Introduction When the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became part of the Canadian Constitution there was a great deal of speculation over the effect it would have on legal rights in Canadian society. In the search and seizure area, some questioned whether an individual's right "against unreasonable search or seizure" would be protected to a greater extent simply because the Charter placed limitations on such criminal procedures previously left to the discretion of government (Manfredi 1993). Conversely, others wondered whether the Supreme Court would fail to take a strong comprehensive approach to the s. 8 provision because Canadian society did not have a strong historical tradition of protecting individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. In analyzing this question, one might turn to the theoretical paradigms of criminal justice first articulated by Herbert Packer (1968). Prior to the adoption of the Charter, the Canadian Court had historically adhered to the Crime Control Model (one of Packer's models) in the search and seizure area (Manfredi 1993; Lipset 1990). According to Packer, this approach to criminal procedure is based on the belief that the repression of criminal activity is the most important function of the criminal system. Thus, societies that advocate the use of this model, such as Canada, tend to believe that strict law enforcement is critical in order to maintain public order and safety. By contrast, Packer argued that societies that value human freedom, such as the United States, are more likely to adhere to the Due Process Model, which is based on the belief that it is just as important to protect the innocent as to convict the guilty in the criminal justice system. Cultures that adhere to this doctrine demand that an individual be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and, thus, procedural safeguards are employed at every stage of the judicial process to help protect the criminally accused from unjust confinement. Having said this, it is important to realize that prior to the Charter's adoption the presumption of innocence was a hallmark of common-law doctrine, though it was not constitutionally enshrined. Still, Packer's two theoretical models provide a valuable interpretive framework for assessing how the Canadian Court has approached search and seizure cases after the adoption of the Charter. Packer's two models of criminal justice highlight an ongoing debate over the extent to which Canada's political culture is truly more communitarian than that of the U.S. While some scholars have suggested that Canada's political ideology may be as liberal and individualistic as that found in the United States (Ajzenstat and Smith 1995; Bell 1991; McRae 1964), others have contended that communitarian values have played a critical role in shaping a unique Canadian political identity (Ostberg 1995; Glendon 1991; Lipset 1990; Monahan 1987; Horowitz 1966). For example, Lipset has argued that Canada's commitment to community values and the collective good can be traced to its founding counter-revolutionary traditions. Meanwhile, Horowitz has suggested that these same values are embodied in the socialist traditions that have been a political force in Canadian national politics (see also Monahan 1987, 92). Most notably for the purposes of this article, these communitarian strains are clearly reflected in Canada's traditional adherence to the Crime Control Model in the legal arena, which places heavy emphasis on the maintenance of public order through strict law enforcement (Manfredi 1993; Lipset 1990). In short, advocates of the communitarian hypothesis believe that Canadian politics has a rich and historic commitment to collectivist values, which in turn could have important implications for the nature of judicial review under the Charter. This paper addresses the fundamental question: How has the Supreme Court of Canada responded to the addition of constitutional safeguards in a society that many believe fits Packer's Crime Control Model? …


We extend the Bismut-Elworthy-Li formula to non-degenerate jump diffusions and "payoff" functions depending on the process at multiple future times. In the spirit of Fournié et al [14] and Davis and Johansson [10] this can improve Monte Carlo numerics for stochastic volatility models with jumps. To this end one needs so-called Malliavin weights and we give explicit formulae valid in presence of jumps: (a) In a non-degenerate situation, the extended BEL formula represents possible Malliavin weights as Ito integrals with explicit integrands; (b) in a hypoelliptic setting we review work of Arnaudon and Thalmaier [1] and also find explicit weights, now involving the Malliavin covariance matrix, but still straight-forward to implement. (This is in contrast to recent work by Forster, Lütkebohmert and Teichmann where weights are constructed as anticipating Skorohod integrals.) We give some financial examples covered by (b) but note that most practical cases of poor Monte Carlo performance, Digital Cliquet contracts for instance, can be dealt with by the extended BEL formula and hence without any reliance on Malliavin calculus at all. We then discuss some of the approximations, often ignored in the literature, needed to justify the use of the Malliavin weights in the context of standard jump diffusion models. Finally, as all this is meant to improve numerics, we give some numerical results with focus on Cliquets under the Heston model with jumps.


Healthcare interpreting has been the focus of various studies which have shed light on the complex role of the healthcare interpreter. Interestingly, the results of empirical research have barely begun to permeate the practice of the profession. A look at the codes of ethics or standards of practice of healthcare interpreting associations, as well as the professional development opportunities offered by community agencies reveals little dialogue between practice and theory. This article explores possible causes for this disconnect and suggests a deeper dialogue among stakeholders as a plausible solution. This dialogue needs to integrate researchers from the different fields that contribute to our interdisciplinary field of study, as well as professional associations and practitioners equally. This article discusses the responsibilities of each of these parties in this much needed conversation.


Abstract Wetlands in the Playa Lakes Region of Texas are important habitats for North American wintering waterfowl and migrant shorebirds. However, shorebird breeding biology has been overlooked in characterizing the region's ecological importance. In 1998 and 1999, American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana), Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), Killdeer (Charadrius vociferous), and Snowy Plover (C. alexandrinus) breeding ecology were studied in playas, saline lakes, and riparian wetlands in the Playa Lakes Region of Texas. Chronology of nest initiation, clutch sizes, and hatching success for 298 Snowy Plover, 111 American Avocet, 43 Killdeer, and 26 Black-necked Stilt clutches were measured. All four species nested in saline lakes, American Avocet and Killdeer also nested in playas, and Snowy Plover nested on riparian wetlands. American Avocet had higher hatching success in 1999 (52%) than 1998 (8%), because of more suitable hydrological conditions and lower predation. Hatching success was higher in 1998 than 1999 for Killdeer (1998, 63%; 1999, 21%) and Snowy Plover (1998, 47%; 1999, 33%) due to failures caused by flooding and hail in 1999. In other regions, clutch predation limits shorebird productivity, but hatching success in the Playa Lakes Region appears to be limited by unpredictable precipitation patterns and wetland hydroperiod. As such, breeding shorebird conservation and management should focus upon maintaining wetland hydrological integrity.


A 3-D algorithm of anisotropic electrical impedance imaging is presented. The image reconstruction is based on the theory of the generalized incremental linear function with global sensitivity. The inverse calculation only deals with the conductivity-varying finite elements. The forward problem is solved by 3-D FEM and 1-D storage is utilized to save memory. The inverse of the stiffness matrix can also be stored in a one-dimensional way. A successful computer simulation shows that this algorithm can detect conductivity variations from 1% to 100% of the original conductivity with global sensitivity and the convergence is fast, so it is efficient and flexible.


We investigate the crystal properties of CdTe nanowires overgrown with HgTe. Scanning electron microscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy confirm that the growth results in a high ensemble uniformity and that the individual heterostructures are single-crystalline, respectively. We use high-resolution X-ray diffraction to investigate strain, caused by the small lattice mismatch between the two materials. We find that both CdTe and HgTe show changes in the lattice constant compared to the respective bulk lattice constants. The measurements reveal a complex strain pattern with signatures of both uniaxial and shear strains present in the overgrown nanowires.We investigate the crystal properties of CdTe nanowires overgrown with HgTe. Scanning electron microscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy confirm that the growth results in a high ensemble uniformity and that the individual heterostructures are single-crystalline, respectively. We use high-resolution X-ray diffraction to investigate strain, caused by the small lattice mismatch between the two materials. We find that both CdTe and HgTe show changes in the lattice constant compared to the respective bulk lattice constants. The measurements reveal a complex strain pattern with signatures of both uniaxial and shear strains present in the overgrown nanowires.


The thesis begins by making two distinctions which are
central to its methodology. The first is that between valid
and invalid criticism, the second between philosophy of
language and meaning theory. These distinctions combine to
produce the methodology which informs the thesis, namely
that a theory of meaning can be validly criticised in terms
of its account, implicit or explicit, of first language
acquisition and, conversely, an account of first language
acquisition can be validly criticised in terms of its
theory, implicit or explicit, of meaning. The thesis
continues by testing the appropriateness of the methodology
against the classical empiricist and rationalist accounts of
meaning expressed in terms of Ideas, arguing that the
majority of criticisms of these accounts misfire as they do
not operate within the framework of the positions they
purport to criticise. Such invalid criticism is replaced
with that argued for here, the conclusion being that the
classical accounts of meaning are to be rejected on the
grounds that they make use of a phenomenon, language, whose
acquisition they cannot, within the terms of their own
position, explain. Modern, post-Fregean, empiricist and
rationalist positions, those of Quine and Chomsky
respectively, are then subjected to similar treatment. Both
of these positions have explicit accounts of first language acquisition and so the conclusion to this section of the
thesis reverses that reached when discussing the classical
positions, in that the explanations of first language
acquisition given by modern empiricists and rationalists are
based on meaning theories which, for a variety of reasons,
do not justify their explanations of the phenomenon of first
language acquisition.
In an attempt to move towards a more positive position two
alternative accounts of meaning theory, the formal and the
descriptive, are then examined. The formal account,
Davidson's, is defended against those critics who produce
attacks centering upon its meaning theory as being, in the
sense described above, invalid. However, as it is then
shown not to be able to account for first language
acquisition, it is eventually rejected. The descriptivist
account is identified by tracing the development of
Wittgenstein's philosophy to support a particular
interpretation of his later account of meaning as being a
descriptive one and a defence is offered to a number of
criticisms of that position. A poorly worked out
experiential account of first language acquisition is then
identified, and this is developed further by introducing the
area of non-linguistics, where meaning can be given without
words. The thesis concludes by suggesting that this area's
account of first language acquisition, although having a
number of difficulties with its implied meaning theory, can be combined with the later work of Wittgenstein to produce
what is at least a descriptively adequate account of both
meaning and first language acquisition. Moreover, it points
to an area of enquiry where philosophical techniques can be
utilised to great effect so as to add new dimensions to


