This thesis investigates the applicability of Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to sentence clustering for Multi-Document Summarization (MDS). In contrast to more shallow approaches like measuring similarity of sentences by word overlap in a traditional vector space model, LSA takes word usage patterns into account. So far LSA has been successfully applied to different Information Retrieval (IR) tasks like information filtering and document classification (Dumais, 2004). In the course of this research, different parameters essential to sentence clustering using a hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithm (HAC) in general and in combination with LSA in particular are investigated. These parameters include, inter alia, information about the type of vocabulary, the size of the semantic space and the optimal numbers of dimensions to be used in LSA. These parameters have not previously been studied and evaluated in combination with sentence clustering (chapter 4). This thesis also presents the first gold standard for sentence clustering in MDS. To be able to evaluate sentence clusterings directly and classify the influence of the different parameters on the quality of sentence clustering, an evaluation strategy is developed that includes gold standard comparison using different evaluation measures (chapter 5). Therefore the first compound gold standard for sentence clustering was created. Several human annotators were asked to group similar sentences into clusters following guidelines created for this purpose (section 5.4). The evaluation of the human generated clusterings revealed that the human annotators agreed on clustering sentences above chance. Analysis of the strategies adopted by the human annotators revealed two groups – hunters and gatherers – who differ clearly in the structure and size of the clusters they created (chapter 6). On the basis of the evaluation strategy the parameters for sentence clustering and LSA are optimized (chapter 7). A final experiment in which the performance of LSA in sentence clustering for MDS is compared to the simple word matching approach of the traditional Vector Space Model (VSM) revealed that LSA produces better quality sentence clusters for MDS than VSM.


IZA Policy Paper No. 152 MARCH 2020 Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom: A Short Note on the Multidimensional Benefits of Chinese Immigrants to Canada A rise in Chinese immigrant arrivals would have respectively decisive and unambiguous positive socio-economic effects on Canadians. The multidimensional positive impacts accruing to Canada from the increased arrival of Hong-Kong, Taiwanese and PRC immigrants would be manifested in terms of the long term presence of highly educated immigrants increasing Canada's productivity which will in turn diversify Canada's trade patterns beyond Canada's current NAFTA/USMCA boundaries. Cultural enrichment in terms of increased financial and artistic support for Canada's fine arts and musical world would also be encouraged by an increased presence of Chinese immigrants in Canada's cultural milieu. JEL Classification: J60, J61, J68


Cyanoethylene oxide (CEO), the putative toxic and carcinogenic metabolite of acrylonitrile, is a direct-acting mutagen. CEO reacted with deoxythymidine (dT) to form a single adduct (approximately 3% dT modified). Using two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy and fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry, this adduct was identified as N3-(2-cyano-2-hydroxyethyl)deoxythymidine. Subsequently, degradation of the adduct yielded N3-(2,2-dihydroxyethyl)deoxythymidine, a hydrated form of N3-(oxoethyl)deoxythymidine. N3-(2-cyano-2-hydroxyethyl)deoxythymidine was also detected in the reaction of [2,3-14C]CEO with calf thymus DNA. Small UV peaks, not present in the control, were detected from the reaction of CEO with dA, dG and dC. However, neither their retention times nor spectral characteristics corresponded with the standards used in this study. Characterization of this cyano-hydroxyethyl adduct and its degradation product following in vitro exposure of nucleosides to CEO may provide insight as to the types of adducts that could be assessed as biomarkers in vivo, and the modifications responsible for the mutational effects of CEO.


An integrated approach that combines a signal extraction method SSA (Singular Spectrum Analysis) with ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) has been introduced to make multiple day ahead forecasts for daily maximum ambient O_3 concentrations. The results are compared with the forecasts obtained by more commonly used signal extraction method FFT (Fast Fourier Transforms) in combination with ARIMA. The data from six different European AIRBASE stations have been analyzed to test their skills in one-day ahead to five-day ahead forecasts. In SSA-ARIMA, the SSA has been used to extract the different structural components of the time series. The first few principal components have been selected based on their dominance in the eigenvalues spectrum. Each component has been modelled separately and their sum is called SSA-component. The residuals of the "SSA-component subtracted from the actual data" exhibited stationarity and have been modeled using ARIMA process. In the second approach called by FFT-ARIMA, FFT has been used to model the periodicities exhibited by the time series. The first few predominant frequencies have been selected based on the power-spectrum characteristics of the time series. The residuals of the "FFT-component subtracted from the actual data" were modeled using ARIMA process. The performances of both the SSA-ARIMA and FFT-ARIMA were evaluated for 30 out of sample days for one to five day ahead forecasts. The statistical indicators RMSE (root mean square error) and MAE (mean absolute error) reveal that the SSA-ARIMA consistently outperforms FFT-ARIMA. Moreover, SSA-ARIMA has also been found to perform better especially for multiple day ahead forecasts. The results clearly indicate that the SSA-ARIMA approach can be a potential alternative to make short term air quality forecasting.


In the past two years, there has been considerable interest in Total Quality Management (TQM). At the level of local government, interest is shown by the increasing number of TQM initiatives in such services as garbage collection, street maintenance, welfare services, police protection, emergency services, and other areas (Sensenbrenner, 1991; Galloway, 1992; Walters, 1992; Pfister, 1993; Lusk, Tribus, and Schwinn, 1989; Penzer, 1991; Kline, 1992; International City and Country Management Association, 1993). applications vary from administrative cost savings to strategic reorientations of agency objectives to meet the needs of citizens more effectively. In general, the objectives of these applications are to increase customer orientation, timeliness, and service performance, while reducing costs. Also, many of these applications apply TQM concepts loosely; that is, they do not necessarily follow strict or orthodox TQM concepts. Notwithstanding considerable interest for TQM in municipal government, informed observers have highlighted many problems with the implementation of TQM. For example, Kravchuk and Leighton (1993), as well as Davis and Hyde (1992), see traditional administrative functions such as budgeting and human resources as control-oriented impediments to TQM. Cohen and Brand (1993) focus on the need for long-term commitment, which is compromised by the ever-changing political contexts of public management, as well as turnover by top management. Swiss (1992) questions the suitability of production-oriented private sector experiences for government. Others have challenged TQM on normative grounds. Linden (1992), believes that by focusing on customers, governments may overlook the legitimate interest of citizens. Frederickson (1994) argues that interest in TQM is misplaced, and that more progress is needed on difficult policy issues. These problems cause many to see TQM as just one more in a series of short-lived management fads (Bleakley, 1993; Zemke, 1993). Despite these concerns, it is obvious to many practitioners that (at least for now) TQM is very much alive in government (e.g., Rago, 1993). However, we known very little about the extent of TQM implementation in local government, the reasons that cities implement TQM, the areas in which TQM is often used, and so forth. This is because many existing accounts are largely based on anecdotal evidence and have an advocacy orientation. By contrast, we aim to provide in this article a systematic and balanced assessment of TQM in municipal government. Through a national survey of U.S. cities (with populations over 25,000), we provide evidence of (1) the level of municipal implementation, (2) the forces which drive cities to implement TQM, (3) differences in TQM implementation by cities of different, regions, and form of government, (4) strategies used to implement TQM, and (5) a subjective assessment by chief administrative officers of the impact of TQM to date. We also examine the relationships among these aspects such as, for example, between different strategies and the level of implementation. The Level of Commitment TQM is an encompassing management approach whose principal tenets are to satisfy (internal and external) customer needs through strategies of employee empowerment and performance measurement (e.g., Milakovich, 1991; Garrity, 1993; Barzelay, 1992; Keehley, 1992). Customer needs are addressed through the multi-faceted concept of quality,' which includes such elements as performance, conformance, accuracy, reliability, and timeliness (Federal Quality Institute, 1991; Rosen, 1993). In many instances, these elements are quantifiable and, hence, subject to evaluation, assessment, and continuous improvement. Employee empowerment is used because it allows employees to address customer problems in a timely and often tailored way (Berman, 1995). A common problem with the implementation of productivity improvement innovations such as TQM is that many organizations implement them at a token level rather than fully committing themselves to success (Downs and Mohr, 1980; Miller, 1993). …


Presented in this paper are arguments that studies of evidence in the fields of law and probability constitute a science of evidence when they are examined in light of five criteria for scientific activity. Three examples of studies from law and probability are presented to justify this argument. Examples from law include a method for classifying recurrent forms and combinations of evidence regardless of their substance or content, studies identifying credibility attributes for different forms of evidence and studies of complex argument construction in which new lines of inquiry and evidence are generated or discovered. Examples from probability include various views among probabilists about what the weight or force of evidence means and how it should be assessed, several examples of how important subtleties or complexities in evidential reasoning can be captured for study and analysis and one example of how alternative theories about the meaning of complex combinations of events can be tested empirically. All evidence has three major credentials: relevance, credibility and inferential force or weight. The law and probability studies cited in this paper concern all these credentials.


