Are information sectors sufficiently different from other sectors of the economy such that more stringent antitrust standards should be applied to them preemptively? Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu responds in the affirmative in his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Wu proposes preventing vertical mergers in the information economy and the mandatory divestiture of vertically integrated companies. To implement this, Wu proposes a Separations Principle for the information economy, which would segregate information providers into three buckets, which we have labeled information creators, information distributors, and hardware makers. This article outlines Wu's separations proposal, explains why his fears regarding vertical relationships should be rejected by regulatory and antitrust policymakers, and illustrates the legal and practical problems his Separations Principle poses. Wu justifies his Separations Principle by citing monopolies and market power in the information economy. He also advocates using U.S. antitrust authorities to enforce his Principle. We argue that the antitrust harms he fears are not present, and we highlight scholarship on the accepted benefits of vertically integrated firms. We show that Wu's remedies are policy preferences wrapped in the language of competition law. In fact, the information economy is largely competitive and does not warrant interventionist regulatory enforcement. Since much of American economic vitality flows from the information economy and technology, policymakers should reject a radical antitrust remedy like Wu's preemptive Separations Principle.


Recent advances in adversarial attacks and Wasserstein GANs have advocated for use of neural networks with restricted Lipschitz constants. Motivated by these observations, we study the recently introduced GroupSort neural networks, with constraints on the weights, and make a theoretical step towards a better understanding of their expressive power. We show in particular how these networks can represent any Lipschitz continuous piecewise linear functions. We also prove that they are well-suited for approximating Lipschitz continuous functions and exhibit upper bounds on both the depth and size. To conclude, the efficiency of GroupSort networks compared with more standard ReLU networks is illustrated in a set of synthetic experiments.


This thesis examines the extent to what corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, entrepreneurial and business skills and programmes for training and monitoring improve microbusiness performance and loan repayment rates: 'To what extent do corporate social responsibility strategies, entrepreneurial and business skills and programmes for training and monitoring improve loan repayment rates of microfinance debtors in developing countries?' MFIs that adopt CSR strategies provide for both financial and social empowerment services. Social empowerment services may include primary health care services, occupational skills training for microfinance debtors and debtor monitoring programmes. The 2008 credit crunch led many MFIs to abandon their CSR strategies. We analyse the case of uniCredit Ghana MFI and argue that CSR strategies contribute to public support for the MFI. This helps raise deposits and improves funding opportunities. Social empowerment investment improve microbusiness performance and loan repayment rates. We expect those MFIs that adopt CSR strategies to improve their sustainability, more than do MFIs that specialize in providing financial services only. We establish that those microfinance debtors who consider themselves endowed with entrepreneurial and business skills do not repay loans better than those microfinance debtors lacking these skills. Highly educated entrepreneurs do not repay their loans any better relative to those with primary or secondary education only. We establish that business experience is the only constituent of human capital that matters for business performance and loan repayment rates. Experienced microfinance debtors systematically repay their loans better than do those entrepreneurs lacking business experience. We observe that microfinance debtors do not agree on what skills they think are important for loan repayment probabilities. This result implies that every single microfinance debtor needs to acquire specific skills. Training programmes cannot be standardized and should be tailored towards the needs of the individual microfinance debtor. We establish that MFI loan officers neither agree on the ranking of specific skills they think are important for microfinance debtors to repay their loans promptly. This result suggests that MFI loan officers should be trained to better understand the relevance of specific entrepreneurial and business skills for microfinance entrepreneurs. We empirically establish that training programmes fail to improve loan repayment rates. Programmes for intensive microfinance debtor monitoring significantly improve loan repayment rates. Intensive monitoring is equally effective for highly and poorly educated, experienced and unexperienced, female and male microfinance debtors: MFIs may significantly improve repayment rates should they consistently monitor their microfinance debtors intensively.


Computing the Wasserstein barycenter of a set of probability measures under the optimal transport metric can quickly become prohibitive for traditional second-order algorithms, such as interior-point methods, as the support size of the measures increases. In this paper, we overcome the difficulty by developing a new adapted interior-point method that fully exploits the problem's special matrix structure to reduce the iteration complexity and speed up the Newton procedure. Different from regularization approaches, our method achieves a well-balanced tradeoff between accuracy and speed. A numerical comparison on various distributions with existing algorithms exhibits the computational advantages of our approach. Moreover, we demonstrate the practicality of our algorithm on image benchmark problems including MNIST and Fashion-MNIST.


IsoveraDL is a digital library and peer review system. IsoveraDL allows you to upload and serve your learning resources along with associated record metadata in a very organized and dynamic way.
 IsoveraDL uses a resource publication workflow that models the existing off-line record management workflow in use by different AAAS BEN partners. In addition IsoveraDL also provides a Peer Review module which allows users to create and use dynamic Peer Review workflows. Using IsoveraDL, permitted users can upload records and metadata for Peer Reviewed by others. Metadata records can be validated by a different set of users before they are published.
 The record submission forms used in IsoveraDL for adding resources are highly customizable and administrative users have the option of setting up as many of these forms as required. The Controlled Vocabularies and metadata fields used in IsoveraDL conform to AAAS BEN Learning Object Metadata specification. Administrative users have the ability to edit or add to these vocabularies and fields if needed.
 Optionally, the IsoveraDL Peer Review module may be used in conjunction with IsoveraDL's record submission forms. If a record submission form is set up for Peer Review then all records submitted through the form are Peer Reviewed before they can be validated. Administrative users can create workflows, associated forms and reviewer groups for the Peer Review module. The Peer Review module also has a reporting interface through which administrative users can easily monitor the progress and workload of all records and users associated with the module.
 Once a record is validated and published, users are able to discover resources through IsoveraDL's search and browse functionality. Records published through IsoveraDL can be easily harvested to the AAAS BEN portal through the built-in Harvester module using OAI-PHM.


Motivation and Objectives Nowadays, many organizations use portals extensively as a single-point access to information, applications, and people. However, dealing with the constantly growing amounts of information available through web portals is difficult and time-consuming for users. Most of the current portal systems enable users to retrieve content statically defined as relevant - but reading and interpreting it remain a serious bottleneck. We propose to break this bottleneck with a personalized information system that integrates Natural Language Processing (NLP) to support users in analysing, transforming, and creating knowledge from large amounts of textual content. Our approach is a novel combination of web portal technology with the Semantic Assistants (SA) framework (Witte and Gitzinger, 2008), an extensible software architecture that allows invoking literally any NLP or text mining tool using either Web Services or Application Programming Interfaces (API). The whole system is designed to give users full control over personalization, and leverage visualizations to adjust the adaptive behaviour to the users' preferences in an easy-to-use way. Methods The proposed system relies on three major components: a web portal compliant with the Java Portlet Specification JSR286; the Semantic Assistants framework providing NLP services; and a module dedicated to user modelling and personalization. Web Portals are web applications providing users with unified access to various information resources and services. The most widely used industry standard for portal technology is the Java Portlet Specification JSR286. This standard defines an API for developing portlet applications in the Java programming language. A portlet is a pluggable user interface component that provides a specific piece of content or an application. Portlets can be aggregated into a portal page. Semantic Assistants are an existing open source service-oriented framework that brokers NLP pipelines as W3C standard web services. This framework brings NLP techniques directly to end users by integrating them within desktop applications. User Modelling and Personalization components allow storing information on user interests, which are represented as an overlay of domain concepts defined in the domain ontology. For each concept, the user model stores the exact degree to which the user is interested in it. The user model is updated following our hybrid approach (Bakalov et al., 2009). The portal content is delivered to users through personalizable portlets that can be viewed in standard or personalized states. In a personalized state, users can choose between several personalization effects (e.g., sort content by interest or chronologically). Genozymes Portal: This biochemical literature portal has been developed for the Genozymes project at Concordia's Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics (CSFG) and is currently in use by a group of biologists, biochemists and geneticists working on lignocellulose research. The goal of this research is to find novel ways of creating bioproducts and biofuels from green waste. Part of this work is the curation of content regarding specific enzymes of fungal origin from the domain literature. Towards this end, literature from the PubMed portal needs to be evaluated for relevance, which is a time-consuming task. To support these researchers, we automatically import new articles appearing on PubMed into a portal (Figure 1), processing them with the mycoMINE NLP pipeline (Meurs et al, 2012), which extracts entities and facts related to fungal enzymes. The Query portlet displays user's search queries. These queries can be hierarchically organized and modified by adding, renaming or deleting keywords. The Listing portlet presents the most relevant papers found among new articles appearing on PubMed with regards to all or a selected subset of the user queries. In our example (Figure 1), the mention of cellulose percentage has been selected in the Query portlet and the user has requested the mycoMINE assistant on the papers appearing in the Listing portlet. The Index portlet displays the mycoMINE results in terms of entities and facts mentioned in the papers. The number of different occurrences is indicated for each type of entity and fact (e.g. 47 different enzymes). Each reported entity or fact is linked in the texts to their corresponding mentions, which are underlined, then highlighted when the user selects them in the Index portlet. Portal content and SA results can be personalized by users. In the personalized view, users can view and edit their interest profile as well as define how the portlet content should be personalized. This is done in a personalization options window (Figure 1 - bottom) displayed as an overlay over the portlet. The personalization options vary from portlet to portlet. For example, the Listing portlet supports three personalization effects which can be selected by checking the corresponding checkboxes: (1) sorting publications according to the user interest profile; (2) highlighting the most interesting of the user publications by a colour marker; (3) highlighting mentions of items from the user interest profile in the publications list. User changes on the personalization options are immediately projected onto the portlet content. The personalization interface we proposed (Bakalov et al., 2010) visualizes user interests using a metaphor of circular zones partitioned into slices, where each zone represents items of certain interest degree and each slice represents items of a specific type. The hot zone in the centre displays items that users are strongly interested in, while the cold zone at the circle edge displays less interesting items. The visualization follows Shneiderman's information seeking mantra (Shneiderman, 1996) by providing functions for getting an overview, zooming in and out, filtering, searching and giving detailed information about items upon request (Figure 1 - bottom, details). The visualization also allows editing information in the model (adding and deleting items, changing interest degree, etc.). Similar to the changes of personalization options, all changes in the interest profile made through the Results and Discussion To evaluate the impact of introducing personalized text mining services in our Genozymes portal, we conducted a user study with seven CSFG researchers. The results of this evaluation showed that providing users control over personalization and text mining services makes substantial impacts on the usefulness, usability, and user satisfaction of the personalized system. The Genozymes portal is available for demonstration at http://www.minerva-portals.de:10040/wps/portal, user=demo, pswd=portaluser. We demonstrate how to enhance web portals with personalized text mining services that enable users to focus on the interesting sections of the presented contents. In such a way, portal users can apply NLP tools not only on publications, but also on a variety of other resources and applications that can be aggregated using portal technology, such as patents, databases, samples, or observation and sensor data. Acknowledgements We thank all the participants of the user study for their contribution. We thank Justin Powlowski for his expert advice on the biology content. Funding for part of this work was provided by Genome Canada and Genome Quebec. Part of this research was sponsored by the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program and carried out in the framework of the Minerva Portals project in cooperation with IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH. References Bakalov F, Konig-Ries B, et al. (2009) Hybrid Approach to Identifying User Interests in Web Portals. Int. Conf. on Innovative Internet Community Systems, 2009. Bakalov F, Konig-Ries B, et al. (2010) IntrospectiveViews: An interface for scrutinizing semantic user models, Int. Conf. on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization. Meurs MJ, Murphy C, et al., (2012) Semantic text mining support for lignocellulose research, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 12(Suppl 1):S5. doi:10.1186/1472-6947-12-S1-S5 Shneiderman B (1996) The eyes have it: A task by data type taxonomy for information visualizations. IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages, 1996. Witte R and Gitzinger T (2008) Semantic Assistants - User-Centric Natural Language Processing Services for Desktop Clients. Asian Semantic Web Conference, LNCS5367-360. Note: Figures and tables are available in PDF version only.


