Most jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes) replace their teeth throughout life (polyphyodonty) and there is currently great interest in its molecular and cellular basis, particularly in fish. While much has still to be elucidated, it appears that whichever tooth replacement mechanism is used, only one tooth replaces one predecessor, at any one time. Here we present fossil crushing dentitions of two extinct pycnodont fishes, Pycnodus zeaformis and Pycnodus maliensis. Their surface features and x‐ray micro‐CT virtual sections show no evidence of one‐for‐one replacement. Instead, individual large teeth were replaced by multiple small teeth, for which, as far as we could ascertain, there is no known mechanism. This occurred where underlying dentigerous bone was damaged. Small teeth also developed where parts of large teeth had broken off, and in gaps between large teeth created by the geometry of their close alignment in rows. We compared the virtual sections to those of functionally analogous crushing dentitions of three modern fishes. Contrasting greatly to the pycnodonts, each showed an orderly, one‐for‐one replacement, typical of osteichthyans. We propose that the pycnodont specimens exhibit a gap‐filling tooth addition hitherto unseen in gnathostomes, and that the oral epithelium retained an initiatory competence throughout life, with a programming of 'if a gap exists, fill it'. This would also have facilitated the addition of large teeth in rows, in space provided by ontogenetic growth. We hypothesize that gaps were registered as an absence of pressure at the crushing surface, initiating tooth development, as in the modern cichlid Astatoreochromis alluaudi.


The ability to osmoregulate is essential to survival. Van der Heide and Poolman cloned and reconstituted into liposomes the purified components of the osmoregulated ABC transporter (OpuA) from Lactococcus lactis. With an ATP-regenerating system inside the liposomes, the OpuA system was able to transport glycine betaine into the liposomes. The uptake was stimulated by a transmembrane osmotic gradient of either ionic or nonionic solutes. Furthermore, transport activity was stimulated by tetracaine, an amphiphile that alters membrane curvature, mimicking the membrane stress that occurs under hyperosmotic conditions. The data suggest that the two proteins of the OpuA system serve as both the osomosensor and the osmoregulator and that the osmotic gradient is sensed as changes in the membrane bilayer. van der Heide, T., and Poolman, B. (2000) Osmoregulated ABC-transport system of Lactococcus lactis senses water stress via changes in the physical state of the membrane. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97: 7102-7106. [Abstract] [Full Text]


It is well known that the smooth muscle of the human myometrium is a target for the steroid hormones progesterone (P4) and estrogen. Progesterone is believed to participate in the maintenance of pregnancy, while estrogen is possibly involved in the process of parturition by promoting cervical dilatation. We examined the combined effects of P4 and 17beta-estradiol (E2) on components of signalling pathways in human myometrial cells in vitro by immunoblotting. Long-term treatment of myometrial cells with a series of concentrations of P4 and E2 in combination caused a change in the phosphorylation status of p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinase and of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (SAPK/JNK). P4 and E2 caused a decrease in protein expression of Gqalpha, Gzalpha, Gi1/2alpha and, to a lesser extent, G0alpha. The two steroids caused a decrease in the expression of the two small GSalpha isoforms. Cyclo-oxygenase-2 expression was increased by 2.5-fold after steroid treatment, while proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression levels remained unchanged. These observations show that the combination of P4 and E2 influences intracellular and membrane-bound components of signal transduction pathways in human myometrial cells. The implications of the two steroid hormones on intracellular signalling pathways in the human myometrium merits further investigation.


Cancer is one of the leading causes of death around the world and the number of patients is expected to increase in the next years. Most of the cancer patients are treated with radiotherapy for at least a part of their treatment. The success of a radiation therapy

treatment lies on its correct planning and the accurate prediction of dose distribution

in the patient.

These dose distributions are generated using treatment planning systems. Analytical

algorithms are commonly used despite more accurate results can be achieved using Monte Carlo based algorithms due to the long calculation times required by them. In 2013 a new Monte Carlo based algorithm, PRIMO, was developed. In this program, based on PENELOPE, several variance reduction techniques have been included in order to speed up the calculations as well as a graphical user interface has been designed to make it user friendly.

This work will help to validate the simulation code PRIMO. The validation of a treatment planning algorithm involves many different tests, among them, a basic validation of computed doses compared to measurements in water, as well as the verification of its dosimetric accuracy in complex situations. The aim of this work is to investigate the performance of the PRIMO code, in particular to study its dosimetric accuracy in complex situations such as the presence of materials different than water (lung and bone) and when computing the dose within the first millimeters of the patient. This aim was translated into a set of computational experiments performed on simple geometrical phantoms as well as on computerized tomography images.

Results showed that the algorithm allows to obtain accurate results in water phantoms,

as well as in regions susceptible to errors like the build up region and regions with material heterogeneities.


Emerging Themes in Cognitive Development, Volumes I and II offer the full spectrum of current knowledge and research trends in cognitive developmental psychology. The first volume provides a foundation by describing key discoveries in new areas of research and by thoroughly examining fundamental aspects of the field, including several demonstrations of formal modeling; the gains in prediction and precision that can be won by such mathematical analyses are the hallmark of cognitive development as a maturing science. The second volume traces the development of cognitive competence - denoting a change or increment in cognitive proficiency, understanding, or mastery - and includes analyses of innovative and previously unpublished studies. The primary challenge issued by many of the authors in this volume is to ensure the incorporation of new knowledge into educational practices. These volumes, which are milestones in cognitive developmental psychology, interest every researcher in the field.


ABSTRACT Cognitive Neuroscience provides a rich variety of methods for the investigation of the neural underpinnings of human behaviour. This paper gives an overview of the most popular measurement methods used in neuroscience such as EEG and MRI, that have relevance for forensic psychology. After outlining these methods, I have provided some examples from forensic research. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the challenges confronting forensic researchers and clinicians using neuroimaging in research as well as in the court room.


Inspired by Indigenous water and land protectors in Standing Rock (ND) and Muskrat Falls (NL), as well as her new identity as soon-to-be 'parent', the editor suggests that issues of activism and identity are intertwined in the ways in which the political and academic lives of new scholars are developed during their training in Canadian post-secondary institutions. The editor also presents an overview of the five articles in this Fall issue related to issues of identity and rethinking educational theories in a variety of Canadian educational spaces, including: post-secondary vocational education (Gustafson), physical education programs and models-based practices (Baker), exploring feminisms in educational contexts (Syme Anderson), exploring academic discourse socialization in post-secondary institutions (Vasilopoulos), and a reflection on theories surrounding adolescent motivation in Quebec's educational context (Gaudreau).


A neural network assisted proportional-plus-integral (PI) control strategy is proposed to improve the air pressure control performance of variable air volume (VAV) system. The neural network is trained online with a normalized training algorithm, which eliminates the requirement of a bounded regression signal to the system. To ensure the convergence of the training algorithm, an adaptive dead zone scheme is employed. Stability of the proposed control scheme is guaranteed based on the conic sector theory. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, real-time tests were carried out on a pilot VAV air-conditioning system and good experimental results are obtained.


Strong seismic waves from the July 2019 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes displaced rocks in proximity to the M 7.1 mainshock fault trace at several locations. In this report, we document large boulders that were displaced at the Wagon Wheel Staging Area (WWSA), approximately 4.5 km southeast of the southern terminus of the large M 6.4 foreshock rupture (hereafter "the large foreshock") and 9 km southwest of the nearest approach of the M 7.1 mainshock surface rupture. Some boulders appear to have slid along essentially flat surfaces, which suggest that dynamic stresses overcame the coefficient of friction. Other boulders appear to have rocked within their sockets. In both cases, we use simple mechanical models to estimate total peak dynamic accelerations between 0.5 and 1g, commensurate with modified Mercalli intensity 9. It is unclear if the strongest shaking at this location occurred during the large foreshock or the M 7.1 mainshock. The inferred accelerations are higher than predicted mainshock ground motions at WWSA, although local high accelerations could have been generated by path, site, or source effects. Gaps between boulders and their sockets are easily visible in the immediate aftermath of earthquakes and provide a quick indication of strong shaking. More importantly, the gaps quickly fill with surficial organic debris, including seeds and leaves of the year, that quickly become entombed. Boulders may thus potentially be extracted to examine gap fillings associated with past earthquakes, providing a new datable paleoseismic method.


