The evolution of 5G mobile networks is expected to be comprised of small cell deployments within spitting distance of existing macrocell infrastructures. The small cells adoption, which promises to offer an economical solution for improved coverage and data rate, appears to be the key factor at improving network cooperation and system performance. In this paper, we evaluate the User-Centric model for 5G networks, targeted at improving communication between user terminal and Base Stations across all layers. We suggest a cost-effective, resource-aware method for improved mobile outdoor coverage and overall network capacity while fully respecting the user's Quality of Service, by decoupling the overall network into downlink and uplink networks. The proposed algorithm determines how the network users in both networks will efficiently connect to a Base Station. The network performances are evaluated in terms of data rates enhancements, association outcome and preservation of the Quality of Service for each user. Our low-complexity algorigthm ultimately manages to serve the vast majority of the users placed inside an ultra-dense network and achieve perfect preservation of Quality of Service, regardless of the number of active users.


Abstract In this study, two different methods were used to produce thermally modified wood. One was carried out in a typical kiln drying chamber using superheated steam (SS) and the other used pressurized steam in an autoclave cylinder (PS). Overall, both processes followed the same principles and the wood was not treated with any chemicals. Two wood species were studied, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Norway spruce (Picea abies). Treatments in the autoclave were carried out under pressure using temperatures of 160°C, 170°C and 180°C. Temperatures of 190°C and 212°C were used in treatments in the chamber at normal air pressure. The colour was measured using L*C*H colour space. Results for both species showed that similar L* (lightness) can be reached at lower (20–30°C) temperatures using PS compared with SS treatment. The hue angle of PS-treated wood was smaller than that of SS-treated wood. No significant difference in C* (chroma) was detected. The difference in E value between PS- and SS-treated wood was smaller for Norway spruce than for Scots pine. The residual moisture content was about 10% higher in wood treated by the PS process compared with the SS process.


Recent advances in data-to-text generation have led to the use of large-scale datasets and neural network models which are trained end-to-end, without explicitly modeling what to say and in what order. In this work, we present a neural network architecture which incorporates content selection and planning without sacrificing end-to-end training. We decompose the generation task into two stages. Given a corpus of data records (paired with descriptive documents), we first generate a content plan highlighting which information should be mentioned and in which order and then generate the document while taking the content plan into account. Automatic and human-based evaluation experiments show that our model1 outperforms strong baselines improving the state-of-the-art on the recently released RotoWIRE dataset.


Recent studies indicate a link between carbohydrate intake and the functional state of the sympathetic nervous system. Fasting or carbohydrate restriction decreases sympathetic activity, while glucose ingestion or dietary supplementation with sucrose increases sympathetic nerve activity. To examine the potential contributions of hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia to sympathetic stimulation, sympathetic activity was assessed by measurement of plasma norepinephrine (NE) levels and concomitant cardiovascular indices in nonobese young men during glucose and insulin infusions using glucose clamp techniques. In the insulin infusion studies (euglycemic glucose clamp), insulin was administered at 2 mU/kg/min and 5 mU/kg/min for 2 h while blood glucose was maintained at basal levels by a variable rate of glucose infusion. In the hyperglycemic studies, blood glucose was raised 125 mg/dl above basal and maintained at that level for 2h. In response to both insulin infusions, plasma NE rose progressively over the course of the study, increasing 50% with the 2-mU infusion (from mean basal value of 240 ± 34 pg/ml to 360 ± 41 at 150 min, P < 0.001 for changes over time by analysis of variance) and 117% with the 5-mil infusion (from 254 ± 20 pg/ml to 551 ± 88 at 150 min, P < 0.001). The plasma NE response was greater with the 5-mll than with the 2-mU insulin infusion (P < 0.001), and similarly, was greater during the 2-mU insulin infusion than during a control test in which neither insulin nor glucose was infused (P < 0.001). Associated with the elevations in plasma NE In the 2-mU insulin infusion were increases in pulse rate (P < 0.05), pulse pressure (P < 0.005), and pulse rate - systolic blood pressure product (P < 0.01), and during the 5-mU insulin infusions there were increases in pulse pressure (P < 0.001), mean arterial blood pressure (P < 0.001), and pulse rate - systolic blood pressure product (P < 0.001). Plasma NE did not change during the hyperglycemic glucose clamp nor during control tests, and pulse pressure in the hyperglycemic studies (P < 0.005) was the only cardiovascular measurement increased by these two infusion protocols. The clearance of NE in three subjects was unaffected by the 2-mU insulin infusion. Thus, insulin infusion increases sympathetic nervous system activity in the absence of changes in blood glucose.


The strong association between income and mortality raises the question whether more generous social security systems could improve poor people's health outcomes. Thus, in this paper, I analyze whether a major social security innovation, the introduction of social pensions targeted at poor elderly people in the late 19th-early 20th century, has reduced mortality rates of senior citizens. Therefore, I use a cross-country dataset spanning from 1870 to 1939 consisting of 13 countries of which 9 eventually implemented social pensions before World War II. Applying a difference-in-difference-in-difference as well as a regression discontinuity design, I find no evidence for a decline in elderly mortality due to the introduction of social pensions. Based on aggregate census data, I argue that social pensions have reduced elderly labor supply. The reduction is much smaller than social pension recipiency rates, though. These findings suggest that social pensions have raised elderly incomes which, however, did not translate into lower mortality.


We report the catalytic performance of Au-Pd nanoparticles prepared via a sol immobilisation technique for the catalytic hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde under mild reaction conditions. We synthesised a series of bimetallic Au-Pd colloidal supported nanoparticles with different Au:Pd molar ratios and optimized the experimental parameters to achieve best catalyst performance. The optimum catalytic activity for the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde was observed for the Au50Pd50/TiO2 (Au:Pd 1:1 molar ratio), while the monometallic Pd/TiO2 was the most selective towards hydrocinnamaldehyde. The catalysts have been structurally characterised and FTIR analysis showed that the presence of adsorbed carbonyl surface species in used catalyst materials coupled with Pd leaching, which is the main reason for catalyst deactivation. The effect of calcination on the most active Au-Pd/TiO2 was studied in the range 110-400 °C and we observed a direct correlation between the rise in calcination temperature and catalyst stability and selectivity. These results emphasise the importance of tuning the Au-Pd molar ratio and understanding the metal-support interaction of catalysts synthesised for hydrogenation reactions, such as cinnamaldehyde hydrogenation.


AbstractObjective: To estimate the effectiveness of oral nutritional support compared to placebo or usual care in improving clinical outcome in older (65 years+) medical and surgical patients after discharge from hospital. Outcome goals were: re-admissions, survival, nutritional and functional status, quality of life and morbidity. Data sources: Three recent Cochrane reviews and an update of their literature search using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science. Search terms included randomized controlled trials; humans; age 65+ years; subset: dietary supplements. Review methods: One reviewer assessed trials for inclusion, extracted data and assessed trial quality. Results: Six trials were included ( N = 716 randomly assigned participants). All trials used oral nutritional supplements. A positive effect on nutritional intake (energy) and/or nutritional status (weight) (in compliant participants) were observed in all trials. Two pooled analysis was based on a fixed-effects model. No significant effect were found on mortality (four randomized controlled trials with 532 participants, odds ratio 0.80 (95% confidence (CI) interval 0.46 to 1.39)) or re-admissions (four randomized controlled trials with 478 participants, odds ratio 1.07 (95% CI 0.71 to 1.61)).


The publication of the proceedings of the International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology (ISBSA) is always an event eagerly awaited. This symposium is in fact the only international event in the field of boat and ship archaeology, and every three years provides a review of the discipline, the state of research and new discoveries. The proceedings of the 12th symposium edited by Nergis Günsenin are no exception and bring together, in addition to the keynote address, 47 papers from 21 different countries belonging, albeit unevenly, to the five continents, and so reflect the gradual expansion of the increasingly international discipline. Held in Istanbul under the highly symbolic title Between Continents the ISBSA 12 publication acknowledges the very first scientific underwater excavations in nautical archaeology that took place in Turkey at Cape Gelidonya and Yassıada as G. F. Bass recalled in his opening address, and the latest exceptional discoveries of the Yenikapı wrecks in Istanbul's Byzantine port. An entire section of the work is devoted to the latter discoveries. The duality implied in the title illustrates a major development in the discipline: the increasingly important role of wreck excavations on land, often as rescue operations, today stands alongside underwater excavations (recoveries and research). Indeed, from the ancient Greek wrecks of Place Jules-Verne in Marseille to the Byzantine wrecks of Yenikapı in Istanbul, land excavations have in recent years brought major contributions to nautical archaeology. This reflects the maturity of the discipline and better standing of ship archaeology which is no longer confined to the single field of activity of underwater archaeology. The Proceedings are divided into eight sections. The first includes papers concerning current research in the Mediterranean: from an underwater survey of the maritime heritage on the coast of Kaş (G. and A. Varinlioğlu Denel) to the study of modern wrecks such as the 16th-century wreck of the island of Mljet in Croatia (I. Mihajlović, I. Miholjek and M. Pešić) and that of Akko I in Israel (D. Cvikel). The concept of 'Mediterranean' is taken here in a broad sense as one of the papers concerns the Red Sea and the remains of Pharaonic ships (c.2000 BC) from Ayn Sukhna (P. Pomey). Discussion of vessels of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age is dominant in this section and several discoveries are of great interest for the early history of ship architecture. Besides the ship remains from Ayn Sukhna, which illuminate our knowledge of the construction of seagoing vessels and the organization of maritime expeditions to Sinai at the time of the Middle Kingdom, there is a report of the discovery, still on land, at Mitrou in Greece, of a boat dated c.1900 BC derived from an expanded logboat (A. van de Moortel). The hope is that the excavation of the Phoenician shipwreck from the end of the 7th century BC at Bajo de la Campana, Spain (M. E. Polzer) can provide new data on Phoenician ship construction that remains little known despite its considerable importance. If the analysis of the hull remains of the Kızılburun 'column wreck' (J. D. Littlefield) shows no fundamental difference from the construction of other merchant ships from the same time (late 1st c. BC), the study of the wreck Tantura E, Israel, dated between the 7th and 9th century AD (E. Israeli, Y. Kahanov), reconfirms the importance of the Dor site in the study of naval architecture at the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Byzantine period, having a construction based on frames in the local early Islamic period. The second section deals with new research in Northern Europe. It opens with the study of the Skaftö wreck, Sweden, corresponding to a large clinker-built cargo vessel of the 15th century, relatively well preserved, which could be a late medieval 'hulk' (S. von Arbin) and the impressive discovery of 15 Nordic clinker-built boats from the 16th and 17th centuries in the city centre of Oslo, Norway (J. Gundersen). The rescue operation, dubbed 'Barcode', once again confirms the exceptional richness of naval archaeology on land. On the other hand, the rediscovery of the Swedish Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia in the Baltic Sea near Kiel, Germany (J. Auer, M. Segscheider) and the investigation of the wreck-site of the 18th-century Russian warship St. Alexander near the Tarkhankutski lighthouse in Ukraine's Crimea (O. A. Zolotarev, V. D. Kobets) appear more conventional; as does the serious task of identifying the 18th-century shipwreck W-27, located off Gdansk, Poland, based on archival sources which indicate a kuff or galliot-type vessel. The third section is entirely devoted, quite rightly, to the Byzantine ships at Yenikapı, Istanbul. After Nergis Güsenin's historical recall of the city harbours from Antiquity through Medieval times, there is an overall bs_bs_banner


