The increase in bandwidth, the emergence of wireless technologies, and the spread of the Internet throughout the world have created new forms of communication with effects on areas such as business, entertainment, and education. This pervasion of computer networks into human activity has amplified the importance of cyber security. Network security relies heavily on Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), whose objective is to detect malicious network traffic and computer usage. IDS data can be correlated into cyber attack tracks, which consist of ordered collections of alerts triggered during a single multi-stage attack. The objective of this research is to enhance the current knowledge of attack behavior by developing a model that captures the sequential properties of attack tracks. Two sequence characterization models are discussed: Variable Length Markov Models (VLMMs), which are a type of finite-context models, and Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), which are also known as finite-state models. A VLMM is implemented based on attack sequences s = {x1, x2, ...xn} where xi ∈ Ω and Ω is a set of possible values of one or more fields in an alert message. This work shows how the proposed model can be used to predict future attack actions (xj+1) belonging to a newly observed and unfolding attack sequence s = {x1, x2, ..., xj}. It also presents a metric that measures the variability in attack actions based on information entropy and a method for classifying attack tracks as sophisticated or simple based on average log-loss. In addition, insights into the analysis of attack target machines are discussed.


Gene duplication is a crucial mechanism of evolutionary innovation. A substantial fraction of eukaryotic genomes consists of paralogous gene families. We assess the extent of ancestral paralogy, which dates back to the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes, and examine the origins of the ancestral paralogs and their potential roles in the emergence of the eukaryotic cell complexity. A parsimonious reconstruction of ancestral gene repertoires shows that 4137 orthologous gene sets in the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) map back to 2150 orthologous sets in the hypothetical first eukaryotic common ancestor (FECA) [paralogy quotient (PQ) of 1.92]. Analogous reconstructions show significantly lower levels of paralogy in prokaryotes, 1.19 for archaea and 1.25 for bacteria. The only functional class of eukaryotic proteins with a significant excess of paralogous clusters over the mean includes molecular chaperones and proteins with related functions. Almost all genes in this category underwent multiple duplications during early eukaryotic evolution. In structural terms, the most prominent sets of paralogs are superstructure-forming proteins with repetitive domains, such as WD-40 and TPR. In addition to the true ancestral paralogs which evolved via duplication at the onset of eukaryotic evolution, numerous pseudoparalogs were detected, i.e. homologous genes that apparently were acquired by early eukaryotes via different routes, including horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from diverse bacteria. The results of this study demonstrate a major increase in the level of gene paralogy as a hallmark of the early evolution of eukaryotes.


This thesis presents the design and analysis of a vest-worn alerting system with the purpose of warning those who wear it. The goal of this thesis has been shaped around roadside construction workers, people who endeavor to build and maintain the roadways in highly noisy and dangerous environments. Our goal is to determine what type of alerting method best interrupts the worker, allowing him or her to know that danger approaches. Multiple alerting methods will be compared via reaction time and user data derived through critical incidents from the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and notification-focused questionnaires. All testing is done in a simulated noisy environment. Each of these alerting methods involve combinations of auditory, visual, or haptic components. At the end of this thesis, the different alerting methods will be compared and a mode will be suggested for wearable notification activities. The work proposed in this thesis focuses mostly on vest design and alert testing for construction-based scenarios, but the work can be extended to police and highway worker scenarios.


Pneumatically actuated miniature peristaltic vacuum pumps have been proposed for incorporation into advanced miniature versions of scientific instruments that depend on vacuum for proper operation. These pumps are expected to be capable of reaching vacuum-side pressures in the torr to millitorr range (from .133 down to .0.13 Pa). Vacuum pumps that operate in this range are often denoted roughing pumps. In comparison with previously available roughing pumps, these pumps are expected to be an order of magnitude less massive and less power-hungry. In addition, they would be extremely robust, and would operate with little or no maintenance and without need for oil or other lubricants. Portable mass spectrometers are typical examples of instruments that could incorporate the proposed pumps. In addition, the proposed pumps could be used as roughing pumps in general laboratory applications in which low pumping rates could be tolerated. The proposed pumps could be designed and fabricated in conventionally machined and micromachined versions. A typical micromachined version (see figure) would include a rigid glass, metal, or plastic substrate and two layers of silicone rubber. The bottom silicone layer would contain shallow pump channels covered by silicone arches that could be pushed down pneumatically to block the channels. The bottom silicone layer would be covered with a thin layer of material with very low gas permeability, and would be bonded to the substrate everywhere except in the channel areas. The top silicone layer would be attached to the bottom silicone layer and would contain pneumatic- actuation channels that would lie crosswise to the pump channels. This version is said to be micromachined because the two silicone layers containing the channels would be fabricated by casting silicone rubber on micromachined silicon molds. The pneumatic-actuation channels would be alternately connected to a compressed gas and (depending on pump design) either to atmospheric pressure or to a partial vacuum source. The design would be such that the higher pneumatic pressure would be sufficient to push the silicone arches down onto the substrates, blocking the channels. Thus, by connecting pneumatic- actuation channels to the two pneumatic sources in spatial and temporal alternation, waves of opening and closing, equivalent to peristalsis, could be made to move along the pump channels. A pump according to this concept could be manufactured inexpensively. Pneumatic sources (compressors and partial vacuum sources) similar those needed for actuation are commercially available; they typically have masses of .100 g and power demands of the order of several W. In a design-optimization effort, it should be possible to reduce masses and power demands below even these low levels and to integrate pneumatic sources along with the proposed pumps into miniature units with overall dimensions of no more than a few centimeters per side.


The paper highlights the detailed field and laboratory investigation along with finite element modelling of a progressive debris slide along a highly vulnerable road stretch of Chamoli-Badrinath highway (NH-58) in Indian Himalayas. To investigate the failure process of the landslide, the slope was modelled along two different profiles using a finite element package PHASE based on a 2dimensional elasto-plastic model for calculating stresses and displacements. The material properties for different layers on the slope were chosen from the laboratory test results of soil samples and available literature. Shear Strength Reduction (SSR) analysis was performed to determine the critical Strength Reduction Factor (SRF). It is observed that the critical SRF is 0.54 for left flank and 0.53 for right flank slope profiles. This indicates that the slope is highly unstable. The results show very good correlation with the observed field conditions. The locations of the landslide scars, from where the sliding processes have already been initiated, match exactly with the FE analysis result. The plane of sliding is observed to be the boundary between the bedrock and the highly weathered disintegrated dolomitic soil. A model to predict the progressive failure mechanism of the western flank of the landslide has also been attempted. After sliding of the material from the toe portion, the result of the FE analysis showed the probable location of 2 phase of detachment and with further sliding the final phase of detachment was obtained. The FE analysis results have also been validated with the field signatures.


AIMS
Hemoglobinopathies, particularly β-thalassemia and sickle cell disease, are characterized by great phenotypic variability in terms of disease severity, while notable differences have been observed in hydroxyurea treatment efficacy. In both cases, the observed phenotypic diversity is mostly dependent on the elevated fetal hemoglobin levels, resulting from the persistent fetal globin gene expression in the adult erythroid stage orchestrated by intricate mechanisms that still remain only partly understood. We have previously shown that several protein factors act as modifiers of fetal hemoglobin production, exerting their effect via different pathways.

MATERIALS & METHODS
Here, we explored whether SIN3A could act as a modifier of fetal globin gene expression, as it interacts with KLF10, a known modifier of fetal hemoglobin production.

RESULTS
We show that SIN3A genomic variants are associated both with β-thalassemia disease severity (rs11072544) as well as hydroxyurea treatment response (rs7166737) in β-hemoglobinopathies patients.

CONCLUSION
Our findings further underline that fetal hemoglobin production is the result of a complex interplay in which several human globin gene cluster variants interact with protein factors encoded by modifier genes to produce the observed clinical outcome.


Fetal MR has grown continually in importance in recent years, and the brain has become the main focus of investigation. However, we lack established standards and a good knowledge of the normal MR appearance. To fill this gap is the purpose of the first part of this book, which is an MR atlas of the cerebral development of the fetus. The second part is dedicated to cerebral pathologies. It includes, for each condition, a summary of the fundamental data, the imaging findings (US and MR) in correlation with neurofetopathology and/or postnatal imaging, and a brief perspective of the prognosis.


The Homeric Hymns are commonly taken to be religious poems in some general sense but they are often said to contrast with cult hymns in that the latter have a definite ritual function, whereas "literary" hymns do not. This paper argues that despite the difficulty in establishing a precise occasion of performance for the Homeric Hymns, we are nevertheless in a position to identify their ritual function: by intoning a Hymn of this kind, the singer achieves the presence of a god before participants in a public festival. The key mechanism by which the hymnist does this is the evocation of a god via the elaboration of a typical unit of traditional hymnic discourse, what I call the "theme of recognition (before revelation)."

The pragmatic operation of narrative such as this is similar to the device known in the study of magical texts as the historiola , or short narrative that serves as a verbal model for a desired outcome in the patient's world. This kind of operation is called, in this paper, "symbolic action," a term borrowed from the rhetorician Kenneth Burke. The theme of recognition is traced in the fabric of the expansive Hymns (II-V, VII), and the paper further argues that an important generic marker in the Hymns, the greeting of the god (χχααiiρρϵϵ), discloses their pragmatic function, the hymnist's skillful deliverance of the god before his hearers.


