In "Inside Appellate Courts: The Impact of Court Organization on Judicial Decision Making in The United States Courts of Appeals" (Michigan 2002), Jonathan Matthew Cohen, a sociologist and practicing attorney, asks a question that has received scant attention in the academic commentary on appellate judging: If we accept the dominant conception of appellate court judging as a process of atomistic contemplation, how do federal circuit court judges continue to maintain high quality opinions in the face of pervasively growing judicial dockets? Cohen advances the provocative thesis that increasing workloads have not prevented appellate judges from producing high quality outputs, but rather, that the dominant image of appellate judging as an isolated contemplative task is conceptually flawed. A better approach, Cohen argues, is to compare the task of appellate court judging to production within a multi-divisional private firm. While Cohen recognizes the inherent limits of his analogy, and in particular, that unlike private firms, circuit courts lack a central coordinating authority, he nonetheless contends that it is more fruitful to consider the judges in the manner of workers in a complex organization than as autonomous actors reflecting in isolation on the legal issues presented on appeal. In this review essay, Stearns considers three complementary methodologies for analyzing appellate courts that yield insights of particular interest to lawyers and legal scholars. Such questions include how appellate courts transform preferences into doctrine; the nature of cases that are likely susceptible to further appellate process through en banc, mini-en banc, or Supreme Court review; and how best to evaluate appellate court opinions. While organizational theory provides a useful starting point, Stearns contends that insights drawn from other methodologies, including economics (demonstrating how decentralized informational processes can provide more meaningful data), probability analysis (demonstrating the quality of data drawn from subsets of a larger group), and social choice (demonstrating the nature and limits of group decision making), might prove more fruitful in evaluating at least some of these questions. Stearns concludes that a comprehensive understanding of federal appellate judging requires not only an understanding of the circuit courts' internal organizational structure, but also an analysis of the edifice of circuit court decision making from inside and out.


The chapter focuses on the use of the combined thermal development system with phase- transitional thermal accumulators. The peculiarity of the combined system is that it uses thermal energy of exhaust gas, coolant and motor oil for rapid pre-start and after-start heating of the vehicular engine. The structure of the combined thermal development system and a mathematical model have been developed to study the impact of the sys- tem parameters on the heating processes of the engine. The results of experimental and estimation studies of thermal accumulator materials and the combined heating system of the vehicular engine are shown. For a truck engine 8FS 9.2/8, it is shown that the use of the combined system reduces the time of coolant and motor oil thermal development by 22.9–57.5% and 25–57% accordingly compared with the use of a standard system. The peculiarities of forming and using the system depend on operational and climatic condi- tions and the category of the vehicle.


The objective this work is to study the effect of the mechanical property of the workpiece (tensile strength) and cutting conditions (cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut and lubricooling system) over the cutting temperature in turning of aluminum alloys. A 2k factorial planning was used to determine the machining test conditions. ANOVA and Regression Analysis of the results were performed. The main contribution of this work lies on its efficiency of describing the behavior of the cutting temperature as a function of the input variables. The results found in the present work have considered the interactions of the input variables, describing the cutting temperature in a complete way, not seen previously in the literature.


Based on a robust analysis of the existing literature on performance appraisal (PA), this paper makes a case for an integrated framework of effectiveness of performance appraisal (EPA). To achieve this, it draws on the expanded view of measurement criteria of EPA, i.e. purposefulness, fairness and accuracy, and identifies their relationships with ratee reactions. The analysis reveals that the expanded view of purposefulness includes more theoretical anchors for the purposes of PA and relates to various aspects of human resource functions, e.g. feedback and goal orientation. The expansion in the PA fairness criterion suggests certain newly established nomological networks, which were ignored in the past, e.g. the relationship between distributive fairness and organization-referenced outcomes. Further, refinements in PA accuracy reveal a more comprehensive categorization of rating biases. Coherence among measurement criteria has resulted in a ratee reactions-based integrated framework, which should be useful for both researchers and practitioners.


Despite a growing body of literature on how environmental degradation can fuel civil war, the reverse effect, namely that of conflict on environmental outcomes, is relatively understudied. From a theoretical point of view this effect is ambiguous, with some forces pointing to pressures for environmental degradation and some pointing in the opposite direction. Hence, the overall effect of conflict on the environment is an empirical question. We study this relationship in the case of Colombia. We combine a detailed satellite-based longitudinal dataset on forest cover across municipalities over the period 1990-2010 with a comprehensive panel of conflict-related violent actions by paramilitary militias. We first provide evidence that paramilitary activity significantly reduces the share of forest cover in a panel specification that includes municipal and time fixed effects. Then we confirm these findings by taking advantage of a quasi-experiment that provides us with an exogenous source of variation for the expansion of the paramilitary. Using the distance to the region of Uraba, the epicenter of such expansion, we instrument paramilitary activity in each cross-section for which data on forest cover is available. As a falsification exercise, we show that the instrument ceases to be relevant after the paramilitaries largely demobilized following peace negotiations with the government. Further, after the demobilization the deforestation effect of the paramilitaries disappears. We explore a number of potential mechanisms that may explain the conflict-driven deforestation, and show evidence suggesting that paramilitary violence generates large outflows of people in order to secure areas for growing illegal crops, exploit mineral resources, and engage in extensive agriculture. In turn, these activities are associated with deforestation.


In this paper, the authors describe the work done within the NSLA Digital Preservation Group to create a list and description of the functional components of an ideal digital preservation environment and a matrix of the current stage of development against each component for each NSLA library. After defining underlying assumptions, the functional components were derived from the OAIS standard. A modified Capability Maturity Model was incorporated as a mechanism for determining each organisation's stage of development against each component. The matrix was then completed by representatives from the Digital Preservation Group in each of the ten NSLA libraries. The respondents were asked to self-rate their organisations for both the current digital preservation situation, and an intended situation in three years' time. NSLA has identified digital preservation as an area of priority. The results from the Digital Preservation Environment Maturity Matrix reveal that NSLA libraries are on the right path but have some way to go before digital preservation processes are mature, sustainable and fit for purpose. Collaboration on policies, products and infrastructure will continue to address these needs. General Terms Management, Measurement.


Current research on groundwater vulnerability is aimed mainly at groundwater pollution vulnerability (GPV), and the vulnerability of groundwater quantity is seldom considered. It is important to carry out the groundwater vulnerability evaluation for the management of groundwater resources. This paper presents evaluation models and methods for assessing groundwater quantity and pollution vulnerability. The models and methods were used to evaluate the groundwater vulnerability in the plain area of Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China. The groundwater quantity vulnerability was assessed by computing the groundwater recharge rate, and the GPV was evaluated by simulating the migration time for pollutants traveling from ground surface to the aquifer. The research results could provide scientific support for the management of regional groundwater resources, prevention and control of groundwater pollution.


304 SS is a highly prominent material that is commonly used in industries. Since, it is highly susceptible to corrosion, predominantly in aqueous medium; the study on the corrosion behaviour of 304 SS is the need of an hour for improving the quality and reliability of products and services. It is well-known that corrosion inhibition is one of the mechanisms used in the manufacturing sectors for mitigating the corrosion of metals and alloys. Hence, the present work aims to study the inhibiting effect of N-napthyl–Nl-phenyl thiourea (NPTU) on the corrosion of 304 SS in 1M HCl using Tafel extrapolation and impedance spectroscopy methods. The study reveals that the compound investigated acts as a mixed inhibitor for steel corrosion in hydrochloric acid medium and gives a sensibly good inhibition efficiency (>77%). The study also reveals that the compound NPTU inhibits the corrosion of 304 SS through adsorption and film formation mechanism. The mechanism of adsorption of the compound follows Temkin's isotherm model and the inhibition is governed by physical adsorption along with a weak chemical bonding.


This two-volume encyclopedia provides a thorough introduction to the wide-ranging, fast-developing field of social networking, a much-needed resource at a time when new social networks or "communities" seem to spring up on the internet every day. Social networks, or groupings of individuals tied by one or more specific types of interests or interdependencies ranging from likes and dislikes, or disease transmission to the "old boy" network or overlapping circles of friends, have been in existence for longer than services such as Facebook or YouTube; analysis of these networks emphasizes the relationships within the network. The Encyclopedia of Social Networks offers comprehensive coverage of the theory and research within the social sciences that has sprung from the analysis of such groupings, with accompanying definitions, measures, and research. Featuring approximately 350 signed entries, along with approximately 40 media clips, organized alphabetically and offering cross-references and suggestions for further readings, this encyclopedia opens with a thematic reader's guide in the front that groups related entries by topics. A chronology offers the reader historical perspective on the study of social networks. This two-volume reference work is a must-have resource for libraries serving researchers interested in the various fields related to social networks, including sociology, social psychology and communication and media studies.