Attitudes to the relationship between music and deafness suffer from two related misconceptions: the enduring assumption that hearing is central to musical experience in conjunction with an extreme impression of deafness as total aural loss; and, more recently, the tendency to reduce deaf listening to tactility, as narratives about inborn sensory acuities among the deaf proliferate in the popular imaginary. Increasingly, deafness symbolizes a set of sensory polarities that obscure an intrinsic diversity of musical experiences from which musicology stands to gain, a diversity that encompasses members of Deaf culture and non-culturally deaf people alike, and that is signaled through the person-centered compound "d/Deaf." My article builds on recent music scholarship on disability to offer a pluralistic understanding of music and deafness. Beginning with Scottish deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, I investigate a range of d/Deaf accounts of music, including those of Deaf sign language users, hearing aid wearers, and cochlear implant recipients, and of people with music-induced hearing loss. Deafness resists automatic entry points into music, unsettling any straightforward hierarchy of the senses. Deaf people reflect on the musical status of aurality in markedly different ways, just as they offer a complex understanding of vision and touch. For instance, vision is a highly versatile listening strategy and is often more reliable than vibration; touch is feasible because of its contextual dependence on visual cues, and is further tied to a set of material and environmental variables. Ultimately, I argue that d/Deaf listeners enrich customary notions of musical expertise: deafness belongs in musicology as a diverse set of experiences within the full spectrum of listening.


ABSTRACT We report an experiment investigating how stimulus complexity and conceptual fluency (i.e., the ease of deriving meaning) influence aesthetic liking judgments for abstract artworks. We presented participants with paintings at two levels of complexity (high vs. low) and five levels of conceptual fluency (determined from a prior norming study) and requested separate ratings of beauty and creativity. Our predictions were derived from the PIA Model (Pleasure-Interest Model of Aesthetic Liking), which views aesthetic preferences as being formed by two, distinct fluency-based processes: an initial, automatic, stimulus-driven, default process and a subsequent, perceiver-driven deliberative process. A key trigger for deliberative processing is assumed to be disfluency at the default stage, as caused by factors such as visual complexity. We predicted that complexity and conceptual fluency would interact in determining aesthetic liking, with people preferring complex stimuli, but only when these are relatively easy to process conceptually. Our results supported this prediction for beauty judgments, although creativity judgments showed a curiously uniform profile. Nevertheless, the predictive capacity of the PIA Model in relation to beauty judgments attests to the explanatory strength of this default–interventionist theory of aesthetic liking. We conclude by noting important parallels between the PIA Model and the Revised Optimal Innovation Hypothesis, which likewise has broad reach in explaining how defaultness and non-defaultness affect pleasure across a range of linguistic and pictorial stimuli.


In this paper, joint channel estimation and data detection in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) amplify-and-forward (AF) cooperative systems under high mobility is investigated. Unlike previous works on cooperative systems in which a number of subcarriers are solely occupied by pilots, partial data-dependent superimposed training (PDDST) is considered here, thus preserving the spectral efficiency. First, a closed-form channel estimator is developed based on the least squares (LS) method with Tikhonov regularization and a corresponding data detection algorithm is proposed using the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) criterion. In the derived channel estimator, the unknown data is treated as part of the noise and the resulting data detection may not meet the required performance. To address this issue, an iterative method based on the variational inference approach is derived to improve performance. Simulation results show that the data detection performance of the proposed iterative algorithm initialized by the LMMSE data detector is close to the ideal case with perfect channel state information.


We analyze the transmission of light through coupled-resonator optical waveguides in the form of evanescently coupled Fabry-Perot resonator arrays. We develop a transfer matrix method to calculate the amplitude and phase responses of the arrays. We also discuss the inclusion of optical gain in the system to compensate for losses in these structures. Owing to the compact length along the propagation direction in evanescently coupled arrays, large slowing factors of the order of 10^2-10^3 can be achieved even with a weak index contrast of ∼0.1%. The large slowing factor, coupled with weak index contrast, makes this structure a promising candidate for artificial slow light system.


The coagulation of dust aggregates occurs in various astrophysical environments. Each one is characterized by different conditions that influence the growth, e.g., relative velocities, composition, and size of the smallest constituents (monomers). Here we study the microphysics of collisions of dust aggregates in a four-dimensional parameter space. The parameters are the collision energy, the initial compactness of agglomerates, the mass ratio of collision partners, and the impact parameter. For this purpose we employ a state of the art molecular dynamics type of model that has been extensively and successfully tested against laboratory experiments. It simulates the motion of individual monomers interacting dynamically via van der Waals surface forces. The structure of aggregates is quantified by the filling factor that provides information about the internal structure, the packing density of monomers, and the projected surface area of aggregates. Our results show the importance of the impact parameter that causes formation of elongated particles, due to tensile forces acting in offset collisions. In head-on impacts, aggregates are compacted at lower energies. A sufficiently high energy causes restructuring to reach maximum compaction. If more energy is provided, pancake-like structures are formed. We find that the outcome of collisions can be represented in a simple way. A highly pronounced large fragment component coexists with a power-law distribution of small fragments. The structural parameter of these small fragments is described very well by a simple relation, largely independent of the initial compactness, impact energy or impact parameter. The simulations show that erosion by collisions with high mass-ratio can be significant. The ejected mass can be several orders of magnitude higher than the impactor mass. This contrasts with collisions of equal mass aggregates, where the same impact energy can lead to perfect sticking. These findings are summarized in the form of a simple collision recipe. The recipe specifies the outcome of a collision, averaged over the impact parameter. It is provided in tabular form for a range of physical parameters such as impact energy and pre-collision filling factor. The dependence on the mass ratio of impactor and target is taken into account by providing both a local and a global branch of the recipe.


ABSTRACTLewis and Clark's entry into to the American West in search of an inland Northwest Passage is considered among the greatest expeditions in American history. The Corps of Discovery were also lucky as their travels west of the 100th meridian occurred during a "window" of generally favorable climatic conditions. Use of reconstructed summer Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) values from 1700–1978 indicate that drought frequency at locations along the Lewis and Clark trail ranged from 4 to 12 yr and that the probability of encountering a drought either on the outbound or return trip approached 50% at some locations. Exact date comparisons of meteorological conditions during periods of extended encampment (i.e., 1–5 months) between 1804–06 with long-term records of nearby weather stations indicate that the Corps of Discovery avoided drought and traveled during a cooler and/or substantially wetter period than historical averages. Examination of reconstructed Southern Oscillation index (SOI) and Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) values suggest wetter conditions prevailed in 1804–06 because of the co-occurrence of La Nina conditions during a cold PDO phase. Although the Corps of Discovery suffered hardships because of the wetter conditions, they avoided the more serious consequences of severe droughts that occurred in 1800 and 1808. Drought conditions along the semiarid and arid portions of the trail would have reduced forage yield for the game that were their principal source of food and increased their chances for starvation. Additionally, lower streamflow conditions along their principal navigation routes would have required greater effort and time to haul their supplies to the Continental Divide, perhaps delaying their expedition by a year.


Evaluation has been a key element of the Leapfrog programme of research for the past 3 years, trying to capture the value of tools and the co-design approach undertaken with the project partners. This is important not just to ensure we consolidate the value of co-design tools and processes in such contexts, but to communicate and co-determine the value for our partners and those interested in such processes. Leapfrog's evaluation not only focused on measuring the final outcomes (did we, and our partners, achieve the outcomes we envisaged?), it also looked at which tools and approaches were most effective, what perhaps wasn't effective, and in what ways they were effective. Leapfrog's evaluation is also interested in the softer, more qualitative elements of change and learning, including the benefits of greater trust, collaboration in engagement and co-creation. In order to assist with this approach, an evaluation framework was developed to help capture evidence to address the research objectives. This final evaluation report presents the process and findings for gathering evidence of impact during the Leapfrog project.

Leapfrog has revealed and provoked a huge demand for creative engagement through the delivery of its projects and various community events. The tools and toolboxes that have been co-designed with partners have helped and continue to help a growing number of people, communities and contexts. There has been evidence of improved engagement for hard to reach communities, while many more people have now been receiving and using our tools, with much more opportunities to support shared learning. We have gone some way to evidencing the Leapfrog project using our evaluation framework, however stopped short of quantifying that impact. Dissemination events are still underway and download numbers continue to increase, with Leapfrog still therefore very much a live project. As such the impact from Leapfrog will continue go further and deeper with tools and toolboxes making a difference to engagement in communities and we continue to evaluate and evidence the longer-term impact over the coming months.


