INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can be used to ablate prostate cancer (CaP) focally, non-invasively, and with minimal side effects. In this video, we present a method for focal HIFU, employing (1) multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI), (2) fusion biopsy, (3) margin generation, and (4) treatment. METHODS: After mpMRI is performed, prostate regions suspicious for CaP (PIRADSv2) are identified and contoured by an experienced radiologist. Suspicious regions receive targeted biopsy with an MRI-ultrasound fusion system; 10-12 systematic cores are also obtained. Patients are potentially eligible for focal HIFU if they harbor a single focus of organ-confined, clinically significant disease with Gleason Score (GS) ⩽ 4+3 and prostate volume ⩽ 55 CC. To generate a treatment margin, the original MR target is expanded 1 to 2 cm; prior studies informed our use of asymmetrical margins that were largest along the base-apex axis (Priester, J.Urol. 2016). Next, the biopsy coordinates are imported, and the margin is refined by excluding CaP-negative cores with ≥ 1 cm of tissue. Lastly, anatomic regions can be excluded from treatment. The urethra is spared whenever possible, with the risk of side effects weighed against the possibility of positive margins. The plan (Fig 1) is visualized and reviewed using open source software (3D Slicer). All surfaces (prostate, MR target, biopsy cores, margin, and urethra) are then exported to the HIFU device and overlaid on real-time ultrasound. Patients receive follow-up mpMRI and biopsy at 6 months. RESULTS: To date, this method has been used for focal HIFU in 20 patients. Plan generation is semi-automated and takes about 30 minutes. On average, 9.4 CC (29% of prostate tissue) was treated using these margins, with reduced treatment time relative to hemi- or whole-gland HIFU. Of 7 patients with 6-month follow-up biopsy, none had residual pattern 4 disease, but 3 of 7 had small-volume GS = 3+3. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment margins can be created in a patient-specific manner, incorporating data from MRI, fusion biopsy, and prostate anatomy. This approach helps to ensure cancer control while minimizing procedure time and damage to healthy tissue. Figure. No caption available. Source of Funding: This work was funded in part by the Jean Perkins Foundation and by Award Number R01CA158627 from the National Cancer Institute.


Small- and intermediate-conductance Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channels (SK3/Kcnn3 and IK1/Kcnn4) are expressed in vascular endothelium. Their activities play important roles in regulating vascular tone through their modulation of intracellular concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)) required for the production of endothelium-derived vasoactive agents. Activation of endothelial IK1 or SK3 channels hyperpolarizes endothelial cell membrane potential, increases Ca(2+) influx, and leads to the release of vasoactive factors, thereby impacting blood pressure. To examine the distinct roles of IK1 and SK3 channels, we used electrophysiological recordings to investigate IK1 and SK3 channel trafficking in acutely dissociated endothelial cells from mouse aorta. The results show that SK3 channels undergo Ca(2+)-dependent cycling between the plasma membrane and intracellular organelles; disrupting Ca(2+)-dependent endothelial caveolae cycling abolishes SK3 channel trafficking. Moreover, transmitter-induced changes in SK3 channel activity and surface expression modulate endothelial membrane potential. In contrast, IK1 channels do not undergo rapid trafficking and their activity remains unchanged when either exo- or endocytosis is block. Thus modulation of SK3 surface expression may play an important role in regulating endothelial membrane potential in a Ca(2+)-dependent manner.


Education and self-improvement are key features of human behavior. However, learning in the physical world is not always desirable or achievable. That is how simulators came to be. There are domains where purely virtual simulators can be created in contrast to physical ones. In this research we present a novel environment for learning, using a natural user interface. We, humans, are not designed to operate and manipulate objects via keyboard, mouse or a controller. The natural way of interaction and communication is achieved through our actuators (hands and feet) and our sensors (hearing, vision, touch, smell and taste). That is the reason why it makes more sense to use sensors that can track our skeletal movements, are able to estimate our pose, and interpret our gestures. After acquiring and processing the desired – natural input, a system can analyze and translate those gestures into movement signals.


This paper presents a review on the recent progress of digital signal processing (DSP) in the high-speed optical transmission system using single-carrier based multi-level modulation formats. The principle of several digital phase and polarization tracking algorithms recently proposed and demonstrated for future spectrally-efficient optical transmission system are discussed in detail. A novel DSP-based interference mitigation algorithm for the single-ended coherent receiver has been included. Recent technology advance on transmitter-side DSP such as digital pulse-shaping, pre-equalization and digital nonlinear compensation has also been discussed.


ALTO is a concept/project in the exploratory phase since 2013 aiming to build a wide-field VHE gamma-ray observatory at very high altitude in the Southern hemisphere. The operation of such an observatory will complement the Northern hemisphere observations performed by HAWC and will make possible the exploration of the central region of our Galaxy and the hunt for PeVatrons, and to search for extended Galactic objects such as the Vela Supernova Remnant and the Fermi bubbles. The ALTO project is aiming for a substantial improvement of the Water Cherenkov Detection Technique by increasing the altitude of the observatory in order to lower the energy threshold, by using a layer of scintillator below the water tank to optimize the S/B discrimination, by minimizing the size of the tanks and having a more compact array to sample the air-shower footprints with better precision, and by using precise electronics which will provide time-stamped waveforms to improve the angular and energy resolution. ALTO is designed to have as low an energy threshold as possible so as to act as a fast trigger alert to other observatories, primarily to the Southern part of CTA, for transient Galactic and extra-galactic phenomena. The wide FoV resulting from the detection technique allows the survey of a large portion of the sky continuously, thus giving the possibility to access emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts, Active Galactic Nuclei and X-ray binary flares, and extended emissions of both Galactic (Vela SNR, Fermi bubbles) and extra-galactic (AGN radio lobes) origin. The ALTO observatory will be composed of about a thousand detection units, each of which consists of a Water Cherenkov Detector positioned above a liquid Scintillation Detector, distributed within an area of about 200 m in diameter. The project is in the design study phase which is soon to be followed by a prototyping phase.


Computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) are more likely to affect the clinician's behavior when they deliver patient-specific and just-in-time clinical advice. CIGs must take into account the data stored in the patient's electronic medical records (EMR). For chronic diseases, the outcome of past and ongoing treatments (therapeutic history) is used in the clinical guidelines. We propose a model for the conceptualization of therapeutic history, facilitating data sharing between EMRs and CIGs and the representation of therapeutic history and recommended treatments in clinical guidelines.Based on medical literature review and an existing treatment model, a core structure is first defined taking into account drug and non-drug treatment components and treatment type (e.g. bitherapy). These elements together with additional concepts obtained by analyzing a sample guideline relating to diabetes, are then organized into an object-oriented model, using UML formalism.We show how this model can be used to store the patient's therapeutic history in the EMR, together with other attributes such as treatment efficacy and tolerance. We also explain how this model can efficiently code guidelines therapeutic rules.We evaluated this model, using additional guidelines hypercholesterolemia and asthma. We found it capable for representing guideline recommendations in several domains of chronic diseases.


Introduction It is widely accepted that natural resources, for example, clean drinking water, are limited and the current ways of using them are not sustainable (for example, see Conservation International, 2008). In addition, with the mounting scientific evidence for climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007), close scrutiny and debate on the ways of using natural resources including plants in more sustainable manners and with minimal or reduced contribution to climate change have already begun. Human's dependence on crop plants and forestry trees for economic growth and on medicinal or herbal plants for health is undeniably huge. With the dwindling fossil fuels and the associated economic and environmental impacts of using this non-renewable energy resource and stock for chemicals industry, growing plants could take on a new meaning beyond the traditional purpose of feeding, clothing, housing and sourcing medicine for people. Plants (as a biomass resource) could be an alternative renewable energy source and stock for chemicals industry (Martin, 2006). Moreover, growing plants (as a substantial carbon sink), particularly forestry trees, is now considered as at least one of the measures to mitigate the potential effect of climate change (Woodbury et al., 2007; Dore et al., 2008). Recent advances in plant biology and the development of tools in biotechnology including plant tissue culture and molecular biology hold much promise for quest of sustainable economic growth. However, the potential of these tools of biotechnology has apparently not been explored to any great extent with the indigenous plants in the natural environments of different regions. Here, global climate change is seen as a new challenge in addition to others that plants have to cope with. The resilience of native plants grown in the natural environments of different countries to any adverse effects of climate change is largely unknown. This should deserve more close scrutiny as it has been projected that even in the case of minimal climate change as many as 20% species including plants could be endangered and "committed" to a path of extinction by 2050 (Thomas et al., 2004). Therefore, this is selected here to aid a discussion of the potential of plant biotechnology applied to safeguard the sustainability of the wild populations of indigenous plants. Limited natural resources include endangered plants Plants are generally not considered as limited natural resources. However, plants have enemies such as insect pests and plant disease-causing viruses, bacteria and fungi. Some plants as weeds are more aggressive competitors than others. Disastrous abiotic factors such as prolonged drought, flooding, elevating soil salinity and temperature extremes are not only threats to crop plant production but also to indigenous plants in the natural environments including those that are already endangered. Human activities including farming, mining, industrial and urban living have resulted in heavy metal contamination etc. which could further undermine the sustained survival of wild plant populations. Global climate change is the latest challenge that plants in managed and natural environments alike have to cope with. In modern agriculture and forestry, plant protection is a significant investment. Agri-chemicals such as pesticides, fungicides and herbicides are important weapons to achieve the level of plant production as we know it (Wilson and Tisdell, 2001). This practice is unsustainable as there are heavy costs to the environment, biodiversity and public health (Wilson and Tisdell, 2001; Huang et al., 2005). Plant biotechnology based on molecular biology-directed gene transfer (genetic engineering) provides some promising alternative solutions to improve defense abilities or abiotic stress tolerance/resilience of crop plants (Gatehouse, 2008). There is still, however, some lingering public concern about the safety and environmental impact of this technology in some countries, for example, in New Zealand. …


