This study considers the instabilities that result when an electron beam is injected into a plasma. A number of different models of the system are considered, and all instabilities are classified according to whether they are convective instabilities (amplifying waves) or nonconvective (absolute) instabilities. The study also analyzes the instabilities in unbounded beam-plasma systems and in systems of finite extent transverse to the electron stream and gives a detailed consideration of the possibility of a strong interaction with the ions in a hot-electron plasma. In addition, the author presents mathematical criteria for identifying absolute instabilities and amplifying waves. These criteria are based only on an analysis of the dispersion equation of the system and are not restricted to beam-plasma systems.Two things need to be said about this book: the chapter on absolute and convective instabilities makes an important contribution to the field. Second, it should be pointed out that the theoretical results are reduced to a form which make them readily available to an experimentalist. Plasma physicists and electronic engineers will be interested in this work.


With rapid growth of commercial search engines, detecting multilingual and multi-regional intent underlying search queries becomes a critical challenge to serve international users with diverse language and region requirements. We introduce a query intent probabilistic model, whose input is the number of clicks on documents from different regions and in different language, while the output of this model is a smoothed probabilistic distribution of multilingual and multi-regional query intent. Based on an editorial test to evaluate the accuracy of the intent classifier, our probabilistic model could improve the accuracy of multilingual intent detection for 15%, and improve multi-regional intent detection for 18%. To improve web search quality, we propose a set of new ranking features to combine multilingual and multi-regional query intent with document language/region attributes, and apply different approaches in integrating intent information to directly affect ranking. The experiments show that the novel features could provide 2.31% NDCG@1 improvement and 1.81% NDCG@5 improvement.


The protection of the traditional cultural expressions of indigenous people from inappropriate use raises issues relating to the differences between standard intellectual property concepts and the "worldview" of such groups. In New Zealand, Māori claims regarding rights to "guardianship" of their cultural knowledge have been expressed in the context of the guarantees in the Treaty of Waitangi. Some recognition of these interests can be seen in amendments to intellectual property laws. However, there remain questions regarding the protection of expressions of culture that are considered in the public domain, and that are used commercially and non-commercially in both the domestic and international settings.


The high cost of water treatment has rendered provision of good quality water in the developing world difficult. The search
for low-cost treatment options is essential in order to provide safe drinking water. This paper presents a study on the use
of Moringa oleifera and pumice as low cost natural materials for improving water treatment systems. Moringa oleifera
was found to be very effective for coagulating raw turbid water. The coagulant component was isolated from the seed and
purified using a single-step ion exchange purification method. The process was standardized and it can be readily scaled
up. The use of pumice for dual media filtration was compared against a mono-medium sand filtration system. In a pilot
scale study pumice/sand dual media increased the filter run length two-fold and reduced the volume of backwash water
by half.


Ethiopia is remarkably rich in its biological, ecological and landscape diversity and is home to outstanding natural bio-resources such as a number of herbs, aromatic and medicinal plants. The present study was carried out to study the composition, distribution and economic importance of insect pests of prioritized aromatic (Mentha sp., lemon verbena, fennel, rosemary, rosadamascene, oregano, palmarosa, lemon grass, rose scented geranium) plants between 2013 to 2015 in some growing area of Ethiopia. 10 to 20 random sample units (plants) were taken to assess pest prevalence from each of the upper, middle and lower canopy layers of the main stem. Sample pests and infected plant parts were taken and examined in Wondo Genet Agricultural Research Center. The species were later on got identified from different sources. The result showed that Agrotis sp., Dysaphsfoeniculus, Iceryapurchasi , Melanchrapicta, Papaipemanebris, Rhodobiumorosumwere the major insect pests where as Tetranychus spp., Dicyphusspp., Myzuspersicae, Odontotermesspp., Odontotermesspp., Ornithacris sp. and Ovatuscrataegariuswere minor insect pests recorded feeding of prioritizedaromatic plants. In all 12 insect species belonging to 5 orders were recorded to be associated with (8) aromatic plants in the survey area of Ethiopia. All these insect-pests were recorded in very low to very high causing damage. This study important for understanding the situation of aromatic plants insect pests that will help to eventually achieve an economically sound and efficient pests management strategy.


INTRODUCTION The proper balance between proliferation and differentiation of endodermal progenitors is crucial for development and function of endodermally derived tissues such as the lung. Characterization of the gene regulatory networks that regulates the expansion and differentiation of these progenitors has a profound impact on our understanding and treatment of lung disease. The entire epithelium of the lung is initially generated from a small pool of undifferentiated progenitor cells that is present in the anterior ventral foregut endoderm at E9.5 of mouse development (Morrisey and Hogan, 2010). By E11.5 in the mouse, distinct progenitors are found in the proximal versus distal regions of the branching airways (Morrisey and Hogan, 2010). These progenitors will differentiate into distinct epithelial lineages during lung development that are required for proper gas exchange in the adult lung. Disruption in these developmental processes can lead to severe neonatal lung disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate mRNA translation and stability at a post-transcriptional level. Many miRNAs are expressed in groups or clusters from a single primary transcript which is further processed by the Dicer-Drosha complex into mature 22 nucleotide fragments which bind to complementary regions within the 3Ј untranslated (UTR) regions of target genes. An important role for the miRNA pathway in lung development has been demonstrated using a conditional deletion of


Arsenic (As) is a naturally occurring toxic metalloid that is ubiquitous in the environment. It is found in water, soil, and air and as such is also found in the food supply. Millions of people are exposed to As at concentrations in their drinking water that exceed health-based standards worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed As as one of its ten chemicals of major public health concern (WHO 2010). Inorganic As (iAs) is listed as the number one concern on the Priority List of Hazardous Substances by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR 2014). This list is prepared by ASTDR and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and ranks the substances that present the greatest risk to public health. The list is based on a number of factors including prevalence, toxicity, and the potential for human exposure. Chronic exposure to high levels of As has proven to cause a variety of cancers, cardiovascular disease, and neurologic impairments in exposed populations (ATSDR 2007).

### Water

The natural background concentration of As in water is 1 to 2 μg L−1 (Hindmarsh and McCurdy 1986; NRC 1999), yet elevated levels of iAs are present in the groundwater worldwide (Fig. 1). Elevated levels of As in groundwater can occur due to dissolution and weathering of As-rich ore deposits (Welch et al. 1999, 2000). This process can be accelerated in geothermal waters (Lord et al. 2012; Bundschuh et al. 2013), leading to contamination of surface and groundwater. For example, in the geothermal springs of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, As is known to exceed 1000 μg L−1 (Stauffer and Thompson 1984; Ball et al. 1998). These geothermal waters discharge into surface waters resulting in measured concentrations as high has 360 μg L−1 in …


A 61-year-old man presented with a solitary ulcerated plaque below the right eye, which had been gradually increasing in size for 8 months. On examination, there was a 1-cm diameter ulcer with a rolled edge inferiorly, and a clinical diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma was made (Fig. 1). An incision biopsy from the rolled edge showed non-specific inflammation, so a second biopsy was taken from a different area to rule out a sampling error. This showed an acute inflammatory infiltrate within the epidermis with acanthosis and a more chronic infiltrate within the dermis. The patient was then referred for patch tests, which demonstrated a strongly positive (+++) reaction to nickel. Examination of the patient's spectacles revealed that the gold plating on the right side had worn off on the rim which rested on the ulcerated area on his cheek. The dimethylglyoxime spot test from the worn area was strongly positive for nickel but was negative from where the gold plating remained on his spectacles (Fig. 2).


1 General overview: International and European aspects Since within the European Union and the globalized world of today the domestic regulations can not be isolated from the international situation, an overview of global problems of minors in sport has to be offered first. The basic problems identified thereby will be subsequently briefly analyzed in the context of Slovak Republic. A wide-spread view of position of young players, especially of those involved in football, is based on terms such as "new slave trade" or "human trafficking". This viewpoint is shared not only by theoreticians such as prof. Roger Blanpain, founder of FIFPro, who equals trade with young players to cattle handling, but also by officials of international sporting federations. For Lennart Johansson, the former president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the business with African talent is "child abduction and nothing else." The United Nations Commission on Human Rights issued a report warning that "a modern 'slave trade' is being created with young African players." In Belgium, the politician Jean-Marie Dedecker investigated 442 cases of alleged human trafficking with Nigerian players. Many of them ended up on the street or even in prostitution. There are also reports of thousands of boys who went to Italy, hoping to make careers as footballers, and then disappeared. This is what a French non-governmental organization, Foot Solidaire, is fighting against, being backed also by the representatives of FIFA and UEFA. Michel Platini from UEFA is reported to have said not so long ago: "Everybody is shocked when children are discovered to make footballs in a factory, yet nobody seems to be shocked when a nine-year-old Brazilian prodigy signs up with a European club. There is no difference between paying a child to play football or paying a child to work at an assembly line. It is in both cases nothing less than child labour. And to fly the child together with his parents from one continent to another is child trafficking. The majority of them simply do not turn out to be the new Ronaldinho ... In the eyes of Europe free trade of employees exists from the age of 16 onwards. But is this realistic when many countries have a compulsory school attendance until 18? According to the United Nations' treaty on the rights of children anybody under eighteen is considered to be a child. If young players leave their club at a tender age, it will make it difficult for countless clubs to continue their training efforts. This measure undermines clubs that train youngsters, and it encourages child trafficking ... It is for this reason that international transfers of players younger than 18 ought to be prohibited. I put the protection of a child before free trade of employees. Children have the right to grow up amongst their friends and family ... I have therefore thought about this problem a great deal and I am now convinced that the international transfer of players under 18 should be prohibited, fully in accordance with the FIFA statutes. Some people talk about the free movement of workers. I am talking about the protection of children. Some talk about competition law. I am talking about the right to respect human integrity; a child's right to grow up surrounded by their friends and family." Sepp Blatter from FIFA took a similar position: "They are taken at 14 or 15 years old with clubs saying that their parents are going too. But they get put into another family, and what happens to them? One out of say 20 has a chance to go on in their career. The others are left, and they need to be protected ... We now have a committee where each case is dealt with individually to see if a transfer can be allowed or not ... It is the start of greater control of our game. It is to protect the young players." From the given quotations, the following main problem areas can be identified on the international level: 1. …


