A biography that charts the boom and bust of America's first celebrity author, once Mark Twain's chief rival in American literature In this first scholarly biography of Bret Harte in nearly seventy years, Axel Nissen sets out to reevaluate the life and literary career of the legendary chronicler of the California gold rush. After his sensational breakthrough in the late 1860s, Harte came to symbolize the self-made literary man. He was a Midas of the pen and a literary prince of the Gilded Age. With "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "Tennessee's Partner," and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" he reinvented the American short story and laid the foundations for the Western. In the age of mass-circulation newspapers he became America's first worldwide celebrity author. His stories were reprinted all over the globe, and his sayings and doings were reported in the press. His handsome face adorned newspaper columns, and his image was sold as an over-the-counter souvenir. Based on extensive new sources, Nissen's biography gives a vivid account of Harte's tumultuous life from his birth in Albany, N.Y., in 1836 until his death in a sleepy English village in 1902. Exploring mysterious and previously unresearched areas, Nissen shines a bright light into the many dark corners of the life of this enigmatic nineteenth-century icon. Harte was the best-paid author of his day, but financial insolvency forced him into exile in Europe as a diplomat. For twenty years he lived in London, where he was the darling of the English aristocracy but remained apart from his wife and children. Nissen focuses on Harte's love-hate relationship with Mark Twain and examines the homoerotic element in his life and work. He also offers a satisfying account of why Harte became so famous in his own time and why in ours he has suffered a decline. Harte aroused strong and conflicting feelings in those who knew him. William Dean Howells felt he was a blithe spirit who burned his candle at both ends. Mark Twain thought him "the most contemptible, poor little soulless blatherskite that exists on the planet today." Henry Adams considered Harte one of the most brilliant men of his time. To a reviewer of an early biography he was a "fugitive from home." To the bigot aware of Harte's mixed ethnic heritage he was a "Hebrew." To the average dresser he was a fop. To the pious he was a purveyor of "moral filth." To the reader of this innovative biography Harte comes alive both as a fascinating figure and an author ripe for revival. Axel Nissen is an associate professor of American literature at the University of Oslo. In 1997 his doctoral thesis was awarded H.M. the King of Norway's Gold Medal.


This paper will examine the impact of political, economic and social factors in the shaping of women's perceptions and identities as engineers, scientists and technologists drawing on a series of in depth interviews with women in Poland, Latvia and the UK. In the UK women have been consistently under represented in Science, Engineering and Technology fields both within academia and also in professional employment outside of the university sector. Women's career progression is also more limited in these occupations with few reaching high level positions. Cultural norms and attitudes reinforce this gender segregation, and despite a plethora of initiatives aimed at redressing the balance, change continues to be slow. However this phenomenon is not universal either historically or geographically – indeed there are significant differences in how gendered occupational segregation has been manifested in different cultures and contexts. This paper will seek to examine the interaction between private and public understandings that women have about their careers in SET using a cross cultural comparison. The experiences of women in the UK, Latvia and Poland present the opportunity to compare the impact of very different social and political frameworks. In addition, narratives from older and younger women who have developed their careers in different contexts, will illustrate how academic disciplines can become differently gendered over time. Methods used were semi structured interviews.


Recent Supreme Court decisions such as Atkins v. Virginia and Lawrence v. Texas specifically address the linkages between shifting cultural attitudes and the evolution of law. In this Article, I examine the mutually constitutive relationship between legal and cultural developments from a historical perspective and illustrate the necessity of looking to sources that I define as outlaw texts in order to access invaluable information about the process of legal change. To demonstrate how a study of outlaw texts can enrich our understanding and critical consideration of law and legal history, this Article presents detailed analyses of specific examples of nineteenth-century women's narrative advocacy. The outlaw texts examined in the Article include narratives of nonfiction and fiction. While critical race, feminist, and cultural study of law scholars have emphasized the importance of looking beyond official legal texts such as statutes, judicial opinions, and legislative histories, this Article breaks new ground by arguing that this expanded inquiry also should include a heretofore unacknowledged source of legal history - the novel. The novel was the most popular form of women's writing in the nineteenth century and, as this Article shows, an important public legal forum for women. By providing a space where women's stories could be told and read, calling into question the law's claim to truth, and creating new knowledge through the shared tellings of women's experiences, nineteenth-century novels performed what today we would call feminist jurisprudence. Outlaw texts, whether real-life or fictional narratives, document the everyday effects and negotiations of law that ultimately influence how the law is revised and refined. With respect to the nineteenth century, these texts are records of experiences and perspectives that clearly were driving the significant legal reforms that took place at this time in the areas of married women's property, divorce, child custody, and domestic abuse. Through its specific study of the historical performance of feminist jurisprudence and early women's advocacy, this Article contributes to our knowledge of women's important but often overlooked roles in legal history. With its cross-disciplinary approach to what constitutes a legal text, as well as its analyses of the legal work performed in novels such as Wuthering Heights, this Article also suggests new and invigorating directions for the law and literature movement. But, most significantly, this Article concludes that the study of outlaw texts has broader implications for the study of law and legal education than its potential impacts on certain specialized fields. Outlaw texts bring into sharp focus the omissions of certain views, arguments, and experiences from traditional legal texts; they also illuminate the ways in which legal outsiders have produced, contested, and transformed law and legal meanings. Keywords: Law and Literature, Feminism


This article discusses the 'hybrid' writing practices of two socially distinct (groups of) writers from nineteenth century French Canada; we specifically focus on their acceptance of (supra-)local language norms. We argue that the writers from the well-known bourgeois Papineau family progressively distanced themselves from a local norm (and moved towards a supra-local norm instead) over a time span of four generations. A semi-literate writer ( peu-lettre ) , on the other hand, used writing practices as an object of social belonging, while at the same time his lack of control over the medium prevented him from getting full access to a supra-local norm. It appears, then, that the socially and geographically mobile writers (like the Papineau family) lead the way and that (access to) social networks was intrinsically related to literacy and access to supra-local norms.


OBJECTIVE
Few studies have examined clinical and demographic profile of attendees of a walk-in psychiatric clinic in countries ravaged by wars. The aim of this study is to quantify the characteristics of attendees of an open walk-in psychiatric clinic in a general hospital in Baghdad and the suburb towns of Iraq in the year 2010.

METHODS
As part of a retrospective survey, information on specific variables (socio-demographic background, clinical characteristics and attendance rate) were sought from medical records in the year 2010 (January to December).

RESULTS
Despite the shortcomings expected from a country coming out of the ravage of war, the survey included 2,979 attendees (1,864 [63%] males and 1,115 [37%] females) of a walk-in psychiatric clinic who fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The profile of attendees indicated that a majority of the cohort was self-referred with a predominance of employed males, aged 19 to 49 years, residing in Baghdad City. Depression and psychosis were the most common diagnosis given.

CONCLUSION
The observed patterns are discussed within the available literature relevant to consultation liaison psychiatry, and specific to situations in Iraq and Arab/Islamic cultural patterning.


: Calpains are calcium-dependent proteolytic enzymes that have deleterious effects on neurons upon their pathological over-activation. According to the results of numerous studies to date, there is no doubt that abnormal calpain activation triggers activation and progression of apoptotic processes in neurodegeneration, leading to neuronal death. Thus, it is very crucial to unravel all the aspects of calpain-mediated neurodegeneration in order to protect neurons through eliminating or at least minimizing its lethal effects. Protecting neurons against calpain-activated apoptosis basically requires developing effective, reliable, and most importantly, therapeuti-cally applicable approaches to succeed. From this aspect, the most significant studies focusing on preventing calpain-mediated neurodegeneration include blocking the N -methyl- d -aspartate (NMDA)-type glutamate receptor activities, which are closely related to calpain activation; directly inhibiting calpain itself via intrinsic or synthetic calpain inhibitors, or inhibiting its downstream processes; and utilizing the neuroprotectant steroid hormone estrogen and its receptors. In this review, the most remarkable neuroprotective strategies for calpain-mediated neurodegeneration are categorized and summarized with respect to their advantages and disadvantages over one another, in terms of their efficiency and applicability as a therapeutic regimen in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.


The moral status of those whose role in wrongdoing is complicit rather than primary seems not to be well understood by participants in the professional community. Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Treatise on Justice (S.T., Pt. II-II, Q. 62,7) provides a taxonomy of ways in which a person's involvement may constitute complicity in wrongdoing. I believe that his taxonomy can be helpful in better understanding the moral status of those who are not the primary actors in corporate or organizational wrongdoing, and in this article I attempt to show how the work of Aquinas, though written in the thirteenth century, provides considerable illumination upon this area of applied ethics.


AIMS
To understand the barriers and enablers to fertility-awareness education in general practice.

BACKGROUND
Most women along with their primary care practitioners - general practitioners and practice nurses - believe that women should be educated about fertility-awareness when first reporting trouble conceiving. To date, no in-depth study has examined the enablers and challenges of this type of education in general practice.

DESIGN
A descriptive exploratory qualitative study using deductive content analysis.

METHODS
General practitioners (N = 11) and practice nurses (N = 20) were recruited from general practices in three socioculturally diverse areas in Victoria, Australia. Data were collected through semistructured interviews based on the 12 domains of a theoretical behaviour change framework from April-August 2012. The participants' responses were organized into themes that fall under the framework domains.

