Software development results in a huge amount of data: changes to source code are recorded in version archives, bugs are reported to issue tracking systems, and communications are archived in e-mails and newsgroups. We present techniques for mining version archives and bug databases to understand and support software development. First, we introduce the concept of co-addition of method calls, which we use to identify patterns that describe how methods should be called. We use dynamic analysis to validate these patterns and identify violations. The co-addition of method calls can also detect cross-cutting changes, which are an indicator for concerns that could have been realized as aspects in aspect-oriented programming. Second, we present techniques to build models that can successfully predict the most defect-prone parts of large-scale industrial software, in our experiments Windows Server 2003. This helps managers to allocate resources for quality assurance to those parts of a system that are expected to have most defects. The proposed measures on dependency graphs outperformed traditional complexity metrics. In addition, we found empirical evidence for a domino effect, i.e., depending on defect-prone binaries increases the chances of having defects.


This study examined empirically the impact of cash management on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria-A study of Cadbury Nigeria Plc. The researcher used both secondary and primary data for data collection. For clear analysis, the study centres on two broad variables; the dependent variable which is performance and the independent variable which is Cash management. Two different hypotheses were formulated and tested using descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients techniques respectively in order to establish whether there is a significant relationship between cash management, performance and liquidity. The results of the study suggested that a significant relationship exists between cash management on performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. It was also discovered that mere availability of cash (liquidity) without proper management does not necessarily translate into favorable performance for manufacturing companies. Hence, need for effective cash management for better performance.


This paper provides the first opportunity to inform the British hydrological community of the aims and objectives of a collaborative project to develop and evaluate European water scenarios up to 2050. The emphasis is on identifying driving forces and key issues, relating primarily to socio-economic developments, that might influence future water availability and sectoral water demand within Europe, and so inform the scenario development process. These are population and economic growth, agricultural development and technological developments, as well as climate change and land use change, and also national and European policies and legislation. The outputs from the project should make a significant contribution to the development of water policy within Europe through more reliable assessments of future impacts of climate and other changes upon water resources, which, in turn, will improve the cost-effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation strategies for sustainable development.


In seasonal environments, the main selection pressure on the timing of reproduction (the ultimate factor) is synchrony between offspring requirements and food availability. However, reproduction is initiated much earlier than the time of maximum food requirement of the offspring. Individuals should therefore start reproduction in response to cues (the proximate factors), available in the environment of reproductive decision making, which predict the later environment of selection. With increasing spring temperatures over the past decades, vegetation phenology has advanced, with a concomitant advancement in the reproduction of some species at higher trophic levels. However, a mismatch between food abundance and offspring needs may occur if changes in the environment of decision making do not match those in the environment of selection. Date of egg laying in a great tit (Parus major) population has not advanced over a 23–year period, but selection for early laying has intensified. We believe that this is the first documented case of an adaptive response being hampered because a changing abiotic factor affects the environment in which a reproductive decision is made differently from the environment in which selection occurs.


All over the world, nursing is considered a feminine career. However, due to the national and international demand for highly qualified nurses, male were encouraged to join nursing profession. Although, the presence of males in nursing field has been gradually raising, they are remained a small percentage of the nursing population. This study aimed to explore the experience of newly enrolled Egyptian male nursing students into Maternity Nursing Curriculum, Exploratory descriptive design was use to explore the lived experience of students. The study was conducted at Maternity & Gynaecology of Nursing Department, Faculty of Nursing, Mansoura University. All male maternity nursing group of the third year bachelor of nursing program were enrolled (n= 40) and all academic and clinical teaching staff (n=10).Data were collected by using Semi structured student questionnaire sheet which cover all items related to experience of male nursing students into maternity nursing curriculum. Also Focus group interviews with students, and academic and clinical teaching staff. Results: The majority of the students were preferred to take their training in lab area (65%), and (37.5%) of them were preferred the training in family planning area. The perineal care was the first embarrassing procedure (62.5%) followed by breast care (32.5%). Most of students (67.5%) reported acceptance with restriction from mothers toward them, and only 5% of them were been refused by mothers. More than half of the students (57.5%) and (42%) reported accepted attitude from both academic and hospital staff respectively while (27.5%) of students reported restricted attitude from both academic and hospital staff. Conclusion Research indicates that male nursing students are experienced gender barriers during their learning. Recommendation: Research must continue to explore the attitudes of male nursing students and the barriers they are experienced in order to improve and optimize the quality of education. (Hanan El-Sayed Mohamed and Amina Mohamed Rashad El- Nemer. The Experience of Newly Enrolled Egyptian Male Nursing Students into Maternity Nursing Curriculum. Life Sci J 2013;10(1):2810-2815) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com . 338


[1] Inversions for the source mechanism of long-period (LP) seismicity recorded on volcanoes have become increasingly common and are used to interpret fluid-driven processes. The source mechanism considered for LP inversions usually consists of a symmetric moment tensor with and without single forces. Also, constrained inversions have been performed where one presumes a specific source geometry that reduces the degrees of freedom in the inversion. To select the correct solution from the different possible mechanisms, the Akaike information criterion (AIC) has been used. However, since AIC performs well only if the inverted model is close to the true model, we tested its ability to select the correct model in LP inversions. Using synthetic data sets generated on Mt. Etna, Italy, with a tomography velocity model and the Green's functions calculated for a simplified, homogeneous velocity model, we have investigated (1) if any of the inversion source models can recover the true mechanism and (2) the ability of the Akaike and Bayesian information criteria (BIC) to select the correct model. Results show that in some cases it is possible to recover the mechanism but never the source magnitude and that the BIC is a better measure than the AIC in selecting the true source model, although in numerous cases both criteria fail to select the correct solution. Therefore, the BIC should be used as opposed to the AIC if it is necessary to select an appropriate source. Caution should be used when using the statistical measure in any seismic inversion application.


The article presents an energy analysis of an ideal suction-pressure unit of a radial piston pump of high efficiency. The pump is an important element of a multiplying hydrostatic transmission, which may be used in small or micro hydros. Because the suction-pressing unit plays a crucial role as far as pump parameters are concerned, the design and working principles have been described in the article. Not only has the ideal model been described, but also all the processes it triggers. The mass balance, volume balance and energy balance of the unit have been studied. Also, mathematical models of energy conversion of working liquid have been described. Indicator diagrams of each chamber of the suction-pressure unit have been presented. The diagrams served to determine technical work of processes present there. This article is an introduction to a detailed analysis of a real suction-pressing set, which includes all factors influencing its work as well as generated losses.


We study a setting in which Poisson processes generate sequences of decision-making events. The optimization goal is allowed to depend on the rate of decision outcomes; the rate may depend on a potentially long backlog of events and decisions. We model the problem as a Poisson process with a throttling policy that enforces a data-dependent rate limit and reduce the learning problem to a convex optimization problem that can be solved efficiently. This problem setting matches applications in which damage caused by an attacker grows as a function of the rate of unsuppressed hostile events. We report on experiments on abuse detection for an email service.


Inflammation is a crucial defense mechanism that protects the body from the devastating effects of invading pathogens. However, an unrestrained inflammatory reaction may result in systemic manifestations with dire consequences to the host. The extent of activation of the inflammatory response is tightly regulated through immunological and neural pathways. Previously, we demonstrated that cholinergic stimulation confers enhanced protection in experimental animals orally infected with a lethal dose of Salmonella typhymurium. In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which this enhanced protection takes place. We showed that cholinergic stimulation enhanced host survival following oral-route infection, which correlated with significantly reduced bacterial load in target organs, including livers and spleens. Enhanced protection was not due to increased gut motility or rapid bacterial clearance from the GI tract. Moreover, protection against bacterial infection was lost when the animals were infected systemically, suggesting that the acetylcholine-mediated protective effect was mostly confined to the gut mucosal tissue. In vivo imaging demonstrated more localized infection and delay in bacterial dissemination into systemic organs in mice pre-treated with acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. Morphological analysis of the small intestine (ileum) showed that acetylcholinesterase inhibition induced the degranulation of goblet cells and Paneth cells, two specialized secretory cells involved in innate immunity. Our findings demonstrate a crucial pathway between neural and immune systems that acts at the mucosal interface to protect the host against invading pathogens.


The Archives Unleashed project aims to improve scholarly access to web archives through a multi-pronged strategy involving tool creation, process modeling, and community building---all proceeding concurrently in mutually-reinforcing efforts. As we near the end of our initially-conceived three-year project, we report on our progress and share lessons learned along the way. The main contribution articulated in this paper is a process model that decomposes scholarly inquiries into four main activities: filter, extract, aggregate, and visualize. Based on the insight that these activities can be disaggregated across time, space, and tools, it is possible to generate "derivative products", using our Archives Unleashed Toolkit, that serve as useful starting points for scholarly inquiry. Scholars can download these products from the Archives Unleashed Cloud and manipulate them just like any other dataset, thus providing access to web archives without requiring any specialized knowledge. Over the past few years, our platform has processed over a thousand different collections from over two hundred users, totaling around 300 terabytes of web archives.


