This paper examines the vulnerabilities of agriculture in coastal regions of Bangladesh to the different adverse effects of sea level rise induced hazards, and also identifies option for future agricultural adaptations. It reveals that due to sea level rise, agriculture of the study area has already experienced noticeable adverse impacts especially in terms of area of inundation, salinity intrusion and reduction in crop production. The study is conducted based on both primary and secondary data. A total 303 out of 1200 respondents from three coastal villages were randomly interviewed. Samples are drawn proportionately from three villages. Descriptive and inferential statistics and logistic regression have been done to analysis data. The study find that the agricultural land, production of crops, local crop varieties, income and employment facilities of the farmers is highly vulnerable to various SLR induced hazards. Selection of various adaptive options such as control of saline water intrusion into agricultural land, coastal afforestation, cultivation of saline tolerant crops, homestead and floating gardening, embankment cropping and increase of income through alternative livelihoods are emerging need for sustainable coastal agricultural development. Therefore, this paper argues that further development and implementation of such adaptive measures could help to minimize vulnerabilities of agriculture in the long run.


Alumina-types present striking differences in physical properties, which have detrimental effects on accuracy of spectrochemical analysis. Calcination with a small amount of aluminium fluoride eliminates many of these differences The "mineralized calcination step" converts all samples to essentially alpha alumina of very similar monocrystal size, and subsequent grinding while mixing with graphite introduces still more uniformity This treatment is simple and can be carried out on a number of samples at the same time It provides significant improvement in both accuracy and precision. Details of the pre-treatment are presented along with analytical data to show the improvement.


Over the past decade, knowledge management has become an increasingly important and critical issue. Both the scientific and commercial communities maintain that organizations with knowledge power can sustain their long-term competitive superiorities. Universities and higher education institutes are the main centers for the production and dissemination of knowledge and, as such, it is certainly necessary for them to implement an appropriate Knowledge Management System (KMS). In the 21 st century, successful educational organizations will make use of knowledge and information in a more efficient way and will apply it to the creation of value. To cope with globalization, it is essential for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to effectively implement KMS in their organizations which will lead them to create more value and stay competitive. Even so, universities are facing a number of challenges while implementing KMS and budget deficits is one of the factors affecting the KM process in higher education institutes. There has not been adequate study on the impacts of budget deficit on KM activities in HEIs. The question that arises is:  how can these learning organizations overcome budget cuts and simplify the implementation of KM? The present study aims at investigating the challenges faced by two international universities in the Netherlands. Therefore, the study was conducted through case study design and used the Grounded Theory (GT) approach to unfold the impacts of budgetary deficit on the implementation of KMS within this context. A literature review method has also been used to get a deeper insight into some causes of budget deficit in HEIs. Initial findings of the study show that budget deficits have negative impact on KM activities in HEIs including increased workload for teachers, decrease in knowledge dissemination through publication and longer processes of problem solving activities. Keywords: Budget Deficit, Knowledge Management, Challenges, Higher Education, International Universities in the Netherlands, Grounded Theory


Many medium-sized towns and cities face separate problems of traffic congestion and increasing pressure to reduce waste sent to landfill. The intent of the study was to determine whether the utilisation of biohydrogen from organic waste, as a transport fuel, can provide a holistic solution for municipalities to meet renewable energy and waste reduction targets in medium-sized towns. The study assesses the feasibility of producing a sufficient quantity and quality of biohydrogen from the organic fraction of Gloucestershire's municipal solid waste (MSW) to supply a hydrogen fuel to operate a fuel-cell powered ultra light rail (ULR) system in Cheltenham and its surrounds. The paper assesses the selected waste to fuel (WtF) technologies for producing biohydrogen against a number of defined criteria. Based on the results of the technology evaluations, it was observed that anaerobic digestion (AD) combined with steam methane reforming (SMR) would be the most suitable technology option for the Gloucestershire ULR system's needs. The results demonstrate that all of the technologies evaluated could produce the quantities of hydrogen needed; however, the Kompogas AD process coupled with SMR was shown to offer further potential in terms of its profitability and the flexibility needed to ensure the project's viability.


This study determined the effects of land-use practice had on the rate and extent of bush encroachment in a mesic savanna in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Changes in woody cover were measured for 1 km 2 sites in areas under communal, commercial and conservation land-use systems for the period between 1937 and 2000. Land users from each area were interviewed to gain the histories of each area and to determine how the changes in woody cover had impacted them and whether anything was being done to counteract the spread of trees and shrubs on their land. Bush encroachment occurred across all three of the land-use types in the 67-year period between 1937 and 2000. The results showed that land-use practice had enormous impacts on the process of bush encroachment. The communal site showed a decrease in grass (21%) and tree (5%) cover and an increase in shrub cover (13%). At the commercial site, there was a considerable decrease in grass cover (46%) and moderate increase in shrub cover (10%) and a massive increase in tree cover (36%). The area under conservation showed a substantial decrease in grass cover (47%), a slight decrease in shrub cover (19%) and a massive increase in tree cover (66%). The perceived causes of these changes were fairly similar amongst the different land users. The changes were mostly not perceived to be a problem for the communal land users. The main advantages mentioned were increased woody resources for building and firewood and increased browse availability. The commercial and conservation land users perceived the changes to have significant negative connotations including the loss of grazing land and biodiversity and secondary invasion of encroached areas by alien plant species. Despite these perceptions, very little has been done to combat bush encroachment in the commercial and conservation land use systems.


Natural convection in rectangular enclosures is found in many real-world engineering applications. Included in these applications are the energy efficient design of buildings, operation and safety of nuclear reactors, solar collector design, passive energy storage, heat transfer across multi-pane windows, thermo-electric refrigeration and heating devices, and the design-for-mitigation of optical distortion in large-scale laser systems. A common industrial application of natural convection is free air cooling without the aid of fans and can happen on small scales such as computer chips to large scale process equipment. The enclosure phenomena can loosely be organized into two large classes: (1) horizontal enclosures heated from below and (2) vertical enclosures heated from the side. In addition to temperature gradient convection strength within the enclosure can vary due to the existence of heat sources with different strength.Numerical simulations are conducted for free convective flow of air with or without internal heat generation in two-dimensional rectangular enclosures of different aspect ratios. The objective of this numerical study is to investigate the effects of external temperature gradient, internal heat generation and aspect ratio (AR) of enclosure (ratio of the length of the isothermal walls to their separation distance), in free convective laminar flow of a fluid. Two-dimensional rectangular enclosures of different aspect ratio (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) with two adiabatic side walls and isothermal bottom (hot) and top (cold) walls are considered for the first configuration. Whereas for the second configuration, two adiabatic top and bottom walls, isothermal left side (cold) and right side (hot) walls are considered. Two principal parameters considered for the flow of fluid are the external Rayleigh number, RaE, which represents the effect due to the differential heating of the isothermal walls, and the internal Rayleigh number, RaI, which represents the strength of the internal heat generation. The effect of external temperature gradient and aspect ratio on natural convection has been observed by varying the value of external Rayleigh number (RaE) equal to 2×104, 2×105, and 2×106 and keeping the internal Rayleigh number constant (RaI = 2×105). Similarly, the effect of internal heat generation and aspect ratio on natural convection has been observed by varying the value of internal Rayleigh number (RaI) equal to 2×104, 2×105, and 2×106 and keeping the external Rayleigh number constant (RaE = 2×105). Significant changes in flow patterns and isotherms have been observed for all cases. Also the variation of average heat flux ratio (convective heat flux/corresponding conduction heat flux) along the hot and cold walls, and the convection strength have been calculated for all cases. It is found that the aspect ratio has a significant effect in fluid flow and heat transfer in the enclosures. The average heat flux ratio and the strength of convection increase with aspect ratio as the enclosure shape changes square (AR = 1) to shallow (AR > 1).Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Carbohydrates and their derivatives have great potential as building blocks for the development of renewable materials that are cost and performance competitive with conventional petroleum-based materials. To this end, the rigid carbohydrate-derived diols, glucarodilactone and isosorbide were functionalized with a castor oil derivative, 10-undecenoic acid, forming α,ω-dienes suitable for acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) polymerization. Equimolar copolymerizations of these two monomers, glucarodilactone undecenoate (GDLU) and isosorbide undecenoate (GDLU), transform brittle homopolymers into elastic materials with shape memory capabilities. To understand the source of these properties, a series of copolymers consisting of a range of GDLU and IU compositions (100 : 0, 77 : 23, 76 : 24, 52 : 48, 48 : 52, 18 : 82, 0 : 100 mol percent GDLU to IU) was synthesized. The material and chemical properties were characterized by uniaxial tensile testing, small-amplitude oscillatory shear rheology, X-ray scattering and hydrolytic degradation testing. Small compositional changes in this family were shown to have a drastic impact on the observed mechanical performance and degradability of these materials. Rheological measurements of GDLU-containing copolymers found evidence for the presence of transient networking within these materials. We posit that the transient network within this material is responsible for the elasticity and shape memory abilities of the GDL-containing materials. In confirmation of these properties, a novel α,ω-diene 2,5-bis(hydroxymethylfuran) undecenoate (BHMFU) was developed and served as a direct replacement for either GDLU or IU in copolymerizations. The replacement of GDLU resulted in a total loss of the elasticity and shape memory of the copolymers, supporting the role of GDLU in the mechanical performance.


