Robotics competitions at the high school level attract a large number of students across the world. However, there is little emphasis on leveraging robotics to get middle school students excited about pursuing STEM education. In this paper, we describe a new program that targets middle school students in a local, four-week setting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It aims to excite students by teaching the very basics of computer vision and robotics. The students program mini car-like robots, equipped with state-of-the-art computers, to navigate autonomously in a mock race track. We describe the hardware and software infrastructure that enables the program, the details of our curriculum, and the results of a short assessment. In addition, we describe four short programs, as well as a session where we teach high school teachers how to teach similar courses at their schools to their own students. The self-assessment indicates that the students feel more confident in programming and robotics after leaving the program, which we hope will enable them to pursue STEM education and robotics initiatives at school.


The main impact of the fishery for Tristan rock lobster Jasus tristani on seabirds at the Tristan archipelago and Gough Island is through night strikes, when petrels collide with a ship after being disorientated by its lights. Tristan fishery observers have kept records of night strikes on the MV Edinburgh since the 2010/2011 fishing season. Over the last three years, 723 seabirds from nine species were recorded coming aboard the fishing vessel, with at least 39 (5.4%) birds dying as a result. Birds killed were broad-billed prions Pachyptila vittata (41%), common diving petrels Pelecanoides urinatrix (23%), and storm petrels (Pelagodroma marina and Fregetta grallaria/tropica 36%). All these species are listed as Least Concern globally, and the numbers killed per year are <0.1% of the island populations. The captain and crew of the Edinburgh are aware of the problem posed by deck lights at night, and attempt to keep external lighting to a minimum. As a result, the numbers of birds coming aboard vessels in this fishery have decreased from an average of 130 birds per night in 1989 to less than two birds per night in 2010–2013. Currently, most incidents occur during exceptional events when circumstances require deck lights to be lit at night. Consideration should be given to banning fishing operations at night, at least on misty nights.


This public lecture was given at the Royal Irish Academy on December 5, 2013, to keynote the 16th Irish European Law Forum on "Changing Sovereignty in Europe" at University College Dublin. In the context of the Eurozone crisis, few countries have experienced the changing nature of sovereignty more acutely than Ireland. But these acute transformations should not obscure for us how, in the context of European integration over the last half century, the transformation of sovereignty has also been a chronic phenomenon. This process began well before Ireland's accession in 1973 and has certainly continued ever since. This lecture asserts that the changing nature of national sovereignty in relation to European integration is in fact a "new dimension to an old problem," albeit one with a peculiar, supranational dimension. That "old problem" is the legitimation of regulatory power as it diffuses and fragments away from more strongly-legitimated constitutional bodies of the nation-state – legislative, executive, and judicial – i.e., the privileged instrumentalities of sovereignty in modern liberal, representative democracies. This separation of regulatory power from the historically "constituted" bodies of the nation-state is the essence of modern administrative governance. In this sense, the changing nature of sovereignty in Europe is in fact part of a deeper historical transformation of modern governance tied not to integration per se, but rather to the emergence of the modern administrative state. One cannot understand this deeper transformation without an appreciation of the administrative state's connection to – but also deep tension with – the constitutional consolidation of liberal, representative democracy as the presumptively legitimate form of "sovereign" self-government that took place over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.


We propose a method for the classification of matrices. We use a linear classifier with a novel regularization scheme based on the spectral l1-norm of its coefficient matrix. The spectral regularization not only provides a principled way of complexity control but also enables automatic determination of the rank of the coefficient matrix. Using the Linear Matrix Inequality technique, we formulate the inference task as a single convex optimization problem. We apply our method to the motor-imagery EEG classification problem. The method not only improves upon conventional methods in the classification performance but also determines a subspace in the signal that concentrates discriminative information without any additional feature extraction step. The method can be easily generalized to regression problems by changing the loss function. Connections to other methods are also discussed.


We have previously shown that cinnamoyl derivatives of 14β-amino-17-cyclopropylmethyl-7,8-dihydronormorphinone and 7α-aminomethyl-6,14-endoethanonororipavine have pronounced pseudoirreversible μ opioid receptor (MOR) antagonism. The present communication describes the synthesis and evaluation of fumaroylamino analogues of these cinnamoylamino derivatives together with some related fumaroyl derivatives. The predominant activity of the new ligands was MOR antagonism. The fumaroylamino analogues (2a, 5a) of the pseudoirreversible antagonist cinnamoylamino morphinones and oripavines (2b, 5b) were themselves irreversible antagonists in vivo. However the fumaroylamino derivatives had significantly higher MOR efficacy than the cinnamoylamino derivatives in mouse antinociceptive tests. Comparison of 2a and 5a with the prototypic fumaroylamino opioid β-FNA (1a) shows that they have similar MOR irreversible antagonist actions but differ in the nature of their opioid receptor agonist effects; 2a is a predominant MOR agonist and 5a shows no opioid receptor selectivity, whereas the agonist effect of β-FNA is clearly κ opioid receptor (KOR) mediated.


The aim of this paper is to provide an overview about the German casino gambling industry as a whole and the identification of its particularities, while putting a special focus on the present exclusion system. To achieve that, the foundations were laid by examining general developments on the market as well as pointing out recent legal changes, like the introduction of the Interstate treaty on gambling and its consequences for the casinos. Additionally, the application process and the basis for regulation of the establishments have been presented in detail. This general part is then followed by an extensive description of the German exclusion system. The program was set in contrast to those present in other, especially North American jurisdictions, in order to illuminate its unique features.
Secondly, the focus is shifted on the development of a profile of excluders from German casinos by examining whether the established risk factors are also significant predictors for the number of bans in German communities. To our knowledge, there is no work explicitly analyzing casino patrons. Using a unique dataset, the approach brought some interesting insights. Some of the considered variables can be confirmed to serve this task in the given framework, whilst others did not yield a statistically significant impact. The most important sociodemographic factors are male gender, being between 30 and 39 years old, and not living in a partnership. The shares of the first two variables have a positive, the latter one a negative influence. Education, unemployment, and migration status, which are usually agreed on to be good predictors, did not exhibit significant results. However, it would be wrong to neglect them, as the outcome is probably owed to noise in the data, which lowers the precision of the estimation and could lead to insignificance. The coefficients of the variables that have been included to capture proximity turn out to be significant and bigger in magnitude than those of the sociodemographic factors. Distance to the next casino and the share of exclusions are inversely related, if the distance increases, the share of bans will decrease. The dummy variables capturing immediate proximity to gambling establishments also provide evidence for this pattern. If a classical casino or an annex is present in a community, this has a positive impact on the share of excluders. Considering only the proximity dimension of availability, the results are in favor of the hypothesis that higher availability could be a predictor for an increase of bans, which serve as a proxy for PG.
The additionally included control variables also yield significant results. The coefficient of the indicator for a sparsely populated region shows that the share of excluders in said areas is on average higher than in dense ones. Furthermore, the share of assistance centers in a county positively drives the share of bans. The dummy variable indicating communities in the former GDR turns out to be negatively associated with the dependent variable. This makes absolute sense, considering the different developments of the gambling markets in these two regions between 1950 and 1990.
However, the magnitude of the distinct effects on the amount of exclusions is rather small and the model is only able to explain about 10% of the variation in the number of bans, which is a rather small fraction. This is very likely owed to the fact that although problematic or pathological gambling is in parts driven by external sociodemographic factors like age, gender or the marital status, a lot of the behavior is facilitated by internal predisposition which cannot be captured with this type of analysis. Nevertheless, many of the proposed risk or, more neutrally stated, influence factors can be confirmed by this approach, which has been specifically adapted to the German terrestrial casino patrons.


Creating a relevant and pleasing design aesthetic is a fundamental aim designers endeavour to achieve. Perception of aesthetics takes place both during the design process when the designer creates a form, and later, through the users' interpretation of the form. Within the perception process, association plays a significant role. This paper addresses the stage research results of our exploration into the associative meanings of a product. By analysing the evaluation of a series of top award winning designs, it was found that some associative meanings (represented by descriptive words) are correlated, such as 'pure-architecturalgeometrical', 'delicate-curvaceous-organic' etc. By conducting a series of workshops, both in the UK and China, we have been able to explore the extent to which young designers are able to manipulate form, style and create an overall perception of a positive aesthetic. One of the main outputs during the workshops was to design a MP3 player with speaker units, styled in line with three topics of aesthetic association: topic 1 – pure, architectural, geometrical and technical; topic 2 – curvaceous, organic, and fun; topic 3 – graceful, cheerful, and powerful. Three non-correlated associative descriptors were deliberately used in topic 3. Results suggest that young designers tend to differ in their ability and success of manipulating form to match different aesthetic targets. When the descriptive words in one aesthetic topic are correlated, student designers seem to find it easier to manipulate the form matching the topic. Comparative analysis between the results from the workshops in the UK (Southampton Solent University) and in China (Tsinghua University) is also presented in the paper.