Analyses of identifiable organic fossil remains of animals and plants have considerable potential to resolve conflicting models of organic matter diagenesis and kerogen formation (e.g. selective preservation versus random polymerization). Fossil cuticles of arthropods (scorpion, eurypterid) and plants (cordaite, pteridosperm) from Upper Carboniferous strata of Lone Star Lake, Kansas, USA and Joggins, Nova Scotia, Canada were analysed by pyrolysis–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and examined by electron microscopy. Recent Pandinus (scorpion) and Araucaria (conifer) provided a basis for comparison. Pyrolysis of Recent dewaxed scorpion cuticle yielded products derived from chitin and proteins. These products were absent in the fossil arthropod cuticles, however, which yielded an homologous series of alkanes and alkenes, together with phenolic and other aromatic constituents. Recent dewaxed plant cuticle yielded fatty acids, phenols and carbohydrate-derived compounds indicative of cutin polyester and associated lignocellulose. The pyrolysates of the fossil plant cuticles, on the other hand, were dominated by alkane–alkene doublets, with minor phenolic and other benzenoid components. There is no evidence that the preservation of these cuticles as particulate organic matter in kerogen is simply a result of selective preservation. Nonetheless, the chemistry and morphology remain characteristic of a particular taxon, thereby eliminating the possibility of incorporation of randomly repolymerized materials or the transfer of material between plant and animal residues. The aliphatic moieties in the fossil cuticles are thought to be the result of polymerization of the associated epicuticular, cuticular and/or tissue lipids during diagenesis.


A framework for asynchronous, signature free, fully local and probabilistically converging total order algorithms is developed, that may survive in high entropy, unstructured Peer-to-Peer networks with near optimal communication efficiency. Regarding the natural boundaries of the CAP-theorem, Crisis chooses different compromises for consistency and availability, depending on the severity of the attack.
The family is parameterized by a few constants and external functions called voting-weight, incentivation \& punishement, difficulty oracle and quorum-selector. These functions are necessary to fine tune the dynamics and very different long term behavior might appear, depending on any actual choice.


Azidofluoromethane was prepared for the first time by the nucleophilic displacement of bromofluoromethane with sodium azide. This volatile and unstable compound was isolated by low temperature vacuum distillation with a suitable solvent and fully characterized. Theoretical calculations of its decomposition activation energies and rate constants were performed and the values were compared to those for azidomethane, azidodifluoromethane and azidotrifluoromethane. Azidofluoromethane underwent [3 + 2] cycloadditions with alkynes, 1,3-diones and β-ketoesters to furnish 1-fluoromethyl-1,2,3-triazoles.


THE AIM OF THIS PAPER was to determine the useability and functionality of a healthy lifestyles online educational resource for parents of preschool children. Five experts and 17 parents of preschool children participated in the evaluation. Participants were asked questions about the content and navigational aspects, the mediated forums and the innovative activities. Parents engaged in a focus-group discussion about these components. Participants suggested that the program was clear and consistent, the text font and colour easily read and the graphics aesthetically attractive; however, the technical language used throughout, some navigational aspects and the layout of pages needed to be modified. This is the first study to evaluate the useability and functionality of an online educational program for parents of preschool children and highlighted three critical components of the program that need to be modified prior to subsequent pilot and full-scale efficacy and effectiveness trials.


Volcano-tectonic (VT) seismicity is commonly recorded prior to and during eruptions. VT seismicity may reflect stresses induced by dike propagation, as indicated by propagating hypocenters and fault-plane solutions (FPS) reflecting regional stresses, or stresses induced by dike inflation, indicated by randomly distributed hypocenters and FPS with pressure axes rotated ∼90° to regional maximum compression. Although numerical models of dike-induced stresses indicate that both regimes should occur during dike emplacement, this has not yet been observed, according to published seismic data. Instead, ∼90° rotated FPS are observed in some cases, while propagating hypocenters mark dike formation in other cases. We suggest that differences in the seismic expression of upper crustal magma migration may result from differences in the regional tectonic setting and in the nature of magma–wall-rock interactions. Ultimately, it may be possible to use information contained in VT seismicity to forecast changes in a volcano's behavior by establishing the characteristic stress field response for a given volcano, or through a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between VT seismicity, local crustal stresses, and the physical mechanisms of magma migration.


Zoos nowadays often claim that their main objective is nature conservation and that they strive to educate the visitors on this subject. A considerable amount of research has been undertaken on conservation education in zoos. This overview performs a qualitative meta-analysis of the methodology, concepts and results of research articles on zoo visitors, particularly regarding learning, education and conservation. Our main finding is that most of the research uses quantitative methodologies and the qualitative, lived experiences of zoo visits remain under-researched. Based on the articles analyzed, "nature conservation" (the substance of conservation education in zoos) becomes implicitly defined as captive breeding and far-off conservation projects, distancing the visitors and their daily lives from nature and issues of conservation.


Due to constant changes in the market there is a need for low-cost and low-volume manufacturing. Usually this type of production is difficult to automate due to the time it takes to become profitable and the inflexibility of such solutions. Therefore, flexible automation solutions need to be addressed together with cost effective aspects. In this paper, a new concept for the design of a flexible, robotized solution based on lean automation is presented and simulated. The proposed lean automation concept is formed of standardized robot stations, human-robot collaboration and cost effective level of automation. The main goals are flexible automated production system and reduced production cost. This paper shows that the proposed flexible lean automation concept has some key advantages compared to the traditional robot cells; a longer lifetime for the robot cell as well as being easier to re-balance, introduce new parts to and expand the cell. Further, it also shows that the proposed concept reduces the cost for automation of products with low volume.


The Sixth Edition incorporates the most current data and theory into the text's signature single-model approach, clearly demonstrating the real-world applications of macroeconomic theory. Additionally, the Sixth Edition has been revised to include updated and expanded coverage of long-run economic growth, the Taylor Rule, and international economics. A revised study guide and a new online edition of Macrosolve, the innovative multimedia learning resource, are fully integrated with the text.


:  The intricate relationship between the cinematic representation of modernist ideologies and their spatial attributes is part of any political program and finds its concrete manifestation in Modern historiography. The new capital city of the Turkish Revolution renders a similar trajectory through which the city itself, Ankara, becomes almost an instrument of that ideological construction through the gaze of revolutionary cinema. However, what is most striking in this historical remaking is the intrusion of the third party, that of the Soviets of the 1920s. Playing a central role, the Soviets not only politically anchor into the Anatolian geography but also aid the ruling elite in their collective effort to fabricating an amnesic environment, all embedded in Modernist architecture and urbanism. Filmed and directed by Yutkevich himself, Turkiye'nin Kallbi Ankara, in this respect, revisits half a century long debate on how representation and ideology coexists in urban space.


In an article in an earlier edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics (1) Dr Iglesias bases her analysis upon the mediaeval interpretation of Platonic metaphysics and Aristotelian logic as given by Aquinas. Propositional forms are applied to the analysis ofexperience. This results in a very abstract analysis. The essential connection of events and their changing temporal relationships are ignored. The dichotomy between body and soul is a central concept. The unchanging elements in experience are assumed to be more real than the actual world of experienced process. Such a view makes the analysis of the temporalfactors in experience impossible. Its abstractness is quite unsuitable for the analysis of the ontological structure and development of the neonate from fertilisation to birth. A N Whitehead made the notion oforganism central to his philosophy. He refused to place human experience outside nature, or admit dualism. His philosophy of organism is an attempt to uncover the essential elements connecting human experience with the physical and biological sciences. Time, change and process are, in his view, more real than the static abstractions obtainable by the use of the fallacy ofmisplaced concreteness. Use of the latter negates the essential connectedness of events and the importance oftemporality and change (2). In this paper I argue that the embryo, being an organism, is not analysable in terms ofthinghood. It is a process. To apply Aristotelian logical concepts to it is to distort the real nature of the datum. Dr Iglesias


ABSTRACT The Capricorn Reef Complex at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef lies near the southern limit of the tropics and appears to be in a region that is climatically just adequate for reef growth. The reefs are found on the marginal shelves of the region and grow in a zone 25 or more miles wide. The outer reefs of the Capricorn Reef Complex are located approximately 5 miles shoreward from the shelf edge. Physiographically the complex consists of a gently undulating marine plain 15-30 fathoms deep from which individual reefal mounds rise. The upper surfaces of the reefal mounds (Reef Tops and Reefal Shoals) which are found in the shallow water, high-energy zone form slightly more than 5 percent of the study area. In contrast. the moderate- to low-energy inter-reef zones (Inter-Reef Plains, Inter-Reef Channels, Outer Shelf, and Continental Slope) constitute about 85 percent of the region. Between these extremes is an intermediate zone (Fore-Reef Slopes) which surrounds each reefal unit and grades from the shallow water high-energy zone to the deeper water, low-energy zone. The individual reefs of the Capricorn Group lie in distinct lines. It is suggested that these reefs grew on pre-reef ridges which could be sedimentary structures such as tidal-current ridges, river levees, offshore bars, or barrier islands formed during the Pleistocene low stand of sea level. The elongate shape of the individual reefs is thought to he a result of tidal currents. In detail the distinct shape of each reef is probably the result of wind, waves, biological activity, storms, and reef to reef encroachment. Skeletal material from five organisms form the bulk of the sediments in the complex, but the distribution and ecology of these organisms is poorly known. In general, coral is found growing most abundantly from low tide level to approximately 50 feet in depth on the Fore-Reef Slopes. Encrusting coralline algae creates a smooth pavement on many of the Algal Rims and also encrusts large detritus on the Reef Flats and Fore-Reef Slopes. Halimeda plants live throughout the area, but appear to be a little more abundant in protected places on the reefs and Reefal Shoals. Forams live in the shelter of coral and shingle banks on the Reef Tops, Reefal Shoals, and on the Inner Shallow Shelf to the west of the reef complex. Molluscs are found most abundantly on the sandy part of the Reef Fl t, under niggerheads on the Algal Rims, and throughout the inter-reef areas.


