Lithium was substituted on the alkali site of an O3-type layered structure as cathode material for sodiumion batteries (SIBs). Role of Li in Na intercalation and high performance is reported for the first time. The behavior of Na during intercalation is a critical factor that determines electrochemical performance. Although transition-metal oxides with layered structures have been studied extensively for SIBs, the focus has been on substitution at transition metal sites rather than at the alkali site. Here, substitution of Li at the alkali site of Nax[FeyMn1 y]O2 (0 # x, y # 1) layered materials is reported for the first time. The substituted element at the alkali site can directly interfere with the behavior of Na during intercalation. In situ XRD, synchrotron powder XRD, neutron powder diffraction, ex situ XANES, and DFT calculation revealed that Li at alkali sites stabilized the layered structure during the electrochemical reaction and assisted Na intercalation by lowering the energy barrier for Na-hopping. Contrary to common understanding, Li substituted material showed an improved cyclic and rate performance in spite of the smaller interlayer spacing of the O3-type layered structure. The result provides new insight into the role of a substituted element at the alkali site and shows that the Li at the alkali site is a key factor for achieving high performance of a layered cathode material.


Established in its first edition as the definitive guide for family members and professionals on all aspects of caring for the aged, this beautifully written and comprehensive handbook has now been updated and expanded to include more issues of concern to the aged and those who care for them. Unlike other books on caring for the aged, Taking Care of Aging Family Members provides thorough and substantive advice and information on the complete range of psychological, social, and financial issues that face those involved in caring for an older person. This expanded edition includes new sections on spiritual concerns, ethnicity, and self-neglect, as well as updated sections on conflict resolution in families, long-distance caregivers, coping with physical changes, and the woman-in-the-middle who cares for both children and parents. Drawing on their extensive research and practice experience, the authors provide concrete information and suggestions, as well as ready-to-use charts and checklists. They also direct readers to relevant local and national resources. Unlike most other books on caring for the aged, this book includes the standpoints both of the caregiver and of those receiving care and emphasizes the dignity and autonomy of the elderly person. Taking Care of Aging Family Members, revised and expanded, will be essential reading for adult children, spouses and partners of the aged, and friends involved in the care of an older person, as well as for students and professionals in nursing, medicine, physical and occupational therapy, and social work.


Locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) is the basis of many algorithms that use a probabilistic approach to find nearest neighbors. We describe an algorithm for optimizing the parameters and use of LSH. Prior work ignores these issues or suggests a search for the best parameters. We start with two histograms: one that characterizes the distributions of dis- tances to a point's nearest neighbors and the second that characterizes the distance between a query and any point in the data set. Given a desired performance level (the chance of finding the true nearest neighbor) and a simple computational cost model, we return the LSH parameters that allow an LSH index to meet the performance goal and have the minimum computational cost. We can also use this analysis to connect LSH to deterministic nearest-neighbor algorithms such as k-d trees and thus start to unify the two approaches.


The fresh corn or green corn, consists of an alternative to generate income for small and medium producers because to the great demand for the product allied a good price. That cereal requests a strong absorption of nitrogen in his growth, and the deficiency of that substance is one of the largest factors that limits his productivity. The objective of this work is to evaluate the efficiency in the methods of application the nitrogen fertilizer in the characteristics of productivity of the green corn. This study has set up as completely randomized design, with four treatments, five blocks and two repetitions. The experiment was composed of four treatments, being: treatment 1 without the application of nitrogen in covering; treatment 2 with the application of urea on the soil surface; treatment 3 with the liquid application of a solution, in the interlineation of the corn; treatment 4 with the foliar application in a concentration of 14,3% of urea and 2% of sucrose. The forms of application of nitrogen in the green corn crop interfered in his productivity. The variance analysis revealed that there was significant difference among the application forms to 5% of probability for the test T. The application forms are restricted for a good performance in the productivity characteristics, could be recommended the forms of, soil applied, liquid solution and the foliar application without causing any loss in the weight and medium diameter of the ears of corn.


An original laser-interferometric creep rate spectroscopy method was used for studying the molecular mobility in the glassy state of a series of 'model' epoxy-amine networks varying in cross-link density and rigidity. The experiments were carried out over the temperature range 115–300 K, which covers the regions where the secondary relaxations are expected to occur. The creep rate spectra (CRS) obtained at low compressive stresses exhibited systematically multiple creep rate _ 1 peaks, irrespective of the applied stress and the experimental time in the ranges under consideration, namely 20–40 MPa and 10–40 s, respectively. Data analysis was based on the inspection of the major peaks of the CRS without entering much into the details of the fine structure. The peaks assigned to the b relaxation were shown to depend on the changes in network cross-link density and to the addition of antiplasticizing molecules in the same way as reported earlier from dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies. In the case of the resins cured with aromatic amines, for which nog relaxation is evidenced by DMA, creep rate spectroscopy allowed the detection of an additional relaxation, so called g 0, t temperatures well below the b process. It was tentatively assigned to DMA-inactive motions of the aromatic amine residues, i.e. to the phenyl ring flips of the diphenylmethane units. q 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.


Male factor infertility is a problem in today's society but many underlying causes are still unknown. The generation of a conditional Sertoli cell (SC)-specific connexin 43 (Cx43) knockout mouse line (SCCx43KO) has provided a translational model. Expression of the gap junction protein Cx43 between adjacent SCs as well as between SCs and germ cells (GCs) is known to be essential for the initiation and maintenance of spermatogenesis in different species and men. Adult SCCx43KO males show altered spermatogenesis and are infertile. Thus, the present study aims to identify molecular mechanisms leading to testicular alterations in prepubertal SCCx43KO mice. Transcriptome analysis of 8-, 10- and 12-day-old mice was performed by next-generation sequencing (NGS). Additionally, candidate genes were examined by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. NGS revealed many significantly differentially expressed genes in the SCCx43KO mice. For example, GC-specific genes were mostly downregulated and found to be involved in meiosis and spermatogonial differentiation (e.g., Dmrtb1, Sohlh1). In contrast, SC-specific genes implicated in SC maturation and proliferation were mostly upregulated (e.g., Amh, Fshr). In conclusion, Cx43 in SCs appears to be required for normal progression of the first wave of spermatogenesis, especially for the mitosis-meiosis switch, and also for the regulation of prepubertal SC maturation.


This study reviews the current literature on behavioral and environmental food safety interventions conducted in commercial and institutional food service settings. A systematic search of the published literature yielded 268 candidate articles, from which a set of 23 articles reporting intervention outcomes was retained for evaluation. A categorization of measured outcomes is reported; studies addressed multiple outcomes ranging from knowledge, attitudes, and behavior of personal hygiene and food safety to management practices and disease rates and outbreaks. This study also investigates the quality of reported research methods used to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions, using a nine-point quality index adapted by the authors. The observed scores suggest that there are opportunities to improve the design and reporting of research in the field of foodborne disease prevention as it applies to food safety interventions that target the food service industry. The aim is to aid researchers in this area to design higher quality studies and to produce clearer and more useful reports of their research. In turn, this can help to create a more complete evidence base that can be used to continually improve interventions in this domain.


An eclectic group of scholars who met recently at the University of Cambridge argues that true social collapse is a rare phenomenon. They say that new data demonstrate that classic examples of massive collapse such as the disintegration of Egypt9s Old Kingdom, the end of the Classic Maya period, and the vanishing of pre-Columbian societies of the U.S. Southwest were neither sudden nor disastrous for all segments of their populations. Rome, for example, didn9t fall in a day; recent work underscores the fact that the sack of Rome was just one step in a long and complex spiral of decline that affected peoples of the empire differently. This emphasis on decline and transformation rather than abrupt fall represents something of a backlash against a recent spate of claims that environmental disasters, both natural and humanmade, are the true culprits behind many ancient societal collapses.


What is linguistic diversity? How can it be measured? Can the spreading of a lingua franca be expected to reduce it? And if so, does it matter? In an attempt to answer these questions, this paper first distinguishes the three dimensions of diversity - richness, evenness and distance - and describes the tension that is bound to arise between linguistic diversity in various senses and the promotion of multilingualism. It next distinguishes between the two levels of linguistic diversity - local and territorial - and describes the structural tension that tends to develop between local and territorial linguistic diversity. Against this background, it argues (a) that linguistic diversity, by itself, cannot plausibly be regarded as a good, all things considered, especially because of its negative impact on the prospects for economic solidarity; (b) that the erosion of local linguistic diversity should therefore be witnessed with equanimity; but (c) that territorial linguistic diversity will nonetheless need preserving as the by-product of a concern for the equal dignity of the identities closely associated with native languages.


It is known [1] that the Lattice Gas Automata (LGA) models simulate a sound wave process. Moreover, in [2], it is proved that the LGA model corresponds to the hyperbolic equation. The computer simulation show that a wave profile varies with time: the profile amplitude reduces, the profile width increases. This suggests that the particle interaction rules simulate a diffusion process in addition to the wave process. In this paper, the availability of the diffusion effect is demonstrated by computational experiments with a simple LGA model.


