Browsing streaming video quickly through Internet with in the available bandwidth is a challenging one and it is also time consuming. The user has to browse, view and listen to the complete video to identify relevant contents. Most of the video summarization techniques presented in research papers are suitable only for stand-alone environments. They are not addressing or analyzing the problems faced by streaming video and do not provide an evaluation system to evaluate streaming parameters. The objective of video segmentation and summarization is to maximize the information rate from a streaming server to client in media access activities. This study discusses the segmentation techniques for creating video summary and proposes a hierarchical scheme, which decomposes a video sequence into different content-resolution levels to enhance the transmission and user interaction. Mathematical models have been derived to represent the video structure. Hence, streaming parameters such as bandwidth, buffer requirements and initial delay are evaluated for each segment at different levels to provide jitter-free playback. The algorithm developed in this study can be attached with a video encoder to evaluate streaming parameters and the result can be provided to a streaming server to create an effective transmission schedule.


This article is an exploration into the personal aspirations that converge in Guangzhou's African music scene. I argue that despite being often traversed, articulated, fuelled, and constrained by economies and economic discourses, aspirations are not necessarily economic or rational calculations. I contend that the overarching trading narrative about "Africans in Guangzhou" has left little space for issues of agency, emotion, and aspiration to be considered in their own right. Drawing on a year of continuous ethnographic fieldwork, I show how aspirations are crucial arenas where the rationales behind transnational mobility are developed, reproduced, and transmitted. Indeed, aspirations can be thought of as "navigational devices" (Appadurai 2004) that help certain individuals reach for their dreams. By bringing the analysis of aspirations to the fore, I intend to provide a more complex and nuanced landscape of the multiple rationales behind African presence in Southern China; promote a better understanding (both conceptually and empirically) of how individuals navigate their social spaces and guide their transnational journeys; and draw attention to the incessant frictions and negotiations between individual aspirations while on the move and the constraints imposed by more structural imperatives.


Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating age-related neurodegenerative disease with no specific treatment at present. The APPsw/Tg2576 mice exhibit age-related deterioration in memory and learning as well as amyloid-beta (Aβ) accumulation, and this mouse strain is considered an effective model for studying the mechanism of accelerated brain aging and senescence. The present study was aimed to investigate the beneficial effects of dietary supplements pomegranate, figs, or the dates on suppressing inflammatory cytokines in APPsw/Tg2576 mice. Changes in the plasma cytokines and Aβ, ATP, and inflammatory cytokines were investigated in the brain of transgenic mice. Significantly enhanced levels of inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-9, IL-10, TNF-α and Eotaxin activity were decreased by administration of the diet supplements containing pomegranates, figs, or dates. In addition, putative delays in the formation of senile plaques, as indicated by a decreasing tendency of brain Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42 contents, were observed. Thus, novel results mediated by reducing inflammatory cytokines during aging may represent one mechanism by which these supplements exert their beneficial effects against neurodegenerative diseases such as AD.


The industrial organization of developing countries is characterized by the pervasive use of subcontracting arrangements among small, financially constrained firms. This paper asks whether vertical integration relaxes those financial constraints. It shows that vertical integration trades off the benefits of joint liability against the costs of rendering the supply chain more opaque to external investors. In contrast to the commonly held view that pervasive input and capital market imperfections are conducive to vertical integration, the model predicts that the motives for vertical integration are not necessarily higher in developing countries. In particular, vertical integration is more likely to arise at intermediate levels of investor protection and better contract enforcement with suppliers reduces vertical integration only if financial markets are sufficiently developed. Evidence supporting both predictions is discussed.


As both a descriptive and normative enterprise, "international constitutionalism" is currently one of the leading approaches to international law, especially in parts of Europe. Within this enterprise, the rapid development of international human rights law is often taken to be central, but exactly how or why this promotes constitutionalism at the international level remains unclear. In this article, I attempt to clarify and assess the role of human rights in discussions of international constitutionalism. I do so by focusing on the comparison between domestic constitutional law and international human rights law and asking the following two threshold questions. First, how different are these two legal systems and, in particular, is there anything "constitutional" about the latter, as international constitutionalists implicitly or explicitly claim? Second, why have both systems? Does international human rights law perform any distinctive functions over and above domestic bills of rights that extend the idea or practice of constitutionalism? On this first threshold question, I distinguish and evaluate three more specific claims as to what is constitutional about international human rights law: (1) that it has constitutional status within international law; (2) that, regardless of its precise legal status vis-a-vis other types of international law, the human rights system is a constitutionalized regime of international law like certain others, most paradigmatically the European Union; and (3) that international human rights law is a critical part of the case for rejecting the traditional horizontal conception of international law as a whole (the sovereign equality of states) in favor of a more vertical, or constitutionalist, conception. I consider the strengths and weaknesses of each of these three claims in turn. The second threshold question raises the issue of constitutional subsidiarity. What additional contribution, if any, does international human rights law make to the general development of constitutionalism? Apart from filling a number of important contingent gaps in domestic bills of rights, I suggest that it performs at least two unique functions. First, it creates a new, external stage in the historical and institutional development of constitutionalism. Second, international human rights law clarifies and enshrines the distinct normative basis for the protection of fundamental rights as rights of human beings rather than of citizens.


Abstract Objective: Existing single-case studies have reported deficit in recognizing basic emotions through facial expression and unaffected performance with body expressions, but not the opposite pattern. The aim of this paper is to present a case study with impaired emotion recognition through body expressions and intact performance with facial expressions. Methods: In this single-case study we assessed a 30-year-old patient with autism spectrum disorder, without intellectual disability, and a healthy control group (n = 30) with four tasks of basic and complex emotion recognition through face and body movements, and two non-emotional control tasks. To analyze the dissociation between facial and body expressions, we used Crawford and Garthwaite's operational criteria, and we compared the patient and the control group performance with a modified one-tailed t-test designed specifically for single-case studies. Results: There were no statistically significant differences between the patient's and the control group's performances on the non-emotional body movement task or the facial perception task. For both kinds of emotions (basic and complex) when the patient's performance was compared to the control group's, statistically significant differences were only observed for the recognition of body expressions. There were no significant differences between the patient's and the control group's correct answers for emotional facial stimuli. Conclusions: Our results showed a profile of impaired emotion recognition through body expressions and intact performance with facial expressions. This is the first case study that describes the existence of this kind of dissociation pattern between facial and body expressions of basic and complex emotions.


Purpose - The objective of the study is to assess the extent to which the hypothetical attractions of listed real estate products as part of a real estate allocation are being over-ridden by the lack of integrated solutions to managing public and private real estate in the same portfolio. Design/Methodology/Approach - To assess this, we undertook a pilot survey of 20 investors and fund managers. Following this, we target two interviewee groups: 'pure' investors (investors who manage mainly in-house capital); and the investment consultants who advise them. The method used is semi-structured interviews, and we have targeted a minimum response of 25 investors and 10 consultants.Findings - The pilot survey found that for some European investors and managers listed real estate is clearly part of the equity allocation. For others, there is some evidence that pension funds and consultants regard (or would like to regard) listed real estate as part of the real estate allocation. Within the sub-set of those for whom listed real estate forms part of the real estate allocation, some have an integrated approach to public and private real estate; but more (80% of 20 interviewees) do not, sub-contracting public real estate to a dedicated team, the equity desk, or even to an external manager. It appears that this goes some way to defeating the object of a combined mandateOriginality/Value - With liquidity an increasingly key criterion in the asset allocation process, and the increasing introduction of compulsory defined contribution pension schemes in Europe we believe that understanding how listed real estate can be managed effectively alongside private real estate . We believe that this is the first survey to be undertaken with this specific objective.


Growing reliance on student loans and repayment difficulties have raised concerns of a student debt crisis in the United States. However, little is known about the effects of student borrowing on human capital and long-run financial well-being. We use variation induced by recent expansions in federal loan limits, together with administrative schooling, earnings, and credit records, to identify the effects of increased student borrowing on credit-constrained students' educational attainment, earnings, debt, and loan repayment. Increased student loan availability raises student debt and improves degree completion, later-life earnings, and student loan repayment while having no effect on homeownership or other types of debt.


Objectives

Due to the globalization and integration of the world economy, the international trade is increasing significantly during the past decades. As the major transport mode at the in the international trade, the international maritime transport is also experiencing the prevailing development. In particular, the ratio of containers arriving in and leaving Asian ports is increasing, keeping in pace with the economic development of these Asian countries. The amounts of international cargoes handled in such hub ports as Hong Kong and Singapore rank now among the tops of the world, to replace the major ports of Europe, the USA and Japan. At the same time, the containerships are becoming larger in pursuit of economies of scale. Now, a hierarchical transport system, or the hub and spoke system, has been established, in which cargoes tend to gather at hub ports with deeper berths and efficient material handling systems. Also, in the pursuit of economies of scale, carriers are going beyond the conventional shipping conference to sealing a more advanced "global allianceEto thoroughly integrate operations within the group across the borders of individual carriers. Intensive as well as strategic port improvement in port structures is urgently needed in Japan, to prevent Japanese port business from being not left far behind these rapidly growing Asian ports.