Currently all interactions that occur between ourselves and communications networks involve only two senses (aural and visual). Moreover all these networks, including the Internet, have been designed to carry application information pertaining to these two senses (e.g. telephony, video, graphics, and text). It is clear that by introducing into networks the ability to carry information relating to other senses opens up an enormous potential for new and improved applications. However it is also clear that the network service needed to support other senses such as touch (haptics) will be significantly different from that which currently exists. The effective transmission of the sense of touch (haptics) presents a significant challenge to the current Internet architecture. Haptic information originates from a different human sense; therefore the quality of service (QoS) required to support this type of traffic is significantly different from that used to support conventional real-time traffic such as voice or video. To date there has been no specific provision of QoS parameters for haptic interaction, and each type of network impairment has different (and severe) impacts on the userpsilas haptic experience. This paper describes some of the issues and challenges that are presented whenever remote haptic interactions with virtual environments are considered, and identifies a number of techniques, in the network and in the end applications, that can be used to improve performance of such systems.


Shallow lattice domes can be used to cover large support-free, e. g. assembly halls, sports stadium and exhibition halls. Over the last four decades the problem of buckling of shallow lattice domes has grown in importance because of several interrelated developments. The need to cover larger spans without intermediate supports with lightweight structures has made buckling behavior a determining factor in their design. For a buckling problem it is very important to define the concept concerning the loss of stability and the method to determine the collapse load. Several instability modes can occur in the behavior of the reticulated shells which must be taken into account in determining the limit bearing capacity. The secondary paths, especially in unstable buckling can play the most important role in collapse of these structures [1; 2]. The present report is an attempt to offer a synthetic view of the analysis and design problems for which the consideration of buckling is the main purpose. Another purpose of this report is to present the up-to-date bibliography on the buckling of reticulated shells. Several instability modes has been presented and the propagation of local buckling which is the most dangerous forms of instability has been discussed and many valuable theoretical and experimental studies have been carried out [3].


The international climate change community is increasingly turning its attention to proposals to base future greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations at least in part on a per capita principle. Serious consideration of these issues can proceed only on the basis of good information on per capita emissions, yet to date only data on energy-related emissions per capita have been available. Accordingly, this paper reports calculations showing per capita greenhouse gas emissions on a comprehensive basis for all industrialised (Annex I) countries, based on data collected by the UNFCCC secretariat. This paper presents the most recent and consistent estimates, and shows that Australia has the highest per capita emissions among industrialised countries. In an attempt to explain why Australia.s per capita emissions are so high, and to indicate what might be done to reduce them, this report presents a breakdown of the activities and sectors responsible for the difference in per capita CO2 emissions from fuel combustion between Australia and the European Union as a whole. Three activities account for a large share of the difference: the electricity generation mix; road transportation; and production of non-ferrous metals (mainly aluminium). These sectors also account for most of the growth in Australia's emissions, so this result is of particular interest.


An adaptor protein opposes integrin signaling to promote cofilin signaling and thereby directed cell migration. Development of the enteric nervous system requires a complex migration of enteric neural crest cells (ENCCs) from the foregut to the colon, with some solitary advance cells leading a chain of collectively migrating cells. Zhang et al. report that ENCC migration requires the phosphatase and actin regulator 4 (Phactr4), which binds to both actin and protein phosphatase 1 (PP1). Mice homozygous for the Phactr4humdy/humdy allele, which prevents Phactr4 from binding to PP1, showed disorganization and reduced numbers of ENCCs in the colon and intestinal blockage reminiscent of Hirschsprung disease (HSCR), a type of congenital megacolon in which patients lack enteric ganglia. Specification, differentiation, and proliferation of ENCCs were normal in Phactr4humdy/humdy mutant embryos, but a greater proportion of the mutant ENCCs migrated individually and with a more erratic path than those in wild-type (WT) embryos. In cultured gut explants, inhibiting PP1 with okadaic acid (OA) caused ENCC migration defects similar to those observed in Phactr4humdy/humdy mutants. Whereas WT mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs) migrated directionally in a wound-healing assay and had one large lamellipodium per cell, Phactr4humdy/humdy mutant MEFs moved erratically and had multiple small lamellipodia. Both endogenous Phactr4 and transgenically encoded Phactr4humdy/humdy colocalized in MEF lamellipodia with the actin-depolymerizing protein cofilin, which can be activated by PP1. The relative abundance of phosphorylated cofilin was increased in mutant MEFs and in OA-treated WT MEFs, suggesting that Phactr4 could act as a scaffold to bring PP1 and cofilin together. Cofilin activity can be repressed by integrin signaling through the small GTPase Rho and the Rho-associated kinase ROCK. Phactr4 colocalized with β1 integrin in MEF lamellipodia and negatively regulated integrin signaling through Rho and ROCK. Treatment with a pharmacological inhibitor of ROCK or a peptide that blocks integrin binding to its ligands restored collective migration and the single-lamellipodium phenotype to Phactr4humdy/humdy MEFs and rescued the migration defects in cultured mutant ENCCs. Thus, Phactr4 promotes directed migration by antagonizing β1 integrin signaling to promote the activity of cofilin. These findings not only identify a negative regulator of integrin signaling that could function in other contexts (there are four Phactr family members) but also may offer insight into cases of HSCR not attributable to previously characterized mutations. Y. Zhang, T.-H. Kim, L. Niswander, Phactr4 regulates directional migration of enteric neural crest through PP1, integrin signaling, and cofilin activity. Genes Dev. 26, 69–81 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text] Z. Sun, R. Fässler, A firm grip does not always pay off: A new Phact(r) 4 integrin signaling. Genes Dev. 26, 1–5 (2012). [Abstract] [Full Text]


There is an intense debate over whether fuel economy standards or fuel taxation is the more appropriate policy instrument to raise fuel economy and reduce CO2 emissions of cars. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of standards and fuel prices in new car fuel economy with the aid of cross-section time series analysis of data from 18 countries. We employ a dynamic specification of new car fuel consumption as a function of fuel prices, standards and per capita income. Results are used to address policy questions that are currently in the center of discussions worldwide: to what extent the implementation of fuel economy standards has yielded fuel savings; how much fuel prices should rise in order to increase fuel economy without tightening standards; and whether autonomous fuel economy improvements should be expected in the absence of regulations or fiscal policy instruments.


The brief's key findings are *Numerous studies have examined the impact of Massachusetts' landmark 2006 health care reform, the basis for the national Affordable Care Act. *The results suggest that the Massachusetts reform has largely succeeded by: *reducing uninsurance rates; *improving health care access and health outcomes; and *inducing more firms to offer coverage, without raising unemployment. *At the same time improving access to non-employer coverage may have reduced labor force participation for men age 55- 64. *Finally, while health care cost growth has slowed in recent years, cost control remains a challenge


A three-dimensional (3D) parabolic equation (PE) model for sound propagation in a seismo-acoustic waveguide is developed in Cartesian coordinates, with x, y, and z representing the marching direction, the longitudinal direction, and the depth direction, respectively. Two sets of 3D PEs for horizontally homogenous media are derived by rewriting the 3D elastic motion equations and simultaneously choosing proper dependent variables. The numerical scheme is for now restricted to the y-independent bathymetry. Accuracy of the numerical scheme is validated, and its azimuthal limitation is analyzed. In addition, effects of horizontal refraction in a wedge-shaped waveguide and another waveguide with a polyline bottom are illustrated. Great efforts should be made in future to provide this model with the ability to handle arbitrarily irregular fluid–elastic interfaces.


We intercompare the above‐cloud aerosol optical depth (ACAOD) of biomass burning plumes retrieved from A‐train sensors, i.e., Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), Polarization and Directionality of Earth Reflectances (POLDER), and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI). These sensors have shown independent capabilities to retrieve aerosol loading above marine boundary layer clouds—a kind of situation often found over the southeast Atlantic Ocean during dry burning season. A systematic comparison reveals that all passive sensors and CALIOP‐based research methods derive comparable ACAOD with differences mostly within 0.2 over homogeneous cloud fields. The 532 nm ACAOD retrieved by CALIOP operational algorithm is underestimated. The retrieved 1064 nm AOD however shows closer agreement with passive sensors. Given the different types of measurements processed with different algorithms, the reported close agreement between them is encouraging. Due to unavailability of direct measurements above cloud, the validation of satellite‐based ACAOD remains an open challenge. The intersatellite comparison however can be useful for the relative evaluation and consistency check.


High-speed trains have become one of the main means of public transportation
around the world. The use of tilting train technologies on high-speed trains has
contributed to cost effectiveness by reducing journey time between two places
without the need to develop a new high-speed rail track infrastructure.
Current technologies in tilting railway vehicles use a 'precedence' control
scheme. This scheme uses a measurement from the front vehicle to capture
'precedence' information. Research on local sensor loop control strategies is still
important to overcome the complexity of using precedence control technique.
Work using conventional and modern control approaches has been investigated
by previous researches. This study further extends these by investigating a
particular intelligent control technique using fuzzy logic in designing the local
feedback tilt control scheme. [Continues.]