Reforms to Mexico's rural sector that allow ejido and other communal lands to be privatized have been widely criticized. However, the national certification program that facilitates this process, called PROCEDE, has received little attention. We describe how the program was implemented, based on field research in eleven indigenous communities and analysis of archival, cadastral, and statistical information. We explain the surveying methods and the varied ways in which indigenous communities participated in the program. One major achievement of PROCEDE has been to replace thousands of old, inaccurate property maps with a modern cadastral framework based on the delimitation of communal territories with the direct involvement of local people. Many land conflicts were resolved as part of the certification process, although errors in the delimitation will likely generate new ones. However, while the ostensible goals of certification are laudable, there are serious concerns about its consequences for indigenous peoples, including the erosion of community institutions, increased socioeconomic differentiation, accelerated deforestation, and threats to their cultural survival.


Tardigrades or 'water-bears' live in moist environments with a high degree of gaseous exchange. In tardigrades, locomotion is essential, e.g. for feeding, to find sexual partners and to adjust the level of hydration by moving to wetter or dryer environments. Here we report on the movement behaviour of Milnesium tardigradum in automated experiments using custom-made video tracking software. The experiments involved 754 hours of recording involving 32 individuals. No significant differences in mobility were observed under infrared versus visible light conditions, representing night and day, respectively. The mean recorded velocity was 23.3 ± 7.38 mm/h, with a maximum of 1166.4 mm/h.


The application of a process view, as complement to the traditional functional division, is often a way to highlight organisational improvement potential. This paper examines the process of providing university level education in quality management, using Sweden as an example. The purpose is to assess the performance of university education as part of the supply chain of providing quality management to a society. This has been done by studying the actual offering compared to a notional benchmark of best performance. Preliminary results indicate that there could be a significant improvement potential in both providing more education of the right type and in the right way. A lot of similar basic courses are given but with varying names, possibly reflecting difficulties in defining the area of quality management and its constituents. An important reason for the detected improvement potential seems to be the lack of ownership of the studied supply chain of providing university level quality education to the Swedish society.


Paper aim is the crisis situation impact investigation, simulation and modelling on Value Added production via the computerised assistance in the organizations of critical infrastructure especially. Every weighty crisis situation has an origin in the disruptive event or incident occurrence and always brings discontinuity of organization ́s processes. Unexpected and sudden disruptive event of critical infrastructure organization will be tested in Czech Republic and European environments. The DYVELOP (Dynamic Vector Logistics of Processes) method is used for the modelling and mathematical relations expression of crisis situation impact analysis in dependence between real time and Value Added production. It provides the methodology for the functions and relationships investigation of business continuity management in operational coping of the crisis in the organizations. The results of this paper are in new introduction of feasible procedure for remedial and recovering processes of the business, according blazonry expressed crisis scenarios. They are able to identify problematic critical zones and functions, displaying critical interface among actors and other entities of crisis situations and in the conclusions; they are able to propose remedial processes, utilizing effective business continuity management. Regenerated organization ́s Value Added is decisive indicator of crisis situations mitigation. This paper conclusive provides special use case, which is necessary for successful coping of the crisis. Uninterrupted and continuous processes bring fruitfulness for crisis management and they are good indicators and controlling actors of organizational continuity and its sustainable development advanced possibilities. Key-Words: crisis, organization, impact analysis, simulation, modelling, Value Added


CDA studies on out-groups, i.e. immigrants, within Wodak's Discourse-Historical and van Dijk's Socio-cognitive approaches along other approaches, have suggested methods and analytical categories through which discursive representations of social groups are investigated. Consequently, several listings of relevant analytical categories have been proposed and applied to many subsequent studies. However, the variety of the proposed methods in representation of social groups by various scholars and the often unclear accounts for the links among various levels of discourse analysis seem to have created a multitude of discursive strategies that can be overwhelming if not confusing. This paper is an attempt to make explicit various levels of discourse analysis on representation of social groups from detailed textual analysis to discourse topics and tries to show how micro-level analytical categories are related to macro-structure within various levels of contexts. Specifically, a three-level analytical framework is suggested for textual analysis of the representation of social groups which divides the text analysis into three domains of social actors, social actions and argumentation. It is suggested that the analysis should look at what is (not) in the text in terms of the three domains mentioned, and investigate how these domains are linguistically realized through a set of linguistic processes/mechanisms.


The concept of postmemory has been advanced to account for some of the ways that the strong cultural and individual memories of trauma survivors impact on members of the next generation: their children. According to Marianne Hirsch (1997, 2012), post-memory generations have a special tie to history, which they "remember" through emotional and imaginative investment in the memories of others, whose stories, photographs, and day-to-day actions impart a strong sense of the life-changing, often life-threatening, circumstances they have lived through.In this paper, I explore the relevance and possible limitations of the concept of postmemory for two auto/biographical works written by women of the Polish diaspora: Losing the Dead (2006) by Lisa Appignanesi and Aka Skridskor I Warszawa (Ice-skating in Warsaw) (2014) by Emilia Degenius. Born about 10 years apart (1946 and 1955), the two writers have some similarities, including Jewish backgrounds, parental and personal experiences of anti-Semitism, and emigration from post-war Poland with subsequent fraught relations to the Polish language. Appignanesi, writing in English, has become a cultural commentator and author with an interest in memory and psychoanalysis. Degenius immigrated alone to Sweden in 1972, where she joined her sister, and she has become a practicing psychoanalyst and author of two autobiographical works in Swedish.The narratives of these women writers of the Polish diaspora straddle genres of autobiography, biography, family history, fiction, and memoir. In each account, the relationship to parental figures is of central importance. They each have double narrative strands, one that reconstructs the childhood past through the excavation of memory, and one that figures the adult narrator's attempts to understand the past through return journeys to Poland, documentation, and interaction. I examine the texts' formal and thematic characteristics in relation to postmemory.


This essay is a brief historical survey of the leading models of the corporation in American legal theory, with emphasis on the contemporary theory of contractarianism. "Corporate governance" is often said to chiefly concern the "internal" governance of corporations: that is, the relationship among the participants in the corporate enterprise. "Internal" governance is sometimes distinguished from "external" regulation of the nominally "private" business corporation by the state. But the internal and external relationships are intertwined and not mutually exclusive. Thus, even as the contemporary legal discourse on corporate governance purports to focus on internal matters, it advances arguments regarding the extent to which internal relationships are, and should be, structured by private claimants, and the extent to which they are, or should be, structured externally by the state. These issues are often framed in terms of a debate over the "nature" or "essence" of the corporation. Recurring questions include who "owns" the corporation, whether a corporation is an "artificial" phenomenon created by state fiat or a "natural" byproduct of human interaction, whether the corporation is an entity separate from its constituent individuals, and why decision-making authority is concentrated in professional managers. The shifting answers to these questions are presented as justifications for, or critiques of, the existing corporate governance regime, but can also be seen as shorthand for unspoken normative assumptions about the respective roles of the group, the state, and the individual.


For more than half a century, C. L. R. James (1901-1989)--"the Black Plato," as coined by the London "Times"--has been an internationally renowned revolutionary thinker, writer, and activist. Born in Trinidad, his lifelong work was devoted to understanding and transforming race and class exploitation in his native West Indies, as well as in Britain and the United States. In "C. L. R. James's Caribbean," noted scholars examine the roots of both James's life and oeuvre in connection with the economic, social, and political environment of the West Indies.Drawing upon James's observations of his own life as revealed to interviewers and close friends, this volume provides an examination of James's childhood and early years as colonial literatteur and his massive contribution to West Indian political-cultural understanding. Moving beyond previous biographical interpretations, the contributors here take up the problem of reading James's texts in light of poststructuralist criticism, the implications of his texts for Marxist discourse, and for problems of Caribbean development.


After decades of neglect the HIV/AIDS epidemic has rightly become one of the highest priorities on the global agenda. Funding pledges from the donors have doubled resource commitments between 2002 and 2004 to over $6 billion. That surge in funding belies the volatile nature of contributions to HIV/AIDS initiatives at the country level. The paper analyzes the impacts of abrupt HIV/AIDS funding on macroeconomic stability, fiscal health and the development of health institutions. The macroeconomic effects are ambiguous, but depend on the overall level of aid flows, as well as those for HIV/AIDS, the management of foreign exchange inflows, and effective spending policies. The fiscal ramifications revolve around the jump in external funding that reached around 1000% in Lesotho and Swaziland, and 650% in Zambia between 2002 and 2004, and the required rapid scale up if resources are to be used productively. At the same time, the new HIV/AIDS monies are swamping public health budgets in some cases exceeding 150% of the government's total allocations for health. The vertical HIV/AIDS programs and the set aside funding threaten to undermine the very institutions that will need to carry forward the long term HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment agenda for each country. Health systems are already fragile, and governance problems and uneven productivity compound the challenges. Health institutions require funding and attention to strengthen them in the fight against HIV/AIDS. While the committed funds are desperately needed, solutions to the dilemma will require creative options to ensure the flow of funds, manage the economic implications and ensure effective service delivery. These are explored in the concluding section.


