The thesis attempts to discuss the "informal" urbanization that characterizes the contemporary Greek cities as an immediate derivative of a complex political project, displayed primarily by architectural and urban typologies and protocols. As a case study, the Greek cities and particularly Athens, offer a possible critique on the recent conceptions regarding the distinction between "informal" and "formal" urbanism. These two dialectically opposite categories wish to distinguish two types of planning, which supposedly represent equally opposing political processes in the establishment, the formation and the development of cities. Nevertheless, the argument of the thesis is that in the Greek case, what appears to be a spontaneous and un-planned urban typology is the result of a precise institutional and regulatory framework, a particular technology of governance and administration. The consecutive failures or absence of conventional planning mechanisms, like zoning regulations, or the lack of large scale planning proposals, marked what could be seen as a gradual retreat of public institutions from a comprehensive project for the city. Instead, the state and its administrative authorities produced a legislative frame, consisting of complex laws and decrees of various exceptions and particularities, which addressed instant and immediate issues. These were meant to control the small scale of the urban environment, i.e. the architecture and the building construction rather than the physical and urban form of the city in a larger scale, eventually promoting and formulating distinctive building practices. These practices established a condition of uneven development within the urban territories of the country, where the smallest scale of the city, the housing unit itself, built and formed the city with an apparently accidental and fragmented pattern. Most importantly, the small-scale construction industry was gradually conceived and institutionalized as the motor of capitalist development, becoming eventually the platform upon which class struggle, and the aftermaths of the various conflicts, social desires and antagonisms could be read. The ambition of the thesis is to trace the evolution of this pattern of urban development, within various historic events and political decisions. Ultimately, the research addresses the latter in an effort to discuss how the promoted architectural objects and machineries replaced conventional planning as devices of bio-political control and management of city and its population. The thesis focuses on the characteristics of this peculiar architecture, as this evolved strategically through time. The originally urban and bourgeois "polykatoikia" residential type and the self-building practices for both the high classes and the poor represented initially alternative methods to fulfill the housing needs of different social subjects. Eventually, these two systems merged and established a common architectural language, a unified and unifying building knowledge and technique. In the case of Athens, the result of the above is a rather continuous urban horizon, where the monad, the pixel of the city prevails. This homogeneous space of urbanization spreads throughout the landscape, overcoming occasionally the historic, physical and administrative boundaries of the city. The research investigates a specific historic period, all along which the Modern Greek cities were formed and developed with an unprecedented fashion, while it also attempts to establish a genealogy of this project since the very foundation of the Modern Greek State in the mi-19th century. The thesis focuses on the last sixty years of urban development in Athens, when the city acquired a paradigmatic role in the post-WW II reconstruction policies deployed in the country. Along this period, fundamental elements of the regulatory framework and the political/ideological mechanisms reached their higher sophistication. The thesis aims to problematize the structure of the contemporary Greek city, especially within this era of economic and social collapse.


Does gentrification change a politician's responsiveness to their constituent's needs? The research conducted for this study tested how politicians respond their new and established constituents in three neighborhoods in Boston undergoing varying phases of gentrification. The expectation for this research was that wealthy constituents would have their needs addressed by politicians regardless of their status as a new or established resident in the neighborhood. Several in-depth interviews of new and established residents and their politicians were conducted in order to gather data to support the claims found in the existing literature. The methodology used in this research compared the concerns that new and established residents addressed in their in-depth interviews to the policies that were implemented in their community. The key finding of this study was that across the varying phases of gentrification, politicians did tend to listen to the concerns of their wealthier constituents at a higher rate. This research contributes to the existing literature on political representation, political incentives, representation, and voter behavior. The research shows how communities and residents' sense of political efficacy evolves due to gentrification. The research also highlights the constraints that local politicians face when choosing policy agendas. While the findings for the research were significant, the research is not meant to be representative of general feelings of political representation in each neighborhood.


We develop a prototype network forensics analysis tool that integrates presentation, manipulation and automated reasoning of intrusion evidence. We propose the evidence graph as a novel graph model to facilitate the presentation and manipulation of intrusion evidence. For automated evidence analysis, we develop a hierarchical reasoning framework that includes local reasoning and global reasoning. In local reasoning, we apply Rule-based Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (RBFCM) to model the state evolution of suspicious hosts. In global reasoning, we aim to identify group of strongly correlated hosts in the attack and derive their relationships in the attack scenario. Our analysis mechanism effectively integrates analyst feedbacks into the automated reasoning process. Experimental results demonstrate the potential of our proposed techniques.


Supervision of midwives is a statutory responsibility, which provides a mechanism for support and guidance to every practising midwife in the United Kingdom. To be eligible for appointment as a supervisor, midwives are required to undertake a preparation programme successfully. Because of the changing nature of the professional role and education, the level of the programme of preparation has evolved from an attendance course, to programmes delivered at diploma, degree and, more recently, Masters' level. In collaboration with clinical colleagues and the statutory authorities, the University of Hertfordshire has presented a programme of preparation at Masters' level since 1997. Revalidation in 2001 provided the opportunity to review the learning and teaching methods, and a decision was made to use Action Learning as an important component of the new programme that commenced in 2002. Alongside the normal university quality assessment mechanisms, a systematic evaluation was undertaken to explore the acceptability and perceived usefulness of Action Learning by the students of the second and third cohorts. This paper presents the findings of this evaluation.


Introduction: Depression and anxiety represent a common pathway for patients presenting with Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy (TTC) and Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) although differences in prevalence and their potential relation to cardiac disease onset remain to be described. Method and Results: 41 consecutive female patients with diagnosis of TTC were prospectively enrolled and compared with 82 consecutive age/sex matched patients with ACS as control group in a 1:2 fashion. Prevalence of psychological disorder was significantly higher in TTC patients compared with ACS (49% vs 26% p=0.01). In the subgroup with psychological disease, patients with TTC were more often anxious, while patients with ACS were more often affected by depression (80% vs 38% and 15% vs 48% respectively, p=0.02). At multiple regres-sion analysis TTC was an independent predictor of psychiatric disorders (HR 1.28 CI 1.1-1.5, p<0.01). Conclusion: In a cohort of elderly women with TTC, the prevalence of psychological disease is higher and with oppo-site clinical features (anxious vs depressed) compared with a matched ACS cohort.


The potential of ePortfolios for both students and staff has generated considerable interest and investment by universities over the past ten years or so within Australia. Despite funded projects, ePortfolio specific conferences and a range of commercial and open software, there is not wide spread uptake of ePortfolios, although many universities continue to try and test a range of different options. This paper reports upon the experience of an Australian university when considering implementation and uptake of ePortfolio technology between 2008 and 2011. It describes the technological and sectoral factors that have to some extent shaped Australian ePortfolio context and affected the institutional ePortfolio initiative at Griffith University.


OBJECTIVES
To investigate the screening performance for frailty of the Vulnerable Elders Survey-13 (VES-13) and the 2-step approach consisting of the VES-13 plus the anhedonia (loss of interest or pleasure) item from Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) among older patients with newly diagnosed cancer.

METHODS
This study involved 106 consecutive inpatients aged 65 years or older, newly diagnosed with malignant lymphoma or multiple myeloma, just before chemotherapy initiation. The participants were administered the VES-13, and also underwent a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), including for depression and 6 other geriatric conditions, using validated measures, just before initiation of chemotherapy. We defined frailty as the presence of 2 or more geriatric conditions as determined by the CGA. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed. The 2-step screening approach was examined by post hoc analysis.

RESULTS
The average age of the subjects was 74 years. Among the 106 subjects, 50% met the criteria for frailty. Using a cutoff score of 2 to 3 on the VES-13, a sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) of 72% of the screening tool was obtained for the condition of frailty. When the second step of the screening, consisting of the VES-13 plus anhedonia, was applied to the VES-13-negative patients, the sensitivity and NPV improved to 90% and 88%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
The 2-step approach exhibited better screening performance for frailty among patients with cancer than existing methods. Large prospective studies are required in the future to confirm this ability of the 2-step approach.


The Curricular pattern into which secondary
school pupils were pressed was remarkable
chiefly as an indication of modern Ireland's
rejection of the twentieth century's dominant
intellectual trends.
This provocative claim is made by D.H. Akenson in his A Mirror to Kathleen's FaceY1 a critical study of education in independent Ireland, published in 1975. The harshness of many of Akenson's judgements however (more of which will be
examined later), together with a strident and often sniping tone in the book as a whole, have made his text something less than a definitive work on Irish education in the first four decades of independence.
The shortcomings in Akenson's work, moreover, have had the result that those who came under criticism in the text (particularly the Roman Catholic Church, political leaders, the Dept. of Education, but also the Irish people as a whole)can, with some justification, dismiss the book's
arguments as an attempt to pillory them rather than as a balanced historical disclosure of the real story.
Education in modern Ireland is so laden with controversy however, that an objective telling of the tale presents very considerable difficulties to the most circumspect of scholars, even if he or she succeeds in obtaining free access to all relevant firsthand sources. Cries of "bias" come readily to the lips of groups and individuals who fall
under any kind of indictment by the historian and the writer who does not acknowledge this fact and examine its implications before taking up his pen, leaves himself unnecessarily open to the double charge that he has failed to declare his hand openly and is seeking instead to gain the status of scholarship for his own preferred viewpoint.


