We live in times when hope is in short supply. Continuing ecological destruction, expanding ethnic and political conflicts, and widening gaps between wealthy and poor make it difficult to be hopeful about humanity's future. Living in such times, it is natural to turn to philosophers for insight about how to maintain hope despite the escalation of national and international crises. Unfortunately, however, not many contemporary philosophers systematically discuss hope, and, with few exceptions, ' those who do discuss it take a theistic or supernaturalistic approach.2 Further, on the rare occasions when those outside the theistic tradition explore the topic of hope, they do not make their main focus bringing theistic and nontheistic approaches into dialogue.3 Our intention in this essay is to begin such a dialogue by comparing the work of two men whom we see as representative of these opposing traditions: Gabriel Marcel, a theist, and John Dewey, a nontheist. Our decision to focus on Marcel should not be surprising since his philosophy has hope at its center. However, our choice of Dewey as the nontheist with whom we will contrast Marcel, is less obvious since nowhere in Dewey's voluminous work does he explicitly discuss hope. Nevertheless, Dewey seems a good choice to us because he maintained a positive outlook across his long career despite the many personal and public crises he endured and witnessed: the death of two young sons, significant U.S. labor violence, a global economic depression, and two world wars. In addition, by drawing upon several of Dewey's major works, including Democracy and Education, Human Nature and Conduct, Experience and Nature, Art as Experience, and A Common Faith, we believe we can construct a theory of hope for him. In doing so, we emphasize aspects of Dewey's thought, including his deep piety toward nature and his sensitivity to the mystical dimensions of experience, that are sometimes underappreciated in Dewey scholarship. Thus, our more specific intention in this essay is to compare Marcel and Dewey on hope in light of the theory of hope we construct for Dewey. Given the fact that Dewey is a naturalist who sees all human experience as having a natural origin and a natural end, and, by contrast, Marcel is a theist who views the mysterious dimension of human experience as an intimation of a transcendent realm, it is not unexpected that we find strong differences in their views of hope. For example, the object of Dewey's ultimate hope is full engrossment in present experience leading to individual and social growth, whereas the object of Marcel's ultimate hope is salvation as eternal communion with God. Sharp differences also distinguish their views of how to overcome hopelessness. For Dewey, this requires a gradual rather than a radical change. It requires moving our emphasis from extending the harmonies we achieve via successful adjustment with our environment to focusing on the process of adjustment itself. By contrast, for Marcel, overcoming hopelessness requires a transformation of the self: a letting go of one's desiring, acquisitive ego while birthing a selfless, spiritual being. Whereas these radical differences between Dewey and Marcel are predictable, the noteworthy similarities we find, places where these theorists' footsteps on the terrain of hope overlap, are unexpected. For example, we find that Dewey and Marcel both believe that faith in oneself and in the sources of one's being is important for maintaining hope. In addition, they both believe that communion-feeling part of a larger whole-is an important condition for maintaining hope. Finally, the overlap we find most interesting is that, for both Marcel and Dewey, this need for communion is satisfied by experiences that are mysterious, experiences that are ineffable and indescribable. We begin our essay by explicating Marcel's theory of hope. Given, as we say, that we live in times when it is easy to become hopeless, and given that we turn to philosophers for ways to overcome these feelings, we explicate Marcel's theory by exploring his responses to two questions: (1) What causes people to become hopeless? …


Despite increased effort from non-governmental organisations, academics and governments over recent decades, several threats continue to cause species declines and even extinctions. Resource use by a growing human population is a significant driver of biodiversity loss, so conservation scientists need to be interested in the factors that motivate human behaviour. Economic models have been applied to human decision making for many years; however, humans are not financially rational beings and other characteristics of the decision maker (including attitude) and the pressure that people perceive to behave in a certain way (subjective norms) may influence decision making; these are characteristics considered by social psychologists interested in human decision making. We review social-psychology theories of behaviour and how they have been used in the context of conservation and natural-resource management. Many studies focus on general attitudes towards conservation rather than attitudes towards specific behaviours of relevance to conservation and thus have limited value in designing interventions to change specific behaviours (e.g. reduce hunting of a threatened species). By more specifically defining the behaviour of interest, and investigating attitude in the context of other social-psychological predictors of behaviour (e.g. subjective norms, the presence of facilitating factors and moral obligation), behaviours that have an impact on conservation goals will be better understood, allowing for the improved design of interventions to influence them.


In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the wireless channel and physical layer parameters on the performance of VoIP traffic in IEEE 802.11g networks. The wireless channel is modeled using a finite state Markov chain based on an adaptive modulation and coding scheme. The transition probabilities encompass the effects of the time-varying wireless channel, such as the Doppler frequency and the operating SNR, and the physical layer target packet error rate. This model is implemented inthe NS-2 tool and used to analyze the QoS (delay and packetdrop rate) of real-time multimedia traffic in realistic wireless channels. Numerical results showing the physical layer impact on the number of supported VoIP calls in an 802.11g network are presented. We also demonstrate that the admission region in the presence of mixed VoIP and data remains linear, even after considering the complex wireless channel effects.


Controversy exists regarding the benefit of endoscopic carpal tunnel release versus open carpal tunnel release in terms of grip/pinch strength, scar tenderness, pain, return to work, reversible/irreversible nerve damage, and adverse effects. Although a number of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews have been published on the subject, to date, no large definitive randomized controlled trial or meta-analysis has been performed comparing endoscopic to open carpal tunnel release. This meta-analysis was undertaken to address the effectiveness of endoscopic carpal tunnel release relative to open carpal tunnel release. Key outcome measures from 13 randomized controlled trials were extracted and statistically combined. Heterogeneity was observed in three of the outcomes (i.e., grip strength, pain, and return to work), but the causes of heterogeneity could not be explained because of insufficient detail in the reported studies. Using the Jadad et al. scale, nine of 13 studies were of low methodologic quality. The effect sizes were compared between the studies that were rated as high quality and the studies that were rated as low quality on the Jadad et al. scale. Similarly, the studies that were rated as high quality on the Gerritsen et al. scale were compared with those that were rated as low quality. No clinically significant difference in effect sizes was apparent between studies of high and low methodologic quality. This meta-analysis supports the conclusion that endoscopic carpal tunnel release is favored over the open carpal tunnel release in terms of a reduction in scar tenderness and increase in grip and pinch strength at a 12-week follow-up. With regard to symptom relief and return to work, the data are inconclusive. Irreversible nerve damage is uncommon in either technique; however, there is an increased susceptibility to reversible nerve injury that is three times as likely to occur with endoscopic carpal tunnel release than with open carpal tunnel release.


Research on physical, that is, violent, terror attacks and extremism has increased dramatically over the last decade. The growth of the Internet and computer technology has also led to concern over the use of cyberattacks by ideologically motivated offenders to cause harm and further their political and social agendas. There is, however, a lack of empirical research on cyber-attackers limiting our knowledge of the factors that affect their behavior. This study addresses this empirical gap through a qualitative analysis of 10 interviews conducted with ideologically motivated Turkish computer hackers. The findings demonstrated that Turkish hackers motivated by an ideological agenda reflected the larger values of the hacker subculture, though the targets for their attacks were shaped directly by religious or political beliefs. We conclude by discussing in depth our findings and implications for counterterror and cybersecurity policy and practice.


Amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition in the cerebral vasculature is accompanied by remodeling which has a profound influence on vascular integrity and function. In the current study we have quantitatively assessed the age-dependent changes of the cortical vasculature in the arcAβ model of cerebral amyloidosis. To estimate the density of the cortical microvasculature in vivo, we used contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance microangiography (CE-μMRA). Three-dimensional gradient echo datasets with 60 μm isotropic resolution were acquired in 4- and 24-month-old arcAβ mice and compared with wild-type (wt) control mice of the same age before and after administration of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. After segmentation of the cortical vasculature from difference images, an automated algorithm was applied for assessing the number and size distribution of intracortical vessels. With CE-μMRA, cerebral arteries and veins with a diameter of less than the nominal pixel resolution (60 μm) can be visualized. A significant age-dependent reduction in the number of functional intracortical microvessels (radii of 20–80 μm) has been observed in 24-month-old arcAβ mice compared with age-matched wt mice, whereas there was no difference between transgenic and wt mice of 4 months of age. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated strong fibrinogen and Aβ deposition in small- and medium-sized vessels, but not in large cerebral arteries, of 24-month-old arcAβ mice. The reduced density of transcortical vessels may thus be attributed to impaired perfusion and vascular occlusion caused by deposition of Aβ and fibrin. The study demonstrated that remodeling of the cerebrovasculature can be monitored noninvasively with CE-μMRA in mice.


BACKGROUND
Although medications should only be prescribed in pregnancy if benefits to the mother outweigh the risk to the fetus, drug use in pregnancy especially prescribed and over-the-counter analgesics, is very common.

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this review is to present an update on known changes in analgesic disposition in pregnancy caused by pharmacokinetic mechanisms.

METHOD
Herein, we discuss a wide range of medical, biomedical and scientific literature that includes reports from the fields of dentistry, general medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pharmacology and toxicology to provide an update on the use (including indications, contraindications and concerns) of major classes of analgesics during human pregnancy.

