A Review of the Literature on Barriers Encountered by Women in Science AcademiaPeggy Trip - Knowles Department of Biology/Faculty of Forestry Lakehead University Thunder Bay, OntarioThis review synthesizes the interdisciplinary scholarly literature on barriers facing women in science and presents a new conceptual framework for identifying obstacles. Over 60 articles and books specifically focussing on barriers against women in science were reviewed to develop this framework.As a first step, the idea that there is a "cumulative disadvantage" for women is underscored as the most commonly cited explanation for women's lesser presence in science academia. Second, organizational frameworks of barriers in the literature are reviewed. Then, a proposed four - category conceptual framework for barriers is presented. First, "systems" barriers represent systems - level biases such as societal stereotypes, and political and economic discrimination; second, "institutional" barriers highlight biases in the institutions of work, education, family and science itself; third, "interpersonal" barriers include biases experienced in personal interactions; and fourth, barriers related to the "self" represent a focus on individual issues surrounding mental health, morale and values.Finally, a literature review is presented, organized around this conceptual framework and focussing on obstacles encountered by women in each of the following stages of scientific career development: early childhood experience; primary and secondary school level; university level; graduate training level; and faculty level. Of these five developmental stages, the greatest proportion of the literature addresses barriers at the highest level, that of career scientists. The common themes and persistent barriers identified throughout almost all stages of career development include not enough role models for women, stereotypical expectations by society and peers, the "chilly climate" in universities, inadequate teaching methods, and psychological effects of gender inequality (such as low self - confidence). Biases within the institution of science itself constitute further barriers to women. Thus, this framework attempts to focus further attention on the sexist value systems in science and their relationship to gender inequality in the profession.A Proposed Conceptual FrameworkBarriers faced by women in science have been the subject of much attention within both feminist and scientific literature. Anecdotal descriptions, as well as evidence from quantitative and qualitative studies, bear this out. The particular literature to be examined in this article is that portion of the gender and science material found in academic journals and books which emphasizes gender barriers.The theoretical literature that proposes explanatory models for problems encountered by women in science, and the literature proposing organizational models for barriers are reviewed here. A conceptual framework of barriers based on the four categories as they occur at the developmental stages of early childhood, primary and secondary school, university, graduate training, and faculty levels are discussed. An emphasis on barriers is a minor step in a more complete analysis of gender and science which, in its entirety, moves beyond a "preoccupation with 'victimology"' (Harding, 1991, p. 30).The most commonly cited explanatory model for women's restricted participation in science is the "theory of cumulative disadvantage" (Clark and Corcoran, 1986; Cole, 1979, 1981; Primack and O'Leary, 1993). This approach reflects the belief that small disadvantages of different types accumulate over time to such an extent that women's success in science can be inhibited. As early as 1979, Cole proposed that such disadvantages may not even be "easily quantifiable" (p. 81). Heward (1994) explores this concept of cumulative disadvantage in academia in general, and claims "there is a lifelong series of processes by which the disadvantages for women in vertically and horizontally segmented labour markets accumulate. …


Consider a graph with vertex set $S$. A word in the alphabet $S$ has the intervening neighbours property if any two occurrences of the same letter are separated by all its graph neighbours. For a Coxeter graph, words represent group elements. Speyer recently proved that words with the intervening neighbours property are reduced if the group is infinite and irreducible. We present a new and shorter proof using the root automaton for recognition of reduced words.


Recently, there has been a tremendous rise in production of portable electronic devices. To produce flexible devices, flexible substrates should replace conventional glass substrates. Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) is the preferred transparent conducting layer used in the display technology. Although ITO has excellent sheet resistance and very good optical properties, ITO can crack at very low tensile strains which might cause failure in the conductive layer because of the unusual structure of a very thin film of brittle ceramic material applied to a polymer substrate. Therefore, the mechanics of ITO on flexible substrates has been thoroughly considered in the design and manufacturing of flexible devices. In a typical roll-to-roll manufacturing process, many challenges exist during the travel of the coated web over the rollers which produce bending stresses that might cause failure even if the stresses are below the yield strength of the material. Therefore, the high cycle bending fatigue of ITO thin films on flexible substrates is of a significant importance. In this work, high cycle bending fatigue experiments were conducted on ITO coated PET substrate. The effect of bending diameter, bending frequency, and sample width on the change in electrical resistance was investigated. High magnification images were obtained to observe crack initiation and propagating in the ITO layer. The goal of this work is to establish a baseline for a comprehensive reliability study of ITO thin films on flexible substrate. It was found that bending diameters as well as the number of bending cycles have a great influence on the electrical conductivity of the ITO layer.


We are developing a wind turbine blade optimisation package CoBOLDT (COmputa- tional Blade Optimisation and Load De ation Tool) for the optimisation of large horizontal- axis wind turbines. The core consists of the Multi-Objective Tabu Search (MOTS), which controls a spline parameterisation module, a fast geometry generation and a stationary Blade Element Momentum (BEM) code to optimise an initial wind turbine blade design. The objective functions we investigate are the Annual Energy Production (AEP) and the fl apwise blade root bending moment (MY0) for a stationary wind speed of 50 m/s. For this task we use nine parameters which define the blade chord, the blade twist (4 parameters each) and the blade radius. Throughout the optimisation a number of binary constraints are defined to limit the noise emission, to allow for transportation on land and to control the aerodynamic conditions during all phases of turbine operation. The test case shows that MOTS is capable to find enhanced designs very fast and eficiently and will provide a rich and well explored Pareto front for the designer to chose from. The optimised blade de- sign could improve the AEP of the initial blade by 5% with the same flapwise root bending moment or reduce MY0 by 7.5% with the original energy yield. Due to the fast runtime of order 10 seconds per design, a huge number of optimisation iterations is possible without the need for a large computing cluster. This also allows for increased design flexibility through the introduction of more parameters per blade function or parameterisation of the airfoils in future. © 2012 by Nordex Energy GmbH.


Accurate cardiac risk stratification is crucial for preventing cardiac death, but still remains an unmet need. Mechanical alternans (MA), an oscillation of blood pressure that occurs on a beat-to-beat basis, has been recognized as a marker of cardiac instability and is associated with an increased risk of cardiac death. However, the use of MA for risk stratification is currently limited by the invasiveness and costs of continuous blood pressure monitoring. A non-invasive, cuffless and affordable method to detect MA is therefore highly desirable. The pulse transit time (PTT) and the pulse arrival time (PAT) are promising techniques for continuous blood pressure monitoring, particularly for detecting short-term blood pressure changes. In this work, we hypothesized that PAT, measured as the interval between the R-wave in the ECG and a distal arterial pulse, can be used to accurately track fast beat-to-beat blood pressure dynamics and detect MA. A total of 42 ECG and femoral arterial pressure recordings from 12 patients with normal ventricles were analyzed. Patients were instructed to breath at a fixed respiratory rate and MA was induced by ventricular pacing. Both MA and PAT alternans were detected using spectral analysis. MA was present in 69% of blood pressure recordings (n=29). ROC analysis showed that PAT accurately detected MA, with an area under the curve was equal to AUC = 0.94. The optimal threshold for detecting MA by using PAT provided 90% sensitivity and 85% specificity. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that PAT can be used to accurately detect pacing-induced MA and may represent a first step toward non-invasive, cuff-less and affordable MA screening for cardiac risk assessment.


Forward calorimeters, located near the incident beams, complete the nearly 4π coverage for high pT particles resulting from proton-proton collisions in the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Both the technology and the deployment of the forward calorimeters in ATLAS are novel. The liquid argon rod/tube electrode structure for the forward calorimeters was invented specifically for applications in high rate environments. The placement of the forward calorimeters adjacent to the other calorimeters relatively close to the interaction point provides several advantages including nearly seamless calorimetry and natural shielding for the muon system. The forward calorimeter performance requirements are driven by events with missing ET and tagging jets.


We present findings from a field experiment conducted at 40 elementary schools involving 8,000 children and 400,000 child-day observations, which tested whether providing short-run incentives can create habit formation in children. Over a three or five week period, students received an incentive for eating a serving of fruits or vegetables during lunch. Relative to an average baseline rate of 39%, providing small incentives doubled the fraction of children eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables. Two months after the end of the intervention, the consumption rate at schools remained 21% above baseline for the three-week treatment and 44% above baseline for the five week treatment, a significant difference. These findings indicate that short-run incentives can produce changes in behavior that persist after incentives are removed and support the natural intuition that longer interventions produce more persistent habits.


The existence of plasmon excitation produced by the interaction of fast charged particles in liquid water is examined critically from the theoretical point of view. By the analysis of the Fano index at different excitation energies and by comparing the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function for both the liquid and the gas at unit density, we find no convincing evidence for plasmon excitation in the condensed phase of water. A density and a condensation effect on the dielectric function are observed. Implications of this finding for diffusion kinetics are discussed briefly. A procedure for the determination of the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function from the dipole oscillator strength distribution is presented.