With the objective of evaluating sources and levels of organic matter on the production of snap-bean seeds, cv. Macarrao Trepador, there was set up an experiment in the Federal University of Paraiba, Brasil, from April to September/1998. The experimental design was of randomized blocks, in the factorial scheme 4 x 5, testing four sources of organic matter (cattle, goat and chicken manure and earthworm humus) in five levels (0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 t/ha of cattle and goat manure and 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 t/ha of earthworm humus), in four replications. The maximum production of seeds was obtained with the levels of 27,66 t/ha of cattle manure (3,555.10 kg), 20.85 t/ha of goat manure (3,259.56 kg) and 9.87 t/ha of chicken manure (2,919.00 kg/ha) and earthworm compost (3,270 kg/ha). The most economic level of cattle manure was of 25.57 t/ha, with a revenue of 1,442.55 kg of seeds/ha (R$ 4,616.16), 19.11 t/ha of goat manure with a revenue of 1,164 kg of seeds/ha (R$ 3,724.80) and 5.17 t/ha of chicken manure with a revenue of 177.86 kg of seeds/ha (R$ 569.15). Under the point of view of seeds production, the application of earthworm compost propitiated productions above the national average, but its use in the production of snap-bean seeds is not economically viable. The economical analysis indicated the cattle manure as the most viable fertilization source to produce snap-bean seeds.


"SPEAKING OUT OF THE DUST": RELIGIOUS REENACTMENTS WITH THE SPECIFIC ICONIC IDENTITY OF PLACE Heidi D. Lewis Department of Theatre and Media Arts Master of Arts Sometimes, the place where a play is performed is as important as or more important than the play itself. The first known theatrical rituals were performed in spaces which came to hold deep religious significance. Many religious traditions regard certain places as sacred because of spiritually significant events which took place there, sometimes involving the presence of Deity. In an effort to build on that sacrality, sometimes religious cultures bring theatre to these spaces, which, in turn, tend to alter the nature of the theatrical event. This seems especially true in regards to theatre which presents a re-enactment of the events which originally sacralized the performance space. Creating a theatrical performance at the same space, and recreating the same event which made the space sacred in the first place, gives the theatrical event a reflexive quality which performances in a space designated for theatre do not have. The Passion of Osiris in Ancient Egypt and the celebrations and commemorations of the early Christian Church are two examples of theatrical reenactments of sacred events in sacred spaces. Although such performances have been uncommon since those of the early Christians, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offers two comparable performances today (the Hill Cumorah Pageant and the Nauvoo Pageant); they are also reenactments of sacred events framed by the sacred spaces where they originally occurred. The main commonality of my focus is the sacred physical space which frames each of the performances as a sort of ethereal proscenium arch or a silent witness of sacred events.


Conference Name:3rd International Symposium on Advanced Optical Manufacturing and Testing Technologies. Conference Address: Chengdu, PEOPLES R CHINA. Time:JUL 08-12, 2007.


This article summarizes proposals by the staff of the Board of Governors for redefining the monetary aggregates that were presented in the January 1979 Federal Reserve Bulletin. The proposals raise important issues regarding the payments system, the evolving role of depositary institutions, and the basis on which the public chooses to hold various financial assets. To aid in further consideration of these proposals, comments are invited from the public. Please address comments to Office of the Staff Director for Monetary and Financial Policy, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D.C. 20551.


This article presents a sampling of the ways in which $236.5 billion could have been spent if that money was not dedicated to the war in Iraq. The identification of specific alternatives may provoke further discussion as to how the United States has been spending, and how it should spend, its tax dollars. Thus the first goal of the article is to initiate an informed discussion about domestic policy and spending. Additionally, recognition of what the United States could have accomplished with $236.5 billion dollars may prompt non-governmental organizations, political parties, independent media, courts and citizens to question the United States government's reasons for the invasion of Iraq. If those groups find the justifications wanting, then their reactions to the cost of the war may give them sufficient motivation to act and hold their government accountable to international law. In other words, if one accepts an integrated theory of international law (which is explained in the article), and if one concludes that the invasion of Iraq was a violation of international law, then the collateral consequences for the United States government may force the United States to reconsider its unwillingness to obey international law. The article is topical and it addresses issues that should concern all Americans. The second goal of the article, which is to inspire the types of collateral consequences that may strengthen international law, relies upon an integrated theory of international law.


The current geological age is viewed as the period during which human activity has become the dominant influence on climate and the environment – the Anthropocene (Cristofaro et al, 2018). A defining feature of the Anthropocene is surely the large scale impacts associated with the rise and spread of the city. In 2016, there were 31 megacities globally and their number is projected to rise to 41 by 2030. (United Nations, 2014). The impact of such concentrated living is exerting extraordinary tolls on the very life support systems that sustain these centres of human population.
As we evaluate the success or otherwise of city living, through a review of transition techniques and technologies, human society may be faced with the momentous conclusion that city living is forcing collapse of the planets life support systems.
We have experimented for millennia; the next radical experiment might require making our cities small, green and self-sustaining. Now there's a novel idea. An idea that evokes City System Transformation - a renewal process with a 'One Planet' impact.
It is the extent to which we adopt City System Transformation that will determine whether the city leaves a mark in the Anthropocene that is only a smudge of pollution and a line of dust, or a vibrant social and economic hub of ideas and innovation that provides healthy and sustainable lives for all.


The dominant view of banks and other financial institutions is that they function primarily as intermediaries, managing flows of scarce funds from those who have accumulated them to those who have need of them and can pay for their use. This understanding pervades textbooks, scholarly writings, and policy discussions – yet it is fundamentally false as a description of how a modern financial system works. Finance today is no more primarily "intermediated" than it is pre-accumulated or scarce. This Article challenges the outdated narrative of finance as intermediated scarce private capital and maps the basic structure and dynamics of the financial system as it actually operates. We begin by developing a three-part taxonomy of ways to model financial flows – what we call the "credit-intermediation," "credit-multiplication," and "credit-generation" models of finance. We show that only the last model captures the core dynamic of a complex modern financial system, and that the ultimate source of credit-generation in any such system is the sovereign public, acting primarily through its central bank and treasury. We then trace the operation of this dynamic throughout the financial system, from the banking sector, through the capital and "shadow banking" markets, all the way out to the "disruptive" frontier of peer-to-peer digital finance.What emerges from this retracing of the financial system's operative logic is a comprehensive view of modern finance as a public-private franchise arrangement. On this view, the sovereign public acts effectively as franchisor, licensing private financial institutions to earn rents as franchisees in dispensing a vital public resource: the public's monetized full faith and credit. We conclude the Article by drawing out some of the potentially transformative analytic and normative implications of a paradigmatic shift from the orthodox theory of financial intermediation to the franchise view of finance.


In the summer that saw the first successful flight of the Zeppelin, a 140 acre site of scrubland in West London was transformed into the White City, which housed the 1908 Franco British Exhibition - and a state-of-the-art stadium built to house the first London Olympics. The Olympics were organised by volunteers in just 18 months and at a fraction of the cost of the modern Olympics and yet, just as today, the sport was overshadowed by doping scandals and caused international uproar. The ferocious competitiveness of a US team dominated by New York Irish Americans led to a succession of 'scandals' culminating in the historic marathon when Italian confectioner baker Dorando Pietri's heroic efforts at the limits of exhaustion so entranced on-lookers that track officials helped him across the finish line. Coinciding with the 100th Anniversary of the first London Olympics, this delightful social and sporting history - illustrated with over 70 contemporary images - provides a thought-provoking contrast to the forthcoming 2012 Olympic Games.


