Female pelvic floor dysfunction occurs when the integrity of the pelvic floor muscles is compromised and impacts the position and function of the pelvic organs. Physicians use international guidelines to evaluate and treat women for POP taking into account that posture and gravity impact pelvic organ position, and degree of prolapse. Our clinical focuses on the description of surface anatomy. This examination alone is insufficient. Although imaging is recommended, the modalities currently available are recognized to have flaws. MRI is performed in the supine position regardless the effect of pos - ture and gravity on POP. A literature search was performed using databases, searching MEDLINE and PubMed using the key terms ultrasound, MRI, and CT. We describe use of a new protocol and advanced technique to evaluate the changes of POP in different positions using open MRI (MRO). POP patients underwent MRO imaging of the pelvic floor using a 0.5 T MRO scanner. The extent of displacement of prolapsed organs was determined using validated reference lines drawn on the mid-sagittal images. Manual segmentation and surface modeling were used to construct the 3D models. MRO offers new levels of anatomic detail; 3D sequences based on 2D images are an additional refinement.


Introduction Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological disorders requiring prolonged treatments and drugs. According to The World Health Organization (WHO), epilepsy is one of those serious brain disorders that affect not only the individual but has a deep impact on the family and society in general. Approximately 50 million people are affected with epilepsy around the world36, though proper epidemiological studies do not exist for Pakistan it is estimated that the prevalence of epilepsy is 9.99/1000. Highest prevalence is seen in people younger than 30 years of age, i.e. about 2 million people and 1/10th of the world burden of epilepsy is in Pakistan! The guidelines available in developed countries are gauged in a setting where epilepsy care is provided by epileptologists/neurologists. In Pakistan the scenario is different, there is only one neurologist for 1.4 million (14lac) population contrast to US where one neurologist for 26 thousand people 29. So there is a desperate need to adapt to alternate guidelines with strategies to provide epilepsy management at a primary care level and to standardize epilepsy care on a National level.


The diffraction regime of a thin grating inserted in a Fabry–Perot cavity is investigated. Our calculations show that, at Bragg incidence, a single diffraction order can be selectively enhanced, giving rise to a very efficient Bragg-like diffraction regime. The optimization of the device is studied as a function of the resonator thickness and finesse and the grating position inside the Fabry–Perot cavity. The angular and wavelength selectivities are also investigated. The device could be easily integrated and would be very useful for optical signal-processing applications.


Many powders employed in the food and pharmaceutical industries are produced through spray drying because it is a cost efficient process that offers control over the particle size. However, most commercially available spray-driers cannot produce drops with diameters below 1 μm, limiting the size of spray-dried particles to values above 300 nm. We recently developed a microfluidic spray-drier that can form much smaller drops than commercially available spray-driers. This is achieved through a two-step process: first, the microfluidic spray-drier operates in the dripping regime to form 100 μm diameter primary drops in air and, second, subjects them to high shear stresses due to supersonic flow of air to break them into many much smaller secondary drops. In this paper, we describe the two essential steps required to form sub-μm diameter airborne drops inside microfluidic channels. We investigate the influence of the device geometry on the ability to operate the microfluidic spray-drier in the dripping regime. Moreover, we describe how these primary drops are nebulized into many secondary drops that are much smaller than the smallest dimension of the spray-drier channels.


The majority of the research in animal buildings has been on measured concentrations of contaminants that the workers and animals are exposed to; emission measurements have only gained attention in recent years due to potential federal regulations on air quality emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs). The contribution of AFOs to ambient PM10 and PM2.5 entails reliable measurement of particle size distribution. The objective of this study was to measure and compare the size distribution of particulate matter (PM) at multiple locations inside and at the exhausts of a wean-to-finish commercial swine building. The particle size distribution was measured by collecting total suspended particulate matter on Teflon filters and using Coulter Counter and Horiba LA-300 analyzers for particle size distribution analyses. Results showed that the mass median diameter (MMD) of swine PM at the exhaust was about 14% lower than the average MMD indoors (26.84 vs. 31.55 µm), while the geometric standard deviations were about the same (1.85 vs. 1.86). In addition, the average percentage by volume of PM10 indoors was about 8%, while the percentage of PM10 leaving the building was 10%. In terms of the mass concentrations, PM10 indoors ranged from 0.014 to 0.125 mg m-3, while at the exhaust PM10 ranged from 0.02 to 0.15 mg m-3. This study will aid in understanding the exposure of workers to particles indoors and in quantifying the contribution of a commercial swine building to emissions of PM10 in the atmosphere.


In this paper we explore the second transition in the mechanism of frictional slip of single–asperity contacts, which takes place at large contact sizes. This is a transition from single–dislocation–assisted (SDA) slip to multiple–dislocation–cooperated (MDC) slip. It is found that the friction stress is controlled by dislocation nucleation for SDA slip, and by dislocation mobility for MDC slip. A model of concentric dislocation loops is introduced to analyse dislocation pile–up processes and their relationship to the friction stress. Dislocations are stabilized to be piled up as a result of the non–zero effective Peierls stress of the interface. The analysis shows that slip occurs when the condition for the nucleation of a new dislocation and the condition for destabilizing the leading dislocation of the pile–up are simultaneously satisfied. It is also shown that, as the contact size increases, the friction stress approaches asymptotically a constant value equal to the effective Peierls stress of the interface. This result is in agreement with reported experimental results in the surface force apparatus (SFA). The case of a large number of dislocations in the pile–up is studied via an asymptotic analysis, a key concept of which is the existence of a dislocation–free zone that controls the dislocation nucleation process. The analysis provides the connection between the discrete dislocation model and the continuous cohesive zone model of single–asperity friction.


An investigation of the interaction principles of nucleic acids and nanoparticles is a priority for the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to creating bionanocomposite structures, which determines the area and boundaries of biomedical use of developed nanoscale devices. «Nucleic acid—magnetic nanoparticle» type constructs are being developed to carry out the highly efficient detection of pathogens, create express systems for genotyping and sequencing, and detect siRNA. However, the data available on the impact of nanoparticles on the behavior of siRNA are insufficient. In this work, using nanoparticles of two classical oxides of inorganic chemistry (magnetite (Fe3O4) and silica (SiO2) nanoparticles), and widely used gold nanoparticles, we show their effect on the rate of siRNA hybridization. It has been determined that magnetite nanoparticles with a positive charge on the surface increase the rate of siRNA hybridization, while negatively charged magnetite and silica nanoparticles, or positively charged gold nanoparticles, do not affect hybridization rates (HR).


Chips with multiple processors, called multicore chips, have caused a resurgence of interest in parallel computing. Multicores are now available in servers, PCs, laptops, embedded systems, and mobile devices. Because multiprocessors could be mass-produced for the same cost as uniprocessors, parallel programming is no longer reserved for a small elite of programmers such as operating system developers, database system designers, and supercomputer users. Thanks to multicore chips, everyone's computer is a parallel machine. Parallel computing has become ubiquitous. In this symposium, seven authors examine what it means for computing to enter the parallel age.


This paper presents new empirical evidence on the cyclical behavior of US unemployment that poses a challenge to standard search and matching models. The correlation between cyclical unemployment and the cyclical component of labor productivity switched sign in the mid 80s: from negative it became positive, while standard search models imply a negative correlation. I argue that the inconsistency arises because search models do not allow output to be demand determined in the short run, and I present a search model with a small amount of price stickiness that can rationalize the empirical …ndings. In addition, I show that the interaction of nominal frictions and search frictions can generate a strong propagation mechanism absent in standard New-Keynesian models. JEL classi…cations: J64, E32, E37, E52


BACKGROUND
In this study, our purpose is to evaluate patients who were followed by acute developing single-sided foot drop and improving with conservative management or spontaneously.

METHODS
Between 2019 and 2020, 10 patients were evaluated for a unilateral weakness of the lower extremity in the form of absent dorsiflexion at the ankle joint and were given a diagnosis of foot drop without any etiological cause. Patients were followed for a period of 18 months. All patients were evaluated for acute foot drop of the affected extremity by utilizing the following diagnostic modalities, EMG, MRI lumbar spine, MRI knee, peripheral MRI neurography and non-contrast brain MRI. Each patient was evaluated for a history of Covid-19 infection over the past year. Patients with any identified cause were excluded.

RESULTS
Initial evaluation of muscle strength in all patients revealed 0/5 by the MRC muscle testing grading scale. (1) In 2 patients, the muscle strength was 3/5 at the 6th month, and in the other 8 patients 4/5 at the 6th month. The muscle strength of all patients improved as 5/5 in 1 year. Six of the patients were dispensed an AFO device and nine patient's performed physical therapy. Evaluation of EMG results identified significant neuropathy at the level of the common peroneal at the fibular head in all patients. In comparison with peroneal nerve stimulation below and above the fibular head in the lateral popliteal fossa; 50% reduction in sensory amplitude, and motor conduction slowing of >10 m/s was present. Evaluation of knee MRI revealed, no masses, edema, or anatomical variations at the level of the fibular head.

CONCLUSIONS
In patients diagnosed with unilateral acute foot drop without an etiological cause, one should keep in mind that spontaneous resolution of this condition can occur within one year period.


