This article will examine the recent expansion of EU regulation of the private international law aspects of divorce and its consequences. The application of the regulatory framework made up of Brussels II bis, the Maintenance Regulation, Rome III and the proposed Rome IV to a typical divorce case will be investigated to see if this unwieldy system is coherent in application. The possibility for divorce cases to be atomized into individual issues will be examined. It will be asserted that the characterization used by this system best suits the decision making procedure under civil law traditions. The article will critically analyse how the characterization of issues as relating to divorce, maintenance or matrimonial property is likely to function in relation to the typical divorce under English and Welsh, Scottish and Irish law. The problem areas of characterization will be examined and it will be shown that the difficulties encountered in making the common law systems fit the mould are actually substantive problems linked to the common law understanding of marriage as a publicly recognized and enforceable commitment. The tendency for common law jurisdictions to apply domestic law to cases with a foreign element is rooted in this vertical aspect of marriage. It will be concluded that EU regulation of matrimonial breakdown based on three snapshots of the divorce process fails to properly consider the public dimension of marriage and the benefits of divorce as a process under one flexible and coherent family law system.


Vocabularies that provide unique identifiers for conceptual elements of a domain can improve precision and recall in knowledge-management applications. Although creating and maintaining such vocabularies is generally hard, wiki users easily manage to develop comprehensive, informal definitions of terms, each one identified by a URI. Here, the authors show that the URIs of Wikipedia entries are reliable identifiers for conceptual entities. They also demonstrate how Wikipedia entries can be used for annotating Web resources and knowledge assets and give precise estimates of the amount of Wikipedia URIs in terms of the popular Proton ontology's top-level concepts.


Despite the prevalent use of blog for various personal reasons, there is a paucity of research examining the commercialization of blog. Even though it is possible to forge strong buyer-seller relationships among blogger and readers in a blog social network through collective social interaction, a fundamental prerequisite towards blog commercialization is the blogger's willingness to engage in commercial exchange. Consequently, this paper examines the blogger's decision making process on using his/her blog for commercial exchange. The decision process involves the appraisal of two novel theoretical notions, namely blog-blogger-reader-product similarity (BBRPS) and perceived reader-negative reaction (PRNR). Drawing on the cognitive-motivational-relational theory, we posit that the blogger's emotional responses to the two appraisal factors affect how the blogger copes with the exchange situation. The coping strategy adopted by the blogger in turn increases or decreases exchange intention. Results from an experiment we conducted provide support for this model. Specifically, when BBRPS is high and PRNR is low, the blogger would be inclined towards using his/her blog for commercial exchange. Even when PRNR is high, it is plausible for blogger to persist in the use of his/her blog for commercial exchange as long as the negative emotional barrier is not


In this work we study the photoinduced signatures of polarons in conjugated polymers and the impact of charge carrier delocalisation on their spectra. The variation of film crystallinity for two prototypical systems – blends of the homopolymer P3HT or the donor–acceptor polymer PCPDTBT with PCBM – allows probing changes of the polaron absorption in the mid infrared spectral region. Increased polaron delocalisation entails a shift of the electronic transition to lower energy in both cases. Also, infrared active vibrations soften due to a higher polymer chain order. Our findings help in providing a more complete understanding of polaron properties in conjugated materials and bring the application of the polaron absorption spectrum as an indicator for the environment on a more thoroughly studied foundation.


We propose that a mantle-peridotite-bearing mélange unit, which has been mapped for more than 400 km in southern Norway, represents vestiges of deep basin(s) formed by hyperextension of the Baltic margin during the inception of the Caledonian Wilson cycle. In the mélange, which occurs below the crystalline nappes of the Middle Allochthon in southern Norway, solitary mantle peridotites, detrital serpentinites, metabasalts, gabbros and deep basin sediments are interlayered and imbricated with allochthonous, coarse-grained siliclastic sediments and slivers of Proterozoic basement rocks. The siliciclastic sediments have detritus derived from Proterozoic rocks, similar to those of the large crystalline nappes and the autochthonous basement of Baltica. The mélange unit shares many similarities with the hyperextended Tethyan margin complexes that have been described from the Alps, the Pyrenees and several segments of the present-day passive ocean margins, and we interpret it to represent an ancient late Proterozoic to Palaeozoic analogue to present-day hyperextended passive margins. Regional maps show that the mélange continues into the central Scandinavian Caledonides and that this basin assemblage may have had a much wider geographical distribution. The new model suggests that a major reinterpretation of the Lower and Middle Allochthons of the Scandinavian Caledonides is required.


The aim of this present study is to explore a rapid, selective, and sensitive HPLC method for cleaning validation for the analysis of levothyroxine sodium from production area. Chromatographic separation of levothyroxine sodium was achieved at 6.73 min by using 40: 60 volume of acetonitrile and deionized water that contain 0.05% of orthophosphoric acid mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.5 mL/min and detection UV wavelength of 225 nm. The method was validated according to USP Category I requirements. Linearity for detector response was observed in the concentration range of 0.0045–27ppm and coefficient of determination (r2) for calibration curve was found exactly 0.9999 (r2 > 0.99). Percent recovery was found from 83.15 to 83.80% ranging from 0.02265 to 006795mg of L-T4. Precision and intermediate precision showed that the % RSD of both were 2.80 and 0.98 respectively which were in the range of acceptable limit (< 10) for cleaning validation. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were obtained at 0.002 and 0.006 ppm respectively. The HPLC method was successfully applied for analysis of levothyroxine sodium samples from different parts of equipment's in production area.


BACKGROUND:Intraoperative hypotension is associated with complications that might be ameliorated by earlier intervention. We therefore tested the primary hypothesis that a supplemental decision support alert for critically low systolic blood pressure (SBP) decreases the duration of intraoperative hypotension. METHODS:We enrolled adults having surgery and anesthetized by attending anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists under attending supervision. When invasive SBP <80 mmHg was detected for 3 consecutive minutes or any oscillometric SBP <80 mmHg, patients were randomly assigned to routine management or a visual alert and pager notification. Clinicians who received alerts were free to act on the alert or not. The primary outcome was time to return to SBP ≥80 mmHg. Secondary outcomes were time until SBP remained ≥80 mmHg for at least 10 minutes and the duration of hospitalization. RESULTS:One thousand five hundred ninety-eight patients were randomly assigned to the hypotension alerts and 1567 to no alerts. Randomized groups did not differ on time to return to SBP ≥80 mmHg after the first alert, with estimated adjusted hazard ratio of 0.99 (95% confidence interval, 0.92–1.06; P = 0.69). The median time [quartiles] to return to SBP ≥80 mmHg was 1 [0, 3] minutes in each group and 1 [0, 3] minutes in the nonalert group (P = 0.69). Hospital length of stay was also similar, with the median [quartiles] lengths of stay being 2 [1, 4] days in the alert group and 2 [1,5] in the nonalert group (P = 0.35). CONCLUSIONS:An additional warning for severe hypotension did not reduce the duration of hypotension or hospitalization. Decision support alerts may be more useful for more complicated situations.


Aims: The aims of this study were threefold: 1) to explore nursing students perceptions of knowledge development after participating in an actual research project; 2) to explore undernutrition and its relationship to other clinical factors; 3) to explore the user-friendliness of the Minimal Eating Observation and Nutrition Form (MEONF-II) in relation to dependency in Activities of Daily Living (ADL). Methods: A pilot study (Study 1, S1) was conducted in October 2010, including 281 patients. After extending the research protocol a second data collection (S2) was conducted in March 2011, including 236 patients (total n=517). First and third year nursing students (n=188) collected the data, during one day of their clinical practice courses by assessing three patients each in hospitals or nursing homes. Students answered questions about their experiences from participating in the study. Patient related assessments included: MEONF-II; ADL dependency (S1 and S2); insomnia; low-spiritedness; and subjective health (S2). In addition, questions about the user-friendliness of MEONF-II were included (S1 and S2). Results: Among the nursing students, 51% experienced that their knowledge about nutrition increased and 67% that their understanding for research increased by participating in the project. Out of the patients, 57% were women, 50% were almost independent, 27% had some dependency, 23% were almost totally dependent in ADL, and 48% were at moderate/ high undernutrition risk. In S2, 32% of patients had insomnia, and 46% experienced low-spiritedness. Dependency in 5-6 and 3-4 ADLs (OR, 2.439 and 2.057, respectively), compared to dependency in 0-2 ADLs, were the strongest predictors for undernutrition risk, followed by insomnia (OR 2.124). Nursing students experienced the MEONF-II as easy to understand (93%), easy to answer (94%) and relevant (94%), and the suggestions for measures to take in case of risk as relevant (95%), independent of the patients' ADL status. Conclusions: By participating in an actual research project nursing students gets an understanding for research and tools for working with quality improvements in their future role as professional nurses. Undernutrition, mental and physical factors constitute coexisting problems in need for further investigation. Nursing students perceive the MEONF-II as user-friendly, independent of patient ADL dependency.


