The American war on Iraq in 2003 has unleashed tremendous changes to the Iraqi media. It has been changed from a draconian, state-run institution into a free-for-all one. However, the relative freedom the media enjoyed was marred by the US management of the press, as part of the military operation and the campaign to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis who were suspicious of America's plans for 'liberation and democracy'. The stages of this US policy of press management and its impact on the shaping of the Iraqi media are the core elements of this thesis.

This study examines the relations between the media in Iraq and the American occupation military forces, including the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). It focuses on how American practices formed the media in Iraq after the invasion, how these practices and policies have affected the freedom of press and whether they conform to the international standards of journalism. It argues that the American policies undermined their promises to create free, independent and professional journalism in Iraq, and call into question the sincerity of their intentions. It presents evidence that the Iraqi media has been a tool used for the benefit of the American forces and the established Iraqi government.

To show the US dominance of the Iraqi media, the thesis studies the American policies and practices of building some of the Iraqi media institutions, and how they were used as part of US psychological warfare. The thesis also details how these media organisations developed through the years of the occupation; first serving the American agenda and tactical requirements, and then being handed to the Iraqi government to start a new era of state–run media in the name of democracy, or given as a gift to loyal individuals who served the Americans during the occupation.

The various factors that have influenced the Iraqi media after the 2003 invasion have been discussed at length. A qualitative methodology acted as a basis for an in-depth examination of the establishment and performance of the Iraqi media organisations, which were created by the American army. Unprofessional practices, unethical policies and negative influences on news coverage riddled the Iraqi press throughout the period of military occupation. Figures in the American and Iraqi administrations and militaries, as well as influential members of the media organisations themselves, all had a hand in manipulating the press to propagate material that furthered their ideological and tactical goals. A severe lack of laws to protect journalists and their organisations and of a professional media greatly restricted the freedom of reporting, and stifled the growth of a free and independent media.

In analysing the history of Iraqi media, it is clear that the development of journalism in Iraq was directly affected by frequent changes in the Iraqi political administration and military leadership. In the Middle East politicians and militaries often held dominating positions in their relationships with the national media. The unethical policies imposed upon media organisations by the powers that be had a detrimental effect on their human resources and on practices within the institutions, which has in turn led to the current distortion and inefficiencies in the performance and professionalism of Iraqi media.

By close examination of American policies regarding the Iraqi media sector, similarities can be found between American practices in Germany and Japan after World War II. Here they made the fatal error of applying policies that were far more successful in Germany and Japan, directly to the situation in Iraq, without sufficient regard for the context of the situation in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. A close study of US-established Iraqi media brings to the surface the particular tools used to control the press. This offers a valuable insight into the major influences on Iraqi news, aimed at improving the image of American forces and the Iraqi government, which was under American supervision. The study begins with the premise that media is recognised as one of the most powerful tools in highlighting problems within deeply divided societies, and that it can help shape and influence public attitudes towards overcoming such tensions in national communities.

This thesis has been constructed empirically by approaching media organisations, journalists and newsrooms, as well as politicians and military figures from both the Iraqi and American administrations, in order to define the degree to which the quality of professionalism within media organisations was influenced by the power of both the American and Iraqi governments and militaries. Finally, the study reveals how, in order to serve tactical aims, the American administration built up state media organisations disguised as professional and independent broadcasters.


Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study different aspects and tensional forces that play a role in the internal and contextual negotiation that takes place within students in the exploration of the possible identity of entrepreneur. It expands the knowledge of how the university context influences student entrepreneurial processes from a multiple identity perspective. The findings are related to discussions of entrepreneurship education.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual paper that presents a framework on student entrepreneurial identity sense making that is grounded in a multiple identity perspective. The framework is illustrated by ten narrative cases on student entrepreneurship.

Findings

The framework suggests four different ways students make sense of identity in the process of exploring the entrepreneurial identity along with their university studies. In this process students negotiate between the two identities of "student" and "entrepreneur", both demanding in time, effort and commitment, and they in different manners struggle with balancing university belonging and entrepreneurial distinctiveness.

Originality/value

The framework serves as a point of departure for discussing the psychological processes and tensions associated with students' entrepreneurial identity construction, and what it means to entrepreneurship education. It is suggested that universities to a higher degree have to view themselves as psychological institutional moratoriums and thus as platforms of identity explorations rather than deterministic systems preparing students for certain careers to support students in becoming entrepreneurs.


We propose a perceptually based method for downscaling images that provides a better apparent depiction of the input image. We formulate image downscaling as an optimization problem where the difference between the input and output images is measured using a widely adopted perceptual image quality metric. The downscaled images retain perceptually important features and details, resulting in an accurate and spatio-temporally consistent representation of the high resolution input. We derive the solution of the optimization problem in closed-form, which leads to a simple, efficient and parallelizable implementation with sums and convolutions. The algorithm has running times similar to linear filtering and is orders of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art for image downscaling. We validate the effectiveness of the technique with extensive tests on many images, video, and by performing a user study, which indicates a clear preference for the results of the new algorithm. CR Categories: I.4.1 [Image Processing and Computer Vision]: Digitization and Image Capture—Sampling;


Wholesale petrol prices were deregulated in August 1998. This paper will quantify the effect associated with the deregulation of wholesale petrol prices on relative retail prices for unleaded petrol in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. This is done through Box–Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average methodology coupled with Box and Tiao intervention analysis. Weekly price data will be used for Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. It finds that from the beginning of 1999, deregulation coincided with relatively lower retail petrol prices for all three cities. In the absence of any other possible alternative explanation for the simultaneous fall in relative retail petrol prices across all three cities, it is concluded that this change was most likely associated with deregulation. These results suggest that regulation of wholesale petrol prices were ineffectual in terms of constraining capital city retail petrol prices at the very least and may have actually contributed towards relatively higher retail petrol prices. This also suggests that future policy interventions designed to constrain prices in the downstream petroleum industry should be very carefully considered.


Currently, desmoplastic melanomas are commonly divided into "pure" desmoplastic melanoma (at least 90% desmoplasia histologically) and "mixed" (<90%), with pure having a better prognosis, but our understanding of the relationship between percent desmoplasia and prognosis is incomplete. We sought to determine whether a more refined grading system that examined extent of desmoplasia by percent in 10% increments would be a better prognostic model. We also sought to determine the optimal cutpoint for percent desmoplasia if a single cutpoint were used.We analyzed 103 patients with desmoplastic melanoma confined to the skin at diagnosis and who were followed for at least 6 months. Desmoplasia proportions ranged from 10% to 100%, with forty patients (38.4%) having 100% desmoplasia. Overall, eighteen patients (17.5%) eventually developed metastases. Those with 100% desmoplasia had a statistically significantly decreased likelihood of metastasis compared to those with <100% desmoplasia (OR=0.15, p=0.017). However, there was no trend towards decreased likelihood of metastasis with decreasing percentages below 100% (p=0.658), implying a graduated system did not appear to be a better model than a single cutpoint. We also found that a model for predicting metastasis that incorporated Breslow thickness and the presence or absence of 100% desmoplasia (Akaike information criterion (AIC) = 84.64) was better than a model using 90% desmoplasia as the cutpoint (AIC = 89.35). We determined that a single cutpoint is sufficient in modeling prognosis for desmoplastic melanoma, and that 100% desmoplasia is a better cutpoint than the 90% cutpoint found in the "pure/mixed" model currently in use.


Our research focuses on whether there is a need for action by governments - and the public sector in general - to promote the Information Society and, if any, what should be the specific role of them.
 We first define several stages of digital development at the country level through cluster analysis, which we characterize by means of contingency tables or cross tabulations. One of our first findings is that most countries follow a similar path of digital development, and one that has a strong correlation with socioeconomic development: higher levels of wealth and economic development, education and the existence of digital infrastructures almost always coincide with higher levels of digital development. However, we also find outlying economies that follow their own digital development structure: leapfroggers.
 We then perform binomial logistic analysis to find out the reasons of being a digital leader or laggard. Besides the usual socioeconomic indicators causing higher or lower digital development levels, we also find that Governments can accelerate the process of digital development through the adoption of public policies that frame and foster the Information Society -- such as Government prioritization of ICT and assigning a high importance to ICT in government vision of the future -- and establishing an appropriate Economic Incentive Regime. This will raise the probability of a country of reaching higher stages of digital development.


Background: Dyspnoea consists of multiple dimensions: intensity, quality, and affective. In clinical practice and research, measurement focuses on intensity; in part because there is no tool available that measures the multidimensionality of dyspnoea.

Aim: To develop a tool that captures multiple dimensions of clinical dyspnoea.

Methods: Items suitable for inclusion in a multi-dimension dyspnoea instrument were identified following an extensive literature review. After removal of duplicates, 81 were assembled into a list and administered to 123 patients with COPD (mean (SD) age 69 (8) years, 62 male, mean (SD) FEV1/FVC 55 (12)%pred, mean (SD) MRC grade 3.0 (1.0)); 129 patients with interstitial lung disease (age 50 (12) years, 47 male, FEV1/FVC 72 (22)%pred, MRC grade 3.1 (2.0)) and 106 patients with chronic heart failure (age 68 (11) years, 72 male, mean (SD) ejection fraction 35 (15)%, MRC grade 2.6 (1)). Patients were asked to respond to each item using: none, mild, moderate, or severe. A hierarchical method of item reduction was used to exclude items if more than 60% of patients from each group rated them as "none" or if they were influenced by age or gender. Principal components analysis (PCA) was used to test for the presence of different domains and test internal consistency.

