Antilock Braking Systems (ABS) are fitted to many new cars and can improve the driver's ability to steer while braking heavily; they can also reduce stopping distances under many conditions. This report presents the findings from a project that has been carried out to assess the effectiveness of ABS in reducing accidents in Great Britain. A large postal survey was carried out of the owners of P-registered cars, asking for details of any accidents in which they had been involved during the previous year. A wide range of factors might influence the likelihood of being involved in an accident, and the survey covered these factors in some detail. Questions were also asked to test respondents' knowledge of ABS. A preliminary analysis of the data showed that drivers of ABS cars had reported about 10 per cent fewer accidents per year than drivers of non-ABS cars. The two groups of cars and drivers clearly differed in several respects, however, so that a more sophisticated analysis was required to provide unbiased estimates of the effectiveness of ABS. These indicated that ABS does have the potential to reduce the number of accidents, but that this has not been fully achieved. One reason is that many drivers have little or no knowledge of ABS. (A)


This study explores the different ways that South African novels have represented fatherhood across historical periods, from the dawn of apartheid to the post-transitional moment. It is argued that there is a link between narrative power and the father, especially in the way that the father figure is given authority and is central to dominant narratives which support pervasive ideologies. The study introduces the concept of paternal narratives, which are narratives that support the power of the father within patriarchal systems and societies, and which the father is usually given control of. This lens will be applied to prominent South African literature in English, including early texts such as Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country, Nadine Gordimer's Burger's Daughter and J. M. Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country, where the father's authority is strongly emphasised, and where resisting the paternal narratives often leads to identity struggles for sons and daughters. Later texts, published during the transition from apartheid, often deconstruct the narrative power of fathers more overtly, namely Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples, Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying and K. Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams. More recent novels, published in "post-transitional" South Africa, are radical in their approach to father figures: fathers are often shown to be spectral and dying, and their control of narratives is almost completely lost, such as in Lisa Fugard's Skinner's Drift, Mark Behr's Kings of the Water, Zoe Wicomb's Playing in the Light and Zukiswa Wanner's Men of the South. Exploring these shifting representations is a useful way to unearth how ideological and social shifts in South Africa affect the types of representations produced, and how fatherhoods are being reimagined.


This article uses economic categories to show how the reorganisation of civil procedure in the case of class action is not merely aimed at providing a more efficient litigation technology, as hierarchies (and company law) might do for other productive activities, but that it also serves to create a well defined economic organization ultimately aimed at producing a set of goods, first and foremost among which are justice and efficiency. Class action has the potential to recreate, in the judicial domain, the same effects that individual interests and motivations, governed by the perfect competition paradigm, bring to the market. Moreover, through economic analysis it is possible to rediscover not only the productive function of this legal machinery, but also that partial compensation of victims and large profits for the class counsel, far from being a side-effect, are actually a necessary condition for reallocation of the costs and risks associated with the legal action.


This paper addresses the problem of tampering detection and discusses methods used for authenticity analysis of digital audio recordings. Presented approach is based on frame offset measurement in audio files compressed and decoded by using perceptual audio coding algorithms which employ modified discrete cosine transform. The minimum values of total number of active MDCT coefficients occur for frame shifts equal to multiplications of applied window length. Any modification of audio file, including cutting off or pasting a part of audio recording causes a disturbance within this regularity. In this study the algorithm based on checking frame offset previously described in the literature is expanded by using each of four types of analysis windows commonly applied in the majority of MDCT based encoders. To enhance the robustness of the method additional histogram analysis is performed by detecting the presence of small value spectral components. Moreover, computation of maximum values of nonzero spectral coefficients is employed, which creates a gating function for the results obtained based on previous algorithm. This solution radically minimizes a number of false detections of forgeries. The influence of compression algorithms' parameters on detection of forgeries is presented by applying AAC and Ogg Vorbis encoders as examples. The effectiveness of tampering detection algorithms proposed in this paper is tested on a predefined music database and compared graphically using ROC-like curves.


We present an experimental investigation of ignition delay times of model fuels of pure iso-octane and n-heptane as well as of a mixture consisting of iso-octane (80%) and n-heptane (20%) by liquid volume for different fuel qualities. The purpose of this survey is to advance the understanding of ignition time chemistry using shock-tube experiments. For the mixture, to our knowledge, only the data of Fieweger et al. are available so far. Thus, it is helpful to have a new supporting data for comparison and to study the influence of fuels on different purity levels on ignition delay times. The experiments are performed in a high-pressure shock-tube at a pressure p = 40 bar and a constant equivalence ratio of φ = 1.0. The comparison of ignition delay data of the pure substances with literature [1-3] under similar conditions shows good agreement.


Description: Sickness and disease can be devastating to a livestock population and, in turn, to farm productivity. Skin diseases are among the most visible and common concerns to livestock health and even many systemic conditions may first manifest themselves in the skin. With the numerous causes of dermatological disease and the importance of controlling disease from both a herd management and public health aspect, diagnosis is imperative. A Color Atlas of Farm Animal Dermatology is an essential reference for veterinary dermatologists, practitioners, and students alike. Emphasizing recognition and diagnosis, the book combines over 600 color photographs with clear and concise text highlighting clinical features, differentials, and diagnostic information for each disease. Coverage includes both common and uncommon diseases of cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. The atlas is divided into four species–specific sections for easy reference. Disease types covered include bacterial, fungal, parasitic, viral and protozoal, immunological, congenital and hereditary, environmental, nutritional and miscellaneous diseases, as well as neoplastic and non–neoplastic growths. More than 300 full–color images Emphasizes recognition and diagnosis Coverage divided into species–specific sections for easy use Covers all dermatological disease types in cattle, goats, sheep and pigs Includes clinical features, differentials, and diagnostics for each disease Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements.


Researchers in the field of artificial life or complex systems grapple with abstract, complex and large data sets in general. We believe that virtual experience based on sonification (the transformation of data relations into perceived relations in an acoustic signal) has great potential to understand the dynamics in complex systems. We focus on the complex dynamics emerging in a social particle swarm model closely related to social psychology, and realize virtual experience of it by audio spatialization, in which major/minor chords, consonance/dissonance, and high/low pitches are utilized to represent the emotional meaning of the social relationships. The evaluation experiment shows that an experiencing person can grasp the social relationships and their dynamics in a two-dimensional space, including cooperation, exploitation and a cyclic process of formation and subsequent collapse of clusters, by feeling a bright, dark or unstable atmosphere created by interactions of sounds.


I. INTRODUCTION This article briefly examines the case law of the Spanish Constitutional Court in the field of freedom of religion with respect to the legal status of churches and religious groups as well as the protection of individual freedom of conscience. Due to the limited space available, this study focuses only on the Court's most significant decisions.1 My goal is to provide an overview of the main issues concerning religious liberty that have come to the jurisdiction of the Spanish Constitutional Court and analyze the way in which the Court has applied constitutional principles. This analysis will reveal some deficiencies that can be-and must be-corrected, especially with regard to the individual aspects of freedom of conscience. As we will see, on the whole, the Court's approach to these issues does not differ much from the one taken by the European Court of Human Rights, which acts as a sort of Constitutional Court, interpreting the freedoms included in the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950. Part II of this article describes briefly the historical antecedents of the current Spanish constitutional treatment of religious freedom. Part III outlines the fundamental principles that undergird Spanish law regarding religious issues, i.e., the "ecclesiastical law of the State."2 Part IV subsequently examines the Court's case law regarding the basic legal position of churches, including the Catholic Church, non-Catholic churches, and new religious movements. Part IV focuses on the manner in which the Court's decisions affect the protection of the individual's freedom of conscience. Finally, Part V provides several conclusory observations. As an introductory remark, it may be useful to note that the Spanish Constitutional Court's structure and function is very different from the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, the Spanish Court most closely resembles the German and Italian Constitutional Courts, which served as models and sources of guidance for the Spanish Court.3 In Spain, the Constitutional Court is the only court entitled to declare a law unconstitutional.4 The Court can do this by deciding a motion of unconstitutionality (recurso de inconstitucionalidad) or a question of unconstitutionality (cuestion de inconstitucionalidad). The former involves an examination of the constitutionality of a statute in abstracto, i.e., independently from its application to a particular case, and can be filed by the government, the Spanish Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo), fifty congressmen or senators, and some collegial bodies of Spain's autonomous regional communities. The latter can be submitted by any Spanish court that considers that a statute applicable to a particular controversy may be unconstitutional. An ordinary court cannot itself declare a statute unconstitutional, but can propose its opinion on the issue in the form of a "question" and ask the Constitutional Court to decide the issue. In addition, the Constitutional Court decides motions of protection (recursos de amparo), i.e., petitions filed by individual or legal persons that believe that their constitutional rights and freedoms have been violated. Aggrieved parties may file such petitions after having exhausted the judicial remedies available before the ordinary courts. The majority of Constitutional Court decisions resolve recursos de amparo. This is true also with regard to the general issue of religious freedom, although some interesting issues on religion have been decided through the other two channels. Finally, those readers who belong to common law systems should bear in mind that case law is only a part of the law-and not the most important part-in a civil law system like Spain. This fact applies to the case law of the Constitutional Court as well, notwithstanding the Court's significance as the supreme oracle of the Spanish Constitution. Church-state relations and religious freedom are matters that are strongly regulated by statutory law and by-laws, as well as by formal agreements between the state and the most influential religious communities. …


In this short note, the realization of an arbitrary switching function by an interconnection of threshold and parity elements is considered. Using several criteria, it is shown that parity functions and threshold functions are " opposites." This dis- similarity between threshold and parity elements coupled with the useful physical properties of parity elements indicates that a realization employing the two types of modules should be of interest. Since the modules realizing parity functions are identical, mass production can be employed to reduce the cost of realization. A particular two- level configuration of threshold and parity elements is discussed. The first level consists of parity elements and the second level consists of a single threshold element. It is shown that any switching function can be realized with the proposed structure. An optimal procedure for minimizing the number of parity elements in the realization is given. Furthermore, a suboptimal procedure which is much simpler than the optimal one is also proposed.