RESULTS
Over 50% of analgesics are in pregnancy category C, and even more category D specifically in the third trimester. Changes in renal filtration, cardiac output, plasma protein concentration and plasma volume particularly affect analgesics and dose adjustments may be necessary to maintain therapeutic concentrations in pregnant woman, and/or to protect the developing fetus.

CONCLUSION
Analgesics are one of the most frequently used drug classes in pregnancy. More than 60% of women self-report using analgesics while pregnant, both prescribed and by self-medication. For the majority of analgesics available (excepting acetaminophen and the NSAIDs, and to a lesser extent certain opioids), good prospective clinical trials documenting pharmacokinetic changes do not exist. More research is needed in both the scientific and clinical community to understand the risks and benefits of analgesic use in pregnancy, particularly as prevalence is rising.


Oceans/Seas are important components of Earth that are affected by global warming and climate change. Recent studies have indicated that the deeper oceans are responsible for climate variability by changing the Earth's ecosystem; therefore, assessing them has become more important. Remote sensing can provide sea surface data at high spatial/temporal resolution and with large spatial coverage, which allows for remarkable discoveries in the ocean sciences. The deep layers of the ocean/sea, however, cannot be directly detected by satellite remote sensors. Therefore, researchers have examined the relationships between salinity, height, and temperature of the oceans/Seas to estimate their subsurface water temperature using dynamical models and model-based data assimilation (numerical based and statistical) approaches, which simulate these parameters by employing remotely sensed data and in situ measurements. Due to the requirements of comprehensive perception and the importance of global warming in decision making and scientific studies, this review provides comprehensive information on the methods that are used to estimate ocean/sea subsurface water temperature from remotely and non-remotely sensed data. To clarify the subsurface processes, the challenges, limitations, and perspectives of the existing methods are also investigated.


Expert Systems in data mining generally use knowledge extraction methods to form a classifier or predictor. These have the advantage of forming high quality results due to the inclusion of expert knowledge. The problem, however, is that they do not allow for autonomous knowledge discovery. Therefore, such systems will only find results that the expert is capable of giving examples about and will not find unknown patterns. Thus, Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD) generally relies on other machine learning tools, forgoing the advantage of expert knowledge. This paper presents a method for incrementally building a knowledge base using expert knowledge in such a way that potentially the system is still able to autonomously discover unknown patterns. It does this through prudence checking of the knowledge base for each case presented and informs the expert when the knowledge base has an inconsistency needing clarification. Initial results show strong potential for the system in identifying misclassifications allowing its potential application to KDD.


Real-time video delivery in Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) scenario enables a variety of multimedia vehicular services. We conduct experiments with Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) transceivers located in the mutual proximity and exchanging Skype video calls traffic. We demonstrate that the lack of coordination between the users both at the application as well as Medium Access Control (MAC) layers results in problems with quality of service provisioning even for the setup without vehicular mobility.


Deep learning classifiers are assisting humans in making decisions and hence the user's trust in these models is of paramount importance. Trust is often a function of constant behavior. From an AI model perspective it means given the same input the user would expect the same output, especially for correct outputs, or in other words consistently correct outputs. This paper studies a model behavior in the context of periodic retraining of deployed models where the outputs from successive generations of the models might not agree on the correct labels assigned to the same input. We formally define consistency and correct-consistency of a learning model. We prove that consistency and correct-consistency of an ensemble learner is not less than the average consistency and correct-consistency of individual learners and correct-consistency can be improved with a probability by combining learners with accuracy not less than the average accuracy of ensemble component learners. To validate the theory using three datasets and two state-of-the-art deep learning classifiers we also propose an efficient dynamic snapshot ensemble method and demonstrate its value.


Purpose: In recent years, social media has become a primary method and forum of interaction within communities. The theory and common practice of community policing requires law enforcement agencies to be engaged with all segments of the community in their efforts to preserve the peace and maintain public safety. The purpose of this applied research project is threefold. First, it describes the ideal components of an effective social media campaign in the context of community policing. Second, it assesses the Austin Police Department's (APD) social media outreach using these ideal type components. Third, based on the assessment, it provides recommendations for improving the APD's social media outreach so that the department's emphasis on community policing is maximized. A review of the literature identified three key components of an effective social media campaign in the context of community policing. These components include building community partnerships through social media, integrating social media with problem solving and integrating social media policies and procedures. Methodology: The literature identified the components of an effective social media campaign in the context of community policing. These components are used to construct a model assessment tool. This tool is used to assess the Austin Police Department's social media campaign in the context of community policing in conjunction with document analysis and semi-structured interviews to form a case study. Findings: The Austin Police Department's social media outreach adequately uses social media to enhance its community policing mission. The implementation of more formalized policies and procedures and adequately equipping the department with more trained personnel, dedicated finances and current technology to maintain an up to date and 24/7 social media presence is necessary as the department continues to grow.


In iLeadership, Jay Elliot gives the reader the opportunity of seeing Steve Jobs as only his closest associates have ever seen him, and to learn what has made him--and the mystique of his management style--capable of creating tools so extraordinary that they have remade three industries and have transformed the way we create, consume, and communicate with each other. Jay Elliot worked side by side with Steve as Senior Vice President of Apple and brings us his deep insider perspective of Steve's singular iLeadership style--which encompasses four major principles: product, talent, organization, marketing. Jay shares the lessons that come out of Steve's intuitive approach to show how the creative and technological brilliance of iLeadership can be utilized to drive breakthroughs in any organization, irrespective of size.


In the ubiquitin-proteasome system, a subset of ubiquitylated proteins requires the AAA+ ATPase p97 (also known as VCP or Cdc48) for extraction from membranes or protein complexes before delivery to the proteasome for degradation. Diverse ubiquitin adapters are known to link p97 to its client proteins, but two recent papers on the adapter protein UBXD7, including one by Bandau et al. in BMC Biology, suggest that rather than simply linking p97 to ubiquitylated proteins, this adapter may be essential to coordinate ubiquitylation and p97-mediated extraction of the proteasome substrate. These fi ndings add to growing indications of richly diverse roles of adapters in p97mediated signaling functions.


Teachers at the present time face continuous changes in their work and organizational practices. However, we lack empirical evidence as to what this implies for teachers and their work. This paper describes how two Finnish educational organizations restrict or enable teachers' professional agency, in terms of how the teachers influence the conditions and contents of their work. The paper further addresses how agency is related to: (i) organizational and educational transformations, (ii) teachers' professional development and identity negotiations and (iii) teachers' commitment to the educational organization and well-being at work. This paper provides the comparative research evidence on both the strengths and weaknesses of different management practices of different educational organizations, identified here as a loosely coupled organization and a tightly coupled organization. It seems that strong agency supports teachers' diverse learning, the practice of their professional orientations and also their well-being and commitment. Conversely, all these are threatened by teachers' weak agency. However, teachers' strong agency as individuals also appears to act as a brake on organizational transformation and collective learning. Based on our findings, we suggest novel future directions for the management of educational organizations and for the leadership of teachers' work in terms of agency-centred coupling practices.


ABSTRACT The political evolution of Kampala under the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has profoundly affected the fortunes of the city's street vendors. This article examines the effects of institutional changes brought about by the NRM's efforts to monopolize power in the city, arguing that the twin forces of democratization and decentralization allowed street vending to flourish while the reversal of these processes precipitated its dramatic decline. Democratization and decentralization initiated a period of intense political competition in which vendors could trade political support for protection from politicians who were more interested in political survival than the implementation of policy. This ability was lost when the central government introduced a new city government that shifted the balance of power from elected politicians to appointed technocrats. The new city government has since sought legitimacy through development and urban management initiatives that aim to transform Kampala into a supposedly modern, well-organized city. In doing so, it has sought to eradicate street vending, a practice it sees as the antithesis of and an obstacle to its ambitions. Lacking the channels for political influence that they previously enjoyed, street vendors have been forced to face the full brunt of government repression.


Self-attention networks have revolutionized natural language processing and are making impressive strides in image analysis tasks such as image classification and object detection. Inspired by this success, we investigate the application of self-attention networks to 3D point cloud processing. We design self-attention layers for point clouds and use these to construct self-attention networks for tasks such as semantic scene segmentation, object part segmentation, and object classification. Our Point Transformer design improves upon prior work across domains and tasks. For example, on the challenging S3DIS dataset for large-scale semantic scene segmentation, the Point Transformer attains an mIoU of 70.4% on Area 5, outperforming the strongest prior model by 3.3 absolute percentage points and crossing the 70% mIoU threshold for the first time.


Don Hill formerly served on the Dallas City Council, was Dallas Mayor Pro Tem, and was a candidate for Dallas Mayor in 2007.


The strategy of the Kremlin nowadays is set up on a framework that involves economic cooperation, mainly energy provisions through state-controlled giant Gazprom, and through the arms trade too, Russia being the second largest weapons exporter worldwide after the United States. This attempt by Russia to reinforce a theoretical Orthodox Christian alliance in the Balkans through Greece – a strategy which obviously conceals practical Realpolitik interests, as did the "Holy Alliance" of Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1815 – aims to create an alternative to the Anglo-Saxon-led Western values, as well as to the European Union vision which is generally secular and untied from national historical traditions and Christianity. This strategy is not limited only to Greece, which however represents, potentially, the most significant fulcrum of it, since other Orthodox Balkan countries too – primarily Serbia (and Republika Srpska) but also Montenegro, Macedonia and Cyprus – have become new objects of contention between the Euro-Atlantic powers and the Russian Federation.