For many applications—including recognizing malware variants, determining the range of system versions vulnerable to a given attack, testing defense mechanisms, and filtering multi-step attacks—it can be highly useful to mimic an existing system while interacting with a live host on the network. We present RolePlayer, a system which, given examples of an application session, can mimic both the client side and the server side of the session for a wide variety of application protocols. A key property of RolePlayer is that it operates in an application-independent fashion: the system does not require any specifics about the particular application it mimics. It instead uses byte-stream alignment algorithms to compare different instances of a session to determine which fields it must change to successfully replay one side of the session. Drawing only on knowledge of a few low-level syntactic conventions (such as representing IP addresses using "dotted quads"), and contextual information such as the domain names of the participating hosts, RolePlayer can heuristically detect and adjust network addresses, ports, cookies, and length fields embedded within the session, including sessions that span multiple, concurrent connections on dynamically assigned ports. We have successfully used RolePlayer to replay both the client and server sides for a variety of network applications, including NFS, FTP, and CIFS/SMB file transfers, as well as the multi-stage infection processes of the Blaster and


This paper presents a concept of enhancing the photovoltaic (PV) power generation hosting capacity of distribution networks. Distribution network serving electrical energy to farm settlements was selected as an example for their large roof area available for PV installation. Further, they are characterized by long radial feeders. Such feeders suffer from voltage rise and transformer overloading problems as the total number and capacity of the PV installations increase. The distribution network can be augmented by dc distribution links with power electronic converter interfaces to the traditional ac distribution systems. It is shown here that the dc links can be used to interconnect the different radial feeders and the excess power thus could be transferred to the nearby industrial load-center.


The first book to provide complete, specific instructions on casting the Diloggun, the cowrie-shell oracle of the Orishas. - Provides step-by-step instructions never before published, detailing requirements and procedure for casting the Diloggun. - Includes a detailed "mojuba" or prayer used to awaken the Orishas (spirit entities) for divination. - Devotes an entire chapter to each of the twelve basic Odu (random patterns in which the sixteen shells fall), providing ritual mechanics and oracular meanings for all possible castings. The Afro-Cuban faith, known to outsiders as Santeria and to adherents as "Las Reglas de Ocha de Los Lucumi," is not a static religion but a living conduit of energy for connecting the spirit world to our own. It came to the New World with the slave trade where it has evolved in response to the surrounding culture. For adherents of Lucumi, the Diloggun is the most important focus of worship: the sacred shells reveal the forces at play in an adherent's life. These forces are redefined and placated by the Orisha priest, who makes direct contact with the spirit world in an effort to help the adherent evolve. While many books have been published about Santeria, "The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination" is the first to provide complete information on how to cast the Diloggun, including opening, reading, and closing the oracle, and how to give a comprehensive reading. With a detailed discussion about why each prayer is offered and insight into the metaphysical core of the religion, this book will bring those seeking the wisdom of the Diloggun closer to the living Orishas than they have ever been.


As the flagship journal of the Society of Biblical Literature, JBL aims to reflect the breadth and depth of our field. For this reason, it has a broad scope ranging from the issues and approaches that have been staples for many decades to those that continue to emerge as a result of growing international participation in the SBL as well as encounters with other disciplines and with new theoretical perspectives. In this issue, JBL introduces an occasional series that will highlight approaches, points of view, and even definitions of "biblical scholarship" that may be outside the usual purview of many of our readers. The format may vary from time to time but will always include an exchange of ideas on the matter at hand. SBL members are invited to join in the discussion on our website: http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/journals_jbl_Login.aspx. With this series, we hope not only to inform our readers but, more important, to spark conversation and thereby to enhance the journal's contribution to the primary mission of the SBL: to foster biblical scholarship. I welcome your thoughts and comments, as well as suggestions for future forum topics. Just send them along to me at email@example.com.


ABSTRACT Colletotrichum higginsianum is an ascomycete fungus causing anthracnose disease on numerous cultivated plants in the family Brassicaceae, as well as the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We report an assembly of the nuclear genome and gene annotation of this pathogen, which was obtained using a combination of PacBio long-read sequencing and optical mapping.


Cloud computing services are mainly hosted in remote data centers (DCs) where high performance servers and high capacity storage systems are located. Moving the services to distant servers can help handling the energy bottleneck of the information and communication technologies by leading to significant power savings at the local computing resources, which on the other hand increases the energy consumption of the transport network and the DCs. In this paper, we propose mixed-integer-linear-programming- (MILP-) based provisioning models to guarantee either minimum delayed or maximum power-saving cloud services where high performance DCs are assumed to be located at the core nodes of an IP-over-wavelength division multiplexing network. We further propose heuristics, namely, delay-minimized provisioning and power-minimized provisioning, each of which mimics the behavior of the benchmark MILP formulation. Through numerical results, we show that power savings can be attained at the expense of increased propagation delays. Hence, we finally propose the delay- and power-minimized provisioning (DePoMiP), which aims to minimize the propagation delay, maximize the power savings in the transport network and minimize the power consumption overhead introduced to the DCs. Simulation results verify that DePoMiP achieves low-delay and low-power provisioning in an environment which is dominated by the cloud services.


The aim of this study is to examine the extent of enterprise risk management (ERM) implementation in the Nigerian banks and identify the dynamic antecedents (internal audit effectiveness, human resource competency and regulatory influence), linked with the stage of ERM implementation.The study used survey to collect data from the staff of the departments of internal audit, risk management/internal control and other departments in 361 branches across the country and the headquarters of the commercial banks in Nigeria. The finding revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between all the dynamic antecedents (internal audit effectiveness, human resource competency and regulatory influence) and the stage of ERM implementation.Thus: "hypotheses are supported because the coefficients of the independent variables are statistically significant".Additionally, it also finds that there is ERM complete in place in the majority of the banks, as ERM complete in place represent 89% while ERM partial in place is only 11%.However, there is still low level of awareness of ERM activities among the staff especially at the branch level.Thus, a clarion calls for all the stakeholders to guarantee broad implementation of ERM in all the banks regardless of their status and at all levels


We present the results of the ground- and space-based optical and near-infrared (NIR) follow-up of 224 galaxy cluster candidates detected with the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect in the 720 deg2 of the South Pole Telescope (SPT) survey completed in the 2008 and 2009 observing seasons. We use the optical/NIR data to establish whether each candidate is associated with an overdensity of galaxies and to estimate the cluster redshift. Most photometric redshifts are derived through a combination of three different cluster redshift estimators using red-sequence galaxies, resulting in an accuracy of Δz/(1 + z) = 0.017, determined through comparison with a subsample of 57 clusters for which we have spectroscopic redshifts. We successfully measure redshifts for 158 systems and present redshift lower limits for the remaining candidates. The redshift distribution of the confirmed clusters extends to z = 1.35 with a median of zmed = 0.57. Approximately 18% of the sample with measured redshifts lies at z > 0.8. We estimate a lower limit to the purity of this SPT SZ-selected sample by assuming that all unconfirmed clusters are noise fluctuations in the SPT data. We show that the cumulative purity at detection significance ξ > 5(ξ > 4.5) is ⩾95% (⩾70%). We present the red brightest cluster galaxy (rBCG) positions for the sample and examine the offsets between the SPT candidate position and the rBCG. The radial distribution of offsets is similar to that seen in X-ray-selected cluster samples, providing no evidence that SZ-selected cluster samples include a different fraction of recent mergers from X-ray-selected cluster samples.


A clear research need has been identified to confirm the structural relationships between greening the supplier, enhanced environmental performance and improved competitive advantage, to provide an impetus for firms to green their suppliers. A mail survey was conducted and empirical data of 119 ISO 14001 manufacturing firms in Malaysia was gathered for this study. Structural equation modelling technique was applied in this research article. Results from the analysis, reveal the existence of a positive and significant linkage between green suppliers with both environmental performance and competitive advantage. At the same time, environmental performance has also been shown to positively and significantly affect competitive advantage; while environmental performance plays a partial mediating role between greening the supplier and competitiveness. Such significant finding is especially essential for the manufacturing sector registered with ISO 14001 who intend to enhance their environmental performance and carve a niche competitive edge in the business arena.


BACKGROUND
Pulmonary resection by robotic video-assisted thoracic surgery (RVATS) has been performed for selected patients in specialized centers over the past decade. Despite encouraging results from case-series reports, there remains a lack of robust clinical evidence for this relatively novel surgical technique. The present systematic review aimed to assess the short- and long-term safety and efficacy of RVATS.

METHODS
Nine relevant and updated studies were identified from 12 institutions using five electronic databases. Endpoints included perioperative morbidity and mortality, conversion rate, operative time, length of hospitalization, intraoperative blood loss, duration of chest drainage, recurrence rate and long-term survival. In addition, cost analyses and quality of life assessments were also systematically evaluated. Comparative outcomes were meta-analyzed when data were available.

RESULTS
All institutions used the same master-slave robotic system (da Vinci, Intuitive Surgical, Sunnyvale, California) and most patients underwent lobectomies for early-stage non-small cell lung cancers. Perioperative mortality rates for patients who underwent pulmonary resection by RVATS ranged from 0-3.8%, whilst overall morbidity rates ranged from 10-39%. Two propensity-score analyses compared patients with malignant disease who underwent pulmonary resection by RVATS or thoracotomy, and a meta-analysis was performed to identify a trend towards fewer complications after RVATS. In addition, one cost analysis and one quality of life study reported improved outcomes for RVATS when compared to open thoracotomy.