A sampling oscilloscope is one of the main units in automatic pulse measurement system (APMS). The time jitter in waveform samplers is an important error source that affect the precision of data acquisition. In this paper, this kind of error is greatly reduced by using the deconvolution method. First, the probability density function (PDF) of time jitter distribution is determined by the statistical approach, then, this PDF is used as convolution kern to deconvolve with the acquired waveform data with additional averaging, and the result is the waveform data in which the effect of time jitter has been removed, and the measurement precision of APMS is greatly improved. In addition, some computer simulations are given which prove the success of the method given in this paper.


Caries prevalence in the school children of various socio-economic status in the eastern region of Nepal of age group 6-13 years was determined. Aims: The study was carried out with the aim to identify and establish the prevalence of dental caries and treatment needs in children aged 6-13 year old . Methods and materials: The study was undertaken in the eastern region of Nepal with a sample population of 2,500 children in the age group of 6-13 years. Caries prevalence was recorded using DMFS/dmfs and treatment need index. WHO indices were used for recording caries and treatment needs. Results: The caries prevalence in the 6-9 years age group was found to be 76.35% whereas in age group of 10-13 years was 64.55%. In male to female ratio in relation to dental caries, prevalence was higher in males. High socio-economic group children suffered more from carious lesion as well as those residing in the urban areas. Conclusion: The present study concludes prevalence of dental caries is high in 6-9 year age group at age of 7 year as is compared to 10 year in 10-13 year age group. Children in high socio-economic status showed higher prevalence of dental caries. Upon investigating treatment needs among these children, they showed need of one surface restoration followed by two-surface restoration,


Introduction: Tinnitus is one of the complex symptoms of hearing described as a phantom auditory sensation without any external stimulation. Due to the subjective nature of tinnitus, perception and discomfort of tinnitus vary among the patients. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effects of gender, age and the degree of hearing loss on discomfort due to tinnitus. Methods: Eighteen patients with tinnitus, aged 21–72 years, (9 males and 9 females) were recruited. Tinnitus discomfort was investigated by Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) questionnaire. Psychoacoustic assessments of tinnitus and auditory threshold assessments were evaluated using a 2-channel clinical audiometer. Results: The results showed no significant correlation between THI scores with loudness matching (P=0.187), mean of auditory threshold (P=0.304), gender (P=0.93) and age (P=0.200). Also, no significant correlation was found between maximal level of hearing loss and pitch matching (P=0.208). Conclusion: The study findings suggests that tinnitus is not correlated with age, gender and hearing loss. Overall, tinnitus is a complicated clinical condition which its real impact and degree of discomfort are unclear. More investigation is needed to clarify the factors involving in tinnitus annoyance.


Abstract In his autobiography, John Adams mused that his 2005 opera, Doctor Atomic, challenges directors and conductors owing to its 'abstracted treatment' of time and space. This abstraction also challenges scholars. In this article, I bring the cross-disciplinary field of sound studies into the opera house to demonstrate that Adams's obfuscation of operatic space–time is achieved primarily through the use of a spatialised electroacoustic sound design. Drawing on archival materials and new interviews with director Peter Sellars and sound designer Mark Grey, I outline the dramaturgical, epistemological and hermeneutic ramifications of sound design for opera studies and advocate for disciplinary engagement with the spatial dimensions of electroacoustic music generally, and within opera specifically.


The concept of mass goes back a long way to characterize a society that consists of people somehow connected by communication while, at the same time, also dispersed in space and essentially detached from one another. Mass has also been a pejorative for critics of modern capitalist society and its culture. In the years after World War II, this latter use of the term became the target of a broadside attack by several highly credentialed scholars, who questioned its value as an analytic tool. This paper, starting with Ferdinand Tonnies, offers a brief overview of both the origins of the concept of mass and its subsequent refinement by French, German, and American sociologists into the mid-1930s. Distinguishing between its ideological connotations and the analytic use of the term helps us to focus on the most general and persistent effects of mass communication: expanding the range of common experience and making people more responsive to distant events. This effect is magnified by the ubiquity of mass media; practically no one, not even those who scorn them, can altogether escape their influence.


Time series data analytics has been a problem of substantial interests for decades, and Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) has been the most widely adopted technique to measure dissimilarity between time series. A number of global-alignment kernels have since been proposed in the spirit of DTW to extend its use to kernel-based estimation method such as support vector machine. However, those kernels suffer from diagonal dominance of the Gram matrix and a quadratic complexity w.r.t. the sample size. In this work, we study a family of alignment-aware positive definite (p.d.) kernels, with its feature embedding given by a distribution of \emph{Random Warping Series (RWS)}. The proposed kernel does not suffer from the issue of diagonal dominance while naturally enjoys a \emph{Random Features} (RF) approximation, which reduces the computational complexity of existing DTW-based techniques from quadratic to linear in terms of both the number and the length of time-series. We also study the convergence of the RF approximation for the domain of time series of unbounded length. Our extensive experiments on 16 benchmark datasets demonstrate that RWS outperforms or matches state-of-the-art classification and clustering methods in both accuracy and computational time. Our code and data is available at { \url{this https URL}}.


Abstract Environmental heterogeneity is an important determinant of the diversity of natural communities. Effects of heterogeneity can emanate from complementary effects of resource heterogeneity (variation in the number of resources) and structural heterogeneity (variation in the physical structure of the environment). We examined relative effects of structural and resource heterogeneity on the diversity of 31 desert rodent communities in the Mojave Desert. Both structural and resource heterogeneity significantly accounted for rodent species diversity. Nonetheless, when unique and shared effects were examined, only resource heterogeneity exhibited a significant unique effect, accounting for more variation than structural heterogeneity in diversity of rodent communities. When compared with results of previous studies the possibility emerges that effects of either structural or resource heterogeneity might be context dependent and determined by the taxon of focus and relative variation of these two forms of heterogeneity. Accordingly, future studies should distinguish between these two important forms of environmental heterogeneity to improve understanding of their relative impacts on diversity.


Across the country, local education agencies are using coaching to augment school-based leadership and support classroom instruction that improves student outcomes. Effective systems for positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) include the establishment of coaching capacity to initiate and sustain implementation. We conducted a state-wide survey of district-level PBIS coaches (n = 41) to document and evaluate relationships across perceptions of skills, time allocations for service provision, and leadership style and school outcomes as measured by the School-wide Evaluation Tool, the School-Wide PBIS Implementation Inventory, and the state's PBIS Recognition Process. Generally more positive outcomes were evident for district coaches who reported providing less than 35 hours per month of direct and indirect supports; and, perceptions of district coach skills and time related positively to outcomes. The reported leadership skills of coaches reflected a transformational (i.e., establishing relationships by gaining trust and confidence as a role model) rather than transactional (i.e., establishing relationships by rewards or punishments depending on performance) or laissez-faire (i.e., establishing relationships by allowing others to make decisions) approach to implementing and supporting PBIS with skills directed at the micro level (i.e., student, school, LEA) more evident than those associated with guiding state level decision-making. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.


We present a coinductive framework for defining and reasoning about the infinitary analogues of equational logic and term rewriting in a uniform, coinductive way. The setup captures rewrite sequences of arbitrary ordinal length, but it has neither the need for ordinals nor for metric convergence. This makes the framework especially suitable for formalizations in theorem provers.


Background Ultra deep sequencing is of increasing use not only in research but also in diagnostics. For implementation of ultra deep sequencing assays in clinical laboratories for routine diagnostics, intra- and inter-laboratory testing are of the utmost importance. Methods A multicenter study was conducted to validate an updated assay design for 454 Life Sciences' GS FLX Titanium system targeting protease/reverse transcriptase (RTP) and env (V3) regions to identify HIV-1 drug-resistance mutations and determine co-receptor use with high sensitivity. The study included 30 HIV-1 subtype B and 6 subtype non-B samples with viral titers (VT) of 3,940–447,400 copies/mL, two dilution series (52,129–1,340 and 25,130–734 copies/mL), and triplicate samples. Amplicons spanning PR codons 10–99, RT codons 1–251 and the entire V3 region were generated using barcoded primers. Analysis was performed using the GS Amplicon Variant Analyzer and geno2pheno for tropism. For comparison, population sequencing was performed using the ViroSeq HIV-1 genotyping system. Results The median sequencing depth across the 11 sites was 1,829 reads per position for RTP (IQR 592–3,488) and 2,410 for V3 (IQR 786–3,695). 10 preselected drug resistant variants were measured across sites and showed high inter-laboratory correlation across all sites with data (P<0.001). The triplicate samples of a plasmid mixture confirmed the high inter-laboratory consistency (mean% ± stdev: 4.6 ±0.5, 4.8 ±0.4, 4.9 ±0.3) and revealed good intra-laboratory consistency (mean% range ± stdev range: 4.2–5.2 ± 0.04–0.65). In the two dilutions series, no variants >20% were missed, variants 2–10% were detected at most sites (even at low VT), and variants 1–2% were detected by some sites. All mutations detected by population sequencing were also detected by UDS. Conclusions This assay design results in an accurate and reproducible approach to analyze HIV-1 mutant spectra, even at variant frequencies well below those routinely detectable by population sequencing.


