The award citation reads: Professor Deb is recognized for research on multi-objective optimization using evolutionary algorithms, which are capable of solving complex problems across a range of fields involving trade-offs between conflicting preferences. A 2002 paper, with more than 10,000 citations, ranks among the 200 most-cited papers recorded in the Web of Science, 1900-2017, and is by far the most influential paper ever produced by an Indian scientist, as reflected by citations.


Medulloblastoma (MB), the most common malignant paediatric brain tumour, arises in the cerebellum. Recent high-throughput technology that includes ribonucleic acid-based expression analysis and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-based copy number analysis, as well as whole-genome sequencing studies have unravelled the mysteries of this embryonic tumour from clinical, histological and molecular standpoints. Studies of hereditary syndromes associated with MB have led to an increased understanding of the genomics of this tumour. Signalling pathways and growth factors, which are crucial in normal cerebellum development, are also involved in MB formation. The molecular discoveries in the last decade have led to advances in two major areas: (1) The clinical and molecular subgrouping of patients and their stratification; and (2) research being performed to individualise treatments according to the genetics of the patient's tumour. The use of extensive cancer genetic databases will ensure that future discoveries in MB pathogenesis will be made.

Key Concepts:

There is more than one cell of origin for MB.

MBs are genetically and histologically heterogeneous.

MB growth is similar to the normal growth of the cerebellum but it is growth gone awry.

Signalling pathways play significant roles in cerebellar growth. Mutations in these pathways lead to tumour formation.

Growth factor and DNA repair pathway mutations may drive MB formation.

MB in adults is different from that in children.

Metastatic MB has specific genomics that are different from the primary tumour in the same patient.

The new molecular discoveries have important prognostication impact.

The next era is to individualise novel therapies against each patient's MB.

Keywords:

medulloblastoma genetics;
Signalling pathways;
growth factors;
DNA repair pathways;
hereditary syndromes;
prognostication


This theoretical work provides with results of characteristics calculation of the ultrasonic surface Zakharenko waves (USZWs) existing in piezomagnetic cubic monocrystals of class m3m that can be readily used for non-destructive testing. The piezomagnetic waves propagate in direction [101] corresponding to relatively easy magnetization for the following piezomagnetics: Galfenol, Terfenol-D, and CoFe2O4 with cubic structures. The phase velocities of the USZW-waves and the coefficient of magnetomechanical coupling (CMMC) K2 were calculated for the crystals. It was found that the coefficient K2 for piezomagnetics with Km2 > 1/3 and Km2 >> 1/3 is about 8% to 9%, where K2 = 2 (VUSZW,o – VUSZW,c)/VUSZW,o and Km2 = h2/(Cμ). Knowledge of piezomagnetic properties of cubic crystals makes possible the use of them in new products utilizing the phenomenon called the magnetoelectric effect. Also, this study is useful for possible application of cubic piezomagnetics in composite structures consisting of piezoelectric and (or) piezomagnetic materials and in the microwave technology. This broadens choice of possible piezomagnetic materials for utilization in various technical devices.


SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. L'esperienza "classica": Atene - 3. L'esperienza "classica": Roma - 4. Il IV secolo fra continuita e rotture.
Heterodoxy and religious minorities. Late Antiquity, at the end of a long journey
ABSTRACT: This paper aims to encourage some reflections on the issue of the origins of religious intolerance and on the issues related to the treatment of minorities in Greek and Roman antiquity. In particular, a significant moment in this affair, destined to have prolonged effects, is constituted by the anti-Jewish revolts in Alexandria, in the mid-first century. A.D.


Phytoremediation of metal contaminated soil and water is a low cost method of remediation, which allows some extracted metals to be recycled for economic use. The use of phytoextraction and phytovolatilization of metals by plants offers a viable remediation on commercial projects. Arsenic is of great environmental concern due to its extensive contamination and toxicity. Ma et al. (2001) recently discovered the first known and extremely efficient arsenic hyperaccumulating plant, Pteris vittata. If we can use phytovolatilization for As-contaminated soils, it could minimize the production of As-laden plant material and the duration of remediation. Several greenhouse experiments conducted by us have shown that the material balance of As between uptake by P. vittata and reduction from As-polluted soils has not been maintained. Vapor samples were collected to determine volatilization of arsenic compounds from fronds of P. vittata grown in Aspolluted soil. A low-density polyethylene bottle was placed over a stem and sealed at the open bottleneck with sealant and tape to produce a tight seal around the stem and chambers for a period of 2––7 days. Concentration of arsenic in trap samples was measured by ICP-MS and speciation of arsenic was analyzed using HPLC/ICP-MS system. Concentrations in collected water samples (ca. 0.6––5.9ml) reached 10.7 30.8 g-As/L (2––7 days). Percentages of arsenic components in one sample were 37% for arsenite and 63% for arsenate. Our results suggest that P. vittata is a plant species that is effective at volatilizing As; it removed about 90% of the total uptake of As from As-contaminated soils in the greenhouse, where the environment was similar to the subtropics. However, if a large amount of arsenic had been released from the contaminated site into the atmosphere by the fern, the process may have caused a secondary As-contamination to the surrounding environments.


Sports involving physical contact include situations which, without the implied consent of the players, would amount to an assault. There is, however, a limit to this implied consent, and on-field behaviour that exceeds the rules of a particular sport can leave a participant open to possible criminal charges. In Australia, however, judicial opinion has varied as to whether even a conviction should be recorded, while in others cases prison sentences have been imposed. It is suggested that the decision in the recent Canadian case of R v Bertuzzi [2004] BCPC 472, which involved a National Hockey League player, has provided adequate and appropriate punishment, and may therefore provide guidelines for future Australian cases involving assaults in a sporting contest.


This paper explores the possibility of using multiplicative gate to build two recurrent neural network structures. These two structures are called Deep Simple Gated Unit (DSGU) and Simple Gated Unit (SGU), which are structures for learning long-term dependencies. Compared to traditional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), both structures require fewer parameters and less computation time in sequence classification tasks. Unlike GRU and LSTM, which require more than one gate to control information flow in the network, SGU and DSGU only use one multiplicative gate to control the flow of information. We show that this difference can accelerate the learning speed in tasks that require long dependency information. We also show that DSGU is more numerically stable than SGU. In addition, we also propose a standard way of representing the inner structure of RNN called RNN Conventional Graph (RCG), which helps to analyze the relationship between input units and hidden units of RNN.


Thermoplastic composite materials are being widely used in the automotive and aerospace industries. Due to the limitations of shape complexity, different components
need to be joined. They can be joined by mechanical fasteners, adhesive bonding or
both. However, these methods have several limitations. Components can be joined
by fusion bonding due to the property of thermoplastics. Thermoplastics can be melted on heating and regain their shape on cooling. This property makes them ideal for
joining through fusion bonding by induction heating. Joining of non-conducting or
non-magnetic thermoplastic composites needs an additional material that can generate heat by induction heating.
Polymers are neither conductive nor electromagnetic so they don't have inherent potential for inductive heating. A susceptor sheet having conductive materials (e.g. carbon fiber) or magnetic materials (e.g. nickel) can generate heat during induction. The
main issues related with induction heating are non-homogeneous and uncontrolled
heating.
In this work, it was observed that to generate heat with a susceptor sheet depends
on its filler, its concentration, and its dispersion. It also depends on the coil, magnetic
field strength and coupling distance. The combination of different fillers not only increased the heating rate but also changed the heating mechanism. Heating of 40oC/
sec was achieved with 15wt.-% nickel coated short carbon fibers and 3wt.-% multiwalled carbon nanotubes. However, only nickel coated short carbon fibers (15wt-.%)
attained the heating rate of 24oC/ sec. In this study, electrical conductivity, thermal
conductivity and magnetic properties testing were also performed. The results also
showed that electrical percolation was achieved around 15wt.-% in fibers and (13-
6)wt.-% with hybrid fillers. Induction heating tests were also performed by making
parallel and perpendicular susceptor sheet as fibers were uni-directionally aligned.
The susceptor sheet was also tested by making perforations.
The susceptor sheet showed homogeneous and fast heating, and can be used for
joining of non-conductive or non-magnetic thermoplastic composites.


