This paper focuses on the contribution of temporal relations inference and distributional semantic models to the event ordering task. Our system automatically builds ordered timelines of events from different written texts in English by performing first temporal clustering and then semantic clustering. In order to determine temporal compatibility, an inference from the temporal relationships between events –automatically extracted from a Temporal Information Processing system– is applied. Regarding semantic compatibility between events, we analyze two different distributional semantic models: LDA Topic modeling and Word2Vec word embeddings. Both semantic models together with the temporal inference have been evaluated within the framework of SemEval 2015 Task 4 Track B. Experiments show that, using both models, the current State of the Art is improved, showing significant advance in the Cross-Document Event Ordering task.


The effect of soil collected from long-term (1007 years of duration of monoculture) and short-term (55 years) grapevine monoculture on production of volatile organic compounds (VOC's) and on functional parameters of photosystem II in grapevine leaves was analyzed. Grapevine plantlets grown in tested soils showed differences in VOC's production after five months cultivation. Chlorophyll a fluorescence measurements by JIP-test revealed that the photosystem II was less efficient but the fluorescence intensity increased in plant growing in soil from the long-term monoculture compared to plants growing in the short term monoculture soil. Pseudomonas spp. carrying the biocontrol genes phlD and hcnAB were isolated from long-term monoculture soil. A consortium of ten of these isolates was added to the short term monoculture soil. The plants grown in this inoculated soil showed similar changes in fluorescence intensity and photosystem efficacy as the plants growing in long term monoculture. In this study, simple tools for measurement of a "soil effect" by measuring only a leaf have been tested successfully. They have allowed exhibiting the influence of long-term monoculture on plant physiology.


Adopting global corporate governance standards remains a challenge for most corporates in developed and developing economies, but shareholder capitalism is probably set on an irreversible growth path. The growing number of African corporate entities abiding by global corporate governance standards, despite the regulatory costs associated with compliance, is a positive development. The short-term costs in trade finance, financial intermediation and banks' balance sheets are outweighed by the long-term benefits of adopting global corporate governance standards. Improving compliance requires better data and in Africa an initiative led by the African Export-Import Bank aims to provide centralised single sources of the primary data required to conduct customer due diligence checks on African counterparties.


The study was conducted to identify effective strategies for recruiting and retaining students of color in library and information science (LIS). Using a Web-based survey, the study collected data from librarians of color, enrolled in, or graduated from, ALA-accredited LIS programs. Study Findings help reassess the efforts that LIS programs made in recruiting and retaining students of color, and shed light on some key areas of focus and improvement for such efforts. Suggestions are made to develop strategies for diverse LIS community and programs. Introduction According to the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) statistical reports, the student population in Library and Information Science (LIS) schools/programs has not been as ethnically diverse as the U.S. population. Among the students enrolled in American Library Association (ALA)-accredited LIS schools, only 1 1 .3% are ethnic minorities including the four main groups, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.1 This proportion at LIS schools is significantly lower than the proportion of minorities enrolled in graduate programs (26.4%)2 and those in the U.S. population (31.3%).3 The under-representation of ethnic minorities is also reflected in the library community. Librarians of color constitute about 12-12.5% of academic and public librarian populations.4 More recently, the ratio of librarians of color among credentialed librarians has actually dropped from 1 2% in 1 990 to 1 0% in 20O0.5 As in the LIS student population, the proportion of ethnic minorities in the librarian population (10-12.5%) is significantly lower than the proportion in the U.S. population (31.3%) (See Figure 1 ). Recent projections of the U.S. population indicate that, by 2050, the four ethnic minority groups will represent almost half of the U.S. population.6 As Josey has pointed out, unless the LIS schools and other related organizations develop and support a more comprehensive and aggressive recruitment program, the gap between LIS and U.S. populations will widen even further.7 Such a gap could be a serious issue, especially to public organizations like libraries. The mission of libraries is to serve the public, and the public is becoming more ethnically and culturally diverse. The increasing diver- sity in the user population requires changes in library services including reference, collection management, and outreach.9 Libraries whose staff is not as diverse as their users might not be able to serve the public effectively, as their employees' lack of expertise in different cultures and languages could be a barrier in understanding and helping users. Another issue is re- lated to users. Research suggests that interpersonal similarity can increase the ease of communication, foster relationships of trust and reciprocity, and also create a sense of belonging and membership. I0 Ethnicity is a key factor for interpersonal similarity, as it is closely related to the cultural as well as physical connections between individuals. In libraries, as in other public organizations, it is important to have enough librarians of color so that all users, regardless of their ethnic and cultural background, can see authority figures (such as librarians and teachers) who look like them. This would make the users feel comfortable and affirmed that they are in the right place. Furthermore, ethnic diversity is important because it enriches a society by offering all citizens more opportunities to experience, learn, and understand one another. Over the last few decades, LIS schools/programs have worked diligently to recruit people of color into the information profession, and other related organizations also have been stalwart in supporting recruitment programs. ALA, for example, created the Spectrum Initiative in 1997, to promote diversity in the library community and recruit minority librarians by providing scholarships, mentoring, and training programs. …


We studied a unique group of rams that would not mate with estrous ewes during extensive testing for sexual behavior. The same rams courted males in preference to females in 30-min sexual preference tests and were classified as male-oriented (n = 6). We compared the following endocrine profiles: systemic steroid concentrations, the capacity of the testes to biosynthesize 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone and testosterone from 3H-progesterone in vitro, and the levels of brain aromatase activity (AA) in male-oriented rams vs. rams that were proven breeders and designated as female-oriented (n = 7). After the last behavioral test, sera were collected, and males in each experimental group were killed. Brains and testes were obtained for subsequent determinations of AA and measurements of steroidogenic enzyme activity. All dissections and subsequent assays were performed without knowledge of experimental group assignments. Serum concentration of testosterone (T), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), androstenedione, estrone (E1), and estradiol-17 beta (E2) were determined by RIA. AA was quantified by a 3H2O assay validated for neural tissue of the ram. We studied frontal, parietal and cingulate cortex, cerebellum, hippocampus, olfactory bulb, septum, amygdala, infundibulum-median eminence, and preoptic area (POA). Serum T, E1, and E2 concentrations of female-oriented subjects were significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those in male-oriented subjects (SEM: 1559 +/- 228, 46 +/- 2, and 15 +/- 3 pg/ml vs. 874 +/- 196, 40 +/- 2, and 8 +/- 1 pg/ml serum, respectively). DHT and androstenedione concentrations in the systemic circulation did not differ between groups. Likewise, biosynthesis of labeled T and 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone from 3H-progesterone by testicular homogenates in vitro was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in female-oriented than in male-oriented subjects (28.8 +/- 8.1 vs. 12.1 +/- 2.3 mumol.h-1.mg protein-1 for T and 416.9 +/- 100.8 vs. 186.3 +/- 30.7 mumol.h-1.mg protein-1 for 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone). The highest level of AA was found in the POA, which was significantly greater in female-oriented than in male-oriented rams (472 +/- 34 vs. 296 +/- 24 fmol 3H2O.h-1.mg protein-1, p < 0.05). AA in other brain areas did not differ between experimental groups. Our data suggest that the testes of the male-oriented ram have reduced capacity for T production. In other species, T controls in situ estrogen formation not only by providing substrate for aromatization but also by up-regulating P450arom mRNA in the POA. Because the POA is part of a neural circuitry that mediates male sexual behavior in many species, we hypothesize that the capacity for aromatization influences sexual orientation of these rams.


In 1906, in a bitter gubernatorial contest, Georgia politicians played the race card and white supremacists trumpeted a Negro crime scare. Drawing on new archival materials, Mark Bauerlein traces the origins, development and brutal climax of Atlanta's descent into hatred and violence in that fateful summer. Negrophobia is history at its best--a dramatic moment in time impeccably recreated in a suspenseful narrative.