Does a judicial decision that vindicates minority rights inevitably give birth to a special kind of backlash, a more virulent reaction than legislation achieving the same result would produce? We examine this question with respect to Roe v. Wade, so often invoked as the paradigmatic case of court-caused backlash, and with the pending marriage cases in mind. As we have shown, conflict over abortion escalated before the Supreme Court ever ruled in Roe, driven by movements struggling over legislative reform and Republican Party efforts to recruit voters historically aligned with the Democratic Party. These and other features of the abortion conflict suggest that the Court's decision in Roe was not the abortion conflict's sole or even its principal cause.When change through adjudication or legislation threatens the status quo, it can prompt counter-mobilization and "backlash." We do not doubt that adjudication can prompt backlash. But we do doubt that adjudication is distinctively more likely than legislation to prompt backlash and that the abortion conflict illustrates this supposed property of adjudication. Advocates concerned about these questions have to make in-context and on-balance judgments that consider not only the costs but also the benefits of engagement.


East Asia is catching up with the rest of the world in establishing regional trade arrangements (RTAs). This region is responding to pressures from globalization, regionalism in the Americas and Europe, the rise of China and India, improved political relations in the region with the end of the Cold War, as well as market-driven trade and investment integration and the emergence of production networks. ASEAN formed the first RTA in 1992, and by the turn of the decade, ASEAN was signing or negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with Japan, China, South Korea, India, AustraliaNew Zealand, and the European Union. It also entered into bilateral FTAs with the United States and countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. ASEAN is also considering an East Asian FTA. Can ASEAN remain in the driver's seat of regional integration and be an effective hub? The FTA proliferation also has important consequences and effects for East Asia and the world trading system.


Small hydro power is one of the many types of new and renew able energy, which is planning to develop, asthe country is abundant in endowed resources. In order to fully utilize small hydropower resources, the reisa need for greater precision in quantifying small hydropower resources and establish an environment in which energy sources can be discovered using the small hydropower resource management system. This study has given greater precision to calculate annual electricity generation and capacity of small hydropower plants of Nakdong river system by inquiring into average annual rainfall, basin area and runoff coefficient, which is anticipated to promote small hydropower resources utilization. Smallhy dropower resource management system was also established by additionally providing base information on quantified small hydropower resources and analysis function and small hydropower generator status, rivers, basin, rainfall gauging station, water level gauging station etc.. Small hydropower resource management system can be used gather basic information for positive applications of small hydropower energy nationwide.


We review systems that support the management of collaborative interaction, and propose a classification framework built on a simple model of coaching. Our framework distinguishes between mirroring systems, which display basic actions to collaborators, metacognitive tools, which represent the state of interaction via a set of key indicators, and coaching systems, which offer advice based on an interpretation of those indicators. The reviewed systems are further characterized by the type of interaction data they assimilate, the processes they use for deriving higher-level data representations, and the type of feedback they provide to users.


Morphological mosaics in early Asian humans Excavations in eastern Asia are yielding information on human evolution and migration. Li et al. analyzed two fossil human skulls from central China, dated to 100,000 to 130,000 years ago. The crania elucidate the pattern of human morphological evolution in eastern Eurasia. Some features are ancestral and similar to those of earlier eastern Eurasian humans, some are derived and shared with contemporaneous or later humans elsewhere, and some are closer to those of Neandertals. The analysis illuminates shared long-term trends in human adaptive biology and suggests the existence of interconnections between populations across Eurasia during the later Pleistocene. Science, this issue p. 969 Two fossil human skulls from Late Pleistocene sediments in central China reveal a mosaic pattern of morphological evolution. Two early Late Pleistocene (~105,000- to 125,000-year-old) crania from Lingjing, Xuchang, China, exhibit a morphological mosaic with differences from and similarities to their western contemporaries. They share pan–Old World trends in encephalization and in supraorbital, neurocranial vault, and nuchal gracilization. They reflect eastern Eurasian ancestry in having low, sagittally flat, and inferiorly broad neurocrania. They share occipital (suprainiac and nuchal torus) and temporal labyrinthine (semicircular canal) morphology with the Neandertals. This morphological combination reflects Pleistocene human evolutionary patterns in general biology, as well as both regional continuity and interregional population dynamics.


This paper presents a framework of imitating the price behavior of the underlying stock for reinforcement learning option price. We use accessible features of the equities pricing data to construct a non-deterministic Markov decision process for modeling stock price behavior driven by principal investor's decision making. However, low signal-to-noise ratio and instability that appear immanent in equity markets pose challenges to determine the state transition (price change) after executing an action (principal investor's decision) as well as decide an action based on current state (spot price). In order to conquer these challenges, we resort to a Bayesian deep neural network for computing the predictive distribution of the state transition led by an action. Additionally, instead of exploring a state-action relationship to formulate a policy, we seek for an episode based visible-hidden state-action relationship to probabilistically imitate principal investor's successive decision making. Our algorithm then maps imitative principal investor's decisions to simulated stock price paths by a Bayesian deep neural network. Eventually the optimal option price is reinforcement learned through maximizing the cumulative risk-adjusted return of a dynamically hedged portfolio over simulated price paths of the underlying.


The increasing information density in magnetic recording, the miniaturization in magnetic sensor technology, the trend towards nanocrystalline magnetic materials and the improved availability of large-scale computer power are the main reasons why micromagnetic modelling has been developing extremely rapidly. Computational micromagnetism leads to a deeper understanding of hysteresis effects by visualization of the magnetization reversal process. Recent advances in numerical simulation techniques are reviewed. Higher order finite elements and adaptive meshing have been introduced, in order to reduce the discretization error. The use of a hybrid boundary/finite element method enables accurate stray field computation for arbitrary shaped particles and takes into account the granular microstructure of the material. A dynamic micromagnetic code based on the Gilbert equation of motion to study the time evolution of the magnetization has been developed. Finite element models for different materials and magnet shapes are obtained from a Voronoi construction and subsequent meshing of the polyhedral regions. Adaptive refinement and coarsening of the finite element mesh guarantees accurate solutions near magnetic inhomogeneities or domain walls, while keeping the number of elements small. The polycrystalline microstructure and assumed random magnetocrystalline anisotropy of elongated Co elements decreases the coercive field and the switching time compared to zero anisotropy elements, in which vortices form and move only after a certain waiting time after the application of a reversed field close to the coercive field. NiFe elements with flat, rounded and slanted ends show different hysteresis properties and switching dynamics. Micromagnetic simulations show that the magnetic properties of intergranular regions in nucleation-controlled Nd-Fe-B hard magnetic materials control the coercive field. Exchange interactions between neighbouring soft and hard grains lead to remanence enhancement of isotropically oriented grains in nanocrystalline composite magnets. Upper limits of the coercive field of pinning-controlled Sm-Co magnets for high-temperature applications are predicted from the micromagnetic calculations. Incorporating thermally activated magnetization reversal and micromagnetics we found complex magnetization reversal mechanisms for small spherical magnetic particles. The magnetocrystalline anisotropy and the external field strength determine the switching mechanism. Three different regimes have been identified. For fields, which are smaller than the anisotropy field, magnetization by coherent switching has been observed. Single droplet nucleation occurs, if the external field is comparable to the anisotropy field, and multi-droplet nucleation is the driving reversal process for higher fields.


Complex civil litigation routinely includes expert economic testimony. However, it may be hard for a jury to determine at trial which expert economist is more credible, and it may be hard for the judge to determine at the Daubert hearing whether the methodology upon which a given expert economist relies is intellectually rigorous enough to produce results that constitute admissible testimony. One solution rarely employed is for the court to appoint its own neutral economic expert under Rule 706 of the Federal Rules of Evidence when a lawsuit contains a claim for damages that will require rigorous analysis of data. Based on my recent experience as Judge Richard Posner's court-appointed economic expert on damages in patent infringement litigation, I explain how the wider use of Rule 706 would assist the judge and jury and would facilitate the prompt settlement of intellectual property, antitrust, securities, contract, business tort, and other complex disputes. The benefits to courts and litigants would surely exceed the costs.


Software architecture, as a vehicle for communication and reasoning about software systems and their quality, is becoming an area of focus in both the forward- and reverse-engineering communities. In the past, we have attempted to unify these areas via a semantic model of reengineering called CORUM II. In this paper we present a concrete example of an architecturally-motivated reengineering task. In executing this task, we perform architecture reconstruction, reason about the reconstructed architecture, motivate an architectural transformation with new architectural quality requirements, and realize this architectural transformation via an automated code transformation.