Cities across the world have started recognising the need to address urban climate vulnerabilities. In Asia, the role of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN), a nine-year initiative (2008-2017) supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, has been significant. Over the years, ACCCRN has worked in ten cities in four Asian countries (India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam) on developing and demonstrating effective processes and practices for addressing urban climate vulnerabilities. This Working Paper aims to document and analyse the several methodologies adopted in the seven Indian ACCCRN cities: Surat, Indore, Gorakhpur, Shimla, Bhubaneswar, Mysore, Guwahati. The paper analyses these methodologies and the overall process adopted in each of these cities for its potential for replication in other cities in India, and brings out the inherent challenges, gaps and opportunities in achieving this. The study indicates that the overall process adopted was unique in each of the cities and that differences in the methodologies have arisen due to a number of contextual factors in each of the cities, including existing governance structures, industrial makeup, population and demographic conditions, as well as the implementing partners' prior experience and level of comfort with quantitative and qualitative assessments. Data availability and inter-departmental coordination were quoted as some of the key challenges experienced by the implementing partners. In addition, lack of implementation support in terms of policy mandates, financial support, capacity building were cited as key challenges by the city level stakeholders involved throughout this process. Drawing from these experiences, and with the aim of overcoming these challenges, this paper contributes recommendations on various stages of resilience planning exercises which would be beneficial to cities that plan to undertake such planning in the future. These recommendations will guide the cities on how to use the processes and methodologies developed as part of ACCCRN. AsiAn Cities ClimAte ResilienCe 11


Neural network based object detectors are able to automatize many difficult, tedious tasks. However, they are usually slow and/or require powerful hardware. One main reason is called Batch Normalization (BN) [1], which is an important method for building these detectors. Recent studies present a potential replacement called Self-normalizing Neural Network (SNN) [2], which at its core is a special activation function named Scaled Exponential Linear Unit (SELU). This replacement seems to have most of BNs benefits while requiring less computational power. Nonetheless, it is uncertain that SELU and neural network based detectors are compatible with one another. An evaluation of SELU incorporated networks would help clarify that uncertainty. Such evaluation is performed through series of tests on different neural networks. After the evaluation, it is concluded that, while indeed faster, SELU is still not as good as BN for building complex object detector networks.


This paper presents a methodology to formulate natural language rules for an adaptive neuro-fuzzy system based on discovered knowledge, supported by prior knowledge and statistical modeling. These rules could be improved using statistical methods and neural nets. This gives clinicians a valuable tool to explore the importance of different variables and their relations in a disease and could aid treatment selection. A prototype using the proposed methodology has been used to induce an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference Model that has been used to "discover" relationships between fluctuation, treatment and disease severity in Parkinson. Preliminary results from this project are promising and show that Neuro-fuzzy techniques in combination with statistical methods may offer medical research and medical applications a useful combination of methods.


This thesis investigates a few examples of customer-supplier and worker-employer relationships which are thought to be important to macroeconomic analysis. Among the literature on sticky price, we suggest that the theory of mark-up pricing and the theory of customer-supplier relationships advocated by Okun (1981), deserve more attention. We also suggest that there are at least three hypotheses implicit in the mark-up equation: (1) a sticky pricing response to demand shocks; (2) a relatively fast pricing response to cost shocks; and (3) 1 % change in average cost will cause an equiproportionate rise in price. In Chapter 2, a reputation cost of changing price is used to summarize Okun's discussion on suppliers' tendency to pledge the constancy of price for some reasonably long period (a type of customer-supplier relationship). A microfoundation model is then built to investigate the three hypothesis in details. With regard to the first hypothesis, it is shown that (a) the reputation cost of changing price; (b) uncertainties about the persistence and generality of an observed demand shock; and (c) their interactions can jointly account for an extensive degree of price stickiness. We also explain that such a modelling of price stickiness could be more convincing than that by the Menu Cost Hypothesis. With regard to the second and third hypotheses, our conclusion is positive in the sense that it is a good approximation, but negative in the sense that it is at most an approximation. We then specify the conditions under which the mark-up equation can be used in macroeconomic analysis. In our discussion of hypothesis 2, we also touched upon the evolution of the practice of cost-oriented, as opposed to demand-oriented, pricing. In Chapter 3, we start with the justification of an implicit, non-binding guarantee of employment for those within the firms (a type of worker-employer relationship). A dynamic programming model is then built to investigate the employment response of the representative employer to demand shocks. It is found that: (a) In the case of mild negative demand shock, the producer will hoard the excessive amount of labour, and production effort will be the variable of adjustment; (b) In the case of adverse negative demand shock, the producer will break the implicit guarantee of employment and make considerable amount of layoffs. From the point of view of maintaining employment, it is always better to stimulate the economy before, rather than after, the layoffs. Mild stimulation policies after the layoffs will have no effect on employment. Chapter 4 attempts to provide an estimate of the cost of changing price. It was found that the cost is much larger than can be explained by the Menu Cost Hypothesis. The estimation also provides some evidence against the Normal Cost Hypothesis. Finally, Chapter 5 is a simulation exercise to check whether Caplin and Spulber's neutrality result, arising from the disappearance of price stickiness on aggregation, can be applied to some more general specifications.


With development of new technologies the production is growing as well. Considering this the emphasis is placed on effectiveness and speed with which it is possible to test and make a new product. A 3D printer is an ideal utility in the area of prototyping. It is applicable for fast production of covers, ergonomic component and also small function elements. It is often necessary to design simple electronics in various areas of industry and at the same time to be able to test it. In this article we elaborated a possibility of replacement of a working head of a 3D printer with parallel kinematic in exchange for a head for subtle engraving of predominantly printed circuit boards. The main body of the 3D printer's effector is equipped with exchangeable system. It is enough to disconnect control cables, undo arrestment and replace working desk. Then it is necessary to connect controlling electronic. Moreover it is essential to improve working table. The working desk with clamping system is placed on the heated bed printer.


Predictor screening rules, which discard predictors before fitting a model, have had considerable impact on the speed with which sparse regression problems, such as the lasso, can be solved. In this paper we present a new screening rule for solving the lasso path: the Hessian Screening Rule. The rule uses second-order information from the model to provide both effective screening, particularly in the case of high correlation, as well as accurate warm starts. The proposed rule outperforms all alternatives we study on simulated data sets with both low and high correlation for $\ell_1$-regularized least-squares (the lasso) and logistic regression. It also performs best in general on the real data sets that we examine.


Introduction: Central giant cell granuloma is a benign lesion but sometimes has aggressive proliferation composed of multinucleated giant cells in a background of spindle and ovoid mesenchymal cells. Multifocal central giant cell granuloma of jaws is very rare and usually associated with hyperparathyroidism and some syndromes. We described an unusual case of a 22-year-old man with idiopathic multiple central giant cell granuloma of mandible without significant clinical findings. The parathyroid hormone level, calcium and phosphorus inorganic were in normal limit. Patient had no familial history and clinical characteristic of Cherubism, Noonanlike syndrome and neurofibromatosis. This article refers to the fact that multiple central giant cell granuloma may be associated with no signs of systemic or specific syndromes and it can be an independent and idiopathic disease.


Maike Oergel, Culture and Identity: Historicity in German Literature and Thought 1770-1815. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2006. viii + 297 pp. The concept of historicity (Geschichtlichkeif) has played a central role in German philosophy and historiography of the post-war period, extending its influence into literary scholarship via the work of Hans Robert Jauss, among others. Yet despite the prevalence of this concept in both primary and secondary literature dealing with phenomenology, literary theory and historiography there exist (outside Germany at least) very few works that apply the concept of Geschichtlichkeit directly to canonical literary texts. Here one should not conflate the eminently philosophical and (if one follows Heidegger's use of the term) ontological sense of Geschichtlichkeit with the various and diffuse discourses on New Historicism in Anglophone literary scholarship, since the former concern themselves not primarily or exclusively with the relationship between literary texts and their specific socio-political contexts, but rather with how an awareness of the historically mediated character of normative values determines ideas about human progress in the late or post-Enlightenment era (1750-1850), otherwise known (thanks to Reinhart Koselleck) as the Sattelzeit. Maike Oergel's interesting and ambitious book deals with a slightly shorter period (1770-1815) than that highlighted by Koselleck and other practitioners of Begriffsgeschichte, yet its central theoretical premise is similar to that found in the introduction to the Lexikon on Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: namely, around 1800 and especially in the wake of the French Revolution and Kant's critical philosophy, German thinkers began to be aware of the "historicity of values, including moral and philosophical categories" (4). The realization that normative values are historically conditioned rather than universal leads, in turn, to an "attempt to integrate change into any new value system," and this notion of change is more often than not dialectical (4). The central dialectic here is the relationship between the ancient and the modern, a relationship which, following the querelle des anciens et des modernes of the early eighteenth century, was reconfigured in Germany no longer as a thoroughgoing opposition, but rather as an attempt to relate perceived elements of classical aesthetics to the modern crisis of values (18). Oergel proposes that when considered in this way, the period 1770-1815-which spans the traditional periodizations of Sturm und Drang, Klassik and (Fruh-) Romantik-becomes an "intellectually coherent phase in terms of the intellectual problems addressed and intellectual and cultural objectives to be achieved" (3). Herder, Goethe, Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel all concern themselves, according to Oergel, with the relationship between the so-called "naive" or "natural" poetics of ancient Greece on the one hand, and the tendency toward reflexivity, relativity and (in Schiller's sense of the term) sentimentality that characterizes modernity on the other. The result of this dialectical process is an attempt to conceive a modern German identity through the assistance of classical notions of form: German poetry uses purportedly classical notions like the "naive" or the "mythic" not as objects of pure mimesis, but rather as structural ideals that provide a heuristic guide for how to be modern. For this reason, the attempts of Herder, A. W. Schlegel and Fichte (among others) to establish a modern German identity should not be seen, according to Oergel, in a narrowly nationalist light; rather they express a central issue within the crisis of modernity per se: how to ground a national culture upon values and norms which are historically conditioned and subject to change. …


We propose a model of volunteering and test its validity across four cultural groups. We hypothesize that individuals' explicit prosocial motivation relates positively to sustained volunteering, which is conceptualized as a latent factor comprising activity as a volunteer, service length, service frequency, and hours of volunteering. Moreover, we introduced implicit prosocial motivation and hypothesized that the relationship between explicit prosocial motivation and sustained volunteering would be amplified by implicit prosocial motivation. Data were collected from samples in China, Germany, Turkey, and the United States. Results confirmed our expectation that, across cultures, sustained volunteering was associated with explicit prosocial motivation and that the relationship between explicit prosocial motivation and sustained volunteering was strongest when implicit prosocial motivation was also high. By including implicit prosocial motivation, our study offers a novel approach to identifying sustained volunteer involvement, which can be of particular relevance for recruitment activities of voluntary organizations across various cultural contexts.


