On August 10, 1990, ten federal district court judges from around the country, all handling large asbestos personal-injury dockets, issued an unprecedented order creating a mandatory, nationwide class action. The very fact that a group of judges had convened to take action regarding the disposition of mass tort litigation was a unique event in judicial history. Within a week of the judges' order, the Sixth Circuit struck down the novel class action plan, stating that it was "unable to find any Congressional authority for an 'ad hoc national coordinating committee' to issue orders as an Article III court." The appellate court further stated that the federal judges had exceeded their article III constitutional powers in their efforts to coordinate asbestos litigation on a nationwide basis. What had impelled the federal judges to take this unusual step that caused such a swift rebuke from the Sixth Circuit? The federal judges were reacting to the asbestos litigation crisis in federal court. Asbestos litigation, as a discrete mass tort phenomenon, began to appear on federal dockets in the late 1970s. The incidence of newly filed federal asbestos personal-injury and product-liability cases continues apace, without a correlative increase in the capacity of the judicial system to fairly and efficiently adjudicate these cases. As of January 1, 1990, approximately 30,000 asbestos cases were pending in all districts of the federal court system.Although a significant number of these cases have been terminated through various means, statistics reflect a steady flow of new cases into the system, amounting to a net increase in pending cases. Moreover, while the cases in the 1970s were centered primarily in six judicial districts, the cases in the 1980s and 1990s are now dispersed throughout the entire federal system. Asbestos litigation has become the federal court system's Sisyphean task: no matter how efficiently the courts push asbestos lawsuits through the system, more cases are filed in the courts without signs of respite.The judges' meeting and subsequent class action order seemed to appear from the blue. Indeed, some asbestos attorneys labeled the judges' behavior "really bizarre" and "getting stranger and stranger." To many close observers of the mass tort phenomenon, however, the judges' action seemed a logical, if perhaps desperate, outgrowth of nearly a decade of frustrated attempts at legal reform. Immediate judicial action was necessary to remedy a litigation crisis in the face of legislative and executive lassitude. If institutional law reform groups could not induce change, and if Congress would not pass meaningful legislative measures, then the judges would take matters into their own hands and begin to address this complex litigation crisis. Predictably, the Sixth Circuit's response to the district court judges was "thou shalt not legislate."How had it come to pass that federal judges hoped to usurp the prerogative of legislators? The answer lies, in part, in surveying the last decade's complex litigation problems as well as the reform efforts that attempted to remedy this phenomenon. This Article outlines these problems; other Articles in this symposium analyze some of the institutional responses to coping with contemporary mass tort litigation.To be sure, the concept of complex litigation is not new. Complex cases involving multiple parties, with claims dispersed over time and place, have existed as long as litigation has existed. As Professor Stephen Yeazell has taught, group action has a long lineage. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure recognized collective action in the class action rule and encouraged increasingly complex litigation through various liberal joinder provisions. Notwithstanding these procedural vehicles for adjudicating big cases, the complex litigation phenomenon did not fully evolve until mid-century. In the 1950s the federal courts experienced the massive electronics antitrust litigation, and in the 1960s the judicial system experienced vigorous prosecution of civil-rights class actions and institutional-reform litigation. Interestingly, this first experience with system-wide complex litigation revealed problems in the judicial branch's ability to fairly and efficiently adjudicate complex cases under rules and procedure then governing the system. This recognition, in turn, fostered the first reform efforts directed specifically at complex cases, resulting in the enactment of the multidistrict-litigation statute and the 1966 revision of the class action rule. These large, complex cases have refocused attention on various inabilities of the judicial system to resolve these cases in a fair, expeditious, and equitable fashion. The academic literature of the 1980s is replete with discussion and analysis of the failure of the judicial system to adequately deal with this newer phenomenon of complex litigation. In turn, these new problems of complex litigation have fostered reform efforts by various academicians and institutional law reform groups, such as the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute, the Federal Judicial Center, and the Rand Institute for Civil Justice. The purpose of this discussion is to outline the problems of complex litigation and to survey the kinds of questions that law reformers have grappled with in recent years. This discussion uses a wide-angle lens rather than a telescopic one; it aims for breadth rather than depth. The problems of contemporary mass tort complex litigation are clustered into a half-dozen related themes: (1) problems of litigant autonomy versus aggregative procedure; (2) problems of economics, efficiencies, and ethics; (3) problems relating to the failure of procedural rules and doctrine, including problems of constitutional dimension and federalism; (4) problems relating to ascertaining applicable law; (5) problems relating to post-aggregative procedure; and (6) problems relating to alternative dispute resolution.


From existing research, we know little about possible relationships between individual characteristics of young people who are not in education, training or employment (NEET) and how they interact with specific technologies to communicate and interact with support agencies. This key issue was the main focus of this study. The study was supported by Prospects and Connexions Bradford. At the time the study was undertaken, Connexions Bradford supported uses of mobile telephone, texting, email and Facebook to maintain contacts between their personal assistants (PAs) and their clients.


Waves are a fundamental feature in many parts of physics, since they transport energy without transporting matter. This is the case also in space physics. Waves are responsible for energy transport both between different parts of space and between different particles in the space plasma. They are also useful for diagnostics of the space plasma itself. The present thesis considers two different parts of the large subject of space plasma waves: Lower hybrid cavities (LHCs) and simple-pole particle distribution functions.The LHCs are localised density depletions that have been observed by several spacecraft. They have increased wave activity in the lower hybrid frequency range, and was previously found on altitudes up to 1750 km. New observations by the Viking and Cluster satellites show that they are common magnetospheric features, at least up to an altitude of 35,000 km. Theoretical results, assuming a cylindrically symmetric density depletion, show that even though the density depletion may decrease slowly with increasing radial distance, and thus be essentially infinite in extent, there is a maximum distance within which a trapped mode, with given wave number kz parallel to the geomagnetic field, may propagate. Furthermore, there is a local relation between the plasma density gradient and the lowest possible frequency that the trapped waves can have, for any monotonic density and given kz. The combined theoretical and observational results indicate that the length of the cavities is larger than the width by a factor of at least 200.Simple-pole particle distribution functions are introduced because they can model high velocity tails of the particle distribution in a way that is not possible to do with Maxwellian distribution functions. These distributions also simplify the calculations. This gives new possibilities for the physical understanding, as well as the numerical calculations, of the dispersion relations of real space plasmas. The dispersion relations of plasmas described by simple-pole distributions are examined, both for unmagnetised and for magnetised plasmas. These examples show how particle populations with the same density and mean particle energy, but with somewhat different distribution functions, have different wave propagation properties that should be observable by existing spacecraft.


In South Africa, as in a number of other countries, on-site sanitation has a dominant place in the landscape of basic sanitation infrastructure. If the question 'What happens when the pit is full?' has been thought of at all, it is generally assumed that the pits will be emptied by vacuum tanker. However, owing to site access constraints and the nature of the sludge itself (it can be dense and have a high trash content) vacuum tankers are not always practical. The alternative – manual pit emptying – is hazardous and unpleasant. The Water Research Commission of South Africa funded experimental development of a number of technologies designed to fill the gap between large vacuum tankers and manual emptying. This paper describes these attempts, which include the Gobbler, which uses chains and scoops to lift sludge from the pit, the motorized pit screw auger, which uses a soil auger to lift sludge from a pit, and the NanoVac and eVac, which are small vacuum pumps designed to suck relatively wet sludge from pits. The eVac shows the most promise, but it seems unlikely that any one machine will be able to successfully deal with the greatly varying conditions found in pit latrines.


Abstract Leaf size and shape are selected by climate and are strongly correlated with climatic variables. Accordingly, fossil dicotyledonous leaves are considered to be among the most reliable indicators of terrestrial paleoclimates. However, the methods used have much potential for improvement. All currently rely on discrete, usually binary characters, but leaf morphology is better evaluated and more reproducibly measured using continuous variables. Digital leaf measurement offers the possibility of continuous, reproducible variables, with the potential to improve paleoclimate estimates as well as the ecological and evolutionary understanding of leaf form. Results are reported for five variables measured on 238 leaves representing the woody species from three living test floras—two temperate and one humid tropical. The variables are: shape factor (an area:perimeter ratio standardized to a circle); the ratio of feret diameter (diameter if leaf's area is contained in a circle) to major axis length; the ratio of tooth area to leaf area; tooth count; and tooth count standardized to leaf perimeter. It is well known that increased mean annual temperature is correlated with a high percentage of untoothed species. By extension, increasing temperature is expected to be associated with relatively undissected, more circular leaves (i.e., with high shape factor, low tooth-area:leaf-area ratio, and low tooth count). These trends were observed in the test floras, both between the tropical and the temperate sites and between the two temperate sites. Shape factor was the variable that resolved the three sites most significantly. The five variables show promise for testing on an expanded set of floras sufficient to develop statistical models for paleoclimatic studies.


