The rapid and increasingly universal acceptance of online transactions has resulted in governments providing an increasingly wide range of online services to the general public. The successful experience of launching e-government portals and services, including transactional ones, in the industrialised countries has led to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to adopt similar such models for a wide array of public service entities. Although there is now a considerable literature on the various aspects of the efficiency, effectiveness and customer satisfaction with regard to e-government services, the majority of the associated analytical frameworks and models were not designed within the sociocultural context of the Arabian Gulf and its business environment. The purpose of this study is therefore to identify and present a framework on the quality determinants of the e-services which are currently provided by the UAE's Ministry of Interior (MOI) to the public. As these services are already in place, it will focus in particular on a theoretical model and the mechanisms by which these services can be adapted and enhanced.


We present the results of the Gravitational LEnsing Accuracy Testing 2008 (GREAT08) Challenge, a blind analysis challenge to infer weak gravitational lensing shear distortions from images. The primary goal was to stimulate new ideas by presenting the problem to researchers outside the shear measurement community. Six GREAT08 Team methods were presented at the launch of the Challenge and five additional groups submitted results during the 6-month competition. Participants analyzed 30 million simulated galaxies with a range in signal-to-noise ratio, point spread function ellipticity, galaxy size and galaxy type. The large quantity of simulations allowed shear measurement methods to be assessed at a level of accuracy suitable for currently planned future cosmic shear observations for the first time. Different methods perform well in different parts of simulation parameter space and come close to the target level of accuracy in several of these. A number of fresh ideas have emerged as a result of the Challenge including a re-examination of the process of combining information from different galaxies, which reduces the dependence on realistic galaxy modelling. The image simulations will become increasingly sophisticated in future GREAT Challenges, meanwhile the GREAT08 simulations remain as a benchmark for additional developments in shear measurement algorithms.


The recent multiyear drought over California was characterized by large precipitation deficits and abnormally high temperatures during both wet and dry seasons. This study investigates and quantifies the contributions of precipitation and temperature anomalies to the development of the multiyear drought with a set of modeling experiments where the anomalies are either removed or randomly replaced with other historical observations. The study reveals that precipitation deficits have been largely responsible for producing the extreme agricultural drought (i.e., large soil moisture deficits) while warmer temperatures have only marginally intensified the drought. However, the warmer temperatures over the high‐elevation areas during the wet season have contributed equally or more than the precipitation deficits to the reduction of snowpack. The interplay between temperature and precipitation anomalies in space and time also appears to be important for the drought development.


Thomas Jonathan Jackson was the most renowned and skillful commander of Confederate troops in the Civil War. Not even Lee or Stuart matched his purely military intelligence--his intransigence at Bull Run (which earned him the name "Stonewall"), his knack for knowing when to attack and retreat, which he showed throughout the Shenandoah campaign, his tactical brilliance at Chancellorsville. He was stern, a strict Calvinist, a single-minded officer for whom religion and the army were everything. Yet he had the undivided loyalty of the men he commanded. This classic biography by the British historian G. F. R. Henderson, first published in 1898, is a meticulous study of Jackson's military campaigns from the Mexican War where he served under Winfield Scott to his death in 1863 at Chancellorsville. A romantic view of a great hero, inflected by the political views of the day, this work has remained a standard account of one of the Civil War's great warriors, here introduced by one of the Civil War's best historians.


The purpose of this contribution is to retrace a movement of extension and integration from foreign language teaching to plurilingual education. Extension in so far as foreign language learning is more and more seen as one of the most important goals for school systems. Integration in so far as foreign language learning may be acknowledged today as a fundamental part of a more general plurilingual education serving several aims well beyond developing communicative competence in different languages. Within the Modern languages projects of the Council of Europe focus has shifted onto the place and function of languages in the whole curriculum and their key role in the educational process. This is largely due to a reinterpretation of the notion of plurilingual (and pluricultural) competence and to the inclusion of the language of schooling in the analyses and proposals regarding languages in/for education.


Objectives Use electronic health records Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to assess the comorbidity burden of ASD in children and young adults. Study Design A retrospective prevalence study was performed using a distributed query system across three general hospitals and one pediatric hospital. Over 14,000 individuals under age 35 with ASD were characterized by their co-morbidities and conversely, the prevalence of ASD within these comorbidities was measured. The comorbidity prevalence of the younger (Age<18 years) and older (Age 18–34 years) individuals with ASD was compared. Results 19.44% of ASD patients had epilepsy as compared to 2.19% in the overall hospital population (95% confidence interval for difference in percentages 13.58–14.69%), 2.43% of ASD with schizophrenia vs. 0.24% in the hospital population (95% CI 1.89–2.39%), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) 0.83% vs. 0.54% (95% CI 0.13–0.43%), bowel disorders (without IBD) 11.74% vs. 4.5% (95% CI 5.72–6.68%), CNS/cranial anomalies 12.45% vs. 1.19% (95% CI 9.41–10.38%), diabetes mellitus type I (DM1) 0.79% vs. 0.34% (95% CI 0.3–0.6%), muscular dystrophy 0.47% vs 0.05% (95% CI 0.26–0.49%), sleep disorders 1.12% vs. 0.14% (95% CI 0.79–1.14%). Autoimmune disorders (excluding DM1 and IBD) were not significantly different at 0.67% vs. 0.68% (95% CI −0.14-0.13%). Three of the studied comorbidities increased significantly when comparing ages 0–17 vs 18–34 with p<0.001: Schizophrenia (1.43% vs. 8.76%), diabetes mellitus type I (0.67% vs. 2.08%), IBD (0.68% vs. 1.99%) whereas sleeping disorders, bowel disorders (without IBD) and epilepsy did not change significantly. Conclusions The comorbidities of ASD encompass disease states that are significantly overrepresented in ASD with respect to even the patient populations of tertiary health centers. This burden of comorbidities goes well beyond those routinely managed in developmental medicine centers and requires broad multidisciplinary management that payors and providers will have to plan for.


In recent years, the governments of the United States, Australia, and Norway have developed and launched informational multimedia campaigns targeted at dissuading unwanted groups of asylum-seeking migrants and have disseminated these media in strategic international locales. This project investigates the visual and textual facets of these deterrence campaigns using critical narrative analysis. Asylum seekers globally occupy a precarious liminal position; this article interrogates the processes of governmentality at work in this liminal space. Specifically, I analyze the ways that government-funded deterrence campaigns offer material directives that (1) discursively bifurcate the nature of the threats posed when individuals seek asylum, and (2) omit requisite information about migrants' human right to seek asylum, thereby advancing strategic ignorance in their audiences.


The accounting records of the Soho Foundry, an organisation set up in the late eighteenth century display a close similarity to modem accounting processes. This paper discusses the organisation of the foundry and its ledger, as a reflection of that organisation, during the early years of operation. The Soho Foundry was unique in as much as it was the first factory built to solely manufacture steam engines and as may be expected the organisation of the foundry reflected the innovation of the design of its product. The accounting system employed also reflected a high degree of sophistication.


Mixing theory is important for its relevance in understanding some of the most fundamental problems involving bread dough flows, and for its practical impact in connection with bakery industry and other food industries. Mixing is a crucial operation in the bakery industry. The bread dough is a very complex material, considered viscoelastic whose behavior depends on moisture content and temperature. The aim of this article is to develop advanced technology for modeling bread dough mixing, in order to provide a predictive capability of optimum design parameters of dough mixers using computational techniques.


Microfossil assemblages and their shell geochemistry are widely used in paleocean-ography, but they can be significantly altered by subtle variations in preservation state. Clay-rich, hemipelagic sediments of the Paleogene Kilwa Group of coastal Tanzania host calcareous microfossils that are exceptionally preserved, as evidenced by morphological, taxonomic, and geochemical data. The planktonic foraminifera are preserved as glassy, translucent tests with original microgranular wall textures that resemble well-preserved modern specimens, and they arguably yield geochemical values that are relatively unaffected by recrystallization. The calcareous nannofossils are extraordinarily diverse and represented by unique assemblage compositions that include dissolution-susceptible taxa, especially holo-coccoliths and rhabdoliths, and fragile and very small (< 3-mu m) heterococcoliths, many of which are new taxa. Notably, the extant, deep-photic-zone taxon Gladiolithus is documented for the first time in the pre-Quaternary fossil record. The Kilwa Group calcareous nannofossil diversities are consistently higher than all coeval assemblages and provide a benchmark against which to compare other Paleogene biodiversity data. Highest diversities are preserved in hemipelagic, clay-rich lithologies and the greatest losses occur in lithified, carbonate-rich sediments. Most of the lost diversity, however, is confined to distinct taxonomic groups (holococcoliths and Syracosphaerales), and in general the preservational potential of Paleogene coccolithophores was greater than in the modern oceans because a larger proportion of the biodiversity fell within the larger size fractions. For both foraminifera and coccolithophores, incorporation into impermeable clay-rich sediments that have never been deeply buried appears to have been critical in producing this Konservat-Lagerstatte preservation.


