Orthonormal function expansions have been used extensively in the context of linear and nonlinear systems identification, since they result in a significant reduction in the number of required free parameters. In particular, Laguerre basis expansions have been used in the context of biological/physiological systems identification, due to the exponential decaying characteristics of the Laguerre orthonormal basis, the rate of which is determined by the Laguerre parameter α. A critical aspect of the Laguerre expansion technique is the selection of the model structural parameters, i.e., polynomial model order for nonlinear systems, number of Laguerre functions and value of the Laguerre parameter α. This selection is typically made by trial-and-error procedures on the basis of the model prediction error. In the present paper, we formulate the Laguerre expansion technique in a Bayesian framework. Based on this formulation, we derive analytically the posterior distribution of the α parameter and the model evidence, in order to perform model order selection. We also demonstrate the performance of the proposed method by simulated examples and compare it to alternative statistical criteria for model order selection.


Britain has lagged behind the G7 countries in labour productivity in recent years. There is also an emerging concern about a potential post-Brexit skills deficit. Upskilling the existing workforce via on-the-job training may be a vital policy tool available. Using a panel of organisations and their 'Investors in People' accreditation status, this paper empirically examines if accreditation promotes upskilling. Fixed effects estimates reveal that accreditation enhances on-the-job training but only in private sector organisations. Difference-in-differences estimates using unaccredited and di-accredited organisations as alternative matched comparators reinforce the FE findings. Policy may have to further engender accreditation schemes that boost worker upskilling to address the productivity concerns and to cope with the rapid technological changes better.


The average international trade transaction is subject to numerous procedural and documentation requirements, which add to the costs of doing business as an importer or exporter and also use up scarce government resources. While these requirements can be necessary to fulfil policy objectives, questions are often raised about why and how they are implemented. The Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), adopted by WTO Members in 2014, seeks to expedite the movement, release and clearance of goods across borders and reduce these trade transaction costs - by an average of 14.3 per cent as estimated by the 2015 World Trade Report. At the same time, many WTO Agreements already contain provisions aimed at facilitating trade procedures and avoiding unnecessary costs. The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (the TBT Agreement) is one of these: its provisions on transparency and conformity assessment procedures, some of which are applied at the border, are of particular relevance in this context. The TFA and TBT Agreements are in fact complementary, with the TFA introducing some new requirements/recommendations, which are likely to apply to certain TBT measures. This paper maps out the linkages between these two Agreements. It does so with a view to informing TBT officials of the requirements and best practices emerging in the trade facilitation area as well as raising awareness amongst trade/customs officials of existing rules and evolving practices in the TBT area. The 2015 World Trade Report refers to "border agency cooperation" as the main TFA implementation challenge identified by developing countries and also points to the importance of cooperation and coordination between ministries as one of the main success factors. Considering that a significant share of import/export procedures and controls arise from the implementation of TBT measures, a better understanding of the linkages between the TFA and the TBT Agreement (as well as other relevant WTO Agreements such as the SPS Agreement) will be crucial for effective implementation. It will also contribute to more streamlined technical assistance activities and raise awareness among TBT officials of the opportunities generated by trade facilitation projects. The procedures and practices of the WTO TBT Committee, especially with regards to transparency and specific trade concerns, could also be of interest to the future TFA Committee, as it embarks on its task of furthering the implementation of the TFA. All these in turn will help reap the expected benefits of the new Trade Facilitation Agreement.


A large family of bitter taste receptors has recently been characterized and cloned. The expression of multiple messenger RNAs of members of this family in individual cells leads to the speculation that there is only one general bitter taste and that single gustatory cells respond broadly to bitter compounds. However, Caicedo and Roper show that, in the majority of cases, individual taste cells can discriminate among different bitter stimuli. These results are in agreement with earlier psychophysical data and the results from taste-nerve recording, and indicate that there is much heterogeneity even within one subpopulation of sensory cells. A. Caicedo, S. D. Roper, Taste receptor cells that discriminate between bitter stimuli. Science 291, 1557-1560 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


OF THESIS EXAMINING CYBERBULLYING BYSTANDER BEHAVIOR USING A MULTIPLE GOALS PERSPECTIVE Cyberbullying, defined as any behavior performed through electronic or digital media by individuals or groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm or discomfort on others, is a widespread problem. Bystanders play an integral role in the initiation, maintenance, and prolonged presence of such aggressive behaviors, but have thus far been overlooked in cyberbullying literature. Cyberbullying bystanders are defined in this study as those who witness cyberbullying, either within or outside their personal social network(s) and whose available responses range from inaction to intervention. Operating from a social-ecological perspective and guided by multiple goals theories, this study used focus group methodology and found that cyberbullying bystanders have an impact on perpetration and victimization by way of multiple, distinct goals, which impact their choice of behavioral response. Bystanders' goals and behaviors served to inform the creation of a cyberbullying bystander typology inclusive of five types: the oblivious/distant bystander, the entertained bystander, the conspiring bystander, the unintentional instigating bystander, and the active/empowered bystander. By allowing a thorough, nuanced understanding of bystanders' role in cyberbullying, the study has significant implications for communication theory and practical application in the development of prevention and intervention efforts.


What might a 'return' to the street look like? This is not a bright, new dawn. It is not the first steps out into the light following an environmental or technological apocalypse. This return concerns a renewed and heightened awareness of the vast social inequalities, violence and exclusion which continue to be perpetuated across the world.

Return to the Street brings together a series of approaches to the question of the street via a range of lenses, methodologies and objects of enquiry. Covering multiple sites and spaces these interventions demonstrate the primacy of the street as an object of ongoing analysis, critique and debate across a range of disciplines including architecture, urban geography, gender and race studies, sociology, political science, history, cultural and media studies.


India is a developing country with a large landmass and a huge socio-culturally, economically and, ethnically diverse population. The healthcare system for such a diverse and complex country could entail challenges and difficulties in execution and outreach. Here, the emerging area of Telehealth could afford a place for itself in providing healthcare and health education to a large section of people residing in areas where there is acute shortage of healthcare professionals. Almost, seventy per cent of the population in India are rural. The infrastructure in India, similar to other developing countries, is erratic and differs throughout the country. Similarly, the ICT infrastructure is developed in the urban areas whereas there are insufficient ICT facilities in the rural areas. As telehealth depends on the utilisation of ICT infrastructure it is essential to conduct a study to find out the determinants of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment. Moreover, as evident from relevant literature, telehealth is in a nascent stage in India, with most of the projects currently in a pilot study level. As such, it would be practical to conduct the study from an organisational point of view because the organisational adoption of ICT will eventually foster the implementation of telehealth in the domain of Indian healthcare. The study focuses on developing a conceptual framework of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment, as limited research has been conducted in this area. The study highlighted the drivers and barriers of telehealth around the world, reviewed the relevant models of ICT adoption and generated themes to develop the conceptual framework. Empirical testing of the conceptual framework may have the potential to establish and confirm the determinants of ICT adoption in the Indian telehealth environment. The conceptual framework may be utilised for governmental and non-governmental policy level decision making.


Meteorological data play a particularly important role in hydrologic research because the climate and weather of an area exert a profound influence on most hydrologic processes. Meanwhile, hydrological data are critical for performing a range of purposes, including water resources assessment, impacts of climate change and flood forecasting and warning. It can be said that the prevention of disasters caused by floods and droughts would be impossible without rational forecasting technology based on an understanding of the rainfall-runoff phenomenon and statistical analysis of past hydrological data, which cannot be achieved without meteo-hydrological observations. The lack of adequate meteo-hydrological data affects the ability to model, predict and plan for catastrophic events such as floods and droughts which have obvious negative impacts on public health and socio-economic aspects. The accurate estimation of the spatial distribution of meteorological and hydrological parameters requires a dense network of instruments, which entails large installation and operational costs. It is thus necessary to optimize the number and location of meteo-hydrological stations. This paper presents a GIS-based approach to establishing an optimal meteo-hydrological station network on Vu Gia- Thu Bon river basin for developing an up-to-date real time flood warning system. Based on statistical analysis of the annual rainfall total data at 9 existing gauges in the study area from 1980 to 2013, it showed that the error of the existing network was about 7.47%. Considering 9 rain gauges as a standard representative of rainfall over the region, if the error decreases from 7.47% to 5%, the number of additional rain gauges should be 20. For adequate and economical network design, these additional rain gauges were spatially distributed between the different isohyetals after considering the relative distances between rain gauges, their accessibility, personnel required for making observations using multi-layers analysis and spatial interpolation. For hydrological stations, based on consideration existing network with the requirements set out by the flood warning system, the number of stations should be five. In terms of spatial distribution, three stations were distributed across two main tributaries of Vu Gia- Thu Bon river basin, behind the dams for water discharge calibration and the others were located on downstream for water stage calibration. The results of the study provided a scientific approach can be applied to optimizing the meteo-hydrological station network over the river basin.