In order to improve the specificity of the diagnosis of bovine brucellosis, we developed a test which can be regarded as an in vitro correlate of the delayed-type hypersensitivity test (DTH). A mixture of cytoplasmic proteins from Brucella melitensis B115 was used as a specific antigenic stimulus in bovine whole blood culture. Supernatants harvested at 18 to 24 h after the in vitro antigenic stimulus were assayed for their gamma interferon (IFN-gamma) content by using a commercial sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. The IFN-gamma assay was evaluated with 10 heifers during the course (80 days) of an experimental infection and with 14 cows from an ongoing brucellosis outbreak. All of these animals were slaughtered, and pertinent organs were subjected to classical bacteriological analyses. In addition, we analyzed 23 field cases in which false-positive serological reactions occurred. The IFN-gamma results were compared with those of the standard DTH and a battery of serological assays, and they were correlated with bacteriological data. Both for the experimental infection and for the field brucellosis outbreak, the IFN-gamma assay detected infection in more animals than any combination of the serological tests, and it detected infection earlier than these tests. Finally, none of the samples from cows showing false-positive serological reactions was classified as positive by the IFN-gamma assay, attesting to its specificity and to its usefulness in interpreting ambiguous serological results. A rapid and convenient alternative to the DTH, the IFN-gamma assay appears to be an ideal method that is complementary to the serological diagnosis protocols.


Abstract Established forest trees planted from small containers are less stable at the point where roots fork, bend or branch as a result of deflection by container wall, but less is known about the post-transplant impact of root deflections resulting from growing trees in large containers. We either root pruned by shaving off the periphery of the #3 container root ball as it was planted into the #15 container or did not root prune on 5 tropical and 2 temperate tree species. Shaving did not affect trunk caliper or tree height on the seven species tested under the conditions of this study. Shaving removed the entire outer and bottom 2.5 cm (1 in) of the root ball and reduced or eliminated culls on five of seven species. The largest diameter roots on trees in #15 containers that were not root pruned when shifted from #3 containers were kinked, descended down the container wall, or circled at the position of the #3 container. These root defects were largely missing on trees with root balls that were shaved o...


The fundamental goal of all neuronal processing is to make optimal decisions, and thereby to generate optimal behavior. To this end, the brain performs at each point in time millions of parallel computations. Right now, your brain might weigh thoroughly if it is worth to continue reading this thesis or not. In the end however, weighing is not enough: a decision has to be made. Such a decision is an intrinsically nonlinear process. If two possibilities are nearly equally evaluated, a small change in your considerations might lead to the acceptance of one alternative, and the rejection of the other. Furthermore, not all considerations have to contribute linearly to the decision. For example, a lack of time might certainly keep you from reading this thesis, while having excess spare time might still not make you read it. Such a nonlinear weighing of considerations does not only occur on the conscious level, but all the time in the individual neuronal circuits of the brain. Each neuron can be interpreted as a decision unit, computing whether to spike or not. It typically receives multiple parallel streams of information, and based on these generates its own neuronal output. The inputs resemble the considerations taken into account, while the output conveys the decision to subsequent circuits. How the decision is made is therefore determined by the way the inputs are combined into the neuronal output. In particular, individual inputs might contribute either linearly or nonlinearly to the decision. Thus, in order to understand which role a neuron plays in information processing, we have to assess the nonlinearities involved in the integration of different neuronal inputs.
In this thesis, we study this ubiquitous signal integration in the output neurons of the amphibian retina, the retinal ganglion cells. Thereby we hope to gain a better understanding of the general mechanisms underlying signal integration in the circuits of the brain. This will also help us elucidate the functions of the retina in particular. Because of the high similarity of the retinas among all vertebrates, by studying the amphibian retina we also learn to better understand human vision.
The amphibian retina is particularly suited to study the nonlinear integration of neuronal signals, because each single ganglion cell receives distinct inputs originating from tens to hundreds of photoreceptors. Indeed, ganglion cells do not just linearly average these inputs, but combine them in a nonlinear fashion. It turned out that it is precisely this nonlinearity which allows specific ganglion cells to decide whether particular features were present in their visual input. Hence, an understanding of how the retina encodes images into neuronal activity requires an understanding of how the spatially distinct light stimuli, that each cell experiences, are combined into the output of this very cell. This is the question of spatial integration which we address in the following.
Many facts about this question are already available on a cellular level. Today we know which cell types mediate the signals from the photoreceptors to the ganglion cell, and we know much about the connections between the involved cells. Furthermore, in recent studies the transmission functions of some of the involved circuit elements were measured. In particular, it turned out that many of the processing steps are highly nonlinear. Although all these details are known, a detailed phenomenological description of spatial integration is still lacking. Most current models assume a linear integration, and thereby simply neglect the nonlinearities occurring on the cellular level. In this thesis, we attempt to fill the gap and strive for a functional characterization of spatial integration, and in particular of the involved nonlinearities.
We pursued the investigation by performing electrophysiological experiments on retinal ganglion cells. In particular, we measured the neuronal output with an array of electrodes. While measuring, we presented videos containing well-defined light stimuli to the retina. We performed the experiments in a closed-loop approach which allowed us to assess the neuronal response online and use the results to determine the subsequently shown stimuli.
The visual area, over which a ganglion cell pools its input, is called the receptive field of the cell. It has been known for almost 60 years that the receptive fields of many ganglion cells are organized in a center-surround structure. In the receptive field center, the cell is most sensitive to visual stimulation. Depending on the cell, it preferentially responds to either a brightening (ON cell) or a darkening (OFF cell) of the image. In contrast, the response in the receptive field surround is weaker, and it is of opposite sign than the center response. Taking this structural segregation of the receptive field into account, we divided our experiments into two parts. First, we determined how different stimuli are combined within the receptive field center. Afterwards, we focused on the integration of stimuli in the center and the surround.
Throughout this thesis, we used a specific approach to study spatial integration. This approach is the measurement of so-called iso-response stimuli. Instead of showing predefined stimuli and measuring the neuronal outputs, we did the experiments the other way round: we predefined the output, and then searched for those stimuli which yielded the chosen response. The result of such a measurement was a set of stimuli which all triggered the same neuronal response in a given ganglion cell. Thereby, the cell's response was either defined as the number of elicited spikes (iso-rate stimuli), or the first-spike latency (iso-latency stimuli). Iso-response stimuli allowed us to directly assess the nonlinearities involved in signal integration in retinal ganglion cells.


A blind, placebo – controlled clinical trial was performed to evaluate the postoperative analgesic effect of topically administered, intraoperative, epidural morphine (Duramorph) and intramuscular infiltration of the incision site with bupivacaine prior to closure of the skin in dogs undergoing hemilaminectomy for Hansen type I Intervertebral Disk Disease (IVDD). Thirtythree dogs were randomly allocated into four treatment groups: epidural Duramorph with incisional bupivacaine (DUR/BUP), epidural saline with incisional bupivacaine (SAL/BUP), epidural Duramorph with incisional saline (DUR/SAL), and epidural saline with incisional saline (SAL/SAL). All dogs were premedicated with a standard protocol and were anesthetized with propofol and isoflurane. After surgery, scores were assigned using a visual analog scale (VAS) for both pain and sedation and a composite pain scale (CPS). In addition, a von Frey anesthesiometer was used to determine pain thresholds at 1 cm and 3 cm from the surgical incision line (primary hyperalgesia) as well as on the lateral aspect of the stifle (secondary hyperalgesia). Assessments were carried out at fixed intervals over the 48 hour postoperative period. Significant differences were found between those groups treated with the epidural Duramorph and those that received epidural saline. Those dogs in the DUR/BUP and DUR/SAL groups exhibited lower von Frey pain thresholds and higher VAS and CPS scores than the SAL/BUP and SAL/SAL groups. The administration of bupivacaine had no significant effect on any measured outcome. The authors conclude that topically administered epidural Duramorph and intramuscular incisional bupivacaine do not enhance analgesia following hemilaminectomy in the dog.


India's population growth, urbanization trends, patterns of income distribution, and increasing industrial production leads to increasing waste generation. Inappropriate waste management results in emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) constituting methane and nitrous oxide, contributing to global warming. IPCC 2006 model estimated GHG emissions from waste sector across India considering a gross domestic product growth rate of 6.5 percent as 70.13 million tones CO2 eq in the year 2011, expected to rise 1.60 times by the year 2031. Emission mitigation options for waste sectors including diversion of organic waste from landfills towards treatment options, diversion of wastewater from domestic and commercial sectors towards sewer, and further capturing and utilising methane from landfills and effluent treatment units indicate a potential to lower the emissions to around 78.75 million tonnes CO2 eq in year 2031. There is an urgent need to apply appropriate policy, political will, financial resources, capacity building, and indigenous technology to reduce impact of our activities on global warming. This paper has substantial implications for strategy makers and technocrats in formulating policies to reduce global warming.


Today, fiber reinforced materials are present in a wide field of industrial applications. Short glass fiber reinforced composites are mainly used in automotive, aerospace and medical sectors. In recent years, endless fiber reinforced thermoplastics have gained importance as construction material, especially for lightweight assembly. There are different methods of joining thermoplastic materials such as vibration, resistance and induction welding. Another process is laser transmission welding, which can be characterized by its excellent reproducibility, high flexibility and potential for automation. Typically, laser transmission welding can be applied for joining unreinforced or glass fiber reinforced thermoplastic parts. This welding process was now adapted to heat conduction welding for joining thermoplastic CFRP to itself. The goal of these investigations was to determine the influence of the matrix material on the weld seam quality. The experiments were conducted with a carbon fiber fabric reinforced polyphenylene sulfide with natural matrix material as well as containing carbon black. In the first step, the temperature distribution at the upper joining member, where the heat generation occurred, was evaluated. The heat affected width was determined and correlated to the process temperatures in order to develop a process model. In a next step, lap shear samples were welded and tested. These results were then correlated with previous results.


