Advertising experiments often suffer from noisy responses making precise estimation of the average treatment effect (ATE) and evaluating ROI difficult. We develop a principal stratification model that improves the precision of the ATE by dividing the customers into three strata -- those who buy regardless of ad exposure, those who buy only if exposed to ads and those who do not buy regardless. The method decreases the variance of the ATE by separating out the typically large share of customers who never buy and therefore have individual treatment effects that are exactly zero. Applying the procedure to 5 catalog mailing experiments with sample sizes around 140,000 shows a reduction of 36-57% in the variance of the estimate. When we include pre-randomization covariates that predict stratum membership, we find that estimates of customers' past response to similar advertising are a good predictor of stratum membership, even if such estimates are biased because past advertising was targeted. Customers who have not purchased recently are also more likely to be in the "never purchase" stratum. We provide simple summary statistics that firms can compute from their own experiment data to determine if the procedure is expected to be beneficial before applying it.


K-edge imaging is commonly used for viewing contrast pharmaceuticals in a variety of multi-energy x-ray imaging techniques, ranging from dual-energy and spectral computed tomography to fluoroscopy. When looking for the K-edge signal of a specific contrast, by taking measurements either side of the K-edge, it is found that the K-edge is not always observable for low concentrations. We have also observed that the ability to see the K-edge is unit dependent - a K-edge that is not observable in computed tomography (CT) reconstructed linear attenuation units can often be made visible by converting to Hounsfield units.
This paper presents an investigation of this K-edge hiding phenomenon. We conclude that if a multi-energy x-ray measurement of any K-edge material contains a signal of any other material, then there will be a positive concentration of that K-edge material below which its K-edge cannot be observed without extracting the K-edge signal through means of basis decomposition. Mathematical descriptions of this limiting minimum concentration is provided in three cases - multi-energy radiographic projection images; and reconstructed multi-energy CT images for both linear attenuation and Hounsfield units. Two important properties of this limiting concentration are provided: the minimum concentration for Hounsfield units is always strictly less than the minimum concentration for linear attenuation; and the minimum concentration for radiographic projections will typically be much larger than the minimum concentration for reconstructed linear attenuation. Finally experimental observation of this phenomenon is presented using data collected by the MARS spectral CT scanner equipped with a CdTe Medipix-3RX camera operating in charge-summing mode, where it is also shown that the K-edge can be recovered through basis decomposition.


A dual classification of variable delays 1) by their explicit dependence on time or through a state variable and 2) through their origins as ``pipe'' or ``nonpipe'' problems is presented. Techniques of simulation through standard analog components and, more particularly, transport devices are analyzed and further classification made of the latter to distinguish those suitable for state-variable delay systems from those that are not. The construction and testing of a simple variable delay are described. An application to a system in which the delay is a sinusoidal function of time is discussed in detail. A theory is presented that predicts what frequencies will be present in the output of such a device when excited by a sinusoid of commensurate frequency; experimental results corroborating this are presented. A scheme for converting a problem with variable delay to one with fixed delay is further analyzed and its range of application delimited. Conclusions include a discussion of the best type of simulator to be used for variable delay problems.


Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. The tags contain electronically stored information. RFIDs have been widely used in countless applications such as object tracking, 3D positioning, indoor localization, supply chain management, automotive, inventory control, anti-theft, anti-counterfeit, and access control. The Internet of Things (IoT) promises a huge growth in RFID technology and usage. This book covers the topic of RFID protocol design, optimization, and security. RFID systems allow for a much easier and error free inventory management and tracking, but the probabilistic nature of RFID protocols makes the design and optimization complex and challenging. Most existing commercial RFID systems are not well designed. In this book, the authors aim to demystify complicated RFID protocols and explain in depth the principles, techniques, and practices in designing and optimizing them.


Drosophila melanogaster male accessory gland proteins (Acps) that are transferred in the ejaculate with sperm mediate post–mating competition for fertilizations between males. The actions of Acps include effects on oviposition and ovulation, receptivity and sperm storage. Two Acps that modulate egg production are Acp26Aa (ovulin) and Acp70A (the sex peptide). Acp26Aa acts specifically on the process of ovulation (the release of mature eggs from the ovaries), which is initiated 1.5 h after mating. In contrast, sperm storage can take as long as 6–9 h to complete. Initial ovulations after matings by virgin females will therefore occur before all sperm are fully stored and the extra eggs initially laid as a result of Acp26Aa transfer are expected to be inefficiently fertilized. Acp26Aa–mediated release of existing eggs should not cause a significant energetic cost or lead to a decrease in female lifespan assuming, as seems likely, that the energetic cost of egg laying comes from de novo egg synthesis (oogenesis) rather than from ovulation. We tested these predictions using Acp26Aa1 mutant males that lack Acp26Aa but are normal for other Acps and Acp26Aa2 males that transfer a truncated but fully functional Acp26Aa protein. Females mating with Acp26Aa2 (truncation) males that received functional Acp26Aa produced significantly more eggs following their first matings than did mates of Acp26Aa1 (null) males. However, as predicted above, these extra eggs, which were laid as a result of Acp26Aa transfer to virgin females, showed significantly lower egg hatchability. Control experiments indicated that this lower hatchability was due to lower rates of fertilization at early post–mating times. There was no drop in egg hatchability in subsequent non–virgin matings. In addition, as predicted above, females that did or did not receive Acp26Aa did not differ in survival, lifetime fecundity or lifetime progeny, indicating that Acp26Aa transfer does not represent a significant energetic cost for females and does not contribute to the survival cost of mating. Acp26Aa appears to remove a block to oogenesis by causing the clearing out of existing mature eggs and, thus, indirectly allowing oogenesis to be initiated immediately after mating. The results show that subtle processes coordinate the stimulation of egg production and sperm storage in mating pairs.


The questions of European integration have been influenced by various aspects of debt and deficit in recent years. Economist and policy makers discuss mostly the so called twin deficits consisting of government budged and imbalances in balance of payment. In this paper we take a perspective of national accounts to investigate the question of macroeconomic imbalances connected with the European sovereign debt crisis. More specifically we utilize the methodology of sectoral balances lying behind Flow of Funds statistics and Post Keynesian macroeconomic analysis. We use a simplified, highly consolidated accounting model of an economy consisting of three sectors i.e. domestic private sector of households and firms, government sector and foreigner sector. Since every debtor has to have a creditor by definition, the interconnections among sectoral financial balances get interesting views and implications for Eurozone's housekeeping, like deficits at periphery and surpluses at core countries or limitations on private sector balances by various fiscal constraints.


Kombucha tea is a health beverage made by incubating the Kombucha "mushroom" in tea and sugar. Although therapeutic benefits have been attributed to the drink, neither its beneficial effects nor adverse side effects have been reported widely in the scientific literature. Side effects probably related to consumption of Kombucha tea are reported in four patients. Two presented with symptoms of allergic reaction, the third with jaundice, and the fourth with nausea, vomiting, and head and neck pain. In all four, use of Kombucha tea in proximity to onset of symptoms and symptom resolution on cessation of tea drinking suggest a probable etiologic association.


This project proposes the development of an autonomous underwater vehicle that can be used to perform underwater research missions. The vehicle can be pre-programmed to complete a specified mission. Missions may include underwater pipe inspection, a survey of the sea floor or just the transport of given sensors to a certain depth or position and take measurements of underwater conditions. The Mechatronics and Micro Manufacturing group at the CSIR is engaged in developing a portfolio of autonomous vehicles as well as further research into the development and implementation of such vehicles. Underwater vehicles will form part of the portfolio of autonomous vehicle research. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are mostly used for research purposes in oceanographic studies as well as climate studies. These scientists use AUVs to carry a payload of sensors to specified depths and take measurements of underwater conditions, such as water temperature, water salinity or carbon levels as carbon is being released by plankton or other ocean organisms. Very little information is available about what is happening below the surface of the oceans and AUVs are being used to investigate this relatively unknown environment. The area covered by the world's ocean is 361 million km with an average depth of 3790 m. The deepest surveyed depth point in the ocean is at a depth of about 11 000 m at the southern end of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. This just shows the need for research into this mostly unexplored world. Research and exploration in the oceans can be achieved through the use of autonomous underwater vehicles. A big problem to overcome is the fact that GPS is not available for navigation in an underwater environment. Other sensors need to be found to be used for navigational purposes. The particular vehicle developed for this study will be used to facilitate further research into underwater vehicle navigation and underwater robotics.


The article will examine the relationship between restorative justice and offender rehabilitation on the basis of the evidence collected in the course of an empirical study. The study was conducted in a family group conferencing project which aspired to pursue the restorative and rehabilitative goals simultaneously. The article will highlight problems, tensions, and dangers which may arise in the process of integrating the two models and suggest possible explanations for some of the difficulties.