In the corporate finance, the decision on the capital structure and its components is viewed as one of the most extensively researched area. In this context, researchers carried out the study on liquidity and capital structure in the Sri Lanka Telecom Plc. Data on the Liquidity and Capital Structure from the year 2005 to 2011 were collected for the study purpose. Regression analysis was used to answer the research question as what extent the Liquidity influences on Capital Structure of the Sri Lanka Telecom Plc. Findings reveled that, the decision making on the capital structure is highly depending on the liquidity management of the Sri Lanka Telecom Plc. Due to that, the firm should focus on the liquidity management to take the decision on the capital structure which should lead to the firms value in the long term perspective.


Abstract Fifty-eight solid breast masses in 57 patients were subjected to fine-needle aspiration biopsy, and the results of cytologic analysis and histologic diagnosis were compared. The sensitivity was 79.2%, specificity, 85.3%, and accuracy, 82.8%. These results are within the range of those in the medical literature. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy is a useful adjunct in the management of palpable breast masses in the community hospital setting. Our data, however, do not support its use alone as a screening tool. Excisional biopsy or close clinical follow-up remains essential for evaluation and management of palpable breast masses.


Key success factors for co-operative research and development projects and their interactive effects are examined. Hypotheses are derived from theoretical and empirical evidence. They are tested simultaneously, using an experimental design. Results support, in general, the expected directions of functional and dysfunctional effects. They also show that preferences vary between co-operators and that different types can be distinguished. The method of conjoint measurement is applied to a new area. The technique is described and assessed. It is shown that new insights can be gained by implementing this simultaneous method of evaluation. Illustrations are included to ease further applications in this area.


Roads to Power tells the story of how Britain built the first nation connected by infrastructure, how a libertarian revolution destroyed a national economy, and how technology caused strangers to stop speaking. In early eighteenth-century Britain, nothing but dirt track ran between most towns. By 1848 the primitive roads were transformed into a network of highways connecting every village and island in the nation--and also dividing them in unforeseen ways. The highway network led to contests for control over everything from road management to market access. Peripheries like the Highlands demanded that centralized government pay for roads they could not afford, while English counties wanted to be spared the cost of underwriting roads to Scotland. The new network also transformed social relationships. Although travelers moved along the same routes, they occupied increasingly isolated spheres. The roads were the product of a new form of government, the infrastructure state, marked by the unprecedented control bureaucrats wielded over decisions relating to everyday life. Does information really work to unite strangers? Do markets unite nations and peoples in common interests? There are lessons here for all who would end poverty or design their markets around the principle of participation. Guldi draws direct connections between traditional infrastructure and the contemporary collapse of the American Rust Belt, the decline of American infrastructure, the digital divide, and net neutrality. In the modern world, infrastructure is our principal tool for forging new communities, but it cannot outlast the control of governance by visionaries.


Early and Middle Ordovician strata from the Senne-Sennette river valleys, at the southern border of the Brabant Massif, have been intensively sampled for an acritarch study. Previous research, together with unpublished and new observations, are reported. Three sections are studied in the Sennette valley: along the Bruxelles-Charleroi canal south of Asquempont, in the Virginal railway trench and at La Tourette along the bief 29 of the old canal. Two other locations are also considered: a section along the Coeurq river and another along the railway and in the quarry at Quenast, in the Senne valley. An early Tremadocian assemblage is observed in the three localities of the Sennette valley within strata which biostratigraphical content allows their lithostratigraphical assignment to the Chevlipont Formation. Between the latter formation and the Rigenee Formation, rocks coeval to the Abbaye de Villers and Tribotte Formations of the Thyle valley, yielded two distinct assemblages. The Frankea hamata-Striatotheca rarirrugulata Acritarch Zone of the English Lake District, indicating a late Arenig age, is observed in sediments reported to the Abbaye de Villers Formation from the Virginal railway section. The lithostratigraphical assignment is confirmed as the same Zone is recorded from coeval strata from the Thyle section. A second assemblage, characterized by the co-occurrence of species such as Arbusculidium filamentosum and Frankea sartbernardensis, is recognized in an unnamed member attributed to the Abbaye de Villers Formation at Asquempont and in strata attributed to the Abbaye de Villers Formation in the Quenast railway section. In these two localities of Asquempont and Quesnast, chitinozoans indicating respectively a middle and a late Arenig age are also described. According to acritarchs, the age of those strata would be late Arenig. Combined acritarch and chitinozoan results indicate a probable late Arenig age. Moreover, due to their acritarch content, the lithostratigraphical attribution of the Asquempont and Quenast strata is questioned. They are coeval with the Tribotte Formation or with a level at the boundary between the Tribotte and the Rigenee Formations of the Thyle river section. Other 'pre-Rigenee' localities could also belong to the A. filamentosum-F. sartbernardensis assemblage, based on the presence of F. sartbernardensis or A. filamentosum. One locality is situated at Asquempont and consists of the main part of the section studied by Martin & Rickards (1979) and another is located at La Tourette. Samples of the Rigenee Formation have not revealed the stratigraphical markers known in the type section of the Thyle valley despite the great number that were investigated in different localities from the Senne-Sennette valleys.


Retrospectively cueing an item retained in visual working memory during maintenance is known to improve its retention. However, literature has provided conflicting results regarding the costs of such retro-cues for non-cued items, which has led to a variety of theories on the role of cueing in visual working memory. We hypothesized that the differences in the reliability of retro-cues across studies might be a factor underlying conflicting results. We predicted that the more reliable the cues, the larger the costs for non-cued items. Participants performed a working memory task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Retro-cues indicated which of several items was most likely to be tested. We manipulated, between blocks, the ratio of trials on which the cue was valid vs. invalid. In addition to memory performance, we investigated the contralateral delay activity (CDA) in the EEG, which is claimed to index visual working memory maintenance. We also applied multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) in the frequency domain to decode the location of the cued item. Reconciling previous contradictory findings, costs of invalid retro-cueing on recall performance (i.e. probability and precision estimates) were found only for highly reliable cues. Nevertheless, benefits of valid cueing were present for both reliabilities, though larger for highly reliable cues. Moreover, the CDA emerged only after a highly reliable cue. Finally, decoding accuracy was above chance level in the high alpha band (i.e. 10-12 Hz) following a retro-cue and was larger for highly reliable cues. Our results suggest that non-cued representations are removed from working memory only if the retro-cue reliability is high. Moreover, the presence of valid cueing benefits in the absence of invalid cueing costs suggests that an item in working memory can be prioritized without reallocation of memory resources. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


The practice of conservation through displacement has become commonplace in developing countries. However, resettlement programs remain at very low standards as government policies only focus on economic-based compensation which often excludes socially and economically marginalised groups. In this paper, based on a case study of the displaced indigenous people, the Rana Tharus, from the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, we argue that compensation as a panacea is a myth as it does not effectively replace the loss of livelihoods. This is particularly the case when the indigenous community's customary rights to land are not legally protected. Our ethnographic data support the contention that the history of social exclusion is rooted in the land reform and settlement policies, which deprived the Rana Tharus of proper land rights. The present land compensation scheme resulted in a 'double whammy' on indigenous forest dwellers. The legal land title holders on average received less than 60% of their land. Moreover, due to the poor quality of soil in the resettlement areas the average crop yield was less than half the quantity produced before displacement. While economic indicators show widespread impoverishment with less food security, low agricultural productivity, and landlessness, social indicators suggest depletion of social capital in the resettled communities where there are less job opportunities and less social networks. Our study indicates that along with compensation, the concept of 'livelihood restoration' should also be fully implemented in any resettlement program to prevent further impoverishment.


