An ecological approach to space allows human constructs to become the primary prism through which to view workplaces (Nespor, 2000; Urry, 2005; Murdoch 2006). Human beings create meaning in their environments via the unity of symbolic actions and generalized meaning fields that gain their social usefulness via their affective tone. The resulting personal system becomes projected onto the world via the personal arrangement of things that are important for each person (Valsiner, 2000; Valsiner, 2005). Consequently, individual human beings constantly order parts in their environments through an affective-emotional lens when they encounter ideas, objects and spaces (Hochschild, 2003; Thrift, 2008; Boys, 2011). I use the emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983) concepts of display rules (expectations for emotional display) and feeling rules (expectations for internal affect) together with an ecological approach to space to investigate the existence of affective-emotional zones in schools. My research questions were: How do participants in a school make sense of their work environment through the lens of affective-emotional zones? How are affective-emotional zones characterized in terms of display rules and feeling rules? What challenges do teachers face when they are in particular affective-emotional zones and why? I broadly utilized a case study approach with a European international school to interview six experienced teachers using an active interview technique with open coding (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) and critical event coding (Webster and Mertova, 2007) as the principle methods of analysis. I was able to label and describe four zones that I argued are products of teacher rituals, habits, feelings (feeling rules) and emotions (display rules); the communal zone, the school zone, the student zone and the teacher zone. I further the notion of heretical feelings and emotions and describe how they constitute elements of the teacher condition. I found school affective-emotional zones are temporal as school spaces have the potential to shift from one affective-emotional zone to another as a consequence of time changes in the school day. I outline questions for future research based on my findings.


In an average growing season in the Northeast, rainfall is somewhat less than is required for optimal performance of fruit crops. The shortage of moisture during critical periods of crop growth and fruit development affects both yields and sizing of produce, thus affecting receipts through both volume of production and average price. Seasons in which moisture is a severe limiting factor affecting profitability occur perhaps two or three years in ten for individual growers in the Northeast. Today's apple growers need investment and cost guidelines to determine the economics of getting trees into production as soon as possible and to avoid periods of drought during the productive life of orchards. Research was undertaken to determine drip irrigation investment and costs in an apple orchard. This project was designed to assist growers in determining the investment, fixed and variable costs and expected returns from drip irrigation. Irrigation suppliers provided typical equipment needs and investment costs for various drip irrigation designs. Economic worksheets were developed to assist growers in estimating fixed and variable costs of drip irrigation. The economics of yield data were applied to replicated mUlti-year irrigation studies to assist growers in determining yield response from drip irrigation. et present value (NPV) methodology was used to determine the discounted break-even investment results from published responses to drip irrigation. Growers with typical drip irrigation systems and various water sources can expect investments in drip irrigation of $464 to $880 per acre with 10 acre blocks of trees. Based upon seven years of data from the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station average yield increases due to irrigation were 117 bushels per acre, resulting in a break-even investment of around $2,000 per acre. Growers who were interviewed were unable to quantify the benefits and costs of drip irrigation but were convinced of positive yield and quality responses from drip irrigation. This analysis has proved the economic rational for the investment in microirrigation.


This paper addresses the problem of unsupervised domain adaption from theoretical and algorithmic perspectives. Existing domain adaptation theories naturally imply minimax optimization algorithms, which connect well with the domain adaptation methods based on adversarial learning. However, several disconnections still exist and form the gap between theory and algorithm. We extend previous theories (Mansour et al., 2009c; Ben-David et al., 2010) to multiclass classification in domain adaptation, where classifiers based on the scoring functions and margin loss are standard choices in algorithm design. We introduce Margin Disparity Discrepancy, a novel measurement with rigorous generalization bounds, tailored to the distribution comparison with the asymmetric margin loss, and to the minimax optimization for easier training. Our theory can be seamlessly transformed into an adversarial learning algorithm for domain adaptation, successfully bridging the gap between theory and algorithm. A series of empirical studies show that our algorithm achieves the state of the art accuracies on challenging domain adaptation tasks.


Two Ru hydride complexes, Cp*Ru(PPh2NBn2)H (1-H) and Cp*Ru(PtBu2NBn2)H (2-H) supported by cyclic PR2NR′2 ligands (Cp* = η5-C5Me5; PR2NBn2 = 1,5-dibenzyl,-3,7-R-1,5-diaza-3,7-diphosphacyclooctane, where R = Ph or tBu) have been developed as electrocatalysts for oxidation of H2 (1.0 atm, 22 °C). The turnover frequency of 2-H is 1.2 s−1 at 22 °C (1.0 atm H2) with an overpotential at Ecat/2 of 0.5 V in the presence of exogenous base, DBU (1,8-diazabicyclo[5.4.0]undec-7-ene), while catalysis by 1-H has a turnover frequency of 0.6 s−1 and an overpotential of 0.6 V at Ecat/2. Addition of H2O facilitates oxidation of H2 by 2-H and increases its turnover frequency to 1.9 s−1, while H2O slows down the catalysis by 1-H. In addition, studies of Cp*Ru(dmpm)H (where dmpm = bis(dimethylphosphino)methane), a control complex lacking pendent amines in its diphosphine ligand, confirms the critical roles of the pendant amines of the P2N2 ligands as proton relays in the oxidation of H2.


Epidemiological studies have revealed an association between a high consumption of fruit, vegetables and herbs and a lower risk of both cancer and cardiovascular diseases. This protective effect is mostly due to secondary metabolites present in plant tissues. In contrast to numerous previous UV-B studies, which have focused on the potential impacts of increased levels of solar UV-B radiation reaching the Earth's surface due to stratospheric ozone depletion, recent investigations revealed that UV-B radiation is an important regulator of plant secondary metabolism. Low, ecologically-relevant UV-B levels trigger distinct changes in the biosynthesis of secondary plant metabolites such as phenolic compounds, carotenoids and glucosinolates. Fundamental understanding of plant UV-B perception and responses opens up new opportunities for crop manipulation. Thus, targeted low dosage UV-B radiation treatments as emerging technology may be used to generate fruit, vegetables and herbs enriched with secondary plant metabolites for either fresh consumption or as a source for functional foods and nutraceuticals.


Functional connectivity between two brain regions, measured using functional MRI (fMRI), has been shown to be modulated by other regions even in a resting state, i.e., without performing specific tasks. We aimed to characterize large-scale modulatory interactions by performing region-of-interest (ROI)-based physiophysiological interaction analysis on resting-state fMRI data. Modulatory interactions were calculated for every possible combination of three ROIs among 160 ROIs sampling the whole brain. Firstly, among all of the significant modulatory interactions, there were considerably more negative than positive effects; i.e., in more cases, an increase of activity in one region was associated with decreased functional connectivity between two other regions. Next, modulatory interactions were categorized as to whether the three ROIs were from one single network module, two modules, or three different modules (defined by a modularity analysis on their functional connectivity). Positive modulatory interactions were more represented than expected in cases in which the three ROIs were from a single module, suggesting an increase within module processing efficiency through positive modulatory interactions. In contrast, negative modulatory interactions were more represented than expected in cases in which the three ROIs were from two modules, suggesting a tendency of between-module segregation through negative modulatory interactions. Regions that were more likely to have modulatory interactions were then identified. The numbers of significant modulatory interactions for different regions were correlated with the regions' connectivity strengths and connection degrees. These results demonstrate whole-brain characteristics of modulatory interactions and may provide guidance for future studies of connectivity dynamics in both resting state and task state.


Like Gaul, corporate law scholarship can be divided into three overflowing buckets: pro-manager, pro-shareholder, and empirical. We classify empirical scholarship as a separate category, in significant part because of Professor Randall Thomas. In the pre-Thomas era, much of the literature fell into the first two buckets, with empirical researchers deploying data collection and analysis to support their particular bent. Then Professor Thomas emerged as a distinctive empiricist. Throughout his career, he has published scores of pathbreaking studies while maintaining relative neutrality as to the normative implications. He does not deploy data and its analysis to advocate for particular positions, but instead maps the terrain in which policy can then be considered. Thus, Professor Thomas's category of scholarship is the third way—a balanced approach to generating and assessing evidence, without a particular viewpoint. We focus here on two areas of empirical exploration of the shareholder franchise, shareholder rights to sue and vote, where


Descriptive region features extracted by object detection networks have played an important role in the recent advancements of image captioning. However, they are still criticized for the lack of contextual information and fine-grained details, which in contrast are the merits of traditional grid features. In this paper, we introduce a novel Dual-Level Collaborative Transformer (DLCT) network to realize the complementary advantages of the two features.
Concretely, in DLCT, these two features are first processed by a novel Dual-way Self Attenion (DWSA) to mine their intrinsic properties, where a Comprehensive Relation Attention component is also introduced to embed the geometric information. In addition, we propose a Locality-Constrained Cross Attention module to address the semantic noises caused by the direct fusion of these two features, where a geometric alignment graph is constructed to accurately align and reinforce region and grid features. To validate our model, we conduct extensive experiments on the highly competitive MS-COCO dataset, and achieve new state-of-the-art performance on both local and online test sets, i.e., 133.8% CIDEr on Karpathy split and 135.4% CIDEr on the official split.


