Written for The University of Pennsylvania Law Review's symposium, Fairness to Whom? Perspectives on the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, this article evaluates the largely ignored settlement notice provision. The provision mandates that notice of every class action settlement within CAFA's purview must be provided to appropriate federal and state officials. The relevant federal official is the U.S. Attorney General. As for the states, the relevant official is the one who has primary regulatory or supervisory responsibility with respect to the defendant, or who licenses or otherwise authorizes the defendant to conduct business in the State, or, by default, the AG of any state in which any class member lives.Some legal scholars have begun to ask whether CAFA's settlement notice provision will awaken a sleeping giant. The scant existing commentary is of two minds. This perhaps reflects the juxtaposition of the lofty goal of aggressive AG monitoring against the fact that the AGs lack a precise mandate for official review, let alone any additional resources for the endeavor. At this early juncture, it is too soon to tell whether the CAFA settlement notice provision will have a significant impact on private settlements of class actions, let alone any wider impact in motivating state AGs to police more aggressively certain types of misconduct. To the extent that the provision does have a marked effect, it will most likely be due to the increased availability of information and to the facilitation of coordinated efforts on behalf of groups of state AGs. In order to assess the overall effect, it is necessary to delve beneath the layer of formal activity to probe the informal bargaining and negotiation taking place at the behest of state AGs. The settlement notice provision also provides a window on an even grander topic: CAFA as regulatory policy. As if through a refracting lens, the view of CAFA is transformed by the angle from which it is viewed. The Article sets forth a series of progressively unfolding dyads in order to highlight the state/federal, ex ante/ex post, and public/private dimensions of regulatory policy implicated by CAFA. This triad of matrices proves a useful framework for evaluating the design of optimal regulatory policy - a large domain of which the CAFA settlement notice provision is but one small part.


Shamos [1] recently showed that the diameter of a convex n-sided polygon could be computed in O(n) time using a very elegant and simple procedure which resembles rotating a set of calipers around the polygon once. In this paper we show that this simple idea can be generalized in two ways: several sets of calipers can be used simultaneously on one convex polygon, or one set of calipers can be used on several convex polygons simultaneously. We then show that these generalizations allow us to obtain simple O(n) algorithms for solving a variety of problems defined on convex polygons. Such problems include (1) finding the minimum-area rectangle enclosing a polygon, (2) computing the maximum distance between two polygons, (3) performing the vector-sum of two polygons, (4) merging polygons in a convex hull finding algorithms, and (5) finding the critical support lines between two polygons. Finding the critical support lines, in turn, leads to obtaining solutions to several additional problems concerned with visibility, collision, avoidance, range fitting, linear separability, and computing the Grenander distance between sets.


Employing two state-of-the-art methods, multiconfiguration Dirac–Hartree–Fock and second-order many-body perturbation theory, the excitation energies and lifetimes for the lowest 200 states of the , , , , , , , , and configurations, and multipole (electric dipole (E1), magnetic dipole (M1), and electric quadrupole (E2)) transition rates, line strengths, and oscillator strengths among these states are calculated for each O-like ion, from Cr xvii to Zn xxiii. Our two data sets are compared with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and CHIANTI compiled values, and previous calculations. The data are accurate enough for identification and deblending of new emission lines from the Sun and other astrophysical sources. The amount of high-accuracy data is significantly increased for the n = 3 states of several O-like ions of astrophysical interest, where experimental data are very scarce.


Achieving equitable and sustainable ecotourism requires a wide range of multidisciplinary and cross-scale information, particularly given the growing scale of ecotourism operations and continuing governance and climate challenges. Ecosystems in Mexico's Gulf of California and Baja California Peninsula support a thriving ecotourism industry that has quickly expanded over the last few decades, potentially outpacing research into current performance and future sustainable development opportunities. We develop and apply a formal literature review approach to characterize academic marine ecotourism literature, highlight key insights and identify research strengths and gaps, and thus analyse almost 50 publications for the region from 1994 to 2014. There has been a significant increase in the number of various types of publications; most (68%) focus on ecological themes, 25% on economics, and 7% on social aspects of human wellbeing. There are also trends towards research on specific species (e.g. mammals, fish and sharks) and in specific areas. A common theme in publication conclusions is the need for collaboration from all stakeholder groups. We discuss these findings, and address potential limitations of our method, with a view to informing sound policies to ensure that ecotourism can provide equitable benefits to local communities while incentivizing sustainable practices and nature conservation.


A team of researchers successfully engineered T cells to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that targets a mutation associated with a particularly aggressive form of glioblastoma, laying the foundation for a phase I clinical trial. In a preclinical study, researchers redirected humanized CAR T cells to bind to the EGFR variant III mutation (EGFRvIII), a common variant of EGFR in human tumors that occurs in about 30% of patients with glioblastoma and is associated with poorer prognosis. Investigators designed CAR T cells using humanized singlechain variable fragments (scFv) that showed specifi city for EGFRvIII over wild-type EGFR. In mice, the EGFRvIII CAR T cells successfully controlled tumor growth, and deeper regression was observed when they were combined with temozolomide chemotherapy, a standard treatment for glioblastoma (Sci Transl Med 2015;7:275ra22). "Studying genetically engineered T cells is a hot area because of the tremendous success there has been with leukemia," says the study's senior author Marcela Maus, MD, PhD, assistant professor of hematology/ oncology at the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "This phase I trial will be the fi rst time that we are trying this particular method of engineering T cells to target glioblastoma in humans." Although CAR T-cell therapy has shown promise for treating blood cancers, solid tumors have been more challenging because many targetable surface antigens on solid tumors are also expressed in normal cells. However, the authors noted that EGFRvIII might be an ideal CAR target because it is specifi c to malignant cells and plays a critical role in maintaining oncogenesis. The researchers, including scientists from Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, tested a panel of scFvs in silico and in vitro in order to determine the degree of specifi city to EGFRvIII and cross specifi city with wild-type EGFR. They then further tested the lead humanized CAR for safety in mouse models grafted with normal EGFRexpressing human skin. The investigators also tested the lead humanized CAR for effi cacy in three mouse models implanted with human glioblastoma cell lines, says Maus. The CAR T cells controlled or shrank most tumors whether the tumors were intracranial or under the skin. Administered intravenously, the engineered T cells controlled the tumor most effectively when given in combination with temozolomide. The study is the basis for a new phase I trial, based at Penn and the University of California, San Francisco, that is currently enrolling up to 12 adults with EGFRvIII-positive glioblastoma who have either relapsed after standard therapy or have residual disease following surgery, says Maus. Investigators will remove patients' own T cells and reprogram them to target EGFRvIII-expressing tumor cells when they are returned to the patients via intravenous injection. ■


The Organization of American States (OAS) has provided a regional multilateral forum for its member states for almost 70 years. Since its inception in 1948 it has facilitated and steered several policies and proposals within the mandate of achieving peace and justice and defending the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its members. In the area of promoting democracy, the OAS has been the pioneer in observing elections in sovereign states. This paper traces the evolution of international election observation by the OAS from the earlier ad hoc missions in the 1960s throughout the Cold War entangled missions of the 1970s and 1980s. It shows how election observation has become a regularized feature of elections in the majority of OAS member states during the Twentyfirst Century. Finally, it explores some of the


This paper evaluates green stimulus packages that were introduced in response to the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-08 and draws lessons relevant for greening the recovery from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. The paper underscores the importance of building in policy evaluation mechanisms into green stimulus measures. It also provides evidence that the implementation of sufficiently large, timely and properly designed green stimulus measures can generate economic growth, create jobs and bring about environmental benefits. However, there are also trade-offs between competing economic, environmental and social policy objectives, which underscores the importance of proper policy design.


Postharvest rotting caused by Penicillium italicum Wermer is responsible for significant economic losses of orange (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osbeck) and lemon (C. limon Burm. f.) worldwide, but until now was not described on lemons (C. aurantifolia (Chistm.) Swingle) in Mexico. During May 2002, we analyzed 400 fruits of lemon collected in the state of Colima, which is the most important lemon producer in Mexico. Rotting and softened areas covered with a white mycelium and blue conidia were observed on approximately 30% of the fruits. Affected tissue was plated onto potato dextrose agar (PDA) for fungal isolation and identification. Following the morphological criteria (1) and the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1), 5.8S, and ITS2 region of the ribosomal DNA (2) (GenBank Accession No. DQ991463), the fungus was identified as P. italicum and deposited in the Colección Microbiana y de Cultivos Celulares CINVESTAV-IPN, México. For the pathogenicity test, the fungus was grown on PDA for 1 week. Four drops (15 μl each) of a sterile water suspension of 106 conidia per ml were placed in four wounds of 3 × 3 × 3 mm produced with a scalpel on the fruit surface. Five plastic boxes with six fruits each were placed in an environmental chamber at 12°C and 90% relative humidity. After 10 days, all fruit rotted in a similar way as naturally infected fruit on trees. Control fruits inoculated with sterile distilled water were symptomless. The test was repeated and the results were similar, confirming Koch's postulates. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the isolation and pathogenicity of P. italicum on lemon (C. aurantifolia) in Colima, Mexico, which may have important implications in fruit quality and storage. References: (1) Z. Kozakieweicz. IMI Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria. 155, Sheet 1548, 2002. (2) M. J. Pianzzola et al. Plant. Dis. 88:23, 2004.