Abstract Purpose: Clinician-supervisors often work simultaneously as doctors and teachers. Supervisors who are more engaged for their teacher work are evaluated as better supervisors. Work engagement is affected by the work environment, yet the role of supervisors' personality traits is unclear. This study examined (i) the impact of supervisors' personality traits on work engagement in their doctors' and teachers' roles and (ii) how work engagement in both roles affects their teaching performance. Methods: Residents evaluated supervisors' teaching performance, using the validated System for Evaluation of Teaching Qualities. Supervisors' reported work engagement in doctor and teacher roles separately using the validated Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Supervisors' personality traits were measured using the Big Five Inventory's five factor model covering conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability and openness. Results: Overall, 549 (68%) residents and 636 (78%) supervisors participated. Conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness were positively associated with supervisors' engagement in their teacher work, which was subsequently positively associated with teaching performance. Conclusions: Conscientious, extraverted, and agreeable supervisors showed more engagement with their teacher work, which made them more likely to deliver adequate residency training. In addition to optimizing the work environment, faculty development and career planning could be tailor-made to fit supervisors' personality traits.


This study aims to investigate the diversity and richness of fruit-feeding butterflies in two fragments of Deciduous Seasonal Forest, with different anthropic explorations, comparing the border and interior environments, and an anthropic area with predominance of grassland, in Taquaruçu do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Samplings were conducted fortnightly, from August 2012 to July 2013. In each area, were installed attractive traps with a fermented banana and sugarcane juice. In the fragments were installed four traps on the border and four traps 40 meters from the border and in the cultivated pasture area, four traps were also installed. A total of 2,077 specimens of fruit-feeding butterflies were collected, distributed in 45 species and four subfamilies of the Nymphalidae family. The diversity and richness of the fruit-feeding butterflies were higher in the forest fragments. The quantitative cluster analysis segregated the environments into distinct groups, aggregating border environments. By the qualitative analysis there is greater similarity between the fragments. It is concluded that the composition of the fruit-feeding butterflies species is different among the studied areas, and the environments of the forest fragments have similar diversity and richness among them, while the cultivated grassland area is less richness and diversity.


A mechanism is a mathematical structure that models institutions through which economic activity is guided and coordinated. There are many such institutions; markets are the most familiar ones. Lawmakers, administrators and officers of private companies create institutions in order to achieve desired goals. They seek to do so in ways that economize on the resources needed to operate the institutions, and that provide incentives that induce the required behaviors. This book presents systematic procedures for designing mechanisms that achieve specified performance, and economize on the resources required to operate the mechanism. The systematic design procedures are algorithms for designing informationally efficient mechanisms. Most of the book deals with these procedures of design. When there are finitely many environments to be dealt with, and there is a Nash-implementing mechanism, our algorithms can be used to make that mechanism into an informationally efficient one. Informationally efficient dominant strategy implementation is also studied.


Purpose: To examine the clinical decision making of novice, intermediate, and expert pediatric rehabilitation therapists from various disciplines. Methods: Two qualitative studies were conducted. Thirteen therapists took part in a study using the critical incident interview technique and 11 therapists took part in a study using the 'think aloud' technique. Therapists were classified as novice, intermediate, or expert in developmental level based on a cluster analysis of data collected using a multifaceted battery of assessment tools. Data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results: Expert and intermediate therapists differed from novices with respect to content, self-, and procedural knowledge. Conclusion: With increasing expertise, therapists use a supportive, educational, holistic, functional, and strengths-based approach; have heightened humility yet increased self-confidence; and understand how to facilitate and support client change and adaptation by using principles of engagement, coherence, and manageability. Expert therapists use enabling and customizing strategies to ensure a successful therapeutic session, optimize the child's functioning in the mid-term, and ensure child and family adaptation and accommodation over the longer-term.


The use of concept mapping as a tool to measure the meaningful learning of students is the focus of this study. The study was carried out with 24 last year students (22 years old) from the Department of Chemistry Teaching at Fatih Faculty of Education, Karadeniz Technical University (KTU). Prospective Chemistry Teachers (PCT) were asked to create concept maps using a list of given concepts related to gases. An examination of the PCTs' maps revealed that the students could not form hierarchical maps even after being shown examples of the basic elements and meaningful propositions between the concepts. After being provided with feedback about their concept maps and trained to form non-hierarchical concept maps, the students were asked to create new maps. This time they were allowed to use either hierarchical or non-hierarchical maps. When their new maps were examined, we found that most of the PCTs formed non-hierarchical maps. However, they still could not form meaningful relationships between the given concepts. We also found that the PCTs had some misconceptions about gases and kinetic molecular theory that explains gas behavior. The study ended up with some suggestions and implications for educators and researchers related to pre-service teachers' training.


State school chaplaincy is a recent phenomenon in New Zealand state schools. It was introduced in the 1980s by the Churches Education Commission (CEC), after the Bible in School programmes, as a voluntary service to care for children in state schools. Currently CEC promotes that a chaplain is a "confidential ear" and "a caring trusted friend" and states that chaplaincy "supports the pastoral care networks in New Zealand schools for students, staff, parents and care-givers and Boards of Trustees". However, definition of the key terms has not been provided and no research has determined what chaplains do. This thesis explores the work of state school chaplains, by participant observation, questionnaires, and interviews, examining who these chaplains are, the nature of Chaplaincy Assessing Resourcing Equipping (C.A.R.E.) courses, and how chaplains "support the pastoral networks of New Zealand schools". Results indicate that they, as a group, display an autonomy, independence, and freedom not clearly discernible in their job descriptions of "confidential listening ears" and "caring trusted friends". They seek the advantages of both remaining apart from and a part of the school establishment. They support state schools, by working under the guidance of the school staff and acting as independent workers and consultants. As "confidential listening ears", they have found their way from school playgrounds to staff meetings. The autonomy chaplains claim may have derived from CEC's failure to provide clear operational definitions of the chaplaincy role, lack of adequate assessing and equipping at chaplaincy courses, and/or lack of sufficient monitoring and supervision on the job. Their extensive involvement in helping and caring for state schools, including evangelization, may have stemmed from the fact that they, as Christian helpers, want to act like Jesus or 'be Jesus'. The meaning of 'being Jesus' is explored by examining the idea of loving one's neighbours as oneself, the example of Jesus, and Jesus' account of the parable of The Good Samaritan. It is suggested that acting like Jesus or 'being Jesus' includes not only helping but also evangelization. However, evangelizing in state schools contravenes CEC's recommendations. It is recommended that CEC clarify its intention for state school chaplaincy and consider both the appropriateness and intent of the use of the title 'chaplain', as well as provide precise operational definitions for the key terms of the chaplaincy roles.


Very-high-resolution wall-sized displays offer new opportunities for interacting with large data sets. While pointing on this type of display has been studied extensively, higher-level, more complex tasks such as pan-zoom navigation have received little attention. It thus remains unclear which techniques are best suited to perform multiscale navigation in these environments. Building upon empirical data gathered from studies of pan-and-zoom on desktop computers and studies of remote pointing, we identified three key factors for the design of mid-air pan-and-zoom techniques: uni- vs. bimanual interaction, linear vs. circular movements, and level of guidance to accomplish the gestures in mid-air. After an extensive phase of iterative design and pilot testing, we ran a controlled experiment aimed at better understanding the influence of these factors on task performance. Significant effects were obtained for all three factors: bimanual interaction, linear gestures and a high level of guidance resulted in significantly improved performance. Moreover, the interaction effects among some of the dimensions suggest possible combinations for more complex, real-world tasks.


Formal legal institutions are almost entirely absent from the lives of most Chinese citizens. A range of petitioning institutions and practices operate as a dysfunctional proxy for formal legal channels. Deeply rooted in imperial Chinese history, these practices and institutions have survived into the present in the form of citizen petitioning efforts directed at numerous "letters and visits" (xinfang) bureaus distributed throughout Chinese government organs, including the courts.This Article examines the historical origins and regulatory basis for the modern xinfang system. It outlines the characteristic tactics of Chinese petitioners who seek to use the system to resolve their grievances. The Article also examines the overlap between xinfang institutions and formal legal ones, and analyzes statistics suggesting that the use of the former far exceeds the latter.The Article argues that the xinfang system serves as a multi-purpose governance tool for Chinese leaders, with resolution of individual grievances but one of several objectives. Xinfang interests overlap with, but also contradict, those of formal legal institutions. Further, Chinese xinfang regulations and institutions create a unique incentive system to which the behavior of Chinese petitioners is an adaptive response. This interplay not only poses serious challenges to the development of the rule of law in China, but may also be fueling a dangerously escalating cycle of social destabilization.


This paper describes the efforts for the construction of Language Resources and NLP tools for Mirandese, a minority language spoken in North-eastern Portugal, now available on a community-led portal, Casa de la Lhengua. The resources were developed in the context of a collaborative citizenship project led by Microsoft, in the context of the creation of the first TTS system for Mirandese. Development efforts encompassed the compilation of a corpus with over 1M tokens, the construction of a GTP system, syllable-division, inflection and a Part-of-Speech (POS) tagger modules, leading to the creation of an inflected lexicon of about 200.000 entries with phonetic transcription, detailed POS tagging, syllable division, and stress mark-up. Alongside these tasks, which were made easier through the adaptation and reuse of existing tools for closely related languages, a casting for voice talents among the speaking community was conducted and the first speech database for speech synthesis was recorded for Mirandese. These resources were combined to fulfil the requirements of a well-tested statistical parameter synthesis model, leading to an intelligible voice font. These language resources are available freely at Casa de la Lhengua, aiming at promoting the development of real-life applications and fostering linguistic research on Mirandese.


