In habitats in which multiple species are prey to the same predators, individuals can greatly benefit from recognizing information regarding predators that is provided by other species. Past studies have demonstrated that various mammals respond to familiar heterospecific alarm calls, but whether acoustic similarity to a familiar call can prompt a mammal's recognition of an unfamiliar call has yet to be shown. We presented alarm calls to free-ranging eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and recorded behavioral changes in vigilance and antipredatory response. Playbacks included alarm calls of a sympatric bird (American robin, Turdus migratorius), an allopatric bird with a call structure similar to that of the robin (common blackbird, Turdus merula), and an allopatric bird with a distinct call structure (New Holland honeyeater, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae). Squirrels responded significantly more frequently to squirrel alarm calls (positive control) than to robin song (negative control) or honeyeater calls. Squirrel response to robin and blackbird alarm calls was statistically similar to their response to squirrel alarm calls, indicating that squirrels responded to those alarm calls as if they provided information about the presence of predators. However, squirrel response to robin song was not statistically different from response to any of the other avian calls, including the robin and blackbird alarms, suggesting that squirrels neither respond to blackbird alarms as if they clearly signify danger, nor as if they clearly do not signify danger, perhaps reflecting some ambiguity in interpretation of the calls. These results suggest that squirrel responses to alarm calls are generally based on call familiarity, but that acoustic similarity of an unfamiliar allopatric call to a familiar call also can elicit antipredator behavior. The lack of response to honeyeater alarm calls also supports the hypothesis that call recognition by gray squirrels is dependent on familiarity, rather than simply detection of an acoustic feature common to alarm calls across a variety of avian species.


As teachers and readers expand the canon of world literature to include writers whose voices traditionally have been silenced by the dominant culture, fundamental questions arise. What do we mean by "world"? What constitutes "literature"? Who should decide? Reading World Literature is a cumulative study of the concept and evolving practices of "world literature." Sarah Lawall opens the book with a substantial introduction to the overall topic. Twelve original essays by distinguished specialists run the gamut from close readings of specific texts to problems of translation theory and reader response. The sequence of essays develops from re-examinations of traditional canonical pieces through explorations of less familiar works to discussions of reading itself as a "literacy" dependent on worldview. Reading World Literature will open challenging new vistas for a wide audience in the humanities, from traditionalists to avant-garde specialists in literary theory, cultural studies, and area studies.


Although there have been a few reports that growth factor receptors cycle to the nucleus, there has not been much follow-up work attempting to answer why they are there. Lin et al. seem to have identified a role for epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs) in the nucleus: transcriptional activation. EGFR was found in the nucleus of cell lines and normal tissues that proliferate quickly, such as human buccal mucosa, as demonstrated by immunohistochemistry and isolation of cell nuclei. The majority of EGFR was phosphorylated in the nucleus and began to appear in the nucleus within 1 min of EGF treatment of cells. Nuclear fractions from EGFR-expressing cells treated with cross-linked 125I-labeled EGF-EGFR contained the radiolabeled EGF-EGFR complexes, suggesting that the complexes relocalized from the plasma membrane to the nucleus. The authors identified a proline-rich region from the COOH-terminal portion of EGFR, purported to be similar to a transcriptional activation domain, and fused it to a Gal4 DNA binding domain. This construct greatly increased the expression of a Gal4-dependent reporter gene, whereas a construct that included the EGFR kinase domain in addition to the proline-rich domain and Gal4 DNA binding domain only slightly increased reporter gene expression. The authors concluded that this was evidence of a transactivation domain in EGFR and that the kinase domain acted to negatively regulate transactivation. However, taking specific regions away from the context of the full-length protein and evaluating them for specific activities is possibly to ascribe physiologically irrelevant functions to protein fragments. Nonetheless, Lin et al. identified an AT-rich sequence that bound to EGFR from EGF-treated cells in vitro and also found that EGFR bound to similar elements within the cyclin D1 promoter in chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. These results suggest that EGFR in the nucleus might increase cellular proliferation through the increased expression of cyclin D1. Additional work will need to be done to validate and further this work with other receptors; if these results remain robust and withstand scrutiny, then clearly, a brand new area of signaling research will have been opened. S.-Y. Lin, K. Makino, W. Xia, A. Matin, Y. Wen, K. Y. Kwong, L. Bourguignon, M.-C. Hung, Nuclear localization of EGF receptor and its potential new role as a transcription factor. Nature Cell Biol. 3, 802-808 (2001). [Online Journal]


Internal models of the environment optimize as the brain develops. The brain maintains internal models of its environment to interpret sensory inputs and to prepare actions. Although behavioral studies have demonstrated that these internal models are optimally adapted to the statistics of the environment, the neural underpinning of this adaptation is unknown. Using a Bayesian model of sensory cortical processing, we related stimulus-evoked and spontaneous neural activities to inferences and prior expectations in an internal model and predicted that they should match if the model is statistically optimal. To test this prediction, we analyzed visual cortical activity of awake ferrets during development. Similarity between spontaneous and evoked activities increased with age and was specific to responses evoked by natural scenes. This demonstrates the progressive adaptation of internal models to the statistics of natural stimuli at the neural level.


Wars of national secession and ethnic cleansing have disfigured recent years. These conflicts stem from claims that the same territory is occupied by separate 'peoples' for whom separate political arrangements should be made. Such claims are based on their supposedly distinct racial, ethnic, cultural or national identities. What, though, do such identities really amount to and what ought to be their role in determining the configuration and character of states? This has become a key concern of contemporary political philosophy and this book introduces readers to the materials required to address it: * The concepts of race and ethnicity, cultural identity and nationality * The relevant political theories, including liberalism, communitarianism and postmodernism * The topics of citizenship and migration, multiculturalism, and the ethics of secession This is the first comprehensive survey of a highly topical issue and its multidisciplinary approach will make it of relevance to courses in philosophy, politics, sociology and cultural studies, as well as of interest to the general reader.


This paper presents an optimised 12-pulse autotransformer-based AC–DC converter with reduced kVA magnetics for reducing the harmonic distortion in AC mains current in a vector-controlled induction motor drive (VCIMD). The proposed AC–DC converter results in elimination of fifth, seventh and 11th harmonics in the supply current. The proposed system consists of an autotransformer and a tuned passive filter. A small rating passive filter is tuned to 11th harmonic frequency and it reduces the harmonic currents generated by the AC–DC converter, thus reducing the total harmonic distortion of AC mains current. The filter is tuned such that the supply current is less than the converter input AC current. The detailed simulations of the drive system along with the 12-pulse AC–DC converter are carried out in MATLAB environment using SIMULINK and power system blockset toolboxes. Four different topologies of 12-pulse autotransformer connections have been considered to feed voltage source inverter-based VCIMD. A set of power quality parameters such as total harmonic distortion and crest factor of AC mains current, power factor, displacement factor and distortion factor at AC mains and DC bus ripple factor for a VCIMD fed from different 12-pulse converters are computed and tabulated. The effect of load on VCIMD is also studied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed topology for power quality improvement of AC mains.


BACKGROUND
Survey rates are known to decline with age. Survey results can be affected by response bias if nonresponders are more, or less, likely than participants to suffer from the condition being studied. For instance, it is possible that older adults with dementia would be less likely to participate in a study of dementing disorders.

METHODS
A random sample of a rural U.S. population aged 65+ years yielded 1,422 participants and 912 refusers in addition to others who were ineligible, inaccessible, or untestable. Participants and refusers were compared on age, sex, 5-year mortality, and causes of death suggestive of dementia as listed on death certificates.

RESULTS
Compared to participants, refusers were significantly older and more likely to be women, with mortality similar to that of participants at approximately 5-year follow-up. Death certificate data revealed no significant differences in reported causes of death indicating or suggesting dementia.

CONCLUSIONS
In this population, those who refused to participate in a dementia survey were not more likely to be ill or demented than those who did participate.


The availability of phosphorus (P) in soil is perceived to be one of the limiting factors to sustainable sugarcane production in Fiji. The main objective of this research was to ascertain the amount of bioavailable phosphorus in some Fiji sugarcane growing area soils; this will be valuable in improving the determination of the required amount of inorganic fertilizer to be applied to the soil. In this study, twelve different soils were selected from the sugarcane belt of Fiji and phosphorus buffer index (PBI) and phosphorus isotherm experiments were performed. Soil physical and chemical parameters were also measured and Pearson's correlation tests used to identify patterns. It was found that Oxisols had the highest PBI values ranging from 134 to 170 while Inceptisols had the lowest ranging from 33 to 54. The PBI data followed a similar pattern to the generated isotherm curves of the different soil types. Most interest was in identifying soils with low PBIs as they have greater potential for P leaching through runoff into waterways. Clay content showed a strong positive correlation with PBI (R = 0.76, p ≤ 0.005). There is strong association with phosphorus fixation in soil with increasing levels of Al and Fe in the soil. Phosphorus availability and P fixation varied with soil types.


