In this article, I investigate the biopolitical economy of security as it is operating today in the United States in the context of infectious disease research. Drawing on my work with influenza researchers, I specifically show how experts have been concerned not only with the circulation of biological matter but also with the exchange of scientific information. I argue that it is a specific logic—the logic of iterability—that is at the heart of the growing concern with "sensitive information" published in scientific journals. How has the concern with sensitive information affected infectious disease research in the United States in the past few years? How has the logic of iterability reconfigured microbiological notions of the normal and the pathological? And what might an anthropological analysis of the biopolitical economy of security be able to tell us about the ways in which "life" is made a new political concern today?


The initialization of a reservoir simulator calls for the populating of a three-dimensional dynamic grid-cell model using subsurface data and interrelational algorithms that have been synthesized to be fit for purpose. These prerequisites are rarely fully satisfied in practice. This paper sets out to strengthen initialization through four key thrusts, all of which seek to optimize the bridgehead between reservoir geoscience and reservoir engineering, and thereby maximize value from reservoir simulation. The first addresses representative data acquisition, which includes the key-well concept as a framework for the cost-effective incorporation of free-fluid porosity and permeability within an initialization database. The second concerns the preparation of these data and their products for populating the static and dynamic models. Important elements are dynamically conditioned net-reservoir cut-offs, recognition of primary flow units, and establishing interpretative algorithms at the simulator grid-cell scale for application over net-reservoir zones. The third thrust is directed at the internal consistency of capillary character, relative permeability properties and petrophysically-derived hydrocarbon saturations over net reservoir. This exercise is central to the simulation function and it is an integral component of hydraulic data partitioning. The fourth concerns the handling of formation heterogeneity and anisotropy, especially from the standpoint of directional parametric averaging and interpretative algorithms. These matters have been synthesized into a workflow for optimizing the initialization of reservoir simulators. In so doing, a further important consideration is the selection of the appropriate procedures that are available within and specific to different software packages. It is the authors' experience that implementation of these thrusts has demonstrably enhanced the authentication of reservoir simulators through more readily attainable history matches with less required tuning. This outcome is attributed to a more systematic initialization process with a lower risk of artefacts. Of course, these benefits feed through to more assured estimates of ultimate recovery and, thence, hydrocarbon reserves.


Compton scattering is one of the most important radiation processes from accreting compact objects. Hard X-rays can be produced by Compton upscattering of soft seed photons from the accretion disk. Here we use both theoretical and observational methods to investigate the hard X-ray emission around accreting Black Holes. We attempt to observationally constrain the geometry of the accretion flow using the observed spectra from the outburst of a transient black hole. The rapid rise of the hard X-ray flux is almost certainly associated with most of the disk mass moving inwards, so the optically thick disk should not extend down to the last stable orbit until the outburst peak. The low/hard state is seen at the start of the rise showing that this is probably associated with a truncated disk. Attempts to derive the inner disk radius from reflection model parameters are inconclusive due to the effects of ionization. We describe a new approach to numerically modelling Compton scattering around accreting sources by solving the distribution functions. This approach (based on work by Guilbert 1981) involves breaking the scattering into individual segments of space and time. We show how a coarse angle grid can be adapted to mimic an arbitrarily fine grid with very little increase in run-time. The resulting code automatically includes time dependent behaviour. We extend the code to calculate the time dependent, self consistent electron distribution resulting from the Compton cooling. This can be used even where the Compton cooling time is shorter than the light crossing time. We show that any system in which the seed photons are dominated by reprocessing should produce soft lags of the order of the light crossing time. Future observations, with more sophisticated satellites, may be able to identify this lag.


Similar to Levati and Neugebauer (2001), a clock is used by which participants can vary their individual contributions for voluntarily providing a public good. As time goes by, participants either in(de)crease their contribution gradually or keep it constant. Groups of two poorly and two richly endowed participants encounter repeatedly the weakest link-, the usual average contribution- and the best shot-technology of public good provision in a within subject-design. Some striking findings are that the weakest link-technology fares much better than the other two technologies in terms of welfare, and that the willingness to voluntarily contribute is greatly affected by the (increasing or decreasing) clock mechanism.


We have reviewed the outcome of all patients undergoing their first intestinal resection for Crohn's disease at this hospital between 1970 and 1987. Recurrence rates, defined by recurrent intestinal symptoms and radiological confirmation of mucosal disease, were calculated using survival analysis. Age, sex, anatomical location of disease, indication for surgery, preoperative duration of symptomatic disease, use of preoperative bowel rest, and pathological features of the resected bowel were analysed individually and jointly as potential risk factors influencing postoperative recurrence of disease. Eighty two patients (age, mean (SD) 14.8 (2.5) years) underwent intestinal resection and were followed postoperatively for a minimum of one year (mean 5.3 (3.3) years). Anatomical location of disease, indication for surgery, and preoperative duration of symptomatic disease were the only factors that significantly influenced the duration of the recurrence free interval. Patients with diffuse ileocolonic inflammation experienced earlier recurrence (50% at one year) than children with predominantly small bowel disease (50% recurrence at five years, p less than 0.0001). Failure of medical therapy independent of disease location as the sole indication for surgery was associated with an earlier relapse than when surgery was performed for a specific intestinal complication such as abscess or obstruction (p less than 0.003). Patients undergoing resection within one year of onset of symptoms experienced delayed recrudescence of active disease (30% recurrence by eight years) compared with patients whose preoperative duration of symptomatic disease was longer (50% recurrence by four years when preoperative duration of disease was one to four years and 50% by three years when disease had been present greater than four years preoperatively, p = 0.03). The mean height velocity of patients with growth potential increased from 2.4 (2.3) cm per year preoperatively to 8.1 (3.4) cm per year in the first postoperative year (p=0.0001). These results support an early approach to surgery in the management of ileal Crohn's disease with or without caecal or right colonic involvement, especially when complicated by persistent growth failure. The higher recurrence rates in more diffuse ileocolonic disease emphasise the need for alternative treatment strategies in these children.


ABSTRACT This article examines the recent uptake of tractor ploughing services in northern Ghana. It examines the historical continuities in mechanisation and the emergence of a class of medium-scale commercial farmers. In the light of this, it questions the thesis that the recent uptake of mechanisation and emergence of medium-scale farmers reflects the successes of market liberalisation. It is critical of neoclassical theories of agricultural transformation rooted in theories of induced innovation and argues for a political economy approach that links agricultural transformation to processes of social differentiation and the historical role of the state in promoting agricultural commercialisation.


On July 4th, 2012, one of physics' most exhilarating results was announced: a new particle - and very likely a new kind of particle - had been discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, the huge particle accelerator designed to reproduce energies present in the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The particle's existence had been speculated on for nearly fifty years: here, finally, was proof. Professor Lisa Randall of Harvard University is one of the world's most influential theoretical physicists, and author of the bestselling Knocking on Heaven's Door and Warped Passages. In Higgs Discovery she deftly explains both this epochal discovery and it's startlingly beautiful implications.


Cloud log forensics (CLF) mitigates the investigation process by identifying the malicious behavior of attackers through profound cloud log analysis. However, the accessibility attributes of cloud logs obstruct accomplishment of the goal to investigate cloud logs for various susceptibilities. Accessibility involves the issues of cloud log access, selection of proper cloud log file, cloud log data integrity, and trustworthiness of cloud logs. Therefore, forensic investigators of cloud log files are dependent on cloud service providers (CSPs) to get access of different cloud logs. Accessing cloud logs from outside the cloud without depending on the CSP is a challenging research area, whereas the increase in cloud attacks has increased the need for CLF to investigate the malicious activities of attackers. This paper reviews the state of the art of CLF and highlights different challenges and issues involved in investigating cloud log data. The logging mode, the importance of CLF, and cloud log-as-a-service are introduced. Moreover, case studies related to CLF are explained to highlight the practical implementation of cloud log investigation for analyzing malicious behaviors. The CLF security requirements, vulnerability points, and challenges are identified to tolerate different cloud log susceptibilities. We identify and introduce challenges and future directions to highlight open research areas of CLF for motivating investigators, academicians, and researchers to investigate them.


We develop multistep machine learning schemes for solving nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) in high dimension. The method is based on
probabilistic representation of PDEs by backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) and its iterated time discretization. In the case of semilinear PDEs, our algorithm estimates simultaneously by backward induction the solution and its gradient by neural networks through sequential minimizations of suitable quadratic loss functions that are performed by stochastic gradient descent.
The approach is extended to the more challenging case of fully nonlinear PDEs, and we propose different approximations of the Hessian of the solution to the PDE, i.e., the $\Gamma$-component of the BSDE, by combining Malliavin weights and neural networks. Extensive numerical tests are carried out with various examples of semilinear PDEs including viscous Burgers equation and examples of fully nonlinear PDEs like Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations arising in portfolio selection problems with stochastic volatilities,
or Monge-Ampere equations in dimension up to 15. The performance and accuracy of our numerical results are compared with some other recent machine learning algorithms in the literature, see \cite{HJE17}, \cite{HPW19}, \cite{BEJ19}, \cite{BBCJN19} and \cite{phawar19}.

Furthermore, we provide a rigorous approximation error analysis of the deep backward multistep scheme as well as the deep splitting method for semilinear PDEs, which yields convergence rate in terms of the number of neurons for shallow neural networks.


