The Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat is arguably the most controversial dam ever built in India, with over a 100,000 displaced people. Most ousted families in Gujarat were resettled in the late 1980s and early 1990s. All oustees were tribals—a term used in India to cover a list of tribes viewed as so backward and historically oppressed that the Indian Constitution in 1950 reserved a quota of seats in education, government jobs, and Parliamentary seats for them. The Gujarat government promised to offer each male adult in the ousted families above the age of 18 five acres of land regardless of their earlier forest holdings. Additional compensation was to be given for loss of houses and livestock. Despite the continuing opposition to the dam from influential NGOs, there is no systematic empirical study of its effects on the long-term wellbeing of the ousted families. Our study investigates: Are resettled oustees from the Sardar Sarovar Dam project better off in 2017, approximately three decades after resettlement, than their former neighbours who were not ousted? We carried out a survey of a randomly selected sample of outsted families (treatment group) and a randomly selected sample of their former neighbors who lived in high areas that would remain above water when the reservoir rises to its maximum height and therefore were allowed to stay (comparison group). We found that, despite implementation glitches, those displaced were far better off than their former forest neighbours in ownership of a range of assets including TVs, cellphones, vehicles, access to schools and hospitals, and agricultural markets. The gap in asset ownership and other outcomes between the treatment and comparison groups were often statistically larger if the heads of the household were illiterate compared to the gap if they were literate. This finding suggests that resettlement helped vulnerable groups more than the less vulnerable and that fears that resettlement will destroy the lives and life-styles of tribals have been grossly exaggerated. We also found that 54% of displaced folk wished to return to their old habitat, showing that nostalgia for ancestral land can matter more than onweship of assets and economic wellbeing. Nearby undisplaced forest dwellers were asked if they would like to be "forcibly" resettled with the full compensation package. Of two forest groups, 31% and 52% said yes. Clearly many, though not all, tribesfolk yearn to leave the forest.


This paper is a data-analytic study of the relationships among international asset price volatilities and the time-varying correlations of asset returns in a small open economy (Australia) with international asset returns. Making use of recent developments in time-series approaches to volatility estimation, impulse response functions, variance decomposition, and Kalman filtering, I show that the Australian stock market volatility is most closely linked with volatility in the UK stock market, and the correlation of Australian stock returns with UK returns are high when there is increasing turbulence in financial markets. Volatility in the Australian dollar/US dollar exchange rate is most closely linked with volatility measures of the US dollar/Canadian dollar rate, and volatility in Australian long-term bond yields is most closely linked to volatility measures of long term German bond returns. The results indicate that asset markets in a small open economy can adapt in different ways during periods of high or increasing volatility. The ways in which domestic volatility measures react to foreign turbulence, and the ways in which domestic returns correlate with international returns, depend on the particular circumstances (such as transactions costs and degree of risk aversion) which prevail in each financial market.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Lower extremity pain is an important cause of impaired physical activity and the incidence of disability in the elderly. Since vitamin D plays a role in bone metabolism, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and shinbone pain and sensitivity in the elderly. METHODS: This case-control study was conducted among patients who referred to the hospital because of nonspecific pain localized to the anterior surface of shin for 6 weeks and above and aged 50 years and above. The problem was confirmed during clinical examination with the examiner's finger pressure on the Tibia. The same-age control subjects were chosen from among patients without shin pain. The level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) was measured using ELISA method and 25OHD<20 ng/m was considered deficiency. FINDINGS: In this research, 80 patients with mean age of 61±8.2 years and 59 control subjects with mean age of 62.3±9.1 years were studied. The level of 25OHD in patients was lower than control subjects (21±16 versus 37.4±21.6 ng/ml) (p=0.001), while BMI in patients was significantly higher than control subjects (p=0.001). Moreover, a significant relationship was observed between vitamin D deficiency and shin pain (OR=15.3 [8.5-40]), which was more severe among men. CONCLUSION: According to the results of the resent study, the elderly patients with local pain and unexplained shin pain need to be examined in terms of vitamin D status and need to be treated in case of deficiency.


Throughout recorded Chinese history, regions of the country populated by persons of non-Han ancestry fluctuated significantly in numbers and in terms of their political and commercial influence. Many of these communities had moved from their homelands, settled in China, intermarried with Han Chinese and subsequently formed separate minority populations. Thus the human history of China in large part reflects the impact of migration, population admixture and community endogamy. To assess the possible consequence of these three factors on the current genetic structure of PR China, DNA samples from the majority Han, the Muslim Hui, Bo'an, Dongxiang and Salar, and the more ancient Kuchong, Miao, and Yao minority populations were studied using uniparental and biparental markers. Bayesian algorithms, such as those employed in the program STRUCTURE, were utilised in processing the generated data. The results were compared to analyses utilising more traditional methods such as AMOVA and F-statistics. With both 'traditional' and Bayesian methods, the uniparental and biparental markers exhibited evidence of female gene flow, community endogamy and differing male ancestral origins in the study populations. The results indicate that single marker systems are of limited value in defining population origins and relationships on a historical scale. It is suggested that the future application and development of Bayesian analysis to the study of human genetic diversity should include modelling that accounts for multiple-system data, and non-genetic factors such as recent historical, demographic and cultural effects.


The bulk modulus of diaspore, alpha -AlOOH, has been obtained from density functional theory based calculations. The value obtained, B = 148 GPa, is consistent with that previously obtained from elastic constant measurements, but in strong disagreement with values derived from high pressure x-ray diffraction experiments. A Mulliken bond population analysis of the electronic structure implies that the Al-O bonds are significantly covalent, in contrast to findings based on an earlier x-ray diffraction study. On compression, the main change is the increase in the hydrogen-bond strength.


The practice of selecting judges by popular election, commonplace among the American states, has recently come in for a good deal of criticism, much of it well-founded. But if popular election of judges is a bad method of judicial selection, what ought to replace it? Opponents of judicial election typically treat gubernatorial appointment as self-evidently better. New York's experience with gubernatorial appointment to its highest court, the Court of Appeals, suggests that greater caution is in order. Although New York's current method of selecting Court of Appeals judges was designed to be wide open and based entirely on merit, the selection process, as it has actually evolved in practice, is neither. It has instead degenerated into a fundamentally closed competition among a very small number of sitting judges of the intermediate state appeals court, making it a process not of judicial appointment, but of judicial promotion. Worse, unlike appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which draws from essentially the same lawyer population, few appointees to the New York Court of Appeals have previously distinguished themselves in arenas other than judicial service on lower state courts. Whereas Second Circuit appointees overwhelmingly have significant prior accomplishments in legal practice and executive branch service, the judges of the New York Court of Appeals are distinguished mainly for having worked their way up through the state judiciary. Perhaps that is why the New York Judicial Nominating Commission received only seventeen applications for Chief Judge of New York in 2008, when the position last became vacant.


This dissertation offers an ethnography of motorcycle taxi drivers: Bangkok's most important and informal network of everyday mobility. Drawing on over eight years of experience in the region, six months of archival research, and 24 months of fieldwork, I analyze how the drivers, mostly male rural migrants, negotiate their presence in the city through spatial expertise, bodily practices, and social relations. Their physical mobility through traffic, I argue, shapes their ability to find unexplored routes in the social, economic, and political landscapes of the city and to create paths for action where other urban dwellers see a traffic jam or a political gridlock. My narrative builds up to the role of these drivers in the Red Shirt protests that culminated in May 2010 and analyzes how their practices as transportation and delivery providers shape their role in political uprisings and urban guerilla confrontations. My main finding is that when the everyday life of the city breaks down the drivers take advantage of their position in urban circuits of exchange to emerge as central political actors in contemporary Bangkok by blocking, slowing down, or filtering the circulation of people, goods, and information which they normally facilitate. Owners of the Map proposes an alternative view of contemporary urbanism in which the city is constructed day after day through the work of connection and mediation, its frictions and failures, the tactics adopted to resist them, as well as the political tensions that emerge from these struggles.


BACKGROUND
The burden of chronic disease is increasing, and research and quality improvement will be less effective if case finding strategies are suboptimal.

OBJECTIVE
To describe an ontology-driven approach to case finding in chronic disease and how this approach can be used to create a data dictionary and make the codes used in case finding transparent.

METHOD
A five-step process: (1) identifying a reference coding system or terminology; (2) using an ontology-driven approach to identify cases; (3) developing metadata that can be used to identify the extracted data; (4) mapping the extracted data to the reference terminology; and (5) creating the data dictionary.

RESULTS
Hypertension is presented as an exemplar. A patient with hypertension can be represented by a range of codes including diagnostic, history and administrative. Metadata can link the coding system and data extraction queries to the correct data mapping and translation tool, which then maps it to the equivalent code in the reference terminology. The code extracted, the term, its domain and subdomain, and the name of the data extraction query can then be automatically grouped and published online as a readily searchable data dictionary. An exemplar online is: www.clininf.eu/qickd-data-dictionary.html

CONCLUSION
Adopting an ontology-driven approach to case finding could improve the quality of disease registers and of research based on routine data. It would offer considerable advantages over using limited datasets to define cases. This approach should be considered by those involved in research and quality improvement projects which utilise routine data.