TNF-related activation-induced cytokine (TRANCE), also known as receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL), is the key molecule responsible for the bone loss observed in osteoporosis. Passive administration of osteoprotegerin, the soluble decoy receptor of TRANCE/RANKL, is efficient in blocking disease progression, but may not find widespread clinical use due to patient compliance problems and the expected high costs. In this study, we describe an efficient, safe, and potentially cost-effective active immunization strategy against TRANCE/RANKL. We show in mice that immunization with TRANCE/RANKL covalently linked to virus-like particles can overcome the natural tolerance of the immune system toward self proteins and produce high levels of specific Abs without the addition of any adjuvant. Serum Abs of immunized mice neutralized TRANCE/RANKL activity in vitro and were highly active in preventing bone loss in a mouse model of osteoporosis. Active immunization against TRANCE/RANKL was essentially reversible and did not produce any measurable immunosuppressive side effects, underscoring its potential as a new therapeutic approach to the treatment of human bone-degenerative disorders.


Multi-wavelength observations from various solar missions have revealed the dynamic
nature of the solar corona. The work presented in this thesis represents a
contribution towards understanding some of the physical mechanisms that drive the
activity observed in the corona and out into the heliosphere. In particular, the role of
reconnection in active region (AR) outflows and AR-coronal hole (CH) interactions
using observations of the associated plasma flow signatures and their relationship to
the underlying magnetic field topology is examined.
Persistent outflows discovered by Hinode EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) occur
at the boundary of all ARs over monopolar magnetic regions. It is demonstrated
that the outflows originate from specific locations of the magnetic topology where
field lines display strong gradients of magnetic connectivity, namely quasi-separatrix
layers (QSLs). Magnetic reconnection at QSLs is shown to be a viable mechanism
for driving AR outflows which are likely sources of the slow solar wind.
Observational signatures and consequences of interchange reconnection (IR) are
identified and analyzed in a number of solar configurations. Jet light curves of
several emission lines show a post-jet enhancement in cooler coronal lines which has
not been previously observed. In the case of emerging flux near a CH, it is shown
that closed loops forming between the AR and CH leads to the retreat of the CH
and a dimming of the corona in the vicinity of the like-polarity region. A filament
eruption and coronal mass ejection (CME) from an AR inside a CH are observed
from the solar disk into the heliosphere. An anemone structure of the erupting
AR and the passage in-situ of an interplanetary CME (ICME) with open magnetic
topology are interpreted to be a direct result of IR.
Plasma flows resulting from the interaction between an AR embedded in a CH
observed by Hinode EIS are investigated. Velocity profiles of hotter coronal lines
reveal intensification in outflow velocities prior to a CME. The AR's plasma flows
are compared with 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulations which
show that expansion of AR loops drives outflows along the neighboring CH field.
The intensification of outflows observed prior to the CME is likely to result from the
expansion of a flux rope containing a filament further compressing the neighboring
CH field.


Executive Summary1 This paper provides a statistical portrait of the US undocumented population, with an emphasis on the social and economic condition of mixed-status households - that is, households that contain a US citizen and an undocumented resident. It is based primarily on data compiled by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS). Major findings include the following: • There were 3.3 million mixed-status households in the United States in 2014. • 6.6 million US-born citizens share 3 million households with undocumented residents (mostly their parents). Of these US-born citizens, 5.7 million are children (under age 18). • 2.9 million undocumented residents were 14 years old or younger when they were brought to the United States. • Three-quarters of a million undocumented residents are self-employed, having created their own jobs and in the process, creating jobs for many others. • A total of 1.3 million, or 13 percent of the undocumented over age 18, have college degrees. • Of those with college degrees, two-thirds, or 855,000, have degrees in four fields: engineering, business, communications, and social sciences. • Six million undocumented residents, or 55 percent of the total, speak English well, very well, or only English. • The unemployment rate for the undocumented was 6.6 percent, the same as the national rate in January 2014.2 • Seventy-three percent had incomes at or above the poverty level. • Sixty-two percent have lived in the United States for 10 years or more. • Their median household income was $41,000, about $12,700 lower than the national figure of $53,700 in 2014 (US Census Bureau 2015). Based on this profile, a massive deportation program can be expected to have the following major consequences: • Removing undocumented residents from mixed-status households would reduce median household income from $41,300 to $22,000, a drop of $19,300, or 47 percent, which would plunge millions of US families into poverty. • If just one-third of the US-born children of undocumented residents remained in the United States following a mass deportation program, which is a very low estimate, the cost of raising those children through their minority would total $118 billion. • The nation's housing market would be jeopardized because a high percentage of the 1.2 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants would be in peril. • Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years. CMS derived its population estimates for 2014 using a series of statistical procedures that involved the analysis of data collected by the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). The privacy of all respondents in the survey is legally mandated, and, for the reasons listed in the Appendix, the identity of undocumented residents cannot be derived from the data. A detailed description of the methodology used to develop the estimates is available at the CMS website.3


In the past two decades, LRW has undergone a pedagogical revolution that shifted the emphasis from the product of writing to the process of writing. In the former, product view, LRW teaching tended to focus solely on the product produced, what scholars have called the current-traditional or formalist approach. The teacher did not engage in the process of analysis, assuming that the thinking process was completed before the writing process began. This method of teaching often failed to produce good legal writing. Influenced by composition and rhetoric theory, LRW scholars began to advocate for a focus on the process of analysis and writing, instead of limiting their role to mere correctors of error. This approach recognizes that it is through the process of analyzing and writing that a student constructs meaning. LRW became a course about legal analysis - how to perform it and, most important, how to convey it to others in writing, as lawyers are called upon to do it in their work. The majority of LRW programs have incorporated at least some elements of process-based teaching, though formalism remains central in some LRW classrooms. Many common pedagogical choices still grow out of the older view - not just the product emphasis, but also the era when LRW teachers were replaced every few years and were constantly faced with reinventing the wheel. This article addresses some of the common challenges that arise in structuring a LRW program to maximize student learning. We review the Temple LRW program in detail to demonstrate how we have resolved many of these issues; we highlight those aspects of our program that are different from many other LRW programs and suggest why our methods resolve certain pedagogical dilemmas and are consistent with current theories on teaching writing and helping students enter the discourse community of lawyers.


Nurses who work with children have the opportunity to make a difference by identifying and responding to child abuse and neglect. Little is known about the ways that nurses define, assess and respond to child abuse and neglect and how this subsequently affects children. This paper reports one of four themes identified through inductive analysis of a qualitative study exploring nurses' perceptions and experiences of keeping children safe from abuse and neglect. The aim of this paper was to report on how nurses understand and interpret child abuse, is found to be shaped by their own sociocultural contexts. A qualitative research design underpinned by social constructionism framed the study. Data were collected in 2016 and 2017 through 21 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nurses who work with children in Australia. Key findings showed that nurses working with children had difficulty defining child abuse and drew upon multiple sources to construct a working definition. In addition to drawing from official legislation and guidelines, nurses compared and contrasted the level of abuse with their own personal and professional experiences of parenting. Nurses described the challenges of making assessments when faced with cultural practices different from their own. Nurses' descriptions of how they defined abuse showed that their assessments of child abuse and neglect were inextricably linked to their personal values and beliefs. As such, nurses were often working from their own value systems rather than consistently taking a child-focussed approach. There was an absence of consistent and explicit critical reflection on ways that values and beliefs might shape practice at individual and system levels. We propose this is a missing aspect of child safe practice. Reflection on how personal and professional values and beliefs interact with the implementation of evidence-informed approaches will increase nurses' capacity to maintain a child-focus.


We investigate the logical foundations of hyperproperties. Hyperproperties generalize trace properties, which are sets of traces, to sets of sets of traces. The most prominent application of hyperproperties is information flow security: information flow policies characterize the secrecy and integrity of a system by comparing two or more execution traces, for example by comparing the observations made by an external observer on execution traces that result from different values of a secret variable.

In this paper, we establish the first connection between temporal logics for hyperproperties and first-order logic. Kamp's seminal theorem (in the formulation due to Gabbay et al.) states that linear-time temporal logic (LTL) is expressively equivalent to first-order logic over the natural numbers with order. We introduce first-order logic over sets of traces and prove that HyperLTL, the extension of LTL to hyperproperties, is strictly subsumed by this logic. We furthermore exhibit a fragment that is expressively equivalent to HyperLTL, thereby establishing Kamp's theorem for hyperproperties.


Book synopsis: Race, Law and Unruliness offers a critical legal analysis of European responses to institutional racism. It draws connections between contemporary legal knowledge practices and colonial systems of thought; arguing that many people of colour experience the law as a part of a racial problem, rather than a solution, to racial injustice. Based on a critical legal ethnography of anti-racism work in Europe, the book positions Black and anti-racist perspectives at the centre, rather than the margins, of critically thinking through the intersection of race and law. Combining this ethnography with comparative legal analysis, discourse analysis, and critical race theory, the book develops a critical discussion of the European legal frameworks aimed at regulating racism, and particularly institutional racism, in policy and policing. In linking this critique to the transformative potential of social movements, however, it goes on to examine the strategic and creative possibility of disrupting conventional modes of engaging, and resisting, law.


