Discrete-time stochastic models of management of groundwater resources have been extensively used for understanding a number of issues in groundwater management. Most models used suffer from two drawbacks: relatively simplistic treatment of the cost of water extraction, and a lack of important structural results (such as monotonicity of extraction in stock and concavity of the value function), even in simple models. Lack of structural properties impede both practical policy simulation and clarity of understanding of the resulting models and the underlying economics. This paper provides a unifying framework for these models in two directions; first, the usual cost function is extended to encompass cases where marginal cost of pumping depends on the stock and second, the analysis dispenses with assumptions of concavity of the objective function and compactness of the state space, using instead lattice-theoretic methods. With these modifications, a comprehensive investigation of which structural properties can be proved in each of the resulting cases is carried out. It is shown that for some of the richer models more structural properties may be proved than for the simpler model used in the literature. This paper also introduces to the resource economics literature an important method of proving convergence to a stationary distribution which does not require monotonicity in stock of resource. This method is of interest in a variety of renewable resource model settings.


Walnut blight, caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas arboricola pv. juglandis, is a major factor limiting walnut production worldwide. Knowledge of disease epidemiology in Tasmania was developed as a basis for designing an improved crop protection strategy. The aims of this project were to verify X. arboricola pv. juglandis as the causal organism of walnut blight, establish the impact of natural infections on crop yield, determine the critical environmental factors associated with the temporal development of walnut blight, and to refine current crop protection using identified weather factors to time copper-based biocides, in Tasmania.

Studies of the pathogenicity and growth on semi-selective media of up to 37 bacterial isolates from Tasmania demonstrated that X. arboricola pv. juglandis is the cause of walnut blight in commercial walnut orchards and home gardens. Determining the pathogenicity of X. arboricola pv. juglandis on Franquette fruit required inoculating half full-size diameter fruit with `10^9` cfu/ml. Pathogenic isolates metabolized quinate and hydrolysed starch; they were identified as X. arboricola by MLSA and GC-FAME and named X. arboricola pv. juglandis based on the host and pathovar concept of taxonomy.

Walnut blight can lead to the premature drop of fruits in Tasmania. The incidence and severity of disease on fruits, and subsequent reduction in crop yield, were similar for cultivars Vina and Franquette. There was a strong inverse relationship between crop yield and the standardised area under the disease progress curve (SAUDPC) for incidence and SAUDPC for severity for 10 site-years. The monomolecular model with K = 1 described temporal disease incidence (`R^2` values from 88 to 99%) and temporal fruit size (`R^2` values from 96 to 99%) for the 10 site-years, and allowed crop yield to be predicted according to disease incidence at various fruit sizes. It was predicted that nearly two fruit dropped prematurely for every fruit that was diseased when fruit were 25% full-size diameter. The rate of fruit loss at 50% fruit size, or larger, was approximately half of that at 25% fruit size. Some diseased fruits were predicted to remain on trees until harvest when infected at larger fruit sizes.

A formulation of copper hydroxide and mancozeb, Mankocide® DF, applied between budburst and half fruit size, reduced disease incidence and increased crop yield in two of three site-years. Disease incidence at Forth in 2004−05 was adequately controlled with two or more copper-based sprays, applied at budburst and 7 days after budburst, with a corresponding crop yield of 77% in comparison to 50% yield with non-treatment. In 2005−06 at Forth, crop yield was predicted to increase linearly by 2% with every spray, when nine sprays were applied at 7 day intervals. However, in a year with low disease incidence i.e., less than 11% incidence irrespective of treatment, no significant relationship between the number of spray applications and crop yield occurred. As such, with disease incidences of 10% or less at half fruit size, multiple sprays are predicted to reduce economic gain as the cost of spraying outweighs the return from increased yield.

The development of walnut blight differed markedly between years in Tasmania. In 2005–06, the wettest year of the study, nearly 100% of Vina and Franquette fruits developed disease, and disease progression was best described by the logistic or Gompertz models (`R^2` values from 88 to 98%). In contrast, the linear and monomolecular models best described disease progression in 2004–05 and 2006–07, the two drier years of the study (`R^2` values from 93 to 99%). Daily moisture intensity was defined as the total daily rainfall divided by duration of surface wetness; this variable, when cumulated for the period 17 to 24 adjusted-calendar-days (`T``min` `=` `1^oC;` ` T``max` `=` `35^oC`) before a disease assessment, accounted for 83% of the variance in the percentage of fruits developing symptoms of walnut blight between assessments. Daily rainfall, days with rainfall and minimum temperature were also significantly related to disease development of fruits. In half of the epidemics studied, disease incidence of individual fruits within fruit clusters increased exponentially relative to the increase in disease incidence of fruit clusters. It is postulated that bacterial masses emerging from substomatal cavities may be transported in rain splash and serve as secondary inoculums to adjacent fruit within a cluster.

A rain-intensity-based model was developed for predicting the optimum time to apply copper-based sprays. Mankocide® DF, timed according to the model, provided similar control of walnut blight with the same or fewer numbers of sprays than those timed by commercial operations at Forth and Swansea in 2008–09. At Forth, nearly 100% disease incidence was observed on non-treated fruits, and five or more sprays were required to significantly reduce the rate of disease progression. With two budburst sprays only, 93% of fruits were diseased near harvest; in comparison, less than 40% of fruits had blight lesions when sprays were timed according to the rain-intensity model only, combined weekly (two or four sprays from budburst) and model regimens, and a commercial weekly spray schedule (eight sprays from budburst). At Swansea, a near 60% of non-treated fruits were diseased at harvest; however, the rain-intensity model provided the same level of disease control as a weekly-based spray regime i.e., less than 20% disease incidence at harvest, even though up to three less sprays were applied. These results support the continued development and validation of the rainfall-intensity-based model for timing crop protection sprays in Tasmania.


Tropical forests are being cleared at a rate of 16.9 million hectares per year and timber harvesting results in over 5 million hectares becoming secondary forests annually without adequate management. This decrease and degradation affect both timber production and many environmental values. Selective and clear cutting, and burning are major causes of land degradation. An assessment is needed of harvesting impacts that influence rehabilitation methods. The harvesting impacts on ecosystems vary with time and methods of logging, timber transporting methods, logged tree species, soil characteristics, topographies, local rainfall patterns etc., and must be assessed in a range of conditions with long term monitoring. Increased supply of wood from plantation forests has the potential to reduce pressure on natural forest resources as well as contributing to environmental care and economic advancement for landholders. Short-rotation plantations can result in changes in nutrient storage and cycling processes due to factors such as harvesting wood, fertilisation, erosion, leaching, and modified patterns of organic matter turnover. These factors can affect storage and supply of soil nutrients for tree growth and consequently the sustainability of plantation systems. Opportunities exist to manipulate soil organic matter through silvicultural practices but these must be technically feasible, economically viable and socially acceptable. The following research objectives are proposed: (1). evaluation of forest harvesting and fire impacts on the forest ecosystems, (2). development of methods to rehabilitate logged-over forests, secondary forests and degraded forest lands, (3). development of silvicultural techniques on plantation and degraded lands, (4). network on the rehabilitation of degraded tropical forest ecosystems. It is anticipated that the results of these studies will contribute to the sustainable use of forest resources and environmental conservation.


Located in West Africa, Liberia is currently undergoing a reconstruction phase after 14 years of civil war, a war that ended in 2003. As a country, Liberia currently faces serious political, financial, administrative, and organizational problems that will affect its future in numerous ways. Since the availability of comfortable and sustainable spaces for organizations working on rebuilding the country is limited, the Eco-Retreat Center design project will help to fill this shortage, creating a new, sustainable retreat center that will be accessible to all who live here, or that come to visit and to participate in the rebuilding of Liberia.

Education and water availability represent other major problems in Liberia. An estimated 80 percent of schools, health service structures, water wells, and sanitation facilities have been either destroyed or abandoned since 1998. Energy, sanitation, and water systems are therefore in dire need, thus making them very important considerations in the development of any project in Liberia, as they will serve as a foundation for other sustainable techniques and development strategies in the reconstruction of the country. This design project seeks to do this, and through a sensitive site design that places buildings, rain harvesting elements, water towers, and more into a complex and severely constrained site, this project can become a model for sustainable redevelopment in West Africa and beyond.

From a sustainability standpoint, the retreat center will create a combination of ecological, social, economic and aesthetic places for educational and/or social events. The sustainable design strategies are reflected in the overall site design, materials selection, and through the use of specific stormwater management strategies. Specifically, the retreat center will preserve and restore native plants, use environmental friendly building materials, and manage water and energy that can be collected, balanced, and utilized in the long term.
The design of the Eco-retreat Center will meet the needs of all the potential users and create an ecological and sustainable place that is connected to the existing ecological system and environment.

Through the use of site analysis, user- and resident-analysis, precedent studies, and historical analysis, the design team developed a detailed site plan, and then site-specific design proposals that meet the need of the client. The final result will be used by the client in both fundraising efforts, and as a guide for actual site development in Liberia, leading to the creation of an innovative and important Eco-retreat Center in West Africa.