Against such a background, the author et al. have been developing models which produce network simulations of link flows including use of different types of ships and transshipments, in order to reproduce the actual, but also to estimate the effect of port investment (for example, new birth construction and reduction of handling cost) on, container flows among ports and the amount of handling containers by each port (e.g. Shibasaki, et al. 2004). However, in our models, the amounts of Origin-Destination container cargoes are given so exogenously that we cannot predict the effect of policies which increase container volume itself such as FTA. At all, because transport demand is derived demand by nature, the models which cannot consider that kind of effects would not say to be perfect.

On the other hand, few researches might be thought to focus on the physical volume (i.e. tonnage-base or TEU [Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit: the unit of maritime container cargo] base) of international transportation, especially international maritime container cargo, out of so many researches on world trade with GE framework so that the effects of FTA or transportation efficiency improvement can be predicted.

Therefore, this study proposed a transformation methodology for estimating the international container cargo OD flows and their changes which utilizes the results of the GTAP model under various simulation scenarios. And then, as the applications of this proposed approach, the effects under the FTA scenarios and transport technical progress scenarios under various hypothetical membership combinations among Asian countries, on these countriesEeconomy, social welfare, trade amounts and container OD flows were discussed.

Methodology

The proposed approach is that, first, by using the GTAP model; we can calculate the international trade amounts of commodities among the selected countries. Second, by using the proposed approach, the international trade monetary-based amounts can be transformed into the international container cargo volumes by taking the following steps.

- Step1, to obtain the amount of international maritime transportation in monetary base (US$), using the modal share of maritime transportation out of the all international transportation modal sectors,
- Step 2, to transform the monetary unit to freight-ton unit (FT) for each commodities, using the unit price (US$/FT) by each commodity,
- Step 3, to calculate how much the commodities can be carried by the container cargo, using the containerized ratio by commodity, and
- Step 4, to achieve the container cargo volumes in TEU basis by transforming from freight-ton basis after aggregation, using the transform ratio (FT/TEU).

And we prepared the following scenarios for simulation:
- Scenario 1, FTA. The combinations of FTA countries were i) Japan-Korea, ii) Japan-Korea-China, iii) Japan-ASEAN and iv) Japan-Korea-China-ASEAN. The tariff reductions were from 20% off to 100% off by stepping 20%. It can be set in GTAP by change the shock variable tms,
- Scenario 2, transport technical progress. The same country combinations as FTA scenario were set. The progress ratios were set from 50% down to 50% up by stepping 25%. At the GTAP model, the shock variables were expressed as atf and ats.

Data

For GTAP Database, 5.4 and 6.0 beta version would be compared (actually calculation of version 5.4 has finished). 57 industries sectors are remained as original. 30 countries and regions were selected in order to apply the calculation data for our international transportation network model (Shibasaki, et al. 2004).

For transformation data, all of them were tentatively substituted by Japanese-oriented data. We continue trying to collect these kinds of data of several Asian countries and will replace gradually. Since these materials have the different commodity categories code system with GTAP codes, therefore, they have to be categorized again according GTAP code.

Anticipated findings

From the tentative results (i.e. the results from version 5.4) of the applications at this study, it can show that FTA and transport technical progress both almost have the positive effect on the GDP, trade amount and container OD flows. This kind of effect is increasing by the growth of the number of FTA membership countries. Due to the difference of each country's industry development level and structure, the GDP of some countries will be decreasing when it join the non-tariff FTA. This is because the import is higher than export. However, in term of the trade amount, it will increase. Consequently, the containerized goods will always increase. The change of the trade pattern generated the new container shipping transport OD flow. Additionally, since the calculation of GTAP model is base on each commodity, in this sense, by using the proposed method, it can show not only the change of total container cargo volume on each OD pair, but also indicate the change of the commodity–based container goods composition on the each routes under these scenarios.


Recent work in grammaticalization has highlighted cases where former inflectional affixes have gained independence on an unexpected path towards clitic or full-word status. Such cases challenge the hypothesized unidirectionality of grammaticalization at the formal level (word > clitic > affix). This article examines such developments, citing new evidence from the development of the person–number inflection of the conditional auxiliary in Slavonic. In some varieties, this comes to be identified with an existing clitic, the present tense of the perfect auxiliary 'be'. This development is reminiscent of other cases where obsolescent morphology is reassigned to productive functions and which can best be treated as instances of exaptation–adaptation, a process which lacks directionality and frequently leads to counterdirectional change.


Consumers constantly make decisions on the goods and services they purchase, in most cases with incomplete information. Many products that are available in stores, in catalogues, or over the internet are not presented with a full list of attributes or technical specifications. Lack of information is most apparent in non-market goods such as utility service attributes. This paper examines information effects on consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) for a number of electricity and water attributes using two contingent valuation surveys administered in the UK. The attributes considered include WTP for a carbon cleaner electricity fuel mixture as well as increasing security of supply. The results indicate that the quantity and complexity of information can potentially lead individuals to ignore the information presented. The relevance of the attribute to the respondent is found to be a significant motivator in the processing of the information presented. The survey data also reveal a number of socio-economic, attitudinal and behavioural factors that affect WTP for the attributes considered.


Facial prosthetics are becoming a necessary step for the recovery of injured veterans and civilians who have suffered severe facial burning. Current users of such prosthetics are not able to wear the prosthetic for an extended period of time due to uncomfortable conditions created by the silicone material. A solution for this problem was to develop a process for creating small holes similar to skin pores that will both ventilate and aid in the evaporation of accumulated sweat under the prosthetic. The main steps of this process were to create a flexible fixture capable of supporting and securing the prosthetic during processing, creating a process for using a computer measuring machine to scan the varying and unique contours of the human face, and a process for converting the data into code that can be read by a CNC laser to create the holes. The approach for this project was to first design and fabricate the flexible fixture. The fixture consists of a stainless steel base connected and supported with steel rods and various connecting hardware. The top portion of the fixture is a plaster of paris mold that will be unique to each prosthetic and allows the flimsy silicone to be secured without unnecessary damage. The next process was to use a computer measuring machine (CMM) to record all contours of the prosthetic. To accomplish this, linear scans across the surface of the face were completed using a ball-probe taking measurements of its position across 100 points. The ball-probe measured 60 degrees to each side from the middle of the face, incrementing 1 degree for each scan. After the data was collected, an Excel program was used to convert the data into G-code that allowed the CNC controller to process the information. With the fixture loaded into a 4 axis indexer, which allows access to all portions of the face, the final processing step using the CNC laser was completed. The CNC laser used the points measured from the CMM to position itself for each individual cut. The completed prosthetic was successful in increasing the airflow and ventilation but still requires further research to fully solve the problem. The overall process is sound but will require additional equipment for a fully completed prosthetic. One of the recommended changes is to use a more accurate measuring system such as conoscopic holography or a structured light 3-D scanner which will increase both the accuracy and efficiency of the scanning process. Another recommendation is to incorporate a 5 axis into the head of the laser to reach areas of the prosthetic that are too steep to reach using just a 4 axis. The current cost of both producing the fixture and running the processes is $1,523.96. This cost is justified because it represents less than 10% of the total current cost for a completed prosthetic.


Research has shown that the institutions and ideologies behind hegemonic society's laws, educational system, and religions, have been integral to the discrimination of LGBTQ+ youth. To better understand the specific aspects of each institution, and how they directly affect LGBTQ+ youth, this paper critically examines these institutions using both the traditional heteronormative lens, as well as the more recent LGBTQ+ friendly lens. Issues such as the role of homophobic political leaders, and the laws they pass, are considered. As the majority of youth spend their formative years in an educational setting, the role of teachers, peers, and parents are all considered when discussions of 'coming out' or sexual education is brought to light. Furthermore, in an attempt to understand the coexistence of LGBTQ+ youth and religious education, comparisons between different school settings are taken into consideration.  Following the review, different avenues are suggested to further study this topic in order to create a more inclusive, safe, and accepting society for all sexualities and gender identities.


In an increasing number of applications triangle meshes represent a flexible and efficient alternative to traditional NURBS-based surface representations. Especially in engineering applications it is crucial to guarantee that a prescribed approximation tolerance to a given reference geometry is respected for any combination of geometric algorithms that are applied when processing a triangle mesh. We propose a simple and generic method for computing the distance of a given polygonal mesh to the reference surface, based on a linear approximation of its signed distance field. Exploiting the hardware acceleration of modern GPUs allows us to perform up to 3M triangle checks per second, enabling real-time distance evaluations even for complex geometries. An additional feature of our approach is the accurate high-quality distance visualization of dynamically changing meshes at a rate of 15M triangles per second. Due to its generality, the presented approach can be used to enhance any mesh processing method by global error control, guaranteeing the resulting mesh to stay within a prescribed error tolerance. The application examples that we present include mesh decimation, mesh smoothing and freeform mesh deformation.


Total knee arthroplasty has evolved into a very successful procedure to relieve pain and restore function in the arthritic knee with advanced structural damage. Optimal results are dependent on the restoration of alignment and ligament stability. Operative techniques involve either preservation of the posterior cruciate ligament or substitution of its function through increased prosthetic constraint. The vast majority of knees do not require cruciate substitution to establish appropriate stability and function. This video outlines the operative technique used by the author for posterior cruciate retaining total knee arthroplasty in a patient with a pre-operative varus deformity.