Results: 24 items were removed because of low response rate or gender or age bias. Of the remaining 57 items, 30 were experienced by all three patient groups, and 14 items were specific to a single disease. PCA of these 57 items produced a 3-component solution (Cronbach's α = 0.974). Component 1 (n = 25) related to various qualities of dyspnoea, eg, "work/effort", "air hunger"; Component 2 (n = 12) related to affect, eg, "panicky", "frightening"; Component 3 (n = 6) related to a mixed item collection including "constricted breathing", "light-headedness". Fifteen items did not reach the pre-specified >0.5 factor loading threshold onto any of the 3 components, eg, "puffed", "gasping".

Conclusion: This is the largest analysis of dyspnoea descriptors yet performed. The experience of dyspnoea among patients with cardiopulmonary disease includes separate qualitative and affective domains, demonstrating that dyspnoea is multi-dimensional. The identified dyspnoea descriptors will form the basis of a new instrument Multi-Dimensional Dyspnoea Questionnaire for the evaluation and quantification of dyspnoea.


While a great deal of climate data have been gathered over the past hundred years, there remains a number of problems limiting our ability to fully utilize these data in reconstructing the climate of the past century. This is particularly true for research demanding high precision and/or detailed local or regional-scale climate analyses. In this review we consider our ability to quantify climate change with respect to near-surface air temperature (measured 1.25–2 m above ground), sea surface temperature, precipitation, snow cover, sea ice, and vegetation measured from space and the Earth's surface. Among the data issues we discuss are calibration, observing practices, urbanization, station changes, data representativeness, data access, and areal coverage. The diversity of measurements over the past century and the new monitoring system being introduced via space-based and surface-based platforms offer an unparalleled opportunity for global monitoring; but to quantify climate change, we must tackle such issues as changing retrieval algorithms, relatively short periods of record, satellite Earth location precision, incompatibility with previous conventional historical observations, calibration, and potentially overwhelming data volumes. A new specialty within the climate field is beginning to emerge to address these problems. Despite the litany of problems the instrumented climate record can tell us a great deal about the spatial distribution and secular trends in temperature and precipitation over many areas of the world. In the future a blend of many data types and observing systems will be necessary to better quantify climate change. These large data sets will have to be made accessible to scientists in such a way that allows them an opportunity to check the veracity of their hypotheses and predictions regarding climate change.


McKnight v. Chicago Title Ins. Co., F.3d, 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 1436 (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit--January 30, 2004) The United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Sections 1-16 was originally enacted in 1926 but has become much more important during the past 20 years due to broad application of the Act by the U.S. Supreme Court. In particular, the Court has held that the Federal Act creates substantive federal law applicable in both state and federal court and a national policy in favor of arbitration rather than trial, assuming the parties have agreed to arbitrate rather than litigate. In addition, the Supreme Court and other courts have tended to find sufficient agreement whenever there is a written arbitration provision in a contract, even if there are some practical concerns about the quality of the consent involved due to preprinted forms, small print, situations where reading the agreement is impractical, etc. Generally, then, an arbitration clause that is part of an insurance policy or an application for insurance would presumably be enforced as long as the policy reflects a transaction involving interstate commerce (which is a requirement for the Act's application). However, the Georgia Arbitration Code (Ga. Code. Ann. Section 9-9-1, et seq.), which generally makes arbitration agreements specifically enforceable, expressly exempts arbitration provisions from its scope. The question thus arose: was the Georgia law making insurance arbitration clauses unenforceable a state law regulating insurance and therefore protected from federal preemption under the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1011, et. seq.? Or was the Georgia law "merely" an arbitration statute that was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act? In McKnight v. Chicago Title, a federal court of appeals concluded that the Georgia law regulated insurance and was therefore immune from federal preemption. In 1991, Charles and Jean McKnight bought property in Georgia and purchased title insurance from Chicago Title. The insurance policy contained a provision making arbitrable all disputes where the amount at issue was $1 million or less. In 2001, when the McKnights attempted to subdivide the property, they learned that the easement on their property was only 20-ft wide, not the 50 ft stated in the title insurance policy. The McKnights made a claim against Chicago Title for the diminished value of the land. Chicago Title denied coverage and the McKnights sued. Chicago Title moved to compel arbitration. The federal trial court refused, holding that a Georgia statute providing an insurance-only exception to arbitration was protected against federal preemption because McCarran-Ferguson generally vests insurance regulation power in the states and precluded federal preemption. Chicago Title appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, which affirmed the trial court and denied the motion for arbitration. Said the Court: If the state has an anti-arbitration law enacted for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance, and if enforcing, pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act, an arbitration clause would invalidate, impair, or supersede that state law, a court should refuse to enforce the arbitration clause. …


A practical approach for accurately modeling reconfigurable lumped components, such as semiconductor diodes or micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), in commercial full-wave solvers is presented. First, an equivalent-circuit model is extracted from a calibrated measurement of the isolated component. This model is then carefully corrected for its insertion into commercial software packages in order to achieve excellent agreement between simulated and measured results. Among other things, it is shown that failing to do such a correction can lead to much higher errors than typical lumped-element manufacturer tolerances. The procedure is illustrated by the precise modeling of a p-i-n diode embedded in a reconfigurable antenna. The approach is obviously also applicable to fixed lumped components used in biasing circuits, for instance.


RABORAL V-RG®a is a recombi-nant vaccine used in oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs for wildlife in the United States. Vaccination rates for raccoons are substantially lower than vaccination rates for gray foxes and coyotes. Research suggests that the low viscosity of the oral vaccine may preclude animals from receiving an effective dose when biting into the vaccine bait delivery system. We evaluated the possibility of using two benign compounds, chitosan and N,N,N-trimethylated chitosan (TMC), to increase the viscosity of the vaccine and potentially act as adjuvants to improve the immune response in raccoons (Procyon lotor). Forty mildly sedated raccoons were orally vaccinated via needleless syringe with either RABORAL V-RG (n=12), chitosan+RABORAL V-RG (n=12), TMC+ RABORAL V-RG (n=12), or no vaccine (n=4), on day 0 and again on day 90. We collected sera every 2–4 wk for 4 mo and evaluated rabies virus-neutralizing antibodies (rVNA). Raccoons were considered responders if rVNA titers were ≥0.1 IU/mL. Eleven of 12 raccoons vaccinated with TMC+RABORAL V-RG responded after one dose of vaccine, as did eight of 12 vaccinated with RABORAL V-RG, and three of 12 vaccinated with chitosan+ RABORAL V-RG. Our results suggest that the inclusion of an adjuvant, such as TMC, could increase vaccine efficacy to aid in controlling rabies virus spread in wildlife reservoirs.


To realize the exploration of A routing algorithm for ZigBee technology, a kind of intelligent parking system based on ZigBee wireless sensor network is designed, and the parking space is managed by online and offline interaction. First of all, the status of parking at home and abroad is studied, and the demand for parking is analyzed. Secondly, the intelligent scheme of parking system is studied, including parking guidance technology and parking space intelligent recommendation technology. The former is based on the A routing algorithm to search the shortest path, and uses Unity for route planning simulation, and the latter is based on collaboration filtering algorithm to discuss the recommendation method of similar parking spaces. The result shows that the prototype of an intelligent parking system based on ZigBee is eventually realized, and the functions of online viewing, online parking reservation, online path planning and parking guidance are realized. As a result, the purpose of managing offline parking spaces through online is achieved, the utilization rate of resources in the existing parking lot is improved and the use rate of parking space is promoted. At last, it effectively alleviates the urban parking chaos and has certain application value.


This thesis investigates two art performances involving walking in the city that are conceptualized as exilic works of art: Krzysztof Wodiczko's Vehicle performed in 1973 in Warsaw; and Adrian Piper's Catalysis performed from 1970 to 1971 in New York. My contention is that Wodiczko's and Piper's walks in the city can be examined by applying a threefold understanding of exile. First, these important performative artworks made manifest in the form of artistic walks are marginalized within, or exiled from, an institutionalized mainstream art. Second, the artists themselves communicate either personal or metaphorical states of exile. Third, the phenomena of contemporary metropolises, as diverse as the communist Warsaw and the capitalist New York of the 1970s are analyzed as alienating and exilic social dwellings par excellence in which most of the inhabitants do not feel "at home". This paper also summarizes a much longer and more intense conflation of my personal and professional experience with walking. I, myself, am an exile, who literally walked away from a student trip in Florence, Italy. Since that crucial event, I have developed a very special relationship with walking, this most humble human activity that I no longer take for granted. In order to make my writing more conversational I traveled to Poland and the United States to walk the same streets that Wodiczko and Piper walked during their performances with my photo and video cameras. My visual and textual retracing of the artists' steps form a creative part of this dissertation. Since I wanted to exhaust the richness of these two exilic art works and to connect them to the contemporary urban experience, I employ my personal writing style and juxtapose it with the photographs I took in Warsaw and New York. These creative reflections on walking that enrich the academic form of expression are enclosed in two attachments following the chapters in which I theoretically analyze Wodiczko's and Piper's walking performance artworks


Little is known about officer perceptions of body-worn cameras (BWCs), and whether perceptions change following implementation within their agencies. BWC deployment varies, with some agencies mandating officers to wear BWCs and others using volunteers. Researchers have yet to assess attitudinal differences between volunteers and mandated officers. This study addresses these gaps using data from an evaluation of BWCs in the Phoenix Police Department to examine officer perceptions of the utility of BWCs, perceptions of organizational justice, and support for using procedural justice. We use inverse propensity weighted difference-in-difference models to examine changes in officer perceptions over time between randomly selected officers who were mandated to wear a BWC, BWC volunteers, officers who resisted BWCs, and control officers. We identified limited significant differences in perceptions of BWCs over time, though effect sizes suggest that BWC volunteers and mandated officers were more subdued in their expectations about BWCs at the posttest.


