Dual class shares and the anticompetitive effects of common ownership are two of the most discussed corporate governance issues of our time. In this Article, we identify a hidden connection between them, which allows us to derive policy implications that are relevant for both. The traditional debate on dual class shares is based on the trade-off between having visionary founders firmly in control of the firm and the risk that they extract private benefits of control. We show that the exclusive focus on this trade-off is rooted on the outdated assumption that all shareholders are firm-value-maximizing (FVM), that is, aim at maximizing the value of the firm in which they have invested. But, as the debate on common ownership acknowledges, diversified institutional investors à la BlackRock care about maximizing the value of their funds' portfolios, irrespective of what happens to any individual investee company: they act as portfolio-value-maximizing (PVM) shareholders. Consequently, they might prefer a lower level of competition in product markets to maximize the joint value of the competitors that are in their portfolio. use of dual class shares by systemically relevant firms and show how such limitations ought to be tailored according to a firm's specific ability to impose systemic externalities. Abstract Dual class shares and the anticompetitive effects of common ownership are two of the most discussed corporate governance issues of our time. In this Article, we identify a hidden connection between them, which allows us to derive policy implications that are relevant for both. The traditional debate on dual class shares is based on the trade-off between having visionary founders firmly in control of the firm and the risk that they extract private benefits of control. We show that the exclusive focus on this trade-off is rooted on the outdated assumption that all shareholders are firm-value-maximizing (FVM), that is, aim at maximizing the value of the firm in which they have invested. But, as the debate on common ownership acknowledges, diversified institutional investors à la BlackRock care about maximizing the value of their funds' portfolios, irrespective of what happens to any individual investee company: they act as portfolio-value-maximizing (PVM) shareholders. Consequently, they might prefer a lower level of competition in product markets to maximize the joint value of the competitors that are in their portfolio. In present-day financial markets, dominated by PVM institutional investors, dual class shares can then serve the additional purpose of allowing insiders to silence PVM shareholders, thus mitigating the anticompetitive effects of common ownership. For this reason, we argue against banning dual class shares, or even introducing a mandatory time-based sunset. But that is not the end of the story. The ongoing climate crisis is showing that a relatively low number of major carbon emitters can impose gigantic externalities on the planet. The macroeconomics literature, in turn, has provided ample evidence that a subset of systemically important firms can affect the whole economy. Allowing these companies to have dual class shares without limitations grants FVM shareholders à la Zuckerberg the unfettered ability to inflict systemic harm on society. If limitations were imposed on such shares, PVM shareholders would internalize part of these externalities via their other portfolio holdings, and hence have the incentive to steer individual portfolio firms into being mindful of these externalities. Thus, we suggest that there should be limits placed on the use of dual class shares by systemically relevant firms and show how such limitations ought to be tailored according to a firm's specific ability to impose systemic externalities.


The makings of the primate brain Although nonhuman primate brains are similar to our own, the disparity between their and our cognitive abilities tells us that surface similarity is not the whole story. Sousa et al. overlaid transcriptome and histological analyses to see what makes human brains different from those of nonhuman primates. Various differentially expressed genes, such as those encoding transcription factors, could alter transcriptional programs. Others were associated with neuromodulatory systems. Furthermore, the dopaminergic interneurons found in the human neocortex were absent from the neocortex of nonhuman African apes. Such differences in neuronal transcriptional programs may underlie a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders. Science, this issue p. 1027 Comparing transcriptome and histology of human and nonhuman primate brains reveals changes that make humans unique. To better understand the molecular and cellular differences in brain organization between human and nonhuman primates, we performed transcriptome sequencing of 16 regions of adult human, chimpanzee, and macaque brains. Integration with human single-cell transcriptomic data revealed global, regional, and cell-type–specific species expression differences in genes representing distinct functional categories. We validated and further characterized the human specificity of genes enriched in distinct cell types through histological and functional analyses, including rare subpallial-derived interneurons expressing dopamine biosynthesis genes enriched in the human striatum and absent in the nonhuman African ape neocortex. Our integrated analysis of the generated data revealed diverse molecular and cellular features of the phylogenetic reorganization of the human brain across multiple levels, with relevance for brain function and disease.


We study the extent to which manufacturing decline and local housing booms contributed to changes in labor market outcomes during the 2000s, focusing primarily on the distributional consequences across geographical areas and demographic groups. Using a local labor markets design, we estimate that manufacturing decline significantly reduced employment between 2000 and 2006, while local housing booms increased employment by roughly the same magnitude. The effects of manufacturing decline persist through 2012, but we find no persistent employment effects of local housing booms, likely because housing booms were associated with subsequent busts of similar magnitude. These results suggest that housing booms "masked" negative employment growth that would have otherwise occurred earlier in the absence of the booms. This "masking" occurred both within and between cities and demographic groups. For example, manufacturing decline disproportionately affected older men without a college education, while the housing boom disproportionately affected younger men and women, as well as immigrants. Applying our local labor market estimates to the national labor market, we find that roughly 40 percent of the reduction in employment during the 2000s can be attributed to manufacturing decline and that these negative effects would have appeared in aggregate employment statistics earlier had it not been for the large, temporary increases in housing demand.


The aim of this study was to investigate the physical characteristics of three litter materials, namely pine shavings (PS), bio-secure, fumigated pine shavings (BS) and sunflower hulls (SH) and its influence on broiler performance over a 33-day production cycle. The experiment was conducted in commercial poultry houses holding 42,500 chicks each, utilising a randomised block design with six house replicates per treatment. Litter samples were collected weekly for analyses of moisture, water-holding capacity, bulk density, pH and litter caking. Broiler footpad dermatitis was monitored at 21 and 31 days, together with acid detergent fibre (ADF) concentration of gizzard content, gizzard weight and small intestinal weight and length of 120 birds per treatment. Broilers across treatments consumed litter material which was evident in increased ADF levels of gizzard contents relative to feed. The SH contained more nutrients based on proximate analysis as compared to other treatments. Rearing on SH led to lower 7-day cumulative mortality, higher kilograms of broilers produced per square meter, average daily gain and slaughter weight. Improvements seen with SH did not alter commercial indicators, namely, production efficiency factor and feed conversion ratio. Litter converged toward similar physical characteristics at the end of production cycles when few differences were observed between treatments due to addition of feed, feathers and excreta.


We investigated a high-precision optical method for measuring the thickness of biological samples regardless of their transparency. The method is based on the precise measurement of optical path length difference of the end surfaces of objects, using a dual-arm axial-scanning low-coherence interferometer. This removes any consideration of the shape, thickness, or transparency of testing objects when performing the measurement. Scanning the reference simplifies the measurement setup, resulting in unambiguous measurement. Using a 1310 nm wavelength superluminescent diode, with a 65 nm bandwidth, the measurement accuracy was as high as 11.6 μm. We tested the method by measuring the thickness of both transparent samples and nontransparent soft biological tissues.


Over the last decade the European Union (EU) has had a strong impact on the way public organisations introduce market philosophies in their policies. The EU directives on procurement, the battles against cartels, the globalisation and harmonisation of markets, all lead to extra attention to the procurement practice of public agencies. This paper focuses on the procurement practice of one of these public organisations, the municipalities in the Netherlands. Statistical data suggest that Dutch municipalities prefer limited tendering procedures, and seem to avoid public tender procedures. This paper reports on research into the reasons for such preference. Analysis of municipalities' procurement and tendering practice uncovered an intricate mechanism for maintaining project control. Municipalities implicitly use the prospect of future assignments to restrain contractors' misbehaviours. By doing so municipalities reduce uncertainties and risks. Contractors' demeanour becomes more flexible, cooperative and quality orientated because of this mechanism. Through the use of this mechanism the municipality-contractor relationship has developed to a kind of co-makership relation. This phenomenon is categorically overlooked in the standard market paradigms. Bending the procurement and tendering practice towards more public tendering is expected to make project control more troublesome.


Weighted least squares polynomial approximation uses random samples to determine projections of functions onto spaces of polynomials. It has been shown that, using an optimal distribution of sample locations, the number of samples required to achieve quasi-optimal approximation in a given polynomial subspace scales, up to a logarithmic factor, linearly in the dimension of this space. However, in many applications, the computation of samples includes a numerical discretization error. Thus, obtaining polynomial approximations with a single level method can become prohibitively expensive, as it requires a sufficiently large number of samples, each computed with a sufficiently small discretization error. As a solution to this problem, we propose a multilevel method that utilizes samples computed with different accuracies and is able to match the accuracy of single-level approximations with reduced computational cost. We derive complexity bounds under certain assumptions about polynomial approximability and sample work. Furthermore, we propose an adaptive algorithm for situations where such assumptions cannot be verified a priori. Finally, we provide an efficient algorithm for the sampling from optimal distributions and an analysis of computationally favorable alternative distributions. Numerical experiments underscore the practical applicability of our method.


Workplace bullying is a silent epidemic permeating our workplaces. Bullying is a broad, typically imprecisely used term encompassing a wide variety of phenomena - but all definitions contain the element of power in one form or another. Workplace bullying has been attributed to a combination of business economic rationalism, downsizing, conflictual work environments and limited worker participation in management decisions. This paper explores the types of bullying experienced by general and academic staff in four Australian universities. By employing a schoolyard bullying analogy it is possible to categorise their experiences into: gatekeeper bullying; sandpit bullying; toilet bullying; and king bullying. Moreover, it appears that collegiality is protecting the university bully - victims are reluctant to pursue the bullying issue fearing ridicule or isolation by colleagues.


