In this paper we investigate the relationship between school quality and information disclosure in housing markets. When presented with the option of identifying their local public school in a real estate listing, we find that sellers with homes assigned to higher-performing schools are more likely to provide this information, an effect that is stronger for sellers of large single-family units. Further, we find that controlling for school quality, information disclosure has no independent effect on housing prices for single-family homes, implying that buyers with a high willingness-to-pay for school quality will seek out information on school quality on their own. On the other hand, we find that sellers' disclosures about schools have a large positive impact on the sale price of small and attached residential units in 2001-02, but the effect disappears by 2006-07. Presumably, the increasing ubiquity of the Internet and the availability of new data under No Child Left Behind dramatically reduced the cost of gathering information on school quality over this period. Taken together the results reveal substantial heterogeneity in buyers' willingness-to-pay for information on school quality, they support the findings of the education literature on the importance of school quality in housing markets, and they confirm the "unraveling" theory of information disclosure found in other markets.


This study investigates the pressure-drop behaviour associated with airflow through bulk and structurally tailored multi-layered, open-cell porous Inconel structures over a wide airflow velocity range (0-50 m s). The effect of airflow velocity on the pressure-drop behaviour as a function of the sample thickness is presented and related to the flow behaviour corresponding to the relevant flow regimes (Darcy, Forchheimer, Turbulent and Post-turbulent). Entrance effects are highlighted as a source of the pressure-drop increase for porous structures with air gaps, regardless of their sizes, as long as they are larger than those generated by loosely-stacked structures. The pressure-drops for gapped porous structures and the mathematical-summation of the pressure drop for the corresponding individual components, were in very good agreement, at lower airflow velocities. The potential for mass-efficient porous structures, providing a high pressure-drop, was demonstrated using multiple thin porous laminates separated by air gaps.


I'VE BEEN ALLERGIC my whole life. As a child, I was sensible. I kept my distance. I was terrified of the black Labrador next door, his whipping tail and sharp white teeth. But in my twenties, like an idiot, I fell in love. Dog love, requited but impossible. They love me because they love everybody, and I love them even though their fur makes my hands break out in a fierce rash and their drool turns my cheeks red and swollen like a squirrel's, like I'm hoarding nuts for winter. I let dogs lick me anyway, and hoard their love. My partner is even more allergic than I am. Dogs, cats, dust, pollen, ragweed, lotion, detergent, peanuts, all nuts. His allergies are bad in spring and summer from the plants outside, bad in fall and winter from the recirculating indoor air. We go to friends' houses with pets and his lungs ache for days. We halfheartedly research lizards, birds, fish. I can't muster any interest in anything that wouldn't be interested in me, in repaying my care with companionship. I understand this to be the purpose of a pet, even though, or perhaps because, I've never had one. I shudder at pictures of hairless dogs online. Todd sneezes in the next room. I decide to volunteer. On the shelter application, I am asked to rank my choices: Cattery? Small critters? Website? Clerical? I write: 1.) Dogs 2.) Dogs 3.) Dogs I have to wait several months for an open orientation session, and when the day arrives the crowd squeezes into a large, rubber-matted room where obedience classes are held. It's March in west Michigan, and we stomp so much snow off our boots that the floor mats become saturated, covered in slush and burbling where we step. The staff don't care--the entire building is resolutely utilitarian, cinder block and concrete. There isn't a floor in the shelter, in either the animals' areas or the humans' offices, that couldn't be cleaned by dumping buckets of soapy water straight onto it. In the kennel area, this is exactly what staffers are doing, towing mop buckets and red wagons filled with pails of kibble to refill dog bowls, pails of drying feces scraped out of the kennels. The dog room is cacophonous, several aisles of large wire cages separated by gates to foil escapees. Tinny classical music plays under the insistent barking. Our tour continues to the admitting wing, where vet examinations and euthanizations are performed. We pass the behavioral testing room, the reception area, the cattery. There is no small critter room, so the critters' cages sit on open shelving near the cats, which glare through Plexiglas at the mice and hamsters. Back in the obedience room, the volunteer coordinator explains the rigid hierarchy: all volunteers must start with Reading with Fido, before ascending to Dog Walking, Jogging with Fido, or Puppy Petter. Each weekly shift, I am supposed to place a single blanket and toy on the floor of one of the small adoption-counseling rooms. I select a dog from the kennels, loop a lead around its head, guide it into the counseling room, and ignore it. I don't read to the dog, I am told, just quietly to myself, so the dogs can accustom themselves to being ignored. Since every dog at the shelter has been abandoned or surrendered, Reading with Fido seems to me like rubbing salt in a wound. But the dogs must impress people in these adoption rooms, have blown chances with prospective families by being too exuberant, too unruly. The constant disappointment of Reading with Fido teaches them to make a calm impression. They learn that their people will want to eat dinner and watch TV, not always walk or play. The dogs learn that they are not the center of humans' lives, even though we are inevitably at the center of theirs. For two hours every week, I put these dogs at the center of mine. Ivan, Sakura, Jasper, Ruby, Buster, Bostwick, Christmas, Wolfy, Miller. Fat old Miller, who looks at the sad blanket and single toy like it's Christmas morning, like I'm Santa Claus. …


The rising number of flooding events combined with increased urbanization is contributing to significant economic losses due to damages to structures and infrastructures. From a risk reduction and resilience perspective, it is not only essential to forecast flood risk and potential impacts, but also to disseminate the information to stakeholders on the ground for rapid implementation of mitigation and response measures. This paper provides (i) an introduction to DisasterAWARE®, a global alerting system, that is used to disseminate flood risk information to stakeholders across the globe, and (ii) a discussion of the models implemented using earth observation data (Synthetic Aperture Radar and optical imagery) for near real-time assessment of flood severity and potential flood impacts to infrastructures. While the models are still in their nascent stage, a case study implementation of the models for the 2020 flooding event in Africa is presented to showcase the model integration with DisasterAWARE®. * Corresponding author


This study presents measurements of the geomagnetic field of the Republic of Macedonia, performed through a network of newly defined repeat stations. The measurements of these elements were in the intervals of 3.378° ≤ DD ≤ 3.983°, 57.276° ≤ I ≤ 59.005°, and 46 235 nT ≤ F ≤ 46903 nT. The geomagnetic data were processed and the results of the observed elements of the geomagnetic field on the repeat stations are presented. Additional data processing was performed to calculate the reduced values of the intensive elements of the field at the level of H500 a.s.l.. Based on these data, new maps of the geomagnetic field of the Republic of Macedonia are developed, together with the polynomial model of the elements of the geomagnetic field for the 2010.0 epoch.


Japan has gone from very successful policies that promoted growth without inflation to a long period of slow growth, recessions and deflation. The Bank of Japan's policies are a major reason for deflation. Although the Bank has purchased foreign exchange, it counteracts the inflationary effects of its purchases via sterilization. This forces deflation to continue. Currently, there is a 'dialogue of the deaf'. The government wants faster growth but does not reform the banking system; the Bank makes bank reform a condition for ending deflationary policies.


OBJECTIVE: We asked whether adoption status represented a risk of suicide attempt for adopted and nonadopted offspring living in the United States. We also examined whether factors known to be associated with suicidal behavior would mediate the relationship between adoption status and suicide attempt. METHODS: Participants were drawn from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study, which included 692 adopted and 540 nonadopted offspring and was conducted at the University of Minnesota from 1998 to 2008. Adoptees were systematically ascertained from records of 3 large Minnesota adoption agencies; nonadoptees were ascertained from Minnesota birth records. Outcome measures were attempted suicide, reported by parent or offspring, and factors known to be associated with suicidal behavior including psychiatric disorder symptoms, personality traits, family environment, and academic disengagement. RESULTS: The odds of a reported suicide attempt were ∼4 times greater in adoptees compared with nonadoptees (odds ratio: 4.23). After adjustment for factors associated with suicidal behavior, the odds of reporting a suicide attempt were reduced but remained significantly elevated (odds ratio: 3.70). CONCLUSIONS: The odds for reported suicide attempt are elevated in individuals who are adopted relative to those who are not adopted. The relationship between adoption status and suicide attempt is partially mediated by factors known to be associated with suicidal behavior. Continued study of the risk of suicide attempt in adopted offspring may inform the larger investigation of suicidality in all adolescents and young adults.


Many researchers have attempted in the past to look at the possibility of using ultrasonic irradiation or sonication in degrading organic compounds in aqueous wastewater. Ultrasonic irradiation was found to be a safe, clean and effective method for deterioration of specific organic compounds. Ultrasonic irradiation can be used as a stand-alone process, or can be integrated with other treatment methods. However, very limited study focuses on the application of ultrasonic irradiation for treating industrial wastewater; therefore, it is considered as a new research. When water is exposed to ultrasonic irradiation, H and –OH radicals are produced; the latter is a strong oxidizing agent which can degrade organic pollutants. This study uses raw Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) as a test media to investigate the effectiveness of ultrasonic irradiation in reducing organic compounds based on the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentration at selected operating conditions, namely power density of ultrasonic probe and addition of catalysts. Results showed percentage reduction of COD was highest at power density 29W/L than power density 55W/L. Power density 29W/L of ultrasonic probe chose to combine with catalysts. Application of ultrasonic irradiation with presence of the catalysts CuSO4 and FeSO4, increased the percentage of COD reduction, but FeSO4 gave a better result. The highest percentage reduction of COD of raw POME is around 30% after ultrasonic irradiation process combined with the catalyst FeSO4.