Prior accounting research uses the width of management range forecasts as a measure of managers' uncertainty about future earnings. However, range forecasts do not provide any information about the likelihood that future earnings will fall within the forecast bounds. The absence of information about forecast confidence is important because without an explicit or implicit confidence level, the width of the range does not necessarily convey information about the uncertainty of future earnings realizations. In this study, we develop a measure of the confidence levels associated with management range forecasts, referred to as implied confidence. We find our measure varies positively with ex-post confidence levels and that it outperforms the use of forecast width and analyst dispersion when predicting the likelihood that realized earnings fall within the forecasted range. Importantly, after controlling for implied confidence, the conditional association between width and ex-post hit rate changes from positive to negative, consistent with the use of forecast width as a proxy for manager-specific uncertainty. We consider several possible determinants of confidence levels and find that managers issue range forecasts with higher confidence levels when they face higher litigation risk and have a longer forecasting history.


India has 461 tribal groups with a population of 677.68 (8.08%) lakhs, account for about onefourth of the world tribal population (1991 census). The state Andhra Pradesh consists of 33 tribal groups with a population of 4.2 (6.31%) million. A large chunk of tribal population in the state is mainly concentrated in the nine scheduled districts like Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, West Godavari, East Godavari, Warangal, Khammam, Adilabad and Kurnool. The district Visakhapatnam has a tribal population of 3,54,127, which forms 13.4%, out of the total population. The major tribal groups found in the district are Bagata, Kotiya, Kondadora, Nookadora, Konda Kammara, Konda Kapu, Gadaba, Mali, Porja, Mannedora, Khond and Valmiki. Among these tribes, Khond, Porja and Gadaba are considered to be the most primitive tribes. Majority of the tribal population in the district stand below the poverty line and facing the problems like indebtedness, illiteracy, malnutrition and exploitation. The interior tribal's still live relatively in isolation. Objective: The main objective of this paper is aimed to discuss the socio economic culture and quality life of tribal people in ITDA paderu area of visakhapatnam district, their socio-economic and cultural background. The study was carried out in the ITDA area of Paderu, which falls under Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. This paper is prepared mostly on the basis of the qualitative data with intensive fieldwork observations in the Visakha agency area, which falls under the sub-plan area of Paderu ITDA. During the Fifth five-year plan period for tribal development the government has evolved a new strategy of tribal sub-plan. The main objective of the sub-plan strategy is to integrate all the tribal development programmes including education in order to initiate these through a single administrative structure of ITDA. The integrated tribal development, sub-plan strategies are considered to be a landmark in the history of tribal development. The formal education institutions in the Visakha agency area are functioning under the control of the ITDA, Paderu.


The dynamic back-action caused by electromagnetic forces (radiation pressure) in optical and microwave cavities is of growing interest. Back-action cooling, for example, is being pursued as a means of achieving the quantum ground state of macroscopic mechanical oscillators. Work in the optical domain has revolved around millimeter- or micrometer-scale structures using the radiation pressure force. By comparison, in microwave devices, low-loss superconducting structures have been used for gradient-force-mediated coupling to a nanomechanical oscillator of picogram mass. In this thesis, two different nanometer-scale structures that use combinations of gradient and radiation pressure optical forces are described theoretically and demonstrated experimentally. These structures merge the fields of cavity optomechanics and nanomechanics into nano-optomechanical systems (NOMS). The first device, the Zipper optomechanical cavity, consists of a pair of doubly-clamped nanoscale beams separated by approximately 100 nanometers, each beam having a mass of 20 picograms and being patterned with a quasi-1D photonic crystal bandgap cavity. The optical mode of the coupled system is exquisitely sensitive to differential motion of the beams, producing optomechanical coupling right at the fundamental limit set by optical diffraction. The mechanical modes of the beam probed with a background sensitivity only a factor of 4 above the standard quantum limit, and the application of less than a milliwatt of optical power is shown to increase the mechanical rigidity of the system by almost an order of magnitude. The second device focuses on just one of the doubly-clamped nanoscale beams of the Zipper. We show that, in addition to a photonic bandgap cavity, the periodic patterning of the beam also produces a phononic bandgap cavity with localized mechanical modes having frequencies in the microwave regime. We call these photonic and phononic crystal bandgap cavities optomechanical crystals. Because the optical and mechanical modes occupy a volume more than 100,000 times smaller than the volume of a single human cell, the optomechanical interaction in this system is again at the fundamental limit set by optical diffraction. The miniscule effective volume of the mechanical mode corresponds to effective motional masses in the femtogram regime, which, coupled with the enormous optomechanical interaction and high optical and mechanical quality factors, allows transduction of microwave-frequency mechanical motion nearly at the standard quantum limit, with the standard quantum limit easily within reach with simple modifications of the experimental apparatus. The combination of the small motional mass and strong optomechanical coupling allows each trapped photon to drive motion of an acoustic mode with a force more than 15 times the weight of the structure. This provides a powerful method for optically actuating microwave-frequency mechanical oscillators on a chip, and we demonstrate an on-chip phonon laser that emits over 1012 microwave-frequency phonons per second with a ratio of frequency to linewidth of 2 million—characteristics similar to those of the first optical lasers. With the ability to readily interconvert photons and microwave-frequency phonons on the surface of a microchip, new chip-scale technologies can be created. We discuss the future of optomechanical crystals and provide new methods of calculating all the otptomechanical properties of the structures.


Applications of density-functional theory (DFT) in computational chemistry rely on an approximate exchange-correlation (xc) functional. However, existing approximations can fail dramatically for open-shell molecules, in particular for transition-metal complexes or radicals. Most importantly, predicting energy differences between different spin-states with approximate exchange-correlation functionals remains extremely challenging. Formally, it is known that the exact xc functional should be spin-state dependent, but none of the available approximations feature such an explicit spin-state dependence [C. R. Jacob and M. Reiher, Int. J. Quantum Chem., 2012, 112, 3661-3684]. Thus, to find novel approximations for the xc functional for open-shell systems, the development of spin-state dependent xc functionals appears to be a promising avenue. Here, we set out to shed light on the spin-state dependence of the xc functional by investigating the underlying xc holes, which we extract from configuration interaction calculations for model systems. We analyze the similarities and differences between the xc holes of the lowest-energy singlet and triplet states of the dihydrogen molecule, the helium atom, and the lithium dimer. To shed further light on the spin-state dependence of these xc holes we also discuss exact conditions that can be derived from the spin structure of the reduced two-electron density matrix. Altogether, our results suggest several possible routes towards the construction of explicitly spin-state dependent approximations for the xc functional.


BACKGROUNDAwake craniotomy with intraoperative electrical mapping is a reliable method to minimize the risk of permanent deficit during surgery for low-grade glioma located within eloquent areas classically considered inoperable. However, it could be argued that preservation of functional sites might lead to a lesser degree of tumor removal. To the best of our knowledge, the extent of resection has never been directly compared between traditional and awake procedures. OBJECTIVEWe report for the first time a series of patients who underwent 2 consecutive surgeries without and with awake mapping. METHODSNine patients underwent surgery for a low-grade glioma in functional sites under general anesthesia in other institutions. The resection was subtotal in 3 cases and partial in 6 cases. There was a postoperative worsening in 3 cases. We performed a second surgery in the awake condition with intraoperative electrostimulation. The resection was performed according to functional boundaries at both the cortical and subcortical levels. RESULTSPostoperative magnetic resonance imaging showed that the resection was complete in 5 cases and subtotal in 4 cases (no partial removal) and that it was improved in all cases compared with the first surgery (P = .04). There was no permanent neurological worsening. Three patients improved compared with the presurgical status. All patients returned to normal professional and social lives. CONCLUSIONOur results demonstrate that awake surgery, known to preserve the quality of life in patients with low-grade glioma, is also able to significantly improve the extent of resection for lesions located in functional regions.


"If only our Counter-culture were a bit more articulate and sensitive to literature, it could work together with literary scholarship and learn from Romantic insights into the political function of the imagination.... Mr Woodring's book opens up these issues at a most opportune time, not only for a revaluation of the English Romantics, but also for the teaching of literature in an age of political confusion and sheer ignorance." Although these remarks could have been written this morning, they were actually published in 1971, in a review by Rudolph Storch (TWC, II: 32-36) of Carl Wood-ring's Politics in English Romantic Poetry. The book appeared the same year as the Wordsworth Bicentenary and the founding of The Wordsworth Circle, and may have begun the revolution in literary studies in which we participated and celebrate. Before ideological and identity criticism, before theory and cultural studies, through close and subtle readings of some major and familiar poets and their contemporaries, Woodring identified the energies poets derived from political life and the conflicts they encountered. Before feminist scholars awakened readers to their presence, Woodring used Helen Maria Williams as a biographical paradigm for poets. Like so much else in the book, it was prophetic. Woodring published Politics in English Romantic Poetry when, apart from politics, literary studies were enjoying golden hours, as I believe we do again now, great teachers, gifted critics, learned scholars, and accomplished writers published books that engaged with literature and with those who wanted to study it. The emphasis was on formalism, new criticism, history of ideas, comparative studies, and structuralism; the required readings included Cleanth Brooks, Kenneth Burke, Northrop Frye, Wayne Booth, Raymond Williams, Foucault, the Freudians, the Marxists, Germanic-philosophic studies, the visionary, as in Bloom's The Visionary Company, Abram's Natural Supernaturalism, Erdman's Prophets against Empire, the inner life of Hartman's Wordsworth's Poetry, audiences in Richard Altick's English Common Reader, the populist tradition in Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. A literary education in the 60's was still Arnoldian: "Our aim was simple," as Nina Auerbach wrote in her profile of Woodring (TWC, XI:3 [Summer, 1980] 180-183), "to learn everything in the world and to be unyieldingly brilliant about it." But politically, many academics in the 60's, students and faculty, especially Romanticists, were populists, counter-culture, as Storch called it, all in some degree anti-war, anti-authoritarian, and emotionally engaged. But the critical tradition still divided literary life from the political: standard studies such as Crane Brinton's Political Ideas of the English Romanticists (1926) juxtaposed literature and politics, delineated how poetry reflected and deflected the French Revolution, the balancing oppositions of Paine and Burke, Godwin's deviations, a little Bentham, Malthus, Ricardo, culminating in Coleridge, most admired in the 19th century as a political thinker and the subject of Carl Woodring's Politics in the Poetry of Coleridge (1961). While many scholar/critics considered the Romantic writers revolutionary, the politics were tangential, metaphoric, idealistic, philosophical, appealing to those traditional students who would never storm a barricade and surround the Pentagon. In Politics in English Romantic Poetry (1970), Woodring proposed that the political is the "generative force and an argumentative presence" in Romantic poetry, that they are as entwined and inseparable as language and experience. In sweeping, engaging, precise and insightful chapters he demonstrated the drama of interacting political ideas, personal experience, and poetic imagination. Such propositions sound less risky and revolutionary in 2005 than they did in 1970, before neo-historicism, before McGann's Romantic Ideology (1983) which became a landmark work itself, creating the very hegemony (to use his words) that his critique was to replace. …