This paper introduces "Slug" a web crawler (or "Scutter") designed for harvesting semantic web content. Implemented in Java using the Jena API, Slug provides a configurable, modular framework that allows a great degree of flexibility in configuring the retrieval, processing and storage of harvested content. The framework provides an RDF vocabulary for describing crawler configurations and collects metadata concerning crawling activity. Crawler metadata allows for reporting and analysis of crawling progress, as well as more efficient retrieval through the storage of HTTP caching data.


Proportionality is a condition provided under both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Based on a particular interpretation of state practice and international case law, recent legal literature argues that the two notions of proportionality are interrelated in that proportionality under jus in bello is included in the assessment of proportionality under jus ad bellum. This article seeks to refute such a position and, more generally, to clarify the relationship between the two notions of proportionality. The main argument of the article is in line with the traditional position regarding the relationship between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. It is argued that, although sharing common features and being somewhat interconnected, the notions of proportionality provided under these two separate branches of international law remain independent of each other, mainly because of what is referred to in this article as the 'general versus particular' dichotomy, which characterises their relations. Proportionality under jus ad bellum is to be measured against the military operation as a whole, whereas proportionality under jus in bello is to be assessed against individual military attacks launched in the framework of this operation. This article nonetheless emphasises the risk of overlap between the assessments of the two notions of proportionality when the use of force involves only one or a few military operations. Indeed, in such situations, the 'general versus particular' dichotomy, which normally enables one to make a distinct assessment between the two notions of proportionality, is no longer applicable since it becomes impossible to distinguish between the military operation as a whole and the individual military attacks undertaken during this operation.


In December, 1925, I found at Derwent Park near the
shore of Prince of Wales Bay a small colony of trap-door
spiders belonging to the genus Migas, L. Koch. The species
proved to be new, and I described a female specimen under
the name of Migas nitens. Several specimens were collected
and preserved in alcohol, but one was kept alive in
order that its habits might be observed.
Sub-Family DIPLURINAE.
Genus Hexathele, Ausserer.
The Nest of Hexathele montanus, Hickman.
In the Proceedings of this Society for the year 1926 I
grave a brief description of the nest of Hexathele montanus
from the Western Tiers. Since then I have examined a
large number of these nests on the Cradle Mountain and am
able to make the following additional Observations. The
spider appears to be the most common Avicularid on the
Cradle Mountain and is very plentiful in the vicinity of
Daisy Dell. It makes its nest under the bark of trees, in
rotten logs, in stumps and sometimes under stones on the
ground. The nest is made by lining some natural cavity
with silk and in most cases the opening of the nest is expanded
into a thick silken network.
During the daytime the entrance is closed with a few
threads of silk woven across the opening. One nest which
I examined contained a pillow-shaped egg sac hung from the
top of the silk-lined cavity.
Includes a description of the physical characteristics and diagrams.


This thesis explores the concepts of power, performativity and place and how
these act to produce non-heterosexual women's everyday lives through practices
of 'othering'. The thesis explores three feminist poststructural tenets: that
everyday life is saturated in power; that identities and bodies are (re )formed
through reiterated performances (performativity); and that place is fluid and
(re )produced through performativity and power. These tenets are used to explore
28 non-heterosexual women's accounts of their everyday lives. These accounts
were formed using six focus groups, three coupled interviews, 23 individual
interviews, 22 diaries and six sets of auto-photography. The thesis contextualises
these research methods within discourses of feminist methodologies which
understand accounts of research as partial, performative and as formed in spaces
of betweeness. The concepts, tenets, methodologies and accounts that make up
the thesis are understood as mutually (in)forming and not as discrete entities.
The thesis considers participants' experiences of heterosexism and genderism.
Particular focus is placed on everyday processes of othering in food consumption
spaces; how women live with these processes; women's experiences of being
mistaken for men; and the (re )formation of place through fantasies and
imaginings. Through these explorations the thesis deconstructs dualisms,
dichotomies and binaries, contending that everyday life is fonned across and
between these boundaries whilst hegemonic power relations are simultaneously
(re)performed to maintain heterosexuality and normative femininities 'in place'.
Relations of power and performativities render place (in terms of both sites and
processes) fluid, (in)forming non-heterosexual women's bodies, identities and
places as 'other' in relation to dominant (heterosexual) codes and norms.
Discourses of power do not have to be named in order to be materially
experienced and this thesis discusses the everyday use of the term 'it' in lieu of
words, such as heterosexism and genderism. Moreover, hegemonic heterosexual
and gendered codes and norms are diversely (re )made through relations of power
and performativities. The thesis concludes by contending that whilst power
relations can be theorised as fluid over time, everyday life is often lived as
though power is a fixed structure.


Rex Quinn enjoyed the momentary quiet on his early-spring bicycle ride from Factory 29 to his office. As he pedaled past several of the 100-plus buildings on the 300-acre site, his thoughts were interrupted by concerns about the intended expansion of Factory 29. Months before, Winding Creek Pharmaceuticals was sold from its comfortable existence within a "Big Pharma" company, and for the first time in its 60-year history, Winding Creek was competing on its own in the cutthroat contract manufacturing industry. During the due diligence process, Winding Creek's new owner, ALPHA LLC, decided to spend $10 million to expand Factory 29 after it acquired the plant. Quinn knew, unquestionably, the plant needed extra capacity to grow and achieve profitability, but was it the right time to make a large capital investment in this factory? Would a caution from him, the plant manager, matter at this late hour anyway? Similar to the President of the fledgling company, Brice Cooper, and the Vice President of Marketing, Doug Meyer, Quinn believed Winding Creek could sell enough product to cover the factory investment, but how quickly could it generate those sales? Low-cost foreign competitors and other structural changes had besieged contract manufacturers and Winding Creek's sales team had barely been in place for three months. In an industry with long cycle times and with foreboding evidence of an impending economic contraction, Quinn wondered what would happen if the investment failed to generate a return quickly. Arriving at the administration building, Quinn racked his Winding Creek-issued bicycle, a yellow cruiser bedecked with Quinn's prominent signature: an unusually-high seat. Eager to formulate his recommendations for the Factory 29 project, Quinn strode into his office--conflicted about expanding at this time. Company Overview Built during World War II along the banks of the Susquehanna River to provide chemicals for explosives, the Winding Creek site lay fallow for several years until it was leased, and ultimately purchased, by Limerick Stone Pharmaceuticals in the 1950s. Over the years, the owner spent considerable resources modernizing and expanding the facilities to provide the manufacturing capability it needed. Limerick Stone allocated work among its network of plants, selecting Winding Creek to supply various chemicals based on its processing capability and occasionally having it make products for other companies. Because of excess worldwide capacity, Limerick Stone announced in 2004 its intention to prune its production network by closing or selling a handful of its plants, one being Winding Creek. Several years later, employees were relieved to hear there was a prospective buyer for their plant, a buyer that was interested in expanding the facilities. Quinn recalled, "We were nervous that the plant was closing, but to find out that the business was growing! Things were good." The buyer, ALPHA LLC, had neither manufacturing nor pharmaceuticals experience. ALPHA provided government-contracted services, such as maintenance on federal buildings, making it accustomed to the structure and stability of these contracts--it did not have to worry much about fluctuating demand patterns and near-term uncertainty. Recognizing its shortcomings, ALPHA hired Brice Cooper, an executive with 30 years in the industry, to run its subsidiary contract manufacturer. Pharmaceutical Industry Overview Cooper navigated Winding Creek's January, 2008, launch as an independent supplier for the pharmaceutical industry, an industry that was expected to reach $735-745 billion globally in 2008 (IMS Health, 2007) with the dominant share, about 38%, belonging to the United States (Mroczkowski, 2012). The industry divided into two segments: legacy and emerging. The legacy companies, typically referred to as "Big Pharma," dominated the industry and included giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Wyeth, Merck & Co. …


As water-air-interaction cannot be simulated completely in a model, laboratory investigations on breakers can only be reliable to a certain extent. This is why comprehensive field investigations are necessary; a program of such field measurements was started on the isle of SYLT/NORTH SEA in 1971. The measurements analyzed were carried out in the surf zone during a severe storm surge. The measuring devices consisted of a two component electromagnetic current meter and a wave meter placed on the beach at a distance of 85 m from the coast line and another wave meter located 15 m offshore. In order to be able to use different analyzing methods the outputs of the measuring devices were fed simultaneously to a magnetic tape recorder. For the purpose of data processing on a PULSE HEIGHT ANALYZER the signals had been chopped by a frequency of 20 kilocycles. Thus the stochastic process could be displayed on a scope as histograms representing 10 minutes real time measuring periods. From the histograms statistical parameters are obtained to a high degree of accuracy. For the correlation of water levels and orbital velocities POWER SPECTRA, CROSS POWER SPECTRA, TRANSFER FUNCTIONS and COHERENCE FUNCTIONS are calculated by the use of a FOURIER ANALYZER.


At 43, Sheryl Sandberg can look back on an already illustrious career that began with her graduation summa cum laude from Harvard and moved through the World Bank, Harvard Business School, McKinsey, the U.S. Treasury Department, and Google before landing her at Facebook, where she manages the social media giant's complex business operations. Nevertheless, she has faced her own internal barriers to success, which is part of the reason for her parallel career as an outspoken advocate for women aspiring to leadership positions. In this interview with HBR's editor in chief, Sandberg talks about her new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead; how and why women hold themselves back; understanding gender differences and celebrating them; the "likability" gap; and much more.