Free and/or open-source software (or F/OSS) projects now play a major and dominant role in society, constituting critical digital infrastructure relied upon by companies, academics, non-profits, activists, and more. As F/OSS has become larger and more established, we investigate the labor of maintaining and sustaining those projects at various scales. We report findings from an interview-based study with contributors and maintainers working in a wide range of F/OSS projects. Maintainers of F/OSS projects do not just maintain software code in a more traditional software engineering understanding of the term: fixing bugs, patching security vulnera-bilities, and updating dependencies. F/OSS maintainers also perform complex and often-invisible interpersonal and organizational work to keep their projects operating as active communities of users and contributors. We particularly focus on how this labor of maintaining and sustaining changes as projects and their software grow and scale across many dimensions. In understanding F/OSS to be as much about maintaining a communal project as it is maintaining software code, we discuss broadly applicable considerations for peer production communities and other socio-technical systems more broadly.


Decisions relating to working capital involve managing relationships between a firm's short-term assets and liabilities to ensure a firm is able to continue its operations, and have sufficient cash flows to satisfy both maturing short-term debts and upcoming operational expenses at minimal costs, increasing corporate profitability. Research results from compared working capital costs and returns of 22 quoted firms on the Nigerian Stock Exchange evidencing improved gross working capital positions using the difference between means show that costs of working capital exceed returns on working capital investments affecting their profitability. To redress this anomaly and improve net returns and corporate profitability from the use of working capital, quoted firms in Nigeria should optimize working capital investments to avoid over investment with its attendant inventory costs, lost returns on excess cash holdings and receivables; and under investment with its attendant stock-out, illiquidity and bad debts costs; determine its working capital policies ensuring it improves corporate profitability; appraise investments in working capital using capital investment models, determining ahead the viability of such investment; and ascertain and compare working capital costs and benefits to determine the existence of gains if any before investment in the proposed working capital.


This study analyzes the role institutions have in shaping incentives within the shark fin market. It combines literature findings from multifarious fields of fisheries economics, shark biology, and institutional economics to provide an argument that institutions, both formal and informal, were fundamental in establishing the market, guiding how it operates currently, and are needed to find ways to correct for negative externalities engendered by sharks' functions in ecosystems. The strength of the formal institutions of the primary nations involved was measured through the economic freedom index, and classified in terms of inadequate, ineffective, and effective based on how efficient those nations were at conserving shark populations. Developing nations generally provided inadequate institutions that lead to shark finning and overexploitation of their populations. Ineffective institutions are carried out by developed nations with strong enforcement capabilities and high economic freedom, but unproductive management or incentives are in place. Separate methods to properly align incentives in developing and developed nations are suggested. This study recommends using incentive-based strategies, such as a by-catch reward system, in developed nations due to their ability to centrally enforce such policies. For developing nations, locally structured property rights need to be distributed to allow fishermen a stake in the conservation of sharks. These applications can provide both economic and environmental sustainability for shark populations.


The spectra of pure, mixed and layered CO and CO2 ices have been studied systematically under laboratory conditions using Transmission-Absorption Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy. This work provides improved resolution spectra (0.5 cm(-1)) of the CO2 bending and asymmetric stretching mode, as well as the CO stretching mode, extending the existing Leiden database(a) of laboratory spectra to match the spectral resolution reached by modern telescopes and to support the interpretation of the most recent data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. It is shown that mixed and layered CO and CO2 ices exhibit very different spectral characteristics, which depend critically on thermal annealing and can be used to distinguish between mixed, layered and thermally annealed CO-CO2 ices. CO only affects the CO2 bending mode spectra in mixed ices below 50 K under the current experimental conditions, where it exhibits a single asymmetric band profile in intimate mixtures. In all other ice morphologies the CO2 bending mode shows a double peaked profile, similar to that observed for pure solid CO2. Conversely, CO2 induces a blue-shift in the peak-position of the CO stretching vibration, to a maximum of 2142 cm(-1) in mixed ices, and 2140-2146 cm(-1) in layered ices. As such, the CO2 bending mode puts clear constraints on the ice morphology below 50K, whereas beyond this temperature the CO2 stretching vibration can distinguish between initially mixed and layered ices. This is illustrated for the low-mass young stellar object HH46, where the laboratory spectra are used to analyse the observed CO and CO2 band profiles and try to constrain the formation scenarios of CO2.


Since the Coleman Report, many have questioned whether public school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused dramatic changes to the structure of K–12 education spending in the United States. To study the effect of these school finance reform–induced changes in public school spending on long-run adult outcomes, we link school spending and school finance reform data to detailed, nationally representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms and their associated type of funding formula change as exogenous shifters of school spending, and we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts that were differentially exposed to school finance reforms, depending on place and year of birth. Event study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 10% increase in per pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school leads to 0.31 more completed years of education, about 7% higher wages, and a 3.2 percentage point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; effects are much more pronounced for children from low-income families. Exogenous spending increases were associated with notable improvements in measured school inputs, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years. JEL Codes: J10, I20, H7.


Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are pluripotent cells capable of indefinite self renewal in vitro while maintaining the ability to differentiate into cell types of all three germ layers. ESCs are outstanding options of in vitro cell models for regenerative medicine, functional genomics, human developmental biology and drug discovery study. Stem cell research is among the most promising fields of biotechnology, and which provides the potential of developing novel approaches to repair or replace damaged tissues and cells. The present day, exponentially growing effort of stem cell research emphasizes a major need for convergence of more efficient and appropriate laboratory technologies to sustain the growth, proliferation and differentiation potential of stem cells. Although so far, a variety of conventional bioreactors with different configurations (such as spinner flasks, rotary, perfusion bioreactor, etc.) have been designed and adapted for stem cell expansion and differentiation, bioreactors can be disadvantageous in bench-top research because they need large space, consume huge amount of reagents and need more time to operate and maintain (sterilizing, cleaning, assembling, and disassembling of the bioreactor components). The requirements for costly equipment and generating shear stress due to the fluid flow, and the lack of physical similarity between microenvironments of bioreactor and actual cell microenvironment, make using bioreactors undesirable. In tissue engineering, micro-scale technology is an approach that combines micro-techniques with materials science and surface engineering, and results in a profound exploration of the microenvironment where cells are embedded. These technologies are able to address some of the limitations imposed by conventional tissue engineering methods. Indeed, developing successful novel small-scale technologies for in vitro cultivation of different types of cells can assist in increasing our knowledge on conditions that control stem cell growth and differentiation and organ development. In fact, small scale bioreactors are miniaturized versions of conventional bioreactors, where high- throughput cell based assays can be carried out at low cost compared with their macro-scale counter- parts. The first aim of this thesis was to develop a disposable miniaturized bioreactor through a novel and inexpensive method for effective stem cell proliferation. To this end, an effective surface functionalization method was developed for enhancing the biocompatibility of a PDMS surface that is protein resistant while facilitating cell proliferation (expansion) and maintaining the pluripotency potential of cells. The micro-bioreactor was fabricated in the form of a fixed bed bioreactor with a microchannel reactor bed. The microchannel was functionalized to enable cell adhesion and resistance to protein adsorption. The functionalized surface was found to be biocompatible with cancer and embryonic stem cells (ESCs), and while facilitating cell proliferation. Differentiation of ESCs into a variety of cell types is an important characteristic of these types of cells, which is commonly achieved in vitro by spontaneously self-assembling in low adhesion culture conditions into 3D cell aggregates called embryoid bodies (EBs). Formation of EBs that simulates many of the characteristics of early embryonic development is considered as a vital step to induce differentiation of stem cells. Formation of three dimensional configurations of ESCs as EBs provides possibilities to mechanistically study early differentiation events of pluripotent cells. In fact, EB formation is of paramount importance for in vitro investigation of the embryonic development and differentiation of both the mouse and human ES cells. The second aim of this thesis was to introduce a novel concept of a miniaturized bioreactor made of liquid marble (LM). A novel application of liquid marbles for formation of embryoid bodies (EBs) was then presented. This study showed that the confined internal space of liquid marble, along with the porous and non-adhesive property of the highly hydrophobic liquid marble shell, can facilitate the formation of uniform EBs inside the liquid marbles. The efficiency of liquid marble-born-EBs compared to the liquid suspension (LS) technique as the chosen control method in terms of cell viability and EB uniformity revealed that cells in liquid marble are more viable than those in suspension. Measuring EB size distribution as an indicator of uniformity also confirmed that EBs obtained by the LM are morphologically more uniform and of a narrower size distribution compared to those formed in LS. The feasibility of using liquid marble bioreactors for cardiomyocyte differentiation of mouse ES (mES) cells after formation of EBs inside the liquid marble was further investigated. The results demonstrated that ES cells can differentiate into myocyte cells through the liquid marble as a facile, cost effective, and straightforward method. We proposed for the first time that liquid marbles greatly contribute to ES cardiac differentiation, which provides a new technology platform for ES biology and genetic studies. It is worth mentioning that although the majority of our knowledge in modern biology has been provided by classical two dimensional (2D) cell culture techniques, the most common negative aspects of these systems is deficiency of support from extra-cellular matrix, which represents an important role for cell growth and development. It is now well accepted that cells reside, proliferate, and differentiate in complex 3D microenvironments. The concept of using three dimensional (3D) biodegradable scaffolds as alternatives for extracellular matrix (ECM), which more closely reform cells' native structure, is an interesting area of study in current tissue engineering. Because of their unique function, stem cells need to reside in the specialized, 3D microenvironment that surrounds them in native tissues. The third section of this thesis (chapter 5) focuses on the investigating of the feasibility of forming embryoid bodies using a novel hydrogel as bioreactor embedding material. This hydrogel is porous and biodegradable and is prepared by modifying hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC), with bio-functional methacrylates (MA). Observation of EB formation inside hydrogel implied that the stem cells attached and penetrated to the pores, and proliferated well, while forming uniform EBs. Uniformity of EBs formed inside hydrogel, compared with those formed via liquid suspension (LS) method, as one of the most widely used EB formation techniques. It was observed that porous hydrogel allows the formation of more homogeneous EBs. It was found that cells inside hydrogel-born EBs are more viable compared to those formed in LS method. Expression of germ markers via quantitative PCR and immunostaining confirmed that the hydrogel-born EBs had expressed 3 germ layers with further in vitro differentiation potential. These EBs were allowed to differentiate further in hydrogel, where positive immunostaining of different cardiac markers and observation of beating EBs showed the potential of EBs to further differentiate into cardiac cells lineage. In summary, this thesis first presents a novel, facile and cost effective method via surface bio- functionalization of PDMS bioreactor for better stem cell adhesion and proliferation, and later introduces two novel methods to prepare bioreactor material, namely liquid marble and porous hydrogel (HPC-MA) for formation of embryoid bodies, which is considered as a critical step for in vitro differentiation in ESCs.


