The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science--the Humean problem of induction--concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories--thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice.


To study the genetic basis of tick burden and milk production and their interrelationship, we collected a sample of 1961 cattle with multiple tick counts from northern Australia of which 973 had dairy production data in the Australian Dairy Herd Information Service database. We calculated heritabilities, genetic and phenotypic correlations for these traits and showed a negative relationship between tick counts and milk and milk component yield. Tests of polymorphisms of four genes associated with milk yield, ABCG2, DGAT1, GHR and PRLR, showed no statistically significant effect on tick burden but highly significant associations to milk component yield in these data and we confirmed separate effects for GHR and PRLR on bovine chromosome 20. To begin to identify some of the molecular genetic bases for these traits, we genotyped a sample of 189 of these cattle for 7397 single nucleotide polymorphisms in a genome-wide association study. Although the allele effects for adjusted milk fat and protein yield were highly correlated (r = 0.66), the correlations of allele effects of these milk component yields and tick burden were small (|r| <= 0.10). These results agree in general with the phenotypic correlations between tick counts and milk component yield and suggest that selection on markers for tick burden or milk component yield may have no undesirable effect on the other trait.


This chapter provides a survey about the most frequent methods of inconsistency resolution in Optimality Theory. With the help of the p-model, inconsistencies in OT are divided into two main groups. The first group includes conflicts that are deemed to be fatal and are solved usually by the modification of the theory: namely, clashes between "linguistic data" (acceptability judgements) and applications of the model (results of the evaluation procedure). The second group consists of conflicts that are, in contrast, tolerable in the view of OT theorists: inconsistencies between constraints and the best output candidates. The author's analyses result in the conclusion that there is no radical break between OT and "standard" Generative Grammars with respect to the treatment of inconsistencies.


Abstract The wasp family Chrysididae (cuckoo wasps, gold wasps) comprises exclusively parasitoid and kleptoparasitic species, many of which feature a stunning iridescent coloration and phenotypic adaptations to their parasitic life style. Previous attempts to infer phylogenetic relationships among the family's major lineages (subfamilies, tribes, genera) based on Sanger sequence data were insufficient to statistically resolve the monophyly and the phylogenetic position of the subfamily Amiseginae and the phylogenetic relationships among the tribes Allocoeliini, Chrysidini, Elampini, and Parnopini (Chrysidinae). Here, we present a phylogeny inferred from nucleotide sequence data of 492 nuclear single-copy genes (230,915 aligned amino acid sites) from 94 species of Chrysidoidea (representing Bethylidae, Chrysididae, Dryinidae, Plumariidae) and 45 outgroup species by combining RNA-seq and DNA target enrichment data. We find support for Amiseginae being more closely related to Cleptinae than to Chrysidinae. Furthermore, we find strong support for Allocoeliini being the sister lineage of all remaining Chrysidinae, whereas Elampini represent the sister lineage of Chrysidini and Parnopini. Our study corroborates results from a recent phylogenomic investigation, which revealed Chrysidoidea as likely paraphyletic. Graphical Abstract


An indispensable guide that shows companies how to treat data as a strategic asset Organizations set their business strategy and direction based on information that is available to executives. The Data Asset provides guidance for not only building the business case for data quality and data governance, but also for developing methodologies and processes that will enable your organization to better treat its data as a strategic asset. Part of Wiley's SAS Business Series, this book looks at Business Case Building; Maturity Model and Organization Capabilities; 7-Step Programmatic Approach for Success; and Technologies Required for Effective Data Quality and Data Governance and, within these areas, covers Risk mitigation Cost control Revenue optimization Undisciplined and reactive organizations Proactive organizations Analysis, improvement, and control technology Whether you're a business manager or an IT professional, The Data Asset reveals the methodology and technology needed to approach successful data quality and data governance initiatives on an enterprise scale.


This chapter analyses the Muslim Brotherhood movement (Ikhwan al-muslimin) in its various guises. Born in the interwar period, this global, proselytising Islamic movement underwent a veritable resurgence, even a resurrection, in Muslim countries from the 1980s onwards. Founded in 1928 by the Egyptian Hassan al-Banna (1906–1949), the recent 'Arab Spring' phenomenon has given it fresh momentum. Significantly, the Muslim Brotherhood movement has taken the reins of Egypt, the most populous state in the Arab world. Wherever this movement gains a foothold, it creates its own labour unions, associations of students, doctors and workers, Islamic banking institutions, and so forth. More specifically, the chapter examines the nature of the Islamic state and the key characteristics of the politico-religious doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoot Islamist parties, both in the Maghreb and elsewhere. The author sheds light on the Muslim Brotherhood's economic, social and financial vision through an examination of the various techniques they employ with respect to Islamic finance. While the Muslim financial model is driven by considerations of social justice ('adala ijtima'iya) and the rejection of usury (riba), it is nevertheless argued that its emphasis on profit maximisation renders this model's vision essentially capitalist. The chapter thus calls for a refocusing and adaptation of the approach of Islamic banks in order to make their financing accessible for small projects undertaken by the disenfranchised.


This thesis is, principally, a methodological experiment aimed at organising historical-archaeological information into a functional system that could be used on a vast scale in the field of planning. The methodological approach takes on a a multi-scalar temporal and spatial view, and conceives of the concept of scale as an interpretative instrument which also influences the results of the research. Moreover, the decision to construct a graphic synthesis of the vast collection of documents making up the heterogeneous base for the research is a consequence of the methodological approach. The material has been systemised into visual representations of anthropisation processes and so-called chronosystems, i.e. the formal and structural outcomes of territorialisation. The geographic area that has been selected for testing the model is situated in the north-west of Sardinia. The typical chronosystems of six chronological phases have been identified, and the time-period for the analysis starts off from the pre-historic age and goes on up until contemporary age, which is an unusually long scope. The application of this methodology represents a new approach to historic studies of contemporary landscape. The research has been influenced by different factors and conditions, such as the phenomenon of continuous construction and settlement in the area and the various historic, structural, functional and symbolic tendencies affecting the relation between the city and the territory.


The master plan for each port sets the long term development strategy for the port which will influence the future levels of traffic that use it. These developments may be either improving existing facilities or building new ones. Any other kind of activities that are performed to increase the intensity of port use can also be considered as port development. These can be in the field of law or reorganization too. In any way, an economic evaluation of port development investment should be considered before any action is taken. This is a decision making process where profitability of the new investment is questioned. The evaluation for such a port development project require a succession of costs and benefits over the whole useful life of the project. The main costs in a port development project are construction costs and maintenance costs, the benefits are mainly transport cost savings and reduced turn-round time. A fundamental characteristics of these costs and benefits are that they are transmitted to other participants in the trade rather than to the port authority. The matter of getting costs and revenues on a basis where they may be equitably and conveniently compared can be done by several investment appraisal methods. In this paper, evaluation of a port deepening project will be discussed by using benefit-cost methods. The costs and benefits of such a project will be identified by showing how the port depth affects the unit price of transportation cost. Maritime Engineering and Ports II, C.A. Brebbia & J. Olivella (Editors) © 2000 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISBN 1-85312-829-5


Magnesium, zinc, and chromium are mineral elements required in modest amounts to maintain health and optimal physiologic function. For physically active persons, adequate amounts of these micronutrients are needed in the diet to ensure the capacity for increased energy expenditure and work performance. Most physically active individuals consume diets that provide amounts of magnesium and zinc sufficient to meet population standards. Women tend to consume less of these minerals than is recommended, in part because they eat less food than men. Inadequate intakes of magnesium and zinc have been reported for participants in activities requiring restriction of body weight. Dietary chromium is difficult to estimate because of a lack of appropriate reference databases. Acute, intense activity results in short-term increases in both urine and sweat losses of minerals that apparently diminish during recovery in the days after exercise. Supplemental magnesium and zinc apparently improve strength and muscle metabolism. However, evidence is lacking as to whether these observations relate to impaired nutritional status or a pharmacologic effect. Chromium supplementation of young men and women does not promote muscle accretion, fat loss, or gains in strength. Physically active individuals with concerns about meeting guidelines for nutrient intake should be counseled to select and consume foods with high nutrient densities rather than to rely on nutritional supplements. The indiscriminate use of mineral supplements can adversely affect physiologic function and impair health.


Two central issues addressed in this article are the extent to which young children's time should be spent predominantly in the care of the same parent or divided more evenly between both parents, and whether children under the age of 4 should sleep in the same home every night or spend overnights in both parents' homes. A broad consensus of accomplished researchers and practitioners agree that, in normal circumstances, the evidence supports shared residential arrangements for children under 4 years of age whose parents live apart from each other. Because of the well-documented vulnerability of father‐child relationships among never-married and divorced parents, the studies that identify overnights as a protective factor associated with increased father commitment to child rearing and reduced incidence of father drop-out, and the absence of studies that demonstrate any net risk of overnights, policymakers and decision makers should recognize that depriving young children of overnights with their fathers could compromise the quality of developing father-child relationships. Sufficient evidence does not exist to support postponing the introduction of regular and frequent involvement, including overnights, of both parents with their babies and toddlers. The theoretical and practical considerations favoring overnights for most young children are more compelling than concerns that overnights might jeopardize children's development.


