particulate organic material. To demonstrate the method potentiality, chemical experiments were carried out on representative rock samples composed of different lithologies, environments, and ages, from five Brazilian basins. Five sedimentary samples were taken from subsurface being four from the core and one cutting, and additionally one from outcrop, making six samples. The experiments aimed to authenticate the effectiveness of using the Fluoclor chemical reagent to replacing hydrofluoric acid (HF) ordinarily used in the preparation of palynological samples. HF acid, in Brazil, has its trade restricted and controlled by the army, making its continual acquisition impossible. Because it is a chemical compound by combining hydrofluoric acid (HF) with a small addition (~ 13%) of hydrochloric acid (HCl), it is free of this control, making routine palynological samples processing method possible. To illustrate the product efficacy, tests were performed on sediments of different ages (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic) and with diverse mineralogical compositions. The data obtained attended as a comparison with the same stratigraphic intervals samples, previously processed with hydrofluoric acid (HF). The results showed that, regardless of both the stratigraphic interval analyzed and the mineralogical composition of the samples, the percentage recovery of the organic groups, as well as the marine and non-marine palynomorphs, were equivalent, thus demonstrating the reliability of the new method for chemical processing palynological samples.


Abstract As job security declines and precarious employment arrangements become more prevalent, transferable skills have become vital for job seeking success. In recognition of this issue, many governments are seeking to redesign their training systems in ways that transferable skills become better emphasised. This paper examines the challenges of developing transferable skills among a nation's workforce and the tensions that can emerge between training design intentions and training delivery outcomes when training delivery is marketised. Australia, where incremental training sector reforms have occurred since the late 1980s, serves as the context for this study. While training design occurs through a tripartite process involving employer, government and union representatives, training delivery is now determined in an open, deregulated market environment. Our analysis reveals a complex underlying design with an in-built intention of developing widely transferable skills, yet there exists significant concern about the actual training outcomes. We conclude that in an environment where VET delivery is user-choice driven with the aim of fulfilling specific employer skills needs the quality, depth and breadth of transferable skills are compromised.


The enthusiasm with which precision medicine has been embraced over the past 15 years has obscured the fact that the evidence base for biomarker-driven assessments, in particular for next generation sequencing (NGS), is limited. This applies both to the comparative performance of the various assessment tools as well as to the impact of biomarker driven decisions at the patient level. Where a genetic test is being evaluated there are five key questions a formulary committee should ask when assessing whether or not to recommend coverage and reimbursement for the test in target patient populations:
(i) has the test met required standards for analytic and clinical validity?
(ii) has the test been evaluated against competing tests for analytic and clinical validity?
(iii) have the test-based claims met standards for credibility, evaluation and replication?
(iv) has the test been accepted as part of the standard of care for patient management in the target disease state?
(v) has the introduction of the test improved outcomes, including survivorship, adverse events, quality of life and costs, in the targeted population?
The purpose of this commentary is twofold: first, to consider the appropriate evidentiary standards for the evaluation of a test and comparator tests; and, second, to identify questions that a formulary committee should address in submissions made for a test in health care systems. A critical issue is not only comparative claims for the test against the standard of care and comparator tests, but the assessment of test performance for the identified treatment pathways where mutations or variants are linked to recommendations for therapy options. Unless these issues are addressed it is unlikely that the promise of personalized medicine will be realized. The absence of an evidence base will deter both physicians and their patients from adopting NGS based recommendations.

Type: Commentary


A data set of 379 drugs and drug analogs that are metabolized by human cytochrome P450 (CYP) isoforms 3A4, 2D6, and 2C9, respectively, was studied. A series of descriptor sets directly calculable from the constitution of these drugs was systematically investigated as to their power into classifying a compound into the CYP isoform that metabolizes it. In a four-step build-up process eventually 303 different descriptor components were investigated for 146 compounds of a training set by various model building methods, such as multinomal logistic regression, decision tree, or support vector machine (SVM). Automatic variable selection algorithms were used in order to decrease the number of descriptors. A comprehensive scheme of cross-validation (CV) experiments was applied to assess the robustness and reliability of the four models developed. In addition, the predictive power of the four models presented in this paper was inspected by predicting an external validation data set with 233 compounds. The best model has a leave-one-out (LOO) cross-validated predictivity of 89% and gives 83% correct predictions for the external validation data set. For our favored model we showed the strong influence on the predictivity of the way a data set is split into a training and test data set.


Robert Fitch argues that, within a generation, New York City has been transformed from the richest city in the world to one of the poorest in North America. The pillars of its economy - Macy's, The Daily News, Citibank, Olympia and York, the Trump organization - have cracked or collapsed. Today, the officially poor in New York number nearly 2,000,000 and more than 400,000 residents of the city are without jobs. In this indictment of those who have wrecked New York, Robert Fitch points to the financial and real-estate elites. Their goals, he argues, have been simple and monolithic: to increase the value of the land they own by extruding low-rent workers and factories, replacing them with high-rent professionals and office buildings. The planning establishment has been able of raise the value of real estate inside the city boundaries over 20-fold. In doing so, Fitch suggests, it effectively closed New York's deep-water port, eliminated its freight rail system, shuttered its factories and destroyed its capacity for incubating new business. Now the real-estate values have collapsed. The city is left with 65,000,000 square feet of office space - enough to last, without any new building, to the middle of the next century. In pursuit of those who are responsible, Fitch arraigns the great and the bad of the city's establishment: Roger Starr, architect of "planned shrinkage" (the withdrawal of fire, police and mass transit services from black and Latino neighbourhoods); the Ford Foundation, who proposed converting vast tracts of the South Bronx into a vegetable garden; City Hall fixers like John Zuccotti, Herb Sturz and James Felt, who cut the deals between government and real estate by working for both sides; and the Rockefeller family, whose involuntary investment in Rockefeller Center became a gigantic "tar baby", nearly swallowing up their entire fortune. Drawing on never-before-published material from the Rockefeller family archives, as well as other archival documents, this book aims to expose those responsible for the demise of New York. Robert Fitch is the author of "Who Rules the Corporation?" and "Ghana: End of an Illusion", both co-authored with Mary Oppenheimer.


In this rapidly globalizing world, any investigation of architecture inevitably leads to considerations of regionalism. But despite its omnipresence in contemporary practice and theory, architectural regionalism remains a fluid concept, its historical development and current influence largely undocumented. This comprehensive reader brings together over forty key essays illustrating the full range of ideas embodied by the term. Authored by important critics, historians, and architects such as Kenneth Frampton, Lewis Mumford, Sigfried Giedion, and Alan Colquhoun, "Architectural Regionalism" represents the history of regionalist thinking in architecture from the early twentieth century to today.