This paper presents a method for verb phrase (VP) alignment in an English-French parallel corpus and its use for improving statistical machine translation (SMT) of verb tenses. The method starts from automatic word alignment performed with GIZA++, and relies on a POS tagger and a parser, in combination with several heuristics, in order to identify non-contiguous components of VPs, and to label the aligned VPs with their tense and voice on each side. This procedure is applied to the Europarl corpus, leading to the creation of a smaller, high-precision parallel corpus with about 320,000 pairs of finite VPs, which is made publicly available. This resource is used to train a tense predictor for translation from English into French, based on a large number of surface features. Three MT systems are compared: (1) a baseline phrase-based SMT; (2) a tense-aware SMT system using the above predictions within a factored translation model; and (3) a system using oracle predictions from the aligned VPs. For several tenses, such as the French "imparfait", the tense-aware SMT system improves significantly over the baseline and is closer to the oracle system.


It is quite a treat to have Professor Frederick Schauer comment on my Miranda article.1 Professor Schauer is a renowned authority on freedom of speech and the author of many thoughtful, probing articles in other areas as well, especially jurisprudence. I am pleased that in large measure, Schauer, too, laments the erosion of Miranda in the last fourand-a-half decades2 and that he, too, was unhappy with the pre-Miranda due process/"totality of circumstances'V'Voluntariness" test.3 I also like what Schauer had to say about "prophylactic rules," a term that has sometimes been used to disparage the Miranda rules.4 As Schauer observes, the use of such rules is "ubiquitous in constitutional law"5 and "there is no special category of prophylactic rules The phrase 'prophylactic rule' is accordingly best seen as a simple redundancy, sort of like 'null and void.'"6However, when Schauer maintains that (1) the right to remain silent "existed independently] of Miranda,"1 and that (2) "the right to counsel during interrogation" also "preceded Miranda ,"8 1 have to part company with him on both counts. (I readily admit that whether there was a right to counsel during interrogation prior to Miranda is a much closer question than whether there was a right to remain silent.) Much turns on what one means by "rights."I. THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENTLet us look first at the right to remain silent.Schauer believes that Justice Frankfurter's 1949 plurality opinion in Turner v. Pennsylvania9 supports his view that the right to remain silent preceded Miranda by many years.10 At one point Frankfurter does say that Turner "was not informed of his right to remain silent until after he had been under the pressure of a long process of interrogation and had actually yielded to it."11 Schauer might have cited the 1963 case of Haynes v. Washington12 as well. In that case, too, writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Goldberg noted that the defendant had never been "advised . . . of his right to remain silent."13But what does it mean to say that even before Miranda one had a right to remain silent? In both the aforementioned Turner case and in Watts v. Indiana,1* a companion case to Turner, state law required that arrested persons be given a prompt preliminary hearing.15 However, neither in Indiana nor Pennsylvania (nor in the great majority of states) was this requirement taken seriously. Unless other circumstances added up to a deprivation of due process, the mere fact that an arrestee failed to obtain a prompt preliminary hearing did not keep out any resulting confession or incriminating statement.16 Did arrestees in these states have a right to a prompt preliminary hearing? I would answer in the negative. The police did not believe arrestees had such a right and they acted accordingly. Arrestees soon found out that, as a practical matter, the police's understanding of the situation was the correct one.At no time prior to Miranda did suspects have a "right" to remain silent, at least as I define "right" and as I believe that term should be defined. It is plain that most suspects did not know they had such a right (or, to put it another way, did not realize that the police lacked any lawful authority to compel an answer). Moreover, the great majority of police officers did nothing to correct this misimpression.17 Nor is that all. The typical police interrogator proceeded as if he or she did have a right to an answer and would often persist in questioning suspects until some answers were obtained.Against this background, I would maintain that in the years before the police were required to inform suspects that they had a right to remain silent - and the police did not have to do so until Miranda instructed them that, in the absence of other protective measures, they must do so - such a right did not exist. To put it somewhat differently, I would say that requiring the police to warn custodial suspects that they had a right to remain silent - which Miranda did for the first time - established such a right. …


Secondary organic carbon (SOC) is often a significant portion of organic carbon (OC) in ambient particulate matter (PM). The levels and seasonal patterns of SOC in Hong Kong were examined using more than 2000 PM 10 measurements made over a 4.5-year period (1998?2002) in a network of ten air quality monitoring stations. The positive matrix factorization (PMF) model was used to analyze this large data set for source identification and apportioning. SOC was subsequently estimated to be the sum of OC present in the secondary sources, i.e., secondary sulfate, secondary nitrate, and secondary organic aerosol. The annual average SOC as estimated by the PMF method was 4.25 µg C/m 3 while the summer average was 1.66 µg C/m 3 and the winter average was 7.05 µg C/m 3 . In comparison, the method that uses EC as a tracer for primary carbonaceous aerosol sources to derive SOC overestimated SOC by 70?212% for the summer samples and by 4?43% for the winter samples. The overestimation by the EC tracer method resulted from the inability of obtaining a single OC/EC ratio that represented a mixture of primary sources varying in time and space. We found that SOC and secondary sulfate had synchronous seasonal variation and were correlated in individual seasons, suggesting common factors that control their formation. Considering the well-established fact that both gas phase oxidation and in-cloud processing are important formation pathways for sulfate, the synchronicity of SOC and sulfate suggests that in-cloud pathways are also important for SOC formation. Additionally, the presence of SOC was found to be enhanced more than that of secondary sulfate in the winter. We postulate this to be a combined result of favorable partitioning of semivolatile SOC species in the particle phase and more abundant SOC precursors in the winter.


We compare resource-based and relational perspectives to examine competitive advantages within the context of vertical learning alliances. Previous research has shown that through such alliances suppliers acquire knowledge to forge new capabilities and attain performance improvements. We ask whether such improvements are exclusive to the learning partnership, or are available in other average partnerships of this supplier. We posit that the extent to which such performance improvements are partnership exclusive depends on whether the newly forged capabilities lie entirely within the supplier firm's boundaries, or at the learning dyad level. As such, we untie two forms of performance improvements arising from learning dyads. While the resource-based view helps explain the performance gains learning suppliers deploy across average partners, the relational view reveals the additional performance edge that remains exclusive to the learning partnership. Based on empirical evidence from a survey of 253 suppliers to the equipment industry, we find that partnership exclusive performance (i.e., 'relational performance'), the true source of learning dyads' competitive advantage, is a function of suppliers acquiring know-how within the dyad, developing dyad-specific assets and capabilities, and structuring buyer-supplier relational governance mechanisms. We discuss implications for research and practice. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


With their increasing capabilities, research efforts in sensor network have been spreading on a variety of aspects. In this paper, we present a system-oriented, layered approach for evaluating their application-related performance. Focusing on sensor-enabled detection systems, an application planners point of view of the system is considered and a hypothesis-testing-based analysis framework for evaluating the quality of information (QoI) supported by a sensor network deployment is explored. The QoI properties of centralized, distributed and hybrid decision topologies are investigated and trade-offs explored at the sensor, cluster, and system-level. In the process, the computationally powerful concept of a QoI equivalent sensor is presented and applied in the aforementioned explorations. Finite size networks are considered and limiting behavior and dominance properties are also investigated. Finally, extensions of the analysis framework to faulty sensor and the impact of calibration are also investigated.1


The new television series Lie to Me portrays a social scientist solving crimes through his ability to read nonverbal communication. Promotional materials claim the content is based on actual science. Participants (N = 108) watched an episode of Lie to Me, a different drama, or no program and then judged a series of honest and deceptive interviews. Lie to Me viewers were no better at distinguishing truths from lies but were more likely than control participants to misidentify honest interviewees as deceptive. Watching Lie to Me decreases truth bias thereby increasing suspicion of others while at the same time reducing deception detection ability.


Debate over the effects of different property regimes on natural resource systems has long been controversial, incited by Hardin's (Hardin 1968) thesis that common pool resources will inevitably suffer from overexploitation and degradation. A large, diverse, and rapidly growing body of literature has investigated the links between different property rights regimes and environmental outcomes and shown that common, government, and private property rights regimes are each capable of yielding sustainable environmental outcomes. However, the existing evidence base is highly fragmented. There also exists a large body of literature reviews assessing the evidence base, but these reviews have been limited in scope, focusing on specific resource systems and specific regime comparisons without examining the links between property rights regimes and environmental outcomes across these resource systems. Also, few studies compare impacts across geographical regions.This paper addresses this knowledge gap through a systematic review that assesses current knowledge of the impacts of property rights regimes on environmental outcomes in forests, fisheries, and rangelands in developing countries. We use a bundle of rights approach to assess environmental impacts across the three main property rights regimes--state, private, and community--as well as mixed property rights regimes that involve some combination of these three. The review screened over 29,000 references and identified a total of 208 relevant articles, but was only able to use 107 of these articles in data analysis, as the remaining articles were unclear in their presentation of property regimes. A total of 342 case studies were extracted from these 107 articles, as many articles included more than one case study. Preliminary results show that most of the included articles examine forests (53 articles), followed by fisheries (40 articles) and rangelands (14 articles). Geographically, most of the studies were conducted in Africa (43); with equal number of studies conducted in Asia (including Melanesia) and Latin America and the Caribbean (32 each). In general, the quality of the evidence base is limited by the lack of data from cases prior to property regime change, and most case studies present spatial comparisons in a control-impact setting. Only 20 articles (N=107) contain data from cases prior to property regime change, while the remaining 87 articles present spatial comparisons between cases with and without property rights arrangements. As many studies address the impact of formal protection compared to adjacent areas, adequate proof for site similarity is often missing. Comparison between cases is further complicated by the wide variety of environmental indicators used for measuring environmental outcomes.