As navigation autonomy becomes an increasingly important research topic for biped humanoid robots, efficient approaches to perception and mapping that are suited to the unique characteristics of humanoids and their typical operating environments are required. This paper presents a system for online environment reconstruction that utilizes both external sensors for global localization, and on-body sensors for detailed local mapping. An external optical motion capture system is used to accurately localize on-board sensors that integrate successive 2D views of a calibrated camera and range measurements from a SwissRanger SR-2 time-of-flight sensor to construct global environment maps in real-time. Environment obstacle geometry is encoded in 2D occupancy grids and 2.5D height maps for navigation planning. We present an on-body implementation for the HRP-2 humanoid robot that, combined with a footstep planner, enables the robot to autonomously traverse dynamic environments containing unpredictably moving obstacles


An evaluative framework of sustainable development operates at both the production system level and the society level: objective information gathered at the production system level is given subjective meaning at the society level. The evaluative framework constitutes a complete cycle to monitor sustainable development: Phases 1 through 4 establish evaluative conclusions, and Phase 5 closes the cycle by acting upon the conclusions. Emphasis in this thesis is on methodological aspects to identify (Phases 1 through 3) and interpret (Phase 4) sustainability criteria. The objectives of this study were to construct a support to identify appropriate sustainability criteria, and to obtain relevant information with respect to sustainable development; and to construct a method to interpret this information, and to draw evaluative conclusions about sustainable development. Based on Koestler's metaphor of the Janus-faced holon, the «two faces of sustainability» provide a two-way perspective by integrating ecocentric and anthropocentric rationales on sustainability in a system imperative and a societal imperative. These two imperatives of sustainability identify common ground for sustainable development that allows proper identification of sustainability criteria. If appropriate sustainability criteria have been identified, then giving meaning to the information obtained from sustainability criteria, by way of measuring or observing sustainability indicators, is the next phase in drawing conclusions about sustainable development. Fuzzy set theory was suggested as a formal mathematical basis to support Phase 4. The main body of research presented in this thesis deals with the feasibility of fuzzy set theory to interpret and integrate available information. Fuzzy models can interface information between the society level and the production system level, because linguistic variables provide a bridge between subjective interpretation of objective measurements. If expert knowledge is thoughtfully applied to construct both the essential membership functions and fuzzy rule bases, then fuzzy models can draw valid evaluative conclusions with respect to sustainable development. The evaluative framework of sustainable development that identifies sustainability criteria on the basis of the point of view provided by the two faces of sustainability, and that gives meaning to sustainability criteria on the basis of fuzzy evaluation, provides a novel and valuable contribution to the sustainability debate.


Eight patients are described with an unusual form of carotid transient ischemic attack, limb shaking. The basic features included a brief, involuntary, coarse, irregular, wavering movement or tremble involving arm-hand alone, or arm-hand and leg together. In 2 patients limb shaking was the initial manifestation of carotid occlusive disease, and all but one patient had other typical carotid transient ischemic attacks. Major atheromatous carotid occlusive disease was present in all patients on the side opposite the limb movements. Four patients had bilateral carotid occlusive disease. Cerebral ischemia from a carotid territory low-perfusion state may be the pathogenesis of these limb movements, an idea supported by the apparent benefit of surgical revascularization in abolishing or reducing the limb shaking in 6 patients. There was no clinical or EEG evidence to document an epileptiform etiology. Recognition of this uncommon form of carotid transient ischemic attack may be important in the early diagnosis a...


The relative insensitivity of the optoelectronic properties of organometal trihalide perovskites to crystallographic defects and impurities has enabled fabrication of highly-efficient perovskite solar cells by scalable solution-state deposition techniques well suited to low-cost manufacturing. Fracture analyses of state-of-the-art devices, however, have revealed that both the perovskite active layer and adjacent carrier selective contacts are mechanically fragile—a major obstacle to technological maturity that stands to significantly compromise their thermomechanical reliability and operational lifetimes. We report a new concept in solar cell design, the compound solar cell (CSC), which addresses the intrinsic fragility of these materials with mechanically reinforcing internal scaffolds. The internal scaffold effectively partitions a conventional monolithic planar solar cell into an array of dimensionally scalable and mechanically shielded individual perovskite cells that are laterally encapsulated by the surrounding scaffold and connected in parallel via the front and back electrodes. The CSCs exhibited a significantly increased fracture energy of ∼13 J m−2—a 30-fold increase over previously reported planar perovskite (∼0.4 J m−2)—while maintaining efficiencies comparable to planar devices. Notably, the efficiency of the microcells formed within the scaffold is comparable to planar devices on an area-adjusted basis. This development is a significant step in demonstrating robust perovskite solar cells to achieve increased reliability and service lifetimes comparable to c-Si, CIGS, and CdTe solar cells.


The majority of Critias' contemporaries and fellow citizens saw the leader of the most brutal regime in Athenian history as a ruthless oligarch, moreover as a tyrant. Many ancient sources share this view. It is somewhat surprising therefore to see the most famous of his victims, the controversial politician Theramenes, denouncing him as a supporter of democracy. This contradiction has given rise to different, even diametrically opposed, modern interpretations. It is this variety of interpretations and the importance of this question for understanding the political situation in Athens at the end of the fifth century BC, as well as the rise of tyranny in Thessaly, that has prompted us to take yet another look at this controversial issue.


ABSTRACT This paper reports on the findings of an ESRC-funded Knowledge Exchange project designed to explore the contribution of an innovative approach to supervision to social work practitioners' assessment and decision-making practices. The Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach (CASA) is informed by cognitive interviewing techniques originally designed to elicit best evidence from witnesses and victims of crime. Adapted here for use in childcare social work supervision contexts, this model is designed to enhance the quantity and quality of information available for decision-making. Facilitating the reporting of both 'event information' and 'emotion information', it allows a more detailed picture to emerge of events, as recalled by the individual involved, and the meaning they give to them. Practice supervisors from Children's Services in two local authorities undertook to introduce the CASA into supervision sessions and were supported in this through the provision of regular reflective group discussions. The project findings highlight the challenges for practitioners of 'detailed looking' and for supervisors of 'active listening'. The paper concludes by acknowledging that the CASA's successful contribution to decision-making is contingent on both the motivation and confidence of supervisors to develop their skills and an organisational commitment to, and resourcing of, reflective supervisory practices and spaces.


If there is an animating imperative behind the Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Bell v. Wolfish, it is this: when confronted with a question regarding strip searching arrestees, courts must seek a careful balance. The Fourth Amendment, the Court held, "requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails." Decades later, the Supreme Court appears to have deviated from Bell's moorings. In Florence v. Chosen Board of Freeholders, the Court examined the constitutionality of blanket search policies, which require that all arrestees be strip searched regardless of individualized suspicion or the nature of the offense. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court upheld such searches as constitutional. For the first time, the Court ruled that prisons seeking to implement strip search policies were free to dispense with any level of reasonable suspicion or tailored justification. I argue in the following analysis that Florence constitutes an unnecessary erosion of Fourth Amendment protections for arrestees. In addition, the most unsettling issues posed by Florence — those which hint at the potential for future abuse — remain unresolved.


Following on from the Asperger Love Guide and Social Guide, this third book in the series of self-help practical life guides aims to cover the personal issues that an adult with Asperger's syndrome faces in a world not designed for people with autism. Written from a male and female perspective of two Asperger's adults it looks at: o the positive aspects of Asperger's syndrome o how these translate into everyday life o whether Asperger's syndrome is in fact a disability o strategies to gain mental and physical health as an adult with Asperger's syndrome. The book aims to help adults gain self-esteem and get the most out of themselves as a unique adult with Asperger's syndrome. These courageous authors have drawn upon their personal experiences to provide an outstanding series of books aimed to support and enhance the quality of life for other Asperger adults.


