This thesis looks at guild and raid leadership in World of Warcraft (WoW) in a social, technological, and material context. The goal is to look at how leadership is practiced and co-produced by a wide variety of actors (human and non-human) in a social network. Leadership is looked at through how it is designed in the game, and how it is understood by the users. My data material consists of four qualitative interviews and several blog posts. In analysing them, I have made use of the STS (Science and Technology Studies) theories of domestication, scripts, and user-scripts. My findings include how technology and community together construct leadership in WoW. I have found that where players and leaders find weaknesses in the game's design, they construct intricate systems to help them. This is illustrated by the widespread use of standardized systems for distributing high-value rewards (known to players as loot). In looking at how leadership is structured, I saw how guilds organized and structured themselves. I found that while guilds followed the game's script of meritocracy, they also sometimes disobeyed the game's design where the social needs were prominent. Raiding requires many resources, and in order for guilds to continue offering raiding to their members, leaders have taken on responsibilities to facilitate the activity. This includes offering a big and social atmosphere, and material goods and economic benefits. The use of technologies is prominent among my informants. The player community has constructed set practices of playing WoW correctly. By becoming part of the playing community, players are enrolled into these practices, and expected to follow them. Gaining access to a guild requires taking part in these practices, which often are communicated through wordof-mouth. As such, playing WoW is also reliant on acquiring social and cultural capital. In conclusion, I address the possibility that looking at leadership practices is a way to understand how leadership is learned through the idea that knowledge is learned through social and cultural dimensions in a community. Leaders are mentors more than they are bosses. The leadership is porous, meaning that the boundary between leader and follower is vague as they both move between the roles of leader and follower.


Introduction Candida is the most common fungi causing diarrhea. As pathogenesis and susceptibility to antifungals might vary in different species of Candida, their speciation is essential. Objective The aim of this study was to identify different species of Candida and investigate their antifungal susceptibility pattern. Materials and methods Of 2036 diarrheal stool samples, 212 samples were microscopically positive for budding yeast cells. We selected 50 of these samples and cultured on blood agar and MacConkey agar and incubated at 37°C for 18–24 h. Tiny colonies confirmed by means of Gram staining as budding yeast cells were subcultured on Sabouraud's dextrose agar. Speciation of Candida was carried out using the germ tube test and inoculation into chrome agar and corn meal agar. Antifungal susceptibility testing was carried out as per CLSI guidelines using voriconazole, fluconazole, itraconazole, and amphotericin B. Results Candida was mostly isolated from children younger than 12 years (50%) and from male patients. A total of 64 isolates were obtained. Candida krusei (52%) was the most common isolate, followed by Candida tropicalis (16%), Candida albicans (0.02%), and Candida parapsilosis (0.01%). The isolates were mostly susceptible to voriconazole (97.4%), itraconazole (79.4%), amphotericin B (66.6%), and fluconazole (18%). Conclusion Candida diarrhea was mostly seen in individuals younger than 12 years, most commonly caused by C. krusei. Resistance to fluconazole was high. A rising resistance to amphotericin B is alarming. Speciation of Candida is important to see the difference in antifungal susceptibility in different species.


The ISSI software package is designed to image the ionosphere from space by calibrating and processing polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data collected from low Earth orbit satellites. Signals transmitted and received by a PolSAR are subject to the Faraday rotation effect as they traverse the magnetized ionosphere. The ISSI algorithms combine the horizontally and vertically polarized (with respect to the radar system) SAR signals to estimate Faraday rotation and ionospheric total electron content (TEC) with spatial resolutions of sub-kilometers to kilometers, and to derive radar system calibration parameters. The ISSI software package has been designed and developed to integrate the algorithms, process PolSAR data, and image as well as visualize the ionospheric measurements. A number of tests have been conducted using ISSI with PolSAR data collected from various latitude regions using the phase array-type L-band synthetic aperture radar (PALSAR) onboard Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Advanced Land Observing Satellite mission, and also with Global Positioning System data. These tests have demonstrated and validated SAR-derived ionospheric images and data correction algorithms.


One of the functions of the excitatory subthalamic nucleus (STN) is to relay cortical activity to other basal ganglia structures. The response of the STN to cortical input is shaped by inhibition from the reciprocally connected globus pallidus (GP). To examine the activity in the STN–GP network in relation to cortical activity, we recorded single and multiple unit activity in STN and/or GP together with cortical electroencephalogram in anesthetized rats during various states of cortical activation. During cortical slow-wave activity (SWA), STN and GP neurons fired bursts of action potentials at frequencies that were similar to those of coincident slow (∼1 Hz) and spindle (7–14 Hz) cortical oscillations. Spontaneous or sensory-driven global activation was associated with a reduction of SWA and a shift in STN–GP activity from burst- to tonic- or irregular-firing. Rhythmic activity in STN and GP neurons was lost when the cortex was inactivated by spreading depression and did not resume until SWA had recovered. Although rhythmic STN–GP activity was correlated with SWA, the phase relationships of activities of neurons within the STN and GP and between the nuclei were variable. Even when neurons displayed synchronous bursting activity, correlations on the millisecond time scale, which might indicate shared synaptic input, were not observed. These data indicate that (1) STN and GP activity is intimately related to cortical activity and hence the sleep–wake cycle; (2) rhythmic oscillatory activity in the STN–GP network in disease states may be driven by the cortex; and (3) activity of the STN–GP network is regulated in space in a complex manner.


Gamification purports to take elements from video games such as points, badges, levels, etc. and use them to motivate people to perform tasks outside of traditional video games.  This paper challenges these claims by arguing that the core of video games is actually content, not game mechanics.  It illustrates how game mechanics are not exclusive to video games and are used only to enhance the content naturally found in games.  It further explores how gamification uses mechanics to limit the amount of content provided to players while at the same time gathering valuable personal information from players.


Students in the University of Texas at Austin's Electrical Engineering program
sell t-shirts with the slogan "Get a real major" emblazoned on the back. That tshirt
means "We do our thing over here, and you do yours over there. You don't
quantify; we do. We can prove that we have the right answer; you're hard
pressed to pull that off. You don't know what I'm talking about, and I don't get
you either. Please just leave me here safe." Writing consultants–especially those
from humanities backgrounds –run headlong into this sentiment. The simplest
and most helpful thing we can do to address it is to adapt a little. Sure, we may
not be comfortable handing down The Law about language. But we can give
clear guidelines that will keep the "grammar grader" from ticking three more
points for mechanics from the writer's paper. We can work within the style and
format guides stipulated by the writer's instructor regardless of how wacky they
may appear. We can offer suggestions to make writing as rational as possible–
and that is exactly what we ought to do to help writers produce good technical
writing.


Arripis georgiana was collected from along the Western Australian and South Australian coasts at regular intervals between October 1996 and December 1998. The trends exhibited during the year by gonadosomatic indices, gonadal maturity stages and oocyte stages demonstrate that spawning is restricted to south-western Australian waters from at least as far north as ~28˚43′S to as far east as ~119˚24′E, and that it occurs mainly during late May and early June. The simultaneous presence of post-ovulatory follicles and hydrated and yolk-granule oocytes in some ovaries during the spawning period indicates that A. georgiana is a multiple spawner, i.e. females spawn more than once in a breeding season. In south-western Australia, where all life-cycle stages are found, the overall sex ratio in catches collected by netting was close to parity, whereas females predominated in those obtained by anglers. The length at which 50% of fish reached maturity was 197 mm for females and 179 mm for males, and just over 50% of females and ~80% of males attained maturity at the end of their second year of life. The implications of these data for management of the fishery for A. georgiana are discussed.


Microalgae are regarded as a promising alternative that can replace fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture. Under N-limitation, many microalgae species change their carbon storage patterns in favor of neutral lipids (NLs) mainly in the form of triacylglycerol (TAG), but fatty acids in polar lipids (PL) are nutritionally more available for fish than those esterified into NLs. In the present study, the effect of N-limitation on the lipid content and fatty acid profiles in different lipid class of Phaeodactylum tricornutum, Isochrysis aff. galbana clone T-Iso, Rhodomonas baltica and Nannochloropsis oceanica were investigated. The microalgae cells were cultivated by two different methods, batch and semi-continuous culture, to create strong and moderate N-limitation, and this in turn will significantly affect the biomass and lipid productivity. All four species accumulated lipids mainly in the form of TAG in response to strong nitrogen limitation. N. oceanica, however accumulated 51% of the dry weight as lipid in moderate nitrogen limitation and up to 87% of the fatty acid was in TAG. Isochrysis aff. galbana clone T-Iso was the only species where the fraction of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), especially the fraction of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) increased with increasing nitrogen limitation. Total lipid productivity showed no increase in batch culture although stronger nitrogen limitation led to lipid accumulation. P. tricornutum had the highest eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) content, while N. oceanica showed the highest EPA productivity due to the high content of lipid. The highest DHA productivity was found in Isochrysis aff. galbana clone T-Iso from moderate N-limitation mainly due to the high biomass productivity. Based on the results from the current study, N. oceanica and T-Iso are two promising microalgae strains as long-term sustainable source of n-3 long chain -PUFAs under moderate N-limitation. As shown in the present study, increased lipid content in microalgal cells due to strong N-limitation induction may not increase the lipid productivity because biomass production usually is reduced. Therefore, a combination of approaches such as metabolic engineering, conditioning and selection may be needed to further increase the n-3 LC-PUFA productivity without substantial loss of biomass.


