This vivid and thought-provoking book by the Israeli logician Nimrod Bar-Am impels one to rethink the place of logic in Western thought. It shows that the history of logic from Aristotle to Tarski is the history of the gradual undoing of the classic conflation of logic and empirical science. It sets tomorrow's agenda for philosophers and historians of logic and scientific method by taking as its starting point the mere fact that, curiously, ancient logic is not as formal as current literature presents it. Rather, as Bar-Am explains, modern formal logic became possible only after a series of bold criticisms of the magnificent Aristotelian system. These criticisms begin with David Hume's declaration that logic does not sanction induction, follow on with Kant's view of logic as an extremely limited system, and culminating with Booles' introduction of logic as an extensional system, and Russell's solution to his own paradox. The book offers an intellectual odyssey; presenting the development of logic as an evolving critical assessment of approaches to an impossible ideal. Bar-Am handles an extremely complex subject matter in a manner that is both accessible to the general educated reader and challenging to the learned expert, by opening to them live background ideas to dead formulas. The book will easily find its place alongside both general introductions to the history of science and advanced reading lists in the philosophy of logic. – Acknowledgments, Abstract, Introduction. In praise of shallowness: a methodological credo; – Part 1: Preliminary notes; – Part 2: Setting the scene: some notes on the pre-history of logic – Part 3: Aristotle's logic: the rise of essentialism; – Part 4: Essentialism besieged; – Part 5: The fall of essentialism.��


Abstract The quantification of the plutonium mass in spent nuclear fuel assemblies is an important measurement for nuclear safeguards practitioners. A program is well underway to develop nondestructive assay instruments that, when combined, will be able to quantify the plutonium content of a spent nuclear fuel assembly. Each instrument will quantify a specific attribute of the spent fuel assembly, e.g., the fissile content. In this paper, we present a Monte Carlo-based method of estimating the mean and distribution of some assembly attributes. An MCNPX model of each instrument has been created, and the response of the instrument was simulated for a range of spent fuel assemblies with discrete parameters (e.g., burnup, initial enrichment, and cooling time). The Monte Carlo-based method interpolates between the modeled results for an instrument to emulate a response for parameters not explicitly modeled. We demonstrate the usefulness of this technique in applying the technique to six different instruments under investigation. The results show that this Monte Carlo-based method can be used to estimate the assembly attributes of a spent fuel assembly based upon the measured response from the instrument.


The most efficient constructive heuristic so far for the Permutation Flow shop Scheduling Problem (PFSSP) with makespan minimization criterion is the NEH heuristic. It iteratively inserts a non-scheduled job into the position of the partial schedule that reduces the makespan. It iterates until a complete schedule is produced. It usually produces a high number of ties when selecting the best position, and the recent literature is proposing tiebreakers to improve the results. In this paper we propose a new tiebreaker that is based on the estimation of the variation of idle times produced with the insertion of the new job, and that takes into account the reversibility property of the PFSSP. Computational results show that this tiebreaker outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.


Dual task protocols are often used to assess the simultaneous performance of two tasks. However, the cognitive and perceptual load factors of empirically studied dual tasks often vary considerably. Thus, the current pilot study systematically investigated the effects of dual task constraints across varying levels of complexity, for three groups of neurologically healthy adults, by closely manipulating cognitive and perceptual load factors. Using a novel methodology, performance was measured during both simple and complex dual tasks that were systematically varied according to stimulus onset asynchrony and set size. The results revealed that set-size and stimulus onset asynchrony factors interact to significantly increase levels of dual task interference. The implications of key findings and potential future applications for this novel dual task protocol are further discussed.


Procurement (and concession) contracts are agreements granting the right to construct public works, operate and provide a service/good. The main advantage of a procurement contract is that it passes full responsibility for investment and operations to the private sector and consequently provides incentives for efficiency. Although most contracts include penalty/premium clauses to avoid construction risks (i.e. delays), evidence from ongoing procurement contracts shows that there are many delays in making investments. Actually these clauses introduce the flexibility to decide when it is optimal to invest and consequently increase the contract's value for the contractor. Therefore if the contracting authority underestimates penalty/premium fees, these may be totally ineffective in avoiding construction risks. In this paper we specifically investigate the effects that penalty/premium clauses have on both contract value and reduction of delay. We also focus on the design of optimal penalty/premium rules.


Russia has announced that it will initiate proceedings by the end of January (likely in arbitration) to recover the $3 billion debt owed by Ukraine. The Russia-Ukraine dispute is unique in the annals of sovereign debt litigation. It is a politically and militarily fraught conflict wrapped in a garden-variety, English-law contract dispute. The dispute may settle, and if so its resolution will depend largely on political and economic considerations. Yet the resolution will occur in the shadow of basic contract law, which is surprisingly relevant. Indeed, there are a number of plausible arguments available to Ukraine, which, despite the unusual facts, may excuse (or allow it to defer) its obligations to Russia. It would be understandable for judges and arbitrators to hesitate before weighing in on such a politically-charged dispute, but Russia's insistence on acting like a private creditor leaves little choice.


Thermal inertia has been applied to map soil water content exploiting remote sensing data in the short and long wave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Over the last years, optical and thermal cameras were sufficiently miniaturized to be loaded onboard of unmanned aerial systems (UASs), which provide unprecedented potentials to derive hyperspatial resolution thermal inertia for soil water content mapping. In this study, we apply a simplification of thermal inertia, the apparent thermal inertia (ATI), over pixels where underlying thermal inertia hypotheses are fulfilled (unshaded bare soil). Then, a kriging algorithm is used to spatialize the ATI to get a soil water content map. The proposed method was applied to an experimental area of the Alento River catchment, in southern Italy. Daytime radiometric optical multispectral and day and nighttime radiometric thermal images were acquired via a UAS, while <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$in \,\,situ$ </tex-math></inline-formula> soil water content was measured through the thermo-gravimetric and time domain reflectometry (TDR) methods. The determination coefficient between ATI and soil water content measured over unshaded bare soil was 0.67 for the gravimetric method and 0.73 for the TDR. After interpolation, the correlation slightly decreased due to the introduction of measurements on vegetated or shadowed positions (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r^{2} = 0.59$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for gravimetric method; <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r^{2} = 0.65$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for TDR). The proposed method shows promising results to map the soil water content even over vegetated or shadowed areas by exploiting hyperspatial resolution data and geostatistical analysis.


Mathematical Morphology relies on the notion of ordering. For colour image processing, this question is relative to the colour space choice, to the colour distance defined in the colour space, or to the importance of each colour axes in the colour representation or statistical colour organization. For twenty years, more than 60 different proposals have been developed to express such orders, but how to choose the right ordering form, on which criterion to ensure the stability of the morphological behaviour? In this paper, we investigate one criterion and we apply it on some approaches in colour Mathematical Morphology.


This study investigates the consumer credit risk characteristics of Turkish households by analyzing factors related to their income and expense differentials. This study assumes that the income and expense patterns are the key elements of consumer credit risk. Based on a data set ranging from 8,551 to 25,566 households, during the period 2003-5, we employ a logistic regression method to model the determinants of income and expense differentials. We first concentrate on the income-expense balance of households to highlight those that are eligible for consumer credit. We reinforce our results by further analyzing the expenditure behaviors of households to find those that should be either primarily eliminated or targeted for consumer credit by financial institutions. Our overall results provide evidence on the factors identifying household income and expense profiles and, hence, consumer credit risk characteristics of Turkish households.


Whole sheep hydatid cyst fluid (WHF) and purified hydatid fluid antigens (PHF) were evaluated in the immunoelectrophoresis (IEP) test for the diagnosis of human hydatid disease. A higher sensitivity was obtained using the PHF than with the WHF antigen but false positive results were observed with the former in 22.4% of the 102 non-hydatid sera examined. Using the presence of arc 5 as the criterion of positivity however, no false positives were observed in non-hydatid sera with the WHF antigen. It is postulated that the number of bands other than arc 5 may be of value in the diagnosis of hydatid disease by the IEP test, in cases where this diagnostic arc is absent.


Caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) calf:cow ratios (CCR) computed from composition counts obtained on arctic calving grounds are biased estimators of net calf production (NCP, the product of parturition rate and early calf survival) for sexually-mature females. Sexually-immature 2-year-old females, which are indistinguishable from sexually-mature females without calves, are included in the denominator, thereby biasing the calculated ratio low. This underestimate increases with the proportion of 2-year-old females in the population. We estimated the magnitude of this error with deterministic simulations under three scenarios of calf and yearling annual survival (respectively: low, 60 and 70%; medium, 70 and 80%; high, 80 and 90%) for five levels of unbiased NCP: 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%. We assumed a survival rate of 90% for both 2-year-old and mature females. For each NCP, we computed numbers of 2-year-old females surviving annually and increased the denominator of CCR accordingly. We then calculated a series of hypothetical "observed" CCRs, which stabilized during the last 6 years of the simulations, and documented the degree to which each 6-year mean CCR differed from the corresponding NCP. For the three calf and yearling survival scenarios, proportional underestimates of NCP by CCR ranged 0.046–0.156, 0.058–0.187, and 0.071–0.216, respectively. Unfortunately, because parturition and survival rates are typically variable (i.e., age distribution is unstable), the magnitude of the error is not predictable without substantial supporting information. We recommend maintaining a sufficient sample of known-age radiocollared females in each herd and implementing a regular relocation schedule during the calving period to obtain unbiased estimates of both parturition rate and NCP.


