Trusting relationships at school and within other social networks emerge as protective factors that are crucial to the positive development of early adolescents. School is one of the critical environments where they can develop a sense of belonging. This study involved 20 qualitative interviews with school staff and youth workers recruited from social services and high schools in Eastern Ontario and 12 qualitative interviews with adolescents 12-13 years of age attending some of these same schools. Deductive and inductive analysis of the transcripts clearly underscored the importance of the supportive roles played by peers, teachers and non-family adults in the lives of early teens. The proximity that results from listening to and accompanying early adolescents in day-to-day activities, and comprehending their issues, presents an opportunity for youth workers and school staff to better grasp how to become credible, trusted and legitimate in the eyes of young teens.


Structured weight pruning is a representative model compression technique of DNNs to reduce the storage and computation requirements and accelerate inference. An automatic hyperparameter determination process is necessary due to the large number of flexible hyperparameters. This work proposes AutoCompress, an automatic structured pruning framework with the following key performance improvements: (i) effectively incorporate the combination of structured pruning schemes in the automatic process; (ii) adopt the state-of-art ADMM-based structured weight pruning as the core algorithm, and propose an innovative additional purification step for further weight reduction without accuracy loss; and (iii) develop effective heuristic search method enhanced by experience-based guided search, replacing the prior deep reinforcement learning technique which has underlying incompatibility with the target pruning problem. Extensive experiments on CIFAR-10 and ImageNet datasets demonstrate that AutoCompress is the key to achieve ultra-high pruning rates on the number of weights and FLOPs that cannot be achieved before. As an example, AutoCompress outperforms the prior work on automatic model compression by up to 33× in pruning rate (120× reduction in the actual parameter count) under the same accuracy. Significant inference speedup has been observed from the AutoCompress framework on actual measurements on smartphone. We release models of this work at anonymous link: http://bit.ly/2VZ63dS.


Foreword: Hunting as Philosophy ( David Petersen). Picking Up the Trail: An Introduction to Hunting - Philosophy for Everyone (Nathan Kowalsky). Part I: The Good, the Bad, and the Hunter. 1 Taking a Shot: Hunting in the Crosshairs (Jesus Ilundain-Agurruza). 2 But They Can't Shoot Back: What Makes Fair Chase Fair? (Theodore Vitali). 3 A Shot in the Dark: The Dubious Prospects of Environmental Hunting (Lisa Kretz). 4 Hunting Like a Vegetarian: Same Ethics, Different Flavors (Tovar Cerulli). 5 What You Can't Learn from Cartoons: Or, How to go Hunting After Watching Bambi (Gregory A. Clark). Part II: The Hunter's View of the World. 6 Hunting for Meaning: A Glimpse of the Game (Brian Seitz). 7 Getting By with a Little Help from My Hunter: Riding to Hounds in English Foxhound Packs (Alison Acton). 8 Tracking in Pursuit of Knowledge: Teachings of an Algonquin Anishinabe Bush Hunter (Jacob Wawatie and Stephanie Pyne). 9 Living with Dead Animals? Trophies as Souvenirs of the Hunt (Garry Marvin). Part III: Eating Nature Naturally. 10 The Carnivorous Herbivore: Hunting and Culture in Human Evolution (Valerius Geist). 11 The Fear of the Lord: Hunting as if the Boss is Watching (Janina Duerr). 12 Hunting: A Return to Nature? (Roger J. H. King). 13 The Camera or the Gun: Hunting through Different Lenses (Jonathan Parker). 14 Flesh, Death and Tofu: Hunters, Vegetarians and Carnal Knowledge (T.R. Kover). Part IV: The Antler Chandelier: Hunting in Culture, Politics and Tradition. 15 The Sacred Pursuit: Reflections on the Literature of Hunting (Roger Scruton). 16 Big Game and Little Sticks: Bow Making and Bow Hunting (Kay Koppedrayer). 17 Going to the Dogs: Savage Longings in Hunting Art (Paula Young Lee). 18 The New Artemis? Women Who Hunt (Debra Merskin). 19 Off the Grid: Rights, Religion and the Rise of the Eco-Gentry (James Carmine). Notes on Contributors.


Smart cities are a modern reality in an increasingly digitized and fast changing world; and, as multidimensional, multilayered and interconnected career ecosystems they bring a number of challenges for the development of sustainable careers. What are the systemic roots of these challenges, and how can we deal with them to support the emergence of sustainable careers? We draw on a sociotechnical approach, supplemented by a dynamic person–environment fit perspective, to describe two systemic challenges tied to the development of sustainable careers in smart cities, namely: (1) an unbalanced fit, in that the highly digitized context fits best with highly educated and information and communications technology (ICT) literate citizens working in knowledge intensive organizations; and (2) a volatility of fit, associated with the complex and fast-changing smart urban context. Based on the sociotechnical analysis, we put forth three suggestions for addressing these challenges and creating a sustainable career ecosystem focused on: (1) the continuous development of ICT literacy, knowledge, talents and skills; (2) citizen participation and career communities; and (3) network-centric organizing of sustainable careers that could alleviate some of the challenges associated with the parallel development of sustainable careers and smart cities.


The purpose of this working paper is to give the real meaning of DEVELOPMENT from Islamic perspective. Most of Muslim countries are LDCs and using the religious and social ideology of Islam is very useful to establish institutions and to bring moral and ethical change for development in these countries. Islam appears to be the only dynamic religion and tells us about prevention of interest, similar to Christian and Jewish theologies. But at the same time gives a comprehensive setoff trade and financing modes, not easily and completely described in any other religion or social order. Even TFP, a modern concept for collective efficiency has been advised in Islam, shunning to self interest and individualism of materialistic economics. Some scholars of WEST consider use of Islamic banking more suitable for economic development, while others consider Islam as obstacle & threat to development of Muslim countries. I hope that the paper will be useful in this regard to provide another valuable theoretical dimension to this field of study………


The purpose of this study was to determine the pentraxin 3 (PTX3) levels in the gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) and saliva of smokers and nonsmokers with chronic periodontitis and to compare these levels before and after initial nonsurgical periodontal therapy. Forty subjects were divided into 2 groups with chronic periodontitis (smokers and nonsmokers) and 2 clinically healthy groups (smokers and nonsmokers). At baseline, clinical periodontal parameters, including plaque index, gingival index, probing depth, and clinical attachment levels, were assessed. Saliva and GCF samples were procured to quantify the PTX3 levels. All subjects with periodontitis, smokers and nonsmokers, received scaling and root planing. The 2 treated groups were examined 2 weeks after therapy, and any changes in the clinical parameters or PTX3 levels were recorded. At baseline, PTX3 levels in both groups of patients with chronic periodontitis were found to be significantly higher (smokers had the highest level, followed by nonsmokers) than levels in both groups of clinically healthy subjects (nonsmokers, followed by smokers) (P < 0.05). Five patients with chronic periodontitis (3 smokers and 2 nonsmokers) were lost to follow-up and therefore excluded from the statistical analysis. Scaling and root planing led to an improvement in the clinical parameters and a statistically significant reduction of PTX3 levels (P < 0.05) in both chronic periodontitis groups at the 2-week follow-up, but the changes were greater in the smokers than in the nonsmokers. In the present study, smoking was found to play a contributory role in the alteration of PTX3 levels in GCF and saliva in patients with chronic periodontitis. The role of PTX3 as a prognostic tool for resolution of periodontal inflammation still remains obscure.


In this thesis work we tested the hypothesis that tropical climatic conditions affect the quality of fresh and frozen-thawed (FT) spermatozoa from swamp buffalo bulls used for artificial insemination (AI) in Thailand, as is the case with Bos taurus and B. indicus. Ejaculates from five mature, healthy swamp buffalo AI bulls, and FT AI doses (n=218) prepared between 1980 and 1989 and between 2003 and 2005 from 18 AI swamp buffalo sires were assessed over three seasons of the year, the rainy season (i.e. July–October), winter (i.e. November–February) and summer (i.e. March–June), each with a distinct temperature and humidity. Semen and sperm characteristics were evaluated. Analyses included sperm count, motility (assessed subjectively and by computer-assisted sperm analysis [CASA]), morphology (using phase-contrast light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy [SEM]), plasma membrane integrity (PMI) (using a hypo-osmotic swelling test [HOST] and SYBR-14/propidium iodide [PI]), plasma membrane stability (PMS) (using Annexin-V/PI) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) integrity (using acridine orange [AO] staining and flow cytometry [FCM]). Semen/sperm variables, sire age, ejaculates (week of collection) and year of semen collection/processing were investigated for their statistical relation to season. Whereas semen quality (including sperm output, pH and initial sperm motility) did not differ between the seasons, PMI and the relative proportion of morphologically normal spermatozoa were highest during summer. Few spermatozoa (<15%/ejaculate) had abnormal morphology including SEM, with abnormalities resembling those in other bovidae. Tail defects were the only variable that was affected by season (with the highest percentage of defects seen during the rainy season). In FT semen, PMI (using SYBR-14/PI) and PMS were highest in winter. Across seasons, ~50% of post-thaw spermatozoa depicted linear motility, a proportion that decreased to ~35% during incubation (38oC for 60 minutes), without marking any seasonal difference. Sperm velocities such as straight linear velocity (VSL), average path velocity (VAP) and curvilinear velocity (VCL) were highest in semen processed during the rainy season, but amplitude of lateral sperm head displacement (ALH) was highest in summer, and these differences were retained after incubation. The sperm DNA was hardly damaged (with <3% fragmentation, expressed as DNA fragmentation index [DFI], among seasons), being best during the rainy season, although this variable was positively related to loose abnormal sperm heads. In conclusion, seasonal variations did not appear to cause deleterious changes in semen parameters or sperm quality of ejaculated or FT spermatozoa from swamp buffalo AI sires in tropical Thailand, despite some variation among seasons.


