G. A. Cohen's critique of standard liberal interpretations of the difference principle has been very influential. According to Cohen, justice is not realized simply because the state's tax policies and other distributive tools maximize the position of the worst off. Rather – possibly in addition to, but not to the exclusion of, certain state policies – justice requires talented people to improve the position of the worst off through their actions in their daily lives. Specifically, it prohibits talented people from insisting on inequality-causing incentives. To this extent, Cohen's view of distributive justice is anti-statist. On standard liberal interpretations, human rights are such that, logically, they can be violated only by states, not private individuals. An individual who tortures someone commits a moral wrong but does not violate the victim's human rights. For this reason, the crime is less problematic than it would have been had a police officer done it on behalf of the state. To this extent the standard liberal understanding of human rights is statist. This parallel between liberal understandings of distributive justice and human rights raises two questions: (1) Is the statist understanding of human rights vulnerable to Cohenian criticisms parallel to those that he canvasses against the statist understanding of distributive justice? (2) If so, should we welcome an anti-statist understanding of human rights, or should we see it as a problem with Cohen's critique of a statist focus in distributive justice that it commits us to an implausible anti-statist view of human rights?


Tun Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi served as Prime Minister of Malaysia from 2003 to 2009. Better known as Pak Lah, he came in office with a huge mandate. In the 2004 General Elections, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) won its best performance since 1969. Five years later in the 2008 GE, the BN won only 140 of 222 seats, a net loss of 58 seats. More importantly it meant the BN lost its customary two-thirds majority in parliament. More than thirty authors, Malaysians and non-Malaysians, give an assessment of the one-term Abdullah administration. The central theme of the book is the question: how did Tun Abdullah change the Malaysian political landscape? This volume offers a comprehensive glimpse of the Abdullah administration from both inside and outside the administration. "He assumed office as PM on a vast sea of optimism and he could have accomplished more. Indeed his motto when assuming office was "work with him, not for him". He should have taken the opportunities of making sweeping changes in the cabinet, the civil service, judiciary and other organs of power and governance." -Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah- Contributors: Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi; Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah; Dato' Seri Abdul Azim Zabidi; Datuk Zaid Ibrahim; Dato' Seri Mohamed Khir Bin Toyo; Datuk Denison Jayasooria; Datuk Ramesh Chander; YB Liew Chin Tong; Edmund T. S. Bon; William Case; Chua Sue-Ann; Mohd. Faisal Syam Bin Abdol Hazis; Farish A. Noor; Edmund Terence Gomez; Wan Hamidi Hamid; Gerhard Hoffstaedter; K. Kabilan; Clive Kessler; Khadijah Khalid; Khaw Veon Szu; Kuik Cheng-Chwee; Lee Kam Hing; Joseph Chin Yong Liow; Lim Teck Ghee; Maria Chin Abdullah; Anil Netto; Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad; Ooi Kee Beng; Oon Yeoh; Arnold Puyok; Rita Sim; Jason Tan; Andrew Willford and Zulkifli Bin Sulong


How universities and university people deal with plagiarism is articulated in universities' plagiarism policies. Universities, policies and people are all located in a bigger context, one which is being increasingly shaped by global issues. Some global issues of particular relevance to plagiarism are associated with the Internet and its attendant values and practices, Westernisation and notions of individualism versus collectivism, and contested constructions of the concept of 'author'. Within this dynamic milieu, individual universities attempt to formalise appropriate policy statements. The policy of one Australian university is analysed here and suggestions offered regarding possible directions for research which seeks to reconcile plagiarism policy and practice with the global tides buffeting universities and those who work in them.


Helicobacter pylori is a prevalent human parasite (infecting half the world's population) and is linked to a variety of gut disorders, including severe gastritis and gastric carcinoma. Higashi et al. have elucidated the steps taken by the bacterial CagA protein that transform host cells. After CagA protein is injected by H. pylori into host cells, it is phosphorylated on tyrosine residues by host kinases. Phosphorylated CagA then binds to the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain-containing tyrosine phosphatase (SHP-2), which stimulates SHP-2 translocation to the cell surface where it displays its phosphatase activity. Active membrane-associated SHP-2 then stimulates morphological changes in the host cell that are the prelude to cellular transformation. H. Higashi, R. Tsutsumi, S. Muto, T. Sugiyama, T. Azuma, M. Asaka, M. Hatakeyama, SHP-2 tyrosine phosphatase as an intracellular target of Helicobacter pylori CagA protein. Science 295, 683-686 (2002). [Abstract] [Full Text]


BackgroundThe effects of hydralazine plus isosorbide dinitrate were compared with those of enalapril in 804 men receiving digoxin and diuretic therapy for chronic congestive heart failure (CHF) in the Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Vasodilator-Heart Failure Trial (V-HeFT II). Methods and ResultsPatients were randomly assigned to receive 20 mg of enalapril or 300 mg of hydralazine plus 160 mg of isosorbide dinitrate daily. At 2 years, treatment with enalapril resulted in a significant (28%/o) reduction in mortality relative to the active control treatment. Baseline variables were examined to determine their impact on risk of mortality and on relative response to treatment. Mortality rates were significantly higher in patients with severe ventricular arrhythmias; in patients with lowbaseline ejection fractions, low peak oxygen consumption, and low systolic blood pressures; in patients with high cardiothoracic ratios, high scores indicating greater impairment on a quality-of-life questionnaire, and high plasma norepinephrine or renin levels; and in patients in New York Heart Association (NYHA) classes III and IV. Coronary artery disease, duration of CHF, and patient age were not predictive of mortality. Enalapril reduced mortality significantly compared with hydralazine/isosorbide dinitrate in patient subgroups with high plasma renin or norepinephrine levels and in patients with low cardiothoracic ratios. Furthermore, enalapril conferred significantly greater protection from mortality than hydralazine/isosorbide dinitrate in patients in NYHA classes I and II and in patients without arrhythmias or with < 10 premature ventricular contractions per hour. ConclusionsOf the prerandomization characteristics that were predictive of mortality in patients with CHF, only neurohormone measurements, cardiothoracic ratios, arrhythmia severity, and NYHA class identified subgroups of patients who benefited most from treatment with enalapril; a treatment interaction across strata was detected only for plasma norepinephrine and NYHA class. In no patient subgroup was the mortality with enalapril treatment significantly higher than the mortality with hydralazine/isosorbide dinitrate treatment.


We provide evidence of how restrictions on labor mobility, such as serfdom and other types of labor coercion, impact labor market outcomes. To do so, we estimate the impact of a large negative shock to labor mobility in the form of the reintroduction of serfdom in Denmark in 1733, which was targeted at limiting the mobility of farmhands. Using a unique data source based on the archives of estates from the eighteenth century, we test whether serfdom affected the wages of farmhands more strongly than other groups in the labor market, and results based on a differences-in-differences approach reveal evidence consistent with a strong negative effect following its introduction. We also investigate whether one mechanism was that boys with rural backgrounds were prevented from taking up apprenticeships in towns, and find suggestive evidence that this was indeed the case. Thus, our results suggest that serfdom was effectively reducing mobility.


Mine grouting programs generally fall into two general methods: flushing and grout columns. With the flushing method, the entire mine under the area to be protected is filled. Grout columns are used to shorten the free span of a mine roof to the point where arching will prevent any spalling from progressing to the ground surface. Because of its fineness and low cost, flyash is commonly used as a bulk filler in both methods. Cement and sometimes coarse aggregate are utilized with the flyash to form the mine grout mixture. Based on conditions encountered at the mine, the consistency and proportions of flyash-cement grout can be modified to suit the mine conditions. The compressive strengths of various flyash-cement grouts used for mine grouting are presented in this paper. The use of high volume grouting techniques utilizing flyash-cement grout slurries for mine subsidence control are discussed. A recent project is discussed to illustrate the techniques, equipment and the grout mix that can be utilized.


The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is an extension of the Pierre Auger Observatory. It is used to detect radio emission from extensive air showers in the 30 80 MHz frequency band. A focus of interest is the dependence of the radio emission on shower parameters such as the energy and the atmospheric depth of the shower maximum. After three phases of deployment, AERA now consists of 153 autonomous radio stations with different spacings, covering an area of about 17 km2. The size, station spacings, and geographic location at the same site or near other Auger extensions, are all targeted at cosmic ray energies above 1017 eV. The array allows us to explore different technical schemes to measure the radio emission as well as to cross calibrate our measurements with the established baseline detectors of the Auger Observatory. We present the most recent technological developments and selected experimental results obtained with AERA.


Objective. To investigate the existence of histamine-excitable nerve fibers in the oral mucosa and to compare the response to histamine provocation in healthy volunteers with that in a small group of patients with chronic oral pain. Material and methods. Thirteen healthy volunteers and six patients suffering from chronic oral pain took part in the study. Blood perfusion was monitored in the hard palate, the tongue, and the skin of the cheek using laser Doppler perfusion imaging (Perimed; Sweden). Baseline scannings were performed, followed by 15 scannings after iontophoresis of histamine (1%). A free description of the sensations was then obtained from the participants after finishing the measurements. Results. Compared to pre-histamine scanning, histamine application resulted in a considerable increase in blood perfusion in all regions (p<0.001) that was significantly higher in skin than in oral mucosa (p<0.001). There were no significant differences between the healthy volunteers and the patients regarding baseline blood flow, increased blood perfusion, or flare size after histamine provocation. The sensory impression was reported to be more persistent and intense in the skin than in the oral mucosa. No effect on mucosa could be detected by visual inspection. Conclusions. Intra-oral flare could be induced by activating histamine-excitable nerve fibers. Both duration and intensity of the flare were considerably less pronounced than in the control skin site. Histamine application was not clearly associated with itch.


