Preface Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 The Growth of Modern Statistics 1.2 Sources of Statistical Data 1.3 The Nature of Statistical Data Chapter 2: Summarizing Data: Listing and Grouping 2.1 Listing Numerical Data 2.2 Stem-and-Leaf Displays 2.3 Frequency Distribution 2.4 Graphical Presentations 2.5 Summarizing Two-Variable Data Chapter 3: Summarizing Data: Measures of Location 3.1 Population and Samples 3.2 The Mean 3.3 The Weighted Mean 3.4 The Median 3.5 Other Fractiles 3.6 The Mode 3.7 The Description of Grouped Data 3.8 Technical Note (Summations) Chapter 4: Summarizing Data: Measures of Variation 4.1 The Range 4.2 The Standard Deviation and the Variance 4.3 Applications of the Standard Deviation 4.4 The Description of Grouped Data 4.5 Some Further Descriptions Chapter 5: Possibilities and Probabilities 5.1 Counting 5.2 Permutations 5.3 Combinations 5.4 Probability Chapter 6: Some Rules of Probability 6.1 Samples Spaces and Events 6.2 The Postulates of Probability 6.3 Probabilities and Odds 6.4 Addition Rules 6.5 Conditional Probability 6.6 Multiplication Rules 6.7 Bayes' Theorem Chapter 7: Expectations and Decisions 7.1 Mathematical Expectation 7.2 Decision Making 7.3 Statistical Decision Problems Chapter 8: Probability Distributions 8.1 Random Variables 8.2 Probability Distributions 8.3 The Binomial Distribution 8.4 The Hypergeometric Distribution 8.5 The Poisson Distribution 8.6 The Multinomial Distribution 8.7 The Mean of a Probability Distribution 8.8 The Standard Deviation of a Probability Distribution Chapter 9: The Normal Distribution 9.1 Continuous Distributions 9.2 The Normal Distribution 9.3 A Check for Normality 9.4 Applications of the Normal Distribution 9.5 The Normal Approximation to the Binomial Chapter 10: Sampling and Sampling Distributions 10.1 Random Sampling 10.2 Sample Designs 10.3 Systematic Sampling 10.4 Stratified Sampling 10.5 Cluster Sampling 10.6 Sampling Distributions 10.7 The Standard Error of the Mean 10.8 The Central Limit Theorem 10.9 Some Further Considerations 10.10 Technical Note (Simulation) Chapter 11: Problems of Estimation 11.1 The Estimation of Means 11.2 The Estimation of Means 11.3 The Estimation of Standard Deviations 11.4 The Estimation of Proportions Chapter 12: Tests of Hypotheses: Means 12.1 Tests of Hypotheses 12.2 Significance Tests 12.3 Tests Concerning Means 12.4 Tests Concerning Means ( unknown) 12.5 Differences Between Means 12.6 Differences Between Means ( unknown) 12.7 Difference Between Means (Paired data) Chapter 13: Tests of Hypotheses: Standard Deviations 13.1 Tests Concerning Standard Deviations 13.2 Tests Concerning Two Standard Deviations Chapter 14: Tests of Hypotheses Based on Count Data 14.1 Tests Concerning Proportions 14.2 Tests Concerning Proportions (Large Samples) 14.3 Differences Between Proportions 14.4 The Analysis of r x c Table 14.5 Goodness of Fit Chapter 15: Analysis of Variance 15.1 Difference among k Means: An Example 15.2 The Design of Experiments: Randomization 15.3 One-Way Analysis of Variance 15.4 Multiple Comparisons 15.5 The Design of Experiments: Blocking 15.6 Two-Way Analysis of Variance 15.7 Two-Way Analysis of Variance Without Interaction 15.8 The Design of Experiments: Replication 15.9 Two-Way Analysis of Variance with Interaction 15.10 The Design of Experiments: Further Considerations Chapter 16: Regression 16.1 Curve Fitting 16.2 The Method of Least Squares 16.3 Regression Analysis 16.4 Multiple Regression 16.5 Nonlinear Regression Chapter 17: Correlation 17.1 The Coefficient of Correlation 17.2 The Interpretation of r 17.3 Correlation Analysis 17.4 Multiple and Partial Correlation Chapter 18: Nonparametric Tests 18.1 The Sign Test 18.2 The Sign Test (Large Samples) 18.3 The Signed-Rank Test 18.4 The Signed-Rank Test (Large Samples) 18.5 The U Test 18.6 The U Test (Large Samples) 18.7 The H Test 18.8 Tests of Randomness: Runs 18.9 Tests of Randomness: Runs (Large Samples) 18.10 Tests of Randomness: Runs Above and Below the Median 18.11 Rank Correlation 18.12 Some Further Considerations


This article discusses morphological markedness as a trigger and target of postsyntactic feature-deletion operations (impoverishment; Bobaljik 2003, Bonet 1991, Halle 1997, Halle and Marantz 1993, Harley 2008, Noyer 1992, 1998) and, taking number as a case study, argues that dual is more marked than plural, in accordance with traditional and more recent approaches to inflectional morphology. In a system that employs abstract binary features, dual may be represented by a combination of the features [−singular, −augmented] (Conklin 1962, Noyer 1992), and the feature [−augmented] is marked in the context of [−singular]. This article draws a formal distinction between markedness-targeted impoverishment and markedness-triggered impoverishment, arguing that the latter is an important diagnostic for morphological markedness. Exemplification comes from syncretisms either directed at or conditioned by the dual in Sámi, Sorbian, Slovenian, Warlpiri, and Zuni, the last of which has been argued by Cowper (2005) to show that dual is less marked than plural.


The paper deals with the necessity of protecting procedural rights of persons or entities connected with terrorism in the course of international sanctions and legal sanctioning on one hand, and the requirement of protecting classified data of the EU member states on the other. When considering the rights of the defendant, one of the biggest issues is the lack of data stemming from the reluctance
of the member states to share information from their jurisdiction with either the sanctioned persons or the Court of the European Union. It has arisen from the effort of the member states to protect their classified data, some of which are seen as particularly sensitive from the national security aspect, by their national legal regulations. The most serious issue is distrust of the member states in the Court
of the EU, i.e. their doubt whether the EU justice system will be able to protect classified data appropriately. The Court of the European Union has tried to resolve these two conflicting tendencies, thus indirectly widening its jurisdictions to the areas previously reserved for the member states. It has regulated the handling of classified national security data in its practice and its internal regulations, for example in the Rules of Procedure of the General Court of the European
Union. In fact, the Court has conditioned the implementation of sanctions on the delivery of such data both to the Court and, although not in all instances, to the persons or entities whom the particular sanctions refer to. The problem could be solved by delivering an unclassified summary of the relevant data in order to provide an explanation as to why the competent body of a member state believes that a person or an entity should be covered with sanctions. Such a summary could be delivered to the Council of the EU, and if necessary, to the Court of the EU and the person or entity contesting the sanctions. Considering the principle of loyal cooperation stipulated in Article 4, Paragraph 3 of the TEU, this should suffice to the Court of the EU.


This report has been prepared for Harris Development Ltd. in order to provide a summary of the
geological history of the Isle of Harris, to identify the key geodiversity features, and to suggest
opportunities for geological interpretation.
The entirety of the island of Harris is underlain by rocks of the Lewisian Gneiss Complex. The
oldest rocks on Harris were formed over 3000 million years ago – they are two-thirds as old as
the Earth itself, and they are some of the oldest rocks in Europe. For 1500 million years after
their formation, these Lewisian gneisses were affected by a multitude of geological processes
including stretching of the crust associated with extensive volcanism, and collision of ancient
continental masses which led to mountain building. All these geological events are recorded in
the rocks we see today on the Isle of Harris, and they are the focus of continuing research.
After about 1600 million years ago, the Lewisian gneisses of Harris became part of a stable
continental mass – and there they stayed, largely unaffected by geological events going on
around them, almost until the present day. Finally, within the last 2.6 million years, the gneisses
that were exposed at the surface have been eroded and polished by the action of glaciers and
oceans, producing the landscape that forms the Isle of Harris today.
The first section of this report describes this geological history in more detail, and emphasises
some of the important events. The second section discusses the relationship between geology and
the unique landscape of the island, whilst the third section focuses on some localities that are of
particular importance in terms of their geological interest. Possible interpretation opportunities
and suggestions for geotourism facilities are given in the fourth section.
It is worth noting that, where possible, Gaelic spellings have been used for place names on the
Isle of Harris (Hearadh). However, where anglicised spellings have previously been used in a
geological name or in the name of a notified site, those spellings have been retained in this
report. For clarity, the anglicised terms 'South Harris' and 'North Harris' have also been
retained.


Viewers of certain television networks, readers of certain newspapers, and anyone visiting Capitol Hill would come away with the impression that there are serious questions about whether climate change is occurring and, if it is, whether it is mostly caused by human activity. One place where there are few such questions is the courts. In fact it appears that (with one lone exception in a dissent) not a single U.S. judge has expressed any skepticism, in a written opinion or dissent, about the science underlying the concern over climate change. To the contrary, the courts have uniformly upheld this science, and in one notable recent opinion a judge has gone so far as to suggest that those who accused a leading climate scientist of fraud may have acted with actual malice by making claims that are "provably false," potentially subjecting them to damages in libel. This column begins by discussing the several litigations involving one embattled climate scientist, and then describes how other courts have dealt with issues of climate science.


