An earthquake intensity measure (IM) is a characteristic of a recorded ground motion that quanti…es the severity of a seismic event. In reliability analysis of structural systems subjected to ground shaking, the choice of IM plays a leading role. In probabilistic engineering assessment, the IM is used both as a scale factor for recorded ground motions in incremental dynamic analysis and as that parameter which de…nes the seismic hazard at a speci…ed site. In this paper, the geometric mean of pseudo-spectral acceleration ordinates over a certain range of periods, Sa,avg, is used as a scalar IM to predict inelastic structural response of buildings subjected to recorded ground motions. This average of spectral values is a better predictor than the elastic pseudo-spectral acceleration at fundamental period of structure, Sa, especially for inelastic structural systems. Furthermore, the seismic hazard at the site in terms of Sa,avg as IM is simpler than the one performed for vector-valued and inelastic IMs. Especially for inelastic multi-degree-of-freedom systems with long periods, Sa,avg is very sensitive to higher-mode effects, showing a limited levels of dispersion at different given ductility levels. Sa,avg is studied as a statistical predictor of structural response and is compared with conventional elastic and inelastic scalar IMs. The study is completed with suggestions about the period range over which the average should be calculated, the spacing periods and the necessary number of points of spectral ordinates, in order for Sa,avg to be most effective.


Abstract Objectives: To determine the nutrition knowledge and nutritional status of primary school children attending a purposively selected school in rural QwaQwa. Setting: A purposively selected public school (n = 540) in QwaQwa. Subjects: A convenience sample of all 142 school pupils, aged from nine to thirteen years. Outcome measures: The measuring instruments included a nutrition knowledge questionnaire to determine the current nutrition knowledge, and a 24-hour recall to determine food and nutrient intakes. Anthropometric measurements included weight and height, measured using standard methodologies. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 11.2 years, and all had deficient intakes of all the nutrients, except for protein, carbohydrates and thiamine. However, 53.1%, 17.1% and 14.3% of the respondents did not meet 100% of EAR for protein, carbohydrates and thiamine respectively. The anthropometric results indicated that 2.8% of the total group of respondents was severely stunted, and that 11.3% were stunted. The BMI-for-age indicated that 12.0% were overweight, and more so among the girls (15.7%) than the boys (8.3%). The respondents showed average nutrition knowledge in the majority of the questions. Conclusions: This study observed malnutrition and average nutrition knowledge, with many gaps relating to aspects, such as the role of the various food groups in the diet and safe hygiene practices.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To determine the effect of three types of breast cancer screening messages (positive/upbeat, neutral/cognitive, and negative/fear) on knowledge, attitudes, perceived risk for breast cancer, and mammography screening of African American women.

DESIGN
Repeated measures intervention.

SETTING
Three rural counties in the South.

SAMPLE
450 African American women aged 45-65 who had not received a mammogram in the past 12 months.

METHODS
Following completion of pretest knowledge and attitude surveys, the women participated in a 60-minute breast health intervention session that included watching one of three videos with varied affective tones (positive/upbeat, neutral/cognitive, negative/fear). Data on knowledge, attitudes, perceived risk for breast cancer, and mammography screening were collected before, after, and 12 months following the intervention.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Knowledge, attitudes, perceived risk for breast cancer, and mammography screening.

FINDINGS
No significant difference was found among video groups on mammography screening and knowledge of and attitudes about breast cancer over the three measurement periods.

CONCLUSIONS
The affective tone of the educational videos did not make a difference in mammogram screening, attitudes, and knowledge of breast cancer screening. More women received a mammogram 12 months postintervention than prior to the intervention; however, the influence of the intervention on this outcome is uncertain.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Nurses and health communication experts should design interventions that foster positive attitudes, increase knowledge about breast cancer screening, and stimulate women to participate in breast cancer screening as outlined by the American Cancer Society. These interventions need to be done in the context of the cultural norms and the education levels of the target population.


Legal Foundations of International Monetary Stability which will appeal to both practitioners and academics, is a book on monetary law and related aspects of financial regulation providing a systematic and thorough study of how national, supra-national and international developments have dramatically changed the dynamic field of monetary law over the last two decades. Lastra looks at this in three main parts. Beginning with the notion of monetary sovereignty, its attributes and limitations, the author goes on to analyse the concept of monetary stability and the institutional developments to promote it, in particular independent central banks and currency boards. Since a sound banking system is essential for maintaining monetary stability, the book also presents a legal study of the design of supervision and of the mechanisms available to the national authorities to confront banking crises and to maintain financial stability. The monetary law reform process in emerging economies is also examined. The second part of the book covers European monetary law, the history of monetary integration in Europe, the institutions of Monetary Union (the European System of Central Banks and the Euro) and the functioning and challenges confronted by this new institutional arrangement, in particular with regard to the governance structure for financial regulation and supervision. In the third part the international monetary system, its history and institutions, with emphasis on the law of the International Monetary Fund, is examined. It also presents a rethinking of the way international financial institutions manage financial crises. This new text fills a gap in the current public international law literature for a systematic and comprehensive text on the international monetary and financial system and is essential reading for academics and practitioners in the field of monetary law.


Multi-objective design of Water Distribution Systems (WDSs) has received considerable attention in the past. Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) are popular in tackling this problem due to their ability to approach the true Pareto-optimal front (PF) in a single run. Recently, several hybrid metaheuristics based on MOEAs have been proposed and validated on test problems. Among these algorithms, AMALGAM and MOHO are two noteworthy representatives which mix their constituent algorithms in contrasting fashion. In this paper, they are employed to solve a wide range of benchmark design problems against another state-of-the-art algorithm, namely NSGA-II. The design task is formulated as a bi-objective optimisation problem taking cost and network resilience into account. The performance of three algorithms is assessed via normalised hypervolume indicator. The results demonstrate that AMALGAM is superior to MOHO and NSGA-II in terms of convergence and diversity on the networks of small-to-medium size; however, for larger networks, the performance of hybrid algorithms deteriorates as they lose their adaptive capabilities. Future improvement and/or redesign on hybrid algorithms should not only adopt the strategies of adaptive portfolios of sub-algorithms and global information sharing, but also prevent the deterioration mainly caused by imbalance of constituent algorithms.


In many environments offering short-term or temporary Internet access
(such as coffee shops), it is common to start new connections in a
captive portal mode. This highly restricts what the customer can do
until the customer has authenticated. This document describes a DHCP
option (and a Router Advertisement (RA) extension) to inform clients
that they are behind some sort of captive-portal device, and that they
will need to authenticate to get Internet access. It is not a full
solution to address all of the issues that clients may have with
captive portals; it is designed to be used in larger solutions. The
method of authenticating to, and interacting with the captive portal
is out of scope of this document. RFC7710 used DHCP code point 160.
Due to a conflict, this document specifies TBD. [ This document is
being collaborated on in Github at: https://github.com/capport-
wg/7710bis. The most recent version of the document, open issues, etc
should all be available here. The authors (gratefully) accept pull
requests. Text in square brackets will be removed before publication.
]


A Note On The Effect Of Personal Taxes And Dividends on Capital Asset Prices(*) In spite of the 1986 change in the tax laws that equate the personal tax rate on both dividend and capital gains income, the effect of differential taxation of capital gains and dividends continues to be an issue of primary concern to both policy makers and corporate financial officers. Brennan[6] has hypothesized that a higher personal tax rate on dividends than on capital gains might result inhigher required returns on stocks that pay high dividends. Even with equal tax rateson capital gains and dividend income, the option investors have to defer capitalgains income on stocks might still lead to higher returns being required on stocks having higher current dividend yields[7]. On the other hand, Black and Scholes[4] have hypothesized that, because of the preferential tax treatment of dividend income received by corporations (70-80% of dividend income is excludable under current tax law), corporate investors might require a lower return on stocks that pay high dividends,(1) whereas many tax-exempt entities such as pension funds might be indifferent to the dividend yield. In addition, Miller and Scholes[20] have developed a model that shows that individual investors can shield dividend income from personal taxation and thus also be indifferent to stock dividend yields. Litzenberger and Ramaswamy[19] have stated that the existence of a higher or lower required return on stocks with high dividend yields is an empirical issue. In an empirical test, the authors discovered evidence of a higher risk-adjusted return on stocks with high dividend yields over the interval 1936-77.(2) These results are disturbing, since they imply that corporate and tax-exempt investors can earn abnormally high returns just by investing in high dividend-yielding stocks and that corporate managers can lower the required return on their stock (and thus raise their stock price) just by reducing their dividend[5].(3) However, Litzenberger and Ramaswamy observed that their results might have been biased by misspecification of the market proxy used in adjusting for risk. Blume[5] and Hess[13] have further stated that the use of historical estimates of risk might have distorted the results. The purpose of this research is to utilize a different measure of risk in order to reexamine the Litzenberger and Ramaswamy model of the effect of dividend yield on required returns. THE TEST In the Litzenberger and Ramaswamy[19] model, the required expected return on an asset is a function of its systematic risk or beta B and its dividend yield, i.e., (1) [Mathematical Expression Omitted] where r, d, and B denote the total return, the dividend yield, and the beta of the subscripted asset, respectively; subscripts j and f denote the risky asset j and the risk-free asset f, respectively; | denotes a random variable; E is the expected value operator; and the g terms are parameters to be estimated. The beta measures the contribution of the asset to the variance risk of a diversified portfolio and is computed as (2) [Mathematical Expression Omitted] where m denotes the market portfolio of all assets. The [g.sub.1] parameter represents the premium expected return for beta risk and should be positive. On the other hand, the value of the [g.sub.2] parameter depends on whether investors require a premium return for differential dividend yields. Obviously, if [g.sub.2] is greater (less) than 0, then a higher return is required on assets with high (low) dividend yields. To test for the sign of [g.sub.2], the cross-sectional average returns above the risk-free rate on a large number of risky assets can be regressed on their estimated betas and average dividend yields above the risk-free rate. To validly conduct such a regression, several econometric problems must be addressed. To begin, Litzenberger and Ramaswamy[19] have noted that the choice of the proxy for the market portfolio can lead to systematic biases in the measure of betas. …


Abstract Large scale and often radical change has taken place in Karoo vegetation over the past three centuries. This change can be equated with desertification and desertization processes. Change largely embodies the thinning out of the vegetation, decrease or destruction of perennial grass, and an increase and spreading of undesirable karoo bush and woody species. In many instances veld types have changed and the drier types extended into 'the moister types. The overall vegetation change has been ordinated into five broadly overlapping phases. These are primary degradation, denudation, revegetation, secondary degradation and a desertified phase. The main factor causing change is over‐exploitation by sheep. Seasonal fluctuations in climate enhance the instability of the vegetation.