The success of deep learning is partly attributed to the availability of massive data downloaded freely from the Internet. However, it also means that users' private data may be collected by commercial organizations without consent and used to train their models. Therefore, it's important and necessary to develop a method or tool to prevent unauthorized data exploitation. In this paper, we propose ConfounderGAN, a generative adversarial network (GAN) that can make personal image data unlearnable to protect the data privacy of its owners. Specifically, the noise produced by the generator for each image has the confounder property. It can build spurious correlations between images and labels, so that the model cannot learn the correct mapping from images to labels in this noise-added dataset. Meanwhile, the discriminator is used to ensure that the generated noise is small and imperceptible, thereby remaining the normal utility of the encrypted image for humans. The experiments are conducted in six image classification datasets, consisting of three natural object datasets and three medical datasets. The results demonstrate that our method not only outperforms state-of-the-art methods in standard settings, but can also be applied to fast encryption scenarios. Moreover, we show a series of transferability and stability experiments to further illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of our method.


For his many devoted readers, Philip K. Dick is not only one of the "one of the most valiant psychological explorers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) but a source of divine revelation. In the riveting style that won accolades for The Adversary, Emmanuel Carrère's I Am Alive and You Are Dead, follows Dick's strange odyssey from his traumatic beginnings in 1928, when his twin sister died in infancy, to his lonely end in 1982, beset by mystical visions of swirling pink light, three-eyed invaders, and messages from the Roman Empire. Drawing on interviews as well as unpublished sources, he vividly conjures the spirit of this restless observer of American postwar malaise who subverted the materials of science fiction--parallel universes, intricate time loops, collective delusions--to create classic works of contemporary anxiety.


A CAPTCHA is a variation of the Turing test, in which a challenge is used to distinguish humans from computers ('bots') on the internet. They are commonly used to prevent the abuse of online services. CAPTCHAs discriminate using hard artificial intelligence problems: the most common type requires a user to transcribe distorted characters displayed within a noisy image. Unfortunately, many users find them frustrating and break rates as high as 60% have been reported (for Microsoft's Hotmail). We present a new CAPTCHA in which users provide three words ('tags') that describe a video. A challenge is passed if a user's tag belongs to a set of automatically generated ground-truth tags. In an experiment, we were able to increase human pass rates for our video CAPTCHAs from 69.7% to 90.2% (184 participants over 20 videos). Under the same conditions, the pass rate for an attack submitting the three most frequent tags (estimated over 86,368 videos) remained nearly constant (5% over the 20 videos, roughly 12.9% over a separate sample of 5146 videos). Challenge videos were taken from YouTube.com. For each video, 90 tags were added from related videos to the ground-truth set; security was maintained by pruning all tags with a frequency ≥ 0.6%. Tag stemming and approximate matching were also used to increase human pass rates. Only 20.1% of participants preferred text-based CAPTCHAs, while 58.2% preferred our video-based alternative. Finally, we demonstrate how our technique for extending the ground truth tags allows for different usability/security trade-offs, and discuss how it can be applied to other types of CAPTCHAs.


Coordinating multiple agents to complete a set of tasks under time constraints is a complex problem. Distributed consensus-based task allocation algorithms address this problem without the need for human supervision. With such algorithms, agents add tasks to their own schedule according to specified allocation strategies. Various factors, such as the available resources and number of tasks, may affect the efficiency of a particular allocation strategy. The novel idea we suggest is that each individual agent can predict locally the best task inclusion strategy, based on the limited task assignment information communicated among networked agents. Using supervised classification learning, a function is trained to predict the most appropriate strategy between two well known insertion heuristics. Using the proposed method, agents are shown to correctly predict and select the optimal insertion heuristic to achieve the overall highest number of task allocations. The adaptive agents consistently match the performances of the best non-adaptive agents across a variety of scenarios. This study aims to demonstrate the possibility and potential performance benefits of giving agents greater decision making capabilities to independently adapt the task allocation process in line with the problem of interest.


Aquasilviculture can be defined as the integration of aquaculture with mangroves. Details are given of an example of aquasilviculture in the Philippines at Puerto Galera, Mindoro. The farm has 3 series of perimeter ponds stocked with tilapia, although milkfish, mudcrab and shrimp may be caught when entering the ponds incidentally.


This paper describes how the performance of a continuous speech recognizer for Dutch has been improved by modeling within-word and cross-word pronunciation variation. Within-word variants were automatically generated by applying five phonological rules to the words in the lexicon. For the within-word method, a significant improvement is found compared to the baseline. Cross-word pronunciation variation was modeled using two different methods: 1) adding cross-word variants directly to the lexicon, 2) only adding multi-words and their variants to the lexicon. Overall, cross-word method 2 leads to better results than cross-word method 1. The best results were obtained when cross-word method 2 was combined with the within-word method: a relative improvement of 8.8% WER was found compared to the baseline.


Chagas' disease is a zoonotic disease found throughout Latin America. Despite control programs in many of the affected countries, infection with Trypanosoma cruzi continues to be a major public health concern. In Brazil alone, approximately 53 million people live in endemic areas. Research with humans and with animal models indicates that there is variation in susceptibility to infection with T. cruzi. The reasons for this variation are not known although several studies have implicated genetic factors. An indirect immunofluorescence assay was used to assess seropositivity for T. cruzi infection in 716 adults from the municipality of Posse, Goias, Brazil. Detailed genealogic information was gathered at the time of sampling, which allowed assignment of 525 individuals to 146 pedigrees containing between two and 103 individuals; the remaining 191 unrelated individuals were retained as independents in the analysis. Using a maximum likelihood variance decomposition approach, we performed quantitative genetic analyses to determine if genetic factors could partially account for the observed pattern of seropositivity. The maximum likelihood estimate of the heritability of T. cruzi infection was 0.56 +/- 0.27 (mean +/- SE), indicating that genetic factors account for more than half of the observed variation in infection status. An additional 23% of the variation (c2 = 0.23 +/- 0.09) is attributable to the effects of shared environment, as assessed by common household. The results indicate that genetic factors play an important role in determining epidemiologic patterns of T. cruzi infection. Further characterization of these genetic factors may suggest new biologic areas to be targeted by prevention and intervention programs.


The bricks and mortar of commercial law as we know it are crumbling into dust. Electronic commerce sweeps away the very foundations of what was not so long ago our most solid, comfortable, and secure legal system. In its most advanced form, e-commerce allows unidentified purchasers to pay obscure vendors, in 'electronic cash,' for products that are often goods, services, and licenses all rolled into one. A payee may be no more than a computer that can take up 'residence' anywhere at the drop of a hat; national boundaries are of no consequence whatsoever. Taxation authorities are understandably dismayed. This book, now in its second edition, is a minutely detailed overview of current reality in the worldwide huddle of revenue regimes as they try to cope with the most daunting challenge they have ever had to face. It analyzes a number of fast-moving trends in the behaviors of national taxation authorities, web-based companies, VoiP, certain low-tax (or no-tax) jurisdictions, and international organizations that have significant bearing on the future development of the taxation of e-commerce. These trends include the following: how United States domestic and international tax rules are being interpreted in the effort to accommodate e-commerce; the powerful retailers' lobby against the moratorium on U.S. state and local sales tax on Internet transactions; how VAT rules in EU countries and other jurisdictions are being restructured to accommodate international e-commerce; new theories of income and payment characterization, and in particular the influential OECD ongoing study; and, the crucial discussion over what constitutes a 'permanent establishment' for tax purposes.


We argue that New Originalism, which has emerged as the dominant theory of originalism, has a significant methodological limitation for anyone who takes historical research seriously. That limitation arises where historical sources indicate different possible original meanings, which can occur because of New Originalism's focus on the meaning of the text for a hypothetical, reasonable person at the time of ratification. We describe the first instance of this problem, which occurred in Hylton v. United States (1796). Hylton involved the constitutionality of an excise tax, and we use that case to provide a real example of the impossibility of a New Originalist interpretation when the historical materials provide clear evidence of equally plausible but conflicting meanings. We suggest that Justice Paterson's opinion in Hylton offers a solution to this problem: where New Originalism cannot settle the question of original meaning, judges might turn to Old Originalism's focus on the intentions of the Founders. Our article thus makes three significant contributions to constitutional scholarship: (1) it identifies a critical weakness of New Originalism; (2) it demonstrates how the Supreme Court in the founding era used Old Originalism to resolve this problem; and (3) it represents the most complete analysis of the historical meaning of the taxation provisions in Hylton, which may prove to be useful for present or future litigation over the taxing power.


The Lively Kernel is a browser-based environment for authoring active Web content. Being a self-supporting system, it is simple and compact, yet it supports rapid authoring with little need for programming expertise. Most importantly, the entire context of creation is now embedded in the cloud, a shared space in which to find, alter, create and share new content. The paper focuses specifically on a "Parts Bin'' metaphor for organizing Web content and on an incremental scripting metaphor for making active connections between components and for forging new functionality.


