Christian Dior rocketed to fame with his first collection in 1947 when the 'New Look' took the world by storm. This charming and modest autobiography gives a fascinating and detailed insight into the workings of a great fashion house, while revealing the private man behind the high-profile establishment. It is also a unique portrait of the classic Paris haute couture of the 1950s and offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes. Dior details his childhood in Granville, the family and friends closest to him, his most difficult years and sudden success, as well as his sources of inspiration and creative processes.


Twenty years after overcoming Apartheid, South Africa still suffers from poverty and inequality. Recent data (Income and Expenditure Survey 2011) indicates that one third of the population lives on less than USD 0.70 per day while the upper tercile has USD 28 available. The country also faces other complex challenges, including high levels of unemployment, a resource-biased economy and low levels of education, and structural reforms are much needed to put the economy on a path of sustained growth. However, structural reforms require a broad consent within society, and inequality, clearly, is a major hindrance to this.

By choosing how to collect revenue and how to spend it, South Africa's government has two instruments at their disposal in order to alleviate inequality and facilitate reform. Like most modern economies, South Africa is increasingly relying on indirect taxation. The combined revenue generated by VAT, excise taxes, and the fuel and gas levy, make up 35% of total revenue. In the light of growing income inequality, this development is remarkable as wealthy individuals tend to spend a smaller proportion of their income on consumption. Indirect taxation thus potentially places a relatively higher burden on the poor.

To counteract an aggravation of income inequality, a range of commodities, held to be important for the poor, are currently zero-rated under South Africa's VAT system. And some studies find that this policy measure is partly effective in reducing the regressive effect (Fourie and Owen, 1993; Jansen et al., 2012). However, while studies on the regressive effect of VAT are potentially valuable, they are certainly non-conclusive in appraising the welfare consequences of zero-ratings. Increasing the rates on such commodities would not only entail an increased burden on the poor, but also an increase in governmental revenues. Depending on the redistribution of such additional revenues, the poor could either benefit or not from this reform and the conclusion would be fairly independent from the overall regressiveness of the system.

In this paper, we re-evaluate the effectiveness of zero-rating as a measure to alleviate poverty in South Africa and extend earlier work by incorporating both sides of fiscal action in our analysis. We clarify the interlink between welfare effects and consumption taxation by retracing a simple model developed by Keen (2013), in Section 2, which we then apply to the South African case. In doing so, we employ data from the most recent Income and Expenditure survey to derive distributions of household spending and governmental spending in Section 3. We conclude in Section 4. (authors' abstract)


Taro leaf blight (TLB), caused by Phytophthora colocasiae, is normally characterised by leaf lesions. There are isolated reports of P. colocasiae causing a corm rot but the symptoms are not well defined and have not been recorded in Samoa. Here we report on an inoculation method and describe the symptoms of corm rot caused by P. colocasiae. In this study, a corm inoculation method was developed in physical containment laboratories in New Zealand and subsequent symptom development studies were undertaken on TLB-tolerant taro cultivars in Apia, Samoa. The Samoan TLB-tolerant taro cultivars were able to be wound-infected with P. colocasiae and the results confirm previous descriptions of P. colocasiae infection giving rise to light brown firm rots in corms. This work has allowed the pictorial record of corm rots to be updated, potentially providing for better distinction between corm rots caused by P. colocasiae and those caused by other pathogens, such as Fusarium spp.


The situation of male subjectivity in North America has become problematic and this is reflected in current popular culture The ways of looking at men have changed, and with them, the ways of becoming and being a man. Since its appearance, the cover of the June 1978 edition of Hustler magazine, which depicts a woman in a meat grinder up to her torso, has been regarded by many as the worst example of the patriarchal view of women, both literally and metaphorically It is a sign of our times, then, that this image was echoed in a recent Toronto Star montage of a man being melted in a pot of wax up to his torso (15 June 2000, J1). These visceral images frame a period of significant debate and political negotiation over gender roles and the second calls our attention to major shifts in how masculinity is seen The image of masculine diminishment makes us ask-since masculinity may be in decline, but the actual numbers of men are not-how men learn how to be men. The diminishment of masculinity has not come without significant costs. Pulitzer Prizewinner Susan Faludi's books, Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women (1991) and Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (1999) attempt to detail these costs In her research, Faludi finds that in an age in which corporations are constantly downsizing and outsourcing in order to increase profits, men can no longer look to these traditionally patriarchal institutions for paternal acceptance and confirmation of masculine success The image of the boss or company as a fatherly provider has been replaced by the pink slip. Indeed, "there is no passage to manhood in such a world" (Stiffed 39). Yet, men are told that they are the masters of their world-by the men's movement, by advertisers, by the media. It is important, then, to produce increasingly sophisticated work that elucidates recent shifts in male subjectivities, through a discourse that is conversant with feminist theory since the ultimate goal is the same the elimination of the patriarchal enforcement of rigidly defined gender roles. Without such work, the backlash against women and the betrayal of men that Faludi documents will be perpetuated and a void between males and females will continue to widen Moreover, victimized or oppressed persons will be trapped between competing discourses. Given the shifting ways in which men are represented in popular media, my dissertation will examine three general areas: 1) how shifts in the location of masculine endeavours are conveyed by shifts in media genres, 2) how the roles of spectators or participants in certain new media actually reshape gender roles and relationships, and 3) how exclusions of men from certain roles in popular media circumscribes potential points of coalition between pro feminist activism and masculinity studies. In the first area, I examine the lone hero fighting an oppressive state system, a type Paul Smith finds in 1970s westerns (Clint Eastwood, 1993) and William Warner finds in 1980s action films (Rambo, 1992). As an example, this figure now fights a corporate power, or even his boss, in professional wrestling storylines. Similarly, the father-son narrative that Susan Jeffords traces in action films from the 1980s (The Remasculinization of America, 1989) and which she claims had disappeared by the early 1990s (Hard Bodies, 1994), has in fact been taken up by the sports film genre, but now it is the father-figure rather than the son who is searching for redemption. The second section considers shifts in masculine identification such as the crossgender identification Carol Clover suggests is possible in horror films (Men, Women, & Chainsaws, 1992). This can now occur for players of virtual reality video games typified by Tomb Raider and Dino Crisis. These feature female protagonists in traditionally male roles. Female wrestlers such as Chyna and the recent film, Girl Fight, provide similar opportunities for cross-gender identification in the earlier cited genres. As well, Laura Mulvey's critique of the "male gaze," a critical commonplace for over twenty years, cannot account for the viewing of these productions ("Visual Pleasure," 1978). In the words of Robert Connell, these media once portrayed "competition and hierarchy among men, exclusion or domination of woman [producing] social relations of gender both realized and symbolized in bodily performances" (Masculinities, 1995 54). Now men's bodies are objects of the gaze and of domination, nurturing supersedes violence, and instead of excluding women, men are encouraged to identify with them. The final area considers one of Faludi's conclusions, that being a man is less about dominating than about not being dominated, in terms of the media treatment of men who have been victimized. The TV movies depicting former NHL.player, Sheldon Kennedy, who was abused by his coach, provide excellent examples of how men are silenced by a society that refuses to accept that men can be victims. This chapter is a fitting end to the work since it combines previous discussions of body image, gender stability, and gender performance in a pressing area of commonality between feminism and masculinity while providing a discursive link between the two. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/14226 Identifier: opendissertations/9049 10129 5630516 Appears in Collections: Open Access Dissertations and Theses


Can Jane Austen only be fully understood in English? In Jane Austen Speaks Norwegian, Sorbo compares novels and their translations, while also discussing the strategies chosen by translators of literature.


In this chapter, we introduce and explain the basic notions of Description Logic, including syntax, semantics and reasoning services, and we explain how the latter are used in applications. The concept language of the DL ALC In this section, we will describe the central notions of Description Logic first on an intuitive level and then on a more precise level. As a running example, we use the domain of university courses and teaching, and we will use a conceptualisation given informally, in graphical form, in Figure 2.1. Please note that this is one way of viewing university teaching – which might be very different from the reader's way of viewing it. Also, as it is an informal representation, different readers may interpret arrows in different ways; that is, our representation does not come with a well-defined semantics that would inform us in an unambiguous way how to interpret the different arrows. In the next sections, we will describe our way of viewing university teaching in a DL knowledge base, thereby establishing some constraints on the meaning of terms like "Professor" and "teaches" used in Figure 2.1 and throughout this section. In Description Logic, we assume that we want to describe some abstraction of some domain of interest, and that this abstraction is populated by elements . We use three main building blocks to describe these elements: • Concepts represent sets of elements and can be viewed as unary predicates. Concepts are built from concept names and role names (see below) using the constructors provided by the DL used. The set a concept represents is called its extension . For example, Person and Course are concept names, and m is an element in the extension of Person and c6 is in the extension of Course. To make our life a bit easier, we often use "is a" as an abbreviation for "is in the extension of" as, for example, in "m is a Person". • Role names stand for binary relations on elements and can be viewed as binary predicates. If a role r relates one element with another element, then we call the latter one an r-filler of the former one. For example, if m teaches c 6, then we call c 6 a teaches -filler of m .