This is the Great Explosion by Brian Dillon: a masterful account of a terrible disaster in a remarkable place. In April 1916, shortly before the commencement of the Battle of the Somme, a fire started in a vast munitions works located in the Kentish marshes. The resulting series of explosions killed 108 people and injured many more. In a brilliant piece of storytelling, Brian Dillon recreates the events of that terrible day - and, in so doing, sheds a fresh and unexpected light on the British home front in the Great War. He offers a chilling natural history of explosives and their effects on the earth, on buildings, and on human and animal bodies. And he evokes with vivid clarity one of Britain's strangest and most remarkable landscapes - where he has been a habitual explorer for many years. The Great Explosion is a profound work of narrative, exploration and inquiry from one of our most brilliant writers. "The Great Explosion is exhilarating and moving and lyrical. It is a quiet evisceration of a landscape through the discovery of a lost history of destructiveness, a meditation on Englishness, an autobiography, a mapping of absences. I loved it." (Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes). "What a fascinating, unclassifiable, brilliant book, confirming Brian Dillon's reputation as one of our most innovative and elegant non-fictioneers. No one else could have written it." (Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways). "Forensic, fascinating, endlessly interesting." (Philip Hoare, Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Leviathan and The Sea Inside). "A subtle, human history of the early twentieth century...Explosions are a fruitful subject in Dillon's hands, one that enables him to reflect movingly on the instant between life and death, on the frailty of human endeavour, and on the readiness of nations to tear one another apart. The Great Explosion deftly covers a tumultuous period of history while centring on the tiniest moments - just punctuation marks in time." (Financial Times). "[Dillon's] account of the Faversham explosion is as bold as it is dramatic, while his descriptive passages about the marshlands of Kent are so evocative that you can practically feel the mud sticking at your feet." (Evening Standard). "A brilliant evocation of place grasped in its modernity." (Guardian). "Dillon...has a WG Sebald-like gift for interrogating the landscape. ..a work of real elegiac seriousness that goes to the heart of a case of human loss and destruction in England's sinister pastures green." (Ian Thomson, Irish Times). "Exhilarating...utterly beguiling." (Literary Review).


Background and aims: Shift work and in particular night shift work is associated with many problems such as sleep deprivation, sleepiness, decreased cognitive performance, increased human errors, and fatigue; it is also one of the major contributors of increasing the likelihood of risk of accidents in the industry. Better matching between individuals' circadian rhythm and night shift and higher work performance can be achieved via designing an appropriate work shift pattern. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of two different rotating night shifts on information processing and alertness. Methods: This cross-sectional study conducted among 60 employees of the petrochemical industry control rooms with two different shift pattern consists of 7 consecutive nights (or 7 N) and 4 nights (4N). To assess the cognitive performance, n-back test, continuous performance test and simple reaction time test were employed. For assessing alertness the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) were used. Results: Results from the both schedules indicated that the accuracy and speed of working memory and reaction time were significantly reduced (p 0.05). Conclusion: The main duty of control room operators (CROs) at a petrochemical plant is checking hazardous processes which require appropriate alertness and cognitive performance. As a result, planning for appropriate working hours and suitable number of consecutive night shifts in a rotating shift system is a contribution to improving CROs performance and alertness and enhancing the safety. © 2018 Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services. All rights reserved.


IFTTT is a popular trigger-action programming platform whose applets can automate more than 400 services of IoT devices and web applications. We conduct an empirical study of IFTTT using a combined approach of analyzing data collected for 6 months and performing controlled experiments using a custom testbed. We profile the interactions among different entities, measure how applets are used by end users, and test the performance of applet execution. Overall we observe the fast growth of the IFTTT ecosystem and its increasing usage for automating IoT-related tasks, which correspond to 52% of all services and 16% of the applet usage. We also observe several performance inefficiencies and identify their causes.


This thesis aims to make a contribution to the understanding of the key economic and company specific components of credit spreads in the investment and non-investment grade US bond market for different maturing bond indices. It calls for the full integration of different market andfirm specific variables into a unique framework, in order to predict credit spread changes. Key determinants of default risk are employed to determine credit migration risk. Particularly, this thesis provides evidence as to the relation between different macroeconomic factors and credit spread changes in all different maturities and rating categories, it supports the use of the consumer confidence index, as the most important variable explaining changes in credit spreads in investment and high yield companies, but most importantly it provides support for the strong informational content of high yield spreads as predictors of output growth, based on Option Adjusted Spreads. It favours the inclusion of implied volatilities in explaining credit spread changes, while it criticises the incorporation of historical ones. Throughout the thesis, it becomes evident that BBB-rated bonds exhibit highly volatile patterns and are very difficult to model. Financial ratios adjusted to reflect depreciation and amortisation expenses, which are usually very high for non-investment grade companies, prove to be very important in explaining changes of high yield spreads. However, firm specific risk, accounts only for a small fraction of the variation in the investment grade category. Ultimately, it is shown that by using solely market (equity and macro variables) and firm specific variables, i. e. some of the key determinants of default risk and the price of credit risky debt in most Merton-type models, we can accurately forecast credit spread changes at least one year ahead, particularly based on results provided from the investment grade sample. Moreover, credit spread forecasts, based on our set of OAS, tend to be overestimated rather than underestimated, as opposed to results provided by previous studies. This makes forecasts more conservative and therefore more appealing for risk management purposes. In particular, this thesis is focused on the main drivers of credit spread movements in the US corporate bond market. There are four issues mainly considered. The first part of the thesis examines a question that is a point of central focus in the fixed income literature, i. e. the relation between credit spread changes and the macroeconomic cycle. This chapter is inspired by the relatively little work that has been done on the empirical relationship between credit spread changes and the macroeconomy, since most of the literature on this issue focuses on macroeconomic variables and the modelling of default risk. We investigate how this relation evolves, not only with respect to short, medium and long term maturities but also for investment and non-investment rated companies, by testing the direction of causation among economic variables and credit spreads and by employing different sets of data and estimation techniques to explore the relation. We find that irrespective of the statistical method used or the time period tested that the most important variable in explaining the variation of credit spread changes is the US Consumer Confidence Index. We affirm the negative relation between the consumer confidence index, money supply and changes in credit spreads but not for the variables of GDP and industrial production. The negative relation between the term structure and credit spreads is also asserted for investment grade bonds of all maturities, consistent with the structural model's theory, while we find this relation to be positive for non-investment grade companies. Results from the OLS regressions suggest that macroeconomic variables alone, can explain at best a 17% of the variation in medium and long term maturing indices, and a 20.5% in short term indices. Findings from cross sectional regressions suggest that macroeconomic factors alone can explain 27.9% of the variation in credit spreads for investment grade bonds and a 44.4% for high yield ones. When testing the direction of causation, wefind thatfor long and medium term maturity investment grade indices we reject the null hypothesis that macroeconomic variables don't granger cause changes in credit spreads, but not for short term maturities and the high yield sector. Indeed, results provided on that respect from the high yield category, provide evidence that non-investment grade spreads may be a good proxy for predicting estimating overall financial conditions. Secondly, the relation between credit spreads and equities together with their implied and historical volatilities is examined. This chapter constitutes an effort to fill the gap in the existing literature, which has focused mainly on bond returns or yield changes, while very limited work has been done in modelling credit spread changes. 12 Empirical evidence points out to the fact that debt markets not only in the US but also in Europe and elsewhere seem to be greatly affected by the movements in the equity markets. If that is the case we should expect changes in equity prices to affect changes in credit spreads. This assumption is tested on a cross sectional and time series basis, for quarterly and monthly frequencies and by using company specific equity prices against the respective credit spreads, but also by including equity and volatility indices. We find that there is a negative relation between credit spread and equity changes, irrespective of maturity or rating category. Results provided by univariate regressions, based on changes in equity prices alone, explain haýr of the variation of B-rated corporate spreads. Results affirm the positive relation between implied volatilities and their high explanatory power on credit spread changes while findings derived from historical volatilities although statistically significant don't even marginally support the hypothesis of explaining the variation in credit spreads. In particular, results from pooled regressions suggest that when implied volatilities are substitutedfor the historical ones, adjusted R2 sfell to 6% and 28%for the investment and non-investment grade samples respectively (from 25% and 50.3% for investment and non-investment grade companies, when implied volatilities are considered). Resultsfrom OLS regressions, suggest that equity variables explain at best a 44% for short term maturing indices, and 35% and 37% for medium and long term maturing indices 2 as reflected by the adjusted R S. We also strongly reject the null hypothesis that implied volatilities don't granger cause changes in credit spreads but only with regards to short and medium term maturities. The next chapter of the thesis focuses on how changes in a company's financials, as those are presented by ratios, actually infiuence changes in credit spreads. The reason for including this chapter is due to the fact that although traditional ratio analysis has been widely investigated, it has mainly been tested within the context of default risk, while very limited literature exists on the use of traditional credit risk analysis in determining credit spread changes. Cross sectional analysis is employed in this chapter to test the hypothesis that credit spread changes are influenced by changes in accounting factors, both in investment and high yield categories. On a multivariate basis, we find that 63.5% of the variation in high yield credit spreads is explained by the changes in financial ratios, as reflected by the adjusted R2, compared to an adjusted R2 of 19.2% for investment grade companies. Consistently, 13 in the randomly selected group of companies, we find that traditional ratios can explain one third of the variation in credit spreads in the high yield sector, although less than 10% in the investment grade sample. A reason for the higher explanatory power in the high yield sector entails the use of ratios adjusted, to reflect depreciation and amortisation expenses, which hasn't been considered before. The most statistically and economically significant coefficient was obtained from the current market capitalisation, which was used as a proxy for the firm's size. The last part of the thesis, constitutes an effort to combine all the above factors (macroeconomic, equity and financials), in order to forecast credit spread changes one and two years ahead. We show that on a multiple regression context, results provided are consistent with previous chapters and indeed highly significant in explaining credit spread variation, irrespective of the time period tested. For the total sample we get an adjusted R2 of 95% or 52% as part of the weighted and unweighted statistics respectively. A robust model is identified for forecasting credit spread changes one year ahead, with the employment of the dynamic solution method. The accuracy of the model doesn't fall below 85% within the first year, while we choose as the most vigorous method for estimating coefficients the GLS method adjustedfor heteroscedasticity, since it consistently provides more conservative forecasts.