The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate teacher practice in the areas of monitoring and assessing digital story projects. The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts require students to use text-based evidence in their analyses of literary texts. Woven into the standards are expectations for students' use of technology to research and communicate ideas in a variety of formats. When students construct digital stories based on literary works, they select images that visually represent characters, setting, theme, and conflict. Farmer (2004) observed that the process of selecting images to visually represent literary elements helped students to think critically about the story and what it meant. However, the assessment of student-authored digital products is a challenging proposition for novice technology users. The researcher followed the work of two middle grades English language arts teachers, whose students created digital stories to demonstrate their understanding of literary elements in the novel The Outsiders. Classroom observations, teacher interviews, and artifacts of teacher and student work shared through a project wiki, Google Drive and online conferencing comprised the data set. The study findings describe how the subjects used technology to facilitate project monitoring and how they incorporated formative and summative assessments into the digital storytelling project. Several implications for teacher education are discussed, including parallels to the writing process instructional model, the role of cloud computing in collaboration and assessment, and the importance of connecting teaching methods to technology coursework.


In this paper, the phase-noise performance of optically generated electrical signals based on external optical modulation techniques is investigated theoretically and experimentally. Mathematical models are developed to represent perturbations on the transmitted optical signal caused by the phase fluctuations of the electrical drive signal applied to the external modulator and the optical carrier that feeds the external modulator. Closed-form expressions of the power spectral density (PSD) for the electrical signals, generated both locally and remotely, are derived. The calculated PSD of the locally generated electrical signal indicates that its phase noise is determined only by the phase noise of the electrical drive signal. The PSD of the remotely generated signal shows that its spectral quality is also affected by the chromatic dispersion of the fiber and the optical carrier linewidth. An experimental setup that can generate a millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signal, continuously tunable from 32 to 60 GHz using an electrical drive signal tunable from 8 to 15 GHz, is built. The spectra of the generated millimeter-wave signal are measured for both locally and remotely generated electrical signals, with optical carriers of different linewidths. The theoretical results agree with the experimental measurements


While radiation therapy has long been one of the pillars of therapy for potentially curable stages of lung cancer, outcomes have largely remained disappointing overall. The best outcomes in lung cancer have been achieved with surgery and only in early stage disease, because in early stages complete tumor ablation by surgery is possible in most patients who can tolerate the appropriate resection (lobectomy). Even so, many patients with anatomically resectable early lung cancer are not treated with surgery: in the United States, up to over one third of such patients do not have surgery for reasons including older age and multiple comorbidities (1). Conventional radiation therapy, while modestly effective, does not approach surgical cure rates because it has not been possible or practical to achieve ablative radiation dose intensities tolerably using such techniques (2).


An examination of the legal framework of the EU internal market as established in the case law of the European Court of Justice, discussing in particular EC competition law, the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital and the evolution of the interpretation of the provisions. The 'State' has been retreating from direct intervention in economic life as more goods and services, the provision of which was once thought to be a 'public' responsibility, are delivered through market mechanisms. Given the need for consistent application of EC law in the internal market, a common core conception of public authority, shielded from the discipline of EC competition law, is needed. The resulting realignment of public and private functions and responsibilities is not a linear and coherent process, especially in light of the changing nature of the European legal integration project and the progressive incorporation of non-economic values in the Treaties.


"The Telegraph" kicked off the 2006-07 academic year with the declaration "Nota bene: Latin is back". Arguably, it never really went away. Despite lower levels of compulsory Latin in schools today, the language remains prolific in many areas of our daily life. Medical, legal and literary texts are littered with Latin phrases that embody a meaning English simply can't articulate. The essence of Latin is irreplaceable and the benefits of learning this wonderful language are unequivocal. "The Penguin Latin Dictionary" is a brand new, comprehensive dictionary that includes Latin to English, English to Latin, notes on grammar and pronunciation plus the historical context of this classical language. The Latin-English section has been extensively researched and designed to meet the specific needs of students and professionals today. Vivat crescat floreat!


Like most eukaryotes, the pre-metazoan social amoeba Dictyostelium depends on the SCF (Skp1/cullin-1/F-box protein) family of E3 ubiquitin ligases to regulate its proteome. In Dictyostelium, starvation induces a transition from unicellular feeding to a multicellular slug that responds to external signals to culminate into a fruiting body containing terminally differentiated stalk and spore cells. These transitions are subject to regulation by F-box proteins and O2-dependent posttranslational modifications of Skp1. Here we examine in greater depth the essential role of FbxwD and Vwa1, an intracellular vault protein inter-alpha-trypsin (VIT) and von Willebrand factor-A (vWFA) domain containing protein that was found in the FbxwD interactome by co-immunoprecipitation. Reciprocal co-IPs using gene-tagged strains confirmed the interaction and similar changes in protein levels during multicellular development suggested co-functioning. FbxwD overexpression and proteasome inhibitors did not affect Vwa1 levels suggesting a non-substrate relationship. Forced FbxwD overexpression in slug tip cells where it is normally enriched interfered with terminal cell differentiation by a mechanism that depended on its F-box and RING domains, and on Vwa1 expression itself. Whereas vwa1-disruption alone did not affect development, overexpression of either of its three conserved domains arrested development but the effect depended on Vwa1 expression. Based on structure predictions, we propose that the Vwa1 domains exert their negative effect by artificially activating Vwa1 from an autoinhibited state, which in turn imbalances its synergistic function with FbxwD. Autoinhibition or homodimerization might be relevant to the poorly understood tumor suppressor role of the evolutionarily related VWA5A/BCSC-1 in humans.


Invasive species frequently hinder restoration efforts. While the effectiveness of differing control methods are often reported, the impacts these methods have on the establishment of a native plant community are often unknown. To determine methods that effectively reduce spotted knapweed ( Centaurea stoebe ) while enhancing native species establishment, we tested 12 treatment combinations consisting of an initial site preparation (mowing, mowing + clopyralid, or mowing + glyphosate), with combinations of annual adult knapweed hand pulling, and/or burning. We established 48 plots and applied site preparation treatments during summer 2008, seeded 23 native forbs and grasses during spring 2009, pulled adult knapweed annually from 2009-2012, and burned in the early spring 2012. During July of 2011 and 2012, percent cover of all species was visually estimated. By 2011, seeded species had established in all treatment plots, including plots that retained greater than 50% knapweed cover, indicating that native species successfully established despite knapweed dominance. Mowing alone had no long-term impacts on community development. Clopyralid favored non-native grass establishment, while glyphosate encouraged non-native forbs. Clopyralid had minimal impacts on native forb establishment, but did effectively control knapweed. Hand pulling reduced knapweed cover, increased non-native grass cover, and enhanced native species establishment. The established grasses helped prevent the resurgence of knapweed. Further, native graminoids were beginning to replace non-native grasses in the pulled plots. Burning had little impact, possibly due to low intensity and unseasonable weather. The application of knapweed control measures combined with seeding of native species resulted in successful native species establishment.


Social enterprise organizations (SEOs) arise from entrepreneurial activities with the aim to achieve social goals. SEOs have been identified as alternative and/or complementary to the actions of governments and international organizations to address poverty and poverty-related social needs. Using a number of illustrative cases, we explore how variation of local institutional mechanisms shapes the local "face of poverty" in different communities and how this relates to variations in the emergence and strategic orientations of SEOs. We develop a model of the productive opportunity space for SEOs as a basis and an inspiration for further scholarly inquiry.


Periodontitis has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events.Two internet databases were selected in search of appropriate papers for the study purpose: i)the National Library of Medicine,Washington DC,USA (MEDLINE-PubMed) and ii) HINARI Access to Research in Health Program,World Health Organization,Geneva,Switzerland.Both databases were searched from 1985 to 2009.In the past decades, there has been renewed interest in the old hypothesis that infections increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.Atherosclerosis has a major inflammatory component and the main underlying pathological pathway for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Periodontal pathogens may be involved in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis and subsequent coronary heart disease.Periodontal pathogenPorphyromonasgingivalis caused atherosclerosis in experimental animals and have been found in human atherosclerotic lesions.The nature of association is unclear because both periodontitis and CVD share a host of risk factors.Epidemiological studies, mainly observational studies (case-control,cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies) are usually the first to generate association data between exposure and adverse health outcomes. Clinical trials with statistically significant positive outcomes are easy to interpret and indicate that the tested intervention is effective in favorably altering the adverse health outcomes.Available evidences suggest that having periodontitis contributes to the total infection and inflammation burden and may contribute to cardiovascular events in susceptible subjects.The impact of periodontal therapy must be further investigated. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/cdcj.v10i1.13829 City Dent. Coll. J Volume-10, Number-1, January-2013