The robotics research community has clearly acknowledged the need of open and standard software stacks to promote reuse of code and developments. However, to date no particular project has prevailed. We suggest that one possible reason for this is that most middleware do not address issues specific to robotics, such as writing, monitoring, and debugging real-time behaviors close to hardware. In this light, we present ASEBA, an event-based architecture for mobile robots with microcontrollers and a Linux board. In these, the microcontrollers manage sensors and actuators locally and the Linux board runs the high-level control. The popularity of these robots and the role of microcontrollers are increasing. ASEBA achieves vertical integration by bringing the facilities of scripting inside the microcontrollers and by bridging them with programs running on Linux. To program the microcontrollers, ASEBA provides an integrated development environment. The latter compiles a simple scripting language into bytecode which runs in the virtual machines. We demonstrate a robot remote control application where low-level scripts prevent collisions. At the Linux level, this application employs both Perl and Python programs which communicate with ASEBA through D-Bus (D-Bus is a middleware present by default under Linux). This application shows how convenient it is to program all parts of the robot thanks the vertical integration of ASEBA. We think that because it considers the needs of robotics software development at all levels, the integrative approach of ASEBA might be a way to overcome the stall in standardization.


In this article, we both contend and illustrate that biological anthropologists, particularly in the Americas, often think like Bayesians but act like frequentists when it comes to analyzing a wide variety of data. In other words, while our research goals and perspectives are rooted in probabilistic thinking and rest on prior knowledge, we often proceed to use statistical hypothesis tests and confidence interval methods unrelated (or tenuously related) to the research questions of interest. We advocate for applying Bayesian analyses to a number of different bioanthropological questions, especially since many of the programming and computational challenges to doing so have been overcome in the past two decades. To facilitate such applications, this article explains Bayesian principles and concepts, and provides concrete examples of Bayesian computer simulations and statistics that address questions relevant to biological anthropology, focusing particularly on bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. It also simultaneously reviews the use of Bayesian methods and inference within the discipline to date. This article is intended to act as primer to Bayesian methods and inference in biological anthropology, explaining the relationships of various methods to likelihoods or probabilities and to classical statistical models. Our contention is not that traditional frequentist statistics should be rejected outright, but that there are many situations where biological anthropology is better served by taking a Bayesian approach. To this end it is hoped that the examples provided in this article will assist researchers in choosing from among the broad array of statistical methods currently available.


Context: Discovering visual languages across professions is a complex task since it entails discovering a communication system composed of information in image or textual form called representations and also including various kinds of annotations such as notes. Such a task has been previously scarcely considered within research, and basically only investigating in white collar professions (e.g., doctors). This leaves us wondering about all the possible shapes of these vocational visual languages and the potential of using these images to foster learning. For this reason, the current research aims to investigate commonalities and differences of visual languages across vocational professions with the goal of using the outcomes to design educational activities for vocational education and training (VET).
Approach: 55 semi-structured interviews have been conducted within eleven professions from the areas of Craftsmanship, Industry, Health and Services such a plumber and fashion designers. The interviews were audio-recorded and analyzed with NVivo through a coding scheme which served as the main reference for the analysis.
Findings: Results showed that, in terms of visual representations, professionals use different types of drawings such as technical drawings (e.g., woodworkers), evaluation forms (e.g., dental assistants) and illustrations (e.g., gardeners). For sketches, participants indicate the practice of creating sketches depicting objects to produce (e.g. goldsmiths). For photos, they portrayed things to remember or pay attention to (e.g., chemical technologists). Participants across professions use annotations such as notes to specify details of their job. On the other side, they also report profession-specific annotations such as mathematical symbols like the surface roughness (e.g., polymechanics) and diagrammatic elements like different type of lines to indicate the status of the bones and muscles (e.g., massage therapists) or where to cut textiles (e.g., fashion designers). In terms of communalities, participants within technical professions indicated a shared use of both representations and annotations. Conversely, other professions had very specific visual languages hardly shareable across professions.
Conclusion: These results helped in discovering the visual languages of different professions and this knowledge will be used to implement educational activities based on specific skills needed in different professions such as observation skills with the use of VET-specific educational technologies.


Inspired by recent results on polynomial time reinforcement algorithms that accumulate near-optimal rewards, we look at the related problem of quickly learning near-optimal policies. The new problem is obviously related to the previous one, but different in important ways. We provide simple algorithms for MDPs, zero-sum and common-payoff Stochastic Games, and a uniform framework for proving their polynomial complexity. Unlike the previously studied problem, these bounds use the minimum between the mixing time and a new quantity - the spectral radius. Unlike the previous results, our results apply uniformly to the average and discounted cases.


Abstract Objective. The aim of this study was to use the Swedish National Registry of Urinary Bladder Cancer (SNRUBC) to investigate changes in patient and tumour characteristics, management and survival in bladder cancer cases over a period of 15 years. Materials and methods. All patients with newly detected bladder cancer reported to the SNRUBC during 1997–2011 were included in the study. The cohort was divided into three groups, each representing 5 years of the 15 year study period. Results. The study included 31,266 patients (74% men, 26% women) with a mean age of 72 years. Mean age was 71.7 years in the first subperiod (1997–2001) and 72.5 years in the last subperiod (2007–2011). Clinical T categorization changed from the first to the last subperiod: Ta from 45% to 48%, T1 from 21.6% to 22.4%, and T2–T4 from 27% to 25%. Also from the first to the last subperiod, intravesical treatment after transurethral resection for T1G2 and T1G3 tumours increased from 15% to 40% and from 30% to 50%, respectively, and cystectomy for T2–T4 tumours increased from 30% to 40%. No differences between the analysed subperiods were found regarding relative survival in patients with T1 or T2–T4 tumours, or in the whole cohort. Conclusions. This investigation based on a national bladder cancer registry showed that the age of the patients at diagnosis increased, and the proportion of muscle-invasive tumours decreased. The treatment of all tumour stages became more aggressive but relative survival showed no statistically significant change over time.


It has been long overdue to address the principal problems that Africa continues to have. How to bring real African solutions to these problems remains unresolved. Palaeontologists have discovered that Africa is the origin of humanity. Africa has also experienced the commodification of its humanity through slavery, colonialism and apartheid. The African continent has been influenced by a melange of races, cultures, religions, ethnic nationalities making the project of how the differences can be managed to forestall conflict and promote the unity of the current 54 states to turn the cacophony of noises into a single voice that can protect Africa a difficult challenge. This book on Regenerating Africa: Bringing African Solutions to African Problems addresses why Africans must come together and try to address their own problems. They must look back to the spiritual, struggle and knowledge heritage to re-imagine and innovate a new Africa with leadership, governance, systems and institutions that can address the security and well-being, the employment, social inclusion, poverty eradication and the equality of the people. In fact the key problem to find a solution is how to Africanise those that originated from Africa and those that became settlers with different racial, cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic variations. How to manage inter-African relations? How the settlers from the colonial legacy, the apartheid legacy, the Arabs in Africa and the varied tribes within Africans can all share being Africanised above all else is a real challenge to bring lasting solutions to Africa's enduring problems. This book is one of the few books that addresses the real problems Africa continues to face by suggesting solutions which policy makers and all Africans must learn and never ignore but use to advance a free, united, renascent, proud and dignified independent Africa in this unpredictable time the world is going through. The contributors address in the book how African solutions to African problems in the current global context to create a sustainable African future can be thought, designed and engineered to advance the well-being of people and nature for all. The African Unity for Renaissance series of conferences that over 10 partners contributed to run is the true source for generating the quality papers that have been peer reviewed to constitute the contributions in the book to make African solutions to African problems in reality and not just in talk.


As the United States faces a critical teacher shortage, it is important to examine all factors that may contribute to the revolving door of teacher attrition. This study explored the climate of elementary schools to determine if there was a correlation between teacher attrition and school organizational climate. Three basic research questions were addressed: 1) Is there a relationship between school organizational climate and teacher attrition? 2) Is a change in campus leadership related to school organizational climate? 3) Is there a relationship between a change in campus leadership and teacher attrition? Thirty-seven elementary schools were examined in terms of their individual teacher attrition rates and their climate survey scores. The data utilized in this study came from one school district's climate survey and teacher attrition rates for the 2000-2001 school year. The findings of this study indicate that factors of organizational climate may predict teacher attrition rates. Specifically, instructiona support may be related to teacher attrition. Major components of instructional support include principal behaviors, respect for teaching and learning, and communication with administrators. Teacher attrition was not related to principal experience. Also, principal experience was not related to factors of school organizational climate.


Lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein of the innate immune system, which is present in some mammalian fluids and secreted into the mucosae; it is also produced by the secondary granules of the polymorphonuclear neutrophils and secreted at infection sites. Lactoferricins (Lfcins) are peptides derived from the N-terminus of Lf. Lf avoids the iron availability to parasites in the body fluids due to its high avidity for iron, maintaining together with transferrin the free-iron concentration in about 10 M, which is too low to support the pathogenic invader survival. Intestinal parasitic diseases affect people worldwide, mainly in developing countries with poor hygienic conditions; for example, parasites such as Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia intestinalis, and Cryptosporidium parvum infect the human intestine when are orally ingested as cysts. Human and bovine Lf have been found parasiticidal in experiments in vitro and in animal models. Interestingly, Lf synergizes with metronidazole, the main drug used against E. histolytica and G. intestinalis. The aim of this chapter is to show the benefits of using Lf and Lfcins against intestinal parasitic diseases.


Performing random walks in networks is a fundamental primitive that has found applications in many areas of computer science, including distributed computing. In this article, we focus on the problem of sampling random walks efficiently in a distributed network and its applications. Given bandwidth constraints, the goal is to minimize the number of rounds required to obtain random walk samples.
 All previous algorithms that compute a random walk sample of length ℓ as a subroutine always do so naively, that is, in O(ℓ) rounds. The main contribution of this article is a fast distributed algorithm for performing random walks. We present a sublinear time distributed algorithm for performing random walks whose time complexity is sublinear in the length of the walk. Our algorithm performs a random walk of length ℓ in Õ(√ℓD) rounds (Õ hides polylog n factors where n is the number of nodes in the network) with high probability on an undirected network, where D is the diameter of the network. For small diameter graphs, this is a significant improvement over the naive O(ℓ) bound. Furthermore, our algorithm is optimal within a poly-logarithmic factor as there exists a matching lower bound [Nanongkai et al. 2011]. We further extend our algorithms to efficiently perform k independent random walks in Õ(√kℓD + k) rounds. We also show that our algorithm can be applied to speedup the more general Metropolis-Hastings sampling.
 Our random-walk algorithms can be used to speed up distributed algorithms in applications that use random walks as a subroutine. We present two main applications. First, we give a fast distributed algorithm for computing a random spanning tree (RST) in an arbitrary (undirected unweighted) network which runs in Õ(√mD) rounds with high probability (m is the number of edges). Our second application is a fast decentralized algorithm for estimating mixing time and related parameters of the underlying network. Our algorithm is fully decentralized and can serve as a building block in the design of topologically-aware networks.


Increased flexibility in patterning becomes important for the engineering of advanced nano/micro-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS). Surfaces to be structured are either mechanically unstable and/or (bio-) chemically functionalized, such as ultra-thin solid-state membrane and cantilever devices, polymer-based devices, micro/nanofluidics, and bio-analytical systems. The key aspect in the near future is to find new ways to tie top-down and bottom-up methods together, and to connect structures across the nano/microgap. Nanostencils have the versatility and multiple length-scale capabilities to be able to bridge the nano and micro world. In addition, contrary to soft-lithography and nanoimprint lithography, the nanostencil method has the potential of contactless patterning. This enables the patterning of either very fragile, (bio-) chemically functionalized as well as non-planar surfaces. Although the principle of shadow evaporation through masks is known for some decades, the method still needs maturation in length scales, membrane size, membrane stability, and reusability possibilities. We will present our progress in producing full-wafer, stabilized stencils with multiple length scales (between 50 nm and several 100 microns) and its consequences for alignment and cleaning possibilities. Examples of applications of the stencils will be given in the field of MEMS and nanotechnology, such as NEMS devices, direct patterning of thin films, functional SAM layers for MEMS, nanowires, and nanoscale Hall-probes.


Neuroprotective Effect of Photoactive Quantum Dots in Progressive Retinal Photoreceptor Degeneration
Background:
 To determine the effect of intraocularly administered photoactive quantum dots in a rodent model of progressive photoreceptor degeneration.
Methods: The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat model of progressive photoreceptor degeneration was used for this study. Twenty eyes of ten animals were divided into four groups: active implant, inactive implant, sham surgery, and control group. The active and inactive implant group received a single intravitreal injection of photoactive quantum dots conjugated with biotin. The sham surgery group received an intravitreal injection of balanced saline solution, and the control group underwent no surgical procedure. All procedures were done at week six of life and weekly electroretinograms (ERG) recorded for the following six weeks.
 Results: Both the control and sham surgery groups demonstrated a progressive decline in the amplitude of the ERG recordings over the six weeks post-procedure. In contrast, the eyes receiving intravitreal photoactive quantum dots demonstrated transient, but statistically significant increases in retinal electrical activity postinjection.
 Conclusions: The observed increase in retinal electrical activity following intravitreal injection of photoactive quantum dots in the RCS rat model suggests a potential therapeutic role for this technology in progressive retinal degenerations.


The principle of renewable energy for a near bankrupt and developing country like Nepal is well accepted, but its success in filling the needs and aspirations of the development workers and the country is low. The reasons for this include culture, poverty, language, lack of land titles, ancient rights, inadequate education, civil war, civil strife, hunger, greed, business practices, retaliation, infrastructure, bureaucracy and corruption.

Examples of how these effects operate are given, together with some possible short term solutions. Possible long term solutions are discussed and the likely ramifications on the society as a whole. Trigger factors are identified which may effect a complete collapse of the intended outcomes, whether via the collapse of the projects, or collapse of the complete society. Given a complete collapse of the renewable energy project or society, a range of possible least worst (or best) outcomes are presented.


Background: Whilst e-Portfolios have been used in a variety of learning contexts, disciplines and academic levels, its effectiveness amongst tertiary health science students in Australia has yet to be explored. Investigating students' development of reflexivity through an individually assessed e-Portfolio will produce more information about how best to teach and assess these skills in line with key professional competencies. Aim: This project aimed to evaluate students' development of reflexivity by engaging in an individually assessed e-Portfolio within a large, interprofessional, first year health science unit on Communication in Health. Methods: Using an adapted version of Groningen's Reflection Ability Scale (GRAS) students were surveyed before beginning and after completing their e-Portfolios. Participating students' concluding summaries on their development of reflexivity were extracted from their e-Portfolios for qualitative analysis. Results: 289 students completed both the pre- and post-survey. The e-Portfolio enhanced reflexivity for 54% of students, 38% perceived that their reflexivity had decreased and 8% had no change between their pre and post scores. Qualitatively the students found the process of developing reflexivity to be positively challenging. They cited reflection on communication skills, using contemporary media, interprofessional reflection and cultural responsiveness as key elements learnt through the reflective process of the ePortfolio. Conclusion: A nuanced approach to interpreting the results is important as even those who seem to have become less reflexive may have realised that they were less so after engaging in reflective practice. With the right resources, technology and support the findings attest to the value and merit of e-Portfolios in developing reflexivity amongst tertiary interprofessional health science students.


Modeling texture of milled surfaces using analytic methods requires explicit knowledge of a large number of variables some of which change during machining. These include dynamically changing tool runout, deflection, work-piece material properties, displacement of the workpiece within its fixture and others. Due to the complexity of all factors combined, an alternative approach is presented utilizing the ability of neural networks and fractals to implicitly account for these combined conditions. In the initial model, predicted surface points are first connected using splines to reconstruct 3D surface maps. Results are presented over varying several cutting parameters. Then, replacing splines, an improved fractal method is presented that determines fractal characteristics of milled surfaces to reconstruct more representative surface maps on a small scale. The fractal character of self-similarity within surfaces as manifested by the fractal dimension provides evidence of chaos in milling.


This report (MIF/GN-78-8) is the result of the evaluation of MIF's human resources and labor market projects performed by OVE. Most of the challenges confronted by the projects relate to the fact that MIF was working within a context of long-standing practices contrary to the new models being introduced particular challenges such as the dominance of the public training institutes, the limited involvement of the private sector, the lack of sufficient demand-orientation and integration with job placement, and the historical weakness of the Ministries of Labor in many countries. The paper is organized as follows: Chapter One analyzes the evolution of the context of labor markets and human resources development; Chapter Two discusses the strategic objectives of the MIF; Chapter Three evaluates human resources development projects; and Chapter Four concludes.


Lack of awareness and proficiency in essential skills contributing to learning, especially metacognitive skills (e.g., evaluation, monitoring, reflection), can have potentially adverse effects on academic engagement. The research presented here constitutes the second phase in a longitudinal research project undertaken at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUI Maynooth) which aims to develop effective supports specifically tailored to meet the needs of students at-risk of non-progression due to academic disengagement.
Prevalent themes to emerge from the interviews conducted as part of the first phase of this research included the high proportion of first year students with concerns relating to an inability to cope with academic requirements and changes in the learning environment (e.g., the expectation of self-regulated learning). Building on these initial findings, a training programme referred to as the Narrative Mediation Path, is currently being tested and evaluated with 18 first and second year undergraduate students. These were students who actively sought advice to help them overcome and address academic difficulties. Across a series of group training meetings, students practise key metacognitive skills related to learning, with a particular emphasis on the development of reflective thinking skills.
In the current paper we detail the training methodology employed with the first cohort of participating students. Additionally, to extend our knowledge of the learning strategies typically employed by the participants, we have obtained data on the students' use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies.