Biased labelers are a systemic problem in crowdsourcing, and a comprehensive toolbox for handling their responses is still being developed. A typical crowdsourcing application can be divided into three steps: data collection, data curation, and learning. At present these steps are often treated separately. We present Bayesian Bias Mitigation for Crowdsourcing (BBMC), a Bayesian model to unify all three. Most data curation methods account for the effects of labeler bias by modeling all labels as coming from a single latent truth. Our model captures the sources of bias by describing labelers as influenced by shared random effects. This approach can account for more complex bias patterns that arise in ambiguous or hard labeling tasks and allows us to merge data curation and learning into a single computation. Active learning integrates data collection with learning, but is commonly considered infeasible with Gibbs sampling inference. We propose a general approximation strategy for Markov chains to efficiently quantify the effect of a perturbation on the stationary distribution and specialize this approach to active learning. Experiments show BBMC to outperform many common heuristics.


GITTA (Geographic Information Technology Training Alliance) is an e-learning project that tries to complement the traditional way of teaching, preferably in a blended learning mode. To students it provides the possibility of extending and recapitulating knowledge taught in class. Originally a consortium of ten Swiss partner institutes created the GITTA lesson pool with every partner agreeing to contribute and utilise e-learning content. Since the original content development is now completed the recently founded GITTA Association tries to find partners outside the initial consortium to establish cooperations, which is considered as an important element of a strategy to ensure the further development and sustainability of the GITTA knowledge pool. GITTA offers a great opportunity for being integrated into GIScience curricula in manifold ways. In order to ensure its sustainability beyond the completion of the initial funding, the project is based on four strategic elements that are meant to facilitate the long-term existence of the project: First, GITTA offers one of the most comprehensive pools of GIScience e-learning content currently available (pedagogical strategy). Second, the GITTA lessons and case studies are provided as free and open content through the Creative Commons licence (open content strategy). Third, all GITTA content is based on an XML dialect named eLML (e-Learning Markup Language), providing standardised and flexible transformation into different output formats and/or presentation designs (XML technology strategy). Fourth, the GITTA Association is supposed to maintain the further development of the project, to acquire new members and continue the operation of GITTA (outreach strategy). Through these strategic elements we hope to attract many other users, as we believe that having a large community will help others in GIScience education and help us keeping our project alive and
self-supporting.


A common perception surrounding the design and implementation of social cash transfers is that those targeted to families with young children will incentivize families to have more children. To date, however, research on unconditional cash transfer programmes in Africa (including Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia) have demonstrated no impacts of cash transfer programmes on increased fertility. Examples are given of how some design features capable of minimizing the fertility incentive can be built into programmes.


This paper presents a new routing strategy, that selects the best network paths in an overlay network, in order to minimize the distortion perceived by the end user. We first propose a model that reports the video distortion as a function of the encoding rate, and the loss process parameters (the packet loss ratio, and the average burst length of errors). We then derive a method to compute an accurate estimation of the end-to-end characteristics of a given path in the network topology, as experienced by the media stream. It allows for reducing a set of streaming paths between the server and the client, to a simple virtual link with equivalent end-to-end parameters. Finally, an algorithm is proposed, that finds the best streaming paths in the overlay network, in terms of media distortion. Our algorithm therefore takes into account not only the conventional network parameters (e.g. end-to-end available bandwidth), but also other application specific metrics (e.g. video distortion measure and loss process). Interestingly, it is shown that the best route in terms of video distortion, does not necessarily use the highest bandwidth links, but carefully trades off channel reliability and bandwidth


Op Amps for Everyone, Fifth Edition, will help you design circuits that are reliable, have low power consumption, and can be implemented in as small a size as possible at the lowest possible cost. It bridges the gap between the theoretical and practical by giving pragmatic solutions using components that are available in the real world from distributors. The book does not just give a design with a transfer function; instead, it provides design tools based on transfer function, getting you to a working circuit so you can make the right decision on which op amp is best for the job at hand. With this book you will learn: single op amp designs that get the most out of every amplifier; which specifications are of most importance to your design, enabling you to narrow down the list of amplifiers to those few that are most suitable; strategies for making simple tweaks to the design?changes that are often apparent once a prototype has been constructed; how to design for hostile environments?extreme temperatures, high levels of shock, vibration, and radiation?by knowing which circuit parameters are likely to degrade and how to counteract that degradation.Features real world op amp selection guidesTeaches which op amp is best for the jobIncludes design circuits with real world component valuesContains guidelines for developing the entire signal chain, from specification for the transducer to power supply and data converterIncludes new coverage of negative regulation techniques and op amp stability, negative regulation techniques, extended electronics theory and troubleshooting


Previous research has demonstrated that Solution-Focused (SF) coaching can help individuals to attain positive outcomes. However, not much is known about the processes through which these positive outcomes are achieved. In two experiments, we subjected undergraduate students to either SF or Problem-Focused (PF) questions about their study-related problems. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized and found that SF questioning (as compared to PF questioning) leads to higher positive affect (H1a) and lower negative affect (H1b). Contrary to our expectations, SF questions did not lead to higher attentional control (H2). In Experiment 2, we aimed to replicate the hypotheses for positive and negative affect and additionally hypothesized that SF questioning leads to higher cognitive flexibility (H3a). The results supported these hypotheses. However, our hypothesis that the differential effects of SF and PF questioning on cognitive flexibility are mediated by positive affect (H3b) was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.


Tourist guides are the essential interface between a tourism destination and its visitors, and are very much responsible for the overall impression and satisfaction offered by a destination. However, despite the prominent role that tourist guides play in the system of tourism, fairly scant scientific attention has been paid to them to date. Tourist Guides create a link between the visitor and the host country. Yet, of the small amount of literature devoted to them, very few studies have asked tourist guides their views and opinions, and have built up a profile of the tourist guide. This paper is an attempt to redress the balance. Primary research for this paper was carried out with a focus on the Tourist Guides of Dublin, Ireland as this destination contains the largest number of tourist guides on the island of Ireland. Some of the study's findings are surprising. Many of the conditions of the job, characterised universally in the existing literature as negative, actually suit Dublin tourist guides. A large majority of both tourist guides and tour operators are optimistic for the future of the tourist guiding industry in the city. Is there a future/career for professional tourist guides in the industry? The answer is yes, although, at the moment, that future is seasonal and part-time.


Over the years, state-of-the-art (SoTA) image captioning methods have achieved promising results on some evaluation metrics (e.g., CIDEr). However, recent findings show that the captions generated by these methods tend to be biased toward the"average"caption that only captures the most general mode (a.k.a, language pattern) in the training corpus, i.e., the so-called mode collapse problem. Affected by it, the generated captions are limited in diversity and usually less informative than natural image descriptions made by humans. In this paper, we seek to avoid this problem by proposing a Discrete Mode Learning (DML) paradigm for image captioning. Our innovative idea is to explore the rich modes in the training caption corpus to learn a set of"mode embeddings", and further use them to control the mode of the generated captions for existing image captioning models. Specifically, the proposed DML optimizes a dual architecture that consists of an image-conditioned discrete variational autoencoder (CdVAE) branch and a mode-conditioned image captioning (MIC) branch. The CdVAE branch maps each image caption to one of the mode embeddings stored in a learned codebook, and is trained with a pure non-autoregressive generation objective to make the modes distinct and representative. The MIC branch can be simply modified from an existing image captioning model, where the mode embedding is added to the original word embeddings as the control signal. In the experiments, we apply the proposed DML to two widely used image captioning models, Transformer and AoANet. The results show that the learned mode embedding successfully facilitates these models to generate high-quality image captions with different modes, further leading to better performance for both diversity and quality on the MSCOCO dataset.


Quantitative chemical and scanning electron microscopical techniques have been employed to investigate the deoxidation kinetics and changes in oxidation product morphology in low carbon steel melts. The techniques have been used to study the deoxidation processes associated with aluminium, titanium, silicon, zirconium and a calcium-aluminium alloy.After the addition of the deoxidant, the total oxygen concentrations of all melts rapidly decreased corresponding with a decrease in the size and number of inclusions observed. This continued to a plateau level of total oxygen concentration and mean inclusion diameter.Samples removed from the melts prior to deoxidation were found to contain globular MnO-FeO inclusions. It was discovered that the morphological sequence for single element deoxidants involved a progressive evolution from liquid globular to solid spherical inclusions followed by polyhedral, dendritic and coralline morphologies. Finally, sintered agglomerates were formed when inclusion clusters collapsed. The extent to which the oxidation products went down the sequence depended on: the dissolution characteristics of the deoxidant; the thermodynamic affinity of the deoxidant for oxygen in the melt; the inclusion/melt interfacial energy characteristics; the refractoriness of the oxidation products and intermediate compounds; and the degree of turbulence experienced by the melt. Explanations have been postulated which elucidate the behaviour of the different deoxidants, as not all displayed the whole morphological sequence. Silicon deoxidation produced spherical silicates, whereas the zirconia inclusions were either spherical or dendritic and the titanium oxidation products had spherical or polyhedral morphologies. Aluminium exhibited all morphologies in the sequence. Deoxidation with the calcium-aluminium alloy was found to have preceded by a two stage process. The initial stage was dominated by the formation of aluminium rich solid oxides followed by the progressive reduction by calcium, resulting in an adhesive liquid calcium-aluminate surface coating.The role of refractory crucible as a collecting surface for the capture and removal of deoxidation products from the melt was investigated, which confirmed that the inclusions were generally incorporated into the low melting point matrix phases. Turbulence also increased the probability that emergence would take place at these capture sites.