Artificial intelligence programs operating in competitive domains typically use brute-force search if the domain can be modeled using a search tree or alternately use nonsearch heuristics as in production rule-based expert systems. While brute-force techniques have recently proven to be a viable method for modeling domains with smaller search spaces, such as checkers and chess, the same techniques cannot succeed in more complex domains, such as shogi or go. This research uses a cognitive-based modeling strategy to develop a heuristic search technique based on cognitive thought processes with minimal domain specific knowledge. The cognitive-based search technique provides a significant reduction in search space complexity and, furthermore, enables the search paradigms to be extended to domains that are not typically thought of as search domains such as aerial combat or corporate takeovers.


In the past, foreign policy and security concerns have trumped any efforts to reform the North Korean economy. Today, the linkage between security and economic policies is being reconsidered as part of a larger debate in the North Korean leadership that has already transformed the country in fundamental ways. Despite renewed tensions with the United States, North Korea has begun to implement important economic reforms. Moreover, underneath the cover of the ever-present 'military-first' slogan in the controlled media, a debate is taking place between 'reformers' and 'conservatives' over whether Pyongyang's bloated military industrial complex should be scaled back to help ensure the success of economic reform. Not only do these developments reflect strong political forces in the North Korean leadership that support reform, but they could also have profound implications for the future of Pyongyang's national security policy. North Korea may decide that it will need a more favourable external security environment in order to secure greater access to international economic and financial assistance for its reform measures and, ultimately, downsizing its military. Pyongyang could launch a new policy of engagement that would include greater flexibility in the Beijing Six Party Talks. A second scenario is continued internal struggle over reform that could lead to an inability to act decisively on key security and foreign policy issues, including at the nuclear talks. Finally, progress in reform may, paradoxically, strengthen conservatives, leading to hopes in Pyongyang that it can improve the economy, while simultaneously maintaining a large powerful military. Whether Washington can do anything at this point to influence directly the emerging debate in Pyongyang is unclear, but a renewed policy of engagement on its part could enhance the chances of success for North Korean advocates of reform.


Contents: Introduction Part I China: The making of an imprint in China, 1000-1800, Joseph McDermott Tu and Shu: illustrated manuscripts in the great age of song printing, Maggie Bickford Byways in the Imperial Chinese information order: the dissemination and commercial publication of state documents, Hilde de Weerdt Mashaben: commercial publishing in Jianyang from the Song to the Ming, Lucille Chia Ming audiences and vernacular hermeneutics: the uses of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Anne E. McLaren Writing for success: printing, examinations, and intellectual change in late Ming China, Kai-wing Chow The Huanduzhai of Hangzhou and Suzhou: a study in 17th-century publishing, Ellen Widmer Visual hermeneutics and the act of turning the leaf: a genealogy of Liu Yuan's Lingyan ge, Anne Burkus-Chasson Commercial publishing in late Imperial China: the Zou and Ma family businesses of Sibao, Fujian, Cynthia J. Brokaw. Part II Korea: Propagating female virtues in Choson Korea, Martina Deuchler Literary production, circulating libraries, and private publishing: the popular reception of vernacular fiction texts in the late Choson dynasty, Michael Kim. Part III Japan: Centres of printing in medieval Japan: late Heian to early Edo period, K.B. Gardner Provincial publishing in the Tokugawa period, P.F. Kornicki Manuscript, not print: scribal culture in the Edo Period, P.F. Kornicki The transfer of learning: the import of Chinese and Dutch books in Tokugawa Japan, W.J. Boot The Daiso lending library of Nagoya, 1767-1899, Andrew Markus Books and book illustrations in early modern Japan, Ekkehard May The history of the book in Edo and Paris, Henry D. Smith II Entrepreneurship and culture: the Hakubunkan publishing empire in Meiji Japan, Giles Richter Name index.


HyperDSC™ (fast scan rate) was used to study the melting behavior of canola (CLO), sunflower (SFO), palm olein (PO), rice bran oils (RBO), and cocoa butter (CB), and was compared to the melting behaviors using conventional DSC. There was an increase in sensitivity with increase in scan rate. Slow scan rate (5 to 20C/min) gave low sensitivity, which increased when the scan rates were increased to 50, 100 and 200C/min. Peak resolution was affected by scan rate depending on the sample weight. Increase in the size of sample coupled with the use of fast scan rate decreased
the peak resolution. Generally small sample sizes gave better peak resolution. Results of the effect of scan rate on glass transition (Tg) shows that Tg, which is a weak transition especially in crystalline and low amorphous materials was not detected using conventional scan rates (5 to 20oC/min). It was however detected using of hyperDSC™ scan rates (100 to 200oC/min). Increasing the scan rate resulted in an increase in the peak temperature and the elimination of shoulder peaks, which were caused due to the polymorphic behavior of the triacylglycerols in the oils. The increase in peak temperature caused a shift in the peak position towards a higher temperature value. There is a positive correlation between the peak temperature and scan rate. The correlation coefficients (r) for CLO, SFO, PO, RBO and CB were 0.96, 0.95, 0.97, 0.96 and 0.96 respectively.


In concordance with the emergence of technologies that allow more flexible interconnections, we propose to divide Interorganizational Information Systems (IOSs) adoption into two decision processes: electronic data exchange adoption and technological choices. These are sequentially and (in extreme cases) simultaneously related, albeit distinct, since an electronic data exchange decision rarely imposes a technological choice. In this context, the research aims at distinguishing factors influencing the decision for a company to adopt electronic data exchanges with its partners, and factors influencing the decision to adopt technologies supporting these electronic data exchanges. We investigate product information exchanges in the French consumer goods and retail industries through external catalogues, internal catalogues and Extranets. Analysis of 25 case studies allows us to conclude that it is relevant to distinguish these two decisions and the factors influencing each one.


Since the mid-1980s, Taiwan and mainland China have witnessed a sustained resurgence of academic and intellectual interest in ruxue - "Confucianism" - variously conceived as a form of culture, an ideology, a system of learning, and a tradition of normative values. This discourse has led to a proliferation of contending conceptions of ruxue, as well as proposals for rejuvenating it to make it a vital cultural and psycho-spiritual resource in the modern world.This study aims to show how ruxue has been conceived in order to assess the achievements of this enterprise; to identify which aspects of ruxue thought and values academics find viable, and why; to highlight the dynamics involved in the ongoing cross-fertilization between academics in China and Taiwan; and to examine the relationship between these activities and cultural nationalism.Four key arguments are developed. First, the process of intellectual cross-fertilization and rivalry between scholars has served to sustain academic interest in ruxue. Second, contrary to conventional wisdom, party-state support in the PRC does not underpin the continuing academic discourse on ruxue. Third, cultural nationalism, rather than state nationalism, better explains the nature of this activity. Fourth, academic discourse on ruxue provides little evidence of robust philosophical creativity.


This paper provides an analysis of aggregate behavioral outcomes when individual utility exhibits social interaction effects. We study generalized logistic models of individual choice which incorporate terms reflecting the desire of individuals to conform to the behavior of others in an environment of noncooperative decisionmaking. Laws of large numbers are generated in such environments. Multiplicity of equilibria in these models, which are equivalent to the existence of multiple self-consistent means for average choice behavior, will exist when the social interactions exceed a particular threshold. Local stability of these multiple equilibria is also studied. The properties of the noncooperative economy are contrasted with the properties of an economy in which a social planner determines the set of individual choices. The model is additionally shown to be well suited to explaining a number of empirical phenomena, such as threshold effects in individual behavior, ethnic group fixed effects of income equations, and large cross-group differences in binary choice behavior.


A new course in business Japanese from the authors of the bestselling Japanese for Busy People series. The Association for Japanese-Language Teaching (AJALT), renowned for its Japanese for Busy People series, has developed a comprehensive course for students who need to use Japanese in a business environment. Japanese for Professionals is a serious and detailed manual of the language of trade, commerce, and government, aimed at intermediate students who work with Japanese on a daily basis. Thirteen lessons introduce common business situations-first-time meetings, directing subordinates client negotiations with key sentences, and a dialogue to illustrate how Japanese is used in a business context. Precise definitions for all new vocabulary and lucid explanations of grammar, idioms, and cultural differences provide the reader with powerful communication tools for the office. Exercises and quizzes have been included to help students check their progress, and four lessons have been set aside for review. Busy professionals will find the bilingual glossaries a useful reference even after completing all the lessons in this clear and extremely helpful textbook. FEATURES: o Emphasis on how to communicate with Japanese colleagues and clients o All elements of working Japanese, from using the telephone to directing subordinates, presented in thirteen systematic and fully structured lessons o Focuses on authentic spoken Japanese through dialogues based on real-life business situations o 165 Essential Expressions classified into 50 business functions that can be used by all busy professionals o Detailed analysis in English of all phrases and expressions introduced in this text o Challenging exercises and quizzes that actually reinforce language acquisitiono Four special chapters for comprehensive review and further practice o Three special chapters provide important background information about common Japanese business practices o Equally effective as part of a college course or for learners studying without formal tuition o Furigana (phonetic superscripts) added to all difficult kanji and two full bilingual glossaries


Abstract Background Oxytocin is one of the most frequently used medications in obstetrics. It is generally considered to be safe and effective for induction and augmentation of labor but has been implicated in uterine hyperstimulation and adverse fetal outcomes. The management of labor with oxytocin in response to changes in fetal status remains an area of debate. Objective This study sought to assess the cost-effectiveness of reducing or ceasing oxytocin administration in response to Category II fetal heart rate tracings. Study Design A decision-analytic model was built using TreeAge 2016 software (TreeAge Software Inc.) with probabilities, costs, and utilities derived from the literature. Primary outcomes included cerebral palsy (CP), neonatal mortality, and mode of delivery. Secondary outcomes included cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY; cost-effectiveness threshold set at $100,000/QALY), admission to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and low 5-minute Apgar score (<7). Sensitivity analyses were performed to determine the robustness of our baseline assumptions. Results In a theoretical cohort of 900,000 women (estimated number of women undergoing induction at term in the United States), decreasing or stopping oxytocin in response to Category II tracings prevented 12,510 NICU admissions, 4,410 low Apgar scores, 204 neonatal deaths, and 126 cases of CP. However, there were 81,900 more cesarean deliveries. The strategy cost $356 million more, but was cost-effective with an ICER of $9,881.5 per QALY. Sensitivity analysis revealed that the intervention would be cost-effective up to a cesarean rate of 54%. Conclusion Decreasing or stopping oxytocin in response to Category II fetal heart rate tracings is cost-effective. This intervention increases the rate of cesarean deliveries but reduces neonatal morbidity and mortality. Further work on this guideline should be performed to ascertain how the approach using different aspects of the Category II tracing to guide care might lead to similar improved outcomes without increasing the cesarean delivery rate.


