With the readily available Gorlos-Phos as a ligand, unsymmetrical biaryls were prepared efficiently from Pd-catalyzed one-pot two-step cross-coupling of two different aryl chlorides in the presence of B2Pin2, tolerating functional groups such as aldehyde, ketone, ester, ether, nitrile, amide, fluorine, sulphonyl and trifluoromethyl groups. Besides the substituted phenyl chlorides, hetero-aryl chlorides, 1-chloronaphthalene, and dichlorobenzenes could also be applied. The cytotoxicity against human lung cancer A549 cells for some of the compounds has been studied.


Reports of physical attacks, intimidation, and harassment aimed at female politicians, activists, and voters have grown as women have become more politically engaged around the world. Often dismissed as the "cost of doing politics," such acts pose a serious threat to democracy and raise questions about the progress that has been made globally toward incorporating women as full political actors. Drawing on a diverse range of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as academic research on gendered and political violence, this essay maps the contours of this phenomenon and proposes emerging solutions.


Here both S-shaped and singly curved (here classified as S-shaped) duct diffusers for intakes in aeronautical propulsion systems are studied. The results are applicable in other situations where similar ducts occur; for example on V/STOL aircraft employing re-direction of thrust, intercomponent ducting in high bypass ratio engines, etc.

An open circuit static test rig, capable of mass flow rates of 5 kg/s, and three-dimensional instrumentation were established. Flow measurements were made in S-shaped intake duct diffusers for rear mounted gas turbine engines in both aircraft and air-breathing missiles. These designs are intended for ventral type inlet installation. These ducts possess cross-sectional shape transitions, from oblate to circular, with area increase and annular ducts at the engine face. The work was aimed at both fundamental understanding of the flows and at establishing test data for the prediction methods. Tests were performed at throat Mach numbers of nominally 0.15 and 0.6 and in the unit Reynolds number range of 3x10_6/m - 2x10_7/m for three different ducts each having different upstream bends but common downstream bends. Detailed boundary layer surveys were made to establish plane of symmetry growth of the viscous region and the extent of three-dimensionality away from the plane of symmetry. Data are presented in the form of velocity profiles, streamwise and cross-flow, integral thicknesses and surface pressure fields. Engine face distortion is assessed from full outlet flow surveys. Flow visualization was recorded using surface oil flow techniques. Evidence is presented of a trend towards three-dimensional separation as the upstream bend increases in severity. For the most extreme case large regions of complex three-dimensional separated flow occur and topological analysis of the recorded surface oil flow pattern allows reconstruction of the separating flow. Clear correlations are established between flow visualization results and flow measurements yielding better understanding. Finally, results were compared with a three-dimensional compressible prediction method.


Introduction Neurocutaneous syndromes (NCS) are a heterogenous group of disorders characterised by abnormalities of both the integument and central nervous system that are believed to originate from a defect in differentiation of the primitive ectoderm. Cutaneous manifestations usually appear early in life and progress with time, but neurological features generally present at a later age. Aim To study the clinical profile of children with neurocutaneous syndromes and their various symptomatology, the seizure types and the response to treatment. Subjects and methods A retrospective crosssectional study was conducted in the Department of Paediatrics, Pushpagiri Medical College Hospital, Tiruvalla, during the period from January 2013 to June 2013. Children between the age group 0 and 15 years were included in the study on the basis of standard diagnostic criteria for different NCS. Investigations done were CT, MRI, EEG,and skin biopsy for appropriate cases Results The study population comprised of 10 children (5 boys, 5 girls). The various forms of NCS observed were Sturge Weber syndrome (SWS) – 4 Neurofibromatosis (NF1)- 2, Hypomelanosis of Ito (HOI) – 2, Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) – 1, and Incontinentia pigmenti (IP) – 1. A total of 8 children (80%) presented with neurological symptoms and the remaining 2 (20%) presented with cutaneous symptoms of which 1 was found to have learning disability on evaluation. The neurological problems were,70% had seizures of which100% were SWS and TSC, 50% were HOI and NF1. 72% had generalised tonic clonic seizures (GTCS) and 28% had focal seizures. The child with TSC showed refractory epilepsy. Developmental delay was detected in 50% of cases and maximum delay was seen in HOI. Family history of the same disease was obtained in 2 cases (50% of NF1 and 100% of IP). Conclusions The leading NCS in this study was SWS.70% of children with NCS presented with seizures. The commonest type of seizure among them is GTCS. Children with TSC had seizures refractory to anticonvulsants. Careful evaluation of NCS children can reveal problems like Learning disabilities. Recommendation All children with neurocutaneous markers should be evaluated and investigated in detail to detect neurological affection.


While a great deal of attention has been paid to how political media can divide and polarize politicized groups in the U.S., little is understood about its effects within those groups. In this study, I use a population based survey experiment to explore whether targeted political media are affecting two factors associated with political voice – perceptions of political homogeneity and perceptions of political power. Drawing on theories from social psychology, I outline and test a set of theoretical predictions to explore this relationship in the context of Spanish-language political ads. The results suggest that Spanish-language political ads do, in fact, increase perceptions of collective political power among Latinos, but not in a way that unequivocally promote perceptions of political homogeneity. In doing so, the findings provide some of the first evidence of a causal relationship between targeted political media and perceptions of targeted political groups.


The debate over government-provided insurance for Americans frequently makes two assumptions: that the uninsured are unsatisfied with the health care they receive and that government health insurance would improve the quality of care for the uninsured. This paper finds that the vast majority of uninsured Americans are satisfied with their health care. Indeed, only 2.3 percent of Americans are both uninsured and very dissatisfied with the quality of the medical care that they receive. The paper finds that Canadians are much closer to uninsured Americans than to insured Americans in their satisfaction with their health care. There is also little difference in the level of Americans' satisfaction with their health care based upon race, marital status, educational attainment, income, or political views. There is some difference in satisfaction based on age and between the most extreme levels of educational attainment.


Abstract. Comprehensive aircraft measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) covering the South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) and San Joaquin Valley (SJV) of California were obtained in the summer of 2019. Combined with the CO, CH4, and NOx data, the total calculated gas-phase hydroxyl radical reactivity (cOHRTOTAL) was quantified to be 6.1 and 4.6 s−1 for the SoCAB and SJV, respectively. VOCs accounted for ∼ 60 %–70 % of the cOHRTOTAL in both basins. In particular, oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs) contributed >60 % of the cOHR of total VOCs (cOHRVOC) and the total observed VOC mixing ratio. Primary biogenic VOCs (BVOCs) represented a minor fraction (<2 %) of the total VOC mixing ratio but accounted for 21 % and 6 % of the cOHRVOC in the SoCAB and SJV, respectively. Furthermore, the contribution of BVOCs to the cOHRVOC increased with increasing cOHRVOC in the SoCAB, suggesting that BVOCs were important ozone precursors during high ozone episodes. Spatially, the trace gases were heterogeneously distributed in the SoCAB, with their mixing ratios and cOHR being significantly greater over the inland regions than the coast, while their
levels were more evenly distributed in SJV. The results highlight that a better grasp of the emission rates and sources of OVOCs and BVOCs is
essential for a predictive understanding of the ozone abundance and
distribution in California.


This paper describes and evaluates three architectural methods for accomplishing data parallel computation in a programmable embedded system. Comparisons are made between the well-studied Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) and Single Instruction Multiple Packed Data (SIMpD) paradigms; the less-common Single Instruction Multiple Disjoint Data (SIMdD) architecture is described and evaluated. A taxonomy is defined for data-level parallel architectures, and patterns of data access for parallel computation are studied, with measurements presented for over 40 essential telecommunication and media kernels. While some algorithms exhibit data-level parallelism suited to packed vector computation, it is shown that other kernels are most efficiently scheduled with more flexible vector models. This motivates exploration of non-traditional processor architectures for the embedded domain.


Basically, the design of the gas extraction supplementary string is specific to wells in which the pressure column of the fluid produced is close to or higher than the reservoir pressure. If the reservoir pressure cannot overcome the column of fluid produced or this pressure difference leads to production with low flow, the brain tube must be used. In this way, by pumping gas through this string and lightening the column and producing from the circular space, they solve the problem. In this way, after pumping, the gas comes out of the side of the suction valve and lightens the fluid column. It should be noted, however, that reducing the diameter of the production cavity created by driving such filaments increases the velocity of the fluid and gives the fluid less opportunity to lose its soluble gas. It is obvious that the use of several lateral positions of the overflow valve in the field of overflow with gas has made it possible to inject gas from several points. In the continuous flow of ascent with base gas and the general rule, the energy resulting from the expansion of gas is from a high pressure to a low pressure that can be used to develop and increase the flow of fluid in the well. The use of this energy is generally continuous, which is in the form of continuous injection of gas into the fluid inside the well.


ABSTRACT Macroautophagy/autophagy mediates the degradation of ubiquitinated aggregated proteins within lysosomes in a process known as aggrephagy. The cargo receptor SQSTM1/p62 condenses aggregated proteins into larger structures and links them to the nascent autophagosomal membrane (phagophore). How the condensation reaction and autophagosome formation are coupled is unclear. We recently discovered that a region of SQSTM1 containing its LIR motif directly interacts with RB1CC1/FIP200, a protein acting at early stages of autophagosome formation. Determination of the structure of the C-terminal region of RB1CC1 revealed a claw-shaped domain. Using a structure-function approach, we show that the interaction of SQSTM1 with the RB1CC1 claw domain is crucial for the productive recruitment of the autophagy machinery to ubiquitin-positive condensates and their subsequent degradation by autophagy. We also found that concentrated Atg8-family proteins on the phagophore displace RB1CC1 from SQSTM1, suggesting an intrinsic directionality in the process of autophagosome formation. Ultimately, our study reveals how the interplay of SQSTM1 and RB1CC1 couples cargo condensation to autophagosome formation.