The encapsulation of inorganic nanoparticles into polymer particles opens the door to countless applications taking advantage of the properties of both phases. In this chapter the UV absorbing capacity of CeO 2 nanoparticles and the film forming capacity of acrylic polymers are combined. A synthetic route to produce waterborne acrylic/CeO 2 hybrid nanocomposites for UV absorbing coatings applications is presented. This strategy leads to encapsulated morphology of the CeO 2 nanoparticles into the polymer particles and therefore to the lack of agglomeration during film formation. A mathematical model developed for inorganic/organic hybrid systems is able to explain the morphology evolution from the initial monomer droplet to the polymer particles. The films cast from these latexes are transparent and show excellent UV absorption that increases with the amount of cerium oxide nanoparticles in the hybrid latex. Finally, the photoactivity behavior that the CeO 2 nanoparticles may have on the polymeric matrix is studied, discarding addi- tional effects on the acrylic polymer matrix.


After the severe devastation from the Korean War between 1950~1953, SouthKorea achieved a complete makeover. The country with the 12th largest economy inthe world commemorated its success by hosting the G20 summit in 2010 for thefirst time in Asia. Korea is the only country switched its status from aninternational aid recipient to a donor. The country is known to have a highpotential to grow even further with its emerging economy.Many developing countries in Africa, South East Asia and Latin Americadeclared that they adopted or plan to adopt the Korean development model which isgovernment-driven industrialization nurturing exports. However behind thedazzling skyscrapers, the country is reported to be suffering from a high suiciderate, rising temporary employment, disparity, value crisis and increasing antisocialbehaviours.Based on an analysis of indices, the country is diagnosed to be in anomie. Thesociety is going through moral breakdown due to commodification introducedduring the rapid industrialization. Given that society is shaped through a constantreconciliation between freedom and security, Korea has sacrificed its security byletting market freedom override politics, which has to function as a soundmoderator, to the point it cannot be controlled.This paper argues that ensuring the primacy of politics to rein in marketfreedom is an urgent task. Market needs to be repositioned under society in pursuitof restoring the balance between freedom and security which should work as thebasis of the every development agenda. Sound governance and transparency asprerequisites, many countries should establish those before starting to implement adevelopment plan. Restoring community is heightened both as a measure ofprevention and cure that it can be started at the individual level.


In response to the demographic challenges and fiscal constraints, many European welfare states have moved toward the privatization and marketization of pensions in order to improve their financial sustainability. The privatization of retirement income responsibility has led to a shift from dominantly public pensions to a multi-pillar architecture with growing private pillars composed of personal, firm-based, or collectively negotiated pension arrangements. At the same time, marketization has led to the introduction and expansion of prefunded pension savings based on financial investments as well as stronger reliance of market-logic principles in the remaining public pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pensions. However, there are also important cross-national variations in the speed, scope, and structural outcome of the privatization and marketization of European pension systems. Liberal market economies, but also some coordinated market economies (the Netherlands and Switzerland) as well as the Nordic countries have embraced multi-pillar strategies earlier and more widely, while the Bismarckian pensions systems and the post-socialist transition countries of Eastern Europe have been belated converts. The recent financial market and economic crisis, however, indicates that the double transformation may entail short-term problems and long-term uncertainties about the social and political sustainability of these privatized and marketized multi-pillar strategies.


This article considers some constructions related with polarity emphasis in standard Italian and Italian dialects. In particular, the authors examine two constructions where the polarity particle is accompanied by a repetition of the whole propositional content of the stimulus assertion or question. The analysis of these cases is based on the idea that emphasis requires the syntactic presence of the proposition that has to be denied or confirmed. It is argued that the two constructions are not derivationally related, but are the two possible syntactic realizations of the same discourse context. The internal structure of emphatic constructions is also taken into consideration and compared with cases attested in the dialectal domain where polarity emphasis is marked by a special form of the polarity particle. All the examined cases suggest that polarity emphasis is a root phenomenon and the authors argue that this is explained by the presence of some 'speaker oriented' features and projections only in root left peripheries.


Abstract In the calculation of point flux by Monte Carlo simulation, there is a special disadvantage in the mostly used method of next event estimation (NEE) for which theoretical variance is infinite. And, this problem has not yet been solved satisfactorily. The purpose of this paper is to provide some new ideas to solve the problem of infinite variance without introducing any bias for the mean. To eliminate the unbounded factors, the relations among the different state variables for two neighboring collisions are analyzed; then, on the basis of the integral expression of the once-more scattered flux contribution to the point detector, by changing the state variables to be sampled, six basic methods are derived - two of them are NEE and collision probability estimation, and four are new methods. Furthermore, based on one of the new methods, by variable substitution, a new method called exponent biased sample estimation (EBS) is obtained that can eliminate the [arrow over]rd - [arrow over]rm-2 singularity factor and has no exponent factor, which exists in other methods. The benchmark results show that EBS is much better than NEE with the variance of one order of magnitude smaller and a figure-of-merit factor of several hundreds higher sometimes, and its calculation efficiency is higher than that of the once more collision flux estimation method. Compared with the direction biased sample estimation method, EBS has no advantage in variance, but the sample procedures are much simpler and use less CPU time.


The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of using the SpeedMaker™ on step-by-step kinematics and muscle activity in 30-m sprints and if it is possible to elicit a post-activation potentiation stimulus with the SpeedMaker™ upon subsequent 30-m sprint performance. Thirteen male soccer players (age: 22.8±1.8 yr, body mass: 75.1±11.9 kg, height: 1.80±0.08 m) participated in a repeated measure and cross-over design consisting of two conditions: three normal 30-m sprints (control) and two normal 30-m sprints divided by one 30-m sprint with the SpeedMaker™ (intervention). Kinematics were measured for each step together with the peak muscle activity of the hamstrings, quadriceps and gluteus during each stride of each 30-m sprint. The main findings were that sprinting with the SpeedMaker™ increased sprint times by 1.7% compared to normal 30-m sprints. However, no occurrence of a postactivation potentiation (PAP) response was found when performing a 30-m sprint with the SpeedMaker™ prior to a normal 30-m sprint in male soccer players. Furthermore, no detectable differences in step-by-step analysis on kinematics and muscle activity were found between the sprints with and without the SpeedMaker™. Only hamstrings and gluteus activity increased per stride over 30-m. It was concluded that the SpeedMaker™ did influence sprint times, but only in a small way that kinematics and muscle activity did not change detectable. Furthermore, that the SpeedMaker™ did not elicit a PAP effect. In addition, increased hamstring and gluteus maximus activation during the 30-m sprints suggests that these muscles are very important for acceleration, and that it is likely that acute hamstring strains occur when a soccer player is close to maximal velocity, as hamstring activation is maximal at that point.


People with intellectual disabilities have had a long history of exclusion and enforced dependency. As this commentary examines, the uncertainty regarding their definition and an acknowledgement that a person with an intellectual disability can be particularly vulnerable to dependency, has led to a very hidden geography for this group. From the middle of the last century, geographers examined the locational separation of people committed to the 'idiot' asylums of Victorian Britain and Canada. It was clear that the asylum had a symbolic influence in the community well beyond its rather narrow role as the place of residence. More recently geographers have traced the movement of people with intellectual disabilities to group homes, co-operative housing, residence with parents and independent housing. It was hoped that the relocation from isolated standalone institutions would help to get rid of, or diminish stigmatisation. However, Hall urges us to move away from assuming that marginalisation equates solely with exclusion from mainstream social activities and spaces, and constructing inclusion as a process of incorporation into these activities and spaces. This commentary therefore forces us to take a critical approach on today's geography of care, where we move beyond narrow binaries of institutionalisation/ deinstitutionalisation, isolation/integration and success/failure. We must be critical of the spaces of incorporation and not assume a place of incorporation is the best choice for a person with an intellectual disability. This is particularly the case if people with intellectual disabilities face a mix of patronisation, fear, an unwillingness to understand 'non-standard' forms of communication, and a strong sense of difference in public life.