Linda Dowling. Language and Decadence in the Victorian Fin de Siecle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. 294 pp. Linda Dowling's Language and Decadence is a major contribution to the scholarship on Victorian fin de siecle. Assiduously researched, tightly structured and dearly expressed, her argument is as fascinating as it is persuasive: the English literary Decadence emerged as a complex reaction to the anti-logocentric implications of continental philology. To approach the period, she maintains, with an all-purpose iconography of effete, effeminate literatti hankering after delicious sins is to leave it largely unexplored. Such a misguided methodology leads only to the high-browed gossip of Rupert Croft-Cooke's Feasting With Panthers. What is needed instead is a study which maps the infiltration of German linguistic philosophies into nineteenth-century debates on the cultural significance of literature, and how the age's prominent authors accommodated the conclusions of these debates. Over the five chapters that comprise her magnificent book, Dowling shows herself to be a superb cartographer of this epoch in intellectual history. She begins with the most difficult part of her thesis, the construction of a linguistic context for discussing Victorian Decadence. Looking back from Pater to Locke, she outlines how skeptical epistemologies engendered a counter-movement which she terms "Romantic Philology," an attitude towards language positing its one-to-one correspondence with absolute terms such as God, self and culture. The names invoked in this chapter read like a roll-call of eighteenth-century European intelligentsia: de Condillac, Horne Tooke, Herder, Lowth, Hegel, and yon Humboldt, to name a few. This cast of characters plays a supporting role to her central discussion of how Wordsworth and Coleridge differed in their respective approaches to the speech/writing heirarchy of conventional metaphysics. Wordsworth elevated the "purified" speech of rural folk over poetic artifice, but in so doing nearly rejected the value of an English literary tradition. The growth of British nationalism and the decline of belief in the Bible as a source of unmediated truth gave an edge to Coleridge's contention that writing should be the superior term of the hierarchy; his "lingua communis" was to form the new cultural canon. Unsurprisingly, the realignment of speech and writing as they relate to spirit and materiality would not turn out to be as simple as either Wordsworth or Coleridge would have had it. In the second chapter, Dowling expands on the theme suggested by its title, "The Decay of Literature." Here she shows how the Coleridgean ideal was undermined by the research of the New Grammarians. Sharing Wordsworth's emphasis on spoken dialects of the present over recorded writings of the past, they viewed language as an organism, one subject to the growth and decay of any life-form. This philological fashion produced a crisis: on the one hand, conservative Victorian thinkers turned to literature as a means of preserving its "centre"; on the other, contemporary linguistic investigations indicated that writing is the mausoleum of deceased languages. It was in this context, Dowling argues, that the Decadence was born. "The Fatal Book," both the subject and title of the third chapter, concerns the response of late Victorian writers to the dilemma facing them. Dowling commences this section with Pater, whose work she feels was "an attempt to rescue from the assaults of scientific philology and linguistic relativism an ideal, however diminished and fugitive, of literature and literary culture" (104). That ideal was based on his practive of euphuism, a scholarly method of writing for scholarly readers. …


We describe a novel indexing and retrieval methodology integrating color, texture, and shape information for content-based image retrieval in image databases. This methodology, we call CLEAR, applies unsupervised image segmentation to partition an image into a set of objects. Fuzzy color histogram, fuzzy texture, and fuzzy shape properties of each object are then calculated to be its signature. The fuzzification procedures effectively resolve the recognition uncertainty stemming from color quantization and human perception of colors. At the same time, the fuzzy scheme incorporates segmentation-related uncertainties into the retrieval algorithm. An adaptive and effective measure for the overall similarity between images is developed by integrating properties of all the objects in every image. In an effort to further improve the retrieval efficiency, a secondary clustering technique is developed and employed, which significantly saves query processing time without compromising retrieval precision. A prototypical system of CLEAR, we developed, demonstrated the promising retrieval performance and robustness in color variations and segmentation-related uncertainties for a test database containing general-purpose color images, as compared with its peer systems in the literature.


Abstract Spawning Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki) provide a source of highly digestible energy for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) that visit tributary streams to Yellowstone Lake during the spring and early summer. During 1985–87, research documented grizzly bears fishing on 61% of the 124 tributary streams to the lake. Using track measurements, it was estimated that a minimum of 44 grizzly bears fished those streams annually. During 1994, non-native lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) were discovered in Yellowstone Lake. Lake trout are efficient predators and have the potential to reduce the native cutthroat population and negatively impact terrestrial predators that use cutthroat trout as a food resource. In 1997, we began sampling a subset of streams (n = 25) from areas of Yellowstone Lake surveyed during the previous study to determine if changes in spawner numbers or bear use had occurred. Comparisons of peak numbers and duration suggested a considerable decline between study periods in streams in the West Thumb area of the lake. The apparent decline may be due to predation by lake trout. Indices of bear use also declined on West Thumb area streams. We used DNA from hair collected near spawning streams to estimate the minimum number of bears visiting the vicinity of spawning streams. Seventy-four individual bears were identified from 429 hair samples. The annual number of individuals detected ranged from 15 in 1997 to 33 in 2000. Seventy percent of genotypes identified were represented by more than 1 sample, but only 31% of bears were documented more than 1 year of the study. Sixty-two (84%) bears were only documented in 1 segment of the lake, whereas 12 (16%) were found in 2–3 lake segments. Twenty-seven bears were identified from hair collected at multiple streams. One bear was identified on 6 streams in 2 segments of the lake and during 3 years of the study. We used encounter histories derived from DNA and the Jolly-Seber procedure in Program MARK to produce annual estimates of grizzly bears visiting streams. Approximately 68 grizzly bears visited the vicinity of cutthroat trout spawning streams annually. Thus, approximately 14–21% of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) may have used this threatened food resource annually. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is attempting to control the lake trout population in Yellowstone Lake; our results underscore the importance of that effort to grizzly bears.


BACKGROUND
During 2013, the haematology/oncology unit at a tertiary level paediatric hospital in South Africa experienced the emergence of infection with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE).

OBJECTIVE
To describe the clinical and molecular aspects of the cases identified.

METHODS
VRE isolates identified from blood culture specimens processed at the National Health Laboratory Service were screened for the presence of the vancomycin resistance genes vanA, B and C1, 2 and 3. Further characterisation of these isolates was carried out using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PGFE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Clinical records of infected patients were reviewed to identify possible risk factors, while surveillance with rectal swabs was performed to identify VRE-colonised patients.

RESULTS
Four patients with haematological malignancies were identified with VRE bloodstream infections. Patients were immunocompromised at the time of the bloodstream infection (BSI), with receipt of vancomycin prior to VRE-BSI, and infections were treated with linezolid. Colonisation with VRE was found in 8 of 55 patients screened. Infected and colonised patients were isolated in the unit during their admission and strict contact precaution infection control practices were instituted. The vanA gene was identified in all of the isolates but one. PFGE and MLST results showed a degree of genetic relatedness between certain isolates obtained from rectal swab and blood culture samples, suggesting possible patient-to-patient transmission or persistence of the isolates in the unit.

CONCLUSION
Strict infection control practices are necessary to prevent infection and transmission of resistant organisms among vulnerable patients.


By January 2015 the total number of countries with data privacy laws has increased by over 10% to 109, since the last assessment in mid-2013 listing 99 countries, available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2000034. This article updates the assessments given in the previous articles in the series of each aspect of the global expansion of data privacy laws, and international agreements. For the first time, a majority of fifty-six data privacy laws are outside Europe, over 51% of the total. Because there is little room for increase within Europe, the majority of the world's data privacy laws will now continue to be from outside Europe, and increasingly so. During this eighteen month period, the fastest 'growth area' has been Africa.The previous article in this series predicted that countries with laws would become a majority in 2014. This has in fact occurred, as there are now 109 countries with laws, and 102 without such laws. The article argues that by the end of this decade the number of countries with data privacy laws, all of which have a strong 'family resemblance' will be between 66% and 80% of all independent jurisdictions globally. The number of countries with official Bills for new data privacy laws supports this.The article also assesses the main developments in international agreements concerning data privacy in the last eighteen months. This article accompanies 'Global Tables of Data Privacy Laws and Bills (4th Ed, January 2015)' (2015) 133 Privacy Laws & Business International Report, 18-28 and can be found at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2603502.The second part of this analysis of the Tables is in 'Global data privacy laws 2015: DPAs and their organisations' (2015) 134 Privacy Laws & Business International Report, 16-19.


Cochez, Michael Taming Big Knowledge Evolution Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2016, 56 p.(+included articles) (Jyväskylä Studies in Computing ISSN 1456-5390; 237) ISBN 978-951-39-6648-5 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-6649-2 (PDF) Finnish summary Diss. Information and its derived knowledge are not static. Instead, information is changing over time and our understanding of it evolves with our ability and willingness to consume the information. When compared to humans, current computer systems seem very limited in their ability to really understand the meaning of things. On the other hand, they are very powerful when it comes down to performing exact computations. One aspect which sets humans apart from machines when trying to understand the world is that we will often make mistakes, forget information, or choose what to focus on. To put this in another perspective, it seems like humans can behave somehow more randomly and still outperform machines in knowledge related tasks. In computer science there is a branch of research concerned with allowing randomness or inaccuracy in algorithms, which are then called approximate algorithms. The main benefit of using these algorithms is that they are often much faster than their exact counterparts, at the cost of producing wrong or inexact results, once in a while. So, these algorithms could be used in contexts where erring once in while does not harm. If the chance of making a mistake is very slim, say lower than the chance of a memory error, then the expected precision will rival their exact counterparts. Furthermore, the input data to the algorithms often already contains a fair amount of uncertainty, such that the small error which the approximate algorithm introduces becomes more or less insignificant. In this dissertation, the author investigates the use of familiar and new approximate algorithms to knowledge discovery and evolution. The main contributions of the dissertation are a) an abstract formulation of what it means for an ontology to be and stay optimal over time, b) a contribution to a vision paper regarding the future of evolving knowledge ecosystems, c) an investigation of the application of locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) in the context of ontology matching and semantic search, d) the twister tries algorithm which is a novel approximate hierarchical clustering approach with linear space and time constraints, and e) an extension on the twister tries algorithm which trades a longer, but adaptable running time for a likely improvement of the clustering result.