The most effective engineers the ones who have risen to become distinguished engineers and leaders at their companies can produce 10 times the impact of other engineers, but they're not working 10 times the hours. They've internalized a mindset that took me years of trial and error to figure out. I'm going to share that mindset with you along with hundreds of actionable techniques and proven habits so you can shortcut those years. Introducing The Effective Engineer the only book designed specifically for today's software engineers, based on extensive interviews with engineering leaders at top tech companies, and packed with hundreds of techniques to accelerate your career. For two years, I embarked on a quest seeking an answer to one question: How do the most effective engineers make their efforts, their teams, and their careers more successful? I interviewed and collected stories from engineering VPs, directors, managers, and other leaders at today's top software companies: established, household names like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; rapidly growing mid-sized companies like Dropbox, Square, Box, Airbnb, and Etsy; and startups like Reddit, Stripe, Instagram, and Lyft. These leaders shared stories about the most valuable insights they've learned and the most common and costly mistakes that they've seen engineers sometimes themselves make. This is just a small sampling of the hard questions I posed to them: What engineering qualities correlate with future success? What have you done that has paid off the highest returns? What separates the most effective engineers you've worked with from everyone else? What's the most valuable lesson your team has learned in the past year? What advice do you give to new engineers on your team? Everyone's story is different, but many of the lessons share common themes. You'll get to hear stories like: How did Instagram's team of 5 engineers build and support a service that grew to over 40 million users by the time the company was acquired? How and why did Quora deploy code to production 40 to 50 times per day? How did the team behind Google Docs become the fastest acquisition to rewrite its software to run on Google's infrastructure? How does Etsy use continuous experimentation to design features that are guaranteed to increase revenue at launch? How did Facebook's small infrastructure team effectively operate thousands of database servers? How did Dropbox go from barely hiring any new engineers to nearly tripling its team size year-over-year? What's more, I've distilled their stories into actionable habits and lessons that you can follow step-by-step to make your career and your team more successful. The skills used by effective engineers are all learnable. And I'll teach them to you. With The Effective Engineer, I'll teach you a unifying framework called leverage the value produced per unit of time invested that you can use to identify the activities that produce disproportionate results. Here's a sneak peek at some of the lessons you'll learn. You'll learn how to: Prioritize the right projects and tasks to increase your impact. Earn more leeway from your peers and managers on your projects. Spend less time maintaining and fixing software and more time building and shipping new features. Produce more accurate software estimates. Validate your ideas cheaply to reduce wasted work. Navigate organizational and people-related bottlenecks. Find the appropriate level of code reviews, testing, abstraction, and technical debt to balance speed and quality. Shorten your debugging workflow to increase your iteration speed. Use metrics to quantify your impact and consistently make progress.


Introduction. Part I: Get Started Using the SQL Server 2005 Development Environment. Chapter 1: The Joy of SQL Server 2005 Programming. Chapter 2: Understanding Database Fundamentals. Chapter 3: Getting to Know the SQL Server Toolset. Part II: Retrieving Data Using Transact-SQL. Chapter 4: Retrieving Data Using the SELECT Statement. Chapter 5: Creating Joins. Chapter 6: Creating Advanced Queries. Chapter 7: Manipulating Data. Part III: Creating Databases and Database Objects with Transact-SQL. Chapter 8: Designing, Creating, and Altering Database Objects. Chapter 9: Designing, Creating, and Changing Tables. Chapter 10: Applying Constraints. Chapter 11: Creating Views. Chapter 12: Using Stored Procedures. Chapter 13: Using Triggers. Chapter 14: Creating Functions. Chapter 15: Creating Indexes. Chapter 16: Handling Errors Using TRY ... CATCH. Part IV: Programming SQL Server Security. Chapter 17: Adding Logins and Users. Chapter 18: Creating Database-Level Security. Chapter 19: Securing Data Using Encryption. Part V: Beyond Transact-SQL Programming. Chapter 20: Working with XML. Chapter 21: Working with the Common Language Runtime. Chapter 22: Using Visual Studio 2005. Chapter 23: Working with SQL Server Management Objects. Part VI: The Part of Tens. Chapter 24: Ten Tips to Program Like a Pro. Chapter 25: Ten Sources for More Information on SQL Server 2005. Index.


Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is the standard of care for a healthcare worker (HCW) accidentally exposed to an HIV infected source person (occupational exposure), but this is not the case for non-occupational exposures. Very few national guidelines exist for the management of non-occupational exposures to HIV in Europe, contrarily to the occupational ones. The administration of non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (NONOPEP) for HIV may be justified by: a biological plausibility, the effectiveness of PEP in animal studies and occupational exposures in humans, efficacy in the prevention of mother to child HIV transmission, and cost effectiveness studies. These evidences, the similar risk of HIV transmission for certain non-occupational exposures to occupational ones, and the conflicting information about attitudes and practices among physicians on NONOPEP led to the proposal of these European recommendations. Participant members of the European project on HIV NONOPEP, funded by the European Commission, and acknowledged as experts in bloodborne pathogen transmission and prevention, met from December 2000 to December 2002 at three formal meetings and a two day workshop for a literature review on risk exposure assessment and the development of the European recommendations for the management of HIV NONOPEP. NONOPEP is recommended in unprotected receptive anal sex and needle or syringe exchange when the source person is known as HIV positive or from a population group with high HIV prevalence. Any combination of drugs available for HIV infected patients can be used as PEP and the simplest and least toxic regimens are to be preferred. PEP should be given within 72 hours from the time of exposure, starting as early as possible and lasting four weeks. All patients should receive medical evaluation including HIV antibody tests, drug toxicity monitoring and counseling periodically for at least 6 months after the exposure. NONOPEP seems to be a both feasible and frequent clinical practice in Europe. Recommendations for its management have been achieved by consensus, but some remain controversial, and they should be updated periodically. NONOPEP should never be considered as a primary prevention strategy and the final decision for prescription must be made on the basis of the patient-physician relationship. Finally, a surveillance system for these cases will be useful to monitor NONOPEP practices in Europe.


Examination of the structural organization of the auditory system of the brain stem shows that the system is composed of a number of separate ascending pathways. This suggests that there may be at least two auditory systems, analogous to the rod and cone pathways in vision. We examined this possibility by investigating the variation in relative size of the medial and lateral superior olivary nuclei in a number of different mammalian species. The lateral superior olive is present in the hedgehog (an insectivore), cat (acarnivore), and squirrel monkey a(primate), but the medial superior olive is absent in the hedgehog. In a group of animals of the same taxonomic order (rodents) the lateral superior olive was present in all species examined, but the medial superior olive was almost wholly absent in the mouse and very prominent in the chinchilla and guinea pig. The absence of the medial superior olive in some animals is surprising because recent anatomical and physiological work has implicated the nucleus in auditory localization. Because of this implication, the medial and lateral olivary nuclei were examined in three species of bat and one dolphin, all echolocating animals. The medial superior olive was absent in these animals, and the lateral superior olive was prominent. These observations support the idea that the medial and lateral superior olives are nuclei on two different ascending auditory systems. It was also noted that the medial superior olive was always well developed in animals with well-developed eyes, and this suggested that the nucleus is in some way related to the visual system. We examined this idea by studying the relation between the numbers of cells in the medial superior olive and in the nucleus of the 6th cranial nerve (one of the motor nuclei concerned with eye movement) in a number of mammalian species. An approximately linear function was found between the sizes of the 6th nucleus and of the medial superior olive in three primates with cone-cell retinas (squirrel monkey, man, and macaque) and four rodents with rod-cell retinas (mouse, rat, guinea pig, and chinchilla). The cell numbers for the ground squirrel (a rodent with cone-cell retina) fitted an extension of the primate curve, and the cell numbers for the cat (in whose retina rods predominate) fitted an extension of the rodent curve. Thus, it is clear that the medial superior olive is related to the visual system, and that it is present in animals with cone-cell fovea and retina (diurnalanimals) and animals with rod-cell retina (that is, nocturnal animals) having good vision. In nonvisual nocturnal animals the nucleus is small or absent. The medial superior olive is probably not concerned with auditory localization in the psychophysical sense but is probably concerned with the movement of head and eyes in the direction of a sound in space. Localization in the psychophysical sense and fine auditory discrimination probably depend upon the ascending pathway which includes the lateral superior olive.