Abstract Limited research investigates future participants' perspectives of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) – Australia's first national attempt towards self-directed disability service provision. To identify future participants' perspectives, seventy people with disability in South-East Queensland participated in an interview. Over half the participants demonstrated having little to no knowledge of the NDIS. Participants' expected that: (i) they would make decisions around organising and paying support and (ii) that their current service provider would provide the support. Participants also indicated that training around budgeting and hiring would be essential to ensure their successfully engagement with the NDIS. The findings are timely and provide a first-hand account of how people with disability intend to engage with self-directed support programs. Findings also imply that targeted information dissemination and participant training and support are necessary to ensure their successful participation within self-directed programs.


Current Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) techniques use fixed diameter nozzles to deposit a filament of plastic layer by layer. The consequence is that the same small nozzle, essential for fine details, is also used to fill in relatively large volumes. In practice a Pareto-optimal nozzle diameter is chosen that attempts to maximise resolution while minimising build time. This paper introduces a concept for adapting an additive manufacturing system, which exploits a variable diameter nozzle for the fused deposition of polymers. The variable nozzle allows the print resolution and the build speed to become independent variables which may be optimised. The paper discusses a concept design for the variable diameter nozzle to be fitted to a RapMan 3D printer and the software used to generate the tool paths for the extrusion head. The methodology involves the use of existing software solutions to gather basic data from STL files and generate the tool paths. A method for integrating the data and the deposition system is proposed. The challenges and possibilities of the technology are discussed as well as future research.


Widening Participation in Higher Education requires effective interaction between higher education institutions and under-represented communities. Such interaction has traditionally taken the form of outreach events/school visits by the university aimed at promoting engagement, or one-off visits by a few selected 'master class' students to the campus for a tour or lecture. However, this approach doesn't take into account cultural barriers that may exist in communities without a tradition of higher education. These barriers often prevent the students from considering university study as relevant or their parents being willing or able to support their children in their aspirations. This report evaluates a year-long programme of weekend sessions – the Nurturing Talent Programme - delivered by volunteer graduate mentors of Somali origin with the intention of inspiring young students from the Somali community of Brent, as well as furnishing them with the skills and knowledge required to access higher education. Through a series of academic and soft-skill based workshops delivered in the local secondary school (Capital City Academy)1 and visits to universities and museums, these volunteers have had a huge impact on the students they have been mentoring. Our evidence shows that the students' attitudes towards university and their own potential place in HE have improved significantly, and that there has been a perceptible increase in maturity in the students' attitudes towards their future. Furthermore, teachers have reported that many of the youngsters have demonstrated improved academic performance over the course of a year, which appears to be directly related to the impact of the Nurturing Talent program. The positive outcomes have been the consequence of three key features of the program: i) The involvement of mentors from the Somali community, who are graduates or are engaged in university study, showed the students that they can genuinely aspire to engage in university study. ii) Visits to universities had a significant impact on the students by introducing them to potential fellow students from a range of backgrounds and giving familiarity with the environment and they would be going into. Visits which included an element of hands-on activity (rather than talk/tour sessions) clearly had the biggest impact on aspirations. iii) The involvement of parents engendered notable enthusiasm during the programme, which is highly significant given the important role played by parents in encouraging/supporting their children. It was clear that parents' knowledge of the UK education system and the opportunities available to their children was limited at the start of the project, with most of them having moved to the UK during adulthood. At the end of the programme, the positive attitudes of the youngsters had influenced the parents, who were also more confident about HE process.


In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") began to grant incumbent local exchange carriers ("LECs") pricing flexibility on special access services in some Metropolitan Statistical Areas ("MSAs") when specific evidence of competitive alternatives is present. The propriety of that deregulatory move by the FCC has been criticized by the purchasers of such services ever since. Proponents of special access price regulation rely on three central arguments to support a retreat to strict price regulation: (1) the market(s) for special access and similar services is unduly concentrated; (2) rates of return on special access services, computed using FCC ARMIS data, are very high; and (3) prices for special access services are lower in more heavily regulated markets than in markets with the most pricing flexibility. As shown in this Policy Paper, these arguments, even if factually correct (which they are not), do not prove the presence of undue market power and, therefore, the need for additional price regulation. Moreover, those lines of inquiry do not consider the potential costs or risks of regulatory intervention, which must be part of any serious cost/benefit analysis. That said, given the importance of this issue, we provide several recommendations for policymakers that are evaluating the special access regulatory paradigm. First and foremost, data collection must be improved. Second, any revision to the special access price regulation paradigm must be subject to a stringent cost/benefit test, with explicit consideration of the costs of regulation. Finally, when gathering and analyzing more comprehensive data, policymakers should distinguish between economic definitions of "geographic market" and geographic areas for proper and efficient administration of its special access rules.


Colorectal cancer is the third most common form of cancer, and is the number two cancer-related death in the United States. Receiving regular colonoscopies can reduce the average person's risk of dying from colon cancer by 90%. However, only 54% if adults over the age of 50 get regular colonoscopies. This low percentage can be attributed to the exam's poor availability, severe discomfort, high cost, and the risk of procedural complications. The Endoscope Propulsion System, or EPS, will assist in the colonoscopy procedure. This device will enable a lesser skilled physician to effectively perform the colonoscopy, thus increasing the procedure's availability. In addition to requiring less skill, the assistive nature of the EPS will also decrease the chance of complications due to colon perforation. The EPS will greatly reduce the discomfort cause by the colonoscope, which will eliminate the need for anesthesia and recovery, therefore greatly reducing the cost of the procedure. The Endoscope Propulsion System design described in this paper is an update to the device outlined in Dr. M. Jonathan Bern's patent application (20060270901). The criteria and requirements of the design are discussed along with the final design and analysis. Finally, a prototype was built to ensure the validity of the proposed invention.


Until recently, Pakistan was considered as a 'low HIV prevalence, high risk country' in relation to HIV. The country is now classified as having a concentrated epidemic, with an HIV prevalence of more than 5% among injecting drug users (IDUs) in at least eight major cities in three of the four provinces and among Hijras sex workers in at least one city [1, 2]. At the end of 2009, it was estimated that were 97,400 people living with HIV and AIDS, with 2,917 patients registered across the country, among whom 1,320 are on antiretroviral drug therapy [2]. The national adult HIV prevalence among the general population remains under 0.1% [2].


Upflow anaerobic sludge bed reactors fed on glucose were used to investigate the effects of Ce(3+) on soluble microbial products (SMP) production, which is the majority of the residual chemical oxygen demand present in the effluent. It was found that Ce(3+) concentration of 0.05 mg/L had no significant effect on the amount of SMP production, whereas that of 1 mg/L led to the increase in SMP production. The molecular-weight distribution and carbohydrate analysis indicated that an increase in SMP production may be partly attributed to the release of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) into the bulk solution resulted from cerium toxicity, and the nucleic acids analysis suggested that increased cell lysis also contributed to SMP accumulation in the presence of Ce(3+). The increase in SMP production in the presence of Ce(3+) is possibly a consequence of the release of EPS and increased cell lysis due to cerium toxicity.


One of the largest drivers of growing global energy demand is the increasing market penetration of air conditioners (ACs). The resulting energy consumption can be mitigated by two main policy interventions: regulatory measures, such as minimum energy performance standard (MEPS) or labeling programs, and voluntary measures, such as financial incentives programs. Financial incentives, also known as economic instruments, leverage private investments to pull higher efficiency technologies into the market. This paper focuses on this second policy option. Using detailed case studies of AC energy efficiency incentive programs, the paper explores their global experience, shows their significance and diversity, describes their program designs, and shares lessons learned from their implementation. The paper also describes how incentive programs can be designed to address additional pressing concerns of growing AC use such as the power supply reliability due to increase peak demand and global warming potential (GWP) of refrigerants used in ACs. For policymakers and program administrators interested in addressing AC energy efficiency and willing to implement AC schemes, the paper provides examples of past and present programs and highlights concerns that need to be considered when making decisions on program design and implementation. After an overview of AC markets highlighting their growth, their savings potential and the typical barriers to the penetration of more efficient models, six AC incentive programs are selected and examined in depth based on evaluation reports and/or interviews with program administrators. Finally, we outline program design features that effectively a) increase penetration of energy efficient ACs, b) increase utility and customer participation in demand response (DR) programs targeted at reducing peak-load impacts on the grid and c) phase out the use of highGWP refrigerants in ACs. We find that incentive programs are particularly effective when they target emerging technologies that still have a low market penetration.


