Major investments in Sweden have equipped schools with digital technologies. However, the digital technologies are, reportedly, not being used to support eve-ryday teaching and learning practices. Rather, the digital technologies are mainly used as administrative tools. In order to enable teachers to adopt and use digital technologies, it is crucial to understand their worldviews and their everyday prac-tice, as well as external influences and underlying perspectives.  In response, this paper discusses dilemmas associated with teachers' everyday practice using digital technologies. The research methodologies included a Fo-cused Ethnographic approach complemented by Soft Systems Methodology, es-pecially Rich Pictures. Results provide rich context for appreciating the complex dilemmas experienced by four teachers, two school leaders, three representatives from the Department of Education and the head of the municipal IT unit, who together constituted the informants for this research.


The opening and operation of the Tyne and Wear Metro system is likely to produce substantial changes in travel behaviour and activity levels within the conurbation. The central area of Newcastle - the focus of the system - may be expected to experience the impact of these changes as much as any other part of the county. This report describes shopping behaviour and retail trade in the city centre before metro opened and provides a preliminary analysis of the impact on these that metro has already made, and an assessment of the future course and direction of this impact. The research is based on a series of observational and questionnaire surveys of pedestrian flows, commercial land use, retail trade levels, and shopping and travel behaviour. Because of the complexity of the subject, conclusions are drawn from a synthesis of the findings of these different data collection exercises rather than from the results of any single one. (A)


Summary: Deterministic chaos offers a striking explanation for apparently irregular behavior of the brain that is evidenced in the EEG. Recent developments in the physical–mathematical framework of the theory of nonlinear dynamics (colloquially often termed chaos theory) provide new concepts and powerful algorithms to analyze such time series. Because of its high versatility, nonlinear time series analysis has already gone beyond the physical sciences and, at present, is being successfully applied in a variety of disciplines, including cardiology, neurology, psychiatry, and epileptology. However, it is well known that different influencing factors limit the use of nonlinear measures to characterize EEG dynamics in a strict sense. Nevertheless, when interpreted with care, relative estimates of, e.g., the correlation dimension or the Lyapunov exponents, can reliably characterize different states of normal and pathologic brain function. In epileptology, extraction of nonlinear measures from the intracranially recorded EEG promises to be important for clinical practice. In addition to an immense reduction of information content of long‐lasting EEG recordings, previous studies have shown that these measures enable (a) localization of the primary epileptogenic area in different cerebral regions during the interictal state, (b) investigations of antiepileptic drug effects, (c) analyses of spatio‐temporal interactions between the epileptogenic zone and other brain areas, and (d) detection of features predictive of imminent seizure activity. Nonlinear time series analysis provides new and supplementary information about the epileptogenic process and thus contributes to an improvement in presurgical evaluation.


The use of biomimetic complexes is a common strategy adopted to obtain valuable information on enzymatic structures and functions. Following our previous investigation on the dioxygenation process of a cysteinato ligand by an efficient [TpMe,Ph FeCysOEt] cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) biomimetic complex, a detailed DFT study is herein presented on two modified systems in which Fe(II) has been replaced by either Ru(II) or Os(II). The reaction mechanism by which such compounds catalyze the formation of cysteine sulfinic acid is fully elucidated and compared with the previous findings on Fe(II)-system. Contrary to what observed for iron, the reaction proceed via multistate reactivity patterns on competing singlet and triplet spin state surfaces. The outcomes of the present investigation allow to assess the changes in the whole process and the difference in reactivity on modification of the metal center while simultaneously revealing the crucial role played by iron in the original enzymatic mimetic.


Programs written in C and C++ are susceptible to a number of memory errors, including buffer overflows and dangling pointers. At best, these errors cause crashes or performance degradation. At worst, they enable security vulnerabilities, allowing denial-of-service or remote code execution. Existing runtime systems provide little protection against these errors. They allow minor errors to cause crashes and allow attackers to consistently exploit vulnerabilities.
In this thesis, we introduce a series of runtime systems that protect deployed applications from memory errors. To guide the design of our systems, we analyze how errors interact with memory allocators to allow consistent exploitation of vulnerabilities. Our systems improve software in two ways: first, they tolerate memory errors, allowing programs to continue proper execution. Second, they decrease the probability of successfully exploiting security vulnerabilities caused by memory errors. Our first system, Archipelago, protects exceptionally sensitive server applications against severe errors using an object-per-page randomized allocator. It provides near-100% protection against most buffer overflows. Our second system, DieHarder, combines ideas from Archipelago, DieHard, and other systems to enable maximal protection against attacks while incurring minimal runtime and memory overhead. Our final system, Exterminator, automatically corrects heap-based buffer overflows and dangling pointers without requiring programmer intervention. Exterminator relies on both a low-overhead randomized allocator and statistical inference techniques to automatically isolate and correct errors in deployed applications.


This paper presents an overview of a generic task model of music composition, developed as part of a research project investigating methods of improving user-interface designs for music software (in particular focusing on sound synthesis tools). The task model has been produced by applying recently developed task analysis techniques to the complex and creative task of music composition. The model itself describes the purely practical aspects of music composition, avoiding any attempt to include the aesthetic motivations and concerns of composers. We go on to illustrate the application of the task model to software design by describing various parts of Modalyser, a graphical user-interface program designed by the author for creating musical sounds with IRCAM's Modalys physical modelling synthesis software. The task model is not yet complete at all levels and requires further refinement, but is deemed to be sufficiently comprehensive to merit presentation here. Although developed for assisting in software design, the task model may be of wider interest to those concerned with the education of music composition and research into music composition generally. This paper has been developed from a short presentation given at the First Sonic Arts Network Conference in January 1998.


This study assessed rates of imaginal exposure therapy (ET) utilization and completion of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a clinical setting and examined variables associated with CBT completion. Using a clinical definition, the completion rate of CBT was markedly lower than rates reported in randomized trials. CBT completion was inversely related to severity of overall pretreatment measures of PTSD, avoidance, hyperarousal, depression, impaired social functioning, and borderline personality disorder. Regression yielded avoidance and depression as unique predictors of completion. Most dropouts occurred before starting imaginal ET, although initiating ET was associated with greater likelihood of completion. Results highlight methodological differences between research and practice notions of treatment completion and the need for further study of variables influencing CBT completion in practice settings.


evolutionary biologists mostly assume that polygyny increases sexual dimorphism in size because, under polygyny, larger males monopolize mating opportunities and pass on their 'large male' genes to their sons. available data on parent–child correlations in height among humans (homo sapiens) do not support the crucial assumption that height is transmitted along sex lines. this paper instead suggests that human sexual dimorphism in size emerged, not because men got taller, but because women got shorter by undergoing early menarche in response to polygyny. it further speculates that, rather than genetically transmitted, the sexual dimorphism may emerge anew in each generation in response to the degree of polygyny in society. the analysis of comparative data supports the prediction that polygyny reduces women's height, but has no effect on men's, and is consistent with the speculation that the origin of human sexual dimorphism in size may be cultural, not genetic.


The eight papers included in this thematic set were presented at a meeting on the geology of Hong Kong held at the University of Hong Kong on 22 January 1997. The meeting reviewed the accomplishments of the Hong Kong Geological Survey and its co-workers since it was founded fifteen years ago, and coincided with the publication of the final geological memoir of the current series that describes the 1:20 000-scale geological maps of Hong Kong. The meeting also formed part of the 20th Anniversary celebrations of the establishment of the Geotechnical Engineering Office of the Hong Kong Government. A total of 112 registrants from consultant companies, academic institutions, researchers from China, and several Government departments attended the meeting. In addition, 40 students from the newly established Department of Earth Sciences of Hong Kong University were present. Hong Kong is one of the world's major urban communities, with a population of over six million and in common with most of eastern Asia is expanding rapidly. However, development is hindered by the rugged terrain and steep-sided islands, and engineers are tackling some of the world's largest and technically most challenging civil engineering projects. This meeting highlighted the need for systematic and accurate geological information, and the importance of understanding geological processes. It brought together geologists, geotechnical engineers and engineering geologists with the common objective to sustain the effective and safe development of Hong Kong. The meeting was opened by the Secretary for Works, H. S. Kwong, who described the significance of the


Objective- To consider the possibility of ultrasonography evaluation of the plantar tendons and ligaments and prepare a standard reference for it.
Design- Descriptive study
Animals- 7 female healthy Caspian miniature horses'-age 7year- no clinical sign of lameness and prior to presentation.
Procedure- The ultrasonography of the right and the left metatarsal region was performedusing a Pie Medical 100 Falco Vet and an 8MHZ linear transducer. The area forultrasonography was divided to 9 levels (1a-1b-2a-2b-3a-3b-4a-4b-5a), each 3 cm longafterwards.
Results- All the structures started to appear with an acceptable contrast and visibility at the 2alevel. SDFT and DDFT were well observed from the level 2a however, no definite borderswere recognizable as ICL (except one case) and echogenicity of DDFT from the 2b level washyperechoic to isoechoic comparing SDFT and SL from this level observed the branching area was hyperechoic in compare with DDFT & SDFT, however MSL & LSL were hypoechoiccomparing SDFT and DDFT. There aren't any difference echogenicity between right and left hind limb.
Conclusion and Clinical Relevance- Investigations have proved that there's no differencebetween the echogenicity of each ligament and tendon in different levels in the left and rightlimbs which was confirmed in the current inspection as wellThe conclusions of the current study on the Caspian horse were showen too that highlycompatible with the previous vestigations in horses on echogenicity and shape of the plantartendons and ligaments. Generally it is assumed that transverse images provide a better image oftendons and ligaments and any injury in any part of the above structures can be diagnosedeasily, however some probable injuries around the tendon may be left unseen in longitudinalimages.