Walking with load carriage is a common requirement for individuals in many situations. Legged exoskeletons can transfer the load weight to the ground with rigid-leg structures, thus reducing the load weight borne by the human user. However, the inertia of paralleled structures and the mechanical joint tend to disturb natural motions of human limbs, leading to high-energy consumption. Different from exoskeletons, Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SuperLimbs) are kinematically independent of the human limbs, thus avoiding the physical interference with the human limbs. In this paper, a SuperLimb system is proposed to assist the human walking with load carriage. The system has two rigid robotic limbs, and each robotic limb has four degrees-of-freedom (DOFs). The SuperLimbs can transfer the load weight to the ground through the rigid structures, thus reducing the weight borne by the human user. A hybrid control strategy is presented to assist the human as well as avoid disturbing user's natural motions. Motions of the SuperLimb system are generated autonomously to follow the gait of the human user. The gait synchronization is controlled by a finite state machine, which uses inertial sensors to detect the human gait. Human walking experiments are conducted to verify this concept. Experiments indicate that the SuperLimbs can follow the human gait as well as distribute the load weight. Results show that our SuperLimb system can reduce 85.7% of load weight borne by the human when both robotic limbs support and 55.8% load weight on average. This study may inspire the design of other wearable robots and may provide efficient solutions for human loaded walking.


Game theory is the branch of economics that studies interactive decision making, i.e. how entities that can reasonably be described as players of a game should behave, given their preferences and their information. Game theory is usually divided into two main branches: non-cooperative game theory, that studies the strategies that individuals should employ to reach their own goals, and cooperative game theory, that studies instead the effects of individuals joining their forces and getting the most out of their collective strategies. The present work lies somewhat in between the two sides of game theory and studies the relation between the behaviour of individuals and the behaviour of coalitions to which they belong. The first part of the thesis, called "Strategic Reasoning and Coalitional Games", studies what it means for a coalition of players to choose the best among the available alternatives, in particular what it means for a coalition to prefer a strategy above another and in what circumstances are those strategies at a coalition's disposal. Think for instance of a chess player who is setting up an attack against the opposite king. He knows that each of its pieces has invidual strengths (e.g., the knight can go to a central square, the bishop can control an important diagonal), but he is also aware that their real power lies in their combined forces (e.g., the knight and the bishop can together control a central square on an important diagonal). His reasoning starts from an individual perspective but it suddenly shifts to a coalitional one, where notions such as preferences and strategies acquire a more elaborated meaning and display specific formal properties. The thesis investigates them adopting the standard tools of logic and game-theory. The second part of the thesis, called "Strategic Reasoning and Dependence Games", elaborates further upon the study of coalitional reasoning, focusing on the network of interdependence underlying each collective decision. Consider once again the chess player who is deciding what to move. He is perfectly aware that pieces do not always perfectly and harmoniously coordinate. At times they actually obstruct each other while at other times they may even need to sacrifice themselves for their king to survive a mating attack. Their interaction displays a thick network of dependence relations (i.e. what each piece can do for the others) which strongly influences the strategies that can be played. In the classical account of cooperative game theory however this important condition is simply not taken into account. The present work bridges this gap, constructing a theory of coalitional rationality based on the resolution of its underlying dependence relations. Concretely it studies the mathematical properties characterizing those coalitions that arise from their members taking mutual advantage of each other. Finally, it relates those properties to the classical study of collective decision making


The use of third party software components is increasing. By looking at developers at a Norwegian IT consultancy firm I find that developers are using components at an individual level and there is no leading agenda that promotes reuse. Developers that are used to finding and using components do so often and with few problems this practice is aiding and improving software development. However the frequency of use is not as high as it could be, either because of limitations of reuse or lack of knowledge and skill on how to find components. By encouraging the use of small software components and proposing simple guidelines on how to do so companies could increase both reuse and the benefits of them.


Hacking is now a widely discussed and known phenomenon, but remains difficult to define and empirically identify because it has come to refer to many different, sometimes incompatible, material practices. This article proposes genealogy as a framework for understanding hacking by briefly revisiting Foucault's concept of genealogy and interpreting its perspectival stance through the feminist materialist concept of the situated observer. Using genealogy as a theoretical frame, a history of hacking will be proposed in four phases. The first phase is the 'prehistory' of hacking in which four core practices were developed. The second phase is the 'golden age of cracking' in which hacking becomes a self-conscious identity and community and is for many identified with breaking into computers, even while non-cracking practices such as free software mature. The third phase sees hacking divide into a number of new practices even while old practices continue, including the rise of serious cybercrime, hacktivism, the division of Open Source and Free Software and hacking as an ethic of business and work. The final phase sees broad consciousness of state-sponsored hacking, the re-rise of hardware hacking in maker labs and hack spaces and the diffusion of hacking into a broad 'clever' practice. In conclusion, it will be argued that hacking consists across all the practices surveyed of an interrogation of the rationality of information technocultures enacted by each hacker practice situating itself within a particular technoculture and then using that technoculture to change itself, both in changing potential actions that can be taken and changing the nature of the technoculture itself.


Follow for Now, Vol. 2 picks up and pushes beyond the first volume with a more diverse set of interviewees and interviews. The intent of the first collection was to bring together voices from across disciplines, to cross-pollinate ideas. At the time, social media wasn't crisscrossing all of the lines and categories held a bit more sway. Volume 2 aims not only to pick up where Follow for Now left off but also to tighten its approach with deeper subjects and more timely interviews. Featuring conversations with thinkers like Carla Nappi, Rita Raley, Dominic Pettman, Ian Bogost, Mark Dery, Douglas Rushkoff, and Dave Allen, and musicians like Tyler, The Creator, Matthew Shipp, Sean Price, Rammellzee, and Sadat X, as well as writers like Ytasha L. Womack, Chris Kraus, Pat Cadigan, Bob Stephenson, Simon Critchley, Simon Reynolds, Malcolm Gladwell, and William Gibson, Follow for Now, Vol. 2 is another critical cross-section of the now.


Abstract Fundamental particles of illite-smectite from bentonites were separated into classes by high-speed centrifugation after infinite osmotic swelling of mixed-layer crystals, achieved by Naexchange and dispersion in distilled water. In samples free of detrital contamination, the thinnest fundamental particles yield older K-Ar ages than the thicker fundamental particles. This implies that they do not preferentially lose radiogenic 40Ar due to size, and that the illitization process is a crystal growth mechanism (not nucleation plus growth). As a result, any K-Ar age of fundamental illite particles from bentonites is an integral over longer or shorter periods of time, depending on the thermal history of the rocks. In thick bentonite beds, the measured age difference between the beginning of the illitization process at the contact with the host rocks and the end in the centre of the bed records extremely slow K diffusion in these well compacted rocks. These data explain why measured K-Ar ages of illite-smectite from bentonites are younger than the corresponding age of shale illitization, inferred from the burial history of the basin. The finest technically separable size-fractions of associated shales (<0.02 μm) yield K-Ar dates* greater than the stratigraphic age. This observation points to incomplete recrystallization of detrital illite during burial diagenesis.


Choice-of-law rules determine which national law (not necessarily that of the forum) applies in private law matters that cross over multiple jurisdictions. Given the ubiquity of inter-personal cross-border relations, choice-of-law rules play an enormous role in securing justice in the transnational social realm. For example, they determine whether individuals can recover retirement benefits from worldwide investments through pension funds, whether they can receive compensation following an accident abroad, or whether their foreign marriages, divorces, adoptions or support orders will be recognized or invalidated at home.

Yet the legal field of conflict-of-laws has always been divided between two theoretical paradigms known as conflicts-justice and material-justice, such that a unified view of justice in the transnational realm has remained illusive. It has long been assumed that contrary to material-justice theories, conflicts-justice theories are disinterested in the actual substantive result of a dispute, reached through the application of choice of law rules. It is presumed that from a conflicts-justice perspective, choice-of-law rules are thought to ensure justice simply by identifying the proper geographical link between the individuals or the action and the state whose law is applied. This article shows that these assumptions are the result of deep misunderstandings about the analytical premises of conflicts-justice theories. Through a detailed account of the intellectual history of theories of justice in conflict-of-laws in the second half of the twentieth century this article argues that conflicts-justice and material-justice theories are in fact complementary and that their different insights work in tandem to secure justice for cross-border private law matters. It further shows that contrary to widespread assumptions by scholars and judges alike, the two theories lead to the same results in some of the most controversial tort law scenarios.