We introduce a new class of quadratic support (QS) functions, many of which already play a crucial role in a variety of applications, including machine learning, robust statistical inference, sparsity promotion, and inverse problems such as Kalman smoothing. Well known examples of QS penalties include the l2, Huber, l1 and Vapnik losses. We build on a dual representation for QS functions, using it to characterize conditions necessary to interpret these functions as negative logs of true probability densities. This interpretation establishes the foundation for statistical modeling with both known and new QS loss functions, and enables construction of non-smooth multivariate distributions with specified means and variances from simple scalar building blocks.

The main contribution of this paper is a flexible statistical modeling framework for a variety of learning applications, together with a toolbox of efficient numerical methods for estimation. In particular, a broad subclass of QS loss functions known as piecewise linear quadratic (PLQ) penalties has a dual representation that can be exploited to design interior point (IP) methods. IP methods solve nonsmooth optimization problems by working directly with smooth systems of equations characterizing their optimality. We provide several numerical examples, along with a code that can be used to solve general PLQ problems.

The efficiency of the IP approach depends on the structure of particular applications. We consider the class of dynamic inverse problems using Kalman smoothing. This class comprises a wide variety of applications, where the aim is to reconstruct the state of a dynamical system with known process and measurement models starting from noisy output samples. In the classical case, Gaussian errors are assumed both in the process and measurement models for such problems. We show that the extended framework allows arbitrary PLQ densities to be used, and that the proposed IP approach solves the generalized Kalman smoothing problem while maintaining the linear complexity in the size of the time series, just as in the Gaussian case. This extends the computational efficiency of the Mayne-Fraser and Rauch-Tung-Striebel algorithms to a much broader nonsmooth setting, and includes many recently proposed robust and sparse smoothers as special cases.


We estimate strong motion generation areas that reproduce near-source ground motions in a broadband frequency range (0.2-10 Hz) using the empirical Green's function technique. The strong motion generation areas are defined as extended areas with relatively large slip velocities within a total rupture area. Four M 6 class (the 1997 Kagoshima on March and May, 1997 Yamaguchi, and 1998 Iwate) and several moderate-size earthquakes in Japan were analyzed. We examine the relationship between the strong motion generation area and the area of asperities, which is characterized based on heterogeneous slip distributions estimated from low-frequency (<1 Hz) waveform inversions (Somerville et al. , 1999). We performed waveform fitting in acceleration, velocity, and displacement, then obtained the strong motion generation area occupying about a quarter of the total rupture area. The size and position of the strong motion generation area coincide with those of characterized asperities. We find self-similar scaling of seismic moment to both the size of the strong motion generation area and the rise time for a magnitude range of analyzed earthquakes. Based on our results, we propose a characterized source model for the broadband ground-motion simulation, which consists of strong motion generation areas with large slip velocities and a background slip area with a small slip velocity. Waveform modeling of the characterized source model suggests that the strong motion generation areas play important roles in simulating broadband ground motions and have the potential to be an about 10-MPa stress-release area on the fault.

Manuscript received 22 August 2002.


Abstract We analyze relationships among a range of ecological and biological traits—geographic range size, body size, life mode, larval type, and feeding type—in order to identify those traits that are associated significantly with species duration in New Zealand Cenozoic marine molluscs, during a time of background extinction. Using log-linear modeling, we find that bivalves have only a small number of simple, two-way associations between the studied traits and duration. In contrast, gastropods display more complex interactions involving three-way associations between traits, a pattern that suggests greater macroecological complexity of gastropods. This is not an artifact caused by the larger number of gastropods than bivalves in our data set. We used stratified randomized resampling of families to test for associations between traits that might result from shared inheritance rather than ecological trait interactions; we found no evidence of phylogenetic effects in any associations examined. The relationships revealed by our study should serve to constrain the range of possible biological mechanisms that underlie these relationships. As previously observed, two-way associations are present between large geographic range and increased duration, and between large geographic range and large body size, in both bivalves and gastropods. In gastropods, planktotrophic larval type is associated with large range size through a three-way interaction that also involves duration; there is no direct association of larval type and geographic range. Gastropods also display two-way associations between duration and life mode, and duration and feeding type. We note that in gastropods, an infaunal life mode is associated with large range size, whereas in bivalves infaunality is associated with reduced range size.


Yeast RAD54 gene, a member of the RAD52 epistasis group, plays an important role in homologous recombination and DNA double strand break repair. Rad54 belongs to the Snf2/Swi2 protein family, and it possesses a robust DNA-dependent ATPase activity, uses free energy from ATP hydrolysis to supercoil DNA, and cooperates with the Rad51 recombinase in DNA joint formation. There are two RAD54-homologous genes in human cells, hRAD54 and RAD54B. Mutations in these human genes have been found in tumors. These tumor-associated mutations map to conserved regions of the hRad54 and hRad54B proteins. Here we introduced the equivalent mutations into the Saccharomyces cerevisiae RAD54 gene in an effort to examine the functional consequences of these gene changes. One mutant, rad54 G484R, showed sensitivity to DNA-damaging agents and reduced homologous recombination rates, indicating a loss of function. Even though the purified rad54 G484R mutant protein retained the ability to bind DNA and interact with Rad51, it was nearly devoid of ATPase activity and was similarly defective in DNA supercoiling and D-loop formation. Two other mutants, rad54 N616S and rad54 D442Y, were not sensitive to genotoxic agents and behaved like the wild type allele in homologous recombination assays. Consistent with the mild phenotype associated with the rad54 N616S allele, its encoded protein was similar to wild type Rad54 protein in biochemical attributes. Because dysfunctional homologous recombination gives rise to genome instability, our results are consistent with the premise that tumor-associated mutations in hRad54 and Rad54B could contribute to the tumor phenotype or enhance the genome instability seen in tumor cells.