Monod andBeuneu [P. Monod and F. Beuneu, Phys. Rev. B 19, 911 (1979)] established the validity of the ElliottYafet theory for elemental metals through correlating the experimental electron spin resonance linewidth with the so-called spin-orbit admixture coefficients and the momentum-relaxation theory. The spin-orbit admixture coefficients data were based on atomic spin-orbit splitting. We highlight two shortcomings of the previous description: (i) the momentum-relaxation involves the Debye temperature and the electron-phonon coupling whose variation among the elemental metals was neglected, (ii) the Elliott-Yafet theory involves matrix elements of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which are however not identical to the SOC induced energy splitting of the atomic levels, even though the two have similar magnitudes. We obtain the empirical spin-orbit admixture parameters for the alkali metals by considering the proper description of the momentum relaxation theory. In addition we present a model calculation, which highlights the difference between the SOC matrix element and energy splitting.


- This paper suggests the use of contourlet transform for efficient feature extraction of fingerprints for identification purposes. Back propagated neural network is then used as a classifier. Two fingerprints databases are used to test the system. These include fingerprints images with different positions, rotations and scales to test the robustness of the system. Computer simulation results show that the proposed contourlet transform outperforms the classical wavelet method. Where an identification rate of 94.4% was obtained using contourlet transform compare with 87% using wavelet transform for standard FVC2002 database.


Unjustified enrichment of a third party arising from contract
The question that is considered in this contribution is whether a plaintiff (A) who effected improvements to the property of C (the owner or third party) in terms of a contract he (A) had concluded with B (the intermediary) may institute a claim against C arising from the latter's unjustified enrichment. Put differently, apart from A's primary contractual claim against B, does he also have a subsidiary or even concurrent claim against C arising from the latter's indirect enrichment? The discussion takes place against the backdrop of Buzzard Electrical (Pty) Ltd v 158 Jan Smuts Avenue Investments (Pty) Ltd 1996 4 SA 19 (A) in which a distinction was drawn between situations where A was a subcontractor (or something less) of B (type 2 cases) and instances where he was not (type 1 cases). In the type 2 case the owner (C) acquired nothing more (from A) than that for which he had contracted with the main contractor (B). Hence the owner's enrichment is not sine causa and the plaintiff (A) can enforce neither an enrichment lien nor a claim for compensation arising from unjustified enrichment against the owner (C). Enrichment liens have been recognised for nearly a hundred years in type 1 cases, whilst claims for compensation have succeeded on occasion. The supreme court of appeal appears to be in favour of the recognition of claims in type 1 cases.
The first issue that is addressed, is whether it is possible to accommodate the indirect enrichment claim within the framework of the four recognised elements of (requirements for) enrichment liability, namely the sine causa requirement, the "at the expense of" requirement, and the requirements of enrichment and impoverishment respectively. It is indicated that while it is possible to formulate the requirements for enrichment liability in such a way as to exclude a claim for indirect enrichment from the outset, it is also possible to formulate them to accommodate such a claim.
Three models are identified that may be used to deal with indirect enrichment. The abstract model excludes, as a matter of policy, liability for indirect enrichment without considering the merits of individual or concrete cases. The concrete model subject to subsidiarity requires the plaintiff to primarily direct his contractual claim against the intermediary, but leaves scope for the plaintiff to institute, in an individual or concrete case, an enrichment claim against the owner subject to the principle of subsidiarity. In applying the principle of subsidiarity , an enrichment claim may be excluded in an individual or concrete case by reason of public policy. The third possible model is a concrete model free from subsidiarity.
The author submits that in view of Buzzard's case, the first model (abstract model) applies to type 2 cases. As far as the proposed model in respect of type 1 cases is concerned, an analysis is given of a number of policy considerations which are usually relied upon to motivate the denial of liability for indirect enrichment. The author concludes that these considerations are not of such a nature as to exclude the indirect enrichment claim from the outset, but that the legitimate fears of the unacceptable consequences that may arise from the recognition of such a claim can be taken care of by applying the proposed principle of subsidiarity . He thus proposes that the second model (concrete model subject to subsidiarity) be used for type 1 cases.


Abstract. Previously, the structure and molecular composition of the Antarctic soil organic matter (SOM) has been investigated using 13C-NMR methods, which showed that in typical organo-mineral soils the aliphatic carbon prevails over the aromatic one, owing to the non-ligniferous nature of its precursor material. In this study, the SOM was analysed from different sample areas (surface level and partially isolated supra-permafrost layer) of the tundra-barren landscape of the Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, Western Antarctica. We found that the humic acids (HAs) of the cryoturbated, buried areas had lower amounts of alkyl aromatic and protonized aromatic compounds. In contrast, the HAs from the surface layers contain less alkyl carbon components. The free-radical content was higher in the surface layers than in the buried layers due to the presence of fresh organic remnants in superficial soil samples. New data on SOM quality from these two representative Cryosols will enable a more precise assessment of SOM stabilization rate in sub-Antarctic tundras. Comparison of the 13C-NMR spectra of the HAs and the bulk SOM revealed that humification occurs in the Antarctic and results in accumulation of aromatic and carboxylic compounds and reductions in alkylic ones. This indicates that humification is one of the ways of soil organic matter stabilization.


This paper introduces a data-driven representation and modeling technique for simulating non-linear heterogeneous soft tissue. It simplifies the construction of convincing deformable models by avoiding complex selection and tuning of physical material parameters, yet retaining the richness of non-linear heterogeneous behavior. We acquire a set of example deformations of a real object, and represent each of them as a spatially varying stress-strain relationship in a finite-element model. We then model the material by non-linear interpolation of these stress-strain relationships in strain-space. Our method relies on a simple-to-build capture system and an efficient run-time simulation algorithm based on incremental loading, making it suitable for interactive computer graphics applications. We present the results of our approach for several non-linear materials and biological soft tissue, with accurate agreement of our model to the measured data.


The selection of an appropriate anode material is a critical factor in dictating the effectiveness of sodium-ion batteries as a cost-effect alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Hard carbon materials sourced from biomass offer the potential for a more sustainable anode material, while also addressing some of the thermodynamic issues associated with using traditional graphite anodes for sodium-ion batteries (NIBs). Herein, we report the preparation of carbon electrode materials from low-cost cellulose nanofibers derived from an Australian native arid grass 'spinifex' (Triodia pungens). This nanocellulose derived carbon produced by a fast, low temperature carbonization protocol showed superior performance as an anode for NIBs with a specific capacity (386 mA h g−1 at 20 mA g−1) on par with that of the graphite based anode for lithium-ion batteries, and is one of the highest capacity carbon anodes reported for NIBs. The excellent electrochemical performance is attributed to the large interlayer spacing of the carbon (∼0.39 nm). Superior cycling stability and high rate tolerance (326 mA h g−1 at 50 mA g−1 and 300 mA h g−1 at 100 mA g−1) suggest that hard carbons derived from sustainable precursors are promising for next generation rechargeable batteries.


A new formulation of the coupled-wave method for two-dimensional gratings is proposed. It is based on mathematical and physical results recently obtained for one-dimensional gratings. Numerical evidence obtained for many different diffraction problems, including dielectric, metallic, volume, and surface-relief gratings, shows that the new formulation outperforms the conventional one in terms of convergence rates. The specific case of gratings with very small thickness, for which opposite conclusions on the convergence performance are obtained, is studied and explained. The methodology can be applied to other numerical techniques that rely on Fourier expansions of the electromagnetic fields and on grating parameters such as the permittivity and the permeability.


Digital Humanities is becoming an increasingly popular focus of academic endeavour. There are now hundreds of Digital Humanities centres worldwide and the subject is taught at both postgraduate and undergraduate level. Yet the term 'Digital Humanities' is much debated. This reader brings together, for the first time, in one core volume the essential readings that have emerged in Digital Humanities. We provide a historical overview of how the term 'Humanities Computing' developed into the term 'Digital Humanities', and highlight core readings which explore the meaning, scope, and implementation of the field. To contextualize and frame each included reading, the editors and authors provide a commentary on the original piece. There is also an annotated bibliography of other material not included in the text to provide an essential list of reading in the discipline. This text will be required reading for scholars and students who want to discover the history of Digital Humanities through its core writings, and for those who wish to understand the many possibilities that exist when trying to define Digital Humanities.