It is known that steel fibre can reduce the crack width of reinforced concrete flexural members however generally accepted crack width calculation method does not exist yet. The residual tensile strength which is used for crack width calculations should be obtained from tests. Three crack width calculation methods of steel fibre and ordinary reinforced concrete flexural members are discussed in this paper. All these methods have been derived using Eurocode 2 provisions, which are intended to the members without the fibre. Experimental cracking results of small cross section flexural members reinforced with steel fibre and ordinary reinforcement are also discussed. A scatter of the residual tensile strength which is obtained from three point bending test and its influence to the crack width is also reviewed briefly. Calculated crack widths are compared to the experimental results. It is determined that due to lack of the specimens the large deviations of residual flexural tensile strength can be obtained and it can cause the significant errors of calculated crack widths. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.6.1.6336


Scholars are still of the opinion that Augustine first started to read and discuss the Bible only once he became a Catholic Christian, or even only after his appointment as a Catholic priest. The possibility of Manichaean influences on Augustine's reproduction of biblical texts is therefore, in many cases, not taken into account. However, the study of (Latin) Manichaean sources gives us reason to rethink that position. This article is an investigation of the use of Scripture in the most extensive, still existing Manichaean work, originally written in Latin, namely the Capitula . Its author was the Manichaean bishop Faustus (flor. app. 380 CE Roman Africa). The most important subject in the Capitula concerns those parts of Scripture that bear relevance to the real Christian. Therefore, the work provides important insight into the Manichaeans' use and appreciation of Scripture. Faustus was well-known to the young Augustine and as a consequence the Capitula could well give us important insights into Augustine's knowledge of and opinions on Scripture as a Manichaean hearer. One problem with this theory is the fact that Augustine only received the work some 13 years after his conversion to Catholic Christianity. However, the examination of the quotations from Scripture, that have as its focus those from the Old Testament, illustrates, amongst others, that Faustus mainly used Biblical texts already quoted in the works of Addas/Adimantus (flor. 270 CE). The Capitula turns out to be an eloquent recycling of earlier Manichaean biblical arguments – a fact that makes it very likely that the content of the Capitula was known to Augustine in his Manichaean years. As a consequence, one should reckon with Manichaean influence on Augustine's reproduction of biblical texts.


We propose a novel approach to the problem of multilevel clustering, which aims to simultaneously partition data in each group and discover grouping patterns among groups in a potentially large hierarchically structured corpus of data. Our method involves a joint optimization formulation over several spaces of discrete probability measures, which are endowed with Wasserstein distance metrics. We propose several variants of this problem, which admit fast optimization algorithms, by exploiting the connection to the problem of finding Wasserstein barycenters. Consistency properties are established for the estimates of both local and global clusters. Finally, the experimental results with both synthetic and real data are presented to demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of the proposed approach.


Music has been widely recommended for its ability to produce psychophysiological benefits during exercise. Researchers have identified lyrics as a musical element that may moderate the relationship between music and psychophysiological responses. Previous investigations suggest that listening to music during exercise can enhance performance, optimize arousal, and improve affect. However, few studies to date have examined the influence of motivational lyrics on other affective phenomena during exercise, including mood states. PURPOSE: The purpose was to investigate the effects of lyrics in music on affect, arousal, and mood states during moderate-intensity cycling. METHODS: Thirty (Mage = 21.0 ± 2.9 years old) college-aged individuals performed three, 8-min acute bouts of moderate-intensity exercise on a cycle ergometer during music with lyrics (ML), music without lyrics (MNL), and no music control (MC) conditions. Primary outcomes were assessed via the Felt Arousal Scale (FAS), Feelings Scale (FS), and the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS) before a 6-min warm-up and again following a 2-min cool-down postexercise. RESULTS: A Time main effect for the FAS was superseded by a Condition x Time interaction, F(2,28) = 3.79, p = .035, indicating an increase in arousal for the MNL (0.4 ± 0.18) condition compared to the ML (0.1 ± 0.15) and MC (-0.3 ± 0.19) conditions. Similarly, a Time main effect was superseded by a Condition x Time interaction for the FS, F(2,28) = 4.56, p = .019, revealing an increase in affect for the MNL (0.93 ± 0.19) condition compared to the ML (0.63 ± 0.22) and MC (0.13 ± 0.29) conditions. A Time main effect was also found for the Tension (-0.73 ± 0.16), Vigor (1.96 ± 0.41), Fatigue (-0.60 ± 0.25), and Confusion (-0.32 ± 0.10) subscales of the BRUMS, indicating general improvements following exercise. However, no Condition x Time interactions were observed for mood outcomes. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that music may increase more basic components of affect and arousal more than lyrical music or exercise alone. Regardless of lyrical content, music does not appear to influence more stable affective phenomena (i.e., mood states) beyond exercise. Potential limitations of the current study include song selection methods and the short exercise duration. Future investigations examining the effects of lyrics in music on psychophysiological responses during exercise are warranted.


Warm gas and dust surround the innermost regions of active galactic nuclei (AGN). They provide the material for accretion onto the super-massive black hole and they are held responsible for the orientation-dependent obscuration of the central engine. The AGN-heated dust distributions turn out to be very compact with sizes on scales of about a parsec in the mid-infrared. Only infrared interferometry currently provides the necessary angular resolution to directly study the physical properties of this dust. Size estimates for the dust distributions derived from interferometric observations can be used to construct a size–luminosity relation for the dust distributions. The large scatter about this relation suggests significant differences between the dust tori in the individual galaxies, even for nuclei of the same class of objects and with similar luminosities. This questions the simple picture of the same dusty doughnut in all AGN. The Circinus galaxy is the closest Seyfert 2 galaxy. Because its mid-infrared emission is well resolved interferometrically, it is a prime target for detailed studies of its nuclear dust distribution. An extensive new interferometric data set was obtained for this galaxy. It shows that the dust emission comes from a very dense, disk-like structure which is surrounded by a geometrically thick, similarly warm dust distribution as well as significant amounts of warm dust within the ionisation cone.


Controlled-environment and field experiments were done to investigate effects of the fungicide Punch C (flusilazole plus carbendazim) on growth of Leptosphaeria maculans and L. biglobosa in oilseed rape. In controlled-environment experiments, for plants inoculated with L. maculans, fungicide treatment decreased lesion size and amount of L. maculans DNA in leaves; for plants inoculated with L. biglobosa, fungicide did not affect lesion size or amount of pathogen DNA. When release of ascospores was monitored using a Burkard spore sampler, the timing and pattern of ascospore release differed between the four seasons. In 2006/2007, the majority of ascospores released were L. maculans, whilst in 2007/2008 the majority were L. biglobosa; in both seasons L. maculans ascospores were released before L. biglobosa ascospores. In field experiments in 2002/2003 and 2003/2004, fungicide treatment decreased severity of stem canker on cv. Apex, but gave no significant yield response. In 2006/2007 and 2007/2008, fungicide treatment decreased phoma leaf spot incidence in autumn and stem canker severity at harvest, and increased yield. Fungicide treatment decreased stem canker severity more on cv. Courage, with a good yield response, than on cv. Canberra. In 2002/2003 and 2003/2004, fungicide treatment decreased the frequency of spread of L. maculans into stem pith tissues and in 2006/2007 fungicide decreased the amount of L. maculans DNA in stem tissues (measured by quantitative PCR). These results are used to suggest how effects of fungicides on interactions between L. maculans and L. biglobosa might affect severity of phoma stem canker and yield response.


This is the bestselling fashion classic now available in cloth-bound special edition. Illustrated with delightful photographs and drawings, this beautiful book is the perfect gift for both the style-conscious and the desperately in need! Christian Dior reveals the secrets of style in his indispensable guide that covers everything from what to wear to a wedding and how to tie a scarf to how to walk with grace.


The presence of substructures in dark matter haloes is an unavoidable consequence of the cold dark matter paradigm. Indirect signals from these objects have been extensively searched for with cosmic rays and {gamma} rays. At first sight, Cherenkov telescopes seem not very well suited for such searches, due to their small fields of view and the random nature of the possible dark matter substructure positions in the sky. However, with long enough exposure and an adequate observation strategy, the very good sensitivity of this experimental technique allows us to constrain particle dark matter models. We confront here the sensitivity map of the HESS experiment built out of their Galactic scan survey to the state-of-the-art cosmological N-body simulation Via Lactea II. We obtain competitive constraints on the annihilation cross section, at the level of 10{sup -24}-10{sup -23} cm{sup 3} s{sup -1}. The results are extrapolated to the future Cherenkov Telescope Array, in the cases of a Galactic plane survey and of an even wider extragalactic survey. In the latter case, it is shown that the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array will be sufficient to reach the most natural particle dark matter models.


In less-resourced settings, powered wheelchairs are rarely available for users who cannot self-propel. These users must rely on somebody, usually family members or friends, for assistance to push them across variable terrain. In situations where people with disabilities are grouped together, assistants may themselves be disabled. Provision of mobility for the wheelchair user may be a great physiological cost for the assistant. Objective outcomes measures can provide valuable feedback to manufacturers which can constructively influence wheelchair design modification. We hypothesized that measuring the energy cost for an assistant pushing two types of wheelchairs on rough and smooth ground would allow us to differentiate between the chairs and provide useful feedback to manufacturers. This study compared the Motivation Rough Terrain and Whirlwind RoughRider, wheelchairs designed for less-resourced settings. Able-bodied volunteer college-aged students (n=29: 16M, 13F, age 19±1.3) completed six-minute timed walk tests (TWT) with both wheelchair types on smooth and rough ground courses, the smooth course on a paved parking lot and the rough course on a gravel parking lot. Exercise and non-exercise heart rate was collected for each subject using Polar Pro monitors. Exercise heart rate consisted of the last four minutes of heart rate collected during the TWT. The physiological cost index (PCI) was then calculated4. Subjects completed a visual analog scale (VAS) question for each TWT. Two-way within-subject ANOVA and post-hoc paired t-tests were used to compare data. Results showed the Motivation Rough Terrain outperformed the Whirlwind RoughRider in most categories. ANOVA showed significant results with the Whirlwind chair having a higher PCI. Post-hoc paired t-tests showed a significantly higher PCI for the Whirlwind chair on both smooth and rough ground. There was no significance found between the two chairs for the TWT. VAS results indicated subjects perceived significantly greater difficulty with the Whirlwind chair than the Motivation chair on both smooth and rough ground. Comments revealed that subjects favored the single front castor of the Motivation chair. Based on the results of this study, it seems as though the design of the Motivation chair utilizes important features that could be of potential benefit to assistants pushing wheelchair users in less-resourced settings. These features may also have a positive impact on the production of efficient rough terrain wheelchairs.


