This Article argues that the pending feuds between neighboring states over marijuana decriminalization demonstrate the need for a strict doctrine limiting a state's regulatory authority to its own borders. Precedent recognizes that the dormant Commerce Clause (DCC) "precludes the application of a state statute to commerce that takes place wholly outside the State's borders, whether or not the commerce has effects within the state." This prohibition protects "the autonomy of the individual States within their respective spheres" by dictating that "[n]o state has the authority to tell other polities what laws they must enact or how affairs must be conducted." But this principle was called into doubt last summer by the Tenth Circuit, which concluded that this "most dormant doctrine in [DCC] jurisprudence" had withered and died from nonuse. The Tenth Circuit's conclusion, which approved Colorado's purported direct regulation of coal-fired power generation in Nebraska, ironically coincided Nebraska's (and Oklahoma's) attempt to enjoin Colorado's pot-friendly laws. Nebraska contends that Colorado's commercial pot market allows marijuana to "flow...into [Nebraska], undermining [its] own marijuana ban[], draining [its] treasur[y], and placing stress on [its] criminal justice system[]." While Colorado celebrated its new-found power to impose its legislative judgments on Nebraskans, the festivities might be short lived. Colorado failed to recognize the impact the extraterritorial doctrine's apparent demise will have on its own marijuana-legalization experiment. If Colorado is empowered to regulate coal burning in Nebraska because of its effects in Colorado, what prevents Nebraska from projecting its own laws across the border to regulate Colorado marijuana transactions that affect a substantial number of Nebraskans?


While traditional welfare efforts have waned, a new style of social policy implementation has emerged dramatically in recent decades. The new style is reflected in a panoply of Community Economic Development (ced) initiatives—efforts led by locally-based organizations to develop housing, jobs, and business opportunities in low-income neighborhoods.

In this book William H. Simon provides the first comprehensive examination of the evolution of Community Economic Development, complete with an analysis of its operating premises and strategies. He describes the profusion of new institutional forms that have arisen from the movement, amalgamations that cut across conventional distinctions—such as those between private and public—and that encompass the efforts of nonprofits, cooperatives, churches, business corporations, and public agencies. Combining local political mobilization with entrepreneurial initiative and electoral accountability with market competition, this phenomenon has catalyzed new forms of property rights designed to motivate investment and civic participation while curbing the dangers of speculation and middle-class flight.

With its examination of many localities and its appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing approach to Community Economic Development, this book will be a valuable resource for local housing, job, and business development officials; community activists; and students of law, business, and social policy.


This paper offers a unified framework to explore both the static and dynamic welfare effects of trade and multinational production MP in the presence of firm-specific productivity heterogeneity. The model captures the dynamic effects by allowing for RD spillovers between firms in a framework of Helpman et al. 2004 that generates endogenous growth without scale effects. We show that multinational presence improves average productivity by strengthening the selection process among heterogeneous firms, but leads to a lower growth rate of intermediate varieties along the transition path toward the new steady state. Thus the presence of multinationals has an ambiguous effect on overall welfare. We also compare the welfare implications of a change in trade cost in our model and in trade models without multinationals. We find that the gains from trade can be higher or lower than the gains obtained in the trade-only models, depending on the degree of firm heterogeneity, the size of trade and FDI costs, and the magnitude of technology spillover parameters. We further show that firm heterogeneity always magnifies average productivity, international spillovers and fixed costs of developing a new variety, which leads to ambiguous effects on overall welfare. Calibrating the model to the US economy suggests that aggregate welfare improves in response to a reduction in trade and FDI costs for empirically plausible parameter values.


There have been several studies on object detection and activity recognition on a table conducted thus far. Most of these studies use image processing with cameras or a specially configured table with electrodes and an RFID reader. In private homes, methods using cameras are not preferable since cameras might invade the privacy of inhabitants and give them the impression of being monitored. In addition, it is difficult to apply the specially configured system to off-the-shelf tables. In this work, we propose a system that recognizes activities conducted on a table and identifies which user conducted the activities with load cells only. The proposed system uses four load cells installed on the four corners of the table or under the four legs of the table. User privacy is protected because only the data on actions through the load cells is obtained. Load cells are easily installed on off-the-shelf tables with four legs and installing our system does not change the appearance of the table. The results of experiments using a table we manufactured revealed that the weight error was 38 g, the position error was 6.8 cm, the average recall of recognition for four activities was 0.96, and the average recalls of user identification were 0.65 for ten users and 0.89 for four users.


Learning a book in general involves reading it, underlining important words, adding comments, summarizing some passages, and marking up some text or concepts. Once deeper understanding is achieved, one would like to organize and manage her/his knowledge in such a way that, it could be easily remembered and efficiently transmitted to others. This paper discusses about modeling religious texts using semantic XML markup based on frame-based knowledge representation, with the purpose of assisting understanding, retention, and sharing of knowledge they contain. In this study, books organized in terms of chapters made up of verses are considered as the source of knowledge to model. Some metadata representing the multiple perspectives of knowledge modeling are assigned to each chapter and verse. Chapters and verses with their metadata form a meta-model, which is represented using frames, and published on a web mashup. An XML-based annotation and visualization system equipped with user interfaces for creating static and dynamic metadata, annotating chapters' contents according to user selected semantics, and templates for publishing generated knowledge on the Internet, has been developed. The system has been applied to the Quran, and the result obtained shows that multiple perspectives of information modeling can be successfully applied to religious texts, in order to support analysis, understanding, and retention of the texts.


Abstract. Mountain debris cones in the Alpine region often provide space for dense population and cultivation. Hence, a great number of buildings are exposed to torrential hazards. In order to protect the settlement areas against flooding and overbank sedimentation, torrent defence structures are implemented at various locations within catchments. Directly at the debris cones, these protection measures often include a deposition basin at the fan apex and/or a confined channel that passes through the settlement. The work presented within this paper deals with the effect of specific outlet structure layouts, situated at the lower end of a selected deposition basin, on bed-load transport processes and flood protection. A case study analysis was accomplished comprising a 3-D numerical model (FLOW-3D) and a physical scale model test (1 : 30). The subject of investigation was the deposition basin of the Larsennbach torrent in the Austrian Northern Limestone Alps. The basin is situated on a large debris cone and opens out into a paved channel. Since the basin is undersized and the accumulation of sediment in the outlet section reduces the available cross section during floods, adjoining settlements are considerably endangered of lateral overtopping of both clear water and sediment. Aiming for an upgrade in flood protection, certain layouts for a "closing-off structure" at the outlet were tested within this project. For the most efficient design layout, its effect on flood protection, a continuous bed-load output from the basin and the best possible use of the retention volume are pointed out. The simple design of the structure and the key aspects that have to be taken into consideration for implementation are highlighted.


From the Publisher:
Dealers of Lightning is the riveting story of the legendary Xerox PARC — a collection of eccentric young inventors brought together by Xerox Corporation at a facility in Palo Alto, California, during the mind-blowing intellectual ferment of the seventies and eighties. Here for the first time Michael Hiltzik, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, reveals in piercing detail the true story of the extraordinary group that aimed to bring about a technological dawn that would change the world — and succeeded.
Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and corporate executives who lived the story, Dealers of Lightning takes the read on a journey from PARC's beginnings in a dusty, abandoned building at the edge of the Stanford University campus to its triumph as a hothouse of ideas that spawned not only the first personal computer, but the windows-style graphical user interface, the laser printer, much of the indispensable technology of the Internet, and a great deal more. It shows how and why Xerox, despite its willingness to grant PARC unlimited funding and the responsibility for developing breakthroughs to keep the corporation on the cutting edge of office technology, remained forever unable to grasp (and, consequently, exploit) the innovations that PARC delivered — and it details the increasing frustration of the original PARC scientists, many of whom would go on to build their fortunes upon the very ideas Xerox so rashly discarded.
More than just a riveting historical narrative, Dealers of Lightning brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters. Among them:
Bob Taylor — the preacher's son from rural Texas who would be considered a prophet by some and a cantankerous egomaniac by others, whose fearless (and feared) leadership of a team of computer renegades made them the heroes of the embryonic Silicon Valley; Jack Goldman — the Xerox chief scientist who convinced the stolid corporation to stake tens of millions of dollars on PARC while warning that the investment might not pay off for years — if it paid off at all; Alan Kay — PARC's creative and philosophical soul, who suffered years of ridicule for envisioning a computer that could be tucked under the arm yet would contain the power to store books, symphonies, letters, poems, and drawings — until he arrived at Palo Alto and met the people who would build it; and Steve Jobs — who, aided by Xerox's indifference to PARC's most momentous inventions, staged a daring raid to obtain the technology that would end up at the heart of the Macintosh: the machine that for a time helped Apple dominate an explosive new market.

Dealers of Lightning is an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions, and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistory — and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.


The observation of a cloud-free vortex in the top of a violent convective storm over Oklahoma suggests a mechanism whereby large quantities of air may be brought directly from the lower stratosphere to the lower troposphere in the central part of such storms. That this mechanism, in combination with the torrential rains frequently generated by these systems, is capable of producing radioactive "hot spots" on the ground is pointed out. Climatological considerations and observations of accumulated strontium-90 in soils support the hypothesis that the Plains States are peculiarly subject to heavy contamination compared to other middle-latitude areas because of this mechanism.