After years of high commodity prices, a new era of lower ones, especially for oil, seems likely to persist. This will be challenging for resource-rich countries, which must cope with the decline in income that accompanies the lower prices and the potential widening of internal and external imbalances. This column presents a new VOXEU eBook in which leading economists from academia and the public and private sector examine the shifting landscape in commodity markets and look at the exchange rate, monetary, and fiscal options policymakers have, as well as the role of finance, including sovereign wealth funds, and diversification.


The discovery of sizable gas resources in the Levant Basin, a geological structure that straddles the territorial waters of Cyprus, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, and Syria, has the potential to be game-changing for the East Mediterranean region. Hitherto net energy importers, these countries are now faced with the prospect of long-term energy self-sufficiency and the development of a new revenue stream for the economy. With the resource potential of the Levant Basin believed to be much higher than the 35 Tcf of gas discovered recently, the East Mediterranean is now the focus of much interest on the part of major upstream investors. However, in the short to medium term, the development and monetisation of these resources present stakeholders with a set of challenges originating in the region's complex political make-up, as well as in the fact that their energy and gas utilisation policies are still work in progress, over and above the technical difficulties relating to the development of these resources. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities that have been given rise to by these discoveries, arguing that to 2020 East Mediterranean gas is more likely to be a game-changer for local energy systems than for regional and international gas markets.


Aim: The aim of the study was to compare two radiographic techniques, orthopantomograph (OPG), and cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) in determining the sagittal condylar guidance (SCG) and to find out if CBCT can serve as an alternative aid to program semi-adjustable and fully adjustable articulators. Materials and Methods: Following the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 40 individuals (20 males and 20 females) aged between 20 and 40 years were selected. An OPG and a CBCT radiograph were obtained for each individual. Using appropriate software, the SCG was measured for both the sides, for both the radiographic methods. The values for each individual were obtained by two investigators for both the methods using the respective software and the average value was taken. After performing the Shapiro–Wilk test, paired t-test was used to compare the mean difference pairwise (for both right and left side) while t-test was used to compare the mean difference between two groups. Results: Results showed that the right and left SCG values obtained from both, OPG and CBCT methods were comparable and there were no significant differences. Statistically significant difference was not found between the left and ride side condylar inclination values for both the sex obtained from both the methods. With increasing age, condylar inclination values obtained from both the radiographic methods tend to decrease. The values for SCG obtained from both the methods (CBCT and OPG) are thus comparable and correlated. Conclusion: The values for SCG obtained from both the methods (CBCT and OPG) are comparable and correlated. Thus, CBCT being a better radiographic technique can be used for obtaining the condylar inclination for programming the semi-adjustable and fully adjustable dental articulators.


Detailed analyses of folds and cleavage/fold relationships within the Lower Palaeozoic Brabant massif have resulted in the recognition of pre-cleavage folds, three types of syn-cleavage folds, and two broad types of post-cleavage folds. These detailed analyses, and their integration with data from other sources, have led to major advances in our understanding of the Brabant Massif. The distribution of the different fold types yields significant insight into the smalland large-scale influence of pre-existing sedimentological, lithological and deformation features on the final deformation geometry. Changes in lithology and sedimentology result in different types of syn-cleavage folds, slump folds and local competent magmatic bodies control the position and to some extent also the orientation of syn-cleavage folds and on a larger scale also early basin-bounding features exert a major control on later deformation geometries. Moreover, combined with other data, the analysis of folds and cleavage/fold relationships provides valuable information on the large-scale architecture of the Brabant Massif, and on the evolutionary history of the Brabant Basin, from initial basin development to the final stages of basin inversion and gravitational collapse, and this both in time and in space. As illustrated herein, a thorough inventory of numerous detailed analyses of folds and cleavage/fold relationships is an absolute necessity for an understanding of the structural architecture, evolutionary history and tectonic significance of fold belts and slate belts.


Proper circuit function in the mammalian nervous system depends on the precise assembly and development of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic connections between neurons. Through a loss-of-function genetic screen in cultured hippocampal neurons, we previously identified the class 4 Semaphorin Sema4D as being required for proper GABAergic synapse development. Here we demonstrate that Sema4D is sufficient to promote GABAergic synapse formation in rodent hippocampus and investigate the kinetics of this activity. We find that Sema4D treatment of rat hippocampal neurons increases the density of GABAergic synapses as detected by immunocytochemistry within 30 min, much more rapidly than has been previously described for a prosynaptogenic molecule, and show that this effect is dependent on the Sema4D receptor PlexinB1 using PlxnB1−/− mice. Live imaging studies reveal that Sema4D elicits a rapid enhancement (within 10 min) in the rate of addition of synaptic proteins. Therefore, we demonstrate that Sema4D, via PlexinB1, acts to initiate synapse formation by recruiting molecules to both the presynaptic and the postsynaptic terminals; these nascent synapses subsequently become fully functional by 2 h after Sema4D treatment. In addition, acute treatment of an organotypic hippocampal slice epilepsy model with Sema4D reveals that Sema4D rapidly and dramatically alters epileptiform activity, which is consistent with a Sema4D-mediated shift in the balance of excitation and inhibition within the circuit. These data demonstrate an ability to quickly assemble GABAergic synapses in response to an appropriate signal and suggest a potential area of exploration for the development of novel antiepileptic drugs.


Microsimulation of urban systems evolution requires synthetic population as a key input. Currently, the focus is on treating synthesis as a fitting problem and thus various techniques have been developed, including Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) and Combinatorial Optimization based techniques. The key shortcomings of fitting based procedures include: a) synthesis of only one weighting scheme, while there can be many solutions b) due to cloning rather than true synthesis of the population, losing the heterogeneity that may not have been captured in the microdata c) over reliance on the accuracy of the data to determine the cloning weights d) poor scalability and convergence with respect to the increase in number of attributes of the synthesized agents. In order to overcome these shortcomings, we propose a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation based approach. Partial views of the joint distribution of agents attributes that are available from various data sources can be used to simulate draws from the original distribution. The problem of association of different types of agents (person-households) is then treated as a maximum weight problem of a bipartite graph. The real population from Swiss census is used to compare the performance of simulation based synthesis with the standard IPF. The standard root mean square error statistics indicated that even the worst case simulation based synthesis (SRMSE=0.35) outperformed the best case IPF synthesis (SRMSE=0.64).


Sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and high pressure baroreceptor regulation of SNA were studied in the Okamoto strain of spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR). Mean arterial pressure (MAP) and SNA were not significantly affected by anesthesia with low doses of pentobarbital (20–25 mg/kg). Thus, most of these studies were performed in anesthetized rats. SNA in visceral sympathetic nerves increased rapidly with age up to 24 weeks and slowly thereafter. MAP increased with SNA, following the same time course. Both SNA and MAP in SHR were significantly greater than that found in normotensive Wistar control rats of comparable ages. Abolition of ganglionic transmission with hexamethonium in both SHR and normotensive controls reduced postganglionic SNA and MAP to comparable levels. In SHR less than 16 weeks old, increased baroreceptor stimulation effectively inhibited SNA with the same sensitivity as found in Wistar control rats. However, older SHR appeared to lose their ability to completely inhibit SNA during induced hypertension, whereas in Wistar control rats as old as 52 weeks, elevation of blood pressure to 165.3 ± 2.3 mm Hg completely suppressed SNA. These results suggest that SNA may play an important role in the development and maintenance of hypertension in SHR, and that central sympathetic centers, uninhibited by baroreceptor afferents, become active during the development of hypertension in the SHR.


To improve location identification, we employed layered mode joint hypocenters determination (JHD) and double-difference earthquake location algorithm (hypoDD), three-dimensions velocity structure location (3DLOC), and three-dimensions velocity structure with stations corrections location (3DCOR) for the Rueyli, Taiwan, earthquake sequence. We found that the 3DCOR can greatly improve the location identification precision of the Rueyli earthquake sequence. The Rueyli mainshock was relocated to 23.510˚N, 120.660˚E at the depth of 5.6 km. The focal depth is significantly deeper than the original CWBSN value of 2.8 km. Using this new location, a first-motion fault-plane solution shows that this earthquake is a thrust event with strike N53˚E, dip 42˚E, and rake 121˚. Based on the hypocentral distribution pattern ascertained after relocation and focal mechanism, the Rueyli earthquake was probably caused by faulting in the Tachienshan fault.


In this thesis, we attempt to provide evidence on how competition in the corporate loan market in Norway affects banks ́ risk taking, and hence the financial stability, through distant lending over the business cycle. We use comprehensive data from the Norwegian banking market, containing annual information on 169 banks and approximately 136 000 firms over the period 1997 to 2013. Our analysis provides ambiguous results on whether there is cyclical variation in lending distances, and collectively we cannot conclude that there is a clear relationship between business cycles and loan distances. Furthermore, we cannot conclude that increased lending distance is associated with increased risk. Since we do not find such a relationship, we do not consider it beneficial to run our last model investigating the effect of competition on banks ́ risk taking, through distant lending. Regardless of whether increased competition leads to increased lending distances, it is not possible to measure whether competition affect banks' risk taking, as we cannot use distance as an adequate proxy for the risk associated with a loan. Hence, we cannot conclude that competition in the Norwegian banking sector has a negative impact on financial stability through distant lending.