Flood extent mapping plays a crucial role in disaster management and national water forecasting. Unfortunately, traditional classification methods are often hampered by the existence of noise, obstacles and heterogeneity in spectral features as well as implicit anisotropic spatial dependency across class labels. In this paper, we propose geographical hidden Markov tree, a probabilistic graphical model that generalizes the common hidden Markov model from a one dimensional sequence to a two dimensional map. Partial order class dependency is incorporated in the hidden class layer with a reverse tree structure. We also investigate computational algorithms for reverse tree construction, model parameter learning and class inference. Extensive evaluations on both synthetic and real world datasets show that proposed model outperforms multiple baselines in flood mapping, and our algorithms are scalable on large data sizes.


The operating principle for retention devices is the interception and capture of runoff, preventing its direct release to surface waters. The most common mechanism by which captured runoff is diverted is by infiltration. Performance efficiency is measured by the fraction of total runoff that is prevented from discharging to a surface water body. Virtually all runoff that enters the detention device is ultimately discharged to surface waters. Performance efficiency is measured by the reduction in pollutant concentrations, and hence mass loads that result from physical (sedimentation) or other (biological) processes that are given a chance to operate during the residence time that runoff is detained in its passage through the basin. This paper discusses basin design, sediment accumulation, basin sizing, and other aspects of the subject.


At the time of writing only seven Australian universities had research archives compliant with the Open Access Initiative (OAI) standards. The University of Tasmania proposes a coordinated push by all computer science departments through offering a start-up service that will enable each computer science department in every university in Australia, New Zealand, PNG, East Timor, and the University of the South Pacific to have an OAI presence. Research evidence shows that putting preprints and postprints of research papers on an OAI-compliant server increases the average citation rate by at least 300%, and the readership by a greater factor. 100% coverage in the Australasian region will increase the profile of computer science research in the region. It will also make the same research more accessible to those institutions with smaller budgets, thereby assisting them in their mission.


To truly understand how the Internet and Web are organized and function requires knowledge of mathematics and computation theory. Mathematical and Algorithmic Foundations of the Internet introduces the concepts and methods upon which computer networks rely and explores their applications to the Internet and Web. The book offers a unique approach to mathematical and algorithmic concepts, demonstrating their universality by presenting ideas and examples from various fields, including literature, history, and art. Progressing from fundamental concepts to more specific topics and applications, the text covers computational complexity and randomness, networks and graphs, parallel and distributed computing, and search engines. While the mathematical treatment is rigorous, it is presented at a level that can be grasped by readers with an elementary mathematical background. The authors also present a lighter side to this complex subject by illustrating how many of the mathematical concepts have counterparts in everyday life. The book provides in-depth coverage of the mathematical prerequisites and assembles a complete presentation of how computer networks function. It is a useful resource for anyone interested in the inner functioning, design, and organization of the Internet.


Many studies examining social media use rely on self-report survey questions about how much time participants spend on social media platforms. Because they are challenging to answer accurately and susceptible to various biases, these self-reported measures are known to contain error -- although the specific contours of this error are not well understood. This paper compares data from ten self-reported Facebook use survey measures deployed in 15 countries (N = 49,934) against data from Facebook's server logs to describe factors associated with error in commonly used survey items from the literature. Self-reports were moderately correlated with actual Facebook use (r = 0.42 for the best-performing question), though participants significantly overestimated how much time they spent on Facebook and underestimated the number of times they visited. People who spent a lot of time on the platform were more likely to misreport their time, as were teens and younger adults, which is notable because of the high reliance on college-aged samples in many fields. We conclude with recommendations on the most accurate ways to collect time-spent data via surveys.


Vaccination is the most promising approach to control and prevent the infectious diseases. As most of pathogenic microrganisms gain entry through the mucosal surfaces of host which provide great deal of interest in developing oral vaccines. Despite the success of many vaccines, only little information is available regarding the oral vaccine antigen induced immunogenic signalling pathways. Such information will be helpful to design future vaccines against old and new infectious diseases to reduce the side effects of existing vaccines and increase their efficacy. In this review, the oral vaccine antigen inducing complex signaling pathways of immune system has been discussed. Various stra


This study used quantitative research to investigate the acceptability and effectiveness of empowering leadership in various cultural contexts. The importance of finding appropriate leadership styles to use in cross-cultural situations is paramount. Development organizations as well as multinational organizations struggle to find appropriate forms of leadership that are effective in mobilizing the workforce in highly diverse cultural contexts. The effects of empowering leadership on psychological empowerment and self-leadership are measured in two cultural contexts representing both high and low power distance and collectivism to explore how empowering leadership behaviors affect the empowerment of subordinates. This research is located within five intersecting theoretical frameworks: empowerment, psychological empowerment, empowering leadership, cross-cultural studies, and African leadership studies. Two hundred forty-five surveys were collected—121 from Rwanda and 124 from the United States. The self-report surveys assessed followers' perception of their leader's empowering leadership, as well as the followers' cultural values and psychological empowerment and self-leadership. First, hierarchical regression analysis showed that empowering leadership has a significant positive effect on both psychological empowerment and self-leadership in both cultural context. This research contributes to the field of empowerment by offering empirical evidence that empowering leadership is appropriate and effective in both high and low power distance and collectivism cultures. Second, hierarchical regression analysis with tests for moderation show that power distance moderates these relationships, especially in high power distance cultures, while collectivism only moderates occasionally. This contributes to the field of cross-cultural studies by indicating that power distance is a cultural value that can have a moderating effect and needs to be included in future cross-cultural studies. This thesis provides evidence that empowering leadership is an effective form of leadership that produces employee empowerment in diverse cultural contexts, and it provides new insights into an appropriate form of leadership for international development organizations to implement when working overseas. Empowering Leadership in Different Cultural Contexts iv


Rhinovirus infections have afflicted humanity since the dawn of civilization, and are difficult to treat even with modern medicine. Throughout the ages many remedies have been used for the common cold, often caused by the rhinovirus. Recent research points to a flavanol anti-oxidant, quercetin, as having therapeutic properties. Quercetin has been shown to reduce viral internalization and replication in vitro, and viral load, lung inflammation and airways hyper-responsiveness in vivo.


The success of neural network methods for computing word embeddings has motivated methods for generating semantic embeddings of longer pieces of text, such as sentences and paragraphs. Surprisingly, Wieting et al (ICLR'16) showed that such complicated methods are outperformed, especially in out-of-domain (transfer learning) settings, by simpler methods involving mild retraining of word embeddings and basic linear regression. The method of Wieting et al. requires retraining with a substantial labeled dataset such as Paraphrase Database (Ganitkevitch et al., 2013). The current paper goes further, showing that the following completely unsupervised sentence embedding is a formidable baseline: Use word embeddings computed using one of the popular methods on unlabeled corpus like Wikipedia, represent the sentence by a weighted average of the word vectors, and then modify them a bit using PCA/SVD. This weighting improves performance by about 10% to 30% in textual similarity tasks, and beats sophisticated supervised methods including RNN's and LSTM's. It even improves Wieting et al.'s embeddings. This simple method should be used as the baseline to beat in future, especially when labeled training data is scarce or nonexistent. The paper also gives a theoretical explanation of the success of the above unsupervised method using a latent variable generative model for sentences, which is a simple extension of the model in Arora et al. (TACL'16) with new "smoothing" terms that allow for words occurring out of context, as well as high probabilities for words like and, not in all contexts.


The approach of this topic suggested to us by the fact that currently, it persists a controversy regarding the elements that influence decisively the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information. From these elements, we remark accounting models and concepts of capital maintenance in terms of the accounting result, which can be under the influence of factors such as subjectivity or even lack of neutrality. Therefore, in formulating the response to the question that is the title of the paper, we will start from the fact that the financial statements prepared by the accounting systems must be the result of processing after appropriate models, which ultimately can respond as good as possible to external user's requirements and internal, in particular the knowledge of the financial position and performance of economic entities.