Tuned liquid damper (TLD), as a low cost and maintenance energy-absorbing device, is an effective passive control technique to suppress structural vibration under wind and seismic loads. The dynamic characteristic of TLD is highly dependent on its geometric sizes as well as liquid volumes. Hence, the relationship between control performance and TLD sizes is critical to the optimization of TLD design. Due to its strongly nonlinear behaviour, experiments rather than pure numerical simulations may be more reasonable to evaluate dynamic responses of structure-TLD systems. In this paper, the real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) is employed to investigate the size effect of TLD on control efficiency, in which TLD devices, with varied geometric sizes, are experimentally modelled as physical substructures, and controlled structures are numerically simulated as numerical substructures. A series of RTHSs are carried out with the premise of same controlled structures as well as mass ratio; and the variation of mass scale is also taken into account. Results show that the TLD performance is size-dependent; a shallow liquid in TLD with lower relative liquid depth may be more efficient on both peak and RMS responses control. Experiments with scaled TLD models will overestimate the control performance of prototype TLD devices, indicating that full-scale TLD experiments should be pursued.


This thesis is related to the field of opto-mechanics and the use of different techniques for the measurement and manipulation of mechanical properties of nano-structures.First part of the work is dedicated to the photonic wires. These objects are GaAs structures with an inverted conical shape of length of the order of 10 µm and diameter of less than 1 µm, containing a layer of InAs quantum dots inside. Wide-range static stress-tuning of quantum dots photoluminescence spectrum was demonstrated using nano-manipulators to bend the wires. Additionally, owing to the spatial dependence of the spectral shift, this technique offers the possibility of QD positions mapping.The second part of this work concerns the optical actuation of these photonic wires. A laser beam focused on the wire and modulated at the mechanical resonance frequency can set the wire in motion. The physical mechanisms responsible for these effects are presented and discussed.In the third part is presented a method enabling the detection of mechanical oscillations of small (less than 50 nm in diameter) nanowires with the use of a Scanning Electron Microscope. This original method offers a possibility to detect the motion of many types of micro- and nano-electromechanical devices which are too small to be detected optically owing to light diffraction limit.Moreover, this method also affects the mechanical properties of the structures via a back-action force that becomes non-negligible for such small devices. It opens up the possibility for further fundamental studies related to cooling of the mechanical motion.


This study examines the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on greenhouse gas emission disclosure and the extent to which the disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information is associated with earnings management and the liquidity of firms' shares. The sample for this study is drawn from Australian publicly listed firms that voluntarily disclosed their greenhouse gas emission information through voluntary disclosure channels such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, annual reports, standalone sustainability reports, and corporate websites between 2006 and 2009. This study adopts the Carbon Disclosure Project 2010 scoring methodology to measure the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure. A content analysis was used to score the quality of voluntary disclosures in annual financial and sustainability reports, and the information provided on company websites.

In this thesis, two competing views: the stakeholder value maximisation view and the shareholder expense view are examined in relation to the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on greenhouse gas emission disclosures and the extent to which the disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information is associated with earnings management. The stakeholder value maximisation view predicts that firms engage in socially responsible initiatives such as greenhouse emission reduction strategies and targets associated with climate change to fulfil the legitimate interests of stakeholders. On the other hand, the shareholder expense view suggests that firms engage in socially responsible initiatives such as greenhouse gas emission reduction initiatives at the expense of shareholders.

This research contributes several new findings to the literature. Firstly, with regards to the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and voluntary disclosure, this thesis has found that effective corporate governance mechanisms such as greater board independence, the absence of Chief Executive Officer duality, the presence of board gender diversity, decrease in directors' share ownership, increase in institutional ownership and smaller size of the audit committee drive voluntary greenhouse gas emission disclosure. These results suggest that firms with effective corporate governance mechanisms focus on the legitimate interests of a broader group of stakeholders with regards to climate change, particularly greenhouse gas emission mitigation targets. This is consistent with the stakeholder value maximisation view of firms which is based on stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory as opposed to the shareholder expense hypothesis which is based on agency theory. These results are robust to control for self-selection using the Heckman two-stage sample selection procedure. Our results are also robust to the exclusion of financial sector firms which arguably could be affected by the Global Financial Crisis.

Secondly, this research finds a weak negative relationship between voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emission disclosure and earnings management. This study has found only weak support for the stakeholder value maximisation view, suggesting that stakeholder-focused firms are less likely to engage in earnings management. In addition, Australian firms are trying to maintain a balance between the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure and the quality of financial reporting. As a result, they have difficulty satisfying multiple objectives simultaneously. These results are robust for endogeneity controls using the two-stage least squares method.

Thirdly, this study has found that the voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information by firms has an impact on the liquidity of that firm's shares. This suggests that firms that disclose more greenhouse gas emission information voluntarily experience improved liquidity of their shares. These results support the view of Balakrishnan et al. (2013) that managers' decisions to disclose more voluntary information could directly affect the liquidity of their firms' shares. Managers may shape the liquidity of their firms' shares by providing more greenhouse gas emission information voluntarily through the Carbon Disclosure Project and their corporate reporting channels.

Finally, larger and more visible firms tend to provide more information regarding climate change related due to social pressures. Firms with higher growth opportunities tend to provide less greenhouse gas emission information. Firm leverage and age are positively associated with the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure; indicating that longer-established firms with more leverage may disclose more the quality of greenhouse gas emissions in order to maintain their reputation among the stakeholders.


The aesthetic results of anterior full-coverage restorations are often compromised by myriad clinical factors. The inherent aesthetic inadequacy of ceramometal crowns is their inability to transmit and reflect light naturally, which often results in an inability to truly match the natural dentition, as well as a darkening of the area around the root and surrounding periodontal tissue. If the clinician is also dealing with a tooth that has received endodontic treatment, the sealer used can darken the root, and the coronal and root portion of the tooth loses its natural ability to transmit light when filled with gutta-percha. When a nonvital tooth has been restored with a cast or metal post, the metal in proximity to the gingival interface frequently creates shadows and discolored gingival tissues due to the shine-through that can adversely affect aesthetic results.


In recent years, the study of human strengths (termed positive psychology) has enjoyed wider popularity. Positive psychology includes, among other topics, the study of subjective experiences (e.g., well-being, satisfaction, flow, happiness), individual traits or dispositions (e.g., capacity for love, courage, hope, gratitude, patience, forgiveness, creativity, spirituality, wisdom, humor), and interpersonal/group level virtues (e.g., civility, sense of community, altruism; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Several books (e.g., Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Lopez & Synder, 2003; Walsh, 2003) and special journal issues (e.g., The American Psychologist, 55[1]; Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 19[1]) have been dedicated to positive psychology research and theory. In these volumes, authors identify and define human strengths and virtues; examine means of assessing these constructs; and, to a lesser degree, describe efficacy studies of strength-enhancing interventions. However, relatively little attention has been given to developing rationales or strategies that link positive psychology to the daily work of counselors--work that often involves the relief of acute suffering in a time-limited manner. Counseling psychology was founded with a primary orientation toward problems of adjustment and development (vs. psychopathology), a focus on strengths and assets, and an emphasis on relatively brief interventions (Gelso & Fretz, 2001; Lopez, Edwards, Magyar-Moe, Pedrotti, & Ryder, 2003). However, applying positive psychology theory, research, and interventions to counseling practice is easier said than done. Increasing numbers of counselors are working in health care settings (really illness treatment settings), such as hospitals, community mental health centers, college counseling centers, and psychotherapy practice, rather than strength-enhancement settings, such as vocational counseling, education, executive coaching, and strength-focused private practices (Fitzgerald & Osipow, 1986; Neimeyer, Bowman, & Stewart, 2001). In illness treatment settings, the biomedical model is dominant and strength-based approaches may be viewed as ineffective, frivolous, and even minimizing of serious problems. With few exceptions, research does not exist directly linking strength-promoting approaches or interventions to common, reimbursable counseling goals. For counselors drawn to the idea of balancing psychology's focus on pathology with a focus on fostering human strengths, these cultural and evidentiary hurdles can loom large. Our goal is to discuss applications of positive psychology to counseling practice in pathology-focused settings, where many counselors work. First, we discuss the main rationales for increasing the prominence of positive psychology in counseling practice. Specifically, how can strength promotion be justified in the service of attaining common (and reimbursable) counseling goals such as the treatment of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and relationship difficulties? Put more bluntly, we examine why anyone (e.g., clients, insurance companies) should pay counselors to focus on strengths. Then, after discussing why strength promotion should be done in specific circumstances, we discuss how it might be done. Specifically, we discuss ways counselors might infuse a strength orientation into current modes of assessment and treatment, including identifying client strengths, using more positive language and conceptualizations, and expanding the counseling framework to include strengths and environmental (outside the person) considerations. It must be emphasized that we are not promoting positive psychology in a blanket manner. Rather, we are raising the possibility that strength promotion might be useful and efficient in specific situations. Some positive psychology constructs, such as self-efficacy and self-regulation, have already achieved mainstream status. …


An experiment was conducted to study the comparative influence of organic and inorganic chromium on mortality percentage in Japanese quails. A total of 700, day old Japanese quail chicks were randomly divided into seven treatment groups with four replicates consisting of 25 quail chicks in each replicate. Quails were provided with feed supplemented with inorganic chromium, organic chromium in the form of chromium with azolla and chromium with yeast at 500 and 1000 ppb levels and a control diet without chromium supplement from day old to six weeks of age. The incidence of mortality was higher during early stages of life (0-3weeks) rather than later stages (4-6weeks) in all the treatment groups including control. Highest mortality (14 per cent) was observed in control group and lowest mortality (3 per cent) was observed in the treatment group provided with 500 ppb of chromium with azolla.