Background: Since December 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has impacted nearly >90,000 people in more than 75 countries. In this case report, we aim to define the chest computed tomography findings of 2019-novel coronavirus associated with pneumonia and its successful resolution after treatment. Case Report: A fifty-year-old female patient, who is a businesswoman, presented with chief complaints of "fever for one week, diarrhea, anorexia, and asthenia." Initially, she was given Tamiflu. The influenza A virus serology was negative. Three days later, levofloxacin was started because the patient's symptoms did not improve. The novel coronavirus nucleic acid test was negative. It was noted that before the onset of the disease, the patient went to Wuhan on a business trip. Despite the given treatment, her body temperature rose to 39.2°C and she was referred to our clinic for further evaluation. Then, chest computed tomography was performed and showed bilateral multifocal ground glass opacities with consolidation which suggested viral pneumonia as a differential diagnosis, and the subsequent 2019-novel coronavirus pneumonia nucleic acid test was positive. Conclusion: Chest computed tomography offers fast and convenient evaluation of patients with suspected 2019-novel coronavirus pneumonia.


The digital transformation of moving images in the last 30 years has resulted with revolutionary impact on art and design fields. The increasing use of digital technologies for creating design and artwork with moving images has united many disciplines such as graphic design, photography, painting, cinematography, animation, three-dimensional visualization and typography, so that the moving image is no longer pure. According to Manovich, the combination of different disciplines within moving image has created a "hybrid" media where the different image layers are interacting with each other and this interaction is not only in the slight transition between different image layers, but also the transition between the production techniques and conceptual representations of them. The shifting from real to hybrid images provides many opportunities for creative solutions, but then the designer becomes more dependent on digital technologies. However the "hybrid" media and visual language should keep evolving and transforming as a combination of different disciplines, so that the design education perspective should move from software-based education to the new visual aesthetics. Thereby the creative solutions offered by the software will turn into new challenges and design experiences. This paper aims to explore the understanding of "hybrid" media's visual language in design education through the frame of basic and new design principles.


Entrepreneur coachability is the degree to which an entrepreneur seeks, carefully considers, and integrates feedback to improve a venture's performance. There is increasing evidence that entrepreneur coachability is important for attracting the social and financial resources necessary for venture growth. Although entrepreneur coachability has emerged as an especially relevant construct for practitioners, start-up ecosystem leaders, and scholars alike, research on this entrepreneurial behavior is in its infancy. What appears to be a consistent finding across studies is that some entrepreneurs are more coachable than others, which affects downstream outcomes—particularly resource acquisition. However, there are sizable theoretical and empirical gaps that limit our understanding about the value of coachability to entrepreneurship research. As a body of literature develops, it is useful to take inventory of the work that has been accomplished thus far and to build from the lessons learned to identify insightful new directions. The topic of entrepreneur coachability has interdisciplinary appeal, and there is a surge of entrepreneur coaching taking place across start-up ecosystems. Research on coaching is diverse, and scholarship has developed across the academic domains of athletics, marketing, workplace coaching, and entrepreneurship. To identify progress to date, promising research gaps, and paths for future exploration, the literature on entrepreneur coachability is critically reviewed. To consider the future development of entrepreneur coachability scholarship, a research agenda is organized by the antecedents of entrepreneurship coachability, outcomes of entrepreneur coachability, and how entrepreneur–coach fit affects learning and development. Future scholarship is needed to more fully explore the antecedents, mechanisms, and/or consequences of entrepreneur coachability. The pursuit and development of this research stream represent fertile ground for meaningful contributions to entrepreneurship theory and practice.


The ambition of the thesis was to consider the performance of urban dwellings, and more specifically to develop a series of benchmarked criteria that holistically define the performance of an urban dwelling throughout its lifecycle, then to create an assessment tool that extends the scope of existing environmental evaluation models. The benchmarks for each of the criteria define the quantitative and qualitative performance values of firstly, a dwelling built to current regulation standards, secondly a European comparison, and thirdly one of the drawn studies undertaken as part of the research methodology; finally the performance of the 'urban house in paradise' is proposed, based upon advances to the above. These benchmarks provide a generic framework that describes the integrated performance of adwelling. The tool advances existing assessment models by responding to their identified shortcomings, which includes taking account of the interrelation between criteria and evolves significance weightings in terms of the relative priority of the criteria to each other. By attempting to resolve the linkages between the criteria, the tool as developed will model how these interrelated benchmarks effect each other within agiven project, so that a holistic set of vaJues, the ideal balance of priorities, can be developed. This will enable a designer to determine the best overall balance of a dwelling's performance, taking account of the identified relative significance of each of the criteria, to bring the sustainability of a project as close as possible to the idealo f the 'urban house in paradise'.S uch a development provides an advance upon existing techniques in defining and assessing the ecological performance of adwelling. The contributions to knowledge made by this thesis are primarily in increasing the depth and scope of assessing the performance, and in particular the environmental performance, of dwellings. The field of criteria in existing environmental assessment methods is extended to include not only a broader, and therefore more holistic range than any other environmental assessment model, but also those relevant to socio-economic areas of sustainability. Prioritisation and interrelation between the individual criteria was developed in the assessment tool's methodology: interrelation is crucial, as sustainability demands a holistic view. Assessment and prioritisation methods are based on the philosophy of Deep Ecology, and not an anthropocentric orientation, therefore potentially creating a radical reappraisal of the criteria considered important in other assessment models. The prioritisation extends between fields, in search of most significant criteria within a holistic view and has identified, within the boundaries of what is technically feasible, the criteria that can contribute most to achieving more ecologically sustainable dwelling in a Deep Ecological sense.


The dimorphisms in morphology and behaviour of male fig wasps are among the most extreme in the animal kingdom, and offer excellent opportunities to test the predictions of certain sexual selection models. Winged males resemble their conspecific females closely, but wingless males are so divergent in form that they have repeatedly been classified into different taxa. Wingless males mate within their natal fig fruits, whereas winged males disperse to mate. Individual species may have winged males, wingless males or both morphs. A key hypothesis proposes that sexual selection on male mating opportunities favours winged males in species with small broods and wingless males in species with large broods. Using data from 114 species in 33 genera, we show that both simple and formal comparative analyses support the correlated evolution of large brood size and male winglessness. Theoretical models further predict that, in male dimorphic species, the proportion of winged males should equal (in cases without local mate competition) or exceed (in cases with local mate competition) the proportion of females developing in fig fruits without wingless males. These predictions are met by eight out of nine male dimorphic species studied. Taken together, the patterns across all species, and between different male dimorphic species, strongly support sexual selection on mating opportunities as the major determinant of male morph ratios in fig wasps.


Retrenchment is a situation wherein the contract of service of the employees are terminated due to surplus in workforce which occurs as a result of economic downturn, reorganization, reduction in production, mergers, takeover, and others. Although retrenchment is to be averted wherever possible, the industrial law recognizes the privilege of an employer to determine the appropriate economic size of its organization. This paper will attempt to discuss the legal aspect of retrenchment in Malaysia as provided in the statutes and guidelines. This paper also focuses on the managerial prerogative in termination of employees in case of redundancy, the recommendations in the Code of Industrial Harmony 1975, the legal effect of Last In First Out and the remedies for the redundant employees in Malaysia. Keywords: Managerial, Prerogative, Retrenchment, Industrial Relations JEL Classifications: K3, L5


While Bourdieu's theory of practice provides an ensemble of conceptual tools, which analyze patterns of social life that are irreducible to the limiting view of individuals as free-acting agents, Genette's paratextual theory offers the metalanguage necessary to account for the microcosm of paratext as a linguistic space. This study takes issue with unidirectional approaches to researching paratexts in terms of linguistic or sociological accounts, and argues for a bidirectional understanding of paratext to unearth the interplay between structure and agency. Drawing on Genette's paratextual features and Bourdieu's sociology, this interactive approach is explored in a series of analyses of paratexts enveloping two Arabic translations of Gibran's The Earth Gods. Through a discussion of the linguistic manifestations and the socio-historical backdrops of paratexts, the paper argues that the preface with its attendant micro features has the potential to exhibit the translation illusion, which epistemologically foregrounds the stakes and investments that motivate the production of translation.


Let me first thank the law school and the symposium organizers for the opportunity to participate in today's event. I would like to focus on two particular points. First is the Texas experience with judicial elections and the lessons that may be drawn from that experience. A strong case can be made that the increased politicization of judicial elections today has its genesis in Texas in the 1970s. And while Texas may correctly be characterized as the poster state for needing to reform judicial selection practices, other important lessons can be drawn from that case study. Second, I would like to speak to the role of the social sciences in the overall context of judicial reform efforts. Few, if any, truly believe that judicial selection practices could not benefit from some degree of reform, but to finally experience real and effective reform, efforts must be made across disciplines to not only propose feasible alternatives, but to better understand the political context of reform. To that end, I would like to draw on the Texas experience to emphasize the need to reconcile normative approaches and empirical contributions in the move toward effective reform. I would like to first draw attention to a perhaps familiar passage from Tocqueville's Democracy in America: By some [states'] constitutions the members of the [judiciary] are elected, and they are even subjected to frequent reelections. I venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal consequences; and that it will be found out at some future period, that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected the democratic republic itself. (1) I begin with Tocqueville's passage not to emphasize the fatalistic assumptions, or the indeterminacy of their predicted occurrence. Rather, I draw on this familiar passage to emphasize the tacit hypothesis that the judicial function is inherently apolitical (or, in perhaps more familiar terms, countermajoritarian). This assumption, that the judiciary should operate aside from the vagaries of the overtly political process, underlies the traditional view that the judicial function runs best when its independence is promoted-independence from inter- and intra-branch politics, as well as the rough and tumble campaign politics of elected office. This view often resolves itself to the position that the popular election of judges works against the fundamental norm of independence (2) and that, instead, appointive modes of judicial selection best promote that judicial ideal. Consider now, from Philip Dubois, a divergent view of the judicial function: Whether engaged in the resolution of constitutional, statutory, or common law cases, judges are required to make choices in their determination of the relevant facts.... These choices are pregnant with underlying questions of equity, justice, and public policy which are inevitably influenced by the judge's personal attitudes and values. (3) And separately: Since no persuasive argument can be advanced for indirect accountability of judicial policymakers, direct accountability through elections is a preferable means for giving the public control over the third branch of government. And partisan elections seem preferable to nonpartisan ballots. At the simplest level, partisan elections are much more likely to assure the existence of opposition, vigorous criticism of those in power, and effective presentation of alternative policies. Political party leaders feel an obligation to recruit qualified candidates for each partisan office contested in an election, if for no other reason than to fill out and balance the party ticket. (4) Note especially Dubois' presumption that judicial office is inherently political in its nature--judges function as decision-makers with authority to influence the allocation of political and economic resources, and those decisions are invariably subject to some influence by the personal attitudes and preferences of the office-holder. …