Our fates lie in our genes and not in the stars, said James Watson, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA. But Watson could not have predicted the scale of the industry now dedicated to this new frontier. Since the launch of the multibillion-dollar Human Genome Project, the biosciences have promised miracle cures and radical new ways of understanding who we are. But where is the new world we were promised? In Genes, Cells, and Brains, feminist sociologist Hilary Rose and neuroscientist Steven Rose take on the bioscience industry and its claims. Examining the rivalries between public and private sequencers, the establishment of biobanks, and the rise of stem cell research, they ask why the promised cornucopia of health benefits has failed to emerge. Has bioethics simply become an enterprise? As bodies become increasingly commodified, perhaps the failure to deliver on these promises lies in genomics itself.


This paper surveys the level and distribution of economic impacts of GMOs in the Americas from 1996-2004. Key institutional factors influencing GMO diffusion are discussed. In 2004 the Americas accounted for 94%, of world GMO area. Diffusion has been concentrated; four countries, four crops and two traits account for the vast majority of area. The economic benefits of the diffusion of GMOs have been widely shared among farmers, industry, and consumers even though delivery has been through the private sector. GMOs have had a favourable environmental impact by facilitating reduced pesticide use and adoption of conservation tillage.


The treatment plant has been designed and installed for the treatment of wastewater discharged from various industries at Limassol Industrial Estate. The total daily flow and biological load after the last extension of the plant are 1000-1200m3/d and 220-264kg BOD5/d respectively. Chemical treatment followed by biological treatment is applied. The main steps of the treatment process are as follows: equalization, flotation, coagulation-flocculation, settlement of chemical sludge, pH-adjustment, nutrient addition, aeration of activated sludge, settlement of biological sludge, chlorination and sludge stabilization. The efficiency of the plant with respect to BOD5 and COD removal is over 90%. The quality of the treated effluent is BOD5 < 15mg/l and COD < 40mg/l. The concentration of trace elements are below the recommended limits for reclaimed water used for irrigation purposes.


BACKGROUND
Symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been described in neuropsychiatric syndromes associated with streptococcal infections. It is proposed that antibodies raised against streptococcal proteins cross-react with neuronal proteins (antigens) in the brain, particularly in the basal ganglia, which is a brain region implicated in OCD pathogenesis.

AIMS
To test the hypothesis that post-streptococcal autoimmunity, directed against neuronal antigens, may contribute to the pathogenesis of OCD in adults.

METHOD
Ninety-six participants with OCD were tested for the presence of anti-streptolysin-O titres (ASOT) and the presence of anti-basal ganglia antibodies (ABGA) in a cross-sectional study. The ABGA were tested for with western blots using three recombinant antigens; aldolase C, enolase and pyruvate kinase. The findings were compared with those in a control group of individuals with depression (n = 33) and schizophrenia (n = 17).

RESULTS
Positivity for ABGA was observed in 19/96 (19.8%) participants with OCD compared with 2/50 (4%) of controls (Fisher's exact test P = 0.012). The majority of positive OCD sera (13/19) had antibodies against the enolase antigen. No clinical variables were associated with ABGA positivity. Positivity for ASOT was not associated with ABGA positivity nor found at an increased incidence in participants with OCD compared with controls.

CONCLUSIONS
These findings support the hypothesis that central nervous system autoimmunity may have an aetiological role in some adults with OCD. Further study is required to examine whether the antibodies concerned are pathogenic and whether exposure to streptococcal infection in vulnerable individuals is a risk factor for the development of OCD.


This article examines how immigration policies over the past decade have affected immigrant rights, scrutinizes administrative and legislative efforts to improve or eliminate these measures, and makes recommendations for advancing a due process agenda in the future. The first part of this article analyzes administrative and legislative proposals under four themes: 1) checks and balances, 2) punishment does not fit the crime, 3) judicial review, and 4) detention. The second part of this article identifies efforts to redress measures emanating from the 1996 immigration laws and policies issued after September 11, 2001. For example, it analyzes legislation introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate to restore discretion, efforts to engage the Department of Homeland Security on the complaint process and treatment of immigration detainees, and Supreme Court decisions raising issues on the interpretation of "aggravated felony." Part three of this article summarizes the legislative debate around "comprehensive immigration reform" and attempts made by select Senators in 2006 to add basic safeguards in the legislation, such as expanded protections for asylum seekers; discretionary waivers for immigrants who can show strong equities and facts in their cases; and restrictions on retroactively applying new immigration penalties. Part four of this article describes why some efforts to restore basic protections for immigrants have been challenging for advocates and Members of Congress, and makes recommendations for moving a due process agenda forward.


The main aim of this study was to compare EASY-Care data obtained during nurse-administered annual health checks in two populations of older people. A secondary aim was to determine whether a standardized assessment system administered as part of routine practice by a trained nurse during the over-75 health check could generate useful information for comparing population health and functional status of community-dwelling-older people. One hundred and seventy-nine elderly people (aged 75 years and over) from the Woodstock ward, Belfast, having relatively high deprivation; and 238 elderly people from south Hampshire, ranging from affluent wards in New Forest to inner city wards, were assessed using the EASY-Care assessment system as part of their annual health check. There was a high response rate to the standardized assessment in both populations (75% and 79%). Compared to people in south Hampshire, the people in Belfast had higher relative risk of having fair/poor self-rated health, and lower relative risk of having good/sufficient accommodation and of having difficulty chewing. People in Belfast had a higher relative risk of being dependent for six of the seven IADL items and for continence of urine, bathing, grooming, use of the stairs and dressing among the ADL items. The results demonstrate the ability of data generated by assessment system to discriminate between populations of older people when used as part of routine practice. Differences in health and functional status may be associated with deprivation. Data collected during the annual health check about the health and functional status of older people could provide a useful adjunct to census and survey data to measure population needs and to support locality planning.


The use of market-based approaches to provide and protect ecosystem services in has gained significant attention in Australia. Unfortunately the novelty of market-based approaches has seen them proposed for all manner of environmental problems for which they may or may not be appropriate. In this paper we detail three emerging MBIs in Australia, representing a typology of market-based approaches, and the factors we consider critical to their success. In particular, we focus on the analysis that underpins effective market-based instrument design and implementation. Marketbased approaches to ecosystem service provision are not about a market for every service, or the case of right market, right time, right place, but rather the careful selection and design of an appropriate instrument given the ecosystem service outcomes desired, while meeting the needs of participants.


This paper has sought to evaluate the economical efficiency in the use of productive resources in the coffee production in the south region of the state of Minas Gerais. Economical efficiency was estimated through a production frontier function using a sample of 43 coffee producers. The average economical efficiency index reached by the coffee producers in the south of Minas Gerais was 80,14%. Such index indicates that a tendency to gains in productions can be obtained through a better allocation of the production factors, which may lead them to operate on the production frontier line.


Given a response $Y$ and a vector $X = (X^1, \dots, X^d)$ of $d$ predictors, we investigate the problem of inferring direct causes of $Y$ among the vector $X$. Models for $Y$ that use all of its causal covariates as predictors enjoy the property of being invariant across different environments or interventional settings. Given data from such environments, this property has been exploited for causal discovery. Here, we extend this inference principle to situations in which some (discrete-valued) direct causes of $ Y $ are unobserved. Such cases naturally give rise to switching regression models. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence, consistency and asymptotic normality of the MLE in linear switching regression models with Gaussian noise, and construct a test for the equality of such models. These results allow us to prove that the proposed causal discovery method obtains asymptotic false discovery control under mild conditions. We provide an algorithm, make available code, and test our method on simulated data. It is robust against model violations and outperforms state-of-the-art approaches. We further apply our method to a real data set, where we show that it does not only output causal predictors, but also a process-based clustering of data points, which could be of additional interest to practitioners.


This article discovers the collection diversity of electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) repositories based on key parameters such as regional distribution, subject classification, language diversity, etc. and identifies the critical management issues of the ETD repositories related to collection management, software management, content management and metadata policies. The ETD repositories were identified in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). The required data were manually collected from the OpenDOAR and websites of repositories to achieve the prescribed objectives of the study. The data were later tabulated, analysed and interpreted using simple arithmetic techniques. The study was limited to the ETD repositories available in the OpenDOAR, and findings cannot be generalized across repositories and directories. It provides insights about ETD repositories worldwide, highlights their critical management issues and suggests mechanisms for their sustainable growth and development. This article is purely based on research and its findings are valid for scholars, faculty members, institutions – as well as administrators and managers of the ETD repositories.


In Northern Ireland's Long Kesh prison in the late 1980s and 1990s, prisoners from each of the loyalist and republican groups painted highly politicized murals on the walls in their respective wings. This article seeks to examine these murals as both a symbol and a means whereby the politically motivated prisoners sought to appropriate the space of the prison for their own purposes. Their resistance, expressed in this and other ways, was not merely to the pains of imprisonment, the stripping of individuality and identity which was at the heart of the prison system. Rather imprisonment was seized as an opportunity to advance political understanding and build revolutionary structures whereby the prison was seen as one more front in their respective wars – that of republicans against the British state, and that of loyalists against republican insurgence. Each in their own way, republican and loyalist prisoners created virtual "liberated zones" within the prison and in doing so prepared for political power and conflict transformation on the other side of imprisonment.