The critical discriminatory event in the activation of T lymphocytes bearing alpha beta T cell receptors (TCRs) is their interaction with a molecular complex consisting of a peptide bound to a major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-encoded class I or class II molecule on the surface of an antigen-presenting cell. The kinetics of binding were measured of a purified TCR to molecular complexes of a purified soluble analog of the murine MHC class I molecule H-2Ld (sH-2Ld) and a synthetic octamer peptide p2CL in a direct, real-time assay based on surface plasmon resonance. The kinetic dissociation rate of the MHC-peptide complex from the TCR was rapid (2.6 x 10(-2) second-1, corresponding to a half-time for dissociation of approximately 27 seconds), and the kinetic association rate was 2.1 x 10(5) M-1 second-1. The equilibrium constant for dissociation was approximately 10(-7) M. These values indicate that TCRs must interact with a multivalent array of MHC-peptide complexes to trigger T cell signaling.


This is a cross-sectional study done in Basrah governorate during the period from the 1stof April to the end of August 2005, in two primary health care centers to identify feeding patterns for children 6-24 months of age, types of complementary foods given to these children and association with the studied children nutritional status. A total of 428 children were recruited in this survey; 205(47.9%) boys and 223(52.1%) girls. The majority of surveyed children (386 children, 90.2%) were receiving complementary foods alone or in combination with other forms of feeding like bottle or breast-feeding. Only 42 children (9.8%) have never been given complementary food. Breast-feeding was given alone or in combination with complementary food or formula feeding in 281 child (65.6%) of the sample. About 15.1% of the studied children were moderately stunted and 9.4% were severely stunted. Severe stunting was most common at the 19-24 month age group. From the total surveyed children, 5.1% were severely wasted and 15.6 % moderately wasted. There was a significant positive correlation between stunting and age. Both stunting and wasting show a statistically significant increase with age. Stunting was increased with increase in age more than wasting which also increased with age but to a lower extent. There was a significant negative correlation between parental education and malnutrition especially stunting as an increase in educational level was associated with a lower proportion of stunted children. For both parents, those who were illiterate or achieved only primary school education represent near half of the total number of families in this survey. Increase in both parental educations was associated with a significant improvement in frequency of different diet administration. About 37.7% and 17.3% of the surveyed children had two or three other siblings aged less than five years respectively. 63.1% of children were given drinking water without sterilization. Complementary food administration is positively correlated with age and negatively correlated with malnutrition. Administered foods were mainly in the form of low energy density food and were low in animal protein. Those children offered complementary foods less frequently are more likely to be malnourished. On the other hand, children who were breastfed were less likely to be malnourished even if complementary foods were not given. This nutritional survey has provided useful information about nutritional problems for children 6-24 months. Malnutrition affects a significant proportion of children from (6-24) months of age. Possible contributing factors include: lack of parental education especially among mothers, poor socioeconomic status of families and use of unsterilized water for drinking. Complementary foods administered to these children consist mainly of low energy density and low animal protein diet. Breast-feeding continues to be a very important as it protects against childhood malnutrition even after 6 months of age and through the second year of life.


In this study, a super-high flexible membrane electrode (FME) was developed via a facile method based on liquid–liquid phase separation involving the migration and self-assembly of the components. Note that the surface segregation and chain orientation of the amphiphilic block copolymer PAA-b-PAN-b-PAA on the membrane surface during the phase separation process provide the hierarchical porous structure and electrolyte-affinity electrode surface; this hierarchical porous structure provides pathways for the electrolyte ions into and from the electrolyte/solution interface for further contact and reaction of the electrochemically active materials with the electrolyte ions. In a three-electrode system, the specific capacitance of FME-Ni(OH)2 can reach up to 2198.6 F g−1 (769.5 C g−1) at the current density of 0.5 A g−1 from 0 to 0.35 V as compared to that for non-flexible Ni(OH)2 (1588.6 F g−1; 556.0 C g−1). Moreover, a flexible asymmetric supercapacitor with FME-Ni(OH)2 as the positive electrode and FME-AC (commercial activated carbon) as the negative electrode showed the high specific capacitance of 102.2 F g−1 (163.5 C g−1) and the maximum energy density of 36.3 W h kg−1 at the power density of 400 W kg−1; moreover, it retained the energy density of 20.6 W h kg−1 at the high power density of 4000 W kg−1 in the potential window ranging from 0 to 1.6 V in a 6 M KOH aqueous solution.


This thesis is an ethnographic exploration of the way in which local actors who engage in Ambedkarite discourses in rural Chhattisgarh are disconnected from the larger pan-Indian social movement. It goes beyond the literature that looks at Dalits in the urban context by focusing on Dalits in rural India. The aspects under investigation are caste, social and sectarian movements, youth, rights, intergenerational difference and education.

The Satnami community examined here is located in a village where they are in more or less the same economic position to other castes. These other castes, however, practice 'distancing' from them to avoid 'pollution', which is a cause for smouldering resentment. Satnamis have been historically militant. They acquired additional land and assert themselves through a sectarian movement. They have their
own functionaries and pilgrimage site. Their sectarian ideology advances the claim that they are independent (swatantra) from other castes and have mitigated exchange
(len-den) with them. Nevertheless, they remain at the bottom of the village caste hierarchy and face everyday forms of caste oppression. Educated Satnamis in the younger generation claim that they know more (jaankar) about their rights (adhikaar) and aspire to change by becoming "key social animators". These young men are organised in an association (samiti/samuh) that draws on Ambedkar's ideas about overcoming caste oppression. They also appropriate mainstream spaces in the village by organising Hindu festivals, and defy 'clean' caste ostracism at a ritual level. But they do not have any functional power in the village or in the panchayat.

When urban Dalit activists, with their headquarters in Raipur, visit rural areas, they ignore this group of young men in the village. Their main activity is fact-finding and the dissemination of reports of caste-motivated atrocities on the Internet with the intention of forging links to NGOs nationally and internationally. They do not focus their attention on mundane forms of caste oppression in everyday village life, and the young men in the village remain hidden from view.

The present study examines how the Dalit movement is functioning at the grass roots level, focusing on those actors in rural India who remain hidden from mainstream channels of activism in the Dalit movement.


Virtual worlds like World of Warcraft (WOW) and Second Life are a cultural and social phenomenon in North America and throughout the networked society. WoW is a virtual world where players assume a character and join other players to campaign and quest in a fantasy-like world of orcs, trolls, gnomes, and elves. Some virtual worlds like WoW contain a role-playing game at the core of the experience in which large numbers of players interact. Game-like virtual worlds are classified as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). WoW is the most popular MMORPG, with ten million players paying a monthly subscription to play the game. (1) Virtual worlds such as Second Life, Active Worlds, and There have similar features to MMORPGs, but at their core they do not contain a game (although games do exist within these virtual worlds). Virtual worlds that are not games are considered to be social virtual worlds. Second Life is the largest social virtual world at the moment, with over fifteen million registered users. (2) Of the three social virtual worlds mentioned here, Second Life will be the focus of this report, as it is currently the most heavily populated, is cross-platform, and has a large community of librarians and educators. From Text-Based Games to 3-D Social Virtual Worlds Since the creation of the first text-based virtual world in 1979, (3) virtual worlds continue to captivate a user base that is co-evolving with the technology to the point that players are just as likely to raid an enemy territory with their guild (a cooperative group of players) as they are to help a library patron find online pedagogy resources from a virtual reference desk. Originally developed as text-based games capable of serving only a handful of users, virtual worlds now feature persistent 3-D worlds with graphical user interfaces providing the ability to interact with other people and objects while experiencing immediate feedback within a world inhabited by millions of users. According to Betsy Book, both game worlds and social virtual worlds share five common features. (4) Virtual worlds are shared spaces used by many players at the same time. Virtual worlds contain a graphical user interface that depicts space visually. Interaction in virtual worlds occurs in real time; users experience immediacy. Virtual worlds allow users the ability to alter the world they are in; the space is interactive. Finally, virtual worlds are persistent worlds; the worlds continue even when a player logs out or quits a game. Book's classification is useful in identifying the similarities between gaming worlds and social worlds, but she ignores both the social and technical evolution and co-evolution of the users of and the technology of virtual worlds. 3-D virtual worlds as they exist today evolved from a lineage of multi-user text-based games played over TelNet dating back to 19797 Although many variations and breakthroughs have occurred since 1979, five milestones can be used to summarize the history of virtual worlds: * Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) * TinyMUDs * MOOs (Multi-User Dungeons Object Orientated) * MMORPGs * 3-D social virtual worlds. Virtual worlds are an evolution of computer programs that were first known as MUDs (figure 1). Dating back to 1979, the first MUDs were text-based, and the interactions, environments, and communication all occurred without graphics. These words were used to describe encounters between the user or player and the virtual world: To the north a cobblestone path stretches out towards what appears to be an ancient battlefield. Along the path wilted trees corral a dense fog as the winds gust with voices of fallen warriors. Players navigated through the MUDs with text commands such as "/walk north" or "/open" to open a door. In text-based MUDs, directional cues such as north, west, south, and east were used to navigate through the virtual world. …


Modern approaches to immigration policies in most developed countries make the problems of adaptation for new arrivals more severe. Protracted failure to adapt among immigrants (and even of their descendants) turns into recurrent problems vis-a-vis the law, and even extends into large scale incidents. With time, immigrant failure to adapt intensifies, while its localization in space extends to increasingly larger areas. Motivation for maintaining non-selective and non-working immigration are available in plenty for many bureaucrats and "leftist politicians"[1]. In conditions of immigration of this kind, many of the immigrants become recipients of state aid, turning into a manipulated electorate. In essence, we are here talking about importing manipulated electorates from countries which lack democratic traditions. The cases of Canada and Australia demonstrates that the mechanism of selective immigration allows for an optimal combination of satisfying labor market needs with moderate costs of adaptation for the new citizens. This means that the costs are moderate for all: for the new immigrants, for their neighbors, and for society as a whole.


