Trailing the wave of revolutions that began sweeping through the Arabic-speaking Middle East this January, I recently traveled in the region, visiting some of the capitals where what we have come to call the "Arab Spring"? has hit. In Cairo, I kept company with the handful of Egyptian political activists from the social media generation who were skeptical of a revolution that had already started to show its populist roots. In Manama, I met with members of the mainstream opposition movement who contended that, contrary to their government's claims, the Shiites of Bahrain wanted nothing to do with Tehran: In the 1970 U.N. poll about the emirate's future, Bahrainis expressed the wish to remain part of an independent Arab state under the ruling al-Khalifa family but demanded their political rights-and still do. And from Beirut, I watched another uprising kick off over the anti-Lebanon mountain range in Damascus as many Lebanese quietly hoped that the revolution there would do away with the Assad regime while fearing the repercussions could not help but come back on them. After a month in North Africa, the Levant, and the Persian Gulf countries, I am still unsure what these uprisings have in common, if anything. The regimes that suffered these blows are themselves different from place to place, for all authoritarian regimes are authoritarian in their own way-Husni Mubarak was no Saddam Hussein, nor even a Bashar al-Assad. Perhaps our eagerness to see the upheavals as one wider movement is less a representation of reality than a reflection of how the Middle East is understood by large segments of the American intelligentsia"?a habit of mind that of late was most powerfully expressed by President Barack Obama. It was during the June 2009 Cairo speech, 1 after all, where Obama transgressed the borders according to which Washington maintained and advanced its interests, describing the region in terms of Muslims, a Muslim world that is by definition borderless, transnational, and not specific to the particular circumstances of history, geography, and politics that give nation-states their character. Obama's Muslim world is amorphous, more like a sentiment than a physical fact, something perhaps similar in nature to the "Arab Spring." BIRDS OF MANY FEATHERS It has been argued that the recent events were driven by economic motives, insofar as all these revolts pitted the have-nots against the haves; and yet the particular circumstances vary greatly. There is little comparison, for instance, between the grand prize up for grabs in Libya's civil war (control of the countr'oil) and the fairer employment, and educational and housing opportunities sought by the Bahraini opposition. Furthermore, the blanket charge of corruption against economic elites across the region obscures the genuine reforms that won the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes high marks from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The onetime, popular notion that all these opposition groups are united in their calls for democracy is starting to fade in light of the evidence. It seems, for instance, that the Libyan rebels comprise a large component of violent Islamists, 2 some of whom fought against U.S. forces in Iraq. There is concern that parts of the Syrian revolution are also spearheaded by Is-lamists, and there is little doubt that the fall of Egyptian president Mubarak will give more power to the Muslim Brotherhood. And even the very model of the Arab democracy activist, that young, middle-class, social-media-mad Egyptian, has begun to look different than when he first took to Tahrir Square on January 25. In their demands for retribution and revenge against the scions of the late regime, the Egyptian activists seem less inspired by the rule of law, due process, and other features of liberal democratic reform for which they petitioned and protested, than by the tradition of modern Egyptian populism, 3 from Saad Zaghloul to Gamal Abdel Nasser. …


Researchers use different types of household balance sheet data to study different aspects of lifecycle saving and wealth accumulation behavior. Macro data from the Flow of Funds Accounts (FFA) are produced at a quarterly frequency and are available in a timely manner, but they can only be used to study the behavior of the household sector as a whole. Micro data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) are available every three years and only with a lag, but they can be used to address questions that involve differences in behavior over time and across various types of households. Despite the very different approaches to estimating household net worth, the two data sets show the same general patterns wealth changes over the past twenty-five years. Areas where the FFA and SCF diverge in aggregate levels?in categories such as owner-occupied housing, noncorporate equity, and credit cards?may be explained by methodological decisions applied in the production of the data. Those differences do not fundamentally alter one's perception of household wealth dynamics in the period leading up to and following the Great Recession.


Objectives: To analyse the strategy used by British American Tobacco (BAT) to re-enter the Chinese market from 1979 to 2000 after historically dominating the market before the 1950s. Design: Analysis of tobacco industry document files to date available only on-site at the Guildford Depository operated by BAT. An additional search of recent documents related to BAT, placed in the Minnesota Depository, was also carried out. Results: BAT has been committed to regaining its historically dominant position in China since the country reopened to foreign companies in 1979. Initially, BAT remained cautious relative to competitors in seeking joint ventures, finding market access hindered by bureaucratic complexity, restrictions on foreign investment and imports quotas, and later an advertising ban. Instead, the documents suggest BAT strongly relied on illegal imports to expand market presence of State Express 555 and other key brands. It was only when risks to contraband sales increased that the company made greater efforts to establish a legal presence in the country. Attempts to stress the long history of BAT in China and a proclaimed commitment to corporate social responsibility have been used to facilitate later negotiations. Conclusion: China has remained relatively closed to transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) during its transition to a market economy, maintaining a firm grip over foreign investment and imports. Nonetheless, BAT has circumvented such restrictions through illegal imports and exploitation of inconsistencies in the local enforcement of advertising bans. Governments need to understand and address the full range of market entry tactics by TTCs in order to ensure effective tobacco control.


Land is everywhere: the substratum of our existence. In addition, land is intimately linked to the dual concept of location in human activity. Together, land and location are essential ingredients for the lives of individuals as well as for national economies. In the early 21st century, there exist two different approaches to incorporating land and location into a general equilibrium theory. Dating from the classic work of von Thünen (1826), a rich variety of land-location density models have been developed. In a density model, a continuum of agents is distributed over a continuous location space. Given that simple calculus can be used in the analysis, these density models continue to be the "workhorse" of urban economics and location theory. However, the behavioral meaning of each agent occupying an infinitesimal "density of land" has long been in question. Given this situation, a radically new approach, called the σ-field approach, was developed in the mid-1980s for modeling land in a general equilibrium framework. In this approach: (1) the totality of land, L, is specified as a subset of ℝ2, (2) all possible land parcels in L are given by the σ-field of Lebesgue measurable subsets of L, and (3) each of a finite number of agents is postulated to choose one such parcel. Starting with Berliant (1985), increasingly more sophisticated σ-field models of land have been developed. Given these two different approaches to modeling land within a general equilibrium framework, several attempts have thus far been proposed for bridging the gap between them. But while a systematic study of the relationship between density models and σ-field models remains to be completed, the clarification of this relationship could open a new horizon toward a general equilibrium theory of land.


Abstract Fires are a significant source of landscape scale disturbance in forested ecosystems, but fire effects also vary on small spatial scales due to differences in fuel loads and local environmental conditions. We tested the hypothesis that such variation influences post fire arthropod communities and faunal recovery rates on a 1 m2 scale. We measured the abundance and species richness of selected arthropod taxa pre- and post-fire in patches of leaf litter experimentally burned at different intensities. Arthropod abundance declined sharply immediately after a burn and decreased with increasing fire intensity. Consistent with other studies of this system, the effects of fire on arthropod communities were still apparent >4 w post burn. The abundance of epigeic beetles recovered more quickly than the abundance of ants or springtails in some treatments. Recovery rates also differed among treatments but did not consistently support the prediction that recovery would be faster in plots subject to low intensity burns. We conclude that small scale differences in intensity within prescribed fires have measurable effects on litter arthropod communities in Ozark forests; however, these differences appear to be overshadowed by the more general effects of fire on arthropods.


Conversational agents, or chatbots, are widely used to provide customer care and other informational support. Currently, the development of chatbots using standard frameworks requires a lot of manual crafting by subject matter experts (SMEs). On the other hand, while learning-based approaches to dialog have made significant advancements, they require training with a large volume of dialog data, which chatbot developers typically do not have access to. To tackle these challenges, we introduce DOC2BOT, a system that supports the automated construction of chatbots by digesting various forms of documents such as business manuals, HowTos, and customer support pages that organizations own. In addition to that, DOC2BOT provides a user-friendly experience to SMEs, and to minimize their effort by supporting intuitive interactions and streamlining their workflow.