A wave flume is primarily intended to reproduce actual sea conditions in order to provide a reliable means of testing for small scale models. The realization of scaled tests is extremely important for the validation of a project in real scale, since, through the laws of similitude, such tests make it possible to predict the behavior of structures in the ocean as well as their performance during operation. This research aims to develop, test and validate an active control algorithm for wave absorption in a 2D wave channel — that is, when the waves propagate in only one direction — based on artificial neural networks (ANN). The ANN control algorithm relies on the linear wave theory and the principle of time reversal of wave propagation, i.e. the phenomenon of wave absorption corresponds to the wave generation when observed in the reverse direction of time. Through this principle, data from wave generation experiments, after proper manipulation, are used to train an ANN capable of generating the control signal used to move the wave generator device, this time as a wave absorber.


Complementary DNAs (cDNAs) of protein phosphatase 2C (PP2C) were cloned from two marine scuticociliates Uronema marinum and Miamiensis avidus. Both PP2C proteins showed structural characteristics of typical PP2C, such as highly conserved amino acid residues predicted for binding to phosphate and metal ions, 11 conserved PP2C motifs and 10 invariant residues. The phosphatase activity of recombinantly produced U. marinum PP2C (UmPP2C) was in proportion to the PP2C protein and Mg(superscript 2+) concentrations, and was not sensitive to okadaic acid, but was inhibited by sodium fluoride, EDTA or Ca(superscript 2+). The expression of UmPP2C was significantly up-regulated by exposure the ciliates with PMA suggesting that UmPP2C dephosphrylates proteins phosphorylated by protein kinases as in other eukaryotes and has a regulatory function against abrupt increase of protein phosphorylation triggered by strong stimulations.


In this paper, two different commercial multibody dynamic (MBD) simulation software cases are studied. Due to the restrictions determined in the conditions of contract, the names of the software are not revealed, instead being called Software S and Software E. The central purpose of this research was to investigate the abilities of Software S in the simulation of a large engine, as a part of the strength analysis process. The abilities were studied by comparing the program with another, here called Software E, which is designed primarily for engine simulations. The capabilities of Software E have been proven after years of usage at Wärtsilä, resulting in its essential role in the strength analysis process today. The aim was to find the shortcomings and restrictions of Software S but also advantages it could bring to the strength analysis process for Wärtsilä. Similar simulation models were also built using both programs during this research. A 16-cylinder V-engine was selected as the subject because of its size in order to obtain further information about the behavior of the program when working with extensive model files. The components of the engine were flexible and were reduced FE models, also called super elements. The forces and contact situations that occur inside the engine were modeled using elements provided by the MBD programs. Different levels of detail of the modeling elements were used to obtain information about the flexibility of the program. The results obtained from time integrations were compared to ensure the similarity of both modeling elements used. Also, this paper reports the calculation times. In addition, a small-scale study was performed for Software S to clarify the effect of the modes used in time integrations towards results accuracy and calculation times. Simulation models were built successfully in both programs, and the results obtained correlated with each other on an adequate level. Significant differences appeared in the features and usability of the programs in general. The GUI of Software S is advanced and user-friendly, whereas Software E is not focused on these features. On the other hand, the modeling element library of Software E covers all of the required features related to large engine simulations, some of which Software S is lacking. This work can be used in assistance when considering buying new software for a company as well as when investigating new development areas that could be improved with new software.


Congenital amusia is an inborn neurogenetic disorder of musical pitch processing, which also induces impairment in lexical tone perception. However, it has not been examined before how the brain specialization of lexical tone perception is affected in amusics. The current study adopted the dichotic listening paradigm to examine this issue, testing 18 Cantonese-speaking amusics and 18 matched controls on pitch/lexical tone identification and discrimination in three conditions: non-speech tone, low syllable variation, and high syllable variation. For typical listeners, the discrimination accuracy was higher with shorter RT in the left ear regardless of the stimulus types, suggesting a left-ear advantage in discrimination. When the demand of phonological processing increased, as in the identification task, shorter RT was still obtained in the left ear, however, the identification accuracy revealed a bilateral pattern. Taken together, the results of the identification task revealed a reduced LEA or a shift from the right hemisphere to bilateral processing in identification. Amusics exhibited overall poorer performance in both identification and discrimination tasks, indicating that pitch/lexical tone processing in dichotic listening settings was impaired, but there was no evidence that amusics showed different ear preference from controls. These findings provided temporary evidence that although amusics demonstrate deficient neural mechanisms of pitch/lexical tone processing, their ear preference patterns might not be affected. These results broadened the understanding of the nature of pitch and lexical tone processing deficiencies in amusia.


The Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) program is a multi-institutional collaborative effort to advance scientific understanding of environmental interactions from bedrock to the atmospheric boundary layer across scales and disciplines. To create a comprehensive hydrogeochemical portrait of experimental sites the observatories collect large volumes of data. Publishing, analyzing and archiving these data in a consistent and integrated manner across all CZO sites is challenging due to the inherent heterogeneity in data collection and processing techniques. We present the initial design and a prototype of the CZO data sharing infrastructure. While each CZO site maintains its own data management system, the integrated infrastructure design specifies formats and protocols for presenting the information on CZO web sites, where it can be browsed by users as well as automatically harvested into a centralized data system. The latter validates, archives and converts the data into standards-compliant data services, which can be consumed by various client applications. Keywords—environmental observatory; CZO; cyberinfrastructure; hydrology; information integration


Centrifugal pumps conveying gas-liquid flows are often designed based on pure liquid flows due to limited understanding of gas formations within a gas-liquid flow. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can provide insights into the flow characteristics, yet standard multiphase models are not able to describe a wide range of spatial scales. In this study, a hybrid multiphase approach for turbulent flows based on an Eulerian-Eulerian solver with Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) enhancements is applied, which can handle multiple flow regimes (continuous gas/liquid, disperse bubbles) at once. Large eddy simulations (LES) of gas-liquid-flows through a diverging horizontal channel (diffuser) are performed to evaluate the possibilities and limitations of this approach. Three representative cases, each containing different flow characteristics, are computed using a fixed bubble size approach. The results show that the hybrid approach is able to capture all flow characteristics and predict the gas void size and position precisely. However, it can be observed that the performance of the approach significantly depends on the specified bubble size.


Reliable and fine resolution estimates of surface net-radiation are required for estimating latent and sensible heat fluxes between the land surface and the atmosphere. However, currently, fine resolution estimates of net-radiation are not available and consequently it is challenging to develop multi-year estimates of evapotranspiration at scales that can capture land surface heterogeneity and are relevant for policy and decision-making. We developed and evaluated a global net-radiation product at 5 km and 8-day resolution by combining mutually consistent atmosphere and land data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board Terra. Comparison with net-radiation measurements from 154 globally distributed sites (414 site-years) from the FLUXNET and Surface Radiation budget network (SURFRAD) showed that the net-radiation product agreed well with measurements across seasons and climate types in the extratropics (Wilmott's index ranged from 0.74 for boreal to 0.63 for Mediterranean sites). Mean absolute deviation between the MODIS and measured net-radiation ranged from 38.0 ± 1.8 W·m−2 in boreal to 72.0 ± 4.1 W·m−2 in the tropical climates. The mean bias was small and constituted only 11%, 0.7%, 8.4%, 4.2%, 13.3%, and 5.4% of the mean absolute error in daytime net-radiation in boreal, Mediterranean, temperate-continental, Remote Sens. 2016, 8, 739; doi:10.3390/rs8090739 www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing Remote Sens. 2016, 8, 739 2 of 20 temperate, semi-arid, and tropical climate, respectively. To assess the accuracy of the broader spatiotemporal patterns, we upscaled error-quantified MODIS net-radiation and compared it with the net-radiation estimates from the coarse spatial (1◦ × 1◦) but high temporal resolution gridded net-radiation product from the Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES). Our estimates agreed closely with the net-radiation estimates from the CERES. Difference between the two was less than 10 W·m−2 in 94% of the total land area. MODIS net-radiation product will be a valuable resource for the science community studying turbulent fluxes and energy budget at the Earth's surface.


How frequently do you drink? (daily, few times per week, few times per month, occasionally etc) How many standard drinks to you have on each occasion (average)? Have you found it hard to stop drinking once you have started? How often have you failed to do something you were meant to do because of drinking? Have you in the last year needed a drink in the morning to get yourself started after a heavy drinking session? How often are you unable to remember events from the night before because of drinking? Has anyone been concerned about your drinking and suggested you cut it down? Would you find it difficult to cut down? Do you become violent/aggressive?


Abstract In mechanical design, small blending is a common operation used to improve the strength and aesthetics of the workpiece. In blending operations, certain smooth faces are added to the boundary representation (B-rep) model to smooth sharp edges and vertices. These faces are termed 'blend faces.' However, they may affect the quality of analysis; these faces should be meshed with tiny meshes, which may result in an increase in computational time and reduced accuracy of simulation results. Hence, small blend suppression is an approach for improving the quality of generated meshes. Blend suppression is a technique for reverting a blended computer-aided design model to its original unblended status. This study proposes a blend suppression algorithm for removing blend faces in computer-aided engineering (CAE) analysis. The proposed algorithm operates as follows: (1) edge blend faces and vertex blend faces are grouped individually, (2) new geometric data are computed, (3) new elements are added to the data structure of the B-rep model, (4) all data related to blend faces are deleted, and (5) all topological data in the B-rep model are updated. Several examples are presented in this paper to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method for blend suppression as well as its advantage in improving the quality of meshes in CAE analysis.