The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns are affecting every aspect of society. The legal profession and the justice system have been profoundly disrupted at precisely the time when there is an unprecedented need for legal services to deal with a host of legal issues generated by the pandemic, including disaster relief, health law, insurance, labor law, criminal justice, domestic violence, and civil rights. The need for lawyers to address these issues is great but the prospect of licensing new lawyers is challenging due to the serious health consequences of administering the bar examination during the pandemic.

State Supreme Courts are actively considering alternative paths to licensure. One such alternative is the diploma privilege, a path to licensure currently used only in Wisconsin. Wisconsin's privilege, limited to graduates of its two in-state schools, has triggered constitutional challenges never fully resolved by the lower courts. As states consider emergency diploma privileges to address the pandemic, they will face these unresolved constitutional issues.

This Article explores those constitutional challenges and concludes that a diploma privilege limited to graduates of in-state schools raises serious Dormant Commerce Clause questions that will require the state to tie the privilege to the particular competencies in-state students develop and avenues they have to demonstrate those competencies to the state's practicing bar over three years. Meeting that standard will be particularly difficult if a state adopts an in-state privilege on an emergency basis. States should consider other options, including privileges that do not prefer in-state schools. The analysis is important both for states considering emergency measures and for those that might restructure their licensing after the pandemic.


During the second term of President Leonid Kuchma (1999–2004) Ukraine faced a serious decline in civil rights, rule of law, and fair government. Political scandals around journalist Heorhiy Gongadze's murder and the intimidation of political opposition and independent media resulted in growing social dissatisfaction with the state institutions. At the same time, Ukrainian politics were shaped by the new strong nonleftist opposition, which presented an alternate view for modernization of the Ukrainian state and nation in conformity with European and democratic values. The main branch of this opposition, the "Our Ukraine" block led by former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, included not only traditional national-democratic opposition but also former state executives who protested Kuchma's crony capitalism and corruption. In the 2002 parliamentary elections Our Ukraine won the first slot on the party slates. Having put pressure on the deputies of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), Kuchma managed to form a slim propresidential majority. Nevertheless, Yushchenko emerged as the leading candidate in the 2004 presidential race.


Among the multitude of software development processes available, hardly any is used by the book. Regardless of company size or industry sector, a majority of project teams and companies use customized processes that combine different development methods–-so-called hybrid development methods. Even though such hybrid development methods are highly individualized, a common understanding of how to systematically construct synergetic practices is missing. In this paper, we make a first step towards devising such guidelines. Grounded in 1,467 data points from a large-scale online survey among practitioners, we study the current state of practice in process use to answer the question: What are hybrid development methods made of? Our findings reveal that only eight methods and few practices build the core of modern software development. This small set allows for statistically constructing hybrid development methods. Using an 85% agreement level in the participants' selections, we provide two examples illustrating how hybrid development methods are characterized by the practices they are made of. Our evidence-based analysis approach lays the foundation for devising hybrid development methods.


Waterjet technology has technological and manufacturing merits that cannot be matched by most established machine tools. There is considerable demand for downsizing beam diameters of abrasive-waterjets (AWJs) to reduce costs for machining of various microproducts. Current production AWJ systems are limited to cutting features around 200 to 300 μm due to difficulties in further downsizing AWJ nozzles. Although waterjets with beam diameters 25 μm or finer have been in use for cutting a limited set of soft materials, it is the AWJ that is difficult to downsize below 200 μm. First of all, the three-phase slurry inside the mixing tube gradually shifts from gravity to capillary dominated flow as the beam diameter of AWJ reduces below 200 μm. In addition, the size of abrasives must reduce accordingly to prevent clogging of miniature mixing tubes resulting from bridging of large particles. The changes in the flow characteristics and flowability of very fine abrasives are most challenging toward nozzle downsizing. Funded by two NSF SBIR grants, OMAX has demonstrated the feasibility of downsizing AWJ nozzles for machining 100 to 50 μm features. Prototypes μAWJ systems are under development. Preliminary results are presented through demonstrating sample parts machined with experimental μAWJ nozzles. Organized and Sponsored by WJTA ® IMCA ®


The difficulty of predicting returns has recently motivated researchers to start looking for tests that are either more powerful or robust to more features of the data. Unfortunately, the way that these tests work typically involves trading robustness for power or vice versa. The current paper takes this as its starting point to develop a new panel-based approach to predictability that is both robust and powerful. Specifically, while the panel route to increased power is not new, the way in which the cross-section variation is exploited also to achieve robustness with respect to the predictor is. The result is two new tests that enable asymptotically standard normal and chi-squared inference across a wide range of empirically relevant scenarios in which the predictor may be stationary, moderately non-stationary, nearly non-stationary, or indeed unit root non-stationary. The type of cross-section dependence that can be permitted in the predictor is also very general, and can be weak or strong, although we do require that the cross-section dependence in the regression errors is of the strong form. What is more, this generality comes at no cost in terms of complicated test construction. The new tests are therefore very user-friendly.


Critical thinking is often seen as a universal goal of higher education but is seldom confirmed as an outcome. This study was conducted to determine whether an introductory level college leadership course that encouraged active learning increased critical thinking skills. A pre- and post-assessment of critical thinking skills was conducted using the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. Significant increases were found in the Deduction and Interpretation subtests, and total Critical Thinking. Student engagement in active learning techniques within the context of studying interpersonal skills for leadership appeared to increase critical thinking. ********** The origins of critical thinking may date back 2500 years to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle whose basic teaching premises were often to encourage their students to realize that things very often are not what they seem on the surface. A more modern adaptation to education can be found in the work of Dewey (1909, 1997) who proposed that critical thinking involved the suspension of judgment and healthy skepticism. Another modern adaptation by Ennis (1962) suggested that students should be assisted in the engagement of thinking that is reflective, reasonable, and directed on what to believe or do. A number of researchers (e.g. Boostrum, 1994; Brookfield, 1987; Ennis, 1985; Facione, 1984; Halpern, 1996; Kurfiss, 1988; McPeck, 1981; Paul, 1982; Siegel, 1991; Watson & Glaser, 1980a) have put forth definitions and theories regarding critical thinking. Throughout the earlier research, there was enough variation to serve as a catalyst for the American Philosophical Association to recruit Peter Facione in 1987 to head a systematic inquiry into the current research on critical thinking and how to assess it. Facione and a panel of experts representing several academic disciplines formed the "Delphi Project." One outcome of this panel was a definition of critical thinking. Earlier theorists' work played an important role in the formulation of this definition that states, in part, "We understand critical thinking to be a purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation and inference as well as explanation of the evidential conceptual methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment was based (Facione, 1990)." While definitions and conceptualizations may differ, "there is enough agreement among authors in the field of critical thinking to allow educators to teach courses in which it is the main goal and content matter ..." (Halpern, 2003, p. 357). In 1983, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) called for the higher education community to take a serious look at the faltering achievements of American students. Norris (1985) noted that competence in critical thinking was lower than it should be at every stage of schooling. In a study involving 874 sociology students, Logan (1976) concluded that those at every college level (from freshmen to graduate students) scored "very low" in ability to recognize uncritical or unsound thinking. Keeley, Browne, and Kreutzer (1982) found that while college seniors outperformed freshmen, they still exhibited "major deficiencies in applying critical evaluation skills." Kuhn (1991) concluded that the majority of the population could not reliably produce genuine evidence for their opinions, enter counter arguments, or rebut counter arguments. In 1989, President Bush and a commission of governors formulated Goals 2000. The document called for colleges and universities to take critical thinking objectives more seriously by improving the abilities of college students to be more effective thinkers, communicators, and problems solvers. In some instances, state universities have been mandated to include critical thinking as part of their general education requirements (Halpern, 2003). Sternberg (1985) identified a new readiness among college faculty to experiment with more effective methods and described several promising programs for improving thinking skills. …


Magnetic field permeates the solar atmosphere and plays a crucial role in the dynamics, energetics and structures observed. In particular, magnetic flux tubes provide the structure for coronal loops that extend from the solar surface into the corona. In this thesis, we present 3D numerical simulations examining the heating produced by reconnection between flux tubes driven by rotational footpoint motions. The basic model consists of two, initially aligned, flux tubes that are forced to interact by rotational driving velocities on the flux concentrations on the boundaries. A single, twisted current layer is created in the centre of the domain and strong, localised heating is produced. We extend this model by altering the number, distribution and strength of the sources, while maintaining the same total magnetic flux on the boundaries. The dynamical evolution and the resultant magnitude, distribution and timing of the heating events are examined for the different flux distributions. In all cases, the magnetic field is stressed by the boundary motions and a current grows within the domain. A comparison of cases with two and four sources shows that there are more locations of current concentrations, but with reduced maximum current density values, for the four source case. This produces weaker reconnection and less efficient heating. In addition, for the case with two sources, we also consider the effect of splitting up one of the sources into many smaller flux fragments. The evolution and heating are shown to be very similar to the two source case. The impact of increasing the strength of the background field between the flux tubes is also examined and we find that it delays and increases the strength of the heating, although by how much depends on the distribution of the flux sources.