It has been suggested that physical and cognitive functions are associated with health-related quality of life (HRQL). Previous work examining the relationship between physical ability and HRQL is equivocal, and information about cognitive function in relation to HRQL is largely restricted to people with cognitive impairments. We investigated the relationships of physical ability and cognitive performance to HRQL in 44 older adults (72-93 years). The results suggest significant relationships between the endurance item of the AAHPERD test and the physical mobility and pain components of HRQL and between AAHPERD agility scores and the physical mobility component of HRQL. Visual simple-reaction time and the backward digit-span memory test were found to be related to physical mobility. The subject-performed-tasks memory test was related to the social component of HRQL. These data support the use of the AAHPERD test for characterizing physical ability of older adults as it relates to HRQL and identify specific...


This thesis explores the function and politics of various narratives of technoculture. In particular, the focus is on how these narratives help articulate and sustain various figurations of technologically-implicated identity. The most important of these is Man; a hybrid figure made up of the legacy of the modernist project, the Enlightenment, and evolutionary narratives, and who has an interest in sustaining his dominion over the Other. This work traces the recuperation of these conservative narratives in the technocultural realm, a realm characterised by both desires and fears towards machines. While logocentrism describes the philosophical guarantee on which many of these narratives and figurations rely, this logocentrist system is challenged by new technological artefacts and practices. This causes the feminist historian of science Donna Haraway to suggest hopefully: 'Perhaps we can learn from the fusions with animals and machines how not to be Man, the embodiment of western logos'. 1 Like the trope of the cyborg, science fiction is a boundary-crossing genre with its intermingling of traditionally distinct generic categories: science and fiction. It provides, in this way, a particularly rich source of anxious and desiring narratives about technologically-mediated change which I will use as my primary lens into this technocultural realm. Most of the texts I examine do not provide rich new cyborg figurations, or ones which have learnt to be other than Man. On the contrary, they are good at recuperating conservative metanarratives about humanist individuality, agency, the relationship to Otherness, the relationship of the mind to the body, to name just a few. Many technocultural texts such as Gattaca, Metropolis and Blade Runner problematise technologically-mediated change as a movement toward disorder, before resolving this crisis in a corresponding movement towards order in the services of recuperating logocentric taxonomies.


The purpose of this research is to explore unlikely intersections between the seemingly divergent streams of spirituality and queer theory in the discourses around education. When brought into conversation, the two produce creative tensions particularly in regards to constructions of knowledge and subjectivity. In an interrogation of "spirituality" as a construct in education, I map a genealogy through Enlightenment and Transcendental thought arguing that "spirituality" in its popular usage cannot be understood apart from a larger explication of Western religious liberalism, and in particular liberal Christianity. I then turn towards a consideration of the utility of such a construct in light of the erosion of the foundational thought on which it depends. Having both levied my critiques of "spirituality" and argued a case for its usefulness, I consider what sort of theological framework is functional as an underpinning for a spirituality concerned with critical pedagogy. My discussion takes shape in relation to three practices more commonly spoken of in Christian discourse: hospitality, embodiment, and testimony. I explore these three concepts as they support an understanding of queer pedagogy as spiritual practice, particularly in regards to my own teaching experience. Highlighting the investment of both queer pedagogy and spiritual practices in drawing attention to the limits of knowability, I demonstrate how framing queer pedagogy as spiritual practice might enrich both discourses.</


Shephard (1953, 1970,1974)introduced radial distance functions as representations of a firm's technology and developed a number of dual representations that have been widely applied in empirical work. A systematic exposition of Shephard's work can be found in Fare and Primont (1995). More recently, work by Luenberger (1992, 1995) has provided some new technology representations, the benefit and the shortage functions. Exploiting these results, Chambers, Chung, and Fare (1996, 1998a) introduced directional distance functions; these can be thought of as additive alternatives to the corresponding radial concepts. In this paper, the radial approach is further extended by introducing and characterizing indirect directional distance functions; these are directional versions of their radial counterparts. This, in turn, leads to a new set of duality results that will be of use in applied work.


In this paper, a class of new stochastic differential equations on semilinear Hausdorff space under Hukuhara derivative, called set-valued stochastic differential equations (SSDEs) driven by a Wiener process. Moreover, some corresponding properties of SSDEs are discussed such as existence, uniqueness of solution. Finaly, we give some applications to models of interval-valued stochastic differential equations such as stock prices model and the Langevin equation.


Learning is one of primeval human instincts. It is not only the key for sustainable competitive advantage but also for survival. The kind of learning which results in competitive advantage is not limited by time, space or matter. A new approach to career development for individuals and corporations will be focussed at learning as an action-directed lifelong process where global partners work together on the production of positive, payable future for all . Accordingly, the concept of lifelong education as a "transitional education" in modern society is suggested. It is seen as a link between demands of market competitiveness on one side and quality life on the other. Modern strategy of education is based on the principle of lifelong education . Education is becoming continuous throughout life, from youth up to old age, and is used as an attempt to foresee the knowledge needed in the future. Croatia lacks scientific thought and empirical studies as well as clearly elaborate expert criteria and also the system of performing lifelong education and adult education activity. Therefore, it is considered important to theoretically analyse marketing implementation in the field of lifelong education and adult education in Croatia, to which the subject of this paper relates to.


Competition athletic apparel plays a large role in the world of NCAA Division I college athletics. New and innovative designs, styles, and fashions are continually introduced by athletic apparel manufacturers as they attempt to find the latest and greatest uniforms, footwear and protective equipment. Still, little research exists on the impact that athletic apparel has on college athletes. What does an athlete feel as they don their competition athletic apparel to compete at this top level of collegiate sport? The purpose of this study was to examine student-athlete experiences with competition athletic apparel in relation to self-perception. Did the apparel worn in competition by student-athlete's play a role on their mental state as they entered competition? Sixteen participants from a large NCAA Division I athletic program participated in this study during the spring semester of 2011. A stratified sample of eight female student-athletes and eight male student-athletes was used. The participants were drawn from the sports of Men's Soccer, Women's Soccer, Men's Basketball, and Women's Basketball. Participants completed face to face interviews that employed a semi-structured approach. Interview questions addressed aspects of the Functional, Aesthetic, Expressive (FEA) consumer needs model as well as Self-Perception Theory. All interviews used a grounded theory approach to foster the emergence of data as interviews progressed. Data was analyzed using qualitative methods that stressed the importance of true lived experience. The results of the study revealed that student-athlete self-perception was indeed impacted by various aspects of competition athletic apparel. Each participant revealed one or more concerns about their competition apparel in relation to the different categories of the FEA. Further, many of these concerns followed important aspects of Self-Perception Theory. The results of this study further revealed that coaches, athletes, and competition apparel manufactures would benefit from understanding the impact that competition apparel has on athlete self-perception. Results showed that athletes wanted competition apparel that looked good, felt good, and fit properly.


While law enforcement increasingly locates individuals by gaining access to wireless phone records, a supermajority of Californians supports judicial intervention and informing suspects before law enforcement acquires retrospective (historical) location data on individuals from wireless phone companies. A majority of Californians understands that wireless phones can track their location, and that there is broad support for location tracking in emergency situations. When compared with Professor Alan Westin's three privacy segments, "Fundamentalists," "Pragmatists," and the "Unconcerned," Californians are more likely to be privacy pragmatists or fundamentalists, and less likely to be unconcerned about privacy. Generally, Westin's segmentation was not predictive of Californians' attitudes towards law enforcement access to wireless location data.


Coquinas are significant producing facies in the pre-salt reservoirs of Brazil and Angola. This paper describes an analogue model study to help understand the reservoir characterization of coquina reservoirs. Porosity and permeability measured in 39 core plugs from a single coquina bed in a Lower Cretaceous outcrop in NE Brazil have been combined in a three-dimensional geological model for use in reservoir simulation. A training image derived from the geometry of a Holocene coquina analogue in Western Australia controlled the distribution of the bed-scale petrophysical properties from the outcrop. A synthetic well test showed that the effective permeability of the system lies between the geometrical and harmonic averages of the plug data in the layer. There is also moderate flow anisotropy, with preferential fluid flow aligned along the beach ridges. This paper demonstrates how the combination of outcrop data and an appropriate modern environment might be used to improve our understanding of the behaviour of coquina reservoirs and to guide future reservoir studies.


We study how social networks change as a result of an exogenous expansion in formal financial access and show how to estimate the effects of these changes on household outcomes. We use a unique household panel dataset that contains detailed information on the network of informal financial transactions before and after a field experiment that randomized access to savings accounts in Nepal. First, we provide evidence that the exogenous intervention affected the network of informal financial transactions. Second, we propose a dynamic model of peer effects in household expenditure that accounts for changes in the network due to the intervention. We show that disregarding such changes would lead to downward-biased peer-effect estimates. JEL codes: C31; D85; G2; O16


In the last years the concept of 'intersectionality' has enjoyed ever greater popularitiy as a way to grasp the interrelations between these multiple forms of oppression and to problematize reductionist accounts of the social that privilege specific contradictions and social struggles over others. Yet intersectional analyses themselves have been critizised by Marxists and Feminists for establishing the connections between different mechanisms of discrimination merely in an empiricist way: Focussing on the microlevel of specific identities and social contexts, intersectional analyses forfeit an understanding of the social as a comprehensive totality. Against this background, the article examines how Marx, Adorno and Althusser conceptualized the notion of totality as part of their social theorizing. Drawing from the works of Himani Bannerji, Gudrun-Axeli Knapp, Ursula Beer and Silvia Federici, this article argues that although Marxist social theorizing has tended to connect the dominance of the economic base with prioritizing the antagonism between capital and labour, it bears the potential to understand multiple forms of oppression as integral parts of the underlying structures of capitalist societies, thereby transcending merely empiricist accounts of the interrelations between multiple forms of domination.