Military intervention into the affairs of other states is often justified by the United States of America with reference to human rights, and is therefore called humanitarian intervention. This article examines the operation of the human rights discourse in justifying such intervention, and argues that the conflation of national self-interest and collective self-defence, which is allowed for in jus ad bellum discourse and built into the UN legal and executive architecture, allows for intervening states to present military actions that afford them strategic gain and commercial opportunity as altruistic acts. Support, weak resistance or acquiescence to such action by the UN and by the press allows for such actions to acquire popular legitimacy, and this article examines how the human rights discourse provides an argumentative framework to articulate such legitimacy. In its critical analysis of arguments put forward by Simma and Cassese, the article concludes that the conduct of intervening states post bellum should attract as much legal scrutiny as the initial intervention, and that the use of human rights to justify interventions that are acquisitive in motive undermines the purpose and operations of human rights as a driver for positive change in the world.


To address the professional development needs of learning community instructors at Kingsborough Community College, faculty coordinators and program directors developed a workbook for instructional teams. This workbook walks instructors through the collaborative process of creating and sustaining successful links and focuses on what we believe is the heart of learning community work—transparency, relationship building, integration, assessment, and reflection. It both emerged from and encourages a backward design approach—starting with student learning outcomes and working backward to provide the collaboration, integration, and knowledge-construction that define learning communities and make the learning outcomes achievable. It further reflects the ongoing and cyclic nature of the collaborative process necessary for strong learning communities (Graziano & Kahn, 2013), taking collaborators from initial meetings through the development of deep and sustained integration, to assessment, reflection, and redesign. This workbook has been central in campus-wide efforts at Kingsborough to maintain philosophical and pedagogical integrity while intentionally developing and scaling learning communities; it is presented here as a resource that may be adapted to help serve the professional development needs of programs and instructors at other campuses.


Purpose
A wound is commonly infected because there is loss of integrity of skin. Infected wound delays wound healing due to the
lack of defense mechanism, blood supply and lack of oxygen. The present study was focused on the incidence of various
pathogens in different types of wound infections and the variations in their antibiotic susceptibility have been analyzed.
Methods
A total of 50 samples were collected randomly from wound infected areas like cellulitis, diabetic foot lesions, post-operative
wound infections, early stages of necrotizing fasciitis, burn wounds etc. The samples were analyzed by various
microbiological techniques like microscopy, culture methods and Biochemical methods. The antibiotic sensitivity pattern of
isolates was tested by using Kirby Bauer's disc diffusion method.
Results
Out of 50 cases, 35 were males and 15 were a female which shows the male preponderance. Wound infection showed a
high incidence in the age group of 41-60 which is followed by 21-40. The most predominant bacteria in positive samples
are Pseudomonas aeruginosa with 44% which is followed by Staphylococcus aureus 26%, Klebsiella pneumoniae 16%,
Proteus mirabilis 8% and Escherichia coli 6%. Nearly 21 major strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was highly sensitive to
Amikacin (95.4%) and 15 strains were sensitive to Amoxycillin/clavulanate (68.1%). Staphylococcus aureus was isolated
from two cases of necrotizing fasciitis and the fungi Aspergillus niger was isolated from one burn wound infection.
Conclusion
The most common organisms isolated were Pseudomonas aeruginosa followed by Staphylococcus aureus which showed
sensitivity to Amikacin. The percentage of resistance was high among Penicillin, Cephalexin, Ampicillin, Tetracycline and
Erythromycin.


Divvy is an application for applying unsupervised machine learning techniques (clustering and dimensionality reduction) to the data analysis process. Divvy provides a novel UI that allows researchers to tighten the action-perception loop of changing algorithm parameters and seeing a visualization of the result. Machine learning researchers can use Divvy to publish easy to use reference implementations of their algorithms, which helps themachine learning field have a greater impact on research practices elsewhere.


River and open-channel flows present complex three-dimensional (3D) structures in the water column and on the surface as a result of the existence of secondary currents driven by either centrifugal force or turbulence. This paper experimentally investigates secondary currents in a straight, turbulent, rough-bed open-channel flow; the effect of different channel width to flow depth ratios (12.25, 15, and 20) on secondary currents; and surface boils associated with secondary currents at moderate Reynolds numbers. Nearly instantaneous profiles of three components of flow velocity and turbulence characteristics in the water column were measured by using an acoustic Doppler velocity profiler (ADVP). Simultaneously, large-scale particle image velocimetry was used to measure the water surface velocities and turbulence structures. Mean velocity patterns in the water undulate across the channel, indicating the presence of secondary currents in the long-term average flow structure. Secondary currents affect the distribution of bed shear stress, Reynolds stress, and turbulence intensities across the channel. The aspect ratio determines the number of secondary cells in the water column. A mean multiband undulating surface velocity pattern in the transverse direction correlates with the secondary cell distribution in the water column below. The instantaneous position of the upwelling and downwelling regions on the surface may deviate from their long-term mean position, indicating a meandering of the surface pattern. Vortex structures are detected from instantaneous surface velocity maps, and vortex boil lines are identified. Boil vortices mainly occur in upwelling areas with high vorticity. The simultaneous detailed velocity measurements in the water column and on the free surface have shown a good agreement between the secondary cell patterns obtained by the two methods.


Uncertain physical properties of methane hydrate (MH) above a bottom simulating reflector should be estimated for detecting MH-bearing formations. In contrast to general marine sediments, MH-bearing formations have a relatively high electrical resistivity. Therefore, marine electrical resistivity imaging (MERI) is a well-suited method for MH exploration. The authors conducted sensitivity testing of sub-seafloor MH exploration using a two-dimensional (2D) inversion algorithm with the Wenner, Pole-Dipole (PD) and Dipole-Dipole (DD) arrays. The results of the Wenner electrode array show the poorest resolution in comparison to the PD and DD arrays. The results of the study indicate that MERI is an effective geophysical method for exploring the sub-seafloor electrical structure and specifically for delineating resistive anomalies that may be present because of MH-bearing formations at a shallow depth beneath the seafloor.


Hockey journalists and statisticians currently lack many of the empirical tools available in other sports. In this paper I introduce a win probability metric for the NHL and use it to develop a new statistic, Added Goal Value, which evaluates player offensive productivity. The metric is the first of its kind to incorporate powerplay information and is the only NHL in-game win probability metric currently available. I show how win probabilities can enhance the narrative around an individual game and can also be used to evaluate playoff series win probabilities. I then introduce Added Goal Value which improves upon traditional offensive player statistics by accounting for game context. A player's AGV has a strong positive correlation between seasons, making it a useful statistic for predicting future offensive productivity. By accounting for the context in which goals are scored, AGV also allows for comparisons to be made between players who have identical goalscoring rates. The work in this paper provides several advances in hockey analytics and also provides a framework for unifying current and future work on Corsi, Fenwick, and other NHL analytics.


Background Prospective syndromic surveillance of emergency department visits has been used for near-real time tracking of communicable diseases to detect outbreaks or other unexpected disease clusters. The utility of syndromic surveillance for tracking cardiovascular events, which may be influenced by environmental factors and influenza, has not been evaluated. We developed and evaluated a method for tracking cardiovascular events using emergency department free-text chief complaints. Methodology/Principal Findings There were three phases to our analysis. First we applied text processing algorithms based on sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value to chief complaint data reported by 11 New York City emergency departments for which ICD-9 discharge diagnosis codes were available. Second, the same algorithms were applied to data reported by a larger sample of 50 New York City emergency departments for which discharge diagnosis was unavailable. From this more complete data, we evaluated the consistency of temporal variation of cardiovascular syndromic events and hospitalizations from 76 New York City hospitals. Finally, we examined associations between particulate matter ≤2.5 µm (PM2.5), syndromic events, and hospitalizations. Sensitivity and positive predictive value were low for syndromic events, while specificity was high. Utilizing the larger sample of emergency departments, a strong day of week pattern and weak seasonal trend were observed for syndromic events and hospitalizations. These time-series were highly correlated after removing the day-of-week, holiday, and seasonal trends. The estimated percent excess risks in the cold season (October to March) were 1.9% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.6, 3.2), 2.1% (95% CI: 0.9, 3.3), and 1.8% (95%CI: 0.5, 3.0) per same-day 10 µg/m3 increase in PM2.5 for cardiac-only syndromic data, cardiovascular syndromic data, and hospitalizations, respectively. Conclusions/Significance Near real-time emergency department chief complaint data may be useful for timely surveillance of cardiovascular morbidity related to ambient air pollution and other environmental events.


