Terrorism against the United States, post-9/11, reaches far beyond the U.S. borders. In order to effectively prevent and react to terrorism within the homeland, the U.S. must think of security internationally. International security efforts touch on key issues such as travel security, border control, immigration, intelligence, and financing terrorism. This article examines the U.S. effort at international cooperation in homeland security by examining security and threat assessment in order to analyze current developments and necessary progress moving forward. Further, this article explores comparative efforts at international cooperation in homeland security by examining Canada, Japan, and the E.U. in terms of security and threat assessment. Finally, this article offers recommendations and articulates criteria by which the U.S. can improve vital efforts at international cooperation in homeland security. To ensure effective counterterrorism, the U.S. must follow a two step process. First, the U.S. must take measures to protect the homeland. Those measure include: promoting travel security by implementing sophisticated technology; promoting border security by securing the Northern border; implementing intelligence sharing between agencies; creating a coordinated plan to promote travel and border security; undergoing training and simulation, and finally; ensuring institutionalized continuity from one Administration to the next. After taking action to protect the homeland, the U.S. must use these factors as a foundation on which to establish international cooperation. To establish effective international cooperation in homeland security, the U.S. must take measures including the following: forging international partnerships; sharing intelligence related to travel security; creating a coordinated international security plan; running international training and simulation exercises, and finally; implementing international institutionalized continuity.


Flipped learning (FL) is a pedagogical approach that has scarcely been examined in physical education (PE). As a result, we have little information regarding what PE teachers think of the approach, how they apply it, or what perceived value it has for their teaching. This research explores the reasons which two UK-based PE teachers gave for why and how they used FL to complement their use of digital technology (DigiTech). Their experiences and views are explored through a case study/appreciative inquiry approach. Data were generated from: (a) interviews with the teachers; (b) lesson observations and field notes and (c) document analysis, all of which were analysed using grounded theory. The findings showed that each teacher used FL and DigiTech in nuanced ways to support their teaching. Despite personal differences, FL was established by both teachers as a consistent routine of practice to support the use of DigiTech. The teachers' rationales for using FL hinged on their belief that: (a) it optimised the lesson time in which students could be physically active and (b) it supported their examination PE students. Overall, the results indicated that, when used in conjunction with DigiTech, FL has the potential to pedagogically support teachers' teaching of PE. This is particularly pertinent given the limited time allocated in the curriculum to PE (some of which is inevitably lost in the changing rooms) and the perceived need for students to be physically active in lessons.


We present a general framework for proof search in first-order cut-free sequent calculi and apply it to the specific case of linear logic. In this framework, Herbrand functions are used to encode universal quantification, and unification is used to instantiate existential quantifiers so that the eigenvariable conditions are respected. We present an optimization of this procedure that exploits the permutabilities of the subject logic. We prove the soundness and completeness of several related proof search procedures. This proof search framework is used to show that provability for first-order MALL is in NEXPTIME, and first-order MLL is in NP. Performance comparisons based on Prolog implementations of the procedures are also given. The optimization of the quantifier steps in proof search can be combined effectively with a number of other optimizations that are also based on permutability.<<ETX>>


Previously, most attention to managerial attitudes to railroad labor during the late 19th century has focused on industrial conflict in the United States, most particularly the so-called Pullman Boycott, a national stoppage that brought much of the American rail network to a halt in May–July 1894. Most historians—Alfred Chandler, Richard White, Gabriel Kolko, and Shelton Stromquist, to name a few—have associated this pattern of American conflict with falling freight rates caused by excessive competition between the United States' privately owned railroads. If this assumption is correct, then one would expect both of the problems—labor conflict and falling freight rates—would be absent in New World societies where railroads operated under public rather than private ownership. Among New World societies, public ownership of the railways was arguably most significant in Australia, a continental society almost identical in geographical size with the mainland United States. Here, railroads played a similar role in national development. Despite this variance in ownership, however, Australian railroads were beset with similar problems to the United States. Per-ton freight rates declined in like fashion. As in the United States, Australian railroad managers responded to falling freight rates by savage wage cuts and staff redundancies. The commonalities between Australia and the United States points to a common causal factor. It is argued that this common causal factor was the falling world price for grain, most particularly wheat, the London benchmark wheat price falling from US$1.92 in 1871 to US$0.81 in 1891.


We consider a Landau-de Gennes model for a connected cubic lattice scaffold in a nematic host, in a dilute regime. We analyse the homogenised limit for both cases in which the lattice of embedded particles presents or not cubic symmetry and then we compute the free effective energy of the composite material. In the cubic symmetry case, we impose different types of surface anchoring energy densities, such as quartic, Rapini-Papoular or more general versions, and, in this case, we show that we can tune any coefficient from the corresponding bulk potential, especially the phase transition temperature. In the case with loss of cubic symmetry, we prove similar results in which the effective free energy functional has now an additional term, which describes a change in the preferred alignment of the liquid crystal particles inside the domain. Moreover, we compute the rate of convergence for how fast the surface energies converge to the homogenised one and also for how fast the minimisers of the free energies tend to the minimiser of the homogenised free energy.


School choice has the potential to be a tool for desegregation, but research suggests that choice more often exacerbates segregation than remedies it. In the past several years, hundreds of 'intentionally diverse' charter schools have opened across the country, potentially countering the link between charter schools and segregation. Yet, these schools raise important questions about choice, segregation, and equity. For instance: how do leaders of diverse charter schools prioritize diversity in decisions about location, marketing, and recruitment? What are the implications of these diversity efforts for equity, especially within competitive and marketized educational contexts? We explore the concrete recruiting and marketing strategies schools used to build and retain their diverse communities, drawing on qualitative data from New Orleans, LA, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. We identify key strategies used by school leaders, but also note that many strategies were ad-hoc and experimental. Furthermore, we noted that school goals around "how much" diversity was sufficient were often unarticulated, making schools susceptible to external pressures that might refocus attention away from equity and diversity, or allow groups with more power to shape agendas within the school. Finally, we find that contexts of gentrification and widening economic inequities threatened schools' efforts to recruit and maintain a diverse student body. We discuss implications for leaders of diverse charter schools and other leaders seeking to diversify their student bodies, as well as policymakers and charter authorizers.


Positive psychology (PP) with its focus on what is good and right with people is Pollyannaish, because it ignores the bleak reality of human existence. Existential psychology (EP) with its focus on death anxiety, meaninglessness and alienation is dark, because it does not pay enough attention to the joy of living. Positive psychology without existential insights and phenomenological analysis is full of adolescent exuberance but lacking in depth. Existential psychology without rigorous research on human strengths and positive affects is full of wisdom but lacking in youthful vitality. Therefore, it makes sense to bring these two separate domains of psychology together, resulting in existential positive psychology (EPP) or positive existential psychology (PEP), depending on one's preference. The Journal of IJEPP is home to all kinds of articles related to EPP.


Our awareness of time and temporal properties is a constant feature of conscious life. Subjective temporality structures and guides every aspect of behavior and cognition, distinguishing memory, perception, and anticipation. This milestone volume brings together research on temporality from leading scholars in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, defining a new field of interdisciplinary research. The book's thirty chapters include selections from classic texts by William James and Edmund Husserl and new essays setting them in historical context; contemporary philosophical accounts of lived time; and current empirical studies of psychological time. These last chapters, the larger part of the book, cover such topics as the basic psychophysics of psychological time, its neural foundations, its interaction with the body, and its distortion in illness and altered states of consciousness. ContributorsMelissa J. Allman, Holly Andersen, Valtteri Arstila, Yan Bao, Dean V. Buonomano, Niko A. Busch, Barry Dainton, Sylvie Droit-Volet, Christine M. Falter, Thomas Fraps, Shaun Gallagher, Alex O. Holcombe, Edmund Husserl, William James, Piotr Jaskowski, Jeremie Jozefowiez, Ryota Kanai, Allison N. Kurti, Dan Lloyd, Armando Machado, Matthew S. Matell, Warren H. Meck, James Mensch, Bruno Molder, Catharine Montgomery, Konstantinos Moutoussis, Peter Naish, Valdas Noreika, Sukhvinder S. Obhi, Ruth Ogden, Alan o'Donoghue, Georgios Papadelis, Ian B. Phillips, Ernst Poppel, John E. R. Staddon, Dale N. Swanton, Rufin VanRullen, Argiro Vatakis, Till M. Wagner, John Wearden, Marc Wittmann, Agnieszka Wykowska, Kielan Yarrow, Bin Yin, Dan Zahavi


Physical properties of shallow-water flow (SWF) sands differ from most reservoir and seal rocks studied for petroleum purposes. These materials exist near the transition zone between rocks and sediments. Our investigations, the subject of this article, suggest that physical properties of SWF sands are amenable to a prediction methodology that uses high-resolution multicomponent seismic data.

SWF sands are a primary hazard to deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. They have the potential to result in well failures and significant discharges of subsurface fluids into the ocean. However, at present, most operators make only a modest attempt to identify SWF before drilling. They drill through these hazards and mitigate any resulting damage at significant expense if one is encountered. This is not rare. According to a report from Fugro Geoservices, approximately 70% of all deepwater wells have experienced SWF.

A method for predrill delineation of sands that are close to failure, and thus likely to exhibit SWF, would be advantageous in selecting optimal drilling locations and in developing cost-effective well plans. The current method of identifying SWF involves predrill hazard studies utilizing conventional and high-resolution seismic data to identify zones that might produce SWF. However, the high incidence of SWF mitigation events in deepwater wells shows that existing techniques do not provide adequate resolution or accuracy.