The aim of this thesis is to contribute to a better understanding of users' experience of e-government services in developing countries through a study of a specific e-government service, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) portal. This thesis therefore encompasses both the users' experience of e-government services and effect of the digital divide in the use of e-government services.
The NIS portal was chosen as the context for this study because it is the most well-developed e-government service in Nigeria. Those seeking to travel in and out of the country have no option but to use it regardless of whether they are currently living in Nigeria. Given the importance of profiling a significant number of users to support the investigation of relationships between variables, and the geographic scatter of the respondents, snowball sampling was used for the questionnaire survey used to collect the data. The questionnaire design and subsequent analysis was informed by previous research and theory in the fields of customer satisfaction, service quality, technology adoption and the digital divide. 351 completed questionnaires were collected and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) Software. All respondents identified themselves as having used the NIS portal, with 50% reporting their main place of residence as Nigeria, and the remainder being resident in other countries.
The analysis of descriptive statistics and the responses to the open questions and statements used in the questionnaire suggested that the respondents had a low level of satisfaction with the NIS website, with much of their concern stemming from issues pertaining to security, support and trustworthiness. There were also concerns documented regarding the safety of personal and financial data. They also mentioned significant issues with the ease of use of the website and its quality. Nonetheless, users valued the quality of the content and information available through the portal and were positive about its convenience and potential to deliver benefits. In terms of usage barriers, the most significant is Nigeria's intermittent electricity supply, closely followed by the high cost of internet access, both of which pose a particular challenge, given the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria.
Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to generate an e-government user experience scale confirming the importance of dimensionsidentified by other researchers, as well as identifying new factors. These were: security and support, content and information, ease of use, benefits, barriers, convenience, trust and website quality. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to investigate the relationships between these factors. Content and information were found to have a significant effect on ease of use and convenience. Website quality was found to have a significant effect on ease of use, security and support. The website's ease of use was found to have a significant effect on barriers and convenience to have a significant effect on perceived benefits. Meanwhile, security and support was found to have a significant effect on trustworthiness. Barriers and benefits as well as trustworthiness were all found to have a significant effect on user satisfaction.
Demographic statistics supported hypotheses testing on the digital divide in the use of e-government services. Demographic (age, education, gender and income), social-economic (employment) and geographic (location: rural and urban, developing and developed countries) factors affected the e-government users' internet experience, their access to computing facilities and their e-government experience thus confirming that a digital divide exists amongst NIS portal users.
This research makes a number of contributions. Firstly, it is one of a very few significant studies to explore user experience of an e-government portal in a major developing country. As a result, it has brought to light important concerns regarding users' security, privacy and trustworthiness as they relate to their personal information. Secondly, it compares users both inside and outside the country, thereby offering unique insights on the digital divide. Finally, it proposes an e-government user-experience model that identifies the relationships between the various factors that contribute to user satisfaction. Suggestions are offered for practitioners, e-government policymakers and researchers.


Speaking a language involves more than simply knowing the linguistic components of the message, and developing language skills requires more than grammatical comprehension and vocabulary memorization (Chastain, 1988). In teaching-learning processes, some methods which teachers use and the teachers' own speaking accuracy and  fluency in the ELT classes for the foreign language students especially in Iran may have some positive and negative effects on ELT students' speaking fluency and accuracy. This study attempts to probe one of the main concerns of language learners, that is, how to improve their speaking components, e.g. oral fluency and accuracy through comparison of the effects of teacher's speaking accuracy vs. fluency on EFL learners' oral skill. The current study was designed as a true experimental research and the data were gathered from 60 ELT students of English language and literature in Iran. The data were the recorded speaking transcripts which were analyzed to show the probable progresses after four-time (10 weeks) treatment. The factors to be considered in present study were the numbers of filled and unfilled pauses in each narration, the total number of words per minute, mean length of utterance, and number of stressed words. The results were compared and their temporal and linguistic measures were correlated with their fluency scores. They revealed that the speech rate, the mean length of utterance, phonation time ratio and the number of stressed words produced per minute were the best predictors of fluency scores, and thus, students' speaking fluency increased, whereas the students' speaking accuracy  decreased in some areas of speaking abilities and oral communications.


In a comparison of grassland, moorland and woodland habitats in north-east England, moorland sites were found to be the most diverse and species-rich and to support a carabid fauna of larger body size than grassland sites. Within the grassland sites, intensification of management resulted in a reduction both in species richness and in body size. The species composition of intensively managed sites differed from that of the less intensive, with management appearing to favour species associated with drier conditions.

Similarly, a study of data from 110 sets of pitfall traps in managed and unmanaged grassland in Scotland found a general reduction in diversity, rarity and body size as management intensified, with silage fields having especially low values of WML. Diversity and rarity fell sharply between the second and third levels of management. Multivariate analysis of the species composition also made a clear distinction between these levels, grouping sites in bands 1 and 2 separately from those in bands 3 to 5. A more detailed examination of the effects of the different components of management found that body size was dependent mostly on the type and age of the sward, while diversity and rarity responded to nutrient inputs.

In a subset of 36 of the 110 Scottish sites, the carabid assemblages of sown wildflower swards, sown grass and clover, and uncultivated grassland were compared. Body size, species richness and diversity were all highest in the unmanaged swards, and species richness and diversity were higher in wildflower swards than in sown grasses. The effects of organic nutrient input were investigated at sites receiving input of slurry, sewage sludge or faecal material from flocks of grazing geese, but not significant relationships could be elucidated due to overwhelming effects of sward type and management intensity.


Data generated by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are growing fast with the linkage of biobank samples to health records, and expanding capture of high-dimensional molecular phenotypes. However the utility of these efforts can only be fully realised if their complete results are collected from their heterogeneous sources and formats, harmonised and made programmatically accessible. Here we present the OpenGWAS database, an open source, open access, scalable and high-performance cloud-based data infrastructure that imports and publishes complete GWAS summary datasets and metadata for the scientific community. Our import pipeline harmonises these datasets against dbSNP and the human genome reference sequence, generates summary reports and standardises the format of results and metadata. Users can access the data via a website, an application programming interface, R and Python packages, and also as downloadable files that can be rapidly queried in high performance computing environments. OpenGWAS currently contains 126 billion genetic associations from 14,582 complete GWAS datasets representing a range of different human phenotypes and disease outcomes across different populations. We developed R and Python packages to serve as conduits between these GWAS data sources and a range of available analytical tools, enabling Mendelian randomization, genetic colocalisation analysis, fine mapping, genetic correlation and locus visualisation. OpenGWAS is freely accessible at https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk, and has been designed to facilitate integration with third party analytical tools.


We have investigated the low-temperature physical properties of BaTi2Sb2O and Ba1−xNaxTi2Sb2O (x=0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3) by means of muon spin rotation (μSR) and SQUID magnetometry. Our measurements reveal the absence of magnetic ordering below TDW=58 K in the parent compound. Therefore the phase transition at this temperature observed by magnetometry is most likely due to the formation of a charge-denisty wave (CDW). Upon substitution of barium by sodium in Ba1−xNaxTi2Sb2O we find for x=0.25 superconductivity with a maximum Tc=5.1 K in the magnetization and a bulk Tc,bulk=4.5 K in the μSR measurements. The temperature dependency of the London penetration depth λ−2(T) of the optimally doped compound can be well explained within a conventional weak-coupling scenario in the clean limit.


1. Since important interrelationships between haemodynamic and hormone indices are possible in cardiac failure, measurements of cardiac output, mean pulmonary artery pressure, plasma renin activity, angiotensin II and aldosterone were carried out before and during acute and chronic frusemide therapy in patients with oedematous heart failure who had been given digoxin. 2. Cardiac output fell significantly 90 min after acute frusemide infection, then returned to baseline. Mean pulmonary artery pressure declined steadily throughout the 4 h of observation. 3. These haemodynamic changes occurred in the absence of major hormonal fluctuations and related presumably to direct vascular and diuretic actions of frusemide. 4. With more chronic (8-10 days) oral frusemide therapy, reciprocal changes between haemodynamic and hormone indices were observed. As the diuretic response to frusemide diminished, cardiac output and pulmonary artery pressure declined whereas the renin-angiotensin system was activated. Statistically significant inverse correlations were observed between these haemodynamic and hormone indices. 5. In both acute and chronic phases of the study, fluctuations in aldosterone levels were regulated by the renin-angiotensin system whereas ACTH, plasma potassium and plasma sodium played, at best, supportive roles.