As the Web has become integrated into daily life, understanding how individuals spend their time online impacts domains ranging from public policy to marketing. It is difficult, however, to measure even simple aspects of browsing behavior via conventional methods---including surveys and site-level analytics---due to limitations of scale and scope. In part addressing these limitations, large-scale Web panel data are a relatively novel means for investigating patterns of Internet usage. In one of the largest studies of browsing behavior to date, we pair Web histories for 250,000 anonymized individuals with user-level demographics---including age, sex, race, education, and income---to investigate three topics. First, we examine how behavior changes as individuals spend more time online, showing that the heaviest users devote nearly twice as much of their time to social media relative to typical individuals. Second, we revisit the digital divide, finding that the frequency with which individuals turn to the Web for research, news, and healthcare is strongly related to educational background, but not as closely tied to gender and ethnicity. Finally, we demonstrate that browsing histories are a strong signal for inferring user attributes, including ethnicity and household income, a result that may be leveraged to improve ad targeting.


This paper shows how to compute vibrations of a double-leaf plate with random inhomogeneities in its components, two plates and reinforcement beams. The modelling method is based on the variational principle for elastic plates and beams. In addition to the deformation of individual components, the model includes contributions from junctions between components, e.g., how rigidly a beam is attached to a plate, and slightly twisted beams. The junction rigidity is included as potential energy in addition to the strain and the kinetic energies of the components. The random inhomogeneities are simulated as continuous smooth random functions of locations in the structure. A random function is realized using a predetermined probability density function, and an autocorrelation function over the dimension of the component. The vibration is computed for each set of random functions, and statistical properties of the simulations are analyzed. The random stiffness and the junctions affect the behaviour of the structure in a wide frequency range and a lower frequency range, respectively. The spectrum of surface vibration level shows changes in resonance frequencies depending on the random functions. Further relationship between the vibrations and the distributions of the random functions will be presented.


This contribution deals with the theme of sound design, as well as the support provided by material libraries such as MATto, the material library of Politecnico di Torino, to designers and firms in this context. A first overview on the theoretical research on soundscape by John Cage will introduce the main topic of everyday sounds design. The research opportunity offered by MATto will be disclosed as well as the SounBe tool and method developed and adopted by Politecnico di Torino design researchers in order to "sound" and verbally categorize different material samples and foods. The main key points of the SounBe database will be outlined, such as the presence of materials indexed by sound descriptors, and several application of sound design in the industrial field will be sketched. Finally, the topic of the responsibility for the soundscape generation will be discussed and the role of the designers in this context will be pointed out


The wireless market of the future will demand inexpensive hardware, expandability, interoperability, and the implementation of advanced signal processing functions—i.e. a software radio. Configurable computing machines are often ideal software radio platforms. In particular, the Stallion reconfigurable processor's efficient hardware reuse and scalability fulfill these radio's demands. The advantages of Stallion-based design inspired an FPGA-based software radio—the proto-Stallion receiver. This thesis introduces the proto-Stallion architecture and details its implementation on the SLAAC-1V FPGA platform. Although this thesis presents a specific radio implementation, this architecture is flexible; it can support a variety of applications within its fixed framework. This implemented single-user DS-CDMA receiver utilizes an LMS adaptive filter that can combat MAI and constructively combine multipath; most notably, this receiver employs an adaptive tracking algorithm that harnesses the LMS algorithm to maintain symbol synchronization. The proto-Stallion receiver demonstrates the dependence of adaptive tracking on channel noise; the algorithm requires significant noise levels to maintain synchronization.


The paper deals with the phenomena developed when along the surface of Earth to the well known Coriolis force some reactive forces are opposed. Since, usually at that level, the Coriolis force is a weak one only long lasting interactions become of practical interests. Regarded from this perspective the Coriolis force is first mechanically defined. Its actions in horizontal and vertical planes are further detailed. The conversion law of energy from an inertial system to a non-inertial one is also presented. As a tribute to History of Science the existence of Coriolis force is proved by the Foucault pendulum. Reactive forces to the Coriolis one are usually developed by engineering works like the protection walls of river banks. For such works the Coriolis force acts as a long lasting disturbing action. Like gravity it is a permanent action, but horizontally directed. During the long service of the works, due to imminent soil deformations some structural damages could occur. According to the clause 2.5 of Eurocode 1 the durability of engineering works should be evaluated. The Coriolis force is a determinist entity while the durability is a probabilistic one. As it was already shown in our paper [6] in 2011, this requirement can be reached with the aid of the Mathematical Theory of Reliability only. Considering several computing schemes for reactive forces, the paper is suggesting a range of numerical values for the risk factor. By including in durability analysis the influence of Coriolis force the results are more reliable and faithful to reality.


Large ice masses such as ice sheets and ice shelves change as the Earth's climate changes, and can serve as indicators of past climate variation. In his Perspective, Fahnestock discusses observations reported by Rott et al. in the same issue, which show the dramatic collapse and breakup of the Larsen Ice Shelf, off the western coast of Antarctica.


Abstract To enhance the learning experiences of all students, today's academic librarians must engage in outreach efforts that move beyond the walls of the library. In the past year, Oakland University's Kresge Library has made significant inroads in developing outreach initiatives that provide needed services to previously underserved student populations, such as transfer students, multicultural groups, and on-cam-pus residents. These programs have increased the library's visibility, enhanced its image among the university's students, faculty, and staff alike, and positioned it at the heart of teaching and learning on campus. This article describes some of these outreach efforts.


This volume includes about thirty contributions to the 49th Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense, held in July 2000 in Leuven. The authors represent the contemporary state of the scholarly discussion in Europe and North America on the sayings source Q, in connection to actual problems of the quest of the historical Jesus. The contributions show different positions on the historical and exegetical problems though almost all of them are accepting the Q-hypothesis. Some of the articles are devoted to the text and theology of the Q-source (or Q-gospel) as a whole, others deal with more special questions of the language, or the historical background or context, or the situation of the Q-community. Some of the contributions give interpretations of important particular text-passages, including parables and miracle-stories. The volume gives a good overview of the progress of the discussion and research on Q since the Leuven colloquium in 1981.


Can representative democratic government work where there exist significant and enduring differences of group identity? It is sometimes suggested that one of the answers to the tensions between identity politics and democracy might be the creation of federal structures. In this paper we use a comparative study of federation and identity in Canada and Australia to point to the possible limitations of federation as an institutional means of resolving such tensions. ********** John Smart Mill was the first to suggest, in Considerations on Representative Government, that federation might be an answer to the threat that "nationality", as he termed it, posed to free institutions (Mill, 1972). Nationality has various causes for Mill, being the effect of race and descent, language, religion as well as the strongest cause, the "identity of political antecedents" (which includes "community of recollections" and the "possession of a national history"). Mill puts the problem in these terms: Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary to the working of representative government, cannot exist.... The same incidents, the same acts, the same system of government, affect [the different sections] in different ways; and each fears more injury to itself from the other nationalities than from the common arbiter, the state (Mill, 1972, 392). For Mill, race, religion, language, and generally nationality, are formidable obstacles to representative government. The grave implications of this observation become clearer when we recall that Mill regards representative government as the ideally best form of rule--only properly constituted representative institutions pursue the common good as well as advancing the moral, intellectual and active faculties of the people (1972, chs 3, 5). It is for this reason Mill states that "it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities" (1972, 394). Where this is not possible, Mill offers as one solution the "merging" or "absorption" of one nationality by another. (II) But when this proves impracticable and where the alternative of complete separation is impossible, Mill proposes federation as an arrangement which may preserve free institutions. The constitutional model for a federal government which he recommends, calling it "exceedingly judicious," is that of the American Constitution. (III) In this essay we argue that this Millian theoretical perspective provides important insights into the different ways federalism was appropriated and deployed in Canada and Australia. More specifically, we claim that both the Canadian and Australian founders accepted Mill's view that `nationality' posed a threat to representative institutions and both adopted federation as a solution to the problem of nationality. But here the similarity ends. The Canadian founders did indeed adopt the Millian proposal of federation as a solution of the problem of `two races' (French Catholic and English Protestant). Federation was conceived in part as a means of securing the group rights and thus the separate identities of national minorities or `races' within an overarching `political identity' provided by a federal government. The Australian founders, in contrast, used federation not to accommodate and perpetuate separate identities, but to found a national government that would guarantee homogeneity by securing a singular `thick' national identity against the threat of incursion by `alien' races. (IV) CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN FOUNDINGS For both countries defence and economic union were important motivations for federating. Moves toward the British North America Act (BNA Act) of 1867 (renamed the Constitution Act in 1982) were a response to the threat that the American Civil War represented to the security of the provinces. …


In a world spiralling into a state of technological excess, Michael Dertouzos shows us how to make technology--in all its infinite varieties--work for, rather than against, us in our everday business lives. Now includes a new foreword by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web. At its core, Dertouzos' manifesto is this: Simplify the use of technology to the point where it works FOR us rather than having it dictate the way we live and work. This book is about getting to the point where computer fads give way to a true Information Revolution. To get there, we must abandon our current preoccupation with machine complexities and set a goal that is as simple as it is powerful: Information technology should help people do more by doing less. Dertouzos offers a look at the future and place of technology in everyday life: Where would a world of truly easy to use technology lead the human race? How might people change their way of life and work, their politics, their self perception and their quest for the meaning of life in such an environment?