It is known that, depending on the numerical method, the simulation accuracy of a spiking neuron increases monotonically and that the computational cost increases in a power-law complexity as the time step reduces. Moreover, the accuracy and computational cost also are substantially affected by the mechanism responsible for generating the action potentials. However, little attention has been paid to how the time span and firing rate influence the simulation. The purpose of this study was to describe how the accuracy, computational cost, and efficiency are affected by the time span and firing rate. We found that the simulation is importantly affected by these two variables


The United States has included some form of income tax on corporations at least since the enactment of the Sixteenth Amendment one hundred years ago. Notwithstanding this long lineage, however, surprisingly little is known about who ultimately ends up bearing the cost of the tax, or whether it even matters. Perhaps in simpler economic times such as 1913, or 1932, or even 1980, this might have been acceptable. But as the world confronts vastly different economic conditions than the ones faced in the past, finding new ways to understand and implement the corporate tax will become crucial to its survival. This Article will introduce one way to do so by taking into account how macro-economic conditions, such as high unemployment, can impact who bears the incidence of the corporate income tax. The lesson that can be learned is that conditions such as high unemployment can cause the incidence of the corporate income tax to shift from capital onto labor, at least as compared to periods of full employment. This insight into who actually bears the cost of the corporate tax can fundamentally alter the landscape of the corporate tax policy debate, from using corporate taxes to increase progressivity to abolishing the corporate tax through integration. By explicitly incorporating both macro and micro-economic realities into fiscal policy, policymakers can transform the corporate income tax from a blunt and uncertain fiscal tool to a more precise instrument robust enough to survive the next one hundred years.This Article will consider one specific example, proposing a Dynamic Self-Adjusting Tax rate, or DST for short. The DST takes the incentive of employers to shift the cost of the corporate tax onto labor through lower wages, increased layoffs, or otherwise during periods of high unemployment as a given. The DST then offsets this by charging employers (through higher marginal tax rates) when they do shift the cost of the corporate tax onto labor while, at the same time, rewarding employers (through lower marginal tax rates) when they make new investments in labor. In this manner, the DST could help reduce existing tax-induced distortions while also potentially generating positive macro-economic feedback effects. By incorporating both macro and micro effects into the analysis, the DST could prove pro-growth, pro-employment, and self-financing all at the same time.


Background: Most medical errors can be traced to system failure, but often individual providers are blamed. Few articles in the allied health literature address the topic of error or the analysis of error using a system approach. Purpose: This case report analysis illustrates how both individual and system factors contribute to error in rehabilitation settings and how identification of these factors allows development of methods to improve future patient safety. Case Description: A young male was admitted to a rehabilitation hospital with residual impairments following recent surgical resection of a benign meningioma. He was treated daily by a physical therapist intern as part of a large interdisciplinary team. On separate occasions over a three week span, the patient presented with isolated calf tightness, right-sided and central chest pain, and fever with increased heart rate. Although the intern considered possible deep vein thrombosis (DVT), each symptom was attributed to other causes by the intern, supervising physical therapist, physician assistant, and/or physician (i.e. muscle fatigue, heartburn, infection). On day 22, the patient was diagnosed with DVT and pulmonary embolism (PE). This event represents a major near miss due to the potential deadly outcomes of a missed DVT/PE diagnosis. The intern retrospectively completed an analysis of the event to identify contributing system factors. Outcome of Analysis: Active failures and latent system conditions on multiple levels of the healthcare system were identified as contributors to the major near miss. Discussion: The contributing factors identified in this paper are not unique to this case, intern, or facility, and may be widespread across rehabilitation settings and practitioners. Team members can and should consider how system-wide factors contribute to their own clinical actions and decisions. Once factors are identified, strategies for reducing risk can be implemented; ultimately creating a culture of safety.


Head capsule widths of the instars of codling moth, Cydia pomonella (Linnaeus), a severe cosmopolitan pest of apples, were measured for laboratory-reared larvae and two cohorts of field-reared larvae. At the same time the accumulated degree days to reach the various instars was estimated. The results show that there were always five distinct instars. By measuring the head capsule width of larvae found inside infested apples and using the degree day data, pest managers can determine the instar, larvae age, and therefore when the fruit was entered. This information may give important clues towards understanding the reasons for control failure.


Purpose: This paper focuses on a classic optimization problem in operations research, the flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP), to discuss the method to deal with uncertainty in a manufacturing system. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, condition based maintenance (CBM), a kind of preventive maintenance, is suggested to reduce unavailability of machines. Different to the simultaneous scheduling algorithm (SSA) used in the previous article (Neale & Cameron,1979), an inserting algorithm (IA) is applied, in which firstly a pre-schedule is obtained through heuristic algorithm and then maintenance tasks are inserted into the pre-schedule scheme. Findings: It is encouraging that a new better solution for an instance in benchmark of FJSP is obtained in this research. Moreover, factually SSA used in literature for solving normal FJSPPM (FJSP with PM) is not suitable for the dynamic FJSPPM. Through application in the benchmark of normal FJSPPM, it is found that although IA obtains inferior results compared to SSA used in literature, it performs much better in executing speed. Originality/value: Different to traditional scheduling of FJSP, uncertainty of machines is taken into account, which increases the complexity of the problem. An inserting algorithm (IA) is proposed to solve the dynamic scheduling problem. It is stated that the quality of the final result depends much on the quality of the pre-schedule obtained during the procedure of solving a normal FJSP. In order to find the best solution of FJSP, a comparative study of three heuristics is carried out, the integrated GA, ACO and ABC. In the comparative study, we find that GA performs best in the three heuristic algorithms. Meanwhile, a new better solution for an instance in benchmark of FJSP is obtained in this research.


We study the design of optimal monetary policy under uncertainty in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. We use a Markov jump-linear-quadratic (MJLQ) approach to study policy design, approximating the uncertainty by different discrete modes in a Markov chain, and by taking mode-dependent linear-quadratic approximations of the underlying model. This allows us to apply a powerful methodology with convenient solution algorithms that we have developed. We apply our methods to a benchmark New Keynesian model, analyzing how policy is affected by uncertainty, and how learning and active experimentation affect policy and losses.


In developing countries, safe piped drinking water is generally unavailable, and bottled water is unaffordable for most people. Purchasing drinking water from community-scale decentralized water treatment and refill kiosks (referred to as isi ulang depots in Indonesia) is becoming a common alternative. This study investigates the association between diarrhea risk and community-scale water treatment and refill kiosk. We monitored daily diarrhea status and water source for 1,000 children 1-4 years of age in Jakarta, Indonesia, for up to 5 months. Among children in an urban slum, rate of diarrhea/1,000 child-days varied significantly by primary water source: 8.13 for tap water, 3.60 for bottled water, and 3.97 for water kiosks. In multivariable Poisson regression analysis, diarrhea risk remained significantly lower among water kiosk users (adjusted rate ratio [RR] = 0.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.29-0.83) and bottled water users (adjusted RR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.21-0.97), compared with tap water users. In a peri-urban area, where few people purchased from water kiosk (N = 28, 6% of total population), diarrhea rates were lower overall: 2.44 for well water, 1.90 for bottled water, and 2.54 for water kiosks. There were no significant differences in diarrhea risk for water kiosk users or bottled water users compared with well water users. Purchasing water from low-cost water kiosks is associated with a reduction in diarrhea risk similar to that found for bottled water.


Traffic theory is concerned with the movement of discrete objects in real time over a finite network in 2 dimensions. It is compatible with or dependent on fundamental diagram of traffic. Without question, traffic flow is an essential quantitative parameter that is used in planning, designs and roadway improvements. Road capacity is significant because it's an important indicator of road performance and can point road managers in the right road maintenance and traffic management direction. In this paper four direct empirical capacity measurement methods have been considered. To test the efficacy of each method data for peak period, off-peak and transition to peak have been used. The headway and the volumes methods lack predictive capability and are suitable only for current assessment of flow rates. The product limit method is weak in its predictive capability in view of the arbitrariness in the selection of the capacity value. It is also an extreme value method; hence not all volume data can be used with this method. The fundamental diagram method has good predictive capability and furnishes capacity values consistent with the standard of the facility. Unlike other methods, it does not rely on bottleneck conditions to deliver the capacity value. The paper concluded that each method is uniquely suited to prevailing conditions and can be so employed.