Leveraging cloud computing to acquire the necessary computation resources to scale out parallel applications is becoming common practice. However, many such applications also require communication and synchronization between processes. Although, commercial cloud platforms provide ready access to scalable compute and storage services, implementing communication and synchronization between cooperating processes and efficiently exchanging arbitrary size messages remains a challenge for application developers. In clouds, durable queues provide basic abstractions for communication. However, they are not sufficient for applications that require transferring arbitrary size messages or for applications that require higher level abstractions such as broadcast. Furthermore, direct socket based communication is susceptible to various fluctuations common in data center environments. We envision a solution to this problem that leverages scalable storage services, queues, and direct socket based communication. Publish/subscribe (pub/sub) is a well-known communication pattern that can achieve the above capabilities in a loosely coupled fashion, which is highly desirable in cloud environments where most services are asynchronous. In this paper, we describe the architecture of a pub/sub library implemented on a commercial cloud computing platform, which can be used to develop various parallel applications. We also present an evaluation of our implementation using both micro benchmarks and a real world application. Together, these demonstrate that our approach is both effective and scalable in performing communication and synchronization in cloud scale applications.


The development of avatars has significant potential to enhance realism, automation capability, and effectiveness across a variety of training environments. Project Lifelike is a three-year National Science Foundation effort whose objective is to develop and evaluate realistic avatar interfaces as portals to intelligent programs capable of relaying knowledge and training skills. This interface aims towards support of spoken dialog within a limited domain and capabilities for learning to maintain its knowledge current and accurate. Research objectives focus on the integration of speaker-independent continuous speech recognition technology with a context-based dialog system and real-time graphics rendering capability derived from live subject motion capture traces. The motion capture traces are used by the avatar to provide spoken interaction with gestural expressions. This paper describes the first phase of the Lifelike project which developed an interactive avatar prototype of a National Science Foundation (NSF) program manager, Dr. Alex Schwarzkopf, for whom a contextual graph representation of domain knowledge was created. A Graphical Asset Production Pipeline was developed to allow digitization of the facial characteristics and physical movements of Dr. Schwarzkopf. Next, an example subset of his knowledge of NSF protocols was encoded in a grammar-based speech interpretation system and context-based reasoning system. These systems were integrated with the Lifelike Responsive Avatar Framework to enable the avatar to receive spoken input and generate appropriate verbal and non-verbal responses. The system demonstrates conveyance of knowledge within a limited domain such as NSF project reporting requirements. Work toward improving the realism of the avatar, long-term efforts toward creating a toolbox for generalization to other training applications, and results of evaluation of how users respond to different characteristics that contribute to realism in an avatar are discussed.


"American Indian History" chronicles the dynamic process of interaction among Indian nations, Europeans and the United States during the past five centuries. Through his meticulous research and excellent narrative style, Robert Venables, Ph.D., makes this history come alive. Starting with the early period of contact, "discovery" and conquest, this two-volume set presents a detailed study of all sides of many complex issues, allowing the reader to look at American history from a new perspective and presenting, often for the first time, the Native sides of these issues. The work also provides insights into the cultural misunderstandings between Indian nations and the Eurocentric-thinking U.S. government. The survival of both cultures despite their conflicts has brought about an alliance between the two, both still struggling to shape their identities while sharing the same lands, as well as the values of freedom and individual liberties. Volume I begins by comparing and contrasting the different worldviews held by Indian and European nations as reflected in their philosophies and religions. It progresses to comprehensively document the contact, conflict and alliances that shaped and influenced their histories. During the initial conflicts in the 1500s, the Europeans debated the morality of conquest, then set the legal precedents that continue to affect Indian nations down to the present day. The Doctrine of Discovery and the Papal Bulls shaped these policies of conquest for both the Europeans and later the colonists. Indian nations developed political philosophies to cope with the pressures of colonial governments. Some adapted to European ideas and technologies as a means of survival. Some went to war with the Europeans, and others made alliances with them. Often these alliances were against other Indian nations, making the frontier far more complicated than red versus white. During these times, the descendants of the Europeans, believing the entire North American continent was their destiny, began the long process of coercing the Indian nations from their lands, a practice that continues today.


Acutely Disturbed Intestinal Blood Flow in a 71-Year-Old Patient with Abstract We present a case report describing both pulmonary embolism and acute mesenteric ischemia as a compli-cation of COVID-19 infection, the later despite adequate anticoagulation as per guidelines. Coagulation disorders in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to thromboembolic complications in patients such as cerebrovascular events (cerebral infarction), myocardial infarction, arterial occlusion of the lower extremities, splanchnic vein thrombosis, portomesenteric vein thrombosis and mesenteric ischemia. SARS-CoV-2 causes a hypercoagulable and prothrombotic state or vasculitis in patients as previously described. Mesenteric ischemia is a serious, life-threatening disease and can significantly increase mortality in COVID-19 patients.


SIR THOMAS BEECHAM (1879-1961), THE GREAT BRITISH CONDUCTOR AND IMPRESARIO, founded several London orchestras, and, -with the aid of his father's fortune (Beecham's Pills), brought grand opera to Britain. He has been gone for almost forty years, but his accomplishments have had a lasting effect on our musical lives. Many of his recordings are still available to those of the younger generation who never had the opportunity to see him conduct or to experience his mercurial wit. It is thought in some circles that Sir Thomas Beecham did not care for Beethoven's works, and that when he did program them he did not do it with much enthusiasm. Some of Beecham's remarks regarding the composer probably added to this impression. Were Beecham's supreme efforts on behalf of his favorites Mozart and Schubert made at the expense of Beethoven? Or was Beethoven really as neglected by Beecham as some critics have believed? In the following essay I will trace the history of Sir Thomas's encounters with Beethoven over a career which extended from 1899 to 1960. An analysis of performance history1 and some of the memorable concerts will, perhaps, clear up misconceptions about the relationship of the great British conductor with the phenomenon that was Beethoven. Beecham began his conducting career on December 6, 1899 when his father, Lord Mayor of St. Helens, allowed his son to take up the baton of an absent Hans Richter to conduct the Halle Orchestra. Young Thomas conducted a number of short pieces by Wagner, Verdi, Gounod, Delibes and Tchaikovsky, but the major work of the evening was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Interviewed after the concert he was asked if Beethoven was his favorite composer. He replied: "Hardly ... personally, if I were giving a concert to a musically trained audience, I should not give Beethoven's 5th. It is so well known that it is a favorite symphony for conductors to start with. It is popular with an audience because the expression is so immensely facile and easily understood. One of my favorite symphonic writers is Brahms, and Schubert is another; but all Beethoven's symphonies are interesting ..."2 Cautious and faint praise for Beethoven from the twenty-year-old tyro musician. Ironically, Beecham had a greater success with the works of Beethoven than with those of Brahms. Sir Thomas often made outrageous pronouncements when trying to make a point. In his lifelong career of showcasing new works or those of earlier neglected composers, he was often hard on the composers whose music dominated the concert scene. He once asked Walter Legge, the producer of many early EMI recordings: "My dear Walter, what are we going to do to rescue British musical life from the hegemony of the three bloodiest bores in the history of music? I am referring, of course, to Bach, Beethoven and Brahms."3 Sir Thomas may have disparaged Beethoven on occasion, but that did not keep him from playing his works often and with some success. True to form the conductor chose to conduct the less wellknown even-numbered symphonies and early concertos. A great proponent of neglected works of the classical period, he had a natural feeling for Beethoven's less romantic scores. Performance History The Symphonies Symphony No. 1 Considering Beecham's preference for the classically oriented works of Beethoven, it is amazing that he conducted the First Symphony only three times. The first time was at the age of twenty in a concert with his home town orchestra, the St. Helens Orchestral Society (December 1899). He did not repeat a performance until thirty years later when it was included in a London Philharmonic concert at Queen's Hall in March 1939, and, finally, it was coupled with the Ninth in an all Beethoven concert with the Royal Philharmonic in November 1947. Symphony No. 2 The Second Symphony was one of Beecham's favorites and it appeared on forty-six of his programs. …


Abstract The objective of the present article is to highlight the concept of innovation performance, its importance and the different elements that could potentially enhance it within an organization. Through critical appraisal of the literature, the paper has attempted to shed light on how innovation performance is essentially important for businesses to thrive in the current global economy via focusing on prospects like corporate entrepreneurship and employee engagement. The review has concluded that Innovation and more importantly, employee performance towards bringing innovative is critical for businesses. Corporate entrepreneurship is an evolving concept that talks about nurturing and establishing such an environment that supports and motivates people to work with initiative mindset, indulging in creativity and innovation within the organization. Notably, past empirical evidence has underscored employee engagement to be highly significant in enhancing performance focused outcomes. The paper had attempted to establish how corporate entrepreneurship can enhance innovation performance within an organization. Importantly, the paper has also outlined pivotal role of employee engagement as a potential moderator to enrich this relationship. The paper has forwarded research model highlighting severe paucity of research and mature significance for fostering innovation performance at the workplace.