Towards the end of the university stage, students residing in the United Arab Emirates and specialising in subjects other than English are expected- amongst other university requirements- to have acquired adequate communicative competence as well as a repertoire of critical thinking skills. Despite the efforts made within the field of teaching English to EFL university students in the country, the output gained in terms of acquired skills and competencies is still below expectations. The main concerns of the current thesis are, therefore, a) to investigate the factors which inhibit EFL university students' progress in the areas of acquiring adequate communicative competence as well as critical thinking skills, and b) to propose a course book and pedagogic methods to improve students' progress in the areas of acquiring adequate communicative competence as well as critical thinking skills. Believing in the essential role literature plays in enhancing critical thinking and promoting communicative competence on the part of EFL learners, the current study introduces a course, designed and implemented by the researcher: LEARN AND GAIN. The proposed course is fiction-based language teaching, adopting the view that literature is a resource rather than an object, thus advocating the use of literature as one of the main resources in foreign/second language acquisition. Investigating whether or not the proposed course was effective in promoting EFL university students' communicative competence as well as enhancing their critical thinking skills, a study sample taken from the study population was selected. Adopting an experimental design, the research project involved two groups: experimental and control. The experimental group students were exposed to the proposed course whilst the control group students were exposed to a general English language course. To examine treatment effectiveness, the researcher set and administered a pre-post test. Divided into two main parts, communicative critical reading competence and communicative critical writing competence, the pre-post test measured subjects' communicative critical reading competence and subjects' communicative critical writing competence. In addition, a pre-post questionnaire was administered and a semi-structured interview was conducted involving the experimental group students, to gain an awareness of students' attitudes towards learning literary texts in general, and the proposed course in particular. To examine issues of interest and relevance, gender differences: male vs. female, and university major: science vs. non-science, were also examined for enrichment purposes. For the purpose of gathering sufficient data about subjects' achievements on the pre-post, the following statistical tests were conducted: Mann-Whitney test, and paired data t-test. Based on the statistical findings, the experimental group students' performance on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test was significantly better than their counterparts of the control group students. Speaking of gender differences in relation to language performance on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test, no significant differences were cited. Neither did the researcher cite any significant performance differences between science/non-science students on the communicative critical reading competence pre-post test and the communicative critical writing competence pre-post test. As far as the questionnaire's findings are concerned, the experimental group students' responses to the post-questionnaire's items were more positive than those of their responses to the pre-questionnaire's, thus indicating some positive attitudes towards literature, which students possibly gained throughout the course of implementation. Relating the discussion to the interview's results, students conveyed their satisfaction with the proposed course, emphasising that promoting English language skills through the use of literary texts was rewarding. In the light of findings and conclusions, a number of recommendations as well as implications have been proposed. The current study aimed to arrive at some appropriate suggestions to a number of enquiries, yet concluding with some areas of enquiry to be explored for further research.


This article is the first to develop a problem-solving theory for the civil justice system. Drug courts pioneered the problem-solving model in the 1990s to pursue therapeutic goals as an alternative to "assembly line" sentencing. This Article explores the potential for migration of the drug court framework into the two most commonly adjudicated civil cases: rental housing and consumer debt.
Three structural conditions in the civil courts—high-volume dockets, systemic lack of counsel, and corporate capture of the small claims process—routinely position vulnerable classes of individuals on the losing end of litigation. In the aggregate, these conditions have rendered the civil justice system predictably ineffective in combatting recurring social issues such as substandard housing and unscrupulous debt collection. The heart of the problem-solving theory in drug courts is the availability of an alternative remedy: treatment over prison. In civil courts, the remedy itself is not necessarily deficient; it is access to the remedy that is compromised. Relying on two years of field research in an experimental court, this Article demonstrates how core drug court principles, such as naming the purpose of the court as solving a social problem, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a strong judicial role, can be manipulated to address process failures in the civil justice system and reimagine the courts as proactive institutions responsible for the pursuit of socially beneficial outcomes.
The Article also argues that a civil problem-solving theory survives many of the valid critiques levied against drug courts. In particular, drug courts have come under fire for playing a moralizing role and using compulsory treatment as a form of social control. A civil problem-solving court, however, would not exacerbate the negative impact of state power on already over-burdened groups. Instead, the targets of monitoring and behavior modification are the more powerful private actors to the litigation, such as property owners and debt buyers, who otherwise have been known to manipulate the courts—an instrument of the state—to evade their legal obligations and suppress individual rights.


The profession of delivery driver has undergone significant changes over the past decades, yet this profession is unsung and short-staffed. In this context we raise the question of delivery drivers' relationship to their occupation. Are delivery drivers committed to their job? Can specific perceived professional characteristics, advantages and downsides explain different levels of commitment? Understanding how current delivery drivers feel about their occupation will provide Human Resource managers with suggestions on how to attract, select and train future delivery drivers.
A quantitative questionnaire survey of 203 delivery drivers was conducted in April and May 2017. A typology of respondents using Ward's hierarchical classification method was completed. Three types of delivery drivers were identified, presenting different levels and forms of professional commitment: the enthusiasts, the moderates and the well-advised. Each group has its own representation of the occupation of delivery driver and embraces its requirements to a greater or lesser degree. The research contribute to identify intrinsic job features as determinants of commitment:the acceptance of the customer relationship dimension of the job (standard and advanced customer relationship) and the perceived advantages of the job. Human Resource managers can attract more potential delivery drivers by emphasizing on the customer interaction aspect of the job as well as its perceived advantages in terms of autonomy, mobility and responsibility. Above all, successful candidates should show a strong ability to manage conflict, as it appears as a noticeable antecedent of professional commitment. Also, training should include customer relationship management modules.


The objective of this study was to assess the ability of using different multivariate signal processing algorithm on structural system identification of a time-varying system through vibration-based response measurement. First, the automatic modal analysis in cooperated with covariance-driven stochastic subspace identification (automatic SSI-COV) is used. This algorithm proposed 4 stages of analysis (criteria to remove spurious modes, clustering of the identified poles, grouping of similar modes, estimate modal parameters with considering uncertainty estimation) to enhance the automatic ability to identify the modal properties and remove the spurious modes of the monitoring structure. Second, the blind source separation (BSS) technique called second-order blind identification (SOBI) is also considered to identify the modal response and mixing matrix. Finally, the multivariate AR model (MV-AR) is also used to identify the time-varying model parameters. Through the response data collected from a bridge scouring test in the laboratory, discussion of these three identification methods on modal parameter estimation and damage detection of the bridge structure is made. The advances and disadvantages on model parameter estimation of these three methods are discussed. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/174


In recent years increasing media attention has highlighted the possibility that antidepressants may cause many disturbing side effects, including suicide. However, coverage of these issues has been criticised as negatively effecting those suffering from depression. This paper investigates how it is that raising concerns about antidepressant medications is viewed as detrimental when the drug may potentially be causing these same people harm. Employing the methods of discursive psychology, this study examines the construction of arguments surrounding this issue via the analysis of a public debate in which the potential side effects of SSRIs were the topic of concern. I demonstrate how one speaker manages issues of stake and deploys rhetorically self-sufficient arguments, to construct a reasonable case for the provision of warnings, while the other speaker's strategic use of categories and 'commonsense' arguments works to construct the issue of side effects as a contentious and illegitimate concern. The arguments employed by both opponents are discussed in terms of their rhetorical power and social consequences.


When Thomas Jefferson struck a deal for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, he knew he was adding a new national power to those specified in the Constitution, but he also believed his actions were in the nation's best interest. His successors would follow his example, setting their own constitutional precedents. Tracing the evolution and expansion of the president's formal power, Untrodden Ground reveals the president to be the nation's most important law interpreter and examines how our commanders-in-chief have shaped the law through their responses to important issues of their time. Reviewing the processes taken by all forty-three presidents to form new legal precedents and the constitutional conventions that have developed as a result, Harold H. Bruff shows that the president is both more and less powerful than many suppose. He explores how presidents have been guided by both their predecessors' and their own interpretations of constitutional text, as well as how they implement policies in ways that statutes do not clearly authorize or forbid. But while executive power has expanded far beyond its original conception, Bruff argues that the modern presidency is appropriately limited by the national political process - their actions are legitimized by the assent of Congress and the American people or rejected through debilitating public outcry, judicial invalidation, reactive legislation, or impeachment.


In its origins Dialogical logic constituted the logical foundations of an overall new movement called the  Erlangen Schoo l or  Erlangen Constructivism  that should provide a new start to a general theory of language and of science. In relation to the theory of language, according to the Erlangen-School, language is not just a fact that we discover, but a human cultural accomplishment whose construction reason can and should control. The constructive development of a scientific language was called the  Orthosprache-project . Unfortunately, the Orthosprache-project was not further developed and somehow seemed to fade away. Perhaps, one could say that one of the reasons is that the semantic links between dialogical logic, that was restricted to logical constants, and the more general linguistic aspirations of the Orthosprache were not sufficiently developed and then the new theory of meaning of dialogical logic seemed to be cut off from the project of setting the basis for a general theory of meaning. In the present paper we would like to contribute to precise one possible way in which a general dialogical theory of meaning could be linked to dialogical logic. More precisely, the main aim of the article is to set the basis for the meaning of elementary sentences in the context of dialogical interaction.


Recent discoveries have reopened the idea that, in the past, Mars had a period of wetness where conditions were similar to those on Earth [1]. If this was the case then it is feasible that these environments may have harboured life. The martian surface today is dry, cold and heavily bombarded by UV radiation, making it an environment unsuitable for any known terrestrial life [2]; the martian subsurface might be considerably more hospitable. Subsurface microbial communities would not have access to sunlight for photosynthesis to drive their food chains, so primary production would have to be driven by chemolithoautotrophic organisms.

Every successful Mars landing site has been found to have abundant surface salt [3], and halite has been detected in Martian meteorites [4]. While subsurface halite deposits have not yet been detected on Mars, areas on the surface consisting of unidentified chlorine deposits have been detected with evaporation as one of the main theories to explain their creation [5]. On Earth, chloride evaporites are home to halophiles, and they have been suggested as an analogue for potential Martian life. Halophiles are micro-organisms which display a high salt tolerance. Despite being found in evaporite deposits, they are normally studied in surface brines. Brines form when the rate of evaporation of water is greater than the rate that water enters an area [6], so eventually most brines evaporate and form salt crystals. Halophiles in a brine are able to alter the size and formation rate of fluid inclusions within these salt crystals so as to entomb themselves inside until the crystals can re-dissolve [7]. It is uncertain how long halophiles can spend entombed within crystals, but there are some who speculate that it could be up to millions of years, if not longer [8].

