Interactions between economic development and financial development are studied by looking at the roles of financial institutions in selecting R&D projects (including for both imitation and innovation). Financial development is regarded as the evolution of the financing regimes. The effectiveness of R&D selection mechanisms depends on the institutions and the development stages of an economy. At higher development stages a financing regime with ex post selection capacity is more effective for innovation. However, this regime requires more decentralized decision-making, which in turn depend on contract enforcement. A financing regime with more centralized decision-making is less affected by contract enforcement but has no ex post selection capacity. Depending on the legal institutions, economies in equilibrium chose regimes that lead to different steady-state development levels. The financing regime of an economy also affects development dynamics through a 'convergence effect' and a 'growth inertia effect.' A backward economy with a financing regime with centralized decision-making may catch up rapidly when the convergence effect and the growth inertia effect are in the same direction. However, this regime leads to large development cycles at later development stages. Empirical implications are discussed.


Serving deep learning models from relational databases brings significant benefits. First, features extracted from databases do not need to be transferred to any decoupled deep learning systems for inferences, and thus the system management overhead can be significantly reduced. Second, in a relational database, data management along the storage hierarchy is fully integrated with query processing, and thus it can continue model serving even if the working set size exceeds the available memory. Applying model deduplication can greatly reduce the storage space, memory footprint, cache misses, and inference latency. However, existing data deduplication techniques are not applicable to the deep learning model serving applications in relational databases. They do not consider the impacts on model inference accuracy as well as the inconsistency between tensor blocks and database pages. This work proposed synergistic storage optimization techniques for duplication detection, page packing, and caching, to enhance database systems for model serving. Evaluation results show that our proposed techniques significantly improved the storage efficiency and the model inference latency, and outperformed existing deep learning frameworks in targeting scenarios.


Embedded systems dominate the computing landscape. This dominance is increasing with the advent of ubiquitous computing whereby lightweight, low-resource systems are being deployed on a vast scale. These systems present new engineering challenges: high-volume production places a stronger emphasis on absolute cost, resources available to executing software are highly constrained, and physical manufacturing capabilities approach hard limits. Add to this the sensitive nature of many of these systems, such as smartcards used for financial transactions, and the development of these systems becomes a formidable engineering challenge.

For the software engineer, the incentive to produce efficient and resource-aware software for these platforms
is great, yet existing tools do not support them well in this task. It is difficult to assess the impact
of decisions made at the source code level in terms of how they change a system's resource consumption. Existing toolchains, together with the very complex interactions of software and their host processors, can produce unforeseen implications at run-time of even small changes.

We could describe such a situation as an instance of programming the unprogrammable, and Genetic Programming is one solution method used for such problems. Genetic Programming, inspired by nature's ability to solve problems involving complex interactions and strong pressures on resource consumption, is a clear candidate for attacking the challenges presented in these systems. Genetic Programming facilitates the creation and manipulation of source code in a way that grants us fine control over its measurable characteristics.

In this thesis, I investigate the potential of Genetic Programming as a tool in controlling the non-functional properties of software, as a new method of designing code for low-resource systems. I demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, and investigate some of the ways Genetic Programming could be utilised by a practitioner. In doing so, I also identify key components that any application of Genetic Programming to such a domain will require.

I review current low-resource system optimisation, Genetic Programming and methods for simultaneously handling multiple requirements. I present a series of empirical investigations designed to provide evidence for and against a set of hypotheses regarding the success of Genetic Programming in solving problems within the low-resource systems domain. These experiments include the creation of new software, the improvement of existing software and the fine-grained control of resource usage in general. Thus I will address a range of non-functional requirements related to the resource-consumption of a program, and demonstrate how we can apply techniques inspired by natural evolution in combination with conventional optimisation methods to address some of the problems that the plethora of low-resource systems present.

To conclude, I review the progress made, reassess my hypotheses, and outline how these new methods can be carried forward to a wide range of applications.


Author John Perkins writes a bold, yet compelling, account of his personal experiences as an economic hit man (EHM), involving manipulating data and foreign government officials, deception, lies, sex, assassinations, and attempted murder. His true story recounted in the book The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an eye-opener for those who are unaware of the underpinnings of the government's ability to bully other countries into large debt to benefit American multinational corporations and secure our place as the sole superpower.


Background: Based on the target income hypothesis, the economic behavior of physicians is mainly affected by their target income. This study aimed at designing an instrument to explain how general practitioners (GPs) set their desired income. Methods: A self-administered questionnaire of affecting factors on GPs' target income was extracted from literature reviews and a small qualitative study. Respondents were 666 GPs who completed the questionnaire (response rate= 52%) during 2 seasonal congresses of Iranian GPs. The principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was used to classify the variables and data reduction. Sample adequacy test, sphericity test, eigenvalues of components, and scree plot were evaluated for PCA. Cronbach's alpha was also checked to assess the internal consistency of the principal components. Results: The results of the KMO measure of sampling adequacy (0.657) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (809.05, p<0.001) revealed that the collected data were suitable for PCA. Based on the scree plot pattern and eigenvalues greater than 1, 6 components including perceived comparative income, importance of responsiveness to patients, perceived socioeconomic status, economic expectations, socioeconomic status of paternal family, and provision of luxury services were selected, which explained 65.19% of the total variance. Finally, only those with a Cronbach's alpha value higher than 0.6 were considered reliable (the first 4 components). Conclusion: Based on the target income hypothesis, a physician's desired level of income affects their behavior. Our developed instrument and its mentioned components can be used in future studies related to GPs' behavior, especially those studies related to the economic aspects of GPs' behavior. It also helps formulate a better payment mechanism for primary care providers.


CdSe/ZnS core-shell quantum dots (CSQDs) and PbS quantum dots (QDs) were synthesized using a colloidal method and incorporated into Ge23Sb7S70 glass films via a solution-derived approach to film formation. Photoluminescence (PL) from the QDs inside the glass matrix was observed in the visible (CdSe/ZnS) and near-IR (PbS) regions. Properties of the QDs were found to be environment dependent, with the amine solvent partially quenching the luminescence. The PL lifetime of the CdSe/ZnS CSQDs and PbS QDs in the glass film was decreased to varying degrees from that of the QDs in pure chloroform. Monitoring the steady-state PL intensity and luminescence lifetime of PbS doped films showed that appropriate heat treatment of the deposited film increases the luminescence efficiency by removing residual solvent from the glass matrix.


This paper describes a generalized job shop scheduler using a 3-layer feed-forward Neural Network (NN) and a greedy alignment procedure. The NN is used to detect precedence order of operations within each job which is humanly subjective in nature. The greedy alignment procedure aligns operations of various jobs on respective machines with feasible/optimal Finishing Time (FT). The greedy alignment procedure is designed in such a way that it tries all possible combinations of operation alignments on given machines and estimates FTs in order to confirm whether a shop has more than one most feasible or optimal schedule or not. We propose two types of scheduling in this paper: Schedule all jobs at a time on given machines and estimate the FT, or schedule the shop by setting all machines with the same operation duration by sharing sections of waiting operations to free predecessor machines and estimate the FT. Simulation results show that sharing scheme is the best one for feasible/ optimal schedules.


The Internet has famously democratized the information ecosystem. Online, everyone is a pundit: each participant can share news, analyze events, and opine. The analog system, by contrast, was one where incumbent intermediaries (frequently licensed by governments) performed a powerful, centralized gatekeeping function that largely regulated the creation and dissemination of news. Scholars have mostly welcomed the rise of the democratized, networked Fourth Estate. We argue that this transformation is not at all an unalloyed good. Moreover, in celebrating this technological revolution, commentators have neglected the role of cultural factors that tend to magnify the pernicious effects of a flattened information hierarchy.
Distrust in social institutions has been on the rise since the Watergate crisis in the 1970s. While government has been the most obvious target of falling confidence, media entities and subject matter experts have also been increasingly the focus of skepticism. The advent of the Internet has magnified this effect: gatekeepers such as CBS and the New York Times are vilified when wrong and invisible when correct. Many eyes make media errors shallow. Moreover, traditional journalistic norms that require forthright admission of mistakes help reinforce narratives that portray the "mainstream media" as biased, incompetent, and out of touch.
The current phenomenon labeled as "fake news," and the older trend of conspiracy theories, are outgrowths of both the technological amplification of skeptical or nihilistic voices and the postmodern assault on information shibboleths. It is critical to realize that the Internet's initial promise of disintermediation was illusory: gatekeepers have not been eliminated, but merely replaced. The new breed of intermediaries operates with radically different financial incentives and professional norms than their predecessors did. While Facebook moderates and removes information on its ubiquitous platform for violations of amorphous community standards, the company's goal is not the production of truth, but rather the generation of increased traffic and interaction by users. Falsity can be profitable if it's popular. Both the old and new bosses curated content, but to vastly different ends.
We argue that the new architecture of networked information has a structurally corrosive effect. It is easier to generate doubt about narratives — even those produced by previously trusted sources — than it is to create trusted content. Previously, intermediaries served as choke points: they reacted to incentives that led them to filter unreliable material, in order to preserve their status as creators of the historical record. Now, authors and distributors attract attention (which they monetize) by casting doubt. The most pernicious feature of the Internet news ecosystem is that it leads to a cascade of cynicism: it reinforces not just skepticism about a particular course, but distrust for all media production.
Importantly, current scholarly accounts of fake news and conspiracy theories are technologically overdetermined. The democratization of information flows by networked computing cannot fully account for the spread of fake news and the distrust of established media more generally. We argue that cultural factors are neglected causes of these phenomena. First, the technological transformation of the public sphere is accompanied by a social shift toward pervasive distrust of experts. This anti-intellectual turn both constitutes and is constituted by the spread of fake news. Second, while fake news has taken a stronger hold in America than in Europe, the technical systems that undergird the information economy are nearly identical on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, we explore the non-technical factors that make the United States particularly amenable to the spread of fake news and a culture of media distrust.