In this study, we determined joint moments and muscle forces in the lower extremity during walking with different heel-height shoes using the 3D motion analysis and the corresponding musculoskeletal modeling. Totally fifteen healthy women participated in 3D motion analysis for various walking with barefoot, flat shoe, 3cm, 6cm and 9cm high heels. Inverse dynamic simulations were also performed using a musculoskeletal model in order to calculate joint moments and muscle forces in the lower extremity. As for the hip, joint angles, joint moments and corresponding muscle forces did not show significant differences. Rectus femoris, the biarticular muscle for hip flexor and knee extensor, revealed stronger effect on the knee than the hip. Soleus, playing the most important role for ankle plantarflexor, showed decreases in the maximum muscle force at pre-swing, as heel height increased. Tibialis anterior produced larger dorsiflexion moments for foot clearance with higher-heeled shoes.


Abnormalities in midgut rotation occur during the physiological herniation of the midgut between the 5th and 10th week of gestation. The most significant abnormality is a narrow small bowel mesentery which is prone to volvulus. This occurs most frequently in the neonatal period. Less commonly, midgut malrotation presents in adulthood with either acute volvulus or chronic abdominal symptoms. It is the latter group that represents a diagnostic challenge. We report a case of a 31-year-old female patient who presented with a 6-year history of non-specific gastro-intestinal symptoms. After extensive investigation the patient was diagnosed with midgut malrotation following an upper gastro-intestinal series. The patient was treated with a laparoscopic Ladd's procedure and at 3 months was gaining weight and had stopped vomiting. A laparoscopic Ladd's procedure is an acceptable alternative to the open technique in treating symptomatic malrotation in adults.


Ensuring that children and young adults are well-educated and prepared for productive careers is a top priority in communities across the United States. How to achieve those goals and improve our education system is hotly debated at local, state, and federal levels--with policymakers and school administrators trying to make evidence-based decisions on everything from curricula to school funding and the value of standardized testing. An expanding core of faculty members in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) are having a direct impact on those debates, especially in the growing field of education economics. With two new hires in 2011--Damon Clark from Princeton University and Maria Fitzpatrick from Stanford University--the department now has five professors studying aspects of education policy. "PAM's group of education scholars focuses on critical issues in our public education system," said department chair Rosemary Avery. "Their research informs the public debate over school performance on issues such as the effect of universal prekindergarten on children's academic achievement, the impact of bilingual education on school performance, and the impact of higher education standards on student outcomes." Early start on the right track Assistant professor Maria Fitzpatrick is examining the effects of early-childhood education on children's long-term academic achievement. She has shown that universal preschool programs allowing children to start school at age four, instead of the usual age five, improve the academic achievement of low-income children and those in rural areas--while having no negative effects on the achievement of other children. Professor Jennifer Gerner, also focused on early-childhood education, has found that children's school experiences prior to kindergarten have an impact on their performance in kindergarten and beyond. Gerner compared achievement scores of children in states with varying mandatory ages to start school to assess what policy is best for kids. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The evidence is increasingly piling up that the younger you start kids, the better off they're going to be," she said. "Early-childhood education has an impact on graduation rates for students 15 years down the road. Basically, if you miss something in your education early on, you don't get a chance to make it up. When kids are 12, you can't give them something back that they missed when they were four." Inducements for teachers PAM faculty members are also investigating the most cost-effective methods to improve how we recruit, evaluate, and compensate teachers. Assistant professor Michael Lovenheim delved into a teacher pay program in Texas that awards teachers when their students score well on standardized tests. "It's something that policyinakers seem to love on both sides of the aisle," he said. "But the evidence is not as strong that this works in developed countries." Fitzpatrick's work has focused on whether public school employees value their retirement benefits at the same level it costs taxpayers to provide them. "Given the potential burden on taxpayers of public-sector wages, the importance of education for economic success, and the stark contrast to private-sector compensation mechanisms, determining compensation structures for public school teachers that attracts the highest-quality teachers is an imperative," she said. Fitzpatrick's research has found that public school teachers do not value increases in their retirement benefits at a level that justifies the costs of those benefits. Paying teachers higher current wages and lowering their retirement benefits would therefore be a more efficient way of attracting good teachers into public schools. Together, Lovenheim and Fitzpatrick are looking into teacher retirement incentives and the impact of retiring teachers on children's academic achievement. …


Since the appearance of Peer-To-Peer file-sharing networks some time ago, many Internet users have chosen this technology to share and search programs, videos, music, documents, etc. The total number of Peer-To-Peer file-sharing users has been increasing and decreasing in the last decade depending on the creation or end of some well known P2P file-sharing systems. P2P file-sharing networks traffic is currently overloading some data networks and it is a major headache for network administrators because it is difficult to control this kind of traffic (mainly because some P2P file-sharing networks encrypt their messages). This article deals with the analysis, taxonomy and characterization of eight Public P2P file-sharing networks: Gnutella, Freeenet, FastTrack, BitTorrent, Opennap, Edonkey, MP2P and Soulseek. These eight most popular networks have been selected due to their different type of working architecture. Then, we will show the amount of users, files and the size of files inside these file-sharing networks. Finally, several network configurations are presented in order to control Peer-to-Peer file-sharing traffic in the network.


Species loss is estimated to be >1,000 times the background rate and increasing. In what has now been dubbed 'the Anthropocene', human actions are the major cause of biodiversity decline; while strong pressures such as climate change will likely transform landscapes that are highly valued socially, economically, and ecologically. New combinations of species, interactions, and functions (i.e. novel ecosystems) are already emerging. The discussion about how to deal with novelty has been contentious and debated on both scientific and philosophical grounds, with questions about whether deliberately managing novel ecosystems is an adaptive response to change, or whether it is simply giving up (and giving in) to failure. While humans have created the Anthropocene, they are also integral to solving its problems. This research focuses on governance, as a process for both deciding how to navigate environmental change and deploying the capacity to deal with it. Our current governance systems are not, however, fit for purpose. In a time of social and ecological transformation, anchoring conservation success to historical baselines, as is most often the case, is expensive, technically difficult, and contributes to conservation failure. This research identifies the most important factors for achieving conservation 'success' in transforming landscapes and tests practical ways in which governance can provide a space for positive intervention, particularly in multifunctional landscapes where the need to adapt is most urgent. Using an original conceptual framework for analysing capacity for conserving biodiversity, practical reforms are developed. These are then tested using innovative, collaborative scenario planning and citizens juries methodologies to determine not only how governance can positively influence biodiversity outcomes in the future, but also provide a means to explicitly deal with difficult questions about novel ecosystems and conservation in the Anthropocene.


Three mesophilic, Gram-stain-positive, aerobic bacterial strains, designated Uno3T, Uno11T and Uno16T, were isolated from a soil-like granular micro-organism mass (termed Tengu-no-mugimeshi) collected from Tsumagoi, Gunma, Japan. They grow at 11-37 °C and pH 4.0-8.0, form branched mycelia, and have a G+C content between 49.4-50.3 mol%. The major menaquinone and fatty acid of Uno3T are MK-9 and iso-C16 : 0, respectively, whereas Uno11T and Uno16T share MK-9 (H2) and C16 : 1-2OH. The major cell-wall sugars are mannose (Uno3T and Uno11T) and glucose (Uno16T). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that these three strains belong to the order Ktedonobacterales and are most closely related to Dictyobacter aurantiacus S-27T (sequence similarity of 91.3, 96.4 and 95.5 %). Average nucleotide identity values were <79.9 % among Uno11T, Uno16T and D. aurantiacus S-27T, well below the 95-96 % species circumscription threshold. Based on phenotypic features and phylogenetic positions, we propose that Uno3T represents a novel genus and species, Tengunoibacter tsumagoiensis gen. nov., sp. nov. (type strain Uno3T=NBRC 113152T=LMG 30471T=BCRC 81113T) within the new family Dictyobacteraceae fam. nov. Strains Uno11T and Uno16T are also considered to represent novel species: Dictyobacterkobayashii sp. nov. (type strain Uno11T=NBRC 113153T=LMG 30472T=BCRC 81114T) and Dictyobacteralpinus sp. nov. (type strain Uno16T=NBRC 113154T=BCRC 81115T). We also propose an emended description of the genus Dictyobacter, classifying it within family Dictyobacteraceae, and provide emended descriptions of the genera Dictyobacter and Ktedonobacter.


Relations connecting the parameters of a super-Gaussian with those of a flattened Gaussian beam are determined by minimizing the mean squared difference of the two profiles. Simplified analytical expressions are suggested and tested for values of the power parameter of the super-Gaussian function up to 20.