In this thesis we study problems from real situations, which can be applied to network
graphs and solved using mathematical graph theory.
We start with the problem of oriented network design. The problem originates from
networks, where the flow over the arcs is important and many times limited with the capacity
of the networks. There are several techniques and results on the problem of assigning the
flow through the network channels. In our problem, we try to find the optimal network
structure, which could be used in the design phase of the network. With metaheuristics,
we search for optimal network structures for a given number of nodes. We define triangle
neighborhood and compare the results of the algorithm with the conjecture by Choplin et
al. [8].
Further, we study the problem of order picking and order batching in block structured
warehouses. For order picking problem, we present the extension of a dynamic programming
algorithm by Ratliff and Rosenthal [42], which enables the development of an algorithm for
an unlimited number of blocks. In order to achieve this, a new presentation of states and
transitions of dynamic programming algorithm is given. We prove that the resulting path is
optimal for the given structure. We compare the optimal path lengths to the results found in
literature and also investigate the impact of warehouse layout parameters onto the routing.
Closely related to the problem of order picking, we investigate the order batching problem.
We discuss the variation of the order batching problem with time windows and present
the algorithmic approach to solving the problem. The previously presented optimal path
algorithm is applied in the algorithm to ensure even better quality of results. We introduce
the evaluation function of a batch and compare the results of the algorithm with the test
data from the literature as well as with data from the real warehouse.
We conclude by summarizing the results and stating some possible extensions and further
work.


The thesis studies the political participation of Thai farmers and focuses on two main
factors, namely the domestic and the external impacts, which inform the case studies of rice,
sugarcane, and potato farmers groups. Overall, the research has established that farmers
groups have felt the impacts of domestic factors far more strongly than external factors.
Furthermore, through comparative studies in relation to the case studies of rice, sugarcane, and
potato farmers groups in Thailand, differences emerged between these three Thai farmers
groups, in terms of the degree to which domestic factors impacted on their political
participation.

The theories of Western interest groups are reviewed, in order to examine their
applicability to explaining farmers groups formation in Thailand. The concepts of 'collective
benefits' and 'selective incentives', which were used by Mancur Olson have been adopted as
the main theoretical framework. With reference to this, the research has established that
selective incentives have played a highly significant role in Thai farmers groups formation,
and concludes that the problems of mobilisation, which relate to rice, sugarcane, and potato
farmers groups, have been solved primarily through the provision of a range of selective
incentives by the farmers groups themselves.

In order to classify the differing levels of political participation of Thai farmers groups,
the analytical framework provided by Grant Jordan, Darren Halpin, and William Maloney has
been utilised. Accordingly, the rice and potato farmers groups are classified as 'potential
pressure participants', whilst the sugarcane farmers group is classified as an 'interest group',
which has enabled an examination of their political participation through the Western concept
of the policy network/community framework. In order to make the Western policy
network/community framework more applicable to the policy-making process in Thailand, the
specific, dominant characteristics of the Thai political culture, namely the patronage system
and the operation of both vote-buying and corruption are included in the analysis. This
conceptual stretching does not significantly affect the original concept of the framework and
the way in which it was intended to be applicable, because it already includes informal
relationships such as those, which exist within the policy network/community framework.
This understanding is an important aspect, which forms a part of the theoretical contribution to
the discipline of international political economy and to the arena of Thai political studies. The
policy network/community framework provides a new conceptual lens in the study of the
political participation of Thai farmers groups. Accordingly, these arguments promote the
opportunity to consider alternative frameworks in the analysis of the political participation of
Thai farmers groups, and group participation across civil society more generally.

The study of the political participation of Thai farmers has utilised empirical evidence,
which illustrates the successes of farmers' interest groups in both Japan and the United
Kingdom, in order to explain the relative successes and failures of Thai farmers. In contrast to
the experiences of Western and notably Japanese farmers groups, in many respects Thai
farmers are largely excluded from the policy-making process, with the only exception in
Thailand being certain sugarcane farmers groups. The thesis concludes that the political
participation of farmers groups in Thailand has generally been affected by domestic impacts
rather than by external impacts, and that their influence in domestic policy-making has been,
and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future at least, somewhat limited.


A general, noniterative method for designing diffractive axicons is derived. This new technique clarifies the earlier phenomenological design principle that was used for coherent light and extends it to the domain of partial coherence. The approach is based on the method of stationary phase in fluctuating diffracted wave fields, and it applies to arbitrary axially symmetric radiation of the Schell-model type. It is shown that the general design equation can be solved numerically, in a straightforward way, for any reasonable illumination and image specifications.


This paper presents the inventory model considering inflation under non-deterministic situations, which can be used for arbitrary probability density function (pdf), for the inflation rate. We used two solution methods for determining the optimal ordering policy: (1) classical optimization method and (2) particle swarm optimization (PSO) method with comparing the results. The shortages are allowed and fully backlogged. A constant fraction of the on-hand inventory deteriorates per unit time, as soon as the item is received into inventory. The numerical examples are provided to explore the correctness of theoretical results, which are further clarified through a sensitivity analysis on the parameters of the model.


Relatively little is known about why people fail to plan for retirement and whether planning and information costs might affect retirement saving patterns. This chapter reports on a purpose-built survey module on planning and financial literacy for the Health and Retirement Study which measures how people make financial plans, collect the information needed to make these plans, and implement the plans. We show that financial illiteracy is widespread among older Americans, particularly women, minorities, and the least educated. We also find that the financially savvy are more likely to plan and to succeed in their planning, and they rely on formal methods such as retirement calculators, retirement seminars, and financial experts, instead of family/relatives or co-workers. These results have implications for targeted financial education efforts.


This paper addresses the detection of hand gestures during free-standing conversations in crowded mingle scenarios. Unlike the scenarios of the previous works in gesture detection and recognition, crowded mingle scenes have additional challenges such as cross-contamination between subjects, strong occlusions, and nonstationary backgrounds. This makes them more complex to analyze using computer vision techniques alone. We propose a multimodal approach using video and wearable acceleration data recorded via smart badges hung around the neck. In the video modality, we propose to treat noisy dense trajectories as bags-of-trajectories. For a given bag, we can have good trajectories corresponding to the subject, and bad trajectories due for instance to cross-contamination. However, we hypothesize that for a given class, it should be possible to learn trajectories that are discriminative while ignoring noisy trajectories. We do this by exploiting multiple instance learning via embedded instance selection as our multiple instance learning approach. This technique also allows us to identify which instances contribute more to the classification. By fusing the decisions of the classifiers from the video and wearable acceleration modalities, we show improvements over the unimodal approaches with an AUC of 0.69. We also present a static analysis and a dynamic analysis to assess the impact of noisy data on the fused detection results, showing that the moments of high occlusion in the video are compensated by the information from the wearables. Finally, we applied our method to detect speaking status, leveraging the close relationship found in the literature between hand gestures and speech.


Introduction Many Universities have reported considerable decline in the enrolment of Computer Science (CS) majors around the Anglo-Saxon world and, many Australian Universities are also no exception to this down-turn (see Figures 1-3 adapted from Higher Education Research Institute, n.d.). Briefly, the following observations can be made: i) student uptake of Computer Science has declined (Figure 1) by over 60% between 2000-2004 and is now 70% lower than its peak in the early 1980, ii) interest in CS among women fell 80% between 1998-2004 (Figure 2) and 93% since its peak in 1982 and iii ) the degree of production of CS female graduates is dwindling fast (Figure 3). However, some Universities have managed to fill-up their intake and some even managed to increase their student numbers. The following questions therefore beget the observer: 1. Why did the downturn happen in CS education? 2. What are the real contributing factors to the downturn in CS education? 3. What actions could CS educators taken to prevent the falling enrolment? 4. Why did the CS educators not take the required actions? 5. Why are some Universities able to attract full enrolment or even over-enrolment despite the downturn? 6. What lessons can be learnt from this downfall? 7. What are the real underlying issues? 8. Why are that comparative perspectives on CS education in the non-Anglo-Saxon world? [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] This paper addresses some of these questions and provides some pointers for introspection. The rest of the paper is organised as follows: the next section provides the context and perspectives on Computer Science, followed by the analysis of the list of issues raised in section 3. We discuss the lessons learnt in section 4 and give some pointers for further work in section 5. The conclusion summarises the paper and raises further investigative ideas. As a special note, we record here that some of the arguments and recommendations presented in this paper can be controversial and may not necessarily relate to scenarios that exist in other countries. In addition, some of the assertions made are without comprehensive statistical data, as we could not gather them; however, the assertions and conjectures we make do have anecdotal, verbal and document-based support, some of which cannot be identified due to privacy reasons. Perspectives on Computer Science It is well accepted that computer science has its foundations in Logic, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering and Linguistics and according to Wikipedia (n.d.), its ideals are about "Finding eternal truths about problems and algorithms for posterity". Its emphasis is on analysing various problems, finding out their complexities, correctness and algorithms that yield the best solution. When the problems are solved, they do not change in a major way, except for "changes around the frills". Thus for example, the solution to the famous matrix multiplication problem has been found by many people with different degrees of complexities for different applications and their underlying contexts (e.g., sequential, parallel, etc). Formal theory, most often based on (computational) logic, have also been developed to understand and get a handle on problems in computer programming language, natural language, database structures and artificial intelligence. Most Computer Science departments have their origins traceable to schools belonging to either Mathematics (most often) or Electrical Engineering (mostly in technology dominated Universities). In general, mathematics-originated CS departments (which we will call CSM departments) tend to be strong in theoretical aspects, while technology background CS departments (which we will call CST department) tend to be strong in practical aspects. Computer science finds its niche by finding association with other disciplines and fields. …


Wireless networking relies on a fundamental building block, neighbor discovery (ND). The nature of wireless communications, however, makes attacks against ND easy: An adversary can simply replay or relay (wormhole) packets across the network and mislead disconnected nodes into believing that they communicate directly. Such attacks can compromise the overlying protocols and applications. Proposed methods in the literature seek to secure ND, allowing nodes to verify they are neighbors. However, they either rely on specialized hardware or infrastructure, or offer limited security. In this paper, we address these problems, designing a practical and secure neighbor verification protocol for constrained Wireless Sensor networks (WSNs). Our scheme relies on estimated distance between nodes and simple geometric tests, and it is fully distributed. We prove our protocol is secure against the classic 2-end wormhole attack. Moreover, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation with off-the-shelf WSN equipment: Cricket motes.