It is DC power that Output of renewable energy being recently developed and researched. Also, demand of DC power will expect to proliferate due to increase of digital load. Thus, DC distribution system providing high quality of power and reliability has emerged as a new distribution system. If the conventional distribution systems are substituted by proposed DC distribution system, the output of renewable energy can be connected with distribution systems under minimum power conversion. Therefore, in the event of connection with DC load, it can construct an efficient distribution system. In this paper, the integrated parallel operation of power conversion module for DC distribution system is proposed. Also, this paper proposed modularization of power conversion devices for DC distribution system and power control for parallel operation of large capacity system. DC distribution system consists of three power conversion modules such as AC/DC power conversion module 2 set, ESS module 1 set. DC distribution system controls suitable operation depending on the status of the DC power distribution system and load. Integrated operation of these systems is verified by simulation and experiment results.


A hybrid method, combining analytic Kirchhoff approximation (KA) and numerical method of moment (MoM), is developed to solve the 2D scattering problem of a dielectric target with arbitrary cross section above a moderate perfect electric conductor (PEC) rough surface under TM-polarized tapered wave incidence. Consider the target as the MoM region and the rough surface as the KA region, the induced current on the rough surface is obtained through the KA method, which depends on the incident tapered wave and the field illuminating by current distribution on the target, leaving only unknowns on the target region. In order to reduce the computational costs further, the rough surface is truncated to speed up computation of the scattering contribution from the rough surface to the target. Compared with the conventional MoM, the hybrid method is very efficient to solve the composite scattering problem of target above rough surface, especially for long underlying rough surface. Simulation results validate the effectiveness and accuracy of the hybrid method.


When Bashar al-Asad smoothly assumed power in July 2000, just seven days after the death of his father, observers were divided on what this would mean for the country's foreign and domestic politics. On the one hand, it seemed everything would stay the same: an Asad on top of a political system controlled by secret services and Baathist one-party rule. On the other hand, it looked like everything would be different: a young president with exposure to Western education who, in his inaugural speech, emphasized his determination to modernize Syria. This volume explores the ways in which Asad's domestic and foreign policy strategies during his first decade in power safeguarded his rule and adapted Syria to the age of globalization. The volume's contributors examine multiple aspects of Asad's rule in the 2000s, from power consolidation within the party and control of the opposition to economic reform, co-opting new private charities, and coping with Iraqi refugees. The Syrian regime temporarily succeeded in reproducing its power and legitimacy, in reconstructing its social base, and in managing regional and international challenges. At the same time, contributors clearly detail the shortcomings, inconsistencies, and risks these policies entailed, illustrating why Syria's tenuous stability came to an abrupt end during the Arab Spring of 2011. This volume presents the work of an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Based on extensive fieldwork and on intimate knowledge of a country whose dynamics often seem complicated and obscure to outside observers, these scholars' insightful snapshots of Bashar al-Asad's decade of authoritarian upgrading provide an indispensable resource for understanding the current crisis and its disastrous consequences.


This auto-ethnographic project concerns itself with the processes of how meaning in an organisational setting is created, changed, sustained and 'achieved'. Its contributory value lies in the inductive development of a 'tropological approach' to the investigation of sensemaking processes in organisations. Positioned in an interpretive-hermeneutic tradition, the major research strategy of participant observation and its supplementary techniques (e. g. qualitative interviewing) were activated to explore sense-making processes. This engagement in the field was complemented by the application of three frameworks derived from the discipline of linguistics. These were: a structuralist approach (as based on Saussure, Jakobson, Lodge), speech act theory (Austin, Searle) and discourse analysis (Fairclough). The application of the first framework to data explored the character of signs as well as the relationship between signs. The latter were defined as either metaphorical or metonymical in character. The tropes derived from these relationships, i. e. metaphor and metonymy, provided an early trajectory for further data interpretation. Naturally occurring talk, including organisational stories, talk as recorded in meetings, artifacts including written texts,
buildings, equipment and geographical arrangements were analysed in terms of their metaphorical and/or metonymical significance in processes of meaning creation. The
interplay of metonymies, i. e. processes on the basis of physical or causal contiguity, and metaphors, translation and interpretation processes were shown to render the experience of the organisation essentially symbolic. A third trope, irony, emerged as an important figure
during the research process and was integrated into the tropological approach. Metonymy and irony are undertheorised in organisation studies. Within the second organising framework the performative value of tropes was investigated, i.e. in how far 'talk and action' form a dialectic whole. In particular, the question how organisations become active agents, who "think" and "speak" and "act" was investigated with the help of the voice metaphor, exploring the relationship between individuals, agents and principals. Different voices (new voices, fading and fluctuating voices, dissenting voices, having no voice) were investigated. Meaning, although inchoate and in perpetual flux was shown to be linked to the ability to transcend individual status and claim agency on behalf on a higher principal. Deviant meaning and interpretation were investigated as occurring in the trope irony, but also in the denial of metonymical causal linkages between signs and divergent particularisation processes within metaphorical interpretation. Finally, meaning as derived from a wider discursive environment (Higher Education environment) was investigated from a critical point of view, focusing on hegemonial
processes and the manufacture of consent, which "normalised" the hidden assumptions of certain discourses by drawing on metaphorical and metonymical devices inherent in language. Irony, again, was shown to be an expression of divergent meaning interpretation.
The exercise of power as well as resistance were shown to be dialectically enacted at the interstices of everyday practice. These transient, elusive processes are expressed in language, in particular the figures of speech. In sum, the suggested tropological approach shows metapho as being both constraining and emancipatory in its performative value, metonymy as being the first and foremost habitus of cultural knowledge and iron as being precariously suspended between conservatism and change. The contributory value of this approach lies in the inclusion of two tropes, metonymy and irony, which have not been sufficiently understood or theorised in organisation studies.


The art of designing both unites and divides landscape architecture and architecture. Despite having a long tradition, landscape architecture has lacked a concise presentation of the fundamental principles underlying its design and planning concepts. This much sought-after book has evolved out of more than twenty years of teaching experience. The authors distinguish between the variable factors such as climate, growth of vegetation etc. , and the more abstract element of design. They describe the ideal design components and demonstrate the extent to which natural features such as surfaces, spaces, paths, borders, hard and soft materials shape the designs. This book reveals how concepts such as order and chaos, way and goal, intention and reaction form the basis for landscape design, just as they do in architecture. Hans Loidl has been Professor for Landscape Architecture in Berlin since 1982 and has headed his own atelier since 1984. Stefan Bernard works as a landscape architect and graphic designer.


We present a neural network (NN) approach to fit and predict implied volatility surfaces (IVSs). Atypically to standard NN applications, financial industry practitioners use such models equally to replicate market prices and to value other financial instruments. In other words, low training losses are as important as generalization capabilities. Importantly, IVS models need to generate realistic arbitrage-free option prices, meaning that no portfolio can lead to risk-free profits. We propose an approach guaranteeing the absence of arbitrage opportunities by penalizing the loss using soft constraints. Furthermore, our method can be combined with standard IVS models in quantitative finance, thus providing a NN-based correction when such models fail at replicating observed market prices. This lets practitioners use our approach as a plug-in on top of classical methods. Empirical results show that this approach is particularly useful when only sparse or erroneous data are available. We also quantify the uncertainty of the model predictions in regions with few or no observations. We further explore how deeper NNs improve over shallower ones, as well as other properties of the network architecture. We benchmark our method against standard IVS models. By evaluating our method on both training sets, and testing sets, namely, we highlight both their capacity to reproduce observed prices and predict new ones.


The advent of data intensive science has fueled the generation of digital scientific data. Undoubtedly, digital research data plays a pivotal role in transparency and re-producibility of scientific results as well as in steering the innovation in a research process. However, the main challenges for science policy and infrastructure projects are to develop practices and solutions for research data management which in compliance with good scientific standards make the research data discoverable, citeble and accessible for society potential reuse. GeRDI – the Generic Research Data (RD) Infrastructure – is such a research data management initiative which targets long tail content that stems from research communities belonging to different domain and research practices. It provides a generic and open software which connects research data infrastructures of communities to enable the investigation of multidisciplinary research questions.


Readers of Evidence-Based Nursing will be familiar with "review articles." They are among the most common types of research abstracted for the journal, and although systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) predominantly feature in the Treatment section, reviews that address questions of assessment, causation, quality improvement, prognosis, and quality assessment have also been abstracted. Reviews of qualitative research have been abstracted less frequently—7 times since the journal began in 1998.

Qualitative research is an important component of the evidence base for nursing. Almost one quarter of all abstracts published in Evidence-Based Nursing (n = 205) have been primary qualitative research articles, and they have examined several areas of nursing practice. Like quantitative researchers, qualitative researchers have become interested in synthesising qualitative research in order to develop new cumulative knowledge.1 This notebook will explore how syntheses of qualitative research may contribute to the practice of evidence-based nursing.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of RCTs are at the top of the hierarchy for providing evidence of the effectiveness of interventions. This is because all individual trials have limitations, such as low statistical power, researcher or expert bias, and contextual variability.2 Similarly, single qualitative studies can be heavily influenced by specific issues of context and generalisability. By synthesising qualitative research, these difficulties can potentially be overcome.