User-generated content is becoming increasingly common on the Web, but current web applications isolate their users' data, enabling only restricted sharing and cross-service integration. We believe users should be able to share their data seamlessly between their applications and with other users. To that end, we propose Amber, an architecture that decouples users' data from applications, while providing applications with powerful global queries to find user data. We demonstrate how multi-user applications, such as e-mail, can use these global queries to efficiently collect and monitor relevant data created by other users. Amber puts users in control of which applications they use with their data and with whom it is shared, and enables a new class of applications by removing the artificial partitioning of users' data by application.


While significant amounts of foreign aid have been allocated to the group of so-called fragile and conflict-affected states in recent years, it is not clear whether that aid is targeted to where it is most needed. This article extends recent work by Carment and Samy (2017, in press), and focuses on aid targeting in fragile states by using the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy fragility index together with sectoral aid flows from the OECD Creditor Reporting System. Specifically, it considers six country-cases from a three-fold typology of states and evaluates the performance of these countries in terms of their fragility relative to the types of aid that they have received. The article argues that aid is poorly targeted in fragile states and by considering the sectoral allocation of aid it also contributes indirectly to the related issue of aid effectiveness.


In all vertebrate species, reproduction is a hormonally controlled process, important for growth and maturation of gonads and germ cells. Production of functional germ cells is of outmost importance to secure the survival of a species. Fish comprises 50% of the known vertebrates and are found in aquatic habitats all over the world. Even though fish have evolved a wide variety of morphological and physiological characteristics, due to large differences in the living environment, the growth an maturation of germ cells follows the same pattern in all species. In this thesis the focus has been directed on oocyte growth and development in Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), and if stress might inflict disturbances on the reproductive systems.All sexually mature female egg laying vertebrates produces yolky eggs surrounded by an eggshell. Production of yolk and egg shell is under estrogenic control and it is known that production of egg components can be induced in male and juvenile fish by estrogenic substances. Many manmade chemicals have been found to interfere with hormonally controlled processes. Therefore production of the egg yolk precursor, vitellogenin (VTG), and the egg shell components, vitelline envelope proteins (VEP), have been used as biomarkers for estrogenic effect. Exposure to endocrine disrupting substances (EDS) does not only give rise to hormonal effects on the organism, but in addition it also gives rise to an increase in stress hormone, cortisol (F), levels. It is evident that a wide variety of substances may affect Arctic char oocyte growth and maturation. VTG and VEP production is found to be under dose dependent estrogenic control, but the production was directly affected by F. Under natural condition it has been found that F increases towards ovulation. Even though both VTG and VTG is under estrogenic control, these studies showed that stress lead to a decrease of VTG while the VEP production increased. These effects was only observed on protein levels indicating that a post transcriptional down regulation of VTG production is mediated by F in Arctic char.In order for an egg to become fertilizatible, it must undergo a maturation phase. This maturation phase is primarily induced by gonadotropins, which in turn induce the production of species specific maturation inducing substances (MIS). To investigate oocyte development in Arctic char a characterization of its MIS receptor was made. The MIS receptor is localized on the oocyte surface and displays a single class of high affinity and low capacity binding sites. The binding moieties displays association and dissociation kinetics typical of steroid membrane receptors.Even though high specificity for Arctic char MIS was observed, it was found that some EDS bind to the Arctic char oocyte membrane receptor. This suggest that certain EDS might affect oocyte maturation and thereby might alter the reproductive success. Furthermore, it was found that F did not bind to the MIS receptor in Arctic char. It is therefore suggested that oocytes are more sensitive to stress during the growth phase than during maturation


Self-Regulation Interventions and Strategies-Teresa Garland, MOT, OTR/L 2014-02-01 Keeping children's bodies, minds and emotions on task just got easier with this new book from self-regulation expert Teresa Garland. Self-Regulation Interventions and Strategies features more than 200 practical and proven interventions, strategies and adaptations for helping children gain more control over their lives. Each chapter provides rich background and theoretical material to help the reader better understand the issues our children face. Topics include: Basic and advanced methods to calm a child and to preventing outbursts and meltdownsInterventions to help with attention problems, impulse control, distractibility and the ability to sit stillStories and video-modeling for autism, along with techniques to quell repetitive behaviorsSensory strategies for sensitivity and cravingBehavioral and sensory approaches to picky eatingWays to increase organization skills using technology and appsStrategies for managing strong emotions as well as techniques for releasing them


The Court's June 25, 2012 decision in Arizona v. United States struck down three of the four challenged sections of Arizona's "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," colloquially known simply as "S.B. 1070." Two of these provisions created state crimes to punish immigrants for not carrying federally required registration documents and for seeking work without authorization; the third provision expanded state arrest authority to allow police to arrest suspected immigration violators. The Court held that these legislative efforts were preempted by comprehensive federal regulation of immigration enforcement. The Court additionally left open the possibility that the fourth challenged provision of S.B. 1070, requiring Arizona police officers to run immigration status checks on suspected immigration violators, might be held unconstitutional or preempted, depending on how the law is actually applied. This Article explores a less obvious consequence of Arizona: its implications for the continuing viability of a critical federal enforcement mechanism, the immigration detainer. The Arizona decision saps the vitality out of this mechanism, and exposes it as far exceeding any Congressional grant of authority and as conflicting with the Fourth Amendment principles discussed in the opinion. I begin in Part II with a discussion of the context in which S.B. 1070 was passed, a brief history of the litigation over S.B. 1070, and the Arizona decision. The ongoing civil rights battle over immigration brought to the fore issues of racial profiling and the debate over whether states possess "inherent authority" to enforce the immigration laws. Arizona failed to put these issues to rest and the Court's silence ensures ongoing controversy and litigation. Digesting the Arizona opinion, I address in turn: (1) the majority's preemption analysis (and its failure to address the civil rights issues) with respect to the four challenged provisions of S.B. 1070; (2) the Fourth Amendment discussion among the Justices, attendant to the question of whether state officials may subject suspected immigration violators to prolonged detention; and (3) the omission by the Justices — except for Justice Scalia — of any discussion of a state's "inherent authority" or police power with respect to immigration enforcement.The remainder of the Article assesses the effect Arizona will have on the federal government's use of immigration detainers to obtain custody over prisoners held by other law enforcement agencies. Ironically, while Arizona trumpets the supremacy of the federal government in the field of immigration, the opinion has negative implications for the federal government's central enforcement mechanism for obtaining custody of suspected immigration violators. The legality of the immigration detainer system put in place by the executive branch can be analyzed through the same doctrinal frames seen in Arizona — preemption and the Fourth Amendment concerns with prolonged detention. I proceed to that analysis in Part III, addressing Arizona's impact on federal authority to issue immigration detainers requiring other law enforcement officials to prolong the detention of their prisoners. I conclude that the detainer regulation purporting to allow this is ultra vires for the same reason the Arizona Court held parts of S.B. 1070 preempted — the executive branch's detainer regulation is flatly inconsistent with the comprehensive enforcement regime established by Congress. Additionally, there are substantial Fourth Amendment problems with the immigration detainer regulation that are illuminated by the Fourth Amendment discussion in Arizona. The regulation is invalid because of these substantial constitutional questions.


Extremely low density self-assembled InAs quantum dots are grown by a combination technique of in situ annealing for 2 min and pause of substrate rotation during molecular beam epitaxy. The surface morphology and structural characteristics of the quantum dots are scrutinized by atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence spectra. It is found that the quantum dot size and density increase as the InAs deposition amount rises. Quantum dots with a density between 2.5 × 107 cm−2 and 2.2 × 108 cm−2 are 2–5 nm in height and 18–39 nm in diameter. It is believed that as-grown InAs nanodots may be of important value for future single quantum dot research.


The role of patents in personalized medicine is problematic, as the potential market for tailored treatments may be too small for the patent incentive to be effective. However, in certain instances patent exclusivity may serve less as an incentive to invest in new inventions than it might to serve as an aggregator for certain types of ancillary information that will be critical to personalized diagnosis and treatments. In this essay I look at the effect of patents on the collection and application of such non-patentable data related to genetic variation. My vehicle for examining such effects is the testing service for genetic predisposition to cancer which was the subject of the recent Supreme Court decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad. The Myriad patents appear to have given rise to detailed databases of genetic variations that are now held as trade secrets. The welfare effects from such data aggregation, both positive and negative, have gone largely unexplored and undiscussed in the arguments over DNA patenting, and suggest a previously unappreciated justification for patenting in some instances.


In 1986, the United States government attempted to combat the perceived war on drugs by enacting mandatory drug laws, with a primary focus on incarcerating crack offenders. The result of this was a mass influx of African Americans to US penitentiaries and minimal to zero reduction of crack convictions. Because the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 recognized 100 grams of cocaine as equivalent to one gram of crack, it has been perceived not as a war on drugs, but as a war on a war on minorities. The mass incarceration of drug offenders also led to severely damaging fiscal consequences that were forced onto the nation's taxpayers. In November 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which decreased the imbalanced ratio of 100:1 to 18:1. The Fair Sentencing Act, named by the United States government, is still unfair. Until Congress and the Sentencing Commission agree that one gram of cocaine is equivalent to one gram of crack, justice has not been served.