Retinal imaging with an adaptive optics (AO) system usually requires that the eye be centered and stable relative to the exit pupil of the system. Aberrations are then typically corrected inside a fixed circular pupil. This approach can be restrictive when imaging some subjects, since the pupil may not be round and maintaining a stable head position can be difficult. In this paper, we present an automatic algorithm that relaxes these constraints. An image quality metric is computed for each spot of the Shack-Hartmann image to detect the pupil and its boundary, and the control algorithm is applied only to regions within the subject's pupil. Images on a model eye as well as for five subjects were obtained to show that a system exit pupil larger than the subject's eye pupil could be used for AO retinal imaging without a reduction in image quality. This algorithm automates the task of selecting pupil size. It also may relax constraints on centering the subject's pupil and on the shape of the pupil.


Sexual violence is a well-known phenomenon in armed conflicts. The international attention from scholars and policymakers has substantially expanded during the last decades, but until today a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that generate this violence is absent. This causes difficulties in the policy rhetoric of the issue, as well as in the development of effective measures to prevent and combat conflict-related sexual violence in current conflicts.This study aims to explore and identify circumstances related to the use of sexual violence by armed groups, and by state forces in particular. The overall purpose is to contribute to an understanding of why state forces commit sexual violence in some armed conflicts and not in others. An analytical framework is created based on existing theoretical concepts and explanations to the varying frequency of sexual violence. Based on this, five hypotheses of possible correlated conditions are created. These conditional factors are: 1) Rule of Law, 2) Other Violence, 3) Ethnic Conflict, 4) Gender Equality, and 5) International Support. The hypotheses are translated into macro-level variables that are systematically applied and compared between ten cases of armed conflicts, five of which have high levels of sexual violence committed by state forces, respectively five with no reports of sexual violence committed by state forces. This is done by a cross-national comparison using descriptive statistics. Four hypotheses are to a varying degree strengthened by this study and the result suggests that sexual violence committed by state forces is more likely to occur; in conflicts with low levels of rule of law; in ethnic conflicts; in conflicts with high levels of other violence, and; in absence of international support. The anticipation is that the results of this study will provide a platform for further conclusive research of casual factors to conflict-related sexual violence.


This report describes the UK mooring operations conducted during RV Ronald H. Brown cruise RB1201 between 15 February and 5 March 2012. These mooring operations were completed as part of the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded RAPID-WATCH Programme to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) at 26.5°N.
This cruise was a joint cruise between staff from the NERC and staff from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meterological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami. The primary purpose on this cruise for the UK team was to service the RAPID Western Boundary moorings while the US team worked on the NOAA Western Boundary Time Series project.
Cruise RB1201 was from Charleston, South Carolina, USA to Charleston, South Carolina, USA and covered the Western Boundary moorings deployed on cruise KN200-4 in 2011 and landers deployed on cruise OC459 in 2010. This cruise was the ninth refurbishment (following initial deployment in 2004) of the Western Boundary section of an array of moorings deployed across the Atlantic in order to continuously observe the MOC. This array will be further refined and refurbished during subsequent years.
The instruments deployed on the array consist of a variety of current meters, bottom pressure recorders, and CTD loggers, which, combined with time series measurements of the Florida Straits Current and wind stress estimates, will be used to determine the strength and structure of the MOC at 26.5°N.
(http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapid)


Does private tutoring increase parental choice and improve student achievement, or does it exacerbate social inequalities and impose heavy costs on households, possibly without improving student outcomes? Private tutoring is now a major component of the education sector in many developing countries, yet education policy too seldom acknowledges or makes use of it. This survey of the literature examines the extent of private tutoring, identifies the factors that explain its growth, and analyzes its cost-effectiveness in improving student academic performance. It also presents a framework for assessing the efficiency and equity effects of tutoring. The results suggest that even taking equity concerns into account, tutoring can raise the effectiveness of the education system under certain reasonable assumptions. Guidance is offered for attacking corruption and other problems that diminish the benefits of private tutoring.


The CWS has been the subject of much discussion lately, largely driven by a seeming uptick in criticism of the standard. This criticism falls generally into two camps. On the one hand, the CWS is understood to be the broadly correct, if imperfect, touchstone for antitrust enforcement. Proponents of this view support the consumer- focused approach to antitrust but nevertheless often recognize the inherent shortcomings of the CWS (endemic to any general legal principle applied in complex and evolving economic circumstances), and particular areas where its operationalization can and should be improved (e.g. accounting for innovation harms or properly defining who counts as a "consumer�?). On the other hand, the CWS is objected to per se as an improper or incurably deficient guiding principle for antitrust enforcement. Proponents of this view see the CWS as inconsistent with the proper goals of antitrust, which should, they contend, focus on control of threats to the "process of competition�? (as opposed to the welfare of consumers). Many of the adherents to this perspective also contend that antitrust should address private-sector economic threats to the democratic process more broadly. In both cases a key component of the antipathy to the CWS is that it has allowed for the sustained presence of large corporations in the polity — a presence that is alleged to threaten, simply by its existence, both competitive and democratic welfare. In this comment we address the continued viability of the consumer welfare standard ("CWS�?), its flexibility to include presumptions, as well as the relative weakness of proffered alternatives to the CWS.


The securitization framework has greatly improved empirical analysis of security threats. Yet, it could benefit from heightened analysis of two often neglected aspects. First, this article argues that securitizers may invoke multiple referent objects to strengthen their argument that the referent object possesses the `right to survive'. Second, by drawing attention to the presentation of securitizing moves, as well as their content, it highlights how securitizers attempt to persuade multiple audiences that their securitizing moves should be accepted and countermeasures enacted. These claims are illustrated through the analysis of an atypical case of securitization performed by an unlikely set of securitizers, humanitarian aid organizations, as they argue that indistinctiveness poses an existential threat both to their material security and to their identity.


The Andes in northern Patagonia are mainly formed by Mesozoic magmatic units: the mostly Jurassic–Cretaceous North Patagonian Batholith and volcanism of the Jurassic Lago La Plata (Ibáñez) Formation as well as the mid-Cretaceous Divisadero Group. These rocks represent the development of a magmatic belt through Jurassic–mid-Cretaceous time, during a switch of the tectonic regime from extension to compression. To study arc evolution during this transition, we carried out fieldwork and geochemical sampling at c. 43°S, clarifying structural relationships and characterizing the magmatic sources. Multi-element diagrams for both volcanic units suggest a slab-derived signature, whereas isotopic ratios (Sr–Nd–Pb) indicate parental melts sourced from the subduction-modified asthenospheric mantle interacting with crustal sources during their emplacement. An angular unconformity is identified between the synextensional Jurassic volcanic rocks and Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rocks beneath the mid-Cretaceous sequences. Although this deformational event was simultaneous with generalized overriding plate compression, geochemical ratios indicate an immature Aptian–Albian arc with no associated crustal thickening. Late Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous arc settlement after a trenchward retraction of magmatism from the foreland between c. 41 and 45°S, with an associated increase in slab dip angle, may have provoked crustal softening facilitating the subsequent initial fold–thrust belt growth. Supplementary material: Petrographic descriptions and geochemical–isotopic data are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3677974


This article considers Julie Otsuka's representations of the World-War-II internment of Japanese Americans in When the Emperor Was Divine (2002) and The Buddha in the Attic (2011) from the perspective of collective remembrance, thus highlighting the interconnectedness of remembrance, forgetting, silence and race. Remembering and forgetting are understood as contingent on one another, and on the ideological currents and countercurrents that affect the construction of collective remembrance. The article argues that the content and form of Otsuka's novels mediate the cultural silence of the internment. In addition, they illustrate the changing nature of the narrativized remembrance of the internment as accounts of the lived experience of the Japanese Americans who went to camp are being replaced by transgenerationally transmitted, imaginatively recreated memories. The historical silence of the incarceration and its aftermath is sometimes explained in terms of "Japanese culture," but such a description risks reducing the impact of the racialization of Japanese Americans, and obscuring its effect on resistance. Finally, the analysis demonstrates that in Otsuka's texts, remembrance of the internment is characterized by a negotiation between repressive erasure and restorative forgetting.