Saudi Arabia has a unique environment in terms of its political, economic, legal and judicial aspects which have some anomalous characteristics that create challenges for corporate governance. Further challenges are presented by the current structure of listed companies and by Saudi Arabia's Vision for 2030.1 This environment significantly influences the role of the board of directors in listed companies and increases its role in safeguarding the interests of different shareholders and stakeholders. This thesis reviews the new legislation relating to corporate governance in Saudi Arabia in relation to the board of directors in listed companies and the extent to which such legislation affects its relationships with the main parties in the company. It defines the major features of the new Saudi Law of Companies, issued in 2015, and the new Corporate Governance Regulation, issued in 2017. The thesis deals with all of the relevant changes in the new law and regulations. It also clarifies the extent of the improvement in corporate governance resulting from the new legislation and those aspects related to the thesis that require further reform by suggesting more details, flexibility or enforcement to meet the standards of corporate governance. It uses a comparative study with both English law and global standards and assesses the compatibility of Saudi legislation with them in this respect in a manner that suits the particularities of the legal and economic environment in Saudi Arabia. The thesis explores the main theories and the most prominent models of corporate governance that affect the role of the board of directors. It discusses the composition of the board of directors, including the diversity of board membership, structure and models as well as the provisions for shadow directors. It also covers the relationship of the board of directors with the AGM, board meetings, company committees, company auditors, stakeholders and - in particular - employees.


One of the most progressive and innovative approaches to public investment financing is known as value capture. Value-capture envisions creation of the policy tools to adequately capture the privately accruing changes in the value of sites and/or consumption that arise from public infrastructure investments. In our earlier study (Gurdgiev, 2009) we have shown that Land Value Tax (LVT) represents an optimal tax instrument when compared to property tax and the existent structure of property taxation based on the stamps, VAT and development charges from the Exchequer perspective, when revenue stability, predictability and counter-cyclicality are of value. In the present paper, we briefly introduce and discuss all internationally available policies used for raising revenue to finance public investment, and draw on some international experience to highlight their main shortcomings and benefits. We provide a comprehensive discussion of the concept of value creation arising from public investment. In contrast to the existent literature, we consider a dynamic model of value creation consistent with the economic framework of multiplier effects of public and private spending and investment. In addition, unlike most of the literature on taxation finance, we distinguish two unique stages of demand for funding: Early stage capital allocation linked to the full capital cost of the project; and Later stage O&M financing support. Following this, we rank the existent policies with respect to their efficiency in addressing the dynamic nature of public investment.In our view, Land Value (site value) Tax represents the optimal policy instrument for raising revenue for public investment when compared to all other alternatives. In a qualitative rankings, the final distance between the optimal policy (LVT/SVT) and the runner-up policies (Property Tax and Joint Development/Air Rights) is significantly greater than the distance between the least favored two alternatives (Development Impact Fees and Special Assessments). This shows that the economy would gain much greater efficiency from moving from a Property Tax or a PPP-style system of financing (consistent with Air Rights and Joint Development) to a Land Value Tax system of revenue collection, than it would from any other reform within the confines of the above choices of policy instruments.


The challenge of agriculture in the 21st century requires a systemic integration of the environmental, social and economic pillars of development to meet the needs of present generations without sacrificing the livelihoods of future generations. Over the next 50 years, the world population is projected to increase by some 3 billion, primarily in the developing countries. Yet, even today, some 800 million people go hungry daily, and more than a billion live on less than a dollar a day. This food insecurity and poverty affecting one-quarter of the world's population is a sad indictment of the failure to respond adequately in a time of unprecedented scientific progress and economic development. There is no way we can meet food security and poverty concerns without first addressing the issues of sustainable agricultural and rural development.

The methodology and results reported in this study form a first comprehensive and integrated global ecological-economic assessment of the impact of climate change on agro-ecosystems in the context of the world food and agricultural system. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) have developed a comprehensive methodology based on environmental principles, referred to as the agro-ecological zones methodology. This GIS-based framework combines crop modeling and environmental matching procedures to identify crop-specific environmental limitations under various levels of inputs and management conditions. This has facilitated comprehensive and geographically detailed assessments of climate-change impacts and agricultural vulnerability.

The sensitivity of agro-ecosystems to climate change, as determined by the FAO/IIASA Agro-ecological Zones (AEZ) model, was assessed within the socio-economic scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions (SRES). For this purpose, IIASA's global linked model of the world food system was used. This modeling framework, referred to as the Basic Linked System (BLS), comprises a representation of all major economic sectors, and views national agricultural systems as embedded in national economies, which in turn interact with each other at the international level.

The BLS is a global general equilibrium model system for analyzing agricultural policies and food system prospects in an international setting. BLS views national agricultural systems as embedded in national economies, which interact with each other through financial flows and trade at the international level. The national models linked in the BLS cover about 80% of the most important attributes related to the world food system, such as population, land, agricultural production, demand, and trade. The remaining countries of the world are grouped into 14 regional models to provide closure for the world system, both geographically and economically. The national models simulate the behavior of producers, consumers, and the government. They distinguish two broad sectors: agriculture and non-agriculture. Agriculture produces nine aggregate commodities.

The combination of AEZ and BLS provides an integrated ecological-economic framework for the assessment of the impact of climate change. We consider climate scenarios based on experiments with four General Circulation Models (GCM), and we assess the four basic socioeconomic development pathways and emission scenarios as formulated by the IPCC in its Third Assessment Report.

The main results of the study include climate-change impacts on the prevalence of environmental constraints to crop agriculture; climate variability and the variability of rain-fed cereal production; changes in potential agricultural land; changes in crop production patterns; and the impact of climate change on cereal production potential. Results of the AEZ-BLS integrated ecological-economic analysis of climate change on the world food system includes quantification of scale and location of hunger, international agricultural trade, prices, production, land use, etc. The analysis assesses trends in food production, trade, and consumption, and the impact on poverty and hunger of alternative development pathways and varying levels of climate change.

The methodology and database developed in this study provides a foundation for detailed country studies, incorporating country-level information. The climate change issue is global, long term and involves complex interaction between climatic, environmental, economic, political, institutional, social and technological processes. It has significant international and intergenerational implications in the context of equity and sustainable development. Climate change will impact on social, economic and environmental systems and shape prospects for sustainable agricultural and rural development. Adaptation to climate change is essential to complement climate change mitigation, and both have to be central to an integrated strategy to reduce risks and impacts of climate change.

Most of the discussion on climate change has focused on mitigation measures, for example the Kyoto Protocol. Not much attention has been given to climate change adaptation, which will be critical for many developing countries. The developing world has not realized that this issue needs to be on the global agenda and for developed countries this is not a priority, as they have the means and resources to adapt to future climate change.

National governments and the international community must give agriculture and rural sector the highest priority in terms of resource allocation and adoption of development polices that are locally relevant and globally consistent. Only then progress can be made to eradicate hunger and poverty in the world.


Today's scientists are quickly moving from in vitro to in silico experimentation: they no longer analyze natural phenomena in a petri dish, but instead they build models and simulate them. Managing and analyzing the massive amounts of data involved in simulations is a major task. Yet, they lack the tools to efficiently work with data of this size.

One problem many scientists share is the analysis of the massive spatial models they build. For several types of analysis they need to interactively follow the structures in the spatial model, e.g., the arterial tree, neuron fibers, etc., and issue range queries along the way. Each query takes long to execute, and the total time for executing a sequence of queries significantly delays data analysis. Prefetching the spatial data reduces the response time considerably, but known approaches do not prefetch with high accuracy.

We develop SCOUT, a structure-aware method for prefetching data along interactive spatial query sequences. SCOUT uses an approximate graph model of the structures involved in past queries and attempts to identify what particular structure the user follows. Our experiments with neuro-science data show that SCOUT prefetches with an accuracy from 71% to 92%, which translates to a speedup of 4x-15x. SCOUT also improves the prefetching accuracy on datasets from other scientific domains, such as medicine and biology.


Bioenergy has been proposed as both a problem and a solution for land use conflicts arising at the nexus between food security and environmental conservation. But such assessments need to be considered in light of differences in the way people value the use of land and the facts that are considered or excluded in making such judgements. While technical and policy appraisals of food security favour a target-based approach that considers land as a global resource to be managed in accordance with universal targets and technological innovation for food production and nature conservation, social researchers highlight the need for a context-based approach where considerations of the role of land in people's everyday lives and its historical and cultural attachments ought to shape interventions. This Chapter highlights the assumptions and value judgements that underpin different visions of how land should be used by opening up conflicting judgements that arise when we position bioenergy in the context of current and future agricultural systems. We develop a 'responsible innovation' framework to highlight the fact that there are multiple pathways for any technological intervention. Drawing on research undertaken in the UK, we apply this framework to valuations of land use and biomass in agricultural systems. We identify a number of, often conflicting, value dimensions related to different uses of land (for food, fuel or fodder), to land quality (should marginal land be used for fuel production) and to different uses of biomass (including competition for the use of straw, the use of biomass for on-farm energy generation as opposed to national energy targets, and biomass for large-scale biorefining to meet multiple objectives at the food/fuel/environment nexus). By opening up to scrutiny the assumptions that reinforce particular innovation pathways we were able to look beyond technical innovation in agricultural systems and land use choices to consideration of social innovations that draw attention to alternative visions of land use in agricultural futures.