Dietary and supplemental intake of the ω‐3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) reduces risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and ameliorates symptoms. The apolipoprotein E (APOE)4 allele is the strongest risk factor for sporadic AD, exclusive of age. APOE4 carriers respond well to the DHA present in fish but do not respond as well to dietary supplements. The mechanisms behind this varied response remain unknown. I posit that the difference is that fish contain DHA in phospholipid form, whereas fish oil supplements do not. This influences whether DHA is metabolized to nonesterified DHA (free DHA) or a phospholipid form called lysophosphatidylcholine DHA (DHA‐lysoPC). Free DHA is transported across the outer membrane leaflet of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) via passive diffusion, and DHA‐lysoPC is transported across the inner membrane leaflet of the BBB via the major facilitator superfamily domain‐containing protein 2A. I propose that APOE4 carriers have impaired brain transport of free DHA but not of DHA‐lysoPC, as a consequence of a breakdown in the outer membrane leaflet of the BBB, putting them at increased risk for AD. Dietary sources of DHA in phospholipid form may provide a means to increase plasma levels of DHA‐lysoPC, thereby decreasing the risk of AD.—Patrick, R. P. Role of phosphatidylcholine‐DHA in preventing APOE4‐associated Alzheimer's disease. FASEB J. 33, 1554–1564 (2019). www.fasebj.org


Garnet porphyroblasts are commonly used to determine P-T conditions in metamorphic rock assemblages. However, the actual process of porphyroblast nucleation is still poorly understood and garnet growth may occur at different conditions than those predicted by equilibrium thermodynamics. It is typically assumed that the Gibbs free energy of a system can be used to predict the growth of garnet at a given P and T, but here a new idea is proposed that in nature, growth does not occur until the chemical potential of each garnet-forming component departs from its equilibrium (pre-nucleation) state. Similar thermodynamic modeling results from a variety of metamorphic settings, rock types and apparent degrees of overstep indicate these deviations likely control the extent of overstep in the garnet-forming reaction in many natural samples. The process of metamorphic differentiation is then used to explain microstructures observed in the Haimanta Group, NW India that contain quartz-rich and micarich layers, with numerous garnet porphyroblasts appearing solely in the quartz-rich layers. This process is deformation-controlled, allowing the microstructures to be used as kinematic indicators to determine the deformation history of the Haimanta Group. The Elle Microstructural Modeling Program, the Basil deformation code and observed chemical zoning of garnets are used to prove metamorphic differentiation as the process responsible for garnet growth, meaning a singular, prograde event resulted in garnet growth in the Haimanta Group, in agreement with published monazite data for theses samples.


Weathering is the chemical and physical alteration of rock at the surface of the Earth, but its importance is felt well beyond the rock itself. The repercussions of weathering echo throughout the Earth sciences, from ecology to climatology, from geomorphology to geochemistry. This article outlines how weathering interacts with various geoscience disciplines across a huge range of scales, both spatial and temporal. It traces the evolution of scientific thinking about weathering and man's impact on weathering itself—for better and for worse. Future computational, conceptual and methodological advances are set to cement weathering's status as a central process in the Earth sciences.


As the Obama administration and the courts change the course of federal environmental law and policy, this best-selling casebook has been updated comprehensively to include the latest legal and policy developments. Each chapter includes new material exploring contemporary developments including the challenges climate change is posing to nearly every aspect of environmental law. The revised Sixth Edition includes: Ten New Case Excerpts, including new decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court on CERCLA, the Clean Air Act, NEPA, environmental standing and the Clean Water Act Four New Problem Exercises, including exercises on cap-and-trade versus a carbon tax, the application of NEPA to climate change, who should be prosecuted for criminal violations, and negotiation of a post-Kyoto regime to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions "Midnight Regulations" by the Bush administration and the Obama administration's response New emphasis on Environmental Standing, including the Supreme Court's Massachusetts v. EPA and Summers v. Earth Island Institute decisions The new approach to CERCLA "arranger" liability and apportionment embodied in the Supreme Court's Burlington Northern decision EPA's new definition of "solid waste" and judicial decisions altering the agency's new source review program and programs for controlling interstate air pollution and hazardous air pollutants EPA's Clean Air Act "Endangerment" Finding for Emissions of GHGs, reversal of the California waiver denial, and California's controls on GHG emissions from mobile sources The relationship between the Clean Water Act's 404 and 402 permit programs, including the Supreme Court's June 22, 2009 Coeur Alaska decision Climate Change and NEPA, including the 9th Circuit's Center for Biological Diversity v. NHTSA decision on the environmental impact of national fuel economy standards Remedies for Claims of NEPA Violations, including the Supreme Court's Winter v. NRDC decision Climate change and the Endangered Species Act, including the impact of the polar bear listing on agency consultation under 7 and 9's prohibition of "takes" The latest scientific evidence concerning global warming and climate change, as well as material on the development of carbon trading markets, adaptation strategies, and carbon disclosure


Little has been written about how to teach novice researchers about qualitative research interviewing. In this article, the authors recognize qualitative research interviewing as a practice that one develops through reflexivity. They propose that novices can develop a reflexive interviewing practice by using a guided framework to review videorecords of the interviews they conduct. The authors discuss the framework and illustrate its use with an exemplar derived from the experience of a novice researcher. They conclude with a discussion of the need for further research about how best to enhance the development of novice researchers as qualitative research interviewers.


Spatial patterns of public expenditure and government procurement have a significant impact
on economic and social development in localities and regions across the EU. In the UK,
there has been particular attention given to variations in government spending across regions
and the effects of competitive tendering processes and EU State Aid rules on regional
economies (Bennet 2006; Pinch and Patterson, 2000). Reimer (1999) has charted the
regional consequences of widespread contracting out of local government services to large
national private firms during the 1980s and 1990s driven largely by the need for greater
efficiency and "value for money". More recent government policies affecting procurement
practices appear to have intensified these processes. In a recent document entitled
"Transforming Government Procurement" (2007), the UK Government restated its objective
to improve value for money in public procurement. Reference is also made in this document,
however, to the principle of "sustainable" procurement that requires consideration of the
impact of procurement decisions on government targets for the environment including carbon
emissions, levels of waste, water consumption and energy efficiency. These aspects add
considerable complexity to decision-making in the procurement process and may have
intended (and unintended) consequences for local and regional economies.
Interventions designed to balance the need for greater efficiency in procurement with
sustainability criteria will inevitably have further impacts upon spatial patterns of public
procurement and may also alter long-standing relationships between local authorities and
small and medium-sized businesses in their territories that depend on public contracts for
their survival. This paper presents the findings of research carried out on behalf of the
Cumbria Procurement Initiative (CPI) in the North West Region of England. The study
analyses the collective patterns of spend of eight Cumbrian Local Authorities (County Council
and Cumbria Constabulary, six Districts and the Lake District National Park). Data is
presented on variation in spending patterns by type of purchase, size of contract and
geographical location. The characteristics of the supply base are investigated further using a
two stage survey of businesses (postal questionnaire with selected interview follow-up).
Results of the survey are used to show the characteristics of suppliers and their level of
dependency on local authority contracts. Managers' evaluation of the advantages and
disadvantages of contracting with the public sector are also presented. The paper concludes
by considering the implications of the findings for procurement and the extent to which local
authorities have retained a capacity to act to support local economic development.


The literature on migrants and social adjustment in Australia has been limited, with theories on acculturation surpassing empirical knowledge. Additionally, most research in this arena has centered on biosocial correlates of adult migrant activity; few Australian based studies have investigated empirically the impact of acculturation strategies on familial and structural marginalization among migrant youth. Using the underpinning constructs of biculturalism across multiple domains, this thesis examines how ethnic self-identification and self-esteem are mediated by the adoption of bicultural (culturally integrated) or culturally separated strategies of adjustment, and how this in turn may relate to negative adjustment outcomes such as alienating migrant youth from their families (familial marginalization) and from salient social/governance structures (structural marginalization) in their lives. This proposed relationship is articulated in a hypothesized 6-factor model relating the constructs of: Self-Esteem, Ethnic Identity, Cultural Integration, Cultural Separation, Familial Marginalization, and Structural Marginalization. The robustness of the relationship between these constructs is then further tested using a scale of self-reported antisocial behaviour.

The proposed mediation model is tested across 330 first and second-generation youth migrants from South-East Asia using structural equation modeling (SEM) and multiple-group analyses. The measurement model was evaluated using a series of confirmatory factor analyses to assess the factor structure of each of the 6 latent constructs examined for both first- and second-generation migrant youth samples: Congeneric (1-factor) models were tested separately for each construct, and configural and measurement equivalence across generations was assessed. The full structural model was then estimated and tested for factorial equivalence and multi-group invariance across generation 1 and 2 cohorts using both aggregate and individual item scores. Results from this arm of the study indicate that the hypothesized multi-group model for familial and structural marginalization is well fitting across generation 1 and 2 migrants, and that significant differences exist in the relationship between independent, mediating and outcome variables when comparing generation 1 and 2 cohorts. Results from the second arm of the study exploring the prediction of antisocial behaviour from the proposed model of cultural and social adjustment indicate that self-esteem, familial marginalization, and structural marginalization added significantly to the prediction of antisocial behaviour for the generation 1 cohort, while only structural marginalization significantly predicted antisocial behaviour for the generation 2 cohort. In terms of descriptive data, this study also reports frequency and correlational statistics obtained from preliminary means-testing procedures.

This study contributes to work in the field of migrant adjustment by adopting a multidimensional approach to defining and examining the constructs of ethnic identity and acculturation, and by exploring how these constructs interact to predict experiences of marginalization and antisocial behaviour in South-East Asian youth. More globally, this has implications for how cultural identity and socialization practices may be shaped in a range of settings to which young migrants may become exposed (e.g. schools, refugee detention centers, offender rehabilitation programs) to ameliorate the risk of marginalization and criminalization.