BACKGROUND
Chronic alcohol abuse contributes not only to an increased risk of health-related complications, but also to a premature mortality in adults. Myocardial dysfunction, including the development of a syndrome referred to as alcoholic cardiomyopathy, appears to be a major contributing factor. One mechanism to account for the pathogenesis of alcoholic cardiomyopathy involves alterations in protein expression secondary to an inhibition of protein synthesis. However, the full extent to which myocardial proteins are affected by chronic alcohol consumption remains unresolved.

METHODS
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of chronic alcohol consumption on the expression of cardiac proteins. Male rats were maintained for 16 weeks on a 40% ethanol-containing diet in which alcohol was provided both in drinking water and agar blocks. Control animals were pair-fed to consume the same caloric intake. Heart homogenates from control- and ethanol-fed rats were labeled with the cleavable isotope coded affinity tags (ICAT). Following the reaction with the ICAT reagent, we applied one-dimensional gel electrophoresis with in-gel trypsin digestion of proteins and subsequent MALDI-TOF-TOF mass spectrometric techniques for identification of peptides. Differences in the expression of cardiac proteins from control- and ethanol-fed rats were determined by mass spectrometry approaches.

RESULTS
Initial proteomic analysis identified and quantified hundreds of cardiac proteins. Major decreases in the expression of specific myocardial proteins were observed. Proteins were grouped depending on their contribution to multiple activities of cardiac function and metabolism, including mitochondrial-, glycolytic-, myofibrillar-, membrane-associated, and plasma proteins. Another group contained identified proteins that could not be properly categorized under the aforementioned classification system.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the changes in proteins, we speculate modulation of cardiac muscle protein expression represents a fundamental alteration induced by chronic alcohol consumption, consistent with changes in myocardial wall thickness measured under the same conditions.


The wide adoption of self-driving, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promises to dramatically reduce the number of traffic accidents. Some accidents, though, will be inevitable, because some situations will require AVs to choose the lesser of two evils. For example, running over a pedestrian on the road or a passer-by on the side; or choosing whether to run over a group of pedestrians or to sacrifice the passenger by driving into a wall. It is a formidable challenge to define the algorithms that will guide AVs confronted with such moral dilemmas. In particular, these moral algorithms will need to accomplish three potentially incompatible objectives: being consistent, not causing public outrage, and not discouraging buyers. We argue to achieve these objectives, manufacturers and regulators will need psychologists to apply the methods of experimental ethics to situations involving AVs and unavoidable harm. To illustrate our claim, we report three surveys showing that laypersons are relatively comfortable with utilitarian AVs, programmed to minimize the death toll in case of unavoidable harm. We give special attention to whether an AV should save lives by sacrificing its owner, and provide insights into (i) the perceived morality of this self-sacrifice, (ii) the willingness to see this self-sacrifice being legally enforced, (iii) the expectations that AVs will be programmed to self-sacrifice, and (iv) the willingness to buy self-sacrificing AVs.


In recent years, applications of non-Newtonian fluids as lubricants have received great interest since the use of these non-Newtonian lubricants showed an increase in load carrying capacity and reduction in frictional force with the escalation in additives concentration. The demands of the present day industry rotating machinery includes high speed, compactness, light weight engines, high operating loads, high power transmission, high efficiency, and high performance of the engine. As a result of high speed machines, bearings are inclined to have excessive power loss and increase in oil temperature. The former reduces the efficiency of the engine and the latter causes the undesired changes in the lubricating oil. The plain journal bearings at high rotation speeds are subjected to instability like oil whirl and whip ruining the bearing and also the machine. Therefore, this poses a need to change in the bearing design. In the present paper, an attempt is made to briefly introduce the various non-linear models used and the different approaches that have been carried out by the researches in the past few years to improve and achieve the stability of journal bearing along with enhanced performances and characteristics.


This dissertation focuses on how important factors such as gender inequalities and gender vulnerabilities contribute to fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS. The study focuses on a community in Phoenix, called Clayfield. The study examines aspects of masculinity, sexual relations, socio-economic vulnerabilities and domestic violence and demonstrates how these elements predispose women and girls to HIV infection. As a result of gender inequalities and imbalances, women are vulnerable to HIV infection. The study also explores how risky behaviour, by both men and women, can escalate women's vulnerability to the disease. The central argument engages discussion on crucial issues around gender imbalances and vulnerabilities. The study concludes with recommendations pertinent to challenging present gender-based initiatives and interventions, and suggests possible gender-sensitive strategies that could assist in curbing the spread of the disease.


Background: International Academy of Cytology (IAC) has established a process to produce comprehensive and standardized approach to fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) reporting. They have categorized the breast lesions in C1 to C5. (C1-Insufficient material, C2-Benign, C3- Atypical, C4-Suspicious & C5-Malignant). Aims and Objectives: The aim of study is to classify various breast lesions (C1 to C5) and to grade breast carcinoma on FNAC using Robinson's grading system which is then correlated with modified Bloom–Richardson grading. Materials and Methods: All routine FNAC for breast lump were included in the study during the period from Jan 2016 to Jan 2017. The study was conducted in the Department of pathology and lab medicine of a tertiary care hospital in central India. Results: A total 225 female patients were included in the study, with an age group ranging from 15 - 79 years, with lesions in breast were taken. C1 lesions were found in 3 cases, C2 in 186 cases, C3 in 13 cases, C4 in 4 cases, and C5 in 19 cases. Correlation of cytohistological grading was obtained in 108 cases. Conclusion: Cytological categorization based on IAC structured reporting will enhance the reproducibility of reports among pathologist & clinicians. With the comparison between cytohistological nuclear grading, the cytoprognostic scores will help in evaluating the aggressiveness of tumor, predicts histological grade and prognosis. It could be a useful parameter for selecting neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.


Two indices of cumulative precipitation deficit and maximum precipitation deficit are used for assessing the severity of drought of a certain year such that a regional frequency analysis has been carried out by L-moment. In this paper, 11 synoptic stations in Isfahan province, Iran with a semi-arid environment have been used. Hosking homogeneity test is applied for identifying a homogeneous region and Hosking goodness of fit test is performed for selecting the best regional distribution. According to the two tests, generalised logistic (GL) for the two of the drought indices is selected as the best regional distribution. Therefore, severity of drought with various return periods is estimated for CPD and MPD using GL. The results show that, Ardestan, Naeen and Shargh Isfahan stations have the most severity drought. Using the outcome of this study, drought severity is quantitatively evaluated and the required water volume for agriculture can be determined in this province for surviving drought.


ABSTRACT As Chinese investment in foreign land and agriculture expands dramatically worldwide, a growing body of research has emerged on the prevalence of land deals in Latin America and Africa. Southeast Asia, however, has only recently begun to receive significant attention in these discussions. A deeper exploration of the Southeast Asian context offers crucial insights into understanding the puzzle of global land deals (why, where, how they occur) more broadly. This paper frames this exploration via an overview of regional land deal trends – focusing particularly on China's emergence as a prolific investor in the Global South, and why Chinese investment is increasingly targeting Southeast Asia, especially vis-à-vis expanding flex and boom crop production. This paper aims to provide a broader contextualization for recent Southeast Asian case studies, and to highlight why more research in the region is key in deepening our understanding of global land deal trends.


The sharp increase in depository institution failures in recent years has drawn attention to the moral hazard created by under-priced deposit insurance. To identify possible reforms, researchers have begun to consider alternative deposit insurance arrangements. This paper contributes to that literature by examining the deposit insurance system of Kansas, which operated from 1909 to 1929. The Kansas system had a number of regulations that were intended to limit risk-taking, and membership was made voluntary to assuage objections that insurance forces conservative banks to protect depositors of high-risk institutions. Using individual bank data, we test explicitly whether adverse selection and moral hazard characterized the Kansas system. We find that risk-prone banks were the most likely to join the system at its inception. And, using a simultaneous equation model, we find that both adverse selection and moral hazard behavior were present throughout the system's first ten years.