Meta-reinforcement learning (meta-RL) algorithms allow for agents to learn new behaviors from small amounts of experience, mitigating the sample inefficiency problem in RL. However, while meta-RL agents can adapt quickly to new tasks at test time after experiencing only a few trajectories, the meta-training process is still sample-inefficient. Prior works have found that in the multi-task RL setting, relabeling past transitions and thus sharing experience among tasks can improve sample efficiency and asymptotic performance. We apply this idea to the meta-RL setting and devise a new relabeling method called Hindsight Foresight Relabeling (HFR). We construct a relabeling distribution using the combination of"hindsight", which is used to relabel trajectories using reward functions from the training task distribution, and"foresight", which takes the relabeled trajectories and computes the utility of each trajectory for each task. HFR is easy to implement and readily compatible with existing meta-RL algorithms. We find that HFR improves performance when compared to other relabeling methods on a variety of meta-RL tasks.


The UK's second chamber is generally seen as a historical curiosity and, as Labour governments post-1997 have failed to introduce elected members, continues to be seen as 'unreformed'. But a 'first stage' reform of the House of Lords in 1999 removed most of its hereditary members, leaving it almost wholly made up of appointed life peers. Although many at the time claimed that this would neuter the upper house, since most of those evicted were Conservatives, it instead seems to have had the opposite effect. This article examines whether the 1999 reform strengthened the House of Lords, how we can assess this and why it might have happened. The article concedes that measuring legislative influence is notoriously difficult. The analysis it constructs seeks to overcome this by using a range of indicators on two dimensions: the assertiveness of the House of Lords to use its powers, and the executive's responses to the chamber. This analysis indicates that the 1999 changes strengthened the Lords against the government and, in doing so, strengthened parliament as a whole. The most obvious consequence is that our understanding of British politics now needs revision. But if the Lords was strengthened by reform this also demonstrates a need to revise established comparative politics theories of bicameralism – particularly that of Arend Lijphart, which would have predicted the reverse. The recent developments in Britain validate George Tsebelis' approach of recognising 'partisan veto players' and the critical role of partisan balance in inter-cameral relations. But they also demonstrate that a more nuanced understanding of both legitimacy and legislative influence is needed in order to understand second chambers' (and indeed first chambers') de facto power.


Enhancement of heat transfer plays an important role in the cooling of electronic or refrigeration systems, and its characteristics could strongly affect the stability and performance of such systems. To enhance heat transfer, air cooling of forced convection remains one of the main solutions. For example, conventional rotary-fan air cooling is still dominant in many areas. However, with the increasing of heat generation in these systems, the limitation of the conventional rotary-fan air cooling is become more obvious. So, demands in novel air cooling technology become necessary, e.g., silent and high efficient air cooling. Recently, ionic wind, which has no moving part and is easily miniaturized, shows great potential in heat dissipation and attracts widespread attentions. In this work, ionic wind, which is produced by wire to plate configuration for forced convection enhancement of horizontal flow along the plate, is numerically investigated. Firstly, a multi-physic model, which accounts for electric field, charge distribution, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer phenomenon, is presented. Comparisons between the simulation and literature data are conducted. Results show that better agreements are achieved by the developed model. Secondly, influences of the emitting electrodes numbers are analyzed. Results show that multiple electrodes configuration has higher performance in terms of heat transfer coefficient than that of the single electrode. Investigations are also carried out on the influences of the distances between the emitting electrodes. Thirdly, effects of the main parameters of ionic wind, such as the inlet velocity, and voltage applied on the electrodes etc., are investigated. Finally, by using the multi-physic model of ionic wind, characteristics of the heat transfer are predicted. It is found that the maximum enhancement of average heat transfer coefficient could reach around 140 %.


Traditional models of amphibian dispersal and gene flow point to low dispersal and high philopatry. In recent years, this traditional view has been challenged and it appears that no general model holds across taxa. Conservation of amphibians cannot be addressed on an over-arching scale, but must come on a case-by-case basis, especially for range-restricted species where information on gene flow and migration must be incorporated into conservation efforts. The only two members of the genus Capensibufo Grandison, 1980 (Anura: Bufonidae) are range restricted small bufonids, with distributions limited to montane areas in South Africa. Using a Bayesian analysis of two mitochondrial markers (16S and ND2), we examined the genetic patterns in Capensibufo rosei and Capensibufo tradouwi in order to understand both taxonomic and geographic boundaries. These species were not monophyletic, and demonstrate no clear taxonomic boundaries. Instead, the genus is extremely diverse genetically, with distinct lineages confined to isolated mountains that represent geographic boundaries. In addition, bioclimatic modelling using MAXENT and scenarios of climatic conditions at both the present and last glacial maximum suggest multiple bioclimatic and physical barriers to gene flow at present and in the past. We conclude that members of the genus have very low vagility, that current taxonomic boundaries are inadequate, and that strong geographic structuring has undoubtedly contributed to genetic diversity at the species level, rather than the population level. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 100, 822–834.


Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells equipped to transport antigens from the periphery to lymphoid tissues and to present them to T cells. Ligation of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), expressed on the DC surface, by lipopolysaccharides (LPS), elements of the Gram-negative bacteria outer wall, induces DC maturation. Initial steps of maturation include stimulation of antigen endocytosis and enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production with eventual downregulation of endocytic capacity in fully matured DCs. ROS production depends on NADPH oxidase (NOX2), the activity of which requires continuous pH and charge compensation. The present study demonstrates, for the first time, the functional expression of voltage-gated proton (Hv1) channels in mouse bone marrow-derived DCs. In whole cell patch-clamp experiments, we recorded Zn(2+) (50 μM)-sensitive outwardly rectifying currents activated upon depolarization, which were highly selective for H(+), with the reversal potential shift of 38 mV per pH unit. The threshold voltage of activation (V(threshold)) was dependent on the pH gradient and was close to the empirically predicted V(threshold) for the Hv1 currents. LPS (1 μg/ml) had bimodal effects on Hv1 channels: acute LPS treatment increased Hv1 channel activity, whereas 24 h of LPS incubation significantly inhibited Hv1 currents and decreased ROS production. Activation of H(+) currents by acute application of LPS was abolished by PKC inhibitor GFX (10 nM). According to electron current measurements, acute LPS application was associated with increased NOX2 activity.


This study examined how various case attributes impact plaintiff success and payouts in jury settled FBI lawsuits. Given the risk to firms in terms of potentially large payouts, future litigation, and lost reputation, the results may provide economic incentives for food firms and others in the supply chain to produce safer and better quality foods. Reviewing the outcomes of 511 FBI jury trials between 1979 and 2014, plaintiffs won approximately 35 percent of the cases, receiving a median award of $32,264. The Heckman Two-Step procedure was performed to examine the effects of various factors on plaintiff success rates and subsequent amounts awarded. Plaintiff chances of victory increased if lawsuits involved a child, foodborne pathogen was identified and pain and suffering was claimed, and decreased if defendants used of one or more expert witnesses or had "deep pockets". Cases involving a child, chronic complications, or defendants with "deep pockets" resulted in higher awards.


The jumbo flying squid Dosidicus gigas is widely distributed in the eastern Pacific Ocean and supports an important fishery. Although many studies have been carried out on the biology of this species, limited biological information is available in the waters outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of Chile (EEZ) (20°S-41°S and 74°30'W-84°W). Three surveys were conducted in this area by the Chinese squid jigging vessels during the period from April 2006 to May 2008. The majority of the catch in the survey was from the two areas defined by 37°30'-41°S and 78°30'-80°W and by 25°-30°S and 76°-77°30'W. The sex ratio (M: F) of the catch was 1: 2.48. The mean mantle length (ML) was 376 mm for males with a range of 257-721 mm and 388.7 mm for females with a range of 236-837 mm. Two distinguished size classes, medium- and large-sized groups, were identified in this study with the medium-sized group (350-450 mm ML) consisting of 89% of the total catch. The sizes at first sexual maturity were 638 mm ML for females and 565 mm ML for males. This study suggests that all the individuals examined were hatched from March 2007 to February 2008, indicating that D. gigas might spawn all year around with a peak spawning time from November 2007 to January 2008. Most of the stomachs analyzed had food remains. The preys included three major groups: fish (mainly lanternfish), cephalopods and crustaceans, but D. gigas was the dominant species in the stomach contents, showing strong evidence of cannibalism. The information obtained from this study improves our understanding of the fishery biology of D. gigas off Chile.


Improvement in public health was the main reason behind the major achievements in health and wellbeing of people in the past 20th century. Challenges facing public health in the 21st century can be tackled cost-effectively by improving further public health practice, research and learning. For such improvement to take place in this information age, information and communication technologies have to be an integral part of public health practice and education. In developed countries, public health informatics has become a recognized discipline that enhanced and even transformed public health functions. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), with the largest economy in the Middle East has witnessed unprecedented development and growth in healthcare, higher education, and information technology over the last few years. However, the current multiple providers and sectors of public health services and education need to be connected to enhance their outcomes. This paper describes briefly current status of public health services and education and proposes a public health informatics as a national-wide integrated and systematic information technology approach to optimize and transform public health practice, research and learning in KSA. The aim is to draw attention to this important subject so leaders, decision makers and academic organizations participate scientifically in setting the stage for this promising project.