Background: Abdominal wall endometriomas are quite uncommon. Awareness of the details of this rare condition is therefore essential for prompt diagnosis and adequate treatment. Introduction: Endometriosis though a condition commonly seen in the pelvic region can also occur at extra-pelvic sites giving rise to a diagnostic dilemma. Case Report: A case of abdominal wall endometrioma diagnosed clinically and treated by wide surgical resection is presented to highlight the importance of clinical evaluation in the diagnosis of this condition. Discussion: The presentation, investigations, and management are discussed briefly. Conclusion: Clinical evaluation confirmed by supportive imaging is diagnostic.


We propose a general framework for goal-driven conversation assistant based on Planning methods. It aims to rapidly build a dialogue agent with less handcrafting and make the more interpretable and efficient dialogue management in various scenarios. By employing the Planning method, dialogue actions can be efficiently defined and reusable, and the transition of the dialogue are managed by a Planner. The proposed framework consists of a pipeline of Natural Language Understanding (intent labeler), Planning of Actions (with a World Model), and Natural Language Generation (learned by an attention-based neural network). We demonstrate our approach by creating conversational agents for several independent domains.


There is growing evidence that face recognition is "special" but less certainty concerning the way in which it is special. The authors review and compare previous proposals and their own more recent hypothesis, that faces are recognized "holistically" (i.e., using relatively less part decomposition than other types of objects). This hypothesis, which can account for a variety of data from experiments on face memory, was tested with 4 new experiments on face perception. A selective attention paradigm and a masking paradigm were used to compare the perception of faces with the perception of inverted faces, words, and houses. Evidence was found of relatively less part-based shape representation for faces. The literatures on machine vision and single unit recording in monkey temporal cortex are also reviewed for converging evidence on face representation. The neuropsychological literature is reviewed for-evidence on the question of whether face representation differs in degree or kind from the representation of other types of objects.


The question Professor Li Wuwei investigates is not 'whether' creativity is changing China - but 'how' creativity is changing China. The outcome will have a profound impact on how China develops and its economic role in the world.

Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.


Abstract : When it comes to Iraqi politics, almost everyone speaks the language of federalism. But the term conceals deep disagreements over the proper distribution of power and resources. With dramatic improvements in Iraq s security environment in 2008, calls to partition the country receded. Indeed, concerns about over-centralization of power in Baghdad came to rival concerns about fragmentation. But whatever the balance of concerns, it is clear that fundamental questions about the structure of the Iraqi state remain unresolved. Will any more semi-autonomous regions like Kurdistan be formed, as the constitution allows? How exactly will power be divided across federal, regional, and provincial governments? Who will control and manage which parts of Iraq s oil wealth? And most important, when the answers to these questions reveal themselves, will they add up to a future for Iraq that is stable and democratic? This paper examines three alternative scenarios for the future of the Iraqi state and argues that measured devolution of power to Iraq s


Launched in 2002 in response to inadequate communications during the anthrax attacks and in preparations to the threats posed by H5N1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework provides health professionals with trainings, tools, and resources to help them communicate effectively during emergencies and public health crises. Since that time, the framework has been used by the organization during outbreaks of infectious diseases. A core argument of CERC is that lack of certainty, efficacy, and trust serve as barriers to compliance with and support in CDC during an outbreak. According to CERC, providing the public with information about health and social risks, as well as information about ways individuals and organizations may ameliorate threats, could counter these perceptions, improve communications, and eventually save lives. However, the dissemination of the organization's crisis messages depends largely on the mass media coverage. Understanding the news media's agenda, priorities and role during outbreaks is essential for improving the cooperation between CDC and journalists. However, CERC provides little information about the actual behavior of journalists during crises, as reflected in news coverage of past outbreaks. This work aims to fill that gap in our understanding of the routinization of news during epidemics and its impact on audiences by systematically analyzing the coverage of epidemics in leading newspapers and using experiments to test its effects. This study analyzed 5,006 articles from leading American newspapers covering three epidemics: H1N1, Ebola, and Zika. Using a mixed method of automated and manual content analysis, it identified three distinct themes used to cover the diseases; pandemic, scientific, and social. Next, manual content analysis was conducted to assess the prevalence of information components theorized by CERC to increase certainty, efficacy and trustinformation about medical/health risks, social/economic disruptions, and potential individual and organizational responses to ameliorate risks and reduce harm. Analysis of the themes based on CERC principles demonstrated substantial discrepancies between what CDC aims to communicate during epidemics and what the media actually disseminated to the public. An experiment (n = 321) found that exposure to articles representing the themes affected perceptions of certainty, efficacy, and trust, that in turn were associated with intentions to comply with CDC. The experiment also demonstrated the ability of coverage that follows CERC principles more closely to reduce harmful perceptions that were associated with behavioral intentions in target audiences. Implications for public health organizations and communicators are discussed, including ways to improve cooperation with journalists and the use of alternative direct-channels for filling gaps in news media coverage. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Communication This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2787 First Advisor Joseph N. Cappella


My thesis examines contemporary manifestations of extraterritoriality and the logic of extraterritorial representation by looking at a concrete study case: the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. On May 31, 2010, a convoy of six vessels carrying humanitarian aid and protesting the Israeli seige of Gaza was attacked in the international waters of the Mediteranean. The Israeli attack began with an attempt to shut down all satellite connections to and from a flotilla, and marked the beginning of a conflict of images. On board the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, the confrontation resulted in the death of ten activists. After taking control of the ships, the Israeli military confiscated all memory cards of cameras, mobile phones, and hard discs. The flotilla has been the subject of national and international procedures ever since, including a court case brought before the Criminal Court at Istanbul in 2012 against senior Israeli commanders, which has been taking place since in absentia. My dissertation investigates the complex logic of the event and its aftermath, focusing on the notion of extraterritoriality—geographical, legal and political, but also visual—in order to reflect on the effort to control vital visual documentation. Viewed from this perspective, extraterritoriality applies not only to people and spaces, as the concept has traditionally been understood, but also may be applied to images when the latter are excluded or exempted from one law system and subjected to another. In the flotilla case, important visual documentation has been kept at a legal distance precisely in order to keep it away from investigations in which it may potentially serve as vital evidence. My suggestion is that the concept of extraterritoriality may help us understand the way in which these images have been legally excluded from public scrutiny, especially in cases involving a conflict between competing legal systems.


We present what we believe to be a novel high-efficiency photonic crystal polarization beam splitter that consists of a polarizing photonic crystal slab embedded in a two-dimensional self-collimating square lattice photonic crystal of air holes in silicon. The polarizing photonic crystal slab with the same lattice constant as the self-collimating photonic crystal background exhibits not only high reflection for transverse electric (TE) and high transmission for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization, but also high extinction ratios for both two-polarization output channels. Moreover, high-efficiency common antireflection structures for both TE and TM polarizations are applied at the input and output ends of the photonic crystal polarization beam splitter, thereby enabling one to achieve a highly efficient photonic crystal polarization beam splitter. It is shown that the primary transmissions exceeding 94.04% for TE and 92.39% for TM polarization output channels are achieved through the proposed photonic crystal polarization beam splitter.


This study examined the relationship between economic structure and energy intensity in selected developed and developing countries of the world. A methodological and systematic approach was adopted to select the thirty-one countries explored in the study. Therefore, to answer the research questions posed in the study, the Granger Causality Technique and the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) method were used. This study discovered that the variables examined in the study showed variations. The variations emerged because of differences in methodologies and analytical frameworks adopted. Errorcorrection models were estimated and used to test for the direction of Granger causality. In the model, a high R2 was observed among the six variables (i.e. energy efficiency, per capita income, manufacturing, average energy prices, energy imports, technological developments), which invariably account for 60.8 percent of the variance in the energy intensity. Based on this, the unidirectional Granger causality runs from efficiency, per capita income and manufacturing to energy intensity. Hence, the price effects are relatively less significant in the causal chain. The result is at variance with the hypothesis that the structure of the economy does not determine its energy intensity. Nevertheless, a unidirectional Granger causality running from economic structure to energy intensity indicates that improvement in the economic structure would encourage a decline in energy intensity.