When it comes to performance, embedded systems share many problems with their higher-end counterparts. The growing gap between top processor frequency and memory access speed, the memory wall, is one such problem. Driven, in part, by low energy consumption and low cost requirements, embedded systems are often customized to a single application, or a very small set of applications. In addition, time-to-market requirements and the increasing complexity of embedded systems drives the need for fully or partially automated design tools and also to the extensive use of caches and cache hierarchies. The introduction of multi-processor-based embedded platforms has accelerated this trend; as the design space for embedded systems has grown, designers have become unclear as to whether automatic processor customization tools can cope with this increased complexity. The recent introduction of new techniques addressing the automatic customization, such as Architecturally Visible Storage (AVS) memory-enhanced Instruction Set Extension (ISE) identification algorithms, has also created new challenges. AVS memories are distinct from the cache hierarchy and rely on Direct Memory Access (DMA) transfers to communicate with main memory. In an embedded system containing hardware-managed caches, these extra AVS memories, in combination with their corresponding DMA transfers, cause coherence and consistence problems. Although the problems of coherence and consistence are well known in multi-processor systems, conventional solutions may be expensive in terms of area and power consumption, rendering them unacceptable for use in embedded systems. This thesis presents two low cost coherence mechanisms that solve these two problems. The first mechanism addresses embedded systems that already contain a hardware coherence protocol, like many high-end embedded multi-processor systems. Traditionally, the DMA transactions are transparent to the hardware coherence protocol. By ensuring visibility of these DMA transactions to the hardware coherence protocol, coherence can be guaranteed between AVS memories and data cache(s). As a result, minor changes to the DMA engine are required. Moreover, by forcing the processor pipeline to stall if a DMA transfer is active, memory consistence can be guaranteed. This mechanism provides significant speedup when compared to the execution of a non-ISE-enhanced system; however, due to the increase in bus traffic, this speedup comes at the expense of an increase in energy consumption. Coherent and Speculative DMA are both implementations of this mechanism. Single-processor systems do not contain hardware coherence protocols, and would therefore benefit from a lower-cost solution to the coherence and consistence problems than a hardware coherence protocol. By tightly coupling the AVS memories to the hardware cache, coherence and consistence for the complete system can be guaranteed. This coupling requires insignificant changes to the hardware cache's hit detection circuitry and state machine without influencing its critical path, thus it is inherently inexpensive. This mechanism provides significant speedups and reduces the energy consumed if compared to the execution on non-ISE-enhanced systems. Furthermore, the tight coupling enables direct communication between the AVS memories and the data cache, making this mechanism independent from the processor-to-memory distance. Virtual Ways and Way Stealing are both implementations of this mechanism. Besides enforcing coherence and consistence, the ability to integrate the architectural changes into an automated design flow is important. This thesis shows the influence of Coherent DMA, Speculative DMA, Virtual Ways, and Way Stealing on the ISE-identification algorithm. It shows the architectural requirements and the cost for enforcing coherence and consistence that need to be taken into account when applying these mechanisms in an automated flow without formulating new algorithms.


Six dogs with massive hepatocellular carcinoma that was not amenable to surgery were treated by oral administration of single-agent toceranib at a dose of 2.0-3.0 mg/kg every other day for a minimum of 60 days. Partial response was achieved in three dogs, stable disease was achieved in one dog, and progressive disease occurred in two dogs, according to the canine Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors v1.0. Observed adverse events were mild to moderate in severity and reported in accordance with the Veterinary Cooperative Oncology Group's common terminology criteria for adverse events v1.1. Activities of alanine aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase decreased in the cases that were sensitive to treatment with toceranib, whereas the activities remained high in resistant cases. Additionally, the level of phospho-vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 was found to be increased in a resistant case. Single-agent toceranib might prove to be an effective treatment for canine hepatocellular carcinoma pending further validation.


A binary triangle of size $n$ is a triangle of zeroes and ones, with $n$ rows, built with the same local rule as the standard Pascal triangle modulo $2$. A binary triangle is said to be balanced if the absolute difference between the numbers of zeroes and ones that constitute this triangle is at most $1$. In this paper, the existence of balanced binary triangles of size $n$, for all positive integers $n$, is shown. This is achieved by considering periodic balanced binary triangles, that are balanced binary triangles where each row, column or diagonal is a periodic sequence.


Climate change introduces new challenges for humanitarian aid through changing hazard patterns. The linkages between climate change and humanitarian aid are complex. While humanitarian organisations deal directly with vulnerable  opulations, interventions and actions also form part of global politics and development pathways that are currentlygenerating climate change, inequities and vulnerability.This IDS Bulletin represents a call for increasing engagement between humanitarian aid and adaptation interventions to support deliberate transformation of development pathways. Based on studies carried out as part of the 'Courting Catastrophe' project, we argue that humanitarian interventions offer several entry points and opportunities for a common agenda to drive transformational adaptation. Changes in political and financial frameworks are needed to facilitate longer-term actions; additionally, transformational adaptation demands moving from a mode of delivering expert advice and solutions to vulnerable populations, to taking up multiple vulnerability knowledges and making space for contestation of current development.


This qualitative study examines professors' teaching practices and students' experiences in graduate classrooms that exhibit critical pedagogy in order to educate for democracy. The university has been criticized as markets values have commodified teaching and learning to serve private interests. This threat challenges students being educated for democracy with respect to concern for equity issues and thus opposes the public good. The study embraces radical democracy that acknowledges both issues of power and difference in order to understand social relations. Freire (1973) conceptualized critical pedagogy in order for students to explore knowledge critically similar to their roles as probing citizens. The study engages Shor's (1992) agenda of values, a model of critical pedagogy, along with equity discourses of anti-racist and feminist thinkers. The study addresses three questions: (1) What are the professors' teaching practices and the students' experiences in the critical classrooms? (2) What is the pedagogical climate of the critical classroom that contributes to educating for democracy? (3) What is the purpose of actualizing critical pedagogy in order to educate for democracy? The data is collected through classroom observations and interviews with 15 students and 3 professors in three, 12week graduate courses at a Canadian Faculty of Education. The critical classrooms were described through: experiences of standardized teaching and learning, student-centered teaching as a means to empowerment, role of teacher authority, silences among students and creating a language of possibility or projecting a grand vision of democracy. The pedagogical climate that contributed to the critical classrooms was: implementing student voice, constructing a political


This paper focuses on what happens when accountability regimes, represented in calculative planning processes, migrate onto situated, sociomaterial practices. Specifically, the article investigates what happens when the practices of results-based accountability (RBA) are translated into the social justice practices of locally-based community organizations. Based on the tenets of contemporary practice theory and a three-year participatory action research project with community organizations in Australia, the study illustrates that performance measurement and accountability frameworks such as RBA are not technologies that peer and measure innocently and disinterestedly from a distance. Rather, RBA, as a bundle of material-discursive practices, is part of the performance measuring apparatus creating differences that include some things and exclude others. We articulate some of the organizing practices of social justice in a locally-based community organization, follow their translation into RBA planning practices and then return to analyse the introduction of RBA practices into the daily work of an organization. In this way, we demonstrate how situated and ongoing practices begin to unravel through intra-action with RBA boundary-making practices and its redrawn relations of accountability.


Abstract In this paper we investigate the basic mathematical and philosophical tool of Gérard Thibault d'Anvers, the Circle. One of our main goals was to describe the Circle with coordinate geometry, and to estimate the rate of accuracy of his work. Furthermore, we also wanted to test the statements made by Thibault in his fencing manual, Academy of the Sword [Thibault, 1630; Greer, 2005]. To do this, we compared his observations and calculations with the results of available modern day and historical anthropometrical data sets. Based on our results, we also want to give some practical information about Thibault system for the fencers who study his art in our time.


We present a low cost markerless system for the optimization of athlete performance in sports such as pole vault, jumping and javelin throw. The system uses a number of calibrated cameras to capture a video of an athlete from different viewpoints. The athlete's body is then segmented from the background in each video frame. The silhouettes of the segmented body are then reprojected to reconstruct an estimate of the 3D body shape of the athlete, known as the visual hull (VH). The VH is tracked over a number of frames in real testing trials. A template combining a high resolution 3D scan and a 2D mass scan is then aligned with the VH in each frame. A set of motion analysis parameters such as the take-off data are finally estimated from the aligned template and compared with the ones obtained using a gold standard marker-based system, namely the Vicon. The proposed system was tested in real-time trials and was able to provide comparable results to the Vicon system.