This paper explores the relationship between resilience and globalization. We are concerned, most importantly, with whether resilience is a suitable conceptual framework for natural resource management in the context of the rapid changes and disruptions that globalization causes in social-ecological systems. Although theoretical in scope, we ground this analysis using our experiences in two Asian coastal areas: Junagadh District in Gujarat State, India and Banawa Selatan, in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. We present the histories of resource exploitation in the two areas, and we attempt to combine a resilience perspective with close attention to the impact of globalization. Our efforts serve as a basis from which to examine the conceptual and practical compatibility of resilience with globalization. The first challenge we address is epistemological: given that resilience and globalization have roots in different disciplines, do they share a sufficiently common perception of change and human action to be compatible? Second, we address the issue of how resilience can be a viable management objective in the rapidly changing context of globalization. We identify scale as particularly important in this regard.


Complaints that investors only look for short-term gains are nothing new. As early as 1990 an Economist article proclaimed: "The old bugbear of businessmen – that fund managers are too obsessed with the short term, and unwilling to buy shares in companies with ambitious research projects – is back on the prowl."Recently, the turnover of shares in listed companies has grown to numbers far exceeding those of 1990. Does this change in investor behavior influence the behavior of managers in listed firms? The institutional innovation of freely tradable shares, traceable to Holland in the 17th century, made it possible for companies such as the Dutch East India Company to have longer investment horizons than individual investors. Listing shares ensured that an investor could recoup his money from other investors and that, as a result, companies didn't have to repay individual investors. Seen in this light, one might assume that investor short-termism would have little influence on board decisions at listed companies and much more influence on board decisions at privately held companies. General opinion, however, disagrees.Since the recent banking crisis, there has been increasing demand for investors to become long-term shareholders. "Stewardship" is the term used to underscore the responsibility of institutional investors to behave as good corporate citizens. European Governance Codes that once aimed at restoring investor confidence in listed companies by setting standards for board behavior, now focus on the "best practices" of institutional investor behavior instead. Institutional investors are supposed to "engage" the boards of the companies they invest in, to enter into constructive dialogues and discuss long-term company strategy. Corporate governance theory can shed some light on what is and what isn't possible with respect to such policies. Corporate governance research has tended to focus on the agency-relation that supposedly exists between shareholders and managers. New to this theoretical concept was the notion that the company should no longer be seen as a "black box" – a theoretical unit of production designed only to optimize profits – as is seen in neo-classical economic theory. Conflicts of interest within the firm, long the exclusive domain of lawyers, began to attract the attention of economists seeking to understand and explain decision making within a company. Since the 1980's the concept of the principal-agent relation has proven a useful tool to investigate whether better governance leads to better company performance.It should be noted, however, that within this traditional corporate governance approach, a new notion of the "black box" has been introduced. This time the shareholder is assumed to be nothing more than a theoretical construct – one focused exclusively on optimizing capital returns. In reality however, shareholder decision-making is influenced by many different stimuli. This is especially true now that the shareholder has changed shape. Instead of being a private individual, he has become an institutional investor, one that manages other people's money.The importance of this fundamental shift cannot be overstated. The Bank for International Settlements described this dramatic change in its 1997/1998 Annual Report, calling the collectivization of asset management one of the most far-reaching changes within the capitalist financial system. Today, portfolio managers, whose motivation and behavior differ greatly from those of the "old fashioned individual investor," hold most of the shares. In fact, one can see that an agency relation exists between portfolio managers and the ultimate beneficiaries of their actions - private investors in mutual funds and participants in pension funds. The interests of the portfolio manager differ from those of the beneficiary. Managers want high fees even if higher fees mean lower returns for the beneficiary. The behavior of the portfolio manager may be more influenced by the targets set for his remuneration. This will, in turn, influence his behavior as a shareholder in listed companies. As a result of the rise of the institutional investor two, rather than one, agency relations should be considered in corporate governance research. The first one is the traditional one, where the shareholder is the principal and the company director is the agent. In the second agency relationship, however, the principal is the ultimate beneficiary of an institutional investor and the agent is the portfolio manager.So the portfolio manager – the modern shareholder - fulfills two roles that must both be taken into consideration. Traditional corporate governance research only recognizes the shareholder as the principal. But it is hard, if not impossible, to understand actual shareholder behavior without realizing that in 2013 most shareholders act as agents, assuming the behavior of an agent is driven by the nature of his agency relationship. Investigating this second agency relation – the one in which portfolio managers are the agent - can shed light on many aspects of both corporate governance and in capital markets. Such an approach can also help us to form hypotheses that explain why shareholders seem so focused on short-term results.


This paper presents a systematic method for designing the Human-Computer Interaction for a variety of contexts. Elaborated for future Unhabited Air Systems (UAS), this method is based on the "authority sharing" concept (tasks allocation dynamically between the user and the computer system). Most of UAS consider only two modes for controlling and commanding the air vehicles: "full manual" or "full automatic". Several modes in-between can be defined. These modes, called "operative modes", are implemented in the system and activated depending on the evolutions of the context (e.g. breakdown management, dynamic re-planning or an increasing workload). Our method is the result of a classic task analysis for the HCI design and an analysis of the user/automaton capabilities ensuing from the automation domain. This paper details this method applied to a real use-case based on a feedback from past experience on the trajectory management in UAS.


Purpose: To determine whether markers of healthy breast stroma are able to select a subgroup of patients at low risk of death or metastasis from patients considered at high risk according to routine markers of the tumor. Experimental Design: Patients with ER+/HER2− breast cancer were consecutively included for retrospective analysis. The contralateral parenchyma was segmented automatically on dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI), where upon the average of the top-10% late enhancement was calculated. This contralateral parenchymal enhancement (CPE) was analyzed with respect to routine prognostic models and molecular assays (Nottingham Prognostic Index, Dutch clinical chemotherapy-selection guidelines, 70-gene signature, and 21-gene recurrence score). CPE was split in tertiles and tested for overall and distant disease-free survival. CPE was adjusted for patient and tumor characteristics, as well as systemic therapy, using inverse probability weighting (IPW). Subanalyses were performed in patients at high risk according to prognostic models and molecular assays. Results: Four-hundred-and-fifteen patients were included, constituting the same group in which the association between CPE and survival was discovered. Median follow-up was 85 months, 34/415(8%) patients succumbed. After IPW-adjustment for patient and tumor characteristics, patients with high CPE had significantly better overall survival than those with low CPE in groups at high risk according to the Nottingham Prognostic Index [HR (95% CI): 0.08 (0.00–0.40), P < 0.001]; Dutch clinical guidelines [HR (95% CI): 0.22 (0.00–0.81), P = 0.021]; and 21-gene recurrence score [HR (95% CI): 0.14 (0.00–0.84), P = 0.030]. One group showed a trend [70-gene signature: HR (95% CI): 0.25 (0.00–1.02), P = 0.054]. Conclusions: In patients at high risk based on the tumor, subgroups at relatively low risk were identified using pretreatment enhancement of the stroma on breast DCE-MRI. Clin Cancer Res; 23(21); 6505–15. ©2017 AACR.


Just as a distinctive literary voice or style is marked by the ease with which it can be parodied, so too can specific aspects of humor be unique. Playwrights, television writers, novelists, cartoonists, and film scriptwriters use many special technical devices to create humor. Just as dramatic writers and novelists use specific devices to craft their work, creators of humorous materials--from the ancient Greeks to today's stand-up comics--have continued to use certain techniques in order to generate humor. In The Art of Comedy Writing, Arthur Asa Berger argues that there are a relatively limited number of techniques--forty-five in all--that humorists employ. Elaborating upon his prior, in-depth study of humor, An Anatomy of Humor, in which Berger provides a content analysis of humor in all forms--joke books, plays, comic books, novels, short stories, comic verse, and essays--The Art of Comedy Writing goes further. Berger groups each technique into four basic categories: humor involving identity such as burlesque, caricature, mimicry, and stereotype; humor involving logic such as analogy, comparison, and reversal; humor involving language such as puns, wordplay, sarcasm, and satire; and finally, chase, slapstick, and speed, or humor involving action. Berger claims that if you want to know how writers or comedians create humor study and analysis of their humorous works can be immensely insightful. This book is a unique analytical offering for those interested in humor. It provides writers and critics with a sizable repertoire of techniques for use in their own future comic creations. As such, this book will be of interest to people inspired by humor and the creative process--professionals in the comedy field and students of creative writing, comedy, literary humor, communications, broadcast/media, and the humanities.


Multipath phenomenon lies in the heart of power-line communication and leads to the reception of multiple replicas of the transmit signal at the receiver through various paths. Statistical knowledge of arriving paths is essential in order to evaluate performance of communication systems. First arriving path is distinguishable from the other paths in the sense that it experiences less reflection and less attenuation along its propagation path, giving it a favorable position regarding detectability. In this study, statistics of the first arriving path are initially investigated. It is shown that the first arriving path can be defined with log-Normal probability density function. It is seen that the mean of the approximating log-Normal variable decreases with an increasing number of branches between transmitter and receiver while its variance increases. The same finding is also observed when the maximum number of branches that extend out a branching node is increased. Although statistics of the first arriving path are emphasized more, statistical characterization of the other paths is discussed as well. Infinite bandwidth assumption in which all paths arriving at the receiver can be resolved is considered in the analysis. However, a brief discussion on the impact of finite bandwidth is given.