Honeybees Can't Do It Alone The majority of food crops require pollination to set fruit with the honeybee providing a pollination workhorse, with both feral and managed populations an integral component of crop management (see the Perspective by Tylianakis, published online 28 February). Garibaldi et al. (p. 1608, published online 28 February) now show that wild pollinators are also a vital part of our crop systems. In more than 40 important crops grown worldwide, wild pollinators improved pollination efficiency, increasing fruit set by twice that facilitated by honeybees. Burkle et al. (p. 1611, published online 28 February) took advantage of one of the most thorough and oldest data sets available on plant-pollinator interaction networks and recollected data on plant-pollinator interactions after more than 120 years of climate change and landscape alteration. The historical data set consists of observations collected by Charles Robertson near Carlinville, Illinois (USA), in the late 1800s on the phenology of plants and their pollinating insects, as well as information about which plants and pollinators interacted with one another. Many sites were revisited in the early 1970s and in 2009 and 2010 to collect similar plant-pollinator data. Pollinator function has declined through time, with bees showing lower visitation rates and lower fidelity to individual plant species. Long-term data in a North American landscape document the loss of species interactions in plant-pollinator networks. [Also see Perspective by Tylianakis] Using historic data sets, we quantified the degree to which global change over 120 years disrupted plant-pollinator interactions in a temperate forest understory community in Illinois, USA. We found degradation of interaction network structure and function and extirpation of 50% of bee species. Network changes can be attributed to shifts in forb and bee phenologies resulting in temporal mismatches, nonrandom species extinctions, and loss of spatial co-occurrences between extant species in modified landscapes. Quantity and quality of pollination services have declined through time. The historic network showed flexibility in response to disturbance; however, our data suggest that networks will be less resilient to future changes.


One of the greatest challenges of humanoid robotics is to provide a robotic systems with autonomous and dextrous skills. Dextrous manipulation skills, for personal
and service robots in unstructured environments, are of fundamental importance, in order to accomplish manipulation tasks in human-like ways and to realize a proper and safe cooperation between humans and robots.
The contributions presented in this thesis are aimed at modeling and controlling multifingered robotic hands with soft covers for manipulation tasks. The control
issue of a hand-arm robotic system involved in grasping tasks, which can interact with the environment or a human, is also addressed.
A port-Hamiltonian model of a multifingered robotic hand, with soft-pads on the finger tips, grasping an object has been developed. The port-Hamiltonian framework is based on the description of systems in terms of energy variables, and their interconnection in terms of power ports. Any physical systems can be described by a set of elements storing kinetic or potential energy, a set of energy dissipating elements, and a set of power ports interconnected by power preserving interconnections. The viscoelastic behavior of the contact is described in terms of energy storage and dissipation. Using the concept of power ports, the dynamics of the hand, the contact, and the object are described. The algebraic constraints of the in-
terconnected systems are represented by a geometric object, called Dirac structure.
This provides a powerful way to describe the non-contact to contact transition and contact viscoelasticity, by using the concept of energy flows and power preserving
interconnections. Using the port based model, an Intrinsically Passive Controller (IPC) is used to control the internal forces and the motion of the object.
In grasping tasks, in the case that also interaction with the environment or a human is involved, the control issue of a hand-arm robotic system, is addressed. Thecontrol law adopted for the arm is a compliance object-level control, which aims to reduce the interaction forces. The control action is based on the reconstruction of the external load applied to the object, using the force sensors measurement at the fingertips. Force sensing is also used to compute in real time the desired contact forces, able to guarantee the stability of the grasp. The regulation of the grasping
forces is in charge of the hand control.
In detail, the contents of the thesis are organized as follows.
Chapter 1 provides an introduction on grasping and manipulation applications in the context of advanced robotics where the robot has to operate in
unstructured environment. Here the relevance of dexterous manipulation skills in performing many di®erent tasks is emphasized. The framework of the research work in this section is introduced, i.e., the activities in the European
project DEXMART. A brief description of the research objectives and the key innovations carried out within the DEXMART project are given.
Chapter 2 contains an overview on the relations between the designing features of a robotic hand and its anthropomorphism and dexterity. Then the robotic
hand built within the DEXMART project is introduced. A detailed description of the mechanical structure and of the actuation system by means of tendons
is provided. Moreover, the kinematics, the statics and the dynamics of the hand are derived. The control structure and the control of the interaction in presence of soft contact is analyzed.
Chapter 3 presents a port-Hamiltonian model of a multifingered robotic hand, with soft-pads, while grasping and manipulating an object. An introduction
to the port-based formulation is provided. For the validation of the model, a simple example modeled in 20-sim simulation software is considered. Simulation results are presented to validate the model and to show the behavior of
the system when an IPC based controller is applied.
In Chapter 4 the control issue of a hand-arm robotic system involved in grasping tasks, which can interact with the environment or a human, is addressed.
An introduction on the combined control of hand-arm systems is given. The proposed control action is based on the reconstruction of the forces appliedto the object, using the measurement at the fingertips, in order to obtain a
compliant behavior of the arm and to reduce the interaction forces. A detailed simulation model of the robotic hand has been developed with the aim
of testing the control strategies, using the SimMechanics toolbox of MATLAB. Simulation tests in MATLAB/SimMechanics environment demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Chapter 5 contains concluding remarks and proposals for further investigations.


One of the many definitions of "cloud" is that of an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) system, in which IT infrastructure is deployed in a provider's data center as virtual machines. With IaaS clouds' growing popularity, tools and technologies are emerging that can transform an organization's existing infrastructure into a private or hybrid cloud. OpenNebula is an open source, virtual infrastructure manager that deploys virtualized services on both a local pool of resources and external IaaS clouds. Haizea, a resource lease manager, can act as a scheduling back end for OpenNebula, providing features not found in other cloud software or virtualization-based data center management software.


In this Article, we make several contributions to the literature on appraisal rights and similar cases in which courts assign values to a company's shares in the litigation context. First, we applaud the recent trend in Delaware cases to focus on the market prices of the company being valued, if the company's shares trade in an efficient market, and defend this market-oriented methodology against those who maintain that recent discoveries in behavioral finance indicate that markets are inefficient and that share prices are unreliable due to various cognitive biases. Next, we maintain that the framework and methodology for utilizing market prices should be clarified. We contend that courts should look at the market price of the securities of a target company whose shares are being valued, unadjusted for the news of the merger, rather than at the deal price that was reached by the parties in the transaction.

Unadjusted market price has two distinct advantages over deal price. First, the unadjusted market price automatically subtracts the target firm's share of the synergy gains and agency cost reductions impounded in the deal price. This is appropriate to do because dissenting shareholders in appraisal proceedings are not entitled to these increments of value which are supplied by the bidder. Second, the unadjusted market price is unaffected by any flaws in the deal process that led to the ultimate merger agreement. Recently, commentators have contended that deal prices in merger transactions should be ignored in appraisal cases where there are flaws in the process that led to the sale. However, flaws in the sales process are not reflected in the unadjusted market price, so such prices are valid indicators of value regardless of whether there were flaws in the deal process.

Further, no deal process is perfect, and ignoring market prices when a deal process is flawed succumbs to what economists call the Nirvana fallacy, which posits that an analytical approach (such as relying on market prices) should not be ignored or abandoned even if using that approach does not produce perfect results. Rather, an analytical approach should be used if it is better than the available alternatives and provides useful information to a tribunal or policymaker.

Finally, we extend our analysis of market efficiency to a new domain. We point out that market prices can be used even when shares of nonpublicly traded target companies are being evaluated to determine whether the acquirer paid a fair price in certain cases by examining the share price performance of the acquirer's shares. In cases where a bidder has paid an unfairly low price for the target's shares due to self-dealing or incompetence or inattention on the part of the seller, the acquirer's stock should react positively to the announcement of the transaction if the transaction is significant. In the absence of such a positive share price reaction on the part of the acquirer, the price should be deemed presumptively fair. This analysis seems particularly apt in situations where there is a decline in the value of the bidder's stock upon announcement of an acquisition.


Neuroimaging has suggested that amygdala reactivity to emotional facial expressions is associated with antisocial behavior (AB), particularly among those high on callous–unemotional (CU) traits. To investigate this association and potential moderators of this relationship, including task/stimuli effects, subregional anatomy of the amygdala, and participant race, we used fMRI in a sample of 167 racially diverse 20-year-old men from low-income families. We found that AB, but not CU traits, was negatively related to amygdala reactivity to fearful faces. This result was specific to fearful faces and strongest in the centromedial subregion of the amygdala. Arrest record was positively related to basolateral amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry faces. Results were strongest among those identified as African American and not present in those identified as European American. Our findings suggest substantial complexity in the relationship between amygdala function and AB reflecting moderating effects of task stimulus, subregional anatomy, and race.


This paper presents and compares two approaches to estimate the origin (upstream or downstream) of voltage sag registered in distribution substations. The first approach is based on the application of a single rule dealing with features extracted from the impedances during the fault whereas the second method exploit the variability of waveforms from an statistical point of view. Both approaches have been tested with voltage sags registered in distribution substations and advantages, drawbacks and comparative results are presented. .


