Two naturally linked pairs of nondimensional parameters are identified such that either pair, together with wavelength and path length, completely specifies the diffractive propagation environment for a lowest-order paraxial Gaussian beam. Both parameter pairs are intuitive, and within the context of locally homogeneous and isotropic turbulence they reflect the long-recognized importance of the Fresnel zone size in the behavior of Rytov propagation statistics. These parameter pairs, called, respectively, the transmitter and receiver parameters, also provide a change in perspective in the analysis of optical turbulence effects on Gaussian beams by unifying a number of behavioral traits previously observed or predicted, and they create an environment in which the determination of limiting interrelationships between beam forms is especially simple. The fundamental nature of the parameter pairs becomes apparent in the derived analytical expressions for the log-amplitude variance and the wave structure function. These expressions verify general optical turbulence-related characteristics predicted for Gaussian beams, provide additional insights into beam-wave behavior, and are convenient tools for beam-wave analysis.


The green movement has posed some tough questions for traditional justifications of democracy. Should the natural world have rights? Can we take account of the interests of future generations? But questions have also been asked of the greens. Could their idealism undermine democracy? Can greens be effective democrats? In this book some of the leading writers on green political thought analyze these questions, examining the discourse of green movements concerning democracy, the status of democracy within green political thought and the political institutions that might be necessary to ensure democracy in a sustainable society.


We charted multiple surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP)-wave modes at the planar interface between a metal and a chiral sculptured thin film (STF) in terms of the period, vapor flux angle, and orientation angle of the latter material. Two distinct scenarios were considered: one based on a canonical boundary-value problem involving half-spaces filled with the metal and the chiral STF and another based upon a modified Kretschmann configuration for ease of implementation. Calculations using empirical data for the constitutive relations of both partnering materials show that the number and nature of the SPP-wave modes are highly dependent on all three parameters.


Asking friends, colleagues, or other trusted people to help answer a question or find information is a familiar and tried-and-true concept. Widespread use of online social networks has made social information seeking easier, and has provided researchers with opportunities to better observe this process. In this paper, we relate question answering to tie strength, a metric drawn from sociology describing how close a friendship is. We present a study evaluating the role of tie strength in question answers. We used previous research on tie strength in social media to generate tie strength information between participants and their answering friends, and asked them for feedback about the value of answers across several dimensions. While sociological studies have indicated that weak ties are able to provide better information, our findings are significant in that weak ties do not have this effect, and stronger ties (close friends) provide a subtle increase in information that contributes more to participants' overall knowledge, and is less likely to have been seen before.


Pundits have lately been declaring the 112th and 113th Congresses the "least productive" in recent history. Why, they passed fewer than 600 laws between them! One leading writer even called the 113th "by just about every measure, the worst Congress ever," surely overlooking the Congresses that passed, for instance, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Indian Removal Act, the internment of the Japanese Americans, Prohibition, conscription, or indeed the income tax.

At the Cato Institute we take a different view. We propose that passing more laws — that is, more mandates, bans, regulations, taxes, subsidies, boondoggles, transfer programs, and proclamations — is at best a dubious accomplishment. In fact, given that the American people pondered the "least productive Congress ever" twice, and twice kept the government divided between the two parties, it just might be that most Americans are fine with a Congress that passes fewer laws.

Sometimes, indeed, the wisest course for Congress is to repeal a law, or to refrain from passing a proposed law. In part, that view reflects one major theme of this agenda: that even many vitally important things in American society are not the province of the federal government. We stand firmly on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, on the bedrock American values of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace. And throughout our 38 years we have been willing to criticize officials of both parties when they sought to take the country in another direction. But we have also been pleased to work with officials of both parties when they seek to expand freedom or limit government.

In this document, Policy Priorities for the 114th Congress, we outline modest and practical steps Congress and the administration could take in the next two years in that direction — reforms of health care, financial regulation, taxes, surveillance, marijuana policy, civil asset forfeiture, war powers, immigration, transportation, and more.


Abstract Visual representations are a familiar element of daily life and particularly beneficial as illustrations in science textbooks. In this case, learners draw on human dimensions such as cognitive style (CS) and prior knowledge (PK) when engaging in visual thinking. This study aimed to compare and explore the relationships among the format aspect (e.g. searching process), the content aspect (e.g. comprehension and interpretation), and the subject aspect (CS and PK) as applied when viewing two given hierarchical chromosome structure illustrations: the Mami version and the miMa version. Interviews were conducted with 7th graders given the illustrations. Participants' CS and PK were determined by Group Embedded Figures Test and Prior Knowledge Assessment. The results were consonant with the framework that most participants' searching process was conducted from top to bottom for both illustrations. Second, participants from both CS groups and low PK score group (PKL) were more capable of comprehending the Mami version than the miMa version. Third, learners typically applied a decomposed strategy in interpreting the Mami version. Fourth, the field dependent group and PKL group require further guidance when interpreting the miMa version. The implications of this study will focus on curriculum design, textbook or instructional materials, and instruction.


Abstract Natural circulation plays a significant role in the decay heat removal function of a sodium-cooled reactor. A recent design of the Japan Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (JSFR) fully uses natural circulation for a decay heat removal system (DHRS). A dipped heat exchanger (DHX) is immersed in the reactor upper plenum as the DHRS. The DHX provides cold sodium in the upper plenum during the decay heat removal operation. This cold sodium covers the top of the core under the low-flow-rate conditions of natural circulation. Several water experiments of natural circulation in fast reactors revealed that the cold fluid in the reactor upper plenum might partially and temporally penetrate into the low power core channels, e.g., the radial blanket fuel subassemblies. Sodium experiments were carried out to find the onset conditions and the penetration depth of such partial reverse flow driven by buoyancy force. A blanket subassembly and the upper plenum were modeled in the test section including the axial upper neutron shielding of the subassembly. The experimental parameters were the temperature difference between the hot upward flow in the channel and the cold fluid in the upper plenum and the flow velocity in the channel. The onset conditions of the penetration flow were correlated with Gr and Re numbers as well as with basic water experiments. The observed penetration depths were limited to the upper axial neutron shielding of the subassembly.


The great whales of the North Atlantic live, breed, and are now being injured and killed in the "Urban Sea" —a growing feature of the United States coastline resulting from coastal development. The primary threats to great whales are anthropogenic: vessel strikes and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. Despite their popularity as cultural icons, and federal and state protective regulations on the books, endangered whales increasingly suffer collateral damage from coastal commerce. Ample law and technology exist to eliminate these problems. Rather than advancing the protection of whales, however, government agencies and some nonprofit organizations have aggravated the problem through their lack of meaningful action. This essay examines systemic reasons why harmful entanglements in commercial fishing gear continue to occur and are likely to go on unabated into the future. The essay then proposes a paradigm shift for approaching these problems that will protect whales and will also benefit other wildlife in the ocean and its coastal


A method for calculating stored magnetic energy in a thin superconducting film based on quantitative magneto-optical imaging is developed. Energy and magnetic moment are determined with these calculations for full hysteresis loops in a thin film of the superconductor NbN. Huge losses in energy are observed when dendritic avalanches occur. Magnetic energy, magnetic moment, sheet current and magnetic flux distributions, all extracted from the same calibrated magneto-optical images, are analyzed and discussed. Dissipated energy and the loss in moment when dendritic avalanches occur are related to each other. Calculating these losses for specific spatially-resolved flux avalanches is a great advantage, because of their unpredictable and non-reproducible nature. The relative losses in energy are much higher than the relative losses in moment.A method for calculating stored magnetic energy in a thin superconducting film based on quantitative magneto-optical imaging is developed. Energy and magnetic moment are determined with these calculations for full hysteresis loops in a thin film of the superconductor NbN. Huge losses in energy are observed when dendritic avalanches occur. Magnetic energy, magnetic moment, sheet current and magnetic flux distributions, all extracted from the same calibrated magneto-optical images, are analyzed and discussed. Dissipated energy and the loss in moment when dendritic avalanches occur are related to each other. Calculating these losses for specific spatially-resolved flux avalanches is a great advantage, because of their unpredictable and non-reproducible nature. The relative losses in energy are much higher than the relative losses in moment.


Variation in plant shoot structure may be described as occurring through changes within a basic unit, the metamer. Using this terminology, the apical meristem of Arabidopsis produces three metameric types sequentially: type 1, rosette; type 2, coflorescence-bearing with bract; and type 3, flower-bearing without bract. We describe a mutant of Arabidopsis, Leafy, homozygous for a recessive allele of a nuclear gene LEAFY (LFY), that has an inflorescence composed only of type 2-like metamers. These data suggest that the LFY gene is required for the development of type 3 metamers and that the transition from type 2 to type 3 metamers is a developmental step distinct from that between vegetative and reproductive growth (type 1 to type 2 metamers). Results from double mutant analysis, showing that lfy-1 is epistatic to the floral organ homeotic gene ap2-6, are consistent with the hypothesis that a functional LFY gene is necessary for the expression of downstream genes controlling floral organ identity.