INTRODUCTION In the last years considerable researches had focused on monetary policy transmission mechanism to understand the monetary policy effect on the real economy, many macro economists are always in debates to understand the mechanism through which this policy can works. Knowing about monetary policy transmission are very important, it describes the link between monetary policy actions and their impact on real economic activities and how it affect goal variables other than income, unemployment, inflation, and prices . From this point of view and for the importance of the supply of loans (total credit) offered by commercial bank, we will study the effect of monetary policy transmission through what is known by bank lending channel on the amount of total credit offered by Jordanian banking sectors, and the impact of monetary policy on output. Standard macro-economic models of aggregate demand had focused mainly on the money significant role, at the same time many economists had worked hardly to interpret and to show the importance of bank loans in the transmission of monetary policy (which is called the bank lending channel).The bank lending channel represents one of the channels that are influenced by the monetary policy actions, and through which monetary policy can works, it focus on the effect of monetary policy on the supply of bank loans especially in the cases where borrowers do not have any alternative sources of bank loans as a source of funding. Monetary policy shocks play an important role in the transmission mechanism through a contraction monetary policy shocks that reduce the assets of banks that are available to lend out, and an expansionary monetary policy shocks that increase those assets. Banks represent the most important source of financing for firms and household, the adjustment and analysis of their lending in response to monetary policy actions constitute an important channel through which monetary policy works, they play a critical role in the transmission of monetary policy actions to the real economy. Bernanke and Blinder (1992), find that a monetary contraction is followed by a decline in aggregate bank lending. A tightening monetary policy exercised by the Central Banks through the required reserve ratio and the interest rate structure (cost of capital) on the banking sectors as an instrument to ensure the stability in the economy and to control the supply of money in order to protect the economy from the inflation and raising in the prices of goods and services. This action make a reduction in the amount of deposits reserved in the banking system, if banks cannot replace immediately this fall in the loanable funds through liquidating assets or through external source of finance, this will reduce the amount of loans available for banks to make. The bank lending channel was powered to the forefront of the economic discussion by Bernanke and Blinder in 1998, their article lay down some conditions that must be satisfied in order to operate bank lending channel. Firstly, firms must not be indifferent between two types of financing, borrowing money from financial institutions via loans or borrowing from general public via bonds, so if this occurs then the decrease in the supply of loans will not affect firms at all. Secondly, the Central Bank must be able to affect the supply of loans in which banks are not able to offset the decrease in deposits (result from open market operations) through rising fund form issuing new certificate of deposits, selling securities, or other source of financing (Kashyap and Stein, 1994). A contraction monetary policy through the increasing of required reserves ratios on banks (a proportion of its total deposits that must be held with the central bank), open market operation (selling and buying treasury securities), and finally by increasing discount rates (loans offered by the central bank to depository institutions) will reduce the amount of loanable fund that banks can offer to lend as a result of a sharp fall in the amount of deposits held with them, and force bank dependent firms and household to diminish their expenditures and reducing aggregate output. …


We propose a downlink multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) multi-carrier code division multiple access (MCCDMA) system with adaptive beamforming algorithm for smart antennas. The algorithm used in this paper is based on the Least Mean Square (LMS), with pilot channel estimation (PCE) and the zero forcing equalizer (ZFE) in the receiver, requiring reference signal and no knowledge channel. MC-CDMA is studied in a multiple antenna context in order to efficiently exploit robustness against multipath effects and multi-user flexibility of MC-CDMA and channel diversity offered by MIMO systems for radio mobile channels. Computer simulations, considering multi-path Rayleigh Fading Channel, interference inter symbol and interference are presented to verify the performance. Simulation results show that the scheme achieves good performance in a multi-user system. Keywords—Adaptive Beamforming, LMS Algorithm, MCCDMA, MIMO System, Smart Antenna.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine and analyze the prevailing form of rationality that governs the challenges, goals and roles of communication professionals. The authors will also explore alternative forms of rationality and discuss what these would imply. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on survey results from The European Communication Monitor (ECM) and qualitative interviews with communication managers in Sweden. First, the authors present the ECM data and the Swedish interview material, i.e. the authors depict the practitioners' perceptions of what they understand as important work tasks and roles. The interviews focus on the actual practices of linking communication goals to business goals. Second, the results are challenged from a reflexive perspective, using theories from the paradox turn and questioning the "taken-for-granted thinking" in corporate communications. Findings – The ECM data show that the main challenge in practice is "linking business strategy and communication." The Swedish respondents stand out when it comes to "building and maintaining trust" since this is considered to be almost as important. The qualitative interview study strengthens the results in the ECM. The interviewees seem to do their work according to the traditional management agenda – i.e. they break down overall business goals and translate these to measurable communication goals. The results are reflected upon using paradox theory. Two paradoxes are discussed: between managerialism and professionalism, and strategic generalists and operational specialists. Research limitations/implications – The study is based on survey data that have been collected through a convenience sample, and the interview study is a pilot study. Practical implications – The paper focuses conflicts between normative practitioner ideals and reality, and helps practitioners to reflect upon mainstream thinking. Originality/value – Based on the empirical findings in the ECM, the interviews and the theoretical framework, the authors conclude that if the idea of The Communicative Organization is to be fruitfully realized, it is necessary to depart from a multi-dimensional rationality and question ideas that are taken for granted. The use of paradox theory and concepts such as functional stupidity is rather original in corporate communication research. Additional research could further explore paradoxes in order to spark dialogue, which may undermine one-dimensional thinking and functional stupidity.


Cassini spacecraft detects molecular hydrogen on one of Saturn's moons Planetary bodies with global oceans are prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth owing to the essential role of liquid water in biochemical reactions that sustain living organisms. In addition to water, life requires energy and a source of essential chemical elements (C, H, N, O, P, and S). Although there is compelling evidence for liquid water and many of the essential elements on several ice-covered planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, direct observation of energy sources capable of fueling life has, to this point, remained elusive. On page 155 of this issue, Waite et al. (1) report that recent flybys of the ice-covered saturnian moon Enceladus by the Cassini spacecraft reveal the presence of molecular hydrogen (H2) in jets of vapor and particles ejected from a liquid water ocean through cracks in the ice shell. The abundance of H2 along with previously observed carbonate species suggests a state of chemical disequilibria in the Enceladus ocean that represents a chemical energy source capable of supporting life.


Research into the variance in healthcare practice in general focuses on the regional differences over a period of single year. By this focus it leaves out the dynamic nature of the interaction between demand and supply of healthcare. The dynamics of the interaction between demand and supply of cataract treatment in the Netherlands are explored in this paper. This study was initiated by the Dutch Health Care Insurance Board in order to improve policies for managing the Dutch healthcare system. With the use of group model building, a system dynamics model is created to generate insight into the growing number of cataract treatments and differences in the number of treatments between regions. The main source for the growth in number of cataract treatments is a gradual change in indication criteria. The simulations for the twelve provinces in the Netherlands show comparable behaviour. The timing between the simulations is different. Hence the distribution of the number of treatments over the provinces is different for each year. A possible source for difference in timing is the ratio between the population of a province and the number of ophthalmologists in that province. Hence, for assessing the variation of practice time studies are required.


A good fitness level provides individual ability to perform daily tasks and reduce the incidence of certain diseases. The research hypothesis was that curricular and extra-curricular activities of students performing various physical activities influence the fitness level of the subjects. The study involved 27 students from the study program Physical Education and Sport (2nd year) of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava. It should be noted that their academic activities included 9 hours of practical activities per week, and some of the participants are practicing various sports at performance level, which means between 6 and 10 additional hours of training weekly. In light of these results should be performed an weekly physical activity program, which includes exercise sessions to maintain strength and speed indices of the subjects, and exercises to help develop strength and mobility.


Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe vision impairment in Western populations over 55 years. A growing number of gene variants have been identified which are strongly associated with an altered risk to develop AMD. Nevertheless, gene-based biomarkers which could be dysregulated at defined stages of AMD may point toward key processes in disease mechanism and thus may support efforts to design novel treatment regimens for this blinding disorder. Circulating microRNAs (cmiRNAs) which are carried by nanosized exosomes or microvesicles in blood plasma or serum, have been recognized as valuable indicators for various age-related diseases. We therefore aimed to elucidate the role of cmiRNAs in AMD by genome-wide miRNA expression profiling and replication analyses in 147 controls and 129 neovascular AMD patients. We identified three microRNAs differentially secreted in neovascular (NV) AMD (hsa-mir-301-3p, pcorrected = 5.6*10−5, hsa-mir-361-5p, pcorrected = 8.0*10−4 and hsa-mir-424-5p, pcorrected = 9.6*10−3). A combined profile of the three miRNAs revealed an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.727 and was highly associated with NV AMD (p = 1.2*10−8). To evaluate subtype-specificity, an additional 59 AMD cases with pure unilateral or bilateral geographic atrophy (GA) were analyzed for microRNAs hsa-mir-301-3p, hsa-mir-361-5p, and hsa-mir-424-5p. While we found no significant differences between GA AMD and controls neither individually nor for a combined microRNAs profile, hsa-mir-424-5p levels remained significantly higher in GA AMD when compared to NV (pcorrected<0.005). Pathway enrichment analysis on genes predicted to be regulated by microRNAs hsa-mir-301-3p, hsa-mir-361-5p, and hsa-mir-424-5p, suggests canonical TGFβ, mTOR and related pathways to be involved in NV AMD. In addition, knockdown of hsa-mir-361-5p resulted in increased neovascularization in an in vitro angiogenesis assay.


BACKGROUND
Clustered acetylcholine receptor antibodies (clustered AChR-Abs) have been detected in a proportion of patients with previously "seronegative" (SN) generalized myasthenia gravis (GMG), but their presence in patients with ocular MG (OMG) and their pathogenicity in vivo are unknown.

OBJECTIVE
To test the presence of clustered AChR-Abs and their pathophysiologic properties in patients with SNMG.

DESIGN
Screening and diagnostic tests.

SETTING
Regional specialist myasthenia center and clinical laboratory.

PATIENTS
Serum samples from 16 patients with SN and OMG were tested for binding to clustered AChRs. Results from 28 further SN patients (14 OMG) were correlated with their single fiber electromyography values.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Presence, complement-fixation capacity, correlation with neurophysiologic changes, and in vivo pathogenicity of clustered AChR-Abs.