First week of April: Farm Bureau Youth Conference on Monday-Tuesday, District Public Speaking on Wednesday, Ag Safety Day Camp on Thursday, Section Dairy Cattle CDE Friday, and interview an American FFA Degree candidate on Saturday while he's home for the weekend. Second week of April: Section Ag Business Management CDE and Section Ag Mechanics CDE on Tuesday, host Section Horticulture CDE on Wednesday, another American FFA Degree interview on Thursday, and Section Livestock Judging CDE, District Dairy Cattle CDE, and District Horticulture CDE on Friday. Oh wait, the National Chapter Award application is due on Friday also. "Hey, Principal Daniels, we have five FFA field trips this month; one for Ag Safety Day Camp, three for Career Development Events, and a conference. Yes, I'm taking several juniors. Yes, I do realize that the ACT and state achievement tests are at the end of the month." I think I've forgotten about what the majority of my paycheck comes from: teaching students about the importance of agriculture. So, in addition to the above list, I also need to teach six classes a day, make substitute plans, and go to an IEP meeting or two. Is it any wonder why agriculture teachers get burnt out? I feel like I'm juggling seven bowling balls while standing on a glass floor above a pool of hungry sharks. I can't even remember how many nights I was still at school at 9:00 p.m. during those two weeks. Three of my closest friends are also agriculture teachers. I know I'm not alone in this. Are we crazy? No. We are agricultural educators, by choice. Why? We realize the importance of agricultural education and want to ensure the future of agriculture to the best of our abilities. Agricultural education is not a career, it is a passion. Do what you love, love what you do. But what do we do when that passion overwhelms us? Consumes our lives to the point that we don't have a life outside of agricultural education? Hello, agriculture teacher retention problem. The future of agricultural education is dependent not only on recruiting quality teacher candidates, but also retaining those teachers once they are in the classroom. As all agriculture teachers know, while university coursework helps to train us for a teaching career, in no way does it fully prepare us for the vast amount of work, responsibilities, and roles that we have as agriculture teachers and FFA advisors. This can be overwhelming even for the best of teachers. In order to maintain an adequate supply of agriculture teachers, we must focus on two things: encouraging Ag Ed majors at the university level, and offering adequate support services during the first 5-10 years of teaching when agriculture education teachers are most likely to leave the profession. In Illinois, 85% of the agriculture teachers (271 of 318 schools) are members of the Illinois Association of Vocational Agriculture Teachers (IAVAT). While the IAVAT is not the only group that works to keep people in agricultural education, it does play a big role. The IAVAT provides numerous activities to support new and upcoming agriculture teachers in its association, with the Ag Ed Teacher Recruitment and Retention committee at the helm of most of the work. This committee coordinates the IAVAT Student Branch for college agricultural education majors. Additionally, the committee helps with the Beginning FFA Advisor's workshop for first year teachers, and in 2010, conducted an Unconference for 3rd-7th year teachers, focused on agriculture teacher burnout. The IAVAT also offers a special workshop for 1-5 year agriculture teachers in conjunction with its annual conference. Outside of the IAVAT, the Illinois State Board of Education offers two graduate classes to agriculture teachers in their beginning years of teaching that focus on specific issues and activities that beginning teachers may struggle with. As this article continues, I am going to focus on a few events that I feel improve the recruitment and retention of quality agriculture teachers in Illinois and nationwide. …


Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is a landmark Supreme Court case in which it was ruled that the contraceptive mandate from the Affordable Care Act was an unnecessary and substantial burden on Hobby Lobby's corporate exercise of religious freedom. This is the latest of many court cases that have expanded corporation's rights to equal those of humans, giving them individual status without the responsibilities that come along with it. By citing religious liberty rights, closely held corporations such as Hobby Lobby can impose their religious viewpoints on their employees, specifically by not providing certain contraceptive care coverage. Other corporations are forcing women to choose between careers and families by imposing certain preventative care guidelines, such as egg-freezing methods among others. In order to determine the future implications of this case, I researched the history of corporate personhood, women and usage of contraceptive care, and gender-based workplace discrimination. My research shows that by not supporting female employees who have different health needs, Hobby Lobby sets up a model for corporations to be discriminatory towards women by portraying the idea of an anti-family and unsupportive workforce environment. In addition, the Hobby Lobby case has broader implications, with increasing corporate power causing economic and political ripples. Solutions can be found outside the US, by looking at European guidelines concerning women preventative services as a template. On the home front, the US Government should stand its on ground on the Affordable Care Act mandate concerning women care, by requiring all corporations to adhere to those rules through mandatory legislation, and the American Medical Community should properly inform physicians and patients of all contraceptive options, including Long-acting reversible contraception. This will allow women to be rightfully given access to the full range of preventative care services and a supportive and nurturing environment, and will also keep corporate power in check, preventing future possible cases of workplace discrimination.


A greenhouse experiment was conducted to determine waterlogging tolerance in acidic soils for maize crop improvement in low lying flood prone regions of Western Kenya where waterlogging is a severe problem. Three replicates of nine cultivars, seven tolerant and two susceptible accessions identified after a preliminary screening were subjected to waterlogging to select traits for tolerance to waterlogging using randomized complete block design. 17 dayold seedlings planted in acidic ferralsol soil were exposed to field capacity flooding for 10 days, drained and growth monitored. Waterlogging caused significant reduction in mean number of leaves, leaf area, root collar diameter, seedling height and grain yield. K8 recovered least from water logging. Kan2 and K27 were least affected with regard to leaf tip death and wilting. K8, Br2, K24 and C8 recorded the most significant reduction in leaf area. K3 and Kan2 recorded the least internode length. Plant height recovery was most significant in K27 and K8. Lowest reduction in yield was recorded in Br2 and K3 while the highest grain yield was K3 and Kan2. Reduction on collar root diameter had a significant influence (F value = 2.7) on total grain yield of maize in the affected accessions (y= 1.0183x – 0.5685). There exists a significant genetic variability among Kenyan maize germplasm in terms of response to waterlogging, which can be exploited for crop improvement.


The objective of this research is to apply artificial neural network (ANN) to authenticate the disable users with their speech using MFCC features. To access the web content, a speech authentication system is proposed for disable users. We have used Genetic algorithm (GA) to create unique feature sets according to the objective function for the training of ANN for the acceptance of classification accuracy. This research work has dealt in the improvement of speech authentication system. To extract the feature sets from the speech signals MFCC feature extraction technique is used with GA. In this work, GA is used as a feature optimization techniques and ANN as classifier to train the speech authentication system. The evaluation and validation is being conducted on MATLAB 2016a simulator. To check the performance, parameters, like, precision, recall, f-measure, execution time and accuracy have been calculated.


Abstract We report new palaeomagnetic and isotope age data of Early Mesoproterozoic (i.e. Subjotnian) intrusions from the Åland archipelago, SW Finland. The palaeomagnetic results reveal dual-polarity magnetizations with a pronounced reversal asymmetry occurring in dykes. We explain the asymmetry by an unremoved secondary component, which is affecting more N-polarity dykes. Other explanations, such as the age difference of magnetization between normal and reversed polarity dykes, are discussed. The primary nature of magnetization in dykes for both normal (N) and reversed (R) groups is verified by positive baked contact tests. A dyke showing reversed polarity from Korsö is dated 1575.9±3.0 Ma (U–Pb) in this study. This and previous U–Pb data tighten the magmatic activity in Åland to 1580–1570 Ma. We combined new palaeomagnetic data with those from earlier studies to provide a new key-palaeomagnetic pole for Baltica. Our data positions Baltica on equatorial latitudes, supporting the NENA (North Europe–North America) connection between Baltica and Laurentia at 1.59–1.58 Ga. Palaeomagnetic data support that NENA was valid at 1.75, 1.58, 1.46, and 1.26 Ga, forming the core of Mesoproterozoic Nuna (a.k.a. Columbia) supercontinent.


Governmental authorities are known for zealously protecting their 'turf', which is usually seen to inhibit them from coordinating their work with rival authorities. In the EU, however, national regulators often engage proactively in coordination with sister authorities in the forum of EU regulatory bodies. This is puzzling if one considers that this means that national authorities actively support EU bodies –potential rivals- in their work. The thesis hence examines what determines the coordinative behaviour of national regulators at a transnational level in the European Union. It analyses the engagement of UK and German authorities in transnational coordination in the regulatory regimes of drug safety, maritime safety, food safety, and banking supervision.
The study demonstrates that coordinative behaviour is driven by strategic considerations of national regulators that want their coordination activities to add value to their own work, rather than being determined by their professional norms, functional pressures or the 'shadow of hierarchy', as stipulated in the EU governance literature. Their strategic assessments of whether they are getting something out of transnational activities are informed by the interpretative filters of the social relations they are
embedded in at the domestic level. They are also fundamentally shaped by the institutional frameworks provided by the tasks of the EU regulatory bodies in which national regulators come together. This explains variation of coordination patterns across policy areas and national regulators, which the EU governance literature has not accounted for.
The argument of the thesis implies that the engagement with coordination can be linked to an enhancement –rather than a loss– of bureaucratic autonomy. By identifying the determinants of coordinative behaviour at a transnational level, this thesis hence also seeks to contribute to our understanding of the conditions in which transnational administration functions. This, in turn, is vital for understanding of how capacity to manage cross-border risks is created in the absence of a 'European' state.