Introduction: Pterocarpus indicus Willd. has been widely used empirically for treating canker sore, antibacterial and kidney disease. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate nephroprotective effect water-boiled P. indicus leaves against gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity in rats observed from plasma urea and creatinine levels. Materials and Methods: In this study, thirty (30) male rats divided into five treatment groups. The treatment groups consisted of the normal group, induction group received gentamicin (80 mg/kg body weight per day i.p.) and a group which received water-boiled P. indicus leaves with a dose of 28.8 mg/kg, 57.6 mg/kg, and 115.2 mg/kg body weight per day p.o. All groups received treatment for 21 days. At the 15th day, the animals received gentamicin i.p. for 7 days. At the 22nd day, the blood was collected from orbital sinus. The plasma urea and creatinine levels were measured by Berthelot method for plasma urea and colorimetric method for plasma creatinine. Results: The highest dose of 115.2 mg/kg water-boiled P. indicus was decreased plasma urea and creatinine levels also significantly different (p Conclusions: Water-boiled P. indicus leaves have a potential to prevent gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity might be due to its antioxidant and free radical scavenging activity. Key words: Gentamicin, Nephroprotective, Plasma creatinine, Plasma urea, Pterocarpus indicus Willd.


Global environmental issues are increasing due to the rapid developments in science and technology. To address these environmental issues there is a need to create awareness about environmental education among the masses. This can only be possible through teachers and teacher educators. It is assumed that science teachers are teaching environmental concepts as scientific facts, without creating awareness about environmental education. The ultimate purpose of this study was to explore the beliefs of a secondary science teacher about environmental education and how his stated beliefs matched with his classroom practices. The study was conducted in one of the co-operative schools of the Aga Khan University- Institute for Educational Development, in Karachi Pakistan and the sample for this study included one secondary science teacher. The research design was qualitative, which included multi-methods. The methods included semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, pre-post conferences, document analysis and the teacher's teaching/learning stories. The study employed different data collection tools such as interview guidelines, a classroom observation checklist, teaching/learning stories and pre-post conference guideline questions. The findings of the study suggest that the research participant believed in teaching environmental education in a science classroom. He also believed that students should be given free choice to get involved in environmental activities such as environmental management projects in the real environment. However his enacted teacher centred classroom practice was contrary to his stated beliefs. The factors that prevented him from enacting his beliefs were identified as his content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and support from the administration. The study thus suggests professional development programmes and workshops must employ reflective practices. Moreover, constructivist approaches should be designed to help teachers to enhance their content, pedagogical content knowledge about environmental education, and that should develop them professionally.


Motivation Markov models with contexts of variable length are widely used in bioinformatics for representing sets of sequences with similar biological properties. When models contain many long contexts, existing implementations are either unable to handle genome-scale training datasets within typical memory budgets, or they are optimized for specific model variants and are thus inflexible. Results We provide practical, versatile representations of variable-order Markov models and of interpolated Markov models, that support a large number of context-selection criteria, scoring functions, probability smoothing methods, and interpolations, and that take up to 4 times less space than previous implementations based on the suffix array, regardless of the number and length of contexts, and up to 10 times less space than previous trie-based representations, or more, while matching the size of related, state-of-the-art data structures from Natural Language Processing. We describe how to further compress our indexes to a quantity related to the redundancy of the training data, saving up to 90% of their space on repetitive datasets, and making them become up to 60 times smaller than previous implementations based on the suffix array. Finally, we show how to exploit constraints on the length and frequency of contexts to further shrink our compressed indexes to half of their size or more, achieving data structures that are 100 times smaller than previous implementations based on the suffix array, or more. This allows variable-order Markov models to be trained on bigger datasets and with longer contexts on the same hardware, thus possibly enabling new applications. Availability and implementation https://github.com/jnalanko/VOMM


Component-based development (CBD) of software, with its successes in enterprise computing, has the promise of being a good development model due to its cost effectiveness and potential for achieving high quality of components by virtue of reuse. However, for systems with dependability concerns, such as real-time systems, a major challenge in using CBD consists of predicting dependability attributes, or providing dependability assertions, based on the individual component properties and architectural aspects. In this paper, we propose a framework which aims to address this challenge. Specifically, we present a revised error classification together with error propagation aspects, and briefly sketch how to compose error models within the context of component-based systems (CBS). The ultimate goal is to perform the analysis on a given CBS, in order to find bottlenecks in achieving dependability requirements and to provide guidelines to the designer on the usage of appropriate error detection and fault tolerance mechanisms.


This paper studies the cooperative learning of two generative flow models, in which the two models are iteratively updated based on the jointly synthesized examples. The first flow model is a normalizing flow that transforms an initial simple density to a target density by applying a sequence of invertible transformations. The second flow model is a Langevin flow that runs finite steps of gradient-based MCMC toward an energy-based model. We start from proposing a generative framework that trains an energy-based model with a normalizing flow as an amortized sampler to initialize the MCMC chains of the energy-based model. In each learning iteration, we generate synthesized examples by using a normalizing flow initialization followed by a short-run Langevin flow revision toward the current energy-based model. Then we treat the synthesized examples as fair samples from the energy-based model and update the model parameters with the maximum likelihood learning gradient, while the normalizing flow directly learns from the synthesized examples by maximizing the tractable likelihood. Under the short-run non-mixing MCMC scenario, the estimation of the energy-based model is shown to follow the perturbation of maximum likelihood, and the short-run Langevin flow and the normalizing flow form a two-flow generator that we call CoopFlow. We provide an understating of the CoopFlow algorithm by information geometry and show that it is a valid generator as it converges to a moment matching estimator. We demonstrate that the trained CoopFlow is capable of synthesizing realistic images, reconstructing images, and interpolating between images.


he Shunyata Research Triton is the top model in the company's third generation of Hydra power distributors. It sends electricity from a single wall outlet to eight sockets (ten in 240VAC units) using a buss system that Shunyata claims is capable of supporting the current demand of virtually any audio system. The Triton is an entirely passive device that also provides its client component with noise suppression and surge protection.


CORRELATION OF SURFACE ENHANCED RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY AND NANOPARTICLE AGGREGATION WITH RHODAMINE 6G by Christopher A. Hoff Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has fascinated the analytical chemistry field for decades. The SERS phenomenon has progressively leveraged the inherently insensitive Raman phenomenon from a novelty vibrational spectroscopy method into one capable of single molecule detection, with attendant molecular level selectivity and information. Yet, even after 40 years since its discovery, the core mechanism behind this phenomenon is still debated. This thesis presents results from a series of photometric titrations wherein solutions of 30 nm Au@Ag nanoparticles (NPs) were titrated with rhodamine 6G (R6G), spanning five orders of magnitude in R6G concentration, and which elucidate the conditions required for the onset of SERS by R6G in this system. The experiments illustrated the correlation between the Raman response and the plasmonic (via UV-Vis spectroscopy) properties of the nanoparticle solutions. It was found that the onset of R6G SERS was related much more closely to the aggregation of the nanoparticles in solution than to their R6G adsorbed surface coverage. However, triggering aggregation with sodium chloride appeared to enhance SERS by an independent mechanism, which is operative only at low, i.e., [NaCl] > 100 mM concentration.


This paper proposes a probabilistic model of object category learning in conjunction with attention-guided organized perception. This model consists of a model of attention-guided organized perception of object segments on Markov random fields and a model of learning object categories based on a probabilistic latent component analysis. In attention guided organized perception, concurrent figure-ground segmentation is performed on dynamically-formed Markov random fields around salient preattentive points and co-occurring segments are grouped in the neighborhood of selective attended segments. In object category learning, a set of classes of each object category is obtained based on the probabilistic latent component analysis with the variable number of classes from bags of features of segments extracted from images which contain the categorical objects in context and an object category is represented by a composite of object classes. Through experiments using two image data sets, it is shown that the model learns a probabilistic structure of intra-categorical composition and inter-categorical difference of object categories and achieves high performance in object category recognition.


The aim of this chapter is to present the notion of "pragmatic punting" as thecognitive process that confirms that communication in interaction has achievedits goal. The theoretical tenets of this mechanism are based on the principlesof communicative context and on the Dynamic Model of Meaning. The studycompares the prosodic patterns of pragmatic markers in the London-LundCorpus and in the LINDSEI Corpus (the Spanish section) in order to describethe prototypical realization of pragmatic punting in native and non-nativeEnglish conversation respectively. The results show the disparity in the use ofpragmatic punting between both groups of speakers. The conclusions indicatethat the improvement of the non-natives' awareness of the intonation patternsand distribution of pragmatic markers would contribute to the improvement oftheir communicative competence.