We investigate the possibilities of the backward four-wave coupling based on the nonlocal photorefractive response for the nonlinear deceleration of light pulses. The presence of an additional external variable parameter—the pump intensity ratio—allows to improve the output characteristics of the decelerated pulses compared to those typical of the two-wave coupling. In particular, large delay times of the output pulses can be achieved without their strong amplification. This positive distinctive feature of the pulse deceleration occurs far from threshold of the mirrorless optical oscillation.


We use gravitational lens systems in which a galaxy produces multiple images of a distant quasar to study the properties of both the unresolved structure of the lensed quasar and the mass distribution in the gravitational lens. First, we estimate the size and the logarithmic slope of the temperature profile in the accretion disk of the lensed quasar Q2237+0305 using a method that is independent of the component velocities, based on six epochs of multi-wavelength narrowband images from the Nordic Optical Telescope. A statistical comparison of the observed microlensing with simulations based on microlensing magnification maps gives Bayesian estimates for the half-light radius of ~8 light-days at 1736 A in the rest frame, and an exponent of the logarithmic temperature profile close to 1, steeper than the value of 4/3 for a standard thin-disk model. The size estimate is in good agreement with most recent studies. Other works based on the study of single microlensing events predict smaller sizes, but could be statistically biased by focusing on high-magnification events. Then, we present new mid-IR observations of this quadruply lensed quasar taken with CanariCam on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). Mid-IR emission by hot dust, unlike the optical and near-IR emission from the accretion disk, is unaffected by the interstellar medium (extinction/scattering) or stellar microlensing. We compare these "true" ratios to the same optical/near-IR (stellar) microlensed flux ratios observed before to recalculate the structure of the quasar accretion disk. Moreover, if we assume that the differences in the mid-IR flux ratios measured over the years are due to microlensing variability, we find a lower limit for the size of the mid-IR emitting region of more than 200 light-days. Next, we show Very Large Array detections of radio emission in four other quadruply lensed quasars: HS 0810+2554, RX J0911+0511, HE 0435–1223 and SDSS J0924+0219, and extended Multi-Element Remote Linked Interferometer (e-MERLIN) observations for two of the systems. All four objects are among the faintest radio sources yet detected, with intrinsic flux densities in the range 1–5 µJy; such radio objects, if unlensed, will only be observable routinely with the Square Kilometre Array. We were able to determine that the radio sources were extended, that their fluxes were compatible with no abundant substructure in the lens, and gained clues as to the nature of the radio emission. Finally, we compile a sample of 13 gravitational lens systems with quadruply imaged quasars with observed flux ratios in mid-IR, radio or spectral narrow lines. We use their flux ratio anomalies to estimate the amount of substructure in the dark matter halo of lens galaxies. We assume that the smooth gravitational potential of the galaxies is well modeled by singular isothermal profiles plus external shear, and that the cause of the flux ratio anomalies is dark matter subhalos predicted by cold dark matter (CDM) simulations. We obtain a preliminary estimation of ~10^6 solar masses for the average subhalo mass, which is in agreement with the expected value, and an abundance of ~7.5% of the surface mass density. The abundance is high when compared to CDM predictions, but still marginally compatible at 2-sigma.


Fluid loading within an intracranial aneurysm is difficult to measure but can be related to the shape of the flow passage. The outcome of excessive loading is a fatal hemorrhage, making it necessary for early diagnosis. However, arterial diseases are asymptomatic and clinical assessment is a challenge. A realistic approach to examining the severity of wall loading is from the morphology of the aneurysm itself. Accordingly, this study compares pulsatile flow (Reynolds number Re = 426, Womersley number Wo = 4.7) in three different intracranial aneurysm geometries. Specifically, the spatio-temporal movement of vortices is followed in high aspect ratio aneurysm models whose domes are inclined along with angles of 0, 45, and 90 deg relative to the plane of the parent artery. The study is based on finite volume simulation of unsteady three-dimensional flow while a limited set of particle image velocimetry experiments have been carried out. Within a pulsatile cycle, an increase in inclination (0–90 deg) is seen to shift the point of impingement from the distal end toward the aneurysmal apex. This change in flow pattern strengthens helicity, drifts vortex cores, enhances spatial displacement of the vortex, and generates skewed Dean's vortices on transverse planes. Patches of wall shear stress and wall pressure shift spatially from the distal end in models of low inclination (0–45 deg) and circumscribe the aneurysmal wall for an inclination angle of 90 deg. Accordingly, it is concluded that high angles of inclination increase rupture risks while lower inclinations are comparatively safe.


A rat cDNA (rRam-1), which was cloned on the basis that it enables Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells to be infected by amphotropic host range murine retroviruses, was recently found to encode a widely expressed Na(+)-phosphate symporter (M. P. Kavanaugh, D. G. Miller, W. Zhang, W. Law, S. L. Kozak, D. Kabat, and A. D. Miller, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91:7071-7075, 1994). CHO cells express the hamster homolog of Ram-1 but are resistant to amphotropic retroviruses. Although the amphotropic envelope glycoprotein gp70 bound weakly onto control CHO cells, CHO/rRam-1 cells had novel high-affinity binding sites, and the resulting strongly adsorbed gp70 was only slowly removed from cell surfaces, with a half-life of greater than 6 h. CHO/rRam-1 cells were also specifically and efficiently killed by exposure to amphotropic gp70 followed by antiserum to gp70 in the presence of complement. Infection with an appropriately pseudotyped form of amphotropic retrovirus 4070A did not perturb control CHO cells or inhibit their phosphate transport. In contrast, 4070A infection of CHO/rRam-1 cells caused major alterations including cell-cell fusions, a specific 40% down-modulation of the rRam-1 component of phosphate transport, and complete interference to super-infection by amphotropic viruses. The 4070A virus-infected CHO/rRam-1 cells retained a substantial cell surface pool of rRam-1 that functioned as a phosphate transporter but not as a viral receptor. We conclude that amphotropic gp70 binds more strongly to rRam-1 than to the homologous hamster protein and that this stable attachment is necessary for infection, interference, membrane fusion, and pathogenesis.


This paper describes an algorithm for unifying disjunctive feature structures. Unlike previous algorithms, except Eisele & Dorre (1990), this algorithm is as fast as an algorithm without disjunction when disjunctions do not participate in the unification, it is also as fast as an algorithm handling only local disjunctions when there are only local disjunctions, and expensive only in the case of unifying full disjunction. The description is given in the framework of graph unification algorithms which makes it easy to implement as an extension of such an algorithm.


The atmosphere and cryosphere have recently garnered considerable attention due to their role in transporting microplastics to and within the Arctic, and between freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments. While investigating either in isolation provides valuable insight on the fate of microplastics in the Arctic, monitoring both provides a more holistic view. Nonetheless, despite the recent scientific interest, fundamental knowledge on microplastic abundance, and consistent monitoring efforts, are lacking for these compartments. Here, we build upon the work of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme's Monitoring Guidelines for Litter and Microplastic to provide a roadmap for multi-compartment monitoring of the atmosphere and cryosphere to support our understanding of the sources, pathways, and sinks of plastic pollution across the Arctic. Overall, we recommend the use of existing standard techniques for ice and atmospheric sampling and to build upon existing monitoring efforts in the Arctic to obtain a more comprehensive pan-Arctic view of microplastic pollution in these two compartments.


The innovation process occurs in two ways, the Corporate Model and the Entrepreneurship model. Corporations have many competitive advantages that they can use to succeed against startups. In a one-on-one competition, the startup usually has less capital, fewer scientists and engineers, less legitimacy or brand presence, fewer strategic alliances, evolving organizational structures, and incomplete or even non-existent business processes. Young firms have the liabilities of newness and smallness, so they fail at higher rates than do their larger and older competitors. However, the structural and managerial advantages associated with established companies also disadvantage them. Innovation requires two important underlying conditions. First, resources must be mobile. Second, incentives must be aligned so that those who provide these resources, especially financial resources, succeed along with innovators who are engaged in risky activities that generally require extraordinary levels of effort. When resources are immobile, and incentives are misaligned, the innovation process in established firms slows. Under these circumstances, entrepreneurs can start companies, develop the capabilities of those companies, and bring new products to market relatively quickly.


Aim/Purpose: Doctoral student completion rates are notoriously low; although statistics differ depending on which study one consults, a typical completion rate is about 50%. However, studies show mentors can use strategies to improve students' graduation rates. Our purpose was to learn from effective mentors about the processes they believe are most important in guiding doctoral students to the successful completion of a dissertation and, specifically, the strategies they implement to help students with writing and research methods. The study was confirmatory and exploratory; we posed several hypotheses and we were attentive to emergent themes in the data.

Background: This paper addresses the problem by providing practical strategies mentors can use to help students succeed.

Methodology: We conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 effective mentors of doctoral students representing highly ranked educational programs at universities across the United States. We conducted conventional and summative content analysis of the qualitative data.

Contribution: This research showed that effective mentors provide students with technical support (e.g., scholarly writing and research methods), managerial support (e.g., goal-setting and time management), and emotional support in the form of encouragement. This research goes beyond prior studies by providing specific strategies mentors can apply to improve their practice, particularly regarding support with research methods.