A number of different immunotherapeutic reagents are currently being developed to target IL-2R for the treatment of leukemia, graft rejection, and certain autoimmune diseases. Previously, we have shown that IL-2-PE40, a chimeric protein composed of human IL-2 linked to the N-terminus of a truncated form of Pseudomonas exotoxin (PE), could effectively kill a variety of cell lines in vitro expressing either low, intermediate, or high affinity IL-2R. Here, we demonstrate that IL-2-PE40 can successfully retard or prevent the growth of a lethal ascites tumor or a solid tumor composed of EL4J murine thymoma cells transfected with the p55 murine IL-2R. The transfected line, EL4J-3.4, expresses 1,000 to 3,000 high affinity IL-2R. Survival extension in the ascites model was achieved by initiating treatment either after 4 to 6 h or within 5 days post-tumor injection in both athymic nude and C57BL/6 mice. Similarly, the growth of an aggressive s.c. solid tumor could also be inhibited. Extension of survival was not achieved either by using the truncated toxin alone not attached to IL-2 or by using an IL-2-PE40Asp553 mutant lacking a functional toxin. Survival extension was not caused by IL-2 activated NK or other host effector mechanisms as IL-2-PE40 was unable to prevent the receptor-negative EL4J parental line from forming a lethal ascites or a solid tumor. Thus, IL-2-PE40 is a potent, specific cytolytic reagent that may prove useful in the arsenal of anti-IL-2R immunotherapeutics.


Augmenting word tokens with a phonetic representation, derived from a dictionary, improves the performance of a Natural Language Understanding component that interprets speech recognizer output: we observed a 5% to 7% reduction in errors across a wide range of response return rates. The best performance comes from mixture models incorporating both word and phone features. Since the phonetic representation is derived from a dictionary, the method can be applied easily without the need for integration with a specific speech recognizer. The method has similarities with autonomous (or bottom-up) psychological models of lexical access, where contextual information is not integrated at the stage of auditory perception but rather later.


Studies examining welfare‐to‐work program effectiveness present mixed and sometimes discrepant findings, partly due to research design, data, and methodological limitations. Using administrative data on Missouri and North Carolina welfare recipients, we substantially improve on past estimation approaches to identify the distinct effects of each state's welfare‐to‐work subprograms—assessment, job search assistance and job readiness training, and more intensive programs designed to augment human capital. More intensive training is associated with greater initial earnings losses but also greater long‐run earnings gains. The negative program impacts we observe in quarters immediately following participation turn positive by the second year after participation.


Besides the European Union (EU) Directive on Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of CHemicals (REACH), the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is probably the single most important piece of environmental legislation in Europe when it comes to dealing with nanomaterials in the future given their widespread and dispersive use. Despite of the importance of the WFD, the WFD has come under little academic scrutiny in this regard. While REACH deals with the manufacturing and import of chemicals, the Water Framework Directive is directed towards reducing the presence of dangerous chemicals (i.e. "priority substances") in European waters. In this article, we first introduce to the key elements of the WFD and we analyze and discuss the challenges that hamper the implementation of the WFD, if nanomaterials were to be covered by the WFD as effectively as e.g. xenobiotic organic chemicals and heavy metals. These challenges include whether nanomaterials could be considered as possible candidates to be selected as priority substances, how European Member States are to establish Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) for nanomaterials, how European Member States are to undertake environmental monitoring of nanomaterials and finally, the applicability of Best Available Techniques and associated emission limit values when it comes to reducing point and diffuse sources of nanomaterials. We recommend that emerging (eco)toxicological evidence as well as the possibility of widespread environmental contamination of certain nanomaterials is used to select priority substances and that resources are allocated toward obtaining a deeper scientific understanding of the environmental processes that form the basis for deriving EQSs today. Instead of focusing on environmental monitoring downstream, "upstream monitoring" should be implemented by systematically mapping nanomaterial production volumes, product concentrations, market penetration, dispersive vs. non-dispersive uses, etc. to map out the trends of environmental exposure in a given river basin district and finally, that focus is increased on engineering environmentally benign nanomaterials in order to prevent future point and diffuse sources of pollution.


INTRODUCTION In May of 2007 in response to a perceived "potential for greater discrimination against working parents and others with caregiving responsibilities", the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new enforcement guidance addressing Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities (EEOC-A, 2007). On April 22, 2009, the EEOC issued additional guidance to employers offering "proactive measures that go beyond federal non-discrimination requirements" designed to reduce employers' exposure to litigation for "violations against caregivers, and to remove barriers to equal employment opportunity" (EEOC B, 2009). What is unlawful disparate treatment of workers with caregiving responsibilities? While there are no federal statutes that prohibit discrimination based "solely" on parental or other caregiver status, unlawful disparate treatment arises when an employee with caregiving responsibilities is subjected to discrimination based on a protected characteristic under federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) law (EEOC A, 2007). The enforcement guidance from the EEOC provides a number of examples of circumstances under which discrimination against caregivers may violate federal EEO law (See Exhibit 1). Exhibit 1 Examples of Circumstances that may Violate Federal EEO Law * Treating male caregivers more favorably than female caregivers: Denying women with young children an employment opportunity that is available to men with young children. * Sex-based stereotyping of working women: * Reassigning a woman to less desirable projects based on the assumption that, as a new mother, she will be less committed to her job. * Reducing a female employee's workload after she assumes full-time care of her niece and nephew based on the assumption that, as a female caregiver, she will not want to work overtime. * Subjective decision making: Lowering subjective evaluations of a female employee's work performance after she becomes the primary caregiver of her grandchildren, despite the absence of an actual decline in work performance. * Assumptions about pregnant workers: Limiting a pregnant worker's job duties based on pregnancy-related stereotypes. * Discrimination against working fathers: Denying a male caregiver leave to care for an infant under circumstances where such leave would be granted to a female caregiver. * Discrimination against women of color: Reassigning a Latina worker to a lower-paying position after she becomes pregnant. * Stereotyping based on association with an individual with a disability: Refusing to hire a worker who is a single parent of a child with a disability based on the assumption that caregiving responsibilities will make the worker unreliable. * Hostile work environment affecting caregivers: * Subjecting a female worker to severe or pervasive harassment because she is a mother with young children. * Subjecting a female worker to severe or pervasive harassment because she is pregnant or has taken maternity leave. * Subjecting a worker to severe or pervasive harassment because his wife has a disability (EEOC A. 2007). The EEOC has made it clear, that their guidance with respect to caregivers does not protect caregivers based on their caregiving status alone. In the past, that has meant that the unlawful disparate treatment must arise where a caregiver is discriminated in employment based on their sex or race. Action in this regard may also arise under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and under other federal statutes including the Family and Medical leave Act (FMLA) (EEOC A, 2007). While previous research would indicate that this has been primarily a problem for women in the workplace (See Still, 2006, Litigating the Maternal Wall: U.S. Lawsuits Charging Discrimination against Workers with Family Responsibilities) the EEOC guidelines cite numerous examples and case law involving discrimination against male caregivers. …


This paper measures the flow of funds into the real estate sector for the city of Buenos Aires since 1992 and compares it to traditional savings instruments. For each dollar that went into the city's real estate from 1992 until 2000, about six dollars went into deposits in the national banking system. From 2003 until 2012, for each dollar that went into real estate, only 99 cents went to bank deposits. While the 2010 census reports a vacancy rate of 24 percent for the city, analysis of a micro data set on individual house electricity consumption suggests that the rate is only about 6 percent, in line with international standards. Increased supply, however, has resulted in a dramatic reduction of real rental values and rental yields. The paper concludes by estimating the welfare loss from allocating society's scarce capital to such a low-return activity, which is interpreted as a lower bound of the flow cost of mistrust in traditional savings instruments.


Concentrations and distributions of Ba, a component of the high explosive baritol, and RDX (hexahydro‐1,3,5‐trinitro‐1,3,5‐triazine), a high explosive, were evaluated from 1996 to 2002 within a semiarid alluvial system in Cañon de Valle, New Mexico. A high explosive machining facility discharged effluent containing these chemicals to the canyon from 1951 to 1996. The connectivity between alluvial groundwater, surface water, and sediment was specifically addressed to understand the distributions and dynamics of Ba and RDX in the alluvial system. Surface water, groundwater, and sediment were characterized by conducting hydrologic measurements, geomorphic mapping, and collecting samples. Barium and RDX in sediment preferentially reside in fine‐grained deposits that represent the suspended load redeposited on floodplains following channel scour. However, RDX and Ba show markedly different behaviors in surface water and alluvial groundwater because of contrasting geochemical characteristics and transport mechanisms. Barium precipitates in sediments as barite and witherite and readily sorbs to sediment minerals. Therefore, sediment transport is an important control on its distribution in the canyon. In contrast, RDX appears to occur predominantly in the dissolved phase, behaves conservatively, and is most significant in groundwater. There is a strong correlation between RDX concentrations in water and the saturated thickness of the alluvial aquifer. During prolonged wet periods, the alluvial aquifer enlarges, causing more RDX to be mobilized within the alluvial system. Subsurface processes in the alluvial aquifer are therefore most important in controlling present RDX transport, whereas surface processes associated with floods are most important in controlling Ba transport.


Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, psychotherapist, lecturer, and world-famous author of the phenomenal bestseller, Your Erroneous Zones, now takes us to new plateaus of self-awareness in his most powerful book yet. You'll See It When You Believe It will show you how, by tapping the truly amazing power that lies within you, you can direct the course of your own destiny. Using examples from his own highly successful experiences, Wayne Dyer will convince you that, with his proven techniques, you can make your most impossible dreams come true. Believe that you have the power to: Make your life anything you wish it to be; Set real goals and achieve them; Turn obstacles into opportunities; Rid yourself of guilt and inner turmoil; Develop a strong inner-confidence; Dramatically improve relationships; Choose a life of abundance; Spend every day doing the things you love to do.