We welcome the generalization by Del Giudice [1] of our model investigating the evolvability conditions for predictive adaptive responses (PARs) in long-lived species like humans [2]. In our original approach, environmental conditions in 1 year were modelled as the sum of the conditions in the previous year plus a perturbation term to represent exogenous sources of change. The perturbation terms were independent from year to year. If the exogenous perturbation forces are themselves temporally autocorrelated, then environmental change is described by a more complex autoregressive structure than the one used in our original model, one in which conditions in the current year are influenced by conditions in the previous year and the one before that. Del Giudice shows that when dependencies between successive years take this more complex form, the present becomes in effect a better guide to the future than it would otherwise have been. This makes the external PAR (using conditions experienced early in ontogeny as a guide to the likely adult external environment) an adaptive strategy under a somewhat wider range of conditions that those we originally reported.

The objective for our paper was to galvanize theoretical progress in an area where adaptive hypotheses have been discussed for some time without agreement about whether they are likely to be right, and without exposure of the precise assumptions on which they depend. We recognize that our initial model was not exhaustive; it provided a contribution, hopefully, to the eventual construction of a whole library of related models examining how developmental trajectories might evolve under different environmental regimes. It will be this library of cases taken together—rather than any single one—that will lead to general understanding. The modelling endeavour is also not isolated from empirical work. To quote George Box, who died in 2013, 'science is a means whereby learning is achieved, not by mere theoretical speculation on the one hand, nor by the undirected accumulation of practical facts on the other, but rather by a motivated iteration between theory and practice' [3, p. 791]. Our model aimed to make an initial bridge between adaptive hypotheses about PARs, on the one hand, and empirically measurable features of the environments inhabited by humans, on the other. Del Giudice's model is welcome because it creates a second iteration, incorporating more detailed information about how environments vary to refine the model. We hope that his paper and ours will stimulate greater empirical research on environmental variation as experienced by individuals and populations (something that has also been called for elsewhere [4]). It may well be that some environmental forces are well captured by our original model, whereas others are not so well captured and require more complex specifications. Future empirical work will make this clearer.

An even more important thing that George Box taught us was to 'remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful' [5, p. 74]. Our model contained a highly simplified representation of how organisms experience the early environment and how that environment might change. Our main conclusions were that, for a long-lived organism, there is only adaptive advantage to using early life as an indicator of the adult environment if (1) the level of annual autocorrelation in the environment is very high, and (2) the cues of environmental conditions received in early life are very accurate indicators of the present conditions. Del Giudice shows that allowing for delayed effects in environmental change leaves these two conclusions qualitatively intact, though the precise numbers change. Examining Del Giudice's fig. 1, panels (c) and (d) show that even where strong delayed effects are included, the adaptive advantage of plasticity is found only in the top right quadrant of the parameter space. The quantitative details of our evolvability criteria might need amending if the environmental factor under study were shown to exhibit strong delayed effects; where we specified an annual autocorrelation of at least 0.95, in fact 0.80 might be sufficient. Though this amendment is important, both models concur that there would have to be strong positive annual autocorrelation (not 0, 0.2 or 0.5, for example) coupled with high cue validities. When models using different assumptions come to qualitatively similar conclusions, it adds to our confidence about the robustness of those conclusions. We also note that quite different modelling approaches have recovered conclusions that are in some ways similar to ours [6–8]. Thus, we stick by our contention that conclusions (1) and (2) constrain the plausibility of the idea that humans use early-life cues to gain information about the likely external environment in adulthood, and reiterate our call to examine accommodation to the directly detrimental effects of early adversity on health as an alternative explanation of observed phenomena [9].

There has been a flurry of recent papers trying to test empirically what can broadly be characterized as PAR hypotheses. These are very diverse in design, character and results. Some find the predicted effects, while many do not [10–14]. Being more precise about the assumptions of the theory may help understand what the exact predictions are for particular systems and particular traits, and, especially, when we should expect to find PARs and when we should not.


Background: Definition of histologic subtype of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is important for management of patients, because surgical treatment improves prognosis for patients with epithelioid but not biphasic or sarcomatoid MPM. In a series of necropsies performed in a hospital specialized for MPM diagnosis, we retrospectively investigated the accuracy of histologic diagnosis performed on pathologic specimens collected through pleural biopsies obtained at video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) or surgery. Methods: We reviewed histologic records of an unselected series of autopsies performed in patients with MPM employed in the Monfalcone shipyards (Northeast Italy) or living with shipyard workers from 1999 through 2017. Using necropsy results as a gold standard, we calculated sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of histology from VATS or surgery after combining nonepithelioid subtypes. Results: We retrieved necropsy records for 134 patients: 62 (46.3%) with epithelioid, 51 (38.1%) with biphasic, and 21 (15.7%) with sarcomatoid MPM. We observed good sensitivity of VATS (0.94) and surgery (0.89) in diagnosing epithelioid MPM. Conversely, specificity was low (VATS: 0.46; surgery: 0.32). Therefore, positive predictive values were also low (VATS: 0.58; surgery: 0.60). Misclassification was particularly high for biphasic MPM (three-fourths of biphasic MPM at necropsy had been classified as epithelioid at VATS or surgery). Conclusions: We observed a substantial degree of misclassification between epithelioid and biphasic MPM for pleural biopsies performed during VATS. Our results suggest caution should be taken in using histologic subtype obtained from VATS in selecting patients with MPM for surgical treatment. We also observed substantial misclassification of biospecimens collected during MPM surgery.


This article looks at the intersection of modern Chinese and traditional Chinese sacred spaces through the analysis of two case studies: Yuyuan Garden and Tourist Area and Huanglong Scenic and Historic Interest Area. The article lays out a brief history of religion in China, the effects of modernization and globalization in China, the creation of sacred space within China, and the role tourism has played in preserving sacred spaces. Furthermore, this article examines how both sites dealt with and continue to deal with the question of religion in China, and how each has been worked into the tourist industry of China, either through choice or design. By becoming a part of the tourist industry, these sites have gained renown and interest because of what they offer, and thus illustrate that the blending of the sacred with the secular can be positive, especially within the context of modern China.


In this age of Enron and WorldCom it may be hard to fathom the notion of successful, robust capital markets without extensive government regulation. Yet the 19th century New York capital markets offer a striking picture of success despite the aura of Robber Baron buccaneering. This article will describe how the New York markets fostered the growth of great enterprises - first the railroads and then the supporting cast of gigantic industrials - by breaking the investment into tiny bits - shares that sanctioned the infusion of massive amounts of domestic and European capital. Security came from the liquidity provided, thus overcoming the hold-up effect present in smaller, family-controlled corporations or partnerships. This article also addresses the riotous nature of the mid-century markets and their manipulation by unscrupulous investors such as the early Jay Gould and Daniel Drew. It shows how the moral authority of great investment bankers like Morgan, reputable brokers, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) exerted their considerable influence to render the markets relatively transparent and safe for domestic and foreign capital, despite the climate of legislative and judicial corruption: an interesting model for modern minds to ponder.


Shaped surface reflector antennas are the preferred antenna type when a contoured beam illuminating a service region on the Earth from a communications satellite shall be achieved. The size of the reflector aperture (relative to the wavelength) determines the level of the minimum directivity on the service area and the directivity roll-off to areas using the same frequency and polarisation. So far shaped surface reflector antennas have been usually manufactured with solid surfaces which ensures that the surface has the predicted shape. However, the aperture size is then limited by the available space and volume of the satellite configuration and launcher payload bay. A way to overcome this problem is to replace the solid reflector surface by a stowable and unfurlable mesh surface. Hence, the reflector in its stowed position during launch achieves a shaped (parabolic) reflecting surface once it is in its orbit. The challenges for this and some possible design solutions will be addressed in this paper both from an electrical as well as mechanical point of view for a shaping scenario of a large Cband reflector. Especially results achieved under the ESA project AMPER (Advanced Techniques for Mesh Reflector with Improved Radiation Pattern Performance) will be presented. The investigation in RF performance carried out by TICRA covers the definition of several ranges of possible shaping with different shaping density. The mechanical and hardware implementation of the shaped surface is achieved by means of an equilibrium network carrying and properly tensioning the reflective metal mesh. Several LSS propriety analysis tools for proper form finding and optimization of the mesh type surfaces are used. This approach together with the iteration process between RF and mechanical analyses will be also presented. In addition, different means of grating lobes reduction (GLR) of the large deployable mesh reflectors will be addressed via results achieved from RF investigations for finding the theoretical basis of a faceted surface arrangement. This will minimize the grating lobes to the acceptable levels. Ongoing work is related to design and manufacturing of a shaped mesh reflector demonstrator of 2.3 m aperture diameter. The demonstrator will be tested in the planar near field scanner RF facility of ESA. Mechanical tests will also be carried out to support the applicability and verification of the prediction math models established.


Salvia ballsiana (Rech. fil.) Hedge, previously known only from the type gathering, is a local endemic species from Turkey. The species was first collected from Golbasi (Malatya) by E. K. Balls in 1935, and was not collected again until 2008, when we found it in Gerger (Adiyaman). The diagnostic morphological characters of this rare endemic species are discussed, including its anatomical, palynological and nutlet micromorphological features. Morphological characteristics of leaves, calyces, corollas and types of stamens are useful for sectional and specific delimitation in Salvia. Anatomical characters such as number of ray rows in roots, distance between vascular bundles in stems, mesophyll structures in leaves, shape of mid-rib and presence/absence of sclerenchymatic tissue in petioles are of taxonomic significance. In addition, size, shape and ornamentation of pollen grains and nutlets are diagnostic.


