This ground-breaking book provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between sports (and leisure), religion and disability. In the shadow of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, at which athletes that were both able-bodied and disabled, provided an extravaganza of sporting excellence and drama, this text is a timely and important synthesis of ideas that have emerged in two previously distinct areas of research: (i) 'disability sport' and (ii) the 'theology of disability'. Many of the elite athletes at this global sporting mega-event often explicitly displayed their religious beliefs, and in turn their importance in the context of sport, by observing different religious rituals, and or, utilising the multi-faith sports chaplaincy service. This raises a whole range of unanswered questions with regard to the intersections between sports, religion and disability, which to-date has been under- researched. Examples of subjects addressed in this text include: elite physical disability sport--Paralympics; intellectual disability sport--Special Olympics; reflections on the illness narrative of the cyclist Lance Armstrong through the lens of the theology of 'radical orthodoxy'; the application of biblical athletic metaphors in understanding modern conceptions of disability sport; the role of sport and spirituality in the rehabilitation of injured British Military personnel, and; the importance of sports and leisure in L'Arche communities. This book begins a critical conversation on these topics, and many others, for both researchers and practitioners.


Experimental studies of reaction rates in slow, viscous liquids have often led to results at variance with conventional theoretical approaches. Here we present a self-consistent microscopic calculation of the rate which uses for the first time, the mode coupling theory (MCT) to obtain the frequency dependent friction. When this microscopic expression for the friction is used to obtain the barrier crossing rate from the Grote–Hynes (G–H) formula, the following results are found. At intermediate viscosities, the calculated rate exhibits a fractional viscosity dependence with parameter values in agreement with the experimental results. For example, we find an exponent equal to 0.8 when the barrier frequency $(\omega_b)$ is equal to $2\times10^{13}s^{-1}$, whereas the earlier calculations obtained an unrealistic value close to (0.1) for this value of the barrier frequency. At very high viscosities we find an inverse logarithmic dependence of the rate on viscosity. This prediction can be tested against experiments.


The aim of the study was to adapt and validate an Estonian version of the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS-II) [21], the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale (PNTS) [5] and Controlling Coach Behaviours Scale (CCBS) [6] in girls' volleyball domain. SMS-II, CCBS and PNTS were assessed in 298 (U-20 42%, U-16 58%) volleyball girls from several clubs who took part in U-16 and U-20 Estonian Volleyball Federation Cup in 2015. After modifying the SMS-II, CCBS and PNTS questionnaire, all reliability demonstrated good content. In the top ranking list of the competitions the teams from one to six formed the winner group and six from bottom formed loser group. The older athletes of the winner group (U-20) were more externally motivated and perceived their coaches using more excessive personal control, negative conditional regard than the group of losers. The younger athletes of the winner group (U-16) were less autonomously motivated and perceived their coaches using more negative conditional regard and thwarting need of the competence than the group of losers. The findings of this study showed that youth athletes who are winners or losers perceive their coaches' behavior differently.


Species of the Drosophila melanogaster species subgroup, including the species D. simulans, D. mauritiana, D. yakuba, and D. santomea, have long served as model systems for studying evolution. Studies in these species have been limited, however, by a paucity of genetic and transgenic reagents. Here we describe a collection of transgenic and genetic strains generated to facilitate genetic studies within and between these species. We have generated many strains of each species containing mapped piggyBac transposons including an enhanced yellow fluorescent protein gene expressed in the eyes and a phiC31 attP site-specific integration site. We have tested a subset of these lines for integration efficiency and reporter gene expression levels. We have also generated a smaller collection of other lines expressing other genetically encoded fluorescent molecules in the eyes and a number of other transgenic reagents that will be useful for functional studies in these species. In addition, we have mapped the insertion locations of 58 transposable elements in D. virilis that will be useful for genetic mapping studies.


Students' internet usage attracts the attention of many researchers in different countries. Differences in internet penetration in diverse countries lead us to ask about the interaction of medium and culture in this process. In this paper we present an analysis based on a sample of 825 students from 18 Russian universities and discuss findings on particularities of students' ICT usage. On the background of the findings of the study, based on data collected in 2008-2009 year during a project "A ?ross-cultural study of the new learning culture formation in Germany and Russia", we discuss the problem of plagiarism in Russia, the availability of ICT features in Russian universities and an evaluation of the attractiveness of different categories of ICT usage and gender specifics in the use of ICT.


Invasive plants are introduced into foreign ecosystems and proliferate easily. These plants often have no natural consumers in their new environment, allowing them to outcompete neighboring native plants, causing a plethora of detriments. This research aimed to help solve a rarely investigated aspect of this problem: the effect of invasive plant leaf litter on lake ecosystem dynamics. It was predicted that invasive leaf litter would have more adverse effects on a lake than native litter, because overwhelming evidence in the literature indicates the harm of invasive plants. This was tested with four groups of mesocosms corresponding to four leaf litter treatments: a native mix of red maple and American beech litter, a monoculture of invasive common reed leaf litter, an invasive monoculture of Japanese knotweed litter, and a mixture of litter from all four species. Using repeated measures analysis of variance statistical tests, each treatment was compared in its effects on the lake ecosystem's phosphate concentration, nitrate concentration, algae growth, mosquito development, pH, dissolved oxygen concentration, and water conductivity. The common reed leaf litter treatment resulted in the highest nitrate, phosphate, and oxygen levels, leading to the conclusion that this leaf litter can potentially cause eutrophication in lakes. Additionally, Japanese knotweed resulted in the highest conductivity and lowest oxygen levels, showing its leaf litter has the fastest breakdown. The rapidity of this breakdown poses a harm to a lake as adjustment to rapid changes places various stresses on ecosystems. These discoveries can be implemented in lake conservation to more effectively maintain a healthy ecosystem


This chapter attempts to raise questions about mutagenesis and how these processes enhance evolution. The focus of the chapter is on the controversial process that has been termed "adaptive" mutagenesis. Although the work described in the chapter concentrates on prokaryotic model systems, it is clear that all organisms under stress appear to have genetic mechanisms that permit increase in allelic diversity. The chapter adds to the renewed interest in directed mutagenesis, retromutagenesis, transpositional mutagenesis, stationary-phase-induced mutagenesis, and the influences that these processes have had on the evolution of species. In 1988, an article by John Cairns and his collaborators forced a rethinking about how spontaneous mutants might arise, and challenged the very tenets of neo-Darwinian theory. It explores some of the possibilities that might exist for departures from the classic mode of thinking associated with the generation of mutations. Adaptive or stationary-phase-induced mutagenesis may be under genetic control and part of eubacterial development. Mismatch repair (MMR) was first suggested to be involved in "adaptive" or stationary-phase-induced mutagenesis in the study of the lac system in E. coli. There is an ancient superfamily of DNA polymerases that are error prone (they make mistakes during the replication process). These polymerases must play an important role in the survival of species otherwise they would not have been conserved during the evolutionary process. The phenomenon called adaptive or stationary-phase-induced mutagenesis presents a model for investigating the mechanisms associated with the evolutionary process.


The importance of this biological and minimally invasive fracture treatment is to achieve anatomical reduction and stabilization, which is not expected by conservative methods. The biological principle of the elastic nail is based on symmetrical bracing action of two elastic nails inserted into the metaphysis across the fracture site, each of which bears against the inner bone surface at 3 points. Diaphyseal fractures of the femur and tibia accounts for 1015% of all paediatric fractures. This novel technique of elastic stable intramedullary nailing (ESIN) has dramatically changed the treatment of pediatric fractures. The objective of current study was evaluate the outcome, safety and efficacy of diaphysis fracture of femur and tibia in children treated by Titanium Elastic Nailing System (TENS). This observational, interventional study was conducted in 30 patients in the age group of 6-12 years old children, with fractures of long bones with Inclusion criteria: 6-12 years of age, Diaphyseal fractures, closed fractures, Ipsilateral fractures, Fractures with head injury and exclusion criteria: of Metaphyseal fractures, Compound fractures, Pathological fractures, Age group below 6 years and above 12 years. TENS technique was used to stabilize these fractures. Patients were followed-up clinically as well as radio-logically at 3,6,12 and 24 weeks and evaluated by Flynn criteria. The current study had shown excellent results in 17 fractures (77.3%), good in 3 fractures (13.6%) and 2 cases has shown (9%) poor in femur fractures. Tibia results were excellent in 5 fractures (62.5%) and good in 3 fractures (37.5%) with no poor results. Conclusion: This study concludes that Titanium Elastic Nail System (TENS) technique is an ideal treatment method for treatment of pediatric Diaphyseal fractures of lower limb bones.