Altered phosphorylation of a neurotransmitter receptor leads to specific loss of spatial memory. A remarkably specific change in the behavior of mice is caused by a mutation of the γ2 subunit of the γ-aminobutyric acid receptor (GABAAR). GABAARs function at inhibitory synapses and are targets of behavior-altering benzodiazepines such as Valium®. Tretter et al. created knock-in mice in which two sites of tyrosine phosphorylation in the γ2 subunit were mutated to phenylalanine to prevent phosphorylation. In heterozygous mice expressing the altered receptor, accumulation of GABAARs at the cell membrane in the hippocampus, particularly in the CA3 region, was increased. This appeared to reflect alterations in endocytosis of the receptor resulting from reduced association of the mutant receptor with the clathrin-adaptor protein AP2. The size of inhibitory synapses in the CA3 region, as estimated by immunofluorescence confocal microscopy of puncta containing receptor subunits, was increased. The authors tested the behavior of the mutant mice in object recognition. Although the heterozygous mice could recognize an object that they had previously explored just as well as wild-type mice could, the mutant animals failed to recognize a change in the spatial location of a familiar object. Movement of an object causes normal mice to preferentially explore that object (rather than other familiar objects that remain in the same place). But the GABAAR mutant mice appeared not to recognize the displacement of an object and explored displaced and nondisplaced objects equally. The authors point out that, although we know well that modulation of these receptors by drugs can alter behavior, less information is available on how normal modulation of the receptors in response to neuronal signals does so. Their results show that receptor trafficking controlled by phosphorylation is a key component of a learned behavior in the mouse. V. Tretter, R. Revilla-Sanchez, C. Houston, M. Terunuma, R. Havekes, C. Florian, R. Jurd, M. Vithlani, G. Michels, A. Couve, W. Sieghart, N. Brandon, T. Abel, T. G. Smart, S. J. Moss, Deficits in spatial memory correlate with modified γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptor tyrosine phosphorylation in the hippocampus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 20039–20044 (2009). [Abstract] [Full Text]


In the wake of the civil rights movement, a great divide has opened up between African American and Jewish communities. What was historically a harmonious and supportive relationship has suffered from a powerful and oft-repeated legend, that Jews controlled and masterminded the slave trade and owned slaves on a large scale, well in excess of their own proportion in the population. In this groundbreaking book, likely to stand as the definitive word on the subject, Eli Faber cuts through this cloud of mystification to recapture an important chapter in both Jewish and African diasporic history. Focusing on the British empire, Faber assesses the extent to which Jews participated in the institution of slavery through investment in slave trading companies, ownership of slave ships, commercial activity as merchants who sold slaves upon their arrival from Africa, and direct ownership of slaves. His unprecedented original research utilizing shipping and tax records, stock-transfer ledgers, censuses, slave registers, and synagogue records reveals, once and for all, the minimal nature of Jews' involvement in the subjugation of Africans in the Americas. A crucial corrective, Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade lays to rest one of the most contested historical controversies of our time.


This thesis attempts to explain why the Pahlavi regime chose imprudent macroeconomic policies in response to the 1973 oil boom. It argues that the macroeconomic policies that were selected by this regime after 1973 were shaped by the economic policies that it had been pursuing in the 1960s. In 1963, the Pahlavi regime initiated the policy of import substitution industrialisation (ISI). The economic success of this policy in the 1960s generated spillover effects on the ideology, geopolitical standing and class coalition of the Pahlavi state. As this state moved from the first phase of ISI (1963-1967) to the second stage (1968-1972), its developmentalist ideology became stronger, its geopolitical standing in the Gulf was elevated and its economic alliance with the industrial elite grew deeper. A combination of these spillover effects generated a self-reinforcing process, whereby the political elite constantly sought to maximise oil prices in OPEC and use the resulting oil revenues domestically to push the ISI process deeper towards heavy and intermediate industries. Importantly however, this self-reinforcing process of ISI deepening set the stage for imprudent macroeconomic policymaking at the time of the 1973 oil boom. After the boom, the elite accelerated ISI to an extreme through a massive fiscal and monetary expansion and refused to reverse this policy despite its macroeconomic consequences. This indicates that it was the interaction of the 1973 oil boom with the self-reinforcing process of ISI deepening (which had been underway since 1963) that led to poor macroeconomic policymaking in the 1970s. Theoretically, this case study shows that, once chosen, an economic policy can possibly become self-reinforcing over time (by generating spillover effects) and shape future policy choices. This thesis, therefore, introduces the element of path dependency and dynamic analysis into the study of rentier states.


Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of a telephone outreach intervention on visit adherence in patients with uncontrolled cardiovascular risk factors. Methods: A telephone outreach intervention designed to effect clinic visit adherence was conducted on patients with uncontrolled cardiovascular risks. The patient sample was drawn from adults ≥ 18 years of age who had received primary care from the University Internal Medicine (UIM) primary care clinic at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) between 01/01/2014 and 02/30/2017. Patients were selected for a telephone outreach if they had three cardiovascular risk diagnoses, a current UIM primary care provider, at least one of their most recent lab values over goal: HbA1C ≥ 8%, systolic BP ≥ 140 or LDL ≥ 130, and no documented UIM visit within the previous 3 months. Barriers to visit completion were identified, and visit completion status was determined 3 months after the phone call intervention. Results: Of the 556 patients receiving the intervention, 393 patients completed an ambulatory clinic visit within 3 months. The majority (84.7%) of the patients with the completed visit had Medicare or Medicaid funding and the mean age of visit completers was 65 years. 72.8% of African American patients and 58.0% Caucasian completed their visits. The main barriers to visit completion included transportation, funding issues and work conflicts with clinic appointments. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that a phone call outreach intervention effectively influenced primary care visit completion rates in a group of patients with uncontrolled cardiovascular risk factors. Transportation, funding issues and work schedule issues were the main barriers to visit completion. African American patients had a higher percentage of visit adherence than Caucasian patients.


Background Medical device innovation remains poorly understood, and policymakers disagree over how to incentivize early development. We sought to elucidate the components of transformative health care innovation by conducting an in-depth case study of development of a key medical device: coronary artery stents. Methods and Findings We conducted semi-structured interviews with the innovators whose work contributed to the development of coronary artery stents who we identified based on a review of the regulatory, patent, and medical literature. Semi-structured interviews with each participant covered the interviewee's personal involvement in coronary artery stent development, the roles of institutions and other individuals in the development process, the interplay of funding and intellectual property in the interviewee's contribution, and finally reflections on lessons arising from the experience. Transcripts were analyzed using standard coding techniques and the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Conclusions We found that the first coronary artery stents emerged from three teams: Julio Palmaz and Richard Schatz, Cesare Gianturco and Gary Roubin, and Ulrich Sigwart. First, these individual physician-inventors saw the need for coronary artery stents in their clinical practice. In response, they developed prototypes with the support of academic medical centers leading to early validation studies. Larger companies entered afterwards with engineering support. Patents became paramount once the technology diffused. The case of coronary stents suggests that innovation policy should focus on supporting early physician-inventors at academic centers.


OBJECTIVE
Cannabis use is frequent among depressed patients and may lead to the so-called "amotivational syndrome", which combines symptoms of affective flattening and loss of emotional reactivity (i.e. the so-called "negative" symptomatology). The aim of this study was to investigate the negative symptomatology in depressed patients with concomitant cannabis use disorders (CUDs) in comparison with depressed patients without CUDs.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fifty-one patients with a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and concomitant CUD and fifty-one MDD patients were enrolled in the study. The 21-Item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and the negative symptoms subscales of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) were used to assess depressive and negative symptomatology.

RESULTS
Patients with cannabis use disorders presented significantly more severe negative symptoms in comparison with patients without cannabis use (15.18 ± 2.25 vs 13.75 ± 2.44; t100 = 3.25 p = 0.002).

DISCUSSION
A deeper knowledge of the "negative" psychopathological profile of MDD patients who use cannabis may lead to novel etiopathogenetic models of MDD and to more appropriate treatment approaches.


Non-rigid registration techniques are commonly used in medical image analysis. However these techniques are often time consuming. Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) execution appears to be a good way to decrease computation time significantly. However for an efficient implementation on GPU, an algorithm must be data parallel. In this paper we compare the analytical calculation of the gradient of Normalised Mutual Information with an approximation better suited to parallel implementation. Both gradient approaches have been implemented using a Free-Form Deformation framework based on cubic B-Splines and including a smoothness constraint. We applied this technique to recover realistic deformation fields generated from 65 3D-T1 images. The recovered fields using both gradients and the ground truth were compared. We demonstrated that the approximated gradient performed similarly to the analytical gradient but with a greatly reduced computation time when both approaches are implemented on the CPU. The implementation of the approximated gradient on the GPU leads to a computation time of 3 to 4 minutes when registering 190 × 200 × 124 voxel images with a grid including 57 × 61 × 61 control points.


We evaluated how links between direct and indirect interactions and physical distur- bance shaped trophic dynamics in a soft-sediment benthic estuarine community. We crossed pres- ence of burrow-excavating crabs Pachygrapsus crassipes and nutrient enrichment (nitrogen and phosphorus) in cages containing herbivorous surface-feeding snails Cerithidea californica and ben- thic microalgae in a tidal mudflat and a tidal sandflat in Mugu Lagoon, southern California, USA. P. crassipes consumed up to 85% of C. californica in enclosures, but there was no evidence of a trophic cascade, as crab reduction of snail density did not increase benthic microalgal biomass. Rather, P. crassipes decreased diatom and cyanobacterial biomass by up to 50% in the mudflat and 80% in the sandflat, probably via bioturbation. Subadult C. californica lengths increased 15 to 20% over 5 wk in treatments without crabs. In the presence of P. crassipes, C. californica lengths increased <5%, prob- ably an indirect result of crab reduction of microalgal food availability or increased snail burial. C. californica may have actively burrowed as an escape response from the crabs, or have been passively buried during crab burrowing activities. Nutrient addition did not reduce snail growth, but increased snail mortality at both sites, possibly a result of nutrient-induced shifts towards toxic or poor nutritive quality cyanobacteria. The top-down impacts of P. crassipes reduced the relative bottom-up effects of nutrients in this habitat, illustrating the importance of evaluating both biotic and abiotic interactions simultaneously. Numerous indirect and non-trophic interactions revealed a community structure that was much more complex than suggested by food web structure.