Multiple protein structure methods have been proposed for incorporating protein flexibility in molecular docking. One approach for docking ligands onto a rigid receptor is to use an ensemble of multiple rigid structures determined experimentally by X-ray or NMR spectroscopy or generated by numerical simulations. In this work we present all empirical method for generating a wide range of conformational states of a wobbling receptor using restrained Molecular Dynamics simulations (MD) and we propose a partitioning protocol for selecting a few representative conformations of the binding site from restrained MID sampling. Defining a large number of protein structures is computationally expensive when the MD simulations use an explicit solvent representation. For computational efficiency, solvent effect is therefore represented by an ensemble of restraints applied on a subset of specific atoms, using a distance-dependent permittivity function. The parameters used for the restraints and the permittivity are described. Several 100 ns restrained MD simulations are performed using different sets of parameters. In order to optimize the parameters, the results are compared to a 30 ns MD simulation in explicit solvent. Conformational sampling is speeded up by a factor of around 10-20 when performing restrained MD simulations. A partitioning k-means algorithm is applied to select representative structures of the receptor binding site. The methodology was evaluated on the ligand binding domain of the flexible Peroxysome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-gamma (PPAR gamma).


Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, doubts have been raised about the future of capitalism. In this broad-ranging survey of financial capitalism from antiquity to the present, Larry Neal reveals the ways in which the financial innovations throughout history have increased trade and prosperity as well as improving standards of living. These innovations have, however, all too often led to financial crises as a result of the failure of effective coordination among banks, capital markets and governments. The book examines this key interrelationship between financial innovation, government regulation and financial crises across three thousand years, showing through past successes and failures the key factors that underpin any successful recovery and sustain economic growth. The result is both an essential introduction to financial capitalism and also a series of workable solutions that will help both to preserve the gains we have already achieved and to mitigate the dangers of future crises.


Health insurance is a necessity for people of all ages, colors, and social economic standings, yet the statistics for those without health insurance are increasing every day. What are the consequences for the unfortunate children who are without medical insurance and what is being done to change the statistics, so that the children can receive needed medical attention provided by medical insurance? This paper goes on to answer these questions and provide some information as to what types of programs have been established to help provide health insurance for the children of America. This article is available in Perspectives: https://scholars.unh.edu/perspectives/vol1/iss1/1


This study investigated the opinions of teachers about using interactive whiteboards with an LCD panel that was installed in classrooms within the FATIH educational project. The study was conducted at six high schools in which installation of interactive whiteboards with an LCD panel in classrooms was completed and teachers who received training in order to use these whiteboards. One hundred and twenty one teachers participated in this study. The data was gathered using open-ended questions. Qualitative data obtained with open-ended questions was analysed using phenomenographic analysis method. Teachers were positive about using interactive whiteboards with an LCD panel in education. Teachers stated that the interactive whiteboard with an LCD panel was used throughout whole course. "Visualization" of an interactive whiteboard with an LCD panel is often expressed to as an acclaimed feature by teachers. The needs to remedy the lack of software and technical problems have been stated by the teachers.


Background Many hypothyroid patients are not tolerant and not satisfied with levothyroxine (LT4). Older studies used large doses of both carbimazole and LT4 for Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT), because Graves' disease (GD) and HT were considered as very closely related syndromes produced by thyroid autoimmunity. Objective The aim of the study was to determine the outcome after adding small doses of carbimazole to reduced doses of LT4 for patients with primary hypothyroidism, who are unable to tolerate LT4. Methods The study is a non-randomized, single arm, interventional study. It included 19 female patients diagnosed with primary hypothyroidism who could not tolerate LT4. Subjects were recruited from the outpatient clinic of AL-Azhar University Hospital in Damietta, Egypt from January to March 2015. They were divided into two groups; group 1 included 10 patients with HT and 2 patients with non-specified primary hypothyroidism, and group 2 included 7 patients with subtotal thyroidectomy for GD. All patients received carbimazole (10 mg/day) beside LT4 (25 μg thrice/week) for 10 weeks. Statistical analysis of the data was done by SPSS version 20, using paired-sample t-test, ANOVA, Chi square, and Pearson coefficient test. Results There was significant increase in free triiodothyronine (FT3) in addition to significant improvement in depression and LT4 tolerance in the whole population. There was non-significant improvement in TSH in group 1 (p=0.053). Surprisingly, in group 2, in spite of significant increase in TSH (p=0.007) and non-significant decrease in free thyroxine (FT4), there was non-significant increase in FT3. Whether carbimazole improves the pathology of the hypothyroid gland or the peripheral deiodination of T4 to T3 (where the serum and tissue levels of the latter may be responsible for improvement of symptoms) is in need of investigation. Conclusions Adding carbimazole to LT4 improves FT3, LT4 tolerance, and depression in primary hypothyroid female patients. Further studies are required to determine the appropriate doses of this regimen in different cases. Clinical trial registration This study was registered at Thai Clinical Trials Registration center (http://www.clinicaltrials.in.th) with registration ID: TCTR20170123003. Funding The study received no fund or grant.


Despite its remarkable success, deep learning currently typically operates as a black-box. Instead, can models produce explicit reasons to explain their decisions? To address that question, we propose to exploit probabilistic graphical models which are declarative representations of our understanding of the world (e.g., what the relevant variables are, and how they interact with each other), and are commonly used to perform causal inference. More specifically, we propose a novel architecture called Deep Explainable Bayesian Networks whose main idea consists in concatenating a deep network with a Bayesian network, and to rely on the latter one to provide the explanations. We conduct extensive experiments on classical image, and text classification tasks. First, the results show that deep explainable Bayesian networks can achieve comparable accuracy than models that are trained on the same datasets but without producing explanations. Second, the experiments show promising results: The average accuracy of the explanation ranges from 68.3% to 84.8%.


This work provides a systematic analysis of primality testing under adversarial conditions, where the numbers being tested for primality are not generated randomly, but instead provided by a possibly malicious party. Such a situation can arise in secure messaging protocols where a server supplies Diffie-Hellman parameters to the peers, or in a secure communications protocol like TLS where a developer can insert such a number to be able to later passively spy on client-server data. We study a broad range of cryptographic libraries and assess their performance in this adversarial setting. As examples of our findings, we are able to construct 2048-bit composites that are declared prime with probability (1/16) by OpenSSL's primality testing in its default configuration; the advertised performance is (2-80). We can also construct 1024-bit composites that always pass the primality testing routine in GNU GMP when configured with the recommended minimum number of rounds. And, for a number of libraries (Cryptlib, LibTomCrypt, JavaScript Big Number, WolfSSL), we can construct composites that always pass the supplied primality tests. We explore the implications of these security failures in applications, focusing on the construction of malicious Diffie-Hellman parameters. We show that, unless careful primality testing is performed, an adversary can supply parameters (p,q,g) which on the surface look secure, but where the discrete logarithm problem in the subgroup of order q generated by g is easy. We close by making recommendations for users and developers. In particular, we promote the Baillie-PSW primality test which is both efficient and conjectured to be robust even in the adversarial setting for numbers up to a few thousand bits.


Abstract. Volcanic eruptions pose an ever-present threat to human populations around the globe, but many active volcanoes remain poorly monitored. In regions where ground-based monitoring is present the effects of volcanic eruptions can be moderated through observational alerts to both local populations and service providers, such as air traffic control. However, in regions where volcano monitoring is limited satellite-based remote sensing provides a global data source that can be utilised to provide near-real-time identification of volcanic activity. This paper details a volcanic plume detection method capable of identifying smaller eruptions than is currently feasible, which could potentially be incorporated into automated volcanic alert systems. This method utilises daily, global observations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite. Following identification and classification of known volcanic eruptions in 2005–2009, the OMI SO2 data, analysed using a logistic regression analysis, permitted the correct classification of volcanic events with an overall accuracy of over 80 %. Accurate volcanic plume identification was possible when lower-tropospheric SO2 loading exceeded ∼ 400 t. The accuracy and minimal user input requirements of the developed procedure provide a basis for incorporation into automated SO2 alert systems.


In this study, 2-dimensional electrical resistivity surveying has been used to reveal the nature and development of a thin clayey aquitard on basement complex rocks of the Adekunle Ajasin University campus, Akungba-Akoko south-western Nigeria. The aim was to evaluate the occurrence, geometry and groundwater viability of this clayey aquitard as an alternative source of water supply on the Campus. Prior, a hand-dug well, which supplied moderate volumes of water all year round, had been abstracting water from this aquitard. Three east-west geo-electric traverses were surveyed using the dipole-dipole array configuration with an electrode separation of 5 m and a maximum dipole length of 45 m. Each of the three traverses was 60 m long. The observed field data were inverted for subsurface 2D resistivity structure using a commercially available 2.5D finite element modelling inversion software. The clayey aquitard is imaged to exist as low resistivity response patterns which have developed in elongated trough-like depressions created as a result of deep weathering of the feldspar and amphibolite-rich sections of the basement rocks of the area. This clayey layer reaches a thickness of 10 m at the southern end of the survey and in some sections is compartmentalised into segments by basement rocks which have better resisted weathering. Where the topographic slope of the ground surface is low enough as to allow the accumulation of run-off, the clayey aquitard develops into visible marshy swamps. Although, clayey aquitards of this nature supply water at low rates, their capacity to store high volumes and to be available all-year-round could prove essential to ameliorating acute water shortages experienced in the area during the dry season. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.erem.71.1.9016