The vast majority of optimization and online learning algorithms today require some prior information about the data (often in the form of bounds on gradients or on the optimal parameter value). When this information is not available, these algorithms require laborious manual tuning of various hyperparameters, motivating the search for algorithms that can adapt to the data with no prior information. We describe a frontier of new lower bounds on the performance of such algorithms, reflecting a tradeoff between a term that depends on the optimal parameter value and a term that depends on the gradients' rate of growth. Further, we construct a family of algorithms whose performance matches any desired point on this frontier, which no previous algorithm reaches.


The effect of growth and carbohydrate production by the diatom Nitzschia cuwilineata on sediment erodibility was explored in laboratory flume experiments. Diatom cultures, incubated on sediment, were monitored daily for chlorophyll and carbohydrate concentrations and eroded in a recirculating flume at successive stages of growth. Because variations in erosion rate were far greater than variations in erosion threshold during the diatom growth period, erosion rate may be a more sensitive index of sediment stability. Erosion rate was negatively correlated with sediment chlorophyll (r2 = 0.759; P = 0.024) and bulk carbohydrate (r2 = 0.958; P = 0.001) concentrations. A strong negative correlation was found between the sediment bulk carbohydrate‐to‐chlorophyll ratio and erosion rate (r2 = 0.996; P < 0.00l), suggesting that this ratio would serve as a good indicator of sediment erodibility. The size of eroding particles or aggregates increased with the age of the biofilm, probably due to the pervasion of sediment with mucilage and changes in "stickiness" of the resulting sediment microfabric. Sediment stability increased throughout the stationary phase of growth regardless of lift forces produced by trapped bubbles within the biofilm and progressively smaller increases in sediment carbohydrate concentrations during this period. Knowledge of the physiological status of diatom biofilms is essential for the quantitative prediction of sediment transport, since diatom growth phase alters the behavior of sediment erosion.


A soil geochemical survey in the Maritime Provinces of Canada and part of the Northeast United States was completed for the North American Soil Geochemistry Landscapes Project. Soil samples, derived largely from unsorted glacial till, were collected over 349 sites, from 0 to 5 cm depth (regardless of horizon), A-, and C-horizons. The 0 to 5 cm depth interval represents the soil of interest in health risk assessments and is termed the Public Health (PH-) layer. The <2 mm fraction of each sample was analysed for a broad suite of major and trace elements using a near-total four-acid digestion, and major mineralogical components were determined by quantitative X-ray diffraction. Multivariate statistical analyses of the logcentred soil geochemistry from the PH-layer and the two soil horizons, and of the soil mineralogy from the A- and C-horizons, reveal distinctive inter-element relationships from deeper soil (represented by the C-horizon) upwards into topsoil (represented by the A-horizon and PH-layer). Statistical dispersion of several elements increases upwards in the soil profile. Maximum data dispersion occurs in the PH-layer and A-horizon soils. Elements including S, P, Pb, Hg, Cd, Se, Mo, Sb, Bi and Sn are relatively enriched in the PH-layer and A-horizon, and are positively correlated with increasing organic carbon contents. The relative enrichment of groups of elements in the C-horizon, in contrast to those elements in the A-horizon and PH-layer, suggests a composition that reflects the geochemistry of the glacial till that is derived from the local bedrock. Elements such as Ni, Mg, Cr, V, Co, Fe and Sc, represent a mafic component of the parent material, and relative enrichments of K, Rb, Zr, rare-earth elements, Li and Al indicate a more felsic component. The patterns revealed by the application of multivariate methods to the soil chemistry and mineralogy are attributed to underlying geology, soil-forming processes, and anthropogenic activity, or combinations of all three factors. Both the soil geochemistry and mineralogy were tested in their ability to predict soil horizon and underlying bedrock lithology or time-stratigraphic assemblages. The geochemistry and mineralogy of the soils are both good for predicting soil horizon; however, the soil geochemistry is better for predicting the underlying lithologies/assemblages than the soil mineralogy.


Thirty-one patients with sclerosing cholangitis underwent reconstruction of their hepatic duct bifurcation and long-term stenting between 1980 and 1987. Indications for surgery were persistent jaundice in 29 and recurrent cholangitis in two. The mean scrum bilirubin level before surgery was 10.4 nig/dl. Liver biopsy revealed that 26 patients had varying degrees of hepatic fibrosis, and five patients had progressed to secondary biliary cirrhosis. In 29 patients the major obstructive duct disease was at or near the hepatic duct bifurcation, and in two patients it was in the distal common duct. The operative procedure consisted of: (1) excision of the hepatic duct bifurcation and extrahepatic biliary tree, (2) dilatation of the intrahepatic ducts, (3) insertion of Silastic transhepatic biliary stents, and (4) bilateral hepaticojejunostomies. Two of the five patients (40%) with cirrhosis died after surgery. In contrast, only one of 26 patients (3.9%) with hepatic fibrosis died after operation. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year actuarial survival rates for patients with cirrhosis were 20%, 20%, and 20%, respectively. The only long-term survivor underwent a liver transplant. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year actuarial survival rates for patients with hepatic fibrosis were 92%, 87%, and 71%, respectively. In addition, the mean serum bilirubin levels of patients with hepatic fibrosis at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years were 3.4 mg/dl, 2.9 mg/dl, 4.0 mg/dl, 5.4 mg/dl, and 4.3 mg/dl, respectively. Two of the long-term survivors subsequently underwent a liver transplant. Patients with sclerosing cholangitis, persistent jaundice, and biliary cirrhosis should be referred for consideration of liver transplantation. However, in the absence of biliary cirrhosis, if the major obstructive disease is at the hepatic duct bifurcation, primary biliary reconstruction and long-term stenting should be considered.


Gravity theories beyond general relativity (GR) can change the properties of gravitational waves: their polarizations, dispersion, speed, and, importantly, energy content are all heavily theory- dependent. All these corrections can potentially be probed by measuring the stochastic gravitational- wave background. However, most existing treatments of this background beyond GR overlook modifications to the energy carried by gravitational waves, or rely on GR assumptions that are invalid in other theories. This may lead to mistranslation between the observable cross-correlation of detector outputs and gravitational-wave energy density, and thus to errors when deriving observational constraints on theories. In this article, we lay out a generic formalism for stochastic gravitational- wave searches, applicable to a large family of theories beyond GR. We explicitly state the (often tacit) assumptions that go into these searches, evaluating their generic applicability, or lack thereof. Examples of problematic assumptions are: statistical independence of linear polarization amplitudes; which polarizations satisfy equipartition; and which polarizations have well-defined phase velocities. We also show how to correctly infer the value of the stochastic energy density in the context of any given theory. We demonstrate with specific theories in which some of the traditional assumptions break down: Chern-Simons gravity, scalar-tensor theory, and Fierz-Pauli massive gravity. In each theory, we show how to properly include the beyond-GR corrections, and how to interpret observational results.


The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 (TRA97) significantly changed the tax treatment of housing capital gains in the United States. Before 1997, homeowners were subject to capital gains taxation when they sold their houses unless they purchased replacement homes of equal or greater value. Since 1997, homeowners can exclude $500,000 of capital gains when they sell their houses. Such drastic changes provide a good opportunity to study the lock-in effect of capital gains taxation on home sales. Using ZIP-code level housing price indexes and sales on single-family houses data from 1982 to 2006 in 16 affluent towns within the Boston metropolitan area, this paper finds that TRA97 reversed the lock-in effect of capital gains taxes on houses with low and moderate capital gains. However, TRA97 may have generated an unintended lock-in effect on houses with capital gains over the maximum exclusion amount. In addition, this paper exploits legislative changes in capital gains tax rate to estimate the tax elasticity of home sales during the post-TRA97 period.