INTRODUCTION I. FOUR MODELS FOR INTERPRETING STATUTES WITH CIVIL AND CRIMINAL REMEDIES A. The Standard Model 1. Two Basic Principles a. Broad Interpretation of Remedial Statutes b. The Rule of Lenity 2. Application of the Standard Model: Two Examples a. The Copyright Act b. Bankruptcy Crimes B. The Inflationary Model 1. Insider Trading and Inflation of the Securities Laws 2. Antitrust Laws 3. Environmental Law C. The Lenity Model D. The Law Enforcement Model 1. Mail Fraud as a RICO Predicate Act 2. Criminal Mail Fraud and Criminal RICO II. CONTROLLING STATUTORY INFLATION A. How Much Should Statutory Inflation Be Controlled? B. Imposing Strong Mens Rea Requirements C. Writing Rules of Construction into the Statute Itself: The Wrong Path D. Modifying the Chevron Doctrine in Criminal Cases III. CONCLUSION: STATUTORY INFLATION AND INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE INTRODUCTION Statutes that contain both civil remedies and criminal penalties are typical in the modern regulatory state. Among them are RICO, (1) the antitrust laws, (2) the securities laws, (3) environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act, (4) various tax statutes, (5) the Copyright Act, (6) and the Bankruptcy Code. (7) These statutes most often regulate business affairs and provide for criminal penalties to punish willful violators. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, (8) the statute enacted in response to the financial scandals of Enron, WorldCom, and other major corporations, provides a recent example of this remedial scheme, which remains popular with lawmakers. This Article argues that the standard array of interpretive tools employed by judges and academics does not adequately account for important irregularities in the ways that courts construe these dual-remedy statutes, especially in criminal cases. Most of the literature focuses on two institutions: the legislature and the courts. To the extent that administrative agencies become part of the mix, the main issue addressed is how much deference courts should give to the interpretation of a statute by the agency that has been charged with enforcing it. This Article, in contrast, suggests that the institutional setting in which a statute is enforced has a profound effect on how courts construe the statute over time. Although deference doctrines play a role, judicial decisions also reflect the resources committed to litigation by governmental institutions in civil and criminal cases. Even on the surface, this kind of legislative scheme creates complex interpretive problems. Deeply entrenched in our system of statutory jurisprudence are two complementary canons of construction: Remedial statutes are interpreted liberally; penal statutes are interpreted narrowly. (9) The former reflects concern about public health and welfare, the latter the due process rights of those accused of committing crimes. Should courts interpret these dual-remedy statutes narrowly in criminal cases, but broadly in civil cases, thus creating two different readings of each statute? Should they interpret the statute narrowly in both kinds of cases to be fair to criminal defendants without creating multiple interpretations of the same language? Should they interpret the statute broadly in both criminal and civil cases, forsaking the value of lenity in order to promote both uniformity and aggressive regulation in civil cases? Should they sometimes interpret a statute broadly in criminal cases but narrowly in civil cases, perhaps to limit private litigation when the statute is basically a criminal one? Each of these possible solutions requires the courts to weigh values that would be noncontroversial were they not in conflict with one another. Institutional choices that determine the ways these statutes are enforced influence the weight that courts ultimately give in different statutory settings. …


The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the last decade has opened new avenues in knowledge management that could play important roles in meeting the prevailing challenges related to sharing, exchanging and disseminating knowledge and technologies. The ICT-enabled services have also proved to be capable of improving capacity and livelihoods of poor smallholder farmers. One of the best ICT platforms is the use of mobile technology for exchanging information through SMS, broadband services and other android applications. It has recently been proved that the rural mobile subscriber base is growing twice as faster compared to urban subscriber base. Capitalizing new emerging technologies in the field of plant protection is important to meet new challenges in crop health management. CABI with its rich and long expertise in supporting the academia, extensionists and farmers in crop health has introduced an ICT approach under one of its flagship programme "Plantwise". In close partnership with relevant actors, this programme supports in strengthening national plant health systems enabling countries to provide farmers with knowledge to manage crop problems through a batch of Plant Doctors who undertake training in various CABI modules on diagnosis, recommendations, etc. In an attempt to strengthen and improve its on-going activities, Plantwise is piloting e-plant clinics in different countries including India. It involves the use of mobile devices (tablets) not only deliver plant health information to farmers through SMS but also record details of visiting farmer and crops. In addition, it supports the extensionists (Plant Doctors) through access to its information tools like Plantwise Factsheets Library app and offline Knowledge Bank. The data received through e-Plant Clinics is relatively cleaner and requires significantly less processing time prior to analysis and further decision making. The geolocated data submitted can also be used in real time tracking of pests.


Turkey's bid to join the European Union is fraught with political tension and questions of identity, values and norms. In some ways, it is seen as on the central battlefield of Huntington's clash of civilizations. It is also a matter of security and economic politics, with great geopolitical implications. This research explores why member states support or oppose Turkish membership in the EU.

This research investigates the Turkish membership policies of 15 EU member states from 1997 to 2006 and tests 32 hypotheses drawn from international relations theories and approaches. These include variables related to security, power, and wealth; identities, norms and values. In doing so it comes to some interesting conclusions and policy implications.

Contrary to common perception, it is not about security, economics or power politics between states, nor is it primarily about Turkey's ability to meet the Copenhagen criteria of EU membership. By and large, the politics of Turkey's bid to join the EU are not about Turkey at all. Instead, it is about the domestic politics of immigration in some member states and other member states' own respect for human rights norms. The exception is Greece, which has a peculiar bilateral political dynamic with Turkey. Furthermore, this research finds that many more member states support Turkey than oppose its bid for membership.

In finding a parsimonious model of predicting member states' policies, it develops policy options for Turkey to guide its difficult path for membership. Rather than attempting to be a security asset and valuable trading partner, Turkey needs to muck it up in member states' domestic politics, where the real challenges lie. Of course, it needs to meet the criteria for membership, but at the same time it should not prematurely give in to Cypriot demands, despite the EU's urging for it to do so.


The Book of Mormon contains several quotations from the Hebrew Bible that have been juxtaposed on the basis of shared words or phrases, this for the purpose of interpreting the cited scriptural passages in light of one another. This exegetical technique — one that Jesus himself used — came to be known in later rabbinic times as Gezera Shawa ("equal statute"). In several additional instances, the use of Gezera Shawa converges with onomastic wordplay. Nephi uses a Gezera Shawa involving Isaiah 11:11 and Isaiah 29:14 twice on the basis of the yāsap verb‐forms yosip/yosīp (2 Nephi 25:17 and quoting the Lord in 2 Nephi 29:1) to create a stunning wordplay on the name "Joseph." In another instance, King Benjamin uses Gezera Shawa involving Psalm 2:7, 2 Samuel 7:14, and Deuteronomy 14:1 (1–2) on the basis of the Hebrew noun bēn ("son"; plural bānim, bānot, "sons" and "daughters") on which to build a rhetorical wordplay on his own name. This second wordplay, which further alludes to Psalm 110:1 on account of the noun yāmin ("right hand"), was ready‐made for his temple audience who, on the occasion of Mosiah's coronation, were receiving their own "endowment" to become "sons" and "daughters" at God's "right hand." The use of Gezera Shawa was often christological — e.g., Jacob's Gezera Shawa on ("stone") in Jacob 4:15–17 and Alma's Gezera Shawa on Zenos's and Zenock's phrase "because of thy Son" in Alma 33:11–16 (see Alma 33:4‐17). Taken together, these examples suggest that we should pay more attention to scripture's use of scripture and, in particular, the use of this exegetical practice. In doing so, we will better discern the messages intended by ancient prophets whose words the Book of Mormon preserves. T names of Rachel's two sons, Joseph and Benjamin, constituted two of the most important proper names in ancient Israel — Joseph as the patriarchal ancestor of the dominant northern half-tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Benjamin as the ancestor of the tribe of King Saul and thus of the first "royal" tribe in Israel. Joseph and Benjamin also became important names in their own right in the Book of Mormon. Onomastic Wordplay on Joseph and Benjamin and Gezera Shawa in the Book of Mormon


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This report explores how incubators and accelerators impact the startups they support, and which types of support drive this impact. It also examines how incubators and accelerators affect the wider business ecosystem.

The report:
- examines the objectives of UK accelerators and incubators, and the barriers to reaching these objectives
- determines which types of support offered by incubators and accelerators (for example provision of workspace, mentoring, funding or training) add the most value to participating startups
- presents a "theory of change" explaining how these types of support make their impact
- investigates how Local Enterprise partnerships and Growth Hubs interact with or support accelerators and incubators in their region, and how this interaction helps both parties achieve their objectives


Research indicates that U.S. news coverage of non-White political candidates tends to be race-focused and often prompts White voters to bring racial considerations to the polls. Indeed, racial considerations likely cost Barack Obama a significant percentage of White voters in the 2008 presidential election. Nonetheless, scholarship also suggests that Obama aggressively sought to transcend difference—racial or otherwise—during his 2008 campaign via explicit appeals to the national identity. Given these competing dynamics, we conducted a content analysis of both Obama's nationally televised campaign speeches and U.S. news coverage to assess the relative salience of nation- and race-related language present in this discourse. We find that Obama consistently emphasized nation over race, but that journalists overwhelmingly reprioritized race over nation.


Title of Dissertation: IN SITU CHARACTERIZATION OF OPTICAL ABSORPTION BY CARBONACEOUS AEROSOLS: CALIBRATION AND MEASUREMENT Rian You, Doctor of Philosophy, 2016 Dissertation directed by: Michael R. Zachariah, Professor Chemical Physics Program Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry Light absorption by aerosols has a great impact on climate change. A Photoacoustic spectrometer (PA) coupled with aerosol-based classification techniques represents an in situ method that can quantify the light absorption by aerosols in a real time, yet significant differences have been reported using this method versus filter based methods or the so-called difference method based upon light extinction and light scattering measurements. This dissertation focuses on developing calibration techniques for instruments used in measuring the light absorption cross section, including both particle diameter measurements by the differential mobility analyzer (DMA) and light absorption measurements by PA. Appropriate reference materials were explored for the calibration/validation of both measurements. The light absorption of carbonaceous aerosols was also investigated to provide fundamental understanding to the absorption mechanism. The first topic of interest in this dissertation is the development of calibration nanoparticles. In this study, bionanoparticles were confirmed to be a promising reference material for particle diameter as well as ion-mobility. Experimentally, bionanoparticles demonstrated outstanding homogeneity in mobility compared to currently used calibration particles. A numerical method was developed to calculate the true distribution and to explain the broadening of measured distribution. The high stability of bionanoparticles was also confirmed. For PA measurement, three aerosol with spherical or near spherical shapes were investigated as possible candidates for a reference standard: C60, copper and silver. Comparisons were made between experimental photoacoustic absorption data with Mie theory calculations. This resulted in the identification of C60 particles with a mobility diameter of 150 nm to 400 nm as an absorbing standard at wavelengths of 405 nm and 660 nm. Copper particles with a mobility diameter of 80 nm to 300 nm are also shown to be a promising reference candidate at wavelength of 405 nm. The second topic of this dissertation focuses on the investigation of light absorption by carbonaceous particles using PA. Optical absorption spectra of size and mass selected laboratory generated aerosols consisting of black carbon (BC), BC with non-absorbing coating (ammonium sulfate and sodium chloride) and BC with a weakly absorbing coating (brown carbon derived from humic acid) were measured across the visible to near-IR (500 nm to 840 nm). The manner in which BC mixed with each coating material was investigated. The absorption enhancement of BC was determined to be wavelength dependent. Optical absorption spectra were also taken for size and mass selected smoldering smoke produced from six types of commonly seen wood in a laboratory scale apparatus. IN SITU CHARATERIZATION OF OPTICAL ABSORPTION BY ATMOSPHERICALLY RELEVANT AEROSOLS