Despite women's increased labor force attachment over the lifecycle, household surveys such as the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) do not show increases in retirement income (pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs) for women at older ages. We use linked survey-administrative data to demonstrate that retirement incomes are considerably underreported in the CPS ASEC and that women's economic progress at older ages has been substantially understated over the last quarter century. Specifically, the CPS ASEC shows median household income for women age 65-69 rose 21 percent since the late 1980s, while the administrative records show an increase of 58 percent. Survey biases in women's own incomes appear largest for women with the longest work histories. We also exploit the panel dimension of our data to follow a cohort of women and their spouses (if present) as they transition into retirement in recent years. In contrast to previous work, we find that most women do not experience noticeable drops in income up to five years after claiming social security, with retirement income playing an important role in maintaining their overall standard of living. Our results pose a challenge to the literature on the "retirement consumption puzzle" and suggest total income replacement rates are high for recent retirees.


Language can be a powerful tool to convince others and
make them cooperative. Cialdini
(2007) has worked out several principles along which it is
possible to analyze discourses in terms of their persuasiveness. Others also
have contributed with tools to analyzing discourses such as Fairclough (2003). These tools are used to
analyze the "Evil Empire Speech" of the US President Ronald Reagan that he held
at the National Association of Evangelicals, 1983, in Orlando Florida. His historical
speech was aimed at convincing the nation about the righteousness of his
nuclear policy. He partly rewrote the already prepared script and included the "evil empire" part. The
analysis supports that his speech was an exceptionally effective one. Reagan
made his speech an example of the following principles of
persuasiveness such as reciprocity, authority, commitment, liking, scarcity and
social proof. He wanted support for belligerent intentions from a faithful
community, which was already problematic, but he got the audience on his side
through emphasizing his similarities with them, his own faithfulness, the
presentation of strong examples and balancing humor and seriousness.
Additionally, he introduced the striking metaphor "evil empire", which stuck to
the peoples' minds and had an impact on them. He also appealed to the people
through implicitly distinguishing the evil from the ones who were not evil—the US citizens. Thus, he made the American people
feel better, to ensure them that they do the right thing when following him. He
ranked religious people above him when he was joking about clergy men and
politicians. To reinforce his authority, he borrowed the
authority of various respected men through citing them. He improved his
position and the power of his arguments using the philosophical wisdom of
others.


UNLABELLED
OBJECT.: Sacrococcygeal dimples in the gluteal fold, also known as coccygeal pits, are observed in 2%-4% of newborns. Sacrococcygeal dimples are not generally considered to be associated with a significant risk of intraspinal anomalies and therefore are not thought to require further radiographic evaluation. Accordingly, the precise incidence and nature of intraspinal lesions that may be associated with sacrococcygeal dimples is unclear. This study was conducted to determine the incidence of intraspinal lesions in patients with intergluteal dimples.

METHODS
In this study, the authors used MRI to evaluate 103 children who were seen at the Niigata University Medical and Dental Hospital between 2006 and 2011 because of skin abnormalities in the lumbosacral region. Of these children, 14 were excluded as having a subcutaneous fatty mass, and 5 were excluded because the dimples were above the gluteal fold or did not end at the coccyx. The remaining 84 patients were classified according to whether the bottom of the dimple was visible (shallow) or not (deep). The authors also retrospectively examined other skin abnormalities and coexisting anomalies.

RESULTS
The mean age at the time of MRI evaluation was 11.7 months. Magnetic resonance imaging led to the identification of fibrolipoma of the terminal filum (FTF) in 14 cases (16.7%); 6 of these patients also had a low conus. Classified by depth, there were 58 cases with shallow and 26 with deep dimples. Fibrolipoma of the terminal filum was found in significantly more patients with deep dimples (9 [34.6%]) than in those with shallow dimples (5 [8.6%]). The frequency of other congenital anomalies was significantly higher in patients with FTF-associated dimples (6 [42.9%] of 14) than in those with dimples that were not associated with FTF (9 [12.9%] of 70).

CONCLUSIONS
Fibrolipoma of the terminal filum was identified by MRI in 16.7% of patients with sacrococcygeal dimples. The risk of FTF increased when the dimples were deeply excavated or were accompanied by congenital anomalies. Magnetic resonance imaging should be performed to identify intraspinal lesions when there are high risk factors for intraspinal abnormalities, or when an ultrasound screening suggests intraspinal abnormalities.


By interviewing 65 construction managers and field supervisors, the first-line supervisor's job is studied to develop a better understanding of what constitutes effective foremanship. An analysis of the tabular interview data and comments from owners of general contracting and subcontracting firms, project managers, superintendents, and foremen highlighted considerable differences of opinion of what role the foreman serves on a construction site. The information on motivation to become and remain a foreman, reasons for quitting, differences between more and less productive field supervisors, and differences between foremen and journeymen are examined to assist management in the selection of future foremen and development of additional training programs to improve a foreman's management skills. In addition, current procedures for foreman selection, evaluation, recognition and compensation are reviewed to develop alternative methods that would improve foreman motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity.


Big Data Analytics is an emerging field since massive storage and computing capabilities have been made available by advanced e-infrastructures. Earth and Environmental sciences are likely to benefit from Big Data Analytics techniques supporting the processing of the large number of Earth Observation datasets currently acquired and generated through observations and simulations. However, Earth Science data and applications present specificities in terms of relevance of the geospatial information, wide heterogeneity of data models and formats, and complexity of processing. Therefore, Big Earth Data Analytics requires specifically tailored techniques and tools. The EarthServer Big Earth Data Analytics engine offers a solution for coverage-type datasets, built around a high performance array database technology, and the adoption and enhancement of standards for service interaction (OGC WCS and WCPS). The EarthServer solution, led by the collection of requirements from scientific communities and international initiatives, provides a holistic approach that ranges from query languages and scalability up to mobile access and visualization. The result is demonstrated and validated through the development of lighthouse applications in the Marine, Geology, Atmospheric, Planetary and Cryospheric science domains.


This article is a slightly modified version of an invited address that was given at the Eighth IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Applications in Monterey, California, on 2 March 1992. It describes the lessons learned in developing and implementing the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In so doing, the article provides a historical perspective of the program in terms of the stages it went through as it matured. These stages are similar to the "ages of artificial intelligence" that Pat Winston described a year before the NASA program was initiated. The final section of the article attempts to generalize some of the lessons learned during the first seven years of the NASA AI program into AI program management heuristics.


Humans are social animals. Human societies emerge from vast networks of
cooperative interactions between many different individuals. In this respect, humans
are similar to most other primates. However, human societies are unusual among
primates in the number of different types of cooperative relationships that are
involved. In humans, males and females form strong pair bonds within large multimale,
multi-female societies in which many other cooperative relationships are also
important. How and when did human social systems arise? Do males and females use
different types of cooperative strategies? Under what conditions does paternal care
evolve? Do males and females have different constraints, and how do these affect the
types of social strategies they employ? How do factors such as environment quality
and seasonality modify these strategies? This thesis seeks answers to these questions
using computer simulations based on the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. The
hypotheses generated by these models are tested using data from living primates.
They are then used to investigate the kinds of societies that our hominid ancestors
may have lived in.
The theoretical and empirical evidence presented in this thesis suggests that
sex differences in the energetic cost of reproduction determine the cooperative
strategies, and ultimately the types of social groups, that evolve. It is proposed that
during hominid evolution female energetic costs increased greatly, in comparison to
male energetic costs, due to changes in body size dimorphism, diet and brain size. A
two-stage model of hominid social structure is developed. The first stage, at the
transition from the australopithecines to Homo erectus, would have involved an
increase in female cooperation, especially food sharing. The second stage, occurring
between 500,000 and 100,000 years ago, would have involved male care giving, the
formation of pair bonds and the sexual division of labour within the context of a
wider cooperative network.


We analyze stochastic gradient descent for optimizing non-convex functions. In many cases for non-convex functions the goal is to find a reasonable local minimum, and the main concern is that gradient updates are trapped in saddle points. In this paper we identify strict saddle property for non-convex problem that allows for efficient optimization. Using this property we show that stochastic gradient descent converges to a local minimum in a polynomial number of iterations. To the best of our knowledge this is the first work that gives global convergence guarantees for stochastic gradient descent on non-convex functions with exponentially many local minima and saddle points. Our analysis can be applied to orthogonal tensor decomposition, which is widely used in learning a rich class of latent variable models. We propose a new optimization formulation for the tensor decomposition problem that has strict saddle property. As a result we get the first online algorithm for orthogonal tensor decomposition with global convergence guarantee.


Building upon Iossa and Martimort (2008), we study the main incentive issues and the form of optimal contracts for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in transports. We present a basic model of procurement in a multitask environment in which a risk-averse firm chooses unobservable efforts in infrastructure and service quality. We begin by analyzing the effect on incentives and risk transfer of bundling building and operation into a single contract. We consider the factors that affect the optimal allocation of demand risk and their implications for the choice of contract length. We discuss the dynamics of PPP contracts and how the risk of regulatory opportunism affects contract design and incentives.