Cortico‐cortical connections through the corpus callosum are a major candidate for mediating bimanual coordination. However, aside from the deficits observed after lesioning this connection, little positive evidence indicates its function in bimanual tasks. In order to address this issue, we simultaneously recorded neuronal activity at multiple sites within the arm area of motor cortex in both hemispheres of awake primates performing different bimanual and unimanual movements. By employing an adapted form of the joint peri‐stimulus time histogram technique, we discovered rapid movement‐related correlation changes between the local field potentials (LFPs) of the two hemispheres that escaped detection by time‐averaged cross‐correlation methods. The frequency and amplitude of dynamic modifications in correlations between the hemispheres were similar to those within the same hemisphere. As in previous EEG studies, we found that, on average, correlation decreased during movements. However, a subset of recording site pairs did show transiently increased correlations around movement onset (57% of all pairs and conditions in monkey G, 39% in monkey P). In interhemispheric pairs, these increases were consistently related to the mode of coupling between the two arms. Both the correlations between the movements themselves and the interhemispheric LFP correlation increases were strongest during bimanual symmetric movements, and weaker during bimanual asymmetric and unimanual movements. Increased correlations occurred mainly around movement onset, whilst decreases in correlation dominated during movement execution. The task‐specific way in which interhemispheric correlations are modulated is compatible with the notion that interactions between the hemispheres contribute to behavioural coupling between the arms.


[1] We use 7Be, with HNO3 and O3, to identify air masses sampled from the NCAR C-130 during TOPSE that retained clear evidence of stratospheric influence. A total of 43 such air masses, spread fairly evenly across the February to May sampling period, and 40°N–86°N latitude range, were encountered. South of 55°N, nearly all clear stratospheric influence was restricted to altitudes above 6 km. At higher latitudes stratospherically influenced air masses were encountered as low as 2 km. Approximately 12% of all TOPSE sampling time at altitudes above 2 km was spent in stratospherically impacted air, above 6 km this increased to more than half of the time. Because it is not certain how much of this stratospherically influenced air irreversibly injected mass (and chemical compounds) into the troposphere, we estimate the stratospheric fraction of O3 in high latitude TOPSE samples based on a linear relationship to 7Be and compare it to in situ O3. This analysis indicates that the stratospheric source can account for a dominant fraction (>85%) of in situ O3 throughout TOPSE, but that the stratospheric contribution was nearly constant through the 4 month campaign. In February and March the 7Be based estimates of stratospheric O3 account for 10–15% more O3 than was measured, but by April and May there is up to about 10% more O3 than expected from the stratospheric source. This trend suggests that a seasonal transition from O3 depletion to photochemical production in the high latitude North American troposphere is the major cause of the springtime increase in O3.


Background Briefs are written arguments filed with a court by the parties in a case, usually with the help of a lawyer. In the U.S. Supreme Court, the parties must first file briefs explaining why the Court should or should not review a lower court's judgment in the case. If the Court decides to grant review, the parties then file a second round of briefs, called "merit briefs." These briefs argue over the merits of the case itself. The merit briefs focus on the proper resolution of the questions of law that the Court has agreed to consider and fashion legal arguments based on precedent and logic. Merit briefs follow a specific format. For one, they include a section describing a particular party's argument ("Summary of Argument"). For this activity, students will need the following pages from the merit briefs of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which are available from the ABA's Supreme Court Preview website [www.abanet.org/supremecourtpreview]: * Petitioner's Brief (Salim Hamdan), "Summary of Argument," pp. 5-8. * Respondent's Brief (Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense), "Summary of Argument," pp. 7-12. Part One Give students background about the case. Explain habeas corpus or a habeas appeal. Discuss how resolution of the questions presented by the case will clarify separation of powers between the president, Congress, and the courts. (See the accompanying article by Charles F. Williams for this background information.) Summarize the questions presented by the case: 1. Is the military commission established by the president to try the "petitioner" [Hamdan], and others similarly situated, for alleged war crimes in the War on Terror duly authorized under Congress's Authorization for the Use of Military Force, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224; the Uniform Code of Military Justice; or the inherent powers of the president? 2. Can the petitioner, and others similarly situated, obtain judicial enforcement from a United States federal court of rights protected under the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War? Part Two Separate students into small groups. Ask half of the groups to analyze and prepare reports about the arguments in the "Summary of Argument" from the petitioner's merit brief [Hamdan], and the other half to analyze and prepare reports on the arguments from the respondent's [Rumsfeld]. Give each group its respective analysis questions to help guide the inquiries. Make sure that students have time to complete additional research on the terms in each brief that they will need to explain when reporting on the arguments. Petitioner's Brief [Hamdan]: Questions for Analysis * When in the past has the Supreme Court recognized military commissions? Under what circumstances? * How has their jurisdiction been limited? * When military commissions have been authorized, what kind of offenders have they tried, and what offenses have been considered? * How are the military commissions in question unlawful, according to the petitioner? * What does the petitioner argue about the applicability of the Geneva Convention to the situation presented by this case? * In this case, in what areas does the petitioner challenge presidential assertion of power, and in what areas does the petitioner argue it has been exercised legitimately? * What are the appropriate roles for the legislative branch in this situation, according to the petitioner? (Note: Terms for further research are italicized. "GPW" in the petitioner's brief refers to the Third Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.) Respondent's Brief [Rumsfeld]: Questions for Analysis * What effect does the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 have on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in this case, according to the respondent? * Where does the president get his authority to convene military commissions as argued in this brief? …


Objective: This study highlights how alcohol dependence in the context of family development in post-apartheid South Africa results in inordinately large social, economic and health problems in society at all levels. The main research question was how did your drinking affect your family?
Methods: The life story interview method was used to investigate how 10 married mothers and single lesbians' drinking influenced their children and family's development. How the participants make sense of their worlds in general and how such person-and context-specific systems of meaning-making or discourses impacted on their alcohol dependent experience within the family context was captured using a discourse analytical approach and presented with themes.
Results: This study's main finding is that because Apartheid's policies disintegrated the family system and the notion of Ubuntu was lost, the women were prone to alcohol dependency.
Conclusion: This study cautions policy makers to become more aware of the uniquely defined construct of a family in the context post Apartheid policies and of alcohol dependence in post-apartheid South Africa and to consider the development of family-based treatment models.


The Ancestral Rocky Mountains system consists of a series of basement-cored uplifts and associated sedimentary basins that formed in southwestern Laurentia during Early Pennsylvanian–middle Permian time. This system was originally recognized by aprons of coarse, arkosic sandstone and conglomerate within the Paradox, Eagle, and Denver Basins, which surround the Front Range and Uncompahgre basement uplifts. However, substantial portions of Ancestral Rocky Mountain–adjacent basins are filled with carbonate or fine-grained quartzose material that is distinct from proximal arkosic rocks, and detrital zircon data from basins adjacent to the Ancestral Rocky Mountains have been interpreted to indicate that a substantial proportion of their clastic sediment was sourced from the Appalachian and/or Arctic orogenic belts and transported over long distances across Laurentia into Ancestral Rocky Mountain basins. In this study, we present new U-Pb detrital zircon data from 72 samples from strata within the Denver Basin, Eagle Basin, Paradox Basin, northern Arizona shelf, Pedregosa Basin, and Keeler–Lone Pine Basin spanning ∼50 m.y. and compare these to published data from 241 samples from across Laurentia. Traditional visual comparison and inverse modeling methods map sediment transport pathways within the Ancestral Rocky Mountains system and indicate that proximal basins were filled with detritus eroded from nearby basement uplifts, whereas distal portions of these basins were filled with a mix of local sediment and sediment derived from marginal Laurentian sources including the Arctic Ellesmerian orogen and possibly the northern Appalachian orogen. This sediment was transported to southwestern Laurentia via a ca. 2,000-km-long longshore and aeolian system analogous to the modern Namibian coast. Deformation of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains slowed in Permian time, reducing basinal accommodation and allowing marginal clastic sources to overwhelm the system.


SYNTHESIS AND DETECTION OF DNA DAMAGE by Xun Gao The biological effects of DNA alkyl adducts are difficult to evaluate at the cellular level due to their instability. Synthesis of oligonucleotides that contain a single N7-alkylguanine has become a vital tool to achieve the above goal. However, the instability of N7alkyguanines is not compatible with the phosphoramidite chemistry used by solid -phase oligonucleotide synthesis either. Development of chemically stable analogues of unstable DNA lesions enables accurate study of polymerase bypass. The design and successful synthesis of N7-hydroxyethyl-9-deaza-2′-deoxyguanosine and N7-oxoethyl9-deaza-2′-deoxyguanosine as the stable analogues of N7-hydroxyethyl2′deoxyguanosine and N7-oxoethyl-2′-deoxyguanosine, respectively, are reported. The synthesis of these two nucleosides whose N7 side chains are protected by TBS for the convenience of conversion to phosphoramidites are also developed. The C-glycosidic bonds of these compounds are demonstrated to be stable under strong acidic and basic conditions. These analogues will become versatile tools to study the replication and repair of DNA alkylation damages. DNA oxidation product 8-oxoGua has been suggested as a biomarker for early cancer diagnosis. An artificial receptor for the free base of 8-oxoGua on a triplex DNA backbone was previously developed. However, accurate detection of 8-oxoGua in urine samples was affected by the presence of a large excess of guanine. Herein, a unique strategy to convert such a receptor to a colorimetric biosensor by conjugating DNA strands to gold nanoparticles (GNP) is developed. Binding of 8-oxoGua to the receptor caused the conjugation of GNP, resulting in diagnostic red-to-purple color changes. The presence of multiple binding cavities enhances the binding-induced stabilization effect and widened the temperature window used for detection. By simply incubating our sensor with a sample, 8-oxoGua can be detected at submicromolar concentrations with a UV–vis spectrometer or even by naked eye. The detection limit in a urine matrix is determined as 126 nM and the response range covers a major portion of the biologically relevant concentration range. SYNTHESIS AND DETECTION OF DNA DAMAGE