FINDINGS
The biggest barriers to fertility-awareness education in general practice were short consultations and time constraints faced by general practitioners together with a lack of patient educational materials and remuneration to support its delivery. The biggest enablers were a greater use of nurses trained in fertility-awareness in a collaborative team care arrangement with general practitioners.

CONCLUSION
This study has identified several important barriers and enablers to fertility-awareness education in general practice. Translation into practice of our findings is imperative as the first step in establishing a primary care model in fertility-awareness. This would fill an important gap in the primary care of infertile women and build capacity in general practice to reduce infertility through women's enhanced fertility knowledge.


Dispersionless modulations in particle intensity are commonly observed in impulsive solar energetic ion events and are occasionally observed within low-energy (less than 1.4 keV) solar electron bursts. The electron burst modulations commonly occur in direct association with discontinuous changes in the intensity of the solar wind electron strahl. Both the energetic ion and the suprathermal electron burst modulations have been interpreted in terms of spatially limited burst source regions and magnetic field-line footpoint motions in the solar atmosphere. Concentrating on impulsive ion modulation events previously reported, we show that there is generally a close connection between the dispersionless modulations in energetic ions in those events and the simultaneous dispersionless modulations in low-energy solar electron bursts and in the electron strahl. This demonstrates that dispersionless modulations in both particle species have a common cause, which we associate with relatively abrupt changes in magnetic connection to the Sun. We find that some of these abrupt connection changes occur at structural boundaries in the solar wind flow. More often, the connection changes appear to arise from field-line footpoint motions or, possibly, solar wind turbulence. To a first approximation, when dispersionless structure is present in both particle species, the electrons and ions appear to be accelerated on the same field lines in spatially confined regions in the corona. Overall, however, the data suggest that electron burst source regions usually are more spatially uniform, have considerably broader spatial extents than the ion sources, or both.


Muhsen, A. A., F. Al-MuhiM and M. sAMir el-hAbbAb, 2014. Optimizing geographical distribution for saudi Arabia exports of date palm. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 754-760 This study aims at evaluating dates export trends, export stability index and level of exports' geographic concentration. Moreover, it examines the possibility of maximizing the returns of exporting dates. A quantitative analysis was used to estimate the export trends in quantity, unit value and total value of exported dates during the period 1997-2011. The stability index for trade in dates during the same period was calculated. GINI Coefficient, as a concentration indicator, was calculated and linear programming algorithm was used to re-distribute the dates' exports between the selected countries. secondary data, mainly from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the united nations, was used in the analysis. The results showed that all of the quantity exported, unit values and the value of exports from saudi Arabia dates show increasing trend during the period (1997 2011).On the other hand, the results showed more stability of saudi Arabia dates exports during the studied period. Saudi Arabia dates were directed to many countries of the world, Yemen occupied the first place in import quantities (29.49 % of the total exports from saudi Arabia), then comes Jordan in the second place and Pakistan ranked third. Turkey ranked fourth and India ranked fifth. The suggested Geographic re-distribution of Saudi Arabia dates exports ensured an increase of dates export earnings by about us$ 11.87 million annually(i.e. 18.45% of total exports).


The importance of labelling has been considerably increasing over recent years. This study analyses two main topics. The first one (chapters 1 and 2) regards Private Labels (PLs), while the second concerns Geographical Indications (GIs) and "Made-in" power (Chapter 3).
Private Labels make up a significant share of market and have a wide offering, both in terms of different segments and number of products within each segment. PLs represent a strategic tool in the power balance between manufacturers and retailers. The relations between mass retail chains and suppliers/manufacturers are quite complex and involve economic, managerial and competition based issues. Among several strategies, we identify promotion as a crucial one. Promotional strategies have been changing over the last decade. Our study highlights the existence of a new defensive and supporting strategy. It can be considered a defensive strategy as its main task is to maintain the market share of PLs against NBs, while it can also be regarded as supporting in nature because it supports the introduction and penetration of premium (or organic) PLs, since directly promoting premium PLs using an offensive promotion strategy would lead to undesirable effects in terms of product perception and consumer behaviour. To test our hypothesis and reach our conclusion we perform several empirical analyses on a unique dataset provided by a leading retailer with stores in central Italy. Geographical Indications and "Made-in" labels constitute a valuable resource for companies and, more in general, countries and industries that have distinctive features in terms of quality, knowledge, traditions and excellence. Developing a mixed-method approach, the third chapter analyses GIs and "Made-in" power, initially through quantitative analyses on global trade and the behaviour of major countries. Then it individuates, through a proposed replicable method, the anomalies and the existence of a possible kind of arbitrage from companies of countries with high "Made-in" power and a favourable Export-Import price differential. In the second part of our study, we focus our attention on an analysis of Italy (a major hub in worldwide trade, with a significant "Made-in" power) and on a specific case study (i.e. the Fungo di Borgotaro IGP). For their special characteristics, which fit perfectly with the aim of our research (i.e. perishability and absence of significant value added), we chose two types of edible wild mushrooms and truffles (i.e. fresh/frozen and fried/powdered) to perform our analyses and to examine a focus country and an example of a GI (i.e. Fungo di Borgotaro IGP).


N 1815 WORDSWORTH DEDICATED THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION of his Poems to Sir George Beaumont, '[w]ishing and hoping that this Work, with the embellishments it has received from your pencil, may survive as a lasting memorial of a friendship, which I reckon among the blessings of my life'. In offering this combination of his poetic 'Work' and Beaumont's artistic 'embellishments' as a memorial of such a valuable friendship, Wordsworth elevates the significance of the frontispieces Beaumont contributed to the volumes. Engravings of Beaumont's painting for 'Lucy Gray' and 'Peele Castle in a Storm' appeared as frontispieces to the 1815 edition, and Beaumont also provided frontispieces for The White Doe of Rylstone (1815), Peter Bell (1819), and all four of the volumes Wordsworth published in 1820. These images, and the letters in which Beaumont and Wordsworth discuss them, suggest that painter and poet engaged in a mode of collaboration that is unexpected in the context of patronage; they also highlight the importance, for Wordsworth, of the reader's role in completing the 'Work'.


Spectroscopic features of Er:YAG at cryogenic temperatures are studied in detail. We report that the major absorption line at ~1532.3 nm is much narrower and much stronger than previously measured. Spectroscopic analysis suggests that its impact on the laser performance is limited because of the strong pump saturation effect. It is shown that the high efficiency of the laser is, in fact, achieved due to absorption in the wing of this line, which is comprised of a few other transitions. It is also shown that pumping into the relatively weak 1534 nm absorption line provides practically the same laser efficiency (~75%) as pumping into the major 1532 nm absorption line. This is explained by a numerical laser model which takes into account saturation effects of pump and laser intensities. The model is validated by experimental data.


A core tenet of financial economics states that, in a market populated by rational investors, the fundamental price of an asset equals the expected discounted present value of its cash flows. This implies, for example, that in a rational and efficient bubble-free market, stock price movements are driven by forecasted changes in dividends and interest rates and not by the "irrational exuberance" of traders. Interest in the extent to which market prices are fundamentally driven has been particularly high of late, with everyone from academics to the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, offering opinions. Research into fundamental valuation is therefore particularly timely. Several different procedures have been developed to estimate fundamental prices and to test whether market prices deviate in a significant way from the estimated fundamental price. Many studies have reported what appear to be important deviations from fundamentals, especially around market crashes such as those which occurred in 1929 and 1987. Unfortunately, the accuracy of various fundamental price estimating procedures has not been measured by anyone in the literature, to the best of our knowledge. The issues of the magnitude of the bias, of the reliability of fundamental prices, and effects these have on excess volatility tests are analytically tractable under only very restrictive special circumstances. However, they can be evaluated more generally through Monte Carlo simulation. The Monte Carlo is accomplished by generating "economies" calibrated to the real world, with a known fundamental price, and investigating the properties of the fundamental prices - the bias and the average deviation. The simulations show that popular fundamental price estimation methods are unreliable, and also provide strong support for the absense of bubbles in the S&P 500 index.


Tungsten trioxide (WO 3 ) nanospheres with diameter ranging from 10 nm to 500 nm were synthesised by a facile thermal oxidation process. By resistively heating metallic tungsten in oxygen atmosphere, WO 3 nanoparticles were produced in high yield. Optical, compositional, morphological and structural studies were performed by UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies. XPS studies revealed the formation of tungsten trioxide with oxygen deficiency. Analysis of the particle size (diameter) distribution of the as-deposited samples obtained from SEM micrograph exhibited a Gaussian-type distribution centred around 178 nm and characterised by a half width of 98.3 nm. As deduced from XRD analysis, the as-prepared tungsten trioxide (WO 3 ) nanoparticles were polycrystalline in nature and crystallised in the monoclinic phase. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was applied in coating the synthesised tungsten oxide nanoparticles onto fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) coated quartz substrates for the fabrication of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC), with henna ( Lawsonia inermis ) as the natural organic dye. Nanoparticle suspension in double distilled water was used in the EPD process with an optimal electric field of 20 Vcm –1 at a current density of 1 mA/cm 2 . DSSCs developed using these films were tested through the measurement of their current density–voltage (J–V) and spectral photocurrent characteristics. A maximum IPCE of about 32% was obtained at around 450 nm.