Anxiety sensitivity (AS), defined as the fear of anxious arousal, is a promising therapeutic target to reduce posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom development after trauma exposure. Computerized AS interventions have been shown to be acceptable to individuals with PTSD symptoms and effective in achieving symptom reduction; however, to our knowledge, no research has examined AS interventions initiated in the immediate aftermath of trauma. We evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and credibility of a brief (i.e., ∼75 min of psychoeducation, ∼2 hr of ecological momentary intervention) smartphone-based AS intervention in a pilot study. Participants were 12 women who presented for emergency care after sexual assault with high levels of peritraumatic PTSD symptoms. Most women who started the intervention completed the majority of it and reported using the techniques provided. Results indicated that participants perceived the intervention as logical and believed it would help in reducing their symptoms. Qualitative feedback was mostly positive but also indicated concern regarding intervention length. Although not the purpose of the study, results indicated medium-to-large, statistically significant decreases in AS, g = 0.74, and PTSD symptoms, g = 1.20. Overall, these preliminary findings suggest that this novel smartphone-based intervention targeting AS was feasible, acceptable, and credible in this small sample of women receiving emergency care following sexual assault. Treatment outcome data must be considered in the context of natural recovery; however, these promising preliminary feasibility, acceptability, and credibility data support continuing to pilot the feasibility and potential efficacy of the intervention to reduce AS and prolonged PTSD symptoms.


The Israeli Ultra-Orthodox population doubles each seventeen years. With 60 % of prime aged males attending Yeshiva rather than working, that community is rapidly outgrowing its resources. Why do fathers with families in poverty choose Yeshiva over work? Draft deferments subsidize Yeshiva attendance, yet attendance typically continues long after they are draft exempt. We explain this puzzle with a club good model in which Yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community. Subsidizing membership in a club with sacrifice as an entry requirement induces increased sacrifice, compounding the distortion and dissipating the subsidy. Policies treating members and potential entrants equally are Pareto improving. The analysis may generalize to other by increasing the stringency of prohibitions and sacrifice.


During the excavations campaign 2015 we carried out anthropological analysis of human skeletal remains unearthed at 13 sites. The studied burials cover the period from the first half of 4th millennium BC to the Ottoman period.
The summary anthropological results covered the investigation of 127 individuals, discovered in 115 archaeological features are presented in the current article (fig. 1, 2). The bone remains were found in burials by cremation and by inhumation (table 1, fig. 3, fig. 6).
The cremated bones are highly fragmented in the result of the combustion. The fragments are very small (less than 1 cm), small (1-2 cm) and medium (2-5 cm) sized. The majority have light grey, greyish-white, matt white and white colours. This colouring indicates that the combustion of the buried individuals was made intensely on strong fire over/around 1000°C by a large influx of oxygen (open fire).
In the necropolis near the village of Baley, Bregovo Municipality, the remains of four individuals are identified in the feature (No. 62), dated in 12-11 BC (Vârtop culture). In the preserved skeletal remains, eight petrous parts of temporal bones were recognizing, as well as three distal femoral parts. The analyses established that they belong to three subadults: a baby around six months, a child approx. 6-year-old and a child between 7 and 14 years, as well as of an adult female, over 30 years (fig. 5). A total of 2243 grams cremated skeletal remains are preserved. This gives us reason to suppose, that the deceased persons had been burnt, collected and placed in the urns simultaneously. After the cremation process the bone fragments have been placed in four pottery vessels.
The archaeological sites in which the inhumation was practised are ten (fig. 10). The buried remains are preserved in different grade according to the influence of environmental factors, secondary grave destructions and to the type of intake food by individuals.
The anthropological analysis is indicating a high mortality in early childhood (up to 7 years) through all investigated periods. The mortality decreases during late childhood and adolescence and increases sharply in the age group of Adultus when it reached its peak. This trend is most clearly expressed in the investigated burials from the LBA-EIA and the Antiquity (5th c. AD). Only one case of elderly (over 60 years) was identified among the examined anthropological material from the Hellenistic necropolis in Mesarite locality, town of Sozopol.
At this stage of researches distribution between two sexes is almost equal, with a slight predominance of males. In the females, the death was occurred at an earlier age between 20 and 40 years (Adultus), while for males – more often in a mature age between 40 and 50 years. This tendency can to be bound by complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
The absolute distribution of stature by categories shows that the high male individuals prevail (fig. 11). In females dominate those with medium stature (fig. 12). Very short and short individuals were not recognised in both sexes. These indicators point for a good physical development of individuals in their lifetime, especially of the males.
Out of the 91 analysed inhumated individuals at 75 are preserved partly or entirely jaw bones and dentition. The high percentage of established dental and facial pathology is noteworthy, registered in 53 cases (70.66%). The percentage distribution of the dental pathology is presented in Table 2.
Dental caries and its complications prevail in percentage ratio, including leading to the antemortem tooth loss. The frequency of this kind of diseases is increased by age, as for mature age group (over 40 years) are typical the effects and the complications of caries – tooth cysts and partial antemortem tooth loss. Data from this study and also the results of research of other authors suggest that over the centuries the frequency of dental caries is gradually increasing. This fact can be explained mainly by the changes in diet and type of food intake.Pathological changes on different skull departments dominate in earlier epochs (4th mill. BC and the EBA) as a result of metabolic and nutritional diseases that are especially dangerous in children since they lead to a breach in normal growth and development.
Pathological changes affecting postcranial skeletons are meeting in 43 inhumated individuals (Table 3). The high rate is for the degenerative-destructive changes on the limbs, as well as insertionitis. These two types of diseases may be associated with an intensive physical activity of individuals.


Modern agriculture,
based on the improved single-genotype crop varieties and the intensive and
monocultural managements, has contributed tremendously to the world's food supply.
However, it is also challenged by stagnant yield growth, increasingly high
input, mounting environmental pollution and pressing sustainability of
development. In comparison, old agriculture of 100 years ago, based on the
traditional multi-genotype landraces and low-input cultivation, prevailed
thousands of years and still exists now in subsistence farming in marginal areas
in spite of its low productivity. Crop multi-genotype breeding, which combines
the advantages of both old and modern agriculture at the high level of
productivity, will give us a promising strategy to break the predicament of
modern agriculture. The concept, necessity, principle, technical tactics and
characteristics of crop multi-genotype breeding are first elucidated in detail
here. Two successful cases of application in rice and cotton are presented.
Firstly, rice multi-genotype inbred varieties (colony variety) have commercialized
using MAGIC lines. In cotton, a multi-genotype hybrid variety Jing-Mi 1 revealed
superiority in seeded cotton and lint yields over the check variety in regional
trial. Multigenotype variety could be maintained and recover the genetic
diversity in production system. In their progenies of the MAGIC lines, most of them
could be transmitted to the multi-genotype varieties, implying that the genetic
diversity of agro-ecosystem could be effectively restored by crop multi-genotype
varieties. We believe crop multi-genotype breeding will make a substantial contribution
to restoring genetic diversity of agro-ecosystem, preventing the exacerbation
of vulnerable environment and promoting the sustainable development of agriculture.
We call for ever-increasing efforts to develop and apply the crop
multi-genotype breeding in agriculture.


The aim of this paper is to test the employment effect of business R&D expenditures, using a unique longitudinal database covering 677 European manufacturing and service firms over the period 1990-2008. Main result from the whole sample dynamic LSDVC (Least Squared Dummy Variable Corrected) estimate is the labour-friendly nature of companies' R&D, the coefficient of which turns out to be statistically significant, although not very large in magnitude. However, the positive and significant job creation effect of R&D expenditures is detectable in services and high-tech manufacturing but absent in the more traditional manufacturing sectors. This means that we should not expect positive employment effects from increasing R&D in the majority of industrial sectors. This evidence should be kept in mind by European innovation policy makers having employment as one of their specific aims.


Wi-Fi networks have a very strong potential: They are easy to deploy, they use unlicensed frequencies and they provide internet connectivity that is several times faster than by cable modem. However, two major problems still need to be solved: the lack of a seamless roaming scheme and the variable quality of service experienced by the users. The reputation-based solution presented in this paper solves both problems: It allows a mobile node to connect to a foreign Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) in a secure way while preserving its anonymity and it encourages the WISPs to provide the users with good QoS. We analyze the robustness of our solution against various attacks and we prove by means of simulations that our reputation model indeed encourages the WISPs to behave correctly. We also propose a simple mechanism that allows the WISPs to predict the QoS they are able to offer to the (mobile) clients.