From their prestigious premises in London and New York the large auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's and to a lesser extent Bonhams dominate the antiquities market. Straddling the wholesale-retail divide, selling to collectors and dealers alike, their auctions are highlights of the annual antiquities sales calendar. Not surprisingly, given their central place in the market, they frequently become embroiled in disputes over the possession of stolen and illegally-exported (illicit) antiquities. One reason for this seeming vulnerability to third-party fencing operations is their dismissive attitude towards published provenance, considered here to comprise the published ownership history of a piece. In auction catalogues provenance is often not supplied or offered only in barest anonymized outline – "property of a European gentleman" or "bought on the London market" have become cliche s. Even when more informative and reliable information is made available, it is usually limited to one or two public events in the otherwise private life of the object – the date and place of a previous sale, for example, or the object's mention in a scholarly publication. Only on rare occasions is a full provenance detailing an unbroken chain of ownership provided. With nothing that might help to reveal their true nature, there is nothing to hinder the entry onto the market of stolen, illegally-traded or counterfeit antiquities. For this reason alone, auction houses facilitate illegal trade by providing an environment that is conducive to the marketing of illicit material. But their involvement is sometimes thought to go beyond simple facilitation, and extend to more active support. This paper describes cases of auction houses having been caught selling stolen or otherwise illegally-traded material, and examines what they reveal about the policies and practices of auction houses as regards the illicit trade in antiquities, and what evidence there is of the more intimate involvement of auction houses.


The use of clinical features to define subtypes of a disorder may aid in gene identification for complex diseases. In particular, clinical subtypes of mania may distinguish phenotypic subgroups of bipolar subjects that may also differ genetically. To assess this possibility, we performed a genome-wide association study using genotype data from the Bipolar Genome Study (BiGS) and subjects that were categorized as having either irritable or elated mania during their most severe episode. A bipolar case-only analysis in the GAIN bipolar sample identified several genomic regions that differed between irritable and elated subjects, the most significant of which was for 33 SNPs on chromosome 13q31 (peak p = 2×10−7). This broad peak is in a relative gene desert over an unknown EST and between the SLITRK1 and SLITRK6 genes. Evidence for association to this region came predominantly from subjects in the sample that were originally collected as part of a family-based bipolar linkage study, rather than those collected as bipolar singletons. We then genotyped an additional sample of bipolar singleton cases and controls, and the analysis of irritable vs. elated mania in this new sample did not replicate our previous findings. However, this lack of replication is likely due to the presence of significant differences in terms of clinical co-morbity that were identified between these singleton bipolar cases and those that were selected from families segregating the disorder. Despite these clinical differences, analysis of the combined sample provided continued support for 13q31 and other regions from our initial analysis. Though genome-wide significance was not achieved, our results suggest that irritable mania results from a distinct set of genes, including a region on chromosome 13q31.


With the advent of Information and Communication Technology and improved broadband internet connectivity has enhanced the scope of learning any time anywhere, going beyond the traditional classroom approach. To support distance learning, Indian Space Research Organisation, Government of India has launched dedicated communication satellite called EDUSAT in 2004. The satellite is widely used for variety of applications like Tele-education, Tele-medicine, Village Resource Centres, mobile satellite services, disaster management support and television broadcasting educating farmers for agriculture and other purposes. One of the prime applications of EDUSAT satellite is tele-education at various levels (i.e. school level/UG /PG level) by different ministries / autonomous organizations / departments/institutions/universities in India effectively utilized the EDUSAT for Tele-education. The initial focus of IIRS was to use EDUSAT/INSAT 4CR satellite for distance learning but extended the scope to use broadband internet so that access to large number of institutions/universities /individuals with little cost the User. IIRS distance learning program initiated in 2007 and successfully conducted 12 programs in the last eight years. The first course was attended from twelve universities and the number of institutions /universities increased manifold. The thirteenth course is progress with more than 210 institutions /universities /departments /individuals with more than 3200 number of participants attending the program live and interactive. IIRS program is unique and interactive and demand is increasing not only universities but among research institutions, user departments and individuals.


After years of investigating the effective factors of organizational productivity, managers concluded that physical workplace attributes is one of the most important variables. Physical workplace attributes play a vital role in increasing or decreasing organizational productivity, effectiveness, high performance, creativity as well as influence on job motivation, satisfaction and loyalty. Limited research findings link the physical work environment to employees' physical and mental health. Although the significant of physical attributes in work environments couldn't be ignored, there is a big gap in management literature reviews and studies of this field. The aim of this research is to fill this theoretical gap as well as recognition, classification and evaluation the physical attributes of workplaces. To gain these goals, in this study we have investigated the relationship between organizational creativity and Physical workplace attributes, and the effective factors of driving creativity in work places. Nowadays, Innovation and creativity have become critical skills for achieving success in organizations while they can increase the productivity of the organization. Therefore, after reviewing the related literature, 260 questionnaires were distributed among 80 active knowledge-based companies in "Khorasan Razavi Science and Technology Park" and "Ferdowsi university of Mashhad" incubator to evaluate their Physical workplace attributes as well as its relationship with organizational creativity. Analysis via Structural equation modeling by AMOS software shows that Physical workplace attributes strongly influences on organizational creativity, especially through "Work surfaces" and "Daylight and view" factors. In other words, to increase organizational creativity as a vital factor of creating sustainable competitive advantage for organization, designing and creating and developing a workplace with proper and fit physical features is necessary.


A new control strategy for megawatt scale series connected multilevel photovoltaic (PV) inverters is proposed. The proposed strategy ensures balanced operation under partial shading. Further under transient grid conditions such as low voltage ride through (LVRT) it is shown that the system remains connected and is fully controllable. In the proposed system, the PV arrays are grouped into zones and each zone is connected to a DC-AC-AC converter. The DC to AC inverters of multiple zones are connected in series to form the required medium voltage and transfer power to the grid. When all zones are uniformly illuminated, the output voltages magnitudes and phases of all the inverters are equal. When the insolation is different for some of the zones, the output voltage magnitude and phase angles of individual DC to AC inverters need to be adjusted in such a way that the real power from the maximum power point calculation is transferred to the grid and the power factor of the overall system is high. Also, when the grid experiences voltage sags, the system is shown to perform a low voltage ride-through (LVRT) algorithm to stay connected to the grid, without a surge in the output current. A control strategy is developed to operate the series connected multilevel inverter configuration under partial shading, by continuously monitoring the real and reactive powers supplied by each inverter. This does not employ a central controller and/or communications between the various DC to AC inverter blocks. The proposed control strategy is simulated for a 6.6 kV, three phase utility scale PV system rated at 5 MW.


Ten essays, presented by Dick (English, U. of British Columbia, Canada) and Esterhammer (English, U. of Zurich, Switzerland), explore the culture of British romanticism in terms of intersections between language and performativity. The contributions are organized into two sections: "Public Speaking," which focuses on language and its interconnections to physical spaces, media, and institutions in which words have their effect, and "Body Language," where interpretations of material performance and bodily action occur within verbal and ideological context. Specific topics include the materiality of the lecture venues of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the performative mode of composition of the lectures; the elegiac style of William Wordsworth as a performative genre that promotes the authority of a subjective voice through the material power of writing and printing; performative aspects of parody in Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci and in contemporary blasphemy trials; the implications of material performance in the "theaters" of the stage, the House of Commons, the salon, and the sporting arena; the ways Romantic drama thematized action and performativity; cross-dressing and the performativity of gender in comic plays by women; and the role of body language in the construction of the foreign and the domestic in Madame de Stael's Corinne and Lord Byron's Don Juan. (Annotation ©2009 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)


AIMS
To examine transitions in the route of administration of cocaine and the variables associated with them.

DESIGN
A cross-sectional study undertaken between January 1996 and October 1997.

SETTING
Fifteen different services that offer treatment, counselling or assistance to drug users or HIV-positive patients in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

PARTICIPANTS
Two hundred and ninety-four current or ex-cocaine and crack cocaine users.

MEASUREMENTS
A structured interview schedule was developed consisting of 246 questions covering socio-demographic details, drug history, cocaine transitions and HIV-risk behaviours.

FINDINGS
Eighty-seven per cent of patients began using cocaine by snorting and 74% subsequently underwent a transition of route--68% towards smoking and 20% to injecting. Half of all transitions occurred in the first 3 years following initiation into cocaine use. Factors associated with transitions were: younger age at cocaine initiation, more frequent use at peak usage, initial use of cocaine by snorting or injecting, a lower level of scholastic attainment and experience with a wider range of drug classes. A cohort effect was apparent with younger cocaine users and those who had begun using after 1990 being more likely to undergo a transition to smoking crack and less likely to start injecting.

CONCLUSIONS
Cocaine transitions are very common and are usually towards routes associated with a higher dependency potential and increased HIV-risk behaviour. Further research is needed to see if transitions can be prevented by early identification of potential cases.


This paper is devoted to sequential decision making with Rank Dependent expected Utility (RDU). This decision criterion generalizes Expected Utility and enables to model a wider range of observed (rational) behaviors. In such a sequential decision setting, two conflicting objectives can be identified in the assessment of a strategy: maximizing the performance viewed from the initial state (optimality), and minimizing the incentive to deviate during implementation (deviation-proofness). In this paper, we propose a minimax regret approach taking these two aspects into account, and we provide a search procedure to determine an optimal strategy for this model. Numerical results are presented to show the interest of the proposed approach in terms of optimality, deviation-proofness and computability.


