Signals that a World Water Crisis is Developing The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted, in increasingly strong language, that the water sources (rivers, lakes, and bores/groundwater) humans have relied upon for millennia may disappear or be radically different in the future (Bates 2008; Gupta 2007; Lean 2007; Watson et al. 1997). The predicted changes address where water is located, in what form water is stored (ice vs. liquid) and in what amount will water be available. The natural conditions related to these changes include: $ shifts in precipitation patterns; some areas receiving more rain, others receiving less; $ shifts in storm frequency (fewer) and intensity (more intense) (Chang 2008); $ loss of ice stored as glaciers and as polar ice formations (Revkin 2008); $ loss of inland river flow due to reductions in winter storms, spring snow melt and runoff; and $ drop in groundwater levels due to reduced recharge (less rain over recharge areas) and increased pumpage from aquifers (Bates 2008; Rogers 2008). Although public and regulatory attention is slowly exerting pressure to make public water supply systems more efficient, meaning they waste less water, and more conservation minded, are these efforts missing the bigger picture of overall freshwater availability, now and in the future? According to Peter Rogers, P.E., of Harvard University (2008), "the world's demand for freshwater is currently overtaking its ready supply in many places and this situation shows no sign of abating." Reminder of World Water Resources It is worth remembering how the earth's water is distributed across the planet. Of all the water on earth, 97 per cent is held as saline water, primary in the earth's oceans, and is unfit for use by most terrestrial plants and animals, including humans. Only 3 per cent of the earth's water is freshwater and of this, 2 per cent is stored as ice in continental glaciers and the polar ice caps. Thus, only 1 per cent of the earth's total water is readily usable by humans. Most of the 1 per cent is stored as groundwater. Surface water (streams, rivers and lakes) makes up only about 0.02 per cent of all water (USGS Water Basics). Climate Change Is Already Affecting Freshwater Resources Some of the most important glaciers around the world are in retreat. For example, glaciers in the Himalayas, the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau, Alaska and Canada, Greenland, South America and Switzerland are melting faster than most climate models predicted. "Yao Tandong, one of China's leading glaciologist, believes that at currents rates, two thirds of the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau glaciers could disappear by 2060" (Brown 2008 4). The Greenland glaciers are melting so rapidly that they are triggering localized earthquakes as the crust adjusts to the loss of billions of tons of ice that is "breaking off and sliding into the sea." (Brown, P. 2007). According to Chris Rapley, leading expert for the British Antarctic Survey, "the ice is moving faster both in Greenland and Antarctica than the glaciologist had believed would happen" (Brown 2008 4). Recently, "the Markham Ice Shelf, a sheet of ice that had been attached to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic for 4,500 years, broke loose and disintegrated over a few days in August [2008], scientists reported," in September (New York Times 2008). The loss of major continental ice formations is important for many reasons. One reason important to humans is that the melting water drains a significant amount of fresh water to the oceans. Excessive melting represents a disruption of the normal snow and melt cycles that have historically provided water to some of the world's major river and groundwater systems. "The glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau feed all the major rivers of Asia, including the Indus, Ganges, Mekong, Yangtze, and the Yellow Rivers. …


The Death Valley regional flow system (DVRFS) is one of the larger ground-water flow systems in the southwestern United States and includes much of southern Nevada and the Death Valley region of eastern California. Centrally located within the ground-water flow system is the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The NTS, a large tract covering about 1,375 square miles, historically has been used for testing nuclear devices and currently is being studied as a potential repository for the long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste generated in the United States. The U.S. Department of Energy, as mandated by Federal and State regulators, is evaluating the risk associated with contaminants that have been or may be introduced into the subsurface as a consequence of any past or future activities at the NTS. Because subsurface contaminants can be transported away from the NTS by ground water, components of the ground-water budget are of great interest. One such component is regional ground-water discharge. Most of the ground water leaving the DVRFS is limited to local areas where geologic and hydrologic conditions force ground water upward toward the surface to discharge at springs and seeps. Available estimates of ground-water discharge are based primarily on early work donemore » as part of regional reconnaissance studies. These early efforts covered large, geologically complex areas and often applied substantially different techniques to estimate ground-water discharge. This report describes the results of a study that provides more consistent, accurate, and scientifically defensible measures of regional ground-water losses from each of the major discharge areas of the DVRFS. Estimates of ground-water discharge presented in this report are based on a rigorous quantification of local evapotranspiration (ET). The study identifies areas of ongoing ground-water ET, delineates different ET areas based on similarities in vegetation and soil-moisture conditions, and determines an ET rate f or each delineated area. Each area, referred to as an ET unit, generally consists of one or more assemblages of local phreatophytes or a unique moist soil environment. Ten ET units are identified throughout the DVRFS based on differences in spectral-reflectance characteristics. Spectral differences are determined from satellite imagery acquired June 21, 1989 and June 13, 1992. The units identified include areas of open playa, moist bare soils, sparse to dense vegetation, and open water. ET rates estimated for each ET unit range from a few tenths of a foot per year for open playa to nearly 9 feet per year for open water. Mean annual ET estimates are computed for each discharge area by summing estimates of annual ET from each ET unit within a discharge area. The estimate of annual ET from each ET unit is computed as the product of an ET unit's acreage and estimated ET rate. Estimates of mean annual ET range from 450 acre-feet in the Franklin Well area to 30,000 acre-feet in Sarcobatus Flat. Ground-water discharge is estimated as annual ET minus that part of ET attributed to local precipitation. Mean annual ground-water discharge estimates range from 350 acre-feet in the Franklin Well area to 18,000 acre-feet in Ash Meadows. Generally, these estimates are greater for the northern discharge areas (Sarcobatus Flat and Oasis Valley) and less for the southern discharge areas (Franklin Lake, Shoshone area, and Tecopa/California Valley area) than those previously reported.« less


A kaleidoscopic array of real and perceived unethical behaviors and practices involving teachers in higher education is making the news and troubling the faculty and administration of community colleges throughout the country. This article explores and reflects upon current and classic ethical issues faced by community college faculty members in their roles as teachers. Further, the article endeavors to ascertain what types of ethical guideposts are available for faculty members and what gaps may exist in the research on this subject. Specifically, the article addresses the following questions: (1) What are some of the major ethical issues currently confronting faculty in community colleges?; (2) What guidance - by type and by content - does the current literature offer to faculty when addressing the identified issues?; (3) What formal guidelines exist regarding professional ethics for faculty in community colleges and what similarities and differences are evident in the existing guidelines?; and (4) What research gaps exist regarding ethics and teaching in community colleges and how might such gaps be eliminated? Although a large body of theoretical and philosophical literature and institutional policies was found concerning the ethics of teaching, very little, if any, research on this issue appears to be currently underway. Thus, the article concludes with five specific suggestions for future research on the subject.


In 1959, intensive agricultural development started in a 780 sq mile region lying east of Lake Okeechobee in south Florida. In this wetland region of flats, sloughs and ponds effective drainage to coastal waters has been the key to agricultural expansion. By 1967 approximately 20% of the region was planted in citrus. Changes in the natural environment within the region took place almost immediately after drainage was initiated and indications are that the natural environment in adjacent areas can be affected as well. The effect of drainage on the immediate economic environment of the region has been favorable to date. However, natural environmental changes have produced tensions, with economic overtones, in the social environment resulting in conflict between agricultural and conservationist interests. Based on the experience gained in this region it is suggested that the proper function of public government is to evaluate the possible environmental effects of drainage programs and to use its financial, persuasive and regulatory powers to guide total environmental change in accordance with its estimate of the best public interest.


To develop advanced thermally conductive epoxy resins with liquid crystallinity, three novel liquid crystalline epoxies (LCEs) were synthesized via the substitution of phenylcyclohexyl (PCH) mesogenic moieties into the 2,5 positions of diglycidyl terephthalate. Mesomorphic properties of LCEs were evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized optical microscopy (POM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). All LCEs exhibited an enantiotropic smectic phase on heating and cooling. Remarkably, the smectic phase with a wide temperature range of 98–145 °C was observed for the eutectic mixtures of a family of stable smectic LCEs. The selection of optimum curing agents, compositions of LCEs and curing agents, and curing conditions were determined based on physical, chemical, and thermal properties of LCEs and curing agents. The thermally cured LCEs at the LC phase exhibited a high thermal conductivity of 0.4 W m−1 K−1.


Daily migrations of population represent a very significant and developed social phenomenon which, in the conditions of transition in Serbia, does not have the previous spatial and demographic expressiveness. Nevertheless, the complex significance of the scientific explanation of convergent and divergent daily migrations of the centers of larger and smaller functional capacity is indisputable. Consequently, the intra-urban daily movements of labor, pupils and students will be dealt with within the planned and formal borders of the Belgrade settlement among 10 urban municipalities. According to a special statistical data processing of the 2002 population census, 316 817 of its permanent residents participated in these movements or 4.2% of the total population of Serbia without the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohia, whereof most of them are workers. Their daily movement and commute within the borders of the city contributes to a great extent to the dynamical circulation of people and intensive transportation flows among some parts of Belgrade, as well as the changes in the concentration of their total population throughout the working day.