Significant deposits of heavy mineral sands (primarily ilmenite and zircon) are located in Virginia in Dinwiddie, Sussex and Greensville counties. Most deposits are located under prime farmland, and thus require intensive reclamation when mined. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of four different mine soil reconstruction methods on soil properties and associated rowcrop productivity. Treatments compared were 1) Biosolids-No Tillage, 2) Biosolids-Conventional Tillage, 3) Lime+NPK fertilized tailings (Control), and 4) 15-cm Topsoil+lime+NPK over lime+P treated tailings. Treated plots were cropped to corn (Zea mays L.) in 2005 and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in 2006. Yields were compared to nearby unmined prime farmland yields. Over both growing seasons, the two biosolids treatments produced the highest overall crop yields. The Topsoil treatment produced the lowest corn yields due to relatively poor physical and chemical conditions, but the effect was less obvious for the following wheat crop. Reclaimed land corn and wheat yields were higher than long-term county averages, but they were consistently lower than unmined plots under identical management. Detailed morphological study of 20 mine soil pedons revealed significant root-limiting subsoil compaction and textural stratification. The mine soils classified as Typic Udorthents (11), Typic Udifluvents (4) and Typic Dystrudepts (5). Overall, these mined lands can be successfully returned to intensive agricultural production with comparable yields to long-term county averages provided extensive soil amendment and remedial tillage protocols are implemented. However, a significant decrease (~25 to 35%) in initial productivity should be expected relative to unmined prime farmland.


The changing political and economic relationships between Mexico and the United States, and the concurrent U.S. debate over immigration policy and practice, demand new data on migration and its economic effects. In this innovative study, Richard C. Jones analyzes migration patterns from two subregions of north-central Mexico, Coahuila and Zacatecas, to the United States. He analyzes and contrasts the characteristics of the two migrant populations and interprets the economic impacts of migration upon both home of migration upon both home areas. Jones's findings refute some common assumptions about Mexican migration while providing a strong model for further research. Jones's study focuses on the ways in which U.S. migration affects the lives of families in these two subregions. Migrants from Zacatecas have traditionally come from rural areas and have gone to California and Illinois. Migrants from Coahuila, on the other hand, usually come from urban areas and have almost exclusively preferred locations in nearby Texas. The different motivations of both groups for migrating, and the different economic and social effects upon their home areas realized by migrating, form the core of this book. The comparison also lends the book its uniqueness, since no other study has made such an in-depth comparison of two areas. Jones addresses the basic dichotomy of structuralists (who maintain that dependency and disinvestment are the rule for families and communities in sending areas) and functionalists (who believe that autonomy and reinvestment are the case of migrants and their families in home regions). Jones finds that much of the primary literature is based on uneven and largely outdated data that leans heavily on two sending states, Jalisco and Michoacan. His fresh analysis shows that communities and regions of Mexico, rather than families only, account for differing migration patterns and differing social and economic results of these patterns. Jones's study will be of value not only to scholars and practitioners working in the field of Mexican migration, but also, for its innovative methodology, to anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and historians whose interests include human migration patterns in any part of the world


Il contributo, sottoposto a valutazione, riproduce il testo nella versione integrale, completa delle note e in lingua italiana, della Comunicazione presentata al Convegno su " Islam in Europe through the Balkan Prism "  ( 24-26 October 2013, Sarajevo). Titolo della versione inglese, destinata alla pubblicazione negli Atti, " Plural Islam in Albania: patterns of relationship with the state and religious peace". SOMMARIO: 1. Dall'Impero ottomano all'Albania indipendente 2. Le caratteristiche endogene dell'ordinamento albanese e le sue specificita - 3. Il "colonialismo giuridico" dell'Occidente e il rispetto dell'autonomia degli ordinamenti - 4. La rivisitazione delle relazioni tra Stato e Comunita religiose - 5. Estendere l'esperienza albanese agli altri Stati balcanici o quella dei Balcani all'Albania? Abstract    The protection of individual and collective freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, the regulation of state relations with religious communities in Albania, have found a solution in peculiar legal rules and traditions that in the history of the Albanian people have guaranteed the religious peace. Of great significance was the Albanian legal system resistance to accept the advice of the Venice Commission, Council of Europe and the EU that would rather prefer and have sought to impose the adoption of a single political-legal model for the Balkans, focused on a general law for the protection of religious freedom. Albanian model dates back to 1923, recognizes the cultural and religious pluralism of society and the opportunity for all religious communities to obtain civil legal personality, now allows cooperation agreements with the various religious communities. The rules put as guarantees of religious freedom those of the general law without any recourse to special rules. What happened was possible because of the plural nature of Balkan Islam which has allowed mutual respect and tolerance, and thanks to the secular and separatist nature of the Albanian state since its origins. State law likewise religious rules, determined by the Statutes that communities have been given themselves and their progressive transformation have played a role in education for coexistence which has allowed, in contrast to what happened in many Balkan countries, religious peace. The smaller denominations and cults have found, and find now, legal protection, and at present are five the creeds that have concluded agreements with the state and others may do so in the future. The success of the Albanian model warns against standardization policies, substantially octroye, supported by international bodies end one size fits all legal model/pattern.


The movements of some long-distance migrants are driven by innate compass headings that they follow on their first migrations (e.g., some birds and insects), while the movements of other first-time migrants are learned by following more experienced conspecifics (e.g., baleen whales). However, the overall roles of innate, learned, and social behaviors in driving migration goals in many taxa are poorly understood. To look for evidence of whether migration routes are innate or learned for sea turtles, here for 42 sites around the world we compare the migration routes of >400 satellite-tracked adults of multiple species of sea turtle with ∼45 000 Lagrangian hatchling turtle drift scenarios. In so doing, we show that the migration routes of adult turtles are strongly related to hatchling drift patterns, implying that adult migration goals are learned through their past experiences dispersing with ocean currents. The diverse migration destinations of adults consistently reflected the diversity in sites they would have encountered as drifting hatchlings. Our findings reveal how a simple mechanism, juvenile passive drift, can explain the ontogeny of some of the longest migrations in the animal kingdom and ensure that adults find suitable foraging sites.
Read More: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/13-2164.1


Outdoor Education leaders should possess various competencies from the three main skills agreed by professionals and researchers in the field, namely; hard skills, soft skills and conceptual skills. This study aims to evaluate students' evaluation on the instructors' competencies in the teaching and learning process of the Outdoor Education Program at the Malaysian Teacher Education Institutes. Based on Miller's study (2002), five competencies from the three main skills are being evaluated, that is; Leadership skills, Technical skills, Risk Management skills, First Aids and Emergency skills, and Environmental skills. The Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) model of evaluation (Martilla & James, 1977), is adopted in this study. Based on this model, respondents are required to evaluate the level of importance of each attribute of the competencies and the performance of the instructors based on the same competencies. The IPA model is used to combine the mean score of importance and performance evaluation to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the instructors in the teaching and learning process. The population of this study consists of 364 trainees from eight Teacher Education Institutes all over Malaysia. The instrument, in the form of a questionnaire is adapted and developed by the researcher based on studies from Attarian (1995), Buell (1983), Miller (2002), and Priest and Gass (1997). The range of the Cronbach Alfa reliability index from all the 89 attributes of the five competencies are from 0.80 to 0.98. The data are analysed using the SPSS-Windows version 11.5. Descriptive statistics in the form of percentage, mean and standard deviation are used to answer research questions one to ten, and inferential statistics of MANCOVA is used to answer research questions 11 and 12.
The findings show that 74 (84.1%) attributes of the Outdoor Education competencies are perceived by the respondents as strengths in the teaching and learning process. Only 15 (15.9%) out of 89 attributes are perceived by the respondents to be the weaknesses of the teaching and learning process of the Outdoor Education Program.
The findings also reveal that respondents' prior experiences and involvement in the Outdoor Education Program do have an influence on the evaluation of the instructors' performance in the teaching and learning process. However, gender and educational background do not have any influence on the evaluation of the importance and performance of each attribute of the competencies. Thus, this study recommend that the Outdoor Education Program in Teacher Education Institutes should be continued because the strengths outweigh the weaknesses in the teaching and learning process. This study also suggests that the quality of the instructors and the levels of competencies can be improved through in-house training and professional development.


Abstract Tosudite, a regularly interstratified chlorite-smectite, crystallizes as an alteration mineral of several preexisting Al-bearing silicates (feldspars, kaolin minerals, chlorites) present in arkosic sandstones hosted in uranium deposits in Niger. X-ray diffraction patterns show a sharp superstructure at 29-29.6 Å for an air-dried state and a peak at 30.8-31.6 Å following ethylene glycol solvation. The 060 reflection at 1.507-1.509 Å indicates an overall dioctahedral character, and the very low coefficient of variation of the d00l reflections for the solvated mineral (0.03-0.13) permits validation of the regular interstratification justifying its identification as tosudite. Microprobe analysis allowed specification of the component layers of this mixed-layer mineral. The chlorite is a di-trioctahedral type analogous to sudoite (Si3Al4Mg2(OH)8), and the smectite component is a low-charge montmorillonite type (Si4Al1.67Mg0.33M+0.33(OH)4). Tosudite is characterized by large Al2O3 and MgO contents and small Fe content; its composition corresponds approximately to the formula ((Si7Al)O20(Al4.5Mg2.3Fe3+0.2)M+0.3(OH)10), where octahedral occupancy is ∼7. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations show that tosudite is closely associated with some uranium minerals: tosudite crystallization occurred during a late alteration event which post-dates burial diagenesis and during which uranium was remobilized by Mg-rich oxidizing fluids.