The development of a knowledge-based economy requires stronger and continuous cooperation between the spheres of education, science and industry. The universities create their surroundings through transfer of technology and scientific staff, and through graduates preparation. Benefits of scientific institutions, including higher education ones, in this type of cooperation consist mainly of increasing their recognition among employers and candidates for study, improving the quality of education and research, receiving financial benefits and fulfilling legal obligations. As the other main partner, the industry can achieve, among others, the following benefits: improving the quality of human capital, using the university as a source of ideas, promoting the company's image as an attractive partner, creating a network of contacts with the academic environment. Because of the benefits mentioned the relationships between universities and the socio-economic environment are becoming more and more intensive. Research conducted at technical universities always had influence on what and how students were taught. Good and valuable education process cannot exist without the scientific research in the field of study represented. From the other side, there must exist synergy between research and industry, and what is nowadays extremely important, the learning outcomes such as knowledge and competences of graduates, have to fulfill the needs of industry. Some general experiences regarding cooperation between science and industry with its impact on forming the curriculum of civil engineering are presented on basis of bachelor and master degrees studies at the technical universities in Białystok and Wrocław (Poland).


Cortisol is synthesized by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1, inhibitors of which may treat disease associated with excessive cortisol levels. The crystal structures of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 that have been released may aid drug discovery. The crystal structures have been analyzed in terms of the interactions between the protein and the ligands. Despite a variety of structurally different inhibitors the crystal structures of the proteins are quite similar. However, the differences are significant for drug discovery. The crystal structures can be of use in drug discovery, but care needs to be taken when selecting structures for use in virtual screening and ligand docking.


This article presents the findings on the study that determines the factors which influence financial literacy of bankers around Kuala Lumpur in term of Islamic financial products. The Governor of Central Bank of Malaysia pointed out several years ago that in order to make Islamic financial products acceptable to a wider spectrum of investors and businesspeople alike, financial literacy on Islamic financial products need to be enhanced. This is to facilitate transactions, with a clear understanding and appreciation of the unique characteristics and features of Islamic Finance and its real economic value. However, to date there is scarcity in the studies of Islamic financial literacy in Malaysia. This is proven when Kayed (2008) queries if there are any attempts by the research community to assess levels of Islamic financial literacy in various Muslim communities. In addition, Ahmad (2010) also points out the importance of Islamic financial literacy. These issues have actually motivated the current study to review available literatures on financial literacy mainly focusing on the Islamic financial literacy. The objectives of this study are (i) determine if the bankers possess adequate financial literacy to undertake financial decision with respect to Islamic financial products and services, and (ii) identify the significant factors that influence Islamic financial literacy among bankers. Factor analysis is used in order to identify those factors that indicate banker's Islamic financial literacy. The findings reveal
that nine factors determine banker's financial literacy on Islamic financial products and services.


Background: Acute malnutrition is particularly important in humanitarian emergencies where sudden change of food availability or high disease burden can cause this form of malnutrition. Alliance Forum for Development Uganda received funding from World Food Program to implement MCHN and TSFP in refugee settlement areas in Koboko district, North-western Uganda. As part of the program, a baseline nutrition survey was conducted to fast track the progress and contribution of the project towards improving the nutritional wellbeing of the refugees and host communities.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the month of August in two sub counties in Koboko district. The selection of the sub counties and parishes therein was purposive, while 18 villages in selected parishes were randomly selected. The participants were invited to come to the nearest screening post for anthropometric measurements. Anthropometric data was analyzed using ENA software. While Stata version 12 was used to execute statistical tests for association. Statistical tests were two-sided.
Results: The prevalence of GAM was 5.6% (4.2-7.4 95% C.I.) and SAM was 1.1% (3.2-5.8 95% C.I.). GAM was higher among boys than in girls (7.7% vs. 3.9%). There were no statistically significant differences in prevalence of acute malnutrition by nationality (national: 8.7% vs. refugees: 6.2%, p=0.186). Low child birth weight was statistically associated with acute malnutrition (p=0.021). Severe acute malnutrition was more common among the age group 6-17 months (1.2%) and decreased with age. The prevalence of oedema was 0.6%.
Conclusion: By WHO thresholds, our results indicate that global acute malnutrition is a moderate situation in the refugee areas of Koboko district and that GAM affects both refugees and host communities. We recommend a repeat of the survey during a period of hunger gap to give a year-round nutrition situation in Koboko district.


An athlete's performance often reflects a coach's competence.  If a coach is unable to mentally prepare athletes for competition, the athletes may not achieve peak performance due to psychological barriers such as competitive anxiety.  Coaches' power and their coaching behaviors have a profound impact on athletes' psychological well-being.  Thus, the focal points of this paper are to examine the following four issues (1) coaches' psychological pressures before or during competition, (2) coaches' common misbehaviors, (3) athletes' anxiety processes responding to coaches' negative behaviors, and (4) the successful model of the Olympic coaches' psychological strategies trained by the author for the preparations of the Olympic gold and silver medalists in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.


The adoption of both recording technology and electronically generated sounds has led to new explorations of ideas initially conceived for acoustic instruments, and has itself generated radically pioneering concepts. The chapter identifies and explores the various progressive uses of technology since the rise of minimalism in the 1960s, and how technology has helped shaped the notion of similarity and repetition in prominent minimalist composers' approaches. The paradox of how technology has become a dominant feature for certain composers, yet steered others towards a focus on acoustic instruments (which provide a more humanistic quality) with technology acting in a supporting role, is discussed throughout.

An example of the different consequences technology has had is exemplified in the experiences of La Monte Young and Steve Reich. Whilst Young's instrumental work with the Theatre of Eternal Music led to the electronically-generated sine tones of the Dream House, Reich's experiences with tape loops and the Phase Shifting Pulse Gate encouraged him to return to working with acoustic instruments. His gradual transition from an interest in technology within the performance context to a dissatisfaction is explored, and how the technologies of later works rendered a stronger sense of humanity because of this.

Repetitive minimalism relies heavily on the well-documented early studio experiments of Reich and Terry Riley with tape loops in both Europe and the US. The chapter investigates the various influences between them, and how two composers who are all too often grouped together held significantly differing approaches to the use of technology in their music.

Other areas which tend to be more neglected are also discussed within the chapter, such as James Tenney's early process-based work with tape and computer compositions which parallels mainstream minimalist music in simplicity of structures designed to focus perception upon surface detail. The pioneering work involving technology in live performance from Alvin Lucier is also examined in relation to simplicity in process, alongside more recent work from Chiyoko Szlavnics and Peter Adriaansz.

Sustained tone minimalism since Young has developed significantly with the use of electronic means; amplification, the introduction of sine tone manipulation, synthesisers and software development have all enabled composers who are interested in gradual parametric change to gain superior control over their material. The music of Charlemagne Palestine, Phill Niblock, and Eliane Radigue is discussed in detail, in relation to the composers' various employment of technology, their outlooks on its performative capabilities and its evolving influence over their compositional approach.

Recent trends in minimalist electronic music are also explored, with artists such as Richard Chartier, Ryoji Ikeda and snd providing a focal point for discussion on the capabilities of digital processing. As well as outlining the capabilities of the new technologies, importance is given to how these technologies enable artists to develop on compositional concepts which have existed since the beginnings of minimalism.The tendencies towards extreme sparsity, use of digital silence and finer creative control over surface detail show how these artists' work operates from within a minimalist lineage, but also expands the conceptual and experiential possibilities of recent digital technologies.


In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Thomas v. Arn that a federal court of appeals may establish a rule that failure to file objections to a magistrate judge's report and recommendations "waives" both the right to further review by the district court and the right to appeal the judgment to the court of appeals. The Arn majority determined that such a rule did not remove the essential attributes of the judicial power from the Article III court or elevate non-life-tenured magistrate judges to the functional equivalents of Article III judges. Rather, loss of the right to any Article III review through failure to object to a magistrate judge's report and recommendations merely constituted a nonjurisdictional "procedural default," similar to failure to pay an appellate filing fee or failure to file an appeal before an internal court deadline. The Court emphasized that discretionary appellate review "in the interest of justice" remained available. Despite describing such a rule as a "procedural default," the Arn Court consistently used the term "waiver" throughout the opinion to describe the operation of the rule. Many circuits - although not all - adopted analogous rules under their own supervisory powers, and in 2005 an Arn-type rule became codified as Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 59. Similar to Arn, Rule 59 established for criminal matters that failure to timely object to a magistrate judge's decision "waives a party's right to review." However, in the twenty-year span between the Arn decision and the promulgation of Rule 59, the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case of United States v. Olano carved out a special meaning for the word "waiver." The Olano Court established that there is a procedural and substantive distinction between waiver - "the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right" - and forfeiture - "the failure to make the timely assertion of a right." Substantively, waiver fully extinguishes any error, precluding any form of review, whereas "mere" forfeiture means that an error, which is clear and affects substantial rights, remains potentially reversible under plain error review. Failing to timely object is the paradigm example of forfeiture, and Thomas v. Arn's "interest of justice" discretion has been held equivalent to review for plain error. Accordingly, "waiver" is an inapt description of the default rules authorized by Arn, despite the initial use of "waiver" in the Arn Court's opinion, before Olano had specifically construed the term. By using the language of "waiver" post-Olano, Rule 59 semantically insinuates that every avenue of review, even plain error review, is foreclosed by the failure to timely file objections to a magistrate judge's report and recommendations. As such, the language of Rule 59 obfuscates the actual availability of plain error review. The parameters of appellate "waiver" rules demand greater clarity, particularly to the extent that this misleading choice of words subtly disrupts the constitutional rationale for magistrate judge adjudication, which rests on the presumption, at minimum, of some level of review by a life-tenured Article III judge. Among other conclusions, this Article recommends a change in the language of Rule 59 to more accurately reflect the current limits of appellate "waiver" for failure to timely object to a magistrate judge's report and recommendations, and to aid the future constitutional analysis of magistrate judge adjudication.