RESULTS
Up to 50% of patients with previous SN-OMG had complement-fixing IgG1 clustered AChR-Abs. IgG binding (n = 28) and complement deposition (n = 21) each correlated with the mean consecutive difference (jitter) on single-fiber electromyography. Injection of purified IgG from 2 patients with clustered AChR-Abs into wild-type or complement regulator-deficient mice reduced miniature end plate potential amplitudes to an extent similar to that found with AChR-Abs, and complement was deposited at the end plates. A trend was noted toward an increase in the number of packets of acetylcholine released (quantal content).

CONCLUSIONS
A proportion of patients with SN-GMG or OMG have clustered AChR-Abs that correlate with their electrophysiologic features. Clustered AChR-Abs can passively transfer disease to mice, demonstrating their pathogenicity, and the mechanisms seem similar to those of patients with typical AChR-Abs.


Biogeographers typically assess patterns of diversity across landscapes. As interacting groups often exhibit contrasting trends, this leads to variation in the structure of interaction networks and thereby influences ecosystem processes. Here we aim to disentangle how patterns of diversity differ between species (plants, pollinators) and their interactions across an agricultural landscape. The region is known for its irrigated gardens which appear as high‐diversity islands in the mountainous habitat. We are interested in whether this local enhancement was (a) increasing landscape heterogeneity by supporting novel species or (b) increasing local diversity by supporting higher densities of species that also occur in the unmanaged habitat.


OLAP and object data models represent different logical concepts and structures, and therefore separate database systems with different query languages were developed based on these models. We show in this paper that it is desirable and possible to combine these models to represent realistic modeling requirements. We define in this paper an OLAP-object data model that combines the main characteristics of OLAP and object data models in order to represent their functionalities in a common framework. We use three different types of object classes: primitive, regular and composite. In the OLAP-object data model, primitive and regular classes which represent object structures can be used for form composite classes that represent OLAP structures. We define a query language that uses path structures to facilitate data navigation and data manipulation. The proposed language uses the concept of an anchor. An anchor is an object class (primitive, regular or composite) that is selected as a starting node from which paths structures can be formed to express queries. The power of the proposed query language is illustrated through numerous examples. The syntax and semantics of the proposed language are developed


Pen-based input is often treated as auxiliary to mobile devices. We posit that cross-device interactions can inspire and extend the design space of pen-based interactions into new, expressive directions. We realize this through WatchPen, a smartwatch mounted on a passive, capacitive stylus that: (1) senses the usage context and leverages it for expression (e.g., changing colour), (2) contains tools and parameters within the display, and (3) acts as an on-demand output. As a result, it provides users with a dynamic relationship between inputs and outputs, awareness of current tool selection and parameters, and increased expressive match (e.g., added ability to mimic physical tools, showing clipboard contents). We discuss and reflect upon a series of interaction techniques that demonstrate WatchPen within a drawing application. We highlight the expressive power of leveraging multiple sensing and output capabilities across both the watch-augmented stylus and the tablet surface.


Submarine landslides or slumps may generate turbidity currents consisting of mixture of sediment and water. Large and fast-moving turbidity currents can incise and erode continental margins and cause damage to artificial structures such as telecommunication cables on the seafloor. In this study, we report that eleven submarine cables across the Kaoping canyon and Manila trench were broken in sequence from 1500 to 4000 m deep, as a consequence of submarine landslides and turbidity currents associated with the 2006 Pingtung earthquakes offshore SW Taiwan. We have established a full-scale scenario and calculation of the turbidity currents along the Kaoping canyon channel from the middle continental slope to the adjacent deep ocean. Our results show that turbidity current velocities vary downstream ranging from 20 to 3.7 and 5.7 m s, which demonstrates a positive relationship between turbidity current velocity and bathymetric slope. The violent cable failures happened in this case evidenced the destructive power of the turbidity current to seafloor or underwater facilities that should not be underestimated.


Industries face collective action and commitment problems when attempting to influence Congress. At the same time, an individual firm's political investments can yield reduced bureaucratic scrutiny by indicating that firm's willingness to contest agency decisions. We develop a model in which the desirability of maintaining a political footprint for this reason enables individual firms to commit to rewarding elected officials who maintain laws benefiting an entire industry. Our "dual forbearance" model anticipates that corporate political investments will be larger on average when statutes are stringent and that even pro-industry legislative coalitions will benefit politically from the existence of a minimal regulatory state.


1. Stable isotope analyses coupled with mixing models are being used increasingly to evaluate ecological management issues and questions. Such applications of stable isotope analyses often require simultaneous carbon and nitrogen analyses from the same sample. Correction of the carbon isotope values to take account of the varying content of 13 C-depleted lipids is then frequently achieved by a lipid-normalization procedure using a model describing the relationship between change in δ 13 C following lipid removal and the original C:N ratio of a sample. 2. We evaluated the applicability of two widely used normalization models using empirical data for muscle tissue from a wide range of fish and for aquatic invertebrates. Neither normalization model proved satisfactory, and we present some modifications that greatly improve the fit of one of the models to the fish muscle data. For invertebrates we found no clear relationship between change in δ 13 C following lipid removal and the original C:N ratio. 3. We also examined the effect of lipid-normalization on the output of a mixing model designed to calculate the proportional contribution of prey items to the diet of a consumer. Mixing model output was greatly influenced by whether prey or consumer values alone or together were lipid-normalized and we urge caution in the interpretation of results from these models pending further experimental evidence. 4. Synthesis and applications . We describe a revised lipid-normalization model that should be applicable to a wide range of marine and freshwater fish species in studies applying stable isotope analyses to ecological management issues. However, we strongly advise against applying these kinds of lipid-normalization models to aquatic invertebrate data. The interpretation of outputs from mixing models is greatly influenced by whether the carbon isotope data have been lipid-normalized or not.


This paper focuses on two basic principles in the dialogical emergence of self-contained linguistic units ('sentences') in interaction: projection and latency. Both are elementary for the synchronization of participants' minds in what I call the online emergence of syntax. Projection enables speakers and recipients to predict – on the basis of what has been said so far – structural slots in the emergent syntactic gestalt. Latency, on the other hand, relates a new utterance to the structure of the preceding one(s). It links the structure of an emergent syntactic gestalt to that of previous, already complete syntactic gestalts. Projection and latency can easily be observed in mundane conversational phenomena that happen time and again in everyday interaction.


Meals on Wheels of Tampa (MOWT), a 501(C)3 tax-exempt organization founded in 1975, delivers hot meals to people in need in the community, mostly the elderly and the homebound that live alone. The meals are prepared, packaged and delivered by the organization on a daily basis, approximately 870 meals per day. Beneficiaries of the program truly depend on it, not only because of their inability to procure their own meals, but also because for some, this is the only nutritious meal they eat every day. The work is done by staff and volunteers. The staff does a remarkable job of coordinating the volunteers, especially regarding the logistics of delivering the meals. All the funds needed for this operation come from charitable donations and local community support. When the COVID-19 pandemic started lurking in early 2020, it was very clear that it would be a large disruptor to the MOWT operation.


In this article, we consider the implications of the 'Prevent' strand of the government's counter-terrorism strategy for the UK state's engagement with Muslims. We argue that the logics of Prevent have been highly problematic for state–Muslim engagement. Nevertheless, we suggest that the characterisation of state approaches to engaging Muslims as a form of discipline is incomplete without an analysis of: first, differences in practices, habits and perspectives across governance domains; second, variations in approach and implementation between levels of governance; and third, the agency of Muslims who engage with the state. Through this approach we show how attention to the situated practices of governance reveals the contested nature of governing through Prevent.


1. Isolated intestinal preparations from migrating Lampetra fluviatilis re-adapted to 50% sea water were used to localize ion transport. 2. A large, active, monovalent-ion flux was found in the anterior intestine and its magnitude decreased towards the posterior end of the intestine. 3. The monovalent-ion flux is responsible for a net water flux from mucosa to serosa in the anterior intestine. 4. It is tentatively suggested that both sodium and chloride are actively transported by the mucosa. The divalent ions may be carried along with the monovalent ions to a limited extent. 5. Studies at the light- and electron-microscope levels indicate that columnar cells of the anterior intestine are responsible for ion transport, and there is evidence that the same cells produce mucus.


Ultra-cold spinor Bose gases present rich physics due to the special combination of superfluidity and magnetism in a quantum system. This system was first realized in 1998 by confining a Bose-Einstein condensate in an all-optical trap. In this thesis, we consider the fluctuations of observable quantities in a spin-1 Bose gas. Understanding how fluctuations arise due to the spin excitations of the condensate is important because it offers an insight into how measurement noise reveals the many-body physics of the system. To begin, we present the mean-field and Bogoliubov theory of a uniform spin-1 Bose gas subject to a constant magnetic field, describing the condensate and its low-energy collective excitations. We then develop a formalism to describe the fluctuations in a general density-like observable. We start from the two-point correlation function and cast it in the form of a generalised static structure factor determined by the three Bogoliubov quasiparticle excitation branches. We derive analytic results for the fluctuation amplitudes and the temperature-dependent static structure factors for observables of total density and the three spin densities. For all four magnetic phases, we analyse the spinor order parameter and quasiparticle spectra while numerically mapping out the fluctuation amplitudes and static structure factors for the total and spin density operators. We describe the fluctuations in experimental measurements made within finite cells, which is an important step to making meaningful predictions for experiments. We consider cylindrical cells and gaussian cells as two limiting cases. We apply this analysis to an experimentally realisable system of a quasi-2D spinor gas in a harmonic trap, comparing extensive numeric results with analytic limits.