The term Quality of Service, abbreviated QoS, refers to network resource control mechanisms. Quality of Service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow. This book brings all of the elements of network quality of service (QoS) together in a single volume, saving the reader the time and expense of making multiple purchases. It introduces network QoS, explains the basics, describes the protocols, and discusses advanced topics, by the best and brightest experts in the field. It is a quick and efficient way to bring valuable content together from leading experts in the field while creating a one-stop-shopping opportunity for customers to receive the information they would otherwise need to round up from separate sources. Chapters contributed by recognized experts cover theory and practice of network quality of service (QoS), allowing the reader to develop a new level of knowledge and technical expertise. This title presents methods of analysis and problem-solving techniques, enhancing the reader's grasp of the material and ability to implement practical solutions. Its use of examples illustrate core QoS concepts for enhanced comprehension.


The realities of the present era of globalization and information and communication technologies (ICT) culminating in the African Virtual Library and Information Network (AVLIN) have made it expedient that African information professionals should be able to develop, showcase and make accessible African indigenous information to the knowledge world. This literature-based opinion paper has tried to identify with the view of the conference organizers that "Major digital initiatives involving African content are currently being undertaken by non-African organization without widely accepted protocols and agreement". The paper argues that there is a serious need for a theoretical and policy framework necessary to provide a basis for systematic training of library and information science professionals to place African knowledge on a pedestal that will make it accessible to the world of knowledge. It was found that the library schools in most African universities are ill-equipped to train professionals to handle information in the new digital era. This is exacerbated by the fact that professional associations are not doing enough to retool the existing workforce for the task ahead. The paper recommends, among other things, that much emphasis should be placed on the training of cataloguers and indexers in African research institutions and universities to be able to organize African knowledge and produce information surrogates that will help researchers locate them on the internet.


The analysis of large river networks obtained from digital elevation models has given insight into the variation of channel slope with scale. Investigators have recently suggested that channel slopes are self-similar with magnitude or area as a scaling parameter. Our data indicates otherwise; in particular, the variance of channel slope is larger than that predicted by simple self-similarity. This suggests multiscaling. The scaling exponent for the standard deviation is approximately half the corresponding exponent in the relationship of the slope mean to magnitude or area. A model for channel slopes based on a point process of elevation drops along the channel is presented. The model reproduces observed multiscaling properties when the density of elevation increments is related to area (or magnitude) as A−θ.


We report the application of nitrogen doped carbon (NDC) materials as supports for the SILP catalyzed gas-phase hydroformylation of ethylene. The Rh–xantphos complex, dissolved in [EMIM][NTf2] and dispersed onto commercially available activated carbon yielded low activity. The incorporation of nitrogen functionalities into the surface was achieved via oxidation of the original carbon support followed by reduction with either urea or ammonia. SILP catalysts based on the so-obtained NDC materials provided higher activity in ethylene hydroformylation, while at the same time the formation of undesired aldol condensation products was low. Thus, the performance of the new SILP catalyst on NDC material represents a significant step ahead for a technically relevant, continuous catalytic operation with very high aldehyde selectivity.


Chemical signals are omnipresent in sexual communication in the vast majority of living organisms. The traditional paradigm was that their main purpose in sexual behaviour was to coordinate mate and species recognition and thus pheromones were conserved in structure and function. In recent years, this view has been challenged by theoretical analyses on the evolution of pheromones and empirical reports of mate choice based on chemical signals. The ability to measure precisely the quantity and quality of chemicals emitted by single individuals has also revealed considerable individual variation in chemical composition and release rates, and there is mounting evidence that prospecting mates respond to this variation. Here, we review the evidence for pheromones as indicators of mate quality and examine the extent of their use in individual mate assessment. We begin by briefly defining the levels of mate choice – species recognition, mate recognition and mate assessment. We then explore the degree to which pheromones satisfy the key criteria necessary for their evolution and maintenance as cues in mate assessment; that is, they should exhibit variation across individuals within a sex and species; they should honestly reflect an individual's quality and thus be costly to produce and/or maintain; they should display relatively high levels of heritability. There is now substantial empirical evidence that pheromones can satisfy all these criteria and, while measurements of the actual metabolic cost of pheromone production remain to some degree lacking, trade‐offs between pheromone production and various fitness‐related characters such as growth rate, immunocompetence and longevity have been reported for a range of species. In the penultimate section, we outline the growing number of studies where the consequences of chemical‐based mate assessment have been investigated, specifically focussing on the reported direct and genetic benefits accrued by the receiver. Finally, we highlight potential areas for future research and in particular emphasise the need for interdisciplinary research that combines exploration of chemical, physiological and behavioural processes to further our understanding of the role of chemical cues in mate assessment.


This classic set of essays by Nobel Laureate and leading monetary theorist Milton Friedman presents a coherent view of the role of money, focusing on specific topics related to the empirical analysis of monetary phenomena and policy. The early chapters cover factors determining the real quantity of money held in a community and the welfare implications of policies that affect the quantity held. The following chapters formally restate why quantity analysis has become central to the science of economics. Friedman's presidential address to the American Economic Association, included here, provides a general summary of his views on the role of monetary policy, with an emphasis on its limitations and its possibilities. This theoretical framework is used in examining a number of empirical problems: the demand for money, the explanation of price changes in wartime periods, and the role of money in business cycles. These essays summarize some of the most important results of Friedman's extensive research over the course of his lifetime. The chapters on policy that follow survey the positions of earlier economists and deal with the importance of lags and the implications of destabilizing speculation in foreign markets. Taken as a whole, The Optimum Quantity of Money provides a comprehensive view of the body of monetary theory developed in leading centers of monetary analysis. This work is essential reading for economists and graduate students in the field. The volume will be no less important for practicing business and banking personnel as well. The new statement by Michael Bordo, a student of Friedman's and an expert in the field, provides a sense of where the field now stands in the economy and academy.


The "watershed" doctrine gives prisoners a constitutional basis to reopen their cases based on a new due process protection that would have made a difference had it been announced before their appeals were exhausted. The Supreme Court has imposed nearly impossible conditions, however, for any new rule of criminal procedure to apply retroactively to a final conviction or sentence. No such rule can be backdated unless it enhances not only the accuracy of criminal verdicts, but also "our very understanding of the bedrock" tenets of fairness in criminal trials. The Court refers to rules that satisfy both these requirements as "watersheds." In the quarter-century since it established this doctrine, the Court has denied the accuracy-and-fairness credentials to every one of the dozens of new rules it has characterized as procedural and whose watershed status it has considered. Scholarly consensus accordingly casts watershed doctrine as exceptional, esoteric, and insignificant.This Article challenges that consensus. We use the dynamic concentration model of game theory to show how watershed doctrine counteracts the structural undersupply of constitutional due process rules. The Court maintains too small a caseload to scrutinize more than a fraction of due process violations or specify every such procedural demand. That institution is accordingly ill equipped to rein in the punitive tendencies of elected state judges who owe their jobs to electorates that tend to value crime prevention more than defendants' rights. Watershed doctrine potentially mitigates this enforcement problem by creating an extreme, if low-probability, threat of repealing scores of final convictions. By issuing a single new watershed rule, the Court can mandate sweeping retrials or release of prisoners into the public. This existential threat provides an overlooked reason why state courts might insulate their states' criminal procedures against Supreme Court incursions. To achieve the desired insulation, state courts can create constitutional safe harbors by trying to align their procedures with watersheds they project the Court might announce in the future. Indirect support for this theory comes from our comprehensive study of the hundreds of watershed decisions that state courts have issued since 1989. We narrowed this list down to the 228 controlling decisions about whether to backdate distinct due process rules across different jurisdictions. Our analysis found that 27, or more than one in nine, of these decisions inflate the retroactivity rights of criminal defendants.


We describe a Markov chain method for sampling from the distribution of the hidden state sequence in a non-linear dynamical system, given a sequence of observations. This method updates all states in the sequence simultaneously using an embedded Hidden Markov Model (HMM). An update begins with the creation of "pools" of candidate states at each time. We then define an embedded HMM whose states are indexes within these pools. Using a forward-backward dynamic programming algorithm, we can efficiently choose a state sequence with the appropriate probabilities from the exponentially large number of state sequences that pass through states in these pools. We illustrate the method in a simple one-dimensional example, and in an example showing how an embedded HMM can be used to in effect discretize the state space without any discretization error. We also compare the embedded HMM to a particle smoother on a more substantial problem of inferring human motion from 2D traces of markers.


In recently developed high-efficiency metal organometal halide perovskite solar cells (PVSCs), electron and hole transporting materials have shown key roles in determining the growth of perovskite crystals, as well as the performance and stability of the device. However, interlayer materials which can facilitate both high efficiency and stability at low cost are still limited. Here, we demonstrate that, by controlling the thickness of solution-processed graphene oxide (GO), one can achieve a balance of high work function and conductivity. Using GO with the optimized thickness as a hole-transporting material (HTM) in PVSCs, a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.5% with no hysteresis has been achieved with excellent light-soaking photocurrent stability in comparison with a commonly used organic-based HTM. Under high humidity and continuous light soaking, the encapsulated perovskite devices retained >80% of their initial efficiency for >2000 h. Detailed studies on the GO binding energy, charge transfer efficiency with perovskite, and crystal morphology shed light on the origin of the observed improvement in photovoltaic performance. Benefiting from the merits of low temperature, solution processability and low cost, the proposed GO fabrication methods could aid scalable production of PVSCs with high PCE and excellent stability.