Sustainable development is a highly topical issue and is of critical importance to tourism as the environment is of utmost importance for the continued development and prosperity of the industry. There have been numerous texts written on sustainable tourism and the measures to mitigate and manage this but none which acknowledges Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a mechanism of doing so despite being an emerging area of research. ICT in this context refers to innovative tools which form an integrated system of software and networked equipment that facilitates data processing information sharing communication and the ability to search and select from an existing range of products and services for an organisations benefits. Despite the symbiotic relationship, which exists between ICT and sustainable tourism, there has been little research, which has considered how the use of such technology can be used to make sustainable tourism development a more workable reality. This opportune book is the first to provide a focus on the interrelationship of these two important topics demonstrating their synergies and providing insight into a new and innovative approach to managing sustainable tourism development. It considers the use of technology to reduce the negative impacts of tourism from both the demand and supply side perspectives. A critical review of a range of cutting edge technologies used by tourists and businesses to assess their usefulness in managing sustainable tourism development from the macro to the micro level is also discussed. It further integrates examples and practical applications to show how ICT can be an invaluable mechanism in the management of sustainable tourism development. This cutting-edge volume provides a wealth of information on an important yet neglected subject. This book will be invaluable reading for students, researchers, academics and members of the tourism industry looking for new and innovate ways of fostering a more sustainable tourism industry.


Objectives In Denmark, the local and regional health authorities share responsibility for cardiac rehabilitation (CR). The objective was to assess effectiveness of CR across sectors coordinated by a nurse case manager (NCM). Design A one-year follow-up study. Setting A CR programme (GoHeart) was evaluated in a cohort at Lillebaelt Hospital Vejle, DK from 2010 to 2011. Participants Consecutive patients admitted to CR were included. The inclusion criteria were the event of acute myocardial infarction or stable angina and invasive revascularization (left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≥45%). Main outcome measures Cardiac risk factors, stratified self-care and self-reported psychosocial factors (SF12 and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)) were assessed at admission (phase IIa), at three months at discharge (phase IIb) and at one-year follow-up (phase III). Intention-to-treat and predefined subgroup analysis on sex was performed. Results Of 241 patients, 183 (75.9%) were included (mean age 63.8 years). At discharge improvements were found in total-cholesterol (p < 0.001), low density lipoprotein (LDL; p < 0.001), functional capacities (metabolic equivalent of tasks (METS), p < 0.01), self-care management (p < 0.001), Health status Short Form 12 version (SF12; physical; p < 0.001 and mental; p < 0.01) and in depression symptoms (p < 0.01). At one-year follow-up these outcomes were maintained; additionally there was improvement in body mass index (BMI; p < 0.05), and high density lipoprotein (HDL; p < 0.05). There were no sex differences. Conclusion CR shared between local and regional health authorities led by a NCM (GoHeart) improves risk factors, self-care and psychosocial factors. Further improvements in most variables were at one-year follow-up.


This paper analyzes the genetic diversity of 79 accessions of native potato varieties (Solanum spp.) using 18 microsatellite markers. A random sample from Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Cusco, Huancavelica and Puno from "chacras" of farmers who collaborated with the "In situ conservation of native crops and wild relatives" were used. 17 markers amplified one single polymorphic locus, the mean number of alleles per locus was 8.79. The mean similarity was 0.62 and clustering indexes varied between 0.41 and 0.98. 19 loci showed a total of 166 alleles. Cuzco had the highest number of alleles (130 alleles). Of the 166 characterized alleles, 72 alleles (43.37%) were common or shared with 5 sampling sites. Puno had the highest number of exclusive alleles (8 alleles). The 42 varieties of S. tuberosum subsp. andigena showed a mean diversity of 0.74 and 18 varieties of S. x chaucha an average diversity of 0.70. Polymorphism (PIC = 0.55 to 0.85) and genetic diversity indices show that microsatellites evaluated can identify high levels of genetic diversity, but also are not sufficient to discriminate differentiated by origin or species groups. Our analyzes indicate a high genetic diversity and are consistent with inventories and morphological characterizations performed in situ, we can also conclude that there would be a common pool of genes would be found widely distributed among the regions studied.


When a strict local martingale is projected onto a subfiltration to which it is not adapted, the local martingale property may be lost, and the finite variation part of the projection may have singular paths. This phenomenon has consequences for arbitrage theory in mathematical finance. In this paper it is shown that the loss of the local martingale property is related to a measure extension problem for the associated Follmer measure. When a solution exists, the finite variation part of the projection can be interpreted as the compensator, under the extended measure, of the explosion time of the original local martingale. In a topological setting, this leads to intuitive conditions under which its paths are singular. The measure extension problem is then solved in a Brownian framework, allowing an explicit treatment of several interesting examples.


Intestinal stem cell progenitors use Notch signaling to specify a niche cell that remains undifferentiated until metamorphosis. The gut epithelium is continually renewed by cells generated from intestinal stem cells. In the fruit fly Drosophila, cells of the adult gut are derived from cells set aside before metamorphosis. Mathur et al. now show that an early asymmetric cell division in larval stages establishes a niche that encloses a proliferating group of undifferentiated stem cells. At metamorphosis, the niche breaks down and the stem cells are freed. Most of them differentiate into adult gut progenitors, but a minority takes on the task of establishing a new, adult, stem cell niche with more liberal operating rules. D. Mathur, A. Bost, I. Driver, B. Ohlstein, A transient niche regulates the specification of Drosophila intestinal stem cells. Science 327, 210–213 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


On August 11 and 12, 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of the University of Virginia and this law journal—played unwitting host to two days of white nationalist and neo-Nazi rallies and violence. From the moment the events unfolded, it was clear that they resonated beyond Charlottesville itself. They preoccupied observers far flung from Charlottesville both for the violence and loss of life on display and for the stark evidence they provided of deep and enduring fault lines within our nation and our society.

This Foreword introduces a symposium focused on the racial implications and reverberations of August 11-12. The conference that produced these articles brought an annual national meeting of empirical critical race theorists to Charlottesville to train their considerable intellectual talents on the first anniversary of August 11-12. The resulting scholarship asks what we can learn from August 11-12 about the legal underpinnings of white supremacy in the United States, from the beginning of its history to the violence in 2017 and beyond. It investigates the surprise with which so many responded to August 11-12 and shows us why we should not be surprised. The articles in this symposium bring us closer to real and enduring change by requiring and inviting us to remember what has disappeared, to recast the historical narrative, and to ask anew what role the law has played in bringing us to this moment and what role it can and must play in moving us forward once again.


What does it mean for a supreme court to 'make law?' When is it possible to say that its decisions are 'precedents?' To what extent should a supreme court's pronouncements be taken into account by others – lower courts and political branches? And how should these other actors reason with such precedents? This article shows how a particular approach to judicial lawmaking and precedent shapes answers to these questions and examines them in relation to the US Supreme Court and the French Cour de cassation. The findings are then used for a critical analysis of the European Court of Justice's case law. It is suggested that while the US and French systems have found some ways of reconciling judicial lawmaking with the basic premises of their constitutional and political systems (although they are not entirely satisfactory), the EU system is still waiting for an account of the Court's lawmaking and precedent. The conclusion indicates directions of possible further research relevant for all courts examined.


We consider the problem of filtering in linear state-space models (e.g., the Kalman filter setting) through the lens of regret optimization. Specifically, we study the problem of causally estimating a desired signal, generated by a linear state-space model driven by process noise, based on noisy observations of a related observation process. We define a novel regret criterion for estimator design as the difference of the estimation error energies between a clairvoyant estimator that has access to all future observations (a socalled smoother) and a causal one that only has access to current and past observations. The regret-optimal estimator is the causal estimator that minimizes the worst-case regret across all bounded-energy noise sequences. We provide a solution for the regret filtering problem at two levels. First, an horizonindependent solution at the operator level is obtained by reducing the regret to the wellknown Nehari problem. Secondly, our main result for state-space models is an explicit estimator that achieves the optimal regret. The regret-optimal estimator is represented as a finite-dimensional state-space whose parameters can be computed by solving three Riccati equations and a single Lyapunov equation. We demonstrate the applicability and efficacy of the estimator in a variety of problems and observe that the estimator has average and worst-case performances that are simultaneously close to their optimal values. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Caltech, e-mails: {oron,email@example.com. Proceedings of the 24 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS) 2021, San Diego, California, USA. PMLR: Volume 130. Copyright 2021 by the author(s).


The Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision to grant summary judgment to the Fish and Wildlife Service, upholding MMPA and NEPA regulations. The court found the Service did not violate MMPA or NEPA in authorizing a period for oil and gas operators to apply to conduct non-lethal takes of polar bears and Pacific walrus. The Service was not required to address the possibility that climate change, in addition to the non-lethal takes, may put additional stress on polar bear populations.


Background Providing feedback is a technique to promote health behavior that is emphasized by behavior change theories. However, these theories make contradicting predictions regarding the effect of the feedback sign—that is, whether the feedback signals success or failure. Thus, it is unclear whether positive or negative feedback leads to more favorable behavior change in a health behavior intervention. Objective The aim of this study was to examine the effect of the feedback sign in a health behavior change intervention. Methods Data from participants (N=1623) of a 6-month physical activity intervention was used. Participants received a feedback email at the beginning of each month. Feedback was either positive or negative depending on the participants' physical activity in the previous month. In an exploratory analysis, change in monthly step count averages was used to evaluate the feedback effect. Results The feedback sign did not predict the change in monthly step count averages over the course of the intervention (b=−84.28, P=.28). Descriptive differences between positive and negative feedback can be explained by regression to the mean. Conclusions The feedback sign might not influence the effect of monthly feedback emails sent out to participants of a large-scale physical activity intervention. However, randomized studies are needed to further support this conclusion. Limitations as well as opportunities for future research are discussed.


