Empirical and theoretical investigations of aspects of the ideal free distribution (IFD) are presented, with particular emphasis on interactions between individuals within foraging groups. An overview of the theory is presented, and the implications of the work included in this thesis to ideal free distribution theory are discussed.

The effect of group size on the relative competitive ability of individual fish within a foraging group is shown to be dependent upon the difference in body size between two focus individuals in a group, but this difference itself has no direct effect on relative competitive ability. A subsequent empirical test of a novel mathematical tool reveals that there is no simple general rule for describing how relative competitive ability will change with group size, and that very specific knowledge of the system under study is needed in order to produce robust predictions.

The relative abilities of individual chiclids to obtain food under scramble competition are shown to be highly repeatable between trials. However, when given a choice between two patches differing only in their temporal variability in input about an identical mean, an individual's rank based on intake in one patch was uncorrelated with either its uptake in the other patch or its intake in either of two different trial types. The basis for, and consequence of, this dependence of relative competitive ability on the context of the foraging situation are discussed.

The general case (previously unexposed in the literature) where the effect of interference can vary between patches is examined. Simulations from an individual-based model reveal a decrease in the number of stable equilibrium distributions as the competitive advantage of the dominant phenotype declines in one patch, leading eventually to a single stable equilibrium, in which both phenotypes are found on both patches.


The aim of this project was to achieve a deep understanding of the mechanisms by
which Baltic amber degrades, in order to develop techniques for preventive
conservation of archaeological amber objects belonging to the National Museum of
Denmark's collections.
To examine deterioration of Baltic amber, a starting point was to identify and monitor
surface and bulk properties which are affected during degradation.
The way to operate consisted of the use of accelerated ageing to initiate degradation
of raw Baltic amber samples in different conditions of relative humidity, oxygen
exposure or pH and, successively, of the use of non/micro-destructive techniques to
identify and quantify changes in visual, chemical and structural properties.
A large piece of raw Baltic amber was used to prepare several test samples for two
different kinds of accelerated ageing: thermal-ageing and photo-ageing.
During the ageing, amber samples were regularly examined through several analytical
techniques related to different information: appearance/colour change by visual
examination, photography and colorimetry; chemical change by infrared
spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and elemental analysis; rate of oxidation by
oxygen measurement; qualitative analysis of released volatiles by gas
chromatography – mass spectrometry.
The obtained results were analysed through both critical evaluation and statistical
study.
After the interpretation of the achieved data, the main relations between amber and
environmental factors during the degradation process became clearer and it was
possible to identify the major pathways by which amber degrades, such as hydrolysis
of esters into alcohols and carboxylic acids, thermal-oxidation and photo-oxidation of
terpenoid components, depolymerisation and decomposition of the chemical structure.
At the end it was possible to suggest a preventive conservation strategy based on the
control of climatic, atmospheric and lighting parameters in the environment where
Baltic amber objects are stored and displayed.


The objectives of this paper are, first, to estimate the long-run cost of equity capital for the banking sector using data from the Eurozone, US, UK, Sweden and Switzerland for the period 1999-2014. Our inference differs from that of previous studies because we employ a dynamic panel GMM model with a fixed effect and a multi-factor asset pricing framework to explain the variation of the cost of equity capital across banks in terms of risk-factors including, bank size, leverage, business cycle and regulations. Second, this model analyzes whether the cost of equity of banks in Eurozone differs from banks' cost of equity in the U.S. Our findings show that the multi-factor asset pricing framework does provide a robust explanation of the cost of equity for banking sector. Our findings are consistent with those of IIF (2011) in that a higher leverage ratio, an increase in capital requirement and regulation resulting in an increase of the cost of equity in the banking sector. However, the pattern, sign, size, and significance of these factors vary widely between the Eurozone and the US.


This paper explores how the iprice index problemi has a fundamentally spatial component to it in the context of housing because houses in different sub-regions change in value at different rates. The problem, we argue, is essentially one of how to group small areas on the basis of similar price trajectories, and then how to apply the appropriate weighting when computing price indices. We aim to demonstrate that, without such adjustment, significant biases can occur in index computation that frustrate meaningful cross-regional comparisons because different regions are likely to experience different degrees of aggregation bias due to different degrees of housing market segmentation. Our solution is to use clustered p-splines to group areas on the basis of similar price trajectories which has the effect of identifying groups of areas that have stable price relatives and can thereforeoaccording to the Composite Commodity Theoremolegitimately be entered as a single icommodityi into a price index. We find that the proposed method produces significant reductions in aggregation biasothe Ten Cluster Fisher Index computed using our clustered geography is almost indistinguishable from the All Areas Fisher Index derived from every individual small area being entered separately into the index calculation.