The use of sloping sided or conical structures is often a favorable design option for structures placed in ice covered waters. An understanding of the mechanics involved during level ice interaction with conical or sloping sided structures is necessary for safe structural design in environments where ice cover is present. This work provides a review of the failure mechanics involved during an ice interaction with a conical or sloping sided structure and the methods which have been developed to model these types of interactions. -- The sensitivity of the ice loads, estimated by the Croasdale Model, to the variation in input parameters has been studied in this work. From this analysis, it was determined that if a rubble pile was present on the structure, the flexural strength of ice was not a significant factor affecting the ice load. There were however a number of scenarios which were outlined for which the flexural strength of ice was of significance. A ship ramming event is one such scenario for which the flexural strength of ice plays a significant role in limiting the maximum ice load. The maximum ice load occurs as a crushing failure on the bow of the ship, which is limited by flexural failure due to the weight of the vessel on the ice feature. Another scenario for which the flexural strength of the ice may dominate involves the use of conical structures in the Arctic. Here, designers are concerned with thick multiyear floes interacting with large conical structures. In this scenario, ride up is likely to occur with limited rubble formation due to the dissipation of kinetic energy, thus making the flexural strength of the ice a critical component affecting the design load. Further to this, the scale of the interaction has been found in this work to be a critical component affecting the flexural strength of ice, which is due to the presence of a size effect. -- The results presented in Chapter 3 show that the methodology used to predict the flexural strength of ice based on brine volume alone may well lead to an over estimation of the flexural strength of ice for full scale interactions. This is achieved by using full scale data from the icebreaker Oden during the International Arctic Ocean Expedition in 1991 where the icebreaker Oden was part of a three vessel expedition to the central Arctic Basin. The results of the work show a significant reduction in flexural strength when compared to the methodology which considers brine volume only. This result is due to the size effect present in the flexural strength of ice. The author recommends the use of the methodology presented by Williams and Parsons (1994), which includes the scale of the interaction, when calculating the flexural strength of ice for full scale ice structure interactions. -- In Chapter 4 a probabilistic model was developed to determine extreme level ice loads acting on the conical Confederation Bridge piers in the Northumberland Strait. A Monte Carlo technique was utilized to simulate the ice environment and to derive the annual maximum ice loads on the structure. In order to achieve this, full scale data was obtained from public sources and fitted with probability distributions to model the input parameters. -- The model developed in this work simulates the total number of ice floes interacting with a bridge pier in the Northumberland Strait for a given season, as well as individual parameters for each ice floe. Each ice floe is assigned a diameter, an ice thickness, and an ice-structure friction coefficient. Each floe is then broken up into intervals which are individually assigned a flexural strength, along with a rubble height and the angle that the rubble pile makes with the horizontal axis. The Croasdale model is utilized to calculate the horizontal and vertical ice forces acting on the bridge pier for every interval in each floe. The maximum force acting on the bridge pier for each floe is stored and the annual maximum ice force is obtained from these. The model was then run for 4000 years worth of ice structure interactions, resulting in an estimated 100 year ice load of 10.7 MN and a 10,000 year ice load of 16.0 MN acting on a 52°, conical bridge pier with a diameter of 14m at the waterline located in the Northumberland Strait. -- In Chapter 5 the author has used data published by the Confederation Bridge Ice Monitoring Program and the National Research Council to validate the probabilistic model developed in Chapter 4. The model developed is believed to provide an appropriate representation of the level ice loads acting on the Confederation Bridge piers. The model which was developed in this work produced results which suggest that the 10 year ice load is 8.6MN, whilst the maximum load published by the Confederation Bridge Ice Monitoring Program is 8.4MN for the first 10 years of operation.


Over the last two decades, the residential building sector has been one of the largest energy consumption sectors in New Zealand. The relationship between that sector and household energy consumption should be carefully studied in order to optimize the energy consumption structure and satisfy energy demands. Researchers have made efforts in this field; however, few have concentrated on the association between household energy use and the cost of residential buildings. This study examined the correlation between household energy use and residential building cost. Analysis of the data indicates that they are significantly correlated. Hence, this study proposes time series methods, including the exponential smoothing method and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for forecasting residential building costs of five categories of residential buildings (one-storey house, two-storey house, townhouse, residential apartment and retirement village building) in New Zealand. Moreover, the artificial neutral networks (ANNs) model was used to forecast the future usage of three types of household energy (electricity, gas and petrol) using the residential building costs. The t-test was used to validate the effectiveness of the obtained ANN models. The results indicate that the ANN models can generate acceptable forecasts. The primary contributions of this paper are twofold: (1) Identify the close correlation between household energy use and residential building costs; (2) provide a new clue for optimizing energy management.


The objective of the paper is to review the empirical and the theoretical literature on the challenges and implications of Interest rate liberalisation policy in Nigeria. The results of the review show that, in Nigeria, the outcome of the policy has been positive on the economy. However, in some cases, the policy has led to other challenges in some sectors of the economy. This paper therefore, points out that, careful considerations should be given to the implementation process as it may have unexpected impacts on other non-financial sectors of the economy. Thus, policy makers should consider putting in place, proper sequencing of the liberalisation policies to thwart any possible negative effects that may occur, as a result of the implementation of interest rate liberalisation.


This document presents the current state of the art in multicore computing,
in hardware and software, as well as ongoing activities, especially
in Sweden. To a large extent, it draws on the presentations given at the
Multicore Days 2008 organized by SICS, Swedish Multicore Initiative and
Ericsson Software Research but the published literature and the experience
of the authors has been equally important sources.

It is clear that multicore processors will be with us for the foreseeable
future; there seems to be no alternative way to provide substantial
increases of microprocessor performance in the coming years. While processors
with a few (2–8) cores are common today, this number is projected
to grow as we enter the era of manycore computing. The road ahead for
multicore and manycore hardware seems relatively clear, although some
issues like the organization of the on-chip memory hierarchy remain to be
settled. Multicore software is however much less mature, with fundamental
questions of programming models, languages, tools and methodologies
still outstanding.


The purpose of this study is to understand the factors influencing outsourcing decision in the manufacturing industry. Existing literature reveals that manufacturing industry face with challenges in the competitive environment with expectation to produce products at the lowest cost possible yet meet customer specification without affecting the quality and delivery schedules. Thus, outsourcing has become one of the alternative opportunities among the manufacturing firms. The theoretical framework is developed to understand four components namely operating cost, new product development, internal resources and technology, and as well as management competency as the determinants of outsourcing decision. This is a quantitative research and survey instrument was used. The questionnaire was distributed to 150 firms in Northern region of Malaysia with a response rate of 45%. The data was analyzed using regression to test the hypotheses. The findings showed that capital investment, latest technology and high efficiency becomes the key determinants for outsourcing decision among the manufacturing firms. It poses some implications for managers and policy makers.


In embedded computer and communication system the capacity demand for interconnection networks is increasing continuously in order to achieve high-performance systems. Recent breakthroughs show that by using reconfigurability inside a single chip substantial performance gains can be added. However, in this thesis the focus is on system level reconfigurability (between chips or modules) and the performance gains that potentially can be achieved by having support for runtime reconfigurability on the system level.This thesis addresses the field of runtime system level reconfigurability with the use of optics in switches and routers for data- and telecommunications, and in multi-processor systems used for embedded signal processing. Several reconfigurable systems for switching and routing with support to adapt for asymmetric traffic patterns are proposed and compared to identify how design choices affect flexibility, performance etc. The proposed solutions are characterized by their multistage optical interconnection networks with reconfigurable shuffle patterns, where the reconfigurability is provided by micro-optical-electrical mechanical systems. More specifically, application-specific bottlenecks can be resolved by reconfiguring the interconnection network according to the current application demands. The benefits of the architectural solutions are confirmed by simulations that clearly show that the architectures can achieve high performance for both symmetric application characteristics and for several classes of asymmetric application characteristics. The final architectural solution is characterized by electronic packet-switches interconnected through an optical backplane, which is reconfigurable. Moreover, the thesis presents how several signal processing applications can be mapped to run concurrently in a time-shared scheme on a single reconfigurable multi-processor system that has high flexibility to adapt for the application currently at hand. The interconnection network is then adapted (reconfigured) according to the demands of the currently executed application in each time instance. The analysis shows that it is feasible to build such a system with today's components.


The intensity, duration and frequency of coastal hypoxia (oxygen concentration <63µM) are increasing due to human alteration of coastal ecosystems and changes in oceanographic conditions due to global warming. Here we provide a concise review of the consequences of coastal hy- poxia for sediment biogeochemistry. Changes in bottom- water oxygen levels have consequences for early diagenetic pathways (more anaerobic at expense of aerobic pathways), the efficiency of re-oxidation of reduced metabolites and the nature, direction and magnitude of sediment-water exchange fluxes. Hypoxia may also lead to more organic matter accu- mulation and burial and the organic matter eventually buried is also of higher quality, i.e. less degraded. Bottom-water oxygen levels also affect the organisms involved in organic matter processing with the contribution of metazoans de- creasing as oxygen levels drop. Hypoxia has a significant effect on benthic animals with the consequences that ecosys- tem functions related to macrofauna such as bio-irrigation and bioturbation are significantly affected by hypoxia as well. Since many microbes and microbial-mediated biogeo- chemical processes depend on animal-induced transport pro- cesses (e.g. re-oxidation of particulate reduced sulphur and denitrification), there are indirect hypoxia effects on biogeo- chemistry via the benthos. Severe long-lasting hypoxia and anoxia may result in the accumulation of reduced compounds in sediments and elimination of macrobenthic communities with the consequences that biogeochemical properties dur- ing trajectories of decreasing and increasing oxygen may be different (hysteresis) with consequences for coastal ecosys- tem dynamics.