This work presents a comparison study of measurements of power quality, with emphasis on voltage and current distortion, at two locations in the same windpark, located in northern Sweden. Emissions at both locations are compared based on both harmonics and interharmonics. A complete picture of spectrum during the measurement is presented to show the variations of emission in the windpark. Some dominating harmonics are further analyzed.


5-methylcytosine is an important epigenetic modification involved in gene control in vertebrates and many other complex living organisms. Its presence in Drosophila has been a matter of debate and recent bisulfite sequencing studies of early-stage fly embryos have concluded that the genome of Drosophila is essentially unmethylated. However, as we outline here, the Drosophila genome harbors a well-conserved homolog of the TET protein family. The mammalian orthologs TET1/2/3 are known to convert 5-methylcytosine into 5-hydroxymethylcytosine. We discuss several possible explanations for these seemingly contradictory findings. One possibility is that the 2 modified cytosine bases are generated in Drosophila only at certain developmental stages and in a cell type-specific manner during neurogenesis. Alternatively, Drosophila Tet and its mammalian homologs may carry out catalytic activity-independent functions, and the possibility that these proteins may oxidize 5-methylcytosine in RNA created by the methyltransferase Dnmt2 should also be strongly considered.


Second harmonic generation in an air-silica microstructured optical fiber pumped by subnanosecond pulses is used in order to initiate modulation instability processes in normal and anomalous dispersion regimes. This allows us to generate an ultra wide and flat supercontinuum (350-1750 nm), covering the entire transparency window of silica and exhibiting a singlemode transverse profile in visible range.


We introduce a novel and useful concept in stochastic excitation spectroscopy:  a pair of complementary noises. This concept realizes a constant power-spectral density over the frequency region of interest by combining two power spectral densities that are complementary to each other. Consequently the pair is free from the limitations associated with a pseudo-random binary code and white noise; the pair is generated in a flexible manner and needs no ensemble averaging to reduce the power-spectral fluctuations. Our theory was supported by the experimental results with the magnetic resonances of Rb atoms.


Research on the alignment of F0 movements has shown that they align with the segmental string. This is the "segmental anchoring" hypothesis. In addition, research on the duration of segments at the edges of prosodic domains has shown that duration is a robust cue for the demarcation of prosodic levels, however, the exact operation of those cues under different conditions is still a matter of research. This paper addresses the question of how the alignment of F0 of prenuclear pitch accents and the duration of segments in Prosodic Words of Greek might interact, when produced under different prosodic boundary and lexical stress placements. We used Prosodic Words of the short "article + noun + clitic", bearing an L*+H prenuclear pitch accent. From the results for the duration of the segments of the prosodic word we did not find support for mechanisms that have been found to operate on other languages, such as English and Dutch. The mechanisms examined were those of preboundary lengthening, polysyllabic shortening, accentual lengthening and articulatory strengthening. We found that the proclitic is shorter than the enclitic, which indicated a shortening of the proclitic. We also showed that the distance of the stress and pitch accent from the prosodic boundary causes a change on the duration of the segments of the noun of the prosodic word. That is, segments belonging to a word with stress further away from the boundary are longer than the ones with stress closer to the boundary. Regarding the alignment of F0 movements, we found that the Low tone aligns with the onset of the accented syllable, but is influenced by the existence of a word boundary. Surprisingly, we found that the H tone is not influenced by the existence of a prosodic boundary and aligns after the onset of the first postaccentual vowel, regardless of whether the clitic is a proclitic or an enclitic. Position of stress seemed to influence the alignment of the F0 movements as well, since when the pitch accent lay further away from the prosodic boundary there was more time for the rise from L to H to take place.


In this paper we propose a novel approach for ensemble construction based on the use of nonlinear projections to achieve both accuracy and diversity of individual classifiers. The proposed approach combines the philosophy of boosting, putting more effort on difficult instances, with the basis of the random subspace method. Our main contribution is that instead of using a random subspace, we construct a projection taking into account the instances which have posed most difficulties to previous classifiers. In this way, consecutive nonlinear projections are created by a neural network trained using only incorrectly classified instances. The feature subspace induced by the hidden layer of this network is used as the input space to a new classifier. The method is compared with bagging and boosting techniques, showing an improved performance on a large set of 44 problems from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. An additional study showed that the proposed approach is less sensitive to noise in the data than boosting methods.


Introduction: Posttrauma nightmares are highly problematic and treatment resistant symptoms that can occur after an individual experiences a traumatic event. Posttrauma nightmares can occur as frequently as 4-6 times per week, but often occur in a seemingly random pattern. Although these parasomnias are quite prevalent in trauma survivors, very little is known about the mechanisms underlying their sporadic occurrence. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate potential triggers of posttrauma nightmares. Methods: The current study consisted of 27 female college students who reported frequently experiencing posttrauma nightmares related to a sexual trauma. Approximately half of the sample was recruited from an introduction to psychology participant pool and half from clinical referrals. Participants completed an initial assessment battery as well as 6 consecutive days of pre and postsleep diaries, which included measures of potential triggers of posttrauma nightmares as well as measures intended to assess sleep quality and posttrauma nightmare occurrence. Descriptive statistics, mean comparison analyses, mixed effects logistical regressions, and moderation analyses were used to examine the data. Results: Overall, the sample consisted of high levels of general psychopathology and 28 posttrauma nightmares were reported. Results suggest that presleep cognitive arousal and sleep latency both predict the occurrence of posttrauma nightmares. Further, moderation results suggest that presleep cognitive arousal moderates the relationship between sleep latency and posttrauma nightmare occurrence. Conclusion: Overall, the results of this study are the first to report that presleep cognitive arousal and sleep latency, both individually and combined may influence the occurrence of a posttrauma nightmare.


The article discusses the problem of resource deterioration and the exhaustion of natural resources as well as the involvement in economic circulation of waste production, resources of technogenic deposits in order to maintain natural capital and support "green†economic growth. This necessitates the development of the mechanism for the environmental management optimization. This mechanism aims at using technogenic deposits in the economy to decrease of both the nature intensity of production and the cost of production. Furthermore, the environmental management optimization should reduce the negative impact of production on the environment. The authors propose to construct a model of economic relevance for the use of waste based on the theory of sustainable development and the theory of substitution of primary natural resources. Under substitutes, we consider useful products, resources from technogenic deposits, resulting from past economic activities. The article considers the problem of accumulation of municipal solid waste and industrial wastes in the regions of Russia in terms of forming and operating the ever-growing technogenic deposits. The authors propose a set of models for the optimum exploitation of technogenic deposits taking into account various factors of the external and internal environment as well as the time factor. The proposed models allow to substantiate and choose the best technologies for the processing of accumulated waste in terms of the reduction of pollution and "green†revenues from the exploitation of technogenic deposits. To account the probabilistic assessments of the geological structure of the technogenic deposits, we propose to use a combination of Monte-Carlo method and of developed optimization models. The authors describe the calculation results and the prospects for the development of a comprehensive model using regional technogenic deposits. The results of the research allow forming an optimal set of projects for waste processing and rehabilitation of disturbed territories at the regional level. The proposed economic and mathematical tools will be useful for updating the federal target program "Elimination of accumulated environmental damage†for 2015–2026.


Post Celtic Tiger Landscapes in Irish Fiction discusses the representations of place and landscape in Irish fiction since 2008. It includes novels and short stories by William Trevor, Dermot Bolger, Anne Enright, Donal Ryan, Claire Kilroy, Kevin Barry, Gerard Donovan, Danielle McLaughlin, Trisha McKinney, Billy O'Callaghan and Colum McCann. In the light of writings by geographers, anthropologists and philosophers such as Doreen Massey, Tim Ingold, Giorgio Agamben and Jeff Malpas, this book looks at the metamorphoses of place and landscape representations in fiction by confirmed or debut authors, in the aftermath of a crisis with deep economic as well as cultural consequences for Irish society. It shows what place and landscape representations reveal of the past, while discussing the way notions such as boundedness, openness and emergence can contribute to thinking out space and place and designing future landscapes.


Estimates of the amount of secondary organic aerosol formed in the atmosphere from the degradation of traffic C 6 -C 12 hydrocarbon emissions in the city of Athens are presented. Around 1.26 tn of organic aerosol is estimated to be produced during a six hours air pollution episode from the aromatic hydrocarbons, the other NMHC groups contributing an additional 0.2 tn. The main contributor to the SOA production is m-xylene. It accounts, together with toluene, for around 50% of the produced organic aerosol. The main aerosol products that are expected to form from the Athens NMHC traffic mixture are nitrophenols. Due to predominant wind flow to the S-SE direction in the area, a portion of these aerosols is likely to contribute to the SOA burden of the marine atmosphere over SE Mediterranean. These results are also relevant to ozone abatement strategies involving species-specific NMHC reductions and affecting fine particulate composition and concentrations.


Executing production system programs involves directly or indirectly executing an interpretive match/select/act cycle. An optimal compilation of a production system program would generate code that requires no appeal to an interpreter to mediate control. However, while a great deal of implicit control information is available in rule-based programs, it is generally impossible to avoid deferring some decisions to run-time. We introduce an approach that may resolve this problem. We propose an execution model that permits the execution of the usual cycle when necessary and otherwise executes procedural functions. The system is best characterized as a rule rewrite system where rules are replaced with chunks, such that the chunks may have procedural components. Correctness for replacement of rules is derived by a constrained abstract evaluation of the entire program via a general-purpose theorem prover at compile time. The analysis gives a global dependency analysis of the interaction of each of the rules. For a group of popular benchmark programs, we show that there is ample opportunity to automatically sub stitute interpretive pattern matching with procedural elements and a concomitant improvement in performance.


