Market research has never been more important. As organizations become increasingly sophisticated, the need to profile customers, deliver customer satisfaction, target certain audiences, develop their brands, optimize prices and more has grown. Lively and accessible, Market Research in Practice is a practical introduction to market research tools, approaches and issues. Providing a clear, step-by-step guide to the whole process - from planning and executing a project through to analysing and presenting the findings - it explains how to use tools and methods effectively to obtain reliable results. This fully updated third edition of Market Research in Practice has been revised to reflect the most recent trends in the industry. Ten new chapters cover topical issues such as ethics in market research and qualitative and quantitative research, plus key concepts such as international research, how to design and scope a survey, how to create a questionnaire, how to choose a sample and how to carry out interviews are covered in detail. Tips, and advice from the authors' own extensive experiences are included throughout to ground the concepts in business reality. Accompanied by a range of online tools, templates, surveys and guides, this is an invaluable guide for students of research methods, researchers, marketers and users of market research.


This paper summarizes results of a major study on jointless bridges sponsored by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. This study included extensive laboratory and field experiments as well as detailed analytical studies. A set of design recommendations were provided. Jointless bridges have reduced maintenance, improved riding quality, lower impact loads, reduced snowplow damage, and structural continuity for live load and seismic resistance. However, the thermal movements of the bridge and restraint forces from the abutments and piers must be considered and accommodated. The general design philosophy is to build flexibility into the support structures to the extent feasible while providing sufficient strength for restraint forces that cannot be completely eliminated. The experimental phase of the research addressed thermal movements and stresses; creep and shrinkage movements, including the effects of exposure to the outside environment; and pile behavior. The overall analytical program consisted of studies on abutment soil-structure interaction, pier behavior, longitudinal bridge movement, secondary continuity forces, skewed bridge behavior, and construction sequences. In some cases, the research demonstrates that existing design procedures and engineering data can be used to adequately quantify the structural response and design forces for the structure. In other cases, the results of more complex analyses were used to develop simplified design relationships and procedures. _____________ Ralph G. Oesterle, Principal, Building & Environmental Consultants, 1019 Airpark Drive, Sugar Grove, IL 60554, USA Habib Tabatabai, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3200 N Cramer St., Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA


The stomatopods, or mantis shrimps, are malacostracan crustaceans of the subclass Hoplocarida. Extant hoplocarids belong to the order Stomatopoda and suborder Unipeltata, comprising the extinct, stem-lineage pseudosculdids and sculdids, and the crown group. Cladistic analysis including most or all genera of the unipeltatan families, and rooted to the extinct Tyrannophontidae, resulted in four most-parsimonious cladograms. The present results are more highly resolved and more robust than previous studies as the result of: more precise identification of suitable outgroups; a more complete outgroup data set, lessening the impact of missing data; and increased taxonomic sampling. The results largely support the existing five-superfamily classification, but as with two recent cladistic studies, Gonodactyloidea was polyphyletic. Gonodactyloidea is the basal crown-group superfamily and comprises mostly 'smashers'. Two clades of 'spearers', Eurysquillidae and Parasquillidae, previously considered gonodactyloids, are more closely related to the Squilloidea and are referred to new superfamilies. The familial classification within Lysiosquilloidea is modified. Rather than deriving the 'smashers' from a long line of 'spearers', the present analysis suggests that the Unipeltata diverged in two broad directions from the outset. Hence, the gonodactyloid 'smashers' became specialised for hard substrates, and the remainder diversified into the other modern superfamilies, evolving more efficient 'spearing' claws, and occupying soft substrates.


To attain without compromise the surgical goal, a straight and concurrently solid septum, especially in cases of marked deviations or severe post-traumatic deformities (sometimes combined with external deformities), an excellent proven and well-known technique is extracorporal or external septoplasty. Surgery consists of excision of the quadrilateral cartilage and its division into straight fragments. To avoid postoperative sequelae such as saddling, the pieces of cartilage must be reconnected meticulously to form a straight and at the same time solid plate. This difficult and time-consuming procedure can be assisted by the use of a connecting material. Since 1996 we have been using a polydioxanone foil (PDS, Ethicon Norderstedt Germany) as the supporting material for this purpose. The PDS as well as the suture material is completely resorbed within 5 months, excluding long-term complications of other artificial implants.


Given live streaming Bitcoin activity, we aim to forecast future Bitcoin prices so as to execute profitable trades. We show that Bitcoin price data exhibit desirable properties such as stationarity and mixing. Even so, some classical time series prediction methods that exploit this behavior, such as ARIMA models, produce poor predictions and also lack a probabilistic interpretation. In light of these limitations, we make two contributions: first, we introduce a theoretical framework for predicting and trading ternary-state Bitcoin price changes, i.e. increase, decrease or no-change; and second, using the framework, we present simple, scalable and real-time algorithms that achieve a high return on average Bitcoin investment (e.g. 6-7x, 4-6x and 3-6x return on investments for tests in 2014, 2015 and 2016), while consistently maintaining a high prediction accuracy (> 60-70%) and respectable Sharpe Ratio (> 2.0). Furthermore, when trained on a period eight months earlier than the test period, our algorithms performed nearly as well as they did when trained on recent data! As an important contribution, we provide a justification for why it makes sense to use classification algorithms in settings where the underlying time series is stationary and mixing.


We explore the striking mathematical connections that exist between market scoring rules, cost function based prediction markets, and no-regret learning. We first show that any cost function based prediction market can be interpreted as an algorithm for the commonly studied problem of learning from expert advice by equating the set of outcomes on which bets are placed in the market with the set of experts in the learning setting, and equating trades made in the market with losses observed by the learning algorithm. If the loss of the market organizer is bounded, this bound can be used to derive an O(√T) regret bound for the corresponding learning algorithm. We then show that the class of markets with convex cost functions exactly corresponds to the class of Follow the Regularized Leader learning algorithms, with the choice of a cost function in the market corresponding to the choice of a regularizer in the learning problem. Finally, we show an equivalence between market scoring rules and prediction markets with convex cost functions. This implies both that any market scoring rule can be implemented as a cost function based market maker, and that market scoring rules can be interpreted naturally as Follow the Regularized Leader algorithms. These connections provide new insight into how it is that commonly studied markets, such as the Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule, can aggregate opinions into accurate estimates of the likelihood of future events.


Louis XI, known as "The Spider King" because he wove many intricate plots, lives on in popular imagination primarily as a villain and a cruel, cunning, rather unscrupulous character. Absolutists fled to his banner whilst constitutionalists reviled him as a rapacious totalitarian murderer. In Images of Kingship in Early Modern France, Adrianna Bakos uses the changing nature of Louis XI's historical reputation to explore the intellectual and political climate of early modern France. Using Louis XI's historical reputation as a prism for fresh investigation, Adrianna Bakos offers new, more complex interpretations of the ideological landscape of early modern France. Images of Kingship in Early Modern France is an important contribution to European historiography and to debates on historical versus political interpretations of Kingship.


Malariometric surveys were conducted during July 1996 in native Dayak villages and predominantly Javanese transmigration settlements in Ketapang district of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Malaria prevalence ranged from 0.9% to 2.7% in Dayak villages and from 1% to 20% in the transmigration settlements. Plasmodium falciparum accounted for 67% of the cases among Dayaks but P. vivax was dominant among transmigrants, accounting for more than 72% of the infections. Chloroquine sensitivity/resistance was assessed by 28-day in vivo testing of uncomplicated malaria infections and measurement of chloroquine blood levels in cases where parasitemias reappeared within the 28-day test period. Resistance was based on the appearance of asexual parasites against chloroquine plus desethylchloroquine levels exceeding the minimally effective whole blood concentrations proposed for sensitive parasite strains (P. vivax, 100 ng/ml; P. falciparum, 200 ng/ml). All parasitemias cleared initially within four days of beginning supervised chloroquine therapy (25 mg base/kg over a 48-hr period), but asexual parasites reappeared within 28 days in 27 of 52 P. vivax and three of 12 P. falciparum cases. Chloroquine blood levels at the time of recurrent parasitemias revealed resistance in 12 of the 27 P. vivax cases and in one of the three P. falciparum cases. Genotypes of nine of the 12 recurrent P. vivax isolates matched with their primary isolates and ruled out reinfection. These findings establish the presence of chloroquine-resistant P. vivax on the island of Borneo. The pattern of malaria and the high frequency of chloroquine resistance by P. vivax at the West Kalimantan location may relate to demographic, ecologic, agricultural, and socioeconomic changes associated with transmigration.


Abstract The biology of the immature stages and adult eclosion of Ufens principalis Owen, an important parasitoid of Homalodisca eggs in southern California, were studied. The duration of the egg, larval and pupal stages at 26.7°C were 0–1, 7 and 9 days, respectively. Sacciform larvae, which developed gregariously within host eggs, were motile until about five days of age, and then became sessile. Parasitized host eggs changed from whitish and soft when freshly-laid to yellow-orange and hard at five days and older. This change was accompanied by formation of septal walls separating the mature larvae and pupae. The rate of immature development had a strong positive linear relationship (R2=0.853, n=98) with temperatures in the range of 20.0–30.3°C. The theoretical minimum threshold for immature development was 13.5°C, and the required heat units were 241.0 degree-days. Adult eclosion from host eggs occurred mostly (85%) on the first two days of emergence. Although most females emerged during the morning hours (0600–1200 h), males tended to emerge earlier than females with equal emergence during the morning and late night hours (2400–0600 h). The rate of successful adult emergence was high (88%). The ratio of eclosed adults to the number of exit holes was 1.18, indicating that most adults tended to independently cut their exit holes. The number of exit holes had a strong negative relationship (R2=0.711, n=125) with exit hole size, suggesting that larger numbers of developing immatures per host egg result in an overall decrease in adult size.