H7N9 Adaptation Puzzling and alarming reports of an outbreak in early 2013 of human infections by a low-pathogenicity avian influenza virus has rocked the poultry industry in central eastern China and brought fears of initiating a human pandemic. Over 130 human cases have been reported with 37 deaths until closure of poultry markets accompanied a near-cessation of human case reports. From surveillance sampling of >10,000 isolates obtained during April 2013, Zhang et al. (p. 410, published online 18 July) took 37 isolates of avian origin H7N9 and compared them to human H7N9 isolates. The majority of H7N9 isolates came from live poultry markets, although some originated in pigeons. Sequence analysis indicated that the chicken isolates had retained the avian characteristics at sites on the influenza genes for PB2 and the surface hemagglutinin HA, where adaptive mutations have been observed before. Sequence analysis also showed a higher variability in the internal genes than in HA and neuraminidase NA. By using glycan arrays, it was shown that avian and human isolates bound to human, but also to some extent to avian, receptors. As expected, the virus replicated well in chickens without causing disease, whereas in mice only the human isolates were highly pathogenic. The human virus, but not the avian, transmitted between ferrets through the air. A large survey of H7N9 influenza viruses in China reveals a spectrum of mutation and virulence. A newly emerged H7N9 virus has caused 132 human infections with 37 deaths in China since 18 February 2013. Control measures in H7N9 virus–positive live poultry markets have reduced the number of infections; however, the character of the virus, including its pandemic potential, remains largely unknown. We systematically analyzed H7N9 viruses isolated from birds and humans. The viruses were genetically closely related and bound to human airway receptors; some also maintained the ability to bind to avian airway receptors. The viruses isolated from birds were nonpathogenic in chickens, ducks, and mice; however, the viruses isolated from humans caused up to 30% body weight loss in mice. Most importantly, one virus isolated from humans was highly transmissible in ferrets by respiratory droplet. Our findings indicate nothing to reduce the concern that these viruses can transmit between humans.


In an unheralded action in December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed a comprehensive set of space debris mitigation guidelines, which had been adopted just six months earlier by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). This landmark decision represented the culmination of a 10-year strategic plan by the United States that was as much unconventional as it was methodical. Today, all the world's major space-faring nations and organizations recognize the need to control the creation of man-made debris in Earth orbit to protect the space environment for future generations. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The history of the growth of the planet's orbital debris population and the subsequent need to manage it is a classical tale of the unintended consequences of man's foray into a new frontier. The first object cataloged in Earth orbit in 1957 by the fledgling US Space Surveillance Network, as it was soon to be known, was not Sputnik 1, but a piece of space debris, namely the rocket body which placed the famous spacecraft into orbit. A half-century later, the orbital debris population that poses distinct hazards to the operation of the thousand satellites now providing invaluable services to the economy and security of the world numbers in the millions. By the 1960s, a few individuals had the foresight to predict the accumulation of debris in Earth orbit, but not until 1979 did NASA begin a formal effort to investigate the nature and magnitude of the space debris population. NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center QESC) in Houston, Texas, is now viewed as the center of excellence for orbital debris research for the entire US government. The first national orbital debris conference was held at JSC in 1982, followed in 1984 by the first international workshop on orbital debris at the 25th Scientific Assembly of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in Graz, Austria. These initial and largely academic investigations into orbital debris soon took on a more urgent, operational character. Although NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) had been examining the peculiar behavior of US Delta launch vehicles flown in the 1970s and 1980s to fragment spontaneously into hundreds of detectable debris after successful missions, the explosion of a dormant European Ariane upper stage in November 1986, into nearly 500 identified pieces served as a wake-up call to the world aerospace community. An international conference on the breakup of launch vehicle upper stages was held at JSC in May 1987. A government: interagency working group prepared the first US national-level report on orbital debris in 1989. Recommendation K of that report called upon the US to "inform other space-faring nations about the conclusions of this report and seek to evaluate the level of understanding and concern of other nations and relevant international organizations about orbital debris issues." The recommendation went on to say that "where appropriate, the United States should enter into discussions with other nations to coordinate debris minimization policies and practices." NASA had begun in 1987 a series of technical interchange meetings with the European Space Agency (ESA) to discuss various aspects of orbital debris research. Less formal meetings with Japan had also already occurred. In the wake of the interagency report, additional bilateral meetings were held by NASA with the Soviet Union (late 1989) and with China (1991). NASA soon realized that maintaining separate bilateral working groups was becoming increasingly difficult and inefficient. In late 1991 the NASA/FSA meetings became trilateral with the addition of Japan, where space activities were managed by three separate organizations: NASDA, NAL, and ISAS. At the NASA/ESA/Japan meeting in October 1992, NASA proposed the establishment of a formal coordination group with an official Terms of Reference. …


The focus on complexity as a problem of the financial meltdown of 2008-09 suggests that crisis is in part epistemological: we now know enough about financial and economic systems to be threatened by their complexity, but not enough to relieve our fears and anxieties about them. What marks the current crisis is anxiety that the financial world has evolved to the point that there are hidden structures, like concentrated "too big to fail" institutions and mechanisms, or like credit default swaps, that have widespread and adverse downsides. I propose an analogy between medicine and law in the sense of "regulatory technology." If bubbles are the disease, then the analogy is to bipolar syndrome - exuberance, or even a little hypomania is okay on the upswing, but true mania is bad, as is the resulting swing to depression. Good regulation, then, would be something like lithium, which keeps us on an even keel. There are two questions. The first is really whether we understand the forces well enough to regulate them. Regulation is a function of prediction; prediction is a function of observed regularity; observed regularities invoke the problem of scientific (not legal) causation; causation returns us to the question whether the human system being analyzed is capable of being reduced to helpful predictive models. The second question is who does the understanding. What we are dealing with instead is a crisis of confidence in those who purport to be experts in what we cannot fathom merely through common sense. The conundrum, of course, is that if it takes an expert to see the problem caused by complexity, how are we, possessing merely common sense, supposed to do anything but rely on their judgment? The epistemological crisis arises from our own judgments to rely on, believe in, trust, or have faith in, that judgment.


We study the density estimation problem with observations generated by certain dynamical systems that admit a unique underlying invariant Lebesgue density. Observations drawn from dynamical systems are not independent and moreover, usual mixing concepts may not be appropriate for measuring the dependence among these observations. By employing the $\mathcal{C}$-mixing concept to measure the dependence, we conduct statistical analysis on the consistency and convergence of the kernel density estimator. Our main results are as follows: First, we show that with properly chosen bandwidth, the kernel density estimator is universally consistent under $L_1$-norm; Second, we establish convergence rates for the estimator with respect to several classes of dynamical systems under $L_1$-norm. In the analysis, the density function $f$ is only assumed to be Holder continuous which is a weak assumption in the literature of nonparametric density estimation and also more realistic in the dynamical system context. Last but not least, we prove that the same convergence rates of the estimator under $L_\infty$-norm and $L_1$-norm can be achieved when the density function is Holder continuous, compactly supported and bounded. The bandwidth selection problem of the kernel density estimator for dynamical system is also discussed in our study via numerical simulations.


Plant transpiration plays a key role in sand-binding zones, but obtaining accurate estimates at an integrated leaf-individual-canopy scale is difficult. In this study, transpiration rates of two typical xerophytic shrubs, Caragana korshinskii and Artemisia ordosica , were investigated during the growing season (April–October) from 2008 to 2012 in the Tengger Desert, a revegetated desert area in China. Gas exchange techniques, sap flow measurements, and the crop evapotranspiration minus micro-lysimeter method were used to evaluate plant transpiration. Transpiration data were subsequently compared with the dynamical normalized leaf area-based extrapolation. The results indicated that at leaf level, the transpiration rates of C. korshinskii and A. ordosica were 2.67 and 4.51 mmol H2O m−2s−1, respectively. The sap flow rates were 0.071 and 0.086 g h−1cm−2 at the tree level, and the transpiration rates were 0.42 and 0.35 mm d−1 at the stand level. The total seasonal transpiration of the two xerophytic shrubs reached 71.79 and 55.62 mm, representing approximately 48.4 and 37.5% of the total rainfall over this period. Direct measurements of plant transpiration and upscaling transpiration from leaf level to the stand level exhibited good correspondence, which verified that leaf area was a reliable representation of scaled transpiration, especially in arid desert regions.


Disgusted by twin scandals at the House Bank and Post Office, voters in 1992 sent a clear message to Washington: The American people wanted sweeping congressional reform. The signs of voter discontent were unmistakable. Dozens of incumbents fell to surprise defeats in their own primaries or the November elections. Term limits were on the ballot in 14 states in 1992, and were approved in each, generally by huge margins. Public opinion polls showed enormous support for other changes as well: For Congress to obey the same civil rights and workplace safety laws it imposed on other Americans; to control runaway federal spending; and particularly for Congress to cut its own budget, staff, and perks. Politicians said they understood. Even before the 1992 elections, the House voted overwhelmingly to close its much-abused bank and to turn over its post office and other functions to a non-partisan administrator. Together the House and Senate created a Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress to reform and streamline Congress's committees, budget process, and working procedures. Congressional candidates were even more adamant about reform. For more than half of the 110 freshmen elected to the House in November 1992, reform was the leading campaign issue. BUSINESS AS USUAL But two years later, little about the Congress has changed. Term limits never even came up for a vote. A balanced budget amendment was defeated, and lesser budget changes sidetracked. Efforts to cut staff, budget, and committees made negligible progress. A measure to apply several employment laws to Congress was approved by the House, but left so many loopholes as to be no threat to business as usual. The non-partisan administrator hired to clean-up House operations quit, complaining that top Congressmen made his job impossible to do, and the selection of a replacement has been delayed by wrangling over changes in the position's charter. Possibly as a result of Congress's failure to reform its operations, Congress's substantive performance has been a disappointment as well, leading to the probability of another anti-incumbent election with another large freshman class. But as voters are once again throwing the rascals out, they might contemplate what went wrong last time. Why didn't Congress, under obvious electoral pressure and with a huge infusion of new blood, do a better job at achieving the clear desires of American voters? NO COMMITMENTS The answer is that the leadership in Congress--Republican as well as Democratic--many of the senior members, and a disappointing number of the 1992 freshmen were not truly committed to reform. Lacking an overwhelming push by the rank-and-file and the public, the barons of the imperial Congress were able to stop reform in its tracks. Their most effective roadblocks were the hijacking of the Joint Reform Committee, the transformation of reform from a bipartisan to a partisan issue, and leadership control of the floor agenda. Initially there were high hopes for the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. House and Senate leaders chose as the panel's chairmen and co-chairmen Senators David Boren and Pete Domenici and Representatives Lee Hamilton and William Gradison, moderates respected by both parties who were known to have genuine concerns about the functioning of Congress. The leaders of the committee announced an aggressive schedule aimed at House and Senate action on a reform package in the fall of 1993. Unfortunately, in making other appointments to the 24-member Joint Committee, the congressional leadership of George Mitchell, Robert Dole, Thomas Foley, and Robert Michel acted like a bankrupt corporation appointing a committee of its own executives to determine what went wrong instead of hiring independent auditors. House Speaker Thomas Foley, for instance, insisted that only sitting members serve on the reform panel, even though retired members have been among the most intelligent critics of the Congress. …