Abstract The slow pace of new/improved materials development and deployment has been identified as the main bottleneck in the innovation cycles of most emerging technologies. Much of the continuing discussion in the materials development community is therefore focused on the creation of novel materials innovation ecosystems designed to dramatically accelerate materials development efforts, while lowering the overall cost involved. In this paper, it is argued that the recent advances in data science can be leveraged suitably to address this challenge by effectively mediating between the seemingly disparate, inherently uncertain, multiscale and multimodal measurements and computations involved in the current materials' development efforts. Proper utilisation of modern data science in the materials' development efforts can lead to a new generation of data-driven decision support tools for guiding effort investment (for both measurements and computations) at various stages of the materials development. It should also be recognised that the success of such ecosystems is predicated on the creation and utilisation of integration platforms for promoting intimate, synchronous collaborations between cross-disciplinary and distributed team members (i.e. cyberinfrastructure). Indeed, data sciences and cyberinfrastructure form the two main pillars of the emerging new discipline broadly referred to as materials informatics (MI). This paper provides a summary of current capabilities in this emerging new field as they relate to the accelerated development of advanced hierarchical materials (the internal structure plays a dominant role in controlling overall properties/performance in these materials) and identifies specific directions of research that offer the most promising avenues.


Aims: The objective of the study was to study the prescribing patterns of drugs used in the coronary artery disease (CAD) and to identify, which drug is mostly prescribed at that hospital. Settings and Design: This was a prospective observational survey including case series analysis of patients with CAD who met the inclusion criteria. It was conducted in the cardiology unit of multidisciplinary Tertiary Care Hospital in Kanpur. Materials and Methods: Data of patients who met the inclusion criteria was collected in specially designed case record forms. It was designed to include the patient data such as, demographics, risk factors, clinical and biochemical characteristics, procedures and investigations performed during the hospital stay, in-hospital and discharge drug therapy. Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics were performed for baseline characteristics, risk factors and medication use. All the analyses were performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 16.0. Results: Subjects of age groups 65-74 (33.34%) were found to be more susceptible to CAD. In this study, we see that Aspirin, Clopidogrel and Statins were mostly prescribed in this hospital. Conclusions: In this study, Aspirin and Clopidogrel were mostly prescribed. According to 2009 focused updates of American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines for the management of patients with ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction. So in this hospital prescription for CAD were according to the guideline.


Two new brachyuran species are described for the Upper Cretaceous Mexcala Formation, Guerrero State, Mexico. Longusorbis quadratus new species (Coniacian, Temalac region) is the oldest and southernmost record for the genus. Xanthosia zoquiapensis new species (Campanian, Zoquiapa region) is the fi rst record for the genus in Mexico. In addition, the age for Costacopluma bishopi Vega and Feldmann is discussed (Coniacian, Temalac region) and represents the oldest and southernmost record for Cretaceous representatives of this genus in North America. All specimens are considerably smaller compared to other species of the same genera and are interpreted as the fi rst example of brachyuran dwarfi sm in the geological record. These species add new insight into possible migratory routes during the Late Cretaceous. Within Longusorbis, a northwestern migratory route is documented from the Coniacian in Mexico to the Campanian - Maastrichtian of the west coast of North America (Canada), whereas within the genus Xanthosia, a western migratory route from the Albian of Europe to the Campanian of Mexico is indicated. Costacopluma migrated east and north to the west coast of Africa, southeast North America and Greenland.


In E. coli, four types of hydrogenases are recognized. Hydrogenases 1 (Hyd-1) and 2
(Hyd-2) are responsible for H2 consumption via respiration. Hydrogenase-3 (Hyd-3),
which is encoded by the hycABCDEFGHI operon, combines with formate dehydrogenase
H (Fdh-H) to form the formate hydrogen lyase (FHL) complex, which is responsible for
formate disposal and H2 evolution during anaerobic fermentation under acidic pH. The
hyfABCDEFGHIJR-focB operon of E. coli encodes a fourth potential hydrogenase (Hyd-
4) closely related to Hyd-3. The physiological purpose of the Hyf system is unclear
although it is speculated to form a second, energy conserving, FHL with Fdh-H.
However, current evidence suggests that the hyf operon is not expressed and may thus be
cryptic. The aim here is to discover whether the Hyf/Hyd-4 system is indeed capable of
hydrogenase activity and can thus be assigned a fourth hydrogenase. Analysis of the
NCBI database showed that hyf is conserved in all E. coli/Shigella stains, except for the
most basal phylogroup (B2) which is associated with avian- and uro-pathogenic strains;
this might suggest a role for Hyf in colonisation of the mammalian intestine. To determine
if hyf-encoded FocB acts as a second formate channel, a focA mutant was complemented
with focB carried by pBADrha. Rhamnose induction of focB restored sensitivity to
hypophosphite (formate analogue) supporting a role for FocB as a second formate
channel. Similarly, induction of pBADrha-encoded focA also restored hypophosphite
sensitivity. FocA supported H2 production at low pH, but had little impact at high pH.
Low levels of FocB could compensate for absence of FocA. Plasmid induced focA
restored the levels of formate released in a focA mutant at pH 6.5, to those seen in the
wildtype, whereas plasmid induced focB increased such levels more modestly, although
both FocA and FocB supported fermentative growth at pH 6.5. Expression of focB
appeared toxic at pH 7.5. Thus, the results generally support a role for FocB in formate export and suggest roles in delivery of exogenous formate to FHL-1 indicating a role in
formate import also under acidic pH conditions.
When a hycE mutant strain was complemented with hyf carried by pBADrha at pH 6.5, H2
production was restored, and this was accompanied by restoration of formate
consumption; a similar effect was seen upon plasmid-borne hyc induction. This indicates
that hyf specifies an active hydrogen-evolving hydrogenase. Complementation of a
ΔfdhF ΔhycE double mutant with both hyf and fdhF, carried by pBADrha and pBADara,
respectively, re-enabled H2 production and formate consumption, thus showing that Hyf
activity is Fdh-H dependent indicating that Hyf and Fdh-H combine to form a second
FHL (FHL-2). FHL-2 activity was formate concentration dependent, with increased H2
production with increased formate provided. Induced-Hyf H2-production activity was
enhanced by provision of nickel at up to 0.25 mM (but was inhibited at 0.5 mM nickel)
supporting the presence of Ni in the proposed [NiFe] centre of the Hyf-hydrogenase.
Molybdenum and selenium were also shown to be required for high Hyf-FdhH (FHL-2)
H2-production activity. In conclusion, this thesis provides strong evidence showing that
the hyf-focB locus encodes a second formate channel and a fourth hydrogenase (Hyd-4)
in E. coli, with the Hyd-4 enzyme acting as an H2 producing and formate dependent
enzyme that forms a second FdhF-dependent FHL complex. Further work is required to
establish the environmental conditions under which the Hyf system is active, and offers
an advantage, in the wildtype.


The paper's first part analyzes global tourism's core concerns and responsibilities in the new millennium, one of which is sustainability. Sustainability is shown to be made operational by the triple bottom line, which is analyzed as an internal managerial decision-making and planning tool as well as an external assessment and reporting framework. Key triple bottom line dimensions are presented together with economic, social, and environmental performance and impact measurements via a range of key indicators. The paper's second part evaluates the concept, forms, and contributions of slow travel and tourism to worldwide sustainability discussions, especially to forms of fast tourism. Slow tourism's meanings comprise sustainability and environmentalism. As an opposite to slow tourism modes, airline travel has conflicting solutions within the airline and tourism industries, their customer preferences, and the global business environment. Similarly, business travelers' motivations, decision-making, and beneficiaries have moved environmental and sustainability considerations up on their agendas. Multinational companies' corporate social responsibility endows them with a special role in branding and marketing their sustainability aspirations. Student and youth traveler numbers increase steadily, corresponding to their market relevance and diversity of motives. Finally, religious tourists occupy a central position in global travel considerations, which impacts pilgrimage locations and ecologies. The paper's third part shows how fast travel forms and industries can be inspired by slow tourism, especially when combining triple bottom line indicators, corporate social responsibility considerations, and slow travel and tourism philosophies and practices. This combined approach shows potential especially for global tourism's marketing and branding strategies.


To protect motorists and avoid tort liability, highway agencies expend considerable resources to repair damaged longitudinal barriers, such as w-beam guardrails. With limited funding available, though, highway agencies are unable to maintain all field-installed systems in the ideal as-built condition. Instead, these agencies focus on repairing only damage that has a detrimental effect on the safety performance of the barrier. The distinction between minor damage and more severe performance-altering damage, however, is not always clear. This paper presents a critical review of current U.S. and Canadian criteria on whether to repair damaged longitudinal barrier. Barrier repair policies were obtained via comprehensive literature review and a survey of U.S. and Canadian transportation agencies. In an analysis of the maintenance procedures of 40 states in the United States and 8 Canadian transportation agencies, fewer than one-third of highway agencies were found to have quantitative measures to determine when barrier repair is warranted. In addition, no engineering basis for the current U.S. barrier repair guidelines could be found. These findings underscore the importance of the development of quantitative barrier repair guidelines based on a strong technical foundation.


Incorporating mineral structures and interpreting the wide array of water-rock kinetic field and experimental data, requires abandoning molecule-based adsorption phenomenological models and the development and analysis of a general kinetic theory that incorporates all the basic processes occurring in the destruction of a crystal structure. The current paper extends our prior work to include an analysis of the kinetic behavior of an A 3 B-type crystal structure. More complex kink types and two different bonding energetics for A-A and A-B bonds add new kinetic phenomena during dissolution. The rate laws for both perfect and stepped surfaces are contrasted and compared to simple TST-like rate laws. Unexpected changes in mechanism as a function of saturation state are found and studied. Incongruent dissolution is analyzed as a function of time and saturation state. The appropriateness of additive rate laws for various reaction mechanisms is investigated using the mechanism change from step-control to hole-nucleation control for A 3 B structures. The onset of inhibition, predicted by the statistical mechanical treatment of the kinetics, is observed as conditions far from equilibrium are reached. Inhibition is quantified with the use of isotachs and it is seen to depend systematically on the average surface bonding properties. In particular, a quantification of the number of B vacancies with saturation state is carried out and compared with actual results from the full kinetic model. The analysis of the inhibition mechanism itself and its onset are then applied to analyze recent feldspar dissolution data.