A bifluorenylidene derivative with extended π-conjugated system has been designed and successfully synthesized. The compound displays strong three-photon absorption effect. The obtained three-photon absorption cross section is as high as 81.3 × 10(-76) cm(6)s(2). Distinguished 3PA-induced optical limiting and optical stabilization performances have been achieved. The on-axis transmitted intensity approached a constant even though the incident laser pulse fluctuation was 300%.


Recent developments within the US oceanographic research community and around the world have made it possible to provide ocean and atmosphere information and products in near real time from the Fleet Numerical Oceanography Center (FNOC). FNOC receives the world's highest levels of information ingest for use in near real time state of the ocean modeling. The California Current system and its regional and subregional components are coming under authorities and mandates which require fine scale ocean research and monitoring. Projects are emerging that range from environmental monitoring and clean-ups to management of Marine Sanctuaries, estuaries and bays. This provides unusual opportunities for those managing these venues to organize and coordinate needed studies. Applied oceanography and resource management efforts are best planned and carried out within cooperative contexts, rather than competitive ones, given the state of US and California funding for ocean science. Organizations of regional and multiple Agency consortia have begun, and the implementation of the NOAA Center for Ocean Analysis and Prediction at FNOC, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Integrated Ocean Sciences (CIRIOS) between NOAA and the Naval Postgraduate School, provide mechanisms for third parties to access the ocean and atmosphere information needed to act efficiently in research and resource management contexts, and provides a convenient information/data base management system for both access and archiving research products for use in other contexts. Mechanisms for providing coordinated research programs are evolving to cope with the 'new' California Challenges and Opportunities.


Opioid-related overdose deaths remain the leading cause of unintentional injury fatalities in the United States.  State lawmakers have responded to this crisis by establishing a regulatory environment that extends various legal protections to persons who may help save the life of someone experiencing an opioid-related overdose.  Most states now protect specific parties (e.g., doctors, pharmacists, first responders, laypersons) from civil or criminal liability who prescribe, dispense, possess or administer an opioid antagonist in accordance with the provisions of the state's law.  In addition to standing orders that facilitate access to opioid antagonists, many states offer legal protection to "Good Samaritans" seeking medical and emergency assistance for a person experiencing an overdose.  Some states additionally mandate that addiction-treatment services be offered in conjunction with the dispensing of an opioid antagonist, whereas others designate revenue to purchase opiate antagonists or to fund treatment programs.
Little is known about the potential impact of such regulatory actions on the opioid crisis.  RTI's Data Fusion Center seeks to meet this need by combining administrative data across sources and systems to inform research and policy.  The current paper describes the Data Fusion Center and presents preliminary results from a study that predicts opioid-related overdose deaths based on the existence and strength of opioid-related state laws among 50 states from 2006 to 2016.  Policy data were webscraped from state agencies, systematically coded, and associated with target outcomes sourced from CDC.  Study findings may help inform lawmakers and stakeholders in prioritizing data-driven policy responses to the opioid crisis.


Cochlear Ltd, together with its university partner and many other collaborators, has returned hearing to over 160 000 people thanks to the development of its hearing implant. This book documents the human story behind that development. It delves into the commercial planning and implementation that led to the product's success in an international, highly competitive market, and the human drama that was experienced in achieving it.

Chapters are structured around the development of the science. Woven within that structure are the personal and business stories that have enabled successful outcomes in the relatively new age of biomedical engineering.

The Cochlear Story aims to put this Australian development on the world map in recognition of Australian medicine, science, technology and business.

New from CSIRO PUBLISHING, the Bright Ideas series explores the innovation, application and continuing impact of major scientific inventions throughout history. From the compass to the bionic ear, each book will provide a fascinating and accessible story on a single invention that has changed our everyday lives.


As tensors provide a natural and efficient representation of multidimensional structured data, in this paper, we consider probabilistic multinomial probit classification for tensor-variate inputs with Gaussian processes (GP) priors placed over the latent function. In order to take into account the underlying multimodes structure information within the model, we propose a framework of probabilistic product kernels for tensorial data based on a generative model assumption. More specifically, it can be interpreted as mapping tensors to probability density function space and measuring similarity by an information divergence. Since tensor kernels enable us to model input tensor observations, the proposed tensor-variate GP is considered as both a generative and discriminative model. Furthermore, a fully variational Bayesian treatment for multiclass GP classification with multinomial probit likelihood is employed to estimate the hyperparameters and infer the predictive distributions. Simulation results on both synthetic data and a real world application of human action recognition in videos demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach for classification of multiway tensor data, especially in the case that the underlying structure information among multimodes is discriminative for the classification task.


We use 47 gravitational wave sources from the Third LIGO–Virgo–Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC–3) to estimate the Hubble parameter H(z), including its current value, the Hubble constant H 0. Each gravitational wave (GW) signal provides the luminosity distance to the source, and we estimate the corresponding redshift using two methods: the redshifted masses and a galaxy catalog. Using the binary black hole (BBH) redshifted masses, we simultaneously infer the source mass distribution and H(z). The source mass distribution displays a peak around 34 M ⊙, followed by a drop-off. Assuming this mass scale does not evolve with the redshift results in a H(z) measurement, yielding H0=68−8+12kms−1Mpc−1 (68% credible interval) when combined with the H 0 measurement from GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart. This represents an improvement of 17% with respect to the H 0 estimate from GWTC–1. The second method associates each GW event with its probable host galaxy in the catalog GLADE+, statistically marginalizing over the redshifts of each event's potential hosts. Assuming a fixed BBH population, we estimate a value of H0=68−6+8kms−1Mpc−1 with the galaxy catalog method, an improvement of 42% with respect to our GWTC–1 result and 20% with respect to recent H 0 studies using GWTC–2 events. However, we show that this result is strongly impacted by assumptions about the BBH source mass distribution; the only event which is not strongly impacted by such assumptions (and is thus informative about H 0) is the well-localized event GW190814.


OBJECTIVES
This study examined predictors of entry into shelter and subsequent housing stability for a cohort of families receiving public assistance in New York City.

METHODS
Interviews were conducted with 266 families as they requested shelter and with a comparison sample of 298 families selected at random from the welfare caseload. Respondents were reinterviewed 5 years later. Families with prior history of shelter use were excluded from the follow-up study.

RESULTS
Demographic characteristics and housing conditions were the most important risk factors for shelter entry; enduring poverty and disruptive social experiences also contributed. Five years later, four fifths of sheltered families had their own apartment. Receipt of subsidized housing was the primary predictor of housing stability among formerly homeless families (odds ratio [OR] = 20.6, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 9.9, 42.9).

CONCLUSIONS
Housing subsidies are critical to ending homelessness among families.


Multicrystalline (MC) silicon solar cells are manufactured from bread-loaf sized ingots of solar-grade silicon. These ingots are sliced by a multi-wire saw mechanism consisting of a single thin and extremely long stainless steel wire wound on constant-pitch wire grooves. The wire is wound over each groove to create a web consisting of 500-700 parallel wires. The wire is kept at a constant tension using feedback control and the wire speeds typically are 10-15 m/s. A high speed nozzle directs an aqueous slurry of oil and SiC particles to the top of the wire array and the crystal silicon ingot is pushed upwards against the wire array during the cut. In a typical wire saw system, MC ingots are sliced with an area of 100x100 mm and the latest wire saw systems can achieve thicknesses down to 300 μm. What makes this a challenging simulation problem is the wide range of timescales that characterize the overall cutting process. The slowest dynamics are associated with the evolution of the cut, which is described by a spatially dependent differential equation in time and in which the cutting rate is modeled much in the same manner as the Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) process. Cutting rate is a direct function of the distance between the wire and ingot surface. Because the wire dynamics are orders of magnitude faster than the cut evolution, the wire deflection is modeled by a static circular beam. The goal of this modeling work is to understand the physical mechanisms that limit how thin the wafers can be cut and to determine the sensitivity of cutting time and cutting rate based on process operating conditions.


For two years in the mid-thirteenth century England was torn by a bloody civil war between the king and his nobles. For a short time, the country came close to unseating the monarchy, and the outcome changed the course of English history. Yet this critical episode receives far less attention than the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil Wars that followed. John Sadler, in this highly readable and perceptive study of the Barons' War, describes events in vivid detail. He explores the leading personalities, whose bitter quarrel gave rise to the conflict - Henry III, his son Prince Edward, later Edward I, and their most famous opponent, Simon de Montfort, whose masterful charisma galvanized support among the discontented nobility. The clash of interests between the king and his 'overmighty' subjects is reconsidered, as are the personal and political tensions that polarized opinion and tested loyalties to the limit. But the main emphasis of John Sadler's account is on events in the field, in particular the two major campaigns that determined the course of the war and indeed the future government of England - the battles fought at Lewes and Evesham.


