The article investigates the statistical features of the US OIS spreads term structure during the recent financial turmoil, originating from the subprime crisis and the ensuing euro area sovereign debt crisis. By means of a comprehensive econometric modelling strategy, new insights on US money market dynamics during the latter events are achieved. In particular, three common factors, bearing the interpretation of level, slope and curvature factors, are extracted from the term structure of US OIS spreads; the latter are found to convey additional information, relatively to commonly used credit risk measures like the TED or the BAA-AAA corporate spreads, which might be exploited, also within a composite indicator, for the construction of a macroeconomic risk barometer and macroeconomic forecasting.


Plasma protein profiling using separations coupled to matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) has great potential in translational research; it can be used for biomarker discovery and contribute to disease diagnosis and therapy. Previously reported biomarker searches have been done solely by MS protein profiling followed by bioinformatics analysis of the data. To add to current methods, we tested an alternative strategy for plasma protein profiling using pancreatic cancer as the model. First, offline solid-phase extraction is done with 96-well plates to fractionate and partially purify the proteins. Then, multiple profiling and identification experiments can be conducted on the same protein fractions because only 5% of the fractions are used for MALDI MS profiling. After MALDI MS analysis, the mass spectra are normalized and subjected to a peak detection algorithm. Over three sets of mass spectra acquired using different instrument variables, approximately 400 unique ion signals were detected. Classification schemes employing as many as eight individual peaks were developed using a training set with 123 members (82 cancer patients) and a blinded validation set with 125 members (57 cancer patients). The sensitivity of the study was 88%, but the specificity was significantly lower, 75%. The reason for the low specificity becomes apparent upon protein identification of the ion signals used for the classification. The identifications reveal only common serum proteins and components of the acute phase response, including serum amyloid A, alpha-1-antitrypsin, alpha-1-antichymotrypsin, and inter-alpha-trypsin inhibitor.


Due to the rapid process of urbanization, there is an increasing demand for detecting building changes over time using very high-resolution (VHR) images. Traditional two-dimensional (2-D) change detection methods are limited due to the image perspective variation and illumination discrepancies. One current trend for building detection combines the use of orthophotos and digital surface models (DSMs), because of its robustness against false changes, as well as its capability of providing volumetric information. In this paper, we propose an object-based three-dimensional (3-D) building change detection framework based on supervised classification, which makes use of the height, spectral, and shape information in a combined fashion with object-based analysis. The proposed method follows the following steps: First, a synergic mean-shift segmentation method is applied on the orthophoto with the constraints of the DSM, which derives segments with homogenous spectrum and height. In a second step, the segments are classified with a hybrid decision tree and SVM approach, and then the segments of the building class are merged as building objects for change detection. An initial change indicator (CI) is then computed for each building object concerning height and spectral information. Finally, an adaptive CI updating strategy based on segment overlapping is proposed and the traffic light system based on a dual threshold is used to identify the change status of each building as "change," "no-change," and "uncertain change". The experimental results on scanned aerial stereo images have demonstrated that our proposed framework is able to achieve high-detection accuracy on images with limited spectral quality.


Over the past decade, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as enabling materials for a wide variety of sustainable technologies, leading to their recent commercialisation. However, whereas the commercialisation of MOFs and a large fraction of their potential applications are directed towards roles as "green materials" for a sustainable future, this is dependent on the availability of synthetic and manufacturing procedures mindful of sustainability and environmental impact. While the need for clean and sustainable methodologies has been embraced by organic synthesis and catalysis more than a decade ago, such development has been significantly slower in inorganic and metal–organic synthesis. At the same time, the environmental challenges of metal–organic chemistry are unique, as they combine the environmental impacts of organic chemistry with hazards associated with metal ions, their salts, and complexes. The recent and ongoing commercialisation of MOFs is signalling an urgent need to address these challenges. In this review we highlight recently developed evaluative criteria for green, sustainable, and industrially-acceptable metal–organic chemistry, along with six areas of recent experimental and theoretical progress that are relevant for developing cleaner, sustainable MOF synthesis: (1) using safer and/or biocompatible building blocks, (2) reducing energy input (3) using water or near-critical water as reaction media, (4) strategies to avoid bulk solvent, (5) continuous manufacturing and (6) theoretical prediction and design of MOF performance for given applications.


Germaine de Stael (1766–1817) is perhaps best known today as a novelist, literary critic, and outspoken and independent thinker. Yet she was also a prominent figure in politics during the French Revolution. Biancamaria Fontana sheds new light on this often overlooked aspect of Stael's life and work, bringing vividly to life her unique experience as a political actor in a world where women had no place.

The banker's daughter who became one of Europe's best-connected intellectuals, Stael was an exceptionally talented woman who achieved a degree of public influence to which not even her wealth and privilege would normally have entitled her. During the Revolution, when the lives of so many around her were destroyed, she succeeded in carving out a unique path for herself and making her views heard, first by the powerful men around her, later by the European public at large. Fontana provides the first in-depth look at her substantial output of writings on the theory and practice of the exercise of power, setting in sharp relief the dimension of Stael's life that she cared most about—politics. She was fascinated by the nature of public opinion, and believed that viable political regimes were founded on public trust and popular consensus. Fontana shows how Stael's ideas were shaped by the remarkable times in which she lived, and argues that it is only through a consideration of her political insights that we can fully understand Stael's legacy and its enduring relevance for us today.

Biancamaria Fontana is professor of the history of political ideas at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Her books include Montaigne's Politics (Princeton), Benjamin Constant and the Post-Revolutionary Mind, and Rethinking the Politics of Commercial Society.


Abstract This paper highlights the use of synkinematic white mica, biotite and phlogopite for the dating of deformation in ductile shear zones within crystalline rocks under low-grade metamorphic conditions. The Mont Blanc shear zones range from 1 mm to 50 m in width and have localized intense fluid flow, resulting in substantial differences in mineralogy and whole-rock geochemistry. On the basis of their synkinematic alteration assemblages and geographic distribution within the Mont Blanc Massif, three main metamorphic zones are distinguished within the network of shear zones. These are: (i) epidote±white mica-bearing assemblages; (ii) chlorite–phlogopite-bearing assemblages; and (iii) white mica±biotite±calcite±actinolite±epidote- bearing assemblages. 40Ar/39Ar age spectra of biotite and phlogopite are complex, and reflect significant variations in chemical composition. In biotite, this is partly due to inheritance from precursor Variscan magmatic biotite. In contrast, new white mica grew at the expense of feldspar during Alpine deformation and its Ar spectra do not show any excess 40Ar. On the SE side of Mont Blanc, ages of shear zone phengites have a narrow range of 15.8–16.0±0.2 Ma, which is in the same age range as 40Ar/39Ar ages of minerals from kinematically related veins. The top-to-SE sense of shear is consistent with initiation of a Mont Blanc flower-structure within a dextral transpressional system by 16 Ma. On the NW side, mini-plateaux ages of 14.5±0.3 and 23.4±0.4 Ma are preserved in the same sample, suggesting the possibility of two phases of deformation. This is also supported by partly preserved ages of 18–36.6 Ma in biotites and phlogopites. Ages between 36 and 18 Ma might reflect ongoing top-to-NW thrusting, following Penninic Front activation, in a context of nappe stacking and crustal thickening. NW-directed thrusting on the NW side of Mont Blanc continued after 18 Ma, synchronous with SE-directed thrusting on the SE side of the massif. These divergent movements produced the overall pop-up geometry of the Mont Blanc Massif, which may correspond to a positive flower structure developed within a zone of regional dextral transpression extending SW from the Rhone valley into the Mont Blanc area.


We consider reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic MDPs with adversarial full-information reward feedback and unknown fixed transition kernels. We propose two model-free policy optimization algorithms, POWER and POWER++, and establish guarantees for their dynamic regret. Compared with the classical notion of static regret, dynamic regret is a stronger notion as it explicitly accounts for the non-stationarity of environments. The dynamic regret attained by the proposed algorithms interpolates between different regimes of non-stationarity, and moreover satisfies a notion of adaptive (near-)optimality, in the sense that it matches the (near-)optimal static regret under slow-changing environments. The dynamic regret bound features two components, one arising from exploration, which deals with the uncertainty of transition kernels, and the other arising from adaptation, which deals with non-stationary environments. Specifically, we show that POWER++ improves over POWER on the second component of the dynamic regret by actively adapting to non-stationarity through prediction. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first dynamic regret analysis of model-free RL algorithms in non-stationary environments.


One look at the www.top500.org proves it: The exponential growth in supercomputer power has now gone on for decades. Every time physical realities — for example the limits in processor frequency — impinge on this trend, human ingenuity finds workarounds, for example, the evolution of multi-core technology. The hounds have long been barking in the distance, heralding the demise of Moore's Law and reminding us that memory bandwidth is not keeping pace with processing power. And now energy consumption is a key bottleneck: critics correctly point out that a computing center cannot have its own dedicated nuclear power plant. Certainly the HPC advances cannot go on forever. There is good reason to believe that the trend will continue to Exascale and beyond. Human ingenuity still has the upper hand: new stacked memory offers a new increase in bandwidth; multi-core has given way to many-core, and new processors are effectively reducing energy consumption per Flop. In this talk we present some milestones at the Swiss National Computing Centre. Since the installation of our flagship platform, Piz Daint, we have experimented with new numerical algorithms, developed domain-specific languages, and used new compiler features to refactor codes for its constituent Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to attain dramatic improvements in time-to-solution and energy-to-solution. We draw the conclusion that HPC is alive and well on its way to Exascale and beyond.