Damsere-Derry, J., Afukaar, F., Palk, G., & King, M. (2014). Determinants of drink-driving and association between drink-driving and road traffic fatalities in Ghana. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 3 (2), 135-141. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v3i2.135 Aims: The objective is to establish determinants of drink-driving and its association with traffic crashes in Ghana. Methods: A multivariable logistic regression was used to establish significant determinants of drink-driving, and a bivariate logistic regression to establish the association between drink-driving and road traffic crashes in Ghana. Results: In total, 2,736 motorists were randomly stopped for breath testing, of whom 8.7% tested positive for alcohol. Among the total participants, 5.5% exceeded the legal BAC limit of 0.08%. Formal education is associated with a reduced likelihood of drink-driving compared with drivers without formal education. The propensity to drink-drive is 1.8 times higher among illiterate drivers than it is among drivers with basic education. Young adult drivers also recorded elevated likelihoods for driving under alcohol impairment, compared with adult drivers. The odds of drink-driving among truck drivers is OR = 1.81 (95% CI = 1.16 to 2.82) and two-wheeler riders is OR = 1.41 (95% CI = 0.47 to 4.28) compared with car drivers. Contrary to general perception, commercial car drivers have a significant reduced likelihood of 41%, OR = 0.59 (95% CI = 0.38 to 0.92) compared with private car drivers. Bivariate analysis conducted showed a significant association between the proportion of drivers exceeding the legal BAC limit and road traffic fatalities ( p < 0.001). The model predicts that a 1% increase in the proportion of drivers exceeding the legal BAC will be associated with a 4% increase in road traffic fatalities (95% CI = 3% to 5%) and vice versa. Conclusions: A positive and significant association between roadside alcohol prevalence and road traffic fatality has been established. Scaling up roadside breath tests, determining standard drink (e.g., any drink which contains about 10 grams of absolute alcohol) and disseminating this information to the populace, and formulating policies targeting youth (such as increasing minimum legal drinking age and reducing the legal BAC limit for youth and novice drivers) might reduce drink-driving related crashes in Ghana.


In 1975, Kenneth Karst published his groundbreaking article, Equality as a Central Principle in the First Amendment, 1 as part of a symposium celebrating the life and contributions of Harry Kalven, one of the great First Amendment thinkers of the twentieth century. Karst was one of the first scholars to recognize a fundamental shift in First Amendment jurisprudence. 2 Until the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Police Department of Chicago v Mosley, 3 the Court had not articulated the principle of equal liberty of expression in Supreme Court decisions. 4 That is, before Mosley, the question in First Amendment cases was typically whether the government had impermissibly denied an individual the right to engage in a particular activity—speech. As Karst noted, in Mosley the Court began thinking also in terms of equality. 5


Anita Desai's novel Anita Desai's novel Fasting, Feasting portrays transatlantic experiences of female constraint on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite the prevalent differences characterising the Indian and American societies, women from both countries undertake similar experiences of (in)voluntary silence in search of a voice of their own. In India, Uma, the eldest unmarried woman of a traditional Indian family, inculcates her duty to quieten her own voice while managing to use silence as a retaliating weapon to prompt her growth as a woman. In the hectic American society, where noise is so prevalent, Melanie, a bulimic young female in the land of plenty, feels the need of silence to hear her own voice in the midst of the surrounding hubbub. The interaction between words and silence in Desai's novel proves a metaphor for women's transatlantic growth in search of raising their voices over the deafening noise of America or the overwhelming silence of India, only broken by the constant voices of others.


Legal realists and various others believe that judges in close case - and thus Supreme Court justices in most cases - vote according to their policy preferences, private empirical views about the world, and other considerations that have little to do with the legal materials bearing on a dispute. For those who think this way, a judge who dissents in an unexpected ideological direction is a surprise and a challenge; in a case where that happens, the arguments in favor of the judge's usual position not only were available but were strong enough to convince at least five colleagues, yet he rejected them. This paper examines such dissents against type in criminal cases at the Supreme Court, distinguishes between real and apparent examples of them, and considers whether and how they can be integrated into a realist view of judging. The paper's principal conclusions are, first, that true dissents against type rarely occur. Apparent cases of them often involve underlying facts that make the vote ideologically unsurprising after all. Thus William Rehnquist almost always voted for the government in criminal cases - and when he dissented in favor of defendants, they invariably had been accused of white collar crimes or firearms offenses. In other cases, dissents against type usefully clarify what a justice's type is. Being conservative, for example, does not necessarily mean preferring the government's position across the board in criminal cases; sometimes it means a commitment to more particular values, such as a preference for finality over accuracy, that are often associated with the government's position but not always. True dissents against type, where a justice is bound by methodological principle to vote against his usual politics, are scarce but not unheard of.


In a stylized model of the EMU, where centralized and national policy authorities strategically interact, we show that 'quantitative easing' (QE) operates as an indirect risk-sharing mechanism that could improve EMU stability and the welfare of (a part of the) member states. We consider global financial instability and its impact on the sovereign debts of peripheral countries. On the one hand, QE reallocates a part of the cost of stabilizing the EMU from the periphery to the core; on the other hand, it partially internalizes the fact that monetary union stabilization is a public good. The rationale of our finding is that QE policies reduce the cost of fiscal adjustment in the peripheral countries and incentivize consolidation of their public balance sheets. Conversely, QE is not required in the core; it thus comes at a cost for central countries.


Chitosan (CS) and nanocomposite 5%bentonite/chitosan (5%Bt/CS) prepared from the natural biopolymer CS were tested to remove Cu(II) ions using a batch adsorption experiment at various temperatures (25, 35 and 45°C). X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis/differential thermal analysis (TGA/DTA) were used in CS and the nanocomposite characterisation. This confirmed the exfoliation of bentonite (Bt) to form the nanocomposite. The adsorption kinetics of copper on both solids was found to follow a pseudo-second-order law at each studied temperature. The Cu(II) adsorption capacity increased as the temperature increased from 25 to 45°C for nanocomposite adsorbent but slightly increased for CS. The data were confronted to the nonlinear Langmuir, Freundlich and Redlich-Peterson models. It was found that the experimental data fitted very well the Langmuir isotherm over the whole temperature and concentration ranges. The maximum monolayer adsorption capacity for the Cu(II) was 404-422 mg/g for CS and 282-337 mg/g for 5%Bt/CS at 25-45°C. The thermodynamic study showed that the adsorption process was spontaneous and endothermic. The complexation of Cu(II) with NH(2) and C = O groups as active sites was found to be the main mechanism in the adsorption processes.


In Caribbean Tourism, Jean Holder tells the story of how, when, why and whence tourism, now the driver of most Caribbean economies, was introduced into the region and why its journey has been a turbulent one. Tourism was one of the means of diversifying out of a Caribbean sugar industry that was beset with difficulties after emancipation in the 1830s. This situation was made even more difficult by the fact that tourism is in itself a complex and invasive phenomenon which does not require a history of colonialism and racism to provoke strong reactions in a society. Holder takes case studies from those islands where Caribbean tourism first blossomed – Barbados, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Cuba – to demonstrate the post-emancipation complexities and the measures taken to address them. He details the history of various regional entities and the roles they played in the development of the Caribbean tourism industry and goes on to analyse Caribbean tourism performance in the second decade of the twenty-first century against the background of the state of the world economy, the forecast for global tourism andair transportation performance and the prospects of current major and potential markets of the emerging economies of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other countries. In outlining a sustainable strategic plan for the industry, which pays special attention to the current needs in the areas of product development and the exploration of new niche markets, especially sport, culture and heritage, Holder expresses continuing confidence in the tourism sector. In spite of current challenges, the tourist industry is resilient and the Caribbean's best hope for continued development, provided the region works together and plays to its strengths.


Abstract. Atmospheric ozone plays a key role in
air quality and the radiation budget of the Earth, both directly and through
its chemical influence on other trace gases. Assessments of the atmospheric
ozone distribution and associated climate change therefore demand accurate
vertically resolved ozone observations with both stratospheric and
tropospheric sensitivity, on both global and regional scales, and both in the
long term and at shorter timescales. Such observations have been acquired by
two series of European nadir-viewing ozone profilers, namely the
scattered-light UV–visible spectrometers of the GOME family, launched
regularly since 1995 (GOME, SCIAMACHY, OMI, GOME-2A/B, TROPOMI, and the
upcoming Sentinel-5 series), and the thermal infrared emission sounders of
the IASI type, launched regularly since 2006 (IASI on Metop platforms and the
upcoming IASI-NG on Metop-SG). In particular, several Level-2 retrieved,
Level-3 monthly gridded, and Level-4 assimilated nadir ozone profile data
products have been improved and harmonized in the context of the ozone
project of the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative (ESA
Ozone_cci). To verify their fitness for purpose, these ozone datasets must
undergo a comprehensive quality assessment (QA), including (a) detailed
identification of their geographical, vertical, and temporal domains of
validity; (b) quantification of their potential bias, noise, and drift and
their dependences on major influence quantities; and (c) assessment of the
mutual consistency of data from different sounders. For this purpose we have
applied to the Ozone_cci Climate Research Data Package (CRDP) released in
2017 the versatile QA and validation system Multi-TASTE, which has been
developed in the context of several heritage projects (ESA's Multi-TASTE,
EUMETSAT's O3M-SAF, and the European Commission's FP6 GEOmon and FP7 QA4ECV).
This work, as the second in a series of four Ozone_cci validation papers,
reports for the first time on data content studies, information content
studies and ground-based validation for both the GOME- and IASI-type climate
data records combined. The ground-based reference measurements have been
provided by the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition
Change (NDACC), NASA's Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde
programme (SHADOZ), and other ozonesonde and lidar stations contributing to
the World Meteorological Organisation's Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO GAW).
The nadir ozone profile CRDP quality assessment reveals that all nadir ozone
profile products under study fulfil the GCOS user requirements in terms of
observation frequency and horizontal and vertical resolution. Yet all
L2 observations also show sensitivity outliers in the UTLS and are strongly
correlated vertically due to substantial averaging kernel fluctuations that
extend far beyond the kernel's 15 km FWHM. The CRDP typically does not
comply with the GCOS user requirements in terms of total uncertainty and
decadal drift, except for the UV–visible L4 dataset. The drift values of the
L2 GOME and OMI, the L3 IASI, and the L4 assimilated products are found to be
overall insignificant, however, and applying appropriate altitude-dependent
bias and drift corrections make the data fit for climate and atmospheric
composition monitoring and modelling purposes. Dependence of the Ozone_cci
data quality on major influence quantities – resulting in data screening
suggestions to users – and perspectives for the Copernicus Sentinel missions
are additionally discussed.