Inequalities have been exacerbating in the Netherlands since the economic crisis hit ground in 2008, with poverty increasing substantially. The amount of the Dutch population living under the poverty line increased from 7,4 % in 2010 to 10,3 % in 2013. Different types of household are affected: single parent and one-person households, as well as those with migration background. Moreover, life course influences are inherent in the rising amount of children and of elderly in poverty. The aim of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on how new inequalities impact the consumption of food, housing and mobility. Inequalities in food consumption are manifested in the growing amount of food packages handed out by foodbanks increased by 30 % (2012-2013). Housing cost makes up a substantial share of the total expenditure for consumers with lower income and social inequalities become visible in the increasing late payments on mortgages as well as on energy and water consumption. Mobility is of interest, because low-income households appear to cut expenditure on mobility, considering the proportion low-income households spent on mobility is lower as households above the poverty line (7 and 11 % respectively). This paper sheds empirical light on consumption inequalities by providing quantitative empirical evidence. A combination of statistical data is analysed. Life-course influences thereby indicate different peculiarities of consumption inequalities in the types of households affected by poverty.


The objective of this research is to produce a critical case study of the European Union's modus operandi in approaching urban issues through an analysis of the formulation and operationalisation of its Structural Fund Initiative for deprived neighbourhoods, URBAN (1994-1999). The key actors and major events in the decision-making process, together with their methods of determining URBAN's main objectives, are the focus of the empirical study. The member states' strategies to operationalise the Community guidelines are illustrated by four local URBAN projects in London (Park Royal), Merseyside, Berlin and Duisburg-Marxloh. The central research question addresses the decisions regarding URBAN at EU, national and local case study level. More specifically, the study investigates the inputs and processes of the URBAN Initiative by applying the theoretical framework of policy networks and multi-level governance to EU decision making at the conceptual level. The investigation was undertaken by means of qualitative "elite" interviews with EU representatives, central and local government officials, and local project staff in the UK and Germany. By intensive analysis grounded in the empirical accounts, the study aims to identify three main issues: i) do professional elites and policy networks determine the EU's structural funding framework; ii) do policy networks evolve and operate conditionally to European, national and local circumstances; and iii) are the nature and characteristics of policy networks and multi-level governance related to the policy output. In the analytical framework, the concept of Multi-level Governance is understood to comprise the three notions of Participation, defined as Network Actor, Partnership. perceived as Network Interaction, and Multi-dimensionality, considered as Network Range. Hence, the study illustrates the conceptualisation process of the URBAN programme at EU level, as well as the national and local variations in the URBAN projects' formulation and operationalisation. These are a function of the specific constellation of and interplay between Participation, Partnership and Multi-dimensionality. The outcome of this study is a critical analysis of EU decision-making processes and policy performance related to urban governance, a governance which advances, albeit in a limited way, the EU's cohesion policy. Additionally, existing bodies of literature for the European, national and local level were drawn together into one multi-layered analytical framework of policy making and policy implementation.


Gerald R. Ford stepped into the American presidency during a constitutional crisis that many believed was the country's worst since the Civil War. Extraordinary Circumstances is a stunning collection of behind-closed-doors images by President Ford's personal photographer, David Hume Kennerly. Seen here are intimate scenes of the inner workings of the White House; Ford's family and much-beloved wife Betty; and many of the twentieth-century's most compelling and elusive figures, including Queen Elizabeth II, Leonid Brezhnev, Emperor Hirohito, Deng Xioping, Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin, Richard Nixon, Andy Warhol, and George Harrison. The book follows Gerald Ford from the day President Nixon appointed him as vice president through the tumultuous early crises of his presidency, including his controversial pardon of Nixon, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and his wife Betty's breast cancer, to the end of his presidency after losing to Jimmy Carter. Adding depth and perspective to the photos are excerpts from exclusive interviews with President Ford, President Jimmy Carter, President George H. W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Alan Greenspan, and other prominent members of the Ford administration. Extraordinary Circumstances is sponsored and published by the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, the home of the David Hume Kennerly Photographic Archive. It features an introduction by NBC's Tom Brokaw and an overview of Ford's life by famed historian Richard Norton Smith.


To a large extent, the systemic importance of financial institutions is related to the topology of financial liability networks. In this work we reconstruct and analyze the - to our knowledge - largest financial network that has been studied up to now. This financial liability network consists of 51,980 firms and 796 banks. It represents 80.2% of total liabilities towards banks by firms and all interbank liabilities from the entire Austrian banking system. We find that firms contribute to systemic risk in similar ways as banks do. In particular, we identify several medium-sized banks and firms with total assets below 1 bln. EUR that are systemically important in the entire financial network. We show that the notion of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) or global and domestic systemically important banks (G-SIBs or D-SIBs) can be straightforwardly extended to firms. We find that firms introduce slightly more systemic risk than banks. In Austria in 2008, the total systemic risk of the interbank network amounts to only 29% of the total systemic risk of the entire financial network, consisting of firms and banks.


The chapter examines the use of stem cells in ophthalmological pathologies affecting both the anterior and posterior segments. The authors review the clinical trials that have most contributed to defining the role and potential of stem cell regenerative therapy in corneal and retinal pathology. The results described in the scientific literature are analyzed and commented, without neglecting the possible side effects related to the use of this therapy. Within the anterior segment, the greatest efforts were made to study the possible uses of limbal epithelial stem cells (LESCs). They were the first stem cells to be discovered at the level of the anterior segment and currently the only ones involved in clinical practice with satisfactory results. At this juncture there have been significant successes in the treatment of corneal stem cell deficiency and of corneal scars. The chapter later investigates the possible applications of stem cell therapy in degenerative retinal diseases, with particular reference to retinitis pigmentosa, Stargardt's disease, and age-related macular degeneration. It then describes how the use of cell therapies, in particular those that use ADSC, can contribute, through various methods, to the containment of the evolution of retinal degenerative diseases. These mechanisms cover various biological aspects and can be summarized as follows: neurotrophism, oxidation, vascular changes, apoptosis, inflammation, or immunology. The ophthalmological modalities of the cell graft and what is the ideal approach for an ophthalmological cellular surgery are later on described. Finally, the technique used by the author and the possible outcomes in the course of degenerative retinopathy are described.


After acidification of shallow softwater lakes as a consequence of atmospheric sulphur and nitrogen deposition, the concentrations of nitrogen and carbon dioxide in the water layer are raised and the cation reserves in the sediment are depleted. Liming can counteract acidification, but can also lead to further nutrient mobilisation. Controlled supply of calcareous groundwater is an alternative method to restore the pH and alkalinity of the water layer. Sediment removal and subsequent restoration of pH leads to a reversal of the nutrient status towards pre-acidification levels. However, rapid re-acidification may occur as a consequence of supplying water from the catchment which is acid and rich in nitrogen. After three years of repeated groundwater supply, the base saturation of the sediment was higher than that of adjacent reference lakes where the sediment had been removed simultaneously. This base saturation is possibly a key factor in the prevention of re-acidification. During a five-year period after the start of groundwater supply, CO 2 and nitrogen concentrations in the water layer decreased and were not higher compared to adjacent reference lakes. Characteristic softwater macrophytes returned, but not in the reference lakes.


Increasing costs due to the rising attrition of drug candidates in late developmental phases alongside post-marketing withdrawal of drugs challenge the pharmaceutical industry to further improve their current preclinical safety assessment strategies. One of the most common reasons for the termination of drug candidates is drug induced hepatotoxicity, which more often than not remains undetected in early developmental stages, thus emphasizing the necessity for improved and more predictive preclinical test systems. One reason for the very limited value of currently applied in vitro test systems for the detection of potential hepatotoxic liabilities is the lack of organotypic and tissue-specific physiology of hepatocytes cultured in ordinary monolayer culture formats.
The thesis at hand primarily deals with the evaluation of both two- and three-dimensional cell culture approaches with respect to their relative ability to predict the hepatotoxic potential of drug candidates in early developmental phases. First, different hepatic cell models, which are routinely used in pharmaceutical industry (primary human hepatocytes as well as the three cell lines HepG2, HepaRG and Upcyte hepatocytes), were investigated in conventional 2D monolayer culture with respect to their ability to detect hepatotoxic effects in simple cytotoxicity studies. Moreover, it could be shown that the global protein expression levels of all cell lines substantially differ from that of primary human hepatocytes, with the least pronounced difference in HepaRG cells.
The introduction of a third dimension through the cultivation of spheroids enables hepatocytes to recapitulate their typical native polarity and furthermore dramatically increases the contact surface of adjacent cells. These differences in cellular architecture have a positive influence on hepatocyte longevity and the expression of drug metabolizing enzymes and transporters, which could be proven via immunofluorescent (IF) staining for at least 14 days in PHH and at least 28 days in HepaRG spheroids, respectively. Additionally, the IF staining of three different phase III transporters (MDR1, MRP2 and BSEP) indicated a bile canalicular network in spheroids of both cell models. A dose-dependent inducibility of important cytochrome P450 isoenzymes in HepaRG spheroids could be shown on the protein level via IF for at least 14 days. CYP inducibility of HepaRG cells cultured in 2D and 3D was compared on the mRNA level for up to 14 days and inducibility was generally lower in 3D compared to 2D under the conditions of this study. In a comparative cytotoxicity study, both PHH and HepaRG spheroids as well as HepaRG monolayers have been treated with five hepatotoxic drugs for up to 14 days and viability was measured at three time points (days 3, 7 and 14). A clear time- and dose-dependent onset of the drug-induced hepatotoxic effects was observable in all conditions tested, indicated by a shift of the respective EC50 value towards lower doses by increasing exposure. The observed effects were most pronounced in PHH spheroids, thus indicating those as the most sensitive cell model in this study. Moreover, HepaRG cells were more sensitive in spheroid culture compared to monolayers, which suggests a potential application of spheroids as long-term test system for the detection of hepatotoxicities with slow onset. Finally, the basal protein expression levels of three antigens (CYP1A2, CYP3A4 and NAT 1/2) were analyzed via Western Blotting in HepaRG cells cultured in three different cell culture formats (2D, 3D and QV) in order to estimate the impact of the cell culture conditions on protein expression levels. In the QV system enables a pump-driven flow of cell culture media, which introduces both mechanical stimuli through shear and molecular stimuli through dynamic circulation to the monolayer. Those stimuli resulted in a clearly positive effect on the expression levels of the selected antigens by an increased expression level in comparison to both 2D and 3D. In contrast, HepaRG spheroids showed time-dependent differences with the overall highest levels at day 7.
The studies presented in this thesis delivered valuable information on the increased physiological relevance in dependence on the cell culture format: three-dimensionality as well as the circulation of media lead to a more differentiated phenotype in hepatic cell models. Those cell culture formats are applicable in preclinical drug development in order to obtain more relevant information at early developmental stages and thus help to create a more efficient drug development process. Nonetheless, further studies are necessary to thoroughly characterize, validate and standardize such novel cell culture approaches prior to their routine application in industry.