Findings: The data showed that encouragement, help with time management, and timely communication were key strategies mentors used to support students. Mentors also provided resources and directed students to use skills learned in previous coursework. Many mentors spoke about the importance of writing a strong research question and allowing the question to guide the choice of methods rather than the other way around. Mentors also said they pushed students to conform to APA style and they used Socratic methods to help students develop the logical organization of the manuscript. Many mentors referred students to methodologists and statisticians for help in those areas.

Recommendations for Practitioners: Individual mentors should conduct a self-assessment to learn if they need to improve on any of the technical, managerial, and interpersonal mentoring skills we identified. Moreover, doctoral programs in educational leadership and related areas are advised to conduct careful assessments of their faculty. If they find their faculty are lacking in these mentoring skills, we recommend that they engage in professional development to increase their capacity to provide effective mentoring.

Recommendation for Researchers: We recommend that future researchers continue to explore strategies of effective mentors. In particular, researchers should interview mentors who specialize in quantitative methods to learn if they can offer clever and innovative approaches to guide doctoral students.

Impact on Society: We conclude this paper with practical strategies to help mentors become more effective. We also make some policy recommendations that we believe can improve the mentoring process for doctoral programs in education. We believe better scholarship at the doctoral level will provide new knowledge that will benefit society at large.

Future Research: This research was a springboard for some new research questions as follows. We recommend future researchers to study how often effective mentors meet with students, how quickly they provide feedback on written drafts, and their strategies for delivering tough feedback in a caring way (i.e., feedback that the student's work did not meet expectations).


Previous research regarding the emergence of Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) has either been impact oriented (Cooper et al, 2006, Chatterton and Rowland 2005, Crawford et al, 2004) or has been concerned with their capacity to improve equality and diversity within public policing (Johnston, 2006). Despite the recent civilianisation of the patrol function (Crawford and Lister, 2004a) and increasing recognition of multiple police subcultures within the police force (Reuss Ianni, 1983, Chan, 1997, Foster, 2003), there has been little attention directed towards understanding PCSO working practices and decision making, their capacity to deliver reassurance or to the potential emergence of a distinct PCSO occupational subculture within the police organisation as a result of their differential role, remit and limited authority.

This study aims to critically examine the existence and characteristics of a PCSO occupational culture and its influence upon the delivery of neighbourhood policing within a northern police force. Underpinned by an appreciative ethnographic approach (Liebling and Price, 2001), it provides an original contribution to understanding the operation of PCSOs and to existing theoretical knowledge and understanding of police (sub)cultures within the context of civilianisation and police reform. The research involved three hundred hours of participant observation of PCSO working practices, individual interviews with twelve PCSOs and two focus groups with neighbourhood police officers across two police sectors of a northern police force.

The study revealed two key findings. Firstly, whilst PCSOs are able to deliver reassurance to 'vulnerable' and 'respectable' residents within target communities, the pursuit of reassurance is secondary to the demands of crime control. The pull of the performance culture and high levels of public demand for service cause PCSOs to become increasingly utilised as a reactive resource and to be deployed in tasks falling outside their remit. Second, represented as a three-fold typology of PCSO culture, the study thus provides evidence of an emerging PCSO subculture within the police organisation. Widely held aspirations to become police officers amongst PCSOs combined with an emphasis upon and value attached to crimefighting within the dominant police culture (Reiner, 2000) leads to the construction of a PCSO occupational culture that is both similar to and distinct from police officers. PCSOs endorse characteristics of the dominant culture, including suspicion, solidarity and sense of mission in their efforts to either imitate police officers or support future applications to become police officers. However, their civilian status, limited authority and differential occupational environment also lead to the construction of distinct cultural characteristics and orientations to the role.


Hospital scheduling and staffing practices are linked to patient safety, nurse satisfaction, and cost outcomes (Steege & Rainbow, 2017). Staffing, while complex, is ultimately central to the overall success of the hospital. Demands to eliminate events that cause death or serious harm, produce high patient satisfaction scores while maximizing workforce productivity, test any administrator's skillset. Providing qualified staff in the right place at the right time can be challenged by restrictive union contracts, variable patient acuities, staff attendance, and mandated staffing ratios. These demands may lead to overtime utilization. There is a growing understanding of the negative effects of healthcare worker fatigue on patient outcomes (IOM, 2004; Stimpfel & Aiken, 2013). The impending nursing shortage has the potential to exacerbate the problem of high quality care delivery and could lead to devastating impacts to the profession as well as patients. Though Kaiser Permanente (KP) is generally known for being a healthcare trailblazer, staffing technology was lagging. The purpose of this project is to prepare KP nursing for transformative change with web-based hospital scheduling and staffing. This work addresses the readiness for deployment across the KP system. Complexity and change theories frame this project. Hospital staffing epitomizes complexity. This planned change provides a road map for other nurse leaders to navigate the lessons learned. Satisfaction surveys from 222 nursing staff receiving training in the new technology reveal a favorable intent for technology adoption. Future work will focus on the impact realization of nurse-sensitive outcome indicators and registered nurse overtime.


Reduction of the time required for medical evacuation to the regional vascular center in order to carry out percutaneous coronary intervention in case of ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome is an essential factor directly affecting the mortality rate of this condition. The concept of territorial attribution in rendering emergency medical services militates against the effective use of such emergency medical services aimed to promptly deliver patients to the hospital. Research objective. The research objective is to study the efficiency of trans-regional communication in reducing the time required to deliver patients with ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome to hospitals in order to carry out percutaneous coronary intervention and its impact on acute myocardial infarction mortality rate basing on the digital twin of Kurgan region. Materials and methods. the digital twin of the Kurgan region represents the time required to evacuate patients with ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome to regional vascular centers by ambulance crews in pursuance with an applicable order, compared with patient routing in case of trans-regional cooperation with vascular centers of neighboring regions. Results: due to the implementation of trans-regional cooperation, mean patient evacuation time within the region had been reduced by 21,3 ± 9,84 minutes, and mean time on routes from the localities wherefrom it was faster to deliver patients to vascular centers in neighboring regions had been reduced by 55±25,73 minutes. The estimated myocardial infarction mortality rate on average for the Kurgan region caused by medical evacuation time reduction in case of implementing trans-regional cooperation had been reduced by 5,32%. Conclusions: the use of resources of neighboring regions when working out regional orders on routing the patients with acute coronary syndrome in a number of instances contributes to the provision of two-hour availability of percutaneous coronary intervention and serves as a significant reserve for acute myocardial infarction mortality reduction.


This study was conceptualized from the author"s experiences while he was completing the Canada Exchanges with the Mediterranean: Migration Experiences and their impact on Nationalism, Trans-nationalism and Identity (CEMMENTI) exchange with the University of Malta in 2008. While completing the program, the author was enrolled in a Contemporary Migrations course through the European Research and Documentation Centre and also volunteered at Marsa Open Refugee Centre. The powerful role that the media has in shaping the opinions Maltese have towards refugees was identified in the Migrations course and also through the author"s personal experiences at Marsa Centre. Based on this premise that the media has a role in affecting the reception experiences of refugees, this research examines sets of articles from Prince Edward Island"s The Guardian newspaper which focused on refugee arrivals during the 1950s, 1980s, and 1990s. The 1950s articles demonstrate that the arrival of Hungarian refugees to the Island was welcomed by residents. This is contrasted by the 1990s articles which demonstrate that apprehension existed among residents impending the arrival of Kosovar refugees to the Island. The articles from the 1980s discuss two discourses: a discourse which securitizes refugees and a discourse which reaffirms humanitarianism among residents of the host community.


Abstract. To study the effect of galactic cosmic rays on aerosols and clouds, the Cosmics Leaving OUtdoor Droplets (CLOUD) project was established. Experiments are carried out at a 26.1 m 3 tank at CERN (Switzerland). In the experiments, the effect of ionizing radiation on H 2 SO 4 particle formation and growth is investigated. To evaluate the experimental configuration, the experiment was simulated using a coupled multidimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) – particle model. In the model the coupled fields of gas/vapor species, temperature, flow velocity and particle properties were computed to investigate mixing state and mixing times of the CLOUD tank's contents. Simulation results show that a 1-fan configuration, as used in first experiments, may not be sufficient to ensure a homogeneously mixed chamber. To mix the tank properly, two fans and sufficiently high fan speeds are necessary. The 1/e response times for instantaneous changes of wall temperature and saturation ratio were found to be in the order of few minutes. Particle nucleation and growth was also simulated and particle number size distribution properties of the freshly nucleated particles (particle number, mean size, standard deviation of the assumed log-normal distribution) were found to be distributed over the tank's volume similar to the gas species.


This paper analyzes the generation of
 social class differentials at the transition from lower to upper
secondary education in France. While in other countries the crucial school track decision is either taken by the students and their parents or by the teachers, the families of French secondary students
take part in an institutionalized dialogue with the school that mainly consists of three steps: First, the
family formulates a school track request; second,
considering this request, the staff meeting elaborates a school track proposition; third, the family can reject the staff's proposition and if it does, it has
to attend an obligatory talk with the headmaster. Based on this talk, the headmaster takes a binding
school track decision. Legally, the dialogue can stretch even further, but due to small observation
numbers, this paper concentrates on the first three steps of the dialogue and its final outcome.
In order to theoretically address social class differentials in families' and the school staff's choices
along the dialogue I adapt well-known educational decision-making models based on rational action
theory. Using a longitudinal data set on a large cohort of French secondary students who entered lower secondary school in 1995, I empirically test these decision-making models. My results primarily
reveal: First, social background of students has an important impact on the three main steps of the
dialogue and, hence, on its final outcome. Second, rational action theory explains a large part of the
social background effect on families' choices. Third,
 the school staff's decision is strongly determined by family's request and even produces social class differentials that go beyond those generated by
families' decisions. Fourth, parental involvement such as membership in a parent association has a remarkable effect on the families' and the staff's decision-making. It makes families more confident in
demanding the higher school track even though the child
 concerned has rather low marks. At the same time, when a student has marks in the lower and
middle range, the staff meeting is significantly
more willing to accept the family's
request if the parents are involved.