Google BigTable's scale-out design for distributed key-value storage inspired a generation of NoSQL databases. Recently the NewSQL paradigm emerged in response to analytic workloads that demand distributed computation local to data storage. Many such analytics take the form of graph algorithms, a trend that motivated the GraphBLAS initiative to standardize a set of matrix math kernels for building graph algorithms. In this article we show how it is possible to implement the GraphBLAS kernels in a BigTable database by presenting the design of Graphulo, a library for executing graph algorithms inside the Apache Accumulo database. We detail the Graphulo implementation of two graph algorithms and conduct experiments comparing their performance to two main-memory matrix math systems. Our results shed insight into the conditions that determine when executing a graph algorithm is faster inside a database versus an external system-in short, that memory requirements and relative I/O are critical factors.


In wireless sensor networks (WSN), nodes have very limited energy resources, limited processing and memory capabilities. Congestion causes due to the unpredictable nature of traffic load variation, link capacity, fluctuation, topology modification or various types of misbehaviors. Packet losses and retransmissions resulting form congestion causes energy waste, throughput reduction and to the decrease of the overall network lifetime. This situation motivates the need for congestion control in wireless sensor network. In this paper a congestion control scheme is proposed. A rate-based congestion control mechanism is used to control the rate of the upstream node. For reliable transmission link layer acknowledgement has been considered in MAC layer design. Fair packet delivery has also been maintained by this scheme. The congestion control scheme has been implemented in ns2 simulator. The results show that the scheme performs better in congestion control and achieves good performance.


The paper introduces a framework and set of methodologies that define the linkages between the interconnected resources of water, energy and food, and enable explicit corresponding quantifications. The paper presents a new water–energy–food (WEF) Nexus modelling tool (WEF Nexus Tool 2.0) based on that framework which offers a common platform for scientists and policy-makers to evaluate scenarios and identify sustainable national resource allocation strategies. The tool is applied to a case study focusing on Qatar, a hyper-arid Gulf country.


Most of the lead contained in sedge and voles (mountain meadow mice) within one of the most pristine, remote valleys in the United States is not natural but came from smelter fumes and gasoline exhausts. In a food chain, natural mechanisms do not allow lead to accompany the bulk of the nutritive metals as they proceed to higher trophic levels. This exclusion can be expressed quantitatively by a comparison of lead/calcium ratios at successive trophic levels. This ratio decreased by an overall factor of 200 in proceeding from rock, to soil moisture, to sedge, to vole. This factor would have been 1200 if lead aerosols had not collected on sedge leaves and circtumvented the tendency by sedge to exclude lead from the nutritive metals it absorbed from soil moisture.


Sunday School teachers, their students, administrators and clergy in three Protestant churches were interviewed to discover the degree to which the cognitive, emotional, and material aspects which promote resilience in youths (Laursen & Birmingham, 2003) were incorporated into their programs. The results suggested that churches do possess attributes that promote healthy cognitive and emotional development in children. In addition, every church provided for the material needs of the children in their church and community. Thus, churches are important community resources for at-risk children that can help promote resiliency. Recommendations are made for improvement of the programs. More generally, a model to assess and improve programs is proposed. Degree Type Open Access Senior Honors Thesis Department Psychology


The Yukon River is the fourth largest river in North America, yet the ecology of its fishes has not been well described. During the spring and summer of 2002– 04, we sampled the downstream migrations of fishes in the Yukon River mainstem near the Canada-U.S. border, using a rotary auger trap. Age-0 juvenile chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha , were the most common fish in the catch, and they peaked in abundance in mid-June. Smaller numbers of age-1 chinook salmon and age-0 chum salmon, O. keta , were caught earlier in the season. Over 80% of the remaining catch consisted of young-of-theyear Coregoninae (whitefish), presumably moving from natal areas to summer rearing habitats. Few adult whitefish were captured, probably because our sampling terminated before fall spawning migrations began. Both juveniles and adults were captured for six other winter or spring spawning species that we encountered. Our results indicate that the Yukon River mainstem is used extensively as a migration corridor. This reach of the mainstem has very high suspended sediment levels in summer; its significance as rearing habitat remains unknown. Further studies are required to delineate the extent of migrations and the population structure for the non-anadromous species.


A widespread use of high-throughput gene expression analysis techniques enabled the biomedical research community to share a huge body of gene expression datasets in many public databases on the web. However, current gene expression data repositories provide static representations of the data and support limited interactions. This hinders biologists from effectively exploring shared gene expression datasets. Responding to the growing need for better interfaces to improve the utility of the public datasets, we have designed and developed a new web-based visual interface entitled GeneShelf (http://bioinformatics.cnmcresearch.org/GeneShelf). It builds upon a zoomable grid display to represent two categorical dimensions. It also incorporates an augmented timeline with expandable time points that better shows multiple data values for the focused time point by embedding bar charts. We applied GeneShelf to one of the largest microarray datasets generated to study the progression and recovery process of injuries at the spinal cord of mice and rats. We present a case study and a preliminary qualitative user study with biologists to show the utility and usability of GeneShelf.


Silver complexes [Ag(4,5-dicyano-1-methylimidazole)2]n[CF3SO3]n (1), [Ag2(4,5-dicyano-1-methylimidazole)2][NO3]2 (2) and [Ag2(4,5-dicyano-1-methylimidazole)2]n[ClO3]2n (3) were synthesized in reactions between 4,5-dicyano-1-methylimidazole and silver salts AgCF3SO3, AgNO3 and AgClO3. The compounds were characterized via crystallographic and spectroscopic methods. Due to the different counter ions there were variations in the ligand coordination modes and, as a consequence, different types of solid state structures were generated. The absorption characteristics were explained by the simulation of the UV-Vis spectra using the TD-DFT method. Additionally, computational studies were performed in order to discover the effect of the counter ions via various weak intra- and intermolecular interactions present in the solid state structures. The nature of the interactions was further investigated by topological charge density analysis using the QTAIM method.


For decades courts have premised certain rules of antitrust liability upon the assumption that firms use preexisting market power to "coerce" or "force" trading partners to enter exclusionary agreements. Most notably, courts have held that a monopolist's "use" of such power to obtain an exclusionary agreement violates § 2 of the Sherman Act, while at the same time presuming that such a use of power, without more, produces economic harm. Following similar logic, courts enforcing § 1 of the Act have banned tying agreements obtained by firms with market power, reasoning that sellers use their power to "force" buyers to enter such contracts and that such "forcing" constitutes antitrust harm. Finally, courts have invoked similar reasoning when holding that dealers or consumers can challenge unlawful agreements they have themselves entered and enforced, disregarding the common law doctrine of in pari delicto ('in equal fault") on the grounds that plaintiffs' participation in such contracts is involuntary, because defendants use market power to impose them. This article critiques these doctrines and the market power model of contract formation on which they depend, contending that these rules rest upon an outmoded account of the origins and effects of such agreements. In particular, the article locates the origin of the market power model in neoclassical price theory's model of workable competition, often associated with the "Harvard School" of Antitrust. Assumptions informing the workable competition model excluded the possibility that exclusionary agreements produced benefits, giving rise to the natural inference that firms with market power used that power to impose such contracts against the will of trading partners. Courts embraced the Harvard School account of these agreements and announced hostile doctrines resting upon the assumption that such contracts were expressions of market power "used" to impose them. While Chicago School scholars questioned these doctrines, their critique ironically rested upon a more precise price-theoretic account of how firms purportedly used market power to impose these agreements. Transaction cost economics ("TCE") has radically altered economic theory's explanation for so-called "non-standard contracts," including "exclusionary" agreements that deprive rivals of access to inputs or customers. Building upon the work of Ronald Coase, scholars have argued that such integration usually reduces transaction costs, particularly anticipated costs of opportunism made possible by relationship-specific investments, without producing anticompetitive harm. TCE has accordingly exercised growing influence over antitrust doctrine, with courts invoking TCE's teachings to justify revision of some doctrines. Still, old habits die hard, and courts have retained the habit of treating exclusionary agreements — even those that produce benefits — as expressions of market or monopoly power. However, TCE implies that firms can induce voluntary acceptance of these provisions by offering cost-justified discounts to trading partners who agree to them, thereby using the institution of contract to redefine background rights and obligations so as to minimize transaction costs. To be sure, TCE does not teach that all non-standard agreements reduce transaction costs. Moreover, parallel developments suggest that some such agreements may reduce economic welfare by raising rivals' costs and conferring market power. Here again, however, there is no reason to believe that proponents of such agreements use market power to imposed them. Instead, proponents can induce input suppliers to enter such contracts voluntarily, simply by sharing with them expected monopoly profits the arrangements will help create. Thus, such agreements are no more "coercive" than ordinary cartel arrangements. The Article ends by exploring implications of these insights for antitrust doctrine. First, courts should discard substantive antitrust rules that depend upon the "market power" model of contract formation in favor of more direct analysis of the economic impact of challenged practices. Second, courts should reject any effort to infer the existence of such power from the presence of non-standard agreements, because the presence of such agreements is at least equally consistent with a conclusion that they are the result of harmless voluntary integration. Third, courts should discard exceptions to the in pari delicto doctrine based on the "market power" model of contract formation and reconsider current law allowing dealers and consumers to challenge agreements they have voluntarily entered.