The risk and return characteristics of a highly diversified investment portfolio are examined in an effort to best assess its potential by means that incorporate both conventional risk estimation and performance evaluation. Estimation of performance variability and downside risk often assumes a constant, stable, average covariance matrix of asset returns and only provides an indirect gauge of capacity for the downside compensation interplay between assets. Performance measurement allows for final conclusions to be drawn, but does not capture the structural characteristics leading to results, nor does it make a distinction between chance occurrence and structural bias. The Mahalanobis distance is employed in order to quantify both aspects simultaneously and document a contemporary shift in advanced pension trust management. The asset liability structures of pension trusts allow for unusually long time horizons and managing agencies typically possess the resources necessary to select and maintain opaquely priced investments in a controlled fashion. A particular pension fund history, involving a period of transition from a conventional, strictly US-based mix of stocks, bonds, real estate and cash, to a more diversified set of eight additional asset classes, allows for discussion of first results and assessment of the trend toward diversification.


In Brief Dynamic Therapy, Hanna Levenson discusses the history, theory, and practice of this approach. Brief dynamic therapy is a time-efficient treatment in which the therapist maintains a focus on specific client issues and goals, all within a basic psychodynamic conceptual framework. Many different approaches fit this general definition, but each shares the brief dynamic characteristics of time management, defined focus, circumscribed goals, active therapist participation, rapid assessment, prompt intervention, an awareness of unconscious processes, and techniques that quickly foster a strong alliance with the client. Dr. Levenson discusses the approach of brief dynamic therapy in general, but focuses on one example, time-limited dynamic psychotherapy (TLDP), to give readers a richer understanding of this popular model. Time-limited dynamic psychotherapy is an integrative approach that uses recent developments in attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology, affective - experiential learning, and systems orientations to help clients with long-standing, dysfunctional ways of relating to others. It provides a specialized method for delineating the client's cyclical maladaptive interpersonal pattern that can lead to symptoms like depression and anxiety. This approach privileges empathic attunement and awareness of moment-to-moment affective shifts within the client, and transactions between the client and therapist. In this book, the author presents and explores this integrative, culturally-sensitive approach, its theory, history, the therapy process, primary change mechanisms, empirical basis, and future developments. This essential primer, amply illustrated with detailed case examples, is perfect for graduate students studying theories of therapy and counseling as well as for seasoned practitioners interested in learning how to do focused, depth work.


The events of Richard IIIs reign and his death in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth are known worldwide through Shakespeares most performed, filmed and translated history play. Digging for Richard III is the page-turning story of how his grave was found, the people behind the discovery and what it tells us. It is the first complete narrative of a project that blended passion, science, luck and detection. Told by a noted archaeologist with access to all the parties involved, it follows the quest from an idea born in an Edinburgh bookshop to the day, fourteen years later, when two archaeologists carefully raised the bones from a car park in Leicester, and the scientific studies that resulted. The vivid tale of a king, his demise and now his rediscovery, this is also an insiders gripping account of how modern archaeology really works, of how clues meticulously assembled and forensically examined are pieced together to create a narrative worthy of the finest detective fiction.


TDL is a typed feature-based representation language and inference system, specifically designed to support highly lexicalized constraint-based grammar theories. Type definitions in TDL consist of type and feature constraints over the full Boolean connectives together with coreferences, thus making TDL Turing-complete. TDL provides open- and closed-world reasoning over types. Working with partially as well as with fully expanded types is possible. Efficient reasoning in TDL is accomplished through specialized modules. In this paper, we will highlight the type/inheritance hierarchy module of TDL and show how we represent conjunctively and disjunctively defined types. Negated types and incompatible types are handled by specialized bottom symbols. Redefining a type only leads to the redefinition of the dependent types, and not to the redefinition of the whole grammar/lexicon. Undefined types are nothing special. Reasoning over the type hierarchy is partially realized by a bit vector encoding of types, similar to the one used in Ait-Kaci's LOGIN. However, the underlying semantics does not harmonize with the open-world assumption of TDL. Thus, we have to generalize the GLB/LUB operation to account for this fact. The system, as presented in the paper, has been fully implemented in Common Lisp and is an integrated part of a large NL system. It has been installed and successfully employed at other sites and runs on various platforms.


NADPH oxidases (NOXs) have been known as respiratory burst oxidase homologues (RBOHs) in plants. To characterize the evolutionary relationships and functions of RBOHs in Brassica rapa, 134 RBOH homologues were identified from 13 plant species, including 14 members (namely BrRBOH01–14) from B. rapa. There presented 47 gene-pairs among 14 BrRBOHs and other RBOHs, consisting of five pairs within B. rapa, and 15 pairs between B. rapa and Arabidopsis thaliana. Together with phylogenetic analysis, the results suggested that whole-genome duplication might have played an important role in BrRBOH gene expansion, and these duplication events occurred after the divergence of the eudicot and the monocot lineages examined. Furthermore, gene expression of RBOHs in both A. thaliana and B. rapa were assayed via qRT–PCR. An RBOH gene, BrRBOH13 in B. rapa, was transformed into wild-type Arabidopsis plants. The transgenic lines with the overexpressed level of BrRBOH13 conferred to be more tolerant to heavy metal lead (0.05 mM) than wild-type plants. Overall, this integrated analysis at genome-wide level has provided some information on the evolutionary relationships among plant-specific NOXs and the coordinated diversification of gene structure and function in B. rapa.


At the conclusion of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth, few options remain for the novel's heroine Lily Bart. Forced out of the upper echelons of Old New York by false accusations of sexual impropriety, Lily recognizes that the only way to end her troubles may be to marry Simon Rosedale, the ardent and wealthy Jewish suitor whom she has rejected repeatedly due to his race. Marriage to Rosedale, however, would come at a cost: she must use the set of stolen love letters in her possession to blackmail her friend-turned-enemy, Bertha Dorset, and reinstate herself in society. Unless Lily satisfies this condition, Rosedale--equally shrewd in matters of money and the heart--will withdraw his long-standing proposal of marriage. As he explains bluntly, "I'm more in love with you than ever, but if I married you now I'd queer myself for good and all, and everything I've worked for all these years would be wasted" (362). In the turn-of-the-century context of The House of Mirth, the verb "queer" refers to the act of decentering identity. For Rosedale, marriage to Lily--if she does not clear her name--would forever render him an outcast. This meaning of "queer" clearly anticipates our contemporary understanding of the word. Queer theorists argue that "queer" resists definition, referring instead to identities that are always in the process of being destabilized and thus cannot be fixed or defined. But "queer" as it is used today usually refers to sexual identity. (1) In contrast, Rosedale's fears about marrying Lily play out in terms of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In stating that a union with Lily would queer him "for good and all," Rosedale indicates that queerness was a part of his identity that he tried to shed as he worked his way up in society. Due to their ethnic difference, Jews like Rosedale were perceived as "queer" at the turn of the century, and this placed them on the border between Americaness and racial otherness. Yet by trying to erase the signs of this difference and be accepted among the white elites, Rosedale--through his potential sameness--threatens to destabilize whiteness itself. Rosedale has attempted to trade an unstable Jewish identity for a more fixed white one and thereby lose some of his queerness, but marriage to Lily--whose social decline parallels his ascent--would reverse this process. It would ironically fix him as "queer," as beyond the pale. In implicating Lily as one who could "queer" him, Rosedale draws attention to her new status on the margins of society and reveals the instability of her sexual, racial, and class identities. This essay examines the relationship between Lily and Rosedale alongside another "queer" alternative available to the novel's heroine once she is cast aside by most of her former friends. At this point in the novel, Lily is also presented with a proposal from the bachelor Lawrence Selden, the gentleman who has won her heart, but whom she does not dare marry due to his lack of adequate funds. But Selden does not ask that Lily share her life with him; instead he proposes that she form a union with another woman. Prompted by his cousin Gerty Farish, Selden puts forth this plan: "[Y]ou and [Gerty] could surely contrive a life together which would put you beyond the need of having to support yourself. Gerty, I know, is eager to make such an arrangement, and would be quite happy in it" (394). In the extensive criticism of The House of Mirth, this other alternative, a same-sex union with Gertrude Farish, the novel's closest approximation to the historical New Woman, goes strangely unremarked. To complicate matters, Gerty also purports to be an admirer of Lawrence Selden. Lily, Gerty, and Selden compose an erotic triangle that, in the words of Eve Sedgwick, is "a sensitive register precisely for delineating relationships of power and meaning, and for making graphically intelligible the play of desire and identification" (27). As a testament to the triangulated relationship between Selden and the two women, the proposal of marriage that Selden never makes is displaced onto his proposed union of Gerty and Lily. …


It was as a poet that Samuel Beckett launched himself in the little reviews of 1930s Paris, and as a poet that he ended his career. The Collected Poems is the most complete edition of Beckett's poetry and verse translations ever to be published, as well as the first critical edition. It establishes a significant new canon, and the commentary draws on a wide range of published sources, manuscripts and Beckett's extensive correspondence. The notes place each poem in context, detailing the history and circumstances of its composition; they indicate significant variants and help explain obscure turns of phrase and allusions (frequently sourced to Beckett's notebooks); they also identify resonances between poems and across Beckett's work as a whole. The commentary is written in a lively and engaging style and is intended equally for the general reader, the student of modernism and the Beckett specialist.