Large-scale 3D reconstruction has recently received much attention from the computer vision community. Bundle adjustment is a key component of 3D reconstruction problems. However, traditional bundle adjustment algorithms require a considerable amount of memory and computational resources. In this paper, we present an extremely efficient, inherently out-of-core bundle adjustment algorithm. We decouple the original problem into several submaps that have their own local coordinate systems and can be optimized in parallel. A key contribution to our algorithm is making as much progress towards optimizing the global non-linear cost function as possible using the fragments of the reconstruction that are currently in core memory. This allows us to converge with very few global sweeps (often only two) through the entire reconstruction. We present experimental results on large-scale 3D reconstruction datasets, both synthetic and real.


We study the susceptibility, i.e., the mean size of the component containing a random vertex, in a general model of inhomogeneous random graphs. This is one of the fundamental quantities associated to (percolation) phase transitions; in practice one of its main uses is that it often gives a way of determining the critical point by solving certain linear equations. Here we relate the susceptibility of suitable random graphs to a quantity associated to the corresponding branching process, and study both quantities in various natural examples.


Validated screening and diagnostic tools for autism spectrum disorder for use in Arabic-speaking individuals are scarce. This study validated the Arabic version of the Social Communication Questionnaire. The total study sample included 206 children with autism spectrum disorder and 206 typically developing children (73.8% male; mean age: 8.5 (standard deviation = 2.6) years). The mean Social Communication Questionnaire total score was significantly higher in autism spectrum disorder children than in typically developing children (p < 0.0001). Scores on the three Social Communication Questionnaire subscales also differed significantly between the groups (p < 0.001). Of the 39 items, 37 were endorsed significantly more often in the autism spectrum disorder group. The total Social Communication Questionnaire score did not vary by age or gender. Internal consistency was excellent (alpha = 0.92). In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve for the total score showed excellent discrimination between autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children (area under the curve = 0.95; 95% confidence interval: 0.93–0.97). The areas under the curve for the scale subscores were 0.923 (95% confidence interval: 0.898–0.949) for the social interaction score, 0.872 (95% confidence interval: 0.838–0.905) for the communication score, and 0.856 (95% confidence interval: 0.819–0.893) for the repetitive behaviors score. The findings support the use of the Arabic Social Communication Questionnaire to successfully differentiate children with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder using the established cutoff value for the English version.


In this contribution, we propose a new technique for collaborative sensing based on the analysis of the normalized (by the trace) largest eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix. Assuming that several base stations are cooperating and without the knowledge of the noise variance, the test is able to determine the presence of mobile users in a network when only few samples are available. Unlike previous heuristic techniques, we show that the test has roots within the generalized likelihood ratio test and provide an asymptotic random matrix analysis enabling to determine adequate threshold detection values (probability of false alarm). Simulations sustain our theoretical claims.


Purpose
The paper looks at the assumption that the captive audience of students and faculty lessens the need to market the academic library. The paper highlights the challenges experienced by academic libraries and discusses the vital importance of focusing library marketing and services on the needs of the clients rather than the needs of the library itself.

Findings
Academic libraries are affected by many of the same issues found in public and special libraries, particularly changing information access and distribution models and budget restrictions, resulting in the need to market library services to clients. Academic libraries need to ensure that library marketing focuses on client needs.


Bilharzia surveillance at local authority level in South Africa relies on public health personnel being able to locate transmission sites. Although several methods have been tried, the method of choice is collecting snails, identifying those that serve as intermediate hosts for bilharzia, and examining them for evidence of infection. Unfortunately, public health personnel are seldom trained to recognise these snails or the parasites' larval stages, and few laboratories are able to assist. Therefore, the intention is that these guidelines will help to equip personnel with the basic information needed to collect and identify the bilharzia-carrying snails, and then examine them for infection. The intramolluscan or larval stages of trematode parasites likely to be encountered in dissected snails are described. However, emphasis is placed on the furcocercariae, a group which includes the infective stage of bilharzia flukes. A family key to furcocercariae is presented.


During 1986, the Wyoming Water Research Center and the State Engineer's Office cooperatively did a study on the conveyance losses associated with a section of stream channel along Little Horse Creek and Horse Creek near and upstream of LaGrange, Wyoming. The purpose was to determine if a futile call for regulation of water on an upstream appropriator whose water right was later in time existed on this stretch of stream channel of some 26 miles. Through continuous streamflow records it was shown that water from the Little Horse Creek diversion, in fact, reaches the diversion some 26 miles downstream with approximately 87 percent of the flow release. Further results of a dye study between these two points confirm findings of the continuous streamflow records and indicated that travel time in the reach was approximately 79 hours for the flow conditions. Conveyance losses calculated through the study reach ranged from 13 percent in the earlier stages of the study period (July) when air temperatures were high resulting in high evapotranspiration to 4 percent in the later stages of the study period (September) when air temperatures were lower resulting in evapotranspiration activity being lower.


The Pavilion marks the new western entrance into Regent's Place, a 13-acre development in the heart of London which features retail, leisure and public spaces. It is a structure made entirely of stainless steel in which a field of vertical columns supports a roof canopy 8 m above street level. The pavilion is 20 m by 5 m in plan, with 258 highly slender rectangular hollow sections supporting a roof plane, reflecting sunlight during the day and projecting light at night from lights integrated into the paving. The structure was opened to the public in 2009 and won a 2010 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Award for architectural excellence.


This paper presents evidence for four important arguments: (1) Particular conditions in the development of the English language have allowed phonetic variation in the dental fricative to persist with few phonemic developments over the course of time. (2) The range of variation in production of the modern American English dental fricative reflects the range of actual outcomes in the other Germanic languages developing out of Proto-Germanic. (3) Relying on the uniformitarian principle, that the kinds of processes we can observe in the present are the same as processes that shaped languages in the past, this paper illustrates that the kinds of variation that are present in the Modern American English dental fricative are the same kinds of variation that can be posited to have existed in the dental fricative in Proto-Germanic. (4) These three points support, and are supported by, the theory, derived from multiple branches of linguistics, that sound change is the result of different phonemic interpretations and generalizations derived from ongoing variation. The spread of these generalizations is what gives us measurable and widespread sound changes such as those that have produced the various modern instantiations of the dental fricative.


— We study the role of the exchange rate regime, reserve accumulation, and sterilization policies in the macroeconomics of aid surges. Absent sterilization, a peg allows for almost full aid absorption—an increase in the current account deficit net of aid—delivering the same effects as those of a flexible regime but with a necessary increase in inflation. Regardless of the regime, policies that limit absorption and result in large accumulation of reserves—are welfare reducing: they help reduce the real appreciation (and inflation under the peg), but at the expense of reducing private consumption and investment, and therefore medium-term growth. 2014 International Monetary Fund. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.


This research has arisen from recent changes in attitudes to offshore safety. To help demonstrate structural safety to the Health and Safety Executive, operators are increasingly using structural system reliability assessments. While significant developments have been achieved in this area, there are still a number of uncertainties associated with such assessments. Unresolved technical issues also introduce significant variability in the results. The aim of this project is to develop a framework for system reliability, which will set a basis for moving towards more consistent reliability assessments. An extensive review study was undertaken first to establish the state of the art in the area of structure system reliability analysis of offshore structures. Based on the findings of this study, a generic system reliability framework was developed which was then developed further for specific application to fixed offshore platforms. These initial studies identified some of the key technical issues that required further investigation. The subsequent offshore application and sensitivity study, using a representative fixed platform model, concentrated on these issues and in particular on the effects of foundation parameters on ultimate strength and their interaction with other key parameters in determining the resistance function. The effect of foundation parameters and different modelling methods on system strength and reliability of fixed offshore platforms, which has largely been neglected in the past, was also investigated. The response surface methodology was developed for system reliability assessment of offshore structures incorporating the effect of foundation reliability. The findings were then used to revise the framework and provide more comprehensive account of key steps in the process of system reliability assessment. Some guidelines on the application of the response surface technique to fixed platform assessment were developed. In addition, an initial screening tool was also proposed for assessing the level of complexity required for the resistance model of the reliability assessment. The presentation of the reliability framework provides a comprehensive account of the various steps, methods and decisions associated with system reliability analysis. The framework, which can be used in both the design and reassessment of structures, can provide a basis for moving towards more consistent reliability assessments. Recommendations on areas that require further research are also presented.