A system to evaluate nanoparticles efficiency in hyperthermia applications is presented. The method allows a direct measurement of the power dissipated by the nanoparticles through the determination of the first harmonic component of the in quadrature magnetic moment induced by the applied field. The magnetic moment is measured by using an induction method. To avoid errors and reduce the noise signal a double in phase demodulation technique is used. To test the system viability we have measured nanowires, nanoparticles and copper samples of different volumes to prove by comparing experimental and modeled results.


This thesis describes aspects of the use of magnetic force microscopy for the study of magnetic recording media. The maximum achievable storage density in magnetic recording is limited by the magnetic reversal behaviour of the medium and by the stability of the written information. The shape and size of the small magnetic units (bits as wen as domaiDs) in the media is strongly correlated to the microstructure of the layers. Surface roughness, colurnnar structure of the layer, segregation of the elements inside the crystallites as wen as surface and volume defects influence the size and shape of the magnetic structures in the layer. The physicallimit for the bit size is estimated to be about 50 x 50 Dm. Such an increase in bit writing density requires a magnetic microscopy technique which can image magnetic details of about 10 Dm size. The advantage of magnetic force microscopy for this purpose lies in the easy sample preparation, combined with a high achievable resolution. In Chapter 2 we have discussed the optimisation of the tip shape, the tip magnetic properties as weIl as the detection mode in order to reach the required resolution. It is shown there that an elongated magnetic needIe can combine a sufficient volume with a small tip front end and is therefore superior to a soft tip which should have a spherical shape. Por the bar type tip we have calculated a one-dimensional transfer function which relates the spatial frequency components of the force ( or force deri vati ve ) to the spatial frequency components of the sample magnetisation distribution. This transfer function depends on the sample thickness, the tip magnetic layer thickness, the tip length and the tip sample separation and shows a behaviour very similar to the readback frequency characteristics of a magnetic recording channel. With a given detector sensitivity a minimum detectable wavelength Ac can be determined from the transfer function which serves as a measure for the comparison of different detection modes. Prom this comparison, for maximum resolution an MFM should be operated in a constant distance dynamic mode with a low oscillation amplitude. The tip has to have a high Ms and Hc. The tip coercivity has to be a result of the shape anisotropy due to the high aspect ratio of the needIe like magnetic tip layer . In Chapter 3 the instrumentation of an S FM scan head is described. This scan head win be applied for MFM measurements in extemal magnetic fields of arbitrary direction with respect to the sample. Por this purpose it has to be operated between the poles of a resisti ve electromagnet in a vacuum in order to increase the Q factor of the resonating cantilever . in dynamic detection mode. The properties of the scan head are: -Extemal magnetic field: continuously between -1.8 T and 1.8 T, with a 1 p pm long term stability -Scan range: about 40 ~m -Detection limit: 0.1 Dm in a 1 kHz bandwidth -Scan head size: 26 x 30 x 42 mm -Complete software control of the whole instrument The instrument is controlled by two digital signal processor (DSP) boards. One of them generates the scan signals, the second board is responsible for the detection and feedback. Chapter 4 describes the fabrication and magnetic properties of magnetic tips made from electron beam assisted deposited carbon needIes. The carbon needIes are grown in a SEM where the hydrocarbon gas contamination originating from the diffusion pump is locaIly cracked by the electron beam. These carbon needIes are very weIl suited for evaporating magnetic materia! as Co or CogoNi2o onto their side. This way a tip shape very similar to the bar type tip as described in Chapter 2 can be created. Lorentz electron microscopy images prove a single domain behaviour of the tip in extemal fields up to about 0.2 T . For higher fields the tip is split up into two antiparallel magnetic domains. This contiguration remained stabIe even in remanent states. At no time did the tip front end contain more than one domain. On a Co-Ni/Pt multilayer sample we could observe magnetic structures smaller than 30 nm dimension with EBill magnetic tips in a constant force derivative detection mode. Chapter 5 describes the application of magnetic force microscopy for the characterisation of magnetic recording media. First of a!l the techniques used for the quantification of data from MFM images are presented. We used a thresholding a!gorithm to estimate the underlying magnetisation pattem from the constant signa! MFM images. We have used Fourier descriptors to characterise the jaggedness of the boundary of magneto- optica! bits as weIl as of conventional bits. This a!lows a comparison of bits in different materials, written under the same settings as weIl as different writing conditions on the same media. The principle of this technique is shown in an example of magneto- optical bits. Furthermore, Chapter 5 gives examples of results on magnetic recording media which were gained by MFM. The influence of the sputtering bias voltage on the magnetic structures of Co-Ni/Pt multilayers bas been shown. On ME tape the edge overwrite behaviour has been studied as weIl as the difference in bit structure when the bits were written in the direction of the colurnnar inclination or antiparallel to it. Furthermore the the writing behaviour of a CoCrTa perpendicular materia! bas been investigated. 400 nm wide bit tracks of 200 kfrpi (127 nm bit length ) have been studied in this materia!. AFM observations of the sample surface topography show that the smallest observed bits still contain about 30 crysta1lites. The maximum linear bit density we could observe in this materia! was 300 kfrpi (85nm bit length). Here the bit period is smallerthan the domain size ofthe surrounding remanent domain pattem. Chapter 6 contains conclusions of the work a!ong with some suggestions for continuing work.


The South West Coast Path is the spectacular 630-mile (1008-km) National Trail around the tip of Britain. This volume features the section of the Path from Exmouth to Poole, a distance of 116 miles (186 km) along the Jurassic Coast, a designated World Heritage Site. Following Natural England's acorn waymarks, the route wends its way along the cliffs, past The Cobb at Lyme Regis and the impressive sweep of the Chesil Beach to Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay. This complete, official guide for the long-distance walker or the weekend stroller has been fully revised and updated for 2013. It has also been completely re-designed, and features many more colour photographs and much more backgrpound information on local history and wildlife. It is less a guidebook than a complete companion for anyone visiting this part of the landscape. National Trail Guides are the official guidebooks to the fifteen National Trails in England and Wales and are published in association with Natural England, the official body charged with developing and maintaining the Trails.


This study focussed on two areas in the field of cancer susceptibility. The initial area was the genetic analysis of a recently mapped breast cancer susceptibility locus, BRCAl, in a number of breast and breast-ovarian cancer families. In the largest of the ICRF families studied (BOV3), linkage to the long arm of chromosome 17 was confirmed and a number of recombinants were identified. One such cross-over event enabled the reduction of the interval harbouring BRCAI to a region estimated to be between 1-1.5 Mh. During the course of this study, a second gene for breast/ovarian cancer predisposition, BRCA2, had been assigned to a 6 cM region at 13q12-13.Towards the identification of this gene, a YAC contig was constructed spanning the published minimal genetic interval for BRCA2. This contig provided a framework for the identification of BRCA2. Allele loss studies were also performed and indicated that BRCA1 acts as a tumour suppressor. Analysis of familial and sporadic infiltrating ductal grade 3 breast carcinomas revealed a pattern of combined loss or retention of BRCAI and BRCA2. This supports a role for both genes in the development of thistumour type. The other area of study was the genetic analysis of a group of autosomal dominant skin diseases, termed the non-epidermolytic palmoplantar keratodermas. This study demonstrated genetic heterogeneity between three forms of NEPPK: diffuse, punctate and focal. Genetic heterogeneity was also established between families presenting with clinically similar forms of focal NEPPK. Mutations in thetype I keratin on 17q12-21, KRT16, were identified as the genetic basis of focal NEPPK in a pedigree without associated susceptibility to oesophageal cancer. In the pedigrees with a striking association between focal NEPPK and oesophageal cancer susceptibility, the region harbouring this disease locus (TOC) was refined to a lcMregion on 17q24-25.


Monoon vietnamensis N.S. Lý, a new species of Annonaceae, is described and illustrated from Mount Dầu, Quảng Ngãi Province, central Vietnam. It is morphologically similar to M. bornensis and M. anomalum, but differs by much larger and oblongelliptic to obovate-elliptic leaves, with 12–14(16) pairs of nerves and a cuneate leaf base; much longer and narrowly ovate to linear ovate petals, with sparsely scattered short hairs outside; inner petals slightly longer than the outer petals; and much longer fruiting pedicels. A key to the species of Monoon in Vietnam is provided.


Enabling ordinary people to create high-quality 3D models is a long-standing problem in computer graphics. In this work, we draw from the literature on design and human cognition to better understand the design processes of novice and casual modelers, whose goals and motivations are often distinct from those of professional artists. The result is a method for creating exploratory modeling tools, which are appropriate for casual users who may lack rigidly-specified goals or operational knowledge of modeling techniques. Our method is based on parametric design spaces, which are often high dimensional and contain wide quality variations. Our system estimates the distribution of good models in a space by tracking the modeling activity of a distributed community of users. These estimates drive intuitive modeling tools, creating a self-reinforcing system that becomes easier to use as more people participate. We present empirical evidence that the tools developed with our method allow rapid creation of complex, high-quality 3D models by users with no specialized modeling skills or experience. We report analyses of usage patterns garnered throughout the year-long deployment of one such tool, and demonstrate the generality of the method by applying it to several design spaces.