We propose a novel approach for solving unary SAS+ planning problems. This approach extends an SAS+ instance with new state variables representing intentions about how each original state variable will be used or changed next, and splits the original actions into several stages of intention followed by eventual execution. The result is a new SAS+ instance with the same basic solutions as the original. While the transformed problem is larger, it has additional structure that can be exploited to reduce the branching factor, leading to reachable state spaces that are many orders of magnitude smaller (and hence much faster planning) in several test domains with acyclic causal graphs.


The novel method for preparing the polymer composite particles has been developed. It was tried to prepare polymer composite particles composed of polystyrene and carbon black with the phase separation method followed by suspension polymerization. In order to prepare the polymer composite particles with the more uniform diameter, the styrene monomer droplets containing carbon black were formed with phase separation emulsification in which ethyl alcohol and water were used as the good solvent and the poor solvent for styrene monomer, respectively. In the experiment, the surfactant species and their concentrations, the pouring velocity of water and the weight ratio of carbon black to styrene monomer were mainly changed. Water was poured at the given pouring velocity into ethyl alcohol in which styrene monomer and an initiator were dissolved and carbon black was dispersed beforehand. The spherical polymer composite particles containing carbon black were prepared with Tween 20 and Tween 80 of nonionic surfactants and the irregular polymer composite particles were prepared with PVA, SDS and Kotamine. The diameters of polymer composite particles increased with the pouring velocity of water and with the weight ratio of carbon black to styrene monomer.


The global expansion of judicial power and the rise of litigation as a vehicle for social transformation are two conspicuous social phenomena that are subject to intensive research by social scientists and lawyers alike. One of the most hotly debated questions in this regard relates to the potential value of law in general, and litigation in particular, as a strategy for social change. This article examines the question by comparing the struggle for equality by two groups - women's rights activists and gay rights activists - in Israel during the 1990's. The struggles of women and gay people for equality have many shared characteristics, since both challenge the traditional conservative patriarchal social model. In Israeli society, moreover, both gay rights' activists and women's equality activists faced the same political rival: the powerful macho-type socio-political mentality, rooted in the central status of the military in Israeli society and the strong hold of Jewish ultra-orthodox parties in the political system. The strategies that the two groups adopted to overcome these obstacles, however, were markedly different. While women's groups adopted an elitist strategy of struggle that concentrated on legal measures, gay rights' groups adopted a variety of strategies that emphasized grassroots political tactics. The article examines the success of each group in achieving its political objectives, and argues that the comparison between them indicates the relative weaknesses of legal and litigation-centered strategies as vehicles for social transformation.


Real-Time Embedded Software (RTES) constitutes an important sub-class of concurrent safety-critical programs. We consider the problem of verifying functional correctness of periodic RTES, a popular variant of RTES that execute periodic tasks in an order determined by Rate Monotonic Scheduling (RMS). A computational model of a periodic RTES is a finite collection of terminating tasks that arrive periodically and must complete before their next arrival. We present an approach for time-bounded verification of safety properties in periodic RTES. Our approach is based on sequentialization. Given an RTES C and a time-bound W, we construct (and verify) a sequential program S that over-approximates all executions of C up to time W, while respecting priorities and bounds on the number of preemptions implied by RMS. Our algorithm supports partial-order reduction, preemption locks, and priority locks. We implemented our approach for C programs, with properties specified via user-provided assertions. We evaluated our tool on several realistic examples, and were able to detect a subtle concurrency issue in a robot controller.


Australian exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will rise significantly over the next few years as a number of large-scale investment projects reach completion. The bulk of these exports will be to Asian customers under long-term contracts, with their price linked to the price of oil. The Asia-Pacific LNG market over the next decade will be influenced by potential changes to the composition of Asian energy demand, the magnitude of the increase of US LNG exports to Asia and any changes to the traditional oil-based pricing mechanism. The ramp-up in LNG production will boost Australian output and incomes over the next few years; however, the effect on Australia's living standards will be lessened to some extent by the high level of foreign ownership and the relatively low labour intensity of LNG production.


High quality single crystals of the monoclinic phase K5U5O17(OH) were synthesized via a hydrothermal method utilizing the supercritical regime of water. The structure of K5U5O17(OH) is isotypic with the Na phase, Na5U5O17(OH), however crystallizes in a slightly different space group due to size effects. K5U5O17(OH) has the same sheet-anion structure as the Na analog, whose topology is analyzed here for the first time. K5U5O17(OH) shows fluorescence typical for uranyl species.


This research study was initiated to illustrate the efficacy of two different treatment approaches on aggression and sexually acting out or sexually reactive behaviors. It is also intended to compare said approaches to one another. The rationale of the comparison approach was to attempt to validate and further understand the differences in outcomes of the two different treatment applications. The treatment models compared were as follows: cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and mode deactivation therapy (MDT). Keywords: conduct disorders; MDT; personality traits Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Thought Change as a CBT methodology was designed to treat a conglomerate of personality disorders. The treatment of the higher risk, aggressive sex offender focuses on specific deviant sexual arousal and antisocial sub-structure. For the same-sex offender of young children who continues to show deviant interest in young victims, Thought Change addresses the specific indices of this subgroup. Thought Change explores deficits in self-esteem, social competency, and frequent depression. Many of these youths display severe personality disorders with psychosexual disturbances and high levels of aggression and violence; therefore, Thought Change also focuses on the specific individual indices of these issues by identifying and modifying the complex system of beliefs. The Thought Change curriculum consists of a structured treatment program, which addresses the dysfunctional beliefs that drive sex offending behaviors. Topics in the Thought Change curriculum include the following: Daily Record of Negative Thoughts, Cognitive Distortions, Changing Your Thoughts, Sexual Offense System, System of Aggression and Violence for Sex Offenders, Moods (how to change them), Beliefs (how it all fits together), Responsibility, Health Behavior Continuum, Beliefs and Substance Abuse, Beliefs and Empathy, The Beliefs of the Victim/Offender, The Victim/Victimizer, and the Mental Health Medication System. The sections of the Thought Change Workbook are designed to progress sequentially through therapy. It is a record of dysfunctional beliefs prior to, during, and following the sexual offense. Mode Deactivation Therapy (MDT) as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) The focus of MDT is based on the work of Aaron Beck, M.D., particularly his recent theoretical work, the system of modes (Beck, 1996, Alford & Beck, 1997). Other aspects of MDT have been included in the Behavior Analytic literature, such as Kohlenberg and Tsai (1993), Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP), as well as, Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT) (Lineham, 1993). The specific application of MDT and applied methodological implications for MDT with specific typologies is delineated by Apsche, Ward, and Evile (2002). The article also provided a theoretical study case study that illustrates the MDT methodology. Beck, Freeman and Associates (1990) suggested that cognitive, affective and motivational processes are determined by the idiosyncratic structures or schema that constitutes the basic elements of personality. This is a more cognitive approach suggesting that the schema is the detriment to the mood, thought, and behavior. Beck (1996) suggested that the model of individual schemas (linear schematic processing) does not adequately address a number of psychological problems; therefore the model must be modified to address such problems. Working with adolescents who present with complex typologies of aberrant behaviors, it was necessary to address this typology of youngsters from a more "global" methodology, to address their impulse control and aggression. Alford and Beck (1997) explain that the schema typical of personality disorder is theorized to operate on a more continuous basis; the personality disorders are more sensitive to a variety of stimuli than other clinical syndromes. Further study of cognitive therapy emphasizes the characteristic patterns of a person's development, differentiation, and adaption to social and biological environments (Alford & Beck, 1997). …


This article reports on the results of a study on the application of high temperature superconductors (HTS) in power systems, with particular attention to the Swiss power network. The study has been financed and carried out by PSEL, BFE, RDP-CREE, ABB, ETHZ, and EPFL. The goal of the study was to identify opportunities for HTS applications and to assess the technical potential and acceptable cost range of this new technology. A series of scenarios, ranging from near term options to more visionary scenarios, was considered in detail. The application which is most probably closest to a product is the fault current limiter (FCL). The criteria for this application are met by presently available HTS material. The FCL has a number of interesting applications, such as meshing of "island" networks, lifetime prolongation of existing equipment, downsizing in new installations, etc. The available HTS materials are in principle also suitable for cables. However, long distance cooling presents a considerable obstacle in this case. Among different HTS cables, the dc cable is clearly favoured over the ac cable. HTS cables are in principle very interesting. They allow for high power transmission on lower voltage levels, and therefore offer the possibility to eliminate one or several voltage levels. For other applications the available HTS materials are not yet in a sufficient state of development. For transformers the ac losses need to be further reduced, and for superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) the robustness of HTS under magnetic field has to be improved.


The degradation in efficiency of auxiliary components in heating/cooling systems when operating at part load is frequently reported. Through the use of variable speed components, the supplied capacity can be reduced to match the required load and hence reduce unnecessary energy consumption. However, for fan coil units, difficulties can arise when optimizing fan and pump speeds at part load. Practically locating optimal water and air flow rates from readily available information and for varying supplied capacities is necessary, in order to reduce the fan coil power consumption. This research attempts to identify whether optimal fan and pump speeds exist for a fan coil unit and how they can be implemented, in a practical manner, in a system control applications. Using an empirical fan coil and pump model, the total power consumption (fan and pump) for different combinations of fan and pump speeds over a range of capacities was calculated. It was observed that, for a given capacity, an optimal combination of fan and pump speeds exists and there was a significant change in power consumption for different combinations of fan and pump speeds supplying the same capacity. A control strategy is described that utilizes a simple fan coil capacity estimation model, coupled with air and water flow rates, along with nominal design data. The pump speed is optimized using PID control to maintain the space temperature at the chosen set-point, which matches the supplied capacity to the required capacity. At set-time intervals, the capacity estimation model is utilized to optimize the water and air flow rates for the required capacity. The control strategy is evaluated, using a full building simulation model for a daily load profile and is compared to two baseline conditions: for no control of the fancoils/pump combination and for PID circulation control of the pump only. The optimal fan and pump speed control resulted in a 43% and 24% decrease in power consumption with compared to the no control baseline and the PID controlled circulation pump strategy, respectively.