Each ozone profile is a unique response to the photochemical and dynamic processes operating in the troposphere and hence is critical to our understanding of processes and their relative contributions to the tropospheric ozone budget. Traditionally, mean profiles, together with some measure of variability, averaged by season or year at a particular location have been presented as a climatology. However, the mean profile is difficult to interpret because of the counteracting influences present in the micro-structure. On the other hand, case study analysis, whilst revealing, only applies to isolated conditions. In a search for pattern and order within ozone profiles, a classification based on a cluster analysis technique has been applied in this study. Ozone profiles are grouped according to the magnitude and altitude of ozone concentration. This technique has been tested with 56 ozone profiles at Johannesburg, South Africa, recorded by aircraft as part of the MOZAIC (Measurement of Ozone and Water Vapor aboard Airbus In-service Aircraft) program. Six distinct groups of ozone profiles have been identified and their characteristics described. The widely recognized spring maximum in tropospheric ozone is identified through the classification, but a new summertime mid-tropospheric enhancement due to the penetration of tropical air masses from continental regions in central Africa has been identified. Back trajectory modeling is used to provide evidence of the different origins of ozone enhancements in each of the classes. Continental areas over central Africa are shown to be responsible for the low to mid-tropospheric enhancement in spring and the mid-tropospheric peak in summer, whereas the winter low-tropospheric enhancement is attributed to local sources. The dominance of westerly winds through the troposphere associated with the passage of a mid-latitude cyclone gives rise to reduced ozone values.


In 1977, the Occupational Therapy faculty at San Jose State University, with support from a Special Improvement Grant, embarked on a 3-year curriculum revision. One issue of particular concern was the need to devise a system for involving the clinical faculty in the revision process regardless of geographic relationship to the university. The system that evolved became known as Mini-Councils, regional groups consisting of students and clinical and academic faculty who participate in fieldwork experience at the University. Mini-Councils replaced the on-site visit system and shifted the emphasis from supervision of individual students to discussion groups focusing on general educational issues of mutual concern to faculty and students. The Mini-Councils have also strengthened the relationship between academic and clinical educators by providing a practical, efficient means of maintaining contact with students in fieldwork, and by helping integrate academic and clinical education.


Abstract. The present study used intraindividual criterion profile analysis to investigate the relationship between creative artistic and investigative interests and the Big Five personality traits. In 19 samples, we found that artistic and investigative interests showed distinct intraindividual personality profile patterns. Investigative interests were associated with elevated openness to intellect, conscientiousness, and emotional stability and low extraversion and agreeableness, relative to individuals' other traits. Artistic interests were associated with personal strengths for openness to experiences and personal weaknesses for conscientiousness, assertiveness, and emotional stability. Across creative interests, profile pattern, not absolute trait level, drove the relationship between personality traits and interests. These findings replicated across numerous personality inventories and levels of interest specificity (RIASEC, basic interests, occupation-specific interests). We discuss the implication...


This article applies the "strategic group" concept to Taiwanese entrepreneurs ( taishang ), who have businesses in both Taiwan and Mainland China, to analyze their political agency in safeguarding their collective interests. Based on extensive fieldwork, the authors look at taishang collective action in both formal and informal settings to assess whether the taishang can be considered a strategic group in contemporary cross-Strait relations.


Exposing seedlings of the flax, Linum usitatissimum L., to a variety of weak environmental stresses followed by a 2 day calcium deprivation, triggers the common response of production of epidermal meristems (actively dividing groups of cells) in the hypocotyl, which is the part of the stem between the root and the cotyledons (the pre‐existing leaves in the embryo). This production reaches a plateau of 10–20 meristems after a month in the case of mechanical stimulation and cold shock. Recently, we have shown that radiation from a global system for mobile communication (GSM) telephone also triggers production of meristems with a plateau of around six meristems. Here, we show that a single 2 h exposure to radiation emitted at 105 GHz at non‐thermal levels by a Gunn oscillator induces meristem production with kinetics similar to that induced by weak environmental stimuli and radiation from GSM telephone. Bioelectromagnetics 25:403–407, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Regulatory bodies and performance management systems have proliferated in recent years in UK public services. Furthermore, as the shortcomings of one body or system are revealed, the preferred solution is frequently to replace them with new versions. This approach is costly and often does not seem to solve the problems it seeks to address. Indeed the result can be confusion and diminished performance at least in the short term as new people try to get to grips with the problems that their predecessors failed to solve. The new approaches have tried to replace trust in professionalism of individuals with monitoring of formalised performance measures, in an effort to improve economy, efficiency and effectiveness. As is well-documented in the literature, the focus tends to be on the first two of these, as the third is notoriously difficult to measure. Examples abound of the dysfunctional consequences in health and education, to name but two areas of public services, as organisations strive to 'meet the target', but unfortunately 'miss the point'.  This paper will review relevant literature and publicly available documents on regulatory and performance management practices in UK public services in recent years, with a particular focus on the English National Health Service (NHS). It will investigate the changes that have occurred as new regulatory bodies and performance management systems have come to replace old ones, including the cost implications and outcomes of these changes. Drawing on the evidence of the recently-concluded public inquiry into events at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust (www.midstaffspublicinquiry.com), where it is believed hundreds of patients may have died needlessly as the organisation struggled to achieve a particular performance target (maximum four hour waiting time for patients arriving at hospital Accident and Emergency departments), the study will discuss not only performance management issues, but also the broader concerns raised regarding regulatory bodies and their fitness for purpose. It will also consider the future for healthcare in England, with a discussion of the latest developments in appointing Monitor as an economic regulator tasked with extending competition in the sector.


The predictions of 13 computational bottom-up saliency models and a newly introduced Multiscale Contrast Conspicuity (MCC) metric are compared with human visual conspicuity measurements. The agreement between human visual conspicuity estimates and model saliency predictions is quantified through their rank order correlation. The maximum of the computational saliency value over the target support area correlates most strongly with visual conspicuity for 12 of the 13 models. A simple multiscale contrast model and the MCC metric both yield the largest correlation with human visual target conspicuity (>;0.84). Local image saliency largely determines human visual inspection and interpretation of static and dynamic scenes. Computational saliency models therefore have a wide range of important applications, like adaptive content delivery, region-of-interest-based image compression, video summarization, progressive image transmission, image segmentation, image quality assessment, object recognition, and content-aware image scaling. However, current bottom-up saliency models do not incorporate important visual effects like crowding and lateral interaction. Additional knowledge about the exact nature of the interactions between the mechanisms mediating human visual saliency is required to develop these models further. The MCC metric and its associated psychophysical saliency measurement procedure are useful tools to systematically investigate the relative contribution of different feature dimensions to overall visual target saliency.


In a companion paper we present new, flux-calibrated stellar population models of Lick absorption-line indices with variable element abundance ratios. The model includes a large variety of individual element variations, which allows the derivation of the abundances for the elements C, N, O, Mg, Ca, Ti and Fe besides total metallicity and age. We use this model to obtain estimates of these quantities from integrated light spectroscopy of galactic globular clusters. We show that the model fits to a number of indices improve considerably when various variable element ratios are considered. The ages we derive agree well with the literature and are all consistent with the age of the Universe within the measurement errors. There is a considerable scatter in the ages, though, and we overestimate the ages preferentially for the metal-rich globular clusters. Our derived total metallicities agree generally very well with literature values on the Zinn & West scale once corrected for enhancement, in particular for those cluster where the ages agree with the colour–magnitude diagram ages. We tend to slightly underestimate the metallicity for those clusters where we overestimate the age, in line with the age–metallicity degeneracy. It turns out that the derivation of individual element abundance ratios is not reliable at an iron abundance [Fe/H] −1 dex. We find general enhancement of light and elements, as expected, with significant variations for some elements. The elements O and Mg follow the same general enhancement with almost identical distributions of [O/Fe] and [Mg/Fe]. We obtain slightly lower [C/Fe] and very high [N/Fe] ratios, instead. This chemical anomaly, commonly attributed to self-enrichment, is well known in globular clusters from individual stellar spectroscopy. It is the first time that this pattern is obtained also from the integrated light. The elements follow a pattern such that the heavier elements Ca and Ti are less enhanced. More specifically, the [Ca/Fe] and [Ti/Fe] ratios are lower than [O/Fe] and [Mg/Fe] by about 0.2 dex. Most interestingly this trend of element abundance with atomic number is also seen in recent determinations of element abundances in globular cluster and field stars of the Milky Way. This suggests that Type Ia supernovae contribute significantly to the enrichment of the heavier elements as predicted by nucleosynthesis calculations and galactic chemical evolution models.


The Shielding of Mrs Forbes Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. Though her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections. The Greening of Mrs Donaldson Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating...


Abstract This paper reviews the literature on European frontiers to identify some of the main methodological and theoretical issues raised. Perceptions of socio‐economic and political problems posed by European borders have radically altered since the 1960s. Anxieties and uncertainties about changes in the function of frontiers are apparent in political debate, and frontiers have attracted increased scholarly attention. Some of the factors, which have influenced the research, how it has been organized and funded, its achievements and changes in orientation, are assessed. Suggestions are made about future research activity and the difficulties it confronts.