ABSTRACT In addition to xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), mutations in the human XPG gene cause early onset of Cockayne syndrome (CS) in some patients (XPG/CS). The CS-causing mutations in such patients all produce truncated XPG proteins. To test the hypothesis that the CS phenotype, with characteristics such as growth retardation and a short life span in XPG/CS patients, results from C-terminal truncations, we constructed mutants with C-terminal truncations in mouse XPG (Xpg) (from residue D811 to the stop codon [XpgD811stop] and deletion of exon 15 [XpgΔex15]). In the XpgD811stop and XpgΔex15 mutations, the last 360 and 183 amino acids of the protein were deleted, respectively. To generate Xpg mutant mice, we devised the shortcut knock-in method by replacing genomic DNA with a mutated cDNA fragment (cDNA-mediated knock in). The control mice, in which one-half of Xpg genomic DNA fragment was replaced with a normal Xpg cDNA fragment, had a normal growth rate, a normal life span, normal sensitivity to UV light, and normal DNA repair ability, indicating that the Xpg gene partially replaced with the normal cDNA fragment retained normal functions. The XpgD811stop homozygous mice exhibited growth retardation and a short life span, but the XpgΔex15 homozygous mice did not, indicating that deletion of the last 360 amino acids results in the CS phenotype but deletion of the last 183 amino acids does not. The XpgD811stop homozygous mice, however, exhibited a slightly milder CS phenotype than did the Xpg null mutant mice, indicating that the XpgD811stop protein still retains some Xpg function that affects the severity of the CS phenotype.


Few economists can claim the influence—or fame—of F. A. Hayek. Winner of the Nobel Prize, Hayek was one of the most consequential thinkers of the twentieth century, his views on the free market echoed by such major figures as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Yet even among those who study his work in depth, few have looked closely at his use of ideas from evolutionary science to advance his vision of markets and society. With this book Naomi Beck offers the first full-length engagement with Hayek's thought from this perspective. Hayek argued that the capitalism we see in advanced civilizations is an unintended consequence of group selection—groups that adopted free market behavior expanded more successfully than others. But this attempt at a scientific grounding for Hayek's principles, Beck shows, fails to hold water, plagued by incoherencies, misinterpretations of the underlying science, and lack of evidence. As crises around the globe lead to reconsiderations of the place of capitalism, Beck's excavation of this little-known strand of Hayek's thought—and its failure—is timely and instructive.


In rechargeable wireless sensor networks, a sensor cannot be always beneficial to conserve energy when a network can harvest excessive energy from the environment due to its energy replenished continually and limited energy storage capacity. Therefore, surplus energy of a node can be utilized for strengthening packet delivery efficiency and improving data collection rate. In this work, we propose an algorithm to compute an upper data generation rate that maximizes it as an optimization problem for a network with multiple sinks, which is formulated as a linear programming problem. Subsequently, a dual problem by introducing Lagrange multipliers is constructed, and subgradient algorithms are used to solve it in a distributed manner. The resulting algorithms are guaranteed to converge to an optimal data generation rate, which are illustrated by an example in which an optimum data generation rate is computed for a network of randomly distributed nodes. Through extensive simulation and experiments, we demonstrate our algorithm is efficient to maximize data collection rate in rechargeable wireless sensor networks.


This paper presents the reconstructed severity of winter seasons in the northern Baltic Sea on the basis of historical time series of ice break-up at the port of Riga (1529-1990). The winter seasons are classified as mild, average severe. Results of statistical analysis of time series of the date of ice break-up arranged according to the severity of winter seasons are given. A decreasing trend of about 2.0 d century -1 for the time series of ice break-up dates for severe winters is detected with statistical significance at the 99.9% level; for the mild and average winter seasons the trends are statistically insignificant.


One of the most complex social policy issues that developing countries commonly face is the question of how they can protect the unemployed. However, the analysis of unemployment insurance (UI) in developing economies with large informal sectors is in its infancy, with few papers providing solid empirical evidence. This paper makes several contributions to the development literature: first, it applies Chetty's 2008 landmark work on UI to a developing country (Chile) and shows that the moral hazard effects expected by policy makers, who designed the system are minimal, while liquidity effects were entirely neglected. By means of an RDD, it analyses the Chilean UI system using a large sample of administrative data, which allows for an extremely precise analysis of how the system is working, thus providing invaluable empirical lessons for other developing countries.

Second, this paper shows that it is not enough merely to quantify an effect such as moral hazard, but to understand its causes and implications. An extended unemployment period stemming from moral hazard has extremely different welfare implications than one stemming from a liquidity effect and should therefore result in different policy recommendations.

Third, our results also highlight that the Chilean UI system is regressive overall, as it protects workers with higher income levels and more stable jobs much more than it protects vulnerable workers, who are also much more likely to become unemployed.

Fourth, this paper shows that it is essential that developing countries should take into account the specific labor market and macroeconomic context when designing social policies as the incentives embedded in such a policy may not be enough to compensate for the limitations that arise from the structure of a labor market.

This research thus has implications for many developing countries, which may also be considering the implementation of some form of UI and/or the partial or complete replacement of existing severance pay legislation with continuous contributions to individual savings accounts, as recommended by the international development institutions. Furthermore, even high-income developing countries, such as Chile, cannot rely on unemployment insurance alone when it comes to protecting workers from the fallout of an economic crisis or rapid changes in the labor market that generate unemployment. Any UI system must also be linked to other social protection mechanisms to provide complimentary benefits to workers with precarious jobs.


Following the hugely successful hardback, this extraordinary tale of the father of modern geology looks set to be the non fiction paperback for 2002. Hidden behind velvet curtains above a stairway in a house in London's Piccadilly is an enormous and beautiful hand-coloured map - the first geological map of anywhere in the world. Its maker was a farmer's son named William Smith. Born in 1769 his life was beset by troubles: he was imprisoned for debt, turned out of his home, his work was plagiarised, his wife went insane and the scientific establishment shunned him. It was not until 1829, when a Yorkshire aristocrat recognised his genius that he was returned to London in triumph. "The Map That Changed the World" is his story.


The military-assisted ousting of Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe and his replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa was widely welcomed by Zimbabweans. However, hopes of significant change were dashed by the nature of his cabinet appointments, which indicated greater continuity than change vis-à-vis the Mugabe era. Mnangagwa is likely to pursue an agenda of authoritarian reform: rendering the economy more attractive for foreign investment while maintaining political control from above.


We combined Eddy‐covariance measurements with a linear perturbation analysis to isolate the relative contribution of physical and biological drivers on evapotranspiration (ET) in three ecosystems representing two end‐members and an intermediate stage of a successional gradient in the southeastern US (SE). The study ecosystems, an abandoned agricultural field [old field (OF)], an early successional planted pine forest (PP), and a late‐successional hardwood forest (HW), exhibited differential sensitivity to the wide range of climatic and hydrologic conditions encountered over the 4‐year measurement period, which included mild and severe droughts and an ice storm. ET and modeled transpiration differed by as much as 190 and 270 mm yr−1, respectively, between years for a given ecosystem. Soil water supply, rather than atmospheric demand, was the principal external driver of interannual ET differences. ET at OF was sensitive to climatic variability, and results showed that decreased leaf area index (L) under mild and severe drought conditions reduced growing season (GS) ET (ETGS) by ca. 80 mm compared with a year with normal precipitation. Under wet conditions, higher intrinsic stomatal conductance (gs) increased ETGS by 50 mm. ET at PP was generally larger than the other ecosystems and was highly sensitive to climate; a 50 mm decrease in ETGS due to the loss of L from an ice storm equaled the increase in ET from high precipitation during a wet year. In contrast, ET at HW was relatively insensitive to climatic variability. Results suggest that recent management trends toward increasing the land‐cover area of PP‐type ecosystems in the SE may increase the sensitivity of ET to climatic variability.


In his article "History and Politics in Parthasarathy's Play Aurangzeb" Shubh Brat Sarkar analyzes the use of history in a dramatic text, the underlying politics and ideology of a literary product, and the modes by which the materials are shaped through dramaturgy. The name Aurangzeb, the title of the play, has a strong presence in history textbooks and has perhaps become an integral part of a grand historical, "Indian" nationalist discourse. In the play multiple contradictions co-exist and find new projections in translations and theater adaptations in different historical contexts. Indira Parthasarthy's 1974 play is based on events leading to the War of Succession among the heirs of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and it offers a critique of the one-nation, one-language, onereligion theory. Sarkar's analysis explores how the theme remained relevant in Parthasarthy's play. Shubh Brat Sarkar, "History and Politics in Parthasarathy's Play Aurangzeb" page 2 of 7 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.2 (2012): Thematic Issue New Work in Comparative Indian Literatures and Cultures. Ed. M.G. Ramanan and T. Mukherjee


The purpose of this dissertation is to study students' competencies in generating scientific explanations within the domain of complex systems, an interdisciplinary area in which students tend to have difficulties. While considering students' developing explanations of how complex systems work, I investigate the role of prior knowledge and how students' explanations systematically vary across seven problem contexts (e.g. the movement of sand dunes, the formation of traffic jams, and diffusion in water). Using the Knowledge in Pieces epistemological perspective, I build a mini-theory of how students construct explanations about the behavior of complex systems. The mini-theory shows how advanced, decentralized explanations evolve from a variety of prior knowledge resources, which depend on specific features of the problem. A general emphasis on students' competences is exhibited through three strands of analysis: (1) a focus on moment-to-moment shifts in individuals' explanations in the direction of a normative understanding; (2) a comparison of explanations across the seven problem contexts in order to highlight variation in kinds of prior knowledge that are used; and (3) a concentration on the diversity within explanations that can be all considered examples of emergent thinking. First, I document cases of students' shifting explanations as they become less prototypically centralized (a more naive causality) and then become more prototypically decentralized over short time periods. The analysis illustrates the lines of continuity between these two ways of understanding and how change can occur during the process of students generating a progression of increasingly sophisticated transitional explanations. Second, I find a variety of students' understandings across the problem contexts, expressing both variation in their prior knowledge and how the nature of a specific domain influences reasoning. Certain problem contexts are easier or harder for students, depending on the kinds of prior knowledge resources activated. For example, in the sand dune problem context, where students are able to access a wide range of intuitive resources that are applicable at multiple levels, coming to explain decentralized causality is relatively straight forward. Third, I find that for these students' emergent thinking is not a unified entity. It is diverse in its nature and varies across problem contexts and across the kinds of prior knowledge that students evoke. This dissertation illustrates the importance of students' prior knowledge resources in their understanding and developing explanations for how complex systems work. Combined, these results suggest that the fundamental diversity in explanations needs to be respected. Instruction should emphasize the generative process of explaining based on students' prior knowledge rather than any a priori taxonomy of forms of explanations to be learned.