We provide an assessment of the state of scholarly and policy debates on migrant entrepreneurs in development. They are often described as super-entrepreneurs who contribute to development through (i) being more entrepreneurial than natives; (ii) providing remittances that fund start-ups in their countries of origin and (iii) returning entrepreneurial skills to their home countries when they re-migrate. We evaluate these three views and conclude that the empirical evidence to support the notion of the migrant as a super-entrepreneur is weak. We further argue that the evidence is less ambiguous on the general development contribution of migration over and above its contribution through entrepreneurship. The implication is that removal of discriminatory barriers against migrants and against migrant entrepreneurs in labour, consumer and financial markets will promote development in both sending and receiving countries, not least through reducing the shares of migrants that are reluctant entrepreneurs.


The lack of robust evaluation of training outcomes has been noted within the delivery of Health & Social Care across the UK. The impact on adult mental health of poor emotional care during infancy and early childhood has also been highlighted by the relatively recent advancements in neuroscience. This study used pre- and post-testing to assess practice across three key domains. The gains observed in staff knowledge and confidence post-training are directly attributable to the training: p < .001 (Knowledge Scores) and p = .001 (Self-Efficacy Scores). Key findings also indicate that Infant Mental Health (IMH) training has potential to encourage staff in Adult Services to take more ownership of a family focused agenda and that current service provision struggles to meet the needs of high-risk infants. With a clear focus on robust methodology, this study measures IMH training outcomes on a multi-professional basis across Adult Mental Health and Children's Services within one Health & Social Care Trust (NI). The findings also add to our understanding of the interface between social work and other services who seek to support families with complex needs.


1. Project Overview Visual impairment and intracranial pressure (VIIP) is a spaceflight-associated medical condition affecting at least a third of American astronauts who have flown International Space Station (ISS) missions. VIIP is defined primarily by visual acuity deficits and anatomical changes to eye structures. In some astronauts, eye-related changes do not revert back to the preflight state upon return to Earth. Our team will study some of the possible causes for this syndrome. This will be achieved by reviewing previous astronaut data for factors that may predispose astronauts to higher rates of developing this syndrome or greater severity of symptoms. Additionally, we will conduct 3 separate experiments that will characterize vessels in the head and neck and measure the effects of the experimental conditions on ocular structures and function. 2. Technical Summary The primary objective of this study is to determine whether vascular compliance is altered by spaceflight and whether such adaptations are related to the incidence of the VIIP. In particular, we will measure ocular parameters and vascular compliance in vessels of the head and neck in astronauts who have no spaceflight experience (Ground), in astronauts before, during, and after spaceflight (Flight), and in bed rest subjects with conditions similar to spaceflight (Bed Rest). Additionally, we will analyze astronaut data from the Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (LSAH) archives to determine which factors might be predictive of the development of VIIP (Data Mining). The project will be conducted in four separate, but related parts. Hypothesis The central hypothesis of this proposal is that exposure to the spaceflight environment aboard the ISS may lead to development of the VIIP syndrome (increased intracranial pressure and impaired visual acuity) and that this may be related to alterations in venous and/or arterial compliance in the head and neck. Specific Aims 1. To determine whether noninvasive measures of venous and arterial compliance are altered by long-duration spaceflight exposure in ISS astronauts and whether these changes are related to the development of the VIIP syndrome. (Flight) 2. To determine whether previous spaceflight experience predispose astronauts to lower venous compliance and/or the development of the VIIP syndrome. (Ground + Flight) 3. To use a 14-day, 6deg head-down-tilt bed rest as a model of spaceflight, to evaluate the effect of aging on vascular compliance using a subject population similar to younger (25-35 yr) and older (45-55 yr) astronaut cohorts. (Bed Rest) 4. To determine what factors contribute to lower venous compliance and/or the development of the VIIP syndrome in astronauts. (Data Mining) 3. Earth Applications This research may inform the mechanisms that regulate blood/fluid flow in and out of the brain in the head and neck. This information may help with understanding of the mechanisms behind idiopathic intracranial hypertension. 4. Link to NASA Taskbook Entry Not Yet Available


This study claims that the bilingual mental lexicon contains 'lemmas', defined as abstract entries in the mental lexicon about particular lexemes, and such lemmas are in contact in ICS. Lemmas contain information about lexical-conceptual structure, predicate-argument structure and morphological realization patterns of particular lexemes. It further claims that bilingual lemmas are language-specific, and it is the activation of languagespecific lemmas which drives ICS. The ICS instances for the study reveal that bilinguals switch content morphemes from one language into another language's sentential frame because of cross-linguistic lexicalconceptual gaps. Bilinguals do not switch system morphemes because it is the Matrix Language (the host language) which provides the sentential frame, including all system morphemes, and the Embedded Language (the guest language) inserts certain content morphemes as desired into the lexical slots in the ML. The lexicalconceptual approach introduced in this study explores the nature and activity of the bilingual mental lexicon during ICS.


To what extent do national borders and national currencies impose costs that segment markets across countries? To answer this question the authors use a dataset with product-level retail prices and wholesale costs for a large grocery chain with stores in the United States and Canada. They develop a model of pricing by location and employ a regression discontinuity approach to estimate and interpret the border effect. They report three main facts: One, the median absolute retail price and wholesale cost discontinuities between adjacent stores on either side of the U.S.-Canadian border are as high as 21 percent. In contrast, within-country border discontinuity is close to 0 percent. Two, the variation in the retail price gap at the border is almost entirely driven by variation in wholesale costs, not by variation in markups. Three, the border gaps in prices and costs co-move almost one-to-one with changes in the U.S.-Canadian nominal exchange rate. They show these facts suggest that the price gaps they estimate provide only a lower bound on border costs.


Systemic administration of immunophilin ligands provides trophic influences to dopaminergic neurons in rodent models of Parkinson's disease (PD) resulting in the initiation of clinical trials in patients with Parkinson's disease. We believe that prior to clinical trials, novel therapeutic strategies should show safety and efficacy in nonhuman models of PD. The present study assessed whether oral administration of the immunophilin 3-(3-pyridyl)-1-propyl (2S)-1-(3,3-dimethyl-1,2-dioxopentyl)-2-pyrrollidinecarboxylate (GPI 1046) could prevent the structural and functional consequences of n-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) administration in nonhuman primates. Twenty-five rhesus monkeys received daily oral administration of vehicle (n = 5) or one of four doses of GPI 1046 (0.3 mg/kg, n = 5; 1.0 mg/kg, n = 5; 3.0 mg/kg, n = 5; 10.0 mg/kg, n = 5). Two weeks after starting the drug treatment, all monkeys received a unilateral intracarotid injection of MPTP-HCl (3 mg). Daily drug administration continue for 6 weeks postlesion after which time the monkeys were sacrificed. Monkeys were assessed for performance on a hand reach task, general activity, and clinical dysfunction based on a clinical rating scale. All groups of monkeys displayed similar deficits on each behavioral measure as well as similar losses of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-immunoreactive (ir) nigral neurons, TH-mRNA, and TH-ir striatal optical density indicating that in general treatment failed to have neuroprotective effects.


Academic journals are central to the social science knowledge of any society. The set of social science journals sourced in New Zealand or focusing on New Zealand is described in terms of the characteristics of its constituent journals, pointing to ways the system has changed over time. An attempt is made to assess the adequacy of the system as a whole, as well as explaining trends in its develop ment. Without expanding this study considerably it seems possible to draw conclusions that demand for NZ publishing is reasonably balanced with its supply, although there seem to be some areas of considerable supply and a few where there are apparent gaps in coverage. When it comes to the actual operation of journals there may be more strain, with reviewing often requiring many failed attempts before sufficient referees are located. There have been a considerable number of journal 'failures' but for the remaining journals their futures seem well-secured, although given the pace of technological developments the longer-term future for the whole of academic publishing seems clouded. Oral History in New Zealand; Otaki Historical Journal: 1978-1986 Prospect: the Journal of the Epsom & Eden District; Ohinemuri Regional History Journal; Oral History in New Zealand; Parnell Heritage Journal).


Studies over the last ten years suggest computers aren't being used to their full potential inside schools (Abrami et al., 2006; Smeets, 2005; Suronta & Lehtimaki, 2004). Findings often recommend some combination of professional development, increased technical support, and the development and acquisition of user-friendly software to remedy the situation. While any one of these options may help in the short term, this thesis argues that, even in combination, none of these solutions get to the root of education's problem with integrating technology. Policy purports that simply inserting a computer into a classroom will open up new possibilities for learning, however in order to successfully integrate new technology in a way that is beneficial for both students and the teacher, what is needed is an approach to learning that will foster a creative and engaged learning environment. Using a phenomenological perspective that draws from my experience helping teachers implement computer technology and my artistic practice, this thesis will explore what began as a hunch, that there might be something to an artist's approach that makes using technology more navigable. This approach, which is transferable to other environments, can foster meaningful learning. By developing a manner of approach that is by nature creative and leads to an unfolding process for learning, rather than programming for desired outcomes. This thesis draws broadly from four sources: Christopher Alexander's The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and The Nature of the Universe, Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, and my memories from my Introduction to Painting class in art school.