Though it is enshrined in the Constitution, the grand jury today is one of the least respected institutions in American criminal justice. In recent years, scholars and lawyers have treated the grand jury like doctors think about the appendix: an organ that is part of our constitutional make-up, but not of much use. Some scholars have proposed reforms that are ostensibly designed to re-invigorate this institution. However, most of the proposed reforms seem only very loosely related to the fundamental purpose of the grand jury. In an era in which plea bargains have made trials rare, the grand jury has the potential to serve a crucial role in insuring popular legitimacy in the criminal justice system in a way that trial juries cannot. In light of all the criticism, however, the grand jury seems to be failing in that role. This article theorizes that, as the United States has become more diverse, the grand jury has lost its role as the voice of the community. The grand jury has become instead a microscosm of the melting pot in which each community's voice is lost amid a cacophony of voices from other communities within the same jurisdiction. Since a grand jury functions by majority vote and is now generally drawn from the entire jurisdiction, the grand jury no longer serves as a counter-majoritarian force of the local community against central authority. The loss of this function may have had the most serious impacts on citizens in minority communities where legitimacy issues are most salient. Ironically, the root of this problem may lie in efforts to insure diverse representation in criminal justice - through unthinking adoption of the principle that trial juries should be drawn from panels representing a fair cross-section of the community. No jurisdiction is just one community, and no grand jury can serve its purpose of representing any community if it is drawn from all communities. The way to restore the grand jury's purpose may be to rebuild the grand jury's original role as a local check on central authority. This article proposes that grand juries be reconstituted so that each grand jury represents a neighborhood, or, in other words, an actual community of people who are likely to share common concerns about local issues of criminal justice.


There has been an increasing focus on social and emotional development in educational programmes in early childhood as both variables are believed to influence behavioural outcomes in the classroom. However, relationships between social and emotional development and behaviour in early childhood have rarely been explored. This article sets out to investigate the conceptualisation of these variables and their interrelationships. Structural equation models were used to assess whether differences exist between boys and girls in relation to social and emotional competences, which could affect the relative success of such programmes. This article is based on cross-sectional data collected from 749 four- to six-year-olds and their teachers. The findings generally supported the hypothesised relationships between social and emotional development variables and prosocial behaviour (including internalising behaviour) for boys and girls. However, some gender differences were noted in externalising behaviour, which teachers often consider to be most significant due to its potentially disruptive nature in the classroom.


The effect of soy as a natural antioxidant against flaxseed rancidity in yeast breads was tested. Variables included: control (100% bread flour); yeast bread with 15% flax meal in place of part of the total bread flour; yeast bread with 15% flax meal and 5% soy; and yeast bread with 15% flax and 10% soy. Objective and sensory tests were used to evaluate breads. Peroxide values indicated that the hydroperoxides in breads increased during the first four weeks of the study, and then decreased, as would be expected as breads are exposed to more elements with time. Moisture content was not significantly different between the breads. Breads containing flax were significantly firmer (p < 0.02) in texture. Breads containing flax were also significantly lower in volume (p < 0.005) and significantly darker in crumb color (p < 0.01). The level of 10% soy contributed to a significantly darker crust color (p < 0.04). Quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA) found the level of 10% soy also contributed to an increased stale taste and aftertaste, firmer texture, coarser crumb, and drier loaf (p < 0.05). Musty aroma was not significantly different among breads and all breads containing flax had an increased grainy taste (p < 0.0001). Soy was found to have no significant antioxidant effect on the prevention of flaxseed rancidity in yeast breads. Table of


ERF family transcription factor (TF) represented ethylene-responsive protein which harbored a conserved AP2 domain. After searching the plant transcription factor database, a total of 75 unigenes was found which contained AP2 domain from the transcriptome dataset of Panax quinquefolius L. One unique sequence of ERF transcript, named as PqERF1, was cloned with entire open reading frame of 933 base pairs (bp). Protein prediction result indicated that the gene was localized in nucleus and had a conserved AP2 domain. PqERF1 gene could be induced by methyl jasmonate (MeJA) which was consistent to the inducing profile of triterpene ginsenosides. InterproScan prediction indicated that PqERF1 was probably a pathogenesis-related gene. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis demonstrated PqERF1 was with high identity and had relative close relationship to the NtERF4 (Nicotiana tabacum), PhERF12 (Petunia x hybrida) and DcERF1 (Daucus carota) which was related to plant defense, regulation of secondary metabolism and the flower senescence respectively. Therefore, the gene was likely involved in regulation of secondary metabolism, plant defense and physical processes which would provide gene resource for further study on secondary metabolite synthesis and molecular breeding of P. quinquefolius.


Hourly-resolved aerosol chemical speciation data can be a highly powerful tool to determine the source origin of atmospheric pollutants in urban environments. Aerosol mass concentrations of seventeen elements (Na, Mg, Al, S, Cl, K, Ca, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Sr and Pb) were obtained by time (1 h) and size (PM 2.5 particulate matter < 2.5 μm) resolved aerosol samples analysed by Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) measurements. In the Marie Curie European Union framework of SAPUSS (Solving Aerosol Problems by Using Synergistic Strategies), the approach used is the simultaneous sampling at two monitoring sites in Barcelona (Spain) during September–October 2010: an urban background site (UB) and a street canyon traffic road site (RS). Elements related to primary nonexhaust traffic emission (Fe, Cu), dust resuspension (Ca) and anthropogenic Cl were found enhanced at the RS, whereas industrial related trace metals (Zn, Pb, Mn) were found at higher concentrations at the more ventilated UB site. When receptor modelling was performed with positive matrix factorization (PMF), nine different aerosol sources were identified at both sites: three types of regional aerosols (regional sulphate (S) – 27 %, biomass burning (K) – 5 %, sea salt (NaMg) – 17 %), three types of dust aerosols (soil dust (Al-Ti) – 17 %, urban crustal dust (Ca) – 6 %, and primary traffic non-exhaust brake dust (Fe-Cu) – 7 %), and three types of industrial aerosol plumes-like events (shipping oil combustion (V-Ni) – 17 %, industrial sm lters (Z -Mn) – 3 %, and industrial combustion (Pb-Cl) – 5 %, percentages presented are average source contributions to the total elemental mass measured). The validity of the PMF solution of the PIXE data is supported by very good correlations with external single particle mass spectrometry measurements. Some important conclusions can be drawn about the PM 2.5 mass fraction simultaneously measured at the UB and RS sites: (1) the regional aerosol sources impact both monitoring sites at similar concentrations regardless their different ventilation conditions; (2) by contrast, local industrial aerosol plumes associated with shipping oil combustion nd smelters activities have a higher impact on the more ventilated UB site; (3) a unique source of Pb-Cl (associated with combustion emissions) is found to be the major (82 %) source of fine Cl in the urban agglomerate; (4) the mean diurnal variation of PM 2.5 primary traffic non-exhaust brake dust (Fe-Cu) suggests that this source is mainly emitted and not resuspended, whereas PM2.5 urban dust (Ca) is found mainly resuspended by both traffic vortex and sea breeze; (5) urban dust (Ca) is found the aerosol source most affected by land wetness, reduced by a factor of eight during rainy days and suggesting that wet roads may be a solution for reducing urban dust concentrations. Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 4376 M. Dall'Osto et al.: Diurnal variations and PMF receptor modelling


Dynamical models of robots performing tasks in contact with objects or the environment are difficult to obtain. Therefore, different methods of learning the dynamics of tasks have been proposed. In this chapter, we present a method that provides the joint torques needed to execute a task in a compliant and at the same time accurate manner. The presented method of compliant movement primitives (CMPs), which consists of the task kinematical and dynamical trajectories, goes beyond mere reproduction of previously learned motions. Using statistical generalization, the method allows to generate new, previously untrained trajectories. Furthermore, the use of transition graphs allows us to combine parts of previously learned motions and thus generate new ones. In the chapter, we provide a brief overview of this research topic in the literature, followed by an in-depth explanation of the compliant movement primitives framework, with details on both statistical generalization and transition graphs. An extensive experimental evaluation demonstrates the applicability and the usefulness of the approach.


The focus of this thesis is to diagonally precondition on the limited memory quasi-Newton method for large scale unconstrained optimization problem. Particularly, the centre of discussion is on diagonally preconditioned limited memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (L-BFGS) method. L-BFGS method has been widely used in large scale unconstrained optimization due to its effectiveness. However, a major drawback of the L-BFGS method is that it can be very slow on certain type of problems. Scaling and preconditioning have been used to boost the performance of the L-BFGS method.
In this study, a class of diagonally preconditioned L-BFGS method will be proposed. Contrary to the standard L-BFGS method where its initial inverse Hessian approximation is the identity matrix, a class of diagonal preconditioners has been derived based upon the weak-quasi-Newton relation with an additional parameter. Choosing different parameters leads the research to some well-known diagonal updating formulae which enable the R-linear convergent for the L-BFGS method. Numerical experiments were performed on a set of large scale unconstrained minimization problem to examine the impact of each choice of parameter. The computational results suggest that the proposed diagonally preconditioned L-BFGS methods outperform the standard L-BFGS method without any preconditioning. Finally, we discuss on the impact of the diagonal preconditioners on the L-BFGS method as compared to the standard L-BFGS method in terms of the number of iterations, the number of function/gradient evaluations and the CPU time in second.


Human behaviour is infinitely complex, the result of thousands of interactions between predispositions, external factors and physical and cognitive processes. It is also highly unpredictable, which makes meaningful social engagement difficult without the aid of some external framework such as that offered by an institution. Both formal and informal institutions can provide the element of predictability necessary for successful, complex interactions, a factor which is often overlooked by institutional analysts and designers. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines including psychology, economics, and sociological and political studies, this book develops a coherent and accessible theory for explaining the unpredictability of individual behaviour. The author then highlights the danger of institutional reforms undermining the very capacity to generate predictability which is so central to their success. This book will appeal to academics, researchers and professionals in many fields including management studies, behavioural economics and the new, interdisciplinary field of institutional design.