This paper summarizes the most recent study conducted by the Federal Administration Administration/Volpe Center Flight Simulator Fidelity Requirements Program. For many smaller airlines, access to qualified simulators is limited due to the availability of simulators for certain airplanes and the costs of equipment acquisition, leasing, personnel travel, operation, and maintenance. The FAA/Volpe Center Flight Simulator Fidelity Requirements Program has endeavored to address this situation for more than a decade, first examining the most costly aspects of flight simulation in subject-matter-expert workshops and then conducting a series of empirical investigations of the effect of simulator hexapod-platform motion on training effectiveness. This paper is the sequel to the authors 2007 AIAA Modeling-and-Simulation-Technologies Conference paper. In the earlier paper, we provided the scientific, technical, and operational background behind innovative solutions to provide motion cues in the simulator during airline-pilot training. The authors summarized three previous studies by the FAA/Volpe Center investigating the effect of hexapod-platform motion cues on training and evaluation of airline pilots in Full Flight Simulators (FFS). This research did not find operationally relevant differences in performance or behavior of pilots tested in the FFS with motion after having been trained in the same FFS with the motion system turned on or off – despite selection of maneuvers that require motion cues, at least theoretically. It made no difference whether the FFS represented a small turboprop "power house" or a sluggish four-engine jumbo jet, or whether the training in question was initial or recurrent training. Our 2007 paper also described a newly developed simulator, the Full-Flight Trainer FFT-XTM (FFT), able to simulate motion without a hexapod-motion platform. The paper concluded by reporting a proof-of-concept study culminating in the successful type rating of six pilots on a twin-engine turboprop after training in the FFT only. The present paper reports the results of our successor study, comparing the training effectiveness of the FFT, the "motion-cueing simulator without a motion base," with its FFS equivalent. Not only does this study differ from the earlier studies by comparing FFS motion with an alternative method of motion cueing, but also by including pilots with minimal prior flight experience of fewer than 500 hours. Pilots were divided into two groups to be trained either in the FFS or the FFT on maneuvers determined, from the literature and our previous studies, to be most likely to require platform-motion cues, namely, engine-failures on takeoff and hand-flown engine-out landings with severe weather. Both groups were then tested in the same maneuvers in the FFS with the full-motion platform as a stand-in for the airplane. Results are presented on pilot control-input behavior and flight precision recorded from the simulator. Pilot and instructor opinions regarding the simulator and/or pilot behavior and performance, both after training and after testing, are also reported.


The printed textbook remains the primary medium for studying in educational systems. Learners use personal annotation strategies while reading. These practices play an important role in supporting working memory, enhancing recall and influencing attentional processes. To be able to study these cognitive mechanisms we have designed and built a lightweight head mounted eye-tracker. Contrary to many eye trackers that require the readers head to stay still, our system permits complete freedom of movement and thus enables to study reading behaviors as if they were performed in everyday life. To accomplish this task we developed a geometrical framework to determine the localization of the gaze on a flattened document page. The eye tracker embeds a dual camera system which synchronously records the reader's eye movements and the paper document. The framework post-processes these two video streams. Firstly it performs a monocular 3D-tracking of the human eyeball to infer a plausible 3d gaze trajectory. Secondly it applies a feature point based method to recognize the document page and estimate its planar pose robustly. Finally it disambiguates their relative position optimizing the system parameters. Preliminary tests show that the proposed method is accurate enough to obtain reliable fixations on textual elements.


Three kinds of artificial composite material are considered: left-handed materials (LHMs) with both negative permittivity and permeability, negative dielectric permittivity materials (NDPMs), and negative magnetic permeability materials (NMPMs). We study the properties of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) for both p and s polarizations at three interfaces of LHM and NDPM, NDPM and NMPM, and LHM and NMPM. We mainly investigate the existence regions, dispersion relations, and excitation of SPPs in different frequency regions and find them to be strongly dependent on the parameters of composite materials across the interface. We also examine the possibility of exciting and observing SPPs by attenuated total reflection.


This output is a book contribution and journal article examining collaborative working methods in textile design. The journal article drew together ideas from numerous presentations on Belford's collaborative practice, consolidating and extending elements of papers presented at The Textile Institute Centenary Conference, 'Textiles a Global Vision' (Nov 2010) and the Textile Society Research Symposium (March 2011), 'The Textile Designer as Added Value'. Belford was subsequently selected to contribute a chapter to 'Collaboration Through Craft' edited by Ravetz, Felcey and Kettle (Bloomsbury Publishing 2013). Belford's first person account discussed two collaborative projects where her specialist printed textile knowledge engaged with, informed and developed new ideas between science, fashion and architecture. The case studies examined how cross-disciplinary collaboration enables innovative and effective research. The case studies - Catalytic Clothing and Tactility Factory, expose the working processes of collaboration, outlining the stages of negotiation and the dynamics arising from diverse disciplinary methods. The book chapter is ultimately a road map for creative interaction with science and gives insight into the hidden aspects of collaborative research that would not normally be evident in published outcomes.


This paper will primarily address Catholic Emancipation from the mid-eighteenth century to the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829. Catholic Emancipation serves as an interesting example of a pre-twentieth-century civil rights movement. Part I addresses the rise of Catholic repression beginning with Henry VIII's split with the Catholic Church and continuing to the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Part II examines the legal impediments imposed on Catholics in the years after the Glorious Revolution, as well as the role that informers played in Catholic repression. Part III addresses the role of an activist judiciary as a crucial first step in the process of Catholic Emancipation. This section also addresses the relief provided by the Papists Act of 1778, and the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791. This section will also address the Gordon Riots. Part IV deals with the unification with Ireland under the Union with Ireland Act of 1800, the promises made by Prime Minister Pitt to ensure passage in Ireland, and how George III used the Coronation Act of 1688 to refuse Irish Emancipation. Part V addresses the final push for emancipation beginning with the rise of the Catholic Association under Daniel O'Connell and ending with the final passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829. Finally, this paper treats briefly the subsequent history of Catholics in the United Kingdom as well as how Catholic Emancipation can be seen as a road map for future civil rights movements.


Introduction Most older care home residents will die in the care home environment. The majority of older people would like the opportunity to discuss end-of-life care, though this rarely happens. The current model of palliative care does not cater well for care home residents. This study explores the narratives shared by older people living in care homes. Aims 1. What are the issues facing elderly people in the last years of life? 2. What are the key events that shape this phase and how do their interactions and relationships with carers, healthcare professionals, family and friends affect this? Methods Five participants were recruited from two care homes in the South West of England. Each participant was interviewed at least three times over ten months. A structural narrative analysis was performed and a typology generated to present the different narratives that might constrain and/or empower the participants in relation to their ageing process. Results Participants' narratives are presented in three different contexts: Becoming a care home resident, living in a care home and death and dying. A variety of narrative types emerged, but the concept of "imposed dependency" was a key thread. In addition to presenting the findings in the traditional academic format, 5 illustrations have been commissioned to bring some of the relevant themes to life. Conclusions The narratives constructed suggest that there is still much to be done in order to improve transition into a care home and to promote autonomy and choice, particularly at the end of life. References . Bingley AF, Thomas C, Brown J, Reeve J & Payne S (2008) Developing narrative research in supportive and palliative care: the focus on illness narratives, Palliative Medicine, 22: 653–658. . Borgstrom E (2015) Social death in end-of-life care policy. Contemporary Social Science, 10(3): 272–283 . Cornwell J (1984) Hard-Earned Lives: Accounts of Health and Illness from East London, London: Tavistock. . Gilleard C & Higgs P (2010) Ageing without agency: Theorising the fourth age, Ageing & Mental Health, 14(2): 121–128. . Gott M, Small N, Barnes S, Payne S & Seamark D (2008) Older people's views of good death in heart failure: implications for palliative care provision. Social Science & Medicine, 67: 1113–1121. . Greenhalgh T & Hurwitz B (1999) Narrative based medicine: Why study narrative?BMJ, 318:48. . Higgs P and Rees Jones I. (2009) Medical Sociology and Old Age: Towards a sociology of health in later life, Abingdon: Routledge. . Kelly CN. (2013) Moving to Manage: A mixed methods study of later life relocation into supported housing. Edinburgh Napier University. PhD thesis. . Kinley J, Hockley J, Stone L, Dewey M, Hansford P, Stewart R, McCrone P, Begum A, Sykes N. (2014) The provision of care for residents dying in UK nursing care homes. Age and Ageing, 43(3):375–379. . Lloyd L, Calnan M, Cameron A, Seymour J & Smith R (2014) Identity in the fourth age: perseverance, adaptation and maintaining dignity. Ageing and Society, 34:1–19. . Mathie E, Goodman C, Crang C, Froggatt K, Iliffe S, Manthorpe J & Barclay S (2012) An uncertain future: The unchanging views of care home residents about living and dying, Palliative Medicine, 26: 734 . National End of Life Care Intelligence Network (2013) What We Know Now 2013: New Information Collated by the National End of Life Care Intelligence Network. London: Public Health England. . Phoenix C, Smith B & Sparkes AC (2010) Narrative analysis in ageing studies: A typology for consideration. Journal of Ageing Studies 24: 1–11. . Public Health England (2017) End of Life Care Profiles: Place of Death. Available at: http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/end-of-life/data#page/0/gid/1938132883/pat/6/par/E12000004/ati/102/are/E06000015 (Accessed 24/01/17) . Riessman C. (2008) Narrative methods for the human sciences. London: Sage. . Shepherd V, Wood F & Hood K (2017) Establishing a set of research priorities in care homes for older people in the UK: a modified Delphi consensus study with care home staff. Age and Ageing 46 (2): 284–290