A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels, by David Laird Dungan. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1999Pp. xiv + 526. $39.95 (cloth). David Dungan's recent contribution to the ABRL, A History of the Synoptic Problem, is an excellent intermediate-level survey of the Synoptic Problem. This recent history is commendable for at least three reasons: (1) it sets the debate in its historic economic, political, and intellectual settings; (2) it comprehensively covers the debate through the past two millennia; and (3) it rationally calls into question common assumptions among the majority of scholars today. As the title suggests, Dungan describes the history of the debate from the first century to the present. As his is a single-volume treatment, the author must often use broad strokes to sketch the picture of this history. With each stroke, however, Dungan offers a plethora of documentation to support his statements and reconstructions. The result is a quality historiography that offers the student a guide and the scholar a reference to the development of the debate through the centuries. Dungan lays out the history of the debate according to the way major figures have answered the central question "Where may I find reliable testimony to the Lord Jesus?' In demonstrating the responses to this question, Dungan discusses the development of the debate according to three main periods. The first stretches from the first century until the time of Augustine; the second is from the Italian Renaissance until the end of World War II; and the third includes the decades since WWII. In a highly readable, narrative style, Dungan discusses the salient developments and challenges in the early church through the texts of Luke, Papias, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Marcion, and Celsus. Then he illustrates how Origen addressed all four elements of the Synoptic Problem for the first time (canon, text, composition, and hermeneutics). Here, Dungan goes beyond many treatments of this topic as he demonstrates the need to consider the canonical and textual issues before one addresses the compositional and hermeneutical elements of the problem. Next, the author illustrates the Christian movement embattled by Porphyry's attacks and gives a plausible interpretation of Eusebius's works (Preparation for the Gospel, Demonstration of the Gospel, Ecclesiastical History, and Gospel Canons) as a response to the critic. Further, Tertullian's remarks on the logic of canonization in The Prescription of Heretics are used to demonstrate the view that unity was equated with veracity. Dungan closes the first part of the book with a discussion of Augustine's harmonization of the Gospels. In this second form of the Synoptic Problem, the author recounts Augustine's assumptions and method in resolving the issue. This refutation of the Manichaeans is also seen to close the book on the Porphyrian and Neoplatonic criticisms. Dungan grants that the official suppression of these views may be more the reason for the silence than Augustine's writing; nevertheless, Augustine's treatment stood until the beginning of the Enlightenment. In the second part of the book, Dungan addresses the cultural, political, economic, and technological elements that contributed to the development of the historical-critical method and the modern understanding and common resolution of the Synoptic Problem. Beginning with the Italian Renaissance, Dungan demonstrates how the scientific approach to biblical studies developed out of the breakdown of the "medieval synthesis" and resulted in "denaturing the Bible so that it became no more than a handbook of morality any decent person could accept" (p. 148). In successive chapters, Dungan shows how the Enlightenment and Romantic understandings of nature changed the basis of reason. The purely physical view of the cosmos precipitated the understanding of the universe as a "thing" and the basis of knowledge as empirical data. …


While the European Enlightenment marked the dawn of our modern era, marked by a belief in the rule of law to deliver security and prosperity to all people, the geopolitical reality of world order has not delivered on this promise. The case of Western Sahara, a UN declared non-self-governing territory demonstrates the negative implications for human rights where fissures occur between what Charles Taylor deemed the modern social imaginary and this global political reality. This paper explores the history of the Western Sahara conflict with respect to the UN framework of international law regarding self-determination. It concludes by offering suggestions for moving past a mere acceptance of the feasible, looking towards the ideal.


Monitoring changes of the protein contents and other macromolecules inside a living single cell during the key cellular processes such as cell differentiation, division, and apoptosis is a challenge for researchers. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful analytical technique for several biomedical applications that is rapid, reagent-free, and non-destruc-tive while limited application with its weak signal. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique is widely used to enhance the Raman signal (10 9-15 fold) by using surface Plasmon resonance of noble metal nanostructures (e.g. silver, gold, copper). SERS is a non-destructive spectroscopic method applied for biomedical samples. In this chapter, we will discuss the principles and fundamentals of SERS technique, theories and dif- ferent strategies to obtain SERS signals such as immobilization of metal colloids on a substrate. Also, we show the SERS applications including the identification and discrimi- nation of different types of cells (healthy and nonhealthy cells, e.g., cancer cells), and the interaction of cells with different drugs will also be discussed on monolayer bulk cells as well as on single-cell basis and for stem cell differentiation. In addition, we show the coupling of SERS with electrochemical techniques (EC-SERS) as spectroelectrochemical technique and its applications in biology, bioanalytical, and life science.


This Article challenges a foundational assumption about eminent domain - namely, that owners are systematically undercompensated because they receive only fair market value for their property. The Article shows that, in fact, scholars have overstated the undercompensation problem because they have focused on the compensation required by the Constitution, rather than on the actual mechanics of eminent domain. The Article examines three ways that Takers (i.e., non-judicial actors in the eminent domain process) minimize undercompensation. First, Takers may avoid taking high-subjective-value properties. Second, Takers frequently must pay more compensation in the form of relocation assistance. Third, Takers and property owners may voluntarily settle on above-market compensation during pre-condemnation negotiations. The Article concludes by reflecting upon current efforts to reform eminent domain legislatively. Prominent legal scholars recently have proposed compensation-based reforms as an alternative to constraints on the use of eminent domain. The final Part rejects this suggestion, arguing that there are two problems, unique to takings raising public use questions, that more money cannot solve: First, high compensation levels may undermine political resistance to questionable projects; second, private takings may generate non-instrumental harms that will persist even as compensation increases.


Whyte, Kenneth. The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst. Berkeley, Calif.: Counterpoint, 2009. 546 pp. $30. No prominent figure in American journalism has been so cursed by pitiless biographers as William Randolph Hearst. Among the most unforgiving of his biographers were Ferdinand Lundberg, whose vicious little book, Imperial Hearst, came out in 1936, and WA. Swanberg, whose superficial Citizen Hearst (1961) was for years the best of a bad lot. All that began to change in 2000 with publication of The Chief, David Nasaw's admirably even-handed treatment of Hearst. In The Uncrowned King, Kenneth Whyte offers a welcome and well-researched revisionist portrait of young Hearst and his rise to national prominence in New York City in the 1890s. Whyte, the editor-in-chief of the Canadian newsweekly Macleans, says his goal in The Uncrowned King was "to determine how Hearst was able to build, almost overnight, a publishing franchise with more than a million readers in a savvy newspaper city served by seventeen major dailies, some of them owned by the most talented and wealthiest editors the United States has ever seen." And he largely succeeds in what is an engaging, readable, and valuable book. He pokes continually and mostly successfully at conventional wisdom about Hearst: the cartoonish image of an unscrupulous, warmongering ringleader of "yellow journalism," who sought mainly to boost circulation with bizarre, outlandish, and sensationalized content. Whyte bases his revised assessments on close reading of Hearst's provocative and aggressive flagship, the New York Journal, and of other important newspapers in fin de siecle New York: the World, the Herald, the Sun, and the Times. Taking the time to read the newspapers is more than can be said for some of Hearst's earlier biographers and having done so allows him to offer valuable context and insight. "Far from being shady, squalid, or trivial," he writes, the yellow journals "were big, rich businesses run out of towering buildings with elevators, telephones, and electric lights. There seemed no limit to their potential size and reach." Young Hearst in New York was brash, innovative, fun-loving, and cutting-edge. Whyte says he effectively set the agenda in 1896-98 for the New York press and America's political class on the thorny question of Cuba, which then was in rebellion against Spain's harsh colonial rule. Spain tried to snuff the insurgency through the harsh and heavy-handed policy of "reconcentration," in which Cuban non-combatants were removed from the countryside to deprive the rebels of civilian support. …


KAITAZOV, G. and T. STOYANCHEV, 2008. Modified hazard analysis. Basic programs of the modified HACCP for poultry industry. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 14: 466-469 We propose a modified HACCP model (MHACCP) of improved quality and economic effectiveness. In addition to the traditional and socially important HACCP mission of food safety, it targets farm competitiveness as a key issue of economic development. MHACCP is an attempt to incorporate the interests of food producers and consumers in Bulgaria for better human healthcare and economic prosperity. In the present study, the hazard analysis, Critical Control Points (CCP) and correction acts for the third subobjective of MHACCP are systematized in 14 programs in view of their more convenient, easy and accurate way to apply in primary poultry and egg production. Each program encompasses different sectors of the entire technological process. Introducing all 14 programs is the correct decision in high tech farms. On the other hand, for low tech farms it is recommended to introduce 3 to 4 or more programs with some compromises in terms of hazard assessment and evaluation of economic efficiency.


Dementia is characterized as a progressive and chronic decline in cognitive function, not limited to memory impairment, which significantly interferes with baseline daily functioning and frequently involves behavioral disturbances. It is known that behavioral problems in dementia negatively affect patients and caregivers. These disturbances lead to institutionalization, increased costs and caregiver burden, and a poorer prognosis.


Perception in architecture and the environment, which is the main concern of this thesis, can be counted as one part of the whole subject of perception. However, currently there is a great lack of application and utilisation of knowledge of that field. One can say that dissatisfaction with undesirable results in the design of our environment and with its design courses, were the main motive behind the researcher's venture into the field of perception and its application to both architecture and urban design. Within the general structure of the research are four case studies chosen as practical applications in these two subject areas, from the point of view of the field of perception. These cases respectively are: The Seventh Heaven Competition, Seventh Heaven 2, The Parliament Square Competition, and finally, the redesign of the Liberation Square in Cairo (Egypt). The redesign of Liberation Square (Maydan Al-Tahrir), in particular is treated as the principal case study through which the researcher attempts both to evaluate the role of the square as a symbolic urban space in Cairo and to redesign it within the methodology derived from his researches. It is worthy of note that the researcher uses the 'questionnaire' as a means of eliciting subjective responses, side by side with a theoretical analysis which mainly has a bias towards psychological and perceptual interpretation. The third part has only one chapter comprising two case studies of a project in Regent's Park in London, 1983. The fourth part has two chapters; these comprise a discussion of the theoretical background to that entity, the square in the city. It comprises a third case study for a project based on a competition for redesigning Parliament Square in London, 1984. The sixth part describes the methodology used in analysing the final case study, that of 'Liberation Square in Cairo'. The seventh part comprises the analysis of 'Liberation Square' in Cairo on two levels: (i) the square as an individual locus, the styles of its buildings, its function, symbolism and validity as a public urban space; and (ii) the square in terms of its relationship to the city as a component of its organism.