This thesis presents the systematic analysis of feature spaces and classification schemes for face image processing. Linear discriminants, probabilistic classifiers, and nearest neighbour classifiers are applied to face/nonface classification in various feature spaces including original grayscale space, face-image-whitened space, anything-image-whitened space, and double-whitened space. According to the classification error rates, the probabilistic classifiers performed the best, followed by nearest neighbour classifiers, and then the linear discriminant classifier. However, the former two kinds of classifiers are more computationally demanding. No matter what kind of classifier is used, the whitened space with reduced dimensionality improves classification performance. -- A new feature extraction technique, named dominant feature extraction, is invented and applied to face/nonface classification with encouraging results. This technique extracts the features corresponding to the mean-difference and variance-difference of two classes. Other classification schemes, including the repeated Fisher's Linear Discriminant (FLD) and a moving-centre scheme, are newly proposed and tested. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) classifier based on hyperellipsoid distribution is applied for the first time to face/nonface classification. -- Face images are conventionally represented by grayscales. This work presents a new representation that includes motion vectors, obtained through optical flow analysis between an input image and a neutral template, and a deformation residue that is the difference between the deformed input image and the template. The face images compose a convex cluster in this representation space. The viability of this space is tested and demonstrated through classification experiments on face detection, expression analysis, pose estimation, and face recognition. When the FLD is applied to face/nonface classification and smiling/nonsmiling face classification, the new representation of face images outperforms the traditional grayscale representation. Face recognition experiments using the nearest neighbour classifier on the Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory (ORL) face database shows that the deformation residue representation is superior to all other representations. These promising results demonstrate that as a general-purpose space, the derived representation space is suitable for almost all aspects of face image processing.


This article draws on the qualitative research component of a mixed-methods project exploring the Australian news media's representation of violence against women. This critical discourse analysis is on print and online news reporting of the case of 'Kings Cross Nightclub Rapist Luke Lazarus', who in March 2015 was tried and convicted of raping a female club-goer in a laneway behind his father's nightclub in Sydney, Australia. We explore the journalism discursive practices employed in the production of the news reports about the Lazarus trial. Our analysis shows how some lexical features, quoting strategies and structuring elements serve to minimise the victim's experience while emphasising the adverse effects of the trial on the accused. Furthermore, we demonstrate how such practices allow for the graphic representation of the attack in a salacious manner while minimising the impact of the crime on the victim by selectively referencing her victim impact statement. We found some differences between print and online news stories about this case, some of which may be attributable to the greater space available to the telling of news stories online. We conclude that in news reporting of the Lazarus case, routine journalism discursive practices, such as the inverted pyramid news-writing structure and decisions about who and what to quote, serve simultaneously to diminish the victim's experience while objectifying her. These results build on international findings about media reporting practices in relation to violence against women and add substantially to what we know about these practices in Australia.


Anthony Cross. Peter the Great Through British Eyes: Perceptions and Representations of the Tsar since 1698. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000. xii, 172 pages. Plates. Index. Anthony Cross's latest work, inspired by the tercentenary of Peter the Great's visit to England in 1698, adds to the author's impressive list of published monographs about Russian literature and culture. The present piece, which attempts to survey three centuries of British attitudes towards Peter and his Russia, reflects his interests in Anglo-Russian relations. It focuses on documentary sources, dramatic works and the visual arts. This approach is unusual, as the author claims, but provides insights into how the British portrayed Peter the Great in various media. A meticulously thorough, detailed survey of published sources, including books, magazines, handbills and other materials, is a fine point of Cross's study, occupying almost two-thirds of the work. Cross discusses in chronological order all printed references he can find that deal with Peter. The early years, from Peter's origins to the end of the eighteenth century, yield particularly rich sources. Here we find a wide range of opinions about the tsar, including, for example, eyewitness reports of Peter's visit, the impressions of merchants, courtiers, naval and military figures, ship builders and travellers. The nineteenth century story, covered in one short chapter, yields fewer surprises. Most of the works discussed are literary or historical appraisals of well-established opinions about Peter the Great. Disappointingly, the survey of printed materials does not extend beyond the nineteenth century, an authorial decision that Cross does not address until the Epilogue (from a reader's view, perhaps the point belongs in the Preface). Arguing that twentieth-century works (particularly those written in the latter half) about Peter and his Russia are mainly academic in origin, the author considers them outside the mainstream of British public opinion. He is content, therefore, to provide a bibliographical sketch of the major publications of the period that address Peter the Great, but leaves it at that. He states (p. 162): "how this academic research... reaches beyond academic circles and affects long-standing stereotypes and perceptions is of course the moot point." Given this arguable view, should not similar reasoning be applied, for example, to eighteenth-century sources? Our knowledge of eighteenthcentury British printing and publishing is limited at best, and questions about how many copies of a work were printed, their distribution and readership are largely unanswerable. Much of the material that Cross considers is of specialized interest and probably had a limited audience. Can we claim, then, that the published material of that period reflects any broader public opinion than academic treatises of today? Cross's brief survey of Peter the Great as the subject of British dramatic works reflects the paucity of plays that deal with the tsar. It is puzzling, however, that the author does not look to the history of British drama for a possible explanation. At the close of the chapter, Cross is on target when he writes: "Peter is thus relegated... once more to the role of music-hall or comic opera from which he had barely escaped during his appearances on the British stage during the preceding century and a half' (p. 14). Unfortunately, he does not pursue the thought further. First, only two British theatres-Royal Covent Garden and Drury Lane-were legally able to present dramatic works (due to The Licensing Act, 1737). Commercial interests influenced competition for these two stages. Shakespeare's plays, for instance, were popular, moneymaking attractions. Personal factors also applied. Thus, for example, David Garrick (owner and lead actor of Drury Lane) selected pieces that suited his acting talents. Second, from the seventeenth century the Lord Chamberlain censored all stage productions-a power that declined only in the early part of the nineteenth century. …


We consider QCD radiative corrections to standard model Higgs-boson production in association with a W boson in hadron collisions. We present a fully exclusive calculation up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD perturbation theory. To perform this NNLO computation, we use a recently proposed version of the subtraction formalism. Our calculation includes finite-width effects, the leptonic decay of the W boson with its spin correlations, and the decay of the Higgs boson into a bb pair. We present selected numerical results at the Tevatron and the LHC.


The Australian Government's widening participation agenda - also referred to as the social inclusion agenda - considers equity through the triple focus of access, participation and outcomes. These foci are catalysts for re-examining teaching and learning approaches in formal education. This article considers this national refocus and the possibilities for addressing access and equity issues through and within three-dimensional virtual learning environments (3DVLEs). The findings of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)-funded project that investigated the potential of an accessible 3DVLE for increasing access and participation of students with disabilities are reported, and strategies for improving outcomes (i.e. retention, success and completion) proposed. The article also highlights some of the remaining challenges with regard to the goal of improving outcomes for under-represented learner groups. The final section of the article identifies areas for further research.


The main purpose of this study is to model accurately the hydrologic and hydraulic behaviour of the Nyl River floodplain. It is envisaged that the model will not only provide a means whereby possible impacts on the floodplain system can be predicted, should upstream developments in the catchment be undertaken, but will also complement other investigations that have thus far been undertaken in the biological and ecological fields. Two rainfall-runoff models with different time scales, namely monthly and daily were used for the hydrological analysis. The monthly analysis was carried out using WRSM2000 as a means of comparison and for more broad scale planning, whereas the daily analysis was carried out using DAYFLOW in order to provide the required input to the hydraulic model. Hydrological model calibration was achieved on ten gauged catchments. Further tests on the daily model's ability to simulate daily flows indicated the model to be adequate for the study, notwithstanding the shortcomings in the distribution of rain gauges, particularly in the middle reaches of the study area. Hydraulic modelling and four modelling tools are used for developing the hydraulic models, viz Quicksurf, RiverCAD, HEC-RAS and HEC-DSSVue. The topography surveying is carried out using an aerial laser scan, and the data is processed using the Quicksurf and RiverCAD software packages. The hydraulic behaviour of the floodplain is shown to be well replicated by the models, with predicted peak stage levels generally agreeing to within 20 cm of observations.


We describe a new method for non-stationary noise suppression that is simple to implement yet has performance that rivals far more complex algorithms. Spectral Intersections is a model based MMSE signal separation method that uses a new approximation to the observation likelihood. Furthermore, Spectral Intersections uses an efficient approximation to the expectation integral of the MMSE estimate that could be described as unscented importance sampling. We apply the new method to the task of separating speech mixed with music. We report results on the Google Voice Search task where the new method provides a 7% relative reduction in WER at 10 dB SNR. Interestingly, the new method provides considerably greater reduction in average WER than the Max method and approaches the performance of the more complex Algonquin algorithm.