Background: A number of cohort studies have collected Scope mouthwash samples by mail, which are being used for microbiota measurements. We evaluated the stability of Scope mouthwash samples at ambient temperature and determined the comparability of Scope mouthwash with saliva collection using the OMNIgene ORAL Kit. Methods: Fifty-three healthy volunteers from Mayo Clinic and 50 cohort members from Bangladesh provided oral samples. One aliquot of the OMNIgene ORAL and Scope mouthwash were frozen immediately and one aliquot of the Scope mouthwash remained at ambient temperature for 4 days and was then frozen. DNA was extracted and the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was PCR amplified and sequenced using the HiSeq. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated. Results: The overall stability of the Scope mouthwash samples was relatively high for alpha and beta diversity. For example, the meta-analyzed ICC for the Shannon index was 0.86 (95% confidence interval, 0.76–0.96). Similarly, the ICCs for the relative abundance of the top 25 genera were generally high. The comparability of the two sample types was relatively low when measured using ICCs, but were increased by using a Spearman correlation coefficient (SCC) to compare the rank order of individuals. Conclusions: Overall, the Scope mouthwash samples appear to be stable at ambient temperature, which suggests that oral rinse samples received by the mail can be used for microbial analyses. However, Scope mouthwash samples were distinct compared with OMNIgene ORAL samples. Impact: Studies should try to compare oral microbial metrics within one sample collection type.


Soil gas measurements are often used for risk assessment in vapor intrusion investigations. In the case of petroleum-contaminated sites, total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) characterization may be required to effectively measure the associated risk. One of the common strategies employed to characterize TPH for risk assessment includes the quantitation of indicator compounds of significant toxicological effects as well as the quantitation of hydrocarbon fractions of similar toxicity and mobility characteristics. While EPA Compendium Method TO-15 1 is commonly used to assess gasoline-impacted sites, heavier fuel types may not be effectively characterized using whole air collection methods. The low vapor pressures associated with fuels such as diesel and other middle distillates may result in poor recovery and precision using Method TO-15 canister methodology due to condensation effects in the canister. An alternative sorbent-based method based on EPA Compendium Method TO-17 2 is evaluated for TPH soil gas measurements, specifically at sites contaminated with middle distillate fuels. A sorbent-based approach offers the inherent advantage of trapping the compounds before condensation occurs. Various adsorbent materials are evaluated for retention of fuel-related target compounds. Results between soil gas measurements from co-located TO-15 canisters and TO-17 sorbent tubes are compared for several fuel types.


Happiness and Loss Aversion: When Social Participation Dominates Comparison A central finding in happiness research is that a person's income relative to the average income in her social reference group is more important for her life satisfaction than the absolute level of her income. This dependence of life satisfaction on relative income can be related to the reference dependence of the value function in Kahneman and Tversky's (1979) prospect theory. In this paper we investigate whether the characteristics of the value function like concavity for gains, convexity for losses, and loss aversion apply to the dependence of life satisfaction on relative income. This is tested with a new measure for the reference income for a large German panel for the years 1984-2001. We find concavity of life satisfaction in positive relative income, but unexpectedly strongly significant concavity of life satisfaction in negative relative income as well. The latter result is shown to be robust to extreme distortions of the reported-life-satisfaction scale. It implies a rising marginal sensitivity of life satisfaction to more negative values of relative income, and hence loss aversion (in a wide sense). This may be explained in terms of increasing financial obstacles to social participation. JEL Classification: I31, D6


Recent studies in the history of Islamic science illustrate that Islam's contributions were richer and more profound than was previously thought. In their attempt to provide answers to what happened to Islamic science after the eleventh century, historians and scholars construct a simplified model that describes all branches of Islamic science in terms of failure. In this article, Ibn Khaldnn's analysis of the fate of Islamic science will be examined to show his insightful understanding of, and the failure of scholars in, understanding what happened. Keywords: Islamic science; Ibn Khaldun; golden age of Islamic science; decline theory; handmaiden approach to history of science. Dominant Understanding: the Decline Theory The enterprise of science in Islamic civilization is often periodized into a golden age followed by decline. (1) The golden age is considered to have come into existence through a gigantic endeavor to acquire and translate the ancient sciences of the Greeks between the eighth and ninth centuries. The translations era was followed by two centuries of splendid original thinking and contributions, and is known as the "golden age" of Islamic science. This so-called "golden age" is supposed to have lasted from the end of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century. The era after this period is conventionally known as the "age of decline". (2) A survey of literature from the nineteenth century onwards demonstrates that the decline theory has become the preferred paradigm in general academia. In 1883, twenty-one years after the French translation of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah, Joseph Ernest Renan (1823-1892) declares that Islamic science (3) declined after its "golden age" because of racial factors, although he placed greater emphasis on the intolerance Islam supposedly had for reason. (4) Renan, borrowing the idea from Voltaire (1694-1778), states that "[t]he Oriental mind is incapable of rational thought and philosophy and was responsible for blocking the development of science and learning in the Muslim world." (5) Max Weber (1864-1920) suggests that Islamic science declined because the Arabs were on the whole less intelligent than the Europeans, who had a superior collective mind: "Europeans are genetically endowed with comparatively greater amounts of rationality, thereby allowing for the speedier development of a rational capitalist ethic." (6) While recognizing that the "golden age" continued into the second half of the eleventh century, George Sarton (1884-1956) postulates that Islamic science culminated in the first half of the eleventh century. Sarton recognizes that intellectual activities were still very intense and of a high order during the second half of the eleventh century; however, he assumes that "[t]here was already a perceptible decline both in the quality and the quantity of the effort. This is not recognized at once, because the decline is very small and is hidden by the activity of some very great personalities." (7) That decline eventually set in was because "[t]he Western people found the cure, the only cure, the experimental method; the Eastern people did not find it, or did not fully understand it, or neglected to apply it." (8) In addition, he suggests ... perhaps, that the Eastern people, say the Muslims, had reached the limit of their development, that they were like those gifted children who startle the world by their precocious achievements and then suddenly stop and become less interesting, while others, at first less brilliant, pass far ahead of them. (9) The decline thesis continued well into the twentieth century with slightly less absurd explanations. For example, in 1929, Sir William Cecil Dampier (1867-1952) strongly proclaims that by the close of the eleventh century "[t]he decline of Arabic and Muslim learning had set in, and henceforth science was chiefly a European activity." (10) In 1932, Max Meyerhof (1874-1945) suggests that Islamic science declined beginning from about 1100 because of the work of al-Ghazali (d. …


From 25 seismic reflection profiles of the continental margin of the British Isles bordering the Rockall Trough (54° to 57°n Lat.), 15 are selected for description. They reveal a marginal sedimentary succession recording two major phases of subsidence and sedimentation, with an intervening phase of uplift and erosion. Although the Rockall Trough may well date from late Jurassic or early Cretaceous times, a late Cretaceous age of the first phase of subsidence and sedimentation is likely during which a marginal prograding sedimentary series was deposited. The ensuing phase of uplift and erosion is equally tentatively referred to the Palaeocene Epoch. The subsequent transgression and deposition of the overstepping upper sedimentary series is of possible Eocene to Recent date. There is evidence to suggest that, in addition to these regional phases of subsidence and uplift, the continental margin at 55°20'n Lat. suffered faulting involving major east-west dextral displacement. This occurred prior to the deposition of the older prograding sedimentary series. The sense of movement within the fault zone, and the location and general trend of this zone, are appropriate for correlation with a prolongation or splay of the Great Glen Fault System.


Electrocoagulation (EC) technique was adopted for the treatment of iron containing drinking water using a reactor of 3 l capacity having 1 l liquid volume. Experimental investigation was carried out to observe the effect of different operating parameters such as pH, current density, inter-electrode distance and conductivity on the removal of iron from the iron-rich aqueous solution prepared with deionised water. Aluminium sheet was used as the electrode material and inter-electrode distance was varied from 0.005 m to 0.15 m. It was observed that 99% of iron was removed from the solution containing initial iron concentration of 5 mgl−1 at current density of 12.5 Am−2, solution conductivity of 0.4 Sm−1 and initial pH of 8 at the end of 25 min of EC. Solution pH was found to be an effective parameter for the efficient removal of iron. Conductivity of the iron-rich solution was improved with the addition of sodium chloride (NaCl), which increased the removal up to 99.4% for an initial iron concentration of 15 mgl−1. The optimum operating cost was evaluated as 0.285 US$ m−3 to remove 99% of iron from the solution with an initial iron concentration up to 10 mgl−1.