The ability to accurately determine the emotional state of others is critical for successful social functioning. However older adults can demonstrate selective difficulties in identifying negative emotions from faces while the ability to identify positive emotional faces is preserved. In younger adults the categorization of facial expressions of emotion has been shown to rely on the processing of specific subsets of visual information (e.g. broadly smiling mouth in happiness, wide open eyes in fear)1,2. However it remains unclear whether healthy older adults process the same specific visual cues as younger adults in a less efficient manner when processing negative expressions, or if they attend to and encode qualitatively different information. We investigated whether the diagnostic information underlying the correct emotion categorization of five basic facial expressions (happy, fear, disgust, anger and sadness) changes as a function of observer age (young vs. older adults) and facial age (young vs. middle-aged vs. older faces). We applied the bubbles reverse correlation methodology with two groups of participants: younger (N=15, 18-35 years) and older adults (N=15, 65+ years). Results revealed that younger and older adults used qualitatively equivalent information to accurately categorize happy and fearful faces, but that the information used by both groups differed when they categorized fear in younger vs. older adult face stimuli. Older adults generally experienced more difficulty with the remaining negative emotions (disgust, anger and sadness) and exhibited a sub-optimal use of the diagnostic facial features. These results constitute a novel, highly detailed account of the specific visual features underlying the classification of facial expressions as across observer and transmitter of the emotional expressions stimulus age. 1Smith Cottrell, Gosselin & Schyns, 2005, Psychological Science 2Smith & Merlusca, 2014, Emotion Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


A cognitive model of persecutory delusions is used to predict the occurrence of nonclinical paranoid thoughts in a virtual reality environment. Scorers across the range of paranoia entered a virtual reality scene populated by five computer characters programmed to behave neutrally (N = 30). Many appraisals of the computer characters were positive or neutral. However, there were also persecutory thoughts about the characters. Providing evidence of the validity of the experimental method, persecutory ideation was predicted by higher trait paranoia and a greater sense of presence in the environment. The psychological variables from the cognitive model that predicted persecutory ideation were anxiety, timidity, and hallucinatory predisposition. Further, hallucinatory predisposition distinguished the prediction of paranoid thoughts from social anxiety in virtual reality. It is concluded that nonclinical paranoid thoughts are most closely associated with emotional disturbances and anomalous experiences. Extreme reasoning bias may particularly contribute to the development of clinical phenomena.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To provide preliminary data on an Internet intervention that incorporates cognitive reframing and self-management strategies to help older men undergoing active surveillance (AS) self-manage disease-related issues and improve quality of life (QOL).

DESIGN
Single-subject design.

SETTING
Two participating urologic practices at major academic medical centers in the northeastern United States.

SAMPLE
9 patients undergoing AS.

METHODS
Baseline data were compared to data immediately after completion of the intervention and five weeks later. Telephone interviews were used to determine overall feasibility as well as the ease of use, user friendliness, and acceptability of the intervention in patients undergoing AS.

MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Self-efficacy, uncertainty, and QOL.

FINDINGS
The results revealed change between baseline (time 1) and intervention completion (time 2) in the majority of variables, with a return toward baseline after the intervention (time 3). Ten of the 12 measures of intervention acceptability were met. The results showed positive trends in the impact of the intervention and good overall acceptability.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this pilot study will lead to further research aimed at helping men manage issues related to AS and improve QOL.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
The intervention may reduce the overtreatment of prostate cancer in men who are clinically appropriate for this management option.


The study of 351 Polish employees tested the relationship between work engagement (Schaufeli, Bakker, 2004) and organizational factors that play an important role in development of burnout. The author hypothesized that the same organizational factors would play the main role also in the motivational process and influence work engagement. On the basis of the person-job fit theory, the author predicted that the match between person and work in such areas as workload, control, rewards, community, fairness and values (The Six Areas of Worklife by Maslach and Leiter) with addition of new area: leadership (supervisor support, open communication) would be important organizational factors that influence employees' engagement at work. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the positive relationship between the subjective set of fit and work engagement (vigor and dedication) will be mediated by the meaning assigned to work. To test the model, structural equation modeling was applied to the collected data. The direct relationship between sense of fitting and work engagement was found to be partially mediated by employees' perceptions of meaning in work.


A growing number of private equity firms have responded to the increased focus on climate change, social issues, and technology disruption by broadening their corporate mission to encompass all important stakeholders, as well as their limited partners. And in the process, the management of ESG risks and pursuit of ESG opportunities have become increasingly fundamental to the staying power and value creation potential of PE firms by reducing the risk of their investments, discovering new sources of growth, and increasing their resilience to changes in the political and regulatory environment. This article tells the story of how the Nordic PE firm, Summa Equity, has turned its ESG approach into a core competence and a source of competitive advantage that has enabled the firm to distinguish itself from its competitors and bring about significant improvements in the financial performance of its portfolio companies while providing benefits for their stakeholders. Using the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to guide them, the firm invests in companies they perceive to be addressing major environmental or social challenges in an innovative and commercially successful way. This has led to investments in significant growth opportunities in areas such as health care, education, waste management, and acqua‐culture. And the firm's returns to its investors have been high enough—and the perceived social benefits large enough—that the firm recently closed its second fund (which was significantly oversubscribed) for 650 million euros, and received the ESG award at the 2019 Private Equity Awards in London.


"Water management in the Pirapama River Basin in northeastern Brazil is affected by both water quantity and water quality constraints. The region is known for significant sugarcane-based ethanol production—which is key to the Brazilian economy and expected to grow dramatically under recent global changes in energy policy. Sugarcane production in the region goes hand in hand with controlled fertirrigation practices with potentially significant adverse impacts on the environment. To assess sustainable water allocation in the basin, an integrated hydrologic-economic basin model is adapted to study both water quantity and water quality aspects. The model results show that incorporating water quality aspects into water allocation decisions leads to a substantial reduction in application of vinasse to sugarcane fields. To enforce water quality restrictions, the shadow price for maintaining water in the reservoir could be used as a pollution tax for fertirrigated areas, which are currently not subject to pollution charges." from authors' abstract


Doctrine of state liability is the logic consequence of the evolution of effet utile, intended to fill the gap in the system of remedies for protection of individuals in the EC Treaty. This article analyses the preconditions of this doctrine and its legal foundations. Choosing national courts as the main subject, the doctrine of state liability is analyzed first of all evaluating the arguments of opponents to the extension of this doctrine to judicial acts, in order to show that nor the independence and impartiality of the national courts, nor the principle of res judicata or decrease of authority of courts are well founded arguments to deny the extension of state liability to judicial acts. Secondly, the content of the conditions for state liability to arise are examined to the extent necessary to stress the specifics of the subject who caused the damage. We suggest that the conditions for state liability to arise for judicial acts are not identical to those of the other state authorities – exec- utive and legislative: the state liability for judicial acts could arise just in exceptional cases. The mere breach of duty to apply to the European Court of Justice for the preliminary ruling could not be said to be the manifest infringement itself – only if the subjective right of the individual would be infringed, the breach of the duty to apply to the European Court of Justice would be treated as the qualifying factor. It's also important to notice that only the actions attributable to the supreme courts of member states could be the bases for state liability, because only courts of last instance have the duty to apply to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. Special constitutional status of national courts in the organization of the state authorities presupposes the need to talk and evaluate the possibility to apply this doctrine of state liability for this institution.


Background: Quality of life among elderly needs assessment as they are the growing population nowadays and also are more vulnerable to many morbid conditions. Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess different domains of quality of life and its relationship with socio-demographic factors. Methods: A Community based study was done among 153 persons aged 60 years and above from 13.06.2018 to 20.06.2018 in the rural field practice areas of Department of Community Medicine, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore Karnataka. The World Health Organisation, Quality of life-BREF Questionnaire was used and analysis done using SPSS version 23.0. Results: The mean Quality of life score was maximum in social health domain (72.90 ±1.63) followed by environmental health domain (63.10 ±3.71) and physical health domain (61.60 ± 2.96). The lowest was in psychological health domain (57.90 ± 2.61). Better scores of physical health domain, Psychological health domain and social health domain was seen among the elderly who had easy contacts with other people in the community. Environmental health domain score was better among the elderly people belonging to the Christian religion. Conclusion: In our present study, social relationship domain had higher mean Quality of life score when compared to other domains; where as psychological domain was affected badly among the elderly population. Further counselling and research can be done to explore the factors affecting the psychological domain.