This paper analyses land security management
principles and practice in Slovenia (Si) by presenting
a real property transaction example that is formally
described and modeled as a use case. First the
legislation settings and the description of the dual real
property registration system in Slovenia are shortly
outlined. Then use case descriptions and UML
diagramming examples of a simplified real property
transaction process are developed. The use case
described is the sale of a whole urban built-up property
with a detached house. Using the general-purpose object
oriented modeling language (UML) and following the
adapted system engineering methodology this
transaction case is represented on several diagrams:
package, class, use case, activity and sequence
(interaction). The article concludes with the analysis
of the process, discussion of security provision for this
real property transaction case, time span of similar
transactions and the reasons for possible delays. Some
considerations for improvements and reduction of the
time needed can also be derived.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) recently announced its intention to make a finding under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases from new cars and light trucks endanger the public health and welfare by contributing to global climate change. That proposed endangerment finding and the vehicle emission standards that will follow are highly controversial, with industry representatives vigorously challenging EPA's scientific conclusions. Of even greater controversy, however, is the possibility that issuance of the final endangerment finding will obligate EPA and the states to regulate greenhouse gases from nearly every sector of the economy with 'national ambient air quality standards,' the central program of the Clean Air Act that addresses air pollution all across the country. EPA believes those broad, national standards would be fundamentally inappropriate for greenhouse gases. The Agency's concerns are shared by many regulated entities, as well as several states and environmental organizations. A few environmental advocates, however, see benefits in using this scheme to force widespread greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and have urged EPA to adopt the controversial standards. Reviewing the Clean Air Act and its legislative history, this article analyzes EPA's legal obligation to adopt national standards for greenhouse gases once it finalizes the endangerment finding. While the statutory language might appear to give the Agency discretion not to do so, the article identifies a possible scrivener's error – not previously discussed by EPA, the courts or others – that would require the Agency to issue those national standards. Whether a court will accept that new interpretation or, instead, find flexibility for EPA depends ultimately on whether the Agency persuasively demonstrates that national standards are unworkable for greenhouse gases and unnecessary in light of the other steps it is taking under the Clean Air Act. The article analyzes EPA's claims on both scores, especially in light of the Massachusetts Court's skepticism on the Agency's climate change record. Although applying the current statute to greenhouse gases poses challenges, a skeptical court might very well conclude that the national standards can be sufficiently tailored so as to prove useful in our efforts to mitigate global climate change.


The complexity of net interest margin (NIM) securities, coupled with the fact that they tend to be private placements, keeps this a rather thinly traded market, and frequently the NIMs that come to the secondary market do not trade as efficiently as other types of securities with similar complexity and risk. Risks for holders of NIMs relate to losses on the underlying portfolio, leverage of the transaction, prepayments, collateral performance, movements in the yield curve, and trading efficiency. The holder should question the NIM structure, current and expected over-collateralization levels, the seasoning of the deal, the step-down date, credit profiles of underlying borrowers, the percentage of collateral with fixed and floating rates, the average excess spread amount for fixed-rate collateral, the average reset date for floating-rate collateral, and prepayment, delinquency, recovery and loss rates.


OBJECTIVE
To assess adolescents' satisfaction with reproductive health services in Mdantsane Township, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

METHOD
A structured questionnaire was used to assess the levels of participants' satisfaction with reproductive health services. The sample consisted of 200 adolescents within the ages of 16 to 19 years. A response of "yes" indicated that the person was satisfied with the specific item, while a response of "no" indicated dissatisfaction with that item. A spreadsheet was developed to analyse data obtained and 95% was used as a cut off rate to define an appropriate level of client satisfaction.

RESULTS
Results indicated that adolescents were dissatisfied with reproductive health delivery at Mdantsane Township. Satisfaction responses on accessibility and confidentiality of services, options available to participants as well as staff friendliness fell below the stated cut off rate of 95%. From each item, the number of responses of satisfaction on reproductive health delivery at the primary health clinic was mostly below 89%.

CONCLUSION
In general, participants in this survey were dissatisfied with reproductive health services at the clinics at Mdantsane Township in the Eastern Cape Province.


Abstract Purple to violet colored millericrinids (Crinoidea) are described from the lower Kimmeridgian of the Małogoszcz quarry, Holy Cross Mountains, Poland. By chemical analysis using high-performance liquid chromatography, ultraviolet/visible spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry, the organic compounds were characterized as a homologous series of hypericinoid pigments ranging from C28H12O8 (fringelite F) to C36H28O8. The results indicate that hypericinoid pigments were more widespread in millericrinids than previously known. The presence of new hypericin derivatives in the fossil crinoids with characteristic alkyl side chains shows that Mesozoic hypericinoid pigments were closely related to recent crinoidal pigments.


This article offers a re-examination and re-articulation of ethnographic approaches towards the study of media audiences and the consumption and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). In particular, it aims to highlight the challenges faced by researchers undertaking fieldwork in so-called familiar cultural settings. Based on insights gained from a longitudinal study into the ICT consumption practices of female-headed households in Brighton, UK, it seeks to re-vitalize the ethnographic imagination by asking: how can we, in an age of mobile media cultures, consolidate on- and offline encounters and overcome anxieties around boundary crossings expressed through the prevailing heteronormative frameworks that underpin much of contemporary research project design and fieldwork practices? Furthermore, it is argued that in order to achieve ethnographic accomplishment, the factor of time in and for research needs to be re-discovered and re-thought.


A system for planning facilities and resources in distribution networks is presented. It was applied at Cahill May Roberts, one of Ireland's largest pharmaceutical companies, having a turnover of $35 million and employing over 300 people.

The planning system, a three stage stochastic programming model, is capable of evaluating alternative management strategies in the face of fluctuating costs and population movements over an extended time horizon. Apart from defining unique territories for the company's distribution centres and optimal customer servicing schedules within those territories, the planning system evaluated alternative locations for distribution centres under the twin uncertain ties of cost and demand.

The planning model contained approximately 2,000 variables and 300 equations, whilst the undecomposed route planning model encompassed approximately 300 towns/villages and 1,200 customers Both models, therefore required substantial data inputs as successive management objectives and assumptions were examined. To facilitate this data preparation and to achieve solutions in a realistic time, a special matrix generator was developed which had the capability of producing data in the required format and inputing directly into both planning models. The generator controls the entire optimizing process and permits a three hundred-told reduction in data preparation. In effect the generator permits an optimization procedure to be used in a simulation mode.

The model achieved savings in delivery and transport costs of 23.3% and 20% respectively, and increased customer service levels by 60%.


The performance of multichannel transmit coil layouts and parallel transmission (pTx) RF pulse design was evaluated with respect to transmit B1 (B1 +) homogeneity and specific absorption rate (SAR) at 3 T for a whole body coil. Five specific coils were modeled and compared: a 32‐rung birdcage body coil (driven either in a fixed quadrature mode or a two‐channel transmit mode), two single‐ring stripline arrays (with either 8 or 16 elements), and two multi‐ring stripline arrays (with two or three identical rings, stacked in the z axis and each comprising eight azimuthally distributed elements). Three anatomical targets were considered, each defined by a 3D volume representative of a meaningful region of interest (ROI) in routine clinical applications. For a given anatomical target, global or local SAR controlled pTx pulses were designed to homogenize RF excitation within the ROI. At the B1 + homogeneity achieved by the quadrature driven birdcage design, pTx pulses with multichannel transmit coils achieved up to about eightfold reduction in local and global SAR. When used for imaging head and cervical spine or imaging thoracic spine, the double‐ring array outperformed all coils, including the single‐ring arrays. While the advantage of the double‐ring array became much less pronounced for pelvic imaging, with a substantially larger ROI, the pTx approach still provided significant gains over the quadrature birdcage coil. For all design scenarios, using the three‐ring array did not necessarily improve the RF performance. Our results suggest that pTx pulses with multichannel transmit coils can reduce local and global SAR substantially for body coils while attaining improved B1 + homogeneity, particularly for a "z‐stacked" double‐ring design with coil elements arranged on two transaxial rings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Minnesota has over 2,000 bridges that contain structural timber in the superstructure or the substructure. Historically, inspections for timber bridges have been mostly limited to visual inspection, hammer sounding and probing. These techniques have proven appropriate for advanced decay detection, but are inadequate for early stage or internal deterioration. During this project, new advanced inspection techniques and equipment were identified that were capable of improving the quality of timber bridge inspection. This equipment and technologies were introduced into routine bridge inspections through the development of standard inspection protocols, integration of the results into bridge data management software, development of a customized inspection manual, outreach training for Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) districts and state counties, recommendation of equipment purchases, and completion of an economic assessment on the use of advanced inspection techniques. Implementation of these inspection techniques will support the long-term service life of Minnesota's timber bridges and will improve the safety and reliability of Minnesota's bridges.