Concurrent programming errors arise when threads share data incorrectly. Programmers often avoid these errors by using synchronization to enforce a simple ownership policy: data is either owned exclusively  by a thread that can read or write the data, or it is read owned  by a set of threads that can read but not write the data. Unfortunately, incorrect synchronization often fails to enforce these policies and memory errors in languages like C and C++ can violate these policies even when synchronization is correct.
 In this paper, we present a dynamic analysis for checking ownership policies in concurrent C and C++ programs despite memory errors. The analysis can be used to find errors in commodity multi-threaded programs and to prevent attacks that exploit these errors. We require programmers to write ownership assertions that describe the sharing policies used by different parts of the program. These policies may change over time, as may the policies' means of enforcement, whether it be locks, barriers, thread joins, etc. Our compiler inserts checks in the program that signal an error if these policies are violated at runtime. We evaluated our tool on several benchmark programs. The run-time overhead was reasonable: between 0 and 49% with an average of 26%. We also found the tool easy to use: the total number of ownership assertions is small, and the asserted specification and implementation can be debugged together by running the instrumented program and addressing the errors that arise. Our approach enjoys a pleasing modular soundness property: if a thread executes a sequence of statements on variables it owns, the statements are serializable within a valid execution, and thus their effects can be reasoned about in isolation from other threads in the program.


Returning to the pattern of previous years, this review provides a broad overview of recent unpublished doctoral theses from both Britain and the United States – mostly completed in 1997. Employing a broad interpretation of 'urban history' which includes both the history of, and history in, urban areas, it consists of brief summaries based on abstracts published in the Aslib Index to Theses [ASLIB] and Dissertations Abstracts International[DAI]. The thirty-nine dissertations explore subjects ranging chronologically from the third millennium BC to the 1990s, with the majority covering the late nineteenth through to the mid-twentieth centuries, with another smaller concentration focusing on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spatially most cover British (15) and North American (10) subjects, though there are studies of elements of urban history in France, Germany, China, Venezuela and Cape Colony, as well as studies comparing British cities with similar places in France and Holland, Ireland and the United States. Though many different types of urban settlement are represented in the theses under review – including some of the earliest in Syro-Palestine – the British selection is dominated by work on London (7) along with a smaller number covering Belfast and Liverpool, whilst American studies include four exploring aspects of late nineteenth- and early-twentieth century Chicago and two on Caracas, Venezuela, in the same period. In terms of subject, 'space' – the theme of the recent Urban History Group conference in Oxford – features prominently, as does cultural politics ranging from a redefinition of the meaning of 'misrule' in the medieval period to two studies of the importance of culture in the American Civil Rights Movement and the eighteenth-century British and Irish port town. These newer organizing concepts and locations feature alongside the more usual subjects such as the law, policing, leisure, gender and ethnicity and a revival of interest in London, especially in the early modern period.


We carried out experiments to study the effect of wettability heterogeneities on: (1) displacement mechanisms, (2) sweep efficiency and (3) trapped oil quantities and fluid distribution in three-phase gas injection and developed a theoretical simulator. Secondary gas injection experiments was conducted in transparent glass micromodels of heterogeneous wettability. Oil-wet patches in a water-wet matrix were obtained by selective silane grafting on the glass surface. Different heterogeneity patterns were considered for the same oil-wet over water-wet surface ratio. Displacement sequences were video-recorded and fluid saturations determined by image analysis. A theoretical model of three-phase flow in a porous structure was developed. In this model the porous medium is simulated as a network of interconnected pores. The model permits an imposition of heterogeneous wettability by assigning different water-oil contact angles according to the desired wettability pattern. The calculation of flow within the network takes into account the flow of oil through wetting and spreading films and the displacement mechanisms observed in the transparent micromodels. Comparison between experimental results and simulations shows that the size and distribution of wettability heterogeneities strongly affects microscopic and macroscopic behaviour during gas injection.


BACKGROUND
Acetaldehyde (ACD), ethanol's first metabolite, has been reported to interact with the dopaminergic reward system, and with the neural circuits involved in stress response. Rats self-administer ACD directly into cerebral ventricles, and multiple intracerebroventricular infusions of ACD produce conditioned place preference. Self-administration has been largely employed to assess the reinforcing and addictive properties of most drugs of abuse. In particular, operant conditioning is a valid model to investigate drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior in rats.

METHODS
This study was aimed at the evaluation of (i) the motivational properties of oral ACD in the induction and maintenance of an operant-drinking behavior; (ii) ACD effect in a conflict situation employing the punishment-based Geller-Seifter procedure; and (iii) the onset of a relapse drinking behavior, following ACD deprivation. The lever-pressing procedure in a sound-attenuated operant-conditioning chamber was scheduled into 3 different periods: (i) training-rewarded responses with a fixed ratio 1; (ii) conflict-rewarded responses periodically associated with a 0.2 mA foot-shock; and (iii) relapse-rewarded lever presses following 1-week ACD abstinence.

RESULTS
Our results show that oral self-administrated ACD induced: a higher rate of punished responses in Geller-Seifter procedures; and the establishment of a relapse behavior following ACD deprivation.

CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, our results indicate that ACD is able to induce an operant-drinking behavior, which is also maintained besides the conflict procedure and enhanced by the deprivation effect, supporting the hypothesis that ACD itself possesses motivational properties, such as alcohol and other substances of abuse.


Mini-thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Leadership and Change Management in the Harold Pupkewitz School of Business, Polytechnic of Namibia.


Perceived risk to a health problem is formed by inferential rules called heuristics and by comparative judgments that assess how one's risk compares to the risk of others. The purpose of this cross-sectional, community-based survey was to examine how experiences with breast cancer, knowledge of risk factors, and specific heuristics inform risk judgments for oneself, for friends/peers, and comparative judgments for breast cancer (risk friends/peers − risk self). We recruited an English-speaking, multicultural (57% nonwhite) sample of 184 middle-aged (47 ± 12 years old), well-educated women. Fifty percent of participants perceived that their breast cancer risk was the same as the risk of their friends/peers; 10% were pessimistic (risk friends/peers − risk self < 0), whereas 40% were optimistic (risk friends/peers − risk self > 0). Family history of breast cancer and worry informed risk judgments for oneself. The availability and cultural heuristics specific for black women informed risk judgments for friends/peers. Knowledge of risk factors and interactions of knowledge with the availability, representativeness, and simulation heuristics informed comparative judgments (risk friends/peers − risk self). We discuss cognitive mechanisms with which experiences, knowledge, and heuristics influence comparative breast cancer risk judgments. Risk communication interventions should assess knowledge deficits, contextual variables, and specific heuristics that activate differential information processing mechanisms.


Although asbestiform amphiboles only contributed less than 6% of industrial asbestos worldwide, they have proved more toxic as mineral pathogens than the more commonly mined asbestiform serpentine (chrysotile or white asbestos). Most amphibole asbestos was mined as crocidolite (blue) and amosite (brown) from Precambrian banded ironstones in South Africa and, to a lesser extent, Western Australia. Blue and brown asbestos not only can induce asbestosis at lower concentrations than white asbestos, but they are highly carcinogenic. Early awareness of asbestos-related diseases in producer countries did not translate into preventative action before hundreds of thousands of individuals had been exposed to high fibre levels. The situation was most acute in South Africa where the occupational health status of black Africans in particular was badly neglected. In at least one mine, children were used to trample shipping bags filled with amosite, and in doing so received what is thought to have been the highest ever inhalation dose of amphibole asbestos. South Africa now has the highest rate of asbestos-induced mesothelioma in the world, with this invariably fatal cancer responsible for over 9% of deaths in a study conducted in a former Cape crocidolite mining town.


Risk of impact of marine fishes to fishing and climate change (including ocean acidification) depend on the species' ecological and biological characteristics, as well as their exposure to over‐exploitation and climate hazards. These human‐induced hazards should be considered concurrently in conservation risk assessment. In this study, we aim to examine the combined contributions of climate change and fishing to the risk of impacts of exploited fishes, and the scope for climate‐risk reduction from fisheries management. We combine fuzzy logic expert system with species distribution modeling to assess the extinction risks of climate and fishing impacts of 825 exploited marine fish species across the global ocean. We compare our calculated risk index with extinction risk of marine species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Our results show that 60% (499 species) of the assessed species are projected to experience very high risk from both overfishing and climate change under a "business‐as‐usual" scenario (RCP 8.5 with current status of fisheries) by 2050. The risk index is significantly and positively related to level of IUCN extinction risk (ordinal logistic regression, p < 0.0001). Furthermore, the regression model predicts species with very high risk index would have at least one in five (>20%) chance of having high extinction risk in the next few decades (equivalent to the IUCN categories of vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered). Areas with more at‐risk species to climate change are in tropical and subtropical oceans, while those that are at risk to fishing are distributed more broadly, with higher concentration of at‐risk species in North Atlantic and South Pacific Ocean. The number of species with high extinction risk would decrease by 63% under the sustainable fisheries‐low emission scenario relative to the "business‐as‐usual" scenario. This study highlights the substantial opportunities for climate‐risk reduction through effective fisheries management.