We implement a two-country online choice experiment on around 2000 respondents per country, first, to investigate the formation of subjective survival expectations; and second, to evaluate the relation between subjective survival expectations and attitudes to pension regulations. Each respondent provided subjective survival probabilities to a range of target ages in either a "live to" or "die by" framing, then subsets of respondents were sorted to conditions where information about current cohort survival, personalized information on same-sex parent or grandparent survival, or both, were provided and the respondent updated their subjective survival expectations. Finally, respondents were asked their views on changes to pension eligibility ages. We find that giving people information about the longevity of peers does not induce them to revise their subjective survival expectations much, and neither does information about the relative longevity of their same-sex parent or grandparent. "Live to" and "die by" framing has a much larger effect on reported subjective expectations than personalized information about cohort or family longevity. However subjective expectations are relevant to explaining opinions on retirement policy and planning. Regulators trying to educate the public about longevity and the consequent need for delayed retirement or pension ages need alternative strategies.


Since its re‐emergence, HPAI H5N1 has attracted considerable public and media attention because the viruses involved have been shown to be capable of producing fatal disease in humans. While there is fear that the virus may mutate into a strain capable of sustained human‐to‐human transmission, the greatest impact to date has been on the highly diverse poultry industries in affected countries. In response to this, HPAI control measures have so far focused on implementing prevention and eradication measures in poultry populations, with more than 175 million birds culled in Southeast Asia alone. Until now, significantly less emphasis has been placed on assessing the efficacy of risk reduction measures, including their effects on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and their families. In order to improve local and global capacity for evidence‐based decision making on the control of HPAI (and other diseases with epidemic potential), which inevitably has major social and economic impacts, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has agreed to fund a collaborative, multidisciplinary HPAI research project for Southeast Asia and Africa. The specific purpose of the project is to aid decision makers in developing evidence‐based, pro‐poor HPAI control measures at national and international levels. These control measures should not only be cost‐effective and efficient in reducing disease risk, but also protect and enhance livelihoods, particularly those of smallholder producers in developing countries, who are and will remain the majority of livestock producers in these countries for some time to come. This report is the first step of the project which has compiled and assessed the current state of knowledge of poultry systems and their place in the larger economy of the study country, the current HPAI situation and its evolution, and institutional experiences with its control (or, where it has not taken place, contingency places should it arise). This information has been written by a multidisciplinary national team in the study country highlighting the current knowledge and knowledge gaps related to the interface of poultry, HPAI, and institutional response as a crucial first step to the analytical research outputs to be generated in the course of this project. In the process of writing the background paper a variety of country‐specific data and information sources on poultry systems, HPAI, and mitigation/control efforts, including published and grey literature, national statistics, journal articles, and reports from other research efforts that are ongoing in the country have been complied into a data …


To investigate the nature of militarism, two different but related questionnaires were admini stered to two different samples of adults and university students, N = 122 and 261, respectively. Both questionnaires contained a variety of ideological and personality scales selected on the basis of a review of the literature. In both cases, the scale scores were standardized, correlated with each other, and factor analyzed by the principal components method. In both samples, a primary factor of militarism was among the first two factors extracted. The primary factor of militarism contained scales of militarism, nationalism, severe treat ment of criminals, anti-Communism, anti-internationalism, conservatism, anti-democratic at titudes, authoritarianism, and anti-Semitism. The items in these scales were characterized by a readiness to use or threaten to use force and punishment to control the behavior of those believed to be deviating from the values of Western adult society, including the Communist 'enemy', children, Jews, Negroes, foreigners, lower-class people, sexual deviates, and mental patients. This need for compulsion and punishment was presumed to be a function of lack of faith in human nature. The primary factor of militarism was significantly correlated with the ideological factors of conservatism, nationalism, religiosity, lack of internationalism, lack of knowledge of foreign affairs, and political cynicism; and with the personality factors of extraversion, misanthropy, faulty childhood disciplines, lack of social responsibility, neuroticism, and lack of empathy. Some of these results (such as the correlation of militarism with conservatism and religiosity) are probably limited in their generalizability to the Western World, while the rest are prob ably more universal in their generalizability. However, cross-cultural studies will be required to increase our understanding of militarism in general. This study implies the need for more freedom in human relations if we want more respon sibility in human relations, including international relations.


Gemma Correll's whimsical illustrations capture all Fido's moods from perky scamp to loyal, obedient protector. Although this book does present a vast array of canine shenanigans purple for our amusement, be forewarned-you'll also get some startling insights into what your dog is really thinking about you (and, it may not always be complimentary-not that you will really mind). You see, dogs have insinuated themselves into our lives as no other creatures could. What's more, they know they'll always have a place in our hearts. Why else do we lavish them with yummy treats and belly scratches? There's something about a wagging tail and a soulful stare that's just too hard to resist.Read more Read less


This paper using the Theory of Planned Behavior, presents a study of entrepreneurial intentions among nursing students in Zanjan Azad University. By measuring the intention of nursing students, the factors that impact their intention to start business can be recognized and the effective programs to affect their intention can be designed and developed. A sample of 56 nursing student selected and assigned to test and control groups. Data was collected at tow stage: The first down at the beginning of the first semester and before an entrepreneurial training program (ETP) performed, and the second, down at 75 days later, after ETP program was accomplished. The training program focused on opportunity recognition assumed to have positive effect on entrepreneurial intention. Because they not involve in practical aspects of start up and giving participants thought of potential barriers we could measure the effectiveness of the training program. Results shows that unlike many studies that show entrepreneurial training program positively influence entrepreneurial intentions of students, this study find very low effect of entrepreneurial training program on entrepreneurial intentions of nursing students. This paradoxical finding might be as a result of other factors such as greater chance of nursing students to be employed after graduation. Our results also showed that like entrepreneurial intention, self efficacy had not been influenced by training program. Social norms had been influenced by ETP but attitude toward behavior and perceived self efficacy had not influenced.


It is difficult to understand why this volume is named New Essays in the Philosophy of Mind. Some of the essays are better classified as metaphysics, some as philosophy of science, and at least one as philosophy of language. But no matter, the name of the volume is unimportant: it is the contents that count. And the contents are very interesting. The general quality of the papers is high, higher than is often found in contemporary journals. The articles all share the methodological trait of being well-argued, and perhaps it is this trait more than anything else that unifies the volume. In what follows, I shall comment briefly on two articles on action theory, and then even more briefly on the remaining six papers.


I don't know exactly why the house near my grandmother's home was called 'Journey's End'. Someone told me that it was because at the time when the house was built it stood as the last property on the formal street grid of the town plan of this rural settlement. Others told me that it marked the boundary between what was the so-called town and natural barrier of bush that separated the African township on the other side. All of this did not make sense to me as a child since 'Journey's End' in fact now stood as a gateway linking onto the new freeway that connected the town to the outside North Coast and hinterland. A more sinister story was told by my grandfather: that a previous owner had hung himself from the rafters when he had given up hope in the threat of financial ruin. 'His spirit still lives there!'


The ability to model freshwater stream habitat and species distributions is limited by the spatially sparse flow data available from long-term gauging stations. Flow data beyond the immediate vicinity of gauging stations would enhance our ability to explore and characterize hydrologic habitat suitability. The southeastern USA supports high aquatic biodiversity, but threats, such as landuse alteration, climate change, conflicting water-resource demands, and pollution, have led to the imperilment and legal protection of many species. The ability to distinguish suitable from unsuitable habitat conditions, including hydrologic suitability, is a key criterion for successful conservation and restoration of aquatic species. We used the example of the critically endangered Tar River Spinymussel (Parvaspina steinstansana) and associated species to demonstrate the value of modeled flow data (WaterFALL™) to generate novel insights into population structure and testable hypotheses regarding hydrologic suitability. With ordination models, we: 1) identified all catchments with potentially suitable hydrology, 2) identified 2 distinct hydrologic environments occupied by the Tar River Spinymussel, and 3) estimated greater hydrological habitat niche breadth of assumed surrogate species associates at the catchment scale. Our findings provide the first demonstrated application of complete, continuous, regional modeled hydrologic data to freshwater mussel distribution and management. This research highlights the utility of modeling and data-mining methods to facilitate further exploration and application of such modeled environmental conditions to inform aquatic species management. We conclude that such an approach can support landscape-scale management decisions that require spatial information at fine resolution (e.g., enhanced National Hydrology Dataset catchments) and broad extent (e.g., multiple river basins).