Aims: This study was conducted to determine the effect of selected soil chemical characteristics on the occurrence of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) under different land uses in Embu and Taita districts in Kenya. Study Design: The sampling points were systematically marked in a grid-mesh construction using GPS marking. Place and Duration of Study: Soil sampling was done between January 2008 and May 2008 in Embu district in the highlands of Central and Taita-Taveta district in the Coastal Original Research Article British Journal of Applied Science & Technology, 4(16): 2333-2343, 2014 2334 highlands of Kenya. Methodology: EPNs were baited from soil using Galleria mellonella larvae and infective juveniles identified using morphologicalbiometric characteristics. The nematode occurrence was evaluated through relative abundance and recovery frequency expressed as percentage from the soils. Results: EPNs were detected in 43.3% of the samples with Steinernema spp being the dominant species. The occurrence of EPNs is affected by selected soil chemical properties, land use systems and heavy metals. Conclusion: Soil fertility management practices and heavy metals influence the occurrence of EPNs and should be considered for their effective use as biological control agents.


Event processing is an active area of research in the Natural Language Processing community, but resources and automatic systems developed so far have mainly addressed contemporary texts. However, the recognition and elaboration of events is a crucial step when dealing with historical texts Particularly in the current era of massive digitization of historical sources: Research in this domain can lead to the development of methodologies and tools that can assist historians in enhancing their work, while having an impact also on the field of Natural Language Processing. Our work aims at shedding light on the complex concept of events when dealing with historical texts. More specifically, we introduce new annotation guidelines for event mentions and types, categorized into 22 classes. Then, we annotate a historical corpus accordingly, and compare two approaches for automatic event detection and classification following this novel scheme. We believe that this work can foster research in a field of inquiry as yet underestimated in the area of Temporal Information Processing. To this end, we release new annotation guidelines, a corpus, and new models for automatic annotation.


This paper discusses the spectral and amplitude–time characteristics of the radiation of homo- and heteronuclear inert-gas molecules when they are excited by a volume discharge induced by a beam of avalanche electrons. It is shown that spontaneous-emission sources with high pulse power can be created by using an excitation power of 100 MW/cm3 or more.


Introduction: The most recent economic recession left many people outside the labour market world-wide, causing widespread poverty and social exclusion. Gavleborg County in East Central Sweden experienced massive layoffs caused by closure of various industries. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate differences in health-care use according to employment status at the pick of the recent economic recession. Methods: The study used data from a cross-sectional survey "Health in Equal Terms" carried out in Gavleborg County in 2010. The sample included 4245 persons aged 16-65 years. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were used to assess differences in health-care seeking behaviour by employment status. Results: Employment status was statistically significantly associated with health-care use in Gavleborg County. In the bivariate analysis people who were not employed had odds ratio of 1.62 (CI 1.18-1.72) for health care use as compared to their employed counterparts. Controlling for other variables in Model II to IV removed the statistical significance and reduced the odds to 0.44(CI 0.20-1.00). Conclusions: This study found that at the pick of the most recent economic recession, people who were out of work used more often health services as compared with their employed counterparts. The observed differences in health-care use were explained by demographic, socio-economic and health-related variables. Further studies are needed to analyze trends of healthcare utilization according to employment nationally, particularly at the county level.


ate in 2018, the California Department of Education rolled out an updated version of the California School Dashboard. This revision altered the look and feel of the Dashboard and added new indicators based on newly available data. This brief updates a 2018 analysis of the Dashboard. First, I examine whether the state's revisions are in line with the suggestions made in the 2018 report. I find that the state has made some improvements to the system, but that there is room for continued improvement. Second, I use data from the 2019 PACE/USC Rossier poll to characterize use of and support for the Dashboard. I find continued low use and potentially troubling equity gaps, but I also find high support for the Dashboard and a strong preference for the new Dashboard over the old. L Gauging the Revised California School Dashboard Evidence from the 2019 PACE/USC Rossier Voter Poll


In this thesis, we give a substantial formalisation of classical set theory in the proof system Coq. We assume an axiomatisation of ZF and present a development of the theory containing relations, functions and ordinals. The implementation follows the structure of standard text books. In the context of this theory, we prove Zermelo's Well-Ordering Theorem and the Axiom of Choice equivalent. In addition, we examine the history and development of modern set theory and compare Zermelo's original versions of the proof. We prove that both of them lead to the same ordering.


An overview of the interaction between monolayer graphene and SiO2 dielectric substrate is reported focusing on the effect this latter has on doping and strain induced by thermal treatments in controlled atmosphere. The disentanglement of strain and doping is highlighted and the comparison with another dielectric substrate of Al2O3 evidences the critical role that the substrate has in the electronic properties of graphene. The reported results pave the way for microelectronic devices based on graphene on dielectrics and for Fermi level tuning in composites of graphene and nanoparticles.


The problem of change point estimation is considered in a general framework where the data are generated by arbitrary unknown stationary ergodic process distributions. This means that the data may have long-range dependencies of an arbitrary form. In this context the consistent estimation of the number of change points is provably impossible. A formulation is proposed which overcomes this obstacle: it is possible to find the correct number of change points at the expense of introducing the additional constraint that the correct number of process distributions that generate the data is provided. This additional parameter has a natural interpretation in many real-world applications. It turns out that in this formulation change point estimation can be reduced to time series clustering. Based on this reduction, an algorithm is proposed that finds the number of change points and locates the changes. This algorithm is shown to be asymptotically consistent. The theoretical results are complemented with empirical evaluations.


Abstract Climate change predictions for the Great Plains region of North America include increased temperatures and changes to annual precipitation patterns. We used ecological niche modeling (Maxent) to assess how three climate change scenarios published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change might affect the distribution of the threatened lace hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus reichenbachii) by the 2050s and the 2080s. Under all scenarios investigated, the total land area of suitable habitat for the species increased relative to the current land area predicted as highly suitable by the model. However, under all scenarios, the center of the most suitable area for this species shifted by 160–604 km from the current location in northwest Texas, changing at a rate 20–75 km per decade. While the rate of dispersal in this species is not known, Echinocereus spp. seeds are typically spread by small mammals and it seems unlikely that this species will be able to disperse rapidly. Consequently, the range may initially contract during the coming century, especially in southern Texas where it is most imperiled and where the climate is predicted to become increasingly unsuitable. The current patchiness of distribution of the species suggests that microhabitat characteristics and limitations to dispersal might reduce its actual realized niche relative to the fundamental niche indicated by the models. In addition, land use for agriculture, grazing, and urbanization might further reduce the success of this species in a changing climate.


There is considerable discussion today about the role of editors and editing in the context of electronic publication. Much of it includes suggestions that publishers, hence also their editors, simply be bypassed in favour of author self-publishing by means of the Internet. What often happens is that discussions concentrate on issues of speed of distribution, economics, and copyright. The purpose of this paper is, first, to discuss the varying roles of the publisher/editor and library/archive in the new world in which publishing becomes increasingly dominated by electronics and, secondly, to consider implications for our ability to rely on the content of the printed record. I am not an ardent, dogmatic digiphile, to coin a new word. I see many advantages in electronic publishing and some disadvantages. I am also a lover of traditional books, but one who believes that (my own preferences quite aside) the world will move inexorably towards electronic publishing and that at some future date (far in the future, I may add) virtually all publishing will be in electronic form. Editing is a word with many meanings, ranging from minor modification of a manuscript to almost any activity of a publisher, including selecting works to be published, advising authors on content, modifying content, or managing the production process. Selection includes refereeing, which is only one step removed from critical reviewing, and this distinction could fade in time. While libraries and archives are not normally involved in editing, their role in preserving the record of a culture affects the activities of authors and publishers, for both of whom preservation and continuing distribution are important. Editing can, and at times does, determine the content of a text, quite independently of what authors may do. Maintaining records is most commonly done by libraries and archives. The difference between these institutions is not clear-cut. Libraries are usually created to serve the needs of a group of users, which group may require complete coverage of various subjects or disciplines. An archive, in the sense used here, is a collection of documents or records about a person or organization. The emphasis is on completeness of coverage. Libraries do not always undertake complete coverage of all that comes from a publisher, institution, or person, and there is not necessarily an archive for every document-producing institution. In this paper, I consider some aspects of the print world which seem most threatened or open to improvement, depending on one's point of view. Then I go on to the promise of electronic publishing, what has to be done to enable the change-over, and finally, what is actually likely to happen. The print world I will discuss is mostly that of books and scholarly journals, with a few excursions to other forms. The magnitude of changes in the publishing process and its products, some already realized and some yet to come, calls for major changes in editing and in the expectations of authors and readers. We need what Kuhn called a change of paradigm and I believe we will have one whether we consciously choose it or simply let it happen.[1] As all readers of a publication such as this know well, the conventional process of publishing a book or journal typically involves an author's first creating a text then persuading a publisher to accept and publish it. Sometimes, the persuading goes the other way and I suppose the most successful publishers always make it look as if the author were doing the soliciting. It is important, though, to realize that acquisition, the process of finding and selecting works to be published, is a critical part of the publisher's role. When there is no filtering or selection process, there is likely to be relatively little editing. The selected works subsequently offered to the public become the basis upon which the publisher and its future output are judged. …


The last market crash of 2008-2009 showed that the construction sphere is one of the most fragile subject to the crisis effect. The destructive effect of this crash resulted in substantial decrease in mortgage lending, price index, capital investment, and in growth of the cost level. As the construction industry remains strategically important, the eruption of this sphere, which was facilitated by the crisis, might considerably harm Russian economy as a whole. However, lack of relevant studies leaves the main risk factor of Russian construction firms' failure unexplored. The purpose of this study is to reveal the key determinants, which cause bankruptcy of Russian construction firms during the crisis period. Moreover, the article provides testing of applicability of accounting-based models to prediction of bankruptcy of these firms. The results show the validity of binary-choice logit and probit specifications with the highest classification accuracy of around 85%. In addition, the liquidity and profitability ratios were defined as superior insolvency factors for four years before a company files for bankruptcy.