This paper evaluates the usage of EasyAccept, a scripted acceptance testing tool, to create from scratch an industry application via acceptance test-driven development (ATDD), a technique that automates software development to some extent. The application was a real-time decision support tool for failures in power system networks, contracted by CHESF, one of Brazil's largest generation and transmission utility. Our experience led us to some interesting insights involving the roles of analysts and programmers in software development.


In large-scale automatic traffic sign surveying systems, the primary computational effort is concentrated at the traffic sign detection stage. This paper focuses on reducing the computational load of particularly the sliding window object detection algorithm which is employed for traffic sign detection. Sliding-window object detectors often use a linear SVM to classify the features in a window. In this case, the classification can be seen as a convolution of the feature maps with the SVM kernel. It is well known that convolution can be efficiently implemented in the frequency domain, for kernels larger than a certain size. We show that by careful reordering of sliding-window operations, most of the frequency-domain transformations can be eliminated, leading to a substantial increase in efficiency. Additionally, we suggest to use the overlap-add method to keep the memory use within reasonable bounds. This allows us to keep all the transformed kernels in memory, thereby eliminating even more domain transformations, and allows all scales in a multiscale pyramid to be processed using the same set of transformed kernels. For a typical sliding-window implementation, we have found that the detector execution performance improves with a factor of 5.3. As a bonus, many of the detector improvements from literature, e.g. chi-squared kernel approximations, sub-class splitting algorithms etc., can be more easily applied at a lower performance penalty because of an improved scalability.


We improve the methods used to interpolate the responsivity of unbiased silicon photodetectors in the near-ultraviolet region. This improvement is achieved by the derivation of an interpolation function for the quantum yield of silicon and by consideration of this function in the interpolation of the internal quantum efficiency of photodiodes. The calculated quantum-yield and spectral-responsivity values are compared with measurement results obtained by the study of a silicon trap detector and with values reported by other research groups. The comparisons show agreement with a standard deviation of 0.4% between our measured and modeled values for both the quantum yield and the spectral responsivity within the wavelength region from 260 to 400 nm. The proposed methods thus extend the predictability of the spectral responsivity of silicon photodetectors to the wavelength region from 260 to 950 nm. Furthermore, an explanation is proposed for the change in the spectral responsivity of silicon photodiodes that is due to UV radiation. In our improved quantum efficiency model the spectral change can be accounted for completely by the adjustment of just one parameter, i.e., the collection efficiency near the SiO(2)/Si interface.


We develop 0-bit consistent weighted sampling (CWS) for efficiently estimating min-max kernel, which is a generalization of the resemblance kernel originally designed for binary data. Because the estimator of 0-bit CWS constitutes a positive definite kernel, this method can be naturally applied to large-scale data mining problems. Basically, if we feed the sampled data from 0-bit CWS to a highly efficient linear classifier (e.g., linear SVM), we effectively (and approximately) train a nonlinear classifier based on the min-max kernel. The accuracy improves as we increase the sample size. In this paper, we first demonstrate, through an extensive classification study using kernel machines, that the min-max kernel often provides an effective measure of similarity for nonnegative data. This helps justify the use of min-max kernel. However, as the min-max kernel is nonlinear and might be difficult to be used for industrial applications with massive data, we propose to linearize the min-max kernel via 0-bit CWS, a simplification of the original CWS method. The previous remarkable work on {\em consistent weighted sampling (CWS)} produces samples in the form of (i*, t*) where the i* records the location (and in fact also the weights) information analogous to the samples produced by classical minwise hashing on binary data. Because the t* is theoretically unbounded, it was not immediately clear how to effectively implement CWS for building large-scale linear classifiers. We provide a simple solution by discarding t* (which we refer to as the "0-bit" scheme). Via an extensive empirical study, we show that this 0-bit scheme does not lose essential information. We then apply 0-bit CWS for building linear classifiers to approximate min-max kernel classifiers, as extensively validated on a wide range of public datasets. We expect this work will generate interests among data mining practitioners who would like to efficiently utilize the nonlinear information of non-binary and nonnegative data.


SUMMARY: Ecological properties and distribution and abundance of medusae were studied over an 18-month period in the Mljet Island seawater lakes, south-east Croatia. Strong stratification during the summer differentiates these lakes from the oligotrophic South Adriatic ecosystem. The lakes are designated as a moderately eutrophicated ecosystem. Very small numbers of hydromedusae were noted, representing only the Anthomedusae and Leptomedusae. A new species of the genus Tima was found in considerable numbers of individuals. High abundance of the scyphomedusa Aurelia sp. was observed throughout the year. This species differs in terms of genetic divergence from Aurelia aurita found elsewhere in the Mediterranean and could be attributed to the boreal origin.


The aim of the study is to examine whether the playing of driving games and the viewing of music videos during adolescence predict crash involvement in emerging adulthood. A prospective cohort study (N = 471) with a five-year interval was used to measure adolescents' gender, media use, personality characteristics (baseline measurement), and crash involvement (follow-up). At baseline measurement (2006), respondents were 17 or 18 years old and did not yet have their driver's license. Data were analyzed by means of logistic regression analyses and the calculation of attributable risks. Respondents who watched music videos at least several times a week (OR = 4.319) or respondents who played drive'em up games at least a few times a month (OR = 3.125) had a heightened chance of being involved in a car crash five years later, even after controlling for their total media exposure, gender, and personality characteristics. Implications for prevention are discussed.


Inelastic neutron scattering study has been performed in an S=3/2 bilayer honeycomb lattice compound Bi3Mn4O12(NO3) at ambient and high magnetic fields. Relatively broad and monotonically dispersive magnetic excitations were observed at ambient field, where no long range magnetic order exists. In the magnetic field-induced long-range ordered state at 10 T, the magnetic dispersions become slightly more intense, albeit still broad as in the disordered state, and two excitation gaps, probably originating from an easy-plane magnetic anisotropy and intrabilayer interactions, develop. Analyzing the magnetic dispersions using the linear spin-wave theory, we estimated the intraplane and intrabilayer magnetic interactions, which are almost consistent with those determined by ab initio density functional theory calculations [M. Alaei et al., Phys. Rev. B 96, 140404(R) (2017)], except the 3rd and 4th neighbor intrabilayer interactions. Most importantly, as predicted by the theory, there is no significant frustration in the honeycomb plane but frustrating intrabilayer interactions probably give rise to the disordered ground state.


The plant hormones gibberellins (GAs) and auxin display overlapping activities in the regulation of multiple developmental processes, including the differential growth that mediates the response to tropic stimuli and the formation of the apical hook. Several mechanisms have been proposed that explain the interaction between these two hormones, such as the regulation of auxin transport by GAs, and the regulation of GA biosynthesis by auxin. GAs are known to exert their action at the transcriptional level by promoting the degradation of DELLA proteins, which in turn interact with numerous transcription factors and modulate their activity. We have identified INDOLE-3-ACETIC ACID METHYLTRANSFERASE 1 (IAMT1) as one of the earliest target genes upregulated after conditional expression of the DELLA protein GAI in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this Thesis, we have addressed two main issues: (1) the contribution of IAMT1 to auxin homeostasis and its biological relevance; and (2) the molecular mechanism by which DELLAs are able to induce the expression of IAMT1. Using combinations of iamt1 loss-of-function mutants and reporter lines for auxin accumulation and activity, we have found that IAMT1 activity is essential for proper generation and maintenance of the auxin gradients that underlie differential growth. According to our results, the role of IAMT1 would be to restrict polar auxin transport especially during the response to tropic stimuli, preventing excessive auxin accumulation in the responding tissues, and IAMT1 exerts this function, at least in part, by inhibiting the expression of the PIN genes, encoding auxin efflux carriers. Regarding the regulation of IAMT1 expression by DELLAs, dissection of the promoter, in silico analysis of putative DELLA partners, and molecular genetic analysis of reporter lines has allowed us to identify two mechanisms with different relevance depending on the environmental conditions, and through different cis elements. In etiolated seedlings, DELLA proteins are recruited by DORNROSCHEN (DRN) to the IAMT1 promoter to induce IAMT1 expression. In the light and in a temperature-dependent manner, DELLA proteins inhibit the DNA-binding activity of PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR4 (PIF4) and BRI1 EMS-SUPPRESSOR1(BES1), which act as repressors of IAMT1 expression. The work presented here highlights how GAs may affect local accumulation of auxin, being particularly relevant in processes that involve differential growth.