[1] Mid-Pleistocene benthic δ18O and δ13C time series from the North Atlantic site 983 and Ceara Rise site 928 are compared to an array of existing isotopic records spanning the Atlantic basin and the geographic extremes of the North Atlantic Deep Water/Southern Ocean Water interface during both glacial and interglacial periods. This comparison allows the persistent millennial-scale intermediate depth North Atlantic ventilation changes recorded at site 983 to be placed within the context of the longer period water mass reorganizations taking place throughout the mid-Pleistocene. Our benthic δ13C results suggest that the intermediate depth North Atlantic experienced millennial-scale changes in ventilation throughout the mid-Pleistocene climate shift. The times of poorest ventilation (low benthic δ13C) persisted for only a few millennia and were associated with rapid decreases in benthic δ18O, suggesting that ice sheet decay and melt water induced salinity changes were effective at throttling deep water production in the North Atlantic throughout the mid-Pleistocene. Similar but less pronounced decreases in the δ13C of the middepth waters also punctuated interglacials, suggesting that large ice sheet fluctuations do not explain all of the observed thermohaline circulation mode shifts in the North Atlantic. Meanwhile, on orbital timescales, glacial deep to intermediate water δ13C gradients evolved after ∼0.95 Ma. Taken together, these observations provide a number of new constraints for understanding the timing and evolution of deep water circulation changes across the mid-Pleistocene.


Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) as discussed in this report is an approach to enhance the well-being of communities at risk. As an integrated approach, ASP builds on the interface of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Social Protection (SP) to address interconnected risks by building resilience, thereby overcoming the shortcomings of traditionally sectoral approaches. The design of meaningful ASP measures needs to be informed by specific information on risk, risk drivers and impacts on communities at risk. In contrast, a limited understanding of risk and its drivers can potentially lead to maladaptation practices. Therefore, multidimensional risk assessments are vital for the successful implementation of ASP. Although many sectoral tools to assess risks exist, available integrated risk assessment methods across sectors are still inadequate in the context of ASP, presenting an important research and implementation gap. ASP is now gaining international momentum, making the timely development of a comprehensive risk analytics tool even more important, including in Indonesia, where nationwide implementation of ASP is currently under way. OBJECTIVE: To address this gap, this study explores the feasibility of a climate and disaster risk analytics tool for ASP (CADRAT-ASP), combining sectoral risk assessment in the context of ASP with a more comprehensive risk analytics approach. Risk analytics improve the understanding of risks by locating and quantifying the potential impacts of disasters. For example, the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) framework quantifies probable current and expected future impacts of extreme events and determines the monetary cost and benefits of specific risk management and adaptation measures. Using the ECA framework, this report examines the viability and practicality of applying a quantitative risk analytics approach for non-financial and non-tangible assets that were identified as central to ASP. This quantitative approach helps to identify cost-effective interventions to support risk-informed decision making for ASP. Therefore, we used Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, as a case study, to identify potential entry points and examples for the further development and application of such an approach. METHODS & RESULTS: The report presents an analysis of central risks and related impacts on communities in the context of ASP. In addition, central social protection dimensions (SPD) necessary for the successful implementation of ASP and respective data needs from a theoretical perspective are identified. The application of the quantitative ECA framework is tested for tropical storms in the context of ASP, providing an operational perspective on technical feasibility. Finally, recommendations on further research for the potential application of a suitable ASP risk analytics tool in Indonesia are proposed. Results show that the ECA framework and its quantitative modelling platform CLIMADA successfully quantified the impact of tropical storms on four SPDs. These SPDs (income, access to health, access to education and mobility) were selected based on the results from the Hazard, Exposure and Vulnerability Assessment (HEVA) conducted to support the development of an ASP roadmap for the Republic of Indonesia (UNU-EHS 2022, forthcoming). The SPDs were modelled using remote sensing, gridded data and available global indices. The results illustrate the value of the outcome to inform decision making and a better allocation of resources to deliver ASP to the case study area. RECOMMENDATIONS: This report highlights strong potential for the application of the ECA framework in the ASP context. The impact of extreme weather events on four social protection dimensions, ranging from access to health care and income to education and mobility, were successfully quantified. In addition, further developments of CADRAT-ASP can be envisaged to improve modelling results and uptake of this tool in ASP implementation. Recommendations are provided for four central themes: mainstreaming the CADRAT approach into ASP, data and information needs for the application of CADRAT-ASP, methodological advancements of the ECA framework to support ASP and use of CADRAT-ASP for improved resilience-building. Specific recommendations are given, including the integration of additional hazards, such as flood, drought or heatwaves, for a more comprehensive outlook on potential risks. This would provide a broader overview and allow for multi-hazard risk planning. In addition, high-resolution local data and stakeholder involvement can increase both ownership and the relevance of SPDs. Further recommendations include the development of a database and the inclusion of climate and socioeconomic scenarios in analyses.


This article analyzes the prayers of the letter to the Ephesians in order to examine how early Christian identity was formed and expressed. It is argued that the social identity of the addressees of Ephesians is strategically confirmed in these prayers in at least three ways. First, the prayers of Ephesians delineate who belongs to the ingroup and who belongs to the outgroup respectively. Secondly, the prayers of Ephesians present the ideal or the prototypical believer, affirming the identity of the true Christ-believer and, accordingly, disaffirming the identity of the false or deviating Christ-believer. Thirdly, the prayers of Ephesians give a common narrative and theological self-under- standing that serves to shape the cohesion of the ingroup of believers, to include and unite those who confess the same belief, and, in turn, exclude others. It is concluded that prayers could function as a powerful vehicle to express and affirm personal and social identity among early Christ-believers.


Regulating the content of health insurance contracts, where the government determines which medical treatments and services must be covered, creates tension between principles of fairness and principles of welfare economics. Principles of fairness, after all, may require that all medical losses be shared within a community, while principles of welfare economics would advocate regulation only where there is some form of market failure that leads to an inefficient or suboptimal result. As part of recently enacted federal health care reform, the federal government will, for the first time, have the primary responsibility of regulating the content of privately financed health insurance policies, although the federal government is given the statutory option to borrow heavily from existing state regulation. This Article provides the first comprehensive study of the state legislative process with respect to health insurance content regulation. In the states studied, the author finds that both fairness and welfare claims influence mandate passage, with little reliance by legislators on outside evidence substantiating welfare claims. In contrast to theoretical writings on health insurance content regulation, which emphasize market failure as the primary justification for mandates, this current study finds that mandates were rarely premised on correcting defects in the insurance market. Rather, the justifications provided tend to be more paternalistic in orientation, often based on a desire to increase suboptimal utilization of a particular medical treatment or service regardless of the reason why individuals lack coverage. Even where there is an independent, expert commission providing robust data on proposed regulation, bills with virtually no impact on either health insurance coverage or treatment utilization are passed. Given these findings, this Article argues that the federal government should be hesitant to rely upon existing state-level regulation when it defines "essential health benefits" as part of health care reform.


Design is a cognitive activity that adds much economic, social and cultural value. Creativity is a desired core competency of individuals and organizations alike. It follows, then, that design and creativity are, or ought to be, among the main goals of learning and teaching. However, we do not fully understand the connections between design and creativity on the one hand, and between learning design and creativity and teaching design and creativity on the other. How, precisely, can design and creative capabilities be promoted in formal and informal education? What are the principles for generating activities and curricula that promote creative design? What scaffolding do learners need to become more creative and to learn to design? How can responsibility for scaffolding be distributed between teacher, peers, and computing technologies? Information processing theories and technologies impact these issues in at least three fundamental ways. First, we now have the beginnings of information theories of creative design that provide insights into the content, representation, organization, use and acquisition of knowledge. During the 1990's, for example, Kolodner (1994) and Wills & Kolodner (1994) presented a case-based theory of creativity in design while Goel (1997), and Bhatta & Goel (1997) described a theory of creative design that integrates case-based and model-based reasoning. Second, during approximately the same period, constructivist (Savery & Duffy 1996; Jonassen 1999) and social constructivist (Palinscar 1998) theories of learning and teaching became prominent. Third, a new generation of interactive technologies has developed over the past two decade that has the potential for transforming the learning of creative design. These interactive technologies include multimedia technologies and of course the World Wide Web. The articles in this special issue begin to address the broad issues listed above, taking into account what we know about the reasoning involved in creative design, cognitive and socio-cognitive theories of how people learn, and the affordances of hardware and software technologies. The six papers in this issue answer four core questions: What can we infer from constructivist and socio-construtivist theories of learning about how to help youngsters learn to design and solve problems creatively? What social constructivist practices can be used to promote learning to design, and especially learning to design creatively? How may theories of design, creativity, and creative design inform these practices? How can interactive technologies be exploited to promote such learning? Lee & Kolodner in "Scaffolding Students' Development of Creative Design Skills: A Curriculum Reference Model" explore the implications of case-based theories of creative design for the design of curriculum that will help high school students learn to design and become more creative designers and problem solvers. Using what we know about constructivist practices and design cognition, they propose a curriculum framework for promoting creative design and describe how it can be operationalized for national and local educational standards. They advocate the teaching creative design within the context of sustainable development projects relevant to the local communities where the high school students live. As stakeholders, it is argued, learners will find the context personally meaningful and be motivated both to do well at achieving project goals and at learning to design and solve problems creatively. Lee & Kolodner's potential reach is global; they envision high school students in cities as disparate as Atlanta, USA, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, working together and learning from each other. Global outreach aimed at supporting teaching and the development of meaningful learning at the higher education level is investigated in Keskitalo, Pyykko and Ruokamo's Global Virtual Education (GloVEd) model. …