Many contemporary treatments of the patent system begin with Fritz Machlup's damning with faint praise. If we did not have a patent system, it would be irresponsible, on the basis of our present knowledge of its economic consequences, to recommend instituting one. But since we have had a patent system for a long time, it would be irresponsible, based on our present knowledge, to recommend abolishing it. and conclude that for all its imperfections, the patent system is still worth keeping. Patent may introduce costs and inefficiencies, this analysis goes, but since patents serve a necessary function as incentives to innovate, we must bear and mitigate their costs. In the case of software patents, I challenge the incentive side of the equation: Patents do not provide a useful incentive to innovation in the software industry, I contend, because the patent promise ill-suits the engineering and development practices and business strategies of software production. The problem is not merely inefficiency in implementation of software patent, but a structural mismatch between where the incentive applies and how software innovation happens. Even an ideally implemented software patent . well examined, fully disclosed and enabling, properly scoped in light of the prior art would fail to serve the incentive functions intended by the Constitution, the Patent Act, and standard patent theory. Previous scholarship, whether critical or congratulatory of software patents, has largely failed to examine the structure of software *Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy. Research performed while a Fellow at Silicon Flatirons Center at University of Colorado School of Law was funded by a generous grant from Brad Feld to the Silicon Flatirons Center. All opinions are those of the author. Previous scholarship, whether critical or congratulatory of software patents, has largely failed to examine the structure of software development and the institutional specifics of patent's operation in this industry. I therefore look at these mechanics: How is the incentive function of patent believed to operate? How does it operate in the software industry? Does the tool serve its goals? Addressed head-on, even before compounding the issue with side-effects and unintended consequences, I conclude the answer is no, patents do not encourage software innovation.Part I describes the nature of software development, its sources of innovation, and its business environment. This part draws on sources from engineering, computer science, business, and strategy literature, as well as the experiences of commercial and open source software developers. I discuss several ways in which software development differs from the canonical model of manufacturing widgets, the challenges of going from idea to implementation, including prototyping, revising to meet user needs, and debugging. This part shares with the New Institutional Economics literature a focus on the nuts and bolts of how systems function, to identify common frameworks. While market dynamics differ among segments, we can identify commonalities derived from the underlying nature of software.Part II reviews existing legal theories of patent incentives and innovation. It formalizes the mismatch between incentive theory and software patent practice. In many of the accounts that attribute value to software patents, there is a circularity. Startups say patents are important because venture capitalists (VCs) demand them, whereas VCs who look to patents as a signal of capacity or uniqueness are in fact seeing a show aimed at the potential funders rather than to the customer market or a demonstration of genuine novelty. Prospect theory (Kitch) does no better to validate software patents. The claim is staked too early to give the proprietor a useful coordinating or notice function. Additional justifications or explanations for patent, such as knowledge modularity, are at best ambivalent.Part III applies the theories to software more specifically. Where do software developers and venture capital backers seek patents, and how do individuals and firms use them? Looking particularly at the timing of patent's intervention in the system, I conclude that it encourages invention, not innovation; idea-generation, but not implementation, debugging, and deployment. A player focused on patenting can obtain numerous patents without developing any of the technologies to useful levels of deployment or disclosure, yet leaving a minefield for others who actually deploy software. Hence the troll problem is particularly acute in the software field. Since initial invention is rarely the bottleneck to economically useful software development, software patents more often become entangling thickets than productive incentives. Here I also analyze the alternatives to patent available to protect software development: trade secrecy, copyright, first-mover advantage, market complements.Part IV, finally, uses this analysis to reflect on the institutional dynamics of patent law. Close analysis of software patents and software development adds to the debates over technology-specificity versus uniformity and the proper role of courts versus congress, and assists in better framing the question how to promote the progress of science and useful arts.


Happiness in the form of pleasant moods and emotions, well-being, and positive attitudes has been attracting increasing attention throughout psychology research. The interest in happiness has also extended to workplace experiences. This paper reviews what is known about the definition, causes and consequences of happiness at work, drawing also on insights from the expanding positive psychology literature on happiness in general. Many discrete organizational behavior constructs arguably belong to a larger family of happiness-related constructs, and share some common causes and consequences. Happiness at work includes, but is far more than, job satisfaction. A comprehensive measure of individual-level happiness might include work engagement, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment. Aspects of happiness have been (and should be) conceptualized and measured at multiple levels, including transient experiences, stable person-level attitudes, and collective attitudes, and with respect to multiple foci, such as discrete events, the job, and the organization. At all levels, there is evidence that happiness has important consequences for both individuals and organizations. Past research has tended to underestimate the importance of happiness at work.


Stream reasoning studies the application of inference techniques to data characterised by being highly dynamic. It can find application in several settings, from Smart Cities to Industry 4.0, from Internet of Things to Social Media analytics. This year stream reasoning turns ten, and in this article we analyse its growth. In the first part, we trace the main results obtained so far, by presenting the most prominent studies. We start by an overview of the most relevant studies developed in the context of semantic web, and then we extend the analysis to include contributions from adjacent areas, such as database and artificial intelligence. Looking at the past is useful to prepare for the future: in the second part, we present a set of open challenges and issues that stream reasoning will face in the next future.


Line drawings are commonly used for sketches, animations, and technical illustrations because they are familiar, simple, and easy to draw, yet wide-ranging and expressive. However, current tools for computer generation of line drawings do not match the range and expressiveness available to a practiced human artist. In part, these failings are due to technical limitations of current algorithms. However, there is also a lack of formal understanding of how artists make drawings, and where these drawings are effective.
This thesis describes recent work on line drawings, including two studies aimed at a formal understanding of how people create and perceive line drawings of 3D shapes. In the first study, we asked artists to create drawings under controlled conditions, and in the second, we asked people to view the drawings and record their shape impressions using a series of gauge figures. We conclude that most of the lines artists draw can be explained by currently known definitions, and that line drawings based on these definitions can successfully depict shape, though they usually fall short of shaded depictions.
The final section of the thesis describes a system for drawing stylized lines, with two novel and important features: it includes an effect called stylized focus that can help direct the viewer's gaze to important parts of the drawing, and it is fast enough and has sufficient frame-to-frame coherence that it is suitable for rendering complex models interactively.
The presented results can be applied across computer graphics, with benefits to computer animation, visualization, design, and games.


This book is designed for use in courses in law schools and university departments of philosophy. It can serve as a text for basic and ad-vanced courses and seminars. Readings include excerpts of classic works of Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Hobbes, Kant, Bentham, and Aus-tin. Provided also are excerpts from standard works of twentieth cen-tury philosophers. The book explores contemporary legal discourse with readings on topics such as sociobiology, Islamic law, the legal process school, legal feminism, and critical legal studies. It reprints leading cases on natural rights/human rights and readings from on-line blogs, op-ed essays, news stories and internet publications.


Pelargonium species have various uses in folk medicine as traditional remedies, and several of them have been screened for their biological activity, including anticancer. Pelargonium quercetorum Agnew (P. quercetorum) is traditionally used for its anthelminthic activity. However, little is known about its biological activity or its effect on cancer cells. The aim of the present study was to determine the cytotoxic activity of P. quercetorum extract on lung cancer cell lines with varying properties. Following the analyses of its chemical composition, the cytotoxic activity was screened by the adenosine triphosphate viability test. M30-Apoptosense® and M65 EpiDeath® enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were used to determine the cell death mode (apoptosis vs. necrosis). For apoptosis, additional methods, including Annexin-V-fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and Hoechst 33342 staining, were employed. The cleavage of poly (adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) was assayed by western blotting to further dissect the apoptosis mechanism. The methanol extract of P. quercetorum caused cytotoxic activity in a dose-dependent manner. The mode of cell death was apoptosis, as evidenced by the positive staining of the cells for Annexin-V-FITC and the presence of pyknotic nuclei. Notably, neither PARP cleavage nor cytokeratin 18 fragmentation were observed. P.quercetorum caused cell death by an apoptosis mechanism that is slightly different from classical apoptosis. Therefore, future in vivo experiments are required for further understanding of the effect of this plant on cancer cells.


A technique for the modelling of nonlinear systems using a fuzzy neural network topology is described. The input space of a nonlinear system is initially divided into a number of fuzzy operating regions within which reduced order models are able to represent the system. The complete system model output, the global model, is obtained through the conjunction of the outputs of the local models. The fuzzy neural network approach to nonlinear process modelling provides a way of opening up the purely 'black box' approach normally seen in neural network applications. Process knowledge is used to identify appropriate local operating regions and as an aid to initialising the network structure. Fuzzy neural network models are also easier to interpret than conventional neural network models. The weights in a trained fuzzy network model can be interpreted in terms of process information. This technique has been applied to model the nonlinear dynamic behaviour of a pH reactor and two static nonlinear systems. Correlation based tests are used to assess the fuzzy network model validity for nonlinear dynamic systems.


Enclosing 'Fuji' apple (Malus ×domestica Borkh.) fruit in paper bags 2 months after full bloom delayed the increase in internal ethylene concentration at the onset of fruit ripening, and increased the respiration rate early in the bagging period. Bagging delayed and reduced red color development, especially on the blush side, but did not affect fruit resistance to gas diffusion. External surface color changed significantly within the first 4 days after bags were removed. Exclusion of UV-B from sunlight by Mylar film after paper bag removal impaired red color development. Bagging during fruit development increased superficial scald but eliminated stain during cold storage. Exposure to sunlight for 19 or 20 days before harvest reduced scald incidence in comparison with leaving bags on until harvest.


We present the first Internet architecture designed to provide route control, failure isolation, and explicit trust information for end-to-end communications. SCION separates ASes into groups of independent routing sub-planes, called trust domains, which then interconnect to form complete routes. Trust domains provide natural isolation of routing failures and human misconfiguration, give endpoints strong control for both inbound and outbound traffic, provide meaningful and enforceable trust, and enable scalable routing updates with high path freshness. As a result, our architecture provides strong resilience and security properties as an intrinsic consequence of good design principles, avoiding piecemeal add-on protocols as security patches. Meanwhile, SCION only assumes that a few top-tier ISPs in the trust domain are trusted for providing reliable end-to-end communications, thus achieving a small Trusted Computing Base. Both our security analysis and evaluation results show that SCION naturally prevents numerous attacks and provides a high level of resilience, scalability, control, and isolation.