Patient: Female, 56 Final Diagnosis: Breast cancer Symptoms: Solid mass in the right breast Medication: Exemestane Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: Oncology Objective: Unusual clinical course Background: The efficacy of third-generation aromatase inhibitors for hormone receptor-positive postmenopausal metastatic breast cancer is well established. Although several clinical trials have reported incomplete cross-resistance between different aromatase inhibitors, few cases of complete responses of recurrent metastatic breast cancer occurring after substituting a second aromatase inhibitor have been reported. We here present a rare case of non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor-tolerant metastatic breast cancer with long-term complete remission following substitution of a steroidal aromatase inhibitor. Case Report: We present the case of a 56-year-old Japanese woman who underwent right breast-conserving surgery for breast cancer, TNM staging T1, N0, M0, Stage I. She received adjuvant chemotherapy with 6 cycles of FEC100 and radiation therapy, and then began hormonal therapy with anastrozole. Twelve months postoperatively, computed tomography (CT) revealed multiple lung metastases. Exemestane was substituted for anastrozole. After 3 months of exemestane, CT showed that all lung metastases had completely resolved. Her complete response was maintained for 5 years: she died during a tsunami 6 years after the initial surgery. Conclusions: Substitution of a steroidal for a non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor produced a sustained complete remission in a patient with hormonal receptor-positive postmenopausal recurrent breast cancer. Achieving complete response after switching from a non-steroidal to a steroidal aromatase inhibitor in a hormonal receptor-positive postmenopausal recurrent breast cancer contributed to a higher quality of life for the patient. Further investigation is needed to identify the predictors of long-term remission following such a switch.


This article, the fourth in the series, presents kinetic and photochemical data sheets evaluated by the IUPAC Subcommittee on Gas Kinetic Data Evaluation for Atmospheric Chemistry. It covers the gas phase and photochemical reactions of organic halogen species, which were last published in 1997, and were updated on the IUPAC website in 2006/07. The article consists of a summary sheet, containing the recommended kinetic parameters for the evaluated reactions, and four appendices containing the data sheets, which provide information upon which the recommendations are made.


Arq. Inst. Biol., v.83, 1-6, e0072014, 2016 ABSTRACT: The development of pesticides is a constant in the agricultural sector in order to offer products less aggressive to the environment and new active ingredients, preventing the emergence of resistance. The alternative study to fungicides used for seed treatment has the essential oils field for prospecting. This research aimed to evaluate the effects of essential oils from leaves of C. citriodora and E. camaldulensis in maize seed variety AL Bandeirante, from different locations. The physiological and sanitary quality of the seeds were evaluated when treated samples using the oils individually, equal mixture of these oils and treatment with a commercial antifungal. It was observed that the treatment with the oils C. citriodora, E. camaldulensis and the mixture of oils did not affect the immediate germination of seeds Avare. In the batch Bernardino de Campos, treatment with C. citriodora was harmful and E. camualdulensis, although not statistically differ from the others, decreased germination which would prevent its use as seed, according to the standard regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA), 85%. The E. camaldulensis oil showed phytotoxic effect decreasing the length of seedlings, acetone used as a solvent had no effect on germination but showed phytotoxic effect after accelerated aging. The application of oils alone was able to reduce the incidence of fungi of the genus Penicillium and Fusarium, Aspergillus but the behavior was similar to commercial antifungal, showing no effect when compared to the control treatment.


Founded by Mani (c. ad 216–76), a Syrian visionary of JudaeoChristian background who lived in Persian Mesopotamia, Manichaeism spread rapidly into the Roman Empire in the third and fourth centuries ad and became one of the most persecuted heresies under Christian Roman emperors. The religion established missionary cells in Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Rome and has in Augustine of Hippo the most famous of its converts. The study of the religion in the Roman Empire has benefited from discoveries of genuine Manichaean texts from Medinet Madi and from the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt, as well as successful decipherment of the Cologne Mani-Codex which gives an autobiography of the founder in Greek. This first ever single-volume collection of sources for this religion, which draws from material mostly unknown to English-speaking scholars and students, offers in translation genuine Manichaean texts from Greek, Latin and Coptic.


We investigate the effects of interregional labor market integration in a twosector, overlapping-generations model with land-intensive production in the nontradable goods sector (housing). To capture the response to migration on housing supply, capital formation is endogenous, assuming that firms face capital adjustment costs. Our analysis highlights heterogeneous welfare effects of labor market integration. Whereas individuals without residential property lose from immigration due to increased housing costs, landowners may win. Moreover, we show how the relationship between migration and capital formation depends on initial conditions at the time of labor market integration. Our model is also capable to explain the reversal of migration during the transition to the steady state, like observed in East Germany after unification in 1990. It is also consistent with a gradually rising migration stock and house prices in high-productivity countries like Switzerland.


Environmental audio tagging aims to predict only the presence or absence of certain acoustic events in the interested acoustic scene. In this paper, we make contributions to audio tagging in two parts, respectively, acoustic modeling and feature learning. We propose to use a shrinking deep neural network (DNN) framework incorporating unsupervised feature learning to handle the multilabel classification task. For the acoustic modeling, a large set of contextual frames of the chunk are fed into the DNN to perform a multilabel classification for the expected tags, considering that only chunk (or utterance) level rather than frame-level labels are available. Dropout and background noise aware training are also adopted to improve the generalization capability of the DNNs. For the unsupervised feature learning, we propose to use a symmetric or asymmetric deep denoising auto-encoder (syDAE or asyDAE) to generate new data-driven features from the logarithmic Mel-filter banks features. The new features, which are smoothed against background noise and more compact with contextual information, can further improve the performance of the DNN baseline. Compared with the standard Gaussian mixture model baseline of the DCASE 2016 audio tagging challenge, our proposed method obtains a significant equal error rate (EER) reduction from 0.21 to 0.13 on the development set. The proposed asyDAE system can get a relative 6.7% EER reduction compared with the strong DNN baseline on the development set. Finally, the results also show that our approach obtains the state-of-the-art performance with 0.15 EER on the evaluation set of the DCASE 2016 audio tagging task while EER of the first prize of this challenge is 0.17.


We are pleased to offer this special issue on community-engaged scholarship. As scholar-activists working for social justice alongside youth of color (Pat) and critical arts activists engaging with stigmatized communities (Ester), we began this project with the intent of gathering a collection of essays operating against the traditional colonizing methodologies that have been the hallmarks of social/science research for centuries (Smith, 1999). In organization studies, this tradition includes Kurt Lewin's 20th century research studies that laid the groundwork for participatory approaches to system change, but which offered no critique or analysis of the broader societal structures of power that embed such change (Adelman, 1993). For this special issue, we called for essays that would attend to issues of power in the participative research process, and with a conscious aim toward decolonizing research that exposes and challenges inequalities in the production, outcomes, and sharing of research content. Also, our intent was to collect essays that would highlight the ways scholars are grappling with some of the "prickly" issues (to use the apt term provided by of one of the contributions to this special issue, Schaefer & Rivera) in community-engaged scholarship—issues that emerge at the intersection between the political and the theoretical and which are at the forefront of conversations both inside and outside the traditional boundaries of academe.


Volatile oils were extracted from aqueous leaf suspensions of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis (L.) Osb.) cultivars Hamlin, Navel, and Valencia and grapefruit (Citrus paradisi Macf.) cultivars Marsh and Ray Ruby. Pressurized air was used as the sparg- ing gas, and volatile oils were collected in a C-18 cartridge. Gas-liquid chromatography was used to separate and quantify 17 volatile components. Significant quantitative differences for individual components made it possible to distinguish sweet orange from grapefruit (four components), 'Marsh' from 'Ray Ruby' grapefruit (two components), 'Hamlin' from 'Valencia' or 'Navel' orange (six components), and 'Valencia' from 'Na- vel' (three components). The simplicity and sensitivity of the procedure suggest poten- tial use for Citrus taxonomic, genetic, and breeding research.


Producer diversity is frequently assumed to be detrimental to herbivores, because less edible taxa are more likely to dominate diverse communities. Many producers are, however, complementary in their resource use, and primary production is often positively related to producer diversity. We performed an experiment with microalgae and a generalist herbivore to explore the hypothesis that such positive effects are transferred up the food chain and are functionally comparable to effects of enrichment with a limiting resource. In both absence and presence of grazers, primary production was positively affected by both light supply and producer diversity. Survival, reproduction, and biomass of herbivores were also positively affected by light supply and producer diversity, with both factors contributing equally to grazer performance. We conclude that producer diversity can indeed have similar positive effects on secondary production as enrichment with a limiting resource and discuss conditions under which such positive effects are likely to dominate over negative ones.


Abstract Pradines elaborates his philosophy of perception from a Viewpoint which is both bergsonian and anti-bergsonian. According to Pradines, it is true that Bergson had the merit of thinking perception in accordance with its vital dimension, however its is necessary to make its approach more radical. According to Pradines, this consists in constructing a philosophy of space that not only reveals the limits of bergsonism but also permits to account for intentionality of living being as an encounter with a world to be runed away or conquested. Thus, the correlative appearance of spatiality and vital intelligence makes it possible to reconsider, against Bergson once again, the status of memory and also the relationship between psychology, theory of knowledge and metaphysics.