This essay seeks to bring Reinhold Niebuhr into the postructuralist dialogue in order to suggest that his writings are far more constructive about the human predicament. The essay begins by presenting eleven positions commonly taken by poststructuralists. It then examines similarities between Niebuhr and postructuralist thinkers in their interrogation of the Enlightenment to expose the illusions of reason and progress and in their exposure of the Marxist philosophy of history as a false teleology that dramatizes truth and freedom emerging triumphant from conflict and struggle. Instead of posing postructuralist constraints and incarceration, however, Niebuhr's theology and philosophy of history offer indeterminate potentialities for freedom. Whereas the poststructuralists fetishize systems and structures, Niebuhr believes in the possibilities of human agency. And while Foucault presents us with a theory of oppression without an oppressor, Niebuhr seeks to show how power issues from ourselves, from the sin-prone ego that prevents consciousness from rising to knowledge of the motives for its own actions. The essay argues, finally, that in Niebuhr power and morality meet in one, with a suspicious glance at the disavowal of power and the pretensions of morality, and with responsibility for the use of power remaining within mind, will, and conscience.


In 2001, the four federal banking agencies that enforce the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) began a review of CRA regulations they adopted in 1995. The review lasted until they issued amendments in 2004 and 2005. The review process was controversial, tortuous, and divisive. By the time it was over, residents of the communities the CRA was intended to benefit, including low- and moderate-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods, gained a victory in their efforts to promote community reinvestment and economic development, but also lost significant ground. The victory was strengthened regulation of subprime and predatory lending. The losses included a reduction in the number of banks and savings associations subject to more rigorous CRA standards, a loss in the amount of publicly available data about small business and small farm lending, and the elimination of community development lending and investment and retail banking service requirements for large savings associations. As a result of the amendments to the CRA regulations, underserved communities face a reduction in loans, investments, and services. This article describes the CRA and the 1995 CRA regulations, identifies some of the key issues in the CRA amendment process, describes the amendments to the regulations, evaluates the amendments' likely effect on underserved communities, and offers suggestions to advocates about how they can use the amended CRA regulations to help underserved communities and how to prevent further cutbacks in CRA protections.


DFT is a method that deals eciently with the ground state any-electron problem. It replaces the solution of the many-electron Schrodinger's equation with an equation to determine the electronic density alone. In the Kohn-Sham (KS) scheme, this density is obtained as the ground state density of a ctitious system of non-interacting electrons.
The aim is to determine the local potential for these electrons so that their density equals the interacting density of the physical system. This potential is the sum of the electron-nuclear attraction, the Hartree repulsion from the density and nally the exchange and correlation potential. The central approximation in DFT is the functional form of the exchange-correlation potential. The most basic approximate functionals are explicit functions of the electron density. More sophisticated approximations are orbital dependent functionals or hybrids of density and orbital dependent functionals. In this work we present the implementation of some accurate local exchange potentials,
the exact exchange (EXX) potential, the local Fock exchange (LFX) potential and an approximation to EXX, the common energy denominator approximation (CEDA) potential.
The EXX potential minimises the Hartree-Fock (HF) total energy and is calculated using perturbation theory and the Hylleraas variational method, improving upon previous
implementations. Optimising a local potential that adopts the HF density as its own ground state density, gives the LFX potential, which is simple to calculate and physically
equivalent to the EXX potential. Both the EXX and LFX methods are extended to be applicable to metallic systems. The implemented potentials are used to calculate the
electronic band structures for semiconductors, insulators, antiferromagnetic insulators and metals. For the semiconducting, insulating and metallic systems studied, the LFX method gives very similar results to EXX. In the systems characterised by stronger correlations, we observe a small disparity between the two exchange methods. When compared to experiment, the results are surprisingly accurate, given the complete neglect of correlation in these calculations. This is remarkable for the strongly correlated systems and also for the simple metals, given the well-known qualitative failure of Hartree-Fock for metals. The fundamental gap of a system is the sum of the KS eigenvalue gap and a correction known as the derivative discontinuity. The exact derivative discontinuity for a system is derived from ensemble density functional theory, thus allowing the full calculation of fundamental band gaps. Approximate forms of the discontinuity for the
local density approximation (LDA), generalised gradient approximations (GGA), EXX and LFX are also derived and implemented. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, that the derivative discontinuity for local approximations (LDA/GGA) vanishes, calculated LDA and GGA fundamental band gaps give a much improved result over the corresponding Kohn-Sham band gaps, with accuracy comparable to EXX and LFX KS band
gaps. Finally the derivative discontinuity using exact exchange and an orbital dependent correlation functional was also derived but not implemented.


Background: Patients with medically unexplained symptoms make heavy demands on the health care system. An offer for psychological treatment is often declined. There is a need for acceptable and effective treatments. We assessed the acceptability and effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for patients with persistent medically unexplained symptoms. Method: A randomized controlled trial comparing MBCT (n = 64) to enhanced usual care (EUC; n = 61). Participants were the 10% most frequently attending patients in primary care. The primary outcome measure was general health status at the end of treatment. Secondary outcome measures were mental and physical functioning. Assessments took place at the end of treatment and at the 9-month follow-up. Results: Health status and physical functioning did not significantly differ between groups. However, participants in the MBCT group reported a significantly greater improvement in mental functioning at the end of treatment (adjusted mean difference, 3.9; 95% CI, 0.24-7.6), in particular with regard to vitality and social functioning. In addition, at 9 months of follow-up, the mindfulness skills 'observing' and 'describing' were significantly higher in the MBCT group. Within the MBCT group, almost half of the outcome measures had significantly improved at the end of treatment, whereas in the EUC group none had. Conclusions: MBCT was feasible for frequently attending patients with persistent medically unexplained symptoms in primary care. Although MBCT did not lead to a significant difference in general health status between the two groups, it did result in a significant improvement in mental functioning.


We consider the problem of learning good trajectories for manipulation tasks. This is challenging because the criterion defining a good trajectory varies with users, tasks and environments. In this paper, we propose a co-active online learning framework for teaching robots the preferences of its users for object manipulation tasks. The key novelty of our approach lies in the type of feedback expected from the user: the human user does not need to demonstrate optimal trajectories as training data, but merely needs to iteratively provide trajectories that slightly improve over the trajectory currently proposed by the system. We argue that this co-active preference feedback can be more easily elicited from the user than demonstrations of optimal trajectories, which are often challenging and non-intuitive to provide on high degrees of freedom manipulators. Nevertheless, theoretical regret bounds of our algorithm match the asymptotic rates of optimal trajectory algorithms. We demonstrate the generalizability of our algorithm on a variety of grocery checkout tasks, for whom, the preferences were not only influenced by the object being manipulated but also by the surrounding environment.1


Although genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified some risk single-nucleotide polymorphisms in East Asian never-smoking females, the unexplained missing heritability is still required to be investigated. Runs of homozygosity (ROHs) are thought to be a type of genetic variation acting on human complex traits and diseases. We detected ROHs in 8,881 East Asian never-smoking women. The summed ROHs were used to fit a logistic regression model which noteworthily revealed a significant association between ROHs and the decreased risk of lung cancer (P < 0.05). We identified 4 common ROHs regions located at 2p22.1, which were significantly associated with decreased risk of lung cancer (P = 2.00 × 10-4 - 1.35 × 10-4). Functional annotation was conducted to investigate the regulatory function of ROHs. The common ROHs were overlapped with potential regulatory elements, such as active epigenome elements and chromatin states in lung-derived cell lines. SOS1 and ARHGEF33 were significantly up-regulated as the putative target genes of the identified ROHs in lung cancer samples according to the analysis of differently expressed genes. Our results suggest that ROHs could act as recessive contributing factors and regulatory elements to influence the risk of lung cancer in never-smoking East Asian females.


Assessment of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure using nicotine as a tracer or biomarker is affected by sorption of the alkaloid to indoor surfaces and by its long-term re-emission into the gas phase. However, surface chemical interactions of nicotine have not been sufficiently characterized. Here, the reaction of ozone with nicotine sorbed to Teflon and cotton surfaces was investigated in an environmental chamber by monitoring nicotine desorption over a week following equilibration in dry or humid air (approximately 0% or 65-70% RH, respectively). The Teflon and cotton surfaces had N2-BET surface areas of 0.19 and 1.17 m2 g(-1), and water mass uptakes (at 70% RH) of 0 and 7.1% respectively. Compared with dry air baseline levels in the absence of O3, gas-phase nicotine concentrations decreased by 2 orders of magnitude for Teflon after 50 h at 20-45 ppb O3, and by a factor of 10 for cotton after 100 h with 13-15 ppb O3. The ratios of pseudo first-order rate constants for surface reaction (r) to long-term desorption (k) were r/k = 3.5 and 2.0 for Teflon and cotton surfaces, respectively. These results show that surface oxidation was competitive with desorption. Hence, oxidative losses could significantly reduce long-term re-emissions of nicotine from indoor surfaces. Formaldehyde, N-methylformamide, nicotinaldehyde, and cotinine were identified as oxidation products, indicating that the pyrrolidinic N was the site of electrophilic attack by O3. The presence of water vapor had no effect on the nicotine-O3 reaction on Teflon surfaces. By contrast, nicotine desorption from cotton in humid air was unaffected by the presence of ozone. These observations are consistent with complete inhibition of ozone-nicotine surface reactions in an aqueous surface film present in cotton but not in Teflon surfaces.