America's higher education system is failing its students. In the space of a generation, we have gone from being the best-educated society in the world to one surpassed by eleven other nations in college graduation rates. Higher education is evolving into a caste system with separate and unequal tiers that take in students from different socio-economic backgrounds and leave them more unequal than when they first enrolled. Until the 1970s, the United States had a proud history of promoting higher education for its citizens. The Morrill Act, the G.I. Bill and Pell Grants enabled Americans from across the income spectrum to attend college and the nation led the world in the percentage of young adults with baccalaureate degrees. Yet since 1980, progress has stalled. Young adults from low to middle income families are not much more likely to graduate from college than four decades ago. When less advantaged students do attend, they are largely sequestered into inferior and often profit-driven institutions, from which many emerge without degrees--and shouldering crushing levels of debt. In Degrees of Inequality, acclaimed political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains why the system has gone so horribly wrong and why the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for so many. In her eye-opening account, she illuminates how political partisanship has overshadowed America's commitment to equal access to higher education. As politicians capitulate to corporate interests, owners of for-profit colleges benefit, but for far too many students, higher education leaves them with little besides crippling student loan debt. Meanwhile, the nation's public universities have shifted the burden of rising costs onto students. In an era when a college degree is more linked than ever before to individual--and societal--well-being, these pressures conspire to make it increasingly difficult for students to stay in school long enough to graduate. By abandoning their commitment to students, politicians are imperiling our highest ideals as a nation. Degrees of Inequality offers an impassioned call to reform a higher education system that has come to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, socioeconomic inequality in America.


The standard approach to computing an optimal mixed strategy to commit to is based on solving a set of linear programs, one for each of the follower's pure strategies. We show that these linear programs can be naturally merged into a single linear program; that this linear program can be interpreted as a formulation for the optimal correlated strategy to commit to, giving an easy proof of a result by von Stengel and Zamir that the leader's utility is at least the utility she gets in any correlated equilibrium of the simultaneous-move game; and that this linear program can be extended to compute optimal correlated strategies to commit to in games of three or more players. (Unlike in two-player games, in games of three or more players, the notions of optimal mixed and correlated strategies to commit to are truly distinct.) We give examples, and provide experimental results that indicate that for 50x50 games, this approach is usually significantly faster than the multiple-LPs approach.


This paper describes a practicum designed to increase the stress management skills of 10 special educators working in a juvenile detention center. Teachers at the juvenile detention center were taking an inordinate amount of sick leave and engaging in behaviors that were counter-productive to their delivery of educational services to detained youth. Evidence of inadequate stress management skills was gathered using surveys. The causes of the stress included such factors as teachers' feelings of lack of accomplishment, effectiveness, and closure. The stress management program was delivered in weekly 30-35 minute inservice sessions over a 32-week period. Activities ranged from instructions for simple releasing exercises, to brainstorming possible stress-reducing changes in their environment, to presentations by a certified fitness instructor, a dietitian, and a massage therapist. The practicum resulted in the correctional educators learning to identify their levels of stress and use strategies to combat or manage stress. Appendices include a self-diagnosis instrument, the Stress Level Inventory, and a form for self-evaluation of stress management skills. (Contains 50 references.) (CR) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:sAAA:.AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:CA:,AAAAAAAAAAA VC) Developing and Implementing a Stress Management Program for Special Educators in a Juvenile Detention Center


The relationship between church and state is both controversial and unsettled. For decades, the courts have vacillated dramatically in their rulings on when a particular governmental accommodation rises to the level of an impermissible state establishment of religion. Without a comprehensive theory of the First Amendment establishment clause, religion cases have devolved into a jurisprudence of minutiae. Seemingly insignificant occurrences, such as a student reading a religious story or a teacher wearing a cross on a necklace, have led to years of litigation. And because of the constant threat of judicial intrusion, a pervasive social anxiety exists about the presence of religion in American public life. This anxiety, in turn, leads to more litigation, as opposing parties constantly try to influence the fluctuating direction of the courts' religion doctrines. Courts have often treated the two religion clauses of the First Amendment as contradictory, with the free exercise clause used to protect religious practices and the establishment clause employed to limit the public expression of religious beliefs. "Wrestling with God" not only reconciles the relationship between the two clauses but also distinguishes them in terms of their respective purposes. Whereas the exercise clause focuses on individual freedom, the establishment clause addresses the institutional autonomy of religious organizations. Under this distinction, many cases currently falling under the establishment clause - e.g., prayer in the schools - should instead by governed by the exercise clause. Unlike many contemporary interpretations of the establishment clause, the model offered in "Wrestling with God" views the clause not as a check on religion but as a protection against a specific kind of religious coercion - the kind that results from governmental interference with the freedom of religious institutions. As Patrick M. Garry skillfully argues in "Wrestling with God", the establishment clause does not exist for the benefit of a secular society; it exists for those religious institutions in which individuals seek to practice their beliefs.


ABSTRACT
 The New Guinea sugarcane weevil, Rhabdoscelus obscurus (Boisduval) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is an important pest of palms, ornamental nurseries, and sugarcane in the Pacific Islands. Without effective control methods, R. obscurus populations can cause major or complete loss of palm production in Guam and other Micronesian Islands. Moreover, R. obscurus has inflicted severe attacks on coconut trees on Guam. The role of monitoring is important in judging the dynamics of R. obscurus and recording area wide population trends. There is no precise research information available on the trap catch threshold levels relative to the damage caused by R. obscurus. Here we investigated the assessment of trap catch threshold levels and the potential for predicting R. obscurus larval damage by using adult pheromone trap captures. Spatial patterns of capture were studied in relation to subsequent larval damaged betel nut plants at various locations in Guam, United States, during 2010–2012. The generalized additive model was used to describe the effects of the treatment level (traps/ha), ranging from 0 to 12, and time on reducing the damage of R. obscurus to palms. We find that these two predictors are statistically significant, and the treatment level is demonstrated to be the crucial predictor for reducing the damage. There is no significant difference in effectively controlling the damage between the treatment levels of 9 and 12 traps/ha. At least 9 traps/ha is suggested for effectively controlling the damage based on results from the current study.


From the Publisher:
Use of Beowulf clusters (collections of off-the-shelf commodity computers programmed to act in concert, resulting in supercomputer performance at a fraction of the cost) has spread far and wide in the computational science community. Many application groups are assembling and operating their own "private supercomputers" rather than relying on centralized computing centers. Such clusters are used in climate modeling, computational biology, astrophysics, and materials science, as well as non-traditional areas such as financial modeling and entertainment. Much of this new popularity can be attributed to the growth of the open-source movement.

The second edition of Beowulf Cluster Computing with Linux has been completely updated; all three stand-alone sections have important new material. The introductory material in the first part now includes a new chapter giving an overview of the book and background on cluster-specific issues, including why and how to choose a cluster, as well as new chapters on cluster initialization systems (including ROCKS and OSCAR) and on network setup and tuning. The information on parallel programming in the second part now includes chapters on basic parallel programming and available libraries and programs for clusters. The third and largest part of the book, which describes software infrastructure and tools for managing cluster resources, has new material on cluster management and on the Scyld system.


Productivity in software factories is very important because it allows organizations to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in their activities. One of the pillars of competitiveness is productivity, and it is related to the effort required to accomplish the assigned tasks. However, there is no standard way to measure it, making it difficult to establish policies and strategies to improve the factory. In this work, a model based on data envelopment analysis is presented to evaluate the relative efficiency of the software factories and their projects, to measure the productivity in the software production component of the software factory through the activities that are carried out in their different work units. The proposed model consists of two phases in which the productivity of the software factory is evaluated and the productivity of the projects it conducts is assessed. Numerical tests on 6 software factories with 160 projects implemented show that the proposed model allows one to assess the software factories and the most efficient projects.


A considerable part of the global pool of terrestrial carbon is stored in high latitude soils. In these soils, repeated cycles of freezing and thawing creates soil motion (cryoturbation) that in combination with other cryogenic disturbance processes may play a profound role in controlling the carbon balance of the arctic soil. Conditions for cryogenic soil processes are predicted to dramatically change in response to the ongoing climate warming, but little is known how these changes may affect the ability of arctic soils to accumulate carbon. In this thesis, I utilize a patterned ground system, referred to as non-sorted circles, as experimental units and quantify how cryogenic soil processes affect plant communities and carbon fluxes in arctic soils. I show that the cryoturbation has been an important mechanism for transporting carbon downwards in the studied soil over the last millennia. Interestingly, burial of organic material by cryoturbation appears to have mainly occurred during bioclimatic events occurring around A.D. 900-1250 and A.D. 1650-1950 as indicated by inferred 14C ages. Using a novel photogrammetric approach, I estimate that about 0.2-0.8 % of the carbon pool is annually subjected to a net downward transport induced by the physical motion of soil. Even though this flux seems small, it suggests that cryoturbation is an important transporter of carbon over centennial and millennial timescales and contributes to translocate organic matter to deeper soil layers where respiration proceeds at slow rates. Cryogenic processes not only affect the trajectories of the soil carbon, but also generate plant community changes in both species composition and abundance, as indicated by a conducted plant survey on non-sorted circles subjected to variable differential frost heave during the winter. Here, disturbance-tolerant plant species, such as Carex capillaris and Tofieldia pusilla, seem to be favoured by disturbance generated by the differential heave. Comparison with findings from a previous plant survey on the site conducted in the 1980s suggest that the warmer temperatures during the last decades have resulted in decreased differential heave in the studied non-sorted circles. I argue that this change in cryogenic activity has increased abundance of plants present in the 1980s. The fact that the activity and function of the non-sorted circles in Abisko are undergoing changes is further supported by their contemporary carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes. Here, my measurements of CO2 fluxes suggest that all studied non-sorted circles act as net CO2 sources and thus that the carbon balance of the soils are in a transition state. My results highlight the complex but important relationship between cryogenic soil processes and the carbon balance of arctic soils.


