Trichilogaster acaciaelongifoliae (Froggatt) was introduced into South Africa in 1982 for the biological control of Acacia longifolia (Andr.) Willd. (Fabaceae). Since its introduction it has substantially reduced the reproductive potential of this weed and is widely regarded as a successful biological control agent. Nonetheless, with growing concern about the risks of biological control, follow-up monitoring of agents that have been released is strongly advocated. The present contribution examines the geographical range expansion and success of T. acaciaelongifoliae 18 years after its release. This study was carried out at a locality with climatic conditions similar to those that were originally predicted to be unsuitable for T. acaciaelongifoliae.The level of infestation and success of T. acaciaelongifoliae on Acacia floribunda Sieber at the study site in Gauteng Province was found to compare favourably with its performance in the most successful areas of its release. Although climatic matching may be important for the initial establishment of biocontrol agents, in the long-term it is clear that these species are potentially able to expand their geographical ranges. The sex ratio of T. acaciaelongifoliae was strongly female-biased, unlike that previously recorded on A. floribunda. The level of parasitism by a single, newly acquired parasitoid species was unexpectedly high. However, no relationship was found between the fate of T. caciaelongifoliae individuals in galls and gall size. Although this species is an effective biocontrol agent, its long-term behavior (range expansion and association with local natural enemies) has proved to be less predictable.


The development of microwave Gallium Arsenide Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MESFET) devices has enabled the miniaturization of pagers, cellular phones, and other electronic devices. With these MESFET devices comes the need to model them. This thesis extracts a small signal equivalent circuit model from a Gallium Arsenide MESFET device. The approach taken in this thesis is to use measured S-parameters to extract a small signal equivalent circuit model by optimization. Small signal models and S-parameters are explained. The Simplex Method is used to optimize the small signal equivalent circuit model. A thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Simplex Method is performed. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT


Despite the benefits of expert interaction techniques, many users do not learn them and continue to use novice ones. This article aims at better understanding if, when and how users decide to learn and ultimately adopt expert interaction techniques. This dynamic learning process is a complex skill-acquisition and decision-making problem. We first present and compare three generic benchmark models, inspired by the neuroscience literature, to explain and predict the learning process for shortcut adoption. Results show that they do not account for the complexity of users' behavior. We then introduce a dedicated model, Transition, combining five cognitive mechanisms: implicit and explicit learning, decay, planning and perseveration. Results show that our model outperforms the three benchmark models both in terms of model fitting and model simulation. Finally, a post-analysis shows that each of the five mechanisms contribute to goodness-of-fit, but the role of perseveration is unclear regarding model simulation.


The author derives a formula for error probability of partial-response continuous-phase modulation with differential phase detector and limiter discriminator detector in a multipath Rayleigh fading channel, taking into account frequency-selective fading, cochannel interference, Doppler frequency shift, and additive Gaussian noise while the receiver rejects a specified amount of adjacent channel interference. A formula for the error floor is also presented. Numerical results are presented for Gaussian minimum shift keying with a premodulation normalized filter bandwidth of 0.25. Under mild channel conditions and low energy-to-noise ratios, the best detector is an optimized two-bit differential detection; otherwise the best detector is the limiter discriminator detector. >


We live in an age of awesome technological potential. From nanotechnology to synthetic organisms, new technologies stand to revolutionize whole domains of human experience. But with awesome potential comes awesome risk: drones can deliver a bomb as readily as they can a new smartphone; makers and hackers can 3D-print guns as well as tools; and supercomputers can short-circuit Wall Street just as easily as they can manage your portfolio. One thing these technologies can't do is answer the profound moral issues they raise. Who should be held accountable when they go wrong? What responsibility do we, as creators and users, have for the technologies we build? In A Dangerous Master, ethicist Wendell Wallach tackles such difficult questions with hard-earned authority, imploring both producers and consumers to face the moral ambiguities arising from our rapid technological growth. There is no doubt that scientific research and innovation are a source of promise and productivity, but, as Wallach, argues, technological development is at risk of becoming a juggernaut beyond human control. Examining the players, institutions, and values lobbying against meaningful regulation of everything from autonomous robots to designer drugs, A Dangerous Master proposes solutions for regaining control of our technological destiny. Wallach's nuanced study offers both stark warnings and hope, navigating both the fears and hype surrounding technological innovations. An engaging, masterful analysis of the elements we must manage in our quest to survive as a species, A Dangerous Master forces us to confront the practical--and moral--purposes of our creations.


It gives us great pleasure to introduce this special section on outstanding papers from the ACM MobiSys 2012 conference, for which we were honored to be the program committee cochairs. The conference was held in June 2012 and included 32 high-quality papers selected from 182 submissions, a record high for both paper submissions and paper acceptances. The conference's call-for-papers informed authors that a few outstanding papers would be considered for a fast-tracked special section in the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC). The selection process for the papers included in this special section was a byproduct of the selection process for the MobiSys 2012 Best Paper Award. Immediately after the MobiSys 2012 program committee meeting, we asked the committee members to nominate accepted papers for the Best Paper Award. Based on the responses we received, five papers with the most nominations were selected as candidates for the award. Their nominations were kept confidential until the opening of the conference. We then asked the program committee and external reviewer panel members to volunteer for the Best Paper Award committee to determine the final best paper and select three out of the five nominated papers for this special section. Based on the responses and conflicts of interest, four members of the program committee and one member of the external reviewer panel formed the Best Paper Award committee. At the conference, this committee selected the best paper and the three papers to be fast-tracked for this special section. The paper review process for the selected papers followed the standard procedure for fast-tracked TMC special sections. The authors were asked to submit a journal version with an explanation of how they addressed the reviews and feedback received at the conference. Note that each of these three papers received five or more conference reviews and had gone through a shepherding process to address reviewer comments for the final, camera-ready version. As required by the TMC fast-tracking procedure, we invited at least two reviewers for each submission. At least one reviewer was a MobiSys program committee member who reviewed the corresponding conference submission and another was not a member of program committee. In the end, the review process produced three very highquality papers that we are proud to present to the readers of TMC.


Abstract. Despite the importance of fungi in soil ecosystem services, a theoretical framework that links soil management strategies with fungal ecology is still lacking. One of the key challenges is to understand how the complex geometrical shape of pores in soil affects fungal spread and species interaction. Progress in this area has long been hampered by a lack of experimental techniques for quantification. In this paper we use X-ray computed tomography to quantify and characterize the pore geometry at microscopic scales (30 μm) that are relevant for fungal spread in soil. We analysed the pore geometry for replicated samples with bulk-densities ranging from 1.2–1.6 g/cm3. The bulk-density of soils significantly affected the total volume, mean pore diameter and connectivity of the pore volume. A previously described fungal growth model comprising a minimal set of physiological processes required to produce a range of phenotypic responses was used to analyse the effect of these geometric descriptors on fungal invasion, and we showed that the degree and rate of fungal invasion was affected mainly by pore volume and pore connectivity. The presented experimental and theoretical framework is a significant first step towards understanding how environmental change and soil management impact on fungal diversity in soils.


The Traffic Load Heat Map (TLHM) is a method for holistic visualization of the internal traffic load. Based on a production layout, the entire traffic in a production plant is visualized with different colors. Within a defined scale of colors, each color represents a specific frequency range of current traffic. Consequently, busy driveways that potentially cause delays in delivery can be easily identified in the resulting heat-map and appropriate measures can be discussed. In literature, a wide variety of methods and tools for visualizing the traffic load are found. For example, common methods are hydrographs or Sankey diagrams. These methods result in strongly simplified models that have limited informative value. Additionally, they often solely focus on parts of the whole traffic load, like crossings. Some of these methods analyze a wider spectrum of the traffic load. This often has negative effects on the clarity of the resulting visualization. The Traffic Load Heat Map method approaches an integrated assessment of the traffic load. Even though the traffic load is wholly analyzed, the resulting heat map is still easily understandable and clear. In this article, the innovative Traffic Load Heat Map method is described and exemplarily applied to a real-life production shop floor. It is a practical basis for optimizing the production layout and thus facilitates value concentration.


The threshold for detecting stereoscopic motion is notably higher than that for detecting the equivalent fronto-parallel motion. Thus, for small excursions, an apparently stationary line can easily be seen as moving by simply closing one eye - two eyes being less sensitive than one (Tyler, 1971). Here, we used a 3D tracking paradigm to examine motion perception with a continuous motor task. Observers used a cursor to track a target as it moved in a 3D Gaussian random walk. In the main experiment, each eye saw a veridical 2D projection of a square target and cursor moving in 3D. A Leap Motion controller was used to move the cursor by simply pointing at the target location. The controller was calibrated such that there was a one-to-one mapping between finger movement and simulated cursor movement. Tracking data were analyzed by computing the cross-correlograms (CCGs) between the target and cursor velocities for each of the three cardinal motion directions, and assessing the lag, peak correlation, and width of the CCGs. Responses to the depth component of the motion were markedly weaker and more sluggish than responses to the fronto-parallel directions. Further experiments revealed that these depth responses were identical when either only horizontal disparity information was available or when a disparity-only target was viewed monocularly. Our primary finding was that depth tracking is worse than fronto-parallel tracking, but this was simply due to the much smaller amplitudes of projected fronto-parallel motion that motion-in-depth produces. We did not find evidence for the stereo-motion suppression observed with traditional psychophysics, nor did we find a need to invoke a specific disparity processing mechanism. Rather, continuous tracking behavior is parsimoniously explained by reliance on the 2D projections of 3D motion. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


A patient would contract surface muscles as a reaction called muscle guarding when experiencing discomfort and pain during physical palpation. This reaction carries important information about an affected location. Training physicians to regulate palpation forces to elicit just enough muscle tension is a challenge using real patients. Tunable stiffness mechanisms enabled by soft robotics can be effectively integrated into medical simulator designs for effective clinical education. In this paper, we propose a controllable stiffness muscle layer to simulate guarding for abdominal palpation training. Designs with soft, fine, and rigid granular jamming, stretchable and non-stretchable layer jamming mechanisms were tested and evaluated as methods to create controllable stiffness muscle. User studies have been carried out on 10 naive participants to differentiate the tense and relaxed abdomen with the proposed jamming mechanisms. Muscle samples made of ground coffee (fine granular jamming) and latex layers (stretchable layer jamming) show good usability in simulating abdomen with different stiffness with at least 75% of the user data exhibits more than 70% of decision accuracy for both tested palpation gestures (single finger and multiple fingers) after short pre-training.