In spite of the increases in our knowledge achieved over the past half century, not least through the contributions of Oliver Rackham, we still know relatively little about historic land use practices or their ecological outcomes. By the time the characteristics of particular habitat types were first recorded in the mid-late nineteenth century, by Richard Jefferies for example, they were already changing fast, as a consequence of agricultural modernisation, industrialisation, and unprecedented population growth. Yet even before all of these far-reaching developments, land management systems had changed radically over time, and had varied from place to place, producing a constellation of landscape types that were considerably more unstable and variable than those produced by modern conservation methods (Fuller et al. 2017). Population fluctuated both locally and nationally, and farming varied in response to markets in meat and grain or the requirements of local and national industries. Throughout western Europe, semi-natural habitats are often classified according to their past exploitation (e.g. Tansley 1939; Ratcliffe 1977; EC 1992), and within our surviving fragments of semi-natural vegetation, conservation management generally aims to continue the 'traditional' practices (those of pre-industrial [c. 1200-1750] land management systems) which originally contributed to their character. While these traditional practices have created a number of the habitats that we value today, our ancestors were, of course, not carrying them out with any aim of increasing biodiversity. The wildlife value of traditional landscapes came as a fortuitous by-product of intensive land stripping, vegetation clearance and exploitation by man; characterised by dynamic nested heterogeneity, compatible to a sizeable subset of potential Biodiversity. However, while current management of wildlife habitats may attempt to mimic aspects of 'traditional' practices, it arguably simplifies their character and thus, as the 'State of Nature Report' (Hayhow et al. 2016) has shown, is failing to sustain the species with which they are particularly associated. Indeed, it is likely that, to a significant extent, the conviction that 'traditional' management systems are insufficient for conservation is based on a poor understanding of what these actually involved, and of what they achieved. The management of individual land parcels, including those that we think of today as 'semi-natural', was far from static, and this raises important questions about how we can restore them to a meaningful 'baseline'. More importantly, in failing to understand the real processes which made particular suites of species characteristic of particular places, we may be unable to sustain these into the future. In this article we elucidate the real character of past management systems, and suggest how the principles they embody can be used to develop innovative new conservation techniques.


In the Mediterranean region, forests play a key role in the welfare of urban and rural peoples, by providing highly appreciated marketed goods as well as high value but nonmarket services. Anthropogenic climate change entails a significant impact on Mediterranean forests, such as the reduced species diversity, high density, pest, and diseases. In this chapter, we present the achievements of the project LIFE ResilForMed (Resilience of Mediterranean Forests to climate change), as Sicilian responds on adaptation and mitigation to climate change: (i) map of Sensitivity Forest Areas to desertification of the Sicilian region; (ii) list of bird indicators showing sensitivity to desertification in Sicily; (iii) set of resilience indicators aimed to assess the resilience of Mediterranean forests to climate changes; (iv) list of sporadic and endemic tree species of Sicilian forests; (v) development of optimal management models suitable to improve or consolidate the resilience of forest and preforest ecosystems. This work is at the forefront of developing knowhow and transferable best management practices that may help Mediterranean forests to adapt to climate change and thereby, safeguard their multifunctional benefits for future generations.


The Straw-like User Interface is a novel interface system that allows us to virtually experience the sensations of drinking. These sensations are created based on referencing sample data of actual pressure, vibration and sound produced by drinking from an ordinary straw attached to the system. This research of presenting virtual drinking sensations to mouth and lips is the first in the world to have been attempted, and comes with high academic expectations. Moreover, due to the high sensitivity of the mouth and lips when used as a sensor, it is possible to develop many unique interfaces and so this could facilitate an extension of research fields in both interactive arts and entertainment.


Co-crystal synthesis has become a field of high interest in the last decade. This category of solid forms has a variety of applications in industries such as textile, paper and electronics. For many purposes co-crystals will have superior properties in comparison to traditional salt crystals. This review article will focus on the application of co-crystals in pharmaceutical drugs. Co-crystals have opened doors to rein-troduce previously poor performing bioactive ingredients in new and improved solid structures. They have also allowed for the introduction of a new range of compounds for pharmaceutical therapy. Most importantly, co-crystals can create new medicines with increased solubility and hence improve the effi-ciency and safety of the treatment.


After decades of rule by the Barisan Nasional, spearheaded by the United Malays National Organisation, 2018 witnessed a change in government when the Pakatan Harapan opposition secured a stunning victory in the general election. The incumbent prime minister, Najib Razak, was defeated by his political nemesis, Mahathir Mohamad. Malaysia's economy was stable but sluggish, growing slower than expected in 2018.


There is no established approach for dealing with the active acoustic detection of biological targets in highly dynamic aquatic environments where intense physical interference means that standard techniques are unsuitable. This is a particular problem in ecologically important environments with emerging industrial significance such as marine energy extraction sites. We developed an automatic processing method which allows effective target detection with high sensitivity throughout variable acoustic conditions. The method is based on scale‐dependent adaptive filtering of data and morphological analysis of short‐scale backscatter contributions for the exclusion of intense turbulent features and isolation of biological targets. Echosounder platform deployments around marine energy infrastructure in a tidal channel provide test data which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Target validation and assessment is carried out by the analysis of multifrequency characteristics and direct inspection. The results deliver effective, quantitative, and repeatable assessment of ecological interactions and target distributions with clear implications for environmental assessment in high energy sites and promising applications in other contexts.


As part of the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship's Ningaloo Collaboration Cluster program currently underway in Western Australia, this study aims to examine the habitats and biodiversity of lagoonal areas within Ningaloo Reef. Key habitat types were identified using information from hyperspectral remote sensing and were used to develop a stratified sampling approach. Two focal areas were selected, based on sanctuary zones within Ningaloo Marine Park: Osprey Bay in the north and Coral Bay in the central section; an additional site has recently been added at Gnaraloo in the south. A nested sampling programme was initiated within each location, consisting of surveying transects at different spatial scales: cross-reef transects (shore to back-reef) to identify major habitat types and boundaries between habitats; and finer-scale habitat surveys of biodiversity and abundance of different major groups of organisms, focussing on non-scleractinian cnidarians, macroalgae, sponges, echinoderms and molluscs. Three geomorphological categories have been sampled at each location: back-reef, lagoon and inner reefflat. Ground-truthing was carried out on the extent of habitats along defined transects selected to maximize the diversity of each site. A nested quadrat sampling regime was used to validate remotely-sensed data with field-collected data.


This study is a trans-disciplinary and trans-historical investigation into civilian and battlefield contexts in which speaker systems have been utilised by the military-industrial and military-entertainment complexes to apply pressure to mass social groupings and the individuated body. Drawing on authors such as historian/sociologist Michel Foucault, economist Jacques Attali, philosopher Michel Serres, political geographer/urban planner Edward Soja, musician/sonic theorist Steve Goodman, and cultural theorist/urbanist Paul Virilio, this study engages a wide range of texts to orchestrate its arguments. Conducting new strains of viral theory that resonate with architectural, neurological, and political significance, this research provides new and original analysis about the composition of waveformed geography. Ultimately, this study listens to the ways in which the past and current utilisation of sonic, infrasonic, and ultrasonic frequencies as weapons, apparatus for psychological manipulation, and instruments of physiological influence, by industrial, civilian, entertainment, and military organisations, predict future techniques of sociospatialised organisation. In chapter one it is argued that since the inception of wired radio speaker systems into U.S. industrial factories in 1922, the development of sonic strategies based primarily on the scoring of architectonic spatiality, cycles of repetition, and the enveloping dynamics of surround sound can be traced to the sonic torture occurring in Guantanamo Bay during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Exploring the use of surround sound speaker techniques by the FBI during the Waco Siege in Texas, this argument is developed in chapter two. In chapter three it is further contended that the acoustic techniques utilised in the Guantanamo torture cells represent the final modality and the logical conclusion of these strategies that have evolved between civilian and military contexts over the past 80 years. In chapter four, the speaker system instrumentality of the HSS ultrasonic beam - occurring post Guantanamo - comes to symbolise an epistemic shift in the application of waveformed pressure; the dynamics of directional ultrasound technology signalling the orchestration of a new set of frequency-based relations between the transmitter and the receiver, the speaker system and architectural context, and the civilian and war torn environment. The concluding proposition of the study submits that a waveformed cartography - mapping the soundscape's territorialisation by the military-entertainment complex - needs to be composed and arranged so that forms of recording, amplification, and resistance can be made coherent. Given the new set of non-sound politics announced by the HSS, this philosophy of frequency-based mapping will have to re-evaluate the taxonomy and indexical nature of spatial relations. This discipline will be a waveformed psychogeography; a frequency-based modality that heuristically charts the spatial concerns of the neural environment as well as the environs of the material and the built. As a field of research it will have a wide-ranging remit to explore the spatial, psychological, physiological, social, economic, and sexual effects that waveforms have upon our subjectivity. Its methodology - as suggested through the structuring of this study - will be multi-disciplined and multi-channelled. It will create new forms of knowledge about LRADs, iPods, Mosquitos, I ntonarumori , loudhailers, and Sequential Arc Discharge Acoustic Generators - the meta-network of speaker systems through which rhythms and cadences of power are transmitted, connected, and modulated.