Following Maitland's famous observation on the place of the forms of action in English law at the beginning of the twentieth century, this essay argues that the Code Napoleon has had a similar effect on Latin American law. It examines various factors that have served to bury the Code and those that have served to continue its rule in Latin America. For Latin America, the author paraphrases Maitland to assert that the Code Napoleon we have buried, but it still rules us from its grave.


The effectiveness of different treatment methods to improve the nutritional value of the sugarcane byproducts (pith or bagasse) has been evaluated. The treatment methods included a high-pressure steam treatment (HPST; 19 bar, 3 min), treating the products with sodium hydroxide, sulphuric acid plus an enzyme mixture, or low-temperature steam treatment (LTST) under different conditions. Gas production (GP), two-step in vitro digestibility (IVD) and in situ degradability (ISD) techniques were used to monitor the effectiveness of the treatments. HPST resulted in a significant increased in the total soluble sugar (TSS) content of unsteamed pith (USP), 20 vs. 123.75 mg/100 mL. Except for the enzyme treatment, the other treatments led to a significant improvement in the nutritional value of sugarcane by-products, as measured by the IVD method. LTST resulted in an increase in potential GP (B) at higher temperature, reaction time and amount of acid. The highest potential GP (110.92 mL/300 mg DM) was achieved under the conditions, 134 °C, 18 g acid/kg DM, 120 min, and the lowest (72.4 mL/300 mg DM) under the conditions, 121 °C, no acid, 40 min. In situ dry matter degradability (ISDMD) was unaffected by LTST. Dry matter digestibility results indicated that the optimal treatments for treating pith were HPST and NaOH, but that enzymes were ineffective. Furthermore, considering treatment cost (creating high-pressure are more expensive than low temperature treatments), potential environmental health problems and the relative improvement in the nutritional value of pith achieved by the LTST + acid method, compared to the HPST method (as measured using GP), these results suggested that the methods based on the use of LTST and acid (especially under harsher conditions), have the best potential to improve the nutritive value of sugarcane by-products.


Become a Linux Ninja with Command Line Kung Fu! Do you think you have to lock yourself in a basement reading cryptic man pages for months on end in order to have ninja like command line skills? In reality, if you had someone share their most powerful command line tips, tricks, and patterns you'd save yourself a lot of time and frustration. What if you could look over the shoulder of a good friend that just happened to be a command line guru? What if they not only showed you the commands they were using, but why they were using them and exactly how they worked? And what if that friend took the time to write all of it down so you can refer to it whenever you liked? Well, a friend did just that. Command Line Kung Fu is packed with dozens of tips and over 100 practical real-world examples. You won't find theoretical examples in this book. The examples demonstrate how to solve actual problems and accomplish worthwhile goals. The tactics are easy to find, too. Each chapter covers a specific topic and groups related tips and examples together. For example, if you need help extracting text from a file look in the "Text Processing and Manipulation" chapter. Also, a comprehensive index is included. If you want to find every example where a given command is used -- even if it's not the main subject of the tip -- look in the index. It will list every single place in the book where that command appears. Here is just some of what you will learn by reading Command Line Kung Fu: How to quickly and easily repeat commands in your shell history Shortcuts for grabbing specific words from your shell history to use in your current command How to save a copy of your command line session for later reference How to strip out blank lines and comments from files How to control colorized text when uses pipes and pagers Ways to transform text: from changing case to substituting characters and more How to extract specific blocks of text from files or streams of input A quick tip to fix common typos How to edit files over the network How to compare the differences between files on your local computer and a remote one How to create and use SSH tunnels Ways to verify what programs are listening on what ports How to kill all the processes for a given user with a single command Strategies for dealing with multi-hop SSH connections How to disconnect from a server in a way that will allow you to pick up where you left off How to automate software installs that require user input Shell scripting tips How to automatically keep repeating a command until it succeeds The right way to delete a file that is being written to How to surf the web from the command line... and more importantly how to download anything from the web and interact with HTTP APIs Ways to determine who and what is using the most disk space How to secure your web browser session when using an open wifi hotspot How to generate random passwords from the command line Two tips for easily creating backups Tips for handling tar archives How to replace a string in multiple files at once with just one command and much more... What you learn in Command Line Kung Fu applies to any Linux distribution including Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, RedHat, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Slackware, and more. Scroll up, click the "Buy Now With 1-Click" button to get your black belt in Linux Command Line Kung Fu.


To address the Multi-Objective Test Case Prioritization (MOTCP) problem, an Epistatic Particle Swarm Optimization (EPSO) algorithm is presented. The epistasis in biology is introduced into the new algorithm, and the particles are updated based on the crossover of Epistatic Test Case Segment (ETS) in the test case sequence. The average coverage percentage of program entity and effective execution time of the test case sequence are set as two objective fitness functions in EPSO. The experiment selects four typical open12 source projects as benchmark programs. We adopted Average Percentage of Branch Coverage (APBC) and Effective Execution Time (EET) as objective fitness. The four classical Java testing projects results show that the EPSO is more effective and more diverse than single-point PSO and order PSO. The EPSO algorithm efficiently solves the MOTCP problem by promoting early detection of software defects and reducing software testing costs in regression testing.


Spillovers can significantly reduce or enhance the net effects of land-use policies, yet there exists little rigorous evidence concerning their magnitudes. We examine how Costa Rica's national parks affect deforestation in nearby areas. We find that average deforestation spillovers are not significant in 0–5 km and 5–10 km rings around the parks. However, this average blends multiple effects that are significant and that vary in magnitude across the landscape, yielding varied net impacts. We distinguish the locations with different net spillovers by their distances to roads and park entrances—both of which are of economic importance, given critical local roles for transport costs and tourism. We find large and statistically significant leakage close to roads but far from park entrances, which are areas with high agricultural returns and less influenced by tourism. We do not find leakage far from roads (lower agriculture returns) or close to park entrances (higher tourism returns). Finally, parks facing greater threats of deforestation show greater leakage.


Menstruation is a significant milestone in a woman's life, signifying the onset of puberty and the journey into womanhood. Yet research suggests that the construction of menstruation has many women feeling uncertain and negative about menstruation, and what it means for them. Within the research literature I found four dominant discourses that construct our understandings of menstruation; menstruation as a hygiene crisis that needs rigid management, menstruation as a shameful secret that must be concealed, menstruation as biological and medical where the purpose of menstruation is restricted to pregnancy or illness, and menstruation as constitutive of womanhood in terms of motherhood, and femininity.

My review of the research literature led me to design a project to examine the ways menstruation is currently constructed within puberty education, with a particular interest in the various discourses presented to young women. I look at how the girls take up and/or resist these discourses as well as look at the subjectivities made available from them. Finally I examine the ways a wider variety of discourses can be made available and in turn a greater range of subjectivities.
As a feminist poststructuralist, I am looking specifically at issues of gender and sexuality, and how meaning and knowledge is constructed through language and discourse. With this as my theoretical framework, I observed three lessons, each teacher's specific lesson on menstruation, and a concluding joint girl-only lesson, within a puberty unit of a New Zealand intermediate school, conducted individual interviews with the two teachers and focus group the interviews provide the data of this research.

Using a discourse analysis approach to examine my data I was able to show the four dominant discourses were still present in the teaching of menstruation at the study school. I also found three discourses that, although not new, appear to be under examined within the construction of menstruation. These discourses of dread, consumerism and celebration may contribute to the dominant constructions of menstruation and/or offer ways to challenge and subvert these constructions. By making visible these discourses and the ways they construct menstruation, I am not looking to locate the 'correct' way to teach or understand menstruation. However, I argue that by supporting young women and their teachers to critically analyse the various discourses that shape our understandings of menstruation, we may create opportunities to challenge and resist the dominant constructions as well as open up a wider range of subjectivities.


Introduction: Iron is one of the essential trace elements required for hemoglobin synthesis and also for many metabolic processes. Inadequate iron intake can lead to varying degrees of deficiency, from low iron stores to early iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia and this is dangerous to both fetus and mother. Aim: This study was carried out to assess the levels of soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), sTfR/serum ferritin (sTfR/SF) ratio, and other iron-related parameters of pregnant women in Cross River State, Nigeria, with the aim to establish reference ranges of these parameters for the population under reference. Materials and Methods: One hundred and seventy apparently healthy pregnant women within the age range of 15 and 45 years attending the antenatal clinics of health-care facilities in Cross River State, Nigeria, were enrolled in this study. The controls consisted of 100 age-matched apparently healthy nonpregnant women from the same environment. Red cell indices were determined using automated blood cell counter. Serum iron and total iron binding capacity (TIBC) were determined using colorimetric method. SF and sTfR were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay technique. Results: The mean ± standard deviation of the parameters in pregnant woman and in nonpregnant women were serum iron (82.19 ± 3.44), SF (32.15 ± 3.11), transferrin saturation with iron (22.43 ± 11.62), hemoglobin concentration (11.00 ± 0.11), and hematocrit (0.33 ± 0.30). Decreased significantly during pregnancy while TIBC (422.43 ± 19.60), sTfR (3.38 ± 0.41), and sTfR/SF ratio (176.98 ± 396.87) increased significantly in the pregnant women than in nonpregnant women (P < 0.05). The values of serum iron, SF, TIBC, and transferrin saturation were found to show significant variations in the various trimesters of pregnancy. The values of sTfR and sTfR/SF ratio increased significantly (P = 0.01 and P = 001) as trimester increases in our patients. Conclusion: This study reports, for the first time, values for sTfR and sTfR/SF ratio in apparently healthy pregnant women in Cross River State, South-South Nigeria. The study also gives an indication that the use of sTfR and sTfR/SF as a marker in assessing iron status of pregnant women needs to be explored.