Summary The breeding areas of the Critically Endangered Slender-billed Curlew Numenius tenuirostris are all but unknown, with the only well-substantiated breeding records being from the Omsk province, western Siberia. The identification of any remaining breeding population is of the highest priority for the conservation of any remnant population. If it is extinct, the reliable identification of former breeding sites may help determine the causes of the species' decline, in order to learn wider conservation lessons. We used stable isotope values in feather samples from juvenile Slender-billed Curlews to identify potential breeding areas. Modelled precipitation δ2H data were compared to feather samples of surrogate species from within the potential breeding range, to produce a calibration equation. Application of this calibration to samples from 35 Slender-billed Curlew museum skins suggested they could have originated from the steppes of northern Kazakhstan and part of southern Russia between 48°N and 56°N. The core of this area was around 50°N, some way to the south of the confirmed nesting sites in the forest steppes. Surveys for the species might be better targeted at the Kazakh steppes, rather than around the historically recognised nest sites of southern Russia which might have been atypical for the species. We consider whether agricultural expansion in this area may have contributed to declines of the Slender-billed Curlew population.


Citizen Science is coming to the forefront of scientific research as a valuable method for large-scale processing of data. New technologies in fields such as astronomy or bio-sciences generate tons of data, for which a thorough expert analysis is no longer feasible. In contrast, communities of volunteers coordinated by the Internet are showing a great potential in completing such analysis in a reasonable time. However, this approach brings uncertainty and the spread of biases within the data, since amateur participants are usually non-experts on the subject and count with variable skills and expertise. This means lack of accuracy in results coming from Citizen Science projects.This work presents a novel approach to handle uncertainty in Citizen Science. We focus on leveraging this uncertainty in the data pursuing a refinement of results. We distinguish between two types of uncertainty: a first one due to the lack of consensus between amateurs, and another one quantified by amateurs themselves during the course of the project. We test our method using the Galaxy Zoo, a project which aims for the labelling of a huge dataset of galaxy images. Considering available expert classifications to validate our experiments, the proposed method is able to improve current accuracy and classify a greater number of images.


In this paper, we provide some of the first empirical evidence of whether early occupational choices are associated with lasting effects on health status, affecting individuals as they age. We take advantage of data on occupational histories available in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine this issue. To the PSID data, we merge historical Census data that reflect the labor market conditions when each individual in the PSID made his first occupational choice. These data on labor market conditions (e.g. state-level share of blue collar workers) allow us to instrument for occupational choice in order to alleviate endogeneity bias. We use parental occupation as additional instruments. Since our instruments may have indirect effects on later health, we also control for respondent's pre-labor market health, education and several family and state background characteristics in order to make the instruments more plausibly excludable. We find substantial evidence that a blue collar occupation at labor force entry is associated with decrements to later health status, ceteris paribus. These health effects are larger after controlling for endogeneity and are similar across sets of instruments. We also find differences in the effects of occupation by gender, race, and age.


Although several passages in Berkeley are related to the question whether two or more finite substances can simultaneously perceive numerically identical sensible ideas, it is only in TDHP (247–8) that he addresses the question explicitly and in some detail. Yet, Berkeley's less than straightforward reply is notoriously difficult to pin down. Some commentators take Berkeley to be endorsing a clear-cut positive reply, whereas others have him giving an emphatically negative one; others hold that for Berkeley there is no fact of the matter that determines an answer one way or the other. I argue that all three readings find some justification at one point or another in the passage, and all hold a kernel of truth. Yet, none of them can be taken unrestrictedly because Philonous's considered position is disjunctive: either there is no problem at all, or, if there is one (thus warranting a negative reply to the public status of sensible ideas), it makes equally against 'materialism' and immaterialism. I argue that the passage can be given an overall interpretation that explains why Berkeley is entitled to hold that there is some truth in each direction. I propose answers to the questions (a) why Berkeley thinks there may nevertheless be a problem after all, and (b) if so, why he can yet legitimately feel entitled to let it rest, that is, why he remains confident, within the philosophical context of his day, that his philosophy does not lead to solipsism.


The Big Brother Experiment methodology of Denis et al. (Clim Dyn 18:627-646, 2002) is applied to test the downscaling ability of a one-way nested regional climate model. This methodology consists of first obtaining a reference climate by performing a large domain, high resolution regional climate model simulation—the Big Brother. The small scales are then filtered out from the Big Brother's output to produce a data set whose effective resolution is comparable to those of the data sets typically used to drive regional climate models. This filtered data set is then used to drive the same nested regional climate model, integrated over a smaller domain, but at the same high resolution as the Big Brother the Little Brother. Any differences can only be attributed either to errors associated with the nesting strategy and downscaling technique, or to inherent unpredictability of the system, but not to model errors. This methodology was applied to the National Center for Environmental Prediction Regional Spectral Model over a tropical domain for a 1-month simulation period. The Little Brother reproduced most fields of the Big Brother quite well, with the important exception of the small-scale component of the precipitation field, which was poorly reproduced. Sensitivity experiments indicated that the poor agreement of the precipitation at these scales in a tropical domain was due primarily to the behavior of convective processes, and is specific to the Big Brother Experiment on the tropical domain. Much better agreement for the small-scale precipitation component was obtained in an extratropical winter case, suggesting that one factor explaining the tropical result is the importance of convective processes in controlling precipitation, versus the greater importance of largescale dynamics in the winter extratropics. In the tropical case, results from two ensembles of five 3-month seasonal simulations forced by GCM output suggest a considerably greater predictability for the small-scale stationary component of tropical precipitation than did the Big Brother Experiment.


In this study, we investigated the signaling pathway involved in IL-6 production caused by peptidoglycan (PGN), a cell wall component of the Gram-positive bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, in RAW 264.7 macrophages. PGN caused concentration- and time-dependent increases in IL-6, PGE2, and cAMP production. PGN-mediated IL-6 production was inhibited by a nonselective cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitor (indomethacin), a selective COX-2 inhibitor (NS398), a PGE2 (EP2) antagonist (AH6809), a PGE4 (EP4) antagonist (AH23848), and a protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor (KT5720), but not by a nonselective NO synthase inhibitor (NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester). Furthermore, PGE2, an EP2 agonist (butaprost), an EP2/PGE3 (EP3)/EP4 agonist (misoprostol), and misoprostol in the presence of AH6809 all induced IL-6 production, whereas an EP1/EP3 agonist (sulprostone) did not. PGN caused time-dependent activations of IκB kinase αβ (IKKdβ) and p65 phosphorylation at Ser276, and these effects were inhibited by NS398 and KT5720. Both PGE2 and 8-bromo-cAMP also caused IKKdβ kinase αβ phosphorylation. PGN resulted in two waves of the formation of NF-κB-specific DNA-protein complexes. The first wave of NF-κB activation occurred at 10–60 min of treatment, whereas the later wave occurred at 2–12 h of treatment. The PGN-induced increase in κB luciferase activity was inhibited by NS398, AH6809, AH23848, KT5720, a protein kinase C inhibitor (Ro31-8220), and a p38 MAPK inhibitor (SB203580). These results suggest that PGN-induced IL-6 production involves COX-2-generated PGE2, activation of the EP2 and EP4 receptors, cAMP formation, and the activation of PKA, protein kinase C, p38 MAPK, IKKdβ, kinase αβ, p65 phosphorylation, and NF-κB. However, PGN-induced NO release is not involved in the signaling pathway of PGN-induced IL-6 production.


Sacrifice is a well known form of ritual in many world religions. Although the actual practice of animal sacrifice was largely abolished in the later history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it is still recalled through biblical stories, the ritual calendar and community events. The essays in this volume discuss the various positions regarding the value of sacrifice in a wide variety of disciplines such as history, archaeology, literature, philosophy, art and gender and post-colonial studies. In this context they examine a wide array of questions pertaining to the 'actuality of sacrifice' in various social, historical and intellectual contexts ranging from the pre-historical to the post-Holocaust, and present new understandings of some of the most sensitive topics of our time.


A unified nonlinear modal theory that is valid not only for waveguide couplers but also for nonlinear Fabry–Perot resonators has recently been proposed. The validity of this new approach is numerically demonstrated by comparison with the well-known bidimensional theory. The unified modal theory appears to be a powerful tool for studying transverse effects in a broad class of nonlinear resonators. It has been used to derive the main characteristics of the stationary behavior of the optical resonators in the case of a local nonlinearity. In particular, the disappearance of optical bistability when the resonator is tilted is predicted. Optical bistability at nearly normal incidence is interpreted by the coupling between two resonantly excited counterpropagating modes that are at the origin of the required transverse feedback.