My hypothesis is: A civilization is formed with a pairing of language and money under a political system. For example, the contemporary Japanese civilization is being formed with the Japanese language and Japanese yen under Japanese government. In a previous paper (Comparative Civilizations Review No. 60, Spring 2009)1 I wrote that civilization is a process that integrates whole civilizations on the Earth, and that globalization today is being advanced with mainly American English and the U.S. dollar. I also described there the important role of major linguae francae, international languages. So this time I would like to describe international money supply systems in major mainstream civilizations: Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Achaemenid Persian, Greek, Roman, French, British and American versions. A global civilization would require an international currency as well as an international language. I will conclude by arguing that inadequate or unfit international money supply systems are a major cause of economic crises or depressions, and I will suggest a new supply system of international currency. What is money? Money, currency, is a sign of trust with a certain value in a human group, and its function is to exchange goods and services, to preserve and measure value, and to invest as capital. However, we must remember that the most important essence of money is trust. If trust in a society's monetary system is lost, the money will not be accepted or circulate. Materials for money Currencies with utility value can be cereals, salt, dry fish, livestock and other items with real value in practical life. Cereals were often used for money with utility value in the earliest civilizations. In the case of the Yellow River civilization, it was millet, and in the Mesoamerican civilizations, it was corn. Examples of items used for money with symbolic value are gold, silver, copper, iron, shell, and stone. In a small society, people could use shell, stone and other symbolic materials as money. But in a larger society, metals were more commonly used. Gradually the ranks of those metals became clear according to their symbolic value. Gold became the first and silver was the second and the average exchange ratio between gold and silver was usually from one to thirteen to one to fifteen. But those precious metals were always in short supply in every civilization in each period. Thus, political authorities and people always felt a "money shortage" owing to a material shortage. Metals may have some practical value as well as symbolic value, especially in the modern world. Currencies with symbolic value only are paper moneys, which are usually backed with the trust of their issuer's banks. Otherwise, paper is just paper, fragile and of little practical value. Banks have sometimes failed to meet the society's expectation. To correct this, political authorities have often designated a money-issuing bank as a national central bank. A paper money monetary system usually gains trust with the support of the political authorities. There are many auxiliary paper currencies in modern civilizations, such as checks, promissory notes, bills of exchange, postal money orders, and so on. Also, today plastic money, credit cards, and electronic money on computers constitute moneys with symbolic value only. Those forms of currency were very fragile originally and were not trusted in preindustrial society. But in economically developed societies, trust levels were raised among organizations and people in general and those monetary devices and systems became widely used and accepted. Civilization, Money and Cities Cities and civilization are critically dependent on both language and money. Why money? Because if money is supplied to the society, "Division of Labor" becomes possible. The division of labor allows the development of many kinds of specialists, such as political leaders, priests, officers, military, merchants, craftsmen, and scholars. …


Matrix spectral methods play an important role in statistics and machine learning, and most often the word 'matrix' is dropped as, by default, one assumes that similarities or affinities are measured between two points, thereby resulting in similarity matrices. However, recent challenges in computer vision and text mining have necessitated the use of multi-way affinities in the learning methods, and this has led to a considerable interest in hypergraph partitioning methods in machine learning community. A plethora of "higher-order" algorithms have been proposed in the past decade, but their theoretical guarantees are not well-studied. In this paper, we develop a unified approach for partitioning uniform hypergraphs by means of a tensor trace optimization problem involving the affinity tensor, and a number of existing higher-order methods turn out to be special cases of the proposed formulation. We further propose an algorithm to solve the proposed trace optimization problem, and prove that it is consistent under a planted hypergraph model. We also provide experimental results to validate our theoretical findings.


ABSTRACT There is an urgent and growing need for local/regional/national/international peace and security. This may be broadly ascribed to the increasing conflicts arising out of social, economic, religious and political factors. Peace and sustainability, considered as the indicators of development are threatened due to a myriad of conflicts and they are more visible than ever before in India. Tourism considered as a Global Peace Industry has greater potentials to reduce these conflicts. This paper analyzes the threats to peace and sustainability and indicates that the newly emerging Heritage Eco-cultural Tourism holds the key for the promotion of peace and sustainability. (Key words--Alternative tourism, Community based Tourism, conflicts, Eco-Tourism, Eco-cultural Tourism, Environmental quality, Externalities, Heritage Eco-cultural Tourism, Indicators, Mass tourism, peace, paradigm shifts, Sustainability, Sustainable Tourism, threats, Tourism policy). 1. INTRODUCTION "Tourism is like a fire; you can cook your soup in it; but you can also burn down your house with it." --Asian proverb As we enter into the next millennium and the birth of a new global era, we are confronting the urgent need for local/regional/national/international peace and security more than in the past. This may be broadly ascribed to the increasing conflicts arising out of social, economic, religious and political factors. The widening gap between the haves and have-nots, have further accelerated these conflicts. Hence, we are seeking universal human rights and universal human progress and prosperity. One powerful indicator of such a development is the fact that more people are traveling from more countries than ever before, making travel and tourism the worlds largest industry. Its growth is expected to continue with globalization and as people everywhere seem determined to exercise their right to travel and to make their world a more familiar place in the spirit of peace and friendship. Tourism itself has always been a peace-based industry and may be considered as a Global Peace Industry (ref.www.iipt.org). In the face of current human population increases and worldwide ecological degradation, intact and healthy ecosystems are becoming the world's most sought-after tourism destinations. Culture and Heritage besides peace and harmony in such areas attract special groups of tourists, who demand quality products. 2. THREATS TO PEACE AND SUSTAINABILITY Peace and sustainability, considered as the indicators of development are threatened due to a myriad of conflicts--Social, Economic, political, cultural and Environmental. These conflicts usually confront multiple and diverse stakeholders such as state institutions, religious organizations, communities, indigenous ethnic groups, local institutions, private development and non-government organizations, international organizations, and many other players. Wide differences in culture, knowledge, power, influence, and resources characterize these groups. Even though most conflicts essentially develop in a local framework, they are also frequently connected at regional, national and even international levels, transcending political and geographical boundaries including non-represented interests (e.g. future generations). Such complexity explains, in part, the lack of sustained attention that conflicts receive. In addition, many conflicts in India are often dealt with unprofessionally and result in frustrations, violence, greater inequities, and negative impacts on quality of life, economic and social processes and in the natural resources themselves. The most common methods of intervention in conflicts tend to be centralized, hierarchical, and sectorial, with a predominantly technical and adversarial (judicial) and at times political. Seldom do they achieve a reasonable level of satisfaction for all interested parties. Hence, we are urgently in need of alternative paradigms for development--we are moving from the narrower 'reductionist', 'reactive' and 'bureaucratic' approaches to 'wholistic /Integrated or Systems' view of looking at issues, 'pro-active' policies and 'participatory' strategies. …


Across the full range of human movement studies and their many sub-disciplines, established institutional practices and forms of pedagogy are used to (re)produce valued knowledge about human movement. Pedagogy and Human Movement explores this pedagogy in detail to reveal its applications and meanings within individual fields. This unique book examines the epistemological assumptions underlying each of these pedagogical systems, and their successes and limitations as ways of (re)producing knowledge related to physical activity, the body, and health. It also considers how the pedagogical discourses and devices employed influence the ways of thinking, practice, dispositions and identities of those who work in the fields of sport, exercise and other human movement fields. With a scope that includes physical education, exercise and sports science, sports sociology and cultural studies, kinesiology, health promotion, human performance and dance, amongst other subjects, Pedagogy and Human Movement is the most comprehensive study of pedagogical cultures in human movement currently available. It is an invaluable resource for anybody with an interest in human movement studies.


Summary As a possible way to help control varroa mites, some beekeepers advocate the use of cells smaller than the regular size commonly used by beekeepers. This paper addresses two of their principal arguments, namely that honey bees built smaller cells under natural conditions in the past, and that a "fatal" error occurred at the turn of the 20th century when a new and allegedly misleading method of estimating cell density was introduced. Historical data show not only that cell sizes were not smaller in the past, but also that estimating cell densities was not an issue before the introduction of wax foundation. Moreover, not realizing that the two methods of estimating cell densities are equivalent, the proponents of small cells have erroneously corrected the data reported by the authors of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. In conclusion, the claim that cells were smaller in the past is not only not supported by the historical records, but rests on a distortion of the historical records resulting from an incorrect transformation of the original data.


Endophytic bacteria have been found in virtually every plant studied, where they colonize the internal tissues of their host plant and can form a range of different relationships including symbiotic, mutualistic, commensalistic and trophobiotic. Most endophytes appear to originate from the rhizosphere or phyllosphere; however, some may be transmitted through the seed. Endophytic bacteria can promote plant growth and yield and can act as biocontrol agents. Endophytes can also be beneficial to their host by producing a range of natural products that could be harnessed for potential use in medicine, agriculture or industry. In addition, it has been shown that they have the potential to remove soil contaminants by enhancing phytoremediation and may play a role in soil fertility through phosphate solubilization and nitrogen fixation. There is increasing interest in developing the potential biotechnological applications of endophytes for improving phytoremediation and the sustainable production of nonfood crops for biomass and biofuel production.