Hosea, along with Amos, opens the period of the "Writing Prophets." He is the only man called to the office of prophet who both lived and prophesied in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This volume, no available in a new casebound edition, offers a verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Hosea. James Luther Mays gives the background to the book of Hosea: Hosea, the man; the time; the sayings; the message; and the contents of the book. The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative reatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.


AIMS--To determine the sensitivity of commercially available diagnostic assays for Chlamydia trachomatis using a simple method. METHODS--Nine commercial assays and an "in-house" polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were evaluated using serial dilutions of a laboratory grown H serovar--four of them using a laboratory grown E serovar. Seven of the assays were further tested using dilutions of several cervical samples known to contain chlamydiae. RESULTS--The most sensitive assays were the MicroTrak direct fluorescent antibody (DFA) test (Syva) and the PCR which detected C trachomatis at a 10(-8) dilution of the H serovar, while the two least sensitive, Clearview (Unipath) and TestPack (Abbott), were positive only at 10(-4) and 10(-3) dilutions, respectively. A range of enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) and a nucleic acid hybridisation test were of intermediate sensitivity. The results with serovar E were consistent with these. When clinical samples were examined, the DFA test detected C trachomatis in dilutions at least 10-fold greater than any other assay. CONCLUSIONS--The range of sensitivity of diagnostic assays determined by the laboratory dilution procedure is very wide. Sensitivity assessed in this way, however, reflects the ability of the assays to detect C trachomatis in large scale clinical trials. The dilution procedure, which is simple to undertake, could therefore be applied by any laboratory before a new diagnostic method is considered for routine use.


Technology is now widely used in a variety of educational support situations
to improve the quality of education. It can be used to redress the imbalances of the
old system and help in developing new teaching and learning strategies.
The basis of this project is to design and develop an electronic book (E-book)
tutorial to teach the basics of network security. E-books are developed with the
intentions of overcoming the limitations of paper books. They have the advantages
over paper books in that they are dynamic, reactive and able to provide the same
features as well as new features such as hyper-linking, multimedia technology,
digital annotating, digital book-marking and searching function.
This project will pay particular attention to features and functionality of the
e-book rather that the contents of the book. This project will involve the
development of software application that will combine multimedia elements such as
high-quality sound, text, photo images, two and three-dimensional graphics and
animation into learning environment.
The E-book will be created using Macromedia Authorware. In order to add
interactivity and enhance the user interfaces to the e-book, Macromedia F1ash MX
and Adobe Photoshop will be used. Finally, there will also be a quiz section for the
user after they read the e-book.


Title of Thesis: CHARACTERIZATION OF PTFD1, A BZIP TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR USING TRANSGENIC POPLARS Minggang Wu, Master of Science, 2006 Thesis Directed By: Associate Professor Gary D. Coleman Department of Natural Resource Science and Landscape Architecture Dormancy is an adaptive mechanism that enables plants to survive unfavorable environmental conditions and resume growth when the conditions become favorable again. Bud formation is the morphological event associated with bud dormancy. The research presented in this thesis focuses on the role of PtFD1, a bZIP transcription factor, in apical bud development in poplar. This research included the construction of binary Agrobacterium vectors for the overexpressing of PtFD1 and for down regulation or silencing of PtFD1 expression using RNAi technology. These vectors were used to create transgenic poplars (Populus alba×Populus tremula) with altered expression of PtFD1. The overexpression of PtFD1 prevented apical bud development while apical bud development appeared normal in PtFD1 RNAi expressing plants. Flowering was also induced in long days in poplars overexpressing PtFD1. Anatomical studies indicate that overexpression of PtFD1 impinges on bud scale development during short day induced bud formation. CHARACTERIZATION OF PTFD1, A BZIP TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR USING TRANSGENIC POPLARS


The support for scientific investigation in biomedicine depends in part on the adoption of new knowledge into medical practice. We investigate how a technological advance, in the form of a large and influential 2010 randomized controlled study, changed physician practice in statin (a medication used to manage high cholesterol levels) prescribing. We analyze data representative of the Italian population for the period 2003-2014. Our analysis accounts for possible non-random sorting of patients into treatment. We show that both doctors and patients responded promptly to this technological shock, changing the mix of patients who received therapy, drug dosing, and frequency of testing for side effects, as well as patient adherence to therapy. The results show that investments in scientific knowledge can rapidly diffuse into practice in professions where continuing education is the norm.


Renewable energy sources are large but some are variable and intermittent. The wide-scale use of renewable energy sources for energy supply will require the adoption of ways to compensate for their variability. This book reviews the technical options looking at their pros and cons and how they might work together to support a reliable and sustainable energy system. This is a rapidly advancing area of research and practice and Balancing Green Power offers an ideal introduction to the field.


Vampires, zombies, ghosts, and ghoulies: there are more things going bump in the night than ever. So how do you wend your way through all of them to find the ones that interest a particular reader? RA expert Spratford updates her advisory to include the latest in monsters and the macabre.


"This paper investigates children's time allocation to schooling, home production, and market production using a unique data set collected from northern Mali. Production shocks from harvest period pest infestations induce households to withdraw children from school and increase the probability that they are selected into farm work. Health shocks to women increases the probability that a child participates in the family business and childcare activities. These results are robust to varying assumptions about the structure of unobserved heterogeneity at the household and village levels. Different measures of household assets are also constructed to test whether assets serve as a buffer against increased child labor in response to shocks. Assets such as livestock have mixed effects on child labor and schooling, depending on the shock and asset type. However, household durables are substitutes for increased child labor when households face health shocks." from Author's Abstract


The use of carbon composites has continuously increased in the commercial aircraft industry due to more challenging weight targets which is one way to handle the environmental requirements to lower the CO2 emissions. One aircraft structure component made at Saab Aerostructures is long and slender U-sections manufactured in carbon composites. The manufacturing is performed by manual layup of composite material. These U-sections are selected as an illustrative case in order to discuss possibilities for an automated manufacturing process with the aim to reduce cost. A literature review of different existing technologies have been performed and compared with the industrial front at Saab Aerostructures. Automated Tape Laying (ATL) and Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) are the two dominating automation methods, of today, for aircraft prepreg manufacturing. Both methods are heavy investments for small to medium size composite manufacturers. Analysis in the case has shown that the selected component cannot be automated with these two methods due to design constrains. The paper suggests that another automated method with a cutting machine in combination with an industrial robot with a vacuum gripper, is selected for further work. The proposed pick and place process is also assumed to reduce the material waste.


In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime-a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center-was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre created the first instance of youth culture in modern Europe, drawing theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding, for example, bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements, which appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? Among other factors cited by O'Brien, Robert Walpole's one-party rule, which increasingly dampened debate, created a vacuum in the public sphere. Pantomime filled that void with socially subversive commentary. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text, in particular to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.


Rev Bras Med Esporte – Vol. 23, No 6 – Nov/Dez, 2017 ABSTRACT Introduction: Many middle-aged Turks go hiking in mountains to breathe some fresh air or to maintain fitness. Objective: This study investigated the effects of regular high altitude mountain climbing on the metabolic and hematological responses of mountaineers. Methods: Hematological and biochemical parameters were studied, as well as some hormonal values of 21 mountaineers and 16 healthy age-matched sedentary volunteers. Results: The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was significantly lower (p<0.04) in mountaineers compared with the sedentary group. Total protein (p<0.001) and albumin (p<0.001) were lower, while the levels of ferritin (p<0.04), creatine (p<0.03) and creatine phosphokinase (p<0.01) were higher in mountaineers. Other hematological and biochemical parameters, i.e., erythrocytes, leukocytes, hemoglobin and hematocrit, did not change significantly. Conclusion: Our results show that regular exposure to high altitude increased the serum levels of some acute phase proteins with anti-inflammatory properties.


We study the AutoML problem of automatically configuring machine learning pipelines by jointly selecting algorithms and their appropriate hyper-parameters for all steps in supervised learning pipelines. This black-box (gradient-free) optimization with mixed integer & continuous variables is a challenging problem. We propose a novel AutoML scheme by leveraging the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The proposed framework is able to (i) decompose the optimization problem into easier sub-problems that have a reduced number of variables and circumvent the challenge of mixed variable categories, and (ii) incorporate black-box constraints alongside the black-box optimization objective. We empirically evaluate the flexibility (in utilizing existing AutoML techniques), effectiveness (against open source AutoML toolkits), and unique capability (of executing AutoML with practically motivated black-box constraints) of our proposed scheme on a collection of binary classification data sets from UCI ML & OpenML repositories. We observe that on an average our framework provides significant gains in comparison to other AutoML frameworks (Auto-sklearn & TPOT), highlighting the practical advantages of this framework.