In social insects, foraging is often cooperative, and so requires considerable organisation. In most ants, organisation is a bottom-up process where decisions taken by individuals result in emergent colony level patterns. Individuals base their decisions on their internal state, their past experience, and their environment. By depositing trail pheromones, for example, ants can alter the environment, and thus affect the behaviour of their nestmates. The development of emergent patterns depends on both how individuals affect the environment, and how they react to changes in the environment.

Chapters 4 – 9 investigate the role of trail pheromones and route memory in the ant Lasius niger. Route memories can form rapidly and be followed accurately, and when route memories and trail pheromones contradict each other, ants overwhelmingly follow route memories (chapter 4). Route memories and trail pheromones can also interact synergistically, allowing ants to forage faster without sacrificing accuracy (chapter 5). Home range markings also interact with other information sources to affect ant behaviour (chapter 6). Trail pheromones assist experienced ants when facing complex, difficult-to-learn routes (chapter 7). When facing complicated routes, ants deposit more pheromone to assist in navigation and learning (chapter 7). Deposition of trail pheromones is suppressed by ants leaving a marked path (chapter 5), strong pheromone trails (chapter 7) and trail crowding (chapter 8). Colony level 'decisions' can be driven by factors other than trail pheromones, such as overcrowding at a food source (chapter 9). Chapter 10 reviews the many roles of trail pheromones in ants.

Chapters 11 – 14 focus on the organisation of cooperative food retrieval. Pheidole oxyops workers arrange themselves non-randomly around items to increase transport speeds (chapter 11). Groups of ants will rotate food items to reduce drag (chapter 12). Chapters 13 and 14 encompass the ecology of cooperative transport, and how it has shaped trail pheromone recruitment in P. oxyops and Paratrechina longicornis. Lastly, chapter 15 provide a comprehensive review of cooperative transport in ants and elsewhere.


Freshwater fish belonging to the genus Schizopygopsis are widespread in drainages throughout the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau and, thus, a model group with which to investigate how paleo‐drainage changes linked to historical uplifting within the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau influence speciation. To date, the phylogenetic and taxonomic relationships within Schizopygopsis remain controversial. In this study, we constructed a comprehensive molecular phylogeny of Schizopygopsis based on six mitochondrial gene sequences. We compared the taxonomic relationships revealed by this phylogeny with those obtained from morphological data. We also used this phylogeny to assess the extent to which the evolution of Schizopygopsis has been driven by paleo‐drainage changes linked to uplifting of the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau. Results indicated that all Schizopygopsis taxa formed a monophyletic group comprising five major clades, which were inconsistent with the taxonomic relationships based on morphology for this group. Our results also strongly supported the validity of S. anteroventris and S. microcephalus as distinct species within Schizopygopsis. Molecular calibrations showed that species within the middle Yangtze species diverged earlier (~4.5 Mya) than species within the Indus River (~3.0 Mya), the Mekong River (~2.8 Mya) and the Tsangpo + Salween rivers (~2.5 Mya). The most recent evolutionary splits occurred among species from the upper and lower Yangtze River, the Yellow River and the Qiadam Basin at about 1.8 to 0.3 Mya. Our molecular evidence and use of the molecular clock calibration have allowed us to associate speciation events within the genus Schizopygopsis to the formation and separation of paleo‐drainage connections caused by tectonic events during the uplifting of the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau (~4.5 Mya). This work underlines the dominant role of vicariance in shaping the evolutionary history of the genus Schizopygopsis. Further research using multiple loci and more extensive sampling will reveal a more complete picture of the phylogenetic relationships and biogeography of Schizopygopsis fishes.


In this paper I want to describe and motivate an approach to knowledge that I call the Causal Indicator Analysis. My strategy will be to sketch (in Part I) the main features of an adequate account of knowledge, then use my sketch (in Part II) to reveal some of the faults of some of the main analyses defended today. I will be particularly interested in discussing the work of Fred Dretske, whose views have significantly influenced my own. With these tasks behind me, I will offer my own account in Part III, and argue that it has the features an account of knowledge should have.


Hashing technique has become a promising approach for fast similarity search. Most of existing hashing research pursue the binary codes for the same type of entities by preserving their similarities. In practice, there are many scenarios involving nearest neighbor search on the data given in matrix form, where two different types of, yet naturally associated entities respectively correspond to its two dimensions or views. To fully explore the duality between the two views, we propose a collaborative hashing scheme for the data in matrix form to enable fast search in various applications such as image search using bag of words and recommendation using user-item ratings. By simultaneously preserving both the entity similarities in each view and the interrelationship between views, our collaborative hashing effectively learns the compact binary codes and the explicit hash functions for out-of-sample extension in an alternating optimization way. Extensive evaluations are conducted on three well-known datasets for search inside a single view and search across different views, demonstrating that our proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, with significant accuracy gains ranging from 7.67% to 45.87% relatively.


Abstract. When soil nitrate levels are low, plants suffer nitrogen (N) deficiency but when the levels are excessive, soil nitrates can pollute surface and subsurface waters. Strategies to reduce the nitrate pollution are necessary to reach a sustainable use of resources such as soil, water and plant. Buffer strips and cover crops can contribute to the management of soil nitrates, but little is known of their effectiveness in semiarid vineyards plantations. The research was carried out in the south coast of Sicily (Italy) to evaluate nitrate trends in a vineyard managed both conventionally and using two different cover crops (Triticum durum and Vicia sativa cover crop). A 10 m-wide buffer strip was seeded with Lolium perenne at the bottom of the vineyard. Soil nitrate was measured monthly and nitrate movement was monitored by application of a 15N tracer to a narrow strip between the bottom of vineyard and the buffer and non-buffer strips. Lolium perenne biomass yield in the buffer strips and its isotopic nitrogen content were monitored. Vicia sativa cover crop management contributed with an excess of nitrogen, and the soil management determined the nitrogen content at the buffer areas. A 6 m buffer strip reduced the nitrate by 42% with and by 46% with a 9 m buffer strip. Thanks to catch crops, farmers can manage the N content and its distribution into the soil over the year, can reduced fertilizer wastage and reduce N pollution of surface and groundwater.


This paper presents a supervisory system for controller switching as applied to ground-based and space-based deployable manipulator systems. First, a finite family of candidate controllers is established so that the manipulator system performs satisfactorily under the control of one of the controllers, in the possible presence of model uncertainties, unknown parameters, time variance, nonlinearities, and variable operating conditions. A supervisory unit in the system monitors the performance of the manipulator. Based on this, a decision-making logic unit selects an appropriate controller from the family, and activates it while deactivating the currently active controller, so as to ensure proper performance. Capabilities of instantaneous switching and gradual switching using a switching function and a switching compensator are incorporated into the system. The performance of the supervised switching control system is evaluated through computer simulation of an innovative manipulator system consisting of a combination of revolute and prismatic degrees of freedom and joint and link flexibilities.


For at least the past three years, leading American fashion designers have lobbied for passage of copyright-like protection for the design aspects of their apparel creations. For at least as long, the recorded music industry has been engaged in an aggressive campaign to enforce its copyrights in recorded music against a number of technology-enabled and/or culturally sympathetic alleged infringers, including "twelve year-olds" and "grandmothers." Although the record labels already have protection under the copyright law while the fashion houses seek it, they have at least one thing in common: some portion of the piracy that they seek to eradicate is more valuable to them than they publicly let on. In their recent article, "The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design", Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman explore the "low-IP equilibrium" of the fashion design industry, as well as the unexpected value created by a low-protection regime. This article examines a parallel, and potentially related, phenomenon in the record business: the economic value added to an intellectual property ("IP") asset by the technically infringing behavior of the mixtape DJ. One might ask whether there is anything wrong with chilling an unlawful activity such as large-scale copyright infringement. The article argues that there is something wrong with such a result, but that the owners of the copyright in the recordings either fail to appreciate the problem or fail to account for the problem in executing their enforcement strategy. Hip-hop mixtape DJs are engaged in productive infringement- infringing-activity or improper appropriation that adds value to the infringed asset, rather than leading to losses for the copyright owner. Dealing with such infringement requires an approach different from typical recording industry tactics. This article argues that, in order to preserve and enhance the value of their own assets, the record labels should practice strategic forbearance.


A pagewidth printhead assembly for an inkjet printer comprises: a body portion for receiving ink from one or more ink sources and distributing the ink to an ink distribution member; a plurality of integrated circuits extending the length of the printhead assembly, each integrated circuit having a plurality of nozzles formed in rows thereon, each of the nozzles being arranged in use to deliver the ink onto passing print media; and the ink distribution member upon which the integrated circuits are fixed and which distributes the ink from the body portion to the integrated circuits. The integrated circuits are aligned in an abutting arrangement across the length of the ink distribution member.


ABSTRACT The increase in the accessibility of firearms and ammunition represents a key factor of destabilization in many countries. It is also commonly associated with an escalation in intensity and organization of collective and interpersonal violence. In some cases, arms are illegally transferred via diversion from existing stores. In this article, we consider the leakage from military to civilian markets as an important source of ammunition available to civilians in Haiti. We employ a unique section-quarterly panel of ammunition prices on the Haitian civilian market over the period July 2004–July 2012. These data are combined with publicly available monthly data on authorized ammunition shipments to the country registered by the United Nations (UN) and Haitian National Police (HNP). We use a standard time-series Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model to show that the exogenous shocks of UN- and HNP-ordered ammunition exert measurable downward pressure on civilian ammunition markets, which we calculate in terms of adjusted predictions and partial elasticities of demand. These effects constitute econometric evidence that the firewall that should in theory have separated military and civilian markets in Haiti partially broke down. We conclude with a suggestion for using this model to help estimate the specific size of the leakage.