Nine months since the British vote to exit the European Union ("Brexit"), the UK science community's initial dismay has given way to hard-boiled determination to limit the damage it will do to universities and research. On 29 March, Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to give formal notification of the UK's intention to withdraw under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the constitutional basis of the EU. This will set in motion a 2-year period of intense negotiation on the terms of the UK's divorce, and any future agreements with the EU—with research just one line item on a long list of issues to be resolved.


Abstract : The Marine Corps recent reemphasis on amphibious operations has identified a potential operational reach gap in the sustainment window of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) in an undeveloped theater. This problem is defined by a limited capacity to move fuel ashore from tactical and seabased assets, coupled with increasing rates of end-user consumption. In the absence of host-nation support, sustaining the MEB during operations ashore requires joint interoperability of several fuel distribution systems and methods of resupply. The success of the seabased logistics network will depend on the use of a modern planning and forecasting approach. It is the aim of this study to understand the connection between the GCE's operational behavior and its fuel demand. This is accomplished through the use of the MAGTF Power and Energy Model to create a fuel usage data set. Subsequent regression analysis reveals key trends and provides insight into how operational decisions can result in marginal changes to fuel demand. Finally, this study examines the feasibility of fuel movement ashore using only the ship-to-shore connectors available to the MEB.


Hypermethylation of the gene regulatory regions is documented for many cancer diseases. Such an aberrant DNA methylation in cancer cells is catalyzed by DNA methyltransferases Dnmt3a and Dnmt3b, which predominantly recognize and methylate RCGY sequences with formation of R(5mC)GY sites. Recently, based on a new methyl-directed DNA endonuclease GlaI, we developed a GLAD-PCR assay, which allows determining R(5mC)GY site in a defi ned position of the genomic DNA. In this work we applied GLAD-PCR assay for identifi cation of the methylated RCGY sites in the regulatory regions of some downregulated genes associated with colorectal cancer (CRC). This list includes ADHFE1, ALX4, CNRIP1, EID3, ELMO1, ESR1, FBN1, HLTF, LAMA1, NEUROG1, NGFR, RARB, RXRG, RYR2, SDC2, SEPT9, SFRP2, SOCS3, SOX17, THBD, TMEFF2, UCHL1, and VIM genes. GLAD-PCR analysis of selected RCGY sites within the regulatory regions of some of these genes demonstrates a good prognostic potential with relatively high sensitivity and specifi city of CRC detection in tumor DNA.


This paper highlights the role of unofficial sources—unauthorized "leakers"—in the public sector and their contribution to investigative journalism and to a lesser extent to routine news production. Unauthorized sources do not enjoy the ease of access to journalists, the economic resources, the human resources, nor the legitimacy conferred on official sources. Interviews conducted with journalists and sources show that at times these barriers have been overcome through the establishment of relationships of trust based on the confidentiality of the identity of the source and through careful cross-checking by journalists of information supplied by leakers.


ABSTRACT During two cruises to Vanuatu, MUSORSTOM 8 (September–October 1994) and SANTO 2006 (September–October 2006), numerous specimens of deep-sea galatheids belonging to the genus Galathea Fabricius, 1793 were collected. The specimens were caught at stations at depths between 180 and 702 m. These collections contain five new species (G. barbellata n. sp., G. echinata n. sp., G. profunda n. sp., G. raventosae n. sp. and G. sanctae n. sp.), all of which are also found in other collections obtained by French cruises to New Caledonia. Galathea barbellata n. sp., G. echinata n. sp. and G. profunda n. sp. are closely related to G. robusta Baba, 1990, from Madagascar, G. raventosae n. sp. resembles G. consobrina De Man, 1902, from Indonesia, the Philippines, South China Sea and SW Australia, and G. sanctae n. sp. is very close to G. multilineata Balss, 1913, from Japan, East China Sea, Taiwan and the Philippines.


Traction control (TC) systems have become quite common in on-road passenger vehicles in recent years. However, for vehicles in other applications, they are not as widely available.This work presents a methodology for the proper design and implementation of a traction control system for heavy duty off-road machines, using a wheel loader as a reference vehicle.A simulation model was developed, using standard vehicle dynamics constructs, including equations of motion and a description of the distribution of weight between the axles for different operating conditions. This model contains considerations for resistive forces acting on the machine implement, such as that generated by a work pile. The simulation also incorporates a detailed representation of the slip-friction characteristics between the vehicle tires and the road surface. One objective of this research was to model this interaction accurately, because the system traction behavior is dependent on it. Therefore, a series of tests was run using a state estimator to generate data on the slip-friction relationship at various ground conditions, and the results were incorporated into the simulation model. The dynamics of the machine braking system pressure were also modeled to give a more accurate description of the system response. The result is a mathematical model capable of accurately reproducing the behavior of the real-world system.One of the primary goals of this work was the description of the traction control strategy itself, which should work as effectively and efficiently as possible. Several different aspects of the system were taken into consideration in generating this control structure. First, a relatively simple controller based on a PID control law was created. This controller was updated to account for peculiarities of the traction control system, as well as aspects like time delay. From there, more advanced controllers were created to address certain aspects of the system in greater detail. First, a self-tuning controller based on real-time optimization strategies was developed, to allow the controller to quickly adapt to changes in ground condition. Then, different nonlinear controllers were synthesized which were designed to address the theoretical behavior of the system. All of these controllers were simulated using the system model and then some were run in experiments to show their potential for improving system performance. To improve system efficiency, the machine drivetrain itself was also examined to develop a more efficient control algorithm. By designing a more efficient methodology, traction control con gurations which had previously seen increases in fuel consumption of 16% were now able to actually reduce fuel usage by 2.6%.Another main goal of this work was the development of a prototype system capable of implementing the formulated control strategies. The reference machine was modi ed so that the brakes could be controlled electronically and independently for implementation of the TC system. The vehicle was instrumented using a wide array of sensors, and estimation methodologies for accurately determining vehicle speed and implement forces were designed. The velocity estimator designed in this work is more accurate and more reliable than an industry standard sensor, which is important for traction control implementation. The implement force estimate was also quite accurate, achieving payload estimate errors of less than 2.5%, comparable to commercially-available measurement systems. This setup allowed for tests to be accurately compared, to assess the traction control performance.With the objective of performing experiments on the traction control system, many tests were run to assess its capabilities in various situations. These tests included experiments for characterizing the vehicle behavior so that the simulation model could be updated to accurately reflect the physical machine performance. Another task for the experimental work was the generation of useful metrics for quantifying traction control performance. Laboratory experiments which were very controlled and repeatable were also run for generating data to improve the system model and for comparing traction control performance results side-byside. The test metrics proposed for these experiments provided for accurate, repeatable comparisons of pushing force, tire wear, and brake consumption. For each of these tests, the traction control system saw an increase in pushing force of at least 10% when compared with the stock machine, with certain operating conditions showing increases as high as 60%. Furthermore, every test case showed a decrease in wheel slip of at least 45% (up to 73% for some cases), which translates into increased tire longevity.Other tests were conducted in the eld, designed to mimic the real-world operating conditions of the wheel loader. Various performance comparisons were made for different con gurations in which traction control could provide potential bene ts. These included parameters for comparing overall vehicle performance in a typical truck loading cycle, such as tire wear, fuel consumption, and material moved per load. Initial results for this testing showed a positive result in terms of wheel slip reduction, but other performance parameters such as fuel consumption were negatively impacted. Therefore, the control structure was reexamined extensively and new methods were added to improve those results. The final control implementation saw a 12% reduction in tire slip, while also reducing fuel consumption by 2.6% compared to the stock system. These results show signi cant potential for traction control as a technology for maximizing the performance output of construction machines.


A coupled heat and particle transport phenomenon, leading to particle depletion from the plasma core is observed in a variety of plasma conditions with centrally deposited electron cyclotron heating and electron cyclotron current drive in TCV. This phenomenon, which causes inverted sawteeth of the central density in sawtoothing discharges and leads to stationary hollow profiles in the absence of sawteeth, has been linked to the presence of m/n = 1/1 MHD modes. In particular, this phenomenon, known as `density pumpout' can be suppressed by stabilizing the mode by means of operation at high triangularity. The correlation of pumpout with the loss of axisymmetry suggests that neoclassical transport processes involving locally trapped particles near the helically displaced magnetic axis, previously believed to be important only in stellarators, may account for the phenomenon in tokamaks as well.