During antitrust's "inhospitality era," courts and expert agencies condemned any number of non-standard agreements as "unlawful per se" or nearly so. More recently, courts and agencies have repudiated or softened many such per se rules. In so doing courts and agencies have invoked the lessons of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), which holds that most non-standard agreements are efforts to economize on the cost of relying upon the market to conduct economic activity. At the same time, courts and agencies continue to enforce other per se rules against conduct that TCE deems presumptively beneficial. Moreover, courts and agencies conduct rule of reason analysis in a manner that is unduly hostile to claims that a restraint is in fact an effort to reduce transaction costs and overcome market failure. Finally, current standards governing alleged monopolization are unduly biased against non-standard contracts that disadvantage a monopolist's rivals. Where antitrust doctrine is concerned, the transaction cost revolution is hardly complete. This article seeks an explanation for antitrust's original and continued hostility toward non-standard agreements. The article finds that explanation in price theory's model of perfect competition. Some have attributed the inhospitality tradition to price theory's "technological" conception of the firm and a resulting belief that efficiencies necessarily arose within individual firms. While descriptively accurate, this account does not explain why economists failed to recognize that agreements between firms could overcome market failure and thus generate non-technological efficiencies. The article finds the explanation in the inhospitality era's methodological habit of assuming that "perfect competition" and "market failure" could coexist, and that market failure could thwart the optimal allocation of resources that perfect competition would otherwise produce. This habit equated market failure with a failure of a perfectly competitive market to produce efficient outcomes. By eliminating market failure, then, the state could restore the optimal allocation of resources that perfect competition would otherwise produce. Thus, this methodological habit framed the problem to be solved in a way that blocked the recognition that non-standard contracts could overcome market failure, since such contracts themselves caused a departure from one or more of perfect competition's assumptions and also facilitated activities, like advertising, that were not necessary under the perfect competition model. To be sure, Professor Ronald Coase's "Problem of Social Cost" undermined the assumption that market failure and perfect competition can co-exist. Coase and other practitioners of TCE such as Oliver Williamson, also explained how non-standard contracts could make an imperfectly competitive economy more competitive by overcoming market failure. Nonetheless, the perfect competition model still haunts much antitrust thinking. Discussion of "the economics of antitrust" almost always begin with the perfect competition model, and departures from perfect competition are viewed as sources of market power that can only be justified by some offsetting efficiency. While non-standard contracts are often viewed as potentially beneficial, they are rarely characterized as methods of overcoming market failure but are instead characterized as methods of reducing costs, analogous to the realization of technological efficiencies. This oversight helps explain the lingering bias against such restraints.


This volume contains the Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Intelligent Interactive Multimedia Systems and Services (IIMSS-2011). IIMSS-2011 comes as a sequel to IIMSS-2008 (Piraeus-Athens, Greece, July 9, 10 and 11, 2008), IIMSS-2009 (Mogliano Veneto (near Venice), Italy, July 15, 16 and 17, 2009) and IIMSS-2010 (Baltimore, USA, July 28, 29, and 30, 2010). This fourth edition of the IIMSS Conference was organized jointly by the Department of Informatics of the University of Piraeus, Greece and the School of Electrical and Information Engineering of the University of South Australia, in conjunction with KES International.At a time when computers are more widespread than ever and computer users range from highly qualified scientists to non-computer-expert professionals and may include people with special needs, interactivity, personalization and adaptivity have become a necessity in modern multimedia systems. Modern intelligent multimedia systems need to be interactive not only through classical modes of interaction where the user inputs information through a keyboard or mouse. They must also support other modes of interaction, such as visual or lingual computer-user interfaces, which render them more attractive, user friendlier, more human-like and more informative. IIMSS is a new series of international scientific conferences aimed at presenting novel research in the fields of intelligent multimedia systems relevant to the development of a new generation of interactive, user-centric services.


If economic forecasts are to be used for decision making, then being able to evaluate their accuracy is essential. Assessing accuracy using single variables from a forecast is acceptable as a first pass, but this approach has inherent problems. This article addresses some of these problems by evaluating and comparing the general accuracy of a set of multivariate forecasts over time. ; Using the methodology developed in Eisenbeis, Waggoner, and Zha (2002), the authors compare the economic forecasts in the Blue Chip Economic Indicators Survey. The survey, published monthly since 1977, contains forecasts of many macroeconomic variables over a relatively long time span. The forecasters are a mix of economists from major investment banks, corporations, consulting firms, and academic institutions, many of whom have participated in the survey for several years. The survey thus provides a useful set of forecasts to explore the methodologies and to investigate several aspects of forecast performance over time. ; The methodology assigns each forecast a composite score based on the standard theory of probability and statistics. This single number is easy to interpret and can be used to compare forecasts even if the number of variables being forecast, or their definitions, changes over time. ; The analysis shows that the Blue Chip Consensus Forecast, which is the average of the individual forecasts, performs better than any individual forecaster although several forecasters performed almost as well as the consensus.


Numerical analysis for the radiation of an elementary dipole is presented when it is located over a half-space gyroelectric medium, a grounded gyroelectric slab, and inside the slab. It is revealed that the direction of the maximum radiated field for a dipole over a half-space gyroelectric medium corresponds to the critical angles where total internal reflection occurs. Usually 6-dB enhancement can be obtained by placing a dipole above the anisotropic region, either over a half-space or grounded anisotropic slab. The effects of the frequency and the biasing magnetic field are studied for the radiation of a dipole over a grounded gyroelectric slab. In addition, it is discovered that more than 6-dB enhanced radiation along the broadside direction, compared with the radiation of the dipole in free space, is achievable if the vertically oriented dipole is placed inside the grounded gyrolectric slab with the proper adjustment of the thickness of the slab and the magnitude of the biasing magnetic field. This thickness is significantly less than the optimum thickness required to achieve the directive emission along the broadside direction using the horizontal dipole inside the grounded isotropic plasma slab without the biasing magnetic field.


Remote focussing microscopy offers many advantages when acquiring volumetric data from living tissue. The all-optical means of refocussing does not agitate the specimen by moving either the stage or imaging objective. Aberrationcompensated imaging extends over volumes as large as 450 μm x 450 μm x 200 μm (X, Y and Z) allowing data to be collected from hundreds of cells. The speed with which refocussing can be achieved is limited only by the mechanical movement of a small (2 mm diameter) mirror. Using a pair of oblique imaging planes to rapidly acquire (<200ms) depth information temporally freezes residual tissue motion in the arrested heart. This paper discusses the progress of remote focussing microscopy from a novel imaging technique to a reliable tool in the life sciences. Specifically, we describe recent efforts to achieve the accurate calibration of both distance and orientation within the imaging volume. Using a laser machined fluorescent specimen it is possible to identify, with high sensitivity, small (<1%) depth-dependent magnification changes which are a linear function of axial misalignment of the imaging objective. The sensitivity of the calibration procedure limits distortion to <1 μm over the entire imaging volume. This work finds direct application in identifying the microscopic effects of chronic disease in the living heart.


Recent research on the contact hypothesis - the idea that intergroup contact can reduce prejudice - reveals that permitting identification with socially salient categories like race and gender is more likely to translate into reduced prejudice than attempting to eliminate or eclipse entirely those categories. This research has important implications for a number of issues of pressing social and legal concern, from broad views about integration and the cultural consequences of immigration to more narrow questions about diversity in education and the role and shape of affirmative action. This Article considers the implications of the contact hypothesis research for one of these issues: the debate about employer demands that people of color and women "cover" their race and gender by conforming their behavior and appearance to a white, male norm (known as the "workplace assimilation" debate). The degree of diversity represented in the workplace relative to other social institutions and the sustained nature of interaction at work makes the workplace a uniquely promising venue for attaining the relational benefits of intergroup contact. The workplace assimilation demand debate therefore serves as a useful lens for understanding the implications of the contact hypothesis research more broadly. To date, scholars and courts have framed the workplace assimilation debate largely in terms of individual interests: on one side sits the employer's interest in easing customer or co-worker discomfort with difference, and on the other side sits the employee's interest in being saved the identity, time, and economic costs involved in complying with behavior requirements that are drawn along a white, male norm. This Article reframes the debate by considering how workplace assimilation demands impact the end-goal of antidiscrimination law - social equality. Drawing on the vast social science research and theory on the contact hypothesis, it argues that regulating workplace assimilation demands to permit signals of group identification is likely to result in greater prejudice reduction than the prevailing policy of permitting those demands. More specifically, it proposes that employees should be provided space to signal membership in groups protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act through employer accommodation to appearance. This proposal aims to attain the societal benefit possible from contact at work without risking essentialization of group traits. In doing so, the proposal embraces an understanding of workplace diversity that includes behavioral signals of group-based identities as much as biologically prescribed ones. Perhaps even more important, the proposal represents a new vision of integration, one in which discomfort with difference is overcome instead of avoided.