Abstract This paper estimates an earnings function from coarsened data using an interval regression model based on a pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation procedure. The analysis uses the 1999 OHS, and takes into account point and interval income observations, as well as design features of the survey including stratification, clustering and weights. In developing and applying the methodology, it is shown that researchers interested in analysing the determinants of income in a meaningful way need not be hampered by the presence of both point and interval observations, and can in fact account for these simultaneously using a generalised Tobit model. By incorporating survey design features into the analysis of the variance, some changes were needed to the estimation procedure and this is where the pseudo-likelihood becomes useful. However, this then affects how the coefficients of the model are interpreted, and researchers are encouraged to focus attention on the confluence of these factors.


A major bottleneck in the development of small-molecule antibiotics is to achieve good permeability across the outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria. Optimization with respect to permeability surprisingly lacks appropriate methods. Recently, we proposed to use the diffusion potential for charged molecules created by their difference in electrophoretic mobility while crossing the outer membrane channel under a concentration gradient. The latter provides semiquantitative values, but the current available setups require large volumes and thus exclude several classes of molecules. Here we propose a simple approach of capturing proteoliposomes at the aperture of glass surface (planar aperture or conical glass capillary) by decreasing the necessary volume below 50 μL. We measured the transport of two charged molecules sulbactam and ceftazidime across the two major porins in Escherichia coli. Both molecules were observed to permeate through these porins, with sulbactam having a higher permeability.


Using loan-level mortgage data merged with consumer credit records, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending government credit guarantee on insufficiently collateralized mortgages refinanced by intermediaries. Difference-in-difference tests based on program eligibility criteria reveal a significant increase in refinancing activity by HARP. More than three million eligible borrowers with primarily fixed-rate mortgages refinanced under HARP, receiving an average reduction of 1.45% in interest rate that amounts to $3,000 in annual savings. Durable spending by borrowers increased significantly after refinancing and regions more exposed to the program saw a relative increase in non-durable and durable consumer spending, a decline in foreclosure rates, and faster recovery in house prices. A variety of identification strategies suggest that competitive frictions in the refinancing market partly hampered the program's impact: the take-up rate and annual savings among those who refinanced were reduced by 10% to 20%. These effects were amplified for the most indebted borrowers, the key target of the program. These findings have implications for future policy interventions, pass-through of monetary policy through household balance-sheets and design of the mortgage market.


A major effect of muscle contractions is an increase in sarcolemmal glucose transport. We have used a recently developed technique to produce sarcolemmal giant vesicles from human muscle biopsy samples obtained before and after exercise. Six men exercised for 10 min at 50% maximal O2 uptake (Vo2max) and then to fatigue at 100% Vo2max (5.7 +/- 0.2 min). Vesicle glucose transport at 5 mM increased from 3.3 +/- 0.6 pmol.microgram-1.min-1 at rest to 6.6 +/- 1.0 pmol.microgram-1.min-1 at fatigue (mean +/- SE, n = 6, P < 0.05). This increase in glucose transport was associated with a 1.6-fold increase in vesicle GLUT-4 protein content. Glucose transport normalized to GLUT-4 protein content also increased with exercise, suggesting increased intrinsic activity of GLUT-4. Furthermore, exercise resulted in a 1.4-fold increase in sarcolemmal vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP-2) content, suggesting that muscle contractions may induce trafficking of GLUT-4-containing vesicles via a mechanism similar to neurotransmitter release. Our results demonstrate for the first time exercise-induced translocation of GLUT-4 and VAMP-2 to the plasma membrane of human muscle and increased sarcolemmal glucose transport.


Nonylphenol (NP) is an ultimate degradation product of nonylphenol polyethoxylates (NPE) that is primarily used in cleaning and industrial processes. Its widespread use has led to the wide existence of NP in various environmental matrices, such as water, sediment, air and soil. NP can be decreased by biodegradation through the action of microorganisms under aerobic or anaerobic conditions. Half-lives of biodegradation ranged from a few days to almost one hundred days. The degradation rate for NP was influenced by temperature, pH and additions of yeast extracts, surfactants, aluminum sulfate, acetate, pyruvate, lactate, manganese dioxide, ferric chloride, sodium chloride, hydrogen peroxide, heavy metals, and phthalic acid esters. Although NP is present at low concentrations in the environment, as an endocrine disruptor the risks of long-term exposure to low concentrations remain largely unknown. This paper reviews the occurrence of NP in the environment and its aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation in natural environments and sewage treatment plants, which is essential for assessing the potential risk associated with low level exposure to NP and other endocrine disruptors.


Skeletal muscle is a direct target for the group of seco-steroids collectively termed Vitamin D. Skeletal muscle expresses both CYP27A1 and CYP27B1 encoding for the hydroxylases required to convert Vitamin D to 25[OH]D and subsequently the bioactive 1α-25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1α-25[OH]2D3) (Girgis et al., 2014b). Crucially, the Vitamin D receptor (VDR) is also present in skeletal muscle (Srikuea, Zhang, Park-Sarge, & Esser, 2012) and upon exposure, binds to its ligand 1α-25[OH]2D3 and initiates genomic and non-genomic rapid signalling responses. At present there is a global prevalence of low serum Vitamin D (25[OH]D) concentrations due to a lack of sun exposure (the primary route for Vitamin D synthesis) as a function of latitude and/or an indoor lifestyle coupled with few dietary sources of Vitamin D (Chen et al., 2007). Accumulating data are now suggestive that low 25[OH]D may be associated with perturbations in contractile activity and the regeneration of human skeletal muscle (Owens, Fraser, & Close, 2014), although a definitive causal relationship is yet to be established. Therefore, this thesis aimed to establish a more precise role for Vitamin D in human skeletal muscle function and regeneration. There were four overarching aims:

1.Explore the role of Vitamin D in human skeletal muscle contractile properties in humans in vivo.
2.Identify the role of Vitamin D in human skeletal muscle contractile properties ex vivo.
3.Investigate the role of Vitamin D in skeletal muscle regeneration following eccentric exercise induced muscle damage in vivo.
4.Elucidate cellular mechanisms of the muscle regeneration process that are responsive to Vitamin D in vitro.

The main findings from this work imply that serum 25[OH]D concentrations across a broad range from 18->100 nmol.L-1 do not affect skeletal muscle contractile properties. Conversely elevating serum 25[OH]D from 75 nmol.L-1 resulted in significant improvements in the recovery of maximal voluntary contraction force following a bout of eccentric exercise. Implementing an in vitro model of muscle regeneration also identified potential cellular mechanisms for these observations: Muscle derived cells treated with a total amount of 10 nmol 1α-25[OH]2D3 following a mechanical scrape improved migration dynamics and fusion capability of skeletal muscle derived cells.

Taken together, low Vitamin D concentrations are highly prevalent but can be easily corrected with supplementation of Vitamin D3. This may have the advantage of optimising the regenerative capacity of skeletal muscle amongst other health benefits previously characterised by others.


The Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) was mandated by Government to conduct exploration and subsequent exploitation of the diamond resource in Marange District. In compliance with the Environmental Management Act, ZMDC commissioned the Institute of Mining Research, University of Zimbabwe to carry out an environmental impact assessment of the envisaged project.
The mining and processing activities of the diamond bearing rock does not involve the use of sophisticated equipment nor chemicals. The impacts associated with the project were assessed and the only significant one is that related to evacuation of people that currently live within the demarcated security zone. Exploration work is currently ongoing and the security zone is likely to expand. The ZMDC authorities have committed themselves to ensure that all evacuations will be communicated to the people concerned including the local government and traditional leadership in time and compensation will be commensurate with current standards.
An environmental management plan for the project has been formulated as a result of the assessment of the impacts of the project in terms of social, economic and ecological setting of the project site and also from the aspirations of the affected stakeholders through the public consultation exercise conducted by the eia team.


The prevalence of smallpox during the early years of the American War for Independence posed a very real danger to the success of the Revolution. This essay documents the impact of the deadly disease on the course of military activities during the war and analyzes smallpox as a critical factor in the military decision-making process. Historians have rarely delved into the significant implications smallpox held for eighteenth-century military strategy and battlefield effectiveness, yet the disease nearly crippled American efforts in the campaigns of 1775 and 1776. Smallpox was a major factor during the American invasion of Canada and the siege of Boston. Rumors over the British use of biological warfare, controversy over inoculation, and attempts to control the spread of smallpox all impeded the progress of the war. Recruitment was adversely affected, desertions increased, and commanding officers were forced to proceed with inadequate forces because of smallpox. This frightening disease affected the actions of the Revolutionary army and its generals, reduced the American ability to attract and hold recruits, and influenced the controversial development of preventive medical policies.