We introduce two new operations (compositional products and implication) on
Weihrauch degrees, and investigate the overall algebraic structure. The
validity of the various distributivity laws is studied and forms the basis for
a comparison with similar structures such as residuated lattices and concurrent
Kleene algebras. Introducing the notion of an ideal with respect to the
compositional product, we can consider suitable quotients of the Weihrauch
degrees. We also prove some specific characterizations using the implication.
In order to introduce and study compositional products and implications, we
introduce and study a function space of multi-valued continuous functions. This
space turns out to be particularly well-behaved for effectively traceable
spaces that are closely related to admissibly represented spaces.


Climate change is termed as one of the greatest challenges of the 21stcentury and this has posed threat to agricultural dependent economies. In fact report had it that developing economies are at disadvantage as they stand to experience some of the severe effects from climate change. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines the impact of climate change on crop production in Nigeria. Ten crops were selected and three climatic variables were used for the study. Data for the study were extracted from the Food and Agricultural Organisation database, World Development Indicator and the CBN Statistical Bulletin and the data covers the period 1970-2009. Analysis of data was done with cointegration approach. The study revealed that the effect of climatic variables on crop production varies depending on the type of crop and seasonal properties and length of days of the crop. In general, climate change effect was found to be pronounced on the output of the crops. It is therefore recommended that various adaptation strategies necessary for increased output of these crops be adopted by farmers and this can better be achieved with proper enlightenment programmes for the farmers.


Introduction Colorectal cancer screening rates have increased significantly in Kentucky, from 35% in 1999 to 66% in 2012. A continued improvement in screening requires identification of existing barriers and implementation of interventions to address barriers. Methods The state of Kentucky added a question to the 2012 Kentucky Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey for respondents aged 50 years or older who answered no to ever having been screened for colorectal cancer by colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy to assess the reasons why respondents had not been screened. Combined responses constituted 4 categories: attitudes and beliefs, health care provider and health care systems barriers, cost, and other. Prevalence estimates for barriers were calculated by using raking weights and were stratified by race/ethnicity, sex, education, income, and health insurance coverage. Logistic regression estimated odds ratios for barriers to screening. Results The most common barriers in all areas were related to attitudes and beliefs, followed by health care provider and systems, and cost. Non-Hispanic whites and respondents with more than a high school education were more likely to choose attitudes and beliefs as a barrier than were non-Hispanic blacks and those with less than a high school education. Respondents with low incomes and with no insurance were significantly more likely to select cost as a barrier. No significant associations were observed between demographic variables and the selection of a health care provider and a health care system. Conclusion Barriers related to education, race/ethnicity, income, and insurance coverage should be considered when designing interventions. Expansion of Medicaid and implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Kentucky could have an impact on reducing these barriers.


Leak-off tests (LOTs) or, preferably, extended leak-off tests (XLOTs), can be successfully used in minimum in-situ stress, S3, estimations. Selecting a point on the leak-off graph that represents the best proxy for S3 can reduce inaccuracies in the use of LOTs as a means of determining S3. If the testing procedure is well conducted and recorded, picking the leak-off pressure (LOP) or instantaneous shut-in pressure (ISIP) gives equally valid estimates of S3. During testing, most of the pressure applied in the deduction of S3 is exerted by the static mud column, particularly in overpressured settings where higher drilling mud weights are used. Since the mud column contributes such a large proportion of the applied pressure, estimating S3 from tests conducted at greater depth means the observed small difference between LOP and ISIP has even less of an effect on the deduced S3 value. The data used in this study show that LOP closely matches ISIP when considering multiple cycle XLOTs. It can therefore be inferred that the LOP is the fracture re-opening pressure and hence Sh given that the assumptions made by the Kirsch equation for wellbore failure are upheld. This study also considers the implications for calculating the magnitude of SH.


The Suaineadh project aims at testing the controlled deployment and stabilization of space web. The deployment system is based on a simple yet ingenious control of the centrifugal force that will pull each of the four daughters sections apart. The four daughters are attached onto the four corners of a square web, and will be released from their initial stowed configuration attached to a central hub. Enclosed in the central hub is a specifically designed spinning reaction wheel that controls the rotational speed with a closed loop control fed by measurements from an onboard inertial measurement sensor. Five other such sensors located within the web and central hub provide information on the surface curvature of the web, and progression of the deployment. Suaineadh is currently at an advanced stage of development: all the components are manufactured with the subsystems integrated and are presently awaiting full integration and testing. This paper will present the current status of the Suaineadh project and the results of the most recent set of tests. In particular, the paper will cover the overall mechanical design of the system, the electrical and sensor assemblies, the communication and power systems and the spinning wheel with its control system.


Previous studies (Wu 2007; Hyland, 2004; Hyland & Tse 2004; Intaraprawat & Steffensen 1995; Crismore et al 1993; Vande Kopple 1985) have established the use of Metadiscourse (MD) as an essential element in writing as it allows the writer to create a dialogic space with his readers. In recent years, attempts have been made to analyse MD through the use of text corpus with the help of computer technology especially when the corpus is large. In this investigation, data have been obtained through an electronic means to illustrate the use of MD in writing samples of a group of Malaysian undergraduates. In order to investigate the use of MD by these students, their writing was benched against an established standard, the open access BAWE corpus, available online. The MD features were analysed through the concordancing software, monoConc Pro 2.2, for this research. The paper demonstrates how the software manages the data to reveal patterns of use between writers of the two corpora. The paper concludes on initial insights obtained from the comparison to show the nature and manner of MD between standard proficient writing(extract from BAWE corpus) and evolving student writing at the tertiary level that would have implications for writing improvement in educational institutions.


Information visualizations must allow users to browse information spaces and focus quickly on items of interest. Being able to see some representation of the entire information space provides an initial gestalt overview and gives context to support browsing and search tasks. However, the limited number of pixels on the screen constrain the information bandwidth and make it di cult to completely display large information spaces. The Information Mural is a two-dimensional, reduced representation of an entire information space that ts entirely within a display window or screen. The mural creates a miniature version of the information space using visual attributes such as grayscale shading, intensity, color, and pixel size, along with anti-aliased compression techniques. Information Murals can be used as stand-alone visualizations or in global navigational views. We have built several prototypes to demonstrate the use of Information Murals in visualization applications; subject matter for these views includes computer software, scienti c data, text documents, and geographic information.


Evaluation of potential risks of musculoskeletal disorders in real workstations is challenging as the environment is cluttered, which makes it difficult to correctly and accurately assess the pose of a worker. Being marker-free and calibration-free, Microsoft Kinect is a promising device to assess these poses, but it can deliver unreliable poses especially when occlusions occur. To overcome this problem, we propose to detect badly recognized body parts and to replace them by an appropriate combination of example poses gathered in a pre-recorded pose. The main contribution of this work is to organize the database as a filtered pose graph structure that enables the system to select relevant candidates for the combination: candidates that ensure continuity with the previous pose and similarity with the available reliable information. We applied the proposed method in a realistic environment that involved sub-optimal Kinect placement and several types of occlusions. An optoelectronic motion capture system was concurrently used to obtain ground truth joint angles. In an ergonomics context, we also computed Rapid Upper Limb Assessment RULA scores. This kind of ergonomics tool requires to rate the pose of the worker based on an estimation of the joint angles. These latter are then used to provide a global risk score. Results showed that when occlusions occur, the inaccurate raw Kinect data could be significantly improved using our correction method, leading to acceptable joint angles. As RULA calculation is based on angular thresholds, which tends to minimize the effect of joint angle errors, when these error values are not close to thresholds. However, for realistic scenarios with occlusions that lead to very large joint angle errors, the correction method also provided significantly better RULA scores. Our method opens new perspectives to define new fatigue or solicitation indexes based on continuous measurement contrary to classical static images used in ergonomics. As the computation time is very low, it also enables real-time feedback and interaction with the operator.


Three types of adsorbents namely EXA 31, EXA 32 and EXA 50 were
tested for their ability to refine CPO. These polymers are made up of styrene
DVB copolymer without functional group and ionic form. The adsorption
process was carried in packed column with temperature maintained at 50°C
flowrate of 2 mlls and 70°C for flowrate of 0.1 ml/s. EXA 50 recorded the
highest adsorption capacity of 0.31 mg of carotene per gram of adsorbent at this
flowrate. EXA 32 and EXA 31 recorded adsorption capacity of 0.29 mg and
O. 18 mg carotene per gram of adsorbent.
The regeneration efficiency for EXA 31 tends to decrease with the
increase in the number of runs. After five runs the regeneration efficiency was
at 47.8%. The regeneration efficiency of EXA 32 initially increases but was
followed by a decrease. After five runs the regeneration efficiency was at
78.2%. The regeneration efficiency of EXA 50 increases with the increase in
the number of runs. This is an important finding as it indicates that the adsorbent could be used for a longer period of time without much deterioration
to its adsorption capacity.
Performance study for the low flow (0.1 ml/s) was carried out only on
the best adsorbent EXA 50. The effect of flowrate on carotene adsorption
capacity and regeneration efficiency could be determine by comparing the
results for the high flow (2ml/s) and the low flow (0.1 ml/s). Carotene
concentration in the hexane fraction for the 0.1 ml/s flow (17 500ppm) was 17
times higher than that in the high flow (986 ppm). The amount of carotene
adsorbed per gram of adsorbent also increased by 2 5% from 0.31 mg/g to 0.39
mg/g. The regeneration efficiency also recorded improvement that was from
66.2% for the high flow to 79% for the low flow.