The effect of Nb on the hardenability of ultra-thin cast strip (UCS) steels produced via the unique regime of rapid solidification, large austenite grain size, and inclusion engineering of the CASTRIP© process was investigated. Continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams were constructed for 0, 0.014, 0.024, 0.04, 0.06 and 0.08 wt% Nb containing UCS steels. Phase nomenclature for the identification of lower transformation product in low carbon steels was reviewed. Even a small addition of 0.014 wt% Nb showed a potent effect on hardenability, shifting the ferrite C-curve to the right and expanding the bainitic ferrite and acicular ferrite phase fields. Higher Nb additions increased hardenability further, suppressed the formation of ferrite to even lower cooling rates, progressively lowered the transformation start and finish temperatures and promoted the transformation of bainite instead of acicular ferrite. The latter was due to Nb suppressing the formation of allotriomorphic ferrite and allowing bainite to nucleate at prior austenite grain boundaries, a lower energy site than that for the intragranular nucleation of acicular ferrite at inclusions. Strength and hardness increased with increasing Nb additions, largely due to microstructural strengthening and solid solution hardening, but not from precipitation hardening.


Purpose

The aim of this paper is threefold: to identify the combinations of national culture dimensions that lead to high (or low) entrepreneurial activity (EA) for men and women, to understand the role of economic development as a relevant condition that combines with national culture dimensions to achieve high (or low) male or female EA and to identify the differences between the configurations that lead to those outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and from the Hofstede Centre for 77 countries, this study uses a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore complex causal relations between national culture dimensions, the level of economic development (conditions) and the male and female EA (outcomes).

Findings

This research provides three major insights. First, it is not possible to talk about a single culture that promotes entrepreneurship, but instead in several entrepreneurial cultures. This is particularly interesting when distinguishing between genders, because there are configurations that are specific to one of the genders. Second, different levels of economic development (high/low) combine with national culture dimensions to produce different configurations that can lead to high EA. Third, differences found between the solutions for both genders are higher in the case of the configurations that lead to high EA than in the ones that lead to low EA.

Practical implications

These results are very important to governments and policy makers with the objective of stimulating the EA within their specific countries. When designing public policies to promote entrepreneurship, they should take into consideration the specific cultural context of the country. The cultural context of each country presents multiple dimensions; therefore, the design of public policies should not rely on single, occasional and unarticulated policies. There are countries where the cultural context only promotes EA for males or females. In those cases, the public policies should differentiate between men and women, to be equally effective.

Originality/value

By using a configurational approach, this study identifies several configurations of national culture dimensions and the level of economic development that lead to the same outcomes: high (or low) EA. Some of the configurations are specific to achieving only male or female EA (high or low).


We examine the impact of renminbi revaluation on firm valuations, considering two surprise announcements of changes in China's exchange rate policy in 2005 and 2010 and data on 6,050 firms in 44 countries. Renminbi appreciation has a positive effect on firms exporting to China but little positive or even a negative impact on those providing inputs for China's processing exports. Stock prices rise for firms competing with China in their home market while falling for firms importing Chinese products with large imported-input content. Renminbi appreciation also reduces the valuation of financially-constrained firms, particularly in more financially integrated countries.


In Ghana, as in many other developing countries, most science reporting is done by general reporters. However, few studies have investigated science reporting in such a situation. To understand better the dynamics of science reporting in such context, we surveyed 151 general reporters in Ghana. Respondents' demographic characteristics resembled those found in studies elsewhere. Respondents perceived health professionals and scientists as very important sources of information for reporting science. There was an inverse correlation between journalism experience and the number of science feature stories reported in the past 12 months (p = .017). Most respondents indicated that science journalism training would motivate them to report science more. Likewise, most reported that easier access to research findings would do so. We identify characteristics of reporters, media, scientific, and training institutions that are important influences of Ghanaian reporters' coverage of science. We provide recommendations for advancing science reporting in Ghana.


Table of Contents Chapter 1: Becoming an English Teacher Drawn to Teaching What Makes an Effective English Teacher? Understanding Adolescents Adolescent Traits Development Stages of Adolescents Students at Risk Varying Sources of Student Alienation Motivating students to learn What Teachers Can Do Helping Students to Learn Setting up the Classroom To Motivate Students What do I do When I Don't Have My Own Classroom Building Classroom Communities Chapter 2: The Theoretical and Pedagogical Foundations of Teaching English A Philosophy Shaping What We Do and When We Do It Developing Classroom Curriculum From Goals to Outcomes Textbooks, Trade Books, and Software Developing Classroom Teaching Plans Variables Within Our Grasp Planning Well: Principles and Practice Instructional Unit: "In Constant Search of Perfection: Benjamin Franklin" Questions For the Benjamin Franklin Unit: Analysis and Decision-Making Chapter 3: Language: Teaching About Spelling, Grammar, Mechanics, and Vocabulary The Importance of Language Study Language Characteristics Acquiring Our Native Language Acquiring English as a Second Language Non-Native Speakers of English Understanding ELL students' errors Recognizing and Working with "Smart Errors" Errors and Grades General Suggestions and Guidelines for Teaching English Language Learners in the English Language Arts Classroom Classroom Language and English Language Learners Grouping Students Using Peer Partners Ensuring Effective Learning Providing experience with Written Language Language Variation: American Dialects Understanding Linguistic Diversity in Our Schools Dialect, Identity, and Linguistic Competence African American English Native American Language Hispanic English Achievement Among Minority Students Language, Culture, and Identity: Julie of the Wolves What does a contemporary look like when students are learning about Literature?"/H2> Chapter Four: Oral Language: The Neglected Language Arts Basic Principles Teacher Talk, Student Talk Talk and Cultural Differences Talk and Gender Equity Listening: Not the Same as Hearing Speaking: More than Just Talk Improving Discussion Questions Personal Response, Small Group, Large Group Student Responsibility in Classroom Discussion Talking About Literature Building Class Cohesion through Stories Instructional Unit Instructional Unit Speaking formally: Teaching "The" Speech Informal Classroom Drama Evaluating Oral Language Activities The Contemporary English language classroom: Oral Language Chapter 5: Teaching Writing Background of Teaching Composition Research on Writing Writing Process Stages in the Writing Process Discovery Stage Drafting Stage Revising Stage Editing Stage Publishing Student Writing Classroom Climate The Teacher's Role Improving Writing Skills Understanding and Improving Sentence Structure Specific Areas to Address in Mini-Lessons Understanding and Improving Punctuations Commas Quotation Marks Apostrophes Daily Oral Language Improving Spelling and Vocabulary Vocabulary Writing For a Variety of Purposes Types of Writing Assignments Journal Writing Personal Response Journals Writing Short Stories Round Robin Stories Developing Characters Story Strips Personal Narratives and Writing Stories Writing Poetry Five Liners Diamond shape Poem Concrete poem Preposition poem Mood Poems Found Poems Bio poem Terse verse Exploring an Instructional Unit Family Pressures Writing in our Everyday Lives Teaching Persuasion Teaching Classifying Lifelong Skills The Contemporary English Classroom: Writing Chapter 6: Writing and Evaluating Research Papers Research Writing in the Context of Composition A Method of Teaching Students How to Write Longer Papers Preliminary Work Selecting Topics Prior Knowledge Developing Questions The I-Search Paper Locating Sources Evaluating Quality on the Net The Internet as a Reference Source Taking Notes on References Guidelines for the Research Process Developing Plans for Including Longer Papers Instructional Unit Research Skills/Debate A Research Assignment for a Paper on Careers A Process to Teaching the Importance of Sources Creating a Research Assignment Additional Resources for Teaching Research The Contemporary English Classroom: Writing and Evaluating Research Papers Chapter 7: Selecting Literature Objectives For Teaching Literature Canonical Literature Balancing Literature Selections Making Choices Organizing Literature Study Instructional Unit Mexican Culture Organizing Around A Theme Reading Levels Young Adult Literature World Literature Thematic Approach Studying One Culture Literature By Women Multicultural Literature Native American Literature Hispanic Literature African American Literature Asian American Literature Readers and Literature Recommended Books By or About People Of Color Selections for a Unit on Family Relationships Selections for Coming of Age or Developing a Sense of Self Selections for a Theme of Courage Selections for a Unit Focusing on Women and Women Writers Censorship Stereotypes: The Root of Aggressive Behavior The Contemporary English Classroom: Selecting Literature Chapter 8: Teaching Literature Reading Literature Background of Literature Study Focus of Literary Study Reader Response Theory Implementing the Response Theory Using Factual Information Writing Responses Using Responses Other Ways in Which to Respond to Literature Literature circles Comprehension Formal Analyses Prereading Activities Reading Activities Teaching Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Small Group Work Writing Assignments Given to Students Teaching Short Stories Short Stories Activities Teaching Poetry Activities for Teaching Poetry Poetry Resources Teaching Language in Literature Study Vocabulary Study in Reading Purposes Words in Context Testing Vocabulary Sharing Books Book Talks Interest Grouping Student Critiques Reading in Class The Contemporary English Classroom: Teaching Literature Chapter 9: Media Literacy: Technology, Media, and the Language Arts What is Media Literacy? Forms of Media for Literacy Learning Advertising Magazines and Print Media Movies Music Television Videos and DVDs Video Games Creating Media Literacy What's a "Wiki" and How Can It Be Used in a Classroom? What is a "Ning" and How Can I Use it in the Classroom? What is a "Blog" and How Can I Use it in the Classroom? Conclusion The Contemporary English Classrooom: Media Literacy Chapter 10: Evaluating English Language Arts Evaluating English Language Arts State and District Writing Assignments Authentic Assessment Purpose of Evaluation Evaluating Literature Constructing Tests Writing Test Questions Evaluating Writing Evaluation by Levels Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Methods of Evaluation Impression Grading Holistic Grading Analytic Scales Rubrics Self Evaluation Evaluation of Oral Language Evaluation of Units Portfolio Evaluation Content of Portfolios Evaluating Portfolios Biographies: Evaluating a Student Paper The Future of Assessment The Contemporary English Classroom: Teaching Literature Chapter 11: Developing Units Units as a Tool for Integrating the English Language Arts Organizing Around a Theme Beginning to Plan Teaching and Learning in Groups Including Writing Activities Components of a Unit Important Points to Remember Units Developed Around One Major Literature Selection Instructional Unit: Finding My Voice Instructional Unit: To Kill A Mockingbird Instructional Unit: The Scarlet Letter Developing Writing Activities for More Than One Novel Instructional Unit: Four-Week Literature Unit A Literature Unit with Multigenres of Literature Instructional Unit: Families in Literature Selecting Books Comprehensive Thematic Units Instructional Unit: Heroes Instructional Unit: Heroism Reading List Interdisciplinary Units Instructional Unit: Tracing One's Roots Instructional Unit: Historical Homes Instructional Unit: Literature of Conflict: Societal and Personal Developing your own instructional unit The Contemporary English Classroom: Unit Planning Chapter 12: Your Starting Role: Student Teaching and Beyond The Community, the School District, the School You and Your Cooperating Teacher: The CT You and Your University Supervisor The School Universe Your Colleagues Changes, Planned and Otherwise Temporary Chaos: Schedules Just Chaos Teachers Workloads Daily Challenges The Kids Classroom Management Curriculum and Instruction Assigning Work Planning for Absentees The Extra-Curriculars Working With Parents Preparing For Conferences Talking with Parents and Guardians Sharing with Students Making the Most of Student Teaching Thoughts, Advice, and Support From a Vet Final Thoughts