Tin K-edge EXAFS recorded in situ at 498 K from tin-doped Fe3O4 show that the octahedral coordination of tin in the inverse spinel-related structure remains essentially unchanged as it is oxidized to structurally-related γ-Fe2O3. Changes in the magnetic hyperfine field distributions in the tin-119 Mossbauer spectra recorded in situ between 285 and 500 K show that at the higher temperatures some of the tin-doped Fe3O4 is converted to structurally-related tin-doped γ-Fe2O3. Comparison with data recorded from similar materials by 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy show that the phase transition is sensitive to the partial pressure of oxygen and the period of time at the elevated temperatures. The changes in the magnetic hyperfine field distributions show that conversion of tin-doped Fe3O4 to tin-doped γ-Fe2O3 is largely completed at 600 K and occurs without the segregation of tin. At 700 K some tin segregates to form tin dioxide as the conversion of tin-doped Fe3O4 to tin-doped γ-Fe2O3 is completed. At higher temperatures the inverse spinel-related γ-Fe2O3 phase is converted to the corundum-related α-Fe2O3 structure.


Enantiopure β-amino alcohols constitute one of the most significant building blocks for the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Despite the availability of a range of chiral β-amino alcohols from a chiral pool, there is a growing demand for new enantioselective synthetic routes to vicinal amino alcohols and their derivatives. In the present study, an asymmetric 2-step catalytic route that converts 4-anisaldehyde into a β-amino alcohol derivative, (S)-tembamide, with excellent enantiopurity (98% enantiomeric excess) has been developed. The recently published initial step consists in a concurrent biocatalytic cascade for the synthesis of (S)-4-methoxymandelonitrile benzoate. The O-benzoyl cyanohydrin is then converted to (S)-tembamide in a hydrogenation reaction catalyzed by Raney Ni. To achieve hydrogenation of the nitrile moiety with highest chemoselectivity and enantioretention, various parameters such as nature of the catalyst, reaction temperature and hydrogen pressure were studied. The reported strategy might be transferrable to the synthesis of other N-acyl-β-amino alcohols.


Title of Document: THE BIOAVAILABILITY OF BROMINATED DIPHENYL ETHERS FROM URBAN ESTUARINE SEDIMENTS TO DEPOSITFEEDING INVERTEBRATES Susan L. Klosterhaus, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Directed By: Professor Joel E. Baker University of Maryland Chesapeake Biological Laboratory Brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs) are organic chemicals used as flame retardants that have become ubiquitous in the environment. Sediment exposure assessments have not been conducted for BDEs and are necessary for understanding their potential impacts in coastal environments. Field studies and laboratory experiments were conducted to determine the bioavailability of BDEs from sediments to deposit-feeding invertebrates in order to investigate potential transfer to higher trophic levels in estuarine environments. In field studies, accumulation of congeners in the Penta-BDE mixture was similar to PCBs with similar Kow. BDE 209, the dominant congener in sediments, was not detected in invertebrates despite sediment concentrations up to 4000 ng/g dry weight. In 28 and 56 day exposures to Baltimore Harbor sediments, PCBs, PAHs, butyltins and metals were bioavailable to the polychaete worm Nereis virens and the amphipod Leptocheirus plumulosus. However, BDE accumulation was low and BDE 209 was not detected in either species despite sediment concentrations up to 300 ng/g dry weight. To elucidate the mechanism(s) limiting the bioavailability of BDE 209 and determine the relative bioavailability of congeners in the Penta-BDE and Deca-BDE (>97% BDE 209) commercial mixtures, 28 day bioaccumulation experiments were conducted in which N. virens were exposed to spiked sediments, spiked food or field sediments. Selective accumulation of congeners in the Penta-BDE mixture over BDE 209 and other components of the Deca-BDE mixture from spiked sediments support the prevalence of the Penta-BDE congeners reported in higher trophic level species. Bioaccumulation from the spiked substrates demonstrated that BDE 209 is capable of crossing the gut wall. Bioavailability was highly dependent on the exposure conditions however since accumulation of BDE 209 from field sediments did not occur in 28 days (<0.3 ng/g wet weight). When exposed to Deca-BDE in spiked sediments also containing the Penta-BDE commercial mixture and PCB 209, bioaccumulation of BDE 209 was reduced compared to exposure to Deca-BDE alone. The mechanism responsible for limiting accumulation of BDE 209 remains unclear but appears to involve characteristics of the sediment matrix and low transfer efficiency in the digestive fluid and across the gut


The palm oil plantation industry in Malaysia has been striving to make production sustainable but land issues have been its consistent bane for the last few decades. The
industry stakeholders have set-up various schemes of sustainability for palm oil, but none seem to meet the ever-changing sustainability demands by different consumer
groups. Perception of the industry from the media, NGOs and social groups seem to indicate that palm oil will never be sustainable, and thus should reduce its overall production. This study reviewed perception trends with regards to oil palm plantations, and analysed the related variables (economic, social and environmental) that are important for palm oil production in Malaysia. The study also prioritized important variables in measuring sustainability correctly. First, a perception survey of 742 stakeholders was carried out. The analysis shows that within the palm oil industry,
stakeholders regard different issues as important for their groups. The perception for the growers and traders/manufactures stated that behavior and perception does not tally with the view of non-Malaysian NGOs, media, literature and third parties. There are obvious gap between what the industry perceives and reality. Lack of measurable
variables clearly shows the gaps and the need for sustainability science, especially for the agriculture sector. The industry has set-up its principles and criteria, yet it differs with stakeholder groups, geographical difference and priority in requirements.
Sustainable requirement needs to have locality specifications, and not driven by generality or unsubstantiated science or "scientific assumptions". The perception issues are linked with the lack of measurable variables for sustainability. These variables were
considered not important previously. The perception issues and history of the industry are the key determinants now for oil palm's lack of sustainability. In the case of
Malaysia, important sustainability criteria would include: greenhouse gas management, good forestry program and communicating sustainable efforts. However, some of these
variables are recent in their importance. Second, a simple regression was run to prioritize important variables for sustainability. There were 120 variable across 3 sectors
(social, environment and economy) that are important for the palm oil industry. From the perception survey and analysis, two most important variables (dependent variables)
were selected: palm oil price per year and total planted area for oil palm in Malaysia (deforested area). Other important variables were harvested area, local crude palm oil (CPO) delivery price, total agriculture land and total arable land. The overall conclusions and implications show that sustainable science is an important element for
oil palm management issues. However it is linked with the lack of measurable variables.
Perception is an important tool in oil palm sustainability. Lack of measurable variables for sustainability creates unwarranted demands and survey shows palm oil price and
total planted area are important variables, whereas total harvested area , agriculture land available, local CPO delivery price and total arable area are the most important variable statistically for Malaysia.


To support a sustainable planet, preschools need to engage young children with sustainability education. In the United States of America (USA), nature-based preschool programs are likely to promote environmental science and nature education, given their outdoor curricula, but very little is known about how these programs might also cultivate sustainability education. The purpose of the present study was to investigate nature-based preschool teachers' craft knowledge (Grimmett & MacKinnon, 1992) about sustainability education within curricula as they presently exist. We interviewed 22 early childhood educators and administrators across nine early childhood nature-based education centers in the Northeastern United States. Following Davis' (2010) differentiation of education in , about, and for the environment, we found that most participants promoted activities in the environment, such as children spending time outdoors in the woods. Educators reasoned that they focused on promoting "in-nature" based activities because they believed that caring for and loving nature were foundational to promoting sustainability practices. Also, the educators promoted simple everyday pro-environmental behaviors, such as reusing containers, as they believed such acts lead to lifelong sustainable behaviors. Ultimately, we found that almost all of the teachers who participated in our study wanted to include sustainability education within their pedagogical approaches, and they did so by focusing on "every-day sustainability practices," but felt they could not engage in more ethically-driven sustainability practices due to curricular and parental barriers.