A review of some approaches currently used to integrate power electronic functions is presented. In the field of power electronic, semiconductor devices are used in energy control and conversion circuits. The power function (switching or protection) is achieved through use of data and signal processing circuits separated from the discrete power device. The evolution naturally involves the integration of whole or part of low voltage elements with the power device in order to obtain a power integrated function. However, the electrical problems involved differ from those encountered in signal processing integrated devices. Indeed, it has to take into account high levels of current and voltage, dV/dt and di/dt, thermal effects... Thus an overview of the different modes of integration required according to the power level needed by the application is presented. For these different modes we describe, the structure, design and technology. In the last section of this paper we detail some of the trends in power integration. In low power area there exists a growing need to reduce the size of switching converters in portable equipment (note-book type personal computer, cellular phones) or for microsystem power supply. So, a second step in power integration consists in integrating passive elements as capacitors and inductors with semiconductor devices. For higher power applications, a new hybrid technology must be developed to integrate reactive components into fully integrated converters.


Mary, Queen of Scots promised to make a parliamentary religious settlement when she returned, as a Catholic, to her newly Protestant realm of Scotland in 1561. She then delayed summoning a parliament until 1563, and the summons, when it came, was engineered by her leading Protestant adviser, the earl of Moray. However, when parliament assembled, Mary outmaneuvered Moray with a series of well-timed concessions, and successfully avoided a Protestant settlement. The whole issue was a crucial one for Mary's personal reign, and it illustrates her skill in rallying broad support.


Declassification occurs when the confidentiality of information is weakened; erasure occurs when the confidentiality of information is strengthened, perhaps to the point of completely removing the information from the system. This paper shows how to enforce erasure and declassification policies. A combination of a type system that controls information flow and a simple runtime mechanism to overwrite data ensures end-to-end enforcement of policies. We prove that well-typed programs satisfy the semantic security condition noninterference according to policy. We extend the Jif programming language with erasure and declassification enforcement mechanisms and use the resulting language in a large case study of a voting system.


Has been done a coating process of the thin composite Ni-TiAlN to review the effect of variations concentration Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (C12H25NaSO4) on the surface morphology of thin layer composite Ni-TiAlN. This coating process was using electrodeposition method with a current 0.45μA, voltage 45mV for 15 minutes. This composite was formed on a Tungsten Carbide substrate with solution composition of the electrolyte which consists of 2 gr/l AlN, 2 gr/l TiN, 0.49 mol/l H3BO3, 0.17 M NiCl26H2O, 0.38 M NiSO46H2O and Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (C12H25NaSO4). The variation concentration of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (C12H25NaSO4) that used are 0,2 g/l, 0.4 g/l and 0.6 g/l. This research uses characterization of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) which showed that the bigger of concentration variation of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (C12H25NaSO4) make the surface morphology of thin layers composite Ni-TiAlN formed smoother than lower concentration, the smaller of aggregate and the crack are seen more clearly.


Abstract. Prior work indicates that the frequency of summertime mid-latitude cyclones tracking across the Great Lakes Storm Track (GLST, bounded by: 70° W, 90° W, 40° N, and 50° N) are strongly anticorrelated with ozone (O3) pollution episodes over the Northeastern United States (US). We apply the MAP Climatology of Mid-latitude Storminess (MCMS) algorithm to 6-hourly sea level pressure fields from over 2500 yr of simulations with the GFDL CM3 global coupled chemistry-climate model. These simulations include (1) 875 yr with constant 1860 emissions and forcings (Pre-industrial Control), (2) five ensemble members for 1860–2005 emissions and forcings (Historical), and (3) future (2006–2100) scenarios following the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) and a sensitivity simulation to isolate the role of climate warming from changes in O3 precursor emissions (RCP 4.5*). The GFDL CM3 Historical simulations capture the mean and variability of summertime cyclones traversing the GLST within the range determined from four reanalysis datasets. Over the 21st century (2006–2100), the frequency of summertime mid-latitude cyclones in the GLST decreases under the RCP 8.5 scenario and in the RCP 4.5 ensemble mean. These trends are significant when assessed relative to the variability in the Pre-industrial Control simulation. In addition, the RCP 4.5* scenario enables us to determine the relationship between summertime GLST cyclones and high-O3 events (> 95th percentile) in the absence of emission changes. The summertime GLST cyclone frequency explains less than 10% of the variability in high-O3 events over the Northeastern US in the model, implying that other factors play an equally important role in determining high-O3 events.


This book examines the role played by political communications, including media of all kinds - journalism, television, and film - in defining and shaping identity in Greater China; China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese. In the context of increasing cross-border interactions of people, investment and commercial products between the component parts of greater China, the book explores the idea that identity, rather than nation-states or political entities, may be the key factor in achieving further integration in Greater China. The book focuses on the ways in which identity is communicated, and shows how communication of identity within and between the component parts of greater China plays a central role in bringing about integration.


Background:The clinical management of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Motor Neurone Disease(ALSIMND), is palliative from the time of diagnosis, and is focused on symptom control and adjustment to the progressive loss of neurological function with the certainty of early death. As treatments are limited, inevitable decisions regarding accepting of forgoing life-sustaining therapies should be made. The failure to address advance care planning and end-of-life decisions leads to unplanned interventions, particularly mechanical ventilation.
Aim: The aim of this study is to extrapolate and illuminate the lived experience for patients with ALSMND, their carers and their health-care professionals regarding end-of-life decisions and advance care directives and to identify if the experiences of the participants concur.
Methods: A qualitative hermeneutic approach, guided by the philosophy of Hans Georg Gadarner, was the chosen methodology for this study as it illuminates the meaning and understanding of the lived experience of contemplating end-of-life decisions and advance care directives for patients with ALSIMND, their carers and their healthcare professionals. Purposive sampling was used to identify participants for this study. All the participants had experience pertaining to the phenomenon under investigation and included patients with ALSIMND, their carers and their health-care professionals, including nurses, Palliative Care Consultants and Consultant Neurologists.
Results: The study identified the difficulties and complexities in initiating and discussing end-of-life issues for all involved. It highlighted the importance of family consensus and support throughout the disease trajectory. The study revealed that there was ambivalence regarding legalising advance care directives and that the participants had a preference for disease specific advance care directives. The study highlighted that in relation to revisiting end-of-life discussions the participants views did not concur. The health-care professionals expressed a wish to revisit end-of-life discussions periodically. However, the carers did not wish to revisit them fearing that the decisions made may be revoked. The study identified the need to improve communication between the various multidisciplinary teams. It highlighted the need to increase public information and awareness regarding end-of-life decisions and advance care directives whereby it does not have to be a sentinel event before these discussions take place. The study identified that referral to the ALSIMND clinic would result in timely and appropriate end-of-life discussions and advance care directives taking place. It identified that patients who wish to invoke an advance care directive and have their end-of-life wishes respected are completely dependent on the attending physician.
Conclusions: The discussion of end-of-life issues and advance care directives appears to be fraught with difficult challenges. The potential for conflict may lead health-care professionals to avoid open discussions and advance care planning. End-of-life decisions and advance care directives are an extremely important process that emerges in the context of the patient, carer and health-care professional relationship. This study has identified that the use of advance care directives cannot promise or guarantee patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Motor Neurone Disease a say in their end-of-life care.


A prior study by one of the authors (Gritta, et. al. 2006) published in the Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, examined the extent of operating, financial, and total leverage facing the major U.S airlines, those carriers with total revenues of $1.0 billion or more. The study found that the vast majority of the carriers were highly leveraged at both the operating and financial levels and that this resulted in highly unstable profitability and increased the dangers of bankruptcy. The global airline industry has always been highly cyclical and somewhat fixed-cost driven. Airlines are thus high in what financial analysts refer to as operating leverage. In addition, the many airlines have followed aggressive debt strategies; that is, they have chosen to use large amounts of long-term debt finance to purchase assets. This results in a high degree of financial leverage. In the past, the resulting combined leverage has created severe financial problems for major carriers, both domestically and internationally.The current study seeks to examine a sample of foreign carriers in order to measure the extent of risks on the international level. In doing so, comparisons will be made to the large U.S. carriers. If possible, the authors will use the same time horizon as in the published paper, although in some cases carriers are too new to have such a history.


This paper uses the Bayesian approach to solve and estimate a New Keynesian model augmented by a generalized Phillips curve, in which the shape of the price reset hazards can be identiÂ…ed using aggregate data. My empirical result shows that a constant hazard function is easily rejected by the data. The empirical hazard function for post-1983 periods in the U.S. is consistent with micro evidence obtained using data from similar periods. The hazard for pre-1983 periods, however, exhibits a remarkable increasing pattern, implying that pricing decisions are characterized by both time- and state-dependent aspects. Additionally, real rigidity plays an important role, but not as big a role as found in empirical studies using limited information methods.