Intracellular signaling events that regulate chemotaxis are thought to be restricted to the edge of the cell that faces the highest concentration of attractant. However, a chemotactic Dictyostelium amoeba displays a constant and uniform surface distribution of its chemotactic receptors. Ueda et al. have used single-molecule imaging on live Dictyostelium cells to determine that the ligand binding kinetics of chemotactic receptors at the leading edge is different from other locations on the cell surface. Thus, the mechanism for directional sensing relies on differences in the signaling state of the receptors. M. Ueda, Y. Sako, T. Tanaka, P. Devreotes, T. Yanagida , Single-molecule analysis of chemotactic signaling in Dictyostelium cells. Science 294, 864-867 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


A comprehensive treatment of Shakespeare's plays in clear prose, The Practical Shakespeare: The Plays in Practice and on the Page illuminates for a general audience how and why the plays work so well.Noting in detail the practical and physical limitations the Bard faced as he worked out the logistics of his plays, Colin Butler demonstrates how Shakespeare incorporated and exploited those limitations to his advantage: his management of entrances and exits; his characterization technique; his handling of scenes off stage; his control of audience responses; his organization of major scenes; and his use of prologues and choruses. A different aspect of the plays is covered in each chapter?and all chapters are free-standing, for separate consultation. For easy access, chapters also are subdivided, and each part has its own heading. Butler draws most of his examples from mainstream plays, such as Macbeth, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing. He brings special focus to A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is treated as one of Shakespeare's most important plays. Butler supports his major points with quotations, so readers can understand an issue even if they are unfamiliar with the particular play being discussed. The author also cross-references dramatic devices among plays, increasing enjoyment and understanding of Shakespeare's achievements.Clear, jargon-free, easy-to-use, and comprehensive, The Practical Shakespeare looks to the elements of stagecraft and playwriting as a conduit for students, teachers, and general audiences to engage with, understand, and appreciate the genius of Shakespeare. Colin Butler, previously the head of an English department at a British grammar school, lives inCanterbury, England, where he writes on literary subjects.


Spiking astrocyte-neuron networks (ANNs) have the potential to emulate the self-repair capability in the mammalian brain. Recent research has explored the mimicking of this capability in hardware with the aim to make electronic circuits autonomous with self-detection and repair. The provision of hardware architectures and interconnectivity between the massive numbers of spiking neurons and astrocytes is a significant research challenge, as the neuron and astrocyte networks have different communication patterns. In particular they have large volumes of information exchanges. This paper presents a novel interconnected architecture for ANN hardware systems based on the hierarchical astrocyte network architecture (HANA). HANA supports the information exchanges between astrocyte cells and addresses the interconnection challenge by providing a novel hierarchical networks-on-chip (NoC) structure of neurons and astrocytes cells. The proposed HANA incorporates a priority scheduling mechanism to increase the information exchange rate for global astrocyte cells, thus reducing the global communication latency and providing a balance between the local and global astrocyte network traffic. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed HANA architecture can provide efficient information exchange rates for ANN, while the hardware synthesis results demonstrates that it has a low area utilization and power consumption which supports scalability.


Immigration and the Neighborhood What impact does immigration have on neighborhood dynamics? Within metropolitan areas, we find that housing values have grown relatively more slowly in neighborhoods of immigrant settlement. We propose three nonexclusive explanations: changes in housing quality, reverse causality, or the hypothesis that natives find immigrant neighbors relatively less attractive (native flight). To instrument for the actual number of new immigrants, we deploy a geographic diffusion model that predicts the number of new immigrants in a neighborhood using lagged densities of the foreign-born in surrounding neighborhoods. Subject to the validity of our instruments, the evidence is consistent with a causal interpretation of an impact from growing immigration density to native flight and relatively slower housing price appreciation. Further evidence indicates that these results may be driven more by the demand for residential segregation based on race and education than by foreignness per se. JEL Classification: J61, R23, R31


We present a definition in Prolog of a new purely functional (applicative) language HASL ({\em HA}rvey''s {\em S}tatic {\em L}anguage). HASL is a descendant of Turner''s SASL and differs from the latter in several significant points: it includes Abramson''s unification based conditional binding constructs; it restricts each clause in a definition of a HASL function to have the same arity, thereby complicating somewhat the compilation of clauses to combinators, but simplifying considerably the HASL reduction machine; and it includes the single element domain \{fail\} as a component of the domain of HASL data structures. It is intended to use HASL to express the functional dependencies in a translator writing system based on denotational semantics, and to study the feasibility of using HASL as a functional sublanguage of Prolog or some other logic programming language. Regarding this latter application we suggest that since a reduction mechanism exists for HASL, it may be easier to combine it with a logic programming language than it was for Robinson and Siebert to combine LISP and LOGIC into LOGLISP: in that case a fairly complex mechanism had to be invented to reduce uninterpreted LOGIC terms to LISP values. .br The defnition is divided into four parts. The first part defines the lexical structure of the language by means of a simple Definite Clause Grammar which relates character strings to ``token'''' strings. The second part defines the syntactic structure of the language by means of a more complex Definite Clause Grammar and relates token strings to a parse tree. The third part is semantic in nature and translates the parse tree definitions and expressions to a variable-tree string of combinators and global names The fourth part of the definition consists of a set of Prolog predicates which specifies how strings of combinators and global names are reduced to ``values'''', ie., integers, truth values, characters, lists, functions fail, and has an operational flavour: one can think of this fourth part as the definition of a normal order reduction machine.


Widespread glaciations in the period 2.42–2.22 Ga have led to the suggestion of a Paleoproterozoic "snowball Earth," yet this hypothesis has been difficult to substantiate. Here, we report the discovery of two Paleoproterozoic glacio-eustatic cycles from a predominantly marine succession in Western Australia, where previously only one had been recorded. Sedimentary facies characteristics reveal that each cycle sharply commenced with a falling stage systems tract and terminated with a transgressive systems tract, consistent with drawdown and subsequent release of large volumes of seawater from, and into, waxing and waning ice sheets, respectively. This discovery provides support for the widespread nature of Paleoproterozoic glaciations and a major climatic change accompanying the rise in atmospheric oxygen.


The paper discusses United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution 2240 (2015). The Resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and authorises for a certain period of time UN member states to inspect and seize vessels on the high seas off the coast of Libya when they reasonably suspect that these are being used for migrant smuggling or human trafficking. The paper sees in resolution 2240 an example of how the UN Security Council may empower states to take action against transnational social phenomena that raise serious concerns from the perspective of human rights – regarding especially the right to life. The idea that transpires from this resolution is that transnational phenomena, such as smuggling of migrants and human trafficking, require (coordinated, as the study argues) action by all involved states and, more generally, international actors (although the focus in the study is on states). Because of their transnational nature, such situations involve a plurality of duty bearers, each one of which is partially connected to the situation and has an obligation to be pro-actively engaged – to the extent that its individual connection with the situation at issue justifies and requires it. This leads to a situation of multiple duty bearers who exercise parallel and, possibly, also overlapping jurisdiction as a means to fulfill their duties under international law – especially regarding the so-called positive dimension of human rights, i.e. the duty to protect. This implies that concurrent state responsibility (in the sense of liability) may arise, if more than one of these duty bearers break their duties. With its resolution, the UNSC contributes to the idea of shared responsibility by multiple states to react against transnational social phenomena that raise concerns from the perspective of human rights and human security. Because human trafficking and smuggling raise issues of human security, the idea of multiple duty bearers and concurrent state responsibility advanced in the study can be associated with the UN human security policy framework. The paper argues that this framework ought to be attuned to fully meet the particular needs, nature and features of transnational phenomena, such as trafficking and smuggling, that threaten the security and well-being of people. For human security to be successful in its goals, it needs to be adjusted to the transnational nature of these phenomena. What is required when a situation necessitating protection exceeds or transcends the borders of a state, is establishing frameworks of cooperation and coordination between the various involved parties. This is an essential precondition for human security to deliver effective results and prosper in the era of inter-connection and globalisation.


In Belgium unemployment insurance benefits can only exhaust for one category of workers: partners of workers with (replacement) labour income (mostly women) may loose their entitlement after an unemployment duration ranging from two to eight years, depending on individual characteristics. We contrast three propensity score matching estimators of the impact of benefit exhaustion on the probability of employment : a standard, a before-after and an IV matching estimator. We conclude that benefit expiration is anticipated as from the moment at which the worker is notified, three months in advance, and that it gradually increases the employment rate up to 25 percentage points 14 months after benefit withdrawal.


Healthcare inequality is ubiquitous globally, but the effects are most striking in low-resource settings. In these settings, current methods for the design of medical devices are failing to address specific needs. The associated publications rarely describe how the context was studied at the front-end of design. There is a latent need for a holistic contextual framework for guiding the design decision-making process for devices in these complex contexts. We present results from a systematic literature review and expert interviews that informed the development of a framework for contextualized design for low-resource settings. The contextual factors identified are described and compared for different types of medical devices. This taxonomical framework aims to guide designers towards gaining a better understanding of the context of use when designing products for global challenges in low-resource settings.