Several methodological approaches have been developed to synthesise qualitative research over the past 2 decades. Some have been adapted from methods used to analyse primary qualitative research, whereas others have been specifically developed for this purpose.3

Qualitative synthesis is being promoted by a number of organisations based on the recognition that providing health care involves complex, multifactorial decisions that require a range of evidence. Qualitative synthesis complements the "rationalist" model of synthesis provided by traditional systematic review methods.4 One such organisation is the Cochrane Qualitative …


Power of a public nature must neither be abused nor exceeded. Administrative law is the branch of public law which is principally concerned with ensuring that the government, government departments, tribunals and all authorities exercising public law functions act within the perimeters of their power. Judicial review is the backbone of administrative law and is the most potent judicial weapon available to an aggrieved individual to challenge the validity of the decision-making process of public authorities.

Administrative Law in Malaysia sets out in clear and succinct language the applicable principles of Malaysian administrative law. This book contains the fruits of a detailed study of Malaysian and foreign, principally English and Australian, court decisions. To aid understanding, the text is rich in the facts of the leading cases and the judicial dicta explaining and applying the law to those cases. The substantive grounds of judicial review are explored and, where appropriate, readers are informed how the local law may differ from the position in major Commonwealth jurisdictions. This enables the reader to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the local position.

The remedies available to the successful litigant are critically discussed and the legal position is summarised for easy understanding and application by busy legal practitioners. Where the local position is unclear or has not been directly considered by the courts, the book attempts to point the way forward. The liability of the government in tort and the availability of injunctions against the government are also covered in the book.

Administrative Law in Malaysia is a book which should not be missed by lawyers, judicial officers, public authorities, in-house counsel and non-governmental organisations.


Starting in 1983, nest boxes for Barn Owls Tyto alba were erected as part of a biological pest control program to deal with rodents, in Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, and later in other agricultural fields and plantations in the Beit She'an valley, Israel. More than a decade ago, the nest box scheme was extended to include other agricultural areas in the valley, and grew from 14 boxes on 3 km2 in 1983 to about 300 boxes on 90 km2 throughout the entire Beit She'an valley in 2007. Here we present the results of a study during the 2002 through 2006 breeding seasons, in which 156 to 243 nest boxes were monitored each season. Mean occupation of nest boxes during the study was 53.5% (SE 2.1, n = 248), and a total of 596 breeding attempts were recorded, of which 85.2% successfully fledged at least one young. Yearly occupation of nest boxes varied significantly between the years, ranging from 48.1% to 73.5%. The occupancy rate of first-year nest boxes was lower than that of those available for two or more years. The occupancy rate and the number of nestlings per box (per year) were positively correlated to the distance to the closest nest box and negatively correlated to the number of nest boxes within a 500 m radius. Similar to other studies in the world, the erection of nest boxes for Barn Owls in agricultural fields proved extremely successful in the Beit She'an valley, with 86.7% (n = 248) of nest boxes being occupied at least once during the five-year study period. This high occupancy rate demonstrates not only that natural nesting sites were lacking, but also that nest boxes can be used to increase Barn Owl populations in agricultural areas, both for conservation and for biological pest control.


Since several studies have been reporting an increase in the decline of forests, a major issue in ecology is to better understand and predict tree mortality. The interactions between the different factors and the physiological processes giving rise tree mortality, as well as the inter-individual variability in mortality risk, still need to be better assessed. This study investigates mortality in a rear-edge population of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) using a combination of statistical and process-based modelling approaches. Based on a survey of 4323 adult beeches since 2002 within a natural reserve, we first used statistical models to quantify the effects of competition, tree growth, size, defoliation and fungi presence on mortality. Secondly, we used an ecophysiological process-based model (PBM) to separate out the different mechanisms giving rise to temporal and inter-individual variations in mortality by simulating depletion of carbon stocks, loss of hydraulic conductance and damage due to late frosts in response to climate. The combination of all these simulated processes was associated with the temporal variations in the population mortality rate. The individual probability of mortality decreased with increasing mean growth, and increased with increasing crown defoliation, earliness of budburst, fungi presence and increasing competition, in the statistical model. Moreover, the interaction between tree size and defoliation was significant, indicating a stronger increase in mortality associated to defoliation in smaller than larger trees. Finally, the PBM predicted a higher conductance loss together with a higher level of carbon reserves for trees with earlier budburst, while the ability to defoliate the crown was found to limit the impact of hydraulic stress at the expense of the accumulation of carbon reserves. We discuss the convergences and divergences obtained between statistical and process-based approaches and we highlight the importance of combining them to characterize the different processes underlying mortality, and the factors modulating individual vulnerability to mortality.


In this study, 51 ozone precursor VOCs, which are routinely measured in PAMS (Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Station) were measured in a suburban station located at Middle East Technical University, Environmental Engineering Department in, Ankara. Daily air samples were collected in evacuated canisters between January – December, 2014. Collected samples were analyzed with GC-FID system and concentrations of 51 VOCs were determined. Mean VOC concentrations ranged between 0.048±0.061 μg m (cis-2-penten) and 10±13 μg m-3 (toluene). Average benzene concentration was 1.49 ± 1.74 μg m. Factor Analysis (FA) was applied to determine the major sources of VOCs that contribute to the measured concentrations in the university campus. FA application revealed nine factors that can be grouped under four major components, including (1) transportation: gasoline vehicle exhaust emissions, evaporative losses from gasoline vehicles, gasoline evaporation in gas stations and diesel emissions, (2) industrial emissions: industrial evaporation and industrial application, (3) solvent emissions: surface coatings and solvent use and (4) asphalt application.


In urban areas, interchange spacing and the adequacy of design for weaving, merge, and diverge areas can significantly influence available capacity. Traffic microsimulation tools allow detailed analyses of these critical areas in complex locations that often yield results that differ from the generalized approach of the Highway Capacity Manual. In order to obtain valid results, various inputs should be calibrated to local conditions. This project investigated basic calibration factors for the simulation of traffic conditions within an urban freeway merge/diverge environment. By collecting and analyzing urban freeway traffic data from multiple sources, specific Iowa-based calibration factors for use in VISSIM were developed. In particular, a repeatable methodology for collecting standstill distance and headway/time gap data on urban freeways was applied to locations throughout the state of Iowa. This collection process relies on the manual processing of video for standstill distances and individual vehicle data from radar detectors to measure the headways/time gaps. By comparing the data collected from different locations, it was found that standstill distances vary by location and lead-follow vehicle types. Headways and time gaps were found to be consistent within the same driver population and across different driver populations when the conditions were similar. Both standstill distance and headway/time gap were found to follow fairly dispersed and skewed distributions. Therefore, it is recommended that microsimulation models be modified to include the option for standstill distance and headway/time gap to follow distributions as well as be set separately for different vehicle classes. In addition, for the driving behavior parameters that cannot be easily collected, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the impact of these parameters on the capacity of the facility. The sensitivity analysis results can be used as a reference to manually adjust parameters to match the simulation results to the observed traffic conditions. A well-calibrated microsimulation model can enable a higher level of fidelity in modeling traffic behavior and serve to improve decision making in balancing need with investment.


Climate change is a major threat to both freshwater and marine ecosystems on a global scale. There is evidence that for aquatic pathogens and parasites, increasing water temperatures will favour increasing transmission rates and virulence. Increasing water temperature may stress fish and transiently compromise the immune system, exacerbating the effects of infection. The high energy costs of an upregulated immune response will have consequences on other physiological processes such as growth and reproduction.

In order to study the effects of temperature on pathogenicity, a bioassay to challenge the Australian native freshwater pygmy perch, Nannoperca vittata with a bacterium Photobacterium damselae damselae was carried out. The bioassay was carried out at two temperatures; 17°C, thought to be the optimum for fish survival and growth, and 28°C, presumed to be approaching the upper critical limit for the species. Nannoperca vittata was found to be susceptible to infection by P. damselae damselae, the first time that infection has been demonstrated in native Australian freshwater fishes. The effect concentration that caused mortalities in 50% of the population (EC50) was lower at 28°C (4.82x105 CFU ml-1) than at 17°C (2.81x106 CFU ml-1). Fish mortalities were significantly greater and times to death were significantly shorter at 28°C than at 17°C and this is the first time that this has been demonstrated experimentally for P. damselae damselae.

Following the pathogenicity trial, the aerobic scope of exposed versus non-exposed pygmy perch of both 17°C and 28°C experimental groups was determined in a respirometer. Aerobic scope is defined as the difference between maximum metabolic rate and standard metabolic rate. The aerobic scope was greater in exposed than in unexposed fish at 17°C and conversely, greater in unexposed than in exposed fish at 28°C.. This difference occurred because standard metabolic rate increased with exposure at both temperatures, whereas maximum metabolic rate increased at 17°C, but not at 28°C. The increase in standard metabolic rate at both temperatures was expected as a consequence of an upregulated immune response following exposure to the bacterium. The difference in maximum metabolic rate is hypothesised to be a consequence of a compensatory increase in oxygen carrying capacity, which is counteracted by a persistent immune response at 28 but not at 17°C. This hypothesis requires further testing.