There has been a steady decline in coffee production and general farming activity in Amadeo, Cavite—farmers lament that their soil is acidic, causing a significant drop in coffee yields, while conversion of farmlands to housing and commercial establishments is on the rise. Viewing these recent changes in light of Pope Francis's encyclical Laudato si', it is clear that the sustainability of local farms and their ecology is under threat, and that a Christian viewpoint would yield a deeper understanding and solution to this emerging problem. For this study, therefore, data on the spirituality of farm owners in Amadeo, Cavite was collected and analyzed to determine the relationship between their spirituality and the sustainability of their farms. Spirituality was defined using a composite of personal spirituality, social responsibility, and stewardship, while sustainability consisted of three components: sustainability of family needs, plans to sell, and plans to convert to non-agricultural land. Results showed that personal spirituality was positively associated with farms sustaining family needs; stewardship and social responsibility practices, on the other hand, produced mixed results.


Background Bone marrow aspirate concentrate (BMAC) including high densities of stem cells and progenitor cells may possess a stronger bone regenerative capability compared with Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), which contains enriched growth factors. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of human BMAC and PRP in combination with β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) on promoting initial bone augmentation in an immunodeficient mouse model. Methodology/Principal Findings BMAC and PRP were concentrated with an automated blood separator from the bone marrow and peripheral blood aspirates. β-TCP particles were employed as a scaffold to carry cells. After cell counting and FACS characterization, three groups of nude mice (BMAC+TCP, PRP+TCP, and a TCP control) were implanted with graft materials for onlay placement on the cranium. Samples were harvested after 4 weeks, and serial sections were prepared. We observed the new bone on light microscopy and performed histomorphometric analysis. After centrifugation, the concentrations of nucleated cells and platelets in BMAC were increased by factors of 2.8±0.8 and 5.3±2.4, respectively, whereas leucocytes and platelets in PRP were increased by factors of 4.1±1.8 and 4.4±1.9, respectively. The concentrations of CD34-, CD271-, CD90-, CD105-, and CD146-positive cells were markedly increased in both BMAC and PRP. The percentage of new bone in the BMAC group (7.6±3.9%) and the PRP group (7.2±3.8%) were significantly higher than that of TCP group (2.7±1.4%). Significantly more bone cells in the new bone occurred in sites transplanted with BMAC (552±257) and PRP (491±211) compared to TCP alone (187±94). But the difference between the treatment groups was not significant. Conclusions/Significance Both human BMACs and PRP may provide therapeutic benefits in bone tissue engineering applications. These fractions possess a similar ability to enhance early-phase bone regeneration.


The authors describe the application of an adaptive optimal kernel (AOK) time-frequency representation to the processing of underwater acoustic data. The optimal kernel is a signal-dependent radially Gaussian function. Examples are given which demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach for simulated and real sonar data. The simulations indicate that the technique should work well for a larger set of signal classes than any current fixed-kernel representation. The technique has excellent performance even in the presence of substantial additive noise; this property may be exploited for signal detection. The AOK technique appears to offer unique features that can be used to characterize and automatically classify signals of interest, particularly when compared to other processing techniques.<<ETX>>


Spectrum sharing is an important enabler for future mobile broadband systems to meet the growing end user data traffic needs. Considering spectrum sharing from regulation, business and technology perspectives is the key for the successful development of sharing models that can be deployed in practical systems. This chapter studies recent spectrum sharing concepts from regulatory, business and technology perspectives. We present the European Licensed Shared Access (LSA) spectrum sharing concept covering its regulatory, business, and technical aspects with a focus on the LSA case example of sharing between LTE and incumbent program making and special events (PMSE) services in the 2.3-2.4 GHz band. The LSA evolution including more dynamic sharing toward the US three-tier spectrum sharing model for Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) based on Spectrum Access System (SAS) is depicted in terms of its ecosystem, business benefits, and technical approaches. Future outlook is given to envisage the development of sharing models for the mobile broadband.


There is growing interest in "customer-based corporate valuation," explicitly tying the value of a firm's customer base to its financial valuation. While much progress has been made in building a well-validated customer-based valuation model for contractual (or subscription-based) firms, there has been little progress for non-contractual firms. Non-contractual businesses have more complex transactional patterns because they are characterized by latent attrition instead of observable churn behavior, and often have highly irregular purchase timing and spend amounts, making it harder to reconstruct granular purchase behaviors from aggregated metrics (e.g., active users and the repeat rate). Nevertheless, a number of firms disclose a variety of customer metrics to their shareholders. The authors use indirect inference, a well-established econometric estimation procedure, to estimate the aforementioned customer behaviors using aggregated metrics. The authors show how the predictive validity of the models varies as a function of the metrics used. They apply this methodology to data from a large business unit of an e-commerce retailer, valuing the business unit as a whole, decomposing this valuation into existing and yet-to-be-acquired customers, and analyzing customer profitability.


Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are cytotoxic agents that lead to significant oxidative damage. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a contaminant with increasing exposure to it and exerts both toxic and estrogenic effects on mammalian cells. Due to limited information concerning the effect of BPA on liver, this study investigates whether BPA causes hepatotoxicity by induction of oxidative stress in liver. Rats were divided into five groups: The first four groups, BPA (0.1, 1, 10, 50 mg/kg/day) were administrated orally to rats for four weeks. The fifth group was taken water with vehicle. The final body weights in the 0.1 mg group showed a significant decrease compared to control group. Significant decreased levels of reduced glutathione, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione-S-transferase, glutathione reductase and catalase activity were found in the 50 mg BPA group compared to control groups. High dose of BPA (50 mg/kg) significantly increased the biochemical levels of ALT, ALP and total bilirubin. BPA effect on the activity of antioxidant genes was confirmed by real time PCR in which the expression levels of these genes in liver tissue were significantly decrease compared to control. Data from this study demonstrate that BPA generate ROS and reduce the antioxidant gene expression that causes hepatotoxicity.


This article concerns non-traditional students' involvement in Australian higher education. It aims to deepen understanding of enabling and constraining factors for this group's retention, through an in-depth case study of a non-traditional student's university experience. The study is underpinned by principles of phenomenology, hermeneutics and idiography with data analysis involving an inductive coding process and a thematic analysis. Findings draw attention to the need to provide support for non-traditional university students in developing a sense of connectedness and resourcefulness. The study makes an original contribution to knowledge by challenging the assumption that western theories of psychology, which privilege an individualist perspective, adequately explain and predict behaviours of non-traditional students who are members of collective social systems. It emphasises the need for researchers and practitioners to adopt an interpretative stance that accommodates a collectivist perspective. Without this approach, student behaviours may be misinterpreted and their circumstances may be unfairly undervalued.


The development of meaningful models of species richness dynamics in island ecosystems requires accurate measurement of existing biodiversity. To test the assumption that mammalian diversity on tropical oceanic islands is well documented, we conducted a 12-year intensive survey of the native mammal fauna on Luzon Island, a large (ca. 103,000 km2), mostly volcanic island in the Philippines, which was thought to be well known. Prior to the start of our study in 2000, 28 native, non-flying mammals had been documented, and extrapolation from prior discoveries indicated that the rate of discovery of new species was steady but low. From 2000 to 2012, we surveyed non-flying mammals at 17 locations and discovered at least 28 additional species, doubling the number known. Nearly all of the new species are restricted to a single mountain or mountain range, most of which had not been sampled previously, thus also doubling the number of local centers of endemism within Luzon from four to eight. The number of species on a mountain is strongly correlated with the elevation of the peak, and the number of endemic species on a mountain range is strongly correlated with the maximum elevation of the range. All 28 of the new species, and 20 of the species discovered prior to 2000, are members of two morphologically and ecologically diverse endemic clades ("cloud rats" and "earthworm mice"), which strongly implies that species richness has primarily been the product of speciation within the island. We reject the general assumption that mammals on tropical oceanic islands are sufficiently well known that analysis and modeling of the dynamics of species richness may be conducted with precision. In the development of conceptual biogeographic models and implementation of effective conservation strategies, existing estimates of species richness, levels of endemism, and the number of subcenters of endemism should be actively reassessed and verified through robust field, museum, and laboratory studies.


The federal government's response the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been marked by a series of apparently disjointed, chaotic, and confusing statements and actions on the part of both the White House and federal agencies charged with coordinating the federal response. These actions have left many state governors (and citizens) in a position to address the effects of the pandemic in a haphazard and atomistic manner. In this essay, we contend that the actions of the Trump administration, and its relationships with states and local governments, can best be understood through a lens of what we refer to as "transactional federalism," in which federalism relationships are governed by a set of exchanges between the president and states, and between states. We conclude by discussing the ramifications of this form of federalism.


China is the world's largest exporter and second largest importer. It is the only developing country other than Russia on the list of the world's top ten exporters. The value of its imports is only about 300 billion USD less than the US's imports, and over 700 billion USD from the next largest importing country. Despite its tremendous amount of trade, the slowing domestic economy encourages the national government to test new methods of promoting international trade and foreign investment. In 2013, China created the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone to test relaxed trading practices. This article provides an overview of special economic zones and the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. It then analyzes this new free trade zone and its political and economic effects, and offers several suggestions for the future of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone and other potential free trade zones in Mainland China.