In the years since the Bantu Education Act of 1954, and other race-based legislation which introduced apartheid education into South Afiican schools, it was widely believed that the majority ofblack school teachers were unqualified and underqualified. This perceived high demand for qualified teachers was matched by an equally high supply of teachers; in fact 281 teacher education institutions were producing approximately 26000 newly qualified teachers annually. A seminal study recently commissioned by a government Committee of Teacher Education Policy (COTEP), the so-called National Teacher Education Audit (henceforth referred to as the Audit), reported that there is an over-supply of teachers in some school subjects (e.g. Biblical Studies) and an under-supply in other subjects (e.g. Science and Mathematics). These findings seem to corroborate widespread news reports that new teachers are not finding employment. The apparent contradiction between supply and demand alluded to above raIses important questions regarding the employment of teachers. Is there, in fact, an oversupply ofteachers? Do teacher education graduates find employment in teaching? Do Science and Mathematics teacher education graduates, in fact, fill positions in these assumed critical areas? To address these and related questions, a study was designed to track a cohort of new teachers with the goal of ascertaining their employment status in the years immediately following their graduation. ,The study used a longitudinal tracer study design to trace the 1995 cohort of teacher graduates of the Faculty of Education, University of Durban-Westville. Data were collected at three different periods: at graduation (July 1996), at the end of the school year (December 1996), and at the beginning of the new school year (January 1997). Survey questionnaires were used for the collection of data from students, while biographical and academic data were obtained from the University records. The study was restricted to teacher graduates from a single teacher education institution in a single province, Viz. KwaZulu-Natal. The findings of this study are, accordingly, limited in scope and may not necessarily resonate with the claims of the Audit. Nevertheless, the study is useful insofar as it challenges conventional wisdom regarding teacher employment/unemployment. The study focused on two critical questions, viz. • What is the employment status of the teacher graduates? • What is the teaching context of those who were employed as teachers? A response rate of 55% was recorded. The majority (88%) ofUDW's teacher graduates found employment as teachers. This finding contrasts with the evidence presented in the Audit, viz. that there is an oversupply of teachers in general (Le Rowe, 1996: 12) and that many newly-qualified teachers were not able to secure teaching posts because provinces could not afford them (Hofrneyr & Hall, 1995:30). Eight percent of teacher graduates were unemployed, while four percent were employed in the private sector or engaged in fulltime s~dy. For those graduates who found employment as teachers, the teaching contexts varied. Former "African" schools tended to employ graduates as permanent full-time staff: while former "Indian" schools tended to employ graduates as full-time temporary staff Permanent employment of newly qualified teachers contradicts the findings of the Audit. This may be the result of differential needs or employment conditions in schools which, until recently, were administered under different, race--based Departments ofEducation. A large percentage (690./0) of graduates were employed in secondary schools. Among these were 35% of graduates with primary school teaching qualification. This resonates with the findings of the Audit which indicated a shortage of secondary school teachers in KwaZulu-Natal (pendlebury, 1996: 10). This finding seems to confirm that there is a greater need for graduate teachers at the secondary level with the result that graduates, irrespective of their specialties are being employed in secondary schools. Added to this fact is that just over half of the graduates (52%) do not teach the subjects they specialized in. The Audit indicated that there was a shortage of teachers in certain critical areas like Mathematics and Sciences. Contrary to this finding, between 50% and 100% of qualified Maths and Science teachers do not teach these subjects in schools. Similar findings on Physical Science teachers in schools in KwaZulu-Natal were reported (Naidoo & Khumalo, 1997). The findings of this tracer study have implications for large-scale audits, teacher education curricula and teacher education policy and planning. Large-scale audits presents summary data at national level which do not account for provincial and local variations in teacher employment policy and planning. Given that teacher graduates may not necessarily teach their subject specialties, two possible options may inform the curriculum policy of teacher education institutions, viz. a strong generalist curriculum excluding specialist options; or a strong generalist curriculum with relatively small specialist component. Policymakers and planners should refrain from making longterm decisions on teacher supply and demand until such time that more reliable data is available on teacher employment.. .. ACKNOWLED6.E.Mt:NTS I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the following persons who supported me in this research: Words cannot express my sentiments to Reshma Sookrajh, who was my inspiration and support throughout this dissertation. I am extremely greatful to my supervisor, Prof J D Jansen, for his invaluable guidance and support provisions in this research. To Jasmin Paras, a heartful thanks for your support, interest in this research and for the data capturing. To Dr D S Rajah for his assitance in the editing process. To Ze'sha and Jivita, my precious daughters, l'am sorry for not spending much quality time with you during the period ofmy study. Last, but not the least, the love of my dearest wife, Nisha Ramrathan, for her tremendous support and understanding during the last two years. Nisha, you've been the tower of strength amongst the busiest and most complicated period ofour lives. PRAMRATHAN DECEMBER 1997


Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are now recognised as being of major
importance to the strategic agendas of many countries around the world since they can
lower unemployment and increase economic growth. This is particularly significant
for a small country like Oman which is seeking to diversify its production base.
However, it is well known that lending institutions are often reluctant to offer loans to
small firms because of the nature and size of such businesses.
This research study, therefore, is the first to carry out a detailed investigation of the
financing of small and medium-sized enterprises in Oman by focusing on the three
main sectors in which SMEs function: manufacturing, trade and services.
The study aims first to examine the procedures and problems faced by SMEs in
obtaining finance by considering the need for finance, the types of finance available,
and the difficulties that may be encountered in this process. Guidelines are then
offered to encourage the participation of such firms in Oman's development. The
study also seeks to examine the relationship between certain characteristics of firms
and their owner-managers and the need for finance, together with difficulties
encountered when seeking such finance. Finally, a comparison is made of the
procedures and problems faced by SMEs in the three sectors.
After a literature review, the thesis puts forward, in Chapter 4, the theoretical research
framework and a number of hypotheses. Data were gathered via questionnaires and
interviews from 397 small and medium enterprises in Oman; 94 from the
manufacturing sector, 180 from the trade sector and 123 from service firms. These
data were then analysed using the following methods: descriptive analysis, nonparametric
testing, and analysis of variance (ANOVA).
The findings showed that some significant differences did exist between firms, their
owner-managers' characteristics and the need to acquire external finance, as well as
the success or difficulties they faced in applying for such lending. The need for
external finance for such companies to expand their businesses was also clearly
demonstrated, especially in the trade and service sectors, the majority of respondents in all three sectors were aware of government sources of finance. It was found that the
main reasons for difficulties in raising finance were high rates of interest, incomplete
business plans, a lack of securities, and putting forward proposals considered not to be
viable.
A detailed analysis of the results can be seen in Chapter 6, with a summary of the
main findings in Chapter 7. The study ends with an examination of the implications of
the findings of this research for owner-managers, policy-makers, academics and
entrepreneurs. Finally, suggestions are made for future useful research in this area.


Alfred Werner (1866-1919) is regarded as the founder of coordination chemistry. He was the author of the book entitled 'Neuere Anschauungen auf dem Gebiete der Anorganischen Chemie' (New Perspectives in Inorganic Chemistry) which guided generations of chemists in research and teaching. This book was recently awarded the 'Citation for Chemical Breakthrough' prize from the Division of the History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. This article is the first of three dedicated to Werner's life and works.


In a recent article from China, a transferable resistance mechanism has been described in Escherichia coli (E. coli), isolated from food-producing animals, meat and hospital patients (Liu et al., 2015). Recently, this resistance mechanism has also been found in Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and Belgium. Colistin is considered as one of the last resort treatments against multi-resistant bacteria in human medicine, especially for patients with cystic fibrosis. Alertness is needed and the new resistance mechanism has to be detected properly in animal and human related bacteria.


Abstract: The main bioactive ceramics and glasses used or under development for tissue engineering applications are reviewed. Applications of these biomaterials are mainly in bone tissue engineering but recent studies are also showing promising results for the use of bioactive glasses in healing soft tissue wounds. Hydroxyapatite, beta-tricalcium phosphate, and biphasic calcium phosphate are the most widely used bioactive ceramics. Silicate-based glasses such as the composition designated 45S5 and more recently developed borate and phosphate compositions are the main types of bioactive glass. Bioactive composites and inorganic–organic hybrids are also of interest. The properties of these bioactive ceramics and glasses and their performance in vitro and in vivo are reviewed.


Modern microprocessors are equipped with single instruction multiple data (SIMD) or vector instruction sets which allow compilers to exploit superword level parallelism (SLP), a type of fine-grained parallelism. Current SLP auto-vectorization techniques use heuristics to discover vectorization opportunities in high-level language code. These heuristics are fragile, local and typically only present one vectorization strategy that is either accepted or rejected by a cost model. We present goSLP, a novel SLP auto-vectorization framework which solves the statement packing problem in a pairwise optimal manner. Using an integer linear programming (ILP) solver, goSLP searches the entire space of statement packing opportunities for a whole function at a time, while limiting total compilation time to a few minutes. Furthermore, goSLP optimally solves the vector permutation selection problem using dynamic programming. We implemented goSLP in the LLVM compiler infrastructure, achieving a geometric mean speedup of 7.58% on SPEC2017fp, 2.42% on SPEC2006fp and 4.07% on NAS benchmarks compared to LLVM's existing SLP auto-vectorizer.