A detailed study is performed to understand and show the potential of high-speed, deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) of silicon using oxygen inhibitor pulses as a replacement for hydro-fluorocarbons (HFCs). This process might be considered the 'holy grail' in DRIE as the environmental restrictions for the use of HFCs are becoming increasingly stronger. When compared to the usual cryogenic mixed oxygen DRIE and with respect to profile control, the proposed cryogenic pulsed oxygen DRIE is virtually independent of silicon loading, mask material and trench width, and it is less prone to the formation of black silicon (BS). Some indication is found that one of the major causes for the formation of BS is the existence of dust inside the plasma. Dust is created when oxygen and silicon tetra fluoride (SiF4 being the reaction product of silicon etching) coincide inside the plasma glow. This occurs in mixed oxygen plasma; the silica dust falls onto the wafer where it starts to form BS when directional etching is requested. Dust particles can also form when strong polymerizing gases are fed into the plasma. This is the case for the Bosch process using HFC pulses forming carbonic dust. The particles, and consequently the BS, are observed to be limited when the SiF4 and O2 gases are time separated, which forms the basis of the proposed pulsed oxygen DRIE. Another advantage of pulsed oxygen DRIE with respect to Bosch processing is that the protective skin of the sidewall during etching—a kind of native oxide—is believed to be self-terminating. This makes the process insensitive to profile variations caused by parameter fluctuations. It is found that inhibiting oxygen pulses give excellent results with respect to profile control at cryogenic temperatures (between −120 and −80 ◦ C) and can still compete with HFC pulses up to intermediate low temperatures (between −80 and −40 ◦ C). When selecting the proper DRIE conditions, the oxygen pulsed mode performs with excellent profile verticality and selectivity while keeping the silicon clean. It also shows a high etch rate up to 25 μ mm in −1 (<1% Si load of a 100 mm wafer). When the temperature is raised further (between −40 and 0 ◦ C), the strength of the oxygen sidewall protection progressively fails and more oxygen with more bias is needed to keep sufficient profile directionality. The use of stronger oxide-forming agents is suggested in order to enable good performance at the more convenient, higher temperature, low bias conditions. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)


This paper further explores the role of sex ratios on spouses' bargaining power, by focusing on educational attainment in order to capture the qualitative aspect of mate availability. Using Census and Current Population Survey data for U.S. metropolitan areas in year 2000, a quality sex ratio is constructed by education brackets to test the effect on the intra-household bargaining power of couples in the corresponding education bracket. We argue that a relative shortage of suitably educated women in the spouse's potential marriage market increases wives' bargaining power in the household while it lowers their husbands'. Additionally, we test the prediction that this bargaining power effect is greater as the assortative mating order by education increases. We consider a collective labor supply household model, in which each spouse's labor supply is negatively related to their level of bargaining power. We find that higher relative shortage of comparably educated women in the couple's metropolitan area reduces wives' labor supply and increases their husbands'. Also, the labor supply impact is stronger for couples in higher education groups. No such effects are found for unmarried individuals, which is consistent with bargaining theory.


Abundant research reports that weight affects the position of postverbal constituents (Hawkins 2004; Wasow 1997, 2002; Wasow & Arnold 2003). Weight has been analyzed both as a constraint on production and processing. Our study analyzes whether increasing weight can shift subject position, which is typically preverbal, to the postverbal domain. We focus on Spanish subjects with unaccusative and emission verbs, because they display similar percentages of preverbal and postverbal occurrences. Our sample corpus was extracted from the Corpus de Referencia del Espanol Actual (CREA). Data was coded as nominal and scalar data in order to compare the validity of the different methodologies adopted by Hawkins (1994) and Gries (2003) respectively. In addition, we investigate which is the most descriptive weight unit: word (Lohse, Hawkins & Wasow 2004), syllable (Gries 2003), or phoneme. Our results indicate that weight is a statistically significant factor in subject placement.


The history of the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) has presented scientists and conservationists with a variety of questions and challenges originating in part from the species' limited distribution and single primary nesting beach. Although the species was initially brought to the attention of the scientific community in 1880 by Richard Kemp, more than 80 yr passed before Henry Hildebrand revealed the location of its primary nesting beach at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico in the western Gulf of Mexico. By the time scientists began estimating the number of females nesting at Rancho Nuevo, it appeared that the species had declined when compared with the relatively large mass nesting (a.k.a. arribada) filmed by Andres Herrera in 1947. This decline appeared to be due to historic exploitation of turtles and their eggs on the nesting beach and accidental capture in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery. Despite the implementation of conservation measures at Rancho Nuevo, the species continued to decline until the mid-1980s. The continued protection of females and nests on the nesting beach, the decline in shrimping effort in the Gulf of Mexico, and the implementation of turtle excluder devices resulted in a significant increase in the number of females nesting during the 1990s, and an exponential recovery rate. Since 2010, the recovery rate has unexpectedly deviated from its exponential trend and sharp declines have been documented in some years. The underlying cause(s) of the recent decline is unclear.


Previous literature has implicated stress as a significant contributor to child physical maltreatment risk. Studied to a lesser extent, family dysfunction and inadequate social support have also been associated with physical child abuse potential. To date, little empirical support clarifies how such identified risk variables converge to influence physical abuse risk. The current study sought to explore whether the relation between stress and physical abuse risk was moderated by family functioning and social isolation. Questionnaires assessing parental subjective appraisal of stress, family functioning, adequacy of social support, and abuse risk (as measured by the CAPI Abuse Scale and AAPI-2 Total) were administered to 92 mother-child dyads from the community. Stress was hypothesized to strongly predict abuse risk. Further, mothers reporting stress and either family dysfunction or social isolation were expected to evidence greater abuse risk. As expected, stress contributed to the prediction of abuse risk, as measured by both the CAPI and AAPI Total scores. In terms of potential moderators, the current findings indicated that social support moderated the relation between stress and CAPI Abuse Scale scores, but family functioning did not (the interaction term trended toward significance). For AAPI Total scores, neither family functioning nor social isolation was a significant moderator. Overall, these findings validate stress and social isolation as important independent predictors of abuse risk.


Security, Insecurity and Migration in Europe-Gabriella Lazaridis 2016-04-01 Having often been framed in terms of security concerns, migration issues have simultaneously given rise to issues of insecurity: on the one hand, security of borders, political, societal and economic security/insecurity in the host country; on the other, social, legal and economic concerns about human security, with regard to both EU citizens and migrants entering Europe. In terms of state security, migration is a core target of increasingly globally networked surveillance capabilities, whilst with respect to human security, it exposes the gap between the protections that migrants formally enjoy under international law and the realities they experience as they travel and work across different countries. Drawing on the latest research from across the EU, Security, Insecurity and Migration explores the concerns of states with regard to migration and the need to protect the fundamental rights of migrants. An interdisciplinary examination of the issues of security and insecurity raised by migration for states, their citizens and migrants themselves, this book will be of interest to scholars of politics, sociology and geography researching migration, race and ethnicity, human and state security and EU politics and policy.


The work presented here evaluates polar stratospheric ozone simulations from the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) for the Arctic winter of 2004–2005. We use the Specified Dynamics version of WACCM (SD‐WACCM), in which temperatures and winds are nudged to meteorological assimilation analysis results. Model simulations of ozone and related constituents generally compare well to observations from the Earth Observing System Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). At most times, modeled ozone agrees with MLS data to within ~10%. However, a systematic high bias in ozone in the model of ~18% is found in the lowermost stratosphere in March. We attribute most of this ozone bias to too little heterogeneous processing of halogens late in the winter. We suggest that the model under‐predicts ClONO2 early in the winter, which leads to less heterogeneous processing and too little activated chlorine. Model HCl could also be overestimated due to an underestimation of HCl uptake into supercooled ternary solution (STS) particles. In late winter, the model overestimates gas‐phase HNO3, and thus NOy, which leads to an over‐prediction of ClONO2 (under‐prediction of activated chlorine). A sensitivity study, in which temperatures for heterogeneous chemistry reactions were reduced by 1.5 K, shows significant improvement of modeled ozone. Chemical ozone loss is inferred from the MLS observations using the pseudo‐passive subtraction approach. The inferred ozone loss using this method is in agreement with or less than previous independent results for the Arctic winter of 2004–2005, reaching 1.0 ppmv on average and up to 1.6 ppmv locally in the polar vortex.


Identifying the optimal set of individuals to first receive information (`seeds') in a social network is a widely-studied question in many settings, such as the diffusion of information, microfinance programs, and new technologies. Numerous studies have proposed various network-centrality based heuristics to choose seeds in a way that is likely to boost diffusion. Here we show that, for some frequently studied diffusion processes, randomly seeding S + x individuals can prompt a larger cascade than optimally targeting the best S individuals, for a small x. We prove our results for large classes of random networks, but also show that they hold in simulations over several real-world networks. This suggests that the returns to collecting and analyzing network information to identify the optimal seeds may not be economically significant. Given these findings, practitioners interested in communicating a message to a large number of people may wish to compare the cost of network-based targeting to that of slightly expanding initial outreach.


A humic substance was separated into carboxyl and phenolic fractions by affinity chromatography using a weak-base amine resin. The humic extract and its fractions were analyzed for physical and chemical characteristics. Their biological effects were compared, at concentrations of 1 and 5 mg C L ―1 , on the growth of callus ofPinus nigra J.F. Arnold. A higher molecular weight and a greater degree of aromaticity were observed for the unfractionated humus and carboxyl fraction than for the phenolic fraction. Spectra from 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier-transform spectroscopy showed a low content of lignin-derived, aromatic compounds and a high amount of carboxyl C and total sugars in the carboxyl fraction. The phenolic fraction was found to contain high amounts of fatty acids as well as phenolic acids. The unfractionated humus amended only at the lower concentration (1 mg C L ―1 ) increased the callus growth and enzyme activities. The carboxyl fraction improved the growth of calluses and increased the levels of enzymatic activities. The phenolic fraction had an inhibitory effect. Thus, the positive biological effects of the humic fractions utilized might be attributed to the relative content of specific classes of humic components, such as a high amount of peptidic, carbohydratic, and carboxylic groups, and low content of phenolic acids and fatty acids. The heterogeneity of humic substances is strongly influenced by the origin, age, and decomposition processes of parent organic materials. Therefore, the diverse amounts of chemical compounds in humus may influence the function of ecosystems in similarly diverse ways.