Effective negotiation is essential to the success of any law practice. This handbook is designed to help lawyers sharpen their negotiating skills for the challenges they face every day in their professional life. By following the practical principles and tactics outlined in the guide, the reader should discover how to get what they want out of negotiating sessions, consistently. The authors proceed step-by-step through: tailoring an effective negotiating style to fit your own personality; bargaining effectively and seizing control of the negotiation; using "surprise" as an effective negotiation tactic; counterattacking your opponent's position; successfully closing the deal; handling setbacks that are bound to crop up; preparing for and negotiating the business deal; mastering the negotiation of a lawsuit settlement; and more.


I am developing a framework for anomaly reasoning for agents that plan and learn in complex, sometimes unfamiliar domains. Anomaly reasoning encompasses recognizing, interpreting, and reacting to unfamiliar objects or familiar objects appearing in unexpected contexts. As a first approach, I propose an interpretation method in which agents form concepts from perceptions to create new representations for use in planning and decision making. An anomaly reasoning framework will make agents more versatile, facilitate learning transfer by pruning irrelevant features, relate new to known phenomena with appropriate similarity metrics, and guide an agent to aspects of the environment most significant to its goals.


Key message Cybrid plant mitochondria undergo homologous recombination, mainly BIR, keep a single allele for each gene, and maintain exclusive sequences of each parent and a single copy of the homologous regions. Abstract The maintenance of a dynamic equilibrium between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes requires continu-ous communication and a high level of compatibility between them, so that alterations in one genetic compartment need adjustments in the other. The co-evolution of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes has been poorly studied, even though the consequences and effects of this interaction are highly relevant for human health, as well as for crop improvement programs and for genetic engineering. The mitochondria of plants represent an excellent system to understand the mechanisms of genomic rearrangements, chimeric gene formation, incompatibility between nucleus and cytoplasm, and horizontal gene transfer. We carried out detailed analyses of the mtDNA of a repeated cybrid between the solanaceae Nicotiana tabacum and Hyoscyamus niger . The mtDNA of the cybrid was intermediate between the size of the parental mtDNAs and the sum of them. Noticeably, most of the homologous sequences inherited from both parents were lost. In contrast, the majority of the sequences exclusive of a single parent were maintained. The mitochondrial gene content included a majority of N. tabacum derived genes, but also chimeric, two-parent derived, and H. niger -derived genes in a tobacco nuclear background. Any of these alterations in the gene content could be the cause of CMS in the cybrid. The parental mtDNAs interacted through 28 homologous recombination events and a single case of illegitimate recombination. Three main homologous recombination mechanisms were recognized in the cybrid mitochondria. Break induced replication (BIR) pathway was the most frequent. We propose that BIR could be one of the mechanisms responsible for the loss of the majority of the repeated regions derived from H. niger .


Case Description.: In this present study three cases of perineal hernia in dogs have been presented and new concepts in perineal herniorrhaphy have been introduced. A 5-year-old intact male Spitz dog, a 6-year-old intact male dachshund dog and a 4.5-year-old sexually intact male Welsh corgi dog were referred with swelling around the anus and dyschesia.
Clinical Findings: The owner complained about a sudden enlargement of the right perineal region. Physical examination revealed soft bulged area surround and in the right side of anus. Plain radiograph showed normal position of urinary bladder and prostate.
Treatment and outcome: All the dogs were treated surgically by the internal obturator muscle flap technique which were transposed dorso-medially into the defect and sutured into defect borders. No complication was observed after surgery in any of the dogs. The dogs were monitored weekly for one month. The final evaluation revealed that all dogs were clinically normal and the owners were fully satisfied with the outcome.
Clinical Relevance: This study proved that the internal obturator transposition technique was superior technique for perineal hernia cases among all suggested techniques.


Understanding the stress transmission mechanisms and breakage of soils composed of a fine and coarse fractions is critical for the design of many geotechnical structures such as pile driving and large embankment dams. A series of strain controlled one-dimensional compression laboratory experiments were carried out using glass beads to investigate the effect of the fine faction on the macroscopic response of the material. A wide range of stress varying from 10 to 250MPa was considered. Glass beads with diameters between 0.5 and 4mm were used to form granular mixtures with fines content ranging from 0 to 100%. This study shows the potential of strain controlled testing to provide further insights into the fabric evolution of granular materials undergoing grain breakage. When compared to conventional load controlled testing, the force:displacement curve obtained during strain controlled testes provides a better correlation between the macroscopic response and the grain-scale phenomena. The response of mono-sized samples is used as a reference to better understand the contribution of both the coarse and the fine factions to the behaviour of the mixture. Preliminary results have suggested that as breakage progresses, the grain size distribution evolves towards a fine fraction threshold value, beyond which the behaviour is governed by the fine component. Previously proposed relative breakage parameters are also used to demonstrate the influence of the fine faction in the final grading of the material. These finding, also supported by recent numerical studies, can provide valuable guidance for geotechnical practice.


We introduce the General Index of Software Engineering Papers, a dataset of fulltext-indexed papers from the most prominent scientific venues in the field of Software Engineering. The dataset includes both complete bibliographic information and indexed n-grams (sequence of contiguous words after removal of stopwords and non-words, for a total of 577 276 382 unique n-grams in this release) with length 1 to 5 for 44 581 papers retrieved from 34 venues over the 1971–2020 period. The dataset serves use cases in the field of meta-research, allowing to introspect the output of software engineering research even when access to papers or scholarly search engines is not possible (e.g., due to contractual reasons). The dataset also contributes to making such analyses reproducible and independently verifiable, as opposed to what happens when they are conducted using 3rd-party and non-open scholarly indexing services. The dataset is available as a portable Postgres database dump and released as open data.


In the present study, the research problem lies in school leaders' context, particularly in how teachers at a teacher ́s training school in Benguela province perceives the leadership of the school principal. To answer the research problem were defined three objectives: i) characterize how teachers of the training school for teachers in Benguela province perceive the leadership led by the school principal; ii) understand the influence of the school principal in the teaching work dynamics iii) develop knowledge about the style of leadership developed in the training school for teachers in Benguela province. The adopted research methodology assumed predominantly a qualitative nature, and case study was the chosen research strategy. The empirical study took place in the academic year 2014 in a teacher training school in Benguela province. The main data collection technique was the MLQ questionnaire of Avolio & Bass (2004) applied to all the teachers (n=20). A simple statistical analysis was the privileged data processing technique. The school principal of the teacher ́s training school in Benguela province reveal behavioral attitudes and positions in line with the Laissez-Faire Leadership and some categories of Transformational Leadership were the main results of this


Nowadays, transportation is an important aspect in the economic development of
society. A nation of any country cannot achieve the maximum productivity of its
people without transportation. The transportation system in a developed country
consists of vehicles, terminal facilities and control systems. Malaysia is a develop
country but its public transportation system is not parallel with its development.
This report discussed a study on mini bus service in Butterworth where the stage
of public bus is not frequent. A major advantage of mini bus as a public
transportation is it could operate on a variety of service plan. The service plan
offered would depend based on level of demand and trip purpose. Mini bus also
can respond to changes in demand and types of services needed throughout the
day. The final report of a case study on mini bus service in Butterworth includes
statistical analysis based on bus commuter's feedback by filled up the
questionnaires and quantitative survey of total number of passengers. The overall
finding is the supply of public bus is insufficient to accommodate public transport
demand and should be improved in the future. Without perfect planning regarding
the issue facing by bus commuters, our country will not achieve our mission as a
proper developed country.


Personality traits and vocational interests capture different aspects of human individuality that intersect in certain ways. In this longitudinal study, we examined developmental relations between the Big 5 traits and RIASEC vocational interests over 4 timepoints from late adolescence to young adulthood (age 16–24) in a sample of Icelandic youth (N 485) well-representative of the total student population. Results showed that interests and personality traits were similarly stable over time, but showed different patterns of mean-level change. There was evidence of personality maturation but a lack of cumulative changes in interest levels. For the most part, gender differences in developmental trends were minimal. In addition, latent growth curve analyses revealed broad and specific correlated changes between personality and interests. Changes in general factors of personality and interests were moderately related (r .32), but stronger correlated changes were found among specific personality–interest pairs that share situational content. Overall, results reveal how interests and personality are related across different types of continuity and change. While there was little correspondence between group-level changes, substantial correlated change occurred at the individual level. This means that when a person's personality changes, their interests tend to change in predictable ways (and vice versa). Integrative theories that link different aspects of psychological functioning can benefit by incorporating these findings.


People may be surprised by noticing certain regularities that hold in existing knowledge they have had for some time. That is, they may learn without getting new factual information. We argue that this can be partly explained by computational complexity. We show that, given a knowledge base, finding a small set of variables that obtain a certain value of R2 is computationally hard, in the sense that this term is used in computer science. We discuss some of the implications of this result and of fact-free learning in general.