States reject inequality when they choose to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), but to date the ICESCR has not yet figured prominently in the policy calculus behind States' international economic decisions. This book responds to the modern challenge of operationalizing the ICESCR, particularly in the context of States' decisions within international trade, finance, and investment. Differentiating between public policy mechanisms and institutional functional mandates in the international trade, finance, and investment systems, this book shows legal and policy gateways for States to feasibly translate their fundamental duties to respect, protect, and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights into their trade, finance, and investment commitments, agreements, and contracts. It approaches the problem of harmonizing social protection objectives under the ICESCR with a State's international economic treaty obligations, from the designing and interpreting international treaty texts, up to the institutional monitoring and empirical analysis of ICESCR compliance. In examining public policy options, the book takes into account around five decades of States' implementation of social protection commitments under the ICESCR; its normative evolution through the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Committee's expanded fact-finding and adjudicative competences under the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR; as well as the critical, dialectical, and deliberative roles of diverse functional interpretive communities within international trade, finance, and investment law. Ultimately, the book shoes how States' ICESCR commitments operate as the normative foundation of their trade, finance, and investment decisions.


This paper reports an analysis of income related health inequalities at the Autonomous Community level in Spain using the self assessed health measure in the 2001 edition of the Encuesta Nacional de Salud. We use recently developed methods in order to cardinalise and model self assessed health within a regression framework, decompose the sources of inequality and explain the observed differences across regions. Pais Vasco, Navarra, and La Rioja are the regions with the highest levels of mean health and simultaneously enjoy the lowest degree of income related health inequality. By contrast, Murcia is the least favoured region in that its population report one of the lowest levels of mean health and suffers the greatest degree of income related health inequality. Other territories where income related health inequality is high relative to País Vasco include rich regions such as Madrid, Baleares and Catalonia. The main feature characterizing regions where income related health inequality is low is the absence of a positive gradient between income and health. In turn, the regions where income related health inequality is greater are characterized by a strong and significant positive gradient between health and income. Thus policies aimed at eliminating the gradient between health and income can potentially lead to greater reductions in socio-economic health inequalities than policies aimed at redistributing income.


Over the past decade, local transportation agencies have increasingly re-designed urban arterials, their cities' major surface streets, to better accommodate a wide range of users. At the same time, a growing number of agencies are using performance measurement, the tracking and reporting of specific transportationrelated variables, to evaluate and document their impacts. This report attempts to understand the role that performance measurement plays in design decision-making for urban arterial streets. First, the report examines how the selection and prioritization of performance measures shape urban arterial forms. While agencies in the mid-20th Century prioritized automobile performance in arterial design, present-day agencies attempt to balance performance across a broader range of street users and performance goals. Second, the report explores how local agencies can use performance-based planning for urban arterial projects at the same time as they engage in community-focused design processes. Research in transportation policy defines performance-based planning as a framework for agencies to use performance goals and measurement to guide decision-making. Existing research largely neglects the use of performance-based planning for project-level decisions and local transportation agencies. Since performance measurement systems hold agencies accountable to well-defined goals, performance-based planning may have value for both stakeholders and local officals in urban arterial design processes. To understand the potential role of performance-based planning for project-level design, this report examines four cases of urban arterial design: two in New York City (Prospect Park West in Brooklyn and 34th Street in Manhattan), and two in Portland, OR (North Williams Avenue and East Burnside). The cases were chosen because, in each, local officials faced community conflict about design and employed some form of performance measurement. The case study analysis finds that agencies can use performance-based planning to both guide design decisions and to actively engage community stakeholders. Among the cases considered, most employed only some features of performance-based planning, primarily to evaluate impacts and to make modifications to preliminary designs. One case, North Williams in Portland, was unique, however, in using a complete form of performancebased planning as a tool to increase participation by community stakeholders in the design process. Building upon the lessons from North Williams and the other cases, this report recommends a new framework for performance-based planning that attempts to empower stakeholders to participate in design decision-making, but recognizes that performance-based planning alone cannot resolve community conflicts.


Our study explores gender differences with respect to the widespread phenomenon of adolescent sexting. We first present an 18-month long case study conducted with a family whose adolescent daughter had engaged in sexting behavior. We then describe the results from two surveys conducted with college underclassmen. Consistent with the case study, the descriptive data emerging from our exploratory studies suggest that significant gender asymmetries emerge for adolescent sexters. Specifically, survey responses revealed that females (vs. males) were more likely to create (i.e., send ) sexted content, while males (vs. females) were more likely to distribute (i.e., share ) sexted content with others. In addition, consistent with sexual double standards, females were more likely to experience negative outcomes from sexting than males. We conclude with specific educational and policy recommendations, and a call for additional explorations of this and other related phenomena by those conducting research in the areas of gender differences, communications technology, and/or risky adolescent consumption.


A tax-deferred exchange permits taxpayers to delay paying capital gains taxes on the disposition of property traded for "like-kind" property. Known as "1031-exchanges" after the section of the Internal Revenue Code permitting their use, the exchanges offer landowners tax advantages over traditional land sales. By allowing farmland owners to defer payment of taxes on capital gains—which can be significant on land that has been owned for many years—farmers who sell land and use the proceeds to purchase other property can often increase their net worth, reduce borrowing costs, and expand the size of their operations (see chart on pg. 59). However, concern has been raised, particularly among beginning farmers, that like-kind exchanges may be contributing to the rapid growth in farmland values because of the law's strict time limits for completing such exchanges. Under the law, a replacement property must be identified within 45 days of a land sale, and the exchange must be completed within 180 days, encouraging those involved in like-kind exchanges to outbid other potential buyers. Furthermore, since the definition of like-kind property is fairly broad, there is also concern among farmers and environmentalists that like-kind exchanges have encouraged residential and commercial developers to purchase more farmland than would have been possible without the associated tax benefits. Using data from the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Sales of Capital Assets Panel Study, ERS researchers found that 1031-exchanges involving farmland represent a relatively small share of all tax-deferred exchanges—about 2 percent between 1999 and 2003. Exchanges involving farmland accounted for roughly 6 percent of all farmland dispositions (sales plus exchanges) reported to the IRS over the same period. Despite their limited use, however, 1031-exchanges can be important for some farmland owners. Over a 5-year period, landowners making like-kind exchanges of farmland for farmland deferred $43,300, on average, in capital gains taxes. In essence, farmland-forfarmland exchanges can be thought of as "rollover" investments. In contrast, landowners who sold farmland paid $5,200 in capital gains taxes, on average. While ERS researchers found a great deal of year-to-year variability in the use of 1031-exchanges involving farmland, for the most part, farmland was exchanged for other farmland rather than for nonfarm property. In particular, relatively few exchanges involved other property (such as a shopping center) being exchanged for farmland, suggesting that like-kind exchanges were not used extensively by investors planning on converting farmland to nonfarm uses.


The primary objective of this thesis is to explain how a particular council estate in Stockton-on-Tees became run-down and disadvantaged. However, the pursuit of such an explanation demands a historical, social, political and economic perspective embracing the conurbation within which the estate is located. In fact, it is necessary to go beyond the confines of Teesside and take account of national and international processes and forces. With regard to national influences, these have played a crucial role in the urban growth of Stockton and in the progressive diminution of its public housing sector to create an increasingly residualised welfare tenure. Moreover, central mechanisms and decisions taken by international capital have de-industrialised the Teesside conurbation and led to high and long-term unemployment. So disadvantage has increased for this and other reasons, and the minority of the population suffering it are largely housed in council accommodation. Local characteristics and factors also play a crucial part in the way that central forces impact on a locality, mediating and modifying their consequences depending on the particular configuration of industrial, social, etc., features that impart to local areas their unique traditions and identities. Yet, significant as this interaction is between central forces and local factors in creating a poorer stock of council housing and the disadvantaged families who live in it, to explain how and why particular run-down areas arise can also demand a closer focus on individual estates to explore specific causes. A further theme of this study concerns the possibilities and mechanisms of change on disadvantaged estates. One such period of change on Ragworth is examined in the light of before-and-after survey research, as is a new regime of decentralised management which followed. Finally, the effects of current policy initiatives are measured against the immense problems posed by the shifts in the social class structure represented by the growth of disadvantage and the emergence of what has been described as an underclass.