Since their discovery in the mid-1990s, mirror neurons have been the subject of continuous discussions in neurosciences as well as in the social sciences. The interest of scientists outside the life sciences in mirror neurons is primarily based on the fact that mirror neurons not only have epistemological meaning, but also seem to play an important role in processes of social insights and emotions, like empathy. With her book, Nadia ZABOURA provides a new contribution from a social and cultural sciences point of view, which critically reflects the discussion on mirror neurons and its consequences on the social sciences and humanities. Starting off from philosophical approaches to the mind-matter-dualism and the question of intersubjectivity, she explores the meaning of mirror neurons for the debate on empathy and communication. By discussing concepts of philosophy and communication sciences as well as current knowledge on mirror neurons, she concludes that they do not provide a stable basis for any material reductionism, which would explain phenomena like intersubjectivity only by recordable neuronal processes. The book refers to a variety of related theories (ranging from DESCARTES through to MEAD and TOMASELLO); these references are inspiring, yet they stay cursory for the most part. All in all the book offers avenues for further inquiry on the issues in focus, and can rather be taken as "tour of suggestions" through the topical field of mirror neurons and the related research.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1003245


We study nonlinear pulse propagation in an optical transmission system with dispersion compensation. A chirped nonlinear pulse can propagate in such a system, but eventually it decays into dispersive waves in a way similar to the tunneling effect in quantum mechanics. The pulse consists of a quadratic potential that is due to chirp in addition to the usual self-trapping potential and is responsible for the power enhancement and the decay.


Through readings of works by Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley, David Marshall provides a new interpretation of the eighteenth-century preoccupation with theatricality and sympathy. Sympathy is seen not as an instance of sensibility or natural benevolence but rather as an aesthetic and epistemological problem that must be understood in relation to the problem of theatricality. Placing novels in the context of eighteenth-century writing about theater, fiction, and painting, Marshall argues that an unusual variety of authors and texts were concerned with the possibility of entering into someone else's thoughts and feelings. He shows how key eighteenth-century works reflect on the problem of how to move, touch, and secure the sympathy of readers and beholders in the realm of both "art" and "life." Marshall discusses the demands placed upon novels to achieve certain "effects," the ambivalence of writers and readers about those effects, and the ways in which these texts can be read as philosophical meditations on the differences and analogies between the experiences of reading a novel, watching a play, beholding a painting, and witnessing the spectacle of someone suffering. "The Surprising Effects of Sympathy" traces the interaction of sympathy and theater and the artistic and philosophical problems that these terms represent in dialogues about aesthetics, moral philosophy, epistemology, psychology, autobiography, the novel, and society.


Optical whispering gallery modes (WGMs) derive their name from a famous acoustic phenomenon of guiding a wave by a curved boundary observed nearly a century ago. This phenomenon has a rather general nature, equally applicable to sound and all other waves. It enables resonators of unique properties attractive both in science and engineering. Very high quality factors of optical WGM resonators persisting in a wide wavelength range spanning from radio frequencies to ultraviolet light, their small mode volume, and tunable in- and out- coupling make them exceptionally efficient for nonlinear optical applications. Nonlinear optics facilitates interaction of photons with each other and with other physical systems, and is of prime importance in quantum optics. In this paper we review numerous applications of WGM resonators in nonlinear and quantum optics. We outline the current areas of interest, summarize progress, highlight difficulties, and discuss possible future development trends in these areas.


The effect of positive expiratory pressure breathing, alone and in combination with coughing, was investigated in eight patients with cystic fibrosis. Functional residual capacity and total lung capacity was measured with a body plethysmograph before, during, and immediately after breathing with expiratory pressure of 5 and 15 cm H2O, and after a coughing period. The positive expiratory pressure breathing was carried out five times for two minutes with a two minute interval between each period. Mucus transport was measured in a peripheral lung region and over the whole lung by a radioactive aerosol tracer technique. Clearance measurements were carried out continuously during positive expiratory pressure breathing and during a control period. Two minutes' breathing with an expiratory pressure of 5 and 15 cm H2O caused an increase in mean (SEM) functional residual capacity from 2.6 (0.1) to 3.6 (0.3) and 4.4 (0.5) 1 and an increase in total lung capacity from 5.1 (0.2) to 5.9 (0.3) and 6.9 (0.4) 1. Lung volumes were higher during breathing with an expiratory pressure of 15 cm H2O than with 5 cm H2O; both returned to baseline values immediately after positive expiratory pressure breathing. Spontaneous mucus clearance and mucus clearance by coughing were not influenced by positive expiratory pressure breathing at either expiratory pressure. Thus in patients with cystic fibrosis positive expiratory pressure breathing increases lung volumes in relation to the expiratory pressure imposed; these changes in lung volume did not, however, lead to an improvement of mucus transport.


In an increasingly interconnected world, human–environment interactions involving flows of people, organisms, goods, information, and energy are expanding in magnitude and extent, often over long distances. As a universal paradigm for examining these interactions, the telecoupling framework (published in 2013) has been broadly implemented across the world by researchers from diverse disciplines. We conducted a systematic review of the first five years of telecoupling research to evaluate the state of telecoupling science and identify strengths, areas to be improved, and promising avenues for future study. We identified 89 studies using any derivation of the term telecoupling. These works emphasize trade flows, information transfer, and species dispersal at international, national, and regional scales involving one or a few countries, with China, Brazil, and the United States being the most frequently studied countries. Our review showed a rising trend in publications and citations on telecoupling, with 63% of identified telecoupling studies using the framework's specific language (e.g., "flows", "agents"). This result suggests that future telecoupling studies could apply the standardized telecoupling language and terminology to better coordinate, synthesize, and operationalize interdisciplinary research. Compelling topics for future research include operationalization of the telecoupling framework, commonalities among telecouplings, telecoupling mechanisms and causality, and telecoupled systems governance. Overall, the first five years of telecoupling research have improved our understanding of human–environment interactions, laying a promising foundation for future social–ecological research in a telecoupled world.


School counseling as a specialty area of the counseling profession emerged, and continues to evolve, as a result of social, educational, political, and economic trends. Specifically, at the beginning of the twentieth century, divergent needs of public school populations required the inclusion of specialized assistance for students beyond that which was commonly and previously offered by teachers (Schmidt, 1993). The need for such specialized assistance for students remains apparent today. Demographic information (Glosoff & Koprowicz, 1990; Hodgkinson, 1985) describes a context for children and adolescents that includes divorce, poverty, violence, and neglect as well as the anticipated transitions associated with the process of growing up.


Business studies and development studies have evolved relatively independently of each other – business studies occupied with profit maximizing strategies and the activities of entrepreneurs, firms and value chains, and development studies with economic, social and political development strategies of countries and regions. However, as more and more of the world's value-adding activities take place in developing countries and as MNCs increasingly incorporate developing countries' markets and resources in their strategies, business studies has taken a growing interest in the particular conditions of local and foreign firms doing business in such environments. Simultaneously, as the limitations of state led development strategies have become apparent and as market ideology has become prevalent in a growing number of countries, development studies has directed growing attention towards the role of entrepreneurship, firm strategy, private sector development and foreign direct investment as vehicles for economic and social development. In other words, both fields approach business in development from different sides. This paper seeks to identify themes related to the firm in developing countries as taken up by both business and development studies. We suggest the themes of common interest and potential convergence to be those of market failures, institutions, entrepreneurship, clusters, and firm internationalization. The paper illustrates that there are substantial opportunities for cross-fertilization between the two bodies of academic enquiry, and indeed, that without a conversation between the two literatures in the era of globalization, the analytical and predictive power of both may be seriously impaired.


In Germany, almost 15 per cent of all first-year students leave higher education without obtaining a degree (Tieben 2016). The German post-secondary education system is tracked, however, and many dropouts enter the labour market with additional non-tertiary vocational training certificates. We therefore examine whether higher education dropouts benefit from additional vocational qualifications obtained outside higher education and whether vocational credentials can serve as a 'safety net'. On the basis of data from the German National Educational Panel Study survey 'Starting Cohort 6', this study employs Cox and OLS regression models to analyse the transition to a stable occupation as well as the occupational status of the first stable job. We find that higher education dropouts without formal vocational training certificates have more difficulties finding a stable job compared to applicants with formal vocational qualifications. We therefore conclude that additional vocational training certificates do serve as a safety net in case of drop out, because it prevents protracted pathways to stable occupations. Comparing the occupational status of dropouts with and without additional vocational training certificates, we do not find evidence for additional returns on vocational certificates.


By injecting adversarial examples into training data, adversarial training is promising for improving the robustness of deep learning models. However, most existing adversarial training approaches are based on a specific type of adversarial attack. It may not provide sufficiently representative samples from the adversarial domain, leading to a weak generalization ability on adversarial examples from other attacks. Moreover, during the adversarial training, adversarial perturbations on inputs are usually crafted by fast single-step adversaries so as to scale to large datasets. This work is mainly focused on the adversarial training yet efficient FGSM adversary. In this scenario, it is difficult to train a model with great generalization due to the lack of representative adversarial samples, aka the samples are unable to accurately reflect the adversarial domain. To alleviate this problem, we propose a novel Adversarial Training with Domain Adaptation (ATDA) method. Our intuition is to regard the adversarial training on FGSM adversary as a domain adaption task with limited number of target domain samples. The main idea is to learn a representation that is semantically meaningful and domain invariant on the clean domain as well as the adversarial domain. Empirical evaluations on Fashion-MNIST, SVHN, CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 demonstrate that ATDA can greatly improve the generalization of adversarial training and the smoothness of the learned models, and outperforms state-of-the-art methods on standard benchmark datasets. To show the transfer ability of our method, we also extend ATDA to the adversarial training on iterative attacks such as PGD-Adversial Training (PAT) and the defense performance is improved considerably.