Steroid hormones modulate gene transcription through interactions of their receptors with hormone-responsive elements on target genes. Noting that steroid receptors also activate the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway, Vicent et al. used the T47D-MTVL breast cancer cell line--which carries a chromosomally integrated copy of the luciferase gene under the control of the MMTV-LTR promoter--to investigate the role of ERK signaling in progestin action. Treatment with the progesterone receptor (PR) agonist R5020 led to rapid phosphorylation of ERK1/2, the progesterone receptor-B isoform (PRB), and the ERK target MSK1 (mitogen- and stress-activated protein kinase 1) as well as to transcriptional activation of the MMTV reporter. Hormone-dependent phosphorylation of PR and MSK1 required ERK activation, as did the hormone-dependent induction of MMTV (which also required MSK1 activation) and other progesterone target genes. R5020 stimulated recruitment to the MMTV promoter of PR and a complex containing phosphorylated PRB, phosphorylated ERK, and phosphorylated MSK1. Furthermore, R5020 elicited a MSK1-dependent increase in phosphorylation on serine 10 of histone H3 of the MMTV promoter, associated with the MSK1-dependent loss of HP1γ (heterochromatin protein 1γ) and recruitment of chromatin-remodeling factors and RNA polymerase II. Thus, activation of the ERK signaling pathway appears to play a critical role in progestin-dependent gene transcription that involves MSK1-dependent phosphorylation of histone H3, enabling the loss of repressive complexes from the promoters of target genes and the recruitment of chromatin-remodeling factors. G. P. Vicent, C. Ballaré, A. S. Nacht, J. Clausell, A. Subtil-Rodríguez, I. Quiles, A. Jordan, M. Beato, Induction of progesterone target genes requires activation of Erk and Msk kinases and phosphorylation of histone H3. Mol. Cell. 24, 367-381 (2006). [PubMed]


Winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) belongs among the most common and strategic crops in the Czech Republic. Growth and vitality status, yield potential and yield prediction of oilseed rape on plots of different sizes can be effectively examined using remote sensing. That is why the main aim of this study was to discuss a possibility of deriving spectral indices for an assessment which spectral index is more adequate to forecast oilseed winter rape development and consequent yield in the Czech Republic. Information about the winter oilseed rape growth and yield was collected in three years – 2004, 2008, 2012. A relationship between grown crops and selected vegetation indices was evaluated. The Landsat 7 satellite images were selected as a source for deriving spectral indices. The relationship between each spectral index and yield was analysed in 2012 only. Five images on different dates during the whole life of winter oilseed rape were found during this year. The images from the years 2004 and 2008 were cloudier. The spectral indices showing the best relationship with yield from 2012 were then analysed in the images from 2004 and 2008. The results showed that Enhanced Moisture Stress Index is the most acceptable index from the selected indices used in this study. From an agronomical point of view no available index was found to be suitable for the winter rape growth evaluation due to dependence on precipitation conditions. For monitoring of the yield components in winter oilseed rape in conditions of the Czech Republic, it seems necessary to develop a new vegetation index which will reliably describe the winter oilseed rape growth stages during the whole vegetation season.


Success in any line demands a definite aim. He who would achieve true success in life must keep steadily in view the aim worthy of his endeavor. Such an aim is set before the youth of today. The heaven-appointed purpose of giving the gospel to the world in this generation is the noblest that can appeal to any human being. It opens a field of effort to everyone whose heart Christ has touched. (White 1903:262)


We study the security of symmetric primitives under the incorrect usage of keys. Roughly speaking, a key-robust scheme does not output ciphertexts/tags that are valid with respect to distinct keys. Key-robustness is a notion that is often tacitly expected/assumed in protocol design — as is the case with anonymous auction, oblivious transfer, or public-key encryption. We formalize simple, yet strong definitions of key robustness for authenticated-encryption, message-authentication codes and PRFs. We show standard notions (such as AE or PRF security) guarantee a basic level of key-robustness under honestly generated keys, but fail to imply keyrobustness under adversarially generated (or known) keys. We show robust encryption and MACs compose well through generic composition, and identify robust PRFs as the main primitive used in building robust schemes. Standard hash functions are expected to satisfy key-robustness and PRF security, and hence suffice for practical instantiations. We however provide further theoretical justifications (in the standardmodel) by constructing robust PRFs from (left-and-right) collision-resistant PRGs.


We analyze the formation and competition of market intermediaries when there are positive participation externalities between the two sides of the market; negative participation externalities within the same side; competition with traditional market; and implicit coordination among potential participants. The impact of implicit cooridination is studied in two ways. First, we develop both static models--which are appropriate when the number of potential participants is large--and dynamic models--which are appropriate when a limited number of participants observe each other's choices. Potential participants can better coordinate their decisions in the dynamic participation process. Second, we assume that participation decisions are coordinated by a "pessimistic belief" about formation or entry of a new intermediary. In order to overcome the pessimism, the owner of an intermediary has to offer a fee schedule that implements her preferred outcome as the unique (subgame-perfect) Nash equilibrium outcome. The theory explains when and in which direction "cross-subsidization" strategies appear and when the incumbent intermediary can deter entry profitably.


University students are becoming more and more fragile under the new circumstances of socio- economic climate, subjective factors, increasingly diverse student population and the strong presence of their parents It is much more difficult for them to manage their campus life, containing academic performance, social support, psychological well-being, or financial pressures, in a new environment. The problem of adapting the way of university life and directing their future in a positive way is raising. The latest report from National College Health Assessment indicated that over half of students have these fragile feelings, such as hopeless (53.1%), overwhelming by all you had to do (86.9%), Exhausted (not from physical activity, 83.4%), very lonely (64.4%), very sad (68.1%), overwhelming anxiety (61.4%) and so on (ACHA,2017). Besides, Career-related Issue (24.2%) is the one of the main difficulties for undergraduates to handle within the last 12 months. These negative emotions and issues effect the students' flourishing in life.

In this scenario, the Psychosocial Career Counselling Service (PCCS) is a corresponding solution for students to reach flourishing in the campus ecology and social ecology. The aim of this service is to improve students' decision-making skills, communicating skills, the self-concept, and other coping strategies (Naicker,1994), It supports individuals to understand and discover themselves so as to become self-directing (Shertzer & Stone, 1981). The career trajectory has a serious impact on human flourishing, and it affects people's every single day into varying extents, such as social circles, a marriage partner, holiday plans, retirement possibilities (Krumboltz, 1993). However, the critical weakness in career related services at university is in the absence of perception from students. The study from Engelland, Workman, & Singh (2000), was conducted in three universities and analyzed the both perspectives from undergraduate clients and career service staffs. It showed that the three of the five service quality gaps in campus were derived from the lack of understanding student expectations.

The objective of this study is to explore what are the improvements of PCCS from student perspective and how service design can contribute to this service in a cross-cultural context. It is a collaborative research and conducts with a psychologist who is in charge of PCCS at university. Therefore, it combines the knowledge from design discipline and psychology field. The methodology strategy of this research is Case Study to understand what are the service improvements from human-centered approaches, and build service maps from institution documents. Two national universities, that one is in China and another is in Italy, has been chosen and the unit of analysis is the PCCS center for each case. The research target is first-year undergraduate student from different disciplines. The reason of studying on freshmen is that they experience the transition time from high school to campus life. In this period, they suffer a stressful and anxious time while they build new psychological identities (Skahill,2002), and the common "freshman blues" can escalate into fragility, when students start their adulthood and live on their own (Ruiz,2017). The methods are in-depth interview, open- ended questionnaire, and documentation.

In China, this exploratory study collected 32 interviews that last around 40 mins to 60 mins. Besides, open-ended questionnaire elicitation resulted in 553 responses in total and 549 for the valid responses. The intent of the mixed method research was to apply the qualitative questionnaires to explore and make sense in a wider range of the qualitative findings. In Italy, there were collected 32 interviews that in the same time range from 40 mins to 60 mins. In addition, there were 487 responses in open- ended questionnaire and 267 for the valid responses. The method of data analysis is thematic analysis- 6 steps (Braun & Clarke,2006). The findings from the two countries emerged a connection between service improvements and the service ecosystem, since the institution system, education policy, culture, and social environment are different. It entails five nested social systems- microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and ecosystem (Jones, 2017) to improve the service quality in a holistic vision.