Despite the positive consideration that Psalm 58 enjoys, it gets little attention due to the obscurity of the text and the violence of the images used. The present study investigates the use of stile as vectors to express desire for justice. In this way, the same dynamic links the ideas expressed and the poetic procedures: the perversion of those responsible for administration of justice, the invocation to YHWH, the certitude of punishment and the joy of the pious man, convinced that there is a "just judge on earth". The poetic architecture of the psalm, in its images, sounds, and other stylistic resources, not only transmits its content, but makes it more fascinating and involving.


Increasingly, working class and lower class men are unable to marry. As their financial prospects have declined, so has their marriageability. American women, whose financial and educational prospects have improved during this same period, are now rejecting relationships with men they no longer view as their equals and this trend is creating a large class of unwilling bachelors. Mail order marriage provides a solution. Mail order marriages provide men with a pathway to marriage and, contrary to popular stereotypes, these marriages are also beneficial for the women.This article will show that assumptions about spousal abuse in mail order marriages are unsupported and that U.S. law provides effective protections for mail order brides. Moreover, this article will show how, rather than attracting vulnerable and desperate women, mail order marriages empower women. In fact, this article will argue that these foreign brides should be recognized as feminists and not victims. In addition, this article will examine American's widespread aversion to mail order marriages and consider what this reaction says about modern perceptions of love and marriage.


The federal government recently designated six empowerment zones in selected urban areas as an urban revitalization demonstration program. The program is derived from the enterprise zone strategy promoted by former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp that sought to address urban poverty by encouraging business growth through deregulation and tax incentives. The Clinton administration modified the original concept and now refers to the target areas as empowerment zones. As the definitions of "enterprise" and "empower" indicate, renaming the zones reflects a significant shift in emphasis-from a focus on stimulating business enterprise through reducing regulation to one in which regulation is used to enable local governments and communities to devise and implement their own collaborative approaches to human, economic, and community development.This article reviews the process by which enterprise zones became empowerment zones and the program benefits available to urban empowerment zones. I also discuss the innovative aspects of the program's recent implementation and its implications for significant community participation in planning and development.


The pandemic of COVID-19 has disrupted every aspect of life. From groceries to medicines, travel to events, sports to funerals, economics to politics and religion to social rights all domains of life have been shaken up by this infectious virus. The impact is deep and will have a lasting effect. The situation is severe in some countries and it is too soon to estimate the exact impact of COVID-19 on the global economy. This is a review article examining different facets of the pandemic to understand the impact on the economy. This article examines the effect of this crisis on the financial markets, banking, hospitality, and health care sectors. The data comes from various reports published by the various organizations and institutions worldwide and the recent limited research literature available on this topic. The bitter truth is that the pandemic will have a substantial and extended negative impact on the global economy, especially on the financial and hospitality industry.


Existing state-wide data bases on prosecutors' decisions about juvenile offenders are important, yet often un-explored resources for understanding changes in patterns of judicial decisions over time. We investigate the extent and nature of change in judicial behavior towards juveniles following the enactment of a new set of mandatory registration policies between 1992 and 1996 via analyzing the data on prosecutors' decisions of moving forward for youths repeatedly charged with sexual violence in South Carolina. We use a novel extension of random effects logistic regression model for longitudinal binary data via incorporating an unknown change-point year. For convenient physical interpretation, our models allow the proportional odds interpretation of effects of the explanatory variables and the change-point year with and without conditioning on the youth-specific random effects. As a consequence, the effects of the unknown change-point year and other factors can be interpreted as changes in both within youth and population averaged odds of moving forward. Using a Bayesian paradigm, we consider various prior opinions about the unknown year of the change in the pattern of prosecutors' decision. Based on the available data, we make posteriori conclusions about whether a change-point has occurred between 1992 and 1996 (inclusive), evaluate the degree of confidence about the year of change-point, estimate the magnitude of the effects of the change-point and other factors, and investigate other provocative questions about patterns of prosecutors' decisions over time.


During cellularization, the Drosophila embryo undergoes a large-scale cytokinetic event that packages thousands of syncytial nuclei into individual cells, resulting in the de novo formation of an epithelial monolayer in the cortex of the embryo. The formation of adherens junctions is one of the many aspects of epithelial polarity that is established during cellularization: at the onset of cellularization, the Drosophila β-catenin homologue Armadillo (Arm) accumulates at the leading edge of the cleavage furrow, and later to the apicolateral region where the zonula adherens precursors are formed. In this paper, we show that the basal accumulation of Arm colocalizes with DE-cadherin and Dα-catenin, and corresponds to a region of tight membrane association, which we refer to as the basal junction. Although the two junctions are similar in components and function, they differ in their response to the novel cellularization protein Nullo. Nullo is present in the basal junction and is required for its formation at the onset of cellularization. In contrast, Nullo is degraded before apical junction formation, and prolonged expression of Nullo blocks the apical clustering of junctional components, leading to morphological defects in the developing embryo. These observations reveal differences in the formation of the apical and basal junctions, and offer insight into the role of Nullo in basal junction formation.


The perspective of this thesis is different from that of recent studies within the sociology of religion in that it questions the value of continuing the sect-church typology and favours a phenomenological approach. It intends to move towards the vision of one reviewer of Wilson: Patterns of Sectarianism (1967) who looked forward to "further and rather different analysis of much of this material". In looking at the same or similar material in a different light it aims to contribute to the theoretical base of the sociology of religion. It sets out to look at the persistence of the Salvation Army as an institution, as a form of human organization designed to pursue religious aims, rather than as a "sect" or an example of any other academically imposed category. As such this study has nothing to add to the "sociology of sectarianism". This thesis utilizes the theory of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann that there is a dialectic process involving the human construction and internalization of social reality, involving tensions and dualities which make the acceptance of that reality, and therefore human existence, possible. Here the processes involved in the genesis and development of the Salvation Army, together with the concomitant dualities and tensions, are exposed by empirical analysis and their importance assessed. An explanation of the persistence of the movement is presented built upon this theoretical perspective. This study represents an important empirical testing and application of Berger and Luckmann's theory. "Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. "These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them; they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is I repeat it a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and c12arly the line of separation between them. "The world may not like to SRe these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show oass for sterling worth to let whitewashed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinize and expose to rase the gilding, and show the base metal underneath to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but, hate as it will, it is indebted to him." (Charlotte Bronte: dane Eyre, Preface)


Concerns about the social consequences of conservation have spurred increased attention the monitoring and evaluation of the social impacts of conservation projects. This has resulted in a growing body of research that demonstrates how conservation can produce both positive and negative social, economic, cultural, health, and governance consequences for local communities. Yet, the results of social monitoring efforts are seldom applied to adaptively manage conservation projects. Greater attention is needed to incorporating the results of social impact assessments in long‐term conservation management to minimize negative social consequences and maximize social benefits. We bring together insights from social impact assessment, adaptive management, social learning, knowledge coproduction, cross‐scale governance, and environmental planning to propose a definition and framework for adaptive social impact management (ASIM). We define ASIM as the cyclical process of monitoring and adaptively managing social impacts over the life‐span of an initiative through the 4 stages of profiling, learning, planning, and implementing. We outline 14 steps associated with the 4 stages of the ASIM cycle and provide guidance and potential methods for social‐indicator development, predictive assessments of social impacts, monitoring and evaluation, communication of results, and identification and prioritization of management responses. Successful ASIM will be aided by engaging with best practices – including local engagement and collaboration in the process, transparent communication of results to stakeholders, collective deliberation on and choice of interventions, documentation of shared learning at the site level, and the scaling up of insights to inform higher‐level conservation policies‐to increase accountability, trust, and perceived legitimacy among stakeholders. The ASIM process is broadly applicable to conservation, environmental management, and development initiatives at various scales and in different contexts.