- An epidemiological survey of the fish diseases lymphocystis, epidermal papilloma and skin ulcers in common dab Limanda limanda L. was conducted in the southern Kattegat each year in May from 1984 to 1993. During the period of investigation, severe oxygen depletion occurred in late summer 1986 and 1988. After the oxygen deficiency in 1986. the occurrence of lymphocystis and epidermal papilloma increased and peaked in 1989 with prevalences of 14 7 and 3.3%, respectively. The prevalence of skin ulcers never exceeded 0.6 %. The relative nsk of contracting lymphocystis increased significantly from 1987 to 1991 compared with 1984 to 1986, the per~od prior to the severe oxygen depletion. A significant increase in the relative risk of contracting epidermal papilloma was observed from 1987 to 1990. Females were 3 times more likely to contract this disease than males. The relative risk of skin ulcers did not change significantly during the investigation period. The prevalence of lymphocystis and epidermal papilloma was negatively correlated with the minimum oxygen levels mea- sured in August and September the previous year; this negative correlation was significant (p c 0.05) for lymphocystis in September, while not for epidermal papilloma (p < 0.1). The prevalence of lym- phocystis and epidermal papilloma was significantly correlated (p < 0.01). No significant correlation was observed between stock density (expressed as catch per unit effort) and the diseases in question. It is probably the stress caused by the oxygen deficiency -especially the sublethal levels - that the outbreak of the viral lymphocystis


CIA case officer Cameron Pryce thought he'd crushed the deadly cabal of powerbrokers and assassins. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Matarese dynasty is back. Now the countdown begins -- and Pryce is already running out of time. "The Matarese Circle, " Robert Ludlum's multimillion-copy spellbinder, introduced a treacherous international cabal of powerbrokers and their hired assassins. More than 20 years ago, the top CIA and KGB agents joined together to insure that, in an explosive act, the Matarese conspiracy went up in flames. But now Robert Ludlum, the unsurpassed master of suspense, returns with a stunning thriller for the 21st century. . .Secret deals are in the making, massive mysterious transactions steeped in corruption and murder. The players stand at the highest pinnacles of global finance and government. It is an unprecedented consolidation of money, power, and ruthlessness. Their ultimate aim: worldwide economic domination and all it entails. . . by whatever means necessary. The Matarese dynasty is back in all its glory and evil. And the one man with enough knowledge to stop it, CIA case officer Cameron Pryce, may not have enough time. The Matarese countdown has begun and Pryce's only chance to cut it off is to follow the trail of blood money and stone-cold killers to the heart of this deadliest conspiracy.From the Hamptons to Monte Carlo to London's Belgrave Square, Matarese assassins have already struck with brutal efficiency, eliminating all who stand in their way. But on Spain's Costa del Sol, one victim survived long enough to breathe these dying words: '"Find Beowulf Agate' --words that reverberate all the way to CIA headquarters in Langley,Virginia. Beowulf Agate is the code name for legendary retired agent Brandon Scofield, the only man ever to penetrate the Matarese and survive. Now Cameron Pryce has to draw Scofield and his wife, Antonia, out of their Caribbean paradise hideaway and back to a place they thought they'd never have to go again -- back into the Matarese circle of death. For from the oil fields of the Persian Gulf to the boardrooms of Manhattan, from the hills of Corsica to the halls of power in Washington, the circle is closing, the noose is tightening, the panic is spreading. And Pryce has made a chilling discovery: the Matarese have broken new ground. . . deep inside the CIA. "The Matarese Countdown" is Robert Ludlum at his best, as he delivers a terrifying and persuasive vision of worldwide financial mastery that could only happen today.


Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of spontaneous retinal venous pulsation (SVP) in patients with unilateral primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and low intraocular pressure (IOP). Materials and Methods: The SVP of 93 POAG patients with unilateral glaucoma and untreated IOP of ⩽21 mm Hg was assessed using the movie tool of a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (Spectralis HRA; Heidelberg Engineering). The frequency of SVP was compared between the glaucomatous and fellow eyes. Intereye differences in the frequency of SVP were assessed using McNemar test. A linear mixed-effect model was used to determine the factors associated with glaucomatous eyes, taking into account clustering of eyes within subjects. Results: Forty-five patients had SVP in both eyes and 15 had SVP in neither eye. Of the remaining 33 patients who showed SVP only in 1 eye, 31 had SVP only in the fellow eye, and 2 had SVP only in the glaucomatous eye. The SVP was significantly less prevalent in glaucomatous eyes (50.5%) than in fellow control eyes (81.7%) (P<0.001). In the linear mixed-effect model, the presence of SVP (P<0.001) and higher untreated IOP (P=0.001) were the significant predictors for glaucoma. Conclusions: SVP was less frequently found in glaucomatous eyes than healthy fellow eyes in unilateral POAG patients with low IOP.


Course control is critical for the acquisition of spatial information during exploration and navigation, and it is thought to rely on neural circuits that process locomotive-related multimodal signals. However, which circuits underlie this control, and how multimodal information contributes to the control system are questions poorly understood. We used Virtual Reality to examine the role of self-generated visual signals (visual feedback) on the control of exploratory walking in flies. Exploratory flies display two distinct motor contexts, characterized by low speed and fast rotations, or by high speed and slow rotations, respectively. Flies use visual feedback to control body rotations, but in a motor-context specific manner, primarily when walking at high speed. Different populations of visual motion-sensitive cells estimate body rotations via congruent, multimodal inputs, and drive compensatory rotations. However, their effective contribution to course control is dynamically tuned by a speed-related signal. Our data identifies visual networks with a multimodal circuit mechanism for adaptive course control and suggests models for how visual feedback is combined with internal signals to guide exploratory course control.


The incidental capture of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in fishing gear is a serious threat to populations and species worldwide. In Australia, several dolphin populations are being impacted by mortalities through interaction with fisheries, in particular, gillnets, purse-seining, long-lining and trawl fisheries. The capture of dolphins has been a conservation issue in the Pilbara Fish Trawl Interim Managed Fishery (PFTIMF) that was first assessed in 2002 by the Department of Fisheries Western Australia (DoFWA). At that time, an estimated 50 to 100 dolphins were being caught each year. A number of bycatch mitigation techniques were trialed between 2004 and 2007, including pingers (acoustic deterrents) and different exclusion grids, meeting with varying degrees of success (FRDC 2004/068). Due to ongoing dolphin bycatch, successive Ministers for Fisheries have not been prepared to move the fishery beyond 'Interim Managed' status. In late 2007, Murdoch University was asked to provide expertise on cetacean behaviour and fisheries interactions in the Pilbara trawl fishery.


Engagement among States and decentralized, creative problem solvers can enhance the requisite cooperation to pick up the pace of solution implementation to match the rate of climate change. Global organizing capability, information sharing and innovation have enmeshed governments and civil society into new governance relationships. Technology has facilitated this process for many, but the hardware and software that has led to social networking is only a fraction of the story of dynamic, inclusive cooperation. Citizen sector actors hold both destructive and constructive capacity exceeding that of any previous era. While many remain overwhelmed by the scope of climate instability, members of civil society are responding with insight and charisma to coordinate public participation to implement climate solutions.


This European Commission funded research aims to provide insight, for local, national and European policy makers, into how people feel about 'being European' and European citizenship. Men and women aged 18-24 were selected as the subjects, allowing a gender comparison and a focus on young and, therefore, new citizens. Research was conducted in pairs of cities or towns in nations and regions chosen because of their linked but contrasting histories of orientation to Europe: Vienna and the Bregenz area of Vorarlberg in Austria; Madrid and Bilbao in Spain; Chemnitz and Bielefeld, in Germany; Bratislava and Prague in the Slovak and Czech Republics; Edinburgh, Scotland and Manchester, England in the UK. The study sampled both 18-24 year old residents who were more likely to feel European because their study or work was Europe-oriented (target sample) and representative samples of young adults who had lived in the city or town for at least five years. Both quantitative (survey) and qualitative (in-depth interviews) data were gathered.


Abstract The rapid discovery of several iron-related genes in the last 10 years has led to the development of cost-effective genetic assays for early diagnosis of hereditary haemochromatosis (HH). A genetic predisposition for this relatively common autosomal recessive disease has been identified in approximately 1 in 100 South Africans of European descent. If left untreated, this condition may lead to organ damage presenting as cirrhosis, liver cancer, diabetes, arthritis, impotence, sterility and/or cardiac disease. Due to the fact that serum iron parameters are frequently affected by factors such as liver disease and inflammation, direct mutation detection has become the method of choice for accurate diagnosis of inherited iron overload in patients with elevated iron stores. Haemochromatosis can be prevented by regular blood donation or phlebotomy and therefore detection of a genetic predisposition at an early age, before irreversible damage to cardiac, hepatic and endocrine tissue occurs, represents an important clinical goal.


Based on the remote sensing and GIS techniques, the relationships of the variables influencing the snowmelt flood such as the snow area, the snow depth, the air temperature, the precipitation, the land topography and land covers are analyzed and a prediction and damage assessment model for snowmelt floods is developed. This model analyzes and predicts the flood submerging range, flood depth, flood grade, and the damages of different underlying surfaces in the study area in a given time period based on the estimation of snowmelt amount, the snowmelt runoff, the direction and velocity of the flood. Then it was used to predict a snowmelt flood event in the Ertis River Basin in northern Xinjiang, China, during March and June, 2017 and to assess its damages including the damages of roads, transmission lines, settlements caused by the floods and the possible landslides using the hydrological and meteorological data, snow parameter data, DEM data and land use data. A comparison was made between the prediction results from this model and flood measurement and its disaster loss data, which suggests that this model performs well in predicting the strength and impact area of snowmelt flood and its damage assessment.


Abstract Absolute dating of mortars is crucial when trying to pin down construction phases of archaeological sites and historic stone buildings to a certain point in time or to confirm, but possibly also challenge, existing chronologies. To evaluate various sample preparation methods for radiocarbon (14C) dating of mortars as well as to compare different dating methods, i.e. 14C and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a mortar dating intercomparison study (MODIS) was set up, exploring existing limits and needs for further research. Four mortar samples were selected and distributed among the participating laboratories: one of which was expected not to present any problem related to the sample preparation methodologies for anthropogenic lime extraction, whereas all others addressed specific known sample preparation issues. Data obtained from the various mortar dating approaches are evaluated relative to the historical framework of the mortar samples and any deviation observed is contextualized to the composition and specific mineralogy of the sampled material.