U.S. trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), World Trade Organization agreements, and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have been approved by majority vote of each house rather than by two-thirds vote of the Senate—that is, they have been treated as congressional-executive agreements rather than as treaties. The congressional-executive agreement has been the vehicle for implementing Congress's long-standing policy of seeking trade benefits for the United States through reciprocal trade negotiations. In a succession of statutes, Congress has authorized the President to negotiate and enter into tariff and nontariff barrier (NTB) agreements for limited periods, while permitting NTB and free trade agreements negotiated under this authority to enter into force for the United States only if they are approved by both houses in a bill enacted into public law and other statutory conditions are met; implementing bills are also accorded expedited consideration under the scheme. This negotiating authority and expedited procedures are commonly known as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). Congress most recently granted the President temporary trade negotiating authority utilizing this th Congress, agreements entered into before July 1, 2007, remained eligible for congressional consideration under the expedited procedure. The President had entered into free trade agreements with Colombia, Korea, and Panama before this date, each of which awaited congressional approval at the time. In October 2011, Congress approved the three pending agreements, making a total of 11 free trade agreements approved under the BTPAA process. In addition, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), on behalf of the President, notified the House and Senate in December 2009 by letter that the President intended to enter into negotiations aimed at a regional, Asia-Pacific trade agreement, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Notwithstanding the expiration of BTPAA authorities, the USTR stated that the Obama Administration would be observing the relevant procedures of the act with respect to notifying and consulting with Congress regarding these negotiations. Notably, discussions to reinstate TPA through legislation have recently gained attention. In March 2013, the Acting U.S. Trade Representative, Demetrios Marantis, stated that the Obama Administration will work with Congress to enact new TPA legislation.


Whereas polyploidy is common and an important evolutionary factor in most land plant lineages it is a real rarity in gymnosperms. Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is the only hexaploid conifer and one of just two naturally polyploid conifer species. Numerous hypotheses about the mechanism of polyploidy in Sequoia and parental genome donors have been proffered over the years, primarily based on morphological and cytological data, but it remains unclear how Sequoia became polyploid and why this lineage overcame an apparent gymnosperm barrier to whole-genome duplication (WGD). We sequenced transcriptomes and used phylogenetic inference, Bayesian concordance analysis, and paralog age distributions to resolve relationships among gene copies in hexaploid coast redwood and its close relatives. Our data show that hexaploidy in the coast redwood lineage is best explained by autopolyploidy or, if there was allopolyploidy, this was restricted to within the Californian redwood clade. We found that duplicate genes have more similar sequences than would be expected given evidence from fossil guard cell size which suggest that polyploidy dates to the Eocene. Conflict between molecular and fossil estimates of WGD can be explained if diploidization occurred very slowly following whole genome duplication. We extrapolate from this to suggest that the rarity of polyploidy in conifers may be due to slow rates of diploidization in this clade.


Libraries are sometimes erroneously considered to be rather passive recipients for the conservation of literary and scientific production. Such a picture was never correct, since there has always been a strong relation between the libraries and the centres of book production. Such a relation is even more strongly present today in our modern universities and other centres of research. Our budget is always too limited to allow anything but an acquisition policy that is tailored as much as possible to the specific needs of our customers. In the library lies the beginning of every research project, since it contains the necessary sources of information; the library forms also the ultimate goal of a research project, since this is the place where the publications that consolidate its results should be deposited. The activities of a research institute and its supporting library are so strongly intertwined that a librarian cannot afford to remain ignorant about the mechanisms through which scientific and scholarly information are established.


This paper presents a constitutive modeling approach (the Polystar model) used to compute the viscoplastic behavior and the durability of high pressure turbine blades and vanes of aeroengines during complex thermomechanical histories typically encountered during certification procedures. This model is based on internal variables representing explicitly the microstructure evolutions occurring during very high temperature non-isothermal loading (e.g., dissolution/re-precipitation of the strengthening phase, dislocation recovery mechanisms, etc.) in a crystal viscoplasticity modeling framework. This article shows that the development of such a modeling tool requires a good characterization of fast microstructure evolutions, as well as in-service-type experiments (using burner rigs) able to reproduce the complex thermomechanical loading spectra. The capabilities of the model are illustrated, as well as its potential industrial applications and further developments are commented.


Albendazole is a low water soluble benzimidazole carbonate drug, extensively used against instestinal parasites due to its broad spectrum activity, good tolerance and low cost. The drug has a disadvantage of poor bioavailability due to very low solubility in water. The main objective of the study was to increase the solubility and dissolution rate by complexing with cyclodextrins by kneading method and to compare the solubility between hydroxypropyl beta cyclodextrin and beta cyclodextrin. Solid state characterization was done by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and thermo gravimetric analysis. Increased solubility was obtained when more substituted cyclodextrins were used instead of non-substituted cyclodextrins. High oral dose of albendazole is required for treating systemic helminthiasis which can lead to liver impairment, so the main aim of the study was to analyze liver enzymes using albino wistar rats. For enzyme determination, blood samples were collected from each rat after 48 h of drug administration via retro-orbital puncture method and allowed to clot. From the studies it was found that elevation in liver enzymes is less in case of ABZ-HPβCD complex suspensions than the other formulations. Drug release studies and kinetic profiles help to find out the release of drug from cyclodextrins and it was found out that ABZ-HPβCD suspension having better release profile than the ABZ-βCD.


Introduction: Tobacco use among school going children is becoming a serious public health issue in developing countries like India. According to the study conducted by S.K. Jindal in 2004, in the northern states of India, prevalence of tobacco use was lowest in Punjab because smoking is strongly against the Sikh tenets. However, a recognizable change in trends has been observed recently. Aim: To determine the prevalence of tobacco use, the age of initiation, factors leading to initiation, and the knowledge about the health hazards caused by tobacco use among adolescents in the city of Ludhiana, Punjab. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 400 adolescents between the ages of 13 to 19 years in Ludhiana using a self-administered questionnaire. Result: In all, 12.75% of the students were found to be tobacco users. The age of initiation was around 15 years. Majority of the students were initiated into this habit by friends or by immediate family members. In total, 78.64% of the students reported to be aware of the harmful effects of tobacco use. Conclusion: This study demonstrated a relatively high prevalence of tobacco use among adolescents in Ludhiana, Punjab. Peer pressure was the main factor in the initiation of this habit. Strict laws need to be passed and interventions designed to reduce the use of tobacco among adolescents.


A CURRENT PROBLEM FOR STEEL BRIDGES: FATIGUE ASSESSMENT OF SEAMS REPAIR H. PASTERNAK A. CHWASTEK The paper describes the results from a research project about repair of welds. The repair was carried out by grinding the flawed seams and re-welding them. The main task was to determine the FAT classes of original state and after repair of seams according to the assessment procedures, such as nominal, structural and effective notch stress approach. The first part shows the results of the tests, the second part encloses numerical analysis and evaluation of results to determine the fatigue strength classes according to three assessment procedures.


Abstract. We used the nested grid version of the global three-dimensional Goddard Earth Observing System chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) to examine the interannual variations (IAVs) of aerosols over heavily polluted regions in China for years 2004–2012. The role of variations in meteorological parameters was quantified by a simulation with fixed anthropogenic emissions at year 2006 levels and changes in meteorological parameters over 2004–2012. Simulated PM2.5 (particles with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less) aerosol concentrations exhibited large IAVs in North China (NC; 32–42° N, 110–120° E), with regionally averaged absolute percent departure from the mean (APDM) values of 17, 14, 14, and 11% in December-January-February (DJF), March-April-May (MAM), June-July-August (JJA), and September-October-November (SON), respectively. Over South China (SC; 22–32° N, 110–120° E), the IAVs in PM2.5 were found to be the largest in JJA, with the regional mean APDM values of 14% in JJA and of about 9% in other seasons. The concentrations of PM2.5 over the Sichuan Basin (SCB; 27–33° N, 102–110° E) were simulated to have the smallest IAVs among the polluted regions examined in this work, with APDM values of 8–9% in all seasons. All aerosol species (sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, black carbon, and organic carbon) were simulated to have the largest IAVs over NC in DJF, corresponding to the large variations in meteorological parameters over NC in this season. Process analyses were performed to identify the key meteorological parameters that determined the IAVs of different aerosol species in different regions. While the variations in temperature and specific humidity, which influenced the gas-phase formation of sulfate, jointly determined the IAVs of sulfate over NC in both DJF and JJA, wind (or convergence of wind) in DJF and precipitation in JJA were the dominant meteorological factors to influence IAVs of sulfate over SC and the SCB. The IAVs in temperature and specific humidity influenced gas-to-aerosol partitioning, which were the major factors that led to the IAVs of nitrate aerosol in China. The IAVs in wind and precipitation were found to drive the IAVs of organic carbon aerosol. We also compared the IAVs of aerosols simulated with variations in meteorological parameters alone with those simulated with variations in anthropogenic emissions alone; the variations in meteorological fields were found to dominate the IAVs of aerosols in northern and southern China over 2004–2012. Considering that the IAVs in meteorological fields are mainly associated with natural variability in the climate system, the IAVs in aerosol concentrations driven by meteorological parameters have important implications for the effectiveness of short-term air quality control strategies in China.