Introduction: Beyond the "End" Four years ago, Joseph Jockel and I proclaimed the "end" of the Canada-U.S. defense relationship. (1) With the passing of the Cold War, its two central elements--collaboration in the aerospace defense of North America through the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and cooperation in European security under the umbrella of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)--were fading into geostrategic obscurity. Rather than regret the fraying of security ties built up over half a century, the two countries should welcome the process, for now residual and waning defense ties would be free of the frictions that had arisen in the always-unequal partnership of a small-to-middle power and a superpower, frictions that were mainly the result of Canadian sovereignty concerns. We suggested, however, that such frictions could arise again if "Ottawa itself chooses to become more heavily involved in American-led activities, whether in North America though an accelerated NORAD BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) role" or "in Europe though NATO actions in the East." (2) In a certain sense, both these eventualities have now come to pass and, thus, the bilateral defense relationship has moved beyond the "end" and, in so doing, now finds itself beset with frictions, some familiar and some unprecedented. In Europe, Canada has indeed become heavily involved with the United States in the "new" NATO, including going to war alongside the Americans and a host of other allies in the Kosovo campaign. While they made a respectable showing, the campaign has raised questions about the capabilities of the Canadian Forces (CF) and rekindled the old burden-sharing debate. But the major issue concerns BMD and the future of NORAD in light of Washington's National Missile Defense (NMD), endorsed by the United States Congress and awaiting a presidential decision following the Deployment Readiness Review expected by the fall of 2000. Although the two governments have renewed the NORAD agreement for another five years, the question of Canadian involvement in NMD remains open. Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre has said that Washington would like Canada to participate once the technology has been proved to work and a decision to deploy has been taken. This means that several years from now it might be a Canadian general who is asked to give the order authorizing the interception of a North Korean missile headed for Los Angeles or another American city. No other U.S. ally would ever be entrusted with such a responsibility. Since 1957 the two countries have maintained the joint North American Aerospace Defense Command, whose operations center--shared with the U.S. Space Command-is located deep under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, and whose central functions are to warn of and assess an attack. A fanciful version of NORAD was featured in the popular 1983 movie, War Games. No Canadian air force uniforms are to be seen in the movie version, unlike the real thing, where numerous posts, including NORAD's deputy commander-in-chief, are held by Canadians. During the Cold War it could well have been a Canadian on duty at NORAD who would have alerted U.S. authorities that a Soviet nuclear attack on this continent was underway. The U.S. is poised to place the National Missile Defense under NORAD's authority. But the U.S. does not need Canadian cooperation or support to deploy the system, for neither Canadian territory nor airspace would be involved in its operation. Canadian officials are quite aware of what may happen if Canada declines the invitation. The U.S. could very well move to dissolve NORAD, give its warning and assessment functions, along with responsibility for the National Missile Defense, to an all-U.S. command, and place the U.S. Canadian defense relationship on a much looser footing. Leaving Cheyenne Mountain would be costly for Canada. It would mean the end of Canada's uniquely privileged military relationship with the United States in North American defense. …


Atomic vapors of alkali metals are widely used to slow and stop light in tabletop experiments. In order to take advantage of the underlying quantum interference effects in future commercial devices, highly reactive alkali atoms must be incorporated into small volumes with integrated optical access. With integration in mind, we describe the development of a hollow-core waveguide technology based on the combination of vapor-filled hollow waveguides and conventional solid-core waveguides on a silicon chip. We discuss the underlying principles of the waveguide design, the development of different approaches to building on-chip vapor cells, the demonstration of linear and nonlinear rubidium spectroscopy on a chip, and the prospects for quantum interference effects such as slow light and giant Kerr nonlinearities using this approach. Ultrasmall active vapor volumes on the order of 100 picoliters with simultaneously high optical density in excess of two illustrate the potential of planar hollow-core waveguides for linear and nonlinear optical spectroscopy of atoms confined on a chip.


Finland has set numeric goals for the development of open access. However, at the moment, no system is available by which this development could be monitored. Poor quality in the metadata records in universities' research information databases prevents metadata-based analysis of open access publishing progress. This paper shows how the quality problems of Finnish publication data can be resolved through centralizing the services and processes of metadata creation and by improving the interoperability of systems involved in the processes. As a result, this study describes an environment where reliable measurement of open access is possible and presents suggested actions for improving the Finnish publication data collection.


Current ageing theories are far from satisfactory because of the many determinants involved in ageing. The well-known rate-of-living theory assumes that the product (lifetime energy expenditure, LEE) of maximum lifespan (MLS) and mass-specific basal metabolic rate (msBMR) is approximately constant. Although this theory provides a significant inverse correlation between msBMR and MLS as a whole for mammals, it remains problematic for two reasons. First, several interspecies studies within respective orders (typically within rodents) have shown no inverse relationships between msBMR and MLS. Second, LEE values widely vary in mammals and birds. Here, to solve these two problems, we introduced a new quantity designated as mitochondrial (mt) lifetime energy output, mtLEO = MLS × mtMR, in place of LEE, by using the mt metabolic rate (mtMR) per mitochondrion. Thereby, we found that mtLEO values were distributed more narrowly than LEE ones, and strongly correlated with the four amino-acid variables (AAVs) of Ser, Thr and Cys contents and hydrophobicity of mtDNA-encoded membrane proteins (these variables were related to the stability of these proteins). Consequently, only these two mt items, mtMR and the AAVs, solved the above-mentioned problems in the rate-of-living theory, and thus extensively improved the correlation with MLS compared with that given by LEE.


Valve-point loading aects the input-output characteristics of generating units, bringing the fuel costs nonlinear and nonsmooth. This has been considered in the solution of load dispatch problems, but not in the planning phase of unit commitment. This paper presents a mathematical optimization model for the thermal unit commitment problem considering valve-point loading. The formulation is based on a careful linearization of the fuel cost function, which is modeled with great detail on power regions being used in the current solution, and roughly on other regions. A set of benchmark instances for this problem is used for analyzing the method, with recourse to a general-purpose mixed-integer optimization solver.


Background Cimicifuga rhizome Meliae cortex Coptidis rhizome and Phellodendron cortex have been previously shown to exhibit anti-coronavirus activity. Here, an additional 19 traditional medicinal herbal extracts were evaluated for antiviral activities in vitro. Methods A plaque assay was used to evaluate the effects of 19 extracts, and the concentration of extract required to inhibit 50% of the replication (EC50) of mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) A59 strain (MHV-A59) was determined. The 50% cytotoxic concentration (CC50) of each extract was also determined. Northern and western blot analyses were conducted to evaluate antiviral activity on viral entry, viral RNA and protein expression, and release in MHV-infected DBT cells. Results Sophorae radix Acanthopanacis cortex and Torilis fructus reduced intracellular viral RNA levels with comparable reductions in viral proteins and MHV-A59 production. The extracts also reduced the replication of the John Howard Mueller strain of MHV, porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus and vesicular stomatitis virus in vitro. Sanguisorbae radix reduced coronavirus production, partly as a result of decreased protein synthesis, but without a significant reduction in intracellular viral RNA levels. The EC50 values of the four extracts ranged from 0.8 to 3.7 μg/ml, whereas the CC50 values ranged from 156.5 to 556.8 μg/ml. Acanthopanacis cortex and Torilis fructus might exert their antiviral activities in MHV-A59-infected cells by inducing cyclooxygenase-2 expression via the activation of extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) and p38 or ERK alone, respectively. Conclusions Sophorae radix Acanthopanacis cortex Sanguisorbae radix and Torilis fructus might be considered as promising novel anti-coronavirus drug candidates.


The paper discusses a linear differential-difference equation of neutral type with linear coefficients, when at the initial time moment \(t=0\) the value of the desired function \(x(t)\) is known. The authors are not familiar with any results which would state the solvability conditions for the given problem in the class of analytical functions. A polynomial of some degree \(N\) is introduced into the investigation. Then the term "polynomial quasisolution" (PQ-solution) is understood in the sense of appearance of the residual \(\Delta (t)=O(t^N)\), when this polynomial is substituted into the initial problem. The paper is devoted to finding PQ-solutions for the initial-value problem under analysis.


On August 17, 1980, at a campsite near Australia's famous Ayer's Rock, a mother's cry came out of the dark: My God, my God, the dingo's got my baby! Soon the people of an entire continent would be choosing sides in a debate over whether the cry heard that night marked an astonishing and rare human fatality caused by Australia's wild dogs or was, rather, in the words of the man who would eventually prosecute her for murder, a calculated, fanciful lie. A jury of nine men and three women came to believe the latter story and convicted Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her ten-week-old daughter, Azaria. Three years later, while Lindy dealt with daily life in a Darwin prison, police investigating the death of a fallen climber discovered Azaria's matinee jacket near a dingo den, and the Australian public confronted the reality that its justice system had failed. A Cry in the Dark, a movie starring Meryl Streep, carried the story of Lindy's wrongful conviction across oceans. What went wrong? Convictions of the innocent usually result from inaccurate eyewitness testimony (generally the least reliable evidence in a trial because of biases and the tricks of memory), but Lindy Chamberlain was convicted by flawed forensic evidence and by investigators and prosecutors unwilling to reconsider their assumptions in the face of contradictory evidence. The trial of Lindy Chamberlain, and her husband Michael, is a cautionary tale that everyone who practices forensic science should carefully consider.


Utility of perennial bioenergy crops (e.g., switchgrass and miscanthus) offers unique opportunities to transition toward a more sustainable energy pathway due to their reduced carbon footprint, averted competition with food crops, and ability to grow on abandoned and degraded farmlands. Studies that have examined biogeophysical impacts of these crops noted a positive feedback between near‐surface cooling and enhanced evapotranspiration (ET), but also potential unintended consequences of soil moisture and groundwater depletion. To better understand hydrometeorological effects of perennial bioenergy crop expansion, this study conducted high‐resolution (2‐km grid spacing) simulations with a state‐of‐the‐art atmospheric model (Weather Research and Forecasting system) dynamically coupled to a land surface model. We applied the modeling system over the Southern Plains of the United States during a normal precipitation year (2007) and a drought year (2011). By focusing the deployment of bioenergy cropping systems on marginal and abandoned farmland areas (to reduce the potential conflict with food systems), the research presented here is the first realistic examination of hydrometeorological impacts associated with perennial bioenergy crop expansion. Our results illustrate that the deployment of perennial bioenergy crops leads to widespread cooling (1–2 °C) that is largely driven by an enhanced reflection of shortwave radiation and, secondarily, due to an enhanced ET. Bioenergy crop deployment was shown to reduce the impacts of drought through simultaneous moistening and cooling of the near‐surface environment. However, simulated impacts on near‐surface cooling and ET were reduced during the drought relative to a normal precipitation year, revealing differential effects based on background environmental conditions. This study serves as a key step toward the assessment of hydroclimatic sustainability associated with perennial bioenergy crop expansion under diverse hydrometeorological conditions by highlighting the driving mechanisms and processes associated with this energy pathway.