Development of internet and social media has led to significant changes in marketing. Companies are now making serious efforts to integrate social media into their marketing strategies. In order to be successful in these efforts, marketing experts need to think strategically, integrate social media campaigns into their marketing plans and use the right tools in the right way. They should also evaluate the campaign performance and its effect on business performance. The aim of this study is to define the strategic approach adopted by the companies and to explore how companies structure and measure their campaigns. Within the scope of the study, first literature review is made and then 20 successful Facebook campaigns are selected and analyzed through content analysis. The result of the analysis show that companies studied used megaphone strategy (by informing consumers through pages, ads and videos) and magnet strategy (by creating an environment for interaction through applications, surveys and competitions), but they did not use monitor strategy (following customers interaction with one another). Regarding how the campaigns were structured, it is found that half of them aimed to give new information and 20% were supported in offline platforms. The most preferred tool was the Facebook page, Facebook ads were more popular when compared to Facebook videos and the usage rate for surveys, competitions and applications were low. It is also found that like rate and participation rate were the two basic criteria companies used to measure the campaign performance but as the data provided by the companies was limited, it was not possible to comment on the general strategic approach they adopted.


Abstract. Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) participate in reactions that can lead to secondarily formed ozone and particulate matter (PM) impacting air quality and climate. BVOC emissions are important inputs to chemical transport models applied on local to global scales but considerable uncertainty remains in the representation of canopy parameterizations and emission algorithms from different vegetation species. The Biogenic Emission Inventory System (BEIS) has been used to support both scientific and regulatory model assessments for ozone and PM. Here we describe a new version of BEIS which includes updated input vegetation data and canopy model formulation for estimating leaf temperature and vegetation data on estimated BVOC. The Biogenic Emission Landuse Database (BELD) was revised to incorporate land use data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land product and 2006 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) land coverage. Vegetation species data are based on the US Forest Service (USFS) Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) version 5.1 for 2002–2013 and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2007 census of agriculture data. This update results in generally higher BVOC emissions throughout California compared with the previous version of BEIS. Baseline and updated BVOC emission estimates are used in Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Model simulations with 4 km grid resolution and evaluated with measurements of isoprene and monoterpenes taken during multiple field campaigns in northern California. The updated canopy model coupled with improved land use and vegetation representation resulted in better agreement between CMAQ isoprene and monoterpene estimates compared with these observations.


The demographic shift resulting from the rapid growth of the Latino population has posed challenges to systems and services necessitating a closer look at families receiving services. One specific Latino subgroup that has had little study is the Mexican immigrant family with a child with a disability who receives early intervention services. Early Intervention services advocate a family centered approach focused on the needs and priorities of the family in order to prevent long-term disability. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe how mothers of Mexican origin who are undocumented residents in the United States participate in their child's early intervention program. Qualitative research allows close analysis of experiences that define a phenomenon. This qualitative study will promote understanding and inform ways to provide efficient and effective service through practical information that serves to increase the cultural competence of service providers.


We consider domain decomposition techniques for a non-linear elasticity problem. Our main focus is on non-linear preconditioning, realized in the framework of additive Schwarz preconditioned inexact Newton (ASPIN) methods. The standard 1-level ASPIN method is extended to a 2-level method by adding a non-linear coarse solver. Numerical experiments show that the coarse component is necessary for scalability in terms of linear iterations inside the Newton loop. Moreover, for problems that are dominated by nonlinearities that are not localized in space the non-linear coarse iterations are crucial for achieving computational efficiency.


Reports of how some bystanders interact with victims on the scene of an emergency are shocking. Instead of assisting or calling for help, these individuals take pictures or recordings of the victims on their cell phones. This Article concentrates on the question of whether such an interaction with a victim might in certain circumstances constitute a distinct and legally actionable harm. This Article proposes a new tort: exploitative objectification of a person in need of emergency assistance. It works to articulate the moral and legal foundations for an argument that treating a person in need of emergency assistance as an object of amusement should be considered a legally cognizable harm. Cognizant of concerns about over-breadth and moral overload, it clearly distinguishes between those who cross the line of engaging the scene and the victim ("engaged spectators") and those who do not ("pure bystanders"). It argues for ample space for discretion in the decision whether to engage, respecting subjective assessments of risks and priorities as grounded in the emotional and interior life of the bystander.


Several relations have been presented to estimate the flow discharge passing the straight compound channels, most of which result in acceptable results in the experimental conditions, but are not accurate enough to be sued in the case of the field studies. In the present study, the Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm was used to analyze the experimental and field data of the compound cross sections and a new relation was presented to estimate the total discharge passing the compound cross section. In the new suggested relation, in order to estimate the equivalent roughness coefficient of the compound cross sections, in addition to the relative depth, relative width, relative hydraulic radius and relative roughness (the ratio of the mentioned parameters in the floodplains to the main cross section), a new definition of the Reynolds number was used. The results showed that the proposed relation, with an average absolute relative error of 10.4, could properly estimate the discharge in the compound cross sections so that the average absolute relative error decreased by about 38 percent in comparison to the previous studies performed by other researchers.


Detecting objects in a video is a compute-intensive task. In this paper we propose CaTDet, a system to speedup object detection by leveraging the temporal correlation in video. CaTDet consists of two DNN models that form a cascaded detector, and an additional tracker to predict regions of interests based on historic detections. We also propose a new metric, mean Delay(mD), which is designed for latency-critical video applications. Experiments on the KITTI dataset show that CaTDet reduces operation count by 5.1-8.7x with the same mean Average Precision(mAP) as the single-model Faster R-CNN detector and incurs additional delay of 0.3 frame. On CityPersons dataset, CaTDet achieves 13.0x reduction in operations with 0.8% mAP loss.


Prostate specific antigen (PSA) is the marker of choice in the management of prostate cancer. However, PSA is not a simple molecule, existing in the serum in five isoforms and a number of molecular configurations and complexes. The elucidation of the biochemistry of PSA has increased the potential use of the marker in the diagnosis of prostate malignancy. This review summarizes the clinical use of PSA in the management of prostate disease and the assays available in the UK. Assay calibration in relation to the World Health Organization 1st International Standard for Prostate Specific Antigen (90:10) has increased conformity between the various commercial assay kits, and the non-equimolar kits have largely been superseded or withdrawn. Special reference is made to evaluations performed on behalf of the Medical Devices Agency of the Department of Health.


The study was carried out to evaluate the effect of four seminal plasma dilutions on ovulation rate and corpus luteum development in alpacas. Forty four non-lactating alpacas with the presence of a >7 mm dominant follicle detected by transrectal ultrasonography were selected. The animals were randomly distributed in five experimental groups: G1 (n=10) seminal plasma (SP) diluted 1:1 (v/v) with phosphate buffered saline (PBS); G2 (n=10) SP diluted 1:2 (v/v) with PBS; G3 (n=10) SP diluted 1:4 (v/v) with PBS; G4 (n=10) SP 1:8 (v/v) with PBS; and G5 (n=4) control group with PBS. A dose of 1.5 ml of the respective solution was intramuscularly administrated. Ovulation rate and corpus luteum size were evaluated at second and ninth day respectively (D0= day of treatment) through ultrasonography. Blood samples were taken on D0, D3, D6, D9 and D12 to determine serum progesterone levels by radioimmunoassay. The results indicated an ovulation rate of 100% in the treated groups and 0% in the control group. The corpus luteum size and serum progesterone levels did not show statistic differences. The results indicated that the ovulation inducing factor present in the seminal plasma has a powerful effect inducing ovulation even at a low dose.


Introduction Clinically complex patients often require multiple medications. Polypharmacy is associated with inappropriate prescriptions, which may lead to negative outcomes. Few effective tools are available to help physicians optimise patient medication. This study assesses whether an electronic medication management support system (eMMa) reduces hospitalisation and mortality and improves prescription quality/safety in patients with polypharmacy. Methods and analysis Planned design: pragmatic, parallel cluster-randomised controlled trial; general practices as randomisation unit; patients as analysis unit. As practice recruitment was poor, we included additional data to our primary endpoint analysis for practices and quarters from October 2017 to March 2021. Since randomisation was performed in waves, final study design corresponds to a stepped-wedge design with open cohort and step-length of one quarter. Scope: general practices, Westphalia-Lippe (Germany), caring for BARMER health fund-covered patients. Population: patients (≥18 years) with polypharmacy (≥5 prescriptions). Sample size: initially, 32 patients from each of 539 practices were required for each study arm (17 200 patients/arm), but only 688 practices were randomised after 2 years of recruitment. Design change ensures that 80% power is nonetheless achieved. Intervention: complex intervention eMMa. Follow-up: at least five quarters/cluster (practice). recruitment: practices recruited/randomised at different times; after follow-up, control group practices may access eMMa. Outcomes: primary endpoint is all-cause mortality and hospitalisation; secondary endpoints are number of potentially inappropriate medications, cause-specific hospitalisation preceded by high-risk prescribing and medication underuse. Statistical analysis: primary and secondary outcomes are measured quarterly at patient level. A generalised linear mixed-effect model and repeated patient measurements are used to consider patient clusters within practices. Time and intervention group are considered fixed factors; variation between practices and patients is fitted as random effects. Intention-to-treat principle is used to analyse primary and key secondary endpoints. Ethics and dissemination Trial approved by Ethics Commission of North-Rhine Medical Association. Results will be disseminated through workshops, peer-reviewed publications, local and international conferences. Trial registration NCT03430336. ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03430336).