Context: Mobile agents are considered quite challenging and provide scope for developing innovative applications in distributed computing domain. One important area where there is a scope to employ mobile agents successfully is the Network security domain. There are plethora of mobile agent based security mechanisms proposed till now. But the successful deployment of the security mechanism is effected by the parameters like performance, efficiency, ability to identify the intruders, and the models vulnerability to direct attacks and so-on which make the successful deployment of the mobile agents in the security domain more challenging. Therefore it's often demanding to identify a security mechanism that entails the performance by making use of the mobile agents in the security domain on the contrary the mechanism need to be generic and support all kinds of the environments. As a result performing vulnerability analysis in mobile agent security domain is often required. Objectives: The main objective of this study is to provide the report that incorporates the empirical analysis of the selected mobile agent based security mechanism from the perspective of performance that could be useful in defining the standards for development of the security modules for mobile agents. The secondary aim of this study is to characterize the issues related to the performance of the security mechanism in the mobile agents environment. And finally to identify the model specific barriers that will effect the performance of the security mechanism for mobile agents. Methods: This thesis performs the vulnerability analysis on the selected mobile agent based security mechanism and uses a direct implementation method to study the performance of the security mechanism. The factors considered from the performance perspective are the round trip time or can also be termed as total response time. The effect of the performance is studied with respect to the scalability of the network parameters like the number of packets and the size of the network. This thesis focuses on implementing four different modules which are individual agents communicating with each other in the network when deployed while performing a combing on the network for vulnerabilities. The four different modules implemented in the thesis are the Information Gathering Agent, Tracing Agent, Manager or Managing agent, Monitor or Monitoring agent. The performance of the mechanism is studied in three phases. The agents of the selected mechanism are implemented in the first phase and in the second phase a shear testing is done on those implemented agents of the security mechanism by collecting the round trip times of the agents as a whole with respect to the number of increasing packets (with a % increase in the number of illegitimate packets and also with the change in the number of nodes). A close monitoring on the model for the performance is performed to identify the pit falls of the model. Finally in the third phase the collected results are analyzed and presented as a set of findings from this study. Results: The results collected from this experimental study are analyzed from the motive that the security mechanism is being monitored from the perspective of identifying as many intrusions efficiently as an elusive goal rather than identifying as many intrusions precisely. The results from this thesis prove that the mechanism considered is more efficient rather than precise. Even though the results obtained from this study can be seen as efficient but there is a set of residue packets which takes a bit more time than the other packets as can be seen when one progresses the results from top to bottom this is primarily because of the factors associated with the inter networking environment like the network traffic with respect to the size of the network or the number of nodes in the network. Conclusions: After analyzing the results and providing the answers to the research questions, a conclusion can be made that the selected security mechanism is proved efficient rather than precise. This mechanism is proved to be useful only to reduce the number of intruders in the networking domain. On the contrary the mechanism also helps the deployment of the security mechanism easy this is because the advantage associated with the selected security mechanism which uses the less number of agents.


My paper draws on my experience as writer, academic, and director of the Centre for Life Narratives at Kingston University (CLN). Taking examples from CLN's successful reading and research seminars, I will argue that the act of bringing together academics and practioners to debate notions of truth-telling, ethical dilemma, representations of the self and the like is not only challenging and frustrating, it is an act of translation in which something is gained as well as lost.
Virginia Woolf (and many writers before and since) saw both an intellectual and a linguistic difference between the self as articulated through the academy and the autobiographical self as told through the life story. In her most autobiographical novel, To The Lighthouse, for example, the father figure, Mr Ramsay, invites his student Charles Tansley to stay with his family on St Ives. Soon after arriving, Tansley confides the tale of his difficult childhood to Mrs. Ramsay. Later, as student and teacher talk, Mrs Ramsay overhears them, and, Woolf tells us, she "did not catch the meaning, only the words, here and there...dissertation...fellowship...readership...lectureship.... She could not follow the ugly academic jargon...but said to herself that she saw now why [Tansley] came out, instantly, with all that about his father and mother and brothers and sisters, and she would see to it that they didn't laugh at him anymore" (22). Woolf envisioned this difference in discourse to be gendered and political, inscribed by historically static boundaries. In our own century, the divide may be differently drawn, but as "Biography", "Autobiography," and "Life Writing" become more widely accepted as areas of academic research, the linguistic distance between practitioner and researcher remains. By considering CLN's example in light of Woolf's academic/autobiographic split, I will ask - when writer and theorist share a classroom or an office, or indeed a funded research project - how can they talk to each other productively?


The probability that an incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives is reelected has risen dramatically over the last half-century; it now stands at nearly 95%. A number of authors and commentators claim that this rise is due to an increase in bipartisan gerrymandering in favor of incumbents. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we find evidence of the opposite Effect. All else equal, changes in redistricting have reduced the probability of incumbent reelection over time. The timing of this effect is consistent with the hypothesis that legal constraints on gerrymandering, such as the Voting Rights Act, have become tighter over time. Incumbent gerrymandering may well be a contributor to incumbent reelection rates, but it is less so than in the past.