The opening scene of Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man has baffled many. What does an unsettling tale of an encounter with what may or may not be a dybbuk, set in the mid-nineteenth century in a Polish shtetl, and played out entirely in Yiddish, have to do with the story of a Jewish professor of physics and his family in suburban Minnesota in the summer of 1967, related in English? Is the scene to be viewed as a warm-up of sorts before the main attraction, akin, if you will, to the short-subject films—newsreels, animated cartoons, and live-action comedies and documentaries—that movie houses of old used to play before the main feature? If so, what is the significance of presenting an odd Yiddish scene to an American audience notorious for turning a cold shoulder to non-English-speaking cinema? Or is the scene to be viewed as a prologue to the movie? If so, in what sense could it be said to impart to the audience either the "state of suspense of the plot produced by the previous history" or, alternatively, the argument of the drama?


This  action  research  project  studied  the  impact  specific  engagement  strategies  had  on student  academic  performance.  We  conducted  this  project  in  two  ninthgrade  English  classes  in a  suburban  high  school  and  two  eighthgrade  Spanish  classes  in  a  suburban  middle  school  both of  which  were  located  in  a  midwestern  metropolitan  area.  During  the  study,  students participated  in  a  variety  of  engagement  strategies  aimed  at  promoting  academic  excellence:  1) challenge  and  competition,  2)  cooperation  and  connection,  3)  curiosity  and  controversy,  and  4) choice  and  creativity.   The  data    provided  by  course  grades,  student  feedback,  student observations,  and  teacher  reflections    showed  students  were  more  engaged  after  implementing specific  strategies.  Students  enjoyed  their  classes  more,  paid  more  attention,  tried  harder, wanted  to  learn  more,  and  found  the  class  more  meaningful.  Future  research  regarding  specific strategies,  student  profiles,  time  of  day,  subject  content,  and  difficulty  of  the  curriculum  is recommended  to  provide  additional  insight  on  learning.


▪ Abstract Cichlid fishes (Perciformes: Teleostei) found in the lakes of Africa have served as model systems for the study of evolution. The enormous number of species (1000 in Lake Malawi alone), the great diversity of trophic adaptations and behaviors, and the extreme rapidity of their divergence (<50,000 y for some faunas) single out these organisms as examples of evolution in progress. Because these fishes are confined to discrete lacustrine environments and their origination is bounded by geological features, these groups provide models with which to study evolution. We review theoretical studies and empirical research on the cichlid faunas of Africa to provide a synthetic overview of current knowledge of the evolutionary processes at work in this group. This view provides the critical information needed to formulate and test hypotheses that may permit discrimination among the diverse theories and models that have been advanced to explain the evolution of these fishes.


The cost of missing person investigations has been the subject of debate. This article reports a study that sought to establish this cost through a survey of 407 officers and staff in two UK forces and a realistic case assessment undertaken by 33 officers in two UK forces. Both produce cost estimates (£1,325.44 as a realistic minimum and £2,415.80 as a realistic estimate of cost of medium-risk medium-term cases) that are higher than often assumed or previously reported. It demonstrates that missing person investigations are a bigger drain on police resources then either theft or assault. This result is placed into context of current developments such as the commodification and the outsourcing of policing tasks and recent changes in policy involving missing person investigations.


Benjamin, Alepho, and Benson were raised among the Dinka tribe of Sudan. Their world was an insulated, close-knit community of grass-roofed cottages, cattle herders, and tribal councils. The lions and pythons that prowled beyond the village fences were the greatest threat they knew. All that changed the night the government-armed Murahiliin began attacking their villages. Amid the chaos, screams, conflagration, and gunfire, five-year-old Benson and seven-year-old Benjamin fled into the dark night. Two years later, Alepho, age seven, was forced to do the same. Across the Southern Sudan, over the next five years, thousands of other boys did likewise, joining this stream of child refugees that became known as the Lost Boys. Their journey would take them over one thousand miles across a war-ravaged country, through landmine-sown paths, crocodile-infested waters, and grotesque extremes of hunger, thirst, and disease. The refugee camps they eventually filtered through offered little respite from the brutality they were fleeing. In They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky, Alepho, Benson, and Benjamin, by turn, recount their experiences along this unthinkable journey. They vividly recall the family, friends, and tribal world they left far behind them and their desperate efforts to keep track of one another. This is a captivating memoir of Sudan and a powerful portrait of war as seen through the eyes of children. And it is, in the end, an inspiring and unforgettable tribute to the tenacity of even the youngest human spirits.


Marital status is both overinclusive and underinclusive as an indicator of economic circumstances. Interestingly, federal tax law does not define marital status. Rather, in a majority of situations, it defers to local law determinations of marital status, recognizing the substantial interests and expertise of the states in domestic relations matters. However, the traditional interest of the states in defining and preserving the legal structure of marriage appears to be waning, while informal "marriages" are becoming more common. Moreover, temporary divorces have been undertaken for tax reasons and temporary marriages have been suggested as a tax planning strategy for the unmarried. As a result, marriage is becoming indistinguishable from many less formal relationships. This article examines the role marital status plays in federal income tax law and the manner in which the tax law determines whether a taxpayer is single or married. Judicial and administrative reactions to tax-motivated shifts in marital status are analyzed and the increasing weakness of state-defined marital status as a taxing factor is demonstrated. The article suggests that new federal standards, designed to protect and promote tax policy, must be developed to replace or reinforce state-defined marital status as a taxing factor. Additionally, courts must be willing to abandon local law determinations of marital status and adopt more flexible analytical approaches when tax policy is threatened.


Understanding the consequences of mutation for molecular fitness and function is a fundamental problem in biology. Recently, generative probabilistic models have emerged as a powerful tool for estimating fitness from evolutionary sequence data, with accuracy sufficient to predict both laboratory measurements of function and disease risk in humans, and to design novel functional proteins. Existing techniques rest on an assumed relationship between density estimation and fitness estimation, a relationship that we interrogate in this article. We prove that fitness is not identifiable from observational sequence data alone, placing fundamental limits on our ability to disentangle fitness landscapes from phylogenetic history. We show on real datasets that perfect density estimation in the limit of infinite data would, with high confidence, result in poor fitness estimation; current models perform accurate fitness estimation because of, not despite, misspecification. Our results challenge the conventional wisdom that bigger models trained on bigger datasets will inevitably lead to better fitness estimation, and suggest novel estimation strategies going forward.


The ability to match pieces of code to their corresponding natural language descriptions and vice versa is fundamental for natural language search interfaces to software repositories. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-perspective cross-lingual neural framework for code–text matching, inspired in part by a previous model for monolingual text-to-text matching, to capture both global and local similarities. Our experiments on the CoNaLa dataset show that our proposed model yields better performance on this cross-lingual text-to-code matching task than previous approaches that map code and text to a single joint embedding space.


INTRODUCTION Open Access and licenses are closely intertwined. Both Creative Commons (CC) and Open Access seek to restore the balance between the owners of creative works and prospective users. Apart from the legal issues around CC licenses, we could look at role of intermediaries whose work is enabled through CC licenses. Does licensing documents under Creative Commons increase access and reuse in a direct way, or is access and reuse amplified by intermediaries? OAPEN LIBRARY AND DOAB The OAPEN Library contains books available under both open licenses, for example Creative Commons, as well as books that are published under terms that only allow for personal use. The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) functions as an intermediary, offering aggregation services exclusively focused on books with an open license. METHODS Downloads are used as a proxy for the use of books in the OAPEN Library. The data set that this paper analyses data that was captured over a period of 33 months. During this time, 1734 different books were made available through the OAPEN Library: 855 books under a Creative Commons license and 879 books under a more restrictive regime. The influence of open licenses, aggregation in DOAB, and subject and language are evaluated. RESULTS Once the effects of subject and language are taken into account, there is no evidence that making books available under open licenses results in more downloads than making books available under licenses that only allow for personal use. Yet, additional aggregation in the DOAB has a large positive effect on the number of times a book is downloaded. CONCLUSION The application of open licenses to books does not, on its own, lead to more downloads. However, open licenses pave the way for intermediaries to offer new discovery and aggregation services. These services play an important role by amplifying the impacts of open access licensing in the case of scholarly books.


In this paper we describe the karyotype of the yellow-bellied sea snake, Pelamis platurus from Costa Rica. The diploid number is 38 chromosomes, with 20 macrochromosomes and 18 microchromosomes. The pairs 1 and 2 are metacentrics, pair 3 is subtelocentric and pairs from 4 to 9 have the centromere in a terminal position. Females have a pair of slightly heteromorphic chromosomes identified as sex chromosomes Z and W; both are metacentrics but have different centromeric index and W is slightly smaller. The pattern of heteromorphism in sex chromosomes and the secondary constriction present in some sea snake karyotypes could be useful parameters in determining evolutionary relationships between the sea snakes.


Owing to its various distinct advantages over the other machining technologies, abrasive jet machining has become a promising machining technology for brittle and hard-to-machine materials. An experimental study is presented on the micro-grooving of quartz crystals using an abrasive airjet. The effect of the various process parameters on the major machining performance measures are analysed to provide a deep understanding of this micro-machining process. Predictive models are then developed for quantitatively estimating the machining performance. The models are finally verified by an experiment. It shows that the model predictions are in good agreement with the experimental results under the corresponding conditions.