Aldose reductase (AR) has been the leading target in the treatment of diabetic cataract. Although numerous synthetic AR inhibitors (ARI) have been identified, their adverse side effects currently preclude their use. Olive leaf extract (OLE) as well as ginkgo leaf extract (GLE) are natural supplements that have wide therapeutic indices and a plethora of salutary effects during diabetes that so far untested on sugar cataract progression. As such, the present study sought to evaluate the AR-inhibiting properties of OLE and GLE using the isolated enzyme from rabbit lens. Biochemical analyses revealed that both OLE and GLE inhibited rabbit lens AR activity in a concentration-dependent manner with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) 65 µg/mL and 72.5 µg/mL, respectively. Interestingly, the results of kinetic studies exhibited a differential pattern of inhibition by these two extracts. While an non-competitive inhibition of AR was promoted by OLE recognized by significant decrease in the apparent maximum velocity (Vmax) (0.12 ± 0.009677 µM/min versus 0.278 ± 0.0013677 µM/min) without significant change in Michaelis constant (Km), the GLE showed a competitive pattern of inhibition characterized by significant increase in apparent Km (4.4 ± 0.0068 µM), without change in Vmax value. It would appear that these classes of natural extracts represent effective and safe therapeutic options that hold the great promise for treatment not only diabetic cataract, but also other ocular diseases characterized by uncontrolled AR activity.


Bioactive bioceramics are a family of osteoconductive materials that include bioactive glass and calcium phosphates such as hydroxyapatite (HA) and tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP or α-TCP). These materials exhibit excellent bone binding properties and are usually designed to be used as bone fillers or as bioactive coatings on metal implants. Their in vivo resorption ability may be modulated by controlling synthesis and processing parameters. Bioceramics can be associated to stem cells in cell-based therapies, using transplanted cells to guide the spatially complex process of tissue formation, thus optimizing osteoinduction, osteoconduction, and osteogenesis. Although tissue engineering strategies using stem cells aim to ameliorate the prognosis of the grafted materials, there are several questions still to be addressed, such as which are the best materials and which are the best adult stem cells to be associated with these scaffolds in order to improve and hasten the replacement of bone fillers by newly formed bone tissue in an ideal way. Almost all structures such as bone, cranial and facial sutures, cartilage, ligaments, and teeth, are derived from mesenchymal cells. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been isolated from most of the postnatal tissues, including several craniofacial tissues. They have a well-characterized potential to differentiate into all cellular lineages that constitute mesenchymal and connective tissues. Dental pulp tissue is an interesting source of MSCs to be used in tissue bioengineering studies due to their multi-differentiation potential, noninvasive and efficient process of isolation, immunosuppressive activity and similarity to bone cells. The aim of this work is to discuss the potential of mesenchymal stem cells to be used for guided osteogenesis and show the efficiency of its association with fabricated scaffolds to aid bone regeneration processes.


Systems on chip are more and more heterogeneous and include software, analog/RF and digital hardware, and non-electronic components, such as sensors or actuators. The design and verification of such systems require appropriate modeling means to deal with the increasing complexity and to achieve efficient simulation. SystemC, a set of C++ classes and methods, provides a modeling and simulation framework that supports digital (discrete) hardware and software systems from abstract specifications to register transfer level models. We propose a way to extend the capabilities of SystemC to support mixed discrete-continuous systems by implementing a synchronous dataflow (SDF) model of computation (MoC). The SDF MoC is used to embed continuous-time behavior in SDF modules and to support synchronization with the existing SystemC kernel. The paper presents an overview of the architecture and the syntax of the proposed extensions and gives modeling examples with simulation results.


Transnational crimes involve border crossings as an integral part of the criminal activity. They also include crimes that take place in one country with consequences that significantly affect other countries. Examples include human trafficking, smuggling (arms, drugs, currency), sex slavery, non-domestic terrorism, and financial crimes. Transnational organized crime refers specifically to transnational crime carried out by organized crime syndicates. Although several encyclopedias cover aspects of transnational crime, it is this encyclopedia's emphasis on transnational justice, as well, that differentiates it from the pack. Not only does it define, describe and chart the crimes and criminal activity, it also includes significant coverage of policing those crimes and prosecuting them within domestic and international court systems. Accessible and jargon-free and available in both print and electronic formats, the one-volume Encyclopedia of Transnational Crime and Justice will contain such entries as arms smuggling, art fraud, charity fraud, hacking and computer viruses, copyright infringement, counterfeiting, drug smuggling, extradition, human trafficking, intelligence agencies, international banking laws, Internet scams, Interpol, money laundering, pollution and waste disposal, price fixing, prosecution, sanctions, sex slavery, tax evasion, terrorism, war crimes, the World Court, and more.


This paper explores how decision makers in higher education perceive marketisation in the sector in relation to teaching and learning provision. The study is interested in the nature of relationships between public universities and other actors, particularly private companies, in relation to the creation, delivery and support of educational provision as well as public universities' perspectives on these relationships. The study draws on 33 interviews with senior decision-makers and managers in higher education at six research-intensive and six teaching-oriented universities in South Africa and England. Questions we raise in this paper are: How do senior decision makers perceive the entry of private players in public HE? What are their experiences of working with private companies in partnership? What values do they associate with marketisation? What effect do they think the relationship is having on the status of the public university? How do they talk about the market actors? We argue that in both study sites there is a hybrid economy but that it is varied in its manifestation, with relationships more or less emergent or established. We discuss this in terms of alignment of practices and values which are guided by sometimes different roles and purposes; emerging and contested business models for income generation; pedagogical imperatives that guide public-private partnerships; and polarized notions of partnerships that raise the question of quality and control. The paper concludes with reflection on policy implications.


As one of the largest humanitarian conflicts in the world, the situation in Darfur, Sudan continues to be characterized by a growing ethnically driven conflict, by a persistent number of displaced persons, and most importantly—at least for the sake of this thesis—by a widespread and significant number of environmental issues. While the former two characteristics seem to be at the forefront of humanitarian assistance programs, the latter is severely lacking in both acknowledgement and incorporation by the aid sector. In an effort to make apparent the need to incorporate environmental issues into humanitarian projects, this thesis uses the United Nations Environment Program's 2006 country report on Sudan to assess the current quantitative state of the environment in Sudan while simultaneously using their 2011 Country Evaluation Report of Sudan to assess the current numbers on displacement and assistance present in the country. Using a historical recap of Darfur's environment, alongside a political analysis of land use in the region, and an assessment of humanitarian organizations present in Darfur, this thesis places the environment at the center of this conflict while also calling for it to be at the center of any proposed solutions. The current data and history of the environment, the environmental aspects of the political situation in Darfur, and the lack of environmental impact by aid organizations is used to assert the notion that increased environmental programming is necessary in Sudan if the conflict and its aftermath are to truly move towards mitigation. Based on this finding, the final section of this thesis suggests a policy for long standing aid actors in Darfur that will ensure an interest in the environment and in the mainstreaming of environmental issues as a driver of conflict and thus as essential to any effective solutions.


Obesity has recently become a major global health problem. Epidemiologic studies indicate that obesity is an important risk factor for type 2 diabetes (T2DM), atherosclerosis and low testosterone in men. Importantly, testosterone replacement treatment (TRT) can improve the condition of these diseases. According to human and animal studies testosterone can act as an anti-inflammatory and anti- atherogenic factor leading to inhibition of the risk factors and consequence of T2DM and atherosclerosis. Consequences of these diseases include dysregulation in atherogenic factors such as apolipoproteins or pro-inflammatory mediators such as cytokines and chemokines and their receptors. The effect of testosterone on these factors remains unclear. The objective of the present study was to demonstrate whether testosterone has antiinflammatory and anti-atherogenic action and by which mechanisms. This was achieved by using in vivo human and mice studies as well as in vitro models. The in vivo human study was conducted on short and long term studies, to determine the effect of TRT on anti and pro-inflammatory cytokines, HDL fractions and apolipoproteins in diabetic hypogonadal patients. Samples of liver tissue from testicular feminization mice (Tfm) were studied to investigate the effect of testosterone therapy on mRNA expression of adiponectin, PP ARb/o, PAI-1, apolipoproteins and pro-inflammatory chemokines with their receptors. Additionally, models of cell culture were studied including human macrophage THP-1 cells and mouse 3T3L1 cells to study the effect of testosterone with or without blocked androgen receptor (AR) on CX3CR1 and CCR2 and pro-inflammatory cytokines in macrophage cells and on adiponectin, PP ARB/o, PAI-1, leptin and chemokines in adipocyte cells, respectively.In the clinical studies, a reduction in adiponectin levels after 3 months was seen in the short-term study and an increase in HDL2 and HDL2/HDL3 ratio in the long-term study. No significant effect of testosterone was observed on body composition and atherogenic factors in either the short or long-term studies. In the animal study, testosterone increased hepatic expression of mRNA adiponectin, PP ARB/o and PAI-1 mRNA expression in Tfm. In the cell culture studies, testosterone treatment increased CCR2 mRNA expression and decreased secretion of IL-8 and TNF level in the supernatant of THP-1 macrophages. Testosterone decreased secretion of CCL2 and CX3CL1 from 3T3L1 adipocytes while increasing PAI-1 mRNA expression in these cells. The action of testosterone was based on the type of cells and time, route and dose size of treatment. In conclusion, although testosterone therapy showed a positive effect on some risk factors of obesity and its associated conditions, negative effects were also seen. However the exact mechanism of action of testosterone that influences risk factors of obesity and its associated conditions in men with low testosterone remain unclear, therefore further studies are needed to fully elucidate the above finding.