An efficient in vitro plant regeneration system in subabul (Leucaena leucocephala), a leguminous pulp wood tree species, was established. The induction of shoots was achieved from selected elite clones of subabul K-8, K-636 and also wild type on MS medium supplemented with 2 % sucrose and different concentrations (0.88 to 24.6 μM) of plant growth regulators (BA, Kn, 2iP & TDZ). The best medium for shoot regeneration was MS with 22.2 μM BA (5 shoots per explant), followed by 22.7 μM TDZ (4.6 shoots per explant). Addition of putriscine (9.3 μM) to MS medium containing 22.2 μM BA enhanced the number of multiple shoots to 7-8 but not the frequency of response. Shoot initials (measuring 1 cm) when separated and transferred on to MS medium containing 1.4 μM GA3 elongated to 2-5 cm in 15-20 d with 80% frequency. The per cent frequency of shoot differentiation was almost identical in the genotypes K-8 and K-636 but it differed significantly from the wild type. Leaf yellowing and abscission in all the genotypes was curtailed by supplementing the medium with 685 μM glutamine or 540 μM adenine. The excised shoots were transferred to root regeneration media containing 2.46 and 4.98 μM IBA or 2.6 and 5.3 μM NAA. Root regeneration was noticed with 100% frequency in all the three genotypes in presence of IBA or NAA. Plantlets were transferred successfully to the pots with 70% survival rate with no visible morphological variations. The protocol can be utilized for mass propagation and genetic transformation studies of this important pulpwood species.


Judicial federalism scholarship has concentrated on the interplay between the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts for incorporated rights, where the former sets the floor for rights in the states. But little has been said about judicial federalism and the unincorporated rights, where states are unrestricted in their freedom to define the rights. The Seventh Amendment presents a one-of-a-kind experiment in judicial federalism, as the only federal constitutional right that is duplicated in the great majority of state constitutions and has generated an ap- preciable body of case law. In this Note, I analyze the evolution of state court treatment of the intertwined-issues problem, both before Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover announced the federal rule, and today. Surprisingly, I reveal first, a genuine split of authority in the states between the Beacon Theatres rule and a narrower rule, and second, that the states had nearly uniformly agreed to the narrower rule before Beacon Theatres — a fact not discussed by the Beacon Theatres Court or litigants. The Beacon Theatres decision has transformed the doctrinal landscape over more than fifty years; many state courts have uprooted their state rules and planted the federal rule in its place. This Note concludes that state supreme courts need a distinct approach for unincorporated rights, such as the Seventh Amendment, to serve judicial federalism norms.


Modern deep neural networks can achieve high accuracy when the training distribution and test distribution are identically distributed, but this assumption is frequently violated in practice. When the train and test distributions are mismatched, accuracy can plummet. Currently there are few techniques that improve robustness to unforeseen data shifts encountered during deployment. In this work, we propose a technique to improve the robustness and uncertainty estimates of image classifiers. We propose AugMix, a data processing technique that is simple to implement, adds limited computational overhead, and helps models withstand unforeseen corruptions. AugMix significantly improves robustness and uncertainty measures on challenging image classification benchmarks, closing the gap between previous methods and the best possible performance in some cases by more than half.


In a recent paper on mixed-effects models for confirmatory analysis, Barr et al. (2013) offered the following guideline for testing interactions: "one should have by-unit [subject or item] random slopes for any interactions where all factors comprising the interaction are within-unit; if any one factor involved in the interaction is between-unit, then the random slope associated with that interaction cannot be estimated, and is not needed" (p. 275). Although this guideline is technically correct, it is inadequate for many situations, including mixed factorial designs. The following new guideline is therefore proposed: models testing interactions in designs with replications should include random slopes for the highest-order combination of within-unit factors subsumed by each interaction. Designs with replications are designs where there are multiple observations per sampling unit per cell. Psychological experiments typically involve replicated observations, because multiple stimulus items are usually presented to the same subjects within a single condition. If observations are not replicated (i.e., there is only a single observation per unit per cell), random slope variance cannot be distinguished from random error variance and thus random slopes need not be included.

This new guideline implies that a model testing AB in a 2 × 2 design where A is between and B within should include a random slope for B. Likewise, a model testing all two- and three- way interactions in a 2 × 2 × 2 design where A is between and B, C are within should include random slopes for B, C, and BC.

The justification for the guideline comes from the logic of mixed-model ANOVA. In an ANOVA analysis of the 2 × 2 design described above, the appropriate error term for the test of AB is MSUB, the mean squares for the unit-by-B interaction (e.g., the subjects-by-B or items-by-B interaction). For the 2 × 2 × 2 design, the appropriate error term for ABC and BC is MSUBC, the unit-by-BC interaction; for AB, it is MSUB; and for AC, it is MSUC.

To what extent is this ANOVA logic applicable to tests of interactions in mixed-effects models? To address this question, Monte Carlo simulations were performed using R (R Core Team, 2013). Models were estimated using the lmer() function of lme4 (Bates et al., 2013), with p-values derived from model comparison (α = 0.05). The performance of mixed-effects models (in terms of Type I error and power) was assessed over two sets of simulations, one for each of two different mixed factorial designs. The first set focused on the test of the AB interaction in a 2 × 2 design with A between and B within; the second focused on the test of the ABC interaction in a 2 × 2 × 2 design with A between and B, C within. For simplicity all datasets included only a single source of random effect variance (e.g., by-subject but not by-item variance). The number of replications per cell was 4, 8, or 16. Predictors were coded using deviation (−0.5, 0.5) coding; identical results were obtained using treatment coding. In the rare case (~2%) that a model did not converge, it was removed from the analysis. Power was reported with and without adjustment for Type I error rate, using the adjustment method reported in Barr et al. (2013).

For each set of simulations at each of the three replication levels, 10,000 datasets were randomly generated, each with 24 sampled units (e.g., subjects). The dependent variable was continuous and normally distributed, with all data-generating parameters drawn from uniform distributions. Fixed effects were either between −2 and −1 or between 1 and 2 (with equal probability). The error variance was fixed at 6, and the random effects variance/covariance matrix had variances ranging from 0 to 3 and covariances corresponding to correlations ranging from −0.9 to 0.9.

For the 2 × 2 design, mixed-effects models with two different random effects structures were fit to the data: (1) by-unit random intercept but no random slope for B ("RI"), and (2) a maximal model including a slope for B in addition to the random intercept ("Max"). For comparison purposes, a test of the interaction using mixed-model ANOVA ("AOV") was performed using R's aov() function.

Results for the test of the AB interaction in the 2 × 2 design are in Tables Tables11 and and2.2. As expected, the Type I error rate for ANOVA and maximal models were very close to the stated α-level of 0.05. In contrast, models lacking the random slope for B ("RI") showed unacceptably high Type I error rates, increasing with the number of replications. Adjusted power was comparable for all three types of analyses (Table (Table2),2), albeit with a slight overall advantage for RI.

Table 1

Type I error rate for the test of AB in the 2 × 2 design.

Table 2

Power for the test of AB in the 2 × 2 design, Adjusted (Raw) p-values.

The test of the ABC interaction in the 2 × 2 design was evaluated under four different random effects structures, all including a random intercept but varying in which random slopes were included. The models were: (1) random intercept only ("RI"); (2) slopes for B and C but not for BC ("nBC"); (3) slope for BC but not for B nor C ("BC"); and (4) maximal (slopes for B, C, and BC; "Max").

For the test of the ABC interaction, ANOVA and maximal models both yielded acceptable Type I performance (Table (Table3);3); the model with the BC slope alone ("BC") was comparably good. However, the model excluding the BC slope had unacceptably high Type I error rates; surprisingly, omitting this random slope may be even worse than a random-intercept-only model. Adjusted power was comparable across all analyses (Table (Table44).

Table 3

Type I error rate for test of ABC in 2 × 2 × 2 design.

Table 4

Power for test of ABC in 2 × 2 × 2 design, Adjusted (Raw) p-values.

To summarize: when testing interactions in mixed designs with replications, it is critical to include the random slope corresponding to the highest-order combination of within-subject factors subsumed by each interaction of interest. It is just as important to attend to this guideline when one seeks to simplify a non-converging model as when one is deciding on what structure to fit in the first place. Failing to include the critical slope in the test of an interaction can yield unacceptably high Type I error rates. Indeed, a model that includes all relevant random slopes except for the single critical slope may perform just as badly as (or possibly even worse than) a random-intercepts-only model, even though such a model is nearly maximal. Finally, note that including only the critical random slope in the model was sufficient to obtain acceptable performance, as illustrated by the "BC" model in the 2 × 2 × 2 design.

Although the current simulations only considered interactions between categorical variables, the guideline applies whenever there are replicated observations, regardless of what types of variables are involved in an interaction (e.g., continuous only, or a mix of categorical and continuous). For example, consider a design with two independent groups of subjects, where there are observations at multiple time points for each subject. When testing the time-by-group interaction, the model should include a random slope for the continuous variable of time; if time is modeled using multiple terms of a polynomial, then there should be a slope for each of the terms in the polynomial that interact with group. For instance, if the effect of time is modeled as Y = β0 + β1 t + β2 t2 and the interest is in whether the β0 and β1 parameters vary across group, then the random effects structure should include slopes for both the group-by-t and group-by-t2 interactions.