Proteins and DNA can be trapped in the microcracks on the surface of stone tools, which can then be extracted and analyzed to aid in inferring the use of the tool (Shanks et al. 2001; 2005). This nondestructive method involves the use of sonication to release DNA from the microcracks, then amplification of regions of mitochondrial DNA that are species specific. This technique was applied to stone tools from the Bridge River site in British Columbia by researchers at UMT's Ancient and Modern Molecular Anthropology labs. Bridge River archaeologists have designated the tools as used in "food processing or tool manufacturing" (Prentiss 2014), yet our analyses could connect the tools with specific species such as elk or deer. While part of our project entailed perfecting the methodology for DNA extraction and combatting complications, the main hypothesis behind our research is: Hypothesis: The potential for extracting DNA from archaeologically recovered lithics will enable identification of the species on which they were used. We were able to amplify the 16S region of the mtDNA molecule from a slate hide scraper, which when compared to GenBank was an exact match for Puma concolor (North American cougar / puma / Mountain Lion). Other tools have yielded bacterial matches (Paenibacillus and a Bacillus simplex strains). Our preliminary results suggest that DNA is accessible from the Bridge River lithic assemblage at low frequencies. As this project continues, we hope our goals aid in understanding the Bridge River site lithic tool use based on future aDNA collection.


This Article presents a new paradigm, premised on the equal protection principle, for the legal regulation of human interactions with domestic animals: Equal Protection of Animals (EPA). EPA combines the insights of vulnerability theorists with the equal protection principle and capability theory to create a mechanism for recognizing the equal claims of human and nonhuman animals to protections against suffering. Under such an approach, domestic animals - like humans - have claims to food, hydration, shelter, bodily integrity (including avoiding pain), companionship, and the ability to exercise and to engage in natural behaviors of movement.Existing animal welfare and anti-cruelty laws, despite their stated purposes, fail to protect animals adequately. This Article identifies the ontology of the problem as interest-convergence, famously described by Derrick Bell in the desegregation context. The privileged (humans in this case) protect the disadvantaged (animals) only when their interests align. Because humans profit economically and socially from the exploitation of animals, interests often diverge. When this divergence occurs, all protections for animals are placed in jeopardy. Unlike protections for other disadvantaged groups, there is no constitutional or other legal floor guarding the basic liberties of animals. Interest convergence results in what I term "legal gerrymandering for human interest," or the redrawing of the natural baseline of protections for animals to further human use of animals. In addition to undermining fundamental protections for animals against abuse and suffering, legal gerrymandering creates inconsistencies that violate legal norms of precedent and procedure. Specifically, I address differential treatment of animals of the same legal and species classes as well as different treatment of scientific evidence in animal law as opposed to other legal contexts.While some scholars seek to address the problem of inadequate animal protections, their proposals - treating animals as legal persons or quasi property - suffer two shortcomings. First, under traditional rights- and interests-based reforms, strong human rights or interests in using animals will always trump animal rights or interests, even with regard to avoiding some types of suffering. Second, existing scholarship is entrenched in a paralyzing debate about whether categorizing animals as "persons" instead of "property" will improve their legal protections. EPA does not have these limitations. EPA seeks to maximize the basic capabilities of human and nonhuman animals within the same population, addressing the hierarchy problem that human rights and interests are privileged over those of animals. Human claims to maximize basic capabilities cannot be valued above nonhuman animal claims for the same. Further, EPA directly considers animal capacities without regard to category; there is no need to categorize animals as persons or as a special form of property.


African American youth, particularly black males, are targets in American society. It is almost as if they have had a bull's-eye painted on their backs at a young age, even before they are sent off to school. The circles must be iridescent and magnetic to attract those elements in society that profit from the exploitation of children. Corporate capitalists use television to target the children for their unhealthy food products which are completely unnecessary for a wholesome, nutritious diet, as well as over-priced shoes and clothing imported from countries where the hyper-exploitation of children and adults guarantees huge profits. When our children enter the overcrowded and under-funded urban public schools, they are targeted disproportionately for separate Special Education classes and programs that increase the likelihood that, even if they complete twelve years of schooling, they will lack the skills needed in an increasingly technological service economy. Many of our young people have circles added to their personal bull's-eyes by the failure of parents and guardians to nurture their spiritual and moral sensibilities through prolonged exposure to their religious and cultural heritage. And many religious institutions have failed to reach out and make this task easier. Knowing who they are and why they are here at an early age is an important way to erase those circles that may be drawn by negative influences in the school or neighborhood. In some areas black teenagers are the targets of drug dealers and law enforcement officers, and their own personal bull's-eyes make them highly visible targets, especially if they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Creating safe and wholesome recreational spaces for our young people has not been a priority within our communities, and for that reason the children have the adults to blame for their increased vulnerability. The elders respond that the young people become targets in school because "they don't know how to act.... If these children spent more time learning and less time loud-mouthing the teachers, they would not even notice the lack of recreational facilities." But the failure to provide supervised sports, athletic, and musical programs for our children means that they spend more time in the streets where they are more likely to become entangled with (and targeted by) the prison-industrial complex. It has been demonstrated numerous times that sports and musical programs can be used to motivate children to excel academically. And yet we have allowed school officials to curtail or drop those programs most likely to spark academic success, and the resulting gap in our young people's educational experiences has been filled by peers, promoters, or profiteers. Whereas we would want all our children schooled in the rich African American musical heritage of Spirituals, Blues, Jazz, and Be-Bop, as well as our contributions to European musical forms, on their own they are narrowly exposed to Funk, R & B, Hip Hop, and rap music. Whereas we would want all children to receive athletic training that would not only benefit them physically, but would also allow them to participate in healthy competition that would nurture their self-confidence and self-discipline, on their own they might find role models on the basketball courts who may or may not be burdened by their own personal bull's-eyes. Since there is evidence that in too many instances the school, neighborhood, and even some families have been doing a lousy job of protecting and nurturing our children, and television and the news media have focused much attention on the negative aspects of Hip Hop, the question is: What role can Hip Hop culture play in erasing the circles around the bull's-eyes that make our children such highly vulnerable targets? …


Abstract. Conferences, meetings and congresses are an important part of today's economic and scientific world. But the environmental impact, especially from greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel, can be extensive. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions account for the warming of the atmosphere and oceans. This study draws on the need to quantify and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with travel activities and aims to give suggestions for organizers and participants on possible ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, demonstrated on the example of the European Geography Association (EGEA) Annual Congress 2013 in Wasilkow, Poland. The lack of a comprehensive methodology for the estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from travel led to an outline of a methodology that uses geographic information systems (GIS) to calculate travel distances. The calculation of travel distances in GIS is adapted from actual transportation infrastructure, derived from the open-source platform OpenStreetMap. The methodology also aims to assess the possibilities to reduce GHG emissions by choosing different means of transportation and a more central conference location. The results of the participants of the EGEA congress, who shared their travel data for this study, show that the total travel distance adds up to 238 000 km, with average travel distance of 2429 km per participant. The travel activities of the participants in the study result in total GHG emissions of 39 300 kg CO2-eq including both outward and return trip. On average a participant caused GHG emissions of 401 kg CO2-eq. In addition, the analysis of the travel data showed differences in travel behaviour depending on the distance between conference site and point of origin. The findings on travel behaviour have then been used to give an estimation of total greenhouse gas emissions from travel for all participants of the conference, which result in a total amount of 79 711 kg CO2-eq. The potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by substituting short flights with train rides and car rides with bus and train rides is limited. Only 6 % of greenhouse gas emissions could be saved by applying these measures. Further considerable savings could only be made by substituting longer flights (32.6 %) or choosing a more central conference location (26.3 %).