The results from this study suggest, firstly, that fish are less tolerant of infection at higher water temperatures and secondly, that a combination of higher water temperature and increased exposure to pathogens may decrease aerobic scope and therefore fitness. This study showed that higher temperatures decrease aerobic scope in fish, thus suggesting that rising temperatures with global warming may have the same effect. This is the first study to demonstrate such a response in an Australian native freshwater fish. Further research in this field is urgently required to enable conservation management plans that address the threats posed to native freshwater fish species through climate change.


Focusing on the paradoxes revealed in the multibillion dollar mistake of the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) and the expansive ambit of a leaked National Security Agency briefing on its approach to "identity intelligence," this article analyzes security glitches arising from the state's application of mechanized logics to security and visibility. Presuming that a digital-looking pattern would be more deceptive than designs inspired by natural forms, in 2004, the US Army adopted a pixelated "digital" camouflage pattern, a print that rendered soldiers more, rather than less, visible in the field; it acknowledged this error in 2012. Two years later, "Identity Intelligence: Image Is Everything" visualized the episteme of National Security Agency surveillance with an illustration detailing hundreds of different types of data—biometric, biographic, and contextual—that the agency believes it could exploit to identify and monitor "targets of interest." These glitches originate in technofetishistic convictions about the nature of digital images and information, limited ways of imagining bodies and lives, and reductive understandings of complex relationships between power and perception. Together, they expose the paradoxes that arise as the state tries to extend its power over the body and the contingency of that power on the smallest of things.


The purpose of this thesis is to increase the overall performance of a CleanTech company (CT) by implementing a concept known as business process management (BPM). This has mainly been performed using process mapping as a tool, which is an important component for adopting BPM. Process measurements were also investigated in order to integrate relevant measurements into a BPM system (a web-based platform). The data was gathered from a number of interviews, meetings and workshops. Department managers, within the investigated CT, were the main respondents. Three workshops took place, to verify and to diagnose how the work with the BPM implementation was progressing. The mapping resulted in five main processes. These were dissected into sub-processes aided by support processes and controlled by one management process. This resulted in the creation of almost 30 process maps, including around 270 activities and approximately 70 documents. These maps and documents were consolidated into the BPM system, where they were interlinked with a database. Explanations and pictures were also added to clarify the different activities in the maps. The explanations and pictures were set to appear automatically in the web application, when the mouse pointer was held over a notation. This resulted in a new description for how the work within CT was performed, based on processes. This will help CT to coordinate its activities. The main process definitions were strongly connected with the organization's departments, which created a paradox. A common description of a main process is that the process cuts across the old organizational departments, but, at CT, the processes were aligned fairly well to the old department. This interpretation of the main process was still considered to be valid because a lot of effort was put into finding cross-department dependencies.


This series of research reports deals with the status of the elderly in several Asian countries. It presents research that is being conducted under a broad project sponsored by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, the Comparative Study of the Elderly in Four Asian Countries (Grant No. AGO7637). The goal is to measure the social, economic and health characteristics of the older population (age 60 and above), to predict what changes may occur over the next decades, and to suggest implications for public policy. The original countries involved in the study are the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Reports on the elderly in other countries in Asia and on methods developed through the project using data from various countries may also be included in this report series.


This article considers the consequences of rejecting axiological ambiguity in the sphere of human experiences and reflection, as observed in statements made by lower secondary school children as part of a study Teaching language and literature in secondary school in light of the new core curriculum. The negative consequences are indicated of interpreting the world as one locked in the values of extreme opposition, based on an analysis of students' interpretations of Balladyna by Juliusz Słowacki and Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising by Miron Białoszewski. The risks may include alienating the student from reality, as well as the reformulation of values into a set of anti-values, which excludes the possibility of reaching interpersonal agreement. Constructing a personal axiological system on this basis can occur only at the cost of discrediting the values of others, who are denied the right to have them from the outset. In such a world, there is no place for dialogue about values differing from those already held.


We present a novel materials concept for optical inscription of stable birefringent optical elements into guest-host type polymers by making use of chromophore aggregation. The method is based on photoalignment of azobenzene chromophores, the aggregation of which leads to significant enhancement and stabilization of the photoinduced birefringence. The obtained order parameter of the molecular alignment (0.3) in combination with the exceptional thermal stability of the anisotropy renders the material system unique among amorphous azobenzene-containing polymers and provides a route toward designing efficient photoresponsive optical elements through the guest-host type approach.


Pleomorphic adenoma (PA) typically presents as a benign slow growing, painless neoplasm of the parotid gland. PA arising from the submandibular gland in the paediatric age group is rare. Surgical excision is the treatment of choice. A case of PA in an 8-yearold Malay girl is presented. Clinically she presented with a painless right submandibular mass measuring 2x2cm. A diagnosis of Pleomorphic adenoma was made on Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC). She underwent submandibulectomy uneventfully. Postoperatively after two years follow up, she is asymptomatic.


OBJECTIVE
Atrial structural remodeling has been suggested to contribute to atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence following direct-current cardioversion (DCCV). The role of several inflammatory and extracellular matrix turnover markers in AF recurrence following DCCV has been investigated. However, data on the impact of galectin-3, which is known to play a role in various fibrotic conditions, including cardiac fibrosis are lacking. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the predictive role of serum galectin-3 levels in AF recurrence following successful DCCV.

METHODS
A total of 90 persistent AF patients who were sche-duled for DCCV were prospectively enrolled. Serum samples were assayed to determine pre-DCCV galectin-3 levels using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Patients were followed up for 3 months for AF recurrence.

RESULTS
Of 90 persistent AF patients (mean age: 55.33±7.94 years; 53.33% male) who underwent successful DCCV, 28 (31.11%) experienced early AF recurrence within 3 months. Patients with AF recurrence had a greater left atrial volume index (LAVI) (33.35±2.45 mL/m2 vs. 29.21±3.08 mL/m2; p<0.001) and serum galectin-3 levels were higher (0.88 ng/mL [min-max: 0.52-1.32] vs. 0.60 ng/mL [min-max: 0.38-0.91]; p<0.001). In multivariate analysis, the number of DCCV attempts (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.879, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.052-3.355; p=0.033), LAVI (HR: 1.180, 95% CI: 1.028-1.354; p=0.018), and serum galectin-3 level (HR: 11.933, 95% CI: 1.220-116.701; p=0.033) were found to be independently associated with early AF recurrence following successful DCCV.

CONCLUSION
Circulating levels of galectin-3 may have an association with early AF recurrence following DCCV.


Corresponding Author: Zohreh Hojati Division of Genetics, Department of biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. Phone: +98311-7932478 E-mail: email@example.com Abstract Background: Interferons are some kind of natural cytokines which express in response to a variety of antigens including viral RNA, bacterial products, and tumor proteins. Interferon beta is used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Moreover, this drug inhibits cellular proliferation as well as angiogenesis and as a result, helps to cure cancer. In this research, in addition to cloning the interferon-beta gene along with conserved kozak sequence after the strong eEf1a promoter in the pBud.CE4.1 vector, the expression of this recombinant gene was compared to basal expression in HEK293T cell line using real-time PCR, SDS PAGE and western blot tests. Materials and Methods: In the beginning, the interferon-beta gene was amplified from the pSVM dhfr vector containing the gene, using primers including BglII and KpnI restriction sites as well as conserved kozak sequence. Then the duplicated gene was digested and inserted in the linear pBud.CE4.1 vector. After ensuring entry of the gene using RFLP, colony PCR and sequencing, the recombinant vector was transfected into E. coli TOP10 competent bacteria. After that, amplified recombinant vector was extracted and transfected into HEK293 cell line. Results: The expression of interferon-beta cloned in pBud.CE4.1 vector showed a 79.9-fold increase, in comparison with the basal expression in HEK293T cell line. Moreover, non-recombinant vector transfection has increased the expression of interferon-beta up to 2.87 times in the cell line that is probably due to the existence of the viral promoter in the vector. Conclusion: Real-time PCR and protein test results showed that recombinant beta interferon gene had been successfully expressed in HEK293T cell line. In order to produce more of this protein, optimization of various conditions are required for the HEK293T cell line.


The copper(II) complex of 1,1,5,5-tetra-iso-propyl-2-thiobiuret [Cu(SON(CNiPr2)2)2], has been synthesized and its single crystal X-ray structure determined. The complex has been used as a single source precursor for the preparation of copper sulfide nanoparticles by solution thermolysis. The nanoparticles synthesized had various morphologies including spherical, hexagonal disks, and trigonal crystallites; depending on the reaction temperature, concentration of the precursor and the growth time. Thermolysis experiments in oleylamine produced Cu7S4 nanoparticles as a mixture of roxbyite (monoclinic) and anilite (orthorhombic) phases. Pure anilite Cu7S4 nanoparticles were obtained when a solution of precursor in octadecene was injected into hot oleylamine whereas, djurleite Cu1.94S nanoparticles were obtained when a solution of the precursor in oleylamine was injected into hot dodecanethiol. The optical properties of the pure anilite Cu7S4 phase and the djurleite Cu1.94S are consistent with indirect band gap materials. The complex was also used for the preparation of copper sulfide thin films by aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD). Powder X-ray diffraction (p-XRD) patterns of the thin films showed the deposition of a mixture of cubic CuS2 and hexagonal Cu2S phases at all temperatures. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) of copper sulfide films showed spherical crystallites from reaction at 280 °C, cuboids at 320 °C and plate like crystallites between 360 and 400 °C. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) of material scratched from thin films showed nanoplates of copper sulfides with 25–30 nm in width.