In Good Company is a book about the politics and practices that constitute the salvation made possible by God through the church. By exposing a different account of politics - the church as polis and "counter-story" to the world's politics - Hauerwas helps Christians see that in fact God has given them the means to escape the destructive practices of the world by placing them "in good company" with one another, Catholic and Protestant alike. Hauerwas explains: "What we Christians have lost is [the sense of] just how radical our practices are, since they are meant to free us from the... lies so characteristic of the world. The difficulty is that the church... is constantly tempted to imitate the false politics of the world for its own life". He thus urges Christians to discover the narratives, skills, and practices that they share and how these elements of the faith are crucial for confronting the false politics of the present-day world. The animating conviction underlying this volume is that the church and the Christian faith offer resources (such as worship and prayer) not available to the world at large, and by turning political theology into theological politics, Hauerwas helps all Christians to recognize how these resources empower them to discover and build a stronger religious and political identity.


This article is a first step in an effort to critically examine - and to debunk - some of the myths that persist about the degree to which the common and civil law systems differ. Specifically, the article questions the validity of recent scholarly commentary suggesting that the primary differences between the systems can be found in their substantive legal rules or in their respective "spirits." A relatively narrow issue of riparian access perfectly highlights the problem. Nearly all of the high courts in the United States that have examined this particular riparian issue have chosen to adopt either the so-called "common law rule" or the so-called "civil law rule" of riparian access. In fact, these courts are perpetuating a false choice. The "civil law rule" adopted by at least six of our states' high courts is not actually a rule of the civil law at all. It is, instead, the relatively modern and spontaneous generation of one European jurisdiction in response to peculiar policy choices. The rule at civil law is exactly the same as that at common law. But the United States Supreme Court made an error of interpretation years ago that pulled a distorted rule into American jurisprudence and falsely attributed it to civilian sources. That error has been perpetuated by courts around the country ever since. This article seeks to correct that two-hundred year-old mistake as an important step towards preserving judicial integrity and discovering and benefiting from the true differences between the common and civil law systems.


Abstract Global demand for freshwater and marine foods (i.e., seafood) is rising and an increasing proportion is farmed. Aquaculture encompasses a range of species and cultivation methods, resulting in diverse social, economic, nutritional, and environmental outcomes. As a result, how aquaculture develops will influence human wellbeing and environmental health outcomes. Recognition of this has spurred a push for nutrition-sensitive aquaculture, which aims to benefit public health through the production of diverse, nutrient-rich seafood and enabling equitable access. This article explores plausible aquaculture futures and their role in nutrition security using a qualitative scenario approach. Two dimensions of economic development – the degree of globalization and the predominant economic development philosophy – bound four scenarios representing systems that are either localized or globalized, and orientated toward maximizing sectoral economic growth or to meeting environmental and equity dimensions of sustainability. The potential contribution of aquaculture in improving nutrition security is then evaluated within each scenario. While aquaculture could be "nutrition-sensitive" under any of the scenarios, its contribution to addressing health inequities is more likely in the economic and political context of a more globally harmonized trade environment and where economic policies are oriented toward social equity and environmental sustainability.


Faced with increased global migration, there is a growing concern that social workers need more training in- and knowledge of culture and ethnicity. These understandings have come to influence research, education, practice, codes of ethics and organizational policy, constituting a multicultural discourse within the field of social work. Social workers are expected to have cultural competence, and exercise cultural sensitivity in their practice. However, a clear and consistent understanding of what it means to be culturally competent or culturally sensitive is missing, and there seems to be little consensus in how to define and apply these concepts, both within research and practice. The aim of this qualitative evidence synthesis is to synthesize what previous empirical research reports about social workers' understandings and experiences when operationalizing the concepts into practice. Through data-based and a manual journal search, 12 qualitative empirical studies were included in the synthesis. Our analysis describes four main challenges in the studies' efforts to operationalize the cultural concepts in social work practice: 1) Who to define as culturally diverse service-users; 2) What aspects of culture to consider in the encounters with culturally diverse service-users; 3) How to consider and approach these aspects of culture, and 4) the capacity to work in a culturally appropriate manner within the organizational context where this work is undertaken. The literature acknowledges these challenges to varying degrees. We summarize the four challenges in a model, and argue that the model can be useful in further awareness-raising, development and integration of our understandings of cross-cultural social work. By depicting the essential questions of who, what, how and where to employ the concepts into practice, we aim to assist scholars, practitioners and educators to help navigate the multifaceted landscape of culture and social work.


This reissue of a treasured classic offers a beautiful window into the people and places that shaped the life of beloved author, scholar, and apologist C. S. Lewis. In photographs and text (much of it in Lewis's own words), Douglas Gilbert and Clyde S. Kilby introduce us to such memorable friends as J. R. R. Tolkien and transport us to such magical places as the deer park outside Lewis's rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford. We also meet Lewis as a talented and brilliant child in Belfast, captivated by the myths and legends of the North, already writing and illustrating imaginative stories and poems at a young age. While the book includes an essay tracing Lewis's struggle to find faith and a chronology of his life, it is not a biography per se but rather a personal introduction, a composite portrait of a fascinating individual and the world in which he lived. Attractively laid out in a fresh new format, this volume will be prized both by longtime fans of Lewis and by those encountering him for the first time.


Philosophy of Existence was first presented to the public as a series of lectures invited by The German Academy of Frankfurt. In preparing these lectures Jaspers, whom the Nazis had already dismissed from his professorship at Heidelberg, knew that he was speaking in Germany for the last time. Jaspers used the occasion to offer an account of the cultural and intellectual situation from which existentialism emerged as well as a summary of his own philosophy. The book serves three purposes today: it brings the many strands of the existential movement into focus; it provides an overview of Jaspers's own philosophical position; and it demonstrates by example that philosophy need not be irrational, antiscientific, journalistic, or homiletic in order to be existential and engage. In this short book Jaspers provides a corrective for the popular view of existentialism as a pessimistic, irrationalist philosophy. He maintains that it is, rather part of mainstream of Western philosophy-the form that philosophy has taken in our day.


An atomic electron, in the vacuum of photons, can emit and reabsorb photons of any frequency. Such processes give rise to well known radiative corrections (Lamb—shift, g — 2, natural width of excited states...). We review in this paper similar effects which can be induced by the interaction of an atomic electron with an incident electromagnetic wave, and we try to get some physical insight in radiative processes by comparing these two types of « spontaneous » and « induced » effects. Optical pumping methods have been very useful for studying how atoms are perturbed by optical or RF photons. The Zeeman sublevels of an atomic ground state are broadened and shifted by a resonant or quasiresonant optical irradiation. The corresponding light-shifts (or « Lamp-shifts » as A. Kastler called them) are due to virtual absorptions and reemissions of incident photons. Another example of an induced effect is the modification of the magnetic properties of an atomic level due to a high frequency non resonant RF irradiation. The Larmor precession is slowed down and becomes anisotropic. The two previous examples correspond to two situations leading to simple calculations. For a resonant or quasiresonant excitation, a single atomic transition needs to be considered. Non perturbative treatments can be given which include the effect of the atom field coupling to all orders. For example, the « dressed atom » approach allows a unified treatment of various effects such as light shifts, Autler-Townes doublets resonance fluorescence triplets... On the other hand, for a high frequency irradiation, all atomic transitions must be included. It is possible in this case to derive an effective hamiltonian describing, to lowest order in the fine structure constant α, how electronic energy levels are perturbed in the presence of N photons ω. The remaining part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of such a situation. The terms of the effective hamiltonian proportional to the number N of incident photons correspond to the induced effects. They can be fully interpreted in semiclassical terms and they describe how the slow motion of the electron in the external static fields is modified by the high frequency vibration in the incident monochromatic wave. For example, the vibrating electron averages the static potential over a finite length, the angular oscillation of the spin reduces the effective magnetic moment. The remaining terms, which are independent of N, exist even in the vacuum of photons (N = 0) and describe the contribution of the mode ω to spontaneous radiative corrections. It is possible to split them into two parts. The first one has the same structure as the N-dependent terms, with N replaced by 1/2. It describes the corrections due to the vibration of the electron in vacuum fluctuations which have a spectral power density ħω/2 per mode. The second part represents the effect of radiation reaction, i.e. the interaction of the electron with its self field. Such an interpretation is confirmed by a Heisenberg equations approach where the total force acting upon the electron is split into two physical (i.e. hermitian) parts representing respectively the effect of the vacuum « free » field and the effect of the « source » field produced by the electron itself. These considerations are finally applied to the problem of the positive sign of g - 2. The g-factor can be written as 2 ωL/ωc, where ω L is the Larmor frequency of the spin and ωc the cyclotron frequency of the charge for an electron in a weak static field B 0. In the absence of radiative corrections, g = 2, and ω L = ωc. To lowest order in 1/c (order zero), radiation reaction slows down ωc but not ωL (a charge is more coupled to its self field than a magnetic moment). The effect of vacuum fluctuations appears only at order 2 in 1/c and corresponds to relativistic and magnetic effects which slow down both ωL and ωc. Therefore, it appears that, in the non relativistic domain, the main effect is a reduction of ωc by radiation reaction and this explains why 2 ωL/ωc becomes larger than 2. A complete relativistic calculation (to all orders in 1/ c, but to lowest order in α) does not change this conclusion since the contribution of non relativistic modes (ħω < mc2) is predominant in the integral giving g — 2.


Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a popular model for blind signal separation. The ICA model assumes that a number of independent source signals are linearly mixed to form the observed signals. We propose a new algorithm, PEGI (for pseudo-Euclidean Gradient Iteration), for provable model recovery for ICA with Gaussian noise. The main technical innovation of the algorithm is to use a fixed point iteration in a pseudo-Euclidean (indefinite "inner product") space. The use of this indefinite "inner product" resolves technical issues common to several existing algorithms for noisy ICA. This leads to an algorithm which is conceptually simple, efficient and accurate in testing.
Our second contribution is combining PEGI with the analysis of objectives for optimal recovery in the noisy ICA model. It has been observed that the direct approach of demixing with the inverse of the mixing matrix is suboptimal for signal recovery in terms of the natural Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) criterion. There have been several partial solutions proposed in the ICA literature. It turns out that any solution to the mixing matrix reconstruction problem can be used to construct an SINR-optimal ICA demixing, despite the fact that SINR itself cannot be computed from data. That allows us to obtain a practical and provably SINR-optimal recovery method for ICA with arbitrary Gaussian noise.


This paper assesses the effect of various material factors on the cell morphology and density of extruded expanded polypropylene (EPP), rod samples produced using a range of commercial chemical blowing agents (CBAs). This work is part of a research project into the optimisation of the extrusion and subsequent thermoforming of EPP sheet for food packaging applications. In each case the agents were added to PP and extruded under identical processing conditions, and the resulting variations in foam density and cell morphology are reported and discussed. Trials were also carried out to quantify the effects on the foam of additives, such as pigment, sodium benzoate, co-polymer and regrind, and the grade of polymer used (nucleated and un-nucleated). A design of experiment (DOE) methodology was adopted for all of these latter tests. The chemical blowing agents tested, produced foams with markedly different cellular structures with cell densities in the range 4.77×104 to 1.45×106 cells/cm3. Of the other material factors tested the change in polymer grade and the addition of sodium benzoate were found to most significantly affect the density and cell morphology.


The problem is sequence prediction in the following setting. A sequence x1,..., xn,... of discrete-valued observations is generated according to some unknown probabilistic law (measure) mu. After observing each outcome, it is required to give the conditional probabilities of the next observation. The measure mu belongs to an arbitrary class C of stochastic processes. We are interested in predictors ? whose conditional probabilities converge to the 'true' mu-conditional probabilities if any mu { C is chosen to generate the data. We show that if such a predictor exists, then a predictor can also be obtained as a convex combination of a countably many elements of C. In other words, it can be obtained as a Bayesian predictor whose prior is concentrated on a countable set. This result is established for two very different measures of performance of prediction, one of which is very strong, namely, total variation, and the other is very weak, namely, prediction in expected average Kullback-Leibler divergence.


Ken Dowden is Professor of Classics, and Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, at the University of Birmingham. He writes on Greek mythology ( Uses of Greek Mythology , Routledge, 1992), religion ( European Paganism , Routledge, 2000; Zeus , Routledge, 2006), on historians (especially fictional ones) for the Brill New Jacoby, and on various aspects of the Latin and Greek novels, especially Apuleius and Heliodoros, particularly on their message and statistical issues. Starting from an attempt to detect the nature of a Greek original of Petronius' Satyricon, the chapter rests on computer programs and macros which convert and parse the text of the novelists in terms of the length in words of their sentences and display the results as graphs comparing one author with another. There is, surprisingly, sufficient linguistic convergence between Greek and Latin to allow authors in both languages to be compared. If, tentatively, we posit a relatively even progression towards longer sentences, with some adjustment for stylistic predilection for sententious brevity, then a rough tool for helping decisions on the dating of the authors results. Chariton could well be around 90, Achilles cannot be after 150. Internally, conclusions also result for the structure of Apuleius' novel.


The main objective of the present study was to compare the damage to a rubble mound breakwater under regular and irregular wave attack, and thereby identify an irregular wave height parameter that corresponds to the wave height of a regular wave in terms of inducing a similar degree of damage to the structure. The 1984 edition of the Shore Protection Manual recommends this irregular wave height parameter to be Hmo (the average of the highest one-10th of the waves in a sea state), but other researchers recommend Hmo (e.g. Vidal et al., 1995). For the present study, H1/2o is the irregular wave height parameter that yields the best correspondence between irregular and regular waves. However, this result is dependent on the length of the time series and on the number of times this time series is recycled to achieve a given damage level. The new wave height parameter H" (the average of the n highest waves in a sea state) proposed by Vidal et al. (1995) takes into account the statistics of the large waves contained in the time series as well as the number of times this time series is recycled. The present study indicates that //2so (the average of the highest 250 waves in the sea state) is a suitable wave height parameter for characterizing breakwater stability under irregular waves.


Abstract Spiral, fast-rotating galaxies like the Milky Way are the most common type in the Universe. One of the most pressing challenges faced by current models of galaxy formation is the origin of their angular momentum and disk. According to the standard tidal-torque theory the galactic spin is originated by tidal interactions between dark halos around galaxies and neighboring structures in the expanding Universe. We use a large cosmological N-body simulation to study the origin of possible correlations between the merging history and spin of cold dark matter halos. In particular, we examine claims that remnants of major mergers tend to have higher-than-average spins, and find that the effect is driven largely by unrelaxed systems: equilibrium dark matter halos show no significant correlation between spin and merging history. Out-of-equilibrium halos have, on average, higher spin than relaxed systems, suggesting that the virialization process leads to a net decrease in the value of the spin parameter. We present also high-resolution N-body/SPH cosmological simulations including cold gas and dark matter to investigate the processes by which gas loses its angular momentum during the protogalactic collapse phase, leading to simulated disk galaxies that are too compact with respect to the observations. We show that the gas and the dark matter have similar specific angular momenta until a merger event occurs at redshift 2. All the gas involved in the merger loses a substantial fraction of its specific angular momentum due to tidal torques and falls quickly into the center. Dynamical friction by small infalling substructures plays a minor role, in contrast to previous claims.


After the end of Apartheid 18 years ago, class conflicts are on the rise in South Africa. In most cases, social struggles of poor communities and trade union protests are led separately from each other. In contrast, trade unions in South Africa were regarded as an exemplar of Social Movement Unionism in their fight against Apartheid. Based on seven interviews and three group discussions with trade unionists from the South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU) and municipal employees in Cape Town, this article examines the impact, chances and obstacles of coalition building between trade unions and the new social movements in contemporary South Africa. In Cape Town SAMWU and social movements are working together to formulate an alternative Development Plan for the city as well as joint ideas for a good public service based on the needs of poor communities. As casualisation is increasing and undermining the associational power of trade unions, links are rebuild between SAMWU and community organisations in Cape Town. At the same time it can be shown that the joining of forces and social struggles is based on preconditions and needs intensified efforts undertaken by unions and social movements alike.


Cellular DNA is organized into chromosomes and capped by a unique nucleoprotein structure, the telomere. Both oxidative stress and telomere shortening/dysfunction cause aging-related degenerative pathologies and increase cancer risk. However, a direct connection between oxidative damage to telomeric DNA, comprising <1% of the genome, and telomere dysfunction has not been established. By fusing the KillerRed chromophore with the telomere repeat binding factor 1, TRF1, we developed a novel approach to generate localized damage to telomere DNA and to monitor the real time damage response at the single telomere level. We found that DNA damage at long telomeres in U2OS cells is not repaired efficiently compared to DNA damage in non-telomeric regions of the same length in heterochromatin. Telomeric DNA damage shortens the average length of telomeres and leads to cell senescence in HeLa cells and cell death in HeLa, U2OS and IMR90 cells, when DNA damage at non-telomeric regions is undetectable. Telomere-specific damage induces chromosomal aberrations, including chromatid telomere loss and telomere associations, distinct from the damage induced by ionizing irradiation. Taken together, our results demonstrate that oxidative damage induces telomere dysfunction and underline the importance of maintaining telomere integrity upon oxidative damage.


This paper presents a grid-connected photovoltaic system in centralized configuration and constructed with a three-phase dual-stage inverter able to extract the maximum power of the PV modules. The P&O algorithm is adopted as MPPT technique. The isolation is achieved by a high-frequency transformer. The converter used in the DC-DC stage dispenses control-loop, its duty-cycle and switching frequency are constants throughout the power operation range. This enables the application of DC-DC resonant converters, whose efficiency is high at high frequencies, favoring compaction of the power circuit. Thus, the three-phase series resonant converter is chosen to integrate this stage. The MPPT is transferred to the DC-AC stage, which, invariably, has a grid current controller. The three-phase PWM voltage-source inverter, in the DC-AC stage, uses vector control and space vector modulation. The vector control requires a Park's transformation from the grid-currents which yield the direct axis current. The MPPT uses the same variables of the grid current controller and maximize the direct axis current which reflects the power flux from the PV array. Thus, any specific measurement to realize the MPPT is not needed, resulting in a small count of sensors.


Abstract The approach taken during restructuring the Mechatronics Program at the University of Canterbury is described, along with challenges faced. The background of the University of Canterbury Mechatronics program is examined, as are the challenges of integrating the program within the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. The new Mechatronics program features integrative projects during each of three Professional Education years to reinforce students' "mechatronic" thinking and hands-on abilities. The project-based course "Introduction to Mechatronics Design" features a series of application-oriented laboratory projects using a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). The restructured program of balanced essential skills training coupled with focus streams of specialization may signal a paradigm shift in engineering education.