The purpose of this study is to characterize the relationship between organic material and thermal maturity during the process of evaluation of hydrocarbon potential. Samples studied include Miocene high volatile bituminous coal and coaly shale collected from outcrops and exploration wells in Hsinchu-Miaoli area, NW Taiwan, density centrifuge separated macerals, bituminous coal and anthracite from China, in addition to Woodford and Green River oil shale from the United States. Maceral composition analysis, elemental analysis, vitrinite reflectance measurement and Rock-Eval pyrolysis were performed for evaluation. The results of study show that: 1) coal samples from the Shiti Formation (middle Miocene) exhibit more vitrinite and less mineral matter contents than samples from the Nanchuang Formation (upper Miocene); H% is increased in exinite-enriched maceral mixtures with density <1.25 g cm^(-3), after density centrifuge separation. 2) A positive linear correlation between Tmax and Ro illustrates both Rock-Eval pyrolysis and vitrinite reflectance can be used as indicators of thermal maturity. 3) From the plot of H/C ratio vs. vitrinite reflectance, even though the depositional environments were different in Taiwan and China, their organic micelles exhibit a similar trend in the process of thermal maturation. As a whole, the curve has a turning point at Ro=0.5% and H/C=0.1 (atomic ratio 1.2) in this study. 4) Arather good correlation between S2 and TOC of samples studied indicates the contribution of S2 from TOC. 5) The highest HI occurred in certain maturities (Tmax and Ro) of samples studied, and not in the stages of less maturity or over-maturity. 6) Two different linear trends were observed in the cross plot of S1 vs. S2. Field outcropped shale or C-shale exhibits a steeper slope compared to that of coal samples which can be attributed to the compositional difference in their organic material. 7) A rather strong positive correlation for H% vs. S2 illustrates the contribution of H-containing macerals, especially exinite. As a result of this study, we expect to promote evaluation techniques for HC exploration; for instance, the development or improvement of evaluation methods for source rocks, reservoirs, structural evolution, and thermal maturity. Evaluations are expected to give more detail regarding local conditions, and be better quantified and more accurate.


This paper presents a detailed study of the microstructure and mechanical properties of AA7449 alloy during the two step heat treatment leading to the industrial T7651 temper. It is first shown that reproducing the heat treatment without a deformation step as used in the T7651 industrial temper leads to 2-fold decrease of the precipitation kinetics due to the absence of dislocations, while the resulting mechanical properties (if this change in kinetics is accounted for) are very similar. The work hardening rate is shown to strongly evolve during the heat treatment, and this evolution has been correlated to the evolution of microstructure using a Kocks-Mecking-Estrin analysis. Finally, an analysis in terms of activation volume of the strain rate sensitivity allows for the determination of the dislocation / precipitate interaction in the overaged temper.


BACKGROUND
Migraine is a highly disabling condition for the individual and also has wide-reaching implications for society, healthcare services, and the economy. Sumatriptan is an abortive medication for migraine attacks, belonging to the triptan family. Intranasal administration may be preferable to oral for individuals experiencing nausea and/or vomiting, although it is primarily absorbed in the gut, not the nasal mucosa.

OBJECTIVES
To determine the efficacy and tolerability of intranasal sumatriptan compared to placebo and other active interventions in the treatment of acute migraine attacks in adults.

SEARCH METHODS
We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, EMBASE, online databases, and reference lists for studies through 13 October 2011.

SELECTION CRITERIA
We included randomised, double-blind, placebo- and/or active-controlled studies using intranasal sumatriptan to treat a migraine headache episode, with at least 10 participants per treatment arm.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Two review authors independently assessed trial quality and extracted data. We used numbers of participants achieving each outcome to calculate relative risk (or 'risk ratio') and numbers needed to treat to benefit (NNT) or harm (NNH) compared to placebo or a different active treatment.

MAIN RESULTS
Twelve studies (4755 participants) compared intranasal sumatriptan with placebo or an active comparator. Most of the data were for the 10 mg and 20 mg doses. Sumatriptan surpassed placebo for all efficacy outcomes. For sumatriptan 10 mg versus placebo the NNTs were 7.3, 7.4, and 5.5 for pain-free at two hours, and headache relief at one and two hours, respectively. For sumatriptan 20 mg versus placebo the NNTs were 4.7, 4.9, and 3.5, respectively, for the same outcomes. The 20 mg dose was significantly better than the 10 mg dose for each of these three primary efficacy outcomes.Relief of headache-associated symptoms, including nausea, photophobia, and phonophobia, was greater with sumatriptan than with placebo, and use of rescue medication was lower with sumatriptan than placebo. For the most part, adverse events were transient and mild and were more common with sumatriptan than placebo.Direct comparison of sumatriptan with active treatments was limited to two studies, one comparing sumatriptan 20 mg and dihydroergotamine (DHE) 1 mg, and one comparing sumatriptan 20 mg with rizatriptan 10 mg.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
Intranasal sumatriptan is effective as an abortive treatment for acute migraine attacks, relieving pain, nausea, photophobia, phonophobia, and functional disability, but is associated with increased adverse events compared with placebo.


Background Marine phytoplankton form the basis of the marine food chain and are essential for the normal functioning of ecosystems. Any disturbance to this component, due to the release and accumulation of toxic compounds can have an impact on higher trophic levels. In this study, we investigate the impact of toxicants on the microalgae isolated from Qatari seawater and cultured under controlled laboratory conditions. Objectives * Develop a toxicity test for Synechococcus sp that can be added to the suite of tests currently available for marine invertebrates and fish. * Perform chronic toxicity tests of three reference toxicants (DCA, SDS and Zn) * Evaluate the sensitivity of Synechococcus sp to three reference toxicants and compare sensitivity to other species used in toxicity tests. Methodology Chronic toxicity tests were carried out in 24-well microplate for a period of 3 days for the DCA and Zn tests and 7 days for SDS test. Algal cultures in logarithmic growth phase (cell density of about 3.105 cells mL−1) were used as inoculum. Each test consisted of at least five test concentrations and a control, in triplicate. A different range of concentrations were used to estimate the range findings for each toxicant. * Cell counting using an hemocytometer was conducted to evaluate the inhibition of microalgal growth * The average specific growth rate and the percent inhibition of growth rate were calculated, the lowest observed effect concentration (LOEC) and the no observed effect concentration (NOEC) were statistically determined. Results A growth inhibition toxicity test was successfully developed for Synechococcus sp, which was isolated from Qatari coastal waters. Prior to conducting the toxicity testing, key environmental parameters including light, temperature and nutrients were optimized to obtain acceptable algal growth rates over 72 hours. Results showed that Synechococcus sp was more sensitive to DCA than SDS and Zn. The growth of Synechococcus sp was found to be stimulated by the SDS at the beginning of the test. The growth inhibition by the SDS on Synechococcus sp was shown by day 3 of the experiment. At a longer exposure time, significant values of the percent inhibition of growth rate were reached compared to the control. Conclusion and Discussion Controlled experiments on microalgae under laboratory conditions provide an opportunity to understand the action of these toxicants in the ecosystem. The growth stimulation in the Synechococcus sp test sample seems to be related to the ability of the microalgae to use the SDS as a source of carbon. Inhibition of cell growth under the influence of high concentrations of SDS may result from the destruction of cellular structures and disruptions of metabolism. The findings in this study showed that Synechococcus sp possess a number of desirable characteristics for use in toxicity assessment. In particular, the algae's high sensitivity to environmentally relevant toxicants makes it a suitable choice for site-specific testing. Therefore, we recommend that they be considered, along with other local organisms, as part toxicity tests in the region.


Mobile social media can be used to augment physical learning spaces and bridge formal and informal learning contexts. This paper presents the ongoing implementation and impact of a mobile social media project, which aims to augment and enhance a Product Design programme underpinned by a Design Thinking methodology. The goal of the project is to enhance student-learning experiences, positively impact their Design Thinking expertise development, and to explore the future of Design Thinking education enhanced by mobile social media. In addition it provides an opportunity for a small university department to engage with implementing and sustaining pedagogical change enabled by technology through the establishment of communities of practice. The paper describes the underlying Design Thinking and learning and teaching frameworks, the establishment of the community of practice, comments from lecturers, and the first pilot project with students.