This research examines women's experiences of and responses to intimate partner violence using the perspective of the extended self. From in-depth interviews with a demographically diverse group of women in the United States, the primary theme to emerge was that chronic abuse is experienced as the male partner's ongoing campaign to incorporate the abused woman into his extended self, by appropriating or destroying the aspects of her that give her autonomy. The most important implication for agencies serving abused women is that many of their clients are faced with the daunting task of repairing or reconstructing their core and extended selves, a process that may necessitate the long-term commitment of agency resources without the imposition of restricted, institutionally imposed identities that would serve only to impede clients' reclamation of their autonomy.


The present Ph. D. Thesis studies the effects of UV based disinfection treatments and the enhancement by the application of photocatalysis with titanium dioxide on bacteria and microalgae, focused to the application as ballast water treatment. The treatments was applied by through flow reactors, previously characterized with salt tracer for checking their operation as a plug-flow system, then validating the mechanisms for evaluating the applied UV dose as the product of the intensity and the exposure time. The assessment of treatment effects was performed by obtaining the survival profiles of treated organisms. The UV and photocatalytic treatments were applied to bacteria Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis, both organisms controlled by the Ballast Water Convention, using distilled and salt water matrix. The survival response of bacteria was determined by selective chromogenic agar after membrane filtration of samples treated with different UV doses. Additionally, results were matched with disinfection experiments with a standard collimated beam reactor for validation of the experimental procedures. The disinfection profiles determined the increased inactivation of bacteria by the application of photocatalytic treatment in distilled and salt water. The disinfection of microalgae required the development of a mechanism to study the concentration of viable organisms after treatment. The irradiated samples were incubated and subjected to periodical determinations of cellular density. The concentration of initial viable organisms was estimated by the modeling of growth curves of samples treated to different UV doses. The disinfection profiles depicted an enhancement by the application of photocatalytic treatment in relation to UV light only. Additionally, results demonstrated the relevance of the UV treatment prior to dark storage as occurring when the treatment is applied during the ballasting operation. A semi-automatic device based on microscopy ad flow cytometry (FlowCAM?) was tested for assessing its feasibility as systematic ballast water monitor. The analytic capacities to determine the accurately the size, concentration and viability of organisms were examined by analysis of artificial beads, monoculture and real seawater. Additionally, logistic features were studied, such as physical characteristics, staff required and files management.


In Feminist theory: from margin to center, feminist theorist bell hooks questioned the existing feminist discourses during her time by pointing out the lack of a solid definition of feminism and the predominance of white, privileged feminists in the movement. Although several other feminist theorists have made the same criticisms, what sets hooks apart is her invitation to a revolutionary feminist outlook, which uses a pluralistic lens to recognize the absence of oppressed groups and the interrogation of cultural representations. Even before "intersectionality" became a buzzword in feminist circles, hooks has already been talking about the interlocking webs of oppression, a concept that most feminists associate with intersectionality. Despite her novel ideas though, most critics raise concerns about her inconsistencies, lack of methodology, and critical awareness. What I aim to do in this paper is to re-evaluate hooks and propose ways to address some of these supposed contradictions. To enrich hooks' feminist theory, I propose three main points: the emphasis on the crossing of borders, feminist solidarity and global transgression.


Reliable statistical and comprehensive functional analysis of microarray data made easy—Harness the power of Bioconductor tools without learning R language! CDF and illumina reannotation


Candida albicans is an inhabitant of mucosal surfaces in healthy individuals but also the most common cause of fungal nosocomial blood stream infections, associated with high morbidity and mortality. As such life-threatening infections often disseminate from superficial mucosal infections we aimed to study the use of probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) in prevention of mucosal C. albicans infections. Here, we demonstrate that LGG protects oral epithelial tissue from damage caused by C. albicans in our in vitro model of oral candidiasis. Furthermore, we provide insights into the mechanisms behind this protection and dissect direct and indirect effects of LGG on C. albicans pathogenicity. C. albicans viability was not affected by LGG. Instead, transcriptional profiling using RNA-Seq indicated dramatic metabolic reprogramming of C. albicans. Additionally, LGG had a significant impact on major virulence attributes, including adhesion, invasion, and hyphal extension, whose reduction, consequently, prevented epithelial damage. This was accompanied by glucose depletion and repression of ergosterol synthesis, caused by LGG, but also due to blocked adhesion sites. Therefore, LGG protects oral epithelia against C. albicans infection by preventing fungal adhesion, invasion and damage, driven, at least in parts, by metabolic reprogramming due to nutrient limitation caused by LGG.


Background Burnout is considered to be an important health problem that is faced by HCWs. Aims To measure burnout prevalence and to analyze its association with sociodemographic and occupational features among different sectors of Egyptian health care workers (HCWs). Patients and methods A cross-sectional study was conducted via some internet social media platforms to groups of HCWs in April 2020. The Maslach Burnout Inventory and sociodemographic and occupational questionnaires were applied. The Maslach Burnout Inventory is divided into three subscales: emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA). High EE and DP scores and low PA scores indicate burnout in these HCWs. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and χ2 test. Results A total of 143 HCWs participated in this survey. Most of them were under the age of 40 years. Based on our analysis, 93 (65%) respondents had a high EE score, 53 (37.1%) had a high DP score, and 45 (31.5%) had a low PA score. Four variables including age, sex, marital status, and duration of employment had a significant association with high EE, whereas five variables were associated with low PA score, such as age, sex, kind of health care work, duration of employment, and country of working. Conclusion This study sheds light on the heterogeneous entity of burnout and some of its associated factors. Age and place of work are important factors in presence or absence of burnout, whereas sex and profession did not appear to play a big role in determining burnout.


We present high-contrast images of HR 4796 A taken with Subaru/HiCIAO in the H band, resolving the debris disk in scattered light. The application of specialized angular differential imaging methods allows us to trace the inner edge of the disk with high precision and reveals a pair of "streamers" extending radially outward from the ansae. Using a simple disk model with a power-law surface brightness profile, we demonstrate that the observed streamers can be understood as part of the smoothly tapered outer boundary of the debris disk, which is most visible at the ansae. Our observations are consistent with the expected result of a narrow planetesimal ring being ground up in a collisional cascade, yielding dust with a wide range of grain sizes. Radiation forces leave large grains in the ring and push smaller grains onto elliptical or even hyperbolic trajectories. We measure and characterize the disk's surface brightness profile, and confirm the previously suspected offset of the disk's center from the star's position along the ring's major axis. Furthermore, we present first evidence for an offset along the minor axis. Such offsets are commonly viewed as signposts for the presence of unseen planets within a disk's cavity. Our images also offer new constraints on the presence of companions down to the planetary mass regime (∼9 MJup at 0.″5, ∼3 MJup at 1″).


Forests are generally considered to be net sinks of atmospheric methane (CH4) because of oxidation by methanotrophic bacteria in well-aerated forests soils. However, emissions from wet forest soils, and sometimes canopy fluxes, are often neglected when quantifying the CH4 budget of a forest. We used a modified Bowen ratio method and combined eddy covariance and gradient methods to estimate net CH4 exchange at a boreal forest site in central Sweden. Results indicate that the site is a net source of CH4. This is in contrast to soil, branch and leaf chamber measurements of uptake of CH4. Wetter soils within the footprint of the canopy are thought to be responsible for the discrepancy. We found no evidence for canopy emissions per se. However, the diel pattern of the CH4 exchange with minimum emissions at daytime correlated well with gross primary production, which supports an uptake in the canopy. More distant source areas could also contribute to the diel pattern; their contribution might be greater at night during stable boundary layer conditions.


The Hailiutu River basin is a typical semi-arid wind sandy grass shoal watershed in northwest China. Climate and land use have changed significantly during the period 1970–2014. These changes are expected to impact hydrological processes in the basin. The Mann–Kendall (MK) test and sequential t-test analysis of the regime shift method were used to detect the trend and shifts of the hydrometeorological time series. Based on the analyzed results, seven scenarios were developed by combining different land use and/or climate situations. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to analyze the impacts of climate variability and land use change on the values of the hydrological components. The China Meteorological Assimilation Driving Datasets for the SWAT model (CMADS) was applied to enhance the spatial expressiveness of precipitation data in the study area during the period 2008–2014. Rather than solely using observed precipitation or CMADS precipitation, the precipitation values of CMADS and the observed precipitation values were combined to drive the SWAT model for better simulation results. From the trend analysis, the annual streamflow and wind speed showed a significant downward trend. No significant trend was found for the annual precipitation series; however, the temperature series showed upward trends. With the change point analysis, the whole study period was divided into three sub-periods (1970–1985, 1986–2000, and 2001–2014). The annual precipitation, mean wind speed, and average temperature values were 316 mm, 2.62 m/s, and 7.9 ◦C, respectively, for the sub-period 1970–1985, 272 mm, 2.58 m/s, and 8.4 ◦C, respectively, for the sub-period 1986–2000, and 391 mm, 2.2 m/s, and 9.35 ◦C, respectively, for the sub-period 2001–2014. The simulated mean annual streamflow was 35.09 mm/year during the period 1970–1985. Considering the impact of the climate variability, the simulated mean annual streamflow values were 32.94 mm/year (1986–2000) and 36.78 mm/year (2001–2014). Compared to the period 1970–1985, the simulated mean annual streamflow reduced by 2.15 mm/year for the period 1986–2000 and increased by 1.69 mm/year for the period 2001–2014. The main variations of land use from 1970 to 2014 were the increased area of shrub and grass land and decreased area of sandy land. In the simulation it was shown that these changes caused the mean annual streamflow to decrease by 0.23 mm/year and 0.68 mm/year during the periods 1986–2000 and 2001–2014, respectively. Thus, the impact of climate variability on the streamflow was more profound than that of land use change. Under the impact of coupled climate variability and land use change, the mean annual streamflow decreased by 2.45 mm/year during the period 1986–2000, and the contribution of this variation to the decrease in observed streamflow was 27.8%. For the period 2001–2014, the combined climate variability and land use change resulted in an increase of 0.84 mm/year in annual streamflow. The results obtained in this study could provide guidance for water resource management and planning in the Erdos plateau.