Tibetan activists and their supporters are interpreting the lyrical and visual symbolism of contemporary Tibetan music videos from China as a call for Tibetans to return to a shared Tibetan identity, centered around religious piety and implied civil disobedience, in order to counter fears of cultural assimilation. As the popularity of some videos on social-networking sites dovetailed with the 2008 protests in Tibet, viewers employed a progressive hermeneutical strategy which demanded a sectarian political interpretation of the lyrics and imagery of the most popular videos out of Tibet. Within China, Tibetans have begun to add these videos to the growing canon of an emerging uncivil religion, which emphasizes Tibetan cultural, linguistic, and religious autonomy within China. Through comparing online and offline ethnography, this article explores the relationship between offline and online worlds and the connections between Tibetans in China and their supporters.


Back analysis of foundation piles is an important aspect of a project, as it can allow for refinement of soil parameters, leading to pile holding capacity variations, and a more accurate fatigue life assessment. Back analysis of pile driving data to determine the capacity of an axially loaded pile, such as for a jacket structure, is a well-developed process, with the results of pile driving data directly applicable to axial foundation response. However, for mooring piles, where the loads are dominated by lateral forces, determining the capacity is more complex as the results of driving data are not directly relatable.
 Offshore mooring piles are opened-ended steel tubular piles, with diameters typically ranging between 1 m to 2 m, with a padeye (mooring chain attachment point) located at some point along the pile, usually within the upper third. The piles are driven into the seabed with an underwater impact hammer, or vibratory hammer, and are used for mooring floating structures. This paper presents a methodology to carry out a back analysis of mooring pile capacity based on pile driving data. The process involves two stages, the first is to assess the self-weight penetration of the pile, which will allow clarification of the design shallow soil properties; the second stage is to compare the pile driving data, with the estimated soil resistance to driving, to gain an understanding of the deeper soil properties.
 The procedure presented within this paper was applied to an assessment offshore South East Asia, a case where location-specific data were not available but were within 500 m of the mooring pile locations. The procedure was used to verify that the piles were suitably designed against the given loading conditions, as the soil data was not co-located with the mooring pile locations.
 The process forms an important aspect when considering the future of offshore moorings, specifically looking ahead towards floating offshore wind, potentially offering refinement of design factors, verification of pile capacity, reducing offshore exposure time, and optimizing the fatigue life of piles following driving.


Museums are rich and complex learning experiences, using a variety of interactive approaches to engage their audiences. However, the largely unstructured nature of free-choice learning calls for alternative approaches that can effectively engage groups of school age students with diverse cultural backgrounds. In this paper, we present our findings from a recent study in a museum in Greece, where triads of students had to learn about olive oil production using a game enabling different levels of interactivity and collaboration. We found that facilitation by an expert guide led to greater learning gains as compared to students playing alone, with one or three simultaneous game controllers. We also compared these results with a previous controlled experiment conducted in the US with middle school students, using the same game but without the ecologically valid facilitation. Drawing ideas from sociocultural and cognitive theories we interpret the contradictory findings, identifying the impact of culture on their (social) interactions, their subjective game experience, and eventually learning, in these spaces.


The book may be viewed as an introduction to time-hadronic waves in dissipative bodies, notably viscoelastic solids and fluids. The inhomogeneity of the waves, which is due to the fact that planes of constant phase are not parallel to planes of constant amplitude, is shown to be strictly related to the dissipativity of the medium. A preliminary analysis is performed of the propagation of inhomogeneous waves in unbounded media and of reflection and refraction at plane interfaces. Then emphasis is given to those features that are of significance for applications. In essence, they regard surface waves, scattering by (curved) obstacles, wave propagation in layered heterogeneous media, ray methods. The pertinent mathematical techniques are discussed so as to make the book reasonably self-contained.


Objective: The notion that artistic capability increases with dementia is both novel and largely unsupported by available literature. Recent research has suggested an emergence of artistic capabilities to be a by-product of involuntary behaviour seen with dementia, as opposed to a progression in original thinking (de Souza, et al., 2010). A far more complementary explanation comes from Hannemann (2006), who suggests that art offers an outlet for dementia patients to refine and sharpen their cognitive abilities. As dementia severely impedes linguistic skills, non-verbal therapeutic methods such as painting can permit dementia patients to express themselves in a way not possible verbally. Fractal analysis has been used to determine the authenticity of major works of art. Taylor et al., (1999) found that through a fractal analysis of Jackson Pollock's paintings it was possible to distinguish authentic works from a large collection of fakes, demonstrating that when artists paint they instill within their work their own pattern of unique fractal behaviour. Can age-indexed variations in the fractal dimension of the works of artists anticipate specific cognitive deteriorations? Method: To answer this question we analysed age-related variations in the fractal dimension of a large corpus of digital images (n = 2092) of work created by seven notable artists who experienced both normal ageing and neurodegenerative disorders. Results: The results of our analysis showed that patterns of change in the fractal dimension of the paintings differentiated artists who suffered neurological deterioration from those of normal aging controls. Conclusions: These findings are of importance for two reasons. Our work adds to studies that demonstrate that fractal analysis has the potential to determine the provenance of paintings. Secondly, our work suggests that may be possible to identify a-typical changes in the structure of an artist's work; changes that may be early indicators of the onset of neurological deterioration.


This article on temporality, reading, and narrative form shows how George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss stretches on the affordances of the novel to highlight the tension between structure and flow that characterizes any act of textual analysis. This tension within readerly method, elaborated by Roland Barthes in S/Z, has only sharpened since the literary humanities' digital turn. Eliot's famous surprise ending restarts the world-historical clock and seems to come from nowhere; yet it also seems slowly and inevitably to have been building all along. The novel's famous flood event, seen in light of the ambiguous textual details or "advance mentions" anticipating it, turns out to radicalize the formal or properly aesthetic tension between duration and event, sequence and structure, that animates structuralist method no less than certain varieties of distant or machine reading. On this reading, a theory of time as gradual development (flow) sits in tension with a model that imagines short, sharp transitions between discrete temporal periods (structures), one "step" and another. Like Barthes, Eliot aims to think in both synchronic blocks and linear flows simultaneously. She goes further to link this antinomy of narrative experience to the political-aesthetic problem of historical change and modernization itself. Eliot thus harnesses the resources of the novel form to challenge models of reading that work, as all digital methods must, on dechronologized textual objects like databases, textual corpuses, or (at smaller scales) sentences or lexias.


Title of dissertation: MICRODYNAMICS OF ILLEGITIMACY AND COMPLEX URBAN VIOLENCE IN MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA Robert Dale Lamb, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor John D. Steinbruner School of Public Policy, University of Maryland For most of the past 25 years, Medellín, Colombia, has been an extreme case of complex, urban violence, involving not just drug cartels and state security forces, but also street gangs, urban guerrillas, community militias, paramilitaries, and other nonstate armed actors who have controlled micro-territories in the city's densely populated slums in ever-shifting alliances. Before 2002, Medellín's homicide rate was among the highest in the world, but after the guerrillas and militias were defeated in 2003, a major paramilitary alliance disarmed and a period of peace known as the "Medellín Miracle" began. Policy makers facing complex violence elsewhere were interested in finding out how that had happened so quickly. The research presented here is a case study of violence in Medellín over five periods since 1984 and at two levels of analysis: the city as a whole, and a sector called Caicedo La Sierra. The objectives were to describe and explain the patterns of violence, and determine whether legitimacy played any role, as the literature on social stability suggested it might. Multilevel, multidimensional frameworks for violence and legitimacy were developed to organize data collection and analysis. The study found that most decreases in violence at all levels of analysis were explained by increases in territorial control. Increases in collective (organized) violence resulted from a process of "illegitimation," in which an intolerably unpredictable living environment sparked internal opposition to local rulers and raised the costs of territorial control, increasing their vulnerability to rivals. As this violence weakened social order and the rule of law, interpersonal-communal (unorganized) violence increased. Over time, the "true believers" in armed political and social movements became marginalized or corrupted; most organized violence today is motivated by money. These findings imply that state actors, facing resurgent violence, can keep their tenuous control over the hillside slums (and other "ungoverned" areas ) if they can avoid illegitimizing themselves. Their priority, therefore, should be to establish a tolerable, predictable daily living environment for local residents and businesses: other anti-violence programs will fail without strong, permanent, and respectful governance structures. MICRODYNAMICS OF ILLEGITIMACY AND COMPLEX URBAN VIOLENCE IN MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA


Research has provided evidence of the value of producing multiple representations of content for learners (e.g., verbal, visual, etc.). However, much of the research has acknowledged changes in visual technologies while not recognizing or utilizing related audio innovations. For instance, teacher education students who were once taught through two-dimensional video are now being presented with interactive, three-dimensional content (e.g., simulations or 360 video). Users in old and new formats, however, still typically receive monophonic sound. A limited number of research studies exist that have examined the impact of combining three-dimensional sound to match three-dimensional video in learning environments. The purpose of this study was to respond to this gap by comparing the outcomes of watching 360 video with either monophonic or ambisonic audio. Results provided evidence that ambisonic audio increased perceived presence for those familiar with the content being taught, led to differentiation in what ambisonic viewers noticed compared to monophonic groups, and improved participant focus in watching the 360 video. Implications for the development and implementation into virtual worlds are discussed. https://jvwr.net/ Use of Ambisonic Audio to Improve Presence, Focus, and Noticing 2 Assembled 2020 / December 2020 Journal of Virtual Worlds Research Vol. 13, No. 2-3


The aim of the study is to shed light on the importance of teaching pragmatic competence by means of TaskBased Language Teaching (TBLT) to foreign Language (FL) learners and teacher candidates. After the emergence of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in 1980s, today, at least in the last three decades, people in the field are in search of improving the shortcomings of CLT. Though a number of methods have been introduced on overcoming the limitations of CLT; such as Desuggestopedia, Total Physical Response, Silent Way and many others, they all serve to complement a very small area of the gap attributed to CLT. On the other hand, TBLT, introduced to language teaching market by Prabhu, embraces quite a large area that CLT has left behind. From this point of view, this study also focuses on the ways through which TBLT overcomes the shortcomings of (CLT). People in the field propose how TBLT scaffolds language learning through real life tasks and establishes form and function relationships. The tasks not only trigger language learners' creativity but also bring forth enjoyable, communicative and functional classroom settings. Pragmatic competence covers appropriate language use in different circumstances. Therefore, TBLT addresses the needs of language learners in terms of meaningful language use in communicative understanding. This study puts emphasis on how to teach pragmatic competence to FL learners and FL teacher candidates through rapidly spreading field of "the teaching of pragmatic competence".


Road and highway infrastructures are being transformed in anticipation of self-driving vehicles. During the transition to fully autonomous road networks people and driverless cars will interact with each other in mixed traffic situations. Vehicles are currently equipped with two types of communication devices one auditory (a horn) and the other visual (signalling lights). In many instances, human drivers use these devices in combination with embodied interaction such as eye contact and gesture when communicating with other road users. Hence, horn and signalling devices currently in use may not be enough to communicate with others in traffic settings; especially when driverless vehicles become responsible for the main driving activity. Driverless vehicles require new interaction types that support Human-AV interaction in an easy to understand and intuitive way. With the transformation of cars into computers new opportunities for research present themselves to the HCI community.


"This is one of the most unique and valuable books you will read all year, and I highly recommend it."
 —Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the bestselling and award-winning The Leadership Challenge and Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

 Even the best leaders—in fact, most of the best leaders—start out as decidedly bad ones. And sooner or later they reach a moment of reckoning that leadership expert Bill Treasurer calls the leadership kick in the ass. When it happens, it feels like it's all over. But Treasurer says that with the right attitude, that kick can be a new beginning. Based on his work with thousands of leaders, this book reveals how to turn those ego-bruising events into the kind of transformative experiences that mark the paths of great leaders. As Steve Jobs famously said, "Getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me." This book is a survival guide, coach, and morale booster to help you use that kick to move forward instead of fall down. If you succeed, the next place you get kicked might be upstairs.


Widening the light harvesting range and suppressing the fast recombination of excited electrons and holes are of paramount significance in the area of photocatalysis. In the present study, we report a two-step method for the synthesis of metal oxide (ZnO and Fe3O4) deposited on CuO nanowire arrays over 3D copper foam using thermal oxidation followed by microwave assisted deposition. The structural and morphological analysis was carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction techniques which support the formation of uniform CuO nanowires and subsequent hierarchical nanostructures. The resulting heterostructures showed enhanced photocatalytic activity towards dye degradation compared to their individual counterparts under solar radiation. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of the heterostructures could be explained in terms of better charge separation due to the formation of a p–n junction at the interface of the p-type (CuO) and n-type (ZnO/Fe3O4) semiconductors. The separation efficiency was further affirmed by photoluminescence (PL) studies. The effect of pH on the dye degradation efficiencies was inspected over the wide pH range of 4–11. Finally, the stability and reusability of the hierarchical nanostructures was estimated using cycling experiments (n = 3). Thus, this rational design of a 3D hierarchical foam was explored towards the development of highly efficient photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants under the abundant sunlight.


What can educators in different countries learn from each other about successful multilingual initiatives? By comparing experiences from diverse settings - France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK - the writers highlight ways of creating multilingual learning communities that promote language expertise, intercultural understanding and educational achievement."Multilingual Europe" casts fresh light on how: children and young people can develop their existing languages and learn new ones; identities are constructed in multicultural contexts; schools can link with families and communities; and, educators can devise innovative pedagogies for multilingual classrooms.Collaboratively written by participants from the Multilingual Europe seminar series at Goldsmiths, University of London, the book shows how research, policy and practice can work together for success.This inspirational collection of international case studies will stimulate reflection for undergraduate and postgraduate students on education-related courses, students of language learning and teaching, teacher educators, researchers and policy-makers.The insights provided will also interest different language communities worldwide. The contributors include Jean Conteh, Christine Helot, Aura Mor-Sommerfeld and Dominique Portante.


Abstract. In this work, we presented the characteristics of PM2. 5 chemical composition over China for the period of 2005–2012 by synthesis of in situ measurement data collected from literatures and satellite-based estimates using aerosol optical depth (AOD) data and the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. We revealed the spatiotemporal variations in PM2. 5 composition during 2005–2012 and investigated the driving forces behind the variations by examining the changes in precursor emissions using a bottom-up emission inventory. Both in situ observations and satellite-based estimates identified that secondary inorganic aerosols (i.e., sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium; SNA) ranked as the highest fraction of dust-free PM2. 5 concentrations, followed by organic matter (OM) and black carbon (BC). For instance, satellite-based estimates found that SNA, OM, and BC contributed to 59, 33, and 8 %, respectively, of national population-weighted mean dust-free PM2. 5 concentrations during 2005–2012. National population-weighted mean PM2. 5 concentration increased from 63.9 µg m−3 in 2005 to 75.2 µg m−3 in 2007 and subsequently decreased to 66.9 µg m−3 from 2007 to 2012. Variations in PM2. 5 concentrations are mainly driven by the decrease in sulfate and the increase in nitrate. Population-weighted mean sulfate concentration decreased by 2.4 % yr−1 during 2005–2012 (from 14.4 to 12.9 µg m−3), while population-weighted mean nitrate concentration increased by 3.4 % yr−1 during 2005–2012 (from 9.8 to 12.2 µg m−3), largely offsetting the decrease in sulfate concentrations. By examining the emission data from the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), we found that the changes in sulfate and nitrate concentrations were in line with the decrease in SO2 emissions and the increase in NOx emissions during the same period. The desulfurization regulation in power plants enforced around 2005 has been the primary contributor to the SO2 emission reduction since 2006. In contrast, growth of energy consumption and lack of control measures for NOx resulted in a persistent increase in NOx emissions until the installation of denitrification devices on power plants late in 2011, which began to take effect in 2012. The results of this work indicate that the synchronized abatement of emissions for multipollutants is necessary for reducing ambient PM2. 5 concentrations over China.


This study focused on the reciprocal nature of leadership from the point of view of success, when defined a manifestation of expertise, high performances, productivity, and positive work experiences. Leaders' action with and among their employees formed the core of the study. The purpose was to find out how leaders themselves and their employees describe success at work and leadership practices that support the success. The study was conducted among leaders and employees in a mid-size Finnish enterprise. Two research questions were set for this study: (1) How do the leaders and supervisors describe successful leadership? and (2) How do the employees describe successful leadership? This study employed a multi method approach that combined qualitative research methods within one study. The leaders and supervisors (N=15) were interviewed while employees (N=29) participated by filling out an open-ended questionnaire. Elements of successful leadership in leaders' and supervisors' and employees' descriptions are presented as results. Leadership for success at work maintains that a leader or supervisor finds leadership as his or her personal strength. The social element of using the strength was strongly emphasized in this data. Much of the strength becomes manifested through the social interaction between leaders and supervisors and employees, where positivity can be the key element. Those who have this perception are likely to enjoy their work as leaders, find it meaningful, inspiring, and energizing, and to succeed as leaders and make followers succeed as well especially in the changing world of work.