We propose \textit{average Localisation-Recall-Precision} (aLRP), a unified, bounded, balanced and ranking-based loss function for both classification and localisation tasks in object detection. aLRP extends the Localisation-Recall-Precision (LRP) performance metric (Oksuz et al., 2018) inspired from how Average Precision (AP) Loss extends precision to a ranking-based loss function for classification (Chen et al., 2020). aLRP has the following distinct advantages: (i) aLRP is the first ranking-based loss function for both classification and localisation tasks. (ii) Thanks to using ranking for both tasks, aLRP naturally enforces high-quality localisation for high-precision classification. (iii) aLRP provides provable balance between positives and negatives. (iv) Compared to on average $\sim$6 hyperparameters in the loss functions of state-of-the-art detectors, aLRP Loss has only one hyperparameter, which we did not tune in practice. On the COCO dataset, aLRP Loss improves its ranking-based predecessor, AP Loss, up to around $5$ AP points, achieves $48.9$ AP without test time augmentation and outperforms all one-stage detectors. Code available at: this https URL .


Research3 Literacy Express is a preschool curriculum designed for threeto five-year-old children. It is structured around units on oral language, emergent literacy, basic math, science, general knowledge, and socioemotional development. It can be used in halfor full-day programs with typically developing children and children with special needs. It provides professional development opportunities for staff; teaching materials; suggested activities; and recommendations for room arrangement, daily schedules, and classroom management.


A Walk in the Forest is an educational program sponsored by the Society of American Foresters, Project Learning Tree, and the American Tree Farm System. The purpose of this outreach effort is to educate participants about forest-related benefits, increase awareness of forest ecosystems, and promote understanding of the forestry profession. The Mary Kahrs Warnell Forest Education Center conducted Walks for over 3,000 sixth grade students, teachers, and parents between 2002 and 2008. This outreach effort was the result of a partnership between the Warnell Center, the Savannah SAF chapter, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Georgia Forestry Commission, and many others. This paper reports the results of a pilot study that assessed changes in perceptions and knowledge of forestry principles among 285 fourth grade students who participated in the 7th Annual Walk in the Warnell Forest. Positive outcomes of the Walk were evident despite changes in the duration, scope, and location of the event necessitated by inclement weather. Consistent with previous research, findings suggest that environmental knowledge was more amenable to change than environmental perceptions. Results of the pilot study provide insight on the planning and design of environmental educational programs that can be used to meet the needs of local school children. The Walk is an inherently experiential and multidisciplinary program that relies on local environments and local forestry professionals to address state-mandated academic content through the lens of forestry and related professions. The Walk addresses salient needs in environmental education by emphasizing community learning, as well as the interconnectedness of ecological and social dimensions of forestry. The authors recommend that future educational efforts devote increased attention to the roles of fire, timber harvesting, and hunting as forest management tools. /* Style Definitions */
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Aim. To assess football referees ́ cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills and automated external defibrillator (AED) use in a simulated sport incident scenario, after a brief training program. Material and Methods. Quasi-experimental study with 35 amateur league football referees. A test – retest of related samples was carried out after the training program. Theoretical and hands-on session lasted 30 minutes, with 1/10 instructor/participant ratio. CPR skills were measured using Wireless Skill Report software and AED use by means of a specific check list. Results. A third of sample knew what an AED is but only 8% knew how to use it. After training, all participants achieved 70% or higher CPR quality scores and were able to use AED properly (54.2% without any incidence). Mean time to discharge was shorter for participants who accomplished the quality goal (p=0.022). Conclusions. After a very brief and simple training program, football referees were able to perform a potentially effective CPR and use an AED correctly in a simulated scenario. Basic life support training should be implemented in football referees ́ formative curriculum.


This paper investigates the transition from high school to first job using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study 1988-2000. A proportional hazards model is estimated to identify the determinants of time-to-first-job. In contrast to earlier studies, there is strong evidence of positive duration dependence after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Time-to-first-job is correlated with educational attainment and type of school program attended. Attending a vocational program reduces time-to-first-job, but dropouts who obtain the General Educational Development qualification as an alternative to high school graduation do not improve their chances of getting a job more quickly. Family background is insignificant.


At the end of the twentieth century, the European Union must decide whether to accept the transformation from powerful economic entity to an equally powerful political entity. By doing so, it would assume the responsibilities that correspond to its own potential and influence and that a difficult and disorderly world expects and needs. With the challenges of external enlargement and internal reform, the European Union will have to prove that it can respect the sensitivities and interests of its own members while becoming even more responsive to the needs and expectations of the outside world. In this book, Curt Gasteyger offers a valuable and critical contribution to the ongoing search for a European foreign and security policy identity.


The reported range for global production of nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) by lightning remains large (e.g., 32 to 664 mol NOx flash−1), despite incorporating results from over 30 individual laboratory, theoretical, and field studies since the 1970s. Airborne and ground‐based observations from the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry experiment in May and June 2012 provide a new data set for calculating moles of NOx produced per lightning flash, P(NOx), in thunderstorms over the United States Great Plains. This analysis utilizes a combination of in situ observations of storm inflow and outflow from three instrumented aircraft, three‐dimensional spatial information from ground‐based radars and satellite observations, and spatial and temporal information for intracloud and cloud‐to‐ground lightning flashes from ground‐based lightning mapping arrays. Evaluation of two analysis methods (e.g., a volume‐based approach and a flux‐based approach) for converting enhancements in lightning‐produced NOx from volume‐based mixing ratios to moles NOx flash−1 suggests that both methods equally approximate P(NOx) for storms with elongated anvils, while the volume‐based approach better approximates P(NOx) for storms with circular‐shaped anvils. Results from the more robust volume‐based approach for three storms sampled over Oklahoma and Colorado during DC3 suggest a range of 142 to 291 (average of 194) moles NOx flash−1 (or 117–332 mol NOx flash−1 including uncertainties). Although not vastly different from the previously reported range for storms occurring in the Great Plains (e.g., 21–465 mol NOx flash−1), results from this analysis of DC3 storms offer more constrained upper and lower limits for P(NOx) in this geographical region.


We present a Network Address Translator (NAT) written in C and proven to be semantically correct according to RFC 3022, as well as crash-free and memory-safe. There exists a lot of recent work on network verification, but it mostly assumes models of network functions and proves properties specific to network configuration, such as reachability and absence of loops. Our proof applies directly to the C code of a network function, and it demonstrates the absence of implementation bugs. Prior work argued that this is not feasible (i.e., that verifying a real, stateful network function written in C does not scale) but we demonstrate otherwise: NAT is one of the most popular network functions and maintains per-flow state that needs to be properly updated and expired, which is a typical source of verification challenges. We tackle the scalability challenge with a new combination of symbolic execution and proof checking using separation logic; this combination matches well the typical structure of a network function. We then demonstrate that formally proven correctness in this case does not come at the cost of performance. The NAT code, proof toolchain, and proofs are available at [58].


about innovation. Leaders in government, business, education, and science are calling for action to enhance the US science and technology enterprise for the 21st century. Both the White House and Congress—the former through the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), the latter through numerous legislative proposals—have proffered plans to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education; increase investments in research and development; and authorize federal research programs. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) has said, "To meet the challenges of today and to create the jobs and economic security of tomorrow, the time to act is now." Given that 68 percent of basic biological sciences research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), biologists are taking note that reauthorization of NSF is included in innovation measures moving through Congress. Nearly five years ago, Congress passed legislation that President Bush signed into law authorizing appropriations for NSF through fiscal year (FY) 2007. The National Science Foundation Authorization Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-368) provided a bold framework for doubling funding from the $4.8 billion that NSF was appropriated in FY 2002 to $9.8 billion in FY 2007. As most biologists who have applied for NSF research funds are keenly aware, the agency's budget—although faring better than those of many federal agencies—has not enjoyed that promised growth. Nevertheless, many in Congress continue to advocate for increased funding for NSF, and are using the need for reauthorization as a vehicle to press for new investments in NSF. The Senate has included NSF reauthorization within its far-reaching "America COMPETES Act" (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science), S. 761, recently approved by a wide 88–8 majority. The measure outlines many basic research, education, and innovation programs across a number of agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy. NSF is also included in the measure. As passed, S. 761 would authorize yearly increases in the NSF budget from the $5.6 billion appropriated in FY 2006 to $10.2 billion in FY 2011. However, S. 761 would require NSF to develop a spending plan,"with a focus on strengthening the Nation's lead in physical science and technology, increasing overall workforce skills in physical science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at all levels." This language is borrowed, in part, from the National Academies' 2005 report Rising above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Although specifically mentioning the physical sciences and engineering, Rising above the Gathering Storm also notes that "this special attention does not mean that there should be a disinvestment in such important fields as the life sciences or the social sciences. A balanced research portfolio in all fields of science and engineering research is critical to US prosperity." This key qualifying language in the Academies' report is absent from the spending plan provision in S. 761. The limited focus of the spending plan required by America COMPETES strikes a nerve with scientists concerned by the unequal distribution of proposed budget increases among directorates in the FY 2008 NSF budget request. The Biological Sciences Directorate would receive a modest 4.1 percent increase, whereas the increases proposed for the directorates prioritized in the ACI range from 8.7 to 9.6 percent. Nadine Lymn, director of public affairs at the Ecological Society of America, warns,"It is troubling that some of the language in the bill [S. 761] would essentially micromanage the director of the agency. Instructing the agency to single out a few disciplines for special attention flies in the face of NSF's successful and well-established history of supporting the breadth of all science disciplines." The House of Representatives has approached its legislative efforts in a somewhat more focused way by considering several smaller pieces of legislation, including stand-alone NSF reauthorization (H.R. 1867), recently passed 399–17. If ultimately signed into law, H.R. 1867 would authorize an increase in NSF funds from $6.5 billion in FY 2008 to $7.5 billion in FY 2010. More important to the biological sciences community, H.R. 1867 does not contain language instructing NSF to focus its investments on specific disciplines. Some members of Congress also are aware of the value of investment in all fields of science. For example, House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Alan Mollohan (D–WV), during a hearing about FY 2008 science funding, queried National Science Board Chairman Steven Beering: "Could you talk about...the imbalances of the funding increases for the various science directorates? What are your concerns about the inequalities among the science directorates?" The biological sciences community will be watching closely to see whether such awareness will hold sway as Congress works to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the NSF reauthorization legislation.