Safe autonomous flight is essential for widespread acceptance of aircraft that must fly close to the ground. We have developed a method of collision avoidance that can be used in three dimensions in much the same way as autonomous ground vehicles that navigate over unexplored terrain. Safe navigation is accomplished by a combination of online environmental sensing, path planning and collision avoidance. Here we outline our methodology and report results with an autonomous helicopter that operates at low elevations in uncharted environments, some of which are densely populated with obstacles such as buildings, trees and wires. We have recently completed over 700 successful runs in which the helicopter traveled between coarsely specified waypoints separated by hundreds of meters, at speeds of up to 10 m s—1 at elevations of 5—11 m above ground level. The helicopter safely avoids large objects such as buildings and trees but also wires as thin as 6 mm. We believe this represents the first time an air vehicle has traveled this fast so close to obstacles. The collision avoidance method learns to avoid obstacles by observing the performance of a human operator.


A conceptual method is presented for upgrading existing GPS user equipment, without requiring hardware or software modiflcations to the equipment, to improve the equipment's position, velocity, and time (PVT) accuracy, to increase its PVT robustness in weak-signal or jammed environments, and to protect the equipment from counterfeit GPS signals (GPS spooflng). The method is embodied in a device called the GPS Assimilator that couples to the radio frequency (RF) input of an existing GPS receiver. The Assimilator extracts navigation and timing information from RF signals in its environment|including non-GNSS signals|and from direct baseband aiding provided, for example, by an inertial navigation system, a frequency reference, or the GPS user. The Assimilator optimally fuses the collective navigation and timing information to produce a PVT solution which, by virtue of the diverse navigation and timing sources on which it is based, is highly accurate and inherently robust to GPS signal obstruction and jamming. The Assimilator embeds the PVT solution in a synthesized set of GPS signals and injects these into the RF input of a target GPS receiver for which an accurate and robust PVT solution is desired. A prototype software-deflned Assimilator device is presented with three example applications.


Agent-based models (ABM) are used in many cases of policy assessment in agriculture. But the behavioural assumptions of these models consider farmers as myopic optimizing profit maximizers. In this contribution we compare the behaviour of myopic computer agents with the behaviour of students playing a multi period business management game. We aim to answer the question, how far are agent-based models valid to map "real" human behaviour, so that ABM can be used well for policy impact assessment.


Pentacoordinated copper(II) complexes were synthesized from tetradentate ligand N,N ' -bis (2-methyl-N-methylbenzimidazolyl)hexanediamide. Characterization has been done on the basis of elemental analysis, electronic spectra, IR studies, conductance data, magnetic properties, EPR and x-ray studies for the complexes. From analytical data, the stoichiometry of the complexes has been found to be 1:1 metal to ligand ratio. IR spectra and x-ray studies show that the ligand behaves tetradentate through two benzimidazolyl nitrogen and two amide oxygen atoms. The fifth coordination site of the metal is occupied by the anion from metal salt solution.


The Bay of Bengal, a semienclosed tropical basin that comes under the influence of monsoonal wind and freshwater influx, is distinguished by a strongly stratified surface layer and a seasonally reversing circulation. We discuss characteristics of these features in the western Bay during the northeast monsoon, when the East India Coastal Current (EICC) flows southward, using hydrographic data collected during December 1991. Vertical profiles show uniform temperature and salinity in a homogeneous surface layer, on average, 25 m deep but shallower northward and coastward. The halocline, immediately below, is approximately 50 m thick; salinity changes by approximately 3 parts per thousand. About two thirds of the profiles show temperature inversions in this layer. Salinity below the halocline hardly changes, and stratification is predominantly due to temperature variation. The halocline is noticeably better developed and the surface homogeneous layer is thinner in a low-salinity plume that hugs the coastline along the entire east coast of India. The plume is, on average, 50 km wide, with isohalines sloping down toward the coast. Most prominent in the geostrophic velocity field is the equatorward EICC. Its transport north of about 13° N, computed with 1000 dbar as the level of reference, varies between 2.6 and 7.1 × 106 m3 s−1; just south of this latitude, a northwestward flow from offshore recurves and merges with the coastal current. At the southern end of the region surveyed, the transport is 7.7 × 106 m3 s−1. Recent model studies lead us to conclude that the EICC during the northeast monsoon is driven by winds along the east coast of India and Ekman pumping in the interior bay. In the south, Ekman pumping over the southwestern bay is responsible for the northwestward flow that merges with the EICC.


Lumped and transfer rate constants in ischemic brain tissue must be measured to estimate accurately cerebral glucose utilization by the deoxyglucose method. We studied the bilateral middle cerebral artery occlusion model in 17 cats, 5 with a 1-hour occlusion, 5 with a 4-hour occlusion, and 7 with a sham operation. The time course of cerebral tissue radioactivity (Ci*(t)) was monitored by external coincidence counting during a programmed infusion of [18F]-2-deoxy-2-fluoro-d-glucose (18F-2-FDG). Arterial plasma concentration (Cp*(t)) of the tracer was kept constant during the first 45 minutes. Rate constants were estimated from Ci*(t) and Cp*(t) by a nonlinear least-squares fitting routine. The lumped constant was estimated from the fit of the ratio of extraction fractions of glucose and 18F-2-FDG by nonweighted, nonlinear least-squares fitting. In the 4-hour-occlusion model, the transfer constant k1* was 23% lower, k3* 39% lower, and the lumped constant 78% higher than in the sham-operated animals. In the 1-hour-occlusion model, k3* was 26% lower than in the sham-operated animals but the lumped constant was not significantly different. The rate of glucose utilization was significantly different in the 4-hour-occlusion model compared to the sham-operated animals (48% decrease, p less than 0.05) but was not significantly different in the 1-hour-occlusion model.


We investigate whether older people correctly perceive their own cognitive decline, and the potential financial consequences of misperception. First, we document the fact that older people tend to underestimate their cognitive decline. We then show that those who experienced a severe cognitive decline, but are unaware of it, are more likely to suffer wealth losses compared to those who are aware or did not experience a severe decline. These losses largely reflect decreases in financial wealth and are mainly experienced by wealthier people who were previously active on the stock market. Our findings support the view that financial losses among older people unaware of their cognitive decline are the result of bad financial decisions, not of rational disinvestment strategies.


Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile hosts forming a temporary network without the aid of any stand-alone infrastructure or centralized administration. Most of the proposed MANET protocols do not address security issues. In MANETs routing algorithm is necessary to find specific routes between source and destination. The primary goal of any ad-hoc network routing protocol is to meet the challenges of the dynamically changing topology and establish an efficient route between any two nodes with minimum routing overhead and bandwidth consumption. The existing routing security is not enough for routing protocols. An ad-hoc network environment introduces new challenges that are not present in fixed networks. A several protocols are introduced for improving the routing mechanism to find route between any source and destination host across the network. In this paper present a logical survey on routing protocols and compare the performance of the following protocols such as AODV, DSR, DSDV and OLSR.


Abscission is an active developmental process occurring at the abscission zone of the fruit peduncle. The target cells in the abscission zone, which are involved in the process of separation, are located in the separation layer, which is organized in a few cellular layers. In general, it is accepted that the increase in ethylene production in the fruit is followed by increased sensitivity of these cells to ethylene, which would lead to abscission. The abscission process is divided into two phases with respect to sensitivity to auxin and ethylene. The auxin, 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid), has been used as a postharvest packhouse treatment to retard calyx abscission (to repress postharvest decay). Commercially the sodium salt 2,4-D (Deccomone®) is applied to the fruit in a dip treatment at 500 ppm. The aim of this experiment was to test three agrochemicals (aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), 1-naphthylacetic acid (NAA) and 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP)) that could possibly replace the postharvest application of the auxin 2,4-D. AVG had a fruit firming effect but no significant effect on calyx retention. NAA resulted in a high percentage of abscission, probably due to auxin overdose. The 1-MCP at low concentrations of 100 ppb and 250 ppb resulted in calyx retention but had a desiccating effect on the calyx whereas at a high concentration of 500 ppb there was a significant increase in calyx abscission. There was no loss of internal quality or colour. To conclude, according to what is known about the role of ethylene in abscission, 1-MCP and AVG should have prevented abscission of the calyx. Unfortunately, the results show that this complex plant mechanism is not so readily manipulated and 2,4-D remains the best product to inhibit calyx abscission of citrus fruit.


We consider a clustering problem where we observe feature vectors Xi ∈ Rp, i = 1, 2, . . . , n, from several possible classes. The class labels are unknown and the main interest is to estimate these labels. We propose a three-step clustering procedure where we first evaluate the significance of each feature by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic, then we select the small fraction of features for which the Kolmogorov-Smirnov scores exceed a preselected threshold t > 0, and then use only the selected features for clustering by one version of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). In this procedure, one of the main challenges is how to set the threshold t. We propose a new approach to set the threshold, where the core is the so-called Signal-toNoise Ratio (SNR) in post-selection PCA. SNR is reminiscent of the recent innovation of Higher Criticism; for this reason, we call the proposed threshold the Higher Criticism Threshold (HCT), despite that it is significantly different from the HCT proposed earlier by [Donoho 2008] in the context of classification. Motivated by many examples in Big Data, we study the spectral clustering with HCT for a model where the signals are both rare and weak for two-classes clustering case. Through delicate PCA, we forge a close link between the HCT and the ideal threshold choice, and show that the HCT yields optimal results in the spectral clustering approach. The approach is successfully applied to three gene microarray data sets, where it compares favorably with existing clustering methods. Our analysis is subtle and requires new development in the Random Matrix Theory (RMT). One challenge we face is that most results in the RMT can not be applied directly to our case: existing results are usually for matrices with i.i.d. entries, but the object of interest in the current case is the post-selection data matrix, where (due to feature selection) the columns are non-independent and have hard-to-track distributions. We develop intricate new RMT to overcome this problem. We also find the theoretical approximation for the tail distribution of KolmogorovSmirnov Statistic under null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis. With the theoretical approximation, we can claim the effectiveness of KS statistic. Besides, we also find the fundamental limits for clustering problem, signal recovery problem, and detection problem under the Asymptotic Rare and Weak model. We find the boundary such that when the model parameters are beyond the boundary, then the inference is unavailable, otherwise there are some methods (usually exhausted search) to achieve the inference.