With both theoretical and empirical explorations, an inter-disciplinary approach for service ecosystem design of the campus PCCS for first-year students are emerged. In addition, it puts forward a robust conceptual service design output, which demonstrates its high potential to benefit human flourishing. It discloses for the academia and practitioners both in design and health field an opportunity to see the service ecosystem design for people's wellbeing in intercultural background, which based on human-centered design logic in order to consider PCCS improvements from new insights, which involves students in an active role for creating the service in an initial step, which is a new collaborative way in PCCS to make a common ground for service design from both design and psychology, which provides an integrated outcome for the general situation and the particular cultural diversities.


We consider the family of rational functions ψw= ∏( xwi - xwi+1 )-1 indexed by words with no repetition. We study the combinatorics of the sums ΨP of the functions ψw when w describes the linear extensions of a given poset P. In particular, we point out the connexions between some transformations on posets and elementary operations on the fraction ΨP. We prove that the denominator of ΨP has a closed expression in terms of the Hasse diagram of P, and we compute its numerator in some special cases. We show that the computation of ΨP can be reduced to the case of bipartite posets. Finally, we compute the numerators associated to some special bipartite graphs as Schubert polynomials.


ABSTRACT The European Commission's Investment Plan for Europe and the enduring economic crisis has brought state-owned development banks again to the fore of public and scholarly debate in Europe. This article proposes to place these banks' activities and recent institutional co-operation in the context of European integration and assumes a historical perspective on European economic governance and development banking. Most importantly, it argues that the European Investment Bank has become a centre of gravity in long-standing political attempts to increase the investment firepower of the European Union. Based on detailed process-tracing analysis through publicly available data and interview material, the article delineates a gradual process of institutional innovation and network formation that advanced since the late 1980s and culminated in recent post-crisis policy processes. The contemporary visibility of development banking in Europe, we conclude, follows from these and is representative of a nucleus for a – somewhat hidden – European investment state, whose reach and stability, however, is yet to be determined.


The reactions of cyanide ions with some benzene derivatives activated with electron-withdrawing groups have been studied in methanol, and in DMSO, and in mixtures of these solvents. The studies have involved spectroscopic measurements of reactants, intermediates and products together with kinetic measurements and the isolation of reaction products. The techniques used include uv/visible spectrophotometry, proton N.M.R. spectroscopy, e.s.r. spectroscopy, polarography and H.P.L.C. There is evidence from the reaction of 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene with excess cyanide in methanol that methanolysis of the cyanide ion produces a significant concentration of methoxide ions, which may also attack the substrate. A methanolysis constant of approximately 4xl0(^-4)moldm(^-3) has been calculated, which leads to a value of 13.52 for the pK(_a) of hydrogen cyanide in methanol. The reaction of a slight excess of potassium cyanide with meta-dinitrobenzene in methanol has been previously reported to yield 2-methoxy-6-nitrobenzonitrile. The author has confirmed that this is the major product, although isomeric methoxy- nitrobenzonitriles are also produced in small quantities. The reactions of the possible intermediates, 2,4- and 2,6-dinitrobenzonitrile, with methoxide in methanol have been studied. There is evidence for initial partitioning of the parent between reversible production of solvate, via attack of the methoxide at the cyano group, and irreversible substitution of a nitro group by methoxide. In a second slower stage the solvate is converted, via parent, to substitution products. With the same reagents in DMSO there is evidence for the reversible formation of sigma-adducts by attack at unsubstituted ring positions, followed by the irreversible substitution of niffo groups. There is evidence for common intermediates and products in the reactions oimeta- dinitrobenzene, 2,4-dinitrobenzonitrile and l-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene with cyanide in media rich in DMSO. Under such conditions mera-dinitrobenzene and l-fluoro-2,4- dinitrobenzene undergo reaction to produce 2,4-dinitrobenzonitrile, which then reacts further with excess cyanide to produce two isomeric nitro-dicyanophenols. The natures of these reactions, which involve substitution of a ring hydrogen by a cyano group, are discussed. With a large excess of cyanide in media rich in DMSO l-chloro-, 1-bromo- and l-iodo-2,4-dinitrobenzene yield a product with a uv/vis spectrum similar to 2,4-dinitro- phenoxide. With small excesses of cyanide there is NMR evidence for the production of 5-cyano-2,4-dinitrophenol. Tentative suggestions are made for the possible mechanisms for the production of these species, and comparisons drawn with the reactions of l-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene under similar conditions. A common feature of these reactions is the unusual ability of the cyanide ion to replace a ring hydrogen atom. It is suggested that initial attack of cyanide at unsubstituted ring positions yields anionic adducts which may transfer an electron to yield radicals. The presence of the electron-withdrawing cyano group makes these radicals sufficiently acidic to lose a proton, yielding aromatic radical anions containing cyano substituents. The latter species give rise to the observed products. Evidence is presented for the observation of dicyano-diniffobenzene radical anions.


International agricultural research is expanding beyond the development of annual crop technologies for individual farms to the development of longer-tern natural resource management techniques for entire landscapes. But technologies of practices with a long lag time between investment and returns are unlikely to be adopted by farmers unless they have secure rights to the underlying resources (property rights). Similarly, technologies that span multiple farms are unlikely to be adopted unless neighbors and groups work together (collective action). But little is know about the way property rights and collective action in developing countries mediate the adoption of technologies by farmers and groups. This statement offers suggestions for promoting sustainable natural resource management.


Abstract Macropores formed by the root systems of woody shrubs may be an important conduit for downward water movement in desert soils. An experiment with 32 1·0-m 2 plots, 16 with a previous Larrea tridentata (creosotebush) plant and 16 without, was designed to investigate the influence of dead root systems on the downward movement of water and chemical tracers in a Mojave Desert soil. The experiment also examined the influence of water application amounts, frequency of application, and initial soil profile moisture status on downward water flux. Half of the plots received a pre-application of 15 cm of water; 48 h later either 15 cm or 30 cm of water with dye and bromide (KBr) tracers (each applied at 1·0 gl −1 ) were applied to the plots in either a single pulse or in five equal volumes over a 5-day period. Each plot was then excavated in 10 cm depth increments 48 h after the final water and tracers were applied, and nine soil samples were taken at each depth using a 3×3 grid for gravimetric water and bromide contents. Gravimetric water and bromide concentration profiles with depth confirmed that water penetrated more deeply in the plots with a previous root system, and photos of the dye stained soil at each 10 cm depth confirmed that a significant percentage of the cross-sectional area was not contributing to flow at the same rate. Multiple regression analysis further indicated that the deepest depth of dye and bromide penetration, and the depth at which mean gravimetric water content was above 0·10, included the aboveground biomass of the previous Larrea shrub as a significant factor accounting for plot-to-plot variability. These results suggest that (1) shrub root systems act to increase downward water flux in desert soils via root channel preferential flow to deeper soil depths, and (2) this effect becomes more pronounced as shrubs and plant root systems become larger.


Abraham Kuyper's standard work on common grace, entitled De Gemeene Gratie, which first appeared in a series of weekly articles, could not fail to arrest the attention of his followers and contemporaries. In fact it captivated them, touching them in the depths of their minds and hearts. For this work, compelling in its broad sweep and irresistible in its central thrust, delivered them from an "Anabaptist isolationism" by providing them with their eagerly awaited religious justification of Christian involvement, not only individually but also organizationally, "in all areas of life"; of Christian involvement not only in the affairs of the church but also "in state and society, in art and scholarship." It both justified such involvement and encouraged it. And even though it is true that the Anti-Revolutionary Party had been in existence for more than ten years already, henceforward it would certainly also be from this three-volume work that the independent party formation by Dutch Calvinists in the sphere of politics would draw its inspiration and vision. If the Anti-Revolutionary Party does not stand or fall with the doctrine of common grace, its history cannot be written without a proper understanding of the great significance this doctrine has had — and still has — for its adherents.


Micro-parts are often very fragile rendering conventional, mechanical work-holding fixtures unsuitable for them since they exert large straining forces. Furthermore, macroworkholding devices occupy a large space which impedes high precision required in micromilling. Although some micro-clamping fixtures exist, they are limited to specific part shapes and in most cases expensive to manufacture. Hence this paper focuses on the application of adhesive forces namely electrostatic, surface tension and van-der-Waals forces; in work-holding strategies for micro-milling operations. An analysis is given as to their applicability with reference to micro-milling cutting forces.