Despite the conceptually proper physiology consisting of independent in-series pulmonary and systemic circuits, the prognosis in patients with unoperated congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries (ccTGA) is reserved, even in the absence of associated defects. This is attributable to several factors. Although reports have described unoperated patients with normal or near-normal systemic right ventricular (RV) function in their 60s and beyond (1,2), it is the exception rather than the rule. Faced with a systemic circulation, the morphologic RV fails in one third of patients with no associated lesions by the fifth decade of life, and in two thirds with prior surgery for concomitant defects by 45 years of age (3). When confronted with chronic pressure overload, the systemic RV invariably undergoes hypertrophic remodelling. Owing to its limited coronary reserve from the concordant predominantly single right coronary circulation, myocardial oxygen/supply mismatch can promote subendocardial ischemia, progressive fibrosis, and ultimately, overt heart failure (4-6). Second, the tricuspid valve, again part of the systemic circulation, frequently displays Ebsteinoid features with propensity for regurgitation. While the direction of the causal relationship between tricuspid insufficiency and RV dysfunction remains debated, RV failure often follows systemic atrioventricular (AV) regurgitation (7,8). Incompetence of the tricuspid valve correlates with excess mortality, with poorer outcomes following AV valve replacement when the pre-operative RV ejection fraction is ≤40% (9). In addition, the AV conduction system is displaced and susceptible to AV block (10,11). Longterm studies report a prevalence of complete AV block of 24–39% (3,12), with an annual incidence estimated to be approximately 2% per year (13). Pacemakers are, therefore, frequently indicated. In the absence of cardiac resynchronization therapy, pacing of the subpulmonary left ventricle can alter the ventricular depolarization pattern thereby precipitating systemic AV valve regurgitation and heart failure (14). This confluence of factors contributes to the risk for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death (15).


This review will discuss various approaches and techniques in which analysis using microfluidics-chemiluminescence systems (MF-CL) has been reported. A variety of applications is examined, including environmental, pharmaceutical, biological, food and herbal analysis. Reported uses of CL reagents, sample introduction techniques, sample pretreatment methods, CL signal enhancement and detection systems are discussed. A hydrodynamic pumping system is predominately used for these applications. However, several reports are available in which electro-osmotic (EO) pumping has been implemented. Various sample pretreatment methods have been used, including liquid-liquid extraction, solid-phase extraction and molecularly imprinted polymers. A wide range of innovative techniques has been reported for CL signal enhancement. Most of these techniques are based on enhancement of the mixing process in the microfluidics channels, which leads to enhancement of the CL signal. However, other techniques are also reported, such as mirror reaction, liquid core waveguide, on-line pre-derivatization and the use of an opaque white chip with a thin transparent seal. Photodetectors are the most commonly used detectors; however, other detection systems have also been used, including integrated electrochemiluminescence (ECL) and organic photodiodes (OPDs).


Corporate governance attracted much attention after the corporate failures of Enron, WorldCom, and others, and was again at the center of debate after the financial crisis in 2008. In response, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act and Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act were enacted to protect investors by mandating requirements for board composition and executive compensation. On the other hand, to alleviate financing constraints for business development and expand investment opportunities to retail investors, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act legalizes crowdfunding by authorizing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-approved portals for companies to seek funding from anyone. My dissertation aims at studying the incentive issues, especially how regulations might affect the strategic interaction between managers, directors, and shareholders (including crowdfunders). In the first chapter, titled \Nominal versus Real Board Independence: The Impact of Director Tenure," (joint work with Jonathan Glover and Carlos Corona), we investigate whether a regulation that mandates a greater proportion of outside directors on the board results in a more independent board. We find that the higher the nominal independence level of the board, that is, the higher fraction of outside directors, the more reluctant the CEO is to replace the existing directors. The resultant longer tenures of outside directors make the CEO even less willing to replace them, which causes lower real independence. Regulations that mandate higher nominal independence can have the unintended consequence that they lower both the real independence and the expertise of the board of directors in the long run. In the second chapter, titled \Compensation Duration, Shareholder Governance, and Managerial Short-termism," I investigate the interaction between the duration of executive compensation and shareholder governance. I show that short-term compensation can elicit shareholder intervention and thus enhance firm value. The central mechanism is that the use of short-term incentives enables informed incumbent shareholders to commit to using their private information to intervene (voice) instead of selling their shares (exit). Without a commitment to voice, incumbent shareholders might find, ex post, that exit is more appealing than voice if they privately observe that a firm's type is bad. Short-term incentives encourage a good firm to take actions that reveal its type early on. This, in turn, reduces the information advantage of the incumbent shareholders and their ability to profit from exit. Effectively, short term compensation serves as a commitment device for value-enhancing intervention. In the third chapter, titled \A Crowdfunding Model for Green Energy Investment," (joint work with Ying Xu, Nilanjan Chakraborty, and Katia Sycara), we study a new renewable energy investment model through crowdfunding, which is motivated by emerging community solar farms. In this paper we develop a sequential game theory model to capture the interactions among crowdfunders, the solar farm owner, and an electricity company who purchases renewable energy generated by the solar farm in a multi-period framework. By characterizing the sub-game perfect equilibrium, and comparing it with a benchmark model without crowdfunding, we find that under crowdfunding although the farm owner lowers its investment, the overall green energy investment level is increased due to the contribution of crowdfunders. We also find that crowdfunding can increase the penetration of green energy in consumption and thus reduce the energy procurement cost of the electricity company. Finally, the numerical results based on real data indicates crowdfunding is a simple but ?effective way to boost green generation.


Novel functional materials offer unique capabilities hitherto inaccessible using conventional materials. In particular, we focus on photo-controlled guest binding and release, inherent signalling of status, photo-actuation and solvent driven motion of small structures as examples of the fascinating behaviour of these exceptional materials.
We have shown that by integrating the beneficial characteristics of PDMS micro-fluidic devices and spiropyrans dyes, a micro-chip configured as an on-line photonically controlled selfindicating system for metal ion accumulation and release can be realised. Moreover, spiropyran functionalised micro-beads were incorporated into micro-fluidic flow systems, such as capillary
separation columns. In addition, photochromic monolithic scaffolds were synthesised within polytetrafluoroethylene coated fused silica capillaries and used as stationary phases in micro-chips to function as photo-controllable electro-osmotic pumps.
Novel multifunctional materials based on ionogels, consisting of a polymeric structure incorporating spiropyran units and phosphonium based ionic liquids, have been used as light-actuated valve structures in micro-fluidic platforms. Through variation of the composition of the ionogels, the micro-valves can be tuned to open at different times under similar illumination conditions. In parallel, the ionogels were soaked in ethanol and then transferred to water, where they moved spontaneously.
This movement is driven by the expulsion of the ethanol from the gel and subsequent ethanol spreading at the air-water interface. We have investigated this solvent driven motion for as a driving force for moving small objects in aqueous media.
We have also developed an innovative miniaturised system for continuous measurement of the pH of sample solutions and vapour streams during chemical or biological processes. It consists of a simple barcode sensor with several pH dyes doped in an ionogel matrix which is able to generate a
characteristic fingerprint-type colour response within a single "snapshot" for different pH solutions and vapours. As the sensor is based on an ionogel polymer, it has extremely long stability, and the sensor dyes show no measureable leaching into aqueous sample solutions.
Finally a wearable, robust, flexible and disposable micro-fluidic device which incorporates micro-Light Emitting Diodes (μ-LEDs) as a detection system, for real time monitoring of the pH of sweat generated during an exercise period has been fabricated and assessed. In our approach, the sensors are immobilised within ECG electrodes, as this allows the pH measurements to be gathered without changing the conventional form of ECG monitoring during exercise. This provides immediate feedback regarding sweat composition to an athlete and coach, which can be used to optimise the hydration and performance of the athlete.


We report a simplified chemically-enhanced enucleation of in vitro matured buffalo oocytes for generating cytoplasts for producing nuclear transfer (NT) embryo production. Oocytes aspirated from the ovaries from abattoir were subjected to in vitro maturation for 22h. In the first experiment, the in vitro matured (IVM) oocytes (22h) were denuded and treated with demecolcine (0.50 µg/ml IVM medium) for additional 2h. Oocytes exhibiting characteristic extrusion cones were enucleated using traditional or standard micromanipulator-guided enucleation. In the second experiment, the IVM (22h) oocytes were denuded and treated with demecolcine (0.50 µg/ml IVM medium) for 2h. The zona pellucidae of denuded oocytes were then removed using prteinase K (2µg/ml in M-199 with 0.4% FBS). Cytoplasts were prepared by micromanipulator-free or manual bisection of extrusion cones bearing zona-free oocytes. Chemically-assisted cytoplasts formation efficiency was found to be 59.99% using micromanipulator-guided enucleation (experiment-1), and 68.23% in zona-free IVM oocytes (experiment-2). The demecolcine-derived cytoplasts formation efficiency was higher (P<0.5) in zona-free oocytes compared to the micromanipulator-guided enucleation of zona-included in vitro matured oocytes. The cytoplasts generated were viable, and found suitable for reconstituting cytoplast-somatic cell couplets from prolonged cultured, serum starved adult cumulus cells, and supported the development of pre-implantation NT embryos to different stages of developments. Of the 36 (24 zona-included and 12 zona-free) NT embryos, 23 morulae (20 zona-included and 3 zona-free), and 4 hatched zona-included blastocysts were obtained at day 8 of the in vitro culture. Blastomere counts of the NT- and iv vitro fertilization (IVF)-derived embryos were comparable. The results demonstrate that demecolcineinduced enucleation would greatly facilitate the process of producing NT cloned quality embryos in water buffaloes.


A Query by Tapping System is a multi-media database containing rhythmic metadata descriptions of songs. This paper presents a Query by Tapping system called BeatBank. The system allows to formulate queries by tapping the melody line's rhythm of a song requested on a MIDI keyboard or an e-drum. The query entered is converted into an MPEG-7 compliant representation. The actual search process takes only rhythmic aspects of the melodies into account by comparing the values of the MPEG-7 Beat Description Scheme. An efficiently computable similarity measure is presented which enables the comparison of two database entries. This system works in real-time and computes the search process online. It computes and presents a new search result list after every tap made by the user.