Abstract Upper Palaeozoic glaciomarine deposits combined with the presence of cold-water faunas and Glossopteris indicate a Gondwana provenance of the Baoshan and Tengchong Blocks in western Yunnan. The glacial origin of these Permo-Carboniferous deposits is verified by a three-fold subdivision of the basal sequence comprising, in ascending order: diamictites with faceted and striated clasts, laminites with dropstones, and a black anaerobic de-glaciation facies. The succeeding carbonates of the upper Permian and Lower Triassic originated during a post-glacial phase of a much warmer climate. Although the two blocks are adjacent to each other their Upper Palaeozoic sequences show significant differences. The glacigene successions of the Baoshan Block are comparatively thin and are overlain by thick basalts and red beds. On the Tengchong Block the glacigene marine deposits exceed 1000 m and are followed by thick reefal limestones of Lower Permian age. An active volcanic rift setting is suggested for the Baoshan Block and a proximal passive margin environment at a somewhat lower latitude for the Tengchong Block. The succession of the latter is comparable with Permo-Carboniferous sections in NW Australia, especially that of the Bonaparte Gulf basin, and it is assigned to the Sibumasu tectono-stratigraphic unit. The Baoshan sequence shows similarities to sequences of Tibet and NE India and is therefore assigned to the Tibetan realm. Both terranes separated from Gondwana in the late Early Permian. Docking commenced in the Late Triassic concomitant with the closure of the Changning-Menglian Belt. Lateral displacements in the course of the Himalayan orogeny moved the Tengchong Block north, bringing it into juxtaposition with the western margin of the Baoshan Block. This tectonic contact is now the Nujiang Line.


The broad set of deep generative models (DGMs) has achieved remarkable advances. However, it is often difficult to incorporate rich structured domain knowledge with the end-to-end DGMs. Posterior regularization (PR) offers a principled framework to impose structured constraints on probabilistic models, but has limited applicability to the diverse DGMs that can lack a Bayesian formulation or even explicit density evaluation. PR also requires constraints to be fully specified {\it a priori}, which is impractical or suboptimal for complex knowledge with learnable uncertain parts. In this paper, we establish mathematical correspondence between PR and reinforcement learning (RL), and, based on the connection, expand PR to learn constraints as the extrinsic reward in RL. The resulting algorithm is model-agnostic to apply to any DGMs, and is flexible to adapt arbitrary constraints with the model jointly. Experiments on human image generation and templated sentence generation show models with learned knowledge constraints by our algorithm greatly improve over base generative models.


The participation of youths is important in the management of environmental problems. Environmental problems such as deforestation, overgrazing, soil erosion, and improper waste disposal are common in most parts of Ethiopia. Inappropriate environmental policies, population growth, climate change, and low level of awareness and less participation of the public are the major factors responsible for the problems. These environmental problems are affecting the overall agricultural productivity of the country necessitating corrective measures. The participation of youths in environmental management activities is important not only because they are the most productive group of society, but also because they constitute a significant number (30 and 28% of the Ethiopian and the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) total population, respectively). This article, in line with the Ethiopian Youth Development and Change Package which is a program designed to materialize the Ethiopian Youth Policy (2004), discusses the success achieved and the challenges encountered in the implementation of the program in SNNPRS. The study is based on primary data collected by household survey from 7,630 youths all over the region. Other relevant secondary data were obtained from different sources. The findings have indicated that significant integrated watershed management activities have been undertaken in the region and as a result, some of the degraded lands rehabilitated, and urban greening and sanitation have improved. However, lack of autonomous organizational structure, weak coordination, lower youths' participation and perception regarding their responsibility in managing the environment, lack of follow up for environmental management activities, absence of civic societies working in environmental management in the region are found to be problems to be resolved. Deforestation is found now to be the major environmental problem in the region.

 Key words: Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS), environmental degradation, youth participation, environmental management.


This paper focuses on a new pipelined processing unit architecture dedicated to mixed-signal power system emulation. Prior research in this field has proven that analog emulation overcomes the speed limits of numerical simulators with reliable accuracy. Then, a new concept based on field programmable power network system (FPPNS) has been developed in order to gain in term of flexibility. It is based on a hybrid architecture where grid equations are solved analogically and generator and load equations are solved digitally. A first platform based on a developed application specific integrated circuit has validated the concept with a 16-node topology. The present work aims to extend the size of the emulation hardware (up to 100 nodes) as well as to increase the speed. Therefore the digital equations are solved on an embedded FPGA containing four parallel pipelined processing unit which are interfaced to the analog emulator. Speed results are provided and compared with a reference numerical simulator.


Although the dairy market crisis eased in 2011, Hungarian dairy farmers still find it difficult to produce milk profitably. As a result of the crisis, many dairy farmers abandoned milk production or reduced the size of their dairy herds in 2009 and 2010. Today, many of farmers are also considering ceasing production, in spite of the fact that the global dairy industry is facing an upturn. A dairy farm can operate profitablyy in three ways: 1) if it can reach a relatively high level of producer price 2) if it can increase milk production per cow 3) if it can achieve a relatively low cost of production. In the present study, I primarily analyse the development of the Hungarian producer price of raw milk in international comparison. Next, I list those factors which directly or indirectly influence the producer price of raw milk. Finally, I examine the relationship among disposable income, milk consumption and milk price. Since the start of 2009, the dairy market has been confronted with a period of extraordinary law prices. After bottoming out, prices had begun to slowly stabilise during the second half of 2009. By the end of that summer, international prices had started to strengthen and the last quarter of 2009 was characterized by a steady rise in prices. The strong recovery in prices experienced after 2009 was triggered by increased demand, mainly from oil exporting countries, but also from China. The price increase, however, reflected a significant increase in input costs in Hungary; the high level of feed prices and the unfavourable change in the macroeconomic environment must be stressed. The rising excise duty on diesel fuel and the VAT increase had a direct impact on Hungarian dairy farmers. These negative factors have increased the costs of the sector, narrowing the ability of those active in it to operate efficiently.


The structure and management of the Reserve Bank's balance sheet has changed significantly over the last five years. A big area of change has been in the way that foreign reserves are financed. The Reserve Bank no longer finances its foreign reserves on a fully currency-hedged basis, and now predominantly uses the long-term funds on its balance sheet that naturally arise from its core statutory functions to finance foreign reserves more cheaply and more flexibly than was possible in the past. These efficiency gains have been made possible by changing the way we manage our balance sheet from a model where the financial aspects of different business functions were managed separately to a new integrated asset and liability management model. These changes have been designed to improve the Reserve Bank's ability to meet its policy functions in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. Our experience of the global financial crisis has shown the Reserve Bank's new balance sheet structure to be effective and resilient at the time when its financial resources have been most in demand.


Analysis of the karyotypes of multiple Candida albicans isolates by pulsed-field electrophoresis confirms the observation by Lasker et al. of eight chromosomes. The genes previously assigned to chromosome 1 in fact fall into two groups, one (including ADE1, SOR9, and CDC10) is linked to the ribosomal DNA genes on a chromosome called R, whereas the others are found on chromosome 1. Chromosome R varies in electrophoretic mobility among strains, usually running equal to or faster than chromosome 1 but in rare cases running slower than chromosome 1. In strain 1012A, the decreased mobility of one homolog is associated with the very large majority of the rDNA genes being on that homolog; the second homolog, with only a few copies, migrates with chromosome 2. Linkage analysis by using spheroplast fusion confirms the gene assignments made by hybridization to blots of the electrophoretic karyotype. A newly cloned gene, LYS2, hybridizes to chromosome 1.


Climatological data from three stations in western Canada are used to develop a model for estimating daily net radiation from station latitude, station altitude and cloud cover. Expressions describing: a) the seasonal variation in atmospheric transmissivity; b) the interaction between direct-beam and diffuse short-wave radiation and c) the effect of cloud cover on these components are presented.

The seasonal decrease in albedo of a shallow snowcover is approximated by three line segments. Albedo decreases at an average rate of 0.0061/day during premelt; at an average rate of about 0.071/day during melt and takes on a reasonably constant value of 0.17 when the ground is snowfree.

The exchange of long-wave radiation dominates the radiation balance of a complete snowcover. During these periods it is recommended that the net flux be calculated from observations of ambient air temperature and vapor pressure in standard expressions.


This paper studies the value of the stock market as a monitor of managerial performance. It shows that the stock price incorporates performance information that cannot be extracted from the firm's current or future profit data. The additional information is useful for structuring managerial incentives. The amount of information contained in the stock price depends on the liquidity of the market. Concentrated ownership, by reducing market liquidity, reduces the benefits of market monitoring. Integration is associated with weakened managerial incentives and less market monitoring. This may explain why shares of divisions of a firm are rarely traded. The model offers a reason why market liquidity and monitoring have both a private and a social value, a feature missing in standard finance models. This is used to study the equilibrium size of the stock market as a function of investor preferences and the available amounts of long- and short-term capital.