The Amazon is a shelter for a huge variety of fauna and flora with the largest fluvial system and the highest diversity in the world. The biotic and abiotic factors of the floodplains serve to control the development and evolution of the ecosystems of the region. In the Amazon lowlands, little is known about past vegetation and ecosystem dynamics and to an even lesser extent human disturbances. Therefore, this project presents three palaeoecological multi-proxy studies from the western part of the Amazon region in Brazil. The aim is to reconstruct the vegetation and climate changes as well as possible human impact during the late Quaternary.
A palaeoecological record from the floodplain areas of the Acre River, southwestern Brazil revealed the development and vegetation dynamics of a young oxbow lake (Lago Amapa) since the 19th century. The Lago Amapa record showed two main periods of changes. First the lake was influenced by fluvial input and afterwards the lake had a complete lacustrine phase. From ca. 1900 AD (Anno Domini) the main factors of transformation in vegetation were the fluvial dynamics, reflected by the input of sediments and pollen, transported by the river originating from Peruvian headwaters. From ca. 1950 AD the lake was rather isolated and only filled up when exceptional severe flood events occurred. Due to its close proximity to the City of Rio Branco at this time, it is assumed that the vegetation dynamics were altered by human activities. The increase of pioneer taxa, changes in sediment source and a comparison from Landsat images from the last 30 years, which showed a vast transformation in the vegetation cover close to the lake, displayed an extensive human impact. Towards the northwestern part of the Amazon region, a mid-Holocene record from a uniquely isolated plateau, the Serra do Tepequem, reflected a regional change from dry to wetter conditions, and an early expansion of the Mauritia flexuosa palm. A dry period was detected by the presence of grassland taxa, creeping pteridophytes and a high regional signal of fires between the period 7570 to 6190 cal BP (calibrated years Before Present). Subsequently, a wetter environment was detected by the changes in forest composition, reduction of
grasslands and an increase on Mauritia flexuosa palm from 6190 to 4900 cal BP. In addition, the study showed that the early increase in M. flexuosa developed differently to the increase in fire and savanna expansion found in the savanna region in Venezuela
The third study, a multi-proxy record from the remote region of the middle-upper Rio Negro showed the role of climate and river dynamics on the vegetation assemblages during the early and late Holocene. The Lake Acarabixi sediment core revealed that the forest was resilient to changes in the amount of precipitation and the filling dynamics of the valley of Rio Negro, which ended around 8000 cal BP in the Lake Acarabixi. In the early Holocene (10,840 to 8240 cal BP), herbs and open forest occurred, reflecting reduced precipitation with a seasonal climate. After 8240 to 1600 cal BP a large hiatus in sedimentation occurred. In the late Holocene (1600 to 650 cal BP) the lake reflected more lacustrine phases, and forest were closed with more flooding tolerant species.


Transcatheter mitral valve therapies have emerged as an alternative option in high surgical risk or inoperable patients with severe and symptomatic mitral regurgitation (MR). As multiple technologies and different approaches will become available in the field of mitral valve interventions, different challenges are emerging, both patient- (clinical challenges) and procedure-related (technical challenges). This review will briefly explore the current open challenges in the evolving fields of interventional mitral valve treatment.


The paper, 'An Electromagnetic Roof and Rib Thickness Sensor" presented at The 12th WVU International Mining Electrotechnology Conference in 1992, presented the results of roof coal thickness measurements in underground mines and rib coal thickness measurements in highwall mines. The microwave sensor described uses a unique spatial modulation scheme created by antenna motion, along with frequency domain signal processing, to solve the problem of media, target, and antenna dispersion. This paper further describes the advantages of the unique frequency domain signal processing technology chosen by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in extending previously reported one-dimensional thickness measurement technology to the generation of a full three-dimensional underground image of the underground environment. The electromagnetic signature of a media, whether it is coal or other geological material, is its permeability and permittivy, and the effect on the velocity and amplitude of an electromagnetic wave as it passes through. High-quality imaging cannot occur without the identification of, and correction for, the permittivity and permeability of each layer of a multilayer geological deposit. Clutter, or any signal that can interfere with target discrimination, usually comes from objects in the field of view for which there is no design control. These are nuisance targets with possibly very high contrasts compared to the real target. The only proven tool to reduce clutter is to increase spatial, spectral, and polarization diversity. This paper will describe some techniques being used by the U.S. Bureau of Mines to increase the information content of both single-dimensional and three-dimensional imaging systems through the identification of media distortion mechanisms made possible by the use of spatial/spectral sensor technology. These techniques will permit high quality imaging in an environment where the data is corrupted by dispersion and clutter.


Abstract The importance of tenure security for development and wellbeing is often reduced to questions about how titles can guarantee rights, overlooking the contested and layered nature of property rights themselves. We use the case of Lagos to analyse property rights as 'analogue' rather than 'digital' in nature – things that only exist by degree, where a dynamic urban situation renders the distinction between a right and a claim much less clear than conventional approaches suggest. We argue that property taxation plays important and unanticipated roles in efforts to realize property rights. To fully understand attempts to construct rights it is necessary to analyse the range of payments, documents, social relations and other strategic moves that people make to thicken property claims in contexts of 'radical insecurity'.


Semantic subtyping is an approach for defining sound and complete procedures to decide subtyping for expressive types, including union and intersection types; although it has been exploited especially in functional languages for XML based programming, recently it has been partially investigated in the context of object-oriented languages, and a sound and complete subtyping algorithm has been proposed for record types, but restricted to immutable fields, with union and recursive types interpreted coinductively to support cyclic objects. In this work we address the problem of studying semantic subtyping for imperative object-oriented languages, where fields can be mutable; in particular, we add read/write field annotations to record types, and, besides union, we consider intersection types as well, while maintaining coinductive interpretation of recursive types. In this way, we get a richer notion of type with a flexible subtyping relation, able to express a variety of type invariants useful for enforcing static guarantees for mutable objects. The addition of these features radically changes the defi- nition of subtyping, and, hence, the corresponding decision procedure, and surprisingly invalidates some subtyping laws that hold in the functional setting. We propose an intuitive model where mutable record val- ues contain type information to specify the values that can be correctly stored in fields. Such a model, and the correspond- ing subtyping rules, require particular care to avoid circularity between coinductive judgments and their negations which, by duality, have to be interpreted inductively. A sound and complete subtyping algorithm is provided, together with a prototype implementation.


The Impact of Outness and Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Identity Formation on Mental Health Sarah E. Feldman, M.S. Conflicting literature exists for the relationship between first disclosure, outness, sexual minority identity, and mental health among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals. That is, while the relationship between LGB identity and mental health has been relatively consistently positive in the literature, the relationship between outness and mental health is more mixed. In addition, the way these constructs differ among race, sex, and sexual orientation are rarely examined. The present study examined the complex relationship between first disclosure, outness, identity, and mental health among 192 lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals collected from an online sample. The study explored differences on these variables by biological sex, race, age, and sexual orientation. The major findings revealed that bisexual males have less developed sexual minority identities and view their identities less positively than do lesbian, gay, and bisexual female individuals. In addition, bisexual individuals overall are less out and come out later for the first time in comparison to lesbian and gay individuals. In terms of race, Caucasians have a stronger and more positive view of their sexual identity in comparison to individuals of color. It was also found that individuals in later stages of sexual identity development experienced a more positive view of their sexual identity. In terms of mental health, it was revealed that a stronger sexual identity was related to better mental health. Greater degree of outness was found to overall have a moderately positive impact on mental health, though age of first disclosure of sexual minority status was, overall, not associated to measures of identity or mental health. When examined more closely, outness had a more complex, dual impact on mental health. Specifically, outness was found to have both positive and negative consequences for mental health, with identity development accounting for the positive aspects of outness. Directions for future research and implications for clinicians are also discussed.


The non-collapse of post-Soviet Russia suggests that state disintegration is not a function of the degree of central control or the balance of power between the center and the periphery, but of the existence and effectiveness of institutions that mediate center-periphery grievances. The article examines four such institutional factors (unavailable under communism) that have enabled the Russian Federation to survive socio-economic and political challenges to state integrity in the 1990s: (1) the ability of the center to provide selective incentives to the regions and the regions' ability to engage in strategic bargaining; (2) disincentives for external support to regional separatists; (3) diffusion of civic separatism; and (4) center-periphery checks and balances. While the balance of power between Moscow and the regions is likely to wax and wane, the robustness of these four factors and the commitment of Russia's political elites to problem-solving through multilateral compromises and bargaining emerge as critical indicators of Russia's endurance. Ethnocentric consolidation of central government in Russia is likely to undermine these four state-preserving factors.


This paper provides the theoretical component to a blog I wrote as part of an academic program in Cultural Studies for a period from March 2, 2011 until September 30, 2011. Called The Last Triangle: Sex, Money and the Politics (http://www.thelasttriangle.com), I set out to explore the increasing normalization of pubic hair removal among women in North America. The reasons for the upswing in the popularity of pubic hair removal are hard to pinpoint, but seem to be motivated by a number of forces. From the ready accessibility of pornography, where pubic hair is currently so rare it has spawned its own fetish, to the widespread attention Brazilian waxing has received in the media, pubic hair removal is merely one among a myriad of body grooming practices many women increasingly indicate they feel obliged follow. This paper will explore some of those ideas, taking a critical view of the practice in light of questions around performing femininity, how pubic hair removal pertains to body control, and how pubic hair removal is, for many, increasingly viewed as a practice closely connected with good hygiene. Because it is intimately tied to the purchase of dedicated products, pubic hair removal will also be considered in as much as it relates to capitalism. Because the blog was a fundamental component of my research experience, excerpts of both my own writing, as well as comments from readers, will be included in conversation here with the theoretical questions.