High order discontinuous Galerkin methods for simulating miscible displacement process in porous media with a focus on minimal regularity by Jizhou Li In my thesis, I formulate, analyze and implement high order discontinuous Galerkin methods for simulating miscible displacement in porous media. The analysis concerning the stability and convergence under the minimal regularity assumption is established to provide theoretical foundations for using discontinuous Galerkin discretization to solve miscible displacement problems. The numerical experiments demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed methods. The performance study for large scale simulations with highly heterogeneous porous media suggests strong scalability which indicates the efficiency of the numerical algorithm. The simulations performed using the algorithms for physically unstable flow show that higher order methods proposed in thesis are more suitable for simulating such phenomenon than the commonly used cell-center finite volume method.


THE IMPLICATIONS OF PUBLIC HOUSING DESIGN: A STUDY OF HUD'S HOPE VI PROGRAMBrock Travis Onque', Ph.D.University of Pittsburgh, 2007Over the past decade a philosophy has emerged at HUD that recognizes the importance of good design in the development of public housing. Quality design can help create safe, reasonably scaled, defensible environments. A Federal Grants Program, Hope VI, was developed in 1993 under the Urban Revitalization Demonstration Program. This program allocates grants up to $50 million dollars for redesigning and making infrastructural improvements in public housing communities. Since the inception of the program, funds have been awarded to a total of 130 public housing authorities in 34 states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands. After more than a decade, what are the outcomes of the program - particularly in terms of creating safe environments and getting away from the negative stereotypes (both real and perceived) that are associated with public housing? Factually speaking, funds from the program have demolished 97,000 severely distressed public housing units, and there have been 61,000 revitalized units. But, in terms of other issues like safety, accessibility, and civic engagement, how has the program fared? One recent HUD study concludes that it is possible for this program to go wrong. The danger exists that the innovation of Hope VI could devolve into a new set of stereotypes comparable to some of the old public housing stereotypes. If the projects are poorly administered, buildings could deteriorate and public spaces could become neglected. This dissertation examined the current renovation activity in public housing and the objectives of the Hope VI program. Specifically, this study examined the goals of the Hope VI program and identified program outcomes at a specific Hope VI project in the City of Pittsburgh. Data from official documents, interview data from program experts, survey data from residents and observational analysis was compiled to identify program outcomes. The major finding of this study is that the Hope VI program has been successful in achieving its stated goals and that the program has brought about positive changes for public housing and therefore deserves to be extended. However,these findings also identify significant problem areas that plague the program and have tarnished the success the program has achieved. These findings suggest areas where the program can be strengthened to allow the program to better achieve its intended benefit. The study suggests new policy implications for the design of public housing and identifies new areas for future research and policy analysis. Such research is necessary to identify and develop new effective policies to improve the design and, by extension, the quality of life for those individuals living in public housing.


Recent studies have suggested greater HIV cure potential among infected children than adults. A major obstacle to HIV eradication in adults is that the viral reservoir is largely comprised of HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) escape variants. We here evaluate the potential for CTL in HIV-infected slow-progressor children to play an effective role in "shock-and-kill" cure strategies. Two distinct subgroups of children were identified on the basis of viral load. Unexpectedly, in both groups, as in adults, HIV-specific CTL drove the selection of escape variants across a range of epitopes within the first weeks of infection. However, in HIV-infected children, but not adults, de novo autologous variant-specific CTL responses were generated, enabling the pediatric immune system to "corner" the virus. Thus, even when escape variants are selected in early infection, the capacity in children to generate variant-specific anti-HIV CTL responses maintains the potential for CTL to contribute to effective shock-and-kill cure strategies in pediatric HIV infection.


We propose a novel knowledge distillation approach to facilitate the transfer of dark knowledge from a teacher to a student. Contrary to most of the existing methods that rely on effective training of student models given pretrained teachers, we aim to learn the teacher models that are friendly to students and, consequently, more appropriate for knowledge transfer. In other words, at the time of optimizing a teacher model, the proposed algorithm learns the student branches jointly to obtain student-friendly representations. Since the main goal of our approach lies in training teacher models and the subsequent knowledge distillation procedure is straightforward, most of the existing knowledge distillation methods can adopt this technique to improve the performance of diverse student models in terms of accuracy and convergence speed. The proposed algorithm demonstrates outstanding accuracy in several well-known knowledge distillation techniques with various combinations of teacher and student models even in the case that their architectures are heterogeneous and there is no prior knowledge about student models at the time of training teacher networks.


OVERVIEW While a substantial decline in the teen birth rate has occurred over the past two decades, teen childbearing has continued to remain a focus of national, state, and local prevention efforts. Federal programs such as Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and Teen Pregnancy Prevention (TPP), for example, address this issue. Examining national trends in the teen birth rate over time is one way to evaluate change. Another way is to examine state-level patterns. This approach identifies states that experience sharper declines or greater variation than others, and may in turn prompt an examination of state-level variation in the implementation of teen pregnancy prevention policies and programs.


We present initial results for counts in cell statistics of the angular distribution of galaxies in early data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We analyze a rectangular stripe 2.°5 wide, covering approximately 160 deg2, containing over 106 galaxies in the apparent magnitude range 18 < r′ < 22, with areas of bad seeing, contamination from bright stars, ghosts, and high galactic extinction masked out. This survey region, which forms part of the SDSS early data release, is the same as that for which two-point angular clustering statistics have recently been computed. The third and fourth moments of the cell counts, s3 (skewness) and s4 (kurtosis), constitute the most accurate measurements to date of these quantities (for r′ < 21) over angular scales 0.°015-0.°3. They display the approximate hierarchical scaling expected from nonlinear structure formation models and are in reasonable agreement with the predictions of Λ-dominated cold dark matter models with galaxy biasing that suppresses higher order correlations at small scales. The results are, in general, consistent with previous measurements in the APM, EDSGC, and Deeprange surveys. These results suggest that the SDSS imaging data are free of systematics to a high degree and will therefore enable determination of the skewness and kurtosis to 1% and less then 10%, as predicted earlier.


Over the last century, the river-dominated Mississippi delta has received increasing attention from geoscientists, biologists, engineers, and environmental planners because of the importance of the river and its deltaic environments to the economic well-being of the state of Louisiana and the nation. Population growth, subsurface re source extraction, and increased land-water use have placed demands on the delta's natural geologic, biologic, and chemical systems, therefore modifying the time and spatial scales of natural processes within the delta and its lower alluvial valley. As a result, the combined effects of natural and human- induced processes, such as subsidence, eustatic sea level rise, salt water intrusion, and wet land loss, have produced a dynamically changing landscape and socioeconomic framework for this complex delta. Under natural conditions, the fundament al changes that result in land-building and land loss in the Holocene Mississippi River delta plain are rooted in the systematic diversion of water and sediment associated with major shifts in the river 's course-the process of delta switching. Research over the last half century has shown that major relocations of the Mississippi's course have resulted in five Holocene delta complexes and a sixth one in an early stage of development as a product of the latest Atchafalaya River diversion. Collectively, these Holocene deltas have produced a delta plain that covers an area of ~30,000 km 2 and accounts for 41% of the coastal wetlands in the United States. After a river diversion takes place, the resulting delta evolves through a systematic and semipredictable set of stages generally characterized by: (a) rapid progradation with increasing-to-stable discharge, (b) relative stability during initial stages of waning discharge, (c) abandonment by the river in favor of a higher gradient course to the receiving basin , and (d) marine reworking of a sediment-starved delta as it under goes progressive submergence by the combined processes of subsidence. Delta switching has taken place every 1000 to 2000 years during Holocene times, and resulting deltas have an average thickness of approximately 35 m. Within a single delta there are subdeltas, bayfills, and crevasse-splays that have higher frequency delta cycles ranging from several hundred years to a few decades. These depositional features are usually less than 10 m thick, and some have produced marshland areas of over 300 km 2 . The net result of these delta-building events is a low-lying landscape with components that are changing (building and deteriorating) at different rates. Geologically, these depositional cycles produce a thick accumulation of coarsening, upward deltaic deposits that have various thicknesses in response to development on a variety of temporal and spatial scales. In this river-dominated delta system, distributaries can prograde seaward at rates of over 100 m/year. The cumulative effect of the Holocene depository has been to depress the underlying Pleistocene surface. In a local setting, e.g., the modern Balize Lobe, differential loading causes the vertical displacement of underlying clay-rich facies (shale diapirs-mudlumps). The delta front of this lobe, which has prograded into deep water of the outer continental she lf, is characterized by rapid deposition of silt - and clay- rich sediments and slope instability, which results in sea ward displacement of sediments by a variety of mass-movement processes. Superimposed on the natural processes and forms of the Mississippi deltaic plain and its associated estuarine environments, are human impacts, most of which have been imposed in this century. The most significant impacts have resulted from a decrease in sediment input to the river from its tributaries and the alteration of the river's natural sediment dispersal processes through the construction of levees. Measures are now being taken to reinstate some of the delta's natural processes, thereby mitigating landloss so that decline in animal and plant productivity can be mitigated.