Purpose

– Aims to examine judicial attitudes to current surveying practice in rights to light disputes. Tests the assumption that the use of the Waldram methodology is endorsed by the courts and seeks to establish whether, despite its acknowledged limitations, its continued use can be justified on this basis.

Design/methodology/approach

– Analyses reported judgments.

Findings

– Neither the 50‐50 rule, nor any other aspect of the Waldram methodology, has the status of a rule of law, or is otherwise approved of by the courts. On the contrary, the methodology has been the subject of judicial criticism. Although the courts frequently rely on the expert evidence presented to them, they have consistently expressed disquiet over aspects of the methodology. Particular concerns have been expressed over its inability to cater for the effects of sunlight and externally reflected light, on its dependence on internal room design, and on its failure to distinguish task illumination from general room lighting. There is also no indication that the judiciary are aware of the extent to which the Waldram threshold of adequate illuminance falls short of that prescribed by contemporary standards. The paper concludes that the courts' attitudes to the Waldram methodology cannot therefore justify its continued use by surveyors, either when acting in the capacity of expert witness, or when advising clients who may be contemplating litigation in a rights to light dispute.

Research limitations/implications

– Makes a further contribution to the debate, started in this journal in 2000, about the future of surveying practice in rights to light disputes.

Practical implications

– Places new information in the public domain which has implications for judges in future rights to light cases, and for the professional liability of surveyors when advising clients in contemplation of possible rights to light litigation.

Originality/value

– Presents the first comprehensive analysis of judicial attitudes to modern rights to light surveying practice since its introduction in the early part of the twentieth century.


The failure to accurately predict peak discharge can cause large errors in risk analysis that may lead to damage to structures and in some cases, death. Creating linear regression (LR) equations that accurately predict peak discharges without historic data provides a method to estimate flood peaks in ungauged watersheds on the North Slope of Alaska. This thesis looks at the independent variables that drive, or are significant in predicting snowmelt peak discharge in the North Slope watersheds. The LR equations created use independent variables from meteorological data and physiographic data collected from four watersheds, Putuligayuk River, Upper Kuparuk River, Imnavait Creek and Roche Moutonnee Creek. Meteorological data include snow water equivalent (SWE), total precipitation, rainfall, storage, length of melt. Physiographic data summarize watershed area (2.2 km2 to 471 km2) and slope (0.15:100 to 2.7:100). This thesis compared various Flood Frequency Analysis techniques, starting with Bulletin 17B, multiple USGS regional methods and finally created LR equations for each watershed as well as all four watersheds combined. Five LR equations were created, three of the LR equations found SWE to be a significant predictor of peak flows. The first equation to estimate peak flows for all watersheds used only area and had a high R 2 value of 0.72. The second equation for all watersheds included area and a meteorological independent variable, SWE. While the evidence presented here is quite promising that meteorological and physiographic data can be useful in estimating peak flows in ungauged arctic watersheds, the limitations of using only four watersheds to determine the equations call for further testing and verification. More validation studies will be needed to demonstrate that viable equations may be applied to all watersheds on the North Slope of Alaska.


Abstract. Within the NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change), more than 20 FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared) spectrometers, spread worldwide, provide long-term data records of many atmospheric trace gases. We present a method that uses measured and modelled XCO2 for assessing the consistency of these NDACC data records. Our XCO2 retrieval setup is kept simple so that it can easily be adopted for any NDACC/FTIR-like measurement made since the late 1950s. By a comparison to coincident TCCON (Total Carbon Column Observing Network) measurements, we empirically demonstrate the useful quality of this suggested NDACC XCO2 product (empirically obtained scatter between TCCON and NDACC is about 4‰ for daily mean as well as monthly mean comparisons, and the bias is 25‰). Our XCO2 model is a simple regression model fitted to CarbonTracker results and the Mauna Loa CO2 in situ records. A comparison to TCCON data suggests an uncertainty of the model for monthly mean data of below 3‰. We apply the method to the NDACC/FTIR spectra that are used within the project MUSICA (multi-platform remote sensing of isotopologues for investigating the cycle of atmospheric water) and demonstrate that there is a good consistency for these globally representative set of spectra measured since 1996: the scatter between the modelled and measured XCO2 on a yearly time scale is only 3‰.


We consider the use of linear splines with variable knots for the approximation of unknown functions from data, motivated by control and estimation problems arising in color systems management. Unlike most popular nonlinear-in-parameters representations, piecewise linear (PL) functions can be simply inverted in a closed form. For the one-dimensional case, we present a study comparing PL and neural network (NN) approximations for several function families. Preliminary results suggest that PL, in addition to their analytical benefits, are at least competitive with NN in terms of sum square error, computational effort and training time.


A novel strategy involving judiciously fusing one thiophene/thieno[3,2-b]thiophene on only one side of an indacenodithiophene (IDT) unit to extend IDT backbone conjugation was developed, and three A–D–A type non-fullerene small molecules (TPT-2F, TPTT-2F, and TPTTT-2F) were designed and synthesized to investigate the influence of the extent of IDT core conjugation on their photovoltaic properties. Extending the IDT core conjugation could broaden absorption, upshift the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy level, enhance electron mobility, and increase intermolecular π–π stacking. When these three non-fullerene acceptors were applied in organic solar cells (OSCs), simultaneous enhancement of the open-circuit voltage (Voc), short-circuit current (Jsc), and fill factor (FF) was obtained, with the degree of enhancement following the order TPT-2F < TPTT-2F < TPTTT-2F. As a result, the TPTTT-2F based OSCs yielded a high PCE of 12.03%. To the best of our knowledge, the PCE of 12.03% is among the highest values for asymmetric non-fullerene acceptor based OSCs so far. These results demonstrate that extending the conjugation of the IDT core is an effective approach to design highly efficient asymmetric non-fullerene acceptors.


We present a sequence of two-period models of incentive-based compensation in order to understand how the properties of optimal compensation structures vary with changes in the model environment. Each model corresponds to a different occupation within a bank, such as credit line managers, loan originators, or traders. All models share a common trait: the effects of hidden actions are persistent, and hence are revealed over time. We characterize the corresponding optimal contracts that are consistent with prudent risk taking. We compare the contracts by ranking them according to the average wage, the proportion of deferred compensation, and the structure and importance of variable pay (bonuses). We also compare these characteristics of the models with persistence with those of a standard repeated moral hazard. We find that small changes in the structure of asymmetric information have important implications for the characteristics of optimal pay, and that persistence does not necessarily imply a higher proportion of deferred pay.


Suspended matter comes into the North Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, from the Channel, rivers, seafloor erosion, coastal erosion, the atmosphere, and from primary production. The contribution of the last source is temporarily large when phytoplankton growth is abundant, but is soon decomposed, mineralized or consumed so that over the year the net effect is small. Accumulation and deposition of suspended matter occurs predominantly in only a few areas (the Waddensea, the German Bight, the Skagerrak/Norwegian Channel). The remainder of the North Sea floor consists of Pleistocene and Early Holocene relict deposits and of reworked sands and gravels. The mechanisms resulting in accumulation and deposition are discussed. There are strong indications that the amount of suspended matter flowing out from the North Sea into the Norwegian Sea along the Norwegian coast is only little more, or the same, as the amount coming in from the North Atlantic, although its composition may be different.


This chapter brings new evidence on the relationship between short-term labour mobility, as proxied by tourism flows, and innovation in Africa. Using data from 34 African countries over the period 2011-2016 sourced from the World Bank's Enterprise Survey, we find that short–term mobility positively contributes to innovation, making this a potentially effective channel for economic development alongside established determinants such as investments in R&D, foreign direct investments, and trade. Short-term labour mobility thus emerges in Africa, too, as a prospective policy lever to generate new productive knowledge and promote sustainable economic growth.


Banksia is a genus of more than 90 taxa, many of which are common and characteristic in sclerophyll communities in eastern and south-western Australia. Cladistic analyses based on morphological and anatomical characters were used to resolve relationships in the genus. An initial analysis of 35 terminal taxa, including 9 infrageneric taxa assumed to be monophyletic on the basis of one or more synapomorphies, allowed resolution of basal nodes. Subsequent analyses of the putatively monophyletic infrageneric taxa allowed resolution of distal nodes. Some of these lower-level analyses used a mixture of qualitative characters and coded morphometric characters. Together, the analyses afforded a high degree of resolution within the genus, although relationships of some taxa were not well supported. A new infrageneric classification, in which Banksia is divided into 2 subgenera, 12 series and 11 subseries, is proposed. The classification is broadly similar to previously published classifications of the genus, but discards a number of taxa shown to be para- or poly-phyletic. The following new names are published: Banksia series Lindleyanae K.Thiele, series Ochraceae K.Thiele, subseries Leptophyllae K.Thiele, subseries Longistyles K.Thiele, subseries Nutantes K.Thiele, subseries Sphaerocarpae K.Thiele, subseries Cratistyles K.Thiele, subseries Acclives K.Thiele, subseries Integrifoliae K.Thiele, subseries Ericifoliae K.Thiele, subseries Occidentales K.Thiele and subseries Spinulosae K.Thiele. New combinations are provided for Banksia penicillata (A.S.George) K.Thiele, B. brevidentata (A.S.George) K.Thiele, B. hiemalis (A.S.George) K.Thiele and B. dolichostyla (A.S.George) K.Thiele.