The structure of complex networks has been of interest in many scientific and engineering disciplines over the decades. A number of studies in the field have been focused on finding the common properties among different kinds of networks such as heavy-tail degree distribution, small-worldness and modular structure and they have tried to establish a theory of structural universality in complex networks. However, there is no comprehensive study of network structure across a diverse set of domains in order to explain the structural diversity we observe in the real-world networks. In this paper, we study 986 real-world networks of diverse domains ranging from ecological food webs to online social networks along with 575 networks generated from four popular network models. Our study utilizes a number of machine learning techniques such as random forest and confusion matrix in order to show the relationships among network domains in terms of network structure. Our results indicate that there are some partitions of network categories in which networks are hard to distinguish based purely on network structure. We have found that these partitions of network categories tend to have similar underlying functions, constraints and/or generative mechanisms of networks even though networks in the same partition have different origins, e.g., biological processes, results of engineering by human being, etc. This suggests that the origin of a network, whether it's biological, technological or social, may not necessarily be a decisive factor of the formation of similar network structure. Our findings shed light on the possible direction along which we could uncover the hidden principles for the structural diversity of complex networks.


Major and selected trace element (Al, Fe, Mg, K, Ba, Mn, V, Cu, Ni, and Ti) records were analyzed in a core recovered in the Amirante passage (equatorial Indian Ocean) in order to monitor the sedimentary response to pelagic productivity in this area during the last 500 kyr. Geochemical proxies such as bulk mass accumulation rate (bulk MAR), and Al-normalized major and trace element contents and MARs were compared to a biological marker of paleoproductivity: the radiolarian index (TSRI). Special attention is paid to the barium record, due to its potential reliability as a paleo-productivity proxy. However, barium may also be present in the sediment in minerals not related to surface productivity. Thus, a sequential leaching procedure was carried out to determine the main Ba-carrier fraction in the sediment, and especially the amount of biogenic barium. The sedimentation in the Amirante Passage is characterized by a low bulk MAR and low terrigenous input. Distribution of Ba within the different fractions of the sediment indicates that both terrigenous input and biologic activity are the main sources of Ba in the sediment. Barium cannot, thus, be used as a single paleoproductivity proxy. The bulk MAR variations are directly related to variations in the TSRI, reflecting a direct link between surface water productivity and pelagic sedimentation at this site. The bulk MAR record exhibits high values during glacial and interglacial intervals from 500 ka to 238 ka, and consistently low values from 238 ka to 38 ka, suggesting a period of low surface productivity between the 8-7 and the 3-2 isotope stage transitions. This pattern does not correspond to a marked change in wind strength, and a shift in the circulation of the surface currents system is hypothesized to explain such an extended low productivity interval.


P. semisulcatus juveniles (average weight 9.7g) from Manifa Lagoon on the Arabian Gulf were randomly stocked in tanks (0.8m 3 ) at three stocking density levels (25, 50 and 75 shrimp/m 3 ) in four replicates. The tanks were put together in a flow-through system and were covered with plastic nets. Water flow rates were 1, 2, and 3 litres/min for densities 25, 50 and 75 shrimp/m 3 , respectively, Filtered aerated seawater (30± 3 OC) was utilized. Fresh water was mixed with the seawater to keep water salinity down to 39%o. The whole system was shaded to reduce water temperature from the direct sun light. Shrimps were fed during the night for six weeks experimental period. No mortality occurred throughout the experimental period. Growth rates were similar in the three stocking densities, under the experimental conditions. Future studies are needed to determine the maximum sustainable stocking densities.


200 new high quality test boreholes, made for the design of the new High Speed Underground Rail connection in Firenze, has allowed a critical review of about 1,500 lithostratigraphic logs available for the Firenze area. This has led to a new and a more accurate definition of the geometry of the lithological bodies in the Firenze subsurface as well as better understanding of the recent geological evolution of the area. The recent geological history is primarily controlled by both the Apennine (NW-SE) Fiesole master-fault which rose up to about 1,000 m and by the anti-Apennine (SW-NE) transfer-faults, bounding the Firenze structural high to the NW and SE. Their vertical displacement is assessed to be a few hundred meters. The sedimentary and erosion processes were driven by the fault movements and by climatic changes. As a result of the combination of these factors three sedimentary phases prevailed in the area. They have been interpreted in terms of UBSU as three Synthems: Synthem of the Firenze-Prato-Pistoia basin, corresponding to the lacustrine phase; Synthem of Firenze, corresponding to the deposits of the late Pliocene uplift of the Firenze area; Synthem of the Arno, corresponding to the recent deposits of the Arno river and its tributaries. Moreover, where possible, the Synthems have been subdivided into sub-units.


Speech recognition applications embedded on a PDA are already available on the market. The usual hardware for this kind of systems is a single microphone mounted on the PDA, giving good results within quiet environments. Though, the recognition rate falls drastically as the signal to noise ratio decreases. Arrays of microphones are then particularly interesting, allowing the discrimination of useful sounds sources within parasitic ones, thanks to an improved directivity pattern. In speech recognition applications on PDA, a trade-off is to be found on an array small enough to guarantee the ergonomics of the whole system, while operating on a bandwidth covering the frequency range of human voice, from 300 Hz up to 6 kHz and low distortion ratio. Differential arrays are well adapted to fulfill these specifications, since they are known to be robust and allowing small dimensions for a high directivity index. The performances could be improved by the addition of adaptive post-filtering and noise reduction algorithms. This work describes the design and the implementation of a recording device dedicated to speech recognition applications on PDA, based on overlapping differential arrays. The assessment of its performances in noisy environment are carried out and show the system efficiency.


Vision research has often led to significant advances in our understanding of biology. There has also been particular success in translating basic research in the eye into breakthrough clinical therapies that mark important milestones for ophthalmology and also for medical research. Anti-VEGF therapy for age-related macular degeneration was named as one of the top ten science advancements of the year 2006. Only two years later, successful transfer of the RPE65 gene into retinal pigment epithelium of patients with Leber congenital amaurosis was noted as one of the most important clinical applications of gene therapy. The articles in this Review series outline current developments in vision research and highlight its continued importance in ophthalmology and medicine.


Several Upper Cretaceous plesiosaur specimens recovered from southernmost Chile are described here. These were collected from upper levels of the Dorotea Formation exposed on three different localities (Sierra Baguales, Cerro Castillo, and Dumestre). The new material includes the first record of Aristonectes (Plesiosauria, Elasmosauridae), previously recorded from Argentina, central Chile, and Antarctica. Additional specimens include associated postcranial skeletons as well as isolated elements. Among these, we recognize the presence of aristonectines in the three studied localities, while non-aristonectine elasmosaurids were only collected from Cerro Castillo. The specimen from Dumestre is remarkable by being a small-sized adult, indeterminate aristonectine, and could be related to known representatives from Antarctica. These new finds prove the abundance of aristonectines as well as intermediate elasmosaurids along the Magallanes Basin during the uppermost Cretaceous, while extreme long-necked elasmosaurids as well as polycotylids seems to be completely absent during this time span. This key record from southernmost Chile and its strategic placement in the middle part of the Weddellian Province gives the chance for complementing the paleobiogeography of Upper Cretaceous plesiosaurs from the Southern Hemisphere. As a first result, a faunal turnover is observed during the early Maastrichtian, when extreme (very-long necked) elasmosaurids and polycotylids disappeared from the austral record. Since the early Maastrichtian and towards the late Maastrichtian, aristonectines became differentially abundant along the southeastern Pacific and Antarctica, but moderately represented in the southwestern Atlantic. On contrary, intermediate elasmosaurids were scarce in the Antarctic-Pacific realm, but abundant in the Atlantic. The updated record of austral plesiosaurs suggest a first stage of interchange from the Northern into the Southern Hemisphere, and through the Atlantic seaway, at least since the Coniacian to the late Campanian-early Maastrichtian. During the early Maastrichtian, aristonectines were relatively frequent in the New Zealand-Antarctica archipelago, becoming abundant along southern South America during the late Maastrichtian.


The future of American banking is in doubt and the industry and the federal insurance fund that helps support it are in turmoil. The ingredients of the turmoil have been simmering in public view since at least the early 1980s when commercial bank loans to lesser developed countries (LDCs) began to default. The difficulties began to boil at the end of the decade when the prospect first arose that the banks' deposit insurer, the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF) that is administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), might require dollars to resolve bank failure as occurred in the savings and loan debacle. This book frames the major economic and policy issues raised by the banking crisis whose resolution largely determines the future of American banking. It focuses on the current reported condition of the banking industry, concentrating on large banks in particular. A longer-run economic prognosis for the banking industry is presented and the implications of future bank failures for the financial services sector and federal regulatory policy are discussed. Most importantly the book contains suggestions for changes in the nation's deposit-insurance system and accompanying banking laws. These changes would reduce the federal government's deposit insurance liability and would provide banks with potentially profitable opportunities. The study includes a wealth of data on the financial condition of American banks and the system as a whole, some of it not easily obtainable from any other source. The authors are internationally recognized as knowledgeable experts on the state of the American banking system and the options and prospects for US banking reform.