If life had arisen on Mars during an earlier, more hospitable, wet period, as it did on Earth, then when the planet cooled, organisms analogous to terrestrial halophiles might have had the greatest potential for survival [9]. As the atmosphere left the planet, any large pools of water would have gradually evaporated, with the remaining fluid becoming increasingly brine-like. The only organisms that could survive these high salt conditions would have to be halophilic. The possibility exists that, even if there are no free-living martian halophiles remaining now, as the brines crystallized, halophiles could have been entombed inside mineral grains. It is feasible that their biomarkers and/or DNA could be extracted by instruments onboard future Mars landers [10].

It is also interesting to consider that, even though known terrestrial halophiles could not survive the high UV on the Martian surface today, they are still some of Earth's most UV tolerant terrestrial organisms. This is because, on Earth, briny environments tend to be created by evaporation of water brought on by intense sunlight; therefore organisms living in them get a high dose of UV [11]. It seems reasonable to suggest that a martian halophilic organism would, prior to the loss of Mars' atmosphere, initially have evolved in environments similar to the ones in which they evolved on Earth and so might share similar adaptations. There is some evidence to suggest that there is still periodic liquid water on Mars in the form of brines [3]. Any surface-dwelling organism remaining on the planet would need to have UV and salt tolerance and be able to enter periods of dormancy during the long dry spells. Since terrestrial halophiles have all three of these attributes, they are probably good candidates for use as analogues of martian life.

Boulby Salt and Potash mine in Yorkshire is 1.4 km underground and the second deepest mine in Europe. Despite this depth and the darkness, Norton et al., isolated halophiles from the halite deposits [12]. In this project we will be attempting to isolate and characterize halophiles from halite, as well as from other salt-rich sediments such as potash, sylvinite, anhydrite and polyhalite, in order to gain an understanding of potential life in the subsurface of Mars. Although the Boulby mine is used as a martian analogue environment [13], it does possess certain key differences from modern Mars, in particular its aerobic environment. Our long-term goals, once we have characterized the micro-organisms present, is to expose them to Mars conditions (past and present) to determine their survival potential. We will also investigate differences between their growth in the mine and in the simulated martian brine environments. To detect the presence of potential extinct or extant life on Mars, we will also focus on attempting to define biomarkers that may be left by halophile growth and degradation in these Mars-like conditions.


This work explores different particle-based approaches to the simulation of one-dimensional fractional subdiffusion equations in unbounded domains. We rely on smooth particle approximations, and consider four methods for estimating the fractional diffusion term. The first method is based on direct differentiation of the particle representation, it follows the Riesz definition of the fractional derivative and results in a non-conservative scheme. The other three methods follow the particle strength exchange (PSE) methodology and are by construction conservative, in the sense that the total particle strength is time invariant. The first PSE algorithm is based on using direct differentiation to estimate the fractional diffusion flux, and exploiting the resulting estimates in an integral representation of the divergence operator. Meanwhile, the second one relies on the regularized Riesz representation of the fractional diffusion term to derive a suitable interaction formula acting directly on the particle representation of the diffusing field. A third PSE construction is considered that exploits the Green's function of the fractional diffusion equation. The performance of all four approaches is assessed for the case of a one-dimensional diffusion equation with constant diffusivity. This enables us to take advantage of known analytical solutions, and consequently conduct a detailed analysis of the performance of the methods. This includes a quantitative study of the various sources of error, namely filtering, quadrature, domain truncation, and time integration, as well as a space and time self-convergence analysis. These analyses are conducted for different values of the order of the fractional derivatives, and computational experiences are used to gain insight that can be used for generalization of the present constructions.


Traditional software used for student-centered learning typically provides for a uniform user interface through which the student can interact with the software, and through which the information is delivered in a uniformly identical fashion to all users without regard to their learning style. This research classifies personality types of computer science undergraduate students using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; relates these types of personalities to defined learning preferences; and tests if a given user interface designed for a given learning preference enhances learning. The general approach of this study is as follows: given a set of user interfaces designed to fit personality types, provide a given user interface to participants with the matching personality type. In the control group, provide participants with a randomly chosen user interface. Observe the performance of all participants in a post-test. Additionally, observe if the test group had an enhanced learning experience. Quantitative results indicate that personality-aware user interfaces have a significant effect on learning. Qualitative results show that in most cases, users preferred user interfaces designed for their own personality type. Preliminary results show that for introverted intuitive persons and extraverted intuitive persons, the effect of a personality-aware human-computer interface on learning is significant.


This study analyzes the patterns of public resource allocation in rice research in Nepal. The resource allocation for rice research was approximated based on the full-time equivalent (FTE) of researcher time spent on rice research. A simple congruence model modified by expected rate of research progress and equity criteria was used to investigate the gap between the actual and normative investment patterns across different types of rice production environments. The results show a substantial underinvestment in rice research in general but more so in rainfed areas and in the Terai agroecological zone. The use of modifiers amplified the extent of underinvestment in rainfed environments. The options for addressing these imbalances and the overall implications for resource allocation for rice research in Nepal are discussed.


The myriad nationalities in the Soviet Union, with their often conflicting aspirations, are a key factor in the evolution and functioning of the Soviet system. Despite official claims the the nationalities problem has long been solved, the repressed demands of the diverse Soviet peoples have found vehement expression under the stimulus of Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of glasnost. The revival of nationalism and growing ethnic tensions pose a critical challenge to the Soviet leadership, raising questions about the viability of the system itself. In this volume, leading scholars examine the policy implications of the nationalities factor, survey recent developments in the non-Russian republics, and assess the political and social ramifications of a volatile issue that promises to pose one of the stiffest challenges to the success of Gorbachev's reform efforts.


A new ark is needed. With the extinction of perhaps 50,000 species per year, we are at a critical juncture in history. Ominous storm clouds have gathered to threaten humanity's most basic resource of all, the diversity of life on earth. And the danger facing us--the possibility of losing forever hundreds of thousands of species with whom we share this planet--is magnified by the fact that this rapid decline of global biodiversity is too vast to be handled solely by states or their existing international institutions. Michael Gunter suggests that a fundamentally different route is needed to stem the ongoing extinction crisis. In an eye-opening appraisal of the current threat to global biodiversity, one that truly approaches a deluge of biblical proportions, he concludes that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are the best and perhaps only actors situated to negotiate the powerful array of political and economic interests involved in species loss as well as species preservation. Showing how NGOs fit into the landscape of international biodiversity protection and what makes them so effective, Gunter's innovative work demonstrates that NGOs provide invaluable assistance by fostering fundamental linkages between domestic and international, ecological and economic, and short- and long-term considerations. Such linkages are strategic. They defuse special-interest political agendas and open up avenues for discussing biodiversity issues worldwide. In short, they help build the next ark. Gunter focuses on the symbiotic relationship between a handful of specific mainstream and participatory strategies employed by a diverse group of well-known environmental NGOs (Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, to name but a few). Determining which strategies work and which do not, this text offers a detailed prescription for how NGOs can improve their species protection efforts. It looks at how NGOs work within the system. It looks at how NGOs work with people. And it looks at how NGOs must work on themselves. While scholars have previously outlined the essential functions of NGOs, Building the Next Ark is the first to look at how their day-to-day operations translate into truly effective biodiversity protection.


The multiprotein mTORC1 protein kinase complex is the central component of a pathway that promotes growth in response to insulin, energy levels, and amino acids and is deregulated in common cancers. We find that the Rag proteins—a family of four related small guanosine triphosphatases (GTPases)—interact with mTORC1 in an amino acid–sensitive manner and are necessary for the activation of the mTORC1 pathway by amino acids. A Rag mutant that is constitutively bound to guanosine triphosphate interacted strongly with mTORC1, and its expression within cells made the mTORC1 pathway resistant to amino acid deprivation. Conversely, expression of a guanosine diphosphate–bound Rag mutant prevented stimulation of mTORC1 by amino acids. The Rag proteins do not directly stimulate the kinase activity of mTORC1, but, like amino acids, promote the intracellular localization of mTOR to a compartment that also contains its activator Rheb.


Eleven year-old Nick Vargas thinks his sucky life is being turned upside down. His father has just remarried and moved his new wife and her daughter into his home in the soon-to-be-completed, Mangrove Hollow. And now, not only has Nick lost his bedroom to his wacky new step-sister Laurie (who lugs around this huge book about faeries) - if that wasn't bad enough - Nick's father actually wants him to spend time with her! So when an "expedition" to a nearby lake turns up a nixie with a giant problem - and by giant, we mean the enormous, fire-breathing kind - it's up to Nick and Laurie (with the help of Nick's older brother and a very familiar face from the original Spiderwick Chronicles) to come up with a plan. Will they be able to stop the rampaging beast before all of Mangrove Hollow goes up in smoke?