In Asón Valley hydrothermal dolomite area (Basque–Cantabrian Basin, northern Spain), an overlapping stepover area between two major basement faults, the Cabuerniga and Ruahermosa transtensional faults, was the location for different scales and types of extensive fractures. This fracture mesh affected the Albian Ranero limestone and was formed in a dilational jog, a regional fluid throughflow area. It acted as pathway for overpressured fluids that controlled the dolomite mineralization in the Ranero massif area. The study of synchronous structural features, fluid flow channelling and dolomitization processes indicated their tectonic control. The fluid circulated and concentrated preferentially in more fractured areas with increased permeability, such as extensional chimneys, creating dolomite bodies. Repeated extensive tectonic activity enhanced fracture porosity, promoting overpressured fluid migration and cyclical dolomitization events. The studied fracture pattern suggests the presence of sinistral transtension during the formation of extensional joint-sets that channellized the mineralizing fluid-flow. A gradation in structural features and dolomite facies and textures is visible from the main Pozalagua fault dolomite body to peripheral dolomite bodies as the Breccia body and Ranero megajoints. These differences could reflect a proximal–distal trend from the main fluid-flow area along the Pozalagua fault to the


Book Review Editor's note: Copies of the book, The Postdivorce Family, were inadvertently sent to two individuals for review. Both reviews appear below. The Postdivorce Family: Children, Parenting, and Society. Ross A. Thompson & Paul R. Amato (Eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 1999. 272 pp. ISBN 0-7619-1489-7. $55.00 cloth, $26.95 paper. Marriage, Divorce, and Children's Adjustment (2nd ed.). Robert E. Emery. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 1999. 160 pp. ISBN 0-7619-0251-1. $49.95 cloth, $21.95 paper. The Postdivorce Family, edited by Ross Thompson and Paul Amato, and Marriage, Divorce, and Children's Adjustment, Second Edition, by Robert Emery, share two fine qualities: (a) they present work that cuts across disciplines (primarily psychology, sociology, and law); and (b) they share an interest in the intersection of social science research and family policy. Hence, these books will be useful both to social science researchers who want to learn more about how decisions involving children and divorce are made among policy makers and in courtrooms, and to practitioners and legal representatives who want to learn more about major findings in social science research. The texts also will be useful to introduce undergraduate and graduate students to the field. The Postdivorce Family contains eight articles from a multidisciplinary symposium held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It begins with two chapters on the consequences of divorce for children. Robert Emery's opening review paints a fairly daunting picture of the stressors that accompany divorce: Behind children's resilience are subtle psychological costs. By contrast, Emery's approach is characterized by an appreciated balance: Yes, divorce creates problems for children that need to be carefully studied and addressed, but the majority of children who experience their parents' divorce turn out much as do those who grow up in two-parent families in the long run. The heightened risk of lowered child well-being that is associated with divorce is partly explained by changes in children's relations with the resident parent, conflict between the parents, changes in the family's economic standing, and children's relations with the nonresident parent. Emery extends these themes in his hook, Marriage, Divorce, and Children's Adjustment. Chapters 4 and 5 inventory the dimensions of children's lives (social behavior, academic performance, intimate relationships in later life, etc.) that are and are not strongly associated with parental divorce and then analyze the most important family processes (parental conflict, childrearing behaviors, economic factors, etc.) that may lie behind many of these divorce effects. Across both books reviewed here, the greatest theoretical development comes in Chapter 6 of Emery's ( 1999) book in which the author presents his model of the process whereby divorce heightens risks for children (also Emery, 1994). The model proposes, in part, that divorce disrupts the understood boundaries of intimacy and authority around the relationship between parents and around each parents relationship with the child. These boundaries must be renegotiated and redefined following divorce, hopefully in ways that allow effective coparenting. The second chapter in The Postdivorce Family, by Alan Booth is written in a more personal style, reflected in the chapter's subtitle, "Reflections on Recent Research." After discussing causes of the long-term increase in the divorce rate, Booth identifies three research directions that are of particular importance. First, divorce effects may reflect a preexisting lack of competency at family life among parents, or what Booth calls "poor marriage material." Second, under conditions of high marital conflict, children do better if their parents divorce; in a context of relatively low marital conflict (the majority of divorce cases), children do worse (see also Amato and Booth, 1997; this finding deserves further replication and testing). …


Corporate Social Responsibility is a wonderful but still new concept in the business arena. We have researched through a lot of literature with different views about this topic. Some writers saw CSR as a concept that businesses can adopt when they feel like because, according to them, there are no inherent benefits accruable from such practices whereas a majority of others are in support of CSR. We have, in this research, demonstrated that, indeed, there are a lot of benefits to business organizations from the discharge of CSR measures. In this study, we have concentrated on the responses of the three major stakeholders in any business venture, whose decisions and actions either improve or mar the success of a business. These are the employees, the customers, and the suppliers. To reduce variableness and biasness, we made use of the primary and secondary data. The primary data were by face-to-face interview while the secondary data were by books, articles and other published materials. The interview was structured in nature. We also introduced the sub-analytical factors which enabled us to evaluate the feedback from the respondents. The questions were framed around these factors and responses to them were carefully noted. Since these factors are instrumental to the growth and development of business organizations, we used them as strong analytical tools to determine how respondents react with issues concerning CSR. Our analysis and conclusion were based on the results of the interviews from the companies and organizations in Sweden, Denmark and Nigeria. We have quantified our results by the Likert Scale, and the results pointed that there is a positive correlation between CSR and the growth and development of companies. Our results also showed that with respect to CSR and the three business stakeholders studied, employees increase growth and development of companies the most, followed closely by customers, and then by suppliers. Furthermore, we x-rayed the limitations or difficulties we encountered in the course of this study. We mentioned that time and the availability of data were our greatest constraints. We also did not fail to give recommendations which we believed will be of immense benefits to firms and business organizations if adhered to.


Purpose Severe zinc (Zn) deficiency has been shown to inhibit INS storage and release. We tested the hypothesis that mild and moderate, as well as severe, Zn deficiency alters glucose (GLC) homeostasis by affecting INS release, using GLC and glucagon as physiologically different INS secretogogues. Methods Weanling rats were fed diets containing different levels of Zn: very low Zn (VLZ, ≤1 mg Zn/kg diet), low Zn (LZ, 7 mg Zn/kg diet), mildly low Zn (MLZ, 15 mg Zn/kg diet), and control (25 mg Zn/kg diet), ad libitum for 3 weeks. In anticipation of reduced food intake, an additional group was pair-fed (PF) to VLZ rats. After 3 weeks on respective diets, rats were fasted overnight (12h), then given an intraperitoneal (ip) GLC injection (2 g/kg body weight) or ip glucagon injection (200 μg/kg body weight). Plasma samples for INS and GLC were collected at baseline and at periodic time intervals after injection. Results In the basal state, no differences in resting plasma GLC between groups were noted. INS values were significantly decreased in VLZ and PF relative to controls with MLZ and LZ having intermediate levels. Basal (Table) INS/GLC ratios were significantly lower in all treatment groups compared to controls and were lowest in VLZ and PF. In response to ip GLC, plasma GLC levels rose similarly in all groups. INS levels remained low in VLZ and PF compared to controls (p ≤ 0.01) and the area beneath the INS curve (AUCi) was lowest in VLZ and PF rats compared to other groups. In response to ip glucagon, plasma GLC levels rose similarly in all groups while INS levels were lower in VLZ and PF rats compared to controls after 60 min (p ≤ 0.01). AUCi after glucagon was significantly lower in VLZ rats compared to LZ, MLZ and controls (p≤0.05) and lower (p=0.07) than PF. INS levels increased less in all Zn deficient groups relative to controls after glucagon as opposed to ip GLC. Conclusion These results confirm that INS secretion is depressed by degrees of Zn deficiency that may be observed in humans. Whether the abnormality is due to Zn-induced inability to store or release INS is not known, but both mechanisms are likely to be affected.


Abstract Simple race games, played with dice and without choice of move, are known from antiquity. In the late 16th century, specific examples of this class of game emerged from Italy and spread rapidly into other countries of Europe. Pre-eminent was the Game of the Goose, which spawned thousands of variants over the succeeding centuries to the present day, including educational, polemical and promotional variants.1 The educational variants began as a French invention of the 17th century, the earliest of known date being a game to teach Geography, the Jeu du Monde by Pierre Duval, published in 1645. By the end of the century, games designed to teach several of the other accomplishments required of the noble cadet class had been developed: History, the Arts of War, and Heraldry being notable among them. A remarkable example of a game within this class is the astronomical game, Le Jeu de la Sphere ou de l'Univers selon Tycho Brahe, published in 1661 by E(s)tienne Vouillemont in Paris. The present paper analyses this game in detail, showing how it combines four kinds of knowledge systems: natural philosophy, based on the Ptolemaic sphere; biblical knowledge; astrology, with planetary and zodiacal influences; and classical knowledge embodied in the names of the constellations. The game not only presents all four on an equal footing but also explores links between them, indicating some acceptance of an overall knowledge-system. Despite the title, there is no evidence of the Tychonian scheme for planetary motion, nor of any Copernican or Galilean influence. This game is to be contrasted with medieval race games, based on numerology and symbolism, and with race games towards the end of the Early Modern period in which science is fully accepted.