CONCLUSIONS
Results of the present systematic review suggest that RVATS is feasible and can be performed safely for selected patients in specialized centers. Perioperative outcomes including postoperative complications were similar to historical accounts of conventional VATS. A steep learning curve for RVATS was identified in a number of institutional reports, which was most evident in the first 20 cases. Future studies should aim to present data with longer follow-up, clearly defined surgical outcomes, and through an intention-to-treat analysis.


Generally the classical control architecture used to carry out a robot position control is based on a classical industrial motion planner that needs encoders cabling and analog cabling to insure the regulation loop. This work proposes a Profibus PC based control architecture that has a double-originality. The first originality concerns the hardware architecture and the second concerns the software flexibility that allows easiness in implementation, either modification, for controlling parallel robots. The hardware architecture is based upon so-called "intelligent" digital drives and the whole fieldbus hardware.


Henry James9s The Spoils of Poynton is, as the author describes it in his preface to the novel, "a story of cabinets and chairs and tables" and, more specifically, of the conflict over their possession. The attitudes of the Brigstocks, Fleda Vetch, and Mrs. Gereth toward the "spoils" manifest different forms of fetishism thath can be interpreted in both Marxian and Freudian terms, as well as in terms of Pierre Bourdieu9s more recent theory of "political fetishishm." One of the implications of the struggle for possession of the "spoils" is that value and meaning do not somehow passively and objectively inhere in art but are rather a consequence of power, strategic action, and conflict. Thus, far from transcending the flux, chaos, and contingency of the market or history or "everyday life," as James9s own preface might suggest it does, art is embroiled in and shaped by these forces. The struggle for possession also parallels, in its way-and thus bears upon-the critical debate surrounding The Spoils of Poynton and around the question of what role the author9s stated or apparent intentions should have in the interpretation of the novel.


Cyber-infrastructure refers to information technology systems that provide particularly powerful and advanced capabilities. It encompasses a combination of massive processing capability, high-speed connectivity, massive storage facilities and highly skilled personnel. Leading nations have invested significantly in these facilities and closely aligned them with their economic activities. South Africa has in the past decade invested in national cyber-infrastructure to enable cutting-edge research and development within its academic and research institutions as well as industry. The CSIR, through the relevant centres and initiatives it hosts, plays a key role in developing South Africa's cyber-infrastructure landscape to ensure maximum impact from its various services.


Introduction Patients can develop trismus from their head and neck cancer or as a result of treatment. Trismus affects the jaw muscles and makes mouth opening difficult. To potentially combat trismus, patients could undertake proactive jaw stretching exercises prior to, during and after radiotherapy, although currently these are not the standard of care. Methods and analysis This is a randomised, open-label, controlled, two-centre feasibility study, to assess the objective and subjective effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of therabite use compared with wooden spatula in ameliorating trismus in patients treated for stage 3 and 4 oral and oropharyngeal cancer, managed either by primary surgery followed by (chemo)radiotherapy or primary (chemo)radiotherapy. The principal objective assessment is measurement of maximum jaw opening. Assessments in all cases will be performed preradiotherapy and again at 3 and 6 months postintervention. Secondary aims of the study will be (1) to assess whether therabite or the wooden spatula intervention improves patients' quality of life, (2) reduce the level of post-treatment clinical management/healthcare use and (3) a nested qualitative study will explore the experience of the patient taking part in the intervention; data will be transcribed verbatim and analysis will be based on content analysis methods using the interview questions as the framework for examination. Ethics and dissemination North West Greater Manchester granted ethical approval (REC Reference 11/NW/0744). Good Clinical Practice and the Declaration of Helsinki have been adhered to. The results will be presented internationally and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. Head and neck cancer charities and information websites will also be approached. Trial registration number NCT01733797.


Abstract Previous observations about the stable nature of coral-rich assemblages from the Middle Devonian Hamilton Group have led some researchers to invoke the primacy of ecological controls in maintaining biofacies structure through time. However, few analyses have examined the degree to which recurring biofacies vary quantitatively, and none have assessed lateral variability as a benchmark for testing the significance of temporal variability. Thus, the extent to which Hamilton biofacies persist and the mechanism(s) responsible for their hypothesized stability remain contentious. In this study, recurring coral-rich biofacies were evaluated from two stratigraphic horizons within the Middle Devonian Appalachian Basin to examine (1) the extent to which species assemblages persisted within the basin through space and time, and (2) whether ecological interactions may be a plausible mechanism for generating the degree of stasis observed in this case. Variations in species composition and abundance were examined across multiple spatial scales within both sampled coral-rich horizons. This permitted the establishment of a baseline against which temporal differences in biofacies composition and structure could be evaluated. Although successive coral-rich horizons remained taxonomically stable, their dominance structures changed significantly through the 1.5 Myr study interval. Moreover, additional comparisons among older Hamilton coral-rich horizons corroborate our primary results. These findings support a model in which species respond individually to fluctuations in the physical environment, as indicated by the fluidity of their relative abundances geographically and temporally.


We present ETCHA Sketches‐an Experimental Test Corpus of Hand Annotated Sketches‐with the goal of facilitating the development of a standard test corpus for sketch understanding research. To date we have collected sketches from four domains: circuit diagrams, family trees, floor plans and geometric configurations. We have also labeled many of the strokes in these data sets with geometric primitive labels (e.g., line, arc, polyline, polygon, and ellipse). We found accurate labeling of data to be a more complex task than may be anticipated. The complexity arises because labeled data can be used for different purposes with different requirements, and because some strokes are ambiguous and can legitimately be put into multiple categories. We discuss several different labeling methods and some properties of the sketches that became apparent from the process of collecting and labeling the data. The data sets are available online at http://rationale.csail.mit.edu/ETCHASketches.


The Mennonites, with their long tradition of peaceful protest and commitment to equality, were castigated by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. for not showing up on the streets to support the civil rights movement. Daily Demonstrators shows how the civil rights movement played out in Mennonite homes and churches from the 1940s through the 1960s. In the first book to bring together Mennonite religious history and civil rights movement history, Tobin Miller Shearer discusses how the civil rights movement challenged Mennonites to explore whether they, within their own church, were truly as committed to racial tolerance and equality as they might like to believe. Shearer shows the surprising role of children in overcoming the racial stereotypes of white adults. Reflecting the transformation taking place in the nation as a whole, Mennonites had to go through their own civil rights struggle before they came to accept interracial marriages and integrated congregations. Based on oral history interviews, photographs, letters, minutes, diaries, and journals of white and African-American Mennonites, this fascinating book further illuminates the role of race in modern American religion.


Both decentralization of state law and cultural relativism have been fundamentally embedded in legal pluralism. As a scholarly trend in law and society, it has insightfully challenged the underpinnings of analytical positivist jurisprudence. Nevertheless, a theoretical concept of political power has significantly been missing in research on the plurality of legal practices in various jurisdictions. This Article aims to critically offer a theoretical concept of political power that takes legal decentralization and cultural relativism seriously and yet points to how and where we should look into political power, assuming that legal pluralism itself may be a strategy of elites and nation-states amid globalization. First, the Article explores the contributions of legal pluralism, and its limits, in intellectually revolting against analytical positivist jurisprudence. Second, it explicates why a concept of political power has been missing, and why such a concept is required for better comprehension of legal pluralism. Third, it calls for a look into three sites of political power in the praxis of legal pluralism: politics of identities, non-ruling communities, and neo-liberal globalization. Last, the Article constructs a concept of political-legal transformations that enables us to unveil political power in the context of de-centralized legal pluralities. Power is produced in, resides in and is generated in the dynamic interactions between nation-states, localities and global agents. Transformative relations along these dimensions allow the nation-state to forfeit some elements of power, both in economics and in law, but they also enable it to maintain some essential ingredients of political power that are often veiled in the rhetoric of globalized pluralism.


OBJECTIVE
Overall mortality rates in the general US population have declined substantially over the last 4-5 decades, but it is unclear whether patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have experienced the same improvements in survival. The purpose of this study was to determine the mortality trends among RA patients compared with those in the general population.

METHODS
A population-based incidence cohort of RA patients was assembled, comprising all residents of Rochester, Minnesota ages > or = 18 years in whom RA was first diagnosed (according to the American College of Rheumatology [formerly, the American Rheumatism Association] 1987 criteria) between 1955 and 1995 and all residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota in whom RA was first diagnosed between 1995 and 2000. The patients were followed up longitudinally through their complete (inpatient and outpatient) medical records until death or January 1, 2007. Expected mortality was estimated from the National Center for Health Statistics life tables on the white population in Minnesota, using person-year methods. Poisson regression was used to model the observed mortality rates, adjusting for age, sex, and disease duration.

RESULTS
A cohort of 822 RA patients (72% women, mean age at RA incidence 58 years) was followed up for a median of 11.7 years, during which 445 of the RA patients died. Between 1965 and 2005, the mortality rates across the calendar years for female and male RA patients were relatively constant at 2.4 and 2.5 per 100 person-years, respectively. In contrast, the expected mortality rate in the Minnesota white population decreased substantially over the same time period in both sexes. Mortality in the female general population declined from 1.0 per 100 person-years in 1965 to 0.2 per 100 person-years in 2000. Mortality in the male general population decreased from 1.2 per 100 person-years in 1965 to 0.3 per 100 person-years in 2000. Therefore, the difference between the observed and expected mortality rates increased in more recent years, resulting in a widening of the mortality gap.