Oxide-based transparent conductors constitute a novel class of materials, which finds applications in many technological fields such as photovoltaics and organic light emitting devices. They can be employed in the new generation solar cells as transparent charge collectors. The transparent and conductive oxide mostly used nowadays is indium tin oxide (ITO), however due to the high cost and scarcity of indium, other materials are under research and development as potential substitutes. Many candidates are currently under study, mainly doped-ZnO, doped-CdO, doped-SnO2, doped-TiO2.
The work undertaken in this thesis is a study of the doping processes of thin films of TiO2 and ZnO, two cheap, chemically stable and non-toxic materials. Two main objectives were pursued in this work: (i) the optimization of the film deposition and doping conditions for a potential replacement of ITO and (ii) the understanding of the factors dominating the doping process as well as its limitations. The approach was to explore three doping methods of the films: intrinsic doping, extrinsic doping and, with the aim to combine the benefits of both, intrinsic-extrinsic co-doping. Since the structural defects (such as oxygen vacancies) are at the basis of the intrinsic doping, a control of their formation was searched through the variation of the growth process conditions of the ZnO and TiO2 films. Niobium was selected for the extrinsic doping of the TiO2 films.
The films were grown by RF plasma sputtering in different atmospheres (Argon, Ar-O2 and Ar-H2 gas mixtures) and under different plasma power conditions and substrate temperature, onto silicon and quartz substrate. The Nb-containing films were obtained by co-sputtering of either a single composite TiO2 -Nb target or two distinct niobium and TiO2 targets.
Many characterization techniques were applied to define the film structural, electronic, electrical and optical properties obtained upon doping. For chemical analysis, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) was used. The structure and morphology of the films were analyzed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The chemical species present in various plasmas used in deposition process were investigated by Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES). Further, the defect structure and properties of the obtained films were studied by Positron Annihilation Spectroscopy. Analysis by this technique shed more light on the nature of the vacancies/open volume and on the effect of the latter on the electrical and structural properties of the films. A study based on a joint use of XPS and optical measurements allowed to define the electronic properties of the films (valence band edge, Fermi level position, work function, ionization potential and electron affinity).
Structural analysis results revealed the formation of both anatase and rutile nanocrystalline phases for intrinsic and extrinsic doping of TiO2, while with the co-doping method only anatase phase was obtained, a phase known to be favorable for Nb incorporation in TiO2 lattice.
The intrinsic doping of TiO2 films showed high transparency in the visible range, but resulted in still high resistivity values (101-103 xcm). The latter could be lowered by using Ar-H2 gas mixtures during film deposition. The same trend was observed in the case of intrinsically-doped ZnO films, an increase in the electrical conductivity was observed when the concentration of defects was increased.
The lowest resistivity was achieved with niobium doping of TiO2, 5x10-3 xcm, with an optical absorption coefficient in the visible range of ~1x104 cm-1, however the combination of the internal defects and Nb, in co-doping, did not improve the conductivity. Nonetheless, it was found that co-doping method strongly modified the electronic properties of the TiO2 films, allowing a control of the work function, an important parameter for transparent electrodes.
Low cost transparent conductive oxides were obtained when niobium was successfully incorporated in TiO2 lattice. By optimization of the deposition process of the films (dopant concentration, RF power, atmosphere, and annealing temperature) the electronic, electrical and optical properties of doped- TiO2 films can be improved. The obtained results can contribute to the development of transparent electrodes and charge collectors by RF sputtering, a suitable technique for coating on large area substrates.


Shifting the resource base for chemical and energy production from fossil feedstocks to renewable raw materials is seen by many as one of the key strategies towards sustainable development. The utilization of biomass for the production of fuels and materials has been proposed as an alternative to the petroleum-based industry. Current research and policy initiatives focus mainly on the utilization of lignocellulose biomass, originating from agriculture and forestry, as second generation feedstocks for the production of biofuels and electricity. These activities act on the assumption that significant amounts of biomass for non-food purposes are available. However, given a certain productivity per area, the current massive growth in global biofuels demand may in the long term only be met through an expansion of global arable land at the expense of natural ecosystems and in direct competition with the food-sector. Although many studies have shown the potential of biofuels production to reduce both, greenhouse gas emissions and non-renewable energy consumption, these production routes are still linear processes which depend on significant amounts of agricultural or forestry production area. Cascading use, i.e. when biomass is used for material products first and the energy content is recovered at end-of-life, may provide a greater environmental benefit than primary use as fuel. Considering waste and production residues as alternative feedstocks could help to further reduce pressures on global arable land. This research focused on thermochemical and biochemical technologies capable of utilizing organic waste or forestry residuals for energy, chemical feedstock, and synthetic materials (polymers) generation. Routes towards synthetic materials allow a closer cycle of materials and can help to reduce dependence on either fossil or biobased raw materials. The system-wide environmental burdens of three different technologies, including (1) municipal solid waste (MSW) gasification followed by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS), (2) plasma gasification of construction and demolition (C&D) wood for syngas production with energy recovery, and (3) forest residuals use in a biorefinery for polyitaconic acid (PIA) production, were assessed using life-cycle assessment. The first two studies indicated that MSW gasification and subsequent ethylene and polyethylene production via FTS has lower environmental impacts than conventional landfilling. In the future, as societies may shift towards the use of renewable energy, power offset by conventional waste-to-energy systems would not be as significant and chemicals production routes may then become increasingly competitive (in terms of environmental burdens) also to waste incineration. While production cost of Fischer-Tropsch derived chemicals seems not yet competitive to fossil-based chemicals provision, future price increases in global oil prices as well as changes in waste tipping fees, and efficiency gains on site of the waste conversion systems, may alter the economics and allow carbon recycling routes to reach a price competitive to fossil-based production routes. The third study found that plasma gasification of C&D wood for energy recovery has roughly similar environmental impacts than conventional fossil-based power systems. However, process optimization with respect to coal co-gasified, coke used as gasifier bed material, and fuel oil co-combusted in the steam boiler, would allow to significantly lower the system-wide environmental burdens. The fourth study looked at PIA production from softwood hemicellulose in a stream integrated approach (with the partially macerated wood and lignin being used in other existing processes such as pulp & paper plants for conventional pulp and bioenergy production). The assessment indicated lower global warming potential, energy demand, and acidification, for the wood-based PIA polymer, when compared to corn-based PIA and fossil-based polyacrylic acid (PAA). However, water use associated with wood-derived PIA was found to be higher than for fossil-based PAA production and land occupation is highest for the wood-derived polymer. It is hoped that results of this dissertation will add to the current debate on sustainable waste and biomass utilization and to establish future supply chains for green and sustainable chemical products.


Abstract Objective To examine associations of education and occupation, as indicators of socio-economic position (SEP), with dietary intake and diet quality in a sample of Chinese immigrant women. Design Cross-sectional. Data collection included four days of dietary recalls and information on education and current occupation for participants and their spouses. Setting Philadelphia, PA, USA. Subjects Chinese immigrant women (n 423) recruited from October 2005 to April 2008. Results In multivariate models, both higher education level and occupation category were significantly associated with higher energy density and intake of energy and sugar. Education was additionally associated with intake of sugar-sweetened beverages (P = 0·01) and lower dietary moderation (P = 0·01). With joint categorization based on both education and occupation, we observed significant trends indicating higher energy density (P = 0·004) and higher intake of energy (P = 0·001) and sugar (P = 0·04), but less dietary moderation (P = 0·02) with higher SEP. Conclusions In this sample of US Chinese immigrants, higher SEP as indicated by education level and occupation category was associated with differences in dietary intake and with less dietary moderation. While higher SEP is typically linked to healthier diet in higher-income nations, in these immigrants the association of SEP with diet follows the pattern of their country of origin – a lower-income country undergoing the nutrition transition.


[1] The triple oxygen isotopic composition of dissolved oxygen (17Δ) is a promising tracer of gross oxygen productivity (P) in the ocean. Recent studies have inferred a high and variable ratio of P to 14C net primary productivity (12–24 h incubations) (e.g., P:NPP(14C) of 5–10) using the 17Δ tracer method, which implies a very low efficiency of phytoplankton growth rates relative to gross photosynthetic rates. We added oxygen isotopes to a one-dimensional mixed layer model to assess the role of physical dynamics in potentially biasing estimates ofP using the 17Δ tracer method at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT). Model results were compared to multiyear observations at each site. Entrainment of high17Δ thermocline water into the mixed layer was the largest source of error in estimating P from mixed layer 17Δ. At both BATS and HOT, entrainment bias was significant throughout the year and resulted in an annually averaged overestimate of mixed layer P of 60 to 80%. When the entrainment bias is corrected for, P calculated from observed 17Δ and 14C productivity incubations results in a gross:net productivity ratio of 2.6 (+0.9 −0.8) at BATS. At HOT a gross:net ratio decreasing linearly from 3.0 (+1.0 −0.8) at the surface to 1.4 (+0.6 −0.6) at depth best reproduced observations. In the seasonal thermocline at BATS, however, a significantly higher gross:net ratio or large lateral fluxes of 17Δ must be invoked to explain 17Δ field observations.