Film archiving is a rapidly changing field as a result of the accelerating development of online digital technologies. Taking as its case study the example of SP-ARK (1), the Sally Potter online film archive, this article proposes a notable shift from the traditional single-user archive model to emerging multi-user, collaborative forms of archival scholarship. The digital preservation and presentation of archival materials dramatically impact upon the nature of the types and levels of access to primary film materials and their associated ephemera that are afforded. Moreover, the nature of the discoveries, insights and findings that can be made through online digital interfaces are radically altered. In what follows, I will explore the SP-ARK model, both through close analysis of the archive itself, and also through an empirical user study of students who access the archive for their studies. I will argue for a re-thinking of archival process design and will contend that, in an ever-shifting digital landscape, the archival planning for future feature-film projects might be usefully considered at the earliest stages of the production.


This article reviews recent applications of regional climate model (RCM) output for hydrological impact studies. Traditionally, simulations of global climate models (GCMs) have been the basis of impact studies in hydrology. Progress in regional climate modeling has recently made the use of RCM data more attractive, although the application of RCM simulations is challenging due to often considerable biases. The main modeling strategies used in recent studies can be classified into (i) very simple constructed modeling chains with a single RCM (S-RCM approach) and (ii) highly complex and computing-power intensive model systems based on RCM ensembles (E-RCM approach). In the literature many examples for S-RCM can be found, while comprehensive E-RCM studies with consideration of several sources of uncertainties such as different greenhouse gas emission scenarios, GCMs, RCMs and hydrological models are less common. Based on a case study using control-run simulations of fourteen different RCMs for five Swedish catchments, the biases of and the variability between different RCMs are demonstrated. We provide a short overview of possible bias-correction methods and show that inter-RCM variability also has substantial consequences for hydrological impact studies in addition to other sources of uncertainties in the modeling chain. We propose that due to model bias and inter-model variability, the S-RCM approach is not advised and ensembles of RCM simulations (E-RCM) should be used. The application of bias-correction methods is recommended, although one should also be aware that the need for bias corrections adds significantly to uncertainties in modeling climate change impacts.


It is ah honor, especially for a graduate of Harvard Law School, to be in a debate with Professor Tribe. Professor Tribe and I certainly agree about much of the background of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Act) (1), although there certainly are some differences between us. I plan to make three points about the background of the Act and then lay out the relatively straightforward argument that the Act is unconstitutional. First, this Act is hundreds of pages long. It is doubtful that any legislator who voted for of against it read the entire Act. There is undoubtedly at least one provision in the statute that is unconstitutional, maybe one that nobody has read yet, but it is out there. For the sake of convenience and brevity, however, I will focus on the individual mandate. Second, it is important to understand how the individual mandate works. Some have argued that because provisions in the Act reference the tax code, it is therefore a tax provision. But the mandate and the penalty--which is used to enforce the mandate--are separate, and they operate separately. This is clear because there are individuals who, under the Act, are subject to the mandate but are exempt from the penalty. For example, an individual with income below a certain threshold will not be penalized for failing to purchase health insurance, but the Act still mandates that such individuals purchase health insurance. (2) The last thing I want to emphasize about the Act is that the mandate is not directed to the market for healthcare, but rather the market for healthcare insurance. This is a key distinction between the way Professor Tribe characterizes the mandate and the way I do. Professor Tribe believes this is all about the healthcare market, and the mandate merely regulates the timing of your participation in the healthcare market. (3) I do not believe that is true. The mandate forces you to buy insurance, regardless of whether you use that insurance when you enter the market for healthcare. Nothing in the statute requires you to use health insurance when you walk into the hospital. Thus, the mandate is about forcing people to buy health insurance--people who could otherwise consciously decide to make a rational economic choice not to buy health insurance. That is what the statute is about, and that gets to the nub of the argument concerning why it is unconstitutional. The argument for its unconstitutionality is relatively simple. The place to start, as with any constitutional argument, is with the text of the Constitution. The Commerce Clause refers to the power to regulate commerce. (4) The fundamental problem with this Act is that forcing somebody to engage in commerce, so that the government can better regulate commerce, is not itself the regulation of commerce. When you force somebody to engage in commerce, you create commerce, and that is not what the Commerce Clause authorizes. The challengers to the Act rely on, among other cases, United States v. Lopez (5) and United States v. Morrison (6)--the only cases in recent history to strike down federal legislation as exceeding Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. (7) Part of the explanation for this is that beyond Lopez and Morrison, the breadth of the modern Commerce Clause as understood by the Supreme Court is quite broad. That might seem like a weakness for somebody making a Commerce Clause challenge, but it actually is not. It is important to understand the consequences of the argument that the mandate is constitutional. If it is constitutional, then Congress would have essentially a general police power. A ruling in favor of the mandate would combine the great breadth of the modern commerce power with a power of far greater depth. Congress has the power to regulate commerce already, but Congress also would have the power to force you to engage in all kinds of commerce so it can better regulate you. When you look at the breadth and the depth of the power asserted, there would be nothing outside Congress's reach. …


This thesis presents a study of the chemical reactions that may occur at the fuel- clad interfaces of fuel elements used in advanced gas-coooled reactors (A.G.R.) The initial investigation involved a study of the inner surfaces of irradiated stainless steel clad and evidence was obtained to show that fission products, in particular tellerium, were associated with reaction products on these surfaces. An accelerated rate of oxidation was observed on the inner surfaces of a failed A.G.R. fuel pin. It is believed that fission product caesium was responsible for this enhancement. A fundamental study of the reaction between 20%Cr/25%Ni/niobium stabilised stainless steel and tellerium was then undertaken over the range 350 - 850 degrees C. Reaction occurred with increasing rapidity over this range and long term exposure at ≤ 750 degrees resulted in intergranular attack of the stainless steel and chromium depletion. The reaction on unoxidised steel surfaces involved the formation of an initial iron-nickel-tellerium layer which subsequently transformed to a chromium telluride product during continued exposure. The thermodynamic stabilities of the steel tellurides were determined to be chromium telluride > nickel telluride > iron telluride. Oxidation of the stainless steel surface prior to tellerium exposure inhibited the reaction. However reaction did occur in regions where the oxide layer had either cracked or spalled.


The idea that "states' rights" restrain national power is riding high in American judicial and popular opinion. Here, Sotirios A. Barber shows how arguments for states' rights, from the days of John C. Calhoun to the present, have offended common sense, logic, and bedrock constitutional principles. To begin with, states' rights federalism cannot possibly win the debate with national federalism owing to the very forum in which the requisite argument must occur--a national one, thanks to the Civil War--and the ordinary rules of practical argumentation. Further, the political consequences of this self-defeating logic can only hasten the loss of American sovereignty to international economic forces. Both philosophical and practical reasons compel us to consider two historical alternatives to states' rights federalism. In the federalism of John Marshall, the nation's most renowned jurist, the national government's duty to ensure security, prosperity, and other legitimate national ends must take precedence over all conflicting exercises of state power. In "process" federalism, the Constitution protects the states by securing their roles in national policy making and other national decisions. Barber opts for Marshall's federalism, but the contest is close, and his analysis takes the debate into new, fertile territory. Affirming the fundamental importance of the Preamble, Barber advocates a conception of the Constitution as a charter of positive benefits for the nation. It is not, in his view, a contract among weak separate sovereigns whose primary function is to protect people from the central government, when there are greater dangers to confront.


Gifted students with spatial strengths are often overlooked and underserved in American schools. These students have areas of remarkable talent but often have verbal learning difficulties that prevent them from being identified for gifted services as traditional assessments emphasize verbal and quantitative skills, not nonverbal expertise. The dwindling number of American students pursuing higher level degrees in mathematics and science, natural strength areas for students with spatial skills, emphasizes the reasons educators need to identify and encourage these students at an early age. This exploratory correlational research investigated the practicality and effectiveness of identification tools intended to locate elementary children with spatial strengths. My Thinking Style (MTS), a self-report survey instrument, was developed for this research. The results of the survey, determined through oneon-one interviews with fourth grade students, were compared to performance on the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) and the block design subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). Performance on a measure of nonverbal ability, the NNAT, was not related to visual-spatial ability as measured by the block design subtest of the WISC-IV. Performance on the block design subtest was statistically significantly related to learning style preference as indicated on MTS. There was not a significant relationship between the MTS and the NNAT. The block design subtest of the WISC-IV has been shown to identify students with spatial strengths. The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test may not be effective in identifying children with spatial strengths, while the self-report instrument, My Thinking Style has potential to do so. The block design must be administered individually to students by a licensed professional, while MTS has the potential for quick and simple administration by any educator. The Identification of Gifted Students with Spatial Strengths: An Exploratory Study


This article will study disgust expressed by the adolescent girl as an expression of creative subjective movements. We will study its evolution in the therapeutic process. Disgust will be a way of understanding the interweaving of drives in this young girl. Disgust will be examined from the perspective of its archaic and genitalized links.