Langdellian "science" and its "formalism" ignore ways form permits and even creates freedom of choice. For example, as Wordsworth notes, though the weaver is restricted by what his form of loom can weave, the weaver may nonetheless choose what and how he weaves. Furthermore, the loom creates weaving possibilities that do not exist without it. Such freedom alongside form is often lost on lawyers, judges, and teachers trained primarily in Langdellian redacted appellate cases where "facts" and other framed matters often wrongly appear as simply given. Similarly, in the context of their redacted appellate cases, many current students may only see constraint in IRAC (Issue-Rule-Application-Conclusion) and other thought forms rather than the fastidious freedoms such forms both provide and create.Overlooking such freedoms is not only misleading in itself. It also misses the need to study how such freedoms are and should be exercised. When facts are simply presented as "given" and strategic and other choices go unrecorded and unnoticed in redacted appellate opinions, no thorough analysis of these overlooked subjects can occur. This is extremely troubling since such overlooked subjects are at the very heart of the lawyer's craft.Attempting to remedy such Langdellian shortcomings, this article explores, among other things, five basic levels of thought and the framing choices in such levels of thought: references, issues, rules, application of rules, and conclusions. Though often merely taken as "given" in redacted appellate opinions, a good grasp of reference assures that parties are in fact talking about the same matter or matters (the "reference"). It also increases the likelihood of ascertaining and properly framing all the relevant "facts" in a manner reasonably and ethically consistent with a client's real interests. Similarly, focusing on flexibility of issue framing both brings necessary focus on what is important in the reference and, to the extent reasonable and ethical, again increases the likelihood of frames most consistent with a client's real interests. A good grasp of applicable rules and how to frame and apply them on its face increases the likelihood of representing a client well. A good grasp of conclusions and how to frame and hedge them also does the same. Grasping the multilevel complexities in play at these multiple levels pushes us beyond briefing redacted appellate cases to the much more difficult and stimulating work of exploring and teaching good legal thought at all its levels. Legal writing professors are pioneers in this regard and others in the academy can learn much from them.


In George Eliot's Romola, manuscripts represent the ability of objects to embody the past. Through various characters' interactions with manuscripts, Eliot explores competing ways of using and valuing history, from Bardo's obsessive collecting to Savonarola's ideological co-optation. As the story progresses, however, manuscripts all but disappear and are replaced by printed texts. Through this depiction of technological change, Eliot advances her case for a particular kind of historical consciousness, one that engages critically—rather than fetishistically or opportunistically—with the past. Print, Eliot suggests, allows history to become widely accessible for public consumption, thereby weakening the aura of the past and allowing readers to simultaneously recognize its alterity and its intimate relationship to the present. Eliot suggests that the role of history is to guide and advance the interests of humanity in the present; as such, she uses Renaissance anxieties over the movement from manuscript to print to interrogate Victorian concerns surrounding the proliferation of inexpensive printed materials.


Stochastic blockmodels (SBM) and their variants, $e.g.$, mixed-membership and overlapping stochastic blockmodels, are latent variable based generative models for graphs. They have proven to be successful for various tasks, such as discovering the community structure and link prediction on graph-structured data. Recently, graph neural networks, $e.g.$, graph convolutional networks, have also emerged as a promising approach to learn powerful representations (embeddings) for the nodes in the graph, by exploiting graph properties such as locality and invariance. In this work, we unify these two directions by developing a \emph{sparse} variational autoencoder for graphs, that retains the interpretability of SBMs, while also enjoying the excellent predictive performance of graph neural nets. Moreover, our framework is accompanied by a fast recognition model that enables fast inference of the node embeddings (which are of independent interest for inference in SBM and its variants). Although we develop this framework for a particular type of SBM, namely the \emph{overlapping} stochastic blockmodel, the proposed framework can be adapted readily for other types of SBMs. Experimental results on several benchmarks demonstrate encouraging results on link prediction while learning an interpretable latent structure that can be used for community discovery.


Photon upconversion by sensitized triplet–triplet annihilation (UC-STTA) is a photophysical process that facilitates the conversion of two low-energy photons into a single high-energy photon. A low-energy photon is absorbed by a sensitizer molecule that produces a triplet excited state which is transferred to an emitter molecule. When two emitter triplet states encounter each other, TTA can take place to produce a singlet excited state which decays by emission of a high-energy (upconverted) photon. While traditional single-threshold dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have a maximum efficiency limit of ca. 30%, it has been predicted theoretically that implementation of UC-STTA in DSSCs could increase that efficiency to more than 40%.A possible way to implement UC-STTA into DSSCs, would be to replace the standard sensi- tized nanostructured TiO2 photoanodes by upconverting ones loaded with emitter molecules. Following TTA, the excited emitter molecule would be quenched by injection of a high-energy electron into the conduction band of the TiO2. To explore the practical aspects of this strategy for a highly efficient DSSC, in this thesis UC-STTA is studied in model systems based on nanostructured ZrO2 films. These ZrO2 films are a good proxy for the TiO2 films used in DSSCs, and allow for relatively easy optimization and study of UC-STTA by allowing measurements of the upconverted photons without the complications of electron injection into the film.Herein it is experimentally proven that UC-STTA is viable on nanostructured metal oxide films under non-coherent irradiation with intensities comparable to sunlight. Two different system architectures are studied, differing in the position of the molecular components involved in the UC-STTA mechanism. Both architectures have the emitter molecules adsorbed onto the ZrO2 surface, but the sensitizers are positioned either in solution around the nanostructure, or co-adsorbed with the emitters onto the ZrO2 surface. A set of challenges in the study and optimization of the UC-STTA process is identified for each type of system. Proposals are also given for how to further improve the understanding and UC-STTA optimization of these systems toward application in DSSCs to overcome the present solar energy conversion efficiency limit.


Mobile phone gaming has seen an enormous growth over the last decade and many countries now have more cell phone subscriptions than they have people. Combined with the ever increasing interest in games, the mobile gaming market still hasn't reached it's full potential. Newer and more powerful phones with interesting features hit the market every day. Many of those features are directed at locating position, and that opens up for the prospect of location-based gaming. This branch of gaming is still in the starting phase, and public awareness is relatively low. Meanwhile, developers and operators explore the opportunities that are yet to be tested. In this project, we have developed a game to test different aspects related to infrastructure, network and playability in location-based mobile gaming. From the testing of GSM and UMTS networks, results show that basic network properties such as CellID can be utilized to make challenging and social games. Furthermore, the tests hinted at UMTS as the best suited network to perform location-based gaming, as the smaller and less overlapping zone structure, response times and bandwidth facilitates a multiplayer game better than the GSM network. This is not a global truth, though, since EDGE increases the GSM response times and bandwidth to an acceptable level. As long as a suitable mapping of game zones and real-world cells can be made, GSM is still a candidate in many environments. Developers face new challenges with location-based gaming, as testing no longer can be confined to the development environment. Extensive field testing is vital to both flesh out techincal issues as well as gameplay-related issues. Outdoor distances makes testing take longer time, and communication between test team and developers is harder than in a studio. Finally, playtesting shows that most people are open to the idea of physical movement as input when playing in a virtual reality. When incorporating social elements and multiplayer options in a dynamic setting, location-based games can be seen as a replacement for a friendly football game or similar outdoor activities. When such an approach can be made, while keeping communication and team-feeling among players high, the full potential of location-based gaming migh be unlocked.


The Editor would like to thank all contributors for the material which they have subscribed to the review section. The reports included in the review have been received since the publication of the last issue of the Journal . The Market Review section seeks to provide a comprehensive coverage of the wide body of property market research thereby helping to make the market more transparent by providing analysis of property performance, primarily sectoral and regional trends. Most of the reports relate to the market in the United Kingdom, however European and international real estate trends are also considered. Further details of the reports can be obtained from the contributors' website pages, the addresses of which are detailed below.


Rapid expansion of canola (Brassica napus L.) production in the Northern Great Plains has raised questions on the response of cultivars to seeding rate and depth. Field research was conducted at four North Dakota locations in 1999, 2000, and 2001 evaluating a small-seeded open-pollinated (OP) and a large-seeded hybrid (HYB) cultivar at two seeding depths (19 and 38 mm) both at four seeding rates (54, 108, 162, and 216) pure live seed (PLS) m -2 . Percent emergence and plant density was significantly greater at the 19-mm seeding depth compared with the 38-mm seeding depth at six of eight environments. Seeding depth effect on seed yield was inconsistent among environments. Seed yield increased with increasing seeding rates in all but two environments. Hybrid and OP cultivars responded similarly to seeding rate for all characteristics measured, except days to first flower and net economic return per hectare. The net economic return per hectare, based on seed cost and grain value where HYB seed typically costs twice that of OP, was greatest at seeding rates for the large-seeded HYB at 108 PLS m -2 , and at 162 PLS m -2 for the small-seeded OP cultivar. The HYB cultivar had a 24% greater seed yield than the OP cultivar and a 14% greater net economic return per hectare. Producers need to consider cultivar type and seed cost to determine optimum seeding rate to obtain maximum economic return.