Background/Context A large number of emergent bilinguals, also known as English language learners (ELLs), in secondary schools have experienced academic difficulties, grade repetition, inappropriate referrals to special education, and dropout. They are the most in danger of academic failure and in need of highly qualified instruction that meets their needs; however, they have received little attention from schools. To better understand secondary emergent bilinguals' academic challenges, it would be necessary to examine their learning experiences throughout schooling, including language support programs and services provided, instructional practices and academic support implemented, and assessments administered to make their educational decisions. In particular, as the high-stakes accountability system has played a critical role during their course of schooling, it would be essential to examine how the accountability system has interacted with these underachieving emergent bilinguals. Purpose/Focus of Study This manuscript draws from a larger qualitative study (Kim, 2013) that investigated long-term ELLs' history of schooling and their perceptions of language and academic learning experiences. The purpose of this analysis is to more closely examine the nature of language support received during participants' K-12 schooling and their program placements in the context of their performance on state-mandated language and academic achievement tests. Experiences of participants who were retained and referred to and/or placed in special education serve to illustrate schools' responses to these underachieving emergent bilinguals. Setting/participant This research study took place at a high school in central Texas. Eleven secondary emergent bilinguals who met the purpose of this research project participated in the study. The essential attributes of participants for inclusion were English language learners who (a) met the state eligibility criteria for classification as limited English proficiency, (b) had attended public schools in the United States for seven years or more, and (c) had at least a year of high school experience. Research Design A qualitative research design based on a constructivist, Naturalistic Inquiry (NI) paradigm was utilized to understand the reality of participants' school challenges. This NI approach is appropriate to analyze concepts and themes derived from the exploratory cases of this population. Data Collection and Analysis Data sources were individual, semi-structured, and in-depth interviews and a variety of school documents that included each student's cumulative folder, Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) documents, and academic assessment records. As the constant comparative method of data analysis was a core function of this research process, data analysis occurred concurrently with data collection. Triangulation among students' recollections of their program placements, archival data, and informant (i.e., district bilingual and ESL professionals) interviews was used to ensure that the findings accurately reflected the actual phenomenon. Member checks, reflexive journaling, and peer debriefing were also utilized to ensure the trustworthiness of the study. Findings Participants in this study experienced multiple layers of limited opportunity to learn as they moved through the educational process. They began their schooling with inadequate bilingual education services in elementary grades, and many of them were retained and/or referred to special education, mainly due to their unsatisfactory scores on state-mandated assessments. Subsequently, participating ELLs all moved up to middle school where they received little English language support; their continued low scores on high-stakes assessments led to placement in remedial programs or intervention courses for state mandated tests. During their high school years, this pattern continued with the addition of End-Of-Course designated courses, remedial courses for preparing for state mandated tests, and credit recovery programs. Though state assessments should not be exclusively used to measure student learning, they were solely used to participating ELLs' high-stakes instructional and placement decisions (e.g., retention, placement in remedial programs), which appeared to negatively affect participants' educational trajectory by increasing the gaps in their opportunities to learn. Conclusions/Recommendations The participating ELLs' experience of schooling fostered academic gaps due to their limited opportunities to learn, and they had been inadvertently excluded from the formal curriculum because schools in the district did not have adequate programs and services to address these learners' linguistic and academic needs. Informed by social capital framework research and theory, findings suggest that participants' gaps in learning continued to grow with each subsequent year of schooling, exacerbated by their limited access to appropriate language services and educational support, thereby rendering them struggling, low-achieving, long-term ELLs. Despite their academic challenges, participating ELLs remained eager to succeed in school, which raises a critical question regarding how well the educational system is prepared to provide these emergent bilinguals with high quality, rigorous programs that are responsive to their linguistic and academic needs.


This landmark publication provides the first definitive account of how and why subtle influences on the fetus and during early life can have such profound consequences for adult health and diseases. Although the epidemiological evidence for this link has long proved compelling, it is only much more recently that the scientific and physiological basis for this has begun to be studied in depth and fully understood. This compilation, written by many of the world's leading experts in this exciting field, summarizes these scientific and clinical advances. The link between early development and the onset of many chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis, also raises important public health issues. Another fascinating theme in the book concerns evolutionary developmental biology and how the 'evo-devo' debate can cast light on these concepts. Clinicians and scientists alike will all learn a lot about this exciting and emerging field.


We survey advances in theories and models for Internet quality of service (QoS). We start with the theory of network calculus, which lays the foundation for support of deterministic performance guarantees in networks, and illustrate its applications to integrated services, differentiated services, and streaming media playback delays. We also present mechanisms and architecture for scalable support of guaranteed services in the Internet, based on the concept of a stateless core. Methods for scalable control operations are also discussed. We then turn our attention to statistical performance guarantees and describe several new probabilistic results that can be used for a statistical dimensioning of differentiated services. Lastly, we review proposals and results in supporting performance guarantees in a best effort context. These include models for elastic throughput guarantees based on TCP performance modeling, techniques for some QoS differentiation without access control, and methods that allow an application to control the performance it receives, in the absence of network support.


Social media have become crucial tools for political activists and protest movements, providing another channel for promoting messages and garnering support. Twitter, in particular, has been identified as a noteworthy medium for protests in countries including Iran and Egypt to receive global attention. The Occupy movement, originating with protests in, and the physical occupation of, Wall Street, and inspiring similar demonstrations in other U.S. cities and around the world, has been intrinsically linked with social media through location–specific hashtags: #ows for Occupy Wall Street, #occupysf for San Francisco, and so on. While the individual protests have a specific geographical focus–highlighted by the physical occupation of parks, buildings, and other urban areas — Twitter provides a means for these different movements to be linked and promoted through tweets containing multiple hashtags. It also serves as a channel for tactical communications during actions and as a space in which movement debates take place. This paper examines Twitter's use within the Occupy Oakland movement. We use a mixture of ethnographic research through interviews with activists and participant observation of the movements' activities, and a dataset of public tweets containing the #oo hashtag from early 2012. This research methodology allows us to develop a more accurate and nuanced understanding of how movement activists use Twitter by cross–checking trends in the online data with observations and activists' own reported use of Twitter. We also study the connections between a geographically focused movement such as Occupy Oakland and related, but physically distant, protests taking place concurrently in other cities. This study forms part of a wider research project, Mapping Movements, exploring the politics of place, investigating how social movements are composed and sustained, and the uses of online communication within these movements.


Quantum walks have emerged as an interesting approach to quantum information processing, exhibiting many unique properties compared to the analogous classical random walk. Here we introduce a model for a discrete-time quantum walk with memory by endowing the walker with multiple recycled coins and using a physical memory function via a history dependent coin flip. By numerical simulation we observe several phenomena. First in one dimension, walkers with memory have persistent quantum ballistic speed up over classical walks just as found in previous studies of multi-coined walks with trivial memory function. However, measurement of the multi-coin state can dramatically shift the mean of the spatial distribution. Second, we consider spatial entanglement in a two-dimensional quantum walk with memory and find that memory destroys entanglement between the spatial dimensions, even when entangling coins are employed. Finally, we explore behaviour in the presence of spatial randomness and find that in contrast to single coined walks, multi-coined walks do not localise and in fact a memory function can speed up the walk relative to a fully decohered multi-coin walker with trivial memory. We explicitly show how to construct linear optics circuits implementing the walks, and discuss prospects for classical simulation.


When we travel by car the trip home often seems shorter than the initial trip away from the place of origin. This perceptual phenomenon (called the Return Trip Effect) has been noted in many contexts and its existence has puzzled drivers and researchers alike since the distance travelled and time spent traveling are usually identical. It has recently been proposed that the reason for this effect may be due to the fact that the outward trip has more unpredictable elements which make the initial trip seem longer. An alternative interpretation is that drivers pay less attention to familiar tasks (like the trip home) and our sense of trip duration is shorter when we are engaged in task-unrelated thoughts. In this paper we provide data from a driving simulator experiment that contrast these two interpretations as well as determine actual travel times as drivers complete return trips on familiar roads. The results indicate that there is no difference in participants' travel times on the two legs of the journey (i.e., the return trip is not actually faster). When elements of the scene are changed to include new elements and change existing elements during the return leg, the participants' actually did travel faster (decreasing their return trip time). Although changing expectations may play a role in the Return Trip Effect for unfamiliar destinations, when traveling on familiar roads these data suggest that lower levels of conscious engagement with driving is the likely reason for the subjective experience of shorter return trips.