This paper extends the existing literature on information systems (IS) backsourcing by the perception of practitioners. For this purpose, we conducted a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews with IS sourcing experts. The interview questions focused on the participants' perceptions and experiences with the topic, on identifying reasons for and against IS backsourcing, and on revealing relevant trends pertinent to IS backsourcing. We then compared those findings with two previously conducted comprehensive literature reviews on academic and practitioner literature on IS backsourcing. By following this approach, we contribute to the existing research by verifying previous findings, for example, the most important reasons why companies decide in favor of IS backsourcing. Additionally, we were able to enhance previous contributions as we highlight the significance of differentiating between the scope of IS backsourcing by looking at the underlying services which are potentially backsourced. Further, we identified the importance of managers' personal preferences as an additional reason for IS backsourcing, for example, based on personal experiences or a perceived need for change. Based on our findings, we created a comprehensive overview of all aspects connected to the IS backsourcing process and derived opportunities for further research to contribute to the IS backsourcing research agenda.


This paper provides an account of the experiences of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia, London, and Sierra Leone after the American Revolution. Tens of thousands of North American slaves fled to the ranks of the British army when they were promised freedom in return for service. When the British lost the war, they began the evacuation of both White and Black Loyalists out of the colonies. Black Loyalists were sent primarily to Nova Scotia and England and, to a lesser extent, the Bahamas and West Indies. Yet the Black Loyalists were not content with freedom alone; they actively fought for equality and against discrimination in their new countries. Black Loyalists thus took charge of their own emancipation by fighting for the British and continuing to fight for equality even after their exodus from the colonies. The results of the Black Loyalist exodus were mixed, as shown by letters from the Sierra Leone colonists themselves. Yet the experience of the Black Loyalists is significant because this massive migration of free Blacks had international implications, the founding of the Sierra Leone colony being one example. This narrative also brings into question the concept of the Revolution as a national struggle for independence, in addition to revealing the complexity of Loyalist ideology. [


Water is polluted by the effluents discharged from various industries and some of the pollutants are acids, dyes, heavy metals and nanoparticles. The polluted water bodies lead to the lack of safe drinking water. Hence an efficient method is required to remove the pollutants from the wastewater. Membrane technology is an emerging technology used for water treatment. Among the various membrane fabrication techniques, electrospinning gained popularity because of its large surface area to volume ratio and high porosity. Many polymeric nanofibre membranes have been prepared by using electrospinning technique. Electrospun nanofibre membranes have been extensively studied for the removal of hazardous pollutants from the wastewater. This review paper tells how the electrospinning works to produce nanofibres from polymeric solution, in what ways these polymeric electrospun nanofibre membranes are modified and by which mechanism the electrospun polymeric nanofibre membranes removes or degrades the pollutants from the water.


DOES INCREASING FLOW TO A HIGH FLOW NASAL CANNULA AFFECT MEAN AIRWAY PRESSURE IN AN IN VITRO MODEL? Introduction: High-flow nasal cannulas (HFNC) have become popular with many institutions for administration of oxygen (O2). HFNCs are also being used in pediatric and neonatal populations for administration of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) as a treatment for respiratory distress. Adult patients are being treated with HFNCs in a effort to provide a high percentage of O2 and correct hypoxemia and other related conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of increasing flow via a HFNC to an in vitro model to examine the effect of flow on mean airway pressure (MPAW). Method: An in vitro model to simulate non-labored and labored spontaneous breathing was developed using a Michigan Instrument Laboratory Test and Training Lung (MIL TTL) driven by a Hamilton Galileo ventilator to produce a negatively based, inspired tidal volume. Flow was introduced to the MIL TTL via a 41 French double lumen endotracheal tube. Airway pressure measurements were observed via a pressure monitoring port placed between the MIL TTL and the endotracheal tube and connected to the auxiliary pressure monitoring port located on the front of the Galileo ventilator. A Vapotherm 2000i with adult transfer chamber and adult cannula, a Fisher Paykel Optiflow, and a generic HFNC consisting of a concha column and a Salter labs high-flow cannula were tested at 20, 30, and 40LPM flowrates. Data was recorded using two respiratory rates (12 and 24) and two peak flowrates (35 and 65LPM) to simulate nonlabored and labored breathing. All other parameters were unchanged and the I:E ratio was consistent. Data Analysis: SPSS 16.0 for Windows was used to analyze all data for this study. Descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and post hoc Bonferroni was used for this study. A p value less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: Average MPAW for all devices were increased at all three flowrates. MPAW was highest at 40LPM flow producing 3.1cmH2O averaged for all HFNCs and both respiratory patterns. The difference in MPAW produced by the three HFNCs were also significant with at p=0.000 at all flow rates. Post hoc Bonferroni adjusted probabilities further showed all device comparisons significant except for VapothermVapotherm Labored at 30 and 40 LPM flow rates and Vapotherm-Generic Labored at 20 LPM at p 0.05 and were statistically equal. The generic HFNC produced the highest MPAW (3.5cmH2O). Conclusion: Increased flow via a HFNC does increase MPAW. The Vapotherm, Optiflow, and generic HFNC did not produce the same level of MPAW in this study. DOES INCREASING FLOW TO A HIGH FLOW NASAL CANNULA AFFECT MEAN AIRWAY PRESSURE IN AN IN VITRO ADULT MODEL?


W. B. Yeats's pursuit of an audience led him into the world of mass media—a landscape populated first by newspapers and later by radios, which he learned to navigate with shrewdness and skill. The purpose of this special issue is to examine Yeats's various ventures in mass communication. Enlisting a broad range of critical approaches, contributors to this volume show how the demands of print journalism and radio broadcasting informed Yeats's poetics, his thinking about the social vocation of art, and his ideas about how literature might be best received and structured. The essays also examine the reception and legacies of Yeats's experiments with mass media, showing how he was at once self-consciously archaic and exultantly avant-garde. This article provides an introduction to this special volume of International Yeats Studies and attendant critical concerns.


The purpose of this study was to increase our understanding of the impact of Health Information Technology Systems (HITS) on dental school users when the systems are integrated into chair-side patient care. We used qualitative research methods, including interviews, focus groups, and observations, to capture the experiences of HITS users at a single institution. Users included administrators, clinical faculty members, predoctoral students, support staff, and residents. The data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach, and nine themes emerged: 1) HITS benefits were disproportionate among users; 2) communicating about the HITS was challenging; 3) users experienced a range of strong emotions; 4) the instructor persona diminished; 5) there were shifts in the school's power structure; 6) allocation of end-users' time shifted; 7) the training and support needs of end-users were significant; 8) perceived lack of HITS usability made documentation cumbersome for clinicians; and 9) clinicians' workflow was disrupted. HITS integration into patient care impacts the work of all system users, especially end-users. The themes highlight areas of potential concern for implementers and users in integrating a HITS into patient care.


This study examined the relationship between computer anxiety and computer selfefficacy of students and teachers in elementary and secondary schools. The sample included a total of 845 subjects from two private school systems in Turkey. The Oetting's Computer Anxiety Scale was used to measure computer anxiety whereas the Murphy's Computer Self-Efficacy Scale was used to measure computer self-efficacy of subjects. The results demonstrated that elementary students were less-anxious than secondary students; males had lower anxiety scores than females; and the difference between anxiety scores of students and teachers was not significant. However, students had higher self-efficacy scores than their teachers; elementary students were more self-efficient than secondary students; and males had higher computer self-efficacy scores than females. The correlation between the variables of computer anxiety and computer self-efficacy was moderate, negative, and significant.


Brain abnormalities in the reading network have been repeatedly reported in individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD); however, it is still not totally understood where the structural and functional abnormalities are consistent/inconsistent across languages. In the current multimodal meta-analysis, we found convergent structural and functional alterations in the left superior temporal gyrus across languages, suggesting a neural signature of DD. We found greater reduction in grey matter volume and brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in morpho-syllabic languages (e.g. Chinese) than in alphabetic languages, and greater reduction in brain activation in the left middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus in alphabetic languages than in morpho-syllabic languages. These language differences are explained as consequences of being DD while learning a specific language. In addition, we also found brain regions that showed increased grey matter volume and brain activation, presumably suggesting compensations and brain regions that showed inconsistent alterations in brain structure and function. Our study provides important insights about the etiology of DD from a cross-linguistic perspective with considerations of consistency/inconsistency between structural and functional alterations.


The objective of this dissertation is to develop a practical methodology for designing full and reduced order H filter for plants with polytopic model uncertainty. Because the polytopic ∞ model description is convex, it is amenable to a Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) formulation. Reduced order filters are desirable in applications where fast data processing is necessary. To improve robustness to model uncertainties, this dissertation reformulates an filter design 2 H technique as a reduced order H filter design methodology. Lyapunov functions are replaced ∞ with parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions to provide less conservative results. As the problem is formulated as an LMI, an admissible filter with suitable dynamic behavior can be obtained from the solution of a convex optimization problem. The advantages of this approach over earlier approaches are highlighted in a simple computational example. This filtering technique is used to design a fault detection filter. Robust fault detection filter (RFDF) design is formulated as a multi-objective H∞ optimization for a polytopic uncertain system. The order of the RFDF is reduced using LMI techniques and the detection performance is compared with the full order filter. An adaptive threshold is used to reduce the number of false alarms. Examples are presented to illustrate effectiveness of the order reduction.