The incarceration of Japanese Americans has been discredited as a major blemish in American democratic tradition. Accompanying this view is the assumption that the ethnic group held unqualified allegiance to the United States. Between Two Empires probes the complexities of prewar Japanese America to show how Japanese in America held an in-between space between the United States and the empire of Japan, between American nationality and Japanese racial identity.


Successful setting of prices is one of the most crucial challenges faced by companies. Electronic commerce (EC) have come a long way to see how companies manage their pricing issues, to attract consumers and satisfy their desires in terms of purchases and re – purchases online. Different companies adopt different methods of allocating or presenting prices of product on line, this to a very large extent give's an entrant to, most- successful, successful, close to successful and failed companies. Due this fact , this research work see the need to critically analyze flexible pricing mechanism that could influence consumers to purchase and thus create a bond between companies and consumers. So many researchers has carried out researches that is closely related to this fact. For example " ( Mark Behrsin et al. 1994)" who explained that in today's thinking, consumers are in the driving seat of companies, explaining, they are the arbiter of success and if they do not value the company and their product then they are in real trouble. So, for a company to excel outwardly there is need to attract consumers to patronize/purchase product and thus, have an after- effect of maximum satisfaction. One of the basic thing that give attraction is price, though other factors are involved, like services, quality, brand , e.t.c which in most cases, are fixed factors that enhances what determines price and can be insignificant. Informatively, the idea behind presenting these prices in a flexible manner enhances consumer's attention and willingness to carry out purchases on line. This thesis work is going to evaluate the flexible pricing mechanism and how they influence consumer's decision to purchase on the internet compare to stable prices adopted by physical stores. According to "(Carl Shapiro et al. 1999)"; there are lots of price flexibility when information of products are sold, and are highly tuned to customers interests on line. In this sense, information of product are sold to consumers through so many ways, which are; personalization/customization, auctions, sales, promotions and so on. These flexible pricing mechanisms are going to be critically examined with past literatures that are of related relevance to this subject area. Thus, for critical evaluation, flexible pricing practiced by companies on the internet will be compared with stable prices, then what consumers see as best option will be deduced as part of the conceptual development of this research work. Hence, this research work is one of the studies carried out strictly with an explorative research methodology which is an aspect of qualitative methodology, and is adopted for the better understanding of the research area.


The effects of Moringa oleifera seed extracts9 deterioration and preservation on turbidity removal efficiency were studied. Trona was used as a preservative in the enhancement of the extract9s shelf life. An average value of 92.30% was observed at the Moringa oleifera seed extracts9 dosage of 800 mg/L as the highest average turbidity removal for all the extracts, while the least value 82.16% was observed at a dosage of 320 mg/L. The fresh preserved Moringa oleifera seed extract had a value of 95.18% as the highest average percentage turbidity removal against all the extracts for all dosages, while the plain extract had the lowest average percentage turbidity removal value of 74.93%. It was observed also that even though the preserved extract was the most consistent in turbidity removal (overall variance of 1.25), the fresh preserved extract had the overall highest performance. However, the difference in overall performance between the two was only marginal, while substantial difference was observed between the plain extract and the fresh plain extract.


Information on Australian biomass resources including bagasse, black liquor from paper pulp production, wood waste and forestry residues, energy crops, crop wastes, food and agricultural wet waste, and municipal solid wastes is provided in the review. The characteristics of the Australian biomass are typical of those of other countries, i.e. high moisture and volatile matter, low heating value and density, and low sulfur and nitrogen content, but high Ca and Mg for woody biomass. The characteristics influence biomass utilization. Biomass is used extensively at present within Australia, primarily for domestic heating, as bagasse in the sugar industry, and for electricity generation. Biomass usage for electricity generation is increasing and is expected to reach 5.2 Mt/year by 2019-20. Exports, as wood chips, are approximately 10 Mt/year in 2000-01. Forestry residues have been estimated to be 23 Mt/year. Current technologies that utilize biomass in Australia include those for electricity and heat by direct combustion, cofiring with coal and fluidized bed combustion), for biogas generation (from landfills, and aerobic digestion, and as bio-liquids. Related to bio-liquid fuels, ethanol production from molasses and wheat is being progressed. The resultant ethanol is used as a petrol extender, and a bio-diesel process is under development.


This thesis addresses the representation of and reasoning on musical knowledge in the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web that aims at describing information that is distributed on the web in a machine-processable form. Existing approaches to modelling musical knowledge in the context of the Semantic Web have focused on metadata. The description of musical content and reasoning as well as integration of content descriptions and metadata are yet open challenges. This thesis discusses the possibilities of representing musical knowledge in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) focusing on chord sequence representation and presents and evaluates a newly developed solution.

The solution consists of two main components. Ontological modelling patterns for musical entities such as notes and chords are introduced in the (MEO) ontology. A sequence pattern language and ontology (SEQ) has been developed that can express patterns in a form resembling regular expressions. As MEO and SEQ patterns both rewrite to OWL they can be combined freely. Reasoning tasks such as instance classification, retrieval and pattern subsumption are then executable by standard Semantic Web reasoners. The expressiveness of SEQ has been studied, in particular in relation to grammars.

The complexity of reasoning on SEQ patterns has been studied theoretically and empirically, and optimisation methods have been developed. There is still great potential for improvement if specific reasoning algorithms were developed to exploit the sequential structure, but the development of such algorithms is outside the scope of this thesis.

MEO and SEQ have also been evaluated in several musicological scenarios. It is shown how patterns that are characteristic of musical styles can be expressed and chord sequence data can be classified, demonstrating the use of the language in web retrieval and as integration layer for different chord patterns and corpora. Furthermore, possibilities of using SEQ patterns for harmonic analysis are explored using grammars for harmony; both a hybrid system and a translation of limited context-free grammars into SEQ patterns have been developed. Finally, a distributed scenario is evaluated where SEQ and MEO are used in connection with DBpedia, following the Linked Data approach. The results show that applications are already possible and will benefit in the future from improved quality and compatibility of data sources as the Semantic Web evolves.


Patients' experiences have placed continuity of hospital care on the agenda in Norway1 as in other countries. 2 3 Although continuity of care has a long history in the literature of primary care,4–9 the concept is not often related to hospital care. Most of such publications deal with long term hospitalisation,10 psychiatry,11 and nursing12 and focus on personal continuity—where one clinician is responsible for each patient. The reality of acute treatment and care in the hospital environment is ignored, and there is confusion over the concept of continuity of hospital care. 13 14

### Box 1 : Personal continuity may cause system discontinuity18

"Every time I or another patient asked for help the answer was always the same, 'somebody else is responsible for you.' I'm sure that if staff had given the service asked for instead of looking for the 'right person,' both the patients and the hospital would have saved time and frustration."

"I'm satisfied with doctors and nurses, but you have to be really alert to make sure the information you give is passed through to the responsible persons. You never know if you are talking to the person in charge of you or just another messenger." RETURN TO TEXT

Continuity of care is important for patients' satisfaction in primary and hospital care. 1 15 To compensate for the fragmented nature of specialised hospital care, many hospitals try to imitate primary care by designating one carer to a particular patient. This kind of personal continuity is important, but it does not ensure that patients receive the best treatment during their hospital stay. It is important to recognise that continuity of care when the carer is an institution differs in important aspects from continuity when the carer is a person.

We discuss continuity in relation to the fact that hospital care is an organised, multidisciplinary, …


A series of 200 consecutive thin sections were generated from a high-grade serous ovarian tumor and laser microdissected four spatially separated "core" regions of tumor epithelium, along with tumor epithelium, stroma or whole tissue harvests at 200 μm intervals. These distinct tissue collections were analyzed by quantitative proteomics and RNA-Seq. Unsupervised analyses revealed co-clustering of tumor cores with enriched tumor epithelium, which were distinct from the enriched stroma and whole tumor collections. Strong correlations in protein and transcript abundance in tumor epithelium and stromal collections from neighboring thin sections were decreased in samples harvested just hundreds of microns apart. Stroma (mesenchymal) and tumor epithelium (differentiated) displayed a distinct association with ovarian cancer prognostic molecular sub-types with a 2-year difference in median survival. These data reveal substantial tumor microenvironment protein and transcript expression heterogeneity that directly bear on prognostic signatures and underscore the need to enrich cellular subpopulations for expression profiling.


A series of phenothiazine-dibenzothiophene-S,S-dioxide charge-transfer molecules have been synthesized. Increasing steric restriction around the donor-acceptor bond significantly alters contributions from TADF and phosphorescence. Bulky substituents on the 1-(and 9) position(s) of the phenothiazine result in no TADF in the solid state; instead strong phosphorescence is observed at ambient temperature.