SUMMARY In seismic waveform analysis and inversion, data functionals can be used to quantify the misfit between observed and model-predicted (synthetic) seismograms. The generalized seismological data functionals (GSDF) of Gee & Jordan quantify waveform differences using frequency-dependent phase-delay times and amplitude-reduction times measured on timelocalized arrivals and have been successfully applied to tomographic inversions at different geographic scales as well as to inversions for earthquake source parameters. The seismogram perturbation kernel is defined as the Fr´ echet kernel of the data functional with respect to the seismic waveform from which the data functional is derived. The data sensitivity kernel, which is the Fr´ echet kernel of the data functional with respect to structural model parameters, can be obtained by composing the seismogram perturbation kernel with the Born kernel through the chain rule. In this paper, we extend GSDF analysis to broad-band waveforms by removing constraints on two control parameters defined in Gee & Jordan and derive the seismogram perturbation kernels for the modified GSDF analysis. The modifications given in this paper are consistent with the original GSDF theory in Gee & Jordan around the centre frequency and improve the stability of GSDF analysis towards the edges of the passband. We also present numerical examples of perturbation kernels for the modified GSDF analysis and their data sensitivity kernels using a homogenous half-space structure model and a complex 3-D structure model.


Evaluation of Advanced Conductive Nickel Materials for Strain Sensing in Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers Michael Koecher Department of Mechanical Engineering, BYU Master of Science Due to their unique properties, carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) are becoming ever more prevalent in today's society. Unfortunately, CFRP suffer from a wide range of failure modes and structural health monitoring methods are currently insufficient to predict these failures. It is apparent that self-sensing structural health monitoring could be advantageous to protect consumers from catastrophic failure in CFRP structures. Previous research has shown that embedded nickel nanostrand nanocomposites can be used to instantaneously measure strain in carbon fiber composites, but these methods have been severely limited and can induce high stress concentrations that compromise the structural integrity of the carbon fiber structure. In this research the strain sensor material and the connective circuitry to the sensor are analyzed to improve the practicality of in situ strain sensing of carbon fiber structures. It has been found that the use of nickel nanostrands embedded directly onto carbon fiber as a strain sensor material has no advantages over a carbon fiber strain sensor alone. Additionally, it has been shown that the circuitry to the strain sensor plays a critical role in obtaining a strong, consistent piezoresistive signal that can be related to strain. The use of nickel coated carbon fiber in the circuitry has been evaluated and shown to reduce the noise in a piezoresistive signal while allowing for remote strain sensing from greater distances away from the strain location. The piezoresistive strain sensing utilized in the tested sensor designs relies on electrons tunneling through an insulting barrier between two conductors. This phenomenon is known as quantum tunneling. T wo factors tunneling barrier height and gap distance affect the probability of quantum tunneling occurring. Thus, to accurately model and predict the piezoresistivity of nanocomposites these two parameters must be known. T hrough the use of dielectric spectroscopy the gap distance can be determined. U sing nanoindenting, the barrier height for various polymers was also determined. The measured values can be used, in future work, to improve the modeling of nickel nanostrand nanocomposite.


Winter cover crops can add soil organic matter, improve nutrient cycling, and suppress weeds in organic vegetable systems. A 2-yr study was conducted on organic farms in Salinas and Hollister, CA, to evaluate the effect of seeding rate (SR) and planting arrangement on cover crop density, ground cover, and cover crop and weed dry matter (DM) with a mixed cover crop. The mix contained legumes (35% Vicia faba L., bell bean; 15% Vicia dasycarpa Ten., woolypod vetch; 15% Vicia benghalensis L., purple vetch; and 25% Pisum sativum L., pea) and 10% oat (Avena sativa L.) by seed weight. Three SRs (112, 224, and 336 kg ha ―1 ) and two planting arrangements (one-way versus grid pattern) were evaluated. Planting arrangement had no effect on the variables measured. When weeds were abundant, weed DM declined linearly with increasing SR from approximately 300 kg ha ―1 at the low SR to <100 kg ha ―1 at the high SR. Increasing SR increased oat and legume DM early in the season, but did not affect final cover crop DM that ranged from 7 to 12 Mg ha ―1 . Year affected final cover crop DM production at both sites. The legume DM portion of the total cover crop declined through the season but varied between sites and year, probably due to soil and climatic differences. Higher SRs may be cost effective because weed control is expensive and cover crop seed is a relatively small component of cover cropping costs in this region.


Sutures, staples and adhesive tapes have been used for many years as methods of wound closure, but tissue adhesives have entered clinical practice more recently Closure of wounds with sutures enables the closure to be meticulous, but the sutures may show tissue reactivity and can require removal. Tissue adhesives offer the advantages of an absence of risk of needlestick injury and no requirement to remove sutures later. Initially, tissue adhesives were used primarily in emergency room settings, but this review looks at the use of tissue adhesives in the operating room/theatre where surgeons are using them increasingly for the closure of surgical skin incisions Nowadays, Minor surgery represents almost 40% of all surgical procedures developed during the care process of Plastic Surgery.This type of surgery includes procedures such as the removal of skin lesions for pathological analysis result as basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, melanomas, lipomas, small skin tags, xanthelasmas, naevus, sebaceous cyst, seborrheic wart, readjustment of previous scars.The proportion of wound breaking (dehiscence), the wound infection, the cosmetic appearance, the patient satisfaction, the description of costs of procedures are also analysed in order to provided-up data of the effects of both different techniques for incision closure. Finally this study aims optimize the resources and the time on Minor Surgery
Objectives: To determine the effects of tissue adhesives compared withconventional skin closure techniques for the closure of surgicalwounds
Methods: 332 patients admitted to Hospital doctor Josep Trueta and Hospital Santa Caterina to perform a Minor Surgery procedure. Patients will be divided in two groups and one of those followings interventions for closure of surgical incisions on minor surgery will be used: 1.Tissue Adhesives 2.Conventional skin closure (sutures).The main goal of study is to determine of effectiveness of tissue adhesives compared with conventional skin closure techniques. Finally the proportions of wound breaking (dehiscence), the wound infection, the cosmetic appearance, the patient satisfaction, the description of costs of procedures are also determined


Adverbs functioning as degree modifiers are not the only devices used for positive scaling; cross-linguistically, another very common means of intensification is the prefixation. This paper is concerned with data of nine intensifying prefixes of Modern Greek ( arxi‑ 'archi', θeο‑ 'god', kata‑ 'over', pan‑ 'all', olo‑ 'whole', para‑ 'over', pend(a)‑ 'five', xilio‑ 'thousand', iper‑ 'hyper') that constitute a representative sample of Greek intensifying prefixes. The purpose of this paper is to account for prefix-base combinations, taking into consideration the semantic typology of gradable predicates of Kennedy & McNally (2005) and more precisely focusing on the question of how the open or closed scale on which the bases map their arguments relates to intensifying prefix-base combinations. Our aim is to arrive at a general conceptual framework that can analyze all cases of intensifying prefixes. The paper also aims to account for the polysemy found in intensifying prefixes.


The grid-connected modular multilevel converter (MMC) is very likely to operate under asymmetric grid conditions. Such a converter features several unique characteristics, which make its analysis different from other types of power converters in similar cases. In this paper, the three well-established control techniques, i.e., balanced current and negative sequence current injection for active/reactive power oscillation elimination, are tailored for the MMC case taking into account grid current limitation under fault conditions. Since the focus is laid on the MMC design impact during grid asymmetries, the three methods are compared in terms of branch energy variation increase as well as maximum achievable active power transfer. Moreover, the effect of circulating current second-order harmonic injection for capacitive storage reduction as well as dc-link oscillation elimination is also studied. Finally, experimental results from a downscaled laboratory prototype verify the theoretical studies.


Background International migrants differ from host populations in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. It has been postulated that these disparities narrow with longer residence duration. Our aim was to determine whether CVD risk still differs between migrants and host population after decades of residence and to determine whether this potential convergence of CVD risk would occur mainly among migrants with a strong cultural orientation towards the host culture. Methods In the Healthy Life in an Urban Setting study, we obtained data regarding residence duration, cultural orientation as estimated by the Psychological Acculturation Scale and CVD risk as estimated by SCORE among the Dutch host population and first generation migrants from South-Asian Surinamese, African Surinamese, Moroccan and Turkish ethnic background residing in Amsterdam. Estimated CVD risk was compared with the Dutch, separately for medium-term residence (15–30 years) or long-term residence (>30 years) migrants, and by strong/weak cultural orientation towards the Dutch culture, using age-adjusted regression analyses. Results Among 8672 participants without prior CVD, estimated CVD risk was higher among migrant groups relative to the Dutch. CVD risk relative to the Dutch did not differ by residence duration (betas ranging from 0.1 to 3.4 for medium-term and from 0.6 to 3.3 for long-term residence, respectively). Furthermore, these patterns did not differ by cultural orientation towards the Dutch culture. Conclusion We find no indication that CVD risk among South-Asian Surinamese, African Surinamese, Turkish or Moroccan migrants converges to that of the Dutch host population with increasing residence duration, not even among those with strong cultural orientation towards the host culture.