Lck, or lymphocyte specific kinase, is a cytoplasmic tyrosine kinase of the Src family expressed in T-cells and NK cells. Genetic evidence from knockout mice and human mutations demonstrates that Lck kinase activity is critical for T-cell receptor-mediated signaling, leading to normal T-cell development and activation. A small molecule inhibitor of Lck is expected to be useful in the treatment of T-cell-mediated autoimmune and inflammatory disorders and/or organ transplant rejection. In this paper, we describe the structure-guided design, synthesis, structure-activity relationships, and pharmacological characterization of 2-amino-6-phenylpyrimido[5',4':5,6]pyrimido[1,2- a]benzimidazol-5(6 H)-ones, a new class of compounds that are potent inhibitors of Lck. The most promising compound of this series, 6-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)-2-((4-(4-methyl-1-piperazinyl)phenyl)amino)pyrimido[5',4':5,6]pyrimido-[1,2- a]benzimidazol-5(6 H)-one ( 25), exhibits potent inhibition of Lck kinase activity. This activity translates into inhibition of in vitro cell-based assays and in vivo models of T-cell activation and arthritis, respectively.


Responses of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) under biaxial cyclic loading were investigated through systematically conducting experiments. Biaxial experiments on UHMWPE tubular specimens were conducted first by prescribing a steady internal pressure followed by a symmetric axial-strain controlled cycle. The steady internal pressure induced a steady nominal circumferential stress, which under the application of the axial strain-controlled cycle, induced circumferential strain ratcheting in the UHMWPE tubular specimens. Experimentally observed ratcheting responses of UHMWPE under biaxial cyclic loading was simulated using one of the unified state variable theories, the viscoplasticity theory based on overstress for polymers (VBOP). To improve the circumferential strain ratcheting simulation of the VBOP model, the Chaboche kinematic hardening rule was implemented in the model. The simulation of the VBOP model with the classical kinematic hardening model was also carried out to demonstrate the current state of the modeling for UHMWPE. Improvement of the circumferential strain ratcheting simulation by the modified VBOP model is demonstrated; however, simulations also indicate that further model modification will be needed.


Drawing on a multi-sited study of transnational efforts to safeguard the highly endangered Lesser White-fronted Goose (Anser Erythropus), the text develops an argument about a certain "biopolitics of the wild"—a particular mode of governing nonhuman life, rooted in certain conditions of visibility and engagement. As a wild avian population, the Lessers are known and managed primarily through practices of asymmetrical intimacy, such as field observation and telemetry. These practices, in turn, determine the emergence of biopower in a specific modality, as a power that takes hold of its object—and generates it— in a mode of constitutive withdrawal. Outlining the shape and parameters of this withdrawn presence, the essay locates "the wild" at a complex, awkward juncture in contemporary human-nonhuman relations: simultaneously an object of control and withdrawal, absence and intimacy, wildness and impurity; a site of complex and intractable controversies—but also, perhaps, of hope.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate colonization of Streptococcus suis and Streptococcus parasuis on pig farms in Japan and to identify sources of infections. SAMPLE Saliva, feces, and vaginal swab samples from 84 healthy pigs of several growth stages on 4 farms and swab samples of feed troughs and water dispensers at those farms. PROCEDURES Samples were collected from August 2015 to June 2016. Two quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays (one for S suis and the other for S parasuis) were designed for use in the study. The novel qPCR assays were used in combination with previously described qPCR assays for S suis serotype 2 or 1/2 and total bacteria. Relative abundance of bacteria in each sample was evaluated. RESULTS Streptococcus suis was detected in all saliva samples and some of the other samples, whereas S parasuis was not detected in any of the samples, including saliva samples, which indicated a difference in colonization preference. The ratio of S suis to total bacteria in saliva appeared to increase with age of pigs. Streptococcus suis serotype 2 or 1/2 was detected in a few saliva samples and feed trough swab samples at 2 farms where S suis infections were prevalent. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Saliva, especially that of sows, appeared to be a reservoir and source of S suis infection for pigs. The qPCR assay described here may provide an effective way to monitor for S suis in live pigs, which could lead to effective disease control on pig farms.


This thesis addresses the interdependencies between water use and water availability and describes a model that has been developed to improve understanding of the processes that drive changes and variations in the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources in a semi-arid river basin. These processes include hydrological processes and water user responses to variations and changes in water availability. The results are relevant for climate change impact assessments and river basin management, in particular for water allocation in semi-arid environments.
 The Jaguaribe basin in the northeast of Brazil was used as a case study. Concepts from the literature on common-pool resources were applied to analyse the extent to which the physical characteristics of a river basin facilitate or impede sustainable management of water resources in different parts of the Jaguaribe basin. The relationship between water use and water availability in a sub-basin of the Jaguaribe basin was explored. The obtained knowledge was used to design and test a multi-agent simulation approach implemented by using remotely-sensed land use data and survey data on water user decision making.
 It was found that for the Jaguaribe basin a decrease in rainfall and runoff typically leads to a transition of irrigation water use not only from water-scarce periods to less water-scarce periods, but also from downstream areas to upstream areas. Strategic reservoir operation enables local water managers to offset the effect of decreasing rainfall and runoff with respect to irrigation water use at the sub-basin level, at the cost of further decreasing water availability at the basin level.
 It is concluded that the theory of common-pool resources and that the concept of downstreamness, introduced and quantitatively defined in this thesis, are helpful in assessing the manageability of water resources in a river basin. Further, a multi-agent simulation approach has proven instrumental in studying interactions between water users and water resources.


Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions are increasingly recognized as essential for improving nutritional outcomes in children. Emerging literature describes the negative effects of poor sanitation on child growth. However, limited evidence has shown a link between water quality and nutritional outcomes. Similar to poor sanitation, it is plausible that water contaminated with E. coli could affect the nutritional status of children through various possible biological pathways, such as repeated episodes of diarrhea, environmental enteropathy, parasites, or other mechanisms that inhibit nutrient uptake and absorption. This study explores the relationship between contaminated water and stunting prevalence among children younger than age five years, using unique cross-sectional data from the 2012–13 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, which was one of the first nationally representative surveys to include water quality testing for E. coli. E. coli contamination in drinking water is measured at household and source points. Stunting is measured using height-for-age z-scores for children under five, where a child is considered stunted when he or she is two or more standard deviations below the median of the World Health Organization reference population. The results of multiple probit regression models indicate a 6 percent increase in the prevalence of stunting in children who are exposed to highly contaminated drinking water at household point compared with those exposed to low-to-medium contamination. When contamination is measured at the source level, the association is greater, with a 9 percent increase in the likelihood of stunting when exposed to a high level of contamination.


As the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Solar Energy Technologies Program prepares to initiate a new cost-shared research and development (R&D) effort on photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, it is useful to review the experience to date with consortia focused on PV R&D, manufacturing, and testing. Information was gathered for this report by conducting interviews and accessing Web sites of 14 U.S. consortia and four European consortia, each with either a primary focus on or an emerging interest in PV technology R&D, manufacturing, or testing. Additional input was collected from several workshops held by the DOE and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 2009, which examined the practical steps -- including public-private partnerships and policy support -- necessary to enhance the United States' capacity to competitively manufacture photovoltaics. This report categorizes the 18 consortia into three groups: university-led consortia, industry-led consortia, and manufacturing and testing facilities consortia. The first section summarizes the organizations within the different categories, with a particular focus on the key benefits and challenges for each grouping. The second section provides a more detailed overview of each consortium, including the origins, goals, organization, membership, funding sources, and key contacts. This survey is a useful resource for stakeholders interested in PV manufacturing R&D, but should not imply endorsement of any of these groups.


"What's going on in this picture?" With this one question and a carefully chosen work of art, teachers can start their students down a path toward deeper learning and other skills now encouraged by the Common Core State Standards. The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaching method has been successfully implemented in schools, districts, and cultural institutions nationwide, including bilingual schools in California, West Orange Public Schools in New Jersey, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It provides for open-ended yet highly structured discussions of visual art, and significantly increases students' critical thinking, language, and literacy skills along the way. Philip Yenawine, former education director of New York's Museum of Modern Art and cocreator of the VTS curriculum, writes engagingly about his years of experience with elementary school students in the classroom. He reveals how VTS was developed and demonstrates how teachers are using art--as well as poems, primary documents, and other visual artefacts--to increase a variety of skills, including writing, listening, and speaking, across a range of subjects. The book shows how VTS can be easily and effectively integrated into elementary classroom lessons in just ten hours of a school year to create learner-centred environments where students at all levels are involved in rich, absorbing discussions.


In this article questions are posed concerning the spatial structure of the Warsaw region and its development trends. These are presented against recent conceptual approaches to the study of metropolitan regions. Alternative hypotheses are discussed related to continuing spatial polarization, the emergence of polycentric urban patterns, as well as growing functional interdependence between the urban and the predominantly rural areas within the region. This is placed in the context of public policy objectives concerning both territorial cohesion and socio-economic growth; the latter hidden under the region's competitiveness label. Empirical findings from a comparative analysis of the location behavior of selected firms in the advanced services sector are referred to in the discussion. It is argued that in projecting the region's development path into the future, the concept of the urban-rural region is of particular relevance. Such an approach may also be adopted for use in developing spatial policy.