With increasing confidence in effectiveness and reliability in recent years, the cochlear implant (CI) has been proven as an indication for severe and profound hearing loss and has brought considerable gains to many implant recipients. It should be noted, however, that hearing with a CI cannot be equated with that of typical hearing, and those differences affect sustained auditory language comprehension (Hahne et al., 2012). Furthermore, current research supports the findings that auditory sentence comprehension in adult CI recipients is determined by processing semantic before syntactic information (Hahne et al., 2012; Hahne & Friederici, 2001; Friederici, Hahne & Saddy, 2002). These findings may be due to the lack of prominence of the syntactic elements of spoken language, and the fact that syntactic elements are not always necessary to encode a spoken message. Additionally it might be assumed that variations in the process of auditory sentence comprehension mainly concern processes that cannot be captured in a top-down manner. In contrast, the use of semantic information through the use of contextual knowledge may be much easier.
The present work therefore examines, whether postlingually deaf or hearing-impaired patients focus more on semantic information to interpret linguistic utterances correctly by incorporating contextual information, or apply alternative processing strategies. For this purpose listening training has been developed, which requires both the identification of semantic and syntactic features in the set, and to match sonically fragmentary gap sentences. Furthermore, the empirical study is to contribute to the question of whether to strengthen compensatory strategies or to focus on deficits to overcome hearing limitations. As part of an exploratory cross-over design, 42 postlingually deafened cochlear implant users participated in all training programs. The patients were aged between 20 and 70 years and had been fitted with cochlear implants unilaterally or bilaterally for at least 2to a maximum of 9 months. They were compared within each group and to a control group who received no training, regarding their linguistic performance in audiometric tests.
Results show that deviations in the process of sentence comprehension mainly concern the extracting of morpho-syntactic information. Furthermore, patients mostly benefit from auditory sentence training which allows the inclusion of top-down driven processes. In summary, all patients benefited from auditory training, but particularly positive performance changes could be found in application of the semantic training set. The success manifests itself in positive changes in auditory speech understanding in quiet and in noise.


After decades of deregulation, the United States seems to be entering a period of re-regulation, regulation to prevent harm that many activities might cause and also to create positive external benefits that those activities could yield, but might not without incentives. Most regulatory programs in the United States provide a blend of measures designed to create these positive external benefits, promote good practices in the industry, prevent harms, and provide those harmed with remedies. At a time in which we contemplate new ways to regulate to deal with the crises of the day and prevent the crises of tomorrow, this Article seeks to explore one piece of the solution, a piece not usually thought of as regulatory: adjudication. Adjudication is often part of a broader regulatory web and is used both to deter harmful behavior and to remedy harmful behavior engaged in. And it is used in a variety of contexts. To explore how we might construct federal agencies with greater adjudicatory power, I will use the regulation of equal employment opportunity as a case study. This Article analyzes the limits Article III may place on the structure of adjudicating agencies and ways those limits might be overcome. It then explains the weaknesses of the current system to enforce the antidiscrimination laws and outlines a proposal for what an adjudicative agency designed to maximize the benefits from an agency perspective might look like.


The book discusses competition from different theoretical perspectives and examines the implications these viewpoints have for policy. The contributors assess competitiveness in domestic markets and the impact of foreign competition. They also review the experiences of a range of countries in developing competition policy and examine both the strengths and weaknesses of these policies.


The juridical treatment of the crimes committed by the Argentine dictatorship can be divided into two stages – the transitional phase proper (from 1983 to the 1990s) and the post-transitional phase (from the 1990s to the present day) – constituting a return trip from punishment to pardon, and back again. Both phases saw a number of abrupt about-turns, each corresponding to a shift in the paradigm through which the abuses committed by the military regime were confronted. The period between these two phases, meanwhile, saw the appearance of the 'human rights turn' based on a prescriptive injunction to pursue what was seen as a necessary fight against impunity for perpertrators of the most serious crimes. This development gave rise to new subjective human rights (such as the 'right to the truth') which would in turn contribute to developments in criminal law relating to these matters. The criticisms voiced in relation to this 'criminalisation of human rights', along with the highly complex and diverse nature of the Argentine experience, illustrate the uncertainties with which we are inevitably confronted when attempting to re-think the very notion of justice during a stage of political (post-)transition in the aftermath of a period of state-committed mass crimes, with the inevitable degree of creative transformation of the law and its functions that this entails.


Viruses are ubiquitous microbiome components, shaping ecosystems via strain-specific predation, horizontal gene transfer and redistribution of nutrients through host lysis. Viral impacts are important in groundwater ecosystems, where microbes drive many nutrient fluxes and metabolic processes, however little is known about the diversity of viruses in these environments. We analyzed four groundwater plasmidomes and identified 200 viral sequences, which clustered into 41 ~ genus-level viral clusters (equivalent to viral genera) including 9 known and 32 putative new genera. We use publicly available bacterial whole genome sequences (WGS) and WGS from 261 bacterial isolates from this groundwater environment to identify potential viral hosts. We linked 76 of the 200 viral sequences to a range of bacterial phyla, the majority associated with Proteobacteria, followed by Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria. The publicly available microbial genome sequences enabled mapping bacterial hosts to a breadth of viral sequences. The WGS of groundwater isolates increased depth of host prediction by allowing identification of hosts at the strain level. The latter included 4 viruses that were almost entirely (>99% query coverage, >99% identity) identified as integrated in the genomes of specific Pseudomonas, Acidovorax and Castellaniella strains, resulting in very high-confidence host assignments. Lastly, 21 of these viruses encoded putative auxiliary metabolite genes for metal and antibiotic resistance, which might drive their infection cycles and/or provide selective advantage to infected hosts. Exploring the groundwater virome provides a necessary foundation for integration of viruses into ecosystem models where they act as key players in microbial adaption to environmental stress. Importance To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify the bacteriophage distribution in a groundwater ecosystem shedding light on their prevalence and distribution across metal-contaminated and background sites. Our study is uniquely based on selective sequencing of solely the extrachromosomal elements of a microbiome followed by analysis for viral signatures, thus establishing a more focused approach for phage identifications. Using this method, we detect several novel phage genera along with those previously established. Our approach of using the whole genome sequences of hundreds of bacterial isolates from the same site enabled us to make host assignments with high confidence, several at strain levels. Certain phage-encoded genes suggest they provide an environment-specific selective advantage to their bacterial hosts. Our study lays the foundation for future research on directed phage isolations using specific bacterial host strains to further characterize groundwater phages, their lifecycles, and its effects on groundwater microbiome and biogeochemistry.


The fate of charter schools ultimately depends on the resolve of legislators to develop laws that allow for constructive innovation while balancing the needs of all students for access to safe and educative environments, the authors aver. AMERICAN schools have been "in crisis" for some time. As long ago as 1845 Boston citizens responded to an unfavorable commentary on their schools: *It was disturbing to the people of Boston to have their costly schools attacked by a public official and compared unfavorably with schools in Germany and other foreign countries.'1 Educational controversies (even international comparisons) have long been a part of our nation's history. This time around, public education has been in acute crisis since the 1983 release of A Nation at Risk. The history of reform in public education is well documented and well known to Kappan readers. However, it is worth remembering that the field has suffered from abrupt, dichotomous choices (e.g., phonics versus whole language, teacher-focused versus student-focused learning). Unfortunately, research has played but a small role in reform efforts because research is reactive and so follows rather than precedes reform. Today, education is the top political issue in the 2000 Presidential race. President Clinton has been an avid supporter of charter schools, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore have given political support to their growth. The charter movement, like other reform efforts in the past, is viewed as a simple answer to complex problems, and little research exploring how students learn in charter schools has been produced. What is important about this movement is that charter schools have emerged with strong bipartisan support at the federal level. Furthermore, several states (notably Arizona, California, and Michigan) have invested vast amounts of public funds in charter schools. Arizona alone has already appropriated $600 million for charter school funding.2 What benefits for citizens have emerged from this investment? Are charter schools a successful reform? Or are they, like past reform efforts, strong on political claims but weak on documented educational change? Our analysis shows that, to date, charter schools as a group have made a marginal contribution to the reform of American education. Although they have had considerable political success, they have yet to contribute substantially to issues of teaching and curriculum. However, the charter school movement is still young. Despite the marginal return on the public dollars spent to date, we believe that charter schools might yet make a contribution to public education. Our main purpose in this article is to explore four problematic aspects of charter schools that must be changed if charter schools are to improve American education in more than marginal ways. We end with suggestions for needed legislation and research that could enhance the role of charter schools in meaningful reform. Charter Schools and Reform Defining charter schools is difficult because supporting legislation varies from state to state. In The Great School Debate: Choice, Vouchers, and Charters,3 we attempt to answer the question "What is a charter school"? Then we draw on our own research, review available work on charter schools, provide an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of charter schools, and comment on ways in which the movement can be enhanced. Given the popularity of charter schools and the large investment of public funds in them, it is not surprising that several research studies have examined the organization of charter schools, their particular philosophy and curricula, the students they attract, and their impact on students.4 We present here a few of the general conclusions from our comprehensive examination of the literature. Although the reasons for creating charter schools are varied, the belief that a market-driven organization will outperform a traditional bureaucratic model in our public schools is fundamental to the movement. …


: Aerial hunting was first used in a professional predator control program in 1942. The most popular aircraft used by animal damage control agencies is the Piper PA-18. Proper training of flight crews is of utmost importance for a successful aerie( operation. Fixed wing hunting is restricted to relatively open areas and flat terrain. Aerial hunting is an excellent control method where livestock losses are severe and immediate control is needed


The Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) Global Development Alliance (GDA) was established with the goal of achieving a significant reduction in neonatal morbidity and mortality through strengthening the performance of providers who prevent and manage newborn asphyxia in low-resource settings. The HBB GDA was founded in 2010 by its five core member organizations: the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Laerdal Global Health Save the Children and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The objectives of the document are to describe how a public-private partnership sought to address the problem of high newborn mortality due to birth asphyxia and to detail the strengths and challenges that were encountered during implementation as countries.