This paper responds to Annie Cossins' article in the British Journal of Criminology 48(3), which draws on my research to argue that the case for using restorative justice in response to sexual assault is not well founded. She proposes instead that further legal reform should be pursued. I discuss the reasons for a paucity of evidence, present findings from my research, and correct and challenge several misrepresentations and assumptions in her article. I argue that the way forward should not be limited to legal reform, but should include restorative justice, and more broadly, alternative justice practices.


Code switching is a widely observed phenomenon in multilingual and multicultural communities. This study focuses on code switching by teachers in multilingual and multicultural high school classrooms in a particular district in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. The aims of this study were to establish whether teachers in the classrooms concerned do code switch and, if so, what the functions thereof are. With these aims in mind, data were collected from four high schools in the Siyanda District, during 13 lessons in total. These lessons were on the subjects Economic Management Sciences, Business Studies and Accounting. The participants in the study were 296 learners in Grades 8 to 12 and eight teachers. Data were collected by means of researcher observations and audio recordings of lessons. These recordings were orthographically transcribed and then analysed in terms of the functions of code switching in educational settings as identified from the existing literature on this topic as well as in terms of the Markedness Model of Myers-Scotton (1993). The answer to the first research question 1, namely whether teachers made use of code switching during classroom interactions was, perhaps unsurprisingly, "yes". In terms of the second question, namely to which end teachers code switch, it was found that the teachers used code switching mainly for academic purposes (such as explaining and clarifying subject content) but also frequently for social reasons (maintaining social relationships with learners and also for being humorous) as well as for classroom management purposes (such as reprimanding learners). The teachers in this data set never used code switching solely for the purpose of asserting identity. It appears then that the teachers in this study used code switching for the same reasons as those mentioned in other studies on code switching in the educational setting. The study further indicated that code switching by the teachers was mainly an unmarked choice itself, although at times the sequential switch was triggered by a change in addressee. In very few instances was the code switching a marked choice; when it was, the message was the medium (see Myers-Scotton 1993: 138), code switching functioned as a means of increasing the social distance between the teacher and the learners or, in one instance, of demonstrating affection. Teachers code switched regardless of the language policy of their particular school, i.e. code switching occurred even in classrooms in which English is officially the sole medium of instruction. As code switching was largely used in order to support learning, it can be seen as good educational practice. One of the recommendations of this study is therefore that particular modes of code switching should be encouraged in the classrooms, especially where the medium of instruction is the home language of very few of the learners in that school. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za


The survival and growth of lymphoma cells relies on suppression of antitumor immunity through interactions between the tumor microenvironment and lymphoma cells. These are mediated by a network of inhibitory and stimulatory receptors that deliver signals as part of the maintenance of peripheral tolerance. The most studied pathway is the B7-1/B7-2:CD28/CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4) pathway. Different molecules of this pathway are upregulated in lymphoma contributing to T-cell exhaustion and anergy and allowing tumor escape from the immune mechanisms. Additional activating and inhibitory signals modulate this pathway, and the inhibitory signal provided by the PD-L1/PD-L2:PD-1 (programmed cell death 1) axis has been found to be particularly important. PD-1 inhibitors promote immune activation and have recently been approved for the treatment of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) that has relapsed after autologous stem-cell transplantation (SCT) and treatment with brentuximab vedotin. The clinical trials that led to their approval showed objective response (OR) rates over 70% and responses were durable. Less impressive responses have been described in non-HL due to the differences in the biology and composition of tumor microenvironment of these two types of lymphoma. Recently the response criteria were redesigned to reflect immune changes in the tumors caused by the medications used. Ongoing and future studies are focusing on the development of biomarkers for response assessment.


This study focuses on the contribution of the church to the development ofthe identity of a Gikuyu woman. Opposition to the suppression of women by culture has become a strong social, political and religious conviction. There is a growing number of men and women in Africa who are concerned about the marginal status of women. In traditional African society, the experience of women was that of subjugation, exploitation and control by men. These experiences are persistent even today because most African cultures are still patriarchal. This study therefore seeks to establish and evaluate how far the church has liberated a Gikuyu woman from such unjust patriarchal conditionings. The study was undertaken in ACK Kirinyaga diocese and concentrated mainly on Kirinyaga district in the period between 1910- I999. Among other factors, the study was undertaken as a contribution to the search for the identity of an African Christian by African theologians. The first chapter introduces the whole thesis and gives a clear explanation of the problem of investigation and the methodology used. Chapter two investigates the status of women in Gikuyu traditional institutions. The chapter concludes that although women held some important roles in Gikuyu traditional society, to a great extent their identity was defined in terms oftheir reproductive roles.
Chapter three evaluates the impact of colonialism and Mission Christianity on the status of a Gikuyu woman. We observed that this era had both destructive and regenerative effects on the status of women. Chapter four evaluates the different ways in which women have been involved in church life. It singles out the ordination of women as the greatest effort that Kirinyaga diocese has made on emancipation of women. Chapter five searches for an evidence of the biblical meaning of the identity of a Christian woman, evaluating the place of women in selected controversial biblical passages. Chapter six is the conclusion and sums up the main findings of the study. It also points out that the study is not exhaustive; much more still requires to be researched in this area.


This thesis analyses and defines the forms and ornament of the Welsh
sculptured crosses and cross-slabs of the pre-Norman period and attempts
to use the data thus assembled as historical evidence for the period in
which they were made.
The sculptural evidence confirms the historical evidence that there
was very little artistic, exchange between Wales and England and virtually
no direct contact between Wales and the continent c. 750-1100, but testifies
to the existence of contacts between Wales and Ireland, Scotland
(particularly Strathclyde) and the Isle of Man. Sixteen Welsh monuments
are found to exhibit evidence of Scandinavian influence and these help to
corroborate the literary place-name evidence for Scandinavian settlement
on the coasts of Dyfed, South Glamorgan and Gwynedd in the pre-Norman
period; the latter apparently associated with the trade route between the
Scandinavian settlements of Dublin, the Isle of Man and Chester.
The material reflects the existence of a settled society and economy
in Wales in the early Medieval period in which craftsmen, some of whom
were itinerant, others apparently associated with religious establishments,
were patronised by kings and affluent laymen and churchmen whose wealth
was in land. The distribution of the monuments demonstrates areas of contemporary
settlement and the lines of communication between them and certain
groups of monuments imply the existence of otherwise undocumented
religious establishments. Although generally associated with religious
sites, groups of monuments were not confined to the monastic aggregations
but they were confined to the bounds of the known historic kingdoms.
The Welsh sculptured crosses and cross-slabs were intimately associated
with both the royal/aristocratic and ecclesiastical elements in society.
Their production ceased when patronage was not continued by the new Norman
landowners and churchmen.


Evapotranspiration (ET) from an arctic coastal wetland near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, was studied during the summers between 1994 and 1996. The purpose of the study was to compare different ET models and to gain a better understanding of evapotranspiration from arctic wetlands. The models used to obtain ET from the watershed were the Bowen ratio energy balance (BREB), Priestley-Taylor (PT), Penman-Monteith (PM), Penman Combination (PC), energy balance (EB), water balance (WB), and WB based on Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR). For one of the ponds, evaporation determined by the EB, PT, PC, BREB, WB, and the aerodynamic (AD) methods were also compared. ET during the summer snow-free period for the watershed averaged 1.45 mm/day obtained via the BREB model. Evaporation from all ponds after spring snowmelt averaged 3.11 mm/day (obtained via the WB). Evaporation rate from ponds was on average twice that of the tundra as a whole. Latent heat flux was the dominant energy sink in wetlands and ponds, whereas sensible heat flux dominated in the drier upland area. The PT and PM models compared well to the BREB (used as the standard of comparison for ET) for 1994 and 1995, once parameters were properly calibrated using 1996 data. The BREB compared well with independent values of ET from the water balance and eddy correlation methods. For the pond, the EB, BREB, WB, PT, and AD methods gave very similar evaporation results for the summer.


An ensemble is a collective decision making system which applies some strategy to combine the predictions of classifiers to generate its prediction on new instances. Stacking is a well-known approach among the ensembles. It is not easy to find a suitable ensemble configuration for a specific dataset. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is a popular metaheuristic approach which could be a solution to find configurations. In this work, we propose a new Stacking construction method which applies ACO in the Stacking construction process to generate domain-specific configurations. The experiment results show that the new approach can achieve promising results on 18 datasets compared with some well-known ensemble approaches.