There is longstanding debate about the contribution of family planning programs to fertility decline. Studying the staggered introduction of family planning across Malaysia during the 1960s and 1970s, we find modest responses in fertility behavior. Higher (but not lower) parity birth hazards declined by one-quarter—but imply only a 5 percent decline in the overall annual probability of birth. Age at marriage rose by 0.48 years, but birth spacing conditional on this did not otherwise change. Overall, Malaysia's total fertility rate declined by about one quarter birth under family planning, explaining only about 10 percent of the national fertility decline between 1960 and 1988. Our findings are consistent with growing evidence that global fertility decline is predominantly due to underlying changes in the demand for children.


This document updates and expands the initial Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Fever and Neutropenia Guideline that was published in 1997 and first updated in 2002. It is intended as a guide for the use of antimicrobial agents in managing patients with cancer who experience chemotherapy-induced fever and neutropenia. Recent advances in antimicrobial drug development and technology, clinical trial results, and extensive clinical experience have informed the approaches and recommendations herein. Because the previous iteration of this guideline in 2002, we have a developed a clearer definition of which populations of patients with cancer may benefit most from antibiotic, antifungal, and antiviral prophylaxis. Furthermore, categorizing neutropenic patients as being at high risk or low risk for infection according to presenting signs and symptoms, underlying cancer, type of therapy, and medical comorbidities has become essential to the treatment algorithm. Risk stratification is a recommended starting point for managing patients with fever and neutropenia. In addition, earlier detection of invasive fungal infections has led to debate regarding optimal use of empirical or preemptive antifungal therapy, although algorithms are still evolving. What has not changed is the indication for immediate empirical antibiotic therapy. It remains true that all patients who present with fever and neutropenia should be treated swiftly and broadly with antibiotics to treat both gram-positive and gram-negative pathogens. Finally, we note that all Panel members are from institutions in the United States or Canada; thus, these guidelines were developed in the context of North American practices. Some recommendations may not be as applicable outside of North America, in areas where differences in available antibiotics, in the predominant pathogens, and/or in health care-associated economic conditions exist. Regardless of venue, clinical vigilance and immediate treatment are the universal keys to managing neutropenic patients with fever and/or infection.


In most asthmatic children, inhaled steroids can relieve and control the symptoms of asthma. Persistent wheezing and respiratory symptoms in young children despite appropriate treatment may indicate other diagnostic considerations. Delays in this diagnosis can result in unnecessary investigations, inappropriate treatment and further complications. We report three patients who presented to Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman, in the period between September 2010 and May 2012 with persistent wheezing due to compression of the trachea caused by vascular anomalies. All patients had double aortic arches putting pressure on the trachea, leading to respiratory manifestations and feeding problems. Following surgery, all cases showed improvement and no longer required medication. Without clinical suspicion and appropriate imaging, congenital vascular anomalies may remain undetected for years. Infants and children with chronic wheezing should be evaluated for vascular anomalies as soon as possible. General practitioners should refer all such patients to a tertiary-level hospital for further investigations and management.


In this paper, I discuss three sets of links which I uncover in the data on aggregate US job and worker flows. Job flows are strongly related to aggregate employment growth, while worker flows are strongly related to employment growth and the unemployment rate. I show that a simple frictionless business cycle model with heterogeneity and a simple form of on-the-job search can explain these links. Job flows respond simply to the cross-section of firm growth, which responds to aggregate employment growth. Worker flows are related to both employment growth and the unemployment rate, and quits and hires are particularly tightly related to each other. Quits and hires interact to form a hiring chain-hires beget quits through on-the-job search, and quits beget hires to replace quitters. High unemployment crowds out quits, shortens the hiring chain, reduces the number of hires, and also results in an elevated layoff rate. The simple hiring chain model fits the data surprisingly well.


The relevance of narrative in the law continues to reemerge in legal scholarship. This article uses concepts from both Critical Race Theory and Law and Economics to reassess the conviction of Marcus Garvey, the Harlem Renaissance era civil rights activist. In this case, newly discovered evidence suggests that the manipulation of Garvey's legal narrative by his opponents played a larger role in his conviction than first thought; a role decisive enough to raise concerns of unethical judicial bias and warrant possible exoneration hearings.This paper argues that not only was Garvey unjustly convicted of mail fraud in 1923, but this injustice was also the culmination of an unholy alliance between Garvey's political rivals and Jim Crow era government officials. Together, the legal narrative they crafted contributed to Garvey's untimely death, tainted his legacy for decades, and helped to misshape the future of the 20th century struggle for racial justice.Many scholars have noted that legal narratives often subordinate the voices of people of color. However, this study goes further, exploring how unjust legal narratives have served to warp our collective cultural and historical narrative. This larger result has had a powerful impact on the course of political events in our country. In this case, Garvey's conviction and deportation facilitated the marginalization and silencing of his philosophy of racial justice, a strategy that focused primarily on economic empowerment for people of African descent throughout the world. As a result of the silencing of this voice, nearly a century later Blacks have obtained the political and social rights favored by Garvey's rivals, but as a whole still suffer from grave economic disparities worldwide.The federal judiciary has a storied legacy, being peopled by men and women who have defended and fought for our highest values as a nation. This case appears to be one of the sad exceptions to that rule. But most of all, it should serve as a cautionary tale to practitioners who must learn how to identify and fight the destructive use of legal narrative in contemporary contexts.


This
study considers the work of three women poets writing
in English during the
period
1970-2000. I
argue that the poets, Eavan Boland, Michele Roberts and Jackie
Kay
are all
`hybrid'
voices, positioned and positioning themselves on the borders
between different
cultures and traditions. Locating the poets within a specific social,
cultural and intellectual
context the
study considers the different
ways in
which the
poets negotiate these mixed
heritages and how
gender interacts with
their cultural
location to affect the
poetic identities they inhabit.

My
study of
Eavan Boland locates her
as a post-colonial poet writing out of a very
specific historical
relationship with
Britain. I
argue that the effects of
this
relationship are explored in two ways; the political and psychic legacy of
the British
colonisation of
Ireland but
also the ways in
which women in Ireland have been
colonised by
a nationalist poetic tradition. I
show how Boland interrogates these
different
colonisations and drawing
on the work of
Homi Bhabha I
argue that Boland
finds her
own
hybrid
space in
the Dublin
suburbs from
where she explores the
frictions between a number of conflicting positions.

My
study of
Michele Roberts explores the effects of
her dual French and English
heritage on her
writing.
I
argue that Roberts' desire to embrace both
aspects of
her
identity
manifests itself
as a desire to reconcile what western dualistic thinking has
split and separated. I
consider how Roberts advocates a writing and reading practise
which asks us to embrace the stranger within ourselves and so begin to
heal the split
within
individuals
and nations.
My
chapter on Kay
explores how
she negotiates the cultural specificity of
her
location
as a Scottish writer who
identifies
as black
and how her poetry complicates
questions of cultural authority and theories of cultural
hybridity. I
argue that Kay
through
a focus on
`performance' as both theme and aesthetic subverts simple fixed
notions of
identity.
I
conclude that all three poets problematise any simple notion of
home and belonging
as a fixed
and immutable space. Rather they inhabit borderlands, unsettled spaces,
where there is
a constant interaction and reformulation of
identity.


Is formal science necessarily an effective framework and methodology for designing and implementing ecological restoration programs? My experience as an ecologist in Hawaii suggests that even when scientific research programs are explicitly designed to guide and facilitate restoration, the culture of science, heterogeneity of nature, and real‐world complexities of implementing land management practices often limit the practical relevance of conventional scientific research. Although alternative models such as adaptive management and transdisciplinary science may facilitate research that more robustly models the real world, there is often little professional support or incentive to orient even these nonconventional research approaches toward actually solving on‐the‐ground problems. Thus, if one's goal is to accomplish ecological restoration as quickly and efficiently as possible, a trial‐and‐error/intelligent tinkering–type approach might often be better than using more rigorous, data‐intensive scientific methodology. However, the sympatric implementation of ecological restoration and scientific research programs can lead to valuable synergies such as mutual logistical and financial support and the exchange of distinct forms of knowledge. The professional activities and mere presence of scientists can also greatly enhance a program's prestige and visibility, which in turn can indirectly promote more and better ecological restoration. Improving our understanding of when formal science can directly assist restoration projects and when its value will more likely be synergistic and indirect could lead to better science, better ecological restoration, and better relationships between these two cultures.


The observational record of deep ocean variability is short, which makes it difficult to attribute the recent rise in deep ocean temperatures to anthropogenic forcing. Here we test a new proxy—the oxygen isotopic signature of individual benthic foraminifera—to detect rapid (i.e., monthly to decadal) variations in deep ocean temperature and salinity in the sedimentary record. We apply this technique at 1000 m water depth in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific during seven 200 year Holocene intervals. Variability in foraminifer δ18O over the past 200 years is below the detection limit, but δ18O signatures from two mid‐Holocene intervals indicate temperature swings >2°C within 200 years. More vigorous transport between the surface and deep ocean or stronger eddy variability than that observed in the historical record are potential explanations. Distinguishing externally forced climate trends in deep ocean properties from unforced variability should be possible with systematic analysis of suitable deep sea cores.