This paper presents measurements conducted at a 4-stage low speed axial research compressor with cantilevered and shrouded stator vanes. The aim of the work is to compare these two design philosophies under rear stage conditions. To achieve blockage levels typical for rear compressor stages, the hub clearance of the first and second vane row were kept constant at 4% of channel height. The investigation were done within the third and fourth stage of the compressor. Tests were conducted at 4 different hub clearances over the third and fourth stator and subsequently with 3 different mass flow rates through the cavity of the shrouded third stator. Overall performance data and flow field traverses upstream and downstream of stator 3 and rotor 4 will be discussed.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


This research derives from a survey of primary and secondary literature and my practice as a professional artist using electronic information delivery systems. The research has informed the creation of an interactive art work, authored so that emergent meaning can be examined and explored within a specific generative virtual environment by a variety of participants. It addresses a series of questions concerning relationships between the artist, the art work and the viewer/user. The mutable nature of this computer-based space raises many questions concerning meaning production, i.e., how might such a technopoetic mechanism relate to past practices in the arts, and in particular how might its use affect our understanding of theories of meaning? If the outcome of this part of the research suggests a radical transformation in meaning production as dynamically encountered through interactivity with a generative work of art, then how might the construction of this device inform a new field of practice? The scope of the topic and the secondary questions that flow from the initial speculation focus on the inter-conveyance of text (both spoken and written), image (both still and time-based) and music, as encountered by participants through interactive engagement within an authored and inter-authored virtual environment. The method has been to extend the realm of a series of theoretical positions relative to these areas as they appear in the mainstream literatures on art and interactivity, meaning and understanding. A virtual interactive art work has been developed in parallel to the literature survey and exhibited in Europe and Japan. The conclusions have been drawn by the author on the basis of a series of theoretical positions that examine the operative nature of an art work which is intended to generate emergent meaning. Future research is also discussed that seeks to extend our understanding and use of generative virtual environments.


Pose estimation is a critical skill in mobile robotics and is often accomplished using onboard sensors and a Kalman filter estimation technique. For systems to run online, computational efficiency of the filter design is crucial, especially when faced with limited computing resources. In this paper, we present a novel approach to serially process high-dimensional measurements in the Sigma-Point Kalman Filter (SPKF), in order to achieve a low computational cost that is linear is the measurement dimension. Although the concept of serially processing measurements has been around for quite some time in the context of the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), few have considered this approach with the SPKF. At first glance, it may be tempting to apply the SPKF update step serially. However, we prove that without re-drawing sigma points, this 'naive' approach cannot guarantee the positive-definiteness of the state covariance matrix (not the case for the EKF). We then introduce a novel method for the Sigma-Point Kalman Filter to process high-dimensional, uncorrelated measurements serially that is algebraically equivalent to processing the measurements in parallel, but still achieves a computational cost linear in the measurement dimension.


Initiative launched by OECD in 2009 to respond to the economic and financial crisis and to restore growth on a more sustainable path, by ensuring new development opportunities to limit the impact on environmental resources and on ecological services from which derives much of human well-being. Green Growth Strategy is an initiative launched by OECD in 2009 to respond to the economic and financial crisis, and to restore growth on a more sustainable path, both under the social and environmental point of view. Drawn up on behalf of the Council of Ministers of the 40 member States, the Strategy was published in May 2011 under the title of "Towards Green Growth", with the aim of providing member Countries with some useful guidelines in order to develop their strategies and national policies in the green growth field. As it is clear enough from the headline, the OECD considers sustainable development and Green Economy primarily as engines of growth and sources of new development opportunities, able at the same time, to limit the impact on environmental resources and on ecological services from which derives much of human well-being. The sustainable development, the efficient use of resources, the fight against climate change and environmental degradation are pursued by spreading an improved production model, new work opportunities and innovative technologies. Creating favorable conditions for investment and competitiveness, promoting innovation, encouraging new markets for "green" products and services, introducing en1 Barbara PANCINO, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics DEIm, Università degli Studi della Tuscia. 2 Emanuele BLASI, Post doc, Department of Economics DEIm, Università degli Studi della Tuscia. Bankpedia Review Vol. 3 n.1 2013 8 ISSN 2239-8023 DOI 10.14612/PANCINO_BLASI_1_2013 vironmental tax measures, removing subsidies prejudicial to the environment, establishing a climate of stability and trust: these are the keys on which it is necessary to leverage in order to overcome the current crisis in a perspective of sustainability. A green growth strategy requires in particular, a mix of tools derived from wide intervention packages. The first one includes the framework conditions that can strengthen the economic growth while ensuring the preservation of the natural capital. These involve basic tax and regulatory devices and traditional tools of economic policy and competition. The second package includes ad hoc tools, based on prices and on other strategic mechanisms, capable of promoting the efficient use of resources and the internalization of environmental pressures: taxes, tradable permits, voluntary approaches and public-private partnerships. Explicit reference is made in this context, to taxations of CO2 as alternative to taxes on corporate income, on work or cuts down public expenditure. OECD believes that the key area on which to focus is innovation that, understood in its broadest sense (technological, organizational, behavioral), is the main motor of green economy and plays an essential role in promoting a structural change in the economy and in the society with a positive impact on employment too. Green technology is already facing an expansion phase, as evidenced by the increase in the number of patents in the field of renewable energy, electric and hybrid vehicles as well as the energy efficiency in the construction and lighting industry. Technological innovation must be supported by targeted trade policies, such as the reduction in trade and investments barriers and an adequate protection of intellectual property rights. Furthermore, innovation alone is not enough: it requires the development of appropriate infrastructures for next generation technologies, especially in areas like energy, water supply, telecommunications and transport networks. OECD pays particular attention also to employment, not only because does green growth create new job opportunities, but also because in transition, some jobs, tied to the old unsustainable production model, are at risk: political efforts should therefore be addressed to ensure that companies and workers quickly adapt to changes Bankpedia Review Vol. 3 n.1 2013 9 ISSN 2239-8023 DOI 10.14612/PANCINO_BLASI_1_2013 and seize new opportunities, easily moving from sectors in contraction towards those in expansion. The Strategy also deals with some aspects of international cooperation, that should be strengthened in order to ensure an appropriate management of "global common goods", such as climate and biodiversity and to address financial flows, global trade and investments. In this context, reference is also made to the need to prevent, through adequate control measures, the development prospects of poorer economies which could be compromised by blatantly protectionist measures established in many developed countries with the excuse of green growth. All in all, the strategy stresses the importance of ensuring appropriate monitoring of the transition of the economy and society towards a green model. For several years, OECD has started reviewing the traditional methods by which we measure the growth and well-being, pointing out the inadequacy and the incompleteness of GDP as indicator or reference, while giving importance also to values non closely-linked to economic production, such as quality of life, environmental health and access to education. As regards to Green Growth, specifically, some peculiar indicators, which should be alongside the traditional macro-economic ones, have been identified and divided into four interlinked micro-areas with the aim of: Monitoring the productivity of natural capital and resources, and therefore verifying the difference between the rate of economic growth and the rate of growth of the environmental pressures caused by the adoption of production and consumption systems. Indicators in this case are, for example, CO2 emissions, water consumption, generated waste, and natural resources used for production. Describing the basic environmental heritage. Such indicators are the renewable resources available and their extraction, the condition of endangered species and the number of the existing forests. Monitoring the environmental dimension of the quality of life. Indicators of this type are, for instance, the health problems pollution-related and the access to sewage and purification systems. Bankpedia Review Vol. 3 n.1 2013 10 ISSN 2239-8023 DOI 10.14612/PANCINO_BLASI_1_2013 Identifying political responses and economic opportunities. This category includes indicators such as the percentage of green investments, the rate of employment in the environmental sector and the patents of green technologies. As indicated in the guidebook of the Strategy (Towards Green Growth: Monitoring progress – OECD Indicators), for each of these groups, a list of possible indicators is presented. This list is reviewed as soon as new data become available and these concepts are developed further. At the moment, 25 indicators have been identified, however, not all are currently quantifiable.


In the electronics industry and beyond, original design manufacturers (ODMs) provide a full spectrum of services, ranging from design and development to manufacturing, to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Through resource pooling, ODMs benefit from scope economies when designing different products for multiple OEMs. Such design outsourcing practices, however, stir concerns that it may dilute product differentiation and subsequently intensify market competition. To examine the strategic impact of design outsourcing, we develop a game-theoretical model with a single ODM and two competing OEMs. The ODM has two divisions to serve the OEMs separately. The OEMs engage in a differentiated price competition over the Hotelling Line with product locations endogenously chosen by the parties who design the products. A wholesale-price contract is negotiated bilaterally between an ODM division and her OEM customer, and design outsourcing may reduce an OEM's bargaining power. We compare two scenarios: (1)The ODM divisions establish dedicated resources and act as independent profit maximizers; (2)The ODM divisions cooperate through resource pooling and benefit from scope economies in both design and manufacturing. Our results highlight the role of bargaining in shaping the OEMs' design sourcing decisions. In particular, whether the OEMs outsource design in equilibrium critically depends on the degree of asymmetry between their bargaining powers vis-a-vis the ODM. With similar bargaining power, the OEMs are more likely to outsource when they become stronger relative to the ODM. With significantly different bargaining power, surprisingly, the strong OEM tends to insource while the weak one tends to outsource. Scope economies may induce the ODM to decrease product differentiation between the products she designs for her OEM customers, and this tendency increases as the OEMs' bargaining power strengthens. Ceding bargaining power, therefore, can be used by an OEM as an incentive lever to influence the ODM's design decisions.