Loss of large segments of bone creates critical size defects (CSDs). These fail to heal
spontaneously and present major clinical challenges to orthopaedic surgeons. The
research described in this thesis is based upon the hypothesis that the healing of
CSDs is responsive to the ambient mechanical environment, and can be accelerated
by mechanical modulation. This hypothesis was tested in rat, femoral CSDs treated
with recombinant, human, bone morphogenetic protein-2.
For this study I designed novel external fixators allowing experimental control over
the local mechanical environment. These were characterised by extensive
mechanical testing prior to evaluation in the rat model.
Low stiffness fixators induced callus formation 9 days after surgery, whereas rigid
fixation delayed it until 2 weeks. All defects were radiologically bridged after 3
weeks. Rats were euthanised after 8 weeks and the defects evaluated by a battery of
imaging, mechanical and histological tests. All confirmed the superiority of the
lowest stiffness fixators.
Based upon these data, I hypothesised that healing would be improved by imposing
low stiffness for the first two weeks of healing, followed by high stiffness for the
remaining six weeks. The experimental data confirm that this regimen dramatically
accelerated callus formation and maturation, and induced faster remodelling of
endosteal and periosteal callus. This was associated with higher failure strength,
fewer trabeculae, decreased callus size and thicker and more uniform distribution of
new cortical bone. Histologically it was not possible to detect cartilage within the
defects prior to the appearance of bone, suggesting that healing either does not occur
through endochondral ossification, or that this process is very rapid.
These data confirm that the healing of CSDs is highly responsive to the ambient
mechanical environment, allowing the rate and quality of healing to be manipulated.
This information will help develop more efficient ways to heal CSD clinically.


Fungi are essential components of all ecosystems in roles including symbiotic partners, decomposers and nutrient cyclers and as a source of food for vertebrates and invertebrates. Fire changes the environment inwhich fungi live by affecting soil structure, nutrient availability, organic and inorganic substrates and other biotic components with which fungi interact, particularly mycophagous animals. We review the literature on fire and fungi in Australia, collating studies that include sites with different time since fire or different fire regimes. The studies used a variety of methods for survey and identification of fungi and focussed ondifferent groups of fungi,with an emphasis on fruit-bodies of epigealmacrofungi and a lack of studies on microfungi in soil or plant tissues. There was a lack of replication of fire treatment effects in some studies. Nevertheless, most studies reported some consequence of fire on the fungal community. Studies on fire and fungi were concentrated in eucalypt forest in south-west and south-easternAustralia, andwere lacking for ecosystems such as grasslands and tropical savannahs. The effects of fire on fungi are highly variable and depend on factors such as soil and vegetation type and variation infire intensity andhistory, including the length of time betweenfires. There is a post-fireflushof fruit-bodies of pyrophilous macrofungi, but there are also fungi that prefer long unburnt vegetation. The few studies that tested the effect of fire regimes in relation to the intervals between burns did not yield consistent results. The functional roles of fungi in ecosystems and the interactions of fire with these functions are explained and discussed. Responses of fungi to fire are reviewed for each fungal trophic group, and also in relation to interactions between fungi and vertebrates and invertebrates. Recommendations aremade to includemonitoring of fungi in large-scalefiremanagement research programs and to integrate the use of morphological and molecular methods of identification. Preliminary results suggest that fire mosaics promote heterogeneity in the fungal community.Management of substrates could assist in preserving fungal diversity in the absenceof specific information on fungi.


A significant amount of information technology (IT) research centers on the attainment of competitive advantage through the use of IT. In many cases, the use of patents to protect that IT does not receive much attention. Often studies conclude that patent protection cannot help IT to achieve such an advantage. Our research finds that many IT researchers based these conclusions predominately on two studies that are no longer relevant. This paper reviews some of that IT research and then links that research to these two dated studies. A number of reasons why researchers may continue to use the research for support of their conclusions are put forth, including lack of knowledge, research as a lagging indicator, pressure to complete research The paper offers recommendations for improving the research efforts such as using law as a reference discipline, considering the law in the reviewing process, and including legal considerations in doctoral training. We conclude with lessons learned.


Investigations of superheavy elements (SHE) have received much attention in the last two decades, due to the successful syntheses of SHE. In particular, α-decay of SHEs has a great importance because most synthesized SHE have a-decay and the experimentalists have evaluated the theoretical predictions of the a-decay half-life during the experimental design. Because of this, the correct prediction of α-decay half-life is important to investigate superheavy nuclei as well as heavy nuclei. In this work, artificial neural networks (ANN) have been employed on experimental a-decay half-lives of superheavy nuclei. Statistical modeling of a-decay half-life of superheavy nuclei have been found as to be successful.


In this article, we discuss the role of moral character in negotiation and identify open questions and promising directions for future scholars to explore. We advance research in this area by introducing a dyadic model of moral character in negotiation, which highlights the joint influence of each party's moral character on negotiation attitudes, motives, and behaviors. We discuss the implications of our model and conclude that personality science, and especially the study of moral character, has great potential to enhance research and practice in negotiations. Our hope is that this work will accelerate theoretical development and empirical studies that address the question of how moral character influences negotiation processes and outcomes—from pre-negotiation (e.g., planning, selecting negotiating partners) to actual bargaining (e.g., bargaining tactics, concessions) and finally, post-negotiation (e.g., deal implementation, long-term consequences, relationship building and maintenance, reputations)—and provide a springboard for future studies on this topic.


While visiting Europe in 1844, Harry McCall of Philadelphia wrote to his cousin back home of his disappointment. He didn't mind Paris, but he preferred the company of Americans to Parisians. Furthermore, he vowed to be "an American, heart and soul" wherever he traveled, but "particularly in England." Why was he in Europe if he found it so distasteful? After all, travel in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was expensive, time consuming, and frequently uncomfortable. "Being American in Europe, 1750-1860" tracks the adventures of American travelers while exploring large questions about how these experiences affected national identity. Daniel Kilbride searched the diaries, letters, published accounts, and guidebooks written between the late colonial period and the Civil War. His sources are written by people who, while prominent in their own time, are largely obscure today, making this account fresh and unusual. Exposure to the Old World generated varied and contradictory concepts of American nationality. Travelers often had diverse perspectives because of their region of origin, race, gender, and class. Americans in Europe struggled with the tension between defining the United States as a distinct civilization and situating it within a wider world. Kilbride describes how these travelers defined themselves while they observed the politics, economy, morals, manners, and customs of Europeans. He locates an increasingly articulate and refined sense of simplicity and virtue among these visitors and a gradual disappearance of their feelings of awe and inferiority.


Abstract. Forest fire is responsible for a lot of problems as it destroys the landscape. Such spaces are valuable and take very long to recover. Hence, the risk of forest fire consists primarily of both the risk of an outbreak and of propagation which depend, in addition to the weather, to a number of environmental factors including: the type of vegetation (structure and composition), its state of desiccation as well as the slope and exposure to prevailing winds. Therefore, the goal is to develop static hazard maps of a 100 m resolution related to the province of Chefchaouen where the focus is on three maps; Surface threatened; Annual pressure of fire; Probability map. The production of these maps is based on various data including statistics on the fire, meteorological references, and flammability. In addition, several data were generated, namely, wind direction, wind speed, humidity, the slope in percent, aspect, etc. The production of these maps will make it possible to orient and optimize the means of investment, in particular with regard to infrastructures, equipment and forest fire management operations.


The purpose of this manual is to help trainers in future scenario better facilitate training workshops for field officers such as forestry managers, extension officers and researchers who are keen to facilitate future scenarios in their forest management projects. Future scenarios are a diverse and flexible set of methods that can be used to help forest user groups and decision makers define clear unified objectives, identify opportunities or obstaclesin the path to their management goals, or prepare strategies and action plans for alternate future situations. This manual aims to encourage trainers of facilitators of future scenarios to be more reflective about how to structure their training workshop.


A cold fiber solid phase microextraction device was designed and constructed based on the use of a thermoelectric cooler (TEC). A three-stage thermoelectric cooler was used for cooling a copper rod coated with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) hollow fiber, which served as the SPME fiber. The copper rod was mounted on a commercial SPME plunger and exposed to the cold surface of the TEC, which was enclosed in a small aluminum box. A heat sink and a fan dissipated the generated heat at the hot side of the TEC. By applying an appropriate DC voltage to the TEC, the upper part of the copper rod, which was in contact to the cold side of the TEC, was cooled and the hollow fiber reached a lower temperature through heat transfer. A thermocouple was embedded in the cold side of the TEC for indirect measurement of the fiber temperature. A portable cold fiber SPME device was made by using a car battery as the power supply. The cold fiber SPME device with thermoelectric cooling was applied in quantitative analysis of off-flavors in rice. Hexanal, nonanal, and undecanal were chosen as three test analytes in rice. These analytes were identified according to their retention times and analyzed with a GC/FID instrument. Headspace extraction conditions (i.e. extraction temperature and extraction time) were optimized. Standard addition calibration graphs were obtained at the optimized conditions and the concentrations of the three analytes were calculated. The developed method was compared to a conventional solvent extraction method. The applicability of the portable cold fiber SPME with TEC for field sampling was tested. The effect of cooling on extraction recovery and the reproducibility of extraction were examined for extractions from an n-alkane flow through system. It was found that the extraction recoveries were significantly higher when the fiber was cooled. To further investigate the effect of cooling on the sensitivity of SPME in field sampling, the portable cold fiber SPME was used for extraction of volatile components from living wisteria flowers. Both the number of identified compounds and the related peak areas increased for extractions with cold PDMS fiber relative to without cooling and commercial PDMS and PA fibers. The portable cold fiber SPME device was also used for field sampling of volatile components of living lily-of-the-valley flowers and the extracted compounds were analyzed with GC/MS. iii The desorption kinetics of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) from environmental solid matrices was investigated using cold fiber SPME with CO2 cooling. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and selected volatile organic compounds (i.e. toluene, ethylbenzene, oxylene) were used as test analytes. Sand, silica gel, and clay were used as laboratory model solid matrices and were contaminated by the test analytes. Certified sediments were used as naturally contaminated samples. In this approach, the organic compounds, released from contaminated solid samples at different elevated temperatures, were exhaustively extracted with cold fiber SPME over different extraction times. The extraction data were used to obtain desorption and Arrhenius plots. The rate constants of desorption and activation energies of desorption were measured for each contaminant using these plots. The results were comparable to those reported in the literature.