Thirteen regional climate model (RCM) simulations of June‐July 1993 were compared with each other and observations. Water vapor conservation and precipitation characteristics in each RCM were examined for a 108 3 108 subregion of the upper Mississippi River basin, containing the region of maximum 60-day accumulated precipitation in all RCMs and station reports. All RCMs produced positive precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P 2 E . 0), though most RCMs produced P 2 E below the observed range. RCM recycling ratios were within the range estimated from observations. No evidence of common errors of E was found. In contrast, common dry bias of P was found in the simulations. Daily cycles of terms in the water vapor conservation equation were qualitatively similar in most RCMs. Nocturnal maximums of P and C (convergence) occurred in 9 of 13 RCMs, consistent with observations. Three of the four driest simulations failed to couple P and C overnight, producing afternoon maximum P. Further, dry simulations tended to produce a larger fraction of their 60-day accumulated precipitation from low 3-h totals. In station reports, accumulation from high (low) 3-h totals had a nocturnal (early morning) maximum. This time lag occurred, in part, because many mesoscale convective systems had reached peak intensity overnight and had declined in intensity by early morning. None of the RCMs contained such a time lag. It is recommended that short-period experiments be performed to examine the ability of RCMs to simulate mesoscale convective systems prior to generating long-period simulations for hydroclimatology.


Chronic lung disease in premature and preterm infancy occurs due to the physiology of the underdeveloped pulmonary system. Therefore it is generally accepted that preterm and premature infants need significant respiratory support and a lung-protective strategy, starting from the delivery room where an inadequate respiratory approach may result in a poor outcome. However, there has been evidence to show that mechanical ventilation may aggravate or even cause lung disease if it is not expertly applied. Pulmonary research is continually unearthing new methodologies and concepts in regard to how mechanical ventilation can be optimally provided for infants that require mechanical ventilation after birth. Our understanding of lung physiology under normal and pathological conditions is constructed from classic studies in dogs and sheep, as well as many that use rabbits and mice as the subject for their research. The reasons for the use of animal subjects are numerous and advantageous for lung research, primarily that the pace of human studies is slow, the majority of human tissues are not routinely accessible for research purposes and there is a very limited opportunity for clinical trials. By contrast, animals (especially rodents) can be bred and studied in shorter time periods and clinical trials for these animals are relatively straightforward. The work in this Masters thesis has developed advances in mechanical ventilation and pulmonary research for the enhancement of preterm and premature human infant respiratory assistance. This was undertaken through the completion of multiple, interrelated areas within this field of research. Principally, the design of an original flow resistance system that increases the level of functionality in current ventilators was completed. This device has provided new data regarding both the impact of mechanical ventilation on the newborn lung and the potential of mechanical ventilation to improve the capabilities of preterm infant respiratory assistance. Preliminary phase contrast X-ray lung imaging captured new information regarding lung mechanics. This information may redefine our understanding of human lung physiology. In addition, a flow sensor for pulmonary research has been designed, developed and implemented and a carbon dioxide sensor has been modified for pulmonary research and implemented into this system. These devices enrich the scope for data collection and broaden the capabilities of pulmonary research. Finally, mechanical ventilation software has been redesigned to improve the proficiency and efficiency of mechanical ventilation. Thus, this research makes a significant contribution to allow efficient and effective mechanical premature and preterm infant ventilation support.


Abstract We develop a Bayesian latent factor model of the joint long-run evolution of GDP per capita for 113 countries over the 118 years from 1900 to 2017. We find considerable heterogeneity in rates of convergence, including rates for some countries that are so slow that they might not converge (or diverge) in century-long samples, and a sparse correlation pattern ("convergence clubs") between countries. The joint Bayesian structure allows us to compute a joint predictive distribution for the output paths of these countries over the next 100 years. This predictive distribution can be used for simulations requiring projections into the deep future, such as estimating the costs of climate change. The model's pooling of information across countries results in tighter prediction intervals than are achieved using univariate information sets. Still, even using more than a century of data on many countries, the 100-year growth paths exhibit very wide uncertainty.


Materials selection process for electrical insulation application was carried out using Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES) program. Melt mixing technique was applied to prepare polyvinyl-chloride- (PVC-) nanofumed silica and nanomontmorillonite clay composites. Surface analysis and particles dispersibility were examined using scanning electron microscope. Dielectrical properties were assessed using Hipot tester. An experimental work for dielectric loss of the nanocomposite materials has been investigated in a frequency range of 10 Hz–50 kHz. The initial results using CES program showed that microparticles of silica and clay can improve electrical insulation properties and modulus of elasticity of PVC. Nano-montmorillonite clay composites were synthesized and characterized. Experimental analyses displayed that trapping properties of matrix are highly modified by the presence of nanofillers. The nanofumed silica and nanoclay particles were dispersed homogenously in PVC up to 10% wt/wt. Dielectric loss tangent constant of PVC-nanoclay composites was decreased successfully from 0.57 to 0.5 at 100 Hz using fillers loading from 1% to 10% wt/wt, respectively. Nano-fumed silica showed a significant influence on the electrical resistivity of PVC by enhancing it up to 1 × 1011 Ohm·m.


Structural and functional alterations in the Ca2+ regulatory proteins present in the sarcoplasmic reticulum have recently been shown to be strongly involved in the pathogenesis of heart failure. Chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system or of the renin-angiotensin system induces abnormalities in both the function and structure of these proteins. We review here the considerable body of evidence that has accumulated to support the notion that such abnormalities contribute to a defectiveness of contractile performance and hence to the progression of heart failure.


In order to see the relation between the catalase activity and virulence of INH resistant bacilli, the author studied the clone of INH resistant bacilli in vitro, looked into its catalase activity and the change of activity as generation descends and tested the virulence by inoculating guinea pigs with each generation of the bacilli. The results found were as follows: 1. The INH resistance bacilli obtained in one step was found to have a resistance potential of 0.05γ or more and to have lost its catalase activity. At this stage the selectivity of INH resistant bacilli which has a resistance of 0.05γ-10γ and the population composition of each group were similar. Therefore it is believed that the metabolic system of INH resistant bacilli made available by means of selection by use of drugs is different from that of receptive bacilli, and that the loss of catalase activity is attributable to this difference. 2. It was found that the negative catalase activity of INH 10γ resistant strains using the clone can be changed to positive by changing the conditions of the culture medium. Other multiple resistant strains which have the INH resistance are all C (-) and could not be changed to C (+) by changing the conditions of the culture medium. Therefore it is presumed that there is greater difference in the metabolic system between a single resistance strain which resists only INH and multiple resistance strain which resists not only INH. 3. A H(2)O(2) resistance test was given in respect of C (-) INH resistant bacilli and INH resistant bacilli the catalase activity of which had been changed from negative to positive and found that the resistance of both bacilli weakens compared to that of receptive bacilli and also that even the catalase activity of INH resistant bacilli changed from negative to positive is far weaker than that of receptive bacilli. 4. The author tested the virulence of C (-) INH resistant bacilli and INH resistant bacilli the catalase of which changed from negative to positive on guinea pigs, and found that the virulence of both had weakened. The author also tested virulence of each generation of cultured bacilli and found that it had lost its virulence. Juding from the results of the tests, it appears that the weakening of the virulence of INH resistant bacilli is an inherent property of the bacilli itself. However, the results of the H(2)O(2) resistance tests seem to indicate that the relation between the virulence and catalase cannot be completely denied. Further the author inoculated guinea pigs with C (-) INH resistant bacilli and some with C (+) INH resistant bacilli and separated them into two groups, one group killed at 3rd week and the other group killed at 8th week after the inoculation and found many cases of local disorder in the group killed at 3rd week irrespective of the kind of catalase, which led to believe that the disorder of guinea pigs attributable to INH resistant bacilli is reversible.


Two computational methods are common for simulating the evolution of three beams propagating in a birefringent medium and interacting through a second-order nonlinearity: the split-step method and solution of the coupled equations for the amplitudes of the spatial frequency components of the beams (Fourier-space method). I (i) compare the accuracy and computational cost of both methods, (ii) investigate the effect of using a first-order expansion for the refractive index as a function of propagation direction, and (iii) generalize both methods to handle arbitrary propagation directions in biaxial crystals. It turns out that the Fourier-space method with a Runge–Kutta solver gives best accuracy, but a symmetrized split-step method may be faster when low accuracy is sufficient. The first-order expansion for the refractive index gives a very small error for well-collimated beams, but the approximation is not important for computational efficiency. Modeling of parametric amplification outside the principal planes of a biaxial crystal is demonstrated, and to the author's knowledge this process has not been modeled in such detail before.


This study examines the impact of response time on user experience for mobile applications and considers the moderating influence of gender and network environment on this relationship.,An experiment was conducted with 50 young adults to evaluate their user experience of a mobile application that simulates variations in network environment and response time. User experience was evaluated based on the three constituent dimensions of tolerance, acceptance, and satisfaction.,Analytical results demonstrate that response time not only adversely affects user experience of mobile applications, but that this effect is not homogeneous across the three dimensions of tolerance, acceptance and satisfaction. The findings also illustrate that gender moderates the effect of response time on user experience, however, the negative influence is more salient for males than females, which is opposite to our hypothesis. The joint moderating influence of gender and network environment turned out to be partly significant.,By illuminating users' tolerance, acceptance, and satisfaction with varied response times, findings from this study can inform the design of mobile applications such that desired levels of user experience can be assured with minimum resources.,Although response time has been hailed as a key determinant of user experience for desktop applications, there is a paucity of studies that have investigated the impact of response time on user experience for mobile applications. Furthermore, prior research on response time neglects the multi-dimensional nature of user experience. This study bridges the above mentioned knowledge gaps by delineating user experience into its constituent dimensions and clarifying the effects of response time on each of these dimensions.