Despite ongoing political, economic, and financial uncertainties, the long-term trend of financial market "globalization" continues. This trend has been driven by equity and bond investments, but cross-border real estate investment has increased in recent years. Recent disaffection with stock performance means real estate is at the forefront of many investors' thinking and, increasingly, they are considering real estate as a global asset class. This article seeks to help measure and explain the relative risks of global real estate markets by providing a simple, objective measure of real estate risk based on three components: country, structural real estate, and cyclical real estate risks. Together these measures capture the key dimensions of risk and provide important insights for global real estate strategies. An investor's tolerance for various types of risk varies according to investment strategy. The authors conclude by showing how different combinations of types of risk provide different insights according to the perspective of the investor, whether they are "opportunistic," "core," or "debt focused."


The palatability and physiochemical properties of milled rice produced on different types of soils and latitudes were studied in order to improve the culture technique to produce good eating quality rice. There was locational difference, we found that the differences in soil types had a great influence on palatability. No clear relationship between the altitude and palatability was found. The palatability of rice produced on Light-colored Andosols (LAN) was inferior to that of rice produced on other soil types: Fine-textured Yellow soils, Fine-textured Brown Lowland soils, Gravelly Gray Lowland soils. The protein content of rice produced on LAN was significantly higher than that of rice produced on other soil types. Protein content was significantly correlated with the palatability using rice grown in various locations. On the other hand, amylose content and amylographic characteristics were not related to palatability. The results lead to the conclusion that the main cause of the deterioration of palatability of rice grown in LAN was increases in protein content due to increases in nitrogen released from LAN during the late stage growth period of rice plant. Therefore, it is important to restrict the amount of nitrogen absorbed by rice plant i.e., improvement of the method of fertilizer application and soil improvement, in order to improve the eating quality of rice grown in LAN.


Important to issues of writing instruction are the ways in which teachers, specifically those who teach in the discipline of language arts and English, understand and see themselves as writers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how secondary English teachers positioned themselves and were positioned by others as writers through participation in a Writing Collaborative designed to provide authentic opportunities for engaging and examining themselves as writers. This study included seven secondary English teachers, three middle school and four high school, who all taught writing as required by their respective course curriculums. This semester-long research applied case study methods and utilized multiple data sources, including teacher interviews, video recordings of Writing Collaborative sessions, and teachers' written artifacts to inform the analysis. Data was analyzed using the constant-comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) and drawing from discourse analysis (Gee, 2011, Mercer, 2000), focused closely on "episodes of talk" (Mercer, 2004, p.142). A social theory of learning, specifically Wenger's (1998) Communities of Practice framework, sociocultural theories and concepts of language and learning (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986; Mercer, 2000) and theories of identity (Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, and Cain, 1998; Wenger, 1998) were used to analyze the ways in which teachers' identities as writers shaped and were shaped by the Writing Collaborative. Findings included the ways in which the practices of the community, particularly the practice of sharing and teachers' responses to sharing, contributed to the shaping of teachers' identities as writers and the shaping of the Writing Collaborative as a community of practice. These share practices included: (a) interject humor, (b) praise and encourage, (c) support and affirm, (d) ask questions, (e) explore ideas, (e) share knowledge and beliefs, and (f) narrate personal stories. Consequently, these share practices were foundational to the formation of the Writing Collaborative; more importantly, the practices facilitated the meanings teachers negotiated about writers and writing and the ways in which their identities as writers were shaped. The categories of meanings the teachers made encompassed: (a) definitions of writers (b) purposes of writing (c) writing ideas (d) writing as a process, and (e) personal aspects of writing. The case study of the Writing Collaborative provided insights into the ways in which teachers' writer identities were shaped and reshaped through participation in the community's practices and meaning-making about writers and writing. This was particularly true for teachers who did not self-identify as writers or who were skeptical to claim writer identities. This study revealed that regardless of how the teachers saw themselves as writers, all of them enacted multiple writer identities. Thus, the Writing Collaborative served as a space for teachers to reshape existing writer identities and explore possible writer identities for themselves. Implications of the study include ways to assist teachers in understanding the complexities of teaching writing by helping them understand themselves as writers.


In 2010, Dr. James H. Knight DDS fired his employee, Melissa Nelson, explaining that his wife had become jealous of their consensual but nonsexual relationship. Nelson, in turn, filed a sex discrimination claim, alleging that her termination would not have occurred, but-for her sex. The Iowa Supreme Court sided with Knight, ruling that Nelson's termination was due to Knight's wife's jealousy, irrespective of Nelson's sex. This Comment argues that: (1) in the absence of sexual conduct, the court's reliance on precedent involving consensual sexual relationships was misplaced; (2) in relying on the wrong precedent, the court set an unnecessarily high standard for plaintiffs to meet in a sex discrimination case; and (3) Nelson v. James H. Knight DDS, P.C. is instead a mixed-motives case and should have succeeded as a sex discrimination claim.


Since the middle of the twentieth century, composers around the world have used indeterminism at one point in their career, from Dutch composer Louis Andriessen to the use of limited aleatorism in Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski's works. Whilst the new forms of notation presented challenges for performers and analysts of the works, it also presented opportunities for exploration of improvisation and individual choice. There are striking similarities between the freedom represented with this notational evolution to that of the internet to 'Web 2.0.' The proliferation of social networking applications (such as Delicious, Connotea and Diigo) and user generated content create a quandary for libraries and researchers. Should we retain our title as gatekeepers of quality controlled metadata? What role do we play in this new environment? How can we adapt to this shift towards non-hierarchical tagging and uncontrolled vocabulary? Just as composers have decided to give up some control to the performer, should libraries give up a degree of control to researchers in order to keep with the digital times? This paper will seek to answer these questions framed by Charles Darwin's famous espousal of the 'survival of the fittest.' It is the evolution of notation, specifically to indeterminate notation, which may prove ultimately that libraries are no dinosaurs.Unrevised proof of paper presentation to 2009 International Association of Music Libraries conference in Amsterdam.


This paper draws from a literature review and interviews to demonstrate the impact of advocacy, research, and culture on guidance for design users, bike lanes, and separated (protected) bike lanes in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' bicycle guides' content from 1974 to present. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a bicycle renaissance in America resulted in efforts at the local, state, and federal level to encourage bicycling. After Davis, California, became the first community in the United States to build a network of bike lanes, a new brand of bicycle advocacy, vehicular cycling (VC), formed to oppose efforts to separate bicyclists from motorized traffic based on fears of losing the right to use public roads. Via positions of power and strong rhetoric, vehicular cyclists influenced design guidance for decades to come. Through the 1980s, VC philosophy aligned with a federal view that bicyclists freeloaded from the gas tax, resulting in diminished federal support for guidance and related research throughout the decade. However, the passing of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 led to increased bicycle networks and renewed interest in bicycle facility research. Although vehicular cyclists continue to oppose roadway designs that separate bicyclists from motorized traffic, research from the last decade demonstrates networks of separated bike lanes improve bicyclist safety and are necessary to meet the needs of the vast majority of the public who want to bicycle but feel unsafe in many traffic contexts.


Abstract
Shuttlecock consists of two parts that are dop and feather. Dop is part of the shuttlecock-shaped half-sphere which is at the end of the shuttlecock. In a dop small industry of Mr. Sumeri in Jagalan have four main activities in the production processes that are dop pressing, dop cutting edge, put a cloth on the end of the dop and counting. The calculation activity done during the change of dop production process, after buying dop that has not been coated nylon fabric and when there is order. Calculation is needed to determine how many dop that has been processed by the workers as the basis for the calculation of the workers earned wages each week. Calculation activity can disturb the workers because they have to use work time to calculate the dop that has been processed and waiting for the counting is complete. In this study is conducted redesign tool of dop counter based on anthropometri with RULA analysis. The purpose of this research is to produce a dop counter so that it can improve ergonomic working posture. The tool is designed as dop counter with anthropometri approach to retrieve data anthropometri 3 workers in the dop industry of Mr. Sumeri. By RULA method for dop calculating, the activity use thier upper body is more dominant which it aims to investigate the working environment that is not ergonomic in the human upper body. The result based on RULA is posture of workers can work longer when using the tool indicates a high risk level. Furthermore redesigned tool of dop counter provides working posture at the lower level of risk and the time counsumed by dop calculation process using a new tool as 1 minute per 20 dozen dop. This research produces dop counter-dimensional with high, wide and long of dop counter, respectively 67 cm, 63 cm and 80 cm; dimensions of the dop channel are length: 84 cm, width: 52 cm and height: 20 cm; dimension counter are length: 48 cm, width: 40 cm and the dimensions of the hole are length: 3.5cm, width: 3.5 cm and height: 6 cm. The total cost of making the new light bulb counter is Rp 266,000.00.
Keyword: dop, counter, anthropometri, RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment)