From the Introduction: "Stoic philosophy, of which Epictetus (c. a.d. 50--130) is a representative, began as a recognizable movement around 300 b.c. Its founder was Zeno of Cytium (not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, who discovered the famous paradoxes). He was born in Cyprus about 336 b.c., but all of his philosophical activity took place in Athens. For more than 500 years Stoicism was one of the most influential and fruitful philosophical movements in the Graeco-Roman world. The works of the earlier Stoics survive only in fragmentary quotations from other authors, but from the Renaissance until well into the nineteenth century, Stoic ethical thought was one of the most important ancient influences on European ethics, particularly because of the descriptions of it by Cicero, through surviving works by the Stoics Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and also Epictetus--and also because of the effect that it had had in antiquity, and continued to have into the nineteenth century, on Christian ethical views. Nowadays an undergraduate or graduate student learning about ancient philosophy in a university course may well hear only about Plato and Aristotle, along perhaps with the presocratics; but in the history of Western thought and education this situation is somewhat atypical, and in most periods a comparable student would have learned as much or more about Stoicism, as well as two other major ancient philosophical movements, Epicureanism and Scepticism. In spite of this lack of explicit acquaintance with Stoic philosophers and their works, however, most students will recognize in Epictetus various ideas that are familiar through their effects on other thinkers, notably Spinoza, in our intellectual tradition."


On May 9, 2010 euro zone countries announced the creation of the European Financial Stability Facility as a response to the sovereign debt crisis. This paper investigates the impact of this announcement on bank share prices, bank CDS spreads and sovereign CDS spreads. The main private beneficiaries were bank creditors, especially of banks heavily exposed to southern Europe and Ireland and located in countries characterized by weak public finances. Furthermore, countries with weak public finances and banking systems heavily exposed to southern Europe and Ireland benefited, as evidenced by lower sovereign CDS spreads. The combined gains of bank debt holders and shareholders exceed the increase in the value of their sovereign debt exposures, suggesting that banks saw their contingent claim on the financial safety net increase in value. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)


We surveyed the occurrence of toxigenic cyanobacteria, the mcyA component of the microcystin synthetase gene and microcystin in aquatic systems in temperate Australia and tropical Thailand. The survey methods, microscopy, protein phosphatase inhibition assay, enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR), were evaluated for screening raw water for public health risk from microcystin producing toxigenic cyanobacteria. Three tests, ELISA, PCR and protein phosphatase inhibition (PPi), were judged very useful because of their sensitivity and speed of analysis. ELISA ranked slightly higher because of its superior specificity for microcystin. The PCR was highly sensitive, but there were three false negative results, whilst the PPi was cheap but less specific than ELISA. Some of the microcystin quantifications results were validated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The combination of a gene probe for the mcy gene complex with an ELISA or PPi assay for microcystin is proposed as a powerful screening technique for raw waters that can provide multi-level risk assessment including 'incipient risk', when microcystin producing cyanobacterial strains are rare and microcystin concentrations are below the detection limit for biochemical or chromatographic analyses.


This study investigated the effect of two problem-solving techniques: (a) free-association with a direct reference to the problem, called shortly direct, and (b) free-association with a remote and postponed reference to the problem, called remote, on fluency and originality of ideas in solving ill-structured problems. The research design controlled for possible effects of cognitive style for problem-solving—adaptor versus innovator. The results showed that both groups significantly outscored a control group on fluency and originality. The remote group outperformed the direct and control groups on originality, but not on fluency. Innovators scored significantly better than adaptors in the control group on fluency, but not on originality. No significant difference was found between innovators and adaptors in both direct and remote groups. There was no statistical indication for an interaction effect between treatment and cognitive style. Based upon the results of this study, four implications for learning and instruction have been formulated for designing and developing technological arrangements for learning to solve ill-structured problems. These guidelines will support designers in developing instructional design solutions in educational technology applications. (


: The primary objective of initial shape analysis of a cable stayed bridge is to calculate initial installation cable tension forces and to evaluate fabrication camber of main span and pylon providing the final longitudinal profile of the bridge at the end of construction. In addition, the initial cable forces depending on the alternation of the bridge's shape can be obtained from the analysis, and will be used to provide construction safety during construction. In this research, we conducted numerical experiments for initial shape of Ko-ha bridge, which will be constructed in the near future, using three different typical methods such as continuous beam method, linear truss method, and IIMF (Introducing Initial Member Force) method [1].


No matter your field, industry, or specialty, as a leader you make a series of crucial decisions every single day. And the harsh truth is that the majority of decisions-no matter how good the intentions behind them-are mismanaged, resulting in a huge toll on organizations, the people they employ, and even the people they serve. So why is it so hard to make sound decisions? In Think Twice, now in paperback, Michael Mauboussin argues that we often fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In this engaging book, Mauboussin shows us how to recognize and avoid common mental missteps. These include misunderstanding cause-and-effect linkages, not considering enough alternative possibilities in making a decision, and relying too much on experts. Through vivid stories, the author presents memorable rules for avoiding each error and explains how to recognize when you should "think twice"-questioning your reasoning and adopting decision-making strategies that are far more effective, even if they seem counterintuitive. Armed with this awareness, you'll soon begin making sounder judgment calls that benefit (rather than hurt) your organization.


This dataset was created to support the 2016 Social Pulse in Latin America and the Caribbean: Realities & Perspectives. The publication highlights specific indicators where progress has been made such us "race and ethnicity," and areas where large gaps remain. Also, the new dynamic between generations: "poverty and family structure," examines demographic shifts in the region, including the evolution of family living arrangements and trends in the age profile of poverty.


Since scientific articles have the function of recording the knowledge and the journals of disseminating this knowledge, editors play a crucial role as intermediaries to the advance of science. Among its functions is to promote visibility through indexing their journals in bibliographic databases. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the journals regarding the indexing and to give guidance to the community of referees about the attributes that can promote greater relevance and quality to the selected papers. This paper reflects on how the most cited and uncited articles, or the citation analysis can benefit the manuscripts selection by the editors and can benefit the design of the article by the authors.


To understand the impact of new pricing structure on residential electricity demands, we need a baseline model that captures every factor other than the new price. The standard baseline is a randomized control group, however, a good control group is hard to design. This motivates us to devlop data-driven approaches. We explored many techniques and designed a strategy, named LTAP, that could predict the hourly usage years ahead. The key challenge in this process is that the daily cycle of electricity demand peaks a few hours after the temperature reaching its peak. Existing methods rely on the lagged variables of recent past usages to enforce this daily cycle. These methods have trouble making predictions years ahead. LTAP avoids this trouble by assuming the daily usage profile is determined by temperature and other factors. In a comparison against a well-designed control group, LTAP is found to produce accurate predictions.


What becomes of elder care when family members are scattered across vast geographic distances? Based on ethnographic fieldwork with families of nurses from Kerala, South India, this thesis explores how care may be reshaped in a transnational context. Specifically, I ask how everyday information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as mobile phones and webcams, participate in elder care at a distance. Drawing on the theoretical approach of material semiotics, I analyze care practices of adult children who migrate abroad for work and their elderly parents who remain in Kerala. I maintain that ICTs join the parents and their children in enacting care within 'transnational care collectives'. I explore the dynamics of these collectives and how they shape care practices of 'good care' that are possible at a distance, such as frequent calling. Additionally, the thesis investigates how gender and kinship are enacted in new ways within ICT-mediated elder care practices. The thesis further reflects on the practice of fieldwork, proposing the notion of 'field events' to account for the active involvement of ICTs in shaping the field. In conclusion, I consider some practical implications of this thesis for the 'crisis of elder care' which are at the nexus of intensified international migration and the demographic shift towards aging populations.


Sporting celebrities are not regularly discussed within the broader realms of sociological debate. Yet that is not to say that their identities cannot offer insight into wider patterns of cultural change. Indeed, it is our contention within this paper that the reverse is true: that analyses of the autobiographical details of contemporary sports figures represent key sites through which cultural change can be viewed. To this end, we take one sporting icon of the present time, soccer star David Beckham, and assess his popular cultural image in terms of its contribution to debates surrounding identity, consumption, and the social construction of masculinities. Our central thesis is that while Beckham affords all the hallmarks of celebrity status, his identity remains both fluid and negotiable in accordance with the role and audience he seeks to address and the ends he seeks to achieve.


The nucleus accumbens is critical for reward-guided learning and decision-making. It is thought to "gate" the flow of a diverse range of information (e.g., rewarding, aversive, and novel events) from limbic afferents to basal ganglia outputs. Gating and information encoding may be achieved via cross-frequency coupling, in which bursts of high-frequency activity occur preferentially during specific phases of slower oscillations. We examined whether the human nucleus accumbens engages such a mechanism by recording electrophysiological activity directly from the accumbens of human patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery. Oscillatory activity in the gamma (40–80 Hz) frequency range was synchronized with the phase of simultaneous alpha (8–12 Hz) waves. Further, losing and winning small amounts of money elicited relatively increased gamma oscillation power prior to and following alpha troughs, respectively. Gamma–alpha synchronization may reflect an electrophysiological gating mechanism in the human nucleus accumbens, and the phase differences in gamma–alpha coupling may reflect a reward information coding scheme similar to phase coding.


Although the relationship between hyperbilirubinemia and genetic factors has long been questioned, the role of genetic factors in the development of severe hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus has been investigated in detail in the last decade with the rapid progression in molecular medicine. Although the first historical data gathered about genetical tendency to neonatal hyperbilirubinemia dates back to description of the Crigler-Najjar syndrome in 1952, a substantial interest is currently focused on coding and promoter region mutations of uridine diphosphoglucuronate glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 gene. In this article, the role of uridine diphosphoglucuronate glucuronosyltransferase gene mutations in neonatal significant hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus is reviewed together with the clinical presentations of the most common syndromes of bilirubin conjugation, such as Gilbert and Crigler-Najjar syndromes. Genetic counseling and investigation may be useful and necessary in newborns presenting with severe, unexplained familial hyperbilirubinemia. In these various syndromes where enzymatic and genetic deficiencies are present, studies about treatment with gene replacement, though currently experimental, are ongoing, especially in type 1 Crigler-Najjar.