We present a comprehensive study of the influence of the geomagnetic field on the energy estimation of extensive air showers with a zenith angle smaller than 60°, detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory. The geomagnetic field induces an azimuthal modulation of the estimated energy of cosmic rays up to the ∼ 2% level at large zenith angles. We present a method to account for this modulation of the reconstructed energy. We analyse the effect of the modulation on large scale anisotropy searches in the arrival direction distributions of cosmic rays. At a given energy, the geomagnetic effect is shown to induce a pseudo-dipolar pattern at the percent level in the declination distribution that needs to be accounted for.


Advice is a powerful tool for learning. But advice also presents the challenge of bridging the gap between the high-level representations that easily capture human advice and the low-level representations that systems must operate with using that advice. Drawing inspiration from studies on human motor skills and memory systems, we present an approach that converts human advice into synthetic or imagined training experiences, serving to scaffold the low-level representations of simple, reactive learning systems such as reinforcement learners. Research on using mental imagery and directed attention in motor and perceptual skills motivates our approach. We introduce the concept of a cognitive advice template for generating scripted, synthetic experiences and use saliency masking to further conceal irrelevant portions of training observations. We present experimental results for a deep reinforcement learning agent in a Minecraft-based game environment that show how such synthetic experiences improve performance, enabling the agent to achieve faster learning and higher rates of success.


This Nordtest method specifies a test method and a method for the calculation of the effective thermal conductivity or thermal resistance for an insulation system for steel structures. The thermal conductivity, calculated from the test results, is strictly related to the simplified equations used, and to the method by which the insulation is attached to the steel members, and should therefore not be considered as a true material parameter.


For the first time eitelite Na 2 Mg(CO 3 ) 2 was observed as a daughter phase in the melt inclusions in olivine from one of the deepest known mantle rocks sampled by kimberlite magma – sheared peridotite xenoliths (190 – 230 km), taken from the Devonian (~370 Ma) Udachnaya-East kimberlite pipe (Siberian craton, Russia). Eitelite was identified by confocal Raman spectroscopy and confirmed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Raman spectra of eitelite in the melt inclusions are characterized by a very strong band at 1105 cm −1 attributed to CO 3 2− symmetric stretching, and weaker bands at 207–208 and 260–263 cm −1 due to lattice vibration. Our findings of eitelite in the melt inclusions entrapped by olivine of mantle xenoliths indicate that this rare carbonate can crystallise from primitive mantle-derived alkaline carbonatite melt.


Although reengineering is strategically advantageous for organisations in order to keep functional and sustainable, safety must remain a priority and respective efforts need to be maintained. This paper suggests the combination of soft system methodology (SSM) and Pareto analysis on the scope of safety management performance evaluation, and presents the results of a survey, which was conducted in order to assess the effectiveness, efficacy and ethicality of the individual components of an organisation's safety program. The research employed quantitative and qualitative data and ensured a broad representation of functional managers and safety professionals, who collectively hold the responsibility for planning, implementing and monitoring safety practices. The results showed that SSM can support the assessment of safety management performance by revealing weaknesses of safety initiatives, and Pareto analysis can underwrite the prioritisation of the remedies required. The specific methodology might be adapted by any organisation that requires a deep evaluation of its safety management performance, seeks to uncover the mechanisms that affect such performance, and, under limited resources, needs to focus on the most influential deficiencies.


The attitude of the American classical scholar Basil L. Gildersleeve toward the English may be taken as typical of Americans over the period of his long life. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, a city with deep economic and cultural ties to England, he found his youthful admiration for British scholarship offset by the sufferings of his ancestors in the Revolution and the War of 1812. At mid-century the allegiance of many American intellectuals had switched from England to Germany, viewed idealistically as a place of pure intellectual discovery and artistic creativity. British amateurism held little interest for those who were building the first American research institutions in the 1880s, but as the FirstWorldWar approached, the deficiencies of the German system and the exciting work being done by those around Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray brought Gildersleeve back to the respect for humane British scholarship that he had learned in his youth in Charleston.


The purposes of this study were to gain insights regarding how sport public relations practitioners in the United States define public relations goals, identify linkages between the public relations function and overall organizational goals, and evaluate public relations' effectiveness. Using a modified approach to a method first employed by Hon (1997, 1998), the investigators queried 30 public relations professionals in diverse sport settings. Findings indicated that achieving some sort of outcome with an intended audience, although those outcomes varied, was the most common goal. Respondents also indicated that there were linkages between public relations and organizational goals, although the nature of those linkages was not always specified. The most common method of evaluating public relations was tracking media coverage.


Previous research has focused on the link between returns in the REIT industry, the stock market and the housing market. However, none, so far, have examined the possibility of bubble spillovers from either of the markets to the securitised real estate market. In this paper, we test for the presence of periodically collapsing bubbles in the three markets using a regime switching approach. Significant evidence of this class of bubbles exists in the three markets. Using a Granger causality test, we discover that bubbles spillover from the unsecuritised real estate market to the REIT market, only. Further analyses show that over eight quarters, over 9.5% of the variation in the REIT market bubble is caused by shocks to the housing market bubble compared to the stock market bubble which contributes to only 1.1% of changes. Given these findings, we proceed to compare REIT trading rules that rely on signals from the forecasted probabilities of a crash occurring in the unsecuritised real estate market to other strategies. Between 2000 and 2009, this trading rule outperforms the traditional buy-and-hold strategy.


Background: Self-rated health (SRH) measures with different wording and reference points are often used as equivalent health indicators in public health surveys estimating health outcomes such as healthy life expectancies and mortality for older adults. Whilst the robust relationship between SRH and mortality is well established, it is not known how comparable different SRH items are in their relationship to mortality over time. We used a dynamic evaluation model to investigate the sensitivity of time-varying SRH measures with different reference points to predict mortality in older adults over time. Methods: We used seven waves of data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (1992 to 2004; N = 1733, 52.6% males). Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between three time-varying SRH measures (global, age-comparative and self-comparative reference point) with mortality in older adults (65+ years). Results: After accounting for other mortality risk factors, poor global SRH ratings increased mortality risk by 2.83 times compared to excellent ratings. In contrast, the mortality relationship with age-comparative and self-comparative SRH was moderated by age, revealing that these comparative SRH measures did not independently predict mortality for adults over 75 years of age in adjusted models. Conclusions: We found that a global measure of SRH not referenced to age or self is the best predictor of mortality, and is the most reliable measure of self-perceived health for longitudinal research and population health estimates of healthy life expectancy in older adults. Findings emphasize that the SRH measures are not equivalent measures of


This paper describes a fast algorithm for the prioritized kinematic control of redundant manipulators. Building on the classical prioritized task framework, the focus is set on efficient computation and handling of inequality constraints throughout priority levels. Classical approaches that tend to account for inequality constraints through potential fields are computationally competitive but have quality issues. Formulating the same control problems with a Quadratic Program (QP) removes these issues but is known to be costly. The following work revisits the formulation of a hierarchy of QPs for the prioritized control of redundant manipulators and proposes an algorithm that can meet real time requirements for current humanoid robots. Because lower control objectives often become infeasible, a particular point of focus is the numerical stability, hereby addressed with Tikhonov regularization. The method was tested in simulation for the control of the humanoid robot HRP-2.


STRUCTURAL AND BIOCHEMICAL STUDIES OF THE CARBOXYLTRANSFERASE DOMAIN FROM PYRUVATE CARBOXYLASE Adam D. Lietzan Marquette University, 2014 Pyruvate carboxylase (PC; E.C. 22.214.171.124), a multifunctional biotin-dependent enzyme, catalyzes the bicarbonateand MgATP-dependent carboxylation of pyruvate to oxaloacetate. To complete the overall reaction, the tethered biotin prosthetic group must first gain access to the biotin carboxylase domain and become carboxylated, and then translocate to the carboxyltransferase (CT) domain where the carboxyl group is transferred from biotin to pyruvate. Kinetic analyses of PC have suggested that the spatially distinct reactions, which occur in the active sites of the BC and CT domains, are well coordinated. To gain insights into the molecular events necessary for coordinating catalysis in the CT domain, structural and biochemical studies were performed. An in vitro enzyme assay was previously developed to measure the oxamateinduced decarboxylation of oxaloacetate in the CT domain. While this reaction has been widely utilized, the mechanism has not been fully established. Structural data reveals that oxamate is positioned in the active site of the CT domain in an identical manner to the substrate, pyruvate, and kinetic data demonstrates that the mechanism proceeds through a simple ping-pong bi bi mechanism. These results establish this assay as an ideal method to dissect the role of biotin in the isolated CT domain reaction. To investigate the molecular events necessary for facilitating biotin binding into the CT domain active site, structural investigations of the CT domain in the presence and absence of the substrate, product and intermediate analogs were conducted. These studies revealed a substrate-induced conformational change that is essential for catalysis. Sitedirected mutations of two conformation-stabilizing residues result in a reduced rate of biotin-dependent reactions but have no effect on the rate of biotin-independent reactions, indicating that these residues are essential in facilitating biotin binding during catalysis. Furthermore, these structures reveal that CT domain ligands do not interact directly with the active site metal as previously hypothesized and that the substrate maintains its orientation throughout catalysis. Collectively, these studies reveal fundamental new insights into how substrate binding in the CT domain active site facilitates biotin binding during catalysis and contribute to a detailed description of how PC coordinates catalysis between two spatially distinct active sites.