From the Publisher:
In this highly readable and thought-provoking work, Nick Dyer-Witheford assesses the relevance of Marxism in our time and demonstrates how the information age, far from transcending the historic conflict between capital and its laboring subjects, constitutes the latest battleground in their encounter.
Dyer-Witheford maps the dynamics of modern capitalism, showing how capital depends for its operations not just on exploitation in the immediate workplace but on the continuous integration of a whole series of social sites and activities, from public health and maternity to natural resource allocation and the geographical reorganization of labor power. He also shows how these sites and activities may become focal points of subversion and insurgency, as new means of communication vital for the smooth flow of capital also permit otherwise isolated and dispersed points of resistance to connect and combine with one another.
Dyer-Witheford predicts the advent of a reinvented, "autonomist" Marxism that will rediscover the possibility of a collective, communist transformation of society. Refuting the utopian promises of the information revolution, he discloses the real potentialities for a new social order in the form of a twenty-first-century communism based on the common sharing of wealth.


In present research, depositional environment of the Qelli Formation (Late Ordovician) was investigated in NE Alborz Basin (Robat-e-Qarabil Area; Kuh-e-Kurkhud). This study was performed based on field observations, thin sections petrography, sedimentary structures and palynological studies. Utilizing this multidisciplinary approach, four litofacies assemblages were recognized. The Qelli Formation in studied area comprises alternation of thick to thin shale beds, medium to thin bedded sandstones, sandy limestones, laminated siltstones and diabasic sill. These lithofacies assemblages consist of arkose-subarkose, sandy allochem limestone, siltstone and shale. According to the properties of lithofacies, sedimentary structures and vertical stacking of these lithofacies suggest a storm and wave dominated shelf, wherein the depositional setting evolved from lower shoreface with lowermiddle lithofacies (with hummocky cross stratification, truncation surface, parallel lamination and cross lamination) that gradually changed into upper shoreface with upper lithofacies (with swaley cross stratification, wave ripple-mark, parallel lamination, normal grading, wedge-shaped and tabular cross-lamination) which storm and waves induced currents had important roles in sediment reworking and redeposition. Using the Tyson diagram, four palynological facies (III, IVa, V and VII) were identified. Meanwhile, statistical studies on the palynological parameters (percentage of phytoclast, amorphous organic matter and lability parameter) indicate a shallowing upward trend in Ghelli Formation. Comparison of the relative abundance of marine palynomorphs with terrestrial palynological elements indicate less abundance of acritarchs and chitinozoans in comparison with cryptospores and plant fragments which indicate that Qelli Formation is deposited in shallow marine environment.


Bezerra, Garcia and Stichtenoth constructed an explicit tower of function fields over a cubic finite field, whose limit attains the Zink bound. Their proof is rather long and very technical. The main aim of this thesis is to replace the complex calculations in their work by structural arguments, thus giving a much simpler and more transparent proof for the limit of the Bezerra–Garcia–Stichtenoth tower. We also compute the limit of the Galois closure of this tower. One of the main tools used while determining the limits of these towers is a lemma from ramification theory. Using the theory of higher ramification groups, we give proof of this result, which is valid for more general fields. Furthermore, using a variant of these towers, we obtain asymptotic lower bounds for the class of r-quasi transitive codes over cubic finite fields and the class of transitive isoorthogonal codes over cubic finite fields.


Individuals as well as organizations often need to work together to achieve economies of scale and scope. However, collaboration can be a challenge, and one example in which the potential benefit of cooperation has been difficult to realize are joint operations within the Norwegian farming industry. Thus, the purpose of this article is to illuminate why some of these joint operations fail while others prevail. We conducted in-depth interviews and gathered performance data in 10 joint farming operations, with our results revealing systematic patterns; those operations which had the highest level of performance and satisfaction had low levels of conflicts, whereas the others had higher level of conflicts. For the least successful operations, the conflicts were predominantly relational and typically approached with contention. Furthermore, the conflict patterns were systematically linked to team design and team planning, in which a balance and stability between partners, as well as a careful consideration of task issues and team issues, seem to be key variables.


When President Barack Obama demanded formally in the summer of 2011 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down, it was not the first time Washington had sought regime change in Damascus. The United States had waged a long war against Syria from the very moment the country's fiercely independent Arab nationalist movement came to power in 1963. Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad were committed to that movement.

Washington sought to purge Arab nationalist influence from the Syrian state and the Arab world more broadly. It was a threat to Washington's agenda of establishing global primacy and promoting business-friendly investment climates for US banks, investors and corporations throughout the world. Arab nationalists aspired to unify the world's 400 million Arabs into a single super-state capable of challenging United States hegemony in West Asia and North Africa. They aimed to become a major player on the world stage free from the domination of the former colonial powers and the US.

Washington had waged long wars on the leaders of the Arab nationalist movement. These included Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, and Syria's Assads. To do so, the US often allied with particularly violent forms of political Islam to undermine its Arab nationalist foes. By 2011, only one pan-Arabist state remained in the region?Syria.

In Washington's Long War on Syria Stephen Gowans examines the decades-long struggle for control of Syria. This struggle involved secular Arab nationalism, political Islam, and United States imperialism, the self-proclaimed Den of Arabism, and last secular pan-Arabist state in the region.


Luminescent yttrium aluminum garnet (Y3Al5O12) nanoparticles codoped with Ce3+ and Eu3+ (YAG:Ce3+,Eu3+) were continuously synthesized by directly feeding potassium hydroxide solution and a metal salt solution to supercritical water (SCW). The effects of the Ce3+-to-Eu3+ concentration ratio on the photoluminescence of the synthesized nanoparticles were studied using a continuous SCW tubular reactor. At 20-s reaction time and a pH of 9.10 in the SCW reactor, the average size of the prepared phosphor nanoparticles was 60−150 nm and cubic or hexagonal particles coexisted with the spherical particles. The phosphor nanoparticles presented a broad emission band in the green-yellow spectral region due to Ce3+, as well as a sharp emission peak at around 610 nm in the red spectral region due to Eu3+. Without further thermal treatment, the YAG:Ce3+,Eu3+ phosphor synthesized in the continuous reactor under SCW conditions showed strong luminescence properties. Simultaneously, enhancement of the red spectral emission i...


Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), accounts for approximately 80% of
all lung tumors, that are a leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the
world. Several protocols of monotherapy have been attempted with some
success in a limited number and selected cases with several delusion and even
failures. Combination therapy, may present some advantages and should be
considered as a potentially promising approach. Although it has been proposed
in certain conditions, yet it has not fully exploited.
We have conducted an in vitro study on two non small cell lung carcinoma cell
lines, namely A549 and H1299, that differ for the status of p53 protein (wid
type and null respectively).
We proposed a therapeutic approach based on the combination of anti
EGFR drug (Gefitinib) and PDT (ALA-PDT). The combination is potentially
efficient since the drug and PDT appear to target different cell growth
pathways. The occurrence of simultaneous damages to different sites may
improve the efficiency in killing the target cells.
Gefitinib, is a synthetic EGF receptor inhibitor that blocks EGFR signal
transduction pathways, responsible of the promotion of cancer cell
proliferation.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a cancer treatment whose principal
cytotoxicity is mediated by the production of reactive oxygen species that
efficiently damage sub-cellular components.
We demonstrated that specific combinations of Gefitinib and PDT
treatment exert synergistic effect on cell growth inhibition of A549 and H1299
cells, and above all it strongly deranges the mitochondrial activity and cell
proliferation. Interesting enough, such combinations contained Gefitinib at
concentrations below the canonical effective value, so that the possible noxious
side effects associated with the drug can be minimized.
Having analyzed several molecular pathways upon individual and combined
treatments, we observed that the two cell lines respond not identically at
molecular levels especially as cell cycle and nuclear involvement are
concerned. In particular PDT treatment induced S-phase block in H1299 and
DNA damage. The latter observation was strengthened by the activation of
damage sensor-proteins (ATM, ATR) plus the recruitment of histone H2AX.
A549 cells did not perform similarly. Tentatively, this different behaviuor can
be ascribed to the different status of the p53 protein in the two cell lines.
In contrast, the behaviour of NF-B pathway, does not significantly differ
in both cell lines. In fact the activation of NF-B transcription factor activity
did not change following treatment with Gefitinib, was slight reduced
following PDT, while in combined conditions a significant reduction in NF-B
was observed. This decrease was determined by the the PDT-mediated
inhibition of the proteasome, another recognized target in cancer therapy. In
our systems we observed that the proteasome inhibition was primarily caused
by PDT treatment, but it was efficiently sustained by Gefitinib. This fact
explains the efficiency of the combined therapy.