This article details the application of constitutional, land use and tax law principles to non-religious facilities and activities, within religious institutions, considered accessories or auxiliaries to the institutions' principal religious function. To qualify them as accessory uses, the religious institution must establish that these non-religious/secular uses are necessary to the religious exercise of the institution's members and guests. The article compares the tests for accessory uses applied in land use cases interpreting the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), with the test for auxiliary uses employed by cases determining the tax exempt status of certain religious organizations. The idea of accessory uses was developed in land use law according to the principle that because the primary use (religious worship) was permitted under the zoning regulations or a variance, the secondary and incidental uses should likewise be protected. On the other hand, the integrated auxiliary principle proceeds from the idea that the religious institution should not be burdened by government regulation. Therefore, those activities and facilities meeting the definition of an integrated auxiliary likewise cannot be burdened. The article proposes that the rationale behind providing protection for accessory uses under the RLUIPA and the rationale behind offering tax relief for religious auxiliary uses are the same: that religious exercise should not be unnecessarily burdened by the government. Therefore, the article suggests a consolidated approach be created wherein an auxiliary use that qualifies for tax exempt status likewise should warrant protection under the RLUIPA as an accessory use, and vice versa. By combining the approaches for tax exemption and land use regulation, religious freedom will be more consistently secured. To avoid violating the Establishment Clause, the article warns, the government must not become so entwined with legislating or acting in the area of religious worship as to express a preference for one religion over another, or religion over irreligion. Ultimately, it is a difficult line that the state or federal government must walk: avoiding interference with religious exercise on one side and benefiting or preferring a certain religion over another on the opposite side. The article concludes that the laws governing tax exemptions can inform land use cases struggling with the issue of accessory uses and constitutional protection under RLUIPA. There are three reasons why tax laws are helpful: 1) tax courts and legislatures have struggled to answer the same basic question of what constitutes an accessory use; 2) tax laws have embraced a more cooperative approach, allowing religious institutions to define which accessory uses are reasonably devoted to church purposes (and therefore deserving of tax exemption); and 3) tax courts have increasingly recognized that the term religious use constitutes some activities, such as recreation and social gatherings, not traditionally considered religious in nature. On the other hand, land use decisions have not provided any consistent approach to identifying accessory religious uses, and some courts have required the religious institution to independently establish the religious nature of the use without the benefit of referencing the primary religious function of the organization. Finally, the article proposes that the RLUIPA be broadly construed to protect all accessory uses that contribute directly to the religious mission of the institution, regardless of whether their independent religious nature is established.


We studied the relationship of low birth weight (LBW) to concordance of mother's feeding intentions during pregnancy with actual feeding practices; initiation of breast-feeding; and patterns of feeding in the first 6 mo. Data came from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, which followed 3080 mother-infant pairs from urban and rural communities of Metro Cebu, Philippines. We used logistic regression to estimate the effects of LBW on feeding practices, controlling for place of delivery (home, public or private health facility), receipt of free infant formula samples; infant sex, urban residence; primiparity, education level and age of the mother; and family income and assets. Birth of a LBW infant significantly decreased the likelihood that women would initiate breast-feeding. Of particular note is the finding of this decreased likelihood among women who during pregnancy had stated an intention to breast-feed. In a comparison of 6-mo feeding patterns, we also found that LBW increased the likelihood of not breast-feeding or of weaning before 6 mo. Among breast-feeding mothers, LBW increased the likelihood of full breast-feeding for 6 mo compared with patterns characterized by earlier supplementation with other foods and liquids. The negative relationship of LBW to breast-feeding was strongest when births took place in private or public health facilities. Given the known health risks of LBW and the proven benefits of breast-feeding, these results emphasize the need for special efforts to promote breast-feeding of LBW infants born in clinical settings.


In 2012, Susan Manning, Rebecca Schneider, and Janice Ross collaborated across their home institutions of Northwestern University, Brown University, and Stanford University, respectively, to found a research initiative interrogating the field of dance studies. This manifold project, Dance Studies in/and the Humanities, receives funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through 2015 and includes a series of public roundtable discussions. This conversation—abridged from the original event—took place during two such roundtables at Brown University in June 2013, and it features substantial contributions from scholars Michelle Clayton, Mark Franko, Nadine George-Graves, André Lepecki, Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider. Speakers address what dance studies may need, want, or do in this current historical moment. Manning articulates her experience being "inside" and "beside" dance studies through teaching in an integrationist/assimilationist model that promotes dance as a subfield in humanities (and occasionally social science) departments. Franko asserts that dance studies formed as a result of an epistemological break in the 1980s and adds that interdisciplinary frameworks can also support this relatively new field. Through embracing the partiality that comes with interdisciplinarity, Clayton encourages participants to investigate generative misunderstandings. Ross provides a comprehensive account of the crisis in the humanities, and Lepecki connects this crisis to the permanent state of war in the U.S. and emphasizes the importance of theory in dance studies. Falling short of Afro-pessimism, George-Graves calls for dance studies to infiltrate the upper echelons of higher education administration, and Schneider articulates post-structuralism's link to the Global South while calling for more scholarly representation from this area of the world. Through exploring possibilities for embodied knowledge, reenacting post-structuralism, and embracing partiality, these scholars address the expanding aperture of dance studies in a global economy. Topics identified for future discussion include decentering the whiteness of dance studies transnationally, exploring how dance studies methodologies are currently utilized in academia, and expanding dance studies beyond the American academy.


Master all the core concepts and functionality of Revit MEP Revit MEP has finally come into its own, and this perfectly paced reference covers all the core concepts and functionality of this fast-growing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing software. The authors collate all their years of experience to develop this exhaustive tutorial that shows you how to design using a versatile model. You'll discover tips, tricks, and real-world exercises that only authors who use the software daily in a professional environment can know and explain. Explores the basics of the interface, how to create and use project templates, how to generate schedules that show quantities, materials, design dependencies, and more Examines the mechanical side of Revit MEP, including chapters on creating logical air, water, and fire protection systems and evaluating building loads Delves into how to best generate and model content, including solid modeling, creating symbols, using parameters, creating equipment, and more Featuring real-world sidebars, hands-on tutorials, and a supporting Web site, this reference allows you to jump into any tutorial and compare your finished work to the pros


KING Yes. I shall release you - SAKUNTALA When? KING When? When, like a bee, I kiss the bud of your unbruised lip And flood my thirsting mouth with nectar. Kalidasa's play about the love of King Dusyanta and Sakuntala, a hermitage girl, their separation by a curse, and eventual reunion, is the supreme work of Sanskrit drama by its greatest poet and playwright (c.4th century CE). Overwhelmingly erotic in tone, in peformance The Recognition of Sakuntala aimed to produce an experience of aesthetic rapture in the audience, akin to certain types of mystical experience. The pioneering English translation of Sakuntala in 1789 caused a sensation among European composers and writers (including Goethe), and it continues to be performed around the world. This vibrant new verse translation includes the famous version of the story from the Mahabharata, a poetic and dramatic text in its own right and a likely source for Kalidasa. The introduction discusses the play in the aesthetic and cultural context of ancient India. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.


The object of study is the principles of state economic policy during the reign of Nicholas II. The views and activities of finance ministers S. Yu. Witte, V. N. Kokovtsov and P. L. Bark are considered. The author analyzes the reasons and essence of changes in the economic priorities of the state. During this period, the policy of the Ministry of Finance was characterized by serious fluctuations caused by objective and subjective circumstances.


A method of image restoration for certain systems with space-variant point-spread functions is presented. The technique, called coordinate transformation restoration (CTR), is applicable to a large class of optical degradations, and operates by first transforming the degraded image by a geometrical distortion. Following this, space-invariant inverse filtering or estimation and another transformation are used to complete the process. The CTR technique makes restoration practical for a variety of incoherent systems with motion and aberration degradations by effectively reducing the system dimensionality.


This study uses Vector Autoregressions to investigate and measure the relationship between Alberta slaughter steer prices, United States - Canada exchange rates, Texas slaughter steer prices, nearby live cattle futures prices and live animal exports to the United States (in dollars). The general conclusions are that the exchange rate has a relatively smaller impact on Alberta slaughter steer prices than do U.S. steer markets. Shocks to the exchange rate result in a smaller change to Alberta prices than equally likely shocks to the U.S. futures price. Typically over 1 month periods the U.S.-Canada exchange rate does not play a big role in changing Alberta prices. This may be due to the relative stability of the exchange rate over shorter time periods relative to U.S. cattle prices. Live animal exports are more sensitive to changes in other variables not included in our model than to U.S steer prices, Alberta steer prices or exchange rates. These results have possible implications for Alberta cattle feeder investors. The stronger influence of the futures prices on Alberta prices suggest that Alberta investors first look at the futures market for the price information that most strongly influences the Alberta market. The close relationship of the Alberta market and the futures market implies that the futures market can be used by Alberta cattle investors for risk management. There still exist local Alberta factors that contribute to price risk but the U.S cattle market is the major source of price risk.