The use of online data collection techniques in sport marketing research has increased in recent years. The value of data obtained this way is determined, in part, by the quality of survey response. Scholars have studied strategies that enhance survey response, including the use of notification and topic salience. However, empirical support for the use of notification has been obtained primarily from mail-based survey research, so it is unclear if the benefits would be evident with online data collection. This study examined the influence of notification techniques and topic salience, measured as fan identification, on two metrics commonly used to measure survey response: response rate and response quality. Overall, findings revealed a significant relationship between notification and response rate while no relationship was found between notification and response quality. Additionally, there was no relationship between fan identification scores and survey participation while a relationship between fan identification and response quality was identified.


The need to study representative users is widely accepted within the human-computer interaction (HCI) community. While exceptions exist, and alternative populations are sometimes studied, virtually any introduction to the process of designing user interfaces will discuss the importance of understanding the intended users as well as the significant impact individual differences can have on how effectively individuals can use various technologies. HCI researchers are expected to provide relevant demographics regarding study participants as well as information about experience using similar technologies. Yet, in the field of accessibility we continue to see studies that do not appropriately include representative users. Highlighting ways to remedy this multifaceted problem, we argue that expectations regarding how accessibility research is conducted and reported must be raised if this field is to have the desired impact with regard to inclusive design, the information technologies studied, and the lives of the individuals being studied.


The Goodwood Junction rail grade separation has removed a major bottleneck on the Adelaide rail network. The design and construct project completed by the Thiess-York Joint Venture for the SA Government Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) has grade separated the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) freight and Belair passenger rail line from the twin track Seaford passenger rail line removing the existing at-grade conflict between the freight and passenger lines. The grade separation incorporates two structures which cross the lowered Seaford passenger line; a rail deck carrying the ARTC and Belair passenger lines and a road deck carrying local road Victoria Street. The project was fast tracked to market in order to capitalise on a planned closure of the Seaford passenger line for major track upgrades, signalling and electrification works. An innovative collaborative design and construct procurement process was developed and led by DPTI to ensure full collaboration between all parties including major stakeholders. Construction completion was successfully reached just 15 months after the initial industry briefing for the project.


BACKGROUND
Adjunctive diagnostic studies (aDS) are recommended to identify occult dissemination in patients with candidemia. Patterns of evaluation with aDS across pediatric settings are unknown.

METHODS
Candidemia episodes were included in a secondary analysis of a multicenter comparative effectiveness study that prospectively enrolled participants age 120 days -17 years with invasive candidiasis (predominantly candidemia) from 2014-2017. Ophthalmologic examination, abdominal imaging, echocardiogram, neuroimaging, and lumbar puncture were performed per clinician discretion. aDS performance and positive results were determined per episode, within 30 days from candidemia onset. Associations of aDS performance with episode characteristics were evaluated via mixed effects logistic regression.

RESULTS
In 662 pediatric candidemia episodes, 490 (74%) underwent abdominal imaging, 450 (68%) ophthalmologic examination, 426 (64%) echocardiogram, 160 (24%) neuroimaging, and 76 (11%) lumbar puncture; performance of each aDS per episode varied across sites up to 16-fold. Longer durations of candidemia were associated with undergoing ophthalmologic examination, abdominal imaging, and echocardiogram. Immunocompromised status (58% of episodes) was associated with undergoing abdominal imaging (aOR 2.38; 95% CI 1.51-3.74). Intensive care at candidemia onset (30% of episodes) was associated with undergoing echocardiogram (aOR 2.42; 95% CI 1.51-3.88). Among evaluated episodes, positive ophthalmologic examination was reported in 15 (3%), abdominal imaging in 30 (6%), echocardiogram in 14 (3%), neuroimaging in 9 (6%) and lumbar puncture in 3 (4%).

CONCLUSIONS
Our findings show heterogeneity in practice, with some clinicians performing aDS selectively, potentially influenced by clinical factors. The low frequency of positive results suggests that targeted application of aDS is warranted.


In this paper, we obtained solution of Einstein field equations for Bianchi type VI cosmological model with time dependant cosmological term of the form and . It is observed that cosmological term is decreasing function of time which is consistent with results from recent supernova Ia observations. Also, it is noted that the model approaches to isotropy for = 1. All the physical parameters are calculated and discussed.


The timbre of compound tones consisting of three amplitude modulated waves is examined by psychoacoustical experiments using a similarity judgement. The obtained data are analyzed by a multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) method. The MDS solutions are interpreted by the regression equations as a function of the envelope correlation coefficients between the AM waves. In particular, the envelope correlations between adjacent AM waves are the determinant factor. When the modulation rate is slow enough, the fine structure of amplitude envelopes of each AM wave affects the timbre. However, the modulation rate is faster than the auditory temporal resolving power, the fine structure has no effect and the timbre is determined by only the envelope correlations. The auditory system has a function to detect the amplitude envelope correlation between the output signals of the different auditory filters. The present study shows how this function contributes to timbre perception.


SUMMARY The distribution and roles of the microtubule and microfilament networks in the mouse egg following fertilization are described. The role of the chromosomes in the control of the egg cytoskeleton organization is discussed and a model for polar body formation proposed. Finally we describe the changes occurring in the pattern of proteins synthesized during this period, these being discussed in relation to cell cycle events and to changes in cytoskeleton organization.


American Indian tribal sovereignty is viewed very differently in the United States Supreme Court than it is in American Indian tribal nations. The United States Supreme Court, the progenitor of the legal doctrine of tribal sovereignty, appears skeptical of the doctrine's continuing viability. The Court is therefore veering way from any strong notion of retained inherent tribal sovereignty. American Indian tribes, the sources and perpetuators of de facto tribal sovereignty, are more committed than ever to enacting their sovereignty on the ground, as well as promoting and protecting its legal status in the courts and in Congress. There is an ironic feedback loop created by these different conceptions of tribal sovereignty, in that the more tribes exercise their sovereignty in practice, the more frequently conflicts about tribal powers end up being litigated in federal courts, where the skeptical view about the vitality of sovereignty tends to prevail. The Supreme Court is skeptical of tribal sovereignty for two predominant reasons. First, there is a formalist objection to the paradoxical nature of the legal doctrine. Second, the Court exhibits an inchoate sense that tribal sovereignty is little other than the contradictory doctrine that the Court itself has generated. The tempered sovereignty that tribes possess is therefore in need of a defense. The defense explored in this short essay has a positive and a negative aspect. The positive part of the defense consists first of describing the historical and philosophical pedigree for tempered sovereignty, and then putting forth an argument for tempered sovereignty's virtues. Those virtues include preserving the prerogative of a people to choose a form of government that protects distinct yet evolving cultures. The negative part will wade into discussions of the powers of another sovereign: the United States. As recent legal and historical events reveal, sovereignty in its absolutist formulation has considerable potential for vice. Moreover, the pedigree for absolute sovereignty is no more sanctified than that for divided sovereignty. Given the virtues of tempered sovereignty and the vices of absolute sovereignty, the Supreme Court might want to reconsider its current path.


This paper analyzes the narrative strategies that shape Maalouf's rewriting of the history of the Crusades, examines why considerations of the problems inherent to the historiographical act are relegated to the background, and how Maalouf links his text to politics contemporary to its writing. I argue that while Maalouf brilliantly deconstructs the Western image of the Crusades as a heroic time by documenting the barbarity of the Crusaders without falling into the pitfall of simply inverting the terms of the dichotomy, the agenda driving his rewriting of this historical period leads him to partially repeat what his book is supposed to undo, witness the erasure of women in a book whose goal is to unearth a neglected perspective. Moreover, I contend that while most of the book painstakingly details the power play between and among the Crusaders and the Arabs that debunks the ideology of clash of religions and civilizations, the very brief epilogue, which draws parallels between the past and contemporary Middle Eastern politics but omits to mention key events of the nineteenth and twentieth century, tends to fall back in the very essentialism that the main narrative opposes.


PURPOSE
To characterize relationships between specific immune cell subsets in bone marrow (BM) or granulocyte colony-stimulating factor-mobilized peripheral blood (PB) stem cells collected from unrelated donors and clinical outcomes of patients undergoing transplantation in BMTCTN 0201.

PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fresh aliquots of 161 BM and 147 PB stem-cell allografts from North American donors randomly assigned to donate BM or PB stem cells and numbers of transplanted cells were correlated with overall survival (OS), relapse, and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD).

RESULTS
Patients with evaluable grafts were similar to all BMTCTN 0201 patients. The numbers of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) and naïve T cells (Tns) in BM allografts were independently associated with OS in multivariable analyses including recipient and donor characteristics, such as human leukocyte antigen mismatch, age, and use of antithymocyte globulin. BM recipients of > median number of pDCs, naïve CD8(+) T cells (CD8Tns), or naïve CD4(+) T cells (CD4Tns) had better 3-year OS (pDCs, 56% v 35%; P = .025; CD8Tns, 56% v 37%; P = .012; CD4Tns, 55% v 37%; P = .009). Transplantation of more BM Tns was associated with less grade 3 to 4 acute GvHD but similar rates of relapse. Transplantation of more BM pDCs was associated with fewer deaths resulting from GvHD or from graft rejection. Analysis of PB grafts did not identify a donor cell subset significantly associated with OS, relapse, or GvHD.