Research presented in this paper was conducted to assess the influence of environmental and physical factors on measurements made with the self-boring pressuremeter (SBPM). It was found that temperature changes during deployment and long-term instrument calibration drift can result in misinterpretation of in situ soil properties. It was also observed that neglecting to consider the sequential order of strain arm lift-off and radial confinement in both membrane calibration and data reduction can have an effect on interpretation of horizontal stresses, particularly in soft clays. Control experiments were conducted to quantify the effect of these factors. Based on the results of these experiments, a method for assessing excess pore pressure at the beginning of a test using the standard Cambridge SBPM transducers was developed. This method incorporates findings from temperature behavior tests. In addition, a modified method of membrane stiffness correction is proposed which includes consideration of sequential order of lift-off and confinement effects.


Significance Northeast Pacific coastal warming since 1900 is often ascribed to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, whereas multidecadal temperature changes are widely interpreted in the framework of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which responds to regional atmospheric dynamics. This study uses several independent data sources to demonstrate that century-long warming around the northeast Pacific margins, like multidecadal variability, can be primarily attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation. It presents a significant reinterpretation of the region's recent climate change origins, showing that atmospheric conditions have changed substantially over the last century, that these changes are not likely related to historical anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing, and that dynamical mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also apply to observed century-long trends. Over the last century, northeast Pacific coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and land-based surface air temperatures (SATs) display multidecadal variations associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, in addition to a warming trend of ∼0.5–1 °C. Using independent records of sea-level pressure (SLP), SST, and SAT, this study investigates northeast (NE) Pacific coupled atmosphere–ocean variability from 1900 to 2012, with emphasis on the coastal areas around North America. We use a linear stochastic time series model to show that the SST evolution around the NE Pacific coast can be explained by a combination of regional atmospheric forcing and ocean persistence, accounting for 63% of nonseasonal monthly SST variance (r = 0.79) and 73% of variance in annual means (r = 0.86). We show that SLP reductions and related atmospheric forcing led to century-long warming around the NE Pacific margins, with the strongest trends observed from 1910–1920 to 1940. NE Pacific circulation changes are estimated to account for more than 80% of the 1900–2012 linear warming in coastal NE Pacific SST and US Pacific northwest (Washington, Oregon, and northern California) SAT. An ensemble of climate model simulations run under the same historical radiative forcings fails to reproduce the observed regional circulation trends. These results suggest that natural internally generated changes in atmospheric circulation were the primary cause of coastal NE Pacific warming from 1900 to 2012 and demonstrate more generally that regional mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also extend to century time scales.


Capsaicin, the hot component of chilli peppers, is a well-known tussive agent, which is regularly used as a tool to study cough and antitussives (1). Capsaicin is known to activate the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) cation channel which is thought to be involved in pain perception, inflammation, itch and cough (2-4). These functions within the body make TRPV1 an exciting target for research and drug development.


Lunau, K.: Stamens and mimic stamens as components of floral colour patterns. — Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 127: 13–41. 2007. — ISSN 0006-8152. Dedicated to Professor Dr. Gunther Osche, Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), on the occasion of his 80th birthday; he discovered the phenomenon of mimic stamens when re-assessing floral colour pattern with his eyes newly tuned by Wicklerian thoughts about automimicry. Stamens of zoophilous plants are multifunctional floral organs which protect pollen against environmental stress, attract potential pollinators, attach pollen to the sites of secondary pollen presentation, or to the pollinator's body surface, and provide pollen as a reward for flower-visitors. Pollen-eating flower-visitors such as syrphid flies and pollencollecting flower-visitors such as bees innately respond to visual and chemical cues of stamens and pollen prior to individual experience. Flowering plants presenting conspicuous stamens and pollen to attract pollinators incur numerous costs associated with visual exposure of pollen including investments for protection against solar radiation, pollen losses caused by wind, rain, and illegitimate flower-visitation, and pollen losses due to consumption of pollen by flower-visitors or pollinators. Many flowers use mimic stamens (e.g. staminodes, false stamens, yellow floral guides in the size and shape of anthers) and thus overcome these disadvantages. Several study cases focus on the benefits of signaling with mimic stamens in flowering plants having polymorphic flowers, distinct flowering phases, and hidden real pollen. The aim of this review is to illustrate the various cases in which flowering plants may benefit from attracting flower-visitors by means of mimic stamens.


On May 10, 1931, in the New York Times, Brooks Atkinson bewailed the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize to Susan Glaspell for her play Alison's House, performed by Eva Le Gallienne's repertory company. "If the drama prize were for Miss Glaspell personally," he writes, "every one would purr with satisfaction. For nearly a quarter of a century she has been an influence for good in the literature of this country." But Alison's House "does not represent her fairly" and Atkinson castigates the Pulitzer committee for "passing silently over 'Brook Evans,' the novel she published three years ago" which he calls "the finest transcript of her mind." This is reminiscent of another Midwestern woman writer who similarly won the Pulitzer Prize for a work that was not considered her best, One of Ours, and who similarly should have won it for a novel she had published four years previously, My Antonia. Indeed, Atkinson compares them: "Like Willa Cather, who also comes out of the Middle West, Miss Glaspell has been seeing life steadily and seeing it whole.... Those who come from that wide, freely populated territory, where farming is still a basic industry, are likely to have a breadth and tenderness of mind that is no longer common among Eastern writers." (1) Situating their comparison in a common sense of place is appropriate for these writers, both of whom were deeply affected by the migration of their families from east to west; in Glaspell's case, not during her own lifetime as was the case with Cather, but during the waves of migration westward of the 1820s-1850s, first to Ohio and Kentucky and finally settling in Davenport, Iowa. Although Glaspell did not live through the westward migration herself, as her most recent biographer Linda Ben-Zvi has shown, her paternal grandmother and namesake, a "spinner of a mythology of pioneering," lived with the family throughout Glaspell's childhood and influenced her profoundly. Ben-Zvi writes that the word and concept that "remained constant" throughout her work on Glaspell was pioneer. "Pioneer ... defines the direction of Glaspell's own life and the ways in which she continually pushed against fixed boundaries, assuming an independence that she saw as a legacy from her ancestors." (2) But this is only the beginning of the remarkable parallels between the lives and work of Susan Glaspell and Willa Cather. Born three years apart, Cather in 1873 and Glaspell in 1876 (ironically, Cather claimed the centennial year for her birth while Glaspell disavowed it, dropping six years from her age), both of them became prototypical turn-of-the-century "New Women." Both were well versed in the classics and pursued academic university educations "at a time when less than two percent of American women attended college" (Ben-Zvi, viii). Cather was "excused from the 'first prep' year typically required of students from small high schools" (3) when she went to the University of Nebraska, while Glaspell entered Drake University in Des Moines as a junior, "waiving two years because of her Latin certificate" (Ben-Zvi, 35). Both took rigorous courses of study including Greek, Latin, French, and English literature, Cather graduating in 1895 and Glaspell in 1899. Both were involved while at college in literary, journalistic, and oratorical pursuits, publishing essays in their respective college journals, the Hesperian for Cather, and the Delphic for Glaspell. Both had significant careers in journalism that began very early: "just out of high school" Glaspell began contributing to the Davenport Morning Republican and published a weekly column, "Social Life," in the Weekly Outlook from 1896 to 1897, while Cather "was not yet twenty years old" when she began "doing a regular column for the Nebraska State Journal as well as miscellaneous reviews" (Ben-Zvi, 30; Stout, 38). After graduation both women returned home where they continued working for newspapers to make money, Glaspell at the Des Moines Daily News, where she covered the state legislature and the murder trials that were to influence her work later on. …


This paper explores the driving force behind the growth of housecleaning service companies in South Africa. One of the characteristics of outsourced housecleaning service companies is the transformation of a personal maternalistic employment relationship into a triangular employment relationship between manager, domestic worker (former domestic servant/maid) and client (former master/madam/employer). The triangular employment relationship creates distance between clients and domestic workers as domestic workers are under the authority and supervision of a third person (the manager/owner of the housecleaning service company). While there have been many studies focusing on domestic work, few studies have documented the driving force behind this transition from private to outsourced housecleaning services. This study attempts to fill this void by analysing clients' and domestic workers' perspectives on two housecleaning service companies in the Stellenbosch area. Two case studies were chosen in the Stellenbosch area which reflect the general trend in most housecleaning service companies in South Africa in terms of services, size and objectives. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with the focus on providing a dual perspective from both clients and domestic workers on their perceptions of the growth of housecleaning service companies in South Africa.


Inspired by the ABIM Foundation's Choosing Wisely® campaign, the "Things We Do for No ReasonTM" (TWDFNR) series reviews practices that have become common parts of hospital care but may provide little value to our patients. Practices reviewed in the TWDFNR series do not represent "black and white" conclusions or clinical practice standards but are meant as a starting place for research and active discussions among hospitalists and patients. We invite you to be part of that discussion.


This article provides a comprehensive overview of the broad area of semantic search on text and knowledge bases. In a nutshell, semantic search is "search with meaning". This "meaning" can refer to various parts of the search process: understanding the query instead of just finding matches of its components in the data, understanding the data instead of just searching it for such matches, or representing knowledge in a way suitable for meaningful retrieval.Semantic search is studied in a variety of different communities with a variety of different views of the problem. In this survey, we classify this work according to two dimensions: the type of data text, knowledge bases, combinations of these and the kind of search keyword, structured, natural language. We consider all nine combinations. The focus is on fundamental techniques, concrete systems, and benchmarks. The survey also considers advanced issues: ranking, indexing, ontology matching and merging, and inference. It also provides a succinct overview of fundamental natural language processing techniques: POS-tagging, named-entity recognition and disambiguation, sentence parsing, and distributional semantics.The survey is as self-contained as possible, and should thus also serve as a good tutorial for newcomers to this fascinating and highly topical field.