Fiction has been trying for years both to promote and subvert the cliches love encourages. We turn to literature to learn what love is and what it should be, and readers of this collection will find consolation and inspiration in equal measure from some of the sharpest observers of this most essential human emotion. In tracing the lineaments of "English love" through the fiction of 200 years we can see something of its infinite variety and of the shifting rules of the game. Sylvia Plath seems closer to Aphra Behn than to Elizabeth Gaskell or even Thomas Hardy in her concept of feminine modesty, while violence, or sheer incomprehension, enter the definition in the worlds of D.H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield. Romantic love is at the heart of the "love story" and these stories, while taking love as their subject, do not always follow the conventional route. Bittersweet endings, ironic angles on traditional platitudes and other surprises make the insights of writers such as Anne Ritchie, Somerset Maugham or V.S. Pritchett always fresh and challenging.


E.L. Doctorow, now a major member of the American literary establishment, has survived the controversy over his overtly political novels to become recognised as an artist whose place in the American tradition has been earned by his extension of it. This book surveys the reception of his novels, which span the era that saw traditionalist formalist criticism decline in favour of post-structural theories of language and culture. When Welcome to Hard Times (1960) was published, the scant notice it received praised its well-formed structure; by the time of Doctorow's major success, Ragtime (1975), the issues of politics, culture, and history loomed large on the critical landscape, and by the early 1980s, his work was seen overwhelmingly in terms of its postmodern style and scepticism, to such an extent that the theory of criticism drew attention away from his works themselves. Now, with current critical trends moving away from pure theory, his fiction has again become the main focus, with his later work as well as Ragtime/ receiving attention.


Abstract Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Plant Health (PLH) performed a pest categorisation of Stegophora ulmea, a well‐defined and distinguishable fungal species of the family Sydowiellaceae. S. ulmea causes a tree disease known as black spot of elm (Ulmus spp.). The pathogen is reported from North America (native range) and Asia (Far‐East Russia and China), but not from the EU. S. ulmea is regulated in Council Directive 2000/29/EC (Annex IIAI) as a harmful organism whose introduction into the EU is banned on plants of Ulmus L. and Zelkova L., intended for planting, other than seeds. The pathogen has been occasionally intercepted on imported bonsai plants (and then destroyed) in the Netherlands and the UK. It could enter the EU and spread within it via plants for planting (including bonsai) and cut branches. Hosts and favourable climatic conditions are common in the EU. The European native elm species Ulmus glabra and Ulmus laevis were found to be more susceptible to the disease than North American elm species, but information is lacking on Ulmus minor. The disease is rarely fatal, but S. ulmea can cause considerable damage, particularly in wet summers. Reduction of inoculum by the removal of leaf debris and avoiding overhead watering in nurseries can reduce the risk of spread of the pathogen. The main knowledge gaps concern (i) the distribution of the pest in Asian countries, (ii) the relative role of the means of entry/spread and (iii) the potential consequences in mature tree plantations and native woodland. The criteria assessed by the Panel for consideration as potential quarantine pest are met. For regulated non‐quarantine pests, the criterion on the pest presence in the EU is not met.


Selected research and technology activities at Dryden Flight Research Center are summarized. These activities exemplify the Center's varied and productive research efforts.


Abstract. Since the late 1990s, the meteorological observatory established in Anmyeondo (36.5382° N, 126.3311° E, and 30 m above mean sea level) has been monitoring several greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCs, and SF6 as a part of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Program. A high resolution ground-based (g-b) Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) was installed at this observation site in 2013 and has been operated within the frame work of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) since August 2014. The solar spectra recorded by the g-b FTS cover the spectral range 3800 to 16 000 cm−1 at a resolution of 0.02 cm−1. In this work, the GGG2014 version of the TCCON standard retrieval algorithm was used to retrieve total column average CO2 and CH4 dry mole fractions (XCO2, XCH4) and from the FTS spectra. Spectral bands of CO2 (at 6220.0 and 6339.5 cm−1 center wavenumbers, CH4 at 6002 cm−1 wavenumber, and O2 near 7880 cm−1 ) were used to derive the XCO2 and XCH4. In this paper, we provide comparisons of XCO2 and XCH4 between the aircraft observations and g-b FTS over Anmyeondo station. A comparison of 13 coincident observations of XCO2 between g-b FTS and OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) satellite measurements are also presented for the measurement period between February 2014 and November 2017. OCO-2 observations are highly correlated with the g-b FTS measurements (r2 = 0.884) and exhibited a small positive bias (0.189 ppm). Both data set capture seasonal variations of the target species with maximum and minimum values in spring and late summer, respectively. In the future, it is planned to further utilize the FTS measurements for the evaluation of satellite observations such as Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT, GOSAT-2). This is the first report of the g-b FTS observations of XCO2 species over the Anmyeondo station.


The World We Want compares the future world that Enlightenment intellectuals had hoped for with our own world at present. In what respects do the two worlds differ, and why are they so different? To what extent is and isn't our world the world they wanted, and to what extent do we today still want their world? Unlike previous philosophical critiques and defenses of the Enlightenment, the present study focuses extensively on the relevant historical and empirical record first, by examining carefully what kind of future Enlightenment intellectuals actually hoped for; second, by tracking the different legacies of their central ideals over the past two centuries. But in addition to documenting the significant gap that still exists between Enlightenment ideals and current realities, the author also attempts to show why the ideals of the Enlightenment still elude us. What does our own experience tell us about the appropriateness of these ideals? Which Enlightenment ideals do not fit with human nature? Why is meaningful support for these ideals, particularly within the US, so weak at present? Which of the means that Enlightenment intellectuals advocated for realizing their ideals are inefficacious? Which of their ideals have devolved into distorted versions of themselves when attempts have been made to realize them? How and why, after more than two centuries, have we still failed to realize the most significant Enlightenment ideals? In short, what is dead and what is living in these ideals?


We introduce a motion estimation algorithm that fuses visual and range data to give an unambiguous estimate of the velocity of objects visible to a camera and range sensor. Dynamic scale space is used to avoid temporal aliasing and a novel robust estimator based on Least Trimmed Squares is used to smooth results between boundaries established using range data. Simulation results (from a specially developed simulation environment) and experimental results (from an FPGA based implementation of our algorithm) show that our approach gives accurate motion estimates.


A unified constitutive model for polymer films is proposed with viscoelastic characterization at small deformation and viscoplastic characterization at large deformation, based on molecular chain deformation mechanisms. The evolution equations and the temperature dependence of drag stress and back stress are well established from molecular network theories. The material constants are then determined by master curves and a consistent procedure. The excellent agreement between experimental data of polycarbonate film tests and model predictions is achieved.


Abstract This book presents a comprehensive overview of legal negotiation for law students and lawyers studying their negotiating behavior. The analysis presented often is derived from the research of social scientists, but the book is specifically designed to teach the reader how to negotiate more effectively in the actual practice of law. Examples of specific negotiation techniques are included throughout the text, and theoretical models of social scientists are discussed only when the conclusions derived from them are directly relevant to legal negotiation. At the same time, the book avoids the mundane mechanics of both local negotiation practice and "pop-psychology." Included within this single book are analysis of both competitive negotiation tactics and more collaborative approaches, such as problem-solving and cooperative tactics. No single negotiation strategy works best in all negotiations. Accordingly the lawyer should be able to use a variety of approaches and know when to choose each tactic. Most lawyers not only change their tactics from one negotiation to another, but also use a combination of varying tactics – for example, problem solving and competitive tactics – within a single negotiation. For this reason, this text divides the negotiation process into six components or subprocesses: negotiation planning, initial orientation, initial proposals, information bargaining, narrowing of differences and closure. This organization allows discussion in a single chapter of how the different approaches to negotiation – competitive, cooperative or problem-solving – address varying aspects of the negotiation process. The book focuses on negotiation as client representation. The lawyer's role as an advocate changes the negotiation process in a number of ways that often are not considered in general negotiation texts written by social scientists and others. This book includes separate chapters on Negotiation Planning and Negotiation Counseling, and the impact of the client is stressed throughout the text.


Digital platform ecosystems capitalize on the engagement of large groups of actors with diverse skills that create unexpected services, find novel uses, and move the ecosystem forward in unanticipated ways. The generativity concept captures this phenomenon, which some scholars regard as fundamental to our understanding of how digital innovation plays out. Despite such claims, it is unclear what generativity means and how it manifests itself. After scrutinizing the foundational definition, we delineate two perspectives on generativity. The 'generative properties' perspective asks which properties of digital artifacts embedded in social structure invite actors to set free their creativity and produce unanticipated outcomes. In contrast, the 'generative patterns' perspective asks which patterns of events lead to an evolutionary dynamic that produces unanticipated change. We find cues for both perspectives in literature, which tentatively validates them. We then formulate a socio-technical model of digital platform ecosystems and describe ecosystem generativity by applying both perspectives. In this context, the first perspective highlights the digital platform and its controlling orchestrator, while the second perspective directs our attention to interactions among actors and artifacts. We conclude this paper by discussing how generativity can help explain digital innovation.