Abstract
The fine structure of Plasmodium berghei was studied after its release from rat erythrocytes by one of four methods—cell disintegration by French press, or lysis by saponin, antiserum, or distilled water. Cell disintegration by French press released the largest proportion of structurally intact parasites generally lacking closely associated arrays of erythrocyte membranes. However, the total number of parasites harvested by this method was comparatively few. On the other hand, the saponin-freed parasite material contained a large number of parasites, most of which appeared intact, but several parallel arrays of host membranes were also present. Lysis by antiserum freed some apparently intact parasites, but there were also several damaged forms and unbroken cells. Lysis by distilled water yielded very few healthy parasites; most freed forms contained vacuolar inclusions or were broken into smaller pieces. A double-unit membrane limiting the parasite cytoplasm, at least at intervals, was evident in several of the electron micrographs of isolated P. berghei and of P. berghei found outside the host cell in infected whole blood. Alterations in the nucleoplasm and varied forms of a double-membraned vacuole were frequently observed in the freed parasites. Food vacuoles and cytostomes, when present, appeared normal in the isolated parasites.


This statement frames Gavin Smith's thoughtful, complex text Intellectuals and (Counter-) Politics: Essays in Historical Realism. Indeed, you could call the book a manual for the forming of a problem from this kind of perspective and with this motivation. To give a comprehensive discussion of how this might happen, Smith
brings in a whole range of questions: What is an intellectual? How do intellectuals reach audiences? How are counter-politics situated within time and space, and how should they be studied? By including the domains of intellectuals, political actors, publics, and the constraining tendencies of structure—of "capital's fierce demands"—in his analysis, while always recognizing the porous and fluctuating boundaries between these domains, Smith (2014: 11) frames the question of activist scholarship and the ongoing historicity of politics in a way that attempts to grasp their changing, tangled, and
slippery nature. The result is an immensely rich book that provides a nudge along the path to a complex account of arrangements of capital and political mobilization that it reveals.


Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Since 1978, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond.The NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership organization created by and for corporate directors. With a membership in excess of 14,000, today's NACD is a reliable source of essential resources that assist board directors in strengthening board leadership. Now a member of the Global Network of Director Institutions (GNDI.org), NACD has worldwide impact. Even during the early years, NACD was a significant source of quality education and qualified directors to companies striving to achieve excellence in corporate governance. My interest in corporate governance covers more than thirty years. During my career, I have found the job of the corporate director both fulfilling and intellectually challenging. My involvement with the NACD dates back to 1978. At that time the Washington, DC-based organization was in its infancy; just a few months old. During NACD's early months, I was a 28 year-old entrepreneur, serving as chairman and CEO of a Washington, DC-based financial services start-up. I needed to learn about corporate governance and recruit a board of directors capable of governing a national financial services entity, while communicating to the investor community that we were deserving of their support as we contemplated our initial public offering. NACD's focus has changed over the years to reflect those issues receiving the most attention in corporate boardrooms at any given time. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, signed into law December 19, 1977, was a major development confronting directors as NACD was founded. Next, the SEC's Advisory Committee on Corporate Disclosure, chaired by A.A. Sommer, held hearings focusing attention on the broad topic of corporate governance and served to highlight the need for increased professionalism by corporate directors. The 1985 decision in Smith v. Van Gorkom held that directors who make an uninformed decision are unprotected by the business judgment rule and, accordingly, face substantial personal liability exposure. Van Gorkom triggered a huge demand for director education. Focus on the need for effective audit committees resulted from the National Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting of 1987 (the "Treadway Commission"). NACD has also proven to be a great source of directors over the years for my involvement with early-stage companies. Experienced senior executive talent, in the form of independent outside board members, can prove to be a profoundly valuable intangible asset of any start-up enterprise. A lifetime of experience teaches that entrepreneurs may enhance the likelihood of ultimate enterprise success by recruiting the assistance of experienced executive talent. Corporate directors provide a useful mechanism in which to tap this asset and leverage many years of experience and personal relationships. This article discusses the growth of the New York and Baltimore/Washington, DC NACD chapters during these early days, especially at the local level. NACD's primary strength is found in its local chapter system; these are the "grass roots" that make governance a viable field.


microRNAs (miRNAs) are major regulators of protein synthesis in the brain. A major goal is to identify changes in miRNA expression underlying protein synthesis-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity such as long-term potentiation (LTP). Previous analyses focused on changes in miRNA levels in total lysate samples. Here, we asked whether changes in total miRNA accurately reflect changes in the amount of miRNA bound to Argonaute protein within the miRNA-induced silencing complex (miRISC). Ago2 immunoprecipitation was used to isolate RISC-associated miRNAs following high-frequency stimulation (HFS)-induced LTP in the dentate gyrus of anesthetized rats. Using locked-nucleic acid-based PCR cards for high-throughput screening and independent validation by quantitative TaqMan RT-PCR, we identified differential regulation of Ago2-associated and total miRNA expression. The ratio of Ago2/total miRNA expression was regulated bidirectionally in a miRNA-specific manner and was largely dependent on N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA) activation during LTP induction. The present results identify miRNA association with Ago2 as a potential control point in activity-dependent synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. Finally, novel computational analysis for targets of the Ago2-associated miRNAs identifies 21 pathways that are enriched and differentially targeted by the miRNAs including axon guidance, mTOR, MAPK, Ras, and LTP.


textabstractCongenital heart defects (CHDs) belong to the most common group of major congenital malformations in newborns. Most CHDs are considered complex diseases with a multifactorial aetiology, which are thought to result from interactions between genetic and environmental factors. This thesis presents the results of the ongoing HAVEN study, in which human congenital heart anomalies and homocysteine related genetic and nutritional factors are investigated. We demonstrate that maternal hyperhomocysteinaemia more than three-fold increases the risk of CHD offspring. Moreover, a low maternal dietary vitamin B12 intake is associated with a nearly two-fold higher CHD risk. With regard to genetic factors, the 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MHTFR) 1298 AA genotype in fathers and children showed a small but significantly increased CHD risk. Periconceptional folic acid supplementation is beneficial, particularly in children carrying the MTHFR 1298 AA genotype. Con!
 cerning vitamin B12 related polymorphisms, methionine synthase reductase 66 GG and transcobalamin 776 GG genotypes in mothers and children may contribute to CHD risk, especially combined with the maternal vitamin B12 status.
These findings indicate that the maternal nutritional status and gene-nutrient interactions are involved in the pathogenesis of CHDs. Therefore, it might be favourable to advise women to use a diet rich in vitamin B12 and maybe a vitamin B12 supplement in addition to the daily folic acid supplement intake in the periconceptional period. These results can be directly implemented in the preconception care. Preconceptional screening is important for future risk assessment and counselling of parents to be and it may cause a reduced prevalence of CHDs.


We study the intimate connection between neutrinos and simple abelian gauge symmetries U(1)', starting from the observation that the full global symmetry group of the Standard Model, G = U(1)(B-L) x U(1)(L_e-L_mu) x U(1)(L_mu-L_tau), can be promoted to a local symmetry group by introducing three right-handed neutrinos---automatically making neutrinos massive.
The unflavored part U(1)(B-L) is linked to the Dirac vs. Majorana nature of neutrinos; we discuss the B-L landscape---including lepton-number-violating Dirac neutrinos---and implications for neutrinos, the baryon asymmetry, and experiments.
Flavored subgroups U(1)' < G can shed light on the peculiar leptonic mixing pattern and mass ordering; we show how normal, inverted, and quasi-degenerate mass hierarchy can arise from a U(1)' in a simple and testable manner.
We furthermore present all U(1)' < G that can enforce viable texture zeros in the neutrino mass matrices.
Beyond G, symmetries U(1)(DM) in the dark matter sector can give rise to naturally light sterile neutrinos, which provide a new portal between visible and dark sector, and also resolve some longstanding anomalies in neutrino experiments.
Further topics under consideration are the mixing of vector bosons with the Z boson, as well as the Stuckelberg mechanism. The latter raises the question why the photon should be massless---or stable for that matter!


This paper augments the traditional growth accounting framework by including a common specification of investment adjustment costs and uses the new framework to examine the past and likely future growth in nonfarm business output in the United States. The inclusion of adjustment costs can have large effects on the growth-accounting exercise when a new investment good is introduced--such as computers in the last thirty years. The new framework indicates that the contribution of computers to economic growth has been held down by the large adjustment costs required to incorporate a new investment good into the economy's capital stock. Alternative calibrations of the model suggest that these adjustment costs have lowered measured growth in multifactor productivity since 1974 by about 1/2 percentage point--a nontrivial percentage of the productivity slowdown. Combining the adjustments to multifactor productivity and the impact of computers implied by the model with adjustment costs boosts long-run growth in output per hour 3/4 percentage point above the 1974-1991 average.