CONCLUSION
Our findings show that RA patients have not experienced improvements in survival over the past 4 decades, despite dramatic improvements in the overall rates of mortality in the general US population. Further research into the causes of the widening gap in mortality between RA patients and the general population, and the influence of current therapeutic strategies on mortality, is needed in order to develop strategies to reduce the excess mortality observed in RA patients.


How do we relate to the past? Does it tell us who we are? Is it a source of examples to follow and mistakes to avoid? Or can we go beyond that to something genuinely historical? Arthur Chapman and Jane Facey argue that as history teachers we have a responsibility to instil in our students a sense of historical consciousness which enables them to locate themselves in relation to the past in a rigorously historical way. They show that our students' (and our own) concepts of the present are shaped by their concepts of the past. This leads to an identity expressed in terms of the history of a particular place. By studying a broader range of historical topics than allowed by the traditional post-16 curriculum, they hope to allow their students to access a broader identity than merely 'British' or 'European' - a necessary measure in our increasingly globalised society. Finally, they propose two innovative and successful courses for post-16 history students.


The effects of H2 and N2 in-situ plasma treatments prior to the deposition of Schottky contacts or SiO2 passivation on GaAs have been studied, showing a large dependance of the electrical properties on the cleaning procedure. For Ti/Pt and Al diodes, degraded rectifying characteristics result after room-temperature H2 treatments, while diode ideality factors as low as 1.01 were achieved in the temperature range 160-240°C. An increase in the barrier height was also observed with increasing substrate temperature during the plasma treatments, in correlation with H indiffusion in GaAs. *IV values of refractory WNX diodes were enhanced by H2 treatments, up to 0.78 V after 800°C anneals. Improved C-V characteristics of MOS capacitors were found after H2 plasma and a thin Si layer deposition, after successive anneals at 600 and 400°C.


Little research has been undertaken into high stakes deception, and even less into high stakes deception in written text. This study addresses that gap. In this thesis, I present a new approach to detecting deception in written narratives based on the definition of deception as a progression and focusing on identifying deceptive linguistic strategy rather than individual cues. I propose a new approach for subdividing whole narratives into their constituent episodes, each of which is linguistically profiled and their progression mapped to identify authors' deceptive strategies based on cue interaction. I conduct a double blind study using qualitative and quantitative analysis in which linguistic strategy (cue interaction and progression) and overall cue presence are used to predict deception in witness statements. This results in linguistic strategy analysis correctly predicting 85% of deceptive statements (92% overall) compared to 54% (64% overall) with cues identified on a whole statement basis. These results suggest that deception cues are not static, and that the value of individual cues as deception predictors is linked to their interaction with other cues. Results also indicate that in certain cue combinations, individual self-references (I, Me and My), previously believed to be indicators of truthfulness, are effective predictors of deceptive linguistic strategy at work


National governments have intensified their attempts to create international institutions in various policy fields such as environment, finance, and trade. At the same time, many subnational policymakers have begun to duplicate international efforts by setting their own, stricter policies while others remain inactive or enact more lax regulation. This "glocalization" of policy creates a complex and economically costly patchwork system of regulations. To shed light on this phenomenon we analyze the interaction between subnational and national governments within a general model of international treaty negotiations. The glocalization of regulatory policy can be understood as an attempt by subnational policymakers to strategically constrain or empower national governments in international negotiations. We find that the shadow of international treaty formation gives rise to within-country and cross-country policy balancing dynamics that may explain some of the subnational policy polarization currently observable in many countries. We specify the conditions under which they occur, spell out empirically testable hypotheses, and identify possible theoretical extensions.


Librarians at Oregon State University undertook a teaching competency project to lay the foundation for practices that improve teaching by adapting the core teaching proficiencies in the ACRL Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators. This article describes one model for locally adapting those proficiencies, the Oregon State University Libraries (OSUL) Framework for Teaching Excellence. This framework promotes reflection on, goal setting for, and professional development around teaching. The project team utilized a survey to determine the proficiency categories most valued by OSUL instruction librarians. The development and inclusion of context material for each proficiency category included in the OSUL Framework encourages use of the document in the intended way. Also included in the document are specific use guidelines for three stakeholder groups: library faculty with teaching responsibilities, supervisors, and faculty involved in the tenure process.


During the middle Miocene an explosive adaptive radiation resulted in the advent of grazing horses with high-crowned teeth in North America. New Sr isotopic, paleomagnetic, and biostratigrahic evidence from the Miocene marine and nonmarine sequence of the Florida panhandle calibrates the base of this adaptive radiation. The transition from the primitive outgroup species 'Parahippus' leonensis to the most primitive high-crowned horse, 'Merychippus' gunteri occured after about 17.7 Ma. After this event, the lowest known stratigraphic level at which diversification (i.e., presence of two or more sympatric species) of grazing merychippine horses occurs is about 16.2 Ma, or within the early part of Chron C5BR. Although this currently is the only sequence where the parahippine-merychippine transition is directly calibrated, biochronologic evidence from other important, contemporaneous localities in Texas, Nebraska, and California indicate that diversification occured rapidly throughout North America between 15 and 16 Ma.


In cellular networks, quantities such as handoff probability and handoff rate are very important parameters in the networks performance analysis. In previous literature, several techniques were introduced to evaluate these parameters; however, there are some limitations in the introduced techniques. In this paper, we approximate handoff number and handoff rate in cellular networks in which the call holding time and cell residence time follow arbitrary statistical distributions. Specifically, we derive approximate expressions to evaluate the probability mass function of handoff number and handoff rate. The technique used does not require knowledge of the distribution of the cell residence times but only their first two moments, which may be determined easily from empirical data. The analytical results are validated by computer simulation.


Proven Methods for Building Secure Java-Based Web Applications Develop, deploy, and maintain secure Java applications using the expert techniques and open source libraries described in this Oracle Press guide. Iron-Clad Java presents the processes required to build robust and secure applications from the start and explains how to eliminate existing security bugs. Best practices for authentication, access control, data protection, attack prevention, error handling, and much more are included. Using the practical advice and real-world examples provided in this authoritative resource, you'll gain valuable secure software engineering skills. Establish secure authentication and session management processes Implement a robust access control design for multi-tenant web applications Defend against cross-site scripting, cross-site request forgery, and clickjacking Protect sensitive data while it is stored or in transit Prevent SQL injection and other injection attacks Ensure safe file I/O and upload Use effective logging, error handling, and intrusion detection methods Follow a comprehensive secure software development lifecycle "In this book, Jim Manico and August Detlefsen tackle security education from a technical perspective and bring their wealth of industry knowledge and experience to application designers. A significant amount of thought was given to include the most useful and relevant security content for designers to defend their applications. This is not a book about security theories, its the hard lessons learned from those who have been exploited, turned into actionable items for application designers, and condensed into print." From the Foreword by Milton Smith, Oracle Senior Principal Security Product Manager, Java


Overthrust faults have been a source of debate and discussion in creation literature for many years. Their interpretation demands a better explanation in a Flood context. Two fault systems are examined as analogies for an "overthrust" model. The South Fork Fault System (SFFS) and the Heart Mountain Fault System (HMFS) exhibit folding and faulting consistent with thinskinned overthrust systems. Both systems moved catastrophically under the influence of gravity. The South Fork Fault system (SFFS, southwest of Cody, Wyoming, exhibits tear faults, tight folds, a triangle zone, and flat-ramp geometries along the leading edge of the system. Transport was southeast, down a gentle slope during early to middle Eocene time (Late Flood), approximately coeval with the Heart Mountain Fault system (HMFS). The SFFS detaches in lower Jurassic strata, rich in gypsum-anhydrite, overlain by about 1250 m of Jurassic through Tertiary sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Movement between 5 km and 10 km to the southeast spread the allochthonous mass over an area exceeding 1400 km. A break-away fault and an area of tectonic denudation mark the upper northwest part of the system. The exposed denuded surface was buried by additional Eocene-age volcanic rocks soon after slip. Catastrophic rearloading during emplacement of HMFS may have initiated subsequent movement on the SFFS, with dehydration processes trapping water in a near frictionless anhydrite-water slurry. Rapid development of near-surface folds, as observed in the toe of the SFFS, could only have developed while the sediments were still unlithified.


In many content-based video processing systems, the presence of moving objects limits the accuracy of global motion estimation (GME). On the other hand, the inaccuracy of global motion parameter estimates affects the performance of motion segmentation. In this paper, we introduce a procedure for simultaneous object segmentation and GME from a coarsely sampled (i.e., block-based) motion vector (MV) field. The procedure starts with removing MV outliers from the MV field, and then performs GME to obtain an estimate of global motion parameters. Using these estimates, global motion is removed from the MV field, and moving region segmentation is performed on this compensated MV field. MVs in the moving regions are treated as outliers in the context of GME in the next round of processing. Iterating between GME and motion segmentation helps improve both GME and segmentation accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed approach over state-of-the-art methods on both synthetic motion fields and MVs from real video sequences.