I. INTRODUCTION 747II. COMMON THEMES 748III. OVERVIEW OF THE PAPERS 750A. Professor Morris Ratner 's New Model of Plaintiffs ' Class Action Attorneys 750B. Professor Linda Mullenix Critiques Mass Tort Funds .... 751C. Professor Rhonda Wasserman Explores Secret Class Action Settlements 752D. Professor Michelle Slack Argues for Limiting National Class Actions Against the Federal Government 753E. Catherine Borden and Emery Lee Examine Coordination of Complex Litigation in State and Federal Courts 754IV. CONCLUSION 755I. INTRODUCTIONIn connection with the January 2012 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) held in Washington, D.C., the AALS Section on Litigation (Litigation Section) sponsored a panel entitled "Large-Scale Litigation Issues: Class Actions and Mass Tort Cases in 2012 and Beyond." The program was cosponsored by the AALS Sections on Alternative Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure. One of the presentations was selected from a call for papers.Large-scale litigation, whether in the form of class actions, multi-district litigation, or mass tort cases, continues to raise important concerns within the legal community and society at large. Large-scale litigation affects large numbers of claimants, utilizes extensive institutional and private resources, and establishes legal and process norms applicable in all cases.The papers submitted in connection with this Litigation Section panel explore five separate but significant issues, all of which raise serious process concerns and highlight a continuing and inherent tension between efficiency and fairness at the institutional level and among the various players engaged in large-scale dispute resolution.II. COMMON THEMESThe five papers that follow each examine class actions and other complex litigation through a different lens - and a lens focused on a slightly different point on the horizon. Professor Morris Ratner1 focuses on the principal-agent problems identified in connection with plaintiffs' counsel in class actions.2 Professor Linda Mullenix3 examines and critiques mass tort funds set up to deal with the BP Gulf Oil claims and the World Trade Center claims after 9/11 and focuses on the pressures on claimants to make decisions waiving their right to litigate in court and instead receive compensation through a fund, arguably without adequate information and legal advice.4 Both Professor Ramer and Mullenix focus on information asymmetry and the inability or lack of incentives of claimants to make informed decisions about their own claims and options, whether the issue is monitoring their own attorneys in class actions or assessing whether to seek compensation from the fund option or the courts. Professor Ratner suggests an altered paradigm of the plaintiffs' class action firm that might shed light on class attorney incentives and how those incentives might be managed to avoid potential conflicts between class plaintiffs and counsel. While Professor Ratner examines the interplay and conflicting incentives among class members, class counsel, and the court, Professor Mullenix focuses on the interplay and conflicting incentives among claimants, the fund administrator, and the courts managing those claims not paid through the fund.Professor Rhonda Wasserman5 focuses on the frequency and appropriateness of secret settlements in class actions.6 Although she touches on the impact on absent class members of such settlements, her focus moves from a particular case to the impact on the courts and absent parties. What are the interests and incentives favoring or disfavoring secret settlements in class actions, and how do they affect the judicial system and the development of law?Professor Michelle Slack7 looks at class actions brought against the federal government and examines the impact of national class action certifications and collateral estoppel on the development of law and our constitutional structure of separation of powers. …


We apply a "tutorial design process", which has proven to be successful for a number of physics topics, to design curricular materials or "tutorials" aimed at improving student understanding of important concepts in a university-level introductory materials science and engineering course. The process involves the identifi cation of instructional goals, the identifi cation of specifi c student diffi culties, the iterative design of interactive tutorials, the implementation of interactive group-work recitations, and assessment. The project, which involved over 1000 students, included extensive interviewing, testing, and iterative classroom implementation over a period of three years. Here we report on some of the identifi ed student diffi culties, several of the tutorials designed to address the diffi culties, and the results of the implementation. The project has yielded 9 fi eld-tested 48 minute tutorials in which students work together in small groups on the tutorials in the presence of teaching assistants who assess and facilitate student progress. To determine the learning outcome, we analyzed fi nal exam scores and found that, even accounting for the fact that slightly "better" students tended to attend recitations more often, there was a signifi cant valued-added effect of the recitations on fi nal exam performance. These results suggest that these recitation methods and materials are effective in teaching students the diffi cult and important conceptual materials which they were designed to address. Furthermore, since this process was initially designed for physics courses yet is also successful for an engineering course, this implies that this process may be successful for a wide range of STEM courses.


Objectives. HLA-B*27:05 is associated with AS whereas HLA-B*27:09 is not associated. We hypothesized that different interactions with KIR immune receptors could contribute to the difference in disease association between HLA-B*27:05 and HLAB*27:09. Thus, the objective of this study was to compare the formation of β2m-free heavy chain (FHC) including B27 dimers (B272) by HLA-B*27:05 and HLA-B*27:09 and their binding to KIR immunoreceptors. Methods. We studied the formation of HLA-B*27:05 and HLA-B*27:09 heterotrimers and FHC forms including dimers in vitro and in transfected cells. We investigated HLA-B*27:05 and HLA-B*27:09 binding to KIR3DL1, KIR3DL2 and LILRB2 by FACS staining with class I tetramers and by quantifying interactions with KIR3DL2CD3ε-reporter cells and KIR3DL2-expressing NK cells. We also measured KIR expression on peripheral blood NK and CD4 T cells from 18 HLA-B*27:05 AS patients, 8 HLA-B27 negative and 12 HLA-B*27:05+ and HLA-B*27:09+ healthy controls by FACS staining. Results. HLA-B*27:09 formed less B272 and FHC than HLA-B*27:05. HLA-B*27:05-expressing cells stimulated KIR3DL2CD3ε-reporter T cells more effectively. Cells expressing HLA-B*27:05 promoted KIR3DL2+ NK cell survival more strongly than HLA-B*27:09. HLA-B*27:05 and HLA-B*27:09 dimer tetramers stained KIR3DL1, KIR3DL2 and LILRB2 equivalently. Increased proportions of NK and CD4 T cells expressed KIR3DL2 in HLA-B*27:05+ AS patients compared with HLA-B*27:05+, HLA-B*27:09+ and HLA-B27− healthy controls. Conclusion. Differences in the formation of FHC ligands for KIR3DL2 by HLA-B*27:05 and HLA-B*27:09 could contribute to the differential association of these alleles with AS.


OF THESIS Along with the significant increase in research and development programs and expenditures over the past few decades, various benefits and problems have been created. A major accounting problem related to R & D expenditures is the determination of a proper method of allocating R & D costs over fiscal periods. Three metho.ds oi' allocating such costs are: (1) charging the costs against income for the period incurred, (2) capitalizing the costs and amortizing against future income, and (3) providing for the costs before they are incurred through the use of an accrual account. The primary purpose of the study is to discuss the validity of the methods presented above, in line with such accounting principles as the proper matching of revenue and expense and conservatism in stating asset values, and to indicate the method that should be generally preferred in practice. The major limitation of the study is that it excludes the costs of exploration and development of natural resources and research performed by any governmental agency, university, or non-profit organization. The primary sources of data used include various publications found in college and public libraries, technical reports, and a questionnaire created by the author and mailed to various business firms throughcrnt the nation • .Also, several oral discussions with persons associated with R & D programs or accounting for related expenditures provided additional information for the study. In developing the study, the background of the broad area of R & D growth worldwide, and in the United States, is presented in the first section, along with the causal reasons for such growth. The methods of allocating R & D costs over fiscal periods and the supporting reasons for each method are presented in the second section. Also, the results of a national survey conducted by the author to obtain up-to-date information relating to the types of applied research performed and allocation methods used in private industry are presented. In the third section, some methods of planning and controlling R & D costs, vital in aiding the proper allocation of such costs, are reviewed. In the fourth section, conclusions and implications are presented. The basic conclusion drawn from the findings of the study is that most industrial firms performing research and development, whether it be pure, applied, or a combination of both, tend to charge such costs against the current income of a given period. Only under certain situations was capitalizing of R & D costs advocated, while the use of the accrual method was found to be rather rare. Some of the reasons supporting the usage of the expensing method are: (1) conservatism in stating values is necessary when dealing with elements such as R & D, (2) research is normally regarded as a continuing function, and expenditures thereon are regarded as annual recurring costs similar to other operating expenses, (3) benefits derived from specific research project expenditures are generally uncertain in nature, and several accounting periods may pass before the success or failure of a given project becomes apparent. To defer costs of a project until the results are known could cause an ~verstatement of a. firm's asset values. The <:>


The development of a Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV) fatigue Factor of Safety (FoS) consistent with state-of-the-art industry design practice is cast within the coherent framework of reliability analysis. The proposed methodology consists of the following steps: (i) define the failure criteria or limit-state function, (ii) set-up a deterministic analysis model, (iii) characterize the uncertainties involved in the problem, (iv) propagate the uncertainties through the deterministic model and assess the probability of failure due to VIV fatigue and (v) calculate the FoS required to achieve a given failure probability. The proposed methodology is demonstrated by determining the FoS associated with using state-of-the-art VIV prediction models to attain varying reliability levels (probabilities of failure) in a hypothetical design scenario. Prediction uncertainty is based herein on measured flow and response data for several full-scale drilling risers working in the field. Results indicate that depending on the reliability level required of a particular design, different FoS than those that currently appear in guidance may be appropriate. Results also indicate the sensitivity of the FoS to the riser and prevailing current type; analysis program and input parameters; and accumulation of conservatism in aggregate vs. single-event damage predictions.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


Background. In 1998 the government created primary care groups, later to become primary care trusts, in England and established clinical governance. These changes were designed to enable the delivery and monitoring of standards, alongside developments in clinical health informatics. The National Service Framework (NSF) for coronary heart disease, published in March 2000, identified clinical governance and advances in information technology as central to delivering its standards. Objectives. To discover the preparedness of general practices to implement the NSF for coronary heart disease. Design. A qualitative study using two sets of semistructured interviews, one year apart. Setting. Nineteen general practices from 19 primary care organisations (PCOs) within Trent Region, all of whom were users of clinical computer systems. Participants. Key informants nominated by each of the participating practices as being their clinical governance lead. Sixteen practices nominated general practitioners (GPs) (in one of these, two GPs shared the role), one practice nominated a practice nurse co-ordinator, and another nominated both a practice nurse and practice manager to be interviewed. The remaining practice nominated a GP, practice manager and two practice nurses to be interviewed. Results. In the first interviews, practices were already addressing some of the issues in the NSF, but were doing so based on existing activity in their own practices: PCOs had not yet begun to exert much influence. The informants felt that PCOs, however, had prioritised coronary heart disease (CHD) because of influences from government, including the NSF. By the second interviews, the NSF and PCOs were beginning to exert some influence on the perceived priorities of the practices, but local issues were still seen as important. Practices in this study were concentrating mostly on secondary prevention. Primary prevention was being undertaken, but secondary prevention was seen to be more effective and evidence based. We found some early evidence of multi-agency working that is identified in the NSF as a way to implement primary prevention, but this did not yet appear to be widespread. Informants indicated an overall positive attitude to computers and data quality, and could envisage a wide range of potential future uses for computers. Lack of time and expertise, and inconsistent clinical coding are problems that may impede progress in computerisation and data quality. Conclusions. Practices in this study recognised the importance of CHD and were already active in many areas of primary and secondary prevention. They seemed ready to embark on the prevention targets contained in the NSF, and were making progress particularly in secondary prevention, but primary prevention is the area where most work is required to meet the specified targets. We found some early evidence of multi-agency working, and we suggest that this needs to be encouraged, especially in primary prevention and data quality, if the targets in the NSF are to be met. © 2004 Radcliffe Publishing.