[1] The northwest trending walls of the Pito Deep Rift (PDR), a tectonic window in the southeast Pacific, expose in situ oceanic crust generated ∼3 Ma at the superfast spreading southern East Pacific Rise (SEPR). Whole rock analyses were performed on over 200 samples of dikes and lavas recovered from two ∼8 km2 study areas. Most of the PDR samples are incompatible-element-depleted normal mid-ocean ridge basalts (NMORB; (La/Sm)N < 1.0) that show typical tholeiitic fractionation trends. Correlated variations in Pb isotope ratios, rare earth element patterns, and ratios of incompatible elements (e.g., (Ce/Yb)N) are best explained by mixing curves between two enriched and one depleted mantle sources. Pb isotope compositions of most PDR NMORB are offset from SEPR data toward higher values of 207Pb/204Pb, suggesting that an enriched component of the mantle was present in this region in the past ∼3 Ma but is not evident today. Overall, the PDR crust is highly variable in composition over long and short spatial scales, demonstrating that chemically distinct lavas and dikes can be emplaced within the same segment over short timescales. However, the limited spatial distribution of high 206Pb/204Pb samples and the occurrence of relatively homogeneous MgO compositions (ranging <2.5 wt %) within a few of the individual dive transects (over distances of ∼1 km) suggests that the mantle source composition evolved and magmatic temperatures persisted over timescales of tens of thousands of years. The high degree of chemical variability between pairs of adjacent dikes is interpreted as evidence for along-axis transport of magma from chemically distinct portions of the melt lens. Our findings suggest that lateral dike propagation occurs to a significant degree at superfast spreading centers.


Porous carbons were obtained by chemical activation of hydrochar, prepared by hydrothermal carbonization using enzymatic hydrolysis lignin originated from the butanol fermentation of corn straw. The intermediate hydrochar was activated using different KOH/hydrochar weight ratios to evaluate the influence of these ratios on its electrochemical properties. The materials thus prepared exhibited high specific surface areas in the range 1290–1660 m2 g−1 mainly attributed to the three-dimensional hierarchical texture made up of abundant micropores, small mesopores and macropores, and high electrical conductivity in the 4.0–5.4 S cm−1 range. Consequently, the samples show high specific capacitance, superior rate performance and outstanding durability in three-electrode and two-electrode systems in 6 M KOH. The as-assembled symmetric supercapacitor in an ionic liquid electrolyte system exhibits a superior energy density of 46.8 W h kg−1 and a value of 22.9 W h kg−1 is maintained even at an ultrahigh power density of 25 400 W kg−1. These materials possessing excellent structural features are an ideal candidate for high performance supercapacitors.


The design and evaluation of a stand-alone hybrid renewable energy system for pumping underground water for small farm irrigation is presented. Given environmental conditions, system specifications and daily load demand data, the optimal size of main system components are obtained using a sizing algorithm. Different renewable energy systems are compared using yearly simulations, on hourly base via specialized commercial software simulation packages PVSYST and HOMER to simulate the system performance and to reach the optimum configurations based on the objective criteria. The criteria used in economic optimization are the net present cost and the cost of energy, with the percent of the capacity shortage. The compared water pumping systems are; PV only, PV with horizontal axis wind turbine, PV with vertical axis wind turbine, PV with horizontal axis wind turbine and diesel generator and diesel generator only. The simulation also was carried out for different load patterns for optimum operation. The study was illustrated for climatic conditions of an isolated area in El-Tour City, Sinai, Egypt. The installed 3.42 kW PV water pumping system for irrigation purposes in the same site was also described.


The versatility and potential of rheo-optical FTIR spectroscopy is demonstrated with ref. to the characterization of segmental orientation in a polytetrahydrofuran-MDI-ethylenediamine copolymer elastomer. The rheo-optical data show that the soft and hard segments of the polymer deform by different orientation mechanisms. Thus, the soft segments exhibit an almost perfect reversibility of orientation and disorientation in loading and unloading cycles, whereas the deformation of the hard segments is dominated by a significant reorganization of their morphol. Rheo-optical FTIR spectroscopy provides an extremely sensitive tool for detecting the onset, progress, and decay of strain-induced crystn. of the soft segments during the mech. treatment of the elastomer.


This study investigated the employment experience of younger people with Parkinson's Disease (PD). The aims of this study were formulated from reflections on clinical practice and observation of the often detrimental impact caused by relinquishing employment.

A steering group consisting mainly of younger people with PD was established to guide the project. A sequential transformative research design was chosen and three methods of data collection were utilised in a flexible, multi-method approach: a questionnaire, which was distributed nationally and in electronic format via the Parkinson's Disease Society website; a series of three focus groups; and an electronic proforma which recorded the employment stories of respondents via a newly created website. The meaning that employment had for younger people with PD, benefits of working, the decision making process regarding leaving work, difficulties encountered and successful strategies used by younger people with PD to maintain their employment were explored.

This study unveiled a narrative surrounding the experience of employment of younger people with PD. The results indicated that this group required targeted assistance to enable them to maintain employment. The results were therefore transformed into a seven staged intervention to facilitate the maintenance of employment and to alter the current narrative. The staged intervention was developed to address the key issues highlighted by the study.

Respondents identified a lack of available information and had a poor awareness of employment rights. There was a consensus regarding difficult symptoms to cope with in employment with fatigue having the biggest impact and other symptoms being: cognitive changes, stress, anxiety, reduced dexterity and mobility. Lack of flexibility by employers was noted to contribute to difficulty in work, and dealing with customers or speaking in public were the most problematic work roles. Respondents identified the benefits of work as: mental stimulation, a sense of identity, self esteem and financial benefits, and felt that giving up work would contribute to a social withdrawal.

Respondents found that interaction with non-specialist professionals, in relation to the maintenance of work, was ineffective. The study recommends that this intervention should be delivered by a specialist occupational therapist with access to the skills of a multi-disciplinary team. The intervention was tested in practice and an evaluation model was presented to enable further development.


Out on the Fields is the largest and the first international study on homophobia in sport. Nearly 9500 people took part, primarily from English speaking countries. Participants included around 25% heterosexual men and women. Data collection, analysis and the final results were reviewed by a panel of seven academic experts on homophobia in sport from six universities in four countries. The research itself was conducted by global sports market research firm, Repucom. It was commissioned by the Bingham Cup Sydney 2014 (the world cup of gay rugby) in partnership with a coalition of LGBTI and mainstream sporting organisations including the Federation of Gay Games.


Abstract The article aims to open up a theoretical space where the nation building project's inherent contradictions can thrive, making it possible to see the construction of a new South Africa as a dialectical area of both converging and diverging processes. Using the national broadcaster South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the frequently used discourse of African renaissance as its central examples, the article argues that both processes of nation building and tendencies of globalisation must be seen as multidirectional processes to allow for a more consistent picture. Both the SABC and the current discourse of African renaissance are influenced by unifying and dividing processes.


How could the New York Times call the grand jury's decision to no bill the indictment against officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a "verdict"? How could federal appellate judges call it a "procedural shortcut" when a state judge, in a death penalty case, signs the state attorney general's proposed judicial opinion without even striking the word "proposed" or reviewing the full opinion? What do these incidents tell us about contemporary criminal justice? These essays explore these puzzles. The first, "Verdict and Illusion," begins to sketch the role of illusions in justice. The second, "A Singe Voice of Justice," interprets these procedural shortcuts through the lens of Homeric, agonistic combat. The third, "Reading Penal Theories and Institutions," offers a first reading of the newly published Foucault lectures on punishment practices, theories and institutions, delivered at the College de France in 1971-1972. (A French version of the latter essay is included as well).


This paper describes a new method for the fabrication of microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs) by inkjet printing alone. Microfluidic structures are patterned within less than 5 min on the surface of untreated filter paper by printing a hydrophobic UV curable acrylate composition made of non-volatile and not readily flammable compounds. After ink penetration into the paper and UV curing for 60 s, hydrophobic barriers are formed. Microfluidic channels as narrow as 272 ± 19 μm are achieved. Printed patterns retain their aqueous liquid guiding functionality for at least 6 months when stored at room temperature and for at least 72 h at 50 °C. Printing a thin uniform film on the top of the paper allows the creation of protective layers, resulting in "tunnel-like" sections of microfluidic channels entirely surrounded by inkjet printed hydrophobic barriers. Finally, the same inkjet printer is used to print reagents necessary for colorimetric sensing, which is demonstrated in the example of an enzymatic H2O2 sensor. The detection limit of the μPAD for aqueous H2O2 is 14.4 μM when applying colorimetric data processing. The only equipment required for the entire μPAD fabrication process is an off-the-shelf inkjet printer and a UV light source. This is the first application of standard printing technology for the fully integrated fabrication (microfluidic pattern, back cover, variable pattern depth, enclosed microfluidic structures, biosensor) of entire μPADs.