This paper argues that prior studies investigating the determinants of profit sharing plan adoption fail to consider the effect of current earnings changes on future expected compensation payments under profit sharing that underlie the success of profit sharing in motivating employees. When current earnings changes are caused by factors that make earnings too volatile then the payments under profit sharing are volatile and their predictability is reduced. In this situation, profit sharing is not expected to be successful in motivating employees and would not be a preferred means of compensation. In contrast, if earnings changes are caused by factors that produce more sustainable effects on earnings, rendering them more reliable and predictable, then compensation payments under profit sharing will be more predictable and representative of employees' efforts. In this case, profit sharing would be more successful in motivating employees and is more likely to be adopted as a preferred compensation scheme. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that a positive association exists between the level of permanence of current earnings changes and the adoption of profit sharing plans. Permanence of earnings changes is measured by the level of earnings persistence which is computed using two alternative time-series models: IMA (1,1) and ARIMA (2,1,0). A Logit model is used to evaluate the effect of earnings persistence and control variables on the probability of adoption of employee profit sharing plans. Profit sharing data is extracted from the U.S. IRS 5500 Form while financial data for the sample firms are retrieved from Compustat. The final sample includes 298 firms that are equally split between profit sharing and non-profit sharing firms. The test results indicate that information about persistence of earnings innovations is a significant determinant of profit sharing plan adoption. Earnings persistence is positively associated with the probability of profit sharing plan adoption. This result is robust when the alternative measure of earnings persistence is used and the control variables are included. These results should lead to a richer model of employee profit sharing plan adoption and use.


PURPOSE
The dosimetric uncertainties of deformable image registration (DIR) dose accumulation are not well understood. A clinically relevant method to estimate the dosimetric error of dose accumulation for head and neck (H&N) cancer patients is presented.

METHODS
Ten virtual H&N phantoms with known deformations were registered with a commercial DIR algorithm to determine the spatial errors that might be observed when performing DIR. The spatial error distributions obtained from the phantoms were then applied to 10 clinical H&N patients to simulate the potential errors that could occur. These errors were simulated by selecting ROI-specific error vectors at random from the phantom error distributions and adding them to the deformation vector fields (DVFs) of the patient registrations. This method of error simulation was evaluated for its ability to accurately represent real DVF errors. Finally, dose was deformed using the DVFs of the patient registrations without any added errors (nonperturbed DVFs) and compared to the dose deformed using the simulated error DVFs.

RESULTS
The mean error introduced by the error simulation method was less than 1% for all evaluated DVH endpoints. For the patient cases, the following ranges were observed for the median simulated DIR dosimetric errors: brainstem D2%: 0% to 2%, cord D2%: 0% to 0.5%, mandible D2%: 0% to 0.5%, left parotid Dmean: 0.5% to 4.2%, right parotid Dmean: 0.2% to 1.3%. Maximum dosimetric errors were: brainstem D2%: 6.5%, cord D2%: 1.3%, mandible D2%: 1.1%, left parotid Dmean: 13%, right parotid Dmean: 35%.

CONCLUSIONS
A method for simulating DIR errors for dose accumulation in clinical cases was presented and evaluated. The sample DIR algorithm assessed with this method showed that large dosimetric errors are possible when dose accumulation is performed and that DIR should be used with caution. This work was partially supported by a research grant from Accuray Inc.


Abstract.  Petrocosmea melanophthalma Huan C. Wang, Z. R. He & Li Bing Zhang, an attractive new species (Gesneriaceae, Petrocosmea sect. Deianthera W. T. Wang) from Yunnan, China, is described and illustrated. It is similar to P. kerrii Craib in the zygomorphic calyx and brevirostrate anther. The new species differs from the latter by its peltate leaves and the blue corolla with two striking black spots on the tube, as well as the geniculate filaments of the stamens that thicken above the middle. Petrocosmea melanopthalma was found on basalt cliffs in evergreen broad-leaved forest on Mopan Shan.


This article discusses the portrayal and usage of Buddhist themes in the classic era Doctor Who television series (1963–1996). Here we map out specific influences of Buddhism on the construction of Doctor Who's characters, illustrating how popular culture participates in the religious dialogue contained within everyday life. We argue that an interpretive lens informed by an understanding of the interplay of different religious and philosophical influences contributes to a more productive conversation about the nature of the Doctor. A survey of serials that explicitly involve Buddhist settings such as the Jon Perwee era "Planet of the Spiders" is provided. One section of this essay will focus on how writer Christopher Bailey utilized his personal Buddhist beliefs to inform story elements of the Peter Davison era serials "Kinda" and its sequel "Snakedance." We will then proceed to investigate particular Buddhist conceptions of impermanence, change and temporality, and relate these to the characterization of the Doctor and how his transformations illustrate the instability of identity, serving as a potential contrast to messianic readings of this science fiction television show.


Early research has explored the relationship between at-risk students and communication apprehension. Atrisk students have been found to have high levels of apprehension in a variety of communication settings. However, little attention has been given to exploring at-risk students perceptions of their communication skills and other areas of communication competency beyond general communication apprehension or fear of speaking. This study explores the relationship between at-risk students; self reported levels of communication competence, communication apprehension, and additional areas of communication skills such as selfmonitoring and verbal aggressiveness. The results of this study show that at-risk students tend to report having high communication competency levels, while testing very low on communication skill areas. Study implications and suggested areas for future research and curriculum development for teachers are explored.


The visibility, durability, and cost-effectiveness of surface pavement markings and previous experience with permanent concrete pavement markings (PCPM) (markings with a service life similar to that of the pavement) are described. The use of durable materials, such as thermoplastics, polyesters, and epoxies, improves the service life of surface markings. However, these marking materials still exhibit problems of adhesion to pavement and rapid wear in high traffic areas. Snow removal procedures significantly reduce marking service life. Wet nighttime visibility is a continuing problem with surface markings. Previous attempts at developing PCPM have produced systems with very good durability, but poor nighttime visibility. The potential for developing cost-effective PCPM systems that can provide both long-term durability and adequate visibility throughout the service life and the requirements for such systems are discussed. Polymers, such as epoxies, can provide superior durability and adhesion to pavement. The application of larger than standard size glass beads can improve wet nighttime visibility. The cost of PCPM systems can be significantly reduced using effective methods of placing grooves in which the marking material is placed. Generally, there is a good probability that a cost-effective PCPM system with satisfactory durability and visibility can be developed. The PCPM systems with thicknesses of 9.5 mm (3/8 in.) or less will be cost-effective for a 20year service life, and the systems with thicknesses of 3.2 mm (1/8 in.) or less will be costeffective for a I 0-year service life.


In this book, Jack Greene reinterprets the meaning of American social development. Synthesizing literature of the previous two decades on the process of social development and the formation of American culture, he challenges the central assumptions that have traditionally been used to analyze colonial British American history. Greene argues that the New England declension model traditionally employed by historians is inappropriate for describing social change in all the other early modern British colonies. The settler societies established in Ireland, the Atlantic island colonies of Bermuda and the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Middle Colonies, and the Lower South followed instead a pattern first exhibited in America in the Chesapeake. That pattern involved a process in which these new societies slowly developed into more elaborate cultural entities, each of which had its own distinctive features. Greene also stresses the social and cultural convergence between New England and the other regions of colonial British America after 1710 and argues that by the eve of the American Revolution Britain's North American colonies were both more alike and more like the parent society than ever before. He contends as well that the salient features of an emerging American culture during these years are to be found not primarily in New England puritanism but in widely manifest configurations of sociocultural behavior exhibited throughout British North America, including New England, and he emphasized the centrality of slavery to that culture.


This paper summarizes the efforts to reconcile the needs, problems, measures and programs in carrying out effectively the management of the coastal zone in Puerto Galera. To attain the objectives of the project, the Man and the Biosphere Inter-agency Committee on Ecological Studies through the technical men of its member agencies identified, observed, investigated and monitored various parameters contributing to the ecological balance and studied the rational use of the resources along the coastal zone. Problems identified include among others high degree of erosion due to gold panning activities in the Tabinay area & marble mining in San Isidro and Dulangan and coral reef destruction due to unregulated beach mining and tourism related activities.


The current strategy of the pest management department of the Public Health Service in Amsterdam is to identify causal factors in order to reduce the carrying capacity of pest populations and to minimise the use of pesticides. Rats have been controlled with rodenticides for decades, which has increased the survival of resistant rats. Rodenticide resistance has now been found in several rat populations in Europe. The main aim of this study was to establish the relationship between brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) occurrence in Amsterdam and a number of environmental and socio-economic factors. A second aim was to point out factors that can be managed by the local authorities as a next step towards prevention and pro-active, integrated pest management. The paper begins with a short overview of the biology of the brown rat, with an accent on diseases and habitat factors. The number of rat reports at the neighbourhood level during the years 2009-2012 is then related to 16 environmental and socio- economic variables including availability of water, availability of urban green space, sewer type, construction year of houses, property tax value, number of inhabitants and population composition. A generalised linear model was used; it had a negative binomial distribution and all candidate models were fitted with a maximum of five terms. The most significant terms were number of inhabitants, percentage of area occupied by urban green space, the per - centage of houses with a construction year before 1960, and either the length of foul water sewer (separated sewer) or the length of combined sewer. Rats have a short generation time and can produce a large number of offspring. A rat population is therefore able to recover quickly from a reduction in number. It is therefore important to change the carrying capacity of the habitat in which rats are unwanted. This can be achieved by changing the amount of food and cover they can find. The results of the regression analysis suggest that houses constructed before 1960 and their gardens could be evaluated to see if there may be general solutions that would make them less amenable to rats. Furthermore, the results suggest that the structure of urban green space may be adapted to make it less attrac- tive to rats; an example of this would be to replace evergreen shrubs with deciduous shrubs and to mow high veg- etation near buildings more frequently. Moreover, the influence of waste near and in urban green space should be investigated. Finally, we suggest that the inspection and maintenance of sewers be continued and that this should include the connection between properties and the public sewer.