A fully quantum mechanical model of two-component Manakov solitons is developed in both the Heisenberg and Schrodinger representations, followed by an analytical, linearized quantum theory of Manakov solitons in the Heisenberg picture. This theory is used to analyze the vacuum-induced fluctuations of Manakov soliton propagation and collision. The vacuum fluctuations induce phase diffusion and dispersion in Manakov soliton propagation. Calculations of the position, polarization angle, and polarization state fluctuations show an increase in collision-induced noise with a decrease in the relative velocity between the two solitons, as expected because of an increase in the interaction length. Fluctuations in both the polarization angle and state are shown to be independent of propagation distance, opening up possibilities for communications, switching, and logic, exploiting these properties of Manakov solitons. Calculations of the phase noise reveal, surprisingly, that the collision-induced fluctuations can be reduced slightly below the level of fluctuations in the absence of collision, due to cross-correlation effects between the collision-induced phase and amplitude fluctuations of the soliton. The squeezing effect of Manakov solitons is also studied and proven, unexpectedly, to have the same theoretical optimum as scalar solitons.


Long Time Coming brings together short stories and poems from thirty-three writers that provide snapshots of this turbulent period in Zimbabwe's history. Snapshots of living in a country where basic services have crumbled: where shops have no food, taps no water, banks no money, hospitals no drugs, bars no beer. Snapshots of characters surviving against seemingly insurmountable odds. Horrific snapshots of the abuse of power, of violence and oppression, of the destruction of dreams. But this is Zimbabwe and there are lighter moments and moments of hope: in some of life's simple pleasures, in the coming of the rains, in the wink and the smile of a stranger, in a challenge to patriarchy, in the inner strength of the people, in fighting back. The writers are Raisedon Baya, Wim Boswinkel, Diana Charsley, Brian Chikwava, Julius Chingono, Mathew Chokuwenga, Bhekilizwe Dube, John Eppel, Peter Finch, Petina Gappah, David Goodwin, Anne Simone Hutton, Monireh Jassat, Ignatius Mabasa, Fungai Rufaro Machirori, Judy Maposa, Deon Marcus, Christopher Mlalazi, Gothataone Moeng, Wame Molefhe, Linda Msebele, Mzana Mthimkhulu, Peter Ncube, Thabisani Ndlovu, Pathisa Nyathi, Andrew Pocock, John S. Read, Bryony Rheam, Lloyd Robson, Ian Rowlands, Owen Sheers, Chaltone Tshabangu and Sandisile Tshuma.


Diploma thesis "Optimization capital charges in VaR model utilizing dynamic risk management strategies" deals with banks opportunity to reduce Basel capital requirements via estimation volatility in VaR model for separate time periods differently. It analyses current crisis, its sources, process, but especially its influence of new worldwide accepted regulatory standards, which require nearly doubled regulatory capital. Regarding high impact to industry return on equity the thesis discusses the possibility of dynamic capital optimization based on alternating conservative and aggressive risk management strategies. Empirical part of thesis tests outcomes of volatility modeling based on historical quotes of six European indexes since 2003, which are classified by volatility levels and broken down into several time periods. We suggest approach which enables financial institutions to reduce the impact of new Basel rules on their ROE, while they meet all VaR model conditions defined by the regulator. However, there are also negative consequences of this lowering level of capital represented by increasing failure rates of models. Although banks are able by suggested approach to achieve capital reduction by 20 percent, they are in the same time forced to use one of a very aggressive strategies. Dynamic estimation of volatility is then proved to be very problematic especially in emerging markets, which exhibit relatively high basic level of volatility. Therefore, time periods optimization earns less savings for banks and shifts model close to failure rate, which is hardly acceptable for regulators. Analysis also showed that developed and emerging markets indexes recorded different course and impact during current crisis, which supports the hypothesis that a uniform regulation fails to capture all characteristics of different markets, even within the European Union, and therefore it should be only a springboard for national regulators. Klíčová slova Krize, Basilejské standardy II, Basilejské standardy III, Value at Risk, kapitálové požadavky, zpětné testování, optimalizace kapitálu, volatilita


Anxiety disorders are a growing problem in the US as they are one of the most common mental illnesses and cost the economy billions for treatment. An alternative to current methods may be to target anxiety vulnerability factors through the incorporation of exercise. By completing the recommended duration of at least 150 minutes of exercise per week for adults, an individual can improve his or her physical and psychological health. Though several studies report the effectiveness of exercise in lowering anxiety sensitivity (i.e., the fear of anxiety-related symptoms), there's little to no research on other well-known vulnerability factors, such as experiential avoidance (i.e., control and/or avoidance of aversive stimuli). The purpose of this study is to see if engaging in exercise reduces the effects of experiential avoidance in adults who experience high levels of AS. Twenty-three participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (exercise vs. rest) and had their AAQ-II scores measured at three different times throughout this study (pre, post and follow-up). The results of this study found that there was a significant decrease in AAQ-II scores between the exercise and rest condition from pre to post, with the exercise condition reporting lower levels of EA.


Abstract We provide estimates of the rates of natural modification of badlands pinnacles formed in soft sediments at two sites in New Zealand and assess the utility of pinnacles for constraining seismic‐hazard models. One of the sites is in a humid temperate environment, and the other is in a semiarid environment. Rates of pinnacle modification of 30–270  mm/yr (equivalent to 3–27  m/century) are estimated by comparison of images acquired one‐to‐two decades apart. The primary mode of modification is the progressive narrowing of the pinnacle column by precipitation‐induced erosion, along with consequent loss of height as the columns become thin and unstable. Additional damage may have been produced by earthquake shaking for specific pinnacles, but in general this is likely to be trivial, given that (1) estimates of the levels of peak ground acceleration (PGA) required to shake down the pinnacles at the two sites are at least a factor of 5–13 greater than the PGAs predicted or measured from regional earthquakes during the time periods of observation (in other words they would only be significantly damaged by major local earthquakes) and (2) a fragile pinnacle has actually formed in the time periods of observation. The pinnacle modification rates are rapid enough that they would not have existed one‐to‐two centuries ago or would have been of substantially different geometries. As such, pinnacles are unlikely to be useful for constraining seismic‐hazard models for return periods greater than a few decades, at least in the context of the New Zealand environment.


A comprehensive introduction to bootstrap methods in the R programming environmentBootstrap methods provide a powerful approach to statistical data analysis, as they have more general applications than standard parametric methods. An Introduction to Bootstrap Methods with Applications to R explores the practicality of this approach and successfully utilizes R to illustrate applications for the bootstrap and other resampling methods. This book provides a modern introduction to bootstrap methods for readers who do not have an extensive background in advanced mathematics. Emphasis throughout is on the use of bootstrap methods as an exploratory tool, including its value in variable selection and other modeling environments.The authors begin with a description of bootstrap methods and its relationship to other resampling methods, along with an overview of the wide variety of applications of the approach. Subsequent chapters offer coverage of improved confidence set estimation, estimation of error rates in discriminant analysis, and applications to a wide variety of hypothesis testing and estimation problems, including pharmaceutical, genomics, and economics. To inform readers on the limitations of the method, the book also exhibits counterexamples to the consistency of bootstrap methods.An introduction to R programming provides the needed preparation to work with the numerous exercises and applications presented throughout the book. A related website houses the book's R subroutines, and an extensive listing of references provides resources for further study.Discussing the topic at a remarkably practical and accessible level, An Introduction to Bootstrap Methods with Applications to R is an excellent book for introductory courses on bootstrap and resampling methods at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as an insightful reference for practitioners working with data in engineering, medicine, and the social sciences who would like to acquire a basic understanding of bootstrap methods.


