Background: Low back pain is a common condition and affects most people at least once in their lives. The causes of low back pain (LBP) are numerous and may include non-specific mechanical causes, or specific causes which may be of a more serious nature. Researchers have tried to link specific history and physical examination findings with certain disorders, but as of yet, have been unsuccessful. Research has shown that x-rays may be over utilized and the guidelines for referral are not always adhered to. Furthermore, there is a paucity of literature on the role of x-rays in influencing the management of patients with low back pain. Objectives: The objectives of this retrospective study were: 1) to determine the relationship between the clinical and the radiographic diagnoses of patients with LBP, 2) to record the consultation at which a lumbar spine x-ray was requested by the student or clinician and the reasons thereof, 3) to record the suspected clinical diagnoses and management of the selected patients prior to referral for lumbar spine x-rays, 4) to determine the number of incidental radiographic findings in the selected patients' x-rays, and 5) to determine any change in the clinical diagnoses and management following radiographic reporting of the selected patients' x-rays. Method: The Chiropractic Day Clinic (CDC) at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) archives were searched for lumbar spine radiographs and the corresponding patient files of patients who presented with LBP from 1 January 1997 to 31 July 2010. Data collection was in a stepwise process with the anteroposterior and lateral lumbar spine x-rays being read first, without any knowledge of the patient's main complaint and then the corresponding patient files were evaluated and selected clinical variables were recorded. Statistical analysis included the use of frequency counts, percentages, mean, standard deviation and range for the descriptive objectives. Diagnoses were categorized into specific groups and indicator variables were used to construct two-by-two tables of absence or presence of radiographic vs. clinical diagnosis for each specific diagnosis to determine any possible associations. Results: The mean age of the patients was 43.9 (± 16.9) years and the number of male and female patients were 40 and 34 respectively. It was not possible to correlate the clinical and radiographic diagnoses because the categories were too different for any statistical test to be performed. Spondylosis was the most common radiographic finding. The majority of the lumbar spine x-rays were requested at the first consultation. No suitable reason for obtaining the x-ray was provided in 14.6% of the x-rays requested and 20.7% were requested to examine for an unspecified pathology. Of the 74 patients in this study, 44 patients did not have a change in diagnosis, which means that 59.5% of the diagnoses stayed the same after x-ray examination. However, in 30 (40.5%) of cases the clinical diagnosis was changed following x-ray examination. This may indicate an overuse of x-rays at the CDC. Most patients were diagnosed with the non specific mechanical causes of low back pain. A wide range of treatment modalities were utilized both before and after x-rays were taken, including soft tissue therapies, electrotherapies and spinal manipulation. Following x-ray imaging there was a greater use of spinal manipulation ie. 62% versus only 39% of cases prior to imaging. Conclusion: Lumbar spine x-rays may be over utilised at the CDC but their findings were influential in the diagnosis and management in 30 (40.5%) of the patients. The majority of the clinical diagnoses were of the mechanical or non-specific causes of low back pain.


Diversely substituted oxindoles were obtained from atom economical direct C–C bond formation reactions of various substituted anilides and pyridinylamides with metal salts and oxides. The catalysts include CuO, Cu2O, FeCl3, Fe2O3, TiO2, ZnO, and Ag2O and their nanoparticles. The reaction proceeds under solvent-free and aerobic conditions in excellent yields. The reaction mechanism was proved to be a single electron transfer pathway with oxygen as the re-oxidant of the metal catalysts.


This study examines the consumer preferences for wine attributes. Previous research indicates that directly observable attributes are particularly relevant. A choice experiment has been carried out on 444 wine buyers in North-Eastern Italy, simulating the choice of a wine for ordinary consumption, at a supermarket. The presence of DOC or IGT designations of origin, a known brand and the indication of the grapevine variety on the label increase the choice probability and are all associated with a positive WTP. The price has a smaller influence than other attributes and its relationship with utility is quadratic. The private label only slightly affects the consumer choices, with a negative or positive effect depending on the wine initial price.


This article investigates the use of 3D immersive virtual environments and 3D prints for interaction with past material culture over traditional observation without manipulation. Our work is motivated by studies in heritage, museum, and cognitive sciences indicating the importance of object manipulation for understanding present and ancient artifacts. While virtual immersive environments and 3D prints have started to be incorporated in heritage research and museum displays as a way to provide improved manipulation experiences, little is known about how these new technologies affect the perception of our past. This article provides first results obtained with three experiments designed to investigate the benefits and tradeoffs in using these technologies. Our results indicate that traditional museum displays limit the experience with past material culture, and reveal how our sample of participants favor tactile and immersive 3D virtual experiences with artifacts over visual non-manipulative experiences with authentic objects.


Research related to digital literacy has grown exponentially in recent years. Its importance is that some scholars suggest that digital skills are a prevention tool against the risks of digital technologies. These risks are especially important because of their psychological consequences on adolescents. Thus, digital literacy could be a health prevention tool. The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a scale to assess digital literacy on teenagers. A self-report questionnaire with 47 items measured in a 5-point Likert scale was developed. After a pilot study, the questionnaire was administered to a sample composed by 715 secondary school students from 13 schools in Spain, aged between 12 and 20 years. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the existence of six factors: technological skill, personal security skill, critical skill, devices security skill, informational skill and communication skill. The scale demonstrated support for internal consistency reliability in most of the factors, with Cronbach's Alpha levels ranging from .63 to .75, and validity. Further research is needed to confirm the factor structure.


This Teaching Resource describes a course designed to expose graduate students to various hurdles they will encounter during their development as scientists. This course aims to train students in such elements of scientific life as working within a research group, presenting research, writing proposals, and publishing peer-reviewed manuscripts and to provide them with the tools necessary to accomplish these tasks. A critical element of this course is that it is designed to provide students with valuable "real world" experiences. A course description and a syllabus are provided.


| The graphical user interface (GUI) to heterogeneous neural network simulators proposed in this article is intended to be of use both for the novice and for the experienced neural network user. For the novice, it provides an easy to use neural network simulation package that insulates the user from the need of knowing the simulator implementation details or the connguration le syntax. For the experienced neural network professional it provides an interface that is easily extensible to include any additional neural network simulator in its binary form. To satisfy both academic and personal computer environments, the GUI has been developed by using the free TCL/TK software package, available both on workstations running UNIX and on PC's running the free Linux operating system. Although the GUI and the embedded simulators have been successfully tested both in neural network research and training programs, a more extensive testing in undergraduate and graduate level classes is in progress.


For real-time performance, virtual reality systems often employ various performance optimization techniques. One of the most popular methods is using geometric models with different "Levels of Detail (LOD)". In a previous paper by this author [1], we have proposed to use software engineering principles such as the concept of hierarchical and incremental modeling, and simultaneous consideration of form, function and behavior for modeling VR objects. Each refinement stage driven by such a modeling philosophy produces step-by-step form, function and behavior specifications of a VR object. We can make good use of these by-products as LOD for adaptive display and simulation by additionally specifying conditions for LOD switching. These specifications can be simulated and analyzed in advance for an estimation of performance for a given VR execution environment. Such an engineering process deals with behavior and geometry together; different geometric LOD may possess different behaviors and vice versa. A certain function or behavior might dictate an inclusion of a particular geometric feature that may not be possible to preserve, if the geometric LOD were to created in a bottom-up fashion (e.g. using the mesh simplification algorithms). We demonstrate our approach by modeling an automobile object with three levels of geometric and behavior detail in a top-down manner, simulate their instances in a small virtual town, and based on the simulation result, make predictions to the maximum allowable number of vehicles that will maintain an acceptable frame rate if executed in a faster simulation environment. We believe that our approach combines the idea of hierarchical refinement of virtual objects and the use of LOD in a very natural and intuitive manner.


SUMMARY.—Use of wing tags and other methods to mark Marbled Teal (Marmaronetta angustirostris) in Spain. Aims: To design methods to mark Marbled Teal Marmaronetta angustirostris, to test these methods in captive conditions and to apply them in field research in Spain. Location: Marked birds were released at El Hondo, Valencian community (eastern Spain) and Donana (south-west Spain). Captive trials were conducted at nearby recovery centres. Methods: Colour and Darvic rings, nasal markers and wing tags were tested in captivity. Various designs of wing (patagial) tags varying in shape, size, nature of the code and attachment methods were also tested. Nasal markers were rejected after most fell off within a month in captivity. The other methods were used to mark birds that were released into El Hondo (following their rescue when they became trapped in an irrigation channel) or Donana. Results: PVC colour rings stuck with superglue often dropped off within months, probably owing to the high temperatures. Especially designed Darvic rings with two digit alphanumeric codes were used, but these were rarely legible in the field. Initially a wider wing tag was used to mark 52 birds released in 1996, after testing with pinioned birds in captivity. It was then discovered that these tags caused feather wear on the opposing wing in full-winged birds, owing to the spinning of the tags during wing flapping. A narrower tag that greatly reduced this problem was developed and it was used to mark 288 birds released in 1997-1999. Observations of marked birds showed that most birds released at El Hondo remained there, although some were observed at Albufera de Valencia and Marjal del Moro. One bird was also recovered from Algeria. No birds released at El Hondo were recorded in Donana, although one bird tagged in Donana was observed at El Hondo. Tagged females in their first and second years were observed with broods, providing the first breeding observations for Marbled Teal of known age in the wild. Conclusions: Wing tags provided much more data than rings, but there were major problems of tag loss, poor visibility and feather wear. They are most appropriate for intensive studies in the first few months after marking, and are not suitable for general use in this threatened species. El Hondo is likely to be the source for the recent expansion of Marbled Teal into Albufera de Valencia, Marjal del Moro and other valencian breeding sites. There is little connectivity between El Hondo and Donana, the two main breeding areas in Spain.