The field of executive coaching has grown in popularity as a developmental tool for leaders. With the potential for a leadership continuity gap and the desire for organizations to strengthen leadership talent pools to prepare for succession planning, there is a need for empirical research regarding the effectiveness of executive coaching. The aim of this mixed method study was to explore the factors that contribute to successful coaching outcomes. The combination of an online survey of 68 high potential leaders and follow up interviews with 40 of those same leaders yielded information about the coaching experience. The results showed a correlation between the number of years a leader was with the company and his or her perception of a positive coaching experience. In addition, the total amount of time the coach and the leader spent together was correlated with the perception of a positive coaching experience. Finally, most leaders noted that exceptional coaches demonstrated professionalism in several ways, such as listening to the client, showing an interest in the client and their development, and providing advice and helpful suggestions. A better understanding of the factors that promote successful outcomes for high potential leaders will assist coaches in having positive impact on client and organizational performance. This study is unique in that it examines coaching in the context of a larger intervention, a leadership development program, using HR professionals as internal coaches with high potential leaders. For organizations using coaching in this fashion, this study addresses gaps in the literature, which was an impetus for this research. Additional research might be valuable on how coaching clients define a successful coaching outcome, a client's readiness to change, the coach-client relationship, and factors that promote sustained behavior change in a leader.


This notice provides the updated adjusted standardized amounts, DRG relative weights, outlier thresholds, and beneficiary cost-share per diem rates to be used for FY 1995 under the CHAMPUS DRG-based payment system. It also describes the non-regulatory changes made to the CHAMPUS DRG-based payment system in order to conform to changes made to the Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS).


In an effort to produce effective thermoelectric nanocomposites with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), layer-by-layer assembly was combined with electrochemical polymerization to create synergy that would produce a high power factor. Nanolayers of MWCNT stabilized with poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) or sodium deoxycholate were alternately deposited from water. Poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) [PEDOT] was then synthesized electrochemically by using this MWCNT-based multilayer thin film as the working electrode. Microscopic images show a homogeneous distribution of PEDOT around the MWCNT. The electrical resistance, conductivity (σ) and Seebeck coefficient (S) were measured before and after the PEDOT polymerization. A 30 bilayer MWCNT film (<1 μm thick) infused with PEDOT is shown to achieve a power factor (PF = S2σ) of 155 μW/m K2, which is the highest value ever reported for a completely organic MWCNT-based material and competitive with lead telluride at room temperature. The ability of this MWCNT-PEDOT film to generate power was demonstrated with a cylindrical thermoelectric generator that produced 5.5 μW with a 30 K temperature differential. This unique nanocomposite, prepared from water with relatively inexpensive ingredients, should open up new opportunities to recycle waste heat in portable/wearable electronics and other applications where low weight and mechanical flexibility are needed.


We study the impact of media bias on tax compliance. Through a framed laboratory experiment, we assess how the exposure to biased news about government action affects compliance in a repeated taxation game. Subjects treated with positive news are significantly more compliant than the control group. The exposure to negative news, instead, does not prompt any significant reaction in respect to the neutral condition, suggesting that participants perceive the media negativity bias in the selection and tonality of news as the norm rather than the exception. Overall, our results suggest that biased news act as a constant source of psychological priming and play a vital role in taxpayers' compliance decisions.


The objective of the present study was to investigate if piezoelectric techniques or sensors can be used in monitoring structural degradation. The study considers experimental results and analytical modelling of a ductile structure under tensile and cyclic loading. Throughout the project the emphasis was placed on the effectiveness of strain measuring sensors. Conventional tensile testing was conducted using a Lloyds testing machine. The testing machine was calibrated to have a lateral movement of 2mm/min (tension force). Rectangular plates were pulled in tension until failure. From that experimental data was produced for a uni-axial loading system. Cyclic testing was carried out using an in-house designed and manufactured fatigue machine. It produced a reciprocating load (force) of 25rad/s on a rectangular plate. Two different sensor measuring instruments (strain gauge and piezoelectric) were used. The strain gauge sensor was attached to a specimen and connected to a Wheatstone bridge. The piezoelectric sensor was attached to the specimen and then linked directly to the capturing system. From these two sensors experimental results were obtained and compared. The mathematical relationships for the rectangular plates were formulated using effective stress-strain behaviour based on the elastic and plastic behaviour of the plates. The analytical and experimental results were compared. Results from this investigation show that piezoelectric sensors can be useful for measuring fatigue failure on a ductile material.


Alumina microcomponents have distinguishing advantages over Si counterparts. However, the shrinkage of alumina, as high as 20%, makes it difficult to produce precision components that require a high tolerance. A new fabrication process is presented to greatly reduce the shrinkage. The process consists of forming an Al powdered component through sintering and transforming the Al powdered component into an alumina part. In this way, the shrinkage occurring in sintering the Al powder component will be compensated by the expansion occurred when Al transforms into alumina. The process involves producing micro-moulds, preparing metallic paste, filling the micro-moulds with the metallic paste, demoulding, sintering the green Al patterns and finally oxidising the sintered Al-based components to achieve alumina components. The process was proven successful. Characterization of the sintered alumina microcomponents has been undertaken, including SEM image analysis, density and scale measurements.


Anisotropic structural and magnetic properties of the field-aligned superconducting system SmFeAsO1−xFx (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3) are reported. Due to the Fe spin-orbital related anisotropic exchange coupling, all the tetragonal microcrystalline powders in epoxy were aligned at room temperature using the field-rotation method where the tetragonal ab-plane is parallel to the magnetic alignment field Ba of 0.9 T and the c-axis parallels to the rotating axis. Anisotropic magnetic properties are studied through low temperature magnetic measurements along the c-axis and paralleled to the ab-plane of aligned samples in both zero-field-cooled (ZFC) and field-cooled (FC) modes. The under-doped compound (x = 0.1) is not superconducting with an antiferromagnetic Néel temperature TN ~ 40 K, while the two optimum-doped compounds (x = 0.2 and 0.25) show high superconducting transition temperatures Tc of 49K and 50K, respectively. The variation of anisotropic structural and magnetic properties for this system are discussed and compared with the previously reported 52 K anisotropic superconductor Sm0.95La0.05FeAsO0.85F0.15.


We present recent results that demonstrate the power of viewing the problem of V-formation in a flock of birds as one of Model Predictive Control (MPC). The V-formation-MPC marriage can be understood in terms of the problem of synthesizing an optimal plan for a continuous-space and continuous-time Markov decision process (MDP), where the goal is to reach a target state that minimizes a given cost function. First, we consider ARES, an approximation algorithm for generating optimal plans (action sequences) that take an initial state of an MDP to a state whose cost is below a specified (convergence) threshold. ARES uses Particle Swarm Optimization, with adaptive sizing for both the receding horizon and the particle swarm. Inspired by Importance Splitting, the length of the horizon and the number of particles are chosen such that at least one particle reaches a next-level state. ARES can alternatively be viewed as a model-predictive control (MPC) algorithm that utilizes an adaptive receding horizon, aka Adaptive MPC (AMPC). We next present Distributed AMPC (DAMPC), a distributed version of AMPC that works with local neighborhoods. We introduce adaptive neighborhood resizing, whereby the neighborhood size is determined by the cost-based Lyapunov function evaluated over a global system state. Our experiments show that DAMPC can perform almost as well as centralized AMPC, while using only local information and a form of distributed consensus in each time step. Finally, inspired by security attacks on cyber-physical systems, we introduce controller-attacker games (CAG), where two players, a controller and an attacker, have antagonistic objectives. We formulate a special case of CAG called V-formation games, where the attacker's goal is to prevent the controller from attaining V-formation. We demonstrate how adaptation in the design of the controller helps in overcoming certain attacks.


"Homeland Security: A Documentary History" provides a rich and relevant exploration of the concept of 'homeland security' throughout the nation's history, leading up to an examination of the new Homeland Security Department and its mission and impact. This essential reference was recently selected as one of the Best Reference Works of 2005 by the New York Public Library System. The Homeland Security Department was created in 2002 and involved the largest restructuring of the federal government in over forty years. Yet American institutions and officials have responded to homeland security issues throughout the life of the nation, for example, with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. "Homeland Security" explores the concept and challenges of homeland security through government reports, budget proposals, public affairs campaigns and press releases, speeches, testimony, and other primary sources. Themes covered include: historical homeland security issues and responses; process for creating a new executive department and changing institutions and bureaucracies; steps, major debates, and events leading up to the creation of the Department; impact on governmental institutions and employees, such as Congress and its committees and structure, federal and state bureaucracies, and civil servants; budgetary implications at the federal and state levels; challenges and ramifications for citizens and civil liberties; and missions and goals, such as aviation and border security, crisis planning, and citizen preparedness. Supplemented with a chronology, print and web resource list, and an index, "Homeland Security" is unique in exploring historical antecedents as well as the Department's impact on political institutions and the ways Americans live and govern. It is perfect for undergraduates in political science and journalism programs, AP Social Studies students, and public library patrons.