I INTRODUCTION A few months ago, when I received a letter from the Dean of Law and the President of the Alumni Association inviting me to speak at this dinner, I accepted with delight. I then put the letter onto one of the piles of papers on my desk, where it vanished for some time. When I finally found it again recently, two things I read caused me to come to a sobering realisation. The first was reading that the University of Western Sydney has been providing high quality legal education for almost 20 years. I, on the other hand, have been attempting to provide moderate quality legal advice for some 40 years. The second was learning that 3,000 students have graduated from UWS' LLB Program in those 20 years. That, I realised, is more than three times the number of barristers who were practising when I first came to the bar. The conclusion I was forced to draw from these matters is that I really am quite old. That is probably not a huge revelation to anyone here tonight, but it came as quite a shock to me. Previous comparisons with the rest of my judicial colleagues had led me to believe I was early middle aged. Having got over that shock, I thought I might take advantage of the situation, and reflect tonight on what has changed over the years since I began practicing. What value, you may ask, could this have, except for allowing me to indulge in reflections of the past that are probably best kept to myself? I don't know if you will find this a convincing answer, but to my mind considering what has changed over the last 40 years is relevant because it enables us, as a profession, to reflect, first, on how far we have come--both in providing legal services to the public, and in making legal practice more stimulating and interesting. Second, it allows us to identify changes to the legal landscape that have thrown up new challenges, and placed certain elements of professional life and dispute resolution under pressure--and perhaps even to suggest ways to meet those challenges. Now rest assured, I'm not going to bore you by telling you how lucky you are to have graduated in the last twenty years on the one hand, or by talking endlessly about how good the good old days were on the other. Almost all members of the senior judiciary have had a go at the first type of speech, and no one would believe me if I began eulogising the past, least of all myself. Rather, I will try to simply reflect on some of the major changes of the last 40 years, and say a few words about the implications of some of those changes. II SUBSTANTIVE LEGAL CHANGE Can I start at the mundane level? When I first started practising law as an articled clerk, although it had been 67 years since Federation and 26 years since the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942 (Cth), Australian courts were yet to declare their independence from the Privy Council and House of Lords. English law remained a towering influence on the development of Australian law. In fact, until the Australia Acts 1986 (Cth) were passed in 1986, litigants continued to take appeals to the Privy Council, including directly from State Supreme Courts. In that way parties by-passed the High Court when it seemed advantageous to do so, for example because an existing decision seemed to be against them. In fact, the 'increased availability of air travel meant that the Privy Council was probably hearing more Australian appeals in the 1970's than in the 1930's'. (1) Cynics often suggested, of course, that the reason for the continuing popularity of the Privy Council, particularly in the months between May and October, had something to do with barristers' holiday plans. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the time I entered the legal profession, there was minimal statutory intervention in the common law, with the possible exception of the Criminal Law. There was for example, no such thing as the Trade Practice Act 1974 (Cth). …


Since the birth of computer and networks, fueled by pervasive computing, Internet of Things and ubiquitous connectivity, the amount of data stored and transmitted has exponentially grown through the years. Due to this demand, new storage solutions are needed. One promising media is the DNA as it provides numerous advantages, which includes the ability to store dense information while achieving long-term reliability. However, the question as to how the data can be retrieved from a DNA-based archive, still remains. In this paper, we aim to address this question by proposing a new storage solution that relies on bacterial nanonetworks properties. Our solution allows digitally-encoded DNA to be stored into motility-restricted bacteria, which compose an archival architecture of clusters, and to be later retrieved by engineered motile bacteria, whenever reading operations are needed. We conducted extensive simulations, in order to determine the reliability of data retrieval from motility-restricted storage clusters, placed spatially at different locations. Aiming to assess the feasibility of our solution, we have also conducted wet lab experiments that show how bacteria nanonetworks can effectively retrieve a simple message, such as "Hello World," by conjugation with motility-restricted bacteria, and finally mobilize towards a target point for delivery.


The aim of this study was to determine the effects of a muscular strength programme on the levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and cognitive status in elder women with mild cognitive impairment who lived in areas of high air pollution. A total of 157 women participated in the study, distributed in four groups: Active/Clean (AC n = 38) and Active/Pollution (AP n = 37), who carried out a progressive resistance training programme for 24 months, and Sedentary/Clean (SC n = 40) and Sedentary/Pollution (SP n = 42). Maximum strength in the upper and lower limbs (1RM), cognition (Mini-Mental Scale Examination (MMSE)) and blood IGF-1 were evaluated. At the beginning of the intervention, there were no differences between the groups in the assessed variables. The active groups which carried out the resistance training programme (AC and AP), registered better results in IGF-1 than the sedentary groups. These differences were statistically significant in AC vs. SC (p < 0.01) and AP vs. SC (p < 0.05). Regarding MMSE, group AC registered the highest score increases (+8.2%) (significantly better than the other groups), while group SP worsened (−7%) significantly compared to the other three groups. In conclusion, resistance training had a positive effect on IGF-1, while sedentary behaviour and air pollution had a negative effect on cognitive status.


This paper examines in depth the determinants of repartnering in Italy. With data from a national survey conducted in 2003, the effects of socio-economic, demographic and contextual characteristics on second-union formation among separated women are examined. The analysis is of particular interest in a country such as Italy, which is undergoing a transition from traditional to modern family behaviours. In addition, it allows us to verify the hypothesis that the importance of demographic factors in the repartnering process decreases as marital instability becomes more common. Results of event history analysis models confirm the basic hypothesis and show some unexpected effects.


The authority of federal courts to make federal common law has been a controversial question for courts and scholars. Several scholars have propounded theories addressing primarily whether and when federal courts are justified in making federal common law. It is a little-noticed phenomenon that state courts, too, make federal common law. This Article brings to light the fact that state courts routinely make federal common law in as real a sense as federal courts make it. It further explains that theories that focus on whether the making of federal common law by federal courts is justified are inadequate to explain whether the making of federal common law by state courts is justified. A common premise of such theories - that courts make federal common law for the kinds of forward-looking policy reasons that would move Congress to enact a statute - largely accounts for the inadequacy. The Article proceeds to provide an account of the making of federal common law by state courts that considers historical practice, the constitutional structure, and certain normative claims about the way in which courts can and ought to make law. It concludes that state courts, when it is necessary to make federal common law in order to enforce existing law, are justified in doing so not as a deputy legislature, but as the result of attempting to best discern and apply existing principles of federal law. Finally, the Article identifies implications of this analysis for the operation of federal common law in federal courts.


Exploiting a natural experiment for New York City restaurants we analyze whether consumers' quality perception is influenced by newly appearing expert opinion. As the leading restaurant guide Zagat has rated New York City's restaurants since 1979 by drawing on consumer surveys. In 2005, with the first release of the red Michelin Guide New York City, Zagat faced a serious competition. In contrast to Zagat, Michelin relies on experts. Employing a difference-in-differences approach we analyze whether consumer assessments (Zagat ratings) have responded to Michelin quality assessments. While we do not find any significant Michelin-induced increase in perceived food quality, we find strong Michelin effects on service and décor quality. In addition, the inclusion in the Michelin guide induced substantial price increases. While restaurants that were not Michelin-reviewed can raise their prices in response to food quality improvements, service and décor improvement do not payoff. In contrast, Michelin-reviewed restaurant enjoy substantial returns only to service and décor improvement. Our results suggest that expert opinion on the New York City restaurant market exerts a negative externality on gourmets by giving restaurants incentives to invest mainly in service and décor leading to higher prices.


Bezerra Jr P.S., Santos A.S., Bandarra P.M., Pedroso P.M.O., Pavarini, S.P., Spanamberg A., Ferreiro L. & Driemeier D. 2009. [Experimental poisoning by Aspergillus clavatus in sheep.] Intoxicação experimental por Aspergillus clavatus em ovinos. Pesquisa Veterinária Brasileira 29(3):205-210. Setor de Patologia Veterinária, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves 9090, Porto Alegre, RS 91540-000, Brazil. E-mail: email@example.com This paper describes the experimental reproduction of a neurological condition in sheep by the administration of a beer by-product contaminated with Aspergillus clavatus. Samples of this by-product, in which pure cultures of A. clavatus grew, originated from two farms where outbreaks of A. clavatus poisoning in cattle had occurred. The onset of symptomatology was 2 to 6 days after dosage with the contaminated beer by-product or pure A. clavatus culture. The clinical course lasted from one and a half to 12 days. Clinical signs were predominantly of locomotor and respiratory nature and included muscle tremors, hyperesthesia, and progressive tachypnea, rigidity of the pelvic limbs, posterior weakness, and recumbency. One sheep also showed occasional knuckling of fetlocks of the hind limbs. Gait abnormalities and tremors were more pronounced after exercise. In 6 of 7 sheep, appetite and dypsia were maintained until close to death or euthanasia. The main histological findings consisted of chromatolytic neuronal degeneration and necrosis in selected nuclei of the brain stem, the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the spinal, trigeminal, stellate and celiac ganglions. Three sheep also presented slight degenerative and necrotic changes in muscles of the pelvic and thoracic limbs.