Recent advances in machine learning (ML) and Big Data techniques have facilitated the development of more sophisticated, automated consumer credit scoring models — a trend referred to as 'algorithmic credit scoring' in recognition of the increasing reliance on computer (particularly ML) algorithms for credit scoring. This chapter, which forms part of the 2018 collection of short essays 'Autonomous Systems and the Law', examines the rise of algorithmic credit scoring, and considers its implications for the regulation of consumer creditworthiness assessment and consumer credit markets more broadly.

The chapter argues that algorithmic credit scoring, and the Big Data and ML technologies underlying it, offer both benefits and risks for consumer credit markets. On the one hand, it could increase allocative efficiency and distributional fairness in these markets, by widening access to, and lowering the cost of, credit, particularly for 'thin-file' and 'no-file' consumers. On the other hand, algorithmic credit scoring could undermine distributional fairness and efficiency, by perpetuating discrimination in lending against certain groups and by enabling the more effective exploitation of borrowers.

The chapter considers how consumer financial regulation should respond to these risks, focusing on the UK/EU regulatory framework. As a general matter, it argues that the broadly principles and conduct-based approach of UK consumer credit regulation provides the flexibility necessary for regulators and market participants to respond dynamically to these risks. However, this approach could be enhanced through the introduction of more robust product oversight and governance requirements for firms in relation to their use of ML systems and processes. Supervisory authorities could also themselves make greater use of ML and Big Data techniques in order to strengthen the supervision of consumer credit firms.

Finally, the chapter notes that cross-sectoral data protection regulation, recently updated in the EU under the GDPR, offers an important avenue to mitigate risks to consumers arising from the use of their personal data. However, further guidance is needed on the application and scope of this regime in the consumer financial context.


We present a comprehensive treatment of optically preamplified direct detection receivers for non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) on/off keying modulation, taking into account the influence of different (N)RZ optical pulse shapes, specified at the receiver input, and filter transfer functions; optical Fabry–Pérot filters (FPFs) and Bragg gratings as well as electrical fifth-order Bessel and first-order low-pass filters are considered. We determine optimum optical and electrical filter bandwidths and analyze the impact of bandwidth deviations on receiver sensitivity. Optimum receiver performance relies on a balance between noise and intersymbol interference (ISI) for NRZ transmission, while for RZ reception detection noise has to be traded against filter-induced signal energy rejection. Both for NRZ and 33% duty cycle RZ, optical filter bandwidths of around twice the data rate are found to be optimum. Receivers using RZ coding are shown to closely approach the quantum limit, and thus to outperform NRZ-based systems by several decibels. We further analyze the impact of important degrading effects on receiver sensitivity and optimum receiver bandwidths, including receiver noise, finite extinction ratio, chirp, and optical carrier frequency (or optical filter center frequency) fluctuations.


Abstract Using a comprehensive set of firms from 57 countries over the 2000–2016 period, we examine the relation between institutional investor horizons and firm-level credit ratings. Controlling for firm- and country-specific factors, as well as for firm fixed effects, we find that larger long-term (short-term) institutional ownership is associated with higher (lower) credit ratings. This finding is robust to sample composition, alternative estimation methods, and endogeneity concerns. Long-term institutional ownership affects ratings more during times of higher expropriation risk, for firms with weaker internal corporate governance, and for those in countries with lower-quality institutional environments. Additional analysis shows that long-term investors facilitate access to debt markets for firms facing severe agency problems. These findings suggest that, unlike their short-term counterparts, long-term investors improve a firm's credit risk profile through effective monitoring.


Background and Purpose: Current research has revealed that as much as 52.4% of individuals with lower limb loss report falling at least once in the past year. Previous research has also indicated that rehabilitation, including physical therapy (PT), generally improves patient outcomes after definitive amputation. Socioeconomic status has been shown to be an important factor in accessing healthcare but has yet to be investigated in this population. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of socioeconomic status and access to PT, and how limb loss affects mobility and fear of falling perception. We hypothesized: [1] individuals with socioeconomic difficulty would have reduced access to PT after amputation, and [2] individuals with limb loss will have increased fear of falling and decreased mobility performance when compared to non-amputee, age-matched controls.
Subjects: 23 participants (7 females,16 males) mean age 51.30 years old (+ 13.17 SD, range 22-70) with lower limb loss ambulating with a definitive prosthesis.
Materials/Methods: Participants completed a survey that included the Fear of Falling Avoidance Behavior Questionnaire (FFABQ), questions to determine their socioeconomic status, and whether they received PT after amputation. Mobility outcomes were measured using the standardized Timed Up and Go test (TUG) and the Six Minute Walk Test (6MWT).
Results: There was no statistically significant difference in access to PT after amputation between those with and without financial difficulty (p=.354). However, 75% of participants who had no socioeconomic difficulty reported receiving PT, in comparison to only 25% in those who had socioeconomic difficulty. Additionally, 34.8% of our participants reported socioeconomic difficulties. When comparing the participants with amputation to the non-amputee, age-matched controls, there was a significant difference in the TUG (p<.001), 6MWT (p<.001), and FFABQ (p=.008). On average, participants with limb loss were 4.4 seconds slower on the TUG, walked 136.4m less on the 6MWT, and had an increased FFABQ score of 6.6 points out of 56 points.
Discussion: Access to physical therapy and socioeconomic status have been overlooked in current literature for individuals after amputation. While the effect of socioeconomic status on PT access did not reach statistical significance in this preliminary study, only 25% of those who reported socioeconomic difficulty received physical therapy after amputation, compared to 75% in those who reported no difficulty. Further research is needed to determine whether low socioeconomic status is predictive of receiving rehabilitation services post-amputation and long-term outcomes. Our findings also showed that when compared to age-matched non-amputees, amputees tend to have impaired mobility and higher degree of fear of falling. These findings agree with current literature.
Conclusion: Although not statistically significant, our preliminary findings showed that socioeconomic difficulty may affect access to physical therapy after…


With increasing demand for science and math teachers in middle and high schools, educating students who can fill these positions is critical. In many states, the available Colleges of Education are not currently meeting the demand, leaving a role for other institutions with a strong emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to assist with the production of these teachers. Additionally, with a tight job market for STEM faculty positions, there is a need for research universities to facilitate the preparation of their doctoral students for teaching in higher education (especially for those careers in more teaching-oriented colleges and universities). This paper describes a research study that employs both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods to examine the attitudes of faculty and administrators towards students who pursue teaching-oriented careers. One-on-one interviews conducted with deans of the Colleges of Computing, Engineering, and Sciences, and focus groups with associate deans, school chairs, graduate coordinators, and undergraduate coordinators from those three colleges provided an opportunity to discuss the role of a technological institute in preparing both undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields for teaching oriented careers. The interviews and focus groups also provided an opportunity for an in-depth discussion of traditional career paths and the perceived institutional barriers and institutional support for students' interest in teaching careers. Additionally, surveys were used to elicit beliefs of 1) academic advisors of undergraduate students and 2) faculty in the three Colleges who supervise doctoral students concerning the prestige of teaching careers, the characteristics of students pursuing teaching careers, and their perceived level of preparation for advising students about teaching careers. The results indicate that interest in teaching careers is perceived to be increasing among both graduate and undergraduate students in STEM fields, and that faculty and academic advisors do not feel well prepared for advising students about these kinds of careers. There is also agreement among all constituencies that additional institutional support is needed for both graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in teaching careers. Faculty and administrators have different student characteristics in mind when describing doctoral students who are interested in a teaching-oriented career; however, there is greater agreement between administrators and advisors concerning the characteristics of undergraduates interested in teaching STEM content in middle and high school. Among all participants, there is agreement on the institution's commitment to providing STEM content and the need for more clearly delineated pathways to teaching careers, but there is also agreement that responsibility for K-12 teaching certification should reside within Colleges of Education. Both the current demand for STEM teachers and the need for a better prepared professoriate require that more institutions begin to think about how they can facilitate student pursuit of STEM teaching careers, even those with no previous experience with teacher preparation. This paper highlights several key issues facing technological institutions as they confront their potential role in providing STEM educators for the state and region. P ge 15947.2


The effect of different acquisition distances on the performance of face verification is studied. In particular, we evaluate two standard approaches using popular features (DCT and PCA) and matchers (GMM and SVM) under variation in the acquisition distance, as well as their score-level combination. The DCT-GMM-based system is found to be more robust to acquisition distance degradation than the PCA-SVM-based system. We exploit this fact by introducing an adaptive score fusion scheme based on a novel automatic scenario estimation which is shown to improve our system in uncontrolled environments.