The nation's goals for water programs and projects must be clearly understood by engineers. This report describes the process of identifying social, economic and environmental objectives and gives examples of water projects where attention (or lack thereof) to goals and objectives had a crucial impact on the outcome of the project. The report also shows how a professional engineering presence can help government consider alternatives and reach policy decisions. Examples of national programs include irrigation, hydropower, and fish and wildlife programs, developing recreation at water projects, and management of coastal zones. Lobbying, participation in government, education and research, and interaction with the public are among the options given for influencing goals and policies in water resources planning and management.


In this paper we describe the 3D acquisition component integrated in the Sound of Vision (SoV) system. SoV is a computer vision based sensory substitution device (SSD) for the visually impaired. Its main objective is to provide the users with a 3D representation of the environment around them, conveyed by means of the hearing and tactile senses. One of the biggest challenges for the SoV system is to ensure pervasiveness, i.e., to be usable in any indoor or outdoor environments and in any illumination conditions. To this end, the proposed 3D acquisition system was designed based on a fusion of data from different types of sensors. We present the hardware and software solution for developing this acquisition system and provide insight on its exploitation in various computational scenarios of the SoV system. In the first indoor trials with the system, carried out in modeled indoor environments, the visually impaired volunteers were capable of performing simple navigation tasks and avoiding cardboard box obstacles.


Seven commercially available palm oils in Thailand were studied to evaluate their fatty acid composition using the GC-MS tandem. Seven to eight different fatty acids distributed in varying proportion were identified in each sample. Saturated fatty acids accounted for 24.82 to 44.65% of the total fatty acids. Hexadecanoic acid contributed the highest percentage among the saturated fatty acids identified. This was followed by octanoic acid. Dodecanoic, tetradecanoic and eicosanoic acids were also observed in trace amount. The percentage distribution of unsaturated fatty acids with a range of 55.35-75.18% was determined to be higher than the percentage of saturated fatty acids. 9-Octadecenoic acid largely contributed to the high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids in the palm oil samples. This was followed by 9, 12-octadecadienoic acid. A trace amount of 9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid was also detected but only in two palm oil samples.


In this paper, we attempt to explore why banks possessing free assets and willingness to lend, on the one side, and businesses lacking money, on the other side, do not meet. We are looking for answers why all EU initiatives for more available funding for SMEs still haven't resulted positively and loan growth rate is more than modest. The empirical part of the research is based on the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the commercial banks, SMEs of Latvia and case studies of timber industry. The result of the analyses has been discussed and recommendations have been provided for policy makers and academician, opening new areas for this timely topic research.


The gas transfer process across the air-water interface in a ottom-shear-induced turbulent environment was investigated to gain improved fundamental understanding of the physical mechanisms that control the process. For this purpose, it is necessary to reveal the hydrodynamics of the flow field as well as the molecular diffusion and the turbulent transport contributions to the total flux. Therefore, detailed laboratory experiments were conducted to obtain these information.
The experiments were performed in a grid-stirred tank using a combined Particle Image Velocimetry - Laser Induced Fluorescence (PIV-LIF) technique that has been developed for these near surface gas transfer measurements. The turbulence characteristics of the velocity near the interface were acquired from the PIV measurements and showed generally good agreement with the theoretical profiles from Hunt & Graham (1978). The LIF technique enabled visualization of the planar concentration fields which provided more insight into the gas transfer mechanisms. The high data resolution allowed detailed quantification of the concentration distribution within the thin aqueous boundary layer. The mean and turbulent fluctuation characteristics of the concentration could be elucidated and the molecular diffusion contribution to the total flux across the interface could be determined. With the combined PIV-LIF technique, which enables simultaneous and spatially synoptic measurements of 2D velocity and concentration fields, the turbulent mass flux term cw and also the total mass flux across the air-water interface could be quantified directly. For the first time, a particular trend can be inferred from the measured mean cw profiles. It could also be shown that the contribution of the turbulent mass flux to the total gas flux is significant. The co-spectra indicated different behavior for the cases with lower and higher turbulent Reynolds numbers.
The interrelated interpretation of the obtained results suggest that the gas transfer process is controlled by a spectrum of different eddy sizes and the gas transfer at different turbulence levels can be associated to certain eddy sizes. For high turbulence levels the gas transfer should be asymptotic to the small eddy model, whereas for low turbulence level to the large eddy model. The new results of turbulent mass flux should aid as an excellent database in refining numerical models and developing more accurate models for the prediction of the transfer velocity.


This booksurveys state-of-the-art optimization modeling for design, analysis, and management of wireless networks, such as cellular and wireless local area networks (LANs), and the services they deliver. The past two decades have seen a tremendous growth in the deployment and use of wireless networks. The current-generation wireless systems can provide mobile users with high-speed data services at rates substantially higher than those of the previous generation. As a result, the demand for mobile information services with high reliability, fast response times, and ubiquitous connectivity continues to increase rapidly. The optimization of system performance has become critically important both in terms of practical utility and commercial viability, and presents a rich area for research. In the editors' previous work on traditional wired networks, we have observed that designing low cost, survivable telecommunication networks involves extremely complicated processes. Commercial products available to help with this task typically have been based on simulation and/or proprietary heuristics. As demonstrated in this book, however, mathematical programming deserves a prominent place in the designer's toolkit. Convenient modeling languages and powerful optimization solvers have greatly facilitated the implementation of mathematical programming theory into the practice of commercial network design. These points are equally relevant and applicable in todays world of wireless network technology and design. But there are new issues as well: many wireless network design decisions, such as routing and facility/element location, must be dealt with in innovative ways that are unique and distinct from wired (fiber optic) networks. The book specifically treats the recent research and the use of modeling languages and network optimization techniques that are playing particularly important and distinctive roles in the wireless domain.


Abstract:The China-led "16+1" initiative in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is crafting a soft version of the old East European bloc, this time under Chinese rather than Russian tutelage. A collection of sixteen bilateral, uneven relationships with China rather than a true regional organization, 16+1 undermines existing Euro-Atlantic alliances. It also reinforces tendencies toward crony capitalism in the participating CEE states, reversing the progress toward more open socioeconomic systems that these countries have achieved since 1989 under the EU's normative guidance. Ultimately, CEE countries will have to choose between the EU regulatory framework, designed to secure a level playing field, and the "China model" of a politicized economy controlled by a party-state.


Probabilistic seismic hazard (PSH) maps for southern California produced from the models of Ward (1994), the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (1995), and the U.S. Geological Survey and California Division of Mines and Geology (Frankel et al., 1996; Petersen et al., 1996) show the peak ground accelerations predicted with each model to occur at 10% probability in 50 years, and the probability that 0.2 g will occur in 30 years, for "rock" site conditions. Differences among the maps range up to 0.4 g and 50%, respectively. We examine the locations and magnitudes of the differences as a basis to define the issues and avenues of research that may lead to more confident estimates of PSH in the future. Our analysis shows that three major factors contribute to the observed differences between the maps. They are the size of maximum magnitude assigned to a given fault, the proportion of predicted earthquakes that are distributed off the major faults, and the use of geodetic strain data to predict earthquake rates.


Digital elevation models (DEMs) are often used in landscape ecology to retrieve elevation or first derivative terrain attributes such as slope or aspect in the context of species distribution modelling. However, DEM‐derived variables are scale‐dependent and, given the increasing availability of very high‐resolution (VHR) DEMs, their ecological relevance must be assessed for different spatial resolutions. In a study area located in the Swiss Western Alps, we computed VHR DEMs‐derived variables related to morphometry, hydrology and solar radiation. Based on an original spatial resolution of 0·5 m, we generated DEM‐derived variables at 1, 2 and 4 m spatial resolutions, applying a Gaussian Pyramid. Their associations with local climatic factors, measured by sensors (direct and ambient air temperature, air humidity and soil moisture) as well as ecological indicators derived from species composition, were assessed with multivariate generalized linear models (GLM) and mixed models (GLMM). Specific VHR DEM‐derived variables showed significant associations with climatic factors. In addition to slope, aspect and curvature, the underused wetness and ruggedness indices modelled measured ambient humidity and soil moisture, respectively. Remarkably, spatial resolution of VHR DEM‐derived variables had a significant influence on models' strength, with coefficients of determination decreasing with coarser resolutions or showing a local optimum with a 2 m resolution, depending on the variable considered. These results support the relevance of using multi‐scale DEM variables to provide surrogates for important climatic variables such as humidity, moisture and temperature, offering suitable alternatives to direct measurements for evolutionary ecology studies at a local scale.