Granular mixtures made of high-density pellets of bentonite are being evaluated as an alternative buffer material for waste isolation. Ease of handing is an often-mentioned advantage. The paper describes the experimental program performed to characterize the hydromechanical behaviour of compacted pellet's mixtures. Grain size distribution was adjusted to a maximum pellet size compatible with the specimen's dimensions. Dry densities of statically compacted specimens varied in most of the cases in the range: 1.3 to 1.5 Mg/m3. Pellets had a very high dry density, close to 2 Mg/m3. To outstanding characteristics of these mixture is its discontinuous porosity. Pore sizes of the compacted pellets vary around 10 nm. However the inter-pellet size of the pores is four to five orders of magnitude higher. This double porosity and the highly expansive nature of the pellets controlled all the hydraulic and mechanical properties of the mixture. Test performed include infiltration tests using different water injection rates and mechanisms of water transfer (in liquid and vapour phases), suction controlled oedometer test and swelling pressure tests. The interpretation of some of the tests performed required backanalysis procedures using a Hydro-Mechanical(HM)computer code.
Material response was studied within the framework of the elastoplastic constitutive model proposed by Alonso et al.(1990) (Barcelona Basic Model, BBM). Parameters for the model were identified and also a set of hydraulic laws necessary to perform coupled HM analysis. A large scale in situ test (the "EB" test in Mont Terri, Switzerland) is described and analyzed. Rock barrier parameters were adjusted on the basis of available test. The test excavation, barrier emplacement and forced hydration was simulated by means of the CODE_BRIGHT program. The comparison between measurement and computed results include data on relative humidity in the rock and the buffer, swelling pressures and displacement.


Abstract Introduction: Radioprotectors can enhance the efficacy of cancer radiotherapy, but their clinical use remains uncommon. The present study aimed to assess the radioprotective potential of mistletoe extract (commercial name: Abnoba Viscum), a well-known complementary cancer medicine, in zebrafish larvae. Materials and methods: Wild-type AB zebrafish embryos at 4 h-post-fertilization were exposed to 5 Gy 9-MeV electron beam irradiation after being treated for 1 h with 4 mMl/L amifostine or 0.2 mg/ml Abnoba Viscum A, F, M, or Q. Primary endpoints were abnormality-free survival and abnormality-free rates among survivors at 5 days-post-fertilization. Results: The crude abnormality-free survival rates were 33.7%, 49.0%, 38.8%, 43.9%, 38.1%, and 52.6%, whereas abnormality-free rates among survivors were 36.4%, 49.6%, 37.8%, 45.6%, 52.0%, and 62.8% for the control (with no pharmacologic treatment), amifostine, Abnoba Viscum A, F, M, and Q groups, respectively. Abnormality-free survival rates in the amifostine and Abnoba Viscum Q groups were significantly different from those in the control (p = .040 and .012, respectively), with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.90 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.03–3.51] and 2.20 (95% CI: 1.19–4.08), respectively. Abnormality-free rates among survivors in the amifostine and Abnoba Viscum M and Q groups were significantly different from those in the control group (p = .048, .042, and <.001, respectively), with an OR of 1.79 (95% CI: 1.00–3.20), 1.82 (95% CI: 1.02–3.26), and 2.98 (1.67–5.33), respectively. Conclusion: Abnoba Viscum Q has at least a similar radioprotective effect to that of amifostine. Mistletoe extracts have been clinically applied for a long time and their effectiveness and feasibility have been verified. Abnoba Viscum Q might be a new candidate radioprotectant to enhance cancer radiotherapy efficacy. Graphical Abstract


The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. (Justice John Marshall Harlan, dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, p. 559)For almost a century now, the American judiciary has struggled with issues of segregation and desegregation in higher education. Justice Harlan's simplistic characterization of a "color-blind" Constitution fails to address adequately our contemporary racially stratified, culturally diverse, and economically divided nation (Gotanda, 1991). The United States Supreme Court's 1992 decision in United States v. Fordice is only the most recent of many unsuccessful attempts to solve this thorny problem. With litigation still under way in several states, the Court's ruling in Fordice does not promise to be the final word on this topic. The issue of desegregation in higher education remains unresolved for many reasons--some of which are examined in this article.Focusing on United States Supreme Court rulings, this article highlights legal, educational, and social issues surrounding the court-ordered desegregation of higher education. It also offers insights about the general effectiveness of the Court's rulings in this vital area. To accomplish this task, the article is divided into three parts. Part one provides a chronological, historical perspective of important court cases as well as relevant federal legislation on this topic.(1) Part two introduces and discusses concepts of academic freedom at the postsecondary level and their influence on higher education desegregation efforts. Part three concludes the article and offers a partial explanation why the judiciary has been unable to desegregate higher education.THE LEGAL HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVEThe legal history of higher education desegregation is appropriately divided into three distinct segments. The first period, starting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focuses on early law that emphasized equal protection as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Stressing the importance of institutions and facilities, these decisions maintained that a separate education may be an equal education and, in essence, supported laws that mandated separate facilities for the races.During the second period, which began in the late 1930s and reached its apex with such important rulings as Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950), the focus shifted from the institution to the individual, as individual plaintiffs, mostly African Americans, sued to attend the institution of their choice. In some of these cases, no separate facility was available while in others, such as Sweatt, a facility was available but the Supreme Court deemed that it was not equal. These cases began to question the separate but equal doctrine as it applied to higher education, and they laid the groundwork for the Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education declaration that, when it comes to education, separate is inherently unequal.The third period shifted emphasis back to the institution. Encompassing litigation that occurred after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this analysis focused on cases that called for dismantling dual systems of education for Whites and Blacks and that reconsidered the role of choice in this process. Desegregation litigation in higher education during this period is best characterized by the most recent applicable Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Fordice (1992). …


Being a public resource, the roadway space was distributed between different road users based on the Passenger-Car-Unit (PCU) concept. However, this concept tends to under estimate the capacity of public transportation and non-motorized travel. To improve the traditional car-oriented design to become more human-oriented, this study proposed a Passing-passenger-unit (PPU) and the method to observe the PPU in roadway level and area level. The PPU data were collected for urban arterials and residential areas in China to test the method and to compare the right-of-way distribution at different types of locations. Results showed that the PPU revealed the true efficiency of the facility carrying passengers. Using PPU would tell a different story about the facility or system compared to using PCU. Additionally, using PPU to analyze the right-of-way for the roadway or community could offer guidance for improving pedestrian and bicyclist environment.


In an era marked by processes of economic and political integration that are arguably unprecedented in their range and impact, the translation of law has assumed a new significance. The following situations are typical. As the expression of a strong postcolonial commitment, various African states have decided to draft their legislation in more than one official language with a view to conferring equal authority upon colonial and traditional languages. Elsewhere, an influential group of European lawyers is seeking to develop a civil code for the European Union that potentially stands to be translated into 23 languages. Meanwhile, former political and military leaders are being prosecuted for genocide before the International Criminal Court, a body consisting of judges from many different legal backgrounds and operating according to a complex multilingual procedure. And, controversially, the US Supreme Court has relied upon foreign law in order to assess the constitutionality of a Texas statute criminalizing certain forms of sexual behaviour. Each of these instances raises the matter of law in translation, broadly understood. Can legal rules carry identical normative implications in more than one language? Can law achieve uniformity despite needing to be rendered in many languages? How do interpreting and translation affect adjudication in a multilingual courtroom? To what extent can a given legal text make sense in a different legal culture? These questions, among others, are addressed here within a comparative legal context in which, it is demonstrated, translation issues are a central feature of the contemporary legal landscape.


Cloud Robotics is one of the emerging area of robotics. It has created a lot of attention due to its direct practical implications on Robotics. In Cloud Robotics, the concept of cloud computing is used to offload computational extensive jobs of the robots to the cloud. Apart from this, additional functionalities can also be offered on run to the robots on demand. Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is one of the computational intensive algorithm in robotics used by robots for navigation and map building in an unknown environment. Several Cloud based frameworks are proposed specifically to address the problem of SLAM, DAvinCi, Rapyuta and C2TAM are some of those framework. In this paper, we presented a detailed review of all these framework implementation for SLAM problem.