This study investigates how commercial paper rates respond to the innovations in stock market risk premiums. The unrestricted vector autoregression (VAR) analysis of monthly data from 1997:1 to 2012:M6 shows that the changes in the one-, two-, and three-month non-financial and financial commercial paper rates positively respond to the innovations in the excess returns on the CRSP value weighted index. The response is especially strong during the first few months following shocks to stock market risk premiums. The Granger-causality test results show the changes in commercial paper rates can be predicted by the excess returns on the CRSP value weighted index. The findings from this study provide evidence that there is a link between equity market and commercial paper market.


The histone methyltransferase SETD2 and its associated histone mark H3 lysine 36 trimethylation (H3K36me3) are frequently lost in certain cancer types, identifying SETD2 as an important therapeutic target. Here we show that SETD2-deficient cancer cells are profoundly sensitive to the compound RITA, resulting in significant p53 induction and apoptosis. This is further associated with defects in DNA replication, leading to delays in S-phase progression, increased recruitment of replication stress markers, and reduced replication fork progression. RITA sensitivity is linked to the phenol sulphotransferase SULT1A1, which we find to be highly upregulated in cells that lack SETD2. Depletion of SULT1A1 or addition of the phenol sulphotransferase inhibitor DCNP abolishes these phenotypes and suppresses the sensitivity of SETD2-deficient cancer cells, identifying SULT1A1 activity to be critical in mediating the potent cytotoxicity of RITA against SETD2-deficient cells. These findings define a novel therapeutic strategy for targeting the loss of SETD2 in cancer. Significance Statement The histone-modifying enzyme SETD2 has emerged as an important tumour suppressor in a number of different cancer types, identifying it as a promising therapeutic target. The concept of synthetic lethality, a genetic interaction in which the simultaneous loss of two genes or pathways that regulate a common essential process renders the cell nonviable, is a valuable tool for killing cancer cells that have known mutations. In this study, we conducted a synthetic lethality screen for compounds that specifically target SETD2-deficient cancer cells. The top hit, a compound called RITA, reduces cell viability and induces cell death only in the context of SETD2 loss, thereby highlighting a potential novel therapeutic strategy for treating SETD2-deficient cancers.


The Impostor Phenomenon was identified from clinical observations
during therapeutic sessions with high achieving women by Dr Pauline Clance.
Despite objective evidence of success, these women had a pervasive
psychological experience, believing that they were intellectual frauds and feared
being recognised as impostors. They suffered from anxiety, fear of failure and
dissatisfaction with life. Previous research has suggested that family achievement
values and perfectionism may lead to the related trait, Impostorism.
This thesis examined the contributions of mixed messages about
achievement from family and perfectionism as hypothesised antecedents of
Impostorism and coping styles and psychological distress (measured by anxiety,
somatisation, and depression) as hypothesised consequences. Complete data was
obtained from 354 students from the University of Tasmania. Participants
completed the Mixed Messages about Achievement from Family Scale (MMAS),
the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Clance Impostor Phenomenon
Scale (CIPS), the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, and the Anxiety,
Somatisation, and Depression subscales of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised.
Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to refine the MMAS and the CIPS.
Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the hypothesised
antecedents and consequences models of Impostorism. The analyses for
antecedents of Impostorism found that MMAS and Socially Prescribed
Perfectionism were moderately correlated with Imposto!ism, while Self-Oriented
Perfectionism was less related. Other-Oriented Perfectionism had little relationship with Impostorism, suggesting Impostorism relates to specific types of
perfectionism rather than general perfectionism. The final Antecedents model of
Impostorism, including Mixed Messages from Family, Socially Prescribed
Perfectionism, and Self-Oriented Perfectionism, was a good fit and accounted for
46% of the variance in Impostorism.
The analysis of consequences oflmpostorism found that Emotion-
Focussed Coping was most strongly correlated with Impostorism, with the other
coping styles negligibly related. Anxiety, Somatisation, and Depression were also
correlated with Impostorism and treated as indices of Psychological Distress. The
final Consequences model oflmpostorism~ including Emotion-Focussed Coping
largely mediating the prediction of Psychological Distress, was a reasonable fit
and could account for 40% of the variance in Psychological Distress.
The Antecedents and Consequences model of Impostorism were combined
and generated two alternative models. In Model 1 Impostorism entirely mediated
the relationship between hypothesied antecedents and consequences. In Model 2
Emotion-Focussed Coping fully mediated the relationship between Impostorism
and Psychological Distress if a path from Socially Prescribed Perfectionism to
Emotion-Focussed Coping was allowed.
Overall, the findings suggested that Impostorism is a valuable construct,
possibly mediating the relationship between self-imposed and socially attributed
perfectionism and psychological distress, as well as suggesting that emotion focussed
coping may be a critical consequence of Impostorism leading to
Psychological Distress.


Act, Sing, Play (ASP) offered music and drama tuition to Year 2 pupils. The aim of the programme was to evaluate whether music workshops had a bigger impact than drama workshops in terms of pupils' maths and literacy attainment. The evaluation was based on the hypothesis that participation in high-quality music instruction promotes educational attainment over and above instruction in other artistic pursuits. The ASP programme was developed specifically for this trial and ran from September 2013 to June 2014: 909 pupils participated in 19 schools across London, Essex, Sussex and Coventry. In each participating Year 2 class, pupils were randomly allocated to one of three groups: violin or cello workshops (ASPstrings), singing lessons (ASP-singing), or drama workshops (ASP-drama). The two music groups (strings and singing) represented the treatment arms of the trial. Students in the ASP-drama workshops represented the control. Each workshop had around 10 students. Workshops were held once a week over 32 weeks. This evaluation provides no evidence that ASP-music workshops had a greater impact on maths or literacy attainment than ASP-drama workshops. Analysis of students receiving free school meals similarly found no evidence that ASP-music workshops had a greater impact on maths or literacy than ASP-drama workshops.


Given the pending biodiversity crisis, species delimitation is a critically important task in conservation biology, but its efficacy based on single lines of evidence has been questioned as it may not accurately reflect species limits and relationships. Hence, the use of multiple lines of evidence has been portrayed as a means to overcome identification issues arising from gene/ species tree discordance, morphological convergence or recent adaptive radiations. Here, the integrative taxonomic approach has been used to address the study of the Monocelis lineata species complex. The taxonomic resolution of the complex is challenging, as the species lacks sclerotised copulatory structures, which as a rule of thumb aid identification in Proseriata. Eighteen populations, which encompass most of the geographic range of the complex, were studied using morphology, karyology, crossbreeding experiments and molecular analysis. These different markers provided evidence of four (karyology) to eight (morphology) discrete entities, whereas crossings showedvarious degrees of intersterility among the tested populations. Molecular species delimitation revealed a different number of candidate species, spanning from five (ABGD and K/θ) to 11 (GMYC). Such incongruences reflect the multifaceted evolutionary history of M. lineata s.l. and hamper the full taxonomic resolution of the complex. However, two candidate species were consistently validated by all of the markers and are described as new species: Monocelis algicola nov. sp. and M. exquisita nov. sp. The latter species appear to have a restricted distribution, and the possibility that meiofaunal taxa may be of conservation concern is discussed.


This study attempts to document the state and nature of inequality and poverty in Greece using the
primary consumption expenditure data of two Household Expenditure Surveys conducted in 1974 and 1982.
Chapter 1 provides an outline of recent developments in the Greek economy, a survey of the literature
on inequality and poverty in Greece and a comparison of the above data with data from other sources.
In Chapter 2 it is argued that the distribution of consumption expenditure per equivalent adult is a
fairly good approximation to the (unobservable) distribution of economic welfare, and three models of
equivalence scales for the cost of children are estimated. Based on these results, the distributions of
consumption expenditure per equivalent adult are constructed for both survey years.
Chapter 3 provides the results of measurement and decomposition of inequality. One-way
decomposition is carried out when the population is grouped according to ten factors, of which five are used to
subdivide the population into small homogeneous socioeconomic groups for the purposes of the multivariate
decomposition of inequality. The main finding of the one-way decompositions is that disparities "between groups"
play a far less important role in determining aggregate inequality than disparities "within-groups".
Even in the multivariate decomposition, variations "between-groups" account for only one third of aggregate
inequality in 1974 and for even less in 1982.
The results of measuremenat nd decompositiono f poverty, reportedi n Chapter4 , suggest that poverty
is closely associated with certain occupational characteristics of the household head. These characteristics are
employment in the agricultural sector or no employment. Households headed by farmers and retired persons
account for around two thirds of aggregate poverty in both survey years.
Intertemporal changesi n inequality and poverty are examined in Chapter5 . It is demonstrated that
inequality and relative poverty declined substantially between 1974 and 1982, while the decline in absolute
poverty was spectacular. The impact on inequality of changes in the structure of the population was
negligible, but the improvement in the educational level of HH heads had a strong negative effect on poverty.
Further, the results of some cross-country inequality and welfare comparisons presented in this chapter show
that inequality is higher, and welfare lower, in Greece than in most of the other EEC countries.
Finally, Chapter 6 summarizes the principal findings and discusses briefly their policy implications


With high-bandwidth and on-demand applications continuing to emerge, next-generation core optical networks will likely require significant improvements in reconfigurability and ultra-fast operations. Optical signal processing overcomes the electronic bandwidth limitations with the advantages in terms of transparency and scalability. We review recent progresses in all-optical signal processing potentially for ultrahigh speed systems and networks. Starting from a brief overview of optical signal processing in high-speed optical systems and networks, we highlight a few key network functionalities, including optical logic operations, reconfigurable add/drop multiplexing, optical regeneration, wavelength conversion, format conversion, and phase-sensitive amplification. Different techniques are investigated and discussed, employing a wide range of devices and various nonlinearities. Some of experimental results are presented in both single polarization systems and polarization-division multiplexing systems.