The severe environmental and safety problems that the continuous increase of the road traffic creates in the European network, require the shift of the transport patterns to the environmental friendly modes. For the freight transport this means a shift from road to combined transport. In the macro-scale, regulatory initiatives should provide the framework for the efficient competition environment, making transport system fairer and more efficient, whereas transport chain actors should adjust their transport behaviour and redefine their strategies inside this new environment. The associated decisions must be based on a multi-criteria approach since strong lobby interests and severe social reactions are conflicting in this -very sensitive for the whole economysector. Significant decisions must also be taken in micro-scale. The reorganisation of the traditional transport companies requires new market strategies and imposes personnel restructuring and new working environment that are opposing the today's organisational structures. In the long run, the application of new technologies in the intraand inter-organisation of the transport companies has the potential to transform radically the sector structure, even redefine the transport concept.


One of the skills that a child needs to develop in pre-school is creativity. Although it is known that creativity comes from birth, the fact that everyone is at different levels shows that there are factors affecting the development of this skill. One of these factors is the parent. In the literature, there are researches on how children's creativity changes according to variables such as age, gender and socioeconomic level. However, no research has been achieved on what parents do to improve their children's creativity. The aim of this study is to reveal the experiences of parents in developing pre-school children's creativity. In this research, phenomenology is used. Participants were determined by criterion sampling from purposeful sampling methods and interviewed with six parents at two sub, two middle and two upper socioeconomic levels. As a result of the content analysis, it was observed that parents did similar activities in developing creativity with their children regardless of their level of education, but they were more creative by using the opportunities of parents at low socioeconomic level, while parents with a high socioeconomic level were more prone to getting ready to produce with their children. Parents should therefore be encouraged to develop creativity.


Here we present an analysis of drought occurrence and variability in Ethiopia, based on the monthly precipitation data from the Climate Research Unit (CRU-v3.22) over the period from 1960 to 2013. The drought events were characterized by means of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) applied to precipitation data at a temporal scale of 12 months. At the national scale, the results reveal a statistically significant decrease in the severity of droughts over the 54-year period, a pattern that is mostly attributed to a statistically significant decrease in the frequency of high intensity drought episodes (i.e., extreme and very extreme droughts), compared to moderate droughts. To assess the general patterns of drought evolution, a principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the SPI series. PCA results indicate a high spatial heterogeneity in the SPI variations over the investigated period, with ten different spatially well-defined regions identified. These PCA components accounted for 72.9% of the total variance of drought in the region. These regions also showed considerable differences in the temporal variability of drought, as most of the regions exhibited an increase in wetness conditions in recent decades. In contrast, the regions that receive less than 400 mm of annual precipitation showed a declining  trend, with the largest changes occurring over Afar region. Generally, the highly elevated regions over the central Ethiopian Highlands showed the weakest changes, compared to the lowlands. This study confirms the local character of drought evolution over Ethiopia, providing evidence for policy makers to adopt appropriate local policies to cope with the risks of drought. Over Ethiopia, the detailed spatial assessment of drought evolution is required for a better understanding of the possible impacts of recurrent drought on agriculture, food production, soil degradation, human settlements and migrations, as well as energy production and water resources management across Ethiopia.


A survey asked medical students studying the basic sciences to identify effective learning strategies. The purposes of the survey were three-fold: firstly, to identify learning strategies that students prefer; secondly, to encourage students to evaluate their learning strategies; and thirdly, to inform faculty about their students' learning strategies. This paper compares the students' preferences for informal peer-learning and Supplemental Instruction. The survey revealed that students use groups discerningly for both learning and support. They believe that SI is valuable for when they need help, for developing understanding, for preparing for tests, and for motivation. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the students' choices and recommendations about how faculty and students might use SI to strengthen the learning culture of a course.


Where is America in the republic of letters? This question has formed in my mind over the last four years as I have collaborated on a new project based at Stanford University called Mapping the Republic of Letters. The project aims to enrich our understanding of the intellectual networks of major and minor figures in the republic of letters, the international world of learning that spanned the centuries roughly from 1400 to 1800. By creating visual images based on large digitized data sets, we hope to reveal the hidden structures and conditions that nourished the growth of the republic of letters in the early modern era and the causes of its transformation in the nineteenth century. This task has only recently become feasible with the digitization of the correspondences of major intellectuals such as Benjamin Franklin, John Locke, Athanasius Kircher, and Voltaire, and of libraries, cabinets of artifacts, and Grand Tour itineraries.


Computing infrastructures are challenging and expensive to maintain. This led to the growth of cloud computing with users renting computing resources from centralized cloud providers. There is also a recent promise in providing decentralized computing resources from many participating users across the world. The compute on your own server model hence is no longer prominent. But, traditional computer architectures, which were designed to give a complete power to the owner of the computing infrastructure, continue to be used in deploying these new paradigms. This forces users to completely trust the infrastructure provider on all their data. The cryptography and security community research two different ways to tackle this problem. The first line of research involves developing powerful cryptographic constructs with formal security guarantees. The primitive of functional encryption (FE) formalizes the solutions where the clients do not interact with the sever during the computation. FE enables a user to provide computation-specific secret keys which the server can use to perform the user specified computations (and only those) on her encrypted data. The second line of research involves designing new hardware architectures which remove the infrastructure owner from the trust base. The solutions here tend to have better performance but their security guarantees are not well understood. This thesis provides contributions along both lines of research. In particular, • We develop a (single-key) functional encryption construction where the size of secret keys do not grow with the size of descriptions of the computations, while also providing a tighter security reduction to the underlying computational assumption. This construction supports the computation class of branching programs. Previous works for this computation class achieved either short keys or tighter security reductions but not both. • We formally model the primitive of trusted hardware inspired by Intel's Software Guard eXtensions (SGX). We then construct an FE scheme in a strong security model using this trusted hardware primitive. We implement this construction in our system Iron and evaluate its performance. Previously, the constructions in this model relied on heavy cryptographic tools and were not practical. • We design an encrypted database system StealthDB that provides complete SQL support. StealthDB is built on top of Intel SGX and designed with the usability and security limitations of SGX in mind. The StealthDB implementation on top of Postgres achieves practical performance (30% overhead over plaintext evaluation) with strong leakage profile against adversaries who get snapshot access to the memory


Many coastal regions have experienced extensive population growth during the last century. Commonly, this growth has led to port development and expansion as well as increased vessel activity which can have detrimental effects on coral reef ecosystems. In southeast Florida, three major ports built in the late 1920's along 112 km of coastline occur in close proximity to a shallow coral reef ecosystem. Recent habitat mapping data were analyzed in GIS to quantify the type and area of coral reef habitats impacted by port and shipping activities. Impact areas were adjusted by impact severity: 100% of dredge and burial areas, 75% of grounding and anchoring areas, and 15% of areas in present anchorage. Estimates of recent local stony coral density and cover data were used to quantify affected corals and live cover. After adjusting for impact severity, 312.5 hectares (ha) of impacted coral reef habitats were identified. Burial by dredge material accounted for 175.8 ha. Dredging of port inlet channels accounted for 84.5 ha of reef removal. And 47.6 ha were impacted from a large ship anchorage. Although the full extent of all ship groundings and anchor drags associated with the ports is unknown, the measured extents of these events totaled 6 ha. Based on the adjusted impact areas, over 8.1million corals covering over 11.7 ha of live cover were impacted. Burial impacts were the greatest. The planned expansion of two of the ports would remove an additional approximate 9.95 ha of coral reef habitat. Ongoing marine spatial planning efforts are evaluating the placement of large ship anchorages in an effort reduce future impacts from ship anchoring. However, increasing populations and shipping needs will likely continue to be prioritized over protection of these valuable natural resources.


Using a unique, self-compiled dataset on international tax rates, we explore the link between taxes and manufacturing wages for a panel of 65 countries over 25 years. We find, controlling for other macroeconomic variables, that wages are significantly responsive to corporate taxation. Higher corporate tax rates depress wages. We also find that tax characteristics of neighboring countries, whether geographic or economic, have a significant effect on domestic wages. These results are consistent with the frequently employed assumptions in the public finance literature that capital is highly mobile, but labor is not. Under these conditions labor will bear the burden of capital taxes.


A 13-year-old, neutered female Husky dog was brought to the clinic with the complaints of anorexia, vomiting, abdominal distension and respiratory distress. It was suddenly died during intervention. At the necropsy, a mass was seen in the abdominal cavity. The mass had 16x15x9 cm in diameters. Histological examination revealed clusters of cells with slightly eosinophilic and scanty cytoplasm, small round hyperchromatic nuclei, and inconspicuous nucleoli encompassed by hypocellular extensive desmoplastic connective tissue stroma comprising few spindle-shaped connective tissue cells. In immunohistochemical examination the cytoplasms of tumour cells were detected to be mildly positive by nestin. The tumour cells were negative for α-SMA (Alpha-Smooth Muscle Actin), vimentin and pancytokeratin, but stromal cells were positive for α-SMA and vimentin. Despite the presence of partially incompatible immunohistochemical findings, the tumor in this case was diagnosed as desmoplastic small round-cell tumor because its aggressiveness, localization, and histopathology was similar to that observed for this tumor in humans. Previously this tumor has not been identified in animals.