Given the increasing numbers of international social work students in the United States, it is incumbent upon social work faculty to understand their needs for appropriate support as they adjust to life as foreign-born students. This paper has two main goals. First, we discuss contributions and challenges faced by international social work students. Second, as a form of support, we propose a mentoring approach pairing retired social work professionals with international social work students and argue that this may provide a mutually beneficial experience for both. That is, this study identifies adaptation needs specific to international social work students, describes the proposed paired-mentoring approach, and discusses implications of this approach.


Targeted covalent
inhibitors are powerful entities in drug discovery, but their application has
so far mainly been limited to addressing cysteine residues. The development of
cysteine-directed covalent inhibitors has largely profited from determining
their proteome-wide selectivity using competitive residue-specific proteomics. Several
probes have recently been described to monitor other amino acids using this
technology and many more electrophiles exist to modify proteins. Nevertheless,
a direct, proteome‑wide comparison of the selectivity of diverse probes is
still entirely missing. Here, we developed a completely unbiased workflow to analyse
electrophile selectivity proteome‑wide and applied it to directly compare 54 alkyne
probes containing diverse reactive groups. In this way, we verified and newly identified
probes to monitor a total of nine different amino acids as well as the N‑terminus
proteome‑wide. This selection includes the first probes to globally monitor
tryptophans, histidines and arginines as well as novel tailored probes for
methionines, aspartates and glutamates.


Introduction. Part I: Understanding Global Warming. Chapter 1: Global Warming Basics. Chapter 2: The Greenhouse We Live In. Chapter 3: The Big Deal About Carbon. Part II: Tracking Down the Causes. Chapter 4: Living in the Dark Ages of Fossil Fuels. Chapter 5: Getting Right to the Source: The Big Emitters. Chapter 6: Taking It Personally: Individual Sources of Emissions. Part III: Examining the Effects of Global Warming. Chapter 7: Not-So-Natural Disasters. Chapter 8: Risking Flora and Fauna: Impacts on Plants and Animals. Chapter 9: Hitting Home: Global Warming's Direct Effect on People. Part IV: Political Progress: Fighting Global Warming Nationally and Internationally. Chapter 10 : Voting for Your Future: What Governments Can Do. Chapter 11: Beyond Borders: Progress on a Global Level. Chapter 12: Developing in the Face of Global Warming. Part V: Solving the Problem. Chapter 13: A Whole New World of Energy. Chapter 14: Show Me the Money: Business and Industrial Solutions. Chapter 15: Activists without Borders: Non-Governmental Organizations. Chapter 16: Lights, Camera, Action: The Media and Global Warming. Chapter 17: Taking the High Road. Chapter 18: Making a Difference at Home and Work. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 19: Ten Things You Can Do Today to Slow Global Warming. Chapter 20: Ten Inspiring Leaders in the Fight Against Global Warming. Chapter 21: Top Ten Myths about Global Warming. Chapter 22: Ten Online Global Warming Resources. Index.


We present a Sellmeier equation for the temperature- and wavelength-dependent extraordinary refractive index of 5 mol. % MgO-doped congruent lithium niobate, which is valid for frequencies from 1 to 3 THz in a temperature range from 30°C to 200°C. The determination of the Sellmeier coefficients is based on the tuning behavior of a quasi-phase-matched, continuous-wave optical parametric oscillator with its idler wave in the terahertz regime.


Computer games, which are currently very popular among students, can affect different cognitive abilities. The purpose of the present study is to examine undergraduate students' experiences and preferences in playing computer games as well as their mental rotation abilities. A total of 163 undergraduate students participated. The results showed a significant difference between students' mental rotation abilities in terms of their experiences and preferences in playing computer games. Moreover, 2D or 3D computer game preference was shown to be dependent on gender. This study also explores the quantity of time spent by undergraduate students playing computer games.


This paper proposes an account of the distribution and role of a set of particles in Hungarian dubbed `polarity particles', which include igen `yes', nem `no', and de `but'. These particles occur at the leftmost edge of a class of assertions uttered as reactions to an immediately preceding assertion or polar question. It is argued that they express two sets of features typical of the class of reactive assertions they occur in, one set encoding the polarity of the asserted sentence, and the other encoding the relation of the asserted sentence to the immediately preceding utterance. The discussion is set against an explicit approach to context structure and to assertive and polar questioning speech acts that draws on a number of pre-existing proposals in the literature.


against Iraq was justified because Saddam Hussein was in material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441. But even if Iraq was in violation of a UN resolution, the U.S. military does not exist to enforce UN mandates. It exists to defend the United States: its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, the population, and the liberties that underlie the American way of life. So whether Iraq was in violation of Resolution 1441 is irrelevant. The real question is whether Iraq represented a direct and imminent threat to the United States that could not otherwise be deterred. If that was the case, then preemptive self-defense, like Israel's military action against Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the 1967 Six Day War, would have been warranted. And if Iraq was not a threat, especially in terms of aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, then the United States fought a needless war against a phantom menace. In the final analysis, the war against Iraq was the wrong war. Not because the United States used preemptive military force—preemptive selfdefense would have been justified in the face of a truly imminent threat. Not because the United States acted without the consent of the United Nations—no country should surrender its defense to a vote of other nations. And not because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—none has been discovered and, even if they existed, they were not a threat. The war against Iraq was the wrong war because the enemy at the gates was, and continues to be, Al Qaeda. Not only was Iraq not a direct military threat to the United States (even if it possessed WMD, which was a fair assumption), but there is no good evidence to support the claim that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda and would have given the group WMD to be used against the United States. In fact, all the evidence suggests the contrary. Hussein was a secular Muslim ruler, and bin Laden is a radical Muslim fundamentalist—their ideological views are hardly compatible. Ironically, President Bush provided his own indictment of the Iraq war when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly in September 2003: "No government should ignore the threat of terror, because to look the other way gives terrorists the chance to regroup and recruit and prepare." But that is exactly what the United States did by going to war against Iraq. To make matters even worse, the American taxpayer is stuck with the bill for the war and postwar reconstruction. Iraq: The Wrong War


As the twentieth century drew to a close, the rich were getting richer; power was concentrating within huge corporations; vast tracts of the earth were being laid waste; and, three quarters of the earth's population had no control over its destiny and no claim to basic rights. There was nothing new in this. What was new was the virtual absence of any political will to do anything about it. "Spaces of Hope" takes issue with this. David Harvey brings an exciting perspective to two of the principal themes of contemporary social discourse: globalization and the body. Exploring the uneven geographical development of late-twentieth-century capitalism, and placing the working body in relation to this new geography, he finds in Marx's writings a wealth of relevant analysis and theoretical insight. In order to make much-needed changes, Harvey maintains, we need to become the architects of a different living and working environment and to learn to bridge the micro-scale of the body and the personal and the macro-scale of global political economy. Utopian movements have for centuries tried to construct a just society. Harvey looks at their history to ask why they failed and what the ideas behind them might still have to offer. His devastating description of the existing urban environment (Baltimore is his case study) fuels his argument that we can and must use the force of utopian imagining against all who say 'there is no alternative'. He outlines a new kind of utopian thought, which he calls dialectical utopianism, and refocuses our attention on possible designs for a more equitable world of work and living with nature. If any political ideology or plan is to work, he argues, it must take account of our human qualities. Finally, Harvey dares to sketch a very personal utopian vision in an appendix, one that leaves no doubt about his own geography of hope.


Background For more than a century, the idea of particular personality/behavioural characteristics being associated with people with Down's syndrome has been explored, but with inconclusive results. Method The Disability Assessment Schedule was used to ascertain the behavioural profiles of 360 adults with Down's syndrome and 1829 adults with learning disabilities of other aetiologies, who were the whole identified population within a defined geographical area. Comparison was made between the two total groups and additionally for the subgroups aged < 35 years and aged ⩾35 years. Comparison was also made with regards to cluster analysis findings. Results Despite an equal age and developmental quotient, the Down's syndrome group were less likely to demonstrate maladaptive behaviours. The behaviour characteristics of the adults with Down's syndrome remained constant in the younger and older age groups. Cluster analysis demonstrated adults with Down's syndrome to have an increased prevalence in cluster groupings with lower rates of maladaptive behaviours. Conclusions This study confirms there to be a behaviour phenotype among adults with Down's syndrome. The reasons for this (e.g. genetic/psychological/social) require further research. Such research may establish a better understanding of the aetiologies of maladaptive behaviours among people with learning disabilities in general.


A Fabry-Perot (F-P) etalon and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) were combined to preprocess the data signals before clock recovery. With this technology in the 10-Gb/s clock recovery utilizing injection mode-locked laser (IMLL) based on SOA, the amplitude fluctuation and timing jitters caused by the pattern effect in recovered clock pulses were greatly reduced, experimentally. It also demonstrated that clock could be recovered from the very degraded signals.


OBJECTIVE
To describe a 1-step nasal reconstruction technique for use in lieu of a paramedian forehead flap that is usually raised at the location of the supratrochlear artery.