Abstract. The popularity of a neighbourhood is often explained by its perceived "higher" quality of life. Good access to shops, restaurants, parks, etc., is seen as an indicator that reflects improved quality of life. We present a web-based tool for assessment of accessibility to such services. The system evaluates in real time an area that is accessible using pedestrian, transit, and cycling infrastructure. The accessible area is evaluated using "quality of life" indicators, such as the number of grocery stores, shopping and recreation facilities, and local crime within that area. This tool sets itself apart from pre-computed and neighbourhood-level walkability indices, because it makes use of detailed street-level data, rather than block-level generalizations. It uses real network travel time, and, when transit data are provided, permits the creation and evaluation of accessibility areas for a combination of travel modes such as walking with transit use.


Luminescent solar concentrators (LSC) are used in photovoltaic applications to concentrate direct and diffuse sunlight without tracking. We employed 2D FDTD simulations to investigate the concept of a photonic LSC (PLSC), where the luminescent material is embedded in a photonic crystal to mitigate the primary losses in LSCs: the escape cone and reabsorption. We obtain suppressed emission inside the photonic band gap, which can be utilized to reduce reabsorption. Furthermore, the efficiency of light guiding is strongly enhanced in a broad spectral range, reaching up to 99.7%. Our optimization of design parameters suggests emitting layers of sub-wavelength thickness.


The popular culture movement was founded on the principle that the perspectives and experiences of common folk offer compelling insights into the social world. The fabric of human social life is not merely the art deemed worthy to hang in museums, the books that have won literary prizes or been named "classics," or the religious and social ceremonies carried out by societies' elite. The Journal of Popular Culture continues to break down the barriers between so-called "low" and "high" culture and focuses on filling in the gaps a neglect of popular culture has left in our understanding of the workings of society.


This paper explores the ways in which Indigenous people around the world are participating in the World Wide Web, through establishing their own websites or accessing services via the Web. Indigenous websites are remarkably diverse: in addition to those representing Indigenous organizations and promoting Indigenous e-commerce, many websites have also been established to further unique concerns of Indigenous communities such as the maintenance and revitalization of Indigenous cultures, intercultural dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, political advocacy and mobilization, community rebuilding and social support for disadvantaged communities. Despite the early involvement of Indigenous people on the Web, there still remain many unresolved issues, which include low levels of computer literacy and Internet connectivity, the cost of the technology, low levels of business understanding to support e-commerce, and concerns over the misappropriation of Indigenous knowledge and culture.


This paper addresses the difficult question of how to perform meaningful comparisons between neural network-based hydrological models and alternative modelling approaches. Standard, goodness-of-fit metric approaches are limited since they only assess numerical performance and not physical legitimacy of the means by which output is achieved. Consequently, the potential for general application or catchment transfer of such models is seldom understood. This paper presents a partial derivative, relative sensitivity analysis method as a consistent means by which the physical legitimacy of models can be evaluated. It is used to compare the behaviour and physical rationality of a generalised linear model and two neural network models for predicting median flood magnitude in rural catchments. The different models perform similarly in terms of goodness-of-fit statistics, but behave quite distinctly when the relative sensitivities of their inputs are evaluated. The neural solutions are seen to offer an encouraging degree of physical legitimacy in their behaviour, over that of a generalised linear modelling counterpart, particularly when overfitting is constrained. This indicates that neural models offer preferable solutions for transfer into ungauged catchments. Thus, the importance of understanding both model performance and physical legitimacy when comparing neural models with alternative modelling approaches is demonstrated.


Most air duct system components are assembled in the field and are mechanically fastened by sheet metal screws (for sheet metal-to-sheet metal) or by drawbands (for flex duct-to-sheet metal). Air sealing is separate from this mechanical fastening and is usually achieved using tape or mastic products after mechanical fastening. Field observations have shown that mechanical fastening rarely meets code or manufacturers requirements and that sealing procedures are similarly inconsistent. To address these problems, Proctor Engineering Group (PEG) is developing a system of joining ducts (called PEGIT) that combines the mechanical fastening and sealing into a single self-contained procedure. The PEGIT system uses a shaped flexible seal between specially designed sheet metal duct fittings to both seal and fasten duct sections together. Figure 1 shows the inner duct fitting complete with rubber seal. This seal provides the air seal for the completed fitting and is shaped to allow the inner and outer fittings to slide together, and then to lock the fittings in place. The illustration in Figure 2 shows the approximate cross section of the rubber seal that shows how the seal has a lip that is angled backwards. This angled lip allows the joint to be pushed together by folding flat but then its long axis makes it stiff in the pulling apart direction. This study was undertaken to assist PEG in some of the design aspects of this system and to test the performance of the PEGIT system. This study was carried out in three phases. The initial phase evaluated the performance of a preliminary seal design for the PEGIT system. After the first phase, the seal was redesigned and this new seal was evaluated in the second phase of testing. The third phase performed more detailed testing of the second seal design to optimize the production tolerances of the sheet metal fittings. This report summarizes our findings from the first two phases and provides details about the third phase of testing.