An enrichment–separation scheme employing a strong-base type anion-exchange resin was developed for the determination of99Tc in sea-water by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry utilising ultrasonic nebulisation with membrane desolvation. Samples were processed through an anion-exchange column to enrich Tc and to eliminate sea-water matrix ions. The limit of detection for 99Tc in sea-water based on processing a 14 ml sample was 0.03 ng l–1. Accuracy was verified with spike recovery experiments. The potential for rapid on-line sample processing via a microcolumn–flow injection system was demonstrated.


Three new films from the series How We Behave commissioned by Extra City for the group exhibition 'Extra Citizen' curated by Antonia Alampi and iLiana Fikianaki.

Inspired by an interview with Michel Foucault published in Vanity Fair in 1983, titled 'How We Behave', Grant Watson's long-term project focuses on the central question that Foucault posed in this interview – why can't life be 'the material for a work of art?'.

The concern here is not with 'lifestyle' or the link between life and art, but with what Foucault considered to be an urgent question for our time – how people work with subjectivity and invent new ways of life and relations to others, as a form of resistance. How We Behave explores the relationship between personal experience and political practice - how the 'care of the self' can be seen as a precondition for the way we relate to others and to the environment. It looks for experimental life patterns, those interested in generating new social structures, investing in self-education, political consciousness, and new ways of thinking about gender and sexuality.

Each interview has been carried out in the same way with a group of three interviewers, a stenographer and the interviewee. A series of questions concerning details of the subject's life produced observations on behaviours and habits, exercises and techniques, emotional processes, economic circumstance, ethical dilemmas and politics. Each interview is transcribed and edited before a selection of transcriptions made and developed further. These texts were then used as the basis for a second filmed interview in which participants were asked to revisit the first interview in a part-scripted, part-improvised presentation for the camera.

These three films feature the feminist project Just for the Record, the artist Anne – Mie van Kerckhoven and Elke van Campenhout co-founder of The Monestry.


In this paper the use of cholesterol oxidase derivatized with a fluorescein derivative is proposed for the direct determination of total cholesterol in blood serum. The method is based on the changes in the fluorescence of the solution during the enzymatic reaction (λexe = 498 nm and λem 519 nm). A mathematical model which relates the analytical signal to the total cholesterol concentration was developed, and the model can also be used to obtain some of the thermodynamic constants of the process. The method has a linear response range up to 70 mg/L of cholesterol, a detection limit of 2.5 mg/L, and the precision was 1.0% (40 mg/L cholesterol, n = 10). The method was applied to total cholesterol determination in blood serum samples. The results were compared to those obtained by a commercial analyzer, and statistically similar results were obtained. The use of derivatized cholesterol oxidase makes it possible to simplify the methodology normally used in this type of determination (the indicator reaction is avoided and the number of reagents reduced), with the added advantage that the analytical signal is independent of the concentrations of O2 and cholesterol oxidase.


Over the last decade, a citizen science movement has tried to engage students, laymen and other non-scientists in the production of science. However, there has been less attention in citizen science projects to use the public to disseminate scientific knowledge. Wikipedia provides a platform to study engagement of citizen scientists in knowledge dissemination. College and university students are especially appropriate members of the public to write science articles, because of the course-work and mentorship they receive from faculty. This paper describes a project to support students' writing of scientific articles in Wikipedia. In collaboration with a scientific association, we involved 640 students from 36 courses in editing scientific articles on Wikipedia. This paper provides details in the design of the program and our quantitative and qualitative approaches to evaluating it. Our results show that the Wikipedia classroom experiment benefits both the Wikipedia community and students. Undergraduate and graduate students substantially improved the scientific content of over 800 articles, at a level of quality indistinguishable from content written by PhD experts. Both students and faculty endorsed the motivational benefits of an authentic writing experience that would be read by thousands of people.


Recent security breaches have highlighted the consequences of reusing passwords across online accounts. Recent guidance on password policies by the UK government recommend an emphasis on password length over an extended character set for generating secure but memorable passwords without cognitive overload. This paper explores the role of three nudges in creating website-specific passwords: financial incentive (present vs absent), length instruction (long password vs no instruction) and stimulus (picture present vs not present). Mechanical Turk workers were asked to create a password in one of these conditions and the resulting passwords were evaluated based on character length, resistance to automated guessing attacks, and time taken to create the password. We found that users created longer passwords when asked to do so or when given a financial incentive and these longer passwords were harder to guess than passwords created with no instruction. Using a picture nudge to support password creation did not lead to passwords that were either longer or more resistant to attacks but did lead to account-specific passwords.


Community sensing, fusing information from populations of privately-held sensors, presents a great opportunity to create efficient and cost-effective sensing applications. Yet, reasonable privacy concerns often limit the access to such data streams. How should systems valuate and negotiate access to private information, for example in return for monetary incentives? How should they optimally choose the participants from a large population of strategic users with privacy concerns, and compensate them for information shared? In this paper, we address these questions and present a novel mechanism, SeqTGreedy, for budgeted recruitment of participants in community sensing. We first show that privacy tradeoffs in community sensing can be cast as an adaptive submodular optimization problem. We then design a budget feasible, incentive compatible (truthful) mechanism for adaptive submodular maximization, which achieves near-optimal utility for a large class of sensing applications. This mechanism is general, and of independent interest. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in a case study of air quality monitoring, using data collected from the Mechanical Turk platform. Compared to the state of the art, our approach achieves up to 30% reduction in cost in order to achieve a desired level of utility.


Aqueous arsenic speciation, or the chemical forms in which arsenic exists in water, is a challenging, interesting, and complicated aspect of environmental arsenic geochemistry. Arsenic has the ability to form a wide range of chemical bonds with carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur, resulting in a large variety of compounds that exhibit a host of chemical and biochemical properties. Besides the intriguing chemical diversity, arsenic also has the rare capacity to capture our imaginations in a way that few elements can duplicate: it invokes images of foul play that range from sinister to comedic (e.g., "inheritance powder" and arsenic-spiked elderberry wine). However, the emergence of serious large-scale human health problems from chronic arsenic exposure in drinking water has placed a high priority on understanding environmental arsenic mobility, toxicity, and bioavailability, and chemical speciation is key to these important questions. Ultimately, the purpose of arsenic speciation research is to predict future occurrences, mitigate contamination, and provide successful management of water resources.

Chemical speciation is fundamental to understanding mobility and toxicity. Speciation affects arsenic solubility and solid-phase associations, and thus the mobility, of arsenic in natural waters. It is also critical to designing treatment strategies, understanding human exposure routes, and even developing medical applications (e.g., as a treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia; Antman 2001). As single- and multi-celled organisms are exposed to various forms of arsenic, they often alter its speciation to either utilize the arsenic for energy or to mitigate the detrimental effects of intracellular arsenic (detoxification). Some organisms can accumulate arsenic in cell material, which can be a concern if it accumulates in a human food product such as rice or seafood, but could be a potential remediation solution in hyper-accumulating plants (Ma et al. 2001).