For occupants of commercial real estate, energy costs for electricity and heating represent a significant portion of the service charges. A typical heating installation often using fossil fuel and the purchase of electricity generate costs that are strongly depending on the prevailing market conditions and are subject to a constant increase as all trends show. Furthermore, after the nuclear disaster of Fukushima, worldwide it came to a rethinking of nuclear power as a common energy source. This led to the historic, globally unique and radical decision of the German government for an energy transition, what soon will result in a further increase of the utility costs of German real estate. The transition requires a development of renewable energy in the long term as well as new approaches to energy storage. The power grids are medium and short term to expand, which initially will affect the security of energy supply as well as lead to rising electricity costs. Contemporary real estate is subject to high demands of today's building requirements. However, especially in the large number of property based on old standards there is need for action. In addition to the renovation of the building envelope and installation of an efficient heating system supported by renewable energy, the use of a decentralized energy supply by power-heat cogeneration for appropriate property should be taken into account. This may partly lead to decouple itself from the development of the market and in the long run generate significant user-side savings. Therefore, the objective of this research is to systematize existing commercial property on possibility and feasibility to be converted to decentralized energy supply in order to reveal the optimal benefit cost ratio. Based on full cost, potential variations are examined applying comparative investment calculations. Practical benefit of this work will be to present distinct savings of operating and utility costs for most portfolio properties and to reach an informed investment decision.


Distributed innovation systems are an approach to organizing for innovation that seems to meet the challenge of accessing knowledge that resides outside the boundaries of any one organization. We provide an overview of distributed innovation systems that are achieving success in three different industries. We explore why people participate, the organizing principles of production, and the implications for intellectual property policy. Finally, the potential extensions and limitations of this alternative model of innovation are considered.


Since the advances of femtosecond laser technology during the last decade, optical second harmonic generation (SHG) has proven itself a powerful tool to investigate the electronic and structural properties of semiconductor materials. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is a contact-less, non-intrusive method that can be used in situ. It is sensitive to systems with broken symmetry, in particular interfaces and surfaces. The Si/SiO2 system is technologically important since it forms a component of most modern electronic equipment. Furthermore, it has been shown that it is possible to induce an electric field across this interface by means of laser irradiation as a result of defect formation and defect population. This electric field can be measured since it determines the SHG signal. The anisotropy of the SHG signal from the Si/SiO2 interface was measured and showed four-fold symmetry, illustrating that the SHG technique was able to characterise the electrical properties of the interface below the 5 nm thick oxide layer. : second harmonic generation, Si/SiO2, charge carrier dynamics, defect detection, charge trapping, interfacial electric fields


A leading low income housing builder in Mexico decides which prospective new local partner best extends its advantages in managing twin production lines of homes and clients. URBI has built substantial competitive advantage in the technology and culture that matches the outputs of these two production systems. The company has also built extensive expertise in accessing the many mortgage and funding sources in Mexico. To grow, the company is interested in entering other Mexican geographies but faces a choice of doing this with its own staff and buying land for cash, or partnering with local entrepreneurs and local land owners. In evaluating the choices, students must think more deeply about what makes the two production lines work and how to balance the two lines. The discussion can end with comparisons of the Mexican political and government circumstances that encourage this method of producing workforce housing as compared with the U.S., China, India, and other markets.


: Purpose: The purpose of the article was to determine and map the field of smart specialisation (SS) and regional innovation strategy (RIS) literature. Design/Methodology/Approach: The longitudinal bibliometric analysis of the SS and RIS literature based on extensive examination of publications indexed in the Scopus database was conducted. The timespan of the analysis covered the years 1991-2020. The quantity, quality and structural bibliometric indicators were applied. Using the VOSviewer software tool the network analyses were performed and major clusters of the SS and RIS research were determined. Findings: The conducted analysis made it possible to indicate the most productive authors, sources, organisations and countries in the analysed scientific field. The most popular research topics and subject areas, the most influential research channels and impact from authors, sources, countries in the SS and RIS literature were indicated. Moreover, it was recognised how the SS and RIS publications are clustered. Practical Implications: Determination of sources with the highest productivity and citations can be used by potential authors of publications to adopt an appropriate publication strategy. The information about the most active countries and organisations and the most influential authors may constitute the valuable basis for establishing future collaboration. The analysis results can also be useful for decision-makers in regions by indicating the most influential publications in terms of the SS and RIS development and implementation. Originality/Value: There is a paucity of research presenting the bibliometric analysis of the SS and RIS literature. This article comprises an up-to-date comprehensive analysis of this domain and enriches the understanding of its existing patterns and trends.


The NOVELTY study is supported by AstraZeneca. M Gerhardsson de Verdier, C Keen, A Gardev, S Rennard, A Sveréus, L Brannman, N Karlson, J Nuevo, F Nyberg and S Young are employees of AstraZeneca. HK Reddel has participated in advisory boards for AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, a data safety monitoring board for AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Novartis, has provided independent educational presentations for AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim, Mundipharma and Teva, and has received independent research funding from AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline. R Beasley has received research funding from Astra Zeneca, Genentech, Cephalon, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Sanofi, and has received payments for lectures and/or participation in advisory boards from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis. EH Bel received research grants from Roche, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and honoraria for research consulting from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Sanofi/Regeneron. C Janson has no disclosures to declare. B Make has received honoraria for participation in NOVELTY planning meeting, and has received grant funding, participated in advisory boards and provided non-branded talk for AstraZeneca. He has received honoraria for participation in medical advisory boards for Aerocrine, Boehringer-Ingelheim, CSL Bering, GlaxoSmithKline, Forest, Novartis, Spiration, Theravance, and Sunovion. He has participated in research studies funded by Boehringer-Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Forest, Sunovian. RJ Martin has received consulting fees from AstraZeneca, Teva, Genentech, Boeringer Ingelheim, and PMD. His institution has received grants from NHLBI (AsthmaNet) and MedImmune. He has also received travel/accommodation/meeting expenses from the Respiratory Effectiveness Group. I Pavord has received speaker's honoraria for speaking at sponsored meetings from Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Aerocrine, Almirall, Novartis, and GSK and a payment for organising an educational event from AZ. He has received honoraria for attending advisory panels with Almirall, Genentech, Regeneron, Astra Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, MSD, Schering-Plough, Novartis, Dey, Napp and Respivert. He has received sponsorship to attend international scientific meetings from Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Astra Zeneca and Napp. D Price has board membership with Aerocrine, Almirall, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Meda, Mundipharma, Napp, Novartis, and Teva Pharmaceuticals; consultancy with Almirall, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, GlaxoSmithKline, Meda, Mundipharma, Napp, Novartis, Pfizer, and Teva Pharmaceuticals; grants and unrestricted funding for investigator-initiated studies (conducted through Research in Real-Life Ltd and Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute Pte Ltd) from UK National Health Service, British Lung Foundation, Aerocrine, AKL Ltd, Almirall, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Meda, Merck, Mundipharma, Napp, Novartis, Orion, Pfizer, Respiratory Effectiveness Group, Takeda, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Zentiva; payments for lectures/speaking from Almirall, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Cipla, GlaxoSmithKline, Kyorin, Meda, Merck, Mundipharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Skyepharma, Takeda, and Teva Pharmaceuticals; payment for manuscript preparation from Mundipharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals; patents (planned, pending or issued) from AKL Ltd; payment for the development of educational materials from GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis; stock/stock options from AKL Ltd which produces phytopharmaceuticals; owns 80% of Research in Real Life Ltd, 75% of the social enterprise Optimum Patient Care Ltd and 75% of Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute Pte Ltd; received payment for travel/accommodations/meeting expenses from Aerocrine, Boehringer Ingelheim, Mundipharma, Napp, Novartis, and Teva Pharmaceuticals; funding for patient enrolment or completion of research from Almirall, Chiesi, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Zentiva; and peer reviewer for grant committees of the Medical Research Council (2014), Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programme (2012), HTA (2014). AT Bansal is a paid consultant of AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, hVivo and Roche. J Vestbo has received honoraria from AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Chiesi, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis for advising and presenting.


Recommender systems are useful to users of a service and to the company offering the service. Good recommendations can help users find what they are looking for faster, and they can help users discover new content. For businesses, the recommendations can improve user engagement. In recent years, research has been done on employing Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) within the case of recommender systems. Results have been promising, especially in the session-based setting where RNNs have been shown to outperform state-of-the-art models. In many of these experiments, the RNN could potentially improve its recommendations by utilizing information about a user's past sessions, in addition to his interactions in the current session. A problem for session based recommenders, is how to produce accurate recommendations at the start of a session, before the system has learned much about the user's current interests. We propose a novel approach that extends the existing RNN-based sessionbased recommender, making it able to process the user's recent sessions, to improve recommendations. This is done by using a second RNN layer to learn from recent sessions, and predict the user's interest in the current session. By feeding this information to the original RNN layer, the proposed solution is able to improve its recommendations. Our experiments on three different datasets, show that the proposed approach can significantly improve recommendations throughout the sessions, compared to a single RNN working only on the current session. The proposed model especially improves recommendations at the start of sessions, and is therefore able to deal with the cold start problem within sessions.


This paper presents empirical evidence of the relationship between human resources practices and the effectiveness of a firm to capitalise on investment in knowledge as measured by the returns to innovation and business development expenditure. The empirical design is based on exploiting a natural experiment provided by a policy intervention that offers human resources-related support to small and medium sized enterprises in the UK Tourism Hospitality and Leisure sector. Our findings suggest that businesses that receive support on the area of staff training and development, in HR planning and in staff recruitment and retention generate 100%, 86% and 134% more revenue per pound spend on innovation and business development compared to firms that do not receive such services. Thus, in contrast to existing empirical studies in the field, this evidence supports a strong causal link between human resources and knowledge processes and sheds some light on the "black box" that describes the strategic logic between human resource management and firm performance.