Variable influence of ice melting on water column stabilization causes a large variation in timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom in the central Barents Sea. During two cruises in April 1986 and May-June 1987 situations were encountered that ranged from early bloom stage in Atlantic water not influenced by ice to late bloom stage in meltwater regions. In the present paper we examine the reproduction of Ca/anus finmarchirns (Gunnerus) against the background of this large natural variation in the temporal and spatial distribution of phytoplankton food, with emphasis on the vertical distribution of spawning females, eggs, and nauplii. The vertical distribution of the females indicated a shift from shallow spawni ng at the early bloom stat ions to deeper spawning in the pycnocline region at the late bloom stations. The females were generally concentrated in the layers with high concentrations of phytoplankton. The vertical distribution of eggs at the bloom and late bloom stations showed the same pattern as chlorophyll, either uniformly distributed in the upper mixed layer or concentrated as a sharp maximum in the region of the pycnocline and the deep chlorophyll maximum. The distribution of nauplii corresponded closely to the distribution of the eggs at these stations, suggesting little or no sinking of the eggs and hatching of the nauplii at depths with a rich food supply. The eggs at the ea rly bloom stations had a deeper distribution, although spawning apparently took place in the shallow part of the water column. This suggests a high rate of sinking of the eggs. Nauplii hatching from them probably encountered low food concentrations at great depths. The success of early spawning is probably limited through this. The indicated high sinking rate at the ea rly bloom stations in contrast to the low rate of sinking at the bloom and late bloom stations could reflect a difference in egg density owing to different feeding conditions. Increased water viscosity caused by mucus from phytoplankton could also have contributed to the lower sinking rate at high phytoplankton concentrations. Wind-induced vertical mixing did not play a major role in governing egg distributions.


We present a novel method for discovering parallel sentences in comparable, non-parallel corpora. We train a maximum entropy classifier that, given a pair of sentences, can reliably determine whether or not they are translations of each other. Using this approach, we extract parallel data from large Chinese, Arabic, and English non-parallel newspaper corpora. We evaluate the quality of the extracted data by showing that it improves the performance of a state-of-the-art statistical machine translation system. We also show that a good-quality MT system can be built from scratch by starting with a very small parallel corpus (100,000 words) and exploiting a large non-parallel corpus. Thus, our method can be applied with great benefit to language pairs for which only scarce resources are available.


Purpose of the article: Knowing the factors that affect organisation's performance is a prerequisite for successful management. But it should be remembered that these factors do not act separately and that it is always necessary to examine the manner in which they interact and the level of synergy they can create. Our paper is based on the assumption that these requirements can by met by applying a typology of the organisational culture (OC). Methodology/Methods: Here we evaluate the return on assets (ROA) indicator in relation to different types of the OC based on four-dimensional Harrison and Handy's model in 194 organisations operating in the Czech Republic, using quantitative methods including multiple regression analysis. Scientific aim: The aim of the paper is not only to find a response to whether there is a relationship between the different types of organisational culture and the financial performance of the organisation. We also want to point out at the possibilities of deeper analysis and interpretation of the factors that the typology of organisational culture includes. Findings: Our results show that there is a positive significant correlation between the task type of the OC and ROA and a negative one between the power type of the OC and ROA. Conclusions: This suggests that selecting the task type of the OC may lead to improvements of financial indicators, but there are also other factors that must be taken into consideration.


National legislation establishing extended collective licenses (ECLs) "authoriz[es] a collective organization to license all works within a category, such as literary works, for particular, limited uses, regardless of whether copyright owners belong to the organization or not. The collective then negotiates agreements with user groups, and the terms of those agreements are binding upon all copyright owners by operation of law." Albeit authorized under national laws, collective coverage of non-members' works may pose issues of compatibility with international norms. For example, if non-members must opt-out in order to preserve the individual management of their rights, is the opt-out a "formality" prohibited by art. 5(2) of the Berne Convention? Without an opt-out, does the collective's exercise of nonmember rights operate like an exception or limitation whose contours the Berne Convention, the TRIPS Accord, and the WIPO Copyright Treaty "three-step test" constrain? This essay will analyze the extent to which international norms apply to ECLs and then will propose a treaty-compatible approach to opting-out.
ECL systems are a pragmatic response to the growing demand for bulk use of works of authorship, particularly in the digital environment. They can enhance access for users and remuneration to authors, and often may furnish the best means of achieving these ends. Provided, however, that authors' consent is properly presumed, or that the covered uses are defined to avoid conflict with normal exploitations, including emerging exploitations. An opt-out can enable the CMO to license uses that might otherwise encroach on normal exploitations, but for that reason, the more the ECL treads on transactionally-licensable exploitations, the higher the burden to justify the extension effect to non members through a rigorously-administered opt-out program that effectively notifies and clearly explains the consequences to non CMO member authors of their right to opt-out.


C. F. Elders writes: In suggesting that the clasts in the Ordovician and Silurian conglomerates of the Southern Uplands could have come from a terrane similar to that exposed in Western Ireland, Winchester & Max (1989) point out that the validity of potential correlations between detritus and source should be confirmed by full geochemical analysis. This is an important part of provenance studies, and for the Southern Uplands granite clasts such information is available elsewhere (Elders 1987). However, the petrography of the clasts and the nature of the detritus with which they are associated also reveal the nature of the source area from which they were derived. Using this information, it can be shown that western Ireland and southern Scandanavia were unlikely to have acted as sources for the Southern Uplands clasts. If, as Winchester & Max suggest, the c. 1200 Ma clasts in the Corsewall Point and Glen Afton conglomerates were derived from migmatitic segregations such as those in the Annagh gneiss, it might be expected that comparable volumes of granitic and gneissic detritus would be present in both conglomerates. In fact only a few clasts of quartzo-feldspathic gneiss were found. The c. 1200 Ma clasts are extremely homogeneous and represent a large proportion of the granitic detritus in each conglomerate. This indicates that they were derived from large single plutons, not small migmatitic segregations. Small xenoliths in the Corsewall Point clasts indicate that they were derived from a pluton intruded into amphibolite facies garnet-sillimanite schists, and not a


This article is based on unique 'narratives of the poor', that is, letters from poor people to their parishes of settlement, petitions to the London Refuge of the Destitute, and letters from mothers to the London Foundling Hospital, with supportive evidence from newspapers. These display fundamental concepts among the English poor, who were often poorly literate, and who comprised the majority of the population. Discussion focuses upon their understandings of 'home', 'belonging', 'friends', and 'community'. These key concepts are related here to modern discussions, to set important concerns into historical perspective. 'Friends', valuably studied by sociologists such as Pahl, had a wide meaning in the past. 'Home' meant (alongside abode) one's parish of legal settlement, where one was entitled to poor relief under the settlement/poor laws. This was where one 'belonged'. Ideas of 'community' were held and displayed even at a distance, among frequently migrant poor, who wrote to their parishes showing strong ties of attachment, right, and local obligation. This discussion explores these issues in connection with belonging and identity. It elucidates the meaning and working of poor law settlement, and is also an exploration of popular mentalities and the semi-literate ways in which these were expressed.