During the Cold War, neutral Finland shared a long border with the Soviet Union. Despite two wars against the Soviet Union (1939-1940 and 1941-1944), and the threat of communist takeover, Finland survived as an independent, democratic country with a market economy. When the Cold War started in the late 1940s, the United States government and the British Foreign Office began to view trade as a potential means of drawing Finland closer to the West and preventing it from falling under Soviet domination. The extensive evidence of this has led many historians to underline the role of political considerations in Western foreign economic policy towards Finland. The present work argues that the Cold War rhetoric of the British Foreign Office paints a misleading picture of British government policy. Despite attempts by the Foreign Office to make political considerations central to the formulation of British foreign economic policy towards Finland, the impact of such considerations was in fact negligible. This was in part because the British were facing economic problems after the Second World War that limited the policy options available to British foreign pohcy makers, but was at least as much the result of the categorical refusal by the Treasury and the Board of Trade to take political factors into account and to use economic methods as tools of foreign policy in the Finnish case. Regardless of whether the economic costs of the proposed policies were large or small, the economic departments of the government treated them as an unwelcome interference in the promotion of the British economic interest and attempts to strengthen the British economy. The present thesis is based on a detailed study of British government documents. It argues that if one wishes to explain the underlining aspirations of British policy one must examine the UK decision-making process in detail, and not rely only on arguments the UK government representatives used to justify UK policy.


The study of natural fiber-based composites through the use of computational techniques for modelling and optimizing their properties has emerged as a fast-growing approach in recent years. Ecological concerns associated with synthetic fibers have made the utilisation of natural fibers as a reinforcing material in composites a popular approach. Computational techniques have become an important tool in the hands of many researchers to model and analyze the characteristics that influence the mechanical properties of natural fiber composites. This recent trend has led to the development of many advanced computational techniques and software for a profound understanding of the characteristics and performance behavior of composite materials reinforced with natural fibers. The large variations in the characteristics of natural fiber-based composites present a great challenge, which has led to the development of many computational techniques for composite materials analysis. This review seeks to infer, from conventional to contemporary sources, the computational techniques used in modelling, analyzing, and optimizing the mechanical characteristics of natural fiber reinforced composite materials.


Abstract We propose a new neural network model, Neuron-Adaptive artificial neural Network (NAN). A learning algorithm is derived to tune both the neuron activation function free parameters and the connection weights between neurons. We proceed to prove that a NAN can approximate any piecewise continuous function to any desired accuracy, and then relate the approximation properties of NAN models to some special mathematical functions. A neuron-Adaptive artificial Neural network System for Estimating Rainfall (ANSER), which uses NAN as its basic reasoning network, is described. Empirical results show that the NAN model performs about 1.8% better than artificial neural network groups, and around 16.4% better than classical artificial neural networks when using a rainfall estimate experimental database. The empirical results also show that by using the NAN model, ANSER plus can (1) automatically compute rainfall amounts ten times faster; and (2) reduce average errors of rainfall estimates for the total precipitation event to less than 10%.


To prolong battery life of mobile devices, applications often exploit offloading techniques which run computations on remote servers. Unfortunately, the existing offloading techniques do not consider the fact that data transmission time and energy consumption of wireless network interfaces exponentially increase when signal strength decreases. In this paper, we propose an adaptive offloading technique that considers signal strength. Our technique estimates gain (reduced computation time and energy of mobile devices) and loss (increased data transmission time and energy of network interfaces) of offloading depending on signal strength. Based on the estimated gain and loss, our technique determines whether it offloads computations to a server or not. In evaluation, our proposed technique improves performance by 30.1% and saves system-wide energy consumption by 25.0%, on average, compared to the conventional offloading technique that does not consider signal strength.


Some flying insects have two wings, whereas others have four. The common housefly, which possesses two wings, makes use of the vestigial hindwing (the pendulum-shaped haltere) as a source of mechanosensory input to the neural centers that support stable flight. Sane et al. have asked whether moths, which have four wings, possess a similar kind of flight control mechanism. Instead, the antennae appear to serve a haltere-like function by providing mechanosensory input through hairs or bristles located at their base, whose deflections are translated into afferent neural signals. S. P. Sane, A. Dieudonné, M. A. Willis, T. L. Daniel, Antennal mechanosensors mediate flight control in moths. Science 315, 863-866 (2007). [Abstract] [Full Text] R. M. Alexander, Antennae as gyroscopes. Science 315, 771-772 (2007). [Summary] [Full Text]


Establishing hard rather than soft budget constraints in intergovernmental fiscal relations is perhaps the most important challenge facing developing economies as they decentralize. Recent experience with fiscal decentralization in many developing and transition economies has led many observers to question whether fiscal decentralization undermines macroeconomic stability. In several countries, transfers from central to lower-level governments have increased fiscal deficits at the central level, creating pressures on central banks to monetize additional debt, thus jeopardizing price stability. In other countries, central governments trying to control their deficits have reduced transfers to lower-level governments, creating fiscal distress at lower levels. These issues of macroeconomic fiscal stability have not featured prominently in North American policy debates about fiscal federalism, nor has much academic research been devoted to them. In a world where the state's basic political organization is undergoing rapid reform and restructuring, the tensions and opportunities created by fiscal interactions among levels of government are of critical concern. Much of the literature on fiscal federalism has been geared to the situation in such industrial countries as Canada and the United States. Policymakers and researchers should identify the institutional structures of stable, mature federations that help sustain satisfactory macro-economic performance. But different policy problems are likely to arise in different settings, especially in the developing world. Among topics that deserve further research attention: The interplay between intergovernmental grants and government borrowing. What is the difference in effect on lower-level governments between hard and soft budget constraints? What economic distortions are associated with soft budget constraints? What institutional reforms might help to establish hard budget constraints? Is the country still the appropriate unit of analysis for important economic issues? What economic benefits or costs result from including several regions within one jurisdictional structure? What economic considerations determine the optimal size of a country and what are the crucial economic functions of national governments? Demographic change, changes in communication and transportation technology, and the development of market institutions may alter the optimal or equilibrium boundaries of political units over time. Such change invariably raises questions about the organization of the public sector and the assignment of expenditures and revenues to different levels of government. The patterns of gains and losses from reorganizing factor markets and jurisdictional structures can be complex. To understand them fully requires understanding the economic consequences of changes in both market organization and policy outcomes resulting from reorganization of the public sector. This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study fiscal decentralization and the organization of government.


Allowing for three labor market settings (perfect competition or right-to-manage bargaining, efficient bargaining and monopsony), this paper relies on an extension of Hall's econometric framework for estimating simultaneously price-cost margins and scale economies. Using an unbalanced panel of 17,653 firms over the period 1986-2001 in France, 8,725 firms over the period 1994-2006 in Japan and 7,828 firms over the period 1993-2008 in the Netherlands, we first apply two procedures to classify 30 comparable manufacturing industries in 6 distinct regimes that differ in terms of the type of competition prevailing in product and labor markets. For each of the three predominant regimes in each country, we then investigate industry differences in the estimated product and labor market imperfections and scale economies. We find important regime differences across the three countries and also observe differences in the levels of product and labor market imperfections and scale economies within regimes.


Authentication is a key security control for any computing system, whether that is a PC, server, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. However, authentication is traditionally poorly served, with existing implementations falling foul of a variety of weaknesses. Passwords are poorly selected, reused and shared (to name but a few). Research has suggested novel approaches to authentication such as transparent authentication and cooperative and distributed authentication. However, these technologies merely focus upon individual platforms rather than providing a universal and federated authentication approach that can be used across technologies and services. The advent of cloud computing, its universal connectivity, scalability and flexibility, offers a new opportunity of achieving usable and convenient authentication seamlessly in a technology and service independent fashion. The approach introduces a new dedicated authentication provider – the Managed Authentication Service Provider – that is able to provide state‐of‐the‐art centralised verification of authenticity. However, relying upon such an environment also introduces a range of technology, privacy and trust‐related issues that must be overcome.


Domestic dogs share a wide range of important disease conditions with humans, including cancers, diabetes and epilepsy. Many of these conditions have similar or identical underlying pathologies to their human counterparts and thus dogs represent physiologically relevant natural models of human disorders. Comparative genomic approaches whereby disease genes can be identified in dog diseases and then mapped onto the human genome are now recognized as a valid method and are increasing in popularity. The majority of dog breeds have been created over the past few hundred years and, as a consequence, the dog genome is characterized by extensive linkage disequilibrium (LD), extending usually from hundreds of kilobases to several megabases within a breed, rather than tens of kilobases observed in the human genome. Genome-wide canine SNP arrays have been developed, and increasing success of using these arrays to map disease loci in dogs is emerging. No equivalent of the human HapMap currently exists for different canine breeds, and the LD structure for such breeds is far less understood than for humans. This study is a dedicated large-scale assessment of the functionalities (LD and SNP tagging performance) of canine genome-wide SNP arrays in multiple domestic dog breeds. We have used genotype data from 18 breeds as well as wolves and coyotes genotyped by the Illumina 22K canine SNP array and Affymetrix 50K canine SNP array. As expected, high tagging performance was observed with most of the breeds using both Illumina and Affymetrix arrays when multi-marker tagging was applied. In contrast, however, large differences in population structure, LD coverage and pairwise tagging performance were found between breeds, suggesting that study designs should be carefully assessed for individual breeds before undertaking genome-wide association studies (GWAS).