In a knowledge based economy the role of small and medium enterprises is very critical for the economic development. The main thrust of this study was on the competiveness of the SMEs in a knowledge-based economy. In addition, this study also explores the challenges which are facing the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The significance of the study will add the knowledge about the current issues relating with SMEs in Malaysia in intellectual capital perspective.


The IETF Standards Track solution for MPLS Transport Profile (MPLS-TP)
Linear Protection is provided in RFCs 6378, 7271, and 7324. This
document describes the pre-standard implementation of MPLS-TP Linear
Protection that has been deployed by several network operators using
equipment from multiple vendors. At the time of publication, these
pre-standard implementations were still in operation carrying live
traffic. The specified mechanism supports 1+1
unidirectional/bidirectional protection switching and 1:1
bidirectional protection switching. It is purely supported by the
MPLS-TP data plane and can work without any control plane.


The adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) has been proposed to model the time series of water quality data in this study. The biochemical oxygen demand data collected at the upstream catchment of Feitsui Reservoir in Taiwan for more than 20 years are selected as the target water quality variable. The classical statistical technique of the Box-Jenkins method is applied for the selection of appropriate input variables and data pre-processing of using differencing is implemented during the model development. The time series data obtained by ANFIS models are compared to those obtained by autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs). The results show that the ANFIS model identified at each sampling station is superior to the respective ARIMA and ANN models. The R values at all sampling stations of the training and testing datasets are 0.83–0.98 and 0.81–0.89, respectively, except at Huang-ju-pi-liao station. ANFIS models can provide accurate predictions for complex hydrological processes, and can be extended to other areas to improve the understanding of river pollution trends. The procedure of input selection and the pre-processing of input data proposed in this study can stimulate the usage of ANFIS in other related studies.


The present study aim to evaluate and compare the efficacy of Normectin injection, Paraffin oil, Mange cide on body surface and all methods used one time, against Sarcoptes scabiei infestation on the face, nose, ears, and feet in rabbits farm at the experimental station of the Faculty of Agriculture at Sohag University during 2013 year. The best results in controlling rabbit scabies were obtained when used Normectin injection, paraffin oil and mange cide (one time) on body surface of rabbits mange compared with other methods. Normectin injection and paraffin oil (one time) on ear mange In these methods all rabbits returned to normal conditions (normal skin) after an average of, 7-10 days in face and 7-15 on feet and 7-15 on ear mange mites.


: The ligand 2(2-Nitro benzhydrazonyl)benzimidazole (NBHB) was prepared. The solid metal complexes of compound NBHB with Co(II),Ni(II),Cu(II) and Zn(II) were isolated and characterized by employing spectral analytical techniques viz ; elemental analysis, conductance, TGA, Magnetic susceptibility measurements, IR, UV-Visible, ESR. Computational studies were also carried out to know energies and orientation of HOMO and LUMO Frontier orbital of NBHB in order to understand the binding modes of metal complexes. The ligand (NBHB) acts as neutral bidentate N, N-donor coordinating through ring azomethine nitrogen and side chain azomethine nitrogen. Antimicrobial screening of the ligand and its metal complexes were determined against gram positive S. aurous , E. coli and Proteus.


Intangible assets, such as brands, patents, and intellectual capital are the new measures of corporate wealth. But one can't manage what one can't measure. And, while assigning accurate valuations is a stringent requirement under new FASB accounting guidelines, it is far from easy. This book explains the latest thinking and techniques in measuring and managing intangibles. Innovative management disciplines like Balanced Scorecard are explained, while real-world examples from Amazon, eBay, and other firms demonstrate how companies are getting maximum advantage from all their intangible assets.


Standards-based reforms in many Anglophone nations have been informed by monoglossic language ideologies that marginalize the dynamic bilingualism of emergent bilinguals. Recent developments in applied linguistics that advocate for heteroglossic language ideologies offer an alternative for standards-based reform. This article argues that standards-based reform initiatives will not be able to address the needs of emergent bilingual students unless they create ideological spaces that move away from monoglossic language ideologies toward heteroglossic language ideologies and implementational spaces that provide concrete tools for enacting this vision in the classroom. With a particular focus on the Common Core State Standards in the U.S. context, the article develops a vision for standards-based reform that begins to affirm and build on the dynamic bilingualism of emergent bilingual students. Specifically, the article explores two classrooms and the New York State Bilingual Common Core Initiative as starting points for theorizing how to develop ideological and implementational spaces that infuse heteroglossic language ideologies into standards-based reform initiatives while also emphasizing the role of monoglossic approaches to assessments in ultimately undermining the attempts that are currently being made.


Iran has been accused of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Although Iranian leaders claim to be enriching uranium only for peaceful nuclear energy purposes, these claims have been treated with derision by the West. Despite the fact that most experts believe that Iran is still years away from developing a nuclear weapon, there are media reports suggesting that Israel and the US are making plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, should Iran not give up its uranium enrichment program. Given this possible military scenario, and the recent vote by the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council, what is Iran likely to do? First, Iran will continue to assert its right under Article IV the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue a peaceful nuclear energy program. Article 1V refers to the "inalienable right" of states to nuclear energy. The parties to the treaty are promised assistance from more technologically advanced countries in pursuing this right. While this may be considered an untenable stipulation in the treaty, it is, nonetheless, the way the law stands. In accord with the treaty, in exchange for pursuing this right, Iran must agree to inspections of its nuclear facilities to assure that there has been no diversion of nuclear materials for making weapons. In fairness, if this aspect of the Nun-Proliferation Treaty is to be altered, it must be done for all states, not singling out Iran for special punitive treatment. Currently, uranium enrichment plants are operating in China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, United Kingdom and United States. Of these, Germany and Japan are non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and thus have a similar relationship to the treaty as does Iran. Brazil, another party to the NPT, is reported to be close to starting up a uranium enrichment plant. Second, Iran will assert that under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States and the other nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled their obligations for "good faith" negotiations for nuclear disarmament. It will point to the 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion that states: "There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control." And it will point out the blatant refusal by the nuclear weapons states to carry out their Article VI commitments, including the plans by the United States to develop the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a new type of nuclear warhead to extend the viability of the US nuclear arsenal. Third, Iran will question the unequal treatment that it is receiving as compared to another Middle Eastern country, Israel, which is thought to possess some 200 nuclear weapons. Iran will note that there is not only a double standard between nuclear "haves" and "have-nots," but also a double standard between Israel and other countries in the Middle East. It will rightly point out that there have long been calls for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone, including at the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, which have been largely ignored by Israel and the Western countries. …


In recent years, wearable photoplethysmographic (PPG) biosensors have emerged as promising tools to monitor heart rate (HR) during physical exercise. However, PPG waveforms are easily corrupted by motion artifacts, rendering HR estimation difficult. In this study, HR was estimated using wrist-type PPG signals. A normalized least-mean-squares (NLMS) algorithm was first used to attenuate motion artifacts and reconstruct multiple PPG waveforms from different combinations of corrupted PPG waveforms and accelerometer (ACC) data. An adaptive band-pass filter was then used to track the common instantaneous frequency component (i.e. HR) of the reconstructed PPG waveforms. Our proposed HR estimation method, which is almost real time, resulted in an average absolute error of 1.71 ± 0.49 beats-per-minute and a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.994 between the true and the estimated HR values. Importantly, as all ACC-PPG combinations were used for motion artifacts cancellation, no assumption about individual ACC axis contribution was required.


This study provides information on the structure of the consumer demand for major foods in Egypt. The information is in the form of key parameters for consumer demand systems. The modern theory of consumer behavior is the basis for estimating systems of demand equations. These systems yield estimates of own- and cross-price elasticities. The Linear Almost Ideal Demand System (LAIDS) model is applied in estimating a system of demand equations for food commodities. A full demand matrix results with a coherent and consistent set of price and expenditure elasticity estimates. Using the estimated own- and cross-price and expenditure elasticities, food and agricultural policies during the transformation to the market economy can be analyzed. A framework for utilizing the estimated demand parameters in forecasting is also presented.


An early situation assessment is an important aspect during emergency missions and provides useful information for fast decision making. However, many situations can be dangerous and visually hard to analyze due to the complexity. With the recent development in the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision there exists a wide range of application possibilities including automatic situation detection. However, many related works focused either on event captioning or on dangerous object detection. Therefore in this paper, a novel approach for simultaneous recognition and localization of dangerous situation is proposed: Two different CNN architectures are used, whereas one of the CNN, the Inception-v3, is modified to generate Class Activation Map (CAM). With CAM it is possible to generate bounding boxes for recognized objects without being explicitly trained for it. This eliminates the need for large image dataset with manually annotated boxes. The information about the detected objects from both networks, their spatial-relationships and the severity of the situation are then analyzed in the situation detection module. The detected situation is finally summarized in a short description and made available for the emergency managers to support them in fast decision makings.