Taps are an important micro-component of domestic water consumption. This paper describes the characteristics of a water consumption dataset utilised for a tap use investigation study. The measured tap water consumption data was investigated to establish the tap use distributions with respect to flow and duration and identify factors influencing tap use patterns. In order to quantify the influence of usage patterns, a methodology has been proposed and implemented to demonstrate its application for developing water consumption and wastewater discharge profiles for a range of tap use scenarios.

The results indicate that some 30% of household residents 'consume' between 20 and 30 l/head.day water through tap usage. Over 60% were found to use taps for 5 to 10 minutes everyday. Water consumption diurnal patterns were found to be more sensitive to tap use scenarios than wastewater discharge profiles.


Since there is a worldwide steady increase in the number of individuals living longer and an expected increase in the number of older adults who will be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there is a growing need to better understand late‐life mania. We provide in this review a report of published studies focusing on the prevalence of late‐life mania in the community and in senior psychiatric care facilities.


Background Many family caregivers of palliative care patients experience poor health and have other unmet needs, requiring health professionals' support. However, there are few evidence-based supportive interventions to address these issues. Purpose The purpose of this project was to undertake preliminary testing of a psychoeducational group education programme, delivered in an in-patient setting, designed to prepare family caregivers for the role of supporting a relative currently receiving hospital-based palliative care. Methods A pilot phase was conducted to develop the intervention and explore its utility. Thereafter the single session intervention was delivered in five palliative care units in three states of Australia and its effectiveness was examined using a pre–post design. Outcome variables included caregiver preparedness, competence and unmet needs. Psychological wellbeing was measured in order to determine if there were any deleterious psychological outcomes. Results One hundred and twenty-six participants completed Time 1 data and 107 (84.9%) completed Time 2 data (post-intervention). There were statistically significant improvements in caregivers' sense of preparedness (p=<.001; effect size (ES) 0.43) and a significant reduction in unmet caregiver needs (p=014; ES 0.22). There was no significant effect on psychological wellbeing and the improvement on competence fell short of statistical significance. Conclusions This study reinforces the notion that psychoeducational interventions for this population can potentially be applicable, acceptable and effective. However, the number of participants who were recruited and attended each session was fewer than anticipated, resulting in methodological implications. It is recommended that the intervention undergo further empirical inquiry, such as via a controlled trial.


The aim of this thesis was to investigate the retrodictive mentalising abilities (a kind of backwards inference from a mental state to its causal antecedent in order to make sense of others' behaviours) of people with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A new experimental paradigm was developed in order to examine people's ability to make sense of others' behaviours in a way that closely resembles the intricacies of real-world settings. The stimuli utilised in this thesis portrayed people's spontaneous and genuine responses during four specific events (scenarios). People were told a joke in the Joke scenario whereas in the Story scenario the researcher related a series of unfortunate mishaps that she experienced earlier in the day. In the Compliments scenario, people were told a series of compliments while in the Waiting scenario the researcher performed irrelevant tasks during an experiment whilst the person was kept waiting. Participants viewed brief videoclips of these behavioural responses and were asked to determine which event had previously occurred to the people in the videoclips. Participants eye movements were recorded to ascertain the visual strategies used. Typically developing individuals successfully inferred the events that occurred by viewing brief samples of behavioural reactions of typically developing individuals (Experiment 1). It was found that scenario experienced did not impact how targets self-reported their level of empathic ability (Experiment 2). While people with ASD were able to infer people's behavioural responses, their performance on the task was inferior as compared to typically developing individuals (Experiment 3). Participants varied their gaze strategies depending on the event experienced by the people in the videoclips and they had a tendency to focus more on the mouth compared to the eye region of the face (Experiment 1 and 3). When participants viewed videoclips of behavioural responses of people with and without ASD to the same events, they were more successful at inferring the reactions to the events which occurred when viewing videoclips of neurotypical individuals as opposed to individuals with ASD (Experiment 4). Furthermore, participants were unable to identify the reactions to two of the four events when viewing videoclips of people with ASD.


This article deals with the question of how participation in online learning communities can be understood. Starting from the idea that participation in such communities has an intersectional character; it investigates how understanding of this character of participation relates to different rhetoric. Such rhetoric is discussed as being either interactional or transactional. The discussion links the application of rhetoric to both human beings and non-human objects such as content and technologies. The article concludes that application of a dualistic interactional rhetoric is suitable to a narrow conceptualisation and design of participation in online learning communities. However, a non-dualistic transactional rhetoric is suitable if a wider conceptualisation and design of participation in online learning communities is sought. An example from the healthcare sector is used to illustrate how the ideas discussed in the article could be applied to designing for participation in online learning communities.


Despite evidence pointing to a ubiquitous tendency of human minds to wander, little is known about the neural operations that support this core component of human cognition. Using both thought sampling and brain imaging, the current investigation demonstrated that mind-wandering is associated with activity in a default network of cortical regions that are active when the brain is "at rest." In addition, individuals' reports of the tendency of their minds to wander were correlated with activity in this network.


The human retina has the potential to reveal important information about retinal, ophthalmic, and even systemic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and arteriosclerosis. Automatic quantification of retinal vessel morphology and width is considered as a first step in computer assisted medical applications related to diagnosis and treatment planning. This work aims to quantify the blood vessels in noisy and pathological retinal images of school children with uneven illumination and containing complex vessel profiles. In this thesis, we have presented two methodologies of retinal vessel segmentation and an algorithm for vessel width measurement. The unsupervised method of retinal segmentation is based on detection of vessel centrelines and followed by computing the vessel shape and the orientation map using morphological bitplane slicing. A supervised method for segmentation of blood vessels by using an ensemble classifier of boosted and bagged decision trees is also presented. The feature vector encodes information to successfully handle both normal and pathological retinas with bright and dark lesions simultaneously. The obtained performance metrics illustrate that this method outperforms most of the state-of-the-art methodologies of retinal vessel segmentation. The method is computationally fast in training and classification and needs fewer samples for training than other supervised methods. It is training set robust as it offers a better performance even when it is trained and tested on different sets of retinal images. A new public database of the retinal images taken from multi-ethnic school children is presented along with the ground truths of vessel segmentation and width measurement. We have also introduced a robust and accurate methodology for measuring the calibre of vessel segments in retinal images of multi-ethnic children. The vessel centrelines are detected from the vessel probability map image resulting from ensemble classification. The vessel branch points and crossovers are identified and removed from the vessel centreline image to obtain vessel segments followed by computing the local vessel orientation of the vessel segments. The width of each vessel segment is estimated using a two dimensional model with incorporated Gaussian (for ordinary vessels) as well as Difference of Gaussian profiles (for vessels with a central reflex). The automated methods for quantification of retinal vessel morphology and width may be used as an alternative to the time consuming subjective clinical evaluation for monitoring the progression of retinopathies and their association with normal and abnormal vascular patterns. This may enable a quick diagnosis, treatment availability, prognosis, and facilitation of clinical heath-care procedures in remote areas.


Inventory, Assessment and Preliminary Management Planning for Utah's Sovereign Land along the Bear River by Matthew S. Coombs, Master of Science in Bioregional Planning Utah State University, 2017 Major Professor: Richard E. Toth Department: Environment and Society The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands (FFSL) is responsible for the management of state-owned sovereign land in Utah, which includes the bed and banks of the Bear River in Cache and Box Elder Counties. The purpose of this project is to provide relevant background information and data to support the future development of a comprehensive management plan for the Bear River. This project develops a methodology and process to describe the Bear River Corridor, summarizes and integrates existing information regarding important biophysical and sociocultural attributes of the river, delineates lands along the river into identified management classes, and recommends management goals and objectives to be carried forward into the future development of a comprehensive management plan. While this project is not the most comprehensive or detailed report for any individual attribute of the Bear River, it is currently the most comprehensive resource addressing sovereign lands along the Bear River. Furthermore, it provides a methodology and process that is highly adaptable and can be replicated for use in other planning efforts for sovereign land resources or carried forward to be improved upon as new data and information is discovered or developed.