Tumors are collections of heterogeneous populations of cells including cancer cells and a multitude of stromal cells. Although the prevalence of various stromal cells varies between tumors, they include pericytes, fibroblasts, immune, inflammatory and vascular endothelial cells. Stromal cells have the ability to communicate among themselves as well as with cancer cells through direct cell contact and by secretion of growth factors, chemokines, proteases and deposition and remodeling of extracellular matrix (ECM). The stromal network is pivotal to the impact of the microenvironment on tumor initiation, progression and metastasis. Thus, stromal targets may provide opportunities to develop therapies that complement tumor cell targeted therapies. Among these potential targets, fibroblast activation protein (FAP, also called FAPα or seprase) has recently gained attention due to its tightly regulated expression in the tumor stroma and structurally-defined enzymatic activity. FAP is a member of the dipeptidyl aminopeptidase family of serine proteases that also includes its dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV/CD26). FAP is a type II transmembrane protein and has both dipeptidyl peptidase activity, which is shared by other members of the family, and endopeptidase activity including, collagenolytic activity capable of degrading gelatin and type I collagen. Although it has been suggested that FAP may have the potential to degrade ECM, the in vivo substrate(s) is still not defined. FAP is expressed in over 90% of common human epithelial cancers on cancer-associated fibroblasts, but not the cancer cells per se. Although also expressed in wound healing and other pathologic settings, (in particular chronic inflammation and fibrosis), FAP is not detected in benign tumors or normal adult tissues. Given the highly regulated expression and restricted distribution of FAP, lack of overt pathology in FAP-deficient mice, animal results suggesting that ectopic over expression of FAP promotes tumorigenesis and the correlation between high FAP expression and poor cancer prognosis, it has been suggested that FAP inhibition may be a useful target for cancer therapeutics. We studied the impact of genetic deletion of FAP and pharmacologic inhibition of the enzymatic activities of FAP and CD26, on the growth of colon and pancreatic syngeneic transplanted tumors and in a K-rasG12D driven endogenous lung tumor model in immunocompetent mice. We found that endogenous FAP expressed on tumor stromal cells promotes tumor progression in each of these models via its enzymatic activity and that deficiency in FAP resulted in an accumulation of collagen. Interestingly, although specific inhibition of CD26 activity did not affect transplanted colon or pancreatic tumor growth, it did have a negative effect on tumor growth in lung where CD26 is expressed on epithelial cells and infiltrating inflammatory cells. FAP promoted tumor growth by promoting tumor cell proliferation, and was required for tumor stromagenesis and vascularization. These results suggest that inhibition of FAP enzymatic activity warrants further investigation for its potential therapeutic effect either alone or in combination with tumor cell targeted therapies. This abstract was published in Cancer Immunity, a Cancer Research Institute journal that ceased publication in 2013 and is now provided online in association with Cancer Immunology Research.


Despite the number of currently available datasets on video-question answering, there still remains a need for a dataset involving multi-step and non-factoid answers. Moreover, relying on video transcripts remains an under-explored topic. To adequately address this, we propose a new question answering task on instructional videos, because of their verbose and narrative nature. While previous studies on video question answering have focused on generating a short text as an answer, given a question and video clip, our task aims to identify a span of a video segment as an answer which contains instructional details with various granularities. This work focuses on screencast tutorial videos pertaining to an image editing program. We introduce a dataset, TutorialVQA, consisting of about 6,000 manually collected triples of (video, question, answer span). We also provide experimental results with several baseline algorithms using the video transcripts. The results indicate that the task is challenging and call for the investigation of new algorithms.


This study describes the patterns of land control and agrarian structure in 12 rice-producing villages in Indonesia. It also explores the relationship between landholding, farm and non-farm incomes.

The apparent drastic decline in numbers of small farms in the 2013 Agricultural Census is probably caused by changing definitions of 'farm', and does not apply to the small-scale food production sector. Inequality of landholding in some villages is alarming in terms of social efficiency and approaches polarization. Large-scale land ownership, however, does not lead to large-scale farming; large landowners tend to allocate their land in small parcels to tenants in share-cropping (or, less commonly, rental) arangements. Speculative investment in land is one cause of rapidly rising prices of agricultural land. Young people and women have limited access to land. Classic agrarian studies assumes that land tenure is the main determinant of capital accumulation in farm households. However, this study found much variation in agrarian structures because of the dynamics of agricultural and non-agricultural employment and incomes


Uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas since the onset of the Indo-Asia collision is held responsible for Asian aridifi cation and monsoon intensifi cation, but may also have gradually cooled global climate, leading to the 34 Ma Eocene-Oligocene transition. To unravel the interplay between Tibetan uplift and global climate, proxy records of Asian paleoenvironments constrained by accurate age models are needed for the Paleogene Period. Here we report the 38 Ma appearance of high-altitude vegetation recovered from palynological assemblages in precisely dated lacustrine sediments from the Xining Basin of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau region. This result confi rms previous evidence for important regional uplift in the central and northern Tibetan Plateau regions during the early stage of the Indo-Asia collision. This is consistent with the idea that the associated increase in rock weathering and erosion contributed to lowering of atmospheric CO 2 , leading to the Eocene-Oligocene transition.


The study of lake-level variability of five selected areas across Great Slave Lake (GSL) using satellite altimetry is presented. Data from Topex/Poseidon (TP) and Jason-1 (J1) missions at GSL for the ice-free seasons of 1993-2002 and 2002-2008, respectively, reveal lower performance of J1 for areas closer to 20 km from the coastline compared to 10 km for TP. A calculated bias of 6.99 cm was subtracted to J1 range since TP has better tracking of shoreline waters and lower data rejection. High correlation coefficients for the relative rate of change between lake altimetry heights (LAHs) and corresponding gauge data for Yellowknife Bay and Hay River support the use of LAH changes as effective indicators of variability at GSL. Differences in LAH between the five areas indicate a nonuniform slope which we relate more to variability of the surface water temperature distribution than wind effects. The deeper and colder areas are associated to the least change of LAH gradient through time; therefore, they represent ideal areas to study interannual climate variability. A potential correlation between areas with higher variability in LAH gradients and higher changes in modeled surface water temperatures during the 2003 ice free season is observed.


OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the risk of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLA-BSIs) remained constant over the duration of peripherally inserted central venous catheters (PICCs) in high-risk neonates. PATIENT AND METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of NICU patients who had a PICC inserted between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2008. A Poisson regression model with linear spline terms to model time since PICC insertion was used to evaluate potential changes in the risk of CLA-BSI while adjusting for other variables. RESULTS: Six hundred eighty-three neonates were eligible for analysis. There were 21 CLA-BSIs within a follow-up period of 10 470 catheter-days. The incidence of PICC-associated CLA-BSI was 2.01 per 1 000 catheter-days (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.24–3.06). The incidence rate of CLA-BSIs increased by 14% per day during the first 18 days after PICC insertion (incidence rate ratio [IRR]: 1.14 [95% CI: 1.04–1.25]). From days 19 through 35 after PICC insertion, the trend reversed (IRR: 0.8 [95% CI: 0.66–0.96]). From days 36 through 60 after PICC insertion, the incidence rate of CLA-BSI again increased by 33% per day (IRR: 1.33 [95% CI: 1.12–1.57]). There was no statistically significant association between the risk of CLA-BSI and gestational age groups, birth weight groups, or chronological age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that catheter duration is an important risk factor for PICC-associated CLA-BSI in the NICU. A significant daily increase in the risk of CLA-BSI after 35 days may warrant PICC replacement if intravascular access is necessary beyond that period.