On the basis of the results of numerical modeling, it is shown that dipole-dipole interactions among atoms in the active medium strongly influences the character of the associated superradiation. The main effect is to make the nuclear subsystem behave chaotically. Its strength increases with the atom density and leads to the suppression of distant collective correlations and superradiation. Near correlations between the atoms are established, causing a confinement effect: a shielding of radiation in the active medium.


We present a theoretical treatment of the ascent, emplacement, and eruption of magma on Mars. Because of the lower gravity, fluid convective motions and crystal settling processes driven by positive and negative buoyancy forces, as well as overall diapiric ascent rates, will be slower on Mars than on Earth, permitting larger diapirs to ascend to shallower depths. This factor also favors a systematic increase in dike widths on Mars by a factor of 2 and, consequently, higher effusion rates by a factor of 5. As a result of the differences in lithospheric bulk density profile, which in turn depend on differences in both gravity and surface atmospheric pressure, magma reservoirs are expected to be deeper on Mars than on Earth, by a factor of about 4. The combination of the lower Martian gravity and lower atmospheric pressure ensures that both nucleation and disruption of magma occur at systematically greater depths than on Earth. Although lava flow heat loss processes are such that no major differences between Mars and Earth are to be expected in terms of flow cooling rates and surface textures, the lower gravity causes cooling-limited flows to be longer and dikes and vents to be wider and characterized by higher effusion rates. Taken together, these factors imply that we might expect compositionally similar cooling-limited lava flows to be about 6 times longer on Mars than on Earth. For example, a Laki type flow would have a typical length of 200-350 km on Mars; this would permit the construction of very large volcanoes of the order of 500-700 km in diameter. For strombolian eruptions on Mars the main difference is that while the large particles will remain near the vent, the finer material will be more broadly dispersed and the finest material will be carried up into a convecting cloud over the vent. This means that there would be a tendency for broader deposits of fine tephra surrounding spatter cones on Mars than on Earth. On Mars, strombolian eruption deposits should consist of cones that are slightly broader and lower relative to those on Earth, with a surrounding deposit of finer material. Martian hawaiian cones should have diameters that are about a factor of 2 larger and heights that are, correspondingly, about a factor of 4 smaller than on Earth; central craters in these edifices should also be broader on Earth by a factor of up to at least 5. Grain sizes in Martian hawaiian edifices should be at least 1 order of magnitude finer than in terrestrial equivalents because of the enhanced magma fragmentation on Mars. Differences in the atmospheric pressure and temperature structure cause Martian plinian eruption clouds to rise about 5 times higher than terrestrial clouds for the same eruption rate. Essentially the same relative shapes of eruption clouds are expected on Mars as on Earth, and so the cloud-height/deposit-width relationship should also be similar. This implies that Martian fall deposits may be recognized as areas of mantled topography with widths in the range of several tens to a few hundred kilometers. A consequence of the lower atmospheric pressure is that Martian plinian deposits of any magma composition will be systematically finer grained than those on Earth by a factor of about 100, almost entirely subcentimeter in size. Basaltic plinian eruptions, rare on Earth, should be relatively common on Mars. The production of large-scale plinian deposits may not signal the presence of more silicic compositions, but rather may be linked to the enhanced fragmentation of basaltic magma in the Martian environment or to the interaction of basaltic magma with groundwater. The occurrence of steep-sided domes, potentially formed by viscous, more silicic magma, may be largely precluded by enhanced magma fragmentation. Pyroclastic flow formation is clearly inherently more likely to occur on Mars than on Earth, since eruption cloud instability occurs at a lower mass eruption rate for a given magma volatile content. For a given initial magma volatile content, eruption speeds are a factor of at least 1.5 higher on Mars, and so the fountains feeding pyroclastic flows will be more than twice as high as on Earth. Pyroclastic flow travel distances may be a factor of about 3 greater, leading to values up to at least a few hundred kilometers. Martian environmental conditions thus operate to modulate the various eruption styles and the morphology and morphometry of resulting landforms, providing new insight into several volcanological problems.


The role of various sensory stimuli for stimulating swallowing in infants may be of importance for assisting infants to develop oral feeding. We evaluated the swallowing mechanism response to two devices for increasing the rate of nonnutritive swallowing in two typically developing infant age groups, ages 2-4 mo and 7-9 mo. One device was a pacifier familiar to the infant; the other was a small vibrator placed on the skin overlying the thyroid cartilage. The rate of nonnutritive swallowing while infants were awake was compared in three 10-min conditions: at rest without stimulation (spontaneous); during nonnutritive sucking with a pacifier; and over 10 min containing 18 epochs of vibratory stimulation for 10 s each. To assess whether vibration on the throat over the laryngeal area altered respiration, the mean cycle length was compared between 10-min intervals either containing vibratory stimulation or without stimulation at rest. Both the pacifier and laryngeal vibration stimulation doubled the rate of swallowing in the infants with a mean age of 3 mo 16 days and infants with a mean age of 8 mo 8 days. No differences occurred in the mean respiratory cycle length between intervals with and without vibration in either age group. Results suggest that nonnutritive sucking, vibration, or both might be beneficial in enhancing swallowing in young infants. Because vibration on the neck would not interfere with oral transfer of liquid, it might provide additional stimulation for swallowing during oral feeding. Both stimulation types should be evaluated for enhancing swallowing in infants with immature swallowing skills.


The research tested whether systematic exposure to expert-identified cues would improve novice criminal investigators' cue recognition and, in turn, decision making. Two studies are reported, the first of which was a pre- to postexposure assessment of 20 novices' cue recognition. This involved testing novices' recognition (accuracy and latency) of pairings of text-based labels (elicited via cognitive task analyses with subject matter experts) prior to and following an exposure phase. The results revealed statistically significant improvements in comparison with a control group. In the second study, an assessment of 36 novices' decision-making performance was undertaken prior to and following cue-based exposure (either expert or control cues). Participants engaged one of two decision tasks, which varied in the level of decision support offered: high (i.e., most pertinent features were highlighted for users) or low (i.e., features were naturally "embedded" in the task environment). Although participants receiving expert cue exposure demonstrated improvements in decision-making efficiency, advances in accuracy could be established only where a high level of support was offered. It was concluded that expert cue exposure can offer opportunities for learner development; however, a combination of exposure programs and decision support systems offers the greatest potential in improving the situation assessment skills of less experienced investigators.


Abstract. Nitrogen dioxide is both a primary pollutant with direct health effects and a key precursor of the secondary pollutant ozone. This paper reports on the development, characterisation and test flight of the Atmospheric Nitrogen Dioxide Imager (ANDI) remote sensing system. The ANDI system includes an imaging UV/Vis grating spectrometer able to capture scattered sunlight spectra for the determination of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations by way of DOAS slant column density and vertical column density measurements. Results are shown for an ANDI test flight over Leicester City in the UK on a cloud-free winter day in February 2013. Retrieved NO2 columns gridded to a surface resolution of 80 m × 20 m revealed hotspots in a series of locations around Leicester City, including road junctions, the train station, major car parks, areas of heavy industry, a nearby airport (East Midlands) and a power station (Ratcliffe-on-Soar). In the city centre the dominant source of NO2 emissions was identified as road traffic, contributing to a background concentration as well as producing localised hotspots. Quantitative analysis revealed a significant urban increment over the city centre which increased throughout the flight.


Abstract. The anticyclonic Loop Current Eddy (LCE) shedding events are strongly associated with the evolution of Loop Current Frontal Eddies (LCFEs) over the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GoM). A numerical simulation, in tandem with in situ measurements and satellite data, was used to investigate the Loop Current (LC) evolution and the surrounding LCFE formation, structure, growth and migration during the Eddy Ekman and Eddy Franklin shedding events in the summers of 2009 and 2010, respectively. During both events, northern GoM LCFEs appeared vertically coherent to at least 1500 m in temperature observations. They propagated towards the base of the LC, where, together with the migration of Campeche Bank (southwest GoM shelf) eddies from south of the LC, contributed to its "necking-down". Growth of Campeche Bank LCFEs involved in Eddy Franklin was partially attributed to Campeche Bank waters following upwelling events. Slope processes associated with such upwelling included offshore exports of high positive potential vorticity that may trigger cyclone formation and growth. The advection and growth of LCFEs, originating from the northern and southern GoM, and their interaction with the LC over the LCE detachment area favor shedding conditions and may contribute to the final separation of the LCE.


Flavanones belong to the group of active flavonoid compounds, rarely occurring in the plant kingdom and are found in many foodstuffs (naringenin and derivatives) and medicinal plant materials. Many studies have demonstrated a relationship between dietary intake of phenolic compounds and reduced risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Accordingly, during over several years, flavonoids have gained increasing interest and numerous studies have shown that they possess beneficial properties having a great influence on human health. Acid dissociation constants are believed to be the most useful physico-chemical parameters which describe the extent of ionization of functional groups as a function of pH. It is very important in research areas such as pharmaceutical drug discovery and development due to vital role in understanding the pharmacodynamic properties of new drug substances. Flavonoids are characterized by insolubility in water while they are soluble in organic solvents. Exploiting mixed solvents, especially organic solvent – water mixtures, enables a good alternative for researching on compounds which are inconspicuously soluble or insoluble in water. In this study the dissociation constant of naringenin and its complex with Cu(II) have been determined in aqueous – DMSO solvent mixtures to examine the dependence of their acid-base equilibria on number of substrates.


