Framing a decision as a rejection can lead consumers to form preferences that are different from those that they would form if that same decision were framed as a choice. These differences in preferences are called preference reversals. This paper extends research in this area, using a sequence of five studies to show that framing can change both mean preference and preference variability. The first study uses Discrete Choice Experiments to demonstrate the effects of framing a decision as a choice or rejection on decision outcomes. Study 2 uses eye tracking to highlight that differences in information gathering during the experiment are unlikely to account for this difference. Studies 3 through 5 demonstrate that differences in framing can be reduced through increasing task familiarity. A lack of familiarity with the task of rejecting leads consumers to change their mean preferences and also increases their preference variability for high- and low-preferred products, compared to when they are choosing. These changes in preferences cease to occur when familiarity with rejection increases, but only when that familiarity is specific to the product context under examination. This demonstrates that framing can be used to influence consumer preferences in two ways.

Keywords: Choice, Rejection, Framing, Variance, Familiarity

To cite this document: Luke Greenacre, "Mean and Variability Effects in Decision Framing", Contemporary Management Research, Vol.12, No.3, pp. 309-336, 2016.

Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.15017


The development of the classical model of administrative owes much to the administrative tradition of Germany and the articulation of the principles of bureaucracy by Max Weber. The development of modern bureaucracies made possible the industrial revolution and the breakthroughs of modern economies. But at the end of the 20 century that classical model of public administration was challenged by what has been called the "new public management." This chapter will characterize the "traditional" and the "new public management" approaches to public administration and then compare them on three fundamental questions that every theory of public administration must answer: 1) what shall be done, i.e. policy direction; 2) who shall do it, i.e. personnel management; and 3) how to enforce compliance, i. e. accountability. The conclusion will examine the tension between accountability and efficiency in traditional public administration and the new public management in answering the three fundamental questions posed above.


This thesis revolves about the timing of precession-related variations in the boreal summer monsoon and the impact of North Atlantic cold events and the El Nino Southern Oscillation on this timing. Transient climate modelling experiments indicate that the intensity of the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon varies in-phase with peak summer insolation on orbital timescales. In contrast, marine proxy records suggest a lagged response of the monsoon maximum of a few thousand years behind the insolation forcing. This phase lag is particularly large in records from the Arabian Sea. In this thesis it is shown that a ~3,000 year lag of the African monsoon, which is derived from the Mediterranean sapropel record, is consistent not only with the marine isotope chronology but also with radiometrically dated speleothem records from the Mediterranean region and China, and with the atmospheric methane record from Antarctica. It is suggested that North Atlantic cold events systematically delay the onset of strong monsoon intensity. This explanation implies a distinct precession forcing of North Atlantic ice rafting and could also explain a non-stationary behaviour of the African Monsoon over the past 3 million years. An orbital-tuning independent chronology for a North Atlantic foraminiferal benthic oxygen isotope stacked record over the last two glacial cycles supports this theory and suggests that North Atlantic ice surge events respond to an external, climatic triggering mechanism, which is distinct from the process that causes the waxing and waning of the large ice sheets. A comparison with a climate modelling study of the El Nino Southern Oscillation on orbital time scales shows that the ice surge events coincide with periods of frequent El Nino events. Warming of northern North America during El Nino events could have led to rapid disintegrations of fringing ice shelves induced by meltwater infilling of surface crevasses, thereby triggering large-scale ice surge events. It is moreover suggested, that the long phase-lag that is derived from Arabian Sea productivity records is related to a decoupling of the Asian summer monsoon and Arabian Sea productivity at the precession frequency band. The intensity of the meridional overturning in the Atlantic potentially dominates the precession signal in the Arabian Sea. According to ocean modelling, increased Atlantic overturning results in an increased nutrient delivery into the euphotic layer of the northern Indian Ocean and triggers thereby high productivity and oxygen minimum zone maxima. The same process is suggested as explanation for anomalously high productivity conditions during marine isotope stage 13. To the end of the thesis a sea surface temperature record from the Gulf of Mexico over the last 300,000 years is presented. Variations in this record are controlled by the migration of the northern boundary of the Atlantic Warm Pool and are relatively insensitive to winter conditions. Because a clear signature of rapid climate-change events, such as the Younger Dryas cold event, is lacking in the record, it is concluded that high-latitude cold events influence only the winter Caribbean climate conditions, supporting the hypothesis of extreme northern-hemisphere seasonality during abrupt cooling events.


Real world networks typically exhibit non uniform edge densities with there being a higher concentration of edges within modules or communities. Various scoring functions have been proposed to quantify the quality of such communities. In this paper, we argue that the popular scoring functions suffer from certain limitations. We identify the necessary features that a scoring function should incorporate in order to characterize good community structure and propose a new scoring function, CEIL (Community detection using External and Internal scores in Large networks), which conforms closely with our characterization. We also demonstrate experimentally the superiority of our scoring function over the existing scoring functions.

Modularity, a very popular scoring function, exhibits resolution limit, i.e., one cannot find communities that are much smaller in size compared to the size of the network. In many real world networks, community size does not grow in proportion to the network size. This implies that resolution limit is a serious problem in large networks. Modularity is still very popular since it offers many advantages such as fast algorithms for maximizing the score, and non-trivial community structures corresponding to the maxima. We show analytically that the CEIL score does not suffer from resolution limit. We also modify the Louvain method, one of the fastest greedy algorithms for maximizing modularity, to maximize the CEIL score. We show that our algorithm gives the expected communities in synthetic networks as opposed to maximizing modularity. We also show that the community labels given by our algorithm matches closely with the ground truth community labels in real world networks. Our algorithm is on par with Louvain method in computation time and hence scales well to large networks.


Large-scale sensing and actuation infrastructures have allowed buildings to achieve significant energy savings; at the same time, these technologies introduce significant privacy risks that must be addressed. In this paper, we present a framework for modeling the trade-off between improved control performance and increased privacy risks due to occupancy sensing. More specifically, we consider occupancy-based HVAC control as the control objective and the location traces of individual occupants as the private variables. Previous studies have shown that individual location information can be inferred from occupancy measurements. To ensure privacy, we design an architecture that distorts the occupancy data in order to hide individual occupant location information while maintaining HVAC performance. Using mutual information between the individual's location trace and the reported occupancy measurement as a privacy metric, we are able to optimally design a scheme to minimize privacy risk subject to a control performance guarantee. We evaluate our framework using real-world occupancy data: first, we verify that our privacy metric accurately assesses the adversary's ability to infer private variables from the distorted sensor measurements; then, we show that control performance is maintained through simulations of building operations using these distorted occupancy readings.


As representative two-dimensional (2D) materials, layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have received increasing attention in electrochemical energy storage and conversion because of the facile tunability between their composition and morphology. The high dispersion of active species in layered arrays, the simple exfoliation into monolayer nanosheets and chemical modification offer the LDHs an opportunity as active electrode materials in electrochemical capacitors (ECs). LDHs are favourable in providing large specific surface areas, good transport features as well as attractive physicochemical properties. In this review, our purpose is to provide a detailed summary of recent developments in the synthesis and electrochemical performance of the LDHs. Their composites with carbon (carbon quantum dots, carbon black, carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, graphene/graphene oxides), metals (nickel, platinum, silver), metal oxides (TiO2, Co3O4, CuO, MnO2, Fe3O4), metal sulfides/phosphides (CoS, NiCo2S4, NiP), MOFs (MOF derivatives) and polymers (PEDOT:PSS, PPy (polypyrrole), P(NIPAM-co-SPMA) and PET) are also discussed in this review. The relationship between structures and electrochemical properties as well as the associated charge-storage mechanisms is discussed. Moreover, challenges and prospects of the LDHs for high-performance ECs are presented. This review sheds light on the sustainable development of ECs with LDH based electrode materials.


In this study, a new approach of investigation has been traced, by subsequently mixing the Al6061 (base material) with SiC particulate. The percentage (by Volume) chosen was 5%, 10% and 15% SiC, respectively. The casted specimen with appropriate proportion was analyzed by cutting the specimen as per the prescribed standard. Through the electric discharge machining the holes (10 mm diameter and 2 mm depth) were produced on the specimens by varying the different flushing rates 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1 kg/cm2, respectively. To validate the process of mixing ratio of SiC particulate on the based material Al6061, the surface roughness (SR) and Material removal rate (MRR) values were investigated through L27 orthogonal array.


Health improvement is an important strand of the Premier League's 'Creating Chances' strategy. Through community programmes, professional football clubs offer health-enhancing interventions for a number of different priority groups at risk from a range of lifestyle-related health conditions. However, while national guidance recommends evaluating health improvement interventions, concerns remain about how to do this most effectively. This study aims to investigate the popularity of football-based health improvement schemes and assess the challenges associated with their evaluation. Adapted from existing methodologies, a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to an 'expert' sample (n = 3) of football-led health evaluators. The sample was selected because of their experience and knowledge of performing evaluations of football-led health improvement programmes. Our 'experts' offered reasons for the popularity of football settings as channels for health improvement (including the reach of the club badge and the popularity of football), the justification for evaluating such schemes (including confirming effectiveness and efficiency) and the challenges of implementing evaluations (capacity, commitment and capability). Finally, a selection of key considerations for the evaluation of the impact of football-led health improvement programmes (obtaining expert guidance, building capacity and planning for evaluations) are discussed.