The dynamic policy routing model (DPR) was re- cently introduced to explicitly model the dynamics of policy routing. DPR extends the formalism of the stable paths problem with discrete synchronous time to capture the propagation of path changes in any dynamic network using a structure called the causation chain. In this work, we extend DPR by introducing several novel structures, namely, causation fences and policy digraphs that provide further insight into how the dynamics of policy routing manifest in the network. Using our extensions to DPR, we solve a fundamental problem: policy conflict detection. We show how the root cause of any cycle of routing update messages, under any routing policy configuration, can be precisely inferred as either a transient route flap or a policy conflict. We also develop SAFETYPULSE, a token-based distributed algorithm to detect policy conflicts in any dynamic network. SAFETYPULSE has several novel characteristics, namely, it is privacy preserving, computationally efficient and provably correct.


Morphogenetic effects of various extracellular matrix proteins on the renal podocyte were investigated using the conditionally immortalized podocyte cell line. Podocytes were plated on glass coverslips and coated with the following matrix proteins: laminin-10/11, laminin-1, fibronectin, collagen type IV, collagen type I. Three hours after plating, podocytes on laminins developed prominent processes, while those on other matrix proteins started to elongate processes after two days. Vinculin-immunolabeling showed that podocytes plated on laminins possessed thin rod-shaped focal contacts, whereas those on fibronectin showed large dot-shaped focal contacts. Inhibition of serine/threonine protein kinases induced podocyte process formation in an extracellular matrix-independent manner. The present study reveals the significance of laminin on podocyte morphogenesis in vitro, and shows that different extracellular matrix proteins trigger different intracellular signals governing podocyte morphogenesis. Taken together with our previous studies, podocyte process formation is thought to be regulated by protein Ser/Thr phosphorylation.


Abstract This article revisits the influential partisan alignment hypothesis, which posits that subnational governments aligned with central governments exhibit higher expenditures. To promote their own and their party's re-election chances, central government politicians allocate more resources to ideologically aligned co-partisans at the subnational level. Consequently, aligned subnational governments exhibit higher expenditures than non-aligned ones. This article examines alignment effects in subnational education spending. Education is a crucial test case because, unlike other expenditures, the allocation of education spending is discretionary and often does not follow precise formulas. Using a novel dataset covering 266 subnational regions in 14 countries over 20 years, we offer the first cross-country analysis of alignment effects. Controlling for rival explanations, the findings reveal alignment effects on subnational education expenditures. Furthermore, political institutions matter, as alignment effects are stronger in countries where subnational governments have more discretion over education policy while lacking their own revenue sources (vertical fiscal imbalance). These findings imply that decentralisation might increase educational and socio-economic inequalities.


Multi-view learning can provide self-supervision when different views are available of the same data. Distributional hypothesis provides another form of useful self-supervision from adjacent sentences which are plentiful in large unlabelled corpora. Motivated by the asymmetry in the two hemispheres of the human brain as well as the observation that different learning architectures tend to emphasise different aspects of sentence meaning, we present two multi-view frameworks for learning sentence representations in an unsupervised fashion. One framework uses a generative objective and the other a discriminative one. In both frameworks, the final representation is an ensemble of two views, in which, one view encodes the input sentence with a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), and the other view encodes it with a simple linear model. We show that, after learning, the vectors produced by our multi-view frameworks provide improved representations over their single-view learnt counterparts, and the combination of different views gives representational improvement over each view and demonstrates solid transferability on standard downstream tasks.


Water is now considered a scarce but essential resource that should be managed in an integrated manner. The traditional approaches of resource development are now considered as unsustainable. Water demand management (WDM) is a new approach that aims at influencing demand & thus improving distribution efficiency. Economic measure through water tariff is one of the WDM tools. Water tariffs are recognized to be one way of curbing growth in water demand, and encouraging more efficient use of water. It is essential for the effective and equitable allocation of water resources. This paper investigates different water tariff structures & seeks to identify the factors affecting WDM through tariffs. The paper pays particular attention to the situation in Bahrain through preliminary exploration of price elasticity of demand for water and its comparison with figures from other countries.


When Dr Mason Sones made the first major advance in interventional cardiology over 50 years ago with the advent of 'selective coronary angiography', 1 it is unlikely that he or others could have imagined its future pivotal role in the current revascularisation era, or perhaps the era itself! Then, selective coronary angiography quickly became a widespread and indispensible tool in the diagnosis of symptomatic obstructive coronary artery disease, and it was not long before alternatives to coronary artery bypass surgery emerged. Dotter and Judkins2 first introduced the concept of 'recanalisation of arterio-sclerotic obstructions' with the use of an intraluminal catheter, and Andreas Gruntzig took one giant step further in 1974 when he developed double lumen catheters with expansive qualities and demonstrated their utilisation in the dilatation of arterial obstruction in animal models. In Zurich in 1977 his first ischaemic patient underwent coronary reperfusion by the use of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty.3

'Dr Andreas Gruntzig and his colleagues are to be congratulated… [He] provides evidence that… balloon angioplasty can effectively dilate highly stenotic coronary vessels and provide immediate improvement in coronary perfusion.'4

Urgent reperfusion for acute myocardial infarction (MI) is now commonplace with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) being the treatment of choice in ST-segment elevation MI5. PPCI reduces mortality and decreases the rate of stroke and re-infarction; timing is important in this reduction.6 As well as a reduction in reperfusion time, we strive to achieve procedural success without complications. In percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), but PPCI in particular, bleeding is a major complication as it can limit our ability to administer antithrombotic agents. Bleeding is an independent risk factor, increasing mortality and …


Introduction: Philosophy for Children (P4C) has enabled schools to engage with what is typically thought of as an 'academic' discipline and has provided the opportunity to unlock a rich educational experience for children from a diverse range of backgrounds (Madrid, 2008; Topping and Trickey, 2007; Douglas, 2003). A wide range of qualitative and quantitative studies have emerged looking at P4C in terms of the development of students at the social, academic and emotional level (Topping and Trickey, 2004; Hand and Winstanley, 2009; Lane and Lane, 1986; Williams, 1993; Trickey, 2006; Lone, 2001; Reed, 1987; Murphy et al., 2009). However, while there have been many P4C papers that have 'teacher' in the title, these are often about teacher training – including 'hints and tips' (e.g. Lipman, 1987; Marie-France, 1988; Popen, 1996; Burgh and O'Brien, 2002; Johnson and Pines, 1979) and curriculum development (e.g. Malanga, 1988; Weinstein, 1986; Cam, 2006; Stan, 1996; Wilks, 1993). Relatively few studies have looked at the effect of teaching P4C on teachers themselves (notable among these are Splitter, 2000a and 2000b; Yeazell, 1979). This paper considers how P4C affects teachers, in particular whether teaching P4C has led teachers to develop new pedagogical approaches, different ways of thinking critically and whether it has changed how they engage with their students, colleagues and their school.
The paper centred on a case study of one group of teachers at a large primary academy in the UK that has been delivering P4C for the last two years at all levels from Reception through to Year 6. The school is situated in an economically deprived coastal area of the UK. Nearly two thirds of students at the school are eligible for the Pupil Premium, a key indicator of economic deprivation, which is significantly above the national average. The number of students with a statement of special educational needs and the number of students for whom English is not their first language are both above average.
Students in the school have a weekly P4C class that lasts for 45 minutes and is structured around a particular stimulus that the teacher locates for each lesson. The senior leadership team has been particularly supportive of this approach and consequently all staff members have received Level 1 training from the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education, an organisation that aims to promote P4C in the UK. The authors of this paper completed three in-depth semi-structured interviews with members of staff from the school: the Vice Principal, the P4C curriculum leader and a class teacher, all three of whom taught regular P4C sessions for an entire academic year. The three participants volunteered to take part as they all had particular interests in P4C. Each interview lasted for around thirty minutes and a series of common questions were put to the interviewees, with particular areas explored with supplementary questions where appropriate. The interviews were then transcribed and themes drawn out by each of the interviewers, coding the scripts independently and then comparing their notes. Four key themes were identified and they form the structure for this paper, being the link between P4C and approaches to teaching; approaches to students; links within the professional community and approaches to the purposes of education.
As a case study the generalisability of the conclusions is limited, offering only an investigation into how the teachers in this particular setting experienced teaching P4C. However, aspects of transferability can be drawn out through 'particularisation' as the conclusions of the case study are compared with the findings of broader research (Stake, 1995; Thomas, 2010).


The study was designed to compare the growth performance, digestibility and concentration of phosphorous (P) and calcium (Ca) in blood plasma, tibia bone and excreta in juvenile birds fed different commercially available sources of inorganic P. Day-old Hubbard broiler chickens (180) were randomly assigned to one of 4 dietary treatments (A-D), replicated three times with 15 birds per cage. All diets were corn soyabean based and the only difference was the source of inorganic P. The diets were supplemented with 1.20% MCP imported, 1.65% DCP local, 1.65% DCP imported and 1.65% bone ash and were designated as treatment A, B, C and D respectively. The diets were fed for the period of 21 days. On day 21, 3 birds per cage were randomly selected and euthanized. Blood plasma, tibia bone and total excreta were collected to calculate total Ca and P concentration. Feed intake and total excreta collected over the last 3 days (day 19 to 21) were used to calculate dry matter digestibilities (DMD). The results showed that growth performance of broilers up to 21 days of age was not affected (P>0.05) by the different sources of inorganic P, provided that the level of available P in diet remains 0.4%. However, diets containing DCP local outperformed compared to all P sources in terms of digestibility. The concentration of total Ca and P values showed no differences (P>0.05) in bone and excreta samples but the values were higher (P<0.05) in blood plasma from birds fed diets containing MCP and DCP diets compared to those on bone ash. The study suggests that indigenous source of DCP used in this study could replace the imported source and thus have potential to improve P digestibility.