Summary

The aim of this study was to determine the effects of Tribulus terrestris extract (TT) on growth performance, disease resistance and histopathological changes in intestine and liver tissues of Oreochromis mossambicus (Peters, 1852) first-feeding fry before and after exposure to Streptococcus iniae. Five isonitrogenous and isocaloric diets were formulated to contain 0 (control), 200, 400, 600, and 800 mg kg−1 TT. After feeding for 45 days, fish were infected with S. iniae and mortalities recorded. Final weight, weight gain and SGR of tilapia fry fed the 400 mg kg−1 TT diet were significantly greater than that of control diet. In the challenge experiment, the best survival rate was obtained with 400 mg kg−1 TT supplementation. Infection by S. iniae appeared to have a negative effect on histopathological findings and outcome than did TT-800 used alone. However, administration of TT (200 or 400 mg extract kg−1) resulted in overall improvement in the intestine and liver histopathology, emphasizing the protective potential of TT. The present study suggests the protective potential of TT in alleviating intestinal and hepatic damage that can occur after a S. iniae infection. It was concluded that 400 mg kg−1 TT can enhance growth and disease resistance during first–feeding of O. mossambicus fry. This suggests that TT may be an alternative to antibiotics in controlling streptococcal disease in tilapia culture.


Abstract
Introduction:
Radical cystectomy (RC) and urinary diversion is the gold standard treatment for both muscle-invasive urinary bladder cancer and for non-muscle invasive disease refractory to intravescical treatment. This is also one of the most complex urological procedures. Despite improvements in practice, technique and process of care, RC is still associated with significant complications, including death, with wide variability in reported postoperative morbidity and mortality rates ranging from 19% to 64% and 0.8% to 8.3%, respectively.
Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET) is a non-invasive measurement of cardio-pulmonary fitness. CPET variables such as anaerobic threshold (AT) and maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 max) have been demonstrated to be reliable predictors of postoperative morbidity, mortality and hospital length of stay (LOS) following major surgery and are helpful in risk stratifying patients. The foundations of enhanced recovery programmes (ERPs), also known as enhanced recovery after surgery or fast-track surgery, were laid down by Kehlet in the 1990s and have received widespread acceptance in various surgical specialities. The principles of these peri-operative strategies are to use a multidisciplinary approach to minimising morbidity. This revolves around a team approach, which includes surgeons, anaesthetists, nurses, physiotherapists, stoma therapists, dieticians and most importantly requires active participation from the patient and their family. The role of exercise training or 'prehabilitation' for optimising preoperative physiological function to counter catabolic effects of surgery has received little attention in patients undergoing radical cystectomy (RC). This randomised controlled feasibility study examines whether a short preoperative course of supervised exercise sessions is feasible, well tolerated and whether it can lead to an improvement in cardiopulmonary fitness in patients undergoing RC.
Methods:
Over a 2 year period patients awaiting RC were randomised to either a control arm or an exercise intervention arm after initial CPET assessment. Patients in the exercise arm
2
were offered twice weekly supervised exercise sessions preoperatively for 4 weeks, whilst the control arm had standard care. Repeat assessment was performed in both groups at the end of 4 weeks. Feasibility outcomes such as recruitment rate, compliance and adverse events were recorded. Postoperative recovery including complications stratified as per Clavien classification and LOS were also recorded.
Results:
112 eligible patients were approached of whom 60 were recruited to the study, with a recruitment rate of 53.5%. Mean age was 72 years (range 52-85 years). Nine (15%) patients did not complete repeat CPET testing. No adverse events were recorded during CPET testing or exercise sessions. Compliance with exercise sessions was satisfactory with patients attending for a median of 8 sessions. Dropout rate from the exercise sessions in the intervention arm was 23.3% (n=11). An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed a statistically significant increase in mean VO2 max in the intervention group when compared to the control group by +1.9ml/kg/min (0.87-3, 95% CI), (p=0.001). AT was also similarly increased by +0.33ml/kg/min (-0.68-1.3, 95%CI) (p=0.5). Mean preoperative VO2 max was found to be significantly higher (p<0.001) in patients who had an uncomplicated recovery (22.04ml/kg/min) when compared to those with complications (Clavien grade I or above) (16.32ml/kg/min). Analysis using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient demonstrated a negative association between day of discharge from hospital and initial VO2 max (p<0.001) indicating quicker postoperative recovery in patients with higher cardiorespiratory fitness levels.
Although not statistically significant there appears to be a trend with complication rates being higher in the control group (39.28%) compared to the exercise intervention arm (33.3%) (p=0.8)
Conclusion:
CPET assessment and exercise training is safe and well tolerated. Patients comply with a supervised exercise regime and there is a measurable improvement in their cardiorespiratory fitness after 4 weeks. The data demonstrates that VO2 max is a reliable predictor of outcomes following RC and can potentially be used to risk-stratify patients preoperatively. Although the study is not adequately powered to fully investigate the results of exercise training on postoperative outcomes, the results are promising, and
3
suggest the requirement for larger randomised controlled trials to elucidate the role of prehabilitation prior to surgery in this population.


Abstract. High frequency, in situ observations from 11 globally distributed sites for the period 1994–2014 and archived air measurements dating from 1978 onward have been used to determine the global growth rate of 1,1-difluoroethane (HFC-152a, CH3CHF2). These observations have been combined with a range of atmospheric transport models to derive global emission estimates in a top-down approach. HFC-152a is a greenhouse gas with a short atmospheric lifetime of about 1.5 years. Since it does not contain chlorine or bromine, HFC-152a makes no direct contribution to the destruction of stratospheric ozone and is therefore used as a substitute for the ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). The concentration of HFC-152a has grown substantially since the first direct measurements in 1994, reaching a maximum annual global growth rate of 0.84 ± 0.05 ppt yr−1 in 2006, implying a substantial increase in emissions up to 2006. However, since 2007, the annual rate of growth has slowed to 0.38 ± 0.04 ppt yr−1 in 2010 with a further decline to an annual average rate of growth in 2013–2014 of −0.06 ± 0.05 ppt yr−1. The annual average Northern Hemisphere (NH) mole fraction in 1994 was 1.2 ppt rising to an annual average mole fraction of 10.1 ppt in 2014. Average annual mole fractions in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) in 1998 and 2014 were 0.84 and 4.5 ppt, respectively. We estimate global emissions of HFC-152a have risen from 7.3 ± 5.6 Gg yr−1 in 1994 to a maximum of 54.4 ± 17.1 Gg yr−1 in 2011, declining to 52.5 ± 20.1 Gg yr−1 in 2014 or 7.2 ± 2.8 Tg-CO2 eq yr−1. Analysis of mole fraction enhancements above regional background atmospheric levels suggests substantial emissions from North America, Asia, and Europe. Global HFC emissions (so called "bottom up" emissions) reported by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are based on cumulative national emission data reported to the UNFCCC, which in turn are based on national consumption data. There appears to be a significant underestimate ( >  20 Gg) of "bottom-up" reported emissions of HFC-152a, possibly arising from largely underestimated USA emissions and undeclared Asian emissions.


Background: Intestinal dysfunction is frequent in cancer and during anti-cancer treatment. Glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) is secreted in a nutrition-dependent manner from the intestinal enteroendocrine L-cells. It accelerates crypt cell proliferation and nutrient absorption, inhibits enterocyte apoptosis and decreases mucosal permeability. Lack of GLP-2 may increase the risk of malabsorption and intestinal bacterial translocation. The aim of this study is to evaluate meal stimulated secretion of GLP-2 in children with cancer undergoing anti-cancer treatment. Methods: Plasma-GLP-2 analysis after an overnight fast and 1 hour after intake of a mixed test meal. Data on gastrointestinal toxicity, blood neutrophile counts and food records were included in the analysis. Results: Forty-four meal stimulation tests were performed in 25 children (median age, 6.0 years; range, 2.5-19) during anti-cancer treatment. Median GI toxicity score was 5 (range, 0-15), and mean energy intake was 62.4% of recommended values. P-GLP-2 values increased from mean (SD) 38 (18) to 63 (51) pmol/l (P < 0.0001). Twelve of the meal stimulation tests (28%) resulted in a p-GLP-2 increase >2 fold, which is assumed to be the lower limit of normal values. The increase was strongly dependent on the energy intake (r = 0.62, P < 0.0001), while toxicity score and neutrophile count had no significant influence (multiple regression). Conclusion: In children treated with anti-cancer therapy, GLP-2 secretion seems to be normal if the enteral energy intake is sufficient. Insufficient GLP-2 secretion could influence the gastrointestinal problems seen in the children with a low enteral energy intake.


OVERVIEW When families make the news, it is often for negative reasons such as violence or abuse. Negative perceptions of low-income families tend to be especially strong. However, families are critical to the positive development of children and youth, as well as to problems that may affect that development. Thus, it is important to examine not just the deficits, but also the assets and strengths that families of all income levels bring to raising children.


The education of health professionals is based on a series of discourses of professionalism that privilege notions of control and choice (Riggs, 2004a; Titchen and Higgs, 2001). These discourses are expressed through both explicit and implicit curricula, which encourage the enactment of a particular construction of the 'self' of both health professionals and clients or patients. This thesis adopts a feminist poststructural analysis of relations of power to explore some of the effects of the enactment of these curricula, drawing on three case studies of education in rural health settings and interviews with 17 health workers.

The results indicate that the enactment of these curricula seems to produce a particular sense of self for health workers – one that is bound up with notions of control and choice, and one that may require struggle on an inner level with the self-regulation and self-policing (O'Grady, 2005) required to fit this norm. The struggle for female health workers to link the abstract theorizing with the actualities of their lives (Williams, 2002) seems to produce a paradoxical type of relationship with themselves and their clients. On one hand there is a discourse of conformity, compliance and obedience, which suggests more of a slippage of self while at the same time the expert-novice relationship characterizing the health professionals" interaction with clients emphasizes autonomy, control and empowerment of self. Further, while health workers see themselves as having high levels of internal locus of control this is in direct contrast to the helplessness and powerlessness they experience at work, and revealed through the research.