The overall objective of this thesis was to create a system for characterizing the material properties of wood, analogous to those used to specify other materials. In order to obtain homogenous materials prediction methods were evaluated. Therefore, one objective was to evaluate the scope for using structural wood properties to predict mechanical properties (Study I) and further develop the functions (Study IV). Another objective was to evaluate the effects of two different silvicultural regimes on the wood structure characteristics and mechanical properties of different wood tissue types at different heights in the tree, and reasons for these differences (Study II). In addition, a simple, fast and reliable light microscopy method for analyzing microfibril angle was developed, and its utility was assessed (Study III). Further objectives were to evaluate the utility of biorthogonal partial least squares regression models, using near infrared NIR spectral data, for predicting material properties and classifying wood as juvenile or mature wood (Study V). The papers (I, II, IV and V) are also used in this thesis as a basis to discuss how to use structural properties and near infrared spectroscopic data to characterize the material properties of trees in the forest. In Study IV, in total 200 clear wood samples from 24 Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) trees in 18 stands were used in the analyses, while 100 samples from eight trees in two stands were used in studies I – III and V. The samples (especially those used in Study IV) spanned most of the ranges and combinations of structural and mechanical property values found in Scandinavian forests, thus diminishing the risk of random covariance between predictors and properties of interest. The ability to predict a mechanical property generally increased for each of the three examined resolution levels of determination of structural properties with r2 values often reaching 0.9 at the highest resolution (Study I and IV). Silvicultural regimes clearly have great potential to influence material properties, in terms of both differences in average levels and trends in vertical and radial directions within trees (Study II). The method developed for determining microfibril angles provided results that were almost identical to those obtained using a commonly applied method, but it was easier to perform and thus cheaper (Study III). The modelling of near infrared spectra was able to predict both mechanical and structural properties at high accuracy (Study V). The possibilities with proposed application model modelling material properties of individual annual rings are great combining, e.g., a combination of several material properties according to a property table. Thus, wood could be matched, according to its specific material properties, to appropriate products, and thus increase the income for all parts throughout the forest-wood chain.


1. After experimental small bowel by-pass the excluded segment of intestine, whether jejunum or ileum, shows a decrease (expressed in units/cm of intestine) in mucosal weight, protein, RNA and activity of all eight enzymes studied (leucyl β-naphthylamidase, alkaline phosphatase, β-galactosidase, α-glucosidase, aryl sulphatase, β-glucuronidase, cytochrome oxidase and catalase). There is a fall in DNA content and there are no consistent changes in enzyme activity when expressed as units/mg of DNA. 2. The intestine remaining in continuity after small bowel by-pass shows an increase (expressed in units/cm of intestine) in mucosal weight, protein, RNA and enzyme activity. There is an accompanying rise in DNA content in the intestine in continuity. 3. The increased values of all variables measured in the intestine in continuity are much more marked in ileum than in jejunum. 4. The adaptive changes seen in the by-passed intestine and the intestine in continuity are a result of 'hypoplasia' and 'hyperplasia' respectively.


The increasing importance of datapath circuits in complex systems-on-chip calls for special arithmetic optimizations. The goal is to automatically achieve the handcrafted results which escape classic logic optimizations. Some work has been done in the recent years to infer the use of the carry-save representation in the synthesis of arithmetic circuits. Yet, many cases of practical interest cannot be handled due to the scattering of logic operations among the arithmetic ones - particularly in arithmetic computations which are originally described at the bit level in high-level languages such as C. We therefore introduce an algorithm to restructure dataflow graphs so that they can be synthesized as high-quality arithmetic circuits, close to those that an expert designer would conceive. On typical embedded software benchmarks which could be advantageously implemented with hardware accelerators, our technique always reduces tangibly the critical path by up to 46% and generally achieves the quality of manual implementations. In many cases, our algorithm also manages to reduce the cell area by up to 10%-20%.


Hyperglycemia and lesions of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans developed in some, but not all, adult mice infected with a variant of the encephalomyocarditis virus. Large amounts of virus were recovered from the pancreas during acute stages of infection. At this time blood glucose concentrations were markedly elevated and the islets of Langerhans exhibited focal necrosis and degranulation of beta cells. Evidence of abnormal glucose metabolism persisted for varying periods after recovery from the infection. The islets of Langerhans of chronically hyperglycemic mice were distorted and decreased in size, and the beta cells were degranulated. Encephalomyocarditis virus appears to cause diabetes mellitus by reducing the mass of functional beta cells of the islets of Langerhans.


Middleby Corporation was a designer and manufacturer of commercial food processing and food service equipment for fast food as well as high-end restaurants. During the latter half of the 1990s, Middleby became increasingly unfocused as its number of product lines increased dramatically. Margins and sales slipped. At the same time, some of the company's high-profile product development initiatives ended in failure. Although Middleby's top management recognized some of these apparent warning signs, rather than take action, they seemed eager to blame the disappointing results solely on the company's overseas operations. This inaction caused Middleby's financial performance to deteriorate further, resulting in violations of its loan covenants. To finally correct the situation, Selim Bassoul was moved from his role as general manager of Middleby's Southbend plant up to chief operating officer for the entire corporation. Bassoul had taken the underperforming Southbend plant and turned it into a star performer, correcting and improving customer service, operations, and finances and establishing a clear strategic direction. Bassoul had to craft a turnaround plan for the entire company in the areas of strategy, operations, and finance. He cut the number of products substantially, fired some key customers after a customer profitability analysis, and focused product development on innovative products that saved Middleby's customers time and money. Following these changes and others, the company returned to profitability and Bassoul was named CEO. Bassoul then decided to present a major acquisition opportunity to the board of directors.

1. Successful turnarounds require three essential elements to be addressed: strategy, finance, and operations, all under the CEO's leadership. Students will learn how each element alone and in combination work to make a successful turnaround. 2. Students will learn turnaround leadership skills and see their parallel as entrepreneurial leadership skills. 3. Students will learn that decisions on products, customers, and employee motivation all affect a turnaround strategy.


Recent scholarship in genre studies has extended its focus from studying single genres to multiple genres, as well as how these genres interact with one another. This essay seeks to contribute to this growing scholarship by adding a new concept, intermediary genre. That is, a genre that facilitates the "uptake" of a genre by another genre. This concept is designed to reveal a particular aspect of multiple genres: that one genre can be used to connect and mobilize two otherwise unconnected genres to make uptake possible. The concept is illustrated in case study of knowledge mobilization, an instance in which scientific research was used in the judicial system to inform public policies on eyewitness handling and police-lineup procedures. The case study shows how intermediary genres emerge, how they connect other genres, and how knowledge circulates as a result of such connections and affects policy decisions.


Floodplains are some of the most ecologically important and human‐impacted habitats throughout the world. Large efforts are underway in North America, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere to restore floodplain habitats, not only to increase fish and aquatic biota but to restore ecological diversity. As the scale, number, and complexity of floodplain restoration projects has increased, so has the need for rigorous monitoring and evaluation to demonstrate effectiveness and guide future floodplain restoration efforts. Moreover, technological advances in remote sensing, genetics, and fish marking have been evolving rapidly and there is need to update guidance on the best methods for monitoring physical and biological response to floodplain restoration. A comprehensive review of the restoration literature located 180 papers that specifically examined the effectiveness of various floodplain restoration techniques. The various methods that were historically and currently used to evaluate the physical (channel and floodplain morphology, sediment, flow, water quality [temperature and nutrients]) and biological (fish, invertebrates, and aquatic and riparian plants) effectiveness of floodplain restoration were reviewed and used to provide recommendations for future monitoring. For each major physical and biological monitoring method, we discuss their importance, how they have historically been used to evaluate floodplain restoration, newer methodologies, and limitations or advantages of different methodologies and approaches. We then discuss monitoring the effectiveness of small (<2 km in main channel length) and large (>2 km of main channel length) floodplain projects, with recommendations for various study designs, parameters, and monitoring methodologies.


This article sketches a theoretical framework and research agenda for what is labeled as "Comparative Democratic Theory." It is introduced as an approach to democratic theory which is informed by conceptual and methodological debates from "Comparative Political Theory" (CPT) as well as from insights from a global history of democratic thought. The inclusion of CPT perspectives into democratic theory is motivated by what is diagnosed as a conceptual blindness in Western democratic theory. When following this approach, however, the two extremes of unjustified universalism and normatively problematic relativism both must be avoided. To do so, a mode of sound abstraction is proposed, using the term "constellation," and a discussion of aims and benefits of Comparative Democratic Theory is presented.


Since its first publication thirty years ago, Timothy Ware's book has become established throughout the English-speaking world as the standard introduction to the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy continues to be a subject of enormous interest among Western Christians, and the author believes that an understanding of its standpoint is necessary before the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches can be reunited. He explains the Orthodox views on such widely ranging matters as ecumenical councils, sacraments, free will, purgatory, the papacy and the relation between the different Orthodox churches.


We find that the controlling family holds both the chief executive officer and chair positions in 79% of Norwegian family firms. The family holds more governance positions when it owns large stakes in small, profitable, low-risk firms. This result suggests that the family trades off expected costs and benefits by conditioning participation intensity on observable firm characteristics. We find that the positive effect of performance on participation is twice as strong as the positive effect of participation on performance. The endogeneity of participation, therefore, should be carefully accounted for when analyzing the effect of family governance on the family firm's behavior.