This paper proposes a novel approach to assessing volatility contagion across equity markets. I decompose the variance risk premia of three major stock indices into: crash and non-crash risk components and analyse their cross-market correlations. I find that crash-risk premia exhibit higher correlations than non-crash risk premia, implying the existence of volatility contagion. This suggests that investors believe that equity returns will be more highly correlated across countries during market crashes than during more normal times. The main result of the analysis holds when I apply other measures of co-movement as well as when I allow correlation to be time varying. Moreover I document that crash-premia constitute a large portion of the overall variance risk premia, highlighting the importance of crash-risks. Unlike the existing literature, my approach to testing the existence of volatility contagion does not rely on short periods of financial distress, but allows for crash-risk premia to be computed in tranquil times.


In 1965, when the poet Jack Spicer died at the age of forty, he left behind a trunkful of papers and manuscripts and a few copies of the seven small books he had seen to press. A West Coast poet, his influence spanned the national literary scene of the 1950s and '60s, though in many ways Spicer's innovative writing ran counter to that of his contemporaries in the New York School and the West Coast Beat movement. Now, more than forty years later, Spicer's voice is more compelling, insistent, and timely than ever. During his short but prolific life, Spicer troubled the concepts of translation, voice, and the act of poetic composition itself. My Vocabulary Did This to Me is a landmark publication of this essential poet's life work, and includes poems that have become increasingly hard to find and many published here for the first time.


The Movement for Diverse, Nutritious, Balanced, and Safe Diet, in this article called by B2SA is a program from the Indonesian government to improve resilience and nutritional quality in line with one of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially during the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In this article, classification and grouping methods are carried out to determine the development of supporting the B2SA program in Indonesia, such as the classified menu arrangement and the potential for grouped foodstuffs, especially in East Java, which is one of the provinces with a high COVID-19 spread rate and contributes greatly to food security in Indonesia. The application of the classification method in this study is to compare the performance of logistic regression and random forest. In addition, the clustering method is applied by comparing the performance of Single Linkage and K-Means. The results of this study are the category of food menu recommended by the population of East Java, which turned out to be 49.3% not meeting the B2SA standard. As for the results of the grouping, there are four groups for potential food categories of staple foods and side dishes, two groups for the category of fruits and vegetables. These results are expected to be a recommendation for the government in supporting the stability of food security to strengthen the resilience of the food industry in Indonesia because it is a region that has food potential in Indonesia. © 2022 the author(s).


ABSTRACT This article reassesses the neo-liberal shift within British economic policy-making and the international political economy, focusing especially the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the 1960s. The IMF has always used the conditions attached to its lending to try and shape borrower's policy; here we explore the evolving content of that conditionality and the economic ideas underpinning it. Using recently released IMF records, as well as other archives, we argue that the negotiations between the IMF and the UK Government in the 1960s can be seen as part of the Fund's drive towards a crucial change from discretionary to rules-based approaches to macroeconomic policy making. This drive took place within a struggle over a specific policy instrument, domestic credit expansion (DCE), at that time regarded as an important measure of monetary policy. The article locates the IMF advocacy of DCE within an attempt by the Fund to constrain discretionary policy-making through increasingly specific and binding rules. In response, UK Government officials began to pre-empt and even deceive the Fund to avoid being tied down. Our analysis unpacks which neo-liberal economic ideas the Fund embraced, noting its rejection of monetarism. In the period charted here (1965–69), the rules-based regime remained compatible with Keynesianism. However, the UK Government's grudging acceptance of this approach provided a crucial condition of possibility for a significant qualitative shift in macroeconomic policy-making when rules later became infused with an increasingly neo-liberal character.


The purpose of discriminant analysis is to predict group membership of an individual on the basis of a set of measurements that have been made on it. In this goal, the availability of a learning sample, for which it is know where each individual came from, is assumed. In this context, the thresholded wavelet density estimator may capture more easily fine structures of group differences than usual linear density estimators (such as kernel-based methods). This does not apply ``as is'' in high dimensional space. However, in the univariate case, the estimator behaves well, and can, therefore, be used in the framework of Projection Pursuit Discriminant Analysis, a method that searches for the one-dimension projection that best separates the groups.


Abstract: In aiming to rethink the project of socialist realism while shedding new light on the arts in Kyrgyzstan, this article highlights the project of the pre-Soviet Russian avant-garde as it morphed into that of Soviet socialist realism and the way in which this project changed alongside the conditions of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. In presenting continued engagement with the Soviet project through the persona of a single artist and composer, Alexei Alexandrovich Agibalov, this article offers a glimpse of the ongoing historical circumstances within which contemporary artists live and create. The affective experiences, memories, and engagements with the natural world presented in this article offer a rare glimpse into the individual world of Soviet and post-Soviet artists. They also provide insight into the larger histories and social processes from which art extends. The same Soviet cultural policies which brought about the concept of narod and the resulting constructions of ethnicity and nation have also formed a distinctive artistic tradition –socialist realism- with which contemporary artists, knowingly or unknowingly, remain closely engaged. Keywords: Socialist Realism, Russian guitar, music, Soviet composers, Shostakovich, ethno-nationalism, Kyrgyzstan


Before 1974, participants in employer retirement plans seeking monetary relief for denied benefits were often hindered by procedural and jurisdictional obstacles. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA") was passed in an effort to preclude hindrances and establish federally protected causes of action, which include equitable remedies and extracontractual damages. However, a jurisdictional split in the interpretation of ERISA in the federal circuits and among the states continues to impede participants full relief for their injuries. Furthermore, disparaging dicta in the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Russell incorrectly suggests Congress intentionally foreclosed contractual remedies not expressly stated in ERISA.
ERISA should protect participants and deter employers, or fiduciaries from abusing their positions, as Congress intended. When interpreting the plain language of the act and the legislative intent, ERISA proposed to deter the financial incentive of the administrators and employers from denying, or delaying requests for allotments from the participant's retirement plan by establishing a full range of legal and equitable remedies under contract law and trust law theories, which include extracontractual damages. Under the teleological method of interpreting legislative intent when ambiguity arises, the court examines statutory language, prior case law, and legislative history. The legislative history makes clear that Congress intended ERISA to include remedies available under state contract and trust law, as well as federal common law including extracontractual damages.


To help evaluate the hypothesis that the central respiratory rhythm is generated by a network of interacting neurons, a network model of respiratory rhythmogenesis is formulated and examined computationally. The neural elements of the network are driven by tonic inputs and generate a continuous variable representing firing rate. Each neural element in the model can be described by an activation time constant, an adaptation time constant, and a step nonlinearity. Initial network connectivity was based on an earlier proposed model of the central respiratory pattern generator. These connections were adjusted interactively until the model trajectories resembled those observed electrophysiologically. The properties of the resulting network were examined computationally by simulation, determination of the phase resetting behavior of the network oscillator, and examination of the localized eigenstructure of the network. These results demonstrate that the network model can account for a number of diverse physiological observations, and, thus, support the network hypothesis of respiratory rhymogenesis.


Long-term treatment with the ghrelin receptor antagonist [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6 does not improve glucose homeostasis in nonobese diabetic MKR mice. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 314: R71-R83, 2018. First published September 13, 2017; doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00157.2017 .-Ghrelin secretion has been associated with increased caloric intake and adiposity. The expressions of ghrelin and its receptor (GHS-R1a) in the pancreas has raised the interest about the role of ghrelin in glucose homeostasis. Most of the studies showed that ghrelin promoted hyperglycemia and inhibited insulin secretion. This raised the interest in using GHS-R1a antagonists as therapeutic targets for type 2 diabetes. Available data of GHS-R antagonists are on a short-term basis. Moreover, the complexity of GHS-R1a signaling makes it difficult to understand the mechanism of action of GHS-R1a antagonists. This study examined the possible effects of long-term treatment with a GHS-R1a antagonist, [d-Lys3]-growth hormone-releasing peptide (GHRP)-6, on glucose homeostasis, food intake, and indirect calorimetric parameters in nonobese diabetic MKR mice. Our results showed that [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6 (200 nmol/mouse) reduced pulsatile growth hormone secretion and body fat mass as expected but worsened glucose and insulin intolerances and increased cumulative food intake unexpectedly. In addition, a significant increase in blood glucose and decreases in plasma insulin and C-peptide levels were observed in MKR mice following long-term [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6 treatment, suggesting a direct inhibition of insulin secretion. Immunofluorescence staining of pancreatic islets showed a proportional increase in somatostatin-positive cells and a decrease in insulin-positive cells in [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6-treated mice. Furthermore, [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6 stimulated food intake on long-term treatment via reduction of proopiomelanocortin gene expression and antagonized GH secretion via reduced growth hormone-releasing hormone gene expression in hypothalamus. These results demonstrate that [d-Lys3]-GHRP-6 is not completely opposite to ghrelin and may not be a treatment option for type 2 diabetes.


This book covers various aspects of antibody mediated drug delivery systems – theoretical aspects, processing, viral and non-viral vectors, and fields where these systems find and /or are being evaluated for applications as therapeutics and diagnostic treatment. Chapters discuss actual applications of techniques used for formulation and characterization. Applications areas include cancer, pulmonary, ocular diseases; brain drug delivery; and vaccine delivery. The contributing authors represent over 10 different countries, covering recent developments happening around the globe.