This paper proposes a 21st century global fiscal architecture to replace the present system of personal and corporate income, sales, excise, capital gains, import and export duties, gift and estate taxes with a single comprehensive revenue neutral Automated Payment Transaction (APT) tax. In its simplest form, the APT tax consists of a flat tax levied on all transactions. The tax is automatically assessed and collected when transactions are settled through the electronic technology of the banking/ payments system. The APT tax introduces progressivity through the tax base rather than via the rate structure. Since roughly 85% of all transactions involve the exchange of financial instruments, it is the wealthy who carry out a disproportionate share of total transactions and therefore bear a disproportionate burden of the tax despite its flat rate structure. The automated recording of all APT tax payments by firms and individuals creates a degree of transparency and perceived fairness that induces greater tax compliance. Also, the tax has lower administrative and compliance cost. Like all taxes, the APT tax creates new distortions whose costs must be weighted against the benefits obtained by replacing the current tax system.


Customer Relationship Management (CRM), also referred to as Relationship Marketing, is heralded by some marketing academics and practitioners as the new paradigm of marketing. However, despite the intense growth in the adoption of CRM practices by organizations all over the world and the widely accepted conceptual underpinnings of CRM strategy, conflicting opinions and increased pessimism about the effectiveness of CRM strategy abound the marketing literature. To this effect, scholars have called for more rigorous studies to establish the usefulness of CRM as a strategic orientation. The general objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework of the influence of CRM practices on organizational competitiveness and conduct an empirical assessment of the framework on the commercial banks in Kenya. The study utilized a descriptive correlation research design. A survey methodology was employed for data collection. The study found statistically significant positive linear relationships between CRM practices and organizational competitiveness. The study also established that the relationships between CRM practices and marketing productivity, marketing productivity and organizational competitiveness, organizational factors and marketing productivity and the moderating role of organizational factors on the relationship between CRM practices and marketing productivity were all significant. However, the relationship between organizational factors and organizational competitiveness was found not statistically significant. The overall conclusion of the study was that organizational competitiveness is not significantly influenced by the mere existence of a range of organizational factors within the firm such as age, size, and ownership structure, type of customers served, corporate reputation, and duration of CRM implementation or even technology level. Rather, organizational competitiveness is achieved through appropriate CRM practices and marketing productivity. Nonetheless, organizational factors positively enhance the relationship between CRM practices and marketing productivity thus indirectly influences organizational competitiveness. The results of the study have significant managerial and theoretical implications.


ABSTRACT: Indonesia downfalls in the protracted economic crisis, one of reason is inability of the government to restore the pre- crisis level of investment in 1997, although the government has enforce Law No. 1 of 1967 Jo No 11 of 1970 on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Law No. 6 Years 1968 Jo No 12 Year 1978 on Domestic Investment (DCI)., but the result is still not satisfying. The purpose of this study is to find out whether the investment is quite effective in investmentaccelerating through the stabilization of money.This is very important because the stabilization of money will raise investments, which will finally give great impact on the condition of economy of the state. The data of the research is collected since 1970 to 2012.The hypothesis is tested using econometric models. The main advantage of econometric modelsis it is able to handle the mutual dependence (interdependence). Besides, econometric model is an invaluable tool for understanding the way the economic system works and so to test and evaluate policy alternatives. Hypothesis is tested using multiple regression with Two Stages Least Square method. The result of this study showed thatthrough the stabilization of money could accelerate the investment by looking at the intermediate indicators on the exchange rate but cannot be seen through the indicators of inflation.


This collection presents a wide range of theoretical approaches to international institutions. The volume is organized in four parts, each introduced by the editors. Part I covers current theories. Part II offers empirical studies on international organizations, international environmental problems, the European Court of Justice, and international trade. Part III covers the compliance debate, and Part IV contains theoretical and empirical critiques of the literature.


This volume applies a sign-oriented approach to the description of articulatory and acoustic iconic phenomena in James Joyce's Ulysses. In its hypothesis, the greater the role of sensory experience in the message of a text, the more likely it is to employ linguistic representation in articulated sounds iconically to affect sensory experience. Ulysses is presented as a work of art whose emphasis on sensual impression and sensory experience is reflected in the composition and distribution of its phonemes. Four English phonemes are examined, each in several contexts in Ulysses. A systematic association of resemblance is found between the manner and effort involved in the articulation of each phoneme relative to other phonemes and sounds, and the manner in which semantic content is arranged in the scenes and themes of the book. The different emphases of semantic arrangement associated with each of the examined phonemes are maintained across diverse themes, varied scopes of reference and opposed manners of contextualization. The phonological unit is therefore perceived to carry a semantic impact to complement its differentiating role in linguistic signification. It also offers an innovative approach to Ulysses and exposes new semantic nuances in its narration and characterization techniques.


IZA DP No. 14651 AUGUST 2021 Study Abroad Programmes and Students' Academic Performance: Evidence from Erasmus Applications Erasmus+ is one of the most popular programmes financed by the European Union. It provides international mobility grants to university students while staying enrolled at their home university. This paper brings novel evidence on the effect of participating in the programme on students' academic outcomes, using rich administrative data from one of the largest public universities in Italy. We rely on a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design, since the selection of applicants to Erasmus mobility programmes depends on a continuous score assigned during the application process. Our results show that Erasmus mobility does not delay graduation at the home university and, in addition, it has a positive and significant impact on undergraduates' final degree mark. Investigating possible heterogeneous effects, we find that Erasmus mobility improves graduation results for undergraduate students in scientific and technical fields (STEM) and for those who apply for the Erasmus grant in the first year of their studies. Finally, the positive impact on performance at graduation appears to be stronger for students who visit foreign universities of relatively lower quality compared with their home university and for those who stay abroad for more than six months. JEL Classification: I23, D04


A series of finite element predictions of the behaviour of a reinforced unpaved road consisting of a layer of fill compacted on top of a clay subgrade with rough, thin reinforcement placed at the interface, is described in this thesis. These numerical solutions are obtained using a large strain finite element formulation that is based on the displacement method, and are restricted to the case of plane strain, monotonic loading. Separate elements are used to model the soil and reinforcement. In the finite element formulation, an Eulerian description of deformation is adopted and the Jaumann stress rate is used in the soil constitutive equations. Elastic perfectly-plastic soil models are used which are based on the von Mises yield function for cohesive soil and the Matsuoka criterion for frictional material. Emphasis is placed on obtaining new closed form solutions to parts of calculations that are performed numerically in many existing finite element formulations. The solution algorithm is based on a "Modified Euler Scheme". The computer implementation of the formulation is checked against an extensive series of test problems with known closed form solutions. These include the analysis of finite deformation of a single element of material and the calculation of small strain collapse loads. Finite cavity expansion is also studied. This numerical formulation is used to perform back analyses of a series of reinforced unpaved road model tests. The reinforcement tensions, and the stresses at the interface with the surrounding soil, are calculated using the numerical model and discussed with a view to identifying the mechanisms of reinforcement. Two existing analytical design models of the reinforced unpaved road are described and critically reviewed in the light of the finite element results.


This document clarifies many areas of the IKEv2 specification. It does
not to introduce any changes to the protocol, but rather provides
descriptions that are less prone to ambiguous interpretations. The
purpose of this document is to encourage the development of
interoperable implementations. This memo provides information for the
Internet community.


Circular depressions, or pockmarks, cover the sea floor in many estuarine regions of the western Gulf of Maine. In Belfast Bay, Maine, they are found in densities up to 160/km 2 , are up to 350 m in diameter and 35 m in relief, and are among the largest and deepest known. The pockmarks appear to form from the escape of biogenic natural gas and pore water and are far larger than features associated with thermogenic gas elsewhere. These pockmarks are thought to have formed (1) catastrophically during an earthquake, tsunami, or storm, or (2) slowly over thousands of years. Recent observations of bubble releases suggest continuing activity and a potential geologic hazard. The pockmarks involve a poorly documented coastal process of sediment redistribution and methane release, largely unrecognized in the rock record but widespread in middle- to high-latitude embayments.