Title of Dissertation: GRAVITY DRIVEN INSTABILITIES OF TRANSIENT DIFFUSIVE BOUNDARY LAYERS IN POROUS MEDIA Don Daniel, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Assistant Professor Amir Riaz Department of Mechanical Engineering This study is motivated by the geological storage of carbon dioxide in subsurface saline aquifers. After injection in an aquifer, CO2 dissolves in brine to form a diffusive solute boundary layer that is gravitationally unstable leading to natural convection within the aquifer. The exploration of the underlying hydrodynamic instability is of practical importance because of enhanced CO2 dissolution and storage in aquifers. In comparison to the classical Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a heated fluid cell, the analysis is not straightforward because the CO2 boundary layer is unsteady and nonlinear. The physics of the convective instability is described by a mathematical operator that is both non-autonomous and non-normal. Consequently, it is uncertain whether classical stability results for the onset of convection are valid. In addition, it is unclear how theoretical predictions compare with experiments. To explore these issues, the physical mechanisms and perturbation structures of transient, diffusive boundary layers are examined using multiple theoretical and computational tools. Traditional schemes based on linear stability theory, due to unique physical constraints, are unlikely to produce physically relevant perturbation structures. Therefore, a novel optimization procedure is formulated such that the optimization is restricted to physically admissible fields. The new method is compared with traditional stability approaches such as quasi-steady eigenvalue and classical optimization procedures along with fully resolved nonlinear direct numerical simulations. After establishing a suitable analytical framework, the role of viscosity and permeability variation is examined on the onset of natural convection. Onset of convection occurs sooner when viscosity decreases with aquifer depth. These effects of viscosity variation are in contrast to observations in classical viscous fingering problems. When the porous medium is horizontally layered, qualitatively different instability characteristics can occur depending on the relative length scales of the boundary layer and the permeability variation. For sufficiently high permeability contrast, small changes in the permeability field can lead to large variations in the onset times for convection. Resonance effects are observed only when the porous medium is vertically layered. The current study provides a framework to explore gravity driven instabilities arising both in pure fluid and porous media applications. The framework can be extended to study more complex systems such as those involving chemically reacting species and random anisotropic permeability fields.


A biogeochemical study was undertaken at Barns Gold Prospect, a Au-in-calcrete discovery in the Northern Eyre Peninsula (South Australia). The prospect is located in highly weathered Proterozoic rocks and is overlain by at least 1 m of aeolian quartz sand that thickens to 8 m as a longitudinal sand dune over part of the mineralization. The dune is well-vegetated, with Melaleuca shrubs and Eucalyptus trees up to 5 m high. Over mineralization anomalous Au concentrations occur in plant organs, litter, soils and sand. The highest Au concentrations (9 ppb) occur in calcareous rhizomorphs high up within the dune. Luminescence dating shows that the dune took no longer than 27 000 years to form and mass balance calculations indicate that the Au anomaly in the dune has formed in less than 10 000 years. Mechanisms for the Au accumulation in the sand are postulated and it appears that a biological process, principally involving vegetation, is the most viable. A 200-m sample spacing of vegetation appears to be adequate for exploration of this type of deposit. Below the sand, calcrete provides a robust sampling medium. At present, due to limited knowledge of exploration methods in this type of environment, the mineral explorer must either expend significant financial resources augering through areas of sand cover to collect buried calcrete samples, or have lower confidence that vegetation and surface soil samples will detect mineralization.


This thesis reports on qualitative case study research into the experience of six novice
English teachers in Hong Kong (HK). It describes their perceived experience,
particularly the problems and challenges they encountered, as well as the induction and
mentoring support they received during the first year of teaching. While the benefits of
different forms of induction support (mentoring in particular) have been established, few
studies have focused on specific factors that affect the perceived effectiveness of
mentoring, from the point of view of both the mentors and the mentees. The current
study therefore breaks new ground in investigating the perspectives of different
stakeholders in the mentoring process. What is more, the majority of research reports the
nature of the first year of teaching in one snapshot, often not paying attention to the
professional development and changes throughout the year. The study follows a group
of novice language teachers for the whole of their first year in teaching.
The purpose of the case study is to give voice to the perspectives of individual novice
teachers within the complex wider sociocultural context that these teachers have to
negotiate. Consequently, the thesis begins by establishing key aspects of the HK context
that impact on the experience of HK teachers and especially that of novice teachers in
their first year. It then provides a literature review that details important contributions to an international understanding of induction and mentoring, as well as relating these to
the specific HK situation. After presenting the research methodology and the issues
involved, the thesis provides a discussion that both details the needs and challenges of
the six participating novices and investigates the provision and perception of
school-based induction and mentoring, as well as the roles these mechanisms play in
their professional development, support and socialisation.
As a subsidiary research question, the project also investigates whether and how the
Induction Tool Kit (ACTEQ, 2009), the first official document supporting HK schools
in providing support for beginning teachers, is used in schools the participants teach in.
It also examines how challenges of first-year teachers, support for them, and
professional development are understood by ACTEQ, the commission that advises the
HK government on teacher education and development policies, manifested in the
design and language of the tool kit. These are compared to the actual experience of the
participating novices in the case study.
The thesis concludes by suggesting the implications of the findings, as well as providing
recommendations on how ACTEQ, teacher-training universities and schools can better
support novice English language teachers and their mentors. The limitations of the project and ways of disseminating the findings will also be discussed after outlining
these contributions.


We introduce a new code for computing time-dependent continuum radiative transfer and non-equilibrium ionization states in static density fields with periodic boundaries. Our code solves the moments of the radiative transfer equation, closed by an Eddington tensor computed using a long characteristics (LC) method. We show that traditional short characteristics and the optically thin approximation are inappropriate for computing Eddington factors for the problem of cosmological re-ionization. We evolve the non-equilibrium ionization field via an efficient and accurate (errors < 1 per cent) technique that switches between fully implicit or explicit finite differencing depending on whether the local time-scales are long or short compared to the time-step. We tailor our code for the problem of cosmological re-ionization. In tests, the code conserves photons, accurately treats cosmological effects and reproduces analytic Stromgren sphere solutions. Its chief weakness is that the computation time for the LC calculation scales relatively poorly compared to other techniques (t LC ∝- N ∼1.5 cells ); however, we mitigate this by only recomputing the Eddington tensor when the radiation field changes substantially. Our technique makes almost no physical approximations, so it provides a way to benchmark faster but more approximate techniques. It can readily be extended to evolve multiple frequencies, though we do not do so here. Finally, we note that our method is generally applicable to any problem involving the transfer of continuum radiation through a periodic volume.


Domain adaptation algorithms address a key issue in applied machine learning: How can we train a system under a source distribution but achieve high performance under a different target distribution? We tackle this question for divergent distributions where crucial predictive target features may not even have support under the source distribution. In this setting, the key intuition is that that if we can link target-specific features to source features, we can learn effectively using only source labeled data. We formalize this intuition, as well as the assumptions under which such coupled learning is possible. This allows us to give finite sample target error bounds (using only source training data) and an algorithm which performs at the state-of-the-art on two natural language processing adaptation tasks which are characterized by novel target features.


This study investigates the contributions of Atlantic Ocean to June-August rainfall over Uganda and western Kenya (KU). The study has utilized the datasets including precipitation from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre, North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), South Atlantic Ocean Dipole Index (SAODI), ERA-interim reanalysis, and the Atlantic Ocean Sea Surface Temperature (SST). Singular value decomposition (SVD), composite analysis and correlation analysis are used to achieve the objective of the study. Results show that the recent extreme rainfall events of June - August (JJA) season were experienced in 2007 (above normal) and 2009 (below normal). Further analysis reveals that there are significant coupled modes of variability; the first mode explains 32% whereas the second mode explains 16% of the total covariance. The first SVD mode captures the positive phase of the South Atlantic Ocean Dipole (SAOD) over Atlantic Ocean. This is associated with positive anomaly of rainfall in most parts of KU. The second SVD mode captures the negative phase of SAOD. The North Atlantic Ocean Index (NAOI) exhibits a significant positive correlation of coefficient ≥ 0.3 with the mean JJA rainfall anomaly over most parts of KU at 95% confidence level. The correlation between the mean JJA rainfall over most parts of KU and NAOI is higher compared to that with SAODI. The dominant moisture source in the region during JJA season is the Atlantic Ocean and the Congo rainforest. The findings from this study provide insight into the influence of Atlantic Ocean on the mean JJA rainfall over KU. The study recommends further research on the utilization of NAOI and SAODI as predictors of the JJA seasonal rainfall over the study area. The production of the JJA seasonal rainfall forecast in the region will enhance better utilization of water resources in the region


One of NILU's main goals is to study the impact of pollution and supply decision-makers with a sound scientific platform for choosing measures to reduce the negative impacts. Furthermore, it is very important for the institute to have control of the impact the institute's own activities may have on the environment and to reduce negative impacts as far as possible. NILU has for many years been working to improve the status of the environment and to reduce negative impacts. In order to take this one step further, it was decided that the institute should restructure the work according to a relevant environmental standard and to seek certification according to the same standard. The chosen standard is ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental management systems—Requirements with guidance for use) and NILU achieved certification according to this standard in October 2010. This report summarizes the results of the system in 2016. NORWEGIAN TITLE NILU's Environmental Management Report – 2016


We introduce GripSense, a system that leverages mobile device touchscreens and their built-in inertial sensors and vibration motor to infer hand postures including one- or two-handed interaction, use of thumb or index finger, or use on a table. GripSense also senses the amount of pres-sure a user exerts on the touchscreen despite a lack of direct pressure sensors by inferring from gyroscope readings when the vibration motor is "pulsed." In a controlled study with 10 participants, GripSense accurately differentiated device usage on a table vs. in hand with 99.67% accuracy and when in hand, it inferred hand postures with 84.26% accuracy. In addition, GripSense distinguished three levels of pressure with 95.1% accuracy. A usability analysis of GripSense was conducted in three custom applications and showed that pressure input and hand-posture sensing can be useful in a number of scenarios.