Recently, water flow confined in nanochannels has become an interesting topic due to its unique properties and potential applications in nanofluidic devices. The trapped water is predicted to experience high pressure in the gigapascal regime. Theoretical and experimental studies have reported various novel structures of the confined water under high pressure. However, the role of this high pressure on the dynamic properties of water has not been elucidated to date. In the present study, the structure evolution and interfacial friction behavior of water constrained in a graphene nanochannel were investigated via molecular dynamics simulations. Transitions of the confined water to different ice phases at room temperature were observed in the presence of lateral pressure at the gigapascal level. The friction coefficient at the water/graphene interface was found to be dependent on the lateral pressure and nanochannel height. Further theoretical analyses indicate that the pressure dependence of friction is related to the pressure-induced change in the structure of water and the confinement dependence results from the variation in the water/graphene interaction energy barrier. These findings provide a basic understanding of the dynamics of the nanoconfined water, which is crucial in both fundamental and applied science.


The complex and abstract character of political discourse makes it difficult to be understood directly by ordinary people. Assuming
 that use of metaphor could make political language easier to comprehend, more and more scholars began to focus on the study of
 metaphor in political discourse. However, most of these studies paid only attention to the contrastive study of single metaphor
 phenomena, while diachronic studies of metaphors still remained few.
 The present paper attempts to make a diachronic analysis of metaphor clusters in American and Chinese political discourse. The data
 employed are American and Chinese leaders' political speeches, addressed to university students; the Chinese corpus contains
 119021 characters, while the American corpus includes 118805 words. The research was implemented over three periods, namely before
 1900, from 1900 to 2010, and from 2010 up to now (when the new term "metaphor cluster" was introduced to study the clustering
 phenomena of metaphor in different periods). In addition, both qualitative analysis and qualitative analysis were employed; the
 linguistic analysis tool Wmatrix and MIPVU procedures were adopted to identify metaphor clusters, thereby remedying the
 shortcomings of traditional methods which identify metaphor through researchers' intuition and perception. Qualitative analysis
 was used to conduct a contrastive analysis of dominant metaphor clusters and how they tend to be used by the lecturers, both in
 the American and the Chinese corpuses.
 The data analysis shows that metaphor clusters abound in American and Chinese leaders' political speeches in universities.
 Generally speaking, Chinese leaders adopt more metaphor clusters than do their American counterparts. Similar metaphor clusters in
 both data are: journey, family, and building. Circle and art metaphor clusters are unique to the Chinese data, while religion and
 drama metaphor clusters only occur in the American data. Before 1990, leaders adopted few metaphor clusters both in America and in
 China; the two decades from 1990 to 2010 witnessed a peak season of employing metaphor clusters in both Chinese and American
 leaders' speeches, whereas after 2010, the usage of metaphor clusters in Chinese data ushered in a new stage of development, with
 a multitude of new metaphorical expressions having cultural connotations. The results reveal that the differences in the usage of
 metaphor clusters are mainly due to the various ideologies and cultural backgrounds of the two countries. In addition, our
 analysis also shows that the employment of metaphor clusters in political discourse could lead the audiences' direction of
 thinking, reduce the audiences' comprehensive burden, and arouse the audiences' emotions.


Section 1 articulates a genus-species claim: that knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Equivalently: In cases of knowledge, S's success in believing the truth is attributable to S's ability. That idea is then applied to questions about the nature and value of knowledge. Section 2 asks what it would take to turn the genus-species claim into a proper theory of knowledge; that is, into informative, necessary and sufficient conditions. That question is raised in the context of an important line of objection against even the genus-species claim; namely, that there is no way to understand the attribution relation so that it does all the work that it is supposed to do. Section 3 reviews several extant proposals for understanding the attribution relation, and argues that none of them are adequate for answering the objection. Section 4 proposes a different way of understanding the relation, and shows how the resulting view does resolve the objection. Section 5 completes the new account by proposing a way to understand intellectual abilities. Section 6 briefly addresses Barn Facade cases and lottery propositions. Section 7 briefly addresses a question about the scope of knowledge; in particular, it shows how the new view allows a neo-Moorean response to skepticism.