The term "smart contracts" has become ubiquitous to describe an enormous number of programs uploaded to the popular Ethereum blockchain system. Despite rapid growth of the smart contract ecosystem, errors and exploitations have been constantly reported from online contract systems, which has put financial stability at risk with losses totaling millions of US dollars. Most existing research focuses on pinpointing specific types of vulnerabilities using known patterns. However, due to the lack of awareness of the inherent nondeterminism in the Ethereum blockchain system and how it affects the funds transfer of smart contracts, there can be unknown vulnerabilities that may be exploited by attackers to access numerous online smart contracts. In this paper, we introduce a methodical approach to understanding the inherent nondeterminism in the Ethereum blockchain system and its (unwanted) influence on contract payments. We show that our new focus on nondeterminism-related smart contract payment bugs captures the root causes of many common vulnerabilities without relying on any known patterns and also encompasses recently disclosed issues that are not handled by existing research. To do so, we introduce techniques to systematically model components in the contract execution context and to expose various nondeterministic factors that are not yet fully understood. We further study how these nondeterministic factors impact contract funds transfer using information flow tracking. The technical challenge of detecting nondeterministic payments lies in discovering the contract global variables subtly affected by read-write hazards because of unpredictable transaction scheduling and external callee behavior. We show how to augment and instrument a contract program into a representation that simulates the execution of a large subset of the contract behavior. The instrumented code is then analyzed to flag nondeterministic global variables using off-the-shelf model checkers. We implement the proposed techniques as a practical tool named NPChecker (Nondeterministic Payment Checker) and evaluate it on 30K online contracts (3,075 distinct) collected from the Ethereum mainnet. NPChecker has successfully detected nondeterministic payments in 1,111 online contracts with reasonable cost. Further investigation reports high precision of NPChecker (only four false positives in a manual study of 50 contracts). We also show that NPChecker unveils contracts vulnerable to recently-disclosed attack vectors. NPChecker can identify all six new vulnerabilities or variants of common smart contract vulnerabilities that are missed by existing research relying on a "contract vulnerability checklist."


Reflecting on Michael Burawoy's classification of sociology into professional, critical, policy, and public types, and the adoption of the latter as the theme of the ASA's 99th Annual Meeting, in this paper I argue that the drive toward public sociologies of new global realities may prove hazardous in the absence of a parallel emphasis on the development of reflexive private sociologies. This requires critical reconsideration of our basic definitions of society and sociology in order to develop theoretical frameworks that meet the challenges of understanding and practicing the dialectics of public and private social processes devoid of rigid pre-determinist frameworks. Proposing an alternative reconsideration of Burawoy's sociology types away from a formal logical framework and in favor of the part-whole dialectic, I argue that even though personal troubles can best be understood in relation to broader public issues, the latter themselves can most effectively be recognized, understood, and practically addressed through the actions of specific agencies who champion the need for broader socio-historical knowledge and change as deeply personal exercises in self-knowledge and self-transformation. As C. Wright Mills emphasized, what sparks the sociological imagination is the intersection of history and biography.


Because of the local and global impacts of algae blooms and patchiness on water quality, carbon cycling and climate, models of plankton dynamics are of current interest. Here the temporal and spatial patterns in natural plankton communities are interpreted as transient and stationary non-equilibrium solutions of dynamical nonlinear interaction-diffusion-advection systems. The analysis of a simple model of phytoplankton-zooplankton dynamics in space and time is presented. Nutrients and planktivorous fish are not treated separately, but they act as environmental control variables. After summarizing the local properties, the emergence of spatial and spatio-temporal patterns is considered. Conditions for the formation of spatial patterns after the diffusive instability of a uniform species distribution are derived, and numerical results of diffusive as well as shear-diffusive patterning are presented on a two-dimensional spatial cross-section. The variability of phytoplankton growth due to its light sensitivity is considered in a linear approximation. Multiple stability, oscillations, the propagation of planktic fronts as well as stationary and drifting patches are presented.


Boundary integral equations called guided-mode extracted integral equations are applied to simulations of a two-dimensional photon scanning tunneling microscope (2D-PSTM) for an incident TE mode (s polarization). The method presented is global. Complete and rigorous integral equations for a given configuration of the 2D-PSTM are derived. They can be solved numerically by the conventional boundary-element method with high accuracy. To confirm numerical results, three universal laws, i.e., the optical theorem, the energy conservation law, and the reciprocity relation, are derived. Physical characteristics of the interaction between the probe tip and the near field are investigated in detail by using numerical simulations. Many important and interesting physical properties of the 2D-PSTM can be simulated in detail by using the proposed method.


By the successful author of "The Armchair Economist" (a popular trade book that explains basic economics to the general public), this book makes intermediate microeconomics fun and intellectually challenging. The writing style provides an exceptionally friendly and application-rich presentation, combined with a rigorous and careful development of microeconomics theory. All of the standard topics of intermediate price theory are included, as well as many innovative topics, such as alternative normative criteria, efficient asset markets, contestable markets, antitrust law, human capital, demand for public goods, and more. A unique unifying theme of social welfare is used throughout. The inclusion of higher-level mathematics is minimal.


Which type of firm is more innovative: the decentralized, diversified corporation or the smaller, more narrowly focused "entrepreneurial" firm? According to one argument, diversi- fied corporations can do more R&D because their operating units have access to an internal capi- tal market. Other writers argue that decentralized, diversified firms over-rely on financial ac- counting criteria to evaluate the performance of their operating units, discouraging divisional managers from investing in projects like R&D with long-term, uncertain payoffs. This paper uses a comprehensive sample of diversified and nondiversified firms from 1980 to 1999 to study the relationship between diversification and innovation. I find a robust negative correlation between diversification and R&D intensity, even when controlling for firm scale, cash flow, and invest- ment opportunities. Industry-adjusted R&D—the difference between the R&D intensity of a di- versified firm and the R&D intensity it would most likely have if its divisions were standalone firms—is negative, consistent with the hypothesis that diversification reduces innovation by dis- couraging R&D investment. However, other evidence suggests that internal-capital-market inef- ficiencies, rather than managerial myopia, are driving the negative relationship between diversi- fication and innovation.


This paper investigates the determinants of capital structure of two different countries, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. The analysis employs panel data analysis and seemingly unrelated regression based on a sample of 21 listed Palestinian companies and 61 Saudi companies. The study in this paper extends from 2005 to 2015. The findings of this study indicate that the leverage ratios of both Palestinian and Saudi firms are low. Moreover, the most common determinants of capital structure are found and significantly affecting both Palestinian and Saudi firms, finally the differences in the magnitudes and sign of the coefficients are because of country-level differences and not due to firm-level differences.


We address in this contribution a problem stemming from functional data analysis. Assuming that we dispose of a large number of shifted recorded curves with identical shape, the objective is to estimate the time shifts as well as their distribution. Such an objective appears in several biological applications, for example in ECG signal processing. We are interested in the estimation of the distribution of elapsed durations between repetitive pulses, but wish to estimate it with a possibly low signal-to-noise ratio, or without any knowledge of the pulse shape. This problem is solved within a semiparametric framework, that is without any knowledge of the shape. We suggest an M-estimator leading to two different algorithms whose main steps are as follows: we split our dataset in blocks, on which the estimation of the shifts is done by minimizing a cost criterion, based on a functional of the periodogram. The estimated shifts are then plugged into a standard density estimator. Some theoretical insights are presented, which show that under mild assumptions the alignment can be done efficiently. Results are presented on simulations, as well as on real data for the alignment of ECG signals, and these algorithms are compared to the methods used by practitioners in this framework. It is shown in the results that the presented method outperforms the standard ones, thus leading to a more accurate estimation of the average heart pulse and of the distribution of elapsed times between heart pulses, even in the case of low Signal-toNoise Ratio (SNR).


SUMO proteases are encoded by a large gene family in rice and are a potential source of specificity within the SUMO system that is responding to different environmental cues. We previously demonstrated a critical role of OsOTS class of SUMO proteases in salt and drought stress in rice by silencing several family members collectively via RNAi methods. However, to date it has not been possible to assign a role to specific family members due to limitations of RNAi mediated off target silencing across several members of the gene family. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-associated endonuclease 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) system has emerged as a promising technology for specific gene editing in crop plants. Here, we demonstrate targeted mutagenesis of OsOTS1 in rice using the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system in the rice cultivar Kitaake. Guide RNA mediated mutations in OsOTS1 was highly efficient with almost 95% of T0 transgenics showing the desired effect with no off-target mutations. The OsOTS1 mutations observed in T0 generation were heritable in subsequent generations. OsOTS1 CRISPR lines show enhanced sensitivity to salt with reduced root and shoot biomass indicating that OsOTS1 has a major role in salt stress tolerance in rice. This unexpected finding indicates that precise and effective genome editing can be used to characterise specificity within the SUMO system in rice.


Metabolic illnesses (MET) are detrimental to brain integrity and are common comorbidities in patients with mental illnesses, including major depressive disorder (MDD). We quantified effects of MET on standard regional brain morphometric measures from 3D brain MRI as well as diffusion MRI in a large sample of UK BioBank participants. The pattern of regional effect sizes of MET in non‐psychiatric UKBB subjects was significantly correlated with the spatial profile of regional effects reported by the largest meta‐analyses in MDD but not in bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or Alzheimer's disease. We used a regional vulnerability index (RVI) for MET (RVI‐MET) to measure individual's brain similarity to the expected patterns in MET in the UK Biobank sample. Subjects with MET showed a higher effect size for RVI‐MET than for any of the individual brain measures. We replicated elevation of RVI‐MET in a sample of MDD participants with MET versus non‐MET. RVI‐MET scores were significantly correlated with the volume of white matter hyperintensities, a neurological consequence of MET and age, in both groups. Higher RVI‐MET in both samples was associated with obesity, tobacco smoking and frequent alcohol use but was unrelated to antidepressant use. In summary, MET effects on the brain were regionally specific and individual similarity to the pattern was more strongly associated with MET than any regional brain structural metric. Effects of MET overlapped with the reported brain differences in MDD, likely due to higher incidence of MET, smoking and alcohol use in subjects with MDD.