This study investigates the seasonal and spatial differences in phytoplankton communities in the coastal waters off two nuclear power plants in northern Taiwan in 2009. We identified 144 phytoplankton taxa in our samples, including 127 diatoms, 16 dinoflagellates, and one cyanobacteria. Four diatoms, namely, Thalassionema nitzschioides (T. nitzschioides), Pseudo-nitzschia delicatissima (P. delicatissima), Paralia sulcate (P. sulcata), and Chaetoceros curvisetus (C. curvisetus) and one dinoflagellate Prorocentrum micans (P. micans) were predominant during the study period. Clear seasonal and spatial differences in phytoplankton abundance and species composition were evident in the study area. Generally, a higher mean phytoplankton abundance was observed in the waters off the First Nuclear Power Plant (NPP I) than at the Second Nuclear Power Plant (NPP II). The phytoplankton abundance was usually high in the coastal waters during warm periods and in the offshore waters in winter. The phytoplankton species composition was different in the NPP intake and outlet. An abundant phytoplankton increase in the outlet was frequently detected, probably due to the difference in phytoplankton species suitability to thermal stress. Our results suggest that thermal discharge may affect the phytoplankton communities by altering its species composition within a restricted area close to the NPP. This study provides basic knowledge on phytoplankton distribution patterns, essential information required to further understand the ecological impact caused by thermal effluents.


We are in a transitional moment in our national conversation on race. "Despite optimistic predictions that Barack Obama's election would signal the end of race as an issue in America, the race-related news stories just keep coming. Race remains a political and polarizing issue, and the sprawling, unwieldy, and often maddening means we have developed to discuss and evaluate what counts as "racial" can be frustrating. In What Can You Say?, John Hartigan Jr. examines a watershed year of news stories, taking these events as a way to understand American culture and challenge our existing notions of what is racial-or not. The book follows race stories that have made news headlines-including Don Imus's remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, protests in Jena, Louisiana, and Barack Obama's presidential campaign-to trace the shifting contours of mainstream U.S. public discussions of race as they incorporate new voices, words, and images. Focused on the underlying dynamics of American culture that shape this conversation, this book aims to make us more fluent in assessing the stories we consume about race. Advancing our conversation on race hinges on recognizing and challenging the cultural conventions governing the ways we speak about and recognize race. In drawing attention to this curious cultural artifact, our national conversation on race, Hartigan ultimately offers a way to to understand race in the totality of American culture, as a constantly evolving debate. As this book demonstrates, the conversation is far from over.


Software robustness problems may hinder the use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software modules and legacy software modules in mission-critical and safety-critical applications. This research focuses on hardening COTS and legacy software modules against robustness failures triggered by exceptional inputs. An automated approach is presented that is capable of identifying the triggers of the robustness failures. A fault model-the dimensionality model-is used to guide analysis. An experiment is described which demonstrates the feasibility of automating the process of analyzing failure causes and hardening against certain data types in POSIX function calls, for example, NULL pointer values and scalar data types such as INT and FLOAT. The final goal of this research is to provide users a tool to harden COTS and legacy software modules automatically.


In both flowering plants and mammals, DNA methylation is involved in silencing alleles of imprinted genes, but surprising differences in imprinting control are emerging between the two taxa which may be traced to differences in their life cycles. Imprinted gene expression in plants occurs in the endosperm, a separate fertilisation product which transmits nutrients to the embryo and does not contribute a genome to the next generation. Regulation of expression of the known imprinted genes in Arabidopsis involves a cascade of gene expression beginning in the gametophyte, a haploid life phase interposed between the meiotic products and the gametes, which evolved from free-living organisms that constitute the dominant life phase of lower plants. Although the gametophytes of flowering plants are highly reduced they still express large numbers of genes, perhaps reflecting their evolutionary legacy, and which may now be recruited for control of imprinting. Strikingly, the genes at the top of the expression cascade appear to be specifically activated by demethylation, rather than targeted for silencing. Unlike in mammals, there is no evidence for global resetting of methylation in plants, and although imprinting involves the activity of a maintenance methyltransferase, de novo methyltransferases do not appear to be required. Plants do not set aside a germline; instead the cells that undergo meiosis to produce gametophytes differentiate in the adult plant during flower development. Both the late differentiation of the lineage producing germ cells, and the extent of gene expression during the haploid phase, may be incompatible with global resetting of methylation. Resetting may be unnecessary in any case because the adult plant expresses imprinted loci either biallelically or not at all, suggesting there is no chromosomal memory of parent-of-origin in the lineage that produces the gametophytes. Thus several features of the plant life cycle may account for the different strategies used by plants and animals to regulate parent-specific gene expression.


ABSTRACT:This essay investigates the largely unexplored role of money and debt in Suche nach M., Doron Rabinovici's first novel. Economic matters run throughout the text and are inextricably bound with representations of Schuld (guilt/debt) and Gewalt (force/violence). Money and debt are key to understanding the circumstances contributing to the development of Dani Morgenthau's alter ego Mullemann and his curious theft of money owed another. Further, his disappearance at the end of the novel illustrates the economic concept of Knightian uncertainty, or immeasurable risk, and challenges the reader to contemplate a spectrum of endings to this complex tale of second-generation survivors.


Drawing upon the empirical scholarship and research expertise of contributors from all settled continents and from diverse life settings and economies, Viral Loads illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic, and responses to it, lay bare and load onto people's lived realities in countries around the world. A crosscutting theme pertains to how social unevenness and gross economic disparities are shaping global and local responses to the pandemic, and illustrate the effects of both the virus and efforts to contain it in ways that amplify these inequalities. At the same time, the contributions highlight the nature of contemporary social life, including virtual communication, the nature of communities, neoliberalism and contemporary political economies, and the shifting nature of nation states and the role of government. Over half of the world's population has been affected by restrictions of movement, with physical distancing requirements and self-isolation recommendations impacting profoundly on everyday life but also on the economy, resulting also, in turn, with dramatic shifts in the economy and in mass unemployment. By reflecting on how the pandemic has interrupted daily lives, state infrastructures and healthcare systems, the contributing authors in this volume mobilise anthropological theories and concepts to locate the pandemic in a highly connected and exceedingly unequal world. The book is ambitious in its scope – spanning the entire globe – and daring in its insistence that medical anthropology must be a part of the growing calls to build a new world.


A novel compliant transmission mechanism that doubles the frequency of a cyclic input is presented in this paper. The compliant cycle-doubler is a contact-aided compliant mechanism that uses intermittent contact between itself and a rigid surface. The conceptual design for the cycle-doubler was obtained using topology optimization in our earlier work. In this paper, a detailed design procedure is presented for developing the topology solution into a functional prototype. The conceptual design obtained from the topology solution did not account for the effects of large displacements, friction, and manufacturing-induced features such as fillet radii. Detailed nonlinear finite element analyses and experimental results from quasi-static tests on a macro-scale prototype are used in this paper to understand the influence of the above factors and to guide the design of the functional prototype. Although the conceptual design is based on the assumption of quasi-static operation, the modified design is shown to work well in a dynamic setting for low operating frequencies via finite element simulations. The cycle-doubler design is a monolithic elastic body that can be manufactured from a variety of materials and over a range of length scales. This makes the design scalable and thus adaptable to a wide range of operating frequencies. Explicit dynamic nonlinear finite element simulations are used to verify the functionality of the design at two different length scales: macro (device footprint of a square of 170 mm side) at an input frequency of 7.8 Hz; and meso (device footprint of a square of 3.78 mm side) at an input frequency of 1 kHz.


"Materials management is an important function in order to improve productivity in construction project. Materials management defined as functions which include planning and materials take off, vendor evaluation and selection, purchasing, expenditure, shipping, materials receiving, ware housing and inventory, and materials distribution. The result of improper handling and managing materials on site during construction process will influence the total project cost, time and quality. (1999) stated that cost for materials handling may range from 30-80% of total construction cost. In addition, Dey (2001) indicates that almost 60% of the total working capital of any industrial organization consist of materials cost. Therefore, there is a need for efficient materials management in order to control productivity and cost in construction projects. In a survey of workforce motivation and productivity on nuclear power projects in the United States, Borcheding and Garner (1981) showed that non availability of materials led to a loss of Six hours per individual craftsperson per week.
Many authors defined the term of wastage. Construction waste as defined by Ekanayake and Ofori is any material apart from earth material which needs to be transported elsewhere to the construction sites or used within the construction site itself for the purpose of land filling, incineration, recycling, reusing, or composting rather than the intended specific purpose of the project due to material change excess, nonuse, or noncompliance with the specifications or being a byproduct of the construction process.
Waste production on construction sites is often due to inadequate storage and protection, poor or multiple handling, poor site control, over ordering of material, bad stock control, lack of training, and damage to material during delivery Udeaja, and N. Tait. Other researchers categorized these causes into four categories, according to Lingered et al. procurement, handling, operation, and culture, while Ekanayake and Ofori grouped factors generating material waste into design, procurement, handling of material, and operation.
The challenge of the material delivery process is to provide the planner reliable information on material availability for project tasks. This means that the material needs of each task have to be known. Materials delivered are mainly topsoil, hardcore, sand, aggregate, cement and ready mixed concrete. Chamuriho and Lema."