In this thesis, the recent advances in studies on rare-earth metal intercalated fullerene solids with emphasis on their structural, electronic, and magnetic properties. The investigations on the rare-earth based fullerides have been concentrated on their structural, electronic, and magnetic properties. Intercalation of C(_60) with rare-earth metals results in interesting compounds not only for the appearance of superconductivity but also for the magnetic properties and mixed valence phenomena related to the localised 4f electrons. Of particular interest, I discuss the results obtained from various experiments on rare-earth based mixed valence fullerides, of which displays a remarkable sensitivity of rare-earth valency to external stimuli, such as temperature and pressure. Among the family of rare-earth fullerides, Sm(_2.75)C(_60) was the first known molecular-based material to show valence fluctuation associated with the highly-correlated narrow-band behaviour of the 4f electrons in Sm ions. Improvement in the synthetic technique to produce single-phase rare-earth doped fullerides have opened the way to carry out detailed and systematic study of the structural properties of the RE(_2.75)C(_60) (RE = Sm, Eu, and Yb) as a function of temperature and pressure, which were carried out using the synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction technique. The obtained results have lead us to find a rich variety of temperature- and pressure-driven abrupt or continuous valence transitions. In addition, we have observed that by taking precise control on the nature of dopants, the tuning of the onset temperature and pressure of this valence transition were possible. Direct measurements on the valence states of the rare-earth ions in the fulleride salts as a function of temperature were carried out using X-ray absorption spectroscopy using the alkaline-earth and rare-earth mixed compound, (Sm(_2/3)Ca9_1/3))(_2.75) C(_60). The obtained spectra have provided clear evidence to confirm the electronic nature of the low-temperature first-order valence transition.


Management practices, such as no-tillage (NT) and high-intensity cropping sequences, have the potential to enhance C and N sequestration in agricultural soils. The objectives of this study were to investigate the impacts of conventional-tillage (CT), NT, and multiple cropping sequences on soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (SON) sequestration and on distribution within aggregate-size fractions in a southcentral Texas soil after 20 yr of treatment imposition. No-tillage management increased soil aggregation compared with CT, with the bulk of SOC and SON storage present in larger aggregate-size fractions (>2 mm, 250 μm to 2 mm) at both soil depths. Multiple cropping systems, such as a grain sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moendl]/ wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)/soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr] (SWS) rotation and a wheat/soybean (WS) doublecrop had the highest SOC and SON storage, while the continuous monoculture soybean treatment had the lowest storage. Soil organic C and SON storage were significantly greater under NT than CT for all cropping sequences at 0 to 5 cm and for SWS and WS at 5 to 15 cm. At the 0- to 5-cm depth, NT increased SOC storage by 64% and SON storage by 76% compared with CT. However, at 5 to 15 cm, NT only increased SOC storage by 28% and SON storage by 40%. The use of NT showed a greater impact for increasing SON storage than for SOC storage, suggesting that N cycling is an important factor related to soil C sequestration potential.


Chapter 3 provides a discussion of key regional dimensions of, and developments in, migration. The discussion focuses on six world regions, namely Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America and Oceania. For each of these regions, the analysis includes: 1) An overview and brief discussion of key population-related statistics; and
 2)Succinct descriptions of "key features and developments" in migration in the region, based on a wide range of data, information and analyses, including from international organizations, researchers and analysts.

Overall, the chapter points to important differences across regions and subregions, as well as growing complexities in migration dynamics around the world. These differences and complexities (some of which are specific to place and time, while others are relatively common across regions) raise important questions and challenges for supranational and global policymaking. For example, fundamental differences in migration experiences and dynamics across regions need to be considered when discussing desirable regimes for the global governance of international migration. Differences can also have implications for applying good practices and in ensuring that governance approaches are tailored to meet regional dimensions. Similarly, growing complexities in migration dynamics create direct challenges for national regulators and have important consequences for the most desirable forms of governance and cooperation across countries.


CD40 signaling to B cells is important for generating an effective humoral immune response. CD40 ligation leads to B cell activation events such as proliferation, Ig secretion, isotype switching, and up-regulation of cell surface molecules, as well as the generation of memory B cells. Many of these events are dependent upon the ability of CD40 to activate the transcription factor NF-kappa B (NF-kappa B). To define the CD40 signaling components upstream of NF-kappa B activation and the functional consequences downstream of NF-kappa B activation, we examined mouse B cell transfectants expressing wild-type or mutant human CD40. Analysis of CD40 cytoplasmic domain truncation and point mutants defined a 10-amino acid CD40 cytoplasmic signaling determinant required for NF-kappa B activation. A threonine residue at position 234, previously shown to be important for CD40 association with TNF receptor-associated factor 2 (TRAF2), TRAF3, and TRAF5, was not required for NF-kappa B activation. This suggests that in B cells, CD40-induced NF-kappa B activation can occur independently of TRAF2 and TRAF5 association. NF-kappa B activation was independent of the transmembrane domain of CD40, suggesting that it is independent of p23, a molecule that associates with CD40 in a region other than the cytoplasmic domain. Proteasome-dependent inhibitory kappa B alpha (I kappa B alpha) and I kappa B beta degradation occurred downstream of CD40 ligation and preceded CD40-mediated NF-kappa B nuclear translocation. CD40- or pervanadate-mediated I kappa B tyrosine phosphorylation was not detected. NF-kappa B activation correlated with the ability of CD40 to induce Ab secretion and the up-regulation of ICAM-1 and LFA-1. However, NF-kappa B activation was insufficient for CD40-mediated up-regulation of B7-1, Fas, and CD23.


The present study aimed to investigate the Cyclospora infection among children attended Pediatric Teaching Hospital in Sulaimani City and to determine its prevalence among other intestinal parasites. The study started from the 1st of Jun. to the 1st of Dec. 2014. Three hundred stool samples were collected from children aged between6 months to 14 years old from both genders who attended the hospital. Data was collected using a questionnaire form including information about gender, age, location…..etc. Stool samples were examined by direct wet mount and modified acid-fast stain as a standard method. Using Modified Ziehl-Neelsen stain method revealed that 12(4.0%) was positive for Cyclospora oocysts, with no significant difference in the total rate of infection. Theinfection rate in males was (3.9%) while in females was (4.1%),with no significance difference between genders and the rate among children in urban area was (4.1%) while in rural areas was (3.3%). According to the age group children from (6 months - 2 years) of age showed the highest (5.6%) prevalence rate, while the lowest rate of infection(3.9%) was recorded among children aged between (3-5 years), with no significant difference between the rate of infection and the age groups. Also by applying direct wet mount method the rate of infection was (3.0%), which became in the second level of infection after Entamoeba histolytica (10.3%). Cyclosporias is founded as an endemic case in Pediatric Teaching Hospitalin Sulaimani City for the first time, were modified acid-fast stain was the most reliable technique for its diagnosis, and must be considered as one of the most important cause of diarrhea among children


Abstract The reliability of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems is closely related to the parameterization process which is expected to accurately characterize the phonetic, dynamic and static components in speech. For this purpose, ASR methods build speech sound models based on large speech corpora that attempt to include common sources of variability that may occur in real-life conditions. Nevertheless, not all variabilities can reasonably be covered. For that reason, the performance of current ASR systems, whose designs are predicated on relatively noise-free conditions, degrades rapidly in the presence of high-level adverse conditions. To cope with mismatched (adverse) conditions and to achieve noise robustness, we present in this paper an original approach that operates in two steps. The first one consists of integrating in the front-end process, besides mean-subtracted mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, acoustic distinctive features that provides a more convenient interface to higher-level components of ASR systems. The second step consists of combining subspace filtering and Genetic Algorithms to get less-variant parameters. The advantages of this approach include that no estimation of noise is required and the recognition system is not modified. The effectiveness of the method is assessed in high interfering car noise by using a noisy subset of the TIMIT database. Obtained results show that the proposed method reduces drastically the word error rate for a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios.


Does stage presence derive from technique or mystique? And how might we talk about the 'electrifying' or 'mesmerising' effects of the 'charismatic' performer without – as I have just done – reaching for metaphoric descriptions from realms of science, pseudo-science or the supernatural? Goodall's study of the 'presence' of such performers who possess it (since not all do) starts and ends with the complementary powers of both audience and language to act as 'co-present' with the performer: to produce or receive the energies which can be seen variously as sucked inwards by the performer (the vampirising inflection of the occult model) or else radiating from the performer to galvanise the audience (scientific model). In a sense, the audience is this book's other main player. Whether the audience seen as is discharging or attracting the shamanic energies of performance, its co-creation of performer presence, along with its own considerable powers – responsiveness, volatility and an ever-present feral social danger – are read as essential for the manifestation of presence. In this study the crackle of performance 'electricity' is not treated as dismissible, or indeed even explicable through deflationary psychologies of mass audience delirium or self-hypnosis. Rather the focus is on the performer herself. How does s/he actually do it, and at what cost? How do technique and mystique together co-create the magic of presence?


In recent years, the American nonprofit sector has increasingly shifted towards using more market-based financing mechanisms, in what has been variably termed nonprofit commercialization or social entrepreneurship trends. While this development may either be seen as positive or negative, the growing consensus is that nonprofit organizations have come to adopt entrepreneurial or commercial activities for purposes of cross subsidizing mission-related activities and largely in reactions to shifts in the funding and institutional contexts beginning in the 1980s. Providing an overview of the current debate, this paper uses data from a museum case study to probe some of the underpinnings of the commercialization discussion.