In nontechnical language and engaging style, 10 Donts on Your Digital Devices explains to non-techie users of PCs and handheld devices exactly what to do and what not to do to protect their digital data from security and privacy threats at home, at work, and on the road. These include chronic threats such as malware and phishing attacks and emerging threats that exploit cloudbased storage and mobile apps. Its a wonderful thing to be able to use any of your cloud-synced assortment of desktop, portable, mobile, and wearable computing devices to work from home, shop at work, pay in a store, do your banking from a coffee shop, submit your tax returns from the airport, or post your selfies from the Oscars. But with this new world of connectivity and convenience comes a host of new perils for the lazy, the greedy, the unwary, and the ignorant. The 10 Donts cant do much for the lazy and the greedy, but they can save the unwary and the ignorant a world of trouble.10 Donts employs personal anecdotes and major news stories to illustrate what canand all too often doeshappen when users are careless with their devices and data. Each chapter describes a common type of blunder (one of the 10 Donts), reveals how it opens a particular port of entry to predatory incursions and privacy invasions, and details all the unpleasant consequences that may come from doing a Dont. The chapter then shows you how to diagnose and fix the resulting problems, how to undo or mitigate their costs, and how to protect against repetitions with specific software defenses and behavioral changes. Through ten vignettes told in accessible language and illustrated with helpful screenshots, 10 Donts teaches non-technical readers ten key lessons for protecting your digital security and privacy with the same care you reflexively give to your physical security and privacy, so that you dont get phished, give up your password, get lost in the cloud, look for a free lunch, do secure things from insecure places, let the snoops in, be careless when going mobile, use dinosaurs, or forget the physicalin short, so that you dont trust anyone overanything. Non-techie readers are not unsophisticated readers. They spend much of their waking lives on their devices and are bombarded with and alarmed by news stories of unimaginably huge data breaches, unimaginably sophisticated "advanced persistent threat" activities by criminal organizations and hostile nation-states, and unimaginably intrusive clandestine mass electronic surveillance and data mining sweeps by corporations, data brokers, and the various intelligence and law enforcement arms of our own governments. The authors lift the veil on these shadowy realms, show how the little guy is affected, and what individuals can do to shield themselves from big predators and snoops.


Background
The 2013-2016 Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemics in West Africa highlighted a need for effective therapeutics for treatment of the disease caused by filoviruses. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are promising therapeutic candidates for prophylaxis or treatment of virus infections. Data about efficacy of human mAb monotherapy against filovirus infections in preclinical nonhuman primate models are limited.

Methods
Previously, we described a large panel of human mAbs derived from the circulating memory B cells from Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) infection survivors that bind to the surface glycoprotein (GP) of the virus. We tested one of these neutralizing mAbs that recognized the glycan cap of the GP, designated mAb BDBV289, as monotherapy in rhesus macaques.

Results
We found that recombinant mAb BDBV289-N could confer up to 100% protection to BDBV-infected rhesus macaques when treatment was initiated as late as 8 days after virus challenge. Protection was associated with survival and decreased viremia levels in the blood of treated animals.

Conclusions
These findings define the efficacy of monotherapy of lethal BDBV infection with a glycan cap-specific mAb and identify a candidate mAb therapeutic molecule that could be included in antibody cocktails for prevention or treatment of ebolavirus infections.


Government conduct is increasingly reviewable by investment treaty tribunals. These tribunals often consider whether a host state has failed to afford fair and equitable treatment by defeating a foreign investor's legitimate expectations. To discern what a foreign investor can legitimately expect, some tribunals use a comparative public law methodology that draws on domestic public law. Using Australian law as a case study, I suggest that the comparative public law methodology may not be able to achieve all of its aims.


Abstract This article develops, a lattice-based approach for pricing contingent claims when parameters governing the logs of the underlying asset dynamics are modelled by generalized hyperbolic distribution and normal inverse Gaussian distribution. The pentanomial lattice is constructed using a moment matching procedure. Moment generating functions of generalized hyperbolic distribution and normal inverse Gaussian distribution are utilized to compute probabilities and jump parameters under historical measure . Minimal entropy martingale measure (MEMM) is used to value European call option with a view of comparing the results with some of the existing benchmark model such as Black Scholes model. Empirical data from S&P500 index, RUTSELL2000 index and RUI1000 index are used to demonstrate how the model works. There is a significant difference especially for long term maturity (six months and above) type of contracts, the proposed model outperform the benchmark model, while performing poorly at short term contracts. Pentanomial NIG models seems to outperform the other models especially for long dated maturities.


Patterns of the relationship between the development of learning ability as one of the general abilities and metacognitive traits of personality are considered in the article. The necessity of appeal to this issue arises from the peculiarities of the current state of research in the theory of abilities and modern metacognitivism. Despite the ever-increasing number of studies in the field of general abilities and learning ability in particular and in the field of metacognitive processes of the personality, the possible interconnection of this class of processes and the level of learning ability and, therefore, the interpretation of this interconnection are rarely considered. To date these crucial areas are not in sufficient contact with each other. The purpose of this study is to identify and interpret the possible relationship of the level of learning ability with metacognitive processes and qualities of the individual and their organization. The research procedure was based on a comparison of the individual measures of the development of learning ability as a general ability with the diagnostics of the main parameters of the metacognitive sphere of personality, including features of its organization and implementation in relation to the methodology of structural-psychological analysis. This procedure is based on the determination of matrices of intercorrelation and the subsequent interpretation of correlograms of the metacognitive parameters of a person. The main result is that there exists a mutual dependence of characteristics of the level of learning ability and basic parameters of the metacognitive sphere of personality (metacognitive processes and traits). This dependence lies in the fact that an increase in the level of development of learning ability increases the intensity of separate metacognitive personal qualities and the general level of their structural organization. An interpretation of the data is presented. According to it, learning ability, as a significant factor in the level of development of metacognitive processes and personality traits, acquires an additional and quite powerful resource to enhance at the same time its own level because of the organization of these processes and traits.


Kate Gleason College of Engineering Rochester Institute of Technology Degree Doctor of Philosophy Program Microsystems Engineering__ Name of Candidate Cory D. Cress ` Title: Effects of ionizing radiation on nanomaterials and III-V semiconductor devices__ Devices based on III-V semiconductors and nanomaterials are expected to be critical components of future microsystems as the demand for greater functionality, range of application, and robustness continue to increase. There currently is a need for small-scale power supplies which can be used to power microsystems thereby enabling autonomous functionalities. The use of III-V semiconductor-based solid state devices and nanomaterials to convert the radiant energy of a radioisotope source into electricity has been investigated as a viable option to fulfill this demand. The energy imparted to a material by incident alpha-particles, resulting in electron-hole pair formation and ionization, may be converted into usable electrical power by a radioisotope microbattery (RIMB). A model describing the spatially varying rate of ionizing energy deposited in an absorber material held in close proximity to an isotropic alpha-emitting radioisotope source has been developed. The alpha-particle energy deposition model (ADEP) allows the total energy exciting the RIMB devices to be calculated and thereby provides a means to determine the efficiency of the experimentally measured devices. Two RIMB designs are investigated including a direct conversion microbattery based on a nipi-diode structure and an indirect conversion microbattery employing radioluminescent nanophosphors. The multi-functional nature of microsystems may best be exploited by deploying them in extreme environments, such as space, where a low power consumption, small volume, and superior functionality are required. Expanding microsystems into such environments requires a full understanding of the effects that ionizing radiation will have on the optoelectronic properties of the devices and the materials which they are composed of. Irradiating devices with an isotropic alpha-particle flux is a good method for simulating the radiation damage encountered by III-V devices or nanomaterials employed in space. The large mass of alpha particles, in comparison to beta particles, leads to higher momentum transfers in nuclear interactions corresponding to a larger displacement damage dose near the surface of a material for comparably lower fluences. The effects of such irradiation on the optoelectronic properties of III-V semiconductor devices and epitaxially grown InAs quantum dots arrays are investigated. A crystal binding model based on the Tersoff interatomic potentials is developed and used to explain the increased radiation tolerance observed in the InAs quantum dot material system. Abstract Approval: Committee Chair _______________________________________ Program Director _______________________________________ Dean KGCOE _______________________________________Approval: Committee Chair _______________________________________ Program Director _______________________________________ Dean KGCOE _______________________________________


Postsynaptic plasticity participates in the adaptation of a sensory circuit to the environment. During the development of Drosophila larvae, a set of neurons in the brain depend on environmental signals transmitted through the light-sensing Bolwig's organ. Yuan et al. show how the effects of light signaling translated into alterations in the shape of the neurons. Larvae reared in total darkness have target neurons with longer dendrites than those of larvae reared in the light. The differences in shape were confirmed to be a response to light exposure and not to circadian rhythms. Analysis of mutant flies indicated that the signaling pathways involved in transducing the light signal into cell morphological changes were similar to those acting by learning and memory. Q. Yuan, Y. Xiang, Z. Yan, C. Han, L. Y. Jan, Y. N. Jan, Light-induced structural and functional plasticity in Drosophila larval visual system. Science 333, 1458–1462 (2011). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Data covers strategic health authorities; former health authorities; London boroughs; GOR; England; and, England and Wales. Source: Compendium of clinical and health indicators 2002, Department of Health.