This Article stakes out an ethical argument in favor of prosecutorial leadership on sentencing reform. Prosecutors have a duty as "ministers of justice" to go beyond seeking appropriate conviction and punishment in individual cases, and to think about the delivery of criminal justice on a systemic level ― promoting criminal justice policies that further broader societal ends. While other authors have explored the tensions between a prosecutor's adversarial duties and "minister of justice" role in the context of specific litigation, few have explored what it means to be an "administer" of justice in the wider political arena. The author sets forth a new construct of what is required for a prosecutor to be a neutral, nonpartisan "administer of justice" in her legislative and public advocacy activities. Applying this paradigm to the ongoing national debate about sentencing reform, the author argues that a prosecutor's administrative responsibilities as a leader in the criminal justice establishment and her fiduciary responsibilities as a representative of the sovereign should compel her to join in the effort to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing provisions for most drug and non-violent offenses. Not only are mandatory sentences in most instances inefficacious and unduly coercive, but they allow for an arbitrary and discriminatory application that is essentially unreviewable by courts. The author distinguishes his argument against mandatory minimum penalties from the so-called "Smart on Crime" movement, by grounding a prosecutor's duty to promote sentencing reform in ethical reasoning as opposed to pragmatic or cost-savings considerations. A second important question the author addresses in this Article is how an ethical prosecutor should make plea bargaining decisions in the face of mandatory minimum prison terms that are retained by the legislature. Even with political support from some of this nation's most conscientious prosecutors, state legislatures are unlikely to repeal or cut back on all mandatory minimum sentences. Some mandatory prison terms — for crimes such as murder, repeat offense OUI and aggravated sexual assault — will likely stay on the books notwithstanding current calls for reform and the robust advocacy recommended above. In the second half of this Article, the author addresses the prosecutor's ethical conduct in charging and plea bargaining crimes that carry mandatory prison terms. While there has been substantial legal scholarship to date that has decried the manner in which mandatory minimum penalties have transferred sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors, beyond that descriptive lament there has been very little attention paid to how exactly prosecutorial discretion might be more meaningfully channeled and constrained. The author argues that prosecutors could mitigate many of the harsh and unjust consequences of mandatory minimum sentences through internal self-regulation; that is, by instituting and publishing clear office policies governing when line prosecutors may dismiss or reduce charges that carry them. He proposes specific guidelines that state prosecutors should adopt to ensure a consistent and even-handed application of mandatory minimum penalties, so that line prosecutors do not abuse the substantial discretion that has been afforded them in the plea bargaining process.


Most banks' compliance programs were invented in the 1970s in response to a buildup of consumer laws and regulations. They were designed largely by consumer-regulation examiners who took the lead as regulators began to get serious about compliance. The old model, which has worked well for a long time, is simple. Every bank has a compliance officer, and if the institution is large enough, a compliance unit. Many have a separate Community Reinvestment Act officer and/or unit. Every bank has a process for monitoring regulatory change, for establishing policy and procedure, for training staff, for compliance monitoring. Most have someone charged with collecting, reporting, and maybe analyzing Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and other lending data. The structure varies in that compliance may be located in the legal department, the lending department, the loan review area, the audit area, or as a freestanding function. While changes to this model have been made, banks are generally still handling compliance much as they did two decades ago. Meanwhile, banking has changed dramatically, but there has been little thinking about whether it is time for a new management model for compliance. Perhaps the reason is that compliance is not interesting to senior managers. As a result, unless a crisis erupts, they tend to delegate it as much as possible and to think about it as little as possible. In most banks, they have delegated it to good people who do the job well. However, most compliance officers do not think about compliance strategically. They are trying to do what they do better, but are not reevaluating whether they are doing the right things in the first place. The strategic vision and drive for change comes from the top. Daybreak of the revolution The external environment is changing quickly in many areas, but especially with regulatory reform and technology. There is potential for enormous upside opportunity to make things better--for deregulation, technology, and new management methods to make compliance easier, cheaper, and less risky. There are also huge risks that banks will come out worse--with badly crafted deregulation, eventual re-regulation, and poorly designed, high-cost compliance programs. Senior managers seeking to make their banks more strategically competitive (and compliance officers trying to do more with less) should be thinking big--strategically, from the ground up--about what their real compliance goals are and how best to reach them. The ingredients of the new compliance model will include these steps: * Make deregulation a reason to change. Today, there is a real chance that regulatory burden may go down instead of up. It would be a mistake to think it will disappear and to eliminate compliance systems. But a reversal of the growth curve provides the opportunity to rethink how compliance is done. Banks should seize it and make the most of it. * Use--and prepare for--technology. Technology is going to transform every aspect of compliance. Forms, manuals, training classrooms, and paper reports are going to be replaced by electronic data. Computer systems will also perform many types of knowledge work--for instance, large parts of targeting markets, loan underwriting, loan processing, product pricing, training, and auditing. All these functions involve compliance issues. Tellers, customer service staffs, and loan officers will not go through training and receive a compliance manual for reference. Instead, the training function will merge with the information resources function in electronic form. They will turn to the bank's information base for practical answers to real issues when they arise. In keeping with the new emphasis on accountability, they will pass standard computer tests to show they have mastered the needed material. This compliance information will be integrated into the broader knowledge base the same staff need--product information, central information file data, bank policy on various situations that may confront the employee--all there for ready access, giving the same answers to every employee. …


Existing training techniques for spiking neural networks tend to be monolithic in nature and scale poorly to larger networks.
This thesis aims to address this issue by providing an automated technique for combining certain types of functional groupings of spiking neurons into composite functional networks. The technique takes the form of an algorithm which uses constraint programming to ensure that four axioms hold true in the network; the axioms having been designed to ensure that signals arrive simultaneously to component groupings. A number of experiments were conducted in which the algorithm was used to combine component groupings into more complex composite networks; these experiments show the practical utility of the algorithm and reinforce by demonstration the correctness of the axioms. Networks designed for the experiments include memory registers which store binary values, binary counters, and a robot-control network for navigating a variant of the maze described by the T-Maze problem.


The auditor's guide to ensuring correct security and privacy practices in a cloud computing environmentMany organizations are reporting or projecting a significant cost savings through the use of cloud computingutilizing shared computing resources to provide ubiquitous access for organizations and end users. Just as many organizations, however, are expressing concern with security and privacy issues for their organization's data in the "cloud." Auditing Cloud Computing provides necessary guidance to build a proper audit to ensure operational integrity and customer data protection, among other aspects, are addressed for cloud based resources.Provides necessary guidance to ensure auditors address security and privacy aspects that through a proper audit can provide a specified level of assurance for an organization's resourcesReveals effective methods for evaluating the security and privacy practices of cloud servicesA cloud computing reference for auditors and IT security professionals, as well as those preparing for certification credentials, such as Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)Timely and practical, Auditing Cloud Computing expertly provides information to assist in preparing for an audit addressing cloud computing security and privacy for both businesses and cloud based service providers.


The focus of this thesis is on communication over cooperative information networks. In the first half of the thesis, we consider lossy source coding problems where a relay assists in the communication of a source stream between two terminals. The following two configurations are studied – (1) The Slepian-Wolf problem setup when the two encoding terminals are allowed a certain degree of collaboration in describing the source to the decoder and (2) A cascade communication system where the communication between the source and the destination is enabled through a relay (or a set of relays). We characterize rate-distortion tradeoffs and compute it explicitly for specific cases when the sources are respectively, jointly Gaussian and binary symmetric. In the second half of the thesis, we consider channel coding over orthogonal information networks. In particular, we find bounds to the capacity region of networks of Multiple Access Channels (MACs) and networks of Deterministic Broadcast Channels (DBCs). We propose a two layered achievability scheme for communication over such networks – consisting of a physical layer that involves "cleaning up" the constituent channels in the network to create a point-to-point wired overlay, and a network layer that involves routing over this wired overlay. We also consider two multicast problems over orthogonal networks. The first problem is the multiple-access multicast problem over a network of DBCs. In the second problem, we consider multicasting a common message along with independent "private messages" from a source node to a set of receivers on a wired network and characterize the capacity region when the network satisfies a certain min-cut property.


Throughout human history, complementary and alternative medicine in the form of folk medicine has emerged and flourished in every civilization, tribe, and continent. Some forms evolved to become traditional medicine and some disappeared to be forgotten, while others have been labeled untraditional medicine and are now regarded as complementary and alternative medicine. In the past half century, an increasing number of patients and health care providers in the West have become dissatisfied with aspects of traditional Western medicine and have turned their attention to these branches of untraditional medicine. The term integrative or integrated medicine was born recently as the popularity grew in incorporating complementary medicine to reinforce gaps to better fulfill the purpose of traditional medicine.

Complementary and alternative medicine includes many branches such as herbal medicine which increasingly appears in the form of nutritional supplements to elude increasing governmental regulation as demand for these products grow. In an analysis by the International Trade Center that spanned 2010–2013, it was estimated that global medicinal plant production was $50 billion and is growing at a rate of almost 16% annually. The increasing use of various forms of traditional herbal medicine in combatting modern illnesses, particularly the dangerous side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, has proven to be valuable. However, the absence of proper warning labels concerning drug-herb interaction causes an alarming number of emergency clinic cases due to the unwanted consequences of some of these interactions.

Acupuncture is one of these aforementioned branches that has made major inroads into Western medicine. It, along with the increased interest and research in herbal medicine, is likely the most researched branch of alternative medicine in the West. Acupuncture has been recognized for its healing value by the National Institutes of Health in 1997. The subsequent creation of the National Institute of Complementary and Alternative Medicine within the NIH in the United States and the founding of European Congress of Integrative Medicine has promoted research into these various overlooked disciplines. Understanding the value and discovering the merits of each discipline using modern Western scientific methodology is integral in trying to incorporate desirable aspects into traditional medicine. This special issue reviewed and accepted merited articles ranging in topics from the current dilemma of Eastern medicine in the West to the problem of government oversight in the field of herbs that are frequently and misguidedly marketed as nutritional supplements. An article included in this special issue titled "Impact of Chinese herbal medicine on American society and health care system: perspective and concern" reflected these issues and concerns. Also included are articles highlighting research into ginkgo biloba and cancer-related herbal research.