This chapter discusses the role of environmental morale and environmental motivation in individual behavior from the point of view of economics and psychology. It deals with the fundamental public good problem, and presents empirical (laboratory and field) evidence on how the cooperation problem can be overcome. Four different theoretical approaches are distinguished according to how individualsi?½ underlying environmental motivation is modeled. Specifically, we look at the interaction between environmental policy and environmental morale through the lens of cognitive evaluation theory (also known as crowding theory).


New product launches are often accompanied by extensive marketing communication campaigns. Firms' allocation decisions for these marketing communication expenditures have two dimensions---across consumers and over time. This allocation problem is different relative to the problem of allocation of resources for existing products. In the case of new products, consumers are uncertain about their quality and learn about the products through marketing communication. Furthermore, different consumers may have different rates of learning about product quality; i.e., there may be heterogeneous learning. Thus, consumer responsiveness to marketing communication could vary along two dimensions. For each consumer, this responsiveness would vary over time, as she learns about product quality. Across consumers, there would be differences in responsiveness in each time period. For optimal allocation of marketing communication across both consumers and time, firms would need estimates of how consumer responsiveness varies across consumers and over time. Past studies have typically focused on one of these two dimensions in which responsiveness varies. They have either looked at heterogeneity in responsiveness across agents or the variation in responsiveness over time. In the context of new products, past research has looked at how consumer learning about product quality causes responsiveness to vary over time. In this study, we build a model that allows for heterogeneous learning rates and obtain individual-level learning parameters for each consumer. We use a novel and rich panel data set that allows us to estimate these model parameters.

To obtain individual-level estimates of learning, we add a hierarchical Bayesian structure to the Bayesian learning model. We exploit the natural hierarchy in the Bayesian learning process to incorporate it in the hierarchical Bayesian model. We use data augmentation, coupled with the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, to make inferences about individual-level parameters of learning. We conduct this analysis on a unique panel data set of physicians where we observe prescription decisions and detailing (i.e., sales-force effort) at the individual physician level for a new prescription drug category.

Our results show that there is significant heterogeneity across physicians in their rates of learning about the quality of new drugs. We also find that there are asymmetries in the temporal evolution of responsiveness of physicians to detailing---physicians who are more responsive to detailing in early periods are less responsive later on and vice versa. These findings have interesting implications for the targeting of detailing across physicians and over time. We find that firms could increase their revenue if they took these temporal and cross-sectional differences in responsiveness into account while deciding on allocations of detailing.


Food subsidies have the potential to modify ecosystems and affect the provision of goods and services. Predictable Anthropogenic Food Subsidies (PAFS) modify ecosystems by altering ecological processes and food webs. The global concern over the effects of PAFS in ecosystems has led to development of environmental policies aimed at curbing the production or ultimately banning of PAFS. However, the effects of reducing or banning PAFS are not known. We explore the consequences of PAFS removal in a marine ecosystem under two scenarios: 1) gradual reduction, or 2) an abrupt ban, using a mass balance model to test these hypotheses–The reduction or loss of PAFS will: i) modify trophic levels and food webs through effects on foraging by opportunistic species, ii) increase the resilience of opportunistic species to food shortages, and iii) modify predator–prey interactions through shifts in prey consumption. We found that PAFS lower the trophic levels of opportunistic scavengers and increase their food pathways. Scavengers are able to switch prey when PAFS are reduced gradually but they decline when PAFS are abruptly banned. PAFS reduction to a certain minimal level causes a drop in the ecosystem's stability. We recommend gradual reduction of PAFS to a minimal level that would maintain the ecosystem's stability and allow species exploiting PAFS to habituate to the food subsidy reduction.


In real systems, the phenomena, such as pipe-wall viscoelasticity, unsteady friction or fluid structure interaction induce additional damping and dispersion of transient pressure waves than that defined by classical waterhammer. In this paper, unsteady friction models and viscoelastic damping models will be presented and a theoretical formulation of the viscoelastic damping in piping systems without cavitation will be developed. Firstly, the friction factor will be presented as the sum of the quasi-steady part and the unsteady part related to the instantaneous local acceleration and instantaneous convective acceleration. This unsteady friction model has been incorporated into the method of characteristic algorithm (MOC). Secondly, the damping will be defined in terms of viscoelastic effect attributed to a second viscosity μ'. This model is solved using the Finite Difference Method. Finally, numerical results from the unsteady friction and viscoelastic models are compared with results of laboratory measurements for waterhammer cases with low Reynolds number turbulent flows. This comparison validates the new viscoelastic model.


Multi-beam antennas can be used for the sectorization of 360° azimuthal coverage. One of the suitable realizations, where four monopole antennas are placed at the corners of a square, is known as the "Monopole Four-Square Array Antenna". This thesis presents the optimization problem for this array antenna.

First, it is considered that this array is mounted on an infinite ground plane. With view to practical applications, optimization criteria are defined and a genetic algorithm is used to find the optimized values for the array variables.

Next, the "Monopole Four-Square Array Antenna" is considered to be mounted on a finite ground plane (chassis). It is seen that all performance parameters of this array are changed and deteriorated due to the excitation of chassis modes, which couple to and between the monopole antennas and which radiate and produce diffraction at the edges of the ground plane. It is found, that the performance is strongly affected by the size of each antenna, the position of each antenna on the chassis as well as the size and shape of the chassis.

A new optimization problem considering both the parameters of array and chassis dimensions is defined and the optimal values are found using the method of genetic algorithm. To model the chassis effects, in this step, the Theory of Characteristic Modes for the chassis is introduced and the effect of chassis modes on the radiation patterns and S-parameters are discussed. In order to allow the efficient use of the calculation-extensive chassis modes in our optimization, an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is set-up to represent the effects of the chassis modes and the ANN is trained using results from an EM-field simulator. In a further step, the remaining mutual coupling between the elements of the monopole array is tackled. Using another ANN, a Decoupling and Matching Network (DMN) is designed for the "Monopole Four-Square Array Antenna" which considerably improves the radiation pattern.

The final "full-degree" optimization problem considers all parameters of the monopole array on a small chassis as well as the variables in the DMN. It is shown that by changing the values of the weighting coefficients in the optimization problem, the resulting antenna design can be matched to priorities set by practical applications.


Even European Union was considered a strong institution, US crisis covered the european area. All 27 countries UE members are involved in a hard work related to euro aria future and meanwhile in stability strategy. Concerning economic dimension of crisis gouvernments found out how vulnerable they are becouse of an unequal sates involvment in solving recesion problems, becouse some countries have to addopt efficient finacial and economic austerity decisions and other ones not. Starting 1930 until today, European Union developed economic relations among members, using Structural Funds too. This financial instrument could bean efficient support for reducing crisiss. What could be benefic for Romania, as a noneuro country, in order to diminuate the dimension of crissis and to develop a solid market economy?


As the capital and a major political hub for China, Beijing has undergone a rapid urbanization effect with significant population growth in recent years. At the same time, Beijing has also been suffering from severe water problems such as, water scarcity, urban flooding and other issues related to water pollution. These have increasingly generated severe water problems and stymied the pace and scope of sustainable urban development. The critical challenges faced by water resource administrations pertains to the issues of sustainable management of water resources and the relevant actions to be put in place in order to address these water related problems. In this study, the current water situation of Beijing are described in great details focusing on the water resources amounts, water supply, water consumption and water pollution changes analyzed from historical to the recent years. The challenges of Beijing urban water management systems are also analyzed to offer possible solutions in light of the current trends. Finally, a number of useful strategies and action-oriented measures are provided for Beijing9s urban water resource administration to assist them in overcoming the current water management challenges and or them to move towards a more sustainable developmental city.


The Trial is actually closer to reality than fantasy as far as the client's perception of the system. It's supposed to be a fantastic allegory, but it's reality. It's very important that lawyers read it and understand this." Justice Anthony Kennedy famously offered this assessment of the Kafkaesque character of the American criminal justice system in 1993. While Kafka's vision of the "Law" in The Trial appears at first glance to be the antithesis of modern American legal practice, might the characteristics of this strange and arbitrary system allow us to identify features of our own system that show signs of becoming similarly nightmarish? With Kafka's Law, Robert P. Burns shows how The Trial provides an uncanny lens through which to consider flaws in the American criminal justice system today. Burns begins with the story, at once funny and grim, of Josef K., caught in the Law's grip and then crushed by it. Laying out the features of the Law that eventually destroy K., Burns argues that the American criminal justice system has taken on many of these same features. In the overwhelming majority of contemporary cases, police interrogation is followed by a plea bargain, in which the court's only function is to set a largely predetermined sentence for an individual already presumed guilty. Like Kafka's nightmarish vision much of American criminal law and procedure has become unknowable, ubiquitous, and bureaucratic. It, too, has come to rely on deception in dealing with suspects and jurors, to limit the role of defense, and to increasingly dispense justice without the protection of formal procedures. But, while Kennedy may be correct in his grim assessment, a remedy is available in the tradition of trial by jury, and Burns concludes by convincingly arguing for its return to a more central place in American criminal justice.