The present work investigates the coupling mechanism between a ridged and a vertical, tilted rectangular waveguide via a non-offset longitudinal resonant slot. The excitation of the non-offset slot is realized in the presence of an offset small capacitive cylindrical post, attached to the ridged waveguide broad wall.
 In the present work no radiation phenomena were considered. The focus was on the coupling mechanism triggered by the slot and the post, under the assumption that both waveguides are terminated at a matched load. For this reason a general theoretical model was developed that enables the computation of the field quantities produced by the interaction between arbitrarily located longitudinal slot and metallic capacitive post inside the ridged waveguide at the presence of a twisted, vertical rectangular waveguide. The system of equations for this model was derived with the aid of the appropriate Dyadic Green Functions.
 The next step was to determine the most suitable method for solving the resulting system of equations. The Method of Moments was favored and applied along with the appropriate expansion and weight functions. Issues of solution convergence were also investigated. The theoretical results were compared against the results of a simulated model under Agilent HFSS. Additionally a test structure consisting of a ridged waveguide and a capacitive post was constructed and measured in the lab of the University of Duisburg - Essen. The measured data were compared against the corresponding results obtained by the theoretical model. The theoretical model was deployed in order to determine the impact of the geometric dimensions on the coupling behavior of the waveguide junction. The results show that via fine-tuning of the slot and post dimensions this waveguide junction can exhibit coupling characteristics that meet a variety of requirements.


The present paper has allocated to analysis of the different aspects of popular culture in Zabehi`s paintings according to some social and cultural related contents like utopia, Carnival, and Grotesque. Relying on descriptive-analytical way, the main object of article, is to show how the popular culture emancipate from domination of ruling culture in the works of the artist. The paper aim at highlighting the formal characteristics of works to achieve two levels of explicit and implicit significations, in order to illustrate two kinds of culture: one is related to popular and another is produced by them. At the level of explicit signification, we rely on general characteristics of the artist's paintings like deleting outlines and deformation of the objects in still lives. Also, applying the expressive colors can make distinguishable types of social characters according to their clothing and their gestures corresponding to their linguistic unusual titles of tableaus. In addition to it, the size of tableaus and artist`s action is the place of breaking the binary oppositions like popular and dominant culture. analysing the Implicit level leads to extract the profound themes with concentration on general characteristics and regarding the subject of artist`s paintings generally. by examining the character`s clothes, we can imagine ceremonies such as carnivals that individuals have equal opportunities in a classless utopia. The fast brushstrokes, with dry and physically colors relying on monstrous forces and color-sensing, display the features that resist to the forces of representative/objective rules of artistic works. This resistance makes painting able to have a potential energy that motivates, distorts and deformes the stable and immutable dimension of figures and forms of still lives. This aspect parallelly along with the implied fear of deformed and dried-up still lives, shows the grotesque space. All of the above mentioned features, based on the style of expressionism, have depicted paintings out of the representational/objective domination and direct emphasis on the obvious attributes of popular classes. These measures present the opportunities for realizing the ignored energies of popular culture. as a result these works by formal description and interpretive analysis of two levels of signification display two aspects of popular culture, first which is produced by concentration on their creative works, practices, rituals and ceremonies. The second, stems from their behaviors, habits and lifestyles. Thus, in contrast to the imitative and objective art, these works are aesthetic/sunjective ones because of their superiority over the dominant forms of artistic experiences.


This Essay examines the very fragile nature of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (ACA) approach to near-universal health insurance coverage, as accentuated by a variety of implementation hurdles and challenges. The ACA's vision for expanding insurance coverage was to build on our existing patchwork of market-based health insurance delivery for most, combined with government insurance for select segments of the population. But that patchwork strategy is only as strong as the threads that tie it together. Over the past four and a half years since the ACA was enacted, the threads have unraveled in several critical spots. The essay examines the impact and potential impact of judicial, administrative, and other attacks on three key areas of reform: government health care programs, employer-sponsored health insurance, and the individual private market.


A feasibility study was conducted to assess the potential application of an integrated manufacturing planning and control (MPC) system within the South African sawmill industry. Implementation of such a system could enhance the international competitiveness of the sawmill industry through improved supply chain co-ordination. Potential benefits include higher turnover, lower manufacturing cost and improved customer service. Profit improvements of between 2–7% on turnover have been reported from commercial applications internationally.


Deposit insurance schemes are becoming increasingly popular around the world and yet there is little understanding of how they should be designed and what their consequences are. In this paper we provide a new rationale for the provision of deposit insurance. We analyse a model in which agents choose between depositing their funds with banks and placing them in a less productive self-managed project. Bankers have valuable but costly project management skills and the banking sector exhibits both adverse selection and moral hazard. Depositors do not fully account for the social benefits accruing from bank management of projects and so too few deposits are made in equilibrium. The regulator can correct this market failure by providing deposit insurance to encourage deposits. Contrary to received opinion, we find that deposit insurance should be funded not by bankers or depositors but through general taxation.


PURPOSE
Letter acuity, the predominant clinical assessment of vision, is relatively insensitive to slow vision loss caused by eye disease. While the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) has demonstrated the potential to monitor the slow progress of blinding eye diseases, current tests of CSF lack the reliability or ease-of-use to capture changes in vision timely. To improve the current state of home testing for vision, we have developed and validated a computerized adaptive test on a commercial tablet device (iPad) that provides an efficient and easy-to-use assessment of the CSF.

METHODS
We evaluated the reliability, accuracy, and flexibility of tablet-based CSF assessment. Repeated tablet-based assessments of the spatial CSF, obtained from four normally-sighted observers, which each took 3 to 5 minutes, were compared to measures obtained on CRT-based laboratory equipment; additional tablet-based measures were obtained from six subjects under three different luminance conditions.

RESULTS
A Bland-Altman analysis demonstrated that tablet-based assessment was reliable for estimating sensitivities at specific spatial frequencies (coefficient of repeatability 0.14-0.40 log units). The CRT- and tablet-based results demonstrated excellent agreement with absolute mean sensitivity differences <0.05 log units. The tablet-based test also reliably identified changes in contrast sensitivity due to different luminance conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrate that CSF assessment on a mobile device is indistinguishable from that obtained with specialized laboratory equipment. We also demonstrate better reliability than tests used currently for clinical trials of ophthalmic therapies, drugs, and devices.


In 2002, hell froze over when a documentary became one of the highest-grossing films of the year earning over fifty-eight million dollars internationally and becoming the highest-grossing documentary of all time. Of course, this film was Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (2002), which quickly became an international phenomenon unto itself. Since then, lightning has struck twice. Moore's next film, the 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 beat this record by over 600 percent, earning in excess of 222 million dollars. This unpredicted success, in what many thought was a dead cinematic form, was heralded by many as a documentary renaissance; an outpouring of new documentaries saw the light of day, such as Mark Achbar's 2003 film The Corporation (2003), Dan Oilman and Chris Smith's The Yes Men (2003) also of 2003, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me (20, released in 2004), Spurlock's 2005 tv series "30 Days", Moore's Sicko (2007) and his 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story (2009), up until Spurlock's most recent release that opened this April, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] However, this documentary renaissance seems to have made a detour from the established path of documentary; they all foreground an inordinate amount of focus on the personality of the filmmaker himself, more so than documentaries in the past. Please note that I make reference to "his personality" on purpose because this new slate of documentaries is extremely gendered. Regardless, these films bear a striking incongruity with the documentary doxa of their predecessors. So where does this documentary renaissance fit within the paradigm of documentary cinema? I would like to put forward the assertion that they represent an entirely new style of documentary. They are divergent from most established ways of interpreting documentary within scholarly discourse. These films mark a new mode within the cultural field, a mode which I will term the "personality documentary". The personality documentary is marked by an unprecedented focus on the persona of the filmmaker himself where the personality invades the film to the point of becoming a performance which overshadows the content itself. Gone are the days of cinema verite with the hidden man behind the camera--the personality documentary is about the man behind, in front of, and all around the camera. This performance of personality becomes a form of masquerade in which the filmmaker plays a specific character for the camera, commenting on sociopolitical issues. As Michael Chanan puts it in The Politics of Documentary, "[t]he films of Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore, as well as titles like Super Size Me (2004) and The Yes Men, represent a mode of political reportage in which the filmmaker's personality invades the film, which consequently becomes highly performative; the style, which has a strong resonance in the US, is highly gendered but also adopts a satirical and ironic stance." (1) However, it is important to differentiate this form of performance from previous types of documentary. This personality mode of documentary is a relatively new phenomenon which is divergent from performative documentaries where the appearance of the filmmaker on camera is used to illustrate the subjectivity of the mode of representation. For example, when Marlon Riggs appears naked and exposed in Tongues Untied (1989) chanting poetry, it is to express his subjective experience as a gay black man. His appearance foregrounds the subjective positioning of his film. Contrast this to Michael Moore's boisterous and baseball cap-wearing personage in his films. Moore serves as a rotund guide and Everyman "telling it like it is." Here, his appearance serves to denote a sense of collectivity rather than subjectivity--Moore's presence is showing what it's like for all John Does across America and not the subjective positioning of Michael Moore as an individual. …


Abstract. Within the project MUSICA (MUlti-platform remote Sensing of Isotopologues for investigating the Cycle of Atmospheric water), long-term tropospheric water vapour isotopologue data records are provided for ten globally distributed ground-based mid-infrared remote sensing stations of the NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change). We present a new method allowing for an extensive and straightforward characterisation of the complex nature of such isotopologue remote sensing datasets. We demonstrate that the MUSICA humidity profiles are representative for most of the troposphere with a vertical resolution ranging from about 2 km (in the lower troposphere) to 8 km (in the upper troposphere) and with an estimated precision of better than 10%. We find that the sensitivity with respect to the isotopologue composition is limited to the lower and middle troposphere, whereby we estimate a precision of about 30‰ for the ratio between the two isotopologues HD16O and H216O. The measurement noise, the applied atmospheric temperature profiles, the uncertainty in the spectral baseline, and the cross-dependence on humidity are the leading error sources. We introduce an a posteriori correction method of the cross-dependence on humidity, and we recommend applying it to isotopologue ratio remote sensing datasets in general. In addition, we present mid-infrared CO2 retrievals and use them for demonstrating the MUSICA network-wide data consistency. In order to indicate the potential of long-term isotopologue remote sensing data if provided with a well-documented quality, we present a climatology and compare it to simulations of an isotope incorporated AGCM (Atmospheric General Circulation Model). We identify differences in the multi-year mean and seasonal cycles that significantly exceed the estimated errors, thereby indicating deficits in the modeled atmospheric water cycle.