California communities are increasingly grappling with whether to deploy new surveillance technologies ranging from drones to license plate readers to facial recognition. This is understandable, since public safety budgets are tight, technology vendors promise the ability to do more with less, and federal agencies or industry sponsors may even offer funding.But surveillance can be both less effective and far more costly to local agencies and to the community at large than initially imagined, leaving communities saddled with long-term bills for surveillance that doesn't end up making the community safer. Surveillance can also be easily misused, leading to the erosion of community trust, bad press, and even costly lawsuits.In the wake of the revelations about the National Security Agency's rampant warrantless spying and the use of military equipment in Ferguson, Missouri to quell protests, communities are increasingly focused on the need for greater transparency, oversight, and accountability of surveillance and local policing. More than ever, people are aware of how billions of dollars in federal funding and equipment provided directly to law enforcement is circumventing normal democratic processes and preventing communities from thoroughly evaluating the costs and risks of surveillance. As a result, many community leaders and residents are no longer willing to heed local law enforcement's call to "just trust us."Instead, leaders and residents want to know when and why surveillance is being considered, what it is intended to do, and what it will really cost — both in dollars and in individual rights — before taking any steps to seek funding or acquire or deploy surveillance technology. They also want to craft robust rules to ensure proper use, oversight, and accountability if surveillance is used. Unfortunately, few resources exist to help communities make thoughtful decisions about surveillance. That's where this document comes in.This first-of-its-kind guide provides step-by-step assistance to help communities ask and answer the right questions about surveillance. It includes case studies highlighting smart approaches and missteps to avoid. Because each community and each type of surveillance may present a different set of issues, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, this guide gives communities a flexible framework that policymakers, community members and law enforcement should use to properly evaluate a wide array of surveillance technologies and develop policies that provide transparency, oversight, and accountability. It also includes a Surveillance & Community Safety Ordinance that communities should adopt to ensure that the right process is followed every time.


Background:Random effects models were used to explore how the shape of CD4 cell count responses after commencing combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) develop over time and, in particular, the role of baseline and follow-up covariates. Methods:Patients in Asia Pacific HIV Observational Database who first commenced cART after January 1, 1997, and who had a baseline CD4 cell count and viral load measure and at least 1 follow-up measure between 6 and 24 months, were included. CD4 cell counts were determined at every 6-month period after the commencement of cART for up to 6 years. Results:A total of 1638 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria with a median follow-up time of 58 months. Lower post-cART mean CD4 cell counts were found to be associated with increasing age (P < 0.001), pre-cART hepatitis C coinfection (P = 0.038), prior AIDS (P = 0.019), baseline viral load ≤100,000 copies per milliliter (P < 0.001), and the Asia Pacific region compared with Australia (P = 0.005). A highly significant 3-way interaction between the effects of time, baseline CD4 cell count, and post-cART viral burden (P < 0.0001) was demonstrated. Higher long-term mean CD4 cell counts were associated with lower baseline CD4 cell count and consistently undetectable viral loads. Among patients with consistently detectable viral load, CD4 cell counts seemed to converge for all baseline CD4 levels. Conclusions:Our analyses suggest that the long-term shape of post-cART CD4 cell count changes depends only on a 3-way interaction between baseline CD4 cell count, viral load response, and time.


Data from our lab and others demonstrate that there is greater cardiac T cell infiltration with age and that these T cells play a role in pathogenic cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. However, how T cells are recruited to the heart with advanced age is unknown. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess age-related alterations in T cell recruiting chemokine and chemokine receptor gene expression in the heart. METHODS: This study was conducted using five young (4-6 months old) and five old (22-24 months old) mice. Following euthanasia, the heart tissue was snap frozen and homogenized. RNA was extracted using the phenol/chloroform method. Following cDNA synthesis, qPCR was performed for the chemokines Ccl2, Ccl5, Cxcl10; as well as the 18s gene which was used as an endogenous control. Additionally, we performed qPCR for chemokine receptors, specifically Ccr1, Ccr3, Ccr5, and Cxcr3. After qPCR, relative gene expression was determined using the delta delta CT method. Differences were assessed using an independent sample T test. All data are expressed as mean relative gene expression ± standard error. RESULTS: For the Cxcl10 cytokine, the relative gene expression was 1.43 ± 0.39 in young mice and 3.07 ± 0.52 in old mice (p=0.018). For the chemokine Ccl5, the relative gene expression was 1.03 ± 0.25 in young mice and 7.35 ± 4.37 in old mice (p=0.093). Additionally, the Ccl2 chemokine had a relative gene expression of 1.19 ± 0.47 in young mice and 1.44 ± 0.27 in old mice (p=0.328). Because we observed age related elevations in the Cxcl10 and Ccl5 chemokines, we assessed gene expression for the corresponding chemokine receptors. Ccl5 receptors, Ccr1 (1.73 ± 0.65, young vs. 2.89 ± 0.75, old p=0.140), Ccr3 (1.89 ± 0.73, young vs. 7.19 ± 4.74, old p=0.150), and Ccr5 (1.11± 0.13, young vs. 2.46 ± 0.51, old p=0.017) exhibited trends for elevation. Furthermore, the receptor Cxcr3 which corresponds to the Cxcl10 chemokine had a relative gene expression of 1.26 ± 0.28 in young mice and 8.73 ± 4.96 in old mice (p=0.086). CONCLUSION: In conclusion, these data suggest that gene expression for both the Ccl5 and Cxcl10 chemokine pathways is upregulated in hearts of the old mice. Further, Ccl5 and Cxcl10 may be responsible for the increased T cell recruitment to the aging heart. These chemokines represent a potential treatment target to preserve cardiovascular health in the elderly.


BACKGROUND: Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is a condition imposing significant health care burden. Given its syndromic nature and often insidious onset, the diagnosis may not be made until clinical manifestations prompt further evaluation. Detecting HFrEF in precursor stages could allow for early initiation of treatments to modify disease progression. Granular data collected during the perioperative period may represent an underutilized method for improving the diagnosis of HFrEF. We hypothesized that patients ultimately diagnosed with HFrEF following surgery can be identified via machine-learning approaches using pre- and intraoperative data. METHODS: Perioperative data were reviewed from adult patients undergoing general anesthesia for major surgical procedures at an academic quaternary care center between 2010 and 2016. Patients with known HFrEF, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, preoperative critical illness, or undergoing cardiac, cardiology, or electrophysiologic procedures were excluded. Patients were classified as healthy controls or undiagnosed HFrEF. Undiagnosed HFrEF was defined as lacking a HFrEF diagnosis preoperatively but establishing a diagnosis within 730 days postoperatively. Undiagnosed HFrEF patients were adjudicated by expert clinician review, excluding cases for which HFrEF was secondary to a perioperative triggering event, or any event not associated with HFrEF natural disease progression. Machine-learning models, including L1 regularized logistic regression, random forest, and extreme gradient boosting were developed to detect undiagnosed HFrEF, using perioperative data including 628 preoperative and 1195 intraoperative features. Training/validation and test datasets were used with parameter tuning. Test set model performance was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), positive predictive value, and other standard metrics. RESULTS: Among 67,697 cases analyzed, 279 (0.41%) patients had undiagnosed HFrEF. The AUROC for the logistic regression model was 0.869 (95% confidence interval, 0.829–0.911), 0.872 (0.836–0.909) for the random forest model, and 0.873 (0.833–0.913) for the extreme gradient boosting model. The corresponding positive predictive values were 1.69% (1.06%–2.32%), 1.42% (0.85%–1.98%), and 1.78% (1.15%–2.40%), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Machine-learning models leveraging perioperative data can detect undiagnosed HFrEF with good performance. However, the low prevalence of the disease results in a low positive predictive value, and for clinically meaningful sensitivity thresholds to be actionable, confirmatory testing with high specificity (eg, echocardiography or cardiac biomarkers) would be required following model detection. Future studies are necessary to externally validate algorithm performance at additional centers and explore the feasibility of embedding algorithms into the perioperative electronic health record for clinician use in real time.


Ensuring and sustaining software product integrity requires that all project stakeholders share a common understanding of the status of the product throughout the development and sustainment processes. Accurately measuring the product's status helps achieve this shared understanding. This paper presents an effective measurement model organized by seven principles that capture the fundamental managerial and technical concerns of development and sustainment. These principles guided the development of the measures presented in the paper. Data from the quantitative measures help organizational stakeholders make decisions about the performance of their overall software assurance processes. Complementary risk-based data help them make decisions relative to the assessment of risk. The quantitative and risk-based measures form a comprehensive model to assess program and organizational performance. An organization using this model will be able to assess its performance to ensure secure and trustworthy products.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the pharmacokinetics of lidocaine and its active metabolite, monoethylglycinexylidide (MEGX), after i.v. administration of a single bolus of lidocaine in cats that were awake in phase 1 and anesthetized with isoflurane in phase 2 of the study.

ANIMALS
8 healthy adult cats.