Plastic deformation of rocks in the Earth is most strikingly illustrated in exposures of shear zones. Very large strains (shear strains of γ = 10 or more) may be developed in these zones. They appear to be ubiquitous within the continental and oceanic crust and may provide the dominant locus for deformation in these regions and, potentially, also in the lithospheric upper mantle. It is therefore of the greatest interest to obtain information about the deformation properties of rock at large strains

In the past, various approaches have been made to achieving in the laboratory the types of deformation seen in natural rocks. In some cases it has been possible to achieve plastic deformation in single crystals and fine-grained aggregates of minerals at atmospheric pressure at sufficiently high temperatures and a number of such experiments have been carried out (Mackwell et al. 1990, Dimanov et al. 1998). However, it is generally necessary to conduct experiments under conditions of high confining pressure as well as high temperature. The earliest experiments of this nature were those of Adams and Nicholson (1901) and von Karman (1911), followed by the pioneering work of Bridgman (1949) and Griggs (1936, and many subsequent papers). These studies were carried out using fluid pressure media. Although Otto Mugge carried out some deformation experiments on single crystals of minerals in solid confining media already in the late 19th to early 20th century, the extensive use of solid media for high-pressure experiments was not introduced until the development of the Griggs solid medium apparatus in the 1960's (e.g., Griggs et al. 1966, Griggs 1967).

Since the 1960s, extensive studies have been carried out in both gas-medium and solid-medium apparatus. The apparatus and techniques have been reviewed in several publications (Griggs et al. 1960, Paterson …


Philippines is considered as a major provider of caregiving services in Canada. Caregiving has historically been identified as feminine labour. As such, providing paid caregiving has always been associated with immigrant women. Policies are thus built to control this work and mostly they tie with the masculine culture of the society. In Canada, live-in caregiving is very gendered and masculine, and as such it discriminated men of colour. This paper is focused on a case study that was done in 2014 in Toronto. There were three paid Filipino male live-in caregivers who participated in this study. The study applied qualitative narrative research methodology. The purpose of this article is to discuss and analyse the participants' experiences and understand how Canadian hegemonic and imperial IJAPS, Vol. 13, No. 1, 51–71, 2017 Gendered Citizenship 52 masculinity shapes citizenship and policy in a racialised and gendered manner. Within this argument, we explore in the introduction of this article the discourse of masculinity. We also look at the history of Live-in Caregiver Program in Canada. Additionally, we deliberate and examine the participants' narratives on gendered citizenship, gendered policy, and the nature of their job. The conclusion is based on the narratives of the Filipino male live-in caregivers and their discrimination in caregiving work on the basis of their citizenship and masculinity. The conclusion also looks at how they are able to negotiate their salary, their time to work, and how they work with their clients.


In this paper, we show that there is a close relation between consistency in a constraint network and set intersection. A proof schema is provided as a generic way to obtain consistency properties from properties on set intersection. This approach not only simplifies the understanding of and unifies many existing consistency results, but also directs the study of consistency to that of set intersection properties in many situations, as demonstrated by the results on the convexity and tightness of constraints in this paper. Specifically, we identify a new class of tree convex constraints where local consistency ensures global consistency. This generalizes row convex constraints. Various consistency results are also obtained on constraint networks where only some, in contrast to all in the existing work, constraints are tight.


Since resistance to today's best malaria drug, artemisinin, was discovered in the Mekong region the late 2000s, experts have feared that it would follow the route of chloroquine, an earlier malaria drug, and sweep out of the Mekong region and into Africa, killing millions of children. But as scientists probe the current threat, they are finding that artemisinin resistance is a very different beast than its predecessor. In the Mekong, for instance, artemisinin resistance is not only spreading, as did chloroquine, but it is also emerging independently, dooming efforts to build a firewall around the region to contain it. Questions remain, but what is already abundantly clear is that very different strategies are needed to stop it.


SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa metodologica - 2. Cenni storici sulle comunita musulmane francesi - 3. La re-invenzione di una tradizione? - 4. Mangiare halal a scuola: l' affaire di Chalon-sur-Saone - 5. Conclusioni. Halal alimentation and the challenges against french laicite : the request of alternative menu in the school canteens ABSTRACT: The article will concern the debate about the balance between secularism and religious-driven prerogatives through a narrow focus on the diffusion of halal food in France. In particular, I will shed light on the increasing request of shari'a-compliant food by Muslims in some social spaces, for instance in the school canteens. My research will unfold its arguments in two sections. In the first one, I will address the recent development of halal market in France and try to frame the reasons of such burgeoning activities - revival of Islam or neoliberal marketing strategy? In the second part, I will consider the sentence of Dijon Administrative Tribunal, which in 2017 abolished the decision of the mayor of Chalon-sur-Saone of suppressing halal menu in the school canteens. The verdict might be read as an opinion favourable to Muslim's prerogatives. Nonetheless, the rationale of the judgement does lie indeed in the defence of the "best interest of the child", whereas the basic principles of French laicite were not put into discussion.


Abbe Sicard is the inventor of a highly uncommon method for syntactic parsing, originally intended for his "deaf-mute" students. The purpose of this method was to lay bare the logical structure of a sentence by means of a cipher mapping its constituents to numerical values. This "numerical analysis of proposition", which Sicard described as a "theory-practice", substituted a combinatorial system based on numerical values for the traditional metalanguage of grammatical functions. Outlandish as it may seem at first sight, Sicard's project did achieve a fair amount of success at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, to such extent that its application to general teaching was envisaged. In this paper, my primary interest will be in the discrepancy between, on the one hand, a theoretical analysis of propositions which relies on the existence of a copula and claims to provide a syntax for the "language of gestures" ("langage mimique"), and, on the other hand, the fact that the language of Sicard's deaf students presents no functional analog of a copula. As a consequence, Sicard's analysis met with the open resistance from teachers of specialized schools for the deaf. This opposition found additional support in observations made by orientalists, and their objections eventually helped undermine the universalist assumptions which characterized dogmatic versions of Grammaire Generale.


Extremely slow communication is a daily reality for many people with different forms of physical disability. Modern computer interfaces can be designed to enhance expressive communication. This is accomplished first by supplying facilities to tailor them to each particular user's residual physical disabilities, and second by automatically supplying much of the redundancy inherent in natural communication. In the first part of this book a functional architecture for communication aids is discussed and the idea of automatically supplying the intrinsic redundancy contained in natural communication is explained. The distinctions between adaptive and non-adaptive models of communication are shown and details are given of working predictive text generation systems. One such system is the Reactive Keyboard, and in the second part of the book this is described. It greatly speeds communication by predicting the user's next response before it is made, although it does not always predict correctly. The guesses are made on the basis of previous answers and thus can conform to whatever kind of text is entered. Versions of the Reactive Keyboard exist for Unix, IBM PC, and Macintosh systems, free of charge, and can be tailored to individual user needs. This book will be of great value to all involved in helping disabled users interact with computers.


Background. Loss events are the stressors most closely associated with the onset of depressive illnesses. The acute cortisol response to loss has been little studied although it could be an important mediator of the effects of environmental stress on psychological state. Methods. The salivary cortisol response to an established negative mood induction procedure involving music and an imagined bereavement was measured in 30 healthy volunteers. Results. Considerable but transient mood lowering in response to the negative mood induction was associated with a small increase in cortisol output over 30 min. Conclusions. This procedure has some potential as a tool to investigate individual differences in the neuroendocrine response to loss events, but this is limited. There remains a need for laboratory models of relevant psychosocial stressors in mood disorders research.


ABSTRACT It is commonly believed that short sellers must possess better information than the average trader in order to overcome the costs associated with short sale restrictions. Previous studies provide evidence which is consistent with, but insufficient to prove, informed trading. Because the role of short sellers in the stock market has come under greater scrutiny by regulators, understanding the nature of the information used by these traders is crucial in determining whether there is need for additional restrictions on short sellers. We examine short interest around large, one-day stock returns. Our methodology allows us to overcome biases that may exist in previous studies. We find significant and robust increases in short interest immediately prior to large negative returns caused by a limited subset of corporate events, but no statistically significant increases in short interest for firms with negative returns caused by commonly occurring events. Surprisingly, the level of short interest is higher for firms experiencing large, positive returns, and we find no significant declines in short interest preceding these positive returns. Thus, we find weak evidence of informed trading by short sellers, but must conclude most short selling activity appears to result from speculation or hedging and not informed trading. INTRODUCTION We examine whether short sellers anticipate large changes in stock prices. That short sellers must possess superior information has been generally accepted since Diamond and Verrecchia (1988) and Fabozzi and Modigliani (1992). These authors show that in the presence of short sale restrictions, short sellers must have an information comparative advantage in order to overcome the costs of these restrictions. Documented stock market reactions appear to be consistent with this notion. Conrad (1986) and Senchack and Starks (1993) find that there are significantly negative stock price changes around announcements of large levels of and changes in short interest. Further, Desai et al. (2002) show that stocks listed on NASDAQ with relatively large levels of short interest experience longer-term abnormal returns. That short sellers possess more precise information is given further credence by Kadiyala and Vetsuypens (2002), who use short interest as a measure of information near stock splits. In general, these authors find that the level of short interest changes around certain splits, leading the authors to conclude that some stock splits provide information to market participants. The question of whether short sellers do possess superior information, however, is not yet resolved. While negative returns following short sale announcements are a necessary condition to show short sellers are better informed, the negative returns alone are not sufficient to prove the superior information hypothesis. The use of ex post stock market reactions such as those in Senchack and Starks (1993) may lead to erroneous conclusions. For example, Chan (2003) documents that market participants tend to react incorrectly to news, particularly negative news. Further, it is now well known that investors suffer from numerous cognitive biases (see Hirshleifer 2001 for a complete description). It is plausible, therefore, that returns surrounding short interest announcements offer an incomplete picture of the news contained in short interest-that is, market participants may inaccurately assume that short sellers possess a better information set and adjust stock prices based simply on the observation of an increase in short sales. Indeed, recent papers suggest that short sellers may be no better informed regarding the prospects of the average firm. Mercado-Mendez, Best and Best (2006) find that, in general, short sellers do not increase short positions in the month prior to large negative earnings surprises. Further, the levels of short interest in firms with large negative earnings surprises are similar to those for firms that have large positive earnings surprises. …