Arrhythmia, also known as dysrhythmia, is a condition involving an irregular heartbeat. A problem in the heart may cause problems in other organs, and as time passes, this will lead to more severe problems. Arrhythmia must be detected at an early stage to prevent such a problem occurring in the heart. Detection of arrhythmia from an electrocardiogram is an easy method that does not need much equipment and does not harm the patient. The purpose of this research is to find a faster and more accurate system to classify nine classes of arrhythmia. The St. Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics 12-lead arrhythmia database was used for training and testing. Data were compressed and preprocessed (denoising, trend elimination, baseline correction, and normalization) before being sent to the system for feature calculation. The wavelet coefficients that displayed the most significant effect on classification were chosen and used as features. Standard deviation and variance were also added to the feature set. Later, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to reduce the number of features further. After deciding the features, the performance of the basic classification methods and spiking neural network was checked to determine whether there was a better classifier to be used for our research. Tenfold cross-validation was applied to the training dataset. Bagged trees were found to produce better results. The classifiers' performance was tested by sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy.


In the face of challenges of energy security, low carbon transitions and the replacement of aging infrastructure networks, new logics for the development of smart electricity systems are emerging amongst utility providers and public authorities. Whilst often portrayed as a technical matter, orchestrated through the top-down intervention of major corporate or government actors, such shifts in the system of electricity provision also entail efforts to fundamentally reconfigure relationships between providers and consumers, and rearticulate energy practices so that they are aligned to new governmental rationales. In this paper, we draw on theories of governmentality and social practice to consider the ways in which the smart grid is serving to constitute new forms of energy conduct, which in turn are vital to the ways in which smart grids are realised. Through the analysis of the first findings from an industry regulator–funded project in the north of England, we consider how and with what implications households that have installed solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies are fitting smart grid techniques and devices into their everyday practices. We argue that in contrast to households where solar PV has been regarded primarily as a device to deliver new flows of finance, the introduction of smart grid logics through the installation of in-home displays and hot water storage has served to rearticulate what 'good' electricity conduct entails and to reconfigure the ways in which energy-intensive practices are undertaken in households. We find these new forms of 'governing the self' to be critical in shaping how, and to what effect, the smart grid is taking root.


Precise measurements of the proton electromagnetic form factor ratio R = mu(p)G(E)(p)/G(M)(p) using the polarization transfer method at Jefferson Lab have revolutionized the understanding of nucleon structure by revealing the strong decrease of R with momentum transfer Q(2) for Q(2) greater than or similar to 1 GeV2, in strong disagreement with previous extractions of R from cross-section measurements. In particular, the polarization transfer results have exposed the limits of applicability of the one-photon-exchange approximation and highlighted the role of quark orbital angular momentum in the nucleon structure. The GEp-II experiment in Jefferson Lab's Hall A measured R at four Q(2) values in the range 3.5 GeV2 <= Q(2) <= 5.6 GeV2. A possible discrepancy between the originally published GEp-II results and more recent measurements at higher Q(2) motivated a new analysis of the GEp-II data. This article presents the final results of the GEp-II experiment, including details of the new analysis, an expanded description of the apparatus, and an overview of theoretical progress since the original publication. The key result of the final analysis is a systematic increase in the results for R, improving the consistency of the polarization transfer data in the high-Q(2) region. This increase is the result of an improved selection of elastic events which largely removes the systematic effect of the inelastic contamination, underestimated by the original analysis. (Less)


The paper presents a modification of the matching and difference-in-differences approach of Heckman et al. (1998) for the staggered treatment adoption design and a Stata tool that implements the approach. This flexible conditional difference-in-differences approach is particularly useful for causal analysis of treatments with varying start dates and varying treatment durations. Introducing more flexibility enables the user to consider individual treatment periods for the treated observations and thus circumventing problems arising in canonical difference-in-differences approaches.

The open-source flexpaneldid toolbox for Stata implements the developed approach and allows comprehensive robustness checks and quality tests. The core of the paper gives comprehensive examples to explain the use of the commands and its options on the basis of a publicly accessible data set.


The National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey (NMCUES), which has a complex survey design, was further complicated by combining two independently drawn national samples of households from the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). It is assumed that because the structures of both national area samples are similar, they are thereby compatible and allow for the derivation of unbiased national estimates of relevant health parameters. However, even though the two survey organizations operate under a common set of survey conditions with comparable samples, the actual data generated may differ across them, over and above differences due to pure sampling error. The NORC sample had a higher representation of individuals living in non-SMSA urban areas, of individuals with fair or poor health status, and of individuals incapable of performing usual activity. In addition, significantly higher mean estimates of the number of restricted activity days, of total charges for dental visits, for non-doctor visits and for hospital stays, and of overall total charges, characterized the NORC sample. The consistent directional difference in these health care estimates indicated a data collection organization effect was operational in the NMCUES. A comparison of item nonresponse rates, however, indicated the level of data quality on this dimension was generally equivalent across survey organizations. Further, the observed survey design differentials across organizations did not significantly differ in their impact on the precision in survey estimates. When a data collection organization effect is operational for a set of related survey statistics, as in the National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey, the use of more than one survey organization should be seriously considered.


40Ar/39Ar dating of alkali basalt pipes and dikes of the North Minusinsk basin has provided an important chronologic framework for Altay-Sayan fold belt and Central Asia region. These Mesozoic basalt pipes have become the subject of special interest due to the abundant occurrence of garnet-spinel and spinel lherzolite xenoliths. These rocks reveal information about the composition, structure, and thermal state of the Mesozoic upper mantle beneath the southwestern margin of the Siberian craton. Our detailed 40Ar/39Ar dating has shown that the pipes and their related NW-trending dikes formed coevally, during a Late Cretaceous, short-time, magmatic impulse. Twelve plateau ages on feldspar megacryst and whole rocks between 72 ±2.7 and 79 ±2 Ma have been determined. Abundant E-W-trending dikes, previously though to be related to the Meso-Cenozoic subvolcanic complex, have a less alkaline composition, compared to the basanite pipes, with Early Permian 40Ar/39Ar ages. The trachyte NW-trending dikes yielded an Early Permian, whole-rock plateau age of 262 ±2.5 Ma. The trachybasalts of the North Minusinsk basin have a 40Ar/39Ar age of 392 ±11 Ma, i.e., Devonian.


This article considers whether the Internet has become so significant, for the provision of, and access to, information and in the formation of political community and associated questions of participation, that it requires further human rights protection beyond freedom of expression. In short, should Internet freedom be configured as a human right? The article begins by considering the ubiquity of the Internet and its significance. A wider historical view is then taken to understand Internet freedom in terms of its lineage and development from earlier debates over freedom of expression and the right to communicate, through to the recognition of the significance of an information society and the need for Internet regulation on the international plane. The current debate over Internet freedom is then analysed with particular focus given to Hillary Clinton's speech on Internet freedom and its subsequent articulation by Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue. The concluding part introduces the critical work of Evgeny Morozov and Jaron Lanier to an international law audience in order to deepen the debate over Internet freedom and to point to the concept's limitations and dangers. It is too early to say whether a "right to Internet freedom" has achieved universal recognition, but this article makes the case that it is worth taking seriously and that Internet freedom may need its own category of protection beyond freedom of expression.


Biodiversity loss is occurring rapidly worldwide, yet it is uncertain whether few or many species are required to sustain ecosystem functioning in the face of environmental change. The importance of biodiversity might be enhanced when multiple ecosystem processes (termed multifunctionality) and environmental contexts are considered, yet no studies have quantified this explicitly to date. We measured five key processes and their combined multifunctionality at three temperatures (5, 10 and 15 °C) in freshwater aquaria containing different animal assemblages (1–4 benthic macroinvertebrate species). For single processes, biodiversity effects were weak and were best predicted by additive‐based models, i.e. polyculture performances represented the sum of their monoculture parts. There were, however, significant effects of biodiversity on multifunctionality at the low and the high (but not the intermediate) temperature. Variation in the contribution of species to processes across temperatures meant that greater biodiversity was required to sustain multifunctionality across different temperatures than was the case for single processes. This suggests that previous studies might have underestimated the importance of biodiversity in sustaining ecosystem functioning in a changing environment.