The aim of the study is devoted to defining most effective tools of investment funds attraction. These funds can be used in implementation of strategic priorities for socio-economic regional development requiring, in areas that are in need of economic restructuring. The authors have selected the Rostov region as the research target, the economy of which is in need of structural change in the direction of increasing innovational, high-tech and scientific production, in order to reduce import dependency and move closer towards the post-industrial model of economic development. The study considers currently available instruments of attraction of private sector closer to solving the stated problems of Rostov region, analyzing their regulatory, financial and organizational consulting security on both state and federal level. Main directions of economic restructuring of Rostov region are also defined. Authors also outline the main problems that private enterprises come across while doing business in the investigated area. On the basis of the research, investigating federal and regional instruments of private sector involvement authors form a number of proposals and recommendations focusing on regional improvement. As a result of the conducted study, the authors reached the conclusion, that there is a number of strategic measures that should be performed in the Rostov region. These don't only include the improvement of financial instruments, but also best available technologies, national technology initiative, and clustering.


The IMF must change its sanction and incentive systems so that the next crisis is more likely to be prevented. It should concentrate more on ex ante prevention, which can be done by clearly specifying the rules that will be applied ex post. It should also rely more on automatic mechanisms that operate through the market in order to get to the roots of a potential crisis. Ex post, i.e., when a currency crisis has already occurred, the IMF can only play a limited role in mitigating the crisis. The IMF cannot play the same role for sovereign creditors as national institutions do in the case of illiquidity of domestic banks and firms. It cannot take over the role of a bankruptcy court judge. The IMF cannot credibly play the role of a lender of last resort. First, the lender of last resort lends to financial institutions, while the IMF lends to national governments when they run into trouble. Second, the national lender of last resort can print money and can thus credibly stop a crisis. For the IMF, this is not possible. Therefore, the central banks will have to play the role of a lender of last resort in a coordinated action if a systemic crisis for the world economy develops. The IMF is involved only initially, somewhat easing the task of the true lender of last resort, the central banks. Ex post, the crisis has to be mitigated in such a way that dealing with the crisis does not generate processes and behavior that give rise to the next currency crisis. The IMF should avoid setting wrong incentives. -The IMF should not make up for national political mistakes and national institutional deficiencies. -The IMF should change its policy and not implicitly defend a pegged exchange rate. -The IMF should stop lending to countries that are in arrears to private creditors and bondholders (sovereign arrears) and should return to its previous policy. -The IMF should rule out credits to sovereign debtors if the government of a country takes over guarantees for nonperforming private loans, thus socializing private default risks. -The IMF should think about scaling down its level of operations. This recommendation is in stark contrast to the somewhat expansionist doctrine now being propagated by the IMF. Ex ante, some new rules should be established. In analogy to the "polluter-pays principle" of environmental economics, a "troublemaker-pays principle" should be used. This would hopefully internalize the social costs caused by countries behaving in a manner that generates instability and adds to the risk of a systemic crisis. - The IMF should improve its early warning system, create more transparency, and provide more information, including high-frequency debt-monitoring systems. The international community should intensify discussions on standards that countries would have to follow. -The IMF should specify the sanctions to be levied when standards are not respected. A penalty rate should be charged if additional credit is provided. Requiring collateral would also be a strong incentive to sovereign borrowers to build up assets. - The IMF should define the policy it would pursue in the case of a crisis more credibly. It should move away from the discretionary decisions of its case-by-case approach (favored by US pragmatism) and bind itself by rules (favored by the Europeans). One way to improve credibility of IMF policy would be to rely more on automatic mechanisms that internalize the external effects of national instability behavior. Thus, the IMF should not be a silent supervisor who deliberates behind closed doors. It is better to blow the whistle and apply the brakes before the train crashes. Involving the private sector in the case of a crisis is an important means of internalizing the social costs of instability. In contrast to the mostly used American-style bonds, British-style trustee deed bonds are more appropriate to manage crises as they include sharing clauses and majority rules.


The achievable sum-rate of the two-way relaying becomes far below the cut-set outer bound if the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) from one node to the relay is significantly different from the SNR from the other node to the relay, and particularly so for decode-and-forward or compute-and-forward type relaying. In this paper, we propose a buffer-aided compute-and-forward two-way relaying with lattice codes to improve the sum-rate in asymmetric SNR two-way relay channels (TWRCs). Specifically, the relay can store some amount of data received in the multiple access phase before forwarding it, thereby controlling the amount of data to be transmitted to each direction in the broadcast phase. Simulation results show that the sum-rate can be improved with the use of buffers compared to the conventional two-way relaying without buffers.


Investigates the real meaning of workplace learning by looking at definitions used by academics to describe how individuals and organisations attach different meanings to the phrase. Goes on to suggest that for workplace learning to work in any situation, certain opportunities, conditions and features need to be in evidence, although workplace learning can take a variety of forms, including formal, informal and incidental learning. Looks at various learning paradigms and models, including the latest patterns of development and learning in response to new demands placed upon employees and organisations and uses the examples of the "new" universities in Australia to illustrate the increase in workplace learning. Concludes that there is increasing recognition for workplace learning, but that employees must realise the benefits of workplace learning in order for the organisation to evolve into a learning organisation.


The term 'optical binding' conveniently encapsulates a variety of phenomena whereby light can exert a modifying influence on inter-particle forces. The mutual attraction that the 'binding' description suggests is not universal; both attractive and repulsive forces, as well as torques can be generated, according to the particle morphology and optical geometry. Generally, such forces and torques propel particles towards local sites of potential energy minimum, forming the stable structures that have been observed in numerous experimental studies. The underlying mechanisms by means of which such effects are produced have admitted various theoretical interpretations. The most widely invoked explanations include collective scattering, dynamically induced dipole coupling, optically-dressed Casimir-Polder interactions, and virtual photon coupling. By appeal to the framework that led to the first predictions of the effect, based on quantum electrodynamics, it can be demonstrated that many of these apparently distinct representations reflects a different facet of the same fundamental mechanism, leading in each case to the same equations of motion. Further analysis, based on the same framework, also reveals the potential operation of another mechanism, associated with dipolar response to local dc fields that result from optical rectification. This secondary mechanism can engender shifts in the positions of the potential energy minima for optical binding. The effects of multi-particle interactions can be addressed in a theoretical representation that is especially well suited for modeling applications, including the generation of potential energy landscapes.


Purpose
To determine the effect of 15 individual ABCA4 mutations on disease severity.

Methods
Eighty-two patients harboring 15 distinct ABCA4 mutations in trans with null (hemizygous), 10 homozygous, and 20 nullizygous patients were recruited. Age of onset was determined from medical histories. Electroretinography (ERG) responses were classified into three groups (normal; cone dysfunction; cone and rod dysfunction). The dark-adapted bright-flash (DA 10.0) a-wave amplitudes and the light-adapted flicker ERG (LA 3.0 30 Hz) amplitudes were plotted against age and compared with the nullizygous patients. Fundus autofluorescence imaging (FAF) was assessed when available.

Results
Patients hemizygous for p.G1961E and p.R2030Q had normal ERGs. Patients harboring p.R24H, p.R212C, p.G863A/delG, p.R1108C, p.P1380L, p.L2027F, and c.5714+5G>A had abnormal ERGs (ERG group 2 or 3) at older ages, in most cases with significantly higher amplitudes than nullizygous patients. Mutations p.L541P+A1038V, p.E1022K, p.C1490Y, p.E1087K, p.T1526M, and p.C2150Y were associated with abnormal ERGs (group 2 or 3) and amplitudes comparable to those of nullizygous patients. The majority of patients, including those harboring p.G1961E, had foveal atrophy; while both patients harboring p.R2030Q had foveal sparing. Most patients harboring intermediate and null-like mutations displayed FAF abnormalities extending beyond the vascular arcades.

Conclusions
In the hemizygous state, 2/15 ABCA4 alleles retain preserved peripheral retinal function; 7/15 are associated with either preserved or only mildly abnormal retinal function, worse in older patients; 6/15 behave like null mutations. These data help characterize the degree of dysfunction conferred by specific mutant ABCA4 proteins in the human retina.


Strong asymmetry in the charge distribution supporting a single noninteracting spatial needle soliton in a paraelectric photorefractive is directly observed by means of electroholographic readout. Whereas in trapping conditions a quasi-circular wave is supported, the underlying double-dipolar structure can be made to support two distinct propagation modes.