The Battle to Control Broadcast News chronicles the power plays, fights, betrayals, and skirmishes behind the use and misuse of both the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to air news on controversial issues and to provide a "balance" in their programming, and the Equal Time Law, which governs political programming and claims that federal law cannot require broadcasters to carry all candidates. Hugh Donahue argues that these restrictions were never justified, that the public lost more than it gained by having them, and that fear of the power of mass communications is a constant theme shaping regulation of broadcast journalism.Donahue's sweeping history describes the curious position that broadcast news occupies on the spectrum of American journalism and political activism: it is by far the most widespread force in news and politics, but also the most restricted, as it is the only one whose First Amendment rights have been limited by Congressional action and regulatory fiat.The book analyzes disputes over broadcasters' free speech rights and government regulation. Donahue demonstrates that dramatic growth in emerging cable television and satellite technologies is significantly expanding television news and politics, making existing regulations obsolete. He argues that the remarkable durability of these outdated laws can be attributed to such special interest groups as the automobile and oil industries and the gun lobby, which want direct access to broadcast audiences, and to a public wary of both "big media" domination of political discourse and "big money" advertisers seeking to monopolize the airwaves.


1. Energy homeostasis requires the co-ordination of several metabolic fluxes at the systemic level among various peripheral organs and the central nervous system. A breakdown of these metabolic fluxes can lead to hyperglycaemia. An explicit representation of this complex dynamical system can aid the interpretation of diagnostic tests and help formulate therapeutic interventions. Hence, mathematical models could constitute a valuable clinical tool in the management of hyperglycaemia associated with diabetes. However, a very large range of such models is available, making a judicious choice difficult. To better inform this choice, the most important models published to date are presented in a uniform format, discussing similarities and differences in terms of the decisions faced by modellers. We review models for glucostasis, based on the glucose-insulin feedback control loop, and consider extensions to long-term energy balance, dislipidaemia and obesity.
2. Whole-cell patch-clamp recording techniques were used in isolated hypothalamic brain slice preparations to investigate and compare the electrophysiological properties of arcuate nucleus (ARC) neurones from fed and fasted rats, including a fed control group housed as fasted animals. Subthreshold active conductances were differentially expressed in ARC neurones including: anomalous inward rectification (Ian), A-like transient outward rectification (IA), time and voltage-dependent inward rectification (Ih) and T-type calcium-like conductance. Significant differences in active and passive subthreshold membrane properties of ARC neurones were observed between the three groups, including: changes in magnitude of IA and Ih, action potential duration, membrane time-constant (tau), neuronal input resistance and spontaneous activity. Furthermore, both housing and fasting conditions affected electrophysiological properties of rat ARC neurones, suggesting both stress and fasting can modify electrophysiological properties of ARC neurones.
3. The effects of intracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) on neuronal excitability of ARC neurones were investigated and compared between fed and fasted rats. This was performed by manipulating extracellular glucose levels from 2.0 to 0.0 mM whilst intracellular ATP was manipulated by changing the levels in the patch pipette solution (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 5.0 and 10.0 mM). The level of ATP required to maintain resting membrane potential and glucose-sensing capability of ARC neurones was determined. Data from this study suggests 1.0 mM and 5.0 mM ATP for fasted and fed rats, respectively, were appropriate levels for maintaining electrophysiological and glucose-sensing integrity of these neurones. Hence levels of or sensitivity to ATP appears subject to modulation depending on the energy status of organism.
4. Glucose-sensing neurones and associated underlying mechanisms in ARC neurones in both fed and fasted states were studied. Extracellular glucose levels (2.0 – 0.2 – 0.5 – 1.0 – 2.0 – 5.0 mM) were manipulated with appropriate intracellular ATP levels determined as outlined above. Three types of glucose-sensing neurone were identified: glucose-excited (GE) neurones, glucose-inhibited (GI) neurones and glucose-rapidly adapting (GRP) neurones. The proportions of these three groups of neurones varied between fed and 24-hour fasted rats. Changing energy status, fasting, also appeared to affect the sensitivity of glucose-sensing neurones, i.e. the threshold levels of glucose they detect. GE neurones operated through ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channel-dependent mechanisms in fed and fasted rats and through a chloride-dependent mechanism in fed rats. GI neurones detect changes in glucose levels through chloride and/or non-selective cation conductance-dependent mechanisms. Finally a potential mechanism of GRA neurones may be through transient opening of chloride conductances. Further work is required to confirm the ionic mechanisms of these glucose-sensing neurones.
5. Analysis of responses observed in ARC glucose-sensing neurones was also examined using a mathematical approach. An empirical sigmoid response function was assumed to describe the time course of the transition in neuronal activity and the integral of this function was fitted to cumulative action potential numbers to characterise the response dynamics. Four parameters were estimated for each transition, employing the least-squares criterion; the activity prior to and at the end of each change in extracellular glucose concentration, the half sigmoid time before the neuronal activity changes following a step change in extracellular glucose and the duration of the transition. Statistical tests revealed a statistically detectable difference in response delay of GE neurones following step changes in glucose levels between fed and 24-hour fasted rats. In addition, in fed rats, statistical test revealed that GE neurones required a significantly shorter delay time in changing their activity but longer change-over times than GI neurones. In 24-hour fasted rats, only the difference in activity of neurones at the start and at the end of glucose application was found to be statistically significant difference between GE and GI neurones. Further work is required to confirm these data.


In this paper, we investigate transceiver design for a wideband multiuser-multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, where the co-channel users are equipped with multiple transmit and multiple receive antennas. In particular, we develop a two-step hard-decision interference cancellation receiver for a multiuser-MIMO uplink system which employs orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation and space-time block codes (STBC). The STBC has been implemented either over adjacent tones or adjacent OFDM symbols and the performances of both implementations have been tested under slowly time-varying channels. The two-step receiver structure has been implemented using a combined interference suppression scheme based on minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) and symbol-wise likelihood detectors, which is then followed by an interference cancellation step. The receiver can suppress and cancel the interference from the co-channel users effectively without increasing the complexity significantly. The paper also includes computer experiments that are intended to improve the understanding of specific issues involved in the design of multiuser STBC-OFDM systems


In this study, by applying Giannakopoulos and Pallot's stress and displacement equations, and using the Goryacheva's friction model, the stress and displacement equations are obtained. Finally, by applying analytical method, these equations are solved. By assuming that the roller is rigid and the substrate is almost homogeneous with constant Poisson ratio and constant elastic modulus, the results of frictional effect on stress and displacement fields are achieved and are shown in figures. Using different amounts of friction coefficient, the effect of friction coefficient on stress and displacement inside the contact region in the figures is observed. The new results achieved by the analytical method used in this study for obtaining tangential stress and displacement inside the contact region is compared with the results that were already achieved for obtaining tangential stress and displacement inside the contact region in another study. The comparison between the two analytical methods showed similarity in the results that are achieved by both methods. These results may be very advantageous in the design of suitable substrate and cylinder that are in contact, especially in the model that the substrate is almost homogeneous and the cylinder is rigid.

 Key words: Friction, contact, stress field, displacement field.


Objective Construction of prognostically relevant endpoints for clinical trials in hypertension has increasingly included coronary revascularization with myocardial infarction (MI) as manifestations of coronary artery disease. However, whether coronary revascularization and MI predict other cardiovascular events similarly is unknown. Methods We examined risks of cardiovascular death, all-cause death, and stroke following MI or coronary revascularization in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) enrolled in the Losartan Intervention For Endpoint reduction in hypertension study (LIFE). We studied 9113 patients after excluding those who died within 7 days after MI or underwent coronary revascularization within 24 h after MI. Results In multivariate Cox regression adjusting for participating countries, time-varying systolic blood pressure, and Framingham risk score, hazard ratios for cardiovascular death, all-cause death, and stroke were, respectively, 4.5 (P < 0.0001), 2.9 (P < 0.0001), and 1.9 (P = 0.003) in 321 patients with MI as first event. In similar models, coronary revascularization as first event (n = 202) was not associated with increased risks of cardiovascular death, all-cause death, and stroke (P = 0.06–0.86). Conclusion During follow-up of hypertensive patients with LVH, occurrence of MI but not coronary revascularization as first cardiovascular event significantly increased risk of subsequent cardiovascular death, all-cause death, and stroke. In view of differences in prognostic implications, when the goal is to have a prognostically relevant composite endpoint for trials in hypertensive patients, caution should be used in combining coronary revascularization with MI.


Over the past two decades, there has been a marked divergence in regional labour market outcomes within Australia. In this paper, we examine two aspects of this divergence. First, we analyse the wide variation in employment growth rates, finding that stronger rates of employment growth were associated with industry structure, proximity to factor and product markets, and the level of regional amenity. Second, we investigate how regional labour markets adjusted to different employment conditions. While regional migration is found to be the dominant adjustment channel, the relative strength of the migration adjustment differs across regions. Out-migration, accompanying employment declines, was stronger amongst regions with initially high unemployment rates and low regional amenity. Similarly, regions with initially low rates of unemployment and high regional amenity experienced stronger rates of in-migration in response to rising employment.