We recently identified mutations of ARX in nine genotypic males with X‐linked lissencephaly with abnormal genitalia (XLAG), and in several female relatives with isolated agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC). We now report 13 novel and two recurrent mutations of ARX, and one nucleotide change of uncertain significance in 20 genotypic males from 16 families. Most had XLAG, but two had hydranencephaly and abnormal genitalia, and three males from one family had Proud syndrome or ACC with abnormal genitalia. We obtained detailed clinical information on all 29 affected males, including the nine previously reported subjects. Premature termination mutations consisting of large deletions, frameshifts, nonsense mutations, and splice site mutations in exons 1 to 4 caused XLAG or hydranencephaly with abnormal genitalia. Nonconservative missense mutations within the homeobox caused less severe XLAG, while conservative substitution in the homeodomain caused Proud syndrome. A nonconservative missense mutation near the C‐terminal aristaless domain caused unusually severe XLAG with microcephaly and mild cerebellar hypoplasia. In addition, several less severe phenotypes without malformations have been reported, including mental retardation with cryptogenic infantile spasms (West syndrome), other seizure types, dystonia or autism, and nonsyndromic mental retardation. The ARX mutations associated with these phenotypes have included polyalanine expansions or duplications, missense mutations, and one deletion of exon 5. Together, the group of phenotypes associated with ARX mutations demonstrates remarkable pleiotropy, but also comprises a nearly continuous series of developmental disorders that begins with hydranencephaly, lissencephaly, and agenesis of the corpus callosum, and ends with a series of overlapping syndromes with apparently normal brain structure. Hum Mutat 23:147–159, 2004. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


We study the effect of latency arbitrage on allocative efficiency and liquidity in fragmented financial markets. We employ a simple model of latency arbitrage in which a single security is traded on two exchanges, with price quotes available to regular traders only after some delay. An infinitely fast arbitrageur reaps profits when the two markets diverge due to this latency in cross-market communication. Using an agent-based approach, we simulate interactions between high-frequency and zero-intelligence trading agents. From simulation data over a large space of strategy combinations, we estimate game models and compute strategic equilibria in a variety of market environments. We then evaluate allocative efficiency and market liquidity in equilibrium, and we find that market fragmentation and the presence of a latency arbitrageur reduces total surplus and negatively impacts liquidity. By replacing continuous-time markets with periodic call markets, we eliminate latency arbitrage opportunities and achieve further efficiency gains through the aggregation of orders over short time periods.


ABSTRACT Assessment of genetic diversity in indigenous animals is an important and essential task for animal genetic improvement studies as well as conservation decision-making. The genetic diversity and evolutionary relationships among geographically and phenotypically distinct three pig breeds/types native to Indo-Burma and Eastern Himalayan global biodiversity hotspots were determined by genotyping with a panel of 22 ISAG recommended microsatellite loci as well as sequencing partial MTRNR1gene. The mean number of alleles per locus, effective number of alleles and observed heterozygosity were found to be 11.27 ± 0.85, 5.29 ± 0.34, and 0.795 ± 0.01, respectively. The moderate FST value (0.115 ± 0.01) indicated a fair degree of genetic differentiation among the native breeds. The Nei's unbiased genetic identity estimates indicated less genetic distance (0.2909) between Niang Megha and Tenyi Vo pigs than the both individually with Ghoongroo breed. The divergence time was also estimated from the microsatellite analysis. Analysis of MTRNR1gene revealed distinct clustering of native Indian pigs with Chinese pigs over European pigs. The study revealed the abundance of genetic variation within native Indian pigs and their relationships as well as genetic distances.


The life history method, which achieved a prominent position in the Chicago tradition of sociological research in the early 1920s, has been widely adopted for educational inquiries since the 1980s (Casey, 1995). Ball and Goodson (1985) pioneered a series of studies on teachers' professional lives and careers. Broadfoot and others (1987) in their comparative study explored the ways institutional structures, ideological traditions and policy initiatives mediate teacher thinking. Other life history researchers unveiled female teachers' oppressed experiences in the current of postmodernity (Choi & Tang, 2005; Middleton, 1989; Nelson, 1992). The power of the life history method in illuminating subjective teacher experiences in social historical contexts has made it 'probably the only authentic means of understanding how motives and practices reflect the intimate intersection of institutional and individual experience in the postmodern world (Dhunpath, 2000, p.544). In this regard, we made an attempt to employ the life history method to study teacher professionalism, an area of concern which has been increasingly tied up with educational quality and global competition at the turn of the twenty-first century. Individual life history has been useful in highlighting the uniqueness of personal trajectories in the institutional contexts. Nevertheless, as our study of twelve beginning teachers (1) gradually unfolded, we were challenged by a number of shared patterns of teacher professionalism manifested among the informants. This led us to experiment in using the collective memory method. This paper aims at explaining why the combined methods of life history and collective memory are considered useful in analyzing teachers' professionalism. We first give a brief account of the study, which provides the background for the understanding of the methodological innovation. Then a few examples are given to illustrate how data analysis was carried out both at an individual and a collective group level. Finally we discuss the potentials of the combined use of life history and collective memory in educational research. Development of the Study Design The Life History Method Our study is situated in recurrent context of concern about the quality of education and concern about teacher professionalism. There has been a general impression that teachers fall short of societal expectation in playing their professional roles (Choi, 2001). Thus we were interested in a systematic inquiry into the features of teachers' professionalism. The study was initially launched employing the life history method because it was deemed powerful for the analysis of individual beginners' subjective career experiences and the situational responses of the self to daily interactional contingencies (Denzin, 1989). We intended to gather some knowledge of what influenced the development of teachers' professionalism after they entered teaching and what contributed to the gaps. We purposefully allowed in the sampled primary school teachers variables such as initial commitment to teaching, gender, teaching subjects and types of schools in order that rich biographical and contextual data could be collected. The twelve teachers, who were classified into three groups according to their initial commitment (2) to teaching before entering the profession, were followed through in the two-year study. Four research questions guided the inquiry. 1. What are the societal expectations of a professional teacher as expressed in public discourses? 2. What characterized the teachers' concepts and practices as a professional teacher in their beginning years? 3. What are the factors contributing to the professional socialization of the teachers and what are the dynamics involved in the professional socialization processes? 4. What are the similarities and differences, if any, between the societal expectations and the realities of teachers' professionalism as a collective group? …


Umicore has a long tradition in supplying germanium wafers to the space solar cell market. The main product for this application up to today is a substrate with a diameter of 100 mm and a thickness in the range of 140 – 180 ¼m. With the new emerging market of high-efficiency concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) the need has arisen to investigate the use of germanium wafers with a larger diameter. Especially for small size CPV cells, increasing the wafer diameter will significantly reduce the processing cost per die, which will also contribute to lowering the overall cost/kWh of CPV technology. In this paper the development of dislocation free 150 mm germanium wafers for CPV applications is presented. Different wafer thicknesses down to 200 ¼m have been realized. The process steps starting from crystal pulling up to final epi-cleaning and drying will be addressed. First measurement results on wafer level are shown as well. Finally, the future challenges in optimizing the 150 mm wafer specifications will be reviewed.


Onset and modes of deformation bands are often infl uenced by nonmechanical loading triggered by seepage of pore fl uid and thermal effects. Experimental evidence has established that temperature changes can alter the shape and size of the yield surface and cause shear band to form in geomaterials that are otherwise stable. Understanding this thermo-hydro-mechanical responses are important for many engineering applications, such as carbon dioxide storage and extraction of hydrocarbon in which hot or cool fl uid are often injected into deep porous rock formations. The purpose of this research is to simulate this coupled process using a thermoporoplasticity model with extended hardening rules. A key feature of this model is that evolution of internal variables is governed by both the plastic dissipation and the change of temperature. An adaptively stabilized monolithic fi nite element model is proposed to simulate the fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of porous media undergoing large deformation. We fi rst formulate a fi nite-deformation thermo-hydro-mechanics fi eld theory for nonisothermal porous media. The corresponding (monolithic) discrete problem is then derived adopting low-order elements with equal order of interpolation for the three coupled fi elds. A projection based stabilization procedure is designed to eliminate spurious pore pressure and temperature modes due to the lack of the two-fold inf–sup condition of the equal-order fi nite elements. To avoid volumetric locking due to the incompressibility of solid skeleton, we introduce a modifi ed assumed deformation gradient in the formulation for nonisothermal porous solids. Finally, numerical examples are given to demonstrate the versatility and effi ciency of this model.


Background and aims: The current survey aims at determining the frequency percentage of Prophylaxis usage against deep vein thrombosis (DVT) according to ACCP instruction among the patients hospitalized in Imam Khomeini teaching hospital in Ilam. Methods: This study is descriptive and retrospective and the sampling was carried out amongst the cases of patients who were hospitalized and operated in the period occurred in March of 2012 to September of 2013 in Imam Khomeini hospital in Ilam. The type of receiving Prophylaxis was determined by ACCP (The American College of Chest Physicians) Guidelines. After investigating the input and output criteria, patients' data were extracted according to the dependent variables. Eventually the information gathered from the cases were analyzed by SPSS software version 17. Results: Studying 169 qualified cases from which 46.2% (78 participants) were female. Showed that from 132 patients needed to receive Prophylaxis only 39 persons (29.5%) were given Prophylaxis and according to ACCP Guidelines with respect to the appropriate type, dose, and duration of thromboprophylaxis was operated in only 30 individuals (22.5%) completely. The maximum rate of thrombo-prophylaxis happened to be in ICU (46.6%) and neurosurgery section (47.5%) and the least utilization of that was in the kidney and urinary tract section (0%). Conclusion: This study shows that there are a considerable difference in clinical performance recommended by ACCP in prophylaxis against DVT and in 75% of patients endangered by DVT, thrombo-prophylaxis according to ACCP Guidelines was not operated. Thus, new strategies must be implemented to operate thrombo-prophylaxis against DVT in Ilam hospitals.


Observations of sea level at Port Arthur, Tasmania, southeastern Australia, based on a two‐year record made in 1841–1842, a three‐year record made in 1999–2002, and intermediate observations made in 1875–1905, 1888 and 1972, indicate an average rate of sea level rise, relative to the land, of 0.8 ± 0.2 mm/year over the period 1841 to 2002. When combined with estimates of land uplift, this yields an estimate of average sea level rise due to an increase in the volume of the oceans of 1.0 ± 0.3 mm/year, over the same period. These results are at the lower end of the recent estimate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of global average rise for the 20th century. They provide an important contribution to our knowledge of past sea level rise in a region (the Southern Hemisphere) where there is a dearth of other such data.