The curriculum reform taking place within all health professional education at the moment emphasizes evidence-based practice and scientific content, and thus reinforces the dominant norm of the neo-liberal individual capable of self-regulation and self-policing. This research suggests the limitations of this approach, given the practices of power that continue to disadvantage women in general and patients in particular in relation to their health and the institution.


The stable multicast flow aggregation (MFA) problem in internet protocol (IP) over optical network under the dynamical scenario is studied. Given an optical network topology, there is a set of head ends and access routers attached to the optical network, in which each head end can provide a set of programs (IP multicasting flows) and each access router requests a set of programs, we find a set of stable light-trees to accommodate the optimally aggregated multicast IP flows if the requests of access routers changed dynamically. We introduce a program correlation matrix to describe the preference of end users' requests. As the original MFA problem is NP-complete, a heuristic approach, named most correlated program first (MCPF), is presented and compared with the extended least tree first (ELTF) algorithm which is topology-aware. Simulation results show that MCPF can achieve better performance than ELTF in terms of stability with negligible increment of network resource usage.


ABSTRACT This paper posits the notion of digital political labour (DPL) as a rewarding concept for the analysis of political communication and social media. Numerous studies conclude that the engagement, dialogic and social affordances of social media have not yet been realised. But despite the lack of direct interaction, active audiences are, by their own actions in social media, taking part in DPL since audiences do not only receive political messages but contribute significantly with their own user-generated content. The empirical data in this study are from the official Facebook pages of Swedish political parties during the 2014 national election campaign. The results show that most of the communications work is actually performed by the audiences, and not by the parties themselves. This study highlight two important dimensions of DPL where users constitute targets and carriers of advertising as well as audiences whose free labour generates political campaign content.


Knowledge about the relation between grape and wine phenolics is of key interest for the wine industry with respect to being able to predict wine quality from analyses of grapes. Prediction of the phenolic composition and color of experimentally produced red wines from the detailed phenolic composition of the corresponding grapes was investigated using a multivariate approach. Grape extracts and wines were produced from 55 different grape samples, covering 8 different Vitis vinifera cultivars: Alicante, Merlot, Syrah, Cinsault, Grenache, Carignan, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Mourvedre. The phenolic composition of the grapes and wines showed that the average ratios between wine and grape phenolics ranged from 0.25 to 7.9 for the different phenolic compounds. Most interestingly, the average ratios were low for anthocyanins (0.31) and tannins (0.32), intermediate for (+)-catechin (0.75) and polymeric pigments (0.98), and high for gallic acid (7.9). Individual wine phenolics in general correlated well with several grape phenolics, indicating that a multivariate approach might be advantageous for prediction of wine phenolics from grape phenolics analysis. However the use of multivariate prediction of individual wine phenolics from the complete grape phenolic composition only improved the prediction of wine polymeric pigments, whereas wine anthocyanins were predicted with the same precision as from the direct relation with grape anthocyanins. Prediction of color attributes of pH normalized experimental wines from the phenolic profiles of grapes was accomplished using a multivariate approach. The correlation between predicted and measured total wine color was high ( r = 0.958) but was very similar to the correlation coefficient obtained for the direct relation between grape anthocyanins and total wine color ( r = 0.961). Color due to copigmentation, color due to anthocyanins, and color intensity were also predicted well.


Introduction In all well developed societies, such as those that we live in, there tend to be strong borders or barriers between different organisations and different professions. People with different kinds of knowledge are kept well apart. So how can we—should we—manage health and social services that are located in different organisations? If we are to improve the capability of a health care organisation to function as an integrated part of a locally driven health and social service system, we need a new model. Traditional models view systems as machines. Instead, we perhaps should approach them as constantly changing living organisms. This is the importance of Complexity science. It helps us understand what happens in dynamic living systems, where many agents are interconnected. Complex adaptive systems (CASs) The term 'complex system' emphasizes that the necessary competence to perform a task is not owned by any one part, but comes as a result of co-operation within the system. 'Adaptive' means that system change occurs through successive adaptations. A CAS consists of several subsystems called agents, which act in dependence of one another. They are interdependent. They may either compete or co-operate according to their sense of their interests and what will bring them an advantage. Complex Adaptive Systems are distinguished by self-organisation. Self-organisation is about creating order or increasing the regularity of the system without help from the outside. Good examples would be the ant-hill, the human immune defence, the financial market and the surgical operating theatre team. When we study a CAS, the focus is on the interaction and communication between agents. Contrary to the old cliché, that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the whole is the relations between the parts. Order, innovation and progress arise naturally from interactions within a CAS. They do not need to be prescribed from 'higher' levels or from the environment. It has been found that for purposes of fostering connectivity among diverse agents, effective coupling of structures, ideas and innovations, and ensuring that they are neither too loose nor too tightly interdependent, complex systems are better led by indirect than by direct leadership behaviours. Conclusions The CAS approach helps the management to understand why the traditional top down way of managing may meet with problems in organisations with complex tasks. An important discussion is about how the top management in fact executes its steering function. As a leader in a CAS you will accept complexity instead of trying to reduce it, formulate few simple and concrete goals, communicate and give feedback and measure on performance. As we begin to see health care organisations as CASs we should gain more insight into the processes that go on within and between organisations. But best of all, this organic mental model opens up for greater success in implementing strategies.


The realization of Farmers' Rights is crucial to the maintenance of Peru's rich agro-biodiversity and for poverty alleviation. This report presents the perceptions and experiences of 180 farmers from various regions of the Peruvian Andes on issues related to Farmers' Rights as they are addressed in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. A series of regional workshops were held in the Andes from March to May 2008 to map the views, experiences and suggestions of farmers on the realization of Farmers' Rights. Their views were presented at a national multi-stakeholder workshop in Lima in September 2008, where also central government institutions, NGOs, farmers' organizations, as well as gene bank officials and breeders were represented. In this report the results from these workshops are presented and analyzed as to how they can form the basis for future policies on Farmers' Rights in Peru. Central recommendations include documentation of traditional knowledge; the establishment of agro-biodiversity reserves; support to community gene banks, seed fairs and exchange visits; participatory research on traditional seed systems and participatory plant breeding; assistance in processing and marketing products made from traditional varieties; improved economic incentive structures for maintaining traditional crop varieties; and the establishment of pilot villages to bolster the conservation and exchange of genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Suggestions for activities to foster farmers' participation in decisionmaking are elaborated as well as institutional questions on how to coordinate the realization of Farmers' Rights.


Acute toxicity by static bioassay of ground dried leaves (medium age) of
leguminoses, yellow flame (Peltophorum pterocarpum) and rain tree (Samanea saman),
in the form of ground powder solution, crude water and methanol extract was
determined against target freshwater snails, Indoplanorbis exustus (Planorbidae) and
Radix quadrasi (Lymnaeidae), and also on non-target species, red tilapia, Oreochromis
niloticus, and shrimp, Macrobrachium lanchesteri using static bioassay technique. The
field-collected snails were examined for the infection of trematode larvae. 1. exustus was
found to be the host to the two types of trematodes larvae (cercaria), namely
furcocercous cercariae, bifurcated cercaria (schistosoma) and gymnocephalus cercariae,
non-bifurcated tail cercaria (fasciola), whereas, R. quadrasi was found to be the host to
the various types of gymnocephalus cercariae. The toxicity results indicated that
molluscicidal and piscicidal activity is not limited to any particular plant species and that
the dried ground leaves powder, crude water, and methanol extract; of P. plerocarpum
and S. saman are toxic to the target and non-target species. However, toxicity of the crude methanol extracts of these plants exhibited the highest potency as compared to the
crude water extract and dried ground leaves. The 24 h LC50 of crude water and methanol
extract of P. pterocarpum against the target species was found to be within the standard
range of World Health Organization (l00 mgtl) of being molluscicidally active. Based
on the 24h LC50 values, the results indicated that the potency of P. pterocarpum
treatments on the target snail species follow this trend; crude methanol extract (50.7-
55.6 mgtl) was the most potent, followed by crude water extract (64.9-72.7 mgtl) and the
dried, ground powder (338.2-390.4 mgtl). Comparison test between 1. exustus and R.
quadrasi showed that R. quadrasi was more sensitivity to crude methanol extract of P.
pterocarpum than the S. saman, with 24h LCso value of 50.7 mg/l and 1 08 mgtl,
respectively. Test carried out on the non-target species, shrimp, M lanchesteri was
observed to be virtually absence of the toxic effect when exposed at the concentrations
that kill 50% of the target snail species. But, red tilapia, 0. niloticus was more
susceptible and LCso was obtained at the lower concentrations than the concentration
that caused 50% mortality of the target snail species. The relationship of 24h LCso
values to the different snail shell length of laboratory breed R. quadrasi and 1. exustus
was also investigated using crude methanol extract of P. pterocarpum. Results indicated
that the relationship between different shell length of R. quadrasi and 24h LCso was a
positively correlated with r = 0.98, but the relationship was polynomial (quadratic) with
the equation line of Y= 0.63 x2 -8.5x +42.7. In the case of 1. exuslus there was positive
correlation between its sensitivity and its sizes, and relationship was linear with
regression line of Y=2.77 x +8.3 and r of 0.96.