The identification of biomarkers (both molecules and profiles) in patient sera offers enormous interest for the diagnosis of cancers. In this context, the detection of antibodies to tumor cell autologous antigens possesses great potential. The humoral immune response represents a form of biological amplification of signals that are otherwise weak because of very low concentrations of antigen, especially in the early stages of cancers. Herein we present the use of integral microarrays spotted with tumor-derived proteins to investigate the antibody repertoire in the sera of lung cancer patients and controls. The use of two-dimensional liquid chromatography allowed us to separate proteins from the lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 into 1760 fractions, which were printed in duplicate, along with various controls, onto nitrocellulose coated slides. The sensitivity and specificity of the microarrays to detect singular antibodies in fluids were first validated through the recognition of fractions containing a lung marker antigen by antibody probing. Twenty fractions were initially selected as highly reactive against the anti-PGP9.5 antibody, and subsequent mass spectrometry analyses confirmed the identity of PGP9.5 protein in four of them. As a result, the importance of neighboring fractions in microarray detection was revealed due to the spreading of proteins during the separation process. Next, the microarrays were individually incubated with 14 serum samples from patients with lung cancer patients, 14 sera from colon cancer patients, and 14 control sera from normal subjects. The reactivity of the selected fractions was analyzed, and the level of immunoglobulin bound to each fraction by each serum sample was quantified. Eight of the 20 fractions offered p values < 0.01 and were recognized by an average of four reacting patients, whereas no serum from normal individuals was positive for those fractions. Protein microarrays from tumor-derived fractions hold the diagnostic potential of uncovering antigens that induce an immune response in patients with certain types of cancers.


Biometrics are widely accepted as the most reliable proof of identity, entitlement to services, and for crime-related forensics. Using biometrics for remote authentication is becoming an essential requirement for the development of knowledge-based economy in the digital age. Ensuring security and integrity of the biometric data or templates is critical to the success of deployment especially because once the data compromised the whole authentication system is compromised with serious consequences for identity theft, fraud as well as loss of privacy. Protecting biometric data whether stored in databases or transmitted over an open network channel is a serious challenge and cryptography may not be the answer. The main premise of this thesis is that Digital Steganography can provide an alternative security solutions that can be exploited to deal with the biometric transmission problem.
The main objective of the thesis is to design, develop and test steganographic tools to support remote biometric authentication. We focus on investigating the selection of biometrics feature representations suitable for hiding in natural cover images and designing steganography systems that are specific for hiding such biometric data rather than being suitable for general purpose. The embedding schemes are expected to have high security characteristics resistant to several types of steganalysis tools and maintain accuracy of recognition post embedding. We shall limit our investigations to embedding face biometrics, but the same challenges and approaches should help in developing similar embedding schemes for other biometrics. To achieve this our investigations and proposals are done in different directions which explain in the rest of this section.
Reviewing the literature on the state-of-art in steganography has revealed a rich source of theoretical work and creative approaches that have helped generate a variety of embedding schemes as well as steganalysis tools but almost all focused on embedding random looking secrets. The review greatly helped in identifying the main challenges in the field and the main criteria for success in terms of difficult to reconcile requirements on embedding capacity, efficiency of embedding, robustness against steganalysis attacks, and stego image quality. On the biometrics front the review revealed another rich source of different face biometric feature vectors. The review helped shaping our primary objectives as (1) identifying a binarised face feature factor with high discriminating power that is susceptible to embedding in images, (2) develop a special purpose content-based steganography schemes that can benefit from the well-defined structure of the face biometric data in the embedding procedure while preserving accuracy without leaking information about the source biometric data, and (3) conduct sufficient sets of experiments to test the performance of the developed schemes, highlight the advantages as well as limitations, if any, of the developed system with regards to the above mentioned criteria.
We argue that the well-known LBP histogram face biometric scheme satisfies the desired properties and we demonstrate that our new more efficient wavelet based versions called LBPH patterns is much more compact and has improved accuracy. In fact the wavelet version schemes reduce the number of features by 22% to 72% of the original version of LBP scheme guaranteeing better invisibility post embedding.
We shall then develop 2 steganographic schemes. The first is the LSB-witness is a general purpose scheme that avoids changing the LSB-plane guaranteeing robustness against targeted steganalysis tools, but establish the viability of using steganography for remote biometric-based recognition. However, it may modify the 2nd LSB of cover pixels as a witness for the presence of the secret bits in the 1st LSB and thereby has some disadvantages with regards to the stego image quality.
Our search for a new scheme that exploits the structure of the secret face LBPH patterns for improved stego image quality has led to the development of the first content-based steganography scheme. Embedding is guided by searching for similarities between the LBPH patterns and the structure of the cover image LSB bit-planes partitioned into 8-bit or 4-bit patterns. We shall demonstrate the excellent benefits of using content-based embedding scheme in terms of improved stego image quality, greatly reduced payload, reduced lower bound on optimal embedding efficiency, robustness against all targeted steganalysis tools. Unfortunately our scheme was not robust against the blind or universal SRM steganalysis tool. However we demonstrated robustness against SRM at low payload when our scheme was modified by restricting embedding to edge and textured pixels. The low payload in this case is sufficient to embed a secret full face LBPH patterns.
Our work opens new exciting opportunities to build successful real applications of content-based steganography and presents plenty of research challenges.


Extremophilic microorganisms thrive in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Genetic and enzymatic differences across the gradients from "neutral" to "harsh" environments render extremophiles survivors of some of the harshest environments on earth, and metal tolerance is often found in acidophiles. Acidophilic microorganisms, including microalgae, are often found at sites heavily affected by acid mine drainage and in naturally occurring acidic environments. Essential or non-essential, all metals are harmful when present at toxic levels. Cells cope with metal toxicity through exclusion, sequestration, active transport or biotransformations, all having implications to the cellular physiology. Microalgae, like other species, use different coping strategies when subjected to metal stress, which determines their threshold of metal stress tolerance. An example of an alga with a high level of metal tolerance is the extremophilic red alga Cyanidium caldarium. In this study, we have looked at the coping mechanisms C. caldarium employs to deal with zinc stress, and have compared it to the more susceptible mesophilic green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Measurements of photosynthesis, respiration, pigment levels, oxidative stress, stress protein and FTIR as a phenomics approach show that these species with contrasting Zn tolerances also have a contrasting approach to coping with Zn-induced oxidative stress. Despite its significantly lower tolerance to Zn, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii showed a robust Photosystem II (PSII) at Zn levels over EC50, and was able to regain gross photosynthetic capacity after an acclimation period to sub-toxic Zn levels, which it also maintained when subjected to further zinc challenges. This was not seen in the much more tolerant Cyanidium caldarium, which showed an affected PSII capacity at Zn levels above EC50, and decreased its photosynthetic rates when subjected to Zn stress, even after an acclimation period. Additionally, elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) and heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) were found in the acclimated C. reinhardtii, which regained photosynthetic capacity, pointing to ROS acting as signalling molecules. The coping strategy of Cyanidium caldarium resulted in down-regulation of photosynthetic capacity, and its ROS production depended on the Zn-dose. FTIR analysis shows that Zn acclimation and stress results in modification of cellular macromolecular composition. The biological spectra were successfully applied to predicting levels of common bioindicators of environmental stress and pollution and thus, with further development, biospectroscopy might provide a useful tool in ecotoxicological studies and monitoring. These results open up questions of the role ROS signalling might play in the different coping strategies seen in microalgae and the wider implications of metal-stress-induced alterations in the nutritional quality of microalgae.


Abstract. Since data from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) became available in 2007, a number of papers have appeared in the literature which have reported relatively large discrepancies between IASI spectra and forward calculations in the centre of the CO 2 Q-branch at 667 cm −1 . In this paper we show that these discrepancies are primarily due to errors in the temperature profiles used in the forward calculations. In particular, we have used forecasts of temperature profiles from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to demonstrate that, for the case study considered in this paper, these profiles are affected by systematic errors of the order of ≈10 K at the level of the stratopause. To derive the magnitude and the spatial location of the systematic errors in the temperature profile, we have carried out forward/inverse calculations for a number of clear-sky, daytime, IASI tropical soundings over the sea. The forward calculations have been performed using atmospheric state vectors which have been obtained either from the direct inversion of the IASI radiances or from space-time co-located profiles derived from radiosonde observations and from the ECMWF model. To rule out any effect due to the accuracy of the forward model, we have performed the forward calculations using two independent models. The sensitivity of the temperature biases to the variability of the CO 2 profile and to spectroscopy errors has also been studied.