This PhD thesis contributes to a better understanding of the chemistry of mustard and rapeseed oils in the field of authenticity, formation of antioxidants during roasting and their effects on the oil oxidative stability. At first, a chemometric methodology based on Monte Carlo simulation was developed to evaluate the authenticity of mustard and rapeseed oils. In the second part, the isolation of a potent radical scavenger, canolol, from the roasted mustard seed oil was carried out and its identity was confirmed via spectrometric data (NMR, UV, MS) and chemical synthesis. Canolol was found to be formed during seed roasting by decarboxylation of sinapic acid. In the third part, the oxidative stability of roasted and unroasted mustard seed oils collected from the Nepalese market was evaluated. Furthermore, the effects of seed roasting on the oxidative stability of mustard and rapeseed oils was investigated. These studies showed that canolol could play an important role in the oxidative stability of roasted rapeseed oil; in contrast, it could only play a limited role in the much higher oxidative stability of roasted mustard seed oil. In fact, the oxidative stability of roasted mustard seed oil was mainly correlated with the phospholipid content and the Maillard type browning reaction products formed during roasting. At last, the Maillard type reactions involving phospholipids and their antioxidant potential were evaluated in a model system containing phosphatidylethanolamine and glucose. The reaction products not only increased the oil oxidative stability but also increased the stability of tocopherol and plastochromanol-8 during oil storage. The occurrence of such reactions in an apolar medium was demonstrated by identifying some of the reaction products by liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (LC-TOF MS). Such antioxidants could find a wide application in different food products.


Objective: We examined how nonideological factors such as childhood risk factors and adolescent conduct problems precede participation in violent extremism (VE). Methods: We conducted in-depth life-history interviews with former members of violent White supremacist groups (N = 44) to examine their childhood and adolescent experiences, and how they explain the factors that led to the onset of VE. Results: Based on self-reports, we found substantial presence of childhood risk factors and adolescent conduct problems as precursors to participation in violent extremist groups. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that pathways to VE are more complex than previously identified in the literature and that violent extremists are a heterogeneous population of offenders whose life histories resemble members of conventional street gangs and generic criminal offenders. We conclude our article with implications related to criminological theory, directions for future research, and limitations.


The Ikhwan Al- Safa' or Brethren of Purity were a highly secretive group of tenth-century Shi'ite thinkers, their identities remaining unclear even today. Renowned for creating the legendary Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa, an encyclopaedia of philosophical sciences, they proposed a coherent intellectual system that sought to reconcile human reasoning with prophetic revelation. This fascinating survey provides a clear, objective and innovative introduction to the Brethren of Purity and their encyclopaedic project, showing its critical place in the history of Arabic science, philosophy and literature.


The Weeks Formation in Utah is the youngest (c. 499 Ma) and least studied Cambrian Lagerstätte of the western USA. It preserves a diverse, exceptionally preserved fauna that inhabited a relatively deep water environment at the offshore margin of a carbonate platform, resembling the setting of the underlying Wheeler and Marjum formations. However, the Weeks fauna differs significantly in composition from the other remarkable biotas of the Cambrian Series 3 of Utah, suggesting a significant Guzhangian faunal restructuring. This bioevent is regarded as the onset of a transitional episode in the history of life, separating the two primary diversifications of the Early Paleozoic. The Weeks fossils have been strongly affected by late diagenetic processes, but some specimens still preserve exquisite anatomical details. Supplementary material: a supplementary text (material and methods), four supplementary tables (compositions of the lower and upper Weeks faunas, structure of the upper Weeks fauna, and results of the similarity analyses), and a supplementary data file (generic presence/absence matrix) are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4109588


The emergence of advanced multimedia applications is emphasizing the relevance of retrieval by contents within databases of images and image sequences. Matching the inherent visuality of the information stored in such databases, visual specification by example provides an effective and natural way to express content-oriented queries. To support this querying approach, the system must be able to interpret example scenes reproducing the contents of images and sequences to be retrieved, and to match them against the actual contents of the database. In the accomplishment of this task, to avoid a direct access to raw image data, the system must be provided with an appropriate description language supporting the representation of the contents of pictorial data. An original language for the symbolic representation of the contents of image sequences is presented. This language, referred to as spatio-temporal logic, comprises a framework for the qualitative representation of the contents of image sequences, which allows for treatment and operation of content structures at a higher level than pixels or image features. Organization and operation principles of a prototype system exploiting spatio-temporal logic to support querying by example through visual iconic interaction are expounded. >


The paper illustrates the design project of the main laminated glass balustrade of a steel staircase installed in the historical Margherita Theatre in Livorno, Italy. After its final closure, almost 15 years ago, the new owners decided to refurbish the building and to convert it into a shopping center. The entire project was developed with particular attention to the conservation of the building style. In order to join the ground level to the former gallery level a new steel staircase has been placed and three laminated glass balustrades were added. The bigger one is a big rectangular glazing 4047 long and 5765 mm high consisting of 8 rectangular laminated glass panels, each composed of two 12 thick fully tempered glass sheets laminated with PVB interlayer. Unique steel connections were designed and built in order to join the glass panels to each other and to the steel staircase. The connections to the staircase were designed so to avoid the out-of-plane movements of the glass panels, and to allow the free vertical relative movement between staircase and glass. The horizontal out-of-plane movements of the top edge of the big glazing is prevented owing to a horizontal 5600 mm long laminated glass fin. The paper illustrates the design and check of the glass panels, their geometry and functioning, the numerical analyses and the results.