"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." (1) I. INTRODUCTION A very difficult issue facing the United States is applying First Amendment rights in cyberspace. With the motive of protecting children, the government has attempted regulation in this area concerning virtual child pornography and minors accessing pornographic materials online. Finding that "the use of children in the production of sexually explicit material, including photographs, films, videos, computer images, and other visual depictions, is a form of sexual abuse which can result in physical or psychological harm, or both, to the children involved," (2) Congress passed the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 ("CPPA"). (3) The CPPA expanded the federal ban on child pornography from pornographic images made using actual children to include computer-generated images appearing to be children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. (4) On April 16, 2002, in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sections of the CPPA as overbroad and unconstitutional. (5) Finding that minors have access to harmful materials through the widespread availability of the Internet, (6) Congress in 1998 enacted the Child Online Protection Act ("COPA") (7) to restrict access by minors to harmful materials sold on the World Wide Web. This section was carefully drafted (8) to respond to a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU"), (9) that struck down as unconstitutional provisions of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA"), (10) which was enacted by Congress in 1996 to limit the exposure of children to sexually explicit materials online. On May 13, 2002, in Ashcroft v. ACLU, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld sections of COPA as not unconstitutionally overbroad, but the Court expressed no view as to whether other provisions are overbroad, whether the statute is vague, or whether COPA survives strict scrutiny. (11) Both the CPPA and the COPA were statutes intended by Congress to protect minors. The CPPA was intended to protect minors from the harmful effects of virtual child pornography. The COPA was intended to protect minors from pornography currently available commercially on the World Wide Web. Neither statute currently is being enforced, despite their laudable motives to protect children. This Article will examine both statutes and both U.S. Supreme Court decisions. It also will predict the future of COPA and will recommend further congressional action to protect minors from the harmful effects of both virtual and real child pornography, and from accessing pornography on the Web. II. CPPA AND ASHCROFT V. FREE SPEECH COALITION Congress has repeatedly enacted legislation banning sexual exploitation of children. Finding that child pornography was both highly organized and profitable, and exploited children, (12) Congress in 1977 passed the Protecting of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act. (13) This Act criminalized knowingly using a minor younger than age sixteen to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce a visual depiction. (14) In 1984, Congress passed the Child Protection Act, (15) which expanded the 1977 Act and did away with the previous Act's requirement that the prohibited material be considered obscene under Miller v. California. (16) The 1984 Act also raised the minor's age from sixteen to eighteen and included not-for-profit trafficking. (17) This law was again amended in 1986 by the Child Sexual Abuse and Pornography Act, which banned the production and use of advertisements for child pornography and created civil liability for personal injuries to children from the production of child pornography. (18) The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 made it unlawful to use a computer to transport, distribute, or receive child pornography. …


Background: Sports Pharmacy is an emerging field globally that has developed from in connection with health, economic and social sectors. The main reason of its importance has been taken into account for research and implementation in the prevention of doping, delivery systems, compounding medications and dietary supplements. Though there is a dire need of developing f sports Pharmacy as a separate field in Pakistan and to address hindrances in its progress. Methodology: A short communication of 20 years i.e. 1998-2018. Databases used are Google Scholar, PubMed, Research gate, Scopus, The Nation news, BBC news. Results: The significant highlights include that there is a usual partaking of the populace in sport and exercise at personal and professional levels and at every level, there is a need for advice about general healthcare and associated therapies for better performance and wellbeing. It is also identified that there is a growing need for specialist pharmacists in the area of sport and exercise in order to fulfill this valuable healthcare role. These specialists may be described as sports pharmacist's development of Sports pharmacy in Pakistan. Prevention of doping worldwide reduced significantly with the help of pharmacist expertise. Conclusion: Sports pharmacy can be helpful in changing some healthcare aspects regarding sports worldwide. For the development of sports pharmacy in Pakistan, serious arrangements need to be taken.


This article is a brief of the issue of success anthology, the author developed the concept of success, argued a direct link of success with the activities of intelligence structures. Briefly described the main stages of the experiment "Psychology of life success and failure." The basis of the article is a description of the psychological phenomenon of "The valley of death of past experience" in personal transformations. We considered the algorithm described by Prochazka and Norcross, E. Kübler-Ross (adapted by Lototska) as a platform for management changes in adults. In the researching process of our experiment, it was noted that the most of our participants strongly passed the first three stages, some of them went out into the 4th stage and then back to the start again. After 14 months of pilot work, we confirmed that a new psychological phenomenon preceding the onset of changes was found. We divided the preparation stages for changes into three parts: the identification, awareness, change. We have identified and described seven stages of passing "The valley of death of past experience" – from the choice of idea– reference, to the consciousness – resolution: 1. «Idea»; 2. «Quick win»; 3. «Collapse»; 4. «Fear. Back traction»; 5. «Motivational escape»; 6. «Awareness»; 7. «Permission» The statistical data of the experiment, in which the results of "The valley of death" passing in the project "The psychology of life success and failure" is described in % in a sample "normal" (live and remote format) and a sample "mental disorders". And also data on the maximum recorded "The valley of death» among our members are presented in the article. The phenomenon also explains one of the reasons for unsuccessful transformations in adults. It is important to permit yourself to see, to reveal a contradiction that will cause another round of development, or to refuse, that is not to enter into the transformation. It is interested for us to research in details the characteristics of those who refused to enter the VD to work out the means of help and self-help.


Traditionally, we define "emotions" as feelings and "feelings" as conscious experiences. Conscious experiences are not readily studied in animals. However, animal research is essential to understanding the brain mechanisms underlying psychological function. So how can we make study mechanisms related to emotion in animals? I argue that our approach to this topic has been flawed and propose a way out of the dilemma: to separate processes that control so-called emotional behavior from the processes that give rise to conscious feelings (these are often assumed to be products of the same brain system). I will use research on fear to explain the way that I and many others have studied fear in the laboratory, and then turn to the deep roots of what is typically called fear behavior (but is more appropriately called defensive behavior). I will illustrate how the processes that control defensive behavior do not necessarily result in conscious feelings in people. I conclude that brain mechanisms that detect and respond to threats non-consciously contribute to, but are not the same as, mechanisms that give rise to conscious feelings of fear. This distinction has important implications for fear and anxiety disorders, since symptoms based on non-conscious and conscious processes may be vulnerable to different factors and subject to different forms of treatment.


This paper examines the feasibility of weather derivatives in the South African agricultural context by evaluating the merit of rainfall options as a yield risk management tool. The paper consists of three distinctive parts. In the first part we introduce weather derivatives and supply a basic overview of the functioning and uses of weather derivatives in general and rainfall options specifically. Next we examine the South African maize industry and draw conclusions from the influence of rainfall on maize crop yields. The purpose of this section is to determine the feasibility and necessity of yield hedging mechanism. We conclude the paper by combining the first two sections into a workable recommendation strategy for the implementation of rainfall derivatives as a hedge against yield risk caused by adverse rainfall conditions.


Paradoxical enlargement and development of new intracranial tuberculomas and tuberculous brain abscesses on adequate antituberculosis treatment are well recognized and supposedly cytokine mediated. These lesions are often unresponsive to conventional antituberculosis treatment, corticosteroids, and surgery. We therefore assessed the effect of adjunctive thalidomide, a tumor necrosis factor α—modulating drug, in intractable intracranial tuberculosis that did not respond to standard medical and surgical therapy. Four consecutive children (three children with bacteriologic proof and one child with clinical evidence of intracranial tuberculosis) were studied. Three patients each had a giant tuberculous abscess, and the fourth had chronic basal arachnoiditis with progressive loss of vision. Three of the four patients had relentless neurologic deterioration, and all showed disease progression on neuroimaging despite full medical and appropriate surgical treatment. Marked clinical and neuroradiologic improvement occurred after thalidomide was added to the antituberculosis treatment regimen of these four patients. Adjunctive thalidomide might have a role in the management of intractable intracranial tuberculosis and needs further investigation in this regard. (J Child Neurol 2 0 0 6; 2 1: 3 0 1 — 3 0 8; DOI 10.2310/7010.2006.00071).


Communication is critical to collaboration; however, too much of it can degrade performance. Motivated by the need for effective use of a robot's communication modalities, in this work, we present a computational framework that decides if, when, and what to communicate during human-robot collaboration. The framework, titled CommPlan, consists of a model specification process and an execution-time POMDP planner. To address the challenge of collecting interaction data, the model specification process is hybrid: where part of the model is learned from data, while the remainder is manually specified. Given the model, the robot's decision-making is performed computationally during interaction and under partial observability of human's mental states. We implement CommPlan for a shared workspace task, in which the robot has multiple communication options and needs to reason within a short time. Through experiments with human participants, we confirm that CommPlan results in the effective use of communication capabilities and improves human-robot collaboration. ACM Reference Format: Vaibhav V. Unhelkar, Shen Li, and Julie A. Shah. 2020. Decision-Making for Bidirectional Communication in Sequential Human-Robot Collaborative Tasks. In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '20), March 23–26, 2020, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3319502.3374779


Official U.S. Government policy calls for the research, development, and implementation of advanced information technologies for aggregating and analyzing data, including data mining, in the effort to protect domestic security. Civil libertarians and libertarians alike have decried and opposed these efforts as an unprecedented invasion of privacy and a threat to our freedoms. This Article examines these technologies in the context of domestic security. The purpose of this Article is not to critique or endorse any particular proposed use of these technologies but, rather, to inform the debate by elucidating the intersection of technology potential and development with legitimate privacy concerns. This Article argues that security with privacy can be achieved by employing value-sensitive technology development strategies that take privacy concerns into account during development, in particular, by building in rule-based processing, selective revelation, and strong credential and audit features. This Article does not argue that these technical features alone can eliminate privacy concerns but, rather, that these features can enable familiar, existing privacy protecting oversight and control mechanisms, procedures and doctrines (or their analogues) to be applied in order to control the use of these new technologies.