Baseball remains the only professional sport exempt from anti-trust scrutiny. Because of this unique status, baseball players have not pursued anti-trust lines of attack. Some now say that baseball players no longer need to depend on the anti-trust laws to effectuate modifications in their reserve system. Such commentators say that because of the equal bargaining strength of the parties, the labor exemption would operate to shelter from scrutiny even a term that was unilaterally imposed by the owners. In Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, the Supreme Court held that the baseball industry was not amenable to anti-trust attack because it was purely an intrastate activity; Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc. reaffirmed this holding. The Court failed to extend this exemption to other professional sports. The Court should overrule the exemption or alternatively, Congress should place the baseball industry in the same position as other professional sports with respect to antitrust laws via legislative acts. Usage of the labor exemption to shelter unilaterally imposed terms, such as a reserve system, turns labor's shield into the employer's sword.


Cold‐formed steel (CFS) members have been used significantly in light‐gauge steel buildings due to their inherent advantages. Optimizing these CFS members in order to gain enhanced loadbearing capacities will result in economical and efficient building solutions. This research presents the investigation and results of the optimization of CFS members for flexural capacity. The optimization procedure was performed using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method, while the section moment capacity was determined based on the effective width method adopted in EN 1993‐1‐3 (EC3). Theoretical and manufacturing constraints were incorporated while optimizing the CFS cross‐sections. In total, four CFS sections – lipped channel beam (LCB), optimized LCB, folded‐flange and super‐sigma – were considered in the optimization process, including new sections. The section moment capacities of these sections were also obtained through non‐linear finite element (FE) analysis and compared with the EC3‐based, optimized section moment capacities. The results show that, compared with a commercially available LCB with the same amount of material, the new CFS sections possess the highest section moment capacity enhancements (up to 65 %). In addition, the performance of these CFS sections when subjected to shear and web‐crippling actions was also investigated using non‐linear FE analysis.


Soil is frequently encountered as trace evidence in forensic science case-work, but because of the limitations of current analytical techniques, this evidence is rarely utilised. A technique has been developed that allows comparisons of soil samples to be made, based on molecular analysis of the bacterial communities living in the soil. This project assesses the practicality of using this technique, known as 16S rDNA T-RFLP community profiling, for forensic soil analysis, by refining the basic methodology and performing a preliminary evaluation of its reproducibility and utility. Initial difficulties associated with generating profiles from soil samples have been overcome through methodology improvement, and the technique has been found to be effective for generating simple, visual profiles that clearly demonstrate differences between soil samples. Soil bacterial community DNA profiling is likely to be a powerful yet simple forensic tool, providing the ability to routinely use soil as associative evidence. The potential for using the same technology to develop a time since death or post mortem interval (PMI) estimation tool was also investigated. This study monitored the changes in the soil bacterial community beneath decomposing human cadavers and pig carcasses and showed that community change is dynamic and progressive. These changes are caused by fluctuations in specific bacterial species populations that are able to utilise organic breakdown products released from the body over time. Release of the body's natural microflora into the underlying soil may also contribute to an altered bacterial community. This project has demonstrated that the soil microbial community clearly changes over the course of decomposition, and potential exists for development of a PMI estimation tool based on soil bacterial community succession.


This article looks at the manuscript transmission and production of the first edition of Illuga saga, a short and somewhat fantastic fornaldarsaga, in Sweden in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through a consideration of all of the six manuscripts of this saga which appear in Swedish archives, an analysis of how a saga with no ostensible interest for Swedish gothicism came to be produced as an edition within that cultural movement is presented. The hero, Illugi, can be linked genealogically to Swedish heroes, and the Danish king in the saga is reinterpreted as a petty king of Skane within the Swedish realm. Such ideas were emphasised in eighteenth-century Swedish historical works, which used editions such as that of Illuga saga as source material. Furthermore, the intertextual reading required to make such arguments can be seen as leading to an awareness of a connection between a group of texts, which later would be formalised into the genre of fornaldarsogur.


CONTEXT
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently prescribed to pregnant women, but knowledge about their unintended effects on child health is scarce.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the effects of maternal SSRI use during pregnancy on fetal growth and birth outcomes.

DESIGN
The study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a prospective population-based study from fetal life onward.

PARTICIPANTS
Seven thousand six hundred ninety-six pregnant women were included. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor use was assessed by questionnaires in each trimester and verified by pharmacy records. Using depressive symptom scores from the Brief Symptom Inventory, 7027 pregnant mothers (91.3%) had no or low depressive symptoms, 570 pregnant mothers (7.4%) had clinically relevant depressive symptoms and used no SSRIs, and 99 pregnant mothers (1.3%) used SSRIs.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Fetal ultrasonography was performed in each trimester. We determined fetal body and head growth with repeated assessments of body and head size. The birth outcomes studied were preterm birth, small for gestational age, and low birth weight.

RESULTS
Fetuses from mothers with prenatal depressive symptoms showed reduced body growth (β=-4.4 g/wk; 95% CI: -6.3 to -2.4; P<.001) and head growth (β=-0.08 mm/wk; 95% CI: -0.14 to -0.03; P=.003). Mothers using SSRIs during pregnancy had fewer depressive symptoms than mothers in the clinical symptom range. Prenatal SSRI use was not associated with reduced body growth but was associated with reduced fetal head growth (β=-0.18 mm/wk; 95% CI: -0.32 to -0.07; P=.003). The SSRI-exposed children were at higher risk for preterm birth (odds ratio=2.14; 95% CI: 1.08 to 4.25; P=.03).

CONCLUSIONS
Untreated maternal depression was associated with slower rates of fetal body and head growth. Pregnant mothers treated with SSRIs had fewer depressive symptoms and their fetuses had no delay in body growth but had delayed head growth and were at increased risk for preterm birth. Further research on the implications of these findings is needed.


Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) is being increasingly used in the radiation oncology community to treat tumors in extra-cranial sites such as spine, lung, liver, pancreas and prostate. There are well established RTOG protocols (e.g. RTOG 0631 for spine, RTOG 0813 and 0915 for lung and RTOG 0438 for liver) that specify detailed requirements for treatment planning of SBRT plans. SBRT plans have to meet strict criteria on maximum PTV dose, prescription isodose, prescription isodose surface coverage, high dose spillage and intermediate dose spillage in addition of the constraints of dose limiting organs at risk. This lecture aims to educate members on treatment planning issues for SBRT cases with concentration on strategies to create highly inhomogeneous dose distributions inside the PTV and steep dose gradients in the surrounding normal tissues.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. What characteristics SBRT plans have and how they are different from conventional fractionated radiotherapy plans. 2. For IMRT/VMAT SBRT plans (such as spine SBRT plans that concave distributions around the cord are required), we will discuss strategies that can be employed to overcome many commercial treatment planning system's IMRT algorithms' intrinsic penalty for inhomogeneous plans. Additional issues related to VMAT will be also discussed. 3. For non-IMRT SBRT plans (such as many lung or liver cases where target motion is a concern), we will discuss techniques to control dose inhomogeneities and dose fall off. 4. We will also discuss policy and procedures on SBRT patient setup and verification issues to ensure safe delivery of SBRT treatments.


Joint morphological and syntactic analysis has been proposed as a way of improving parsing accuracy for richly inflected languages. Starting from a transition-based model for joint part-of-speech tagging and dependency parsing, we explore different ways of integrating morphological features into the model. We also investigate the use of rule-based morphological analyzers to provide hard or soft lexical constraints and the use of word clusters to tackle the sparsity of lexical features. Evaluation on five morphologically rich languages (Czech, Finnish, German, Hungarian, and Russian) shows consistent improvements in both morphological and syntactic accuracy for joint prediction over a pipeline model, with further improvements thanks to lexical constraints and word clusters. The final results improve the state of the art in dependency parsing for all languages.


Logical connections exist between evolutionary modularity and heterochrony, two unifying and structuring themes in the expanding field of evolutionary developmental biology. The former sees complex phenotypes as being made up of semi‐independent units of evolutionary transformation; the latter requires such a modular organization of phenotypes to occur in a localized or mosaic fashion. This conceptual relationship is illustrated here by analyzing the evolutionary changes in the cranidial ontogeny of two related species of Cambrian trilobites. With arguments from comparative developmental genetics and functional morphology, we delineate putative evolutionary modules within the cranidium and examine patterns of evolutionary changes in ontogeny at both global and local scales. Results support a case of mosaic heterochrony, that is, a combination of local heterochronies affecting the different parts individuated in the cranidium, leading to the complex pattern of allometric repatterning observed at the global scale. Through this example, we show that recasting morphological analyses of complex phenotypes with a priori knowledge or hypotheses about their organizational and variational properties can significantly improve our interpretation and understanding of evolutionary changes among related taxa, fossil and extant. Such considerations open avenues to investigate the large‐scale dynamics of modularity and its role in phenotypic evolution.


A novel modular, cost e ffective 3D multi-processor architecture is presented. Auto-configurable and independently testable identical dies are stacked exploiting Through-Silicon-Vias (TSV) technology, allowing to target different market segments by selecting the appropriate number of layers. For the purpose of evaluation, dies have been fabricated using a commodity UMC 90nm CMOS process and stacked using a in-house, Via-Last copper TSV process. Each die, featuring four cores interconnected by a Network-on-Chip (NoC), has been designed for a maximum operating frequency of 400MHz resulting in 3.2Gbps data bandwidth.