Noting all these development, we turn our attention to a systematic way of doing traditional Chinese medicine research. All articles published in this special issue underscore the positive trend of returning to natural approaches for our health care and emphasize better treatment for all types of human sickness.

There were three research articles, in this special issue, on the mechanisms of immune system and apoptosis for the therapeutic studies of antitumor activities. Both in vitro herbal drugs possess an enormous potential for the cure of certain types of cancer diseases.

It is important to have well-designed pharmaceutical studies to help explain the millennia old theory of Chinese herbology and the mechanism, pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacognostics that elucidate the efficacy of Chinese herbs and unlock its century-old mysteries. The traditional clinical application of traditional Chinese medicine has been based on the characteristics of taste, flavor, channel entering, and actions of the herbs. This special issue includes an article entitled "Anti-inflammatory effects of 81 Chinese herb extracts and their correlation with the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine" which suggests that herbs with pungent flavors be considered the drugs of choice due to their effective anti-inflammatory agents which can be evaluated by their effects on nitrogen oxide (NO) production and cell growth in LPS/IFNγ-costimulated murine macrophage RAW264.7 cells. This discovery could be used as one of the criteria to select different Chinese herbs for anti-inflammatory purposes. Also included in this special issue is an intensive study on the effect of Cryptotanshinone, extracted from the Chinese herb Dan Shen (Salvia miltiorrhiza Bung) on reversing the reproductive and metabolic disturbances in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in rats. This study and its analysis into the possible regulatory mechanism would validate the clinical efficacy of this particular herb for the treatment of PCOS patients.

The guest editors of this special issue hope that, through the articles accepted and published, we can bridge the gap between Western and Eastern medicines and bring them closer in order to further understand the human body and to promote the advancement of health care. Western cancer treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy have adverse effect. Eastern medicine could help mitigate those side effects by minimizing the symptoms and reducing dosage requirements when used in conjunction with current Western treatment and therapies. Immunological, enzymatic molecular biology-related research could benefit from studies of effective Eastern medicinal treatments. Studies of the ways in which Western mainstream medicine and technology can be integrated with traditional Eastern medicine are the focus of this special issue.

Dominic P. Lu

Yemeng Chen

Lixian Xu

Leo M. Lee


Deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) in igneous rocks have played an instrumental role in meeting the growing industrial demand for these elements since the 1960s. Among the many different igneous rocks containing appreciable concentrations of REEs, carbonatites and peralkaline silicate rocks are the most important sources of these elements, both historically and for meeting the anticipated growth in REE demand. The contrasting geochemical and mineralogical characteristics of REE mineralization in carbonatites, peralkaline feldspathoid rocks, and peralkaline granites reflect different sources and evolutionary pathways of their parental magmas, as well as differences in the extent of postmagmatic reworking of primary REE minerals by hydrothermal fluids.


This paper attempts to understand why the Jews, who have benefited so much from capitalism, nevertheless in the main adopt political postures that reject capitalism in favor of its polar opposite, socialism and government intervention into the economy. The author discusses various theories that have been proposed to explain why this group of people, whose socio-economic status might be expected to incline them in the direction of the Republican political party in the U.S., instead vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrat party candidates. Key Words: Jews; Christians; capitalism; socialism; intellectuals; immigration; political bias. I Introduction There is no doubt that at least in some sense, there is a love-hate relationship between Jews and Capitalism. On the one hand, there is a strong tradition of support for socialism, communism, labor unionism, feminism, and affirmative action within the Jewish community. Names such as Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund Freud, Rosa Luxemburg, Bernard Sanders, Laurence Tribe, Paul Wellstone, Alan Dershowitz, and Russell Feingold spring to mind - but only as the veritable tip of an iceberg which flows deep. As well, according to the political aphorism, "Jews have the income of Presbyterians, and yet vote like Puerto Ricans." Jews have a strong tradition of casting ballots for the Democratic Party2 and have long taken a supportive interest in groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is also solidly in the corner of this political party.3 On the other hand, there can he little doubt that capitalism has been very good to Jews. Many members of this faith have prospered as businessmen. This would tend to incline most people in such a situation in the direction of support for the marketplace. Nor can it be denied that several of their numbers have taken on high profile roles in defense of this system. Examples include Gary Becker, Walter Block, Nathaniel Brandon, Aaron Director, Richard Epstein,' Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Rose Friedman, David Gordon, Friedrich Hayck, Steve Horwitz, Israel Kirzner, Benjamin Klein, Dan Klein, Peter Klein, Michael Levin, Ludwig von Mises, Larry Moss, Robert Nozick, Larry Parks, Leonard Piekoff, Richard Posner, Ayn Rand, George Reisman, Murray N. Rothbard, Bernard Seigan, Dan Seligman, and Julian Simon4. Nevertheless, despite such exceptions, the overwhelming preponderance of opinion within this community lies in the direction of government interventionism and dirigisme economies'. What accounts for this rather exceptionable behavior? Various theories have been put forth in an attempt to explain this phenomenon. The present paper is devoted to discussing and evaluating several of them.6 Before embarking on this task, however, we do well to remark on the fact that ordinarily in most analyses of group or individual behavior the analyst does not go too far wrong in relying upon the doctrine of quo bono? That is, most human action can be explained in terms of self-interest. But the Jews, it would appear, offer evidence of being a counter-example to this general rule. Support for affirmative action and gun control on the part of the Jewish community are particularly difficult to understand in this regard. When a plan of coerced racial preferences in education is implemented, it benefits groups such as blacks and Hispanics. But who are the people who lose out when such people are chosen? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Jews are over-represented in this category7. As for guns, who has not heard of the Warsaw uprising, and of the repression these people experienced under Nazi rule? Surely, if the Jews of Germany, Poland and other eastern European countries had been heavily armed in the late 1930s, their fate would have likely been less horrific.8 And this is to say nothing of attacks suffered by Hasidim in neighborhoods such as Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York. …


A significant body of law and policy has been directed to organised crime generally, with Human Trafficking remaining high on the political agenda. This article conducts a contextualised study of Human Trafficking in the UK, examining the underpinning legal framework before drawing on the expertise of key professionals in the sector, who have been interviewed for this purpose. It is suggested that it is not so much the legal framework that is the problem, but rather there are a number of practical and policy-related considerations that the government should consider as part of their efforts to combat Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking.


Traditionally,the theory of human rights limited its application to the public domain, namely the relationships between individuals and public authorities. The great expansion of human rights legislation and concepts in modern national and international law has given rise to a major issue relating to their potential impact on private relationships. This book examines this important topic, which may revolutionize private law. It presents new approaches which strive to broaden the application of human rights to the private field on the ground that power can be abused and human rights can be infringed even when all parties are private. The subject is examined from theoretical and comparative perspectives by leading scholars representing a diversity of legal systems - the United States, Canada, England, South Africa, Germany and Israel. Among the contributors are Professor Todd Rakoff (Harvard), Professor Roger Brownsword (Sheffield), Professor Hugh Beale (Warwick) and Professor Ewan McKendrick (Oxford), Professor Ernest Weinrib and Professor Lorraine Weinrib (Toronto), Professor Christian Starck (Gottingen), Professor Andreas Heldrich (Munich) and others.


The 20th century was a pivotal period at high northern latitudes as it marked the onset of rapid climatic warming brought on by major anthropogenic changes in global atmospheric composition. In parallel, Arctic sea ice extent has been decreasing over the period of available satellite data records. Here, we document how these changes influenced vegetation productivity in adjacent eastern boreal North America. To do this, we used normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data, model simulations of net primary productivity (NPP) and tree‐ring width measurements covering the last 300 years. Climatic and proxy‐climatic data sets were used to explore the relationships between vegetation productivity and Arctic sea ice concentration and extent, and temperatures. Results indicate that an unusually large number of black spruce (Picea mariana) trees entered into a period of growth decline during the late‐20th century (62% of sampled trees; n = 724 cross sections of age >70 years). This finding is coherent with evidence encoded in NDVI and simulated NPP data. Analyses of climatic and vegetation productivity relationships indicate that the influence of recent climatic changes in the studied forests has been via the enhanced moisture stress (i.e. greater water demands) and autotrophic respiration amplified by the declining sea ice concentration in Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait. The recent decline strongly contrasts with other growth reduction events that occurred during the 19th century, which were associated with cooling and high sea ice severity. The recent decline of vegetation productivity is the first one to occur under circumstances related to excess heat in a 300‐year period, and further culminates with an intensifying wildfire regime in the region. Our results concur with observations from other forest ecosystems about intensifying temperature‐driven drought stress and tree mortality with ongoing climatic changes.