My dissertation contains two essays. It discusses the role of bond covenants in modern capital market and how they impact firms' financial activities. Bond covenants are effective mechanism to mitigate the agency problems between bondholders and bond issuers. The design of bond covenants has extensive influence on firms' financial activities. The first essay examines the effect of bond covenants on issue size. The agency problems can prevent bondholders from lending fund to issuers. The inclusion of bond covenants in indenture can provide bondholder with protection by restricting issuers' activities, indicating the potential relationship between bond issue size and covenants. My findings suggest that restrictiveness of bond covenants is positively related with the issue size. Due to different agency problem, the design of bond covenant put emphasis on different restriction covenant. As a result, the essay observes that for investment grade (below grade) issuers issue size is positively related with the restrictiveness of financing (investment) covenants. Meanwhile due to the severe agency problem in low quality issuers, low rating firms have to include more covenants to raise the same amount of capital. The findings in the first essay indicate that firms can sacrifice their management by including restrictive covenants to raise more capital. The second essay examines the effect of bond covenants on likelihood of CDS issuance and the level of CDS spreads. Like bond covenants, CDS contracts are also effective mechanism to mitigate the agency problem between bondholders and bond issuers. The issuance of CDS occurs after firms include bond covenants, indicating that one of reasons for CDS is bondholders' feeling of insecurity due to the unrestrictive bond covenants. My findings indicate that the restrictiveness of bond covenant can affect the likelihood of CDS issuance. CDS serves as complement to bond covenants for investment grade bondholder to mitigate the agency problem by providing bondholder with extra protection in the case of default. At the same time, bond covenant can also influence the level of CDS spreads by influencing the issuers' default risk because actual use of bond covenants can lower the default risk. My findings suggest the level of CDS spread is negatively related with the restrictiveness of bond covenants. The findings in essay 2 not only provide possible reasons for CDS issuance and an important factor influencing the level of CDS spread but also build a link between literature of bond covenants and CDS.


Students taking advanced courses at Sturgis Brown High School struggle to manage time and homework along with other activities. In addition to learning how to better manage their time, students also need to develop study skills in order to be successful at the college level. Throughout a semester-long, Advance Placement (AP) Chemistry Course, students were given daily quizzes in lieu of homework. The purpose of this treatment was to identify if frequent assessments increased student learning over time. In addition, the study looked at changes in students' study skills and students' selfassessment. The study concluded that daily quizzes had a positive impact upon student retention and mastery of material.


ABSTRACT Expeditionary forces and herpetological discoveries in Antiquity A number of impressive cases of armies confronted by venomous serpents in remote parts of the world are mentioned in ancient texts: from the eastern campaigns of Alexander and of Pompey to the expeditions led in Northern Africa, the Levant and Arabia, several recurring themes raise questions about the epistemological function of these military episodes. As well as traditional fears about the potential dangers of unknown territory, various aspects of these accounts are related to the discovery of knowledge about ophidians: an exploratory mission, the behaviour of the group, unfavourable circumstances, the presence or absence of medical specialists, information supplied by native people. This paper offers an overview of these different expeditions and of the ophidians discovered and explores the boundaries between legend, history and science. The study reveals that two types of situation generally occur: the armies are either confronted with truly dangerous species (Bungarus, Eristicophis macmahonii, Cerastes cerastes, Cerastes vipera), or they consider serpents which are in fact harmless to be harmful (Eryx jaculus, Coluber elegantissimus). Both situations serve to exaggerate the portrayal of this kind of encounter as catastrophic.


IPEC 4301 Political Economy of Industrialized Countries (3 semester credit hours) How can German carmakers be among the best in the world if they are required to give two years notice before firing someone? Why did Swedish firms help to introduce a free universal health care system? Why it is rational for German companies to grant their workers veto rights over management decisions, but not for U.S. firms? Clearly, labor rights, market regulations, and industrial organization differ significantly across the United States, Germany, and Sweden. Yet, economics as a social science typically does not incorporate these differences. On the other hand, political economy analyzes how factors such as the electoral system, degree of business coordination, and governmental regulation shape business strategy. Understanding the effect of these differences is essential for managers designing investment strategies or policy makers developing policy recommendations. Using case studies, this course offers students opportunities to sharpen their analytical skills with real world applications and expand upon black-and-white theories from business and economics. (3-0) T

http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/geoywc/publication/2008 Handbook of IPE_revised.pdf


The etiology of metabolic syndrome (MetS) is complex and involves the interplay between environmental, lifestyle and genetic determinants. MetS in men can be associated with a biochemical pattern of partial hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH). A similar pattern has been noted in both men and women with a variety of acute illnesses and chronic diseases, and there is ongoing debate regarding whether this phenomenon might adaptive (e.g. diverting resources from reproduction into survival), or maladaptive (e.g. anemia, sarcopenia, osteopenia and fatigue of androgen-deficiency amplify and widen the adverse consequences of the original disease-trigger). In women with hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA-HH secondary to chronic bioenergetic deficit from dietary restriction and/or intensive exercise), a genetic link to congenital HH (CHH) was recently established; women carrying monoallelic CHH gene mutations will typically not develop CHH, but are significantly more susceptible to HA. However, the male reproductive axis seems to be more resistant to similar environmental insults. In contrast, MetS-associated HH (mHH) is specifically a male phenomenon; the reproductive phenotype of females with MetS tending instead towards hyperandrogenism, rather than hypogonadism. The underlying pathogenic mechanisms responsible for mHH have not been clearly identified and, as yet, there has been no investigation of a potential role for CHH mutation carriage in its etiology. Over the decades, the use of either genetic- or diet-induced obesity and/or MetS animal models has greatly helped to illuminate the complex etiology of metabolic dysregulation, but the strong relationship between obesity/MetS and mHH in males has been largely neglected, with little or no information about the regulation of reproductive function by metabolic factors under conditions of bioenergetic excess. However, the pathogenic link between MetS and HH in males has been recently investigated in an animal model of high fat diet (HFD)-induced MetS, which perfectly recapitulates the human phenotype. Interesting insights derived by these studies have added novel information about the causative role played by hypothalamic alterations driven by metabolic disturbances in mHH. In particular, it appears that HFD-induced inflammatory injury at the hypothalamic level negatively affects GnRH neuron content, with the reduction of circulating gonadotropins and sex hormones being related to MetS severity.


The CMS muon detector system, muon reconstruction software, and high-level trigger underwent significant changes in 2013–2014 in preparation for running at higher LHC collision energy and instantaneous luminosity. The performance of the modified system is studied using proton-proton collision data at center-of-mass energy √s=13 TeV, collected at the LHC in 2015 and 2016. The measured performance parameters, including spatial resolution, efficiency, and timing, are found to meet all design specifications and are well reproduced by simulation. Despite the more challenging running conditions, the modified muon system is found to perform as well as, and in many aspects better than, previously. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Prof. Alberto Benvenuti, whose work was fundamental for the CMS muon detector.


The architectural landscape of present-day Rome is a physical history lesson in the use of spolia; ancient marble blocks lie embedded in medieval fortresses, pieces of aqueducts appear in walls, and decorative columns sit recontextualized in grand cathedrals. Spolia refers to the intentional reuse of materials or artifacts in the creation of new structures, and when examined critically it can reveal the history surrounding the many lives the materials have lived. During the transitional phase between late antique Rome and early Christian Rome, the use of spolia reached an all time high. The emergence of Christianity in Rome coupled with the political and economic decline of the empire created a demand for large amounts of cheap building material. With Gaulish invaders to the north, Romans found themselves in dire need of fortification. In addition to the convenience of spolia in mass building projects like the Aurelian Wall, the use of spolia emerged as a way to reconcile the past and present of Rome amidst its rapidly shifting social climate. Clergymen and emperors alike had to recontextualize the physical landscape of the city to fit a modern, Christian framework.


This thesis is concerned with the application of stated preference methods to non-market
valuation problems. It reviews the literature on the state of the art of the method, and
applies the techniques to three applications in the water sector.
In the first application, estimates are presented of the value to households in
England and Wales of improvements to the quality of water in the natural environment.
The need for value estimates arises from the European Community Water Framework
Directive, which drives water policy across the European Union. Area based values
were generated to maximise the potential for subsequent policy incorporation and value
transfer. These were found to vary from £2,263 to £39,168 per km
2
depending on the
population density around the location of the improvement, the ecological scope of that
improvement, and the value elicitation method employed.
The second application investigates the cost of drought water use restrictions to
households and businesses in London. Estimates of willingness to pay for service
quality increments often play an important role in the decisions of regulators and
regulated companies in industries where consumers have little opportunity to exercise
their preferences for service quality. The estimates presented in this chapter are
particularly applicable to regulatory appraisals of water company investment
expenditure and to planning applications for projects to improve the resilience of urban
water supply systems.
The final application examines the reliability of values measured before an
economic downturn for application during the downturn via analysis of near identical
surveys conducted before, and during, the 2008-2010 economic recession. The main
result is that the economic downturn led to lower willingness to pay when elicited via 5
the payment card contingent valuation method, but had no effect on values elicited via a
dichotomous choice (i.e. referendum-type) contingent valuation question. Potential
explanations for this finding are explored in light of the literature on closed-ended
versus open-ended elicitation method comparisons.