In this paper we present our experiences of introducing the CAS graphics calculator into a first year elementary calculus unit taught recently at Edith Cowan University in Perth. We used a Reform Calculus textbook and the fourfold analytic, geometric, numeric and word-description approach advocated in it. The students comprised a mixture of mature age students and school leavers, and they had a wide variety of mathematical and (non-CAS) calculator backgrounds. They were studying calculus as a service unit for a number of different major programs. A set of HP49G CAS graphics calculators was available for student use in class, in the tests and in the final examination. Some HP49G calculators were available in the library for out of class use. The essential difference between using standard graphics calculators for teaching/learning in the unit and using the CAS calculators is the ability to hand analytic procedures to the higher level technology, and associated with this are some new possibilities for learning. We give an overview of the approaches we took to teaching and then assessing with these calculators; and, in particular, we describe the approaches we took with limits, the problems encountered and our responses to the outcomes. We examine also aspects of the CAS use revealed by an analysis of selected test and assignment questions.


Organic compounds evolve as a promising alternative to currently used inorganic materials in rechargeable batteries due to their low-cost, environmental friendliness and flexibility. One of the strategies to reach acceptable energy densities and to deal with the high solubility of known organic compounds is to combine small redox active molecules, acting as capacity carrying centres, with conducting polymers. Following this strategy, it is important to achieve redox matching between the chosen molecule and the polymer backbone. Here, a synergetic approach combining theory and experiment has been employed to investigate this strategy. The framework of the density functional theory connected with the reaction field method has been applied to predict the formal potential of 137 molecules and identify promising candidates for the referent application. The effects of including different ring types, e.g. fused rings or bonded rings, heteroatoms, and π bonds, as well as carboxyl groups on the formal potential, have been rationalized. Finally, we have identified a number of molecules with acceptable theoretical capacities that show redox matching with thiophene-based conducting polymers which, hence, are suggested as pendent groups for the development of conducting redox polymer based electrode materials.


Authors:
TAKAGI, Toshio (Meiji University) and NAKANISHI, Aki (Meiji University)

Abstract:
The purpose of this thesis is to show the theoretical effectiveness of a High Reliability Organization (HRO) that attracts attention in organization studies.

In recent years, in the concepts of dynamic capability and operational capability in the Management of Technology (MOT) or Management Strategy, there has been one tacit understanding. In these discussions, it is to be assumed that the firms' infrastructure already exists. In other words, the firms, as the subject of this research, have been limited to the activity of the technical system infrastructure (e.g., manufacturing, energy, and distribution) which has already been constructed. However, a new doubt arises. How can the firms' capability within such an infrastructure be explained? That is, how is the infrastructure caused? And how does organizational change occur? We think that, from this aspect, our research is useful in organizational studies. As the recent organizational research illustrates, especially Actor-Network Theory (Callon and Law, 1997; Latour, 1999) and Practice Based Approach (Nicolini, et al., 2003), any organization is embedded in a socially constructed network, and the network cannot be separated from the organization (Latour, 1987; Ueno, 1999). It is important to research how the technical system is used by understanding organizational operations and organizational change.

Therefore, in this thesis, a HRO concept is presented as one means to understand an organization's technical system. Such an organization is highly safe and reliable, though this organization's environment is dangerous, meaning that a defect or mistake, and the ensuing trouble, is significant (Weick and Sutcliffe, 2001). That is, the situation is perceived to be sensitive, and the organization that installs the safety mechanism beforehand does so under circumstances in which the problem is very easily caused. The starting point of the HRO research is, "Why does the accident's seriousness and frequency, and the type of accident occur differently among organizations?" The research also considers the point, "Awareness of the issues that allow the discovery of various influential factor groups, based on prior experience research" (Nishimoto, 2004). This is different from the existing research of on organization that considers a technical system that has already been constructed. Furthermore, since the technical system and the organization are closely related, an organization should be concerned because of this relationship, and decide whether a problem occurs within an operation.

The thesis develops from this as follows. First of all, it explains from what aspect the error study of an existing organization has advanced research. Next, it takes a general view of HRO and studies it from a point differing from existing research. Finally, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, especially Internet Service Provider (xSP), is presented as a HRO case. Because ICT is a complex Socio-Technical system, there is a high possibility of connecting with the crisis with big and small mistakes, and the ensuring trouble. Therefore, the concept of HRO is easily suited. Moreover, these firms operate with the most advanced technology, as well as with various networks (e.g., government, firms, and consumers). In addition, the attitude of ICT operations is becoming more and more tough, bordering on the belief that, "Mistakes are not permitted." This is due to the enforcement of the Act for Protection of Computer Processed Personal Data Held by Administrative Organs, the introduction of Information Security Management System (ISMS), and the setting of Service Level Agreement (SLA). Therefore, showing the effectiveness of HRO in actual firms becomes possible by analyzing the ICT industry.


In this paper we describe a compromise between generative planning and special-purpose software. Hierarchical functional models are used by an intelligent system to represent its own processes for both acting and reasoning. Since these models are custom-built for a specific set of situations, they can provide efficiency comparable to special-purpose software in those situations. Furthermore, the models can be automatically modified. In this way, the specialized power of the models can be leveraged even in situations for which they were not originally intended. When a model cannot address some or all of a problem, an off-the-shelf generative planning system is used to construct a new sequence of actions which can be added to the model. Thus portions of the process which were previously understood are addressed with the efficiency of a specialized reasoning process, and portions of the process which were previously unknown are addressed with the flexibility of generative planning. The REM reasoning shell provides both the language for encoding functional models of processes and the algorithms for executing and adapting these models.


Movement allows organisms to respond to heterogeneity in physical and biological conditions both at the individual and population level. Studying the movement of young stream fishes has proven to be problematic because of the difficulty of tagging small fishes using traditional techniques. In this study, recently developed microsatellite markers were used as a method of tagging individual young-of-the-year (YOY) Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar L.). First, the association between the local-scale distribution patterns of 81 territorial YOY salmon and their degree of relatedness in a natural stream was tested. No significant association between relatedness and distance at the local scale was found. Focal fish were not more related to their nearest-neighbour (mean r x,y = -0.004) than to randomly selected fish (mean r x,y = 0.005), nor were they more related to their four nearest-neighbours (mean r x,y = -0.01) than to non-neighbours (mean r x,y = -0.007). Second, 97 anadromous adults moving into the stream to spawn, four redd locations, as well as 313 of their offspring were sampled in a 1.6 km reach of Catamaran Brook. The initial dispersal of offspring from the four redd locations and resulting long-range dispersion patterns of families were mapped. The average dispersal distance of 69 YOY salmon from the sampled redd locations ranged from 50--955m downstream, and 9--154m upstream. Five maternal and nine paternal half-sibling families were recaptured over an average dispersion distance (linear distance between the most upstream and most downstream sites of capture) of 1340m and 1018m, respectively. Four full-sibling families were identified with an average dispersion distance of 945m. The redd location (for sampled redds) and the most upstream location of a family (linear distance of the most upstream location of capture to the mouth of the brook) were combined and analysed as one variable. Dispersion distance was significantly, and positively correlated with redd or upstream location, with most families dispersing to the mouth of the brook. Third, alternative mating strategies take place in Atlantic salmon males, whereby both anadromous adults and precocious parr compete for fertilization opportunities with anadromous females. The present study suggests that precocious male parr may have fertilized up to 53% of the 313 sampled YOY salmon. This intensive field sampling allowed for the detection of the initial dispersal from redds and the large-scale dispersion of YOY salmon, which would not have been possible using alternative tagging methods. The results of the present study contributes to the understanding of dispersal and dispersion patterns of YOY salmon in freshwater habitats, and are applicable to the conservation and management of salmonid populations.


This study measured and compared the efficiency of Islamic Bank in Malaysia and Indonesia. This sytudy used a quantitative non-parametric approach by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)VRS assumption, and a statistic tool Mann-Whitney-U-Test. The samples were 6 Islamic Banks in Malaysia and 10 Islamic Bank in Indonesia that comply with the specified sample criteria during 2010-2014. The results of this research showed that Islamic Banks in Indonesia relatively higher than Islamic Bank in Malaysia based on VRS assumption. Source of inefficiency in Islamc banks in Indonesia more due to inefficiency on a scale. While the hypothesis test showed that there are no significant differences of efficiency between Islamic bank in Indonesia and Malaysia with VRS Assumtion .


This article introduces the evolution, framework, objectives, and design of the new data infrastructure "FReDA – The German Family-Demographic Panel Study", which has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since 2020. FReDA is rooted in the Generation and Gender Survey (GGS) and the German Family Panel (pairfam). FReDA was initiated to facilitate research on family and demography by providing a comprehensive panel study allowing for international comparisons as well as dyadic analyses through a multi-actor design. The survey covers major fields of family research, such as fertility behaviour, reproductive health, work-family conflict, dyadic division of work, gender roles, intimate relations, separation and divorce, parenting and intergenerational relations, social inequalities, family attitudes, and well-being. FReDA interviews are conducted in a self-administered web-based (CAWI) or paper-based (PAPI) manner. The infrastructure consists of two different samples. First, the new FReDA-GGS survey started in early 2021, with a wave 1 study population of individuals aged 18 to 49 years and their partners. Second, the FReDA-pairfam survey will continue the 14-wave pairfam sample from 2022 onwards. The questionnaires of both samples will be harmonised as FReDA evolves. Data accessibility, organisation, and future perspectives of the data infrastructure are described and discussed in the paper's conclusions.