Brooks has criticized traditional approaches to artificial intelligence as too inefficient. In particular, he has singled out techniques involving search as inadequate to achieve the fast reaction times required by robots and other AI products that need to work in the real world. Instead he proposes the subsumption architecture as an overall organizing principle. This consists of layers of behavioural modules, each of which is capable of carrying out a complete (usually simple) task. He has employed this architecture to build a series of simple mobile robots, but he claims that it is appropriate for all AI products. Brooks's proposal is usually seen as an example of nouvelle AI, in contrast to good old-fashioned AI (GOFAl). Automatic theorem proving is the archetypal example of GOFAl. The resolution theorem proving technique once served as the engine of AI. Of all areas of AI it seems the most difficult to implement using Brooks's ideas. It would thus serve as a keen test of Brooks's proposal to explore to what extent the task of theorem proving can be achieved by a subsumption architecture. Tactics are programs for guiding a theorem prover. They were introduced as an efficient alternative to search-based techniques. In this paper I compare recent work on tactic-based theorem proving with Brooks's proposals and show that, surprisingly, there is a similarity between them. It thus seems that the distinction between nouvelle AI and GOFAl is not so great as is sometimes claimed. However, this exercise also identifies some criticisms of Brooks's proposal.


The experiments investigated the reproductive performance of the domesticated broodstock of the silver perch and the relationship between various degrees of oil globule fragmentation and egg quality. Six years old of second generation broodstock (n=3) were evaluated based on the fecundity, fertilisation rate, hatching rate, the degree of oil fragmentation of egg, and the quality of embryos and larvae produced. The fragmentation were grouped into three categories: un-fragmented (cat-1), moderately fragmented (cat-2), and highly fragmented (cat-3). The results showed that the broodstock had a relatively high fecundity (132,400 ± 7,22), fertilization rate (94.27 ± 1.28%), and hatching rates (87.94 ± 1.23%). The survival rate of larvae at 12 days post hatching (dph) in cat-1 (71.3 ± 0.9%) was higher than cat-2 (66.7 ± 0.9%) whereas cat-2 was higher than cat-3 (61.3 ± 0.3%). The eggs was dominated by cat-1 (78.11 ± 2.44%) which was significantly higher than cat-2 (21.26 ± 2.45%) and cat-3 ones (0.40 ± 0.21%). The survival rate of embryo at 20 hours post spawning (hps) and hatching rate of cat-1 (95.33 ± 0.00% and 93.33 ± 0.00%) and cat-2 (90.00 ± 0.00% and 85.00 ± 0.00%) were significantly higher than cat-3 (72.33 ± 1.76% and 60.33 ± 0.00%). The total length (TL) of the larvae of cat-1 and cat-2 (8.44 ± 0.21 mm and 8.35 ± 0.23 mm respectively) were significantly higher than larvae of cat-3 (7.09 ± 0.14 mm). No significant difference was found in the larval deformities among any categories. In conclusion, the reproductive performance of six year-old broodstock silver perch showing acceptable performance and egg categorisation based on oil globule fragmentation can be used as a useful tool to indicate eggs quality of silver perch.


The utilitarian economist and Nobel Laureate, John Harsanyi and the liberal egalitarian philosopher, John Rawls were two of the most eminent scholars writing on problems of social justice in the last century. This volume pays tribute to Harsanyi and Rawls by investigating themes that figure prominently in their work. In some cases, the contributors explore issues considered by Harsanyi and Rawls in more depth and from novel perspectives. In others, the contributors use the work of Harsanyi and Rawls as points of departure for pursuing the construction of new theories for the evaluation of social justice. The introductory essay by the editors provides background information on the relevant economics, game theory, philosophy, and social choice theory, as well as readers' guides to the individual contributions, to make this volume widely accessible to scholars in a wide range of disciplines.


Political communication is often depicted as an exchange of rational arguments between rational individuals. However, in political communication people not only communicate emotionally but also rely on nonrational understandings drawn from mythical representations of various symbols and images. The problem becomes especially acute in the realm of global communication as nations permanently appropriate the political ideas of modernity. This study investigates how a local newspaper in the USSR during perestroika interpreted the concepts of "democracy" and "market"—two essential components of the discourse of capitalistic modernity. Following Roland Barthes' method of deconstructing mythologies, this study shows how the newspaper's interpretations led to a mythologizing of modernity's basic concepts.


ABSTRACT Located near to the village of Azraq, in eastern Jordan, the archaeological site of Qasr al-Amra was built in the early Umayyad period, for the caliph Al-Walid I. It is especially famous for the wall paintings that have survived on the interior ceilings and walls, showing, among other subjects, hunting scenes and several zoomorphic figures. Many of these portray the ancient local fauna, including a snake (probably Walterinnesia aegyptia Lataste, 1887), several birds (herons, flamingos, cranes, peacocks and partridges), carnivores (Ursus arctos Linnaeus, 1758, Felis silvestris Schreber, 1777 and Vormela peregusna Güldenstädt, 1770), and ungulates (Syrian onagers and Persian gazelles). It is very likely that some of these illustrations were influenced by tales contained in the great Iranian epic poem Shâh Nâmeh, or "The Book of Kings", and in other traditional Sassanid and Muslim texts.


Get quick, portable access to the evidence you need to make effective clinical decisions! Evidence-Based Cardiology succinctly summarizes all the clinical trials that affect the practice of cardiovascular medicine, making it easy for you to implement the most appropriate diagnostic tests and treatments for your patients. * Apply the latest knowledge on atrial fibrillation and heart failure, including novel anticoagulants, new medical therapies, new devices including ablation and resynchronization and other advanced therapies.* Select the best interventions for acute coronary syndrome with coverage of new antiplatelet strategies, management strategy updates, and significant data on outcomes and guideline adherence.* Navigate controversies across your entire field with in-depth chapters exploring all areas of preventive cardiology, coronary revascularization and percutaneous procedures, unstable angina/non-ST elevation myocardial infarction, ST-elevation myocardial infarction, heart failure, and arrhythmias.* Look up all essential randomized clinical trials and understand their implications with concise summaries of trial design, study population, treatment regimen, and results, together with relevant ACC/AHA Practice Guidelines.Now included with the print edition, enjoy the bundled interactive eBook edition, which can be downloaded to your smartphone or tablet, or accessible online and includes features like:* Complete content with enhanced navigation* A powerful search that pulls results from content in the book, your notes, and even the web* Cross-linked pages, references, and more for easy navigation* Highlighting tool for easier reference of key content throughout the text* Ability to take and share notes with friends and colleagues* Quick reference tabbing to save your favorite content for future use


The challenge of defining the domain and core concepts of the IS field is a perennial topic at major IS conferences. This paper describes the architecture of Sysperanto, a model-based ontology of the IS field. Sysperanto is being developed as part of an ongoing effort to create methods that typical business professionals can use to analyze systems and system-related projects for themselves at whatever level of depth is appropriate. The name Sysperanto is meant as a metaphor combining generality (covering the IS field), vocabulary (identification of terms), and structure (internally consistent organization) to create an ontology more powerful and useful than a list of keywords or propositions. Sysperanto's architecture provides an organizing framework for codifying the disparate and inconsistent propositions, methods, and findings that constitute the current state of IS knowledge and, in combination, form a major obstacle to knowledge accumulation and use in the IS field. Instead of yet another discussion of whether the IS field lacks a conceptual core and what might be the consequences of such a shortcoming, this paper proposes an architecture and preliminary details of a plausible set of core concepts for the IS field. It starts by summarizing Sysperanto's goals and explaining why work system concepts, rather than information system concepts, are the core of Sysperanto. It presents Sysperanto as a terminological ontology and explains the underlying meta-model. The meta-model is designed to support tools for analyzing systems from a business viewpoint and to help in codifying and organizing knowledge in the IS field. It uses a conceptual map based on extensiveness and guidance in application to compare Sysperanto with other efforts to organize ideas in the IS field. It may be several years before a complete version of Sysperanto is tested through its use in a formal method for analyzing systems or through comparison with other attempts to codify knowledge in the IS field. Nonetheless, its architecture is well enough defined to be compared to the architecture (or lack of architecture) in previous and future approaches for understanding and organizing the basic concepts about information systems.


This paper develops and reviews some microeconomic foundations for the provision of spatially-dependent ecosystem services from land. We focus on ecosystem services described by a production function with spatial dependencies in the primary input — the amount and pattern of land in particular uses and management. Many ecosystem service production functions are affected by spatial dependences, particularly those involving fish, wildlife, and water quality. We illustrate the various sources of demand for ecosystem services and then provide a novel development of the effects of alternative spatial dependencies on the shape of the supply curve for ecosystem services. Our analysis emphasizes that the optimal supply curve requires a mechanism to coordinate landowners' decisions and internalize the input externalities that arise from production functions being spatially dependent. Finally, we use our framework to illustrate and review some key implications for linking demand and supply for policy design.


Background To date, there is a paucity of theory-driven research on the likely determinants of patient involvement in safety-relevant behaviors. In particular, very little work has focused on predictors of patient behaviors that do not involve direct interactions with health-care staff. Objective To examine predictors of patients' intentions to engage in 2 safety behaviors: (1) reporting an error to a national reporting system and (2) bringing medicines into hospital. Design Cross-sectional survey study. Participants Eighty medical and surgical hospital inpatients aged 18 to 80 years (mean, 48 years) from one inner city London teaching hospital. Method Survey that measured the utility of constructs of the health belief model and theory of planned behavior in predicting patients' intentions to report an error to a national reporting system or to bring their medications into hospital. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Results Control beliefs were the strongest predictors of patients' intentions. Normative beliefs were also a strong predictor of intentions to report an error to a national reporting system. The regression model accounted for smaller percentage of the variance in patients' intentions to bring medications into hospital than to report an error to a national reporting system (37% and 48%, respectively). Conclusions Interventions aimed at encouraging the participation of patients in promoting their own safety should consider the extent to which patients feel in control and capable of performing the behavior in question; this will help support patients to work with health-care professionals in ensuring safe care.