This thesis describes a series of studies
designed to improve
our understanding
of
the
transmission cycle of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) in the
coffee-growing
sub-Andean
region of Huila department and to explore
the
use
of
insecticide treated
bednets
as
an
alternative control measure to the current policy of
house
spraying.
The thesis
is divided
into six chapters, including four results chapters.
Chapter 1
reviews
the
public
health
importance of CL in the Andean region,
in
Colombia
and
in
Huila
department;
explores
the possible risk of CL in coffee plantations
at regional,
departmental
and
municipal
levels; and presents a brief summary on
control
strategies
in the
Andes,
Colombia
and
Huila. Chapter 2 describes an exploratory study
in
seven representative
areas within
the sub-Andean region (1000
-
2000 m a.s.l. )
of
Huila
department
designed to
identify
possible CL vectors and the ecological
determinants for their
distribution
and
abundance. The study helps to: (i) explain
the
current
distribution
of
CL in
Huila
department; (ii) identify the boundaries of
the
epidemic
area;
and
(iii) identify
new
areas
of potential risk for the disease which
should
be
considered
for
monitoring
or
prevention programs. The main findings were:
(1) the
CL foci
of
Huila
was
identified
geographically; (2) Lutzomyia longiflocosa appears
to
be the
principal
sandfly
vector,
having a narrow ecological niche
defined largely
by
altitude,
temperature
and
a
preference for a well structured forest or
forest-like
habitat
(i.
e.
traditional
coffee-
growing area); (3) there was no evidence
for
complete
adaptation
of
L. longiflocosa to
intensive coffee plantations; and (4) L.
nuneztovari
is
a generalist
species
which
has
at
most a limited secondary vectorial role
in this
region.
Chapter
3
describes
a
cross-sectional study at household level in three
villages
(267
houses)
designed to
(i)
identify environmental risk factors for the
suspected
vectors
and
(ii) identify
demographic, environmental and entomological risk
factors for
disease.
The
main
findings were: (1) stronger evidence incriminating
L. longiflocosa
as
the
main
vector,
and confirming the less important role
of
L.
nuneztovari,
(2) the
detected
risks
confirmed the feasibility of the use of
insecticide treated
bednets
(ITNs)
as a
control
measure for CL. Chapter 4 describes a
series of
field
studies
to
evaluate
the
use of
lamdacyhalothrin treated bed nets as an
alternative
control
measure
(to
house
spraying)
for CL within the study area: (1) the entomological efficacy
of
ITNs
was
tested
under
controlled conditions; (2) the entomological effectiveness
(measured
indirectly
by
indoor CDC light traps) of ITNs and
house
spraying
were
both
measured
in
a
V household-based intervention trial; (3) the
reliability
of
light traps
as an
indicator
of
indoor sandfly exposure (in the previous study)
was
tested
by
comparison
with
indoor
human landing catches; and (4) field bioassays
were
used to
measure the
residual
lethal
effect of the insecticide up to 4 months after
both interventions
were
implemented in the
effectiveness trial. Together, the efficacy and effectiveness studies
showed
that ITNs
reduce L. longiJlocosa indoor human landing
rates,
blood feeding
success,
and
Human
Blood Index. The effects of house spraying were unclear, as
the
reduction
in
sandfly
numbers (fed and unfeds) observed
in light traps
in
sprayed
houses
was not
reflected
by
any reduction in human landing catches.
Chapter
5
describes
a questionnaire
study of
the inhabitants in the epidemic area to
evaluate
their
knowledge,
attitudes and
practices
in relation to sandfly and CL control
in
Huila.
The
study
showed
that
(i)
bednets
were
widely used, but less so amongst the poorest
households,
and
(ii)
nets
were
commonly
used to reduce sandfly nuisance rather than
reduce
the
risk
of
CL. However
knowledge
of sandfly involvement in CL transmission was
positively
associated
with
net usage.
This information should help inform the
design
of
future ITN
campaigns
in the
region.
Finally, Chapter 6 summarises and
integrates the
main
findings
of
the four
results
chapters, recommends the provision of
ITNs to
replace
house
spraying
for
CL
control
in Huila, and proposes future studies which should
be
prioritised.


The finite-element method (FEM) is one of the main numerical analysis methods in continuum mechanics and mechanics of solids (Huebner and others, 2001). Through mesh discretization of a given continuous domain into a finite number of sub-domains, or elements, the method finds approximate solutions to sets of simultaneous partial differential equations, which express the behavior of the elements and the entire system. For decades this methodology has played an accelerated role in mechanical engineering, structural analysis and, in particular, snow mechanics. To the best of our knowledge, the application of finite-element analysis in snow mechanics has never been summarized. Therefore, in this correspondence we provide a table with a detailed review of the main FEM studies on snow mechanics performed from 1971 to 2012 (40 papers), for facilitating comparison between different mechanical approaches, outlining numerical recipes and for future reference. We believe that this kind of compact review in a tabulated form will produce a snapshot of the state of the art, and thus become an appropriate, timely and beneficial reference for any relevant follow-up research, including, for example, not only snow avalanche questions, but also modeling of snow microstructure and tire–snow interaction. To that end, this correspondence is organized according to the following structure. Table 1 includes all essential information about previously published FEM studies originally developed to investigate stresses in snow with all corresponding mechanical and numerical parameters. Columns in Table 1 provide references to particular studies, placed in chronological order. Rows correspond to the main model parameters and other details of each considered case. In order to give an overview of the studies covered by this review, we briefly summarize them below. Previously considered physical and engineering problems in snow mechanics can be roughly separated into several major categories, namely:


Oscillatory flow of fluid in a porous medium can generate a one‐way transport of heat or chemicals if there is a gradient of temperature or chemical concentration and a rate‐limited heat or mass transfer between the moving fluid and an immobile phase. For chemical transport in soils, the immobile phase can occur in stagnant porosity, by sorption, or by dissolution of a vapor in the pore water. As a function of oscillation frequency, the transport rate has a broad peak near the value ωτc = 1, where ω is the angular frequency of oscillation and τc is the characteristic equilibration time of the mobile phase. The transport rate is proportional to the gradient and to the square of the amplitude of periodic fluid displacement. A unique diffusivity derived from the analysis enables prediction of the long‐term transport by a diffusion calculation without fluid flow, thereby providing a tool for estimating the removal of contaminant vapors by passive soil vapor extraction (PSVE). We compared predictions of the analytic theory with numerical simulations of PSVE. The mobile–immobile model is also applicable to transport in other cases of oscillatory flow in porous media, including cyclic motion of water or gas due to tidal aquifers or earth tides.


International portfolio diversification benefits between US stock markets and corresponding markets in Turkey and Egypt are examined from a short- and long-term perspective. The Johansen cointegration procedure reveals cointegration at the general index level related to some but not all sub-indexes investigated. Granger causality indicates, in general, causality running between USA and Turkey but only isolated cases involving Egypt. Overall, the results suggest that US investors can obtain diversification benefits at a sub-index level given a long-term investment horizon restricted to positions in one but not both Middle Eastern markets in one and the same portfolio. Short-term benefits involve the Egyptian market related to two out of three sub-indexes.


In this collection of interviews, Robert Aldrich (1918-1983) tells fascinating stories of making motion pictures with such film legends as Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Robert Mitchum, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Charles Bronson, Eddie Albert, and Burt Reynolds. As he speaks of them, of his on-going battles with censors, and of his audacious but failed attempt to create his own studio, he talks bluntly, sometimes ferociously, about struggling to make movies that accented his uncompromising view of life. Among Aldrich's interviewers are Richard Combs, Peter Bogdanovich, Alain Silver, Pierre Sauvage, and David Sterritt. In dialogue with these critics and film scholars he recounts a life in filmmaking that encompassed both old Hollywood's studio system and the spirited independence that took American cinema in a new direction in the 1960s and '70s. Although he was a member and a kinsman of wealthy, powerful families (the Aldriches of Rhode Island and the Rockefellers of New York), he gained a reputation as an anti-authoritarian maverick whose films condemned corruptive power. While succeeding as popular entertainment, they also were personal attacks on hypocrisy and intolerance. Aldrich redefined genres and undercut the conventions they portrayed. Kiss Me Deadly transformed the detective film into a satire on Cold War America. Vera Cruz disclosed the corruption at the heart of the traditional western. The Dirty Dozen and Twilight's Last Gleaming rendered the ambiguous underside of combat and the military. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush ...Hush, Sweet Charlotte shaped horror films into psychological studies of female loneliness and alienation. Eugene L. Miller is the author, with Edwin T. Arnold, of The Films and Career of Robert Aldrich. Edwin T. Arnold, a professor of English at Appalachian State University, is co-editor of Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy and A Cormac McCarthy Companion: The Border Trilogy (both published by the University Press of Mississippi).


Satellite data reveal a 20% decline in sea ice extent in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas in the two decades following 1973. This change is negatively correlated with surface air temperatures on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which have increased ;0.58C decade21 since the mid-1940s. The recession was strongest during summer, when monthly average minima in 1991‐92 removed much of the incipient multiyear ice over the continental shelf. This would have lowered the regional-mean ice thickness, impacting snow ice formation, brine production, and vertical heat flux. The northern ice edge contracted by ;18 of latitude in all seasons from 1973‐79 to 1987‐93, returning toward mean conditions in 1993‐95. The decline included multiyear cycles of several years in length, superimposed on high interannual variability. A review of atmospheric forcing shows winds consistent with mean and extreme ice extents, and suggests links to larger-scale circulation changes in the South Pacific. Historical ocean measurements are sparse in this sector, but mixed-layer depths and upper pycnoclines beneath the sea ice resemble those in the Weddell Sea. Weaker surface currents or changes in the upwelling of Circumpolar Deep Water on the continental shelf could have contributed to the anomaly persistence.