This proposed text appears to be a good introduction to evolutionary computation for use in applied statistics research. The authors draw from a vast base of knowledge about the current literature in both the design of evolutionary algorithms and statistical techniques. Modern statistical research is on the threshold of solving increasingly complex problems in high dimensions, and the generalization of its methodology to parameters whose estimators do not follow mathematically simple distributions is underway. Many of these challenges involve optimizing functions for which analytic solutions are infeasible. Evolutionary algorithms represent a powerful and easily understood means of approximating the optimum value in a variety of settings. The proposed text seeks to guide readers through the crucial issues of optimization problems in statistical settings and the implementation of tailored methods (including both stand-alone evolutionary algorithms and hybrid crosses of these procedures with standard statistical algorithms like Metropolis-Hastings) in a variety of applications. This book would serve as an excellent reference work for statistical researchers at an advanced graduate level or beyond, particularly those with a strong background in computer science.


Flavivirus includes a large group of human pathogens with medical importance. Especially, neurotropic flaviviruses capable of invading central and peripheral nervous system, e.g. Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and Zika virus (ZIKV), are highly pathogenic to human and constitute major global health problems. However, the dynamic dissemination and pathogenesis of neurotropic flavivirus infections remain largely unknown. Here, using JEV as a model, we rationally designed and constructed a recombinant reporter virus that stably expressed Renilla luciferase (Rluc). The resulting JEV reporter virus (named Rluc-JEV) and parental JEV exhibited similar replication and infection characteristics, and the magnitude of Rluc activity correlated well with progeny viral production in vitro and in vivo. By using in vivo bioluminescence imaging (BLI) technology, we dissected the replication and dissemination dynamics of JEV infection in mice upon different inoculation routes. Interestingly, besides replicating in mouse brain, Rluc-JEV predominantly invaded the abdominal organs in mice with typical viscerotropism. Further tests in mice deficient in type I interferon (IFN) receptors demonstrated robust and prolonged viral replication in the intestine, spleen, liver, kidney and other abdominal organs. Combined with histopathological and immunohistochemical results, the host type I IFN signaling was evidenced as the major barrier to the viscerotropism and pathogenicity of this neurotropic flavivirus. Additionally, the Rluc-JEV platform was readily adapted for efficacy assay of known antiviral compounds and a live JE vaccine. Collectively, our study revealed abdominal organs as important targets of JEV infection in mice and profiled the unique viscerotropism trait controlled by the host type I IFN signaling. This in vivo visualization technology described here provides a powerful tool for testing antiviral agents and vaccine candidates for flaviviral infection.


This paper addresses the investor's decision to employ multiple managers for the management of investment funds. Under conditions such that specialization of managers and diversification among managers are not motives for the use of multiple managers, the paper shows that risk sharing considerations may be sufficient. A model is developed in which the decision to use multiple managers is explicitly treated, and conditions are studied such that an increase or decrease in the number of managers would be desirable. Under some conditions, a multiple manager solution is preferred over a single manager solution.


Extracted from text ... THE QUALITY EDGE Yearbook 2006 37
Marketing strategists and call centre managers, immersed in the confetti of call
centre performance measures, may have difficulty in isolating what is important
in moulding customers' service experiences. Craig Kolb, a business analyst at Ask
Afrika, an evidence based consultancy, examines what attributes can be measured.
Call centre quality:
how service levels measurement can save
costs while delighting customers
Impressions of service may originally be ingrained in customer
memories as images or words, but ultimately the summary
feelings evoked such as delight with the service offered are what
matters. Service as experienced through a ..


Abstract The mating system and patterns of gender-specific egg cannibalism in Atka mackerel Pleurogrammus monopterygius were examined through genetic parentage analysis of embryos in egg clutches produced in captive and wild populations. Like other hexagrammid fishes, Atka mackerel exhibit polygynandry, which is characterized by serial matings by both genders within a breeding season. Most matings in captivity were pairings of females with nest-attendant males, although parentage analysis of clutches produced in a small tank with limited nesting substrate revealed that 31% contained contributions by non–nest-guarding males. In contrast, all egg clutches produced in a large exhibit tank were sired by guardian males. Multiple parentage, sometimes involving both genders, was detected in 35% of egg clutches collected in the field or retrieved from the guts of adult male and female cannibals. Half-sib and unrelated full-sib embryos were found in several putative clutches, indicating that the reproductive output from multiple males and females may be combined sequentially and fused into a single clutch. These results suggested that nest takeovers, combined with alloparental care of existing broods, represent common reproductive tactics in males. Egg cannibalism is a significant seasonal factor in the diets of male and female Atka mackerel. Analysis of loose eggs and partial egg clutches ingested by 4 female and 15 male cannibals showed that nearly all conspecific predation represented heterocannibalism. One instance of partial filial cannibalism was documented in a male that was one of multiple sires for the clutch.


ABSTRACT Household income has been identified as one of the major determinants of demand for household goods. In addition, other household characteristics, such as household size and composition are also found to be important factors that influence household consumption decisions. This study, using four waves (2006/07, 2009/10, 2012/13 and 2016) of Sri Lankan Household Income and Expenditure Survey data, estimates three different specifications (namely, household expenditure, per-capita expenditure and expenditure per equivalent adult) of a complete system of Box-Cox Engel curves to incorporate household size and compositional differences into the model specification. A comparison of elasticity estimates across the three specifications indicates that amongst the three, the best performing model is the one utilizing household expenditure. An intertemporal analysis of expenditure elasticities indicates that although the magnitude of expenditure elasticities has changed, the necessity or luxury classification of household commodities has mostly remained unchanged for the period 2006 − 2016 in Sri Lanka.


In this work the length-weight relationship and the condition factor of Oligosarcus hepsetus were analyzed in the Grande river within the Santa Virginia Unit of the Serra do Mar State Park, State of Sao Paulo. The length-weight relationship was esteemed for immature, females and male, through the expression W = aLb. The parameters a and b were dear after logarithmic transformation of the data of weight and length and subsequent adjustment of a straight line to the points for the method of the minimum square. For females and males were obtained the equations of the length-weight relationships by period of the year (autumn, winter, spring and summer), using the total weight and the weight without the gonads. The factor of condition of the immature was higher than for males and females, possibly, due to the energy expense with the development of the oocytes and in smaller degree of the spermatozoids. This species presented larger values of condition factor in the autumn due to the fat accumulation and in the other stations these values decreased due to the long reproductive period. The environment conditions of the Atlantic forest seem to be primordial for the development of the reproductive strategies presented by Oligosarcus hepsetus.


Today's Internet users expect to access Internet resources using increasingly capable and ubiquitous client platforms. This trend has resulted in a wide-ranging diversification of hardware devices supporting various form factors and interaction modes, a choice of web browsers offering varying levels of performance, security and standards compliance, as well as the emergence of domain-specific uses of general-purpose Internet-related technologies, exemplified by Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and site-specific browsers.
 Despite the heterogeneity, all these platforms implement a common set of standards and technologies. While the resulting high level of interoperability can be seen as a major reason for the Internet's success, its constraints can also be viewed as limiting progress in client technologies. This workshop focuses on both innovative solutions in the area of Internet client software that improves on the current state-of-the-art while respecting the confines dictated by interoperability, as well as bold, new ideas that break with the status quo.


This short paper provides a summary of a Special Report on a modified version of the comprehensive business income tax, or CBIT, scheduled to appear in Tax Notes on August 26, 2013. The Special Report advocates adoption of a CBIT similar to the one Treasury proposed in 1992. The main difference is the proposed addition of a tax on distributions to high-bracket taxpayers, together with the availability of a deduction against the distribution tax for amounts promptly reinvested. The net effect is consumption tax treatment of the tax, if any, on distributions.


[35S]methionine-radiolabeled proteins from the Babesia divergens Rouen 1987 isolate were immunoprecipitated with immune sera from three potential hosts: human, ox, and gerbil. The results showed a constant humoral response against major babesial antigens. Similarly, immunoprecipitation of radiolabeled in vitro culture supernatant demonstrated that the exoantigens of 37, 46, 70, and 90 kDA were the immunodominant polypeptides, whatever the host. The effects of vaccination with concentrated supernatant from B. divergens Rouen 1987 in vitro cultures (30 to 40% parasitemia) were examined in gerbils inoculated with the homologous B. divergens isolate. Gerbils having received two or three injections of a whole vaccine dose (1.5 ml of parasitized culture supernatant equivalent [PCSE]) or of a 1:5 diluted vaccine dose (0.3 ml of PCSE) showed 100% survival after intraperitoneal challenge with 10(6) B. divergens-infected gerbil erythrocytes. Moreover, two or three injections of a 1:25 diluted vaccine dose (0.06 ml of PCSE) or 9% NaCl or 1.5 ml of unparasitized culture supernatant equivalent resulted in a mortality rate of 80 to 90% of the infected gerbils. Immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence assays performed with antisera from vaccinated and control gerbils demonstrated that a single vaccine injection induced a humoral response, which increased slightly after the second or third injection. After challenge, antibody levels increased significantly, although the immunoprecipitation did not display any modification of Babesia antigen patterns.


Abstract This article introduces a novel way of conceptualising variations of peace in post-war societies. The most common way of defining peace in the academic literature on war termination is to differentiate between those cases where there is a continuation or resumption of large-scale violence and those cases where violence has been terminated and peace, defined by the absence of war, has been established. Yet, a closer look at a number of countries where a peace agreement has been signed and peace is considered to prevail reveals a much more diverse picture. Beyond the absence of war, there are striking differences in terms of the character of peace that has followed. This article revisits the classical debates on peace and the notion of the Conflict Triangle as a useful theoretical construction for the study of armed conflicts. We develop a classification captured in a Peace Triangle, where post-settlement societies are categorised on the basis of three key dimensions: issues, behaviour, and attitudes. On the basis of such a differentiation, we illustrate the great diversity of peace beyond the absence of war in a number of post-settlement societies. Finally, we discuss the relationship between the different elements of the Peace Triangle, and the challenges they pose for establishing a sustainable peace, as well as the implications of this study for policy makers concerned with peacebuilding efforts.