Objective Best treatment outcomes in Fabry disease (FD) associated cardiomyopathy can be obtained when treatment is started as early as possible. The rationale of this study was to assess the role of ECG changes for identification of cardiac involvement and patients at an earlier stage of the disease more likely deriving a benefit from enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). Methods A retrospective analysis of patient data was performed from an observational, longitudinal, prospective cohort. Treatment response was defined as absence or presence of disease progression, defined as new onset or increase in left ventricular (LV) mass >10%. Demographic, clinical, ECG and echocardiographic parameters at baseline were tested for their value in determining absence or presence of disease progression under ERT at 5-year follow-up. Results The study population consisted of a total of 38 patients (25 men, mean age 36±13 years, overall median follow-up duration 6.4±1.2 years). Patients in the progression group (14 men, 4 women) had a longer QRS duration (99±11 ms vs 84±13 ms, p<0.05 for men, 93±9 years vs 81±5 years, p<0.05 for women) and QTc interval (401±15 ms vs 372±10 ms, p<0.005 for men) and a higher amount of ECG abnormalities (86% vs 18%, p<0.005 for men and 100% vs 0%, p<0.005 for women) at the time of ERT initiation. An abnormal baseline ECG was significantly associated with disease progression (sensitivity 94.1%, specificity 88.9%, positive likelihood ratio of 8.47, p<0.005). Conclusions An abnormal ECG at the time of treatment initiation is significantly associated with cardiac disease progression in FD. This effect seems to be independent of age, gender or LV mass at baseline and suggests maximal treatment benefit when ERT is initiated before ECG abnormalities develop.


The Bayesian revolution in statistics--where statistics is integrated with decision making in areas such as management, public policy, engineering, and clinical medicine--is here to stay. Introduction to Statistical Decision Theory states the case and in a self-contained, comprehensive way shows how the approach is operational and relevant for real-world decision making under uncertainty. Starting with an extensive account of the foundations of decision theory, the authors develop the intertwining concepts of subjective probability and utility. They then systematically and comprehensively examine the Bernoulli, Poisson, and Normal (univariate and multivariate) data generating processes. For each process they consider how prior judgments about the uncertain parameters of the process are modified given the results of statistical sampling, and they investigate typical decision problems in which the main sources of uncertainty are the population parameters. They also discuss the value of sampling information and optimal sample sizes given sampling costs and the economics of the terminal decision problems. Unlike most introductory texts in statistics, Introduction to Statistical Decision Theory integrates statistical inference with decision making and discusses real-world actions involving economic payoffs and risks. After developing the rationale and demonstrating the power and relevance of the subjective, decision approach, the text also examines and critiques the limitations of the objective, classical approach.


[eng] This paper details the evolution of foreign exchange assets in different parts of the developing world, the relative importance of the current vs. the capital accounts as the source of those assets, and discusses some categorizations of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). Then, it briefly reviews the literature on the determinants of reserve accumulation in developing countries. Then, it develops the analysis of the motives for the accumulation of foreign exchange assets, differentiating between the role played by the current and the capital accounts, and between the structural vs. cyclical determinants of such accounts. Lastly, it analyzes the implications of the analysis for regional financial architectures and it draws some conclusions. . JEL Classification : F30, G29, O16


The author reviews the uses of the construct "enactment" in the literature of family therapy, group therapy and psychoanalysis. She focuses on the current utilization of enactment in psychoanalytic theory and practice, giving particular attention to neuroscientific contributions to current understanding of enactment. The clinical case verbatim is then explicated by delineating the discrete but inter-connecting movements of incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection in the psychoanalytic therapeutic technique of working with enactments. These movements are individually examined to amplify the incarnation of the analyst/therapist who bears the patient's suffering, suffers in the place of the patient, survives this suffering, and "resurrects" as a new good father to the patient. The accommodations were meager at best: a baby crib in the former granary, and our bed in the converted barn stalls. But the company was priceless. This describes the months in 1979 that we spent in the hamlet of Huemoz, the Swiss Alp hideaway of Francis and Edith Schaeffer called l'Abri. We fled there as immigrants from a famine of the soul that had left us despairing of the reality of Christian faith. I will never forget the day that sitting in Farei house, that simple wood chapel that looked up to the snow-capped Dents du Midi, we heard for the first time the words to what is now my dearest hymn. Perhaps 100 of us seeking, wounded and despairing, 20-somethings uttered these profound words in the hope that the God who is there would possibly see and hear and respond: My song is love unknown, my Savior's love to me. Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. Oh who am I that for my sake My Lord would take frail flesh and die. And as we sang our songs and ate our meals and heard our talks, we saw that love incarnated and extended over and over. It was this enacted love, first of our heavenly Father, but then of His children, that re-dug the deep wells which fundamentalism had stopped up, the wells that had become filled with words and more words, and principle upon principle, that brought knowledge but not life. The love of that Savior of whom we sang moved Him from being merely a hope, a wished for object encoded in the written words of the Old Testament prophets, to becoming incarnated as the Living Word to dwell among us. Why was Old Testament revelation not enough? Why was our learning truth not enough? Why is simply delivering cognitive principles many times insufficient for interrupting the passing on of the sins of the fathers and mothers to the children, as Jeff Terrell (2007) has suggested? These questions bring us to the heart of our symposium today and the answer to each of these questions surprisingly comes from psychology backed by neuroscience. Incarnation, not just instruction, was needed to break the bonds that shackled humankind. Similarly, in psychotherapy, incarnation in the form of "enactment" of relational configurations, is needed for the breaking of old object ties, and the experiencing of a new creation. Understanding Enactment in Early literature2 In Family Therapy Salvador Minuchin, structural family therapy theorist, described enactment as the technique by which the therapist asks the family to "dance in his presence" (1974). The family is encouraged to play out in the therapeutic setting the patterns that normally occur outside of the office : The enactments that are set in motion at the behest of the family therapist are, initially isomorphic to and simulative of the normative family patterns. These simulations can be for purposes of assessment or for making obvious to the family what their normative patterns are, especially when the family therapist directs their attention to them. However, enactment's major use is the alteration of these simulated patterns (Seeman & Weiner, 1985, p. 145). Other family therapists such as Virginia Satir, Jay Haley and Ross Speck regarded role-playing as a form of enactment. …


High-repetition-rate low-pulse-energy near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses from a Ti:sapphire oscillator were used to micromachine localized refractive index structures inside ophthalmologic hydrogel polymers. The relation between laser-induced refractive index modification and different laser micromachining conditions was investigated in both pure and dye copolymerized hydrogel polymers. We studied the nonlinear absorption enhancement of the laser energy induced by copolymerized dyes during the micromachining process and the effects on increasing the laser scanning speed. We discussed the wavelength dependence and the laser pulse energy dependence of the micromachining results in a laser operation wavelength range from 700 nm to 1000 nm. By changing the water concentration in pure and doped hydrogel polymers, we further investigated the critical role that water plays in the creation of large refractive index modifications in hydrogels without inducing optical breakdown or damage. A thermal model was used to explain the experimental results. By increasing nonlinear absorption in hydrogel polymers and optimizing femtosecond laser operation parameters, large refractive index modifications could be achieved with greatly increased laser micromachining speeds. In this paper, we discuss the optimization of material and laser parameters for the hydrogel material system.


A clique model is one of the most important techniques on the cohesive subgraph detection; however, its applications are rather limited due to restrictive conditions of the model. Hence much research resorts to k-plex — a graph in which any vertex is adjacent to all but at most k vertices — which is a relaxation model of the clique. In this paper, we study the maximum k-plex problem and propose a fast algorithm to compute maximum k-plexes by exploiting structural properties of the problem. In an n-vertex graph, the algorithm computes optimal solutions in cnnO(1) time for a constant c < 2 depending only on k. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm that breaks the trivial theoretical bound of 2n for each k ≥ 3. We also provide experimental results over multiple real-world social network instances in support.


An alternative to surgery is embolization, a minimally invasive treatment for varicocele that is performed by an interventional radiologist. This involves passing a small wire through a peripheral vein and into the abdominal veins that drain the testes. Through a small flexible catheter, the doctor can obstruct the veins so that the increased pressures from the abdomen are no longer transmitted to the testicles. The testicles then drain through smaller collateral veins. The recovery period is significantly less than with surgery and the risk of complications is minimized with overall effectiveness similar to surgery, yet with fewer recurrence rates. However, radiation exposure to the testicles can often not be avoided with this technique. Embolization is also an effective treatment for post-surgical varicoceles. These are varicoceles that reappear after they have been surgically repaired. The main theory is the presence of redundant gonadal veins that provide collateralization cause the reappearance of the varicoceles.


Publication of Scientist's code of conduct in the December 2012 created the need for article regarding the issue of impunity of anonymous reviewers. The author presents the initiatives of scientific communities undertaken to prevent and combat unethical conduct in science and raises questions concerning the effectiveness of the published Code. Indeed, in the opinion of the author anonymous experts/reviewers appointed to evaluate and assess grant applications have administrative possibility for abuses, which can lead to the unethical behavior of some researchers. In this way unknown or unidentified experts/reviewers evaluating grant applications can hamper actions of fellow researchers or even seize research ideas and present them as their own. Anonymity lets them commit such deeds without any consequences.