For establishing a communicative atmosphere, each person's "Ba" should be integrated, so that "Maai" (spatial distance) can be created. In this research, the Kendo (Japanese fencing) match system using a Kendo robot (a video character) was employed to investigate the method for integrating each person's "Ba" in a telecommunication which utilizes a robot as an agent of self. Specifically, a dual expression of embodiment method was investigated to support the generation of "Ba" between remote places. The method is intended to position yourself in your own "Ba" and to establish a proper relationship between a remote partner and yourself therein. As an experimental result, it was proved that a non-separable relationship between yourself and your own avatar (Kendo robot) can be created by expressing a rhythmic robot-control signal ahead of the movement of the robot. Furthermore, it was found that a transmission of the rhythmic robot-control signal (an interval between zero-cross points) and representations of phase relationship (coherency) between each rhythmic robot control signal can support to generate "Maai" with a remote partner. It was found also that the 1/f fluctuation can be related to "Maai" generation. These findings provide us a design guideline for the telecommunication system using a robot as communication media.


Esports is becoming increasingly professionalized, yet research on performance management is remarkably lacking. The present study aimed to investigate the sleep and mood of professional esports athletes. Participants were 17 professional esports athletes from South Korea (N = 8), Australia (N = 4), and the United States (N = 5) who played first person shooter games (mean age 20 ± 3.5 years, 100% male). All participants wore a wrist-activity monitor for 7–14 days and completed subjective sleep and mood questionnaires. Participants had a median total sleep time of 6.8 h and a sleep efficiency of 86.4% per night. All participants had significantly delayed sleep patterns (median sleep onset 3:43 a.m. and wake time 11:24 a.m.). Participants had a median sleep onset latency of 20.4 min and prolonged wake after sleep onset of 47.9 min. Korean players had significantly higher depression scores compared to the other groups (p < 0.01) and trained longer per day than the Australian or United States teams (13.4 vs. 4.8 vs. 6.1 h, respectively). Depression scores were strongly correlated with number of awakenings, wake after sleep onset, and daily training time (p < 0.05). As the first pilot sleep study in the esports field, this study indicates that esports athletes show delayed sleep patterns and have prolonged wake after sleep onset. These sleep patterns may be associated with mood (depression) and training time. Sleep interventions designed specifically for esports athletes appear warranted.


We demonstrate optical-beam phase conjugation by the process of two-beam coupling in photorefractive barium titanate. The incident, image-bearing beam causes exponential gain for counterpropagating waves, which are fed by noise and emerge with a power of the order of 10% of the incident beam and phase conjugate to it. This is expected from the calculated plane-wave gain plus the analogy to the theory of phase conjugation of complex wave fronts by stimulated Brillouin backscattering. We conjugate beams at either 515 or 488 nm at between 10- and 50-mW power, and find, as expected, no frequency shift (<1 Hz) in the process.


The Recreation Forests of Malaysia are mostly frequented by the middle
income residents. It was shown that there are numerous visitors to these sites
especially during the weekends. The study looks at the effects of recreational
settings, which are the natural resources conditions and the crowding conditions on
visits' satisfaction. The excessive use was found to have affected the natural
resources and the crowding levels were found to be very high. However, the study
found that visitors are still highly satisfied with the recreation experience.
Visitors' perceptions of the environmental conditions were assessed for
three Recreation Forests namely Sungai Chongkak, Lentang and Sungai Tua
which are popular among the population of the Klang Valley. Visitors' preferences
and awareness were compared to actual conditions of the Recreation Forests.
Findings on awareness, shows that visitors are more aware of the plant
component resource more than the other parameters. By groups, it was found that
age seems to be a factor in perceiving environmental conditions, where the older
people tend to be more aware of the situation.
Visitors' environmental preferences are more towards general conditions in
term of cleanliness from rubbish and the availability of recreation facilities. They are
less affected by crowd as indicated by what they consider as "pollutants" of the
Recreation Forests. It was found that visitors object more to hearing noise from
other visitors than seeing the crowd.
On placing importance, measured in terms of money and walking distance,
visitors would rather spend more for cleanliness than for solitude. They are willing
to pay up to RM 1 for cleanliness, which was encouraging as the mode. However,
nothing at all is willing to be spent for solitude. More visitors are willing to walk for
cleanliness (500 m) but not at all for solitude conditions. This again emphasised the
lack of importance of solitude, or the lack of aversion to crowd by Recreation
Forests' visitors. In fact, when asked what is their crowd tolerance limit, most
visitors answered "Do not care".
Another finding from this study, is that campers which include visitors of
challenging activities are quite different in their perceptions and preferences of
environmental conditions. The limit of crowd tolerance is less, and this group made
up the most willing to pay up to RM10 and walk up to 1 km.
In conclusion, it was found that the recreational settings do indicate
excessive use of the area. The natural ecology of the areas is significantly affected,
and crowding is intense. It was found that, visitors noticed the conditions of
crowding more than the natural resources'. Nevertheless, the majority of visitors
are still very satisfied of the recreation experience in the Recreation Forests.


Most of us are familiar with music notations. Dance notations, on the other hand, have not gained widespread acceptance. This can be attributed to the fact that dance notations, and human movement notations in general, are inherently complex. This complexity has also hindered researches in the field. Up to now, there is no de facto standard for dance score interchange. Labanotation is the most prevalent among the different human movement ~iotations. Most technological advances so far have revolved around displaying and editing Labanotation scores using the computer. Applications such as the Labanwriter store the dance scores in a graphical format that is neither suitable for interpretation nor analysis. LabanXML, the latest advancement in the representation of Labanotation, falls short of describing the more complex aspects of Labanotation. This study uses an object-oriented approach to come up with an XML-based representmation that captures the sema.ntics of Labanotation.


We study the problem of combining multiple bandit algorithms (that is, online learning algorithms with partial feedback) with the goal of creating a master algorithm that performs almost as well as the best base algorithm if it were to be run on its own. The main challenge is that when run with a master, base algorithms unavoidably receive much less feedback and it is thus critical that the master not starve a base algorithm that might perform uncompetitively initially but would eventually outperform others if given enough feedback. We address this difficulty by devising a version of Online Mirror Descent with a special mirror map together with a sophisticated learning rate scheme. We show that this approach manages to achieve a more delicate balance between exploiting and exploring base algorithms than previous works yielding superior regret bounds.
Our results are applicable to many settings, such as multi-armed bandits, contextual bandits, and convex bandits. As examples, we present two main applications. The first is to create an algorithm that enjoys worst-case robustness while at the same time performing much better when the environment is relatively easy. The second is to create an algorithm that works simultaneously under different assumptions of the environment, such as different priors or different loss structures.


Aims We assessed the effect of fasting during Ramadan on blood pressure (BP), body weight, plasma lipid, and lipoprotein variables among healthy normal individuals. Methods 102 (68% male) multi-ethnic volunteers; mean age ± SD (38.7±10.5 years) were randomly recruited in Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), to be investigated before Ramadan, one day after the end of Ramadan, and four weeks after Ramadan. Anthropometric, demographic, fasting plasma total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), and high density lipoprotein–cholesterol (HDL-C) were measured by standard methods, and Low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) was calculated using Friedewald's formula. Results 65 subjects completed the study. We found significant and beneficial changes in systolic blood pressure (SBP), body weight, waist circumference (WC), TG, HDL-C and LDL-C, at the end of Ramadan, but not in TC. Further, there was a progressive and significant increase and decrease in HDL-C and LDL-C levels, respectively, four weeks after Ramadan. Conclusions We observed significant improvements in HDL-C, and LDL-C levels even after four weeks post Ramadan. Ramadan-like fasting may be considered for more effective lipid and lipoprotein control.


The IR spectrum of a sample in acidic and alkaline solutions cannot be retrieved adequately when only the spectrum of pure water is subtracted. After such an operation, some water bands remain in the spectrum, which also has a distorted baseline. An analysis of a series of IR spectra of HCl and NaOH solutions showed that they could be represented by two pairs of eigenspectra, one pair for the acidic solutions and the other for the basic solutions. The fraction of each eigenspectrum of a sample in an acidic or alkaline solution is determined with the 2100 and 3300 cm−1 water bands. After subtraction, no baseline adjustment is necessary. The effectiveness of the method used to subtract the water bands is illustrated with solutions of malic acid at low and high pH.


Abstract The Japanese term, shakaijin, refers to becoming a social adult, and locates the transition to adulthood in leaving school/university and entering an employment relation. In this paper we explore the role of company socialization in producing social adults. Company socialization is explored through a case study of a securities company, and an additional study of a large bank. New employee training programs are a central socializing event, and bridge the transition from school/university-to-work. In this study, events prior to and subsequent to new employee training arc also shown to play key roles in company socialization. Recruitment practices socialize as well as screen job applicants. Regular personal assessments continue socialization throughout the working life cycle. Based on the analyses of socialization in recruitment, training and assessment, two aspects of company socialization in Japan are emphasized. First, company socialization involves gender socialization. Male employees are the main subjects of company socialization, and their induction to social adulthood seeks to generate commitment and social integration to company life. Social adulthood of female employees is defined in connection with future familial roles rather than commitment to work. Second, the meaning of social adulthood for men is fused with acceptance of management goals. Company socialization attempts to align individual attitudes and behaviors with company goals.