It is important to quantify speciation in addition to total amount of arsenic because …


Access to drug and alcohol treatment services is a particularly salient issue for Australia. The nation is paying considerable attention to risky drug and alcohol use. Indigenous Australians are particularly concerned about drug and alcohol related harms in their communities. Access to treatment is the most effective way of reducing drug related harm for disadvantaged populations. Primary health care is the optimal site for delivering drug and alcohol treatment. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 47 primary health care, drug and alcohol and other health and welfare workers in rural and remote locations were conducted. Thematic analysis of interview data identified divergent perspectives according to a participant's work role about drug and alcohol treatment, client needs and problems and service delivery approaches. Primary health care workers were conceptualised as locals. They tended to perceive that drug and alcohol interventions should quickly prevent individuals from on-going problematic use. Drug and alcohol workers were conceptualised as insiders. Most did not have knowledge or experience of the primary health care setting. Therefore they could not assist primary health care workers to integrate drug and alcohol interventions into their interactions with clients. Professional and organisational barriers constrain the primary health care worker role and limit the application of specialist interventions. Drug and alcohol work is only one of many competing demands in the primary health setting. The lack of understanding of the primary health care worker role and responsibilities is the most significant barrier to implementing specialist interventions in this role. Primary health care workers' perceptions of substance misuse are more consistent with the individual moral or personal deficit philosophy of drug and alcohol treatment than harm minimisation approaches. This is a challenge for a specialist agency that is promoting harm minimisation and an adaptive approach to treatment within the primary care setting. Building the capacity of primary health care workers to do more varied tasks requires a good understanding of the pragmatic and practical realities of their day to day practice and the philosophies that underpin these.


Regardless of the legal or other pathways chosen to address a bullying dispute, it is commonplace for (alternative) dispute-resolution (ADR) techniques, such as mediation, to be a part of the resolution process. ADR comes with a range of possible costs and deficiencies including concerns that justice is not necessarily always done, despite ADR's claimed "success" from the perspectives of some ADR practitioners, lawyers, and the systems within which they work. In this article, we look at the suitability of ADR for workplace bullying disputes. As is the case with ADR in family and domestic violence matters, there are also issues concerning power imbalances between the parties in bullying cases. In addition, we examine the possible consequences of "off-the-record" ADR settlements on the Australian legal system – case law and precedent, and the community as a whole, We consider the answers to these questions through critical analysis, which is complemented by our experiential knowledge. Lastly, we make conclusions and recommendations for improved and fairer dispute resolution processes and better settlement outcomes.


This thesis is concerned with understanding women's emancipatory struggles and efforts to challenge their secondary status in Iran, but with reference to other Muslim societies in the Middle East. To explore the possibility of women's emancipation in Iran, the thesis focuses on, firstly, the position of women in relation to the forces of capitalist modernisation and Islamisation; secondly and more importantly, on women's main convictions and inner-conflicts, and how these are shaped by those forces. The thesis thus seeks to grasp the structure and dynamics of women's subjective field and to identify distinct subjective patterns which would constitute different responses to their situation. The thesis is divided into two parts: first, a literature review throws light on different crucial aspects of women's lives and possibilities for transformation in Iran and other Muslim societies in relation to the forces of capitalist modernisation and Islamisation. While showing the richness and growing sophistications of an expanding field of study, the literature review also pointed out to a few significant lacunae or gaps in current research. Two such gaps stand out and are of the greatest relevance for this thesis, namely, the fact that the issues of women's emancipation and subjectivities are missing in most studies of Muslim women, as these studies tend to overwhelmingly focus on women's (often imposed rather than self-attributed) identities and on the anti-Western or anti-Islamic aspects thereof. The second part of this thesis, a field study, seeks to fill in some of those gaps, particularly those concerning women's subjectivities and struggles for emancipation. In-depth semi-structured open-ended interviews with twenty-two Iranian women in Tehran from different social classes and backgrounds were conducted. The interviews, based on an interview guide designed so as to capture crucial aspects of women's subjective dispositions and strivings for emancipation, immediately brought out the critical importance of the opposition, missing in most studies, between capitalism and emancipation, and enabled the development of a two-dimensional framework based on two central oppositions: capitalism vs. emancipation on the horizontal axis or dimension, and modernity vs. tradition on the vertical one.
A more in-depth analysis of the interviews through the lens of the new framework allowed the identification of four main subjectivities carried by women and explain their emergence in terms of interaction effects between the four subjective determinations defining the framework (capitalism, modernity, emancipation and tradition): Islamist subjectivity, a statist form of religion in strong opposition to emancipatory feminism, the subjectivity of desire for the West, a fascination for individualism and a Western lifestyle and a denial of tradition, traditionalist subjectivities, a strong tendency to preserve all forms of traditions particularly religion and nationalism, and emancipatory subjectivity, although the latter only appears in this study in the form of modern emancipatory aspects and elements (with equality at their core) rather than a full-fledged 'emancipatory subjectivity'. Thanks to this form of analysis we have come to understand that women's movements in Iran are more oriented towards 'tackling Islamisation' than 'seeking equality' or 'challenging patriarchy'. It is on this basis that the thesis draws two of its main conclusions: firstly, that the opposition between capitalism and emancipation should be not only taken into account, but a major basis for any future studies on Muslim women; and, secondly, that the struggle against Islamisation cannot be separated from the struggles against social inequality and patriarchy.


Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a clean technology where light energy is used to drive redox processes on the surface of semiconductors. Applications include the photoelectrolysis of water, organic synthesis, carbon dioxide fixation, 'self-cleaning' surfaces, and the treatment of polluted air and water. Titanium dioxide is the most suitable photocatalyst for water treatment applications because it is chemically and photochemically stable, non toxic, photoactive against a wide range of organic pollutants, inexpensive and readily available. The high photocatalytic activity is largely due to the wide band gap giving a large potential window to drive redox reactions, although this requires UV excitation. Nano-engineering of photocatalytic materials may improve the efficiency of the process. Self-organised, vertically aligned, titania nanotubes were grown by the electrochemical oxidation of titanium metal in the presence of fluorine ions. These materials were compared with compact oxide and nanoparticle (Degussa P25) electrodes for the photocatalytic and electrochemically assisted photocatalytic degradation of phenol and formic acid as model pollutants. It was found that 'as-prepared' nanotube films did not give any improvement in efficiency, however, following a post-growth anneal step to improve crystallinity, the nanotube films out-performed both the compact oxide and nano-particulate electrodes for the electrochemically assisted photocatalytic degradation of formic acid and phenol. The improvement in performance is due to the nanostructure providing a high surface area for reaction, aligned channels for mass transfer of reactants and products to and from the surface, efficient hole transfer to solution and good electron transfer to the contact electrode


In this rousing sequel to his classic "Can Do! The Story of the Seabees," William Bradford Huie continues the saga of the combat trained civilian plumbers, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, wharf builders, and civil engineers who served in the U.S. Navy construction battalions. The story begins in 1944 with the battle for Iwo Jima when the Seabees braved concentrated enemy fire and Iwo's daunting terrain to rig floating causeways, blow up wrecked landing craft, and drive their bulldozers up three terraces that rose from the ocean to secure the beachhead. This book fully chronicles their heroism, including the unforgettable efforts of the men of the 31st Battalion who crawled the length of a landing strip to pick up shrapnel as Japanese snipers fired away.Huie does equal justice to the historic actions of the Seabees on D-Day at Omaha Beach, where they manned fifteen hundred vehicles during the first wave of landings at Normandy. He provides fascinating accounts of the creation and testing of various pierheads, floating steel bridges, and "Rhino" ferries. His narrative of Seabee accomplishments is heavily laced with colorful stories of moonshining, brawling, and carousing juxtaposed with compassionate stories of the children in the prisoner of war camps. His enthusiasm for the Seabees gained instant acceptance when this book was first published in 1945 and is often cited as inspiring succeeding generations to rise to the same spirit of devotion and loyalty to their task.