The biotechnological techniques may help solve many problems of guava culture, such as the high perishability of fruits. Somatic embryogenesis can generate highly multiplicative cell cultures and with high regenerative potential, serving as basis for genetic transformation. The aim of this work was to obtain somatic embryogenesis of guava (Psidium guajava L.) cv. Paluma. Immature seeds were used, and they were inoculated in MS environment containing 400 mg L-1 of L-glutamine, 100 mg L-1 myo-inositol, 60 g L-1 sucrose, 100 mg L-1 ascorbic acid and supplemented with different types and concentrations of growth regulators. Embryogenic callus appeared after 37 days of culture in an environment containing 1.0 mg L-1 2.4-D + 2.0 mg L-1 2-ip, in 7% of the explants. After 65 days of culture, the treatment containing 0.5 mg L-1 CPA showed 20% of explants with direct embryos, while the treatment with 1 mg L-1 had 14% of explants with direct embryos and 7% of explants with embryogenic callus. In 66.6% of embryos regenerated with 0.5 mg L1 CPA there was the formation of secondary embryos. The use of IASP and BAP, aiming embryogenesis proliferation, led to an increase in the cellular proliferation, but calli apparently lost their embryogenic potential.


Traditionally, the study of internal combustion engines operation has focused on the steady-state performance. However, the daily driving schedule of automotive engines is inherently related to unsteady conditions.
There are various operating conditions experienced by (diesel) engines that can be classified as transient. Besides the variation of the engine operating point, in terms of engine speed and torque, also the warm up phase can be considered as a transient condition. Chapter 2 has to do with this thermal transient condition; more precisely the main issue is the performance of a Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system during cold start and warm up phases of the engine. The proposal of the underlying work is to investigate and identify optimal exhaust line heating strategies, to provide a fast activation of the catalytic reactions on SCR.
Chapters 3 and 4 focus the attention on the dynamic behavior of the engine, when considering typical driving conditions. The common approach to dynamic optimization involves the solution of a single optimal-control problem. However, this approach requires the availability of models that are valid throughout the whole engine operating range and actuator ranges. In addition, the result of the optimization is meaningful only if the model is very accurate.
Chapter 3 proposes a methodology to circumvent those demanding requirements: an iteration between transient measurements to refine a purpose-built model and a dynamic optimization which is constrained to the model validity region. Moreover all numerical methods required to implement this procedure are presented.
Chapter 4 proposes an approach to derive a transient feedforward control system in an automated way. It relies on optimal control theory to solve a dynamic optimization problem for fast transients. From the optimal solutions, the relevant information is extracted and stored in maps spanned by the engine speed and the torque gradient.


A new method for realizing three-dimensional structures based on the standard silicon-on-insulator microelectromechanical systems is developed using vertically buckled bridges as structural elements. The vertical displacement, profile of the bridge, and obtainable accuracy of the displacement are examined. Using the lateral dimension control of the bridge and the supporting beams, the vertical positioning is realized based on the planer photolithography. As a demonstration, a vertical comb drive actuator is prepared and its performance is examined.


This guide is a starting point for doing research in Art. Please consult with a Librarian to identify other resources in the field.


The species pool for a site is defined as that set of species which have a non-zero probability of maintaining viable populations under the prevailing environmental conditions. it may contain many more species than are actually present in the community of the site. The science of community assembly attempts to understand how particular communities arise from the welter of possible species combinations.

The assembly of a grassland plant community from the local species pool was examined in a phylogenetically corrected trait-based study. Competition theory suggests coexisting species should be less similar than expected by chance, whilst environmental sorting theory suggests they should be more similar. This work suggests that, at the whole community scale, species tend to be more similar and that their likelihood of occurrence in communities can to an extent be predicted from their traits.

Experimental studies revealed a complicated picture. Species naturally occurring in the community did not show convincing signs of outperforming their absent congeners. Community composition appears to depend in considerable measure upon chance events such as seed dispersal coinciding with the availability of vacant microsites in the community, rather than just a sorting process in which the best suited species are invariably present.

These findings suggest that it modelling community assembly is possible, but that it is unlikely ever to be an exact science because it is influenced to a large extent by unpredictable events.


Epigenetic changes during B cell differentiation generates distinct DNA methylation signatures specific for B cell subsets, including memory B cells (MBCs) and plasma cells (PCs). Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM) is a complex B cell malignancy uniquely comprised of a mixture of lymphocytic and plasmacytic phenotypes. Here we integrated genome-wide DNA methylation, transcriptome, mutation and other phenotypic features of tumor cells from 35 MYD88-mutated WM patients in relation to normal plasma and B cell subsets. We discovered that WM patients naturally segregate into two groups according to DNA methylation patterns, related to normal MBC and PC profiles, and reminiscent of other memory and plasma cell-derived malignancies. Concurrent analysis of DNA methylation changes in normal and WM development were used to capture tumor-specific events, highlighting a selective reprogramming of enhancer regions in MBC-like WM and repressed and heterochromatic regions in PC-like WM. MBC-like WM hypomethylation was enriched in motifs belonging to PU.1, TCF3 and OCT2 transcription factors and involved elevated MYD88/TLR pathway activity. PC-like WM displayed marked global hypomethylation and selective overexpression of histone genes. Finally, WM subtypes exhibited differential genetic, phenotypic and clinical features. MBC-like WM harbored significantly more clonal CXCR4 mutations (P=0.015), deletion 13q (P=0.006), splenomegaly (P=0.02) and thrombocytopenia (P=0.004), while PC-like WM harbored more deletion 6q (P=0.012), gain 6p (P=0.033), had increased frequencies of IGHV3 genes (P=0.002), CD38 surface expression (P=4.1e-5), and plasmacytic differentiation features (P=0.008). Together our findings illustrate a novel approach to subclassify WM patients using patterns of DNA methylation and reveal divergent molecular signatures among WM patients.


More than 0.7 million ton of oil equivalent is the total requirement for thermal energy in the Italian greenhouse vegetable industry, derived mostly from fossil fuels, which corresponds to 2 Mt CO2 emissions. The technology of wood biomass system is a good candidate for heating greenhouses, since this resource is considered as 'greenhouse gas' (GHG) neutral when converted to heat, excluding the GHG generation during harvesting, transportation, and pre-processing of raw materials. Besides, the CO2 enrichment in greenhouses from the exhaust gas of a biomass heating system can bring benefits for greenhouse production, along with optimal management strategies to reduce fuel consumption. Unfortunately, CO2 enrichment from the exhaust gas of biomass boilers is still challenging and expensive, considering that wood biomass boilers generate a higher volume of particulate matters (PM) and ash emissions than other fossil fuels. However, wet scrubbers and other recent flue gas conditioning devices could help to reduce costs and make this process more feasible. In the Italian peninsula, the power energy load for greenhouses heating was estimated to be between 30 and 175 W m-2, while the thermal energy consumption varies between 21 to 546 kWh m-2 year-1 according with internal air temperature and climatic zones. In general, the total cost of a heating system with boiler, loading system, accumulator, control system and safety, installation, and heat delivering can vary from a maximum of 1400 € kW-1 for systems with power up to 100 kW, 600-800 € kW-1 for power over 100 kW, to a minimum of 400 € kW-1 for systems with power over 1000 kW. Thus, a techno-economic assessment is highly recommended to ascertain the economic feasibility of wood biomass boilers for the greenhouse industry, as related to the economic incentives by the National Decree of 28 December 2012, so-called "White Certifies".


Abstract Aim: The CFQ-R is one of the most established disease-specific, health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measurements for patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). The aim was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Swedish translation of CFQ-R in adults. Method: A total of 173 CF patients answered the CFQ-R. The CFQ-R was evaluated with regard to: (1) distributional properties; (2) reliability; and (3) construct validity. Results: The majority of scales were negatively skewed with ceiling effects. Eight of the 12 scales had satisfactory homogeneity; 10 of the 12 scales had satisfactory test–retest reliability. On many of the CFQ-R scales expected differences were observed when patients were divided regarding disease severity, nutritional status, age, and gender. Conclusion: Some weaknesses were detected, but overall the instrument has satisfactory psychometric properties.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze what the concept of agility means for communication evaluation and measurement and to challenge assumptions of goal-oriented and organization-centric approaches to evaluation and measurement.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a development debate based on a literature review, regarding agility, evaluation theory, communication evaluation approaches and what agility means for communication measurement.