Abstract In his seminal text, Collecting in a Consumer Society (1995), Russell W. Belk proposed that modern hedonists live out their desires through the consumption of goods. Other texts contained herein have made explicit that collecting dress is in many respects, unlike collecting other media, not least because the acquisition is not strategic. Clothes are usually bought to be worn, and the fact that a group of dress might at some point constitute a collection often "creeps up" on the wearer. Using oral testimony as the core methodology, this paper explores some individual and intriguing personal motivations for four private collectors of women's dress.


Consumers are increasingly considering information on how foods are produced in making their buying decisions leading producers, processors, and retailers to do the same. Federal and state governments, as well as international standards organizations, face a dilemma in designing labeling programs for process attributes such as use of biotechnology. On the one hand, labeling is appropriate for process attributes that consumers care about and may be willing to pay more to get or avoid. On the other hand, regulators may be reluctant to label these attributes because they believe the labeling will be taken as an indicator of final, consumer-level safety in cases where it is not. In addition, labeling of process attributes may impose significant costs on an industry's supply chain related to segregating products and verification.


User-defined data types, pattern-matching, and recursion are ubiquitous features of Haskell programs. Sometimes a function is called with arguments that are statically known to already be in constructor form, so that the work of pattern-matching is wasted. Even worse, the argument is sometimes freshly-allocated, only to be immediately decomposed by the function. In this paper we describe a simple, modular transformation that specialises recursive functions according to their argument "shapes". We show that such a transformation has a simple, modular implementation, and that it can be extremely effective in practice, eliminating both pattern-matching and heap allocation. We describe our implementation of this constructor specialisation transformation in the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, and give measurements of its effectiveness.


Assessment of clinical competencies by direct observation is problematic for two main reasons the identity of the examinee influences the assessment scores, and direct observation demands experts at the exact location and the exact time. Recording the performance can overcome these problems; however, managing video recordings and assessment sheets is troublesome and may lead to missing or incorrect data. Currently, no existing software solution can provide a local solution for the management of videos and assessments but this is necessary as assessment scores are confidential information, and access to this information should be restricted to select personnel. A local software solution may also ease the need for customization to local needs and integration into existing user databases or project management software. We developed an integrable web-based solution for easy assessment of video-recorded performances (ISEA).


A modified procedure for bentonite purification and a new method for the quantitative characterization of bentonite using smectite content are reported. Bentonite found in a drill core of Tsunagi Mine, Niigata, Japan was evaluated by the new method to demonstrate the substantial increase in smectite content from 40% in the original bentonite to 75% after purification using a new procedure. Powder samples were prepared by putting blocks of bentonite into acetone to remove water without mechanical crushing. The powdered, acetone-dried bentonite was purified by a dispersion-sedimentation method in water after cation exchange of the interlayer Ca2+ ion with Na+ ion by the reaction of raw bentonite with aqueous NaCl. The purification was evaluated using X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analyses (TG). The raw bentonite contained feldspar, quartz, and cristobalite, and feldspar and quartz were removed by the new purification procedure. The purification was evaluated quantitatively by comparing the TG data before and after the purification. The purified bentonite swelled in water to give a stable aqueous suspension and 3 g of purified bentonite dispersed in 60 mL of water was stable for several days. The replacement of interlayer sodium with dibehenyldimethylammonium gave an organophilic clay, which swelled in toluene. The bentonite has potential practical uses as a purified bentonite and an organophilic bentonite.


This paper studies an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-enabled mobile edge network for Cyber-Physical System (CPS), where UAV with fixed-wing or rotary-wing is dispatched to provide communication and mobile edge computing (MEC) services to ground terminals (GTs). To minimize the energy consumption so as to extend the endurance of the UAV, we intend to jointly optimize its 3D trajectory and the task-cache strategies among GTs to save the energies spent on flight propulsion and GT tasks. Such joint trajectory-task-cache problem is difficult to be optimally solved, as it is non-convex and involves multiple constraints. To tackle this problem, we reformulate the optimizing of task offloading and cache into two tractable linear program (LP) problems, and the optimizing of UAV trajectory into three convex Quadratically Constrained Quadratically Program (QCQP) problems on horizontal trajectory, vertical trajectory and flight time of the UAV respectively. Then a block coordinate descent algorithm is proposed to iteratively solve the formed sub-problems through a successive convex optimization (SCO) process. A high-quality sub-optimal solution to the joint problem then will be obtained, after the algorithm converging to a prescribed accuracy. The numerical results show the proposed solution significantly outperforms the baseline solution.


The author's previous research into the learning experiences of mature, workingclass students undertaking a professionally endorsed qualification in Community Education, was overly negative in its view of the students whilst underplaying the role of curriculum in their learning. Reinterpreting their undergraduate experience more positively leads to thinking about how their educational needs could be reconciled with the programme's aim to produce critically competent graduates. Four principles derived from the Habermasian concept of communicative action can inform thinking about an appropriate pedagogical approach. The first directs attention to the acts of reciprocity that underpin learning. The second focuses attention on how knowledge can be constructed through redeeming claims. The third signals the necessity of safeguarding participation and protecting rationality in argumentation, and the fourth points to the idea of competence as a constructive achievement. Taken together, the four principles express the ideal of a discursive pedagogy in which teachers and students socially construct knowledge appropriate to the subject area. Because it involves active participation based on a commitment to open communication and argumentative reasoning, approximating the ideal conditions of a discursive pedagogy could address the student's learning needs whilst meeting the programme's aim. Anticipating and considering the likely issues and challenges involved in attempts to realise these idealised conditions suggests ways in which a discursive pedagogy could be given practical form.


In 1679 an enigmatic collection of poems was published under the title Female Poems on Several Occasions, with the author identified only as "Ephelia." Most of the poems in the volume make up a loose sequence, narrating the progress of an unhappy love affair. With rare exceptions, critical accounts of the Ephelia poems have made two assumptions: that they are autobiographical, and that they are indeed "Female Poems," the work of a seventeenth-century woman poet. Neither of these assumptions is justified: both, as I shall show, are based on exiguous evidence, susceptible of varying interpretations. The position of David Vieth, writing in 1963, and of James Sutherland, in 1969, characterizing the Ephelia poems as "intensely personal" and "based on genuine experience," is essentially that argued by Edmund Gosse in 1883: "It is a sincere page out of the heart of a human being -- a series of confessions so true and so poignant that we seem to hear a living voice across two centuries. In its warmth and vivacity, its womanly passion and subtlety, I know no utterance like it." [1] Despite changes in critical vocabulary -- surely no critic of the 1980s or 1990s would allow "womanly passion" to escape the blue pencil -- most recent studies, even those which are feminist in approach, share the assumption that Ephelia is an amateur poet, young and inexperienced, whose poems are the unmediated, unreflective product of personal experience. The leading twentieth-century authority on the Ephelia poems is Maureen Mulvihill, whose impressive and valuable edition of Poems by Ephelia appeared in 1992. [2] Highly speculative accounts by Mulvihill in two reference works on women writers published in the 1980s, like the lengthy introduction to her edition, construct imaginary biographies from materials provided by the poems, hunting for a "Bona fide Restoration personality" to whom the poems can be attached. The poetry suggests that she was born into a well-connected, upper-class London family.... The early death of both parents left her destitute.... Because of E's acknowledged poverty, she may have become involved in the London demi-monde.... Ephelia's employment as a hired hack-writer at the beginning and end of a brief career explains her facility with several genres and subjects.... Her poetic unpretentiousness may derive from her lack of formal education. [3] Germaine Greer's ingenious attribution of Female Poems to Cary Frazier, the discarded mistress of the Earl of Mulgrave, rests on the same unproven assumption that the poems have a direct autobiographical basis -- in Mulvihill's words, that the sequence "reconstructs with poignant emotional and psychological veracity the romantic crises in the life of a young woman writer." [4] Mulvihill's edition, for all the valuable information it contains in its introduction and appendices, is dedicated throughout to the proposition that "Ephelia lived a life in London during the 1670s and 80s, and that contemporary references and facts about her life and work attest to this." According to Mulvihill, the many biographical details" in the poems to and about the faithless lover Strephon -- "appearance, age, occupation, movements in and out of London" -- serve to "authenticate him as a real person in my poet's life." [5] Similar assumptions underlie the attack on the author of Female Poems in 1691 by the misogynist author Robert Gould, who had no doubt that Ephelia was a woman writing out of sordid experience. Mulvihill, searching for scraps of evidence to support the hypothesis of a "real" Ephelia, sees Gould's poem as "persuasively truthful" in its "striking details" of a poet's "everyday life." [6] But Gould's poem, one of several satires on women by this prolific, splenetic writer, seeks to blacken the reputation of rival poets in a pamphlet war, and is in no sense reliable as evidence. In Gould's poem, the transgression of authorship by a woman, breaking a silence prescribed by custom, is equated to prostitution: the "Scribling Itch" in Ephelia, Aphra Behn ("Sapho" in the lines that follow), or the "Sylvia" of Sylvia's Revenge (1688), is presented as an assertion of a threatening, indecorous female sexuality: What has this Age produc'd from Female Pens, But a wide Boldness that outstrides the Mens? …


Disputing parties who are unable to settle their differences will end up before an adjudicator (typically a judge or jury) who will decide their dispute for them. Dispute resolution scholars have long theorized that disputants bargain in the shadow of this adjudicated outcome, predicting what would happen in court substantively and procedurally, and negotiating based on an assessment of the strength of "bargaining endowments" derived from applicable legal norms. The increasing use of arbitration to resolve commercial disputes in the U.S. means that more and more disputants are negotiating in the shadow of arbitration, not litigation. This article explores how procedural differences between arbitration and litigation impact disputants who bargain in arbitration's shadow, and adds an entirely new critique to the robust scholarship criticizing the fairness of mandatory arbitration. Because arbitration awards are often not public and are not considered precedent, the law does not develop in industries where virtually all disputes are arbitrated. Disputants can only murkily predict the likely outcome in arbitration, and thus can neither negotiate from an anchoring premise nor manage the risk of a failed negotiation. Ultimately, this leads parties to compromise their rights, thus reducing the value of bargaining endowments the shadow of the law would otherwise grant. In turn, this weakens the legitimacy of these settlements and of arbitration as a dispute resolution process.