We study theoretically the angular dependence of the correlation functions of the scattering amplitudes occurring in the interaction of a beam of polarized light with a one-dimensional, perfectly conducting rough surface. For an ensemble of surface-profile functions that are realizations of a stationary stochastic process, a necessary condition for the exact scattering amplitudes to be correlated is established: the projection on the mean surface of the difference between the incident wave vectors must equal that of the scattered wave vectors. The exact expressions for the amplitudes of the scattered plane waves constituting the far field are derived from Green's second integral theorem. By numerical simulations, the dependence of these amplitude correlation functions on the angle of incidence and on the incident and the scattered polarization states is computed for Gaussian surfaces producing enhanced backscattering. Results are presented for the complex correlation functions of p- and s-polarized scattering amplitudes. However, it is argued that, for an incident field polarized at +45°, the single- and the multiple-scattering contributions to the amplitude correlation functions are clearly separated if the scattered field is resolved into −45° and +45° polarized plane waves. In this case the real part of the correlation function of the −45° scattering amplitudes displays two peaks of large angular width. The maxima occur for angles of incidence at which the correlation between the +45° polarized scattering amplitudes has sharp peaks of angular width approximately equal to λ/a, where the surface correlation length a may be interpreted as an estimate for the mean distance between successive scattering points on the surface. One of these maxima occurs when the correlated amplitudes are identical, and the other occurs when the role of the incoming and the outgoing directions is interchanged between the two scattering amplitudes, which are then related by the reciprocity condition. The coherent addition of the amplitudes arising from multiple-scattering processes and those of their time-reversed partners in directions close to the retroreflection direction is demonstrated in the calculations of the correlation functions.


With the development of economic globalization, trade in services has become an important part of foreign trade of China. This paper analyses the development of China's trade in services by scale, by sector as well as by the world ranking. Finally, this paper points out some suggestions for the further development of China's trade in services, such as optimizing the industry and product structure of China's trade in services, developing Chinese famous brands, continuing pushing forward the industrial structure upgrade steadily.


Steam and screw propeller took a long time to displace sail in coastal bulk trades: 60 years compared with the 20 years needed for steam and the paddle to dominate coastal liner trades. As this thesis confirms, conquering the bulk trades was a much more difficult undertaking. To offset far greater capital and running costs, the developer of the steam bulk carrier could offer only that his steamer, largely independent of weather and tide, would carry significantly more cargo in a given period than a sailing vessel. This thesis demonstrates how, to fulfil this promise, many obstacles had to be overcome, including the high cost of iron hulls and steam engines, the inefficiency of early steam engines and boilers, the water ballast problem, slowness of discharge, archaic port practices, and physical constraints of ports and waterways.

The findings suggest that, in the rise of the steam bulk carrier, the role of the railways should be diminished, and that of the gas industry accentuated. The impact of rail competition on the London collier trade was no more than a pinprick when the first screw collier was building, and the coal market's subsequent growth was so strong that the steady increase in rail-hauled coal barely dented the tonnage delivered by sea from the north east. On the other hand, without the gas industry's demand for large, regular and guaranteed deliveries, the coal interests would probably not have encouraged the development of the screw collier when they did.


This thesis is a study of the domestic influences that led to President Nixon's decision to seek a new US relationship with the People's Republic of China. In particular, it concentrates on the role of academics in forcing a policy debate on China policy and the crucial role that they played in creating the environment that led to eventual change. The thesis argues that during the 1960s a climate was created that made it necessary for Nixon to change policy and that traditional accounts of the subject have failed to fully appreciate the role of domestic factors in forcing a change of policy.

This thesis throws light on three areas. Firstly, the development of US China policy in the post-war years leading up to 1971 and in particular the domestic influences placed on it. A notable argument of the piece is that many of the policies later adopted by Nixon were discussed and promoted during the Presidency of John F. Kennedy and that in the last year of his life active consideration was given to changing policy. Secondly, it is a study of Sino-American relations in the 1960s, which shows the extent to which it was subject to domestic politics. Finally, it is an exploration of the role of interested academics and the way that they were able to influence US policy in such a sensitive area and the different methods that they used to affect and alter policy.

The study has made use of a number of primary archival source holdings in the United States as well as the transcripts of Congressional hearings and studies commissioned by the US Government during the period that informed its China policy. Also, it has made full use of the secondary sources available on Sino-American relations.


This Essay explores lawyering in the solidarity economy movement as an emergent approach to progressive transactional lawyering. Solidarity economy is a set of value-driven theories and practices that seeks to transform the global economy into a just economy that centers the needs of people and the planet. While the solidarity economy movement in other parts of the world has been established for several decades, the solidarity economy movement in the United States emerged in 2007. Over the last decade the movement has grown and gained significant momentum, with the rise of solidarity economy organizations and initiatives, as well as the incorporation of solidarity economy strategies in a number of social movements, including the Movement for Black Lives, Indigenous Rights movement, the modern-day environmental justice movement, and in many workers' rights campaigns. Despite the growing prominence of solidarity economy initiatives, not much if anything has been written about solidarity economy in the legal body of scholarship. All the while, the law and legal support play an integral role to the success of solidarity economy enterprises and the movement overall. Moreover, many transactional lawyers, law school clinics, and legal service organizations are providing legal and technical assistance to solidarity economy organizations. The skills and expertise of transactional lawyers have much to contribute to the solidarity economy movement. I argue that transactional lawyers have a particular role to play in the development of the solidarity economy movement, as creative legal strategies are an important piece to the long and short-term success of the SE movement. These current and potential contributions go beyond the legal structuring of worker cooperatives or community land trusts but fully extend to other transactional legal services and skillsets. Transactional lawyers can play a critical role in 1) advocating for corporate and regulatory reform and creatively reimagining the law to aid the goals of the solidarity economy movement, what others have referred to as radical transactionalism and 2) "scaling up" the solidarity economy through the linkage of solidarity economy organizations and enterprises. However, to be an effective lawyer in the solidarity economy movement, legal professionals must be able to provide more than the necessary technical expertise. Effective solidarity economy lawyers must also embrace the imaginations and experimentations of clients and put the law in service to those goals. To do so, solidarity economy lawyers should develop a deep understanding of their clients' goals, build authentic and solidaristic relationships with their clients, and also creatively integrate legal strategies to client matters.


Background We aim to facilitate recognition of the cognitive burden of stroke by describing the parallels between cognitive deficits and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), a widely used measure of stroke severity. Methods A consecutive cohort of 223 working-age patients with an acute first-ever ischaemic stroke was assessed neuropsychologically within the first weeks after stroke and at a 6-months follow-up visit and compared with 50 healthy demographic controls. The NIHSS was administered at the time of hospital admittance and upon discharge from the acute care unit. The associations between total NIHSS scores and domain-specific cognitive deficits were analysed correlatively and with a binary logistic regression. Results Of the NIHSS measurements (admittance median=3, range 0–24; discharge median=1, range 0–13), the total score at the time of discharge had systematically stronger correlations with cognitive impairment. Adjusted for demographics, the NIHSS discharge score stably predicted every cognitive deficit with ORs ranging from 1.4 (95% CI 1.2 to 1.6) for episodic memory to 1.9 (95% CI 1.5 to 2.3) for motor skills. The specificities of the models ranged from 89.5–97.7%, but the sensitivities were as low as 11.6–47.9%. Cognitive deficits were found in 41% of patients with intact NIHSS scores and in all patients with NIHSS scores ≥4, a finding that could not be accounted for by confounding factors. Conclusions Cognitive deficits were common even in patients with the lowest NIHSS scores. Thus, low NIHSS scores are not effective indicators of good cognitive outcomes after stroke.


Although co-translation has received considerable scholarly attention recently, how co-translated texts converge and diverge stylistically, and how co-translators affect translated texts and each other remain under-researched. Based on two specialized corpora, this paper innovatively employs L2SCA and MAT to investigate the various stylistic and linguistic features of A Hero Born (translated by Anna Holmwood) and A Bond Undone (translated by Gigi Chang), English translations of the two consecutive volumes of "射雕英雄传" (shè diāo yīng xióng zhuàn), a Chinese wuxia novel by Jin Yong. It then explores the dynamics of collaboration between the two translators in translating and promoting Jin Yong's wuxia novels, based on interview records, email exchanges, and public discourses. The study reveals that the two translations are homogenized to a considerable degree and at various syntactic and lexico-grammatical levels, and that the two translators' discourses concerning Jin Yong's wuxia are also essentially identical. These similarities are attributed to several factors. In particular, Holmwood, as the principal translator and co-literary agent of the translation project, has played a dominant role and has put her "fingerprints" on Chang's translation, thus considerably smoothing out stylistic divergences of their translated texts. The two translators have deftly co-projected Jin Yong's wuxia as modern, cosmopolitan, and entertaining, thus facilitating the reception of their translations. This study sheds new light on the dynamics of collaboration between literary translators and contributes to the research methodology of translation style.