At present, no robust seismic method exists for accurately identifying and characterizing SWF. Operators do not have the option to avoid the hazard instead of mitigating the problem after it has started. A new method is required that will permit operators to identify the hazard before the well is drilled.

Using seismic data for accurate understanding of the physical properties and deformational behavior of SWF sands is essential to characterization, prediction, and interpretation of these stratigraphic units. To date, very few core and …


— Most existing power supplies for induction heating equipment produce voltage at a single (adjustable) frequency. Recently, however, induction heating power supplies that produce voltage at two (adjustable) frequencies simultaneously have been introduced and commercialized. These represent a significant development particularly for heat-treating workpieces with uneven geometries, such as gears. Still, the existing approaches to dual-frequency voltage generation could be improved upon to achieve better control, higher efficiency, and reduced electro- magnetic interference. This letter proposes the use of multilevel inverters for providing power at two frequencies simultaneously. It describes how the stepping angles for the desired output from such inverters can be determined. Furthermore, experimental results are presented as verification of the concept and to demonstrate the achievement of improved harmonic level control and reduced device switching frequency.


The investment universe of Shariah Compliant (SC) equities is relatively smaller compared to the investment universe of Non-Shari'ah Complaint (NSC) equities due to the imposition of Shari'ah specific filters. Therefore, under the diversification theory, it is argued that portfolios constructed by using SC equities are sub-optimal. To empirically test this notion, the main purpose of this study is to investigate that either the SC portfolios (faith bound investors) forego some part of returns or hedged against market risks while fulfilling their religious obligations. To test the foregoing, we imply simple asset pricing techniques which are in vogue in conventional finance. Firstly, we segregate the firms listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) into SC and NSC stocks. Then, we form two portfolios within each group based on market capitalization and volatility. The purpose is to analyze and compare the performance of these two groups while controlling for firms related characteristics such as size and volatility. The data coverage is from January 2004 until June 2016. Our results indicate that in most of the cases the risk-adjusted returns (alphas) for the returns differential between SC and NCS firms are positive. This is mainly because the SC firms in comparison to their counterparts in PSX, provides excess returns that are hedged against market, size and value based systematic risks factors. Overall, these results reconcile with one prevailing notion that the SC stocks that have lower financial leverage and higher investment in real assets are lesser exposed to market risks. Further, the SC firms that are more capitalized and lesser volatile, perform better than lower capitalized and higher volatile SC and NSC firms. To sum up our results, we do not find any substantial evidence for opportunity loss due to limited diversification opportunities in case of SC firms. This paper highlights that Islamic funds have potential to fulfill the demands of risk averse investors who are also faith bound.


Introduction Increasing evidence suggests that plantar shear forces and related stresses play a major role in diabetic foot ulcerations. Several orthotic devices are commercially available to reduce plantar shear forces within the shoe. The biomechanical efficacy of these devices was not tested in vivo. To measure spatiotemporal characteristics of gait to assess the efficacy of such shear-reducing insoles (SRIs), control insoles were also tested for comparison purposes. Material and Methods Eighteen healthy volunteers walked along a 30.5-m line while wearing three types of insoles in randomized order. Spatiotemporal parameters of gait were quantified. Statistical comparisons between the control and SRIs were conducted using repeated measures analysis of variance. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were also calculated to reveal the repeatability of the trials. Step length, gait speed, and cadence of the subjects remained similar regardless of the insole type. Results No significant difference was observed in any variable. The ICC values revealed excellent repeatability. Conclusions The lack of changes in gait parameters in these results suggest that shear-reducing diabetic inserts did not decrease plantar shear forces as intended. This might be caused by unrealistic in vitro testing conditions during the prototype development. Future designs should also consider friction at the lateral walls of the inserts, an increase in step repetition that accompanies a decrease in gait speed and/or step length, and a possible temperature increase within the shoe. We conclude that the future SRIs need to be redesigned based on comprehensive biomechanical guidelines.


On the basis of an extensive corpus analysis, this paper investigates how cognitive, cultural, and language-internal factors conspire in the diachronic development of German nominalization patterns. Focusing on nominalization with the suffix -ung, the present study demonstrates that this word-formation pattern is subject to an increasing array of word-formation constraints. This is due to (a) shifts in the availability and prototypicality of reading variants evoked by the word-formation pattern, (b) the increasing productivity of competing word-formation patterns, and (c) sociocultural factors such as the emergence of language purism, which promoted the replacement of ung-derivatives with other word-formation products. The results of the corpus analysis lend support to a usage-based and radically constructionist view of morphology and morphological change.


Observing jumping domain walls Domain walls, which separate regions of opposite magnetization in a ferromagnet, have rich dynamics that are difficult to characterize in small samples. Tetienne et al. imaged the magnetization of a thin ferromagnetic wire and observed the jumping of a domain wall between different positions along the wire. They used a scanning magnetic microscope based on a defect in diamond. The laser light needed to operate the microscope also enabled the control of the domain wall motion by causing local heating, which made the illuminated position more likely to contain a domain wall. Science, this issue p. 1366 A microscope based on a single spin of a diamond defect is used to observe magnetism dynamics. The control of domain walls in magnetic wires underpins an emerging class of spintronic devices. Propagation of these walls in imperfect media requires defects that pin them to be characterized on the nanoscale. Using a magnetic microscope based on a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, we report domain-wall imaging on a 1-nanometer-thick ferromagnetic nanowire and directly observe Barkhausen jumps between two pinning sites spaced 50 nanometers apart. We further demonstrate in situ laser control of these jumps, which allows us to drag the domain wall along the wire and map the pinning landscape. Our work demonstrates the potential of NV microscopy to study magnetic nano-objects in complex media, whereas controlling domain walls with laser light may find an application in spintronic devices.


Routine general anesthesia is considered to be safe in healthy individuals. However, pre-clinical studies in mice, rats, and monkeys have repeatedly demonstrated that exposure to anesthetic agents during early post-natal periods can lead to acute neurotoxicity. More concerning, later-life defects in cognition, assessed by behavioral assays for learning and memory, have been reported. Although the potential for anesthetics to damage the neonatal brain is well-documented, the clinical significance of the pre-clinical models in which damage is induced remains quite unclear. Here, we systematically evaluate critical physiological parameters in post-natal day 7 neonatal mice exposed to 1.5% isoflurane for 2–4 hours, the most common anesthesia induced neurotoxicity paradigm in this animal model. We find that 2 or more hours of anesthesia exposure results in dramatic respiratory and metabolic changes that may limit interpretation of this paradigm to the clinical situation. Our data indicate that neonatal mouse models of AIN are not necessarily appropriate representations of human exposures.


We describe the design of a high-speed multichannel ellipsometer in the optical configuration PC1r(ω1)SC2r(ω2)A having frequency-coupled rotating compensators (C1r and C2r) and a fixed polarizer and analyzer (P and A) symmetrically placed about the sample (S) on the polarization generation and detection arms of the instrument. For this instrument the frequency-coupled compensators rotate continuously at ω1= 5ω and ω2=3ω, where π/ω is the fundamental optical period. Although the dual rotating-compensator configuration has been proposed and demonstrated earlier, we focus on its extension to real-time Mueller matrix spectroscopy of surface modification and thin-film growth utilizing high-speed multichannel detection with a wide spectral range. The proposed instrument design provides the capability of extracting all 16 elements of the unnormalized Mueller matrix of an evolving sample at 1024 points from 1.5 to 6.5 eV with potential acquisition and repetition times of 0.2 s. Techniques of data acquisition, data reduction, and instrument calibration are described for the general case of arbitrary compensator retardances and polarizer and analyzer angles. We expect that the proposed instrument will have important applications in studies of surfaces and thin films that exhibit anisotropy and inhomogeneity.


Swedish health care is currently facing problems, such as lack of financial resources, staff shortage and dissatisfaction among patients and professionals. Patients' dissatisfaction was the point of departure for the present study, and one approach dealing with this problem was investigated. It was hypothesised that a patient-centred perspective could offer a possible solution. The aim of the study was to explore health care professionals' and medical students' understanding of their professional role and the patient encounter. A further goal was to determine whether these understandings could be developed by educational interventions. Students and professionals have been either interviewed or responded to a survey about their professional role and the patient encounter. Qualitative analysis was used. One group- and one individualised intervention were carried out. The participants' understandings of their professional role were taken as the starting point for learning. The results showed that a minority of medical students and professionals in diabetes care had incorporated a patient- centred perspective. Nurses in telephone advisory services recognised the patients' needs, but experienced conflicting demands of being both carer and gatekeeper. A non-optimal match between patients' needs and what professionals understand as their role could cause some of the problems. Competence development could be achieved by taking the participants understanding of the professionals' role and of the patient encounter as a starting point for reflection. The results have implications for changes in organisation and education in health care, to optimise outcomes of care. Time for reflection, mentoring and professional development is needed.