The growing importance of information technology raises significant challenges for statisticians and economists. The US national accounts now incorporate sophisticated measurement tools to capture the rapid rates of technological change and dramatic improvements in the performance/price ratio of many hightech assets like computer hardware, software, and telecommunications goods. These data have been incorporated into traditional sources of growth analyses to identify the impact of information technology on the US economy. The emerging consensus is that information technology played a key role in the post-1995 revival of US productivity growth.


Virtualization is a powerful and fast growing technology that is widely accepted throughout the computing industry. The Department of Defense has moved its focus to virtualization and looks to take advantage of virtualized hardware, software, and networks. Virtual environments provide many benefits but create both administrative and security challenges. The challenge of monitoring virtual networks is having visibility of inter-virtual machine (VM) traffic that is passed within a single virtual host. This thesis attempts to gain visibility and evaluate performance of inter-VM traffic in a virtual environment. Separate virtual networks are produced using VMWare ESXi and Citrix XenServer platforms. The networks are comprised of three virtual hosts containing a Domain Controller VM, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol server VM, two management VMs, and four testing VMs. Configuration of virtual hosts, VMs, and networking components are identical on each network for a consistent comparison. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocl (UDP) traffic is generated to test each network using custom batch files, Powershell scripts, and Python code. Results show standard virtual networks require additional resources (e.g., local Intrusion Detection System) and more hands-on administration for real-time traffic visibility than a virtual network using a distributed switch. Traffic visibility within a standard network is limited to using a local packet capture program such as pktcap-uw, tcpdump, or windump. However, distributed networks offer advanced options, such as port mirroring and NetFlow, that deliver higher visibility but come at a higher latency for both TCP and UDP inter-VM traffic.


DISSOCIABLE ANTIDEPRESSANT-LIKE AND ABUSE-RELATED EFFECTS OF THE NONCOMPETITIVE NMDA RECEPTOR ANTAGONISTS KETAMINE AND MK-801 IN RATS By Todd M. Hillhouse, M.S. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2014 Major Director: Joseph H. Porter, Ph.D Professor, Department of Psychology The noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist ketamine produces rapid and sustained antidepressant effects in patients suffering from major depressive disorder. However, abuse liability is a concern. To further evaluate the relationship between antidepressant-like and abuserelated effects of NMDA receptor antagonists, this study evaluated the effects of ketamine, MK801, and phencyclidine in male Sprague-Dawley rats responding under two procedures that have been used to assess antidepressant-like effects [differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) 72 s schedule of food reinforcement] and abuse-related drug effects [intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS)]. Under DRL 72 s, ketamine produced an antidepressant-like effect by increasing reinforcers, decreasing responses, and producing a rightward shift in the peak location of the interresponse time (IRT) distributions. Phencyclidine produced a modest antidepressant-like effect by increasing reinforcers and decreasing responses, but did not shift the IRT distributions. In contrast, MK-801 produced a psychostimulant-like effect by decreasing reinforcers, increasing responses, and producing a leftward shift in the peak location of the IRT distributions. The antidepressant-like effects of ketamine on the DRL 72 s procedure do not appear to be mediated by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin via serotonin transporters or antagonism of 5-HT2 receptors. Additionally, the dissociable effects of ketamine and MK-801 in the DRL 72 s procedure may be mediated by 5-HT2 receptors. Following acute administration, ketamine produced only doseand time-dependent depression of ICSS and failed to produce an abuserelated facilitation of ICSS at any dose or pretreatment time. Repeated dosing with ketamine produced dose-dependent tolerance to the rate-decreasing effects of ketamine but failed to unmask expression of ICSS facilitation. Termination of ketamine treatment failed to produce withdrawalassociated decreases in ICSS. In contrast, MK-801 and phencyclidine effects produced doseand time-dependent facilitation of ICSS by MK-801. Taken together, our findings provide further evidence that expression of these antidepressant-like and abuse-related effects of ketamine, phencyclidine, and MK-801 may be related to NMDA receptor affinity.


The raccoon (Procyon lotor) is the definitive host of Baylisascaris procyonis, a large intestinal roundworm that is zoonotic and can result in fatal or severe central nervous system disease in young children. Prevalence of infection among raccoon populations often is high, and in the midwestern United States, B. procyonis has been reported in 68–82% of raccoons. Raccoon populations have increased in response to changes in human land use, and often reach higher densities in urban and suburban landscapes than rural landscapes. However, shifts in foraging behavior among urban raccoons could impact the transmission of B. procyonis if small vertebrate intermediate hosts are not a significant part of the raccoon diet. The objective of this study was to compare prevalence of B. procyonis infection between urban and rural raccoon populations on a regional scale. Necropsy was done on 204 raccoons collected from September through February during 2000–2005 from seven states across the Midwest (regional sample). Baylisascaris procyonis was found in 54% of examined raccoons. Prevalence differed between land-use types (χ2=11.56, df=1, P=0.0007), and was higher among animals collected from rural locations (65%) than those collected in urban locations (41%). Intensity of infection also differed (F=5.52, df=1, P=0.02), with rural raccoons having greater worm burdens (x¯=29.63±36.42) than urban raccoons (x¯=13.85±18.47). Despite high densities of raccoons in urban landscapes, fewer urban raccoons were infected with B. procyonis, suggesting decreased dependence on intermediate hosts as a food source. This possible explanation was supported by a similar trend in prevalence among subsamples of raccoons collected from three Chicago-area populations (local samples) with differing levels of urbanization, population densities, and foraging behavior that had been intensively monitored during 1995–2002. Decreased transmission of B. procyonis in urban landscapes may be due to decreased predation of intermediate hosts, and contact of juvenile raccoons with B. procyonis eggs may be an important factor in maintaining infections within such populations.


In this study, we investigated a tele-robotics system for a construction machine. The system consists of a servo-controlled construction robot, two joysticks for controlling the robot from a remote place, and a 3-degrees-of-freedom motion base. The operator of the robot sits on the motion base and controls the robot bilaterally from a remote place. The role of the motion base is to realistically simulate the motion of the construction robot. As a tool for assisting the operator, a stereo video of the operation field is projected on a screen. If, in addition to the video, computer graphics (CG) of the robot were to be presented to the operator, the task efficiency could be expected to increase. To confirm this, a CG of a virtual robot was created, and its effectiveness for a task involving carrying an object was determined in this study. This system can present the position and shape of the task object by means of a stereo vision system. The results of the experiment clarified that tasking time was shortened effectively even for amateur operators. Thus, the usefulness of the developed CG system was confirmed.


Phase locking of neural firing is ubiquitously observed in the brain and occurs when neurons fire at a particular phase of a periodic signal. Here we study in detail how spikes of single neurons can simultaneously lock to multiple distinct frequencies at the example of p-type electroreceptor afferents in the electrosensory system of the Gymnotiform weakly electric fish Apteronotus leptorhynchus. We identify key elements for multiple frequency locking, study its determining factors and limits, and provide concise mathematical models reproducing our main findings. Our findings provide another example how rate and temporal codes can coexist and complement each other in single neurons, and demonstrate that sensory coding in p-type electroreceptor afferents provides a much richer representation of the sensory environment than commonly assumed. Since the underlying mechanisms are not specific to the electrosensory system, our results could provide the basis for studying multiple-frequency locking in other systems.


Objective: This study is aimed to assessment the relationship between sexual satisfaction and quality of life(QQL) in patients with cardiovascular disease at the city of Ilam. Background: Heart disease is a leading cause of mortality and reduced quality of life(QQL). Lack of sexual satisfaction reduces health, longevity and life satisfaction, and also leads to disorders in the growth and development of couples and their sexual relationship. Method: In this crosssectional study 300 cardiovascular patients at Ilam were selected by using convenience sampling method. The instrument used was Larson sexual satisfaction questionnaire and 36- SF quality of life survey. Data were analyzed using spss21 as well as descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test and ANOVA). Ethical considerations: moral considerations in this study include obtaining the permission of hospital officials to conduct the study, explaining the purpose and methodology of the study for each of the subjects; informed consent was also obtained from each subject for research. Findings: Results showed that the mean and standard deviation of the quality of life and sexual satisfaction are 59.17± 22.53 and 49.15± 6.03, respectively. The highest score of the quality of life of heart disease was related to public health and the lowest score belonged to physical pain. Pearson correlation test showed a significant relationship between quality of life and sexual satisfaction. Also, patients with hypertension had the greatest sexual satisfaction and it was lowest in patients with myocardial infarction. Conclusion: Necessary interventions to increase sexual satisfaction in cardiovascular patients can increase the quality of their life.