New registered nurses report they experience work-related stress, multiple challenges, and negative emotional responses during their first year in practice. There are concerns for quality of health care, patient safety, and turnover in nursing when the demands placed on new registered nurses exceed their capacity to respond. The purpose of this cross-sectional, correlational research study was to explore adaptation in new registered nurses. With the Roy Adaptation Model as the conceptual framework, personal attributes of new registered nurses and characteristics of their work environment were modeled as independent variables with four measures of adaptation: acute occupational fatigue, chronic occupational fatigue, negative affect, and intent to stay in their current position for two years. The New Registered Nurse Questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 250 new registered nurses in North Carolina with a professional tenure of 52 weeks or less. Data from 88 new registered nurses were included for analyses. Participants reported a mean acute occupational fatigue score of 64.88 (SD = 19.69) out of a possible zero to 100. The mean score for chronic occupational fatigue was lower at 41.86 (SD = 23.13) with a minimum-maximum of zero to 90. Of the eleven independent variables, only orientation status and perceived adjustment were statistically significant in their relationship with chronic occupational fatigue. The same two variables, orientation status and perceived adjustment, were also statistically significant in their relationship to negative affect. The last research question explored intent to stay in their current nursing position for two years. Nursing education at the baccalaureate level or higher and orientation status were statistically significant in their relationship with the response variable. These findings support the concern that new registered nurses are experiencing a compromised adaptive response as they take on the practice of nursing. Our understanding of the personal responses of new registered nurses has had limited exploration and the results of this research study provide a unique contribution in this area.


Human liver toxicity by alcohol use is highly prevalent in most countries as opposed to the rarity of liver injury by other chemicals. This applies preferentially to industrial and household chemicals of the aliphatic halogenated hydrocarbon type, with carbon tetrachloride as one of the best known chemical. Mainly eliminated through the lungs, such hydrocarbons are metabolized in very small amounts in the liver to toxic radicals. However, due to the rarity of published liver injury cases, little information is available of the clinical course of patients with acute intoxication by aliphatic halogenated hydrocarbons and therapy options. In the present article, case data of 60 patients with these intoxications are briefly reviewed and treatment options recommended. These include forced removal of the toxins through the lungs via CO2-induced hyperventilation with the aim to increase the respiratory volume to 25-30 liter per minute. Duration of this hyperventilation therapy was 106.0 ± 10.5 hours among the 60 patients, and discharge calculated from the day of intoxication was after 14.5 ± 1.5 days. Age of the patients was 41.1 ± 3.9 years, with significantly higher ages in patients with unintentional poisoning as compared to those with intentional intoxication (49.8 ± 6.5 years vs. 31.6 ± 2.8 years; p<0.005). Lethality rate was 4/60 patients corresponding to 6.7%. In summary, cases of acute intoxications by aliphatic halogenated hydrocarbons and associated liver injury are rarely described in the scientific and medical literature, but therapy options exist that include increased toxin removal via the lungs through CO2-induced hyperventilation.


Abstract Tunisia is unique among Arab nations, due to the fact that women have been granted equal rights by the Constitution. Tunisia obtained its independence from France in 1956. During the colonial period, women were marginalized, and they little access to education. Economic activity was largely confined to the household, while wearing of the veil was widespread. Since 1956 Tunisian women have made great strides toward achieving greater rights, but has it been enough. This study describes the current status of women in Tunisia given the changing socio-political scene. Have women's rights progressed or has they been hampered by cultural and religious forces in the region? The study finds that while women's rights have not regressed, women have not made much inroads in the workplace. Further analysis using structural conditions is needed to understand the status of women in Tunisia. Keywords: Labor force participation, family law, women's rights Introduction On January 14, Friday, 2011, Tunisia's president of 23 years, General Zinc el Abidine Ben Ali was forced to step down from his position as head of state. He was ousted out of office after weeks of anti-government protests and riots. The National Public Radio news bulletin of January 27, also reported the following: "Female voices rang out loud and clear during massive protests that brought down the authoritarian rule of Tunisian President Zinc el Abidine Ben All. Women in Tunisia are unique in the Arab world for enjoying near equality with men. And they are anxious to maintain their status. In Tunis, old ladies, young girls and women in black judges robes marched down the streets demanding that the dictator leave. Hardly anyone wears the Muslim headscarf in the capital, and women seem to be everywhere, taking part in everything, alongside men." This portrays an entirely different image of an Arab nation. An image that is contrary to the general belief that women are invisible, talking in low tones and subservient to men. Here we see women walking the streets, protesting for their citizenship rights. At the same time this is also the nation where the self-immolation of a young fruit seller, Mohammed Bouazizi, sparked the current spate of uprisings against authoritarian governments of Zinc el Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and continues to spread to other nations across the Middle East. Contrast the image of women on the streets of Tunis to that of the fruit seller who self-immolated himself for economic reasons. Both images tell different stories, yet both are true images of a society that has undergone many changes in the last 50 years. Within a framework of social and economic turbulence, this paper attempts to understand the position of women in Tunisia. Tunisian women have enjoyed a better legal and political position compared to their female counterparts in the region, by virtue of the 1956 reform of the Family Law. The purpose of this case study is to understand and describe the current position of Tunisian women in economy or the workforce given the fact that among the Arab states, this is the nation that has granted most economic and legal rights to women. Patriarchy and gender relations have had a negative effect on women's rights in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, but "globalization seems to be offering new constraints as well as enormous opportunities" (Moghadam 2007:2, Cabezas 2009). Globalization has been referred to as the increasing interconnectedness of markets, states, communication and ideas. With the transfer of ideas and communication, interest in human rights has also increased--a marked difference from the era when human rights were secondary to states' claim to sovereignty. Human rights is also been seen as "a set of claims and entitlements to human dignity, which has presumably been supplied by the state" (Brysk 2002). Thus women's rights have now become an integral part of the regime of human rights, and are of special importance to women of reduced means--who are subject to both class and gender violations, both within their own communities as well as outside (Brysk 2002). …


Pruning of fruit trees produces a great quantity of biomass each year that can be used for energy production. For this purpose, it is necessary to carry out an energy characterization of these pruned wastes, where the determination of heating value is significant. This value is usually measured by an adiabatic or isoperibolic calorimeter, which causes high economic costs and wastes time. The present study is focused on the development of indirect models for heating value prediction of biomass from orange trees Citrus × sinensis Osbeck, almond trees Prunus dulcis (Mill) D.A. Webb, and olive trees Olea europaea L. from an elemental analysis in order to reduce the time of determination as well as the economic costs. Residual biomass was classified and characterized according to CEN regulations such as received, without drying. Also, moisture content wet basis, bark ratio, density, heating value, and elemental composi‐ tion (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulfur) were measured. The influence of these variables on the heating value was analyzed. Finally, mathematical models were developed to predict this value for this studied species. These models showed coefficients of determination between 0.83 and 0.97, being suitable for industrial use.


Chemical pretreatment and extraction techniques have been developed previously to extract in situ cosmogenic radiocarbon (in situ 14C) from quartz and carbonate. These minerals can be found in most environments on Earth, but are usually absent from mafic terrains. To fill this gap, we conducted numerous experiments aimed at extracting in situ 14C from olivine ((Fe,Mg)2SiO4). We were able to extract a stable and reproducible in situ 14C component from olivine using stepped heating and a lithium metaborate (LiBO2) flux, following treatment with dilute HNO3 over a variety of experimental conditions. However, measured concentrations for samples from the Tabernacle Hill basalt flow (17.3 ± 0.3 ka4) in central Utah and the McCarty's basalt flow (3.0 ± 0.2 ka) in western New Mexico were significantly lower than expected based on exposure of olivine in our samples to cosmic rays at each site. The source of the discrepancy is not clear. We speculate that in situ 14C atoms may not have been released from Mg-rich crystal lattices (the olivine composition at both sites was ∼Fo65Fa35). Alternatively, a portion of the 14C atoms released from the olivine grains may have become trapped in synthetic spinel-like minerals that were created in the olivine-flux mixture during the extraction process, or were simply retained in the mixture itself. Regardless, the magnitude of the discrepancy appears to be inversely proportional to the Fe/(Fe+Mg) ratio of the olivine separates. If we apply a simple correction factor based on the chemical composition of the separates, then corrected in situ 14C concentrations are similar to theoretical values at both sites. At this time, we do not know if this agreement is fortuitous or real. Future research should include measurement of in situ 14C concentrations in olivine from known-age basalt flows with different chemical compositions (i.e. more Fe-rich) to determine if this correction is robust for all olivine-bearing rocks.


The Rights and Wrongs of Land Restitution: 'Restoring What Was Ours' offers a critical, comparative ethnographic examination of land restitution programmes. Drawing on memories and histories of past dispossession, governments, NGOs, informal movements and individual claimants worldwide have attempted to restore and reclaim rights in land. Land restitution programmes link the past and the present, and may allow former landholders to reclaim lands which provided the basis of earlier identities and livelihoods. Restitution also has a moral weight that holds broad appeal; it is represented as righting injustice and healing the injuries of colonialism. Restitution may have unofficial purposes, like establishing the legitimacy of a new regime, quelling popular discontent or attracting donor funds. It may produce unintended consequences, transforming notions of property and ownership, entrenching local bureaucracies, or replicating segregated patterns of land use. It may also constitute new relations between states and their subjects. Land-claiming communities may make new claims on the state, but they may also find the state making unexpected claims on their land and livelihoods. Restitution may be a route to citizenship, but it may engender new or neo-traditional forms of subjection. This book explores these possibilities and pitfalls by examining cases from the Americas, Eastern Europe, Australia and South Africa. Addressing the practical and theoretical questions that arise, The Rights and Wrongs of Land Restitution thereby offers a critical rethinking of the links between land restitution and property, social transition, injustice, citizenship, the state and the market.


Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (CITS) is the term generally used to describe a form of Intelligent Transport Systems in which information is shared amongst vehicles or between vehicles and roadside infrastructure such as traffic signals. This has the potential to greatly improve road safety, improve network efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases. The Cooperative Intelligent Transport Initiative (CITI) pilot will be the first semipermanent CITS field test bed site in Australia. The Objective of the CITI project is to construct a 42 km connected freight corridor test facility in the Illawarra Region of NSW south of Sydney. This will be one of the first large scale test facilities dedicated to Heavy Vehicles in the world. The first stage of the project will fit in-vehicle dedicated short range communication (DSRC) transceivers in up to 60 trucks that regularly travel the planned route. In addition, three signalised intersections are being equipped with DSRC roadside units which will communicate with the trial vehicles. A 40 km/h truck and bus speed zone warning system is also planned for installation at the top of Mt Ousley to alert drivers about to descend the very steep (up to 12 percent downhill gradient) south bound section of the road. This paper will provide an update on the progress of the CITI project and examine issues including project planning, equipment licensing, human machine interface development, data management and participant recruitment.


This work investigates the effectiveness of using a 10.6 μm CO2 marking laser to activate a thermally sensitive adhesive coating on linear low density polyethylene film for the purpose of bonding the film to polypropylene substrate. A potential technical hurdle in the form bubbling has been witnessed and described. Bubbling prevented contact between the two laminates and impinged upon the viability of the bonds produced; film handling improvement is recommended as a solution. The Gaussian profile of the laser in concert with the circular laser spot shape and the traverse strategy of the scans used caused the centre of the bond to be over irradiated whilst the edge was under-irradiated. This had several affects: it limited the area over which an effective bond was achieved; caused delamination of the film at the track edges and locally modified the polypropylene structure. A highly consistent and repeatable mean peel resistance force of 1.09 N was achieved using the laser activated adhesive bonding technique described. Little bond strength dependency upon laser irradiance was observed, which allied with the results of other work, leads to the proposal that the adhesive has a very broad laser irradiance operating range.


The Global Policing Database is used to update a 2007 systematic review of the impact of street-level law enforcement interventions on drug crime and drug-related calls-for-service. A total of 26 studies (reported in 29 documents) were eligible for this updated review. Eighteen of the 26 studies reported sufficient data to calculate effect sizes. We find that, overall, street-level policing approaches are effective in reducing drug crime, particularly those involving partnerships. We also find that geographically targeted law enforcement interventions are more effective in reducing drug crime than standard, unfocused approaches. Approaches that target larger problem areas for intervention are more effective for reducing drug crime (but not calls-for-service) than approaches that focus on micro problem places.


This classic volume, now available at a lower price, showcases jet-set homes designed by the likes of Neutra, Frey, Lautner, and others. Palm Springs is famous as a mecca for the international jet set. But the city has also attracted its share of eccentrics and mavericks who have left an architectural legacy that remains unsurpassed for its originality and international influence. This book examines the impact that architects and designers have had on the desert oasis, primarily from the 1940s to the 1960s. Palm Springs Modern features examples of midcentury modernism at its most glamorous, some of them the residences of prominent figures who commissioned weekend getaways in the desert, including Frank Sinatra, Walter Annenberg, and Raymond Loewy. Adele Cygelman's insightful text, a foreword by architectural historian Joseph Rosa, contemporary color photography by David Glomb, and the celebrated archival black-and-white work of Julius Shulman all capture the distinctly modern allure of America's famed desert playground.


trans-4-Hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), a major product of lipid peroxidation, is able to interact with DNA to form 6-(1-hydroxyhexanyl)-8-hydroxy-1,N(2)-propano-2'-deoxyguanosine (4-HNE-dG) adducts, but its genotoxicity and mutagenicity remain elusive. It has been reported that 4-HNE treatment in human cells induces a high frequency of G.C to T.A mutations at the third base of codon 249 (AGG*) of the p53 gene, a mutational hot spot in human cancers, particularly in hepatocellular carcinoma. This G.C to T.A transversion at codon 249, however, has been thought to be caused by etheno-DNA adducts induced by the endogenous metabolite of 4-HNE, 2,3-epoxy-4-hydroxynonanal. We have recently found that 4-HNE preferentially forms 4-HNE-dG adducts at the GAGG*C/A sequence in the p53 gene including codon 249 (GAGG*C). Our finding supports the possibility that G.C to T.A mutations at codon 249 may be induced by 4-HNE-dG adducts. To investigate this possibility, we determined the mutational spectrum induced by 4-HNE-dG adducts in the supF gene of shuttle vector pSP189 replicated in human cells. We have found that 4-HNE-dG adducts are mutagenic and genotoxic in human cells, and that G.C to T.A transversions are the most prevalent mutations induced by 4-HNE-dG adducts. Furthermore, 4-HNE-dG adducts induce a significantly higher level of genotoxicity and mutagenicity in nucleotide excision repair (NER)-deficient human and Escherichia coli cells than in NER-proficient cells, indicating that NER is a major pathway for repairing 4-HNE-dG adducts in both human and E. coli cells. Together, these results suggest that 4-HNE-dG adducts may contribute greatly to the G.C to T.A mutation at codon 249 of the p53 gene, and may play an important role in carcinogenesis.


Recent advances in self-attention and pure multi-layer perceptrons (MLP) models for vision have shown great potential in achieving promising performance with fewer inductive biases. These models are generally based on learning interaction among spatial locations from raw data. The complexity of self-attention and MLP grows quadratically as the image size increases, which makes these models hard to scale up when high-resolution features are required. In this paper, we present the Global Filter Network (GFNet), a conceptually simple yet computationally efficient architecture, that learns long-term spatial dependencies in the frequency domain with log-linear complexity. Our architecture replaces the self-attention layer in vision transformers with three key operations: a 2D discrete Fourier transform, an element-wise multiplication between frequency-domain features and learnable global filters, and a 2D inverse Fourier transform. We exhibit favorable accuracy/complexity trade-offs of our models on both ImageNet and downstream tasks. Our results demonstrate that GFNet can be a very competitive alternative to transformer-style models and CNNs in efficiency, generalization ability and robustness. Code is available at https://github.com/raoyongming/GFNet


Physical vapour deposition (PVD) techniques used for the application of advanced surface engineering materials have been developed over many years, but only in about the last 10 years has the unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBMS) PVD technique been developed and emerged as one of the most promising techniques for depositing reliable and high quality films used in industrial production.Hard coatings have been studied for many years for the purpose of improving the performance of various tools, mechanical parts, and engineering components. The most studied binary hard coatings (such as stoichiometric titanium nitrides and titanium carbides) and the ternary hard coating (such as titanium carbonitride) have been developed for wear resistance for many years. Although many investigations have been made into the production of coatings with stoichiometric phases, it is both scientifically and commercially interesting to investigate the production and reproducibility of the pure titanium sub-nitride Ti2N films.The first results in chapter 5 describe work carried out to investigate the effect of nitrogen and carbon concentration within the films and was a prelude to the main activity of the development of Ti2N films using commercial conditions.The work for Ti2N was carried out without substrate rotation in the UBMS coating process. The static deposition processes were studied to give a better understanding of the effect of partial pressures on the compositions of the Ti-N films. The phase development as a function of the composition of the films was investigated. The main contribution during this procedure was to achieve a suitable range of nitrogen partial pressure by which the films containing pure Ti2N phase were produced using a UBMS deposition technique. The nitrogen content of the film was very sensitive to variation in nitrogen partial pressure and the nitrogen concentration influenced the phases developed in the films. The reproducibility of the pure Ti2N phase was also discussed in this initial work.A series of extensive experiments were conducted to investigate the formation of Ti2N phase in the UBMS deposition processes using one to three fold rotations. The nitrogen partial pressure of the deposition process was basically determined from the results of the initial work. The effect of substrate rotation on the film composition during processing was studied. In general the film deposited using substrate rotation consisted of different composition using the same chamber condition in one process in which the nitrogen content of the coating increased from one fold rotation to three fold rotation. The film containing dominant eTi2N phase could be produced on a sample using three fold rotation in a process whilst the multiphase compositions (aTiN0.3 + eTi2N) were developed on the sample using the one and two fold rotations in the same process.Characteristics of the eTi2N films and the films containing multiphase compositions were investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), glow discharge optical emission spectrometer (GDOES), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and a variety of mechanical testing instruments. The eTi2N films have very smooth surface, very dense and fine columnar structure, relatively high hardness, and excellent adhesion with the substrate. The drilling tests using coated high speed steel drills compared the coatings containing eTi2N phase with those containing a single TiN phase and showed excellent wear resistant results.6.


This dissertation started with a simple question: Why is it so difficult to lead successful organizational change initiatives? The dynamics of organizational behavior support a plethora of complex answers to this simple question. Indeed, literature abounds regarding the need for organizational change, individual transformation, and living system adaptation. However, Jaworski, Gozdz, and Senge (1998) noted that although much has been written about organizational change, there is little offered in literature about how to achieve change. Beer and Nohria (2000) added that existing organizational change theory is not sufficient to address organizational transformation especially relative to the people side of change. Wall (2004) echoed in this void claiming there is still no practical organizational change process, technique, or formula available to plan, lead, and sustain change. This brief literature suggests that organizational change is difficult due in part because there is not a clearly practical explanation of how to change. Thus, the grand aim here is to provide an understanding of how to change, and offer what is commonly referred to as change implementation theory (Bennis, 1966). The research approach to accomplish this aim took a constructivist knowledge claim position in that theory generation is the goal. The strategy of inquiry followed a qualitative research method using grounded theory protocols. Theory building was data driven largely from expert interviews. However, existing literature and emerging approaches were also employed along side constant comparative analysis throughout the study. The result is detailed herein as an organizational change implementation theory and utilitarian change leadership field guide regarding how best to plan, lead, and sustain organizational change. Understanding How To Change iv


Operations research uses quantitative models to analyze and predict the behavior of systems and to provide information for decision makers. Two key concepts in such research are optimization and uncertainty. Typical models in stochastic operations research include queueing models, inventory models, financial engineering models, reliability models, and simulation models. This book contains a collection of peer-reviewed papers from the International Workshop on Recent Advances in Stochastic Operations Research (2007 RASOR Nanzan) held on March 5–6, 2007, at Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan. It enables advanced readers to understand the recent topics and results in stochastic operations research.