The reform to capital market in Chile in 2001 enacted, among other things, a capital gain tax exemption for stocks highly traded in stock markets. The goals of the reform were mainly to increase participation, depth and liquidity in the local stock market. However, it is not clear what the effects working on opposite directions. On the one hand, there exists a lock-in effect that leads a reduction in prices. To determine which of the two effects dominated is, therefore, an empirical question. This work contributes to answering this question, estimating for this purpose the effect on stock prices of the capital gains tax reform in Chile in 2001. Using a difference-in-difference estimator, the results show an average anticipated effect of around -15% on stock prices traded in the Santiago Stock Market. The price elasticity with respect to the tax rate in the economic literature for similar tax reforms in other countries ranges between -0,20 and -0,27, higher in magnitude than the one found in this study which range between -0,006 and -0,01. However, the estimated magnitude is quite close to the cases where the lock-in effect dominates.


The work by Jon Cockburn exhibited in the Wynne Competition at the AGNSW (1982-83) was entitled Pig Memory II (1982), this work being a relief sculpture that explored the fragmentation of meaning that accompanies the scattering of a sense of place reaching back to Jon Cockburn's adolescence, partly achieved by the inclusion of a Sepik (PNG) icon in the form of a small carved pig given to Jon by his father when they lived in the small town of Maprik, in the East Sepik District of Papua New Guinea. From this carved animal totem comes the meaning about which fragmentation takes place, with the fragmentation signified by the bound eucalypt twigs and ceramic shards that form a tactile and visual ground to past associations


The ability to build an air-breathing single-stage-to-orbit propulsion system requires examination of key elements such as turbulent mixing rates, especially at the "zero shear" fuel-air mixing condition, and combustion efficiency. The required data can only be obtained in experiments which simultaneously match the flight total pressure and total enthalpy as well as the fuel conditions. GALCIT, with its new free piston shock tunnel T5, has the capability to do some of these combustion experiments. But prior to these tests, it was felt that there was a need to simulate the gas dynamical processes in the free piston shock tunnel and also in a new combustion driven shock tunnel built for these experiments so that both systems could be used as efficiently as possible. The numerical code helped explain the piston motion in the free piston shock tunnel. The code was also very useful for the design of the combustion driven shock tunnel. Because hydrogen has to be injected into the combustion chamber of the propulsion system after being used as a cooling fluid, a combustion driven shock tunnel was built to reproduce this "hot" hydrogen fuel. The system has been used successfully to supply hydrogen at up to 1500 K for the experiments. To reduce the complexity of the problem, a very basic configuration for the hydrogen injection system was tested. This was first done with an injection system mounted flush with the surface of a flat plate in the test section of T5. Different test conditions as well as Mach 2 and 5 nozzle injectors at angles of 15° or 30° were tested to determine criteria for significant combustion. Lower limits in pressure and enthalpy were found where hydrogen combustion becomes very limited using this "hot" hydrogen fuel. The second set of experiments still used an injection system mounted flush with the surface but involved a small combustor model previously tested in the hypervelocity HYPULSE facility. Low pressure experiments were performed to reproduce some of the HYPULSE tests and excellent agreement was found. Experiments at high pressure were also performed to better match the real flight total pressure and some hydrogen combustion was detected in these tests.


The large time decay rates of a transmission problem coupling heat
and wave equations on a planar network is discussed.

When all edges evolve according to the heat equation, the uniform
exponential decay holds. By the contrary, we show the lack of
uniform stability, based on a Geometric Optics high frequency
asymptotic expansion, whenever the network involves at least one
wave equation.

The (slow) decay rate of this system is further discussed for
star-shaped networks. When only one wave equation is present in the
network, by the frequency domain approach together with multipliers,
we derive a sharp polynomial decay rate. When the network involves
more than one wave equation, a weakened observability estimate is
obtained, based on which, polynomial and logarithmic decay rates
are deduced for smooth initial conditions under certain
irrationality conditions on the lengths of the strings entering in
the network. These decay rates are intrinsically determined by the
wave equations entering in the system and are independent on the
heat equations.


Why is sex equality so hard to achieve? Social cooperation between women and men in various domains of life is assumed to be a fundamental and necessary building block of society, but proves hard to secure on terms of equality. One answer is that feminist quests for equality in private and public life are a form of misguided social engineering that ignores natural sex difference. This chapter examines arguments that nature and culture constrain feminist law reform. Appeals to nature argue that brain science and evolutionary psychology find salient differences between women and men, limiting what social engineering can achieve in fostering sex equality or reforming family law. Appeals to culture argue that constructions of masculinity and femininity are tenacious; challenging them threatens women's and men's sense of identity and causes resistance to equality. Contemporary society may espouse a commitment to a "gender neutral society," but men's and women's "unofficial desire" (as Harvey Mansfield puts it) stands in the way. I discuss three examples of cultural resistance: the debate about egalitarian marriage, work/life conflict, and popular novels and films about heterosexual romance. Often at work in discussions about sex inequality is the notion of a proper equilibrium between the sexes that is upset when sex roles change or differences are minimized. However, even as critiques of feminist social engineering invoke nature and culture, problems posed by nature feature as a reason to embrace social engineering in the form of the social institution of marriage: Marriage is fundamental, yet fragile. I illustrate this by examining arguments (in case law and the marriage movement) against allowing same-sex couples to marry. The chapter then considers how feminist or female-centered work in evolutionary science challenges the presentation of nature and evolution in popularizing accounts and in public policy arguments. This work cautions about the politics of prehistory, or how certain gender biases or stereotypes may shape the study of human origins and impose a "paleolithic glass ceiling."


In this report, we have demonstrated that IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha increase expression of both the I-A and I-E region gene products on the surface of the myelomonocytic cell line WEHI-3, and that they mediate this increase via an increase in A alpha transcription. Constructs containing 5' deletion mutations of the A alpha promoter attached to the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene were used to delineate the minimum 5' flanking sequences required for promoter activity, and for inducibility by IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha. Approximately 115 bp of 5' sequences are required for minimum induction by IFN-gamma or TNF-alpha when the cytokines are present separately. This includes the three conserved promoter elements, the X, Y, and H boxes. Nested linker-scanner mutations demonstrated that additional regions were also critical for optimal induction by IFN-gamma or TNF- alpha. These include the kappa B-like enhancer and a TNF-alpha-specific sequence that we have tentatively called the T box. The T box sequence was also found in the promoter regions of the human HLA-DQ alpha and rat RT1.B alpha genes. Although the entire T box sequence element was not found in the other mouse class II genes, all class II alpha genes contained the SV40 core enhancer element in the regions included by the T box. Mouse class II beta genes appear to contain neither the T box nor the core enhancer element in this region, suggesting differential regulation of class II alpha and beta genes by TNF-alpha.


Software Configuration Management (SCM) is an important discipline in professional software development and maintenance. The importance of SCM has increased as programs have become larger, more long lasting, and more mission and life critical. This article discusses the evolution of SCM technology from the early days of software development to the present, with a particular emphasis on the impact that university and industrial research has had along the way. Based on an analysis of the publication history and evolution in functionality of the available SCM systems, we trace the critical ideas in the field from their early inception to their eventual maturation in commercially and freely available SCM systems. In doing so, this article creates a detailed record of the critical value of SCM research and illustrates how research results have shaped the functionality of today's SCM systems.


This essay examines the important role of the contract clause in constitutional law during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although scholars have given little attention to the contract clause during this pivotal era, these years witnessed a torrent of litigation involving this provision of the Constitution. The paper surveys a wide range of topics, including the status of contracts calling for payment in Confederate currency, the legality of state laws barring enforcement of contracts for the purchase of slaves, and the validity of the Legal Tender Act of 1862. Debt relief measures in the Reconstruction South were a fertile source of contract clause litigation. Highly controversial moves by state legislatures to enlarge the amount of homestead exemptions and to apply such exemptions retroactively to prior contacts were blocked by the Supreme Court as violations of the contract clause. The essay also treats the interplay between the Supreme Court and the state courts in the interpretation and application of the provision. It concludes that Supreme Court was stalwart in upholding the contract clause during the Civil War and Reconstruction, but notes that the provision gradually declined in significance after 1880.


Cells of a V79 subline of the Chinese hamster were microirradiated at wavelength 365 nm in the presence of the psoralen derivative, trioxsalen. Microirradiation was accomplished by a pulsed argon laser microbeam either in anaphase or in interphase 3 hr after mitosis. Inhibition of clonal growth and formation of micronuclei at the first postirradiation mitosis were observed after microirradiation of anaphase chromosomes and of small parts of the interphase nucleus. Microirradiation of the cytoplasm beside the interphase nucleus or between the sets of chromosomes moving apart from each other in anaphase did not produce these effects. Anaphase experiments showed that only the daughter cell which received microirradiated chromatin exhibited an abnormal growth pattern. Most interestingly, shattering of the whole chromosome complement could be induced by microirradiation of small parts of the interphase nucleus and post-treatment with caffeine. Since microirradiation of chromatin in the absence of psoralen was not effective, we consider formation of psoralen photoadducts to nucleic acids in microirradiated chromatin to be the specific cause of the effects. We suggest that DNA photolesions in chromosome segments present in the microirradiated part of the nucleus can induce shattering of all the chromosomes in the microirradiated nucleus. Several possibilities are discussed to explain this unexpected finding.