High complexity of building parallel applications is often cited as one of the major impediments to the mainstream adoption of parallel computing. To deal with the complexity of software development, abstractions such as macros, functions, abstract data types, and objects are commonly employed by sequential as well as parallel programming models. This paper describes the concept of a design pattern for the development of parallel applications. A design pattern in our case describes a recurring parallel programming problem and a reusable solution to that problem. A design pattern is implemented as a reusable code skeleton for quick and reliable development of parallel applications. A parallel programming system, called DPnDP (Design Patterns and Distributed Processes), that employs such design patterns is described. In the past, parallel programming systems have allowed fast prototyping of parallel applications based on commonly occurring communication and synchronization structures. The uniqueness of our approach is in the use of a standard structure and interface for a design pattern. This has several important implications: first, design patterns can be defined and added to the system's library in an incremental manner without requiring any major modification of the system (extensibility). Second, customization of a parallel application is possible by mixing design patterns with low level parallel code resulting in a flexible and efficient parallel programming tool (flexibility). Also, a parallel design pattern can be parameterized to provide some variations in terms of structure and behavior.


The illicit trade in cultural property is a global phenomenon, powered by criminal networks and smuggling trains that sacrifice local culture for the black market of the art world. Headlines featuring the Islamic State's lucrative exchange in stolen cultural property, among other incidents, have raised the profile of the illicit cultural property trade on the global stage. Developing countries, as the most prominent source countries of cultural property, are particularly at risk. Existing scholarship has searched for a solution to this crisis, suggesting a new international treaty to protect cultural property or recommending the utilization of adjacent legal fields. However, these solutions overlook the ready benefits of two existing international treaties on cultural property, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") and United Nations International Institute for the Unification of Private Law ("UNIDROIT") Conventions.

While the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions do not provide an absolute solution to the illicit cultural property trade, they are accessible and underutilized options that are particularly calibrated to assist developing countries. Increased ratification of the UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions would grant source country States Parties the enforcement benefits of the import regulations and domestic court systems of market country States Parties, and the strength of the Conventions would rise as the number of signatories increases. The costs imposed on developing country signatories are deliberately low to aid them in protection and recovery. Furthermore, the adoption of these two Conventions does not constrain States Parties from contemplating and implementing additional mechanisms to further protect cultural property. The UNESCO and UNIDROIT Conventions thus offer ready, underutilized options for developing countries to better protect their cultural property.


Fewer than twenty years ago, the Central and East European countries that have now joined the European Union were the "other Europe." They were bankrupt and famished. Their citizens had to deal with empty store shelves, the lack of any right to a passport, and a formidable communist secret service spying on their private lives. Since the Soviet collapse, however, these nations have reshaped their economies and societies and have gained membership in the EU and NATO. Foreign investment is pouring in, and what is left of the secret-service files has been opened to the public. In the textbooks on democratic transition, Central and Eastern Europe provides the model of success. Yet in Brussels — the new benevolent metropolis of these countries on the European periphery — concern over the politics of the new members has been mounting. Thus we need to seek an explanation as to why there is growing concern for these countries when in many ways they seem to be performing so well.


It is accepted by historians of Ireland that British government response to the potato famine in the middle of the nineteenth century was inadequate. This dissertation examines that response in the Limerick Poor Law Union of Munster province. It demonstrates that the ideological underpinnings that provided the motivation for government response to poverty had evolved as the result of a debate which had been protracted and misguided. The result was a poor law system which assumed culpability on the part of the poor and a belief that the corrective was coercion. By focussing on the application of the law in a specific area, the dissertation demonstrates that the local Board of Guardians was powerless to mitigate the law's negative effects despite having serious misgivings about its impact. It puts into sharp focus the almost weekly dilemma which they faced of having to follow the directives of the Poor Law Commissioners or defy them in order to respond more appropriately to local needs. What really went on during the famine is better understood through case studies which specifically demonstrate the effects of government decision-making and the impact the resultant policy had in the daily lives of the people who received the intended services. The purpose of this case study is to amplify the findings of famine historians so that we can appreciate the human dimensions of the crisis.


The Bou Arada Trough is an east–west-oriented structure located 80 km SW of Tunis, characterizing the central Tunisian Atlas. This trough is filled by a thick Quaternary sand and clay series and is bordered by complex systems of folds generally trending NE–SW. Contacts between the Bou Arada Trough and the neighbouring folds are accommodated by NE–SW- and NW–SE-oriented faults. In contrast to the other troughs of the Tunisian Atlas, which are related to the Pliocene–Quaternary orogenic period, the geodynamic evolution of the Bou Arada Trough began in the Maastrichtian and has continued until the present day. Structural, tectonosedimentary and seismic data analyses are undertaken in the study area to better understand the evolutionary scenario of this trough. The results obtained show that the Bou Arada Trough is fragmented into three NW–SE-oriented sub-basins and records a continuous history of downthrow. Indeed, during extensional to transtensional regimes, this trough has evolved in response to the two networks of perpendicular fractures whereas during compressive to transpressive periods, the collapse of the Bou Arada Trough has been induced by a pull-apart mechanism using the same network of faults but with a strike-slip movement. The Bou Arada Trough thus preserves a record of the convergence between the European and African plates since the Maastrichtian.


Proteomics is the study of the proteins that can be derived from a genome. For the identification and sequencing of proteins, mass spectrometry has become the tool of choice. Within mass spectrometry-based proteomics, proteins can be identified or sequenced by either database search or de novo sequencing. Both methods have certain advantages and drawbacks but in the long run we envision de novo sequencing to become the predominant tool. Currently, de novo sequencing results are stored in arbitrary file formats, depending on the developers of the algorithms. We identified this as a large and unnecessary obstacle while integrating results from multiple de novo sequencing algorithms. Therefore, we designed a standard file format for the representation of de novo sequencing results. We further developed an application programming interface since we identified the lack of proper APIs as another obstacle, introducing a needlessly high learning curve for developers.


We present a CYK and an Earley-style algorithm for parsing Range Concatenation Grammar (RCG), using the deductive parsing framework. The characteristic property of the Earley parser is that we use a technique of range boundary constraint propagation to compute the yields of non-terminals as late as possible. Experiments show that, compared to previous approaches, the constraint propagation helps to considerably decrease the number of items in the chart.


During early 1980, personnel from the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, were involved in intensive survey and limited testing operations at archaeological sites in a proposed pipeline right-of-way along the Rio Grande, Webb County, Texas. Eight terrace sites, located just south of the city of Laredo, were investigated to determine potential eligibility for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places and for selection as State Historical Landmarks. Both historic and prehistoric cultural materials were identified at these sites including the remains of two previously unrecorded prehistoric burials.


The relapsing fevers, broadly classified into the louse-borne and tick-borne varieties, are characterised clinically by an initial pyrexia of 2-4 days' duration, followed at intervals of a few days by successive relapses, and caused by spirochaetes (Horrelia) which are present in the circulating blood in the acute stages of the illness.
Classification and nomenclature are not yet well-defined in the spirochaetes which are morphologically indistinguishable but biologically separable. The spirochaete is specifically referred to as Borrelia recurrentis (or B. obcr- meiri) in the louse-borne form. In the tick- borne form a variety of names has been given to the responsible spirochaetes, largely indicating the geographical region of occurrence or the worker who identified them, thus, Borrelia duttoni is the spirochaete of Central and Southern Africa, and B. venezuele.nsis, B. aegyptica, B. berbera, B. kochii, B. tiovyi. are names of the spirochaetes found elsewhere.


Background—The risk of myocardial infarction (MI) is elevated in people with diabetes mellitus (DM) compared with non-DM counterparts. The aim of this study was to compare population trends in the incidence of hospitalized MI and coronary heart disease (CHD) in adults with and without DM. Methods and Results—All incident hospitalized MI and CHD events were identified from whole-population hospital data in Western Australia for 1998 to 2010. Annual age-standardized MI and CHD incidence rates were calculated for people with and without DM aged 35 to 84 years and age-adjusted trends estimated from Poisson regression. There were 26 610 incident MI and 56 142 incident CHD cases during the study period. MI incidence rates fell in men (−2.9%/y; 95% confidence interval [CI], −3.7 to −2.1) and women (−3.8%/y; 95% CI, −4.8 to −2.1) with DM, representing overall reductions of 35% and 43% respectively, with comparable reductions in incident CHD. Downward trends in MI incidence in those with DM were most apparent in 55- to 84-year olds. In adults without DM, there was no decline in MI incidence but a small significant decrease in incident CHD (men, −1.5%/y; 95% CI, −1.8 to −1.2 and women, −1.3%/y; 95% CI, −1.8 to −0.9). Incidence rate ratios for MI in men with versus without DM declined from 4.5 (95% CI, 4.2–4.8) to 3.1 (95% CI, 2.9–3.3) and from 6.0 (95% CI, 5.4–6.6) to 3.8 (95% CI, 3.5–4.1) in women between 1998 and 2010. Conclusions—There have been significant reductions in incidence rates of MI and CHD in adults with DM between 1998 and 2010; however, the excess risk of MI incidence remains 3 to 4× greater in people with DM.