Idea stated in this paper describes the application of hierarchical visual cryptography to the authentication system. This is an alternative approach for fingerprint based authentication mechanism. Fingerprint based authentication mechanism have two major problems: repetitiveness during authentication and non acceptability for some users. In proposed system, the signature of a person is taken as input which is encrypted using hierarchical visual cryptography. HVC divides input signature into four resultant shares. Among four shares, any three are taken to generate key share. Remaining share is handed over to the user and the key share is placed on authentication system. Both the shares appear in scrambled format but upon superimposition, the secret is revealed. HVC encrypts the input secret in hierarchical manner hence more secrecy is maintained in the shares. Shares generated out of this scheme are expansion less. Original secret size is retained while encrypting the secret. While authenticating, user have to produce his/her share to the authentication system. Card reader reads the share and stacks with one which is available in database. Upon stacking signature is revealed and the enrollment number of the share is retrieved indicating that the person is authentic.


While the induction of a neutralizing antibody response against HIV remains a daunting goal, data from both natural infection and vaccine-induced immune responses suggest that it may be possible to induce antibodies with enhanced Fc effector activity and improved antiviral control via vaccination. However, the specific features of naturally induced HIV-specific antibodies that allow for the potent recruitment of antiviral activity and the means by which these functions are regulated are poorly defined. Because antibody effector functions are critically dependent on antibody Fc domain glycosylation, we aimed to define the natural glycoforms associated with robust Fc-mediated antiviral activity. We demonstrate that spontaneous control of HIV and improved antiviral activity are associated with a dramatic shift in the global antibody-glycosylation profile toward agalactosylated glycoforms. HIV-specific antibodies exhibited an even greater frequency of agalactosylated, afucosylated, and asialylated glycans. These glycoforms were associated with enhanced Fc-mediated reduction of viral replication and enhanced Fc receptor binding and were consistent with transcriptional profiling of glycosyltransferases in peripheral B cells. These data suggest that B cell programs tune antibody glycosylation actively in an antigen-specific manner, potentially contributing to antiviral control during HIV infection.


Background and purpose In the past 50 years, fluoroscopic guidance has been used to improve upon lumbar puncture (LP) technique that was unchanged for over a century. Recently, CT has seen increasing use as a guidance modality due to its ability to demonstrate soft tissue contrast and provide millimeter accuracy with needle targeting. This study compared procedure time and radiation dosages for fluoroscopic and CT guided LP. Materials and methods This institutional review board and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant study was a retrospective review of a consecutive cohort referred for image guided LP. For CT, 45 patients aged 49 years (range 20–78, SD 14) with body mass index (BMI) values of 33 kg/m2 (range 20–50, SD 12) were included. For fluoroscopy, 100 patients aged 47 years (range 18–88, SD 17) with BMI values of 29 kg/m2 (range 15–56, SD 9) were included. CT procedure time was determined using picture archiving and communication system (PACS) image time stamps. Radiation dose was determined using the CT dose report and effective dose conversion factors. Fluoroscopic procedure time was determined from nursing. Fluoroscopic radiation dose was calculated from dose–area product (DAP) and fluoroscopy times, with effective dosage calculated using simulation software. Results For CT, procedure time average was 14 min (range 5–42, SD 8.5). Average dose–length product was 120 mGy×cm (range 39–211, SD 43) and average effective dose was 1.98 mSv (range 0.2–8.18, SD 4.4). For fluoroscopy, procedure time averaged 12 min (range 12–30, SD 6). Average DAP was 10 Gy×cm2 (range 0.1–70, SD 11) and effective dose estimate averaged 2.9 mSv (range 0.9–9.4, SD 1.9). There were no unsuccessful taps or complications. Conclusions Both fluoroscopic and CT guidance may be used to perform an LP in an obese population with a short procedure time and low radiation dose.


Bbiomechanical parameters of the competitive exercise «bench» during the All-Russian competitions (Cup of Russia, Sochi 2011) were revealed in powerlifting athletes of various qualifications with motor disorder. Comparative analysis showed that there are significant differences between athletes of high, medium and low skills.


Viemeister and Wakefield [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 858–865 (1991)] presented experimental results that challenged the notion of temporal integration as some form of decision process characterized by a long time constant. When the signal consists of brief temporal pulses, detection thresholds vary with the square root of duration, which is consistent with a multiple‐look observer. However, when the signal is a continuous sinusoid, detection thresholds vary linearly with duration. The present paper introduces a multiple‐look observer in which signal uncertainty and sequential estimation are incorporated. The general form of this observer involves a sequential refinement of the alternative and null hypotheses (from highly uncertain to highly certain stimulus conditions) during the observation interval. Several simplifying assumptions yield an ideal observer whose performance, which can be evaluated analytically, predicts the form of temporal integration for a variety of signals including sinusoids, wideband n...


In Bobbin Lace, a pattern is divided into regions by shape, each region filled with a texture. Since Bobbin Lace is generally made with a single colour of thread (black, white or ecru), the textures take on the role of colour to provide interest and shading. Using a combinatorial approach, I will look at one aspect of Bobbin Lace and examine how many unique textures are possible for a specified number of grid points. I will compare the results to textures currently known and used in Bobbin Lace. In the process, I hope to rediscover some of the more complicated textures that have been lost over time as well as identify some new textures which may be of use to modern Bobbin Lace artists. Bobbin Lace provides a very high level of control over the position of threads in a material. It is hoped that by increasing the palette of possible textures, the results may also prove useful to electronic textile manufacturing or fabric designed for a specific purpose such as medical prostheses.


We find that the enforcement of non-compete clauses significantly impedes entrepreneurship and regional growth. Based on a panel of metropolitan areas in the United States from 1993 to 2002, our results indicate that, relative to regions in states that enforce non-compete covenants, an increase in the local supply of venture capital in states that restrict them has significantly stronger positive effects on (i) the number of patents, (ii) the number of firm starts, and (iii) employment. We address potential endogeneity issues in the supply of venture capital by using endowment returns as an instrumental variable. Our results point to a strong interaction between financial intermediation and the legal regime in promoting entrepreneurship and growth.


This paper studies the role of credit in the business cycle, with a focus on private credit overhang. Based on a study of the universe of over 200 recession episodes in 14 advanced countries between 1870 and 2008, we document two key facts of the modern business cycle: financial-crisis recessions are more costly than normal recessions in terms of lost output; and for both types of recession, more credit-intensive expansions tend to be followed by deeper recessions and slower recoveries. In addition to unconditional analysis, we use local projection methods to condition on a broad set of macroeconomic controls and their lags. Then we study how past credit accumulation impacts the behavior of not only output, but also other key macroeconomic variables such as investment, lending, interest rates, and inflation. The facts that we uncover lend support to the idea that nancial factors play an important role in the modern business cycle.


The pH of concrete-based material is a key parameter for the assessment of its stability and durability, since a change in pH is usually associated with major types of chemical degradation such as carbonation, leaching and acid attacks. Conventional surface pH measurements with potentiometric flat surface electrodes have low spatial resolution, whereas optical pH visualization with indicator dyes (phenolphthalein) only indicates the areas with higher or lower pH than the pKa of the indicator. In this regard, it is key to develop wide-range imaging systems, enabling accurate and spatially resolved determination of pH variability for an advanced knowledge of degradation mechanisms. This contribution presents the enhancements made for a high-resolution optical pH imaging system based on fluorescent aza-BODIPY indicator dyes. The measurement range was increased to 6 pH units (pH 6.5 to pH 12.5) by a combination of two indicator dyes. Moreover, background scattering effects were sufficiently eliminated. With the improved sensor foils steep pH gradients (up to 3 pH units within 2 mm) were successfully recorded in various concrete specimens using a macro lens reaching a resolution of down to 35 µm per pixel.


Hans Kelsen was perhaps the foremost continental lawyer of the 20th century. The founder of the immensely influential Pure Theory of Law, he is primarily remembered as a groundbreaking Austrian jurist. However, Kelsen was also a Jew, albeit an extremely assimilated one. His life story – from his early days in Vienna until his death in California – is truly representative of the tragedy of European Jewry in the 20th century. This Chapter discusses Kelsen in light of the ever-present tensions between Jewish and European identity, with particular attention to his position as an international lawyer. Focusing on the period surrounding the publication of the first edition of his Pure Theory of Law (1934), the Chapter discusses Kelsen along three interrelating themes relevant to the Jewish experience of the time. The first part situates Kelsen in relation to a key dilemma of Jewish politics: the tension between Jewish nationalism and assimilationism. It highlights the different constructions of Kelsen's identity, and their uses by various actors. The second theme focuses on assimilationist politics in Kelsen's jurisprudence, suggesting a reading of Kelsen's Pure Theory which I call "assimilation through law." The third theme pitches Kelsen's Pure Theory of (international) law against the ideology of progress – a key idea in the thought of assimilated Jewish internationalists. As I demonstrate, although Kelsen's Pure Theory famously claimed to be "anti-ideological," the notion of progressivism still shines through its cold and analytic reasoning.


Pastoral Australia tells the story of the expansion of Australia's pastoral industry, how it drove European settlement and involved Aboriginal people in the new settler society.

The rural life that once saw Australia 'ride on the sheep's back' is no longer what defines us, yet it is largely our history as a pastoral nation that has endured in heritage places and which is embedded in our self-image as Australians.