Introduction: Incorporating a feldspar chemical bond between alumina filler particles is expected to increase the wear resistant and flexural strength properties, while reducing flexibility of dental composites. Aims and Objectives: An investigation was carried out to evaluate the influence of the feldspar chemical bonding between alumina filler particles on wear, flexural strength and flexibility of experimental alumina/feldspar dental composites. It was hypothesized that wear resistance and flexural strength would be significantly increased with increased feldspar mass, while flexibility was expected to decrease. Methods: Alumina was chemically sintered and bonded with 30%, 40%, 50% and 60% feldspar mass, silanized and infiltrated with UDMA resin to prepare the dental restorative composite material specimens. Results and conclusions: Significantly higher wear resistant characteristics resulted with increased feldspar mass (p<0.5). Improvements in flexural strength characteristics as the feldspar mass was increased was not statistically different (p>0.5). Flexibility characteristics as the feldspar mass was increased was not statistically different (p>0.5). The alumina/feldspar specimens showed lower flexibility (mm displacement) than SR ADORO (p<0.05). Feldspar chemical bonding between the alumina particles may improve on the wear resistance and Flexibility of alumina/feldspar composites when compared to SR ADORO. This study evaluated the influence of a chemical feldspar bond between alumina filler particles.


Excerpt: I used to lead a university-wide network dedicated to developing the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Every second Tuesday at the dot of 1pm, 10-15 or so staff would shuffle into a room (refreshments in hand) to learn about the evaluation of a pedagogical initiative, to critically review a colleague's promising idea for a new curriculum project, to puzzle over something SoTL-like we'd collectively read and sought through dialogue to better understand, and to share experiences of what often felt like contradictory university agendas for curriculum, teaching and learning change. At the best of times, folks would find opportunities to write together. And in less busy times, the SoTL publications and teaching awards achieved among us would be acknowledged, and plans made for celebration. In our learning how to be together, the differences in the politics of our contexts and in our disciplinary/professional training did not seem as stark because of our commitment to think well, and to act in scholarly ways about the project of improving student learning. Among us were those who taught students in the typical ways–in seminars, lectures, labs, online and elsewhere, and there were others who saw students in individual consultations regarding specific learning difficulties. Then, there were those (like me) with two jobs: the first, to support faculty take an inquiry-based approach to their curriculum, teaching, student learning, and second, to make a contribution to integrated, systems-level thinking about student learning in relation to the overall curriculum offerings of the university. That disposition – caring for student learning – seemed to be the stuff that held the network together no matter the level or focus of our interest in SoTL. It helped that we laughed together too....


A new higher order theory of laminated anisotropic shells for the solution of thermal stress problems that takes into account transverse shear stresses is developed. The theory is based on the kinematic hypotheses that were not assumed a priori but derived on the basis of an iterative technique. The hypotheses take into account the influence of the tangential components of the external loads and the temperature on distributions of the transverse shear stresses through the thickness of the shell. Some analytical solutions are obtained on the basis of the theory developed, and the results are compared with those available in the literature. The theory is also implemented on the basis of the finite element method, and a new triangular finite element is formulated. Some numerical results on the basis of this finite element are also presented.


Patent settlements in which the patentee pays the alleged infringer to stay out of the market are largely a consequence of the Hatch-Waxman Act, which was designed to facilitate the entry of generic drugs by providing the first generic producer to challenge a pioneer drug patent with a 180 day period of exclusivity. This period can be extended by a settlement even if the generic is not producing, and in any event all subsequent generic firms are denied the 180 day exclusivity period, significantly reducing their incentive to enter.The Circuit Courts of Appeal are split three ways over such settlements. The Sixth Circuit has declared them unlawful per se. The Second and Federal Circuits conclude they are legal, provided that the patent lawsuit was not a "sham" and the settlement does not reach beyond the scope of the patent. The Eleventh Circuit would apply a rule of reason. The FTC has consistently opposed these agreements as unlawful under FTC Act §5. The Antitrust Division has recently changed its position and now regards them as presumptively unlawful.Reaching a reverse payment settlement is typically far more lucrative for a generic than defeating the patent in litigation. This fact substantially undermines the generic's incentives to litigate infringement to a conclusion and makes it essential that post-settlement challenges be pursued by someone other than the generic firm.Both the rules of virtual per se illegality and legality generally attempt to resolve antitrust challenges to these agreements without inquiring into patent validity or infringement. Rules of presumptive illegality rest on the premise that a very high payment itself is a strong indicator of patent invalidity. By contrast, antitrust's rule of reason typically requires inquiry into validity and infringement. If the patent is valid and infringed, then even a large payment for the full remaining life of the patent represents a wealth transfer but causes consumer harm only if the payment increases the pioneer's costs and thus may increase its drug price. At the other extreme, a patent that is invalid or not infringed should invite immediate generic entry, and the delay imposed by the reverse payment settlement represents competitive harm equivalent to that of any naked market division agreement. However, the costs attending a rule of reason inquiry makes it appropriate to consider alternatives that might be available within patent law, which this essay explores.


Negative entropy in connection with the Casimir effect at uniform temperature is a phenomenon rooted in the circumstance that one is describing a nonclosed system, or only part of a closed system. In this paper we show that the phenomenon is not necessarily restricted to electromagnetic theory, but can be derived from the quantum theory of interacting harmonic oscillators, most typically two oscillators interacting not directly but indirectly via a third one. There are two such models, actually analogous to the transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) modes in electrodynamics. These mechanical models in their simplest version were presented some years ago, by J. S. H{\o}ye et al., Physical Review E {\bf 67}, 056116 (2003). In the present paper we re-emphasize the physical significance of the mechanical picture, and extend the theory so as to include the case where there are several mediating oscillators, instead of only one. The TE oscillator exhibits negative entropy. Finally, we show explicitly how the interactions via the electromagnetic field contain the two oscillator models.


Part of a report that provides an overview of health in the Region, compares the East Midlands with other English regions and gives some European context. It also looks at inequalities between different areas and population groups within the region. The profile complements the Public Health Strategy for the East Midlands, 'Investment for Health'


Global terrestrial atmosphere–ecosystem carbon dioxide fluxes are well constrained by the concentration and isotopic composition of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In contrast, considerable uncertainty persists surrounding regional contributions to the net global flux as well as the impacts of atmospheric and biological processes that drive the net flux. These uncertainties severely limit our ability to make confident predictions of future terrestrial biological carbon fluxes. Here we use a simple light-use efficiency land surface model (the Vegetation Photosynthesis Respiration Model, VPRM) driven by remotely sensed temperature, moisture, and phenology to diagnose North American gross ecosystem exchange (GEE), ecosystem respiration, and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) for the period 2001 to 2006. We optimize VPRM parameters to eddy covariance (EC) NEE observations from 65 North American FluxNet sites. We use a separate set of 27 cross-validation FluxNet sites to evaluate a range of spatial and temporal resolutions for parameter estimation. With these results we demonstrate that different spatial and temporal groupings of EC sites for parameter estimation achieve similar sum of squared residuals values through radically different spatial patterns of NEE. We also derive a regression model to estimate observed VPRM errors as a function of VPRM NEE, temperature, and precipitation. Because this estimate is based on model-observation residuals it is comprehensive of all the error sources present in modeled fluxes. We find that 1 km interannual variability in VPRM NEE is of similar magnitude to estimated 1 km VPRM NEE errors.


The role of turbulence is critical in the redistribution of heat and salt throughout the global ocean, and in boundary currents of the high-latitude oceans in particular. In the Arctic Ocean, warm, saline waters of Atlantic origin, which are carried northwards by the West Spitsbergen Current (WSC), are the largest source of oceanic heat carried into the Arctic Eurasian basin, and may have a significant impact on the rate of sea ice decline. While the rapid down-stream cooling of the WSC around its entry point into the Arctic Ocean is well-known, the processes by which this heat flux occurs are still an area of active research. During a cruise to the Svalbard region in July 2010, a Hydroid REMUS 600m AUV, equipped with a forward-mounted microstructure package, was used to quantify the level of turbulent mixing within and across the shoreward edge of the WSC. The microstructure-equipped AUV was used to measure horizontal profiles of water properties and turbulence parameters while a more-conventional, vertically free-falling microstructure profiler was used to conduct complementary transects of vertical profile measurements across the edge of the WSC. In this study we evaluate the resulting measurements and compare the views of the upper ocean derived from similar sensors mounted on two very different platforms: one view assembled from conventional vertical profiles and the second from horizontal, AUV-based profiles. We discuss the impact of mixing on the cooling of the WSC and the capacity of these platforms to resolve small-scale variability in both the vertical and the horizontal.


The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of durable goods and ICT on Euro Area economic growth and productivity change; when expenditure on consumer durables is recorded as capital investment. The capitalization of consumer durables impacts both the levels and growth rates of the capital stock, productivity and GDP. Our growth accounting computations demonstrated that the capital services of durables contributed one-tenth of economic growth and one-eight of labour productivity growth in 1995-2004. ICTŽs impacts were larger, i.e., one-fifth of GVA growth and one-sixth of labour productivity growth.


In an exploratory study, we used survey, interviews and content analysis techniques to understand how educators appropriate Twitter and other social media in their practice. We report on teachers' use of Twitter, structural features of their on and offline professional networks, and the institutional policies that shape their appropriation of social media for professional use. Most importantly, our analysis suggests teachers on Twitter tend to be eager adopters of technologies and well positioned to broker information as bridges between members of their local communities of practice and other networks of educators. Based on these findings, we discuss teachers on Twitter as participants in grassroots professional development efforts and the potential for them to be powerful fomenters and enactors of reform in educational communities.