With improved sensor resolution and advanced multi-pass interferometric techniques such as SAR tomographic inversion (TomoSAR), it is now possible to reconstruct both shape and motion of urban infrastructures. These sophisticated techniques not only opens up new possibilities to monitor and visualize the dynamics of urban infrastructure in very high level of details but also allows us to take a step further towards generation of 4D (space-time) or even higher dimensional dynamic city models that can potentially incorporate temporal (motion) behaviour along with the 3D information. Motivated by these chances, this paper presents a post processing approach that systematically allows automatic reconstruction of building facades from 4D point cloud generated from tomographic SAR processing and put the particular focus on robust reconstruction of large areas. The approach is modular and consists of extracting facade points via point density estimation procedure based on directional window approach. Segmentation of facades into individual segments is then carried out using an unsupervised clustering procedure combining both the density-based clustering and the mean-shift algorithm. Subsequently, points of individual facade segments are identified as belonging to flat or curved surface and general 1st and 2nd order polynomials are used to model the facade geometry. Finally, intersection points of the adjacent facades describing the vertex points are determined to complete the reconstruction process. The proposed approach is illustrated and validated by examples using TomoSAR point clouds over the city of Las Vegas generated from a stack of TerraSARX high resolution spotlight images.


While yoga interventions in the incarcerated setting are on the rise, little is known regarding their efficacy. The objective of this article is to assess the effects of yoga on the well-being of incarcerated populations. Two reviewers systematically searched PubMed, Psycinfo, EBSCO MegaFILE, Web of Science, Science Direct, AMED, and Google Scholar for yoga intervention studies in jails and prisons. The search yielded 54 results; ten papers met inclusion criteria. Evaluated outcomes included stress, cognitive performance, mental and physical well-being and re-incarceration rates. While the majority of yoga practiced was hatha, yoga interventions also included a focus on yogic philosophy and spirituality. The reviewed studies found statistically significant outcomes pointing to the benefits of yoga. Many of the studies were limited by study design challenges (such as lack of control groups) and minimal discussion regarding the intervention's purported mechanism. Yoga interventions in the incarcerated setting are associated with positive well-being outcomes. Future interventions can choose outcomes based both on the type of yoga practiced and on the needs of the criminal justice population.


We analyze the effect of technological change in a novel framework that integrates an economy's skill distribution with its occupational and industrial structure. Individuals become managers or workers based on their managerial vs. worker skills, and workers further sort into a continuum of tasks (occupations) ranked by skill content. Our theory dictates that faster technological progress for middle-skill tasks not only raises the employment shares and relative wages of lower- and higher-skill occupations among workers (horizontal polarization), but also raises those of managers over workers as a whole (vertical polarization). Both dimensions of polarization are faster within sectors that depend more on middle-skill tasks and less on managers. This endogenously leads to faster TFP growth of such sectors, whose employment and value-added shares shrink if sectoral goods are complementary (structural change). We present several novel facts that support our model, followed by a quantitative analysis showing that task specific technological progress|which was fastest for occupations embodying routinemanual tasks but not interpersonal skills|is important for understanding changes in the sectoral, occupational, and organizational structure of the U.S. economy since 1980.


Turkish spoken in the Netherlands (NL-Turkish) sounds different in comparison to Turkish spoken in Turkey (TR-Turkish) due to Dutch influence. In addition to borrowed Dutch words/phrases, Dutch influence on NL-Turkish is also observed through literally translated constructions. This study investigates the Dutch influence on NL-Turkish constructions with subject pronouns. Analyses of NL-Turkish and TR-Turkish spoken corpora do not reveal any significant differences in terms of subject pronoun frequency. However, qualitative analysis of the data reveals some unconventional cases of subject pronoun use in NL-Turkish. In these cases, subject pronouns do not lead to unconventionality on their own but as parts of larger constructions that are copied from Dutch as chunks. Following the principles of usage-based approaches, these unconventional constructions are further analyzed in terms of their level of schematicity and flexibility.


Instability and conflict within African countries are on the rise. What are the best means for third parties to promote short-term crisis management and long-term conflict resolution in these situations? Often, these two tasks are at odds with one another, and certain approaches to intervention may be more or less effective. This study grapples with these issues by focusing on one particularly difficult set of cases—violent crises that are rooted in ethnic divisions and are part of protracted conflicts in Africa during the post-Cold War era—and one approach to intervention—mediation. We also view mediation as a multidimensional strategic process, and we test a series of hypotheses linking specific mediation styles to various crisis outcomes. The data and analyses reported in this study grew out of a new project named Mediating Intrastate Crises that is focused on uncovering the dynamics of successful mediation efforts during crisis situations at the intrastate level, which are important but understudied phenomena. Our findings indicate that mediators are highly effective at managing crises in the short term, particularly when they adopt a more intrusive approach. However, they have insignificant effects on long-term conflict resolution, showing little ability to stem the tide of recurrent violence.


This paper exploits the possibility of explaining the geographical distribution of special education students in North Carolina based on some quality of life traits. The results show that enrollment of special education students is highly correlated with personal income, population, government revenue and the number of AFDC and food stamps recipients. However, the enrollment of special education is not highly correlated with average SAT scores and the level of expenditure on education per student. The issue of equity in education is one that cannot be swept under the carpet by public policymakers. Equity focuses on making education available, attainable and affordable for all citizens. Much of educational legislation and regulation designed to improve equity in the latter half of the twentieth century stemmed from the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. As Howe and Miramontes (1992) point out, three important principles were articulated in this decision: individuals in modern society need a decent formal education as a condition for a decent quality of life; separating students is harmful to their self-concepts and reduces their achievement; and following from the first two, separate educational facilities are "inherently unequal" and are therefore prohibited (p. 26). Although the Brown decision was applied to the issue of race, the arguments and outcomes have been extended to special education. One of the earliest cases on special needs students as a result of the climate created by the Brown ruling was Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Citizens (PARC) v. Pennsylvania State in 1972 in which a state association and parents of certain retarded children brought class action seeking declaratory judgement that statutes pertaining to exclusion of retarded children from program of education and training in public schools were unconstitutional. The historic legal ruling that resulted from this case has had a major impact on funding for special needs students. The ruling stated that all children must be provided access to a free public education appropriate to their ability to learn. Another significant ruling in Mills v. Board of Education (in Washington, DC, 1972) also impacted special education policy and funding. The plaintiffs alleged that although they can benefit from an education either in regular classrooms with supportive services or in special classes adopted to their needs, they have been labeled as having behavioral problems -- mentally retarded, hyperactive, and emotionally disturbed -- and denied admissions to the public schools or excluded from classes after admission, with no provision for alterative placement or periodic review. In the ruling in this case, it was stated that constitutional rights must be afforded citizens despite the greater expense involved. If sufficient funds were not available to finance all of services and programs that were needed and desirable in public school systems, then available funds must be expanded equitably in such manner that no child was entirely excluded from publicly supported education consistent with his needs and abilities. Furthermore, the right to education was deemed inclusive of a broad range of handicapped children, and hence, the practice of forbidding exclusion of handicapped children from regular school assignment unless provided with due process was put in place. The passage of the Education of the Handicapped Act by Congress in 1975 (amended to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, PL101-476) mandating special education services in any state that wished to continue receiving federal education aid, was another major force affecting the funding of special education students (Thompson, et al 1994, pp. 239-240). However, the major issue that has been raised in the literature on special education is finance, or specifically the rising cost of special education. Thus, special education has mainly been discussed from the point of view of funding. …


The monohemic cytochrome c552from Pseudomonas nautica (c552-Pn) is thought to be the electron donor to cytochrome cd1, the so-called nitrite reductase (NiR). It shows as high levels of activity and affinity for the P. nautica NiR (NiR-Pn), as the Pseudomonas aeruginosa enzyme (NiR-Pa). Since cytochrome c552is by far the most abundant electron carrier in the periplasm, it is probably involved in numerous other reactions. Its sequence is related to that of the c type cytochromes, but resembles that of the dihemic c4cytochromes even more closely. The three-dimensional structure of P. nautica cytochrome c552has been solved to 2.2 A resolution using the multiple wavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD) technique, taking advantage of the presence of the eight Fe heme ions in the asymmetric unit. Density modification procedures involving 4-fold non-crystallographic averaging yielded a model with an R -factor value of 17.8 % (Rfree=20.8 %). Cytochrome c552forms a tight dimer in the crystal, and the dimer interface area amounts to 19% of the total cytochrome surface area. Four tighly packed dimers form the eight molecules of the asymmetric unit. The c552dimer is superimposable on each domain of the monomeric cytochrome c4from Pseudomomas stutzeri (c4-Ps), a dihemic cytochrome, and on the dihemic c domain of flavocytochrome c of Chromatium vinosum (Fcd-Cv). The interacting residues which form the dimer are both similar in character and position, which is also true for the propionates. The dimer observed in the crystal also exists in solution. It has been hypothesised that the dihemic c4-Ps may have evolved via monohemic cytochrome c gene duplication followed by evolutionary divergence and the adjunction of a connecting linker. In this process, our dimeric c552structure might be said to constitute a "living fossile" occurring in the course of evolution between the formation of the dimer and the gene duplication and fusion. The availability of the structure of the cytochrome c552-Pn and that of NiR from P. aeruginosa made it possible to identify putative surface patches at which the docking of c552to NiR-Pn may occur.