Offering a multidimensional approach to one of the most important episodes of the 20th century, "The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust" offers readers and researchers a general history of the Holocaust while delving into the core issues and debates in the study of the Holocaust today. Each of the book's five distinct parts stand on their own as valuable research aids; together, they constitute an integrated whole. Part I provides a narrative overview of the Holocaust, placing it within the larger context of Nazi Germany and World War II. Part II examines eight critical issues or controversies in the study of the Holocaust, including the following questions: Were the Jews the sole targets of Nazi genocide, or must other groups, such as homosexuals, the handicapped, Gypsies, and political dissenters, also be included? What are the historical roots of the Holocaust? How and why did the "Final Solution" come about? And why did bystanders extend or withhold aid? Part III consists of a concise chronology of major events and developments that took place surrounding the Holocaust, including the armistice ending World War I, the opening of the first major concentration camp at Dachau, Germany's invasion of Poland, the failed assassination attempt against Hitler, and the formation of Israel. Part IV contains short descriptive articles on more than two hundred key people, places, terms, and institutions central to a thorough understanding of the Holocaust. Entries include Adolf Eichmann, Anne Frank, the Warsaw Ghetto, Aryanization, the SS, Kristallnacht, and the Catholic Church. Part V presents an annotated guide to the best print, video, electronic, and institutional resources in English for further study. Armed with the tools contained in this volume, students or researchers investigating this vast and complicated topic should gain an informed understanding of one of the greatest tragedies in world history.


In the effort to provide electrical power service and the sustaining fuel required to run generators at forward-deployed bases in Afghanistan and Iraq over more than 10 years, the US military spent billions of dollars and a paid a heavy toll in terms of human casualties. The green energy linear program for optimizing deployments (GELPOD) proof-of-concept model showed that a linear program could be used to optimize combat deployment of energy generation systems to minimize cost and casualties. Results indicated that reduction in both cost and casualties for renewable energy sources was highly dependent on fuel cost and deployment length. Neglected in the decision making process, however, were factors that impact the operational success of the mission. When deploying combat units, commanders must not only consider potential costs and casualties, they must also contend with battlefield mobility requirements, maintenance capability (or lack thereof), weather, and anticipated hostile action that could affect operational performance. This paper leverages the simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART), pioneered by Edwards, to attempt to address this deficiency. The resulting simple multi-attribute rating technique for renewable energy deployment decisions (SMART REDD) model allows commanders to take mission attributes into consideration when making decisions on which energy source is most appropriate for the mission as well as providing information on operations costs, expected transportation requirements, and expected casualties.


Personalized recommendation aims at providing information and goods according to customers' interests and behavior. The deficits among recommendation algorithm pose challenges to system as its scale accumulates. Therefore, several techniques have been adopted to improve it. This paper will give a brief introduction of the common principles of artificial neural networks and recommendation algorithm and elaborate on the combination of the two.


Variational Bayes (VB) is a scalable alternative to Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) for Bayesian posterior inference. Though popular, VB comes with few theoretical guarantees, most of which focus on well-specified models. However, models are rarely well-specified in practice. In this work, we study VB under model misspecification. We prove the VB posterior is asymptotically normal and centers at the value that minimizes the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence to the true data-generating distribution. Moreover, the VB posterior mean centers at the same value and is also asymptotically normal. These results generalize the variational Bernstein--von Mises theorem [29] to misspecified models. As a consequence of these results, we find that the model misspecification error dominates the variational approximation error in VB posterior predictive distributions. It explains the widely observed phenomenon that VB achieves comparable predictive accuracy with MCMC even though VB uses an approximating family. As illustrations, we study VB under three forms of model misspecification, ranging from model over-/under-dispersion to latent dimensionality misspecification. We conduct two simulation studies that demonstrate the theoretical results.


Risk and environmental discourses have usually been regarded as critical, in the sense that they are the substantive focus of critical reflexive processes discussed under the rubric of the risk society, reflexive modernization and other theories of late-modern cultural politics and change. The forces of power which shape new technological trajectories have encountered some of their most effective criticism in the form of environmental risk critique and feminist critique. However, even environmental risk discourses have been fundamentally shaped by an assumption that any uncertainties which risk assessments might show will be resolvable by more science. The basic discourse of modern science and technology policy - that even if predictive control is not yet fully in our grasp, it soon will be - is not challenged by the cultural focus on risk. Indeed, the recent emphasis on rendering risk and regulatory science more accountable, inclusive and transparent, actually diverts attention from the more difficult upstream arena of rendering innovation-oriented science more democratically accountable. In key respects, prevailing risk and environmental discourses can be seen to act by default as covers, and thus legitimators, of existing privileged forces driving technological innovation trajectories.


We have studied the coupling of aggregation and crystallization in a mixture of colloidal spheres and colloidal rods. Taking advantage of specially prepared fluorescent silica spheres we are able to investigate this process at the particle level by fluorescense confocal microscopy. We find that above a limiting concentration of rods in the mixture, the spheres rapidly assemble to form compact aggregates which subsequently crystallize.


Fabrication of oxide thin film transistor (TFT) arrays by inkjet printing with small spacing was investigated, aiming at printing high resolution display backplanes. Two processes are involved during the printing and drying of oxide ink drops; the initial ink drop spreads to a large size upon landing on a substrate and then shrinks to a small size after the solvent dries out. The spreading of the ink drop determines how close two ink drops can be placed and the shrinkage of the ink drop after drying determines the final thickness of the printed dot. It was found that by hydrophobic treatment of the substrate surface with hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) and octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) assembly, the minimum spacing (center-to-center distance) of the printed oxide dot array was reduced from over 80 μm to 45 μm (HMDS treated) and 35 μm (OTS treated), while the dot diameters simultaneously decreased from 70 μm to 20 μm (HMDS treated) and 15 μm (OTS treated). However, too much shrinking caused random movement of the ink drops and an increase of oxide layer thickness, both of which are detrimental to the performance of printed TFTs. To overcome these problems, the ink viscosity was adjusted by adding polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to the ink. With the increase of ink viscosity, the random movement of the ink drops was suppressed and the smallest spacing of 50 μm was achieved for printed oxide TFT arrays. Printed IGZO-TFTs annealed at 350 °C exhibited the highest mobility of about 6.2 cm2 V−1 s−1 and on-to-off current ratio of more than 107.


Six species of Sargassum C. Agardh (Sargassaceae) with compressed primary branches, including: S. binderi Sonder, S. aquifolium (Turner)C. Agardh, S. oligocystum Montagne, S. swartzii (Turner)C. Agardh, S. crassifolium J. Agardh and S. cristaefolium C. A. Agardh, were identified in the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea coasts, among which S. binderi is reported as newly recorded species in Iran for the first time. The specimens were collected from 15 stations along the Iranian southern shores in the autumn, winter and spring from 2010 to 2012. Anatomical and morphological studies were performed according to the valid identification keys. In taxonomy studies, 47 quantitative and qualitative morphological characters were selected. In order to analyze of data, clustering analysis was performed by UPGMA and PCA analyses. The results revealed that there were more qualitative than quantitative traits in species identification.  The shape of receptacles, leaves, vesicles and stems were the most diagnostic characteristics in the species identification. The species including: S. binderi, S. crassifolium and S. cristaefolium have flattened triangular receptacles; while S. crassifolium and S. cristaefolium have duplicated leaves with fine teeth; S. swartzii has linear lanceolate leaves, pointed or crowned vesicles and S. oligocystum has broader lanceolate leaves with an acute to rounded apex, and often entire and spherical vesicles. S. oligocystum and S. crassifolium belong to the section Acanthocarpicae. Also, S. cristaefolium belongs to section Sargassum and S. binderi, S. aquifolium and S. swartzii belong to section Binderianeae.


Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS), an autosomal recessive malformation syndrome, ranges in clinical severity from mild dysmorphism and moderate mental retardation to severe congenital malformation and intrauterine lethality. Mutations in the gene for Delta7-sterol reductase (DHCR7), which catalyzes the final step in cholesterol biosynthesis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), cause SLOS. We have determined, in 84 patients with clinically and biochemically characterized SLOS (detection rate 96%), the mutational spectrum in the DHCR7 gene. Forty different SLOS mutations, some frequent, were identified. On the basis of mutation type and expression studies in the HEK293-derived cell line tsA-201, we grouped mutations into four classes: nonsense and splice-site mutations resulting in putative null alleles, missense mutations in the transmembrane domains (TM), mutations in the 4th cytoplasmic loop (4L), and mutations in the C-terminal ER domain (CT). All but one of the tested missense mutations reduced protein stability. Concentrations of the cholesterol precursor 7-dehydrocholesterol and clinical severity scores correlated with mutation classes. The mildest clinical phenotypes were associated with TM and CT mutations, and the most severe types were associated with 0 and 4L mutations. Most homozygotes for null alleles had severe SLOS; one patient had a moderate phenotype. Homozygosity for 0 mutations in DHCR7 appears compatible with life, suggesting that cholesterol may be synthesized in the absence of this enzyme or that exogenous sources of cholesterol can be used.