This book introduces upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers to the latest developments in network economics, one of the fastest-growing fields in all industrial organization. Network industries include the Internet, e-mail, telephony, computer hardware and software, music and video players, and service operations in the banking, legal, and airlines industries among many others. The work offers an overview of the subject matter as well as investigations about specific industries. It conveys the essential features of how strategic interactions between firms are affected by network activity, as well as covering social interaction and its influence on consumers' choices of products and services. Virtually no calculus is used in the text, and each chapter ends with a series of exercises and selected references. The text may be used for both one- and two-semester courses.


The sharp Wolff-type decoupling estimates of Bourgain--Demeter are extended to the variable coefficient setting. These results are applied to obtain new sharp local smoothing estimates for wave equations on compact Riemannian manifolds, away from the endpoint regularity exponent. More generally, local smoothing estimates are established for a natural class of Fourier integral operators; at this level of generality the results are sharp in odd dimensions, both in terms of the regularity exponent and the Lebesgue exponent.


This paper presents iEAR, a flexible spatial audio rendering tool for use with photorealistic monoscopic and stereoscopic panoramas across various display systems. iEAR allows users to easily present multichannel audio scenes over variable speaker arrangements, while maintaining tight integration with the corresponding visual elements of the display media. Built in the Max/MSP Audio Programming Environment, iEAR utilizes well-established panning methods to accommodate a wide range of speaker configurations. Audio scene orientation is tied to the visual scene using an OSC connection with the visualization software, allowing users to render and spatialize multichannel environmental audio recordings in tandem with the changing perspective in the visual scene.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine if and how supervisors' use of two kinds of potential scaffolding means – asking questions and giving instructions – could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence, in the context of supervision of degree projects within higher education.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on qualitative content analysis of two series of supervision meetings between a supervisor and a student in Swedish higher education, comprising a total of eight recorded sessions. The theoretical framework of the paper is centered on scaffolding and independent learning, and central concepts are contingency, fading, transfer of responsibility and student independence.

Findings
The analysis shows how the supervisors' use of questions, and in some respect instructions, could contribute to fulfilling the scaffolding intention of student independence through enabling active participation of both student and supervisor and that the supervision was based on contingency. The analysis further shows that the supervisors tended to become more directive as the work came along, especially when students appeared to be running out of time. The supervision processes did thus not appear to be characterized by fading and transfer of responsibility.

Originality/value
This paper contributes to the research field of higher education through discussing student independence as a potential scaffolding intention within supervision of degree projects, based on recorded supervision meetings. Supervision of degree projects is a highly relevant context for discussing scaffolding, since it combines increased student independence with close interaction between student and supervisor for an extended period.


We report on the observation of anisotropy in the arrival direction distribution of cosmic rays at PeV energies. The analysis is based on data taken between 2009 and 2012 with the IceTop air shower array at the south pole. IceTop, an integral part of the IceCube detector, is sensitive to cosmic rays between 100 TeV and 1 EeV. With the current size of the IceTop data set, searches for anisotropy at the 10(-3) level can, for the first time, be extended to PeV energies. We divide the data set into two parts with median energies of 400 TeV and 2 PeV, respectively. In the low energy band, we observe a strong deficit with an angular size of about 30 degrees and an amplitude of (-1.58 +/- 0.46(stat) +/- 0.52(sys)) x 10(-3) at a location consistent with previous observations of cosmic rays with the IceCube neutrino detector. The study of the high energy band shows that the anisotropy persists to PeV energies and increases in amplitude to (-3.11 +/- 0.38(stat) +/- 0.96(sys)) x 10(-3).


Prepare and Protect: Safer Behaviors in Laboratories and Clinical Containment Settings is now available on Wiley.comMembers, use the code ASM20 at check out to receive your 20% discount.
Biological safety is a critical requirement when working with or around infectious disease agents. To
prevent exposures and keep staff and patients safe, laboratories and health care facilities rely on personal
protective equipment, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and engineering controls. In an instant,
however, a single inappropriate human behavior can negate any of these safeguards.
This reference provides an important call to action for anyone who relies on safety plans to consider
carefully the humans who must follow those plans. Written by an expert in behavioral biosafety training,
Prepare and Protect offers a common-sense program for addressing and reducing the risk factors of human
behavior. Learn how to
Examine the safety culture of your organization and its approach to risk
Motivate the compliance, adherence to rules, and community thinking that keep everyone safe
Evaluate, validate, and verify SOPs and staff competence
Create safety plans and safety training programs that connect outcomes to behaviors
Provide leadership that translates the containment philosophy from words to actions
The critical message of this book is illustrated and enriched with personal accounts by infectious disease
pioneers, from lab safety directors and trainers to the researchers and health care workers directly affected
by infectious hazards.
If your work involves pathogenic microbes—whether treating patients in a hospital emergency department
or conducting research in a biosafety level 2 or higher laboratory—or overseeing those who do
these jobs, this resource will teach you how to develop a culture of biosafety through behavior.
Hardcover, 246 pages, full-color illustrations, index.


We extend the notion of general coordinate invariance to many-body, not necessarily relativistic, systems. As an application, we investigate nonrelativistic general covariance in Galilei-invariant systems. The peculiar transformation rules for the background metric and gauge fields, first introduced by Son and Wingate in 2005 and refined in subsequent works, follow naturally from our framework. Our approach makes it clear that Galilei or Poincare symmetry is by no means a necessary prerequisite for making the theory invariant under coordinate diffeomorphisms. General covariance merely expresses the freedom to choose spacetime coordinates at will, whereas the true, physical symmetries of the system can be separately implemented as "internal" symmetries within the vielbein formalism. A systematic way to implement such symmetries is provided by the coset construction. We illustrate this point by applying our formalism to nonrelativistic s-wave superfluids.


Champion thoroughbreds, owners, trainers and jockeys, illustrated with 220 drawings, paintings and photographs. It is an engrossing guide to the fascinating stories and facts of the horse-racing world, from the early days of the first races to the thrilling multi-spectator sport of today. It includes all the famous horse races from around the world, such as Newmarket in England, the Kentucky Derby in the USA and the Melbourne Cup in Australia. It features intriguing information about legendary owners, trainers and jockeys, as well as the winning thoroughbred horses that have become celebrity champions. It explores the reasons why the internationally famous racecourses are so popular with the racegoing public. It is spectacularly illustrated with over 220 dramatic photographs of horses, signature race courses and personalites, as well as archive drawings and paintings. There are few more stirring sights in sport than to witness the finish of a prestigious horse race - the bright blur of horses racing towards the winning post with jockeys pushing their mounts forward, urged on by the encouragement of the racegoers. This book celebrates the great characters and performers, both human and equine, who have been involved in such contests. It features the owners, trainers, jockeys and, above all, the champion thoroughbreds who have written their names into the legend of the 'sport of kings' - from Flying Childers, the first great racehorse of the 18th century, through to Makybe Diva, the three-time winner of the Melbourne Cup. Racing's hallowed venues and their much-awaited blue-riband racedays are also documented and celebrated. Illustrated with over 220 photographs, the book conveys the essence of the sport in a charming and enjoyable manner.


OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of preterm birth and to identify its aetiological factors in a rural set up hospital. BACKGROUND: The rate of spontaneous preterm birth keep on rising and the exact cause is still unclear.Generalised approaches in screening for high risk status and interventions have failed to reduce preterm birth rates.Preterm birth presents a clinical dilemma due to it etiologic and pathophysiologic heterogeneities. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This prospective, descriptive study was conducted in the Department of Gynaecology & Obstetrics at Baqai Medical University from January 2006 to December 2007.A total of 136 of cases of preterm labour were evaluated. Information regarding past history, present symptoms and obstetrical history was collected followed by detailed examination. Investigation was done including Hb%, total leukocyte count, platelet count, urine D/R (microscopy, culture and sensitivity), high vaginal swab (gram staining, culture and sensitivity), and pelvic ultrasound. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS package for windows version 12.5. RESULTS: Frequency of preterm birth was 7.5 % (elective preterm births and twin pregnancies were excluded).Out of 136 cases 56.6% were < 25 years of age, 30.1% were primigravidas, and 91.2% were unbooked cases, 25% had a past history of preterm birth, and 8.8% had past history of > one second trimester abortion. Cause is multifactorial in almost half of the cases. Anemia was the most common cause 45.2%.Othercauses include bacterial vaginosis 16.9%, systemic infection 13.2%, urinary tract infection abruptio placenta and pregnancy induced hypertension 11% each, and fetal anomaly 10.3%, cervical incompetence 3.7% and medical disorders 2.9%.Majority 88.2% had a vaginal birth. There were 74 (40%) perinatal deaths, out of which 41 were intra uterine deaths and 33 neonatal deaths. CONCLUSION: Preterm labour and births are common in rural set up hospital.