A highly sensitive and label-free electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor was fabricated for the detection of β-2-microglobulin (β2M) based on a gold nanoparticle-doped@carbon nano-onion chitosan nanocomposite modified cadmium selenide quantum dot screen-printed electrode (QDs-SPE/AuNPs@CNOs-CS) for the first time. The electrode was biocompatible, with increased effective surface area for capturing and binding of a large number of anti-β2M antibodies. Moreover, it afforded high stability, greatly improved the electronic transmission rate and enhanced the capture of photons emitted from the luminophore tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) chloride ([Ru(bpy)3]2+Cl), which show great promise for the fabrication of highly sensitive ECL immunosensors. The fabrication process involved immobilization of anti-β2M onto QD-SPE/AuNPs@CNOs-CS pre-blocked by BSA (QDs-SPE/AuNPs@CNOs-CS/anti-β2M/BSA). The principle of ECL detection was based on the increase in the electrostatic attraction between the β2M and [Ru(bpy)3]2+ at a pH above the isoelectric point. The ECL intensity was linearly elevated with the increase in log concentration of β2M from 1 fg mL−1 to 100 ng mL−1 and a detection limit of 1 fg mL−1. The immunosensor demonstrated huge potential to detect β2M in real serum and urine samples for clinical diagnosis. This work showcased QDs-SPE/AuNPs@CNOs-CS as an ideal interface to fabricate a highly sensitive label-free ECL immunosensor to detect other biomarkers of clinical significance.


In a transaction the IRS has called the midco shelter, a scoundrel evades tax on the sale of a corporation's business assets and shares the benefit of the evasion with the sellers of the corporation's stock and the buyers of its assets. Shareholders of a corporation with appreciated assets sell stock to the scoundrel, and the corporation sells its assets. Tax on the gain is due but the scoundrel evades tax. Asset buyers get a step-up in basis to cost without having to cover the tax on the asset sale. Stock sellers get a price greater than the net worth of assets, when tax due is considered.The proposal would make the selling shareholders secondarily liable for the corporate tax, limited by the premium they receive in excess of the corporation's net worth. That premium would be measured from the actual sales of corporate assets. The proposal would also make asset buyers secondarily liable for corporate tax, limited by the deemed value of the step-up in basis. The proposal would have no effect on current transferee liability law. The proposal is made as a part of the Shelf Project, a collaboration among tax professionals to develop proposals to help Congress raise revenue in ways that improve the fairness and efficiency of the tax system. Shelf projects follow the format of a committee report, describing current law and the reasons for change and providing an explanation of the proposal.


Mobile WiMAX is the latest technology that promises broadband wireless access over long distance. In order to support mobility and continuous network connectivity in mobile WiMAX, it is necessary to provide handoff. Handoff is an essential process in wireless networks to guarantee continuous and effective services. This paper focuses on the analysis of the performance of the handoff process in Mobile WiMAX. This paper aims to find out the factors/parameters of the WiMAX module that affect handoff performance the most, such as handoff duration of less than 50 ms and mobility speed up to 120km/hour. Simulation results show that some of the parameters of WiMAX do not have any influence on handoff latency, while others have great impact towards achieving shorter handoff duration time. The results also show that handoff times could vary for different speeds of the Mobile Station (MS).


Previous results for correlated block-fading MIMO channels with covariance information indicate guaranteed capacity growth with additional transmit elements and that in rapidly fading channels, vanishing element spacing maximizes capacity. However, because prior analysis neglects antenna electromagnetic coupling, the observations are not necessarily valid for small inter-element spacing. This work applies radiated power considerations to the analysis to demonstrate that additional elements do not always increase capacity and that vanishing element spacing is not optimal. An effective gain metric is introduced that quantifies the performance increase with additional transmitters in the presence of transmit correlation and mutual coupling. Performance simulations using the electromagnetic properties of uniform linear arrays characterized by closed form expressions for Hertzian dipoles and detailed finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations of half-wave dipoles illustrate that capacity gains arc possible when correlation stems from directional bias in the channel but not when it arises due to compact element spacing.


The collaborative development of shared understanding is crucial to the success of software development projects. It is also a challenging and volatile process in practice. Small organizations may be especially vulnerable due to reliance on key individuals and insufficient resource to employ several domain specialists. There is, however, minimal empirical research on sharing domain understanding in the context of small software organizations. In this paper we present the results of a field study of commercial software development practice in which we conducted semi-structured interviews with practitioners from ten such organizations. The study provides insights into practices, perceptions, and challenges related to developing shared domain understanding. Our results show that smaller organizations place particular emphasis on the use of prototypes or existing products to refine and verify domain understanding. Furthermore they perceive the biggest challenge to developing shared understanding as the quality of the client representative(s).


This paper provides cross-country evidence that variations in bank regulatory policies result in differences in income distribution. In particular, the overall liberalization of banking systems decreases the Gini coefficient and the Theil index significantly. However, this effect fades away for countries with low levels of economic and institutional development and for market-based economies. Among the different liberalization policies, the most significant negative effect on inequality is that of credit controls, which also seem to have a lasting effect on the Gini coefficient. Banking supervision and the abolition of interest rate controls also have a negative yet short-run impact on income inequality. A notable finding is that liberalization of securities markets increases income inequality substantially and over a long time span, suggesting that securitization widens the distribution of income. We contend that these findings have new implications for the effects of bank regulations, besides those related to their impact on financial stability.


The Ballagan Formation (Late Tournaisian–Early Viséan) of central Scotland yields an ostracod fauna of 14 species in ten genera, namely Beyrichiopsis, Cavellina, Glyptolichvinella, Glyptopleura, Knoxiella, Paraparchites, Sansabella, Shemonaella, Silenites and Sulcella. The ostracods, in combination with palynomorphs, are important biostratigraphical indices for correlating the rock sequences, where other means of correlation, especially goniatites, conodonts, foraminifera, brachiopods or corals are absent. Stratigraphical distribution of the ostracods, calibrated with well-established palynomorph biozones, identifies three informally defined intervals: a sub-CM palynomorph Biozone interval with poor ostracod assemblages including Shemonaella scotoburdigalensis; a succeeding interval within the CM palynomorph Biozone where Cavellina coela, Cavellina incurvescens, Sansabella amplectans and the new species Knoxiella monarchella and Paraparchites discus first appear; and, an upper interval, in the upper CM Biozone, marked by the appearance of Sulcella affiliata. At least locally in central Scotland, S. affiliata permits a level of resolution equivalent to a sub-zonal upper division of the CM Biozone. The fauna, flora, sedimentology and stable isotope composition (δ13C and δ18O) of carbonate minerals in the Ballagan Formation suggest the ostracods inhabited brackish, hypersaline and ephemeral aquatic ecologies in a coastal floodplain setting.


Anaphylaxis is a serious, life-threatening allergic reaction that can occur suddenly without warning. In children and adolescents, the leading cause of anaphylaxis is exposure to food allergens. Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published 2 clinical reports that discuss guidance on appropriate epinephrine use for anaphylaxis and developing an emergency action plan for patients at risk.


. In the present scientific paper one of the most general aims is the complex health of the child with special educational needs (SEN), its full integration, as far as possible, that contributes to the well-being of the community and its personal happiness. The creative approach to the formation of a developing educational and creative environment for children with special educational needs is fundamental to their adaptation and socialization, to their full and independent way of life. Analysis of the cognitive and creative functioning of the person increases the probability of building skills to include realistic, evidence-based assessments of situations and to reduce the subjective experience of negative emotion. These skills include identifying cognitive distortions, changing beliefs related to the world and others, and changing behavioral coping strategies. With the development of modern technologies and the transition of human civilization to an information society, the problem of personal adaptability becomes more and more relevant. The adaptation of man to the requirements of the social environment, his experience as a professionally realized and succeeded, identified with the group, with the organization experiencing serious pressure from internal and external factors are present. This report discusses options that alleviate the condition of distress, both in children and in their parents. The practical dimension of this statement is related to seeking a coherent link in the application of creativity as a creative process.


Automotive radar sensors have become irreplaceable not only when it comes to autonomous driving, but also in terms of driver assistance functionalities already available, e.g. for automatic cruise control on highways. Due to multipath propagation, wave interference and ambiguities, extracting target states from raw radar measurement data remains a challenge. To make fast evaluation of tracking and detection methods possible, a radar sensor simulation model has been developed in previous projects. This thesis applies a Track Before Detect (TBD) multi-target tracking algorithm to real and synthetic sensor data to evaluate the aforementioned radar simulation model.

In recent years, Bayes filter methods in the labeled random finite set formulation have become increasingly powerful in the multi-target tracking domain. One of the latest outcomes in this area is the Generalized Labeled Multi-Bernoulli (GLMB) filter which allows for stable cardinality and target state estimation as well as target identification in a unified framework. In contrast to the initial context of the GLMB filter, this thesis makes use of it in the TBD framework and thus runs the tracking algorithm directly on raw data. Therefore, the applied method avoids information loss due to thresholding and other preprocessing steps. Besides evaluating the filter performance in various scenarios on synthetic and real sensor data, different measurement models corresponding to Swerling 0 and 1 targets are implemented and compared. Hence, in addition to the assessment of the simulation model in different scenarios, multiple filter designs are proposed which allow to contrast real and synthetic data outcomes from differing perspectives.

Consequently, the major contributions of this work are the evaluation of the developed radar sensor simulation model under different circumstances and the development of a TBD GLMB filter under the separable likelihood assumption that can be applied to real world scenarios and data. Beyond schemes already discussed in literature, an adaptive birth model and a track merging strategy consistent with the Gibbs sampling version of the GLMB filter are presented. Moreover, to the best of the author's knowledge, the GLMB filter is applied to real world radar measurement data in a TBD framework for the first time.