Vinegar production requires acetic acid bacteria that produce, tolerate, and conserve high levels of acetic acid. When ethanol is depleted, aerobic acetate overoxidation to carbon dioxide ensues. The resulting diauxic growth pattern has two logarithmic growth phases, the first associated with ethanol oxidation and the second associated with acetate overoxidation. The vinegar factory isolate Acetobacter aceti strain 1023 has a long intermediate stationary phase that persists at elevated acetic acid levels. Strain 1023 conserves acetic acid despite possessing a complete set of citric acid cycle (CAC) enzymes, including succinyl-CoA:acetate CoA-transferase (SCACT), the product of the acetic acid resistance ( aar ) gene aarC . In this study, cell growth and acid production were correlated with the functional expression of aar genes using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, Western blotting, and enzyme activity assays. Citrate synthase (AarA) and SCACT (AarC) were abundant in A. aceti strain 1023 during both log phases, suggesting the transition to acetate overoxidation was not a simple consequence of CAC enzyme induction. A mutagenized derivative of strain 1023 lacking functional AarC readily oxidized ethanol but was unable to overoxidize acetate, indicating that the CAC is required for acetate overoxidation but not ethanol oxidation. The primary role of the aar genes in the metabolically streamlined industrial strain A. aceti 1023 appears to be to harvest energy via acetate overoxidation in otherwise depleted medium


A novel chemical process has been developed to formulate injectable nickel ink for conductive film. This chemical method has the ability to remove the oxidation on nickel nano-particle surfaces during ink fabrication; the nickel ions, which are produced during chemical etching, will be reduced and bridged among original nano-nickel particles in the following thermal sintering process at 350 °C. X-ray diffraction results exhibit that the final nickel film has no significant composition change by this chemical method and that oxidation has been effectively removed. Scanning electron microscopy images show that this chemical process reduces nickel oxides into nickel and that the reduced nickel sticks on the original nickel particle surface acting as a "bridge" connecting each particle. So solid diffusion can be triggered easily among bridged nickel particles and sintered at relatively low temperatures. The resistivity of printed film is to 5 × 10 − 6 Ω ∙m which is 71-times that of bulk nickel. The fabricated conductive nickel thin film has been applied on lithium ion batteries as a current collector for cathode and anode and shows good corrosion resistance and stability.


Among the Achaemenid inscriptions, DPg has been the topic of several studies since the very beginning of cuneiform studies. The photographs prepared by the DARIOSH (Digital Achaemenid Royal Inscription Open Schema Hypertext) project at L'Orientale University of Naples shed light on some ambiguities of this specific inscription and led to the proposal of a new text edition of DPg. The purpose of this article is to follow the whole history of studies on DPg until today and then propose a new reading of the inscription and a discussion of related issues, including its unique creation formula and orthography.


This paper describes a novel Electrical Machine and Power Electronic Training Tool (EM&PETT), a methodology for using it, and associated experimental educational activities. The training tool is implemented by recreating a whole power electronics system, divided into modular blocks. This process is similar to that applied when analyzing a piece of industrial equipment by the functions of its various parts. The EM&PETT is divided into five areas: the power block, the electronic switch command, instrumentation, the control system, and the application environment. The training tool lets a user analyze each functional block and the relationships between functional blocks; it can be used either in local or remote mode, thus ensuring optimal effectiveness of the proposed learning methodology. The students can redesign the hardware and software blocks before reassembling them; this allows various different experimental projects to be run concurrently in the same training tool. The results presented here show that EM&PETT improves engineering students' technical skills and their motivation in experimental work.


When a body is exposed to a flowing fluid, oscillations can occur due to one or more of several different mechanisms. The resulting large amplitudes of motion and fatigue are potential sources of structural failure. Furthermore, the drag force on a structure can be increased due to the effectively larger cross-sectional area presented to the flow from the oscillation. A complete understanding of the nature of such vibration is essential in the design of many civil and mechanical engineering systems. Previous solutions to the vortex-induced vibration problem were primarily based on modal analysis, using a one- or two-mode approximation. Use of modal analysis implies a "locked-in" condition: the vortex shedding frequency and a natural frequency of the system are coincident. Observations made on long cable systems indicate that the amplitude of response is smaller than is predicted by a conventional modal analysis. The drag forces on such structures are therefore overestimated by current design approaches. In very long structures, typical of those found in ocean applications, modes are closely spaced, and it is not reasonable to assume total spanwise correlation in the fluid forces or response. The approach used herein attempts to avoid the limitations associated with the modal solution of such problems by implementing a solution based on traveling waves. The technique draws on earlier theoretical and empirical models for the complex vortex-shedding phenomenon, and incorporates these into a new method for analyzing the structural response problem. The traveling wave approach can be used to model effectively spanwise variable flow environments by summing the calculated responses of adjacent active sections of cable. Until this method was developed, there was no suitable method available for modeling flow characteristics of this type. Modal analysis is effectively limited to systems with uniform flow over all or part of the system.


High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) therapy for preterm newborn infants has quickly gained popularity,1 despite few studies evaluating the underlying mechanisms and lack of high-quality studies evaluating its efficacy.2 Our recent systematic review and meta-analysis,3 and the Cochrane review4 suggested that HFNC therapy was comparable in efficacy to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) as a primary mode of support in preterm infants at birth, for respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in preterm infants at birth and as an aid after extubation from mechanical ventilation or CPAP. However, data for only a limited number of infants born at <32 weeks' gestation were available when HFNC was used as a primary mode of support after birth.3 Thus, the high-quality study by Roberts et al5 is a welcome addition to clarify the role of HFNC therapy as a primary mode of respiratory support after birth for preterm infants ≥28 weeks' gestation.

Methods
This international, multicentre (nine neonatal intensive care units in Norway and Australia), randomised, non-blinded, non-inferiority trial compared HFNC with CPAP for primary respiratory support for RDS at birth in preterm infants born at ≥28 weeks' gestation. The primary outcome was treatment failure within 72 hours; secondary outcomes included reason for failure, use of mechanical ventilation within 72 hours, nasal trauma, other complications and cost of care. Findings
A total of 564 infants were randomised to either HFNC (n=278) or CPAP (n=286) between 2013 and 2015. Treatment failure rates were significantly higher in the HFNC group compared with the CPAP group (25.5% vs 13.3%, 95% CI, 5.8 to 18.7; p<0.001), but the rate of intubation within 72 hours was not significantly different between the two groups (15.5% and 11.5%). Inspired oxygen of 40% or higher was the most common reason for treatment failure. Furthermore, the median duration of respiratory support was longer (4 vs 3 days, p=0.005) and incidence of nasal trauma was less (8.3% vs 18.5%, p<0.001) in the HFNC infants than the CPAP group. Owing to the large difference between the groups for the primary outcome, the independent data and safety monitoring committee recommended stopping the study after recruitment of 75% of the target sample size.

Commentary
Before the publication of this trial, two systematic reviews3 ,4 commented on the lack of robust data on the use of HFNC, particularly as a primary mode of support for preterm infants with RDS at birth. The study by Roberts et al provides much needed evidence showing that, despite a lower incidence of nasal trauma as expected, HFNC had a higher rate of treatment failure when compared with CPAP as primary support in preterm infants. Results from this trial support CPAP over HFNC as the primary mode of respiratory support in preterm infants; however, it will be important to assess longer term outcomes, especially neurodevelopmental outcomes, to ensure that the short-term outcomes result in longer term benefits.

Implications for practice
This study provides important evidence to support the use of CPAP over HFNC, but the true advantage will only be realised if the longer term outcomes, especially neurodevelopmental outcomes, are also shown to be beneficial.


This study uses a descriptive survey to study the attitude of selected librarians in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria, toward information communication technology (ICT). The population includes 41 librarians in four institutions. Data were collected using an instrument adapted from the Igberia and Chakrabarti (1990) Computer Anxiety and Attitude Towards Microcomputer use (CAATMU) scale, and the librarian attitude questionnaire developed by Ramzan (2004). Two research questions were developed to guide the study. The results show that librarians have a positive attitude toward ICT and that training and knowledge are thesine qua non for a positive attitude. The fear of ICT that some librarians in Africa demonstrate is widening the digital divide. Librarians in Africa are called upon to rise to the challenges posed by ICT and to help bridge the digital gap.


The composition of precipitation reflects the transport of particles from varying air mass source regions as well as input from local environmental and anthropogenic activities. Air research in El Paso, TX, U.S.A/Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico has been traditionally limited to studies of local inputs of air pollution; no transition has been made to studying the scavenging, washout, and transport of pollutants by precipitation. The goal of this research project was to identify transported pollutants in precipitation, and determine if there were any health and ecological implications. The research investigated biological, chemical, and geological constituents in precipitation samples collected between September 2004 and October 2005. A variety of analysis techniques were used to determine composition of the precipitation. These techniques included bacterial and fungal plate counts, inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry, ion chromatography, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and electron microprobe analysis. Samples were collected from an urban site in El Paso, Texas at the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. Wet only samples were the target of the sample collection. Particulate matter <10 microns was correlated with fungal growth while particulate matter < 2.5 microns was correlated with bacterial growth in analyzed samples.. Microscopy methods revealed new techniques in particle characterization, evidence of anthropogenic influence, and a wide variety of particle compositions. The ionic chemistry results reflected elevated levels of ions as well as an overall alkalinity of rainwater samples. Elemental analysis of the inorganic fraction suggested elevated enrichment of Phosphorus in the study area and possible ratios for transport identification of southwestern dust storms.