METHODS
Using angiography in 10 fresh cadavers, we confirmed the arterial anatomy of the nasal and forehead regions to refine the paramedian forehead flap. Based on the anatomical data, we performed nasal reconstruction in 6 patients who had a full-thickness defect of the nasal ala or who needed alar base reconstruction with an island paramedian forehead flap based on the angular artery.

RESULTS
From the anatomical study, we confirmed a rich network among the supratrochlear, dorsonasal, and angular arteries around the medial canthus. In the clinical cases, the subcutaneous pedicle was tunneled beneath the skin, without conspicuous bulkiness. For all patients, the operation was completed in 1 stage, and the flaps healed without evidence of necrosis.

CONCLUSIONS
By moving the pedicle downward, a full-thickness nasal defect can be reconstructed in 1 stage that includes the alar lining or alar base with the paramedian forehead flap. This avoids restriction of the rotation arc, particularly when the alar lining or alar base is also needed for reconstruction.


Millions of readers worldwide have treasured the visionary brilliance of Carlos Castaneda, who first explore the world of the Yaqui Indian sorcerer in The Teachings of don Juan. Now, at last, don Juan returns in "The Power of Silence" wise, infuriating, capable or working miracles and playing practical jokes, but always seeking the wisdom of the warrior. "The Power of Silence" is Castaneda's most astonishing book to date -- a brilliant flash of knowledge that illuminates the far reaches of the human mind. Through don Juan's mesmerizing stories, the true meaning of sorcery and magic is finally revealed. Honed in the desert of Sonora, the visions of don Juan give us the vital secrets of belief and self-realization that are transcendental and valid for us all. It is Castaneda's unique genius to show us that all wisdom, strength, and power lie within ourselves -- unleashed with marvelous energy and imaginative force in the teachings of don Juan -- and in the writings of his famous pupil, Carlos Castaneda"


ABSTRACT Purpose To create a predictive model of involuntary detrusor contraction (IDC) to improve the diagnostic accuracy of overactive detrusor (OAD), associating overactive bladder (OAB) symptoms with other clinical parameters in the female population. Materials and Methods A total of 727 women were studied retrospectively. In all of them, urodynamic study was conducted for urogynecological causes. Demographics information, personal history, symptoms, physical exam, a 3-day frequency/volume chart and urinary culture, were collected in all patients and they subsequently underwent uroflowmetry and urodynamic studies. A logistic regression model was performed in order to determine independent predictors of presence of IDC. Odd ratio (OR) estimation was used to assign a score to each one of the significant variables (p≤0.05) in the logistic regression model. We performed a ROC curve in order to determine the predictive ability of the score in relation to the presence of OAD. Results presence of OAD was evident in 210 women (29%). In the logistic regression analysis, independent predictors of OAD were urgency, urgency incontinence, nocturia, absence of SUI symptoms, diabetes mellitus, reduction of vaginal trophism and bladder capacity below 150 mL. The probability of IDC diagnosis increases as the score raises (Score 0: 4% until Score ≥10: 88%). Sensitivity was 71% and specificity 72%. The area under the curve of OAB score was 0.784 (p>0.001). Conclusions OAB score is a clinical tool that shows higher diagnostic accuracy than OAB symptoms alone to predict overactive detrusor.


Lavas from Quaternary minor volcanic centers behind the Central Andean volcanic arc in Bolivia form a compositional continuum with rocks from the arc front, extending to more primitive compositions. The lavas show petrographic and geochemical evidence for deep crustal contamination during differentiation. Sr, Nd, and Pb isotopic data from centers within 30 km of each other encompass the entire range found in the Central Volcanic zone of the Andes. The most mafic rocks are largely typical of arc magmas elsewhere, and may represent parental magmas to the porphyritic andesites and dacites erupted from stratovolcanoes along the arc to the west. Andean arc magmas therefore undergo considerable contamination during ascent through the thick crust. The only basalts lacking petrographic evidence for contamination are picrobasalts from Chiar Kkollu that form the most primitive end member of the compositional spectrum. These rocks resemble ocean-island basalts in some respects, indicating that variations in crustal contamination across the strike of the arc may be superimposed on variations in the mantle source composition.


To portray women without objectifying them is an intentional, political act. The art historical tradition is to paint women to extol their sexual beauty and to encourage possessiveness. There is a new guard of women painters who provide a counterpoint to this tradition by depicting a more multifaceted version of the female psyche. I align myself as an artist with them by attempting to broaden the depiction of women as subjects in painting. My subjects are beautiful and observable, but not consumable. They are more public than private and more iconic than intimate. My paintings have a strong connection to traditional portraiture in both style and technique. However, my subjects are contemporized through the use of modern fashion, unexpected facial expressions, unique color relationships and photographic cropping.


Many years ago, I started to collect books by mixed race writers. It was an attempt to understand the stories of people like me. Yet often, they were nothing like me. The only thing we had in common was that we didn't quite belong in any other category. Some emphasized their sense of separation or of broken identity. Others described how they found links between nationalities and cultures. This thesis is comprised of a novel about characters uneasy in the categories into which they are assigned and a critical essay on how Ruth Ozeki in A Tale for the Time Being uses Zen Buddhism to describe a deeply connected hybrid self.

Part 1: Starling Days, a novel Starling Days opens on the George Washington Bridge. Mina is staring into the water when a patrol car drives up. She tries to convince the officers she's not about to jump but they don't believe her.
The novel explores the aftermath of this moment. In search of peace, Mina and her husband, Oscar, move to London. An adjunct classics professor, Mina tries to understand her failing mental health through mythology, gynecology, and her memories of her Chinese grandmother. Oscar's ability to care for her weakens as family and work begin to pressure him. As the narrative and their relationship fragment the text explores the concept of self, the taboos of mental health and the trials of holding a family together when you cannot hold onto yourself.

Part 2: Ruth Ozeki and the Zen Hybrid Novel "Ruth Ozeki and the Zen Hybrid Novel" examines how one writer uses Zen philosophy to navigate the hybridity in her work. Ozeki's novel, A Tale for the Time Being, models a hybridity based in the Buddhist theory of interconnectedness. Ozeki is a Japanese Caucasian American woman living in Canada and A Tale for the Time Being is set in Canada and Japan. Both Zen and hybridity appear in every level of the novel—setting, character, form, and linguistic play.
First the thesis explores the history of the I-novel as a reaction to the influx of American and European forces into Japan. It then examines how Ozeki combines the I-novel with metafiction and how Ozeki uses Zen Buddhism to bridge seemingly disparate senses of self. Finally, it argues that the Zen employed by Ozeki is a hybrid Zen that draws on both Japanese and American influences distinct from a historically more nationalistic Zen. This hybrid Zen holds the book together form the way she uses individual hybrid words like 'supapawa' all the way out to the epitext of the promotional video.


The activity of learning programming languages is a difficult and complex process. During this complicated procedure, many problems and difficulties might occur. A straightforward and clear approach, which can help to break down the numerous interacting processes into a series of simpler components, would appear useful. Therefore, the main aim of this research is to design and develop an appropriate method that can meet these criteria. The new method offers a new systematic approach for collecting, modelling and analysing data to discover difficulties within the activity of learning programming.

Thus, to achieve these aims, the research work commenced with an investigation into the existing variety of frameworks and methodologies, which have been used in Information Technology (IT). The initial research showed that there are many suitable approaches that have been previously used in the IT field. However, most of these do not offer any clear pathway for collecting and analysing the data from beginning to end of the research process. To address these issues, Activity Theory (AT) has been chosen to be used as an initial framework for the study. AT has been selected due to the nature of the topic being examined. There are several communities involved in the process of learning programming, including students, lecturers, technicians and teaching assistants. AT allows for a holistic consideration of the multiple perspectives involved. In addition, the solid ontology of AT assists with the breakdown of complicated environments into simpler units. However, AT does not specify any particular research methodology that should be used. As a result, an appropriate approach has to be identified and coupled with AT in order to create a new systematic method. The following research methodologies are considered: Action Research (AR), Grounded Theory (GT) and Phenomenography (Ph). It is concluded that GT offers the best approach to complement the use of AT in the context of examining the activity of learning programming languages.

Consequently, an initial method has been created by combining AT and GT, which has been used to collect and analyse test cases to investigate whether this combination is effective. After using this initial procedure, changes and improvements were made to create a revised method which has been used to collect and analyse a larger set of data. The results of this research, using three type of case studies of responses from the individual students, focus groups including staff, and observation of the activities in workshop sessions, demonstrated the benefits of the method developed. It was found out that this systematic approach facilitated the process of collecting and analysing the data. In turn, this enabled the discovery of contradictions within the activity of learning programming and the proposed of shifts to solve them. Although this method was tested on first-year students at Kingston University, it is potentially generic, allowing it to be considered for use in other similar domains.


The authors developed a computer-based medical history for patients to take in their homes via the internet. The history consists of 232 'primary' questions asked of all patients, together with more than 6000 questions, explanations, and suggestions that are available for presentation as determined by a patient's responses. The purpose of this research was to measure the test-retest reliability of the 215 primary questions that have preformatted, mutually exclusive responses of 'Yes,' 'No,' 'Uncertain (Don't know, Maybe),' 'Don't understand,' and 'I'd rather not answer.' From randomly selected patients of doctors affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, 48 patients took the history twice with intervals between sessions ranging from 1 to 35 days (mean 7 days; median 5 days). High levels of test-retest reliability were found for most of the questions, but as a result of this study the authors revised five questions. They recommend that structured medical history questions that will be asked of many patients be measured for test-retest reliability before they are put into widespread clinical practice.