Phonatory Activity after Supracricoid Partial Laryngectomy
Aim of this study is to evaluate the phonatory activity following reconstructive laryngectomy and the real recovery possibilities offered by rehabilitation techniques. We examined 24 patients treated with partial laryngectomy (14 males and 10 females, between the ages of 50 and 64 years, mean age of 56) with deglutition and voice difficulties after surgery.

 14 patients had undergone cricohyoidoepiglottopexy (CHEP), with preservation of a single arytenoids.
 10 subjects had undergone cricohyoidopexy (CHP), with preservation of a single arytenoid.

Before and after speech therapy, each subject underwent laryngostroboscopy with flexible endoscope, spectography and aerodynamic evaluations.
Each subject was asked to complete the questionnaire of voice perceptual self-evaluation: Voice Handicap Index (VHI). Our experience shows how substitution voice in supracricoid laryngectomy is characterized by remarkable noise quality (in the CHEP the phonatory duration was 8.8 sec, subglottic pressure 14.21 cm H2O, phonatory flow 0.336 l/sec instead in the CHP the phonatory duration was 8.5 sec, the subglottic pressure 6.46 cm H2O and the phonatory flow 0.289 l/sec). This causes a clearly difficult voice recovery, especially from a psychological point of view.
In addition to evaluate verbal intelligibility, the speech therapist has to consider that it can be difficult for the patient to accept his/her new vocal timbre.


This paper proposes two novel frontends for robust language identification (LID) using a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained for automatic speech recognition (ASR). In the CNN/i-vector frontend, the CNN is used to obtain the posterior probabilities for i-vector training and extraction instead of a universal background model (UBM). The CNN/posterior frontend is somewhat similar to a phonetic system in that the occupation counts of (tied) triphone states (senones) given by the CNN are used for classification. They are compressed to a low dimensional vector using probabilistic principal component analysis (PPCA). Evaluated on heavily degraded speech data, the proposed front ends provide significant improvements of up to 50% on average equal error rate compared to a UBM/i-vector baseline. Moreover, the proposed frontends are complementary and give significant gains of up to 20% relative to the best single system when combined.


Background Essential genes are absolutely required for the survival of an organism. The identification of essential genes, besides being one of the most fundamental questions in biology, is also of interest for the emerging science of synthetic biology and for the development of novel antimicrobials. New antimicrobial therapies are desperately needed to treat multidrug-resistant pathogens, such as members of the Burkholderia cepacia complex. Methodology/Principal Findings We hypothesize that essential genes may be highly conserved within a group of evolutionary closely related organisms. Using a bioinformatics approach we determined that the core genome of the order Burkholderiales consists of 649 genes. All but two of these identified genes were located on chromosome 1 of Burkholderia cenocepacia. Although many of the 649 core genes of Burkholderiales have been shown to be essential in other bacteria, we were also able to identify a number of novel essential genes present mainly, or exclusively, within this order. The essentiality of some of the core genes, including the known essential genes infB, gyrB, ubiB, and valS, as well as the so far uncharacterized genes BCAL1882, BCAL2769, BCAL3142 and BCAL3369 has been confirmed experimentally in B. cenocepacia. Conclusions/Significance We report on the identification of essential genes using a novel bioinformatics strategy and provide bioinformatics and experimental evidence that the large majority of the identified genes are indeed essential. The essential genes identified here may represent valuable targets for the development of novel antimicrobials and their detailed study may shed new light on the functions required to support life.


Inventors help solve vexing problems, both sophisticated and simple, and as a result sometimes enjoy considerable celebrity and rewards. Our society's economic success, too, is based on innovation. To encourage public disclosure of inventions, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issues an inventor a patent, which excludes others from making, using, selling or importing that invention into U.S. territories for a limited period of time. The three kinds of U.S. patents cover living plants, ornamental designs and useful inventions (the latter are called "utility" patents). Familiar products once protected by U.S. utility patents include Alexander Graham Bell's "improvement in telegraphy" (the telephone), the Wright brothers' "flying machine" and Thomas Edison's "incandescent lamp" (the light bulb). This article provides valuators such as CPA/ ABVs with a set of basic procedures for valuing U.S. utility patents. Patents are intellectual property (IP) that may need to be appraised for accounting, tax, litigation and transactional purposes in situations that include divorce or bankruptcy actions, estate settlements, sales of businesses and company mergers (which might require valuing portfolios of inventions). The ability to appraise patents can be important for GAAP financial reporting purposes under FASB nos. 141 and 142, especially for auditors and valuators in high-tech industries in which there are lots of business combinations. An understanding of how to appraise patents also may be useful in expert witness engagements (see "Damages Aren't Always Patently Obvious," page 36). RESEARCH AND COMPARE Some patents are very valuable, while many are not. Because patents often are quite complex, appraising one usually is a highly detailed and expensive process that requires the input of lawyers and advisers with specific technical knowledge and experience. The makeup of valuation teams will vary by engagement, but it is axiomatic that before an appraiser can value something, he or she has to understand what it is. Here are 20 steps to help valuators such as CPA/ABVs do that: 1. Check whether the patent is in force. Before the CPA/ABV starts a detailed evaluation, he or she should see whether one is warranted. The first question to ask is whether the patent's maintenance fees are up to date. If not, the patent may be worthless. Maintenance fees are due at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at 3 1/2, 7 1/2 and 1 1/2 years from issuance. Some payment delays can be rectified, but if the maintenance fees haven't been paid by the "cure" date, the patent might be worth nothing due to "abandonment." 2. Identify the context. The premise of any valuation engagement can affect its conclusion. For example, a patent royalty amount that seems reasonable in an arm's-length negotiation may not be indicative of what later might be assessed for infringement of the invention if a plaintiff successfully sues for damages. 3. Gather information. For particularly valuable patents, CPA/ABVs should request the following: * A copy of the application file on the patent, including all USPTO correspondence. * A list of any foreign patent applications relating to the invention (and related sales). * Copies of any relevant business plan, marketing study, financial statements and independent appraisal. * Descriptions of any litigation, past or present. * Copies of any contract, licensing agreement or offer to license pertaining to the patent. * Available economic data on the industry in which the invention is used. * Copies of promotions and advertising materials used during the past year relating to the invention or the product in which it is incorporated. * Cost information relating to the existing or proposed patented product including cost accounting records and/or engineering feasibility studies. 4. Assemble a valuation team. …


Poet, novelist, journalist, and ethnographer, Americo Paredes (1915–1999) was a pioneering figure in Mexican American border studies and a founder of Chicano studies. Paredes taught literature and anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin for decades, and his ethnographic and literary critical work laid the groundwork for subsequent scholarship on the folktales, legends, and riddles of Mexican Americans. In this beautifully written literary history, the distinguished scholar Ramon Saldivar establishes Paredes's preeminent place in writing the contested cultural history of the south Texas borderlands. At the same time, Saldivar reveals Paredes as a precursor to the "new" American cultural studies by showing how he perceptively negotiated the contradictions between the national and transnational forces at work in the Americas in the nascent era of globalization.

Saldivar demonstrates how Paredes's poetry, prose, and journalism prefigured his later work as a folklorist and ethnographer. In song, story, and poetry, Paredes first developed the themes and issues that would be central to his celebrated later work on the "border studies" or "anthropology of the borderlands." Saldivar describes how Paredes's experiences as an American soldier, journalist, and humanitarian aid worker in Asia shaped his understanding of the relations between Anglos and Mexicans in the borderlands of south Texas and of national and ethnic identities more broadly. Saldivar was a friend of Paredes, and part of The Borderlands of Culture is told in Paredes's own words. By explaining how Paredes's work engaged with issues central to contemporary scholarship, Saldivar extends Paredes's intellectual project and shows how it contributes to the remapping of the field of American studies from a transnational perspective.


In order to thrive in a changing environment all organisms need to ensure protein homeostasis (proteostasis). Proteostasis is ensured by the proteostasis system that monitors the folding status of the proteome and regulates cell physiology and gene expression to counteract any perturbations. An increased burden on the proteostasis system activates Heat shock factor 1 (Hsf1) to induce transcription of the heat shock response (HSR), a transiently induced transcriptional program including core proteostasis genes, importantly those encoding the Hsp70 class of molecular chaperones. The HSR assists cells in counteracting the harmful effects of protein folding stress and restoring proteostasis. The work presented in this thesis is based on experiments with the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) model with the overall goal of deciphering how Hsp70 detects and impacts on perturbations of cellular proteostasis and controls Hsf1 activity. In Study I we describe the fundamental mechanism by which Hsp70 maintains Hsf1 in its latent state by controlling its ability to bind DNA. We found that Hsf1 and unfolded proteins directly compete for binding to the Hsp70 substrate-binding domain. During heat shock the pool of unfolded proteins mainly consist of misfolded, newly synthesized proteins. Severe out-titration of Hsp70 by misfolded substrates resulted in unrestrained Hsf1 activity inducing a previously uncharacterized genetic hyper-stress program. More insight into regulation of Hsp70 availability was gained in Study II where the two splice isoforms of the Hsp70 nucleotide exchange factor Fes1 were characterized. We found that the cytosolic splice isoform Fes1S is crucial to release unfolded proteins from Hsp70 and that impaired release results in strong Hsf1 activation. In Study III we developed methodology to easily measure the rapid changes in Hsf1 activity upon proteostatic perturbations and to monitor protein turnover using the novel bioluminescent reporter NanoLuc optimized for yeast expression (yNluc). In Study IV we report that yNluc also functions as an in vivo reporter that detects severe perturbations of de novo protein folding by its failure to fold to an active conformation under such conditions. Finally, in Study V we investigated how organellar proteostasis impacts on the availability of cytosolic Hsp70. We found that a lowered mitochondrial proteostatic load as a result of high translation accuracy extended lifespan and improved cytosolic proteostasis capacity, evidenced by more rapid stress recovery and less sensitivity to toxic misfolded proteins. In contrast, lowered mitochondrial translation accuracy decreased lifespan and impaired management of cytosolic protein aggregates as well as elicited a general transcriptional stress response. Taken together, the findings presented in this thesis advance our understanding of how the regulatory mechanisms of the proteostasis system function. Furthermore, they provide novel methodology that will facilitate future studies to improve our understanding how cells integrate internal and external stress cues to control proteostasis.