Modelling the dynamics of transcriptional processes in the cell requires the knowledge of a number of key biological quantities. While some of them are relatively easy to measure, such as mRNA decay rates and mRNA abundance levels, it is still very hard to measure the active concentration levels of the transcription factor proteins that drive the process and the sensitivity of target genes to these concentrations. In this paper we show how these quantities for a given transcription factor can be inferred from gene expression levels of a set of known target genes. We treat the protein concentration as a latent function with a Gaussian process prior, and include the sensitivities, mRNA decay rates and baseline expression levels as hyperparameters. We apply this procedure to a human leukemia dataset, focusing on the tumour repressor p53 and obtaining results in good accordance with recent biological studies.


Maximilian Volmer firstname.lastname@example.com Not least because they fear that the trend towards electromobility may cause losses in value added and job cuts in Germany, policymakers are debating subsidies for national battery cell production. From a regulatory perspective, supporting local manufacturing would be dubious and comes with high economic risks. On princi-ple, German automakers ought to be better judges than policymakers, both with regard to the indispensability of battery cell manufacturing in Germany and its long-term profitability. The state is not needed, at least not as a source of subsidies.


This paper argues and provides examples that municipal assets, debts, and liabilities are fundamental elements of any city management program and strategy. Consistent and comprehensive analysis is a very important task that city leaders should fulfill. Well managed cities show visible positive results, such as balanced and sustainable development, stable and affordable services, and well controlled finances and debts. Cities can extract substantial revenues from their physical assets, by strategic management of sale, lease, and acquisition of land/properties and using land-value capture instruments; many of these are applicable in the developing world. But, realizing such potential revenues requires adequate administrative framework, realistic medium-term urban planning, and asset management strategy. Debtfinancing can expand urban infrastructure, facilitate development and improve inter-generation equity; but cities in developing countries face multiple challenges, including weak fiscal basis, shallow long-term financial/debt markets, low borrowing capacity, and lack of expertise and experience in issuing debt and fulfilling their debt obligations. The most critical steps for cities to be able to tap into diversified borrowing and debt markets include: good understanding of their debt capacity i.e. how much a city can borrow, concerted programs for improving debt capacity (creditworthiness), and exploring conditions and options for loans, bonds, and debt modalities. Asset and liability management is a new approach that helps address assets and liabilities in an interlinked and strategic manner and make city administration and political leaders accountable for the continued improvement of municipal wealth.


In order to predict waterfowl population changes due to variation in climate conditions, and habitat availability it is necessary to precisely understand the mechanisms driving their annual cycle. This is particularly challenging in migratory birds as they encounter a huge variety of habitats along their migratory routes, and different factors might affect their demographic parameters at different stages of their life-cycle. In this perspective spring migration stands out as a crucial period. During spring migration birds need both to complete their migration and to prepare for subsequent reproduction. An understanding of long-term factors influencing the timing of breeding in migratory birds is particularly important in order to predict how they might respond to future environmental changes. Anatidae are particularly interesting to study as they offer a wide variety of migratory strategies. We discuss some of the factors that are likely to affect individual choices and thus play a role in the evolution of migration. Based on long-term data sets, collected over 30 years, in the Archipelago Sea, SW Finland, we also offer a first insight into the changes in their spring arrival and breeding success of ducks in relation to environmental conditions.


We extend a smooth dynamical systems averaging technique to a class of hybrid systems with a limit cycle that is particularly relevant to the synthesis of stable legged gaits. After introducing a definition of hybrid averageability sufficient to recover the classical result, we illustrate its applicability by analysis of first a one-legged and then a two-legged hopping model. These abstract systems prepare the ground for the analysis of a significantly more complicated two legged model: a new template for quadrupedal running to be analyzed and implemented on a physical robot in a companion paper. We conclude with some rather more speculative remarks concerning the prospects for further extension and generalization of these ideas.


Abstract Background. Injection drug use and malnutrition are widespread among polydrug addicts in Oslo, Norway, but little is known about the frequency of abscess infections and possible relations to malnutrition. Objectives. To assess the prevalence of abscess infections, and differences in nutritional status between drug addicts with or without abscess infections. Design. A cross-sectional study of 195 polydrug addicts encompassing interview of demographics, dietary recall, anthropometric measurements and biochemical analyses. All respondents were under the influence of illicit drugs and were not participating in any drug treatment or rehabilitation program at the time of investigation. Results. Abscess infections were reported by 25% of the respondents, 19% of the men and 33% of the women (p = 0.025). Underweight (BMI < 18.5 kg/m2) was significantly more prevalent in the abscess infected than in the non-abscess-infected group (p = 0.001). The abscess-infected addicts reported fewer meals, lower intakes of fruits and vegetables, lower energy percentage (E%) from protein and higher E% from sugar. They also had lower total intakes of vitamins D, B1, B6, B12, folic acid and vitamin C than the non-abscess-infected group. The two groups differed significantly with respect to S-C-peptide (p = 0.042) and B-HbA1c (p = 0.012), and the prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia (P-tHCY > 15 μmol/L) was 73% in the abscess-infected group and 41% in the non-abscess-infected group (p = 0.001). The concentrations of S-25-hydroxy-vitamin D3 was very low. Conclusion. The prevalence of abscess infections was 25% among the examined polydrug addicts. Dietary, anthropometric and biochemical assessment indicated a relation between abscess infections and malnutrition.


The Pacific Outer Continental Shelf Region of Minerals Management Service has recently development and is implementing an Environmental Compliance Monitoring Program. Each of the 24 oil and gas facilities on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf is required to comply with a substantial number of environmental mitigation measures and conditions. The increase in the number and detail of mitigation measures has increased the level of effort required to oversee compliance with those conditions and has lead to the development of the Environmental Compliance Monitoring Program. The program systematically monitors field or unit compliance status of Lease Sale Stipulations, mitigation measures adopted through a Record of Decision, and Minerals Management Service conditions of approval required in response to a request to conduct activities. Discrete tasks and time requirements are intensified for all stipulations, mitigation measures, and conditions for each operation. Completed tasks, date received, and date approved by Minerals Management Service are identified. Information relating to compliance data categories such as affected resource, review schedules, and deliverables are also compiled. Reviews of the effectiveness of environmental requirements are periodically conducted.


This investigation originated from work by Dr. A.H. McIlraith of the National Physical Laboratory who, in 1966, described a new type of charged particle oscillator. This makes use of two equal cylindrical electrodes to constrain the particles in such a way that they follow extremely long oscillatory paths between the electrodes under the influence of an electrostatic field alone. The object of this work has been to study the principle of the oscillator in detail and to investigate its properties and applications. Any device which is capable of creating long electron trajectories has potential application in the field of ultra high vacuum technology. It was therefore considered that a critical review of the problems associated with the production and measurement of ultra high vacuum was relevant in the initial stages of the work. The oscillator has been applied with a considerable degree of success as a high energy electrostatic ion source. This offers several advantages over existing ion sources. It can be operated at much lower pressures without the need of a magnetic field. The oscillator principle has also been applied as a thermionic ionization gauge and has been compared with other ionization gauges to pressures as low as 5 x 10- 11 torr.. This new gauge exhibited a number of advantages over most of the existing gauges. Finally the oscillator has been used in an evaporation ion pump and has exhibited fairly high pumping speeds for argon gas relative to those for nitrogen. This investigation supports the original work of Dr. A.H. McIlraith and shows that his proposed oscillator has considerable potential in the fields of vacuum technology and electron physics.


The design of underground coal mines requires a clear understanding of the overburden response, the loading of pillars, the loading of the gob, the pillar failure process, and the ultimate load carried by partly or fully yielding pillars. Very few highquality stress measurements of yielding pillars and gob loading have been made in full extraction mining. Well-calibrated numerical models can assist in providing a better understanding of the load and failure processes, provided the coal, the overburden, and the gob are all modeled with suffcient realism. A program of numerical model calibration and validation was carried out using FLAC3D.1 1 Mention of any company name or product does not constitute endorsement by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The models were calibrated against observed and measured performance of coal pillars and the overburden in operating mines to provide a basic set of input parameters that can be used to provide a realistic frst estimate of expected ground response and pillar loading. Input parameters for modeling coal pillar response were based on data from triaxial testing on coal samples, combined with both matching the depth of failure in the coal ribs to observations as well as matching the peak pillar resistance to an empirical equation. The models were calibrated against strong roof and foor case histories in which the pillar strength is governed by failure and yielding of the coal within the pillar and the surrounding strata only had a limited impact on pillar strength. Input parameters for the overburden were determined from a large database of laboratory tests and model calibration against maximum subsidence and subsidence curvature. Further overburden calibration was carried out by matching stresses in the mining horizon to feld measurements. Three examples of the application of the calibrated dataset and modeling methodology to feld measurements are presented. The results show that a reasonable estimate of the in-seam stress distribution and overburden response can be obtained for both strong and weak overburden scenarios at various depths of cover.


Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of integrative health (IH) coaching on psychosocial factors, behavior change, and glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods Fifty-six patients with type 2 diabetes were randomized to either 6 months of IH coaching or usual care (control group). Coaching was conducted by telephone for fourteen 30-minute sessions. Patients were guided in creating an individualized vision of health, and goals were self-chosen to align with personal values. The coaching agenda, discussion topics, and goals were those of the patient, not the provider. Preintervention and postintervention assessments measured medication adherence, exercise frequency, patient engagement, psychosocial variables, and A1C. Results Perceived barriers to medication adherence decreased, while patient activation, perceived social support, and benefit finding all increased in the IH coaching group compared with those in the control group. Improvements in the coaching group alone were also observed for self-reported adherence, exercise frequency, stress, and perceived health status. Coaching participants with elevated baseline A1C (≥7%) significantly reduced their A1C. Conclusions A coaching intervention focused on patients' values and sense of purpose may provide added benefit to traditional diabetes education programs. Fundamentals of IH coaching may be applied by diabetes educators to improve patient self-efficacy, accountability, and clinical outcomes.


The article takes an insight into the nature of the oil based mono-cultural economy of Nigeria, providing an in-depth analysis of the situation. It clearly assesses the oil resource based economy, highlights the impacts- positive and negative on Nigeria's economic development and why Nigeria urgently needs to diversify its economy away from oil resource dependence. If Nigeria will not change the oil dependency economy, there will be grave implications for its economic growth and development as it already negatively affects annual budgetary provisions and other fiscal responsibilities. As it is well known, Nigeria is one of the foremost countries in the global oil export, with disruptions in its supply affecting the international oil market in some ways, huge reliance on oil as a resource has seen one of the foremost economies in Africa challenged in her economic growth and development with oil price volatility and decline on the global market. The research made use of secondary data to assess the situation and also drew the conclusion that Nigeria needs to diversify her economy as reliance on a basic resource discourages growth.


Of all the Victorian novelists guaranteed a place on syllabi today, George Eliot was surely the one who most consistently presented Christian preaching in a positive light. Despite her religious skepticism, she avoided clerical caricatures such as the Bethel Bible-thumper in Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop who yells, "Stay, Satan, stay!" at his departing auditor (319) or the smarmy Reverend Slope in Trollope's Barchester Towers, whose tactless sermon factionalizes a community. Less likely to invite readers to laugh at clerics than to admire their pulpit talents and sincerity, her work features a parade of well-intentioned, well-spoken preachers: saintly Mr. Tryan in Scenes of Clerical Life, "a powerful preacher, who was stirring the hearts of the people" (242); the eloquent and compassionate Methodist Dinah Morris in Adam Bede; the "wonderful preacher" Dr. Kenn in Mill on the Floss (339); the charismatic and increasingly self-deluded Savonarola in Romola; the learned and loquacious Dissenter Rufus Lyon in Felix Holt; and the affable Farebrother in Middlemarch, noted for his "ingenious and pithy" extemporaneous preaching (173; see Lovesey). Passing lightly over the many clerical shortcomings that other Victorian novelists happily exploited-hypocrisy, biblical literalism, ecclesiastical infighting, mean-spirited self-righteousness, and more-Eliot's fiction conveys the sense that Christian preaching continued to have value as a force for social cohesion and individual betterment. Until Daniel Deronda, that is. With this novel, the nostalgia dissipated and the gloves came off, and Eliot at last seems thoroughly disenchanted with a practice central to the Christianity she had renounced intellectually decades before (See Bonaparte 32). Daniel Deronda distances itself from Christian preaching most pointedly in its representation of its most prominent clergyman, Mr. Gascoigne, a virtual first cousin to Trollope's scheming, worldly-wise Barsetshire clerics and an utter failure as Gwendolen's spiritual mentor. His sententious speech to his niece on her duty to accept Grandcourt is a travesty of spiritual leadership, as he allows Grandcourt's tank and wealth to blind him to his rumored indiscretions. His conversation with Gwendolen after Grandcourt's intentions are clear is both a narrative hinge-had it gone differently, she might never bave married the man-and a mockery of nineteenth-century preaching. Like a bad sermon, Gascoigne's speech carries "a thrill of authority, as of a word of command" that serves more to display the speaker's ego than to convey wisdom. Pompous and obtuse, the Rector of Pennicote takes it "for granted that there could be no wavering in the audience" (125), while his elevation of abstract principles over human relationships encourages Gwendolen to approach marriage as a social institution entered into with minimal reference to personal feeling. After she bas sealed her fate, neither Gascoigne's official preaching nor his private moral counsel can alleviate her misery. She is "so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse" (562). All in all, Gascoigne is a damning critique of the Protestant ministry as at best irrelevant to Victorian spiritual life and at worst a source of moral corruption. (1) Yet what is most striking about Daniel Deronda is not Eliot's rejection of the Christian preacher as an ideal, a move one might bave expected long before in her fiction, but her persistent interest in the power of the human voice to provide moral and religious leadership. From early to late, Eliot's fiction takes as one of its founding principles the idea that, as Walter Ong has put it, voice "relates in a special way to the sacral, to the ultimate concerns of existence" (74). This privileging of orality informs those characters such as Dinah Morris and Savonarola who preach outright to whole communities as well as moral mentors such as Dorothea who offer only individual counsel. …


Polycrystalline 3C silicon carbide (SiC) was implanted at room temperature with 400 keV cesium ions to a dose of 1016 ions/cm2. The samples were annealed at 600°C–1000°C for times up to 48 h to observe changes in the implantation zone crystallinity and density. The implanted regions were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) before and after annealing. It is shown that the implantation resulted in a 217 ± 2 nm amorphous region with microstructural damage extending to ~250 nm below the surface. Recrystallization of the amorphous region was observed to begin at 725°C. Densification was determined indirectly through changes in the measured implantation zone thickness. Measurable thickness, or densification, of the implanted region was not observed until temperatures greater than ~800°C. The SiC recrystallization began at the interface between the amorphous, damaged region, and the underlying polycrystalline material. Image analysis was used to quantify the fraction of crystalline phase as a function of time and temperature. The recrystallization kinetics exhibited Arrhenius dependency with an apparent activation energy of 480 kJ/mol. SIMS demonstrated that 60%–70% of the cesium was retained within the recrystallized microstructure after thermal annealing.


"Structural Analysis of Polymeric Composite Materials" studies the mechanics of composite materials and structures and combines classical lamination theory with macromechanic failure principles for prediction and optimization of composite structural performance. This reference addresses topics such as high-strength fibers, commercially-available compounds, and the behavior of anisotropic, orthotropic, and transversely isotropic materials and structures subjected to complex loading. It provides a wide variety of numerical analyses and examples throughout each chapter and details the use of easily-accessible computer programs for solutions to problems presented in the text.


Purpose: Genetically engineered mouse (GEM) models of ovarian cancer that closely recapitulate their human tumor counterparts may be invaluable tools for preclinical testing of novel therapeutics. We studied murine ovarian endometrioid adenocarcinomas (OEA) arising from conditional dysregulation of canonical WNT and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway signaling to investigate their response to conventional chemotherapeutic drugs and mTOR or AKT inhibitors. Experimental Design: OEAs were induced by injection of adenovirus expressing Cre recombinase (AdCre) into the ovarian bursae of Apc;Pten mice. Tumor-bearing mice or murine OEA-derived cell lines were treated with cisplatin and paclitaxel, mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, or AKT inhibitors API-2 or perifosine. Treatment effects weremonitored in vivoby tumor volume andbioluminescence imaging, in vitro by WST-1 proliferation assays, and in OEA tissues and cells by immunoblotting and immunostaining for levels and phosphorylation status of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway components. Results: Murine OEAs developed within 3 weeks of AdCre injection and were not preceded by endometriosis. OEAs responded to cisplatin þ paclitaxel, rapamycin, and AKT inhibitors in vivo. In vitro studies showed that response to mTOR and AKT inhibitors, but not conventional cytotoxic drugs, was dependent on the status of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling. AKT inhibition in APC /PTEN tumor cells resulted in compensatory upregulation of ERK signaling. Conclusions: The studies show the utility of this GEMmodel of ovarian cancer for preclinical testing of novel PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling inhibitors and provide evidence for compensatory signaling, suggesting that multiple rather than single agent targeted therapy will be more efficacious for treating ovarian cancers with activated PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling. Clin Cancer Res; 17(23); 7359–72. 2011 AACR.