This paper considers the performativity of shaming in investigative TV-journalism. It argues that the construction of shame is not only a constituent element in investigative TVjournalism but also an important factor in pursuing some of its main objectives: establishing morals, exercising social control, reinforcing journalistic identity and ideology, and competing for attention in a diversified media theatre where drama, entertainment and emotional thrills are the hard currency. An empirical study of the Swedish TV programme Uppdrag granskning, is used to inductively propose three categories of shaming and to give some examples of the ways in which shaming is performed. The core of the paper is a theory driven analysis in which the performativity of shaming in investigative TV-journalism is analysed in the light of some converging media and societal trends.


The exhibition Breathe ran between 16 May and 15 July 2018 at the Freud Museum, London. Breathe represents a penetrating and sensitive exploration of childhood loss, mourning and memory, located within the intimate setting of Freud's former family home. Through their art, Fay Ballard and Judy Goldhill upset the sedateness of the Freud Museum. Using photography, film, drawing and personal memorabilia, the intangible, foggy presences of their lost loved ones — their parents — become palpable. Ballard and Goldhill breathe new insight into the pain of mourning, the wonder of making, and the desire to know another who has been lost to them. Curated by psychoanalyst Caroline Garland, Breathe charts Ballard's journey to hold on to memories of her mother whom she lost at the age of seven to pneumonia; and Goldhill's search for her father, who died of polio when she was a baby.Judy Goldhill's video Pneuma can be viewed on the artist's website: http://www.judygoldhill.com/work/Images/47/pneuma/slideshow/1/


Incorporating team context into research and practice concerning team effectiveness in multinational organizations still remains an ongoing challenge. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the influence of industry, corporate culture, structure, strategy and task characteristics on MNTs in business organizations and to develop a more comprehensive framework connecting the internal dynamics with contextual aspects of MNTs functioning in companies in Europe and the USA. The study was conducted in an Austrian (VA TECH), a German (Henkel) and an American company (K&M International). Forty-two problem-centered interviews were conducted with 22 team members and 20 team leaders. Levels of uncertainty, stress and turbulence influence organizations and MNTs since teams and organizations have to reshape their strategies. Multinational strategy has a positive impact on MNTs while companies with a global strategy assign low value to diversity. MNT norms in companies with a strong corporate culture are reflective of the organizational culture. MNTs at companies with a weak corporate culture develop their own unique cultures and deviate from the values and norms set by the organization. Team composition, size and length of cooperation have a moderating effect on MNTs. We could identify several team leader competences that contribute to team success. The results show how teams reduce the complexity of operations by facilitating the creation and transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge and by transferring appropriate dimensions of the HQ corporate culture between geographically dispersed business units. (author's abstract)


This book explores the issue of social exclusion. It asks three main questions: How can social exclusion be measured? What are its main determinants or influences? And what policies can reduce social exclusion? The authors aim to consider how a focus on social exclusion may alter the policy questions that are most relevant by fostering debate in government, research, and academic circles.


Today, energy is the driver of the modern society, allowing for transforming raw materials and resources into ``useful'' products and services. Concerns on climate change and resources scarcity together with the increasing importance put on the environmental impacts are redefining the problem of the energy usage in the society. In this context, developing a sustainable energy systems means designing the system that will convert in an optimal way the available resources into useful products and services, reaching the maximization of the resources productivity and minimizing its environmental impact. In a given socio-economical and environmental context, the goal of the process design is to select the type and the size of the technologies, the way they are interconnected and the way they are operated. A computer aided methodology and the corresponding process system engineering tools for the analysis and the synthesis of efficient processes and energy conversion systems will be presented. It combines the use of thermo-economic and environomic models of sub-systems that are structured in an equipment data base. These models include the representation of the possible interfaces that a technology will present when it is integrated to build the integrated system. A systematic method based on process integration and optimization techniques is then used to generate process superstructure and process configurations. Models are then used to calculate the system performances in terms of thermodynamic performances, operating and investment cost together with Life cycle impact assessment indicators. Multi-objective optimization techniques are then used to decide the best values of the design decision variables and to generate thermo-economic Pareto sets of process configurations where the trade-off between economical criteria and thermodynamical or environmental impact criteria are represented. Such tools are used to support decisions in the process engineering work. In this iterative procedure, one has to recognize that the problem is never perfectly defined at the beginning of the project. The methodology includes therefore solutions analysis tools such as exergy analysis and sensitivity analysis and graphical representations that are used to understand the energetics of the solutions and refine the process design problem definition. The tools developed are applied in different fields : rational use of energy, water and waste management in the industrial processes, energy conversion systems design like power plants with $CO_{2}$ capture, fuel cell systems and biofuels production and in the study of urban energy systems. In the presentation, examples of the biofuel production process design will be used to illustrates the different steps of the methodology and demonstrate the role of process design in the development of sustainable energy systems.


The world trade order is undergoing transformation into a tripartite trading system owing to the growing regionalism in East Asia. East Asia has become progressively integrated as a trading bloc through intensified intra-regional trade. A powerful engine for this integration is concentrated FDI flows, which have contributed to the international production networking. The NIEs and the ethnic Chinese network have assumed a leading role in intra-regional trade integration. For further regional integration, it is necessary to depict an institutional integration scheme in line with the growing sense of new East Asian regionalism. However, it has to embrace not only East Asian identity but also open regionalism and inter-regionalism in considering the emerging global triad system.


Economic scholarship has recently focused a great deal of attention on the phenomenon of network externalities, or network effects: markets in which the value that consumers place on a good increases as others buy the good. Though the economic theory of network effects is less than fifteen years old, and is still not thoroughly understood, network effects are increasingly playing a role in legal argument. Judges, litigators and scholars have suggested that antitrust law, intellectual property, telecommunications law, Internet law, corporate law, contract law and even the law of racial discrimination need to be modified to take account of network effects. Their arguments reflect a wide range of views about what network effects are and how courts should react to them. In this Article, we explore the application of network economic theory in each of these contexts. We suggest ways in which particular legal rules should -- and should not -- be modified to take account of network effects. We also attempt to draw some general conclusions about the role of network economic theory in the legal enterprise, and about the way in which courts should revise legal doctrines in response to theories from fields outside the law.


I. INTRODUCTION II. EXCHANGE TRADING--SOME HISTORY A. Development of Stock Exchange Trading in the United States B. Development of Futures Trading on Exchange Floors C. The Regulatory Era D. Market Convergence E. The Role of the Exchange. III. ELECTRONIC TRADING ARRIVES A. Automation Arrives in the Futures Industry B. Automation Arrives in the Securities Industry C. Scandals D. The ECNs Arrive E. Nasdaq and NYSE Responses IV. REGULATING THE ECNS A. Securities industry B. Derivatives Industry V. REGULATORY CHALLENGES--POST TRADING FLOOR A. Derivative Markets B. Securities Markets C. Regulatory Challenges D. ECNs: Pros and Cons E. Financial Market Fees F. Effects on Regulators VI. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION The colorful "open outcry" trading in the "pits" of the Chicago futures exchanges and the bell--ringing opening of trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) have long dominated the public perception of how those markets operate. Those exchanges are now in the midst of radical changes that will soon be erasing those images. Exchange trading floors are fast fading into history as the trading of stocks and derivative instruments moves to electronic communications networks (ECNs) that simply match trades by computers through algorithms. (1) Competition from ECNs has already forced the NYSE and the Chicago futures exchanges to demutualize, consolidate, and reduce the role of their trading floors, while expanding their own electronic execution facilities. (2) The amazing growth of the ECNs and their displacement of the traditional exchanges have raised regulatory concerns. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been struggling with that issue for nearly a decade. The SEC's burdensome regulations are driving capital away from public markets such as the NYSE and Nasdaq and into ECNs, which are more lightly regulated. Many public companies are also opting out of the public markets by going private; institutional trading markets in unregistered securities are growing; and foreign issuers are rethinking the value of listing in regulated U.S. markets. The ECNs are also encouraging U.S. investors to invest abroad. As a result, the SEC and the CFTC are experiencing the effects of regulatory arbitrages as issuers and market participants flee the excessive regulation imposed in domestic markets. The CFTC initially tried to prevent virtually all non--exchange trading of derivatives. It then did a volte--face and decided against regulating ECNs that provide execution services only to institutional investors. The CFTC believed those entities had the wherewithal and were sophisticated enough to protect themselves. However, as the result of a number of problems in the energy markets, the CFTC is reversing course once again and is now seeking to regulate those institutional markets in much the same way that it regulates exchanges that service retail investors. This Article will describe the growth of the securities and commodity exchanges in the United States. It will show how their traditional trading floors became the center of market activity well into the last century, a dominance which was aided in no small measure by the monopoly positions allowed them by their regulators. The Article will trace the growth of electronic competition that undermined those monopolies and will describe the responses of the exchanges to those upstarts. The Article will then describe the regulatory challenges that these electronic markets are facing in an increasingly global economy and the responses of the CFTC and SEC to these developments. (3) II. EXCHANGE TRADING--SOME HISTORY A. Development of Stock Exchange Trading in the United States Trading in stocks and commodities was first conducted in America through auctions that were the favored means for pricing goods of all descriptions in the colonial era. …