OBJECTIVESolitary fibrous tumor/hemangiopericytoma (SFT/HPC) is a new combined entity for which a soft-tissue-type grading system, ranging from grades I to III, has been introduced in the 2016 WHO classification of tumors of the CNS. The results of the treatment of this new disease entity require evaluation.METHODSThe authors retrospectively reevaluated the pathological findings and medical records of patients with SFT/HPC. This study included 60 patients (27 men and 33 women, median age 42.5 years, range 13-69 years) treated at Severance Hospital between February 1981 and February 2016. Four, 40, and 16 patients were categorized as having SFT/HPC grades I, II, and III, respectively. Among these patients, SFTs diagnosed in 7 patients were regraded as grades I (n = 4), II (n = 2), and III (n = 1).RESULTSThe median overall survival (OS) was 73.2 months (range 1.4-275.7 months), and the progression-free survival (PFS) after the first operation was 53.8 months (range 1.4-217.7 months). Six patients (10%) showed extracranial metastasis during a median period of 103.7 months (range 31.9-182.3 months). Nineteen patients (31.7%) presented with tumor recurrences. The patients in the grade III group had shorter PFS and OS, as well as a shorter period to extracranial metastasis, compared with patients in the grade II group. In the grade II group, patients who underwent gross-total resection showed longer PFS than those who underwent subtotal resection; however, there was no difference in OS. Patients who underwent adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) after surgery had longer PFS compared with that of patients who did not undergo adjuvant RT.CONCLUSIONSThe SFT/HPC grade I group showed a relatively benign course compared with those of the other groups. The grade III group presented a course with a more aggressive nature than that of the grade II group. In the grade II group, the extent of resection and adjuvant RT was significantly associated with longer PFS. The long-term follow-up and periodic systemic evaluation are mandatory to detect systemic metastasis.


The paper is devoted to a critical analysis of the current state and development prospects of the transport infrastructure of the Russian Federation in the context of transport and logistics services. The share of through haulage in the total volume of export-import transactions has been estimated. At the same time, the right choice of methods of scientific research directly affects the success of solving the scientific problem, where the main feature of the modern economy is the transition from managing objects to managing flows. The main objective is to identify the problems of functioning of transport and transport infrastructure in the context of the largest "players" in the investment market of Russia, in the development of a competitive transport and logistics system of the state and its regions based on integration and innovative logistics technologies of the main participants in the supply chain operating in the Russian regions as well as corridors passing through the territory of Russia. These trends can be traced both in theoretical studies and in the practice of carrying out entrepreneurial activities. We use empirical methods of comparison, measurement, description, interpretation; theoretical methods of formal and dialectical logic. Working in difficult conditions, Russia should become a basic transport and logistics center. It needs to improve its logistics infrastructure and technologies for logistics organization, reducing costs within supply chains by optimizing customs clearance processes and eliminating legislative barriers. Conclusions: transport development should be developed not as a set of individual elements in the form of transport, transport infrastructure, and transport corridors, but as a single transport and logistics network.


Through applying an evolutionary approach, we examined affective consumer responses to facial features in product designs. Previous studies have suggested that consumers might perceive the fronts of cars similarly to how they perceive human faces, but how consumers respond on an affective level to evolutionarily significant features when they are part of artifacts such as product designs has not been thoroughly studied. Therefore, we studied affective responses to features of an important stimulus that is known to elicit affect and approach behavior: the baby schema. We tested whether the affective responses to this stimulus were generalized to product designs, and how stable these generalized responses were over repeated exposures. We manipulated car fronts - and faces as controls - in accordance with the baby schema (e.g., by enlarging the headlights/eyes). Combining facial electromyography with cuteness ratings to assess innate affective responses, we found that our participants (n = 57) showed more positive affective responses to the babyfaced car fronts than to the original stimuli, and that the effect of the baby-schema features on positive affect was stable over two repeated exposures, thus did not show effects of fast habituation. These results confirm that consumers' affective responses to visual product designs are affected by evolutionarily-implemented features.


This paper proposes an approach to strength adjustment for MCTS-based game-playing programs. In this approach, we use a softmax policy with a strength index z to choose moves. Most importantly, we filter low quality moves by excluding those that have a lower simulation count than a pre-defined threshold ratio of the maximum simulation count. We perform a theoretical analysis, reaching the result that the adjusted policy is guaranteed to choose moves exceeding a lower bound in strength by using a threshold ratio. The approach is applied to the Go program ELF OpenGo. The experiment results show that z is highly correlated to the empirical strength; namely, given a threshold ratio 0.1, z is linearly related to the Elo rating with regression error 47.95 Elo where −2≤z
≤2. Meanwhile, the covered strength range is about 800 Elo ratings in the interval of z in [−2,2]. With the ease of strength adjustment using z, we present two methods to adjust strength and predict opponents' strengths dynamically. To our knowledge, this result is state-of-the-art in terms of the range of strengths in Elo rating while maintaining a controllable relationship between the strength and a strength index.


The vertical component (Z) of the geomagnetic field observed by ground‐based observatories of the International Real‐Time Magnetic Observatory Network has been used to analyze the induced magnetic fields produced by the movement of a tsunami, electrically conducting sea water through the geomagnetic field. We focus on the survey of minutely sampled geomagnetic variations induced by the tsunami of 27 February 2010 at Easter Island (IPM) and Papeete (PPT) observatories. In order to detect the tsunami disturbances in the geomagnetic data, we used wavelet techniques. We have observed an 85% correlation between the Z component variation and the tide gauge measurements in period range of 10 to 30 min which may be due to two physical mechanisms: gravity waves and the electric currents in the sea. As an auxiliary tool to verify the disturbed magnetic fields, we used the maximum variance analysis (MVA). At PPT, the analyses show local magnetic variations associated with the tsunami arriving in advance of sea surface fluctuations by about 2 h. The first interpretation of the results suggests that wavelet techniques and MVA can be effectively used to characterize the tsunami contributions to the geomagnetic field and further used to calibrate tsunami models and implemented to real‐time analysis for forecast tsunami scenarios.


Wealth management firms traditionally have used mutual funds and separate accounts to diversify client portfolios. However, these investment vehicles, particularly mutual funds, are often more tax inefficient, expensive, and inflexible in terms of client-specific restrictions than a models-based solution known as overlay. In the article, the overall cost and tax savings differential between a mutual fund solution and a comparable overlay offering is quantified using a sample equity allocation. In addition, non-financial benefits of overlay, such as holistic client management, increased client personalization, advanced tax optimization capabilities, and transparency in holdings and expenses, are examined. The article documents a compelling case as to why wealth management firms should consider using overlay models in place of mutual funds and separate accounts for many of their affluent and high-net-worth clients.


The sitcom genre is one of the most enduringly popular, yet we still know surprising little about which of the specific elements of sitcoms keep viewers tuning in. In fact, audiences themselves are not sure why they embrace a particular program, with research indicating behaviour often contradicts intention. Numerous studies have highlighted the problematically intertwined relationships between the physiological, cognitive and affective processing systems that contribute to research shortcomings. Furthermore, sitcom research lacks empirical audience response data. However, we can look to research to identify reliable components using measures from a variety of disciplines to offer insight into complementary audience responses. This study aimed to gather and reduce this information to a combination of key measures that best describe, and potentially predict, the components comprising successful sitcoms.

Audience response data was collected using the current top sitcoms across the four main US networks –Modern Family (ABC), The Office (NBC), Family Guy (FOX), and Big Bang Theory (CBS). Relatability of plots and characters were assessed with a post-exposure survey, while a typology of humour techniques provided a timeline of humour events for each program, with which data were correlated. Finally, to address the discrepancy between post-exposure audience report and response, dial data were used to establish real time effects during media exposure. New empirical measures were discovered that were predictive of ratings success, revealing reliable tools that should not only prove useful for industry (broadcasting/production of programs) but also for further social sciences research into the causes and effects of humour.


Coastal communities are at high risk of natural hazards due to unremitting global warming and sea level rise. Both the catastrophic impacts, e.g., tidal flooding and storm surges, and the long-term impacts, e.g., beach erosion, inundation of low lying areas, and saltwater intrusion into aquifers, cause economic, social, and ecological losses. Creating policies through appropriate modeling of the responses of stakeholders, such as government, businesses, and residents, to climate change and sea level rise scenarios can help to reduce these losses. In this work, we propose a Markov decision process (MDP) formulation for an agent (government) which interacts with the environment (nature and residents) to deal with the impacts of climate change, in particular sea level rise. Through theoretical analysis we show that a reasonable government's policy on infrastructure development ought to be proactive and based on detected sea levels in order to minimize the expected total cost, as opposed to a straightforward government that reacts to observed costs from nature. We also provide a deep reinforcement learning-based scenario planning tool considering different government and resident types in terms of cooperation, and different sea level rise projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


The subject of this essay is the presentation and reflection of curatorial challenges related to the exhibiton of graffiti and street art. The curatorial practices of graffiti and street art has undergone several changes over the past decades: from the streets to the institutionalisation and commercialisation to virtualisation. In particular, the essay is examining curatorial practises in three main areas, the streets, the institutions and finally the augmented and virtual space. Due to the development of ICT and digitalization the possibilities of curating seem countless. However, within these developments there is also a downside. What if all unsanctioned graffiti and street art suddenly have 'no space', nor in the virtual nor in the real world, where neoliberal cities desire homogeneity, segregation and 24/7 surveillance? Can unsanctioned art even exist in the virtual reality? Can it still be called 'unsanctioned' or 'illegal'? The possibilities of multiple layers of reality as well as the thread of the disappearance stand very are very close by each other. It is the time to think about where and how which require novel perspectives and appropriate formats on how to reinforce this unique cultural expression in public.