Objectives: To describe and analyse the manifestation of sclerosing skin disorders in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Case reports: We describe three patients with relapsing-remitting MS who developed skin sclerosis while receiving interferon (IFN)-β treatment and review nine further cases of systemic sclerosis (SSc) in MS from the literature. Of all 12 patients reported, eight had limited cutaneous SSc, three had diffuse cutaneous SSc and one patient had an antisynthetase syndrome. Localised scleroderma such as morphoea was not described. The mean age at diagnosis was 25.2 years for MS (range 12 to 51) and 38.3 years for SSc (range 16 to 66). Eleven patients developed SSc after the onset of MS and manifested with skin sclerosis after a mean of 14.9 years (range 1 to 45). In five patients IFN-β was commenced before the development of skin sclerosis (mean 4.6 years, range 1 to 8 years). There was no relationship between the onset of skin sclerosis and MS activity. With the exception of one individual, all patients had antinuclear antibodies. Conclusions: Sclerosing skin disorders may develop in the course of MS. The relatively early age of SSc onset in patients with MS suggests a genetic predisposition and/or an IFN-associated trigger.


Apheresis has developed into a common therapeutic modality. The evidence for the clinical benefit of apheresis, however, is generally from uncontrolled and nonrandomized trials. Although the effectiveness of therapeutic apheresis may be established from uncontrolled trials, well-designed, randomized controlled trials provide the best evidence for a clinical benefit because this type of trial design minimizes bias. We assess the evidence for the use of apheresis, the optimal schedules for apheresis, and the replacement solutions used, based on randomized controlled trials. The databases, MEDLINE and EMBASE, and reference lists from relevant articles were searched. The literature search was restricted to articles published in English and included adult patients only. Two of the authors (NS, CK) independently reviewed the citation list to identify reports for retrieval, and the kappa statistic was used to quantify agreement between the reviewers. Articles were included if they used apheresis as an intervention and had clinical endpoints. The quality of the studies was assessed by using a validated instrument. Five hundred and ninety-two citations were identified, and a total of 85 reports were included in this review. There are only a few well-established indications for therapeutic apheresis. Randomized, controlled trials have clearly shown a benefit for patients treated with apheresis who have Guillain-Barre syndrome and patients who have thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. A clinical benefit has not been shown for a variety of conditions, including systematic lupus erythematosus, polyarteritis nodosa/Churg-Strauss syndrome, and for the treatment of renal allograft rejection. The effectiveness of apheresis needs to be clarified for several other diseases. As better-designed, randomized trials are performed, the role of apheresis for these indications will be further elucidated.


Grounded in zero tolerance policies in public school systems, this secondary-analysis of Massachusetts's statewide data is used to ascertain information about the rates of exclusionary disciplines for students of color with special needs for the 2010-2011 academic school year. Literature has shown that students of color, and students with special needs are at higher risk for being given more frequent exclusionary disciplines than white students, and students without special needs; however, studies of students of color with special needs have not yet been conducted. The data used in this analysis was collected by the U.S. Department of Education and made publically accessible. Per Massachusetts's disciplinary reporting policies, each behavioral incident (N=60,610), that results in an exclusionary discipline of 10 days or more is provided with the student's demographical information. Some of the major findings of this analysis include the following: (1) students of color miss fewer days of school for exclusionary disciplines than their white counterparts; however, when looking at nonviolent behaviors, students of color receive more out-of-school suspensions while white students receive more in-school suspensions; (2) students of color with special needs miss more days of school than their white counterparts; (3) students of color receive more out of school suspensions than white students, and white students receive more in school suspensions than students of color. Implications for clinical practice, policy reform, and future studies are discussed. STUDENTS OF COLOR WITH SPECIAL NEEDS: AN ANALYSIS OF EXCLUSIONARY DISCIPLINES IN MASSACHUSETTS'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work. Suzanne Rea Smith College School for Social Work Northampton, MA 0163


Acknowledging environmental degradation as a profoundly political phenomenon, this article examines how uninvited environmental change transforms people's understandings of and relationships to the natural world. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in a semi-remote Canadian Anishinaabe community and among Euro-American residents of Ohio who oppose local shale energy development, I trace parallels between the disempowerment and vulnerability experienced by people with very different assumptions about the world and their place in it and very different positions within the global political economic system. While environmental justice scholars have revealed compelling correlations between social and environmental inequity, I argue that investigating environmental degradation's sociocultural impacts among relatively privileged groups can encourage more dynamic explorations of conjoined environmental/social/political systems and expose ongoing structural shifts. My comparative analysis seems to suggest that ever-increasing segments of the world's population now contend with environmental challenges that they did not authorize, and do not benefit from. I thus conclude by calling for additional investigations of environmental degradation in unexpected places and the implications of extensive inequity for global sustainability. Key words: Energy, environmental degradation, environmental justice, fossil fuels, hydraulic fracking, landscape, North America, shale gas


Previous psychological investigations revealed that sacred values (SVs; the belief that certain values are nonsubstitutable and may not be traded off, in particular, against secular economic values) modulates moral decision making depending on the type of SV infringement involved. Extending this research, we compared neurofunctional correlates determined from fMRI measurements during decision making in 3 different trade-off types (taboo, tragic, and routine) with psychological measures obtained from the same 2 participant groups characterized by either high SV (SVH) or low (SVL)scoring values. Congruent with previous studies showing that outright SV violation tends to provoke profound moral indignation, in accordance with the surmise that SVs serve as a heuristic under these (taboo trade-off) conditions, and in conformity with previous reports on neurofunctional changes observed in volunteers confronted with moral norm transgressions, we found increased blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the left anterior temporal lobe and bilateral amygdalae, as well as significant correlation between right amygdala BOLD signals and moral disgust ratings, in the taboo trade-off condition for the SVH (compared with the SVL) group. The results are discussed in relation to previous research suggesting a close association of SVs with a deontological focus of moral universalism, as well as regarding mechanisms supposed to play a key role in overcoming barriers to the resolution of deep-seated conflicts.


This paper proposes a new criterion for reducing the processing time of the assignment of data points to clusters for algorithms of the k-means family, when they are applied to instances where the number n of points is large. Our criterion allows a point to be classified in an early stage, excluding it from distance calculations to cluster centroids in subsequent iterations. The proposed criterion uses knowledge of the distance of a point to its two closest centroids and their shifts in the last two iterations. By computer experimentation using synthetic and real instances, we found that this criterion reduces execution time to approximately 2/100 of the time by k-means and generates solutions whose quality is approximately reduced by less than 3%. These findings suggest the usefulness of our criterion for problems like those found in Big Data. The NP-hardness of k-means motivates the use of this heuristics.


This paper describes the use of one of the neuromorphic techniques – Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) Backpropagation technique to predict crash injury severity. The method of optimizing the number of neurons and epochs used in the ANN backpropagation architecture is presented. The paper also compared the accuracy of the backpropagation method with that of the Ordered Probit (OP) model. The prediction accuracies of 83.3% and 65.5% were obtained for the ANN backpropagation and Ordered Probit (OP) models, respectively. The results indicate that a well structured network with optimized number of neurons and epochs, ANN can perform better than a traditional OP technique. It was also noted that the choice of the number of epochs and neurons is key to obtain an efficient ANN architecture.


Orientation:  The South African tax legislation in respect of dividend cession. Research purpose:  The objective of this article was to investigate the tax implications of a dividend cession for the cedent, cessionary and declaring company involved in the cession in order to provide guidance regarding the tax implications arising from such cession. Motivation for the study:  The introduction of specific anti-avoidance provisions and amendments to tax legislation complicated the tax treatment of a dividend cession. Current literature and guidance contains a brief reference to the capital gains tax implications, while other guides deal exclusively with the dividends tax implications. Based on the lack of definitive guidance of other taxes resulting from a dividend cession, this investigation is considered necessary. Research approach/design and method:  This study involved an interpretative analysis of the tax legislation and incorporates other literature on the research objective to describe the tax implications as a result of dividend cession. The mode of inquiry for this study is qualitative in nature and follows a doctrinal research method. Main findings:  Findings suggest that although the classification of a dividend cession could be a usufruct (a real right), the practical tax implications with reference to dividends could not have been the intention. The submission is therefore that the tax implications should be as a personal right. Furthermore, the introduction of specific anti-avoidance provisions resulted in an instance of possible double taxation which was noted, which is submitted as a possible unintended consequence as a result of legislation amendments. Practical/managerial implications:  The practical value of the article lies in the guidance in respect of the tax implications which taxpayers could consider in transactions pertaining to dividend cession. Contribution/value-add:  Instance of double taxation documented and submitted as possible unintended consequence which could inform further debate on the topic.