We propose an enhanced concurrency control algorithm that maximizes the concurrency of multidimensional index structures. The factors that deteriorate the concurrency of index structures are node splits and minimum bounding region (MBR) updates in multidimensional index structures. The properties of our concurrency control algorithm are as follows: First, to increase the concurrency by avoiding lock coupling during MBR updates, we propose the PLC (partial lock coupling) technique. Second, a new MBR update method is proposed. It allows searchers to access nodes where MBR updates are being performed. Finally, our algorithm holds exclusive latches not during whole split time but only during physical node split time that occupies the small part of a whole split process. For performance evaluation, we implement the proposed concurrency control algorithm and one of the existing link technique-based algorithms on MIDAS-III that is a storage system of a BADA-IV DBMS. We show through various experiments that our proposed algorithm outperforms the existing algorithm in terms of throughput and response time. Also, we propose a recovery protocol for our proposed concurrency control algorithm. The recovery protocol is designed to assure high concurrency and fast recovery.


The study deals with the improving reading comprehension through webbing strategy of college student at Mayjen Sungkono University. Specifically, the study is aimed into (1) How is the effect of the webbing strategy to improve reading comprehension. The study is a quantitative research. The subjects of the study are first semester of college student at Mayjen Sungkono University. The data of the study are taken in the forms evaluation of the students' reading comprehension scores of the experimental group and control group. The scores are obtained from the pre-test and the post-test. The appropriate procedure of data collection in application of webbing strategy in teaching reading comprehension encompassed the following steps: (1) tryout, (2) validity, (3) reliability, (4) find out the level of difficulty, (5) find out the discrimination power based on the text. Based on the analysis, the study shows that the effect to improve reading comprehension through webbing strategy is significant. Moreover, on the calculation of the t-test, the results show that there is a significant improvement in the student' achievement after they got tread using webbing strategy when studying reading comprehension in the classroom. The t-test indicates that score of the t-value is higher than t table (2.207 > 2.042). Here, the experimental group represents a better improvement after they received the treatment.


The realm of music festivity has grown into a global circuit that responds to the demand for emotive experiential products and taps into postmodern themes that celebrate a lifestyle attitude of extended youth. This paper investigates the phenomenon of festival culture through a case study of Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. It highlights how modern music festivals have become sites of mediated brand management where commodified hyper-experiences are considered as new forms of contested cultural capital. Through a critical conceptual matrix that combines the work of Bourdieu, Pine and Gilmore, and Jensen the authors critically explore the interplay between the experiential dimension, mystical and fantasy narratives and the political contestation of festivity. Focusing on Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts 2010 the study presents an innovative interpretation of festivity through multi and social media. The authors argue that, while promoted as an ethical festival that celebrates its anti-commercial countercultural cool, Glastonbury reflects a modern cathedral of consumption where experiences are the mediated and managerially puppeteered capital of the field. However, festivity is moving beyond management as it is increasingly dependant on the co-creative social media activity of consumers to perpetuate the fantasy and capital of festivity.


The notion of transitory perversion was used fifty years ago about an adolescent in an article by R. Lebovici that was commented upon and discussed by J. Lacan in his seminar and in his Ecrits. The author shows how this notion got lost in the meandering discussions about adult perversion that arose afterwards. However, it is particularly useful now, when there is a tendency to prejudge a subject's future on the basis of his childhood or adolescent behaviour. We can see that it attests to difficulties in making certain messages prevail over sexual expression in the proper sense, and is a prerequisite for sexual identification. Qualifying the perversion as « transitory » is enough to signify that it is not a perversions in the same sense as in the adult, though it nevertheless has much to teach us about adult perversion.


In some patients with abdominal pain, the source of the pain may be the abdominal wall. A simple test is described which allows these patients to be identified and treated with injections of local anaesthetic and steroid. Twenty-six patients were studied, 20 of whom were available for follow-up. Sixteen of these 20 were symptom free or improved at a median follow-up period of 29 months. Failure to recognize abdominal wall pain may lead to unnecessary investigation.


Java is a safe language. Its runtime environment provides strong safety guarantees that any Java application can rely on. Or so we think. We show that the runtime actually does not provide these guarantees---for a large fraction of today's Java code. Unbeknownst to many application developers, the Java runtime includes a "backdoor" that allows expert library and framework developers to circumvent Java's safety guarantees. This backdoor is there by design, and is well known to experts, as it enables them to write high-performance "systems-level" code in Java. For much the same reasons that safe languages are preferred over unsafe languages, these powerful---but unsafe---capabilities in Java should be restricted. They should be made safe by changing the language, the runtime system, or the libraries. At the very least, their use should be restricted. This paper is a step in that direction. We analyzed 74 GB of compiled Java code, spread over 86,479 Java archives, to determine how Java's unsafe capabilities are used in real-world libraries and applications. We found that 25% of Java bytecode archives depend on unsafe third-party Java code, and thus Java's safety guarantees cannot be trusted. We identify 14 different usage patterns of Java's unsafe capabilities, and we provide supporting evidence for why real-world code needs these capabilities. Our long-term goal is to provide a foundation for the design of new language features to regain safety in Java.