Survey of Surface Fault Rupture and Structure Interaction Lucy Redmond This report aims to raise awareness of the hazards of surface fault rupture and to identify parameters that influence structural performance during earthquake fault rupture. In researching structures subject to surface rupture, both damaged and sound, guidelines and procedures to evaluate buildings in potential hazard areas are developed herein. Little to no guidance on how to design for surface fault offset exists in current codes and design guides. Thus it is important create tools for designers to appropriately analyze structures by developing guidance and requirements to aid designers in their strength assessment of a structure subject to this particular hazard. Case studies of structures damaged by fault rupture, detailed in Section 4.0, provide important clues as to how structures respond when subject to surface offset. These case studies highlight structures that have been tested under the imposed deformations of the ground, providing insight into how building layout and construction techniques can protect the structure, even under extreme offsets. A sample evaluation for Bowles Hall (UC Berkeley) is provided herein in addition to preliminary code equations that may be used to verify and determine a structure's resistance to surface rupture. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


There is limited evidence in Japan regarding the psychosocial determinants of fruit/vegetable intake. We performed a cross-sectional study of people aged 18 years or older in four regions of Japan; 2308 (men: 1012, women: 1296) individuals who completed the questionnaires were included. We found that 24.8% of people were aware of the current recommendations for vegetables and 13.2% for fruit and that "ability to design meals" and "availability when eating outside of the home" were the most important factors related to self-efficacy and barriers to fruit and vegetable intake, respectively. People with high self-efficacy (OR: 3.16; 95% CI: 2.17, 4.60 for fruit; OR: 4.52; 95% CI: 3.08, 6.64 for vegetables) were more likely to consume more fruit and vegetables. People with high scores on attitude (OR: 1.54; 95% CI: 1.06, 2.24) and social support (OR: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.11, 2.27) were more likely to consume more fruit. People with high perceived barriers (OR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.98) were less likely to consume fruit. This study suggests a need to increase the general population's awareness of the fruit and vegetable intake recommendations; facilitating positive attitudes, self-efficacy, and social support for individuals and strengthening the ability of individuals to design meals with more vegetables and fruit might be useful intervention programs.


This paper discusses the construction of personal identities through the request e-mail discourse by a group of professional English language teachers of a public education institution in Hong Kong. Facing the downsizing of the civil service, the revised appraisal system, and the tighter budget of the Hong Kong SAR government following the Asian financial crisis, teachers working in Hong Kong public schools have less chances of getting promotion and pay rises. To put themselves in an advantageous position in relation to get a promotion and a pay rise, as argued in this paper, the teachers constructed two personal identities online before their peers and superiors in their workplace. A total of 50 e-mails met the two criteria that follow and formed the corpus of the present study: containing at least one request, and having teachers of the same rank as the author and recipients. The request e-mail discourse is analyzed at the clause level with respect to transitivity, mood and modality by drawing upon systemic functional linguistics. It is found that the teachers, using the resources available in the English language grammar, constructed for themselves the identity of a responsible, hardworking member, and of a member with authority and power. This paper hopes to achieve three aims – (1) to contribute to the understanding of the constitutive effect of discourse; (2) to illustrate how such effect could be manipulated by discourse producers in order to achieve both their communicative and political aims; and (3) to enhance people's e-mail communication competency in the workplace.


A n argument in three points and a conclusion. Point 1: Disunity. My graduate students usually enjoy my assignment of the Origin of Species. They then ask me about the technical monograph that Darwin must have popularized in order to write his preeminent book. And I reply that the Origin is Darwin's singular attempt, suitable for public and professional consumption alike, to foment the greatest revolution in the history of scientific thought. I then assign Galileo's two volumes of 1632 and 1638, both written as dialogues in Italian, not as academic treatises in Latin, so that all his literate countrymen might find them accessible.

I do not know when the technical and popular prose of science became separated, although I accept the inevitability of such a division as knowledge became increasingly more precise, detailed, and specialized. We have now reached the point where most technical literature not only falls outside the possibility of public comprehension but also (as we would all admit in honest moments) outside our own competence in scientific disciplines far removed from our personal expertise. I trust that we all regard this situation as saddening, even though we accept its necessity. After all, most of us entered science in the bloom of youth's idealism, hoping to remain broadly educated in all major disciplines of this grandest adventure in human intellectual history.

Point 2: Meeting. For most of our 150-year history, the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) served a dual function of presenting general information to an interested public and providing a forum where specialists could gather to share discoveries and transact professional business. Now the professional function has withered, and the AAAS annual meeting, the largest general convocation in American science, has largely become a device for communicating information, through the mediating efforts of attending journalists, to the interested public. Unsurprisingly, many scientists have become cynical about the AAAS annual meeting—"a good thing" as Martha Stewart likes to say, but not worth attending for any motive of professional learning.

Point 3: Fellowship Do we not regret the loss of unity among scientists in all disciplines? Do we not still wish to regard ourselves as partners in a shared and noble enterprise? Would we not relish the opportunity to meet with colleagues in disparate fields, not to battle for political fruits of funding and space within our universities, but simply for the pleasure of learning about new developments in areas that once caught our interest, but have since faded from our narrowing purview?

A step toward a solution: I confess to the cynicism described above. I had not attended a AAAS meeting for 20 years, but had to go, in my role as president-elect, in 1999. And I experienced one of the most pleasant surprises of my life. So many wonderful talks, neither gee-whizzed up nor dumbed down, presented by some of our finest colleagues in all disciplines. And I thought, why can't the AAAS meeting become the touchstone for renewal of old ideals of learning and fellowship, and also for unification in two truly complementary senses often misconstrued as antagonistic: unity among scientists based on our shared love and fascination for the entire enterprise, and unity between our public and professional efforts, for good popularization never adulterates or debases its subject, whereas clear professional presentations should fascinate all seriously interested and educated people. If scientists reconceptualize the AAAS meeting as an expansive treat in reaffirmation and pleasure-an opportunity to increase their own breadth and learning, not just an occasional duty in public instruction—then all facets of science would shine together, a false gap between public and professional learning might begin to close, and we might even approach the Psalmist's ideal (133:1): "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren [meaning, in this context, all people allied by a shared love of science] to dwell together in unity!"


Autonomous and intelligent construction equipment is an emergent area of research, which shares many characteristics with on-road autonomous vehicles, but also have fundamental differences. Construction vehicles usually perform repetitive tasks in confined sites, such as quarries, and cooperate with other vehicles to complete common missions. A quarry can be viewed as a system-of-systems and the vehicles are individual systems within the site system. Therefore it is important to analyze the site system, i.e. included vehicles, surrounding systems, and system context, before the introduction of autonomous vehicles. It is necessary to map the needed infrastructure, and the needed input information from on-board sensors and off-board information suppliers, before designing the vehicle electronics system. This paper describes how we identified sensory and input signal needs for an autonomous articulated hauler in a scenario at a quarry site. Different architectural alternatives are evaluated and a set-up for a quarry site is suggested.


We consider a Sensor-Aided Cognitive Radio Network (SACRN) in which sensors capable of harvesting energy are distributed throughout the network to support secondary transmitters for sensing licensed channels in order to improve both energy and spectral efficiency. Harvesting ambient energy is one of the most promising solutions to mitigate energy deficiency, prolong device lifetime, and partly reduce the battery size of devices. So far, many works related to SACRN have considered single secondary users capable of harvesting energy in whole slot as well as short-term throughput. In the paper, we consider two types of energy harvesting sensor nodes (EHSN): Type-I sensor nodes will harvest ambient energy in whole slot duration, whereas type-II sensor nodes will only harvest energy after carrying out spectrum sensing. In the paper, we also investigate long-term throughput in the scheduling window, and formulate the throughput maximization problem by considering energy-neutral operation conditions of type-I and -II sensors and the target detection probability. Through simulations, it is shown that the sensing energy consumption of all sensor nodes can be efficiently managed with the proposed scheme to achieve optimal long-term throughput in the window.


As part of a project analyzing existing large-scale data sets with information about the ECE experiences of Hispanic populations, this brief describes survey data elements relevant to studying the patterns and characteristics of Hispanic families' ECE use. In addition to type, setting, and amount of ECE care, we highlight elements related to out-of-pocket costs and use of assistance. We also point to new directions for the study of child care utilization among Latinos. Researchers can use this review and associated data tables to select the study, samples, and variables most appropriate for their research questions.


In "Fashioning the Female Subject, " Sabine Sielke addresses the often nebulous concept of female subjectivity through a critical analysis of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and Adrienne Rich, each of whom has uniquely fashioned and transformed the female subject over the last 150 years. Applying the feminist theories of Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous, Sielke articulately develops a notion of female subjectivity as an intertextual network, a network whose three historically distinct levels illustrate a clear evolution in the poetic designs of such subjectivity.Acknowledging the semantics of the female body as the most contested battleground of female subject constitution, Sielke shows how a historical female subject emerges from Moore's and Rich's strategies of poetic mimicry and camouflage, and culminates in Rich's strategy of continuous re-vision. Like Dickinson, Rich creates "subjects-in-process," which, when projected as processes in history, are capably transformed from a sense of fluent subjectivity into an ethically responsible identity practice. Rich's poetics close a significant gap in French feminist theory, Sielke claims, by reconstructing the female subject as an agent of her own history."Fashioning the Female Subject" is a rereading of American women's poetry, a partial revisioning of French feminist theory, and a reassessment of Adrienne Rich as a central figure in American feminist theory. Offering a revisionary sense of literary history, Sielke's book offers a new model of literary affiliation to readers of poetry, scholars of literary history, feminist critics, and literary theorists alike.Sabine Sielke is Assistant Professor of American Literature, John F. Kennedy-Institut, Freie Universitat Berlin."