Due to the intrinsic nonlinear characteristics and complex structure of the high-speed catenary system, a modelling method is proposed based on the analytical expressions of nonlinear cable and truss elements. The calculation procedure for solving the initial equilibrium state is proposed based on the Newton–Raphson iteration method. The deformed configuration of the catenary system as well as the initial length of each wire can be calculated. Its accuracy and validity of computing the initial equilibrium state are verified by comparison with the separate model method, absolute nodal coordinate formulation and other methods in the previous literatures. Then, the proposed model is combined with a lumped pantograph model and a dynamic simulation procedure is proposed. The accuracy is guaranteed by the multiple iterative calculations in each time step. The dynamic performance of the proposed model is validated by comparison with EN 50318, the results of the finite element method software and SIEMENS simulation report, respectively. At last, the influence of the catenary design parameters (such as the reserved sag and pre-tension) on the dynamic performance is preliminarily analysed by using the proposed model.


In an effort to shed light upon the processes of ant itunior drug-induced cell death, we have carried out a systematic study of the effects of the anti-topoisomerase II agent, etoposide, on Chinese hamster ovary cells. Treatment of Chinese hamster ovary cells for l h with a 2-log cell-killing concentration of etoposide induces a high incidence of DNA single-strand breaks which are rapidly repaired upon drug removal. p34"u: kinase activity is inhibited within l h of addition of etoposide. Following removal of drug, cells accumulate transiently in G2. Upon recovery of p34'*; kinase activity (between 12 and 24 h posttreatment), approximately 50% of cells progress through mitosis which results in micronucleation. Ex amination of mitotic figures at various posttreatment incubation times indicates that micronucleation of daughter cells could be attributed to abnormal segregation of chromosomes during mitosis. Unexpectedly, p34<*c2Binase activity remains elevated relative to untreated controls until 36 h post-etoposide treatment, a point where no further cell division takes place. This activity decreases by 48 h posttreatment, concomitant with a decrease in cell viability as estimated by the ability to exclude trypan blue. These results indicate that etoposide may induce cytotoxicity via gross chromosomal fragmentation, and that p34cdc2kinase may be involved in this process.


The high energy demand on buildings requires efficient installations and the integration of renewable energy to achieve the goal of reducing energy consumption using traditional energy sources. Usually, solar energy generation and heating loads have different profiles along a day and their maximums take place at different moments. In addition, in months in which solar production is higher, the heating demands are the minimum (hot water is consumed only domestically in summer). Cooling machines (absorption and adsorption) allow using thermal energy to chill a fluid. This heat flow rate could be recovered from solar collectors or any other heat source. The aim of this study is to integrate different typologies of solar hybrid (photovoltaic and thermal) collectors with cooling machines getting solar trigeneration and concluding the optimal combination for building applications. The heat recovered from the photovoltaic module is used to provide energy to these cooling machines getting a double effect: to get a better efficiency on PV modules and to cool the building. In this document the authors analyse these installations, their operating conditions, dimensions and parameters, in order to get the optimal installation in three different European cities. This work suggests that in a family house in Madrid, the optimal combination is to use CPVT with azimuthally tracking and absorption machine. In this case, the solar trigeneration system using 55 m 2 of collector area saves the cooling loads and 79% of the heating load in the house round the year.


We use simulated soccer to study multi-agent learning. Each team member tries to learn from the corresponding human player in a real game. Following a unified approach, strategic and tactical behavior is learned synergistically by training a feed-forward neural network (ANN) with a modified back-propagation algorithm. It aims at decreasing the learning time and avoiding the local maximums. We tried to minimize the computation effort, as required in classic back-propagation (BKP) methods.


This Thesis proposes a new approach to explaining the allocation of foreign direct investments (FDI), by applying the accounting framework for valuating a company's intangible assets at a country level. This framework allows us to identify a valuable group of a country's assets that previously had not been taken into account: a group of assets that forms a country's Goodwill, or national Goodwill. National Goodwill includes all those unmeasurable, unquantifiable or not easily identifiable assets that add to (or subtract from) a country's market value and that can, in turn, generate FDI inflows. The research shows how a simple accounting method identifying a company's goodwill can be adapted into a formula that proxies a country's Goodwill.

By identifying and then quantifying a particular country's Goodwill, for a large sample of countries, this Thesis postulates that it is possible to test the power of a country's Goodwill to explain the cross-sectional and time-series variation in FDI flows for a broad set of countries.

The ultimate aim of this research is, by placing the difficult to factor, yet extremely important -'intangible assets' of a country,- into a more quantifiable form, to provide a much needed specificity to our understanding of the factors that more accurately define a country's value and attractiveness for FDI investments.


Objective: The objective of the study was to create a new type of therapy for neurodegenerative diseases; we have conducted a study with the goal to develop techniques based on functional and/or genetic constructions for the control of exocytosis based on a modification of the vesicles of brain astrocytes. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, we made specific transfection of astroglial cells by an experimental sample of the reagent kit developed by the authors. It represents genetic construction lentiviral vector (LVV) - glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) -Case12 on the basis of a LVV. Results and Discussions: We can see results of introduction of the genetic construction into astroglial cells of adult Wistar rats, consisting in the activation of intracellular cascades. A comparison of the astrocytic response to ionomycin on organotypic cuts transfected with LVV-GFAP-Case12 was performed as well as on the organotypic cuts of the model of hepatic encephalopathy. This allowed us to objectively assess the astrocytic signaling systems, their overall functional status on modification of astrocytes of the cortex and brainstem in healthy rats in vivo, as well as in animal models of hepatic encephalopathy. Conclusion: In case of the model of hepatic encephalopathy, an amplitude of the astrocytic response to ionomycin was significantly reduced, which indicates pathological processes in the brain cells in this pathology, and also characterizes the developed genetic construction as an effective tool for assessing pathophysiological mechanisms occurring in the brain.


The current tax treaty network was developed in the 1920s and 1930s in order to prevent double residence/source taxation. This kind of double taxation rarely exists any more because most countries have adopted either an exemption system or a foreign tax credit regime in their domestic (non-treaty) law, which effectively prevents residence/source double taxation even in the absence of a treaty. Instead, as Tsilly Dagan has pointed out, the current treaties serve mostly to transfer revenue from the source country to the residence country. This suggests that treaties may be unnecessary because exemption from withholding taxes by source countries can be done unilaterally. However, in the era of globalization (post 1980), the treaties have developed two new functions, both of which apply primarily to individual taxpayers: First, to prevent double non-taxation by ensuring that withholding taxes are collected if there is no assurance of taxation by the residence country. Second, to enforce residence based taxation of individuals by having source countries provide information to residence countries about income derived by their residents in the source country. The paper proposes ways to update the US model treaty to reflect these new functions.


There are various opinions as to what parameter influences the coiling directions in foraminifera. "Do microspheric and megalospheric generations have different coiling ratios?" is an unanswered question in foraminiferal studies. Per view of this, an attempt is made to study the relationship between mode of reproduction (sexual/asexual) and coiling direction (dextral/sinistral) in the benthic foraminiferal species Rotalidium annectens (Parker & Jones). Proloculus (initial chamber) size is taken as an indicator of changes in reproductive behaviour. The present study is based on the observations made on 17722 specimens of this species from 186 samples, obtained from 3 sediment cores (representing a time span of about 9,500 years) from the shallow water region off Karwar, west coast of India. The results indicate an inverse relationship between mean proloculus size and dextrality (% of dextral forms) which is statistically confirmed. The correlation value (r = −0.57) between the two parameters is above the level of significance at 99% level. Therefore, it is inferred that microspheric generation (smaller proloculus) prefers dextral coiling and coiling in benthic foraminifera appears to be influenced by mode of reproduction.


BACKGROUND
Families with a mentally ill member face a number of difficulties and issues.

OBJECTIVE
This paper follows on from an earlier paper which examined the impact of mental illness on family members. Here the author explores some of the ethical and procedural difficulties in dealing with families and offers simple suggestions to general practitioners to help patients and families.

DISCUSSION
Family members often approach GPs for help when a relative develops a mental illness. Generally family members will seek information and help, not only to deal with their own distress, but to help in dealing with the patient's actions and distress, and intervention with others treating the family member.


Unsupervised learning can leverage large-scale data sources without the need for annotations. In this context, deep learning-based autoencoders have shown great potential in detecting anomalies in medical images. However, especially Variational Autoencoders (VAEs)often fail to capture the high-level structure in the data. We address these shortcomings by proposing the context-encoding Variational Autoencoder (ceVAE), which improves both, the sample, as well as pixelwise results. In our experiments on the BraTS-2017 and ISLES-2015 segmentation benchmarks the ceVAE achieves unsupervised AUROCs of 0.95 and 0.89, respectively, thus outperforming other reported deep-learning based approaches.


The major DNA sequencing technologies in use today produce either highly-accurate short reads or noisy long reads. We developed a protocol based on single-molecule, circular consensus sequencing (CCS) to generate highly-accurate (99.8%) long reads averaging 13.5 kb and applied it to sequence the well-characterized human HG002/NA24385. We optimized existing tools to comprehensively detect variants, achieving precision and recall above 99.91% for SNVs, 95.98% for indels, and 95.99% for structural variants. We estimate that 2,434 discordances are correctable mistakes in the high-quality Genome in a Bottle benchmark. Nearly all (99.64%) variants are phased into haplotypes, which further improves variant detection. De novo assembly produces a highly contiguous and accurate genome with contig N50 above 15 Mb and concordance of 99.998%. CCS reads match short reads for small variant detection, while enabling structural variant detection and de novo assembly at similar contiguity and markedly higher concordance than noisy long reads.