All multicellular organisms have mechanisms for killing their own cells, and use physiological cell death for defence, development, homeostasis, and aging. Apoptosis is a morphologically recognizable form of cell death that is implemented by a mechanism that has been conserved throughout evolution from nematode to man. Thus homologs of the genes that implement cell death in nematodes also do so in mammals, but in mammals the process is considerably more complex, involving multiple isoforms of the components of the cell death machinery. In some circumstances this allows independent regulation of pathways that converge upon a common end point. A molecular understanding of this mechanism may allow design of therapies that either enhance or block cell death at will.


Neuroticism and Ego Depletion Patterns by Parker A. Dreves Self-control has been defined as the ability to override or alter an automatic response. Past research has suggested that those who are higher in the personality trait neuroticism display poorer self-control. Based on theory suggesting that self-control is a limited resource, the present study attempts to explain the relationship between neuroticism and self-control. Understanding that neuroticism is characterized by emotional instability, it follows that individuals high in neuroticism must exert more self-control in managing their negative moods, thus leaving them depleted for future acts of self-control. Participants (n = 84) completed measures of trait selfcontrol, engaged in an emotional regulation task, and then completed measures of state selfcontrol, affect, and rumination. Results revealed no significant effect of emotional regulation on state self-control, nor a significant effect of neuroticism on state self-control. The implications of these findings are discussed.


Microgreens are considered a new specialty product in the culinary arts. This horticultural product is composed by the stem and fully developed cotyledons, and sometimes, with the first two true leaves in their first stage of development. Microgreens can be grown with seeds of different species and varieties of vegetables, aromatic herbs and wild herbs, giving to the gastronomic industry new ingredients with flavor, color and texture. The objectives developed in this investigation were divided in two sections. First, the objective focused on determining the productive viability of four different species of microgreens under controlled environment, namely mustard (Brassica juncea var. Red Giant), amaranth (Aaranthus tricolor var. Garnet Red), radish (Raphanus sativus var. Hong Vit) and arugula (Eruca sativa var. Rocket)]. Second, the paper aimed at assessing the current, potential demand and market segments of microgreens in the restaurant industry of the capital of Sonora, Mexico.


This paper presents a new method to simultaneously perform 20 dB acoustic echo cancellation and 10 dB speech enhancement utilizing an adaptive microphone array. The system is based on a fast and efficient on-site calibration. Primarily intended for handsfree telephones in automobiles, the microphone array system simultaneously emphasizes the near-end talker and suppresses the handsfree loudspeaker and car noise. The method can also be used in other situations such as conventional speaker phones.


This paper outlines a problem we have found in our own practice when we have been developing new researchers at post-graduate level. When students begin research training and practice, they are often confused between different levels of thinking when they are faced with methods, methodologies and research paradigms. We argue that this confusion arises from the way research methods are taught, embedded and embodied in educational systems. We set out new ways of thinking about levels of research in the field of learning technology. We argue for a problem driven/pragmatic approach to research and consider the range of methods that can be applied as diverse lenses to particular research problems. The problem of developing a coherent approach to research and research methods is not confined to research in learning technology because it is arguably a problem for all educational research and one that also affects an even wider range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary subject areas. For the purposes of this paper we will discuss the problem in relation to research in learning technologies and make a distinction between developmental and basic research that we think is particularly relevant in this field. The paradigms of research adopted have real consequences for the ways research problems are conceived and articulated, and the ways in which research is conducted. This has become an even more pressing concern in the challenging funding climate that researchers now face. We argue that there is not a simple 1 to 1 relationship between levels and most particularly that there usually is not a direct association of particular methods with either a philosophical outlook or paradigm of research. We conclude by recommending a pluralist approach to thinking about research problems and we illustrate this with the suggestion that we should encourage researchers to think in terms of counterpositives. If the researcher suggests one way of doing research in an area, we suggest that they should then set out an opposing research approach from another perspective or paradigm. We link this conclusion to the provision of research training and the kinds of curricula that might be offered and we argue against the superficial and box ticking 'coverage' of different standard research perspectives e.g. 'qualitative methods' - 'qualitative methods'. Keywords: qualitative methods; quantitative methods; mixed methods; paradigms; methodology


The NCEP–DOE Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP-II) reanalysis is a follow-on project to the "50-year" (1948–present) NCEP–NCAR Reanalysis Project. NCEP–DOE AMIP-II re-analysis covers the "20-year" satellite period of 1979 to the present and uses an updated forecast model, updated data assimilation system, improved diagnostic outputs, and fixes for the known processing problems of the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis. Only minor differences are found in the primary analysis variables such as free atmospheric geopotential height and winds in the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, while significant improvements upon NCEP–NCAR reanalysis are made in land surface parameters and land–ocean fluxes. This analysis can be used as a supplement to the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis especially where the original analysis has problems. The differences between the two analyses also provide a measure of uncertainty in current analyses.


Azimuthal anisotropies of muons from charm and bottom hadron decays are measured in Pb+Pb collisions at √ s NN = 5 . 02 TeV. The data were collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 and 2018 with integrated luminosities of 0 . 5 nb − 1 and 1 . 4 nb − 1 , respectively. The kinematic selection for heavy-flavor muons requires transverse momentum 4 < p T < 30 GeV and pseudorapidity | η | < 2 . 0. The dominant sources of muons in this p T range are semi-leptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons. These heavy-flavor muons are separated from light-hadron decay muons and punch-through hadrons using the momentum imbalance between the measurements in the tracking detector and in the muon spectrometers. Azimuthal anisotropies, quantified by flow coefficients, are measured via the event- plane method for inclusive heavy-flavor muons as a function of the muon p T and in intervals of Pb+Pb collision centrality. Heavy-flavor muons are separated into contributions from charm and bottom hadron decays using the muon transverse impact parameter with respect to the event primary vertex. Non-zero elliptic ( v 2 ) and triangular ( v 3 ) flow coefficients are extracted for charm and bottom muons, with the charm muon coefficients larger than those for bottom muons for all Pb+Pb collision centralities. The results indicate substantial modification to the charm and bottom quark angular distributions through interactions in the quark-gluon plasma produced in these Pb+Pb collisions, with smaller modifications for the bottom quarks as expected theoretically due to their larger mass. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP 3 .


Chronic non-healing wounds such as diabetic ulcers or burns represent a devastating health problem with significant clinical, physical and social implications. The healing can be frustrating and painful for patients. The difficult healing process requires advanced therapeutic strategies such as the use of primary human keratinocytes (HK) as autologous transplants, which may be considered for clinical use. To improve engraftment or to introduce therapeutic genes into primary HK, efficient and safe vectors are required. One of the most promising vector systems today is based on the adeno-associated virus (AAV), a member of the parvovirus family. Recombinant AAV (rAAV) vectors possess a number of attractive properties including low immunogenicity, high stability and the potential to integrate site-specifically without known side-effects. Unfortunately, cell entry into primary HK of rAAV2 is barely detectable and consequentially, HK are poor targets of rAAV2-mediated transductions. As demonstrated in this thesis, primary HK do not express AAV2´s primary receptor heparan sulphate proteoglycan (HSPG), the presence of which, however, is required for binding to AAV2´s internalization receptors. Cell surface targeting allows re-directing the viral vector tropism towards a novel receptor mediating thereby transduction of cells in absence of AAV's natural receptors. These AAV capsid mutants have displayed improved transduction efficiency in wild-type-AAV non-permissive cells and have provided the opportunity of rAAV-mediated, cell-type-specific gene transfer.
As documented in this study, new rAAV vectors were developed as promising tools for modifying primary HK. Using an AAV peptide display library that displayed 7mer peptides of random sequence at capsid position 587; three AAV peptide insertion mutants differing in sequence of inserted ligand (Kera1, Kera2 and Kera3) were selected and subsequently analyzed. To select rAAV targeting vectors with a re-directed tropism, the library was optimized by depleting mutants capable of binding to HSPG prior to selection by heparin affinity chromatography. Furthermore, the selection was performed on primary HK obtained from different donors to target a common receptor and the selection pressure was continuously increased by decreasing the vector genomes per cell ratio to select for the fittest variant. The thereby developed rAAV targeting vectors Kera1 (RGDTATL), Kera2 (PRGDLAP) and Kera3 (RGDQQSL) showed a remarkable change in tropism, transducing primary HK with high efficiency and specificity even in mixed cultures of target and non-target cells. In this study, a novel microarray based bioinformatic approach (comparative gene analysis (CGA)), was used for the identification of the receptor that targeted the mutant that showed the most striking change in tropism, Kera2. Briefly, in cooperation with Giovanni Di Pasquale (NCI/NIH, Bethesda, USA), a screening of the NIH cell line panel was performed, pointing towards the involvement of beta8 integrin subunit for cell transduction by Kera2. Beta8 is unique as it is solely described as heterodimer with alpha V and the integrin αVβ8 could be detected on cell surface of primary human keratinocytes. By blocking experiments with blocking αV- or αVβ8-antibodies experimental evidence was provided that the integrin αVβ8 serves as receptor for Kera2. Finally, this study has shown that the targeting vectors Kera1, Kera2 and Kera3 transduced airlifted differentiated keratinocytes in organotypic 3D cultures. In summary, the three rAAV targeting vectors Kera1, Kera2 and Kera3, selected from an optimized library and using a novel selection strategy, are excellent candidates for successful application in clinical use.