Background: The emerging role of Stem cell technology and transplantation has helped scientists to study its potential role in neural repair and regeneration. The fate of stem cells is determined by its niche, consisting of surrounding cells and the secreted trophic growth factors. This present study evaluates the safety, feasibility and efficacy of bone marrow derived mononuclear stem cells (BM-MNC) in chronic ischemic stroke by studying the release of serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and brain derived neurotrophic growth factor (BDNF).

Methods: Twenty (n=20) stroke patients recruited with the inclusion criteria as: 3 months to 1.5 years of index event, power of hand muscles atleast 2; Brunnstrom stage: 2-5; conscious and comprehendible, were randomized to study and control groups receiving autologous mean 60-70 million BM-MNC and controls receiving neuromotor rehabilitation regime only for 8 weeks. Clinical assessment (FM, mBI, MRC, Ashworth) and serum VEGF & BDNF were done at baseline and 8 weeks (2 months).

Results: No patients exhibited any complication or adverse events during the whole procedure. There was no statistical significant clinical improvement between study and control groups (FM: 95%CI; 15.2 to 5.35, p=0.25; mBI : 95% CI;14.3 to 4.5, p=0.31). VEGF and BDNF were increased after stem cell infusion and exercise training in both the groups (VEGF: 442.1 pg/ml vs 400.3pg/ml; p=0.67; BDNF:95% CI∼15.09 to 4.09, p=0.57), without any statistical significant result.

Conclusion: Autologous mononuclear stem cell infusion is safe and tolerable by chronic ischemic stroke. The paracrine hypothesis extends the traditional concept of stem cell niche to study the influence of stem cell released growth factors (VEGF and BDNF) on the microenvironment.

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Twelve public office buildings were selected for a study of relationships between worker's health symptoms and a number of building, workspace, job, and personal factors. Three buildings were naturally ventilated, three were mechanically ventilated, and six were air conditioned. Information on the prevalences of work-related symptoms, demographics, and job and personal factors were determined via a questionnaire completed by 880 occupants. Several indoor environmental parameters were measured. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate associations between symptom prevalences and features of the buildings, indoor environments, jobs, and personal factors. A substantial fraction of the occupants in these typical office buildings reported frequent work-related symptoms. The occupants of the mechanically ventilated and air conditioned buildings had sipifcantly more symptoms than occupants of the naturally ventilated buildings after adjustment for confounding factors. Increased prevalences of some symptoms were associated with several job and workspace factors including: presence of carpet, increased use of carbonless copy paper and photocopiers, space sharing, and distance from a window


In survival analysis a large literature using frailty models, or models with unobserved heterogeneity, exist. In the growing literate on multiple spell multiple states duration models, or multistate models, modeling this issue is only at its infant phase. Ignoring unobserved heteogeneity can, however, produce incorrect results. This paper presents how unobserved heterogeneity can be incorporated into multistate models, with an emphasis on semi-Markov multistate models with a mixed proportional hazard structure. First, the aspects of frailty modeling in univariate (proportional hazard, Cox) duration models are addressed and some important models with unobserved heterogeneity are discussed. Second, the domain is extended to modeling of parallel/clustered multivariate duration data with unobserved heterogeneity. The implications of choosing shared or correlated unobserved heterogeneity is highlighted. The relevant differences with recurrent events data is covered next. They include the choice of the time scale and risk set which both have important implications for the way unobserved heterogeneity influence the model. Multistate duration models can have both parallel and recurrent events. Incorporating unobserved heterogeneity in multistate models, therefore, brings all the previously addressed issues together. Although some estimation procedures are covered the emphasis is on conceptual issues. The importance of including unobserved heterogeneity in multistate duration models is illustrated with data on labour market and migration dynamics of recent immigrants to The Netherlands.


The Los Santos scheelite skarn deposit, located in the province of Salamanca, northwest Spain, occurs in meter-thick strata-bound but irregular lenses of ≤1 km in length and contains a current total resource of 3.09 million metric tons (Mt) with an average grade of 0.54 percent WO3. It was produced by the metasomatic alteration of Upper Vendian-Lower Cambrian metasedimentary rocks and granitic rocks located in the western part of the Avila batholith plutonic complex. Magmatic activity in the Los Santos zone comprises two intrusions, including biotite monzogranite (281–280 ± 6 Ma, granite I) and porphyritic biotite granodiorite-monzogranite (270-269 ± 6 Ma, granite II). The mineralized skarn distributed close to the intrusions occurred in two main stages: (I) prograde skarn, and (II) retrograde alteration of the stage I skarn. The prograde exoskarn is made up of a thick, almost monomineral mass of hedenbergite (Hd82–87), accompanied by grossular (Grs53–73) and scheelite rich in Mo (Sch I). Early mineralization is associated with granite I; thus, it is possible to recognize an endoskarn of calcic plagioclase and clinopyroxene developed over aplitic granite. The stage I skarn formed from H2O-rich fluids (XCO2 <0.1) with an upper temperature limit of 630°C at 0.18 to 0.2 GPa, a log f O2 of −21, and log f S2 ranging from −9.7 to −5.0. After the emplacement of granite II there was a late event characterized by pegmatites, dike swarms, breccia pipes, and intense fracturing associated with the retrograde alteration, which was superimposed on massive skarn. The retrograde skarn has a complex paragenesis that can be divided into two substages. In the first, subcalcic garnet formed, associated with the leaching of early scheelite and the precipitation of late scheelite poor in Mo (Sch II). There is also ferroactinolite, together with important amounts of anorthite, zoisite, apatite, titanite, quartz, and sulfides, mainly pyrrhotite. The first substage skarn formed from a complex H2O-(CO2 ± CH4 ± N2 ± C3H8)-(NaCl ± CaCl2) mixture with f O2 values of −23 and log f S2 ranging from −10 to −7. The data on fluid inclusions indicate that fluid boiling and immiscibility, at temperatures between 439° and 405°C and pressures ranging from 0.1 to 0.042 GPa, was a possible mechanism in the Sch II and sulfide deposition during the first substage of the retrograde alteration of the skarn. The second substage is characterized by the formation of clinozoisite, prehnite, quartz, calcite, chlorite, white mica, zeolite, and mineral phases belonging to the Bi-Te-Ag-S-Au system. The mineral assemblages indicate that the f O2 values are between −25.9 and −33.4 while log f S2 ranges from −10.6 to −6.3 for T <300°C. All the data suggest that the development of the Los Santos skarn represents the evolution of a magmatic-hydrothermal system. In this model, carbon-aqueous fluids would have been exsolved from the plutonic complex during its emplacement and crystallization. The gradual interaction of magmatic fluids at high temperatures with the graphitic rocks of the Schist-Greywacke Complex resulted in a reduction in ore fluids and higher CH4/CO2 ratios. The fluid associated with the last substage of the retrograde alteration of the deposit belongs to the H2O-NaCl system and suggests an influx of a surface-derived fluid.


Some sea cucumbers species are heavily exploited as bêche-de-mer for the Asian food industry and the global decline of certain highly sought after species has generated an interest in determining the ecological function of those animals within their ecosystem. This study investigated the ecological role of Holothuria scabra, a commercially valuable tropical species closely associated with seagrass beds. Seagrass productivity, seagrass and benthic microalgae (BMA) biomass and organic matter (OM) were measured during two exclusion experiments conducted using in situ cages deployed for two months both in 2003 and 2004. Density of H. scabra was manipulated in caged exclusions (near-zero density, 'EX'), caged controls (natural densities, 'CC') and uncaged controls (natural density, 'NC'). Seagrass growth was lower when holothurians were excluded (5% in 2003, 12% in 2004). Seagrass biomass decreased in all treatments, but reduction was greater in EX than in controls (18% in 2003, 21% in 2004). Both BMA biomass and OM increased in EX compared to NC/CC (in 2004). From a multivariate perspective, a principal component biplot separated EX from both types of controls in 2004, and multivariate tests based on four attributes supported this separation. These results indicate that seagrass systems may suffer in the absence of holothurians; however, the effect size varied between the two experiments, possibly because experiments were conducted at different times of the year. Nevertheless, our results suggest that holothurian over-fishing could have a negative impact on the productivity of seagrass systems.


On 7 March 1990 the National Gallery of Canada issued a press release announcing its purchase of a large abstract painting by the American artist Barnett Newman for $1.8 million. Within 72 hours the gallery was under attack both for its selection of Voice of Fire and for the price tag attached to it. Objections came from across Canada and from all quarters.The Voice of Fire controversy was the most extensive and heated debate over visual art ever to have taken place in Canada. This anthology can be seen as a case-study, providing both a historical account of the outcome of the National Gallery's purchase of the painting and an understanding of why the gallery's actions provoked such strong opinions and feelings. In this volume the editors also address the peculiar and paradoxical character of abstract art in general and the problems it consistently poses for viewers. Newman's work is presented as the focus of these concerns.The attack on the gallery by the press, the general public, Canadian artists, and politicians is documented in the first section by a broad selection of cartoons satirizing the painting, press photographs, news releases, editorials, letters to the editor, and public exchanges. In the second section three essays offer contrasting accounts of the controversy and its significance. The first considers the social processes by which art becomes art, the second focuses on the role of the media in shaping public opinion about art, and the third compares the reception of Voice of Fire in two distinctive frameworks, first at Expo '67 in Montreal and then in Ottawa in 1990. In the final part four papers given at a symposium on Voice of Fire organized by the gallery in October 1990 (a combined effort at damage control and art criticism) are presented, as well as a transcription of the public dialogue between speakers and audience which followed.