From a Bedouin culture to pearl economy and later to oil and gas industries, an emerging regional metropolis in the Gulf region is clearly on the rise. Doha, the capital of Qatar keeps positioning and re-positioning itself on the map of international architecture with different degrees of expressions of its unique qualities in terms of economy, environment, culture, and global outlook. These expressions can be seen as cultural aspirations reflected on the public face of architecture. While the pace of development puts the city among those described as instance cities, it is seen as a city with the highest global connectivity. The government is supporting high profile institutional and cultural building projects, the majority of which are designed by name international firms and star architects. Despite the demerits inherited in any swift urban development process and the resulting global architecture, expressions of identity and the creation of responsive environments are observed. In this paper, I select some of these aspirations that can be seen as conscious endeavors of relating an exclusive local context to the global world. The paper involves an investigation into the evolutionary process of urbanity in Doha, classified in recent writings as urbanity of transition, necessity, modernization, stagnation, and globalization, and how such a process influenced the architectural identity of Doha. A city selected a capital of Arab culture, and within the examples discussed, polemics on identity within tradition and modernity are developed to advance the discourse on the cultural role of architecture.


An explosive video released in spring 2010, by Elizabeth Cheney, accused the Obama Administration of hiring "terrorist" lawyers to guide national security. The so-called "al Qaeda Seven" had represented or advocated for the rights of Guantanamo detainees before joining the Administration. The ensuing debate raised important questions about the relation of lawyers to politics in times of threats to national security. Do and should lawyers share the values of their clients? Should lawyers be guided by a normative vision for the legal profession? In other words, what consideration, if any, should lawyers pay to the larger social values implicated in their work? This article explores these questions by examining two dominant conceptions of lawyers deployed by critics and supporters of Guantanamo lawyers: cause lawyers and neutral partisan lawyers. This article argues that neither model adequately explains the motivations and behaviors of Guantanamo habeas lawyers during the period between the Supreme Court decisions in Rasul and Boumediene. This article advances a third conception of lawyers as "rule of law lawyers" to explain the emergence of a "Guantanamo bar" to represent detainees in habeas proceedings. This model identifies that, under certain conditions, lawyers will work to defend basic freedoms and other procedural and structural guarantees of political liberalism. The article analyzes Guantanamo habeas attorneys as an example of rule of law lawyering. It examines the self-described motivations of these lawyers to take up this work. It also looks to several objective factors — the recruitment and composition of the Guantanamo bar; the legal goals pursued by these lawyers; their relationship to civil society; and the relationship of Guantanamo habeas attorneys to the organized bar — that support the argument that Guantanamo habeas attorneys fit the paradigm of rule of law lawyers. Finally, this article explores some important implications for legal practice and theory presented by this new conception of Guantanamo habeas attorneys.


Since its accession to the WTO, China has become the United States' third-largest trading partner and the sixth-largest market for US exports. Between 2000 and 2005, US imports from China rose from $100 billion to $243 billion, while US exports to China climbed from $16 billion to $42 billion. As China continues its rise as a great power, The United States Congress and the administration wrestle with one another over the proper tactics and strategies to shape US-China economic relations. What major disputes now, and looming on the horizon, will shape future US-China relations; and what can be done to solve, or at the very least to manage, them? This important new book examines these issues and offers suggestions for both sides.


Perovskite materials have generated significant interest from academia and industry as a potential component in next-generation, high-efficiency, low-cost, photovoltaic (PV) devices. The record efficiency reported for perovskite solar cells has risen rapidly, and is now more than 22%. However, due to their complex dynamic behaviour, the process of measuring the efficiency of perovskite solar cells appears to be much more complicated than for other technologies. It has long been acknowledged that this is likely to greatly reduce the reliability of reported efficiency measurements, but the quantitative extent to which this occurs has not been determined. To investigate this, we conduct the first major inter-comparison of this PV technology. The participants included two labs accredited for PV performance measurement (CSIRO and NREL) and eight PV research laboratories. We find that the inter-laboratory measurement variability can be almost ten times larger for a slowly responding perovskite cell than for a control silicon cell. We show that for such a cell, the choice of measurement method, far more so than measurement hardware, is the single-greatest cause for this undesirably large variability. We provide recommendations for identifying the most appropriate method for a given cell, depending on its stabilisation and degradation behaviour. The results of this study suggest that identifying a consensus technique for accurate and meaningful efficiency measurements of perovskite solar cells will lead to an immediate improvement in reliability. This, in turn, should assist device researchers to correctly evaluate promising new materials and fabrication methods, and further boost the development of this technology.


The Polaris Flare cloud region contains a great deal of extended emission. It is at high declination and high Galactic latitude. It was previously seen strongly in IRAS Cirrus emission at 100 microns. We have detected it with both PACS and SPIRE on Herschel . We see filamentary and low-level structure. We identify the five densest cores within this structure. We present the results of a temperature, mass and density analysis of these cores. We compare their observed masses to their virial masses, and see that in all cases the observed masses lie close to the lower end of the range of estimated virial masses. Therefore, we cannot say whether they are gravitationally bound prestellar cores. Nevertheless, these are the best candidates to be potential prestellar cores in the Polaris cloud region.


Abstract Mendoza is the main wine-producing province of Argentina, and the government is currently implementing a range of policies that seek to improve grape grower profitability, including a vineyard replanting program. This study uses a dataset of all grape sales recorded in Mendoza from 2007 to 2018, totaling 90,910 observations, to investigate the determinants of grape prices. Key findings include: smaller volume transactions receive lower-average prices per kilogram sold; the discount for cash payments is higher in less-profitable regions; and the effect of wine stock levels on prices is substantial for all varieties. Long-run predicted prices are also estimated for each variety, and region; and these results suggest that policymakers should review some of the varieties currently used in the vineyard replanting program. (JEL Classifications: Q12, Q13, Q18)


This paper explains what the production of speculative urbanisation in mainland China means for strategising emergent discontents therein. It is argued that China's urbanisation is a political and ideological project by the Party State, producing urban-oriented accumulation through the commingling of the labour-intensive industrial production with heavy investment in the built environment. Therefore, for any progressive movements to be formed, it becomes imperative to imagine and establish cross-class alliances to claim the right to the city (or the right to the urban, given the limitations of the city as an analytical unit). Because of the nature of urbanisation, the alliances would need to involve not only industrial workers and urban inhabitants but also village farmers whose lands are expropriated to accommodate investments to produce the urban as well as ethnic minorities in autonomous regions whose cities are appropriated and restructured to produce Han-dominated cities. Education emerges as an important strategy for the discontented who need to understand how the fate of urban inhabitants is knitted tightly with the fate of workers, villagers and others who are subject to the exploitation of the urban-oriented accumulation.


Omeljan Pritsak. The Origins of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems: Two Studies in Western Eurasian Metrology and Numismatics in the Seventh to Eleventh Centuries. Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies. Cambridge, MA: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998. xii, 172 pp. Illustrations. Map. Works Cited. Indexes. $29.00, cloth.Professor Omeljan Pritsak's study offers a challenging viewpoint on the early medieval monetary system of the Old Rus'. The book is innovative and controversial: innovative, for it offers a new look at the old problem, controversial, because its methodology, especially in the first part-where the author uses very precise metric data for a variety of European coins and later goes on to manipulate these data-can be questioned on the basis that medieval European metrologies were most likely not that clear-cut. The author meticulously discusses the historic and numismatic sources but his conclusions are often weak and questionable. In the second part of the book, the author presents the iconographic and epigraphic data. His approach of accepting debatable ideas as well-established historical facts would probably invoke criticism among many historians. Finally, the reader should be advised that although the book was published in 1998, it represents the state of knowledge as of the 1970s at the latest. The core of the book was written in 1977 or later years, therefore it reflects the status quo of scholarship as of the late 1970s or early 1980s.The first part of the book is based on several papers presented in international symposia and seminars. Pritsak discusses the Old Rus' monetary system using a comparative method with special attention to metrological problems. The author opens up by discussing the impact of the Roman monetary system on the indigenous European systems outside of the Empire. He points out that the Roman system was based on the use of three metals hierarchically ordered in value (bronze/copper, silver, and gold). By the seventh century AD, the traditional Roman system had been replaced by gold-silver bimetallism and eventually silver monometallism, which later characterized the medieval monetary systems in most of Europe.Among the highlights of the first part of the book is a new hypothesis on the monetary reforms by Charlemagne, who tried to established parity with the Byzantine monetary and economic system. The novelty rests in the point that Charlemagne had two types of deniers of two different values. Another interesting point is about the Viking monetary system, which could have served as a medium to unify (equalize) the monetary systems of the West with the East (Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire). Tables 1-2 and especially 1-3 are very informative in showing the possibility of economic gains between the areas with different denominations of silver. Other interesting deliberations include the issue of the Khazars' monetary economy in Chapter Two. The author makes an interesting point about the increase in trade in Eastern Europe in the ninth century and suggests a commercial initiative of Islamic merchants. An interesting view is offered about a possible interconnection between Khazaria and the Carolingian monetary system in the ninth century AD. In conclusion, the reader learns that the Khazars' system appears to have been compatible with the international standards of the time.Another significant contribution is in the discussion of the monetary system of Volga Bulgaria (Chapter 3). In presenting his overview of the economic systems of areas surrounding the Old Rus', the author points to the Volga Bulgars as the economic power of the tenth century AD. They, according to Pritsak, stimulated the market for the Samanids and introduced the silver coinage into Eastern Europe. …


Feature scattering is long said to be an undesirable characteristic in source code. Since scattered features introduce extensions across the code base, their maintenance requires analyzing and changing different locations in code, possibly causing ripple effects. Despite this fact, scattering often occurs in practice, either due to limitations in existing programming languages (e.g., imposition of a dominant decomposition) or time-pressure issues. In the latter case, scattering provides a simple way to support new capabilities, avoiding the upfront investment of creating modules and interfaces (when possible). Hence, we argue that scattering is not necessarily bad, provided it is kept within certain limits, or thresholds. Extracting thresholds, however, is not a trivial task. For instance, research shows that some source-code-metric distributions are heavy-tailed, usually following power-law models. In the face of heavy-tailed distributions, reporting metrics in terms of averages and standard deviations is unreliable, although commonly done so. Thus, prior to extracting reliable thresholds for feature scattering, one must understand the shape of feature-scattering distribution. In this direction, we analyze the scattering degree of five C-pre-processor-based software families and verify whether their empirical cumulative feature-scattering distributions follow power laws. Our results show that feature scattering in the studied subject systems have characteristics of heavy-tailed distributions, with a good-fit with power laws. Hence, we raise awareness that feature scattering thresholds based on central measures may not be reliable in practice.