Abstract The "hydrodynamic source term" has been identified as a possible issue for thick liquid protection schemes in inertial fusion energy reactor cavities. The hydrodynamic source term refers to the ejected droplets due to the primary turbulent breakup of the jets themselves. Droplets are continuously ejected from the surface of the jets and spread about the chamber, possibly interfering with driver propagation and target injection. Published correlations are examined in order to estimate upper limits for the hydrodynamic source term in the case of the robust point design (RPD-2002), an update to the High-Yield Lithium Injection Fusion Energy II (HYLIFE-II) design. Experimental data for vertical turbulent sheets of water issuing into ambient air downward from nozzles of thickness (small dimension) δ = 1 cm and aspect ratio of 10 are compared with the empirical correlations at near-prototypical Reynolds numbers of 1.3 × 105. A simple mass collection technique was developed to estimate the amount of ejected droplets from the jet surface. Boundary layer cutting is examined as a means of reducing the source term and improving surface smoothness. Alternate flow conditioning schemes are also explored to establish the relative importance of "traditional" flow straightening elements. Planar laser-induced fluorescence was used to visualize the free-surface geometry of the liquid sheet in the near-field region up to 25δ downstream of the nozzle exit. These results indicate that boundary layer cutting can suppress the hydrodynamic source term for a well-conditioned jet but is not a substitute for proper flow conditioning.


Self-propelled particles and, in particular, those based on mesoporous silica, have raised considerable interest due to their potential applications in the environmental and biomedical fields thanks to their biocompatibility, tunable surface chemistry and large porosity. Although spherical particles have been widely used to fabricate nano- and micromotors, not much attention has been paid to other geometries, such as nanorods. Here, we report the fabrication of self-propelled mesoporous silica nanorods (MSNRs) that move by the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide by a sputtered Pt layer, Fe2O3 nanoparticles grown within the mesopores, or the synergistic combination of both. We show that motion can occur in two distinct sub-populations characterized by two different motion dynamics, namely enhanced diffusion or directional propulsion, especially when both catalysts are used. These results open up the possibility of using MSNRs as chassis for the fabrication of self-propelled particles for the environmental or biomedical fields.


for long time, calcineurin-inhibitors (CNIs) was the best broadly used immunosuppressant in organ transplantation; since it had proven its efficacy in the reduction of acute rejection episodes and early graft loss, though their use in the long-term, are associated with chronic allograft nephropathy (CAN), besides it increases the cardiovascular risks such as diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemias. Moreover, CNIs in combination with other immunosuppressant's increases the risk of fatal infections and malignancy. Ultimately the introduction of the mammalian focus of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors, such as sirolimus and everolimus in 1990s, had changed the face of transplantation and conveyed a great hope to transplant physicians as an innovative class of effective immunosuppressants with a unique mechanism and less nephrotoxic effects (1-6).
In this review article we will try briefly to elicit the clinical indications, advantage and disadvantage of m-TOR inhibitors over other immunosuppressant's medications and their clinical indications inside and outside the transplant field.


This paper examines the schism between intended message and reception in the case of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon (1919–1987). McCahon was heavily influenced by Christianity, for him linked inextricably to a message of ecological conservation, and he considered painting to be a prophetic task. As such, McCahon hoped to bring about the religious and behavioural transformation of his audience. McCahon's Necessary Protection artworks use Christian symbols as a means of communicating the importance of faith as well as his fear of environmental degradation and the necessity of loving one's homeland. However, McCahon's complex symbolic lexicon has often proven to be too esoteric to have the intended affect on its intended audience.


The aim of this study was to assess cognitive performance and heart rate variability (HRV) following the ingestion of either a multi-vitamin-mineral preparation supplemented with 300 mg guarana (Ac); a caffeine supplement (C) or a placebo supplement (Pl). Fifty-six subjects took part in a randomized, double-blind crossover design, consisting of three experimental sessions ran on a different day. Cognitive performance was assessed using a go/no-go task and a simple reaction time (SRT) task. HRV was assessed in the time domain (RMSSD) and in the frequency domain (HF) and cognitive tasks were performed before ingestion, 15 min after ingestion and then every 15 min over the course of 3 h. Responses were faster (without change in accuracy) when the go/no-go task was performed between 30 and 90 min after ingestion of Ac (4.6% ± 0.8%, p < 0.05). No effect was observed on SRT task. A significant decrease in HRV was observed during the first hour under C and Pl, whereas HRV remained stable under Ac. The results suggest that the ingestion of a multi-vitamin-mineral with added guarana improves decision-making performance and is accompanied by a stable autonomic nervous system regulation during the first hour.


Horizontal accountability, in which institutional actors with equivalent levels of authority possess tools to challenge one another, is a critical component of mature and stable democracy. This article investigates ways in which partisanship differentiates how political actors use a specific accountability tool – legislative questions – and the responsiveness of government institutions to inquiries. We take advantage of the unanticipated change in Ukraine's executive leadership in 2004 to assess the relationship between partisan identity and accountability. The analysis of nearly 16,000 legislative requests from Ukraine illustrates the pivotal role of partisanship in accountability and institutional responsiveness, a finding that is particularly notable given Ukraine's inchoate party system and under-developed democratic norms.


For many scholars, the Warren Court is the epitome of antimajoritarian policy making since many of the Court's decisions overturned legislation passed by Representatives of the people. By examining nationwide public opinion polls in that era that ask the public their thoughts about particular issues the Warren Court has ruled on, it is evident that most of these rulings were truly majoritarian and received public approval. In addition, this thesis analyzes some recent studies that discern national attitudes with respect to government policy making (public mood), assessing congruity or incongruity between the Court's liberalism and public policy mood which provides insight about the Warren Court's role perception. The Burger Court is analyzed with similar methods to provide contrasts and comparisons with the Warren Court. Finally, a normative study concerning the influence of public opinion is undertaken to better understand the role of the Supreme Court in American society.


Marked temporal point processes (MTPP) have emerged as a powerful framework to model the underlying generative mechanism of asynchronous events localized in continuous time. Most existing models and inference methods in MTPP framework consider only the complete observation scenario i.e. the event sequence being modeled is completely observed with no missing events – an ideal setting barely encountered in practice. A recent line of work which considers missing events uses supervised learning techniques which require a missing or observed label for each event. In this work, we provide a novel unsupervised model and inference method for MTPPs in presence of missing events. We first model the generative processes of observed events and missing events using two MTPPs, where the missing events are represented as latent random variables. Then we devise an unsupervised training method that jointly learns both the MTPPs by means of variational inference. Experiments with real datasets show that our modeling and inference frameworks can effectively impute the missing data among the observed events, which in turn enhances its predictive prowess.


Hydrogen is one the most attractive and suitable energy systems for generation of power in the future with high efficiencies and renewable properties. Nanoscale materials, because of their surface and physical properties are the promising candidates for the development of high performance energy conversion devices, essential components to ensure the efficient operation of the infrastructure and to facilitate the wide spread implementation of hydrogen technologies.
This work realizes the use of solid state energy conversion concept to develop metal-semiconductor, metal-oxide architecture devices for electrolyte free conversion of chemical energy to electrical energy by hydrogen oxidation process. This investigation addresses the synthesis of these nanostructure devices by selection of suitable system material combinations, electrical and surface morphological characterization leading to the successful implementation in generation of chemicurrents. Also, the hydrogen oxidation process on each nanostructure device is elucidated with the help of corresponding mechanisms and the performance of each system developed was evaluated based on the resulting output efficiency.
The two systems (metal-semiconductor and metal-oxide) realized, showed excellent chemical to electrical energy conversion abilities. Compared to metal-semiconductor nanostructure devices, metal-oxide systems exhibited better energy conversion abilities for indefinitely long duration of time at room temperature. The electron yield observed in considered metal-oxide systems can be sufficient for their use in practical applications. A continued realization of these metal-oxide systems with different material combinations would lead to more ecologically friendly and sustainable energy economics.


Abstract Even when armed conflicts formally end, the transition to peace is not clear-cut. Mounting evidence suggests that it is rather 'unlikely to see a clean break from violence to consent, from theft to production, from repression to democracy, or from impunity to accountability'. The transition out of war is a complex endeavour, interrelated in many cases with other transformations such as changes in the political regime (democratisation) and in the economy (opening of markets to globalisation). In addition, in the same way as wars and conflicts reflect the societies they befall, post-war orders may replicate and perpetuate some of the drivers of war-related violence, such as high levels of instability, institutional fragility, corruption, and inequality. Thus, even in the absence of a formal relapse into war and the re-mobilisation of former insurgents, many transitional contexts are marked by the steady and ongoing reconfiguration of criminal and illegal groups and practices.