Abstract. Geographic information sciences (GIS) have been entering an era of information explosion. The data-related geographic can be divided into many classes, according to their sources and format, such as raster dataset, shape file, textual information, and voice. Locality description, which is a common form of voice, conveys considerable spatial information and can be derived from our daily communication. The issue of dealing with the locality description information is a research hot spot of next-generation GIS for many scholars.Locality description reflects direct or indirect human interaction with environment directly. As an external expression of cognition, the uncertainty that is associated with locality description is inevitable. Locality description generally contains spatial relationships (i.e., topological, distance, and direction relations) and reference objects (ROs). Any feature with a name can be regarded as an RO. Topological relations, which convey rough information-related locality and can be refined by distance or direction relations, are seldom used directly in locality description positioning. The distance and direction relations are usually combined to describe locality, which conveys many clues to position locality.Humans have a weak sense of direction indoors, and relative directions are used frequently in locality description. For example, locality description indoors can be given as follows: "Object A is in front of me, and object B is on my left. Context is an unavoidable topic of Locality description. The locality description is complex, either explicitly or implicitly, especially in a landmark reference system (i.e., a reference system where people can describe his locality with one or several landmarks), in which the nearest landmark can be selected easily to describe locality. On the basis of this context, the locality description ("Object A is in front of me, and object B is on my left") stated above in an indoor landmark reference system (ILRS) implies that objects A and B are near the individual. Hence, the meaning of "Object A is in front of me, and object B is on my left" in ILRS is the same as that of "Object A is in front of me, object B is on my left, and they are all near to me".This paper introduces a novel method of positioning localities indoors by using locality description in ILRS. To achieve positioning of localities with directions description and context in ILRS, we propose a joint probability function that consists of qualitative distance (i.e., near relation) and relative direction membership function. The qualitative distance membership function that considers both minimum Euclidean distance and the stolen area is based on fuzzy set. For consistency with cognition, some definitions are provided during the calculation of relative direction, which can also reduce the number of points to be explored from an algorithmic point of view.


Modern wireless communication systems require low-cost, compact, and highly integrated tunable components such as filters, phase shifters, frequency-agile antennas, and adaptive impedance matching networks. One basic element of these components is the tunable capacitor (varactor). Among other technologies, ferroelectric thin-film varactors exhibit high power handling, low tuning voltage, quick response, high capacitance density, and good adaptability into the microwave frequency range (DC to 20 GHz). In particular, BST-based thin-film varactors have an excellent potential to reduce size, weight, cost, and to improve the functionality of wireless communication systems. Electric losses of thin-film ferroelectric varactors depend highly on the loss of the dielectric layer. In general, the choice of the bottom electrode material has a big influence on the dielectric properties and the total losses. For this reason, efforts were made to use conducting oxide materials as bottom electrodes, enabling the deposition of a dielectric layer with low defect density and misfit strain. However, due to the high electrical resistivity of the so far used electrode materials, it was concluded that oxide electrodes are too resistive for integration into microwave varactors.
In this work, the SrMoO3 as a highly conducting perovskite material was integrated for the first time as the bottom electrode into thin-film BST-based varactors. Epitaxial SrTiO3/SrMoO3/SrTiO3/Ba0.4Sr0.6TiO3 heterostructure was grown onto (110) GdScO3 substrate using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). The microstructure of the deposited layers was characterized by X-ray diffraction techniques and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM). It was shown that epitaxial growth of the SrTiO3/SrMoO3/SrTiO3/Ba0.4Sr0.6TiO3 stack, locked commensurately to the GdScO3 substrate, is possible. Moreover, optimization of the deposition conditions resulted in homogeneous, single-phase growth of all the layers with low mosaicity and excellent crystal quality. Using lift-off lithography, Pt/Au top electrodes were deposited by Magnetron Sputtering to enable the electrical characterization of the MIM-structured varactors. It was shown that a tunability of 50% is achievable by applying small biasing voltage of 8V. Furthermore, a quality factor of 180 at 30 MHz suggests a very low dielectric loss at the Ba0.4Sr0.6TiO3. A commutation Quality Factor (CQF) of 10000 at 100 MHz shows the potential of SrMoO3 for integration into devices for microwave applications. As an initial step towards industrialization of this technology, a selective etching procedure for processing and fabrication of SrMoO3-based electronic devices was established.


High power solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks are based on the planar design concept to yield high specific power densities. The key engineering challenges to planar stack reliability and robust operation is attaining low resistance interconnection of individual cells in series and hermetic sealing of interconnects. While stack design and contact paste development is paramount to address this issue, the basic design of the fuel cell introduces limitations. State-ofthe-art anode supported cells (ASC) yield high power densities due to low ASR thin electrolytes, however, the asymmetrical design, anode/electrolyte CTE mismatch, and thick support anode yields undesirable cell camber and fuel transport issues. These deficiencies lead to poor interconnect contact, non-optimal sealing surfaces, and poor fuel utilization, which can mitigate the key benefit of the ASC. Conversely, the electrolyte supported cell (ESC) presents a host of advantages from ease of processing, large diameter scale-up potential, mechanical robustness, optimal seal contact surface, thin electrodes, and minimal cell curvature with the key obstacle arising from high cell ASR due to the thick structural electrolyte. MSU has developed a novel cell concept that merges the benefits of the ASC and ESC designs. The ―UniCell‖ concept has been designed to effectively lower the ASR of thick electrolyte supports while maintaining the traditional advantages of the ESC technology utilizing innovative, post ceramic processed, engineering techniques. SOFC fabrication methods of the electrolyte substrate established on xylene/ethanol solvent based yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) slurry include thin film tape casting and high temperature sintering. Photo-resist machining and laser drilling of interleaved electrolyte texture introduced into both surfaces of the YSZ green tapes and sintered substrates have been investigated. The findings of a dispersion study, thermo gravitational analysis performed to minimize microstructure defects due to rapid organic burnout, dilatometer investigation of sintering shrinkage and FEM microstructure analysis of electrolytes will be discussed. Mechanical strength testing via concentric ring on ring tests, and fuel cell performance data will be reported and compared to an ESC baseline to establish the feasibility of this concept. Alternative methods explored to introduce features during ceramic processing to reduce the process cost will be reviewed.


This thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 reviews the development of organometallic chemistry and the bonding and symmetry features dealt with in later chapters.

Chapter two deals with the treatment of /ram'-NiF(C5F3RN)(PEt3)2, where R =F or H, with a variety of (CH^SiX compounds (X = N3, NCO or C=CSi(CH3)3), which resulted in the formation of complexes in which the activated fluorine atom was replaced; yielding ira«s-NiN3(CsF3RN)(PEt3)2, ira«5-NiNCO(C5F3HN)(PEt3)2 and irara-NiC=CSi(CH3)3(C5F3HN)(PEt3)2. The trifluoropyridylazide complex, trans- NiN3(C5F3HN)(PEt3)2, is reactive, forming the metal isocyanate complex, trans- NiNCO(C5F3HN)(PEt3)2 upon reaction with CO. Attempts were made to effect reductive elimination of the Ni(PEt3)2 fragment and form fluoropyridines substituted at the 2-position with the functionalities, N3, NCO and CsCSi(CH3)3.

Previous studies have shown that (ri5-C5F[5)(ri5-C4H4N)Fe has an extensive photochemistry that is dominated by haptotropic shifts of the coordinated pyrrolyl ligand. In an attempt to control the degree to which the hapticity of the pyrrolyl ligand can be altered, the photochemistry of (r|5-C5H5)(r|5-2 ,5 -(CH3)2C4H2N)Fe has been investigated. The results of matrix isolation studies of (r|5-C5H5)(r|5-2 ,5 - (CH3)2C4H2N)Fe are presented in chapter three. The photochemistry of this analogue is also dominated by haptotropic shifts. Both monochromatic and broad-band irradiation of this complex in CO doped Ar matrixes at 20 K gives rise to three species characterised as (r^-CsHsXV-AHCHs^lWFeCCO) (2 ), (t^-CsHjXti'-N- (CH3)2C4H2N)Fe(CO)2 (3 ) and (r|5-C5H5XTi3-A-(CH3)2C4H2N)Fe(CO) (4). Subsequent annealing of the matrix results in a conversion of the r\l-monocarbonyl complex to the dicarbonyl complex and an isomerisation of the aza-allyl species to the corresponding 7r-allyl complex (r|5-C5H5Xr|3-C-(CH3)2C4H2N)Fe(CO) (5).

Chapter four presents the results of matrix isolation studies of (r|5-C4H4Se)Cr(CO)3 in inert (Ar and CH4) and reactive (CO and N2) matrixes at 20 K. The results indicate that the ri5-coordinated selenophene ring undergoes haptotropic shifts upon photolysis. The photoproducts observed depend on the host matrix employed. In all four matrixes, short wavelength irradiation (A,cxc = 405 nm) yields a three carbonyl band pattern that has been assigned to (r|4-C4H4Se)Cr(CO)3, whereby the selenophene ring has undergone a ring slip from r|5 —> r|Coordination, [(Ti4-C4H4Se)Cr(CO)3N2 in N2 matrixes]. Subsequent photolysis o f this photoproduct in inert matrixes produces the CO loss product, (r|4-C4pl4Se)Cr(CO)2. In N2 matrixes subsequent photolysis of the primary photoproduct results in the formation of the dicarbonyl species, [(r]5- C4H4Se)Cr(CO)2N2]. In CO matrixes the initial photoproduct yields Cr(CO)o upon extended photolysis. There is evidence to support a possible photochemical r)5 —> r]4 —>
'y r| stepwise exchange of the selenophene ring.