This thesis provides a working TBD GLMB filter design and implementation for the automotive radar context. Its applicability to real sensor data is demonstrated in various scenarios. Moreover, the synthetic sensor data is shown to generate meaningful data through its usage as input to the same tracking algorithm. In addition, further improvement strategies are suggested for the radar simulation model based on a Fourier tracing approach as introduced by Holder et al. (2019). The main results include the discussion of the size of the regions in the measurement space influenced by individual targets, power mitigation effects in multipath propagation processes and the range dependency of the received power measurements.


In the context of future Cloud Radio Access Networks (CRAN), optical networks will play an important role to provide the required transport capacity between cell-sites and processing pools, especially for future 5G scenarios. For instance, using CPRI fronthaul technologies a single antenna element can generate data up to 24.3Gbps even with current configurations of radio transmissions, and it is expected to generate up to Tbps with the advance of technology. So, the transport segment of a 5G network needs to be accurately planned to accommodate all the generated traffic. In this work, we propose the use of a Passive Optical Network (PON) jointly with the emergent paradigms of Fog Computing and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to energy-efficiently support the high traffic transported in emergent mobile networks in an hybrid architecture called Cloud/Fog RAN (CF-RAN) that allows local and remote baseband processing. We introduce an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model to schedule the processing of CPRI demands among the processing nodes of the network and turn on or off processing functions on demand. Our approach is able to accommodate demands on the nodes of the network in the most energy efficient way. We compare our results with CRAN and distributed architectures (DRAN) and show that an energy efficient planning can achieve considerable gains in power consumption.


Cut curcuma stem has a reported vase life of 7 to 21 days and this difference in vase life is probably due to a combination of different factors such as growing conditions and postharvest treatments. However, the cut flower industry needs key postharvest information for new species and cultivars to be able to effectively market the flowers. The objectives of this study was to evaluate the effect of commercial hydrator and holding solutions, commercial growth regulator formulation, floral foam, ethylene and silver thiosulfate (STS) on the postharvest handling of C. alismatifolia cultivars. Control treatment (deionized water) had better vase life than the combinations of the commercial hydrator for 4h and commercial holding solution for 44h. Floral foam reduced vase life to 17 days from 23 days for the control treatment. The growth regulators gibberellin plus benzyladenine (GA4+7 + BA) had a positive effect on the fresh weight keeping parameter, but further studies are necessary. STS did not improve vase life, nor did ethylene at 1 µL L-1 reduce it. The curcuma cultivars tested were not positively affected by vase solution composition and had an average vase life in deionized water of 21 days.


Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) robustness toward slot entities are critical in e-commerce voice assistants that involve monetary transactions and purchases. Along with effective domain adaptation, it is intuitive that cross utterance contextual cues play an important role in disambiguating domain specific content words from speech. In this paper, we investigate various techniques to improve contextualization, content word robustness and domain adaptation of a Transformer-XL neural language model (NLM) to rescore ASR N-best hypotheses. To improve contextualization, we utilize turn level dialogue acts along with cross utterance context carry over. Additionally, to adapt our domain-general NLM towards e-commerce on-the-fly, we use embeddings derived from a finetuned masked LM on in-domain data. Finally, to improve robustness towards in-domain content words, we propose a multi-task model that can jointly perform content word detection and language modeling tasks. Compared to a non-contextual LSTM LM baseline, our best performing NLM rescorer results in a content WER reduction of 19.2% on e-commerce audio test set and a slot labeling F1 improvement of 6.4%.


Every year, oil sands mining results in a significant area of degraded land which needs to be reclaimed. In reconstructed mine sites, ground cover is helpful to minimize soil erosion by stabilizing soil. Besides soil erosion control, ground cover may also influence the establishment success of tree seedlings by affecting soil nutrient and moisture availability. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and oats (Avena sativa) are the ground cover species being recommended for oil sands reclamation operations, but interactions of the ground cover with planted tree seedlings are not fully understood. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different fertilizer rates on survival and growth of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) and white spruce (Picea glauca) tree seedlings planted with two cover crops (barley and oats). To fulfill the objective a greenhouse bioassay experiment and a field experiment were conducted. Under greenhouse conditions, soil moisture significantly increased height, root collar diameter (RCD) and biomass yield of tree seedlings. Fertilizer application significantly increased height and RCD in greenhouse, but not under field conditions. Even without ground cover competition, tree seedlings responded poorly to NPK fertilizer. Furthermore, survival rates of tree seedlings were significantly decreased with increased fertilizer application rates, and no positive growth and yield responses were observed in the field. Vigorous growth of ground cover species with high fertilizer application rates largely controlled survival and growth responses of tree seedlings. Trembling aspen was more sensitive to ground cover competition and negatively affected by barley and oats with added fertilizer, whereas white spruce was unaffected. Therefore, adding fertilizer to these systems appears to be of little benefit to early establishment and growth of tree seedlings as well as for successful reclamation.


Coaches and parents play a major role in determining the consequences of sport participation in young athletes. This study focuses on the assessment of a systemic, empirically inspired intervention directed at coaches and parents. Parallel workshops derived in part from achievement goal theory were presented to the coaches and parents of 9 to 15 year old boys and girls participating in community-based basketball programs, and their effects were compared with a matched control condition. Multilevel analyses revealed significant Time x Condition interactions on all three subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2) and on a total anxiety score. Athletes in the intervention condition decreased in cognitive and somatic anxiety scores on the SAS-2, whereas athletes in the control condition exhibited increases in cognitive and somatic anxiety. Results suggest the potential efficacy of brief, economical interventions in enhancing the psychosocial impact of the youth sport environment.


In this paper we propose differential eligibility vectors (DEV) for temporal-difference (TD) learning, a new class of eligibility vectors designed to bring out the contribution of each action in the TD-error at each state. Specifically, we use DEV in TD-Q(lambda) to more accurately learn the relative value of the actions, rather than their absolute value. We identify conditions that ensure convergence w.p.1 of TD-Q(lambda) with DEV and show that this algorithm can also be used to directly approximate the advantage function associated with a given policy, without the need to compute an auxiliary function - something that, to the extent of our knowledge, was not known possible. Finally, we discuss the integration of DEV in LSTDQ and actor-critic algorithms.


..one would never have the time of a gift.^sup 1^ The basic premises of Jacques Derrida's understanding of the gift can be dated back to his discussion of Hegel in Glas where the philosopher distinguishes between "the irruptive event of the gift" and "what is currently designated under this word."2 In contrast to the latter, the "pure gift" (as Derrida calls it, [243]) does not give itself to a thinking of Being, presence, economy and the proper. This is why it needs to be conceptualised "before every determinable being," indeed, "before everything"-"if one could count here with time" Derrida is careful to add (242, my emphasis). It is in the opening that this conditional clause constitutes in Glas that Derrida's most sustained (to date) treatment of the gift situates itself. As the tithe suggests, Given Time seeks to reformulate the problematic of the gift as a problematic of time: "wherever there is time," Derrida writes in the first chapter of the book, "the gift is impossible" (9). As he explains, the temporalization of time (memory, present, anticipation; retention, protention, imminence of the future; 'ecstases,' and so forth) always sets in motion the process of a destruction of the gift: through keeping, restitution, reproduction, the anticipatory expectation or apprehension that grasps or comprehends in advance. (14) It is because exposure to temporality renders the gift vulnerable to what Derrida calls "the payment principle" that, in his view, "one would never have the time of a gift" (GT, 9, my emphasis).3 "If there is any," the gift takes place in the rest [i.e., the remainder] of time (7). It literally erupts when time has a restand is thus "secretly linked," as Derrida puts it, to a certain death (4), namely, the death of the Sun King, for it is a circular model of time that, according to the philosopher, has circum-scribed the Western understanding of the gift. As I shall demonstrate, in his desire to keep the gift in "a relation of foreignness to the circle" (7), Derrida comes to "situate" it in "a no-time-lapse" "at the zero or infinite speed of the circle" (GT, 24).4 In doing so, the theorist of differance performs what I consider a strategic "forgetting" of the differantial spacing entailed in the movement of giving, the spatio-temporal ecart that defers the return of the gift, ensuring that on its return the given will be altered. It is this strategic "forgetting" that constitutes the aporia that has nourished my thinking in this essay. Indeed, it is the very concept of aporia that will help me unfold my agenda here.5 At stake, then, is first of all an impasse, the impasse of thought in the face of the impossible. In my reading of Given Time, it is this impasse that carries Derrida through his analysis of the gift as precisely a secret that denies passage. In my view, the temporal mode of this impasse is the instant, which, I shall argue, is the time of a gift in Derrida. At stake also is a certain poverty, what Emmanuel Levinas calls "the indigence of wealth."6 To my mind, it is this poverty that constitutes the "tragedy" of the instant in the duration-without-duration of which Derrida's gift remainsin full possession of its solitude. At stake, finally, is a thavmazein7 as the effect of the "logical and chronological" contradiction in which, according to Derrida, the madness of the gift consists (GT, 34). My contention is that this contradiction needs to be understood in the figure of paradox, a paradox that "mustbe endured," as Derrida emphasizes, "in the instant itself (GD, 66). Thavmazein, however,can be the effect of what erupts as a marvel. It is, indeed, the concept of marvel as we encounter it in the work of Levinas that will help us save Derrida's gift from the poverty of "the paradoxical instant . . . that . . . is [its] madness" (GT, 9). As we shall see, the marvel in question here is timeitself conceived as a certain differance, namely, as postponement and futurition. …


Global threats of terrorism, drug-smuggling, and other crimes have led to a significant increase in research on game theory for security. Game theory provides a sound mathematical approach to deploy limited security resources to maximize their effectiveness. A typical approach is to randomize security schedules to avoid predictability, with the randomization using artificial intelligence techniques to take into account the importance of different targets and potential adversary reactions. This book distills the forefront of this research to provide the first and only study of long-term deployed applications of game theory for security for key organizations such as the Los Angeles International Airport police and the U.S. Federal Air Marshals Service. The author and his research group draw from their extensive experience working with security officials to intelligently allocate limited security resources to protect targets, outlining the applications of these algorithms in research and the real world. The book also includes professional perspectives from security experts Erroll G. Southers; Lieutenant Commander Joe DiRenzo III, U.S. Coast Guard; Lieutenant Commander Ben Maule, U.S. Coast Guard; Erik Jensen, U.S. Coast Guard; and Lieutenant Fred S. Bertsch IV, U.S. Coast Guard.