Canteen Koppie, a national monument of historical value, occurs next to Barkly West on the north bank of the Vaal River. Diamonds were discovered there in 1869 and it became the first alluvial diamond diggings in South Africa. The digging continued, albeit on and off in the years leading up to 1948 when the site was proclaimed a national monument. The sediments occur in a structurally controlled and glacially modified depression within the andesitic lavas of the Archaean Ventersdorp Supergroup. The fluvial gravels were deposited, and locally mixed with the colluvium, in the downstream end of a palaeo-loop of the Vaal River as a splay deposit where the channel abruptly widens as it exits this narrow loop.

The gravel accumulation has been described as the 12 m to 16 m terrace package linked to the Younger Gravels of the Vaal Basin and correlated with the Pleistocene Rietputs Formation. There are two gravel facies associations and one sand facies within the splay unit. Colluvial facies are dominant particularly in the upper part and are composed of large andesite fragments which are mostly sub-angular and lacking obvious abrasion features suggesting that these are of local derivation. The gravel of the fluvial facies are crudely cross-bedded and consist of small to medium sized exotic sub-rounded pebbles that have been mixed with the local andesite boulders in the toes of the scree deposits. These facies are more prominent in the lower part of the succession. The red sand facies occurs as thin cover particularly in the distal part of the gravel units and increases in thickness in the lee of the gravel splay. The exotic clasts in the fluvial gravel are derived from the palaeo-Vaal, erosion of nearby Dwyka sediments which can still be found along the north bank of the loop, and by reworking of higher level and older gravels, remnants of which are still present on top of the hill at Canteen Koppie. The input of the coarse andesite clasts is linked to scree slope deposits fed by exfoliation of local bedrock from this hill. The upward coarsening trend of this infill reflects the gradual abandonment of the loop by the palaeo-Vaal and its inability to remove the coarse colluvium during those latter stages of its occupation of this palaeo-loop. A climatic change to more arid periods might have had some influence.

Canteen Koppie has also produced an abundance of Acheulian Stone Age artefacts. These are present in both sedimentary facies suggesting that this splay deposit is at least Late Pliocene to Lower and Middle Pleistocene in age. Recent dating of the overlying sands indicates that these are at least 125 000 years old. Finally an analysis of the mining records suggests that this splay deposit might have produced between 10 000 carats and 15 000 carats of diamonds which would have expressed itself in the region of three to five carats per hundred tonnes. The oversize clasts of the scree deposits would have acted as important traps for the diamonds.


On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings , McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigourous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission. Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognised the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some fifteen years later.


The ubiquitousness of the Internet and communication technologies is having a significant influence on teaching and learning practices both in terms of what is learnt and how it is learnt. Mathematics teaching and learning in vocational education is also facing new challenges due to the enormous influence of new technologies on workplace practices. This study makes an attempt to design and implement a web-based learning environment to facilitate and enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics in a TAFE setting. The design and development of the web-based learning environment aimed at providing opportunities for more engaging and authentic learning activities and promoting the use of new learning technologies in mathematics teaching and learning. The study included a practical orientation of action to bring about a change in the practice of teaching of mathematics in vocational education.
Using a design-based research approach the study comprised two cycles. In the first cycle three mathematics teachers were involved in exploring Internet based mathematics resources and participated in the design of a website that consisted of twelve units of basic mathematical topics with facilities for both synchronous and asynchronous communication. This web-based learning environment known as Maths Concurrent Assistance (MCA) Online was then trialled with a number of mathematics teachers and students in mainly workshop mode. In the second cycle, the web-based learning environment was customised for a business mathematics module in a diploma course and trialled with a semester long course taught on campus in a blended learning format. Data obtained through classroom observation, WebCT logs, discussion board postings, test results and nterviews were used to explore and analyse issues concerned with students' participation, access and use and the role of teacher in facilitating mathematics learning. The study also included a quasi-experimental research design to compare achievement and attitude of students who participated in this experiment with another group of students taught the same content by the same teacher in a traditional face-to-face mode with no Internet activities.
Results from the study indicate that students' successful participation in web-based mathematics learning in vocational education is contingent upon factors including
learner readiness, interface design and course design. Students' attitude towards mathematics appeared to influence their participation in web-based mathematical activities. Although computer skills and confidence are necessary for successful participation in web-based activities, students' attitude towards mathematics played a more important role in determining their participation.


Disinformation campaigns have become a considerable threat to domestic political processes across Europe. The 2017 French and German elections testified to Russian efforts to meddle in domestic political affairs. The Visegrad states have also been targets of extensive disinformation campaigns following the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The pro-Kremlin disinformation strategy in Central Europe weakens the West while strengthening the Russian political influence on the region. This policy brief discusses information warfare threats to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia and evaluates their state-level strategic responses. The paper specifically focuses on pro-Russian disinformation activities as a form of cyber-threat. It argues that while some Visegrad states securitize the issue at the political level, other offer an environment conducive to online propaganda simply because they do not consider it a problem. At least three factors contribute to the cyber-security behaviour of the Visegrad states: 1) Capacity to react, 2) Political regime change and 3) Relationship with Russia. This analysis aims to provide local governments with a comprehensive overview of the V4 cyber-security landscape, help them improve their national policies and deepen regional cooperation.


This correlational study examined the relationship between career satisfaction and person-organization, demands-abilities, and needs-supplies fit with counselors (N = 464) using the Perceived Job Fit instrument (Cable & DeRue, 2002) and a scale of career satisfaction adapted from the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Myers, & Jordaan, 1988). Using a linear, multiple regression analysis, the authors found that person-organization fit (p = .01) and needs-supplies fit (p = .00) were both positively related to career satisfaction and that there was no relationship between demands-abilities fit and career satisfaction. The perception of "fit" with a position or organization influences many career-related decisions (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005). Perceived fit influences an individual's choice of organizations (Judge & Cable, 1997; Saks & Ashforth, 1997), an employer's choice of candidates (Cable & Judge, 1997; Kristof-Brown, 2000), and an individual's decision to remain with a company (Cable & Judge, 1996). If the individual and work are compatible, then a fit or match is made and career satisfaction often results (Cable Sc DeRue, 2002; Erdogan & Bauer, 2005; Resick, Baltes, & Shantz, 2007). The concept of fit arises from vocational theories related to person-environment fit (Dawis & Lofquist, 1984; Holland, 1973, 1985), in which an individual's personal perception of compatibility with the work environment influences factors such as organizational commitment, career success, stability, and satisfaction (Ehrhart Sc Makransky, 2007). Perceived person-environment fit is not a single construct but rather consists of three domains: person-organization fit, demands-abilities fit, and needs-supplies fit (Cable & DeRue, 2002; Resick et al., 2007). Perceived person- organization (P-O) fit is defined as the congruence between the employee's personal values and the organization's culture (Cable 8c DeRue, 2002; Resick et al., 2007). When individuals experience P-O fit, they feel connected to the mission of the organization and arc more likely to put the benefits of the organization above themselves and find it difficult to leave (Cable & DeRue, 2002). Demands-abilities (D-A) fit is sometimes referred to as person-job fit (Hinkle & Choi, 2009) and is defined as the correspondence between an employee's skills and the demands of the job (Cable & DeRue, 2002; Resick et al., 2007). If the employee's ability exceeds the demands of the position, then the employee risks becoming complacent or disinterested in his or her position. If an employee's ability does not meet the minimum requirements of the position, then production is lost and the development of the employee is undermined, resulting in the employee being less attracted to his or her occupation (Cable & DeRue, 2002). Finally, needs-supplies (N-S) fit is the extent to which employees' needs and tangible work rewards match, whether the rewards are in the form of pay, benefits, or training (Cable & DeRue, 2002). For example, younger employees without children may value above-market pay with minimum benefits whereas older employees with families may prefer a comprehensive benefits package with average pay (Cable & DeRue, 2002). Individuals' perceived person- environment fit is crucial to all industries, but especially within die human services, because tough economic rimes often increase the need for services but the funds to provide those services are decreasing. In a turbulent economy with many employers making cuts while also increasing demands on employees, perception of fit plays a vital role in retained employees' satisfaction. This is especially true in the field of counseling, in which the need for services has increased as a result of the economic downturn while the funds to compensate for these services have decreased, resulting in increased occupational burnout and loss of valuable workers (Leiter & Maslach, 2005). …


Caulerpa taxifolia is a habitat-forming green alga that has invaded several temperate regions worldwide. Although C. taxifolia covers large areas of soft-sediment habitat, little is known about its effects on softsediment invertebrate assemblages. We compared soft-sediment macroinvertebrate assemblages in 2 estuaries in southeastern Australia invaded by C. taxifolia to examine 2 main predictions: (1) areas covered with C. taxifolia will have different assemblages compared to unvegetated sediment because infauna are inhibited but epifauna are facilitated, and (2) areas with C. taxifolia will have different assemblages compared to those with native seagrasses (Halophila ovalis and Zostera capricorni) because infauna are inhibited but epifauna are not. Multidimensional scaling and ANOSIM showed differences in invertebrate assemblages between all habitats. In C. taxifolia, infauna were less abundant and epifauna were more abundant compared to unvegetated sediment. However, when compared to native seagrasses, epifauna in C. taxifolia were more abundant than in H. ovalis in one estuary but less abundant than in Z. capricorni in another estuary, while infauna in C. taxifolia were less abundant than in both seagrass species. The consistently low infaunal abundance in C. taxifolia, irrespective of infaunal feeding mode, suggests C. taxifolia impacts infauna generally. Examination of environmental factors potentially responsible for the low abundance of infauna indicated that differences in redox potential (and associated chemical changes) may explain patterns in abundance of infauna among habitats. Our findings indicate that invasion by C. taxifolia causes important changes to soft-sediment macroinvertebrate assemblages and suggest that infauna may be particularly vulnerable to invasion because of changes to sediment chemistry.