This article examines the practicalisation of the statutory responsibilities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (iNEC) in the conduct of a free and fair elections with the April 2003 general elections in focus. It contends with the various problems encountered by INEC, a constitutional creation and the electoral ombudsman to all Federal and State elections. Some of the problems were party registration, voter registration, the Electoral Act 2001, and fees for screening of candidates as well as non-release of funds to it by the federal government. The article argues that these problems and the spate of violence which preceded the elections created doubts in the minds of many Nigerians as to the capability and preparedness of INEC towards the conducts of a Fee and fair elections. Given these difficulties and inadequate time to train its ad-hoc staff, it was near miracle that INEC performed creditably well The article concludes by recommending amendments to INEC structures and procedures as well as attitudinal change on the part of Nigerians.


Artistic research suggests alternative methods for producing various kinds of knowledge, whether within or without the confines of academe. These methods may involve either the production of investigative artworks or the writing by the artist of a doctoral dissertation about his or her own work. For cultural researchers, the methods employed by artists engaged in these processes are both familiar and challenging, as conventional ethnography is mixed with more unpredictable experiments. This article presents several contemporary artworks, including sculpture, film, dance, installation and performance that explore various aspects of reality. What can be learnt from these works? And what could be achieved by an open exchange between artists and academic researchers? Four methodological approaches are highlighted as being of particular interest. The first relates to artists' tendency to live experimentally, using themselves both as actors and as research objects. The second arises from the very tangible ways in which contemporary artworks approach the theme of materiality. The third relates to the emotional nature of much of contemporary art – even when it is categorised as conceptual – in its creation, forms of presentation, and influence on the spectator. Finally, many artists are gifted with the ability to find and communicate surprising meanings in ordinary life. How do they do this? Part of the answer seems to be that although artists are open to the implementation of "wild whims", they exploit their spontaneity in a highly professional manner.


The H∞ loop-shaping design method is an effective way to design robust controllers. One of the main limitations in the design of H∞ loop-shaping controllers is that the design method concerns frequency domain specifications that do not precisely represent the underlying time domain performance requirements. Even if the time response constraints were not present, the approach is based on trial-and-error selection of the frequency-dependent weights that are used in the design. Selection of these weights becomes more difficult if time response constraints must be satisfied. This paper presents a systematic way of selecting the loop parameters for the frequency-dependent weights, and develops a fuzzy algorithm that selects these parameters so that the resulting H∞ loop-shaping controller yields a closed-loop system that satisfies the time response constraints for a linear single-input single-output (SISO) system. It is seen that although most of the time response characteristics of the system can be improved by changing any of the loop parameters, the frequency domain constraints normally set limits on some of these loop parameters in such a way that the latter cannot be changed further to improve the time response characteristics of the system.


Almost all mesh processing procedures cause some more or less visible changes in the appearance of objects represented by polygonal meshes. In many cases, such as mesh watermarking, simplification or lossy compression, the objective is to make the change in appearance negligible, or as small as possible, given some other constraints. Measuring the amount of distortion requires taking into account the final purpose of the data. In many applications, the final consumer of the data is a human observer, and therefore the perceptibility of the introduced appearance change by a human observer should be the criterion that is taken into account when designing and configuring the processing algorithms. In this review, we discuss the existing comparison metrics for static and dynamic (animated) triangle meshes. We describe the concepts used in perception‐oriented metrics used for 2D image comparison, and we show how these concepts are employed in existing 3D mesh metrics. We describe the character of subjective data used for evaluation of mesh metrics and provide comparison results identifying the advantages and drawbacks of each method. Finally, we also discuss employing the perception‐correlated metrics in perception‐oriented mesh processing algorithms.


Online legal document libraries, such as WorldLII, are indispensable tools for legal professionals to conduct legal research. We study how topic modeling techniques can be applied to such platforms to facilitate searching of court judgments. Specifically, we improve search effectiveness by matching judgments to queries at semantics level rather than at keyword level. Also, we design a system that summarizes a retrieved judgment by highlighting a small number of paragraphs that are semantically most relevant to the user query. This summary serves two purposes: (1) It explains to the user why the machine finds the retrieved judgment relevant to the user's query, and (2) it helps the user quickly grasp the most salient points of the judgment, which significantly reduces the amount of time needed by the user to go through the returned search results. We further enhance our system by integrating domain knowledge provided by legal experts. The knowledge includes the features and aspects that are most important for a given category of judgments. Users can then view a judgement's summary focusing on particular aspects only. We illustrate the effectiveness of our techniques with a user evaluation experiment on the HKLII platform. The results show that our methods are highly effective.


The expansion and proliferation of backcountry campsites is a persistent problem in many parks and protected areas. Shenandoah National Park (SNP) has one of the highest backcountry overnight use densities in the USA national parks system. SNP managers implemented a multi-option backcountry camping policy in 2000 that included camping containment with established campsites. These actions were intended to reduce the number of campsites and the area of camping disturbance at each site. This paper describes a longitudinal adaptive management assessment of the new campsite policies, applying quantitative measures of campsite conditions to evaluate the efficacy of management interventions. Physical campsite measurements combined with qualitative visitor interviews indicated SNP had successfully reduced the number of campsites and aggregate measures of camping-related disturbance in the Park, while minimizing the use of regulations, site facilities and staff resources. Implications for managers of other protected areas are that an established site camping policy can minimize camping disturbance, including the number and size of campsites, provided managers can sustain rehabilitation efforts to close and restore unneeded campsites. Experiential attributes, such as the potential for solitude, can also be manipulated through control over the selection of established campsites. Integrating resource and social science methods also provided a more holistic perspective on management policy assessments. Adaptive management research provided a timely evaluation of management success while facilitating effective modifications in response to unforeseen challenges. Conclusions regarding the effectiveness of a visitor impact containment strategy involving an established site camping option are offered.


Thin layers of phytoplankton are well documented, common features in coastal areas globally, but little is known about the relationships of these layers to higher trophic levels. We deployed the In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System (ISIIS) to simultaneously quantify the three trophic levels of plankton, including phytoplankton, primary consumers (copepods and appendicularians) and secondary consumers (gelatinous zooplankton). Over a 2-week sampling period, phytoplankton thin layers, primarily composed of Pseudo-nitzschia spp., were common on two of the five sampling days. Imagery showed copepods aggregating in zones of lower chlorophyll-a fluorescence, while appendicularians were more common at greater depths and higher chlorophylla levels. All gelatinous zooplankton generally increased in abundance with depth. Bolinopsis spp. ctenophores underwent a 'bloom,' and they were the only species observed to aggregate within phytoplankton thin layers. The vertical separation between copepods, phytoplankton and gelatinous zooplankton suggests that copepods may use the surface waters as a predation refuge, only performing short migrations into favorable feeding zones where gelatinous predators are much more abundant. Thin layers containing dense diatom aggregates obstruct light reaching deeper waters (.10 m), which may allow gelatinous zooplankton to avoid visual predation as well as improve the effectiveness of contact predation with copepod prey.


The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is an objective method for quantifying facial movement in terms of 44 component actions, i.e. Action Units (AUs). This system is widely used in behavioral investigations of emotion, cognitive process and social interaction. Highly trained human experts (FACS coders) presently perform the coding. This paper presents a system that can automatically recognize 30 AUs, their combinations and their intensity. The system employs a framework for hybrid facial feature detection and an expert system for facial action coding in static dual-view facial images. Per facial feature, multiple feature detection techniques are applied and the resulting redundant data is reduced so that an unequivocal facial expression geometry ensues. Reasoning with uncertainty is used to encode and quantify the encountered facial actions based on the determined expression geometry and the certainty of that data. Eight certified FACS coders tested the system. The recognition results demonstrated rather high concurrent validity with human coding.


The presence of sediment deposits within sewerage systems may lead to operational (premature surcharging and surface flooding) and potential environmental problems (sediments act as a store of pollutants which can be released during erosion events). The consequences of allowing these problems to persist have been recognised internationally. In the U.K., the water industry has promoted fundamental and applied research to develop the necessary operational and analytical tools to manage these problems. Under the Urban Pollution Management Research Programme the major aspects of sediments in sewers have been studied and their effects included in new methodologies and tools. Most studies in the U.K. and elsewhere have concentrated on the movement of non cohesive sediments, whilst it has been recognised that combined sewer sediment deposits possess cohesive characteristics (although this cohesion primarily arises from agglutination and biological processes in the combined sewer rather than classical concepts of cohesion). New computer based models, e.g Mosqito (Moys 1987) and MOUSETRAP (WRc 1993) , are based on sediment transport capacity theories with the limited availability of sediment within the system recognised through storage layers which become available only when certain threshold levels of shear stress are exceeded. Studies in the U.K. to estimate the release of pollutants stored within sewer sediment beds also require a knowledge of the hydraulic shear stress conditions at which the sediment beds will erode and become entrained into the flow. The reported study examines the apparent cohesive nature of a sediment bed in a large diameter sewer concurrently with flow hydraulics, sediment bed deposit depth and suspended solids flux for a number of dry and wet weather periods. Instrumentation was developed and assessed for hydraulic measurements within the study sewer system and in (i) particular, a novel system was devised to improve flow measurement accuracy in large diameter sewers. Development work was also undertaken on an ultrasonic device to monitor the temporal variation in sediment deposit depth at a point. The constituent materials of the sediment bed were examined and rheological techniques were employed to assess the structural strength of the sediment bed present in the study sewer. The results confirmed the apparent cohesive nature of the sediment bed, with the structural strength of the bed far exceeding the normal hydraulic shear stress ranges encountered in the sewerage system. A relationship between apparent yield strength and liquid content of the sediment bed was obtained from the rheological tests. The bed structural strength was then compared with temporal changes in the flow induced shear forces. An empirical model was developed to predict the availability for erosion of the cohesive deposits in the combined sewer studied. This model was tested against further temporally varying data sets from the sewer and was found to predict the erosion of the sediment bed under varying levels of applied shear stress together with changes in the sediment transport flux. It was concluded that when Dry Weather Flows induce bed shear stresses in excess of 1-2 N/m erosion of the sediment bed structure can be caused, with storm flows which induce shear stresses in excess of 4-6 N/m eroding the bed to a greater depth. The sediment bed was observed to be rapidly re-established following an erosion event. The investigation and model developed contribute significantly to knowledge about the behaviour of sediments in sewers and provide for the first time a model to simulate erosion of a sediment bed with apparently cohesive properties and consequent increase in sediment and pollutant transport rates.