The theory of values is underdeveloped within economics with very few theoretical models explaining how values are created and propagated through a population. Those models that do exist are limited in how well they explain the role of values and how they behave. This paper argues that the theory of values needs to be fundamentally rethought, incorporating basic ideas from psychology, anthropology and philosophy that have largely been ignored in the literature. The resulting model is applied to answer some fundamental issues surrounding the notion of multiculturalism.


A single-crystal X-ray refinement has been performed on two synthetic P 2 1/c clinopyroxenes of composition Ca 0.15 Mg 1.85 Si 2 O 6 (Di 15 En 85 ) and Ca 0.23 Mg 1.77 Si 2 O 6 (Di 23 En 77 ). Splitting of the M2, O2B, O3A and O3B sites was inferred by the presence of significant residuals in the difference Fourier map and by an anomalous size and orientation of the displacement parameters. A refinement performed according to a split-model showed the coexistence of two M2 polyhedral configurations, one clinoenstatite-like, the other like Caricher C2/c clinopyroxenes. The two configurations have been interpreted assuming the coexistence of Ca and Mg centred polyhedra, possibly in connection with clustering preliminary to exsolution. The difference between the two configurations increases with increasing Ca content. A TEM investigation of the sample with composition Ca 0.15 Mg 1.85 Si 2 O 6 showed the lack of exsolution textures and antiphase domains larger than 1μm. Analysis of the average structural configurations shows that the substitution of Ca for Mg deforms differently Ca-poorer (up to 0.2–0.3 atoms p.f.u) and Ca-richer (between 0.3 and 0.6 Ca atoms p.f.u.) P2 1 / c iron-free clinopyroxenes. In Ca-poorer ones only minor changes in the β parameter were found, related to a lack of shift in tetrahedral chains, whereas Ca-richer undergo a significant decrease in the βparameter, possibly due to stronger chain shift.


A novel and convenient synthesis of substituted 6-(substituted thio) tetrazolo[1,5-a] triazolo[3,4-c] quinoxalines has been carried out. The newly synthesized compounds have been characterized by IR, 1HNMR, and mass spectral data followed by elemental analysis. All the newly synthesized heterocycles have been screened for their in vitro anti-microbial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis as Gram-positive bacteria, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as Gram-negative bacteria. They were also evaluated for their in vitro anti-fungal potential against Candida albicans. Few of them have exhibited the promising activity.


Personal health records (PHRs) have lots of benefits for things such as health surveillance, epidemiological surveillance, self-control, links to various services, public health and health management, and international surveillance. The implementation of an international standard for interoperability is essential to accessing personal health records. In Taiwan, the nationwide exchange platform for electronic medical records (EMRs) has been in use for many years. The Health Level Seven International (HL7) Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) was used as the standard of the EMRs. However, the complication of implementing CDA became a barrier for many hospitals to realize the standard EMRs. In this study, we implemented a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-based PHR transformation process including a user interface module to review the contents of PHRs. We used "My Health Bank, MHB", a PHR data book developed and issued to all people by the Taiwan National Health Insurance, as the PHRs contents in this study. Network Time Protocol (NTP)/Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) was used in the security and user authentication mechanism when processing and applying personal health information. Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 (such as HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) was used for protection in data communication. User authentication is important in the platform. OAuth (OAuth 2.0) was used as a user authentication mechanism to confirm legitimate user access to ensure data security. The contents of MHB were analyzed and mapped to the FHIR, and then converted to FHIR format according to the mapping logic template. The function of format conversion was carried out by using ASP.NET. XPath and JSPath technologies filtered out specific information tags. The converted data structure was verified through an HL7 Application Programming Interface (HAPI) server, and a new JSON file was finally created. This platform can not only capture any PHR based on the FHIR format but also publish FHIR-based MHB records to any other platform to bridge the interoperability gap between different PHR systems. Therefore, our implementation/application with the automatic transformation from MHB to FHIR format provides an innovative method for people to access their own PHRs (MHB). No one has published a similar application like us using a nationwide PHR standard, MHB, in Taiwan. The application we developed will be very useful for a single person to use or for other system developers to implement their own standard PHR software.


Goslin is the first grammar-based computational library for the recognition/parsing and normalization of lipid names following the hierarchical lipid shorthand nomenclature. The new version Goslin 2.0 implements the latest nomenclature and adds an additional grammar to recognize systematic IUPAC-IUB fatty acyl names as stored, e.g., in the LIPID MAPS database and is perfectly suited to update lipid names in LIPID MAPS or HMDB databases to the latest nomenclature. Goslin 2.0 is available as a standalone web application with a REST API as well as C++, C#, Java, Python 3, and R libraries. Importantly, it can be easily included in lipidomics tools and scripts providing direct access to translation functions. All implementations are open source.


Simultaneous localisation and map building (SLAM) is one of the most important and challenging areas of mobile robotics. Unfortunately, the optimal Kalman filter solution incurs computational costs that scale quadratically with the number of beacons, which is prohibitive for many real time and large scale applications. Consequently, there is a significant practical need for more efficient approaches. The challenge is to develop methods that are both efficient and mathematically rigorous. In this paper we show that the full SLAM problem can be decomposed into two distinct mathematical operations. One is the maintenance of global state information for both the vehicle and the beacons, and the other is the maintenance of relative state information. These operations are distinct because the former is an unobserservable estimation problem while the latter is not. We argue that solutions to these two problems can be applied as scaffolding for the development of a wide variety of specialized SLAM algorithms. As a practical demonstration of the power of the two operations when applied as a generic solution to the SLAM problem, we provide empirical results for a scenario requiring the real-time construction and maintenance of a map containing 1.1 million beacons.


There are limited data on the differences in the impact of psoriasis between various countries with respect to quality of life (QoL). The aim of this study was to explore the psychosocial health of patients with psoriasis in different European countries. A total of 682 patients were recruited in 13 European countries. All patients completed a questionnaire regarding socio-demographic information, negative life events, suicidal ideation and satisfaction with their dermatologist. Depression and anxiety were assessed with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and QoL with the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and EuroQoL (EQ-5D). The lowest anxiety and depression scoring was noted in patients from Denmark, the lowest level of impairment in QoL in subjects from Spain, and the highest level of impairment in QoL in patients from Italy. The most relevant parameters influencing patients' well-being were severity of pruritus and satisfaction with their dermatologist. The level of anxiety and depression symptoms correlated significantly with suicidal ideation.


Research reports that young people aged 10 to 24 years are reluctant to seek help for a mental health problem due to multiple factors and that intervention within this demographic is critical. The aim of this review was to critique the existing literature, using a systematic approach on how the type of helping relationship affects young people's help-seeking behavior, engagement, and maintenance in mental health care. Searches of nine databases produced 22 relevant articles of original research with young people aged 10 to 24 years for inclusion in this review. A thematic analysis identified three themes: (a) context of trust and confidentiality, (b) supportive rapport, and (c) collaborative approach to treatment. Findings indicate that researchers, practitioners, and policy makers need to prioritize the role of the helping relationship and its core components of trust and confidentiality, supportive rapport, and collaborative treatment, as essential in the provision of meaningful mental health care for young people.


: The recent phenomenon that has become known as the European refugee crisis is, in reality, a global problem. Accordingly, issues regarding refugee integration have become a central debate topic worldwide. In this paper, we examine how refugees use information and communication technology (ICT) in different regions across the world to understand how ICT supports their desperate journey to safety, their stay in temporary settlement camps, and their post-settlement inclusion in host countries. We conducted a series of interviews with Syrian refugees in Berlin, Germany, to collect preliminary insights. Then, we organized panel discussions at two key information systems conferences (ICIS 2016 and ECIS 2017) that involved participants from various countries. The panel discussions revealed seven key research themes: accessibility to information, availability of education and linguistic resources, admissibility to labor markets and entrepreneurship opportunities, communicability with home country, connectedness with local population, interactivity with host government, and volunteer coordination. We discuss how ICT might help to address issues related to each theme, present research questions relevant to each theme, and supply an illustration of how ICT has been employed to address an aspect of each theme. Insights gathered lead to theoretical implications and future opportunities for research in the information systems field, practical implications for different stakeholders interested in refugee integration to consider, and social implications related to refugee crisis that we cannot ignore.