A tutorial on how to use Zotero, a Firefox add-on, which collects, manages, and cites research sources. Originally created by Jason Puckett for Georgia State University Library. Modified for St. Francis College Library by Alex Kustanovich.


Ecologists often use indices or proxies to communicate complex ecological entities. Indices commonly known as thermal safety margin, habitat thermal quality and hours of restriction describe species' vulnerability to climate change by comparing organisms' thermal limits or preferences to available habitat temperatures. Ready access to temperature data, from global gridded datasets or limited in situ measurements, has made these indices popular for vulnerability assessments across taxonomic groups and regions. However, such coarse descriptions of thermal landscape mask the spatio‐temporal heterogeneity that organisms experience, compromising the value of these indices. Full understanding of how scale affects index estimates is lacking, leaving ecologists and conservation managers with little guidance for applying or interpreting indices. Here, we show that incomplete temperature sampling, in space or time, provides erroneous assessments of vulnerability. Gradually sub‐sampling a long‐term, fine‐scale dataset of operative environmental temperature altered the index estimates for a lizard. Uncertainty associated with the selection of data increased with coarser scales, often leading to contrasting interpretations about the species' vulnerability to climate change when different data subsets were used. Compressing the environmental temperature data into central or extreme tendencies, as traditionally done to compute these indices, further masked the thermal variation that animals exploit to buffer warming. We suggest the use of improved index formulations that better describe temperature availability at scales that are appropriate to the study organism.


In this fresh examination of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century American captivity narratives, author Lorrayne Carroll argues that male editors and composers impersonated the women presumed to be authors of these documents. This "gender impersonation" significantly shaped the authorial voice and complicated the use of these texts as examples of historical writing and as women's literature. Carroll contends that gender impersonation was pervasive and that not enough critical attention has been paid to male intervention in female accounts. "Rhetorical Drag" examines the familiar territory of captivity narratives, including versions of Hannah Duston's captivity, and widens it by analyzing numerous examples, placing each in a deeply historicized context. For example, Mary Rowlandson's "The Sovereignty and Goodness of God" is viewed as a template against which later authors might differentiate their works rather than as a model. In this vein, Carroll looks at how Cotton Mather shaped the narrative of Hannah Swarton in light of Rowlandson's text (itself thought to have been edited by his father) and according to the ideals of female behavior outlined in his conduct book for women, "Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion". A chapter on Quaker captivities illuminates the practices of censorship among Friends. Furthermore, Carroll does original archival work on the provenance of Susannah Johnson's narrative and makes some interesting discoveries about the practices of gender impersonation and collaborative composition that produced Johnson's text. Using this narrative, which appeared in the late eighteenth century, Carroll discusses the shift and evolution of gender norms in the representation of women's voices and embodied experience. Those interested in early American literary studies and historiography as well as women's and gender studies will find "Rhetorical Drag" a fascinating and important addition to the literature.


The most prominent Holocene climatic event in Greenland ice-core proxies, with approximately half the amplitude of the Younger Dryas, occurred ∼8000 to 8400 yr ago. This Holocene event affected regions well beyond the North Atlantic basin, as shown by synchronous increases in windblown chemical indicators together with a significant decrease in methane. Widespread proxy records from the tropics to the north polar regions show a short-lived cool, dry, or windy event of similar age. The spatial pattern of terrestrial and marine changes is similar to that of the Younger Dryas event, suggesting a role for North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Possible forcings identified thus far for this Holocene event are small, consistent with recent model results indicating high sensitivity and strong linkages in the climatic system.


Pervasive applications are characterized by variations in their context of execution. Their correct behavior requires continuous adaptations, accordingly to changes observed in their environment. Some of the existing approaches tackle this problem by adding stabilization mechanisms on the decision making layer. In most cases it remains costly for applications to trigger decision making procedures, specially when application changes frequency is potentially high. We believe that, to provide more flexible and efficient context-aware applications, stabilization issues should be addressed separately from decision making issues. In this paper, we present a flexible stabilization approach as an elegant solution to that problem.


Various approaches to infrared multicomponent quantitative analysis including K-matrix, multivariate least-squares, principal component regression (PCR), and partial least-squares (PLS) are compared. The advantages and disadvantages of each are discussed. A particular implementation of the PLS method is detailed, with emphasis on the methods provided for calibration optimization and evaluation.


Guided by contemporary feminist revisions of individual theories on adolescent development, interviews with 142 parent dyads were conducted to better understand the variation in mothers' and fathers' perceptions of changes and continuities in their relationships with their firstborn young adult sons and daughters. A between-families content analysis of parents' responses revealed that the most salient issues were firstborns' independence, contact and time spent together, and role patterns. Several gendered patterns emerged, suggesting that mothers and fathers might differentially relate to their daughters and sons. However, a within-family analysis of parental dyads' responses challenges previously held beliefs about gender differences and suggests few gendered differences emerge when considering responses from both parents within the same family. Implications for future research on parent—child relationships are discussed.


Excerpt] After the organization of the UAW, it could plausibly be argued that the union turned the game around. Indeed, by the late 1950s, the UAW could play one corporation off against another, setting as a strike target a single company while permitting the others to encroach on the market share and profits of the struck company. The strategy worked, and wages and benefits improved steadily. What changed in the 1970s was the global context. With the unrestricted flow of foreign imports into the country and the ability of domestic manufacturers to move production or parts supply offshore, the number of blue-card corporations in the auto game increased to include European and Japanese producers. But, more importantly, the number of white-card workers exploded by several million. European and Japanese autoworkers—and later South Korean and Mexican—entered the game but not as members of the UAW. The balance of power between blue and white cardholders shifted back toward the blues.


Rainfall simulation is widely used in the laboratory and in field work to produce artificial rainfall for small-scale surface hydrology and soil erosion studies. Simulated rainfall produced by simulators must be predictable, accurate and consistent to be useful to model the related physical processes. Pressure fluctuations in the water supply system frequently cause variation in rainfall intensity during simulated events. This study describes a hydraulic system that is attached to the outlet (nozzle) of a rainfall simulator to ensure constant pressure and discharge, which consequently facilitates constant rainfall intensity at ground level, throughout the rainfall event, especially in the controlled environment of the laboratory. Fifty rainfall events were simulated (five different pressure levels at the water intake). More than 750 pressure measurements were collected for each rainfall event at the water intake and at the nozzle, adding a total of more than 75,000 pressure measurements. Standard deviation of pressure measured at the water intake was always higher than at the nozzle (ranging from 1.978 to 4.199 times higher). The results show that with this hydraulic system rainfall simulators can operate with constant (rainfall) intensity throughout the entire simulation or sequence of events, even if the water supply pressure fluctuates.


Title of Document: A PORTRAIT OF SCHOOL DISTRICT CRISIS MANAGEMENT: LEADERSHIP CHOICES IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY DURING THE SNIPER SHOOTINGS OF OCTOBER 2002 Brian Joseph Porter, Ph.D., 2010 Directed By: Professor Hanne B. Mawhinney Department of Education Leadership, Higher Education and International Education The actions of two assailants who shot and killed 10 people and wounded three others, including a student, in the region around Washington, D.C., in October 2002, provides the backdrop for a qualitative study of the emergency response by school district leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland. The study explores and describes the experiences of the district's superintendent and a group of leadership staff, including the author as a participant researcher, and two elected officials and a union president who contributed to the decisions and actions. A non-evaluative study, based on portraiture in the form of case study, the narrative report provides often minute-to-minute detail of the events of the case and a unique perspective of crisis management and decision making at the school district level. The study revealed aspects of the case regarding implementation of an emergency response plan, involvement of principals, management style, political extremes, and phases of the crisis. The study also illuminated targeted objectives for decision and actions, including a central focus on mental health and communications. The study reflects a subject area that is largely overlooked in the research of education leadership. Implications from the study are that school district leaders need specific training and experience necessary to manage a crisis, make decisions under crisis circumstances, and improve their performance through practice. The study identifies licensure for school district leaders as a way to attain a standardized level of competency in crisis management and decision making skills. The study also provides an entry point for further research in educational crisis management and decision making. In particular, the study explores a unique blend of research encompassing critical tasks in public leadership during a crisis, complex transformational processes among the components of a school district's social system, and expectations of high reliability in organizational environments that support mindfulness and expertise. A PORTRAIT OF SCHOOL DISTRICT CRISIS MANAGEMENT: LEADERSHIP CHOICES IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY DURING THE SNIPER SHOOTINGS OF OCTOBER 2002


This monograph provides a micro-analytic description of the structure and communicative use of syntactic pivot constructions in German. Using the methodology of Conversation Analysis, this work shows that pivots emerge in interaction in response to local communicative needs.Exclusively found in spoken German, pivots allow a speaker to extend an utterance beyond a possible completion point in a syntactically and prosodically unobtrusive way. Speakers utilize this basic property to promote context-specific actions: managing boundaries of speakership, bridging sequential and topical junctures, and dealing with different types of interactional trouble. Through a close examination of syntactic pivots as an interactional resource, this work shows that spoken linguistic structures can only be fully understood if we acknowledge the temporality of language and view grammar as usage-based and negotiable. This book thus contributes to a growing body of research at the intersection of grammar and interaction.