Purpose: The aim of the study was to identify the most appropriate fall-risk assessment tool for neurological patients in an acute care setting. Methods: This descriptive study compared the reliability and validity of three fall-risk assessment tools (Morse Fall Scale, MFS; St Thomas's Risk Assessment Tool in Falling Elderly Inpatients, STRATIFY; Hendrich II Fall Risk Model, HFRM II). We assessed patients who were admitted to the Department of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Rehabilitation at Asan Medical Center between July 1 and October 31, 2011, using a constructive questionnaire including general and clinical characteristics, and each item from the three tools. We analyzed inter-rater reliability with the kappa value, and the sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, and the area under the curve (AUC) of the three tools. Results: The analysis included 1,026 patients, and 32 falls occurred during this study. Inter-rater reliability was above 80% in all three tools. and the sensitivity was 50.0% (MFS), 84.4%(STRATIFY), and 59.4%(HFRM II). The AUC of the STRATIFY was 82.8. However, when the cutoff point was regulated as not 50 but 40 points, the AUC of the MFS was higher at 83.7. Conclusion: These results suggest that the STRATIFY may be the best tool for predicting falls for acute neurological patients.


Abstract Over the past several decades, kaolin has been used intensively in the paper industry as a coating and filler material. These applications require kaolin of a high brightness grade, which depends heavily on the level of impurities (mainly Fe-bearing minerals such as Fe oxides and hydroxides) and may be improved by beneficiation processes involving grain-size classification, magnetic separation and chemical treatments. This investigation was carried out on five Brazilian kaolin samples of different geographical and geological origins. Granulometric, mineralogical, chemical and physical characterizations were performed on all samples before and after the beneficiation process. Chemical compositions were determined by X-ray fluorescence and the most important crystalline phases were identified using X-ray diffraction. Kaolinite is the dominant mineralogical phase with minor amounts of muscovite and quartz. The nature of Fe impurities was investigated by electron spin resonance and 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy. For all studied kaolin samples, Fe ions (Fe3+ and Fe2+) are present in variable amounts, in the kaolinite structure and also in Fe oxides (magnetite, hematite and goethite). The beneficiation procedure aims to remove these Fe oxides and was found to be most efficient for the Mogi das Cruzes kaolin. The Seridó kaolin had the best whiteness index observed among the analysed samples.


The effect of dielectric cladding on the waveguiding characteristics of an array of metallic pillars on a metal plane in the sub-terahertz band is explored. Firstly, a 2D structure made up of a metallic grating of infinite lateral width with various dielectric overlays is analytically studied to get more insight into the problem. Then the ideas inferred from the 2D structure are applied to the realistic 3D structure that has a finite lateral width. It is shown that by proper design of the dielectric medium surrounding the metallic structure the modal field confinement can be enhanced in a broad frequency band resulting in a low bending loss. Especially, by integrating the pillars into a silicon channel of finite size and evacuating the spaces between them a highly confined spoof surface plasmon is supported and a considerable reduction in the bending loss over a broad bandwidth is observed. Due to small cross-sectional size, low bending loss and ease of fabrication, the proposed waveguide is a promising choice for millimeter-wave and terahertz integrated circuits; particularly those based on the silicon technology.


This paper will investigate the controversy that is innate between the two costing techniques; Absorption Costing and Marginal Costing and would throw light on which costing technique better serves its purpose in helping management for decision making process and if Marginal Costing technique is concluded as better technique then why it should not be used for external reporting purpose. This paper will only crystallize and highlight the issues descriptively and will not resolve the issues that are inherent between the two costing techniques. The unique thing about this paper is that it is in favor of treating fixed cost as product cost that is it is supporting the advocates of Absorption Costing Technique but it is against to consider profit as a function of production rather it believes that profit should only be considered as function of sales for stock valuation and to help management in decision making process that is, regarding this point it is supporting advocates of Marginal Costing.


Under the cash method of accounting, generally taxpayers include income items that are received in the form of cash, checks, and property, in the year in which they are received. Under the cash equivalency doctrine, a promise to pay an amount in the future, even though it is a property right, generally will be included upon receipt only if the promise to pay constitutes a cash equivalent.
Whether an obligation is a cash equivalent is generally determined based on common law standards developed by the courts with some assistance from the Service. As a consequence, the current approach to cash equivalency suffers from the lack of a uniform standard. There is also uncertainty in applying the particular tests, given the fact-intensive, imprecise inquiry that is required. In addition, the current standards for cash equivalency may also present liquidity difficulties for taxpayers.
To address these problems, this article proposes a single test for determining whether an obligation calling for future payments is a cash equivalent. The proposed test would generally define a cash equivalent as an obligation that is readily tradable in an established securities market. By avoiding the aforementioned problems, the proposed test would promote the simplicity and liquidity policies that underlie the cash method of accounting. The proposed test would also create consistency with the results under the installment method of reporting when a taxpayer receives a deferred-payment obligation on the sale of property. To prevent possible abuses, the article also considers the adoption of certain measures that apply in connection with the installment method.


Due to increase demand of organic products, biological control methods have gained interest all over the world. Eriosoma lanigerum, commonly known as Wooly apple aphid, is a serious pest of apple. The negative impacts of pesticides on environment and human life make Biological control an important model in the control of the Wooly apple aphid. Some of the biological control agents that have been used in the control of this pest are predators, parasitoids, nectar of flowers etc. The role of the parasitoid Aphelinus mali in the biological control of wooly aphid has been studied by many researchers and found that use of parasitoids Aphelinus mali is not effective when they attack WAA solely in apple orchards. However, efficiency of use of Aphelinus mali in control of WAA is higher when these parasitoids are used along with natural predators (Gontijo, 2011).In recent days, there has been increasing use of predators for the control of aphids. This review focuses on some of the mostly used predators like syrphids, lacewings, earwigs etc. and their role in WAA management. This review focuses on the feeding habits of predators used as biocontrol agents against WAA as well as the occurrence time of these predators before their integration in management practices. Also; this review provides insight into the integration of predators along with other natural enemies for productive control of WAA. This review can be source of information for producers, as well as researchers who are focusing on organic production of apples and integrated wooly aphid management. Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 5(4): 410-414


A number of approaches to causal discovery assume that there are no hidden confounders and are designed to learn a fixed causal model from a single data set. Over the last decade, with closer cooperation across laboratories, we are able to accumulate more variables and data for analysis, while each lab may only measure a subset of them, due to technical constraints or to save time and cost. This raises a question of how to handle causal discovery from multiple data sets with non-identical variable sets, and at the same time, it would be interesting to see how more recorded variables can help to mitigate the confounding problem. In this paper, we propose a principled method to uniquely identify causal relationships over the integrated set of variables from multiple data sets, in linear, non-Gaussian cases. The proposed method also allows distribution shifts across data sets. Theoretically, we show that the causal structure over the integrated set of variables is identifiable under testable conditions. Furthermore, we present two types of approaches to parameter estimation: one is based on maximum likelihood, and the other is likelihood free and leverages generative adversarial nets to improve scalability of the estimation procedure. Experimental results on various synthetic and real-world data sets are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of our methods.


In the 2016 Presidential Election, Donald J. Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes but still secured victory in the Electoral College. The second election in the last 16 years to yield a President without a popular majority has renewed efforts to alter or abolish the Electoral College system. Some legal scholars suggest that the Electoral College lacks legitimacy because the Framers designed it to advantage the slave states.

This Essay responds to these criticisms of the Electoral College by providing a historical perspective on the Framers' decision-making. The drafting and ratification process demonstrate that the Electoral College was not designed to be "racist," and that it was a conscious mix of federalism and majoritarianism that provides benefits today. The Essay cautions against an overreaction to the 2016 election despite the Electoral College's failure to filter out a candidate such as Trump. It argues that the alternative to the Electoral College – a system of direct election that would not benefit from the state structure to dissipate and diffuse rash popular movements – could present a higher risk of danger of tyranny by the majority.


Numerous important Miocene and early Pliocene epithermal Au-Ag deposits are present in the northern Great Basin. Most deposits are spatially and temporally related to two magmatic assemblages: bimodal basalt-rhyolite and western andesite. These magmatic assemblages are petrogenetic suites that reflect variations in tectonic environment of magma generation. The bimodal assemblage is a K-rich tholeiitic series formed during continental rifting. Rocks in the bimodal assemblage consist mostly of basalt to andesite and rhyolite compositions that generally contain anhydrous and reduced mineral assemblages (e.g., quartz + fayalite rhyolites). Eruptive forms include mafic lava flows, dikes, cinder and/or spatter cones, shield volcanoes, silicic flows, domes, and ash-flow calderas. Fe-Ti oxide barometry indicates oxygen fugacities between the magnetite-wustite and fayalite-magnetite-quartz oxygen buffers for this magmatic assemblage. The western andesite assemblage is a high K calc-alkaline series that formed a continental-margin arc related to subduction of oceanic crust beneath the western coast of North America. In the northern Great Basin, most of the western andesite assemblage was erupted in the Walker Lane belt, a zone of transtension and strike-slip faulting. The western andesite assemblage consists of stratovolcanoes, dome fields, and subvolcanic plutons, mostly of andesite and dacite composition. Biotite and hornblende phenocrysts are abundant in these rocks. Oxygen fugacities of the western andesite assemblage magmas were between the nickel-nickel oxide and hematite-magnetite buffers, about two to four orders of magnitude greater than magmas of the bimodal assemblage.