CONCLUSION
Donor immune cells in BM but not PB stem-cell grafts were associated with survival after unrelated-donor allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. The biologic activity of donor immune cells in allogeneic transplantation varied between graft sources. Donor grafts with more BM-derived Tns and pDCs favorably regulated post-transplantation immunity in allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation.


The nano-characterization of thermal oxides grown on 4H-SiC is for the first time presented and analysed to derive its reliability. The dielectric breakdown (BD) kinetics of silicon dioxide (SiO2) thin films thermally grown on 4H-SiC has been determined by comparison between I-V measurements on large-area (up to 1.96×10-5 cm2) metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structures and conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) with a resolution of a few nanometers. C-AFM clearly images the weak breakdown single spots under constant voltage stresses. The stress time on the single C-AFM tip dot has been varied from 1×10-3 to 1×10-1 s. The density of BD spots, upon increasing the stress time, exhibits an exponential trend. The Weibull slope and the characteristic time of the dielectric BD events were so determined by direct measurements at nanometer scale demonstrating that the percolation model is valid for thin thermal oxide layers on 4H-SiC (5-7nm), but it fails for larger thicknesses (10 nm).


Snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) is an important commercial shellfish and one of the most valuable fisheries in eastern Canada. The Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab fishery has been the world's largest for the past two decades. Total landings grew substantially between the 1980s and 1990s, but more recently, the industry has been faced with new challenges including decreases in stock abundance (i.e., poor pre-recruitment), changes in environmental condition (i.e., warming ocean water temperatures), conflicts with shrimp trawlers, effects of seismic exploration, and increases in operating costs. Maintaining the economic viability of small fishing businesses in the presence of these new stressors can be a challenge. In output-controlled fisheries such as snow crab, improving the catch rate of existing traps is an effective method of improving the financial viability of small fishing businesses. In this thesis, I conducted a comprehensive examination of the behaviour of snow crab in response to artificial light (i.e., Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lights and luminescent netting), including laboratory and field experiments, to address the primary goal of improving the catch rate of small conical traps commonly used for catching snow crab in the North Atlantic Ocean.
First, I conducted a literature review regarding the use of artificial light in commercial industrialized fisheries. The review provides valuable knowledge and reference for scientists, managers, and fishermen on animal behaviour in response to artificial light. It also addresses the trade-off between positive effects such as increased catch rate and reduced bycatch with negative effects such as the production of increased plastic, ocean litter, and greenhouse gas emission. Second, I conducted 7 experiments to investigate the behaviour of snow crab in response to artificial light, including 2 laboratory studies and 5 field studies, to address the primary goal of improving the catch rates of snow crab traps. Results from the laboratory experiments indicated that snow crab responded differently to different light colours. Field experiments in 2016 demonstrated that equipping baited traps with small low-powered LED lights increased the Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE; number of crab per pot) of the traps (i.e., 77% and 47% for white and purple LED lights, respectively). Next, I examined the effect of installing underwater LED lights in different locations and orientations inside baited traps targeting snow crab off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Results from this field experiment in 2017 revealed that the location and orientation of lights does not appear to be important. Next, I conducted a comparative fishing study onboard a large offshore fishing vessel targeting snow crab in the Barents Sea, off the coast of Norway. Results revealed that equipping baited traps with purple lights increased the CPUE by 11.6%, although the results varied with the density of crab.
Finally, I examined the potential application of luminescent netting as a source of artificial light to determine whether it could be used to improve the CPUE of traps. A benchtop laboratory experiment was conducted to measure the duration of luminescence using time-lapse photography. I found that luminescent netting can be activated to emit light and that the resulting intensity and duration of luminescence emitted over time, depends on the initial duration of UV exposure and the source of light. A follow-up field experiment in 2018 showed that luminescent traps significantly increased the catch rate of snow crab compared to traditional traps.
Overall, the results of my PhD research demonstrate that artificial light can improve the catch rates of snow crab traps, with examples from different light sources (i.e., LED light, luminescent netting) and locations (Barents Sea, Newfoundland and Labrador). These results suggest that the application of artificial light in commercial snow crab fisheries could improve the financial viability of fishing enterprises.


A mass transportation system has a main role in every development process of countries in the modern world. In Japan, transportation infrastructure such as train stations or bus terminals plays as an important node that determines the development of functions and other community activities in the surrounding area. Based on the compact city development concept, various types of transport infrastructure were constructed in the integrated area of city nodes and mixed with a various public and commercial functions and supported with a well-structured management of transportation systems. With the condition of limited land in the city nodes, transport infrastructure has to be built as a compact building. This paper reviews design and system of Bus Terminal in Japan from the architectural perspective with the issue of a compact building. As a study case, Hakata Bus terminal is one of Japanese bus terminal built with a slim building and vertically extended level without bus parking area. The platform was divided into three different floor levels with total ten building stories filled by various public and commercial functions. Time schedule, information system, people and vehicle circulation, and the other aspect become the main support to create a compact bus terminal. However, the commercial function is more prominent than the overall function of the building, thus making Hakata bus terminal does not show the typology terminal design in general. Overall, the terminal provides community services without ignoring the main function as a mass transportation system in a compact bus terminal.


Through calculations of molecular packing constraints in crowded solutions, we have previously shown that dispersions of filament forming proteins and soluble proteins can be unstable at physiological concentrations, such that tight bundles of filaments are formed spontaneously, in the absence of any accessory binding proteins. Here we consider the modulation of this phenomenon by capping proteins. The theory predicts that, by shortening the average filament length, capping alleviates the packing problem. As a result, the dispersed isotropic solution is stable over an expanded range of compositions.


The addition of Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) in the fabrication of micro-electromechanical-systems(MEMS) has enabled the creation of many new structures that were not previously feasible. By combining this technique with silicon wafer bonding Silicon-OnInsulator (SOI) technology and other silicon fabrication processes, a new large scale 3D structure has been created to support a large area single crystal Silicon membrane of 2-5 μm thick. The structure consists of a series of very high aspect ratio silicon ridges created using the DRIE process that are bonded using this silicon fusion bonding technique on both sides of the silicon membrane. This structure allows the membrane to withstand the stresses placed on it during vacuum testing by reducing the pressure of one side of the membrane to near vacuum.


Abstract. The prediction of fogs is one of the processes not well reproduced by the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. In particular, the role of turbulence in the formation or dissipation of fogs is one of the physical processed not well understood, and therefore, not well parameterized by the NWP models. Observational analysis of three different periods with fogs at the Spanish Northern Plateau has been carried out. These periods have also been simulated with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical model and their results have been compared to observations. The study includes a comparison of the skill of different planetary boundary layer (PBL) parameterizations, surface layer schemes and a test of the gravitational settling of clouds/fogs droplets option. A statistical analysis of this comparison has been evaluated in order to study differences between the periods and between the various parameterizations used. The model results for each PBL parameterization were different, depending on the studied period, due to differences in the features of each fog. This fact made it difficult to obtain generalized conclusions, but allowed us to determine which parameterization performed better for each case. In general, judging from the models results of liquid water content (LWC), none of the PBL schemes were able to correctly simulate the fogs, being Mellor-Yamada Nakanishi and Niino (MYNN) 2.5 level PBL scheme the best one in most of the cases. This conclusion is also supported by the root mean square error (RMSE) calculated for different meteorological variables.


Due to advances in medicine, patients now have a wide-array of treatment options. Legal and ethical principles favoring patient autonomy theoretically give patients the right to choose among these options based on their personal values and preferences. But the right to choose is only meaningful if the patient is given sufficient information to make an intelligent decision. This article explains why informed consent laws fail to perform their function of protecting patients' interests in receiving the information they need to exercise their personal preferences. In all but four states, a patient cannot prevail on an informed consent claim without proving objective causation. That standard forces the courts to focus on the hypothetical preferences of a reasonable person, rather than on the values and priorities of the individual patient. The medical information patients receive from physicians reflects this focus on the hypothetical reasonable patient. The informed consent process often consists of a formalistic recitation of risks and alternatives intended to protect the physician against liability, rather than a joint process during which the physician and patient coordinate to ensure that the patient's decisions are based on individual preferences and concerns. The Affordable Care Act recognizes this deficiency and includes a program to "facilitate the incorporation of patient preferences and values into the medical plan." This article argues that courts and state legislatures must also do their part by abandoning objective causation so informed consent laws can perform their essential role of protecting patients' informational interests. The article traces the history of informed consent and shows why the doctrine is ripe for change. It recommends adopting a subjective causation standard and explains why this standard is an attractive option. The article also proposes using new computer systems to help make the informed consent process easy, effective, and relatively inexpensive.


We propose a new, highly flexible font description method that explicitly describes characters as assemblies of parameterizable shape components. By varying global parameters, we can derive fonts that vary in weight, condensation, and shape. Fonts made of shape components are flexible parameterizable designs, which we can easily adapt to various display and printing conditions (such as condensed font when lacking display space, high-quality optical scaling, adaptation of fonts to existing character metrics). Besides applications related to typeface design, fonts based on parameterizable components may be used in portable devices where memory is scarce. A single parameterizable design and its variations may allow enough flexibility for providing both high-quality antialiased fonts at low resolution and typefaces for high-resolution printing.