We introduce a simple recurrent variational auto-encoder architecture that significantly improves image modeling. The system represents the state-of-the-art in latent variable models for both the ImageNet and Omniglot datasets. We show that it naturally separates global conceptual information from lower level details, thus addressing one of the fundamentally desired properties of unsupervised learning. Furthermore, the possibility of restricting ourselves to storing only global information about an image allows us to achieve high quality 'conceptual compression'.


Sweden, as well as most other European countries has undergone major changes in a market oriented direction during the last decades. This has paved the way for a culture of individualism and "competitive performativity" (Ball, 2003, p. 219). Contemporary research points to growing differences in achievement between schools and students, including those between genders (National Agency for Education, 2012; Ringrose, 2007). This paper aims to analyse the discursive understandings of study performance and gender among secondary school students, and in particular, their relations to teacher views and classroom responses. The theoretical focus is on masculinities, femininities, local gender regimes (Connell, 1996; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) and performativity (Ball, Maguire & Braun, 2012; Jeffrey & Troman, 2011). Method The paper draws on field studies in three secondary schools in Sweden. The study is part of a larger research project, Achievement and gender. On teaching, youth groups and local conditions (2011-2014), financed by the Swedish Research Council. The overall project explores various discourses of gender and achievement in student peer groups and in various teaching contexts and boys' and girls' conceptions of the meanings of academic achievement for future lives. An ethnographic approach is used, relying on class room observations, informal conversations and semi structured interviews in three grade 9 classes (students 15-16 years old) at three different schools in Sweden. The selected schools are located in a city centre, a suburb area and in a rural area, representing different socio-economic areas and different levels of educational achievement. In all, 70 students (genders equally represented) and their teachers participated in the study. A compact form of ethnography was conducted (Jeffrey & Troman 2004), including approximately one month intensive phase of field work at each school. The empirical data also included rating statistics. Expected Outcomes The findings indicate the presence of intertwined and gendered discourses on performance and knowledge. One is stressing everyone's equal chance of success if only they make an effort and study hard, and the other presenting 'real' knowledge as related to 'natural talent'. The latter, which is connected to a 'laid back' attitude towards schooling, is highly valued and generally ascribed to boys. The importance of studying is not denied by the boys, but put in perspective of other (valuable) social activities and relations. The analyses also indicates that the 'anti-school cultures' in the study might be seen as to represent cultures of talent (cf Nystrom, 2012). Girls' higher grades are, on the other hand, often devalued and related to hard work or 'swotting', although seemingly adhering to demands on individual achievement. If anything, knowledge based on 'swotting' might be suspected as attempts to cover up for lack of real talent. Teachers appear somewhat ambivalent about (girls') hard work. There are occasional mentioning of girls' strivings being too high and that they might be better off to realize their limitations, as well as 'jokes' and ridicule of those deemed to worry too much about their performances. References Arnesen, A., Lahelma, E. & Ohrn, E. (2008) Travelling discourses on gender and education: The case of boys´ underachievement, Nordisk pedagogik, 28(1), 1-14. Ball, S.J. (2003). The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy,18(2), 215–228. Ball, S. J., Maguire, M. & Braun, A. (2012). How schools do policy – policy enactments in secondary schools. New York : Routledge. Jeffrey, B. & Troman, G. (2004). Time for ethnography. British Educational Research Journal, 30(4), 535–548 Jeffrey, B. & Troman, G. (2011). The construction of performative identities. European Educational Research Journal 10 (4),484-501 Connell, RW. (1996). Teaching the boys: New research on masculinity, and gender strategies for schools. Teachers College Records, 98(2), 206-235. Cambridge: Polity Press. Connell, RW., & Messerschmidt, J.W. (2005). (2005). Hegemonic masculinity. Rethinking the concept. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829-859. Nystrom, A-S. (2012). Att synas och lara utan att synas lara: En studie om underprestation och privilegierade unga mans identitetsforhandlingar i gymnasieskolan. Uppsala Universitet. Ringrose, J. (2007). Successful girls? Complicating post-feminist, neoliberal discourses of educational achievement and gender equality. Gender and Education, 19(4), 471-489. National Agency for Education (2012). En beskrivning av slutbetygen i grundskolan varen 2012. PM fran Enheten for utbildningsstatistik.


We present findings from a pilot study exploring whether and how existing ties between urban migrants and rural farmers may be used to provide the latter improved access to formal insurance. Urban migrants in Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina Faso) originating from nearby villages were offered, at the prevailing market price, a rainfall index insurance product that can potentially protect their rural relatives from adverse weather shocks. The product had an uptake of 22% during the two-week subscription window. Uptake rates were higher by 17-22 ppts among urban migrants who were randomly offered an insurance policy that would make pay-outs directly to the intended beneficiary rather than the subscriber. We argue that rainfall index insurance can complement informal risk-sharing networks by mitigating problems of informational asymmetry and self-control issues.


Question answering (QA) models are well-known to exploit data bias, e.g., the language prior in visual QA and the position bias in reading comprehension. Recent debiasing methods achieve good out-of-distribution (OOD) generalizability with a considerable sacrifice of the in-distribution (ID) performance. Therefore, they are only applicable in domains where the test distribution is known in advance. In this paper, we present a novel debiasing method called Introspective Distillation (IntroD) to make the best of both worlds for QA. Our key technical contribution is to blend the inductive bias of OOD and ID by introspecting whether a training sample fits in the factual ID world or the counterfactual OOD one. Experiments on visual QA datasets VQA v2, VQA-CP, and reading comprehension dataset SQuAD demonstrate that our proposed IntroD maintains the competitive OOD performance compared to other debiasing methods, while sacrificing little or even achieving better ID performance compared to the non-debiasing ones.


The requirements of display systems are governed by the manner in which the visual world is perceived. An overview of the human visual system, including a discussion of depth cues, is presented and this is followed by a review of 3D display techniques, which includes a comprehensive discussion of volumetric systems. Volumetric displays in which the display volume is swept out by the periodic motion of a 2D screen are termed swept-volume displays; one such system, known as the Cathode Ray Sphere (CRS), is discussed in detail. A number of sweptvolume displays, including the CRS, employ a rotating target screen addressed by radiation beams from sources which are stationary with respect to the screen motion. Regions of the display volume which correspond to the beam impinging on the screen at very acute angles are difficult to address accurately and are termed dead zones. The form and position of these regions is determined for both planar and helical screen geometries, and the dependence on the position of the beam source is shown. One particular configuration, namely a planar screen addressed by an equatorial beam source, is examined in detail, and a comprehensive investigation of the factors contributing to the dead zone is presented. The extra dimension of the display space makes an exhaustive raster-type scan of the display volume difficult to achieve on displays in which the voxels are generated sequentially; only the visible voxels comprising the image are thus depicted. Two procedures to order the voxels for display on swept-volume displays such as the CRS are introduced, and the dependence of their optimum performance on the values of certain system parameters is determined. The performance of the two methods is compared on the basis of the voxel positioning error in the direction of screen motion. Volumetric displays which do not employ a moving component to create the volume are termed static volume displays; one means of generating voxels in such a volume is to employ a two-step excitation of fluorescence process. The rate equations governing a simple model system encapsulating this mechanism are determined and solved numerically to indicate the relative timing of the two pumping radiation pulses that maximises the brightness of the resultant voxeL The nonuniformities and anisotropies in certain image quality parameters, such as voxel density, which arise in the display volume are discussed for a range of volumetric techniques, both swept and static volume. A filtering operation included in the graphics pipeline is proposed as a means of ensuring the display volume provides a uniform voxel density. A number of images, image sequences and simple application programs, created to evaluate the visualisation capabilities of the CRS, are discussed.


Turtles are among the oldest living creatures in the world. They have been on earth for nearly 200 million years! In Look Out for Turtles! readers will discover why these creatures have survived so long. Hard shells protect many turtles from harm. Colourful markings on their shells help some turtles to blend in with their surroundings. Different kinds of turtles can live almost anywhere on land or sea and can eat many kinds of plants and animals...Today turtles must struggle to. survive. They are hunted, and threatened by pollution. There is less and less open space for turtles to live in. If turtles are going to be around for another 200 million years, they are going to need our help!


Aim To examine the demographic and social factors associated with myopia in schoolchildren in Ireland. Methods Thirty-seven schools participated, representing a mix of urban and rural schools and schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged areas in Ireland. Examination included cyclopleged autorefraction (1% cyclopentolate hydrochloride). Height and weight of participants were measured. Parents filled in a participant's lifestyle questionnaire, including questions on daily screen time use and daylight exposure. Myopia was defined as spherical equivalent ≤−0.50 D. Results Data from 1626 participants (881 boys, 745 girls) in two age groups, 6–7 years (728) and 12–13 years (898), were examined. Myopia prevalence was significantly higher in children aged 12–13 years old (OR=7.7, 95%CI 5.1 to 11.6, p<0.001) and significantly associated with non-white ethnicity (OR=3.7, 95% CI 2.5 to 5.3, p<0.001). Controlling for age group and ethnicity, myopia prevalence was also significantly linked with height (p<0.001) and higher in participants in the following groups: using screens >3 hours per day (OR=3.7, 95% CI 2.1 to 6.3, p<0.001), obesity (OR=2.7, 95% CI 1.9 to 3.9, p<0.001), sedentary lifestyle (OR=2.9, 95% CI 1.9 to 4.4, p<0.001), frequently reading/writing (OR=2.2, 95% CI 1.4 to 3.5, p=0.001), less daylight exposure during summer time (OR=5.00, 95% CI 2.4 to 10.3, p<0.001), spring season births (OR=1.9, 95% CI 1.1 to 3.3, p=0.02), paternal history of myopia (OR=2.4, 95% CI 1.8 to 3.3, p<0.001) and bottle fed for the first three months of life (OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.3 to 2.5, p=0.02). Conclusions The associations found between myopia prevalence in schoolchildren in Ireland and demographic and lifestyle factors suggest that longitudinal research investigating the associations between myopia prevalence and these factors may be beneficial in advising preventative public health programmes.