This study aimed to estimate the risk of an allergic reaction for patients receiving home intravenous antibiotics, and to identify the potential advantages and disadvantages of providing injectable epinephrine in this patient population. In this study, 770 patients received 1000 courses of home intravenous therapy with 25 different antibiotics for 37 conditions. The patients in the program experienced 28 allergic reactions. The mean time to allergic reaction was 19.6 days. No episodes of anaphylaxis were observed. These results, coupled with the potential disadvantages of issuing epinephrine to all patients receiving home antibiotic therapy, suggest that this strategy may not provide a net benefit.


Conventional agricultural index insurance indemnifies based on the observed value of a specified variable, such as rainfall, that is correlated with agricultural production losses. Typically, indemnities are paid to the policyholder after the losses have been experienced. This paper explores alternate timing for index insurance payouts. In particular, we explore the potential benefits of what we call "mitigation index insurance" in which the payouts of the insurance contract arrive before losses are incurred, in time to be used to take measures to mitigate, that is, reduce, eventual losses. For mitigation insurance to be of value, two conditions must be met. First, there must be a strong objectively measurable signal that is highly correlated with losses, but which is realized before the losses are incurred. Second, the signal must be realized in time for loss mitigation measures to be cost effective. We can think of numerous examples, and mention three. First, the onset of extreme rainfalls and profound flooding in coastal equatorial areas can be anticipated months in advance based on low sea-surface temperature readings, the so called El Nino phenomenon. Skees et al., proposed an El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) business interruption insurance contract that would provide indemnities to rural communities in coastal Peru before the eventual onset of torrential rains and catastrophic flooding that typically accompany the most severe El Nino events. The indemnities would afford communities the opportunity to implement adaptation strategies to mitigate the serious losses and disruptions that are almost certain to follow (Skees and Murphy, 2009). A second example is slow-onset disasters such as severe droughts, which in developing countries often lead to widespread famine, but not immediately. Relief agencies whose mission is to provide humanitarian assistance to victims of famine face tough questions about when to act. International donor response to a humanitarian crisis is often slow and inadequate, with funding mobilized only after evidence of a widespread famine become apparent. Often, by the time that a famine is recognized to exist, large-scale loss of life is already inevitable. The loss of life is not due to lack of early warnings, but rather the ability of international donors to mobilize funds quickly. An insurance contract that indemnifies relief agencies when drought occurs, before the onset of widespread starvation, would provide ready funding that would allow relief agencies to begin relief efforts in a more timely way. Chantarat et al. (2007) proposed to use weather index insurance to improve drought response for famine prevention, which pays claims based on realizations of a weather index that forecasts the prevalence and severity of food insecurity conditions in the targeted areas. A third example is replanting guarantee insurance. Crop yields are especially sensitive to the weather conditions that exist during the critical agronomic phase of germination, which occurs shortly after planting. A poor smallholder who invests in high quality seeds can quickly find that poor rainfalls shortly after planting have substantially reduced the maximum attainable yield at harvest. Given that it is still early in the planting season, the farmer can typically replant. However, if the farmer is poor and credit-constrained, he may lack the financial means to purchase new seeds, given that he spent what little cash he had on his original bag of seeds. In 2014, in Tanzania, Acre Africa launched a mobile-enabled weather index insurance contract that is bundled by seed companies into the bags of seed they sell. The insurance product indemnifies the registered smallholder if a drought occurs during the first three weeks after planting, with the farmer receiving a mobile money transfer for the full cost of quality seed so they can replant within the same season. In this paper we systematically compare the costs and benefits of mitigation index insurance with those of conventional index insurance using a stylized three-period, discrete choice, stochastic dynamic optimization model. We assume that insurance is purchased in period 0; a signal correlated with losses in period 2 emerges in period 1, at which time mitigation measures may be taken; and losses, if any, are realized in period 2. We assess the relative values of mitigation index insurance and conventional index insurance by deriving the individuals expected ex-ante welfare under three insurance scenarios: a) the individual purchases no insurance; b) the individual purchases conventional index insurance, which indemnifies in period 2 based on an index observed in period 2; and c) the individual purchases mitigation index insurance, which indemnifies in period 1 based on an index observed in period 1. Our analysis indicates that mitigation insurance can reduce moral hazard by providing incentives to undertake mitigation that are absent with conventional index insurance. We also find that the value of mitigation insurance rises as the precision of the period 1 signal rises, the losses avoided through mitigation rise, the cost of mitigation rises, and the individual's initial wealth falls. We then turn to a multi-period dynamic stochastic model with a more refined treatment of time and explore how the relative benefits of mitigation index insurance vary with the point in time at which the indemnities are paid. In general, we find that the relative benefits of mitigation index insurance depend on two dynamically countervailing factors. The closer one is to the realization of the loss event, the more accurately the signal predicts eventual loss; however, it is also the case that the loss reduction obtained from mitigation falls, or equivalently the cost of mitigation rises. Thus the trade-off is: the longer one waits to mitigate, the better informed one is about its benefits, but the less effective it becomes. Information and mitigation costs thus have profound implications for the optimal timing of insurance indemnities. Mitigation insurance appears to be most promising if there is signal that predicts eventual losses with high precision, in time for cost-effective mitigation measures to be taken. We also expect mitigation insurance to be most valuable when credit constraints prevent the agent from ceasing the opportunity to mitigate when it becomes clear that it is beneficial to do so, a common situation among the poor of the developing world. We are currently investigating the impacts of credit and savings on the value of mitigation insurance, with plans to report the results in the working paper we present at the AAEA Annual Conference.


When estimating a party's capacity for goal co-ordination, scholars need not only consider contextual constraints but also the party's properties, since these directly affect its strategic choices. For small parties which are crucial in virtually all multi-party systems the co-ordination of votes, office and policy is much more difficult than for numerically strong actors. Since the conceptual tools to assess the weight of small coalition partners – weight defined as the capacity to defend and realise core policy commitments – and to systematise intra-coalitional processes in general are absent, this article proposes a typology to account for small parties' weight. This typology is defined by the two criteria of 'qualified pivotality' and 'centrality', each of which is assumed to create a particular set of strategic advantages. Based on the latter, the approach allows small parties' impact to be compared, first, with reference to their positions within the respective parliamentary party system, and, second, with reference to the type of coalition that is likely to be formed. Based on the separate but parallel assessment of 'formation weight' and 'coalition weight', the typology reveals under which conditions the same properties of a small party may be advantageous during the coalition formation process, but disadvantageous during the subsequent period of coalition government.


School Social Work: Practice, Policy, and Research has been a foundational guide to the profession for over 40 years. The first comprehensive introduction to the field, the book has featured the writings of the pioneers in the field while also accommodating the remarkable changes and growing complexities of the profession with each subsequent revision. The profession continues to grow in both the US and internationally, despite the ever-present concerns surrounding limited resources, budgets, and social worker to student ratios. Contemporary school social work takes place throughout the whole school and community, it takes place through policy change, and it takes place with at-risk students and their families as well as through individual and group work with students who struggle both emotionally and academically. This book reflects the many ways that school social work practice impacts academic, behavioral, and social outcomes for both youths and the broader school community. This revision features the contributions of 21 new scholars who bring their expertise in the field to this classic text. There are ten all-new chapters that reflect the current and emerging issues central to the profession, and eight extensive revisions of chapters from the previous edition. The eighth edition strengthens the book's focus on evidence informed practice, and places all content within the context of the prevailing multi-tiered model of school interventions.


With progressing age, the ability to recollect personal events declines, whereas familiarity-based memory remains relatively intact. It has been hypothesized that age-related hippocampal atrophy may contribute to this pattern because of its critical role for recollection in younger humans and after acute injury. Here, we show that hippocampal volume loss in healthy older persons correlates with gray matter loss (estimated with voxel-based morphometry) of the entire limbic system and shows no correlation with an electrophysiological (event-related potential [ERP]) index of recollection. Instead, it covaries with more substantial and less specific electrophysiological changes of stimulus processing. Age-related changes in another complementary structural measure, hippocampal diffusion, on the other hand, seemed to be more regionally selective and showed the expected correlation with the ERP index of recollection. Thus, hippocampal atrophy in older persons accompanies limbic atrophy, and its functional impact on memory is more fundamental than merely affecting recollection.


The principle of urban-rural gradients can reveal the spatial variations of ecosystem services and socioeconomic dimensions. The interrelations between ecosystem services and socioeconomics have scarcely been considered in the context of urban-rural areas. We investigated the spatial gradients and the mutual linkages of several ecosystem services and socioeconomic variables in the urban-rural areas of Leipzig, Germany, and Kunming, China. The results showed some regularities in the spatial patterns of ecosystem services and socioeconomic dimensions in both study areas. Habitat quality and f-evapotranspiration of Leipzig and habitat quality of Kunming demonstrated apparent increasing trends along all gradient patterns. However, the other ecosystem services presented divergent spatial variabilities in different gradient patterns. Road density, urban fabric and population density showed identical declining trends in both case study areas. Differently, household size, housing area as well as unemployment rate in Leipzig presented inconsistent spatial dynamics with considerable fluctuations. With regard to the gradient interrelations, road density, urban fabric and population density were strongly correlated with most ecosystem services in both case study areas. In contrast, the gradients of household size, housing area and unemployment rate of Leipzig showed inconsistent correlations with the ecosystem services gradients. Our study provides evidence to the argument that typical patterns of ecosystem service gradients do not exist in different urban-rural areas.