The spillway of Sarpfossen hydropower plant has been studied numerically and experimentally. The physical model was built in the Vassdragslaboratoriet at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. The model consists of the Sarpfossen dam and the river Glomma upstream of the dam. On the spillway crest are three gates installed two flap gates and a sector gate. In addtion is further upstream of the dam a bridge for cars and trains. Two of the bridge piers are fixed in the water and has an influence in the flow pattern. The model was run with a certain discharge and the velocities in the river were measured with a Flow Meter and Vectrino Velocimeter. Besides of the velocity measurements the water levels between bridge and dam were measured. These measurements were conducted to investigate the occuring wave phenomena, shock wave. The simulations were carried out by a commercial program, STAR-CCM+. The results from the simulation have been verified by the measurements from the model. Simulation were performed to replicate the flow phenomenas in the physical model and to find out how well STAR-CCM+ is suited to cope the complex flow structures. Three simulations were performed two for the velocity distribution and one for the water level measurements with generated shock waves. The results of the simulations show quite good correlations. The velocity measurements show satisfying results. The shock wave could also be replicated quite well and the results are quite promising. Future studies are recommended to get more experience with simulating complex free-surface flows. Especially simulations of shock wave are not very frequent and well tested and should be included in further studies. Fleur Kettner Numerical modelling of flow over spillways


Often, in a distributed system, a task must be performed in which all entities must be involved; however only some of them are active, while the others are inactive, unaware of the new computation that has to take place. In these situations, all entities must become active, a task known as Wake-Up. It is not difficult to see that Broadcast is just the special case of the Wake-Up problem, when there is only one initially active entity. Both problems can be solved with the same trivial but expensive solution: Flooding. More efficient broadcast protocols exist for some classes of dense interconnection networks. The research question we examine is whether also wake-up can be performed significantly better in three classes of regular interconnection networks: hypercubes, complete networks, and regular complete bipartite graphs. In a d -dimensional hypercube  network of n nodes, the cost of broadcasting is Theta( n ) even if the edge labeling is arbitrary and the network is asynchronous. We show that, instead, wake-up requires Omega( n  log n ) message transmissions in the worst case, even if the network is synchronous and has sense of direction. Similarly, in a regular complete bipartite  network K p,p of n =2 p  anonymous entities the cost of broadcasting is Theta( n ) even if the edge labeling is arbitrary and the network is asynchronous; instead, we show that wake-up requires Theta( n 2 ) message transmissions in the worst case, even if the network is synchronous and has sense of direction. In a complete  network K n  of n entities, the cost of broadcasting is minimal: n -1 message transmissions suffice even if the entities are anonymous. In this paper we prove that the cost of wake-up is order of magnitude higher. In the case of anonymous entities, Omega( n 2 ) message transmissions are needed in the worst case, even if the network is fully synchronous and has sense of direction. In the case of entities with distinct ids, Omega( n  log n ) transmissions need to be performed and the bound is tight. This shows that, when the entities have Ids, Wake-Up is computationally as costly as the apparently more complex Election problem.


The goal of this paper is to articulate a theoretical basis for work with at-risk students and to provide a foundation for new methods for teachers who will be working with this population. The topic is narrowed to concerns related to academic achievement. There is overwhelming scientific evidence that external conditions are major antecedent settings for the at-risk condition. However, rather than focus on external factors, intrinsic factors that influence students' attribution toward learning in spite of context are examined. Learning approaches that strengthen academic self-efficacy, improve self-concept, and help students move toward a more internal locus of control provide a better platform for individuals to make lasting changes in their beliefs about learning. Moving responsibility back to students allows them to gain control over their learning and reinforces antecedents of personal agency. Learning requires a dynamic tension between conflicting ideas, yet in classrooms where the emphasis is entirely on objective meaning, students are not encouraged to relate their personal subjective understandings. Human agency and motivation, psychological constructs, cognitive theories, traditional origins of agency, and student centered leaders are examined. Contains 25 references. (JBJ) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** Running Head: Rethinking Locus of Agency in the At-Risk Condition Rethinking Locus of Agency in the At-Risk Condition


Why do firms choose high debt when they anticipate high valuations, and underperform subsequently? We propose a theory of financing cycles where the importance of creditors' control rights over cash flows ("pledgeability") varies with industry liquidity. The market allows firms take on more debt when they anticipate higher future liquidity. However, both high anticipated liquidity and the resulting high debt limit their incentives to enhance pledgeability. This has prolonged adverse effects in a downturn. Because these effects are hard to contract upon, higher anticipated liquidity can also reduce a firm's current access to finance.


Property law has evolved and adapted throughout its existence in response to social and technological change. In this era of increasing focus on sustainable energy, new property rights disputes arising from innovations in the energy industry are once again stretching the bounds of property law. As novel energy strategies spread across the country, they are raising complex property questions involving wind currents, sunlight, deep underground mineral deposits, airspace, subsurface pore space, and other resources.Resource governance regimes that reflect the unique characteristics of emerging energy technologies can play a valuable role in the nation's continued pursuit of energy sustainability. Unfortunately, despite volumes of legal scholarship on the evolution and structuring of property rights regimes, there is little consensus among lawmakers or within the legal academy regarding how best to adapt such regimes to modern energy innovation. Courts and legislatures are increasingly feeling pressure to alter long-established property arrangements to accommodate and encourage new forms of energy development. At what point do these adjustments go too far, excessively compromising fairness and efficiency goals in an effort to promote a new energy strategy?This short article, written for a joint program of the Natural Resources and Energy Law and Property Law Sections of the American Association of Law Schools at the Association's 2013 Annual Meeting, offers some general guidelines for adjusting property rights regimes to accommodate new energy innovations. This article suggests that, when feasible, policy actions that merely clarify ambiguities in existing law are often the simplest and most cost-effective way to respond when important technological advancements place pressure on longstanding property structures. When such policies are inadequate or unavailable, the most equitable and efficient adjustments to property arrangements tend to be those that respect rather than disregard property owners' existing entitlements.


Cyber crime increases with the advent of new online Internet services (e.g., entertainment, commerce, payment, pubic administration, social networking services). Not only do cyber criminals target governmental or public institutions, they increasingly victimize individuals and smaller organizations. At the same time, we observe that individuals and organizations steadily join forces and take a more proactive and collaborative role in war against cyber crime. In the current work we investigate examples of rising security incidents, new information security solutions and new cyber crime legislations, and elaborate upon some mismatches that exist among them. We particularly elaborate upon (the potential of) the collaborative initiatives that allow individuals to join forces and disclose cyber crime threats. We identify and/or outline a number of the research directions in legislation, social and technical arenas.


Family law is full of private tragedy. Case after case pits one family member against another in a zero-sum struggle for resources. Spouses battle over limited assets; parents clash over child support; and children fight each other for resources when parental income is stretched across multiple families. But family law doesn't simply pick up the pieces when individuals make bad choices or suffer bad luck. Instead, the law creates distributive rules that help determine which choices are bad ones - and whose bad luck carries ruinous consequences. Taking this view, it is not just the dysfunctional who live in law's domain: successful families flourish amidst legal rules that protect some from life's risks while leaving others vulnerable. In this essay, I suggest that family law constitutes a form of social insurance, supplementing public programs that address life risks including poverty, unemployment, and disability. Both family law and social insurance recognize some relationships (and not others) and protect against some risks (and not others). Further, both systems of law can be understood as distributing risks ex ante - rather than simply addressing failure ex post. To make the discussion concrete, I focus on two cases, one involving spousal support and disability, and the other involving child support for multiple families. The cases illustrate the interdependence of financial entitlements in family law and in social welfare and demonstrate that a range of changes in family law, social insurance rules, or other elements of law could alter the distribution of life's risks - and thus the likelihood and consequences of apparently "private" tragedies. The essay also builds on these examples to outline a larger project. Today, large-scale social insurance programs shield individuals against disruptions in working life, including retirement, disability, and unemployment. And yet disruptions in affective life - a divorce, a breakup, a parent's exit, even living without a family - can impose equally severe shocks on individual lives. While at first it may seem uncomfortable to consider personal relationships a matter for state concern, I suggest that the normative theories and analytical tools used in structuring conventional social insurance can also be brought to bear in considering the possibility of insurance for disruptions in affective life.


This book is concerned with the notions of "pidginization" and "creolization" and the role of these processes of language learning in the history of the Arabic language. It is argued that when a new type of Arabic emerged after the Islamic conquests in the 7th century AD, the language went through these processes, as can be concluded from the sociolinguistic context of the period. The radical changes in the language that led to the development of the modern dialects are then seen as the result of pidginization and creolization. Data from the dialects are compared with phenomena in pidginized/creolized languages, and suggestions are given for the application of this framework to the history of other languages.


Most theories of affective influences on judgement and choice take a valence-based approach, contrasting the effects of positive versus negative feeling states. These approaches have not specified if and when distinct emotions of the same valence have different effects on judgement. In this article, we propose a model of emotion-specific influences on judgement and choice. We posit that each emotion is defined by a tendency to perceive new events and objects in ways that are consistent with the original cognitive-appraisal dimensions of the emotion. To pit the valence and appraisal-tendency approaches against one another, we present a study that addresses whether two emotions of the same valence but differing appraisals—anger and fear—relate in different ways to risk perception. Consistent with the appraisal-tendency hypothesis, fearful people made pessimistic judgements of future events whereas angry people made optimistic judgements. In the Discussion we expand the proposed model and review evidence supporting two social moderators of appraisal-tendency processes.


Use your Raspberry Pi to get smart about computing fundamentals In the 1980s, the tech revolution was kickstarted by a flood of relatively inexpensive, highly programmable computers like the Commodore. Now, a second revolution in computing is beginning with the Raspberry Pi. Learning Computer Architecture with the Raspberry Pi is the premier guide to understanding the components of the most exciting tech product available. Thanks to this book, every Raspberry Pi owner can understand how the computer works and how to access all of its hardware and software capabilities. Now, students, hackers, and casual users alike can discover how computers work with Learning Computer Architecture with the Raspberry Pi. This book explains what each and every hardware component does, how they relate to one another, and how they correspond to the components of other computing systems. You'll also learn how programming works and how the operating system relates to the Raspberry Pi's physical components. Co-authored by Eben Upton, one of the creators of the Raspberry Pi, this is a companion volume to the Raspberry Pi User Guide An affordable solution for learning about computer system design considerations and experimenting with low-level programming Understandable descriptions of the functions of memory storage, Ethernet, cameras, processors, and more Gain knowledge of computer design and operation in general by exploring the basic structure of the Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi was created to bring forth a new generation of computer scientists, developers, and architects who understand the inner workings of the computers that have become essential to our daily lives. Learning Computer Architecture with the Raspberry Pi is your gateway to the world of computer system design.