Competitive pressures abound in today's dynamic food marketing system.The U.S. food market is essentially saturated, dependent on a growing population as well as a declining share of consumer income spent on food. Food companies are using many strategies to compete for a larger share of the pie, including new ways of conducting business, mergers and acquisitions, overseas expansion, and state-of-the-art technology. To meet consumer preferences and remain competitive, retailers have introduced a wide variety of new products. Nearly 10,000 new food and beverage products were introduced in 2002, with convenience foods and organic and natural foods leading the way. Also, the number of unique items (according to brand, package size, and type) stocked by supermarkets, such as Chef Boy-ar-dee Pizza Crust Mix & Sauce and Kahn's Honey Cure Deli Ham, rose from 13,000 in 1980 to 37,000 in 2001. Competitive pressures to deliver specific products to meet consumer demand have changed the way the products move from farmers to consumers.Traditional food wholesalers who buy food from manufacturers and resell to retail food stores are losing ground. Manufacturers such as Coca Cola, Dreyers/ Edy's Grand Ice Cream, and Frito-Lay deliver their products directly to retail stores and usually arrange them on the shelves. Albertsons, Ahold, and most other large retail chains buy products directly from manufacturers and transport them to retail locations through their own distribution centers. Many food manufacturers/processors have chosen to contract directly with farmers to get the preferred quality and quantity of products. Krogers, Safeway, and other traditional food retailers face mounting competition from nontraditional retailers, such as Wal-Mart supercenters, and the food-away-from-home sector. In the 1990s, warehouse clubs and supercenters made their presence felt in a big way. By adding massive new stores, these companies increased their share of total food sales from 1.9 percent in 1990 to 8 percent in 2002. Food-away-from-home outlets, including McDonalds and Applebee's, now account for 46 percent of total food expenditures, up from 33 percent in 1970. In response to these competitive pressures, traditional retailers are turning to mergers and acquisitions to improve their ability to compete. Manufacturers and distributors are experimenting with new technologies to replenish grocery shelves or out-of-stocks, to quickly serve and better target prospective customers, and to improve information flow and inventory management. For example, a system developed by FreedomPay, Inc., enables customers to make cashless purchases quickly and efficiently and to receive instantaneous loyalty rewards. A wand waved over a sensor at the checkout counter automatically deducts purchase amounts from consumers' accounts through FreedomPay's network. The system's hardware costs significantly less than debit card systems. USA Technologies is one of several companies equipping its vending machines with modems or sensors that relay instant inventory, sales, and other information to better target consumer preferences. As an alternative to competition in a slowly growing domestic food market, many U.S. food companies are competing globally, choosing to expand by targeting customers (or investing in operations) outside the United States. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of processed food. Domestic food companies, including Safeway, Costco, and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, continue to expand operations overseas.


We address the problem of temporal unusual event detection. Unusual events are characterized by a number of features (rarity, unexpectedness, and relevance) that limit the application of traditional supervised model-based approaches. We propose a semi-supervised adapted hidden Markov model (HMM) framework, in which usual event models are first learned from a large amount of (commonly available) training data, while unusual event models are learned by Bayesian adaptation in an unsupervised manner. The proposed framework has an iterative structure, which adapts a new unusual event model at each iteration. We show that such a framework can address problems due to the scarcity of training data and the difficulty in pre-defining unusual events. Experiments on audio, visual, and audiovisual data streams illustrate its effectiveness, compared with both supervised and unsupervised baseline methods.


This book describes and examines reforms of fiscal federalism and local government in 10 OECD countries implemented over the past decade. The country chapters identify common patterns and factors that are conducive to reforms of the intergovernmental fiscal framework, using a common methodological approach. The summary chapter highlights the cross-cutting issues emerging from the country chapters and shows the key factors in the institutional, political, economic and fiscal areas that are supporting reform success. The report's approach results in valuable insights for policy makers designing, adopting and implementing fiscal federalism and local government reforms.


Abstract This paper constructs a two-sector unified growth model. Learning-by-doing in agriculture eventually allows the preindustrial economy to leave its Malthusian trap. But entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector do not attempt invention if not much is known about natural phenomena. This delays the industrial revolution. Since entrepreneurs identify new useful knowledge at all times in a serendipitous way, the industrial revolution is an inevitable outcome. The paper characterizes the equilibrium path from ancient times to the infinite future. According with this characterization, the model economy successfully captures the qualitative aspects of England's unified growth experience.


ABSTRACT Background: Before an economic evaluation begins, it is important to specify the study perspective which essentially defines the basis of analysis and determines the relevant cost that need to be accounted for. The aim of this paper is to explore the perspectives in an economic evaluation specifically focusing on societal perspectives, on how it affect costs, its application, as well as its advantages and limitations expected in an economic evaluation. Materials and Methods: Literature search was conducted on Google Scholar and PubMed by using keywords such as perspective of economic evaluation, societal perspective, and economic evaluation. Based on the relevant reports, articles and other publications, details on societal perspective in economic evaluation was summarized in the result and discussion section. Result and Discussion: A model demonstrating societal effects that captured by cost-benefit analysis for cancer patient in New South Wales, Australia was used as an example to see the application of societal perspective, where four different scenarios were discussed on how societal impacts of loss of productivity and income affected the patients, employer and their family members. Among the advantages of incorporating societal perspective in economic evaluation studies is that it may result an optimal resource allocation in decision making and also supports an informed public discussion. However it is also prone to disadvantages, such as it may not always be possible to be included in an economic evaluation in certain setting due to funding or time constraints. Conclusion: Societal perspective is recommended option for public health economic evaluation as it take into account all of the perspectives point of view. Health economic evaluation that were conducted from a narrow perspective and only considered direct costs in the analysis is likely to be biased and could significantly undermine the true benefit of the interventions for society. Furthermore, without societal perspective, it may result in suboptimal resource allocation thus incur losses in the total welfare of society. Keywords: Perspective, Societal perspective, Health Economic, Economic Evaluation


Annular flume experiments and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were used to quantitatively and qualitatively measure benthic-pelagic exchange of microphytobenthos from natural sediments. Clear spatial and temporal differences in microphytobenthos resuspension in response to stepwise increases in current velocity were observed. Resuspension of chlorophyll a (chl a) from sandy sediments containing low levels of microphytobenthos biomass ( 56 mg chl a m-2) displayed strong resistance to erosion at currents <20 to 25 cm s-1, above which there was a very rapid increase in the amount of chl a in suspension following the stripping of the algal mat from the sediment surface. In September, when the diatom bloom was over, these sediments were less resistant to erosion and resuspension of microalgae occurred at current velocities above 15 to 20 cm-1. Site 1, situated at the edge of the flat, had a dense algal mat but low sediment stability. Microalgae were readily resuspended because the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced by the migratory diatoms were unable to consolidate during the short emersion period. As a rule more chl a was resuspended from sandy sediments at current velocities 15 and 20 cm-1, but above this current velocity chl a resuspension was greater from silty sediments. Although sandy sites have low biomass in the surface layer, the greater depth of sediment erosion during bedload transport exposes more chl a to the surface. The percentage of sedimentary chl a lost at selected current velocities was estimated, and the implications for carbon supply to the pelagic and benthic systems discussed. Much of the biomass resuspended may be deposited locally, particularly in sandier regions. During the flume experiments it was observed that settling of fine sediment and microalgae was extremely rapid, because it was being biodeposited by suspension-feeding activity, and 'stripped' out of the water column by rapidly sinking suspended particulate matter (SPM). Qualitative changes in suspended material were measured as % chl a (chl a/phaeopigments ¥ 100%) and accessory pigment content. As current velocity increased the relative proportion of phaeopigments increased, which has important implications for benthic suspension feeders feeding in the benthic boundary layer. The findings from the flume experiments have been compared with in situ measurements of current velocity, SPM and chl a.


Background Consumption of flavonoid-rich beverages, including tea and red wine, has been associated with a reduction in coronary events, but the physiological mechanism remains obscure. Cocoa can contain extraordinary concentrations of flavanols, a flavonoid subclass shown to activate nitric oxide synthase in vitro. Objective To test the hypothesis that flavanol-rich cocoa induces nitric-oxide-dependent vasodilation in humans. Design The study prospectively assessed the effects of Flavanol-rich cocoa, using both time and beverage controls. Participants were blinded to intervention; the endpoint was objective and blinded. Methods Pulse wave amplitude was measured on the finger in 27 healthy people with a volume-sensitive validated calibrated plethysmograph, before and after 5 days of consumption of Flavanol-rich cocoa [821 mg of flavanols/day, quantitated as (−)-epicatechin, (+)-catechin, and related procyanidin oligomers]. The specific nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NAME) was infused intravenously on day 1, before cocoa, and on day 5, after an acute ingestion of cocoa. Results Four days of flavanol-rich cocoa induced consistent and striking peripheral vasodilation (P = 0.009). On day 5, pulse wave amplitude exhibited a large additional acute response to cocoa (P = 0.01). l-NAME completely reversed this vasodilation (P = 0.004). In addition, intake of flavanol-rich cocoa augmented the vasodilator response to ischemia. Flavanol-poor cocoa induced much smaller responses (P = 0.005), and none was induced in the time-control study. Flavanol-rich cocoa also amplified the systemic pressor effects of l-NAME (P = 0.005). Conclusion In healthy humans, flavanol-rich cocoa induced vasodilation via activation of the nitric oxide system, providing a plausible mechanism for the protection that flavanol-rich foods induce against coronary events.


In this paper, a visual language, VCP, for queries on complex-value databases is proposed. The main strength of the new language is that it is purely visual: (i) It has no notion of variable, quantification, partiality, join, pattern matching, regular expression, recursion, or any other construct proper to logical, functional, or other database query languages and (ii) has a very natural, strong, and intuitive design metaphor. The main operation is that of copying and pasting in a schema tree. We show that despite its simplicity, VCP precisely captures complex-value algebra without powerset, or equivalently, monad algebra with union and difference. Thus, its expressive power is precisely that of the language that is usually considered to play the role of relational algebra for complex-value databases.