Findings
Agility teaches that what works is more important than what was agreed upon in advance, so it is with more emphasis on needs rather than objectives. Regarding evaluation, the findings show that in today's communication evaluation theory, evaluation is equated with summative evaluation of smart designed and fixed objectives. In agility, evaluation is always formative, to foster development and improvement within an ongoing activity. Consequently smart objectives are no longer valid as fixed benchmarks and ex ante and ex post evaluations do not exist; instead evaluation is an on-going and forward looking activity during action. Regarding measurement, the basic focus in agility on user needs implies that qualitative methods are more obvious than quantitative. The classic Weberian idea of "Verstehen" is helpful to understand how to focus on needs rather than objectives. This paper finally explores the merits of action research and sense-making methodology as applicable measurements in which "Verstehen" is the basis.

Research limitations/implications
Agility is a very radical concept. The practical and theoretical implications of agile evaluation and measurement mean a total change for practice as well as for communication measurement and evaluation theory building.

Originality/value
The value of this paper is that it is the first to include agility into communication evaluation and measurement and that it, consequently, moves beyond organization-centric concepts of evaluation and measurement by bringing the often overlooked user needs into the game.


Build systems specify how sources are transformed into deliverables, and hence must be carefully maintained to ensure that deliverables are assembled correctly. Similar to source code, build systems tend to grow in complexity unless specifications are refactored. This paper describes how clone detection can aid in quality assessments that determine if and where build refactoring effort should be applied. We gauge cloning rates in build systems by collecting and analyzing a benchmark comprising 3,872 build systems. Analysis of the benchmark reveals that: (1) build systems tend to have higher cloning rates than other software artifacts, (2) recent build technologies tend to be more prone to cloning, especially of configuration details like API dependencies, than older technologies, and (3) build systems that have fewer clones achieve higher levels of reuse via mechanisms not offered by build technologies. Our findings aided in refactoring a large industrial build system containing 1.1 million lines.


Over the years, geologists have amassed data that point to the undeniable fact of islands having disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that the oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. There are even a few instances where fragments of Pacific continents have disappeared, becoming hidden from view rather than being submerged. In this scientifically rigorous yet readily comprehensible account of the fascinating subject of vanished islands and hidden continents in the Pacific, the author ranges far and wide, from explanations of the region's ancient history to the meanings of island myths. Using both original and up-to-date information, he shows that there is real value in bringing together myths and the geological understanding of land movements.A description of the Pacific Basin and the "ups and downs" of the land within its vast ocean is followed by chapters explaining how islands and continents that no longer exist were once present. A succinct account is given of human settlement of the region and the establishment of cultural contexts for the observation of occasional catastrophic earth-surface changes and their encryption in folklore. The author also addresses the persistent myths of a "sunken continent" in the Pacific, which became widespread after European arrival and were subsequently incorporated into new age and pseudoscience explanations of our planet and its inhabitants. Finally, he presents original data and research on island disappearances witnessed by humans, recorded in oral and written traditions, and judged by geoscience to be authentic.


Absurdity which is a form of human existence is the dominant theme to express human viewof life. Albert Camus, a French writer, was well known for his philosophycalled absurdism which has some similarities with existentialism. Introducing the concept of absurd theater in a foreign language to a group of literature students is not an easy task. Therefore, it is necessary to find an ideal approach to enhance students in this theater course and facilitate them for literature understanding through several literature theories. This study proposed sociological literature approach with two elements involved, the sociology of the author and the sociology of literature, in order to help students understand the absurdity of literary works. Existentialism approach was also used to solve the complexity of concepts in each drama scripts. Through the two elements of the sociology of literature, we acquired that the essence of existentialism is the term "exist", as Camus"s work on rebellion theme, "I rebel; therefore I exist". The root of absurdity is absurdity itself. Therefore, talking about the absurdity of literary works is talking about the notion of absurdity itself and the notion of its feeling, and then about attitudes determine our actions. Absurdity also need to be explored through emotions and intertextuality.


The queer fandom of female Hong Kong pop singer Ho Denise Wan See (HOCC) from 2009 to mid-2011 is dealt with through the qualitative methodology of in-depth interviews and media ethnography. HOCC, an idiosyncratic cultural producer who dabbles in the politics of ambiguity, creates texts that invite queer interpretations from fans and from queer activists in Hong Kong. Via analyses informed by both queer studies and audience studies, the various creative practices of fans in reshaping their sexual identities via popular culture are explored. These practices are highly political and empowering to a queer audience. However, the intensive rewriting of meanings as queer symbolic creativity and tactics in cultural politics fail to transform into formal institutional politics and more confrontational queer activism. This is so for several reasons. Internally, the hierarchical structure of fan organization, fan proximity to the culture industry, and the top-down encouragement of social charity as the only channel of activism have all reduced the possibility of transforming fans' queer sensibilities into institutional queer politics. Furthermore, Hong Kong, under the influence of three major discourses that seek to discipline and regulate sexualities—traditional Chinese ethics, the British colonial legacy, and the postcolonial revival of rightist Christianity—has a long social history of heterosexist discrimination and a preference for normalizing when striving for queer citizenship. This empirical study examines relations between cultural specificity and fan agency in a non-Western context.


How do transactional associates add value to deals? Other scholars have characterized transactional lawyers as transaction cost engineers, regulatory arbitrageurs, and enterprise architects. But those words describe partners. Although most of the deal team is made up of associates — and the vast majority of deal lawyers begin and end their careers in law firms as associates — the literature has said little about the work of associates. This Article seeks to illuminate what transactional associates do and how they add value to deals. Building on literature in contract design and transactional lawyering, it argues that associates help to mitigate some of the shortcomings of unbundled bargaining. When efficient contract design demands that contracts be unbundled into separate modules or even separate documents, associates both serve as the conduits for those modules to communicate and may, if needed, do the crucial work of reintegrating those modules into one cohesive contract.


Background: Primary intracranial germ cell tumors are rare (PICGCTs) tumors that share histological features with gonadal GCTs and usually present diagnostic difficulties. The aim of this study is to present pathological and radiological findings of PICGCTs diagnosed at a tertiary medical centre in the western region of Saudi Arabia along with review of recent literature. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the pathological and clinical data of patients diagnosed with PICGCTs in King Faisal specialist hospital and research centre (January 2001 to December 2012). Results: Eight cases were diagnosed as PICGCTs. Seven cases were males in their pediatric age group with a mean age of 11.11 years. The overall mean age was 12.39 years. Three cases were located in the pineal region 37.5 % (3), two were located in the mid brain 25% (2) and one each (12.5%) was located in posterior fossa, hypothalamus and suprasellar region. On histological examination 50% (4) were purely germinomas, followed by 25% (2) mixed germ cell tumors (MGCTs) and 25% (2) immature teratomas (IT). Conclusion: PICGCTs are rare tumors affecting mainly adolescent males more than females with their added site predilection for the pineal region. Pure germinoma is the most common pathological type. [Shagufta T. Mufti, Saleh S. Baeesa and Jaudah A. Al-Maghrabi. Primary Intracranial Germ Cell Tumors: A Single-Centre Experience. Life Sci. J.2013;10(1):1709-1715]. (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.lifesciencesite.org. 249


We consider a spatially inhomogeneous sine-Gordon equation with a double-well potential, describing long Josephson junctions with phase-shifts. We discuss the interactions of symmetric and antisymmetric bound states in the system. Using a multiple scale expansion, we show that the modes decay algebraically in time due to the energy transfer from the discrete to the continuous spectrum. In particular, exciting the two modes at the same time yields an increased decay rate. An external time-periodic drive is shown to sustain symmetric state, while it damps the antisymmetric one.


This paper is a critical analysis of the urban geographies of London 2012, the so-called Regeneration Games. London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics on the basis that existing communities and cultures of East London would profit from urban regeneration; the promise of 'local legacy'. Using the analogy of the Trojan horse, we demonstrate that the benevolent empty signifier 'legacy' disguises the politically dubious aspects of mega-event and strategic planning, especially its controversial aspects such as escalating costs, privatisation and displacement. We zoom in on 3 empirical cases – a rowing club, cultural hub, and festival – in the neighbourhood Hackney Wick Fish Island in East London to demonstrate that there was (and remains) a disconnect between the rhetoric of politicians and Olympic planners, who promised both citywide and local 'legacy', and the actual legacies (after-effects) of the Olympics. With a focus on the process, construction, or making of legacy within the local context, our analysis reveals that Olympic planning creates irresolvable contradictions in scale, which cannot be resolved in favour of existing communities. The alignment of Olympic planning with neoliberal spatial practices means that neighbourhood needs can never truly be met.


This report describes research that shows how housing and health status are
related and the effects of stable housing on patient health. It also describes the Housing
Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program, the only federal program that provides
housing and services specifically for persons who are HIV positive or who have AIDS, together
with their families. In addition, the report describes how a small portion of funds appropriated
through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program may be used by states and local jurisdictions to
provide short-term housing assistance for persons living with HIV/AIDS.