The fundamental aim of this study was to analyse the main marketing strateg ies used in developing and sustaining tourism in the Eastvaal region. An empirical study was conducted amongst the respondents from the local authorities, loc al tourism organisations, hotels and guesthouses. The information collected was used to write a case about the current reality of tourism marketing in the Eastvaal, which was later evaluated against the ideas presented within the theoretical framework. Furthermore, the study looked at the strategic plans developed by local authori ties as well as private sector, which were aimed at encouraging local economic deve lopment in general and tourism development in particular. This process was aimed at un derstanding the effect of private and public sector partnership in the formation of marketin g strategies that would impact on sustainable development of tourism industry in the Eastv aal region. A wide range of literature was consulted to understand theoretical base regarding marketing strategies and tourism concepts. However, the study was restri cted to the evaluation of the current strategies applied so as to measure their impact in relation to growth and sustainability of tourism in the Eastvaal. Conclusions of the research indicate that an improvement is needed in the current marketing strategies so a to create long-term growth opportunities within the tourism industry.


We report a case of a 7 year 8 month old female child brought by parents with concern of hardening of muscles of calf and forearm since few months. On inquiry, she has lethargy, feeling of coldness, constipation, dry skin, hoarseness of voice and increased sleep. On examination, pulse rate was 68 beats/min, height was 89cms (expected is 123cms) and weight was 12.9 kgs (expected is 22.5kgs). She had periorbital edema, facial puffiness, coarse facial features, dry skin and hypertrophy of calf and forearm muscles. She did not have obvious goiter. Based on the clinical feature and examination findings, pseudo muscular hypertrophy secondary to Kocher Debre Semelaigne syndrome was suspected. Endocrine workup revealed primary overt hypothyroidism with elevated serum TSH (>150; reference range 0.4–4.0uIU/ml), low T3 (14.1ng/dl; reference range 82–179ng/dl) and low T4 (<0.3; reference range 5.2 –12.5ug/dl). Child was treated with thyroxin replacement as 50microgram once a day. She showed a rapid clinical improvement within few weeks and some regression in muscle hypertrophy was seen.


The creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency ("CFPA") is a very bad idea and should be rejected. The proposal is not salvageable and cannot be improved in substance or in form. The foundational premise of the CFPA is that a failure of consumer protection, and specifically irrational consumer behavior in lending markets, was a meaningful cause of the financial crisis and that the CFPA would have or could have averted the crisis or lessened its effects. To the contrary, there is no evidence that consumer ignorance or irrationality was a substantial cause of the crisis or that the existence of a CFPA could have prevented the problems that occurred. The CFPA is likely to do more harm than good for consumers. In this article, we highlight three fundamentally problematic truths about the CFPA: (1) The CFPA is premised on a flawed understanding of the financial crisis, (2) the CFPA will have significant unintended consequences, including but not limited to reducing competition, consumer choice, and availability of credit to consumers for productive uses; and (3) the CFPA creates a powerful bureaucracy with undefined scope, risking expensive and wasteful regulatory overlap at both the federal and state levels without any evidence of its own expertise in the core areas it is designed to regulate.


In the service industry, employee who performs direct contact with consumers is representatives of  organization service quality. PDAM Tirta Moedal as one of organization which prioritize the quality of service, that became the center of water services for the entire community of Semarang City requires employees who provide more performance / extra job-role or so-called OCB behavior in order to be able to serve the people of Semarang city optimally. This research was conducted by indication that OCB level of PDAM Tirta Moedal was still low that reflected by employee attendance, employees attendace is used as indicator that measures on of OCB dimensions which is conscientiousness dimension. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of perception of organizational support and career development on organizational citizenship behavior with employee engagement role as intervening variable. This research was conducted at PDAM Tirta Moedal Semarang. The sample size was 74 respondents with sampling technique using proportionate stratified random sampling. The analysis used included multiple linear regression analysis, path analysis (Path Analysis) and test of sobel to test mediation effect. The results show a positive and significant relationship between (a) organizational support with employee engagement, (b) career development with employee engagement, (c) organizational support with OCB, (d) career development with OCB, (e) employee engagement with OCB . The results of this study also show that employee engagement proved to be a mediating variable between organizational support and career development towards OCB.


The paper critically reviews the impact of models of cognitive architecture on economics. A historical survey is provided that indicates the reasons for most economists' non-participation, as either producers or consumers, in the cognitive revolution. The remainder of the paper shows, partly by means of a case study of economists' models of temporally inconsistent consumption, that economists continue to bypass cognitive architectural considerations, even when modeling a phenomenon that they recognize as implicating representational and framing idiosyncrasies. This is not attributed to economists' alleged disinterest in empirical facts or over-commitment to normative rationality. Rather, it stems from the fact that, on the one hand, most behavioral economists and neuroeconomists remain strongly committed to methodological individualism; while, on the other hand, experimental economists who follow Vernon Smith in emphasizing ecological rationality are so far mainly interested in aggregate responses. This divergence of assumptions and interests results in neglect among economists of Marr's 'algorithmic' level of cognitive task analysis – precisely the ground on which people's strategic problems might be considered in tandem with the biological restrictions on the computations they perform.


It is well known that the dynamics of the Arnol'd circle map is phase locked in regions of the parameter space called Arnol'd tongues. If the map is invertible, the only possible dynamics is either quasiperiodic motion, or phase-locked behavior with a unique attracting periodic orbit. Under the influence of quasiperiodic forcing the dynamics of the map changes dramatically. Inside the Arnol'd tongues open regions of multistability exist, and the parameter dependency of the dynamics becomes rather complex. This paper discusses the bifurcation structure inside the Arnol'd tongue with zero rotation number and includes a study of nonsmooth bifurcations that occur for large nonlinearity in the region with strange nonchaotic attractors.


Marketing Research: An Integrated Approach, 3rd Edition, is invaluable for anyone studying marketing research at a degree or diploma level and is core reading for those students taking the joint module on Marketing Research and Information offered by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and The Market Research Society. The book places research in the bigger picture of marketing and demonstrates how an understanding of marketing research is a key requirement of any effective marketing professional. The text integrates the key concepts and techniques of marketing research with the management of customer information from databases, loyalty cards and customer files. Marketing Research is written in a clear and accessible style using many examples, real-life case histories and discussions of current issues in marketing research and customer information management that makes it very suitable for supporting the delivery of single semester modules on marketing research. Online resources include an Instructor's Manual and PowerPoint slides for instructors, along with a free CD incorporating a demo' version of SNAP, one of the leading fully-integrated survey software packages for questionnaire design, data collection and analysis.


This paper examines the left and right periphery in Dutch imperatives. Rightperipheral objects in Dutch imperatives are argued to arise from the interaction of leftward topicalisation into the left periphery, inversion and topic drop, licensed under movement of the verb to the Topic head. An examination of reconstruction effects establishes the movement characteristics of right-peripheral objects. Differences between the reduced left periphery of Dutch (only a dropped topic is allowed to precede the imperative verb) and German (one overt topic may precede the imperative) are argued to be due to the landing site of the imperative verb form, and slightly different pied-piping confi gurations which allow an imperative verb to "type" imperative force.


Artikel 4 The sub-national level in the Nordic countries is currently undergoing a process of major transformation. A central issue concerns the role of municipalities in regionalization processes. The purpose of the article is to analyse the positions and strategies of municipalities regarding interlocal cooperation and regional governance, in relation to a failed attempt to create a new large region in southern Sweden during 2013-2014. This attempt was based on a reform strategy, initiated by the government, which gave the main role in the creation of larger regions to municipalities and regional actors in a bottom-up process. How can we understand the roles of municipalities, and what are the drivers and barriers in a bottom-up strategy of regional formation? Our study shows that the views expressed by municipal representatives in Sweden regarding regional governance are anchored in the strong institutional position of municipalities in that country. Our conclusion is that a bottom-up strategy has several shortcomings as a method for making institutional reforms in a system of regional governance. There are obvious drivers in such a process, but there are also