Aim: The aim of our study
was to compare characteristics
of stroke patients who presented Obstructive Sleep Apnea/Hypopnea (OSAH) to those of cases that presented Central Sleep Apnea/Hypopnea
(CSAH) events at PSG, and to
investigate relationships between the type of breathing disturb during sleep
and the location of brain damage. Methods: Thirty four patients were submitted to clinical, neuroradiological and
polisomnographyc study (PSG) after 4 months of stroke. A Sleep Disordered
Breathing (SDB) was diagnosed in all cases with an AHI > 5. Patients were
classified as affected by predominantly OSAH (pOSAH), or predominantly
CSAH (pCSAH). Comparisons were made among the groups and
correlation analyses were done in each group. Significance was set at p pOSAH. Except for age, no statistical
differences were found between the two groups as to clinical findings, risk
factors for stroke, PSG data, or location of brain lesion. Correlation analysis
outlined that in pOSAH cases the time interval from stroke to PSG (Δt) was inversely
related to both TST (p = 0.017) and TSP (p = 0.039); in pCSAHs it was
inversely related to SE Index (p = 0.021) and directly related to both ODI (p =
0.016) and with the n. of arrhythmias/h sleep (p = 0.033). In pCSAH, AHI
did not correlate with ODI. Conclusions:
Our data suggest that among cases with post stroke SDB is included 3 different subgroups of cases: OSAHs
who terminate the obstruction by arousal, OSAHs who do not arise and alternate
obstructive to central events, and CSAHs due to the direct effect of stroke on
the breathing network; in a forth subgroup of cases, the microstructure of sleep might be altered, with the consequent occurrence of
sleep-related events. Further studies are needed to clarify these hypotheses as
well as the role of poststroke depression on the nature and occurrence of SDB
after stroke.


Mannermaa's revisionist work on justification in Luther's theology--a notable contribution from one of the most influential Finnish scholars of Luther studies-- is now available in English. His book opens up new interpretive questions for historical theology with striking implications for ecumenism, ethics, and spirituality. He writes, "the idea of the divine life in Christ which is present in faith lies at the very center of the theology of the Reformer." He argues that later Lutheran interpretation of this teaching has portrayed justification as more mechanical and forensic than Luther did, underestimated the extent to which God's righteousness is also ours, and obscured the radical personal transformation that Luther attributed to justification.


IN HER RESPONSE to my October article, Ruth Stotts indulges in and ad hominem attack that lacks cohesive logic. Within her 2 1/2 pages of typescript, Stotts accuses me of "violating [my] own methodology," of submitting an article that is "replete with factual errors," of harboning "prejudiced opinions," of distoring information for the purpose of supporting my opinions, of misrepresenting information, and of "violating the ethics of [my] profession." What happened to the canons of schoolarly debate? What evidence or argument does Stotts offer in support of these accusation? First, she advances an alleged "error in methodology" resulting from my interpretation of a finding that average class size predicted just over 10% of the variation in 13-year-old' mean scores in mathematics in the 14 nations that "supplied reasonably comprehensive sampling frames for the 1991 IAEP study." I conclude that, "despite these results, it is difficult to believe that larger class size is generally associated with higher average student achievement. Perhaps a larger sample of nations would reveal a total absence of relationship." It is important to note several facts. First, the methodology used was simple linear regression analysis. It was applied correctly, and the findings were accurately and factually reported. Second, the same methodology was used in investigating the prediction of math achievement in the 1991 IAEP study, using average number of minutes of math instruction per week as the predictor variable, as well as the predictive value of a number of other variables. The method used was clearly described. Third, both of the regression analyses cited by Stotts left more than 90% of the between-nation variation in 13-year-olds' average math achievement unexplained, a fact clearly noted in my article. The slopes of these regression lines did not differ significantly from zero when tested using a Type I error probability of .05. Thus the data at hand fully warrant the conclusion that the slope of the regression of 13-year-olds' math achievement on class size is equal to zero in the population of nations from which the sample of 14 nations might have been drawn. Fourth, because of space limitations, only two of 28 figures contained in my original manuscript were included in the published Kappan article. Had my original Figures 14 and 15 (presented herewith as Figures 1 and 2) been printed, they would have shown clearly that Korea and Taiwan were outliers in the relationship between average class size and 13-year-olds' average achievement on the 1991 IAEP in mathematics - so much so that it seems reasonable to conclude that the positive regression line found in the analysis was not likely to generalize beyond the sample of 14 nations for which data on these two variables were obtained. Indeed, in the absence of Korea and Taiwan, the slope of the regression line is negative. The screening of outliers is recommended practice in regression analysis.[1] Note, in contrast to Figure 1, that in Figure 2 there are no outlying data values that would materially alter the slope of the regression line were they to be omitted from the data set. Finally, a substantial research literature exists that supports the inverse relationship between average class size and student achievement.[2] Although none of these studies used nations as its unit of analysis and the within-nation results often differ from between-nation results, it is not unreasonable to expect the regression of student achievement on class size to have a negative slope in light of the more than 75 studies summarized in this body of research. Having been a reviewer of Gene Glass' meta-analysis prior to its publication, my personal expectation, clearly stated as just that in my October Kappan article, is well justified. In sum, the first objection Stotts raises provides no support for her conclusions or for her attributions of bad faith on my part. …


Dish/Stirling systems rely on accurate mirrors and alignment. Inaccuracies in alignment can lead to flux "hotspots" that can reduce performance and even damage the solar receiver. To improve the alignment process a procedure that can be used to align solar dish concentrator facets was developed on the second-generation (Mod 2) Advanced Dish Development System (ADDS) at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. The previously used facet alignment method was based on the distant light source technique and required the dish to be pointed near the horizon while an observer located approximately 100 meters away views the image of a target and calls in adjustments to an aligner. At high sun elevation angles structural deflections inherent in any dish concentrator result in facet misalignments. To address these issues while allowing improved access to facet adjustments, an alignment technique that permits alignment at any elevation angle was developed and evaluated. This technique utilized a video camera and color target affixed on a lightweight tower at a distance near twice the dish focal length (2f) from the vertex of the dish, hence the name "color 2f". The camera and target are centered on the optical axis of the concentrator. During the initial evaluation of the color 2f facet alignment procedure on the ADDS Mod 2 concentrator, no facet adjustments were made. Instead concentrator facet deflections were measured by taking and evaluating images of the dish reflecting the target while the dish was pointed at the horizon, 45 degrees elevation, and vertical. These images were compared to each other, to determine gravity induced pointing errors as the dish changes in elevation. Future implementations of the color 2f system could be used to align the system rather than simply diagnose it. The proposed approach has the potential to accurately align concentrators without large open land spaces, and to account for elevation-induced structural deflections. In this paper, the color 2f alignment technique is described along with the results from the gravity induced structural deflection study. Issues and recommendations for improvement of the 2f alignment system are also presented.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


Recently, an increasing interest in pH-sensitive textiles is recognized. These chromic textiles can be used as flexible sensors for various applications. The aim of the current research is to develop textile pH-sensors through the application of pH-sensitive dyes on various textile materials using different techniques. The results of our study show that halochromic dyes can be incorporated into conventional textiles by a conventional dyeing technique. Also coating the fabrics with a sol-gel layer containing the halochromic dye proved to be successful. The majority of these developed materials showed a clearly visible color change with a pH-variation. The response of the sensors was dependent on the density of the fabric but was generally relatively fast, especially for the sol-gel treated fabrics. The halochromic coloration of nanofibres was realized by directly adding the dyes during the fiber formation, which was shown to be highly effective. Again, a clear halochromic shift was observed. The response of these sensors was fast thanks to the high porosity of nanofibrous non-wovens. Yet, it should be kept in mind that the halochromic behavior of the dyes in the textile matrix altered compared to their behavior in solution which is most likely attributed to dye-fiber interactions. Generally we can conclude that various coloration techniques showed to be effective for the development of innovative textile pH-sensors.


Event Processing (EP) is concerned with detection of situations under time constraints that are of a particular business interest. We face today a paradigm shift toward the real time information processing, and EP has therefore spawned significant attention in science and technology. Due to omnipresence of events, EP is becoming a central aspect of new distributed systems such as cloud computing and grid systems, mobile and sensor-based systems, as well as a number of application areas including financial services, business intelligence, social and collaborative networking, click stream analysis and many others. However, there are a number of issues to be considered in order to enable effective event-based computation. A language for describing event patterns needs to feature a well-defined semantics. It also needs to be rich enough to express important classes of event patterns. Pattern matching should be supported in both, query-driven and eventdriven modes. A number of other event operations, such as event aggregation, filtering, translation, enrichment and splitting, should be supported too. Since EP is a real time processing task, an EP language needs to feature an efficient execution model. Finally, processing only events is not sufficient in many applications. To detect complex situations of interest, EP needs to be enhanced by background knowledge. This knowledge captures the domain of interest. Its purpose is to be evaluated during detection of events in order to on the fly enrich events with relevant background information; to detect more complex situations; to reason about events and propose certain intelligent recommendations; or to accomplish event classification, clustering, filtering and so forth. The ETALIS Language for Events (ELE) is a declarative rule-based language for EP. It supports the above mentioned features, and goes beyond the state of the art by providing stream reasoning capabilities. In this thesis, we first review related literature and extract requirements for modern EP systems. Then we present ELE as a novel expressive formalism that fulfils these requirements. Further on, we show how deductive stream reasoning capabilities of ELE, together with its EP capabilities, have the potential to provide powerful real time intelligence. We give a few extensions of the core ELE. A number of examples and use case scenarios are developed to show the power of the proposed EP framework. We provide a prototype implementation of the language, and present evaluation results for implemented scenarios. Finally, we summarise the results of this thesis and outline our view of the emerging future work.


MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are increasingly recognized as being involved in pancreatic cancer progression by directly regulating the expression of their targets. In this study, we showed that miR-216b-5p expression was significantly decreased in pancreatic cancer tissues and cell lines. In addition, low miR-216b-5p expression was significantly associated with large tumor size and advanced TNM stage. Meanwhile, both Kaplan-Meier and multivariate survival analysis showed that decreased miR-216b-5p expression was associated with overall survival. miR-216b-5p over-expression repressed pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and induced cell cycle arrest and cell apoptosis in vitro and inhibited tumorigenesis in vivo. The translationally controlled tumor protein (TPT1) was identified as a novel direct target of miR-216b-5p. miR-216b-5p up-regulation suppressed TPT1 expression. Moreover, TPT1 mRNA expression levels were increased in pancreatic cancer tissues, and were inversely correlated with miR-216b-5p expression. TPT1 down-regulation had similar effects as miR-216b-5p up-regulation on pancreatic cancer cell progression. The restoration of TPT1 reversed the effect of miR-216b-5p on pancreatic cancer cell progression. Furthermore, we found that miR-216b-5p up-regulation suppressed Pim-3, Cyclin B1, p-Bad and Bcl-xL protein expression. However, the effect of miR-216b-5p up-regulation was partly reversed by TPT1 up-regulation in vitro. Taken together, our findings suggested that miR-216b-5p functions as a potential tumor suppressor by regulating TPT1 in pancreatic cancer cells, and it may represent a potential therapeutic target for patients with pancreatic cancer.


PURPOSE
Dental hygienists have been found to have high rates of neck and shoulder disorders, but there is very limited information on risk factors associated with those disorders, the level of risk for students, and the relationship of prior work as dental assistants for dental hygiene students. This study examines self-reported and physician-diagnosed neck and shoulder pain.

METHODS
A cohort consisting of 27 dental hygiene students with no prior dental occupation experience (mean age 24, 6.2 SD), and 39 dental hygiene students with prior experience as dental assistants (mean age 28, 6.0) and 94 experienced dental hygienists (mean age 46, 8.8) completed a questionnaire on risk factors and self reported pain, and were examined by a physician in reference to upper extremity findings and diagnoses. Analysis included tabular, trend, and logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS
There were significant differences for risks, symptoms, and physician findings. Risk factors had a stepwise progression for students, student/assistants, and experienced dental hygienists, including working with a bent neck often or very often (79%, 89%, 96%, respectively, p<.001), static posture (39%, 50%, 63%, p<.001), precise motions (58%, 67%, 90%, p<.001), and repetition (79%, 86%, 98%, p<.001). Neck symptoms were reported by 37%, 43%, and 72%, respectively (p<.001), and 11%, 20%, and 35% for shoulder symptoms (p<.05). Similar patterns were demonstrated in physician findings, particularly for neck disorders (18%, 36%, 50%, p<.01). In regressions, self-reported shoulder pain was significantly associated with working above shoulder height (OR=1.5, CI 1.0-2.4), and neck symptoms with working with a bent neck (OR=2.1, CI 1.3-3.4), with a protective effect from high supervisor support (OR=0.5, CI 0.2-1.0).

CONCLUSION
Risk factors and both self-reported and physician-diagnosed neck and shoulder symptoms increase in frequency from students to experienced hygienists, and students have higher prevalence if they are also dental assistants.


This dissertation is the outcome of a practice-based research inquiry into innovations in processes and materials leading to a contemporary fresco. The research is in three parts: 1) the textual establishment of a historical framework for fresco; 2) an exhibition, Channelling Time, at the Lethaby Gallery, from 22 April to 3 May 2003; and 3) a critical analysis and conclusion that defines the research.

The thesis is intended to explore issues in experimental fresco works and to provide a critical account of techniques, uses, and positions of fresco in twentieth-century art. It also aims to propose new aesthetic values in contemporary art.

Chapters I-IV reappraise modern fresco by weighing historical precedent and influence from other artistic mediums. Throughout these chapters it is argued that fresco can establish itself as a current in contemporary art by understanding how its contexts and media differ from traditional painterly approaches to contemporary fresco and an organic relationship to architectural space.

The research also discusses how contemporary fresco extends its boundaries with three different types of works: 1) site-specific projects; 2) portable frescoes and fresco installations; and 3) fresco sculptures and frescoes in mixed media. Interviews with major fresco artists examine how their work contributes to the creation of contemporary fresco and its new aesthetics. This research was used as a basis for discussing fresco in practice. It is developed in Chapter V, 'An Ongoing Inquiry through Creative Practice' and was presented at the exhibition in the Lethaby Gallery, the catalogue of which is included. The crux of the exhibition and the culmination of my research is an analysis of fresco's autonomy, diversity, and development from a traditional to a contemporary medium. The exhibition Channelling Time set out to establish fresco as a protean genre that expresses a variety of discourses of fresco.


Introduction: Medical tourism, as a growing industry, has provided opportunities for gaining competitive advantages for health care organizations in Yazd province. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between hospital capabilities and medical tourism development in Yazd city in 2018. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 nurses and doctors in Yazd hospitals in 2018. The data collection tool was a valid and reliable 25-item questionnaire consisting of the demographic and hospital capabilities questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using SPSS by running Pearson correlation test, linear regression, independent t-test, and ANOVA. : The results showed that the highest and lowest mean and standard deviations were related to the cost of services (3.88 ± 0.98) and equipment (3.50±0.63), respectively. Moreover, according to the multiple linear regression, equipment had the highest positive and significant impact on the development of medical tourism (β = 0.498). Conclusion: Yazd province is considered as a medical tourist attraction pole in south of Iran; therefore, special conditions should be provided for the development of medical tourism in this province. As a result, it is necessary to improve the quality of medical services at the provincial hospitals by taking measures such as providing welfare facilities for patients and their entourage, training the hospitals' personnel, establishing a brand for the province in the field of treatment.


The prevalence overweight and obese among children and adolescents increases gradually in the world and became an epidemic in both developing and developed countries. Overweight and obesity in the adolescent period are the main risk factors contributing to the development of cardiovascular diseases in the adulthood period. This study was planned to reveal the prevalence of obesity and association of healthy lifestyle behaviors with obesity in adolescents. Methods: This research was carried out 859 students studying at Istanbul Hezarfen High School between the dates 1 February to 31 March 2017. The general dietary habits and night eating statuses were determined using the Mediterranean Diet Quality Index (KIDMED) and Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ) and anthropometric parameters such as height and body weight were measured. Results: The mean age of the students was 15.9 ± 1.3 years. Of the students, 19.2% had overweight, 13.7% had obese BMI values. In this study, 32.4% of all students had low and 13% of them had optimal nutritional quality. The difference between two genders was statistically significant (p<0.05). The Night Eating Syndrome was not present in 78.9% of all students whereas it was detected in 21.1% of them. Conclusions: In our study, there was no statistically significant relationship between obesity, adherence to Mediterranean Diet and Night Eating Syndrome.


To improve traffic mobility and safety in highway work zones, this study has focused mainly on developing advanced merge and speed control strategies, including both their individual and integrated control algorithms. Based on the deficiencies and limitations of existing work zone control operations, this research has made contributions mainly on the following four regards:(1) understanding traffic flow characteristics under work zone traffic conditions with empirical data and identifying their interrelations; (2) developing an operational model for computing the optimal set of thresholds for dynamic late merge (DLM) and its implementation algorithm; (3) Proposing an optimal speed limit control model that can maximize the throughput of a lane-closure highway segment with a set of dynamically adjusted speed limits; and (4) constructing an integrated operational algorithm to take the advantage of the strengths of DLM and variable speed limit (VSL) controls. The simulation results have demonstrated that the developed DLM and VSL controls have better performance in terms of traffic mobility and safety than their existing controls based on static approaches, and also shown that the proposed integrated control of the DLM and VSL control has more promising properties than each individual control.


textabstractAphasia is a disorder of the production and comprehension of written and spoken
language as a result of acquired brain damage. This damage is located in the
dominant hemisphere, which is the left hemisphere for nearly all the right-handers
and for about 70% of the left-handers. The evolvement of aphasia is usually rapid
if caused by a head injury or stroke, but can also evolve slowly as a consequence of a
brain tumor, infection, or dementia. The most common cause of aphasia is a stroke.
The number of people living with aphasia in the Netherlands is approximately
30,000. Every year, about 9,600 new cases of aphasia after stroke occur. The first and
main question of patients and their family in the acute stage of stroke is whether the
symptoms will decrease, and the patient will ever be able to speak and comprehend
as before the stroke again.
The severity of aphasia after stroke ranges from having difficulties with infrequent
words, complex sentences and texts, to being completely unable to speak, comprehend,
read, or write. The impact on one's ability to communicate is devastating, not only for
the patients with aphasia but also for their family and friends. Patients with aphasia
are no longer sufficiently capable of expressing and clarifying their thoughts, wishes,
and needs, which puts an aphasic patient at a higher risk for depression. Ninety
percent of persons with aphasia feel socially isolated. Stroke patients with aphasia
also have a higher mortality rate and a worse rehabilitation outcome than stroke
patients without aphasia.
In this thesis, I address the natural course and prognosis of aphasia after stroke in a
large Dutch multicenter prospective study, the Sequential Prognostic Evaluation of
Aphasia after stroKe study, known as the SPEAK study.