Multidrug resistance is a prevailing phenomenon leading to chemotherapy treatment failure in cancer patients. In the current study two known cytotoxic pseudoguaianolide sesquiterpene lactones; neoambrosin (1) and damsin (2) that circumvent MDR were identified. The two cytotoxic compounds were isolated using column chromatography, characterized using 1D and 2D NMR, MS, and compared with literature values. The isolated compounds were investigated for their cytotoxic potential using resazurin assays and thereafter confirmed with immunoblotting and in silico studies. MDR cells overexpressing ABC transporters (P-glycoprotein, BCRP, ABCB5) did not confer cross-resistance toward (1) and (2), indicating that these compounds are not appropriate substrates for any of the three ABC transporters analyzed. Resistance mechanisms investigated also included; the loss of the functions of the TP53 and the mutated EGFR. The HCT116 p53-/- cells were sensitive to 1 but resistant to 2. It was interesting to note that resistant cells transfected with oncogenic ΔEGFR exhibited hypersensitivity CS toward (1) and (2) (degrees of resistances were 0.18 and 0.15 for (1) and (2), respectively). Immunoblotting and in silico analyses revealed that 1 and 2 silenced c-Src kinase activity. It was hypothesized that inhibition of c-Src kinase activity may explain CS in EGFR-transfected cells. In conclusion, the significant cytotoxicity of 1 and 2 against different drug-resistant tumor cell lines indicate that they may be promising candidates to treat refractory tumors.


2†‡ Suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3), a negative-feedback molecule for cytokine signaling, has been implicated in protection against liver injury. Previous studies have shown that overexpression of SOCS3 in the liver by adenovirus or membrane permeable recombinant protein protected the liver from various injuries. However it remained uncertain in which type of cells SOCS3 suppresses liver injury. In this study, we demonstrated that forced expression of SOCS3 in T and NKT cells suppressed ConA-induced hepatitis using T and NKT cell-specific SOCS3 transgenic (Lck-SOCS3 Tg) mice. IFN- (cid:1) and IL-4 production was reduced in Lck-SOCS3 Tg mice as well as splenocytes treated with ConA. IFN- (cid:1) and IL-4 levels were also reduced in Lck-SOCS3 Tg mice administrated with (cid:2) -galactosylceramide, suggesting that SOCS3 in NKT cells has suppressive function. Sustained expression of SOCS3 in an NKT cell line also resulted in reduced expression of various cytokines and transcription factors. In contrast, T and NKT cell-specific SOCS3 conditional knockout (Lck-SOCS3 cKO) mice were hypersensitive to ConA-mediated hepatitis. Isolated SOCS3-deficient NKT cells produced higher levels of IFN- (cid:1) and IL-4. These data indicate that SOCS3 plays a negative regulatory role in NKT cell activation and that forced expression of SOCS3 in NKT cells is effective in preventing hepatitis. The Journal of Immunology, 2009, 183: 7047–7053.


Network pruning is a method for reducing test-time computational resource requirements with minimal performance degradation. Conventional wisdom of pruning algorithms suggests that: (1) Pruning methods exploit information from training data to find good subnetworks; (2) The architecture of the pruned network is crucial for good performance. In this paper, we conduct sanity checks for the above beliefs on several recent unstructured pruning methods and surprisingly find that: (1) A set of methods which aims to find good subnetworks of the randomly-initialized network (which we call "initial tickets"), hardly exploits any information from the training data; (2) For the pruned networks obtained by these methods, randomly changing the preserved weights in each layer, while keeping the total number of preserved weights unchanged per layer, does not affect the final performance. These findings inspire us to choose a series of simple \emph{data-independent} prune ratios for each layer, and randomly prune each layer accordingly to get a subnetwork (which we call "random tickets"). Experimental results show that our zero-shot random tickets outperform or attain a similar performance compared to existing "initial tickets". In addition, we identify one existing pruning method that passes our sanity checks. We hybridize the ratios in our random ticket with this method and propose a new method called "hybrid tickets", which achieves further improvement. (Our code is publicly available at this https URL)


Children with homocystinuria have markedly elevated plasma homocysteine concentrations and increased risks of stroke and coronary heart disease (CHD). Supplementation with folic acid, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 lower homocysteine levels and such therapy is remarkably effective in delaying the occurrence of vascular events in affected individuals. The relevance, if any, of moderately elevated homocysteine levels to cardiovascular disease in the general population is uncertain. The results of retrospective studies of homocysteine and risk of cardiovascular disease (where blood is collected after the onset of disease) indicate that CHD or stroke patients invariably have higher homocysteine levels than age-matched controls. In contrast, the results of prospective studies (where blood is collected before onset of disease) show much weaker associations of homocysteine with cardiovascular disease. This article examines the background, epidemiological evidence relating homocysteine with vascular disease, and effects of vitamin supplements on homocysteine concentrations. Large-scale clinical trials of folic acid-based vitamin supplements are currently in progress to test whether lowering blood homocysteine levels can reduce the risks of CHD and stroke.


We examined data collected on fish assemblage structure among three differing floodplain types (broad, moderate, and narrow) during the 1993 flood in the unimpounded reach of the upper Mississippi River. This 500 year flood event provided a unique opportunity to investigate fish-floodplain function because the main river channel is otherwise typically disjunct from approximately 82% of its floodplain by an extensive levee system. Fishes were sampled during three separate periods, and 42 species of adult and young-of-the-year (YOY) fishes were captured. Analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) revealed a significant and distinguishable difference between both adult and YOY assemblage structure among the three floodplain types. Analysis of variance revealed that Secchi transparency, turbidity, water velocity, and dissolved oxygen were significantly different among the floodplain types. However, only depth of gear deployment and Secchi transparency were significantly correlated with adult assemblage structure. None of these variables were significantly correlated with YOY assemblage structure. The numerically abundant families (adult and YOY catches combined) on the floodplain included Centrarchidae, Ictularidae, and Cyprinidae. Both native and non-native fishes were captured on the floodplain, and several of the numerically abundant species that were captured on the floodplain peaked in catch-per-unit-effort 1–3 years after the 1993 flood event. This suggests that some species may have used flooded terrestrial habitat for spawning, feeding, or both. The findings from our study provide much needed insight into fish-floodplain function in a temperate, channelized river system and suggest that lateral connectivity of the main river channel to less degraded reaches of its floodplain should become a management priority not only to maintain faunal biodiversity but also potentially reduce the impacts of non-native species in large river systems.


Intelligent biomedical devices implies systems that are able to detect specific physiological processes in patients so that particular responses can be generated. This closed-loop capability can have enormous clinical value when we consider the unprecedented modalities that are beginning to emerge for sensing and stimulating patient physiology. Both delivering therapy (e.g., deep-brain stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation, etc.) and treating impairments (e.g., neural prosthesis) requires computational devices that can make clinically relevant inferences, especially using minimally-intrusive patient signals. The key to such devices is algorithms that are based on data-driven signal modeling as well as hardware structures that are specialized to these. This paper discusses the primary application-domain challenges that must be overcome and analyzes the most promising methods for this that are emerging. We then look at how these methods are being incorporated in ultra-low-energy computational platforms and systems. The case study for this is a seizure-detection SoC that includes instrumentation and computation blocks in support of a system that exploits patient-specific modeling to achieve accurate performance for chronic detection. The SoC samples each EEG channel at a rate of 600 Hz and performs processing to derive signal features on every two second epoch, consuming 9 μJ/epoch/channel. Signal feature extraction reduces the data rate by a factor of over 40×, permitting wireless communication from the patient's head while reducing the total power on the head by 14×.


A number of different Euler poles have been proposed by various authors during the past 20 years to describe the relative motion of Caribbean (CA) and North American (NA) plates. These different solutions are a consequence of the small number of focal mechanism solutions of earthquakes, the short length of the plate boundaries of the Caribbean that consists of an active spreading center, the complicated and multibranched fault systems of several parts of the plate boundaries, and biases introduced in using slip vectors along the Middle American Trench to close plate motion circuits in computing CA-NA Euler poles. Slip vectors from focal mechanisms are now the strongest constraints on the direction of current plate motion. We use 66 slip vectors derived from 117 focal mechanisms of shallow earthquakes located on or near the boundaries between the Caribbean and either the NA or South American (SA) plates to calculate a best fitting, present-day rotation pole for CA-NA. It is located at 68.4°N, 126.3°W, near Barrow, Alaska. In making this calculation, we effectively extended the length of the plate boundary considered in the calculation by using data from the CA-SA plate boundary and rotating them to the CA-NA reference frame using the Nuvel 1 pole for NA-SA motion and 20 mm/yr as the rate of CA-SA plate motion along the southeastern Caribbean. The result is not very sensitive to CA-SA rates. The azimuth of plate motion is about N70°E along most of the CA-NA boundary. For example, along the Puerto Rico Trench, several focal mechanisms indicate highly oblique motion with a small component of plate convergence along shallow, south dipping thrust faults. The highly oblique plate motion along the inner wall of the Puerto Rico Trench is indicative of strong coupling of that forearc with the Caribbean plate and of the potential of that zone to generate great earthquakes. Slip vectors are very consistent with one another in areas in which at least one of the interacting plates is oceanic. Focal mechanisms and the distribution of earthquakes exhibit greater scatter, however, in areas such as Hispaniola where continental or thick island arc lithosphere is being deformed and is present on both sides of that complex plate boundary. In addition, other mechanisms indicate northerly subduction of the Caribbean beneath southeastern Hispaniola along the western Muertos Trough, normal faulting to the east of the Lesser Antilles associated with the bending of the downgoing plate, and normal faulting or reverse faulting in more localized areas near the plate boundary. As part of the analysis, we also calculated Euler poles for CA-SA motion at 52°N, 81°W and Cocos-Caribbean (CO-CA) at 22°N, 120°W. These poles are consistent with recent models of transtensional development since about 10 m.y. ago along the plate boundary zone of the southeastern Caribbean and with CO-CA motion that involves subduction along the Middle America Trench as well as right-lateral, strike-slip faulting and extension along the volcanic zone of Central America. The Euler pole for CO-CA is also consistent with recent geodetic data on CO-CA rates of motion.