Family is the basic aspect in the development of child's well-being. A positive parent behavior in daily routines and social support will lead to a better and safe environment for the family. This study aimed to investigate how this positive behavior in a family have a role in children's well-being. Children's Subjective Well-Being and Family Positive Behavior questionnaire were administered in two cities, Bandung and Sumedang, with proportionate stratified sampling on a school based sample of children and adolescence aged 9 to 13 years in 2017. Data from 367 children was analyzed with Partial Least Square using Smart PLS 2.0, with subjective well-being was employed in order to control the effect of positive family behavior (eat, connection, movement, play, learn, give, and religious). Findings showed that the amount of time spent with the child during mealtime, play, learn, sport, or worship, had no direct effect on children subjective well-being. We should be considered about the role of environmental experiences that affect wellbeing, not only about the quantities but the qualities. Children should take the meaning of positive family behavior such as safety, love, care and support to improve their self-esteem, self-confidence, aspiration and sense of secure, as the construct of children subjective wellbeing. Keywords: subjective well-being, positive family behavior, parent-child relationship.


Background: Wound infections are the commonest hospital-acquired infections in surgical patients. Approximately 30-50% of antibiotic use in hospitals, is now for surgical prophylaxis. However, between 30-90% of this prophylaxis is inappropriate, that increases the selective pressure favoring the emergence of antimicrobial resistance. Judicious use of antibiotics in the hospital through effective antibiotic policy and guideline development is thus essential. Aims: To prepare a guideline for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis and to evaluate the impact of it in clinical practice. Settings and Design: A retrospective and prospective study was carried out over a nine month period, in a surgical unit of a tertiary care institution. Materials and Methods: An antibiogram was prepared to evaluate the sensitivity pattern retrospectively. A prospective study was done to evaluate the prescription pattern of antibiotic prophylaxis and incidence of surgical site infection. A draft guideline was prepared with expertise by the surgeon. Standardized recommendations in the guideline were done by the nominal group technique. Post-recommendation evaluation was done to observe the impact of the guideline in clinical practice. Results and Conclusions: 222 cases were evaluated during the pre-recommendation period, of which 21 were infected with surgical site infections that were rated as 9.45%. Use of prophylactic antibiotics was widespread and inconsistent with published guidelines. 56 cases were evaluated during the post-recommendation period. None of the cases were infected. Prophylactic antibiotic use was consistent with respect to choice and duration. The study showed the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in implementing local guidelines in healthcare institutions, as per their hospital antimicrobial sensitivity pattern and expert's opinions.


AbstractThis article argues that academic freedom is not absolute, but is delimited by legal, bargained and social factors. Further, it is argued that academic freedom implies certain obligations on university faculty, and in doing so recognizes the legitimate role of political correctness in the modern university, Given these limitations, the article considers some of the appropriate limits to political correctness, and argues that what are needed are the proper place and procedure to debate the balance between academic privilege and responsibility.The current series of articles was based upon a symposium at a recent Canadian Psychological Association on political correctness in academia. Political correctness has become a charged focus of discussion in modern universities, and is certainly worthy of scrutiny. The term itself has become politicized, in that the juxtaposition of two unrelated terms: "political" and "correct", has lead to of what can (and should) be deemed as "in accordance with a good standard of taste" (Concise Oxford English Dictionary) or correct, as modified by a political agenda (see also Kramer, 1994; Neufeldt, 1996; Stark, this issue). In this article, I will take the term to refer to "the imposition of politics (i.e., the taking of sides on issues) onto what is deemed correct or proper behaviour". In this regard, political correctness does not apply only in the context of academia, although it is to this context that this article will focus its attention.Examining the issue of political correctness in a university context inevitably leads to a review of what is purported to be affected by such correctness; in this case, academic freedom. It has been reasonably argued that academic freedom is one of the major achievements of the modern university, and that due to academic freedom faculty members are able to investigate various ecclesiastical, political or moral issues that might otherwise go unstudied for the fear of retribution that might accrue to the investigators. It has been further argued that academic freedom has been the major vehicle for advancing knowledge, particularly in politically or morally sensitive areas. Similarly, it has been argued that efforts to constrain the work of university faculty is dangerous, because any such efforts potentially undermine academic freedom. In this regard, such developments as the promotion of nonsexist language or the need to create learning atmospheres free from harassment -- generally referred to as the development of "political correctness" -- has been suggested as a potential threat to academic freedom.In this article I will argue that although academic freedom is an important attribute of the research and investigatory aspects of the functioning of contemporary academics, such freedom is not absolute, and that there are a number of legislated and bargained limits to this freedom(f.1). If sustained, the implication of such limits is that there is a legitimate role for political correctness in many aspects of the academy's functioning.The nature of academic freedomThe exact nature of academic freedom is basic to any inquiry of political correctness and its justification. An early and often-cited definition is that academic freedom is the: freedom of the teacher or research worker in higher institutions of learning to investigate and discuss the problems of his science and to express his conclusions, whether through publication or in the instruction of students, without interference from political or ecclesiastical authorities, or from the administrative officials of the institution in which he is employed, unless his methods are found by qualified bodies of is profession to be clearly incompetent or contrary to professional ethics. (Lovejoy, 1930).In a 1954 address to the American Civil Liberties Association, Albert Einstein stated that "By academic freedom I understand the right to search for the truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. …


The present work is a study on indicators that define tourism in Romania. Analysis focused on indicators of the number of tourists and tourist arrivals in accommodation establishments in Romania, in total and in agro-touristic boarding houses on four macro-administrative units and by category of comfort in our country. The methodology used to track the preferences of foreign tourists in accommodation establishments in Romania was to analyse the dynamics of the mentioned indicators, the seasonality of arrivals and forecasting the arrivals of foreign tourists. The data used are from the Statistical Yearbook of Romania, covering the period 2010-2013; some of them are quarterly data. The results have indicated a preference of the arrivals especially in Q3 of each year, in macro-regions M3 and M1, for foreigners and in the macro-regions M1 and M2 for the Romanian tourists. Another results designed the preferences of tourists related to the degree of comfort, which has decreased in time with the increasing levels of comfort; over time, the tourist's number increases on the total from year to year; in particular, in the agro hostels this number is growing slowly.


The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of 'coworking' to an academic audience. It argues that coworking is a complex social phenomenon that can be differentiated from other spatial concepts that relate to work, learning and social interactions. The paper provides an historical account of the origins of coworking and reviews the existing scholarly and popular literature, offering a theoretical distinction between coworking spaces and serviced offices that hinges upon the degree of social collaboration versus the importance of location and facilities of the office environment. An overview of the most recent data on the number and location of coworking spaces across the world is provided, including a few examples that demonstrate the spatial distribution of coworking spaces within cities. It also provides some data on typical profiles of coworkers, and links coworking to the broader contextual debates on non-standard and creative work. Finally the paper suggests some future research directions by linking relevant extant theory with key questions across the fields of economic geography, urban planning economics and organisational studies.


Effects of ambient copper was investigated on serum stress markers, sodium and enzyme levels in Common carp ( Cyprinus carpio L.) over a 14-d exposure period. Fish were exposed to 0, 25 and 100 μg L -1 copper (as copper sulfate) and blood was sampled at 0, 3, 7 and 14 d after exposure. Serum profile was significantly affected by copper concentration, sampling time and their interaction. Increase in serum levels of cortisol, glucose, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase and decrease in serum sodium levels were observed in both copper-exposed groups, 3 d after copper exposure, which lasted until the end of the experiment. It is concluded that copper exposure causes stress response and sodium loss in common carp. Likewise alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase increase after exposure which might be as results of either tissue damage or stress.


In order to develop blood biocompatible materials a heparin surface and a phosphorylcholine (PC) functionalized polymer surface were characterized using photoelectron spectroscopy (PES). The formation of the heparin surface was studied by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D). This heparin surface consists of heparin conjugates deposited on a conditioning layer, applied once or twice. The PC functionalized polymer, poly(trimethylene carbonate), was linked to a silicon substrate through 3-amino- propyltrimethoxysilane (APTMS), also studied using PES. Synchrotron radiation based PES showed that the thicker heparin film resulted in complete coverage of the substrate, while the thinner did not. This could explain the difference in blood biocompatibility between the two films, as observed by others. It was also found that the heparin chains bend down towards the substrate (under vacuum). For the thinner heparin film the modifications, resulting from extensive irradiation of the sample, were studied with synchrotron radiation based PES. This was done at a pressure of about 10-7 mbar and in 0.5 mbar water vapor. It was found that the modification is slower under water vapor than at low pressures and that the damaged film incorporates water upon exposure.The heparin coating was found to be stable and wear resistant enough to still be present on artificial heart valves after three weeks testing in circulating plasma. It then had about the same antithrombin uptake as a non-tested surface. The film was, however, partly destroyed by the durability test and plasma proteins were deposited. The PC functionalized, APTMS linked polymer was found to be much shorter than could be expected from random reactions. One plausible explanation is an interaction between the PC group and the silane surface, favoring aminolysis close to the PC group. This is consistent with our finding that the PC group bends down towards the surface.


Design-bid-build (DBB) is the most common delivery method for public and private construction projects in Spain, and is also widely used in the United States (U.S.). While the execution of DBB projects in Spain and the U.S. is similar in many ways, owners in Spain approach the procurement of the general contractor and subcontractors differently. There is a greater emphasis on selecting firms that provide the "best value" of cost, quality and expertise. Comparatively, U.S. owners leading a DBB delivery are more concerned with achieving the lowest first cost. Using data from 67 completed DBB projects in Spain and the U.S., a best subsets regression analysis was performed to develop five models, each predicting a key performance outcome of DBB projects: cost growth, schedule growth, unit cost, delivery speed and intensity. These models separated the effects of the country of origin from other explanatory variables that effect performance. These other explanatory variables include differences in the procurement process, payment terms, the initial unit cost, size of the project, and measures of the project team's integration and cohesion. The findings of this study show that, while owners in Spain opt for a more robust procurement process, DBB projects in the U.S. have comparable unit cost and are delivered faster and with a greater intensity when all other variables are held constant. This suggests that factors unique to the country of origin, not directly related to the execution of DBB projects, have a distinct effect on their performance.