As a publication, "Audio Visual" is divided into two sections: the first deals with the academic discussion on the subject of visual music; the second introduces contemporary paradigms of audio-visual praxis in brief presentations and contextualises them. Apart from being a guide in the historical sense, this new volume provides theoretical approaches to understanding and making visual music. The subject is approached from the fringe (music video, Expanded Cinema, games, etc.) so that the phenomenon can, on the one hand, be more accurately defined via interfaces with other forms of audio-visual production and, on the other, through an attempt at distinguishing it from them.Drawing heavily on examples, the individual essays discuss various aspects of visual music. Contemporary approaches to producing and handling visual music are presented in brief essays that abound with examples. The texts and illustrations are intended to introduce visual music from a great many angles, including the perspectives of musicians, artists, curators, festival directors and software developers, and provide insights into what is currently going on both in the experimental sector and at clubs. The approaches and results presented in the book can be verified and checked with the accompanying DVD that features earlier and current examples of visual music. The DVD shows mainly material from live performances that is often extremely hard to find, be it from Expanded Cinema or performances by VJs and musicians.


Background: Prevalence of epilepsy is highest among the elderly, but precise data on the clinical profile and response to pharmacotherapy are not readily available from the developing countries. Objective: To ascertain the clinical spectrum, pharmacotherapy, efficacy, tolerability and the outcome of treatment of epilepsy in the elderly. Materials and Methods: This study was carried out in a tertiary referral epilepsy center in Kerala State, India. We had restricted the analysis persons aged 60 years and above with two or more seizures, that we identified from the registers in the electroencephalography laboratory and medical records departments for the period 2001-2004. Data abstracted on standard forms was analyzed with SPSS package. Results: There were 116 persons (68 men) included in this study. The first seizure was after 60 years of age for 91 persons (78.4%) and the mean duration of follow up was 34.7 ± 48.3 months. Seizures were generalized tonic clonic (GTCS) for 43 and partial with or without generalization for 72 patients. One year remission was 55.8% for patients with follow-up > 12 months. Anti epileptic drug was withdrawn in 59 patients during the follow-up period, the reasons being achievement of remission 29 (49.2%), poor efficacy 14 (23.7%), adverse drug effects 9 (15.3%) and other reasons 7 (11.9%). There were 77 patients who had other concomitant illnesses (mean 2.3 drugs per person) taking other medicines (mean 2.3 drugs per persons) with potential risk of adverse drug interaction. Conclusion: Epilepsy in the elderly can be due to several underlying causes and two-third of them are likely to have other concomitant disorders requiring other drug therapy. Potential risk of drug interactions needs to be carefully evaluated while initiating pharmacotherapy for epilepsy in the elderly.


For two millennia, the Ars Poetica (Art of Poetry), the 476-line literary treatise in verse with which Horace closed his career, has served as a paradigmatic manual for writers. Rarely has it been considered as a poem in its own right, or else it has been disparaged as a great poet's baffling outlier. Here, this book fully reintegrates the Ars Poetica into Horace's oeuvre, reading the poem as a coherent, complete, and exceptional literary artifact intimately linked with the larger themes pervading his work. Arguing that the poem can be interpreted as a manual on how to live masquerading as a handbook on poetry, the book traces its key themes to show that they extend beyond poetry to encompass friendship, laughter, intergenerational relationships, and human endeavor. If the poem is read for how it expresses itself, moreover, it emerges as an exemplum of art in which judicious repetitions of words and ideas join disparate parts into a seamless whole that nevertheless lends itself to being remade upon every reading. This book is a logical evolution of Horace's work, which promises to inspire a long overdue reconsideration of a hugely influential yet misunderstood poem.


Because of the absence of appropriate and simple means of improving water quality, majority of the Ethiopian
population are consuming non-potable water. Storage of raw water in local vessels and filtration of fluoridated water through crushed brick and clay pot are simple methods of treating water. Samples of water from stream, spring and fluoridated water was used to see effect of storage and appropriate home made filters in the reduction of fecal coliform, turbidity colour, and fluoride. After the samples were initially tested for these parameters, they have been stored for one, two and three days in clay pots, plastic (jerrycan) and metal bucket. The result showed a reduction of fecal coliforms by 100 per cent, 89.6 per cent and 74.6 per cent in metal bucket, plastic (jerrican) and clay pot vessels after
three days of storage, respectively. In addition considerable reduction of turbidity and colour was also achieved. On the other hand local clay pots showed effect in reducing
fluoride concentration after storage. Filtration of fluoridated water sample through crushed brick and local clay
pot have shown an average reduction of fluoride concentration by 57.2 and 93.8 percent, respectively. This study has revealed that storage of raw water and using clay filters can remove biological, physical and chemical
contaminants up to recommended values by WHO. It is believed that with further perfection communities who
lack safe water source can use the method just mentioned to purify their water in their homes.


UNLABELLED
The aim of this study was to identify candidate single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that may play a role in the susceptibility to glioma, to elucidate their potential mechanisms, and to generate SNP-to-gene-to-pathway hypotheses.A genome-wide association study (GWAS) dataset of glioma including 509,345 SNPs from 1,856 glioma patients and 4,955 control subjects of European descent was used in this study. Identify candidate Causal SNPs and Pathways (ICSNPathway) analysis was applied to the GWAS dataset.ICSNPathway analysis identified 6 candidate SNPs, 5 genes, and 9 pathways, which revealed 5 hypothetical biological mechanisms. The hypothetical mechanisms, beginning with the strongest, are summarized as follows: (i) rs667128 alters the role of taste receptor, type 2, member 8 (TAS2R8) in taste receptor activity and taste transduction pathways (p < 0.001, false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.001; p = 0.001, FDR = 0.012, respectively), (ii) rs619381 modulates the effect of taste receptor, type 2, member 7 (TAS2R7) on taste receptor activity and taste transduction (p < 0.001, FDR < 0.001; p = 0.001, FDR = 0.012), (iii) rs1033583 modulates delta-like protein 1 (DLL1), regulating cell adhesion and segment specification (p < 0.001, FDR = 0.011; p = 0.001, FDR = 0.032), (iv) rs2232580 affects the role of lipopolysaccharide binding protein (LBP) in the response to lipopolysaccharide, positive regulation of interleukin-6 production, acute inflammatory response, and in macrophage activation (0.002 ≤ p ≤ 0.013; 0.012 ≤ FDR ≤ 0.030), and (v) rs4644 and rs4652 regulate lectin, galactoside-binding, soluble, 3 (LGALS3), affecting immunoglobulin binding (p = 0.010; FDR = 0.040).Using the ICSNPathway to analyze glioma GWAS data, 6 candidate SNPs, 5 genes (TAS2R8, TAS2R7, DLL1, LBP, and LGALS3), and 9 pathways that may contribute to the susceptibility of glioma were identified.

KEYWORDS
glioma, genome-wide association study, pathway-based analysis.


Examines the changes to the release procedures for mandatory life prisoners in England and Wales over the last 50 years, revealing the tensions between the executive and the judiciary over the degree of executive control over what happens to convicted murderers. Considers: (1) the abolition of the death penalty; (2) the creation and operation of the Parole Board under the Criminal Justice Act 1967 and the executive's determination in the early 1980s to shift power back to the Home Secretary; (3) the development of the tariff and formal separation of the requirements of retribution and deterrence from the issue of risk, the reform of the release system for discretionary lifers but reinforcement of the executive's control over mandatory lifers' in the early 1990s; (4) the fundamental reforms following the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights and the executive's bid to regain control by limiting judge's sentencing powers through the introduction of statutory guidelines under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 Sch.21; (5) how these new procedures, effective December 18, 2003, have worked to date. Concludes by reflecting on the reasons for the substantial increase in the number of life prisoners and the extent to which lifers' now spend much longer in prison. Echoes recommendations going back to 1975 for the replacement of the mandatory life sentence with a determinate sentence fixed by a judge.


CD40 is a glycoprotein of about 50 kDa that plays a crucial role in B cell growth and differentiation. It is found on the surface of B cells, follicular dendritic cells, monocytes, and some endothelial, epithelial, and carcinoma cells. Engagement of CD40 with anti-CD40 mAbs, gp39 expressed on the cell surface or soluble forms of gp39, primes B cells to efficiently respond to subsequent stimulatory signals leading to B cell proliferation, differentiation, and isotype switching. Peripheral monocytes also express CD40 on the cell surface and expression in increased following treatment with IFN-gamma. Using a soluble murine CD8/human gp39 fusion protein (sgp39) we have found that CD40 plays a crucial role in the regulation of monocyte function. Stimulation of human peripheral monocytes with sgp39 induced homotypic aggregation and significantly increased the expression of several cell-surface proteins including CD54, MHC class II, CD86, and CD40. Soluble gp39 also dramatically enhanced monocyte survival, preventing the onset of apoptosis that normally occurs upon withdrawal of serum. Finally, in the absence of any costimulatory molecules, sgp39 stimulated monocytes to produce TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta, IL-6, and IL-8. These results suggest that ligation of CD40 on human monocytes induces phenotypic changes that would be expected to influence T cell activation by the monocyte and also to enhance or prolong inflammatory responses.