C-reactive protein (CRP), was recently reported to be closely associated with poor renal function in patients with acute kidney injury (AKI), but whether CRP is pathogenic or a mere biomarker in AKI remains largely unclear. Impaired autophagy is known to exacerbate renal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). We examined whether the pathogenic role of CRP in AKI is associated with reduction of autophagy. We mated transgenic rabbit CRP over-expressing mice (Tg-CRP) with two autophagy reporter mouse lines, Tg-GFP-LC3 mice (LC3) and Tg-RFP-GFP-LC3 mice (RG-LC3) respectively to generate Tg-CRP-GFP-LC3 mice (PLC3) and Tg-CRP-RFP-GFP-LC3 mice (PRG-LC3). AKI was induced by IRI. Compared with LC3 mice, PLC3 mice developed more severe kidney damage after IRI. Renal tubules were isolated from LC3 mice at baseline for primary culture. OKP cells were transiently transfected with GFP-LC3 plasmid. CRP addition exacerbated lactate dehydrogenase release from both cell types. Immunoblots showed lower LC-3 II/I ratios and higher levels of p62, markers of reduced autophagy flux, in the kidneys of PLC3 mice compared to LC3 mice after IRI, and in primary cultured renal tubules and OKP cells treated with CRP and H2O2 compared to H2O2 alone. Immunohistochemistry showed much fewer LC-3 punctae, and electron microscopy showed fewer autophagosomes in kidneys of PLC3 mice compared to LC3 mice after IRI. Similarly, CRP addition reduced GFP-LC3 punctae induced by H2O2 in primary cultured proximal tubules and in GFP-LC3 plasmid transfected OKP cells. Rapamycin, an autophagy inducer, rescued impaired autophagy and reduced renal injury in vivo. In summary, it was suggested that CRP be more than mere biomarker in AKI, and render the kidney more susceptible to ischemic/oxidative injury, which is associated with down-regulating autophagy flux.


Pragmatic Circuits: Signals and Filters is built around the processing of signals. Topics include spectra, a short introduction to the Fourier series, design of filters, and the properties of the Fourier transform. The focus is on signals rather than power. But the treatment is still pragmatic. For example, the author accepts the work of Butterworth and uses his results to design filters in a fairly methodical fashion. This third of three volumes finishes with a look at spectra by showing how to get a spectrum even if a signal is not periodic. The Fourier transform provides a way of dealing with such non-periodic signals. The two other volumes in the Pragmatic Circuits series include titles on DC and Time Domain and Frequency Domain. These short lecture books will be of use to students at any level of electrical engineering and for practicing engineers, or scientists, in any field looking for a practical and applied introduction to circuits and signals. The author's "pragmati " and applied style gives a unique and helpful "non-idealistic, practical, opinionated" introduction to circuits


In today's competitive environment companies are increasingly focusing on issues that affect cost and productivity. One of those issues is workplace absence. It is estimated that over 12 million working days are lost every year because of absence, this equates to 350 million euro per annum. Absence management is therefore becoming a priority for organisations. The objectives of this thesis were to examine how absenteeism is defined, the costs and causes of absenteeism, absence measurement and more specifically examining the effectiveness of various management strategies employed to control or reduce absence.

Presently absence levels in Bausch and Lomb, Waterford are in excess of seven percent, with a resulting annual cost for the company sick pay scheme in excess of 1.1 million euro. Due to the high level of absence and the significant cost o f the sick pay scheme, research was conducted using two business units within the Bausch and Lomb manufacturing facility as a case study. The case study involved gathering and analysing statistical data pertaining to absence, conducting six semi-structured interviews with management in the business units and surveying 160 employees. The research has shown that most organisations do not measure the indirect costs of absenteeism and consequently do not have a true picture of the costs of absenteeism. It is recommended therefore that companies should include both direct and indirect costs in respect of absenteeism. The literary research is supported by the findings of the secondary research in relation to causes. The main cause of absenteeism is shown to be genuine illness, however, family responsibilities, shift patterns and job motivation also adversely affect absence. This was most apparent when comparing absence levels between the two shift patterns, where specifically in one business unit the absence levels for the twelve hour weekend shift was consistently higher than the eight hour three shift pattern. The various strategies employed to address absenteeism included the use of return to work interviews, disciplinary procedures and family friendly initiatives. The findings of the literature research highlighted the effectiveness of each of the aforementioned, this was supported by the research findings, where in one business unit, all of the aforementioned strategies were used, but not consistently.

In contrast, the other business unit examined as part of the case study had lower absence levels, and these strategies were applied on a consistent basis. The primary research also highlighted the need to measure absence, as again, absence was lower in the business unit that measured absence on a monthly basis. Absence measurement and consistent use of strategies such as return to work interviews is recommended. The availability of a sick pay scheme was initially presented as a strategy for controlling absence, however, the research findings have shown that the availability of a sick pay scheme can increase absenteeism rather than reduce it. A review of sick pay scheme criteria is therefore recommended. The research findings support the case that variations in absence levels are indicative of strategies that are employed to manage absence.


Objectives To determine the efficacy and tolerability of β blockers in a broad age range of women and men with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) by pooling individual patient data from placebo controlled randomised trials. Design Prospectively designed meta-analysis of individual patient data from patients aged 40-85 in sinus rhythm at baseline, with left ventricular ejection fraction <0.45. Participants 13 833 patients from 11 trials; median age 64; 24% women. Main outcome measures The primary outcome was all cause mortality; the major secondary outcome was admission to hospital for heart failure. Analysis was by intention to treat with an adjusted one stage Cox proportional hazards model. Results Compared with placebo, β blockers were effective in reducing mortality across all ages: hazard ratios were 0.66 (95% confidence interval 0.53 to 0.83) for the first quarter of age distribution (median age 50); 0.71 (0.58 to 0.87) for the second quarter (median age 60); 0.65 (0.53 to 0.78) for the third quarter (median age 68); and 0.77 (0.64 to 0.92) for the fourth quarter (median age 75). There was no significant interaction when age was modelled continuously (P=0.1), and the absolute reduction in mortality was 4.3% over a median follow-up of 1.3 years (number needed to treat 23). Admission to hospital for heart failure was significantly reduced by β blockers, although this effect was attenuated at older ages (interaction P=0.05). There was no evidence of an interaction between treatment effect and sex in any age group. Drug discontinuation was similar regardless of treatment allocation, age, or sex (14.4% in those give β blockers, 15.6% in those receiving placebo). Conclusion Irrespective of age or sex, patients with HFrEF in sinus rhythm should receive β blockers to reduce the risk of death and admission to hospital. Registration PROSPERO CRD42014010012; Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00832442.


This short essay is a response to Professor Laycock's spirited defense of his legislative-history argument in the contraception cases. Professor Laycock maintains that the objective public meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 can be discerned by examining a congressional debate over the never-enacted Religious Liberty Protection Act of 1999. Based on this examination, Professor Laycock concludes that the exemption rights in RFRA indisputably extend to the for-profit commercial realm. The problem with this argument is two-fold: First, the 1999 RLPA included a "broad construction" provision that was not included in RFRA. As a result, legislators' hopes and fears about the breadth of RLPA cannot possibly be viewed as a definitive indicator of the pubic meaning of RFRA. Second, even putting aside the textual discrepancy between RFRA and RLPA, the legislative history of the latter — including Professor Laycock's own extensive testimony — appears to be in considerable tension with the claim that large employers like Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. are entitled to RFRA's protections. Professor Laycock dismisses the apparent tension as "imaginary," contending that his RLPA testimony was solely about the merits of "civil rights cases," while the contraception cases "are not civil rights cases" and involve threshold questions about the viability of commercial exemption claims. Yet, in his RLPA testimony, Professor Laycock explicitly relied upon a non-civil-rights case for the proposition that "once the courts characterize [an operation] as commercial, the religious liberty claim loses." And under the Supreme Court's approach to discerning public meaning, which looks to the understanding of respected scholars as well as relevant precedent, Professor Laycock's testimony and the unanimous pre-Smith cases it mirrored are far more reliable indicators of the public meaning embodied in the consensus RFRA than statements by legislators in a floor debate over the hotly contested and more broadly drafted RLPA.