This paper aims to study ways of contributing to the development of Calculus through a ProjectBased Learning (PBL) approach, which involves students in their first semester of the Integrated Master's program in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) at the University of Minho. The study presents the analysis of forty-two interdisciplinary project reports developed by students over a seven-year period. The reports offer good evidence for the application of the requested Calculus learning outcomes, demonstrating that the application of Calculus content occurred during the development of the project. This finding means that PBL was successful as a truly active learning process for Calculus that involves students learning independently through the interdisciplinary resolution of problems related to their engineering professional profiles.


Since executive stock options may give rent-seeking incentives to CEOs, CEOs with stock options are likely to misallocate corporate resources to seek personal gains, which in turn may lead to a decrease in firm value. High-quality audit services can reduce the negative impacts of executive stock options on firm value and help firms to ensure sustainable growth. However, while most of the existing accounting literature related to executive stock options (ESO) is mainly focused on earnings management, there are relatively few studies that investigate the relation between ESO and audit fees. At the same time, while previous studies on ESO have been conducted in advanced countries, few studies have identified the relationship between ESO and audit fees in emerging markets. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the effect of ESO under circumstances different from those of developed countries. To fill this gap, we investigated the association between executive stock options and audit fees and examine the moderating effects of agency problems and monitoring systems on the relationship. Using 462 observations from 110 nonfinancial Korean listed companies, for the period of 2000 to 2005, we found that executive stock options are positively related to audit fees. In addition, we found that the effects of executive stock options on audit fees are even higher in firms with high agency problems, effective internal monitoring systems, and major accounting firms. This study can help regulatory agencies to validate audit fee regulations, such as the International Standard on Auditing, that consider ESO a significant risk factor. In addition, these results can help external auditors to set up the specific guidelines for pricing audit fees. Furthermore, the results of this study will contribute to the construction of more desirable corporate governance structure in Korean companies, which in turn would not only enhance firm value but also strengthen the sustainability of companies belonging to the emerging markets.


Customers ask questions, and customer service staffs answer those questions. It is the basic service manner of customer service (CS). The progress of CS is a typical multi-round conversation. However, there are no explicit corresponding relations among conversational utterances. This paper focuses on obtaining explicit alignments of question and answer utterances in CS. It not only is an important task of dialogue analysis, but also able to obtain lots of valuable train data for learning dialogue systems. In this work, we propose end-to-end models for aligning question (Q) and answer (A) utterances in CS conversation with recurrent pointer networks (RPN). On the one hand, RPN-based alignment models are able to model the conversational contexts and the mutual influence of different Q-A alignments. On the other hand, they are able to address the issue of empty and multiple alignments for some utterances in a unified manner. We construct a dataset from an in-house online CS. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed models are effective to learn the alignments of question and answer utterances.


We introduce in this paper a new approach for grid-enabled distributed frameworks designed for distributed simulation and computational steering, which can easily be used for general purpose processing. Previous research focused on the development of a set of frameworks and platforms for distributed simulation and computational steering. Most of these frameworks were dedicated to certain projects or they treated only a part of the issues that needed to be dealt with in this field. Our approach, which uses the state machine concept, is more general and scalable, the main benefits of state machine encapsulation being safety and flexible task migration. An image processing case study will be presented to illustrate the feasibility of our approach.


This paper reconsiders the A versus K debate, namely, which factor is the leading contributor to economic growth? productivity gains (A) or factor accumulation (K). The growth accounting analysis is conducted for ten Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries over the period 1960-1998. The long-run share of capital in national income is estimated using cointegration (country-specific) and panel data (region-specific) methods. We find that for most of the countries in our sample the share of capital is much higher than the conventional share of 0.3-0.4. The growth accounting exercise conducted with the incorporation of human capital reveals that for the MENA region the contribution of productivity gains to economic growth is negligible and frequently even detrimental. Thus, we conclude that it is factor (both physical and human) accumulation that drives the economic performance of MENA economies.