The influences of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN 1), hypergastrinaemia, age, and sex on gastric endocrine cell densities were studied in 48 patients with the Zollinger-Ellison syndrome of either the sporadic type (n = 31) or associated with MEN 1 (n = 17). The mean fundic argyrophil cell density was higher in women (p < 0.05). It showed no appreciable difference between young and old women but it declined with age in men. The mean argyrophil cell density, when adjusted for sex, was higher (+48.5%, p = 0.06) in patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome associated with MEN 1 than in those with sporadic type disease. This measurement was not significantly different between the two groups of patients when antisecretory treatments were considered. In patients with sporadic type disease, fundic argyrophil cells showed a normal pattern (16%) or diffuse (71%) or linear (13%) hyperplasia. In patients with MEN 1 diffuse and linear hyperplasia were of the same order (53% and 47%). Furthermore, fundic argyrophil endocrine tumours developed in five of 17-that is, 29.5% of patients with associated MEN 1 while none was seen in patients with sporadic type disease. These tumours showed an exclusive or prominent enterochromaffin like cell population. Antral gastrin and somatostatin cell densities and fasting serum gastrin concentrations were similar in the two groups of patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Whatever the underlying mechanism for carcinoidosis, the risk of developing fundic enterochromaffin like cell tumours in Zollinger-Ellison syndrome patients who present with MEN 1 is probably higher than was initially estimated and suggests that regular follow up of these patients is necessary.


An update to the American Cancer Society (ACS) guideline regarding screening for the early detection of cervical precancerous lesions and cancer is presented. The guidelines are based on a systematic evidence review, contributions from 6 working groups, and a recent symposium cosponsored by the ACS, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the American Society for Clinical Pathology, which was attended by 25 organizations. The new screening recommendations address age-appropriate screening strategies, including the use of cytology and high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, follow-up (eg, the management of screen positives and screening intervals for screen negatives) of women after screening, the age at which to exit screening, future considerations regarding HPV testing alone as a primary screening approach, and screening strategies for women vaccinated against HPV16 and HPV18 infections.


ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori was identified in human liver tissue by PCR, hybridization, and partial DNA sequencing. Liver biopsies were obtained from patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (n = 12), primary biliary cirrhosis (n = 12), and noncholestatic liver cirrhosis (n = 13) and (as controls) normal livers (n = 10). PCR analyses were carried out using primers for the Helicobacter genus, Helicobacter pylori(the gene encoding a species-specific 26-kDa protein and the 16S rRNA),Helicobacter bilis, Helicobacter pullorum, andHelicobacter hepaticus. Samples from patients with primary biliary cirrhosis and primary sclerosing cholangitis (11 and 9 samples, respectively) were positive by PCR with Helicobactergenus-specific primers. Of these 20 samples, 8 were positive with the 16S rRNA primer and 9 were positive with the 26-kDa protein primer ofH. pylori. These nine latter samples were also positive by Southern blot hybridization for the amplified 26-kDa fragment, and four of those were verified to be H. pylori by partial 16S rDNA sequencing. None of the samples reacted with primers for H. bilis, H. pullorum, or H. hepaticus. None of the normal livers had positive results in theHelicobacter genus PCR assay, and only one patient in the noncholestatic liver cirrhosis group, a young boy who at reexamination showed histological features suggesting primary sclerosing cholangitis, had a positive result in the same assay. Helicobacterpositivity was thus significantly more common in patients with cholestatic diseases (20 of 24) than in patients with noncholestatic diseases and normal controls (1 of 23) (P = <0.00001). Patients positive for Helicobacter genus had significantly higher values of alkaline phosphatases and prothrombin complex than Helicobacter-negative patients (P = 0.0001 and P = 0.0003, respectively). Among primary sclerosing cholangitis patients,Helicobacter genus PCR positivity was weakly associated with ulcerative colitis (P = 0.05). Significant differences related to blood group or HLA status were not found.


EasyCrypt is a tool-assisted framework for reasoning about probabilistic computations in the presence of adversarial code, whose main application has been the verification of security properties of cryptographic constructions in the computational model. We report on a significantly enhanced version of EasyCrypt that accommodates a richer, user-extensible language of probabilistic expressions and, more fundamentally, supports reasoning about approximate forms of program equivalence. This enhanced framework allows us to express a broader range of security properties, that notably include approximate and computational differential privacy. We illustrate the use of the framework by verifying two protocols: a two-party protocol for computing the Hamming distance between bit-vectors, yielding two-sided privacy guarantees; and a novel, efficient, and privacy-friendly distributed protocol to aggregate smart meter readings into statistics and bills.


Dating the influence of Deccan Traps eruptions The Deccan Traps flood basalts in India represent over a million cubic kilometers of erupted lava. These massive eruptions occurred around the same time as the end-Cretaceous mass extinction some 65 million years ago, which famously wiped out all nonavian dinosaurs. Schoene et al. determined the precise timing and duration of the main phase of the eruptions, which lasted over 750,000 years and occurred just 250,000 years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The relative contribution of these eruptions and of the Chicxulub impact in Mexico to the mass extinction remains unclear, but both provide potential kill mechanisms. Science, this issue p. 182 The main phase of the Deccan Traps eruption began 250,000 years before the end-Cretaceous extinction and lasted 750,000 years. The Chicxulub asteroid impact (Mexico) and the eruption of the massive Deccan volcanic province (India) are two proposed causes of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, which includes the demise of nonavian dinosaurs. Despite widespread acceptance of the impact hypothesis, the lack of a high-resolution eruption timeline for the Deccan basalts has prevented full assessment of their relationship to the mass extinction. Here we apply uranium-lead (U-Pb) zircon geochronology to Deccan rocks and show that the main phase of eruptions initiated ~250,000 years before the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary and that >1.1 million cubic kilometers of basalt erupted in ~750,000 years. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the Deccan Traps contributed to the latest Cretaceous environmental change and biologic turnover that culminated in the marine and terrestrial mass extinctions.


Within the CHAT community there is an ongoing discussion about the concept of activity (Gegenstandliche Tatigkeit). How is activity to be understood, what are its core related concepts, how to delimit it, what is its "unit" and its relations to actions and strings of actions, is it applicable to individuals as well as collectives - these are some of the questions posed and debated. The paper is intended as a contribution to this discussion on activity. My entrance to the discussion will be to focus on how artefacts are transformed in the course of collaborative work at an angio clinic. Thus, in the paper my practical point of departure is a detailed empirical case of the construction and use of a central artefact at clinical coronary diagnostic work. The artefact is called angiography ("angio" in everyday talk of the participants). The angio is an x-ray based visualization of the coronaries as the outcome of the injection of a radiopaque substance. The angio is constructed in several steps. First, a digital computer-based representation is constructed, then it is reconstructed, added on, and transformed into paper format. It is (re)designed for several situations and audiences, for individual and joint consultations. The case I will present accounts for the full cycle of the patient angiography, from its production and uses until the patient is considered having got a final diagnosis and a treatment recommendation. A predominant theme of CHAT discussions about the motivating role of the object of activity has been the motive of the individual. This is a legitimate psychological perspective. As I grasp it, it is a stance that takes precautions to preserve the individual subject´s role in activities, putting agency in individual subjects and not in "systems" of any kind. My perspective will be different. The focus is the object of activity as a motive of the collaborative work. It is a motive guiding the overall work process, "keeping the activity of work together" so to say. I take for granted that this overall motivation, related to the object of work, "in some way" influences the participants individual motivations as well. (I do not address how this works.) Agency is about actions of human beings. However, in the paper I argue that it is reasonable to talk about agency related not only to live actions, but to "fossiled" human activity as well. At least, there is a potential agency-character in artefacts ("by the agency of"). This is a corollary to the artefact-mediatedness of activities. By the agency of certain artefacts, some activities are being enabled. Without earlier generations´ generating of artefacts that we now can use, today´s activities wouldn´t exist. A major argument in the paper is that artefacts are instructive, and that they are instructive because they are made instructive. There is a stamp of human activity on artefacts, a stamp that is recognizeble as distinctively human. (This is the "ideal object", in my reading of Ilyenkov, an "ideality" that is "built-in" into every artefact.) The core of the work activity at the angio lab can be described as the design and redesign of angio graphic artefacts. In other words, in their work practice the Thorax team has to take, and takes, artefacts seriously. I suggest that we as researchers of their labor have to do the same thing in order to make their work visible and improve our activity-theoretical understanding of what is going on when the job gets done.. An often used characteristic of activity by CHAT scholars is that activities are "artefact-mediated and object-oriented." The conclusion of the paper is that if we better want to understand the artefact-mediatedness and the object-orientedness of activities, we have to take artefacts more seriously than most of us have done so far. In sum, the arguments of the paper are: 1. Artefacts are instructive, and the reason why they embody this feature is that they are designed to be instructive. 2. Artefacts are ideal as well as material/corporeal. 3. There is a certain form of agency related to artefacts (although not symmetrical to human agency). 4. The object of activity "keeps the activity together" by being collectively motivational. 5. There is a need to take artefacts more seriously in studies by CHAT scholars.