Due to its negative health effects, noise policy has been developed in the Netherlands during the last four decades, aimed at preventing and reducing noise by road and railway traffic, industry and aviation. Academic literature illustrated that significant changes have occurred in many sectoral environmental policy domains, frequently known as a shift from ' government' to 'governance'. Examples include decentralisation, integration into other policy sectors, and implementation of policy instruments involving private sectors. Such interactive and deliberative approaches seem to be absent in the Dutch noise policy domain, that is characterised as a combination of centralised and decentralised governance styles. In addition, noise pollution has still not been resolved despite having Dutch and international noise policy in place since many decades. The percentage of annoyed population remained at the level of the 1980s. The consequent questions arise as to whether the observations of limited dynamics and limited effectiveness are correct, and if so, how to explain these. In this meta-analysis of Dutch noise policy different theoretical perspectives and analytical frameworks from academic policy analysis literature is employed. Based on the governance literature (e.g. Lange et al., Hysing) the main factors for the identification and description of governance modes are selected. Subsequently (the differences in) dynamics in noise policy subsystems for (road and railway) traffic, aircraft and industrial noise are further analysed regarding regulative noise limits, using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) of Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith. Integration of noise policy into spatial planning, as a specific governance approach, is studied using concepts of Environmental Policy Integration theory (e.g. Jordan, Nilsson, Persson). The main findings of this research underline the preliminary observations on limited dynamics in the Dutch noise policy domain during the last 40 years. No evidence was found of shifts towards sound(er) noise policy, actors and advocacy coalitions have been stable, and integrative experiments in terms of prioritisation of noise and health objectives vis-a-vis spatial planning objectives were had limited effects. Subsequently the effectiveness of Dutch noise policy instrument mixes has been evaluated, employing a stepwise approach based upon, amongst others, Hoogerwerf's policy theory and Mickwitz's effectiveness evaluation. The conclusion is that Dutch noise policy has been limitedly effective specifically due to the weak policy instrumentation addressing cars (drivers). The thesis concludes with a discussion of three cross-cutting explanatory factors, that is problem framing, agenda setting and problem ownership. In order to shift towards sound policy, far-reaching solutions are needed regarding multi-level and multi-sector governance, institutionalisation of policy learning, introduction of new policy instruments, and new narratives on sustainable soundscape.


Globally, there are an estimated 605 million people aged 60 years and above. Improvements in health care facilities have brought longevity, which is considered to be one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. Objectives: To assess the morbidity pattern in geriatric people. Methodology: A community based cross sectional study. Results: Out of 208 aged 91 (43.7%) were males, 117 (56.25%) were females. Maximum number of males and females were from the age group 60 - 64 years. 117 (56.25%) had chronic problems and 15 (7.2%) acute. Musculo skeleton problem was the commonest (63%) complaint both in males and females, followed by cardio vascular problem (44%). Diabetes mellitus was more common in males than females and hypertension was more common in females than males. Chronic bronchitis was the commonest respiratory disorder in males (8.7%). Total 20 (9.6%) had psychological problems (depression), psychological problems more common in males 11 (12%) than females 9 (7.7%) Conclusion: The present study showed that chronic morbidity in elderly was significantly higher (56.3%) than acute (7.2%), most commonly affected system by chronic morbidity was musculo-skeletal followed by cardio vascular (CVS) and gastrointestinal (GIT). Psychological problems were more common in males (12%) than in females (7.7%). Psychological problems were more in lower socio-economic class-(V) than higher Class [1].


PLoS Genetics is different: different not only because of the PLoS-wide vision for open access and new ways of communicating science, but also in terms of administration and leadership. We are, first and foremost, a community journal, where editorial decisions and direction are made by consensus. This model, where responsibility is distributed among a team of more than 80 working scientists in a way that promotes and encourages discussion, has been nourished and developed fully by Wayne Frankel, who has been with the journal since its inception, and first introduced us to PLoS Genetics exactly four years ago. As the founding Editor-in-Chief, Wayne brought us to where we are today—with nearly 150 new submissions per month, a scope that covers the entire tree of life (and occasionally synthetic biology), and a focus on scientific substance together with a goal of serving the interests of both readers and authors. In making the transition from scientist to Editor-in-Chief, and again to scientist earlier this year, Wayne's contributions have shown how one role can strengthen the other. Happily, he remains an active member of the Editorial Board, shepherding and consulting on manuscripts in the areas of mammalian genetics and neurobiology.

Wayne's scientific career is focused on using genetic approaches in laboratory mice to better understand the causes and pathophysiology of epilepsy. To the extent that phenotype-driven geneticists are fishermen, Wayne has recovered a rich and diverse catch, including several ion channels, nuclear ATPases, and, most recently, RNA binding proteins that regulate a complex set of downstream targets that influence neuronal excitability. From quantitative trait locus analysis to mutagenesis to gene targeting, he has focused on biology rather than technology, maintaining a strong sense of scientific rigor, a healthy scepticism, and a nose for opportunity. Through all of it, Wayne has remained both a community leader and a cutting-edge experimentalist, and we look forward to his continued contributions to mammalian genetics.

Wayne's editorial leadership has helped to move PLoS Genetics forward in three important areas. First, by establishing specific sections—Evolution, Natural Variation, and Epigenetics—each with a talented set of senior editors and a common vision, PLoS Genetics has managed to be extremely broad but remarkably consistent in its standards and goals. An underlying theme of this organizational structure is that genetics is neither a set of methods and tools, nor a group of scientists organized according to Linnaeus, but instead is a common way of thinking about and approaching biological questions across evolution in which the relationship between genotype (and occasionally epigenotype) and phenotype is paramount.

The foundation of PLoS Genetics has been, and will remain, the quality and substance of our Research Articles, but a second area where Wayne's efforts have been apparent is in the journal's development of other article types. We began with what might be considered traditional Reviews, which many journals emphasize as much for their effects on the impact (factor) of the journal as for their utility. But PLoS Genetics is different, and with Wayne's leadership, we have gone beyond the traditional Review to feature Perspectives, Jane Gitschier's Interviews (we particularly enjoyed the one with the Honorable Judge John E. Jones, III [1]), and, most recently, Viewpoints, which provide a forum for the discussion of controversial and/or emerging topics of interest to the genetics community.

Third, with the success of the journal over the last four years, Wayne helped PLoS Genetics confront both the opportunities and the challenges of growth. Because the PLoS journals are published online, growth is dictated not by traditional concerns of print media—for example, by the number of trees on the planet—but by the science and the genetics community. The commitment of time and expertise on the part of our hard-working Editorial Board (http://www.plosgenetics.org/static/edboard.action) and the community of reviewers who support our peer-review process enables us to keep review and decision-making times as short as possible in the face of rising submissions.

What about the long term? With regard to scientific content, we will follow the course set by Wayne and endorsed by our rich, dynamic, and expanding Editorial Board—emphasizing work of broad interest that provides significant mechanistic insight into a biological process or processes. This means that for the near term, we expect the acceptance rate to remain about the same, ∼30% of all submissions, with an increase over time in the number of articles published each week. It also means that we will continue to rely on Web-based consultation and electronic dialogue among board members to help decide which submissions should proceed through peer review—an approach that makes best use of the review process (and the efforts of our referees), and lets authors know sooner rather than later how well their work matches the scope and significance for the journal as established by our board members, all working scientists themselves. Indeed, an aim of the journal is to blur the distinction between scientist and editor, and we anticipate that an increasing number of authors will be asked to serve as editors in the future. Based on our own experience, serving in one role enhances and enriches the other.

Besides content, what can (and should) PLoS Genetics do for scientists? We will aim to explore two areas by the year's end: the way in which publication influences career advancement, and ways in which we can broaden our representation of the global scientific community. Most of us would agree that important career decisions—hiring, promotion, funding—should be based on past performance and future potential to make meaningful contributions. But as highlighted in several venues (including articles from PLoS Medicine [2],[3] and, recently, from Mark Johnston, Editor-in-Chief of GENETICS [4]), the Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI) impact factor is no longer the only and best metric by which to assess meaningful scientific contributions. As authors, one way to combat the inordinate impact of the impact factor is to submit our best work to journals where our peers play a significant role in editorial decisions. But this tack will be most effective when those same decisions carry significant weight at the hiring and promotion table. From this perspective, we look forward to the development of new tools at all PLoS journals to evaluate article-level metrics, and new ways in which those tools can influence critical steps in scientific career advancement.

Until very recently most scientists in the Western hemisphere concerned themselves primarily with science produced on their own side of the globe—indeed, often only the Northern half. Electronic communication and accelerated economic development has changed not only how cutting-edge science is disseminated but where it is being done. PLoS Genetics is perfectly poised to promote this trend toward a more global view of science. Online open access levels the playing field for researchers with limited access to top-quality bricks-and-mortar libraries. Perhaps more importantly, because PLoS Genetics isn't anchored to a particular location by a printing press or a geographically localized scientific society, we have the opportunity to include excellent scientists from across the globe in our ranks as editors and contributors. In doing so, we can help shape the evolving global scientific community in ways that embrace the priorities of researchers from all four points of the compass.

In keeping with the path that Wayne set us on, we are committed to maintaining PLoS Genetics as the venue of choice for publishing the best in genetics research. At the same time, we are acutely aware that the ways in which science is being practiced, reported, and consumed are rapidly changing. Together, as a scientific community, we can harness those changes and create an exciting future.