ABSTRACT Invasive aspergillosis is characterized by hyphal invasion of the blood vessels, which contributes to the pathogenesis of this disease. During this angioinvasion, Aspergillus fumigatus interacts with the endothelial cell lining of the blood vessels. We investigated the response of vascular endothelial cells to A. fumigatus infection in vitro and in mouse models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis. Infection with hyphae, but not with conidia, stimulated endothelial cells to synthesize E-selectin, vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 (VCAM-1), interleukin 8, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) in vitro. Killed hyphae induced approximately 40% less stimulation than did live hyphae. Endothelial cell stimulation required contact between the hyphae and endothelial cells but not endocytosis of the organisms. Studies with ΔgliP and ΔstuA null mutants of A. fumigatus indicated that the extent of endothelial cell stimulation was not influenced by gliotoxin or other StuA-dependent factors synthesized by A. fumigatus. In neutropenic mice infected with wild-type A. fumigatus, increased pulmonary expression of E-selectin, cytokine-induced neutrophil chemoattractant (KC), and TNF-α occurred only when neutropenia had resolved. In nonneutropenic mice immunosuppressed with corticosteroids, A. fumigatus stimulated earlier pulmonary expression of E-selectin, VCAM-1, and KC, while expression of intercellular adhesion molecule 1 and TNF-α was suppressed. In both mouse models, expression of E-selectin and KC was associated with high pulmonary fungal burden, angioinvasion, and neutrophil adherence to endothelial cells. Therefore, the expression of leukocyte adhesion molecules and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines by endothelial cells in response to A. fumigatus could enhance the host defense against this organism by contributing to the recruitment of activated leukocytes to sites of angioinvasion.


Some three-dimensional materials can exhibit exotic properties that only exist in "lower" dimensions. For example, in one-dimensional chains of atoms that emerge within a bulk sample, electrons can separate into three distinct entities, each carrying information about just one aspect of the electron's identity—spin, charge, or orbit. The spinon, the entity that carries information about electron spin, has been known to control magnetism in certain insulating materials whose electron spins can point in any direction and easily flip direction. Now, a new study just published in Science reveals that spinons are also present in a metallic material in which the orbital movement of electrons around the atomic nucleus is the driving force behind the material's strong magnetism. [10]


Classical economists David Hume, Pehr Niclas Christiernin, Henry Thornton, David Ricardo, Thomas Attwood, and Robert Torrens looked beyond the redistributive (creditor-debtor) effects of deflationary monetary contraction to its adverse effects on output and employment. They attributed these effects to price-wage stickiness; to rises in real debt, tax, and cost burdens; to cash hoarding in anticipation of future price falls; and to other determinants. Addressing deflation associated with post-war resumption of gold convertibility at the old mint par, they advocated policies ranging from gradualism, to devaluation, and even to outright abandonment of the gold standard in order to avoid or mitigate deflation's harm.


In recent decades, Organic Thin Film Transistors (OTFTs) have attracted lots of interest due to their low cost, large area and flexible properties which have brought
them to be considered the building blocks of the future organic electronics.
Experimentally, devices based on the same organic material deposited in different ways, i.e. by varying the deposition rate of the molecules, show different electrical performance. As predicted theoretically, this is due to the speed and rate by which charge carriers can be transported by hopping in organic thin films, transport that depends on the molecular arrangement of the molecules.
This strongly suggests a correlation between the morphology of the organic semiconductor and the performance of the OTFT and hence motivated us to carry out an in-situ real time SPM study of organic semiconductor growth as an almost unprecedent experiment with the aim to fully describe the morphological evolution of the ultra-thin film and find the relevant morphological parameters affecting the OTFT electrical response.
For the case of 6T on silicon oxide, we have shown that the growth mechanism is 2D+3D, with a roughening transition at the third layer and a rapid roughening. Relevant morphological parameters have been extracted by the AFM images.
We also developed an original mathematical model to estimate theoretically and more accurately than before, the capacitance of an EFM tip in front of a metallic substrate.
Finally, we obtained Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) AFM images of 6T at lying molecules layer both on silicon oxide and on top of 6T islands.
Moreover, we performed ex-situ AFM imaging on a bilayer film composed of
pentacene (a p-type semiconductor) and C60 (an n-type semiconductor).


Mutations in the protein kinase Raf are frequently associated with human tumors. Raf functions in growth-promoting signaling and also acts to protect cells from apoptosis, a key event that allows cancer cells to avoid normal fail-safe mechanisms that stop uncontrolled cell growth. Surprisingly, Raf's protective effect against apoptosis appears not to require enzymatic activity of Raf. O'Neill et al. describe an interaction between Raf-1 and another protein kinase, MST2, in mammalian cells. Raf-1 appears to directly inhibit activation of MST2 in vitro, and this effect, like that of Raf-1 on apoptosis, was independent of catalytic activity of Raf-1. Cells lacking Raf-1 showed increased activity of MST2, which correlated with an increased propensity to undergo apoptosis. Decreased expression of MST2 protected cells from apoptosis. Thus, MST2 represents an important new target of Raf-1 that may help in the control of cell proliferation and cell death in normal and cancerous cells. E. O'Neill, L. Rushworth, M. Baccarini, W. Kolch, Role of the kinase MST2 in suppression of apoptosis by the proto-oncogene product Raf-1. Science 306, 2267-2270 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Education is characterised by marked and damaging schisms among its specialties, especially between classroom practitioners and academic members of the profession. While many or most commentators accept this rift as arising from real and significant differences between the groups, this article argues that the schism can be seen as the consequence of the reduced status of education as an institution. Mary Douglas's cultural theory is utilised to explore ways in which low status pushes any institution, education included, towards the world-view of a cult or sect. The origins of aspects of contemporary educational thought that attract considerable criticism from 'outside' are traced to thought styles that are typical of a cult. The suggestion is made that continuing criticism that further erodes education's status will not lead to desired change but instead entrench practitioners' stance of resistance to demands that originate from outside the profession.


Rina Trisna Yanti: The purpose of this study was to determine the main commodity crops most optimal developed in Bengkulu and determine strategies for improving crop production according to public perception in the province of Bengkulu. This research is a descriptive study, using data from the productivity of each food crops in the province of Bengkulu (rice, maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, peanuts, soybeans), and crop productivity of its kind in the Province around (South Sumatra Lampung, West Sumatra, Jambi) as well as national food crop productivity in 2011 - 2015. the primary data obtained through a questionnaire distributed to 30 respondents and processed through LQ analysis techniques. These results indicate that the main commodity crops in Bengkulu food crops of rice and sweet potatoes. Optimization strategy leading commodity food crops of rice in Bengkulu can be done in a way to use the land in accordance with the potential (extension) and pemanfaan idle land by farmers, while the role of government in providing relief seeds, guarantee price certainty, provide counseling and training to farmers through PPL. While commodity optimization strategies featured sweet potato crop in Bengkulu done by improving the production (intensification) and increased intensity of cultivation as for the role of government in a way to guarantee price certainty. Keyword: Holticulture, Strategy Optimalization, Komodity Superrior.


For a variety of reasons, policymakers in recent years have taken a greater interest in increasing the use of transit. However, it is difficult to substantially impact transit use at a large scale, because it is strongly dependent on development density and other slow changing features of urban land use. This article argues that policymakers hoping to increase transit use should focus on increasing the size of downtowns and developing suburban job centers at downtown sizes and densities. There are both empirical and practical arguments. Empirically, large, dense destinations have a very substantial impact on mode choice, regardless of the characteristics of the trip origin. From a practical standpoint, there are two arguments. First, it may be easier to increase densities in commercial areas, both because political opposition is less acute and because developable land is often more available. Second, commercial areas can be developed at much higher densities, with a corresponding impact on transit ridership.


This article describes and analyses a database on the dynamics of sociopolitical instability in the United States between 1780 and 2010. The database was constructed by digitizing data collected by previous researchers, supplemented by systematic searches of electronic media archives. It includes 1,590 political violence events such as riots, lynchings, and terrorism. Incidence of political violence fluctuated dramatically over the 230 years covered by the database, following a complex dynamical pattern. Spectral analysis detected two main oscillatory modes. The first is a very long-term – secular – cycle, taking the form of an instability wave during the second half of the 19th century, bracketed by two peaceful periods (the first quarter of the 19th century and the middle decades of the 20th century, respectively). The second is a 50-year oscillation superimposed on the secular cycle, with peaks around 1870, 1920, and 1970. The pattern of two periodicities superimposed on each other is characteristic of the dynamics of political instability in many historical societies, such as ancient Rome and medieval and early-modern England, France, and Russia. A possible explanation of this pattern, discussed in the article, is offered by the structural-demographic theory, which postulates that labor oversupply leads to falling living standards and elite overproduction, and those, in turn, cause a wave of prolonged and intense sociopolitical instability.


An assessment of the indoor air quality (IAQ) of the San Francisco Federal Building (SFFB) was conducted on May 12 and 14, 2009 at the request of the General Services Administration (GSA). The purpose of the assessment was for a general screening of IAQ parameters typically indicative of well functioning building systems. One naturally ventilated space and one mechanically ventilated space were studied. In both zones, the levels of indoor air contaminants, including CO2, CO, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and aldehydes, were low, relative to reference exposure levels and air quality standards for comparable office buildings. We found slightly elevated levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including two compounds often found in green cleaning products. In addition, we found two industrial solvents at levels higher than typically seen in office buildings, but the levels were not sufficient to be of a health concern. The ventilation rates in the two study spaces were high by any standard. Ventilation rates in the building should be further investigated and adjusted to be in line with the building design. Based on our measurements, we conclude that the IAQ is satisfactory in the zone we tested, but IAQ may need to be re-checked after the ventilation rates have been lowered.