Objectives Emerging evidence from mouse models suggests that mutant Kras can drive the development of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) precursors from acinar cells by enforcing ductal de-differentiation at the expense of acinar identity. Recently, human genome-wide association studies have identified NR5A2, a key regulator of acinar function, as a susceptibility locus for human PDA. We investigated the role of Nr5a2 in exocrine maintenance, regeneration and Kras driven neoplasia. Design To investigate the function of Nr5a2 in the pancreas, we generated mice with conditional pancreatic Nr5a2 deletion (PdxCrelate; Nr5a2c/c). Using this model, we evaluated acinar differentiation, regeneration after caerulein pancreatitis and Kras driven pancreatic neoplasia in the setting of Nr5a2 deletion. Results We show that Nr5a2 is not required for the development of the pancreatic acinar lineage but is important for maintenance of acinar identity. Nr5a2 deletion leads to destabilisation of the mature acinar differentiation state, acinar to ductal metaplasia and loss of regenerative capacity following acute caerulein pancreatitis. Loss of Nr5a2 also dramatically accelerates the development of oncogenic Kras driven acinar to ductal metaplasia and PDA precursor lesions. Conclusions Nr5a2 is a key regulator of acinar plasticity. It is required for maintenance of acinar identity and re-establishing acinar fate during regeneration. Nr5a2 also constrains pancreatic neoplasia driven by oncogenic Kras, providing functional evidence supporting a potential role as a susceptibility gene for human PDA.


English has integrated into Swedish society, and into the Swedish language. In this study, the goal is to examine why English has become so influential in Sweden and if this has occurred previously. This will be studied by examining the historical relation between Swedish and three languages, German, French and English. Moreover, the English language influences will be examined more extensively in its global spread and its social relation to Swedish. This essay will contain a limited study, which will ask a sample of twenty individuals if they think Sweden requires a second language, and what language they would select to fill this position.There is a pattern to observe in the historical language influences, which are: the global presence of the language, the integration and immigration into the Swedish society and the grammatical and lexical significance of loanwords. The majority of the sample selected English as the language that would fill a second language position in Sweden, and close to half of the sample thought Sweden requires a second language.With such a limited sample and with few questions, no claims could be made regarding the requirement of a second language in Sweden. This could be expanded further into a more extensive study with less focus on the historical influences upon Swedish.


Sometimes boundaries make geographical sense. Other times they are straight lines, imposed by colonial powers centuries ago. Today, territorial integrity is a foundation principle of the relations between governments, but even so, boundary conflicts are still unresolved in many parts of the world. This book demonstrates how transboundary conservation initiatives can help to defuse boundary conflicts, and sometimes even solve them. It discusses management and security considerations that should be foremost in the minds of those who are responsible for transboundary conservation areas. Both conservation and peace among peoples can be promoted through investing in implementation of these guidelines.


Dr P. E. Kent commented on the extent and importance of the mapping demonstrated by Dr Dingle. In an area roughly the size of Yorkshire the author had produced a good reconnaissance map using a range of methods with very limited financial resources, under physical conditions which were often difficult and frequently most uncomfortable. The paper represents a notable achievement; Dr Dingle, Professor Donovan and the University of Hull deserve warm congratulations. He (the speaker) felt that the major features required a comment. In North Yorkshire the Cleveland brachydome is terminated eastwards by the north-south crossfold of Eskdale, but the trend is resumed further east at Robin Hood's Bay (reference map by F. D. S. Richardson in Lees & Cox Q. Jl geol. Soc. 1937, Fig. 2). Offshore the broad Scarborough dome continues the trend, as Dr Dingle had shown; this also is limited towards the east by a north–south complication (the Phillip's 'anticline'), and it would seem—with some knowledge of the deep structure—that the broad gentle Fox-Strangways structure doming the Chalk to the east and south-east should be regarded as part of the same broad swell. It is thus a continuing although possibly complex feature swinging south-eastwards parallel to the Flamborough fault line. The latter feature—the Flamborough line—was marginal to the Author's area and, as he stated, marks the boundary between the East Midland Shelf and the more mobile Cleveland area. His comments can be supplemented from information obtained in the course of hydrocarbon


In this paper, we suggest a didactic approach to outdoor-teaching on sustainable urban devel- opment both in a conceptual and practical way. Due to best-practice examples sustainable urban development is presented in its real manifestations as contribution to a transition proc- ess of a city. These best-practice examples are selected according to an actor- and action- oriented approach. Actors of sustainable urban development are private companies, public administration, NGOs or neighborhood associations. Their projects provide a wide range of alternative sustainable urban products, activities or services such as car-sharing, a sustainably managed hotel or revitalized urban creeks. By using different methods students will try to define and assess the sustainability of these places. Finally, the students will present their evaluation of sustainable places to their colleagues during an excursion. With this approach, students will get a better understanding of the practical implications of sustainable urban development as well as an insight into how local projects are embedded within global processes. This approach exceeds the normative discourse of sustainable devel- opment due to the actor- and action-oriented framework within the concept of transdiscipli- narity. The approach encourages students to engage in the societal project of sustainable development by presenting best-practices of services, products or activities aiming at a sus- tainable urban lifestyle. In this paper, we suggest a didactic approach to outdoor-teaching on sustainable urban development both in a conceptual and practical way. Due to best-practice examples sustainable urban development is presented in its real manifestations as contribution to a transition process of a city. These best-practice examples are selected according to an actor- and action-oriented approach. Actors of sustainable urban development are private companies, public administration, NGOs or neighborhood associations. Their projects provide a wide range of alternative sustainable urban products, activities or services such as car-sharing, a sustainably managed hotel or revitalized urban creeks. By using different methods students will try to define and assess the sustainability of these places. Finally, the students will present their evaluation of sustainable places to their colleagues during an excursion. With this approach, students will get a better understanding of the practical implications of sustainable urban development as well as an insight into how local projects are embedded within global processes. This approach exceeds the normative discourse of sustainable development due to the actor- and action-oriented framework within the concept of transdisciplinarity. The approach encourages students to engage in the societal project of sustainable development by presenting best-practices of services, products or activities aiming at a sustainable urban lifestyle.


s o f the papers by Daily and Lynning A Sel f -Modi fy ing Ex t rapo la t ion M e t h o d for Solving O r d i n a r y Differential Equa t ions Dar D. Dai ly Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas Author's address: 8133 Dearborn Drive, Prairie Village, KS 66208 This paper outl ines a p rogram that searches for the p r e d o m i n a n t terms of the a sympto t i c er ror expans ion of initial value problems in o rd ina ry differential equa t ions and uses this i n fo rma t ion in a se l f -modifying ex t rapo la t ion process. Dur ing the in tegra t ion process, using a ra t io that Carl de Boor (1971) used in an integra t ion program, the me thod seeks to recognize t rends of change in the error expans ion of the differential equat ion and to adjus t the me thod of ex t rapola t ion . A basic a lgo r i thm used in the modi fy ing process is presented a long with a br ief exp lana t ion . Also, a compa r i son made with the wel l -known ra t iona l ex t rapo la t ion m e t h o d shows ra t ional ex t rapo la t ion to be general ly less efficient in terms of funct ion eva lua t ions but also demons t ra t e s tha t the se l f -modifying me thod is general ly not able to reduce its e r ror to the level of ra t iona l ex t rapo la t ion . A note, though, shows the se l f -modifying m e t h o d to be super ior to the regular R o m b e r g ex t rapo la t ion . Key W o r d s and Phrases : se l f -modifying ex t rapo la t ion, ra t iona l ex t rapo la t ion , modif ied m i d p o i n t me thod , R o m b e r g in tegrat ion, a sympto t i c e r ror expans ion , predominan t , s ingulari ty, ini t ial value p rob lems in o rd ina ry differential equa t ions ; C R Categor ies : 5.10, 5.17 A C o m p u t e r Solut ion of Po lygona l Jigsaw Puzzles Ejv ind Lynning University of Arhus, Arhus, Denmark Author's address: Brandeis University, Waltham, M A. 02154 A p rogram to solve any j igsaw puzzle involving pieces of polygonal shape is described. An efficient solut ion has been found to depend on a number of ad hoc strategies, which are descr ibed in detail in the paper . The puzzles are solved by successively placing individual pieces in the region to be covered using a depth-f i rs t tree search a lgor i thm. A formal representa t ion of regions, pieces, and placings of pieces is defined. The main idea behind the chosen represen ta t ion is to or ient clockwise the po lygons mak ing up a region, and to or ient counter c lockwise the pieces to be placed. Placing a piece means compu t ing a valid new region, i.e. one or more c lockwise or ien ted polygons , cons t ruc ted f rom the previous one by removing the par t co r re spond ing to the piece which is placed. The da ta s t ructure and the p rocedures requi red to examine where pieces can be placed and how to pe r fo rm the placing of the pieces are also descr ibed. Al l puzzles so far presented to the p r o g r a m have been successfully solved in a r easonab le t ime. K e y W o r d s and Phrases : art if icial intelligence, p roblem solving, pa t te rn recogni t ion , puzzles, po lygona l puzzles, j igsaw puzzles, back t r ack p rog ramming , tree search a lgor i thms ; C R Categor ies : 3.6, 3.63, 3.64 482 Algor i t hms L.D. F o s d i c k and A.K. Cline, Ed i to r s Submittal of an algorithm for consideration for publication in Communications of the A C M implies unrestricted use of the algorithm within a computer is permissible. Copyright © 1973, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. General permission to republish, but not for profit, all or part of this material is granted provided that ACM's copyright notice is given and that reference is made to the publication, to its date of issue, and to the fact that reprinting privileges were granted by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery.