Background As an alternative to conventional treatments, a new liquid embolic device (Neucrylate) may be used to treat aneurysms or arteriovenous malformation (AVMs). Because this device contains metal for opacification, an investigation was performed to evaluate MRI issues for this liquid embolic device. Methods The liquid embolic device was evaluated for magnetic field interactions (translational attraction and torque) at 3 T, MRI-related heating at 1.5 T/64 MHz and 3 T/128 MHz and artifacts at 3 T using standardized techniques. In each case, MRI-related heating was assessed with the liquid embolic device in a gelled saline-filled phantom and MRI was performed using relatively high levels of radiofrequency energy. Artifacts were characterized using T1-weighted spin echo and gradient echo pulse sequences. Additionally, conductivity (ie, electrical resistance) measurements were recorded. Results The liquid embolic device exhibited no magnetic field interactions. Heating was at the same level as background temperature rises (ie, the temperatures recorded without the liquid embolic device present in the phantom) under 1.5 T/64 MHz (highest temperature change 1.4°C) and 3 T/128 MHz (highest temperature change 1.8°C) MRI conditions. Artifacts were small in relation to the size and shape of the liquid embolic device. The device was found to pose no risks with regard to the conductivity of the material. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that it is acceptable for a patient with this new liquid embolic device to undergo MRI at ≤3 T. Notably, the associated artifacts are unlikely to create issues for diagnostic MRI examinations.


Here we present a novel surface modification method based on the sequential layer-by-layer deposition of polyelectrolytes yielding hydrophilic microchannels in PDMS-based microfluidic devices. The coatings are long-term stable and allow for the generation of monodisperse oil-in-water microdroplets even several months after the channel surface treatment. Due to the robustness of the polyelectrolyte multilayers ultra-high flow rates can be applied, making high-throughput droplet formation in the jetting mode possible. Furthermore, we successfully used our method to selectively modify the surface properties in certain areas of assembled microchannels. The resulting partially hydrophilic, partially hydrophobic microfluidic devices allow for the production of monodisperse water-in-oil-in-water double emulsions.


We derive generalized full-vectorial continuity relations of field derivatives across an abrupt curved interface. Using the Helmholtz wave equation, we can extend the interface conditions by two orders. Repeating the process, we obtain interface conditions of even and odd orders from the zeroth- and first-order interface conditions, respectively, which can be extended to arbitrary orders. The interface conditions combined with Taylor series expansion are applied in higher order full-vectorial finite-difference analysis of several waveguide structures. From effective index convergence analysis of optical fiber modes, the 6-, 15-, and 28-point schemes give second-, fourth-, and sixth-order convergence, respectively. The higher order formulation is also applied to guided mode analysis of photonic crystal fibers and terahertz pipe waveguides, where improved accuracy is obtained when using higher order scheme. Our proposed method allows coarser discretization, which can greatly reduce the computation time and memory. The ultimate accuracy can also be higher due to smaller accumulated roundoff error.


Objective: To study the frequency of In-Stent Restenosis and its treatment in patients undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for coronary artery disease.
Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study.
Place and Duration of Study: Department of Cardiology, Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology & National Institute of Heart disease (AFIC/NIHD) Rawalpindi, from Jul 2017 to Jul 2019.
Methodology: All the patients who underwent Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Coronary Artery Disease at our institute were considered for this study. A consecutive sampling method was used and inclusion/exclusion criteria was applied. Following data was obtained; 1) Demographic information and clinical risk factors like history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, smoking, coronary artery disease characteristics(number of diseased arteries, bifurcation lesions, calcification, chronic total occlusions-CTO and tortuosity) 3), Stent factors (under expansion, fracture, longitudinal miss, stent gap). Data recording, storage, assessment and analysis was done by using SPSS software version 21.
Results: Among 1332 cases, 50 had In-Stent Restenosis with overall prevalence of 3.75%. Mean age of the patients with In-Stent Restenosis was 58.76 (± 9.97), with 45 (90%) male and 5 (10%) female. Diabetes Mellitus was the commonest risk factor (22.9%) followed by Hypertension (18%). Sixty four percent of the patients (n=32) had Single Vessel Coronary Artery Disease, 14 (28%) had Double Vessel Coronary Artery Disease and 4 (8%) had Tripple Vessel Coronary Artery Disease. Left Anterior Descending was the commonest coronary artery that developed In-Stent Restenosis, followed by Right Coronary Artery and Left Circumflex respectively. Previously deployed stents which developed In-Stent Restenosis showed longitudinal geographical miss in 16%, stent under expansion in 6% and stent gap in 4%. There was statistically significant association (p-value=0.02) between stent length and frequency of In-Stent Restenosis and it was commonest in stents longer than 30 mm. Eighty six percent(n=43) of In-Stent Restenosis cases in our study group was treated with Drug Eluting Stent followed by Drug Eluting Balloon in 32% and Plain Old Balloon Angioplasty in 22%.
Conclusion: History of diabetes mellitus and greater stent length were major risk factors in developing In-Stent Restenosis in our study. DES was the commonest treatment modality used.Keywords: , , .


Ratings and comments play a dominant role in online reviews. The question, thus, arises as to whether or not there is any consistency in consumer perception of the reviews, and how future choices might be influenced. We analysed 2000 comments of 20 different hotels posted on TripAdvisor to determine if the comments posted by previous guests of a hotel influence the decisions of potential guests. Two hundred human raters were asked to consider 20 reviews and to rate a hotel based on the reviews. The Cohen Kappa coefficient was used to evaluate the degree of agreement on the hotel quality as determined by the human raters and the star rating given by the original reviewer. The results showed a high consistency between the human raters' evaluation and the reviewers' star rating. This research reveals the importance of website feedback such as TripAdvisor in influencing consumer choice.


The availability of smartphone and wearable sensor technology is leading to a rapid accumulation of human subject data, and machine learning is emerging as a technique to map that data into clinical predictions. As machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to support clinical decision making, it is important to reliably quantify their prediction accuracy. Cross-validation is the standard approach for evaluating the accuracy of such algorithms; however, several cross-validations methods exist and only some of them are statistically meaningful. Here we compared two popular cross-validation methods: record-wise and subject-wise. Using both a publicly available dataset and a simulation, we found that record-wise cross-validation often massively overestimates the prediction accuracy of the algorithms. We also found that this erroneous method is used by almost half of the retrieved studies that used accelerometers, wearable sensors, or smartphones to predict clinical outcomes. As we move towards an era of machine learning based diagnosis and treatment, using proper methods to evaluate their accuracy is crucial, as erroneous results can mislead both clinicians and data scientists.