Relationships between entities in datasets are often of multiple nature, like geographical distance, social relationships, or common interests among people in a social network, for example. This information can naturally be modeled by a set of weighted and undirected graphs that form a global multi-layer graph, where the common vertex set represents the entities and the edges on different layers capture the similarities of the entities in term of the different modalities. In this paper, we address the problem of analyzing multi-layer graphs and propose methods for clustering the vertices by efficiently merging the information provided by the multiple modalities. To this end, we propose to combine the characteristics of individual graph layers using tools from subspace analysis on a Grassmann manifold. The resulting combination can then be viewed as a low dimensional representation of the original data which preserves the most important information from diverse relationships between entities. As an illustrative application of our framework, we use our algorithm in clustering methods and test its performance on several synthetic and real world datasets where it is shown to be superior to baseline schemes and competitive to state-of-the-art techniques. Our generic framework further extends to numerous analysis and learning problems that involve different types of information on graphs.


All research papers produced by researchers worldwide now are based on previous academic publication written by other researchers. There are currently exist many research papers published in electronic media and new media. Recently, the improved technology makes Internet becomes the most widely used media. The research papers are published in many forms, such as in the for of a journal. Relation among journals can be traced though their citations. The number of citation to a journal paper can also be calculated to show the contribution of that particular paper. In order to know the relation among journals published on the Internet, we need a system which can automatically produce a relationship between articles from different journal, located in different websites. Therefore, in this work we created a mashup in order to extract website pages and then pick required files automatically. This system produced a database to save the extracted files and then find the relations. The data which has already processed could be seen in user interfaces. The interface has search functionalities by using key words inputted by users. As a result, the whole system forms a Mashup. We created an automatic extraction for Indonesian electronic journal system, using data from four (4) universities e-journal's site. We built the system using PHP language and MySQL database, after carefully study the algorithm in Openkapow Robomaker. The system can successfully extract information from journal provider's web pages, which include special type of PDF pages, then save them in database. The system generated finally shows the connection and the relation among the journals. The test result shows the processing time and memory usage evaluation for a random number of files. The evaluation results show that the execution time is dependent on the number of journal series, volumes, and number of articles on related e-journal sites.


In 2000 in Troxel v. Granville, four United States Supreme Court justices determined that the "liberty interests of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children" generally foreclose states from compelling requested grandparent childcare over current parental objections. Yet, these four justices recognized that "special factors" might justify judicial interference as long as the contrary contemporary wishes of parents were accorded "at least some special weight." The plurality, and one concurring justice, reserved the question of whether any "nonparental" visitation, presumedly also encompassing stepparents, siblings and others, must "include a showing of harm or potential harm to the child." Yet, the concurring justice hinted that at least some nonparental visitation could be based solely on a preexisting "substantial relationship" between a child and a nonparent. Dissenters suggested that some nonparents who childcare may morph into parenthood, as via de facto parentage. So while important, current parental objections to nonparent childcare desires are not always dispositive. Since Troxel, the U.S. Supreme Court has said little about nonparent childcare over current parental objections. It has not addressed special weight, special factors, harm or potential harm, or de facto parenthood. Many state lawmakers since Troxel have extensively refined their third party childcare laws, differing on the "harm or potential harm," "special factors" and "special weight" that can justify judicial interference with parental "liberty interests." And since Troxel, there has been an upsurge in significant childcare by grandparents, as well by other nonparents, including by the intimate cohabiting partners of single parents. As a result, there continue to be many third party childcare disputes, as well as disputes over new forms of parentage. New de facto parent statutes and cases since Troxel present a scheme for approaching third party childcare that does not envision a singular approach to judicial assessments of the special weight to be accorded current parent wishes or of the harm or potential harm to children. De facto parentage laws increasingly recognize that a single parent's current objection to a new second parent carries less "weight" when the single parent strongly fostered a "substantial" parent-like relationship between his or her child and the aspiring second parent. Comparably, third party childcare – without second parent status – could and should also proceed at times with less weight accorded to current parental preferences. This paper first explores the new American state de facto parent laws which often limit current parental decisionmaking about childcare due to an earlier ceding of parental authority. It then examines current third party childcare laws, including those specially addressing stepparents and grandparents. It shows that such laws typically do not comparably limit current parental decisionmaking due to earlier ceding, making third party childcare more difficult due to requirements like "harm or potential harm to the child." Finally, the paper suggests a new approach to third party childcare founded on a justifiable diminution of parental rights due to earlier ceding by existing parents. This approach better serves children and third parties where there are preexisting "substantial" relationships.


This research was conducted in Luwero, a rural district in central Uganda, over a period of three years, half of which entailed fulltime engagement in a participatory action research process with VEDCO, an indigenous NGO. The study focuses on the educational processes involved in the translation of Uganda's environmental policy into action at community level. It looks at community-based education and development activities run by VEDCO among smallholder farmers. The study addressed four objectives. For the first objective I developed a conceptual framework through a review of theories informing education in general and environmental education, adult education, community education, and community development in particular. The second objective was to conduct a situational analysis to identify contextual issues related to policy implementation at community level. The third objective was to engage in a participatory action research process with the NGO in the farming community in response to the identified contextual issues, and the fourth was to explore and comment on environmental education methods used within a community context. PRA techniques, interviews, and other participatory data collection methods were used to generate the data. The study reveals contradictions that limit NGO capacity to make appropriate use of participatory education processes in implementing policy-related training at community level. Elements in the National Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture, for example, conflicted with the principle of sustainable development underlying the policy. VEDCO itself was changing from a social-welfareoriented organisation into a commercial enterprise pursuing economic goals, which conflicted with its social goals. The capitalist development ideology of the donor was being adopted by VEDCO, which contradicted the goals of people-centred development. This was exacerbated by VEDCO's dependency on donor funds for its activities. Contextual issues like people's history; poverty, gender and inconsistent land policies further complicated the policy implementation processes. There were also inconsistencies in the epistemological assumptions and didactic approaches evident in the implementation. The study shows that the intended emancipatory education processes are more often supplanted by technicist methodologies. Thus, it exposes the underlying historical, ideological and epistemological tensions and contradictions within the field of education, particularly in relation to the `paradigmatic' orientations (neo-classical, liberal and socially critical/emancipatory) outlined in the literature.


Semantic labeling is an active field in remote sensing applications. Although handling high detailed objects in Very High Resolution (VHR) optical image and VHR Digital Surface Model (DSM) is a challenging task, it can improve the accuracy of semantic labeling methods. In this paper, a semantic labeling method is proposed by fusion of optical and normalized DSM data. Spectral and spatial features are fused into a Heterogeneous Feature Map to train the classifier. Evaluation database classes are impervious surface, building, low vegetation, tree, car, and background. The proposed method is implemented on Google Earth Engine. The method consists of several levels. First, Principal Component Analysis is applied to vegetation indexes to find maximum separable color space between vegetation and non-vegetation area. Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix is computed to provide texture information as spatial features. Several Random Forests are trained with automatically selected train dataset. Several spatial operators follow the classification to refine the result. Leaf-Less-Tree feature is used to solve the underestimation problem in tree detection. Area, major and, minor axis of connected components are used to refine building and car detection. Evaluation shows significant improvement in tree, building, and car accuracy. Overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient are appropriate.


Abstract The ITER project is considering the inclusion of two sets of in-vessel coils, one to mitigate the effect of Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) and another to provide vertical stabilization (VS). The in-vessel location (behind the blanket shield modules, mounted to the vacuum vessel inner wall) presents special challenges in terms of nuclear radiation (˜3000 MGy) and temperature (100 °C vessel during operations, 200 °C during bakeout). Mineral insulated conductors are well suited to this environment but are not commercially available in the large cross section required. An R&D program is underway to demonstrate the production of mineral insulated (MgO or Spinel) hollow copper conductor with stainless steel jacketing needed for these coils. A preliminary design based on this conductor technology has been developed and is presented herein.


Several studies identify collaboration between classroom teachers and teacher-librarians as a key factor that affects student achievement. Studies in teacher-librarianship have established procedures and processes for effective collaboration. This study examines collaboration from a broader theoretical and research perspective, beginning with 20 factors that specifically influence successful collaborations. These are clustered in six areas: factors related to the environment, to membership characteristics, to process and structure, to communication, to purpose, and to resources. Research from teacher-librarianship is then applied to substantiate and reinforce the factors and provide context for successful collaboration and thus effect on students' learning in schools.


Since 1963, when the African integration project was born, regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been an indispensable part of the continent?s deeper socioeconomic and political integration. More than half a century later, such regional institutions continue to evolve, keeping pace with an Africa that is transforming itself amid challenges and opportunities. RECs represent a huge potential to be the engines that drive the continent?s economic growth and development as well as being vehicles through which a sense of a continental community is fostered. It is critical therefore that citizens understand the multi-faceted and bureaucratic operations of regional institutions in order to use them to advance their collective interests.