Numerous low-sulfidation Au-Ag deposits in the bimodal assemblage include deposits in the Midas (Ken Snyder), Sleeper, DeLamar, Mule Canyon, Buckhorn, National, Hog Ranch, Ivanhoe, and Jarbidge districts; high-sulfidation gold and porphyry copper-gold deposits are absent. Both high- and low-sulfidation gold-silver and porphyry copper-gold deposits are affiliated with the western andesite assemblage and include the Comstock Lode, Tonopah, Goldfield, Aurora, Bodie, Paradise Peak, and Rawhide deposits.

Low-sulfidation Au-Ag deposits in the bimodal assemblage formed under relatively low oxygen and sulfur fugacities and have generally low total base metal (Cu + Pb + Zn) contents, low Ag/Au ratios, and notably high selenide mineral contents compared to temporally equivalent low-sulfidation deposits in the western andesite assemblage. Petrologic studies suggest that these differences may reflect variations in the magmatic-tectonic settings of the associated magmatic assemblages—deposits in the western andesite assemblage formed from oxidized, water-rich, subduction-related calc-alkaline magmas, whereas deposits in the bimodal assemblage were associated with reduced, water-poor tholeiitic magmas derived from the lithospheric mantle during continental extension. The contrasting types and characteristics of epithermal deposits and their affinities with associated igneous rocks suggest that a genetic relationship is present between these Au-Ag deposits and their temporally associated magmatism, although available data do not prove this relationship for most low-sulfidation deposits.


The 2016 Warwick Agreement on femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) syndrome was convened to build an international, multidisciplinary consensus on the diagnosis and management of patients with FAI syndrome. 22 panel members and 1 patient from 9 countries and 5 different specialties participated in a 1-day consensus meeting on 29 June 2016. Prior to the meeting, 6 questions were agreed on, and recent relevant systematic reviews and seminal literature were circulated. Panel members gave presentations on the topics of the agreed questions at Sports Hip 2016, an open meeting held in the UK on 27–29 June. Presentations were followed by open discussion. At the 1-day consensus meeting, panel members developed statements in response to each question through open discussion; members then scored their level of agreement with each response on a scale of 0–10. Substantial agreement (range 9.5–10) was reached for each of the 6 consensus questions, and the associated terminology was agreed on. The term 'femoroacetabular impingement syndrome' was introduced to reflect the central role of patients' symptoms in the disorder. To reach a diagnosis, patients should have appropriate symptoms, positive clinical signs and imaging findings. Suitable treatments are conservative care, rehabilitation, and arthroscopic or open surgery. Current understanding of prognosis and topics for future research were discussed. The 2016 Warwick Agreement on FAI syndrome is an international multidisciplinary agreement on the diagnosis, treatment principles and key terminology relating to FAI syndrome. The Warwick Agreement on femoroacetabular impingement syndrome has been endorsed by the following 25 clinical societies: American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM), Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Sports and Exercise Medicine (ACPSEM), Australasian College of Sports and Exercise Physicians (ACSEP), Austian Sports Physiotherapists, British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine (BASEM), British Association of Sport Rehabilitators and Trainers (BASRaT), Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM), Danish Society of Sports Physical Therapy (DSSF), European College of Sports and Exercise Physicians (ECOSEP), European Society of Sports Traumatology, Knee Surgery and Arthroscopy (ESSKA), Finnish Sports Physiotherapist Association (SUFT), German-Austrian-Swiss Society for Orthopaedic Traumatologic Sports Medicine (GOTS), International Federation of Sports Physical Therapy (IFSPT), International Society for Hip Arthroscopy (ISHA), Groupo di Interesse Specialistico dell'A.I.F.I., Norwegian Association of Sports Medicine and Physical Activity (NIMF), Norwegian Sports Physiotherapy Association (FFI), Society of Sports Therapists (SST), South African Sports Medicine Association (SASMA), Sports Medicine Australia (SMA), Sports Doctors Australia (SDrA), Sports Physiotherapy New Zealand (SPNZ), Swedish Society of Exercise and Sports Medicine (SFAIM), Swiss Society of Sports Medicine (SGMS/SGSM), Swiss Sports Physiotherapy Association (SSPA).


The distinction between contrastive and noncontrastive focus in English can be conveyed by the difference between a L+H* vs H* pitch accent [Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg, in Intentions in Communication, edited by Cohen et al. (MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1990)]. It is unclear, however, which acoustic properties of an F0 contour convey to a listener the occurrence of the contrastive L+H* rather than the noncontrastive H*. In these experiments, rise onset F0, peak F0, and slope were varied to see how they alone and together contribute to the contrast between a L+H* vs H* on the focused constituent. Listeners classified the stimuli as either contrastive or noncontrastive, with discourse context distinguishing the two interpretations. Peak height and slope traded in determining the category boundary between interpretations. Implications for the choice of primitives in intonational models and for compositional approaches to tune meaning are discussed. [Work supported by NIH.]


Comparisons of the causes and consequences of cross- and self-fertilization have dominated research on plant mating since Darwin's seminal work on plant reproduction. Here, I provide examples of these accomplishments, but also illustrate new approaches that emphasize the role of floral design and display in pollen dispersal and fitness gain through male function. Wide variation in outcrossing rate characterizes animal-pollinated plants. In species with large floral displays, part of the selfing component of mixed mating can arise from geitonogamy and be maladaptive because of strong inbreeding depression and pollen discounting. Floral strategies that separate the benefits of floral display from the mating costs associated with geitonogamy can resolve these conflicts by reducing lost mating opportunities through male function. The results from experiments with marker genes and floral manipulations provide evidence for the function of herkogamy and dichogamy in reducing self-pollination and promoting pollen dispersal. Evidence is also presented indicating that increased selfing resulting from changes to floral design, or geitonogamy in large clones, can act as a stimulus for the evolution of dioecy. The scope of future research on mating strategies needs to be broadened to include investigations of functional links among flowers, inflorescences and plant architecture within the framework of life-history evolution.


Tourism and Hospitality is a service-intensive industry that is dependent on the quality of customers' service experiences and their consequent assessments of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and behavioural intentions. The management of services and measurement of customer satisfaction is thus of crucial importance to the tourism industry and is becoming increasingly important as a result of the growing tourism and hospitality industry in Taiwan. This especially applies to the phenomenon of Taiwanese small rural hotels, which have been growing substantially from 65 hotels in 2003 to 3,407 hotels in 2012 and which present an area so far untapped by researchers.This study approaches customer satisfaction in Taiwanese rural hotels from a pragmatist perspective and using multi strategy research. First, the qualitative part of the study employs 13 semi structured interviews with hotel owners, experts, and customers in order to define the Taiwanese rural hotel product and to identify 21 customer service attributes. These attributes are then tested in a quantitative study by using self-administered two-part (before and after the service experience) questionnaires in 38 rural hotels in the three counties of Taiwan with the highest population of rural hotels. Results from 1,161 returned questionnaires (77.4 percent response rate) are then analysed using four popular conceptualisations of customer satisfaction: Expectancy Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP), Perceived Performance Only (PPO), Importance Performance Analysis (IPA), and Revised Importance Performance Analysis (RIPA). In addition questionnaire data are quantitatively analysed using a variety of multivariate analysis techniques and results are computed against customers' overall satisfaction and return intentions. Overall customers currently appear to be neither satisfied nor unsatisfied with the rural hotel experience.This study provides empirical evidence that the methodological approach chosen for this study is adequate for conceptualising the Taiwanese rural hotel product and identifying its inherent customer service attributes. The proposed 21 service attributes present a framework that subsequent researchers in hospitality and tourism studies in the Taiwanese rural hotel context may want to consider when structuring their enquiries. Furthermore this study finds that all of the four tested approaches EDP, PPO, IPA, and RIPA are applicable for measuring customer satisfaction in a Taiwanese rural hotel context. However, they turn out differing results and findings indicate a superiority of process oriented approaches over the outcome oriented approach. This study emphasises the need for more research in this subject area and rethinking current approaches to measuring customer satisfaction.


Amid research into the mounting social and environmental threats presented by climate change, young people's everyday experiences and knowledges are often overlooked, despite being the generation that will be most affected by climate change. We present a 'looping' methodology, developed through collaborative work between two distinct but complementary research projects wherein young people in the Paraíba do Sul watershed, São Paulo state, Brazil shared their perspectives on (respectively) climate-related disasters and the food–water–energy nexus. The approach brings together the theoretical framings of citizen science and nexus thinking under the aegis of participatory action research, to identify points of mutual learning in relation to the knowledge, action and critique co-produced with young people. This 'looping methodology' enables meta-analytic insights into how participatory action research, looped with other forms of action-oriented research, can enable young people and other protagonists to articulate and act upon the complex, multi-scalar processes that characterise what it means to live in uncertain social, political and environmental times.


The phenomenon of ringing in swept Fabry–Perot cavities, which leads to discrepancies with respect to usual Airy peaks, exhibits three different regimes, depending on the values of the finesse, the sweep frequency, and the free spectral range of the cavity. In particular, the intermediate case in which the Fabry–Perot cavity transmission essentially oscillates is shown theoretically and experimentally to provide a new simple method to measure the finesse of the cavity. For cavities with intermediate finesses (F≈10 000) this method is experimentally shown to have a precision of the order of 1%.