A wide variety of plasma geometries and modalities have been utilized for chemical analysis to date, however, there is much left to be understood in terms of the underlying mechanisms. Plasma diagnostics have been used for many years to elucidate these mechanisms, with one of the most powerful techniques being laser scattering approaches. Laser scattering provides information about the energetic species distributions, in terms of kinetic energy and densities, which can provide invaluable insights into the fundamental processes of chemical analysis plasmas with minimal perturbation. Thomson scattering (TS) from free electrons is the most difficult to implement due to the extremely stringent instrumental requirements for discerning the signal from competing scatterers in low-density plasmas, such as those seen in analytical chemistry applications. Nonetheless, relatively few instruments have been developed to satisfy these stringent requirements. In this paper, the design and characterization of a transmission-type triple grating spectrograph (TGS), with high numerical aperture (0.25)/contrast (≤10−6 at 532 ± 0.5 nm)/stray light rejection (∼1.8 × 10−8 at 532 ± 22–32 nm) required for TS, will be presented. In addition, proof-of-principle measurements on glow discharges operated under typical optical emission spectroscopy (OES) conditions demonstrate the high light throughput and low limits-of-detection (∼109 cm−3 at ∼1 eV Te) afforded by the new instrument.


An energy efficient memory-centric convolutional neural network (CNN) processor architecture is proposed for smart devices such as wearable devices or internet of things (IoT) devices. To achieve energy-efficient processing, it has 2 key features: First, 1-D shift convolution PEs with fully distributed memory architecture achieve 3.1TOPS/W energy efficiency. Compared with conventional architecture, even though it has massively parallel 1024 MAC units, it achieve high energy efficiency by scaling down voltage to 0.46V due to its fully local routed design. Next, fully configurable 2-D mesh core-to-core interconnection support various size of input features to maximize utilization. The proposed architecture is evaluated 16mm2 chip which is fabricated with 65nm CMOS process and it performs real-time face recognition with only 9.4mW at 10MHz and 0.48V.


Habitable planets are likely to be broadly Earth-like in composition, mass and size. Masses are likely to be within a factor of a few Earth masses – we call such planets Earth-mass planets. It is important to find such planets. Currently, we do not have sufficiently sensitive techniques to detect planets with such small masses, except in rare circumstances. It is thus necessary to model the known exoplanetary systems to see whether Earth-mass planets could be present. In particular, we need to establish whether such planets could be present in the classical habitable zone (HZ), or whether the giant planets that we know to be present have gravitationally ejected Earth-mass planets or prevented their formation. We have answered this question by applying computer models to the 152 exoplanetary systems known as of 18 April 2006 that are sufficiently well characterized for our analysis. For systems in which there is a giant planet interior to the HZ, which must have got there by migration, there are two cases considered: first, the case when the migration of the giant planet across the HZ has not ruled out the existence of an Earth-mass planet in the HZ; second, the case where it has. In the former case we have found that 60% of the 152 systems offer safe havens to Earth-mass planets across greater than 20% of the HZ width. We regard such systems as being habitable today. We have also estimated whether habitability is possible for 1000 Myr into the past (provided that this period post-dates the heavy bombardment of planets in the HZ). Of the 143 systems that are susceptible to this second analysis, we find that about 50% offer habitability sustained over 1000 Myr. If giant planets interior to the HZ rule Earth-mass planets, then 60% and 50% fall to 7% in both cases.


Assume a uniform, multidimensional grid of bivariate data, where each cell of the grid has a count ci and a baseline bi. Our goal is to find spatial regions (d-dimensional rectangles) where the ci are significantly higher than expected given bi. We focus on two applications: detection of clusters of disease cases from epidemiological data (emergency department visits, over-the-counter drug sales), and discovery of regions of increased brain activity corresponding to given cognitive tasks (from fMRI data). Each of these problems can be solved using a spatial scan statistic (Kulldorff, 1997), where we compute the maximum of a likelihood ratio statistic over all spatial regions, and find the significance of this region by randomization. However, computing the scan statistic for all spatial regions is generally computationally infeasible, so we introduce a novel fast spatial scan algorithm, generalizing the 2D scan algorithm of (Neill and Moore, 2004) to arbitrary dimensions. Our new multidimensional multiresolution algorithm allows us to find spatial clusters up to 1400x faster than the naive spatial scan, without any loss of accuracy.


Carbon dynamics within trees are intrinsically important for physiological functioning, in particular growth and survival, as well as ecological interactions on multiple timescales. Thus, these internal dynamics play a key role in the global carbon cycle by determining the residence time of carbon in forests via allocation to different tissues and pools, such as leaves, wood, storage, and exudates. Despite the importance of tree internal carbon dynamics, our understanding of how carbon is used in trees, once assimilated, has major gaps. The primary tissue that transports carbon from sources to sinks within a tree is the phloem. Therefore, direct phloem transport manipulation techniques have the potential to improve understanding of numerous aspects of internal carbon dynamics. These include relationships between carbon assimilation, nonstructural carbon availability, respiration for growth and tissue maintenance, allocation to, and remobilization from, storage reserves, and long-term sequestration in lignified structural tissues. This review aims to: (1) introduce the topic of direct phloem transport manipulations, (2) describe the three most common methods of direct phloem transport manipulation and review their mechanisms, namely (i) girdling, (ii) compression and (iii) chilling; (3) summarize the known impacts of these manipulations on carbon dynamics and use in forest trees; (4) discuss potential collateral effects and compare the methods; and finally (5) highlight outstanding key questions that relate to tree carbon dynamics and use, and propose ways to address them using direct phloem transport manipulation.


The relationship between submarine sediment gravity flows and the character of their deposits is poorly understood. Annular flume experiments were used to investigate the depositional dynamics and deposits of waning sediment-laden flows. Decelerating fast (>3 m/s) flows with fixed sand content (10 vol%) and variable mud content (0–17 vol%) resulted in only four deposit types. Clean sand with a mud cap that resembled a turbidity current deposit (turbidite) formed if the flow was turbulent when deposition began, or if the muddy fluid had insufficient strength to suspend the sand. The clean sand could contain structures if mud content was low ( 300 s. Ungraded muddy sand with a mud cap that resembled a debris-flow deposit (debrite) formed if the flow became laminar before sand could deposit. Clean sand overlain by ungraded muddy sand and a mud cap formed either from a transitional flow or by late-stage settling of sand from a muddy suspension. These deposits resemble enigmatic submarine flow deposits called linked debrite-turbidites. The experiments provide a basis for inferring flow type from deposit character for submarine sediment-laden flows.


Contents: Introduction Part I History: Countering terrorism: a historical perspective, Adam Roberts. Part II Defining Terrorism: The multifaceted criminal notion of terrorism in international law, Antonio Cassese Defining the international public enemy: the political struggle behind the legal debate on international terrorism, JA rg Friedrichs Definition of 'terrorism' in the UN Security Council: 1985a "2004, Ben Saul. Part III Criminal Justice Approach: Legal control of international terrorism: a policy-oriented assessment, M.Cherif Bassiouni Terrorism as a catalyst for the emergence, harmonization and reform of criminal law, Kimmo Nuotio Countering nuclear terrorism: a conventional response, Christopher C. Joyner. Part IV War on Terror: The legal case against the global war on terror, Mary Ellen O'Connell Targeted killing of suspected terrorists: extra-judicial executions or legitimate means of defence?, David Kretzmer. Part V International Institutional Approaches: You are the weakest link and we will help you! The comprehensive strategy of the United Nations to fight terrorism, NoA"lle QuA(c)nivet The legislative role of the Security Council in its fight against terrorism: legal, political and practical limits, Luis Miguel Hinojosa MartA-nez The UN anti-terror sanctions regime under pressure, Helen Keller and Andreas Fischer. Part VI State Responses: Security detention, terrorism and the prevention imperative, John P. McLoughlin, Gregory P. Noone and Diana C. Noone Guantanamo Bay: the legal black hole, Johan Steyn Terrorism and the non-derogability of non-refoulement, Rene Bruin and Kees Wouters Extraordinary rendition and the law of war, Ingrid Detter Frankopan. Part VII Judicial Responses: Decisions of international courts and tribunals: Yassin Abdullah Kadi, Paul James Cardwell, Duncan French and Nigel White Human rights litigation and the 'war on terror', Helen Duffy Al Qaeda, terrorism, and military commissions, Ruth Wedgewood The case against military commissions, Harold Hongju Koh. Part VIII An Emerging Framework?: The emergence of terrorism as a distinct category of international law, Daniel Moeckli The UN-led multilateral institutional response to jihadist terrorism: is a global counterterrorism body needed?, Eric Rosand Name index.


This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The legal implications from the use of fuck vary greatly with the context. To fully understand the legal power of fuck, the nonlegal sources of its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists, linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists, the visceral reaction to fuck can be explained by cultural taboo. Fuck is a taboo word. The taboo is so strong that it compels many to engage in self-censorship. This process of silence then enables small segments of the population to manipulate our rights under the guise of reflecting a greater community. Taboo is then institutionalized through law, yet at the same time is in tension with other identifiable legal rights. Understanding this relationship between law and taboo ultimately yields fuck jurisprudence.