Through the U visa, the Immigration and Nationality Act offers a means to obtain legal immigration status for undocumented victims of domestic violence and other specified crimes who cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of those crimes. In order to apply for such a visa, a crime victim must obtain law enforcement certification that he or she has been, is being, or will be helpful to the investigation or prosecution of the crime. This Note argues that the Act's provision of discretion to local law enforcement officials in the decision of whether to grant U visa certification requests violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, at least as applied to battered undocumented Latina immigrants in Suffolk County, New York. The Note uses certification denials to critique the equal protection doctrine in the United States and to show how the Inter-American human rights system's conception of equal protection would better address the intersectional discrimination faced by undocumented victims of domestic violence. The Note discusses the ways in which interrelated forms of discrimination lead to unconstitutional denials of U visa certification requests. It then predicts the outcome of a potential suit based on the equal protection violation inherent in a discriminatory certification denial before domestic courts and before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. It argues that such a suit would have a much greater chance of success in the latter system. Finally, acknowledging the limited practical effect of a successful claim before the Commission, the Note proposes a domestic grassroots movement to more meaningfully address the intersectional discrimination that faces battered undocumented women.


The Late Ordovician to early Silurian Benambran Orogeny had widespread effects in the Lachlan Orogen of southeastern Australia, including the Bendigo, Tabberabbera and Narooma zones. Much of the deformation in these zones has been attributed to formation of subduction complexes from accretion of Ordovician turbidites and has been a subject of ongoing controversy. The Narooma Zone subduction complex is more widely accepted because of the abundance of disrupted units, evidence for imbricated units and its metamorphic character. Imbricated and disrupted units consistent with a subduction accretion model also characterise the Tabberabbera Zone. A subduction complex model for the Bendigo Zone has been contested. Deep seismic profiles show a largely transparent upper crust down to ∼18 km of inferred Ordovician turbidites with a layered middle to lower crust of mafic volcanic rocks as shown by the Heathcote Greenstone Belt being traced from the surface to the middle crust. During the Benambran Orogeny, the Bendigo Zone is interpreted as a rapidly formed mega-subduction complex with ∼50 km crustal thickness. This is an exceptional thickness and much thicker than subduction complexes in Japan and the Barbados Accretionary Complex but more comparable with southeastern Alaska where the Chugach terrane (subduction complex) and underplated mafic igneous rocks have a present-day crustal thickness up to 30 km. Anomalous thick crust of the Bendigo Zone subduction complex is related to the huge volume of subduction inputs, with Cambrian fore-arc–backarc crust and the overlying thick Ordovician turbidite fan, resulting in a double décollement associated with the megathrust now represented by the Mount William Fault. The Benambran Orogeny is an example of widespread shortening reflecting rapidly initiated subduction zones with a short-lived history rather than long-lived subduction typical of the modern eastern Pacific Ocean.


Global and local patterns of Internet diffusion present Mexico with a major opportunity to help realize its democratic and foreign-policy goals of a more "Global Mexico." To accomplish this, it needs to focus on key objectives for using the Internet as a global media, and meet key challenges to access, security, learning and education, governance, and diplomacy, such as adapting to the democratization of diplomacy in the digital age. In this paper, I argue for what should be the principal aim of policy for Mexico related to the Internet as one of the most significant international technological developments of the twenty-first century. I then explain why this goal is so important by considering Mexico's place in what I have called the "New Internet World." Finally, I will outline the major challenges to achieving this aim. This text was prepared for delivery at a conference, entitled "Global Mexico: Interests and Principles of Foreign Policy," organized by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico and the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics and the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The conference was held from 2 to 3 May, 2016 at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mexico City.


Dipylidium caninum also refered to as the double-pored tapeworm is a cyclophyllidean cestode that commonly infects dogs and cats. Mammals act as definite hosts with intermediate hosts being dog and cat flea, the Ctenocephalides canis and Ctenocephalides catis respectively. The dog lice, Trichodectes canis and human flea (Pulex irritans) also transmit Dipylidium caninum infection. Infants and young children are at high risk of acquiring infection. Majority of the infections are due to close association with pet dog and cats. Humans are accidental hosts who acquire infection by ingestion of infected dog and cat fleas. We report a rare case of Dipylidium caninum infection in a 9 year old girl who could have acquired infection by consuming food contaminated with infected fleas.


In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court denied standing to proponents of the California initiative prohibiting same-sex marriage, who wished to appeal a federal district judge's decision declaring the initiative unconstitutional. As suggested by the dissent, Hollingsworth has severe consequences for the twenty-four states in which the people can bypass elected officials and legislate directly through the initiative. The Supreme Court has established a clear constitutional divide between state and federal standing requirements for initiatives. Whereas states provide generous standing to proponents so officials do not exclusively control the defense of the people's initiative process, the Supreme Court has instead narrowed federal defense of initiatives to state officials or state agents.As federal litigation is virtually certain on most important initiatives, the Hollingsworth approach to standing distorts the initiative process, allowing government officials to nullify initiatives by refusing to defend them in federal court. They may do so for political as well as legal reasons, raising significant concerns for initiative drafters across the political spectrum. Federal standing doctrine creates an uneven playing field in which, often, no one is entitled to defend an initiative in federal court if officials refuse. A decision invalidating a measure thus becomes unappealable.This Article analyzes state and federal approaches, and proposes multiple methods to resolve the standing gap exposed by Hollingsworth. First, a special attorney could be appointed to represent the state if government officials declined to defend a measure. Second, states could deputize proponents as state agents and fill in the elements found missing in Hollingsworth. Third, states could set bounties for defending an initiative, analogous to a qui tam action. Fourth, proponents could be given a financial stake by assessing a filing fee, refundable if they successfully defend their initiatives. Finally, states could follow the strategy accepted in United States v. Windsor by compelling officials to take the ministerial actions necessary to appeal a measure's invalidation even if they believed it unconstitutional.


The global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems industry blossomed in the 1990's automating back
office operations. Although these systems have become essential infrastructure for many companies, it
is now
critical that these transaction based systems are extended to support more strategic and complex decisions. The
demand for more effective decision making tools has
seen the move away from Decision Support Systems to more complex solutions. Accordingly ERP vendors have developed a range of solutions focussing on business
intelligence (BI) in various functional areas. How
ever the question must now be asked, "What is the status of BI
solution integration in Australian companies and what is the nature of the adoption and use of these various
solutions"? This paper adopts a two pronged research methodology. The first methodology involved a
web
based survey to identify BI implementation patterns
. This was then expanded upon using a case study
approach. The research identified an evolutionary
maturity to the way in which BI solutions are adopted in
Australian companies. --ACIS 2006


Lung tissue specimens were taken during surgery from middle-aged men with either lung cancer (LC, n = 54) or a nonneoplastic lung disease (n = 20). Aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH), 7-ethoxycoumarin Odeethylase (ECDE), epoxide hydrolase (EH), glutathione S-transferase (GST), and UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UDPGT) activities and glu tathione and malondialdehyde contents were determined in 12,000 x g supernatant fractions from nontumorous parenchyma! tissues. Interindividual differences in enzyme activities ranged from 11to 440fold, and glutathione content varied by 17-fold; the values showed unimodal distributions. AHH, ECDE, EH, and UDPGT activities were significantly and positively correlated to each other; a significant negative correlation was found between GST and the other enzymes. A relationship between enzyme activity and number of cigarettes smoked (pack-years) was found only for GST. Ignoring detailed smoking histories in the 6month period preceding surgery, no difference was found in enzyme activities or glutathione content between LC and nonneoplastic lung disease patients or between smokers and nonsmokers. However, when the number of days since stopping smoking was considered, in smokers a significant increase was found for AHH, EH, and UDPGT activities and a significant decrease was found for GST activity, as compared to nonsmokers. LC patients who had smoked until the day before surgery had higher activities of AHH, ECDE, EH, and UDPGT than nonsmokers, while GST activity was reduced by one-third. The activities of these enzymes returned to the basal level found in nonsmokers within 59 (AHH), 108 (EH), 67 (UDPGT), and 40 (GST) days. LC patients who were recent smokers (within 30 days prior to surgery) had significantly induced AHH and ECDE activities when compared with smoking non neoplastic lung disease patients. These results show that pulmonary drug metabolism can be altered by tobacco smoking and that these effects can last 40 to 108 days after cessation of smoking. These new findings should be considered in studies on the role of carcinogen-metabolizing enzymes in determining susceptibility to lung cancer.