In this paper we study the pricing of credit risk as reflected in the market for credit default swaps (CDS) between 2003 and 2008. This market has newly emerged as the reference for credit risk pricing because of its use of standardized contract specifications and has achieved a higher level of liquidity than typically prevails in the markets for the underlying notes and bonds of the named corporate issuers. We initiate our exploration by studying a particular case which allows us to set out some of the issues of CDS pricing in a simple way. We show that for the purposes of accounting for relatively short-term changes of CDS spreads, an approach based on the structural (or firm-value based) models of credit risk faces an important obstacle in that reliable information about the firm's liabilities required to calculate the \distance to default" are available only quarterly or in some cases annually. Thus structural models account for short-term movements in credit spreads largely by changes in the issuer's equity price. In the case studied we show the e®ect of equity returns in explaining weekly changes of spreads is insignificant and of the wrong sign. In examination of particular episodes when the CDS spread was particularly delinked from the firm's equity series, we find that a likely explanation is changes in expectations about the firm's planned capital market operations. Since these are hard to capture in an observed proxy variable, we argued that this motivates the use of latent variable models that have recently been employed in the credit risk literature. We further see that movements in the CDS spreads for the particlar name chosen are highly correlated with an index of CDS spreads for industrial Blue-chip names. Building on these observations we then consider CDS pricing for a panel of firms for which CDS contracts were traded between between September 2003 and through January 2008. To facilitate comparison we have drawn our sample from two sectors, energy and media, from North America and Europe. Overall we have 41 firms across four subsamples allowing us to make two-way comparisons (across sectors and regions). Our estimates of a linear model show a strong positive association between spread changes on individual names and a broad-based index of CDS price changes. In contrast, the association with equity prices is very weak, generally statistically insignificant, and often of the wrong sign. These results are robust to inclusion of firm fixed or random e®ects. We find a negative autocorrelation of residuals in these panel estimates which we interpret as evidence of mean reversion in unobserved risk factors. All these results are consistent across our four subsets, i.e., they hold for North American Energy and Media and European Energy and Media. We pursue our study by exploring a latent variable model recently introduced in the literature which assumes that defaults on a name follow a jump process where the log intensity of arrivals of defaults itself follows an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. After developing a continuous time model of CDS pricing with this underlying stochastic process, we estimate our model for our 41 firms individually, applying no restrictions across firms. Our results are rather mixed in the sense that some firms do seem have mean reverting default intensities and others do not. Overall the evidence of mean reversion is stronger in our study than that found previously. The estimated models are then used to produce an implied time-series of instan- taneous default intensities for our 41 firms observed at weekly intervals. We carry out a principal components analysis of the panels of default intensities for our four sector-region combinations. In all cases a very high fraction of weekly variations in the implied default intensity is explained by a single common factor. We find that the implied common factor for each subsample is highly correlated with the default intensity implied by the index of CDS spreads on Blue-chip names. This is strong evidence con¯rming the presence of a general credit risk factor whose existence has been proposed in a number of recent contributions. We then ask what our estimates of default intensities derived from CDS prices imply for the market price of default risk. In order to answer this question we need to compare our estimates of the risk neutral intensity process with estimates of the statistical default process. We argue that recent studies which have used the Moodys- KMV EDF (estimated default frequencies) are essentially confounding information about the risk-neutral and statistical default distributions. Other estimates based on ratings su®er from the well-know problem of inertia in ratings changes. We therefore employ proxies for the statistical default intensities derived from a large panel data set of North American firms using firm accounting variables as well as macro covariates. Speci¯cally, we use the estimates recently derived by Zhou (2007) who employs a methodology similar to Shumway (2001) and Campbell et al (2005) but corrects for possible sample selection bias induced by the earlier studies' treatment of missingobservations. These estimates are implemented for our North American ¯rms only. Our results show that in both the energy and media subsamples risk-neutral intensities are much more variable than statistical intensities. A high proportion of observed variation in both kinds of intensities is accounted for by firm level di®erences. There is a high positive correlation between risk neutral and statistical default intensities. We then combine estimates to ¯nd the implied market price of risk measured as the natural logarithm of the ratio of risk-neutral intensity and statistical intensity of default. We show that a relatively high fraction of the observed variation of this market price of default risk can be accounted for by a common time variation. In order to identify this factor, we explore a linear model of the market price of default risk using as observed covariates macro indicators, firm indicators and indicators of equity market and credit market conditions. Our estimates show a strong association between that credit market conditions and the market price of risk. The estimated coe±cients have the correct signs. These are robust findings across a variety of alternative proxies for credit market conditions and across our two subsamples. In contrast equity market risk factors and general business conditions do not always have coefficient estimates of the right sign and are not always significant. However, there is some evidence that changes in the value ¯rm premium are partially correlated with changes in the pricing of default risk. Overall, our results provide evidence of the partial segmentation of credit markets.


This paper investigates the effects of fixed costs on investor's decision of asset market participation. The model features a continuum of agents with heterogeneous initial wealth and attitude toward risk. We show that under certain conditions there exists a unique competitive equilibrium in which investors optimally choose to stay in autarky, participate just in the riskless asset market or in both the riskless and the risky asset markets. The model is calibrated based on earnings profile from the U.S. We find that using fixed costs that are comparable to the current commission charged by brokers the model can generate participation patterns similar to observed ones. Further, we find participation rates to be very sensitive to the costs differentials associated with entering the risky asset market while relatively less sensitive to the overall levels of fixed costs. Finally, we find that costs make it even harder for dynamic models to replicate the risk free rate and in that sense deepen that puzzle.


Biomass samples from a diverse range of ecosystems were burned in the Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory open combustion facility. Midinfrared spectra of the nascent emissions were acquired at several heights above the fires with a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) coupled to an open multipass cell. In this report, the results from smoldering combustion during 24 fires are presented including production of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, ethene, ethyne, propene, formaldehyde, 2-hydroxyethanal, methanol, phenol, acetic acid, formic acid, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, and carbonyl sulfide. These were the dominant products observed, and many have significant influence on atmospheric chemistry at the local, regional, and global scale. Included in these results are the first optical, in situ measurements of smoke composition from fires in grasses, hardwoods, and organic soils. About one half of the detected organic emissions arose from fuel pyrolysis which produces white smoke rich in oxygenated organic compounds. These compounds deserve more attention in the assessment of fire impacts on the atmosphere. The compound 2-hydroxyethanal is a significant component of the smoke, and it is reported here for the first time as a product of fires. Most of the observed alkane and ammonia production accompanied visible glowing combustion. NH3 is normally the major nitrogen-containing emission detected from smoldering combustion of biomass, but from some smoldering organic soils, HCN was dominant. Tar condensed on cool surfaces below the fires accounting for ∼1% of the biomass burned, but it was enriched in N by a factor of 6–7 over the parent material, and its possible role in postfire nutrient cycling should be further investigated.


Static spectrum allocation leads to resource wastage and inter-operator spectrum sharing is a possible way to improve spectrum efficiency. In this work, we assume that two cellular network operators agree upon sharing part of their spectrum, which can then be dynamically accessed by either of them in a mutually exclusive way. Our goal is to numerically assess the gain, in terms of cell capacity, due to such orthogonal spectrum sharing. Hence, we propose a centralized algorithm that performs coordinated scheduling, in order to numerically evaluate an upper bound on the achievable sum capacity. The algorithm is centralized and exploits complete information on both networks to perform the optimum allocation. The simulation results illustrate the impact of the multiuser diversity and the asymmetry in the traffic load among the networks on the overall achievable gain.


Self-signed certificates for SSL and self-generated hosts keys for SSH are popular zero-cost, simple alternatives to public key infrastructure (PKI). They provide security against man-in-the-middle attacks, as long as the the client connecting to those services knows the certificates or host keys a priori. A simple solution used in practice is to trust the certificate or the host key when the client connects to a server for the first time. This approach is susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, a fact exploited by adversaries in a variety of attacks against unsuspecting users. We develop a simple and scalable solution named DoubleCheck to protect against such attacks. Our solution is achieved by retrieving the certificate from a remote host using multiple alternate paths. Our scheme does not require any new infrastructure; we make use of the Tor anonymity system to reach the destination using multiple independent paths. Hence our solution is easy to deploy in practice. Our solution does not introduce any privacy concerns. We have implemented DoubleCheck as SSH and Firefox extensions, demonstrating its practicality. Our experimental evaluation shows that the impact of DoubleCheck on performance is minimal, since the Tor network is used only for retrieving the certificate for the first time, while the data transfer and subsequent connection establishment follow normal routing rules. Our scheme is an effective way of mitigating the impact of man-in-the-middle attacks without requiring new infrastructure and at low overhead.


This dissertation examines how changes in training after Vietnam altered the Air Force's way of war. Specifically, the rise of realistic training exercises in the U.S. Air Force, particularly in the Tactical Air Command, after the end of the Vietnam conflict in 1975 ushered in a drastic increase in the use of tactical fighter aircraft to accomplish Air Force missions. Many scholars, including Benjamin Lambeth and Richard Hallion, have emphasized the primacy of technological developments in the renaissance of air power between Vietnam and the Gulf War. This neglects the importance of developments in training in the Tactical Air Command during the same period. This dissertation demonstrates that throughout the 1970s and 1980s Air Force leaders reconsidered some of their long-held assumptions about air power's proper use and recast older ideas in ways that they considered more realistic and better justified by past experience. Realistic training exercises led to better tactics and doctrines and, when combined with technological advancement, changed the way the Air Force waged war. Tactical assets became the weapons of preference for Air Force planners for several reasons including their ability to precisely deliver munitions onto targets and their ability to penetrate and survive in high-threat environments. Tactical assets could accomplish these missions precisely because of the changes that occurred in training. At the same time, the rise of tactical assets to equality with strategic assets directly led to the demise of both Tactical Air Command and Strategic Air Command and the creation of the single Air Combat Command. The conventional view that a massive technological revolution in military affairs took place in the 1980s and led to success in Desert Storm is conceptually too limiting. That interpretation places too much emphasis on the technological advancements used to prosecute war and slights the experiences of the airmen themselves in the development of the training exercises that helped change how the U.S. Air Force waged war.