Although small in terms of population, the Caribbean is renowned for its creativity. Its cultural diversity is manifested in a variety of artistic expressions including folklore, crafts, performances, music festivals, and carnivals. Despite the Caribbean's great potential in the entertainment sector, important domestic challenges - emanating from both public and private sectors - have long impeded the successful growth of creative industries. The paper explains how the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union should serve as an impetus for stakeholders in the region to address these barriers thereby creating favorable conditions for the production and export of Caribbean entertainment services. This Study presents an overview of policies in the creative sector in terms of the promotion of services exports in selected CARICOM states: Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. This Technical Note highlights bottlenecks to implementation of recommendations proposed in existing analyses and diagnostics and suggests specific ways in which these can be overcome. It formulates concrete recommendations for relevant actors, including donors and domestic governments, to promote the development of the creative industries.


The German food retail sector and food manufacturers are in a state of transition due to a complex mix of technological and market forces. Competition continues to increase due to sluggish demand and increasing consumer mobility. The high degree of domestic and international concentration increases the intensity of competition. The top 20 food retailers obtain far more than two-thirds of total sales. Because of the increased competition among retailers, the number of retail stores will continue to decline. Food manufacturers fear the buying power of retailers in many ways. Distrust and struggle over the terms of trade characterize the relation between retailers and manufacturers. ECR activities in Germany lag behind relative to the US due to various cultural and procedural differences as well as strategic reasons. However, ECR provides a catalog of measures to achieve more efficiency and customer focus.


Abstract It is generally believed that before the Enlightenment earthquakes were considered as signs of the wrath of God as punishment for men's sins, and that Earth tremors were not considered as natural occurrences until modern times. However, this is an oversimplification, as we can see in Spanish writings of the 17th and 18th centuries. In these writings we have to distinguish between popular and religious documents and academic studies. In the 17th century Spanish authors held the Aristotelian doctrine about earthquakes and regarded them as natural occurrences. Some regarded them as God's punishment for sinful people. The occurrence of a destructive earthquake in Malaga in 1680 brought this question into the open. At that time no opinions were presented against the religious interpretation. The Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755 and the subsequent tsunami caused considerable damage in many Spanish cities, and the earthquake was felt throughout Spain. After that earthquake an abundant literature of popular, religious, philosophical and scientific character was published. A strong controversy arose as to whether the earthquake was of natural or supernatural character, with theologians and philosophers on both sides. An important group defended the natural character of the occurrence and deplored the exaggerated position of their opponents.


Advanced composite materials are being used extensively in many commercial and military aircraft and rotorcraft due to their superior stiffness and high strength-to-weight ratio. These composites are subjected to unexpected environmentally assisted damages. This work covers exploration and the methodology of detection of two such types of damages - galvanic corrosion and impact damages, at the earliest stages of development. When aluminum alloy and CFRP are coupled together, the structural strength of the aircraft is unparalleled, but this comes at a price, namely galvanic corrosion (GC). Previous experimental results have shown that when CFRP composite materials are joined with high strength aluminum alloys, galvanic corrosion occurs at the material interfaces, and the aluminum is in great danger of corroding. Composite materials used in aircraft are often subjected to unexpected environmental impact loads at high speeds, such as bird strikes and hailstone impacts. The damages developed in such cases is primarily in the form of delamination and matrix cracking, known as barely visible impact damage (BVID), since they are not easily observable by the naked eye. Prediction and detection of such environmental damages, which can occur in the service life of the aircraft, are of paramount importance in the aerospace industry. This work utilizes the software BEASY for the prediction of galvanic corrosion and utilizes ABAQUS Explicit for modeling the bird impact damage and the hailstone impact damage by using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) modeling method. This work also proposes a non-invasive microwave nondestructive testing (NDT) technique that can be employed as a detection methodology to detect the aforementioned types of environmentally assisted damages. Radar signals operating at a set frequency range can be used to detect the aforementioned environmentally assisted damages to obtain high-resolution 2D images of such damages.


The existence of open spaces in private urban villages in Jakarta is very rare. Occupancy at the center of the city causes people choose land for buildings rather than open space. Even though Jakarta has ranked in the top 5 countries with an upper threshold. Vertical garden was chosen as an alternative greening solution on limited open space. Vertical garden assistance and training is aimed at students from PGRI 15 High School located around the campus of Budi Luhur University, South Jakarta. Students are introduced to the importance of greening for environmental health and are encouraged to be creative in creating vertical garden forms with a variety of ideas. The approach method used is tri-daya, i.e. i) social power, ii) environmental power, and iii) economic power. The concept of Social Power is to invite students to become individuals who are more concerned about the environment capable of providing solutions to the completion of greening in urban areas that are increasingly limited. The concept of Environmental Power aims to invite students to take part in a residential or school environment to implement a vertical garden and increase their creativity in developing various vertical garden designs. And the concept of Economic Power is the result of the production of making vertical gardens can be used for themselves or sold to the general public, which in turn can increase the economic value of the surrounding community.


Federal Courts scholarship often focuses on access to federal courts for the decision of federal claims. At the same time, many Federal Courts scholars insist that state courts must hear affirmative federal causes of action, even when the lower federal courts are open to the same claims—the very federal courts regarded by such scholars as superior to state courts. This article takes issue with suggestions that the state courts have broad duties to entertain affirmative federal claims, whether statutory or constitutional. There is little early support for requiring state courts to entertain affirmative federal statutory and constitutional claims, and considerable evidence against it. In the twentieth century, however, the Court began to compel state courts to take jurisdiction of certain federal statutory actions in a line of cases associated with Testa v. Katt. Such compulsion, however, was not justified by the Supremacy Clause or related arguments. The Court also occasionally required state courts to provide certain constitutionally necessary affirmative remedies, in a different line of cases associated with General Oil v. Crain. The constitutionally compelled remedies strand was based on a requirement that the states supply adequate remedies for certain federal constitutional violations, rather than a Supremacy-based command that the states provide the same causes of action that the federal courts provide, as under Testa. The effect of more recent Supreme Court decisions such as Haywood v. Drown and scholarly proposals following the Court's 2016 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana threaten to submerge the Crain line of cases into the Testa line, possibly requiring greater state court conformity with federal courts as to causes of action for raising constitutional claims. Such uniformity, however, threatens to diminish the role of the states in fashioning different solutions to problems of governmental illegality. State variation may be all the more important in light of frequently-voiced dissatisfaction with the Court's federal habeas corpus doctrine and constitutional tort doctrine under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. State court duties thus will not necessarily enhance the enforcement of federal constitutional law, and might actually undermine it.


UK resident Bangladeshi men pose a public health challenge because of their preference for traditional tobacco use along side cigarette smoking. Studies investigating UK black and minority ethnic tobacco use have not had a primary focus on this issue. Furthermore, the extent and nature of dual tobacco use by Bangladeshi men had not been reliably established due to a reliance on self-report and a definitional confusion about paan with and without tobacco. This study aims to establish the prevalence of dual tobacco use by UK resident Bangladeshi men using a random survey design. It also plans to establish baseline information for dual tobacco use against the key determinants of a health inequality model. Psychosocial, health and nicotine related parameters of dual tobacco users are compared with cigarette only smokers and paan tobacco chewers. Risk factors for dual tobacco use have been explored through multivariate analysis. Three hundred and twenty-five men of Bangladeshi origin were randomly selected using the Tower Hamlets Electoral Register and interviewed at home using a pre piloted questionnaire incorporating items used in other relevant UK studies. Expired carbon monoxide readings were recorded using a Bedfont CO monitor. Dual tobacco was used by 22% of the sample, while 36% smoked cigarette only, 70/0 chewed paan tobacco only, and 350/0 did not use any form of tobacco. When dual tobacco users were compared with the cigarette smokers in bivariate analysis, there were significant differences in terms of self reported social class, age, education, employment, and heath status. A multivariate analysis controlling for age, education status, social class, self reported health and social capital scores showed tha1 only wife's tobacco use predicted dual tobacco use (OR=6.3). The findings from this study confirm the diversity and social nature of dual tobacco use by UK Bangladeshi men. These observations need to be considered and integrated into the development and implementation of tobacco cessation interventions for UK Bangladeshi adults in public health programs.


This paper examines misleading marketing claims in UK university prospectuses. It reviews earlier studies suggesting that the imagery and language of university marketing can be misleading. It considers the use of data and statistics by universities in their advertising – a topic not previously studied. From a sample of UK university prospectuses a typology of misleading data-based marketing claims is proposed, with nine categories: omission of facts and selective reporting; misleading wording; misleading inferences about an attribute; misleading associations between attributes; misleading endorsements; claim-fact discrepancies; falsehoods; carefully crafted comparisons, and claims without a reference point. Because choosing a university is so important to students and because universities aspire to high ethical and scholarly standards, the issues raised by these findings are significant. The two bodies empowered to address this issue in the UK do not take a proactive approach and so it must fall to universities themselves to address the ethical challenges raised by misleading marketing.