Integrated graptolite, conodont and chitinozoan biostratigraphical data is presented from the Rhuddanian through to lower Sheinwoodian of the Aizpute-41 core, Latvia. Correlation of the biozonation schemes based upon the three groups is achieved from the cyphus through to lowermost riccartonensis graptolite biozones, except for the upper Aeronian and lower Telychian, which lack both chitinozoans and graptolites, and upper lapworthi through to approximately base murchisoni graptolite Biozone, where there is interpreted to be an unconformity. Datum 2 of the Ireviken Event is correlated with a level at the base of or within the murchisoni Biozone. It is possible that the changes in conodont assemblages at Datum 2 on Gotland are the result of an unconformity here. Streptograptus? kaljoi sp. nov., from the lower spiralis graptolite Biozone, is described.


Large-scale socially-generated metadata is one of the key features driving the growth and success of the emerging Social Web. Recently there have been many research efforts to study the quality of this metadata that relies on quality assessments made by human experts external to a Social Web community. We are interested in studying how an online community itself perceives the relative quality of its own user-contributed content, which has important implications for the successful self-regulation and growth of the Social Web. To this end, we study the community preference for user-contributed comments on the social news aggregator Digg. In our analysis, we study several factors impacting community preference. We propose a learning-based approach for predicting the community's preference rating of unseen comments, which can be used to promote high-quality comments and filter out low-quality comments based on the community's expressed preferences.


The problem of channel assignment in digital networks can be formulated as follows. Services to be broadcast at a transmitter must be packed into blocks, and each block must be assigned a frequency channel. This assignment must satisfy bandwidth and interference constraints. The objective is to minimize spectrum use. Mathematically, the problem corresponds to a generalized graph colouring problem with a flavour of bin packing. In this paper, we give a new lower bound on spectrum use for this problem, derived from intersecting cliques. We also give a near-optimal, efficient algorithm to assign frequency channels to blocks for the case where the interference graph is a cycle.


In this paper, I give a counterexample to a claim made in Norton (2008) that empirically equivalent theories can often be regarded as theoretically equivalent by treating one as having surplus structure, thereby overcoming the problem of underdetermination of theory choice. The case I present is that of Lorentz's ether theory and Einstein's theory of special relativity. I argue that Norton's suggestion that surplus structure is present in Lorentz's theory in the form of the ether state of rest is based on a misunderstanding of the role that the ether plays in Lorentz's theory, and that in general, consideration of the conceptual framework in which a theory is embedded is vital to understanding the relationship between


DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR CONSULTATION AT ASTON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES WITH PRIOR ARRANGEMENT The aim of the thesis is to evaluate the impact of regulatory price cap schemes on the financial performance of the Water and Sewerage Companies (WaSCs) even when the number of observations is small. We applied an index number approach to allow for cross sectional comparisons of relative profitability, productivity and price performance of WaSCs during the years 1991-2008. We also applied a panel index approach across WaSCs over time to decompose unit-specific (temporal) index number based profitability growth as a function of the profitability, productivity andprice performance growth achieved by benchmark firms, and the catch-up to the benchmark firm achieved by less productive firms. We also employed both index numbers and DEA techniques to evaluate various profit drivers such as price changes, productivity changes and activity effect levels on the financial performance of WaSCs over time. Exogenous characteristics like water and sewerage quality were also included in a profit decomposition analysis. The results showed that during 1991-2000 price caps were "weak" as prices were high enough for the firms to achieveeconomic profits despite their low productivity levels. However, after 2000 prices became "catch up promoting" as they required less productive companies to eliminate at least some excess costs in order to eliminate economic losses. The steady decline in average price performance, gains in productivity and relatively stable economicprofitability after 2000, suggest that Ofwat is now more focused on passing productivity benefits to consumers, and maintaining stable profitability than it was in earlier regulatory periods. The positive impact on profit changes came from substantial improvements in technical change, the cost efficient allocation of resources by substituting labour with capital and small improvements in efficiencygains and output mix. The input price and scale effect had a significant negative impact on profit changes. We suggest that our approach should be of great interest to researchers who are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of regulation and/or developing effective comparative performance techniques when sample sizes arelimited.


This Article starts with a puzzle: Why is the doctrinal approach to "proximate cause" so resilient despite longstanding criticism? Proximate cause is a particularly extreme example of doctrine that limps along despite near universal consensus that it cannot actually determine legal outcomes. Why doesn't that widely recognized indeterminacy disable proximate cause as a decision-making device? To address this puzzle, I pick up a cue from the legal realists, a group of skeptical lawyers, law professors, and judges, who, in the 1920s and 1930s, compared legal doctrine to ritual magic. I take that comparison seriously, perhaps more seriously, and definitely in a different direction, than the realists intended. Classic anthropological studies reveal several telling structural similarities between traditional proximate cause analysis and ritual magic. Moreover, it seems that in diverse cultural contexts, magic not only survives skeptical exposure, it feeds on it. Drawing on the anthropological literature, I propose that exposing doctrinal indeterminacy functions as a kind of ritual unmasking that ultimately increases rather than diminishes the credibility of doctrinal analyses. The Article concludes by considering how unmasking doctrinal indeterminacy works to strengthen faith in doctrine and by raising some questions about the implications for law's legitimacy. Does unmasking doctrine only further mask judicial power? Or can ritual theory help us see some potential legitimate value in maintaining doctrine as the form of legal decision making, even as we acknowledge doctrine's inability to determine legal outcomes?


This thesis draws upon evidence from over twenty archives in the UK and US. It uses the context of Liverpool, arguably the 'second city of empire' because of its extensive social, economic, and political networks overseas, to enhance knowledge of British imperialism during the American Revolutionary era (1763-1783).Part One analyses the 'gentlemanly capitalist' paradigm of P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins. In brief, this theory argues that the landed elite and financial-commercial services, concentrated upon the City of London, held sway over British imperial policy-making. This was chiefly because these interests were regarded as being 'gentlemanly', or socially acceptable, to the landed elite. In contrast, northern manufacturers were less influential in the imperial decision-making process. By working longer hours and being associated with labour unrest, industrialists were not perceived as being sufficiently gentlemanly by the ruling order. My dissertation tests this theory within the context of the late-eighteenth century. This is an original contribution to knowledge because most, although not all, studies of Cain and Hopkins focus upon later periods. Hanoverian Liverpool is an ideal test case because the town had a mixed economy. It contained a manufacturing base, served a wider industrial hinterland, and, because Liverpool was linked to the Atlantic empire, spawned a mercantile service sector community with interests in commerce and finance. This thesis generally supports Cain and Hopkins, but with some modifications. One of these is to view the late-eighteenth century as a period of emerging gentlemanly capitalism, referred to here as 'proto-gentlemanly capitalism'. The fact that Liverpool merchants and the local landed elite were not yet fully socially integrated, is one of several reasons why the town lacked success in influencing imperial policy-making between 1763 and 1783.Warfare was synonymous with the Hanoverian empire. Therefore, Part Two expands our knowledge of the empire at home, or how the American War (1775-1783) impacted upon Liverpool economically, socially, and culturally. Previous histories of the economic impact of this conflict upon Liverpool concentrated upon overseas trade, and therefore stressed its negative consequences. However, this thesis looks at both overseas trade and domestic business. It paints a more nuanced picture, and, by using Liverpool as a case study, shows that the impact of warfare upon the UK economy produced mixed results. Finally, this thesis considers the socio-cultural impact of the war upon Liverpool. In the process, it demonstrates that military conflict affected both the northern and southern regions of Britain during the eighteenth century. Militarisation of the local community prompted discussions regarding the boundaries of national and local government. The War of Independence split opinion, thereby revealing divergent trends within British imperial ideology. Finally, on balance, the American War cultivated a 'British' national identity in the town (although there were still other identities present).


Size-based scheduling with aging has been recognized as an effective approach to guarantee fairness and near-optimal system response times. We present HFSP, a scheduler introducing this technique to a real, multi-server, complex, and widely used system such as Hadoop. Size-based scheduling requires a priori job size information, which is not available in Hadoop: HFSP builds such knowledge by estimating it on-line during job execution. Our experiments, which are based on realistic workloads generated via a standard benchmarking suite, pinpoint at a significant decrease in system response times with respect to the widely used Hadoop Fair scheduler, without impacting the fairness of the scheduler, and show that HFSP is largely tolerant to job size estimation errors.


Latin America and the Caribbean is one of the regions in the world with the greatest ethnic, racial and cultural diversity. This diversity is a major asset that holds the key to achieving lasting economic and political stability and constructing a fair, cohesive and democratic society. However, the region must overcome a long and divisive history of exclusionary practices that have only left societies poorer, divided, unequal and blind to diversity and its riches. This book examines the discrimination and disadvantages endured by the poor, minorities, women, the disabled and people with HIV/AIDS. It proposes inclusionary policies to improve access by these groups to the social services and economic and political resources they need.


1. Six normal volunteers were studied on four diets (10 mEq Na/40 mEq K, 10 mEq Na/200 mEq K, 200 mEq Na/40 mEq K, and 200 mEq Na/200 mEq K) and stimulated with a continuous 48-h infusion of ACTH. 2. Aldosterone secretions were measured basically and on the days of ACTH infusion. Basal aldosterone secretion was increased by restricting sodium or by increasing potassium. 3. The mean peak response of aldosterone secretion to ACTH on the 200 mEq Na/40 mEq K diet was 241 μg/day, and 1044 μg/day on the 200 mEq Na/200 mEq K diet. The mean peak response on the 10 mEq Na/40 mEq K diet was 1803 μg/day, and on the 10 mEq Na/200 mEq K diet was 2062 μg/day. 4. These results indicate that potassium, independent of sodium and angiotensin, can regulate basal aldosterone secretion and sensitize the adrenal response to the aldosterone stimulatory properties of ACTH.