: In this paper I add credence to Linda Zagzebski's (1994) diagnosis of Gettier problems (and the current trend to abandon the standard analysis) by analyzing the nature of luck. It is widely accepted that the lesson to be learned from Gettier problems is that knowledge is incompatible with luck or at least a certain species thereof. As such, understanding the nature of luck is central to understanding the Gettier problem. Thanks by and large to Duncan Pritchard's seminal work, Epistemic Luck, a great deal of literature has been developed recently concerning the nature of luck and anti-luck epistemology. The literature, however, has yet to explore the very intuitive idea that luck comes in degrees. I propose that once luck is recognized to admit degrees even the slightest non-zero degree (of the relevant sort) precludes knowledge. Connecting this to Zagzebski's thesis, I propose that a given theory of warrant must guarantee truth in order to avoid Gettier counterexamples (or subsequently deny that warrant bears any relationship to the truth whatsoever), simply because a sufficient standard analysis of knowledge cannot allow for knowledge that is even marginally lucky.


This paper investigates the associations between fertility decline in Western Europe since the nineteenth century and the most elementary institution through which relationships between kin are defined: the family. Fertility levels in Western Europe declined strongly since the mid-nineteenth century but also show marked regional variations, comparable to developments in sub-Saharan Africa in the world today. Recent explanations of fertility decline point at the role of social relationships with kin and non-kin in the diffusion of family limitation. Based on the classification of family systems by Emmanuel Todd, theoretical connections between family systems and the level and speed of fertility change are made. Non-authoritarian family systems are expected to be more open towards change since non-kin are more likely to enter the social network. Authoritarian family systems on the other hand are expected to maintain higher levels of fertility due to the dense kinship networks. The findings in this paper show no clear association between family systems and reproductive outcomes during the course of the demographic transition. Fertility outcomes are more strongly associated with past fertility levels and the level of fertility in neighbouring regions.


This book considers Friedrich Froebel's work and ideas in the light of the continuing debate over methods of primary education, raising the old conflict between child-centred and traditional education; concern about the role of teacher in the classroom; and the renewed challenge of 'play' as a tool of education. To Froebel, play provided the means for a child's intellectual, social, emotional and physical development. Froebel believed that the education of a child began at birth, and that parents and teachers played a crucial role in helping children in this activity. "Play is a mirror of life", he wrote, leading to self-discipline and respect for law and order. The events of Froebel's life are carefully documented in "A Child's Work", together with their influence on his ideas and their spread. The author shows how the early death of Froebel's mother and a home lacking in love were to provide the impetus behind one of Froebel's overriding aims: the fostering of family life. The shaping of his educational thought and philosophy through contact with the ideas of other educators, especially his 'spiritual father' Pestalozzi, and philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Krause, is examined. Froebel's continuous reassessment of the function of play in a child's life came to fruition in the concept of the Kindergarten and the creations with which he peopled it. Illustrations from original sources complement the thorough explanations of these educational innovations in the book. From the soft ball on a spring, the simplest of the Gifts, to the unravelling of more complex ideas in the "Mother Songs", Froebel incorporated the various facets that he saw as important in play: the notion of the symbolic and the surmise, the tension between the known and the unknown, the development of physical dexterity and care for the environment. As we continue to shift towards an emphasis on a more formal, more restrictive and less creative mode of education, it is an appropriate time to re-examine Froebel's contribution to educational thinking, which was revolutionised by his ideas. His respect for a child as an independent, searching and creative person learning through his own actions, and for the teacher as facilitator and guide, led to monumental changes. Froebel's legacy challenges us to examine the assumptions underlying current trends in education, and our attitude towards educating young children.


A major international effort – the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative – aims to reduce the extent of misalignment between the profits of multinational groups, and the location of their real economic activity. Recent research using balance sheet data has shown major misalignments, with a number of small jurisdictions capturing a tax base disproportionate to their economic activity, but has also revealed the limitations of available balance sheet data for lower-income countries. This paper uses survey data on the international operations of US-headquartered multinational groups to expand the research to a broader group of host countries (albeit for only one home economy), and confirms major misalignments of profit. A small number of 'profit-haven' jurisdictions are seen to have captured a disproportionate share of total profits, resulting in serious disadvantages for most G20 countries, regardless of income level.


Polewards expansions of species' distributions have been attributed to climate warming, but evidence for climate‐driven local extinctions at warm (low latitude/elevation) boundaries is equivocal. We surveyed the four species of butterflies that reach their southern limits in Britain. We visited 421 sites where the species had been recorded previously to determine whether recent extinctions were primarily due to climate or habitat changes. Coenonympha tullia had become extinct at 52% of study sites and all losses were associated with habitat degradation. Aricia artaxerxes was extinct from 50% of sites, with approximately one‐third to half of extinctions associated with climate‐related factors and the remainder with habitat loss. For Erebia aethiops (extinct from 24% of sites), approximately a quarter of the extinctions were associated with habitat and three‐quarters with climate. For Erebia epiphron, extinctions (37% of sites) were attributed mainly to climate with almost no habitat effects. For the three species affected by climate, range boundaries retracted 70–100 km northwards (A. artaxerxes, E. aethiops) and 130–150 m uphill (E. epiphron) in the sample of sites analysed. These shifts are consistent with estimated latitudinal and elevational temperature shifts of 88 km northwards and 98 m uphill over the 19‐year study period. These results suggest that the southern/warm range margins of some species are as sensitive to climate change as are northern/cool margins. Our data indicate that climate warming has been of comparable importance to habitat loss in driving local extinctions of northern species over the past few decades; future climate warming is likely to jeopardize the long‐term survival of many northern and mountain species.


Background: Electronic health record (EHR) systems are necessary for sharing medical information between care delivery organizations (CDOs). While many standardized data can be shared, it is still difficult to share nonstandardized clinical data. Furthermore, there remains the problem that the EHR system cannot finely control the disclosure status. We have been operating a documentbased electronic medical record system called the Document Archiving and Communication System (DACS) in which printed images of all medical records are stored in PDF format.
Objectives: To develop a document-based EHR system that can disclose selected clinical documents in PDF format.
Methods: With a document-based EHR system, any documents stored in the DACS can be opened to a designated CDO. These open documents can be selected by the service CDO staff. In order to manage the disclosure status, an access control list (ACL) file was designed based on the HL7 clinical document architecture header. The PDF file and its ACL file were transiently stored in the Japanese standard repository, SS-MIX2. The doctor of the designated CDO was then able to access the documents according to the information in the ACL file.
Results: From March 2017 to September 2017, 308 documents of 20 patients were disclosed to 3 CDOs using this document-based EHR system. These documents included examination reports, agreement forms concerning the EHR, progress notes, summaries and surgical reports generated from five different systems.
Conclusions: The document-based EHR system was able to reveal clinical documents from the EMR to medical staff under a controlled disclosure environment.


Dictionary learning and component analysis are part of one of the most well-studied and active research fields, at the intersection of signal and image processing, computer vision, and statistical machine learning. In dictionary learning, the current methods of choice are arguably K-SVD and its variants, which learn a dictionary (i.e., a decomposition) for sparse coding via Singular Value Decomposition. In robust component analysis, leading methods derive from Principal Component Pursuit (PCP), which recovers a low-rank matrix from sparse corruptions of unknown magnitude and support. However, K-SVD is sensitive to the presence of noise and outliers in the training set. Additionally, PCP does not provide a dictionary that respects the structure of the data (e.g., images), and requires expensive SVD computations when solved by convex relaxation. In this paper, we introduce a new robust decomposition of images by combining ideas from sparse dictionary learning and PCP. We propose a novel Kronecker-decomposable component analysis which is robust to gross corruption, can be used for low-rank modeling, and leverages separability to solve significantly smaller problems. We design an efficient learning algorithm by drawing links with a restricted form of tensor factorization. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on real-world applications, namely background subtraction and image denoising, by performing a thorough comparison with the current state of the art.


Platelets play a critical role in atherogenesis and thrombosis-mediated myocardial ischemia, processes that are accelerated in diabetes. Whether hyperglycemia promotes platelet production and whether enhanced platelet production contributes to enhanced atherothrombosis remains unknown. Here we found that in response to hyperglycemia, neutrophil-derived S100 calcium-binding proteins A8/A9 (S100A8/A9) interact with the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) on hepatic Kupffer cells, resulting in increased production of IL-6, a pleiotropic cytokine that is implicated in inflammatory thrombocytosis. IL-6 acts on hepatocytes to enhance the production of thrombopoietin, which in turn interacts with its cognate receptor c-MPL on megakaryocytes and bone marrow progenitor cells to promote their expansion and proliferation, resulting in reticulated thrombocytosis. Lowering blood glucose using a sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor (dapagliflozin), depleting neutrophils or Kupffer cells, or inhibiting S100A8/A9 binding to RAGE (using paquinimod), all reduced diabetes-induced thrombocytosis. Inhibiting S100A8/A9 also decreased atherogenesis in diabetic mice. Finally, we found that patients with type 2 diabetes have reticulated thrombocytosis that correlates with glycated hemoglobin as well as increased plasma S100A8/A9 levels. These studies provide insights into the mechanisms that regulate platelet production and may aid in the development of strategies to improve on current antiplatelet therapies and to reduce cardiovascular disease risk in diabetes.