Many object detection systems are constrained by the time required to convolve a target image with a bank of filters that code for different aspects of an object's appearance, such as the presence of component parts. We exploit locality-sensitive hashing to replace the dot-product kernel operator in the convolution with a fixed number of hash-table probes that effectively sample all of the filter responses in time independent of the size of the filter bank. To show the effectiveness of the technique, we apply it to evaluate 100,000 deformable-part models requiring over a million (part) filters on multiple scales of a target image in less than 20 seconds using a single multi-core processor with 20GB of RAM. This represents a speed-up of approximately 20,000 times - four orders of magnitude - when compared with performing the convolutions explicitly on the same hardware. While mean average precision over the full set of 100,000 object classes is around 0.16 due in large part to the challenges in gathering training data and collecting ground truth for so many classes, we achieve a mAP of at least 0.20 on a third of the classes and 0.30 or better on about 20% of the classes.


Considering the relevance of studying the peculiarities of criminal-legal characteristics of organized crime, it should be noted that, due to real threats from powerful criminal groups in the 60-ies of the last century, the Federal Bureau of investigation, the U.S. gave the characteristics of an organized criminal group as any group of persons having established kind of formalized structure whose main purpose seems to be receiving proceeds from unlawful activities and which maintains its position through use of violence and threats of violence, as well as through the development of corrupt relationships with public officials, extortion and bribery, have, as a rule, the impact on the population of a certain territory until the country as a whole. In Russian criminal law organized crime is considered as a special form of complicity. In part 3 of article 35 of the criminal code provide a definition of an organized group. This is a stable group of persons (two or more people) who combined beforehand to commit one or more crimes. The main feature of this is its sustainability. In a General sense, sustainability refers to the desire of enterprises to self-preservation, the ability to withstand impact from the outside, preserving its internal structure and inherent relationships of the constituent elements (in this case group members). The penal code does not give a specific definition of the term "sustainability". In the legal literature also has not developed a unified understanding of this characteristic of an organized group. Litigation, however, highlights a number of specific characteristics, indicating the stability of the group. The paper proposes a direct solution to the problem.


Novice teachers are at a vulnerable stage of their career and
are at an increased risk of quitting teaching. Therefore it is
necessary to study the drop-out of novice teachers together
with the reasons behind it. Our study focuses on Czech primary
and secondary beginning teachers (up to three years of
experience) and aim to explore how they perceive the
interactive and institutional aspects of their job as well as
the broader context, how valued and supported they feel, and
how this connects to their intention to stay in their school
(stayers), change schools (movers) or quit teaching (leavers).
Also, we focused on how their views change over time. 126
teachers completed a questionnaire consisting of 70 Likert
scale items and additional context questions twice in a school
year (with slight adaptations; 6 months between the stages).
The distribution of stayers (73 % / 74 %), movers (17 % / 18 %)
and leavers (10 % / 10%) was similar in both stages.
Statistically significant differences between stayers and
movers/leavers were especially in the perception of the
institutional level (school, colleagues, school leadership). It
is noteworthy that it was the movers who were more negative.
This gap widened further with time – in the second stage,
movers were even more negative towards their school context,
especially towards school leadership. Stayers felt
statistically significantly more valued and supported. The
findings are important for educational policy as well as
provide impulses for the development of teacher education and
induction programmes.


The transport and mixing of dust aerosols and pollutants in East Asia during March 18 to 22, 2002 was studied using the nested air quality prediction model system (NAQPMS). Dust was primarily generated in the Gobi desert on 19 March and then swept across several areas of East Asia. The model results were verified with observations of surface weather, TSP/PM10, SO2 and lidar data. The model simulated the right timing and strength of dust events, capturing most of the variation features in dust and SO2. Numerical results showed that the dust aerosols were mainly transported in two layers and mixed with pollutants in different ways. Some of the dust kicked up in the source region was uplifted to a higher layer (200-2000 m layer) and transported downwind faster than dust of the lower level. This lower-level dust was of greater concentration. The dust arriving at the upper layer began to drop and mixed well with pollutants in the atmosphere during "the first period". During "the second period", pollutants were diluted by the dust air mass that was transported along the lower layer. The remaining pollutants mixed well with dust aerosols during this period. The mixed air mass of the higher layer (1500 m) eventually reached the Northwestern Pacific. A large amount of clouds in the upper layers potentially led to an increase in sulfate mass on the surface of dust particles.


Context: Registration of clinical trials is recommended at or before the first participant enrolment. There is limited data available on the registration of Ayurvedic clinical trials in Clinical Trials Registry of India (CTRI). Aim: The aim of this analysis was to determine the proportion of retrospectively and prospectively registered Ayurvedic clinical trials in CTRI. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of Ayurvedic clinical trials registered in CTRI. List of trials registered in CTRI was accessed from 2012 to 2016 (n= 4713; last accessed on 21 June 2016) and screened to identify Ayurvedic trials. Other AYUSH trials were excluded from the analysis. Following data was collected - registration type (retrospective/prospective), study site (state), postgraduate thesis (yes/no), type of trial (interventional/observational), and study design. Data was summarized using summary statistics. Results: A total of 507 (10.8%) Ayurvedic trials were included in this analysis. The registration of Ayurvedic clinical trials increased from 9.3% (2012) to 19.9% (2016). Of 507 trials, 373 (73.6%) were registered retrospectively and remaining 134 (26.4%) were registered prospectively. A total of 277 trials were part of postgraduate theses (220 retrospective; 57 prospective) and 229 were not (152 retrospective; 77 prospective); 481 trials were interventional (357 retrospective; 124 prospective); 320 were randomized (236 retrospective; 84 prospective). The 507 trials had 686 sites, highest being in Gujarat (38.3%), followed by Maharashtra (19.2%), and Karnataka (10.1%). Conclusions: Results from this study showed that majority of Ayurvedic clinical trials have been registered retrospectively, however there is increase in prospective registration. More than half of the study sites of CTRI registered trials were located in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka reflecting limited registration in other parts of India.


Mandates that agencies solve massive problems such as sprawl and climate change roll easily out of the halls of legislatures, but as a practical matter what can any one agency do about them? Serious policy challenges such as these have dimensions far beyond the capacity of any single agency to manage effectively. Rather, as the Supreme Court recently observed in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, agencies, like legislatures, do not generally resolve massive problems in one fell swoop, but instead whittle away over time, refining their approach as circumstances change and they develop a more nuanced understanding of how best to proceed. Whether sprawl, climate change, or other daunting challenges, agencies are increasingly being told to address massive problems but without obvious tools or strategies to do so. In this Article we explore what it means for agencies to whittle away at massive problems. Administrative law scholarship has assumed that massive problems are similar to one another, focusing instead on issues of jurisdiction and instrument choice - who should whittle and which knife they should use. In Part I we argue that the nature of the problem - the stick to be whittled - deserves equal attention. Some problems, because of the presence of certain types of cumulative effects from multiple sources, are significantly more difficult for agencies to manage. In Part II, using examples from the fields of environmental and land use law, we develop a model to identify the different attributes of cumulative effects that drive massive problems and how these can distort or undermine policy responses. In Part III we explore the three different strategies currently used in administrative law to manage massive problems, showing each to be deficient. In Part IV we draw from recent scholarship on Dynamic Federalism, New Governance, and Transgovernmental Network theories to propose an effective strategy for agencies to whittle away at massive problems through loosely-linked weak ties networks of federal, state, and local agencies. Part V illustrates how this can work in practice, using a case study of water pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. We explore both how such multi-scalar, multi-agency coordination networks function and the challenges they pose for administrative law. The Court's observation is quite correct - agencies, even when working together, can only whittle away at massive problems. This article takes the next step, creating models that explain the challenges posed by different types of massive problems and proposing strategies for engaging in more effective multi-agency coordination.


This study is carried out with the objective of examining the effect of altitude on water availability estimates for the various sub-basins of the Chenab river basin (mean elevation of the basin is 3600 m), which is a snow-fed Himalayan river basin located in the western Himalayas. This basin covers all three Himalayan ranges, i.e. outer, middle and greater Himalayas. For this study, the daily flow data of 11 gauging sites varying from 14 years to 23 years in the Chenab river basin are utilised. The other important information related to the physiography, hydrology and meteorology, etc, for the region are derived from the available literature and maps. The daily flow data of nine gauging sites are utilised for developing the regional relationships for water availability computations. These relationships are tested over the remaining two gauging sites. The regional relationships are developed using three different approaches. These approaches include: (i) parameter regionalisation for individual gauged sites of selected probability distribution, (ii) regionalisation of dependable flows and (iii) parameter regionalisation for the region as a whole of the selected probability distribution. The different methods are compared and discussed in detail. It is observed that the flow for a given dependability increases with catchment area and decreases with altitude. The flows of the catchments at higher altitudes exhibit larger variability in comparison to the catchments at lower altitudes. The regional relationships are recommended for the use of field engineers.


The aim of this project was to investigate a combinatorial optimization problem stated by Global Genomics AB. The problem has its background in genomics, and is part of a new method for measuring gene expression levels. This method involves experiments as well as post processing of the experimental data. The experiments take a cell sample as input, and the output is incomplete information about the genes expressed in the sample. To estimate the gene expression levels from this information, it has to be matched with a gene database. Since the experimental data is incomplete, there are many possible matchings. The problem investigated in this project is to find the best matching between the experimental data and the gene database, using some different local search techniques.