Given a vertex of interest in a network $G_1$, the vertex nomination problem seeks to find the corresponding vertex of interest (if it exists) in a second network $G_2$. A vertex nomination scheme produces a list of the vertices in $G_2$, ranked according to how likely they are judged to be the corresponding vertex of interest in $G_2$. The vertex nomination problem and related information retrieval tasks have attracted much attention in the machine learning literature, with numerous applications to social and biological networks. However, the current framework has often been confined to a comparatively small class of network models, and the concept of statistically consistent vertex nomination schemes has been only shallowly explored. In this paper, we extend the vertex nomination problem to a very general statistical model of graphs. Further, drawing inspiration from the long-established classification framework in the pattern recognition literature, we provide definitions for the key notions of Bayes optimality and consistency in our extended vertex nomination framework, including a derivation of the Bayes optimal vertex nomination scheme. In addition, we prove that no universally consistent vertex nomination schemes exist. Illustrative examples are provided throughout.


The properties of SnO2-Sb2O5 mixed-oxide films prepd. by the spray pyrolysis method were studied under different synthesis conditions. The film d., measured by profilometry and by a spectrophotometric method, was close to that reported in the literature for cryst. tin dioxide. Anal. by energy dispersive spectrometry and x-ray photo-electron spectroscopy showed that the Sb/Sn atom ratio in the films was in all cases about 2.5 times larger with respect to that in the precursor soln. Microstructural characterization by wide-angle x-ray scattering indicates that the deposits consist of large sized crystallites. The influence of the substrate temp. (T) on the av. crystallite size (l) has shown that l decreases linearly with T. SEM showed that the surface of films thinner than 0.5-0.8 mm is flat with only a limited no. of emerging particles. [on SciFinder (R)]


With the recent application of frequency modulation techniques to tunable dye laser spectroscopy, the detection of small concentrations of weakly absorbing atomic and molecular species has been made possible. Here we report measurement of the fourth overtone of X1∑+ HF in a single pass through a 25.5-cm cell at 1-Torr pressure. Pressure-dependent line shape profiles were obtained with ±0.0002-cm−1 resolution for the R4 transition centered at 18225.2 cm−1. Analysis of the data yielded the broadening coefficient, the Einstein A coefficient, as well as the Doppler linewidth and a system sensitivity of ΔI/I0 ≅ 8 × 10−7.


Biomarkers and Biosensors offers thorough coverage of biomarker/biosensor interaction, current research trends, and future developments in applications of drug discovery. This book is useful to researchers in this field as well as clinicians interested in new developments in early detection and diagnosis of disease or the mode of operation of biomarkers. Biomarkers and Biosensors also emphasizes kinetics, and clearly delineates how this influences the biomarker market. * Offers thorough coverage of the kinetics of biomarker interaction with the biosensor surface* Provides evidence-based approach to evaluate effectiveness* Provides pharmaceutical chemists the possibilities and methodology in assessing the effectiveness of new drugs* Provides the information needed for the selection of the best biomarker for a specific application


Identity politics have been especially prominent in Canadian political discourse since the hegemonic white Anglophone identity was challenged in the 1970s. However, indigenous identity and nationalism have not received the same attention. In the politics of federalism and constitutional amendment, the contestation of the dominant view of Canada and the advancement of citizen and community identities, rather than provincial identity, was met with bemusement by the gatekeepers of Canadian federal and constitutional processes. In this article I trace some of the complexity of the formation and mobilization of Aboriginal identities in the Canadian context, to raise some theoretical and political problems and possibilities that attend to self determination and decolonisation.


ABSTRACT Cell-to-cell communication, or signaling, is absolutely essential in orchestrating the activities of cells in multicellular organisms, to grow, develop, detect environmental changes and compensate for them in an internal, coordinated fashion. In the last few years, a considerable amount of new data have demonstrated the occurrence of a sophisticated intercellular signaling pathway based on the release of specialized vesicular structures, called exosomes, whose secretion appears to be regulated by various natural and experimental stimuli, physiological states, and disease processes. In the cardiovascular system, the study of exosomes is still in its infancy. Here, we aim to provide the first ultrastructural evidence for the presence of exosomes in human atherosclerotic plaque. We demonstrate by means of transmission electron microscopy that both lesional smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells are able to generate these membraneous microvesicles within specific compartments of the cell, called multivesicular bodies. Notably, in our series no signs of apoptosis have been detected in vascular cells secreting exosomes and no evidence of calcification has been observed associated with these structures in the extracellular space. Our results suggest the possible existence of a new mechanism of intercellular communication in the plaque milieu.


In the late 1960's, E.A. Nordgren and J.V. Ryff studied composition operators
on the Hardy space H2. They provided upper and lower bounds on the
norms of general composition operators and gave the exact norm in the case
where the symbol map is an inner function.
Composition operators themselves, on various other spaces, have been
studied by many authors since and much deep work has been done concerning
them. Recently, however B.D. MacCluer and T. Kriete have developed the
study of composition operators on very general weighted Bergman spaces of
the unit disk in the complex plane. My starting point is this work.
Composition operators serve well to link the two areas of analysis, operator
theory and complex function theory. The products of this link lie deep
in complex analysis and are diverse indeed. These include a thorough study
of the Schr¨oeder functional equation and its solutions, see [16] and the references therein, in fact some of the well
known conjectures can be linked to composition operators. Nordgren, [12], has shown that the Invariant Subspace Problem can be solved by classifying
the minimal invariant subspaces of a certain composition operator on H2, and
de Branges used composition operators to prove the Bieberbach conjecture.
In this thesis, I use various methods from complex function theory to
prove results concerning composition operators on weighted Bergman spaces
of the unit disk, the main result is the confirmation of two conjectures of T.
Kriete, which appeared in [7]. I also construct, in the final chapter, inner
functions which map one arbitrary weighted Bergman space into another.


The radiance and polarization of multiple scattered light is calculated from the Stokes' vectors by a Monte Carlo method. The exact scattering matrix for a typical haze and for a cloud whose spherical drops have an average radius of 12 mu is calculated from the Mie theory. The Stokes' vector is transformed in a collision by this scattering matrix and the rotation matrix. The two angles that define the photon direction after scattering are chosen by a random process that correctly simulates the actual distribution functions for both angles. The Monte Carlo results for Rayleigh scattering compare favorably with well known tabulated results. Curves are given of the reflected and transmitted radiances and polarizations for both the haze and cloud models and for several solar angles, optical thicknesses, and surface albedos. The dependence on these various parameters is discussed.


To discover the reactions undergone in plants by organophosphorus compounds of the type used as insecticides the non-ionizable metabolites of several compounds were studied. Octamethylpyrophosphoramide (schradan) is degraded in four species of plants. Low yields of heptamethylpyrophosphoramide and a powerful anticholinesterase are obtained besides ionizable compounds. Oxidation of schradan with hydrogen peroxide and with oxygenated liver slices gives the same products in similar proportions. Thus plants probably degrade schradan by oxidation, producing mainly compounds unstable in water, which are hydrolyzed to substituted phosphoric acids. The powerful anticholinesterase is believed to be hydroxymethyl-heptamethylpyrophosphoramide from its chloroform/water partition coefficient and its yield in plants. It may, however, be octamethylpyrophosphoramidic oxide. Turnip plants also degrade the dimethylamide, monomethylamide, n-butylamide, isopropylamide and ethyl ester of tetramethylphosphorodiamidic acid. As these compounds contain no acidic group which can be removed by hydrolysis after oxidation, high yields of compounds extractable from water by chloroform are obtained. None of the parent compounds are hydrolyzed, nor are butyl or wopropyl groups removed in one step. Probably the dimethylamide is demethylated to the monomethylamide in a way similar to schradan. The physical properties of the degradation products of the other compounds indicate that only the dimethylamido groups are attacked, the other groups being inert. OO-diethyl O-ethylthioethyl phosphorothionate is converted in plants to at least three compounds extractable by chloroform. Their structures are unknown. OO-diethyl S-ethylthioethyl phosphorothiolate is oxidized rapidly in plants to OO-diethyl S-ethylsulphinylethyl phosphorothiolate and another compound of unknown structure, both of which are more stable in plants than the parent compound. The same products are formed by the action of hydrogen peroxide on the parent compound. Thus a number of organophosphorus compounds are degraded by oxidation in plants. There is no evidence that their hydrolysis is catalyzed.


After the first regulatory limits in food were set in 2006, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a Scientific Opinion in which it identified 16 PAHs that occur in food and are a possible health concern. EFSA recommended that any regulation should be based on the sum of four of the most commonly occurring PAHs. Consequently, regulatory limits have been set for foods considered to be most at risk of contamination and these are set out in Regulation 1881/2006 as amended.


Man's negative impact on the environment due to various activities has raised serious concerns with numerous campaigns rising to protect the environment. Computer waste also contributes to damaging not only the environment, but has serious consequences on human health resulting from pollution of the air, water and soil which are part of the ecosystem. With E-waste causing such problems and a challenge to developing nations which have been dumping grounds, the need to adopt green information technology [IT] is becoming more evident. In this paper, we recommend adoption of green IT education by schools, governments, organisations producing or shipping IT products and individuals consuming these technologies to work together in adopting green IT to reduce E-waste accumulation and hence eliminate the environmental and health implications of E-waste.