This article attempted to clarify the role played by section 156(4) of the Constitution by tracing some of the origins and manifestations of the principle of subsidiarity, on which this provision is modelled. It was argued that, although modelled on it, section 156(4) is different from the classic manifestation of subsidiarity, which would have established a principled and automatic bias for local government that only gives way to a reasoned argument in favour of other spheres of government. Section 156(4) works the other way around. It establishes a preference and not an automatic bias for local government. This preference must be substantiated with an argument that the assignment of the power to local government is functional in that it enables such government to achieve its developmental objects. It was further argued that section 156(4) of the Constitution may not be easily enforced separately by the courts, in part because of the deference shown by the courts to political decisions surrounding the configuration of the state. However, the experience of judicial enforcement of the subsidiarity principle in Germany may offer some guidance in this respect. The principle of subsidiarity should play a guiding role in lawmaking and the interpretation of competencies by the courts. A brief review of legislation and court judgments surrounding, for example, local government's role in land use management, indicates that the principle is not given nearly the recognition it deserves.


Effects of puerarin, an active principle contained in the roots of Pueraria lobata (Leguminosae), on the regulation of glucose metabolism in an insulin deficient state were investigated in cultured myoblast C 2 C 12 cells using glucose uptake as indicator. Puerarin enhanced the uptake of radioactive glucose into C 2 C 12 cells in a concentration-dependent manner, which was abolished by prazosin pretreatment. Activation of alpha 1 -adrenoceptors by puerarin was further indicated by the displacement of [ 3H]prazosin binding in C 2 C 12 cells. The stimulatory action of puerarin on glucose uptake was also reduced in C 2 C 12 cells pre-incubated with the antagonists, both WB 4101 and RS 17 056, at concentrations sufficient to block alpha 1A -adrenoceptor (alpha 1A -AR). An activation of alpha 1A -AR seems responsible for the action of puerarin in C 2 C 12 cells. Pharmacological inhibition of phospholipase C (PLC) by U73312 resulted a concentration-dependent decrease of puerarin-stimulated glucose uptake in C 2 C 12 cells. This inhibition of glucose uptake by U73122 was specific because the inactive congener, U73343, failed to block puerarin-stimulated glucose uptake. Moreover, both chelerythrine and GF 109203X diminished the action of puerarin at concentration sufficient to inhibit protein kinase C (PKC). The obtained data suggest that an activation of alpha 1A -AR by puerarin in C 2 C 12 cells may increase the glucose uptake via the PLC-PKC pathway.


In this paper we present historical evidence and a theoretical analysis of the origins of political stability and instability in Colombia for the period 1850-1950, and their relationship to political, particularly electoral, institutions. We show that the driving force behind institutional change over this period, specifically the move to proportional representation (PR), was the desire of the Conservative and Liberal parties to come up with a way of credibly dividing power to avoid civil war and conflict, a force intensified by the brutal conflict of the War of a Thousand days between 1899 and 1902. The problem with majoritarian electoral institutions was that they did not allocate power in a way which matched the support of the parties in the population, thus encouraging conflict. The strategic advantage of PR was that it avoided such under-representation. The parties however could not initially move to PR because it was not `fraud proof' so instead, in 1905, adopted the "incomplete vote" which simply allocated 2/3 of the legislative seats to the winning party and 1/3 to the loser. This formula brought peace. The switch to PR arose when the Liberals became confident that they could solve problems of fraud. But it only happened because they were able to exploit a division within the Conservatives. The switch also possibly reflected a concern with the rising support for socialism and the desire to divide power more broadly. Our findings shed new light on the origins of electoral systems and the nature of political conflict and its resolution.


This project analyzing the development of Polish financial markets sponsored by the USAID grant was aimed at examining selected problems of the banking system and financial markets in Poland. The main criterion for selection of these problems was their potential usefulness for policy-makers at the present stage of the economic transformation. The studies within the project address the issues that require special attention of policy-makers in their efforts to design future stages of the economic transformation and to formulate a program of effective preparations for the EU accession. The topics examined include: the advancement of risk management in the banking system, the economic and legal aspects of capital account liberalization, contagion effects of world financial crises, and sensitivity of financial markets to Exchange rate policies. The studies find visible improvements in the methodology of risk management in the banking system in Poland and in the institutional framework of financial markets. It is further suggested that a larger participation of foreign, more experienced banks Gould improve efficiency of Poland's financial institutions. It remains debatable whether the banks ought to evolve in the directions of universal or specialized institutions. The financial system is prone to contagion effects of external financial crises as documented by the impact of the Asian and the Russian crisis episodes. Several measures aimed at developing an effective cushion against potential contagion effects of financial crisis are proposed. They include: an effective system of bank monitoring and supervision, a lower reliance on debt in relation to equity, a low (less than a multiple of three) ratio of M2 money to foreign exchange reserves, a higher degree of transparency of financial institutions, more transparent fiscal and monetary policies, and a significant increase in national savings. The advancement of capital account liberalization shall not be restrained by taxes on foreign exchange transactions or by similar measures aimed at containing capital flows. Capital controls could be devastating to still very fragile and volatile Polish financial markets.


Over the years, health informatics (HI) education has evolved in different patterns around the world. This evolution was accompanied by challenges that impede its ideal progress. Accordingly, there is a set of general challenges that face the education and training of the discipline and there are, as well, challenges that hinder its progression in every country in particular. This paper attempts to explore the challenges that face health informatics education and training in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by examining the current state of health information technology education in general in the country with an emphasis on the HI education. An overview of the global challenges that face the field along with some suggestions to relieve this situation are also presented in this paper.


With increasing anthropogenic threats to the marine environment, it has become
a priority to improve our understanding and conservation of marine fauna. In Antarctic
waters, a rich and diverse benthic fauna thrives. However, the relative isolation of these
organisms and their adaptation to the unique Antarctic environment potentially
heightens their vulnerability to environmental change. Thorough research on the genetic
and ecological structure of Antarctic benthic invertebrate populations is lacking,
particularly for some of the most dominant taxa, such as the Amphipoda. This study
investigated genetic structure, diversity and population ecology in some common
Antarctic benthic amphipod species, to build a more rigorous understanding of the
Antarctic benthos that will aid in future management planning.
Genetic structure was explored over a circum-Antarctic scale in the widespread
amphipod species Eusirus perdentatus and Eusirus giganteus from the continental shelf,
using DNA sequences of two mitochondrial regions (COI and CytB) and one nuclear
region (ITS2). Phylogenies and haplotype networks provided strong evidence that E.
perdentatus harbours two previously undetected cryptic species, and E. giganteus
harbours at least three, highlighting our current misunderstanding of Antarctic benthic
diversity. There were clear differences in the distribution, genetic diversity and
connectivity of populations within each cryptic species, and it is proposed that this
reflects different modes of post-glacial recolonisation of the continental shelf. Within
one cryptic species, high genetic population differentiation (FST > 0.47, p < 0.01)
suggested a potential allopatric speciation process at play.
Genetic connectivity was explored over large (1000km) to very fine (100m)
distances in the ubiquitous nearshore amphipod Orchomenella franklini, using seven
highly polymorphic microsatellite markers. Genetic diversity differed significantly
among populations, potentially reflecting local environmental conditions including
anthropogenic pollution. Hierarchical AMOVA revealed marked genetic subdivision
(FST = 0.16, p < 0.001) across the largest geographical scale and evolutionary isolation
of these populations was inferred. Furthermore, three loci showed signs of selection
across this scale, providing evidence of locally adapted populations. Gene flow was also restricted at smaller scales, indicating a stepping-stone mode of dispersal consistent
with the brooded development of amphipods.
The ecology of O. franklini was investigated through length measurements, sex
and reproductive status of > 6000 individuals, spatial and temporal patterns in
abundance, and corresponding relationships with environmental data. The life history of
O. franklini revealed several traits that exemplify adaptation to the polar environment,
including delayed reproduction, longevity (> 2 years), and seasonal breeding linked to
the summer phytoplankton bloom. There was preliminary evidence of inter-annual and
spatial fluctuations in reproductive timing, potentially reflecting local sea-ice
conditions. O. franklini was found to reach astounding densities (> 65,000/m2) and
abundance was highly heterogeneous in space and time. The distribution of O. franklini
was related to various sediment properties although the relationship differed with
geographic region, highlighting a close association to the local environment as well as
broader Antarctic conditions.
This study has provided significant insight into the dynamics of Antarctic
benthic amphipod populations over a range of scales. Together the results emphasise a
considerable degree of heterogeneity largely overlooked in Antarctic benthic organisms
(from the taxonomy of entire species down to local-scale intraspecific population
dynamics), and thereby support predictions of their vulnerability to anthropogenicinduced
change. Results also shed light on speciation processes in Antarctic waters, and
will ultimately help inform future planning decisions regarding spatial management of
the Antarctic benthic ecosystem.