Background: Previous studies have argued that technology can be a major support to the music teacher enabling, amongst other things, increased student motivation, higher levels of confidence and more individualised learning to take place [Bolton, J. 2008. Technologically mediated composition learning: Josh's story. British Journal of Music Education 25, no. 1: 41–55; Kardos, L. 2012. How music technology can make sound and music worlds accessible to student composers in further education colleges. British Journal of Music Education 29, no. 2: 143–51]. In contrast, a reasonable number of alternative voices [Conlon, T. and Simpson, M. 2003. Silicon Valley versus Silicon Glen: The impact of computers upon teaching and learning: A comparative study. British Journal of Educational Technology 34, no. 2: 137–50; Convery, A. 2009. The pedagogy of the impressed: How teachers become victims of technological vision. Teachers and Teaching 15, no. 1: 25–41; Treadway, M. 2001. Making a difference? An investigation into the relationship between ICT use and standards in secondary schools. Cowbridge: Fischer Family Trust] have also argued against the claims made for the effectiveness of technology in enhancing the learning process. More specifically, recent work by Armstrong [Armstrong, V. 2008. Hard bargaining on the hard drive: Gender bias in the music technology classroom. Gender and Education 20, no. 4: 375–86; Armstrong, V. 2011. Technology and the gendering of music education. Aldershot: Ashgate] has explored issues of technology and music education in relation to gender, suggesting that the construction of gendered meanings associated with digital technologies is having a major effect on pupils' attitudes and thus ultimately, on their level of achievement in areas such as musical composition. However, there is relatively little research on how primary-aged boys and girls relate to technology as a composing tool and how they experience this compared with using more traditional instruments to compose. More specifically, very little research has been carried out into the extent to which boys and girls differ in their attitudes towards using technology as a composing tool. Purpose: This small-scale, exploratory study had two main aims. The first aim was to investigate whether any gender differences existed between the attitudes of boys and girls towards the use of computers in creating musical compositions. The second aim was to compare their attitudes between composing with instruments and composing with computers. Sample: Our study was based in England and involved class groups of 10–11-year-old pupils in three state primary schools; a total of 63 children were involved in creating short musical compositions over a two-week period. Forty-three of them were interviewed about their experiences. Methods: Our method involved children composing two pieces of music on the same theme. In the first lesson, they composed a piece using a musical notation software package on a computer whilst in the second lesson they composed a piece on the same theme using percussion instruments. Forty-three children (22 pairs of children) were subsequently interviewed about their attitudes towards composing with computers and with percussion instruments. Findings and discussion: Our findings suggested that children could appreciate both the advantages and disadvantages of using computers to compose musical pieces and a number of differences existed between boys and girls in terms of their attitudes and the way in which they composed their pieces. The findings also suggested that differences might exist in the way in which boys and girls integrated previous musical knowledge, skill and teaching into the compositional process as well as affecting their levels of motivation, confidence and self-esteem in gender-specific ways. Conclusions: This small and exploratory study suggests that variations do exist in children's approaches to computer-based musical composition activities and that attitudes do appear to vary as a function of gender.


This essay analyzes the workings of romantic love and its legal institution, marriage, as signs of universal humanity in fictional representation of Chinese immigrant women in two important California magazines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Overland Monthly and the Land of Sunshine, including short stories written by Asian American/Eurasian writer Sui Sin Far/Edith Maude Eaton. Reading these fictional narratives in the contexts of the period's prevailing trope of "yellow slavery," antimiscegenation legislation that codified white heteronormativity, and the magazines' expansionist rhetoric, I argue that these narratives constitute a "culture of benevolence"-sentimental emancipatory discourse shaped by U.S. women's reform movements-which has been integral to the racial projects of the U.S. nation and empire. By tracing the tension between the trope of "yellow slavery" and marriage, I situate my analysis within the broader shared ideological structure and connected histories that racialized African Americans and Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century all the while foregrounding how heteronormative narratives about Chinese immigrant labor produced the period's shifting boundaries between the domestic and the foreign. I argue that while sentimental narratives attempt to address injustices by "humanizing" the Chinese, that is, by imagining their inclusion in universal humanity through heteronormative love and marriage, the very terms of heteronormativity paradoxically rationalize the logic of exclusionary laws, obscure imperial historic power relations, and undermine the eligibility of the Chinese for citizenship, socially, culturally, and politically. These narratives thus expose the limits of emancipatory discourses that posit heteronormative love and marriage as the passages to full membership within U.S. capitalist and imperial relations.


The majority of cancer-related fatalities are due to metastatic disease. In chemoradiotherapy, chemotherapeutic agents are administered along with radiation to increase damage to the primary tumor and control systemic disease such as metastasis. This work introduces a mathematical model to obtain optimal drug and radiation protocols in a chemoradiotherapy scheduling problem with the objective of minimizing metastatic cancer cell populations at multiple potential sites while maintaining a minimum level of damage to the primary tumor site. We derive closed-form expressions for an optimal chemotherapy fractionation regimen. A dynamic programming framework is used to determine the optimal radiotherapy fractionation regimen. Results show that chemotherapeutic agents do not change the optimal radiation fractionation regimens, and vice-versa. Interestingly, we observe that regardless of radio-sensitivity parameters, hypo-fractionated schedules are optimal solutions for the radiotherapy fractionation problem. Furthermore, it is optimal to immediately start radiotherapy. However, for chemotherapy, we find that the structure of the optimal schedule depends on model parameters such as chemotherapy-induced cell-kill at primary and metastatic sites, as well as the ability of primary tumor cells to initiate successful metastasis at different body sites. We quantify the trade-off between the new and traditional objectives of minimizing the metastatic population size and maximizing the tumor control probability, respectively, for a cervical cancer case. The trade-off information indicates the potential for significant reduction in the metastatic population with minimal loss in primary tumor control.


ABSTRACT In order to engage students who have difficulty with the dominant world-view presented by accounting, or who have negative views of accounting, a different approach to teaching is required. We developed the concept of pragmatic postmodernism in the teaching of accounting to merge a postmodern teaching philosophy with the constraints and realities of teaching accounting. It represents an attempt to synthesise the individual learning needs of contemporary students who have difficulty accepting the dominant world-view of accounting with the constraints inherent in the resourcing, architecture and systems surrounding the teaching of accounting. The purpose of this research is to describe the thinking behind a pragmatic postmodern approach to the teaching of accounting. We provide examples of teaching approaches consistent with pragmatic postmodernism, that we have used successfully in our teaching to engage students who might otherwise be disengaged in their learning because of their rejection of the dominant world-view of accounting. In keeping with the philosophical underpinnings of postmodernism, we do not offer a magical panacea but an approach to thinking about teaching that seeks to prioritise the individual learning experience while remaining cognisant of the many constraints on the teaching of accounting.


As a contribution to the discussion of Rhetorical Pathways between English and Communication Studies, I argue that rhetoric education for civic engagement can be furthered best by providing more undergraduate curriculum in rhetorical performance and analysis. I use the word "paideweyan" to invoke both the classical tradition of rhetorical instruction for civic praxis and John Dewey's argument for critical and poetic public engagement. In addition to forming interdisciplinary coalitions, rhetoricians should continue to develop courses, majors, and departments in rhetorical studies. To support the argument I provide curricular data from 257 English and Communication departments (or their equivalents) in four-year institutions.


We present an operator approach to the description of photon polarization, based on Wigner's concept of elementary relativistic systems. The theory of unitary representations of the Poincarè group, and of parity, are exploited to construct spinlike operators acting on the polarization states of a photon at each fixed energy momentum. The nontrivial topological features of these representations relevant for massless particles, and the departures from the treatment of massive finite spin representations, are highlighted and addressed.


Although a broad range of neuropsychological deficits have been reported to occur in patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS), few studies have examined the executive functions in this patient group. The executive functions provide conscious control of the more basic cognitive functions and play an important role in daily living. They include capacities such as concept formation, planning, cognitive flexibility and resistance to interference. This study compared the performance of groups of moderate and severe OSAS patients with a group of unaffected individuals (N=24), on five tests of executive functioning. Two indices of sleep disordered breathing, sleep fragmentation and . hypoxemia, obtained from overnight polysomnography, were respectively used to categorise participants. ID patients with severe OSAS, executive function deficits were evident, while in those with moderate OSAS these abilities appeared largely intact. Further analyses revealed that the observed findings could not be attributed to differences in vigilance. These results suggest a discontinuity in the manifestation of executive function deficits between moderate and severe OSAS patients. There may be a threshold of OSAS severity, which if exceeded, impairments tend to occur. The magnitude of the impairment in patients with severe OSAS may be sufficient to interfere with daily cognitive functioning. Further research is needed both to replicate these fmdings and to establish the underlying pathogenesis of these deficits.


The energy ladder model and energy stacking model have been proposed in the literature to describe the relations between income growth and transition of energy consumed by households. Both models are largely descriptive and provide limited guidelines for quantitative verification. By contrast, the logistic substitution model has been adopted much earlier to depict the long-run energy transition of a society over time. This model assumes that substitute technologies in energy sources are available in the energy market. In the present paper, we argue that household energy transition over income can follow the same pattern as energy dynamics over time in the logistic substation model. Hence, we construct a new model, energy wave transition model, by adapting the logistic substitution model to describe household energy transition both over time and over income. The new model not only captures the features presented in the energy ladder and stacking models, but also provides methods for quantitative verification. We illustrate the new model using the energy consumption pattern of Chinese households as an example.