This article presents an assessment of energy inputs of the European Union (the 15 countries before the 2004 enlargement, abbreviated EU‐15) for the period 1970–2001 and the United States for 1980–2000. The data are based on an energy flow analysis (EFA) that evaluates socioeconomic energy flows in a way that is conceptually consistent with current materials flow analysis (MFA) methods. EFA allows assessment of the total amount of energy required by a national economy; it yields measures of the size of economic systems in biophysical units. In contrast to conventional energy balances, which only include technically used energy, EFA also accounts for socioeconomic inputs of biomass; that is, it also considers food, feed, wood and other materials of biological origin. The energy flow accounts presented in this article do not include embodied energy. Energy flow analyses are relevant for comparisons across modes of subsistence (e.g., agrarian and industrial society) and also to detect interrelations between energy utilization and land use. In the EU‐15, domestic energy consumption (DEC = apparent consumption = domestic extraction plus import minus export) grew from 60 exajoules per year (1 EJ = 1018 J) in 1970 to 79 EJ/yr in 2001, thus exceeding its territory's net primary production (NPP, a measure of the energy throughput of ecosystems). In the United States, DEC increased from 102 EJ/yr in 1980 to 125 EJ/yr in 2000 and was thus slightly smaller than its NPP. Taken together, the EU‐15 and the United States accounted for about 38% of global technical energy use, 31% of humanity's energetic metabolism, but only 10% of global terrestrial NPP and 11% of world population in the early 1990s. Per capita DEC of the United States is more than twice that of the EU‐15. Calculated according to EFA methods, energy input in the EU and the United States was between one‐fifth and one‐third above the corresponding value reported in conventional energy balances. The article discusses implications of these results for sustainability, as well as future research needs.


Upper airway stenosis has a significant impact on the quality of life and sometimes on life itself. The incidence of this condition is likely to be increasing as survival rates following periods of ventilation on Intensive Care Units (ICUs) improve (1, 2).
Paediatric laryngotracheal stenosis is a well researched discipline and treatment includes airway augmentation with rib grafts and tracheal or cricotracheal resection with end-to-end anastomosis. At the start of my research, in 2005, adult laryngotracheal stenosis was poorly researched and the treatment options were tracheostomy, tracheal resection or cricotracheal resection, each with associated morbidity and mortality.
This thesis investigates the aetiology, incidence, screening and alternative treatment options, which include endoscopic techniques, for the management of acquired adult benign laryngotracheal stenosis. The commonest causes for this condition are ventilation on intensive care units and inflammatory disorders such as Wegener's granulomatosis, idiopathic subglottic stenosis and sarcoidosis.
In January 2004 a prospective database was set up in the busiest airway reconstruction unit in the United Kingdom. Data was collected on all new adult patients with upper airways stenosis. At the completion of this research in January 2010, 400 patients had been entered on this database. Due to the rarity of this condition, it was not possible to design randomised trials to compare different treatment options.
This thesis is an integrated series of prospective cohort studies, with the aim of developing a greater understanding of adult airway stenosis, with a particular emphasis on minimally invasive endoscopic techniques. This research has shown that 72% of patients with post-intubation airway stenosis can be treated with these minimally invasive endoscopic techniques. Effective new treatments have been devised for the management of inflammatory stenoses when the results of previous treatments had not been effective. New tools for assessing the airway and outcome measures have also been proposed.


> As it turns out… Dr Nassar was not a doctor, he in fact is, was, and forever shall be, a child molester and a monster of a human being. End of story. He abused my trust, he abused my body and he left scars on my psyche that may never go away.
>
> McKayla Maroney, Olympic Gold Medallist, London 2012.
Dr Larry Nassar was sentenced on 24 January 2018 to 40–125 years in prison in Eaton County and 40–175 years in Ingham County, Michigan, USA, for first-degree criminal sexual conduct in addition to 60 years in Federal court for child pornography. During the court proceedings, 156 women who call themselves the 'army of survivors', spoke about their abuse experiences in emotional and powerful victim impact statements. In the course of his professional career, Dr Nassar is alleged to have sexually abused approximately 256 female athletes from 1998 to 2015, often in front of parents. His victims were mainly gymnasts, some as young as 6 years of age. For some victims, the abuse occurred repetitively, up to 10 years in duration. Dr Nassar stated that his 'medical treatments' (which were invasive pelvic floor 'therapy' where he would digitally penetrate girls' vaginas and anuses) would cure physical injuries. He abused them in his clinic, his home, at training camps and at competition venues where he treated them alone in his hotel room, often after having sedated the athlete with sleeping pills. Dr Nassar referred to himself as the 'body whisperer'.1

What is unique about this sexual abuse case is that Dr Nassar is an osteopathic sport medicine physician. One of our colleagues. One of our fraternity. Larry was the physician for the USA Gymnastics team and worked at four Olympic Games. He was a practising sport medicine physician for a prestigious university in the NCAA collegiate system in the USA, …


The devastating impact of smallarms and light weapons in theWest African conflict systemnecessitated the imposition of theMoratorium on the Importation,Exportation and Manufacture of LightWeapons from November 1998 for athree year renewal period by theEconomic Community of West AfricanStates (ECOWAS). The Moratorium wasrenewed in July 2001 for anotherthree years. It is a voluntary politicalcommitment by West African leadersto curtail the systematic flow of smallarms into the region and therecycling of weapons from oneconflict zone to another.


Land and Labor, 1866-1867 examines the remaking of the South's labor system in the tumultuous aftermath of emancipation. Using documents selected from the National Archives, this volume of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation depicts the struggle of unenfranchised and impoverished ex-slaves to control their own labor, establish their families as viable economic units, and secure independent possession of land. Among the topics addressed are the dispossession of settlers in the Sherman reserve, the reordering of labor on plantation and farm, nonagricultural labor, new relations of credit and debt, long-distance labor migration, and the efforts of former slaves to rent, purchase, and homestead land. The documents--many of them in the freed people's own words--speak eloquently for themselves, while the editors' interpretive essays provide context and illuminate major themes.


A coralline rhodolith was collected from a depth of 178 m, the lower end of the mesophotic zone, on Plantagenet Bank offshore of Bermuda by the submersible Nomad using a mechanical armature. DNA sequence comparisons of the plastid encoded psbA and rbcL loci of this specimen to Sporolithales from the tropical western Atlantic and worldwide revealed it to be an unnamed species of Sporolithon. Sporolithon mesophoticum sp. nov. possesses tetrasporangial sori flush to slightly raised above the thallus surface and has uniquely flattened perithallial and meristematic cells. Thus far, the new species is the deepest known living marine macroalga that has been sequenced and placed into a phylogenetic context.


Configuration of the routing is critical for the quality and reliability of the communication in a large IP backbone. Large traffic shifts can occur due to changes in the inter-domain routing that are hard to control by the network operator. This paper describes a framework for modeling potential traffic shifts due to BGP reroutes, calculating worst-case traffic scenarios, and finding a single routing configuration that is robust against all possible traffic shifts due to BGP reroutes. The benefit of our approach is illustrated using BGP routing updates and network topology from an operational IP network. Experiments demonstrate that the robust routing is able to obtain a consistently strong performance under large inter-domain routing changes.


This position paper on diabetes mellitus was prepared by the Research, Science and Therapy Committee of The American Academy of Periodontology. It is intended to: 1) update members of the dental profession on the diagnosis and medical management of patients with diabetes mellitus; 2) summarize current knowledge on the relation between diabetes mellitus and periodontal diseases; 3) provide an overview of factors in diabetic patients relevant to understanding the pathogenesis of periodontal diseases in these subjects; 4) outline special considerations associated with treatment of periodontal diseases in diabetic patients; and 5) discuss possible approaches to the management of diabetic emergencies in the dental office. J Periodontol 1999;70:935-949.


Background: Salmonella is one of the major causes of human diseases related to food consumption. Salmonella typhi and S. para-typhi are causes of typhoidal and para-typhoidal infections. Some infected individuals recovering from this infection become temporary or permanent carriers, harboring the organisms in the gallbladder, biliary tract, or rarely in their intestines. The aims of this study were determination of prevalence of S. typhi and S. para-typhi carriers among food handlers in Hamadan city and detection of antibiotic resistance of isolates by disc diffusion method. Methods: In this study 210 persons who were working in supplying and distribution of the food-stuffs were investigated. The fecal samples from food handlers were collected from both sexes and cultured on a suitable media including, Selenite F and S-S agar, and eventually the organisms were identified by biochemical tests and antisera method. Antibiotic resistance of strains was also detected by disc diffusion (Kirby-Bauer) method. The data was gathered through questionnaire and analyzed using EPI6 statistical software. Results: Of 210 stool cultures 5 cases (2.38%) were positive for Salmonella species. Two cases (0.94%) were S. typhi , two (0.94%) S. para-typhi B and one (0.47%) Salmonella non-typhi. Positive cases were tested again after one month and one of them (Non-typhi) was negative in culture. So, the rate of infection (typoidal Saltmonella carrier) was 1.8%. Most isolates were resistant to ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole and tetracycline, and were sensitive to gentamycin, ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin. Conclusion: Our results showed that prevalence of S. typhi and S. para-typhi carriers among food handlers in Hamadan was approximately similar to the developing countries (0.1% to 3%). Since food handler carriers are at high risk for transition of microorganisms, which involved in foodborne diseases, they must be checked regularly for health and be trained by health public authorities.