1. The movements of Tubularia spermatozoa in the vicinity of micropipettes filled with extracts of female hydranths, which chemotactically attract the spermatozoa, have been recorded by multiple-flash photomicrography. 2. When a spermatozoon turns in response to a chemotactic stimulus, the flagellum continues to beat, with a highly asymmetrical pattern of bending, during the turn. 3. The magnitude of the turn, particularly the duration of the period of asymmetrical beating, is variable, but each spermatozoon is only able to make turns in one direction, relative to its own body. 4. Most of the behaviour of these spermatozoa may be explained if the turning mechanism is activated when the spermatozoon detects a decreasing concentration of the chemotactant.


This article suggests some pause for reflection amongst intellectual property lawyers, and for serious consideration of the words of an internationally-renowned IP law expert: "Possessing a right does not mean that it is a good idea to enforce it always, and to the hilt. Discretion may be nine parts of possession". It provides some prominent, recent examples of trademark bullying or overly-aggressive enforcement in the IP law context. These examples are mainly from other jurisdictions but they are directly relevant to some of the IP law challenges present in South Africa at the moment.  The article further examines why lawyers and rights' holders engage in trademark bullying ( why it's done), and start to deal briefly with some of the legal implications. A future article is to examine the legal aspects of trademark bullying in much more detail and considers its legitimacy within the context of IP law, more generally, and some other areas of law, more specifically.


Abstract Understanding the factors that contribute to the formation of population genetic structure is a central goal of phylogeographic research, but achieving this goal can be complicated by the stochastic variance inherent to genetic processes. Statistical approaches to testing phylogeographic hypotheses accommodate this stochasticity by evaluating competing models of putative historical population structure, often by simulating null distributions of the expected variance. The effectiveness of these tests depends on the biological realism of the models. Information from the fossil record can aid in reconstructing the historical distributions of some taxa. However, for the majority of taxa, which lack sufficient fossils, paleodistributional modeling can provide valuable spatial-geographic data concerning ancestral distributions. Paleodistributional models are generated by projecting ecological niche models, which predict the current distribution of each species, onto a model of past climatic conditions. Here, we generate paleodistributional models describing the suitable habitat during the last glacial maximum for lineages from the mesic forests of the Pacific Northwest of North America, and use these models to generate alternative phylogeographic hypotheses. Coalescent simulations are then used to test these hypotheses to improve our understanding of the historical events that promoted the formation of population genetic structure in this ecosystem. Results from Pacific Northwest mesic forest organisms demonstrate the utility of these combined approaches. Paleodistribution models and population genetic structure are congruent across three amphibian lineages, suggesting that they have responded in a concerted manner to environmental change. Two other species, a willow and a water vole, despite being currently codistributed and having similar population genetic structure, were predicted by the paleodistributional model to have had markedly different distributions during the last glacial maximum. This suggests that congruent phylogeographic patterns can arise from incongruent ancestral distributions. Paleodistributional models introduce a much-needed spatial-geographic perspective to statistical phylogeography. In conjunction with coalescent models of population genetic structure, they have the potential to improve our understanding of the factors that promote population divergence and ultimately produce regional patterns of biodiversity.


Abstract Alpersite, Mg0.58Cu0.37Zn0.02Mn0.02Fe0.01SO4·7H2O, a new mineral species with direct relevance to reactions in mine waste, occurs in a mineralogically zoned assemblage in sheltered areas at the abandoned Big Mike mine in central Nevada at a relative humidity of 65% and T = 4 °C. Blue alpersite, which is isostructural with melanterite (FeSO4·7H2O), is overlain by a light blue to white layer dominated by pickeringite, alunogen, and epsomite. X-ray diffraction data (MoKα radiation) from a single crystal of alpersite were refined in P21/c, resulting in wR = 0.05 and cell dimensions α = 14.166(4), b = 6.534(2), c = 10.838(3) Å, β = 105.922(6)°, Z = 4. Site-occupancy refinement, constrained to be consistent with the compositional data, showed Mg to occupy the M1 site and Cu the M2 site. The octahedral distortion of M2 is consistent with 72% Cu occupancy when compared with the site-distortion data of substituted melanterite. Cuprian pentahydrite, with the formula (Mg0.49Cu0.41Mn0.08Zn0.02)SO4·5H2O, was collected from an efflorescent rim on a depression that had held water in a large waste-rock area near Miami, Arizona. After dissolution of the efflorescence in de-ionized water, and evaporation of the supernatant liquid, alpersite precipitated and quickly dehydrated to cuprian pentahydrite. These observations are consistent with previous experimental studies of the system MgSO4-CuSO4-H2O. It is suspected that alpersite and cuprian pentahydrite are widespread in mine wastes that contain Cu-bearing sulfides, but in which solubilized Fe2+ is not available for melanterite crystallization because of oxidation to Fe3+ in surface waters of near-neutral pH. Alpersite has likely been overlooked in the past because of the close similarity of its physical properties to those of melanterite and chalcanthite. Alpersite is named after Charles N. Alpers, geochemist with the United States Geological Survey, who has made significant contributions to our understanding of the mineralogical controls of mine-water geochemistry.


ABSTRACT A GGGGCC hexanucleotide repeat expansion in C9orf72 is the most common genetic cause of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Recent studies indicate that disruption of nucleocytoplasmic transport pathways play a critical role in the pathogenesis of C9orf72-mediated ALS/FTD (C9-ALS). Here, we discuss mechanisms by which C9orf72 mutations cause nucleocytoplasmic transport deficits and contribute to disease pathogenesis. We review the current literature regarding nucleocytoplasmic transport disruption in C9-ALS, and discuss implications and directions for future research.


Demonstrating positive environmental benefits of alternative N fertilizer management strategies, without
adversely affecting crop growth or yield, was a major goal for the Midwest Management Systems Evaluation Areas
(MSEA) program. Our project objectives within this program were to quantify the effects of split- and single-N
fertilization strategies on NO3-N concentration and loss in subsurface drain effluent and N accumulation and yield of
corn (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]. The study was conducted on glacial till derived soils in
northeast Iowa from 1993 through 1995 using no-till and chisel plow tillage treatments. One-third of the 2,611 effluent
samples had NO3-N concentrations greater than 10 mg L–1. Split applying fertilizer N based on pre-sidedress soil nitrate
test (PSNT) results significantly increased corn yield for both tillage treatments in the extremely wet 1993 without
increasing NO3-N loss in drain effluent. Increased grain yield also resulted in significantly more N removal. When
fertilizer N was applied based on the PSNT, no-till and chisel treatments had similar NO3-N losses and concentrations.
Average flow-weighted NO3-N concentrations in drain effluent were not increased when larger amounts of fertilizer were
applied based on PSNT. However, prior crop and tillage practices and differences in drain flow volume caused significant
differences in NO3-N losses and concentrations. These results suggest that spatial differences in flow volume are a major
factor determining NO3-N loss in drainage effluent. Significant differences suggest that combining no-tillage practices
with split N fertilizer management strategies can have positive environmental benefits without reducing corn yield.


International judicial assistance, which is reasonably well settled in criminal law, is still finding its way in civil matters. Here is a very useful survey of problems in this area, describing how they are being handled in various jurisdictions worldwide. The authors examine service of process abroad, obtaining evidence in crossborder litigation, the impact of sovereign immunity, the application of international conventions, and preferred forms of dispute resolution. Contributors include practitioners from both civil law and common law jurisdictions. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.


This article reports on a research project which took place in Brighton in 2006. It was part of ongoing research into the role that information and communications technologies (ICTs) might play in enabling access to health information. It discusses the relevant policy areas, the approaches used in the research and the key findings. It sought to develop a model for good practice in community engagement around health information, adopting an approach based on participation and knowledge exchange. The discussion focuses on three themes arising from the study: different interpretations of health and health information; the role of libraries in health information provision; the benefits and issues of working in a partnership which includes community participants. The project demonstrated positive aspects of partnership working and community engagement, which can be used as a basis for further development, as well as some of the challenges inherent in such an approach.


Vortex formation through the Rossby wave instability (RWI) in protoplanetary discs has been invoked to play a role in planet formation theory, and suggested to explain the observation of large dust asymmetries in several transitional discs. However, whether or not vortex formation operates in layered accretion discs, i.e. models of protoplanetary discs including dead zones near the disc midplane --- regions that are magnetically inactive and the effective viscosity greatly reduced --- has not been verified. As a first step toward testing the robustness of vortex formation in layered discs, we present non-linear hydrodynamical simulations of global 3D protoplanetary discs with an imposed kinematic viscosity that increases away from the disc midplane. Two sets of numerical experiments are performed: (i) non-axisymmetric instability of artificial radial density bumps in viscous discs; (ii) vortex-formation at planetary gap edges in layered discs. Experiment (i) shows that the linear instability is largely unaffected by viscosity and remains dynamical. The disc-planet simulations also show the initial development of vortices at gap edges, but in layered discs the vortices are transient structures which disappear well into the non-linear regime. We suggest that the long term survival of columnar vortices, such as those formed via the RWI, requires low effective viscosity throughout the vertical extent of the disc, so such vortices do not persist in layered discs.


This study tried to identify non-primary sectors as an alternative sector for revenue generation in Nigeria. The Nigerian economy over the years had anchored only on primary sectors for revenue generation, neglecting the non-primary sectors. Studies had shown that there is need to diversify the economy away from oil and expand its revenue base given the volatile nature of the prices of the primary sectors products in the world market. Applying econometrics analysis, specifically Vector Autoregression (VAR) estimate and subjecting the estimate to various diagnostic test, alongside ascertaining the order of integration of the variables and their cointegration status, the study revealed that there is no causal relationship between non-primary sectors and revenue. The implication is that non-primary sectors had not contributed to revenue in Nigeria. The potentials in non-primary sectors had not been explored for revenue generation and revenue generated from crude oil sales had also not been invested in these sectors. The study therefore identified the non-primary sector as an alternative source of revenue generation. It was recommended among others that a longterm development plan be made to achieve the set goal of harnessing the potentials in the non-primary sectors.