The epithelium lining the gastrointestinal tract serves many functions, including aiding in digestion, nutrient absorption, barrier function, and immunity. In the small intestine, the intestinal epithelium is comprised of repeating crypt-villus units which undergo constant renewal to maintain intestinal homeostasis and tissue integrity (1). Multipotent intestinal stem cells (ISCs) located in the base of the crypt are responsible for constant renewal and rapid replenishment of cells lining the crypt-villus axis. ISCs give rise to rapidly proliferating transit-amplifying (TA) cell population which, as they exit crypt, differentiate into the four major mature cell types: enteroendocrine cells, goblet cells, and Paneth cells belong to the secretory lineage, while enterocytes comprise the absorptive lineage. Although it is agreed upon that each crypt contains ISCs, the exact identity of the stem cell population has been debated for many years (2,3).


The purpose with the present essay was to examine the experiences that people with neuropsychiatric diagnosis such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorders, alternatively people who recognize themselves in the symptoms of these diagnoses, have with bullying and degrading treatment. This means both experiences of bullying victimization as well as experiences of bullying perpetration. The essay has been carried out through a qualitative point of view where data has been collected through semi-structured interviews and then analyzed by inductive thematic analysis. Four themes have emerged from the data which can describe the participants experiences and feelings towards bullying and degrading treatment: Torn, troublesome and different, Violence and provocations, Denial or lack of empathy? and Difficulties in home- and school environment. The results show that violence and aggressions frequently occurred in participants lives, they have both been violent against others and been exposed to violence themselves. The home- and school environment has been problematic since such as substance abuse, divorce and difficulties during attendance at school was common amongst the participants. Deficiencies in empathic ability and willingness has been discovered and the sense of being different, not enough and only considered as troublesome paints the picture of the essays results.


The idea of sacrifice is the unspoken issue of environmental politics. Politicians, the media, and many environmentalists assume that well-off populations won't make sacrifices now for future environmental benefits and won't change their patterns and perceptions of consumption to make ecological room for the world's three billion or so poor eager to improve their standard of living. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice challenges these assumptions, arguing that they limit our policy options, weaken our ability to imagine bold action for change, and blind us to the ways sacrifice already figures in everyday life. The concept of sacrifice has been curiously unexamined in both activist and academic conversations about environmental politics, and this book is the first to confront it directly. The chapters bring a variety of disciplinary perspectives to the topic. Contributors offer alternatives to the conventional wisdom on sacrifice; identify connections between sacrifice and human fulfillment in everyday life, finding such concrete examples as parents' sacrifices in raising children, religious practice, artists' pursuit of their art, and soldiers and policemen who risk their lives to do their jobs; and examine particular policies and practices that shape our understanding of environmental problems, including the carbon tax, incentives for cyclists, and the perils of green consumption. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice puts "sacrifice" firmly into the conversation about effective environmental politics and policies, insisting that activists and scholars do more than change the subject when the idea is introduced. ContributorsPeter Cannavo, Shane Gunster, Cheryl Hall, Karen Litfin, Michael Maniates, John M. Meyer, Simon Nicholson, Anna Peterson, Thomas Princen, Sudhir Chella Rajan, Paul Wapner, Justin Williams


In this paper, we present prototypes of individualized language learning tools. We show how Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology developed at Microsoft Research (MSR) facilitates the dynamic creation of language exercises and provides new user experiences in language learning, while raising the bar for educational technology. We demonstrate how our technology, with its rich linguistic resources, enables the dynamic creation of language exercises which are individualized and user-centric. We present some user scenarios to illustrate the flexibility and unlimited potential of our language learning tools. We show that with innovative ideas and vision, our NLP technology can shed new light on the way technology is used in language learning/teaching.


The creation of 3D imagery is an important topic in remote sensing. Several methods have been developed to create 3D images from fused ladar and digital images, known as texel images. These methods have the advantage of using both the 3D ladar information and the 2D digital imagery directly, since texel images are fused during data acquisition. A weakness of these methods is that they are dependent on correlating feature points in the digital images. This can be difficult when image perspectives are significantly different, leading to low correlation values between matching feature points. This paper presents a method to improve the quality of 3D images created using existing approaches that register multiple texel images. The proposed method incorporates relatively low accuracy measurements of the position and attitude of the texel camera from a low-cost GPS/INS into the registration process. This information can improve the accuracy and robustness of the registered texel images over methods based on point-cloud merging or image registration alone. In addition, the dependence on feature point correlation is eliminated. Examples illustrate the value of this method for significant image perspective differences.


Objective : Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia with a global prevalence rate of 8.3%. Diabetes not only affect general health but also oral health leading to periodontitis. Low level of knowledge about diabetes and lack of awareness regarding preventive options will ultimately impact self-care behavior. To assess diabetes related knowledge among patients attending Vinayaka Mission's Sankarachariyar (VMS) Dental College outpatient department in Salem city, Tamilnadu. Materials And Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out for about two weeks which encompassed a convenient sample of 400 subjects aged 18-80 years. Knowledge of respondents regarding diabetes was measured using 15 item self-administered modified Diabetes Knowledge Questionnaire (DKQ). Results: When knowledge regarding cause of diabetes was considered, only 40% of subjects were aware that diabetes is not a communicable disease. Almost half (57.5%) of the participants believed that sweet consumption causes diabetes. Furthermore, 55% participants knew that diabetes can damage kidney and around 54.5% agreed that diabetes can also affect dental health. The higher mean knowledge scores was observed among males compared to females and the difference was statistically insignicant (p=0.37). Significantly higher mean knowledge scores were dissipated by subjects with graduation education (p=0.01), those with professional occupation (p=0.02) and participant from urban location (p=0.00). Conclusion: The study showed significantly lower level of awareness regarding diabetes among rural respondents compared to urban residents. Gap related to diabetes mellitus knowledge should be abridged between rural and urban province in order to reduce disease burden and to yield positive health outcomes in the society. Keywords Diabetes mellitus; Diabetes management; Knowledge; Oral self-care.


We show that both coordination and lattice constant can have an important influence on the nonmetal to metal transition and the two parameters are not easily separated. Using example theoretical calculations for barium, we provide a compelling case that atomic coordination is a critical factor in determining the critical lattice constant for the nonmetal to metal transition. A comparison between the nonmetal to metal transition three-dimensional and two-dimensional systems is not possible on the basis of the atomic coordination alone. This is discussed in the context of a comparison of the available experimental data for both elemental expanded fluids (three-dimensional) and overlayers (quasi-two-dimensional).


Optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH) is a congenital anomaly of the optic disc that might result in moderate to severe vision loss in children. With a vast number of cases now being reported, the rarity of ONH is obviously now refuted. The major aspects of ophthalmic evaluation of an infant with possible ONH are visual assessment, fundus examination, and visual electrophysiology. Characteristically, the disc is small, there is a peripapillary double-ring sign, vascular tortuosity, and thinning of the nerve fiber layer. A patient with ONH should be assessed for presence of neurologic, radiologic, and endocrine associations. There may be maternal associations like premature births, fetal alcohol syndrome, maternal diabetes. Systemic associations in the child include endocrine abnormalities, developmental delay, cerebral palsy, and seizures. Besides the hypoplastic optic nerve and chiasm, neuroimaging shows abnormalities in ventricles or white- or gray-matter development, septo-optic dysplasia, hydrocephalus, and corpus callosum abnormalities. There is a greater incidence of clinical neurologic abnormalities in patients with bilateral ONH (65%) than patients with unilateral ONH. We present a review on the available literature on the same to urge caution in our clinical practice when dealing with patients with ONH. Fundus photography, ocular coherence tomography, visual field testing, color vision evaluation, neuroimaging, endocrinology consultation with or without genetic testing are helpful in the diagnosis and management of ONH. (Method of search: MEDLINE, PUBMED).


CONTEXT
Elderly persons and women were underrepresented in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) prior to 1990. Since then, efforts have been made to correct these biases, but their effect is unclear.

OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the percentage of elderly persons and women in published clinical trials of acute coronary syndromes has increased and how this enrollment compared with disease prevalence.

DATA SOURCES
The MEDLINE and Cochrane databases were searched for English-language articles from January 1966 to March 2000 regarding myocardial infarction, unstable angina, or acute coronary syndromes. Additional data sources included meta-analyses, review articles, and cardiology textbooks. Estimates of community-based myocardial infarction rates came from the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction and the Worcester Heart Study.