Confrontation clause analysis took still one more step backward with the United States Supreme Court decision in Williams v. Illinois — U.S. — 132 S.Ct. 2221, 183 L.Ed.2d 89 (2012). In Williams, a four justice plurality, with really only three of the four justices aligning principally with an "accusing a targeted individual of engaging in criminal activity" definition of testimonial, combined with a concurrence by Justice Thomas described by Justice Kagan dissenting as adopted by no other member of the Member of the Court. Justice Kagan also said of Justice Thomas's concurrence that it is " — to be frank — who knows what" "formality and solemnity" approach. Combined the Williams opinions "have left significant confusion in their wake". Id. at 2277 (emphasis added).Williams addressed the issue of whether facts, data, or opinions reasonably relied upon under an Illinois evidence rule similar to Fed.R.Evid. 703, disclosed to the trier of fact, dealing with a DNA comparison, somehow does not violate the confrontation clause in the absence a testifying witness competent to testify on personal knowledge to the truth of the statements made in the DNA report — a live witness who signed the certification or performed or observed the text reported in the certification as required by both Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming. It is asserted that given the structure and content of the peculiar four one four opinions in Williams, that even though the conviction of Williams following admissibility of the DNA report absent a witness with sufficient personal knowledge presented for basis only under Rule 703, was held not to have been in violation of the confrontation clause, Justice Kagan is correct that at this moment Melendez-Diaz and Bullcoming continue to govern in every particular the admission of forensic evidence. On the other hand, as predicted by Justice Kagan, Williams taken as a whole, did leave "significant confusion" in its wake. Reported decisions have already taken contrary approaches in interpreting Williams.In Michigan v. Bryant,131 S.Ct. 1143, 179 L.Ed.2d 93 (2011), Justice Sotomayor, writing for the majority, with Justice Scalia vehemently dissenting, the Supreme Court addressed the admissibility under the confrontation clause of a statement of a murder victim, i.e., "Rick shot me", made while then lying on the ground next to his car at a gas station about six blocks from the drug dealer's house to the police almost 25 minutes after having been shot in the back by the victim's drug dealer, Rick, at the drug dealer's home. The Supreme Court found the victim's statement to be nontestimonial; the primary purpose of the police interrogation of the victim was to enable assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. According to Bryant, a statement is testimonial, if upon objective evaluation of the statement and action of the parties involved in the interrogation, along with the formality or informality of the interrogation, considered in light of the circumstances in which the interrogation occurred, the court concludes that the primary purpose of the interrogation was to establish or prove past events relevant to a later criminal prosecution. Pursuant to the combined approach of Bryant, the court must consider the statements and actions of both the declarant and the interrogating government official, along with the formality or informality present, in determining objectively the "primary purpose" of the interrogation.Combining the holdings of Melendez-Diaz/Bullcoming that an analyst's affidavit, i.e., a government created statement opining that a substance was cocaine is "testimonial", and incorporating the analyses of Williams suggested above as correct with the Supreme Court's jurisprudence in Crawford/Davis and Bryant relating to informal or formal interrogations, when the declarant of the out of court statement is not and was not subject to cross-examination concerning the statement, the following defines the concept of "testimonial" for confrontation clause purposes:An out of court statement is "testimonial" only if hearsay as defined in Fed.R.Evid. 801(a)-(d) and the statement was made by, or made to, or elicited by a police officer, other law enforcement personnel, or a judicial officer, if upon objective evaluation of the statements and actions of both the declarant and interrogator, if any, involved in the interrogation or statement creation, along with the informality or formality of the interrogation or statement creation, considered in light of the circumstance in which the interrogation or statement creation occurred, the court concludes that the primary purpose of the interrogation or statement creation was to establish or prove past events relevant to a later criminal prosecution.An out of court statement includes not only a verbatim recitation but also an outline, description, summary, etc., of the out of court statement that, fairly read, conveys to the jury the substance of the out of court assertion.


In this study a software package for easily creating and embedding structural health monitoring (SHM) data interrogation processes in remote hardware is presented. The software described herein is comprised of two pieces. The first is a client to allow graphical construction of data interrogation processes. The second is node software for remote execution of processes on remote sensing and monitoring hardware. The client software is created around a catalog of data interrogation algorithms compiled over several years of research at Los Alamos National Laboratory known as DIAMOND II. This study also includes encapsulating the DIAMOND II algorithms into independent interchangeable functions and expanding the catalog with work in feature extraction and statistical discrimination. The client software also includes methods for interfacing with the node software over an Internet connection. Once connected, the client software can upload a developed process to the integrated sensing and processing node. The node software has the ability to run the processes and return results. This software creates a distributed SHM network without individual nodes relying on each other or a centralized server to monitor a structure. For the demonstration summarized in this study, the client software is used to create data collection, feature extraction, and statistical modeling processes. Data are collected from monitoring hardware connected to the client by a local area network. A structural health monitoring process is created on the client and uploaded to the node software residing on the monitoring hardware. The node software runs the process and monitors a test structure for induced damage, returning the current structural-state indicator in near real time to the client. Current integrated health monitoring systems rely on processes statically loaded onto the monitoring node before the node is deployed in the field. The primary new contribution of this study is a software paradigm that allows processes to be created remotely and uploaded to the node in a dynamic fashion over the life of the monitoring node without taking the node out of service.


Background Type specific serologic tests for herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1&2 are used for sero-epidemiological studies. Its early application has also been shown to be of benefit in testing for primary & recurrent infections in diagnosis and patient management. The present study was conducted to evaluate the role of type specific HSV-1&2 antibody detection as a diagnostic modality in patients with clinically suspected genital herpes. Methods Sera obtained from 44 patients with clinically suspected genital herpes attending the STD clinic of our institution over last 7 months were tested for type specific HSV-1&2 IgG antibody by glycoprotein G based ELISA (HerpeSelect 1&2, Focus Diagnostics, USA). Direct Fluorescent Antibody testing (DFA) (BIO-RAD laboratories, USA) was used for identification and typing of HSV-1& 2 in genital ulcer specimens in all cases. Results There were 21 cases of primary & 23 cases of recurrent genital ulceration. DFA was positive in 68% samples (43% only HSV-2, 9% only HSV-1, 16% both HSV-1&2). On comparison with DFA, the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of HSV-2 IgG ELISA in primary herpetic ulcer was 8%, 75%, 33%, 33%, while it was 79%, 89%, 92%, 73% in recurrent genital ulceration. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values of HSV-1 IgG ELISA in primary herpetic ulcer was 50%, 67%, 37.5%, 77%, while it was 80%, 39%, 27%, and 87.5% in recurrent genital ulceration. Conclusion Our results highlight the importance of HSV-2 IgG detection in strengthening the diagnosis of recurrent HSV-2 disease, while absence of HSV-2 IgG antibody helps in excluding genital herpes as a likely cause of recurrent genital ulceration. The identification of HSV-1 IgG antibody may not be useful for diagnosis in patients of genital ulcer disease highlighting the need for typing HSV-1 strains from the genital lesion.


Abstract Systematic approaches to validation of linear programming models are discussed for prescriptive and predictive applications to economic problems. Specific references are made to a general linear programming formulation, however, the approaches are applicable to mathematical programming applications in general. Detailed procedures are outlined for validating various aspects of model performance given complete or partial sets of observed, real world values of variables. Alternative evaluation criteria are presented along with procedures for correcting validation problems.


Examples-based controllers use historical data to evaluate local approximation models. Large data sets make it prohibitively expensive to evaluate the best control action in real time. Support vector machines (SVM) are known for their ability to identify the minimal set of data points needed to reconstruct an optimal decision surface. A successful application is presented: the simplification of a six-dimensional robotic controller. The SVM reduced the size of the data set to 5.3% of its original size while retaining 99.7% classification accuracy, thus leading the way to online implementation. The results indicate that SVM may be highly effective for the simplification of examples-based controllers.


Defying a 2003 agreement to halt its nuclear program, Iran resumed its nuclear activities in 2005 despite the objections and sanctions of a concerned international community. Theoretical frameworks in international relations may suggest the strategic environment, regime type, and international institutions as key variables to explain foreign policy-making. In this article, it is argued that nuclear decision-making in Tehran cannot be understood through a "black-box"model that would assume Iran to be a unitary rational actor that knows its capabilities, interests, and wants. Instead, one must investigate the changes in the domestic decision-making and bargaining process through a bureaucratic politics model. Although some point out hardliner President Ahmadinejad as the sole decision-maker, we argue that a single individual could not have changed the course of the entire country; there were coalitions and struggles among multiple actors within the regime. Analyzing two different eras within the case of Iran, we argue that the shift in bureaucratic coalitions among the Supreme Leader, the President, the Revolutionary Guards, the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran, and the Supreme National Security Council explains the shift in Iranian foreign policy. In our conclusion, we draw several implications of this argument for the scholarly literature and offer policy-prescriptive advice.