An algorithm was developed that determines the fuel-optimal spacecraft guidance trajectory that takes into account uncertainty, in order to guarantee that mission safety constraints are satisfied with the required probability. The algorithm uses convex optimization to solve for the optimal trajectory. Convex optimization is amenable to onboard solution due to its excellent convergence properties. The algorithm is novel because, unlike prior approaches, it does not require time-consuming evaluation of multivariate probability densities. Instead, it uses a new mathematical bounding approach to ensure that probability constraints are satisfied, and it is shown that the resulting optimization is convex. Empirical results show that the approach is many orders of magnitude less conservative than existing set conversion techniques, for a small penalty in computation time.


The optimum dimensions of narrow backfill width gravity retaining walls backfilled with recycled materials are obtained by considering the four modes of failure, viz overturning of the wall about its toe, sliding of the wall on its base, eccentricity of the resultant force and bearing capacity failure below the base slab. An analytical method is presented to obtain a solution for the active earth pressure exerted by the backfilling of recycled materials like bottom fly ash, course coal refuses, foundry sand, foundry slag, mill tailing, scrap tires, reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and recycled concrete aggregate (RCA). The proposed method uses the limit equilibrium method with planar slip surfaces. Three different failure mechanisms of the active wedge are considered, namely mechanism 1 (active wedge formed by a single block), mechanism 2 (active wedge is composed of two rigid blocks, one slipping with respect to the other) and mechanism 3 (which considers three blocks). Using these three mechanisms, the magnitude of active earth pressure acting on the gravity wall and point of application of active thrust from the bottom of the wall are computed. The influence of various parameters on the optimum dimensions of the gravity retaining wall is presented in the form of design charts.


The increased abundance of ephemeral algae and corresponding decline in perennial fucoids observed in eutrophic (nutrient-rich) waters could be caused by eutrophication-driven shifts in the competitive relationship between the 2 groups as early as the germling stage. During the initial post-settlement period germlings are exposed to large temporal variations in temperature, which may influence their performance and competitive interactions. Effects of temperature, nutrient concentration, and settlement density on the competitive relationship between germlings of Fucus serratus L. and F. evanescens C. Agardh and of the ephemeral alga Enteromorpha compressa (Linnaeus) Greville were examined using factorially designed culture experiments. In monocultures, germling growth of both Fucus species and E. compressa was generally stimulated by nutrient enrichment (32 pmol nitrate/ammonia and 2 μmol phosphate l -1 seawater) and high temperature (17°C compared to 7°C), and negatively related to settlement density (10 to 50 germlings cm -2 for Fucus, 30 to 130 germlings cm -2 for E. compressa). In mixed cultures, interspecific competition effects of E. compressa on F. serratus and F. evanescens germlings increased with increasing nutrient and temperature levels. In the nutrient-enriched cultures, interspecific competition from E. compressa suppressed the yield of Fucus spp. by 80 to 100% at 17°C, with F. evanescens being more suppressed than F. serratus, whereas the suppressive effects of E. compressa on Fucus germlings were <60% at 7°C. These results suggest that competition from ephemeral algae at early life stages may be a reason for the decline of fucoids in eutrophic waters and that reproduction at low temperatures, as in species like F. serratus and F. evanescens, may shield the vulnerable initial germling stages from the severest competition pressure by ephemeral algae.


Background and purpose — There is a lack of evidence to support the role of hip precautions in preventing dislocation following total hip arthroplasty (THA). We report an exploratory study which assesses recall, adherence, and the impact of precautions on activities of daily living in the first 6 weeks postoperatively. Patients and methods — We designed a new questionnaire based on the education patients receive and refined by professionals within our multidisciplinary team. 129 patients underwent primary elective THA during the study period and received the questionnaire at 6 weeks postoperatively. Results — 97 (75%) patients responded before the 8th week postoperatively. Most of these (83 patients) could remember all the precautions. Of the 97 who responded only 22 claimed to adhere to all of the precautions. 48 admitted to putting their own underwear on without the use of aids or assistance, and 38 had started walking without an aid. Due to the precautions 67 avoided leaving the house at some point and 63 were unable to perform desired activities. 84 stated that their sleep was affected. There were no dislocations among the 97 patients who responded; however, there was 1 dislocation among the 32 non-responders. Interpretation — We found that most patients did not adhere to hip precaution advice. Precautions have a detrimental effect on patient activity and sleep. In view of the limited efficacy in reducing dislocation rate, we question the use of precautions in the primary arthroplasty setting.


Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a significant constituent in aquatic ecosystems with concentrations in streams influenced by both temperature and water flow pathway dynamics associated with changes in discharge (streamflow). We investigated the sensitivity of DOC concentrations in 12 high‐latitude headwater streams to changes in temperature and discharge using a mathematical model. The implications of differences in sensitivities were explored by using downscaled projections of air temperature and discharge to simulate possible trajectories of DOC concentrations in a changing climate. We found two distinct responses: (i) catchments where stream DOC sensitivity was high to temperature but low to discharge and (ii) catchments where stream DOC sensitivity was low to temperature but high to discharge. Streams with strong seasonal DOC dynamics were more sensitive to temperature changes than nonseasonal systems. In addition, stream DOC sensitivity to discharge was strongly correlated with vertical soil water DOC differences in the near‐stream zone. Simulations of possible future changes in DOC concentrations indicated median increases of about 4–24% compared to current levels when using projections of air temperature and discharge but even larger increases were observed for base flow concentrations (13–42%). Streams with high‐temperature sensitivity showed the largest increases in DOC concentrations. Our results suggest that future climatic changes could bring significant increases in surface water DOC concentrations in boreal and hemiboreal areas but that the response ultimately is dependent on vertical soil solution DOC differences and soil organic carbon distribution.


Background: ATP III guidelines suggest a 9to 12-hour fast before obtaining lipid levels. Various publications have challenged this practice citing postprandial hypertriglyceridemia as a risk for cardiovascular events. Although this association is not entirely certain, it does raise into question the requirement for obtaining fasting lipoprotein measurements. Method: Exhaustive literature search was conducted using multiple search engines, with keywords related to lipids, postprandial time and cardiovascular events. Relevant studies were assessed for quality of evidence using GRADE. Results: Three prospective cohort studies met inclusion criteria. All studies included fasting and nonfasting plasma triglycerides, which were about ~15% higher in the nonfasting group. First study had 19 983 fasting and 6347 nonfasting female participants. Cardiovascular events HR for postprandial hypertriglyceridemia was 1.22 (95% CI 1.12-1.33) and 1.23 (95% CI 1.16-1.30) in the fasting. Further adjusting for total and HDLcholesterol, showed an HR 1.17 (95% CI 1.04-1.31) and 1.07 (95% CI 1.00-1.15), respectively. Second study included 20 118 fasting and 6391 nonfasting female participants. When adjusted for all possible variables, the nonfasting group showed an HR of 1.98 (95% CI 1.21-3.25) and 1.09 (95% CI 0.85-1.41) for the fasting group. Third study included 2809 men, who, at baseline, had both fasting and nonfasting triglycerides measured. At an 8-year follow-up, cardiovascular event HR was 1.64 (95% CI 1.17-2.29) and 1.46 (95% CI 1.03-2.07) for fasting and nonfasting triglycerides ≥200 mg/dL, respectively. At 18-year follow-up, HR for cardiovascular-associated death in the fasting cohort was 0.93 (95% CI 0.61-1.41) versus 1.60 (95% CI 1.05-2.45) for nonfasting. Conclusion: All of the studies reviewed showed nonfasting triglycerides to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular events. However, risk with fasting levels was not as consistent. At this time, fasting is standard practice, but in certain patients, checking nonfasting lipids may be appropriate.


The applicant in the case of Western Cape Forum for Intellectual Disability v Government of the Republic of South Africa and Government of the Province of the Western Cape was a body comprising various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that care for children with severe and profound intellectual disabilities in the Western Cape. The applicant's case was that the state's financial provision for children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities was much less than that provided for other children, that such provision was inadequate to cater for the educational needs of these children, and that the money was only available when NGOs provided the facilities. (Children with an IQ of 20 to 35 are considered severely intellectually disabled, while those with an IQ below 20 are deemed to have profound intellectual disability.) It was argued that these circumstances infringed the rights of the children concerned to education, equality, human dignity and protection from neglect and degradation.