Solute concentrations in stream water vary with discharge in patterns that record complex feedbacks between hydrologic and biogeochemical processes. In a comparison of three shale-underlain headwater catchments located in Pennsylvania, USA (the forested Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory), and Wales, UK (the peatland-dominated Up- per Hafren and forest-dominated Upper Hore catchments in the Plynlimon forest), dissimilar concentration-discharge (C-Q) behaviors are best explained by contrasting landscape distributions of soil solution chemistry - especially dissolved organic carbon (DOC) - that have been established by pat- terns of vegetation and soil organic matter (SOM). Specif- ically, elements that are concentrated in organic-rich soils due to biotic cycling (Mn, Ca, K) or that form strong com- plexes with DOC (Fe, Al) are spatially heterogeneous in pore waters because organic matter is heterogeneously dis- tributed across the catchments. These solutes exhibit non- chemostatic behavior in the streams, and solute concentra- tions either decrease (Shale Hills) or increase (Plynlimon) with increasing discharge. In contrast, solutes that are con- centrated in soil minerals and form only weak complexes with DOC (Na, Mg, Si) are spatially homogeneous in pore waters across each catchment. These solutes are chemo- static in that their stream concentrations vary little with stream discharge, likely because these solutes are released quickly from exchange sites in the soils during rainfall events. Furthermore, concentration-discharge relationships of non-chemostatic solutes changed following tree harvest in the Upper Hore catchment in Plynlimon, while no changes were observed for chemostatic solutes, underscoring the role of vegetation in regulating the concentrations of certain ele- ments in the stream. These results indicate that differences in the hydrologic connectivity of organic-rich soils to the stream drive differences in concentration behavior between catchments. As such, in catchments where SOM is dom- inantly in lowlands (e.g., Shale Hills), we infer that non- chemostatic elements associated with organic matter are re- leased to the stream early during rainfall events, whereas in catchments where SOM is dominantly in uplands (e.g., Plyn- limon), these non-chemostatic elements are released later during rainfall events. The distribution of SOM across the landscape is thus a key component for predictive models of solute transport in headwater catchments.


Three metamorphic core complexes, Ruby Mountains-East Humboldt Range (R-EH), Albion MountainsRaft River Mountains-Grouse Creek Mountains (A-RR-GC), and Snake Range (SR) are exposed in the northeastern Great Basin (Nevada, Utah, and Idaho). Their structural, magmatic, and metamorphic histories are synthesized and compared to evaluate fundamental tectonic processes in this area in which large-magnitude crustal contraction was followed by large-magnitude crustal extension. Throughout the region, contraction and magmatism began in the Late Jurassic, and in the R-EH and SR areas culminated at ~80–90 Ma. The A-RR-GC core complex experienced multiple episodes of Late Cretaceous tectonic denudation beginning at ~105 Ma, and it records no Mesozoic magmatism, apparently due to an infertile lower crust. The R-EH core complex also underwent tectonic denudation in latest Cretaceous/early Tertiary time. This illustrates the importance of syncontractional adjustments to thickened orogenic wedges and that these adjustments need not occur simultaneously throughout an orogen. Syncontractional extension and denudation in the A-RR-GC and R-EH areas also limited the amount, extent, and distribution of subsequent Tertiary extension. Eocene magmatism was immediately followed by an intense pulse of crustal extension in all three areas. However, late Oligocene and early Miocene extension throughout the region was diachronous and was not always coincident with a widespread mid-Oligocene magmatic event, suggesting that Oligocene magmatism and extension are not entirely linked. The magnitude of tectonic denudation in the R-EH and SR core complexes varies along the strike of the core complex. In the R-EH area, this variation may be due to the restriction of Late Cretaceous(?) and middle Eocene episodes of extension to the northern part of the core complex. In the SR core complex this variation may be the result of a lateral ramp in the structural surface of the Snake Range decollement. These intra-core complex variations in tectonic denudation appear to be partly accommodated by solid-state flow of the lower crust into regions of high mid- to upper-crustal extension, and they require a complex, three-dimensional pattern of lower-crustal redistribution and magmatism. Oppositely ver gent extensional fault systems in the A-RR-GC metamorphic core complex may have developed because the rigid Archean lower crust in this area could not flow into highly extended domains.


This paper presents a verification framework that is parametric in a (trusted) operational semantics of some programming language. The underlying proof system is language-independent and consists of eight proof rules. The proof system is proved partially correct and relatively complete (with respect to the programming language configuration model). To show its practicality, the generic framework is instantiated with a fragment of C and evaluated with encouraging results.


Muscular contraction and loading of adjacent tendons has been demonstrated to cause increased blood flow and metabolic activity in the peritendinous region. However, it is poorly known to what extent the human tendon itself takes up glucose during exercise. Thus, the purpose of this study was to measure tendon glucose uptake with increasing exercise intensity and to compare it to muscle glucose uptake at the same intensities. Eight young men were examined on three separate days during which they performed 35 min of cycling at 30, 55 and 75 % of VO2max, respectively. Glucose uptake was measured directly by positron emission tomography (PET) with 2-[ (18)F]fluoro-2-deoxyglucose ([18F]FDG). [18F]FDG was injected after 10 min of exercise that was continued for a further 25 min after the injection. PET scanning of the thigh and Achilles region was performed after the exercise. Glucose uptake of the Achilles tendon (AT) remained unchanged (7.1 +/- 1.5, 6.6 +/- 1.1, and 6.0 +/- 1.1 micromol.kg(-1).min(-1)) with the increasing workload, although the glucose uptake in m. quadriceps femoris simultaneously clearly increased (48 +/- 35, 120 +/- 35, and 152 +/- 74 micromol.kg(-1).min(-1), p < 0.05). In conclusion, the AT takes up glucose during exercise but in significantly smaller amounts than the skeletal muscle does. Furthermore, glucose uptake in the AT is not increased with the increasing exercise intensity. This may be partly explained by the cycle ergometry exercise used in the present study, which probably causes only a little increase in strain to the AT with increasing exercise intensity.


Purpose

This study aims to evaluate the link between climate/weather change and farmer migration in Bihar, India. The influence of cognitive conditions and climate-related stress on farmer migration decisions and the socioeconomic characteristics of migrating and non-migrating farm households are analysed. The focus is the role of migration in access to climate and agricultural extension services and the contribution of migration to enhanced farmer coping capacity.

Design/methodology/approach

A primary survey was conducted of farm households in seven districts of Bihar, India. Farmer perceptions of climate change were analysed using the mental map technique. The role of socioeconomic characteristics in farm household migration was evaluated using binary logistic regression, and the influence of migration on access to climate and agricultural extension services and the adaptive capacity of migrating households was investigated using descriptive statistics.

Findings

Climate-induced livelihood risk factors are one of the major drivers of farmer's migration. The farmers' perception on climate change influences migration along with the socioeconomic characteristics. There is a significant difference between migrating and non-migrating farm households in the utilization of instructions, knowledge and technology based climate and agriculture extension services. Benefits from receipt of remittance, knowledge and social networks from the host region enhances migrating households' adaptive capacity.

Originality/value

This study provides micro-evidence of the contribution of migration to farmer adaptive capacity and access to climate and agricultural extension services, which will benefit analyses of climate-induced migration in other developing countries with higher agricultural dependence. In addition, valuable insights are delivered on policy requirements to reduce farmer vulnerability to climate change.


Background. Impairments of attention are a frequent and well documented consequence of head injury. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if Neurofeedback Therapy (NFT) can enhance remediation of attention deficits in patients with closed head injuries (CHI) who are still in the phase of spontaneous recovery. Method. Feedback of beta-activity (13-20 Hz) was used for the treatment of attentional impairments in twelve patients with moderate closed head injuries. A matched control group of nine patients was treated with a standard computerized training. All patients were tested before and after treatment with a set of attention tests. Results. After ten sessions the analyses of beta activity showed that eight patients were able to increase their beta activity while the remaining four patients showed a decrease of beta activity. Mean duration of beta activity was prolonged about 50% after training. Patients who received NFT improved significantly more in the attention tests than control patients. Conclusion. The results suggest that neurofeedback is a promising method for the treatment of attentional disorders in patients with traumatic brain injuries. It is suggested that NFT should focus not only on the enhancement of beta activity, but also on the duration patients are able to hold beta activity. It is proposed to use NFT also with patients in the early phase of rehabilitation. Copyright © 2001 ISNR. All rights reserved. Ingo Keller has been Head of the Department of Neuropsychology, Neurological Clinic in Bad Aibling, Germany since 1994. He is a member of the German Neuropsychological Association and the German Association of Neurotraumatology and Clinical Neuropsychology. Address correspondence to: Ingo Keller, Department of Neuropsychology, Neurological Clinic, Kolbermoorer Strasse 72, D-83043, Bad Aibling, Germany. Journal of Neurotherapy, Vol. 5(1/2) 2001 Copyright © 2001 ISNR. All rights reserved. 19


For absorption spectrophotometry extending into the far ultraviolet, a diffraction grating presents advantages over a quartz prism because of its uniform dispersion. A wide range photoelectric spectrophotometer, which employs a plane diffraction grating (5700 lines/cm) as dispersing element, a single concave mirror for collimating and focusing, and narrow fixed slits (70μ) is described. A commercial hydrogen lamp and a small tungsten filament lamp serve as light sources for the ultraviolet and visible regions. The sensitive detector consists of a vacuum photocell followed by an electrometer valve and galvanometer in a bridge circuit. By carefully designed baffles, stray light is reduced to an amount which, at wavelengths above 2100A, is negligible compared with the monochromatic output. The residual stray light, entirely caused by scatter from the grating and mirror surfaces, can be determined by adjusting the grating angle to a nominal wavelength setting below 1800A. It is shown that on this basis a reliable correction can be applied to the absorption measurements below 2100A which extends the useful range of the instrument down to at least 1900A. The present long wave limit of the instrument, determined by the response of the photocell, is 6000A. Tests with a line source have shown that the wavelength calibration, based on the grating formula, is correct to within 5A, and that the spectral band width is about 8A throughout the whole range. The use of the instrument for absorption measurements of alkali halide crystals, of which an example is given, has demonstrated its accuracy and reliability.