Due to recent technological advances, organizations currently face massive changes of their work design and leadership. Unfortunately, the exact nature of these changes is still unclear as most existing studies were conducted during earlier stages of the digital transformation and the available literature is highly fragmented. To provide an up-to-date overview on the changes in work design and leadership resulting from the digital transformation and to structure our existing knowledge in this domain, we conducted an open-ended online survey with 49 recognized digitalization experts and identified key themes of change. In sum, four key themes of change affecting both work design and leadership emerged, namely changes in work-life and health, the use of information and communication technology, performance and talent management and organizational hierarchies. In addition, two macro-level change dimensions regarding the structure of work and relationship-oriented leadership evolved. While some of the identified changes were partly covered in earlier studies, others have so far not received much attention despite their apparently high relevance in the current stage of the digital transformation. The results of this study therefore provide an important basis for future research and help organizations to strategically prepare for the requirements of the digital age.


Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) as applied by behavioral scientists includes strategies for changing negative cognitions that contribute to depression and anxiety. Biofeedback is a useful strategy to demonstrate to clients the mind (cognitive, psychological) to body (physiological) interaction. For example, a cognitive, psychological reaction to a stimuli results in a physiological effects as illustrated by changes in skin conductance or muscle tension. A case example is used to demonstrate an anticipatory psychophysiological response resulting in covert activity of the forearm as a client simply imagines playing the piano.


Abstract. The NASA In Situ Airborne Formaldehyde (ISAF) instrument is a high-performance laser-based detector for gas-phase formaldehyde (HCHO). ISAF uses rotational-state specific laser excitation at 353 nm for laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detection of HCHO. A number of features make ISAF ideal for airborne deployment, including (1) a compact, low-maintenance fiber laser, (2) a single-pass design for stable signal response, (3) a straightforward inlet design, and (4) a stand-alone data acquisition system. A full description of the instrument design is given, along with detailed performance characteristics. The accuracy of reported mixing ratios is ±10% based on calibration against IR and UV absorption of a primary HCHO standard. Precision at 1 Hz is typically better than 20% above 100 pptv, with uncertainty in the signal background contributing most to variability at low mixing ratios. The 1 Hz detection limit for a signal / noise ratio of 2 is 36 pptv for 10 mW of laser power, and the e fold time response at typical sample flow rates is 0.19 s. ISAF has already flown on several field missions and platforms with excellent results.


Incidence of tuberculosis in Nebraska is 1.9/100 000 people. Tuberculous meningitis is rare and comprises 1% of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. An elderly Caucasian man presented with fever, headache, altered mentation and a history of tick bite. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis showed negative cultures and the patient was treated empirically for tickborne illness. Forty-five days later, CSF nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) was positive for tuberculosis. On readmission, repeat neurological examination and CSF analysis were benign and the patient was not offered antituberculous treatment. Genotype investigation of the culture and NAAT specimen by the Center for Disease Control confirmed laboratory contamination. The literature reports an incidence of 2–4% for false-positive tuberculosis cultures. Contaminated devices, clerical errors and laboratory errors have been implicated. Laboratory contamination results in smear-negative culture-positive cases. Epidemiological investigation with genotype testing is confirmatory. Detailed clinical assessment with good clinical and laboratory communication and frequent laboratory surveillance is advocated to mitigate these cases.


We examined neuronal activity in the dorsal subiculum of unrestrained, male adult Wistar rats, which were implanted with a moveable eight-electrode microdrive. The subiculum is the primary hippocampal formation output area and is comparatively uninvestigated neurophysiologically. We compared subicular unit activity and the subicular EEG while rats occupied a small, restricted environment and also correlated neuronal activity with the ongoing behavior of the animal. Units were separated using their electrophysiological characteristics into bursting units, regular spiking units, theta-modulated units, and fast spiking units. The bursting and regular spiking unit classes are similar to hippocampal CA1 units, whereas the fast spiking units appear to be interneurons. Bursting units were variable in their behavior: some units bursted regularly, and others bursted only occasionally. Theta-modulated units have not been described before; these were similar to regular spiking units in all respects except that they increased their firing significantly when theta oscillations were present in the simultaneous EEG record. Subicular EEG was similar to hippocampal EEG, with theta oscillations dominating "alert, moving" behaviors, while large amplitude irregular activity (LIA), which included sharp waves, predominated when theta oscillations were not present, mainly during "alert, still" and "quiet" behaviors. A relatively small proportion of subicular recordings (approximately 32%) were phase-locked to theta; this is a smaller proportion than in areas from which the subiculum takes major inputs. The relative lack of entrainment of subicular neurons by this important intrinsic rhythm is suggestive of a limit to which theta might be capable of affecting both subicular and hippocampal information processing more generally.


Weather is a leading threat to the stability of our vital infrastructure. Last-mile Internet is no exception. Yet, unlike other vital infrastructure, weather's effect on last-mile Internet outages is not well understood. This work is the first attempt to quantify the effect of weather on residential outages. Investigating outages in residential networks due to weather is challenging because residential Internet is heterogeneous: there are different media types, different protocols, and different providers, in varying contexts of different local climate and geography. Sensitivity to these different factors leads to narrow categories when estimating how weather affects these different links. To address these issues we perform a large-scale study looking at eight years of active outage measurements that were collected across the bulk of the last mile Internet infrastructure in the United States.


'Climate change inundation' — the process whereby climate change-related harms such as rising sea levels, higher storm surges and changing rainfall patterns interact with existing vulnerabilities like poverty, resource scarcity and inadequate infrastructure — will eventually leave low-lying coral atoll island states uninhabitable. Climate change inundation demands our attention because of the unique challenge it presents to the state, which provides the international legal personality and political infrastructure through which individual and collective human rights are protected, treaties are negotiated and so on.
While recognising the positive features of proposals for the planned migration of individual islanders, this thesis is concerned with what they fail to capture: the threat posed by climate change inundation to the collective autonomy and independence of atoll island populations. It explores this threat from the perspective of self-determination, a legal principle whose relevance in this context has been widely acknowledged but not yet explored in detail. The thesis identifies the populations of atoll island states as self-determining peoples, argues for the recognition of climate change inundation as a grave, foreseeable, external threat to their self-determination, and examines the reasons other states may have for acting (or not acting) to address this threat.
It then proposes a collective decision-making framework for atoll island peoples, drawing inspiration from the Declaration on Friendly Relations. The first option in this decision-making framework is the '[re-]establishment of a sovereign and independent State' with jurisdiction over a defined territory; the second is 'the emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people', including a so-called 'deterritorialized state'; and the third is to enter into 'free association or integration with an independent State', a choice that would protect the collective political status of a people but abandon any claim to statehood or exclusive territorial jurisdiction.


There are many proteomic applications that require large collections of purified protein, but parallel production of large numbers of different proteins remains a very challenging task. To help meet the needs of the scientific community, we have developed a human protein production pipeline. Using high‐throughput (HT) methods, we transferred the genes of 31 full‐length proteins into three expression vectors, and expressed the collection as N‐terminal HaloTag fusion proteins in Escherichia coli and two commercial cell‐free (CF) systems, wheat germ extract (WGE) and HeLa cell extract (HCE). Expression was assessed by labeling the fusion proteins specifically and covalently with a fluorescent HaloTag ligand and detecting its fluorescence on a LabChip® GX microfluidic capillary gel electrophoresis instrument. This automated, HT assay provided both qualitative and quantitative assessment of recombinant protein. E. coli was only capable of expressing 20% of the test collection in the supernatant fraction with ≥20 μg yields, whereas CF systems had ≥83% success rates. We purified expressed proteins using an automated HaloTag purification method. We purified 20, 33, and 42% of the test collection from E. coli, WGE, and HCE, respectively, with yields ≥1 μg and ≥90% purity. Based on these observations, we have developed a triage strategy for producing full‐length human proteins in these three expression systems.