Somalia has a significant place in the livestock sector in the Horn of Africa; livestock trade and export is one of the key economic contributors. Most of the livestock trade happens with the Middle East, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia being one of its biggest importers. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to both massive loss of life and huge economic losses as the result of measures to contain the virus. In June 2020, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took the decision to restrict the number of pilgrims for the annual Hajj. Impacts resulted in a decline in income from the seasonal Hajj of 80 per cent, though domestically prices of livestock remained stable and local markets were used for livestock sales. This paper, besides highlighting the effects, provides recommendations which could inform strategic planning, humanitarian aid, and resilience building for the livestock value chain in Somalia and the Horn of Africa.


Quantum dots (QDs) are a class of semiconductor nanoparticles that possess a unique set of size-tunable optical properties. The potential applications of QDs in biological and medical applications are enormous – some notable examples being in high-resolution cellular imaging, cancer tumour targeting and drug delivery. However, the mechanisms for QD-cell interactions are at best partially understood, and QD cytotoxicity is an ongoing concern. In particular, it remains unclear how QD uptake by cells and subsequent cell fate are influenced by QD parameters such as size, composition, concentration, and exposure time. To help resolve this complex issue in a systematic manner, we have developed here one of the first mathematical models that describes the toxic effects of QDs on cells. The model consists of a system of ordinary differential equations describing (among other things) the transition of healthy cells to an apoptotic or necrotic state induced by QD toxicity. We also experimentally investigated the behaviour of a cell population subsequent to exposure to various types of CdTe QDs. In a population of identical cells exposed to QDs of similar size (2–5 nm), it was found that some of the cells entered apoptosis, others entered necrosis, and others demonstrated no response at all. The toxicity of the various QDs was conveniently quantitatively assessed using the parameters appearing in the mathematical model, and satisfactory agreement between theory and experiment was found.


ZARA ZAHRA ANASHA. "ANALYTICAL DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF
STUDENTS' CRITICAL MATHEMATIC
THINKING ABILITY THROUGH GRADED
RESPONSE MODELS (GRM)"
Critical mathematic thinking ability is very important to solve daily
problems. But in reality, junior high school students' critical mathematic thinking
ability is still low. Ability measurement such as measurement of critical
mathematic thinking ability cannot be measured through multiple choices test. In
that case, an essay test in which graded scoring is used as scoring technique more
suitable than multiple choices test. The result of the essay test will be analyzed to
describe the already tested ability. There are two approaches in the measurement
analysis; classical test theory and item response theory (IRT). The classical test
theory has some weaknesses because it only depends on how many the right
answers student could achieved. Meanwhile, the IRT technique is more suitable to
analyze ability because lies on the pattern of the response and parameter of item
test. Graded response models (GRM) is one of the IRT models that analyzed
graded response.
The purposes of this research are to know about the result of the item
parameter estimation of the test which has been developed by the researcher and
to know the result of student's critical mathematic thinking ability parameter
estimation through GRM (Graded Response Models).
The research is a descriptive quantitative research. The population of this
research are 8th grade students of MTs Al-Ishlah Bobos and of SMP N 1
Dukupuntang in the academic year of 2012/2013. Applying purposive sampling
method this research took 140 students as a sample, from whom 70 students from
MTs Al-Ishlah Bobos and 70 students from SMP N 1 Dukupuntang. Measurement
theory used in this research is Item Response Theory (IRT) with the GRM model
and the instrument used to collect data is critical mathematic thinking ability test
paper.
The result of the item parameter estimation shows that in terms of the item
discrimination all four items tested are less good, meanwhile in the terms of item
difficulty the results vary. The first item of the test is considered to be easy, the
second and the third item of the test is considered to be very difficult, and the last
item of the test is considered just difficult. The result of the critical mathematic
thinking ability parameter estimation shows that 4,2% of students have very high
critical mathematic thinking ability, 16,4% have high critical mathematic thinking
ability, 65,7% have mean critical mathematic thinking ability, 13,5% have low
critical mathematic thinking ability and there is no single student with very low
critical mathematic thinking ability.
Key words: critical mathematic thinking, item of the test parameter, ability
parameter, IRT, GRM


This study aimed to provide a simulation model for virtual ablation of soft tissue, focusing on simulating soft tissue deformation and destruction. The authors applied two hypotheses, the maximum shear stress hypothesis and the crack stress hypothesis, to simulate soft tissue rupture progression based on stress distribution. This combination of hypotheses realizes dynamic definition of the direction of rupture progression. The proposed model also supports multiple sources of manipulation, i.e. two or more hands working on the tissue simultaneously, because the direction definition algorithm requires only the stress distribution of the entire object. The simulation model was implemented on a thin square board model. The first experiment evaluated the direction of rupture progression when the board model was expanded at two manipulation points. The second experiment compared the simulated crack progression with crack progression in a silicon rubber. The third experiment assessed the length of rupture progression resulting from the same force applied to different positions. The fourth experiment evaluated the effect of rupture direction related to pressures. The final experiment wasconducted to es timate the calculation time required for the rupture model to run. The simulations revealed that final crack length is strongly affected by the preset crack length. A similar phenomenon occurs in real-world crack progression. Also, the direction of rupture progression is affected plausibly by manipulations. Therefore, the authors conclude that the proposed model accurately represents the dynamic ablation of soft tissue.


The paper examines employees use of humour to manage ethno-national identity differences in six case study District Councils in Northern Ireland (NI). It draws from empirical data from sixty-five loosely structure interviews with a cross section of employees from each council. Following Dickson, Hargie, O'Donnell, and McMullen's (2009) Social Identity Theory (SIT) account of the role of humour in workplace 'community relations' in NI, we offer a further critical insight into how humour is deployed by Protestant and Catholic employees to 'manage' the inherently inharmonious nature of their relationship at work. We show in detail how humour helps temper the ever-present tensions that exist at work between these groups, rooted in their respective historical religious, political, economic and social and community differences and related identity concerns, to prevent the likelihood of these tensions over-spilling into overt hostility and open conflict. Contra postmodern and poststructuralist analyses of workplace identity, we illustrate how the nature and effect of the politico-religious identity differences among these employees is a phenomenon they are highly cognisant of. What we demonstrate is how interpersonal relationships at work in NI is a delicately balanced 'negotiated order', reliant for its success on the suspension of historical prejudices, and mutual accommodation of their respective ethno-national identity differences. The theoretical analysis of our fieldwork differs from Dickson et al's in that we examine our finding from the standpoint of social identification theory (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000. Jenkins, 1994), In our view, this usefully extends Dickson et al's use and critique of SIT for understanding workplace identity in NI. It reveals in greater critical detail the level of employees' attachment to their identity, but also the depth of their understanding and awareness of its effects on day-to-day inter-group social relations, and, moreover, notwithstanding a genuine desire for peace and reconciliation, how its day-to-day manifestations confound both institutional and inter-group efforts to reconcile community differences at work.


The main finding of a comprehensive empirical research project on the intersubjective acceptability of the pragma-dialectical discussion rules (Van Eemeren, Garssen & Meuffels, 2009) is that ordinary language users judge discussion moves that are considered fallacious from an argumentation-theoretical perspective as unreasonable. In light of this finding it is remarkable that in everyday argumentative discourse fallacies occur regularly and seem many times not to be noticed by the participants in the discourse. This also goes for the abusive argumentum ad hominem. While abusive ad hominem attacks are judged to be very unreasonable discussion moves when the unreasonableness of clear cases of this fallacy is rated in experiments, in real life this fallacy remains undetected more often than not. In this paper it is argued that this paradox can be explained by analysing abusive ad hominem attacks as a mode of strategic manoeuvring which takes on a reasonable appearance in real life situations when it mimics, as it often does, legitimate critical reactions to authority argumentation. The hypothesis that abusive fallacies are seen as less unreasonable when they are presented as if they are critical questions pertaining to the argument scheme for authority argumentation than when they are clear cases was tested systematically in two experiments. The results of these experiments confirmed the hypothesis.


Reflexivity is important to nursing as it allows opportunity to reflect on how knowledge, both formal and tacit, and understanding have been developed within the context of the nurse's own perspectives (Freshwater 2002; Johns & Freshwater 2005). When embarking on my nursing career I was encouraged to keep a diary of my journey so that I would be able to look back and make sense of multifaceted learning experiences I would encounter along the way. Keeping a diary was particularly pertinent as, already having a first degree in psychology, I was undertaking a Post Graduate Diploma in Pre-registration (Mental Health) Nursing Course more commonly known as the 'Fast Track' course. The implication of this being that rather than having three years to complete a nursing course, registration is achieved in two years.
This paper is a reflexive account of my 'fast track' nursing course and the opportunities it afforded me to broaden my horizons regarding my chosen career. In particular I will focus on my experiences of having a clinical placement and presenting a conference paper in Australia. From the first week of the fast track course, the possibility of a placement abroad was introduced and discussed between students and lecturers. At that moment I was excited by the thoughts of what this opportunity could bring, not only to me as a person, but to my future career as a mental health nurse. In that instant I thought of the experiences and avenues a placement abroad could open for me, but where would I go? But then as the course gathered momentum I found myself socialised into a typical student nurse's life and the idea of going abroad became a distant memory.