The first part of this discussion paper attempts, within the inevitable data limitations, to present some picture of patterns of indigenous poverty over time. In addition, the first section examines some of the historical determinants that can explain the disproportionate poverty confronting Latin America's indigenous peoples today and provides an overview of diverse economic and survival strategies of indigenous peoples in Latin America today. The second section of the paper is concerned with measures to combat indigenous poverty through the policies and programs of governments and international actors including the IDB. As will be seen, there has been a tremendous growth in the attention given to issues of indigenous poverty and development over the past decade. Rather than a narrative account of policies and programs, the paper aims mainly to identify the main challenges and dilemmas that are now emerging.


Excerpt] The number of women in positions of power and authority in Japanese companies has remained small despite the increase in the number of educated women and the passage of legislation on gender equality. In Too Few Women at the Top, Kumiko Nemoto draws on theoretical insights regarding Japan's coordinated capitalism and institutional stasis to challenge claims that the surge in women's education and employment will logically lead to the decline of gender inequality and eventually improve women's status in the Japanese workplace. Nemoto's interviews with diverse groups of workers at three Japanese financial companies and two cosmetics companies in Tokyo reveal the persistence of vertical sex segregation as a cost-saving measure by Japanese companies. Women's advancement is impeded by customs including seniority pay and promotion, track-based hiring of women, long working hours, and the absence of women leaders. Nemoto contends that an improvement in gender equality in the corporate system will require that Japan fundamentally depart from its postwar methods of business management. Only when the static labor market is revitalized through adoption of new systems of cost savings, employee hiring, and rewards will Japanese women advance in their chosen professions. Comparison with the situation in the United States makes the author's analysis of the Japanese case relevant for understanding the dynamics of the glass ceiling in U.S. workplaces as well.


In this paper, we analyze the Czech social and tax systems and their impact on income distribution. We use regular household surveys, organized and published by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO), for years 1999-2002. This longer time span allows us to identify some trends in the Czech social security system and their impact on well-being of various income groups. We find that while the total cost of the Czech social security system were not escalating in the period of 1999-2002, the illness benefit – already the largest spending program – rose by enormous 72% in these four years. This largesse failed, however, to improve income of the poorest households as the benefit is very inefficient in increasing income of the poorest households. We also find that spending on more focused programs (social supplement and parental allowance) rose the least. Last but not least, we analyzed the impact of tax deductions on the income distribution in the Czech Republic. These deductions represent a massive transfer, comparable to all social benefits combined. Our analysis shows, that the impact of tax deductions on income of the poorest decile fell significantly over the period of 1999-2002.


ABSTRACT Based on historical trends, recent shifts and emerging challenges, the study draws a multivariate contextual model to explain the competitive landscape of higher education in the global market with special attention to international exchange programs in the United States. U.S. educational exchange programs are analyzed from three perspectives: (a) enrollment trends of international students and their major contributions to the U.S. economy, (b) the growing demand for international experiences from American students and prospective employers, and (c) the importance of human capital development in a nation's long-term economic strength. Recent statistics indicate that the United States remains the most popular destination for international students, and international students contribute to the U.S. economy both in terms of their educational and living expenses in the host country and of their intelligence in research, technology advancement, and product innovation. Meanwhile, the world of higher education is increasingly competitive across borders. Multiple factors have led to a recent decline of international student enrollments in the United States. The study takes a comparative approach to address key variables and their interrelationships in the global context. Suggestions for future research and implications to the practical field are discussed. RESEARCH BACKGROUND Within the context of economic globalization and the growing need for human capital development around the world, the present study is focused on the role of higher education with special attention to international educational exchange programs in the United States. The competitive landscape of international educational programs is analyzed from three perspectives: (a) enrollment trends of international students and their contributions to the U.S. economy, (b) the growing demand for international experiences from American students and prospective employers, and (c) the importance of human capital development in a nation's long-term economic strength. According to the most recent survey by the Institute of International Education (IIE 2004a), international students contribute approximately US$13 billion to the U.S. economy each year in terms of tuition, living expenses and family related costs. The U.S. Department of Commence described higher education as the country's fifth largest export in the service sector. Concurrent with many international students choosing the United States as their favorite destination for higher education, the number of American students electing to study abroad has been increasing rapidly but the outbound number is significantly smaller than the inbound number. From a career perspective, employers tend to agree that candidates with an international learning experience are likely to possess key skills to meet job requirements such as communication, flexibility, leadership, innovation, maturity, independence, and interpersonal relationship (AEO, BC, DAAD, USDOE & USSD, 2003). From a human capital development perspective, a nation's long-term economic strength will to a large extent depend on the nation's ability to produce, support, and sustain a qualified, flexible, innovative, and mobile workforce. Economic globalization denotes a growing demand for human capital development and global mobility of human resources. As an example, of the 500 U.S. firms surveyed by the Hewitt Associates (2004), 45% indicated that they are currently using a global sourcing model to obtain cost efficient human resources. The percentage of jobs being outsourced is averaged 13% for those surveyed firms and will roughly double in about three years. At the same time, the strength of the U.S. higher educational systems helps attract and develop human capital supplies to the Untied States. American universities host international students and visiting scholars from all over the world, and many of them do research while pursuing a degree or seek career opportunities with U. …


This paper focuses on the benchmark problem application regarding the vibration control of tall buildings under cross wind excitation. The building under consideration is the 76-story, 306-m tall reinforced concrete office tower proposed for the city of Melbourne, Australia. The adopted control scheme consists of an active tuned mass damper (ATMD) where the control action is achieved by a fuzzy logic controller (FLC). The main advantage of the FLC is its inherent robustness and ability to handle any nonlinear behavior of the structure and the fact that its implementation does not require a mathematical model of the structure. This benchmark study is based on specified design constraints for the ATMD to be considered in the design of the proposed control scheme. The performance of the controller has been demonstrated through the uncertainty in stiffness (+15 and .15% variation from initial stiffness) of the building. The results of the simulation show a good performance by the fuzzy controller for all cases tested. Also the results show that the fuzzy controller performance is similar to the linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller, while possessing several advantages over the LQG controller.


Due to copyright restrictions some images have been removed from the electronic version of this thesis. The unabridged version can be consulted, on request, at the University of Leicester Library.


Claims of discrimination are treated differently in the death penalty context. Discrimination in employment, housing, civil rights and jury venire all use a burden-shifting framework with the preponderance of the evidence as the standard. Discrimination that occurs in death penalty proceedings is the exception to the rule -- the framework offers less protections; there is only one phase of argumentation, with a heightened evidentiary standard of "exceptionally clear proof." With disparate levels of protections against discrimination, the standard and framework for adjudicating claims of discrimination in the death penalty is unconstitutional. Death is different as a punishment. But does discrimination change from context to context? That is the message courts send when discrimination is judged differently based on the context, despite the United States Supreme Court's "insistence that capital punishment be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all." No equivalent safeguards exist in criminal law outside of jury venire to protect against discrimination as there are in civil law. Congress and state legislatures have tried to pass legislation often called "Racial Justice Acts" to provide additional safeguards with little to no success. With the legislature's lack of success in addressing the problem, the only opportunity to address discrimination claims may be judicially.


Stem cell-based therapies are a central element of regenerative medicine and provide new treatment modalities for chronic and life-threatening conditions. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) represent an important technology in regenerative medicine, although less developed with respect to clinical translation than hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). MSC therapies may be based on the potential of the cells to differentiate to mesenchymal lineages or on their paracrine effects on host tissue. Both autologous and allogeneic applications are possible, the latter enabled by the low immunogenicity of the cells. Although stem cell therapy holds much promise for the treatment of chronic and debilitating diseases, there are still many obstacles to be overcome. In addition to the compelling need to generate strong and unambiguous clinical evidence, there are major technical gaps that must be filled. Chief among these is the development of manufacturing platforms for cell products that are efficient, cost effective and reproducible. Automated, robotic and closed production systems will provide the most efficient manufacturing strategy. Here we describe advances in automation for the clinical-scale production of MSCs and challenges associated with translating from lab-scale to automated large-scale manufacturing processes.


Learning to improve AUC performance is an important topic in machine learning. However, AUC maximization algorithms may decrease generalization performance due to the noisy data. Self-paced learning is an effective method for handling noisy data. However, existing self-paced learning methods are limited to pointwise learning, while AUC maximization is a pairwise learning problem. To solve this challenging problem, we innovatively propose a balanced self-paced AUC maximization algorithm (BSPAUC). Specifically, we first provide a statistical objective for self-paced AUC.
 Based on this, we propose our self-paced AUC maximization formulation, where a novel balanced self-paced regularization term is embedded to ensure that the selected positive and negative samples have proper proportions. Specially, the sub-problem with respect to all weight variables may be non-convex in our formulation, while the one is normally convex in existing self-paced problems. To address this, we propose a doubly cyclic block coordinate descent method.
 More importantly, we prove that the sub-problem with respect to all weight variables converges to a stationary point on the basis of closed-form solutions, and our BSPAUC converges to a stationary point of our fixed optimization objective under a mild assumption. Considering both the deep learning and kernel-based implementations, experimental results on several large-scale datasets demonstrate that our BSPAUC has a better generalization performance than existing state-of-the-art AUC maximization methods.