Lobbying, Corruption and Other Banes Although the theoretical literature often uses lobbying and corruption synonymously, the empirical literature associates lobbying with the preferred mean for exerting influence in developed countries and corruption with the preferred one in developing countries. This paper challenges these views. Based on whether influence is sought with rule-makers or rule-enforcers, we develop a conceptual framework that highlights how political institutions are instrumental in defining the choice between bribing and lobbying. We test our predictions using survey data for about 6000 firms in 26 countries. Our results suggest that (a) lobbying and corruption are fundamentally different, (b) political institutions play a major role in explaining whether firms choose bribing or lobbying, (c) lobbying is more effective than corruption as an instrument for political influence, and (d) lobbying is more powerful than corruption as an explanatory factor for enterprise growth, even in poorer, often perceived as highly corrupt, less developed countries. JEL Classification: E23, D72, H26, O17, P16


Interactions between genes reduce the benefits of a mutation and decrease the rate of fitness gain during adaptation. Epistatic interactions between mutations play a prominent role in evolutionary theories. Many studies have found that epistasis is widespread, but they have rarely considered beneficial mutations. We analyzed the effects of epistasis on fitness for the first five mutations to fix in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Epistasis depended on the effects of the combined mutations—the larger the expected benefit, the more negative the epistatic effect. Epistasis thus tended to produce diminishing returns with genotype fitness, although interactions involving one particular mutation had the opposite effect. These data support models in which negative epistasis contributes to declining rates of adaptation over time. Sign epistasis was rare in this genome-wide study, in contrast to its prevalence in an earlier study of mutations in a single gene.


From the 1860s through to the early 20th century the rise of Japonisme and the Art Nouveau movement meant that few could ignore or resist the obsession with all things Japanese. Superbly crafted and often highly decorated Japanese objects lacquer, metalwork, ceramics, enamels and other decorative items excited, stimulated and inspired Western artists and craftsmen to produce their own works. Arts of the Meiji period (18681912) were displayed at international exhibitions, galleries of influential dealers and at fashionable stores in London, Paris and Vienna. This book includes many examples of the superlatively designed and executed decorative arts of the Meiji periods from the Khalili Collection, the greatest collection of Meiji period art in the world. Artists such as Van Gogh, Whistler, Monet, Manet, Klimt and Schiele were all, to varying degrees, influenced by the arts of Japan. Van Gogh said that he owed his inspiration to Japanese art, but even he was probably not aware of just how much art in Europe had already been greatly influenced by that of Japan.


Budget Responsibility and Efficiency Act of 2001 - Amends the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to revise the Federal and congressional budget processes by establishing a two-year budgeting and appropriations cycle and timetable.(Sec. 3) Amends the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to define the budget biennium as the two consecutive fiscal years beginning on October 1 of any odd-numbered year.(Sec. 4) Conforms provisions of the Rules of the House of Representatives, provisions governing the President's budget, and requirements for certain strategic and performance plans and reports to the biennial framework.(Sec. 7) Provides a point of order against any measure that contains a specific authorization of appropriations unless such authorization is for each fiscal year in a biennium.(Sec. 8) Places Government strategic and performance plans on a biennial timetable, excluding pilot projects for performance budgeting.(Sec.10) Requires agency heads, the Comptroller General, and the Directors of the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service to provide congressional committees with the necessary information for program review.(Sec.11) Requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to report to both congressional budget committees and the House Rules Committee on the impact and feasibility of changing the fiscal year and budget process to a biennial framework.(Sec.12) Requires the President's budget submission for FY 2004 to identify budget accounts for which an appropriation should be made for each fiscal year of the FY 2004-2005 biennium. Directs congressional committees, during the 108th Congress, to work with the Comptroller General to develop plans to transition program authorizations to a multi-year schedule. Sets forth additional transition requirements.(Sec.13) Makes this Act applicable to budget resolutions and appropriations for the biennium beginning with FY 2006.


A comprehensive understanding of the role of bimetallic alloys in surface steam reforming (SMR) reactions and carbon formation on real catalysts at an atomic level remains a challenge due to their different material properties and pressures. We report here a density functional theory (DFT) study and an experimental study of the effects of the surface composition of a Ni/Ag alloy on methane activation and steam methane reforming compared to those of a pure Ni catalyst. The Ni/Ag bimetallic catalyst demonstrates better surface alloying compared to other bimetallic catalysts, which is confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and hydrogen chemisorption. The DFT calculation shows that Ag selectively substitutes for the more active Ni sites in the order Ni(211) > Ni(100) > Ni(111), so that the substitution of Ag on the Ni surface has a profound influence on the activities of the sites near Ag. These sites surrounding the Ag atom are inactive to C–H activation in the methane molecules, and Ag serves as a blocking agent to block the more active sites on the Ni nanoparticles, as suggested by both the kinetic and DFT studies. Furthermore, the study shows that the apparent activation energy increases with increasing fraction of Ag on the catalyst surface. A better understanding of the chemistry and catalytic consequence of surface alloying in SMR reactions is achieved by combining well-controlled surface alloying, detailed kinetic assessment and the DFT study. Thus, this approach provides the key to understanding the mechanism for suppressing carbon formation and is expected to have a significant implication on the general methods of SMR bimetallic catalyst design in order to have better activity and stability.


This study investigates how the transactive memory system (TMS) and geographic dispersion (GD) of an IT project team may impact how an individual member utilizes his or her expertise dissimilarity to stimulate creativity. A cross-level analysis of data from 141 team members and their supervisors in thirty-five IT service project teams revealed that there is a significant three-way interaction between an individual's expertise dissimilarity, GD, and TMS on individual creativity. Specifically, TMS is important to all teams, but it is particularly essential to low-GD teams: without the support of a well- developed TMS, individual members who possess highly dissimilar expertise to their peer team members are significantly more disadvantaged in terms of creativity when working in a collocated context than in a dispersed context. Our research mainly contributes to a differentiated understanding of (1) GD as a double-edged sword that creates both restraining but also facilitating effects on the individual team member's creativity and of (2) TMS as a vital team capability that helps overcome the obstacles that expertise-dissimilar employees might face in their pursuit of creativity. These findings highlight the importance of developing a cross-level perspective of TMS and incorporating the GD factor to enrich the current research.


The Global Impact of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, ed. by Esther Webman. New York and London: Routledge, 2011. 317 pages. Index to p. 317. £80. In fin de siecle Europe, there appeared a remarkable text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, first published in Russian in 1903. Purporting to reveal the secret record of a meeting of Jewish Elders in a cemetery in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, the Protocols were translated into English in 1920, the standard text being the translation by Victor Marsden (and available from Amazon books). The Protocols detail a fantastic, barely coherent conspiracy of gargantuan proportions by Jews to take over the world. Each of the Protocols - there are 24 of them - cover some aspect of the plan for world domination, using Jewish money and influence to subvert Christian institutions (The Freemasons are also involved, suggestive of a racist version of a Dan Brown novel, but without the Catholics as the bad guys). The Protocols were a blatant forgery, exposed as such in a trial in Switzerland in the 1930s, a composite of several anti-Semitic texts from the 19th century and assembled, it seems, by the Tsarist secret police in the 1890s. Reading the Marsden translation, the reader is struck by the absurdity of the Protocols, until, that is, s/he notices that throughout the text the unnamed editor (of Filiquarian Press of the US, publisher of copyright-free material) has inserted parenthetic references to later events that relate to the discussion in the Protocols and their authenticity. The subjects listed are the material of (often far Right) conspiracy fantasies, blamed on the Jews: Waco, Janet Reno, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Social Security, the United Nations, the London School of Economics, the Maastricht Treaty, liberal humanitarian interventions, F.D. Roosevelt, Randy Weaver, the Oklahoma bombing, and so on. The Protocols appeal to those who have worked out their argument before examining the evidence, everyone from the Nazis to White survivalist supremacists to Islamic religious extremists. In this sense, the Protocols are not remarkable - people who want something to be true ignore contrary facts - but the anti-Semitism that has sustained and extended belief in the Protocols is remarkable, and examined elsewhere by scholars such as Michael Barkun, Daniel Pipes, Chip Berlet, and Stephen Bronner. Precisely because the claims in the protocols are so sweeping, "they ultimately defeat any attempt at challenging them" (p. 13). Janet Webman places the Protocols in the wider history of conspiracies in her introduction to the volume under review, one that presents case studies of how the Protocols have been received, sustained, and extended in different settings, from the Islamic Middle East, to Christian America, to South America to Nazi Germany. There are two useful chapters examining the prehistory of the Protocols within pre-revolutionary Russia, setting this within Russian thinking on the Jews - "the enemy of humanity." Remarkably, there is even a study of the reception and manipulation of the Protocols in Japan. While Webman's discussion of myth and conspiracy is derivate, it neatly sets up the essays in the volume, arguing that "conspiracy theories serve an important social function and fill various psychological needs. Conspiracy theories, including the Protocols, provide their believers with a prism with which to understand complex local and global events. They make intricate historical patterns comprehensible by oversimplification, and claim to identify the underlying or hidden source of human misery" (p. 9). (One might make the same claim about some political ideologues, of the Leftand Right. …


We study the behavior of plasmon resonances of metal nanospheres embedded in an absorbing medium. First-principles far-field computations based on the general Lorenz–Mie theory show that increasing absorption in the host medium broadens and suppresses plasmon resonances in the extinction and effective scattering efficiency factors and suppresses resonance features in the phase function. These effects of absorption are analogous to those on the morphology-dependent resonances of dielectric particles with large size parameters.


RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Diagnostic reasoning and treatment decisions are a key competence of doctors. A model based on values and probability provides a conceptual framework for clinical judgments and decisions, and also facilitates the integration of clinical and biomedical knowledge into a diagnostic decision.

METHOD
Both value and probability are usually estimated values in clinical decision making. Therefore, model assumptions and parameter estimates should be continually assessed against data, and models should be revised accordingly. Introducing parameter estimates for both value and probability, which usually pertain in clinical work, gives the model labelled subjective expected utility. Estimated values and probabilities are involved sequentially for every step in the decision-making process.

RESULTS
Introducing decision-analytic modelling gives a more complete picture of variables that influence the decisions carried out by the doctor and the patient.

CONCLUSION
A model revised for perceived values and probabilities by both the doctor and the patient could be used as a tool for engaging in a mutual and shared decision-making process in clinical work.


Catalogers in academic libraries are facing a fundamental change in our guidelines and instructions on formulating descriptions for our library resources. A new cataloging standard, Resource Description and Access (RDA), has been developed as a replacement for the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. This new standard is based on the conceptual models of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Data) and FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data). The new standard and its online toolkit were tested over a 9-month period ( July 1–December 31, 2010) by the Library of Congress and 26 additional partners. The Library of Congress, National Library of Medicine, and National Agricultural library announced in June 2011 that they have decided that RDA should be implemented no sooner than January 2013. However, that does not mean there are not already RDA bibliographic records in our cataloging utilities with plans in the offing to add more. This paper gives a review of RDA development along with a description of how the University of Kansas prepared and trained copy catalogers to handle RDA bibliographic and authority records during the RDA test period (October 1, 2010–January 1, 2011) and our plans for ongoing training during this interim period prior to full implementation.


While most professional sports quickly postponed their seasons due to COVID-19, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) took a decidedly contrarian approach as president Dana White continued to promote UFC 249 until pressure forced its cancelation on April 9, 2020. Drawing from work on sport and spectacle and the media as well as sport management scholarship on crisis management, the authors provide a commentary on the mediated spectacle of White's (eventually successful) efforts to promote UFC 249 during the pandemic. Drawing from numerous media sources, they discuss how White sought to control the public narrative in several key ways. The authors further explore how White decried the seriousness of the pandemic while centralizing the UFC's place in the U.S. sporting landscape. Finally, the authors discuss how White's efforts might both help and hinder the UFC as a mainstream sports promotion.


Whether we live full and satisfying lives – whether we thrive – depends as much on what sort of people we become as on how safe or prosperous we are, or how well or efficiently we satisfy preferences, or how closely we hew to some set of normative principles. If so, characterological concerns ought be given consideration alongside, valued in equal measure with, and seen in relation to, the more narrowly consequentialist and deontological dimensions of law and politics which are now the almost-exclusive focus of legal scholarship. In the first part of this essay, I identify and describe some of the mechanisms through which law may construct character, either directly or indirectly, and often inadvertently. In the second half of this essay, I elaborate on one possible connection between character and thriving. I argue tentatively that there are particular traits we ought to try to engender or preserve in ourselves if we hope to thrive in a democratic free market society. The virtues I describe are analogs to or versions of the classical virtues of courage, temperance, and wisdom. In addition, and central to this account, I argue for the importance of preserving a particular trait or attitude, analogous to the classical virtue of piety, for which I use the term "aspiration."


A suite of spinel lherzolite xenoliths from the Triassic Igneous Complex of Predazzo (Dolomites, Northern Italy) was investigated for petrography and mineral composition. The xenoliths are hosted by camptonitic dykes and have protogranular to weakly porphyroclastic texture with the following mineral assemblages: forsteritic olivine, enstatitic orthopyroxene, diopsidic clinopyroxene and Cr-bearing spinel. Rare xenoliths also contain pargasitic amphibole. Reasonably consistent values were obtained by applying various thermometric calibrations to the rim compositions of the lherzolite minerals. For most xenoliths, the four phases (clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene, olivine and spinel) reached equilibrium at temperatures between 800 and 950°C. An earlier stage, at higher temperature (> 1000°C) and pressure (> 2.5 GPa), is suggested by clusters of Cpx+Opx+Spl after probable garnet precursors, the presence of exsolution lamellae in some clinopyroxenes and the core composition of some pyroxenes. Ca-in-olivine barometry yields values (1.2–1.6 GPa) consistent with the maximum pressures (2.4 GPa) indicated by spinel composition and the pargasitic amphibole stability field (up to 3.0 GPa). The pressure field defined by the lherzolite minerals corresponds to a depth of about 45 km within the upper mantle. During host magma ascent, most xenolith minerals did not undergo appreciable re-equilibration.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether conditions associated with overwater structures enhance predation pressure on juvenile salmon in Puget Sound. Washington State Ferry (WSF) terminals served as model overwater structures for exploring these issues. This document reports bird and mammal survey results from six north-central Puget Sound WSF terminals and paired reference sites over both "pre-" and >"peak" periods of outmigrating salmon fry abundance from April 1 to May 10, 2002. The authors conclude that potential salmon predators were slightly more abundant at WSF terminals as compared with unmodified shorelines, although large aggregations were not observed on any occasion. The spatial distribution patterns of both bird and fish predators rarely overlapped with juvenile salmon oriented in surface waters close to shore. The authors were unable to verify whether potential predators were more abundant during peak salmon outmigration, because salmon were available in these habitats throughout the duration of the study. The authors found no evidence that avian, marine mammal, or fish predators consumed more juvenile salmon near WSF terminals than along shorelines without overwater structures. Few species appeared to be targeting abundant fry in nearshore habitats, and the authors observed only two occasions in which predators (one tern sp., one staghorn sculpin) had consumed juvenile salmon. Several hypotheses are offered as to why the authors did not observe elevated rates of predation on juvenile salmon in the face of their greater relative availability to predators in nearshore habitats.


A Survey of the African American Presence in the History of the Downstate New York AreaNEW NETHERLANDPeople of African descent were among the earliest inhabitants of the Dutch colony of New Netherland.(2) Initiated in 1624, the colony's population also included English, French, German, and Swedish settlers. It is estimated that at least eighteen languages were spoken there. The colony was under the control of the Dutch West Indian Company. In the early years of the colony, Angola and the Gold Coast were the primary sources of Africans for the Dutch slave trade. Beginning around 1598 the Dutch established economic links to Africa which eventually would result in their becoming the primary force in the Atlantic slave trade by the middle of the 17th century.Although the actual year of the earliest presence of persons of African descent in New Netherland is subject to debate, the first record of African slaves being brought to the colony was in 1626, just two years after it was founded. These first arrivals were referred to as a "parcel" and consisted of 11 males. The reason for the controversy over the initial presence of blacks in New Netherland is that there is a record of a Jan Rodrigues, a mulatto from San Domingo (Haiti)who in 1613 remained behind in the colony to arrange trade agreements with the Indians that involved Dutch ships.(3)At present there is no means of determining the exact number of African slaves brought to New Netherland prior to 1664. However, the ships that were said to have brought the first slaves directly from Africa to New Netherland were the Tamandere in 1646 and the Whittepaert in 1654.(4) Despite the controversies, the fact remains that at the time of the English conquest of the colony in 1664, people of African descent formed a significant element of the colony's population.Little is known about the internal lives of the early African residents of New Amsterdam. However, it is known that African women were introduced into the colony soon after African men, and that some eventually married. Records show that African couples were married in the New Amsterdam Dutch Reform Church as early as 1641. Christinna Emanuels and Swan Van Loange were married in the Dutch Reform Church in 1664.(5)Although slavery was the status of most of the Africans who arrived in the early stages of the colony's development, it was not long before a free black population began to emerge. As slaves, they could marry, bear primary responsibility for child rearing, and hire themselves out for wages. While they could not own real property, they were permitted to raise their own crops and animals, bring suit in court and their testimony could be used to convict whites. An example of their right to go to court involved the following incident: In 1638, Anthony the Portuguese, a black, sued a white merchant, Anthony Jansen, and was awarded reparations for damages caused to his hog by the defendant's dog.(6) Interestingly, most slaves were owned by the Company rather than by individuals. Instances such as these have resulted in the conclusion that slavery in New Amsterdam was "mild."Freed slaves, or the half-free as they called themselves, were sometimes given land by the Dutch West Indian Company. The typical grant included a house and garden lot of 1,000 by 1,500 feet and a section of farmland of from five to ten acres. Sometimes the attainment of freedom and the acquisition of land led to marriage. Peter Christopher, in his study of the freedmen of New Netherland, has summarized that the emancipation of slaves during the Dutch period was a frequent occurrence, and that manumission took place at an age when the slave was still young enough to start a family.(7) In addition, the freedmen of New Netherland, in contrast to those freed by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, were provided a parcel of land upon which to support themselves and their families. Slavery under the Dutch appears to have been more like indentured bond service than the "peculiar institution" that emerged later in the southern part of the United States during the 19th century. …


Two indicators were used: the economic subsistence level (ESL) where annual income equaled expenditure and a nutritional poverty line (NPL) where average annual total income equaled the estimated taka cost of an acceptable nutritional diet per average household for each size grouping. Across three sampler reviewed in detail, 22% of the total sample of 135 farmers were below the ESL and 16 % below the NPL. A further 15% were around the ESL and 5% around the NPL. These figures appeared to be much lower estimates dun those found by others. The main difference was that the data for this study were collected from weekly monitoring over the whole duration of the season/year and hence should have been more accurate than the cross sectional data used in other studies.


Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs) are a popular approach to learn a probability distribution over the "good" solutions to a combinatorial optimization problem. Here we consider the case where there is a collection of such optimization problems with learned distributions, and where each problem can be characterized by some vector of features. Now we can define a machine learning problem to predict the distribution of good solutions q(s|x) for a new problem with features x, where s denotes a solution. This predictive distribution is then used to focus the search. We demonstrate the utility of our method on a compiler optimization task where the goal is to find a sequence of code transformations to make the code run fastest. Results on a set of 12 different benchmarks on two distinct architectures show that our approach consistently leads to significant improvements in performance.


Increasing attention has been paid to the burden of ill-health experienced by men in many Western countries. In Europe and internationally, the Republic of Ireland has been leading the way by developing a national policy for men's health. In most countries around the world, women now have a longer life expectancy than men. Similarly, on the island of Ireland, in spite of recent increases in men's life expectancy, men continue to have higher death rates at all ages and from all leading causes of death. In Northern Ireland, in 2010, men's life expectancy at birth was 77.08 years (81.53 years for women), while in the Republic of Ireland, figures published in 2009 revealed that men's life expectancy at birth was 76.8 years (compared to 81.6 years for women). Key health issues for men include circulatory diseases, cancers and respiratory diseases. In relation to food and health, obesity has been highlighted as a major concern in relation to men's health.
While physiological difference between men and women explain some of the variation in the rate and/or onset of disease (e.g., protective effects of oestrogen in relation to the onset of cardiovascular diseases), other factors, such as socio-cultural influences, which are the main focus of this report, also play an important role. It is acknowledged that men and women experience different influences and motivations with respect to their knowledge and attitudes of and behaviours towards food and health.
The purpose of this report is therefore not to compare men with women or to encourage men to model themselves on women in relation to their food and health behaviour. Rather, the goal is to provide recommendations to improve communications, resources, interventions, education and services targeted at boys and men in relation to food.


One way of simplifying neural networks so they generalize better is to add an extra term to the error function that will penalize complexity. Simple versions of this approach include penalizing the sum of the squares of the weights or penalizing the number of nonzero weights. We propose a more complicated penalty term in which the distribution of weight values is modeled as a mixture of multiple gaussians. A set of weights is simple if the weights have high probability density under the mixture model. This can be achieved by clustering the weights into subsets with the weights in each cluster having very similar values. Since we do not know the appropriate means or variances of the clusters in advance, we allow the parameters of the mixture model to adapt at the same time as the network learns. Simulations on two different problems demonstrate that this complexity term is more effective than previous complexity terms.


As part of the AAPM's Scope of Practice, medical physicists are expected to collaborate effectively with practioners and allied health care providers. Interpersonal skills such as communication, negotiation and persuasion are vital for successful collaboration to achieve shared goals. This session will provide some theoretical background of these interpersonal skills as well as specific techniques and practical tools to influence others. Applications of these interpersonal skills for administrative and human resource management purposes vital to medical physicists will be shared. Session attendees will gain knowledge and tools to help them effectively collaborate with administrative and physician leaders in areas such as capital and human resource selection, prioritization, and implementation. Participants will hear methods of how to articulate their goals and to understand the goals of administration, helping ensure alignment of purpose.
Session speakers will present one of the topics: equipment selection, budget creation, contracts, and program-related policy development. Specifics may include designing a business case in language that administrators understand, calculating the prioritization of budget requests, and influencing policies for safe and effective care. Human resource topics may include staffing justification, recruitment for fit, employment contracts, and benefits. Speakers will provide examples in both radiation therapy and diagnostic
imaging departments and will share experiences and outcomes of their approaches for better results.
Learning Objectives:
After this course attendees will be better able to
1.
Understand the shared goal between administrative and physicist leadership.
2.
Articulate the "why" of the technical or human resource need.
3.
Utilize communication, negotiation and persuasion tools to improve collaboration.


We investigate the structural properties of certain sequential decision-making problems with limited feedback (bandits) in order to bring the known algorithmic solutions closer to a practical use. In the first part, we put a special emphasis on structures that can be represented as graphs on actions, in the second part we study the large action spaces that can be of exponential size in the number of base actions or even infinite. We show how to take advantage of structures over the actions and (provably) learn faster.


The accumulation of trading experience and empirical evidence since the original Black-Scholes (BS) model was developed, have made it increasingly evident that volatility is not a constant parameter, as BS assumed, but stochastic. With a second random factor associated with volatility affecting security returns, it would not be surprising if investors cared about bearing risk related to that factor. And there is considerable evidence from analysis of real world options that volatility risk is indeed a priced factor, with a negative price. That is, investors will pay extra for (accept lower returns on) securities like options whose values increase when volatility goes up. In that case, Black-Scholes implied volatilities will tend to be higher than actual volatilities, which provides one measure of the market price of volatility risk. Research on stochastic volatility has focused largely on stock index options, but modern portfolio theory makes a strong distinction between stochastic factors that are correlated with the market portfolio and those that are not, whose risk can be diversified. In this article, Bakshi and Kapadia look at the pricing of individual stock options to explore the effects of market volatility risk versus firm-specific volatility risk. They find that volatility risk is priced, negatively as expected, and that market volatility risk is more important than firm-specific risk.


Classification aims to assign a data object to its appropriate class, what is traditionally performed through a small dataset model such as decision tree. Associative classification is a novel strategy for performing this task where the model is composed of a particular set of association rules, in which the consequent of each rule (i.e., its right-hand-side) is restricted to the classification class attribute. Rule generation and rule selection are two major issues in associative classification. Rule generation aims to find a set of association rules that better describe the entire dataset, while rule selection aims to select, for a particular case, the best rule among all rules generated. Rule generation and rule selection techniques dramatically affect the effectiveness of the classifier. In this paper we propose new techniques for rule generation and rule selection. In our proposed technique, rules are generated based on the concept of maximal frequent class itemsets (increasing the size of the rule pattern), and then selected based on their informative value and on the cost that an error imply (possibly reducing misclassifications). We validate our techniques using two important real world problems: spam detection and protein homology detection. Further, we compare our techniques against other existing ones, ranging from well known naive-Bayes to domain-specific classifiers. Experimental results show that our techniques are able to achieve a significant improvement of 30% in the effectiveness of the classification.


Within every man and woman is a force which directs and controls the entire course of life. Properly used, it can heal every affliction and ailment to which mankind is heir. Every single religion affirms this fact. All forms of mental or spiritual healing, no matter under what name they travel, promise the same thing. Even psychoanalysis employs this power, though indirectly, using the now popular word libido. For the critical insight and understanding which it brings to bear upon the psyche releases tensions of various kinds, and through this release the healing power latent within and natural to the human system operates more freely. Each of these systems undertakes to teach its devotees technical methods of thinking or contemplation or prayer such as will, according to the a priori terms of their own philosophies, renew their bodies and transform their whole environment. None or few of them, however, actually fulfil in a complete way the high promise made at the outset. There seems but little understanding of the practical means whereby the spiritual forces underlying the universe and permeating the entire nature of man may be utilised and directed towards the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Naturally, without universal co-operation, such an ideal is impossible for all mankind. Nevertheless, each one for himself may commence the task of reconstruction. The crucial question, then, is how are we to become aware of this force? What are its nature and properties? What is the mechanism whereby we can use it?


Thromboembolic disease is the main preventable cause of in-hospital death. Approximately 10% of nosocomial deaths are attributable to pulmonary embolism and in most cases, the diagnosis is not suspected before the autopsy. There are cost effective measures to decrease the incidence of thromboembolic disease. Pharmacological prophylaxis decreases the incidence of deep venous thrombosis by 65% and the incidence of pulmonary embolism by 35 to 55%. Despite this data and the presence of clinical guidelines, prophylaxis of thromboembolic disease is used only in 40% of medical patients and in 65% of surgical patients with recommended indications. We review the evidence that supports the use of thromboprophylaxis and the different strategies that may increase the compliance of physicians with its use. A protocol implemented in our institution is also proposed.