A key focus of empirical work on limit order markets is the relative importance of individual pieces of information in characterizing order submission and trade execution. We enlarge this focus to include an examination of pricing behavior, using data on index futures trading in a pure electronic limit order book market. A theoretical link between order, trade, and cancellation arrival rates, and the distribution of bid-ask spreads is empirically implemented. Evaluation of models across different information sets is based on relative ability to predict market activity and pricing out-of-sample. A main finding of the paper is the importance and superiority of information embodied in continuous individual traders' actions in characterizing order submission behavior and the structure of pricing. The book information on chararcteristics of resting orders alone cannot explain subsequent order submission, trade, or pricing behavior, and has little impact on the shape of the spread distribution.


My experiences as a mother have been enhanced by spirituality and my spirituality has been transformed through the practice of mothering. I will argue that part of the transformation available in mothering is that one can go from thinking of oneself as an individual with free will, self autonomy, and independence to believing maybe we are all more connected and dependent upon each other than we thought. I intend to explore my personal spiritual journey from an academic perspective in order to gain and share knowledge. Intense emotional experiences such as childbirth, learning how to take care of a person who can not clearly communicate her or his desires, and learning to put the needs of someone else before your own, have the potential for both extreme pain and joy and the mother is forced to decide how to move forward. If mothers start to feel connected to their children, it can become easier to feel connected to other mothers, children, and humanity in general. This change which can occur within a mother can be a part of the spiritual awakening. American society, in general, would benefit from the recognition of the spiritual side of mothering and the awareness of the potential for a transformation in consciousness. My thesis topic is the spirituality of motherhood. More specifically, I explore how the practice of caring for children can transform the caregiver's sense of spirituality iii which is the relationship between your self and the world. This thesis is based on a feminist literary review of texts about spirituality and motherhood and also uses my personal experiences as a mother to illustrate how mothering can be a spiritual awakening and opportunity for spiritual growth. It is feminist in nature because I am attempting to illuminate and privilege the knowledges and experiences of mothers. I want to celebrate female parenting and also recognize the difficulties imposed by our sexist society. Motherhood does not always have to be exploitive or repressive and spirituality is one way to transcend these challenges.


The assorted circumstances characterized by malfunctioning in cognition, communication or motor skills lead to abnormal development of the central nervous system (CNS) in young infants. These conditions are collectively termed as neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and are usually diagnosed during childhood or infancy. NDDs occur as frequent as 1-3% in the general population and their diagnostic yield is approximately 15-25% with existing available techniques. So, the majority of affected patients are still undiagnosed due to genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity despite the discovery of 450 genes associated with NDDs. Chromosomal rearrangements are known contributors to NDDs, which have been routinely detected by G-banding karyotyping and fluorescence in situ hybridization at extremely low resolution. The present review was focused on the recent perspectives in the diagnosis and management of these neuropathological states in young patients.


Recent research has suggested that only linguistically relevant sources of variability, or those which affect the perception of spoken words, are retained in long‐term memory. The present study sought to determine if the linguistic relevance of surface characteristics such as speaking rate, overall amplitude, and vocal effort would differentially affect memory retention. For each source of variability, a continuous recognition memory task was used in which listeners were presented with a list of spoken words and asked to judge whether each word in the list was ''old'' (had occurred previously on the list) or ''new.'' Results showed that listeners were better able to identify a word as ''old'' if the word was repeated at the same speaking rate (condition 1), overall amplitude (condition 2), or vocal effort (condition 3), suggesting that the individual surface characteristics which comprise each type of variability were encoded into memory. However, speaking rate and vocal effort produced a greater effect on recognition memory than overall amplitude, indicating that all sources of variability may not be processed and encoded to the same extent. Rather, memory for surface characteristics may be related to the amount of linguistically relevant information each source of variability contains.


Ball milling of Mo in nitrogen and ammonia gases has been studied. After heating, the formation of an intriguing ternary compound, Fe3Mo3C1−x, was observed as a result of Fe (and C) contamination from the milling apparatus. For a comparison, mechanical alloying of Fe–Mo–C powders with a stoichiometric composition of Fe3Mo3C was also performed and again an Fe–Mo–C alloy was obtained after milling. Thermal analysis shows a single transition peak for the formation of both the Fe3Mo3C phase in the latter case and also for Fe3Mo3C1−x formed as a result of contamination from the mill. The lattice parameter for the Fe3Mo3C1−x phase obtained by Mo‐gas reaction is smaller than for the Fe3Mo3C phase obtained by mechanical alloying of stoichiometric Fe–Mo–C powders. It is suggested that, in the Fe3Mo3C1−x phase produced by milling of Mo in gases, a high concentration of C vacancies exists.


This paper describes a technique for the volume scanning of sections of the human body, on the example of the arms of a man and woman, using devices of manual and stationary type. An algorithm is presented for processing the data obtained on the basis of scanning.


Finite element techniques for solving the problem of fluid-structure interaction of an elastic solid material in a laminar incompressible viscous flow are described. The mathematical problem consists of the Navier-Stokes equations in the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation coupled with a non-linear structure model, considering the problem as one continuum. The coupling between the structure
and the fluid is enforced inside a monolithic framework which computes simultaneously for the fluid and the structure unknowns within a unique solver. We used the well-known Crouzeix-Raviart finite element pair for discretization in space and the method of lines for discretization in time. A stability result using the Backward-Euler time-stepping scheme for both fluid and solid part and the finite element method for the space discretization has been proved. The resulting linear system has been solved by multilevel domain decomposition techniques. Our strategy is to solve several local subproblems over subdomain patches using the Schur-complement or GMRES smoother within a multigrid iterative solver.

For validation and evaluation of the accuracy of the proposed methodology, we present corresponding results for a set of two FSI benchmark configurations which describe the self-induced elastic deformation of a beam attached to a cylinder in a laminar channel flow, allowing stationary as well as periodically oscillating deformations, and for a benchmark proposed by COMSOL multiphysics where a narrow vertical structure attached to the bottom wall of a channel bends under the force due to both viscous drag and pressure.
Then, as an example of fluid-structure interaction in biomedical problems, we considered the academic numerical test which consists in simulating the pressure wave
propagation through a straight compliant vessel.

All the tests show the applicability and the numerical efficiency of our approach to both two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems.


Tackling societal and environmental challenges requires new approaches that connect topdown global oversight with bottom-up sub-national knowledge. We present a novel framework for participatory development of spatially-explicit scenarios at national scale that model socio-economic and environmental dynamics by reconciling local stakeholder perspectives and national spatial data. We illustrate results generated by this approach and evaluate its potential to contribute to a greater understanding of the relationship between development pathways and sustainability. Using the lens of land use and land cover changes, and engaging 240 stakeholders representing sub-national (seven forest management Zones) and the national level, we applied the framework to assess alternative development strategies in the Tanzania mainland to the year 2025 - under either a business as usual or a green development scenario. In the business as usual scenario, no productivity gain is expected, cultivated land expands by ca. 2% per year (up to 88,808 km2), with large impacts on woodlands and wetlands. Despite legal protection, encroachment of natural forest occurs along reserve borders. Additional wood demand leads to degradation (i.e. loss of tree cover and biomass) up to 80,426 km2 of wooded land. The alternative green economy scenario envisages decreasing degradation and deforestation with increasing productivity (+10%) and implementation of Payment for Ecosystem Service schemes. In this scenario, cropland expands by 44,132 km2 and the additional degradation is limited to 35,778 km2. This scenario development framework captures perspectives and knowledge across a diverse range of stakeholders and regions. Although further effort is required to extend its applicability, improve users' equity, and reduce costs the resulting spatial outputs can be used to inform national level planning and policy implementation associated with sustainable development, especially the REDD+ climate mitigation strategy.


Over the last twenty years, the rapid adoption of the graphical user interface followed by the emergence of the World Wide Web has created an increasing demand for interaction designers and interaction design research. Knowledge generated by interaction designers is needed not only by other designers, but also by researchers and practitioners from other disciplines. This evolution has generated increasing pressure for more refined models of design research and design research dissemination. To address this problem, we first explore the evolution of design documentation, detailing how it has evolved to meet the changing needs of designers. Then we present an opportunity map detailing where design projects produce knowledge. The map reveals areas for creating and communicating knowledge that is specific to interaction design, yet generalizable to a larger community that participates in interaction design.


Lemkin originally envisaged the crime of genocide as encompassing not only physical and biological acts of genocide, but also the intentional destruction of cultural heritage. In fact, earlier drafts of the Genocide Convention proposed the criminalisation not only of physical and biological genocide, but also of cultural genocide, with the latter understood as involving the destruction of specific characteristics of the protected group. This was eventually left out of the final draft of the Convention, save for the prohibition of the forcible transfer of the protected group's children.
However, the destruction of a protected group can be brought about not only by physical or biological means, but also by systematically erasing its culture heritage and therefore its group identity, destroying the group from its very core, an act which is described by Chaumont as constituting 'ethnocide'. In fact, the ad hoc criminal tribunals have considered the systematic and intentional destruction of cultural heritage as evidence of the specific intent to destroy a group. The aim of this paper is to analyse the intentional destruction of cultural heritage from a human perspective, considering it as a crime against persons, not solely against property, and to examine whether it is time to revise the definition of genocide to incorporate the intentional destruction of cultural heritage as a genocidal act, as it was originally conceived by Lemkin.