This paper explores the regionalization of immigrant settlement in Canada's smaller cities which has not been sufficiently addressed in Canada's largest province, Ontario. The paper investigates this through a comprehensive review of the existing Canadian literature and research into the changing volume of immigrant settlement and the social geography of Ontario's smaller cities from 1996 to 2015. This research is conducted through the development of a categorization system which orders Ontario's CMAs into tiers based on total immigrant population. Two tiers are then compared to reveal any general trends or anomalies which could contribute to the understanding of regionalization in Ontario. A lack of evidence for significant regionalization was found, however, growth in the visible minority populations of some CMAs suggested the development of new international migration pathways. The findings of this paper reaffirm the need for further research in immigrant settlement in smaller Canadian cities.


Software engineering standards determine practices that "compliant" software processes shall follow. Standards generally define practices in terms of constraints that must hold for documents. The document types identified by standards include typical development products, such as user requirements, and also process-oriented documents, such as progress reviews and management reports. The degree of standards compliance can be established by checking these documents against the constraints. It is neither practical nor desirable to enforce compliance at all points in the development process. Thus, compliance must be managed rather than imposed. We outline a model of standards and compliance and illustrate it with some examples. We give a brief account of the notations and method we have developed to support the use of the model and describe a support environment we have constructed. The principal contributions of our work are: the identification of the issue of standards compliance; the development of a model of standards and support for compliance management; the development of a formal model of product state with associated notation; a powerful policy scheme that triggers checks; and a flexible and scalable compliance management view.


This paper explores the impacts of the Trump administration's trade policy on prices and welfare. Over the course of 2018, the U.S. experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and final goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of imported varieties, and complete passthrough of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods. Overall, using standard economic methods, we find that the full incidence of the tariff falls on domestic consumers, with a reduction in U.S. real income of $1.4 billion per month by the end of 2018. We also see similar patterns for foreign countries who have retaliated against the U.S., which indicates that the trade war also reduced real income for other countries.


This is a paper on copyright law as it relates to the controversy of publishing Raymond Carver's stories in their unedited form.The controversy arose when Raymond Carver's widow, Tess Gallagher, expressed her desire to publish these stories because Carver's editor, Gordon Lish, had dramatically changed their character and style. Indeed, she claimed that these unedited stories represented the "real" Caver, whom she wished to reveal to the world. However, Carver's estate no longer owns the copyrights to these stories.The issue is particularly interesting because the "original" versions of the stories are considerably different from the published versions as edited by Lish. Thus, there is some ambiguity as to whether they are covered by the copyright of the published stories; in essence, they are the building blocks of the published versions, and thus it is unclear whether they would be considered derivative works.These questions aside, this papers explores the role of an editor and various ways that editors receive recognition for their efforts. It then explores joint authorship under American law, and how the Carver situation would be different in a jurisdiction where moral rights are recognized. Finally, "fair use" is applied to to the particular facts to permit the revelation of Carver's unedited oeuvre.


The increasing availability of large combined datasets (or big data), such as those from electronic health records and from individual participant data meta-analyses, provides new opportunities and challenges for researchers developing and validating (including updating) prediction models. These datasets typically include individuals from multiple clusters (such as multiple centres, geographical locations, or different studies). Accounting for clustering is important to avoid misleading conclusions and enables researchers to explore heterogeneity in prediction model performance across multiple centres, regions, or countries, to better tailor or match them to these different clusters, and thus to develop prediction models that are more generalisable. However, this requires prediction model researchers to adopt more specific design, analysis, and reporting methods than standard prediction model studies that do not have any inherent substantial clustering. Therefore, prediction model studies based on clustered data need to be reported differently so that readers can appraise the study methods and findings, further increasing the use and implementation of such prediction models developed or validated from clustered datasets.


We develop a semantic parsing framework based on semantic similarity for open domain question answering (QA). We focus on single-relation questions and decompose each question into an entity mention and a relation pattern. Using convolutional neural network models, we measure the similarity of entity mentions with entities in the knowledge base (KB) and the similarity of relation patterns and relations in the KB. We score relational triples in the KB using these measures and select the top scoring relational triple to answer the question. When evaluated on an open-domain QA task, our method achieves higher precision across different recall points compared to the previous approach, and can improve F1 by 7 points.


In recent years CUDA has become a major architecture for multithreaded computations. Unfortunately, its potential is not yet being commonly utilized because many fundamental problems have no practical solutions for such machines. Our goal is to establish a hybrid multicore/parallel theoretical model that represents well architectures like NVIDIA CUDA, Intel Larabee, and OpenCL as well as admits easy reuse of the theory of parallel and multicore algorithms whenever applicable. We call our model MSIMD, from multiple-SIMD. We apply our model to design Quicksort for MSIMD, and an output sensitive MSIMD 2D Convex Hull algorithm based on [Wenger, 1997], [Bhattacharya and Sen, 1997], and [Kirkpatrick and Seidel, 1986]. Our implementation of the Convex Hull algorithm on CUDA exercises this approach in practice and proves its appropriateness.


There is high uncertainty associated with the outcomes of Information Technology (IT) investments and innovations. In such environments, IT actors (firm and individuals) are also unsure about their actions and preferences. The social relationships of these actors create substantial value for these actors in multiple ways (e.g. providing social support and information and knowledge resources) and hence also influence their economic actions. Therefore, rather than focusing on actor's characteristics and economic incentives in isolation, it is important to consider broader social environment in which actors are embedded to explain actions and outcomes. In this research, we analyze the actions of actors and outcomes of these actions through the socio-economic lens. In the first essay, we study the factors that explain the heterogeneity in value of software innovations. Many firms invest in costly research and development to produce innovative software applications. However, software innovations exhibit an enormous variance in their "importance" or "value". Since innovation is a result of collaborative effort, in this study we investigate the impact of social capital accrued by a team of inventors from inter-personal collaboration networks on the value of the resulting software innovations. Software innovations have not only benefited from traditional social networks but have also shaped new social networks which are being constructed on digital platforms and have extended the reach and range of existing social networks. In the second essay, we study the actions (investments) of actors embedded in one such digital social network (Prosper.com—a peer to peer (P2P) lending website). As a relatively new phenomenon, online peer to peer (P2P) lending (where individual lenders provide unsecured loans directly to individual borrowers) has received great coverage in media but little attention from academic researchers. While few recent studies have examined this market from the borrower's point of view, we set out our analysis from the lender's point of view and focus on risk and returns of investments on prosper (P2P lending website). We identify important loan and borrower characteristics which can be used to segment loans in term of returns and risk profiles. We find that on average, loans through prosper provide negative returns. However, there do exist certain segments of loans that produce positive returns. We then derive the efficient frontier for investments on prosper and determine the optimal portfolio for investments for a given level of risk. Our study provides investment guidelines for lenders and design implications for online peer to peer lending websites. In the future research we want to focus on lenders' learning strategies over time. Lenders can update their beliefs about the risk and returns of various loans and thus adjust their investment strategies based on their own past experience, performance of overall prosper market and knowledge accrued from the social network of lenders in the Prosper marketplace.


The Internet of Things ("IoT") is here, and we seem to be going all in. We are trying to put a microchip in nearly every object that is not nailed down and even a few that are. Soon, your cars, toasters, toys, and even your underwear will be wired up to make your lives better. The general thought seems to be that "Internet connectivity makes good objects great." While the IoT might be incredibly useful, we should proceed carefully. Objects are not necessarily better simply because they are connected to the Internet. Often, the Internet can make objects worse and users worse-off. Digital technologies can be hacked. Each new camera, microphone, and sensor adds another vector for attack and another point of surveillance in our everyday lives. The problem is that privacy and data security law have failed to recognize some "things" are more dangerous than others as part of the IoT. Some objects, like coffee pots and dolls, can last long after the standard life-cycle of software. Meanwhile cheap, disposable objects, like baby wipes, might not be worth outfitting with the most secure hardware and software. Yet they all are part of the network. This essay argues that the nature of the "thing" in the IoT should play a more prominent role in privacy and data security law. The decision to wire up an object should be coupled with responsibilities to make sure its users are protected. Only then, can we trust the Internet of Heirlooms and Disposable Things.