Organizational socialization is the process through which organizational culture is perpetuated, by which newcomers learn the appropriate roles and behaviors to become effective and participating members (Louis, 1990). The topic has been discussed from various perspectives including socialization stages (e.g., Feldman, 1976, 1981; Wanous, 1992), socialization tactics (Van Maanen and Schein, 1979), person-situation interactionism (Jones, 1983), newcomer sense making (Louis, 1980), symbolic interactionism (Reichers, 1987), and stress (Nelson, 1987). Despite the large amount of research on organizational socialization, considerably less attention has been given to the socialization content and its use in evaluating the success of the socialization process, raising four research questions: (1) "What" information is transmitted during organizational socialization (socialization content)?, (2) "How" is the information transmitted (socialization tactics)?, (3) How do you evaluate whether the information was acquired successfully by the newcomers and/or transmitted successfully by the organization (socialization effectiveness)?, and (4) What is the relationship between effective socialization and behavioral and attitudinal outcomes? The first and second research questions are addressed in relation to the third research question - socialization effectiveness - which is the main focus of this study. No empirical study to our knowledge has examined socialization effectiveness. Theoretical papers have associated effective socialization with the achievement of individual and organizational outcomes (Schein, 1978), but their relationship has not been investigated empirically. Although more recent studies are beginning to focus on socialization content (Morrison, 1993, 1995; Ostroff and Kozlowski, 1992, 1993; Chao et al., 1994), only Chao et al. (1994) have specifically developed some measures for the construct. Socialization tactics (Jones, 1986) have not been studied in relation to socialization content and socialization effectiveness. In general, empirical research in organizational socialization is sparse and fragmented (Bauer and Green, 1994; Chao et al., 1994; Fisher, 1986). The two major gaps identified in the literature are: (1) there is a lack of empirical studies evaluating socialization effectiveness based on the socialization content (Fisher, 1986), and (2) the relationship between socialization tactics and socialization effectiveness has not been examined empirically (Chao et al., 1994). The present study addresses these gaps and utilizes a relevant set of criteria - task mastery, work group functioning, knowledge and acceptance of culture, personal learning, and role clarity - based on the socialization content to evaluate socialization effectiveness. It examines empirically the relationship between socialization tactics and socialization effectiveness. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it extends prior studies in organizational socialization by developing a comprehensive measure of the effectiveness of the socialization process that matches the conceptual definition of organizational socialization. Secondly, it contributes to empirical research in the socialization literature by examining the relationship between socialization tactics and dimensions of socialization effectiveness. The remainder of this article is organized as follows: the theoretical background, hypothesis development, method, results, discussion and conclusions. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Effective Socialization Effective socialization has been discussed in the literature (e.g., Feldman, 1980, 1981; Schein, 1978) and it has been used interchangeably with other related constructs, such as effective adaptation (Louis, 1980). Other researchers view it more narrowly as a change in basic attitudes and beliefs that suggest an internal commitment to the organization, rather than just compliance with organization practices. …


Contributors. Preface. Guide to the Handbook of Technology Management. Reviewers List. Index. Volume 1: Core Concepts, Financial Tools and Techniques, Operations and Innovation Management. Part 1: Core Concepts A Research Architecture for Technology Management Education (Michael K. Badawy). Digital Economy (Nirvikar Singh). Designing Sustainable Solutions: Frameworks and Tools for Considering Sustainability Issues in New Product Development (Sara L. Beckman and Nathan Shedroff). Decision Techniques for Managing Information Technology (Daniel Port and Tung Bui). Game Theory (Y. Narahari and Ramasuri Narayanam). Organizational Behavior (Michael Workman). Organizational Management (William H. Bommer and Michael Workman). Organizational Psychology (Zinta S. Byrne). Managing Organizational Change and Transformation (Dominie Garcia). Knowledge Management (David Ellis and Ana Vasconcelos). Business Ethics (Archie B. Carroll). Negotiation (Holly Schroth). Strategic Planning (Kenneth L. Nichols and Stephanie Welcomer). Leadership (Richard H. G. Field and Stephanie Buddle). Virtual Organizations (Satu Lahteenmaki, Eeli Saarinen, Iris Fischlmayr and Timo Lainema). Managing the Virtual Workforce (Tamara L. Gillis). Designing Workplaces to Support Creativity and Innovation (Sara L. Beckman and Peter Lawrence). Service Oriented Architecture (Dawn G. Gregg and Mohamed Sidahmed). IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL(R)) v3 (Sue Conger). Human Resource Management (Richard J. Wagner). Human Resource Information Systems (G. Stephen Taylor). Virtual Work (John Gathegi and Michael Workman). Organizational Impacts of Information Technology (Balaji Parthasarathy and Ricardo Lage). IT Economics (James E. Goldman, Raymond A. Hansen and Victoria A. Farnsworth). Technology Assessment and Acquisition (Tugrul U. Daim). Technology Forecasting (Michael Verti and Irene J. Petrick). Technology Transfer. Strategic Management of Technology (Zafar Husain). Competitive Strategies in Technology Management (Subhas Desa). Part 2: Financial Tools and Techniques. Financial Accounting (Virginia Cortijo and Ari Yezegel). Managerial Accounting (Leslie Kren). Return on Investment Analysis (Mark Jeffery). Capital Budgeting (Patricia A. Ryan). Asset Management (Vassilios Gargalas and John L. Teall). Project Management Accounting Using Activity-Based Costing Approach (Wen-Hsien Tsai). Engineering Economic Analysis (Olufemi A. Omitaomu). Economics of Technological Innovation (Steven Payson). Measuring the Value of Investments (Samuel C. Weaver). Corporate Finance (Jonathan E. Clarke). Cost of Capital (Thomas Hall). Capital Structure (Charles Hickson). Principles of Hedging (Ashok J. Robin). Valuing High-Risk High-Return Technology Projects Using Real Options (Scott Mathews). Project Financing (John D. Finnerty). Risk Analysis and Mitigation for High-Tech Projects (John E. Turner). Multinational Finance and Global Financial Market Integration (Kuntara Pukthuanthong). Converging Towards Global Accounting Standards (Shirley A. Hunter). Financing Strategies and Venture Capital (Ashok J. Robin and Patricia Wollan). Mergers and Acquisitions (Robert Boehner, William Evans and Ashok J. Robin). International Credit Markets: Players, Financing Techniques, Instruments, and Regulation (Emilios Avgouleas). Global Investment Management (Gautam Vora). Online Banking (Ronnie Phillips). The ICT Sector Across Countries: A Regulatory Perspective Using DEA and Malmquist Index (Somesh K. Mathur). Tax Considerations (Annette Nellen). Part 3: Operations and Innovation Management Operations Management Basics (Mike Tao Zhang and Shiming Deng). Facility Design (Charlie Edmonson). Product and Service Design (Bill Hollins). Scheduling for Engineering and Technology Management (Paul Kauffmann). Inventory Management (Shitao Yang). Inventory and E-Commerce (Sridhar Seshadri and Dana Popescu). Just-in-Time and Lean (Aage U. Michelsen). Technology Project Management (Joseph F. Norton). Enterprise Resource Planning (Zinovy Radovilsky). Demand Forecasting (Stephen A. DeLurgio, Fred H. Hay and Carl D. Bhame). Aggregate Planning (Adriano O. Solis). Computer-Aided Manufacturing (Andrew Otieno). Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (Truc T. Ngo). New Product Development (Olivier Toubia). Reward: How to Foster a Technology-Innovation Culture within a Large Organization: What You Can Learn from Start-up Companies (Bruce Jacob). Innovation Management in Large Corporations (Robert C. Wolcott and Michael J. Lippitz). Services Innovation: Assimilation, Differentiation, Inversion, and Integration (Faiz Gallouj). Benchmarking Tools and Techniques (Dotun Adebanjo). Statistical Process Control (Michael D. Whitt, Rodney G. Handy and Brandon Gosiengfiao). Manufacturing Systems Engineering (Keith M. Gardiner). Global Manufacturing: An Overview of Modern Collaborative Technologies and Product Architecture (Kyoung-Yun Kim, Leslie Monplaisir and Bimal Nepal). Human Factors and Ergonomics (Robert W. Proctor and Kim-Phuong L. Vu). Job Design 2.0 (Larry A. Mallak, Charlie Rupert and Bryan W. Booker). Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (Yi Wang and Kesheng Wang). Factories of The Future (David W. Russell).


At present, the prime candidate for augmentation of bone defects are autologous bone grafts (ABGs), owing to their ability to emulate the physiological signalling environment to induce bone marrow-derived, mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) to differentiate into functional osteoblasts. However, the uses of ABGs are negated due to patient complications. Dentine matrix has recently become increasingly recognised as possessing bioactive nature and has demonstrated the ability to augment bone repair in vivo. However, the constituents of dentine that confer efficacy for bone formation are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determine the potential for demineralised dentine matrix (DDM) to induce biological responses of BMMSCs and elucidate the key mediators required for bioactivity. Isolation of a sub-population of BMMSCs yielded a population of cells with enhanced expansive capacity in vitro, with maintained mesenchymal stem cell marker expression. Application of DDM to BMMSCs significantly reduced cell expansion (0.1-10μg/mL), reduced apoptotic activity (10μg/mL) and enhanced migration (0.1μg/mL). Importantly, DDM at 10μg/mL directed osteogenesis of BMMSC by enhancing RunX2 gene expression after 5 days and deposition of a mineralised matrix after 28 days. Western blot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analyses of DDM identified a plethora of growth factors associated with directing osteogenesis of BMMSCs, including; transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) and vascular epidermal growth factor (VEGF). Fractionation of DDM by heparin-affinity, to concentrate growth factors, resulted in diminished potential of DDM to enhance RunX2 expression and mineral deposition of BMMSCs. Depletion of decorin from DDM had no effect on osteogenic potential, however, depletion of biglycan attenuated RunX2 expression and mineral deposition. Substrates composed of silk-fibroin/gelatin (SF/G) at ratios of 75:25 supported attachment and expansion of BMMSCs with no discernible changes in morphology, compared to cells cultured on plastic. Addition of DDM to SF/G substrates resulted in enhanced BMMSC expansion (20μg/mL) and evidence of mineralised matrix deposition (5-20μg/mL), compared to un-loaded SF/G substrates.
In conclusion, DDM possesses bioactive potential towards BMMSCs, which is attributable to a range of synergistically acting growth factors along with additional matrix constituents. The ability of DDM to stimulate osteogenesis demonstrates potential for future developments in the field of tissue engineering of bone.