Expressions are derived for the cross-spectral density matrix of an electromagnetic Gaussian Schell-model beam propagating through a paraxial ABCD system. Using the recently developed unified theory of coherence and polarization of electromagnetic beams and the ABCD matrix for gradient-index fibers, we study the changes of the spectral density, of the spectral degree of polarization, and of the spectral degree of coherence of such a beam as it travels through the fiber. Effects of material dispersion are also considered.


Phoebe Judson was a young bride in 1853 when she and her husband crossed the plains from Ohio to the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory. She was ninety-five when this book was first published in 1925. The years between were spent in "a pioneer's search for an ideal home" and in living there, when it was finally found at the head of the Nooksack River, almost on the Canadian border. Phoebe Judson's account of the journey west is based on daily diary entries detailing her fear, excitement, and exhaustion. At the end of the trail, the Judsons encountered hardships aplenty, causing them to abandon a farm and business in Olympia before their arrival in the Nooksack Valley. During the Indian Wars they holed up in a fort at Claquato. In time, Phoebe overcame her fear of the Indians, learned the Chinook language, and won their friendship. All this is told in vivid detail by a woman of great dignity and charm whom readers will long remember. In a foreword, Susan Armitage, professor of history at Washington State University, calls A Pioneer's Search for an Ideal Home a "classic pioneering account," important for its woman's point of view.


This study aims to examine and analyze the influence of economic growth determinants and economic growth spillover on the economic growth of the regencies/the cities in Sumatra Island. This study uses a quantitative analysis model of Moran's I Global, Spatial Autoregressive Model (SAR) with weighted matrix of six and eight in the neighboring areas. The determinants of economic growth are explained by labor, human capital, catch-up technology, market potential, agricultural sector contribution, industrial sector and service sector. Based on the analysis of Moran's I, the spatial dependence of economic growth between regencies/cities is significant in Sumatra Island. Based on SAR model, it is concluded that the spillover of economic growth, labor, contribution of agriculture sector, service sector and market potential have positive and significant influence; the contribution of industrial sector has positive but insignificant influence; while human capital and catch-up technology have negative and significant influence on the economic growth of a regency/city in Sumatra Island.


Leadership in many environments, micro or macro sets the tone of what is acceptable behaviour. Leaders should be exemplary in their conduct, as their conduct may be used as standards by those they lead. Being exemplary includes their compliance to various regulatory guides such as the Codes of Conduct. The authors argue that if leadership do not comply with the codes of conduct then employees will follow suit by disregarding various aspects of the Code. This will lead to indiscipline and institutionalise corruption in the South African public service hence; there should be zero tolerance for non-compliance of the codes, especially by leaders, but beyond that it should be about developing a new ethical culture more than just compliance. In the examining of the ethical conduct of employees, we will be looking specifically at the adherence to Codes of Conduct and issues related to conflict of interest, as financial disclosure is a requirement for public servants employed at senior management level. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the theoretical and legislative framework underpinning the ethical leadership in South Africa, and to reflect on the Code of Conduct and the impact on the ethical conduct of senior managers in the public service. This is with particular reference to managing conflict of interest within the stakeholders. It will also consider whether the disclosure and ethical provisions are adequate and or appropriate to promote appropriate levels of ethical conduct, and finally to assess the impact.


In the last decades, the vacuum switching technology has established itself as the standard in the medium
voltage level (Us <= 52kV). However, at higher voltages, this technology is not yet competitive to the current
SF6 switching technology. Especially during switching of capacitive loads, a high number of restrikes
(dielectric breakdowns) occur. This capacitive switching duty is dielectrically the most challenging for a
vacuum circuit breaker and tested widely. However, the interpretation of these tests are difficult due to
the absence of suitable diagnostic tools. Therefore, the present thesis deals with the development of a
suitable test environment to investigate 72.5 kV vacuum circuit breakers.
Based on experiences from the medium voltage level and established research findings in the field of
restrikes two main requirements have been derived:
1. The synthetic test circuit needs to be realized using only test transformers. This is necessary to
achieve a high number of test series because the use of power transformers is limited and not
economical. In case of a capacitive switching duty, this limitation effects the generation of the
recovery voltage and how it is applied to the test object. The recovery voltage itself consists in
equal parts of a direct and alternating voltage component and must be applied precisely during
its voltage zero crossing. This has been realized using two independent voltage sources and a
voltage-making switch that has been specially designed for this purpose.
2. A simultaneous detection of field-emission currents and charged micro-particles is needed. Both
phenomena can cause restrikes but are not necessarily independent from each other. To measure
field-emission currents, a proven concept from the medium voltage level has been adapted towards
a high number of capacitive switching operations in rapid succession. This has been achieved by
exploiting the separate generation of current and voltage of a synthetic test circuit. Based on their
identical interaction with the test circuit, micro-particles have been detected using partial discharge
measurement equipment. As a consequence, the whole test environment must have a low partial
discharge level to enable this detection.
Within this work, the measurement systems as well as the test circuit have been commissioned and
tested. It was possible to demonstrate the simultaneous detection of micro-particles and field-emission
currents (>= 100 μA). Furthermore, a best practice has been defined for future investigations. Based on
first measurements, micro-particle activity up to a second after a switching operation could be observed.
In addition, it has been shown, that the recovery voltage can be applied to the test object precisely
(+-100 μs) at the voltage zero crossing with an additional voltage-making switch. Thus, the main negative
aspect in their generation, which arise from the use of test transformers, can be compensated.


Brief, intermittent oxygen reductions [acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH)] evokes spinal plasticity. Models of AIH-induced neuroplasticity have focused on motoneurons; however, most midcervical interneurons (C-INs) also respond to hypoxia. We hypothesized that AIH would alter the functional connectivity between C-INs and induce persistent changes in discharge. Bilateral phrenic nerve activity was recorded in anesthetized and ventilated adult male rats and a multielectrode array was used to record C4/5 spinal discharge before [baseline (BL)], during, and 15 min after three 5 min hypoxic episodes (11% O2, H1–H3). Most C-INs (94%) responded to hypoxia by either increasing or decreasing firing rate. Functional connectivity was examined by cross-correlating C-IN discharge. Correlograms with a peak or trough were taken as evidence for excitatory or inhibitory connectivity between C-IN pairs. A subset of C-IN pairs had increased excitatory cross-correlations during hypoxic episodes (34%) compared with BL (19%; p < 0.0001). Another subset had a similar response following each episode (40%) compared with BL (19%; p < 0.0001). In the latter group, connectivity remained elevated 15 min post-AIH (30%; p = 0.0002). Inhibitory C-IN connectivity increased during H1–H3 (4.5%; p = 0.0160), but was reduced 15 min post-AIH (0.5%; p = 0.0439). Spike-triggered averaging indicated that a subset of C-INs is synaptically coupled to phrenic motoneurons and excitatory inputs to these "pre-phrenic" cells increased during AIH. We conclude that AIH alters connectivity of the midcervical spinal network. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that AIH induces plasticity within the propriospinal network. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) can trigger spinal plasticity associated with sustained increases in respiratory, somatic, and/or autonomic motor output. The impact of AIH on cervical spinal interneuron (C-IN) discharge and connectivity is unknown. Our results demonstrate that AIH recruits excitatory C-INs into the spinal respiratory (phrenic) network. AIH also enhances excitatory and reduces inhibitory connections among the C-IN network. We conclude that C-INs are part of the respiratory, somatic, and/or autonomic response to AIH, and that propriospinal plasticity may contribute to sustained increases in motor output after AIH.


In this paper, we discuss the integration of 2-D video actors into 3-D augmentedreality (AR) systems. In the context of our research on narrative forms for AR, we have found ourselves needing highly expressive content that is most easily created by human actors. We discuss the feasibility and utility of using video actors in an AR situation and then present our Video Actor Framework (including the VideoActor editor and the Video3D Java package) for easily integrating 2-D videos of actors into Java 3D, an object-oriented 3-D graphics programming environment. The framework is based on the idea of supporting tight spatial and temporal synchronization between the content of the video and the rest of the 3-D world. We present a number of illustrative examples that demonstrate the utility of the toolkit and editor. We close with a discussion and example of our recent work implementing these ideas in Macromedia Director, a popular multimedia production tool.


Gluten-free pancakes were prepared using rice flour and rice flour replaced with various amounts, at 10, 20 and 40%, of sweet potato flour. Textural properties of the cooked pancakes, such as hardness and chewiness generally increased with time after cooking, whereas they decreased with increased sweet potato flour replacement. On the other hand, cohesiveness decreased with time, but increased with increased sweet potato flour in the pancake. Nutritional properties of the rice-sweet potato pancakes, such as protein content, dietary fiber, total carbohydrate and calories were generally comparable with those of their wheat counterpart. The only significant difference was in the beta-carotene content, which increased from 5.2 to 236.1 μg/g when sweet potato flour was incorporated, from 0 to 40%, into the rice pancake formulation.


It is not often one comes across a book that contains so much useful and enlightening information and wisdom. In Vandals at the Gates of Medicine, Dr. Miguel Faria has captured the essence of our nation's problem — collectivism. As he so forcefully points out, we have, as a people, abandoned the principles that made this a great nation, a nation of free and virtuous people.