The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) first published in 2000 Nuclear Education and Training: Cause for Concern?, which highlighted significant issues in the availability of human resources for the nuclear industry. Ten years on, Nuclear Education and Training: From Concern to Capability considers what has changed in that time and finds that, while some countries have taken positive actions, in a number of others human resources could soon be facing serious challenges in coping with existing and potential new nuclear facilities. This is exacerbated by the increasing rate of retirement as the workforce ages. This report provides a qualitative characterisation of human resource needs and appraises instruments and programmes in nuclear education and training initiated by various stakeholders in different countries. In this context, it also examines the current and future uses of nuclear research facilities for education and training purposes. Regarding the nuclear training component of workforce competence, it outlines a job taxonomy which could be a basis for addressing the needs of workers across this sector. It presents the taxonomy as a way of enhancing mutual recognition and increasing consistency of education and training for both developed and developing countries.


Managing retirement risk has become extraordinarily difficult in this era of financial turmoil, global inter-linkages, and global population aging. It is particularly fraught since consumers must now engage in long-term contracts with themselves, employers, financial institutions, and governments, regarding the future of retirement financing. Moreover, these agreements will need to remain in force extraordinarily long, for fifty or even one hundred years into the future. This note reviews what institutions and instruments that have a successful track record in retirement risk management over such a long time horizon.


Book synopsis: Culture in Psychology breaks new ground by attempting to understand the complexity and specificity of cultural identities today. It rejects the idea that Western culture is a standard, or that any culture is homogenous and stable. Equally, it rejects the notion that culture is a mechanism that enhances reproductive fitness.

Instead, it alerts psychologists to the many forms of 'foreignness' that research should address and to alliances psychology can make with other disciplines such as anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis.

Part one explores the origins of the new 'cultural psychology' in social change movements, in fields such as ethnography and cultural studies, and as a response to evolutionary psychology. Part two looks at how people create and sustain the meanings of social categories of 'class', gender, 'race' and ethnicity, while the third part examines the interaction between written and visual representations in popular culture and everyday lived culture. The final part examines the idiosyncratic significance cultural forms have for individuals and their unconscious meanings.


The authors examine the issue of lag-length selection in the context of a structural vector autoregression (VAR) and a vector error-correction model with long-run restrictions. First, they show that imposing long- run restrictions implies, in general, a moving-average (MA) component in the stationary multivariate representation. Then they examine the sensitivity of estimates of the permanent and transitory components to the selection of the lag length required in a VAR system to approximate this MA component. In summary, they find that using a lag structure that is too short can lead to a significant estimation bias of the permanent and transitory components. In addition, in comparing four different lag- selection criteria, they find that the Schwarz information criterion systematically underperforms relative to the other tests. More generally, as the order of the VAR that best approximates the data- generating process increases, the sequence-based tests (Wald, likelihood ratio) tend to provide more reliable results than the information-based tests (Akaike, Schwarz).


Speech development of a child with autism does not always take place at the appropriate age and does not always obey the laws of development of speech functions. According to the analysis of literature sources, the direct study of speech activity of children with autistic disorders requires a more detailed study. According to our predictions, a child with autistic disorders of older preschool age due to the peculiarities of communicative and behavioral spheres will show a low level of speech activity, which can be explained directly by the specificity of speech development along with limited language experience and insufficient knowledge of language and its use in communication. Language behavior consists of two complementary and interrelated processes: psychological formation (generation) of speech utterance and perception of the expanded speech of the interlocutor. The model of speech utterance generation includes five consecutive, interconnected stages (phases) identified by O.O. Leontiev (1967): the motive of utterance; the idea of expression; internal programming; lexical and grammatical development of the utterance; implementation of speech expression in external speech. Speech activity is one of the many forms of general activity, a reflection of the needs that arise in accordance with specific communication situations, a prerequisite and an important component of language behavior. The term "speech activity" is considered by us in the sense of the presence of a motive for speech utterance and direct speech utterance, which may occur as a reaction-response to the interlocutor's remark or as a desire to inform the interlocutor of their own thoughts, experiences, emotions, needs.


The coastal areas are considered of the promising areas for various types of sustainable development at present and in the future. As well as, this area occupies a large attention of the future planning for officials. The study area is located between Qusseir and Marsa Abu Dabbab along Red Sea coast. It is one of the most important areas. The study area is considered representing a promising and strategic target for urban and industrial expansions, as well as truism villages, but usually it is attacked by natural hazards, especially flash floods although rainfall is scarce in Eastern desert; it is well known for its flash floods with high velocity. The basin morphometric parameters, such as the linear, aerial and relief aspects of the basins, were determined using data (30 m resolution) from the ASTER DEM, Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote-sensing data such as Landsat Thematic Mapper OLI. The study Linear, Relief and Arial aspects of drainage basins retrieved that, the area includes 25 basins, Wadi Ambagi basin is the largest basin in the study area (1538.24 km 2 ), while wadi Abu Sebekha is the smallest basin in the present study area (11.52 km 2 ). Primary results of this study were the determination that the basins have vast range stream order ranging from 3 rd to 7 th order drainage basins and a drainage pattern mainly of a parallel, dendritic, trellis and rectangular types. The observed drainage density in all basins range from 2.17 to 1.68 with an average is 1.86 km/km 2 . The average of elongation ratio (Re) for all the basins is 0.58, which mean that the most basins in the study area are elongated in shape but is relatively efficient in terms of the runoff discharge due to a large difference in slope. The bifurcation ratio ranges from 2.88 to 5.77, which indicates strong structural control of drainage patterns. Based on the slope map, it can be determined that the areas with high runoff and high erosion rates are those with steeper slopes. The area of rainwater accumulations and its close to mouths of wadis are more exposed to flash flooding. Based on the morphometric parameters which have a direct influence on flooding prone area, the flash flood hazard of sub-basins in the study area are classified into three groups; namely Extreme highly, moderately and Slightly hazard degree. However, most of the study area is environmentally nearly safe.


The importance of early childhood education in children's social, emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual development is only recently gaining coinage in the formal education system in the UK, despite the fact that extensive research has been conducted in the fields of child development and child psychology for many years. Such studies reveal the importance of a child centred, humanising education in the development of the young child, and pay particular attention to the role and value of language acquisition and meaningful language use in the holistic education of young children.
Against the background of a newly introduced early years curriculum in the UK (2000), this study traces the historical origin of early childhood education and the socio-cultural, political and economic factors that impact upon its delivery and implementation in various curricula, both nationally and internationally. The recent Foundation Stage curriculum document (2000) identifies language, play and human interaction as tools not only for the development of personal, social and linguistic skills but also as key processes of learning and teaching in early childhood education. However, in the absence of a well developed methodology and with insufficient Early Years training for the Foundation Stage Curriculum (2000), language teaching and learning is generally regarded more as a preparation for the formal school curriculum rather than in the context of discourse and communication for the development of personal and social skills. This situation has led to a considerable degree of professional conflict and insecurity amongst Early Years practitioners about the aims of the new curriculum and its implementation.
The thesis argues that young children develop holistically (cognitively, personally and socially) through the medium of 'speech' and 'discourse', and that language is a social construct and a product of human culture. Therefore in early years, language and literacy development cannot be separated from the child's social world and the focus, in terms of teaching and learning, should be on discourse-making: the making, negotiation and development of rules, terms and conditions of the child's social world. This can offer children the linguistic resources they need to be confident and secure in familiar and unfamiliar environments and to problem-solve, organise and maintain their social worlds. The thesis argues that play and well structured Drama in Education activities can provide opportunities for meaningful communication and discourse. Drawing from the research findings, a model to structure and develop children's play for personal, social and linguistic development through Drama in Education is proposed. It will be shown that drama contains interactive tools and meaningful forms of learning which can assist teachers to create living contexts and fictitious worlds with the children within which the different functions of language can be identified and developed.


Abstract. In this paper we present an updated and homogeneous earthquake data set for Italy compiled by joining the Italian Macroseismic Database DBMI15 and the Engineering Strong-Motion (ESM) accelerometric data bank. The database has been compiled through an extensive procedure of selection and revision based on two main steps: 1) the removal of several earthquakes in DBMI15 because the data source has been considered to be largely unreliable and 2) the extraction of all the localities reporting intensity data which are located within 3 km from the accelerograph stations that recorded the data. The final data set includes 323 recordings from 65 earthquakes and 227 stations in the time span 1972–2016. The events are characterized by magnitudes in the range 4.0–6.9 and depths in the range 0.3–45.0 km. Here, we illustrate the data collection and the properties of the database in terms of recording, event and station distributions as well as Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg (MCS) macroseismic intensity points. Furthermore, we discuss the most relevant features of engineering interest showing several statistics with reference to the most significant metadata (such as moment magnitude, several distance metrics, style of faulting etc). The data set can be downloaded from data repository Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.13127/inge.1 (Oliveti et., 2020).


The luminescence that is observed under gas phase photolytic deposition conditions is studied for Cr(hfac)3, Ni(hfac)2, and Pt(hfac)2. This luminescence is analyzed under a variety of conditions, including the relatively high pressures of an evacuated gas cell and the collision-free conditions of a molecular beam. The effects of inert buffer gas are also studied. Features in these spectra indicate that, in general, multiple photolysis processes occur. Some simple fragments that are produced from these compounds are identified, including bare metal atoms (Ni, Cr), metal monofluorides (NiF, CrF), CH (in the case of Ni(hfac)2), and metal carbide from Pt(hfac)2. It is postulated that the difference in the observed photofragmentation pathway in the case of platinum is due to σ bonding to the β carbon of the hfac moiety as opposed to the bidentate bonding of the other two metals. Possible mechanisms are presented. Detailed analysis of the spectra allows characterization of the internal energy of the platinum ca...