The traditional production process of a cable trunk is plastic extrusion with PVC or other halogen containing materials. However, they have many disadvantages such as easy burning, producing toxic gases and smokes. A low smoke zero halogen (LSZH) cable trunk was designed and developed in the present study and the injection molding process was adopted to produce the LSZH cable trunk. Numerical simulations were applied to investigate the effects of the important process parameters on the warpage of the cable trunk. Comparing the simulation results under different process conditions and consideration both of the volumetric shrinkage and the total warpage displacement, it is found that the process parameters, including mold temperature 75°C, melt temperature 265°C, injection pressure 190 MPa, packing pressure 152 MPa, cooling water temperature 50°C and injection time 3 s, are the optimal process conditions for the injection molding process of the new designed cable trunk.


The 1969 film Ma Nuit chez Maud catapulted its shy academic film director Eric Rohmer (1920-2010) into the limelight, selling over a million tickets in France and earning a nomination for an Academy Award. Ma Nuit chez Maud remains his most famous film, the highlight of an impressive range of films examining the sexual, romantic, and artistic mores of contemporary France, the temptations of desire, the small joys of everyday life, and sometimes, the vicissitudes of history and politics. Yet Rohmer was almost fifty years old when Maud was released and had already had a career as the editor of Cahiers du Cinema, a position he lost in a political takeover in 1963. The interviews in this book offer a range of insights into the theoretical, critical, and practical circumstances of Rohmer's remarkably coherent body of films, but also allow Rohmer to act as his own critic, providing us with an array of readings concerning his interest in setting, season, color, and narrative. Alongside the application of a theoretical rigor to his own films, Rohmer's interviews also discuss directors as varied as Godard, Carne, Renoir, and Hitchcock, and the relations of film to painting, architecture, and music. This book reproduces little-known interviews, such as a debate Rohmer undertakes with Women and Film concerning feminism, alongside detailed discussions from Cahiers and Positif, many produced in English here for the first time.


Global environmental concerns associated with conventional energy generation have led to the rapid growth of wind energy in power systems. Many jurisdictions around the world have set high wind penetration targets in their energy generation mix. Wind speed is variable in nature, and power output from a wind farm is not readily controllable. High wind penetration can lead to high-risk levels in power system reliability and stability. In order to maintain the system stability, wind energy dispatch is usually restricted and energy storage is considered to smooth out the fluctuations and improve supply continuity. The benefits from using energy storage are highly dependent on the operating strategies associated with wind and storage in the power system. A simulation technique that can consider wind farm and energy storage operating strategies is presented. Different operating strategies are compared and the resulting benefits are evaluated. The system impacts of energy storage capacity and operating constraints, wind energy dispatch restrictions, wind penetration level and wind farm location on the reliability benefits from energy storage are illustrated.


The field of groundwater hydrology and the discipline of hydrogeology have attracted a lot of attention during the past few decades. This is mainly because of the increasing need for high quality water, especially groundwater. This book, written by 15 scientists from 6 countries, clearly demonstrates the extensive range of issues that are dealt with in the field of hydrogeology. Karst hydrogeology and deposition processes, hydrogeochemistry, soil hydraulic properties as a factor affecting groundwater recharge processes, relevant conceptual models, and geophysical exploration for groundwater are all discussed in this book, giving the reader a global perspective on what hydrogeologists and co-scientists are currently working on to better manage groundwater resources. Graduate students, as well as practitioners, will find this book a useful resource and valuable guide.


Ideal deliberative democracy seeks to employ unbiased moderators. Yet, a large literature in the field of mediation suggests the elusiveness of perfect neutrality. Our study thus addresses the following question: when moderators of deliberations express their own views – even in a limited manner – can they change the preferences of participants? Using a novel experimental design in a real deliberative decision-making process, we find that moderators can significantly influence the attitudes and behaviors of participants by expressing views in a constrained manner. The results of our study have implications for refining epistemic conceptions of deliberative democracy and for designing more precise empirical investigations of the effects of deliberative processes on attitudes and behavior. The results also warn of a simple mechanism by which interest groups might hijack the deliberative decision-making processes used in community driven development projects all over the world.


This dissertation combines remote sensing and applied economics tools to study land use conversions in North Dakota and South Dakota that are tied to this region's overall socio-economic welfare. Specifically, the region's corn and soybeans cultivation expanded significantly over the past decade replacing the region's grasslands and grain crops. In paper I, we estimate the localized impacts of the advent of corn-based ethanol plants on the Dakotas' corn acreage. We implement a Difference-in-Difference framework through more flexible assumptions as the Parallel Paths assumption of the standard model fails to hold. We find strong trends in the Dakotas' corn acreage over the past decade, but surprisingly some ethanol plants were found to have a negative impact on local corn acreage. In paper II, we evaluate crop competitiveness due to heterogeneous weather impacts on crop yields, and then test whether annual weather fluctuations explain land allocations among the Dakotas' major land uses. Our integrated framework suggests that annual weather variability is an important determinant of regional land use decisions. Under the A1B emissions scenario of climate change, we find that the yields of all of the Dakotas' major crops will decline by 2031-2060 relative to 1981-2010, leading to lower (higher) spring wheat (alfalfa) acres in Eastern (Western) Dakotas. In paper III, we develop and implement a satellite image-processing algorithm to estimate historical land use acres using raw Landsat sensor data, thereby extending the existing Cropland Data Layers back to 1984 in eastern Dakotas. We demonstrate that the availability of a longer time-series is useful as the rate of land use change may differ among different time-spans. In paper IV, we evaluate the cost-effectiveness of grassland conservation easements when spatial spillovers are present among private landowners. We first develop a conceptual model to incorporate social spillovers in evaluating the role of easements in inhibiting grassland conversions. We empirically test whether social spillovers are present by estimating hazard rates of conversion as a function of neighborhood density of grasslands and easements. Our findings suggest that easements are strategic complements to existing grasslands in preventing grassland conversions in the Dakotas.


Chord progressions are the building blocks from which tonal music is constructed. Inferring chord progressions is thus an essential step towards modeling long term dependencies in music. In this paper, three different representations for chords are designed. In a first representation, Euclidean distances roughly correspond to psychoacoustic dissimilarities between chords. Estimated probabilities of chord substitutions are then derived from these distances and are used to introduce smoothing in graphical models observing another chord representation. Finally, a third representation where we model directly each chord components leads to a probabilistic model considering the interaction between melodies and chord progressions. Parameters in the graphical models are learnt with the EM algorithm and the classical Junction Tree algorithm is used for inference. Various model architectures are compared in terms of conditional out-of-sample likelihood. Both perceptual and statistical evidence show that binary trees related to meter are well suited to capture chord dependencies.


The total coal and lignite consumption of the thermic power plants in Turkey is approximately 55 million tons and nearly 15 million tons of fly ash is produced. The remarkable increase in the production of fly ash and its disposal in an environmentally friendly manner is increasingly becoming a matter of global concern. Studies for the utilization of fly ash in Turkey are necessary to reduce environmental problems and avoid economical loss caused by the disposal of fly ash. Efforts are underway to improve the use of fly ash in several ways, with the geotechnical utilization also forming an important aspect of these efforts. An experimental program was undertaken to investigate the effects of Multifilament (MF19average) and Fibrillated (F19average) polypropylene fiber on the compaction and strength behavior of CH class soil with fly ash in different proportions. The soil samples were prepared at three different percentages of fiber content (i.e. 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% by weight of soil) and two different percentages of fly ash (i.e. 10% and 15% by weight of soil). A series of tests were prepared in optimum moisture content and laboratory unconfined compression strength tests, compaction tests and Atterberg limits test were carried out. The fiber inclusions increased the strength of the fly ash specimens and changed their brittle behavior into ductile behavior.


NetSourcing has recently gained some importance in the IS literature. However, although the customer side of Netsourcing has drawn a lot of interest, its supply-side remains under-researched. One of the challenges faced by Netsourcing vendors is the difficulty in sourcing the components of the infrastructure on which they rely. This paper proposes to investigate the sourcing strategies used by Netsourcing vendors in order to access the different infrastructural components. The paper uses Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource-based View (RBV) to predict in order to predict the possible sourcing modes for each component. However, when trying to validate these using a series of cases studies, the outcome was that an important part of the predictions were not verified. The author concluded that although TCE and RBV are important theories for IS research, their combination has the potential to yield even stronger results.


MathCheck is a relatively new online tool that gives students feedback on their solutions to elementary university mathematics and theoretical computer science exercises. MathCheck was designed with constructivism learning theory in mind and it differs from other online tools as it checks the solutions step by step and shows a counter-example if the step is incorrect. It has been in student use since the autumn of 2015 and under design-based research from the first online day. The main research questions of this study are the following. 1) How can the usage of MathCheck support the aspects of conceptual understanding and procedural fluency of constructivism learning? 2) How can MathCheck empower both students and teachers in the education of mathematics? This paper presents the results of five pedagogical experiments considering both students' and teachers' point of views. In each experiment, the students have suggested improvements, which have affected the further development of MathCheck. In general, both students and teachers have given positive feedback on MathCheck. MathCheck seems to support learning better than tools that only provide the "incorrect"/"correct" verdict after checking the answer. MathCheck is suitable for independent studying as well as an addition to traditional lectures. In the best case, it can reduce teachers' workload during courses.