This thesis aims to demonstrate the usefulness of the General Medical Services (GMS) database to perform pharmcoepidemological studies in Ireland. The database provides information on some 30% of the population who received approximately 70% of the prescriptions. In the field of pharmacovigilence, the effects of external forces such as the media and regulatory advice are examined in relation to their effects on prescribing patterns within the GMS. Drug utilisation studies were conducted and results illustrate the extent of multiple drug use within the GMS, and indicate that the elderly population were particularly likely to be exposed to major polypharmacy. Prescribing quality was studied by applying a number of recognised and newly developed prescribing indicators to prescription. The second aim of this thesis was to determine whether material deprivation influenced prescribing patterns. It was possible to demonstrate that even within the materially deprived GMS population, that different levels of deprivation influenced prescribing patterns. In particular, the prescribing of symptomically centrally active agents e.g. benzodiazepines increased with increasing deprivation, whereas the prescription of disease specific centrally active drugs such as antidepressant therapies fell with increasing deprivation. The GMS prescription database provided an important resource for performing studies of pharmacovigilence, drug utilisation and prescribing quality. By identifying a particular treatment and an outcome which can be measured in terms of drug therapy, it is possible to use the GMS prescription database for hypothesis testing even if one is constrained by a lack of diagnosis. Finally, the reasons for the apparent inequalities in drug prescribing with respect to material deprivation will require further study. The GMS prescription database provides an important source of prescription data for epidemiologic studies. It provides reliable data to expand the knowledge about the use and effects of drugs in the general population and could, with the appropriate safeguards and consent, be used to examine individual doctor or individual patient [prescribing in Ireland and will have an important role to play in the continues development of pharmacoepidemiology in Ireland.


During the 2000s, over a dozen U.S. states passed laws that prohibit health care employers from mandating overtime for nurses. Using a nationwide panel dataset from 2004 to 2012, we find that these mandatory overtime laws reduced the service quality of nursing homes, as measured by an increase in deficiency citations. This outcome can be explained by two undesirable changes in the staffing hours of registered nurses: decreased hours of permanent nurses and increased hours of contract nurses per resident day. We observe that the increase in deficiency citations concentrates in the domains of administration and quality of care rather than quality of life, and the severity levels of the increased citations tend to be minor rather than major. We also find that the laws' negative effect on quality is more severe in nursing homes with higher percentage of Medicare-covered residents. These observations are consistent with the predictions of a stochastic staffing model that incorporates demand uncertainty and operational flexibility. Further, we rule out an alternative hypothesis that the quality decline is induced by an increase in nurse wages.


Original article can be found at: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/ Copyright American Astronomical Society [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]


Information overload is a great problem for the scientific community. To deal with the abundance of new scientific articles there are methods of sophisticated information retrieval tools and text mining tools. Little is known about the relationship between document structure and the structure of thought. This paper describes a project in this matter.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the following: (1) baseline knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions about Medicaid managed care (MMC) among seniors and people with disabilities (SPD) receiving Medicaid benefits; (2) SPD Medicaid beneficiaries' use of and satisfaction with a user-designed MMC guidebook; and (3) guidebook effects on changes in MMC knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviors of SPD beneficiaries.

DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING
Survey data collected between February and May 2008 from a random sample of SPD receiving Medicaid benefits in three California counties.

STUDY DESIGN
This randomized controlled trial of 319 intervention and 373 control SPD Medicaid beneficiaries used pre- and postintervention telephone surveys to compare changes in MMC knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviors.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS
Baseline and follow-up telephone interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Seventy-seven percent of intervention participants reported using the guidebook. Nearly all (97.9 percent) found it somewhat or very useful. Intervention participants showed gains in knowledge, positive attitudes, and intentions to enroll in MMC that are statistically significant compared with control participants. However, knowledge levels remained low even among intervention participants.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that the guidebook is an effective way to improve recipients' MMC knowledge, confidence, and behavioral intentions.


In the twentieth century, Muslim minorities emerged in Europe seeking work, a refuge from conflict, and higher life standards. As a result, there are now more than 12 million Muslims in Western Europe. As these immigrants became permanent residents, the Islamic communities they developed had to respond to their European context, reinterpreting Islam in accordance with local conditions. In Localizing Islam in Europe, Yukleyen brings this adaptation to light, demonstrating how Islam and Europe have shaped one another and challenging the idea that Islamic beliefs are inherently antithetical to European secular, democratic, and pluralist values. Yukleyen compares five different forms of religious communities among Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands and Germany that represent a spectrum from moderate to revolutionary Islamic opinions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, he finds that, despite differences in goals and beliefs, these communities play an intermediary role, negotiating between the social and religious needs of Muslims and the socioeconomic, legal, and political context of Europe. Yukleyen's rich ethnography shows that there is no single form of assimilated and privatized ""European Islam"" but rather Islamic communities and their interpretations and practices that localize Islam in Europe.


In areas such as Active Safety, new technologies, designs (e.g. AUTOSAR) and methods are introduced at a rapid pace. To address the new demands, and also requirements on Functional Safety imposed by ISO 26262, the support for engineering methods, including tools and data management, needs to evolve as well. Generic and file-based data management tools, like spreadsheet tools, are popular in the industry due to their flexibility and legacy in the industry but provide poor control and traceability, while rigid and special-purpose tools provide structure and control of data but with limited evolvability. As organizations become agile, the need for flexible data management increases. Since products become more complex and developed in larger and distributed teams, the need for more unified, controlled, and consistent data increases. In this paper we report the successful experience of Volvo Car Corporation (VCC) to achieve these challenges and we present a new paradigm called organic evolution of development organization. VCC has for more than ten years used an integrated model-based platform for developing their active safety systems. The platform supports distributed real-time collaboration, fine-grained versioning, and integration with specialized tools. VCC uses the platform for requirements, design, test and verification, failure mode avoidance and change management. Specifications to suppliers, ISO 26262 safety documentation and AUTOSAR templates are generated from models. The agile and lean development processes have met the increased rate of evolution in projects like the new XC90. High quality is attested by both the products and the endorsement of the development organization.


Sarcomatous carcinomas (SCs) are rare tumours that contain malignant cells with epithelial and mesenchymal characteristics. SC rarely presents in the head and neck, and occurs even less often in the orbit. Only 8 cases of SCs located in the orbit or affecting the globe function have been described in the English literature. Here, we report a case of SC affecting the right orbit. SC is associated with a poor prognosis and advanced disease at presentation. Diagnosis is difficult, as histology often fails to definitively identify SC, necessitating a wide panel of molecular/immunological markers. Treatment options are generally aggressive but risky, and frequently yield poor results. Due to the rarity of SC, there has been little focus on the development of improved treatment options.


We present a quantum-mechanical excitonic model to compute CD spectra of multichromophoric compounds. All the quantities needed to build the excitonic Hamiltonian are obtained through QM calculations in which the interactions among the chromophoric units are described in terms of full transition densities instead of reverting to the common dipole-dipole approximation. Environmental effects due to solvation and the perturbation due to other surrounding units are included in a self-consistent way using a polarizable continuum model and a polarizable MM approach, respectively. The application to two different coordination compounds shows that the method not only successfully reproduces the experimental spectra but it can also be used to investigate and dissect the role of the various effects contributing to the final result, such as intra-molecular coupling terms and environment effects. This method can therefore represent an ab initio-alternative to the widely applied matrix-based approach, and in principle it has the advantage of not requiring the knowledge of any experimental data a priori or the transition dipole parameters.


The author estimates the impact of compulsory election laws on certification success using data on over 6,500 private sector certifications from British Columbia over the years 1978–98. A unique quasi-experimental design is used by exploiting two changes in the union recognition law: first, in 1984, the introduction of mandatory elections; and second, in 1993, the repeal of elections and their replacement by the original card-check procedure. The author also estimates the effectiveness of management opposition tactics across union recognition regimes. Success rates declined by an average of 19 percentage points during the voting regime, and then increased by about the same amount when card-checks were re-instituted. The results indicate that the mandatory election law can account for virtually the entire decline. In addition, the findings suggest that management opposition was twice as effective under elections as under card-checks.


This paper evaluates the existence of a resource curse on political regimes using the Synthetic Control Method. Focusing on 12 countries, we compare their democracy level with the weighted democracy level of countries that have not experienced oil shocks and have similar pre‐event characteristics. We find that the exogenous variation in oil endowment does not have the same effect on all countries. In most cases, the event has a negative effect in the long run, but countries with a pre‐existing high level of democracy are not negatively affected.