Papua New Guinea's (PNG) resource boom has come to an end. Theory suggests that the real exchange rate (RER) should subsequently depreciate in order to restore internal and external balance. In practice, however, the imposition of foreign exchange controls has led to a large backlog in foreign currency orders suggesting that the RER is significantly overvalued. The purpose of this paper is to inform the ongoing policy debate surrounding this issue by estimating the extent to which PNG's RER is currently misaligned. Our results suggest that the kina should depreciate by about 20% to close the gap between the actual and equilibrium value of the RER. Otherwise PNG is likely to pay high economic costs as real overvaluation sustained through foreign exchange restrictions led to resource misallocation, lower economic growth, black markets, and ultimately a balance of payments crisis in many other developing countries in the past.


Physicists at the world's biggest atom-smasher—the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, in Switzerland—are about to start a new data run. They are eager for results. Last year, the LHC blasted out hints of an unexpected new fundamental particle—potentially the first one in decades not predicted by physicists' standard model of fundamental forces and particles. If real, the new particle would resemble the famed Higgs boson but would be about six times as massive. Some physicists think it is just another, heavier Higgs. Others, however, say its decay patterns suggest that still other novel particles may be at work. Theorists are scrambling to figure out how such newcomers might fit into theories, such as supersymmetry, that extend the standard model. Experimenters at CERN say they should have enough data to test last year's signals within months—although figuring out what lies behind them if they're real could take much longer.


Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of severe thunderstorm events in coming years (1). Severe thunderstorms are often accompanied by lightning, which causes an average of 243 injuries and 27 deaths per year in the United States (US) alone (2). With these predicted increases in lightning events, it is important to understand and practice safety during severe thunderstorms. We examined severe thunderstorm data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) database in seven states in the US (Colorado, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, Washington and West Virginia) to characterize lightning seasons over three years (2000, 2008, and 2017). We hypothesized that (i) the majority of severe thunderstorm events will occur in the summer months in all states examined for all years analyzed, (ii) climate change will cause an unusual number of severe thunderstorm events in winter months in all states, (iii) thundersnow would be observed in Colorado, and (iv.) there would be no difference in the number of severe thunderstorm events between states in any given year examined. We were able to classify lightning seasons in all states observed, with the most severe thunderstorm events occurring in May, June, July, and August. Colorado, New Jersey, Washington, and West Virginia were found to have severe thunderstorm events in the winter, which could be explained by increased winter storms due to climate change (1). Overall, it is important to quantify when lightning seasons occur to avoid lightning-related injuries or death.


This paper, originally presented at a conference on the US Model Penal Code, discusses how Canadian reform of the law of sexual assault could contribute to a new Model Code. While criteria for "modelness" are elusive, model offenses must at least be consistent with constitutional norms and concerns about legality, such as fair notice. Equality rights should not be neglected. The author discusses both Canadian efforts to make sexual assault law egalitarian and criticism of such efforts. More generally, in the context of a body of law generating significant controversy, a model law should contain a clear articulation of what its framers appeal to for legitimacy. Concern is expressed that one way of seeking legitimacy while not addressing the problem of crimes against distinctively victimized and marginalized groups is to satisfy dominant concerns while adopting a posture of embattled and principled constraint. Claims to restraint or balance should not mask a political perspective antagonistic to the equality interests of vulnerable groups. Specific issues are addressed: should model sexual assault offenses be gender neutral; should there be any relationship immunity; what is the appropriate scope of criminal behavior; and what are the appropriate controls on fact determination?


In social science research, unipolar and bipolar scales are commonly used methods in measuring respondents' attitudes and opinions. Compared to other rating scale characteristics, scale polarity (unipolar and bipolar) and its effects on response behavior have rarely been addressed in previous research. To fill this gap in the literature, we investigate whether and to what extent fully verbalized unipolar and bipolar scales influence response behavior by analyzing observed and latent response distributions and latent thresholds of response categories. For this purpose, we conducted a survey experiment in a probability-based online panel and randomly assigned respondents to a unipolar or bipolar scale condition. The results reveal substantial differences between the two rating scales. They show significantly different response distributions and measurement non-invariance. In addition, response categories (and latent thresholds) of unipolar and bipolar scales are not equally distributed. The findings show that responses to unipolar and bipolar scales differ not only on the observational level but also on the latent level. Both rating scales vary with respect to their measurement properties, so that the responses obtained using each scale are not easily comparable. We recommend not considering unipolar and bipolar scales as interchangeable.


The earthquake engineering profession is increasingly utilizing nonlinear response history analyses (RHA) to evaluate seismic performance of existing structures and proposed designs of new structures. One of the main ingredients of nonlinear RHA is a set of ground motion records representing the expected hazard environment for the structure. When recorded motions do not exist (as is the case in the central United States) or when high-intensity records are needed (as is the case in San Francisco and Los Angeles), ground motions from other tectonically similar regions need to be selected and scaled. The modal-pushover-based scaling (MPS) procedure was recently developed to determine scale factors for a small number of records such that the scaled records provide accurate and efficient estimates of "true" median structural responses. The adjective "accurate" refers to the discrepancy between the benchmark responses and those computed from the MPS procedure. The adjective "efficient" refers to the record-to-record variability of responses. In this paper, the accuracy and efficiency of the MPS procedure are evaluated by applying it to four types of existing Ordinary Standard bridges typical of reinforced concrete bridge con- struction in California. These bridges are the single-bent overpass, multi-span bridge, curved bridge, and skew bridge. As compared with benchmark analyses of unscaled records using a larger catalog of ground motions, it is demonstrated that the MPS procedure provided an accurate estimate of the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) accompanied by significantly reduced record-to-record variability of the EDPs. Thus, it is a useful tool for scaling ground motions as input to nonlinear RHAs of Ordinary Standard bridges. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE) BE.1943-5592.0000259. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers. CE Database subject headings: Bridges; Nonlinear analysis; Ground motion; Seismic design; History. Author keywords: Ordinary Standard bridge; Nonlinear analysis; Ground motion; Selection and scaling; Seismic design.


The doctoral thesis deals with modelling and simulations in integrated product and process development. The research concerns with development of models and methods for simulation of component manufacturing and product functionality. One aim of the research project is to enable the introduction of tubular high strength components in vehicle structures. The new type of structure components requires changes in the product development process in order to closely couple the design with the development of the manufacturing tools and process parameters. The coupling is performed with the development and introduction of new modelling and simulation methods and tools for the analysis of thermomechanical forming of tubular high strength components. In this work the requirements for the numerical models are studied and evaluated by comparisons with experimental results. A set of tests are defined, performed and evaluated for establishing the required material parameters for the analysis of the manufacturing process. An inverse modelling method has been developed for evaluation of continuous cooling and deformation experiments performed in Gleeble 1500 thermomechanical simulator equipment. Spray cooling experiments have been designed for the modelling of the cooling effects of different types of spray nozzles. A model and an algorithm for the introduction of water spray cooling from a set of water spray nozzles has been developed and implemented in to a thermomechanical analysis code. A tool and a set of experiments are used for the verification of thermomechanical analyses of the component forming and quenching process.


Asymmetric particles of various chemical compositions have attracted great attention because of their application potential in different areas, ranging from photosplitting of water to autonomous swimmers. In this context, the spatial arrangement of the different components can be of major importance. We report here a bulk procedure based on bipolar electrochemistry that allows generating asymmetric particles with a highly controlled spatial orientation of a metal deposit on a carbon substrate. Two fundamentally different topologies of the metal deposit can be obtained as a function of controllable experimental parameters like the orientation and amplitude of the electric field as well as the viscosity of the medium.


The increment of the spatial resolution for computational Earth system models is nowadays one of the main concerns of the scientific community in order to solve more complex problems, and thus, achieve more accurate solutions to the reality. However, the new complexity requires more computing power that only cutting-edge supercomputers can provide. This requires to use sophisticated HPC techniques to efficiently use the computational resources. In addition, such high resolutions lead to generate an enormous amount of data to meticulously represent accurate solutions. Current Earth system models usually have inefficient sequential I/O schemes that used to run low grid resolutions, where the generated amount of data for the simulation results was not particularly big. However, sequential I/O schemes do not scale with current models where a lot of parallel resources are used. In order to address this issue, the most adopted approach is to use scalable parallel I/O solutions that offer both computational performance and efficiency. This document analyzes the I/O process of IFS, one of the most important atmospheric models used in Europe. IFS has two different output schemes, the MF I/O server and a sequential I/O scheme, being the latter the only available in OpenIFS. This sequential scheme is characterized by being inefficient, since all the output is made through the master process. Therefore, here it is presented an easy-to-use development that integrates an asynchronous parallel I/O server called XIOS into IFS. Moreover, different optimization techniques, such as computation and communication overlap, are applied in the integration development to minimize the I/O overhead in the resulting IFS execution. The results show that the use of XIOS in IFS to output data is certainly good. This new parallel scheme has reduced significantly the execution time of the original sequential scheme. Using the proper configuration, XIOS proves to be a scalable I/O server that keeps a low overhead regardless the amount of IFS processes and the output size. Furthermore, XIOS offers a series of benefits that shorten the critical path of IFS experiments by concurrently running the post-processing task along the IFS execution: data format conversion, online post-processing and CMIP-compliant output. In this scenario, the total execution time is greatly reduced. Technical Memorandum No. 825 1 Computational aspects and performance evaluation of the IFS-XIOS integration


Abstract. The mass accommodation coefficient of water is a quantity for which different experimental techniques have yielded conflicting values in the range 0.04-1. From the viewpoint of cloud modelling, this is an unfortunate situation, since the value of the mass accommodation coefficient affects the model results, e.g. the number concentration of activated cloud droplets. In this commentary we note that in cloud modelling, the primary quantity of interest is the droplet growth rate rather than the mass accommodation coefficient, and that experimental investigations of droplet growth rates provide more direct verification of cloud models than do measurements of the mass accommodation coefficient. Furthermore, we argue that the droplet growth rates calculated in cloud model studies are consistent with experimental results obtained so far only if a mass accommodation coefficient of unity is applied.