CRISPR/Cas enables targeted genome editing in many different plant and algal species including the model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana. However, efficient gene targeting by homologous recombination (HR) to date is only reported for photosynthetic organisms in their haploid life-cycle phase and there are no examples of efficient nuclease-meditated HR in any photosynthetic organism. Here, a CRISPR/Cas construct, assembled using Golden Gate cloning, enabled highly efficient HR for the first time in a diploid photosynthetic organism. HR was induced in T. pseudonana by means of sequence specific CRISPR/Cas, paired with a donor matrix, generating substitution of the silacidin gene by a resistance cassette (FCP:NAT). Approximately 85% of NAT resistant T. pseudonana colonies screened positive for HR using a nested PCR approach and confirmed by sequencing of the PCR products. The knockout of the silacidin gene in T. pseudonana caused a significant increase in cell size, confirming the role of this gene for cell-size regulation in centric diatoms. Highly efficient gene targeting by HR makes T. pseudonana as genetically tractable as Nannochloropsis and Physcomitrella, hence rapidly advancing functional diatom biology, bionanotechnology and any biotechnological application targeted on harnessing the metabolic potential of diatoms.


Individuals who speak English as a second language vary in their ability to produce appropriate stress, which often impedes their intelligibility. The present study investigated the production of lexical stress by native speakers of English as well as learners of English. Minimal pairs were recorded by 8 native speakers of English and 8 Arabic learners of English. A second experiment examined use of acoustic cues to indicate stressed syllables in Arabic (8 speakers). In both experiments, four acoustic cues were examined: duration, fundamental frequency, amplitude, and second formant frequency. Differences in the use of these cues were observed across speaker groups (native and non-native speakers) for fundamental frequency and second formant frequency. These differences in use of cues to signal stress were only partially related to use of these acoustic cues in the speakers' first language.


Based on national level data from secondary sources, the magnitude of changes in average production and the sources of changes for the Bangladesh as a whole were measured for major food grains - rice (Aus, Aman and Boro) and wheat during 1979/80 to 1998/99 which was again sub-divided between two time periods, before full-implementation of privatization policies (1979/80-1988/89) and after full-implementation of privatization policies (1989/90-1998/99). The findings showed that average area of Boro rice and wheat increased during the whole period of study. However, during the period after full-implementation of privatization policies the areas under Aus, wheat as well as total food grains decreased. Further, it was found that except Aus, average production of all types of food grains increased and except wheat, average yield of all types of food grains also increased during the same period. The analysis showed that in the cases of Aus and Boro rice as well as total food grains, change in mean area; and in the cases of Aman rice and wheat changes in mean yield were the main sources of change in mean production in Bangladesh. It was also found that Boro rice appeared to be the highest and Aus rice appeared to be the lowest contributors in increasing mean production of total food grains. Finally, some policy conclusions are drawn with respect to improvement of production levels of major food grains.


Supercritical fluid extract and ethanol extract of Vitex negundo Linn. were subjected to the chromatographic evaluation for identification of their constituents. Free radical scavenging activity of both extracts was studied by subjecting them to DPPH assay. IC50 values of ethanol and supercritical fluid extract of Vitex negundo indicate that ethanol extract has stronger reducing potential and ability to scavenge free radicals as compared to the supercritical fluid extract. The in vivo effect of extracts on lipid peroxidation was studied using ethanol induced oxidative stress model in rat. Ingestion of extracts for 14 days exhibited significant reduction in plasma MDA level of stressed animals. Ethanol extract exhibited higher in vivo antilipid peroxidation potential as compared to supercritical fluid extract which correlated well with radical scavenging potential of extract.


Have investment treaty arbitrators responded to the so-called 'legitimacy crisis' that has beleaguered the international investment regime in the past decade? There are strong rational choice and discursive-based reasons for thinking that arbitrators would be responsive to the prevailing 'stakeholder mood.' However, a competing set of legalistic and attitudinal factors may prevent arbitrators from bending towards the arc of enhanced sociological legitimation. This article draws upon a newly created investment treaty arbitration database to analyze the extent and causes of a shift in treaty-based arbitration outcomes. The evidence suggests that arbitrators are conditionally reflexive: sensitive to both negative and positive signals from states, especially vocal, influential and developed states.


A concept for data management and adaptive modelling of the offset lithographic printing process is proposed. Artificial neural networks built from historical process data are used to model the offset printing process aiming to develop tools for online ink flow control.Inherent in the historical data are outliers owing to sensor faults, measurement errors and impurity of the materials used. It is fundamental to identify outliers in process data in order to avoid using these data points for updating the model. In this work, a hybrid the process-model-network-based technique for outlier detection is proposed. Several diagnosti measures are aggregated via a neural network to categorize the data points into the oulier or inlier classes. Experimentally it was demonstrated that a fuzzy expert can be configured to label data for training the categorization neural network.A SOM based model combination strategy, allowing to create adaptive - data dependent - committees, is proposed to build models used for printing press initialization. Both, the number of models included into a committee and aggregation weights are specific for each input data point analyzed.The printing process is constantly changing due to wear, seasonal changes, duration of print jobs etc. Consequently, models trained on historical data become out of date with time and need to be updated. Therefore, a data mining and adaptive modelling approach has been propsed. The experimental investigations performed have shown that the tools developed can follow the process changes and make appropriate adaptations of the ata set and the process models. A low process modelling error has been obtained by employing data dependent committees.


Most discussions about solar microgrids focus on sustainable energy and development goals and the technical aspects of electricity generation, storage, transmission, and distribution. Very few explicitly examine the ways in which their introduction upsets and reshapes entrenched practices of electoral politics and citizen claim-making around electricity access and development. In India, as in many parts of the world, electricity represents the most visible symbol of economic development and social well-being. Democratic politics in many developing countries are linked to demands for access to electricity. The meshing of electricity, development, and democratic politics in postindependence India has produced a politics of clientelism in which parties have sought to gain voter support with promises of cheap or free electricity. Although this electricity-centered clientelism has expanded supply, it has simultaneously contributed to skewed spatial access, unreliable supply, and high debt burdens for state-owned electricity distribution companies. This article examines histories of clientelism and the contradictions emerging from the introduction of private solar microgrids in rural areas of the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It shows that although solar microgrids avoid electricity-centered clientelism, significant numbers of poor rural households in their supply areas are both excluded by their user-pays approach and unable to demand fair access through political representatives. The study calls for alternative governance and support programs at local levels that ensure that private solar microgrids can deliver reliable electricity to poor households. Key Words: clientelism, electricity, India, populism, solar microgrids.


This research explores the pursuit of 'economies of niche' in the Pacific region and the local social, economic and environmental impacts it entails. In the 1980s, Pacific nations adopted the neoliberal ideology as a means to stimulate economic growth and rehabilitate their vulnerable economies. However, this has brought significant challenges. Among other things, Pacific nations face problems regarding the tyranny to distance markets, lack of economies of scale, and the scarcity of investment. Niche production has been recommended as a way to counteract such problems. By adopting the niche model, Pacific Island nations are encouraged to craft products based on the region's unique imagery as a means of achieving a distinctive market position based on geographically differentiated production. Although Pacific nations have been encouraged to pursue economies of niche, the influence and impact of this method, particularly at a local scale, remains critically unexplored. To address this, the case-study of Fiji and one of its most 'successful' globalised niche exporters FIJI Water – a multinational bottled water company – will be explored. This work critically explains and criticises the global success of FIJI Water at the macro-scale. Through village based case-studies of the social, environmental and environmental impacts of FIJI Water's export success an analysis of the local implications of niche production in the Pacific is also offered.


This paper examines the legacy of the Duchy of Courland's overseas colony of Tobago as it relates to present-day Latvian national identity using the ethno-symbolist approach of Anthony D. Smith and comparative cases. As Latvia is a small nation that has been an independent nation-state for only two short periods, national legitimacy and pride pose particular problems for Latvians. To this end, Latvian historians have worked to reinterpret the Baltic German-dominated Duchy of Courland as a positive period of Latvian national history and have sought to emphasize ethnic Latvian involvement in the Duchy's colonial endeavors, especially on the island of Tobago. Their efforts have then filtered into the general Latvian consciousness through books, film, plays, and place names. Since Latvia's independence from the USSR, the former colony of Tobago has gained renewed importance for Latvians who are experiencing a widely perceived notion of postcolonialism. This paper concludes that the appropriated colony of Tobago will continue to rise in importance as a component of Latvian national identity.