With the purpose of improving ginsenoside content in adventitious root cultures of Korean wild ginseng (Panax ginseng Meyer), the roots were treated with different dosages of γ-ray (5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, and 200 Gy). The growth of adventitious roots was inhibited at over 100 Gy. The irradiated adventitious roots showed significant variation in the morphological parameters and crude saponin content at 50 to100 Gy. Therefore, four mutant cell lines out of the propagation of 35 cell lines treated with 50 Gy and 100 Gy were selected on the basis of phenotypic morphology and crude saponin contents relative to the wild type control. The contents of 7 major ginsenosides (Rg1, Re, Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rf, and Rd) were determined for cell lines 1 and 3 from 100 Gy and lines 2 and 4 from 50 Gy treatments. Cell line 2 showed more secondary roots, longer length and superior growth rate than the root controls in flasks and bioreactors. Cell line 1 showed larger average diameter and the growth rate in the bioreactor was comparable with that of the control but greater in the flask cultured roots. Cell lines 1 and 2, especially the former, showed much more ginsenoside contents than the control in flasks and bioreactors. Therefore, we chose cell line 1 for further study of ginsenoside contents. The crude saponin content of line 1 in flask and bioreactor cultures increased by 1.4 and 1.8-fold, respectively, compared to the control. Total contents of 7 ginsenoside types (Rg1, Re, Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rf, and Rd) increased by 1.8 and 2.3-fold, respectively compared to the control. Crude saponin and ginsenoside contents in the bioreactor culture increased by about 1.4-fold compared to that the flask culture.


Abstract. The role of halogens in both the marine boundary layer and the stratosphere has long been recognized, while their role in the free troposphere is often not considered in global chemical models. However, a careful examination of free-tropospheric chemistry constrained by observations using a full chemical data assimilation system shows that halogens do play a significant role in the free troposphere. In particular, the chlorine initiation of methane oxidation in the free troposphere can contribute more than 10%, and in some regions up to 50%, of the total rate of initiation. The initiation of methane oxidation by chlorine is particularly important below the polar vortex and in northern mid-latitudes. Likewise, the hydrolysis of alone can contribute more than 35% of the production rate in the free-troposphere.


Focusing on the tension between free trade and social regulation, this Article argues that the WTO, in alliance with other international institutions, must develop a synergistic, nonentropic linkage within the constitutional structure of the global trading system. In the analysis set forth within the article, considerable emphasis is placed on the concept of a "trade constitution." This is because any practical prescriptions for achieving the desired synergy must necessarily flow from an accurate understanding of the capabilities and constraints of legal and political realities inherent to a broad multisphere trading system composed of Member states, the WTO, and other international organizations. This global trading system has come to require a new telos capable of transcending the narrow purpose of antiprotection while at the same time connoting a much broader ideal of "integration" that ensures that both trade values and social values are upheld not in a competing, but in a coherent and synergetic fashion. This constitutional vision, which is embedded in the concept of linkage itself, inevitably touches on the profound issue of "legitimacy." There is an inseparable connection between the ever growing quantity of international business transactions and the discipline provided by international trade law. If the dual goal of free markets and social regulation is achieved in a coherent way within the far reaching field of international economic law, it will make the global trading system operate in a more stable and predictable way, and thus enhance its general acceptability not only among governments, but also among ordinary people.


We consider the problem of finding critical points of functions that are non-convex and non-smooth. Studying a fairly broad class of such problems, we analyze the behavior of three gradient-based methods (gradient descent, proximal update, and Frank-Wolfe update). For each of these methods, we establish rates of convergence for general problems, and also prove faster rates for continuous sub-analytic functions. We also show that our algorithms can escape strict saddle points for a class of non-smooth functions, thereby generalizing known results for smooth functions. Our analysis leads to a simplification of the popular CCCP algorithm, used for optimizing functions that can be written as a difference of two convex functions. Our simplified algorithm retains all the convergence properties of CCCP, along with a significantly lower cost per iteration. We illustrate our methods and theory via applications to the problems of best subset selection, robust estimation, mixture density estimation, and shape-from-shading reconstruction.


We previously reported that TREK-1 gating by internal pH and pressure occurs close to or within the selectivity filter. These conclusions were based upon kinetic measurements of high-affinity block by quaternary ammonium (QA) ions that appeared to exhibit state-independent accessibility to their binding site within the pore. Intriguingly, recent crystal structures of two related K2P potassium channels were also both found to be open at the helix bundle crossing. However, this did not exclude the possibility of gating at the bundle crossing and it was suggested that side-fenestrations within these structures might allow state-independent access of QA ions to their binding site. In this addendum to our original study we demonstrate that even hydrophobic QA ions do not access the TREK-1 pore via these fenestrations. Furthermore, by using a chemically reactive QA ion immobilized within the pore via covalent cysteine modification we provide additional evidence that the QA binding site remains accessible to the cytoplasm in the closed state. These results support models of K2P channel gating which occur close to or within the selectivity filter and do not involve closure at the helix bundle crossing.


This paper describes an unsupervised approach to retrieve the kinematic parameters of a wheeled mobile robot. The robot chooses which action to take in order to minimize the uncertainty in the parameter estimate and to fully explore the parameter space. Our method explores the effects of a set of elementary motion on the platform to dynamically select the best action and to stop the process when the estimate can be no further improved. We tested our approach both in simulation and with real robots. Our method is reported to obtain in shorter time parameter estimates that are statistically more accurate than the ones obtained by steering the robot on predefined patterns.


In 2002, Harley adopted the non-derivational approach in analyzing English double objects construction (DOC) and double complement (DC). This paper aims to apply the same approach to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) ditransitive structures. The following is an example of such a structure in MSA: (1)      a. Ɂaʕta           al-muʕlam-u           al-taalib-a              kitaab-an Gave-3ms     the-teacher-nom    the-student-acc      book-acc 'The teacher gave the student a book' b. Ɂaʕta        al-muʕlam-u      kitaab-an   li              al-taalib-i Gave3ms  the-teacher-nom book-acc   Dat prep the-student-gen 'The teacher gave a book to the student' In this paper, I argue for Harley's non-derivational approach to DOC and DC in MSA. Harley proposes that DOC and DC constructions have different underlying representations. The DOC construction has an abstract verb head CAUSE which takes a prepositional possessive structure headed by an abstract possessive preposition, P have. The DC has the same CAUSE head but here it takes a prepositional locative structure headed by an abstract locative preposition, P loc . The paper shows that Harley's approach can be applied to MSA DC and DOC constructions without any problems. I applied the same analyses used in Harley's paper for English DC and DOC which include animacy restriction, the inability of idioms to shift from a DOC to DC, and the asymmetric c-command relationships. The results of my analysis support the use of this approach in MSA.


It is widely accepted among conservation biologists that genetics is, more than ever, an essential and efficient tool for wild and captive population management and reserve design. However, a true synergy between population genetics and conservation biology is lacking. Following the first International Workshop on Population Genetics for Animal Conservation in 2003 at the Centro di Ecologia Alpina, Trento, Italy (recently incorporated into the Edmund Mach Foundation), the scientific committee felt that, given the global urgency of animal conservation, it was imperative that discussions at the conference were made accessible to graduate students and wildlife managers. This book integrates 'the analytical methods approach' with the 'real problems approach' in conservation genetics. Each chapter is an exhaustive review of one area of expertise, and a special effort has been made to explain the statistical tools available for the analysis of molecular data as clearly as possible. The result is a comprehensive volume of the state of the art in conservation genetics, illustrating the power and utility of this synergy.


This study first examines the marginal repertoire in two well-known manuscripts, the Psalter of Guy de Dampierre and an Arthurian Romance, within their material and codicological contexts. This repertoire then provides a template for an extended study of the marginal motifs that appear in eighteen related manuscripts, which range from a Bible to illustrated versions of the encyclopedias of Vincent de Beauvais and Brunetto Latini. Considering the manuscript as a whole work of art, the marginalia's physical relationship to nearby texts and images can shed light on the reception of these illuminated books by their medieval viewers.


At the end of mitosis, the nuclear lamins assemble to form the nuclear lamina during nuclear envelope formation in daughter cells. We have fused A- and B-type nuclear lamins to the green fluorescent protein to study this process in living cells. The results reveal that the A- and B-type lamins exhibit different pathways of assembly. In the early stages of mitosis, both lamins are distributed throughout the cytoplasm in a diffusible (nonpolymerized) state, as demonstrated by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). During the anaphase-telophase transition, lamin B1 begins to become concentrated at the surface of the chromosomes. As the chromosomes reach the spindle poles, virtually all of the detectable lamin B1 has accumulated at their surfaces. Subsequently, this lamin rapidly encloses the entire perimeter of the region containing decondensing chromosomes in each daughter cell. By this time, lamin B1 has assembled into a relatively stable polymer, as indicated by FRAP analyses and insolubility in detergent/high ionic strength solutions. In contrast, the association of lamin A with the nucleus begins only after the major components of the nuclear envelope including pore complexes are assembled in daughter cells. Initially, lamin A is found in an unpolymerized state throughout the nucleoplasm of daughter cell nuclei in early G1 and only gradually becomes incorporated into the peripheral lamina during the first few hours of this stage of the cell cycle. In later stages of G1, FRAP analyses suggest that both green fluorescent protein lamins A and B1 form higher order polymers throughout interphase nuclei.