Despite older adults being one of the most important groups of users of eHealth services, including patient accessible electronic health records, these are claimed to not be designed to suit older users, and to not necessarily fulfill their information needs. User‐centered design methods often utilized when developing eHealth services have also been claimed to not work well for older adults. This paper suggests an alternative way of collecting ideas and feedback on eHealth from older adults, by including open‐ended questions in the data collection of larger studies on eHealth information behavior. When data are collected by methods like focus group interviews and surveys, older adults can be requested to envision an eHealth service that suits their needs. Results from studies in Finland are presented, and show that current eHealth services do not fulfill all information needs of older adults, as answers to the question in both focus group interviews and surveys contain practical suggestions for additional and more comprehensible information, easier ways of searching for needed information, and alternative channels for communication. Open‐ended questions can be a cost‐effective and timesaving way to help in the design and development of patient accessible electronic health records and other types of eHealth services.


The Simpsons is one of the most successful programs in the history of television, as its social criticism, its wide range of characters, its realism, and the extensive referential network to other texts have created a sophisticated prime time enactment of American culture and society that fascinates audiences of various ages and sociocultural backgrounds. Scholars agree that one of the most obvious reasons for this success lies in the show's extensive use of intertextual references to other cultural works, current political and social trends or discourses, and real life persons. Still, research to date has not satisfactorily tackled the question what makes the creators use intertextuality as one of the most omnipresent ingredients of the show. The present contribution attempts to fill this gap with a comprehensive and integral function-oriented analysis of intertextuality in The Simpsons. Therefore, the study combines a wide array of source texts and suitable scenes from The Simpsons with extensive theoretical and methodological work in the fields of intertextuality, intermediality, animation, audience reception, and self- and meta-reflexivity. While the theoretical chapters address various approaches to the concepts mentioned above and thus set up a framework that guides the following observations, the main analytical part establishes three categories of possible functions of intertextuality: intratextual functions (how do intertextual references contribute to the narrative of The Simpsons?), extratextual functions (how do intertextual references help to address issues that lie outside the realm of a TV cartoon?), and self- and meta-reflexive functions (how are intertextual references used to reflect upon the status of The Simpsons as a commercial TV show and as an animated sitcom?). The numerous scenes and episodes discussed demonstrate that the function of the countless intertextual and intermedial references in The Simpsons can by no means be reduced to the humorous moments they initiate. The author finds examples for eleven functional subcategories and various narrative and technical approaches that are involved in creating/supporting these intertextual functions. The analyses show that there is a larger concept behind intertextuality in The Simpsons than the lack of innovative ideas, the aim for a cheap laugh, or the playful exhibitionism of cultural knowledge. While those aspects might at times also inspire intertextual references, they can hardly account for the ongoing success of the show, its appeal of innovation and creativity, and the status it has achieved in cultural studies and among media buffs. Intertextual references can fulfill various functions that are essential for the show to work as a media-saturated entertainment program and as an analyst of medial structures and narrative patterns.


Summary

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the inconsistency between the model used and the actual structure on the inversion of point-source parameters. Specifically, we studied the effects of ignoring a reflecting interface in the model. Such a situation frequently occurs when events with sources close to mine excavations are recorded and subsequently processed using a simplified model describing the interface only approximately or ignoring it completely. In this case, it is important to ask how reliable the retrieved mechanism is. An inversion algorithm with indirect parametrization of the source (INPAR) was applied.

A numerical study was performed, in which the mechanism and source time function of a point source were sought in a model inconsistent with the actual structure. The ray synthetic wavefield generated by a source situated close to a free surface of a homogeneous half-space was treated as the observed data. The free surface was then ignored when constructing the Green's function necessary for the point-source inversion. Thus, the inconsistent response of the medium including only direct phases was used to invert the observed seismograms, which contain both direct and reflected phases. The configuration of the Underground Research Laboratory (URL) of the Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. was simulated in the synthetic experiments. 16 triaxial sensors were situated around the underground tunnel, the face of which was taken to represent the free surface near the hypocentre. High-frequency seismograms were synthetized with a frequency of around 10 kHz. This is close to the prevailing frequency of the actual URL records. It was found that gross features of the source such as orientation of the double couple and the general features of the source time function can be retrieved satisfactorily when the hypocentre is localized correctly. Formal error analysis, however, yields rather large error estimates due to the omission of the free surface, providing us with acceptably constrained solutions at about 70 per cent confidence level only. Mislocation of the hypocentre of the order of seven to 14 wavelengths and/or contamination of the data by noise with an amplitude amounting to 20 per cent of the data amplitude both distort retrieved source parameters and make them rather uncertain. The retrieved orientation deviates by more than 20° and its 70 per cent confidence region extends several tens of degrees. As a consequence of the mismodelling of the medium represented by the neglect of the free surface, spurious non-double couple (DC) components appear in the mechanism.

Two URL events from 1991 September 25 separated by 4 s were processed, and a large majority of the compensated linear-vector dipole (CLVD) was found there. The CLVD along the P-axis at the earlier event was replaced by the CLVD along the T-axis at the following one, which suggests an over-relaxation of the stress during the first event and its partial restoration by the subsequent event.


It is highly likely that by the end of 1989, legislation proposing the most dramatic changes in the English legal profession in this century will be introduced by the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain in the House of Lords. If Lords approve the legislation, it will be sent to the House of Commons early in 1990 and will become effective by Royal Assent shortly thereafter. The Lord Chancellor's reforms will abolish the barristers' monopoly of audience in higher courts, partially limit the statutory bar on multidisciplinary and multinational partnerships, introduce a modified contingency fee, permit building societies and banks to do conveyancing work, and allow solicitors to be appointed to the high courts. Several of these sweeping changes, particularly those relating to multinational law practiees and contingency fees, will affect the American bar and therefore should be of interest to many New York attorneys.


Fear of just censure and the sense of shame it produced kept Roman citizens from doing wrong (Cic. Rep . 5.6). Invective functioned socially as a strategy of social sanction. One amongst a number of commonly identified topics of accusation in the Roman tradition of ridicule was unusual appearance, clothing or demeanour. Not surprisingly, John the Baptist emerges from the desert attired distinctly, demoniacs come out of the tombs so fierce that no one would pass by them (Mt 8:28), a man with an unclean spirit lives amongst the tombs and, even though adorned with fetters and chains, cannot be controlled (Mk 5:15–20). Herod pretentiously puts on the royal robes and is eaten by worms and dies (Ac 12:21). A woman uninvited enters a rich man's dinner party with an alabaster flask of perfume and anoints the feet of Jesus (Lk 7:38). Clearly, in each case, unusual appearance, clothing, and demeanour suggest a lapse from the appropriate, socially acceptable style of deportment and clothing. Oddities in dress and demeanour were equated with oddities in behaviour and provided a powerful rhetorical means of excluding undesirables from society.


Background: Spatial inequalities in human development are of great concern to international organisations and national governments. Demographic indicators like the infant mortality rate are important measures for determining these inequalities. Using demographic indicators over long time periods at relatively high levels of geographical detail, we can examine the long-term continuities and changes in spatial inequalities. Objective: This paper presents the initial outcomes of a larger project that aims to analyse spatial variation in infant survival across Europe over the last 100 years. In this paper, we focus on spatial disparities in infant survival in 1910. At that time, the longevity revolution was still at an early stage. We look at general spatial variation patterns within and across countries, and discuss some of the challenges related to the comparativeness of the data. Methods: We link official infant mortality data from more than 5,000 European regions and localities for the period around 1910 to a European historical GIS of administrative boundaries. The data are analysed using descriptive spatial analysis techniques. Results: In 1910, a number of countries in northern and western Europe led the longevity revolution in Europe, with the area of low infant mortality also extending into the northwestern parts of the German Empire. Other areas with low infant mortality levels included the Belgian region of Wallonia, most parts of Switzerland, as well as central and south-western France. In eastern and southern Europe, we find significant variation within and across countries, which might stem in part from data quality problems


It is evident that both law and morality serve to channel our behavior. Law accomplishes this primarily through the threat of sanctions if we disobey legal rules. Morality too involves incentives: bad acts may result in guilt and disapprobation, and good acts may result in virtuous feelings and praise. These two very different avenues of effect on our actions are examined in this article from an instrumental perspective. The analysis focuses on various social costs associated with law and morality, and on their effectiveness, as determined by the magnitude and likelihood of sanctions and by certain informational factors. After the relative character of law and of morality as means of control of conduct is assessed, consideration is given to their theoretically optimal domains - to where morality alone would appear to be best to control behavior, to where morality and the law would likely be advantageous to employ jointly, and to where solely the law would seem desirable to utilize. The observed pattern of use of morality and of law is discussed, and it is tentatively suggested that the observed and the optimal patterns are in rough alignment with one another.