We have demonstrated temperature rises that result from nonlinear absorption in single-pass frequency-doubling experiments using femtosecond pulses and a 3-mm-thick KNbO3 crystal. These temperature changes shift the phase-matching curve and must be accounted for to optimize the conversion efficiency. We obtained a maximum second-harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of 66% at an input power of 107 mW and a slope efficiency of ∼1.5%/mW at low input powers. We have investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, the focusing dependence of the phase-matching temperature. We have also found that the temperature-dependent SHG efficiency in femtosecond SHG experiments is significantly different from that obtained for frequency doubling of continuous-wave light.


Purpose: This thesis intends to understand historical integrity and how it plays a role in historic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse projects. More importantly, this study allows for a better understanding of the Kirkbride Plan as a particular building type that dominated state mental hospital design in between 1848-1890 and advanced the field of psychiatry. This study examines three adaptively reused Kirkbride hospitals Athens State Hospital, Athens, OH; Weston State Hospital, Weston, WV; and Danvers State Hospital Danvers MA. The three case studies were surveyed using the National Park Service seven aspects of historical integrity, to examine if historical integrity was preserved in the adaptive reuses. Results: The results of this study strived to uncover the best adaptive reuse method that best preserves the historical integrity of Kirkbride hospitals. Three outcomes of the retention of historical integrity were revealed: The retention of historical integrity, the potential loss of historical integrity, and the loss of historical integrity.


Do gays earn less than other men because they are less competitive? Do lesbians earn more than other women because they are more competitive? To answer these questions, we conduct an experiment on a Dutch online survey panel to measure the competitive preferences of gay, lesbian and straight panel members. We find that gay men compete less than straight men, while lesbians compete as much as straight women. Linking our experimental measure of competitiveness to earnings and education data, we find that competitiveness predicts earnings and education levels and that differences in competitive preferences can partially explain the gay earnings penalty but not the lesbian premium.


Mortality and fatal pulmonary embolism rates in 936 consecutive primary total knee replacements (TKR) were determined during a 3-month postoperative period. Postmortem examinations verified the cause of death in all but 3 patients, and follow-up was performed on all but 1 patient. All patients had elastic stockings as mechanical prophylaxis. No deaths occurred from pulmonary embolism confirmed by postmortem examinations. At worst, the fatal pulmonary embolism rate was 0.43% (4/936; confidence interval [CI]=0.14%-1.17%). The all-cause mortality rate was 0.64% (6/936; CI=0.26%-1.46%). The patient mortality was compared with the population mortality of England and Wales using standardized mortality ratios. The standardized mortality ratios for both sexes combined was 0.74 (CI=0.29-1.52). A lower mortality was observed in women (0.67) than in men (0.84) during the first 3 postoperative months compared to the general population. Fatal pulmonary embolism after TKR with the routine use of graded elastic stockings and early mobilization is rare. In this series, the death rate in patients undergoing TKR appears to be lower than that in the general population.


The surface energy of the material used in the construction of capillary covers is an important element to increase the boiling heat transfer on the coverings. There are a variety of methodologies for measuring the surface energy of solids, but few could be used with the construction materials tested. The sessile drop methodology allows the evaluation of either the surface energy of solids or the interfacial energy of liquids. The methodology uses an image digitalization system for measuring the contact angle of liquids on the solid's surface. The contact angles thus measured are used to calculate the superficial and interfacial energies. This methodology was tested with an experimental set up built for this study. The accuracy of the set up was obtained with clean and greased surfaces of high heat conductivity metals. The surface energies calculated were in accordance with previous experimental results. The surface energies of metal foils used for construction of capillary coverings were similar to the values calculated for the parental solid metal. The surfaces with different grease thickness get values of surface energy close to the value for the adhered hydrocarbons. The same methodology is used for measuring interfacial energies of pure and mixtures of liquids. The liquids studied include those used for increasing boiling heat transfer. Ethanol-water mixtures were analyzed. The mixture with 16% ethanol by weight had the lowest contact angle (associated to the lowest interfacial energy) and produced the highest convective heat transfer coefficient, h. A minimum in the value of the contact angle around the 16% weight ethanol mixtures follows the maximum in the value of h around this composition, and a maximum in the wettability. Similarly, the surfactant sodium-lauryl-sulfate (SLS) produced an increment of the wettability of the mixture on the solid surface. The reduction of the contact angle is obtained with the addition of 100 ppm of SLS or less, depending on the base metal, but above this concentration, the surfactant does not modify the value of the contact angle. The h values increased with the addition of surfactant up to 100 ppm but do not change if the concentration of surfactant is higher than that value.Copyright © 2004 by ASME


The Lower Permian (Artinskian to Sakmarian) Pebbley Beach Formation (PBF) of the southernmost Sydney Basin in New South Wales, Australia, records sediment accumulation in shallow marine to coastal environments at the close of the Late Palaeozoic Gondwanan ice age. This paper presents a sequence stratigraphic re‐evaluation of the upper half of the unit based on the integration of sedimentology and ichnology. Ten facies are recognized, separated into two facies associations. Facies Association A (seven facies) comprises variably bioturbated siltstones and sandstones with marine body fossils, interpreted as recording sediment accumulation in open marine environments ranging from lower offshore to middle shoreface water depths. Evidence of deltaic influence is seen in several Association A facies. Facies Association B (three facies) comprises mainly heterolithic, interlaminated and thinly interbedded sandstone and siltstone with some thicker intervals of dark grey, organic‐rich mudstone, some units clearly filling incised channel forms. These facies are interpreted as the deposits of estuarine channels and basins. Throughout the upper half of the formation, erosion surfaces with several metres relief abruptly separate open marine facies of Association A (below) from estuarine facies of Association B (above). Vertical facies changes imply significant basinward shift of environment across these surfaces, and lowering of relative sea level in the order of 50 m. These surfaces can be traced over several kilometres along depositional strike, and are defined as sequence boundaries. On this basis, at least nine sequences have been recognized in the upper half of the formation, each of which is < 10 m thick, condensed, incomplete and top‐truncated. Sequences contain little if any record of the lowstand systems tract, a more substantial transgressive systems tract and a highstand systems tract that is erosionally truncated (or in some cases, missing). This distinctive stacking pattern (which suggests a dominance of retrogradation and progradation over aggradation) and the implied relative sea‐level drop across sequence boundaries of tens of metres are remarkably similar to some other studies of continental margin successions formed under the Neogene icehouse climatic regime. Accordingly, it is suggested that the stratigraphic architecture of the PBF was a result of an Icehouse climate regime characterized by repeated, high‐amplitude cycles of relative sea‐level change.


This essay suggests that a deficiency in legal education is a contributing cause of the regulatory failure. The most scandalous malfeasance of this new era, the Madoff Ponzi scheme, evinces the failure of improperly trained lawyers and regulators. It also calls into question whether the prevailing regulatory philosophy of disclosure of disclosure is sufficient in a complex market. This essay answers an important question underlying these considerations: What can legal education do to better train business lawyers and regulators for a market that is becoming more complex' One answer, it suggests, is a simple one: law schools should teach a little more business and a little less law.


Isotopic analyses of mammalian tooth enamel from a well-defined, laterally extensive 150 k.y. interval (9.15–9.30 Ma) reveal an ecological gradient in vegetation on the late Miocene sub-Himalayan alluvial plain. Two contemporaneous river systems deposited the sediments of this interval, with a mountain-sourced system (herein, Blue-gray) to the southwest interfingering with a foothill-sourced system (Buff) to the northeast. Fossil mammal teeth collected from a 32 km transect across this fluvial gradient are significantly more depleted in 13C from northeastern localities than from southwestern localities. This trend occurs in equids, giraffids, suids, sivapithecine hominoids, and anthracotheres. We propose that the Buff fluvial system provided more equably moist substrate conditions and supported more closed-canopy vegetation than the Blue-gray fluvial system. Herbivores living along the paleovegetation gradient thus acquired different carbon isotopic signatures during the period of tooth enamel formation, resulting from higher δ13C values in the forage supported by the Blue-gray fluvial system compared with forage associated with the Buff system. The data also imply that many Siwalik mammalian herbivores displayed marked fidelity in juvenile home ranges and habitats.


Expert networks are formed by a group of expert-professionals with different specialties to collaboratively resolve specific queries posted to the network. In such networks, when a query reaches an expert who does not have sufficient expertise, this query needs to be routed to other experts for further processing until it is completely solved; therefore, query answering efficiency is sensitive to the underlying query routing mechanism being used. Among all possible query routing mechanisms, decentralized search, operating purely on each expert's local information without any knowledge of network global structure, represents the most basic and scalable routing mechanism, which is applicable to any network scenarios even in dynamic networks. However, there is still a lack of fundamental understanding of the efficiency of decentralized search in expert networks. In this regard, we investigate decentralized search by quantifying its performance under a variety of network settings. Our key findings reveal the existence of network conditions, under which decentralized search can achieve significantly short query routing paths (i.e., betweenO(log n) andO(log n) hops, n: total number of experts in the network). Based on such theoretical foundation, we further study how the unique properties of decentralized search in expert networks is related to the anecdotal small-world phenomenon. In addition, we demonstrate that decentralized search is robust against estimation errors introduced by misinterpreting the required expertise levels. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work studying fundamental behaviors of decentralized search in expert networks. The developed performance bounds, confirmed by real datasets, are able to assist in predicting network performance and designing complex expert networks.