We apply decision theoretic techniques to construct non-player characters that are able to assist a human player in collaborative games. The method is based on solving Markov decision processes, which can be difficult when the game state is described by many variables. To scale to more complex games, the method allows decomposition of a game task into subtasks, each of which can be modelled by a Markov decision process. Intention recognition is used to infer the subtask that the human is currently performing, allowing the helper to assist the human in performing the correct task. Experiments show that the method can be effective, giving near-human level performance in helping a human in a collaborative game.


In an optimal auction, a revenue-optimizing seller often awards goods inefficiently, either by placing them in the wrong hands or by withholding goods from the market. This conclusion rests on two assumptions: (1) the seller can prevent resale among bidders after the auction; and (2) the seller can commit to not sell the withheld goods after the auction. We examine how the optimal auction problem changes when these assumptions are relaxed. In sharp contrast to the no resale assumption, we assume perfect resale: all gains from trade are exhausted in resale. In a multiple object model with independent signals, we characterize optimal auctions with resale. We prove generally that with perfect resale, the seller's incentive to misassign goods is destroyed. Moreover, with discrete types, any misassignment of goods strictly lowers the seller's revenue from the optimum. In auction markets followed by perfect resale, it is optimal to assign goods to those with the highest values.


In this paper we describe methods for video summarization in the context of the TRECVID 2008 BBC Rushes Summarization task. Color, motion, and audio features are used to segment, filter, and cluster the video. We experiment with varying the segment similarity measure to improve the joint clustering of segments with and without camera motion. Compared to our previous effort for TRECVID 2007 we have reduced the complexity of the summarization process as well as the visual complexity of the summaries themselves. We find our objective (inclusion) performance to be competitive with systems exhibiting similar subjective performance.


Gateways to Academic Writing: Effective Sentences, Paragraphs, and Essays, by Alan Meyers, provides a fully integrated program of writing instruction for high-intermediate to advanced students of English. The book's four units give students the tools they need to improve their academic writing. Unit I introduces the writing process, from exploring ideas, organizing, and drafting to revising, editing, and proofreading. Unit II examines the ten modes of writing, including narration, all forms of exposition, persuasion, and summary and response. Unit III presents key terminology, sentence structures, and verb tenses and forms. Unit IV gives students extensive editing practice, including Editing for Mastery exercises.


The thermal decomposition of ammonium aluminum carbonate hydroxide was studied under non-isothermal conditions in air. The decomposition kinetics were evaluated from data of TG-DTA by means of the Kissinger equation and the Coats-Redfern equation. The values of the activation energy E, the preexponential factor A and the algebraic expression of integral G(α) functions of the thermal decomposition were calculated. The ammonium aluminum carbonate hydroxide (AACH) was characterized by X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetric and field emission scanning electron microscopy.


Global gyrokinetic simulations of electrostatic temperature-gradient-driven trapped-electron-mode (TEM) turbulence using the δf particle-in-cell code ORB5 are presented. The electron response is either fully kinetic or hybrid, i.e. considering kinetic trapped and adiabatic passing electrons. A linear benchmark in the TEM regime against the Eulerian-based code GENE is presented. Two different methods for controlling the numerical noise, based, respectively, on a Krook operator and a so-called coarse-graining approach, are discussed and successfully compared. Both linear and non-linear studies are carried out for addressing the issue of finite-ρ*-effects and finite electron collisionality on TEM turbulence. Electron collisions are found to damp TEMs through the detrapping process, while finite-ρ*-effects turn out to be important in the non-linear regime but very small in the linear regime. Finally, the effects of zonal flows on TEM turbulence are briefly considered as well and shown to be unimportant in the temperature-gradient-driven TEM regime. Consistently, basically no difference is found between linear and non-linear critical electron temperature gradients in the TEM regime.


Abstract. The seasonal and sub-seasonal dynamics of iron availability
within the sub-Antarctic zone (SAZ; ∼40–45∘ S) play an
important role in the distribution, biomass and productivity of the
phytoplankton community. The variability in iron availability is due to an
interplay between winter entrainment, diapycnal diffusion, storm-driven
entrainment, atmospheric deposition, iron scavenging and iron recycling
processes. Biological observations utilizing grow-out iron addition
incubation experiments were performed at different stages of the seasonal
cycle within the SAZ to determine whether iron availability at the time of
sampling was sufficient to meet biological demands at different times of the
growing season. Here we demonstrate that at the beginning of the growing
season, there is sufficient iron to meet the demands of the phytoplankton
community, but that as the growing season develops the mean iron
concentrations in the mixed layer decrease and are insufficient to meet
biological demand. Phytoplankton increase their photosynthetic efficiency and
net growth rates following iron addition from midsummer to late summer, with no
differences determined during early summer, suggestive of seasonal iron
depletion and an insufficient resupply of iron to meet biological demand. The
result of this is residual macronutrients at the end of the growing season
and the prevalence of the high-nutrient low-chlorophyll (HNLC) condition. We
conclude that despite the prolonged growing season characteristic of the SAZ,
which can extend into late summer/early autumn, results nonetheless suggest
that iron supply mechanisms are insufficient to maintain potential maximal
growth and productivity throughout the season.


The main motivation factors for the proposed research were the increase of cost-efficiency of FPGA based systems and the simplification of the design process. The first factor is optimization of design in multi-parametric constraint space. The second factor is the design of reconfigurable systems based on higher level of abstraction in a form of macro-functions rather than conventional HDL primitives. Main goal of this work was to create a methodology for automated cost-effective design synthesis of FPGA systems by utilizing temporal partitioning concept. Temporal partitioning provides powerful mechanism that allows to design cost-effective multi-parametrically optimized architectures. Another feature of these architectures is the ability for run-time self-restoration from hardware faults. As the result of the proposed research this methodology was created and successfully verified on the first prototype of Multi-mode Adaptive Reconfigurable System (MARS) with embedded Temporal Partitioning Mechanism (TPM). A special CAD software system was developed for automated application programming, automated task segmentation, and further high-level synthesis of segment specific processors (SSPs). Several novel methodologies were proposed, developed, and verified including: a methodology for creation of macro-operators (MOs) and associated set of optimized virtual hardware components (VHCs); an automated task segmentation methodology and synthesis of segment specific processors from the VHCs; methodology for integration of fault tolerance mechanisms with the self-restoration capability. The latter mechanism made possible the mitigation of transient and permanent hardware faults in run-time. The proof-of-concept component of this research consists of implementation of the above methodologies and mechanisms in the special software CAD system and verification on the experimental setup based on the prototype of system with TPM (MARS platform). As the result, all the developed methodologies and architectural solutions were tested and their effectiveness was demonstrated.


The impact of model uncertainties on analyzed data is investigated using a global data assimilation system. This issue is explored in a 3D-Var system based on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/Department of Energy (DOE) system using two convective parameterization schemes, the Simplified Arakawa scheme and the Community Climate Model (CCM) scheme. Two sets of six-hourly analysis data are generated for the summer of 2004. The difference between the resulting analyses using different convective parameterization schemes is found to be significantly greater than that between two well-known analyzed data sets, the NCEP/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) reanalysis (RA1) and the NCEP/DOE reanalysis (RA2). This dependency is more pronounced in data-sparse areas like the East Asian region than in data-rich areas like the North American region. Our study indicates that predictabilities for short- to medium-range forecasts in the global forecast system are indirectly influenced by forecast model accuracy via the quality of the initial conditions.


Dynamic polarization control (DPC) is the method of setting the polarization of the far-field electric field generated by a radiating antenna entirely electronically in order to maintain polarization matching with the receiving antenna regardless of its polarization or orientation in space. This work implements a fully integrated 2 × 1 phased array radiator in 32 nm CMOS SOI at 105.5 GHz with DPC. The system consists of a central locking oscillator that phase locks oscillators within the core of each antenna followed by three amplification stages with variable gain that drive the antennas. By controlling the amplitude and phase of two orthogonal polarized subparts of each multi-port antenna, various far-field polarizations can be realized. The array is capable of beam steering, controlling the polarization angle across the entire tuning range of 0° to 180° while maintaining axial ratios above 10 dB, and controlling the axial ratio from 2.4 dB (near circular) to 14 dB (linear) in various directions of radiation. It radiates a maximum EIRP of 7.8 dBm with a total radiated power of 0.9 mW. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work presents the first integrated radiator with dynamically controllable polarization.