PROCEDURE
During phase 1, cats were administered lidocaine (2 mg/kg, i.v.) as a bolus injection (time 0). During phase 2, cats were anesthetized with isoflurane and maintained at 0.75 times the minimum alveolar concentration of isoflurane for each specific cat. After a 15-minute equilibration period, lidocaine (2 mg/kg, i.v.) was administered as a bolus injection to each cat (time 0). In both phases, plasma concentrations of lidocaine and MEGX were measured at various time points by use of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

RESULTS
Anesthesia with isoflurane significantly decreased the volume of the central compartment, clearance, and elimination half-life of lidocaine and significantly increased the extrapolated plasma drug concentration at time 0, compared with values for awake cats. Pharmacokinetics of MEGX were also changed by isoflurane-induced anesthesia because the maximum observed plasma concentration (C(max)), area under the concentration-time curve extrapolated to infinity, and time to C(max) were significantly higher in anesthetized cats, compared with values for awake cats.

CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Pharmacokinetics of lidocaine and MEGX were substantially altered in cats anesthetized by use of isoflurane. When pharmacokinetic variables are used to determine loading and infusion doses in awake or anesthetized cats, they should be measured in cats that are awake or anesthetized, respectively.


In preindustrial Europe, dependence on grain shaped every phase of life from economic development to spiritual expression, and the problem of subsistence dominated the everyday order of things in a merciless and unremitting way. Steven Laurence Kaplan's "The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700-1775" focuses on the production and distribution of France's most important commodity in the sprawling urban center of eighteenth-century Paris where provisioning needs were most acutely felt and most difficult to satisfy. Kaplan shows how the relentless demand for bread constructed the pattern of daily life in Paris as decisively and subtly as elaborate protocol governed the social life at Versailles. Despite the overpowering salience of bread in public and private life, Kaplan's is the first inquiry into the ways bread exercised its vast and significant empire. Bread framed dreams as well as nightmares. It was the staff of life, the medium of communion, a topic of common discourse, and a mark of tradition as well as transcendence. In his exploration of bread's materiality and cultural meaning, Kaplan looks at bread's fashioning of identity and examines the conditions of supply and demand in the marketplace. He also sets forth a complete history of the bakers and their guild, and unmasks the methods used by the authorities in their efforts to regulate trade. Because the bakers and their bread were central to Parisian daily life, Kaplan's study is also a comprehensive meditation on an entire society, its government, and its capacity to endure. Long-awaited by French history scholars, "The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question, 1700-1775" is a landmark in eighteenth-century historiography, a book that deeply contextualizes, and thus enriches our understanding of one of the most important eras in European history.


The popularity and the appeal of systems which are able to automatically determine the gender from face images are growing rapidly. Such a great interest arises from the wide variety of applications, especially in the fields of retail and video surveillance. In recent years, there have been several attempts to address this challenge, but a definitive solution has not yet been found. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that fuses domain-specific and trainable features to recognize the gender from face images. In particular, we use the SURF descriptors extracted from 51 facial landmarks related to eyes, nose, and mouth as domain-dependent features, and the COSFIRE filters as trainable features. The proposed approach turns out to be very robust with respect to the well-known face variations, including different poses, expressions, and illumination conditions. It achieves state-of-the-art recognition rates on the GENDER-FERET (94.7%) and on the labeled faces in the wild (99.4%) data sets, which are two of the most popular benchmarks for gender recognition. We further evaluated the method on a new data set acquired in real scenarios, the UNISA-Public, recently made publicly available. It consists of 206 training (144 male, 62 female) and 200 test (139 male, 61 female) images that are acquired with a real-time indoor camera capturing people in regular walking motion. Such experiment has the aim to assess the capability of the algorithm to deal with face images extracted from videos, which are definitely more challenging than the still images available in the standard data sets. Also for this data set, we achieved a high recognition rate of 91.5%, that confirms the generalization capabilities of the proposed approach. Of the two types of features, the trainable COSFIRE filters are the most effective and, given their trainable character, they can be applied in any visual pattern recognition problem.


ABSTRACT Focusing on the politics of museums, collections and the untold stories of the scientific 'specimens' that travelled between Germany and Australia, this article reconstructs the historical, interpersonal and geopolitical contexts that made it possible for the stuffed skin of an Australian malleefowl to become part of the collections of Berlin's Museum für Naturkunde. The author enquires into the kinds of contexts that are habitually considered irrelevant when a specimen of natural history is treated as an object of taxonomic information only. In case of this particular specimen human and non-human history become entangled in ways that link the fate of this one small Australian bird to the German revolutionary generation of 1848, to Germany's nineteenth-century colonial aspirations, to settler–Indigenous relations, to the cruel realities that underpinned the production of scientific knowledge in colonial Australia, and to a present-day interest in reconstructing Indigenous knowledges.


˜ Spatially distributed genetic populations that compete locally for resources and mate only with sufficiently close neighbors, may give rise to spontaneous pattern formation. Depending on the population parameters, like death rate per generation and size of the competition and mating neighborhoods, isolated groups of individuals, or demes, may appear. The existence of such groups in a population has consequences for genetic diversity and for speciation. In this paper we discuss the robustness of demes formation with respect to two important characteristics of the population: the way individuals recognize the demarcation of the local neighborhoods and the way competition for resources affects the birth rate in an overcrowed situation. Our results indicate that demes are expected to form only for sufficiently sharp demarcations and for sufficiently intense competition.


It was reported by Mullen and Boulton [ Vision Res.32, 483 ( 1992)] that there is a lack of smooth-motion perception for chromatic stimuli, and we were interested in quantifying this observation to try to see how it relates to the underlying processing of moving chromatic stimuli. We suggest that, if a stimulus looks as though it is not moving smoothly, a greater degree of quantization will be necessary before observers are able to discriminate between fine and coarse temporal sampling of the moving pattern. We used a two-alternative forced-choice discrimination paradigm to measure observers' ability to discriminate finely sampled (smooth) from coarsely sampled (jerky) motion in luminance (achromatic) and chromatic (red–green) gratings. Stimuli were presented for 0.5 s, moved at 2 or 4 Hz, and had a spatial frequency of 1, 5, or 10 cycles/deg. At low contrasts (0.5 log unit above detection threshold), sampled motion was more discriminable in luminance than in chromatic gratings. As contrast increased, performance improved in both chromatic and luminance gratings. As spatial frequency increased, performance improved for chromatic but fell for luminance gratings. Analysis of the data suggests that the ability to discriminate fine from coarsely sampled motion in both luminance and chromatic gratings can be predicted from the temporal Fourier spectra in terms of the "window of visibility" [ J. Opt. Soc. Am. A3, 300 ( 1986)]. We conclude that the chromatic window of visibility is smaller than the luminance window at given spatial and temporal frequencies and gives a measure of the temporal resolution of the chromatic motion system. However, our results imply that the window of visibility cannot explain the percept of smooth motion. Under conditions in which there are no visible artifacts in the chromatic stimulus, observers seem still to perceive the motion as jerky, and we consider other possible explanations for this phenomenon.


The piezochromic metal-organic framework Co2(Bdc)2Dabco·4DMF·H2O (Bdc denotes 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate, Dabco - 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane, and DMF - dimethylformamide) under ambient conditions is tetragonal (phase α) and at about 1.9 GPa undergoes a strong pressure-induced shortening of translational correlations in the sample. A broad gradual pre-amorphization process starting at about 0.7 GPa reduces the tetragonal symmetry and is described as phase β. The pre-amorphization mechanism involves several competing distortions of the Bdc linkers and Co(ii)-coordination schemes. These in turn, affect the crystal field around the cations and their optical absorption. The compression strongly affects the VIS absorption of this piezochromic compound visibly changing its colour from blue to red.


The hyper-modular printer control project at PARC has proven that a tightly integrated model-based planning and control framework can effectively control a complex physical system. Recently, we have successfully applied this framework to another application: planning for the Material Control System (MCS) of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) manufacturing plant in a joint project between the Embedded Reasoning Area at PARC and the Products Development Center at the IHI Corporation. The model-based planner created at PARC was able to successfully solve a diverse set of test scenarios provided by IHI, including those that were deemed very difficult by the IHI experts. The short projecttime (2 months) proved that model-based planning is a flexible framework that can adapt quickly to novel applications. In this paper, we will introduce this complex domain and describe the adaptation process of the Plantrol online planner. The main contributions are: (1) introducing a successful application of general-purpose planning; (2) outline the timeline-based online temporal planner; and (3) description of a complex warehouse management problem that can serve as an attractive benchmark domain for planning.


The existence of new technologies, implemented in efficient platforms and workflows has made massive genotyping available to all fields of biology and medicine. Genetic analyses are no longer dominated by experimental work in laboratories, but rather the interpretation of the resulting data. When billions of data points representing thousands of individuals are available, efficient computational tools are required. The focus of this thesis is on developing models, methods and implementations for such tools.The first theme of the thesis is multi-dimensional scans for quantitative trait loci (QTL) in experimental crosses. By mating individuals from different lines, it is possible to gather data that can be used to pinpoint the genetic variation that influences specific traits to specific genome loci. However, it is natural to expect multiple genes influencing a single trait to interact. The thesis discusses model structure and model selection, giving new insight regarding under what conditions orthogonal models can be devised. The thesis also presents a new optimization method for efficiently and accurately locating QTL, and performing the permuted data searches needed for significance testing. This method has been implemented in a software package that can seamlessly perform the searches on grid computing infrastructures.The other theme in the thesis is the development of adapted optimization schemes for using hidden Markov models in tracing allele inheritance pathways, and specifically inferring haplotypes. The advances presented form the basis for more accurate and non-biased line origin probabilities in experimental crosses, especially multi-generational ones. We show that the new tools are able to reconstruct haplotypes and even genotypes in founder individuals and offspring alike, based on only unordered offspring genotypes. The tools can also handle larger populations than competing methods, resolving inheritance pathways and phase in much larger and more complex populations. Finally, the methods presented are also applicable to datasets where individual relationships are not known, which is frequently the case in human genetics studies. One immediate application for this would be improved accuracy for imputation of SNP markers within genome-wide association studies (GWAS).