By using sediment archives along the coast of Bonaire (Leeward Antilles; political status: special municipality of the Netherlands), such as bokas (enclosed lagoons), narrow floodplains and mangrove swamps, and by investigating supralittoral blocks and boulders, the goal of this thesis is (i) to identify prehistoric high-energy wave events, (ii) to differentiate between extraordinary storms and tsunamis, and (iii) to date these events. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal impact of high-energy wave events on coastal geo-ecosystems is evaluated. A total of 45 vibracores (max. depth 11 m) and push cores (max. depth 1.62 m) was taken from all around the island (Lagun, Boka Washikemba, Lac Baai, Salina Tam, Klein Bonaire, Boka Funchi, Wayaka, Boka Bartol, Playa Grandi). Cores from the most promising locations were investigated in terms of sedimentology, geochemistry, mineralogy and faunal remains.
The coasts of the Caribbean Sea are prone to tsunami hazard, proven by numerous observed events of the last 500 years. Bonaire was chosen as the site of interest for this study due to the antagonism of a total lack of historical accounts on tsunami occurrence and its massive record of coarse-clast coastal landforms and single blocks and boulders, which are attributed to deposition by extreme wave events (tsunamis, hurricanes).
The largest coastal blocks were studied as evidence for the occurrence of more powerful waves than those of strong tropical cyclones (locally known as hurricanes). By comparing calculated minimum storm wave heights required to quarry and move the largest blocks of Spelonk and Boka Olivia on northeastern Bonaire, with maximum wave heights observed during recent high-category hurricanes and the buoy record, little doubt remains that one or more major tsunamis occurred in Mid- to Late Holocene times. This confirmation of the previously established (and in the meantime challenged) tsunami hypothesis provides a very important framework condition for the interpretation of the subsurface overwash deposits in the coastal stratigraphical archives.
A tentative chronology of tsunami occurrence was established, based on a comparison of subsurface overwash deposits identified in the sediment cores from the stratigraphical geoarchives with characteristic signature types of modern tsunamis and calibrated 14C data. Uncertainties in sediment interpretation, associated with the fact that most of these signature types may also occur in storm deposits, were reduced according to (i) the results from the numerical boulder study, (ii) the high tsunami potential of the southern Caribbean (abundant potential tsunami trigger mechanisms), (iii) the identification of sediment source areas which are out of reach for storm waves, and (iv) the lack of littoral and marine sand/mud input during recent high-category hurricanes.
Several sites reflect long-lasting environmental change subsequent to palaeotsunami impact. At the open embayment of Lagun, this is confirmed by palynological investigations. Pollen spectra prior to the wave impact are dominated by mangrove types (Rhizophora), whereas significantly lower percentage of Rhizophora pollen was detected in the post-tsunami samples. Mangroves seem to have only gradually recovered from the impact, probably on centennial scales. In contrast to Lagun, the bokas and salinas of Bonaire are cut off from the sea by a quasi-impermeable barrier of beachrock and coral rubble. The candidate tsunami deposit of Boka Bartol is vertically confined by mangrove peat (below) and evaporite-rich mud (above). This pattern is interpreted as the transformation of an open mangrove-fringed embayment (pre-tsunami) into a poly- to hypersaline lagoon (post-tsunami) due to the establishment or closure of the barrier of coral material during the event. The high amount of gypsum and halite crystals and thin layers of inorganic carbonate are the result of limited water input and high evapotranspiration rates during the dry season. The absence of marine faunal remains also indicates very limited exchange with the ocean.
The chronology of potential tsunamis based on data from the sediment cores starts with extreme wave event I (EWE I), around 3600 BP, represented by a carbonate sand deposit bracketedby man-grove peat, which was found on Klein Bonaire. A well-preserved candidate tsunami deposit from Boka Bartol with a maximum age of 3300 BP (EWE II) has counterparts on the leeward coast (Klein Bonaire, Salina Tam, possibly between Salina Tam and Punt'i Wekua) and the windward coast (Playa Grandi, possibly Boka Washikemba). EWE II can be identified as the best-documented candidate palaeotsunami on Bonaire. EWE XII, with a maximum age of 2000 BP, left massive shell-dominated deposits at Lagun (windward side) and carbonate sands at Salina Tam, both of which were interpreted as tsunamigenic. Deposits of another younger, unspecified EWE XVI (pre-500 BP) were found between Salina Tam and Punt'i Wekua, and Boka Washikemba. Based on these results, a preliminary estimation of the recurrence interval of high-energy wave events on Bonaire, which reveal magnitudes significantly exceeding those of recent high-category hurricanes and which are therefore likely to be major tsunamis, is in the order of roughly 1000 years or less.
This study corroborates conclusions of predecessor studies that the hazard of tsunami does exist on Bonaire, although historical accounts on tsunami ocurrence are lacking. It is strongly suggested to the authorities of Bonaire, to conduct a local analysis of tsunami risk, similar to the one recently established for the neighbour island of Curacao. A study of modelling tsunami inundation based on the spectrum of tsunami triggering mechanisms and past inundation inferred from the overwash deposits identified in this research may be useful to determine high-risk areas, which are prone to potential future tsunami damage.


When a visual scene allows multiple interpretations, the percepts may spontaneously alternate despite the stable retinal image and the invariant sensory input transmitted to the brain. To study the brain basis of such multi-stable percepts, we superimposed rapidly changing dynamic noise as regional tags to the Rubin vase-face figure and followed the corresponding tag-related cortical signals with magnetoencephalography. The activity already in the earliest visual cortical areas, the primary visual cortex included, varied with the perceptual states reported by the observers. These percept-related modulations most likely reflect top-down influences that accentuate the neural representation of the perceived object in the early visual cortex and maintain the segregation of objects from the background.


An approach to the analysis and synthesis of adaptive control systems taking into account the effect of inexact measurements is presented here. The approach is based on the method of generalized quantized compensation. The mathematical tools needed for the analysis are adapted from the discipline of statistical inference. In particular, decision theory is used. An important consequence of inexact measurement is that the problems of identification and of control cannot be considered separately. Decision theory is used as the link that logically relates the two. Current application of decision functions has mostly been limited to cases where the unknown parameters to be determined can take on only discrete values. In view of the continuous variation of the parameters, assumptions that they take on discrete values lead to results whose optimality is not justifiable. Several possible extensions are presented. In addition, a sequential decision scheme that can be applied to reduce expected measurement time is presented. An attempt is made to make the statistical analysis largely self-contained and lucid to those not familiar with statistical inference procedures.


The EITC is currently the largest, federal cash-transfer program for low-income families, with expenditures of almost $34 billion dollars in 2002. Advocates of the credit argue that this redistribution occurs with much less distortion to labor supply than that caused by other elements of the welfare system. Empirical evidence has established that the credit "encourages work effort" among eligible female household heads. Less recognized is the fact that these positive work incentives are unlikely to hold among married couples. Theory suggests that while primary earners (typically men) would increase labor force participation, secondary earners would reduce their labor supply in response to an EITC. We study the hours worked response of married couples to several EITC expansions between 1984 and 1996. While our primary interest is the response to changes in the budget set induced by the EITC, our identification strategy takes account of budget set changes caused by federal tax policy, as well as cross-sectional differences in non-labor income and family size. We estimate reduced-form hours of work equations using instrumental variables to account for the endogeneity of net of tax wages and virtual income. Our instruments are based on tax reforms and trace out the budget set. The results show that EITC expansions between 1984 and 1996 led to modest reductions in hours worked by married men and married women. Overall, married women in the labor force are estimated to decrease hours worked by between 1 and 4 percent. Women in the phase-out range of the credit experience the greatest reductions, between 3 and 17 percent. Overall, the evidence suggests that family labor supply and pretax earnings fell.


The nine American Jews of whom Milton Konvitz writes are philosophers, jurists, or rabbis, widely known and readily accepted as American Jewish thinkers. Their work reflects all essential Jewish values. Each person in his own way has dedicated his work to the betterment of life and the advancement of human ideals. In this sense, their Jewishness is not defined by religion alone. Americanism permeated all they thought and all they did. Konvitz argues that in the complex modern world, secularists often serve God more handsomely than do members of synagogues or churches. For example, when the Supreme Court in 1954 (with Felix Frankfurter playing a key role behind the scenes) agreed to outlaw segregation of the races in public schools, was the Court's action secular or religious? When Congress passed the statute known as the Americans with Disabilities Act, requiring equal treatment of handicapped persons, was the action secular or religious? Is a minimum wage act secular or religious? Is Medicaid a secular or a religious act? Konvitz believes the distinction is not useful, or even possible. The book is divided into three parts, reflecting Konvitz's range of intellectual interests. The nine essays offer concise intellectual biographies of three American Jewish philosophers, three Supreme Court Justices, and three rabbis. The philosophers-Horace M. Kallen, Morris Raphael Cohen, and Sidney Hook-are world-renowned. The jurists-Louis D. Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo, and Felix Frankfurter-hold prominent places in American legal history. And the three rabbis-Leo Jung, Robert Gordis, and Jacob Agus-are known wherever Jewish thought is studied. By treating with equal seriousness the lives and writings of both religious and secularist thinkers, the author intentionally minimizes the conventional antagonism and frequent conflict between religion and secularism. An unusual feature of the book is the fact that the author was a close friend of six of the persons whose lives and work are examined, allowing him a perceptive insight into their character and thought. Although the book is about serious subjects, its graceful style makes the contents easily accessible to lay persons as well as scholars and students of Judaica.