Interdependence of regolith density, moisture, and chemistry parameters, as well as their influence on natural gamma ray emissions, led us to investigate systematically whether statistical models could be inferred between gamma spectrometric data and regolith parameters. A series of soil sample parameters were analyzed vs. airborne gamma ray data through multiple linear regressions. Among the approximately 20 regolith parameters modeled (chemical, textural, and mineralogical), about 50% (equally distributed in each category) were found to be predictable, with acceptable error (Radj2 > 0.5 and p value < 5%). With an independent set of texture analyses, we validated two of the predicted parameters (sand and clay contents) with fairly low residuals, with standard deviations of 22 and 16%, respectively. Further statistical investigations revealed why a large number of soil parameters could successfully be modeled in this sedimentary environment. We showed that the main gamma emitters are hosted in weathering products and leached detrital materials. Two main mineral assemblages correlate with gamma variables: (i) fine‐grained weathering clays (with correlated Al, Fe, Mn, Mg, Pb, and V elements), and (ii) residual K‐rich minerals, interpreted as feldspar and/or muscovite (correlated with Na and Sr). Additionally, two chemical elements, Si and Ca, have specific behaviors and can scarcely be characterized by the gamma data: they apparently mitigate Ɣ signatures.


Over the last 5 years, multiple stakeholders in the field of spinal cord injury (SCI) research have initiated efforts to promote publications standards and enable sharing of experimental data. In 2016, the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke hosted representatives from the SCI community to streamline these efforts and discuss the future of data sharing in the field according to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data stewardship principles. As a next step, a multi-stakeholder group hosted a 2017 symposium in Washington, DC entitled ''FAIR SCI Ahead: the Evolution of the Open Data Commons for Spinal Cord Injury research.'' The goal of this meeting was to receive feedback from the community regarding infrastructure, policies, and organization of a community-governed Open Data Commons (ODC) for pre-clinical SCI research. Here, we summarize the policy outcomes of this meeting and report on progress implementing these policies in the form of a digital ecosystem: the Open Data Commons for Spinal Cord Injury (ODC-SCI.org). ODC-SCI enables data management, harmonization, and controlled sharing of data in a manner consistent with the well-established norms of scholarly publication. Specifically, ODC-SCI is organized around virtual ''laboratories'' with the ability to share data within each of three distinct data-sharing spaces: within the laboratory, across verified laboratories, or publicly under a creative commons license (CC-BY 4.0) with a digital object identifier that enables data citation. The ODC-SCI implements FAIR data sharing and enables pooled datadriven discovery while crediting the generators of valuable SCI data.


The Old Bondeni area, the former 'native location' of Nakurujwas scheduled for demolition and redevelopment some twenty years ago. Aside from demolition at the periphery carried out in the 1950s, the bulk of housing still stands. This has not been for want of administrative initiative. Bondeni represents a rare case study which permits one to consider shifts in official position and changing attitudes towards redevelopment as applied to a single community. . This paper discusses the various plans and suggestions put forward over the years, the climate of opinion within officialdom which these reflected, and the reactions and expectations these initiatives aroused in the community residents.


We report a rare case of metal-induced dermatitis after coil embolization for cerebral aneurysm. A 51-year-old woman experienced a rash around the lips and neck 3 weeks after coil embolization. Judging from the clinical course and results of several patch tests, platinum coils were considered to have induced the dermatitis. Symptoms were relieved with administration of oral steroids. This represents the first report of metal-induced dermatitis after neuroendovascular treatment. The possibility of metal allergy was difficult to suspect preoperatively. However, early evaluation and referral are important when skin symptoms are observed postoperatively.


S oon the Bush administration will decide the fate of human embryonic stem cell (ESC) research at U.S. government-funded institutions, and the outcome of that decision will greatly influence the role of ESC science in human developmental biology around the world. But although the forces that science brings to this field are powerful, the future of ESC research will largely be determined by other interests: politics, organized religion, commerce, the legal community, and patient advocacy groups. The decision-making process needs to develop a policy that is fact-based and serves the best interests of society as well as science.

Broadly, stem cells are rare cells that renew themselves and, in addition, give rise to differentiated cells. Some, from adult tissues, have multiple but usually restricted developmental potency: Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), for example, normally make only blood cells; multipotent brain stem cells make only brain cells. ESCs, in contrast, are derived from cells isolated from the inner cavity of the blastocyst: an early embryo that cannot develop further unless it successfully implants in the uterus. These cells are pluripotent: Given an encouraging environment, they can develop into any cell type; although so far in culture they have been unable to form whole organs, much less bodies.

It would be convenient if pluripotent cells persisted into adulthood. Unfortunately, most (but not all) published accounts suggesting adult stem cell pluripotency have not successfully established that one type can produce a cell of another tissue type. Indeed, although HSCs capable of regenerating the blood can be isolated from adults or fetuses, so far brain stem cells capable of robust growth and transplantability have come only from fetal or ESC sources. This is likely to be true for a number of tissues; fetal stem cells are much more active than postneonatal cells. A moratorium on research and/or transplantation of fetal stem cells could thus be devastating. As for the search for pluripotent adult stem cells, it is always possible, perhaps even likely, that further research might reveal a source. But that is simply a hope, and it would be foolish to abandon the surer path for the unproven one.

The greatest mysteries of human development lie in the time interval between the early blastocyst embryo and the much later point at which organs are formed. What is needed is a thorough understanding of the cellular and genetic events that make the organs and tissues from these pluripotent cells. That can come only from a broad-scale attack on the problem from all kinds of researchers, whether in academic, nonprofit, or commercial organizations. The outcome will surely have profound effects on medicine, science, and translational research. Yet these advances that could be gained from human ESC research are currently restricted in the United States to the single commercial entity that holds the patents for the ESCs developed using its own funding. That is a disturbing anomaly, but it can be remedied by a decision to approve ESC research by government-funded entities.

Decisions to approve ESC research have been recently undertaken in several other countries, notably Germany and the United Kingdom, where government sought advice from a broad range of concerned interests. Not only does that provide a constructive example to our administration, it underscores another consequence of the wrong decisions here. Failure to make this research opportunity available in the United States will make those countries centers of the scientific, medical, and commercial advances in which we ought to be a contributing partner.

Plainly, scientists alone should not make the decisions about the ethical conduct of their work or about its social applications. It is appropriate that governments, with appropriate public input, define the societal interest in particular lines of research. But in making those policies, the state should minimize purely political considerations and be mindful of the separation of church and state. The wrong action here could close the door to an important avenue of scientific and clinical discovery. The state should not be the barrier to the translation of these potentially revolutionary therapeutic opportunities into real medical advances.


The French Enlightenment and the Revolution of 1789 have commonly been seen as forerunners of modern Western European democracies and democratic values such as inalienable human rights, freedom from oppression, equality, religious tolerance, social security and happiness, inherited partly from the Anglo-American revolutions and partly from the radical French philosophes of the last third of the eighteenth century. Historians interested in the culture of the age of Enlightenment have long been looking for the movement in itself, studying the forms of participation and the places where Enlightenment ideals, described and impersonated by men like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, were propagated. As much as 'the Enlightenment' itself is not a homogeneous philosophical trend, recent historical research has shown that the social and cultural practices of eighteenth-century philosophic-al circles were far from corresponding to the ideals of equality and liberty commonly associated with the Enlightenment. A second bias in our interpretations of the Enlightenment is the central place given to values commonly associated with it in the legitimisation of modern democracies, while in the meantime, other phenomena of the age of Enlightenment, such as cosmopolitanism, are misunderstood or rejected because of, for example, the idea of national primacy. This article is concerned with how the strengthening of the focus in cultural history on social practices has changed our picture of the Enlightenment as a movement, but also with the difficulties experienced by historians who are intellectually and morally indebted to the Enlightenment in constructing a credible picture of this movement in a time when its legacy is subject to political debate.


The origins of this book lie in the Second Oxford Law Colloquium held in September 1992 and organized by the Faculty of Law of the University of Oxford and Allen & Overy. The subject of this volume, corporate governance, is one that is currently highly topical but which has a long intellectual pedigree. Ever since the formation of the first joint stock company there has been a continuing debate about the structure of corporate governance and the controls, both legal and institutional, that are, or should be, exercised over corporate management. The essays contained in the volume explore the debate from a variety of perspectives, but each keeps in mind that a clear understanding of the wider commercial and financial context is necessary before examining the relevant legal structures and rules. This wider picture is examined at both a national and comparative level, and the attitudes and practices of managers and investors are considered as part of the backdrop to competing theories on corporate governance. The contributors, drawn from the practising and the academic worlds, bring their own specialist knowledge to bear in a volume which will be required reading for all those interested in the subject.


Efferent feedback onto sensory organs provides a means to modulate input to the central nervous system. In the developing mammalian cochlea, inner hair cells are transiently innervated by efferent fibers, even before sensory function begins. Here, we show that neonatal inner hair cells are inhibited by cholinergic synaptic input before the onset of hearing. The synaptic currents, as well as the inner hair cell's response to acetylcholine, are mediated by a nicotinic (alpha9-containing) receptor and result in the activation of small-conductance calcium-dependent potassium channels.