This paper is devoted to the discussion of the measurement of human development and poverty, especially in United Nations Development Program's global Human Development Reports. We first outline the methodological evolution of different indices over the last two decades, focusing on the well-known Human Development Index (HDI) and the poverty indices. We then critically evaluate these measures and discuss possible improvements that can be made.


A review of the behavioral effects of estrogen has to be divided on the basis of different time periods. During the critical phase of brain differentiation (which is species specific and takes place either before birth or neonatally), various sex hormones have long-term and permanent effects on behavior. Therefore, their action has been termed developmental or organizational. In contrast, hormones in adulthood, after the critical phase has passed, affect reversible changes in behavior and have been called activational. THE ROLE OF ESTROGEN IN BRAIN DIFFERENTIATION The different action of hormones during the organizational phase vs the activational time period has been demonstrated by those researchers who work directly on the brain level of animals and who use techniques such as autoradiography of the implantation of minute amounts of specific hormones in different brain regions. From scientists like Roger Gorski at the University of California at Los Angeles, we have learned that sexual differentiation of the brain appears to be located in the preoptic area and the hypothalamus. The exposure to specific steroids during the organizational phase affects permanent alterations of the neural connections of the preoptic area in male and female rat brains (they change the "wiring" of the brain), while hormones in adulthood activate temporal changes in neuronal function of hormone-sensitive cells lying within developmentally fixed neural circuits. We also have considerable evidence about the events of the cellular level itself from neurochemical research, as from Bruce McEwen9s laboratory at Rockefeller University, New York. It appears to be proved at this point that testosterone is the crucial steroid during normal male and female sexual differentiation, but that a portion of testosterone is converted into estradiol on the target brain cell level and insteracts with estrogen receptors. 1


This paper proposes and analyzes a quadrature duobinary modulation format with coherent detection for high-spectral efficiency wavelength-division-multiplexing transmission systems at 112 Gb/s per channel. A practical system design of a dual polarization quadrature duobinary (DP-QDB) format with coherent heterodyne detection is analyzed and compared with the DP-differential quadrature phase-shift keying format for feasibility of 112 Gb/s transmission. Using simulation analysis, we show that the relatively narrow spectrum of quadrature duobinary modulation provides an effective practical means for realizing high-spectral efficiency transmission, approaching the theoretical limit of 4 bits/s/Hz, while also providing excellent tolerance to optical filter cascades for a robust optical networking functionality.


This article examines the deference standards that the various states apply to agency statutory interpretation and analyzes the implications for the federal Chevron doctrine. First, the article surveys state standards for reviewing agencies' statutory interpretation, finding that none of the state standards exactly follows the federal Chevron test but that state standards fall into one of four categories ranging from 'strong deference' to 'de novo with deference discouraged.' The article then examines four particular state standards in depth, discovering that states tend to use the same methods, tools, and processes for statutory interpretation despite the different announced degrees of deference. Finally, based on the lessons from the state standards, the article recommends revisions to the formulation of the federal Chevron standard.


The performance of $\beta$-Variational-Autoencoders ($\beta$-VAEs) and their variants on learning semantically meaningful, disentangled representations is unparalleled. On the other hand, there are theoretical arguments suggesting the impossibility of unsupervised disentanglement. In this work, we shed light on the inductive bias responsible for the success of VAE-based architectures. We show that in classical datasets the structure of variance, induced by the generating factors, is conveniently aligned with the latent directions fostered by the VAE objective. This builds the pivotal bias on which the disentangling abilities of VAEs rely. By small, elaborate perturbations of existing datasets, we hide the convenient correlation structure that is easily exploited by a variety of architectures. To demonstrate this, we construct modified versions of standard datasets in which (i) the generative factors are perfectly preserved; (ii) each image undergoes a mild transformation causing a small change of variance; (iii) the leading \textbf{VAE-based disentanglement architectures fail to produce disentangled representations whilst the performance of a non-variational method remains unchanged}. The construction of our modifications is nontrivial and relies on recent progress on mechanistic understanding of $\beta$-VAEs and their connection to PCA. We strengthen that connection by providing additional insights that are of stand-alone interest.


Understanding impacts of drought on tree growth and forest health is of major concern given projected climate change. Droughts may become more common in the Southwest due to extreme temperatures that will drive increased evapotranspiration and lower soil moisture, in combination with uncertain precipitation changes. Utilizing ~1.3 million tree-ring widths from the International Tree Ring Data Bank representing 10 species (eight conifers, two oaks) in the Southwest, we evaluated the effects of drought on tree growth. We categorized ring widths by formation year in relation to drought (pre-drought, drought year, and post-drought), and we used a mixed-effects model to estimate the effects of current and antecedent precipitation and temperature on tree growth during the post-drought recovery period. This allowed us to assess changes in sensitivity of tree growth to precipitation and temperature at multiple timescales following multiple droughts, and to evaluate drought resistance and recovery in these species. The effects of precipitation and temperature on ring widths following drought varied among species and time since drought. Across species, 16% of the climate effects (i.e., "sensitivities") were significantly different from their pre-drought values. Species differed, with some showing increased sensitivities to precipitation and temperature following drought, and others showing decreased sensitivities. Furthermore, some species (e.g., Abies concolor and Pinus ponderosa) showed low resistance and slow recovery, with changes in growth sensitivities persisting up to 5 yr; others (e.g., Juniper spp.) showed high resistance, such that their climatic sensitivities did not change. Among species, the importance of different antecedent climate variables changed with time since drought. Though a majority of species responded positively to same-year precipitation pre-drought, all 10 species were positively affected by same-year precipitation the second year after drought. Our results demonstrate tree growth sensitivities vary among species and with time since drought, raising questions about physiological mechanisms and implications for forest health under future drought.


During World War Two the peaceful "occupation" of the Samoa Islands by US Forces combined with existing colonial conditions to transform the lives of Samoans in important yet also subtle ways. Drawing on thirty two oral history interviews and the papers of the colonial administrations this thesis examines the wartime lives of Samoan women. Their accounts of their experiences reveal how they understood the war at the time and after years of life experience. Using approaches from social history and women's history this thesis illustrates women's agency in finding ways to manage the new social contexts and situations created by the war.  The central argument of this thesis is that it was the ordinary business of negotiating daily life during the war that engaged and normalised social changes. These mundane everyday acts were significant historical moments that wove new and unique motifs into the tapestry of Samoan women's history. The war brought to Samoa a multitude of American servicemen who saw Samoa through a 'romantic' lens as an arcadia of unrestrained social mores. In contrast, through this research Samoan women reveal their wartime experiences in their own words. The women's narratives indicate that the war interrupted lives in many ways causing them to rethink their roles in response to the changes.  The four areas of Samoan women's lives that this thesis examines are their roles in their families and communities, their involvement with the churches, their engagement with wartime popular culture and lastly their wartime sexual encounters. The discussion opens with a portrait of Samoan society during the 1920s and 1930s, depicting the social and political forces that shaped women's lives and influenced their understandings of their wartime experiences. This discussion highlights how colonial entanglements had a bearing on the different trajectories that women's lives took during the war. The thesis then turns to explore the arrival of the war, examining the women's initial experiences and reactions with a particular focus on what they learnt from their experiences and how they adapted to change in the context of their communities and families. The study finds that social transformation was a response to the war's disruption of physical and cultural space and the critical structures and ideologies that are central to Samoans' way of life.  The second part of this enquiry examines how wartime circumstances affected Samoan women's sometimes tense relations with the Christian churches. The churches occupied a central place in Samoan society as a provider of both spiritual nurture and secular education for women during the war years, so they deserve specific attention. Wartime conditions created opportunities that expanded and rejuvenated the scope of Samoan women's agency which had been marginalised and narrowed by Christian influence before the war. At the same time, the war heightened the pre-war tensions between Samoan women's agency and the power of the churches. Despite the clergy's reluctance, the churches provided spaces in which American troops socialised with the Samoan population, creating social situations that were difficult to control.  The third area analyses Samoan women's engagement with wartime popular culture and how the consumption of introduced material culture galvanised their autonomy and enabled them to tailor social transformation to suit their personal perceptions. Wartime popular culture in its many forms contributed to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the adaptation of cultural practices. Women's engagement with this popular culture resulted in 'on the ground changes' that stimulated social transformation and which should be appreciated as significant historical moments in their own right.  The fourth area of discussion investigates Samoan women's wartime sexual encounters. The perception that Samoan women's sexual encounters with American servicemen were characterised by an unrestrained morality on their part ignores other factors that shaped these encounters, including violence and their own bodily knowledge and preparedness. This study shows that Samoan women had a variety of sexual encounters during the war and their narratives speak volumes about the pains of such life-changing moments.  There was no single or archetypal wartime experience. The thirty two interviewees experienced the war in different parts of the Samoa islands and their social and political alignment has influenced their perceptions and understanding of their wartime lives. The social transformation brought by the war involved considered responses from the women who sought to balance personal and family interests and Samoan values. Exploring the women's wartime lives reveals their resilience and their ability to overcome difficulties and effect change for the better of their community.