This paper investigates the application of the Schengen Information System (SIS) in the European Union and the balance between civil liberties, security and justice. It provides an overview of the SIS, technical issues related to the maintenance of the SIS, and transnational legal issues in the context of national security and public policy. Given that citizens can now move freely between States in Europe, the paper investigates how the SIS is being administered, applied, and enforced and some of the potential problems that arise from cross mutual state recognition of SIS alerts. This paper argues that the SIS has a number of inherent and propagating weaknesses and that the risk exposure presented to citizens is far too great for the benefits that ensue. The paper recommends a movement away from the idea of a fortress Europe toward one of State to State harmonization in transnational criminal issues.


The administration of oral contraceptives which contain oestrogen increases non-protein-bound plasma cortisol levels at 9 am as well as protein-bound and total cortisol levels. These increases are dependent on the dose of oestrogen; they are not usually seen with progestogen-only or `low-dose' oestrogen (0·05 mg mestranol or less) preparations. `Standard' oral contraceptives (0·1 mg mestranol or equivalent) produce some elevation of unbound cortisol levels at 9 am (from a normal mean of 0·66 μg/100 ml to 1·02 on the `pill') but this elevation is less than that associated with high-dose oestrogen treatment of, for example, prostate cancer (mean 1·8 μg/100 ml). Since unbound cortisol levels in plasma are controlled by a hypothalamic feedback mechanism, it appears that oral contraceptives have some effect on this mechanism. Possible long-term effects of oral contraceptives on hypothalamopituitary function require examination. However, the plasma unbound cortisol to which the tissues are exposed at 9 am does not measure the overall exposure of tissues to cortisol throughout the 24 hours. Neither does measurement of cortisol production rate or urinary metabolite excretion accurately reflect the exposure of tissues to cortisol during oestrogen treatment, because of the complex effects of oestrogen on hepatic metabolism of steroids, steroid-protein binding, and the increased size of the extracellular cortisol pool. The overall exposure of tissues to unbound cortisol is measured better by urinary free cortisol excretion. Urinary free cortisol excretion is a measure of the integrated area under the diurnal curve of plasma unbound cortisol, ie, of the 24-hour exposure of tissues to unbound cortisol. Urinary free cortisol excretion is normal in women taking low-dose oestrogen or progestogen-only contraceptives, and is only trivially increased by the standard `pill'. Thus increased exposure of tissues to unbound cortisol is likely to be only a minor factor in the metabolic responses to oral contraceptives. In contrast, urinary free cortisol excretion (mean normal 38 μg/24 hours) is increased by high-dose oestrogen administration for prostatic cancer (mean 110 μg/24 hours); this is because the diurnal rhythm of unbound cortisol is impaired. It is thus unwise to ascribe effects of oral contraceptives to increased exposure of tissues to cortisol, except in the liver where it is possible that the increased concentration of protein-bound cortisol they cause may exert metabolic effects. The preparations which cause least change in cortisol metabolism are the low-dose oestrogen or progestogen-only contraceptives.


Could "fake news" have First Amendment value? This claim would seem to be almost frivolous given the potential for fake news to undermine two core functions of the freedom of speech – promoting democracy and facilitating the search for "truth," as well as the corollary that to be valuable, speech must promote rational deliberation. Some would therefore claim that fake news should count as "no value" speech falling outside of the First Amendment's reach. This Article argues somewhat counterintuitively that fake news has value because speech doctrine should not be focused exclusively on the promotion of rational deliberation, but should also limit the state's ability to control the way we emotionally experience ideas, beliefs, and even facts. It claims that like art, music, religious expression, and other forms of human communication that do not facilitate rational deliberation in their audiences, fake news can promote a form of expressive experiential autonomy. It can allow individuals to experience individual self-realization and identify formation and also form cultural connections with like-minded people, advancing social cohesion. Drawing on First Amendment theory and on the fields of cognitive and social psychology and political science, the Article views consumers of fake news not simply as uninformed, gullible rubes, but as individuals seeking to simultaneously distinguish themselves through individualization or self-identification and group association with a community of people with whom they share values. Understood in this way, the inquiry illustrates why the rational deliberation principle is incomplete because it does not explain much of what we ought to recognize as "speech." This more nuanced understanding of the way that fake news connects with much of its audience has implications for free speech theory, First Amendment doctrine, and policymaking options for addressing the potential harms of fake news. To be clear, this Article is not a defense of fake news or those who intentionally attempt to influence others' behavior by spreading false facts disguised as legitimate news. Thus, the Article concludes by explaining that while fake news should always be covered by the First Amendment, it should not always be protected.


The greatest risk factor for lung-cancer is smoking, the second largest factor being raised radon levels at home. Initiatives to stop smoking and reduce domestic radon levels have met with some success, but in both cases a significant proportion of those affected fail to respond. The two risk factors combine, so that those who smoke and live in a house with high radon levels are at higher risk than if exposed to only one of the two threats. There is the potential for combined public health campaigns to better target those affected.
Our group has studied both the smoking cessation and radon remediation programmes in Northamptonshire, UK, considering the costs and health benefits of each, and, using postal questionnaires, recording the demographics of participants. Our analysis suggests that the demographics of the two groups are significantly different. Those who remediate tend to be older, include fewer smokers and have fewer children.
The health benefits from stopping smoking are greater than those from radon remediation, and the smoking cessation programme costs less per lung-cancer averted. In addition, the continuing reduction in smoking prevalence in the UK will reduce the effectiveness of radon remediation campaigns.
This paper discusses the synergy between the programmes, and argues that there is merit in an integrated approach to these health campaigns, and in particular to extending smoking cessation programmes to include advice on reducing the risks from radon.


The subject of market power is discussed frequently in debates about subsidies for ethanol production, and structural conditions in the industry create a prima-facie case for concerns about market power. This paper develops a prototype model for determining the production and price impacts and distribution of benefits from the U.S. ethanol subsidy when upstream sellers in the seed sector and downstream buyers in the processing sector may exercise market power. The impact of the subsidy is analyzed within a simulation framework for alternative levels of market power. Results demonstrate that the impacts on prices and output are limited for modest departures from competition. Distributional impacts are much greater. Seed producers and corn processors with market power are able to capture relatively large shares of the benefits from the subsidy. A perhaps surprising result is that upstream oligopoly power exercised by seed producers is prospectively as important in influencing the positive and distributional impacts of the subsidy as the much more frequently discussed and debated prospect that downstream corn processors may exercise buyer power.


Due to the reform of payment systems from netting settlement systems to Real Time
Gross Settlement systems (RTGS) around the world in recent years, there is a dramatic
increase in the interest in modeling the large-valued interbank payment system. Recently
some queueing facilities have been introduced in the response to the liquidity management
within the RTGS systems. Since stochastic process models have been wildly applied in
social networks, and some aspects of which have similar statistical properties with the
payment system, therefore, based on the existing empirical research, a Markov type model
for RTGS payment system with queueing and collateral borrowing facilities was developed.
We analysed the effect on the performance of the payment system of the parameters, such
as the probabilities of payment delay, the initial cash position of participating banks and
the probabilities of cross bank payments. Two models were proposed; one is the simplest
model where payments were assumed to be equally distributed among participating banks,
the other one is a so-called "cluster" model, that there exists a concentration of payments
flow between a few banks according to the evidence from empirical studies. We have found
that the performance of the system depends on these parameters. A modest amount
of total initial liquidity required by banks would achieve a desired performance, that
minimising the number of unsettled payments by the end of a business day and negligible
average lifetime of the debts.
Because of the change of large-valued interbank payment systems, the concern has
shift from credit risk to liquidity risk, and the payment systems around world started
considering or already implemented different liquidity saving mechanisms to reduce the
high demand of liquidity and maintain the low risk of default in the mean time. We
proposed a specified queueing facility to the "cluster" model with modification with the
consideration of the feature of the UK RTGS payment system, CHAPS. Some of thepayments would be submitted into a external queue by certain rules, and will be settled
according an algorithm of bilateral or multilateral offsetting. While participating banks's
post liquidity will be reserved for "important" payments only. The experiment of using
simulated data showed that the liquidity saving mechanism was not equally beneficial to
every bank, the banks who dominated most of the payment flow even suffered from higher
level of debts at the end of a business day comparing with a pure RTGS system without
any queueing facility. The stability of the structure of the central queue was verified.
There was evidence that banks in the UK payment system would set up limits for other
members to prevent unexpected credit exposure, and with these limits, banks also achieved
a moderate liquidity saving in CHAPS. Both central bank and participating banks are interested in the probability that the limits are excess. The problem can be reduced to
the calculation of boundary crossing probability from a Brownian motion with stochastic
boundaries. Boundary crossing problems are very popular in many fields of Statistics.
With powerful tools, such as martingales and infinitesimal generator of Brownian motion,
we presented an alternative method and derived a set of theorems of boundary crossing
probabilities for a Brownian motion with different kinds of stochastic boundaries, especially compound Poisson process boundaries. Both the numerical results and simulation
experiments are studies. A variation of the method would be discussed when apply it to
other stochastic boundaries, for instances, Gamma process, Inverse Gaussian process and
Telegraph process. Finally, we provided a brief survey of approximations of Levy processes.
The boundary crossing probabilities theorems derived earlier could be extended to a fair
general situation with Levy process boundaries, by using an appropriate approximation.