The main instrument used in psychological measurement is the self-report questionnaire. One of its major
drawbacks however is its susceptibility to response biases. A known strategy to control these biases has
been the use of so-called ipsative items. Ipsative items are items that require the respondent to make
between-scale comparisons within each item. The selected option determines to which scale the weight of
the answer is attributed. Consequently in questionnaires only consisting of ipsative items every
respondent is allotted an equal amount, i.e. the total score, that each can distribute differently over the
scales. Therefore this type of response format yields data that can be considered compositional from its
inception.
Methodological oriented psychologists have heavily criticized this type of item format, since the resulting
data is also marked by the associated unfavourable statistical properties. Nevertheless, clinicians have
kept using these questionnaires to their satisfaction. This investigation therefore aims to evaluate both
positions and addresses the similarities and differences between the two data collection methods. The
ultimate objective is to formulate a guideline when to use which type of item format.
The comparison is based on data obtained with both an ipsative and normative version of three
psychological questionnaires, which were administered to 502 first-year students in psychology according
to a balanced within-subjects design. Previous research only compared the direct ipsative scale scores
with the derived ipsative scale scores. The use of compositional data analysis techniques also enables one
to compare derived normative score ratios with direct normative score ratios. The addition of the second
comparison not only offers the advantage of a better-balanced research strategy. In principle it also allows
for parametric testing in the evaluation


Melting experiments on fluorphlogopite + plagioclase (An68) pairs have been performed at \***|1 atmosphere, as a function of temperature and run duration. Run products include, in addition to melt, spinel, forsterite and a newly formed calcic plagioclase. The solidus, was located between 1100 and 1150°C and the amount of melt produced increases sharply at 1200°C. From this temperature, liquids are compositionally zoned between the two mineral interfaces, and the mica reacts out after sufficient time indicating the existence of a critical temperature of melting located between 1175 and 1200°C. These two temperature domains are also characterized by differences in plagioclase reaction textures, melt proportions and reaction rates.

Textural and Sr isotopic studies of the plagioclases show that at all temperatures the first step of the melting reaction is characterized by congruent dissolution of the starting plagioclase followed by precipitation of the new plagioclase. At all temperatures the melt compositions are initially located on the intersection of the cotectic line and the starting plagioclase-fluorphlogopite tie-line. Below the critical temperature of melting these melts are metastable undercooled liquids. Above the critical temperature of melting there is an array of stable melt compositions located on the plagioclase-fluorphlogopite tie-line. In both cases the melt compositions evolve with time toward more albite-rich compositions in conjunction with the new plagioclase precipitation. The system fluorphlogopite-plagioclase thus provides an example where liquid compositions vary with time although plagioclase-melt interface equilibrium is satisfied. This is due to the involvement of a solid solution in the reaction.

Above the critical temperature of melting, the rate-controlling process for melting is chemical diffusion in the melt. Below the critical temperature of melting the rate-limiting step is the formation of the metastable undercooled melt. The sluggishness of the melting reaction in this temperature regime is explained by the difficulty of forming such a melt.


This article discusses the pros and cons of compliant actuation for rehabilitation robots on the example of LOPES, focusing on the cons. After illustrating the bandwidth limitations, a new result has been derived: if stability in terms of passivity of the haptic device is desired, the renderable stiffness is bounded by the stiffness of the SEA's elastic component. In practical experiments with the VMC, the aforementioned limitations affected the control performance. Desired gait modifications were not tracked exactly, because the subjects were able to deviate from the prescribed pattern even in the stiffest possible configuration. Despite the limitations, the practical experiments also demonstrated the general effectiveness of the realization. Manipulation of selected gait parameters is possible, whereby other parameters are left unaffected. This high selectivity is made possible by the low level of undesired interaction torques, which is achieved by elastic decoupling of motor mass and a lightweight exoskeleton. The discrepancy between theoretical bounds and rendered stiffness indicated that healthy subjects might represent a stabilizing component of the coupled system, which could be different for patients. In light of the theoretical stability analysis and with the focus on patients, the LOPES actuation was slightly modified. The robot was equipped with stiffer springs to obtain sufficient stiffness and to ensure stability without relying on stabilizing effects of the human. For this application, the disadvantages of compliant actuation can thus be tolerated or dealt with, and they are small compared with the advantages. Given that a rehabilitation robot, in the first place, is supposed to imitate therapist action, the limitations of bandwidth and stiffness do not pose severe problems. In contrast, safety and backdrivability are highly relevant, and they can be ensured easier with a compliant actuator. Therefore, we conclude that compliant actuation and a lightweight exoskeleton provide effective means to accomplish the desired AAN behavior of a rehabilitation robot. The next step is to evaluate the robot behavior, control performance, and therapeutic effectiveness in patient studies.


Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has repeatedly asserted that same-sex marriage is an easy question for originalism; it is clearly not within the Constitution's purview. The purpose of this Article is to challenge that claim by illustrating how an originalist could find that denying same-sex marriage contravenes the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seeks first to ascertain the original public meaning of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Article finds that Section One may serve as a prohibition on systems of caste and class legislation or alternatively as a ban on partial or special class legislation that singles out a group for a particular benefit or burden. As to the former, it explores the scientific research on the psychobiological roots of homosexuality, the historical treatment of homosexuals under American law, and present areas of legal inequality of homosexual relative to married heterosexual couples. It seeks to establish that a system of caste likely does exist, and that an originalist may find denying same-sex marriage to be an unconstitutional perpetuation of that system. As to the latter, if the original public meaning of the Amendment is to constitutionalize the antebellum practice of prohibiting laws which single a group out for a special burden, it argues that an originalist may find denying same-sex marriage to be an unconstitutionally targeted burden. The aim of this Article is not to impose upon originalism a definitive answer to the same-sex marriage question, but rather to illustrate how an originalist could legitimately find denying same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. At the least, the Article demonstrates that same-sex marriage demands of originalism deep consideration and is not the easy question Justice Scalia believes.


This paper describes a digital library developed within the "Towards a Digital Dante Encyclopaedia" project, a three years Italian National Research Project that aims at building services supporting scholars in creating, evolving and consulting a digital encyclopaedia of Dante Alighieri's works. The digital library is based on a knowledge base storing knowledge on the primary sources that Dante refers to in his works, i.e. the works of other authors Dante refers to in his texts. At present, this information is scattered on many paper books, making it difficult to systematically overview the cultural background of Dante and to obtain a well-founded perception of how this background was gradually set up in time. The same applies also to other authors, therefore the applicability of our work extends well beyond the specific author we are considering in our project. The digital library that we are building is based on an ontology for representing the knowledge on one author's works and on the primary sources embedded in the commentaries to these works. Following this approach, a semantic network of Dante's works and of references to primary sources of these works was created. Furthermore, a web application allowing users to explore the semantic network in various ways and to visualize statistical information about the references as charts and tables was developed.


This paper compares a set of Virtual Machine (VM) allocators for Cloud Data Centers (DCs) that perform the joint allocation of computing and network resources. VM requests are defined in terms of system (CPU, RAM and Disk) and network (Bandwidth) resources. As concerns the first ones, we allocate VM resources following two different policies, namely Best Fit and Worst Fit, corresponding to consolidation and spreading strategies respectively. For each server, the allocators choose the network path that minimizes electrical power consumption, evaluated according to a precise model, specifically designed for network switches. More specifically, we implemented different allocation algorithms based on Fuzzy Logic, Single and Multi-Objective optimization. Simulation tests have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the allocators in terms of number of allocated VMs for each policy. Finally, it is worth mentioning that we have designed the proposed allocators as a building block of a Software Defined Networking (SDN) orchestrator.


This Article examines the contemporary phenomenon of incentive trusts: trusts that use money to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. Using evidence from Internet websites, practitioner articles, and newspaper articles, the Article considers the likely provisions that a typical incentive trust might have, and explains how such trusts might lead to a problem of inflexibility when they are not drafted so as to take into account the possibility of changed circumstances. The Article also examines current law regarding trust modification and termination as well as recent reform proposals, and suggests some alternatives that might better take into account the particular characteristics of incentive trusts.


This study investigates how an increase in the firms' environmental consciousness affects the environment and economic welfare in the presence of dynamic oligopolistic competition where firms' objective may include the society's damage from stock pollution as well as their profits. If all firms are symmetric, an increase in the environmental consciousness reduces consumer surplus and social welfare in the short-run. However, profits may increase if the firms are initially less environmentally conscious. The long-run effects are similar to the short-run ones except for the effect on social welfare because pollution stock is reduced in the steady state. In the case of asymmetric firms, an increase in the polluting firms' environmental consciousness reduces their output whereas it increases the clean firms' output. The clean firms become better off, but depending on the relative number of polluting firms versus clean firms, the polluting firms' profits may increase or decrease.


Arginine is an essential amino acid in neonates synthesized by gut epithelial cells and a precursor for NO that regulates vasodilatation and blood flow. Arginine supplementation has been shown to improve intestinal integrity in ischemia-reperfusion models and low plasma levels are associated with necrotizing enterocolitis. We hypothesized that enteral arginine is a specific stimulus for neonatal intestinal blood flow and mucosal growth under conditions of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or partial enteral nutrition (PEN). We first tested the dose dependence and specificity of acute (3 h) enteral arginine infusion on superior mesenteric artery (SMA) blood flow in pigs fed TPN or PEN. We then determined whether chronic (4 d) arginine supplementation of PEN increases mucosal growth and if this was affected by treatment with the NO synthase inhibitor, N(G)-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME). Acute enteral arginine infusion increased plasma arginine dose dependently in both TPN and PEN groups, but the plasma response was markedly higher (100-250%) in the PEN group than in the TPN group at the 2 highest arginine doses. Baseline SMA blood flow was 90% higher in the PEN (2.37 ± 0.32 L⋅kg(-1)⋅h(-1)) pigs than in the TPN pigs (1.23 ± 0.17 L⋅kg(-1)⋅h(-1)), but was not affected by acute infusion individually of arginine, citrulline, or other major gut fuels. Chronic dietary arginine supplementation in PEN pigs induced mucosal growth in the intestine, but this effect was not prevented by treatment with L-NAME. Intestinal crypt cell proliferation, protein synthesis, and phosphorylation of mammalian target of rapamycin and p70S6 kinase were not affected by dietary arginine. We conclude that partial enteral feeding, but not acute enteral arginine, increases SMA blood flow in the neonatal pig. Furthermore, supplementing arginine in partial enteral feeding modestly increases intestinal mucosal growth and was NO independent.