This paper focuses on the computer and ICT skills of secondary school teachers in Ota, Ogun state of Nigeria. The
purpose was to find out if the teachers were computer and ICT literate and to examine if they employ computers and
ICT in their teaching activities. Eighty copies of a self designed questionnaire were administered to teachers in four
secondary schools, out of which sixty eight was completed, returned and found usable. The study shows that the
respondents are aware of the fact that being computer and ICT literate is very important in their profession. The
paper concludes that the Government in conjunction with the Ministry of Education inculcates computer and ICT
training into the curriculum of teacher training schools. It also admonishes the Nigerian Library Association (NLA)
to rise to the occasion of reviving and establishing school libraries in secondary schools.


Radioactive choline is incorporated by pneumococcus (strain R36A) into a polymeric substance from which it can be quantitatively recovered as free choline, after hydrolysis by strong acid. The polymeric substance is insoluble in lipid solvents and can be degraded by periodate. Fractionation studies and chemical analyses suggest that choline is linked to a polysaccharide component of pneumococcal cell wall.


Oreocharis brachypodus is described and illustrated as a new species from Guizhou, China. The new species is similar to Oreocharis villosa . However, the new species is readily distinguished from the latter by cymes not branched, 1–4-flowered, larger and pronounced gibbous corolla (2.2–2.5 cm long), ovary ca. 1 cm long, with 4 ribs prominent, style ca. 0.7 cm long, and thecae confluent. Comments on affinities, geographical distribution, ecology, phenology and conservation status of the new species are also provided.


Since 1995, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been introduced commercially into US agriculture. These innovations are developed and commercialised by a handful of vertically coordinated "life science" firms who have fundamentally altered the structure of the seed industry. Enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) for biological innovations has been the major incentive for a concentration tendency in the upstream sector. On the one hand, this monopolisation may increase long-run social welfare through an increased rate of investment in R&D. On the other hand, due to their monopoly power, these firms are capable of charging a "monopoly rent", extracting a part of the total social welfare. A popular argument used by the opponents of agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) is the idea of an input industry extracting all benefits generated by these innovations. Are life science firms able to appropriate all benefits or is there a limit to their monopoly power? In the US, the first ex post welfare studies reveal that farmers are receiving the largest part of the benefits followed by the gene developers who receive the next largest share. However, up to now no parallel ex ante study has been published for the European Union (EU). Hence, the EUWAB-project (European Union Welfare effects of Agricultural Biotechnology) aims at calculating the total benefits of selected agbiotech innovations in the EU and their distribution among member countries, producers, consumers, input suppliers and government.


Estuarine mangroves give natural support to the protection of the riverbanks, due to their accumulative nature. To study this effect, it is necessary to measure sedimentation rates under estuarine mangroves. Sediment plays an important role in the storage and release of nutrient into the water column, the mineralization of organic carbon deposits by various kinds of microbes. In association with other parameters, the sediment is responsible for the variations in densities of majority of benthic organisms. Regular monthly collections of bottom water and sediment were made for a period thirteen months from January 2008 and January 2009 at five different study sites using the motorized outrigger canoe. The present investigation encompassed collection of data pertaining to various aspects of sedimentology. Sediment temperature varied from 25.100c to 30.450c. The pH ranged between 6.18 to 8.30. Organic carbon Varied between 2.06 to 29.45%, moisture content varied from 20.10% to 41.88. Values of interstitial water content is varied between 1.60% to 30.95%. Wide variation in the percentage composition of sand (28.45% to 80.10%), silt (12.78% to 54.28%), and clay (3.66% to 33.63%) was observed. Keywords: Sedimetology , Ecosystem, Mangrove, Kali river, Karwar.


Osteonecrosis is common and represents loss of blood supply to a region of bone. Common sites affected include the femoral head, humeral head, knee, femoral/tibial metadiaphysis, scaphoid, lunate, and talus. Symptomatic femoral head osteonecrosis accounts for 10,000–20,000 new cases annually in the United States. In contradistinction, metadiaphyseal osteonecrosis is often occult and asymptomatic. There are numerous causes of osteonecrosis most commonly related to trauma, corticosteroids, and idiopathic. Imaging of osteonecrosis is frequently diagnostic with a serpentine rim of sclerosis on radiographs, photopenia in early disease at bone scintigraphy, and maintained yellow marrow at MR imaging with a serpentine rim of high signal intensity (double-line sign) on images obtained with long repetition time sequences. These radiologic features correspond to the underlying pathology of osseous response to wall off the osteonecrotic process and attempts at repair with vascularized granulation tissue at the reactive interface. The long-term clinical importance of epiphyseal osteonecrosis is almost exclusively based on the likelihood of overlying articular collapse. MR imaging is generally considered the most sensitive and specific imaging modality both for early diagnosis and identifying features that increase the possibility of this complication. Treatment subsequent to articular collapse and development of secondary osteoarthritis typically requires reconstructive surgery. Malignant transformation of osteonecrosis is rare and almost exclusively associated with metadiaphyseal lesions. Imaging features of this dire sequela include aggressive bone destruction about the lesion margin, cortical involvement, and an associated soft-tissue mass. Recognizing the appearance of osteonecrosis, which reflects the underlying pathology, improves radiologic assessment and is important to guide optimal patient management.


Abstract Local land-use planning procedures are increasingly recognized as potentially crucial to ensure off-reserve biodiversity protection. Mainstreaming systematic conservation planning maps in these decision-making procedures has been proposed as a mechanism to achieve this. However, research is lacking on how to convince officials and politicians to change their behaviour and include the maps in their decision-making. Social marketing is a tool commonly used to effect behaviour change in many sectors but its application in conservation is limited. In the formative research phase of a social marketing study we interviewed locally elected politicians in four coastal municipalities in South Africa. We found that conservation and environmental issues play virtually no role in their work; however, they do attribute value to the natural environment. Land-use planning procedures are considered important but dysfunctional and the role of conservation is perceived negatively in their municipalities. Their information-seeking behaviour is clearly localized. We present a marketing analysis of these results and argue for improving the attractiveness of the product: the maps should be more option- than veto-based and should identify locally relevant ecosystem services. Locally significant information should be provided at a time and location convenient for politicians. We conclude that engagement with councillors should be proactive, refer to land-use planning and services from 'nature' rather than 'biodiversity' and use terminology and information that is locally oriented and meaningful from the politician's perspective. The analysis highlights the usefulness of the marketing approach for conservation.


The wastewater treatment by infiltration-percolation plant at Ben Sergao (a suburb of Agadir, Morocco) foreshadows the installation which will be able to be built for Greater Agadir (first fraction: 40,000 m 3 /d). The present plant treats 1,000 m 3 /d of highly concentrated raw effluents which after being decanted in an anaerobic stabilization pond are infiltrated into 5 infiltration basins of 1,500 m 2 each, constituted by a bed 2 metres thick of eolian sand drained at its base. The decanted water infiltrates at the rate of one metre per day. With this process 100 % of the suspended matter, and 95 % of the chemical oxygen demand are removed, 85 % of the nitrogen is oxidized. The parasites are entirely eliminated and the number of fecal coliforms and streptococci is made 10,000 to 100,000 times smaller. A series of experiments of irrigation by the treated effluents is under way.


Behavior-Driven Development entails a unified set of practices for expressing requirements in businessreadable language, and binding them to automated test cases. Unfortunately, the Agile community has been so focused on the test automation aspects of the methodology that they have overlooked the challenges involved in the initial step of BDD: expressing requirements in business-readable language. While business-readable language simplifies communication with business stakeholders, it also complicates the process of specifying requirements for the implementation team. The informality of business language makes it difficult to write requirements that are accurate, consistent, and unambiguous. How can practitioners specify technical requirements with business-readable language? This paper explores how domain models help to reconcile the looseness of business language with the exacting requirements of engineering. By systematically representing key concepts in the business domain with visual diagrams and operational definitions, we can construct a domain model that allows us to unambiguously specify implementation requirements in business-readable language.


This investigation was designed to explore how occupational therapists working in higher education perceived their professional identities, and how they described their experience of the change in those identities when they moved from clinical practice to employment in higher education. The study is small scale and qualitative. The data was collected by individual career narratives, participant-led focus groups and individual interviews. There were sixteen participants all of whom offered career narratives; two of these gave individual interviews but did not participate in the focus group. There were two focus groups one of six participants and one of eight. One person from the larger focus group did not undertake an individual interview; all the others did so there were fifteen individual interviews in all. This data collection was supported by member and colleague commentary, field notes and a research diary. The commentary of colleagues expanded the number of participants to forty one whose comments were all considered and formed a part of the data base and triangulation. Analysis was by researcher immersion in the data, by continual checking, rechecking, and reconsideration until key themes emerged which were felt to be authentic by researcher and participants. The findings were presented and discussed in three broad areas: professional identity, personal journey and belonging and becoming, supported by participant quotations which were seen as the central voice of the study. The investigation suggested that the power and meaning of professional identity as an occupational therapist cannot be underestimated. Participants described a challenging, and sometimes painful, personal journey in their changed professional role, which was located in the central dilemma of the thesis: the transition from expert to novice. Contrasting workplace cultures were noted as causing some confusion in expectations. The need to belong to a suitable community of practice was seen as important, and support for the notion of several overlapping belongs was indicated. An acknowledgement of the meaning and experience of the transition from expert in onearea to novice in another needs to be more fully understood, acknowledged and managed to support the best interests of individuals and communities of practice.