The dynamical behavior of a two-level atom under the influence of two intense pump beams is examined. Exact equations for the nonlinear susceptibilities to all orders in the field strengths are derived. Numerical results for the nonlinear susceptibilities giving the absorption of the radiation from either of the pump beams and the generation of the four-wave mixing signal are given. The susceptibility for four-wave mixing, in addition to showing various saturation peaks, shows a peak at ω1 = ω2 even in the case of radiative relaxation. Higher-order multiphoton peaks in the absorption spectra are found to be extremely sensitive to the temporal fluctuations in the pumps.


Morp hometric analyses on cave bear fossils of the Valstrona-Valsesia region (Piedmont, Northern Italy) (in particular from the Delle Streghe Cave), allow the distinction of at least two or three populations of Ursus spelaeus Rosenmuller, 1794, of different sizes. Elements of smaller size are likely to be found in the Buco dell'Orso Cave (Laglio, Como province, Lombardy), and in the older strata of the Grotta Sopra Fontana Marella ‐GSFM- (Varese province). Differences in size can be linked to the chronological position of the fossils studied: in fact, fossils of smaller dimensions should be chronologically older, but can also be linked to climatic and thermoregulation factors. The increase of size could represent a response to a cooler climate. An alternative hypothesis associates this reduction of size to the cooler climatic shift. Observations on the Delle Streghe Cave fossils indicate that they are very similar to those inferred for the GSFM population, linking this trend to climatic variation. The reason for an increase in size could also be linked to the rapid evolution of the cave bears and the Delle Streghe fossils should cover a chronological range approximately similar to the fossils from GSFM.


This paper takes its cue from the relevance of the framing effect related to behavioural biases associated with economic decision-making. Most attempts to measure financial literacy rely on surveys that include standardized questions about the knowledge of three or four fundamental concepts. A survey conducted in October 2021 that involved 2500 individuals representative of the Italian population made it possible to evaluate whether questions with different wording created higher respondent engagement, determined other answers and improved performance in terms of financial literacy. The descriptive and regression analysis showed that the wording mattered in three out of four questions. More engaging wording mitigated the gender effect by reducing the probability of women choosing the 'I do not know' option. However, while there was evidence of an increase in the percentage of correct answers in single questions, the overall level of financial literacy showed no signs of improvement. The regression analysis found that the likelihood of being financially literate, independently of the type of question, depends on sociodemographic variables (gender, age, geographical area and level of education) and on self-evaluation of digital and economic skills. In addition, knowledge of basic maths plays a key role. Whoever knows how to compute a percentage correctly has a notably higher probability of being financially literate. This evidence has clear policy indications. percentage changed opinions was higher than the The respondents


Thin film (TF)-based coupled cavity all-pass filters (CCAP) have the potential for providing compact, low-loss, and highly stable third-order dispersion (TOD) compensation in ultrafast optical fiber transmission systems employing optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM). In this paper, a methodology for designing CCAP filters for TOD compensation is presented, First, we develop a theory necessary for designing the cavity structure, that is, mirror reflectivity and cavity spacing, of CCAP filters. As a next step, we discuss how we can represent such filters as TF devices and demonstrate several TF-layer design examples. Finally, a coupled two-cavity filter is constructed and tested. The filter has a center wavelength that can be varied over a range of 8 nm and can compensate for fiber TOD between 2.0 and 15.5 ps/sup 3/ over a bandwidth between 3.6 and 1.2 nm, respectively. The peak spectral ripple of the filter is 1.0 dB, The experimentally measured dispersion curves of the filter agree well with the theory.


There is a need in health research to identify whether inequalities are increasing or improving between different geographical areas. Both cross-sectional time-series and longitudinal/cohort studies contribute to our knowledge, with the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (LS) for England and Wales being a major resource. However, any research into geographical change over time can be hampered by boundary change or when the geographical definition for which data are available is not the geography relevant to an analysis.

We develop a method using population-weighted centroids of estimating an LS member's location at a previous time point and then link this to a small-area geography, the 2001 Census Output Areas. This is not so that analyses can be carried out at this scale but so that records can be linked to larger geographies or area classifications. A time-series or longitudinal analysis can then be carried out and geographical trends observed. In terms of reliability, we find that accuracy improves with increasing size of geographical units and when area typologies are used.

In example analyses using a geodemographic classification attached to LS members' records, we find that in a time series of cross-sections, mortality improves across all area types but not to the same extent. A longitudinal analysis indicates that changes in the area types in which people were living lead to steeper health gradients than if people had stayed living in the same type of area. Differences, though, are small, suggesting that, in the main, there is little mobility between area types.

We recommend that longitudinal and cohort studies retain the postcode of each member's address so that ongoing linkages can be made when administrative boundary changes occur and for relevance to application relevant geographies. Our method can be used to enhance previous records and thereby maximise previous investment in the collection of data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


With the increasing use of prefabricated vertical drains in the improvement of soft clay there are many types of these
drains, both composite (with geotextile wrapping) and monolithic (without geotextile wrapping), available in
Malaysia. Some engineers have the impression that all drains perform satisfactorily. However, case studies have
shown that there are cases where vertical drains failed to function. Therefore, there is a need to identify the drains
which are not suitable or do not perform satisfactorily. This paper describes the various tests that have been carried out on two types of drain (i.e. one composite and one monolithic) to study their performance under lateral pressure. Test results show the importance of having a filter sleeve around the drain core. They also indicate that the type of
geotextile wrapping affects the performance of the drain. A relatively stiff woven geotextile seems to be the most
favour able


The light-induced degradation of propanil and molinate under simulated solar irradiation has been investigated in aqueous solutions containing TiO 2 suspensions as photocatalysts. The study focuses on the identification of possible intermediate products and the determination of inorganic ions formed during the process, using several powerful analytical techniques such as gas chromatography mass-spectrometry (GC-MS) and ion chromatography (IC). The primary degradation of propanil and molinate has been a fast process with half-lives varying from 4.3 to 2.9 minutes respectively, and followed pseudo-first-order kinetics according to the Langmuir-Hinshelwood model. The stoichiometric transformation of organic chlorine into chloride ion and organic sulfur to sulfate ions was observed for propanil and molinate respectively, whereas oxidation of nitrogen to nitrate ions took place at delayed irradiation times for both herbicides. The mineralization of the organic carbon to CO 2 after 240 min of irradiation was found to be ≥ 95% for both herbicides. Various organic intermediates detected during the treatment have been identified by GC/MS techniques. Based on this by-product identification, a possible multi-step degradation scheme was proposed for each herbicide including hydroxylation, dechlorination, dealkylation and oxidation steps that lead to the mineralization of the starting molecule.


Changes in abundance, diversity and productivity of plankton in a maritime Antarctic lake were studied between December 1994 and February 1996. There were large intra- and inter-annual fluctuations in population densities, which were related to changing physical and chemical parameters. The plankton included an abundant protozoan population, comprising at least 66 taxa. This is amongst the highest diversities so far reported for Antarctic lakes. Heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNF) were the most common, with densities between 4 × 104 and 1.5 × 107 l-1, and were the largest contributors to total protozoan carbon biomass for most of the year. Ciliate abundance varied from 4.0 × 100 to 1.4 × 104 l-1 and included taxa from several trophic levels. Numbers of naked amoebae were usually low but occasional patches of high density occurred. An anoxic sump developed in bottom waters at the end of the winter and this contained a distinct population of anaerobic HNF. There was evidence that the excrement of increasing fur seal numbers in the lake catchment over the last 15 years is having an impact on the lake ecosystem. The Chl-a maximum of 49 μg l-1 and primary productivity of up to 40 mgC m-3 h-1 were significantly higher than those reported by previous studies of this lake and continental Antarctic lakes. Increased summer bacterial abundance and productivity, together with higher winter nutrient concentrations, were also noted.