This article will examine the complexities of first-person narrative in lateeighteenth and early nineteenth-century fiction. Taking as its starting-pointSylvia Adamson's ground-breaking work on shifts of point of view in Puritannarratives (see Adamson 1995), it shows that the Romantic period novel is alsoconcerned with exploring the potential complications of first-person perspective,frequently with a view to exposing political changes or contradictions.The authors focused on will be Mary Hays and Elizabeth Hamilton. Thefirst-person perspective in this period has often been identified as an unequivocaloutlet for Jacobin sympathies; this essay will use detailed stylistic analysis tosuggest that the picture may be more complicated. Building on recent work onfirst-person narrative from a narratological standpoint (see for example Phelan(2005)), I will show that an examination of texts from the 1790s and beyondcalls into question the traditional distinction between the 'narrating' and'experiencing' selves of first-person narrative. The novels and memoirs underdiscussion demonstrate instead the ability of the first person to contain within ita complex, ever-shifting range of deictic and ideological positions.


I. THE DOWNSIDE OF VOTING WITH YOUR FEET The organizers of this Symposium (1) gave each panel a brief summary of the panel's intended topic. I want to take a part of that summary as the subject of my commentary: "It is a benefit of Federalism that people can vote with their feet and migrate to communities that share their values as well as enable their liberty. But does pervasive judicial review threaten to destroy local identity by homogenizing community norms?" (2) There follows some more in that vein, some illustrative examples, and finally the provocative question whether the Constitution really requires a separation of God and football. (3) I will return to God and football, but I principally want to address this idea of voting with your feet. The idea is common in the federalism literature, (4) but it has always troubled me. (5) The idea especially troubles me when voting with your feet is offered as an argument for less vigorous enforcement of constitutional rights. (6) At least some of the commentators who have written articles praising the right to vote with your feet have also shared my view that this right is insufficient to protect other constitutional rights. Thus, Richard Epstein argues that federalism is indispensable because it protects the right to vote with your feet, but that the protection is not enough. "[T]he institution of federalism, without the rigorous enforcement of substantive individual rights, will not be equal to the formidable task before it." (7) There are times when voting with your feet is an acceptable second-best solution, and it is a good thing that we are always free to leave a jurisdiction if we have to. (8) But voting with your feet is often a last resort in response to illegitimate treatment. The task is to distinguish those cases in which a person leaves the jurisdiction in response to illegitimate pressures from those cases in which a person leaves the jurisdiction in response to legitimate policy disagreements. That question reduces to a debate over which rights to constitutionalize and over the appropriate scope of each constitutional right. We have great debates about those questions. Americans disagree about which rights to interpret narrowly and which to interpret broadly. But we will do best if we debate these questions on their merits. Unless one takes Professor Lino Graglia's view that enforcing constitutional rights through judicial review is a bad idea, (9) the debate over the appropriate scope of rights cannot be resolved by references to voting with your feet. "Voting with your feet" is a sugarcoated way to describe what happens when dissenters are driven out of the community. Runaway slaves were voting with their feet. (10) Darfurians fleeing to Chad are voting with their feet. (11) Ethnic cleansing is a way of encouraging people to vote with their feet. I assume that the people who wrote our panel description did not have in mind any of these examples. But the difference between these examples and what our organizers were likely thinking about does not turn on the definition of voting with your feet. The relevant differences are in the rights being violated and in the magnitude of the deprivations that led people to vote with their feet. To distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable pressure to vote with your feet, we have to consider specific rights and the range of possible deprivations. Federalism is a prominent feature of our Constitution. (12) Federalism means that there will be differences from state to state. (13) Within states, we rely heavily on local government, and that reliance means that there will be differences from town to town or between rural and urban areas. (14) But countervailing ideas are also prominent in our Constitution. We teach our children that we are "one Nation ... indivisible," (15) and the idea of indivisibility also appears in the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution. …


We present a novel and scalable policy synthesis approach for robots. Rather than producing single-path plans for a static environment, we consider changing environments with uncontrollable agents, where the robot needs a policy to respond correctly over the infinite-horizon interaction with the environment. Our approach operates on task and motion domains, and combines actions over discrete states with continuous, collision-free paths. We synthesize a task and motion policy by iteratively generating a candidate policy and verifying its correctness. For efficient policy generation, we use grammars for potential policies to limit the search space and apply domain-specific heuristics to generalize verification failures, providing stricter constraints on policy candidates. For efficient policy verification, we construct compact, symbolic constraints for valid policies and employ a Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solver to check the validity of these constraints. Furthermore, the SMT solver enables quantitative specifications such as energy limits. The results show that our approach offers better scalability compared to a state-of-the-art policy synthesis tool in the tested benchmarks and demonstrate an order-of-magnitude speedup from our heuristics for the tested mobile manipulation domain.


The project focuses on a platform device management, an MDM (Mobile Device Management), provided by the vendor MobileIron. It also focuses on customer service CaixaBank. The goal in this project is to release the workload of the Technical Systems Mobility Group at ITnow, automating all possible tasks performed day by day. Initially, the reader is introduced to the importance of mobility and they will be presented to the objectives of this project. Defining in what a mobility project consists and entering in detail in the ITnow one's. It will be done a time study of the tasks of the Mobility group done daily. Once obtained the different tables with all itemized tasks, will be studied each for their automation. Finally, those that are most optimal to optimize will be chosen. Once the tasks to automatize are obtained, it will be chosen different functionalities that the tool or software must provide. The purpose of this software is to collect all the tasks because of the management and the implementation of these would be more agile. Once the tool will be developed, a comparative study between manual tasks and automated tasks must be done obtaining a comparative conclusion between them. Finally, some general and personal conclusions will be obtained relating the worked done and the adversities encountered with all the knowledge gained during the training period.


While photo sharing sites such as Flickr provide efficient tools for setting up an online album, users who want to maintain a certain level of privacy are usually only provided with rudimentary access control. Given that descriptive tags are extensively used on photos, and that the Semantic Web provides a common means of sharing social network information as linked data, we believe better access control mechanism can be provided by combining the two. Based on this idea, we propose and describe in this paper a system which allows users to create expressive access control policies for their photos on the Web by using both tags and linked data.


The association between antiretroviral treatment and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in HIV-positive persons has been the subject of much debate since the Data collection on Adverse events of Anti-HIV Drugs (D:A:D) study reported that recent use of two antiretroviral drugs, abacavir (ABC) and didanosine (DDI), was associated with increased risk. We focus on the potential impact of DDI use, as this drug has not been as studied intensively as ABC. We propose a flexible marginal structural Cox model with weighted cumulative exposure modeling (Cox WCE MSM) to address two key challenges encountered when using observational longitudinal data to assess the adverse effects of medication: (1) the need to model the cumulative effect of a time-dependent treatment and (2) the need to control for time-dependent confounders that also act as mediators of the effect of past treatment. Simulations confirm that the Cox WCE MSM yields accurate estimates of the causal treatment effect given complex exposure effects and time-dependent confounding. We then use the new flexible Cox WCE MSM to assess the association between DDI use and CVD risk in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. In contrast to the nonsignificant results obtained with conventional parametric Cox MSMs, our new Cox WCE MSM identifies a significant short-term risk increase due to DDI use in the previous year. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.


Creating a timeline for formulaic language is far from simple, because several partially independent lines of research have contributed to the emerging picture. Each exhibits cycles of innovation and consolidation over time: domains take a leading role in developing new knowledge and then fall back, while another area comes to the fore. Thus, some of the first observations about formulaic language, back in the nineteenth century, were in the clinical domain of aphasia studies. By the early to mid twentieth century it was theories of language structure that had most to say, until eclipsed by the Chomskian model, which saw little significance in lexicalised units larger than the word (an issue discussed by Jackendoff 2002; see table entry). Meanwhile, changes in language teaching methodology in the mid to late twentieth century increasingly urged teachers to ask how adult learners could best master multiword strings to improve fluency and idiomaticity – a question still asked today. By the end of the twentieth century, new technological advances revealed frequency in usage as a probable agent of formulaicity, and these chimed with new models of lexical knowledge based on neural pathways and networks that could be strengthened by repeated exposure. Drawing on these models, we have seen, as we move into the twenty-first century, the development of new approaches to modelling language as a system – emergent grammars, including Construction Grammar – that are more accommodating of large, internally complex units. And finally, as we gradually understand more about how the brain accesses and retrieves linguistic material, we are seeing a resurgence of interest in formulaic language in neurological and clinical contexts.


In conversational QA, models have to leverage information in previous turns to answer upcoming questions. Current approaches, such as Question Rewriting, struggle to extract relevant information as the conversation unwinds. We introduce the Common Ground (CG), an approach to accumulate conversational information as it emerges and select the relevant information at every turn. We show that CG offers a more efficient and human-like way to exploit conversational information compared to existing approaches, leading to improvements on Open Domain Conversational QA.