Reproductive technologies have an influence on the perception of the family and its structure. A particular issue is whether reproductive autonomy should include the right to influence the characteristics of the newborn. The paper investigates this question in two different aspects: first, when sex selection of the future child for social purposes is requested through reimplementation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and second, when genetic testing is used for medical purposes to avoid the birth of a child with a disease or disability. I argue that the moral values of the family, with an emphasis on unconditional love and acceptance, should prevent the use of sex selection for social purposes. As for medical purposes, I argue that the moral responsibility of the prospective parents to the future child may influence the decision of whether to undergo termination of pregnancy or destruction of fertilized eggs. Ultimately, therefore, the moral values of the family should be considered when a decision for medical purposes is made.


"Like race" analogies have been critiqued from various perspectives, and this article enters that conversation to engage those criticisms from a rhetorical perspective. In short, this article makes a case for resisting proscriptive judgments about these analogies until they have been contextualized and afforded their complexity as rhetorical figures. A rhetorical perspective of analogies engages them not as truth statements or as part of propositional logic (a monological view of communication) but instead as invitations to explore similar sets of relationships that are qualified through continued dialogue (a dialogical view of communication). Through a case study of a highly recirculated issue of the Advocate, this essay demonstrates the productive possibilities and limitations of analogical reasoning.


Abstract : Public institutions and in particular universities have a pivotal role in the process of societal transformation towards sustainability. This paper focuses on the role of scientific and technological higher education in fostering global ethics and sustainability. Assuming that both issues are controversial in theory and practice, we present a framework of global ethics and sustainability as instruments for decision-making and civic participation. The evolution of international concern for ethics and sustainability in scientific and technological higher education are explored, concluding that these important issues are still in an early stage of development. There are important barriers to achieving these goals related to whole systems thinking and perceptions about the planetary crisis and the future of humankind. Keywords: global ethic - sustainability - higher education - scientific and technological education Higher education for sustainability paradigm


The spectrum of a new compact mercury lamp with a power consumption of less than 1 W is presented. Spectrograms of the source in the range of 115–400 nm are analyzed. Along with atomic lines, the lamp spectrum contains intense ion lines of mercury. In the wavelength range of 115–230 nm, the source spectrum is formed mainly by ion lines. Tables with the relative intensities of the spectral lines are provided. The lamp is designed for calibration of spectral instruments operating in the ultraviolet region.


Objective: To define the advantages and disadvantages of CO 2 laser tonsillectomy compared with conventional method. Study design: Retrospective review. Setting: Department of Otolaryngology & Head and Neck Surgery, Apollo Hospitals Dhaka. Materials and Methods: This study included fifty two patients with tonsillectomies from October 2007 to May 2008. The patients were diagnosed with history and clinical examination. Preoperative investigations have been done for general anaesthesia. Patients were intubated with laser reinforced endotracheal tube and fire precautions were taken. Laser tonsillectomy has been avoided below 10 years in our centre. 52 patients aged 10-35 years underwent tonsillectomy in a period of 10 months. Out of them 12 patients underwent laser tonsillectomies. The data of each patient included intra-operative blood loss, operation time, postoperative pain and postoperative healing. Results: All Patients were admitted for 24 hours. Intra operative blood loss was dramatically less with the use of CO 2 laser than that of conventional method (5ml vs. 18ml). Profuse bleeding did not prolong this time especially in laser technique. The incidence of postoperative reactionary hemorrhage were not significantly different between two techniques. 2 patients suffered with secondary haemorrhage in conventional technique and in laser technique one patient had secondary haemorrhage. There was statistically significant difference in duration of operating time (15 vs. 40 min). Both methods of surgery had non-identical effect on post operative pain. Postoperative pain was less in laser technique than that of conventional technique in 7 days postoperative follow up. Leukocytic membrane formation and separation and final healing were earlier in laser technique than in conventional technique. Conclusion: CO 2 laser is a safe and acceptable method for tonsillectomy. C O2 laser tonsillectomy reduces operation time and intraoperative blood loss. Postoperative pain is less than conventional technique and healing is also earlier in laser technique. Key Words: CO 2 laser, tonsillectomy, ventilation. DOI: 10.3329/bjo.v15i1.4304 Bangladesh J of Otorhinolaryngology 2009; 15(1): 6-9


Abstract. The canopy height h of forests is a key variable which can be obtained using air- or spaceborne remote sensing techniques such as radar interferometry or LIDAR. If new allometric relationships between canopy height and the biomass stored in the vegetation can be established this would offer the possibility for a global monitoring of the above-ground carbon content on land. In the absence of adequate field data we use simulation results of a tropical rain forest growth model to propose what degree of information might be generated from canopy height and thus to enable ground-truthing of potential future satellite observations. We here analyse the correlation between canopy height in a tropical rain forest with other structural characteristics, such as above-ground life biomass (AGB) (and thus carbon content of vegetation) and leaf area index (LAI) and identify how correlation and uncertainty vary for two different spatial scales. The process-based forest growth model FORMIND2.0 was applied to simulate (a) undisturbed forest growth and (b) a wide range of possible disturbance regimes typically for local tree logging conditions for a tropical rain forest site on Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) in South-East Asia. In both undisturbed and disturbed forests AGB can be expressed as a power-law function of canopy height h (AGB = a · hb) with an r2 ~ 60% if data are analysed in a spatial resolution of 20 m × 20 m (0.04 ha, also called plot size). The correlation coefficient of the regression is becoming significant better in the disturbed forest sites (r2 = 91%) if data are analysed hectare wide. There seems to exist no functional dependency between LAI and canopy height, but there is also a linear correlation (r2 ~ 60%) between AGB and the area fraction of gaps in which the canopy is highly disturbed. A reasonable agreement of our results with observations is obtained from a comparison of the simulations with permanent sampling plot (PSP) data from the same region and with the large-scale forest inventory in Lambir. We conclude that the spaceborne remote sensing techniques such as LIDAR and radar interferometry have the potential to quantify the carbon contained in the vegetation, although this calculation contains due to the heterogeneity of the forest landscape structural uncertainties which restrict future applications to spatial averages of about one hectare in size. The uncertainties in AGB for a given canopy height are here 20–40% (95% confidence level) corresponding to a standard deviation of less than ± 10%. This uncertainty on the 1 ha-scale is much smaller than in the analysis of 0.04 ha-scale data. At this small scale (0.04 ha) AGB can only be calculated out of canopy height with an uncertainty which is at least of the magnitude of the signal itself due to the natural spatial heterogeneity of these forests.


'Provides a compelling argument for Plath's revision of the painful parts of her life--the failed marriage, her anxiety for success, and her ambivalence towards her mother. . . . The reader will feel the tension in the poetry and the life.' Choice '[Examines] Plath's twin goals of becoming a famous poet and a perfect mother. . . . This book's main points are clearly and forcefully argued: that both poems and babies require 'struggle, pain, endless labor, and . . . fears of monstrous offspring' and that, in the end, Plath ran out of the resources necessary to produce both. Often maligned as a self-indulgent confessional poet, Plath is here retrieved as a passionate theorist.'-- Library Journal Susan Van Dyne's reading of twenty-five of Sylvia Plath's Ariel poems considers three contexts: Plath's journal entries from 1957 to 1959 (especially as they reveal her conflicts over what it meant to be a middle-class wife and mother and an aspiring writer in 1950s America); the interpretive strategies of feminist theory; and Plath's multiple revisions of the poems.


We study the edge physics of the deconfined quantum phase transition
(DQCP) between a spontaneous quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator and a
spin-singlet superconductor (SC). Although the bulk of this transition
is in the same universality class as the paradigmatic deconfined Neel to
valence-bond-solid transition, the boundary physics has a richer
structure due to proximity to a quantum spin Hall state. We use the
parton trick to write down an effective field theory for the QSH-SC
transition in the presence of a boundary. We calculate various edge
properties in an N\to\inftyN→∞
limit. We show that the boundary Luttinger liquid in the QSH state
survives at the phase transition, but only as ``fractional'' degrees of
freedom that carry charge but not spin. The physical fermion remains
gapless on the edge at the critical point, with a universal jump in the fermion scaling
dimension as the system approaches the transition from the QSH side. The
critical point could be viewed as a gapless analogue of the quantum spin Hall
state but with the full SU(2)SU(2)
spin rotation symmetry, which cannot be realized if the bulk is
gapped.