In this paper we introduce two new generalized variational inequalities and we give some existence results of the solutions for these variational inequalities involving operators belonging to a recently introduced class of operators. We show by examples, that our results fail outside of this class. Further, we establish a result that may be viewed as a generalization of Minty's theorem, that is, we show that under some circumstances the set of solutions of these variational inequalities coincide. We also show, the condition that the operators, involved in these variational inequalities, belong to the above mentioned class, is essential in obtaining this result. As application, we show that Brouwer's fixed point theorem is an easy consequence of our results.


Software to call single‐nucleotide polymorphisms or related genetic variants has converged on the variant call format (VCF) as the output format of choice. This has created a need for tools to work with VCF files. While an increasing number of software exists to read VCF data, many only extract the genotypes without including the data associated with each genotype that describes its quality. We created the r package vcfr to address this issue. We developed a VCF file exploration tool implemented in the r language because r provides an interactive experience and an environment that is commonly used for genetic data analysis. Functions to read and write VCF files into r as well as functions to extract portions of the data and to plot summary statistics of the data are implemented. vcfr further provides the ability to visualize how various parameterizations of the data affect the results. Additional tools are included to integrate sequence (fasta) and annotation data (GFF) for visualization of genomic regions such as chromosomes. Conversion functions translate data from the vcfr data structure to formats used by other r genetics packages. Computationally intensive functions are implemented in C++ to improve performance. Use of these tools is intended to facilitate VCF data exploration, including intuitive methods for data quality control and easy export to other r packages for further analysis. vcfr thus provides essential, novel tools currently not available in r.


The aim of this research is to investigate how risk management in a healthcare organisation can be supported by knowledge management. The subject of research is the development and management of existing logs called "risk registers", through specific risk management processes employed in a N.H.S. (Foundation) Trust in England, in the U.K. Existing literature on organisational risk management stresses the importance of knowledge for the effective implementation of risk management programmes, claiming that knowledge used to perceive risk is biased by the beliefs of individuals and groups involved in risk management and therefore is considered incomplete. Further, literature on organisational knowledge management presents several definitions and categorisations of knowledge and approaches for knowledge manipulation in the organisational context as a whole. However, there is no specific approach regarding "how to deal" with knowledge in the course of organisational risk management. The research is based on a single case study, on a N.H.S. (Foundation) Trust, is influenced by principles of interpretivism and the frame of mind of Soft Systems Methodology (S.S.M.) to investigate the management of risk registers, from the viewpoint of people involved in the situation. Data revealed that knowledge about risks and about the existing risk management policy and procedures is situated in several locations in the Trust and is neither consolidated nor present where and when required. This study proposes a framework that identifies required knowledge for each of the risk management processes and outlines methods for conversion of this knowledge, based on the SECI knowledge conversion model, and activities to facilitate knowledge conversion so that knowledge is effectively used for the development of risk registers and the monitoring of risks throughout the whole Trust under study. This study has theoretical impact in the management science literature as it addresses the issue of incomplete knowledge raised in the risk management literature using concepts of the knowledge management literature, such as the knowledge conversion model. In essence, the combination of required risk and risk management related knowledge with the required type of communication for risk management creates the proposed methods for the support of each risk management process for the risk registers. Further, the indication of the importance of knowledge in risk management and the presentation of a framework that consolidates knowledge required for the risk management processes and proposes way(s) for the communication of this knowledge within a healthcare organisation have practical impact in the management of healthcare organisations.


Remote monitoring is an essential part of future mHealth systems for the delivery of personal and pervasive healthcare, especially to allow the collection of personal bio-data outside clinical environments. mHealth involves the use of mobile technologies including sensors and smart phones with Internet connectivity to collect personal bio-data. Yet, by its very nature, it presents considerable challenges: (1) it will be a highly distributed task, (2) requiring collection of bio-data from a myriad of sources, (3) to be gathered at the clinical site, (4) and via secure communication channels. To address these challenges, we propose the use of an online social network (OSN) based on the quantified-self, i.e. the use of wearable sensors to monitor, collect and distribute personal bio-data, as a key component of a near-future remote health monitoring system. Additionally, the use of a social media context allows existing social interactions within the healthcare regime to be modeled within a carer network, working in harmony with, and providing support for, existing relationships and interactions between patients and healthcare professionals. We focus on the use of an online social media platform (OSMP) to enable two primitive functions of quantified-self which we consider essential for mHealth, and on which larger personal healthcare services could be built: remote health monitoring of personal bio-data, and an alert system for asynchronous notifications. We analyse the general requirements in a carer network for these two primitive functions, in terms of four different viewpoints within the carer network: the patient, the doctor in charge, a professional carer, and a family member (or friend) of the patient. We propose that a wellbeing remote monitoring scenario can act as a suitable proxy for mHealth monitoring by the use of an OSN. To allow rapid design, experimentation and evaluation of mHealth systems, we describe our experience of creating an mHealth system based on a wellbeing scenario, exploiting the quantified-self approach of measurement and monitoring. The use of wellbeing data in this manner is particularly valuable to researchers and systems developers, as key development work can be completed within a realistic scenario, but without risk to sensitive patient medical data. We discuss the suitability of using wellbeing monitoring as a proxy for mHealth monitoring with OSMPs in terms of functionality, performance and the key challenge in ensuring appropriate levels of security and privacy. We find that OSMPs based on quantified-self offer great potential for enabling personal and pervasive healthcare in an mHealth scenario.


Abstract : Modern weapon systems increasingly depend on real-time, safety-critical, embedded (RTSCE) software to achieve their mission objectives. In addition, these systems are experiencing far longer service lives than anticipated at their inception. Army weapon system developers are concerned that this combination of factors renders today's software acquisition and development practices insufficient to address the challenges of these software-intensive systems. To address the concern, the Army Strategic Software Improvement Program tasked the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to assess RTSCE software-intensive systems issues and develop recommendations. The findings of phase one of that study are presented in this report: (1) industry is driving the development of tools for model-based engineering to meet the needs of RTSCE system development, and (2) many opportunities exist for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to gain experience and advance the transition of these tools into DoD programs.


This report has the purpose of exploring the area of developing a natural interaction game using Microsoft Kinect. The launch of Kinect for Microsoft Xbox 360 has given us hardware for tracking humans, face recognition, speech recognition and 3D reconstruction for a relatively cheap price. This has created other areas of usage for Kinect than just in the area of games for Xbox. In this report I find out which development tools that are available today for developing applications for the PC platform and what they offer. I also choose one of them and develop a game with it with the purpose of evaluating the tool and also for getting the experience of creating an application with a natural user interface. The report is also part of a pre-study to introduce natural user interface applications into a game course at the university. This raises some requirements on the tools and therefore many of the discussions and results are with those requirements in mind. Those requirements being mainly that the tools should be available on the Windows platform and that they should be easy to use. The results shows that the area of developing natural interaction applications is new and therefore the tools available today are not totally mature yet. There are free tools from open source communities and tools from companies that you have to purchase to use. Both of them are trying to find their own way when it comes to the features and distribution of the tools and therefore which way to take is not obvious. Also developing a natural user interface is not always that straight forward. When there are no buttons available at all, it changes what you can do and how you do things. I will share my experiences and thoughts of both the development tools and the game I created throughout the report.


Pulmonary embolism (PE) is serious event in medical and surgical practice. Many patients are admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), and Few reports have addressed the outcome of patients with PE. Data were collected retrospectively of 53 (PE) patients admitted to the ICU between January 2010 and June 2012. Demographic, clinical, radiological and therapeutic data were collected on admission to ICU. Overall ICU mortality rate is 15% of which causes of death related to PE was 25% and PE with metastatic CA 12.5%. The most common predisposing factors were prolonged reduced mobility ( 45.3%) and major surgery within three months (34%). The result of this study could provide the background for a larger triage studies integrating demographic data, predisposing factors, clinical signs and diagnostics into the early detection and management of PE.


Abstract Many times teachers restrict students to viewing literature through a single "preferred" window or from a rather small set of tiny windows, thus hindering their ability to think critically and make choices for themselves. It is my contention that our pedagogy should facilitate a "school of windows" in which students are offered many different vantage points from which to "see" literature--an environment which, instead of monologically conditioning them to accept content without criticism or question, dialogically allows them their own place and importance in active discourse. This study delineates the power that literature has to enable students to acquire these skills. To illustrate literature's effectiveness as a vehicle for critical awareness and empowerment, I have chosen texts that can teach teachers about teaching and students about learning, ones which can teach students to analyze and question what they are being taught. These works are Henry James's The Bostonians, Carson McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. All three texts depict the dynamics of student/teacher relationships: James's and McCullers's demonstrating models of negative teaching; Douglass's illustrating a positive model. While addressing the issues of race, class, and gender, each reading focuses on the intentions and motivations as well as the specific pedagogical practices of the teacher-figures in the novels. My goal is for these readings to serve as practical models with which teachers can begin to analyze their own pedagogical goals and methods which they employ in the classroom. By working together with our students rather than on them and by guiding them to see how dialogue and critical thinking work hand in hand, we might show them how to read and see literature from more than one perspective. Consequently--and even more important--we might enable our students to engender voices and intellectual identities of their own, and we might empower them to become "resisting readers" who are able to prevent themselves from turning into "things" molded by those authoritarian masters who call themselves teachers.