We report multiwavelength ultraviolet observations taken with the IRIS satellite, concerning the emergence phase in the upper chromosphere and transition region of an emerging flux region (EFR) embedded in the preexisting field of active region NOAA 12529 in the Sun. IRIS data are complemented by full-disk observations of the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, relevant to the photosphere and the corona. The photospheric configuration of the EFR is also analyzed by measurements taken with the spectropolarimeter on board the Hinode satellite, when the EFR was fully developed. Recurrent intense brightenings that resemble UV bursts, with counterparts in all coronal passbands, are identified at the edges of the EFR. Jet activity is also observed at chromospheric and coronal levels, near the observed brightenings. The analysis of the IRIS line profiles reveals the heating of dense plasma in the low solar atmosphere and the driving of bidirectional high-velocity flows with speed up to 100 km s−1 at the same locations. Compared with previous observations and numerical models, these signatures suggest evidence of several long-lasting, small-scale magnetic reconnection episodes between the emerging bipole and the ambient field. This process leads to the cancellation of a preexisting photospheric flux concentration and appears to occur higher in the atmosphere than usually found in UV bursts, explaining the observed coronal counterparts.


The structure of the pre-Eocene rocks, considered as the "basement" of the Philippines, has been investigated in the Mindoro-Lubang, Romblon-Tablas-Sibuyan, and North Palawan areas. In the former two areas the same pre-Eocene succession of units is recognized from top to bottom: (1) a pre-Eocene olistostrome; (2) an ophiolitic nappe; (3) a schistose sequence (pelites, sandstones, basic schists and marbles); and (4) a gneissic unit. The nature of the contact between the olistostrome and the underlying units is unclear, but the ophiolite and the schistose sequence form two thrust sheets of oceanic origin thrust upon the gneissic unit that is considered a part of a continental basement called the West Philippines Block. Small-scale structures show that the early deformation stage is characterized by a submeridian (0°-N40°E) lineation formed in greenschist to amphibolite facies conditions during the thrusting. Kinematic analysis show that the thrusting was from north to south. In North Palawan, metamorphic rocks with similar microtectonic and kinematic characteristics are found. They are overlain by a Late Jurassic olistostrome which is correlated with the olistostromes found in Calamian, North Mindoro, Carabao, and Buruanga peninsula (North Panay). The microstructural features and the presence of the olistostrome suggest that the North Palawan, Mindoro, Tablas, Romblon, Sibuyan, and Carabao islands belong to the same North Palawan block of Hamilton (1979) which is a continental fragment rifted from Asia in Cenozoic times. It is assumed that the Western Panay and Zamboanga areas, which are characterized by Mesozoic ophiolites and metamorphic rocks, also belong to the North Palawan Block. All these islands experienced, to some extent, the same Mesozoic geohistory: the south verging thrusting is interpreted as the result of an oblique collision of the West Philippines Block with Asia. The contemporaneous left-lateral strike-slip faulting and the calc-alkaline magmatism widespread along the Chinese margin are also included in the geodynamic model.


The application of moire patterns to clothes was examined in this study. The patterns were made by piling up the same two figures of color dots arranged at points of intersection of square fretwork. The number of patterns became innumerable by changing a rotation angle between the two figures, and none of patterns were the same. It proposed the method of making original patterns in this study. First, a dot is divided into four. Next, the basic figure was obtained by moving the divided dots in the shape of radiation at uniform velocity. The dot of red and blue was used for the color dot. The original patterns were made by piling up two basic figures. 20 samples were prepared for the image test. The images of 20 color samples were analyzed by the factor analysis. The main results are as follows. The image factors of these 20 samples are identified by three factors, i.e., potency, activity and refinement. Both brightness and saturation in the pattern by dots are related to the factor of activity. The factor of refined is related to the division patterns of dots.


A two-user discrete memoryless compound multiple-access channel (MAC) with a common message and conferencing decoders is considered. The capacity region is characterized in the special cases of physically degraded channels and unidirectional cooperation, and achievable rate regions are provided for the general case. The results are then extended to the corresponding Gaussian model. In the Gaussian setup, the provided achievable rates are shown to lie within some constant number of bits from the boundary of the capacity region in several special cases. An alternative model, in which the encoders are connected by conferencing links rather than having a common message, is studied as well, and the capacity region for this model is also determined for the cases of physically degraded channels and unidirectional cooperation. Numerical results are also provided to obtain insights about the potential gains of conferencing at the decoders and encoders.


Different automated theorem provers reason in various deductive systems and, thus, produce proof objects which are in general not compatible. To understand and analyze these objects, one needs to study the corresponding proof theory, and then study the language used to represent proofs, on a prover by prover basis. In this work we present an implementation that takes SMT and Connection proof objects from two different provers and imports them both as expansion trees. By representing the proofs in the same framework, all the algorithms and tools available for expansion trees (compression , visualization, sequent calculus proof construction, proof checking, etc.) can be employed uniformly. The expansion proofs can also be used as a validation tool for the proof objects produced.


Chronic gastrointestinal ischaemia (CGI) is generally considered to be a rare disease entity. The majority of patients with CGI are only diagnosed after a long period of slowly progressive abdominal symptoms, in some cases with impressive weight loss. These patients may have a broad range of clinical signs and quite often undergo repeated extensive evaluation of their symptoms with negative outcome. The classical triad of symptoms, also known as 'abdominal angina', is defined as the combination of postprandial pain, weight loss due to fear of pain after eating, and an abdominal bruit during physical examination. Recent studies have shed new lights on these long unchallenged concepts. These studies first showed that CGI is more prevalent than previously thought and can occur in patients with both single- and multi-vessel disease. Second, the disease presents with a much wider range in symptoms, and only a minority of patients present with the classical triad. Third, long-term positive outcomes can be achieved after endovascular or surgical revascularisation therapy in large proportion of patients. This knowledge results from a combination of clinical research by dedicated focus groups, the current widespread availability of new imaging techniques such as CT-angiography, the development of new functional tests for assessment of mucosal perfusion, and the evolution of endovascular stenting options. Clinicians diagnosing and treating patients with acute and chronic abdominal conditions have to be aware of these new developments. We therefore here review the new insights on CGI with a focus on epidemiology, pathophysiology, current diagnostics and treatment.


This dissertation examines the emergence of the ethnohistorically documented Quijos chiefdoms, in the eastern Ecuadorian Andes. It evaluates different alternatives that link the rise of centralized leadership with the organization of agricultural production. To this end I reconstructed the demographic history of a 137 km² region through a full coverage systematic survey, and the patterns of food production and consumption through the analysis of pollen, phytoliths and macroremains from the excavation of 31 tests at locations representing different environmental setting and settlement types. Based on a ceramic chronology established for this project (through the analysis of ceramic materials from 15 test pits and associated carbon dates) I propose a sequence starting at about 600 B.C., with the first manifestations of a regional system of centralized authority appearing after about 500 A.D. The most distinctive expression of this is what appear to be central places in each one of the three subregions encompassed by the survey. The analysis of botanical remains at these locations, and at others representing smaller and peripheral settlements did not show, however, signs of economic differentiation in terms of production or consumption patterns. Thus neither the varying local environmental conditions nor social status, alone or combined, produced distinctive agrarian practices or foodways. Along the same lines, the central places do not seem to have emerged as a strategic move towards controlling agricultural resources, and evidence of staple mobilization or trade networks involving the circulation of local or foreign durable prestige goods is null. Additionally, an analysis of a sample of obsidian artifacts collected through survey and excavations suggests that closeness to source, rather than status, determined the abundance of obsidian materials, while manufacture technology seems to have been standard across settlement types. I propose that frameworks that emphasize the control of economic resources or the importance of specialization of production in the development of complex societies are not useful for characterizing the social and political dynamics of the emerging Quijos chiefdoms, and that current understandings of this region as a hub of exchange activity can be readdressed in light of these findings.