In applied econometric literature, the causal inferences are often made based on highly temporally aggregated or systematically sampled data. A number of theoretical studies have pointed out that temporal aggregation has distorting effects on causal inference and systematic sampling preserves the direction of causality. This paper examines the issue in detail by plugging in theoretical cross covariances into the limiting values of least squares estimates. The asymptotic distributions of the estimates of systematically sampled process are expressed in terms of the cross covariances of the disaggregated process. An extensive Monte Carlo study is conducted to examine small sample results. Quite contrary to the stationary case where systematic sampling preserves the direction of Granger causality, this paper shows that systematic sampling of integrated series may induce spurious causality, even if, they are used in differenced form. It is observed that in general the most distorting causal inferences are likely at low levels of aggregation where the order of sampling-span just exceeds the actual causal lag. It is found that if the uni-directional causality runs from a non-stationary series to a stationary or a non-stationary series, there is a high likelihood of detecting spurious bi-directional causality


New fossils referable to the Cancridae Latreille, 1802 extend the known stratigraphic range of the family into the middle Eocene and the geographic range into South America. Each genus within the family has been reevaluated within the context of the new material. A suite of diagnostic characters for each cancrid genus makes it possible to assign both extant and fossil specimens to genera and the two cancrid subfamilies, the Cancrinae Latreille, 1802, and Lobocarcininae Beurlen, 1930, based solely upon dorsal carapace morphology. Cheliped morphology is useful in assigning genera to the family but is significantly less useful at the subfamily and generic level. Each of the four subgenera sensu Nations (1975), Cancer Linnaeus, 1758, Glebocarcinus Nations, 1975, Metacarcinus A. Milne Edwards, 1862, and Romaleon Gistl, 1848, are elevated to full generic status. Additionally, three new genera and three new species accommodate the new, as well as some previously described taxa, and include Anatolikos new genus, Anisospinos berglundi new genus and species, and Notocarcinus sulcatus new genus and species and several new combinations. Recognition of new genera and reassignment of several species within the Cancrinae indicates that that subfamily may have arisen in the southern hemisphere, contrary to the previous interpretation of the subfamily as a primarily North Pacific or Tethyan group. The Lobocarcininae was primarily a Tethyan group.


Abstract: Sustainable forest management practices and the increased interest of plantation forestry in species mixtures require an understanding of individual-tree growth in complex and diverse forests. Individual-tree growth has been found to be affected by factors such as species identity and size of the target tree as well as of neighboring trees, neighbor density and abiotic factors. However, most of these studies have been conducted in plantations or mixed forests with a very limited number of species. We conducted our study in a subtropical forest in China, which was very species rich and highly heterogeneous with regard to topography (slope inclination and aspect, elevation) and successional status. Prior to our study the forest was subjected to an exceptional snow break event. We asked whether individual-tree basal area increment (BAI) over three growing seasons following the snow break event was related to local biotic and abiotic conditions. We hypothesized that individual-tree BAI is negatively affected by local neighborhood competition, positively affected by local neighborhood diversity, negatively related to slope inclination, and positively related to aspect to south. Individual-tree BAI of four different species was mainly affected by tree size, local neighborhood competition and species identity. Contrary to our expectations, we did not observe significant effects of local neighborhood functional diversity and abiotic conditions. However, we did find a negative effect of plot functional diversity on BAI. This finding may be explained by a negative correlation of plot functional diversity and snow break damage, which was observed in mid- and late-successional stages. The disturbance event did considerably change the competitive local neighborhood interactions by reducing competition, which increased the BAI of target trees in more disturbed/more diverse plots.


A geometric 3-configuration is a collection of points and straight lines, typically in the Euclidean plane, in which every point has 3 lines passing through it and every line has 3 points lying on it, and we say that such configuration is symmetric if there are non-trivial isometries of the plane that map the configuration to itself. Many symmetric 3-configurations may be easily constructed with computer algebra systems using algebraic techniques: e.g., constructing a number of symmetry classes of points and lines, by various means, and then determining the position of a final class of points or lines by solving some polynomial equation. In contrast, this paper presents a number of ruler-and-compass-type constructions for exactly constructing various types of symmetric 3-configurations, as long as the vertices of an initial regular m-gon are explicitly provided. In addition, it provides methods for constructing chirally symmetric 3-configurations given an underlying unlabelled reduced Levi graph, for extending these constructions to produce dihedrally symmetric 3-configurations, and for constructing 3-configurations corresponding to all 3-orbit and 4-orbit reduced Levi graphs that contain a pair of parallel arcs. Notably, most of the configurations described are movable: that is, they have at least one continuous parameter.


The storage vendors have their own standards for the management of their storage resources but it creates interoperability issues on different storage products. With the recent advent of the new protocol named Storage Management Initiative-Specification (SMI-S), the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has taken a major step in order to make the storage management more effective and organized. SMI-S has replaced its predecessor Storage Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and it has been categorized as an ISO standard. The main objective of the SMI-S is to provide interoperability management of the heterogeneous storage vendor systems by unifying the Storage Area Network (SAN) management, hence making the dreams of the network managers come true. SMI-S is a guide to build systems using modules that 'plug' together. SMI-S compliant storage modules that use CIM 'language' and adhere to CIM schema interoperate in a system regardless of which vendor built them. SMI-S is object-oriented, any physical or abstract storage-related elements can be defined as a CIM object. SMI-S can unify the SAN management systems and it works well with the heterogeneous storage environment. SMI-S has offered a cross-platform, cross-vendor storage resource management. This thesis work discusses the use of SMI-S at Compuverde which is a storage solution provider, located in the heart of the Karlskrona, the southeastern part of Sweden. Compuverde was founded by Stefan Bernbo in Karlskrona,Sweden. Just like all others leading storage providers, Compuverde has also decided to deploy the Storage Management Initiative-Specification (SMI-S) to manage their Storage Area Network (SAN) and to achieve interoperability. This work was done to help Compuverde to deploy the SMI-S protocol for the management of the Storage Area Network (SAN) which, among many of its features, would create alerts/traps in case of a disk failure in the SAN. In this way, they would be able to keep the data of their clients, safe and secure and keep their reputation for being reliable in the storage industry. Since Compuverde regularly use Microsoft Windows and Microsoft have started to support SMI-S for storage provisioning in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), this work was done using the SCVMM 2012 and the Windows Server 2012.The SMI-S provider which was used for this work was QNAP TS- 469 Pro.


The structure of the surface layer of the soil is strongly influenced by soil tillage practices, with important consequences for the hydraulic properties and soil moisture dynamics in the top soil layer. In this study, during four 28‐d periods, we monitored L‐band brightness temperatures and infrared (IR) temperatures over bare silt loam soil plots with different soil surface structure: tilled, seedbed, and compacted plots. Differences in absolute and normalized L‐band brightness temperatures between the plots indicated that plot specific roughness, soil moisture contents, and soil hydraulic properties might be inverted from L‐band brightness temperatures using a coupled radiative transfer, roughness correction, and soil hydrological model. The inversely estimated surface roughness parameters compared well with those derived from laser profiler measurements. The estimated saturated water contents of the tilled and seedbed plots were larger than the one of the compacted plot, and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity was smaller in the former plots than in the compacted plot for more negative pressure heads. These differences in hydraulic properties translated into larger dynamics of the simulated soil moisture during a 28‐d measurement period in the tilled and seedbed plots than in the compacted plot. This difference could be confirmed qualitatively but not quantitatively by in situ soil moisture measurements. Furthermore, differences in simulated actual evaporation rates between the plots were confirmed by observed differences in measured IR temperatures. The results indicate that effects of soil management on soil surface roughness and soil hydraulic properties could be inferred from L‐band brightness temperatures.


The two most important changes in the urban spaces of the walled cities of Hungary in the period between the end of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth were the growth of the outer cities and the demolition of the city walls. This essay examines the consequences of these changes from the perspective of the social and political consequences of the shifts that took place in the concept of the city and the borders of the urban space, considering a specifi c case on the one hand, the city of Kassa (or Košice), and national tendencies on the other. The physical growth of the city and the gradual urbanization of the outer cities not only led to changes in the prevailing understanding of the "city" (which earlier had been identifi ed as the area within the city walls), but made increasingly inevitable the creation, in a space that had been fragmented by the various privileges enjoyed by some of its inhabitants, of a legally unifi ed city, as well as the incorporation of the outer cities, which had varying statuses, into the jurisdiction of the municipality. This, however, confl icted with the prevailing system of noble privileges, and the situation went unresolved until 1848, when the revolution made possible the transformation of the political structure of the entire country.


Rapid feedback is a core component of mastery learning, but feedback on open-ended work requires days or weeks in most classes today. This paper introduces PeerStudio, an assessment platform that leverages the large number of students' peers in online classes to enable rapid feedback on in-progress work. Students submit their draft, give rubric-based feedback on two peers' drafts, and then receive peer feedback. Students can integrate the feedback and repeat this process as often as they desire. In MOOC deployments, the median student received feedback in just twenty minutes. Rapid feedback on in-progress work improves course outcomes: in a controlled experiment, students' final grades improved when feedback was delivered quickly, but not if delayed by 24 hours. More than 3,600 students have used PeerStudio in eight classes, both massive and in-person. This research demonstrates how large classes can leverage their scale to encourage mastery through rapid feedback and revision.


"Accelerating growth and poverty reduction, and the ultimate achievement of structural transformation, are the critical policy challenges in present day Ethiopia. This paper examines relevant growth options in terms of their impact on overall growth and poverty reduction in the country. It deploys a fixed-price semi-input-output model and a flexible-price economy-wide multi-market model for that purpose. The paper finds that agricultural growth can induce higher overall growth and faster poverty reduction than non-agricultural growth, although the latter can also have large growth effects in some cases. Among sub-sectors within agriculture, staple crops have stronger growth linkages. Decomposition of these effects also reveals that consumption linkages are much stronger than production linkages, i.e., the impact of increased consumption demand due to growth (agricultural and non-agricultural) is much larger than that of the corresponding expansion in input demand. Moreover, non-agricultural sectors have to grow in order to match growing supply of agricultural products and increasing demand for non-agricultural products. Otherwise, falling relative prices of agricultural products may dampen the realized gains in growth and poverty reduction." from Authors' Abstract