SUMMARY Community-based management is an increasingly important form of governance and control of forests and other natural resources. In Indonesia, government policy aims to expand the role of communities in controlling and managing forests. Since the 1970s, many different forms of community forestry (CF) have been implemented in Indonesia but there has been little systematic analysis of these different approaches. This paper presents a typology of CF in Indonesia to present academic knowledge of CF in a form that is useful for practice. The typology acknowledges the networked nature of communities and was developed through qualitative analysis of 311 documents representing 112 cases of CF. Two dimensions emerged that illustrate the evolution of CF: a 'formality' dimension and a 'support' dimension. The former indicated the degree of government authorisation and the latter indicated the degree and type of support provided to communities from governments, businesses, NGOs or other external actors. Nine types of CF were identified, six formal, two partially formalised and one informal. An analysis of these types revealed there are mixed benefits for communities in formalising their access to forests and that the challenges, and therefore needs for support, differ markedly between communities. This study provides a systematic basis for researchers aiming to understand the processes of transition to CF, and for policy makers and practitioners aiming to implement CF in Indonesia and elsewhere.


Abstract Catastrophism in the Earth sciences is rooted in the view that Earth signifies its causative processes via landforms, structures and rock. Processes of types, rates and magnitudes not presently in evidence may well be signified this way. Uniformitarianism, in contrast, is a regulative stipulation motivated by the presumed necessity that science achieves logical validity in what can be said (hypothesized) about the Earth. Regulative principles, including simplicity, actualism and gradualism, are imposed a priori to insure valid inductive reasoning. This distinction lies at the heart of the catastrophist versus uniformitarian debates in the early nineteenth century and it continues to influence portions of the current scientific program. Uniformitarianism, as introduced by Charles Lyell in 1830, is specifically tied to an early nineteenth century view of inductive inference. Catastrophism involves a completely different form of inference in which hypotheses are generated retroductively. This latter form of logical inference remains relevant to modern science, while the outmoded notions of induction that warranted the doctrine of uniformitarianism were long ago shown to be overly restrictive in scientific practice. The latter should be relegated solely to historical interest in the progress of ideas.


Development of the next generation materials for effective separation of gases is required to address various issues in energy and environmental applications. Ionic liquids (ILs) are among the most promising material types. To overcome the many hurdles in making a new class of materials technologically applicable, it is necessary to identify, access, and scale up a range of representative substances. In this work, CO2 reactive triazolide ILs were synthesized and characterized with the aim of developing a deeper understanding of how structural changes affect the overall properties of these substances. It was found that substituents on the anion play a crucial role in dictating the physical properties for CO2 capture. Depending upon the anion substituent, CO2 capacities between 0.07 and 0.4 mol CO2 per mol IL were observed. It was found that less sterically-hindered anions and anions containing electron donating groups were more reactive towards CO2. Detailed spectroscopic, CO2 absorption, rheological, and simulation studies were carried out to understand the nature and influence of these substituents. The effect of water content was also evaluated, and it was found that water had an unexpected impact on the properties of these materials, resulting in an increased viscosity, but little change in the CO2 reactivity.


Legal animal welfare proponents should not reject out-of-hand reforms that may be celebrated by some as steps toward a radical version of animal rights. Rather, animal welfare proponents should consider the costs, risks, and benefits of all potential reforms. Some potential reforms' risks and costs outweigh their benefits. But, both to improve animals' welfare and to avoid irrelevance in an evolving society, legal animal welfare advocates should be willing to tolerate some costs and risks. Walking on the edge of slippery slopes is in some situations better than avoiding the slopes altogether. Connecticut's 2016 animal advocacy statute provides an illustration of legal reform that legal animal welfare proponents should embrace even though it presents some risks of being perceived as a step toward a radical legal personhood rights paradigm.


We introduce reflexive polytopes of index $l$ as a natural generalisation of the notion of a reflexive polytope of index $1$. These $l$-reflexive polytopes also appear as dual pairs. In dimension two we show that they arise from reflexive polygons via a change of the underlying lattice. This allows us to efficiently classify all isomorphism classes of $l$-reflexive polygons up to index $200$. As another application, we show that any reflexive polygon of arbitrary index satisfies the famous "number $12$" property. This is a new, infinite class of lattice polygons possessing this property, and extends the previously known sixteen instances. The number $12$ property also holds more generally for $l$-reflexive non-convex or self-intersecting polygonal loops. We conclude by discussing higher-dimensional examples and open questions.


"Can preaching recover a Blues sensibility and dare speak with authority in the midst of tragedy? America is living stormy Monday, but the pulpit is preaching happy Sunday. The world is experiencing the Blues, and pulpiteers are dispensing excessive doses of non-prescribed prosaic sermons with severe ecclesiastical and theological side effects." --from chapter 1 Uniquely gifted preacher Otis Moss III helps preachers effectively communicate hope in a desperate and difficult world in this new work based on his 2014 Yale Lyman Beecher Lectures. Moss challenges preachers to preach with a "Blue Note sensibility," which speaks directly to the tragedies faced by their congregants without falling into despair. He then offers four powerful sermons that illustrate his Blue Note preaching style. In them, Moss beautifully and passionately brings to life biblical characters that speak to today's pressing issues, including race discrimination and police brutality, while maintaining a strong message of hope. Moss shows how preachers can teach their congregations to resist letting the darkness find its way into them and, instead, learn to dance in the dark.


This paper introduces some concepts for analysing scalar aspects of governance, governance failure, and meta-governance. There is now a significant corpus of work on multi-level governance in the European Union as well as an enormous literature on various modes of governance. Although the problem of scale is often posed directly for the EU case (notably in terms of the 'multi-level' character of its political regime), scalar issues are also important for all forms of governance. For effective governance must take account of the specific spatio-temporalities of its objects and mechanisms as well as the spatio-temporal location and horizons of action of the subjects involved in its exercise. In particular, among their other relational properties, the objects of governance are more or less embedded in space, place, and scale and linked to distinctive temporal relations and emergent temporalities. This indicates the relevance of a strategic-relational concern with space, place and scale, with spatial, local and scalar imaginaries, and with attempts to secure spatio-temporal fixes to facilitate the reproduction of objects of governance. Given space constraints, I focus here on two sets of issues: (i) theoretically, the role of scale, scalar divisions of labour, the relativisation of scale, and multi-scalar governance; and (ii) substantively, the now paradigmatic case of the European Union as a novel form of multi-scalar meta-governance. Copyright (c) 2005 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.


Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR1) spectroscopy is an important experimental technique that allows one to study protein structure in solution and to identify important sites in a protein. An important bottleneck in NMR protein structure determination is the assignment of NMR peaks to the corresponding nuclei. Structure-based assignment (SBA) aims to solve this problem with the help of a template protein which is homologous to the target and has applications in the study of structure-activity relationship, protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. We formulate SBA as a linear assignment problem with additional Nuclear Overhauser Effect (NOE) constraints, which can be solved within Nuclear Vector Replacement's (NVR) ([7], [8]) framework. Our approach uses NVR's scoring function and data types, and also gives the option of using CH and NH RDCs, instead of NH RDCs which NVR requires. We test our technique on NVR's data set as well as on two new proteins. Our results are comparable to NVR's assignment accuracy on NVR's test set, but higher on novel proteins. Our approach allows partial assignments. It is also complete and can return the optimum as well as near-optimum assignments. Furthermore, it allows us to analyze the information content of each data type and is easily extendable to accept new forms of input data, such as additional RDCs.


Betty Boyd Caroli's engrossing and informative First Ladies is both a captivating read and an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America's First Ladies. This expanded and updated fourth edition includes Laura Bush's tenure, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid, and an in-depth look at Michelle Obama, one of the most charismatic and appealing First Ladies in recent history. Covering all forty-one women from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama and including the daughters, daughters-in-law, and sisters of presidents who sometimes served as First Ladies, Caroli explores each woman's background, marriage, and accomplishments and failures in office. This remarkably diverse lot included Abigail Adams, whose "remember the ladies" became a twentieth-century feminist refrain; Jane Pierce, who prayed her husband would lose the election; Helen Taft, who insisted on living in the White House, although her husband would have preferred a judgeship; Eleanor Roosevelt, who epitomized the politically involved First Lady; and Pat Nixon, who perfected what some have called "the robot image." They ranged in age from early 20s to late 60s; some received superb educations for their time, while others had little or no schooling. Including the courageous and adventurous, the emotionally unstable, the ambitious, and the reserved, these women often did not fit the traditional expectations of a presidential helpmate. Here then is an engaging portrait of how each First Lady changed the role and how the role changed in response to American culture. These women left remarkably complete records, and their stories offer us a window through which to view not only this particular sorority of women, but also American women in general. "Impressive...Caroli's profiles and observations of American first ladies and their relationship to the media are intelligent and perceptive." -Philadelphia Inquirer


The European macro-prudential policy framework operates at two levels. First, the ESRB has a legal responsibility for macro-prudential oversight in the EU. Second, various national and EU authorities have responsibility for the implementation of macro-prudential policy. The creation of a European banking union is an important innovation within this two-level structure. In response to this innovation, this paper makes two key points. First, the ECB should be in charge of macro-prudential policies conferred by the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive. Within the ECB, macro-prudential decisions should be taken entirely by the Governing Council, while micro-prudential decisions should be prepared by the Supervisory Board. Second, the ESRB remains the only EU-wide body in charge of macro-prudential supervision, responsible for all financial activities. The ESRB's effectiveness could be strengthened by creating a post of Managing Director, who would carry out the policy determined by the General Board and would be responsible to the General Board for the management of the ESRB. JEL Classification: G28