High temperature is a major determinant of wheat development and growth and causes yield loss in many regions of the world. This study was conducted to assess heat stress effects on yield and yield related traits of wheat. The 144 recombinant inbred lines derived from the cross of Kauz (heat tolerant) and MTRWA116 (susceptible) together with some commercial cultivars were evaluated during 2006–2007, 2007–2008 under normal and heat stress (late sowing) conditions. Grain yield, head length, kernels per spike, spiklets per spike, plant height, grain filling duration, peduncle length and 1000 kernels weight were measured. The results showed a significant difference among RILs for all traits in stress and control conditions. High temperature significantly decreased all traits specially grain yield (46.63%), 1000-kernel weight (20.61%) and grain filling duration (20.42%). Grain yield was most affected and spikelets per spike was least affected (11.77%). Grain yield under heat stress was directly correlated (r = 0.49) with yield in normal condition. Head length and grain yield had the highest (93.18%) and the lowest (62.97%) heritability, respectively. Peduncle length and grain filling duration showed the highest correlation with yield under both normal and heat stress conditions suggesting that these two traits could be used as reliable screening tools for development of heat-tolerant genotypes.


Background: A new immerging nonpathogenic single stranded human RNA virus known as GBV-C/HGV was discovered in 1995. Both GBV-C virus and HCV have similar genome, but they replicate in different cell types. The incidence of GBV-C infection has been studied worldwide, however, to our knowledge; no previous studies were conducted in Qatar, thus the objectives of this study are: (i) to determine the rate of GBV-C infection in Qatar among healthy blood donors and liver-diseased patient and (ii) to determine the most predominant GBV-C genotype in Qatar. Methods: 755 blood plasma samples from blood bank (593) and virology section (162) at HMC were collected. RNA was extracted, reversed transcribed, and then subjected for GBV-C detection by nested PCR using primers targeting a 205 bp of the 5' hypervariable untranslated region (5'-UTR) of the GBV-C/HGV. For genotyping, the 5'-UTR PCR product were T/A cloned into pDrive plasmid. The plasmids were transformed into DH5α™, and then plasmids were purified and digested by EcoRI to detect the positive clones. Plasmid were then purified and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis was conducted by analyzing the 5'-UTR sequence from randomly picked positive clones. The resulted sequences were assembled and analyzed using CLC and MEGA5 software. Results: we found that HGV infection rate among healthy blood donors was 13.5 %, while in liver-diseased patient was 8.6 %. Moreover, there was no significant difference in the GBV-C infection rate among Qatari (13.3%) and Non-Qatari (14.4%) healthy donors. Sequence analysis of 25 5'-UTR PCR amplicons yielded the European genotype (genotype 2) as the most predominant in Qatar. Conclusion: Our results indicate that there is no correlation between GVC- infection rate and other liver-infecting viruses such as HB&CV. Not surprising, genotype 2 was also reported to be dominant in countries surrounding Qatar such as UAE and Kuwait. Finally, we think our results should benefit epidemiologists in the region and may have an impact on the blood screening policy in blood banks.


Must a state in which gay marriage is not legal recognize such a marriage performed in another state? The Constitution does not require recognition in all cases, but it does forbid states from nullifying family relationships based in other states, or from making themselves havens for people who are trying to escape obligations to their spouses and children. In this book, Andrew Koppelman offers workable legal solutions to the problems that arise when gay couples cross state borders. Drawing on historical precedents in which states held radically different moral views about marriage (for example, between kin, very young individuals, and interracial couples), Koppelman shows which state laws should govern in specific situations as gay couples travel or move from place to place. Americans are profoundly divided over same-sex marriage, and now that gay civil unions and marriages are legal in some states, the issue has become increasingly urgent. Koppelman offers a sensible approach that will appeal to the best instincts of both sides.


The detection of covalent and noncovalent binding events between molecules and biomembranes is a fundamental goal of contemporary biochemistry and analytical chemistry. Currently, such studies are performed routinely using fluorescence methods, surface-plasmon resonance spectroscopy, and electrochemical methods. However, there is still a need for novel sensitive miniaturizable detection methods where the sample does not have to be transferred to the sensor, but the sensor can be brought into contact with the sample studied. We present a novel approach for detection and quantification of processes occurring on the surface of a lipid bilayer membrane, by monitoring the current change through the n-type GaAs-based molecularly controlled semiconductor resistor (MOCSER), on which the membrane is adsorbed. Since GaAs is susceptible to etching in an aqueous environment, a protective thin film of methoxysilane was deposited on the device. The system was found to be sensitive enough to allow monitoring changes in pH and in the concentration of amino acids in aqueous solution on top of the membrane. When biotinylated lipids were incorporated into the membrane, it was possible to monitor the binding of streptavidin or avidin. The device modified with biotin-streptavidin complex was capable of detecting the binding of streptavidin antibodies to immobilized streptavidin with high sensitivity and selectivity. The response depends on the charge on the analyte. These results open the way to facile electrical detection of protein-membrane interactions.


The histories of the relationship between government policy and the direction of social science research, and of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), have begun to attract attention in recent years. In this work, the SSRC's research programme on transmitted deprivation (1974–82) has generally had a minor role. Most often, it has been argued that it was the disappointment of Sir Keith Joseph with the research programme that fuelled his contempt for social science and his attempt, as Secretary of State for Education and Science, to abolish the Research Council. However, while the programme has recently been investigated in relation to other themes, the significance of the SSRC's involvement has neither been fully drawn out, nor integrated with the broader secondary literature on the history of social science research. The argument of this paper is that there is very little hard evidence that it was Joseph's dissatisfaction with the research programme that led to his attack on the SSRC. More interesting is the way the episode provides insights into the SSRC and the outlook of a generation of social scientists. The Research Council took the programme on for political reasons, it remained embarrassed about its ideological origins and it faced difficulties in promoting multidisciplinary research. Thus, this study shows the problems that can emerge when social scientists engage in research commissioned by their political masters.


We revisit the study of optimal regret rates in bandit combinatorial optimization---a fundamental framework for sequential decision making under uncertainty that abstracts numerous combinatorial prediction problems. We prove that the attainable regret in this setting grows as $\widetilde{\Theta}(k^{3/2}\sqrt{dT})$ where $d$ is the dimension of the problem and $k$ is a bound over the maximal instantaneous loss, disproving a conjecture of Audibert, Bubeck, and Lugosi (2013) who argued that the optimal rate should be of the form $\widetilde{\Theta}(k\sqrt{dT})$. Our bounds apply to several important instances of the framework, and in particular, imply a tight bound for the well-studied bandit shortest path problem. By that, we also resolve an open problem posed by Cesa-Bianchi and Lugosi (2012).


Valuing a change in the risk of death is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives. Typically such risks are monetized using the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL). Since the majority of the lives saved by environmental policies are those of older persons, there has been much recent debate about whether the VSL should be lower for the elderly to reflect their fewer remaining life years. We conducted a contingent valuation survey in the UK, Italy and France designed to answer this question. The survey was administered in these three countries following a standardized protocol. Our results suggest that the VSL is €1.022 million or €2.264 million, depending on whether we use median or mean WTP. The VSL is not significantly lower for older persons, but is higher for persons who have been admitted to a hospital or emergency room for cardiovascular and respiratory problems. Income is positively and significantly associated with WTP. The income elasticities of the WTP increase gradually with income levels and are between 0.15 and 0.5 for current income levels in EU countries. We use the responses to the WTP questions to estimate the value of an extension in remaining life expectancy. The value of a loss of one year's life expectancy is €54,000 or €163,000.


In this paper we use indirect inference to estimate a joint model of earnings, employment, job changes, wage rates, and work hours over a career. Our model incorporates duration dependence in several variables, multiple sources of unobserved heterogeneity, job-speci…c error components in both wages and hours, and measurement error. We use the model to address a number of important questions in labor economics, including the source of the experience pro…le of wages, the response of job changes to outside wage o¤ers, and the e¤ects of seniority on job changes. We provide estimates of the dynamic response of wage rates, hours, and earnings to various shocks and measure the relative contributions of the shocks to the variance of earnings in a given year and over a lifetime. We …nd that human capital accounts for most of the growth of earnings over a career although job seniority and job mobility also play signi…cant roles. Unemployment shocks have a large impact on earnings in the short run as well a substantial long long-term e¤ect that operates through the wage rate. Shocks associated with job changes and unemployment make a large contribution to the variance of career earnings and operate mostly through the job-speci…c error components in wages and hours.


Human pancreatic islet transplantation offers diabetic patients tight glucose control but has low graft survival rates. The immunosuppressive drugs that are administered to graft recipients lack the antiinflammatory benefits of corticosteroids because of their diabetogenic effects. The serum protease inhibitor α1-antitrypsin (AAT) possesses antiinflammatory properties and reduces cytokine-mediated islet damage. In the present study, diabetic mice were grafted with allogeneic islets and treated with AAT monotherapy (n = 24). After 14 days of treatment, mice remained normoglycemic and islet allografts were functional for up to 120 treatment-free days. After graft removal and retransplantation, mice accepted same-strain islets but rejected third-strain islets, thus confirming that specific immune tolerance had been induced. Explanted grafts exhibited a population of T regulatory cells in transplant sites. According to RT-PCR, grafts contained high levels of mRNA for foxp3, cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4, TGF-β, IL-10, and IL-1 receptor antagonist; expression of proinflammatory mediators was low or absent. After implantation of skin allografts, AAT-treated mice had greater numbers of foxp3-positive cells in draining lymph nodes (DLNs) compared with control treatment mice. Moreover, dendritic cells in DLNs exhibited an immature phenotype with decreased CD86 activation marker. Although the number of CD3 transcripts decreased in the DLNs, AAT did not affect IL-2 activity in vitro. Thus, AAT monotherapy provides allografts with antiinflammatory conditions that favor development of antigen-specific T regulatory cells. Because AAT treatment in humans is safe, its use during human islet transplantation may be considered.