Context. HIP 100963 was one of the first solar twins identified. Although some high-precision analyses are available, a comprehensive high-precision study of chemical elements from different nucleosynthetic sources is still lacking from which to obtain potential new insights on planets, stellar evolution, and Galactic chemical evolution (GCE). Aims. We analyze and investigate the origin of the abundance pattern of HIP 100963 in detail, in particular the pattern of the light element Li, the volatile and refractory elements, and heavy elements from the s - and r -processes. Methods. We used the HIRES spectrograph on the Keck I telescope to acquire high-resolution ( R ≈ 70 000) spectra with a high signal-to-noise ratio ( S / N ≈ 400–650 per pixel) of HIP 100963 and the Sun for a differential abundance analysis. We measured the equivalent widths (EWs) of iron lines to determine the stellar parameters by employing the differential spectroscopic equilibrium. We determined the composition of volatile, refractory, and neutron-capture elements through a differential abundance analysis with respect to the Sun. Results. The stellar parameters we found are T eff = 5818 ± 4 K, log  g = 4.49 ± 0.01 dex, v t = 1.03 ± 0.01km s -1 , and [Fe/H] = −0.003 ± 0.004 dex. These low errors allow us to compute a precise mass (1.03 +0.02 -0.01 M ⊙ ) and age (2.0 ± 0.4 Gyr), obtained using Yonsei-Yale isochrones. Using our [Y/Mg] ratio, we have determined an age of 2.1 ± 0.4 Gyr, in agreement with the age computed using isochrones. Our isochronal age also agrees with the age determined from stellar activity (2.4 ± 0.3 Gyr). We study the abundance pattern with condensation temperature ( T cond ) taking corrections by the GCE into account. We show that the enhancements of neutron-capture elements are explained by contributions from both the s - and r -process. The lithium abundance follows the tight Li-age correlation seen in other solar twins. Conclusions. We confirm that HIP 100963 is a solar twin and demonstrate that its abundance pattern is about solar after corrections for GCE. The star also shows enrichment in s - and r -process elements, as well as depletion in lithium that is caused by stellar evolution.


To reduce energy consumption, aggregation takes place in a wireless sensor network. All measured data is collected and preprocessed multiple times on its way towards a data sink, e.g., a base station. However, aggregation implies new challenges to security: as the sink Anally receives aggregated data, it is difficult to verify not only the aggregate's correctness, but also the origin of the data the aggregate was computed from. In the presence of an attacker in the network, data transmissions and aggregation could have maliciously been modified. Yet, it turns out that in-network aggregation and data authenticity are contradictory communication properties. This research examines the possibility of finding a trade-off between security (authenticity) and energy-savings (aggregation). If the user is willing to accept data's authenticity with ples100% probability, he can still save large amounts of energy compared to authentic communication without aggregation.


The new global agreement to reduce mercury emissions is named after Minamata, a small seaside town in southern Japan. Some 60 years ago, it was the site of one of the world9s worst mercury pollution incidents, after a chemical plant dumped the toxin into the sea for decades. Thousands of people who ate contaminated fish and shellfish became ill, disabled, or died. Many children were born with birth defects. It took decades for the company and the government to officially admit the link. Today, the episode continues to affect residents and has split the community in sometimes surprising ways.


Using nationally representative linked employer-employee data we find one-quarter of employees in Britain are paid for performance. The log hourly wage gap between performance pay and fixed pay employees is .36 points. This falls to .15 log points after controlling for observable demographic, job and workplace characteristics. It falls still further to .10 log points when comparing "like" employees in the same workplace, indicating that performance pay contracts are used in higher paying workplaces. The premium rises markedly as one moves up the wage distribution: it is seven times higher at the 90th percentile than it is at the 10th percentile in the wage distribution (.42 log points compared to .06 log points).


This thesis is focused upon investigating how come activities in organizations are sometimes not aligned with an objective at hand, be it a project goal, safety, quality or other. When something goes wrong, where are the answers to be found? In the pursuit to examine these questions further, the aim of the thesis has been to investigate meaning making in action as this can increase an understanding of how actors may continuously align their actions, collective and/or individual, with a common goal – this process here being called Joint Directed Action (JDA). Studying the relational aspects in the two-way process of meaning making and action is claimed to be a neglected area in the research of how actors make sense of their realities. As such much could be gained in terms of understanding how actions unfold by focusing upon these issues. This thesis illustrates how meaning and action constitute a two-way process unfolding in a continuous interpretational-relational process that needs to be given attention in the pursuit of JDA. By being aware of how meaning and action are intertwined, actors can naturally become attentive to contextual cues and how management 'systems', such as Quality Assurance Systems, in their enactment become co-authors shaping the organizational landscape. These are important issues in the pursuit of JDA. This thesis provides a method for facilitating meaning making in organizations. Knowledge Overlapping Seminars (KOS) — a conversational tool based upon facilitated reflection and dialogue — is presented as a means to increased awareness of different interpretations of e.g., a project goal due to local realities and identities within an organization. KOS is a method with the aim of increasing efficiency and reliability in organizations by e.g. delimiting misunderstandings and bridging knowledge gaps between local identities. In this thesis KOS has been applied and evaluated in a Six Sigma project. Based upon findings from the studies it is clear that actors, in the pursuit of JDA, are aided by being aware of how they 'see things' differently due to local interpretations. It is further argued that actors can pursue JDA by being able to 'relate' to one another. The 'relating to one another' is based upon an awareness of how the organisational landscape is continuously shaped and re-shaped due to the reflexive relationships among meaning making, identity creation, emotional activities and action within the flow of conversational activity. And so it is contested here that in the co-authoring of relational landscapes characterized by an interrelating which is heedful, attentive and conscientious actors can ''Get' it Together' in the continuous pursuit of Joint Directed Action.


Particle shape and distribution of chemical compounds within individual particles are implied in the parameterizations used in air quality and climate models for radiative transfer, volatility, and mass transfer. In this study we employ Scanning Transmission X-Ray Microscopy with Near-Edge X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy with image analysis and pattern recognition techniques to characterize the chemical structure of 636 particles collected on six field campaigns in the western hemisphere between 2004 and 2008. Many of the particles were chemically heterogeneous. A few observed types include black carbon particles covered by aqueous-phase components (n = 90), dust particles with organic clumps (106), organic particles enriched in carboxylic acid at the surface (54), and inorganic cores encapsulated by organic shells (10). The 90 particles in the first category collectively contained 95 regions showing a strong black-carbon spectral signature associated with the aqueous-phase components, of which 78 were between 0.1 and 1 mm. Organic mass fraction of the organic dust particles varied significantly (mean and standard deviation of 0.3 +/- 0.2), and over half of these dust particles were found to be nearly spherical. Thickness of acid-enriched coatings and carbon on inorganic cores were less than 0.6 mu m in most cases, but accounted for < 0.01 to 0.98 of the particle volume fraction. More than half of the identified organic particles (359) were found to be chemically heterogeneous, and 32 particles were observed as agglomerations or inclusions but did not meet one or more of the criteria of the categories described here. The acidic coatings on black carbon are calculated to have a significant impact on the critical supersaturation of these particles. The measured distribution of aspect ratios of dust and other particles in our samples ranged nonuniformly between 1.0 and 4.6 with a mean of 1.4, which can affect assessment of extinction-to-backscatter ratios over the case where spherical geometry is assumed.


With every major choice we face we "run through the numbers" to guide our decision-making and legitimise the outcomes. Financial modelling helps managers to make more informed decisions and, crucially, win corporate commitment for those decisions. The ability to construct useful financial models with speed and accuracy is becoming a key skill for all executives to master. However, this is a skill few managers and businesses know how to develop. For the busy executive or finance officer, an Excel user-manual is no place to start - today's financial models have moved a long way from the original single-sheet spreadsheets that most of us feel comfortable manipulating. Modern spreadsheets allow advanced managers to adopt advanced decision-making and analysis tools, but few have time or programming skills to use the spreadsheets to the full. This book will show managers how they can extend their decision-making capabilities by mastering the use and abuse of financial models. This is the ultimate book and disk combination that will help finance professionals and business students alike to become more proficient in building Microsoft Excel models and applying corporate finance concepts.The Mastering Series are your practical guides to gaining the knowledge you need to succeed in the financial world. With the very latest practical examples, exercises and templates used throughout for ease of understanding, The Mastering Series covers every aspect of the topic from the basic essential skills you need to perform your job effectively to the more advanced skills to get you to the top. Written by practitioners for practitioners, these books give you just what you need - and nothing more - to succeed in finance. Several of the titles also come with companion CDs to allow you to put the book's ideas into action straightaway. The Mastering Series: Practical, comprehensive, essential.