For the quantitative analysis of luminance-defined salience, blob arrays on different backgrounds (5.5-68 cd/m) were adjusted until they appeared equally conspicuous. Matches of blobs at same luminance polarities (all dark or all bright) closely followed the constant-ratio rule; that is, blobs appeared equally salient when their luminance ratio to background was constant (Exp. 1-3). Gradual deviations from this rule reflected salience contributions from brightness perception and assimilation effects (Exp. 4 and 5). Bright targets, however, were special in that equal-salience matches could instead follow the constant-addition rule or intermediate settings when the blobs to be adjusted were the brightest items in the display. Matches of patterns with different luminance polarities (dark versus bright blobs) showed variable characteristics. On the same backgrounds, they closely followed the Weber contrast (equal increments and decrements) for small and medium luminance differences and saturated at larger blob contrast (Exp. 6). On different backgrounds, however, performance was better predicted by Stevens' brightness law, i.e. by constant differences of blobs and backgrounds on a power function (exponent x<0.5) of luminance (Exp. 7). The findings were partly confirmed in a final experiment in which pairs of patterns with predicted equal salience settings were reviewed for similar conspicuity (Exp. 8). Predictions were based on various algorithms and also made over a much larger luminance range (0.1-220 cd/m). While constant-ratio predictions were generally accepted for dark blobs, those for bright blobs were often rejected and better ratings instead obtained from constant differences in the power of luminance. Cross-polarity matches of dark and bright blobs were fairly tolerant at medium contrast and ratings little distinctive between algorithms. But when the luminance range was increased, best equal-salience ratings were again obtained for constant differences on Stevens' power function. © Author


This paper empirically investigates the changing dynamics of fiscal policy shocks to the macroeconomy in Japan. By estimating a Markov-switching vector-autoregressive (VAR) model, regime switches in both automatic fiscal responses to output and discretionary fiscal shocks are investigated. The main findings are summarized as follows. First, the best-fit model is a version with four regimes that allows time variation in both coefficients and disturbance variances. Second, the structural changes occurred in the mid-1970s, the early 1990s, and the late 1990s. Third, in contrast to the other regimes, expansionary fiscal shocks depress output and consumption in the third regime. Fourth, fiscal shocks crowd out investment only in the fourth regime. Fifth, the twin-deficit hypothesis holds in all regimes.


Conductivity of insulating materials is a key parameter to determine how accumulated charge will distribute across the spacecraft and how rapidly charge imbalance will dissipate. Classical ASTM and IEC methods to measure thin film insulator conductivity apply a constant voltage to two electrodes around the sample and measure the resulting current for tens of minutes. However, conductivity is more appropriately measured for spacecraft charging applications as the "decay" of charge deposited on the surface of an insulator. Charge decay methods expose one side of the insulator in vacuum to sequences of charged particles, light, and plasma, with a metal electrode attached to the other side of the insulator. Data are obtained by capacitive coupling to measure both the resulting voltage on the open surface and emission of electrons from the exposed surface, as well monitoring currents to the electrode. Instrumentation for both classical and charge storage decay methods has been developed and tested at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and at Utah State University (USU). Details of the apparatus, test methods and data analysis are given here. The JPL charge storage decay chamber is a first-generation instrument, designed to make detailed measurements on only three to five samples at a time. Because samples must typically be tested for over a month, a second-generation high sample throughput charge storage decay chamber was developed at USU with the capability of testing up to 32 samples simultaneously. Details are provided about the instrumentation to measure surface charge and current; for charge deposition apparatus and control; the sample holders to properly isolate the mounted samples; the sample carousel to rotate samples into place; the control of the sample environment including sample vacuum, ambient gas, and sample temperature; and the computer control and data acquisition systems. Measurements are compared here for a number of thin film insulators using both methods at both facilities. We have found that conductivity determined from charge storage decay methods is 102 to 104 larger than values obtained from classical methods. Another Spacecraft Charging Conference presentation describes more extensive measurements made with these apparatus. This work is supported through funding from the NASA Space Environments and Effects Program and the USU Space Dynamics Laboratory Enabling Technologies Program.


In this paper, we propose a new low bit rate representation of a sound field and a new method for the corresponding cloudless low delay hands-free diarization suitable for low-performance mobile devices, e.g. mobile phones. The proposed audio spatio-temporal fingerprint representation results in low bit rate (500 bytes/second), however contains complete information about continuous audio tracking of multiple acoustic sources in an open, unconstrained environment. The core of the algorithm is based on simultaneous multiple data stream processing using audio spatio-temporal fingerprint representation to cover higher level events relevant for diarization, e.g. turns, interruptions, crosstalk, speech and non-speech segments. Performance levels achieved to date on 5 hours of hand-labelled datasets have shown the feasibility of the approach at the same time as resulting in 7.58% CPU load on 1-core ultra-low-power mobile processor running at 1 GHz and low algorithmic delay of 112 ms.


BACKGROUND: In our large community hospital, we observed that traditional oxygen masks were sometimes set at an inappropriately low flow. We hoped to eliminate this safety concern through adoption of an open-design oxygen mask. We also hoped that more immediate flow changes would lead to a decrease in medical gas consumption. Finally, by standardizing to one mask, goals were to reduce the cost of oxygen delivery. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis, 12 months before and 12 months after implementation of the open-design oxygen mask. Unusual occurrence reports related to supplemental oxygen delivery were reviewed. Oxygen device use and bulk oxygen consumption were recorded. The total number of patient days was obtained from the electronic medical record. RESULTS: There were no unusual occurrence reports or concerns involving an oxygen device in those areas that converted to the open-design oxygen mask. In fiscal year 2014, bulk oxygen use was 13,036,686 cubic feet, and there were 74,734 patient days. In fiscal year 2016, bulk oxygen use was 12,072,610 cubic feet and there were 99,428 patient days. The reduction in oxygen consumption was $3,670 despite the increase in patient days. In fiscal year 2014, 3,848 oxygen devices were used for a cost of $3,411, and in fiscal year 2016, 5,512 devices were used for a cost of $12,963. The net savings from open-design oxygen mask conversion was $23,487 annual and corrected for increased patient population. Oxygen consumption and supply cost per patient day resulted in $1.19 per patient day pre-implementation and $0.95 after implementation of the open-design oxygen mask (P = .003). CONCLUSIONS: The open-design oxygen mask may be a safe and less costly alternative to traditional oxygen delivery devices.


Bilingual transthr dictionaries are an important resource for query translation in cross-language text retrieval. However, term translation is not an isomorphic process, so dictionary-based systems must address the problem of ambiguity in language translation. In this paper, we claim that boolea~l conjunction (the AND operator) provides siml)le and automatic disambiguation in the target language. We derive a new weighted boolean model based on a probabilistic formulation a~l(l apply it to the crosslanguage text retriewd prol)lem. The results suggest that the weighted boolean model is highly effective for general text retrieval, but more experimental evidence is need to conclude that it is particularly advantageous for cross-language application. Nonetheless, the preliminary results are quite promising.


In Cuellar de Osorio v. Mayorkas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit extended the Child Status Protection Act's ("CSPA") protections to all children who age out during the extended process of obtaining a visa as a child derivative beneficiary. In so holding, the court overturned a precedential decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA"). In its review of the BIA's decision, the Ninth Circuit applied the two-step test from Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the seminal case in administrative law for review of executive agency action. The court exercised a rigorous review in step one of the test, and held that the CSPA unambiguously grants broad protection to all aged-out children. In exercising its constitutional power to say "what the law is," the court protected immigrant families by ensuring the executive agency executes the law accurately and fully, as passed by Congress. As the Supreme Court of the United States considers this case, it should uphold the Ninth Circuit to ensure that the unambiguous protection granted by Congress to all children will be properly implemented by the United States Citizenship and Im-


This article examines the dilemmas and opportunities of the African Union, a regional organization, in implementing the responsibility to protect concepts in respect to forceful intervention to prevent or stop the occurrence of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union specifically mandates the Union to forcefully intervene in a Member State in such circumstances. Although the African Union has successfully resolved some situations where peaceful negotiations or consensual military intervention was sufficient, there has also been failure by the Union where such means fail or are inadequate. Such instances include the Darfur conflict where peacekeeping was insufficient, and recently in Libya where the African Union openly opposed enforcement of no fly zones to protect civilians. This article is of the view that the African Union's failure to implement Article 4(h) of the Constitutive Act, even in deserving situations, may have been aggravated by the failure to institutionalize the concept of responsible sovereignty within the Union's legal framework and processes. Despite the forceful intervention mandate, there are also provisions that affirm the principles of non-interference. The AU system therefore fails to resolve the dilemma between sovereignty and intervention. Sovereignty preservation remains as an effective legal and political justification for non-intervention by the AU. This has promoted a subsequent trend of greater sovereignty concerns by the Union. Institutionalization of the concepts postulated under the emerging norm of responsibility to protect within the AU framework and processes can contribute to the elimination of the legal and political dilemmas of forceful intervention by the Union.