This study develops and tests a method of intervention designed to incorporate the concept of sustainable development into management strategies for the natural tropical forest, in the particular case of forest exploitation by small-scale local sawmilling enterprises. Sustainable development is defined as a development process that satisfies jointly the goals of the biological, social and economic spheres of forest management. A review of orthodox management strategies suggested that they focus on maximizing benefits in only one or two of these spheres, and are inadequate to address the requirements of truly sustainable development. The stakeholder concept, adapted from modern corporate management theory, was identified as one model with the potential to satisfy the requirements of sustainable development. A management strategy based on stakeholder theory, termed the Integrated Management Approach (IMA), was developed for the case of locally-developed sawmilling enterprises dependent on the natural forest. The IMA is an iterative process based on the following steps: (1) the definition of criteria and the collection of information to describe the system as it was intended to operate (i.e., the Technical Limit of the operation) and as the enterprise is found at the time of initial intervention (i.e., the Benchmark Situation of the enterprise); (2) development of Negotiation Aims, based on the information collected, according to which the enterprise can progress towards the Technical Limits necessary for sustainable development; (3) identification of stakeholders and (4) their stakes in the enterprise; (5) assessment of stakeholder satisfaction, and negotiation from that basis towards the Negotiation Aims; (6) monitoring and iteration as necessary. Three East African sawmill enterprises were used as case studies to develop and test the IMA. The case studies exhibit many of the social, economic and biological conditions which have hindered successful implementation of traditional management systems to the natural tropical forest. The outcomes of the IMA process for each case study were compared in terms of the rating accorded criteria for each sphere and across spheres, and of the participation and satisfaction of stakeholders. In general, all parameters increased with successive iterations of the IMA, although a major change of attitude by one of the key stakeholders in the final iteration for one enterprise reversed many of the gains previously made, thereby demonstrating one of the limitations of the strategy. The results of this study suggest that the IMA has considerable potential to progress the objective of sustainable development for the case of local sawmilling enterprises operating under frontier conditions. They also suggest that the IMA should be applicable more generally, in facilitating sustainable development for a variety of enterprises based on natural resource use.


We develop a comprehensive framework for analyzing optimal economic policy during a pandemic crisis in a dynamic economic model that trades off pandemic-induced mortality costs against the adverse economic impact of policy interventions. We use the comparison between the planner problem and the dynamic decentralized equilibrium to highlight the margins of policy intervention and describe optimal policy actions. As our main conclusion, we provide a strong and novel economic justification for the current approach to dealing with the pandemic, which is different from the existing health policy rationales. This justification is based on a simple economic concept, the shadow price of infection risks, which succinctly captures the static and dynamic trade-offs and externalities between economic prosperity and mortality risk as the pandemic unfolds.


Cenozoic alkali basalts in the Rio Grande do Norte State and the Fernando de Noronha Island contain abundant spinel facies mantle xenoliths. At Pico Cabuji (NE Brazil) both protogranular and porphyroclastic xenoliths occur. The former mainly consists of lherzolites and the latter of harzburgites, with average equilibrium temperatures of 1064±6°C and 1238±7°C, respectively. Pressure is assumed essentially equal in the two groups (~1.8 GPa). Porphyroclastic xenoliths have more refractory bulk rock and mineral phase compositions than the progranular ones, in keeping with their mode. Both groups show chemical variation trends consistent with fractional melting and basalt extraction. REE profiles of clinopyroxenes vary from LREE enriched (spoon shaped) to LREE depleted in the progranular group, whereas they are dominantly slightly convex upwards in the porphyroclastic clinopyroxenes. HFSE (Ti and Zr) anomalies are in general modest in the clinopyroxenes of both groups. At Fernando de Noronha, xenoliths are variably- textured lherzolites and harzburgites. Their chemical variation trends overlap and extend those of the Pico Cabuji samples. Average temperature is 1056±87°C and pressure 1.6±0.2 GPa. Clinopyroxenes have spoon-shaped to LREE depleted profiles similar to those of the Pico Cabuji protogranular type, but have higher REE concentrations and more marked negative HFSE spikes (Fig. 1). Nd and Sr isotopes of the Pico Cabuji porphyroclastic clinopyroxenes (143Nd/144Nd = 0.51339-0.51255, 87Sr/86Sr = 0.70275- 0.70319) and of Fernando de Noronha (143Nd/144Nd = 0.51323-0.51285, 87Sr/86Sr = 0.70323-0.70465) plot on distinct arrays originating from a similar, isotopically depleted composition and trending to lowNd-lowSr and lowNd-high- Sr, respectively. 143Nd/144Nd decreases, and 87Sr/86Sr increases, with increasing Mg# of clinopyroxene and with all the parameters indicative of previous melting episodes (modal clinopyroxene, bulk rock MgO). The opposite correlations are observed with LREE concentration, LaN/SmN, and with all the parameters reflecting metasomatic enrichment indicating different isotope and geochemical characteristics of the Pico Cabuji and Fernando de Noronha metasomatic agents. In both occurrences the premetasomatic lithosphere was isotopically similar to DMM (depleted MORB mantle) whereas the metasomatic component was EMI-like and EMII-like at Pico Cabuji and Fernando de Noronha respectively. The EMII component of Fernando de Noronha may be related with a crustal reservoir present at Fernando de Noronha and not at Pico Cabuji. The diversity of the metasomatic components between Pico Cabuji and Fernando de Noronha indicates considerable heterogeneity in their respective sources, difficult to reconcile with their supposed genetic relationship with the same plume.


China's 12th five-year plan represents a radical change in strategy. China now sees its future growth within this strategy and accordingly as driven by: a rising share of consumption; moving to a low-carbon economy; and innovation. Two indicators are examined – capital efficiency and the relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and output. These help us to understand the scale of the challenges and possibilities in China over the coming decades. The power of China's example will be immense in influencing the world's transition to a low-carbon economy and thus how successful the world will be in managing the huge risks of climate change. The 12th plan is very likely to establish China as a leader in the new energy-industrial revolution and demonstrate to the world the potential of this revolution. The implications for the rich countries from such radical change are profound and they should be discussing now how they will handle and respond to such massive change.


Author(s): Singer, Brett C.; Less, Brennan D.; Delp, William W.; Brooks, Andrew; Cohn, Sebastian | Abstract: To inform efforts to improve combustion appliance testing in residential energy efficiency programs, we studied the frequency of coincident fan use and depressurization-induced downdrafting and spillage from atmospherically vented (i.e., natural draft) wall furnaces in airtight apartments. Indoor environmental conditions, heating appliance operation, use of exhaust fans, and cooking with stovetop or oven were monitored for approximately three weeks each in 16 apartment units in two buildings in Northern California. Apartments also were assessed using standard combustion appliance safety test methods and enhanced protocols. Monitoring occurred in February and March of 2016, with heating demand corresponding to 7.3 ± 0.5 heating degree-days at a 65oF reference temperature. Most of the furnaces spilled combustion products when the apartments were depressurized in the "worst-case" challenge condition of all exhaust fans operating at their highest settings and all windows closed. Many also spilled under less challenging conditions (e.g., with kitchen exhaust fan on low and bathroom fan operating). On average, bathroom exhaust fans were operated 3.9% of monitored minutes (13.5% max), and cooking (burner or kitchen fan operation) occurred 4.6% of minutes (max 13.3%). Event lengths averaged 17 minutes (max 540) and 34 minutes (max 324), respectively. Their coincident operation averaged 0.34% of minutes (max 2.0%), with average event length of 13 minutes (max 92 minutes). This suggests that the operation of apartment units at or near the currently used worst-case challenge condition is quite rare. Wall furnace burners operated an average of 2.8% of minutes (max of 8.9%), with average burner cycle length of 14 minutes (max 162). Coincident bath fan use, cooking and wall furnace operation was very rare, occurring only a handful of times across all apartments. The highest rate was 0.075% of monitored minutes in one apartment, and the longest event length was 12 minutes. Exhaust fan operation in this study may have been more frequent than typical as participants were asked to use an exhaust fan whenever cooking or bathing. Consistent with the low levels of coincident operation, unambiguous spillage occurred in only 4 apartments and the longest event was 5 minutes. The frequency of partial spillage is unknown, owing to a lack of a clear signal from monitored parameters. Downdrafting during exhaust fan use occurred in all 13 of the apartments with relevant data, and 9 of these units had 10 or more events. Exhaust fans also sometimes led to weakened draft, even if downdrafting did not occur. Each unambiguous spillage event identified in the study was immediately preceded by downdrafting. The observed occurrence of downdrafting and spillage may have been impacted in those apartments with the most severe drafting problems (i.e., appliances spilled combustion pollutants under 'natural' test conditions), because occupants in these units were instructed to open windows whenever using the kitchen exhaust fan.