With a caring and professional approach the project management activity may prove to be difficult enough. Many specialists in this field indicates that a project plan can be assimilated to a "roadmap", so, for a clear destination, the shortest path is of most pronounced efficacy in order to achieve that purpose, to travel the distance between a current state and desired state and all this is established and configured before we hit the road, all risks included, expected or not. In this paper we present a draft European-style management, which intends to conduct a communion of all the decision makers involved in creating a healthier community.


BACKGROUND
Communicative interactions, despite the mode (e.g., face-to-face, online) rely on the communication skills of each individual participating. Some individuals have significant speech and language impairments and require the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) (i.e., signs, speech generating devices) to maximize their communication participation across a variety of on and offline contexts. Use of social media has brought about changes to communication environments, contributing new contexts for engagement.

OBJECTIVES
To provide a framework for considering application of engagement theory for interventions around social media use by individuals who use AAC.

METHODS
The author has applied examples from qualitative social media and AAC research to a framework of engagement. No formal data collection was used.

RESULTS
Social media use has become a conventional form of communication. Yet recognition of the value of social media (and other electronic modalities) for individuals who use AAC has not been fully translated into practice. The examples used illustrated how the proposed framework can assist in clinical practice and future research directions.

CONCLUSION
Engagement, including the proposed framework for considerations of social media engagement activities, can provide a systematic way to approach social media use for individuals who use AAC.


Meltwater from Greenland is an important freshwater source for the North Atlantic Ocean, released into the ocean at the head of fjords in the form of runoff, submarine melt and icebergs. The meltwater release gives rise to complex in-fjord transformations that result in its dilution through mixing with other water masses. The transformed waters, which contain the meltwater, are exported from the fjords as a new water mass "Glacially Modified Water" (GMW). Here we use summer hydrographic data collected from 2013 to 2019 in Upernavik, a major glacial fjord in northwest Greenland, to describe the water masses that flow into the fjord from the shelf and the exported GMWs. Using an Optimum Multi-Parameter technique across multiple years we then show that GMW is composed of 57.8 ±8.1% Atlantic Water, 41.0 ±8.3% Polar Water, 1.0 ±0.1% subglacial discharge and 0.2 ±0.2% submarine meltwater. We show that the GMW fractional composition cannot be described by buoyant plume theory alone since it includes lateral mixing within the upper layers of the fjord not accounted for by buoyant plume dynamics. Consistent with its composition, we find that changes in GMW properties reflect changes in the AW and PW source waters. Using the obtained dilution ratios, this study suggests that the exchange across the fjord mouth during summer is on the order of 50 mSv (compared to a freshwater input of 0.5 mSv). This study provides a first order parameterization for the exchange at the mouth of glacial fjords for large-scale ocean models.


At the base of the hair follicle epidermal matrix is a population of germinative epidermal (GE) cells that is in close communication with the dermal papilla. These GE cells are at the core of activities that comprise the fundamental processes of cell signalling and differentiation in the hair follicle. Since it is in the germinative region that the signals that produce hair are being received and transcribed, identification of genes expressed in the GE cells will be important for our understanding of hair growth control and the molecular mechanisms operating at the site of epidermal proliferation and differentiation. This study describes the production of a series of cDNA libraries, both by conventional means from rat vibrissa follicles and follicle end bulbs, and by PGR from the GE cells and the tissues of the upper end bulb. These libraries were then used for a variety of screening approaches to isolate cDNA clones, firstly for molecules which are known to be involved in the control of hair growth, and secondly for molecules which are differentially expressed in the follicular germinative epidermis. In order to identify such preferentially expressed genes, a dual labelling differential screen of the vibrissa follicle end bulb cDNA library was performed, using probes derived from the germinative epidermal and upper end bulb PGR generated libraries. Nine putative differentially expressed clones were isolated and sequenced. RNase protection analysis and non radioactive in situ hybridisation was then performed to confirm that these clones were expressed in the germinative epidermis of rat vibrissa follicles. Further characterisation by northern blotting revealed that several of the clones were expressed in multiple tissues. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that six of the clones had a concensus BG1 repeat sequence at the end of their 3'UTR. This has been implicated in post-transcriptional control of intracellular mRNA localisation. Three of these clones were related to genes implicated in induction and vesicle trafficking. These clones may therefore be involved in the signal transduction pathways operating in the germinative epidermis in response to primary signalling molecules received from the dermal papilla.


The twenty-first century opened with a rapidly growing array of markers of human misery: endemic warfare, natural disasters, global epidemics, climate change. Behind the dismal headlines are a series of closely connected, long-term political-economic processes, often glossed as the rise of neoliberal capitalism. This phenomenon rests on the presumption that capitalist trade "liberalization" will lead inevitably to market growth and optimal social ends. But so far the results have not been positive. Focusing on the United States, the contributors to this volume analyze how the globalization of newly untrammeled capitalism has exacerbated preexisting inequalities, how the retreat of the benevolent state and the rise of the punitive, imperial state are related, how poorly privatized welfare institutions provide services, how neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies are melding, and how recurrent moral panics misrepresent class, race, gendered, and sexual realities on the ground.


Most of the medical observational studies estimate the causal treatment effects using electronic health records (EHR), where a patient's covariates and outcomes are both observed longitudinally. However, previous methods focus only on adjusting for the covariates while neglecting the temporal structure in the outcomes. To bridge the gap, this paper develops a new method, SyncTwin, that learns a patient-specific time-constant representation from the pre-treatment observations. SyncTwin issues counterfactual prediction of a target patient by constructing a synthetic twin that closely matches the target in representation. The reliability of the estimated treatment effect can be assessed by comparing the observed and synthetic pre-treatment outcomes. The medical experts can interpret the estimate by examining the most important contributing individuals to the synthetic twin. In the real-data experiment, SyncTwin successfully reproduced the findings of a randomized controlled clinical trial using observational data, which demonstrates its usability in the complex real-world EHR.


One of the main problems with the use of synthetic polymers as biomaterials is the invasion of micro-organisms causing infection. A study of the properties of polymeric antibacterial agents, in particular polyhexamethylene biguanide, has revealed that the essential components for the design of a novel polymeric antibacterial are a balance between hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity coupled with sites of cationicity. The effect of cation incorporation on the physical properties of hydrogels has been investigated. Hydrogel systems copolymerised with either N-vinyl imidazole or dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate have been characterised in terms of their water binding, mechanical and surface properties. It has been concluded that the incorporation of these monomers does not adversely affect the properties of such hydrogels and that these materials are potential candidates for further development for use in biomedical applications. It has been reported that hydro gels with ionic character may increase the deposition of biological material onto the hydrogel surface when it is in contact with body fluids. An investigation into the deposition characteristics of hydrogels containing the potentially cationic monomers has been carried out, using specific protein adsorption and in vitro spoilation techniques. The results suggest that at low levels of cationicity, the deposition of positively charged proteins is reduced without adversely affecting the uptake of the other proteins. The gross deposition characteristics were found to be comparable to some commercially available contact lens materials. A preliminary investigation into the development of novel antibacterial polymers has been completed and some novel methods of bacterial inhibition discussed. These methods include development of an hydrogel whose potential application is as a catheter coating.


This paper investigates the simultaneous causal relationship between investments in information and communication technology (ICT) and foreign direct investment (FDI), with reference to its implications on economic growth. For the empirical analysis we use data from 23 major countries with heterogeneous economics development for the period 1976–99. The results of unit roots and Johansen co-integration tests indicate variations in degrees of integration among the sample countries. Our causality test results suggest that there is a causal relationship from ICT to FDI interpreted as the higher level of ICT investment leads to increased inflow of FDI. ICT contributes to economic growth indirectly by attracting more foreign direct investment. In developed countries there already exist a build up ICT capacity which causes inflow of FDI, while in developing countries ICT capacity must be build up to attract FDI. The inflow of FDI causes further increases in ICT investment and capacity.