Modeling of C turnover is a common tool for the prediction of C stocks and CO2 efflux. It is well recognized that the choice of the input data (e.g., C pool sizes, hydraulic parameters, atmospheric boundary conditions) determines the outcome of these prediction. Temperature is known to be one of the most important driving factors and it varies in a range of temporal scales. Typically, the time discretization of most models is flexible and can range from minutes to months. However, the implications of variable time discretization for predicted soil C turnover are seldom discussed. In this study, we demonstrated that averaging of input temperature data will lead to changes in predicted C turnover in terms of daily amplitude and the impact of extreme temperatures. The results indicate that averaging from hourly to daily or monthly temperatures will lead to relative errors >4% yr−1 for cumulative CO2 efflux. Instantaneous CO2 fluxes are even more affected, where daily and monthly averaging will lead to estimation errors exceeding 20%. We also show that a constant or daily variable temperature amplitude for rescaling daily average temperature did not decrease the error when using daily or monthly mean temperature instead of hourly data. Therefore, instantaneous fluxes are only accurately predicted when hourly temperature input is used. For long‐term modeling (e.g., years to centuries), the relative error in cumulative efflux, and therefore in C stocks loss, is reasonably low (∼4–5% annual error) but will accumulate with time again.


The rapid pace of emerging technologies is playing an increasingly important role in overcoming fundamental human limitations. Featuring core writings by seminal thinkers in the speculative possibilities of the posthuman condition, essays address key philosophical arguments for and against human enhancement, explore the inevitability of life extension, and consider possible solutions to the growing issues of social and ethical implications and concerns. Edited by the internationally acclaimed founders of the philosophy and social movement of transhumanism, The Transhumanist Reader is an indispensable guide to our current state of knowledge of the quest to expand the frontiers of human nature.


This study explored how the developmental status of 49 3-year-old prematurely born children related to the interactions between these children and their mothers. Two 2-hour observations of mother-child interactions, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory, a developmental assessment, and Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS) were scored when the child was 3 years corrected age. The effects of specific developmental problems (cognitive, language, and attention) were examined by comparing subgroups with and without these problems. Children with normal IQs spent less time not playing and scored higher on the NCATS than children with low IQs. Mothers of children with normal IQs scored higher on provision of play materials on the HOME. The mothers of children with language concerns interacted less, talked less, were more negative, and scored lower on the HOME and NCATS than mothers of the children with normal language abilities. Children with attention problems were more active than children with normal attention spans. These findings suggest that mother-child interactions might be useful for identifying children at risk for developmental delay and that interventions with preschool children with developmental delays will probably be more effective if their mothers are helped to provide a more appropriate social environment.


In litigation, "haves" and "have-nots" battle over what procedures should govern. Yet, much greater hostilities have been avoided—a war between the "haves" themselves. "Criminal haves" (prosecutors) and "civil haves" (institutional players) litigate in separate territories and under different sets of rules. This is good, for them, because they have incompatible objectives. This Article contends that protecting the "haves" from each other has profoundly influenced the development of procedure in the United States.

The "haves" reap significant benefits in being insulated from each other as they seek rules responsive to their unique preferences. A "criminal have" seeks easy access to the forum and thus prefers a permissive pleading standard. In contrast, a "civil have" seeks to impede a plaintiff from bringing suit and thus prefers a demanding pleading standard. As to discovery, "criminal haves," possessing actionable facts and seeking to control the pretrial distribution of information, resist discovery and judicial involvement. In contrast, "civil haves" often need information to pursue legal objectives, and thus prefer a formal discovery phase, along with the option of judicial intervention to temper instances of discovery abuse. The procedural divide allows the "haves" to achieve these otherwise incompatible objectives.

In the absence of a procedural divide, "criminal haves" and "civil haves" would engage in contestation over what rules govern litigation. This Article suggests that, should civil and criminal litigants be subject to the same rules, as initially proposed during federal reform in the 1940s, the introduction of litigants into a unified forum would result in a fairer approach to procedure, mitigate existing inequalities, and accomplish some litigation objectives of the "havenots."


The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Bank of Korea (BoK) jointly organized a conference on macroprudential regulation and policy in Seoul, Korea, on 16-18 January 2011. The conference aimed to bring academics together with researchers at central banks and other public institutions to present and discuss ongoing theoretical and empirical work in the field. In response to their call for papers, the organizers received more than 75 submissions from central banks, public agencies, supranational organizations and academic institutions. From these, a selection committee from the BIS and the BoK chose 12 papers organized around the following four themes: systemic risk; financial system procyclicality; macroeconomic impact studies and early warning indicators; and (iv) effective implementation of macroprudential policy. In all, 35 participants took part, including central bank economists from Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the United States, as well as academics from Europe, Korea and North America. Governor Choongsoo Kim of the BoK gave the welcome address, and Governor Stefan Ingves of Sveriges Riksbank and Professor Hyun Song Shin from Princeton University gave keynote speeches. The conference concluded with a policy panel focusing on macroprudential policy frameworks. This volume is a collection of the welcome address, keynote speeches, revised versions of all papers presented during the conference and the panel discussions.


Abstract. The decrease of the concentration of ozone depleting substances (ODSs) in the stratosphere over the past decade raises the question to what extent observed changes in stratospheric ozone over this period are consistent with known changes in the chemical composition and possible changes in atmospheric transport. Here we present a series of ozone sensitivity calculations with a stratospheric chemistry transport model (CTM) driven by meteorological reanalyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, covering the period 1978–2009. In order to account for the reversal in ODS trends, ozone trends are analysed as piecewise linear trends over two periods, 1979–1999 and 2000–2009. Modelled column ozone (TO3) inter-annual variability and trends are in excellent agreement with observations from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and Solar Backscatter UV (SBUV/2) as well as the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME/GOME2) and Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instruments. In the period 1979–1999, modelled TO3 trends at mid-latitudes are dominated by changes in in situ gas-phase chemistry, which contribute to about 50% or more of the TO3 trend in most seasons. Changes in meteorology contribute around 35% to mid-latitude TO3 trends, with strong differences between different seasons. In springtime, export of ozone depleted air from polar latitudes contributes about 35–50% to the modelled TO3 trend at SH mid-latitudes and about 15–30% at NH mid-latitudes. Over the period 2000–2009 positive linear trends in modelled TO3, which agree well with observed TO3 trends, are dominated by changes in meteorology, as expected for the yet small decrease in stratospheric halogen loading over this period. While the TO3 trends themselves are not statistically significant over the period 2000–2009, changes in linear trends between 1978–1999 and 2000–2009 are significant at mid- and high latitudes of both hemisphere during most seasons. However, changes in meteorology have contributed substantially to these TO3 trend changes.


After characterization of preferred conditions for Helicobacter pylori survival in the sessile state, it was observed that the bacterium transforms from spiral to coccoid under mild circumstances, whereas under extreme ones it is unable to undergo shape modification. This strongly supports the view that transformation into the coccoid form is an active, biologically led process, switched on by the bacterium as a protection mechanism. All living organisms are equipped with mechanisms that allow extended survival under adverse environments. For a number of them, this response involves, besides metabolic adaptations, changes in cell morphology (24). Similarly, the gastrointestinal pathogen Helicobacter pylori is known to mainly present a spiral shape in the natural habitat within the human host, but it converts into a coccoid shape when exposed to detrimental environmental circumstances (2). In this case, however, the pleiomorphic nature of the bacterium has been the subject of intensive debate over the last 10 years, with part of the scientific community still maintaining that the coccoid shape represents a degraded, nonviable form of the cell (8, 13, 19, 25). There are several factors contributing to this situation. (i) When H. pylori transformation into the coccoid form occurs, the cells enter a nonculturable state and are unable to be revived when placed under optimum growth conditions. (ii) Reversion trials (i.e., transformation from the coccoid form to the spiral form) have not been successful so far. (iii) There appears to be little metabolic activity and modification of physiology of the bacterium during conversion. (iv) Transformation to the coccoid form always appears to occur in what are thought to be the most adverse environments when the cells have no chance of survival. On the other hand, several reports have argued that coccoid cells might constitute a survival strategy in adverse environmental conditions (4, 10, 11, 22). The main argument for this is the existence of a state named viable but nonculturable (18, 27, 29). Viable but nonculturable bacteria also tend to possess little activity, which provides an alternative explanation for some of the phenomena observed for H. pylori.