Lost in the recent efforts to take political advantage of (or explain away) the rapid rise in liability insurance premiums is any real attempt to understand the underwriting cycle, why it is so severe in medical malpractice insurance, and what it might mean for the ability of malpractice liability to deliver on its risk distribution, loss prevention, and corrective justice objectives. This essay attempts to fill that gap. Part 1 provides a primer on the liability insurance underwriting cycle that draws on the research prompted by the mid-1980s insurance hard market. This part explains that the recent dramatic increases in predicted medical malpractice losses are a result of the insurance cycle, not dramatic changes in medical malpractice claim payments. Part 2 explores why the underwriting cycle is so severe in medical malpractice insurance. This part applies my recent Geneva Lecture analysis of liability risks to the specific problem of medical malpractice, with a fuller consideration of the dynamics of the underwriting cycle. In short, the cycle is so severe because there is a relatively long period between the time that the premiums for a medical malpractice policy are paid and the time that losses under that policy can be known with certainty, and because there is more uncertainty regarding future medical malpractice losses than many other kinds of losses. Part 3 explores whether insurance regulators should consider acting to moderate the underwriting cycle (assuming that they could do so). This part argues that there are good reasons to believe that medical malpractice insurance crises lead medical providers to improve patient safety and, therefore, that efforts to moderate the cycle could have a negative impact on patient safety. Further research is needed before we can draw firm conclusions, but leaving the insurance cycle alone would be the wiser course for now.


Recent scholarship has argued that the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press refers to speech-disseminating technology, such as the printing press, rather than to the institutional press. This Article argues that to protect the free press rights of authors, technological intermediaries such as presses and internet and online service providers must be afforded greater protection than authors for publishing and disseminating sanctionable speech. Unless intermediaries are granted near-complete immunity, the government will be able to censor authors collaterally by threatening to punish intermediaries for authors' speech, forcing intermediaries to restrain what the government cannot directly.Specifically, this Article explores the longstanding, symbiotic relationship between liberty of the press and copyright law and argues that, even if copyright protections are generally consistent with the Free Speech Clause, they may violate the Free Press Clause when they motivate collateral censorship of non-copyright-infringing speech.


This study evaluated the impacts of future climate scenarios on the groundwater resources and agricultural economy of the Texas High Plains, using Hale county as a case study. Climate change impacts were incorporated into regional economic models using weather projections to develop crop response functions from crop models. These projections are based on quantitative projections of precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, and temperature trends driven by simulations from the latest IPCC AR4 climate models (Community Climate System Model (CCSM), Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), UK Met Office Hadley Model (HadCM3), and Parallel Climate Model (PCM)) under two specific emissions scenarios, A1B (mid-range) and A1FI (higher). Results indicated that for both the emission scenarios, saturated thickness, water use per cropland acre, and irrigated acreage declined under climatic predictions by all four models. At the end of the 90 year horizon, the A1B scenario resulted in a decline in average net income per acre as predicted by the CCSM and HadCM3 models, while the GFDL and PCM models predicted an increase in average net income per acre. Under the A1FI scenario, the CCSM, GFDL, and PCM model projections led to increased average net income per acre, while climate projections under the HadCM3 model indicated a decline in average net income per acre at the end of the 90 year horizon.


Styles of thinking set different paths for an entrepreneur's perception and strategic action. In order to understand the environmental consequences of a thinking style, we investigated the relations between entrepreneurs' linear and nonlinear styles of thinking with their perception of environmental uncertainty in their businesses. Furthermore, we tested the effect of the entrepreneurs' linear and nonlinear style of thinking on their newly established firms' orientation towards preserving the surrounding internal and external environment. Entrepreneurs with linear or rational thinking styles prefer more tangible data, information, facts, and analytical tools, and entrepreneurs with nonlinear or non-rational thinking styles rely more on internal feelings, impressions, imagination, creativity, and sensations when making important organizational decisions. By using cross-sectional survey data from 144 entrepreneurs in post-sanction Iran (2016–2017), we found that entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking, in comparison to entrepreneurs with a nonlinear style of thinking, perceive a higher level of environmental state, effect, and response uncertainty in their business context. Furthermore, our survey results reveal that newly established firms by entrepreneurs with nonlinear styles of thinking have a more external environmental orientation, while newly established firms by entrepreneurs with a linear style of thinking have a more internal environmental orientation. Recognizing this contingency advances our understanding of how entrepreneurs perceive and enact their environments.


Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) is an aid to mastering the spatial complexities of 3D data. Christian Michelsen Research (CMR) previously developed a virtual reality system for safety training using a large-screen and shutter glasses for stereo vision along with positional and rotational tracking. Building and maintaining a custom system has been expensive and time consuming. The recent availability of affordable and capable head mounted displays (HMD) along with powerful 3D game engines has created new opportunities for affordable immersive VR. In this paper we compare our custom made VR hardware system and 3D engine with a solution built on Oculus Rift HMD and the Unity 5 game engine.


Automatic process monitoring, including tool wear monitoring, is a key aspect of improving the energy efficiency and cost of the machining process. The tool flank wear continuously increases during drilling operations. The intensity of tool wear may vary depending on the local properties of the material and the process settings. This paper shows the potential of drill condition monitoring based on machine tool control system data, namely spindle drive current and Z slide current. The workpiece vibration measurement is used as a reference method. Correlations of various features of monitored signals are evaluated. These features are shown to depend, in general, on the instantaneous drilling depth. Among the features investigated, the RMS signal has been shown to exhibit a significant correlation with tool wear. The results were compared for two values of cutting speed. The correlation of selected features is shown to be independent of the total lifetime of the tool, thus demonstrating the attractiveness of these features for tool wear prediction. Specifically, the root mean square of the vibration and spindle torque signals strongly correlate with flank wear near the bottom of the hole while the root mean square of the drive current of the drilling axis strongly correlates with flank wear near the middle of the hole.


For seventy years Israel has existed as a state, and for forty years it has honored a peace treaty with Egypt that is widely viewed as a triumph of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. Yet the Palestinians—the would-be beneficiaries of a vision for a comprehensive regional settlement that led to the Camp David Accords in 1978—remain stateless to this day. How and why Palestinian statelessness persists are the central questions of Seth Anziska's groundbreaking book, which explores the complex legacy of the agreement brokered by President Jimmy Carter.

Based on newly declassified international sources, Preventing Palestine charts the emergence of the Middle East peace process, including the establishment of a separate track to deal with the issue of Palestine. At the very start of this process, Anziska argues, Egyptian-Israeli peace came at the expense of the sovereignty of the Palestinians, whose aspirations for a homeland alongside Israel faced crippling challenges. With the introduction of the idea of restrictive autonomy, Israeli settlement expansion, and Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the chances for Palestinian statehood narrowed even further. The first Intifada in 1987 and the end of the Cold War brought new opportunities for a Palestinian state, but many players, refusing to see Palestinians as a nation or a people, continued to steer international diplomacy away from their cause.

Combining astute political analysis, extensive original research, and interviews with diplomats, military veterans, and communal leaders, Preventing Palestine offers a bold new interpretation of a highly charged struggle for self-determination.


Industrial policies (IPs) include such varying practices as production subsidies, export subsidies, and import protection, and are commonly used by countries to promote targeted sectors. However, such policies can have significant impacts on sectors other than those targeted by the IPs, particularly when the target sector produces goods that are key inputs to downstream sectors. Surprisingly, there has been little systematic analysis of how IPs in targeted sectors affect other sectors of the economy. Using a new hand-collected database of steel-sector IP use in major steel-producing countries from 1975 through 2000, this paper examines whether steel-sector IPs have a significant impact on the export competitiveness of the country's other manufacturing sectors, particularly those that are significant downstream users of steel. I find that a one-standard-deviation increase in IP presence leads to a 3.6% decline in export competitiveness for an average downstream manufacturing sector. But this effect can be as high as 50% decline for sectors that use steel as an input most intensively. These general negative effects of IPs are primarily due to export subsidies and non-tariff barriers, particularly in less-developed countries.


The Internet is a powerful tool in today's ever-growing society. Computer Information
and Internet security has recently become a popular subject due to the explosive growth
of the Internet and the migration of commerce practices to the electronic medium. We
use the Internet for many things, such as research, banking, and commercial sales. In
each of this business, their needs to be save haven for which security is not
compromised while companies run its business online. Thus the authenticity and privacy
of the information transmitted and the data received on networked computers is of
utmost importance. The deployment of network security procedures requires the
implementation of Cryptographic algorithms. To facilitate this security issue, it is best to
define a problem and advice a solution. The problem is computer crime via hackers,crackers, and thieves. The solution is to apply a security system upon the online system.
The Science of cryptography provides one means to combat these attacks. These include
encryption, decryption, authentication, and digital signature. Performance has always
been the most critical characteristic of a cryptographic algorithm, which determines its
effectiveness.
In this research the most popular and used algorithm, which is RSA, is implemented
with a new modification in order to reduce the calculation time of the algorithm. A large
encryption and decryption key sizes ranging from 1024 bit to 3072 bit have been
generated and used in order to provide a high level of security. The computation results
show that the key generation process using the modified algorithm is around three times
faster than the old implementation. Both old and new implementations are used to
encrypt and decrypt different sizes and types of files using different generated key sizes.
The results show that the most time lagging comes from image files, followed by PDF
files, and then text files Moreover the encryption and decryption process using the
modified system is around twice faster than the old system.