The retina extracts visual features for transmission to the brain. Different types of bipolar cell split the photoreceptor input into parallel channels and provide the excitatory drive for downstream visual circuits. Anatomically, mouse bipolar cell types have been described down to the ultrastructural level, but a similarly deep understanding of their functional diversity is lacking. By imaging light-driven glutamate release from more than 11,000 bipolar cell axon terminals in the intact retina, we here show that bipolar cell functional diversity is generated by the balanced interplay of dendritic excitatory inputs and axonal inhibitory inputs. The resultant centre and surround components of bipolar cell receptive fields interact to decorrelate bipolar cell output in the spatial and temporal domain. Our findings highlight the importance of inhibitory circuits in generating functionally diverse excitatory pathways and suggest that decorrelation of parallel visual pathways begins already at the second synapse of the mouse visual system.


Over the past few years, the powerful computation rates and high memory bandwidth of GPUs have attracted efforts to run raytracing on GPUs. Our work extends Foley et al.'s GPU k-d tree research. We port their kd-restart algorithm from multi-pass, using CPU load balancing, to single pass, using current GPUs' branching and looping abilities. We introduce three optimizations: a packetized formulation, a technique for restarting partially down the tree instead of at the root, and a small, fixed-size stack that is checked before resorting to restart. Our optimized implementation achieves 15 - 18 million primary rays per second and 16 - 27 million shadow rays per second on our test scenes. Our system also takes advantage of GPUs' strengths at rasterization and shading to offer a mode where rasterization replaces eye ray scene intersection, and primary hits and local shading are produced with standard Direct3D code. For 1024x1024 renderings of our scenes with shadows and Phong shading, we achieve 12-18 frames per second. Finally, we investigate the efficiency of our implementation relative to the computational resources of our GPUs and also compare it against conventional CPUs and the Cell processor, which both have been shown to raytrace well.


Immune checkpoint inhibitors have generated impressive clinical responses, however, a number of patients and cancer types remain resistant to checkpoint blockade. Immunosuppressive cells such as Tregs and MDSCs in the tumor microenvironment are hypothesized to mediate this resistance. The gamma (γ) isoform of PI3K has long been known to modulate myeloid and lymphocyte cell migration and function, including trafficking of monocytic and granulocytic cells into inflamed tissues such as tumors. Here we report the identification and characterization of BVD-723, a PI3Kγ selective small molecule kinase inhibitor which demonstrated single agent and enhanced combination anti-tumor activity[xx]with either an anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA-4 antibody. In a mouse syngeneic colon cancer model,[xx]BVD-723 in combination with anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA-4 resulted in complete regression[xx]of tumors in 35% (7/20) and 60% (12/20) of animals treated with each antibody respectively [versus 0% (0/20) and 5% (1/20) with either antibody alone]. Interestingly, the anti-tumor activity was coupled with a decrease in tumor infiltrating Tregs, granulocytic MDSCs, CD4+ T cells and an increase in the CD8+/Treg ratio, suggesting that inhibition of PI3Kγ by BVD-723 promotes immune-reactivation in the tumor microenvironment. Additionally, BVD-723 demonstrated potent synergy with an anti-PD-1 antibody in a syngeneic mouse model of lymphoma. Single agent BVD-723 activity was also observed in syngeneic mouse models of pancreas, colon, lymphoma and bladder cancers. Results from completed safety pharmacology, toxicology and in vivo efficacy studies support clinical evaluation of BVD-723[xx]as a monotherapy or in combination with the checkpoint inhibitors in cancer.[xx] Citation Format: Saurabh Saha, Linping Zhang, Thomas Hoock, Alex Aronov, Sudipta Mahajan, Michael Boyd, Jon Come, Veronique Damagnez, Wojciech Dworakowski, Suvarna Khare-Pandit, Arnaud LeTiran, Cameron Moody, Harwin O9Dowd, Joseph Prezioso, Setu Roday, Xiaoyan M. Zhang. A novel PI3K gamma isoform selective small molecule kinase inhibitor demonstrates single agent anti-tumor activity and enhanced combination activity with checkpoint blockade in syngeneic mouse models of cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2015 Nov 5-9; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2015;14(12 Suppl 2):Abstract nr LB-B15.


Last month, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland, announced that it9s considering moving its eight bottlenose dolphins to a marine sanctuary. The move has been decried by other aquariums, as well as by scientists who study whales and dolphins in captivity. This week, the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida, sent a letter to the National Aquarium stating that removing these animals from their current facilities would be bad for both science and public engagement. Meanwhile, other researchers have expressed concern that dolphins and whales would not do well in a marine sanctuary, and that moving them there would curtail important studies that are elucidating the cognition of these animals and benefiting their comrades in the wild.


Scientific and technical activities on JET focus on the issues likely to affect the ITER design and operation. Our understanding of the ITER reference mode of operation, the ELMy H-mode, has progressed significantly. The extrapolation of ELM size to ITER has been re-evaluated. Neoclassical tearing modes have been shown to be meta-stable in JET, and their beta limits can be raised by destabilization (modification) of sawteeth by ion cyclotron radio frequency heating (ICRH). Alpha simulation experiments with ICRH accelerated injected 4He beam ions provide a new tool for fast particle and magnetohydrodynamic studies, with up to 80–90% of plasma heating by fast 4He ions. With or without impurity seeding, a quasi-steady-state high confinement (H98 = 1), high density (ne/nGW = 0.9–1) and high β (βN = 2) ELMy H-mode has been achieved by operating near the ITER triangularity (δ∼ 0.40–0.5) and safety factor (q95∼ 3), at Zeff∼ 1.5–2. In advanced tokamak (AT) scenarios, internal transport barriers (ITBs) are now characterized in real time with a new criterion, . Tailoring of the current profile with lower hybrid current drive provides reliable access to a variety of q profiles, lowering access power for barrier formation. Rational q surfaces appear to be associated with ITB formation. Alfvén cascades were observed in reversed shear plasmas, providing identification of q profile evolution. Plasmas with 'current holes' were observed and modelled. Transient high confinement AT regimes with H89 = 3.3, βN = 2.4 and ITER-relevant q < 5 were achieved with reversed magnetic shear. Quasi-stationary ITBs are developed with full non-inductive current drive, including ∼50% bootstrap current. A record duration of ITBs was achieved, up to 11 s, approaching the resistive time. For the first time, pressure and current profiles of AT regimes are controlled by a real-time feedback system, in separate experiments. Erosion and co-deposition studies with a quartz micro-balance show reduced co-deposition. Measured divertor thermal loads during disruptions in JET could modify ITER assumptions.


The EU-funded CoCoRo project studies heterogeneous swarms of AUVs used for the purposes of under water monitoring and search. The CoCoRo underwater swarm system will combine bio-inspired motion principles with biologically-derived collective cognition mechanisms to provide a novel robotic system that is scalable, reliable and flexible with respect its behavioural potential. We will investigate and develop swarm-level emergent self-awareness, taking biological inspiration from fish, honeybees, the immune system and neurons. Low-level, local information processing will give rise to collective-level memory and cognition. CoCoRo will develop a novel bio-inspired operating system whose default behaviour will be to provide AUV shoaling functionality and the maintenance of swarm coherence. Collective discrimination of environmental properties will be processed on an individual-or on a collective-level given the cognitive capabilities of the AUVs. We will investigate collective self-recognition through experiments inspired by ethology and psychology, allowing for the quantification of collective cognition.


Abstract : Hierarchical knowledge structures are pervasive in Artificial Intelligence, yet very little is understood about how such structures may be effectively acquired. One way to represent the hierarchical component of knowledge structures is to use grammars. The grammar framework also provides a natural way to apply failure-driven learning to guide the induction of hierarchical knowledge structures. The conjunction of hierarchical knowledge structures and failure-driven learning defines a class of algorithms, which we call Parse Completion algorithms. This paper presents a theoretical exploration of this class that attempts to understand what makes this induction problem difficult, and to suggest where appropriate biases might lie to limit the search without overly restricting the richness of discoverable solutions. The explorations in this paper are not intended to produce a practical induction algorithm, although fruitful paths for such development are suggested. (sdw)


In the UK and elsewhere, defined benefit (DB) schemes are being replaced by defined contribution (DC) schemes. However DC schemes have some substantial weaknesses, and a continuation of current policies will probably lead to another pensions crisis in a few decades. There is an alternative which avoids the major defects of both DB and DC schemes. It is proposed that, if UK employers wish to replace their DB schemes, they should do so with something that looks like a career average revalued earnings (CARE) scheme to the members, but is funded by single premium deferred annuities (SPDAs). The members get what is effectively a DB pension scheme. However pension provision is outsourced to specialist providers (insurance companies), with all the risk (and the decisions that must be made by members of a DC scheme) borne by insurance companies, not by the employer or members.


This comprehensive textbook provides a thorough and accessible introduction to business law for the non-law student. Packed with up-to-date and relevant examples, it demonstrates the real applicability of the law to the business world, making it an invaluable companion for all those tackling business law for the first time. Whether you're a would-be entrepreneur or looking to a career in management, this book gives you the solid base you need to make confident business decisions in the future. Designed for non-lawyers, Business Law is written in a clear and easy-to-follow style which avoids excessive legal terminology and presents the need-to-know facts and cases. Fully referenced throughout and with an accompanying Online Resource Centre, Business Law combines accurate legal detail with strong learning tools such as self-test questions, chapter summaries and key definitions, helping you successfully navigate your way through this often complex subject.