Progress in genomics and other high throughput "-omic" technologies is promising to revolutionize the practice of epidemiology by providing new tools to measure exposures, susceptibility, and disease outcomes. New platforms of bio-marker measurement are becoming increasingly available for epidemiologic studies. Examples include genomic, proteomic, metabolomic, noncoding RNA, epigenomic, mitochondrial DNA, telomerase, and microbiota studies. In addition, environmental measurements are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and the exposome holds promise with regard to measuring the impact of multiple exposures on health outcomes (1).

Omic technologies pose many challenges regarding the collection, analysis, validation, replication, and eventual utility of this information for medicine and public health (2). We should always be mindful of the potential pitfalls of adopting new technologies too soon. Because of this, the relationship between technologies and epidemiology is bidirectional. Although new omic technologies provide the tools to enhance epidemiologic research, epidemiology is needed to test and validate the application of these technologies for use in population settings (3).

Despite their tremendous appeal, it is premature to predict how new omic approaches will evolve over time. Likewise, we cannot anticipate what new platforms will be available and ready for research or clinical use, although our measurement capacity is likely to expand rapidly. What should be anticipated, however, is the need for an epidemiologic foundation for proper techniques for collection, sampling, processing, and storage of biologic specimens to be studied with these evolving technologies and development of principles for their optimal use, analysis, and validation in epidemiologic studies of all types. This need is particularly felt for cohort studies that collect biologic samples today but may assay those samples years if not decades into the future (1).

Analytic methods for omic technology platforms need to evolve and account for platform-specific peculiarities as well as study design issues. A greater challenge is how to integrate multiple platforms within the same analysis. As the possibilities for false leads increase exponentially with each new omic technology, methodologic work is essential in evaluating any technology's analytic performance, reproducibility, replication, disease associations, ethical and legal issues, and clinical use (2).

In order to inform our audience of the various omic fields, the Journal will publish a primer series for the epidemiologist interested in education about specific omic methods and technologies. Specifically, the series will inform epidemiologists how to read papers on the topics and what to do if they are interested in integrating emerging methods into their work.

In the present issue of the Journal, 2 articles represent the first installment of publications in this new series. Tzoulaki et al. (4) address the promise, design, and analysis of metabolomics studies in epidemiologic research. Nair et al. (5) review the study of microRNAs in human disease. What these articles have in common is that they address a series of questions and issues that are common to all of these technologies to educate the epidemiologist. What is the technology? What has been done in the field in the form of a synopsis of relevant original research publications, reviews, and meta-analyses? What are the main epidemiologic and statistical methods and software for design and analyses? What are the current methodological limitations of this technology in terms of measurement and statistical/analytical methods? What are the future prospects for this technology in the practice of epidemiology?

Proposed topics in this series will include, among others, epigenetics, the microbiome, proteomics, pathogen whole-genome sequencing, metagenomics, telomerases, and the exposome. We hope our readers will find these articles informative. We also invite prospective authors to submit articles to be considered for publication in the Journal's series on the Practice of Epidemiology.


We present the discovery of molecular hydrogen (H2), including the presence of vibrationally-excited H2* in the optical spectrum of the afterglow of GRB 120815A at z = 2.36 obtained with X-shooter at the VLT. Simultaneous photometric broad-band data from GROND and X-ray observations by Swift/XRT place further constraints on the amount and nature of dust along the sightline. The galactic environment of GRB 120815A is characterized by a strong DLA with log(N(H i)/cm-2) = 21.95 ± 0.10, prominent H2 absorption in the Lyman-Werner bands (log (N(H2)/cm-2) = 20.54 ± 0.13) and thus a molecular gas fraction log f(H2) = -1.14 ± 0.15. The distance d between the absorbing neutral gas and GRB 120815A is constrained via photo-excitation modeling of fine-structure and meta-stable transitions of Fe ii and Ni ii to d = 0.5 ± 0.1 kpc. The DLA metallicity ([Zn/H] = -1.15 ± 0.12), visual extinction (AV ≲ 0.15 mag) and dust depletion ([Zn/Fe] = 1.01 ± 0.10) are intermediate between the values of well-studied, H2-deficient GRB-DLAs observed at high spectral resolution, and the approximately solar metallicity, highly-obscured and H2-rich GRB 080607 sightline. With respect to N(H i), metallicity, as well as dust-extinction and depletion, GRB 120815A is fairly representative of the average properties of GRB-DLAs. This demonstrates that molecular hydrogen is present in at least a fraction of the more typical GRB-DLAs, and H2 and H2* are probably more wide-spread among GRB-selected systems than the few examples of previous detections would suggest. Because H2* transitions are located redwards of the Lyman α absorption, H2* opens a second route for positive searches for molecular absorption also in GRB afterglows at lower redshifts and observed at lower spectral resolution. Further detections of molecular gas in GRB-DLAs would allow statistical studies, and, coupled with host follow-up and sub-mm spectroscopy, provide unprecedented insights into the process and conditions of star-formation at high redshift.


When the oxygen supply gets low, mammalian cells initiate an adaptive program involving a transcription factor called hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). The expression of HIF and its target genes increases under hypoxic conditions, allowing the cell to survive oxidative stress. Under normal oxygen conditions, the transcription factor is modified on proline residues by HIF prolyl hydroxylases (HPHs). Hydroxylation allows interaction with a tumor suppressor factor called von Hippel-Lindau (VHL), and the complex becomes a target for proteosomal degradation. Ozer et al. have identified a tumor suppressor that controls HIF activity rather than HIF abundance. When expression of the tumor suppressor protein inhibitor of growth factor 4 (ING4) was blocked by RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells, the effect of hypoxia on HIF activity was enhanced--expression of HIF target genes increased. Although direct interaction between HIF and ING4 was not detected, yeast two-hybrid analysis identified ING4 interaction with the hydroxylase HPH-2. Endogenous ING4 and HPH-2 were found in the nuclear fraction of cell lysates. However, ING4 was not a substrate for hydroxylation by HPH-2. ING4 also did not affect HPH-2 activity on HIF. Because ING family members interact with chromatin-remodeling complexes that promote or suppress transcription, the authors suggest that ING4 that associates with HPH-2 gets recruited to HIF, where it subsequently acts as an adapter to recruit transcriptional repressors that control HIF activity. A. Ozer, L. C. Wu, R. K. Bruick, The candidate tumor suppressor ING4 represses activation of the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 7481-7486 (2005). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Publications containing historical energy statistics make it possible to estimate fossil fuel CO2 emissions back to 1751. Etemad et al. (1991) published a summary compilation that tabulates coal, brown coal, peat, and crude oil production by nation and year. Footnotes in the Etemad et al.(1991) publication extend the energy statistics time series back to 1751. Summary compilations of fossil fuel trade were published by Mitchell (1983, 1992, 1993, 1995). Mitchell's work tabulates solid and liquid fuel imports and exports by nation and year. These pre-1950 production and trade data were digitized and CO2 emission calculations were made following the procedures discussed in Marland and Rotty (1984) and Boden et al. (1995). Further details on the contents and processing of the historical energy statistics are provided in Andres et al. (1999). The 1950 to present CO2 emission estimates are derived primarily from energy statistics published by the United Nations (2017), using the methods of Marland and Rotty (1984). The energy statistics were compiled primarily from annual questionnaires distributed by the U.N. Statistical Office and supplemented by official national statistical publications. As stated in the introduction of the Statistical Yearbook, "in a few cases, official sources are supplemented by other sources and estimates, where these have been subjected to professional scrutiny and debate and are consistent with other independent sources." Data from the U.S. Department of Interior's Geological Survey (USGS 2017) were used to estimate CO2 emitted during cement production. Values for emissions from gas flaring were derived primarily from U.N. data but were supplemented with data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (1994), Rotty (1974), and data provided by G. Marland. Greater details about these methods are provided in Marland and Rotty (1984), Boden et al. (1995), and Andres et al. (1999).


Chitosan (CS) is a porous, self-standing, nanofibrillar microsphere that can be used as a metal carrier. Amino groups on CS enable to modulate cobalt coordination using a safe organic ligand (methyl salicylate). This catalyst efficiently promotes Heck cross-coupling of a large library of functional substrates under mild and sustainable conditions (polyethylene glycol as solvent at 80 °C in a short time (1 h)). The cobalt complex was also used as a heterogeneous, efficient, inexpensive, and green catalyst for Sonogashira cross-coupling reactions. The reactions of various aryl halides and phenylacetylene provided the corresponding products in moderate to good yields. More importantly, this phosphine, copper, and palladium-free catalyst was stable under the reaction conditions and could be easily reused using an external magnet for at least five successive runs without a discernible decrease in its catalytic activity.


Measures of component behaviour have been put forward as valid and reliable predictors of social competency. This study assessed the consistency of verbal and nonverbal component behaviours across situations and time. Thirty-seven people participated in an informal conversation with a confederate and a mock job interview with a second confederate. This scenario was repeated three weeks later. Social competency ratings were obtained from the confederates and subsequently from two observers along with specific measures of nine component behaviours. While nonverbal component behaviours were quite consistent across settings and time, verbal behaviours were less so, although none consistently predicted competency ratings across settings and time. Subjects who received high competency ratings were found to behave more variably across settings than those who received low ratings. The findings support the notion that evaluation of social skills training will require measurement of functionally equivalent, rather than topographically defined, classes of behaviour.