Diagnosis procedures primarily aim at locating the control volumes where anomalies occurred. This is not a simple task, since the effects of anomalies generally propagate through the whole system and affect the behavior of several components. Some components may therefore present a reduced efficiency, although they are not sources of operation anomalies, due to non flat efficiency curves. These induced effects are a big obstacle in the use of thermoeconomic techniques for the search of the origin of the anomalies. On the other hand, the real cause of the alteration of component behavior is the modification of its characteristic curve, due to degradation or failures. According to this concept, a new approach, based on an indicator measuring the alteration of the characteristic curve of the component affected by the operation anomaly, is proposed and applied to a test case power plant.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


Studies on vegetation and insect predation were conducted during
the period 1982-84 at the Ridgeway Park Reserve, Tasmania. The vegetation
of the area is eucalypt forest and woodland which varies in
composition, dominance and structure. Soil type, topography, the level
of grazing and incidence of fire also vary within the study area.
The influence of soil type on moisture availability was investigated
by comparing the vegetation on sites receiving the same incident solar
radiation. The majority of species experience a shift in distribution
over the three soil types such that with increasing radiation the species
reach their peak frequency first on the brown earth, then on the podzolic
soil and finally on the podsol. This pattern conformed to a model of
moisture availability devised for the three soils. Species that did not
conform to the model were either particularly vulnerable to the effects
of grazing or fire, opportunists or restricted to one or other of the
three soil types and hence a particular set of soil nutrient conditions.
The effects of insect grazing on sapling eucalypts on north and
south-facing slopes, which differed in geology, were assessed by monthly
monitoring of insect damage and by deterring insects from grazing certain
trees through the use of insecticide. On every tree percentage damage,
and the amount of different types of damage, leaf loss, mean shoot length,
the number of leaves per shoot and the percentage of damaged leaves,
were measured on the current season's shoots. A limited sample of the
same data was collected on leaves approximately one year old.
Overall, there were few significant differences in the level of
these variables between the different species and sites. Percentage
damage figures were comparatively low (7-12%) and there was no significant
difference between the species. However, damage was significantly higher
in the most mesic, least fertile site. Percentage damage, and leaf and
shoot loss were combined to derive a figure for the total damage to each
species (29-41%). This was significantly higher in E. obliqua compared with the other species.
The patterns of insect defoliation may have been considerably
altered as a result of a drought experienced during the course of the
study. Insect activities may effect forest community composition, but
only as part of a web of inter-relationships whose effects vary, between
the species, in space and time.


The effect of metabolic and inflammatory parameters on pregnancy success in terms of implantation, metabolic adaptation to pregnancy and fetal programming is yet to be fully understood. This thesis explores the activity of metabolic and inflammatory pathways in pregnancy, highlighting their importance throughout gestation.

In a cell culture study, a model of in vivo blastocyst-uterine adhesion to study the effect of insulin during uterine implantation was explored. JAR spheroid-RL95-2 monolayer adhesion reached 98% by 24 hours in the absence of insulin. A low dose (0.03nM) of added insulin concentrations resulted in 26% adhesion, or 74% inhibition; a high level (0.24nM) inhibited the JAR spheroid-RL95-2 monolayer adhesion by 9%. Therefore insulin did not have a dose-dependent on JAR spheroid-RL95-2 monolayer adhesion in the cell culture model of implantation. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) studies revealed laminin α1 RNA detection on JAR cells only, CD44 on RL95-2 cells only, no trophinin on both cell types, FBLN-1 and -2 on JAR and FBLN-1 on RL95-2 cells only and an insulin receptor in both cell types. Western blot and immunohistochemistry (IHC) studies showed laminin α1 detection and stains on the JAR cell extracellular matrix.

In a prospective human study, the metabolites of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism and inflammatory mediators very early (between day 0 and day 45) in gestation and their link to successful pregnancy in women undergoing natural cycle frozen embryo transfer (FET) in assisted conception, was investigated. Plasma triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), glucose, c-reactive protein (CRP) and non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) were measured on routine biochemistry; insulin, interleukin (IL)-6, plasminogen activated inhibitor (PAI)-1 and PAI-2 on ELISA; IL-8 (CXCL8), CCL2, CCL3, CCL4 and CCL11 on BioPlex; and human chronic gonadotrophin (hCG) on an Immulite system. For all 196 FET cycles, participants' demographics and plasma parameters of pregnant (n=36) and non-pregnant (n=106) women were explored. Neither obesity, the plasma parameters nor insulin resistance were predictive of successful pregnancy, but ICSI (predominately associated with male factor infertility) was. Overall, the hCG, insulin, rebound TG and HDL-C (except TC), homeostasis model assessment (HOMA), CRP and PAI-2 levels were higher, whereas CXCL8, CCL2, CCL11 and PAI-1 were significantly lower by day 45. Baseline obesity related to positive changes in plasma insulin, HDL-C and HOMA and negative changes in CXCL8, CCL3 and CCL4.

In a cross-sectional study in late pregnancy, offspring's reflection of parameters in women with preeclampsia (PE) (n=29) and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) (n=14), compared to BMI-matched healthy groups (n=87) and (n=42), respectively, was explored. Fetal cord was found to be hyperlipidaemic, normoglycaemic and had reduced inflammatory response, while mothers who suffered PE had altered plasma TG, TC, NEFA, glucose, leptin and IL-10 compared to controls. IUGR babies were dyslipidaemic. The role of cholesterol transporters was assessed in PE (n=20) and IUGR (n=9) BMI-matched controls (n=20 and n=9) respectively. Among fifteen steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (STAR)-related lipid transfer domains, only STARD6 and STARD15 were not detected in the placenta via PCR. IHC studies were also explored on the placentae. The real-time PCR (RT-PCR) of messenger RNA of low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), STARD3 and ATP-binding cassette A1 (ABCA1) without protein were higher in PE compared to controls. LDLR, STARD3 and ABCA1 localisation and detection were consistent to placental lipid (cholesterol) transport systems.

In summary, all this led to the conclusion of the importance of metabolic and inflammatory pathways in all stages of pregnancy in leading to pregnancy success; these pathways may influence implantation, adaptation to pregnancy and, potentially, fetal programming of offspring.


Clinical treatment of pathogenic infection has emerged as a growing challenge in global public health. Such treatment is currently limited to antibiotics, but abuse of antibiotics have induced multidrug resistance and high fatality rates in anti‐infection therapies. Thus, it is vital to develop alternative bactericidal agents to open novel disinfection pathways. Drawing inspiration from elements of the human immune system that show great potential for controlling pathogens or regulating cell apoptosis, the design of biocatalytic nanomaterials (BCNs) have provided unrivaled opportunities for future antibacterial therapies. More significantly, BCNs exhibit various superior properties to immune cells and natural enzymes, such as higher biocatalytic performance, extraordinary stability against harsh conditions, and scalable production. In this review, the most recent efforts toward developing BCN‐based biomedical applications in combating bacterial infections are focused upon. BCNs' antibacterial mechanisms, the classification of BCNs, antibacterial activities that can be triggered or augmented by energy conversion, and the eradication of biofilms with BCNs are systematically introduced and discussed. The current challenges and prospects of BCNs for biocatalytic disinfection are also summarized. It is anticipated this review will provide new therapeutic insights into combating bacteria and biofilms and offer significant new inspiration for designing future biocatalytic nanomaterials.


Abstract:
 In 1946 the Teucrium cubense complex was treated as having four subspecies by McClintock and Epling. In the present account these have been treated as distinct species: Teucrium cordobense, T. cubense, T. depressum, and T. laevigatum. An additional species, T. coahuilanum, is described from north-central Mexico, this previously recognized as a North American populational element of T. laevigatum.


Abstract Apart from a single study of the early Katian δ13C chemostratigraphy in two regions in China, no investigations of the Sandbian and Katian chemostratigraphy have been published from anywhere in Asia. A recent study of the conodont biostratigraphy of the classical Ordovician succession on Langkawi Islands, peninsular Malaysia, showed the presence there of strata coeval with those having the Guttenberg Carbon Excursion (GICE) on the Yangtze Platform. In an effort to establish for the first time the presence of this widespread δ13C excursion in southern Asia, a series of samples from the upper part of the Kaki Bukit Formation was isotopically analysed. This resulted in the discovery of a conspicuous δ13C excursion with peak values of ~ 2 ‰ above the baseline values. The excursion is located just above the Baltoniodus alobatus Subzone and near the level of the first appearance of Hamarodus europaeus, hence the same stratigraphic position as the GICE on the Yangtze Platform. Using the GICE, the Malaysian study interval is closely correlated with the GICE intervals at three localities representing an approximately 23 000 km long transect from Malaysia across Baltoscandia to central North America. This shows the usefulness of δ13C chemostratigraphy to clarify previously obscure stratigraphic relationships between geographically very widely separated localities.