This paper presents the empirical findings of an exploratory qualitative study which looks at ecotourists' perceptions of ecotourism experiences in Sabah, Malaysia in order to identify the expressive dimensions that describe the quality of their experience. In-depth interviews were conducted with European ecotourists who stayed at two ecolodges in Sukau. Positive and negative experiences were identified from an analysis of the expressive dimensions of their service experience. The findings show that the ecotourists' experience is multidimensional. Respondents place particular emphasis on the ecotourism activities in which they physically engage at the sites and the natural environment in which they are located; their interaction with the site service staff; socialisation with other ecotourists, and the information acquired during the visit. The six expressive dimensions describing the positive experience are consistent with previous research. The study explores understanding of ecotourists' experience in the ecotourism environment – an under-researched area. The paper points out that the evaluation of quality of experience appears to involve both attributes – functional elements that are provided by the service suppliers and affective/emotional elements that are brought about by the ecotourists themselves.


The current status of the Endangered Yellow Chat Alligator Rivers subspecies Epthianura crocea tunneyi is poorly known. A survey of Kakadu National Park floodplains, Northern Territory, in 2004 identified the western floodplain of the South Alligator River as a key population area. To provide preliminary information on the status of the subspecies in Kakadu National Park, this floodplain was intensively surveyed over a 4-day period in September 2014 and compared with the 2004 survey, which was undertaken at a similar time of year (late dry season: October–November). Despite covering considerable areas of floodplain habitat over nearly 40 hours of surveying, Yellow Chats were recorded in only one area in 2014; 27 Yellow Chats from nine observations were recorded over 2 days, with a minimum number of 17 individual birds (16 adult and 1 juvenile) observed. This compared with a total of 65 Yellow Chats from 2 days of surveying in 2004, clustered around five areas of the western floodplain of the South Alligator River. Habitat in 2014 comprised predominantly dry floodplain lagoon, consistent with previous surveys. Feral animals (in particular Feral Pigs  Sus scrofa ) were regularly observed throughout the surveys, as was significant feral-animal damage to wet floodplain areas. Although these results suggest a possible decline on the western South Alligator River floodplain over a 10-year period, a comprehensive survey is required of all floodplains within the subspecies' range to assess overall population status. This could inform the establishment of annual monitoring sites in order to evaluate long-term population trends, essential data for management of threatened species.


Industry risk is important to equities investors in determining portfolio mix. It is also important to lenders in managing credit portfolio risk. This article focuses on the mining industry in Australia, that country's largest industry by exports. The study concentrates on extreme credit and market risk, to determine the riskiness of the mining industry relative to the broader market, with a focus on the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) period and the use tail risk metrics. These include Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) for measuring market risk and Conditional Distance to Default (CDD) for measuring credit risk. Based on these metrics, the study finds market risk for mining shares to be higher than the broader market, but that the gap narrows during the crisis. From a credit perspective, despite higher volatility experienced by the mining industry, the default risk is lower than the broader market, due to the greater distance between mining entities' asset and debt values.


Objective To study the effectiveness of electroacupuncture of the spinal nerve root using a selective spinal nerve block technique for the treatment of lumbar and lower limb symptoms in patients with lumbar spinal canal stenosis. Methods Subjects were 17 patients with spinal canal stenosis who did not respond to 2 months of general conservative treatment and conventional acupuncture. Under x-ray fluoroscopy, two acupuncture needles were inserted as close as possible to the relevant nerve root, as determined by subjective symptoms and x-ray and MRI findings, and low-frequency electroacupuncture stimulation was performed (10 Hz, 10 min). Patients received 3–5 once-weekly treatments, and were evaluated immediately before and after each treatment and 3 months after completion of treatment. Results After the first nerve root electroacupuncture stimulation, scores for lumbar and lower limb symptoms improved significantly (low back pain, p<0.05; lower limb pain, p<0.05; lower limb dysaesthesia, p<0.01) with some improvement in continuous walking distance. Symptom scores and continuous walking distance showed further improvement before the final treatment (p<0.01), and a significant sustained improvement was observed 3 months after completion of treatment (p<0.01). Conclusion Lumbar and lower limb symptoms, for which conventional acupuncture and general conservative treatment had been ineffective, improved significantly during a course of electroacupuncture to the spinal nerve root, showing sustained improvement even 3 months after completion of treatment. The mechanisms of these effects may involve activation of the pain inhibition system and improvement of nerve blood flow.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Business process and financial performance enabled by strategic data management has not been well documented in the literature. This paper examines how a business firm develops their strategic data management system to create new business processes and to enhance financial performance. Keywords: Strategic data management, Competitive advantage, Business process, Financial performance INTRODUCTION Data is a corporate resource (e.g. Levitin & Redman, 1998) and effective strategic data management yields competitive advantage (e.g. Vesely, 1990). However, the relationship between strategic data management and business process and financial performance has not been well documented in the literature. This paper is intended to examine how business firms develops their strategic data management system to create competitive advantage and to financial performance. The research methodology employs a fact-based principle that combines quantitative and qualitative methods. Company access includes information retrieval from the company's website and interviews conducted with Kathryn Beaton, a Systems Development Manager at Paychex, Inc. Mrs. Beaton is in charge of the Enterprise Data Warehouse and is responsible for updating and maintaining the tools that allow it to function properly. Data was collected and analyzed at the corporate level of the subject organization. The paper begins with an introduction, followed by a literature review, then a case study, and concludes with a section of findings. LITERATURE REVIEW In quest of competitive advantage, the resource-based view of firm (RBV) has suggested that competitive advantage is derived from a bundle of strategic resources and focuses on individual resources while under-exploring multiple resources interactions (e.g., Barney, 1986, 1991; Dierickx & Cool, 1989; Peteraf, 1993; Rumelt, 1984, 1987; Smith, Vasudevan, & Tanniru, 1996). According to Barney, a resource must possess four attributes of value, rareness, inimitability, and nonsubstitutability, in order for it to provide a firm with the source of sustained competitive advantage (Barney 1991). In recent years, many studies in information technology have adopted the RBV as a theoretical framework (e.g. Mata et al., 1995; Duncan, 1995; Ross et al., 1996; Sambamurthy & Zmud, 1997; Feeny & Willcocks, 1998; Bharadwaj, 2000). Vesely (1990) suggests that strategic data management is the key to corporate competitiveness. A recent global survey by Investment Weekly News supports this statement. The importance of the relationship between strategic data management and corporate performance warrants more empirical research (Investment Weekly News, 2011). Yin (1994) suggests that the case study method is deemed proper for a research project that is exploratory in nature. The purpose of this paper is to substantiate that a strategy-driven data management can be a possible source of competitive advantage. PAYCHEX, INC. Company Background Paychex, Inc. offers payroll, human resource, and benefits services to small and medium sized business. The company was founded in 1971 by B. Thomas Golisano, who was the only employee at the time. Paychex now employs more than 12,000 people and serves more than half a million businesses in the United States. With more than 100 office locations in the US, the company has gone international and has 4 offices in Germany. Paychex went public in 1983 and is currently traded on the NASDAQ Stock Market and is a member of the S&P 500. Paychex implemented an Enterprise Data Warehouse in 2005. Figure 1 Paychex Data Management System shows the flow of data through the data warehouse. Each "Source System" brings together different aspects of all of the products and services offered by the company. For example, "Source System 1" is client payroll data and "Source System 2" is client Human Resource Services data. …


Research suggests families with a chronically ill or disabled child are subject to higher levels of stress than families with typically developing children. Family resources have been found to buffer parental stress, and there is some evidence that several factors relating to the illness of the child may also have an impact on parent stress levels. The current study examined the relationships between parenting stress, parenting style, family resources (family income mother's education, number of children in the family), and illness factors (ill child behaviour, care time required) in families with a chronically ill or disabled child. Participants were 77 parents (69 mothers, 8 fathers) of children with a chronic illness or disability and 77 of their well children (37 boys, 30 girls). Parents rated their level of stress and their ill child's behaviour, as well as providing child illness and demographic information. A well child in the family rated parenting style. Results suggested parents were exceptionally stressed compared to norms. High parent stress was associated with difficult ill child behaviour and high care demands for ill child. Additionally, parents with 'difficult' ill children and whose parenting styles were characterised by high behavioural control were particularly stressed. Implications for managing parental stress are discussed.