Backprojection for Synthetic Aperture Radar Michael Israel Duersch Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Doctor of Philosophy Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a type of radar capable of high-resolution coherent imaging. In order to produce coherent imagery from raw SAR data, an image formation algorithm is employed. The various image formation algorithms have strengths and weaknesses. As this work shows, time-domain backprojection is one algorithm whose strengths are particularly well-suited to use at low-altitudes. This work presents novel research in three areas regarding time-domain backprojection. The first key contribution of this work is a detailed analysis of SAR time-domain backprojection. The work derives a general form of backprojection from first principles. It characterizes the sensitivities of backprojection to the various inputs as well as error sources and performance characteristics. This work then shows what situations are particularly well-suited to use of the backprojection algorithm, namely regimes with turbulent motion and wide variation in incidence angle across the range swath (e.g., low-altitude, airborne SAR). The second contribution of this work is an analysis of geometric signal correlation for multi-static, sometimes termed multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), imaging. Multistatic imaging involves forming multiple images using different combinations of transmitters and receivers. Geometric correlation is a measure of how alike observations of a target are from different aspect angles. This work provides a novel model for geometric correlation which may be used to determine the degree to which multi-static images are correlated. This in turn determines their applicable use: operating in the highly correlated regime is desirable for coherent processing whereas operating in a lower-correlation regime is desirable for obtaining independent looks. The final contribution of this work is a novel algorithm for interferometry based on backprojected data. Because of the way backprojected images are formed, they are less suited to traditional interferometric methods. This work derives backprojection interferometry and compares it to the traditional method of interferometry. The sensitivity and performance of backprojection interferometry are shown, as well as where backprojection interferometry offers superior results. This work finds that backprojection interferometry performs better with longer interferometric baseline lengths or systems with large measurement error in the baseline length or angle (e.g., low-altitude, airborne SAR).


The work involves the magnetic modeling of a variable reluctance and a hybrid stepping motor. The model combines two traditional methods for creating a magnetic model. Nonlinear two dimensional finite element analysis is combined with nonlinear lumped element modeling to create a three dimension lumped model. The two dimensional finite element analysis is used to numerically calculate the effective reluctance function of the motor tooth region. After the finite element analysis is completed, a two terminal tooth region reluctance element that is a function of both rotor angle and tooth region flux density results. The two terminal lumped element is then used to represent the tooth region of the motor in a lumped parameter model. The process by which the tooth region finite element field solution is transformed into the two terminal lumped reluctance is a new modeling approach; and, it is the foundation of the modeling method in this dissertation. Torque, back EMF, and inductance are some of the more important motor parameters predicted by the modeling method. The model predictions are compared to experimental data in the dissertation. The final motor parameter predictions from the model correlated quite well with experimental data. Also included in the dissertation is a unique derivation which defines the constraints that a region must satisfy such that a general three dimensional region of non-homogenous material can be modeled as a two terminal lumped reluctance element. The final restrictions imposed on the general three dimensional region are quite liberal. A method for solving any arbitrarily connected network of nonlinear lumped reluctances and sources is shown in detail. The method was developed specifically for use in this dissertation research, however, it is general enough to be applied to a wide variety of lumped element magnetic problems. The method explains how a Newton-Raphson iteration loop can be used to solve the nonlinear matrix equation created by the nonlinear network of reluctances.


The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution restricts government regulation of private speech. However, it does not regulate private speech. New forms of speech regulation by online platforms disrupt this constitutional framework. Platforms, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, are responsible for mediating much of the public discourse and governing access to speech and speakers around the world. These private businesses match users and content in whatever way best benefits their commercial interests. At the same time, however, they exercise regulatory power when they filter, block and remove content, at the request of governmental agents or state actors. Consequently, platforms effectively blend law enforcement and adjudication powers, and sometimes even lawmaking powers.

Courts and scholars who tackle speech regulation by plat-forms have basically relied on the well settled constitutional divide between private functions and governmental ones. To the extent that platforms exercise governmental powers in allowing or banning speech or speakers, platforms should be subject, as the argument goes, to public law principles of accountability, legitimacy, oversight, and power separation.

In this paper we question this approach. As a practical matter, the public/private framework presumes that public func-tions of a private entity could be neatly separated from its standard business affairs. We argue that with the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by platforms for content moderation, the public, law enforcement functions are integrated with the private, business functions that are driven by commercial interests. The same technical design which is used for targeted advertising and for curating personalized content is also deployed for monitoring and censoring online content. Using machine learning, the system is informed by the same labeling of users and content, and makes use of the same API, learning patterns, and software. Consequently, decisions on removal of speech, for (public) law enforcement purposes, are driven by the same data, algorithms and optimization logic which are also underlying all other functions performed by the platform. Therefore, the use of AI in content moderation calls for a fresh approach to restraining the power of platforms and securing fundamental freedoms in this environment.

This paper takes a system perspective to speech regulation. It contends that the normative distinctions between public and private functions could be upheld in online content moderation, provided that these distinctions are embedded in the system design. It introduces "separation of functions", a novel approach to restraining the power of platforms while enhancing the accountability in AI driven content moderation systems. We propose to facilitate independent tools embedding public policy. These tools would run on the platforms' data, and would include their own optimization processes informed by public policy. Such separation between independent public tools and private data may enhance public scrutiny of law enforcement speech restrictions which are a traditionally exclusive public function. This functional separation may also facilitate competition among different players who may enrich the design of speech regulation and mitigate biases. Finally, we explore the implications of this approach and discuss its possible limitations.


This tutorial presents a design and implementation of a scikit-compatible system for detecting anomalies from time series data for the purpose of offering a broad range of algorithms to the end user, with special focus on unsupervised/semi-supervised learning. Given an input time series, we discuss how data scientist can construct four categories of anomaly pipelines followed by an enrichment module that helps to label anomaly. The tutorial provides an hand-on-experience using a deployed system on IBM API Hub for developer communities that aim to support a wide range of execution engines to meet the diverse need of anomaly workloads such as Serveless for CPU intensive work, GPU for deep-learning model training, etc.


Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can be difficult to treat due to patient noncompliance and treatment efficacy. This anxiety disorder presents in behaviors such as checking, washing, repeating/counting, ordering/symmetry, harming obsessions, religious/sexual obsessions, obsessional slowness, pure obsessions and hoarding. Of these behaviors, hoarding is the most difficult to treat. Hoarding is defined as the inability to throw away items that are useless. Objective: To determine the best possible therapy for individuals with hoarding behaviors comparing the use of psychotropic medications, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or both. Method: A comprehensive evidence-based medicine (EBM) literature review was conducted using Medline, PubMed, and FirstSearch databases. Included articles were published in English between 1995 and the present. Studies were then ranked Level 1, 2 or 4 based on the quality of the study design. Level 3 articles were not available for this topic of study. Results: Of the 17 studies that met the inclusion criteria in this comprehensive EBM analysis, five were used primarily as background information, one supported the use of medication along with CBT, two supported the use of CBT alone, one did not support the use of medications, two did not support the use of CBT, one did not support either the use of medications or CBT, and five were inconclusive. Conclusion: This analysis warrants a Level C recommendation (inadequate number of Level 1, 2 or 3 studies) for use of medications with CBT, medication treatment alone or CBT alone. This patient population often does not recognize the seriousness of their illness and are non-compliant. Due to this dilemma more research must be performed and data obtained from Level 1 and 2 studies to search for the most effective treatment of hoarding.


Hybrid cyclic α/β-peptides, in which one or more β-amino acids are incorporated into the backbone, are gaining increasing interest as potential therapeutics, thanks to their ability to achieve enhanced binding affinities for a biological target through pre-organization in solution. The in silico prediction of their three dimensional structure through strategies such as MD simulations would substantially advance the rational design process. However, whether the molecular mechanics force fields are accurate in sampling highly constrained cyclopeptides containing β-amino acids remains to be verified. Here, we present a systematic assessment of the ability of 8 widely used force fields to reproduce 79 NMR observables (including chemical shifts and 3J scalar couplings) on five cyclic α/β-peptides that contain the integrin recognition motif isoDGR. Most of the investigated force fields, which include force fields from AMBER, OPLS, CHARMM and GROMOS families, display very good agreement with experimental 3J(HN,Hα), suggesting that MD simulations could be an appropriate tool in the rational design of therapeutic cyclic α-peptides. However, for NMR observables directly related to β-amino acids, we observed a poor agreement with experiments and a remarkable dependence of our evaluation on the choice of Karplus parameters. The force field weaknesses herein unveiled might constitute a source of inspiration for further force field optimization.


Objectives The aim of the study was to develop and test an education method to increase the adherence of the hospital drug formulary. Methods The study was designed as an intervention study. The intervention comprised an Academic Detailing education method, developed and implemented by the Clinical Pharmacy Unit, University Hospital of Odense (OUH), Denmark. The education method, presented by two clinical pharmacists, was piloted at OUH. Results A total of 951 prescriptions were reviewed during the study period, 332 at baseline, 297 1 week after the intervention and 322 6 weeks after the intervention. At baseline 74% of the prescriptions were prescribed according to the formulary list and 23% were not. One week and 6 weeks after the intervention, 85% and 76% of the prescriptions followed the formulary list, respectively; 11% and 19% respectively did not. The increase in prescriptions given according to the formulary from baseline to 1 week after the intervention (11%) was statistically significant (p<0.0001), while the increase from baseline to 6 weeks after the intervention (2%) was not (p<0.463). Conclusions The Academic Detailing education method had the expected effect on the physicians' prescribing patterns, which makes it an effective tool for changing physician's prescribing patterns. The method was easy to implement and not time consuming. The effect did not last as long as 6 weeks. This was expected and supported by the literature. To make the intervention last there is a need for some follow up, eventually electronic reminders.