Background: Endotel dysfunction, vasoconstriction, and oxidative stress are described in the pathophysiology of pre-eclampsia, but its aetiology has not been revealed clearly. Aims: To examine whether there is a difference between the placentas of pre-eclamptic pregnant women and those of a control group in terms of their T2 star values. Study Design: Case-control study. Methods: Twenty patients diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and 22 healthy controls were included in this study. The placentas obtained after births performed via Caesarean section were taken into the magnetic resonance imaging area in plastic bags within the first postnatal hour, and imaging was performed via modified DIXON-Quant sequence. Average values were obtained by performing T2 star measurements from four localisations on the placentas. Results: T2 star values measured in the placentas of the control group were found to be significantly lower than those in the pre-eclampsia group (p<0.01). While the mean T2 star value in the pre-eclamptic group was found to be 37.48 ms (standard deviation ± 11.3), this value was 28.74 (standard deviation ± 8.08) in the control group. The cut-off value for the T2 star value, maximising the accuracy of diagnosis, was 28.59 ms (area under curve: 0.741; 95% confidence interval: 0.592-0.890); sensitivity and specificity were 70% and 63.6%, respectively. Conclusion: This study, the T2 star value, which is an indicator of iron amount, was found to be significantly lower in the control group than in the pre-eclampsia group. This may be related to the reduction in blood flow to the placenta due to endothelial dysfunction and vasoconstriction, which are important in pre-eclampsia pathophysiology.


Do Major League Baseball umpires call balls and strikes solely in response to pitch location? We analyze all regular season calls from 2009 to 2011—over one million pitches—using non-parametric and structural estimation methods. We find that the strike zone contracts in 2-strike counts and expands in 3-ball counts, and that umpires are reluctant to call two strikes in a row. Effect sizes can be dramatic: in 2-strike counts the probability of a called strike drops by as much as 19 percentage points in the corners of the strike zone. We structurally estimate each umpire's aversions to miscalling balls and his aversions to miscalling strikes in different game states. If an umpire is unbiased, he would only need to be 50% sure that a pitch is a strike in order to call a strike half the time. In fact, the average umpire needs to be 64% sure of a strike in order to call strike three half the time. Moreover, the least biased umpire still needs to be 55% sure of a strike in order to call strike three half the time. In other words, every umpire is biased. Contrary to their formal role as unbiased arbiters of balls and strikes, umpires are biased by the state of the at-bat when deciding whether a pitch intersects the strike zone.


Abstract The mineral stability of two bentonites was studied in the presence of pyrite concentrate to simulate the possible reactions between the bentonite barrier used in a high-level nuclear waste (HLW) repository and host rock containing up to 5 wt.% of admixed pyrite. Smectite was the only bentonite mineral affected by pyrite treatment under the experimental conditions used. Bentonites reacted differently with pyrite due to the different nature of the smectites. The distinct crystal chemistry of the smectites controlled by the composition of the parent rocks influenced the smectite surface properties (cation exchange capacity and layer charge distribution) which resulted in a different response of the bentonites to pyrite treatment. A partial transformation of the original smectites into H-smectites represented the initial stage of smectite destabilization on acid attack. Rising non-equivalent isomorphous substitution in the octahedral sheets of the smectites enhanced smectite reactivity and thus the reaction between bentonite and pyrite, causing lower stability of the bentonite containing high-charge smectite.


BACKGROUND
This study assessed the contributions of individual, household and neighbourhood-level factors to socio-economic inequalities in smoking.

METHODS
Data came from 2706 participants of the 2004 wave of the Dutch GLOBE study. Participants were asked about several social and material characteristics of their households, neighbourhoods and smoking in their environment. Indicators of socio-economic position were education and income. Associations with daily smoking were examined using logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS
Education and income were independently associated with daily smoking (mutually adjusted odds ratios for the lowest education and income groups: odds ratio (OR): 2.87, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.78-4.62; OR: 1.55, 95% CI: 1.09-2.23, respectively). Individual beliefs about smoking contributed most to the association of education with daily smoking. Individual beliefs about smoking and household material adversity contributed most to the association of income with daily smoking. We found no evidence that negative perceptions of the neighbourhood contributed to smoking inequalities. In fully adjusted models, associations between income and smoking were fully attenuated, but an independent association between education and smoking remained.

CONCLUSION
Education and income were related to smoking through partly different pathways. Reducing inequalities in smoking may require a multidimensional approach targeting material and social factors, with strategies targeted towards the individual and the household level.


Augmentation of potable water sources by planned indirect potable reuse of wastewater is being widely considered to address growing water shortages. Environmental buffers such as lakes and dams may act as one of a series of barriers to potable water contamination stemming from micropollutants in wastewater. In South-East Queensland, Australia, current government policy is to begin indirect potable reuse of water from reverse osmosis equipped advanced water treatment plants (AWTPs) when the combined capacity of its major storages are at 40% capacity. A total of 15 organic contaminants including NDMA and bisphenol A have been publically reported as detected in recycled water from one of South-East Queensland's AWTPs, while another 98 chemicals were analysed for, but found to be below their detection limit. To assess the natural attenuation in Lake Wivenhoe, a Level III fugacity based evaluative fate model was constructed using the maximum concentrations of these contaminants detected as input data. A parallel aquivalence based model was constructed for those contaminants, such as dichloroacetic acid, dalapon and triclopyr, which are ionised in the environment of Lake Wivenhoe. A total of 247 organic chemicals of interest, including disinfection by-products, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, were evaluated with the model to assess their potential for natural attenuation. Out of the 15 detected chemicals, trihalomethanes are expected to volatilise with concentrations in the outflow from the dam approximately 400 times lower than influent from the AWTPs. Transformation processes in water are likely to be more significant for NDMA and pharmaceuticals such as paracetamol as well as for caffeine and the herbicides dalapon and triclopyr. For hydrophobic contaminants such as cholesterol and phenolic xenoestrogens such as nonylphenol, equilibrium between water and sediments will not be attained and hence fate processes such as removal in outflow are predicted to become relatively important.


The impact of climatic variations on crop yields and the adaptation by farmers in north-western Nigeria are examined using the modeling approach and farm surveys. Accordingly, regression models which relate climate data to crop yields were constructed. The results showed that rainfall has a positive relationship with crop yields in the region and explained over 70 percent of the variations in the yields of sorghum, millet and maize, all of which were significant at the 0.05 level. Evaporation also had a significant but inverse relationship with crop yields. Other climatic elements in the experiment provided minimal levels of explanation. The farm surveys found that rural farmers in north-western Nigeria were quite innovative when it comes to adapting to drought. The study concluded that the impact of climatic variations on crop yields in north-western Nigeria can be substantial especially under drought conditions. The need to update farmers' adaptive strategies is emphasized.


Collaboration is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that collaboration has come to stay and we can no longer choose whether or not we want to work together. Collaboration between health professionals and/or organizations is a public health issue that is growing in importancebecause of increasing healthcare costs and specialization that has led to fragmentation of the welfare services. While collaboration has increased and become an important organizational strategy in delivering services, there is now a greater need to evaluate collaboration, which is neither a small nor an easy task. Collaboration is managed in many different ways, all of which are unique. Integration of social services also presents a particular challenge for evaluators, as integration involves, by nature, complex approaches to service provision. Evaluation methods are useful tools, and help to ensure that collaboration functions optimally. The aim of the study is to present a framework used in an evaluation of intersectoral collaboration at municipal level. The framework is called the Five Key Components (FiKC).The method used is a case study involving evaluation of intersectoral collaboration in the work of the Addiction Centre in Sweden. The collaboration is between three municipalities and the county health authority. The evaluation design was a mixed-method approach.Program theory was used as an evaluation tool. The evaluation was both goal and process oriented. Critical Discourse Analysis was used in the analysis of the focus group interviews. Observations took place at the workplace meetings and referral meetings. The seven focus group interviews were held with the respective professions in the Addiction Centre and three with the social workers in the municipalities outside the Addiction Centre. Vignette survey was also conducted. Statistics about Addiction Centre were collected. The results have shown that the FiKC framework is useful in evaluation of intersectoral collaboration at local and municipal level. It provides an evaluator at local and municipal levels with a tool for mapping the five key components in the collaboration. It helps the collaboration partners identify and understand the presence or lack of cooperation in different areas and between different players. The framework has not been tested in a larger (national) collaboration project. The conclusion is that the FiKC framework can be used in evaluating the effectiveness of collaboration


Cultivated alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cultivars are primarily tetraplolds, and data are sparse about the performance of alfalfa strains of different ploidy levels. Related diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid alfalfa strains and a 'Vernal' check were compared in seeded row plots at Madison, Wisconsin. The soil was a fertile Dodge silt loam (Typic Hapludalf). The alfalfas were harvested during 2 years with two, three, or four cuts annually,, and the forage was analyzed for concentrations of nitrogen and in vitro digestible dry matter (IVDDM). Herbage, N, and IVDDM yields averaged over alfalfa strains were similar for two and three cuts annually, and were lowest for four cuts. Percentages of N and IVDDMw ere in the increasing order of two, three, and four cuts annually and similar for all ploidy levels within a cutting schedule. The 4x strains produced higher yields of herbage, N, and IVDDM than the 2x and 6x strains within each cutting schedule. The 2x strain outyielded the 6x strain with two cuts annually, but the reverse was the case with three and four cuts annually. This same response of strains was apparent in the residual herbage yields, within each cutting schedule, which were in the descending order of two, three, and four cuts annually. It was concluded that among the materials tested the tetraploid level had the highest yield potential and that the experimental diploid was best suited to a two-cutting schedule. The tetraploid that was synthesized to maximize heterozygosity [4x (70-44)] outyielded the check cultivar 'Vernal' at all cutting frequencies. Lack of maximum heterozygosity in the hexaploid was a possible reason for its comparatively poor performance.