Collagenolytic activity was assessed in a variety of microorganisms with particular emphasis on members of the indigenous oral flora. Organisms were grown in complete and peptide depleted basal anaerobic broth. Cell sonicates and media preparations were assayed for collagenolytic activity using 14C-labelled collagen in solution and as fibrils. Assay reaction products were evaluated by acrylamide gel electrophoresis.

All tested species of Bacteroides, including B. gingivalis, B, melaninogenicus ss. melaninogenicus and intermedius, B. capillus, B. oris, B. thetaiotaomicron, and B. fragilis produced collagenase which was primarily associated with the cell fraction. Collagenolytic activity was also observed in both media and cell sonicates of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, Strain 511. The Bacteroides and Actinobacillus enzymes were heat labile, inhibited by EDTA and human serum. Enzyme activity appeared to be enhanced when these organisms were grown in peptide depleted medium. Collagenase production by tested species of Bacteroides and A. actinomycetemcomitans (511) was unique among other members of the oral microflora including species of Fusobacterium, Actinomyces, Capnocylophaga, and Selenomonas, which did not demonstrate collagenolytic activity under the same cultural conditions.


This research produces an economic impact analysis of short duration water utility disruptions to evaluate the consequences of alternative restoration decisions. The study constructs a continuous dynamic disequilibrium demand driven social accounting matrix with supply constraints that incorporates short-run resilience and other strategies employed by businesses, government institutions and households. It is constructed using the IMPLAN database and survey responses of recent water disruption events. The utility of the model is demonstrated by simulating three alternative water service restoration schemes of hypothetical water outages. The results demonstrate that different restoration strategies produce different total output and value added losses. It also shows that, in addition to total valued added losses, time costs, and the additional losses of households and government institutions are important components of total losses and should be considered when comparing restoration strategies. Finally, it highlights the importance of resilience in reducing the overall economic consequences of disruptions. It is expected that this model will help policy makers assess post-alternative recovery and restoration strategies when this type of event occurs. The model can also be used to identify the most critical industries when evaluating precautionary measures and mitigation strategies in order to minimize economic losses.


Resilience comprises anticipative, mitigative, adaptive, reactive, and transformative capacities. This paper pioneer an approach of measuring resilience using the Resilient Capacity Index (RCI) by considering all the dimensions. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to give relevant weights to the different indicators. OLS and censored regression analysis were used to identify determinants of resilience. The findings indicated that HHs living in the same geographic locations have different levels of resilience. The average RCI for highland, midland and lowland were 0.14, 0.116 and 0.037, respectively, which indicates that HHs in the highland were relatively more resilient. In terms of the specific indicators, the lowland agro climate was better in anticipative, absorptive, and reactive capacities, while those in the highland and midland locations were better in their capacities to mitigate, adapt and transform. Similarly the result indicated that wealth, literacy level, saving behavior, and access to traditional early warning were determinants of resilience in the lowland. Vegetation cover, farm conservation, access to irrigation, and access to credit were determinants of resilience in the highlands, while types of land owned, access to conventional early warning, and access to disaster risk reduction/climate change adaptation (DRR/CCA) learning were important across all climatic zones.


In order for a sustainable product to be successful in the market, designers must create products that are not only sustainable in reality but are also sustainable as perceived by the customer—and reality versus perception of sustainability can be quite different. This paper details a design method to identify perceptions of sustainable features (PerSFs) by collecting online reviews, manually annotating them using crowdsourced work, and processing the annotated review fragments with a natural language machine learning algorithm. We analyze all three pillars of sustainability—social, environmental, and economic—for positive and negative perceptions of product features of a French press coffee carafe. For social aspects, the results show that positive PerSFs are associated with intangible features, such as giving the product as a gift, while negative PerSFs are associated with tangible features perceived as unsafe, like sharp corners. For environmental aspects, positive PerSFs are associated with reliable materials like metal while negative PerSFs are associated with the use of plastic. For economic aspects, PerSFs mainly serve as a price constraint for designers to satisfy other customer perceptions. We also show that some crucial sustainability concerns related to environmental aspects, like energy and water consumption, did not have a significant impact on customer sentiment, thus demonstrating the anticipated gap in sustainability perceptions and the realities of sustainable design, as noted in previous literature. From these results, online reviews can enable designers to extract PerSFs for further design study and to create products that resonate with customers' sustainable values.


Glass-liquid transition phenomenon, usually known as glass transition, has been valuated as one of the most important challenges in condensed matter physics. As typical amorphous solid, metallic glass is composed of disordered-packing atoms, which is akin to a liquid. Thus, metallic glass is also known as frozen liquid. Metallic glass is an ideal model material for studying glass transition phenomenon. When heated up to glass transition temperature or stressed to yielding point, metallic glass flows. The flow behavior at elevated temperature or under stress plays an important role in the applications of metallic glass. In this paper, we briefly review the research developments and perspectives for the flow behavior and extended elastic model for flow of metallic glasses.In elastic models for flow, i.e., free volume model, cooperative shear transformation model, it is assumed that the activation energy for flow (Delta E) is a combination of shear modulus (G) and a characteristic volume (V-c),rho E = GV(c). Most recently, it has been widely recognized that in amorphous materials, e.g. metallic glass, shear flow is always accompanied by dilatation effect. This suggests that besides shear modulus, bulk modulus (K) should also be taken into account for energy barrier. However, what are the contributions of K is still unknown. On the other hand, the physical meaning of characteristic volume V-c and the determination of its value are also important for quantitatively describing the flow behavior of metallic glass. Based on the statistical analyses of a large number of experimental data, i.e., elastic modulus, glass transition temperature, density and molar volume for 46 kinds of metallic glasses, the linear relationship between RTg/G and V-m is observed. This suggests that the molar volume (V-m) is the characteristic volume involved in the flow activation energy.To determine the contribution of K as a result of shear-dilatation effect, flow activation energy density is defined as rho E =Delta E/V-m. According to the harmonic analysis of the energy density landscape, we propose that both shear and bulk moduli be involved in flow activation energy density, as rho E = (1-alpha)G + alpha K, with alpha approximate to 9 %. This result is also verified by the relationship between elastic modulus and glass transition temperature: (0.91 G + 0 : 0 9 K) V-m/RTg is a constant, that is, independent of property of metallic glass. This result is also consistent with the evolution of sound velocity with glass transition temperature.In the end of this review, we address some prospects about the applications of the extended elastic model and its significance in designing new metallic glasses with advanced properties. This extended elastic model is also fundamentally helpful for understanding the nature of glass transition and kinetic properties of shear band of metallic glasses.


Starting from the assumption that improving well-being is the central consideration for public policies, we show how subjective well-being research can help, and already is helping, to choose public policies based on their consequences for all aspects of life. The core of the paper lies in examples where the methods we propose, often in systematic experimental contexts, have already been used to guide the evaluation and ranking of alternative policy options in public health, education, workplace training, and social welfare. The arrival of COVID-19 has increased the urgency for a well-being focus, since the policy decisions being faced by governments dealing with the pandemic require an approach much broader than provided by more typical policy evaluations in all disciplines, including especially the social context and the distribution of costs and consequences. A broader approach to policy design and choice is fully consistent with the underlying aims of epidemiology, with similar gains likely in other policy disciplines. A focus on subjective well-being as an umbrella measure of welfare might help to restore to economics the breadth of purpose and methods it had two centuries ago, when happiness was considered the appropriate goal for private actions and public policies.


Portions of the radio spectrum that are assigned to a particular use
but are unused or unoccupied at specific locations and times are
defined as "white space". The concept of allowing additional
transmissions (which may or may not be licensed) in white space is a
technique to "unlock" existing spectrum for new use. This document
includes the problem statement for the development of a protocol to
access a database of white-space information followed by use cases and
requirements for that protocol. Finally, requirements associated with
the protocol are presented.


Hollywood in the 1920s sparkled with talent, confidence, and opportunity. Enter Irving Thalberg of Brooklyn, who survived childhood illness to run Universal Pictures at twenty; co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at twenty-four; and, make stars of Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. Known as Hollywood's 'Boy Wonder', Thalberg created classics such as "Ben-Hur", "Tarzan the Ape Man", "Grand Hotel", "Freaks", "Mutiny on the Bounty", and "The Good Earth", but died tragically at thirty-seven. His place in the pantheon should have been assured, yet his films were not re-issued for thirty years, spurring critics to question his legend and diminish his achievements. In this definitive biography, illustrated with rare photographs, Mark A. Vieira sets the record straight, using unpublished production files, financial records, and correspondence to confirm the genius of Thalberg's methods. In addition, this is the first Thalberg biography to utilize both his recorded conversations and the unpublished memoirs of his wife, Norma Shearer. "Irving Thalberg" is a compelling narrative of power and idealism, revealing for the first time the human being behind the legend.