I present a perspective on disease mechanisms developed over my years of clinical experience. In Part I, I look at the history of data synthesis in medicine and medical science, and find it to be rather haphazard. I suggest a new way of building up the clinical information to a reasonable conclusion based on individual patient data. Part II then applies that approach to understanding disease mechanisms, and concludes that arterial constriction, caused largely by sympathetic activation under the influence of stress, is likely to be an important initiating factor in many cardiovascular diseases, particularly heart attack and stroke. I go on to look at the possible role of such vasoconstriction in other disease. Part III suggests that arterial constriction may even be important in cancer pathogenesis and evolutionary mechanisms, through ischemic (blood flow reduction) destabilisation of a genome composed essentially of naturally genetically-engineered viral modules. The important conclusion then is that evolution is perhaps best seen as natural genetic engineering.


While it is generally true that between 1932 and 1948 the work of Berthold Lubetkin and the Tecton architectural partnership was chained to the fate of progressive socialism in England, it can also be argued that this explanation overlooks those minor works of theirs which contradict the unbending theoretical framework of this movement, i.e., the framework of a progressive and providential etiology characterized by the notion of an overcoming and the concept of a recurring origin, ground, or foundation. In contrast to this explanation, this dissertation argues that the minor works of Lubetkin and Tecton exhibit a particular form of integrity and continuity distinguished by the weakening of these very same theoretical frameworks. The interpretation of a "weak theory" in these works is the subject of this dissertation, which argues that weakening creates a clearing for architectural invention. This dissertation asks three questions. First, how can the notion of a weak theory be visualized in the representation of architecture and the city? Second, how does the architect conceive his or her agency in the context of a weakened theoretical framework? And third, how might the characteristics of these works be the structure of interpretation rather than its result? This dissertation pursues these questions in three respective parts. Part One introduces these notions by way of a pair of drawings by Lubetkin. Part Two attends to the conception of the architect as a member of a group practice. Part Three proposes a topical approach to the domestic work of Lubetkin and Tecton, through the consideration of Lubetkin's Whipsnade House and its associated Manifesto, which exemplify seven architectural topics: 1. distribution, 2. orientation, 3. proportion, 4. elevation, 5. structure, 6. enclosure, and 7. contrariety. These topics coordinate and connect Lubetkin's unique position in the history of architectural theory to perennial questions in the discipline of architecture. Finally, Part Four concludes with a case study that argues that contraposition—or contrapposto—is the inheritance of this approach in the postwar period. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Architecture First Advisor David Leatherbarrow


Advanced technology and biomechanics were applied in the development of a new bicycle. Factors investigated included the position of the cyclist, geometry of the bicycle, transmission system, and the drag characteristics. Several wind tunnel tests were conducted to determine the minimum drag conditions for bicycle configurations and positions of the athlete. The results showed a clear advantage for nonspoked disc wheels of high composite material without discontinuity between the tire and the wheel. The conventional bicycle frame was redesigned and the optimum body position of the cyclist was determined. These findings were utilized in the development of the bicycle ridden by Francesco Moser in establishing a new 1-hour world record in 1984, and also in aiding the gold-medal-winning 4 × 100 km Italian team in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.


Micro-molding can be used for the cost-effective fabrication of elements such as active or passive components in MEMS devices, hydrophobic surfaces, cell-growth scaffolds or optical components such micro-lens arrays and gratings. This method is also particularly interesting for examining high-aspect ratio laser-machined structures fabricated in glass material. Thanks to this technique, surfaces not accessible with common imaging techniques can be observed on their molded negative structure with very high fidelity. As an illustration, we issue the use of the PDMS molding technique to analyze the quality of high aspect ratio holes and channels structures. Furthermore, we show preliminary results on the molding of a novel type of complex structures formed in glass using temporal and spatial beam shaping.


The news media are considered a significant force in conflict situations, capable of influencing antagonists and their actions. Whether this influence is constructive or
destructive is determined by the nature of journalism presented to the warring sides. News content that holds the other side responsible for the strife and focuses on violence is likely to exacerbate the situation. Sustained reportage on the possibilities and need for peace, on the other hand, could contribute to a political climate suited for peace negotiations. This India-centric study examines the Kashmir conflict in this context. While the coverage of more recent conflicts such as the Gulf Wars and the 'War on
Terror' in Afghanistan has evoked sustained scrutiny from media scholars, there is little empirical work on the news on Kashmir. The objective here is to profile the nature of
coverage the Indian and Pakistani press accorded the conflict, which could provide an empirical foundation for future discussions and research on Kashmir. Selected news
reportage of 10 major events that appeared in two national Indian newspapers and one Pakistani daily is examined for this purpose. By utilising an original coding scheme that
draws on conflict journalism, media effects and agenda-setting theories, this study arrives at an indicative overview of the journalism on Kashmir presented to the two publics over the years. The analysis is more reliant on what appeared in the Indian press, and has been
contextualised by data drawn from personal interviews with Indian policymakers. Hence it is largely from an Indian perspective. However, the inquiry provides insights into the
Pakistani coverage as well. The conclusion, based on patterns that emerged from the news presented to the two warring societies, is that the coverage was vigorously
government-led and intensely 'negative'.


This article describes a video review process for providing feedback to students and documents students' teaching practices using the CLASS in a practicum course and student teaching. Students videotaped themselves in their field-based settings and then met with the course instructors and classmates in small groups to review strengths and challenges of their teaching using the CLASS framework of teacher–child interactions. These videos were also coded by trained CLASS observers across 10 dimensions in the areas of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. Results from preservice teachers' CLASS ratings indicate a pattern similar to national data sets using the CLASS, higher scores in the emotional support and classroom organization domains than in the domain of instructional support. Also, findings from the current study revealed that CLASS scores declined from students' practicum placement to the end of student teaching in the domain of emotional support and specifically in the dimensions of regard for student perspectives and behavior management. The process of using videos for providing feedback in field-based experiences is discussed as well as implications for teacher development in light of students' CLASS scores and changes in CLASS scores.


Periodic structures – e. g. crystal structures – are analyzed by means of group theory. The
concept of a crystal structure is extendable to the n-dimensional space and the 4-dimensional
space groups are known [Brown, Bulow, Neubuser, Wondratscheck, Zassenhaus, 1978].
As quasi-periodic and incommensurate structures can be the result of a projection of a higher -
periodic structure, it is also worth to enhance the knowledge about higher-periodic structures
by graph theoretical means. Thereby the atoms of a crystal can be assigned to the vertices, and
the chemical bonds to the edges of a graph being a periodic net. Minimal nets [Beukemann,
Klee, 1992] are nets, where the deletion of any edge together with and its translational
equivalent edges results in a structure that is no longer connected. It's special about a minimal
net to have a 1:1 relation to its quotient graph [Chung, Hahn, Klee, 1984] that represents the
topology of the net by a finite graph, presenting the adjacency relations between the classes of
translational equivalent vertices and edges of the periodic net. 3-periodic minimal nets are
analyzed by several authors such as Bonneau, Delgado-Friedrichs, O'Keeffe, Yaghi, Eon.
Now the complete class of 4-periodic minimal nets (111 nets) is analyzed by comparing their
substructures such as trees, chains, cycles and sub-networks. Net to subnet relations are
identified and methods for net conversions are proposed. Different principles for the
construction of those structures are applied. The embedding of two nets is discussed in detail.
Single cycles of the minimal net 6(3)1 – number 1 of minimal nets with 6 classes of vertices
and vertex degree 3 (quotient graph K3,3) – where mapped to polygons of a Penrose pattern.
The minimal net 3(4)1 could be embedded into the 4-dimensional space by a "symmetric
labelling" of the edges of its quotient graph. A reference work with graphics and cycle class
sequences of all 2-, 3- and 4-periodic minimal nets is attached.


It is well known that the forward exchange rate and the realised future spot exchange rate differ. This phenomenon is better known as the exchange rate puzzle. Two approaches were followed to ascertain whether this difference is due to the weak explanatory ability of current economic fundamentals or whether the use of an ineffective econometric approach to model exchange rate theories is to blame. The first approach makes use of stationary economic time series data to model the ZAR/USD realised future spot exchange rate, while the second uses non-stationary level economic data to model the ZAR/USD realised future spot exchange rate. While the first approach reported weak results, the second approach illustrated that economic fundamentals are able to explain the ZAR/USD realised future spot exchange rate. These results also confirm that the exchange rate puzzle is a pseudoproblem.


This essay examines the discourse on Palestine/Israel in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, charting the impact of the Palestine rights movement on the domestic U.S. policy debate. Policy analyst, author, and long-time activist Phyllis Bennis notes the sea change within the Democratic Party evident in the unprecedented debate on the issue outside traditionally liberal Zionist boundaries. The final Democratic platform was as pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian as any in history, but the process of getting there was revolutionary in no small part, Bennis argues, due to the grassroots campaign of veteran U.S. senator Bernie Sanders. Bennis also discusses the Republican platform on Israel/Palestine, outlining the positions of the final three Republican contenders. Although she is clear about the current weakness of the broad antiwar movement in the United States, Bennis celebrates its Palestinian rights component and its focus on education and BDS to challenge the general public9s "ignorance" on Israel/Palestine.


BACKGROUND/AIMS
Saccharomyces boulardii (S. boulardii) has been reported to be beneficial in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, however, little is known about its mechanism of action. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma) is recently found to regulate inflammation in intestinal epithelial cells. We hypothesized that the anti-inflammatory effects of S. boulardii are mediated, in part, through PPAR-gamma. To test this hypothesis, we examined the ability of S. boulardii to modulate the expression of PPAR-gamma in human colon cells.