This paper proposes a new approach for the detection of tree locations around forest machines producing a situational model based on on-site terrestrial LiDAR data collected during harvesting operation. A triangularized ground model is used to planarize the point cloud in order to simplify the tree detection. The planarized ground makes the vertical cutting of the point cloud systematical. Tree stem lines detected from individual trees at individual scan views are used to guide the final alignment into global coordinates. The setup is numerically efficient and does not rely on any positioning and orientation system (POS) based e.g. on an inertial measurement unit (IMU) or global navigation satellite system (GNSS) or wheel rotation counter on the autonomous vehicle.


LogiQL is a new state-of-the-art programming language based on Datalog. It can be used to build applications that combine transactional, analytical, graph, probabilistic, and mathematical programming. LogiQL makes it possible to build hybrid applications that previously required multiple programming languages and databases. In this first book to cover LogiQL, the authors explain how to design, implement, and query deductive databases using this new programming language. LogiQLs declarative approach enables complex data structures and business rules to be simply specified and then automatically executed. It is especially suited to business applications requiring complex rules to be implemented efficiently, for example predictive analytics and supply chain optimization. Suitable for both novices and experienced developers, the book is written in easy-to-understand language. It includes many examples and exercises throughout to illustrate the main concepts and consolidate understanding.


Synopsis Rogercooperia phylloides (Elles & Wood 1908) gen. nov. and R. paucispinosus (Sherwin & Rickards) form the basis of a new genus evolutionarily related to the last of the glossograptids in the wilsoni Biozone (early Caradoc) of Scotland, UK and the calcaratus Biozone (highest Gisbornian) of New South Wales, Australia. The similar genus Nanograptus Hadding (1915), from the early Caradoc of Scandinavia, is reviewed, and is considered a late evolutionary derivative of Cryptograptus Lapworth (1880). Rogercooperia and Nanograptus are convergent genera. Although of different evolutionary lineages both show loss of proximal spinosity, loss of rhabdosomal spinosity, and lessening of thecal spinosity, resulting in an overall similar appearance. The loss of spinosity is typical of many lineages of biserial graptolites in the late Caradoc and Ashgill. The early development of the colonies, in both genera, includes a low metasicular origin of thl1, again a late evolutionary feature.


The revival of originalism in the last generation has been, for the most part, the work of conservatives. That makes it easy to think that originalism and legal conservatism are natural allies. But in fact the alliance is an alliance of convenience, and, before too much longer, it is going to outlive its usefulness. Or at least so I will argue in this Essay. The cause of legal conservatives would be much better served if conservatives would abandon their allegiance to originalism and instead adopt an approach to constitutional interpretation that is based in precedent--an approach that seems to me vastly more sound in any event. Any theory of interpretation, including originalism, can produce sharply different results, depending on who is using the theory. Of course any theory might be used in bad faith, but that is not what I mean. The point is that even good-faith interpreters can reach different results with the same theory. That is why one quick way to test the soundness of a theory of interpretation is to ask the question: What theory would you want your opponents to use, if you could assign a theory to them? If your political opponents were, say, appointing Justices to the Supreme Court, would you want those appointees to believe in originalism, or in some other view, such as one based on precedent? It seems to me that once you ask that question, you are going to conclude that a precedent-based approach is superior to originalism, even if you have conservative inclinations. (1) The reason is twofold: originalism makes it too easy for people to find, in the law, the answers they are looking for; and originalism causes people to hide the ball, to avoid admitting, perhaps even to themselves, what is really affecting their decisions. There are at least three reasons why originalism, contrary to appearances, in fact imposes only a very uncertain limit on judges and leaves them a great deal of latitude to find, in the original understandings, the outcomes they want to find--something that, as I said, may be fine if you want those same outcomes, but is not fine if your opponents are running the show. The first is what might be called the problem of ascertainability. At least when you are dealing with old constitutional provisions, which nearly all the controversial provisions of our Constitution are, it will be very hard to do the historical work needed to determine what the original understandings were. Partly this is just a technical problem of becoming conversant with all the relevant materials. But the greater problem is knowing what inferences to draw from those historical materials. Especially in dealing with highly controversial issues, ascertaining the original understandings will routinely require a thorough immersion not just in the context of the specific debate but in the culture of the time. It is a lot to expect a busy judge to do that competently, and it will be all too easy to seize on any evidence that supports the view of the Constitution that the interpreter himself prefers. Let me give an example of just how intractable this basic problem of ascertainability is. In a terrifically interesting law review article, Judge Michael McConnell has argued that, contrary to the conventional wisdom that was entrenched for a generation, Brown v. Board of Education (2) was consistent with original understandings. (3) I'm not sure Judge McConnell is correct, but let's assume he is. Now consider the following: In 1953, the Supreme Court asked the lawyers in Brown to brief the question of what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment understood it to say about school segregation. (4) The best lawyers and historians in the country were engaged in the project of trying to find an originalist justification for the outcome they desired, which was the unconstitutionality of segregation. They spectacularly failed. The opinion in Brown begins with what can only be read as a concession that the original understandings do not support the conclusion the Court reached, that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids racial segregation. …


Background: Caregiver burden in mental illness is believed to differ between ethnic groups, but few studies have examined this in schizophrenia in the UK. Aim: To measure burden in British North Indian Sikh and white British parents with a son or daughter with established schizophrenia managed in outpatient care. Method: A cross-cultural cohort study measuring family factors, patient psychopathology and levels of burden and distress. Results: Overall levels of burden were low with no significant differences between the groups. Burden subscale scores showed Indian parents were more affected by psychotic behaviours than white parents. The groups also differed on several sociodemographic variables. Conclusion: In stabilized community patients, the overall extent of burden experienced by both Indian and white parents is low and comparable. However, Indian parents were more burdened by psychotic behaviours. This may be a result of co-residence as Indian patients are more likely to live with their families. Social and economic factors in the country of residence and levels of acculturation may also influence levels of burden and the illness behaviours found most bothersome by parents.


Countries reforming their health systems need an understanding of the extent of transferability of reform experience from one country to another. Ideally, a typology or a system of categorization which groups countries according to some of their key features, would be available as a guide. Before such a typology can be developed, an appropriate comparative framework or a hierarchically organized list of key features across which health systems can be compared, would need to be available. Those comparative frameworks and typologies which are available have been driven by the understanding of industrialised country health systems. The best known is that of Roemer (1991). These give inadequate attention to the informal dimension of health systems (unregulated and illegal activities, and the traditional sector) for application to developing countries, and they often supply a political dimension which does not take account of the importance of the stability and strength of government in developing country contexts. Two-dimensional, tabular typologies are static and cannot incorporate the implications of change. The literature offers some promising approaches to development of a more useful comparative framework including more dynamic ways of grouping system characteristics, and the idea of a modular approach which can accommodate the problem of information shortage. Two types of research will be particularly useful in further development of this framework: cross country comparisons of experience with specific reforms, and comprehensive country case studies of reform programmes which enable the full context to be understood. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


As one of the largest coal production and consumption countries in the world, China is also one of the related accidents occurred frequently countries such as gas explosion, flood, breaking out of fire during the exploitation of coal mine. Coal Mine Detection Robot can be substituted or partial substituted for emergency workers to enter the mine shaft disaster site and detect hazardous gas and do some environmental exploration and surveying task. Coal Mine Detection Robot uses infra-red spectrum absorption way to detect methane, carbon monoxide and such gas simultaneously. The principle of gas survey meter of infra-red spectrum is according to the selectively absorption of infrared radiation by the mash gas, CO to achieve the detection of their concentration. The advantages of this kind of hazardous gas detecting are: simultaneously and rapidly detecting methane, CO and high sensitivity, good selectivity and fast response. Otherwise, it is easy to be taken by robot due to its simple and light structure, have a lager detection range and probe is not easy failure to be poisoning and aging.


This review has three main aims: (1) to make specific predictions about the habitat of the hypothetical last common ancestor of the chimpanzee/bonobo–human clade; (2) to outline the major trends in environments between 8–6 Ma and the late Pleistocene; and (3) to pinpoint when, and in some cases where, human ancestors evolved to cope with the wide range of habitats they presently tolerate. Several lines of evidence indicate that arboreal environments, particularly woodlands, were important habitats for late Miocene hominids and hominins, and therefore possibly for the last common ancestor of the chimpanzee/bonobo–human clade. However, as there is no clear candidate for this last common ancestor, and because the sampling of fossils and past environments is inevitably patchy, this prediction remains a working hypothesis at best. Nonetheless, as a primate, it is expected that the last common ancestor was ecologically dependent on trees in some form. Understanding past environments is important, as palaeoenvironmental reconstructions provide the context for human morphological and behavioural evolution. Indeed, the impact of climate on the evolutionary history of our species has long been debated. Since the mid‐Miocene, the Earth has been experiencing a general cooling trend accompanied by aridification, which intensified during the later Pliocene and Pleistocene. Numerous climatic fluctuations, as well as local, regional and continental geography that influenced weather patterns and vegetation, created hominin environments that were dynamic in space and time. Behavioural flexibility and cultural complexity were crucial aspects of hominin expansion into diverse environments during the Pleistocene, but the ability to exploit varied and varying habitats was established much earlier in human evolutionary history. The development of increasingly complex tool technology facilitated re‐expansion into tropical forests. These environments are difficult for obligate bipeds to negotiate, but their exploitation was accomplished by archaic and/or anatomically modern humans independently in Africa and south‐east Asia. Complex social behaviour and material culture also allowed modern humans to reach some of the most hostile regions of the globe, above the Arctic Circle, by the late Pleistocene. This, with colonization of the Americas and Australasia, established Homo sapiens as a truly cosmopolitan species.