What to expect from China in the current economic crisis? Will the crisis change China's role in the international economy? In this Policy Brief, Guy de Jonquieres analyses the main trends in China's economic policy-making and positioning in the international policy arena. He argues that China still has an uncertain commitment to economic rebalancing, which might lead to frictions with its partners. Despite its new political assertiveness, it remains ambivalent on exerting international leadership. Yet as China's economic and financial importance continues to expand and world leaders seek global stability, deeper engagement between Beijing and other power centres will remain indispensable.


We examine the work experiences during middle school and high school of U.S. females and males and find that most of the child-oriented work such as babysitting and camp counseling is done by females. If the type of work undertaken while young affects either development of specific human capital or preferences, then these early work experiences may have measurable effects on later life outcomes. This paper examines whether or not having a job as a teenager, and whether or not it is a child-oriented job, causes differences in labor market behavior among young adults. In addition to a set of standard controls, in order to account for the endogeneity of students' work decisions, we utilize a set of state-level instruments, including state-level child-labor laws and indicators of relative demand for, and supply of, child-oriented workers. While the effects we find are complex and sometimes hard to interpret, they suggest that work in 10th grade has a positive causal effect on later labor market outcomes and delays family formation, but to a lesser extent when jobs were child-oriented.


The transcription factor NFkappaB regulates inflammatory and other cellular responses. In non-stimulated cells, NFkappaB is linked to its inhibitor IkappaB, which plays a major role in controlling NFkappaB activity. Here, the gene promoter region of the major inducible IkappaB component (IkappaB-alpha) was studied to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and to test if these are associated with risk of two diseases involving inflammation and fibrosis (trachoma and silicosis). Three SNPs were identified at positions -881, -826 and -297 relative to the transcription start site. The position -297 is close to two NFkappaB binding sites, kappaB2 and kappaB3, but the alleles were not associated with either disease. Alleles at positions -881 and -826 were in complete linkage disequilibrium with each other, and the rare haplotype was significantly less frequent among patients with trachoma compared to controls, although there was no difference in frequencies between silicosis patients and controls.


Optical contouring is a full field, non-contact
technique capable of determining shape and deformation data
from 3-D surfaces. The data, which are obtained from the
optical contouring system, represent the surface geometry
at evenly sampled points. The main objective of this thesis
is to report some advances achieved by the author in the
optical contouring field. Conditions for the design and
construction of optical systems to measure object
topography and deformation using the same hardware, as well
as the optical working methodology and system parameters,
are analysed. The conventional in-plane and out-of-plane optical
setups for displacement sensitive ESP I systems are employed
to contour. The contour maps are obtained by giving small
displacements to optical fibres carrying the object and
reference beam illumination. A rigorous mathematical
treatment of shape contours generated by ESPI is given. It
is experimentally verified that the fringe patterns
produced are identical to projected fringe contours, and
may be analysed in the same way. Then, practical systems
which combine deformation and shape measurement in both
in-plane and out-of-plane ESPI configuration are
demonstrated. Comparison is made with shape measurement using two
fringe projection moire techniques. The first moire
technique uses electronic demodulation to obtain the
contour maps. This technique encodes and analyses moire
contours by using an electronic system similar to that used
for Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI). Hence
automatic fringe detection and contour measurement is
possible. The Talbot effect, where the self imaging of a periodic
object is used as second moire technique. The Talbot image
of a linear grating is imaged on the target surface. The
grating lines are deformed according to the surface shape.
Viewing this deformed grating image through a second
reference grating, generates contour maps. A novel on-axis
sensor which directly measures distance as a direct colour
mapping is introduced.
It is emphasized that all the techniques researched here
can be extended to be applied as industrial tools for
surface inspection or quality control. Phase-shift
measurement and digital image processing are employed for
data reduction.


This paper focuses on the social shopping community (SSC), an emerging e-commerce business model of youth entrepreneurship that generates revenues through facilitating online purchase. We develop a model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework and use it to investigate how website characteristics, which we describe as sociability and self reference, of social shopping environment influence consumers' cognitive and emotional trust in SSCs, as well as how trust in turn affects their purchase intention. The results of our survey of 405 members of Meilishuo, a Chinese SSC, indicate that sociability and self reference features significantly influence cognitive and emotional trust, and in turn the likelihood and magnitude of online purchase. Moreover, the emotional trust plays a greater role in influencing consumers' intention to purchase through the SSC than cognitive trust, and participant involvement moderates the relationship between trust and purchase intention. This work contributes to our understanding of the dynamics that govern consumer behaviour in SSCs and adds to the broader line of research on social commerce. It also provides insights into how young entrepreneurs can tap the economic values of social commerce.


Dementia is characterized by a decrease in cognitive functioning, usually characterized by a progressive decline in brain function over time. As the condition progresses, individuals require more assistance from others in order to maintain their activities of daily, independent living and decision-making among other functions of life. The responsibility of caring for the aging population usually falls on adult children, which can cause stress and tension within the family dynamic. Adult siblings tend to believe that the responsibility of caregiving should be equally split among siblings (Amaro & Miller, 2016); however, it is often the case that one sibling takes on the majority of the caregiving. As the disease progresses, individuals with dementia have a harder time making decisions, requiring their adult children to make decisions for them. Group decision-making can be difficult (Parsons & Cox, 1989), especially when individuals have differing opinions on what the best decision is, which is common in caregiving. The lack of research on the effects of caregiving and decision-making on the sibling relationship provided the rationale for the current study. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceived effects of caregiving for a parent has on the caregiver's sibling relationships and how decision-making in caregiving affects the sibling relationship. A qualitative research design was utilized to explore if and how caregiving and the decision-making process impact the adult sibling relationship. The participants in this study were adult children who identified themselves as primary caregivers of parents with dementia who each had at least one sibling who lived close enough (within one hour) to be able to assist with providing regular care for a parent.


: The article discusses drill and blast pattern designs for ore treatment before in-situ leaching (ISL) in ore bodies of complex structure with a view to ensuring ecological safety, en - hanced ISL efficiency, as well as balanced subsoil protection and management. This is achiev - able using cut-and-fill method with cemented backfill of different composition and strength, as well as with other geotechnical methods. It is shown that ISL of metals from solid ore requires high-quality preparation of large volume blocks, associated with blasting of tens of tones of explosives at a time. Rock fragmentation by blasting is improved through the higher powder factor to 2.9–3.3 kg/m 3 , as well as through accumulation of rocks with a degree of fragmen - tation not less than Kf = 1.2–1.3 in a limited space at the bottom of a stope. A case study of the concurrent application of a conventional mining technology and ISL technology in the Michurin deposit, on level 26–21 m, at the ISL block width of 20 m and shrinkage height of 35 to 50 m has proved the required stability of roof spans, without any falls of oversizes or off-standard sizes to ISL ore blocks. The recommendations for the design approaches to ISL are developed and tested in mined-out stopes in test block 5-86 and in pilot production blocks 5-84-86, 5-88-90 and 1-75-79.


The field of verbal aspect has been a focus for the derivation of a multiplicity of theoretical approaches ranging over decades of linguistic research. From the point of view of recent studies, though, there has been relatively little emphasis on the nature of the interaction of aspect with other categories, and the ways in which our knowledge of aspect acts as a primary semantic contributor to the creation of other basic verbal parameters such as tense and modality. This book aims to cross some of the categorial borders, using a collection of studies on the interfaces of English aspect with other grammatical domains. The studies in the book have been assembled in order to answer two central issues surrounding the nature of English aspect: the possibility of the historical co-existence of a perfective and imperfective grammatical distinction in English, and the derivation of modality as an inference arising out of specific conflicts and combinations of lexical and grammatical aspect. In answering these questions, a data-driven, rather than a theory-driven approach is favoured, and the general principles of Gricean pragmatics and grammaticalisation are applied to a wide range of empirical sources to propose alternative explanations to some long-established problems of English historical linguistics and semantics.


This paper models access to and utilisation of primary care using data from the British Household Panel Survey for the period 1991-2001. A latent class panel data framework is adopted to model individual unobserved heterogeneity in a flexible way. Accounting for the panel structure of the data leads to a substantial improvement in fit, and permits the identification of latent classes of users of health care. Analysis by gender shows that men and women respond differently to some factors, in particular, to age and income. There is evidence of a positive impact of income on the probability of seeking primary care. This effect is especially significant in the case of women. For both genders, the marginal effect of income on the propensity to visit a GP is greater for individuals who are less likely to seek primary care. A latent class aggregated count data model for the number of GP visits classifies individuals in three latent classes and shows a positive income effect particularly amongst those with lower levels of utilisation.


From the Publisher:
With MP3 technology, the era of accessing the full range of the world's music and customizing it to individual taste has arrived. Written by music industry insider and former computer programmer Chris Gilbey, MP3 and the Infinite Digital Jukebox shows how to take advantage of this revolution. The book offers clear and simple instructions on how and where to find all the necessary applications for getting instant musical gratification from the new online music devices on the market. Topics covered include information about all the music file types, how to play them, how to "rip" them, how to burn your own CDs, and how to send music to others. The book reviews all the latest software and hardware, but also shows how it's possible to avoid the expense and use existing resources.