Aim :Several bowel preps are currently used for colonoscopy but only limited data are available comparing the different products. Methods : We retrospectively reviewed all colonoscopies performed at Georgetown U. Hospital from May 2013 to May 2014. A 9-point modified Boston Bowel Preparation Scale (BBPS) was utilized (best score = 9) by experienced endoscopists. Colonoscopies without a BBPS score were excluded. Results : Four preps and their percentage usage were 4-L PEG solutions (Golytely® or Colyte®) (50%), PEG with bisacodyl tablets (Miralax®) (17%), PEG with ascorbic acid (Moviprep®) (8%), sodium picosulfate (Prepopik®) (25%), with the following overall BBPS scores respectively: 7.45, 7.45, 7.40, 7.55. Statistical superiority of split-doseto day-prior dose was seen for Golytely®/Colyte®, Miralax®, and Moviprep® with a trend seen for Prepopik®. Comparison of each prep by split and prior day dosing showed a significantly higher score only for Golytely®/Colyte® and Prepopik® vs Moviprep® given prior day dosing. A higher BBPS score was seen for women vs men overall for both split-dose and day-prior dosepreps (with the exception of Moviprep® in PD preps). Higher scores were seen for a.m. procedures but were not significant. All preps had lower scores in the right colon, regardless of being split-dose or day-prior dose. Conclusions : This real world experience in nearly 3600 patients confirms that split dosing is superior to day-prior dosing. We found women had higher BBPS scores than men but no differences were seen between morning and afternoon procedures. All preps were relatively comparable, however differences in price may be an important decision-maker.


OBJECTIVE
To review breastfeeding benefits for the women's health.

SOURCES OF DATA
Lilacs, MEDLINE, SciELO, BIREME, Cochrane Library and Google were searched for the keywords: breastfeeding and breast cancer, ovarian cancer, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lactation amenorrhea, post natal period, and women's health. Single articles published between 1990 and 2004 were considered, as well as remarkable ones prior to this period.

SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS
There are a few articles published on the topic, even though, the existing literature reveals that there is a positive relationship between breastfeeding and decreased risk of breast cancer, cancer of the ovarian epithelium, and osteoporosis leading to hip fracture. Some studies suggest the effect of breastfeeding on the decreasing risk of rheumatoid arthritis, others mention the relation between breastfeeding and faster loss of weight gained during the gestational period. Several studies show how breastfeeding interferes on the onset of postnatal menstruation and consequent birth spacing.

CONCLUSIONS
Breastfeeding provides important benefits for the women's health, such as reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer, decreased risks of hip fractures and contribution to the increase of birth spacing.


BACKGROUND
Limited Australian data are available on either short duration therapy for Helicobacter pylori infection, or the impact of metronidazole resistance on the outcome of treatment.

AIM
To compare the efficacy of two treatment regimens and determine the influence metronidazole resistance has on clearing H. pylori infection.

METHODS
Eighty patients with H. pylori infection proven at upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, none of whom had previously received therapy for H. pylori, were randomised to one week therapy with either bismuth subcitrate one tablet qid, tetracycline 500 mg qid and metronidazole 400 mg tds (BTM), or lansoprazole 30 mg bd, amoxycillin 500 mg qid and metronidazole 400 mg tds (LAM). Effectiveness of therapy was measured by C14-urea breath test at six weeks.

RESULTS
On an intention-to-treat basis, clearance of infection was achieved in 17 of 32 (53%; 95% CI: 35-71%) evaluable patients receiving BTM and 32 of 46 (70%, 54-82%) patients receiving LAM (p = 0.16). Metronidazole resistance was found in 32 of 65 (49%) patients in whom H. pylori was isolated by culture. On a per-protocol basis, of patients who had metronidazole sensitive strains of H. pylori 23 of 24 (96%) cleared infection after therapy with either BTM or LAM, compared with 14 of 24 (58%) who were metronidazole resistant (p = 0.004). Clarithromycin resistance was not found in 45 patients tested.

CONCLUSIONS
In Western Australia clearance rates of H. pylori infection, after one week of BTM or LAM, are lower than in other published series. The high incidence of metronidazole resistance is the main determinant of our relatively poor eradication rates.


Kathryn Ingham attneded Pontefract Girls' High School, in West Yorkshire from 1963-70. She has also been interviewed. Her first book covers the third year of history, beginning at the end of the Tudor period and covering the Stuarts and the eighteenth century, including the creation of the British Empire. The work includes some imaginative tasks, such as the letter written during the Plague. There are also colourful maps and drawings especially for the sections on the Empire and the eighteenth century, for instance a wonderful teapot on a section about the Staffordshire pottery industry. The second book contains O level notes and begins with the Corn Laws, although it covers mainly European political history in the nineteenth century, but also includes the American Civil War.


It is well known that firms productivity is influenced by information spillovers generated either by other firms located nearby or by direct contacts with final demand or by foreign demand in the case of traded products. In this paper we investigate a new channel of efficiency - enhancing information spillovers - tourism flows. The idea is that tourists, in general, have preferences for high quality goods and differentiated products which are revealed when they buy local products in the tourism destinations, thus transmitting relevant information to the local firms. The latter, in turn, exploit this new information generating a positive impact on the efficiency level of the local economy. More specifically we examine the effects of tourist flows on regional total factor productivity, within a spatial dynamic model, controlling also for other intangible factors (such as human, social and technological capital) and for the degree of accessibility. We apply the analysis to 199 European regions belonging to the EU15 member countries, plus Switzerland and Norway. The econometric results show the positive impact of tourism flows on regional efficiency levels together with the positive role played by intangible assets, infrastructures and spatial spillovers.


While low-precision optimization has been widely used to accelerate deep learning, low-precision sampling remains largely unexplored. As a consequence, sampling is simply infeasible in many large-scale scenarios, despite providing remarkable benefits to generalization and uncertainty estimation for neural networks. In this paper, we provide the first study of low-precision Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD), showing that its costs can be significantly reduced without sacrificing performance, due to its intrinsic ability to handle system noise. We prove that the convergence of low-precision SGLD with full-precision gradient accumulators is less affected by the quantization error than its SGD counterpart in the strongly convex setting. To further enable low-precision gradient accumulators, we develop a new quantization function for SGLD that preserves the variance in each update step. We demonstrate that low-precision SGLD achieves comparable performance to full-precision SGLD with only 8 bits on a variety of deep learning tasks.


Noncompliance behaviour of Iranian fishers with the fisheries regulations in the
Persian Gulf is examined in this study. A formal theoretical model and analytical
framework that was useful in the understanding of compliance behaviour of
individuals with fisheries regulations are developed. By using a standard
questionnaire and a stratified random sampling method, a total of 566 fishermen
from three Iranian provinces located on the coast of the Persian Gulf were
interviewed. The factors include deterrence, moral, social influences and legitimacy
variables that can explain the observed noncompliance with zoning regulation for
shrimp fishery were examined. A Probit and Logit econometric techniques were
used to estimate the violation decision by Iranian fishermen in the study area while
the Tobit model was used to estimate the total number of fishing days in Shrimp
Fishing Zone (SFZ). The model was classified into two types: the basic and the
extended model. In general, the Probit estimation technique perfonns better than the Tobit technique. The Probit model exogenous probability variables however gives
better results than the Probit model using raw probabilities.
The results indicated that deterrence, moral, and legitimacy factors determined the
violation decision of individual fishers to fish in the prohibited zone. The social
influence factor (PERTVIOL) was only significant in the Bushehr province. The
results also indicate that the deterrence variables, moral development, and
legitimacy factor are more important than the social influence factor in explaining
the compliance behaviour in the study area.
From the economic perspective, moral development and legitimacy variables can
complement the efficiency goal in any enforcement program by reducing the need
for large expenditures on enforcement inputs to secure compliance. The results
showed that using exogenous variables directly in the extended model to explain the
violation decision in the individual provinces provide a good result for provinces of
Khuzestan and Busbehr. The number of Fishing days (DAY) appears to play a very
important role in explaining the violation decision of fishermen in the Khuzestan
and Busbehr provinces. The other important variables are the horsepower of
fishermen boats (POWER), the morality variable (MeODE), and number of times
that fishermen have seen the enforcement personnel at the sea (FBOATNO). The
legitimacy variables also have considerable role in explaining compliance behaviour
in the cases of Khuzestan and Busbehr provinces.
Although the overall probability of detection and conviction (OVEPROB) variable
was significant with an unexpected sign, the exogenous variables of probability of detection and conviction came out significant in most the regressions runs with
expected signs. It cannot be denied that it plays a very important role than the other
(such as moral obligation and legitimacy) variables in securing compliance. Thus,
enforcement resources should be utilized together with positive reinforcement of the
normative variables. Nevertheless, enforcement inputs wi)) have a deterrence effect
on the violators and other fishermen thus reducing the overall violation rate. The
capacity of enforcement resources in the Persian Gulf area is limited. There is need
to reestablish the enforcement institutions and resources. The government should
therefore pay attention to enhancing enforcement resources in the area of study to
deter violators.


Movement of water in vadose zone, mainly focusing on infiltration and percolation that involves percolation of water under gravity from soil surface and redistribution which is the capillary rise of water movement upwards, is presented. In the global hydrologic cycle, 76% of the precipitating water enters the soil via percolation-infiltration, which leads to the downward movement of water (L'vovich 1974). The water used by natural processes, can move downwards due to infiltration and lift from groundwater table during natural redistribution process. The forecasting of water movement in unsaturated infiltrationredistribution system is linked between soil hydraulic properties and hydrologic condition of natural surface water system. The understanding of water movement processes associated with infiltration and redistribution has a number of practical applications. One such application is to predict the fate and transport of materials through soil including nutrients, organic carbon and microbes under natural processes, which in turn will help in developing appropriate management plans for irrigation, fertiliser application and waste disposal on land.