Modeling the diffusion of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in their social, political and economic context is crucial to help policymakers assess which policies may best support adoption. Current models of renewable energy adoption [1, 2, 3, 4] assume regulatory and incentive frameworks that do not apply to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, where energy tariffs are strongly subsidized, tax credits are not viable due to the lack of personal income tax, and support for distributed generation through grid access policies such as the Feed-in Tariff and Net Metering is not available. The goal of this study is to address this gap by analyzing the impact of home ownership, the falling cost of PV, the reduction of electricity subsidies, the introduction of a carbon tax, and the diffusion of innovation on the residential adoption of solar PV technologies in Qatar. Our objective is to develop a social simulation platform that helps policymakers and other stakeholders assess the optimal regulatory framework to promote the adoption of building-integrated PV systems in Qatar and other countries which share a similar geographical, political, economic and social context. We present an agent-based model for residential adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the state of Qatar as a case study for the Arabian Gulf Region. Agents in the model are defined as households. Each household corresponds to a dwelling in the Al Rayyan municipality of Qatar that is either owned (by citizens) or rented (by expatriates). The objective of the model is to evaluate PV adoption in terms of these two household cohorts under diverse regulatory and incentive scenarios. In the present state of affairs, only Qatari citizens can own property in Al Rayyan and Qatari households are exempt from electricity charges. Therefore, home owners are Qataris who have free electricity, while renters tend to be expatriates who pay for electricity. The more competitive the cost of electricity from residential PV systems is as compared to the electricity tariff, the more likely are household agents to adopt solar PV. Several factors can contribute to make the cost of electricity from residential PV more competitive, including:the falling cost of PV due to increasing technology maturitythe reduction of subsidies for electricity and the gas used for electricity productionthe introduction of a carbon taxthe extension of the electricity tariff to Qatari householdsthe neighborhood effect, which implements peer effects on the diffusion of PV innovation as a percent discount on residential PV cost.We compute solar PV adoption as resource limited exponential growth. Households adopt solar PV with a probability established by the logistic function in (1), where L is a scaling constant, e is the natural logarithm, x is the cost of electricity from residential PV systems and k is a parameter which determines the slope of the adoption curve. We set L = 1 to normalize the output of the logistic function as a probability. For the k parameter, we select a value (k = 0.59) that in the null-hypothesis scenario yields a PV market share that is equivalent to the innovator cohort of adopters in Rogers' adoption/innovation curve (2.5%) [5]. According to Rogers, "innovators are active information seekers about new ideas", who are close to the scientific community and other innovators, have financial liquidity, and are willing to take high risks to pursue their vision. The rationale for restricting adopters to innovators in the null hypothesis scenario is that only eco-warriors with financial means and high technology awareness would adopt in the absence of incentives, with high PV costs.(1) f (x) = L / 1+e^( − k∗x) At each simulation tick, each household agent that has not adopted yet, is presented with the opportunity of doing so. Adoption is determined randomly according to the output of the logistic function in (2): a random probability p is generated, and if the probability of adoption as calculated by (1) is greater or equal to p, adoption occurs.We analyze three alternative simulation scenarios:Scenario 1 — Business as usual: no measures are introduced to incentivize PV, the neighborhood effect is active, and the price of PV falls due to increasing technology maturityScenario 2 — 40% of gas and electricity subsidies are curtailed, the neighborhood effect is active, a carbon tax of $8/tCO2e is introduced, the price of PV falls due to increasing technology maturity, and citizens continue to have free electricityScenario 3 — same as scenario 2, with the variant that citizens too pay for electricity. As baseline, we establish a null hypothesis scenario, which is the same as scenario 1, except that the price of PV does not fall due to increasing technology maturity. Details of the simulation results are provided in the attached file to this submission. Our study suggests that Qatar's residential PV adoption is strongly promoted by the falling cost of PV and can be further facilitated through the reduction of electricity subsidies and the extension of the electricity tariff to Qatari households, which are currently exempt. The introduction of a carbon tax can also play a role in accelerating residential PV adoption, if above $8 per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. The ensuing PV adoption rates would help facilitate the national targets of 2% electricity production from solar energy by 2020 and 20% by 2030. References [1] Zhao, J., E. Mazhari, N. Celik, Y.-J. Son. "Hybrid agent-based simula- tion for policy evaluation of solar power generation systems". Simulation Modeling Practice and Theory 19, (2011): 2189–2205. [2] Paidipati, J., L. Frantzis, H. Sawyer, A. Kurrasch. "Rooftop photovoltaics market penetration scenarios". Navigant Consulting, Inc., for NREL: February, (2008). [3] Drury, E., P. Denholm, R. Margolis. "Modeling the US rooftop photo- voltaics market". In National Solar Conference 2010, 17–22 May 2010, Phoenix, USA, (2010). [4] Graziano, M. and K. Gillingham. "Spatial patterns of solar photovoltaic system adoption: the influence of neighbors and the built environment". Journal of Economic Geography 15, (2015): 815–839. [5] Rogers, E. M.. Diffusion of innovations. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, RS(N), (2010).


Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) nanosensor for ultrasensitive detection of bromate in drinking water: State-of-the-art and prospective Khaled A. Mahmoud Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI), firstname.lastname@example.com Sergey V. Gaponenko B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk 220072 Belarus, email@example.com The advances in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) offer highly sensitive detection methods for monitoring drinking and potable water. The main experimental obstacle is the selective evaluation of a target pollutant in presence of the other pollutants. While single molecule detection is feasible in ultra-pure solutions with the known target molecules the trace detection of common pollutants in drinking and potable water remains a serious challenge. We consider the molecular recognition as the principal approach towards reliable development of plasmonic nanosensors for trace contaminations monitoring in water at the World Health Organization (WHO) prescribed levels. The molecular recognition approach has been recently shown to offer efficient selective analysis of certain target organic molecules in complex mixtures [4]. It is based on using specific binding of an additional agent (molecular compound) to the target molecules on complex solutions with the subsequent deposition of resulting conjugates on nanoplasmonic substrates and its Raman analysis. Specific binding can be tested additionally by predetermined modification of certain vibrational modes in conjugates as compared to free molecules. Desalinated water used in many countries including Qatar contains certain contaminants which does not present in ground water. Therefore analysts in these countries face the problem to develop affordable and reliable techniques for routine analysis of these contaminants in desalinated drinking and potable water. The representative examples are bromate, chlorate, and iodate anions. Bromate is supposed to possess carcinogenic properties with respect to humans and its content should thoroughly meet the WHO recommendation. We consider possible approaches to SERS sensor for trace level of bromate detection in desalinated drinking water. Herein we present novel analytical technique to trace bromate in drinking water based on novel molecular recognition and SERS sensor with detectability level improved by many orders of the magnitude. The novel and affordable technique for bromate detection in drinking water is expected to replace existing costly and bulky devices. This technique will offer bromate nanosensor test kit(s) to be used with the existing commercial Raman spectrometer and also will open an avenue towards portable desktop or even handheld bromate detection devices. The novel approach can be potentially foreseen to bromate extraction from drinking water. [1] S. V. Gaponenko, Introduction to Nanophotonics, Cambridge University, 2010. [2] K. Kneipp, M. Moskovits, H. Kneipp (Eds.) Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering, Springer, 2006. [3] S. V. Gaponenko, D. V. Guzatov, Chem. Phys. Lett. 2009, 477, 411-414. [4] Kh. A. Mahmoud and M. Zourob, Analyst, 2013, 138, 2712-2719. [5] Bromate in Drinking-water, World Health Organization 2005.


We consider the finite binary words $Z(n)$, $n \in {\Bbb N}$, defined by the following self-similar process: $Z(0):=0$, $Z(1):=01$, and $Z(n+1):=Z(n)\cdot\overline{Z(n-1)}$, where the dot $\cdot$ denotes word concatenation, and $\overline{w}$ the word obtained from $w$ by exchanging the zeros and the ones. Denote by $Z(\infty)=01110100 \dots$ the limiting word of this process, and by $z(n)$ the $n$'th bit of this word. This sequence $z$ is an analogue of the Thue-Morse sequence. We show that a theorem of Bacher and Chapman relating the latter to a "Sierpinski matrix" has a natural analogue involving $z$. The semi-infinite self-similar matrix which plays the role of the Sierpinski matrix here is the zeta matrix of the poset of finite subsets of ${\Bbb N}$ without two consecutive elements, ordered by inclusion. We observe that this zeta matrix is nothing but the exponential of the incidence matrix of the Hasse diagram of this poset. We prove that the corresponding Mobius matrix has a simple expression in terms of the zeta matrix and the sequence $z$.


There is a wide-ranging debate about possible redefinitions of the role and structure of the IMF itself, and of the Bretton Woods Institutions more generally. This paper has a more restricted focus, on the way in which the IMF interacts with the low-income countries amongst its constituents. It addresses four related topics. The first two are concerned with whether the Fund could remain fully engaged with these countries without actually making loans, and what would be required for it to deliver on its commitment to a more flexible macroeconomic approach. The others examine the Fund's approach to the debt sustainability issue and the nature of its technical assistance, and how well tailored these are to the circumstances of low-income countries. There is a strong case for strengthening the underpinnings of the Fund's technical assistance, to develop a more focused low-income analytic perspective, to build its own capacity to assist countries to explore their macroeconomic options, and more systematically to evaluate its technical advice in the light of the outcomes it has helped induce.