Context: Google App Engine (GAE) is a cloud computing platform, which allows developers to develop and deploy web based applications on it. It is composed of hundreds of thousands of commodity servers, distributed globally. GAE scales computing resources automatically, and developers only pay for the amount of time their application uses GAE resources. It imposes some restrictions and limitations on the design and development of applications such as execution time limit, lack of global transactions, way of communication with other applications etc. Objectives: In this study, we evaluate Google App Engine from enterprise application development point of view. We analyzed the behavior and architecture of Google App Engine to evaluate its feasibility for enterprise application development and compared it with Amazon Elastic Compute 2 (Amazon cloud service). We also studied Google App Engine storage system, Bigtable, which is a distributed non-SQL based data store. Methods: In this research study, we performed a literature study of the related cloud computing technologies and then a prototype enterprise application was developed for experiment. Results: Our literature study showed that Google App Engine has some limitations and restrictions on the development tools and environment. It does not provide support for global transaction, lacks strict consistency mechanisms, and provides highly virtualized and abstract view of the platform to the developer. Despite these limitations, the literature study and our experiment showed that Google App Engine is suited for applications with high read, searching and large write-stream operations. Google App Engine showed consistent performance as compared to Amazon Elastic Compute 2 in our experiment. Conclusions: We conclude that Google App Engine is a scalable platform while maintaining consistent performance but has some limitations due to its architecture and restrictions imposed on the development tools and environment. These limitations make it non-feasible for some types of enterprise applications, such as applications with high and intensive data computation requirement. But in other cases, such as simple data management and non-transactional applications, Google App Engine is an attractive platform.


Background: Vigorous spontaneous effort can potentially worsen lung injury. This study hypothesized that the prone position would diminish a maldistribution of lung stress and inflation after diaphragmatic contraction and reduce spontaneous effort, resulting in less lung injury. Methods: A severe acute respiratory distress syndrome model was established by depleting surfactant and injurious mechanical ventilation in 6 male pigs ("mechanism" protocol) and 12 male rabbits ("lung injury" protocol). In the mechanism protocol, regional inspiratory negative pleural pressure swing (intrabronchial balloon manometry) and the corresponding lung inflation (electrical impedance tomography) were measured with a combination of position (supine or prone) and positive end-expiratory pressure (high or low) matching the intensity of spontaneous effort. In the lung injury protocol, the intensities of spontaneous effort (esophageal manometry) and regional lung injury were compared in the supine position versus prone position. Results: The mechanism protocol (pigs) found that in the prone position, there was no ventral-to-dorsal gradient in negative pleural pressure swing after diaphragmatic contraction, irrespective of the positive end-expiratory pressure level (–10.3 ± 3.3 cm H2O vs. –11.7 ± 2.4 cm H2O at low positive end-expiratory pressure, P = 0.115; –10.4 ± 3.4 cm H2O vs. –10.8 ± 2.3 cm H2O at high positive end-expiratory pressure, P = 0.715), achieving homogeneous inflation. In the supine position, however, spontaneous effort during low positive end-expiratory pressure had the largest ventral-to-dorsal gradient in negative pleural pressure swing (–9.8 ± 2.9 cm H2O vs. –18.1 ± 4.0 cm H2O, P < 0.001), causing dorsal overdistension. Higher positive end-expiratory pressure in the supine position reduced a ventral-to-dorsal gradient in negative pleural pressure swing, but it remained (–9.9 ± 2.8 cm H2O vs. –13.3 ± 2.3 cm H2O, P < 0.001). The lung injury protocol (rabbits) found that in the prone position, spontaneous effort was milder and lung injury was less without regional difference (lung myeloperoxidase activity in ventral vs. dorsal lung, 74.0 ± 30.9 μm · min–1 · mg–1 protein vs. 61.0 ± 23.0 μm · min–1 · mg–1 protein, P = 0.951). In the supine position, stronger spontaneous effort increased dorsal lung injury (lung myeloperoxidase activity in ventral vs. dorsal lung, 67.5 ± 38.1 μm · min–1 · mg–1 protein vs. 167.7 ± 65.5 μm · min–1 · mg–1 protein, P = 0.003). Conclusions: Prone position, independent of positive end-expiratory pressure levels, diminishes a maldistribution of lung stress and inflation imposed by spontaneous effort and mitigates spontaneous effort, resulting in less effort-dependent lung injury. The authors utilized porcine and rabbit models of lung injury to evaluate pulmonary mechanics, distribution of ventilation, and biochemical and histologic effects on lung injury with varying positive end-expiratory pressure levels. Independent of positive end-expiratory pressure levels, prone positioning reduced maldistribution of lung stress and reduced effort-dependent evidence of lung injury.


The study of neotectonics, neotectonic and modern stress of the Sakhalin has been performed by the set of methods. The scheme of modern geodynamics of the island has been constructed by the data of neotectonic activation of the faults. Three types of zones with dissimilar geodynamic conditions have been distinguished: transtension, transpression, and strike-slip (simple shift). The results of Sakhalin modern stress reconstruction based on focal mechanisms of earthquakes allowed to characterize the distribution of the stress state parameters over the island surface: the Lode-Nadai factor and the direction of axes of deviatoric compression and tension. The changes in characteristics of modern tectonic stress field have been noticed at the boundaries of regions with different regimes of modern faulting. Specific orientations of compression axes of the neotectonic stress field are proper for North Sakhalin. Therein, the directions of compression axes become northeast in contrast to the predominant sublatitude orientation on the island as a whole. The obtained data on neotectonics and inherited modern stress field are applicable to the problems of engineering geological support of oil and gas projects' realization in the Sakhalin (new wells construction, control of the pipelines stability, accompanying urban planning, etc.).


We consider the problem of using expert data with unobserved confounders for imitation and reinforcement learning. We begin by defining the problem of learning from confounded expert data in a contextual MDP setup. We analyze the limitations of learning from such data with and without external reward, and propose an adjustment of standard imitation learning algorithms to fit this setup. We then discuss the problem of distribution shift between the expert data and the online environment when the data is only partially observable. We prove possibility and impossibility results for imitation learning under arbitrary distribution shift of the missing covariates. When additional external reward is provided, we propose a sampling procedure that addresses the unknown shift and prove convergence to an optimal solution. Finally, we validate our claims empirically on challenging assistive healthcare and recommender system simulation tasks.


Abstract. The relationship between phytoplankton assemblages and the associated optical properties of the water body is important for the further development of algorithms for large-scale remote sensing of phytoplankton biomass and the identification of phytoplankton functional types (PFTs), which are often representative for different biogeochemical export scenarios. Optical in-situ measurements aid in the identification of phytoplankton groups with differing pigment compositions and are widely used to validate remote sensing data. In this study we present results from an interdisciplinary cruise aboard the RV Polarstern along a north-to-south transect in the eastern Atlantic Ocean in November 2008. Phytoplankton community composition was identified using a broad set of in-situ measurements. Water samples from the surface and the depth of maximum chlorophyll concentration were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), flow cytometry, spectrophotometry and microscopy. Simultaneously, the above- and underwater light field was measured by a set of high spectral resolution (hyperspectral) radiometers. An unsupervised cluster algorithm applied to the measured parameters allowed us to define bio-optical provinces, which we compared to ecological provinces proposed elsewhere in the literature. As could be expected, picophytoplankton was responsible for most of the variability of PFTs in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Our bio-optical clusters agreed well with established provinces and thus can be used to classify areas of similar biogeography. This method has the potential to become an automated approach where satellite data could be used to identify shifting boundaries of established ecological provinces or to track exceptions from the rule to improve our understanding of the biogeochemical cycles in the ocean.


David Law and Mila Versteeg have used their considerable legal and empirical skills to identify what they provocatively describe as the "declining influence of the U.S. Constitution," or of what they sometimes call "American constitutionalism."1 This claim has been headline-grabbing in important part because of the larger sociolegal context, in which the question of American hegemony in the world of global politics and economics is deeply unsettled. Declining influence in the design of constitutions thus resonates with a larger set of anxieties about the role of the United States in the world. An alternative to seeing greater variations among constitutional instruments as a sign of decline in the influence of the U.S. Constitution within a framework of power hierarchy and competition,2 is instead to see the increased variations in a framework of evolution and diffusion, and as a sign of the success—not the failure—of the U.S. constitutionalist project. To read "decline" into greater variation may, then, be simply a reflection of anxieties in other spheres, rather than a troublesome development in its own right. In the rest of this comment, I offer brief thoughts on the influence of the U.S. Constitution and on the challenges of accurately and completely tracking such influence. I close with some questions about whether and why influence matters.


This Article proposes an alternative to direct government regulation of mortgage brokers: self-regulation of the mortgage industry that mimics the arguably successful self-regulation of the securities industry that has occurred over the past two centuries. Although not without its problems, self-regulation of securities brokers operates more efficiently than government regulation. For example, self-regulation allows for industry expertise to be deployed at low cost and is built on trust and reciprocity, which reduce enforcement costs. In addition, self-regulation locates power at its smallest point and encourages efficient resolution of disputes by ensuring commensurable regulatory intervention. Most crucially for the mortgage industry, self-regulation is capable of policing behavior that does not rise to the level of fraud but is nevertheless socially undesirable. This Article explores the reasons why self-regulation can be effective, as well as some of its limitations in the context of securities brokers. It then looks at its potential application to mortgage brokers, comparing the self-regulatory approach with the governmental approach taken by the Dodd-Frank Act and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However effective the federal approach to mortgage industry regulation is likely to be, there are aspects of such regulation that would be better administered by the industry itself, subject, of course, to oversight by the government to protect against the cartelization threat.