In Euroamerican annals of contact with Native Americans, Indians have consistently been portrayed as master orators who demonstrate natural eloquence during treaty negotiations, councils, and religious ceremonies. Esteemed by early European commentators more than indigenous storytelling, oratory was in fact a way of establishing self-worth among Native Americans, and might even be viewed as their supreme literary achievement. William Clements now explores the reasons for the acclaim given to Native oratory. He examines in detail a wide range of source material representing cultures throughout North America, analyzing speeches made by Natives as recorded by whites, such as observations of treaty negotiations, accounts by travelers, missionaries' reports, captivity narratives, and soldiers' memoirs. Here is a rich documentation of oratory dating from the earliest records: Benjamin Franklin's publication of treaty proceedings with the Six Nations of the Iroquois; the travel narratives of John Lawson, who visited Carolina Indians in the early 1700s; accounts of Jesuit missionary Pierre De Smet, who evangelized to Northern Plains Indians in the nineteenth century; and much more. The book also includes full texts of several orations. These texts are comprehensive documents that report not only the contents of the speeches but the entirety of the delivery: the textures, situations, and contexts that constitute oratorical events. While there are valid concerns about the reliability of early recorded oratory given the prejudices of those recording them, Clements points out that we must learn what we can from that record. He extends the thread unwoven in his earlier study Native American Verbal Art to show that the long history of textualization of American Indian oral performance offers much that can reward the reader willing to scrutinize the entirety of the texts. By focusing on this one genre of verbal art, he shows us ways in which the sources are and are not valuable and what we must do to ascertain their value. Oratory in Native North America is a panoramic work that introduces readers to a vast history of Native speech while recognizing the limitations in premodern reporting. By guiding us through this labyrinth, Clements shows that with understanding we can gain significant insight not only into Native American culture but also into a rich storehouse of language and performance art.


A Complete Training Package!Full-color, step-by-step instructional bookVideo training from expert instructorsTutorials and lesson files on companion DVDYou have a personal tutor in the Digital ClassroomIf you want expert instruction that fits into your schedule, the Digital Classroom series delivers. Expert instructors guide you through each lesson, helping you learn essential Premiere Pro CC skills at your own speed. Full-color, step-by-step instructions in the book are enhanced with video tutorials on the companion DVD. With this Digital Classroom training package, you have your own private instructor showing you the easiest way to learn Premiere Pro CC.Import video, audio, and still images and edit them together on the TimelineAdd transitions and effects to your video to make your projects more engaging and appealingAutomatically stabilize shaky footage with the Warp StabilizerAnimate layered Photoshop files to create onscreen graphicsCreate text and titles using the built-in Premiere Pro TitlerUse Adobe Encore to author your projects to disk or for web distributionDVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of the e-book file, but are available for download after purchase.


This article is an effort to identify changes in the legal standards governing obligations of corporate directors which are likely to prevent – not merely punish - the sorts of catastrophic mistakes by private firms which have led to our recent economic upheaval. The author addresses inadequacies in both present law – particularly the business judgment rule as it applies to large, highly interconnected firms – and pending reform efforts, such as limitations on compensation for executives, and increased proxy access for non-management director candidates. The article's emphasis is on the need to address outcomes instead of the process-oriented approach of present law and proposed changes. In particular, the author takes what is likely to be a controversial position, of advocating direct responsibility of directors of highly interconnected firms, presenting significant systemic exposure, under certain circumstances, when seriously adverse outcomes befall their firms. Such responsibility would take the form of a reversal of the present burden of proof placed on plaintiffs in actions alleging breach of directors' duty of care.


Dyspnea is the main clinical manifestation of acute respiratory failure; however, it can be induced by different causes that require differential diagnosis. In elderly patients, the medical examination is limited by cognitive and physical deficits and the genesis of dyspnea is often multifactorial; therefore, the definition of the causes is more complex. In recent years, among the various diagnostic methods, pulmonary ultrasonography has found increasing interest and the main patterns of ultrasound semeiotics have been described, specially in the emergency and critical care setting, as for pneumonia, pleural effusion, pneumothorax, pulmonary infarction, interstitial pathology. The most recent Literature emphasizes the role of multi-organ ultrasound (pleuro-pulmonar; cardiac; caval and iliac-femoral venous), to diagnose with good accuracy the causes of dyspnea. In this review we report the lung ultrasound semeiotic patterns, useful for the bedside or pointof- care detection of the cause of dyspnea, particularly respiratory and/or cardiac, during the medical examination.


In the present work 2-((1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)thio)-N-(4-(4-(1H-indol-3-yl)-8-methyl-1H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepin-2-yl)phenyl)acetamide 3ad, N-(4-(4-(1H-indol-3-yl)-8-methyl-1H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepin-2-yl)phenyl)-2-((5-methoxy-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)thio)acetamide 4a-d and N-(4-(4-(1H-indol-3-yl)-8-methyl-1H-benzo[b][1,4]diazepin-2-yl)phenyl)-2-(benzo[d]thiazol-2-ylthio) acetamide 5a-d were synthesized in good yield in in-situ by cyclization of chalcones with substituted ortho-phenylenediamine. The chalcones were in turn prepared by Claisen–Schmidt condensation 2-(1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-ylthio)-N-(4-acetylphenyl) acetamide and various 2, 5-disubstituted indole-3-carboxaldehydes in the presence of piperidine. The structures of all the newly synthesized compounds were characterized by their IR, 1HNMR, mass spectral studies and elemental analysis. All these compounds were screened for their in-vitro antimicrobial activity by agar plate diffusion method, Antioxidant activities: like, 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity (RSA), Ferric ions (Fe3+) reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), Ferrous (Fe2+) metal ion chelating activity. Some of the compounds have shown potent anti-microbial activity against all the screened bacteria and fungi and some have exhibited very good antioxidant activity.


Introduction and Objectives Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) has been developed over the last two decades as a method of treating peripheral early stage (T1, T2) NSCLC. It is considered as a valid option for treatment when surgery is high risk or declined. Many clinicians now question whether SABR can be considered as a genuine alternative to surgery for peripheral stage I NSCLC. One concern about any comparison with surgery is that those patients who receive SABR may miss out on adjuvant chemotherapy due to lack of pathological nodal staging that would be done post operatively. Our aim was to determine what proportion of cases this might represent. Methods We carried out a retrospective review of surgical resections for lung cancer between 2008 and 2011 at a teaching hospital in Yorkshire. We identified those patients who were staged preoperatively as T1 or T2 with no nodal or distant metastases. We also identified a subgroup of patients with peripheral tumours no greater than 5cm in diameter (i.e. those potentially suitable for SABR). We recorded post operative staging and whether they received adjuvant chemotherapy. Results We identified 162 cases in total (81 female) of which 13.7% had nodal involvement on post operative staging. Of these, 72.7% received adjuvant chemotherapy. Within the subgroup with peripheral tumours <5cm there were 116 cases of which 7.0% had nodal involvement. Of these, 62.5% received adjuvant chemotherapy. Conclusions Our findings show that a significant number of patients who are preoperatively staged as N0 do have hilar and/or mediastinal nodal involvement at the time of surgery. However, many of these patients have central tumours not suitable for SABR. In the subgroup of patients with small peripheral tumours, that would potentially be suitable for SABR, this proportion is smaller. It is thought that on direct comparison with surgery those who receive SABR might be more likely to develop recurrent disease due to nodal involvement outside of the radiotherapy field in some patients. Our results suggest that this proportion is small. Any effect on overall survival would be weighed against peri-operative morbidity and mortality.


Archaeological study of ancient agriculture in the eastern Mediterranean has traditionally focused on what crops were farmed, at what sites, during which periods. Questions about why farmers adopted specific agricultural strategies, however, have been left to historical analysis. Such an approach divorces the study of the actual residues of farming from the cultural and social environments that contextualize the decision-making processes of farmers. Rich new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data sets from the Mediterranean, however, offer an opportunity to reconstruct agricultural and land-use strategies and to study diachronic changes in those practices in relation to contemporary changes in political economy. This article uses the case study of the urban site of Gordion in central Anatolia to illustrate new techniques for reconstructing agricultural decision making from archaeological data and to contextualize diachronic changes in agriculture within their social and economic framework. I argue that several aspects of political economy—namely, taxation, long-distance trade, and settlement patterns—are primary factors in the adoption of specific agricultural strategies at Gordion and beyond. I conclude that states with direct control of agricultural production are more likely to adopt environmentally unsustainable land-use practices than those in which farmers have considerable autonomy. The methods and broader implications developed here have great relevance for the study of agriculture and rural economy at other sites in the Mediterranean and Near East and in other areas of the ancient world.


Due to the interactive affordances of twenty-first century technologies, the relationship between readers and texts is often repositioned as part of a communal experience of consumption and reproduction. Inclusive in this expanding culture are user-generated adaptations of Shakespeare, most saliently fanfic. The fanfic universe prolifically crosses genres, putting the Shakespearean urtext in conversation with any other object of cultural interest, and occasionally subjugates the Shakespearean text to the dominant popular icon of the moment. Fanfic manifests textual enjoyment as a creative act; the genre is both recreational and re-creational, resulting in new adaptive works that expand the dramas to include sequels, prequels, and off-stage explorations of character and plot. Because Shakespeare is experienced variously through printed text, television, film, theatrical, or digitized performance – all of which underline the instability of an authoritative Shakespeare text – Shakespeare studies is uniquely positioned to expand critical understanding of adaptation and appropriation vis-à-vis the fanfiction universe. Fanfic's online modality, existing on websites that facilitate dialogic interaction between author and audience, offers scholars an ongoing chronicle of reception. Uniquely, online interactions allow Shakespeare cultural critics to analyze the ways user-generated fanfic positions Shakespeare's work as open to transition, crafting adaptations that illustrate what Shakespeare means to everyday users.