There is a growing library of literature on the relationship between self and culture. Most studies (Cousins, 1989; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Sampson, 1989) in this area are quantitative and approach culture as a concept that is "intemally homogenous and externally distinctive" (Hennans & Kempen, 1998, p.1113). Such studies have found cross-cultural differences in how people define their sense of self. This has led to a classificatory approach to self and culture such that the western and non-western self have been defined as distinct from one another. This thesis explores the appropriateness of such cultural dichotomies from a novel, dialogical perspective of self (Hennans, Rijks & Kempen, 1993) which allows for the special investigation of self and culture A qualitative methodology was adopted for this investigation, within the narrative paradigm. ~arrative interviews were conducted with a sample of twelve women between the ages of35 and 50 years and these women were varied by ethnicity as one measure of culture. A voicecentred relational method (Mauthner & Doucet, 1998) was used to analyse the interviews. Both investigative and methodological aims were forn1Ulated during the analysis. Investigative aims explore the appropriateness of the dichotomisation of the self as western and non-western. The results of the analysis question such cultural dichotomies criticised by Spiro (1993) and yet so prevalent in self and cultural studies (Cousins, 1989; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Sampson, 1989). Frequently in the narratives there is an interweaving of individualistic and collectivist characteristics. Such a co-existence of traits is accommodated by the dialogical view of self, which provides a large enough framework to account for both interdependent and independent characteristics in the same self. 11 The methodological aims directed the researcher to investigate the appropriateness of the measurements of self and culture adopted by traditional approaches (Cousins, 1989; Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Sampson, 1989). The results of the thesis suggest that as intercultural connections are becoming increasingly common, culture needs to be recognised as a complex concept that is no longer homogenous. Cross-cultural approaches to this area are questioned by this investigation because of their tendency to simplify and categorise the self and culture. It is proposed that future research should approach this area of self and culture as an intersection or interface of complex factors that are not easily homogenised or dichotomised. The findings point to the value of qualitative research, and in particular the framework of the dialogical self, for exploring this interface.


Batch normalization (BN) is a technique to normalize activations in intermediate layers of deep neural networks. Its tendency to improve accuracy and speed up training have established BN as a favorite technique in deep learning. Yet, despite its enormous success, there remains little consensus on the exact reason and mechanism behind these improvements. In this paper we take a step towards a better understanding of BN, following an empirical approach. We conduct several experiments, and show that BN primarily enables training with larger learning rates, which is the cause for faster convergence and better generalization. For networks without BN we demonstrate how large gradient updates can result in diverging loss and activations growing uncontrollably with network depth, which limits possible learning rates. BN avoids this problem by constantly correcting activations to be zero-mean and of unit standard deviation, which enables larger gradient steps, yields faster convergence and may help bypass sharp local minima. We further show various ways in which gradients and activations of deep unnormalized networks are ill-behaved. We contrast our results against recent findings in random matrix theory, shedding new light on classical initialization schemes and their consequences.


The popularity of the soundtrack to the motion picture "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" brought an extraordinary amount of attention to bluegrass, but it also drew its share of criticism from some aficionados who felt the album's inclusion of more modern tracks misrepresented the genre. This soundtrack, these purists argued, wasn't bluegrass, but "roots music," a new and, indeed, more overarching category concocted by journalists and marketers. Why is it that popular music genres like these and others are so passionately contested? And how is it that these genres emerge, coalesce, change, and die out? "In Genre in Popular Music", Fabian Holt provides new understanding as to why we debate music categories, and why those terms are unstable and always shifting. To tackle the full complexity of genres in popular music, Holt embarks on a wide-ranging and ambitious collection of case studies. Here he examines not only the different reactions to "O Brother", but also the impact of rock and roll's explosion in the 1950s and 1960s on country music and jazz, and how the jazz and indie music scenes have intermingled to expand the borders of their respective genres. Throughout, Holt finds that genres are an integral part of musical culture - fundamental both to musical practice and experience and to the social organization of musical life.


The first years of Bauhaus happen to be inside the period where the concept of crafts has been scorned as a result of mechanization, industrialization, and social developments. Architects and artists who began studying different fields because of the variety in idea and arts following the modernizm movement, contributed much to this disintegration. The production of unaesthetic mass products has caused the construction of constitutions that intend to unify crafts and design. Bauhaus design school found in 1919 in Germany, has been reknown all over the world with its innovative design education approach. The greatest property of Bauhaus is the thinking processes where crafts are transformed into design. Through these processes many world famous master craftsmen and artisan have created design experiments by sharing their own theories with their students. For this reason, the objective of this research was to investigate the craft workshops of Bauhaus, which were founded by Walter Gropius after the First World War, together with their curriculum and the prepatory courses known as die Vorkurs, since Bauhaus has pioneered for interactive and multidisciplinary design education approach, preparing a medium of contributive workshop of crafts and design


Objective: Study highlighting prices, i.e., the patients actually pay at ground level is important for interventions such as alternate procurement schemes or to expedite regulatory assessment of essential medicines for children. The present study was undertaken to study pricing and component analysis of few key essential medicines in Odisha state. Methodology: Six child-specific medicines of different formulations were selected based on use in different disease condition and having widest pricing variation. Data were collected, entered, and analyzed in the price components data collection form of the World Health Organization-Health Action International (WHO-HAI) 2007 Workbook version 5 – Part II provided as part of the WHO/HAI methodology. The analysis includes the cumulative percent markup, total cumulative percent markup, and percent contribution of individual components to the final medicine price in both public and private sector of Odisha state. Results: Add-on costs such as taxes, wholesale, and retail markups contribute substantially to the final price of medicines in private sector, particularly for branded-generic products. The largest contributor to add-on costs is at the level of retailer shop. Conclusion: Policy should be framed to achieve a greater transparency and uniformity of the pricing of medicines at different health sectors of Odisha.


After the 2008 global financial crisis, US law schools suffered a steep drop in enrollment. In response, many professional law programs, especially so-called fourth-tier institutions, turned to ethnoracial minorities as a new market for student recruitment. They relaxed admissions standards, enabling more "diverse" students to finance their studies with guaranteed federal student loans. By raising diversity in a lower-status "southern hemisphere" of legal education and services, however, this new approach replaced outright exclusion with a racialized professional dualism justified by the neoliberal ideology of market access. Some have called this an "apartheid model"—a freighted term with broad theoretical and ethical entanglements. This pairing of race and free-market logics resembles wider, specious extensions of market citizenship into the global peripheries. [law, education, professions, neoliberalism, race, markets, United States]


Background The chronic genetic blood disorder, thalassemia, affects Quality of life (QOL) negatively. Regarding this, if adolescences with thalassemia are treated well, they will grow into an adult who will have a good potential for participating in society. Objectives: to determine the strongest predictor of QOL, compare QOL between the adolescents with beta-type major and their peers in Abadan city. Materials and Methods This was a cross-sectional study; the population consisted of 65 beta thalassemia major patients and 65  healthy peers with the same ages as the witness group. The data collection tools included SF-36 questionnaire and a questionnaire for demographic information. Data analysis was performed using independent t-test, correlation and linear regression by SPSS-16. Results The results of the study revealed that there is a significant difference (P < 0.05) in the average quality of life between the two groups of the study. On the other hand, the results showed that there was a meaningful relation between different aspects of life quality and family history of thalassemia            (P< 0.05). Also, there was a negative correlation between quality of life and the frequency of blood transfusion per year (P< 0.05). Conclusion Adolescences with beta thalassemia major do not have a desirable quality of life, therefore, this fact shows the necessity of serious reforming in various fields of health care, treatment, family, social and financial support, and rehabilitation that need more attention from health care policymakers.


In this new and outstanding book Noam Chomsky develops his thinking on the relation between language, mind, and brain, integrating current research in linguistics into the burgeoning field of neuroscience. The volume begins with a lucid introduction by the editors Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi. This is followed by some of Chomsky's recent writings on these themes, together with a penetrating interview in which Chomsky provides the clearest and most elegant introduction to current theory available. It should make his Minimalist Program accessible to all. The volume concludes with an essay on the role of intellectuals in society and government. On Nature and Language is a significant landmark in the development of linguistic theory. It will be welcomed by students and researchers in theoretical linguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science, and politics, as well as anyone interested in the development of Chomsky's thought.