SYNOPSIS: Prior research examines financial reporting of revenue in the context of how the incentives to achieve the earnings goal affect revenue reporting. In contrast, this study investigates how firms respond to sector-level incentives related to both revenue and earnings when evaluating the importance of revenue benchmarks. Results show that the importance of revenue benchmarks varies over time and across industry sectors. Regression analyses show that the sector-level incentives related to revenue and earnings affect revenue benchmark beating in opposite ways. Firms are more (less) likely to meet or just beat revenue benchmarks when the sector-level investor pricing of revenue (earnings) is high. Cross-sectional tests reveal that the association between revenue benchmark beating and the sector-level investor pricing of revenue (earnings) is stronger (weaker) among relatively young firms.


The Indian Ocean Region has always played a vital role in India"s foreign policy strategy and successive Prime Ministers have attempted to ensure that India remains the dominant regional power in the area. Maintaining freedom of navigation and ensuring a healthy and peaceful coexistence between nations in the IOR has been the main objective of New Delhi"s maritime foreign policy. The Modi government"s Act East Policy was designed to build upon the foundations of the Look East Policy of the 90s and focus on improving India"s connectivity with ASEAN and the Pacific Rim islands. However, this report will analyse how despite the Indian Prime Minister"s soaring rhetoric and praise for the cultural linkages between India and the ASEAN region, little in the way of economic or maritime cooperation has actually been observed. In addition, India"s continued wariness of China"s efforts to make inroads in the IOR through the One Belt, One Road Initiative, has consigned New Delhi to a backseat role in its own backyard. This report will also attempt to suggest potential ways forward for Indian foreign policy vis-à-vis its South Asian neighbours including economic cooperation with China, at least for the short to medium term, as the best possible path for India to enhance its regional connectivity and foster closer economic integration with its neighbours.


It has been proposed that issues of transformational and transactional leadership behavior should be incorporated in the study for predicting subordinate citizenship behaviors, as both the theories are based on transformational leadership behaviors. This research had two objectives: to assess the impact of six dimensions of transformational leadership behaviors – contribution and affect – on citizenship behavior and to test the mediating impact of the
LMX on the transformational leadership behaviors citizenship relationship. The subjects of this study were all full-time employees with their managers who working in the educational organization in Iran. This study surveyed 220 respondents. The sampling frame of the respondents was obtained from educational organization in Shiraz city in Iran. Data were collected on a structured questionnaire containing standard scales of transformational leadership behaviors, LMX, and organizational citizenship behaviors. After establishing the psychometric properties of the scales, hypotheses were tested through statistical analysis of the data. Results indicate that dimensions of transformational leadership behaviors are more likely to predict citizenship behavior than the affect dimension of LMX. Further, LMX is not mediating the relationship of transformational leadership behaviors with citizenship behavior.


Ultraporous copper/titanium dioxide (Cu/TiO2) aerogels supporting <5 nm diameter copper nanoparticles are active for surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-driven photocatalysis. The extended nanoscale Cu‖TiO2 junctions in Cu/TiO2 composite aerogels-which arise as a result of photodepositing copper at the surface of the nanoparticulate-bonded TiO2 aerogel architecture-stabilize Cu against oxidation to an extent that preserves the plasmonic behavior of the nanoparticles, even after exposure to oxidizing conditions. The metallicity of the Cu nanoparticles within the TiO2 aerogel is verified by aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, electron energy-loss spectroscopy, and infrared spectroscopy using CO binding as a probe to distinguish Cu(0) from Cu(i). In contrast, photoreduction of Cu(ii) at a commercial nanoscale anatase TiO2 powder with primary particle sizes significantly larger than those in the aerogel results in a copper oxide/TiO2 composite that exhibits none of the plasmonic character of Cu nanoparticles. We attribute the persistence of plasmonic Cu nanoparticles without the use of ligand stabilizers to the arrangement of Cu and TiO2 within the aerogel architecture where each Cu nanoparticle is in contact with multiple nanoparticles of the reducing oxide. The wavelength dependence of the photoaction spectra for Cu/TiO2 aerogel films reveals visible-light photocatalytic oxidation activity initiated by an SPR-driven process-as opposed to photo-oxidation initiated by excitation of narrow-bandgap copper oxides.


A four-core single fiber optical micro-hand is proposed and fabricated by the fiber etched method. The optical power incident and control were realized by splice and tapered a normal single mode single core fiber with the four-core fiber. By bending the coupling zone between the single core fiber and the four-core fiber, one can get a rotation toque working on a micro-particle, and can realize the particle controllable rotating. The theoretical simulation about controlling method is worked by the Beam Propagating Method and FDTD method, and the real-time experiment controlling photos were also given. This four-core optical fiber micro-hand can trap and rotate the micro-particle as ease as a human hand.


Japanese language use overseas has its history of more than one hundred years. Hawaii is one of the areas where Japanese language is used in daily life among Nikkei citizens of Japanese descent. Japanese language overseas shows changes and diversity. Some common points were found in Japanese language used overseas even if the local languages are different such as in Brazil (Portuguese), Hawaii (English), Taiwan (Chinese) etc. The cause of change in Japanese can roughly be divided into two. One is based on the linguistic feature which Japanese itself has, and another is the feature resulting from the Japanese people and the Japanese society which brought immigrants into overseas. However, there is the 3rd cause for the change which is not included in the influence of the local languages. The feature of Nikkei Hawaiian is considered how these factors have affected language change.


The COherent Muon to Electron Transition (COmet) experiment will be searching for the charged lepton flavour violating process µ _ + N(Z, A) -+ e_ + N(Z, A) in aluminium with a single event sensitivity of 3 × 10_17.
In order to achieve this sensitivity, COmet will utilise a novel pion capture solenoid and a high power proton beam to create the most intense pulsed muon beam in the world. Because these are innovative technologies, it is not known exactly what the muon yield will be and so, in this thesis, simulations of this section of the experiment have been performed using a variety of hadron production models in order to estimate the muon yield and its uncertainty.
Another aspect required to achieve such a low sensitivity is that all possible sources of background need to be known and accounted for. One of the less well measured backgrounds is caused by protons emitted after the muon has been captured by a nucleus and so the AlCaP experiment was set up to measure the rate of this process and, in this thesis, an analysis of the data collected in the first AlCaP run is presented.
Throughout this thesis, natural units will be used where h = c = 1.


ABSTRACT Russia's Arctic policy keeps going along two poorly compatible tracks of expanding military activities and committing to international cooperation. Exaggerated threat assessments are typically advanced to justify the strongly set strategic priority for sustaining investments in building up the military capabilities, including nuclear forces. The option for developing cooperation has become unprofitable due to the sanctions regime, but its main downside is that it denies Russia the opportunity to exploit the perceived and highly valued position of power it holds in the Barents region. Russia has the capabilities and can create opportunities for forceful proactive advances in the High North, and caution is not a behavior pattern that can be expected from an essentially authoritarian regime that is threatened by domestic discontent and external pressure.


Pearl millet (Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone) is one of the most important cereals in West and Central Africa (WCA). Human populations in WCA are strongly affected by micronutrient deficiencies. Biofortification, the development of pearl millet varieties with enhanced micronutrient levels is recognized as a suitable approach to reduce this widespread health problem. To assess the potential of biofortification of WCA pearl millet germplasm, we studied quantitative-genetic parameters of eight mineral densities in whole and decorticated grains, their stability over environments and the correlations among minerals and agro morphological traits. The study included 72 WCA pearl millet genotypes which were grown in three environments in Niger, contrasting in soil fertilization. Significant genotypic effects, moderate estimates of heritability, and genetic variation for mineral densities, especially for Fe and Zn, indicate a high potential for biofortification of WCA pearl millet. However, screening of additional landraces or introgression of favorable alleles from highly nutrient dense Indian germplasm could expedite achievement of higher densities. Genotype-by environment interaction effects were significant for Fe and Zn grain densities, showing the importance of multi-environmental evaluation to identify stable genotypes. Identified genotypes with relatively stable Fe and Zn grain densities appear suitable for use in future WCA pearl millet biofortification breeding programs.


Summary Recognition of the AVRPM3A2/F2 avirulence protein from powdery mildew by the wheat PM3A/F immune receptor induces a hypersensitive response after co‐expression in Nicotiana benthamiana. The molecular determinants of this interaction and how they shape natural AvrPm3 a2/f2 allelic diversity are unknown. We sequenced the AvrPm3 a2/f2 gene in a worldwide collection of 272 mildew isolates. Using the natural polymorphisms of AvrPm3 a2/f2 as well as sequence information from related gene family members, we tested 85 single‐residue‐altered AVRPM3A2/F2 variants with PM3A, PM3F and PM3FL 456P/Y458H (modified for improved signaling) in Nicotiana benthamiana for effects on recognition. An intact AvrPm3 a2/f2 gene was found in all analyzed isolates and the protein variant recognized by PM3A/F occurred globally at high frequencies. Single‐residue alterations in AVRPM3A2/F2 mostly disrupted, but occasionally enhanced, the recognition response by PM3A, PM3F and PM3FL 456P/Y458H. Residues enhancing hypersensitive responses constituted a protein domain separate from both naturally occurring polymorphisms and positively selected residues of the gene family. These results demonstrate the utility of using gene family sequence diversity to screen residues for their role in recognition. This approach identified a putative interaction surface in AVRPM3A2/F2 not polymorphic in natural alleles. We conclude that molecular mechanisms besides recognition drive AvrPm3 a2/f2 diversification.