Growing crystals by attaching particles Crystals grow in a number a ways, including pathways involving the assembly of other particles and multi-ion complexes. De Yoreo et al. review the mounting evidence for these nonclassical pathways from new observational and computational techniques, and the thermodynamic basis for these growth mechanisms. Developing predictive models for these crystal growth and nucleation pathways will improve materials synthesis strategies. These approaches will also improve fundamental understanding of natural processes such as biomineralization and trace element cycling in aquatic ecosystems. Science, this issue 10.1126/science.aaa6760 Materials nucleate and grow by the assembly of small particles and multi-ion complexes. BACKGROUND Numerous lines of evidence challenge the traditional interpretations of how crystals nucleate and grow in synthetic and natural systems. In contrast to the monomer-by-monomer addition described in classical models, crystallization by addition of particles, ranging from multi-ion complexes to fully formed nanocrystals, is now recognized as a common phenomenon. This diverse set of pathways results from the complexity of both the free-energy landscapes and the reaction dynamics that govern particle formation and interaction. Whereas experimental observations clearly demonstrate crystallization by particle attachment (CPA), many fundamental aspects remain unknown—particularly the interplay of solution structure, interfacial forces, and particle motion. Thus, a predictive description that connects molecular details to ensemble behavior is lacking. As that description develops, long-standing interpretations of crystal formation patterns in synthetic systems and natural environments must be revisited. Here, we describe the current understanding of CPA, examine some of the nonclassical thermodynamic and dynamic mechanisms known to give rise to experimentally observed pathways, and highlight the challenges to our understanding of these mechanisms. We also explore the factors determining when particle-attachment pathways dominate growth and discuss their implications for interpreting natural crystallization and controlling nanomaterials synthesis. ADVANCES CPA has been observed or inferred in a wide range of synthetic systems—including oxide, metallic, and semiconductor nanoparticles; and zeolites, organic systems, macromolecules, and common biomineral phases formed biomimetically. CPA in natural environments also occurs in geologic and biological minerals. The species identified as being responsible for growth vary widely and include multi-ion complexes, oligomeric clusters, crystalline or amorphous nanoparticles, and monomer-rich liquid droplets. Particle-based pathways exceed the scope of classical theories, which assume that a new phase appears via monomer-by-monomer addition to an isolated cluster. Theoretical studies have attempted to identify the forces that drive CPA, as well as the thermodynamic basis for appearance of the constituent particles. However, neither a qualitative consensus nor a comprehensive theory has emerged. Nonetheless, concepts from phase transition theory and colloidal physics provide many of the basic features needed for a qualitative framework. There is a free-energy landscape across which assembly takes place and that determines the thermodynamic preference for particle structure, shape, and size distribution. Dynamic processes, including particle diffusion and relaxation, determine whether the growth process follows this preference or another, kinetically controlled pathway. OUTLOOK Although observations of CPA in synthetic systems are reported for diverse mineral compositions, efforts to establish the scope of CPA in natural environments have only recently begun. Particle-based mineral formation may have particular importance for biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and metals in aquatic systems, as well as for environmental remediation. CPA is poised to provide a better understanding of biomineral formation with a physical basis for the origins of some compositions, isotopic signatures, and morphologies. It may also explain enigmatic textures and patterns found in carbonate mineral deposits that record Earth's transition from an inorganic to a biological world. A predictive understanding of CPA, which is believed to dominate solution-based growth of important semiconductor, oxide, and metallic nanomaterials, promises advances in nanomaterials design and synthesis for diverse applications. With a mechanism-based understanding, CPA processes can be exploited to produce hierarchical structures that retain the size-dependent attributes of their nanoscale building blocks and create materials with enhanced or novel physical and chemical properties. Major gaps in our understanding of CPA. Particle attachment is influenced by the structure of solvent and ions at solid-solution interfaces and in confined regions of solution between solid surfaces. The details of solution and solid structure create the forces that drive particle motion. However, as the particles move, the local structure and corresponding forces change, taking the particles from a regime of long-range to short-range interactions and eventually leading to particle-attachment events. Field and laboratory observations show that crystals commonly form by the addition and attachment of particles that range from multi-ion complexes to fully formed nanoparticles. The particles involved in these nonclassical pathways to crystallization are diverse, in contrast to classical models that consider only the addition of monomeric chemical species. We review progress toward understanding crystal growth by particle-attachment processes and show that multiple pathways result from the interplay of free-energy landscapes and reaction dynamics. Much remains unknown about the fundamental aspects, particularly the relationships between solution structure, interfacial forces, and particle motion. Developing a predictive description that connects molecular details to ensemble behavior will require revisiting long-standing interpretations of crystal formation in synthetic systems, biominerals, and patterns of mineralization in natural environments.


This chapter describes the South African profession of Biokinetics, which operates within the pathogenic and fortogenic health paradigms. Biokinetics is an exercise therapy profession that exclusively prescribes individulaised exercise and physical activity for rehabilitation and promotion of health and quality of life. Biokinetics differs from physiotherapy primarily due its management of injuries, illnesses and disabilities within the final-phase of rehabilitation. A brief history of the profession and its scope of profession and its alignment within the South African National Health statutory and professional bodies will be presented. The two pedagogic models adopted for the teaching and training of Biokinetics will also be discussed. Interprofessional collaborative partnerships within the medical-rehabilitation fraternity, sport, health and fitness industries and educational employment opportunities will be reviewed. Finally, the idea of internationalisation of the profession of Biokinetics to similar exercise therapy professions such as Clinical Exercise Physiology and Athletic Training will be presented.


ABSTRACT Groundcover management can significantly affect soil microbial metabolic activities, especially carbon metabolism, in apple orchards. However, there have been few studies on the effects of groundcover on the seasonality of soil microbial carbon metabolism. We, therefore, studied soil microbial carbon metabolism in an apple orchard on China's Loess Plateau under four single species cover crops (the grass Dactylis glomerata L., and the legumes Trifolium repens, Coronilla varia L., Lotus corniculatus L.) during spring, summer and fall. Cover cropping significantly, but differentially, promoted soil microbial carbon metabolism in spring and fall. However, cover cropping leads to a significant reduction of soil moisture in spring and summer due to the competition of soil moisture between the cover crops and apple trees, which probably lead to the changes in types of carbon substances metabolizing by soil microbes in summer. Besides, cover crop significantly enhanced soil organic carbon contents between three seasons while clean cultivation had slight, non-significant effects. The promotion of soil microbial metabolic activities was probably an important mechanism for the carbon accumulation, and we postulate that leguminous cover plants may have significantly different effects, mediated through their root exudates, from grasses on soil carbon contents. Graphical abstract


We construct a monetary economy in which agents face aggregate demand shocks and heterogenerous idiosyncratic preference shocks. We show that, even when the Friedman rule is the best interest rate policy, not all agents are satiated at the zero lower bound. Thus, quantitative easing can be welfare improving since it temporarily relaxes the liquidity constraint of some agents, without harming others. Moreover, due to a pricing externality, quantitative easing may also have beneficial general equilibrium effects for the unconstrained agents. Lastly, our model suggests that it can be optimal for the central bank to buy private debt claims instead of government debt.


We introduce an order parameter for symmetry-protected phases in one dimension which allows us to directly identify those phases. The order parameter consists of stringlike operators and swaps, but differs from conventional string order operators in that it only depends on the symmetry but not on the state. We verify our framework through numerical simulations for the SO(3) invariant spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic model which exhibits a dimerized and a Haldane phase, and find that the order parameter not only works very well for the dimerized and the Haldane phase, but it also returns a distinct signature for gapless phases. Finally, we discuss possible ways to measure the order parameter in experiments with cold atoms.


With the rapid development of industry and information technology, researchers in all fields begin to discuss some new ideas connected with materials science and manufacturing technology. The collection covers topics of current interest in material science. The papers are grouped as follows: Chapter 1: Novel Composite Materials and their Behaviour; Chapter 2: Advances in Machining and Materials Technology; Chapter 3: Research Trends in Nanotechnology and Nanomaterials; Chapter 4: Electronic, Opto-electronic, Photonic and Thermoelectric Materials and Devices; Chapter 5: Advances in Civil Engineering Materials and Constructions; Chapter 6: Advances in Welding Technology; Chapter 7: Corrosion protection; Chapter 8: Analysis of Pipes and Structures; Chapter 9: Characterization of Materials and Computational Material Science; Chapter 10: Advances in Dielectric Materials; and Chapter 11: Miscellaneous Research Topics.


In this contribution we report on solution
processed red OLEDs based upon a N-annulated perylene diimide dimer, namely
tPDI2N-EH, a red-light emitting molecule. OLED devices with the
architecture of glass/ITO/PEDOT:PSS/EML/LiF/Ag (EML = emitting layer) were
fabricated with EMLs comprised of tPDI2N-EH neat and blended with
poly (9,9-dicotylfluorene, PFO), all solution processed from non-halogenated
solvents. The photophysical and electrophysical performance of PFO:tPDI2N-EH-blend
films with different composition ratios were investigated. The PFO:tPDI2N-EH-based
OLEDs with a 2:18 ratio exhibited best performance. The PFO:tPDI2N-EH-based
OLEDs gave red electroluminescence with the emission wavelength of 635 nm and
the CIE (international commission on illumination) coordinates of (x = 0.672, y
= 0.321). OLEDs with EMLs fabricated using roll-to-roll compatible methods are
also demonstrated.


In this paper, we introduce TinyTermite. TinyTermite is a novel AI routing algorithm that is reliable and secure against selective forwarding and replay attacks. TinyTermite is fully implemented on TinyOS based Intel Mote 2 platform and the experiments were done to compare its performance with that of the traditional Termite algorithm. Our results show that the TinyTermite reduces the energy consumption by more than 30% and enhances the security of the network. The experimental results show that TinyTermite is significantly more secure against replay and sinkhole attacks by lowering the packet loss from 88.5% to 32.9% with 12.7% normal packet loss. Finally, the experimental results also demonstrates that the TinyTermite provides high throughput and low latency.


Four different catalytic systems were studied for biomimetic coupled oxidations using H2O2 or O2. In the first example, osmium tetroxide works as a substrate-selective catalyst for dihydroxylation of olefins. Electron transfer to H2O2 is facilitated by electron transfer mediators (ETMs). In one case VO(acac)2 or MeReO3 was used as ETM; in the other case a combination of flavin and tertiary amine was used as ETMs. These three systems were immobilized in the ionic liquid [bmim]PF6 for the purpose of recycling of the catalyst.In the second example, an organocatalyst (a flavin) was used for the oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides and this catalytic system was recycled and reused in an ionic liquid.In the third example, primary aromatic amines were oxidized by H2O2 to nitroso compounds in a selenium-catalyzed oxidation. The nitrosoarenes were used in a one-pot hetero Diels-Alder reaction with dienes forming 1,2-oxazines.In the fourth example, a cobalt salophen complex was immobilized in different zeolites. The catalyst was used in aerobic oxidation of p-hydroquinone and the zeolite catalyst could be reused. The oxidative carbocyclization of ene-allenes was tested successfully using the triple catalytic system consisting of palladium(II), p-benzoquinone, and the immobilized catalyst for O2 activation.All these systems gave mild and selective oxidations with environmentally friendly and inexpensive terminal oxidants.