This qualitative study sought to examine the experience of Asian Americans who provide housing and financial support for first-generation biological Asian parents aged 65 and older. Semi-structured interviews regarding how participants came to take care of their parents, the impact it had on close relationships and participants' plans, the impact of cultural background on taking care of their parents, and the positive aspects of caring for their parents were conducted with eight second-generation adult Asians in the U.S. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis and themes were organized around the areas of inquiry. Participants spoke about fulfilling caregiving responsibilities out of love and obligation; the positive and negative impact of caregiving on relationships with parents, siblings, and significant others; the challenges associated with their own decreased independence and the difficulty of seeing parents age; the benefits of the instrumental support that they received from parents and closer grandparentgrandchild relationships; impact on financial and housing plans; and the expectation of nonfinancial care from their children. Despite living in an individualistic society, participants appeared to endorse values of filial piety by taking care of their parents. Further, the participants' hopes that their children would continue taking care of elderly family members in non-financial ways in the future suggests that while they maintain the cultural value of filial piety, it is being adapted to the reality of living in an individualistic society. Limitations, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed.


The books by Darwin and by Dana about their youthful journeys exemplify writing that consolidates processes of self-formation and intellectual enfranchisement. The formative process, which would culminate in these books, began in both cases as an act of resistance. Darwin embarked on his voyage at the age of 22 in December 1831, and Dana at the age of 19 in August 1834, in order to put off embarking upon their apparently destined careers. Darwin was resisting a career in the Church, while the more rebellious Dana abandoned undergraduate study at Harvard not only to avoid a legal career but to escape the debilitating ills of civilization itself. Despite or because of the tradition of male writers in their families, neither youth intended, when setting out on the journey, to contribute with a book about it to the literature of his civilization. Instead of following the well-established pattern of the grand tour to the classical sites of Mediterranean civilization, our young men travelled westward towards more primitive settings. Their ships doubled the coasts of South America, and we can individuate the two points at which they most nearly crossed paths. On about 20 November 1834, Dana's ship the Pilgrim moving north and Darwin's Beagle moving south crossed the same latitude just above the island of Chiloe off the coast of Chile. Then on about 17 August 1836, while the Beagle was anchored in the Brazilian port of Pernambuco, Dana's ship the Alert sailed past that port on its homeward journey. The Alert returned to Boston on 20 September and the Beagle to Falmouth on 2 October 1836. Although the two young men sailed by one another without meeting, the books about their travels--Darwin's first published in 1839 and Dana's in 1840-emerge as analogous productions of the historical moment. They express a liberating energy that while motivating the self-formation of the protagonists also has implications for the larger intellectual and cultural environment. That energy operates simultaneously in the context of Darwin's scientific research and in the framework of maritime commerce in which Dana's story unfolds. Both travellers began their journeys with a concern, not explicitly confessed in the books, about their health. Dana suffered from impaired eyesight, evidently stemming from both physiological and psychological causes, that prevented him from reading and so continuing his career as a student. Darwin suffered from hypochondriac indigestion and heart problems. Both of them hoped that the voyage would have tonic effects. But after sailing away from home, both were dismayed to realise that they might be infecting the populations of the ports at which they called with other diseases of which they were unwitting carriers. In the very first paragraph of his account, Darwin reports ominously that at Teneriffe the ship is "prevented landing, by fears of our bringing the cholera" (Voyage 11). (1) The contamination brought by ships like his to what have once been healthier settings emerges as an even more "melancholy" fact for Darwin in the islands of the Pacific. "Wherever the European has trod," he reflects, "death seems to pursue the aboriginal": The varieties of man seem to act on each other in the same way as different species of animals--the stronger always extirpating the weaker. It was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic natives saying, that they knew the land was doomed to pass from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages. ... The Rev J. Williams ... says, that the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is invariably attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery, or some other disease, which carries off numbers of the people. ... It is certainly a fact, which cannot be controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged in the islands during my residence there, have been introduced by ships; and what renders this fact remarkable is, that there might be no appearance of disease among the crew of the ship which conveyed this destructive importation. …


The motivation to this research is the study of the optimal stopping problem for multiparameter processes : given a random process depending on finitely many parameters t = (t1,…,tn), which if stopped at point t in the parameter set produces a reward Xt, what random stopping point T = (T1,…,Tn) maximizes the expected reward ? This is a natural model for a gambler who has the choice of playing several different games and of stopping at the most advantageous time. Of course, the decision to stop at a given point should only depend on the information available at that point, so the maximum is taken over the set T of non-anticipative strategies. The case n = 1 has been extensively studied over the last twenty years or so, but when n > 1, the problem is quite different and much less is known so far. Since most difficulties are already present when n = 2, our study is centered on this case. The first question relative to the optimal stopping problem that needs to be addressed is whether optimal stopping rules exist under suitable regularity assumptions on the reward process. This reduces to showing that the function T→E(XT) attains its maximum at some point T0∈T. It is thus natural to embed T into some larger ("randomized") set U with certain convexity and compactness properties, in such a way that T→E(XT) can be extended to a function with sufficient regularity that a maximum over U will exist. The choice of randomization should be such that one can then recover a maximum over T. The regularity question can often be solved by an approximation of upper semi-continuous multiparameter processes by continuous ones (see Chapter 9). This technique will enable us to show that upper semi-continuity of the sample paths of the reward process guarantees regularity of the extension of the map T→E(XT). As for the randomization question, a natural extension of a method developed for single-parameter processes leads to the convex set U of randomized stopping points. Contrary to the single-parameter case, the set of extremal elements of U may properly contain T. An important object of study is to determine sufficient conditions on the underlying information structure that ensure equality of these two sets. This has led to several developments in graph theory, convexity theory and stochastic processes. Insight about the set of randomized stopping points can be obtained by examining this set when it is finite-dimensional (see Chapter 4). In this case, U is a bounded polyhedron P defined by a (0,1)-matrix. An interesting analogy appears : maximizing over T is similar to solving an integer program, whereas maximizing over U is similar to solving a linear program. This observation is of importance for the practical numerical solution of an optimal stopping problem. These two problems are equivalent when the polytope P is perfect, and conditions for this can be expressed in terms of perfect graphs. Relating properties of the information structure in the two-parameter probabilistic model to properties of the associated graph leads to a new class of perfectly orderable graphs. These combinatorial techniques give considerable insight into the increase in complexity of the information structure when passing from one to two parameters : the single-parameter case is quite restricted, whereas the two-parameter case is in a certain sense already the most general (see Chapter 5). Furthermore, these methods enable us to show, in a finite-dimensional setting, that under a classical hypothesis on the two-parameter probabilistic model, all extremal elements of U are stopping points. Structural properties of the two-parameter information structure on arbitrary probability spaces are also examined. Most results on two-parameter processes have been obtained under Hypothesis F4 of Cairoli and Walsh. However, this hypothesis is not invariant under a change of equivalent measure, whereas a weaker hypothesis CQI, introduced by Krengel and Sucheston, is. Though one could hope that CQI would imply the existence of an equivalent measure such that F4 holds, we show through an example that this is not the case. Furthermore, in discrete time, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an equivalent measure such that F4 holds (see Chapter 2). Since the initial optimal stopping problem will usually lead to an infinite-dimensional set U, extensions of results on finite perfect graphs and polytopes to such settings becomes of interest. Results in this direction are presented in Chapter 6. But the extension to discrete time and arbitrary probability spaces is achieved using a purely probabilistic decomposition of a non-extremal randomized stopping point on N2 into a convex combination of two others. The intuition behind this construction comes from a detailed study of "two-parameter graphs", and the probabilistic tool is a "conditional supremum" operator (see Chapter 7), which has many properties of conditional expectation, but is invariant under a change of equivalent measure. In fact, a conditional qualitative independence hypothesis on the two-parameter filtration becomes a commutation property of this operator. Extensions of this result to a continuous parameter setting are examined. However, extending the decomposition of a randomized stopping point would require the construction of a continuous time optional increasing path. This kind of construction can be done, in the presence of some regularity hypothesis, by solving certain random differential equations (see Chapter 3). But no regularity is present in the continuous parameter setting. This and other difficulties motivate the use of techniques from infinitesimal stochastic calculus for the study of this extension (see Chapter 8). By constructing a canonical hyperfinite probability space for two-parameter processes, which satisfies Hypothesis F4 of Cairoli and Walsh, we can "lift" two-parameter randomized stopping points to hyperfinite weight processes. This lifting enables, via the Transfer Principle, a continuous time solution by the methods developed in the discrete case. Certain difficulties related to the two-parameters, which do not appear in the hyperfinite theory for single-parameter processes, are solved using the "conditional supremum" operator described above. With this result, we obtain the existence of optimal stopping points for upper semicontinuous two-parameter processes defined on this canonical hyperfinite probability space. Though this result does not say how a player can achieve an optimal reward, no simple solution to such a question is to be expected. Indeed, some stopping points lie on a unique optional increasing path (see Chapter 3), and so any mistake by the player, even early in the game, may prevent him from attaining the optimal stopping point. Many questions pertaining to the optimal stopping problem remain to be solved, but it seems reasonable to hope that blending Stochastic Processes and Discrete Mathematics, two areas generally considered disparate, together with the hyperfinite techniques of Non-Standard Analysis, should lead to many further interesting developments.