The challenges of sustaining a pastoral industry in Australia make a compelling story of their own. Developing livestock breeds able to prosper in the Australian environment was an ongoing challenge, as was getting wool and meat to market. Many stock routes, wool stores, abattoirs, wharf facilities, railways, roads, and river and ocean transport systems that were developed to link the pastoral interior with the urban and market infrastructure still survive. Windmills, fences, homesteads, shearing sheds, bores, stock yards, travelling stock routes, bush roads and railheads all changed the look of the country. These features of our landscape form an important part of our heritage. They are symbols of a pastoral Australia, and of the foundations of our national identity, which will endure long into the future.


Emerging technologies offer transit agencies an opportunity to transform fundamental aspects of their operations and the way they communicate with their riders. With nearly ubiquitous smartphones and social media tools among growing ridership patterns, transit providers can use aggregate mobile phone data and social media posts to improve system management. Data-based reports can reach the operations center faster than field personnel, with mobile phone networks indicating station crowding or a passenger posting a photo of another pulling the emergency brake. Exceeding traditional reporting mechanisms (exclusive information from personnel) would save time and lower the costs of field monitoring while raising the trust between transit agencies and their customers. By employing "co-monitoring" - the monitoring of field conditions through a combination of staff reports, data analysis and public observations – transit agencies will save time and costs for information gathering, improve their responsiveness, and establish working partnerships between the agencies and their customers. This report proposes a framework for a co-monitoring system, and discusses the expected benefits and challenges, as well as policy recommendations for agencies pursuing co-monitoring systems. Keys to successful co-monitoring systems are agency openness to new streams of data and respectful dialogue from both management and riders. Well-designed co-monitoring tools will put transit on track to manage smarter, more versatile transit systems for the twenty-first century.


Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a rapidly evolving set of technologies that can be used to determine the sequence of an individual's genome1 by calling genetic variants present in an individual using billions of short, errorful sequence reads2. Despite more than a decade of effort and thousands of dedicated researchers, the hand-crafted and parameterized statistical models used for variant calling still produce thousands of errors and missed variants in each genome3,4. Here we show that a deep convolutional neural network5 can call genetic variation in aligned next-generation sequencing read data by learning statistical relationships (likelihoods) between images of read pileups around putative variant sites and ground-truth genotype calls. This approach, called DeepVariant, outperforms existing tools, even winning the "highest performance" award for SNPs in a FDA-administered variant calling challenge. The learned model generalizes across genome builds and even to other mammalian species, allowing non-human sequencing projects to benefit from the wealth of human ground truth data. We further show that, unlike existing tools which perform well on only a specific technology, DeepVariant can learn to call variants in a variety of sequencing technologies and experimental designs, from deep whole genomes from 10X Genomics to Ion Ampliseq exomes. DeepVariant represents a significant step from expert-driven statistical modeling towards more automatic deep learning approaches for developing software to interpret biological instrumentation data.


It is assumed that eight Sasanid reliefs were carved during the reign of Shapur I in 242 – 272. There is no doubt that seven of them: NRb I, NRb IV, NRm VI, VŠ I, VŠ II, VŠ III as well as that one from Rag-i Bibi depict the ruler. Identifi cation of the king in relief from Darabgerd is subject of further disputes. What enforces dating reliefs at Naqsh-i Rajab to 242 – 244 is lack of portrayals of enemies defeated by Shapur. Starting point for more precise dating of socalled triumph reliefs is identifi cation of persons appearing in them. There is no doubt about the relief at Naqsh-i Rustam. On the basis of ŠKZ text one ought to assume that it shows Philip the Arab and Valerian thus it should be dated to 260 – 272. The problem is over dating of reliefs at Bishapur. Damages of VŠ I relief allow only identifi cation of Philip the Arab and Gordian III that is why dating can be precised to solely 244-272. Lively discussion elicit another two reliefs of Shapur I at Bishapur . One of the most interesting hypotheses seems to be thesis advanced by B. Overlaet that Uranius Antoninus is the fi gure standing next to the king. Recognision of black stone of Emesa in VŠ III relief maintains the thesis. As far as stone identifi cation seems to be sure one should deliberate if Shapur I would place in the relief a person recognized by him as not equal to himself. It is unlikely from propaganda viewpoint. In that case we can refer to the king relation to Septimius Odenathus with whom he even did not start dialog. If we interpret the arrangement of relief we have to point that its composition refers to sculptures from Apadana in Persepolis. In the context of military activities and devastations of Syria by Persian forces one should not be astonished at symbolic representation of bringing gifts Syrians. For late dating of triumph reliefs indicates their asymmetrical composition which is untypical in case of Persian sculptures. One should recognize that they could be carved by Roman craftmen deported by Shapur I during wars with western neighbour. Anyway it does not help in more precise dating because fi rst deportation took place already in 253. Taking Valerian as prisoner seems to be the most important success of Shapur I. The emperor undoubtly was residing at Bishapur so in a natural way he was put in both VŠ II and VŠ III reliefs what allows their dating to 260-272. The above mentioned speculations do not make easier dating of the most controversial relief from Darabgerd what will be undoubtly subject of future disputes.


Machine Reading Comprehension (MRC) with multiplechoice questions requires the machine to read given passage and select the correct answer among several candidates. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called Convolutional Spatial Attention (CSA) model which can better handle the MRC with multiple-choice questions. The proposed model could fully extract the mutual information among the passage, question, and the candidates, to form the enriched representations. Furthermore, to merge various attention results, we propose to use convolutional operation to dynamically summarize the attention values within the different size of regions. Experimental results show that the proposed model could give substantial improvements over various state-of- the-art systems on both RACE and SemEval-2018 Task11 datasets.


We present a two-channel deconvolution method that decomposes images into a parametric point-source channel and a pixelized extended-source channel. Based on the central idea of the deconvolution algorithm proposed by Magain et al. (1998, ApJ, 494, 472), the method aims at improving the resolution of the data rather than at completely removing the point spread function (PSF). Improvements over the original method include a better regularization of the pixel channel of the image, based on wavelet filtering and multiscale analysis, and a better controlled separation of the point source vs. the extended source. In addition, the method is able to simultaneously deconvolve many individual frames of the same object taken with different instruments under different PSF conditions. For this purpose, we introduce a general geometric transformation between individual images. This transformation allows the combination of the images without having to interpolate them. We illustrate the capability of our algorithm using real and simulated images with complex diffraction-limited PSF.


There are over 400,000 people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the UK[2]. RA is a systemic inflammatory condition characterised by the proliferation of the synovial tissues resulting in pain, reduced muscle function and destruction of the articular surfaces and soft tissue structures responsible for joint stability. The wrist and hand are commonly affected in the early stages of RA, with most hand deformities occurring during the first year of the disease[3]. 85% of patients are affected in the later stages of the disease[4]. Optimal hand function is dependent on normal skeletal integrity, joint alignment and muscle function, all of which may be affected by RA. Synovitis results in pain and altered biomechanics of the hand which in turn will also compromise wrist and hand function. The common presentation of the RA wrist is one of flexion and radial deviation with ulnar deviation of the fingers. This wrist position compromises the efficiency of the flexor muscles which impacts on hand function during activities of daily living (ADL). The stability and position of the wrist are fundamental in facilitating hand function so it is often appropriate to prescribe a wrist hand orthosis (WHO) when patients present with dysfunction of the hand. An orthosis is defined as 'an externally applied device used to modify the structural and functional characteristics of the neuromuscular and skeletal systems'[5]. Functional wrist hand orthoses (splints) or activity orthoses as they are sometimes referred to are commonly prescribed in the comprehensive management of RA. It is thought that use of an orthosis which positions the wrist in an improved position of extension and which prevents radial deviation of the wrist thereby influencing the ulnar drift of the fingers reduces synovitis and increases the mechanical advantage of the flexor muscles thus improving hand function. Typically the orthosis only provides control of the wrist enabling free motion of the fingers and thumb to facilitate function. A wrist hand splint user questionnaire was developed to seek and evaluate the opinions of WHO users with RA who had been prescribed a commercially available prefabricated WHO. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data in conjunction with a systematic literature review provides a synthesis of the potential benefits of orthosis use, and highlights the negative aspects and factors affecting compliance. There is a clear need for further research into the use of 'functional' WHOs particularly over the longer term and to develop enhanced designs of WHO to achieve optimal improvements to functional deficit and to address users' concerns.


On May 8 1943 Pauline Thompson was stood up for a dance. She instead met an American soldier and they drank together. He offered to walk her home and she accepted, since the heavy rain was making the Melbourne streets even darker than usual. Pauline had a beautiful voice, and as they walked, she sang to him. World War Two brought masses of American soldiers to Melbourne. At first the 'exotic' foreigners are welcomed by all, particularly many young women who are impressed by their suave uniforms and hollywood-like charm. But as panic grows over a series of brutal attacks, this all starts to change. Dead & Buried teams up with crime fiction author Anna Snoekstra for this final, thrilling episode of series one.