Abstract : Experiments were conducted to measure the three-dimensional static and free vibrational response of two graphite-epoxy, thin-walled, open section frames. The frames are semi-circular with a radius of three feet, and one specimen has an I cross section and the other has a channel cross section. The flexibility influence coefficients were measured in static tests for loads applied at midspan with the ends of the specimens clamped. Natural frequencies and modes were determined from vibrational tests for free and clamped end conditions. The experimental data is used to evaluate a new finite element which was developed specifically for the analysis of curved, thin-walled structures. The formulation of the element is based on a Vlasov-type, thin-walled, curved beam theory. The predictions from the finite element program generally correlated well with the experimental data for the symmetric I-specimen. Discrepancies in some of the data were found to be due to flexibility in the clamped' end conditions. With respect to the data for the channel specimen, the correlation was less satisfactory. The finite element analysis predicted the out-of-plane response of the channel specimen reasonably well, but large discrepancies occurred between the predicted in-plane response and the experimental data. The analysis predicted a much more compliant in-plane response then was observed in the experiments.


Beyond "Everyday Poetry": The Life and Works of Mascha Kaleko Review Essay Mein Lied geht weiters Hundert Gedichte, by Mascha Kaleko, edited by Gisela Zoch-Westphal. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2007. 159 pp. euro6.00. Mascha Kaleko: Biografie, by Jutta Rosenkranz. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2007. 300 pp. euro14.50. Mascha Kaleko was born in 1907 to a Russian father and an Austrian mother in Galicia, in what is now Chrzanow in southern Poland. She and her family were forced to flee westward to Germany in 1914 to avoid falling victim to pogroms in the region. While her father was detained due to his Russian nationality, the rest of the family moved around within Germany in relative poverty until settling in Berlin after the war. The appearance of Kaleko's first volume of poetry. Das lyrische Stenogrammheft, coincided with the National Socialists' rise to power; her work was blacklisted in 1937, and in the following year she emigrated to America with her second husband, the musician and composer Chemjo Vinaver, and son Steven. Kaleko remained in New York until 1959 when she and Chemjo moved to Israel, where - in between extensive European travels - she spent much of the rest her life, before dying of stomach cancer in 1975. In her biography of the poet, Jutta Rosenkranz emphasizes that Kaleko felt like an outsider in each of her life stations, a sentiment to be found throughout much of her poetry. Kaleko also battled depression for much of her life, and her poems often testify to her despondent mental state after devastating changes, such as being uprooted multiple times and, most of all, the death of her son. Rosenkranz contends that Mascha Kaleko is one of the most underrated poets of the German language; as stated in the prologue, she hopes to reawaken interest in the writer with this biography, which is replete with new facts and previously unpublished poems and photographs. Rosenkranz makes a strong case for securing this prolific writer's position within German literary history, and she does an admirable job with piecing together her life story from rather scanty documentation, and with situating the biographical facts within their respective socio-historical backdrops. Rosenkranz had her work cut out for her: Kaleko was not especially forthright in answering questions about her life, often referring people to her autobiographical (but rarely explicit) poems for the answers. She also destroyed documentation and correspondence that would have been enlightening in regard to, for example, her childhood, her first marriage to Saul Kaleko, and the details of her second marriage to Vinaver. Kaleko stopped keeping a diary in 1944 and did not resume it until just a few years before her death. Rosenkranz does not dwell on this missing evidence, however, nor does it seem to hinder her from compiling a cohesive, if not quite complete, picture of the poet (it is telling that the term vermutlich - "presumably" - appears frequently). The result is an odd mixture of both fascinating and trivial details, from Kaleko's correspondence with Albert Einstein (pp. 102-03), to how much she paid for a taxi, including tip, during a trip to Hamburg (p. 118). In general, however, the level of detail is compelling and revealing, especially in regard to Kaleko's impressions upon her return trips to Europe during the postwar era. The actress Gisela Zoch-Westphal, editor of the poetry collection Mein Lied geht weiter: Hundert Gedichte, has made great strides in keeping Kaleko's name alive in the literary landscape of the German-speaking world, having written the first biography of Kaleko in 1987 and ensuring since then that her works remain readily available. This collection includes a short epilogue by Zoch-Westphal in which she relates her friendship with Kaleko, recalling how she read for her at a public reading shortly after the death of Kaleko's only child, Steven Vinaver, who died of pancreatitis at the age of 31. …


In this report we give an overview of the development of our new Waldmeisterprover for equational theories. We elaborate a systematic stepwise design process, startingwith the inference system for unfailing Knuth - Bendix completion and ending up with animplementation which avoids the main diseases today's provers suffer from: overindulgencein time and space.Our design process is based on a logical three - level system model consisting of basicoperations for inference step execution, aggregated inference machine, and overall controlstrategy. Careful analysis of the inference system for unfailing completion has revealed thecrucial points responsible for time and space consumption. For the low level of our model,we introduce specialized data structures and algorithms speeding up the running system andcutting it down in size - both by one order of magnitude compared with standard techniques.Flexible control of the mid - level aggregation inside the resulting prover is made possible by acorresponding set of parameters. Experimental analysis shows that this flexibility is a pointof high importance. We go on with some implementation guidelines we have found valuablein the field of deduction.The resulting new prover shows that our design approach is promising. We compare oursystem's throughput with that of an established system and finally demonstrate how twovery hard problems could be solved by Waldmeister.


ABSTRACT Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) nanotube and tungsten oxide (W18O49) nanowire were coated with poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) by a radio frequency (RF: 13.56 MHz)-rotating plasma-modification method as alternative counter electrodes for dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). Surface analysis showed the homogenous plasma nanocoating of inorganic nanostructures by P3HT and PEDOT. It was demonstrated that the plasma-modified hybrid platinum-free counter electrodes increased the efficiencies of the DSSCs. The DSSCs based on hybrid nanostructure materials showed a short circuit current density of 9.49, 7.95, 2.59 and 2.57 mAcm−2 for MoS2/P3HT, MoS2/PEDOT, W18O49/PEDOT and W18O49/P3HT samples, respectively. The plasma nanocoating with the nanostructured materials approach for obtaining hybrid counter electrodes in the photovoltaic action shows an alternative route towards cost-effective, green energy conversion.


We present a new strategy for the direct optimization of the values of policy functions. This approach is particularly well suited to model actors with a global perspective on the system and relies heavily on modern mathematical white-box optimization methods. We demonstrate our strategy on two classical models: market growth and World2. Each model is first transformed into an optimization problem by defining how the actor can influence the models' dynamics and by choosing objective functions to measure improvements. To improve comparability between different runs, we also introduce a comparison measure for possible interventions. We solve the optimization problems, discuss the resulting policies and compare them to the existing results from the literature. In particular, we present a run of the World2 model which significantly improves the published "towards a global equilibrium" run with equal cost of intervention.


Abstract The author describes the SNL DataSource, an interactive database service, and its symbiotic relationship with the contemporary public real estate industry. First compiled with the advent of the current generation of real estate investment trusts in the early 1990s, DataSource contains eleven years of financial data on over 225 companies, tracks 1,300 separate capital issues and provides data on over 36,000 properties owned by these companies. DataSource is utilized for decision-making by analysts who track the companies, by investors in the industry, and is a unique source for academic research into the public real estate markets. Most observers generally date the birth of the modern real estate investment trust (REIT) industry to the initial public offering of Kimco Realty Corporation in November 1991. From that point forward, the size of the REIT market has grown at a phenomenal rate, such that the industry in aggregate today is approximately twenty times the size it was at the end of 1991. One of the benefits from this growth of the public real estate market is a greater scrutiny of the industry by the capital markets. There can be no doubt that real estate markets are more "transparent"-and therefore more efficient-now than they have ever been. Whereas the art of the real estate researcher in the 1980s resided in an ability to find the data, today the emphasized talent lies in organizing and managing the avalanche of available information. In 1994, SNL Securities1 decided to employ the information gathering and distribution expertise it had gained in the banking sector, which it had been covering since 1987, in the booming industry of public real estate. In particular, SNL perceived an excellent expansion opportunity, sensing that the reporting eccentricities of the industry (e.g., FFO) and the unique economics of real estate required the attention of an experienced specialist information provider. The result is a powerful database-the SNL DataSource-that contains eleven years of financial data on 225 companies, tracks more than 1,300 separate capital issues of those companies and provides data on more than 36,000 of their properties. This data is entered, checked and updated on a daily basis by a team of twelve analysts in Charlottesville, Virginia. For example, information that is made public on Monday is entered in the DataSource and distributed electronically to all of SNL's clients by Tuesday. These clients include every investment bank on Wall Street and about half of the top fifty owners of real estate securities. SNL's clients use the DataSource to provide the foundation for their financial analysis of the real estate industry. Clients prefer SNL's DataSource to the products of other data providers because of the guaranteed quality of the data,2 the speed of new data entry, and the functionality of the program. In addition, DataSource clients use the program to access SNL's newsletters and news article archive. The newsletter is published overnight and contains a comprehensive round up of the prior day's industry news. The newsletter has been published continuously since March 1996 and all articles written since then are now available through SNL's News OnLine from a searchable database. Appendix A is a PC desktop "screen shot" taken from the DataSource, which displays a table of information on a sample of the largest real estate companies that SNL covers. Standardized reports are available for convenience, but reports can be easily customized to show exactly the data needed. Included in the screen shot are typical data items, depicting whether or not the company is a REIT,3 what property type the company specializes in, the market value of its common shares, debt-to-capitalization and fixed-charges coverage ratios, as well as dividend yield. In this instance, all of these items are accurate as of the close of the last trading day of 2000. The items shown are selected from the more than 450 individual fields tracked in the DataSource. …