Abstract. The ecological status of the Baltic Sea has for many years been affected by the high input of both waterborne and airborne nutrients. The focus here is on the airborne input of nitrogen (N) and the projected changes in this input, assuming the new National Emission Ceilings directive (NEC-II), currently under negotiation in the EU, is fulfilled towards the year 2020. With a set of scenario simulations, the Danish Eulerian Hemispheric Model (DEHM) has been used to estimate the development in nitrogen deposition based on present day meteorology combined with present day (2007) or future (2020) anthropogenic emissions. Applying a so-called tagging method in the DEHM model, the contribution from ship traffic and from each of the nine countries with coastlines to the Baltic Sea has been assessed. The annual deposition to the Baltic Sea is estimated to 203 k tonnes N for the present day scenario (2007) and 165 k tonnes N in the 2020 scenario, giving a projected reduction of 38 k tonnes N in the annual load in 2020. This equals a decline in nitrogen deposition of 19%. The results from 20 model runs using the tagging method show that of the total nitrogen deposition in 2007, 52% came from emissions within the bordering countries. By 2020, this is projected to decrease to 48%. For some countries the projected decrease in nitrogen deposition arising from the implementation of the NEC-II directive will contribute significantly to compliance with the reductions agreed on in the provisional reduction targets of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. This underlines the importance of including projections like the current in future updates of the Baltic Sea Action Plan.


Colorful Past, Majestic Worship: The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, Sunday after Ascension Day, 2009 The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City has had a colorful past. One reason is that many of the bishops and deans who have been associated with it have been unusually interesting leaders, sometimes even celebrities. Another reason is that its mission, social service, and witness over many years have given it a particular public prominence, sometimes raising controversy. And it has attracted interest and attention because of its dramatic physical presence (it is one of the world's largest gothic churches) and its function as a central religious symbol in the country's largest city. But a visitor to a worship service on the Sunday morning after Ascension Day in 2009, on a fresh spring morning, is struck most of all by the beauty of its sacred space and liturgy. He will somehow feel connected with the millions of eucharistie celebrations that Christians have held through two thousand years, from the sandy desert of the Sudan, to the glory of a pontifical Mass in Rome. Until the 1860s there were no cathedrals in the Episcopal Church. That decade saw a growing movement advocating a cathedral in each diocese, in order to represent the apostolic leadership of the bishop and to further the common missionary work and liturgical life of the diocese. Rivalry with the Roman Catholic Church also played its part, not least in New York City, where in the 1870s St. Patrick's Cathedral was being built very noticeably in mid-town Manhattan. In 1873 Horatio Potter (1802-1887), Episcopal bishop of New York, had the state legislature charter a cathedral corporation. The cathedral for the diocese of New York has thus always been wholly that; it is not a parish church with a canonical congregation, as is the case in most other North American dioceses. The National Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Washington, D. C, and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco are also constituted solely as cathedrals. At first the preferred location for the cathedral for the Episcopal diocese of New York was across from the southern fringe of Central Park. Unfortunately, the cathedral trustees found it impossible to secure the necessary real estate there. In 1887 they turned their attention north of Central Park to an almost empty plateau called Morningside Heights. In 1889 they chose three city blocks bounded by 110th Street, Amsterdam Avenue, 113th Street, and Morningside Drive. They bought the property from an asylum for orphans. The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid in 1892. At this point the trustees envisioned that the cathedral would serve as an ecumenical space for the mainstream Protestant churches: indeed, its motto remains "A house of prayer for all people." They therefore approached non-Episcopalians in their fund-raising campaigns, and looked for an architectural alternative to the gothic style, which functioned as the emblem of late Victorian Anglicanism. From a fierce architectural competition they chose a design for a largely Romanesque interior influenced by Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston. But progress in construction was slow and moods changed, and in 1911 Ralph Adams Cram, a high-profile advocate of gothic architecture with strategic connections, succeeded in replacing the original architects. Several nonEpiscopalians began to have suspicions about the diocese's ecumenical pretensions; the wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller withdrew his support for the cathedral, and instead gave eight million dollars to build the interdenominational Riverside Church a few blocks away. By the end of 1941 the full 601-foot length of the cathedral had been built. The first worship services were held a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II interrupted construction and as a result of insufficient funds the full church building has never been completed. In 1967 Bishop Horace Donegan (1900-1991) announced that he would be reallocating funds that had been collected for the construction of the cathedral to housing projects in Harlem, a badly deteriorating section of the city east of Morningside Heights. …


All pharmaceutical dosage forms contain many additives besides the active ingredients to assist manufacturing and to obtain the desired effect to the pharmaceutical active ingredients. The advances in drug delivery have simultaneously urged the discovery of novel excipients which are safe and fulfil specific functions and directly or indirectly influence the rate and extent of release and or absorption. Earlier used natural excipients are carrageenan, thaumatin, lard, shilajit, aerosil, myrobalan, and storax. Use of these natural excipients to deliver the bioactive agents has been hampered by the synthetic materials. Excipients are any component other than the active substances intentionally added to formulation of a dosage form. Novel drug delivery systems are developed to address the challenges of drug development such as bioavailability, permeability, and poor solubility. This review discusses about the majority of these plant-derived polymeric compounds, their sources extraction procedure, chemical constituents, uses and so delivery system recent investigations as excipients in novel drug.


Abstract Background Adolescent girls in Nigeria experience a disproportionately high burden of sexual and reproductive health disparities that affect their well-being. Yet, little is known about adolescent girls' own unique perspectives of the sexual and reproductive health challenges they face, and possible solutions to these challenges. Aims To explore top sexual and reproductive health concerns of female adolescents in Nigeria and their perceptions regarding potential solutions to these issues. Methods Eighty adolescent girls attending two public secondary schools in Lagos, Nigeria completed individual free-listing interviews. Items assessed their perceptions of the most important sexual and reproductive health issues and potential solutions to these issues at the individual and societal level. Data were analyzed using Anthropac 4.98 to sort the lists by item frequency as well as to determine Smith's salience index (S). Results The top five sexual and reproductive health concerns identified by participants were human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), followed by menstrual pain, vaginal infections, sexual abuse and teenage pregnancy. Adolescent girls stated that youth empowerment programs that provide access to skills-building opportunities and mentors was one potential strategy for addressing their sexual and reproductive health priorities. Other solutions identified were access to medical checkups, general health talks focused on their sexual and reproductive health concerns as well as access to health facilities and opportunities to build self-efficacy skills. Conclusion Adolescent girls in Nigeria need to be engaged in becoming powerful agents in improving their own sexual and reproductive health, and in crafting solutions that may be effective in enabling them to achieve their full potential and rights to health and well-being. The findings will be used to develop an intervention targeting the sexual and reproductive health priorities of adolescent girls in Lagos, Nigeria.


The dam of the Kaunas hydropower station in Lithuania is an important system from the safety point of view because only several kilometres downstream the dam Kaunas city is situated with population over 450 thousands. The paper presents the Kaunas dam risk analysis aspects, where the main part takes overtopping probability estimation. The purpose of this study was the critical water level modelling by the dam and to estimate overtopping probabilities by several scenarios - including spillway failure probabilities, The statistical data – maximum annual flow data of 76 years– water input to the Kaunas reservoir from The Nemunas River were collected and analysed, Also there were analysed water level and reservoir capacity data near the dam. The mathematical model of Kaunas dam which let perform prognoses of the critical reservoir capacity and at the same time the critical water level, as it is known as dangerous for dam and may cause the dam failure. The maximum flow data were assumed to be independent and identically distribu'cd, ?le extreme value distribution helped to estimate critical water levels probabilities. The every day flow and water release data thorough the dam spillways let to calculate everyday reservoir water volume and to know water level during the flood period. As a result, there were estimated three critical level probabilities under three gate operation scenarios. Estimated outlet failure probabilities and water level probabilities in each scenario yields the overflow probability (when water level reaches the top of the dam), As the Kaunas dam height is 48 meters, such water level leads to overtopping and according international literature almost 50% leads to dam


"Common sense" might suggest that the powerful upward spiral in stock prices of recent years would be followed by a comparable upward surge in capital gains tax revenue to the federal government. This has not, and likely will not, be the case. The reason? Savvy investors--anxious to avoid the "high" capital gains tax rate--are making rational financial decisions to hold onto assets and minimize recognition of capital gains. Until such time as more rational tax treatment of capital gains emerges from Washington, how about a temporary lowering of the capital gains tax rate--similar to an "amnesty" period? The dollar value of U.S. financial and real assets with gains is astronomical. At a minimum, $8-$10 trillion of assets, with gains exceeding perhaps $2 trillion, are currently "locked up" in the U.S. economy. The key to "unlocking" much of this money would be a significant reduction in the capital gains tax rate. Capital gains taxes are unique because they are a "voluntary" tax. Unlike taxes upon wages, interest, and dividends, holders of assets that generate capital gains control the decision-making process as to when, if ever, a gain is recognized and the associated taxes are paid. A significant portion of capital gains taxes are never paid, as the eventual death of an asset holder results in a new fair market asset valuation for the heirs. While reducing the capital gains tax rate might be obvious to investors and selected policymakers, political emotions run high. Politicians fear 1. voter backlash regarding perceptions of tax "fairness", and 2. the loss in government revenue that might result from a tax rate reduction. With regard to the fairness issue, the key is creating an incentive for asset owners to voluntarily pay additional taxes. What is unfair about lowering a tax rate and enticing investors to voluntarily step forward, sell an asset, and pay a substantial amount of tax which might otherwise never be collected? The second issue of revenue loss is a classic example of the Beltway propensity to underestimate consumer/investor intelligence. "Common wisdom" in Washington still has it that raising the capital gains tax rate increases tax collections, while cutting the tax rate reduces tax revenues--despite years of data to the contrary (see chart). One concern frequently expressed regarding a temporary or permanent reduction in the capital gains tax rate is that such a reduction would open the floodgates to sellers, thereby severely depressing stock prices. …