This Article appears in a Symposium commemorating the Supreme Court's decision in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts. The legal claims that gave rise to Shutts were meritorious, yet of relatively modest value. Individuals are unlikely to litigate such negative value claims because the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits they will receive; defendants are well-situated to escape liability. Conventionally, scholars describe this situation as posing a collective action problem and demonstrate how the class action mechanism works to solve that problem. In this Article, I discuss the problem of negative value claims in a related yet distinct manner. The fact that parties will not pursue these claims is, I argue, an example of the underproduction of a so-called public good. That good is a lawsuit. Litigation can be conceptualized as a public good, with its pursuit producing positive externalities. The Article enumerates these collateral social benefits, grouping them as: 1) decree effects; 2) settlement effects; 3) threat effects; and 4) institutional effects. The addition of this analysis to the scholarly literature serves several functions. Among these is that it illuminates how little collective action really takes places in small claims cases; how relatively unimportant the compensatory aspects of the case are compared to its other social functions; how the concept of deterrence does not capture these non-compensatory benefits as well as the concept of externalities does; and how small claims class actions are more like other types of class cases than generally presumed.


Knowledge acquisition has become a major area of artificial intelligence and cognitive science research. The papers in this book show that the area of knowledge acquisition for knowledge-based systems is still a diverse field in which a large number of research topics are being addressed. However, several main themes run through the papers. First, the issue of integrating knowledge from different sources and tools is a sallent topic in many papers. A second major topic in the papers is that of knowledge modelling. Research in knowledge-based systems emphasizes the use of generic models of reasoning and its underlying knowledge. An important trend in the area of knowledge modelling aims at the formalization of knowledge models. Where the field of knowledge acquisition was without tools and techniques years ago, now there is a rapidly growing body of techniques and tools. Apart from the integrated workbenches already mentioned above, several papers in this book present new tools. Although knowledge acquisition and machine learning have been considered as separate subfields of AI, there is a tendency for the two fields to come together. This publication combines machine learning techniques with more conventional knowledge elicitation techniques. A framework is presented in which reasoning, problem solving and learning, together form a knowledge intensive system that can acquire knowledge from its own experience.


Progress in narrowing black-white earnings differences has been far from continuous, with some of the apparent progress resulting from labor force withdrawal among lower-skilled African Americans. This paper builds on prior research and documents racial and ethnic differences in male earnings from 1950 through 2010 using data from the decennial census and American Community Surveys. Emphasis is given to annual rather than weekly or hourly earnings. Treatment of imputed earnings greatly affects measured outcomes. We take a quantile approach, providing evidence on medians and other percentiles of the distribution. Black male joblessness rose to over 40% in 2010, the median black-white earnings gap being the largest in at least sixty years. The experience of black men contrasts with that of Hispanic men during the last decade, who exhibited earnings growth similar to white men. Black men are being left behind economically, a process exacerbated by weak labor market conditions.


Using agricultural machines on slopes is very risky for operators: drivers difficultly have a correct perception of the stability condition of their vehicles when travelling, especially because it is impossible to instantly check the ground elevation and harshness in correspondence of each wheel. Moreover, the tests that are usually performed to characterize these machines' stability are scarcely helpful in real conditions: these tests check the lateral overturning (maximum angle) in two static configurations only. Evidently, these do not cover most of real situations, do not locate its centre-of-mass and do not consider the centrifugal force (causing load-transfers and dynamically-variable readjustments of the machine's trim in turnings), thus making impossible the setup of eventual active/passive safety-systems to be installed on vehicles. Therefore, with the aim of overcoming the limitations of actual tests, giving a higher level of information to the tractors' manufacturers and users, we have conceived a completely-new test-apparatus to be installed within our laboratory: the Tiltable Platform. It integrates two subsystems, illustrated hereinafter. (1) The tiltable/angleable plane is a wide flat structure (15×15 m), able to simulate different groundgradients, allowing a vehicle to manoeuvre/travel on it along circular paths in a controlled and safe environment. It can also generate an angle at half of its width, transversal to the maximum-slope direction (simulating the exits of an agricultural machine from the inter-rows). (2) The tilting turntable: has a circular shape and is divided into quadrants, each capable of measuring the weight sustained due to a motionless vehicle positioned on them; it is installed on a tilting structure and can rotate around a vertical axis, thus allowing to vary the angular position of the vehicle's longitudinal axis with reference to the maximum-slope direction. Finally, this test-rig will be useful to develop new test-methodologies to certify the agricultural machines' stability in real operating-conditions (e.g. operating with ballast/mounted-implements).


Nonlinear electrostatic global gyrokinetic simulations of collisionless ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence and ExB zonal flows in axisymmetric toroidal plasmas are examined for different choices of the initial distribution function. Using a local Maxwellian leads to the generation of axisymmetric ExB flows that can be so strong as to prevent ITG mode growth. A method using a canonical Maxwellian is shown to avoid this spurious generation of ExB flows. In addition, a revised delta f scheme is introduced and compared to the standard delta f method. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.


Tumor progression to metastasis is not cancer cell autonomous, but rather involves the interplay of multiple cell types within the tumor microenvironment. Here we identify Asporin (ASPN) as a novel, secreted mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) factor in the tumor microenvironment that regulates metastatic development. MSCs expressed high levels of ASPN, which decreased following lineage differentiation. ASPN loss impaired MSC self-renewal and promoted terminal cell differentiation. Mechanistically, secreted ASPN bound to BMP-4 and restricted BMP-4-induced MSC differentiation prior to lineage commitment. ASPN expression was distinctly conserved between MSC and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF). ASPN expression in the tumor microenvironment broadly impacted multiple cell types. Prostate tumor allografts in ASPN-null mice had a reduced number of tumor-associated MSCs, fewer cancer stem cells, decreased tumor vasculature, and an increased percentage of infiltrating CD8+ T cells. ASPN-null mice also demonstrated a significant reduction in lung metastases compared to wild type mice. These data establish a role for ASPN as a critical MSC factor that extensively effects the tumor microenvironment and induces metastatic progression.


Pursuant to the Philosophical and Theological Foundations of the Science and Religion Dialogue, this essay will develop an anthropological theory I call "radical embodiment," a biologically informed theory of human nature, rationality, and meaning. This theory also has ramifications for the divine-world relationship. I will draw upon a mentor, religionist William Poteat, who in turn drew upon philosophers who emphasized the bodily nature of human existence, as well as utilizing contemporary thinkers. I will argue that all human reason, meaning, and consciousness arise, not merely instrumentally but substantively, from our sensorimotor capabilities and the general feeling or orientational states of our bodies. With phenomenologist Maurice Merleau Ponty, radical embodiment maintains that human perception and bodily engagement correlatively define and are defined by the world. Radical embodiment thus overcomes Cartesian dualisms between mind and the physical world incompatible with modern science.

Cognitive scientists Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, with support from biologists Lewontin and Oyama, deftly extend the correlation of human sensorimotor capabilities and the environment to the evolutionary process itself: self-organizing and emergent biological systems and the environment mutually specify each other.

The evolutionary changes enabling symbolic communication and culture allow humankind to step back from our immediate environment to entertain both religious and scientific questions. Human language has thus exponentially expanded the complexity of human reason and meaning. Nevertheless, consonant with our evolutionary heritage and the self-organizing capabilities of organisms, radical embodiment argues with Poteat, philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein, contemporary philosopher Mark Johnson, and linguist George Lakoff that the semantics of human language rely upon the images and meanings of our spatial orientation, movement, and perception. Even the syntax that permits the most abstract of mental gymnastics relies upon and extends from these bodily semantics.

Neurobiologists Damasio and Edelman have expounded how body-minded consciousness entailing intrinsic values has been adaptive. The perspective of radical embodiment avoids non-biological models that have reinscribed mind-body dualisms, either through discarnate computational models or physicalist reductionist models where consciousness is an epiphenomenon or illusion rather than integral to bodily engagement with our natural and social worlds.

Finally, epistemologist and philosopher of science Michael Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge is crucial to understand how we indwell the bodily meaning of our perceptions and movement, of our language, and of our subconscious and unconscious brain processes even as we attend to our world—and thus how it is all too easy to forget this inalienable indwelling in favor of discarnate models of human nature, whether functionalist or linguistic constructivist or physicalist in a manner that denies our lived and lively phenomenal bodies.

Whether human meaning is here on purpose or ultimately by blind chance or brute fact goes beyond science per se to the realm of metaphysical intuition or religious faith. However, we can avoid those models of divinity incompatible with and instead opt for those that cohere or even resonate with scientific knowledge. Our emerging vision of human meaning as embodied resonates with a religious vision of the divine as also embodied: the bodily metaphors at the root of all our experience can be enlisted to interpret the natural world as the body of God.