Enlargement of digital image is a prime technique in the digital image processing field. Generally, an image enlargement is realized by linear interpolation method. However, the enlargement image by linear interpolation will appear blurred. The heavy blurred areas, those include high-frequency components, such as step-edges and peaks. In order to realize the edge-preserving and the peak-creating interpolation, we have introduced the concept of the warped distance among the pixels and biasing the signal amplitude, respectively. This paper presents a novel interpolation method with only biasing of the signal amplitude. The proposed method can create the peak point of concavo-convex shape signals. Furthermore, the proposed biasing method can preserve the signal edge. Thus, it is not necessary to combine the biasing and the warping.


The masses of people that carried an insurrection at Edsa were there basically for Cory Aquino and everything therefore revolve around her. While this may sound pedestrian by now, it is an undeniable fact that must be the starting point of any strategy intent on successfully working for social change. And such success lie in precisely confronting and attempting to grapple with this fact. What barred the national democrats from seeing the revolutionary potentials of this cultural element? What caused them not to foresee their impending possible marginalization in the minds of the masses that participated in Edsa? The answers can be found in their paradigm of revolution which at this point, on hindsight, can be said to have lacked a thorough culturalist perspective. Hence, they were not able to diagnose that cultural shift in the minds of the masses given the snap elections which presented an opportunity for the masses "common sense: to be translated as a material force that shall establish a new political system.


Parental divorce has been an increasing experience amongst the generations of children born since the 1970s in European countries. This study analyses data on the partnership and parenthood behaviour of those children who experienced parental separation during childhood for nine Western European nations, as well as Britain and the USA. Across all nations the hallmarks of the adult demographic behaviour of children who experienced parental divorce (compared with those who did not) are that they are more likely to form partnerships and to become parents at a young age; they are more likely to opt for cohabitation over marriage; they are less likely to have their first child within marriage; and their own partnerships and marriages are in turn more likely to terminate. Recently available data from the 1970 cohort was also used to search for prior factors that might throw light on why the partnership and parenthood behaviour of children who had experienced parental separation might differ from their peers without such an experience.


The paper investigates the potential axes and dimensions of roadmaps for digital business innovation for entrepreneurs as well as enterprises. Actually, digital business innovation requires a change of perspective with regard to IT governance and management of IT infrastructure. This is due to the need to adapt them to the constant evolution and changes in business models, consequent to the digitalization of company products and services. Also, the paper considers the business models fitting the diverse roadmaps showing their mapping to a company value chain. Finally, the paper discusses the characteristics of four key types of digital business organization "attitudes", resulting from their orientation towards execution or else differentiation. The paper is based on insights and results from the FutureEnterprise project, which aims to deliver a research roadmap on new forms of internet-based enterprise innovation. The focus of the project is on what are defined there as "enterprises of the future", that are driven by constant business model transformation and innovation, acting as multi-sided platforms built on - as well as emerging from - digital innovations at the global as well as local level to produce shared value including that beyond monetization.


What aims should guide a new constitution's drafters? Aspirational homilies about the rule of law, human rights, or democracy aside, there remains a surprising dearth of tools with which to gauge the success or failure of a constitution. We suggest four mid-range metrics for constitution-making: the legitimation of a new state; the channeling of political conflict; the dampening of agency costs from representational government; and the creation of national public goods. We apply these metrics to the 2004 Afghan constitution, arguing that it has had some modest successes in some areas, while failing in others.


This study aims at reviewing the role and place of academic libraries in creating oral history collections with the aim of its preservation and application in these libraries. The research methodology is systematic review. To this end, the related studies were searched and identified from 10 international databases in 1983 to 2019. Out of which 23 most related ones were used for present study. For validation purpose, other experts than research team were used. The research findings indicated that academic libraries could stabilize their role and place in creating collections based on oral history through its identification, preservation, promotion and accessibility, recreation of the role of librarians, archive and documentation, organization and digitalization. The systematic review of oral history in academic libraries highlighted the need to carry out practical and theoretical studies at library level. Oral history is an instrument for extraction of history from depths and has determining role in connecting modern world with traditional knowledge at research communities; therefore, preservation and promotion of oral history by libraries and information centers should be taken into account.


To describe the values of criteria and to generate a sort of alternatives are two important issues in multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). A superior tool for the former issue is Pythagorean hesitant fuzzy number (PHFN) and an effective tool for the latter issue is aggregation operator. So far, a number of aggregation operators of PHFNs have been presented within the academia. Each aggregation operator has its own characteristics and can work well for its specific purpose. But there is not yet an aggregation operator of PHFNs that can provide satisfying generality and flexibility in aggregating the values of criteria and capturing the interactions of criteria. The Archimedean t-conorm and t-norm (ATT) are well-known for having the capability to generate versatile and flexible operational rules for fuzzy numbers, while the Muirhead mean (MM) operator is an all-in-one aggregation operator for capturing the interrelationships of the aggregated arguments. To this end, the MM operator and the ATT for PHFNs are combined to present a Pythagorean hesitant fuzzy Archimedean MM (PHFAMM) operator and a weighted PHFAMM operator and a new MCDM method based on the presented operators is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the generalised expressions of the presented operators are provided. The properties of the operators are explored and proved and their specific expressions based on Algebraic, Einstein, Hamacher, and Frank ATTs are then constructed. Based on these specific expressions, a new method for solving the MCDM problems based on PHFNs is developed. Finally, the developed MCDM method is demonstrated via an example, a set of experiments and qualitative and quantitative comparisons.


CRISPR-Cas systems provide their prokaryotic hosts with acquired immunity against viruses and other foreign genetic elements, but how these systems are regulated to prevent auto-immunity is poorly understood. In type II CRISPR-Cas systems, a transactivating CRISPR RNA (tracrRNA) scaffold functions together with a CRISPR RNA (crRNA) guide to program Cas9 for the recognition and cleavage of foreign DNA targets. Here, we show that a long-form tracrRNA performs an unexpected second function by folding into a natural single guide that directs Cas9 to transcriptionally repress its own promoter. Further, we demonstrate that Pcas9 serves as a critical regulatory node; de-repression causes a dramatic induction of Cas genes, crRNAs and tracrRNAs resulting in a 3,000-fold increase in immunization rates against unrecognized viruses. Heightened immunity comes at the cost of increased auto-immune toxicity, demonstrating the critical importance of the controller. Using a bioinformatic analysis, we provide evidence that tracrRNA-mediated autoregulation is widespread in type II CRISPR-Cas systems. Collectively, we unveil a new paradigm for the intrinsic regulation of CRISPR-Cas systems by natural single guides, which may facilitate the frequent horizontal transfer of these systems into new hosts that have not yet evolved their own regulatory strategies.


A simple, purely empirical expression has been found which closely correlates the existing laboratory data on the measured rates of unsuspended, bedload transport of sediment in flumes with recently published data on the like transport rates in a wide variety of natural rivers. Let ω be the stream power r̄ū per unit bed area, and let ω0 be the threshold value of ω at which sediment begins to be moved. Then if the flow depth is Y and the peak size, or mode, of the sediment is D, the transport rate ib, by immersed weight, varies empirically as ib ∝ (ω - ω0)3/2 Y-2/3 D-1/2 This is dimensionally incomplete for it omits, for instance, the excess density of the solids, which happens to be virtually constant for all the data examined. The relation can however be made dimensionless by writing ib/(ib)* = [ω - ω0/(ω - ω0)*]3/2 (Y/Y*)-2/3 (D/D*)-1/2, where the starred symbols refer to any standard set of values chosen from a reliable experimental plot. The above expression has so far been found to predict the average actual values within the limits of measuremental error over 103-fold ranges of flow depth Y and mode size D, and over a 104-fold range of stream power ω. When the bed material of a natural river is bimodal, the measured transport rates are found to occur, seemingly at random, between the two limiting values computed respectively for the larger and the smaller values of mode size D. A physical explanation of such an apparently general correlation poses an intriguing problem in fluid mechanics. Some qualitative clues are discussed and a tentative outline explanation is given of the general tendency of streams that flow over mobile material towards a quasi-rhythmic fluctuation of channel cross-section.


Performance guarantees for online learning algorithms typically take the form of regret bounds, which express that the cumulative loss overhead compared to the best expert in hindsight is small. In the common case of large but structured expert sets we typically wish to keep the regret especially small compared to simple experts, at the cost of modest additional overhead compared to more complex others. We study which such regret trade-offs can be achieved, and how.