Performing dependability evaluation along with other analyses at architectural level allows both predicting the effects of architectural decisions on the dependability of a system and making tradeoffs. Thus, both industry and academia focus on defining model driven engineering (MDE) approaches and on integrating several analyses in the development process. AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language) has proved to be efficient for architectural modeling and is considered by industry in the context presented above. Our contribution is a modeling framework allowing the generation of dependability-oriented analytical models from AADL models, to facilitate the evaluation of dependability measures, such as reliability or availability. We propose an iterative approach for system dependability modeling using AADL. In this context, we also provide a set of reusable modeling patterns for fault tolerant architectures. The AADL dependability model is transformed into a GSPN (Generalized Stochastic Petri Net) by applying model transformation rules. We have implemented an automatic model transformation tool. The resulting GSPN can be processed by existing tools to obtain dependability measures. The modeling approach is illustrated on a subsystem of the French Air Traffic Control System.


Until very recently private capital flows to developing countries have been growing rapidly. In the wake of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, foreign direct investment has been identified as a vital ingredient to restore and invigorate the economies in the Asian region and beyond. In an attempt to attract overseas capital and to stimulate economic development, countries such as the Philippines have stepped up the adoption of policies that allow for greater access by foreign investors. Increasingly, it appears that foreign capital, provided through transnational corporations, is set to replace official aid and to promote economic development first and foremost, with 'trickle-down' social benefits to follow. This study examines the role of one transnational corporation called the Alliance, in the promised development of Bohol in the Philippines, as a by-product of a water treatment and supply proposal linking the island provinces of Bohol and Cebu. The findings suggest that economic objectives tend to take priority over social development. The Alliance seemed to expound its economic and technical ability, with less effort given to involving and consulting with affected communities. This resulted in residents being disenfranchised from the development process, and gave rise to a feeling of mistrust and resentment.


This paper presents results from a sample of 383 belted drivers and 129 belted front seat passengers involved in frontal crashes. Of the drivers 253 vehicles were involved in crashes where the airbag deployed and 130 vehicles were non-airbag equipped. For the front seat passengers, 28 vehicles were also equipped with passenger airbags, with 25 deployed in crashes. The two groups were matched in terms of crash severity. Vehicles were inspected and occupants interviewed according to the National Accident Sampling System (NASS). Analysis of the data identified an overall reduction in the number of injuries sustained by drivers in the airbag-equipped vehicles for all frontal crashes. At the more serious injury levels (AIS 2+), reductions were noted to the head, face neck and chest in drivers in airbag equipped vehicles. Cost analysis using Harm as an outcome measure found that the mean Harm per driver ($AUD) was 60 percent higher in non-airbag equipped vehicles compared with airbag equipped vehicles. It would appear from these findings that airbags in frontal crashes are contributing to the reduction in driver injuries and also cost to society. Airbags in Australia act as supplementary restraint systems and were introduced to prevent head strikes to the steering wheel by belted drivers. However these findings suggest that airbags also seem to have a positive affect on protecting the chest and neck from injury. This study is the most extensive study of airbag performance in Australia to date. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E206143.


This chapter presents a case study about harmonics measurements in high-voltage net- works. Measurements were conducted at two locations in the main interconnected system (MIS) of Oman. Voltage and current THDs were recorded for a period of 1 week. The power quality analyzer was set to record required data for a period of 1 week, and the observation period for each recorded value is 10 minutes. At the first location, the grid station (132/33) is feeding industrial as well as other customers. The second grid station (220/132/33 kV) is dedicated to large industrial customers including arc furnaces and rolling mills. The power quality analyzer was installed at the 132 kV side of power transformers at both locations. Recorded data are analyzed, and temporal harmonics profiles are studied. A clear temporal variation of harmonics similar to that of aggregate load and local voltage profiles was observed at the grid station feeding mixed residential and industrial loads. However, this correlation between system load and harmonics profile diminishes at the grid station dedicated for heavy industrial loads.


Under the National Labor Relations Act, as interpreted by the courts and the National Labor Relations Board (Board) over the last sixty years, employers have been permitted to give captive audience speeches at work to employees contemplating unionization. Employees must attend such meetings, cannot question the employer representative, and may not have the union come to the workplace to present opposing views. Not surprisingly, these speeches are one of the most effective anti-union weapons that employers currently have in their arsenal. Now that the Board has both a quorum and a sizable Democratic majority, this Essay considers if, and how, the Obama Board might limit the rights of employers to engage in captive audience speeches during union organizational campaigns. If the issue arises in a representation election case, the Board might expand the Peerless Plywood doctrine to prohibit captive audience speeches for a longer period of time before an election. On the other hand, If a union raises the captive audience speech issue in a case alleging a Section 8(a)(1) unfair labor practice, the Board might reexamine its precedent under Section 8(c) and consider when exactly employer captive audience speech tactics become coercive under Exchange Parts and Gissel. This approach would require a more searching inquiry into the content of the speech. It might also lead the Board to adopt a presumption of employer coercion where employees are unable to leave such a meeting or ask questions of the employer's speaker. An employer would be able to rebut such a presumption under a modified form of the Struksnes polling standards that would make clear the purpose of such meetings and assure employees against retaliation for not adhering to the employer's anti-union message.


We make only one point in this article. Every quantitative study must be able to answer the question: what is your estimand? The estimand is the target quantity—the purpose of the statistical analysis. Much attention is already placed on how to do estimation; a similar degree of care should be given to defining the thing we are estimating. We advocate that authors state the central quantity of each analysis—the theoretical estimand—in precise terms that exist outside of any statistical model. In our framework, researchers do three things: (1) set a theoretical estimand, clearly connecting this quantity to theory; (2) link to an empirical estimand, which is informative about the theoretical estimand under some identification assumptions; and (3) learn from data. Adding precise estimands to research practice expands the space of theoretical questions, clarifies how evidence can speak to those questions, and unlocks new tools for estimation. By grounding all three steps in a precise statement of the target quantity, our framework connects statistical evidence to theory.


Late in his career Thomas Gainsborough became preoccupied with the theme of the cottage door, and he created a group of paintings and drawings that show rustic figures clustered around the open door of a cottage set in a deeply wooded landscape. Often seen as exemplars of the rural idyll, these works were among the first landscape paintings to reflect the eighteenth-century aesthetic of sensibility. As a way of seeing, sensibility valued nature for its innocence and simplicity, and images, such as Gainsborough's cottage subjects, for their power to move the viewer. This lovely book brings together the cottage door paintings and essays that discuss Gainsborough's departure from the more naturalistic style of his earlier career and that place his new concern with sentimentalism and artificiality in the context of sensibility and the growing interest in expressive, even sensational, visual spectacles. To this end, contributors to the volume investigate new viewing practices associated with sensibility, the meaning of the cottage for Gainsborough and his contemporaries, the artist's creation of affecting landscapes through the use of peasant subjects, and his theatrical treatment of these subjects in order to heighten his viewers' emotional responses.


BACKGROUND
Some human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals initiating combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) with low CD4 counts achieve viral suppression but not CD4 cell recovery. We aimed to identify (1) risk factors for failure to achieve CD4 count >200 cells/µL after 3 years of sustained viral suppression and (2) the association of the achieved CD4 count with subsequent mortality.

METHODS
We included treated HIV-infected adults from 2 large international HIV cohorts, who had viral suppression (≤500 HIV type 1 RNA copies/mL) for >3 years with CD4 count ≤200 cells/µL at start of the suppressed period. Logistic regression was used to identify risk factors for incomplete CD4 recovery (≤200 cells/µL) and Cox regression to identify associations with mortality.

RESULTS
Of 5550 eligible individuals, 835 (15%) did not reach a CD4 count >200 cells/µL after 3 years of suppression. Increasing age, lower initial CD4 count, male heterosexual and injection drug use transmission, cART initiation after 1998, and longer time from initiation of cART to start of the virally suppressed period were risk factors for not achieving a CD4 count >200 cells/µL. Individuals with CD4 ≤200 cells/µL after 3 years of viral suppression had substantially increased mortality (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.60; 95% confidence interval, 1.86-3.61) compared with those who achieved CD4 count >200 cells/µL. The increased mortality was seen across different patient groups and for all causes of death.

CONCLUSIONS
Virally suppressed HIV-positive individuals on cART who do not achieve a CD4 count >200 cells/µL have substantially increased long-term mortality.


Binary Neural Network (BNN) shows its predominance in reducing the complexity of deep neural networks. However, it suffers severe performance degradation. One of the major impediments is the large quantization error between the full-precision weight vector and its binary vector. Previous works focus on compensating for the norm gap while leaving the angular bias hardly touched. In this paper, for the first time, we explore the influence of angular bias on the quantization error and then introduce a Rotated Binary Neural Network (RBNN), which considers the angle alignment between the full-precision weight vector and its binarized version. At the beginning of each training epoch, we propose to rotate the full-precision weight vector to its binary vector to reduce the angular bias. To avoid the high complexity of learning a large rotation matrix, we further introduce a bi-rotation formulation that learns two smaller rotation matrices. In the training stage, we devise an adjustable rotated weight vector for binarization to escape the potential local optimum. Our rotation leads to around 50% weight flips which maximize the information gain. Finally, we propose a training-aware approximation of the sign function for the gradient backward. Experiments on CIFAR-10 and ImageNet demonstrate the superiorities of RBNN over many state-of-the-arts. Our source code, experimental settings, training logs and binary models are available at this https URL.