The main purpose of this study is to compare the household saving motives between Chinese and Americans. The two datasets used in this study are from the 2008 Survey of Chinese Consumer Finance and Investor Education and the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances in the United States. The likelihood of reporting precautionary saving motive, education saving motive, and retirement saving motive was tested by logistic regression analysis. This study concluded that Chinese households were more likely to report the precautionary and education saving motives, when compared with American households. In terms of the retirement saving motive, only Chinese households placed in the first and second household income groups were more likely to perceive the retirement saving motive than their counterpart Americans. There was no difference in perceiving the retirement motive between Chinese and Americans for all the other household groups. The stronger motivation to save for Chinese than for Americans serves as a good explanation for the higher saving rates in China than in the United States. Policy makers and financial planners can use the findings to target particular population who are less motivated to save, and to help them realize the importance of saving and conduct necessary saving behaviors.


General Description: The field of ethics is quite large, but it largely concerns with the goods (or goals) and standards (or norms or guidelines) that guide human action and interaction. Central questions include: What is the human good, i.e., that good unique to humans that best represents their highest fulfillment? What are the marks of good character? What are the criteria for right and wrong action? What differentiates good consequences from bad? Can (or should) norms be universally applicable? What role, if any, do emotions play in ethical deliberations? In addressing these questions, we will focus our study on the central ethical norms of four systems: ethics of excellence (represented by Aristotle and Aquinas), deontology (represented by Kant and Feinberg), utilitarianism (as formulated by Bentham and Mill), and ethics of care (represented by Noddings). Our approach will be structured both historically and topically. Especially in ethics, a theory/practice split is deeply problematic. An ethical position that is judged theoretically sound but suspect (or unrealistic) in its application misses the point of ethics: to live well or rightly. We will thus integrate "theoretical" concerns (about issues of the nature and justification of ethical criteria) with "practical" concerns (about specific courses of action or responses to moral problems) – especially in Group Work. Main Course Goals: • To develop a sophisticated and insightful understanding of the criteria that guide and govern meaningful human action and interaction, with special attention to the arguments for (and against) these criteria. The course will explore different orientations by focusing on the arguments and applications of key ideas or norms of four general ethical systems: the Ethics of Excellence, Deontology, Utilitarianism, and the Ethics of Care. • To become adept at applying the criteria of these systems to concrete (often) contemporary issues, recognizing the importance of checking "theory" with "practice" and vice versa • To successfully work in groups as you discuss, apply, and evaluate both criteria and issues


Cosmological density fields are assumed to be translational and rotational invariant, avoiding any special point or direction, thus satisfying the Copernican Principle. A spatially inhomogeneous matter distribution can be compatible with the Copernican Principle but not with the stronger version of it, the Cosmological Principle which requires the additional hypothesis of spatial homogeneity. We establish criteria for testing that a given density field, in a finite sample at low redshifts, is statistically and/or spatially homogeneous. The basic question to be considered is whether a distribution is, at different spatial scales, self-averaging. This can be achieved by studying the probability density function of conditional fluctuations. We find that galaxy structures in the SDSS samples, the largest currently available, are spatially inhomogeneous but statistically homogeneous and isotropic up to ∼ 100 Mpc/h. Evidences for the breaking of self-averaging are found up to the largest scales probed by the SDSS data. The comparison between the results obtained in volumes of different size allows us to unambiguously conclude that the lack of self-averaging is induced by finite-size effects due to long-range correlated fluctuations. We finally discuss the relevance of these results from the point of view of cosmological modeling.


Discussions of the future of competition law on the transnational level often reflect assumptions about the role of economics. Perhaps the most pivotal of these assumptions is that economics can provide a basis for global competition law convergence. It is pivotal, because choices and strategies relating to competition law often depend on it. Moreover, many see convergence among competition law systems as the only viable response to the problems and weaknesses of the current legal framework for transnational competition, and this view reduces incentives to evaluate or pursue other strategies such as coordination among states. Yet the prospects for convergence rest on assumptions about the role of economics in the convergence process, and these assumptions therefore deserve careful attention.This chapter explores these assumptions. It clarifies some of the concepts involved and identifies some of the roles that economics can play in the context of competition law convergence. In particular, it explores the issue of how and to what extent economics can provide a basis for competition law convergence. Curiously, this 'how' issue is seldom explored carefully. Discussions of competition law convergence often proceed as if the science of economics will be central to global convergence, but they seldom explain how it can be expected to play this role.


This paper examines the ways in which photographic images can be used in narrative inquiry. After introducing the renewed interest in visual methodology the first section examines the ways in which researchers have utilised the camera or photographic images in research studies that are broadly similar to forms of narrative inquiry such as auto/biography, photographic journals, video diaries and photo-voice. It then draws on the published literature in relation to the author's own empirical research into everyday photography. Here the extent to which the practices which are part of everyday photography can be seen as forms of story-telling and provide access to both narratives and counter-narratives, are explored. Ideas about memory and identity construction are considered. A critical area of argument centres on the relationship of images to other texts, and asks whether it is possible for photographs to narrate independent of written or oral word. It concludes with some remarks about how photographs can be used in research and as a resource for narrative inquiry. This necessitates a understanding of what it is people do with photographs in everyday life.


People as news subjects play an important role in broadcast news and finding a specific person is a major challenge for multimedia retrieval. Beyond mere content-based general retrieval, this task requires exploitation of the structure, time sequence and meaning of news content. We introduce a comprehensive approach to discovering clues for finding a specific person in broadcast news video. Various information aspects are investigated, including text information, timing information, scene detection, and face recognition. Experimental results on the TREC 2003 video search task show that our approach can achieve surprisingly high performance by exploiting broadly diverse information to find specific named people.


A mixture of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) with a small amount of a polypropyleneimine-based liquid crystalline dendrimer (D-6PC5 and D-6PPCN) exhibited spontaneous homeotropic alignment between the native glass substrates. This dendrimer-induced homeotropic alignment required two conditions; 1) the dendrimer completely dissolves in the NLC, and 2) a substrate surface is hydrophilic with the surface free energy above approximately 65 mN·m−1. The interdigitated-electrode cells without any surface treatment of the substrates were fabricated by filling with the LC dendrimer (D-6PC5)/nematic LC mixtures. They exhibited an electro-optical behavior when applying AC, vertical-alignment drive occurred in the cells. Based on these results, we speculated that the dendrimer adsorbs on the substrate surface and acts as a vertical alignment layer.


We derive an analytical approximation for the measured pulse width error in spectral shearing methods, such as spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER), caused by an anomalous delay between the two sheared pulse components. This analysis suggests that, as pulses approach the single-cycle limit, the resulting requirements on the calibration and stability of this delay become significant, requiring precision orders of magnitude higher than the scale of a wavelength. This is demonstrated by numerical simulations of SPIDER pulse reconstruction using actual data from a sub-two-cycle laser. We briefly propose methods to minimize the effects of this sensitivity in SPIDER and review variants of spectral shearing that attempt to avoid this difficulty.


Nanoporous SiN membranes are interesting for a number of applications, e.g. stenciling, filtration, or tissue engineering [1-3]. The patterning of the pores requires a high resolution lithographic tool. Focused ion beam milling or e-beam lithography fulfills this requirement. However, they are slow, serial writing techniques and thus wafer-scale writing of nanodot arrays becomes time-consuming and expensive. Alternative parallel, fast and inexpensive tools are, for example, nanoimprint-lithography, interference lithography, block copolymer lithography, or nanosphere lithography (NSL) [4]. For applications where no long-range array order is needed, we show here that NSL using polystyrene (PS) beads provides a fast and efficient tool with sub-μm patterning resolution for the fabrication of large nanoporous membranes. Another advantage is the process flexibility. The size of the PS beads determines the later pore size. It can be changed after the deposition of the beads onto the substrate. The pore density can be controlled by choosing a different original bead size. Thus, within a certain range, the pore size and pore density can be tuned independently of each other.


Leo Strauss's controversial writings have long exercised a profound subterranean cultural influence. Now their impact is emerging into broad daylight, where they have been met with a flurry of poorly informed, often wildly speculative, and sometimes rather paranoid pronouncements. This book, written as a corrective, is the first accurate, non-polemical, comprehensive guide to Strauss's mature political philosophy and its intellectual influence. Thomas L. Pangle opens a pathway into Strauss's major works with one question: How does Strauss's philosophic thinking contribute to our democracy's civic renewal and to our culture's deepening, critical self-understanding? This book includes a synoptic critical survey of writings from scholars who have extended Strauss's influence into the more practical, sub-philosophic fields of social and political science and commentary. Pangle shows how these analysts have in effect imported Straussian impulses into a "new" kind of political and social science.


This paper investigates the characteristics of unaccusative verbs in Italian with respect to the consistency with which these verbs select the auxiliaries 'be' (essere) and 'have' (avere) in compound tense forms. The study builds on the gradient approach to split intransitivity (Sorace 2000) by exploring the behaviour of 29 intransitive Italian verbs with respect to their core-peripheral features: auxiliary selection acceptability ratings and associated variance measures. Although there is clear support for the gradient approach in relation to the general order of semantic categories along the unaccusativity gradient, the results reveal that the ordering of subclasses within the Change group conflict with that currently proposed in the literature. In addition, the findings demonstrate the aspectual and lexical semantic characteristics of internally-caused change-of-state verbs in Italian require further investigation before their auxiliary selection behaviour can be properly understood. Furthermore, contrary to the gradient account, Existence verbs, the most stative and therefore the most peripheral subclass in the unaccusativity hierarchy, exhibit behaviour more characteristic of core unaccusative verbs. This study examines a wider range of semantic subclasses of unaccusative verbs than has hitherto been reported and identifies the core-peripheral boundary for Italian. 1