METHODS
Effects of S. boulardii on survival and proliferation of HT-29 human colon cells were assessed by MTT and [3H]thymidine incorporation assays. PPAR-gamma expression was assessed by Western blot and RT-PCR. Induction of interleukin-8 (IL-8) expression by tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta), or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was assessed by RT-PCR.

RESULTS
S. boulardii did not affect viability and proliferation of HT-29 cells. S. boulardii up-regulated PPAR-gamma expression at both mRNA and protein levels. Pretreatment of HT-29 cells with S. boulardii blocked PPAR-gamma down-regulation by TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, or LPS, whereas it ameliorated IL-8 response to these proinflammatory factors.

CONCLUSIONS
S. boulardii stimulates PPAR-gamma expression and reduces response of human colon cells to proinflammatory cytokines.


Research on sexuality and space emphasizes geographic and institutional forms that are stable, established, and fixed. By narrowing their analytic gaze on such places, which include gayborhoods and bars, scholars use observations about changing public opinions, residential integration, and the closure of nighttime venues to conclude that queer urban and institutional life is in decline. We use queer pop–up events to challenge these dominant arguments about urban sexualities and to advocate instead a "temporary turn" that analyzes the relationship between ephemerality and placemaking. Drawing on interviews with party promoters and participants in Vancouver, our findings show that ephemeral events can have enduring effects. Pop–ups refresh ideas about communal expression, belonging, safety, and the ownership of space among queer–identified people who feel excluded from the gayborhood and its bars. As a case, pop–ups compel scholars to broaden their focus from a preoccupation with permanent places to those which are fleeting, transient, short–lived, and experienced for a moment. Only when we see the city as a collection of temporary spaces can we appreciate how queer people convert creative cultural visions into spatial practices that enable them to express an oppositional ethos and to congregate with, and celebrate, their imagined communities.


Background In countries with low tuberculosis (TB) incidence, immigrants from higher incidence countries represent the major pool of individuals with latent TB infection (LTBI). The antenatal period represents an opportunity for immigrant women to access the medical system, and hence for potential screening and treatment of LTBI. However, such screening and treatment during pregnancy remains controversial. Objectives In order to further understand the prevalence, natural history, screening and management of LTBI in pregnancy, we conducted a systematic literature review addressing the screening and treatment of LTBI, in pregnant women without known HIV infection. Methods A systematic review of 4 databases (Embase, Embase Classic, Medline, Cochrane Library) covering articles published from January 1st 1980 to April 30th 2014. Articles in English, French or Spanish with relevant information on prevalence, natural history, screening tools, screening strategies and treatment of LTBI during pregnancy were eligible for inclusion. Articles were excluded if (1) Full text was not available (2) they were case series or case studies (3) they focused exclusively on prevalence, diagnosis and treatment of active TB (4) the study population was exclusively HIV-infected. Results Of 4,193 titles initially identified, 208 abstracts were eligible for review. Of these, 30 articles qualified for full text review and 22 were retained: 3 cohort studies, 2 case-control studies, and 17 cross-sectional studies. In the USA, the estimated prevalence of LTBI ranged from 14 to 48% in women tested, and tuberculin skin test (TST) positivity was associated with ethnicity. One study suggested that incidence of active TB was significantly increased during the 180 days postpartum (Incidence rate ratio, 1.95 (95% CI 1.24–3.07). There was a high level of adherence with both skin testing (between 90–100%) and chest radiography (93–100%.). In three studies from low incidence settings, concordance between TST and an interferon-gamma release assay was 77, 88 and 91% with kappa values ranging from 0.26 to 0.45. In low incidence settings, an IGRA may be more specific and less sensitive than TST, and results do not appear to be altered by pregnancy. The proportion of women who attended follow-up visits after positive tuberculin tests varied from 14 to 69%, while 5 to 42% of those who attended follow-up visits completed a minimum of 6 months of isoniazid treatment. One study raised the possibility of an association of pregnancy/post-partum state with INH hepatitis (risk ratio 2,5, 95% CI 0.8–8.2) and fatal hepatotoxicity (rate ratio 4.0, 95% CI 0.2–258). One study deemed INH safe during breastfeeding based on peak concentrations in plasma and breast milk after INH administration. Conclusion Pregnancy is an opportunity to screen for LTBI. Interferon-gamma release assays are likely comparable to tuberculin skin tests and may be used during pregnancy. Efforts should be made to improve adherence with follow-up and treatment post-partum. Further data are needed with respect to safety and feasibility of antepartum INH therapy, and with respect to alternative treatment regimens.


Colloidal particles are applied throughout industry, for example in paints, food, personal care products, ceramics and pharmaceutics. The characterization of the structure and dynamics of colloidal suspensions is therefore important for many industrial applications. Besides their industrial significance, colloids can also be used as a valuable model system to study fundamental questions in condensed matter physics. Because of their size, colloids are much slower than atoms or simple molecules, yet they can display the same equilibrium phase behavior. Furthermore, colloids are easily manipulated with external fields and they are large enough to be observed in real-space with an optical microscope. Phenomena such as crystallization, the glass transition and flow induced behavior of spherical colloids have been extensively studied in 3D real-space over the last decades. However, despite the recent increase in synthesis methods that produce (shape) anisotropic colloids, quantitative 3D real-space studies of anisotropic colloids strongly lag behind. In this thesis, we investigated the self-assembly of not only colloidal spheres but also of suspensions of (shape anisotropic) colloidal rods. The colloidal spheres consisted of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and the rod-like particles consisted of silica and both particles were fluorescently labeled. In analogy with the spherical particles, we developed a new method that allowed us to also study the rod-like particles in 3D real-space on the single particle level. We manipulated and directed the self-assembly process by application of three external fields: gravity, shear, and electric fields. By applying shear-flow, we found regimes where we can induce long-rang crystals in the case for spheres or long-range order in the case of the rods. Furthermore, we measured for the first time the equilibrium sedimentation profile of a rod-like particle system in 3D real-space and found good agreement with theory and computer simulations on the liquid-crystalline phase behaviour of hard spherocylinders. By changing the interaction potential of the rod-like particles to long-range repulsive, we demonstrated one of the first instances of a 3D colloidal plastic crystal. When we increased the density of the system of long-ranged repulsive rods, particles failed to crystallize and a 'plastic glass' was found, which could be reversibly switched with an electric field. This work thus highlights the unprecedented possibilities to study the effect of rotations on the structure and dynamics of liquid-crystal phases, plastic-crystal phases and the glass transition on the single particle level.


Optical measurements performed during the summer of 1997 from an off‐shore oceanographic tower in the northern Adriatic Sea in the presence of mucilage matter are presented. These measurements include apparent (diffuse attenuation coefficient, reflectance) and inherent (absorption and beam attenuation coefficients) optical properties of the water column at several wavelengths. The presence of mucilage layers (which was confirmed by divers) was associated with unique, very sharp subsurface maxima in the vertical distribution of both apparent and inherent optical properties. These layers were characterized by very high values of the diffuse attenuation coefficient of upwelling radiance and the beam attenuation coefficient, as well as the ratio of the scattering‐to‐absorption coefficients at all wavelengths. The mucilage data were compared to nonmucilage observations and two situations came out regarding surface reflectance ratios: (a) When the mucilage was in (vertically narrow) subsurface layers, mucilage events could not be distinguished from nonmucilage situations; and (b) When the mucilage was more homogeneously distributed throughout the water column and, in particular, approaching the surface, there was a detectable difference with respect to nonmucilage water. However, the data set is small, and the detection capability is based on a small difference, so the variance in nonmucilage water properties may still mask the properties of the mucilage‐contaminated water.


To date, there has been a significant gap in work on the social history of music in Britain from 1950 to the present day. The three volumes of Live Music in Britain address this gap and do so through a unique prism—that of live music. The key theme of the books is the changing nature of the live music industry in the UK, focused upon popular music but including all musical genres. Via this focus, the books offer new insights into a number of other areas, including the relationship between commercial and public funding of music, changing musical fashions and tastes, the impact of changing technologies, the changing balance of power within the music industries, the role of the state in regulating and promoting various musical activities within an increasingly globalised music economy, and the effects of demographic and other social changes on music culture. Drawing on new archival research, a wide range of academic and non-academic secondary sources, participant observation and a series of interviews with key personnel, the books have the potential to become landmark works within Popular Music Studies and broader cultural history. The second volume covers the period from Hyde Park to the Hacienda (1968–84).


The optical response of graded index spherical particles is studied using an effective medium approach, where the homogenization of the graded particle is achieved by using a static effective dielectric function available in the literature. Full-wave calculation using the standard Mie theory for this "homogenized system" shows that for a plasmonic particle, such an approximation can lead to highly-accurate results compared to the exact ones, especially for slowly and smoothly varying index profiles. An illustration is provided via an application of this method to the design of an optical cloak using a graded plasmonic coating based on the scattering cancellation scheme. This approach thus surpasses the various long-wavelength approximations currently available in the literature and provides an efficient numerical treatment of light scattering from these inhomogeneous particles without having to solve directly the Maxwell's equations with spatially varying dielectric functions.