The Tarmy-Ghausi (TG) active resistor-capacitor (RC) filters using op-amps and its modification by Moschytz are well known to active RC filter designers. These use first-order all-pass networks in a negative feedback loop. New current-mode universal operational transconductance amplifier-capacitor (OTA-C) biquad filters based on the TG active RC filter are considered here. These are based on a recently proposed OTA-C based first-order all-pass network. Three different feedback arrangements are investigated in the proposed filter structure so as to reduce the pole-Q sensitivity. The proposed biquad filters are shown to implement all different types of filters like low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, symmetric notch, all-pass, low-pass notch and high-pass notch. The synthesis of the general biquad is carried out in a novel way by invoking the analogy with direct-form digital filter structures. The special case of all-pass filter realisation derived from the proposed universal filter needs additional hardware for realising the feed-forward coefficients. Hence alternative OTA-C based all-pass filter implementations based on Mitra-Hirano and Gray-Markel second-order digital filter structures are derived in which the coefficients that are used to realise the denominator are shared in the realisation of numerator also. All the proposed circuits are compared with the other structures available in the literature. The simulation results of the proposed circuits are also presented.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that process mining techniques can help to discover process models from event logs, using conventional high-level process modeling languages, such as Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), leveraging their representational bias.

Design/methodology/approach
The integrated discovery approach presented in this work is aimed to mine: control, data and resource perspectives within one process diagram, and, if possible, construct a hierarchy of subprocesses improving the model readability. The proposed approach is defined as a sequence of steps, performed to discover a model, containing various perspectives and presenting a holistic view of a process. This approach was implemented within an open-source process mining framework called ProM and proved its applicability for the analysis of real-life event logs.

Findings
This paper shows that the proposed integrated approach can be applied to real-life event logs of information systems from different domains. The multi-perspective process diagrams obtained within the approach are of good quality and better than models discovered using a technique that does not consider hierarchy. Moreover, due to the decomposition methods applied, the proposed approach can deal with large event logs, which cannot be handled by methods that do not use decomposition.

Originality/value
The paper consolidates various process mining techniques, which were never integrated before and presents a novel approach for the discovery of multi-perspective hierarchical BPMN models. This approach bridges the gap between well-known process mining techniques and a wide range of BPMN-complaint tools.


Objective Tumour heterogeneity represents a major obstacle to accurate diagnosis and treatment in gastric adenocarcinoma (GA). Here, we report a systematic transcriptional atlas to delineate molecular and cellular heterogeneity in GA using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). Design We performed unbiased transcriptome-wide scRNA-seq analysis on 27 677 cells from 9 tumour and 3 non-tumour samples. Analysis results were validated using large-scale histological assays and bulk transcriptomic datasets. Results Our integrative analysis of tumour cells identified five cell subgroups with distinct expression profiles. A panel of differentiation-related genes reveals a high diversity of differentiation degrees within and between tumours. Low differentiation degrees can predict poor prognosis in GA. Among them, three subgroups exhibited different differentiation grade which corresponded well to histopathological features of Lauren's subtypes. Interestingly, the other two subgroups displayed unique transcriptome features. One subgroup expressing chief-cell markers (eg, LIPF and PGC) and RNF43 with Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway activated is consistent with the previously described entity fundic gland-type GA (chief cell-predominant, GA-FG-CCP). We further confirmed the presence of GA-FG-CCP in two public bulk datasets using transcriptomic profiles and histological images. The other subgroup specifically expressed immune-related signature genes (eg, LY6K and major histocompatibility complex class II) with the infection of Epstein-Barr virus. In addition, we also analysed non-malignant epithelium and provided molecular evidences for potential transition from gastric chief cells into MUC6 + TFF2 + spasmolytic polypeptide expressing metaplasia. Conclusion Altogether, our study offers valuable resource for deciphering gastric tumour heterogeneity, which will provide assistance for precision diagnosis and prognosis.


In l965, the Research and Development Committee of the ASCE Surveying and Mapping Division prepared and later published an overall program for research in surveying and mapping over the decade l966-l975. Now, 10 years later, this paper measures what has been done against the tasks that were set. Three of the original goals are considered for each of the six basic categories of the research program: Land surveys, engineering surveys, geodetic surveys, cartographic surveys, aerial survey services, and cartography. For each of the goals, an appraisal is made of the status of that objective today. The conclusion is drawn that most of the research goals set 10 yr ago have been attained or are in progress of being attained.


Stochastic shading with area lights requires methods to sample the light sources. For diffuse materials, the best strategy is to sample proportionally to projected solid angle. Recent work in offline rendering has addressed this problem for spherical light sources, but the solution is unsuitable for a GPU implementation. We present a far more efficient solution. It offers results without noteworthy noise for diffuse surfaces lit by an unoccluded spherical light source while being only two to three times more costly than simple sampling of the solid angle. The core insight of the technique is that a projected spherical cap can be decomposed into, or at least approximated by, cut disks. We present an efficient method to sample cut disks and show how to use it to sample projected spherical caps. In some cases, our method does not sample exactly proportionally to projected solid angle but the deviation is provably bounded.


Bone formation is promoted by mechanical stress, and prostaglandins are thought to mediate these effects in osteocytes. Murine osteocyte MLO-Y4 cells in culture release prostaglandins in response to shear stress, but it was unclear how prostaglandins made their way across the membrane. Cherian et al. show that increased presence of unapposed halves of gap junctions (called hemichannels) may provide passage for the prostaglandins. The authors grew the cells in conditions under which the cells did not make physical contact and thus did not form full gap junctions. In cells exposed to fluid flow for 24 hours, release of prostaglandin E2 was inhibited by various pharmacological inhibitors of hemichannels or by treatment of cells with antisense to the gap junction structural molecule connexin 43. Expression of connexin 43 on the cell surface (detected by biotinylation) was enhanced in response to shear stress. The authors propose that hemichannels--which appear to form passive, energy-independent pores that permit molecules of less than 1 kD to pass without selectivity toward the charge of the molecule--may provide a physiological mechanism for release of highly charged anionic prostaglandin molecules from osteocytes. P. P. Cherian, A. J. Siller-Jackson, S. Gu, X. Wang, L. F. Bonewald, E. Sprague, J. X. Jiang, Mechanical strain opens connexin 43 hemichannels in osteocytes: A novel mechanism for the release of prostaglandin. Mol. Biol. Cell 16, 3100-3106 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


The thrust of the argument put forward in this paper is that the postwar technological advance of the Japanese electronics industry was in essence a product not a primary cause of industrial growth. We demonstrate that the industry's surge forward resulted from the interaction of a unique combination of political, economic and cultural forces. Business leaders took full advantage by investing on a massive scale in physical, organizational, human and technological resources. It was success in the marketplace and strong cash flows that allowed Japanese firms to import technology on a large scale, invest in scientists and engineers, and progressively develop world class technological capabilities. In establishing themselves as global players, Japanese electronics firms moved over the years from a position of knowledge dependence to one of knowledge creation. We explore how this transformation was achieved and how they learned to control and exploit knowledge creating systems and processes. In particular, we establish the multi-faceted context and complex set of relationships that have conditioned strategic decision making and the creation of technological capabilities.


Convolutional sparse representations differ from the standard form of sparse representations in their composition from coefficient maps convolved with dictionary filters instead of linear combinations of dictionary vectors. When applied to images, the standard form is usually independently computed over a set of overlapping image patches. The advantage of the convolutional form is that it provides a single-valued representation optimized over an entire signal, but this comes at a substantial computational cost. A recent algorithm for sparse coding via a convolutional form of Basis Pursuit DeNoising, however, has substantially reduced the computational cost of computing these representations. The present paper extends this algorithm to multi-channel signals such as color images, which has not previously been reported in the literature.


The rise of Internet and web technology have transformed our society by providing access to unprecedented amount of information, supporting communication and collaboration, empowering e-business and e-commerce. Its role in advancing science is equally important. It has become possible to disseminate scientific information more effectively, access large databases, share computational resources, measurement devices, control experiments and collaborate at a global scale. The human user centered traditional world wide web technology, however, cannot provide the suitable technological platform necessary for the further development and improvement of online and remote engineering applications. New, service-oriented technologies are required, which support higher level of automation, enable seamless programmatic and interactive access to remote devices and systems, and have an adequate programming model suitable for creating large and complex distributed scientific applications. In this paper, we describe such a technology, Jini technology, and illustrate with case studies its various benefits for the remote engineering, virtual instrumentation community.