Intermittent negative pressure wound therapy with instillation (NPWTi) is starting to be used successfully to treat early periprosthetic infections of endoprostheses. However, few articles have reported the outcome of treatment with intermittent NPWTi for late persistent periprosthetic infections of the hip. In this study, we report two cases who underwent several rounds of radical wound debridement for the treatment of a late persistent periprosthetic infection of the hip. Intermittent NPWTi was used in both cases. Patients were treated successfully and there was no recurrence after 3 and 1 years of follow-up, respectively.


The following citations for research and resource materials focus on the influence of financial aid on community college students. Introduction Fiscal resources are vital to many minority and lowincome students who attend two-year institutions. Federal, state, and institutional aid impact student retention, degree attainment, college choice, and access. Not all financial aid is created equal or yields the same outcomes. The following resources are pertinent because the majority of studies have focused primarily on four-year institutions. The research presented provides national data sets and case studies that utilized qualitative and quantitative measures to analyze distinct financial aid resources as they related to community college students. The findings have broad implications for administration, advising, and policy makers as their outcomes influence enrollment trends, labor markets, and educational equity. ERIC documents (references with "ED" numbers) may be read on microfiche at approximately 900 libraries worldwide. In addition, the full text of many documents is available online at http://www.eric.ed.gov. Journal articles may be acquired through regular library channels, from the originating journal publisher, or for a fee from the following article reproduction vendor, Ingenta; email: email@example.com, phone: 617-395-4046, toll-free: 1-800-296-2221, URL: http://www.ingenta.com. Dowd, A. C., & Coury, T. (2006). Effect of loans on the persistence and attainment of community college students. Research in Higher Education 47(1), 33-62. This study examines public policies regarding the use of subsidized loans as financial aid for community college students. Using logistic regression, it analyzes the National Center for Education Statistics' Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS 90/94) data to predict persistence to the second year of college and associate's degree attainment over five years. During the period under study, loans did not contribute to higher persistence and attainment rates. Loans are observed to have a negative effect on persistence and no effect on degree attainment. Estimates of the interaction effects of borrowing and income status are insignificant but demonstrate the need for further testing. The findings are attributed to a combination of the high uncertainty of degree completion among community college students and the negative affective component of indebtedness. Gladieux, L., & Perna, L. (2005). Borrowers who drop out: A neglected aspect of the college student loan trend (National Center Report No. 05-2). The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education: San Jose, CA. Borrowers Who Drop Ou t is an important contribution to the National Center's and the nation's understanding of students who aspire to earn educational certificates and degrees, but do not achieve their goals - and yet are saddled with significant debt to repay. The researchers utilized the most recent and comprehensive data available from the U.S. Department of Education on students who first enrolled in postsecondary education in 1995-96, with a snapshot of the same students in 2001 . The findings are revealing, if not disturbing. Half of the students who enrolled in postsecondary education in 1995-96, also borrowed in 1995-96; more than 20% of those students dropped out of their educational programs, yet were burdened with significant debt. They had, in effect, the worst of both worlds- they did not benefit from the higher income associated with education beyond high school, and they accumulated significant educational debt. Many of these students were unemployed in 2001 and defaulted on their loans, thus damaging their credit standing. Most students benefit from loans and are able to repay them when they leave higher education. However, borrowing, combined with other risk factors for not completing higher education (such as working too many hours, lack of adequate preparation, and part-time attendance), puts many students, especially low-income and first-generation students, at a particular disadvantage. …


Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has developed a new concept for the manufacture of diaphragm accumulators. Its advantages are a reduced need for components, fewer process steps, shorter assembly times, a higher level of product cleanliness, and an expansion of the product portfolio into additional fields of application. These diaphragm accumulators also weigh significantly less. This is opening up new opportunities for applications in the automotive and industrial fields. The assembly concept is based on a hermetically sealed pressure chamber in which the joining of the two housing halves with the help electromagnetic pulse technology (EMPT) as well as the filling of the gas side with nitrogen takes place in a single operation. In this way, downstream filling to generate the initial gas charge is no longer necessary.


Extreme maternal mortality and morbidity continue to be a serious public health issue in Colombia. In order to address this problem, it is essential to make an early diagnosis of severe pregnancy complications, provide initial management, ensure timely referral of patients with severe preeclampsia, post-partum bleeding, obstetric infection, pulmonary embolism and other pathologies with a poor prognosis when associated with pregnancy, delivery and post-partum, and which require a multidisciplinary approach in critical care units. For this reason, although it is not the policy of  Revista Colombiana de Obstetricia y Ginecologia  (RCOG) to publish manuscripts already brought to the public by other media, we have decided to publish the Clinical Practice Guidelines for prenatal control and management of partum and post-partum complications, as well as the Guidelines for the syndromic management of genital tract infections published by the Colombian Ministry of Health and Social Protection. The aim is to disseminate the recommendations for the management of pregnant women with severe complications among Obstetrics and Gynaecology specialists, general practitioners, and nurses practicing obstetrics in Colombia. Consequently, this issue of RCOG includes the "Consenso colombiano para la definicion de los criterios de ingreso a unidades de cuidados intensivos en la paciente embarazada criticamente enferma" (Colombian Consensus defining the criteria for admission of critically-ill pregnant women to the intensive care unit). This management guideline was published in September 2013 in  Acta Colombiana de Cuidado Intensivo , vol. 13, supl. 5. In this way, we hope to contribute to the reduction of maternal mortality in Colombia.


ABSTRACT The adivasi population represents a special case in India's new land wars. Strong individual and community rights to agricultural and forest lands have been enacted for this group based on notions of adivasi identities as primeval, but without linking these to economic and political influence. This article interrogates the adivasi land question seen through a caste lens. It does so via case studies in two states to understand the ways in which adivasi identity can be mobilised for its instrumental value and used to demand land rights. In Andhra Pradesh, the Supreme Court's Samatha Judgement has prevented virtually all private mining activities. In Jharkhand, however, similar legislation is seen to be trumped by the national Coal Bearing Areas Act, as well as by former and current land acquisition acts that allow industrial land claims to take precedence over identity-based ones. Available evidence indicates the challenges involved in bringing support for land rights that are premised on a supposedly unchanging adivasi identity when these rights go against dominant interests. This circumstance serves to highlight the possibilities present in caste analysis to understand the plight of adivasis, despite their usually distinct treatment in scholarly analyses.


The recent theoretical literature on strategic trade policy suggests that government intervention in international trade has the potential to be welfare improving. Government promotion of exports from imperfectly competitive industries, for example, may enable domestic firms to capture economic rents from foreign firms, thereby increasing national welfare. In addition, active responses to foreign protection, by a policy of reciprocity, may be required to prevent a loss of domestic welfare. Although these findings may bring into question the traditional economic case for free trade, many economists doubt that these theories provide sound guidance for trade policy. Economists in the nineteenth century also argued about whether theoretical justifications for tariffs compromised the case for free trade. This paper discusses two older debates somewhat related to the current focus on strategic industries and reciprocity, and concludes with an observation about how developments in economic theory affect economists' view of policy.


Despite efforts worldwide to ensure quality education for all learners through inclusive education, indications are that many learners, especially those that experience barriers to learning, are still excluded from full access to quality and equitable education opportunities in mainstream primary schools. This article uses a qualitative approach and  phenomenological strategy to focus on the ecological aspects influencing the implementation of inclusive education in mainstream primary schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Observation and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 28 participants from seven schools to gather data, whilst a process of framework analysis was used for the analysis of the data. The investigation revealed that the implementation of inclusive education is not only hampered by aspects within the school environment, but also by aspects across the entire ecological system of education. Keywords : Assessment and Support Strategy, barriers to learning, ecological model, identification, inclusive education, mainstream primary schools, screening


Fault tolerance is increasingly important in modern autonomous or industrial robots. The ability to detect and tolerate failures allows robots to e ectively cope with internal failures and continue performing designated tasks without the need for immediate human intervention. To support these fault tolerant capabilities, methods of detecting and isolating failures must be perfected. This thesis presents new fault detection algorithms which detect failures in robot components using analytical redundancy relations. The robot components critical to fault detection are revealed using an extended fault tree analysis. The thesis validates the algorithms using a simulated robot failure testbed. An intelligent fault tolerance framework is proposed in which a fault tree database and the detection algorithms work together to detect and tolerate sensor or motor failures in a robot system. Future work will expand the detection and tolerance routines and embed the framework into a more exible expert system package.


The infringement of human rights by subsidiaries of multinational enterprises has become a thoroughly discussed topic. It is obvious that potential corporate liability under any regime gives incentives to group companies for structuring themselves in a way that, if ever agents who do not respect human right will be held responsible, the liability risks remain within the sphere of a foreign subsidiary. Looking from the perspective of the injured person, this strategy motivates to invoke veil-piercing, direct liability or forum-doctrines to tap the financial capability of the parent company. Following the UNGP the question arises what can be done to establish fair jurisdiction, suitable to hold negligent parent companies liable e.g. based on mandatory due diligence obligations in respect of the adherence to human rights.