OBJECTIVES
The alliance theory holds that homosexual behavior in humans may have evolved because it reinforced same-sex alliances which contributed to survival and reproduction. The present study was designed to test this evolutionary hypothesis in view of the strongly negative perception of homosexual behavior. It was predicted that targets who engaged in homosexual behavior would be perceived as likely to achieve greater social status and reproductive opportunities when the behavior reinforced an alliance that led to increased social opportunities.

METHODS
Three hundred sixteen men and women read scenarios in which a target engaged in homosexual behavior and then answered questions about the target's future social status and reproductive opportunities as measured by number of sexual partners. The data were analyzed in two 3 (social outcome: positive vs. neutral vs. negative) x 2 (gender of target) x 2 (gender of participant) analyses of variance.

RESULTS
The results supported the predictions and demonstrated that targets were perceived as likely to have the greatest social status and reproductive opportunities in the positive outcome condition.

CONCLUSION
The alliance theory of homosexual behavior may have heuristic value for the evolutionary study of homosexual behavior and its perception.


Heat exchangers are often subjected to increasing demands on their efficiency with a reduced volumetric footprint. With the advancement in additive manufacturing technologies, topology optimization can be a viable strategy to derive novel designs to improve product performance. Topology optimization has been vastly investigated in the past few decades for structural designs. In this presentation, a thermo-flow topology optimization workflow was developed for heat exchanger applications which performs a multi-physics analysis (e.g. with coupled flow dynamics and heat transfer). In the thermo-flow topology optimization workflow, thermo-flow solver in STAR-CCM+ was utilized to evaluate thermal and flow performance metrics. Adjoint sensitivity was computed with the adjoint solver based on a defined objective function. The adjoint sensitivity was then used as an input to a method of moving asymptotes (MMA) optimizer to identify new designs. This integrated workflow is demonstrated through the design optimization for application to heat exchangers with single phase fluids in a dual flow arrangement. The multi-physics topology optimization enables objectives of different physics to be evaluated in a single optimization run. The major complicating factor compared to earlier optimization work on the gas turbine components, is the dual flow character of the problem that requires optimization on both sides of the heat exchanger. Future efforts on several individual flows involved in the heat exchange problem, as well as single phase versus two-phase flow phenomena will be discussed.


We present results of a randomized trial testing alternative approaches of mapping student achievement into rewards for teachers. Teachers in 216 schools in western China were assigned to performance pay schemes where teacher performance was assessed by one of three different methods. We find that teachers offered "pay-for-percentile" incentives outperform teachers offered simpler schemes based on class-average achievement or average gains over a school year. Moreover, pay-for-percentile incentives produced broad-based gains across students within classes. That teachers respond to relatively intricate features of incentive schemes highlights the importance of paying close attention to performance pay design.


Preparing teachers for the realities of the profession is an ongoing concern for teacher education providers. In a climate where the future of teaching is largely unknown and the issues to be faced by teachers throughout their career largely imagined, the ability to identify and solve problems becomes increasingly important. This paper documents an evaluation of a pilot approach to preparing pre-service teachers for the realities of their profession. This approach, which centred on students utilising mobile technologies to problem-seek, was evaluated in terms of students' perceived preparedness for the profession and their development of problem-solving skills and strategies. Results suggest that participating and engaging in the project may have in part contributed to reducing students' anxiety around solving real-world problems, and improved their familiarity and preparedness for going into classroom settings.


It is unclear whether public sector teachers are under or overpaid relative to other occupations due to lack of knowledge about teachers' outside labor market options and other unobserved attributes related to compensation. We estimate causal labor market returns to novice public teachers in Colombia. Our approach takes advantage of a national, standardized, teacher-screening exam, scores on which determine eligibility for public teaching jobs. We use four nationwide administrative data sources in a regression discontinuity approach to show that applicants who marginally pass the teacher screening test have greater annual earnings during the first three years of tenure than applicants below the passing cutoff. The total earnings effect is a combination of higher daily wages and greater labor supply, part of which is in outside, predominantly non-teaching jobs for a substantial fraction of public teachers. For infra-marginal high-scoring applicants, we show that being a public teacher in Colombia is as attractive, if not more, as for those at the margin. On the whole, rather than a penalty, public teachers in Colombia across all ability levels earn a substantial labor market premium early in their careers.


The number of microbial genomes sequenced each year is expanding rapidly, in part due to genome-resolved metagenomic studies that routinely recover hundreds of draft-quality genomes. Rapid algorithms have been developed to comprehensively compare large genome sets, but they are not accurate with draft-quality genomes. Here we present dRep, a program that sequentially applies a fast, inaccurate estimation of genome distance and a slow but accurate measure of average nucleotide identity to reduce the computational time for pair-wise genome set comparisons by orders of magnitude. We demonstrate its use in a study where we separately assembled each metagenome from time series datasets. Groups of essentially identical genomes were identified with dRep, and the best genome from each set was selected. This resulted in recovery of significantly more and higher-quality genomes compared to the set recovered using the typical co-assembly method. Documentation is available at http://drep.readthedocs.io/en/master/ and source code is available at https://github.com/MrOlm/drep.


This paper offers a simple method of evaluating the existing renewable and non-renewable energy technologies. The evaluation method is based on the weights given to the importance of six selection criteria: the economic viability; the conversion efficiency; the present level of the technological development; the environmental impacts; the after-production clean-up cost; the renewability and abundance of the source. This paper also outlines the main shortcomings of the energy technologies, based on which they are rated. These ratings together with the weights assigned to the selection criteria produce normalised scores for each technology which are then used for comparison. The existing energy technologies are evaluated from five different points of view, in which the importance of (the weights given to) the economic viability and the environmental impacts of the technologies are varied. The results show that in a society that assigns the highest importance to the economics of the energy production technologies, the non-renewable sources are the most attractive, but become less desirable, when the environmental impacts of the technologies are given any weight. In particular, even with a moderate weight (of two out of a maximum weight of four) given to the environmental impacts, the renewable technologies, especially solar thermal concentrator has become the technology of choice.


This is the first comprehensive study of the early modern logic of ideas, whose main representative were Descartes and Locke. It is also a profound contribution to our understanding between Aristotelianism and the new philosophy, between rationalism and empiricism, and between French, English and Dutch philosophers.


Wavelets and wavelet frames are important and useful mathematical tools in numerous applications, such as signal and image processing, and numerical analysis. Recently, the theory of wavelet frames plays an essential role in signal processing, image processing, sampling theory, harmonic analysis. However, multiwavelets and multiple frames are more flexible and have more freedom in their construction which can provide more desired properties than the scalar case, such as short compact support, orthogonality, high approximation order, and symmetry. These properties are useful in several applications, such as curve and surface noise-removing as studied in this dissertation. Thus, the study of multiwavelets and multiple frames construction has more advantages for many applications. Recently, the construction of highly symmetric bi-frames for curve and surface multiresolution processing has been investigated. The 6-fold symmetric bi-frames, which lead to highly symmetric analysis and synthesis bi-frame algorithms, have been introduced. Moreover, these multiple bi-frame algorithms play an important role on curve and surface multiresolution processing. This dissertation is an extension of the study of construction of univariate biorthogonal wavelet frames (bi-frames for short) or dual wavelet frames of L2(R) with each framelet being symmetric in the scalar case. We will expand the study of biorthogonal wavelets and bi-frames construction from the scalar case to the vector case to construct biorthogonal multiwavelets and multiple bi-frames in one-dimension. In addition, we will extend the study of highly symmetric bi-frames for triangle surface multiresolution processing from the scalar case to the vector case. More precisely, the objective of this research is to construct highly symmetric biorthogonal multiwavelets and multiple bi-frames in one and two dimensions for curve and surface multiresolution processing. It runs in parallel with the scalar case. We mainly present the methods of constructing biorthogonal multiwavelets and multiple bi-frames in both dimensions by using the idea of lifting scheme. On the whole, we discuss several topics include a brief introduction and discussion of multiwavelets theory, multiresolution analysis, scalar wavelet frames, multiple frames, and the lifting scheme. Then, we present and discuss some results of one-dimensional biorthogonal multiwavelets and multiple bi-frames for curve multiresolution processing with uniform symmetry: type I and type II along with biorthogonality, sum rule orders, vanishing moments, and uniform symmetry for both types. In addition, we present and discuss some results of two-dimensional biorthogonal multiwavelets and multiple bi-frames and the multiresolution algorithms for surface multiresolution processing. Finally, we show experimental results on curve and surface noise-removing by applying our multiple bi-frame algorithms.


The paper seeks to assess, whether the EU or the domestic factors had a stronger impact on the proliferation of public sector organisations and on the degree of their autonomy and control. The results of the COBRA 2008 survey indicate that the EU was the main driving force behind the setting up of public sector organisations in Lithuania. The impact of domestic factors (changes in the governing coalitions and macroeconomic developments) was considerably smaller and not consistent. However, the degree of autonomy and control of the Lithuanian public sector organisations is largely explained by the dominating Continental European legal tradition rather than the EU pre- and post-accession processes.