Successful adaptation of agriculture to ongoing climate changes would help to maintain productivity growth and thereby reduce pressure to bring new lands into agriculture. In this paper we investigate the potential co-benefits of adaptation in terms of the avoided emissions from land use change. A model of global agricultural trade and land use, called SIMPLE, is utilized to link adaptation investments, yield growth rates, land conversion rates, and land use emissions. A scenario of global adaptation to offset negative yield impacts of temperature and precipitation changes to 2050, which requires a cumulative 225 billion USD of additional investment, results in 61 Mha less conversion of cropland and 15 Gt carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) fewer emissions by 2050. Thus our estimates imply an annual mitigation co-benefit of 0.35 GtCO2e yr−1 while spending $15 per tonne CO2e of avoided emissions. Uncertainty analysis is used to estimate a 5–95% confidence interval around these numbers of 0.25–0.43 Gt and $11–$22 per tonne CO2e. A scenario of adaptation focused only on Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, while less costly in aggregate, results in much smaller mitigation potentials and higher per tonne costs. These results indicate that although investing in the least developed areas may be most desirable for the main objectives of adaptation, it has little net effect on mitigation because production gains are offset by greater rates of land clearing in the benefited regions, which are relatively low yielding and land abundant. Adaptation investments in high yielding, land scarce regions such as Asia and North America are more effective for mitigation. To identify data needs, we conduct a sensitivity analysis using the Morris method (Morris 1991 Technometrics 33 161–74). The three most critical parameters for improving estimates of mitigation potential are (in descending order) the emissions factors for converting land to agriculture, the price elasticity of land supply with respect to land rents, and the elasticity of substitution between land and non-land inputs. For assessing the mitigation costs, the elasticity of productivity with respect to investments in research and development is also very important. Overall, this study finds that broad-based efforts to adapt agriculture to climate change have mitigation co-benefits that, even when forced to shoulder the entire expense of adaptation, are inexpensive relative to many activities whose main purpose is mitigation. These results therefore challenge the current approach of most climate financing portfolios, which support adaptation from funds completely separate from—and often much smaller than—mitigation ones.


This paper introduces heterogeneous beliefs among households in a small open economy model for the Canadian economy. The model suggests that simultaneous boom-bust cycles in house prices, output, investment, consumption and hours worked emerge when credit-constrained mortgage borrowers expect that future house prices will rise and this expectation is neither shared by savers nor realized ex-post. With sticky prices and a standard monetary policy rule, the model shows that the nominal policy interest rate and the CPI inflation rate decline during housing booms and rise as house prices fall. These results replicate the stylized features of housing-market boom-bust cycles in industrialized countries. Policy experiments demonstrate that stronger policy responses to inflation amplify housing-market boom-bust cycles. Also, higher loan-to-value ratios amplify housing-market boom-bust cycles by encouraging speculative housing investments by mortgage borrowers during housing booms and increasing liquidation of housing collateral during housing busts.


The price-aggressive discount format, popularized by chains such as Aldi and Lidl, is very successful in most Western economies. Its success is a major source of concern for traditional supermarkets. Discounters not only have a direct effect on supermarkets' market shares, but they also exert considerable pressure to improve operational efficiency and/or to decrease prices.

We use an empirical entry model to study the degree of intra-and interformat competition between discounters and supermarkets. Information on the competitive impact of new entrants is derived from the observed entry decisions of supermarkets and discounters in a large cross section of local markets, after controlling for a number of local market characteristics. In our modeling framework, we endogenize the number of retailers and allow for asymmetric intra-and interformat competitive effects in a flexible way.

We apply our modeling approach to the German grocery industry, where the discount format has stabilized after two decades of continued growth. We find evidence of intense competition within both the supermarket and discounter format, although competition between supermarkets is found to be more severe. Most importantly, discounters only start to affect the profitability of conventional supermarkets from the third entrant onwards. This may explain why many retailers rush to add a discount chain to their portfolio: early entrants may benefit from the growth of the discount-prone segment without cannibalizing the profits of their more conventional supermarket stores.


Large-scale distributed systems are playing an increasing role in computational research, production operations, information processing, and application hosting. The continuous management of such systems is a critical consideration when focusing on reliability, availability, and security. As the number of commodity components within these systems continue to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to track the multitude of parameters required to ensure optimal performance from the system, especially in those systems that have been built through expansion and not as an initial purchase of identical nodes. In this paper, we discuss the use of statistical inference, specifically Markov Logic Networks, in a distributed multi-agent system to provide the most effective means of managing these parameters. We showcase an architecture that provides services to manage a system's configuration throughout its life-cycle, and is capable of resolving differences after identifying potential mis-configurations using conflict discovery and resolution modules.


During the 1999 New Particle Formation and Fate in the Coastal Environment (PARFORCE) field campaign, 16 C8-C16 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were identified in the coastal atmosphere of Mace Head, Ireland. Sampling took place over 24 days, with 12 VOCs routinely quantified. Concentrations were observed in the low ketones ≥ n-alkanes. Concentrations of these compounds were also measured in shoreline surface seawater. No relationship was observed between atmospheric concentrations and high/low tide events. Many VOCs revealed a temporal pattern in the atmosphere, with highest concentrations measured during the early morning and lowest concentrations in the afternoon. The strongest pattern was observed for the n-alkanes. However, this was dependent on the prevailing air mass direction and the local meteorology. A Lagrangian box model was applied to assess this diurnal cycle, using seawater emissions as a source (based on the seawater concentrations and observed wind speeds), and depletion via OH radicals and dilution by entrainment as sinks (using measured [OH] and boundary layer height data). The model gave good agreement to the observed concentrations for selected air mass types, predicting the daytime decrease in VOC concentrations due to OH radical chemistry and boundary layer growth, and the subsequent increase in VOC concentrations toward evening as both oxidation chemistry diminished and the mixing layer height fell.


In an amicus brief (supporting Defendant President Trump) submitted to this Court (Southern District of New York), my counsel included the following footnote:
See Report on the Salaries, Fees, and Emoluments of Persons Holding Civil Office Under the United States (Feb. 26, 1793), in 14 The Papers of Alexander Hamilton ("PAH"), 157, 157–59 (1969). The editors of PAH marked this document "DS," meaning "document signed," which indicates that this document was the original signed by Hamilton. The original Hamilton-signed document, on which the PAH reproduction is based, remains in the vaults of the National Archives & Records Administration (Record Group #46). An excerpt of the original Hamilton signed document is available. Amicus notes that an entirely different document (but bearing a similar name) can be found in American State Papers ("ASP"). See List of Civil Officers of The United States, Except Judges, With Their Emoluments, For the Year Ending October 1, 1792, in 1 American State Papers/Miscellaneous 57 (1834). The document in ASP was not signed by Hamilton. The undated ASP document was drafted by an unknown Senate functionary. Unlike Hamilton's manuscript, the record in ASP includes the President and Vice President. Both documents are probative of the legal meaning of Office . . . under the United States as used in the Senate order. But the two documents are not equally probative.
I stand entirely behind the above footnote: behind every sentence, every phrase, every word, and every syllable. I have made no mistake, intentional or inadvertent. I retract nothing, and I do not intend to retract anything.
Recently, my amicus brief and scholarship has been criticized by the Legal Historians Brief, other academics, some litigators, and by the press. Here I respond. This document is my declaration submitted as an exhibit to a motion responding to the Legal Historians Brief.


Overrides should be of interest to a far larger group of scholars than statutory interpretation enthusiasts. We have, in overrides, open inter branch encounters between Congress and the Courts far more typically found in the shadows of everyday Washington politics. Interestingly, Christiansen and Eskridge posit the court-congress relationship as more triadic than dyadic given the role played by agencies. One of their more interesting conclusions is that agencie are the big winners in the override game: agencies were present in seventy percent of the override cases and the agency view prevailed with Congress and against the Supreme Court in three-quarters of those overrides. When the Supreme Court rejects the statutory interpretations of agencies, supported by the Solicitor General, it does so at its peril. This suggests that the common wisdom — that agencies often have a better handle than courts on Congress's meaning because of their closer connections with Congress (through oversight, expertise about the statute, informal communications, etc.) — is true. It also suggests that broad congressional delegation to agencies — traditionally viewed with suspicion by lawyers — may come with a silver interpretive lining.The author makes no attempt to survey the richness of this gargantuan study nor the extraordinary effort it must have taken. It should be of interest to readers of court–congress interaction, students of agency action, scholars of statutory interpretation, and the separation of powers. Her aim is not to repeat the study, or even to summarize it, but to provide a parsimonious and helpful lens through which we may understand its intellectual assumptions and accomplishments. In part I, the author addressees its methodological virtues and vices. In part II, she posits a fairly parsimonious model that helps to explain the rich Christiansen and Eskridge findings. In part III, the author provides a brief comment on the authors' recommendations for future action.


State sovereignty, once seemingly sidelined in personal jurisdiction analysis, has returned with a vengeance. Driven by the idea that states must not offend rival states in their jurisdictional reach, some justices have looked for specific targeting of individual states as individual states by the defendant in order to justify an assertion of personal jurisdiction. To allow cases to proceed based on national targeting alone, they argue, would diminish the sovereignty of any state that the defendant had specifically targeted.