Given the increasing complexity of multi-processor systems-on-chip, a wide range of parameters must be tuned to find the best trade-offs in terms of the selected system figures of merit (such as energy, delay and area). This optimization phase is called Design Space Exploration (DSE) consisting of a Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) problem. In this paper, we propose an iterative design space exploration methodology exploiting the statistical properties of known system configurations to infer, by means of a correlation-based analysis, the next design points to be analyzed with low-level simulations. In fact, the knowledge of few design points is used to predict the expected improvement of unknown configurations. We show that the correlation of the configurations within the multi-processor design space can be modeled successfully with analytical functions and, thus, speed up the overall exploration phase. This makes the proposed methodology a model-assisted heuristic that, for the first time, exploits the correlation about architectural configurations to converge to the solution of the multi-objective problem.


The study was on the E-banking and customer satisfaction in Tanzanian banks; the
case of Azania Bank LTD. The study investigated the factors which enhances the
adoption of E-banking in Tanzania, the Customers perception on E-banking in
Tanzania, the impact of e-banking functionality on the satisfaction outcomes, risks of
using of E-banking in Tanzania, the accessibility of E-banking to bank customers in
Tanzania, on whether E-banking is convenient to ordinary bank customers in
Tanzania and whether E-banking is secure enough for E-banking customers in
Tanzania. The study involved (58.5%) Males and (41.5%) Females. Data collection
methods were questionnaires and interview questions. The study revealed different
factors causes Azania bank to adopt E-banking system such as Government support,
availabilities of the equipments, customers satisfaction on their needs, competition,
perceived ease of use and usefulness, trust and security, level of education and
income level. It was also revealed that more than (60%) of customers were satisfied
with e-banking system in the Azania Bank. The results indicated that (82%) of
respondents stated that they actually spend less time using E-banking. Different risks
of e-banking revealed such as operational risks: legal risks: reputation risks: security
codes control. It was noted that accessibility, convenient and secure of e-banking are
essential in e-banking system. It was concluded that customers prefer ATM among
the E-banking products because of its effectiveness and user friendliness. It was
recommended that Education and marketing of E-banking products should be
encouraged in the bank to attract more customers.


Abstract What is the relationship between the state and housing financialisation? Much of the literature describes the state playing a role to promote the regulatory, legislative, and financial conditions needed to allow global financial capital to penetrate land and property markets. I build on these arguments to develop in what ways the state is playing an active role in housing financialisation in Turkey. I suggest that the Turkish national state has deliberately, actively, and forcefully pursued housing financialisation by (i) introducing new legislation; (ii) creating financial frameworks to encourage speculation by domestic and international capital on land and housing as assets (iii) enclosing public land and exploiting informal types of tenure; (iv) assetising land and housing by developing revenue-sharing urban regeneration projects; and (v) using coercive legal and penal force to criminalise informal development, and to quell resistance to state-led regeneration. My conclusions add weight to Christophers' contention that the role of the state needs to be reconceptualised to capture its direct involvement in housing financialisation.


Diabetic foot is a common complication of diabetes mellitus which affects 15% of diabetic patients in their lifetime. Effective management of diabetic foot can reduce severity of complications such as preventable amputations and possible mortality, and can also improve overall quality of life. The Wagner classification is most commonly used for grading diabetic foot ulcers. Wagner developed a classification system and a treatment algorithm for each grade of ulcer. He asserted that ischemic index derived from Doppler flow pressures is an essential baseline test to predict ulcer healing. The aim of this study was to evaluate and manage different lesions of diabetic foot according to Wagner classification. We propose a treatment-oriented assessment of diabetic foot ulcers based on a cross-examination of the medical, foot, and wound history; a systemized and detailed physical examination; and the results of complementary diagnostic procedures. The pathophysiology and treatment of diabetic foot ulcers are reviewed. While these guidelines cannot dictate the care of all affected patients, they provide evidence based guidance for general patters of practice.


Enhancing critical infrastructure protection and resilience has become a national security policy priority in many countries. World best practices demonstrate the need to build a system of critical infrastructure protection capable to prevent, mitigate and respond to all types of threats (i.e. natural, man-made, criminal and terrorist threats) and their possible combinations. The establishment of such a system requires legislative definition of its fundamental principles of operation, application of common approaches to the management of critical infrastructure security at all levels, clear identification of the principles of interaction and cooperation among state authorities, private business, society and the public. Despite the progress achieved by Ukraine in implementing the new approach, there is still a lot of work ahead to build the effective state system of critical infrastructure protection. For Ukraine, the successful implementation of the system will mean the transition to a new level of state management in this field based on modern approaches to security risks management, optimal use of available resources, and timely response to security and safety incidents and crises in resolving national security and defense issues.


This thesis reports on the research undertaken to analyse the factors affecting end-oflife
vehicle value, and to investigate a costing framework to assist the vehicle
recovery industry in promoting sustainable vehicle recycling. The principal objective
of this research is to develop decision support tools for the vehicle recovery sector to
adopt more sustainable processing strategies, whilst meeting the requirements of
impending and future legislative targets.
The research contributions are divided into three parts. The first part reviews the most
relative research in the areas of environmental concerns relating to the automotive
sector, end-of-life vehicle recovery and associated costing techniques, to identify the
most relevant research directions. The second part consists of a substantial program of
data collection, which included; formal interviews, survey of treatment facilities,
time-studies and vehicle teardowns, to generate a costing framework for the
modelling of indirect and direct costs of both pre and post-fragmentation activities in
vehicle recycling. The third part includes the design and implementation of a decision
support costing system that enables end-of-life stakeholders to understand the main
economics that underpin their operations, and to support future investment in more
sustainable vehicle recovery activities.
The applicability of the research concept has been demonstrated via three case
studies. The results from the case studies have shown that although most end-of-life
vehicle recoverers are currently profitable due to the strong demand for scrap metal,
significant improvement in their processes and value recovery is possible through
strategic investment. Such strategic investment in process improvement and
expansion of recycling activities should be considered in light of future fluctuations in
material markets and increasing costs of attaining higher recycling targets.
In summary, this research has concluded that the realisation of environmentally
friendly approaches to vehicle recycling and the long-term survival of the ELV
recovery sector is very much dependent on the pro-active and direct involvement of
automotive manufacturers in end-of-life vehicle recovery.


The mixed lymphocyte kidney culture (MLKC) in humans has been studied in normal and abnormal clinical conditions. Human renal cortical cells were extracted by collagenase treatment from the kidneys of "normal" heart-beating cadaver organ donors (n=13), patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) at pretransplant bilateral nephrectomy and splenectomy (n=13), and from irreversibly rejected, renal allografts at the time of graft nephrectomy (n=5). Proliferation of peripheral blood T lymphocytes of 2-DR-mismatched volunteers occurred in response to kidney cortical cells extracted from each of the 3 donor categories in a reaction termed the allogeneic mixed lymphocyte kidney culture. Additionally, splenic T cells from cadavers and patients with ESRD were seen to react to their autologous kidney cells. The renal cortical cells extracted from ESRD kidneys were more stimulatory in the allogeneic and autologous MLKC responses than those extracted from "normal" cadaver kidneys even when the ESRD kidneys were 99% depleted of passenger T and B lymphocytes, by treatment with monoclonal antibodies T11 and B1. In order to help define the antigens operative in the MLKC, we pretreated stimulating lymphocytes and renal cortical cells with anti-class II monoclonal antibodies. The allogeneic mixed lymphocyte reaction and MLKC were inhibited ca. 80% and 30%, respectively. The autologous MLKC was unaffected by this treatment. To further support that tissue-specific immune mechanisms were operative in the reaction, experiments were performed with infiltrating lymphocytes isolated from the ESRD kidneys, which were seen to generate a proliferative response when stimulated with autologous cortical cells. However, the response of these same in filtrating lymphocytes when stimulated with allogeneic lymphocytes (MLR), was markedly weaker than the response of the patients' autologous spleen cells. In addition, two kidneys were obtained at rejection from recipients that had received grafts from HLA-MLR-identical sibling donors. A lymphoproliferative reaction of recipient peripheral blood T lymphocytes occurred in response to (donor) renal cortical cells, but not to donor peripheral blood lymphocytes. In contrast, infiltrating (recipient) kidney lymphocytes responded to the kidney cortical cells and to donor peripheral blood lymphocytes. Moreover, peripheral blood T lymphocytes of the HLA identical donor responded to his own kidney cortical cells, which, were isolated from the rejected recipient kidney, and did not respond to recipient peripheral blood lymphocytes. Finally, a "normal" cadaveric kid ney was fortuitously available at the same time that a rejected transplant (cadaver) was being studied. The recipient and the supplier of the normal kidney were mismatched at both DR loci. Infiltrating lymphocytes from the rejected graft responded more strongly to the 2-DR-mismatched kidney cells than to the spleen cells of the same donor. In contrast, peripheral blood T lymphocytes from the recipient showed a greater response to the 2-DR-mismatched splenocytes than to the corresponding kidney cells. These results provide evidence that "tissue-specific" antigens are operative in the MLKC, with a possible biologic significance in the pathogenesis of end-stage renal disease and the loss of kidney transplants.