Development of distributed simulations is a complex process requiring extensive experience, in-depth knowledge and a certain skills set for the Architecture, Design, development and systems integration required for a federation to meet its operational, functional and technical requirements. Federation architecture and design is the blueprint that forms the basis for federation-wide agreements on how to conceive and build a federation. Architecture and design issues are continuously being addressed during federation development. Knowledge of "good design" is gained through hands-on experience, trial-and-error and experimentation. This kind of knowledge however, is seldom reused and rarely shared in an effective way. This paper presents an ongoing effort conducted by MSG-052 "Knowledge Network for Federation Architecture and Design" within the NATO Research and Technology Organisation (NATO/RTO) Modelling and Simulation group (NMSG). The main objective of MSG-052 is to initiate a "Knowledge Network" to promote development and sharing of information and knowledge about common federation architecture and design issues among NATO/PfP (Partnership for Peace) countries. By Knowledge Network, we envision a combination of a Community of Practice (CoP), various organisations and Knowledge Bases. A CoP, consisting of federation development experts from the NATO/PfP nations, will foster the development of stateof-the-art federation architecture and design solutions, and provide a Knowledge Base for the Modelling and Simulation (M&S) community as a whole. As part of the work, existing structures and tools for knowledge capture, management and utilization will be explored, refined and used when appropriate; for instance the work previously done under MSG-027 PATHFINDER Integration Environment provides lessons learned that could benefit this group. The paper will explore the concept of a Community of Practice and reveal the ideas and findings within the MSG-052 Management Group concerning ways of establishing and managing a Federation Architecture and Design CoP. It will also offer several views on the concept of operations for a collaborative effort, combining voluntary contributions as well as assigned tasks. Amongst the preliminary findings was the notion of a Wiki-based Collaborative Environment in which a large portion of our work is conducted and which also represents our current Knowledge Base. Finally, we present some of our main challenges and vision for future work.


This brief one-page report summarizes part 3 of a 9-part cooperative program between the Bureau of Mines and the Western Petroleum Refiners Association (W.P.R.A.) to obtain storage stability data on distillate fuels that were representative of crude oil sources from major producing areas of the world. A total of 34 distillate fuels and 250 blends of these fuels were stored under several conditions - at 37.8/sup 0/C (100/sup 0/F) in glass bottles with contaminants (copper or iron, with or without water), at 43.3/sup 0/C (110/sup 0/F) in vented glass bottles with no contaminant, or at ambient temperature in 55-gallon vented steel drums. The fuels and blends in glass bottles were stored for periods of 6, 13, 26, or 39 weeks, while those in the drums remained in storage for one year. At the end of each storage period, a sample was removed for determination of light transmission, insoluble gum, and soluble gum. Straight-run fuels were found to be the most stable, catalytically cracked fuels were intermediate in stability, and thermally cracked fuels were the least stable. Oxidation appeared to be a major factor in gum formation. Copper catalyzed gum formation; storage of a fuel in contact with copper and seamore » water was the most severe storage condition studied. Iron had no effect on gum formation; however, some of the fuels were degraded by contact with galvanized iron and sea water.« less


We review the progress made during the last thirty years on ground effect aerodynamics associated with race cars, in particular open wheel race cars. Ground effect aerodynamics of race cars is concerned with generating downforce, principally via low pressure on the surfaces nearest to the ground. The "ground effected" parts of an open wheeled car's aerodynamics are the most aerodynamically efficient and contribute less drag than that associated with, for example, an upper rear wing. Whilst drag reduction is an important part of the research, downforce generation plays a greater role in lap time reduction. Aerodynamics plays a vital role in determining speed and acceleration (including longitudinal acceleration but principally cornering acceleration), thus performance. Attention is paid to wings and diffusers in ground effect and wheel aerodynamics. For the wings and diffusers in ground effect, major physical features are identified and force regimes classified, including the phenomena of downforce enhancement, maximum downforce and downforce reduction. In particular the role played by force enhancement edge vortices is demonstrated. Apart from model tests, advances and problems in numerical modeling of ground effect aerodynamics are also reviewed and discussed.


Recent studies about climate change are mandating a drastic reduction of green house gas (GHG) emissions. Solutions include the utilization of renewable energy sources (e.g., wind, solar energy) and the increased utilization of hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). In this scenario ICT can play a significant role by fostering the smart utilization of current energy and transportation infrastructures (smart grid and smart cities). This paper presents a new ICT infrastructure to enable the intelligent exploitation of distributed energy resources in order to minimize the EV charging times while optimizing the efficiency of the electrical infrastructure. The proposed system is based on a distributed communication infrastructure (both wired and wireless) aimed at collecting/emitting bidirectional energy dispatching opportunities for electric vehicles. The envisaged system seamlessly interconnects emerging self-organizing wireless technologies (i.e., VANETs and Wireless Mesh Networks), with legacy wired communication technologies, to guarantee a fast rollout of the EV charging service with minimum investments in communication infrastructures. The performance of the proposed solution is evaluated in terms of its sustainability by analyzing the quality of the charging service as perceived by the users, and the capability of the charging infrastructure to meet the charging requests in a timely manner.


A diverse set of tectonic features and the recent availability of high-quality broadband seismic data from the USArray and other stations on the northern Great Plains of North America provide a distinct opportunity to test different anisotropy-forming mechanisms. A total of 4138 pairs of well-defined splitting parameters observed at 445 stations show systematic spatial variations of anisotropic characteristics. Azimuthally invariant fast orientations subparallel to the absolute plate motion (APM) direction are observed at most of the stations on the Superior Craton and the southern Yavapai province, indicating that a single layer of anisotropy with a horizontal axis of symmetry is sufficient to explain the anisotropic structure. For areas with simple anisotropy, the application of a procedure for estimating the depth of anisotropy using spatial coherency of splitting parameters results in a depth of 200–250 km, suggesting that the observed anisotropy mostly resides in the upper asthenosphere. In the vicinity of the northern boundary of the Yavapai province and the Wyoming Craton, the splitting parameters can be adequately explained by a two-horizontal layer model. The lower layer has an APM-parallel fast orientation, and the upper layer has a fast orientation that is mostly consistent with the regional strike of the boundary. Based on the splitting measurements and previous results from seismic tomography and geodynamic modeling, we propose a model involving deflecting of asthenosphere flow by the bottom of the lithosphere and channeling of flow by a zone of thinned lithosphere approximately along the northern boundary of the Yavapai province.


The following paper talks about the transformation process of psychiatrics  resources in Andalucia, Spain. This second part analyzes the development that took place after the disappearance of the organism created to carry out the reform. It offers a critical approach to the incorporation of the mental health resources into the general sanitary system, to the complete extinction of the psychiatric hospitals, to the creation of specific social services for people suffering from serious mental disorder and to the present situation of the "reformed" mental health, informing about the goals and difficulties of each phase of these long twenty years: 1991-2011.


Should agencies receive Chevron deference when interpreting the reach of their own jurisdiction? This article argues that, in general, they should not. We begin by identifying and detailing the various different types of jurisdictional questions that may arise in statutory interpretation. The article then surveys how the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have analyzed these different aspects of the jurisdiction problem, with a particular attention to statutory silences. The Court's Chevron jurisprudence strongly suggest that deference to agency determinations of their own jurisdiction should be disfavored, particularly where a statute is silent (and not merely ambiguous) about the existence of agency jurisdiction. In particular, we argue that courts should deny Chevron deference regardless of whether an agency is asserting or disclaiming jurisdiction. This no-deference rule should apply in both existence- and scope-of-power cases, but courts should continue to show deference where agencies assert the existence of a factual predicate that triggers jurisdiction. We support our proposal with arguments drawing on both traditional administrative law norms and public choice analyses of the incentives faced by agencies and other relevant actors. While there are strong counterarguments to our proposal - particularly the potential difficulty in distinguishing between jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional questions - this article maintains that denying deference in the jurisdictional context is desirable and consistent with Chevron principles.


Böhler K105 is a high-carbon, chromium-molybdenum-tungsten-vanadium, alloy cold-work tool steel that is used for applications where abrasive wear is dominant and the risk of chipping or cracking is not high. This datasheet provides information on composition, physical properties, hardness, and elasticity. It also includes information on forming and heat treating. Filing Code: TS-794. Producer or source: voestalpine Böhler Edelstahl GmbH & Co KG.


Globalization's 'second unbundling' has drastically altered the nature of international trade giving rise to what might be referred to as the trade-investment-service nexus. Today's RTAs are qualitatively different than those signed two decades ago, since they cover disciplines that go beyond preferential market access. This paper investigates whether the nature of RTAs matters when it comes to promoting trade. Controlling for the 'gravitational un-constant' terms, I use an augmented specification of the gravity model with a balanced panel over the 1994-2010 period. Employing four different econometric techniques taking care of zero trade flows, I check for robustness across all four procedures. Controlling for heterogeneity and self-selection of RTAs my results show that the nature of an RTA matters in trade promotion but the magnitude and direction of that relationship is unclear. JEL classification: F10, F13, F15