Rocky Fletcher is being stretched to his limit. Until recently, he'd only played wide receiver for the Pythons. Now his coaches want him to learn the safety position, too - a position that opened up when Bobby, Rocky's best friend, broke his leg. Even though he believes he is to blame for Bobby's injury, Rocky eagerly takes on the challenge of becoming a two-way player. After all, the only other player available is Jared, a sullen boy who switched from soccer to football this season. Yet as time goes on, it's Jared who excels at the position because, thanks to Bobby, Rocky keeps missing practices! What's going on between Rocky and Bobby-and why is Jared on the team when he clearly dislikes football so much?


Three external sources have informed the Contemporary literature of Afghanistan. The first has been the Russian and later Soviet literature and cultural, particularly 19th century literature represented by the likes of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Gorky, and Chekov. Next to French literary figures, the classic Russian writers had the deepest have had the deepest influence on Afghanistan's novelists. Furthermore, the post-revolutionary Russian writers also have had considerable impact on the style of the left leaning and Marxist Afghan literary figures. The influence of Iranian literature on Afghan poets and storywriters can not be underestimated. In particular, the Iranian writers and novelists with leftist tendencies or who were sympathetic to the Tudeh party, such as Abolqasem Lahouti, Ahmad Shamlu, Farokhi Yazdi, had considerable influence on Afghanistan's leftist literary figures. Finally, the impact of European literature, specially French and German writers, on contemporary Afghan literary figures began from the second decade of the twentieth century. The American literary influence, however, is of recent origin.
Short stories, novels, plays and prose poetry were all western literary genres adopted by Afghan writers and poems. With the spread of European literature in Afghanistan, either directly from Europe or through translated works from Iran, traditional Afghan literature, particularly poetry, gradually gave way to modern versions. A new wave of modern Afghan writers and poets blazed, at times fearlessly, new literary trails. The gate to modernity was further widened with the increase in the number of Afghan students in both western and communist countries. A gradual rush to translate modern literary works also contributed to the growing familiarity of Afghan writers and poets with various components of modernity in western literature.


A line of credit or overdraft is a common contingent lending contract that is an alternative to a fixed or fully drawn loan. The latter has received much attention in empirical and theoretical analyses while the former has received virtually none. In particular, much effort has been put into investigating credit rationing, which has been defined as occurring when a borrower wants a larger loan than is offered at the ruling interest rate. The meaning of credit rationing in a line of credit or overdraft regime is the subject of this paper. An overdraft is the right to overdraw an account, up to a specified maximum and over an agreed period after which time credit limits are reviewed. The borrower pays interest on the credit he uses, which is determined by him up to the maximum allowable. In such a system, the lender faces uncertainty from two sources. First, when the credit limit is established there is uncertainty as to how much credit will actually be used during the life of the credit arrangement. This is significant to the lender because he may have to find cash to cover unexpected fluctuations in realised usage of the credit line. Second, there is uncertainty concerning the borrower's ability to replay the overdraft loan plus interest when the overdraft contracts terminates. This is the default risk issue that is commonly addressed in the context of fixed loans. There are in effect two distinct demands for credit in an overdraft or line of credit system. First, there is the demand for the credit limit that is available in all contingencies and which is independent of the second demand, which is the actual drawing against the credit limit. This leads quite naturally to two concepts of credit rationing with overdraft, which I shall call ex ante and ex post. Ex ante rationing occurs when a borrower would like a larger credit limit, given his expectations of the interest rate he will be charged, prior to his actual use of the credit limit. That is, the borrower can anticipate the possibility of some situations in which he might face a binding credit constraint. Ex post rationing occurs when the borrower needs more credit than his limit given the interest rate. This paper is concerned with the existence of ex ante credit rationing in a credit market in which there are no interest rate ceilings on borrowers and lenders, and the credit market is assumed to be competitive in that lenders earn zero expected profit. The result is obtained in a simple two period model in which the borrower requires credit to finance a loan project that is subject to diminishing returns (such as a perfect competitor financing production subject to increasing marginal costs) and faces default risk. A further complication is introduced by assuming that the borrower has a random source of revenue during the life of the credit agreement and this random revenue affects his need for credit from the lender. This model is an abstraction from reality that tries to capture three features of real-life line of credit arrangements: (i) such facilities are typically available to borrowers who are financing working capital and whose revenue from the sale of output may be randomly spaced during the time the credit facility exists. (ii) since the borrower's cash flow is irregular, then to the extent that overdraft credit and retained earnings are the only source of working capital to the borrower any fluctuations in cash flow will have an impact on the demand for borrowed credit. (iii) the credit facility is never established for an indefinite period, but rather is set up subject to review after a finite period. Once established, the limit is not altered until the review date. This abstracts, of course, from any central bank directive concerning limitations on lending rights. In addition to showing the existence of ex ante credit rationing, the paper also considers the impact of an alternative asset for the borrower to invest in in addition to working capital. As expected, the existence of the asset, by increasing the opportunities to the borrower, leads to a demand for a larger credit limit. The effect of a binding ceiling on lending rate is to raise the average rate of credit utilisation and to increase the degree of credit rationing.


Adiponectin is a cytokine secreted by the adipose tissue that functions as an anti-inflammatory, antiathrogenic and antidiabetic substance. Its density is inversely correlated with body mass index. The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of 12 weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) with the level of serum adiponectin and some selected adiposity markers in overweight and fat college students. This was a clinical research in which 24 students with BMI between 25 kg/m2 to 30 kg/m2. The sample was purposefully selected and then randomly assigned into two groups of experimental (age =22.7±1.5 yr.; weight = 85.8±3.18 kg and height =178.7±3.29 cm) and control (age =23.1±1.1 yr.; weight = 79.1±2.4 kg and height =181.3±4.6 cm), respectively. The experimental group participated in an aerobic exercise program for 12 weeks, three sessions per weeks at a high intensity between 85% to 95% of maximum heart rate (considering the over load principle). Prior and after the termination of exercise protocol, the level of serum adiponectin, BMI, waist to hip ratio, and body fat percentages were calculated. The data were analyzed by using SPSS: PC 16.0 and statistical procedure such as ANCOVA, was used. The results indicated that 12 weeks of intensive interval training led to the increase of serum adiponectin level and decrease of body weight, body fat percent, body mass index and waist to hip ratio (P < 0.05). Based on the results of this research, it may be concluded that participation in intensive interval training for 12 weeks is a noninvasive treatment to increase the adiponectin level while decreasing some of the anthropometric indices associated with obesity or being overweight. Keywords—Adiponectin, interval, intensive, overweight, training.


The increased role played by probability of detection (POD) in structural integrity programs, combined with the significant time and cost associated with the purely empirical determination of POD, provides motivation for alternate means to estimate this important metric of NDE techniques. One approach to make the process of POD estimation more efficient is to complement limited empirical experiments with information from physics-based models of the inspection process or controlled laboratory experiments. The Model-Assisted Probability of Detection (MAPOD) Working Group was formed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, the FAA Technical Center, and NASA to explore these possibilities. Since the 2004 inception of the MAPOD Working Group, 11 meetings have been held in conjunction with major NDE conferences. This paper will review the accomplishments of this group, which includes over 90 members from around the world. Included will be a discussion of strategies developed to combine physics-based and empirical understanding, draft protocols that have been developed to guide application of the strategies, and demonstrations that have been or are being carried out in a number of countries. The talk will conclude with a discussion of future directions, which will include documentation of benefits via case studies, development of formal protocols for engineering practice, as well as a number of specific technical issues.


Pictorial passwords, where the user recognizes "target" images among "distractors", appear to have potential for improving the usability of authentication systems. We conducted three exploratory studies on the use of personal photos for authentication over a three-month period. Participants provided 8-20 photos of personal significance to them but which they believed others would not recognize. They also chose four photos to remember from a set of stock photos. Recognition accuracy for the personal photos was significantly higher than the stock photos. We also manipulated the number of target and distractor photos as well as their similarity, and we tested how well others who know the users could guess their photos. Larger numbers of distractors and greater similarity to the targets made it harder for others to guess the correct photos, while having no impact on the user's own recognition accuracy.


The dispersion of individual returns to experience, often referred to as heterogeneity of income profiles (HIP), is a key parameter in empirical human capital models, in studies of life‐cycle income inequality, and in heterogeneous agent models of life‐cycle labor market dynamics. It is commonly estimated from age variation in the covariance structure of earnings. In this study, I show that this approach is invalid and tends to deliver estimates of HIP that are biased upward. The reason is that any age variation in covariance structures can be rationalized by age‐dependent heteroscedasticity in the distribution of earnings shocks. Once one models such age effects flexibly the remaining identifying variation for HIP is the shape of the tails of lag profiles. Credible estimation of HIP thus imposes strong demands on the data since one requires many earnings observations per individual and a low rate of sample attrition. To investigate empirically whether the bias in estimates of HIP from omitting age effects is quantitatively important, I thus rely on administrative data from Germany on quarterly earnings that follow workers from labor market entry until 27 years into their career. To strengthen external validity, I focus my analysis on an education group that displays a covariance structure with qualitatively similar properties like its North American counterpart. I find that a HIP model with age effects in transitory, persistent and permanent shocks fits the covariance structure almost perfectly and delivers small and insignificant estimates for the HIP component. In sharp contrast, once I estimate a standard HIP model without age‐effects the estimated slope heterogeneity increases by a factor of thirteen and becomes highly significant, with a dramatic deterioration of model fit. I reach the same conclusions from estimating the two models on a different covariance structure and from conducting a Monte Carlo analysis, suggesting that my quantitative results are not an artifact of one particular sample.