This paper provides a review and update of the ideas contained in a PhD dissertation that was authored by Australian lawyer Christine Burns in 2007, entitled 'Online Legal Services—A Revolution that Failed?' It explores several themes that are found in her work: the knowledge acquisition bottleneck, combining people and software, combining different technology paradigms, and combining people from different backgrounds. The paper finishes by critiquing Burns' position that Clayton Christensen's theory of disruptive innovations does not apply to online legal knowledge products.


The generation of coherent high-order harmonics from the interaction of ultra-intense femtosecond laser pulses with solid density plasmas holds the promise for table-top sources of intense extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft x-ray (SXR) radiation. Furthermore, they give rise to the prospect of combining the attosecond pulse duration of conventional gas-harmonic sources with the photon flux currently only available from large-scale free-electron
laser or synchrotron facilities.
In this thesis a series of experiments studying various aspects of harmonic generation from such a plasma source are presented and the emitted XUV-radiation is characterized
spectrally, spatially and temporally. The measurements probe the dynamics of the plasma surface on a sub-laser-cycle time scale and help to increase our understanding of the harmonic generation process. It is shown that, at moderate intensities and laser contrast,
the emitted harmonics are indeed phase-locked but chirped and emitted as a train of XUV-bursts of attosecond duration. Measurements with very high contrast relativistically intense driving pulses reveal the generation of harmonics up to the relativistic cutoff in
a diffraction-limited beam with constant divergence observed for all wavelength. This implies that the harmonics are generated on a curved surface and travel through a focus after the target possibly opening a route towards extreme intensities in the process. In addition it is found that a target roughness on the scale of the wavelength of the highest generated harmonic does not adversely affect the harmonic beam quality implying that
the generation of diffraction-limited keV-harmonic beams should be possible. In a third set of experiments the first demonstration of harmonic generation from solid targets using an 8 fs driving laser opens a route towards the generation of ultra-intense single-as pulses and gives conclusive evidence for the unequal spacing of the harmonic emission.
Based on these results the development of ultra-intense sources of single as-pulses from the interaction of intense laser pulses with solid surfaces could advance at a fast pace making XUV-pump XUV-probe type investigations of nonlinear processes with attosecond time resolution feasible in the near future.


Pitcairn is in the news, and for all the wrong reasons. Allegations of widespread sexual offending have triggered a long-running criminal investigation with, at the time of writing, no clear end in sight. These developments raise a number of significant domestic and international public law issues for Pitcairn. It is the purpose of this paper to comment on a few of those issues in the hope of stimulating further consideration of the matters of law that confront the people of this small South Pacific territory.


Experiments were conducted to investigate injection effects on sediment transport in closed-conduit flows. The results show that the sediment transport rate essentially remains unchanged when the ratio of the injection velocity and that at boiling, Vi/Vcr < 10. However, significant sediment transport rate is observed when Vi/Vcr increases beyond this limit. In the literature, three semi-empirical models have been developed to relate seepage effects on the sediment transport rate. The experimentally measured data in the pre- and post-boiling condition (Liu and Chiew 2014, and the present study, respectively) are compared with these models. The results show that the models of Francalanci et al. (2008) and Nielsen et al. (2001) perform poorly in predicting injection effects on the sediment transport. Although Yang's (2013) model could reasonably predict the influence of injection on the sediment transport rate in the post-boiling condition, it similarly fails when applied to the pre-boiling condition.


The secular rise of European unemployment since the 1960s is hard to explain without reference to structural change. This is especially true in Germany, where industrial employment has declined by more than 30% and service sector employment has more than doubled over the past three decades. Using individual transition data on West German workers, we document a marked increase in structural change and turbulence, in particular since 1990. Net employment changes resulted partly from an increase in gross flows, but also from an increase in the net transition "yield" at any given gross worker turnover. In growing sectors, net structural change was driven by accessions from nonparticipation rather than unemployment; contracting sectors reduced their net employment primarily via lower accessions from nonparticipation. While gross turnover is cyclically sensitive and strongly procyclical, net reallocation is countercyclical, meaning that recessions are associated with increased intensity of sectoral reallocation. Beyond this cyclical component, German reunification and Eastern enlargement appear to have contributed significantly to this accelerated pace of structural change. JEL Classification: J63; J64; J62


Climate changes, as well as land cover changes, affect the flow regimes in streams. Understanding the contributions of climate variables and land cover changes on low flows will help planners and decision makers to improve water resources management. An approach which uses data driven artificial neural networks (ANNs) is proposed in this study. Land cover, rainfall, snow and temperature were used as inputs to the ANN model. In this approach, an index called relative strength effect was used to assess the contribution of each input used in ANN. The proposed approach was experimented in three contrasting watersheds in northwest Indiana, USA. The study indicates that the changes in low flow regime for a less urbanized watershed were explained by land cover changes up to 30% while the remaining 70% variations were explained by meteorological inputs. In the watershed with a more developed area, the low flow variations were influenced up to 80% by meteorological inputs.


In his book, Capital in the 21st Century,Thomas Piketty highlights the risk of an explosion of wealth inequality because capital is accumulating faster than income in several countries including the US and European countries such as France. Our work challenges the conclusions of the author in three steps. First, the author's result is based on the rise of only one of the components of capital, namely housing capital,and due to housing prices. In fact, housing prices have risen faster than rent and income in many countries.It is worth noting that "productive" capital, excluding housing, has only risen weakly relative to income over the last few decades. Over the longer run, the "productive" capital/income ratio has not increased at all. Second, rent, not housing prices, should matter for the dynamics of wealth inequality, because rent represents both the actual income of housing capital for landlords and the dwelling costs saved by "owner-occupiers" (people living in their own houses). Logically, to properly measure capital, the value of housing capital must be corrected by measuring it on actual rental price, and not housing prices. Third, when we apply this change, we find that the capital/income ratio is actually stable or only mildly higher in the countries analyzed (France, the US, the UK, and Canada) except for Germany where it rose. These conclusions are exactly opposite to those found by Thomas Piketty. However, this does not mean that housing prices do not contribute to other forms of inequality. When housing prices rise, owners of the housing capital hold a higher value that can be transformed into consumption. It is also more difficult for young adults to become homeowners. Housing incomes of owners however do not necessarily increase which casts serious doubt on Piketty's conclusion of a potential explosive dynamics of inequality based on these trends.


Medieval genres of lyric poetry have long been accepted as self-evident categories that define the literature. "Medieval Lyric" reveals the importance of investigating the historicity of genres themselves as a means of coming to grips with the evolution of the poems they were meant to characterize and the cultures they attempted to serve. An essential volume for medievalists and scholars of comparative literature, "Medieval Lyric" opens up a reconsideration of genre in medieval European lyric. Departing from a perspective that asks how medieval genres correspond with twentieth-century ideas of structure or with the evolution of poetry, this valuable collection argues that the development of genres should be considered as a historical phenomenon, embedded in a given culture and responsive to social and literary change. An array of widely respected scholars draw from French, Italian, German, Latin, Catalan, Spanish, Galician-Portuguese, Arabic, and Hebrew literature to address questions about what genre could have meant to medieval poets and poet-musicians and what distortions result when modern ideas of genre are applied to medieval lyric. Essays explore the relations of medieval lyric genres, such as love songs and satires, to their historical contexts and consider genres in relation to rhetoric and music. Contributors also challenge the concept of genre itself, clarifying what we do when we read in genres and demonstrating the hazards of applying concepts of genre to an age that did not think in those terms.


Background: The goal of this study was to project the number of COVID-19 cases and demand for acute hospital resources for Fall of 2021 in a representative mid-sized community in southwestern Ontario. We sought to evaluate whether current levels of vaccine coverage and contact reduction could mitigate a potential 4th wave fueled by the Delta variant, or whether the reinstitution of more intense public health measures will be required. Methods: We developed an age-stratified dynamic transmission model of COVID-19 in a mid-sized city (population 500,000) currently experiencing a relatively low, but increasing, infection rate in Step 3 of Ontario's Wave 3 recovery. We parameterized the model using the medical literature, grey literature, and government reports. We estimated the current level of contact reduction by model calibration to cases and hospitalizations. We projected the number of infections, number of hospitalizations, and the time to re-instate high intensity public health measures over the fall of 2021 under different levels of vaccine coverage and contact reduction. Results: Maintaining contact reductions at the current level, estimated to be a 17% reduction compared to pre-pandemic contact levels, results in COVID-related admissions exceeding 20% of pre-pandemic critical care capacity by late October, leading to cancellation of elective surgeries and other non-COVID health services. At high levels of vaccination and relatively high levels of mask wearing, a moderate additional effort to reduce contacts (30% reduction compared to pre-pandemic contact levels), is necessary to avoid re-instating intensive public health measures. Compared to prior waves, the age distribution of both cases and hospitalizations shifts younger and the estimated number of pediatric critical care hospitalizations may substantially exceed 20% of capacity. Discussion: High rates of vaccination coverage in people over the age of 12 and mask wearing in public settings will not be sufficient to prevent an overwhelming resurgence of COVID-19 in the Fall of 2021. Our analysis indicates that immediate moderate public health measures can prevent the necessity for more intense and disruptive measures later.


Trends in the numbers and location of refugees and asylum seekers during the 1980s and the 1990s are compared. The question of whether the world has created a system of "global apartheid" is reviewed. The outcome of asylum applications filed in European countries is compared with those in Canada and the United States. It is concluded that racism still prevails in the treatment of refugees. Canada's record compares favourably with those of other developed countries, although the main burden of refugee protection still falls on less developed regions of the world.