The 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan can be regarded as a subduc tion zone earthquake in a tectonic sense. It was associated with an abnor mally uplifted area in the northwestern corner of the earthquake fault. The area is in the river bed where the Ta-Chia River runs from east to west. The large horizontal movement of the basement south of the river to the north could have produced the multiple thrusts and the abnormal uplifts amounting to 3-6 m due to the shortening of the accretionary prism. These inelastic uplifts would imply an abnormal tsunami if the area were under the sea, thus suggesting a new factor for the mechanism of tsu� nami earthquakes, which is an .uplift of the sediment or weak accretionary prism caused by a sudden horizontal movement on the decollement be neath the lowermost .inner trench slope like sand being pushed up by a bulldozer. This is consistent with the features of tsunami earthquakes hav ing the low dip angle thrust extending to the trench. (


Although it is possible to handle liquid microliter samples in infrared spectrographic analyses using a beam condenser, it is more expedient to avoid its use whenever possible. In the present work excellent spectra have been obtained repeatedly on 0.3 μl liquid samples. Liquids can be applied directly from the gas chromatograph onto the salt plate or transferred from traps using a syringe.


This article provides a comprehensive examination of the philosophical history and the moral foundations of American anti-discrimination law. Both the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act are designed to embody a fundamental moral principle, the anti-discrimination principle. The article begins by identifying three different interpretations of this principle: the anti-differentiation interpretation that prohibits unequal treatment on the basis of irrelevant characteristics, the anti-oppression interpretation that prohibits the oppressive unequal treatment of minorities, and the anti-subordination interpretation that prohibits conduct that has the effect of subordinating or continuing the subordination of minorities. It then traces the history of the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act, demonstrating 1) that the Equal Protection Clause was originally understood as an anti-oppression principle, that over the course of the twentieth century it evolved into an anti-differentiation principle, and that over the last three decades it was again transformed into a fluctuating mix of these two interpretations, and 2) that the Civil Rights Act was originally understood as an anti-differentiation principle but quickly shattered in a confused amalgam of anti-oppression, anti-differentiation, and anti-subordination principles. The article proceeds by performing a normative analysis of both provisions to demonstrate that the Equal Protection Clause is properly interpreted as an anti-differentiation principle and the Civil Rights Act is properly interpreted as an anti-oppression principle. Finally, it provides an explanation for the ideological strife over the issue of discrimination for the past three decades and draws some implications about how both the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act should be interpreted in the future.


The first blackboard system was the HEARSAY-II speech understanding system that evolved between 1971 and 1976. Subsequently, many systems have been built that have similar system organizations and run-time behavior. The objectives of this document are: (1) to define what is meant by "blackboard systems," and (2) to show the richness and diversity of blackboard system designs. The article begins with a discussion of the underlying concept behind all blackboard systems, the blackboard model of problem solving. In order to bridge the gap between a model and working systems, the blackboard framework, an extension of the basic blackboard model is introduced, including a detailed description of the model''s components and their behavior. A model does not come into existence on its own and is usually an abstraction of many examples. In section 2, the history of ideas is traced and the designs of some applications systems that helped shape the blackboard model are detailed. We then describe and contrast existing blackboard systems. Blackboard systems can generally be divided into two categories; application and skeletal systems. In application systems the blackboard system components are integrated with the domain knowledge required to solve the problem at hand. Skeletal systems are devoid of domain knowledge, and, as the name implies, consist of the essential system components from which application systems can be built by the addition of knowledge and the specification of control (i.e. meta-knowledge). Application systems will be discussed in Section 3, and skeletal systems will be discussed elsewhere. In Section 3.6, we summarize the features of the applications systems and in Section 4 present the author''s perspective on the utility of the blackboard approach to problem solving and knowledge engineering.


Hydrographic and stable oxygen isotope (H218O/H216O) sampling was carried out within the West New Siberian (WNS) coastal polynyas in the southern Laptev Sea in late winters 2008 and 2009. The impact of sea-ice formation on the water column was quantified by a salinity/{lower case delta}18O mass balance. Several stations had vertically homogeneous physical properties in April/May 2008 and featured polynya-formed local bottom water with elevated signals of brine released during sea-ice formation and elevated fractions of river water. The polynya-formed bottom water was fresher than surrounding bottom waters. At other stations salinity/{lower case delta}18O correlation showed well defined mixing lines for bottom and surface layers. In March/April 2009 surface waters were strongly influenced by Lena River water and local polynya activity with elevated brine signals reached to intermediate depth, but did not penetrate the bottom layer in the highly stratified water column. Inventory values of sea-ice formation were comparable in both years, but freshwater distributions from the preceding summers were different. Therefore, the observed difference in the impact of polynya activity on the water column is not primarily controlled by the amount of sea-ice formed during winter but by preconditioning from the preceding summer. Only in years when the river plume is mostly absent in the polynya region stratification is weak and allows winter sea-ice formation to reach the bottom layer. Thus summer stratification controls the influence of local polynya water on the shelf's bottom hydrography and, as bottom water is exported, impacts on the source water of shelf-derived halocline waters.


Mobile malware has recently become an acute problem. Existing solutions either base static reasoning on syntactic properties, such as exception handlers or configuration fields, or compute data-flow reachability over the program, which leads to scalability challenges. We explore a new and complementary category of features, which strikes a middleground between the above two categories. This new category focuses on security-relevant operations (communcation, lifecycle, etc) --- and in particular, their multiplicity and happens-before order --- as a means to distinguish between malicious and benign applications. Computing these features requires semantic, yet lightweight, modeling of the program's behavior. We have created a malware detection system for Android, MassDroid, that collects traces of security-relevant operations from the call graph via a scalable form of data-flow analysis. These are reduced to happens-before and multiplicity features, then fed into a supervised learning engine to obtain a malicious/benign classification. MassDroid also embodies a novel reporting interface, containing pointers into the code that serve as evidence supporting the determination. We have applied MassDroid to 35,000 Android apps from the wild. The results are highly encouraging with an F-score of 95% in standard testing, and >90% when applied to previously unseen malware signatures. MassDroid is also efficient, requiring about two minutes per app. MassDroid is publicly available as a cloud service for malware detection.


The refractive index sensitivity of a polymer slot waveguide coated with a bilayer of Al₂O₃/TiO₂ was investigated theoretically and optimized for biosensor applications. The influence of atomic-layer-deposition-coated thin high-refractive-index layers on the slot confinement factor and the homogeneous sensitivity of polymer slot waveguides with different geometries were simulated. The results were compared with those of an optimized noncoated polymer slot waveguide, both operating at visible wavelengths. The simulations reveal that the proposed structure offers a significant improvement in the confinement factor and the sensitivity. These calculations present guidelines for the design and fabrication of relatively sensitive polymer slot waveguide devices for low-cost biochemical sensor applications.


A holographic camera that makes it possible to take pictures outside the holography
 laboratory has been developed and fabricated to record color holograms of museum
 pieces, using Denisyuk's method. The camera, with dimensions 30×40×50cm and mass 12kg, is a white-light laser projector capable of recording color holograms up
 to 30×40cm in size on Ultimate photographic plates fabricated in the laboratory. The
 camera requires no massive vibration-proof table, water cooling, or excessive
 electric power, and this is an important condition for operating it directly in
 museums or at the site where the objects to be pictured are found.


Purpose: We hypothesize that all thoracic CBCT projections, if viewed as points in a high dimensional Euclidian space V, lie on the surface of a 2‐ torus structure. Understanding this structure helps many other projects, e.g. 4DCBCT phase sorting. This work will validate this hypothesis using a manifold learning algorithm. Methods: An NCAT phantom in the thorax region with a smooth respiratory motion pattern is used to generate a series of CBCT projections with realistic scanning and breathing parameters. A manifold learning technique, diffusion map, is employed to extract the topological structure underlying these projections. Specifically, a diffusion matrix is first constructed, whose entries are determined based on the Euclidian distance between those projections in V. The associated transition matrix is then computed and diagonalized. The eigenvectors, when sorted according to the associated eigenvalues in a descending order, represent the inherent topological structure of the manifold in a coarse‐to‐fine manner. The first three eigenvectors are selected as the coordinates to represent the CBCT projections, which reduces the dimensionality from the space V to a 3D space, while preserving the major topological properties. This also allows for a visualization of the hypothesized 2‐torus structure. Results: The points given by the first three eigenvectors form an oscillatory curve on a distorted 2‐torus in the 3D space. The two principle directions of the torus can be interpreted as the directions corresponding to the gantry rotation and the patient breathing, respectively. During CBCT projection acquisition, the gantry angle continuously increases, while the breathing phase oscillates periodically. Hence, those projections, while being represented by points in this 3D space, travel along a spiral curve winding around the torus. Conclusions: The manifold learning method can recover the 2‐torus structure of the thorax CBCT projections, whose two independent intrinsic dimensions correspond to gantry rotation and patient breathing.


The article analyses the role of day-care centres in developing social skills and career competences of socially disadvantaged children, and includes the results of the theoretical analysis of the relationship between social skills and career competences illustrated by the quality survey data revealing the attitude of day centre specialists toward the development of social skills and career competences. According to the research, children frequently come or are referred to a day-care centre due to a complicated situation in the biological family, including the children who have experienced active and/or passive violence. Due to emotional tension and permanent stressful home situation these children are often reticent and are not equipped with key social skills, namely: good communication and cooperation, compatibility of needs, rights and duties; they are also unable to control stress and lack self-cognition skills etc. Pursuant to the research, child day-care centres perform a compensatory function for the development of social skills and career competences; however, specialists of child day-care centres do not actualise the importance of social skills for a successful career development.