The History and Heritage of Daylighting Design in Architecture Daylight contributes to the quality of architectural spaces and provides most of the necessary lighting provision to building occupants together with a premium spectral composition and temporal variability. The heritage of wonderful and exemplary daylit buildings, left by the early designers of the past centuries, is a remaining proof (Baker and Steemers, 2002); it triggered a long history of scientific research and technological developments (International Energy Agency, 2000). The benefits of sunlight and daylight regarding the human health and well-being, including the regulation of circadian rhythms, were recently identified (Stone, 2000). Increasing evidence of links between the presence of daylight in a working environment and workers productivity, as well as better learning in schools, was also outlined (Heschong et al, 1999). Key applications for healthy lighting, including the biological impacts of ocular light, are new concerns for the scientific community and the lighting industry. Neuroscience, which covers a wide range of areas from cellular biology, neuroanatomy, physiology and psychophysics to computational science, offers new perspectives in regard to the determination of underlying vision processes and mechanisms (Sokolov et al., 1999) (Schonfelder et al., 2000). Imaging of neuronal activity underlying the higher brain functions can be achieved today by the way of novel scientific instruments, such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fRMI) and/or portable Electro Encephalography (EEG).


This study identified barriers and enablers of a university-wide pedagogic shift to Active Blended Learning (ABL). ABL is an approach to learning and teaching that promotes student centredness through teaching in small groups, with a focus on sense-making activities and interactions in and outside the physical or virtual learning space. Data gathered through a survey of academic staff, followed by in-depth interviews, were analysed using thematic analysis. The normalisation and effective embedding of digital technology and small group teaching were two major enablers of pedagogic transformation to ABL. Inconsistent teaching practices and the lack of student engagement with learning activities emerged as two of the main barriers. An in-depth understanding of effective, student-focused higher education teaching is a cornerstone of large-scale pedagogic change processes. Recommendations are put forward for higher education institutions considering changes to their learning and teaching strategies.


We study Federal Open Market Committee members' individual forecasts of inflation and unemployment in the period 1992–2004. Our results imply that Governors and Bank presidents forecast differently, with Governors submitting lower inflation and higher unemployment rate forecasts than bank presidents. For Bank presidents we find a regional bias, with higher district unemployment rates being associated with lower inflation and higher unemployment rate forecasts. Bank presidents' regional bias is more pronounced during the year prior to their elections or for nonvoting bank presidents. Career backgrounds or political affiliations also affect individual forecast behavior.


To safeguard the development of nuclear energy, practical
techniques for capture and storage of radioiodine are of critical importance
but remains a significant challenge. Here
we report the synergistic effect of physical and chemical adsorption of iodine
in tetrathiafulvalene-based covalent organic frameworks (COFs), which can markedly
improve both iodine adsorption capacity and adsorption kinetics due to their strong interaction. These functionalized
architectures are designed to have high specific surface areas (up to 2359 m2 g−1) for efficient physisorption
of iodine, and abundant tetrathiafulvalene functional groups for strong chemisorption
of iodine. We demonstrate that these frameworks achieve excellent iodine
adsorption capacity (~ 8.15 g g-1)
and adsorption kinetics (~ 0.69 g g-1 h-1), which are much higher than other materials
reported so far, including silver-doped adsorbents, inorganic porous materials, metal−organic
frameworks, porous organic frameworks, and other COFs. Furthermore, a combined theoretical and experimental study, including DFT calculations, electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, reveals the strong chemical
interaction between iodine and framework of material. Our study thus opens an
avenue to construct functional COFs for a critical environment-related application.


In this study, the extent to which the scaffold architecture of polyglycerol sulfates affects inflammatory processes and hemocompatibility is investigated. Competitive L-selectin binding assays, cellular uptake studies, and blood compatibility readouts are done to evaluate distinct biological properties. Fully glycerol based hyperbranched polyglycerol architectures are obtained by either homopolymerization of glycidol (60% branching) or a new copolymerization strategy of glycidol with ethoxyethyl glycidyl ether. Two polyglycerols with 24 and 42% degree of branching (DB) are synthesized by using different monomer feed ratios. A perfectly branched polyglycerol dendrimer is synthesized according to an iterative two-step protocol based on allylation of the alcohol and subsequent catalytic dihydroxylation. All the polyglycerol sulfates are synthesized with a comparable molecular weight and degree of sulfation. The DB make the different polymer conjugates perform different ways. The optimal DB is 60% in all biological assays.


This pair of Letters discusses the differences between analyzing the dynamics of TGF-β signaling by measuring Smad phosphorylation or by assaying target gene expression. Using an integrative experimental and computational modeling approach to dissect the signaling dynamics of the transforming growth factor–β to Smad (TGF-β/Smad) pathway, we discovered that previous exposure to ligand desensitizes cells, rendering them refractory to further acute TGF-β stimulation. We demonstrated that this refractory behavior, which also explains signal attenuation, is caused by the fast depletion from the cell surface of signaling-competent receptors upon TGF-β binding and their slow replenishment, which is the rate-limiting step for regaining full competence for acute ligand induction. In their Comment, Warmflash and colleagues suggest that receptor dynamics do not necessarily reflect the dynamics of TGF-β target gene transcription. We argue that to understand receptor dynamics, phosphorylated Smad2 abundance is the optimal readout, because this directly reflects receptor activity. Target gene transcription, in contrast, is influenced by many other factors in addition to nuclear abundance of activated Smad complexes and is thus a poor readout for receptor dynamics. Warmflash et al. also claim that our results are inconsistent with parts of the literature, in particular with data published by Zi et al. (Mol. Syst. Biol. 7, 492, 2011) and by Sorre et al. (Dev. Cell 20, 334, 2014). However, we show with our mathematical model that our results are consistent with the data in question.


Extraordinary optical transmission spectrum for a two-dimensional metallic hole array (2D-MHA) changes with the hole channel shape. In this paper a new converging-diverging channel (CDC) shape is proposed. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element method is utilized to analyze the transmission characteristics of the 2D-MHA with CDC. The transmission peaks are blue-shifted when the gap at the throat of CDC is reduced. Similar blue-shift in the transmission peaks are observed for a straight channel MHA when the aperture size is reduced. The transmission for the straight channel MHA is not sensitive to the metal film thickness. But, for a CDC MHA the transmission varies with the metal film thickness. Also, the CDC shape gives an extra degree of geometrical variable to 2D-MHA for tuning the transmission peak location with potential applications in nanolithography, imaging and biosensing.


Due to the past parochialism of environmental economists and development specialists alike, environmental problems in developing countries were long neglected. There is substantial agreement on the causes of one such problem - forest loss - in countries caught in a low-level poverty trap. Less well understood are the reasons why agricultural encroachment on natural habitats does not often abate very much once development commences. Recent experience in Thailand indicates that deforestation in the face of rising living standards has to do with changing demands for agricultural output and the agroclimatic advantages of frontier areas, among other factors. More than anything else, reconciling environmental concerns with rural income growth depends on the growth of off-farm employment.


FrameNet is a computational linguistics resource composed of semantic frames, high-level concepts that represent the meanings of words. In this paper, we present an approach to gather frame disambiguation annotations in sentences using a crowdsourcing approach with multiple workers per sentence to capture inter-annotator disagreement. We perform an experiment over a set of 433 sentences annotated with frames from the FrameNet corpus, and show that the aggregated crowd annotations achieve an F1 score greater than 0.67 as compared to expert linguists. We highlight cases where the crowd annotation was correct even though the expert is in disagreement, arguing for the need to have multiple annotators per sentence.  Most importantly, we examine cases in which crowd workers could not agree, and demonstrate that these cases exhibit ambiguity, either in the sentence, frame, or the task itself, and argue that collapsing such cases to a single, discrete truth value (i.e. correct or incorrect) is inappropriate, creating arbitrary targets for machine learning.


The cochlear input impedance associated with the linear active component of cochlear mechanics is represented as an all‐pole function of frequency. This allows the dynamics of the ear canal signal to be expressed in terms of the behavior of coupled damped harmonic oscillators. Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions correspond to negative damping and, consequently, unstable oscillations. The introduction of a compressive nonlinearity, which stabilizes the spontaneous emissions, gives an interesting and computationally simple model for investigating the response of the auditory periphery in the case where there are one or more spontaneous emissions. The model is used, in particular, for studying the behavior of the reflectance in the ear canal. The magnitude of the reflectance will normally be less than one due to the entrainment of the emissions.


Phosphate is an essential nutrient for plant life in water that when in abundance can have a series of adverse effects on an ecosystem. As such it is of great interest to scientists and environmentalists alike to detect phosphate in the environment. The current state of detection technology leaves much to be desired however as devices are insensitive, ineffective, and sometimes expensive. This study presents a series of methods, systems, and devices that were developed in the pursuit of advancing the state of detection of orthophosphate in water. A lab-on-chip device was created utilizing the molybdenum blue reaction with a novel configuration that allows sensitive measurements to be taken without exposing the user to dangerous chemicals. The device houses the molybdenum complex in a bubble while the acid is spotted in a separate paper-based section. Button activation joins the two reagents and a colorimetric reaction is induced upon sample addition. The architecture was able to achieve a limit of detection in the parts per billion (ppb) range, a superior performance to currently available commercial devices. An accompanying light box was created so that colorimetric measurements could be taken in the field using a stable lighting environment. In addition, an iOS app was developed that could instantly and reliably quantify measurement concentrations based on obtained RGB values and programmed calibration curves. The app features a data architecture that connects to an online data center offering a highly scalable worldwide system for tracking and analyzing field measurements. An inexpensive infrared detection system was also developed with an infrared camera and Raspberry Pi to take advantage of the peak absorbance of the molybdenum blue reaction. The system was able to increase the limit of detection on a popular commercial device by a factor greater than 10, greatly improving its capacity and showing potential for commercial adaptation.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that a third of the emissions into the atmosphere in some industrial plants is due to Fugitive Emissions. It defines Fugitive Emissions as the diffuse release of volatile organic compounds (VOC) or hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, through pumps, valves, connections, open-ended lines, compressors, etc., establishing emission patterns and monitoring frequency. COPENE Petroquimica do Nordeste S/A has been implanting a program of fugitive emissions adapted to the reality, trying to promote a continuous improvement in its employees' working conditions and in environmental protection. This paper presents the methodology for the elaboration of this program and the conclusions of some surveys which were already completed.