Enid went to primary school in Wythington Manchester. She described Remembrance Day and Empire Day there. She was evacuated twice from her primary school and was the first person to pass the eleven plus at her second evacuated school but learnt no history at all at these two schools. Then she went to Levenshulme Grammar School where she was taught history traditionally. She particularly remembered visiting Chetham's Hospital, Manchester Museum and slum clearance sites as part of her history lessons, but otherwise the history was taught in chronological fashion. They did not study any contemporary history, even the First World War, but they did have debates and mock elections and discussed the suffragettes. After school Enid trained as a nurse and later also worked as a school secretary. She summed up the need to teach children history very neatly "I don't know how people can live without some background…How can you carry on your life without knowing something? And I think that politicians shouldn't be allowed to go into Parliament unless they've studied history in some depth, to stop them making the same mistakes all over again."


Smart healthcare is a complex domain for systems integration due to human and technical factors and heterogeneous data sources involved. As a part of smart city, it is such a complex area where clinical functions require smartness of multi-systems collaborations for effective communications among departments, and radiology is one of the areas highly relies on intelligent information integration and communication. Therefore, it faces many challenges regarding integration and its interoperability such as information collision, heterogeneous data sources, policy obstacles, and procedure mismanagement. The purpose of this study is to conduct an analysis of data, semantic, and pragmatic interoperability of systems integration in radiology department, and to develop a pragmatic interoperability framework for guiding the integration. We select an on-going project at a local hospital for undertaking our case study. The project is to achieve data sharing and interoperability among Radiology Information Systems (RIS), Electronic Patient Record (EPR), and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). Qualitative data collection and analysis methods are used. The data sources consisted of documentation including publications and internal working papers, one year of non-participant observations and 37 interviews with radiologists, clinicians, directors of IT services, referring clinicians, radiographers, receptionists and secretary. We identified four primary phases of data analysis process for the case study: requirements and barriers identification, integration approach, interoperability measurements, and knowledge foundations. Each phase is discussed and supported by qualitative data. Through the analysis we also develop a pragmatic interoperability framework that summaries the empirical findings and proposes recommendations for guiding the integration in the radiology context.


This book traces the roots of global financial integration in the first "modern" era of globalization, from 1880 to 1913. It analyzes the direction, destinations, and origins of international financial flows in order to determine the domestic policy choices that either attracted or deterred such flows to developing countries. The authors dispel the idea that the gold standard and other institutional arrangements were the key to attracting foreign investment, pointing to the stability and probity of political systems as much more important. One of their major conclusions is that the successful management of international financial integration depends primarily on broad institutional and political factors, as well as on financial policies, rather than simply opening or closing individual economies to the international winds. The Making of Global Finance 1880-1913 can serve as a valuable tool for current policy dilemmas, providing historical data to show which policies led to enhanced international financing for development in the past. It also includes historical data that will interest all scholars of economics and economic history, as well as the casual reader.


The paper reconsiders existing estimators for the panel data fixed effects ordered logit model, including one that has not been used in econometric studies before, and studies the small sample properties of these estimators in a series of Monte Carlo simulations. There are two main findings. First, we show that some of the estimators used in the literature are inconsistent. Second, the new estimator seems to be more immune to small sample bias than other consistent estimators and is easy to implement. The empirical relevance is illustrated in an application to the effect of unemployment on happiness. Choosing the right estimator avoids a bias of up to 30 percent in key parameters.


This study was conducted to investigate the formation of furan from sugars, ascorbic acid, and organic acids as affected by ionizing radiation and thermal treatments. Results showed that both thermal treatments and irradiation induced formation of furan from ascorbic acid, fructose, sucrose, or glucose. Little furan was produced from malic acid or citric acid. The pH and concentration of sugars and ascorbic acid solutions had profound influences on furan formation due to either irradiation or thermal treatment. The rate of irradiation-induced furan formation increased with decreasing pH from 8 to 3. Approximately 1600 times less furan was formed at pH 8 as apposed to pH 3. At the same pHs, the amounts of furan formed from irradiation of ascorbic acid, fructose, and sucrose were always higher than from glucose. As pH decreased from 7 to 3, an increase in thermally induced furan was observed for sucrose and ascorbic acid solutions, but for glucose solution, less furan was formed at pH 3 than at pH 7. The levels of sugars commonly found in fruits and fruit juices, upon irradiation, would be high enough to potentially produce low parts per billion (ppb) levels of furan. The concentration of ascorbic acid at which a maximum of furan was produced upon irradiation was about 0.5 mg/mL, a level commonly found in some foods. Five furan derivatives were tentatively identified in thermally treated ascorbic acid solution, while one furan derivative was tentatively found in both irradiated and thermally treated samples.


We present Tiny-Transfer-Learning (TinyTL), an efficient on-device learning method to adapt pre-trained models to newly collected data on edge devices. Different from conventional transfer learning methods that fine-tune the full network or the last layer, TinyTL freezes the weights of the feature extractor while only learning the biases, thus doesn't require storing the intermediate activations, which is the major memory bottleneck for on-device learning. To maintain the adaptation capacity without updating the weights, TinyTL introduces memory-efficient lite residual modules to refine the feature extractor by learning small residual feature maps in the middle. Besides, instead of using the same feature extractor, TinyTL adapts the architecture of the feature extractor to fit different target datasets while fixing the weights: TinyTL pre-trains a large super-net that contains many weight-shared sub-nets that can individually operate; different target dataset selects the sub-net that best match the dataset. This backpropagation-free discrete sub-net selection incurs no memory overhead. Extensive experiments show that TinyTL can reduce the training memory cost by order of magnitude (up to 13.3x) without sacrificing accuracy compared to fine-tuning the full network.


A methodology termed the "filtered density function" (FDF) is developed and implemented for large eddy simulation (LES) of chemically reacting turbulent flows. In this methodology, the effects of the unresolved scalar fluctuations are taken into account by considering the probability density function (PDF) of subgrid scale (SGS) scalar quantities. A transport equation is derived for the FDF in which the effect of chemical reactions appears in a closed form. The influences of scalar mixing and convection within the subgrid are modeled. The FDF transport equation is solved numerically via a Lagrangian Monte Carlo scheme in which the solutions of the equivalent stochastic differential equations (SDEs) are obtained. These solutions preserve the Ito-Gikhman nature of the SDEs. The consistency of the FDF approach, the convergence of its Monte Carlo solution and the performance of the closures employed in the FDF transport equation are assessed by comparisons with results obtained by direct numerical simulation (DNS) and by conventional LES procedures in which the first two SGS scalar moments are obtained by a finite difference method (LES-FD). These comparative assessments are conducted by implementations of all three schemes (FDF, DNS and LES-FD) in a temporally developing mixing layer and a spatially developing planar jet under both non-reacting and reacting conditions. In non-reacting flows, the Monte Carlo solution of the FDF yields results similar to those via LES-FD. The advantage of the FDF is demonstrated by its use in reacting flows. In the absence of a closure for the SGS scalar fluctuations, the LES-FD results are significantly different from those based on DNS. The FDF results show a much closer agreement with filtered DNS results. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.


The assumption of forward-looking agents in theoretical macroeconomic models has become increasingly popular in recent years. Despite this, the implementation of forward-looking expectations in large econometric models has been slower to emerge. The purpose of this paper is to survey, in a non-technical manner, recent algorithms that have been developed to solve medium-size models when some agents in the models are assumed to have rational expectations. With an intuitive understanding of the algorithms, it is hoped that the technical source literature will be more readily accessible to model builders. The use of game theory in macroeconomics has also seen a resurgence. The second part of this paper develops an algorithm which is useful for solving rational expectations models and can also be used to solve dynamic games between agents with forward-looking expectations. Although derived for a specific application, the algorithm is sufficiently general to be useful for solving a range of non-cooperative games.


The recycling of municipal solid waste of incineration (MSWI) bottom ash as aggregates for road basement requires a better characterization of the evolution of leachate chemistry over a timescale of many decades. In this paper, a common reactive transport model is applied to the Herouville (France) and Dava (Sweden) pilot roads whose leachate emissions have been sampled during 10 and 6 years, respectively. The model considers simultaneously the hydrodynamic processes (rain water infiltration, advective and diffusive transport), pH-buffering and solubility-controlled processes by secondary minerals, ageing by atmospheric carbonation, and the leachate chemistry (major elements and trace metals such as Al, Cu, Pb). The evolution of pH is fairly well simulated with the following pH-buffering sequence: portlandite, calcium silicate hydrate (CSH), ettringite and, finally, calcite. The quantity of CO2 dissolved in the percolating rain water is generally not sufficient to explain the pH evolution and carbonation processes, requiring atmospheric gaseous inputs. The relation between pH evolution and element release is discussed for both sites. Calculated Pb release is overestimated when based on solubility-controlled mechanisms only. Edge effects are shown to be important at both sites with an emphasis of carbonation and release of non reactive elements. Temperature has no significant effect on the calculated leachate chemistry in the range of 5 – 30° C, except at high pH.