INTRODUCTION Opportunity recognition has long been considered as a crucial aspect of the entrepreneurial process. (Ventakaraman, 1997; Gaglio, 1997; Hills, 1995). To understand the influential role of social networks in entrepreneurial opportunity recognition in emergent technologies first it is essential to review the essence of opportunity recognition in prior literature. To date much prior opportunity recognition research has in common that "innovation" and "information" are two important elements in this process. Opportunity recognition involves having specific information regarding market, industry and technology conditions and other factors (Ozgen & Baron, 2007) and the discovery of an innovative idea to create new businesses (Schumpeter, 1934; Kirzner, 1973; Kirzner, 1997). Opportunity recognition is also defined as an act of innovation in new service, process and production (Schumpeter, 1934; 1943) that involves seizing new marketable ideas (Kuratko & Hodgetts ,1998). To date researchers applied various approaches in opportunity recognition. Some focused on the role of active and systematic search for information in the identification of entrepreneurial ideas and innovations for new markets, products, services, methods or processes (Schumpeter, 1942). In other words, entrepreneurs recognize opportunities by scanning the environment for information and focusing on markets, industry, customers and technological developments (Bhave, 1994; Reitan, 1997; Busenitz & Barney, 1996).). Prior research found a strong link between the industry change, i.e. growth of sales, entry barriers and manufacturing possibilities, or market structure such as demographics and socio-cultural factors lead resigning of opportunities and creation of new ventures (Drucker, 1985; Dean & Meyer, 1992). Changing industry or market conditions may shift the demand and production possibilities and lead to entrepreneurial inventions (Timmons, 1999; Kuratko & Welsch, 2001; Dean & Meyer, 1992). Especially, scanning the environment focusing on technology, consumer economics, social values and governmental regulations play an important role in the recognition of opportunities (Stevensen & Gumpert, 1985). Therefore, it was suggested that systematic search based on specific information leads the discovery of entrepreneurial possibilities (Shaver & Scott, 1991; Kaish & Gilad, 1991; Herron & Sapienza, 1992; Fiet, et al., 2000, Fiet el al., 2002). Some researchers suggested that possession of information or alertness is critical in identifying and exploiting market opportunities (Kirzner, 1973) and claimed that entrepreneurial opportunities exist because people possess different information (Hayek, 1945). Possession of different information leads individuals to discover entrepreneurial possibilities because any given individual cannot identify all opportunities (Kirzner, 1973). Therefore asymmetries of information (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) lead entrepreneurial innovations. A stream of research applying a cognitive approach focused on the way people think and process information (Baron & Markman, 1999) and examined entrepreneurs who evaluate and discover opportunities and explored the skills, cognitive processes (Baron, 1998). These researchers found that "alertness", in other words, the way entrepreneurs perceive information and process knowledge play a key role in opportunity recognition. Therefore, opportunity recognition is a cognitive process and in the mind of certain individuals and opportunities are identified by being "alert" to possibilities that the market presents (Woo et al., 1992; West & Myer, 1997; De Koning, 1999). Opportunity recognition is also defined as a joint function of individual and the environment and entrepreneurs' interaction with the environment shapes the evolution of ideas (Vesper, 1990; De Koning, 1999; Shane & Ventakaraman, 2000). …


The relationship between tourism and sites of cultural and natural significance exists since the time of Greek Antiquity and strongly encourages landscape restoration of urban sites. This paper provides an up-to-date overview of the relationship between cultural landscape heritage and tourism, describes strategies that can lead to sustainable tourism where cultural heritage is a key factor, and formulates a methodology for landscape intervention, with a particular focus on the dynamics of landscape transformation and the rigorous reading of the ecological and cultural dimensions of the landscape of the town of Pafos, European Capital of Culture for 2017, as a major means to generate economic benefits from recreation and tourism. Pafos is a town with monuments of unique value from every period of its rich cultural tradition where ancient amphitheaters, agoras, and archeological sites co-exist in harmony with the unique Mediterranean seashore and the sensitive natural ecosystem of the Akamas peninsula. Pafos as European Capital of Culture for 2017 aims at developing a strategic sustainable plan to reinvent the town as a cultural landscape used as a tourist development tool. It will implement an extensive urban landscape design intervention plan, with the aim of restoring open public spaces, creating links between important sites and archaeological spaces, and recovering the lost connection with the natural environment, the land and the sea based on aspects of sustainable and eco-friendly tourism development. Such a landscape approach tempts to integrate natural and cultural heritage by recognizing that the current landscape is the product of long-term and complex interrelationships between people and the environment. This research may also serve as a basis for future strategic landscape interventions in the urban fabric as a tourism policy and cultural heritage planning establishing an exclusive linkage to the "sense of place" and landscape design.


This article examines the work of mid-century French filmmaker Jacques Tati. Tati suggested that his films allow more visual freedom to audiences and that audiences discover new material upon multiple viewings of his films. We review the scholarship on Tati, especially in relation to critic André Bazin's theories of realism, and then propose another model for understanding Tati's films: the psychological concept of inattentional blindness. The article then discusses our experiment using eye tracking technology to study how subjects watch Tati's films versus other types of cinema and also how they re-watch films. Finally, we applied several statistical and mathematical tests to the eye tracking data to understand key differences between Tati's films and other filmmaking practices.


We describe a new formalism for storing linguistic data in a text to speech system. Linguistic entities such as words and phones are stored asfeature structuresin a general object called an linguistic item. Items are configurable at run time and via the feature structure can contain arbitrary information. Linguistic relations are used to store the relationship between items of the same linguistic type. Relations can take any graph structure but are commonly trees or lists. Utterance structures contain all the items and relations contained in a single utterance. We first describe the design goals when building a synthesis architecture, and then describe some problems with previous architectures. We then discuss our new formalism in general along with the implementation details and consequences of our approach.


Historically, research with refugee populations has generally characterised the impact of the refugee experience in psychopathological terms, that is, by examining how particular aspects of people's experiences as refugees lead to specific psychiatric outcomes. Particular emphasis has been devoted to the examination of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with prevalence studies consistently finding that a small but significant proportion of refugees develop the disorder. Though the PTSD syndrome has been shown to be valid in ethnically diverse refugee populations, the emphasis on examining PTSD specifically, and psychopathology generally, has come under increased debate in recent years. Critics argue that research into PTSD has been reductive in focus, in its failure to examine how interrelationships between pre-migration, resettlement and psychosocial variables act in the aetiology of the disorder. Further critique has been directed toward the emphasis on examining PTSD and psychopathology as predominant outcomes of the refugee experience, when other important familial, psychosocial and adaptive processes are clearly implicated, yet understudied. The overarching aim of this thesis, therefore, was to examine the impacts of the refugee experience in general, and PTSD symptomatology in particular, from broader conceptual and empirical perspectives. Three empirical studies utilising a mixed-methods research approach were undertaken, with a total of 50 young people from refugee backgrounds participating in the research. Participants completed quantitative measures assessing for PTSD symptomatology and use of coping styles, and partook in a semi-structured interview specifically designed for use in the present research and based on a proposed theoretical model of refugee adaptation. The first study, comprised of the full sample of 50 participants, sought to jointly investigate how familial separations and the use of coping styles related to PTSD symptomatology in youth. Young people who were residing with non-intact immediate families were found to have higher levels of PTSD symptomatology than those who did not have immediate familial separations, though there were no differences between groups in their use of coping styles. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed a significant relationship between the use of avoidance coping and increased PTSD symptoms, however this diminished to non-significance once possible confounds were controlled for. The second study aimed to explore, based on adolescents' accounts of their resettlement and refugee experiences, psychosocial and adaptive mechanisms that may play a role in PTSD symptomatology. This study was based on a sub-sample of 10 participants, and utilised interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyse the differences in qualitative accounts between participants with high and low levels of PTSD symptoms. The themes of cultural belongingness and identification, psychological functioning, family unit functioning and relationships, and friendships and interpersonal processes, were identified as having particular relevance for distinguishing between participants with high and low levels of PTSD symptomatology. The third study was based on a sub-sample of 43 participants, all of whom completed the semi-structured interview and consented for it to be audio-recorded. This study was undertaken to examine the applicability of a theoretical model of psychosocial adaptation to adolescents' accounts of their refugee and resettlement experiences. Utilising thematic analysis, preliminary evidence for the model's validity was obtained. Taken together, the results from the present thesis provide strong evidence for the need to conceptualise and examine the impacts of the refugee experience from broader psychosocial and ecological perspectives. Adolescents' familial systems were particularly implicated in the studies' findings, emphasising the need for future theory development and research to consider this central, yet understudied, aspect of the refugee experience.