The University of Tianjin, China is working on a 200 kW solar-driven Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) plant. Due to difficulties with Chinese energy regulations and legislation, the plant will not be connected to the grid for electricity generation. The university intents therefore to use the solar system for distributed heating at times without ongoing experiments. Since no heat consumer was designated initially, the heating purpose resulting in the most cost-effective usage of the already purchased components was sought. In this context, the plant's performance in four different heating scenarios was assessed to determine the necessary upgrades, which led to the optimized Levelized Costs of Energy (LCOE). The upgrades considered a thermal energy storage system (TESS), extension of heat exchanger (HE) capacity and redesign of the HE's hot fluid outlet temperature (HFOT). Scenario 1 (S1) represents the current system on-site for space heating and cooling. The system has been upgraded with a TESS and the HFOT was lowered. Scenario 2 (S2) differs from S1 by also considering upgrading of the HE capacity. In S1, the LCOE for the optimized system based on the original HE capacity and heat demand are shown, whereas the LCOE for S2 indicate the minimum LCOE possible with an optimized system for an increased space heating and cooling demand. In scenario 3 (S3) and 4 (S4), the optimized LCOE of the system used for industrial heat loads was studied. The industrial heat load was assumed to be constant. Two durations were chosen: 24 hours and 7 days a week (24/7) and 16 hours and 7 days a week (16/7) according to a factory working in a three-shift and two-shift system, respectively. In order to obtain the optimized LCOE, the parabolic trough collector (PTC) field and TESS were modeled and simulated in TRNSYS and MATLAB, respectively. For S1 the minimum LCOE of 0.187 $/kWh is achieved providing that none of the analyzed upgrades are made to the current system. In S2 the minimum LCOE of 0.145 $/kWh is obtained at 750 kW HE capacity, 10 m³ TESS and 50°C HFOT. In this setup, the HE capacity is large enough to utilize nearly all solar energy immediately. For S3, the lowest LCOE of 0.106 $/kWh was obtained at 80 kW HE and 40 m³ TESS and for S4, it was 0.098 $/kWh at 130 kW HE and 30 m³ TESS. Based on those results, the following main conclusions are drawn: (1) the low degrees of utilization of the plant in S1 and S2 led to high LCOE which are not competitive with those for traditional heating with air conditioners (0.112 $/kWh), (2) the LCOE can be optimized when the system provides heat continually throughout the year as required, for instance, by industrial processes and (3) for a system with optimized LCOE, the CO2 reductions associated to the upgrades are below 6% for space heating and cooling and 55 – 65% for industrial process heat.


Richard Jefferies is one of the major figures in the long tradition of British rural writers and yet, in the century since his death, there has been no descriptive bibliography of his work. In this book, which is based on over 20 years of collecting and researching, the authors have documented more than 1500 individual items of material by or about Jefferies. The main sections include a listing of all known periodical contributions (with synoposes of all those which have not been reprinted), a description of all known published editions of his books (whether original works or anthologies) and a listing of all pertinent works about Jefferies in books and periodicals. It includes the first complete record of the manuscripts held in the British Library and other public and private collections, together with a chronological list of the published works and an an alphabetical index of Jefferies' titles. In addition, the introductions to each title offer insights into Jefferies' work based on evidence from original correspondence and publishers' records. Together these amount to a full-length biographical study of his literary career. This is a reference work for libraries, readers, dealers, collectors and students.


Prior research has produced ambiguous support for theories on the nature and construction of Human Resource Management (HRM) systems. This ambiguity may be a function of the inherent limitations of the methodologies used in previous studies. We resume efforts by using a configurational methodology to analyze high performing HRM systems of 374 UK based firms. We reveal the multi-dimensional nature of successful and unsuccessful HRM systems. By providing a typology for comparing the interdependencies among vital and peripheral functions, we are able to describe and explain competitive advantages that rest in the orchestrating themes and integrative mechanisms of HRM systems.


Cenozoic stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios of deep-sea foraminiferal calcite co-vary with the 405 kyr eccentricity cycle, suggesting a link between orbital forcing, the climate system, and the carbon cycle. Variations in δ18O are partly forced by ice-volume changes that have mostly occurred since the Oligocene. The cyclic δ13C– δ18O co-variation is found in both ice-free and glaciated climate states, however. Consequently, there should be a mechanism that forces the δ13C cycles independently of ice dynamics. In search of this mechanism, we simulate the response of several key components of the carbon cycle to orbital forcing in the Long-term Ocean-atmosphere-Sediment CArbon cycle Reservoir model (LOSCAR). We force the model by changing the burial of organic carbon in the ocean with various astronomical solutions and noise and study the response of the main carbon cycle tracers. Consistent with previous work, the simulations reveal that low-frequency oscillations in the forcing are preferentially amplified relative to higher frequencies. However, while oceanic δ13C mainly varies with a 405 kyr period in the model, the dynamics of dissolved inorganic carbon in the oceans and of atmospheric CO2 are dominated by the 2.4 Myr cycle of eccentricity. This implies that the total ocean and atmosphere carbon inventory is strongly influenced by carbon cycle variability that exceeds the timescale of the 405 kyr period (such as silicate weathering). To test the applicability of the model results, we assemble a long (∼ 22 Myr) δ13C and δ18O composite record spanning the Eocene to Miocene (34–12 Ma) and perform spectral analysis to assess the presence of the 2.4 Myr cycle. We find that, while the 2.4 Myr cycle appears to be overshadowed by long-term changes in the composite record, it is present as an amplitude modulator of the 405 and 100 kyr eccentricity cycles.


Genes involved in the inflammation pathway have been associated with cancer risk. Genetic variants in the interleukin-6 (IL6) and prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase-2 (PTGS2, encoding for the COX-2 enzyme) genes, in particular, have been related to several cancer types, including breast and prostate cancers. We conducted a study within the Breast and Prostate Cancer Cohort Consortium to examine the association between IL6 and PTGS2 polymorphisms and breast and prostate cancer risk. Twenty-seven polymorphisms, selected by pairwise tagging, were genotyped on 6292 breast cancer cases and 8135 matched controls and 8008 prostate cancer cases and 8604 matched controls. The large sample sizes and comprehensive single nucleotide polymorphism tagging in this study gave us excellent power to detect modest effects for common variants. After adjustment for multiple testing, none of the associations examined remained statistically significant at P = 0.01. In analyses not adjusted for multiple testing, one IL6 polymorphism (rs6949149) was marginally associated with breast cancer risk (TT versus GG, odds ratios (OR): 1.32; 99% confidence intervals (CI): 1.00-1.74, P(trend) = 0.003) and two were marginally associated with prostate cancer risk (rs6969502-AA versus rs6969502-GG, OR: 0.87, 99% CI: 0.75-1.02; P(trend) = 0.002 and rs7805828-AA versus rs7805828-GG, OR: 1.11, 99% CI: 0.99-1.26; P(trend) = 0.007). An increase in breast cancer risk was observed for the PTGS2 polymorphism rs7550380 (TT versus GG, OR: 1.38, 99% CI: 1.04-1.83). No association was observed between PTGS2 polymorphisms and prostate cancer risk. In conclusion, common genetic variation in these two genes might play at best a limited role in breast and prostate cancers.


Abstract. Refractory black carbon (rBC) is one of the most important short-lived climate forcers in the atmosphere. Light absorption enhancement capacity largely depends on the morphology of rBC-containing particles and their mixing state. In this study, a tandem measuring system, consisting of an aerodynamic aerosol classifier (AAC), a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) and a single particle soot photometer (SP2), was adopted to investigate dynamic shape factor (𝜒) and its relationship with the mixing state of rBC-containing particles at an urban site of Beijing megacity in winter. The results demonstrated that the aerosol particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 400 ± 1.2 nm normally had a mobility diameter (Dmob) ranging from 250 nm to 320 nm, reflecting a large variation in shape under different pollution conditions. Multiple Gaussian fitting on the number mass-equivalent diameter (Dmev) distribution of the rBC core determined by SP2 had two peaks at Dmev = 106.5 nm and Dmev = 146.3 nm. During pollution episodes, rBC-containing particles tended to have a smaller rBC core than those during clean episodes due to rapid coagulation and condensation processes. The 𝜒 values of the particles were found to be ~ 1.2 during moderate pollution conditions, although the shell-core ratio (S/C) of rBC-containing particles was as high as 2.7 ± 0.3, suggesting that the particles had an irregular structure as a result of the high fraction of nascent rBC aggregates. During heavy pollution episodes, the 𝜒 value of the particles was approximately 1.0, indicating that the majority of particles tended to be spherical, and a shell-core model could be reasonable to estimate the light enhancement effect. Considering the variation in shape of the particles, the light absorption enhancement of the particles differed significantly according to the T-matrix model simulation. This study suggested that accurate description of the morphology of rBC-containing particles was crucially important for optical simulation and better evaluation of their climate effect.


This phenomenological study examined the long-term significance of participation in elementary school musical theatre productions. The research aimed to explore the common and unique themes that emerged from adults recalling their childhood experiences, and how these experiences affected the development of musical and life-related skills. A questionnaire was distributed to a diverse group of 134 individuals, in retail, business, and education settings, representing a stratified sample in two Ontario communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants to elicit further memories of significant experiences related to their participation in elementary school musical theatre. The most significant meaning of school musical experiences for the participants had little to do with the skills developed in the arts, but rather focused on an increased sense of community and growth in self-awareness and confidence. Suggestions for future research on other salient aspects of elementary school are offered to shed further light on this phenomenon, which appears to have life-long and deep effects on those who are able to participate in elementary school musical theatre.