It is no coincidence that we refer to the 'making' of a drawing. To draw is to make and to make is to draw. To draw on skills, experience, material qualities, the past, a glimpse of the future and the influence of others. Others who have taught us, told us their stories, showed us their own secrets and entrusted us to pass them on. Others we have never met.How do we learn to explore our own stories through material and line. Is this a skill developed by chance, by coincidence, through the influence of other 'drawings', by experimentation, or being directed. Yet in all cases the link between the head and hand unfolds through the 'drawing'. The hand often answers many questions that the mind or sketch cannot, and there may also be lessons to be learned of trust. A trust in the ability of the artist/maker, and experience stored that is somehow remembered through the hand.


Successful haemodialysis depends on the availability of safe, efficient, and durable access to the vascular tree. This can be provided by creation of an arteriovenous fistula, insertion of a synthetic vascular graft or insertion of a central venous catheter. Established haemodialysis vascular access is associated with a number of important complications which can impact significantly on both the quality of life and survival of haemodialysis patients.

The primary aim of this thesis was to perform a detailed evaluation of the risks to health conferred by haemodialysis vascular access and its maintenance in patients with advanced renal failure.

The work described in this thesis describes the relative strength and independence of association between haemodialysis vascular access type and risk of mortality, bacteraemia and catheter thrombosis. Greater clarity is demonstrated on the relative effect of heparin-based haemodialysis catheter lock solutions on markers of systemic coagulation in vivo, whilst the in-vitro variability of antimicrobial activity against planktonic and biofilm-embedded staphylococci achieved with catheter lock solutions containing heparin and vancomycin, alone and in combination, is clearly shown.

New insights are gained into the benefits of contrast magnetic resonance venography as a tool for demonstrating thrombosis and stenosis of the central veins in the assessment of vascular access in haemodialysis patients. Similarly, the emergence of a new disease, nephrogenic systemic fibrosis was found and its association with gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging was explored in detail.


High dimensional data means that the number of variables p is far larger than the number of observations n . This occurs in several fields such as genomic data or chemometrics. When p>n the OLS estimator does not exist for linear regression. Since it is a case of forced multicollinearity, one may use regularized methods such as ridge regression, principal component regression or PLS regression: these methods provide rather robust estimates through a dimension reduction approach or constraints on the regression coefficients. The fact that all the predictors are kept may be considered as a positive point in some cases. However if p>>n, it becomes a drawback since a combination of thousands of variables cannot be interpreted. Sparse combinations, ie with a large number of zero coefficients are preferred. Lasso, elastic net, sPLS perform simultaneously regularization and variable selection thanks to non quadratic penalties: L1, SCAD etc. Group-lasso is a generalization fitted to the case where explanatory variables are structured in blocks. Recent works include sparse discriminant analysis and sparse canonical correlation analysis. In PCA, the singular value decomposition shows that if we regress principal components onto the input variables, the vector of regression coefficients is equal to the factor loadings. It suffices to adapt sparse regression techniques to get sparse versions of PCA. Sparse Multiple Correspondence Analysis is derived from group-lasso with groups of indicator variables. Finally when one has a large number of observations, it is frequent that unobserved heterogeneity occurs, which means that there is no single model, but several local models: one for each cluster of a latent variable. Clusterwise methods optimize simultaneously the partition and the local models; they have been already extended to PLS regression. We will present here CS-PLS (Clusterwise Sparse PLS) a combination of clusterwise PLS and sPLS which is well fitted for big data: large n , large p.


BACKGROUND
Fibroglandular breast tissue appears dense on mammogram, whereas fat appears nondense. It is unclear whether absolute or percentage dense area more strongly predicts breast cancer risk and whether absolute nondense area is independently associated with risk.

METHODS
We conducted a meta-analysis of 13 case-control studies providing results from logistic regressions for associations between one standard deviation (SD) increments in mammographic density phenotypes and breast cancer risk. We used random-effects models to calculate pooled odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). All tests were two-sided with P less than .05 considered to be statistically significant.

RESULTS
Among premenopausal women (n = 1776 case patients; n = 2834 control subjects), summary odds ratios were 1.37 (95% CI = 1.29 to 1.47) for absolute dense area, 0.78 (95% CI = 0.71 to 0.86) for absolute nondense area, and 1.52 (95% CI = 1.39 to 1.66) for percentage dense area when pooling estimates adjusted for age, body mass index, and parity. Corresponding odds ratios among postmenopausal women (n = 6643 case patients; n = 11187 control subjects) were 1.38 (95% CI = 1.31 to 1.44), 0.79 (95% CI = 0.73 to 0.85), and 1.53 (95% CI = 1.44 to 1.64). After additional adjustment for absolute dense area, associations between absolute nondense area and breast cancer became attenuated or null in several studies and summary odds ratios became 0.82 (95% CI = 0.71 to 0.94; P heterogeneity = .02) for premenopausal and 0.85 (95% CI = 0.75 to 0.96; P heterogeneity < .01) for postmenopausal women.

CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that percentage dense area is a stronger breast cancer risk factor than absolute dense area. Absolute nondense area was inversely associated with breast cancer risk, but it is unclear whether the association is independent of absolute dense area.


As each power vies for its national interests on the world stage, how do its own citizens' democratic interests fare at home? Alan Gilbert speaks to an issue at the heart of current international-relations debate. He contends that, in spite of neo-realists' assumptions, a vocal citizen democracy can and must have a role in global politics. Further, he shows that all the major versions of realism and neo-realism, if properly stated with a view of the national interest as a common good, surprisingly lead to democracy. His most striking example focuses on realist criticisms of the Vietnam War. Democratic internationalism, as Gilbert terms it, is really the linking of citizens' interests across national boundaries to overcome the antidemocratic actions of their own governments. Realist misinterpretations have overlooked Thucydides' theme about how a democracy corrupts itself through imperial expansion as well as Karl Marx's observations about the positive effects of democratic movements in one country on events in others. Gilbert also explodes the democratic peace myth that democratic states do not wage war on one another. He suggests instead policies to accord with the interests of ordinary citizens whose shared bond is a desire for peace. Gilbert shows, through such successes as recent treaties on land mines and policies to slow global warming that citizen movements can have salutary effects. His theory of "deliberative democracy" proposes institutional changes that would give the voice of ordinary citizens a greater influence on the international actions of their own government.


Decamethylmanganocene (Cp2*Mn) was investigated by x-ray methods at 240, 225, and 125 K, to study a reversible phase transition between 255 and 238 K (DSC thermogram). At 240 K the same space group C2/c is obsd., whereas after the phase transition at 225 and 125 K the space group Cmca is found. In both phases the Cp* rings are staggered and slightly slipped, but less at 225 and 125 K compared with 240 K. The phase transition is traced back to a change of the mol. packing in the crystal lattice: with decreasing temp. the mols. cannot be packed closer in the monoclinic phase (C2/c), because the intermol. H...H distances already remained under the sum of the van der Waals radii. In the orthorhombic phase (Cmca) (elongation of the a-axis and contraction of the b-axis) the repulsion along the b-axis is avoided.


The sensitivity of the UK Universities Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme (UGAMP) General Circulation Model (UGCM) to two very different approaches to convective parametrization is described. Comparison is made between a Kuo scheme, which is constrained by large-scale moisture convergence, and a convective-adjustment scheme, which relaxes to observed thermodynamic states. Results from 360-day integrations with perpetual January conditions are used to describe the model's tropical time-mean climate and its variability. Both convection schemes give reasonable simulations of the time-mean climate, but the representation of the main modes of tropical variability is markedly different. The Kuo scheme has much weaker variance, confined to synoptic frequencies near 4 days, and a poor simulation of intraseasonal variability. In contrast, the convective-adjustment scheme has much more transient activity at ail time-scales. The various aspects of the two schemes which might explain this difference are discussed. The particular closure on moisture convergence used in this version of the Kuo scheme is identified as being inappropriate.


In this paper, we use an economic approach to determine households' life insurance needs. In the economic approach, life insurance needs and spending targets are simultaneously determined by smoothing households' living standards over their life cycles and ensuring comparable living standards for potential survivors. We demonstrate that life insurance recommendations provided by the economic approach are considerably different from those provided by the conventional approach. When comparing recommended with actual life insurance holdings, we find that under-insurance is widespread among secondary earners in married couples. We also identify a systematic gender bias: for any given level of financial vulnerability, couples provide significantly more protection for wives than for husbands.


This article presents an action research project, which I have been managing since 2001 in Tokyo, Japan. It is based on a non-profit organization (NPO), a group that promotes community-oriented lifelong learning, which was established under the 1998 NPO Law. Action research is a social research strategy, carried out by a team that includes a professional researcher and members of a community who are jointly seeking to improve their situation. This paper shows primarily how I have engaged with people at my field site, an NPO called SLG (pseudonym), and how we have produced knowledge to make changes to improve the quality of social life for more than ten years. I provide a narrative concerning recent developments at SLG in order to demonstrate how an action research project like this continually unfolds.