This article looks for the first time at how this emphasis on state sovereignty limits national sovereignty, especially where alien defendants are involved. By requiring an antecedent 'top of mind' focus on the forum state when actions that lead to litigation are taken, the Court would exclude from U.S. litigation activities that bear a close relationship to the forum, and that would provide a basis for jurisdiction in many if not most other nations. This matters especially because the U.S. conducts so much of its national regulation through litigation, and through litigation in state courts, and through litigation based on state causes of action. This article gives fresh emphasis to the notion that states are members of a shared sovereignty, and that state actions implicate national sovereignty as much as actions by the federal branch of government.

The problem is compounded by the incoherency of the Court's 'our federalism' state sovereignty analysis. Other commentators have not focused on how the Court's assumption in recent personal jurisdiction cases that states are in purely rivalrous relationships contrasts with reality, which is increasingly recognized to involve overlapping, reinforcing, sometimes coordinated spheres of jurisdiction. Rather than treating the states as rivals involved in a zero sum game, where an assertion of power by one undercuts the power and dignity of another, this article looks at the polycentric, pluralistic nature of U.S. governance, where state members of a "more perfect union" coordinate, collaborate, pursue shared goals independently, and only sometimes compete.

State sovereignty ultimately is national sovereignty. To exaggerate concepts of state rivalry and exclusiveness in a modern age of legal pluralism serves only to diminish the regulatory reach of individual states, and, ultimately, the nation as a whole. The Court's narrow focus on sovereignty threatens to make the scope of U.S. jurisdiction far narrower than that of other nations, and by Constitutionalizing that scope to make adjustments io rapidly changing circumstances difficult.


Abstract Acoustic individual discrimination has been demonstrated for a wide range of animal taxa. However, there has been far less scientific effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of automatic individual identification, which could greatly facilitate research, especially when data are collected via an acoustic localization system (ALS). In this study, we examine the accuracy of acoustic caller recognition in long calls (LCs) emitted by Bornean male orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) derived from two data-sets: the first consists of high-quality recordings taken during individual focal follows (N = 224 LCs by 14 males) and the second consists of LC recordings with variable microphone-caller distances stemming from ALS (N = 123 LCs by 10 males). The LC is a long-distance vocalization. We therefore expect that even the low-quality test-set should yield caller recognition results significantly better than by chance. Automatic individual identification was accomplished using software originally developed for human speaker recognition (i.e. the MSR identity toolbox). We obtained a 93.3% correct identification rate with high-quality recordings, and 72.23% with recordings stemming from the ALS with variable microphone-caller distances (20–420 m). These results show that automatic individual identification is possible even though the accuracy declines compared with the results of high-quality recordings due to severe signal degradations (e.g. sound attenuation, environmental noise contamination, and echo interference) with increasing distance. We therefore suggest that acoustic individual identification with speaker recognition software can be a valuable tool to apply to data obtained through an ALS, thereby facilitating field research on vocal communication.


In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Although interaction has been acknowledged as central in value creation there is still a lack of empirical studies on how value creation is accomplished in practice, and in particular how communicative skills support customers' value creation. The purpose of this paper is therefore to generate a deeper understanding of how customer service representatives' communicative skills in conversations with customers support customers' value creation. We argue that value creating processes correspond to customers' roles as " feelers " , " thinkers " and " doers ". Accordingly, value creation involves three interdependent elements, an emotional, a cognitive and a behavioral. Based on a qualitative research design, drawing on an empirical study of 80 telephone conversations between customers and customer service representatives in a business-to-business context, the paper demonstrates three communicative skills that are essential in supporting customers' value creation: attentiveness, perceptiveness and responsiveness. The findings show how employees, by means of these communicative skills support customers' value creation. Attentiveness supports cognitive elements of the customers' value creating processes, whereas perceptiveness supports value creation in terms of cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects. Finally, responsiveness supports the customer's cognitive as well as behavioral value creation.


On October the 11th 1991 the symposium The broad connection took place in the church of the Evangelic Community of Brethren at Zeist. Five speakers reflected on the connection between the minute research of the historian of ancient monuments, restoration practice and the policy for preservation. Prof. dr. ir. R. Meischke, chairman of that day, seriously wondered if this connection existed. The symposium perfectly made clear the distance between the desired and the actual connection of the research of historic buildings and the restoration practice. Many causes can be adduced. These causes were analyzed and most of the speakers, very often historians of ancient monuments themselves, did not hesitate to dive into their own hearts. One clearly was directed to the future. The world of the preservation of ancient monuments is in motion. Also the previously somewhat closed world of the historians of these monuments is changing. Researchers see themselves confronted with new problems of research. Conclusions from the past open perspectives and ways for the future. History of architecture is no stranger in the columns of this Bulletin. Regularly articles are published, which are based on the thorough research of ancient monuments. The reader however can seldom look behind the scenes. Which is presented in an agreeable way often has been fought under very difficult circumstances. History of architecture thereby constantly proved its value to both restoration practice and the improvement of the knowledge of ancient monuments. Therefore the editors of this Bulletin decided to publish the contents of this lectures, which have been slightly worked up by the speakers for publication. The lecture of Dr. L. de Vliegher, who revealed his ideas and experiences in his very own way did not lend itself for publication. Therefore this lecture has not been published. A short retrospective view on the course of the day is justified in this introduction. The occasion of this meeting was the farewell of Dr. H. Janse of the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works because of his pensionable age. With this symposium the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works dwelled on the research of historic buildings which has been given such an important impulse by Herman Janse and some honoured contemporaries and predecessors. The organization has been teased somewhat by sudden diseases of speakers. Mrs. Laleman and Mr. de Vries were very well replaced by Mr. Raveschot and Mr. de Jong. The cooperation of Belgian colleagues has been consciously sought after to enlarge the connection by exchange of experiences. This day also was seized upon to present two new appearances: the book Work and mark of the stonemason, the trade of the stonemason in the Netherlands before 1800 by H. Janse and D.J. de Vries and the announcement of the establishment of the foundation History of Ancient Monuments of the Netherlands. This foundation can be an underscore of the stage of maturity this discipline has reached in the Netherlands.


The evolution of atmospheric composition downwind of a city depends strongly on the concentration of OH within the plume. We use space‐based observations of NO2, a molecule that affects both the sources and sinks of OH, to examine the functional dependence of OH concentration on the speed of the wind over Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These observations illustrate the nonlinear dependence of the OH concentration on NO2 and on the rate of atmospheric mixing. We derive a range of NOx lifetimes of 5.5–8.0 h, lifetimes that correspond to an effective plume‐averaged OH concentration of 7.6 × 106 molecules cm–3 at fast (26 km h–1) and 5.2 × 106 molecules cm–3 at slow (4 km h–1) wind speeds.


Optimizing for long term value is desirable in many practical applications, e.g. recommender systems. The most common approach for long term value optimization is supervised learning using long term value as the target. Unfortunately, long term metrics take a long time to measure (e.g., will customers finish reading an ebook?), and vanilla forecasters cannot learn from examples until the outcome is observed. In practical systems where new items arrive frequently, such delay can increase the training-serving skew, thereby negatively affecting the model's predictions for new products. We argue that intermediate observations (e.g., if customers read a third of the book in 24 hours) can improve a model's predictions. We formalize the problem as a semi-stochastic model, where instances are selected by an adversary but, given an instance, the intermediate observation and the outcome are sampled from a factored joint distribution. We propose an algorithm that exploits intermediate observations and theoretically quantify how much it can outperform any prediction method that ignores the intermediate observations. Motivated by the theoretical analysis, we propose two neural network architectures: Factored Forecaster (FF) which is ideal if our assumptions are satisfied, and Residual Factored Forecaster (RFF) that is more robust to model mis-specification. Experiments on two real world datasets, a dataset derived from GitHub repositories and another dataset from a popular marketplace, show that RFF outperforms both FF as well as an algorithm that ignores intermediate observations.


Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of supplementing different concentrations and sources of vitamin D3 on pig performance, feed preference, and serum 25(OH)D3. In Exp. 1, a total of 398 barrows from 80 litters (PIC 1050, initially 7 d of age) were used in a 38-d study in a 2 × 2 factorial to determine the effects of vitamin D3 supple¬mentation from either a single oral dose or from high levels of vitamin D3 in early nurs¬ery diets on pig performance and serum 25(OH)D3. On d 7 after birth, matched sets of pigs within litters were allotted to 1 of 2 oral dosages (none or 40,000 IU vitamin D3) in a randomized complete block design. Pigs were weighed at d 7 and at weaning (d 21). Following weaning, a subset of 300 barrows were used from d 21 to 45 to determine the effects of the previously administered oral vitamin D3 and 2 levels of dietary vitamin D3 (625 or 6,250 IU/lb; 0.80% Ca and 0.63% available P) from weaning to d 31 on pig growth and serum 25(OH)D3. A common diet containing 625 IU/lb of vitamin D3 (0.70% Ca and 0.47% available P) was fed from 31 to 45 d of age. No dose × diet inter¬actions (P > 0.09) were observed. Serum 25(OH)D3 increased (P < 0.01) on d 21 and tended to increase on d 31 after dosing pigs with oral vitamin D3 prior to weaning. On d 31, serum concentrations increased with increasing dietary vitamin D3 levels (P < 0.01). Weaning weight was not influenced (P > 0.17) by the oral dose of vitamin D3. Supplementing vitamin D3 by either dose or diet did not influence (P > 0.23) nurs¬ery performance. In Exp. 2, a total of 864 pigs (PIC TR4 × FAST ADN, initially 21 d of age) were used in a 30-d study to determine the effects of water supplementation of vitamin D3 on nursery growth performance and serum 25(OH)D3. Upon arrival to the nursery (d 0), pigs were allocated to pens and pens were randomly allotted to 1 of 2 water vitamin D3 supplementation treatments (none or 4,000,000 IU/gal). There were 24 pigs/pen and 18 pens/treatment. Pigs were provided the water supplementation treatments from d 0 to 10. From d 10 to 30, pigs were administered water with no supplemental vitamin D3. Common diets were fed throughout the study and were formulated to contain 1,000 IU/lb added vitamin D3. Twelve pigs per treatment were randomly selected to be bled on d 0, 10, 20, and 30 to determine serum 25(OH)D3 concentrations. Water supple-mentation of vitamin D3 increased (P < 0.01) serum 25(OH)D3 concentrations on d 10, 20, and 30 of the study but did not affect (P > 0.15) nursery growth performance. In Exp. 3, 72 pigs (PIC 327 × 1050, initially 28 d of age) were used in 2 14-d feed preference comparisons to determine whether pigs discriminate in their choice of feeds containing different concentrations of vitamin D3. On d 0, pigs were weighed and allotted to pens based on BW with 6 pigs/pen and 6 pens per feed comparison. The first preference comparison was between diets containing either 625 (control) or 6,250 IU/ lb vitamin D3, and the second comparison was between diets containing 625 (control) or 20,000 IU/lb vitamin D3. Total pen feed intake was measured, and intake of each diet was expressed as a percentage of total intake. The percentage of feed intake did not differ (P > 0.14) between the control diet and the diet containing 6,250 IU/lb, but pigs chose to consume a greater percentage (P < 0.01) of the control diet (77%) than the diet containing 20,000 IU/lb of vitamin D3. These experiments demonstrated that providing high levels of vitamin D3 in an oral dosage, in the water, or in feed increased serum 25(OH)D3; however, preweaning and nursery pig growth performance was not influenced by elevating vitamin D3 above normal dietary levels.; Swine Day, Manhattan, KS, November 15, 2012


The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) is making several changes to concrete mix designs, using revisions to cement specification ASTM C150 / AASHTO M85 and ASTM C465 / AASHTO M327. These proposed revisions will enable the use of more sustainable materials for concrete pavements, overlays, and bridge decks. Accordingly, a study was conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to test the performance of concrete mixes batched with cement comprising less (conventional) and more (modified) than 5% by weight of limestone and inorganic processing additions (IPA) specified in ASTM C465 / AASHTO M327, and/or insoluble residue (IR) with quantity above the specified limit by ASTM C150. Twenty-eight concrete mixes with different cementitious combinations and aggregates were developed for this study. The study included evaluating the fresh properties, strength characteristics, and durability performance of concrete. The strength results were measured in terms of compressive and flexural strength, and the durability results were evaluated in terms of hardened air parameters, freeze/thaw performance, rapid chloride penetration resistance (Coulombs), water penetration (DIN 1048), chloride ion concentration, and diffusion. The study found similar performance in terms of strength and durability of concrete between the conventional and modified cements and demonstrated their performance with SCMs replacements and fine aggregate types.

On the basis of the experimental results, a comprehensive program was developed to study the factors influencing the freeze/thaw performance of concrete. A simplified analytical approach to predict the water penetration coefficient in concrete based on the water penetration test results, and the equivalent-steady state diffusion coefficient through the use of rapid chloride penetration test was established. In addition, a mathematical model was developed for service life prediction of concrete structures through the diffusivity of chloride, by taking into account time dependent surface chloride concentration and diffusion coefficient.


Frequency doubling has been achieved in femtosecond-laser-inscribed single-mode waveguides written in two periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystals. A conversion efficiency of 0.22 %W(1) was obtained for first-order quasi-phase matching at 980 nm and an efficiency of 0.02 %W(-1) for third-order quasi-phase matching at 800 nm.


An astronomy 'experiment' composed of three parts is described in the article. Being given necessary data a simple model of inner planets of the solar system is made in the first part with planets' circular orbits using appropriate scale. In the second part revolution of the figurines used as model representations of the planets along their orbits is observed. In the third part of activity apparent motion of Venus with respect to the observer on the Earth is studied. In the second part of the paper problems are given, which relate to experimental activities and are designed to test if learning outcomes of the experiment have been achieved: if correlation between orbital radius and orbital velocity has been perceived, concepts related to motion of Venus as observed from the Earth have been acquired and periodicity recognized. Described astronomy 'experiment' was one of the three science experiments given to 11 and 12 years old students prior to Slovene science competition in 2017 (the call for competition is at www.dmfa.si, guidelines for the experiment (in Slovene) can be found at www.kresnickadmfa.si/files/2016/07/poskus_1617_r67p1_S.pdf). At the end of the paper the results obtained at competition are presented.


The burning of biomass - forests, grasslands, and agricultural fields after the harvest - is much more widespread and extensive than previously believed; most biomass burning is thought to be initiated by humans and is on the increase. This comprehensive volume is the first to consider biomass burning as a global phenomenon and to assess its impact on the atmosphere, on climate, and on the biosphere itself. The 63 chapters by 158 scientists - including leading biomass burn researchers from third-world countries, such as Brazil, Nigeria, Zaire, India, and China, where biomass burning is so prevalent - point to biomass burning as a significant driver of global change on our planet.Global Biomass Burning provides a convenient and current reference on such topics as the remote sensing of biomass burning from space, the geographical distribution of burning; the combustion products of burning in tropical, temperate, and boreal ecosystems; burning as a global source of atmospheric gases and particulates; the impact of biomass burning gases and particulates on global climate; and the role of biomass burning on biodiversity and past global extinctions.Also included are contributions on the importance of biomass burning from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program: A Study of Global Change and from the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project, as well as policy options prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for managing biomass burning to mitigate global climate change.Joel S. Levine is Senior Research Scientist in the Atmospheric Sciences Division, NASA Langley Research Center and is the Principal Investigator of NASA's research program on global biomass burning, Biospheric Research Program, Office of Space Sciences and Applications.


We investigate whether greater microeconomic flexibility facilitates the process of creative destruction in the context of new trade models with heterogeneous firms (Bernard et al., 2003 and Melitz, 2003). In these models, freer trade increases aggregate productivity because high-efficiency firms expand through exporting and low-efficiency firms exit the market. However, factor reallocation could be negatively affected by the presence of microeconomic frictions. We use these insights of the theory to analyze whether a reduction in trade costs increases the probability of becoming an exporter relatively more in industries with greater microeconomic flexibility and whether plant exit driven by trade costs declines is more likely in industries with lower frictions. Using plant level data from Venezuela, we report results supporting these predictions. JEL No. F13, F14, L1, O12 Key word: Trade costs, microeconomic frictions, resource reallocation.


The UV photolysis of Cl(2)O(2) (dichlorine peroxide) is a key step in the catalytic destruction of polar stratospheric ozone. In this study, the gas-phase UV absorption spectrum of Cl(2)O(2) was measured using diode array spectroscopy and absolute cross sections, sigma, are reported for the wavelength range 200-420 nm. Pulsed laser photolysis of Cl(2)O at 248 nm or Cl(2)/Cl(2)O mixtures at 351 nm at low temperature (200-228 K) and high pressure (approximately 700 Torr, He) was used to produce ClO radicals and subsequently Cl(2)O(2) via the termolecular ClO self-reaction. The Cl(2)O(2) spectrum was obtained from spectra recorded following the completion of the gas-phase ClO radical chemistry. The spectral analysis used observed isosbestic points at 271, 312.9, and 408.5 nm combined with reaction stoichiometry and chlorine mass balance to determine the Cl(2)O(2) spectrum. The Cl(2)O(2) UV absorption spectrum peaks at 244.5 nm with a cross section of 7.6(-0.5)(+0.8) x 10(-18) cm(2) molecule(-1) where the quoted error limits are 2sigma and include estimated systematic errors. The Cl(2)O(2) absorption cross sections obtained for wavelengths in the range 300-420 nm are in good agreement with the Cl(2)O(2) spectrum reported previously by Burkholder et al. (J. Phys. Chem. A 1990, 94, 687) and significantly higher than the values reported by Pope et al. (J. Phys. Chem. A 2007, 111, 4322). A possible explanation for the discrepancy in the Cl(2)O(2) cross section values with the Pope et al. study is discussed. Representative, atmospheric photolysis rate coefficients are calculated and a range of uncertainty estimated based on the determination of sigma(Cl(2)O(2))(lambda) in this work. Although improvements in our fundamental understanding of the photochemistry of Cl(2)O(2) are still desired, this work indicates that major revisions in current atmospheric chemical mechanisms are not required to simulate observed polar ozone depletion.


The wide range of different definitions of what constitutes a small hydroelectric power plants is discussed and the conclusion is drawn that this definition should be based more on the complexity of the scheme than on its size, and also on the number and specialization of the personnel required to design the scheme successfully. The concepts of technology and technology transfer are then defined and discussed and the advantages of standardization of equipment for small hydroelectric power plants in less developed countries are pointed out. A number of institutions that have direct experience in the technology transfer to the less developed countries in this field are mentioned. The need for a wider dissemination of the information and experience in possession of some Governmental Aid Agencies is emphasized.