Abstract. The ice nucleation efficiency of propane flame soot particles with and without a sulphuric acid coating was investigated using the aerosol and cloud chamber facility AIDA (Aerosol Interaction and Dynamics in the Atmosphere). The test soot for cloud formation simulations was produced using a propane flame Combustion Aerosol Standard generator (CAST, Jing-CAST Technologies). The organic carbon content (OC) of the test soot was altered in a reproducible fashion by changing the fuel/air mixture of the generator. The soot content of ice nuclei was subsequently investigated using a combination of a pumped counterflow virtual impactor (PCVI) to separate and evaporate the ice crystals, and a DMT single particle soot photometer (SP2) to examine the mixing state of the BC containing ice residuals. Ice nucleation was found to be most efficient for uncoated soot of low organic carbon content (~5 % organic carbon content) where deposition freezing occurred at an ice saturation ratio S ice ~ 1.22 at a temperature T = 226.6 K with 25 % of the test soot becoming active as ice nuclei. Propane flame soot of higher organic carbon content (~30 % and ~70 % organic carbon content) showed significantly lower ice nucleation efficiency (an activated fraction of the order of a few percent in the experiments) than the low organic carbon content soot, with water saturation being required for freezing to occur. Ice nucleation occurred over the range S ice = 1.22–1.70, and T = 223.2–226.6 K. Analysis of the SP2 data showed that the 5 % organic carbon content soot had an undetectable OC coating whereas the 30 % organic carbon content soot had a thicker or less volatile OC coating. The application of a sulphuric acid coating to the flame soot shifted the threshold of the onset of freezing towards that of the homogeneous freezing of sulphuric acid; for the minimum OC flame soot this inhibited nucleation since the onset of freezing occurred at colder temperatures and required a greater ice saturation ratio; for the medium and maximum OC flame soot, the addition of a sulphuric acid significantly reduced the freezing threshold.


Abstract. An accurate spatially continuous air temperature dataset is crucial for multiple applications in environmental and ecological sciences. Existing spatial interpolation methods have relatively low accuracy and the resolution of available long-term gridded products of air temperature for China is coarse. Point observations from meteorological stations can provide long-term air temperature data series but cannot represent spatially continuous information. Here, we devised a method for spatial interpolation of air temperature data from meteorological stations based on powerful machine learning tools. First, to determine the optimal method for interpolation of air temperature data, we employed three machine learning models: random forest, support vector machine, and Gaussian process regression. Comparison of the mean absolute error, root mean square error, coefficient of determination, and residuals revealed that Gaussian process regression had high accuracy and clearly outperformed the other two models regarding interpolation of monthly maximum, minimum, and mean air temperatures. The machine learning methods were compared with three traditional methods used frequently for spatial interpolation: inverse distance weighting, ordinary kriging, and ANUSPLIN. Results showed that the Gaussian process regression model had higher accuracy and greater robustness than the traditional methods regarding interpolation of monthly maximum, minimum, and mean air temperatures in each month. Comparison with the TerraClimate, FLDAS, and ERA5 datasets revealed that the accuracy of the temperature data generated using the Gaussian process regression model was higher. Finally, using the Gaussian process regression method, we produced a long-term (January 1951 to December 2020) gridded monthly air temperature dataset with 1 km resolution and high accuracy for China, which we named GPRChinaTemp1km. The dataset consists of three variables: monthly mean air temperature, monthly maximum air temperature, and monthly minimum air temperature. The obtained GPRChinaTemp1km data were used to analyse the spatiotemporal variations of air temperature using Theil–Sen median trend analysis in combination with the Mann–Kendall test. It was found that the monthly mean and minimum air temperatures across China were characterized by a significant trend of increase in each month, whereas monthly maximum air temperature showed a more spatially heterogeneous pattern with significant increase, non-significant increase, and non-significant decrease. The GPRChinaTemp1km dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5112122 (He et al., 2021a) for monthly maximum air temperature, at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5111989 (He et al., 2021b) for monthly mean air temperature and at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5112232 (He et al., 2021c) for monthly minimum air temperature.


This article addresses the question of why financial markets crash and proposes new rules to prevent or ameliorate the effects of crashes. I define a market "crash" as a sudden and widespread downward movement in asset prices. I describe the importance of market crashes to real economic growth and their relationship to efficient market theory. I explain the market failure rationales for crashes, including theories of investor cognitive error, moral hazard, and information asymmetry. I then analyze the role of law in encouraging an environment of trust in financial markets. I am critical of recent finance studies explaining the correlation between strict corporate governance rules and real economic performance. I attempt to explain how efficient legal rules can create incentives for widespread, public ownership by non-controlling minority shareholders, and conversely how inefficient legal rules may lead to a predominance of family-controlled firms. I also am critical of recent proposals for regulating markets to prevent crashes, including self-regulation, creation of a new so-called "global architecture," various kinds of capital controls, and mechanisms for establishing a lender of the last resort. In place of the existing approach to financial market regulation, I propose a new framework for analyzing law as a product that can be traded, and suggest how countries may opt into competing regulatory jurisdictions to prevent market crashes. I argue that regulatory competition already has resulted in issuers opting out of inefficient regulatory jurisdictions based on comparative advantage, and suggest mechanisms, including a "public poison pill," to encourage broad distribution of shares in countries in which most large firms are family-controlled. I also propose a system of short-term market insurance to protect investors from sudden and widespread downward movements in markets. In such a system, the government would act as a "stock buyer of last resort," instead of as a lender of last resort (the current U.S. policy), to support prices at some specified level in the event of investor panic. I conclude with an application of these arguments to the recent crisis in Asia. I explain how the Asia crisis fits the model described above, and describe the failures of the U.S.-led response. In particular, World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies solved few problems and created many more, particularly by increasing the moral hazard associated with implicit guarantees to those investing in emerging markets. Perhaps most important, policymakers ignored the importance of family-dominated firms in the crisis.


In an era when identity is a hybrid process, it is interesting to examine whether and how it is possible to glean the presence or absence of certain cultural groups from their representations in a given culture. To do so, I employ two key Gramscian concepts: common sense and good sense. Using three research reports (from 2003, 2005, and 2011) that employed content analysis techniques, this article assesses the visibility of various subgroups in Israeli TV programs and majority-minority power relations in a variety of genres on commercial channels in the prime-time slot. This article focuses on three aspects of identity: nationality, ethnicity, and gender.


The study is a joint research project between James Cook University and the Northern Gulf Resource Management Group (NGRMG). The goal is to understand key environmental management problems (i.e. weeds, pests, erosion, altered fire regimes) and how land managers deal with these problems, as well as how grazing practices contribute to land condition. We collected information about their property and production system, the costs of managing the property, the expenditure in terms of individual management activities, and their opinion on how important these land management problems are. The study will provide information relevant to develop a management plan for the Gilbert River catchment that reflects landholders' perspectives and knowledge. Designing effective natural resource management (NRM) plans require good understanding of the environmental and production problems affecting the region (e.g. loss of natural vegetation, species declines, poor land condition, decreased productivity, reduced water availability and quality), and the management activities required to prevent or mitigate these problems. Effective management requires allocating limited resources efficiently to address the most pressing problems (e.g. feral animals, weeds, erosion, overgrazing) affecting valuable areas. Inefficient allocation of management resources can thus compromise the land values and the long-term sustainability of production systems in the region. Efficient allocation of management resources requires understanding the distribution, magnitude, and impacts of environmental problems, as well as the activities required (and being undertaken) to prevent or mitigate these problems. Likewise, it is important to estimate the costs of individual management activities (e.g. fire, weed and pest control) needed to mitigate the production and environmental problems within budgetary constraints. Collecting local knowledge on the environmental problems and ongoing management activities is critical to understand the problems and vision of land managers, as well as to estimate management costs, which is necessary to develop feasible NRM plans.


Housing market renewal is one of the most controversial urban policy programmes of recent years. Housing Market Renewal and Social Class critically examines the rationale for housing market renewal: to develop 'high value' housing markets in place of the so-called 'failing markets' of low-cost housing. Whose interests are served by such a programme and who loses out?

Drawing on empirical evidence from Liverpool, the author argues that housing market renewal plays to the interests of the middle classes in viewing the market for houses as a field of social and economic 'opportunities', a stark contrast to a working class who are more concerned with the practicalities of 'dwelling'. Against this background of these differing attitudes to the housing market, Housing Market Renewal and Social Class explores the difficult question of whether institutions are now using the housing market renewal programme to make profits at the expense of ordinary working-class people. Reflecting on how this situation has come about, the book critically examines the purpose of current housing market renewal policies, and suggests directions for interested social scientists wishing to understand the implications of the programme.


The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics by Julian Barbour Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist. In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time. Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.


BACKGROUND
Calvarial lesions are often detected incidentally in routine radiology. Most lytic lesions of the skull are benign. Enlarged parietal foramina are benign lesions caused by deficient intramembranous ossification.