We analyse regret w.r.t. each individual expert as a multi-objective criterion in the simple but fundamental case of absolute loss. We characterise the achievable and Pareto optimal trade-offs, and the corresponding optimal strategies for each sample size both exactly for each finite horizon and asymptotically.


Having endured terrorist violence for 30 years, Northern Ireland is on the verge of achieving a lasting peace. Tourism is well poised to benefit from the prospects of peace and the economic growth that is anticipated to follow. In this paper the first section, based on an analysis of secondary tourism data collected between 1994 and 1997 (a period during which the Irish Republican Army declared two cease-fires), assesses the extent to which tourism can benefit within a climate of peace. Heritage tourism within Northern Ireland is examined, on the basis that the majority of tourist attractions and the tourism experiences being sold to visitors fall under the heritage label. Heritage and heritage tourism is discussed within the Northern Ireland context. The second half of the paper examines what are emerging as the key challenges and issues facing the tourism industry in Northern Ireland and the opportunities for long-term growth. The paper reveals that tourism benefited for the yearsin which a cease-fire held, but that the heritage attraction is somewhat complex, with a range of heritage types ranging from natural to industrial. Discussion centres on how this 'heritage' experience is to be planned and managed, and the challenge of ensuring sustainability of a product that has the support of both 'communities' in Northern Ireland.


There are many potential benefits of involving university students in research (as researchers, not subjects). It can help students to increase their retentive knowledge in the subject they study, and also develop research skills such as problem framing and analysis. While disciplines such as psychology and medicine have a tradition of students contributing to research publications, Design and Product Development does not. This indicates an untapped potential for researchers in these fields to more actively engage their students in their work.

In the spring of 2014, we made an effort to involve Interaction Design master's students in our research. It was in a Product Development course on "User Requirements Elicitation". The research itself dealt by comparison with the effectiveness of two research methods; namely, individual interviews compared to group interviews. During the course, students in groups made a quantitative and qualitative comparison of the two methods. It was clear that the students did not appreciate this initiative. Their opinion was that it did not have a high enough "pay-off" in relation to their efforts. The course received very low scores when the students evaluated it. However, we could see quite clearly that they had developed an in-depth knowledge of the compared methods. The students also discussed issues such as reliability and validity of their research in a way that we had not seen in the course in its previous years. The whole experiment resulted in significant knowledge generation regarding how (and how not) to involve students in research.


Abstract A new benchmark for monoenergetic neutron transport in one-dimensional cylindrical geometry is presented. In the past, several accurate benchmarks (i.e., numerical solutions) in cylindrical geometry, based on the singular eigenfunction expansion of the solution to the corresponding pseudoproblem, have appeared in the literature. In the new formulation, called the direct FN method in cylindrical geometry, we base the FN solution directly on the integro-differential equation satisfied by the pseudoproblem. Through appropriate projections, a straightforward FN formulation results in singular integral equations for both the flux and current. Enhanced by convergence acceleration, the FN approximation accurately reproduces published benchmark solutions for both fixed sources and criticality. Thus, we have developed an entirely pedagogical self-contained and highly accurate benchmark based on an alternative application of FN theory.


Current approaches to democratic state building place serious conceptual limits on policy options. A democratic future for Bosnia's people will require far more searching engagement with identity formation and its politicization than reform efforts have so far contemplated. Theories of discursive democracy illuminate how this might be possible. We deploy the discursive idea of symbolic capital to show how one might identify the lines along which people in Bosnia could constitute meaningful, internally legitimated political communities – or that would indicate the experiment was not worth attempting. Unless advocates of democratic state building can articulate, rather than assume, a sufficiency of common ground among the populations' multiple, overlapping and conflicting identities, they may have to revert to the default of separate political communities.


The international order is experiencing fundamental changes driven by globalisation and the multipolarity emerging from the new balance of power. In response, a new book by a team of experts assembled by CEPS argues that the EU should build up a world-class diplomatic corps, capable of becoming a major actor in global affairs, drawing on enabling provisions in the Treaty of Lisbon.
The report investigates two prerequisites for achieving this goal: first, enhancement of the status of the EU in numerous multilateral organisations, international agreements and fora (the UN, IMF, etc.) and second, a restructuring of European diplomacy, involving a reallocation of functions and resources between the new European diplomatic corps (the European External Action Service) and the diplomatic representations of the 27 EU member states worldwide.
Recommendations are formulated on where and how to upgrade the EU's status in the international arena. Scenarios are presented for the build-up of the EU's diplomatic corps, alongside a slimming down of national diplomacies. The authors warn that failure to act along these lines will result in an increasingly irrelevant, obsolete and wasteful European diplomacy.


This study aims to analyze parents' socio-economic relationships which include parental education, parental occupation, and parental income towards financial literacy. This study uses a sample of young entrepreneurs, students who are active in college and they also run a business. The results showed that the level of financial literacy of young entrepreneurs was at a moderate level. Furthermore, parental education and income have a relationship with financial literacy, whereas parental work does not influence financial literacy.


There is limited understanding of how information diffuses across physician networks and what motivates physicians to change behavior. In particular, despite growing interest in reducing overutilization of care, physician "disadoption" of low-value technologies and services has received little empirical attention. The structure of the organization in which a physician practices may be a key determinant of physician behavior and, given current policy trends towards new organizational arrangements for physicians, it is increasingly important to understand the dynamics of physician relationships in different settings. This dissertation aims to advance empirical research on the role of physician organization in physicians' decisions to disadopt previously routine services following the release of new clinical guidelines. I examine the effects of two components of group organization, peer effects and group size, on physician disadoption of low-value services in two settings: prostate cancer screening using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test following the 2012 guideline recommending against screening, and mammography for women under 50 following a change in the routine screening recommendation in 2009. Using claims data from 2007-2013 from a major insurer in the Southeast Pennsylvania region, I employ dynamic panel data methods and find that physicians are significantly and positively affected by peers who practice in the same physical location while the behavior of peers with whom they have a relationship (through shared patients) but are not co-located does not have a significant impact. Further, local peer effects appear to peak in medium-sized physician groups of 11-30 physicians. Finally, in the case of PSA provision, positive peer effects in mediumsized groups are stronger following the 2012 recommendation relative to before the release, suggesting that physicians will be more likely to continue testing if their local peers continue testing, even following the recommendation against screening. I do not find any differential effects of peers on mammography screening after relative to before the guideline. Together, these findings offer insight into how physicians make decisions about what services to provide and suggest that the organizational structure of physician group practices is likely to be a contributing factor to physician disadoption decisions and, ultimately, health care quality and costs. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Health Care Management & Economics First Advisor Robert Town This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1998 Subject Categories Health and Medical Administration This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1998 THE EFFECTS OF PHYSICIAN ORGANIZATION ON THE DISADOPTION OF LOW-VALUE SERVICES: EVIDENCE FROM PSA TESTING AND MAMMOGRAPHY


Liquid Assets shows that the common view of water as an inevitable cause of future wars is neither rational nor necessary. Typically, two or more parties with claim to the same water sources are thought to play a zero-sum game with each side placing a high emotional and political value over the ownership of the water. However, Franklin Fisher and his coauthors demonstrate that when disputes in ownership are expressed as disputes about money values, in most cases, the benefits of ownership will be surprisingly small. By assigning an economic value to water and treating water as a tradable resource, parties see that the gains from cooperation exceed the costs resulting from the change in ownership. A zero-sum game becomes a win-win situation. To support this new approach, Liquid Assets presents an innovative water allocation model that can be used to assist water management, the cost-benefit analysis of water infrastructure, and the resolution of disputes. The model takes system-wide effects into account and is the first to overcome the failure of actual water markets to cope with the divergence between social and private benefits (as implied by agricultural subsidies), permitting the model-user to impose his or her own values or policies. Liquid Assets applies its methodology to Israel, Jordan, and Palestine, a region where water is scarce and water conflicts are often thought to be explosive. Indeed, this book is the result of a joint effort of Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, American, and Dutch experts. But the book s message and methods are not restricted to the Middle East. They are applicable to water management and water disputes around the globe.


The 'winged helix' or 'forkhead' transcription factor gene family is defined by a common 100 amino acid DNA binding domain which is a variant of the helix-turn-helix motif. Here we describe the structure and expression of the mouse fkh-6 and MFH-1 genes. Both genes are expressed in embryonic mesoderm from the headfold stage onward. Transcripts for both genes are localised mainly to mesenchymal tissues, fkh-6 mRNA is enriched in the mesenchyme of the gut, lung, tongue and head, whereas MFH-1 is expressed in somitic mesoderm, in the endocardium and blood vessels as well as the condensing mesenchyme of the bones and kidney and in head mesenchyme. Both genes are located within a 10 kb region (in mouse chromosome 8 at 5.26 +/- 2.56 cM telomeric to Actsk1. The close physical linkage of these two winged helix genes is conserved in man, where the two genes map to chromosome 16q22-24. This tandem arrangement suggests the common use of regulatory mechanisms. The fkh-6/MFH-1 locus maps close to the mouse mutation amputated, which is characterised by abnormal development of somitic and facial mesoderm. Based on the expression patterns we suggest that a mutation in MFH-1, not fkh-6 is the possible cause for the amputated phenotype.