His writing style is lucid and makes a complex and often difficult topic enjoyable to read and easy to understand. I have learned a great deal reading this wonderful book. Unlike many pure historians, Dr. Faria brings together a multitude of disciplines — ethics, philosophy, mythology, religion, political science, and law — into a synthesis that is vital to understanding the pernicious nature of collectivism. Within these disciplines, he weaves his vast practical experience as a neurosurgeon.

I compare Dr. Faria's writing style to one of my favorite authors, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, as one of a handful of people who is able to do what Dr. Faria has done, that is, present history as it should be presented as a total and all-encompassing study of mankind, or as Ludwig von Mises puts it — human action.

In the section on Ancient Rome, Faria demonstrates to us the importance of having a thorough knowledge of law, history, and politics. He reminds us that our government is undergoing a "metamorphosis from a constitutional republic — based on a foundation of individual self-reliance and private philanthropy — to a socialist democracy of an ever increasing, omnipotent government authority and an amoral, amorphous, statist, and exuberant bureaucracy."

Faria emphasizes the importance of the rule of law in a constitutional republic by giving us historical examples provided by the Roman republics and shows us the devastating results of ignoring these first principles.

One of the chief tools of collectivists of all types (socialists, communists, fascists, etc.) is to utilize class envy to attain the goals of authoritarian government. Frederic Bastiat calls this "legal plunder." Dr. Faria demonstrates for us that this was true in Ancient Rome as well. Likewise, he demonstrates the virtues that built the foundation of a free republic — the rule of law, family structure, justice, courage, and temperance.

Vandals at the Gates of Medicine is scattered with valuable quotes and aphorisms. For example, Faria provides us with this from John Philpot Curran — "the condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he breaks, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

I was particularly pleased to read Dr. Faria's emphasis on medical care as an individual contract between a patient and his or her doctor, and not a collective endeavor to be monitored and ruled upon by bureaucrats and government functionaries. Through historical analysis, Faria demonstrates for us the legacy of medical care from ancient Islam and Greek and Roman medicine, which emphasized this contract. It was a contract based on moral principles.

Again, Faria lets the ancients teach us the first principles. He says that Erasistratus, the renowned anatomist and physiologist, said, "it is better to be a good man devoid of learning than to be a perfect practitioner of bad moral conduct, and an untrustworthy man… good morals compensate for what is missing in art, while bad morals can corrupt and confound even perfect art." This is, of course, also the message of Christ to man.

And I was especially intrigued by Faria's ability to condense his thoughts into a sentence that would take others pages to express. For example, he captures the true essence of the government flunky when he says (that for), "the statist bureaucrats and technocrats… their prime motivation is simply camouflaged self-interest masquerading as altruism."

Faria paints for us a true portrait of socialized medicine and not the modern art of the liberal-left that distorts and portrays a false image of bliss and magic. His realistic painting demonstrates shortages, substandard care, endless rationing, and the "ultimate outright denial of care and government-sanctioned euthanasia." All of which have historical precedent.

In Vandals at the Gates of Medicine, Faria explains why physicians have been bludgeoned into a state of shock and submission, reminiscent of that experienced by POWs in Vietnam, who faced insurmountable odds against a ruthless enemy. Most physicians, as he points out, have given up. They just want to survive until they can retire. They see little hope in continuing the struggle. But history teaches us that it is only through persistence and vigilance that others have defeated a better-armed and more massive enemy.

There are less ominous sides to the book that I found particularly interesting. For example, Faria demonstrates the enormous contribution that Christianity has made to Western civilization. As the prime preserver of ancient knowledge and often the only source of medical charity during devastating epidemics, the Christian church played a major role in preserving the wisdom that brought about individual freedom.

I also enjoyed the section on the medical giants from antiquity to the Renaissance. By presenting to us these eloquent stories, Faria brings to life the importance of free inquiry that is, the milieu necessary for the creative spirit. Collectivism, such as managed care providers, is the antithesis of this creative free spirit and shall destroy medical progress by regimenting ideas. Faria reminds us that under such a system ideas are the property of the state. Regimented thought destroys progress.

Finally, in his epilogue, Faria informs us that at least half of all medical care costs can be contained by living healthier lifestyles. So what will it take to save us from a similar destruction that visited our ancestors under collectivism? Faria tells us, "it will take truly Renaissance physicians of the highest order and courage to surmount the titanic hurdles in their path and repel the Vandal hordes massing for the final onslaught, eager to breach the gates, to pillage and plunder the traditional practice of medicine, and sap its substance. Unless physicians act now, the gates will surely fall."

Truly prophetic words!


The capacity of mobile Infostation network can be greatly increased, if, in addition to direct short-range communications between mobile nodes and fixed infostations, nodes also communicate amongst themselves whenever they meet. However, this requires cooperation among mobile nodes that are not necessarily spontaneous for commercial applications. We propose means to create opportunistic cooperation in the context of contention distribution in selfish mobile infostation networks. First, we assume that all nodes have a common interest in all files. We stipulate a social contract such that a bilateral file exchange takes place only when either node obtains something it wants from the exchange. Resulting capacity depends on mobility, the number of files being disseminated, and node density. In addition to the existence of multiuser diversity, our results indicate the existence of data diversity-throughput increases as the number of files of interest to all nodes increases. We also consider the case where nodes have dissimilar interests. Results show that as the level of interest overlap decreases, network performance degrades dramatically. We propose an alternate user strategy in the partially overlapping-interests case and show that network throughput is significantly improved by allowing better use of multiuser diversity. We conclude that through opportunistic cooperation, both data and multiuser diversities exist in noncooperative mobile infostation networks.


Rey Chow is arguably one of the most prominent intellectuals working in the humanities today. Characteristically confronting both entrenched and emergent issues in the interlocking fields of literature, film and visual studies, sexuality and gender, postcolonialism, ethnicity, and cross-cultural politics, her works produce surprising connections among divergent topics at the same time as they compel us to think through the ethical and political ramifications of our academic, epistemic, and cultural practices. This anthology - the first to collect key moments in Chow's engaging thought - provides readers with an ideal introduction to some of her most forceful theoretical explorations. Organized into two sections, each of which begins with a brief statement designed to establish linkages among various discursive fields through Chow's writings, the anthology also contains an extensive Editor's Introduction, which situates Chow's work in the context of contemporary critical debates. For all those pursuing transnational cultural theory and cultural studies, this book is an essential resource.


This paper is concerned with the lack of an agreed framework for the curriculum for journalism education. The paper reports on research into the beliefs and values underlying the two main undergraduate degree programmes in journalism in Ireland, with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the concepts of journalism and journalism education on which the curricula were based. Critical discourse analysis was used in the research. The discrepancies found in the two concepts within and between different texts make clear that the problems within journalism education reflect the wider problems of lack of closure in the discourses of journalism and journalism education. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for professional journalism programmes.


The aim of this article is to study the relationship between certain adverbs, prepositions, prefixes and conjunctions of subordination in French. A distinction is made between two classes of morphemes. The first one includes prefixes and "governed" prepositions (which introduce arguments of the verb, such as the indirect object) : both types of expressions can be said to be "linked", the first to the prefixed element, the second to the verb. The second one includes "not-governed" prepositions (those which introduce adverbial phrases), certain adverbs and conjunctions of subordination ; these morphemes are not linked in the sense mentioned above and can thus said to be "free". This distinction could suggest a grammaticalization channel leading from the free elements to the linked ones : from the adverbs via the related non governed and governed prepositions, in that order, to the prefixes. It is shown, however, that some Latin adverbs grammaticalize directly into preverbs, without an intervening prepositional stage, and that some prepositions directly inherit "governed" as well as "not-governed" uses from their Latin predecessors. Nevertheless, the hypothesis that there is a relation between the governed or non governed nature of some prepositions and the possibility to use them in order to create conjunctions of subordination, could explain why avant que and apres que are still used as such conjunctions, whereas sur ce que / sour ce que has disappeared.


Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) can be viewed as a twostage procedure geometrically. The first stage conducts an orthogonal and whitening transformation of the variables. The second stage involves a principal component analysis (PCA) on the transformed class means, which is intended to maximize the class separability along the principal axes. In this paper, we demonstrate that the second stage does not necessarily guarantee better classification accuracy. Furthermore, we propose a generalization of LDA, weighted LDA (WLDA), by integrating the empirical classification confusion information between each class pair, such that the separability and the classification error rate can be taken into consideration simultaneously. WLDA can be efficiently solved by a lightweight eigen-decomposition and easily combined with other modifications to the LDA criterion. The experiment results show that WLDA can yield an relative character error reduction of 4.6% over LDA on the Mandarin LVCSR task.


A new method for design space exploration and optimization, Surrogate-Assisted Illumination (SAIL), is presented. Inspired by robotics techniques designed to produce diverse repertoires of behaviors for use in damage recovery, SAIL produces diverse designs that vary according to features specified by the designer. By producing high-performing designs with varied combinations of user-defined features a map of the design space is created. This map illuminates the relationship between the chosen features and performance, and can aid designers in identifying promising design concepts. SAIL is designed for use with compu-tationally expensive design problems, such as fluid or structural dynamics, and integrates approximative models and intelligent sampling of the objective function to minimize the number of function evaluations required. On a 2D airfoil optimization problem SAIL is shown to produce hundreds of diverse designs which perform competitively with those found by state-of-the-art black box optimization. Its capabilities are further illustrated in a more expensive 3D aerodynamic optimization task.