STUDY SELECTION
Published RCTs of acute coronary syndrome patients were included and trials enrolling 50 patients or fewer, those without clinical end points, papers published in a language other than English, and unpublished manuscripts were excluded. Of 7645 studies identified, 593 RCTs were selected for review.

DATA EXTRACTION
The RCTs were abstracted by 2 of the authors for year of publication, source of support (ie, funding), pharmacotherapy, study phase, number of study sites, trial location, number of patients, mean age of the study population, and any age exclusion criteria for enrollment.

DATA SYNTHESIS
The number of published RCTs with explicit age exclusions has declined from 58% during 1966-1990 to 40% during 1991-2000. Trial enrollment of patients aged 75 years or older increased from 2% for studies published during 1966-1990 to 9% during 1991-2000, but remains well below their representation among all patients with myocardial infarction (37%) in the United States. Enrollment of women has risen from 20% for studies published between 1966-1990 to 25% during 1991-2000, but remains well below their proportion of all patients with myocardial infarction (43%) in the United States.

CONCLUSIONS
Attempts at making cardiovascular RCTs more inclusive appear to have had limited success; thus, women and elderly persons remain underrepresented in published trial literature relative to their disease prevalence. Because safety and efficacy can vary as a function of sex and age, these enrollment biases undermine efforts to provide evidence-based care to all cardiac patients.


Background: Explored the role of public health centers in the delivery of physical activity programs to older Brazilians. Methods: Total of 114 older adults (81% women) from public health centers across the city of Florianopolis, Brazil, were randomized into three groups: behavior change group (n = 36), traditional exercise group (n = 52), and control group (n = 26). The behavioral change group included 12 weekly meetings (2 h each). The traditional exercise group offered a 12-week exercise class. Individuals in the control group participated only in measurements. Program evaluation included a mixed-methods approach following the RE-AIM framework (reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance). Trained interviewers conducted 12 focus groups and 32 interviews with participants in the program, professionals delivering the programs, community health workers, and local and city administrators overseeing public health centers. Participants completed health, quality of life, and fitness assessments at four time points. Results: The study reached 11.5% of the eligible population in the community. Older adults' resistance to change and limited understanding of behavior change science by public health center staff hindered program reach. Physician encouraging patient participation and personal invitations by community health workers were perceived as favorable factors. Results of program effectiveness and maintenance suggest that behavior change strategies may be better suited than traditional exercise classes for decreasing sedentary time and increasing moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, as well as improving participants' quality of life. Only 14% of public health centers in the city adopted the programs. Heavy workload of health educators delivering the programs and limited physical space for program delivery were barriers for adoption. The fidelity of program delivery was high and indicates that the programs are culturally-appropriate for the Brazilian context and feasible for implementation by local health educators. Conclusions: Our findings support the potential for dissemination of behavior change and traditional exercise programs to older adults through public health centers in Brazil. REBEC: RBR-9pkxn2 (retrospectively registered) Register April 20, 2019.


The aim of this study was to re‐evaluate the indications and timing of LT for WD. From 2000 to 2009, eight patients with WD who had been referred to our institution for LT were enrolled in this study. The mean patient age was 15.9 yr (range, 7–37 yr). Four patients could not receive LT, because there were no available donors. All four patients were treated with chelating agent medication. Three of them (two of two patients with fulminant WD and one of two with cirrhotic WD) who did not undergo LT are still alive and doing well with stable liver functional tests. Only one of the patients with cirrhotic WD who did not undergo LT died of hepatic failure. Even among the four patients who underwent LT, one with fulminant WD recovered from hepatic encephalopathy with apheresis therapy and chelating agent. He later required LT because of severe neutropenia from d‐penicillamine. The other three patients who underwent LT recovered and have been doing well. Some of the patients with WD can recover and avoid LT with medical treatment. Even when WD has progressed liver cirrhosis and/or fulminant hepatic failure at the time of diagnosis, medical treatment should be tried before considering LT.


Do young children treat labels as features or as category markers? The current study addressed this question by examining the effect of labels on young children's classification and induction. The first experiment replicated previous study on adults demonstrating that adults treat labels as category markers. The other two experiments applied the same paradigm to young children. Children were trained by classification in Experiment 2A and by induction in Experiment 2B, whereas both experiments used the classification and induction tasks that were identical to those in Experiment 1. The results from the three experiments indicated that adults treated labels as category markers, whereas no such evidence was found for young children.


Reports of substantial evidence for genetic linkage of schizophrenia to chromosome 1q were evaluated by genotyping 16 DNA markers across 107 centimorgans of this chromosome in a multicenter sample of 779 informative schizophrenia pedigrees. No significant evidence was observed for such linkage, nor for heterogeneity in allele sharing among the eight individual samples. Separate analyses of European-origin families, recessive models of inheritance, and families with larger numbers of affected cases also failed to produce significant evidence for linkage. If schizophrenia susceptibility genes are present on chromosome 1q, their population-wide genetic effects are likely to be small.


Madagascar is renowned for high levels of biodiversity and endemism. As a result of its unique flora and fauna, as well as the high levels of human threat to the environment, such as illegal clearing, hunting and political instability, it is a critical global conservation priority. Andasibe–Mantadia National Park in eastern Madagascar is one of the most popular protected areas visited by tourists. Observations carried out in 2011 showed that even though there were some negative impacts associated with natural-area tourism, the benefits to both the local communities and associated biological conservation outweighed the negatives. Natural-area tourism at Andasibe is well organised, with many local guide associations having partnerships with international organisations and 50% of park fees going directly to local communities. Forest loss is a widespread problem in Madagascar, but at Andasibe the forest is valued for its ecological function and as a generator of profits from natural-area tourism. Exploitation of the park was not observed. Andasibe is an example of how conservation and natural-area tourism can work together in Madagascar for the benefit of local communities and the environment. However, with the current unstable political climate and lack of adequate wider tourism and conservation planning frameworks, awakening to its potential as a leading conservation tourism destination will not be a simple task. Conservation implications: This research demonstrated that ecotourism can be an effective means of achieving conservation objectives, whilst, at the same time, improving the livelihoods of local people. We caution, however, that governments can do a lot more to encourage and support the nexus between tourism and conservation.


Haddock Melanogrammus aeglefinus in the North sea increased their distributional range when more abundant, but this density dependent habitat selection (DDHS) explained only a small part of the year-on-year variation in distribution patterns. The condition of haddock was examined at 24 sites in the North Sea in August and September 2004 and related to their abundance, to examine if the ideal free distribution theory (IFD), which assumes that organisms select habitats that maximize their rate of food intake, can be used to explain this variation in large scale distribution patterns. At a given temperature, condition (hepato-somatic index, IH) was better at stations where haddock were most abundant. Therefore, haddock were not distributed perfectly according to the IFD in 2004. The positive correlation between abundance and IH, however, indicated there was some habitat selection by haddock, as in the total absence of habitat selection no correlation between IH and abundance, and no spatial variation in abundance was expected. DDHS may only explain a small part of the yearly variation in the distribution because haddock did not equalize and maximize their fitness at the scale of the North Sea. In addition, stable isotope analysis of muscle samples showed that haddock did not avoid competition for food when at high abundance by feeding at a lower or wider range of trophic levels.


The KIAA0319 gene has been recently associated with developmental dyslexia and shown to be involved in neuronal migration. The deduced KIAA0319 protein contains several polycystic kidney disease (PKD) domains which may mediate the interaction between neurons and glial fibres during neuronal migration. We have previously reported the presence of several alternative splicing variants, some of which are predicted to affect the deduced protein. In this study, we over-expressed constructs containing the main form (A) and two alternative variants (B and C) of KIAA0319. We show that the full-length KIAA0319 (A) is a type I plasma membrane protein, a topology consistent with its proposed function in neuronal migration. The oligomeric status of KIAA0319 is mainly dimeric, and this condition depends on the cysteine-rich regions of the protein, especially the transmembrane (TM) domain and surrounding sequence. KIAA0319 is highly glycosylated in different mammalian cell lines. The central region including the PKD domains is N-glycosylated. Furthermore, a short fragment N-terminal to the PKD domains contains mucin-type O-glycosylation. The two alternative isoforms are soluble proteins lacking the TM domain and, interestingly, only isoform B is secreted. KIAA0319-deletion proteins lacking the TM domain were also secreted. These results suggest that KIAA0319 could be involved not only in cell-cell interactions, but also in signalling.


Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell by Karen DeYoung New York: Alfred Knopf, 2006. 610 pp. $17.95 paperback Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung covers the arc of Colin Powell's military and political career in this well-researched 600-page biography. The son of Caribbean immigrants who would serve two tours in the Vietnam War, be chosen National Security Advisor (1987-1989), rise to the rank of four-star general in the United States Army (1989), become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993), and serve as secretary of state (2000-2004) during President George W. Bush's first term is widely considered one of the most highly regarded military figures of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Of the three books that I have read about Colin Powell, I found Soldier the most informative and, to some extent, most compelling. Of course, DeYoung had the benefit of both Powell's autobiography, My American Journey (1996), and Howard Means' Powell: Soldier/ Citizen/ Statesman (1992)- two works that undoubtedly served as the foundation on which DeYoung's work was built. Consequently, DeYoung's book goes beyond both Means' and Powell's texts, but not as much as I would have liked. DeYoung's account of Powell's childhood is, for the most part, ground that has been plowed over and again. There is some fresh material, though, that expounds on the strong ties between the U.S. Powell clan and those who live in Jamaica, the birthplace of his father and mother. We see that Powell's Jamaican relatives are as proud of him as he is of them. Although not prominently featured in the book, Powell's pride in his Caribbean heritage is clear. The writer also makes clear that while the Powell story is a great American tale, his is not a Horatio Alger fable. From day one, Powell had the benefit of strong and loving parents, and his extended family provided a solid support network. This upbringing would form the basis of Powell's constitution that would mesh nicely with the military life he would eventually lead. Although neither of Powell's parents was college educated, they emphasized getting a good education. Not surprisingly, the Powell children were expected to go to college. While Powell was by no means an honors student, at the working class City College of New York he would find his life's purpose. One of the more interesting parts of the book is the few pages devoted to Powell meeting his wife Alma and their courtship, which eventually led to a long and prosperous marriage. Although Powell and Alma were the same age, Alma remembered how fresh faced he looked when he first arrived to take her out. Embarrassed by what she erroneously perceived as an age gap, she hurried to scrub off the make-up that she had applied to make herself appear too sophisticated for her blind date. Although brief, the story is rich and gives the reader insight into some of the intimate goings-on in the life of Colin Powell, who by his mid-20s had a clear sense of what he wanted and with whom he would embark on the long, arduous journey that is the life of a career solider. Although Alma was not out in front, she was the bedrock of his career. One of the many areas in which this book is lacking is the attention given to Colin's mother. While there is some discussion of her, the author does not offer the same kind of visual image of her as is provided for Luther Powell. The elder Powell is depicted in bold relief while Colin's mother is given short shrift. Moreover, the writer missed an opportunity to talk about how the deaths of both Powell's father and mother impacted him mentally during his meteoric rise within the ranks of the U.S. army. It is clear from reading this book and the two mentioned earlier that Powell's family was a close-knit group. Rarely are readers afforded a glimpse of the human side of the heralded subjects about whom they read. Powell joined the military during a period when lifein the U.S. armed forces was trying under the best of circumstances for Black Americans. …


Exposure to stresses, such as heat shock or toxins, causes protein processing dysfunction in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). If proper processing cannot be restored, the cell responds by initiating apoptosis. Qi and Mochly-Rosen used a combination of cell culture and in vivo experiments to investigate the role of protein kinase C δ (PKCδ) and the Abl tyrosine kinase in relaying the apoptotic signal from ER to mitochondria, where apoptosis is initiated. PKCδ and Abl, proapoptotic proteins with stress-dependent subcellular localization dynamics, are known to interact under conditions of stress. The authors coimmunoprecipitated Abl and PKCδ from ER cell fractions of cells treated with the toxin tunicamycin to induce ER stress and found that PKCδ was not activated in stressed cells when Abl transcripts were depleted by RNA interference. Expression and catalytic activity of both PKCδ and Abl were required to induce apoptosis, as measured by c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling activation and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay. The subcellular dynamics and functional interaction of PKCδ and Abl were also supported by an in vivo rat stroke model. The authors propose a model in which ER stress induces the translocation of PKCδ to the ER, where it is activated by Abl. The PKCδ-Abl complex transduces the apoptotic signal to mitochondria by activating the JNK cascade. Whether JNK activation occurs in the ER, cytoplasm, or mitochondria is not known, nor is it known whether PKCδ and Abl interact directly or whether they are part of a larger complex. X. Qi, D. Mochly-Rosen, The PKCδ-Abl complex communicates ER stress to the mitochondria – an essential step in subsequent apoptosis. J. Cell Sci. 121, 804-813 (2008). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Bacillus subtilis alternately swims smoothly and tumbles; when administered repellent it only tumbles, but later resumes normal swimming and tumbling. Repellents of B. subtilis include membrane-active agents like uncouplers of oxidative phosphorylation and local anaesthetics and have previously been found to act in a fundamentally different way compared with attractants. It has been suggested previously that uncouplers act as repellents as a result of their ability to depolarize the membrane and that depolarization might effect flagellar function by causing a flux of Ca2+ into the cell. However, we found that there is no correlation between membrane depolarization and chemotaxis and no detectable flux of Ca2+ following tactic stimulation by uncouplers. Experiments with analogues of the uncoupler pentachlorophenol, all of which are weaker acids than pentachlorophenol, indicated that the anionic form of the uncoupler is the potent form and we propose that it binds to a certain membrane protein to cause release into the cytoplasm of the substance (ion, metabolite or protein) that controls tumbling frequency. Adaptation is assumed to occur when this excess is removed by active transport or metabolism.


We seek to address the lack of labeled data (and high cost of annotation) for textual entailment in some domains. To that end, we first create (for experimental purposes) an entailment dataset for the clinical domain, and a highly competitive supervised entailment system, ENT, that is effective (out of the box) on two domains. We then explore self-training and active learning strategies to address the lack of labeled data. With self-training, we successfully exploit unlabeled data to improve over ENT by 15% F-score on the newswire domain, and 13% F-score on clinical data. On the other hand, our active learning experiments demonstrate that we can match (and even beat) ENT using only 6.6% of the training data in the clinical domain, and only 5.8% of the training data in the newswire domain.


At New Brighton Community Preschool and Nursery, "continuity" was one of the topics of research interest during the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) project entitled Key Learning Competencies across Place and Time: Kimihia te ara totika, hei oranga mo to ao. Our discussions had enhanced and challenged our understanding of continuity for an individual learner. We also wanted to look at the notion of continuity within the larger picture; how a centre storyline appeared over an extended period of time or through multiple experiences. A centre storyline is a sequence of teaching and learning events, connected by a theme. The theme might be a topic of interest, a group's exploration, a particular learning outcome or a teaching strategy. Within the preschool (the 3- and 4-year-olds') environment, a storyline that we called "Stone Crazy" had been evolving over several months, and this was the perfect site for our exploration. Our analysis of this storyline also revealed some of the strategies we use to enhance teaching and learning, co-constructing meaning with the children, who bring their own interests and agency to the task. The data we gathered and analysed for this investigation were individual Learning Stories, centre stories, stories from home, the minutes of Learning Story reflection meetings and a team reflection notebook. "Stone Crazy": A storyline In this article we share our "Stone Crazy" storyline. It became an ongoing project, involving teachers, children and the wider community. As with many storylines, it was sparked by an interest; in this case the discovery within the preschool playground of an unusual stone, which caught the attention of children and teachers alike. Because of its outward appearance, we wondered if this stone could contain crystals. Together the children and teachers pondered the possibilities of what this stone was and, even more exciting, what was inside? After some unsuccessful attempts to open the stone, there were many discussions about how the stone could be opened and discoveries made. Both children and teachers applied their research strategies to solving this conundrum. Eventually an expert within our local community, a stone carver from Te Pani House, (1) was invited to help us solve this mystery. Along came Bill Rowlands with his willingness to share his wealth of knowledge about what our stone was. He managed to break a bit off, and from that he could tell us what the rock was and that it was 36 million years old. It wasn't special, as we had first imagined, but still special because it was so old and from our own garden. This heightened our interest and sense of wonderment and we eagerly accepted Bill's invitation to visit him at work. Te Pani House opened our eyes to the world of stone carving and motivated both children and teachers to bring this world into our centre. Thus began a journey where teachers and children all shared the roles of learners and experts, participators and explorers, fuelled by our thirst for knowledge and a newfound fascination with carving. While we had developed an interest in becoming carvers ourselves, we visited Bill and asked if he would carve our special stone. Bill willingly agreed and we left this treasure in his possession. However, he later contacted us and explained he could not carve the stone as it was too hard and he kept breaking his tools: an illustration that experts, too, experience trial and error. Instead he promised to use another stone, a softer stone, to carve us something for our centre. Back at the centre, teachers and children alike started on individual carvings with stone that Bill had donated to us. The tools we had were basic and while we (both teachers and children) enjoyed experimenting with these, we soon came to realise they were not enough to achieve the results we wanted. Through our regular visits to Bill we noticed the tools that everyone was using at Te Pani House and the different effects these had on their carvings. …


In response to increasing degrees of work and family conflict, some companies have implemented work and family policies. However, evidence suggests that many companies will not implement work and family policies because they believe that some employees will feel that the policies are unfair, although this claim has been made with only minimal empirical evidence. This study examined employees' fairness perceptions of work/family policies. It was hypothesized that employees who might benefit from a work/family policy would feel that the policy was more fair than would employees who would not benefit from such a policy. To test this hypothesis, 849 bank employees responded to hypothetical work/family policies that either parent employees only or all employees could use. A second independent variable was supervisor status. The hypothetical supervisor in the scenario was either supportive or unsupportive of this discretionary policy. The respondent's parental status, a non-manipulated demographic variable, was the final independent variable in this 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. Respondents rated the fairness of the hypothetical policy. The ANOVA results indicated that parent employees felt the policy that only parent employees could use was more fair than did nonparent employees who were not affected by the policy. Parents felt the policy that covered all employees was more fair than nonparents did; however, nonparents did feel the policy that covered all employees was more fair than the policy that benefited only parents. The supportiveness of the supervisor did not affect fairness