A set of sensors is used to identify which of the users, from a pre-specified set of users, is currently using a device. Each sensor provides a name of a user and a real number representing its level of confidence in the assessment. However, the sensors measure different signals for different traits that are largely unrelated. To be able to implement a policy based on these measurements, one needs to aggregate the information provided by all sensors. We use an axiomatic approach to provide several reasonable trust functions. We show that by providing a few desirable properties we can derive several solutions that are characterized by these properties. Our analysis makes use of an important result by Kolmogorov (1930).


Background Recent meta-analyses on the efficacy of psychological treatments for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia included mostly trials that had not specifically targeted negative symptoms. To gauge the efficacy of such treatments in the target patient population – namely people with schizophrenia who experience negative symptoms – we conducted a meta-analysis of controlled trials that had established an inclusion criterion for relevant negative symptom severity. Method We conducted a systematic literature search and calculated random-effects meta-analyses for controlled post-treatment effects and for pre-post changes within treatment arms. Separate analyses were conducted for different therapeutic approaches. Our primary outcome was reduction in negative symptoms; secondary outcomes were amotivation, reduced expression, and functioning. Results Twelve studies matched our inclusion criteria, testing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) vs. treatment-as-usual (k = 6), Cognitive Remediation (CR) vs. treatment-as-usual (k = 2), CBT vs. CR (k = 2), and Body-oriented Psychotherapy (BPT) vs. supportive group counseling and vs. Pilates (k = 1 each). Accordingly, meta-analyses were performed for CBT vs. treatment-as-usual, CR vs. treatment-as-usual, and CBT vs. CR. CBT and CR both outperformed treatment-as-usual in reducing negative symptoms (CBT: Hedges' g = -0.46; CR: g = -0.59). There was no difference between CBT and CR (g = 0.12). Significant pre-post changes were found for CBT, CR, and to a lesser extent for treatment-as-usual, but not for BPT. Conclusion Although effects for some approaches are promising, more high-quality trials testing psychological treatments for negative symptoms in their target population are needed to place treatment recommendations on a sufficiently firm foundation.


Target expansion techniques facilitate the pointing task by enlarging the effective sizes of targets. When the target expansion is applied to both the motor and visual spaces, the visual feedforward mechanism is key: Indeed it provides a visual aid to the user on the effective expanded targets prior to the execution or completion of the pointing task, enabling the user to take full advantage of the target expansion technique. Focusing on feedforward mechanisms, we introduce a design space that allows us to describe, classify and design target expansion techniques. To do so we first introduce and characterize the concept of atomic feedforward mechanism along three design axes. We then describe a target expansion technique as a combination of atomic feedforward mechanisms using a matrix-based notation. We provide an analytical exploration of the design space by classifying existing techniques and by designing six new techniques. We also provide a first experimental exploration of the design space in the context of distant pointing. The experimental protocol includes an innovative target layout for handling non-centroidal target expansion. The results show that feedforward dynamicity increases movement time and decreases subjective usability, while explicit expansion observability efficiently supports error prevention for distant pointing.


An extended-cavity diode laser operating in the Littrow configuration emitting near 657 nm is stabilized through its injection current to a reference cavity with a finesse of more than 10(5) and a corresponding resonance linewidth of 14 kHz. The laser linewidth is reduced from a few megahertz to a value below 30 Hz. The compact and robust setup appears ideal as a portable optical frequency standard that uses the calcium intercombination line.


Green chemistry brings an attention on a research work emerging from scientific innovations regarding toxic waste acquaintance and it make the use of principles that reduces the use or generation of hazardous materials in an intermediate as well as final steps of Organic synthesis or Chemical progression. Researchers can significantly diminish the hazard to human health as well as environment by following all the valuable philosophy of green chemistry. The most simple way in application of green chemistry in pharmaceuticals is to use efficient, reproducible, eco-friendly, non-hazardous green solvents and green catalysts in synthesis of Organic Moiety, drug intermediates and in researches concerning synthetic chemistry. Organic catalyst brings an exceptional advantage considering the principles of "green chemistry" in Environment as well as economic point of view. Solvents states major serving of the environmental concert of a process and also impact safety and health issues. Water has been found to be very efficient green Solvent and thus can replace many poisonous and harmful solvents. Cycloaddition reactions are fundamental and substantial part of organic chemistry in research. Research work on the aza Diels alder cycloaddition reactions in aqueous systems would be green pathway for organic processes and will definitely protect health as well as environment from toxic materials.


Black people in the British Empire have long challenged the notion that "there ain't no black in the Union Jack." For the post-World War II wave of Afro-Caribbean migrants, many of whom had long been subjects of the Empire, claims to a British identity and imperial citizenship were considered to be theirs by birthright. However, while Britain was internationally touted as a paragon of fair play and equal justice, they arrived in a nation that was frequently hostile and unwilling to incorporate Black people into its concept of what it meant to be British. Black Britons therefore confronted the racial politics of British citizenship and became active political agents in challenging anti-Black racism. In a society with a highly racially circumscribed sense of identity-and the laws, customs, and institutions to back it up-Black Britons had to organize and fight to assert their right to belong. In London Is The Place for Me, Kennetta Hammond Perry explores how Afro-Caribbean migrants navigated the politics of race and citizenship in Britain and reconfigured the boundaries of what it meant to be both Black and British at a critical juncture in the history of Empire and twentieth century transnational race politics. She situates their experience within a broader context of Black imperial and diasporic political participation, and examines the pushback-both legal and physical-that the migrants' presence provoked. Bringing together a variety of sources including calypso music, photographs, migrant narratives, and records of grassroots Black political organizations, London Is the Place for Me positions Black Britons as part of wider public debates both at home and abroad about citizenship, the meaning of Britishness and the politics of race in the second half of the twentieth century. The United Kingdom's postwar discriminatory curbs on immigration and explosion of racial violence forced White Britons as well as Black to question their perception of Britain as a racially progressive society and, therefore, to question the very foundation of their own identities. Perry's examination expands our understanding of race and the Black experience in Europe and uncovers the critical role that Black people played in the formation of contemporary British society.


This study evaluated the effects of strain, stocking density and dietary energy level on the feathering of broiler chickens. Four trials were carried out between September 2000 and April 2002. There were 10,685 broiler chicks from the strains Ross 308, Cobb 500, Hybro PG, Hubbard, MPK, and Isa Vedette. The bids were reared at stocking densities varying between 10 and 16 birds/m 2 and were given diets containing different metabolizable energy levels. Broiler feathering was evaluated either by atrributing scores from 1 to 10 to feather covering along the thigh and back (visual inspection), or by determining the percentage weight of the feathers at 28 and 42 days of age. Increasing rearing densities resulted in poorer feathering, mainly if 12 or 13 birds/m 2 were compared with 16 birds/m 2 . The strains showed different feathering; it was better in Cobb 500 and MPK birds, whereas Hubbard birds showed poorer feathering, mostly along the back. The energy level in the diet has also affected feathering scores. Medium energy level resulted in better feathering along the back at 28 days, and the low level, in better feathering along the thigh at 35 days of age. Finally, feather scores were better in females than in males.


Porous metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are attracting great attention from industry, thanks to their myriad potential applications in areas such as catalysis and gas storage. Zr-MOFs (also known as UiO-type MOFs) are especially promising, owing to their large surface areas, high chemical versatility and remarkable hydrothermal, chemical and thermal stabilities. However, among the challenges currently precluding the industrial exploitation of MOFs is the lack of green methods for their synthesis. Herein we describe a continuous-flow spray-drying method for the simultaneous synthesis and shaping of spherical MOF microbeads in a mixture of water and acetic acid. We used this approach to build two archetypical Zr-MOFs: UiO-66-NH2 and Zr-fumarate. By tuning the concentration of acetic acid in water, we were able to produce, by a scalable process, UiO-66-NH2 and Zr-fumarate beads with SBET and water-sorption values comparable to the literature values obtained with other methods.


Objectives Incident reporting (IR) systems have the potential to improve patient safety if they enable learning from the reported risks and incidents. The aim of this study was to investigate incidents registered in an IR system in a Swedish county council. Methods The study was conducted in the County Council of Östergötland, Sweden. Data were retrieved from the IR system, which included 4755 incidents occurring in somatic care that resulted in patient injuries from 2004 to 2012. One hundred correctly classified patient injuries were randomly sampled from 3 injury severity levels: injuries leading to deaths, permanent harm, and temporary harm. Three aspects were analyzed: handling of the incident, causes of the incident, and actions taken to prevent its recurrence. Results Of the 300 injuries, 79% were handled in the departments where they occurred. The department head decided what actions should be taken to prevent recurrence in response to 95% of the injuries. A total of 448 causes were identified for the injuries; problems associated with procedures, routines, and guidelines were most common. Decisions taken for 80% of the injuries could be classified using the IR system documentation and root cause analysis. The most commonly pursued type of action was change of work routine or guideline. Conclusions The handling, causes, and actions taken to prevent recurrence were similar for injuries of different severity levels. Various forms of feedback (information, education, and dialogue) were an integral aspect of the IR system. However, this feedback was primarily intradepartmental and did not yield much organizational learning.