CASE REPORT
An 11 month-old female patient was admitted with a mass on the right of the back of the head. Physical examination showed a soft 5 cm mass area with no palpable bone in the right occipital. The family history revealed a similar mass in a maternal cousin that resolved over time. Craniography showed lytic lesions, and there were no other pathologies on a complete skeletal X-ray. Computed tomography (CT) showed regular-shaped defects in the bilateral temporal bones, right parietal bone, bilateral frontal bones in the upper-medial orbital wall, and particularly in the occipital bone. The well-defined contours, absence of a soft tissue component, and normal structure and density of the adjacent calvarial bones all pointed to a congenital defect. No change in the lesions was observed during a three-year ultrasound follow-up period.

CONCLUSION
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first described case of multiple occipital, parietal, temporal, and frontal foramina in the cranium. A diagnosis of enlarged parietal foramina variant should be considered after ruling out the differential diagnosis in patients with multiple calvarial lesions. CT may provide valuable findings for the differential diagnosis, and sonography may be used for follow-up.


Many advertisers adopt the integrated marketing communications perspective that emphasizes the importance of synergy in planning multimedia activities. However, the role of synergy in multimedia communications is not well understood. Thus, the authors investigate the theoretical and empirical effects of synergy by extending a commonly used dynamic advertising model to multimedia environments. They illustrate how advertisers can estimate and infer the effectiveness of and synergy among multimedia communications by applying Kalman filtering methodology. Using market data on Dockers brand advertising, the authors first calibrate the extended model to establish the presence of synergy between television and print advertisements in consumer markets. Second, they derive theoretical propositions to understand the impact of synergy on media budget, media mix, and advertising carryover. One of the propositions reveals that as synergy increases, advertisers should not only increase the media budget but also allocate more funds to the less effective activity. The authors also discuss the implications for advertising overspending. Finally, the authors generalize the model to include multiple media, differential carryover, and asymmetrical synergy, and they identify topics for further research.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the effects of multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids on perinatal and neonatal death and neonatal, infant, and maternal disease.

METHODS
MEDLINE and Embase were searched for human studies published in English. Studies that compared multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids versus a single course were included if they were published in full and were controlled for gestational age at birth. Meta-analyses (odds ratio and 95% confidence interval) were undertaken when possible.

RESULTS
Eight observational studies were included. Selection bias was present in all studies. Multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids were associated with a decreased risk of respiratory distress syndrome (odds ratio, 0.79; 95% confidence interval, 0.64 to 0.98) and patent ductus arteriosus (odds ratio, 0.56; 95% confidence interval, 0.35 to 0.90) and were associated with an increased risk of endometritis (odds ratio, 3.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.92 to 6.11). There was no significant effect on other neonatal and maternal outcomes.

CONCLUSION
It is not possible to establish the true effects of multiple courses of antenatal corticosteroids by a review of the results of observational studies because of the effect of confounding variables. Randomized controlled trials are needed to address this important issue.


"[This collection] is distinguished by its wide range and the care which has clearly gone into the selection of texts for inclusion. . . . Attention has understandably been focused on what might be called the religious aspects of Islam, such as scripture, theology, sects, law, ritual and mysticism, but within those limits the texts chosen are marked by substantially of content, by geographical, chronological and social diversity, and by an intelligent use of less well known authors. . . . An excellent starting point for a systematic and analytical examination of Islam."-G. R. Hawting, "Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies"


Theory and Methods for Tensor Data David Gerard Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Peter Hoff Department of Statistics and Department of Biostatistics Public Health We present novel methods and new theory in the statistical analysis of tensor-valued data. A tensor is a multidimensional array. When data come in the form of a tensor, special methods and models are required to capture the dependencies represented by the indexing structure. For such data, it is often reasonable to assume a Kronecker structured covariance model for the random elements within a tensor. A natural type of Kronecker structured covariance model is the array normal model. We develop equivariant and minimax estimators under the array normal model whose risk performances are dramatically better than that of the maximum likelihood estimator. Although we find improved estimators, maximum likelihood estimation is still popular and useful (e.g. for likelihood ratio testing). We study in detail maximum likelihood estimation in separable covariance models, linking it to the relatively modern study of tensor decompositions. This leads us to develop, within this class of Kronecker structured covariance models, likelihood ratio test statistics which are simply represented as the ratio of two scale parameters from two separate tensor decompositions. We then focus our attention on mean estimation for tensor-valued data. We develop new classes of shrinkage estimators that alter the mode-specific singular values from a tensor generalization of the singular value decomposition. These classes often contain tuning parameters, whose selection is difficult. We choose these tuning parameters by minimizing an unbiased estimate of the mean squared error. From simulations, these new estimators outperform matrix-specific estimators when the tensor indexing structure meaningfully represents the heterogeneity of the underlying signal tensor.


Social studies is the most important of the academic disciplines. To prove my point to sometimes-skeptical students in our teacher preparation program, I ask them to quickly write down what are the most important things in their lives. The answers can be summarized as money, family, religion and "sex, drugs, and rock & roll." As it happens, each of these is included in the social studies: economics; different types of human relationships; the status of different consciousness-changing chemicals under laws of different nations (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, ecstasy); and one form of a culture's arts. I then conclude with a rhetorical question: When was the last time that a crisis in phonics or mathematics riveted the world's attention as did the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 20017 This crisis, which falls within the scope of several social studies disciplines, does not have a parallel in other disciplines, unless the major advances explicitly affected humanity (as was true of the science of atomic fission, which demonstrated its impact in August 1945 with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima). In this era of standards-based education, what I consider the most important discipline, social studies, has been treated as a second-class subject. However, in my home state of Washington it is in danger of moving from second class to third. In addition to advocating the primacy of social studies, the purpose of this article is to document how standards-based reform has had a negative impact on social studies education, especially at the elementary level, and to recommend a course of action. The Impact of Standards-Based Reform on Social Studies Since the U.S. Department of Education published A Nation at Risk in 1983, the principal change in public education has been the ascendance of a "standards-based" reform and its impact on state and federal educational policies. (1) The standards movement generated changes in curriculum, evaluation, and accountability (i.e., providing rewards and sanctions based predominantly on the result of high-stakes testing). The reform movement emphasizes rigorous standards for both curricular content and assessment. Subsequently, each of the major disciplines has created its own content standards, such as the social studies standards developed by National Council for the Social Studies; most states have also created new measures to promote assessment (e.g., the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System). The standards movement created "high stakes" incentives (both positive and punitive) for meeting the standards. In some states, teachers and administrators get financial rewards when their students meet or exceed the standard. (2) The punitive measures include a variety of consequences such as "reconstituting" schools, a term that refers to removing the entire educational staff and reopening the school with a completely different faculty and administration. The two most recent changes in the standards-based movement are the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, also known as "No Child Left Behind") and the 2002 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Supreme Court decision allowing, at least under some circumstances, public funds to be used for vouchers. The former adds additional accountability to what was already a high-stakes environment. Both increase the ability of parents to make choices about which school their child attends. Both take major steps towards privatization of public schools (i.e., using public dollars to support private education and schooling). The changes created by the standards-based movement have a significant impact on social studies. The proponents of standards say their aim is to improve the quality of education and to include all children in this goal. (3) For example, Marc Tucker and Judy Codding write that their aim is to demonstrate that "it is possible to build a system [using standards] from the materials at hand that will enable virtually all American youngsters to leave high school with a fine education. …


Virginia Woolfs many novels, notably Night and Day (1919), Jacobs Room (1922), Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931), transformed ideas about structure, plot and characterisation. The third child of Leslie and Julia Stephen, and sister of Vanessa (later Bell), Woolf was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group: that union of friends who revolutionised British culture with their innovative approach to art, design and society in the early years of the twentieth century. Portraiture figured greatly in Woolfs life. Portraits by G.F. Watts and photographs made by her aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron, furnished rooms in which she lived. Written portraits were produced in the family home; her father, Leslie Stephen, published short biographies of Samuel Johnson, Pope, Swift, George Eliot and Thomas Hobbes, while editing the first twenty-six volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography. Throughout her life, Woolf, a sharp observer and a brilliant wordsmith, composed memorable vignettes-in-words of people she knew or encountered, and was herself portrayed by artists and photographers on many occasions. Illustrated with over a hundred works from public and private collections, documentary photographs and extracts from her writings, this book catches Woolfs appearance and that of the world around her. It also points to her pursuit of the hidden, the fleeting and the obscure, in her desire to understand better the place and moment in time and in history in which she lived. In charting some of the milestones in Woolfs life, author Frances Spalding acknowledges the seen and unseen aspects of her subject; the outer and the inner, the recognisable and the concealed.


Understanding what structures ecological communities is vital to answering questions about extinctions, environmental change, trophic cascades, and ecosystem functioning. Optimal foraging theory was conceived to increase such understanding by providing a framework with which to predict species interactions and resulting community structure. Here, we use an optimal foraging model and allometries of foraging variables to predict the structure of real food webs. The qualitative structure of the resulting model provides a more mechanistic basis for the phenomenological rules of previous models. Quantitative analyses show that the model predicts up to 65% of the links in real food webs. The deterministic nature of the model allows analysis of the model's successes and failures in predicting particular interactions. Predacious and herbivorous feeding interactions are better predicted than pathogenic, parasitoid, and parasitic interactions. Results also indicate that accurate prediction and modeling of some food webs will require incorporating traits other than body size and diet choice models specific to different types of feeding interaction. The model results support the hypothesis that individual behavior, subject to natural selection, determines individual diets and that food web structure is the sum of these individual decisions.