This research presents a solution for evaluation of kinetic faAades system performance via experiences and lessons learnt from experiments. We bridge between architects and engineers to address limitations associated with incorporating performance criteria in the design of kinetic faAades by integrating different simulation tools. The experiments focus on optimization of the daylight performance through the design and motion of kinetic faAades using various integrated software. The research is developed using real time data feedback processed through various digital tools from three domains: (1) Architectural design, (2) day-lighting performance and (3) parametric design computation. From the evaluations, the paper demonstrates the analysis of kinetic motion for daylight optimization at the early design stage and suggests possible configurations for daylight performance.


The nebula powered by the Vela pulsar is one of the best examples of an evolved pulsar wind nebula, allowing access to the particle injection history and the interaction with the supernova ejecta. We report on the INTEGRAL discovery of extended emission above 18 keV from the Vela nebula. The northern side has no known counterparts and it appears larger and more significant than the southern one, which is in turn partially coincident with the cocoon, the soft X-ray, and TeV filament toward the center of the remnant. We also present the spectrum of the Vela nebula in the 18–400 keV energy range as measured by IBIS/ISGRI and SPI on board the INTEGRAL satellite. The apparent discrepancy between IBIS/ISGRI, SPI, and previous measurements is understood in terms of the point-spread function, supporting the hypothesis of a nebula more diffuse than previously thought. A break at ∼25 keV is found in the spectrum within 6′ from the pulsar after including the Suzaku XIS data. Interpreted as a cooling break, this points out that the inner nebula is composed of electrons injected in the last ∼2000 years. Broadband modeling also implies a magnetic field higher than 10 μG in this region. Finally, we discuss the nature of the northern emission, which might be due to fresh particles injected after the passage of the reverse shock.


The plastic injection molding has been widely used in the manufacturing industry
due to its advance improvement in producing complex net shaped parts. However, there is
still lack of efforts in the concept of early cost estimation on mold and most of the
injection molders do not have adequate mechanisms to rapidly estimating the mold cost.
This paper addresses the development of a method in estimating the cost of a plastic
injection mold at the early stages of design. In this research, an early cost estimation
formula for plastic injection mold had been developed from the ten sets of historical data
of existing injection molds. This estimation formula had been tested with another four
sets of molding part to check for its feasibility study. These all sample sets of injection
molds were from a variety of part sizes and complexity designs from a local injection
moldmaker. All tested molding parts were selected from the mold type of two-plate with
cold runner system. The mold cost formula was derived from the part's envelope volume,
number of part dimensions, number of part actuators and part's dimension tolerance as the mold cost independent variables. The strength of the relationships between the mold
cost and its independent variables were investigated by using the statistical linear
regression analysis. The results of analysis indicated that the number of part dimensions
has the highest significant correlation with the mold cost, followed by the part's envelope
volume and then the number of part actuators, while the variable of dimension tolerance
did not show a significant correlation to the mold cost.


Existing South African work on firm‐level data has been limited by access to large datasets that track firms over time. This paper overcomes this by analysing a new dataset of the population of manufacturing firms that are matched to their export transactions. South African firm‐level exporting is similar to the stylised facts of firm‐level exporting found internationally. Moreover, heterogeneity that exists within exporting is evident. Not only do exporters differ in terms of the amount exported, but also in terms of the number of products and destinations they export too. These in turn are related to firm‐level characteristics including productivity.


What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more" ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." [Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §341]


BACKGROUND
Calcium supplementation may prevent high blood pressure through a number of mechanisms and may help to prevent preterm labour.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this review was to assess the effects of calcium supplementation during pregnancy on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and related maternal and child adverse outcomes.

SEARCH STRATEGY
We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group trials register and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register and we contacted study authors. Date of last search: February 2000.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised trials comparing at least one gram daily of calcium during pregnancy with placebo.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Eligibility and trial quality were assessed. Data extraction was carried out and double entered.

MAIN RESULTS
Ten studies were included, all of good quality. There was a modest reduction in high blood pressure with calcium supplementation (relative risk 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.74 to 0.89). The effect was greatest for women at high risk of hypertension (relative risk 0.35, 95% confidence interval 0.21 to 0.57) and those with low baseline dietary calcium (relative risk 0.49, 95% confidence interval 0.38 to 0.62). There was also a modest reduction in the risk of pre-eclampsia with calcium supplementation (relative risk 0. 70, 95% confidence interval 0.58 to 0.83). The effect was greatest for women at high risk of hypertension (relative risk 0.22, 95% confidence interval 0.11 to 0.43) and those with low baseline calcium intake (relative risk 0.32, 95% confidence interval 0.21 to 0.49). There was no overall effect on the risk of preterm delivery, although there was a reduction in risk amongst women at high risk of hypertension (relative risk 0.43, 95% confidence interval 0.24 to 0. 79). There was no evidence of any effect of calcium supplementation on stillbirth or death before discharge from hospital. There were fewer babies with birthweight, <2500g (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.71-0.98). In one study, childhood systolic blood pressure >95th percentile was reduced (RR0.59, 95% CI 0.39-0.91).

REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS
Calcium supplementation appears to be beneficial for women at high risk of gestational hypertension and in communities with low dietary calcium intake. Optimum dosage requires further investigation.


Weed suppression is a potential benefit of cover crop mixtures, as species diversity may allow for combining early and late-season competition with weeds. Here, we studied if this is possible for only-legume mixtures containing species with different growth rates, by testing two legumes, alsike clover (AC; Trifolium hybridum L.) and black medic (BM; Medicago lupulina L.) in two field trials sown in 2016 and 2017. Five AC:BM ratios (100:0, 67:33, 50:50, 33:67, and 0:100) were grown at three densities (50%, 100%, and 150% of recommended seed density). Cover crop and weed aboveground biomass (CCB and WB, respectively) were harvested three times, after establishment in spring (H1), in summer (H2), and in autumn after mulching (H3). Compared to fallow plots, all monocultures and mixtures showed early-season weed suppression in terms of biomass production and more efficiency over time with an average reduction of 42%, 52%, and 96% in 2016, and 39%, 55%, and 89% in 2017 at H1, H2, and H3, respectively. Out of 54 mixture treatments, only eight mixtures showed stronger weed suppression than monocultures. Mixtures reduced WB by 28%, as an average value, in 2017 compared to the respective monocultures, but not significantly in 2016, indicating that the crop diversity effect on weeds was dependent on the growing environment. Weed suppression was significantly higher at 100% and 150% seed density than 50%, but no significant differences were determined between 100% and 150% seed density. After mulching, no density effect was observed on CCB and WB. In conclusion, AC and BM can be used as a keystone species on weed suppression for sustainable agriculture as they possess plasticity to suppress weeds when higher biomass productivity is limited by environmental conditions. However, their diversity effects are time and condition dependent. Appropriate seed density and mulching can successfully be employed in weed management, but seed density may not have an effect after mulching.


We demonstrate tunable re-directing, blocking, and splitting of a light beam along defect channels based on spatial bandgap guidance in two-dimensional photonic lattices. We show the possibility for linear control of beam propagation and multicolor routing with specially designed junctions and surface structures embedded in otherwise uniform square lattices.


Scent-marking is a predominant form of communication among felids, with urine spraying having a key role. Detectability and longevity of scent marks are recognized as crucial for efficiency of scent-marking, but there is limited research that has tested scent persistence with respect to various environmental factors. We used an experimental framework to measure human-perceived strength of felid urine smell and determine the effects of substrate, tilt and aspect of marked surfaces on persistence of the simulated scent marks. We used area under the curve (AUC), calculated for the scent strength of each scent-marked surface over time, as a proxy for urine scent preservation. Thereafter, we used ANOVA, followed by analysis of differences of interest between the marking sites, to assess the effect of environmental factors on human-perceived scent mark persistence. Odour persisted significantly better on rough surfaces, surfaces covered with moss and on surfaces with overhanging tilts, while there was no significant difference between the northerly- and southerly-oriented surfaces. The results are generally in accordance with the use and selection of marking sites previously reported for wild felids throughout the world, confirming that in their marking behaviour felids strive to prolong the persistence of scent marks. This knowledge will help researchers in interpretation of data on scent-marking and to evaluate the adaptive significance of this behaviour.


Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1993, this is an account of the making of Lincoln's revolutionary masterpiece. Lincoln was asked to prepare a memorial for the battle at Gettysburg. Instead, he gave the whole nation "a birth of freedom" - by tracing its birth to the Declaration of Independence (which called all men equal) rather than the Constitution (which tolerated slavery). In the space of a mere 272 words, Lincoln combines the rhetoric of the Greek Revival and the categories of Transcendentalism, to provide stunning imagery of the Rural Cemetery Movement. His entire previous life and training, his deep political experience, went into this, his masterpiece.