Adaptation to coastal flood risk is hampered by high uncertainty in the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise. Subsequently, adaptation decisions carry strong risks of under- or over-investment, and could lead to costly retrofitting or unnecessary high margins. To better allocate resources timely and effectively, and achieve long-term sustainability, planners could utilise adaptation pathways, revealing the path-dependencies of adaptation options. This helps to identify low-regret short-term decisions that preserve options in an uncertain future, while monitoring to detect signals to adapt. A major barrier to the application of adaptation pathways is limited experience. To facilitate this, here we generalize this pathways approach for six common coastal archetypes, resulting in generic pathways suitable to be adjusted to local conditions. This provides a much richer analysis of coastal adaptation than provided by any previous analysis, by assessing the solution space and options over time for a variety of coastal regions. Based on this analysis, we find that the number of adaptation options declines while sea-level rises. For some archetypes, it becomes clear that long-term thinking is needed now, about if, how and when to move to transformative options, such as planned retreat, which may presently not be considered or acceptable. Our analysis further shows that coastal adaptation needs to start earlier than anticipated, especially given time required for local debate and choice and to implement measures.


Does the relentless pursuit of a single policy objective--on which there are deeply felt opposing positionsendanger governmental and political institutions that citizens value and depend on? Out of concern that the abortion dispute might pose just such a question, the Brookings Institution invited pro-life and pro-choice activists to join a group of public affairs experts at a symposium on the effects of the dispute on the American system. This volume presents an introductory essay that explains the issues involved, the appraisals that provided the starting point for the symposium discussion, and a summary of the reactions of symposium participants. Lawrence M. Friedman appraises the abortion dispute in a constitutional context, focusing on the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, which legitimized abortion under certain ground rules. Roger H. Davidson considers the effects of the abortion dispute on congressional procedures. G. Calvin Mackenzie discusses the ways in which the presidential appointment process has been affected by the consideration of nominees's views on abortion. John E. Jackson and Maris A. Vinovskis analyze the role of abortion as a single issue in electoral politics. A historical note by Cynthia E. Harrison reviews the Prohibition experience, an earlier attempt to regulate conduct by constitutional restraint. The general conclusion of the scholars who wrote these essays as well as the activists and others participating in the symposium was that the abortion dispute does not jeopardize governmental institutions. Even the unprecedented or unique political techniques used by the advocates on both sides are regarded as within the norms of traditional American politics."


The effects of high salt concentrations on the germination of Bacillus subtilis endospores are barely investigated. This thesis addressed questions concerning high-salinity effects on spore germination, the roles of cellular components in germination under high salt conditions and salt-dependent alterations in gene expression during spore outgrowth.
B. subtilis wild type spores are generally able to germinate despite the presence of very high salt concentrations and osmolalities (up to 3.6M and 7.2 osmol/kg, respectively). However, elevated salt concentrations exert inhibitory effects on germination, leading to a delay of germination onset and decreased germination efficiency. Four major factors were identified to differentially affect spore germination at high salinity: the germination medium, the employed germination trigger, the type of ionic species and the ion concentration. Cationic and anionic species, valence and general chemical properties seem to influence the inhibitory features of a salt, whereas the overall osmolality of the germination medium is apparently less important. Salt inhibition seems to have several targets, at least one being related to nutrient germination receptor (GR) functionality. In fact, the different GRs were found to be unequally affected by different salts. However, high salinity can also inhibit non-nutrient germination that does not involve GRs, indicating at least one additional, GR-independent inhibition target.
The germination analyses of mutant spores provided interesting information on the involvement of different cellular components within the germination process. The anionic phospholipid cardiolipin (CL) is not essential, but beneficial for successful nutrient germination in the absence of salt. Yet, CL is highly important for germination in a high-salinity environment, possibly due to stabilizing effects on the GRs. The K⁺-transport systems KtrAB and KtrCD are not essential for germination, but KtrAB seems to play a role for germination in the presence of high NaCl concentrations. Regardless of the salinity of the germination medium, the five osmoprotectant uptake systems (OpuA to OpuE) are not involved in germination, although they generally seem to facilitate outgrowth and subsequent growth.


The neighborhood has long found its social dynamism dependent on its spaces and places. On the one hand, it seems that the interactions and relationships of the residents are formed in the public spaces of the neighborhood, and on the other hand, the public spaces of the neighborhood find their identity from the existing social life. Hence, differences between the functional structure of neighborhoods can lead to changes in the social capacities of the neighborhood. The methodology of the current study was qualitative and aimed to identify the relationship between the components of the functional dimension and the social capital of Tehran residents. In a descriptive-correlational design, 300 residents of the Sa'adat Abad, Nazi Abad, and the Narmak neighborhoods were selected by simple random sampling and answered a self-regulation questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient. The results indicated that there is a positive and significant relationship between all components of the functional dimension and social capital in general. The mixed land use dimension had the most relationship with social capital, and the use of space in responding to the needs and efficiency of the network and comfort in space were ranked next. Regarding the relationship between the components of functional dimension and social capital by neighborhood, the results showed that Sa'adat Abad neighborhood had the lowest relationship and Nazi Abad and Narmak neighborhoods had the highest relationship. Assessing these relationships can help urbanism experts provide solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of urban public spaces and interventions to increase social capital.


There has been a good deal of attention focused recently on questions concerning how employers are allowed to treat pregnant women in the workplace under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued revised guidance addressing issues of pregnancy, including the requirements imposed by Title VII with respect to the accommodation of disabling conditions experienced by women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth. And the United States Supreme Court has recently decided a case, Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc., which addresses the circumstances under which an employer will be found to have violated Title VII's prohibition against intentional discrimination for refusing to provide the same accommodation to women affected by pregnancy as that employer provides to a number of other categories of employees. The disparate treatment theory, on which both the Young case and the EEOC guidance are focused, is undoubtedly an important resource for women who are affected by pregnancy and childbirth to seek accommodations similar to those provided to other employees. But neither the Young case nor the new EEOC guidance focuses on the provision of Title VII that is most likely to provide a mandate for employers to provide accommodation to women affected by pregnancy who experience temporary inability to perform part or all of their job functions. That provision, not raised at all in the decision before the Supreme Court and slighted by the EEOC guidance, is the prohibition on employers maintaining even pregnancy-neutral policies and practices that disproportionately disadvantage women on the basis of pregnancy and cannot be justified by business necessity. It is the disparate impact theory, rather than the disparate treatment theory, in which Title VII's requirement to accommodate pregnancy is most likely to be found.


We have studied theoretically the optical properties of microcavities with multiple quantum wells in the central layer. The calculations have been performed both numerically, on the basis of the transfer-matrix method, and analytically, in the classical electrodynamic approach. Special attention has been paid to resonant Bragg multiple quantum wells sandwiched between nonresonant distributed Bragg reflectors. In this case the Rabi splitting of the exciton–polariton branches has been shown to increase in proportion to the square root of the well number. We have generalized the theory to calculate oblique-incidence reflection and absorption spectra in microcavities and to describe angle-dependent anticrossing between the photon and the exciton resonances. The fine structure of exciton–polaritons has been analyzed in particular cases for both s- and p-polarized modes.