The goal of the study is the investigation of the build-up of copper clusters in reactors
pressure vessel (RPV) steels. The study comprises tests on RPV surveillance samples
provided by a nuclear power plant, and on RPV reference samples. The reference steels,
named Japanese Reference Quality (JRQ), were provided by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). Moreover the study was completed with the investigation of
some unirradiated binary alloys.
To better understand the mechanism of cluster build-up in a simplified system, tests were
performed on the binary alloy Fe-Cu containing 1.3 at % Cu. The samples were annealed
at 775 K for different times. They were analysed using x-ray absorption fine structure
(XAFS) spectroscopy at the Cu K-edge, x-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission
electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that Cu cluster formation occurs even with
short annealing times. These clusters with a diameter of a few nm have been observed to
switch easily from bcc Fe-like to fcc Cu-like structure. While a short annealing time of
2.5 h at 775 K does practically not change the good dilution of Cu in the bcc Fe matrix,
an annealing treatment for 312 h leads to large fcc Cu precipitates. A linear combination
analysis suggests that in the sample annealed for 8 h, Cu clusters are formed mostly in the
same structure as the bcc matrix. A coexistence of bcc and fcc clusters is obtained for 115
h of annealing. TEM indicates the presence of precipitates with a diameter up to 60 nm
for an annealing time of 312 h, and XRD provides complementary data about the clusters
size distributions in differently annealed samples.
The reactor pressure vessel (RPV) reference steel from IAEA submitted to neutron
irradiation in a research reactor and subsequently thermally annealed and re-irradiated
was investigated by XAFS spectroscopy. It could be expected that Cu and Ni atoms form
nano-clusters. In the unirradiated sample and in the irradiated sample no significant
clustering is detected. In all irradiated and subsequently annealed samples an increase of
Cu and Ni atom densities are recorded around the x-ray absorbing atoms. Furthermore,
the density of Cu and Ni atoms determined in the first and second shell around the
absorber is found to be affected by irradiation and the annealing treatment. The
comparison of the XAFS data at the Cu and Ni K-edges shows that these elements are in
a bcc structure like the Fe host lattice. However, the local irradiation damage reduces the
number of next neighbour atoms around copper; while the annealing reduces the number
of vacancies. The number of Cu and Ni atoms around (Cu or Ni) absorbers then
increases. The IAEA samples are very well characterised due to earlier analysis by atom
probe tomography (APT) at the Oak-Ridge National Lab (ORNL) and mechanical tests,
at the Paul Scherrer Institut. The possibility to compare XAFS and APT provided an
invaluable opportunity to understand the differences and similarities among the two
techniques. XAFS and APT are both very sensitive to nanostructures and both are
element selective techniques. XAFS is highly sensible to the average environment of the
absorber element, within < 0.5 nm, so it delivers information about the short range order.
The results show a general agreement and the differences were considered within the
experimental error.
Finally, surveillance samples from a Swiss nuclear power plant (KKG Kernkraftwerk
Gosgen) were analysed by XAFS. The number of Cu and Ni atoms determined in the first
and second shell around the absorbers is affected by irradiation and temperature. The
comparison of the EXAFS data at the Cu and Ni K-edges shows that these elements are
in a crystallographic structure similar to bcc Fe. There are indications that the formation
of Cu and Ni clusters differs significantly; irradiation damage reduces the next neighbour
number for both elements. Clusters were detected only around copper atoms: the number
of Cu atoms in the first two shells was found to increase with the irradiation time.
With EXAFS it could be verified that neutron irradiation in a power reactor leads to small
changes of the local atomic environment around the investigated Cu and Ni atoms.
Moreover, most of the local structural changes are obtained for the sample with the
longest irradiation time. This lets assume that the reduction of the number of next
neighbours in the bcc structure around Cu and Ni in the steel matrix is steadily increasing
with the years of irradiation in the reactor. However it can be expected that the elevated
temperature helps refilling the irradiation induced vacancies by a permanent annealing
process. The detailed EXAFS analysis has demonstrated that the number of Cu atoms in
the local vicinity of copper is enriched during irradiation in the power plant, while the
local atomic environment around nickel seems to be less affected.
Cu and Ni atoms behave similarly in the IAEA samples, but they show differences in the
power reactor samples. The reasons for the different behaviour reside in the different
irradiation processes: IAEA samples were strongly irradiated and then annealed at high
temperature, while the KKG samples were irradiated at a higher temperature than the
IAEA samples without any post irradiation annealing. Obviously neutron irradiation
forms many vacancies and vacancies clusters, which are easily filled by solute atoms. In
case of irradiation in the power reactor, there are fewer vacancies and the temperatures
involved are lower than the annealing temperature of the IAEA reference samples; the
atom cluster formation of Cu is slowed down and Ni is even less affected.


Background. The Intensive Care Unit is a clinical setting with high technical and complex care and with high emotional impact for operators. The emotional aspects could affect the clinical practice and the learning of the students during their internship. A group of 2nd-year nursing student have been assigned to the intensive care unit, although they didn't previously attend an intensive care course. The goal of this paper is the description of the emotional impact as experienced by students and its influence on students learning. Methodology. It was adopted a qualitative methodology within a phenomenological hermeneutic speculative approach. The authors used some tools such as reflective journals and debriefings. All collected data were transcribed, analyzed and later processed on ATLAS.ti. Results. Content analysis allowed us to highlight that the student initial reaction in front of the critically ill patient and in front of the complex clinical environment was characterized by feelings of fear and discomfort, and the knowledge gap seemed unbridgeable. Subsequently, due to the availability and support of clinical mentors, most of the students adopted a self-directed learning style to fill that gap, perceiving a personal and professional growth with an increase of satisfaction and self-efficacy feelings. Conclusions. Intensive care proved to be an effective learning clinical environment, but further studies are needed to determine both personality characteristics, allowing a student to successfully deal with complex and stressful environments, and relational and teaching skills that distinguish the most effective clinical mentors in such complex clinical environments.


The postgraduate course for construction management and economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne is an e-learning course for architects and civil engineers. The students are mostly fulltime employees, who put a strong emphasis on minimizing disruption of their normal work. This design uses both group work and collective website building to compensate often observed disadvantages in Internet based courses such as solitude and ineffective learning. The course is organized as a well-balanced mix of online work and face-to-face meetings, which has shown to be vital for the creation of good working relationships between the students. They bring construction projects from their practice to elaborate the content of the course. By working on actual projects a strong link between work and education is created. This paper outlines the important components of the course and discusses the results of a preliminary evaluation.


Most convolutional neural networks use some method for gradually downscaling the size of the hidden layers. This is commonly referred to as pooling, and is applied to reduce the number of parameters, improve invariance to certain distortions, and increase the receptive field size. Since pooling by nature is a lossy process, it is crucial that each such layer maintains the portion of the activations that is most important for the network's discriminability. Yet, simple maximization or averaging over blocks, max or average pooling, or plain downsampling in the form of strided convolutions are the standard. In this paper, we aim to leverage recent results on image downscaling for the purposes of deep learning. Inspired by the human visual system, which focuses on local spatial changes, we propose detail-preserving pooling (DPP), an adaptive pooling method that magnifies spatial changes and preserves important structural detail. Importantly, its parameters can be learned jointly with the rest of the network. We analyze some of its theoretical properties and show its empirical benefits on several datasets and networks, where DPP consistently outperforms previous pooling approaches.


We study Newton polytopes of cluster variables in type A_n cluster algebras, whose cluster and coefficient variables are indexed by the diagonals and boundary segments of a polygon. Our main results include an explicit description of the affine hull and facets of the Newton polytope of the Laurent expansion of any cluster variable, with respect to any cluster. In particular, we show that every Laurent monomial in a Laurent expansion of a type A cluster variable corresponds to a vertex of the Newton polytope. We also describe the face lattice of each Newton polytope via an isomorphism with the lattice of elementary subgraphs of the associated snake graph.


Current prenatal diagnosis of monogeneic and chromosomal diseases, includes invasive procedures which carry a small but significant risk. For many years, analysis of fetal cells in maternal circulation has been studied, however it has failed its clinical use due to the scarcity of these cells and their persistance after delivery. For more than a decade, the presence of cell-free fetal DNA in maternal blood has been identified. These fetal DNA fragments would derive from the placenta and are not detected after delivery, making them a source of fetal material for carrying out diagnosis techniques using maternal blood. However, the vast majority of cell free DNA in maternal circulation is of maternal origin, with the fetal component contributing from 3% to 6% and rising towards term. Available methodologies do not allow separation of fetal from maternal cell free DNA, so current applications have been focused on the analysis of genes not present in the mother, such as Y chromosome sequences, or RHD gene in RhD-negative women, or paternal or de novo mutations. Also, the detection of cell-free fetal RNA in maternal blood offers the possibility of obtaining information regarding genetic expression profiles of embrionic tissues, and using genes expressed only at the feto-placental unit, controls for the presence of fetal material could be established, regardless of maternal genetic tissue. The present article describes the evidences regarding the passage of fetal nucleic acids to maternal circulation, its current prenatal diagnosis application and possible future perspectives.