The influence of the state on firms in the global economy is alive and well. States have become dominant owners of companies in many countries around the world. Firms have also increasingly established political connections to access resources and improve their competitive positions. Nonetheless, our understanding of how state ownership and political connections affect firm performance remains limited and marked by conflicting findings. Using meta-analytical techniques on a sample of 210 studies spanning 139 countries, we examine two key research questions: (a) How do state ownership and political connections affect firm strategies and financial performance? and (b) How does firm-level strategic decision making mediate the relationships between state ownership, political connections, and firm financial performance? Our findings show that state ownership has a small negative effect on firm financial performance and that political connections have no direct consequences for performance. However, we find evidence that both state ownership and political connections have a profound effect on the strategies firms pursue, such as financial leverage, R&D intensity, and internationalization, and that these strategies play a mediating role in the state ownership–firm performance relationship. We conclude with some suggestions for fruitful future research in further connecting these two important and timely research fields.


Tuberculosis involving spinal cord in the form of intramedullary tuberculoma is uncommon, and the concurrent occurrence of cranial and intramedullary tuberculomas is extremely rare. We report a case of disseminated tuberculoma involving brain and spinal cord with miliary tuberculosis in a 32-year-old male presenting with fever, cerebellar signs and motor weakness of both upper and lower extremities. Based on magnetic resonance imaging and polymerase chain reaction, we diagnosed as tuberculoma. He completely recovered with conventional antituberculous treatment and steroids. The follow-up of the patient showed disappearance of signs and symptoms.


The late 1960s and early 1970s have witnessed an unprecedented boom in both construction and conversion condominiums. The inflationary spiral of the 1970s caused many developers of partially completed rental projects to seek substantial loan increases to cover cost overruns. Such loan increases often could not be justified by rental income projections. Accordingly, many developers and lenders turned to condominium conversions as a panacea for project cost overruns. However, with a shortage of end loan money, developers and lenders were left with unsold "inventory," increasing in cost with each passing day. Indeed, many developers of condominium units found themselves in severe financial difficulties, with bankruptcy imminent for some. If the economy continues in its present state, foreclosures on some condominium projects are inevitable. A prospective condominium purchaser would do well to ask:What rights does a holder of a sales contract on a condominium unit have in the event of a foreclosure by the construction lender on the entire project? It might come as a rude shock for purchasers to learn that the law provides them with little protection-if any-once they have waived most of their rights in a condominium sales contract. This article will briefly survey some typical provisions of condominium sales contracts, and examine various principles of equity for possible application to condominium foreclosures.


Throughout history, Great Powers have devised balancing strategies aimed at checking the ambitions of rival Great Powers. To do that, they have sought to enter and mobilize alliances and security partnerships with secondary states. Yet, the influence of secondary states on the balancing strategies of Great Powers remains largely under-estimated in the International Relations literature. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we posit that secondary state preferences play a key enabling or constraining role in shaping the balancing choices of Great Powers. We focus specifically on how the adoption of hedging strategies on the part of secondary states affects the balancing strategies of established Great Powers. We argue that when secondary states adopt a hedging strategy established Great Powers are incentivized to engage in what we call 'covert balancing'. Covert balancing occurs when an established Great Power conceals its security cooperation with a secondary state beneath a cover that is seemingly unrelated to balancing a rising Great Power, thus working around the secondary state's hedging strategy while at the same time helping to generate a latent capacity to balance. We probe our argument by examining US balancing strategy against China in the Asia–Pacific.


Recent empirical and statistical evidence suggest that propagule pressure (i.e., number of individuals introduced per event, and the number and frequency of events) and colonization pressure (i.e., number of species released per event, and the number and frequency of events) are of vital importance to invasion success. To explore possible changes in propagule and colonization pressure during the transport stage of the invasion process, we examine abundance and species richness of virus‐like particles, bacteria, diatoms, dinoflagellates, and invertebrates transported in commercial ships—a leading vector for global spread of aquatic nonindigenous species. We collected 154 ballast water samples from ships that had performed or were exempt from ballast water exchange (BWE) prior to arrival at Pacific and Atlantic ports in Canada and Laurentian Great Lakes ports. We found that abundance and species richness varied across taxa and regions, with ships arriving to the Atlantic region carrying the highest abundance of taxa. The highest species richness of invertebrates and diatoms was recorded from ships arriving to the Pacific, whereas the richest communities of dinoflagellates occurred in the Atlantic region. We also found that BWE had no effect on abundance or species richness of most taxa (dinoflagellates, diatoms, bacteria, and virus‐like particles), whereas the effect on abundance of invertebrates was not clear. Finally, longer voyages resulted in lower abundance of all taxa except dinoflagellates, and lower species richness of diatoms. Paradoxically, the elevated abundance and species richness of dinoflagellates following BWE suggest that this group could have enhanced invasion potential when ships manage ballast water by exchange.


In this paper, we suggest a novel methodology for synthesizing switching controllers for continuous and hybrid systems whose dynamics are defined by linear differential equations. We formulate the synthesis problem as finding the conditions upon which a controller should switch the behavior of the system from one "mode" to another in order to avoid a set of bad states and propose an abstract algorithm that solves the problem by an iterative computation of reachable states. We have implemented a concrete version of the algorithm, which uses a new approximation scheme for reachability analysis of linear systems.


Unlike most biosphere reserves in China, Jiuzhaigou Valley Biosphere Reserve (JBR) has achieved immense success in natural resources protection and economic development given the difficult conditions such as modest government appropriation for protection, a serious shortage of investment funds in the initial development stage and a flawed legislation and regulation system. Its successful experiences are therefore particularly valuable to other biosphere reserves, which encompass three principal aspects that include the notion of landscape protection and improved livelihoods for local residents; coordinated and unified management; and the combination of the biosphere reserve and the World Heritage site concepts. However, with the development of JBR and the change of external conditions, the unified management model targeted to solve the problems in the initial period is facing fresh problems in its future development, and which urgently requires institutional transformation and upgrading in Jiuzhaigou Reserve Administration (JRA). Based on SWOT analysis, this paper analyses the scenarios in the different combinations of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and then presents some suggestions for the adjustment of strategy in order to further achieve the multiple functions of biosphere reserves in dealing with the new challenges faced by JBR.


The mechanisms of transcriptional regulation are well conserved from yeast to human cells. Most genes are regulated at the transcriptional level, particularly, at the transcription initiation step. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae at least one transcriptional activator, ADR1, and one transcription complex, CCR4-NOT, participate in the activation of the ADH2 gene. The core 1 x 106 dalton CCR4-NOT complex consists of CCR4, CAF1, the five NOT proteins (NOT1-NOT5), and three other uncharacterized proteins. Deletion of NOT3, NOT4, or NOT5 did not affect the association of CCR4 with CAF1 in the gel filtration analysis. In contrast, NOT2 inactivation caused partial destabilization of the CCR4-NOT complex. In addition, deletion or mutation in the NOT1 N-terminal resulted in the dissociation of CCR4 and CAF1 from the complex. TFIID functions in the first step in initiating transcription by binding the TATA-box. To investigate interactions of ADR1 with TFIID in detail, a series of binding assays between ADR1 transcriptional activation domains (TADs) and TFIID components were conducted to identify the individual TAF proteins that interact with ADR1 directly. Multiple TAF proteins were found to bind three of the four TADs of ADR1. TAF150/TSM-1, TAF130/145, TAF60 and TAF61/68 proteins were found to bind TADIV. The region of TAF150 that bound TADIV was located to a nonconserved region (residues 744--1100) while the sequence of TAF130 that alone is capable of binding TADIV was localized to an essential region (residues 668--865) that is well conserved among TAF130 homologs. The physiological roles of these TAF-ADR1 interactions were further investigated using S1 nuclease analysis. An intact TFIID complex was shown to be required for ADH2 gene expression. Individual mutations in TAF150, TAF61, and TAF60 were also shown to reduce ADH2 transcription. Therefore, just as other activators display multiple physical interactions with core transcriptional components, ADR1 also displayed multiple apparently redundant interactions. These biochemical interactions may benefit cells through redundancy and/or may function in a sequential or conditional way in response to distinct signal transduction pathways.


Axioms are an extension for classical planning models that allow for modeling complex preconditions and goals exponentially more compactly. Although axioms were introduced in planning more than a decade ago, modern planning techniques rarely support axioms, especially in cost-optimal planning. Symbolic search is a popular and competitive optimal planning technique based on the manipulation of sets of states. In this work, we extend symbolic search algorithms to support axioms natively. We analyze different ways of encoding derived variables and axiom rules to evaluate them in a symbolic representation. We prove that all encodings are sound and complete, and empirically show that the presented approach outperforms the previous state of the art in costoptimal classical planning with axioms.


Outlines the argument that law schools are one of the two great barriers to entry of the legal professions cartel. The legal education cartel has some unusual features that channel and constrict the cartel generated rents into forms peculiar to the academic world. The central question explored is who owns the law school, and what do they seek to maximize. The argument made is that law schools, much like their almost universal parents, universities, are hybrid enterprises. They partake in the characteristics of, and bear similarities to: (1) the worker owned firms in the former Yugoslavia; (2) traditional non-profit enterprises; and (3) large equalitarian partnerships. In addition there is something quite unusual in the extreme sorting function of law schools. In legal education, more than in the rites of passage of any other profession, the most powerful impact of the law school at which one matriculates is on the sorting of the graduates based on their entering credential s, rather than on any putative superiority of the legal education they receive at higher ranked institutions.