ASTANA – President Nursultan Nazarbayev congratulated the people of Kazakhstan Dec. 15 during a ceremonial meeting on the national holiday marking the nation's 25th anniversary of independence. "Dear compatriots! Let me congratulate you with the great holiday and achievement of our country, the 25th anniversary of independence! On December 16, 1991, we declared our independence. We installed our turquoise national flag inside the United Nations building, our national anthem became known around the world and we made our national emblem an eternal stamp," he said. The President noted during the first years of independence Kazakhstan adopted its Constitution, established its armed forces and marked its borders. He also stressed the idea of the Mangilik Yel (Eternal Nation), which originated 1,500 years ago, has now become a national idea. "Twenty-five years of independence is an unprecedented feat of our generation. It is symbolic that in the year of its anniversary, Kazakhstan was elected as a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council. We are starting our 25th year of independence in a new role. I congratulate all of you with this new responsible mission. The declaration of the 25th anniversary of independence adopted by the Parliament became an important political and legal document that reflects our great achievements and victories," said Nazarbayev. "Today, Kazakhstan is a successful, prosperous state and we are known throughout the world. And in 1991, we were in a desperate situation. We faced a tough dilemma: to be or not to be," he added. As Kazakhstan embarked on its independent journey, the country was plunged into "wild capitalism," said the President. The collapse of the command economic system left millions of people destitute. Various experts and politicians forecast dissolution or civil war. The country's population fell from 17.5 million to 14.9 million. "The world wasn't interested in us, it simply didn't need us. Today, it is hard to imagine that it was only 25 years ago, but it was the reality," he said. The head of state focused on the most important achievements of the last 25 years. "Our country, according to leading international experts, gave the world a vivid example of Kazakhstan's 'economic miracle,'" he said. He drew attention to the progressive development of the society. "We have created a unique model of peace and harmony. Born from the public will, the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan has gathered all ethnic groups. Most importantly, we are creating a just society in which everyone can say: 'I am a citizen of Kazakhstan; this is my country, I am building my happiness here,'" said Nazarbayev. Among the key successes, the President noted the establishment of the new capital, Astana, which became one of the fastest growing mega-cities. "Our capital has become a source of the spirit of independence, the spirit of creation and unity," he said. The head of state emphasised economic success provided real growth of public welfare. As part of the social programmes, he instructed the government to increase pensions by 20 percent in 2017 compared to 2016, as well as ensure a 20-percent increase in the size of a lump sum state allowance due to childbirth starting July 1. Nazarbayev also praised the work of Kazakh business people, noting they became prosperous without the help of initial capital. As a result, Kazakhstan is now even more confident of its abilities, he added. "Our successful business people didn't have millionaire fathers; they had to make it on their own. I have always said that reforms were boosted by restless people, hard workers who created their future and that of their country with their work," he said. The nation has about 1.2 million business organisations which account for a quarter of the national wealth. By 2050, Nazarbayev projected Kazakh small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will account for up to 50 percent, and research and development spending will rise to 3 percent, of the national GDP. Energy consumption will decrease two-fold, all of which will bring Kazakhstan to the level of countries with knowledge-based economies. The head of state stressed all citizens, regardless of place of residence, sex, age or social status, will be able to receive high-quality education and health care. "Kazakhstan will enter the top 30 countries with the highest ratings of school education. Our key universities will be among hundreds of leading universities of the world. The reforms being conducted and public welfare will increase life expectancy of Kazakhs up to 82 years," he said. Nazarbayev also suggested potentially redistributing power among the country's different government branches. "A new stage of development of Kazakhstan raises the question of increasing the accountability of the Parliament and the government regarding the state of affairs in the country," he said. The President added Kazakhstan has been and will be a state with a presidential form of government, but it is time to consider the redistribution of powers among the presidency, government and Parliament. He announced a special commission will be established to look into the issue. "The special commission should examine these questions and make proposals to amend the relevant laws and possibly the Constitution," he added. The global crisis, which began seven years ago, has grown into a hyper-crisis, he said. Nazarbayev predicted all spheres of human activity will radically change in the next 15-20 years. "Artificial intelligence, unmanned vehicles, 3D printing and genetic and bioengineering will completely change construction, industry, transportation, agriculture, services and medicine and our very understanding of professions and opportunities," he said. "All countries of the world will gradually shift to renewable energy sources. Today, a new type of global economy is emerging and at the same time new principles of international relations are being established. The social order that has been ruling for the last two-three decades is being replaced by completely new formats and models of development," he added. The President paid special attention to the country's success in the international arena, including Eurasian economic integration initiatives, leadership in the global anti-nuclear movement and contribution to peace-making efforts. "I am convinced that time will pass and even after a thousand years, the work of our generation, which selflessly created a new country, will inspire and help our descendants continue to carry our country forward," he said. Ph ot o cr ed it: k ap ita l.k z


Abstract. Location-based social networks (LBSNs) is playing an increasingly important role in our daily life, through which users can share their locations and location-related contents at any time. The Location information implicitly expresses user's behaviour preference. Therefore, LBSNs is being widely explored for Point-of-Interest (POI) recommendation in recent years. Most of existing POI recommenders only recommend a single POI, while sometimes successive POI sequence recommendation is more practical. For example, when we travel to a strange city, what we expect is not a single POI recommendation, but a POI sequence recommendation which contains a set of POIs and the order of visiting them. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a novel model called Context-Aware POI Sequence Recommendation (CPSR), which is developed based on an attention-based neural network. Neural network has made a great success in various of field because of its powerful learning ability. Recently, dozens of works has demonstrated that attention mechanism can make the neural network models more reasonable.


This thesis examines contemporary literary fiction which takes either
the Canadian island of Newfoundland or the Australian island of
Tasmania as its imaginative terrain. Utilising a comparative
framework, it juxtaposes narratives which have helped construct these
regional spaces during the last twenty-five years of the twentieth
century.
Informed by post-modern spatial theory, 'Littoral Fictions' is premised
on the argument that places are produced, rather than simply reflected,
in literary and other modes of cultural expression. Particularly
important to the thesis are Michel de Certeau's assertion that 'every
story is a travel story - a spatial practice' (The Practice of Everyday Life
115), and Fredric Jameson's contention that cultural and economic
production are inextricably intertwined. Consequently, the thesis seeks
to determine how and why Tasmania and Newfoundland figure
within recent fiction, and to consider the ramifications of their
constructions.
'Littoral Fictions' examines writing about leaving, walking around,
and coming home to regional spaces. In the process, it addresses the
work of Christopher Koch, Dennis Altman, Paul Bowdring, Wayne
Johnston, Patrick Kavanagh, Robert Drewe, Mudrooroo, Bernice
Morgan, Richard Flanagan and E. Annie Proulx, in particular detail.
The thesis finds that Newfoundland and Tasmania play comparable,
instigative roles within narratives hinging on the alternate spatial
trajectories it identifies. Only rarely do these islands serve as sketchy
or neutral backgrounds. Instead, their landscapes and histories are
presented in detail, and important shifts in narrative action are
associated with movements to, from, or within their boundaries. Paradoxically, the more insistently the islands are evoked as
geographically, culturally and/or economically marginal, the more
significant their role in the narrative - even to the point of their
serving as representative spaces within national imaginaries. Literary
constructions of Tasmania and Newfoundland diverge and converge
in more specific ways, too. Stories about leaving the two islands are
quite different, for instance, whilst the resemblance between narratives
of homecoming is remarkable .
. 'Littoral Fictions' does identify signs of a shift in the ways Tasmania
and Newfoundland are spatialised in some recent writing. The thesis
concludes by speculating that moves to figure the islands as more fully
integrated with the world beyond their shores portend an important
re-conceptualisation. In identifying parallels in typical figurations of
Tasmania and Newfoundland, 'Littoral Fictions' seeks to participate in
the project of constructing new connections between the respective
islands and places elsewhere.


Detection thresholds of sinusoidal gratings in the simultaneous presence of high-contrast peripheral masking stimuli partially overlapping the test gratings were determined as a function of the separation between the center of the test grating and the peripheral stimulus by a two-alternative forced-choice method. The results showed that the threshold-elevating effect of simultaneously present peripheral masking stimuli depends on how much of the test grating is left unexposed. An additional experiment, in which the detection thresholds in the absence of the peripheral stimulus were determined as a function of the number of cycles of the test grating, enabled us to show that the threshold-elevating effect is somewhat higher than the effect of simply cutting the test grating down in size. The threshold-elevating effects caused by high-contrast peripheral masking stimuli can be explained in terms of a lateral inhibition and a probability summation across space, taking into account the nonuniform sensitivity across the visual field.


This phenomenological study investigated the perceptions of three teachers, four parents, and three Section 504 coordinators regarding the development and implementation of the Section 504 process for children in middle schools who have attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, or central auditory processing disorder. Analysis of the data gathered revealed that parents and teachers lacked a clear understanding the Section 504 process and often felt frustrated during the development, implementation, or review of a student's Individual Accommodation Plan (IAP). Furthermore, lack of time within a teacher's schedule was a major barrier to collaboration and communication with parents. Based on the findings of this study, the authors make specific recommendations to educators and parents for improving the Section 504 process so that students will receive the greatest benefit.


The Teacher Performance Assessment is a mandated assessment required for teaching certification in Washington State. The TPA is still in the pilot phase in Washington and about 25 other states that have aligned themselves to varying degrees with using TPA scores as part of the licensure process for pre-service teacher education. Unique to the TPA in Washington is the "student voice" element, which challenges teacher candidates to foster a metacognitive awareness in learners about their own experiences with learning. In this article, I explain the student voice expectations built into the TPA, briefly describe the context of TPA support provided in the _____ teacher education program, explore the implications for learning to teach infused with a student voice perspective, and identify some particular challenges for teacher candidates and teacher educators in meeting the student voice expectations of the TPA.