Extremely acidic mine waters with pH values as low as -3.6, total dissolved metal concentrations as high as 200 g/L, and sulfate concentrations as high as 760 g/L, have been encountered underground in the Richmond Mine at Iron Mountain, CA. These are the most acidic waters known. The pH measurements were obtained by using the Pitzer method to define pH for calibration of glass membrane electrodes. The calibration of pH below 0.5 with glass membrane electrodes becomes strongly nonlinear but is reproducible to a pH as low as - 4. Numerous efflorescent minerals were found forming from these acid waters. These extreme acid waters were formed primarily by pyrite oxidation and concentration by evaporation with minor effects from aqueous ferrous iron oxidation and efflorescent mineral formation.


Rory Stewart (author of The Places In Between) and Gerald Knaus distill their remarkable firsthand experiences of political and military interventions into a potent examination of what we can and cannot achieve in a new era of "nation building." As they delve into the massive, military-driven efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans, the expansion of the EU, and the bloodless "color" revolutions in the former Soviet states, the authors reveal each effort's enormous consequences for international relations, human rights, and our understanding of state building. Stewart and Knaus parse carefully the philosophies that have informed interventionism-from neoconservative to liberal imperialist-and draw on their diverse experiences in the military, nongovernmental organizations, and the Iraqi provincial government to reveal what we can ultimately expect from large-scale interventions, and how they might best realize positive change in the world.


Vitrimers are a class of covalent adaptable networks (CANs) that undergo topology reconfiguration via associative exchange reactions, enabling reprocessing at elevated temperatures. Here, we show that cross-linker reactivity represents an additional design parameter to tune stress relaxation rates in vitrimers. Guided by calculated activation barriers, we prepared a series of cross-linkers with varying reactivity for the conjugate addition—elimination of thiols in a PDMS vitrimer. Surprisingly, despite a wide range of stress relaxation rates, we observe that the flow activation energy of the bulk material is independent of the cross-linker structure. Superposition of storage and loss moduli from frequency sweeps can be performed for different cross-linkers, indicating the same exchange mechanism. We show that we can mix different cross-linkers in a single material in order to further modulate the stress relaxation behavior.


The Inversion Algorithm is an event-driven algorithm, whose performance rivals or exceeds that of Levelized Compiled code simulation, even at activity rates of 50% or more. The Inversion Algorithm has several unique features, the most remarkable of which is the size of the run-time code. The basic Algorithm can be implemented using no more than a page of run-time code, although in practice it is more efficient to provide several different variations of the basic algorithm. The run-time code is independent of the circuit under test, so the algorithm can be implemented either as a compiled code or an interpreted simulator with little variation in performance. Because of the small size of the run-time code, the run-time portions of the Inversion Algorithm can be implemented in assembly language for peak efficiency, and still be retargeted for new platforms with little effort.


Glioblastoma is the most common brain malignancy and is marked by an extremely poor prognosis, despite advances in surgical and clinical neuro-oncology. Glioblastomas are very heterogenic in their biological and morphological features and they are widely investigated. Existing in vivo glioblastoma models are based on the inoculation of glioma cells or cell lines into the rodent brain, the dog brain or the use of transgenic mice causing spontaneous tumors. These models suffer from the variable growth rate and poor penetration, and are limited by the difficulty of obtaining morphological data. In our research we suggested the model in which the native human glioblastoma was transplanted into the chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane. The glioblastoma was transplanted into the embryo's chorioallantoic membrane on the seventh–ninth day, when it was fully developed and could ensure the nutrition of the tumor. Transplantation was successful if the glioblastoma survived at least for 24 hours together with the embryo. The chorioallantoic membrane after transplantation showed thickening. Between 48 and 120 hours after transplantation the thickness of the membrane changed from 2x to 5x. Starting from 144 hours after transplantation the thickness of the membrane diminished. The tumor transplanted into the chorioallantoic membrane ingrows in it in the zones where the epithelium of the membrane was mechanically removed. The tumor keeps its proliferative activity until 48 hours of transplantation, afterwards the proliferative activity is noticed in the chorioallantoic membrane until 120 hours of transplantation. This shows that the main processes take place in the zone where the tumor adheres to the chorioallantoic membrane. The human glioblastoma transplanted on chicken chorioallantoic membrane repeated all the essential stages of tumor growth, which are also typical of other mammal models. This model reflects the morphological and biological features of the glioblastoma, allows to evaluate the invasivity, the progress of the tumor, and to investigate new medicines.


The Astropy project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly-developed Python packages that provide commonly-needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy project is the core package astropy , which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we provide an overview of the organization of the Astropy project and summarize key features in the core package as of the recent major release, version 2.0. We then describe the project infrastructure designed to facilitate and support development for a broader ecosystem of inter-operable packages. We conclude with a future outlook of planned new features and directions for the broader Astropy project.


Soybean rust is caused by two Phakopsora species: Phakopsora meibomiae (Arthur) Arthur and P. pachyrhiziW. Sydow & Sydow. Phakopsora meibomiaeis found only in limited areas in theWestern hemisphere, and it is not known to cause severe losses. Phakopsora meibomiae was reported in Puerto Rico in 1913 infecting ¿ab/abpurpureas and in 1976 an outbreak produced severe yield losses in so ybeans, common beans, and lima beans in Adjuntas. Phakopsora meibomiae infects approximately 60 species of legumes and may represent a potential threat to soybean production in Puerto Rico. This study determined the virulence of one isolate of P. meibomiae in fifteen legumes. Eleven of the fifteen species inoculated de veloped rust symptoms, and the identity of the rust fungus was confirmed by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Symptoms were obser ved first on Phaseolus vulgaris, P. lunatus, and V. unguiculata. Phaseolus vulgaris and P. lunatus had the shortest incubation and latent periods. Phaseolus vulgaris also pr oduced the highest number of uredinia per individual lesion. Crotalaria retusa had the longest incubation period, and Rhynchosia reticulata had the longest latent period. Phakopsora pachyrhizi was not obser ved infecting legumes in Puerto Rico in areas where it had previously been reported.


Research on mechanistic thinking in organic chemistry has shown that students attribute little meaning to the electron-pushing (i.e., curved arrow) formalism. At the University of Ottawa, a new curriculum has been developed in which students are taught the electron-pushing formalism prior to instruction on specific reactions—this formalism is part of organic chemistry's language. Students then learn reactions according to the pattern of their governing mechanism and in order of increasing complexity. If students are fluent in organic chemistry's language, they should have lower cognitive load demands when learning new reactions, and be better positioned to connect the three levels of chemistry's triplet (i.e., Johnstone's triangle). We developed a qualitative research protocol to explore how students use and interpret the mechanistic language. Twenty-nine first-semester organic chemistry students were interviewed, in which they were asked to (1) explain a mechanism, given all the starting materials, intermediates, products, and electron-pushing arrows, (2) draw in arrows for a reaction mechanism, given the starting materials and products of each step, and (3) predict the product of a reaction step, given the starting materials and electron-pushing arrows for that step. To investigate the students' ideas about mechanistic language rather than their knowledge of specific reactions, we selected reactions for the interview guide that had not yet been taught. Following transcription, we analyzed the interviews using constant comparative analysis to explore how students used and interpreted the mechanistic language. Four categories of student thinking emerged with electron movement underlying students' thinking throughout the interviews. Herein, we discuss these categories, students' interpretation of the symbolism, connections to learning theory, and implications for teaching, learning, and research.


The set of correlated equilibria is convex and contains all Nash equilibria as special cases. Thus, the social welfare-maximizing correlated equilibrium is amenable to convex analysis and offers social welfare that is at least as good as the game's best performing Nash equilibria.We employ robust semidefinite programming (SDP) for computing the social welfare-maximizing correlated equilibria in static polynomial games, giving rise to a dedicated sequential SDP algorithm, the first of this type that can cope with multivariate strategy sets. We apply this algorithm to a wireless communication problem, where two mutually-interfering transmitters and receivers maximize their channel capacities.


Abstract A long-standing unresolved puzzle related to the Danish temperate humid climate is the presence of extended areas with large Fe contents, where goethite and ferrihydrite are present in the topsoil along with hematite and maghemite. Hematite and, particularly, maghemite would normally be interpreted as the result of high temperature as found after forest fires. However, a body of evidence argues against these sites having been exposed to fire. In an attempt to get closer to an explanation of this Fe mineralogy, an experimental forest fire was produced. The results showed a clear mineralogical zonation down to 10 cm depth. This was not observed at the natural sites, which contained a mixture of goethite/ferrihydrite, hematite and maghemite down to 20 cm depth. The experimental forest fire left charcoal and ashes at the topsoil, produced high pH and decreased organic matter content, all of which is in contrast to the natural sites. The conclusion from this work is that the mineralogy of these sites is not consistent with exposure to forest fire, but may instead result from long-term transformation in a reducing environment, possibly involving microbiology.