M. J. Roobol writes: In a recent paper, P. E. Baker (1985), describes differences in radiocarbon ages obtained from pyroclastic deposits of Mt Misery, St Kitts. The ages reported by Roobol et al. 1981 are consistently older than those reported by Baker (1985). Unit E pyroclastic flow deposits of Mt Misery yielded a range of ages from 2280 to 3060 years in the earlier work and 2030 to 2060 in the later work. In one instance the same carbonized tree trunk yielded an age of 2860 ± 105 (Roobol et al. 1981) compared with 2050 ± 40 and 2120 ± 40 (Baker 1985). The reason for this systematic difference does not lie in the use of different radiocarbon dating laboratories, but in the nature of the material submitted to them. The older ages obtained by us result from a field decontamination procedure which we developed and have used in the Lesser Antilles since 1971. We regard all exposed carbonized wood on the green tropical volcanoes of the Lesser Antilles as contaminated by the decomposed remains of modern plant roots and we apply our decontamination procedure at all collection sites. Our age dates are consistently older because we submit less contaminated material and we regard them as more closely approaching the age of the deposit. Some discussion of the justification and nature of the simple decontamination procedure is given here as its application may be of wider interest. In 1971 Alan Smith and I began collecting carbonized wood on Mt Pelée,


Background: Tetrabenazine was approved in the year of 2008 by USFDA. It was indicated mainly as an antipsychotic drug but now-a-days it is used for the treatment of hyperkinetic disorders. Objective: The objective of the study was to develop a simple and cost-effective spectrophotometric methods for the determination of tetrabenazine in tablets. Materials and Methods: The UV-Visible spectrophotometric studies carried out by Shimadzu UV 1800 with UV probe software and FT-IR studies using bruker alpha with opus software. The UV spectrum at 284 nm (Method A) and visible spectrum at 454 nm (Method B) are recorded. The FT-IR band of carbonyl group in tetrabenazine appeared at 1700 cm−1 with two-point baseline between 1650-1750 cm−1 (Method C). Results: Method A: The UV method was proved linear over the range of 10–50 μg/mL with correlation coefficient r2=0.9988 and mean recovery of 99.02% to 101.54%. Method B: The colorimetric method involves oxidative reaction of tetrabenazine and it yields green color chromogen. The linear concentrations over the range of 3-15 μg/mL with correlation coefficient of r2=0.9981 and mean recovery of 99.93% to 100.50%. Method C: The FT-IR method was showed linear over the range of 5-25 μg/mg, with correlation coefficient r2=0.9998 and mean recovery of 100.75% to 100.91%. The results of tetrabenazine tablets showed good agreement with their label claim. The results of ANOVA declare there was no significant difference between these spectrophotometric methods. Conclusion: Hence, these spectroscopic methods can be used for routine quality testing analysis of tetrabenazine in pharmaceutical laboratories.


Objective: To estimate the amount, type, and tissue distribution of vitamin D in the adult body under typical inputs. Methods: Review and reanalysis of published measurements and analysis of tissue samples from growing pigs raised in confinement on diets providing about 2000 IU vitamin D/day. Cholecalciferol and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration measured by HPLC. Results: Mean serum 25(OH)D in all studies combined was 45 nmol/L. At the level of vitamin D repletion represented by this concentration, total body vitamin D would be 14,665 IU for a 70 kg adult woman. 65% of this total was present as native cholecalciferol and 35% as 25(OH)D. Nearly three-quarters of the cholecalciferol was in fat, while 25(OH)D was more evenly distributed throughout the body (20% in muscle, 30% in serum, 35% in fat, and 15% in all other tissues). At the daily vitamin D consumption rates in these animals total body stores provided only a ∼7-day reserve. Conclusions: At total intakes on the order of 2000 IU/day, an adult has very little vitamin D reserve, despite intakes 10× the current recommendations. Those recommended inputs need to be increased by at least an order of magnitude. Food tables that fail to take into account 25(OH)D content of various meat products lead to underestimation of dietary vitamin D intake.


Islet transplantation can eliminate severe hypoglycemia symptoms caused by conventional treatment, and has the advantages of less trauma and complications, which is considered as the most promising treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Regulatory guidance is needed for a standard pig source. In section 1, the regulation of medical grade designed pathogen free (DPF) donor pig for clinical xenotransplantation consists of five parts: genetic quality control, microbiological surveillance, formula feeds, specification of pathological diagnosis, and requirements of environment and housing facilities. In section 2, we present the current approach and progress in pig donor selecting, pancreatic digestion, isolation and preparation of porcine islet grafts, identification and quality assessment of final islet product in clinical trials. The liver is currently the most preferred site for islet transplantation, even though it is far from ideal. A large number of alternative sites have been used for islet transplantation in experimental animal models to provide improved engraftment and long-term survival. In Section 3, we introduce some commonly used sites in xenotransplantation. The benefits and drawbacks of each parameter above are discussed in an attempt to decide which is the most suitable for clinical use and to direct future research.


Calcineurin B homologous proteins (CHP) are N-myristoylated, EF-hand Ca(2+)-binding proteins that bind to and regulate Na(+)/H(+) exchangers, which occurs through a variety of mechanisms whose relative significance is incompletely understood. Like mammals, Caenorhabditis elegans has three CHP paralogs, but unlike mammals, worms can survive CHP loss-of-function. However, mutants for the CHP ortholog PBO-1 are unfit, and PBO-1 has been shown to be required for proton signaling by the basolateral Na(+)/H(+) exchanger NHX-7 and for proton-coupled intestinal nutrient uptake by the apical Na(+)/H(+) exchanger NHX-2. Here, we have used this genetic model organism to interrogate PBO-1's mechanism of action. Using fluorescent tags to monitor Na(+)/H(+) exchanger trafficking and localization, we found that loss of either PBO-1 binding or activity caused NHX-7 to accumulate in late endosomes/lysosomes. In contrast, NHX-2 was stabilized at the apical membrane by a nonfunctional PBO-1 protein and was only internalized following its complete loss. Additionally, two pbo-1 paralogs were identified, and their expression patterns were analyzed. One of these contributed to the function of the excretory cell, which acts like a kidney in worms, establishing an alternative model for testing the role of this protein in membrane transporter trafficking and regulation. These results lead us to conclude that the role of CHP in Na(+)/H(+) exchanger regulation differs between apical and basolateral transporters. This further emphasizes the importance of proper targeting of Na(+)/H(+) exchangers and the critical role of CHP family proteins in this process.


This article concerns literacy in Dutch among migrant labourers and more specifically among Turkish women, as the author's main expe-rience lies in that field. The article aims to provide volunteers teaching Dutch to migrant labourers with some practical knowledge about literacy.First the Turkish Women Committee and its aims are introduced, because this committee tries to improve the position of Turkish women abroad by - amongst others - organising literacy classes in Turkish in Amsterdam. Dutch lessons are given as well.Linguistic arguments for literacy in the mother tongue are only put forward when social and cultural reasons have been introduced.Then some principles of phonetics are put forward, a comparison of Dutch and Turkish vowels and indications for phonetic correction.Finally, an order is indicated in which to present the Dutch vowels, and what phases there are to be observed in teaching pronunciation, reading and writing. Correct discrimination of speech sounds is considered absolutely necessary before teaching the last two skills.


We were all shocked when hearing that Dr. Jana Zvárová had passed away on July 5th, 2017. She was one of the most active members within IMIA and EFMI and perhaps the very first person in our field from the former East-European countries. Jana Zvárová was born in 1943 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. After graduating in Mathematics in 1965 at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague, she collaborated with several disciplines of Charles University (Medicine, and Mathematics and Physics). She founded the Medical Informatics section of the Czech Society of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics in 1978. She was nominated in 1999 full professor at Charles University and received in the same year the highest Czech scientific degree of Doctor of Sciences at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Dr Zvárová systematically applied new theoretical knowledge in biomedicine, particularly in epidemiology and public health. Since 1994, she chaired the European Center of Medical Informatics, Statistics, and Epidemiology (EuroMISE) of Charles University and the Academy of Sciences. Between 2006 and 2011, she was the director of the Center of Biomedical Informatics. She was the representative of the Czech Republic in IMIA (the International Medical Informatics Association) and in EFMI (the European Federation for Medical Informatics). She was a member of editorial boards of several national and international journals. The results of her research are documented in 10 monographs and more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals. In the framework of European projects, she started new lines of research and education concerning electronic health records, knowledge representation in clinical guidelines, decision support systems, and methods for evaluation of knowledge. She organized several IMIA and EFMI international conferences and workshops in Prague. Dr Zvárová also initiated the foundation of the EuroMISE years, we have learned to know many active members in IMIA and EFMI; all of them were active and energetic, but hardly any of them could be compared with Jana Zvárová, whose creativity and endeavors were far beyond those of all others. Already in September 1985, Jana took the initiative to organize in Prague a Conference on Medical Decision Making, covering diagnostic strategies and expert systems. Jana requested François Grémy and Jan van Bemmel to chair this four-day meeting in which also people from then communist countries took par t. An important book from North-Holland Publishing Company was the result of this conference, the first one of that kind in the communist world. The years before 1989 were very difficult, but already before that year Jana managed to start research projects, organize international and local meetings, and to travel abroad. But after the so-called velvet revolution, things improved radically. For instance, Jana's Center took the initiative to organize courses in Medical Informatics at a new center of the Academy of Sciences in Prague, where she had established her own research activities. The Academy of Sciences, Charles University, and the European Union gave support to this initiative and the result was that during four years, 1996 1999, three-week courses in Medical Informatics were given each year for about 20-25 students, with hands-on experience. We want to stress that it was Jana who organized such projects and that they were accomplished only thanks to her perseverance. Not only was Jana a professional of the first order, she also was a devoted wife and mother having raised very successful children and being a role model for women in the field of Health Informatics internationally. Shortly before her death she planned to publish a special issue on Women in Health Informatics in the International Journal on Biomedicine and Healthcare, to appear in the autumn of 2017, to which many of the international medical informatics female professionals were invited by her to make a contribution. Jana's energy was amazing, even until only a few months before she passed away, when she organized once more a conference here in Prague at the House of Physicians. Of course, after so many years, several other stories could be told, but we will finish by repeating once more that everyone was deeply impressed by Jana's personality. Jana knew exactly what she wanted, but was at the same time a warm and friendly person. Together with all other colleagues in EFMI and IMIA, we were always much delighted to give support to Jana's initiatives. Personally and professionally we do miss Jana dearly. It has been indeed an honor to have been counted to her friends.