Objective To generate evidence on the longer term cost effectiveness of disease modifying treatments in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Design Prospective cohort study with historical comparator. Setting Specialist multiple sclerosis clinics in 70 centres in the United Kingdom. Participants Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis who started treatment from May 2002 to April 2005 under the UK risk sharing scheme. Interventions Treatment with interferon beta or glatiramer acetate in accordance with guidelines of the UK Association of British Neurologists. Main outcome measures Observed utility weighted progression in disability at two years' follow-up assessed on the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) compared with that expected by applying the progression rates in a comparator dataset, modified for patients receiving treatment by multiplying by the hazard ratio derived separately for each disease modifying treatment from the randomised trials. Results In the primary per protocol analysis, progression in disability was worse than that predicted and worse than that in the untreated comparator dataset ("deviation score" of 113%; excess in mean disability status scale 0.28). In sensitivity analyses, however, the deviation score varied from −72% (using raw baseline disability status scale scores, rather than applying a "no improvement" algorithm) to 156% (imputing missing data for year two from progression rates for year one). Conclusions It is too early to reach any conclusion about the cost effectiveness of disease modifying treatments from this first interim analysis. Important methodological issues, including the need for additional comparator datasets, the potential bias from missing data, and the impact of the "no improvement" rule, will need to be addressed and long term follow-up of all patients is essential to secure meaningful results. Future analyses of the cohort are likely to be more informative, not least because they will be less sensitive to short term fluctuations in disability.


Two-dimensional structures of elemental analogues of graphene have received much attention in recent years due to their outstanding properties. Black arsenic is a metastable form of arsenic with an orthorhombic structure similar to black phosphorus. Compared to thermodynamically stable rhombohedral grey arsenic, individual layers are held only by weak van der Waals interactions. Currently black arsenic is available only as an extremely rare naturally occurring mineral arsenolamprite. Herein we demonstrate an easy synthetic route for the synthesis of orthorhombic black arsenic based on the crystallization of amorphous arsenic by mercury vapors. The characterization results confirmed the orthorhombic structure and revealed that it is stabilized by mercuric oxide. As a result, these findings will pave the way for new applications in nanotechnology.


Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs support children safely walking and biking to and from school. Each state Department of Transportation (DOT) awards federal grant money to proposal applications made by local SRTS programs. Because demand for federal SRTS funding far exceeds most states' budgets for their program, state DOTs must carefully select the SRTS proposals that receive an award. By definition, most local program proposals that meet the federal guidelines to receive SRTS grant money will include elements that contribute to pedestrian safety. As a result, state DOTs that wish to leverage their SRTS funds are faced with the difficult task of choosing those proposals with the greatest potential to successfully increase the safety and number of children walking or biking to school. This report compares how five state DOTs – Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin – select the most promising SRTS proposals for funding. It reviews how the five states approach the selection process by considering grant types, SRTS plans, eligibility requirements, program distribution policies, proposal review processes, and established selection criteria. The selection processes and criteria used are reviewed to highlight examples of best practices that consider (1) the four common barriers to walking and biking to school (distance, income, parent values and parent concerns), (2) the "five E's" commonly used to classify SRTS program elements (engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation), and (3) the five conceptualized stages of an SRTS program (existing conditions, planning, proposal, implementation, and assessment of outcomes). The results of this review are insights into how the five state DOTs define an effective SRTS program and how they prioritize awards for the many good SRTS program proposals they receive. Examples of effective selection practices are identified as a basis for making specific recommendations on what constitutes a promising proposal selection process that awards programs with the highest potential to increase the safety and number of children walking or biking to school. An appendix contains documentation on the original SRTS proposal selection protocols used by the five contributing state DOTs.


We investigated the effects of α- and β-adrenergic receptor agonists on the ability of Toxoplasma gondii to infect and proliferate in cultured murine macrophages. Macrophages pretreated in vitro with varying concentrations of α- and β-adrenergic agonists and incubated with the RH strain of T. gondii did not result in a significant increase in the percentage of infected macrophages compared with negative controls. When parasites were pretreated with l-phenylephrine, an α-agonist, and l-isoproterenol, a β-agonist, before infection, there was no significant change in the percentage of infected macrophages. Clonidine, an α2-adrenergic agonist, led to a significant decrease in the number of infected macrophages at all concentrations tested. The effects of clonidine were blocked by yohimbine, a specific α2-adrenergic antagonist, but not by phentolamine, an α1-adrenergic antagonist. These results suggest that the antiparasitic effects exhibited by clonidine (α2-adrenergic agonist) are mediated through an α2-adrenoreceptor found on the surface of T. gondii.


The valuation of cash-flowless high-risk, especially venture capital, investments is more of an art than a science. In the absence of cash flow forecast and in view of the high uncertainty about the success of the commercialization effort, it is not possible to apply the Discounted-Cash-Flow (DCF) method that is the traditional method for the valuation of conventional projects or ventures. In the absence of a structured and methodical way for valuating such projects, CEOs, CFOs, investment managers as well as venture capital and other investors resort to variety of methods including gut feeling. In this article I present a novel venture-pricing model (VPM) and method for the valuation of cash-flowless risky projects as part of an ongoing effort to set the ground for a quantitative venture capital finance theory that is complementary to the traditional corporate finance. The model may serve both researchers and practitioners (investors, entrepreneurs, C-level executives and the like) for the valuation of high-risk high-gain ventures – such as venture capital investments – and as supporting tool for decision-making and portfolio management.


It is generally expected that animals, including marine organisms, travel at speeds
achieving the minimum energetic cost of transport. However, several factors cause variation in
speeds within the energetically acceptable range. Light intensity is known to affect movement
speeds in some flying and walking insects, which reduce speeds at low light levels. This is
explained as compensation for degraded temporal resolution of vision in dim light by maintaining
the rate of information gained per unit of travelling distance. Such a relationship between ambient
light intensity and movement speeds is expected for any visual system in principle, but has not
been examined in any marine species. As a mesopelagic forager, king penguins Aptenodytes
patagonicus regularly commute between their breeding colonies and productive foraging areas
over several hundreds of kilometres. During these trips, they experience a wide variation in light
intensity between day and night, as well as within daylight hours, as dives often reach deeper
than 100 m. The present study investigated diel patterns in the swim speeds of king penguins in
relation to light intensity experienced within dives. King penguins gradually decreased their
cruising speeds around dusk and increased them again around dawn. This resulted in consistently
slower speeds in nocturnal dives. Correspondingly, the underwater light levels estimated were
always higher in diurnal dives, even at depths greater than 100 m. The slower swim speeds after
dusk may facilitate travelling and occasional prey detection in the dark. These results suggest that
a common behavioural response to ambient light levels has evolved in different taxa of animals.


The Second Amendment, which enshrined the right to keep and bear arms, (1) has become one of the most contentiously debated amendments in the Bill of Rights. (2) Recently, legislation has restricted the ability to carry, use, or even own firearms. (3) The District of Columbia enacted regulations in 2001 making it a crime to possess usable unregistered firearms even in the home while, at the same time, prohibiting the registration of handguns. (4) In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down the law and ruled that the prohibition on possessing handguns for use in defense of an individual's home violated the Second Amendment. (5) Last Term, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, (6) the Court extended Heller to the States by incorporating the Second Amendment through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (7) The Court's decision in McDonald is consistent with both Heller and America's long history of gun ownership by its citizens. In its decision, the Court correctly concluded that "individual self-defense is 'the central component" of the Second Amendment right" to keep and bear arms. (8) The Court's analysis would be stronger, however, if it incorporated the right under the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause--an argument that the petitioners proposed and the Court dodged--because such an approach would be more legitimate and would not open a path for activist judges to impose new restrictions on the States based on their political ideologies. In McDonald, three gun rights organizations and a group of residents challenged ordinances in Chicago and its Oak Park suburb that effectively banned the possession of handguns by private citizens. (9) Otis McDonald, one of the petitioners, lived in Chicago and wanted to possess a handgun in his home for self-defense because he was in his late seventies and lived in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. (10) Handgun possession, however, was restricted by a Chicago firearms ordinance that stated that "[n]o person shall ... possess ... any firearm unless such person is the holder of a valid registration certificate for such firearm." (11) The law also prohibited the registration of most types of handguns, effectively banning nearly all possession for private residents of the city. (12) The Chicago City Council stated that the handgun ban was designed to protect residents "from the loss of property and injury or death from firearms." (13) The petitioners disagreed that the ban increased their safety and alleged that the handgun ban actually left them more vulnerable to crime. (14) In support of this position, the petitioners cited amicus briefs noting that the percentage of murders committed with handguns increased nearly forty percent between 1983 and 2008, the years in which the handgun ban was in force. (15) The petitioners sought protection from this violence in the form of home firearm possession. McDonald, for example, was a community activist who devoted substantial time to alternative policing methods, attempting to increase safety in his neighborhood. Because of his efforts he received violent threats from nearby drug dealers. (16) Another petitioner, Colleen Lawson, had been the victim of a home burglary and believed possessing a handgun would decrease her chances of being killed or seriously injured in future attacks. (17) The petitioners owned handguns but were forced to keep them outside the city limits instead of inside their homes, which made them ineffectual for self-defense in the home. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Heller, McDonald filed suit against the City of Chicago in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeking a ruling that Chicago's handgun ordinances violated the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. (18) The National Rifle Association (NRA) and two residents filed a similar challenge to an Oak Park ordinance. (19) The three district court cases were assigned to the same judge, who rejected the plaintiffs' claims under Seventh Circuit precedent that "squarely upheld the constitutionality of a ban on handguns a quarter century ago. …