Chapter five deals with the steady state photolytic studies of the complex, [(r|5-C5H5)Fe(r|6-(CH3)2CHC6H5)] PF6. These studies indicate that the arene ring undergoes replacement when donor ligands are present in solution and the metal complex undergoes decomposition in their absence. CO was employed as the ligand of choice. [(r|5-C5H5)Fe(CO)3]PF6 was formed upon photolysis in CO purged acetone and dichloromethane solutions while [(r)5 C5H5)Fe(CH3CN)2(CO)]PF6 was produced in CO purged acetonitrile solutions. The decomposition products include ferrocene, 'free' arene and Fe2+. These results along with laser flash photolysis studies point to a mechanism involving a solvated intermediate of the type [(r|5-C5H5)Fe(solv)3]+. In addition preliminary steady state photolysis studies were carried out on the heteroaromatic complex, [(ri5 C5H5)Ru(r|5-2,5-(CH3)2C4H2S)]BF4.

Outlined in Chapter 6 are the experimental details and suggestions for future work.


Life Against Death: Review Essay Blooms of Darkness: A Novel, by Aharon Appelfeld, translated from the Hebrew by Geoffrey M. Green. New York: Schocken Books, 2010. 279 pp. $25.95. Aharon Appelfeld stands virtually alone in the desolating power of his fictional depictions of the Shoah. To some critics, of course, the description "fictional depiction of the Shoah" designates not merely an oxymoron but an outrage. To them, Adornos famous dictum, Nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch, applies as much to fiction as to poetry. Others have suggested that Appelfeld "gets away" with writing fiction about the Shoah by, in effect, not writing about it. Those of his books which, like Badenheim 1939, or To the Land of the Reeds, treat of characters on their way to the camps, end with the arrival of the trains: "An engine . . . coupled to four filthy freight cars" (Badenheim), "An old locomotive, drawing two old cars ... it went from station to station, gathering up the remainder" (Reeds). Beyond that point, there is only silence: the action of the novel ends, as if stopped dead in its tracks. The camps themselves remain, it seems, beyond the reach of Appelfeld's imagination. How far does this objection diagnose a weakness, possibly a fatal one, in his work? One might excuse this aspect of his work as demonstrating merely a decent reticence, entirely proper in the circumstances, despite the general tendency of our culture at present to confuse any kind of reticence with failure of nerve. But a more positive line of defense suggests itself. The culture of Christian and Enlightenment Europe, the matrix culture from which the Shoah emerged, strikes me, as one of its non-Jewish inheritors, as a culture perhaps overly impressed with death. Judaism is - it is conventional, but also broadly true, to say - a religion of life. Characteristically, it sees death, not as something to be dwelt on, to be studied, a phenomenon from which something might be learnt; but simply as the limit of life: the point at which this life stops. The fundamentally Christian world in which I was brought up seems, on the contrary, at times almost to regard death as the center, the goal, the defining moment of life. One thinks of the old story of the Abbot of Downside addressing his fellow headmasters: "You have all spoken of how your schools educate boys for life. At Downside, on the contrary, we educate them for death." While Spinoza, true in this to his Jewish heritage, taught that the free man occupies himself with life, and thinks of nothing less than death, the belief that there may be something to be learned, some insight to be gained, from meditating on the mere fact of death, continues unabated in the matrix culture. From that belief it is a short step to the thought that to wield death as an instrument of political power is to wield also its supposed power to draw away the curtain from hidden knowledge, to show us things about ourselves and our world that only the triumph of death could show us. Adorno himself was by no means a stranger to that thought. "Hegel, whose method schooled that of Minima Moralia," he says, in the Dedication of the latter work, "argued against the mere being-for-itself of subjectivity on all its levels." And in the ptevious paragraph he identifies "the concentration camp" as having in effect, demonstrated the historical correctness of this thought of Hegel's. "The overwhelming objectivity of historical movement in its present phase consists so far only in the dissolution of the subject . . . The subject still feels sure of its autonomy, but the nullity demonstrated to subjects by the concentration camp [my italics] is already overtaking the form of consciousness itself." The alleged "barbarity" of writing a poem after Auschwitz pales into insignificance, it seems to me, when set beside the extreme ambiguity of the attitude to the Nazis betrayed by these remarks. In effect, they credit the Endlosung, and by extension its authors, with having revealed the Nature of Reality and demonstrated it to be in accord with the thought of Hegel. …


The Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment (HEE) in central Indiana presents an excellent opportunity to study species reactions to different forestry practices: clearcutting, shelterwood cutting, and single tree selections. This project focuses on the differences in the populations and diets of the various insectivorous bat species in the HEE management units. Bats studied were Myotis septentrionalis, Lasiurus borealis, Eptesicus fuscus, Perimyotis subflavus, Myotis sodalis, Myotis lucifugus, and Lasionycteris noctivagans. Since insectivorous bats do not simply eat whatever is available, and I hypothesize that the diets of these bats will not change despite their changing environment and changing populations. To test these ideas, guano was collected between years 2006-2010 and ANABAT calls were recorded between years 2007-2010. I analyzed 440 guano samples, and the invertebrate parts were identified visually to the lowest taxonomic level within a reasonable amount of time; this is most often to family, but always order for the Lepidopterans. The data were compared within each species: before and after treatment, across treatment types, between males and females, and across different months. There was no significant change between bat diets before and after treatments, and each species maintained a specific diet across the years. These results reinforce previous conclusions that bats select among available foods and do not simply eat whatever is available. I also analyzed 5346 call minutes using ANABAT bat detectors. There were significant changes in Myotis sodalis, Lasiurus borealis, and Perimyotis subflavus call minutes. This supports the hypothesis that the diets still remain constant despite the changes in the species populations.


Many countries restricted their exports to world agricultural markets during the most recent price peaks in order to insulate their domestic agricultural prices from price developments in international markets. Their ultimate aim was countering the rise in food price inflation and protecting consumers from high food expenses. This Policy Brief reviews the repeated export bans on wheat in Serbia and their impacts on domestic price developments for wheat, flour and bread and attempts to clarify whether end consumers or players along the added-value chain actually profited from political market interventions.


The United States experiences over 700 fatalities and over 37,000 injuries each year in temporary construction and maintenance work zones. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has implemented Temporary Traffic Control Devices 23 CFR 630 Subpart K, which specifies a state highway agency must amend their state safety and mobility plan by 2008 to include a description for positive protection in work zones and implementation guidelines for federal funded highway projects. This research study first investigated temporal trends in national and Kansas work zone related crash trends, specifically crashes involving striking a construction vehicle or fixed object. Additionally, current work zone TL-3 and TL-2 approved positive protection devices were summarized including longitudinal barriers, mobile barriers, vehicle arresting systems and end protection systems. Next, a nation-wide survey of state highway agencies was conducted to summarize current guidance relating to positive protection or changes in guidance to comply with Temporary Traffic Control Devices 23 CFR 630 Subpart K. Finally, the research study provided preliminary work zone positive protection guidance for the Kansas Department of Transportation based on the findings of the survey and currently available products.


ERP systems have become an optimal solution for companies to perform their works with maximum advantages of Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP). Moreover, even though the cloud computing has many obstacles which need to be solved, but the enterprises always embrace the cloud. Many enterprises tend to adopt the cloud computing paradigm in order to get its leverage in successful and benefits. With the development of cloud computing technology, there is a growing orientation to move the ERP from inside boundaries of organizations into the cloud computing technologies. In addition, there were many studies that covered the cloud ERP without concentrating on acceptance the end user for this technology. Thus, this study comes to increase the understanding the attitude of the end user for cloud ERP technology. The main aim of this study is to investigate the employees' attitude towards use of cloud ERP. The conceptual research framework of cloud ERP is prepared based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). The employees of Queen Rania Center (QRC) in Jordanian Education Ministry used the cloud ERP system which implemented according to this study. The questionnaires are distributed online to the sample. The results indicate that the QRC employees enjoyed using the cloud ERP system.


Vaccinia virus moves around infected cells propelled by comet-like actin tails. Newsome et al. (see the Perspective by Hall) have uncovered an outside-in signaling mechanism, induced by extracellular vaccinia virus particles, that is ultimately responsible for stimulating actin-based motility of vaccinia virus by locally recruiting and activating Src at the plasma membrane. The highly localized signaling circuit explains why actin tails are only formed at the plasma membrane and strengthens the hypothesis that actin-based motility of vaccinia mimics receptor kinase signaling at the leading edge of migrating cells. The authors also found a role for Src in regulating a switch from microtubule-based to actin-based motility at the leading edge of cells. T. P. Newsome, N. Scaplehorn, M. Way, Src mediates a switch from microtubule- to actin-based motility of vaccinia virus. Science 306, 124-129 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text] A. Hall, Src launches vaccinia. Science 306, 65-67 (2004). [Summary] [Full Text]