In a study for the identification of genomic alterations in pancreatic cancer, representational difference analysis was used and led to the isolation of 2 distinct fragments, deleted on the Y chromosome in the xenografted tumor DNA of a male patient with an adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Loss of Y chromosomal material was further studied in 11 pancreatic cancer cell lines of male origin, using PCR amplification of 5 sequence tagged sites (STSs) distributed along the Y chromosome; 8/11 cell lines exhibited a complete loss of the Y chromosome and 3 had deletions. To examine the status of the Y chromosome in situ, interphase FISH analysis was performed on paraffin sections from pancreatic carcinoma (n=7) and chronic pancreatitis (n=7) tissues, and the loss of Y‐chromosomal STS‐markers was studied in 6 xenograft tumors obtained from male pancreatic cancer patients. This analysis revealed that a loss of the Y chromosome occurs in vivo in primary pancreatic tumor cells, whereas the Y chromosome was intact in chronic pancreatitis. Our data suggest that loss of Y is a frequent event occurring in male pancreatic tumors. Although there is no evidence for a functional implication of Y chromosome loss, it effectively differentiates between a malignant and a benign condition as e.g. chronic pancreatitis. Thus, this genetic alteration may be of diagnostic use. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


As a result of the global presence of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), it has been argued that learners of English should be exposed to a range of varieties of English, rather than a single variety of English, so that they can be better prepared to communicate with other people in ELF communication. However, little is known about second language (L2) learners' perspectives on exposure to multiple accents of English in the English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom. This paper reports on a study that investigated the views of L2 learners of English concerning exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey at a university in Hong Kong. The analysis revealed that these L2 learners showed rather ambivalent attitudes towards exposure to different accents of English in the classroom. While many participants seemed to be aware of the value of exposure to different native and non-native accents, there was less than wholehearted support for such a proposal in practice because of a number of pedagogical and practical concerns. Implications of the findings for classroom teaching are also discussed.


The Act amends the code to grant juvenile courts jurisdiction over proceedings concerning a minor's right to waive notice to her parents of her abortion and adds a new article which requires the unemancipated minor seeking an abortion to be accompanied by an adult. The accompanying adult must either be her parent or guardian and sign an affidavit to that effect, or sign an affidavit that the parent has been notified about the abortion, or that there is no parent or legal guardian and that the person who stands in loco parentis for this minor has been notified. Further, the minor must sign the affidavit and must also sign a consent form stating that she seeks the abortion freely and without coercion. A judicial bypass procedure is created whereby the minor can obtain a waiver of the notice requirement from the judicial court.
July 1, 1987


Regarding the effect of pay-for-performance (PFP), standard economic reasoning suggests that "a little is better than zero," meaning that even small performance payments can improve employees' work morale. An alternative view, "pay enough or don't pay at all," suggests that paying too little may instead erode employees' work morale. Using the U.S. General Social Survey (GSS) data, the present study finds evidence that the two views actually complement each other: Small payments can improve employees' work effort (e.g., working hours), but can also potentially compromise their work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction). In addition, employees in different working sectors may have different understanding of what "small size" really means. Findings are followed by theoretical and practical implications.


Susan L. Brown, Ph.D., Advisor The average age at first marriage in Japan has been increasing over the decades, and is now one of the highest in the world at 29 years old for women and 30 years old for men in 2008 (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2009). Later marriages accelerate the declining total fertility rate in Japan (Klitsch, 1994) due to the rarity of nonmarital childbearing (Rindfuss, Choe, Bumpass, & Tsuya, 2004). Using data from the Japan 2000 National Survey on Family and Economic Conditions (Tsuya, Bumpass, & Rindfuss, 2008, N = 4,482), this study explored the views of Japanese young adults on marriage and family. First, I investigated never married individuals' attitudes toward marriage and childbearing. I found that Japanese singles generally did not strongly believe in the centrality of marriage in life nor did they perceive strong connections between marriage and childbearing. Nevertheless, single women tended to have less traditional attitudes toward various aspects of marriage and childbearing, relative to single men. Second, marriage intentions among both men and women were examined, and Japanese singles expressed relatively strong marriage intentions. Notably, women had stronger marriage intentions than men. Finally, I investigated gender differences in perceived barriers to marriage, particularly in the domains of (1) economic resources, (2) agreement on wives' employment, (3) pressure to have a child soon after marriage, and (4) pressure to co-reside or to have close relationships with parents-in-law. Women were more likely than men to view economic resources, agreement on wives' employment, and pressure to live with or have close relationships with in-laws as barriers to marriage. Japanese young adults did not strongly view pressure to have a child soon after marriage as a barrier to marriage. The results from this research contribute to new information on


The recent financial crisis was an accident, a "perfect storm" fueled by an unforeseeable confluence of events that unfortunately combined to bring down the global financial systems. And policy makers? They did everything they could, given their limited authority. It was all a terrible, unavoidable accident. Or at least this is the story told and retold by a chorus of luminaries that includes Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan. In Guardians of Finance, economists James Barth, Gerard Caprio, and Ross Levine argue that the financial meltdown of 2007 to 2009 was no accident; it was negligent homicide. They show that senior regulatory officials around the world knew or should have known that their policies were destabilizing the global financial system, had years to process the evidence that risks were rising, had the authority to change their policies--and yet chose not to act until the crisis had fully emerged. The current system, the authors write, is simply not designed to make policy choices on behalf of the public. It is virtually impossible for the public and its elected officials to obtain informed and impartial assessment of financial regulation and to hold regulators accountable. Barth, Caprio, and Levine propose a reform to counter this systemic failure: the establishment of a "Sentinel" to provide an informed, expert, and independent assessment of financial regulation. Its sole power would be to demand information and to evaluate it from the perspective of the public--rather than that of the financial industry, the regulators, or politicians.


Optical hysteresis behavior (OHB) is of great importance for technological applications including optical data switching and manipulation. In this study, the power-dependent luminescent property of a single one-dimensional NaYbF4:X3+ (X = Er, Ho, and Tm) microcrystal was systematically investigated. We observed the interesting OHB that a system exhibits two different optical responses for the same laser input. A series of real colour luminescence patterns with information-rich upconversion cryptography were also obtained, which offers great opportunities for optical barcoding at the single particle level. The intrinsic OHB strongly depends on excitation approach, excitation power density range, Yb3+ concentration and sample crystallinity rather than active center. The underlying mechanisms of the intrinsic OHB and luminescence loss were explored, and a mechanism based on permanent local structural changes and intrinsic defect induced luminescence quenching is proposed. The laser thermal effect was confirmed by decreased luminescence intensity ratio of 2H11/2 → 4I15/2 to 4S3/2 → 4I15/2 transitions of Er3+ as the excitation power increased. The luminescent loss includes both irreversible and reversible processes, and these two processes can be distinguished via excitation power cycling experiments. Reversible luminescence loss contributed to defect quenching due to energy migration from Yb3+ to the native defects, and irreversible luminescence quenching originated from the thermally induced permanent local structural changes of microcrystals. This work not only enables a deeper understanding of power-dependent OHB in related systems, but also provides the new dimensions for special applications such as multilevel anti-counterfeiting and intelligent memory storage.


Eukaryotic mRNAs exist in vivo as ribonucleoprotein particles (mRNPs). The protein components of mRNPs have important functions in mRNA metabolism, including effects on subcellular localization, translational efficiency and mRNA half‐life. There is accumulating evidence that pre‐mRNA splicing can alter mRNP structure and thereby affect downstream mRNA metabolism. Here, we report that the spliceosome stably deposits several proteins on mRNAs, probably as a single complex of ∼335 kDa. This complex protects 8 nucleotides of mRNA from complete RNase digestion at a conserved position 20–24 nucleotides upstream of exon–exon junctions. Splicing‐dependent RNase protection of this region was observed in both HeLa cell nuclear extracts and Xenopus laevis oocyte nuclei. Immunoprecipitations revealed that five components of the complex are the splicing‐associated factors SRm160, DEK and RNPS1, the mRNA‐associated shuttling protein Y14 and the mRNA export factor REF. Possible functions for this complex in nucleocytoplasmic transport of spliced mRNA, as well as the nonsense‐mediated mRNA decay pathway, are discussed.


Clinical retinal image analysis is an import aspect of clinical diagnosis in ophthalmology. Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) represents one of the most severe retinal disorders in prematurely born infants. One of the ROP clinical signs is the presence of retinal lesions endangering the vision system. Unfortunately, the stage and progress of these findings is often only subjectively estimated. A procedure such as this is undoubtedly linked to subjective inaccuracies depending on the experience of the ophthalmologist. In our study, a fully autonomous segmentation algorithm to model retinal lesions found using RetCam 3 is proposed. The proposed method used a combination of retinal image preprocessing and active contours for retinal lesion segmentation. Based on this procedure, a binary model of retinal lesions that allowed retinal lesions to be classified from a retinal image background was obtained. Another important aspect of the model was feature extraction. These features reliably and automatically described the development stage of an individual lesion. A complex procedure such as this has significant implications for ophthalmic clinical practice in substituting manual clinical procedures and improving the accuracy of routine clinical decisions.