Propolis is a resinous mixture of different plant exudates collected by honeybees. Currently, propolis is widely used as a food supplement and in folk medicine. We have evaluated 20 Cuban propolis extracts of different chemical types, brown (BCP), red and yellow (YCP), with respect to their in vitro antibacterial, antifungal and antiprotozoal properties. The extracts inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureus and Trichophyton rubrum at low µg/mL concentrations, whereas they were not active against Escherichia coli and Candida albicans. The major activity of the extracts was found against the protozoa Leishmania, Trypanosoma and Plasmodium, although cytotoxicity against MRC-5 cells was also observed. The BCP-3, YCP-39 and YCP-60 extracts showed the highest activity against P. falciparum, with 50% of microbial growth (IC₅₀) values of 0.2 µg/mL. A positive correlation between the biological activity and the chemical composition was observed for YCP extracts. The most promising antimicrobial activity corresponds to YCP subtype B, which contains acetyl triterpenes as the main constituents. The present in vitro study highlights the potential of propolis against protozoa, but further research is needed to increase selectivity towards the parasite. The observed chemical composition-activity relationship of propolis can contribute to the identification of the active principles and standardisation of this bee product.


This study aimed to obtain empirical evidence about the effect of real manipulation practices on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and further examined the impact of real manipulation on relationship between CSR and the financial performance of companies in the future. 27 companies listed on Indonesian Stock Exchange during the years 2006-2008 were selected as sample for this study. Data were collected by purposive sampling method and statistical method used for analysis was ordinary least square regression. The study provided empirical evidence that companies engaged in the practice of real manipulation had no influence on CSR activities. The results showed that the higher level of real manipulation on operation cash flow leads to negative effect on the relationship between CSR and financial performance.


Named Data Networking (NDN) is a promising Information-Centric future Internet architecture. Besides its recognized potentialities as a content retrieval solution in wired domains, NDN has been also recently considered as an enabling technology for the Internet of Things (IoT), thanks to its innovative features like named-based routing and in-network caching. In particular, the possibility of caching at intermediate nodes can be especially useful to reduce the retrieval delay, and limit the network traffic and the load on data producer. However, unlike traditional Internet contents, IoT data are typically transient and periodically refreshed by the producer. At the same time, unlike Internet routers, IoT devices can be resource-constrained, with limitations in terms of energy, storage and processing capabilities. Therefore, caching algorithms designed for (intransient) Internet traffic and Internet routers do not well suit IoT domains. In this paper, we consider a wireless NDN-IoT network and propose a novel distributed probabilistic caching strategy that relies on the freshness of data and on potentially constrained capabilities of devices (energy level and storage capacity). The proposed solution has been evaluated through simulations with ndnSIM and results show that it outperforms traditional NDN caching mechanisms in terms of data retrieval and network energy efficiency.


Background Two-drug regimens (2DR) to treat HIV infection have the potential to reduce long-term toxicity and increase therapeutic options for people living with HIV (PLHIV). Prior phase III trials, SWORD-1 and SWORD-2, as well as GEMINI-1 and GEMINI-2, have demonstrated that a dolutegravir-based 2DR is as effective as three- or four-drug regimens among virologically suppressed patients. Limited information exists, however, on patient and provider experiences with 2DR to inform roll-out and integration into routine clinical care. Methods We conducted 39 in-depth interviews with PLHIV currently on 2DR in the context of routine care and 8 of their clinical care providers in the United States (U.S.) and Spain. Participants included 33 male and 6 female PLHIV and 8 providers. Interview topics explored perceptions of and experiences with 2DR compared to prior anti-retroviral regimens (ARVs), side effects, patient satisfaction, and clinical performance. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Results Participants viewed 2DR as a significant and positive advance, in terms of its ability to effectively treat HIV with reduced toxicity and essentially no reported side effects. Patients noted the central role providers played in the decision to switch to a 2DR regimen and, among U.S. participants, the importance of insurance coverage making this preferred option feasible. Patients and providers agreed that a 2DR regimen would be appropriate for any PLHIV regardless of whether they were treatment naïve or had significant experience with ARVs. Conclusions Participants' experiences with a 2DR regimen were positive with no participants, reporting side effects and all reporting continued viral suppression. Providers valued the reduced toxicity offered by 2DR and served as the primary gateway to a transition to 2DR for patients in both settings. This study provides a foundation for further research on the transition to 2DR regimens in other populations and contexts including low- and middle-income settings.


With significant reductions in emissions likely to require decades and the impacts of projected climate change likely to become more and more severe, proposals for taking deliberate action to counterbalance global warming have been proposed as an important complement to reducing emissions. While a number of geoengineering approaches have been proposed, each introduces uncertainties, complications and unintended consequences that have only begun to be explored. For limiting and reversing global climate change over periods of years to decades, solar radiation management, particularly injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, has emerged as the leading approach, with mesospheric reflectors and satellite deflectors also receiving attention. For a number of reasons, tropospheric approaches to solar radiation management present greater challenges if the objective is to reduce the increase in global average temperature. However, such approaches have a number of advantages if the objective is to alleviate specific consequences of climate change expected to cause significant impacts for the environment and society. Among the most damaging aspects of the climate that might be countered are: the warming of low-latitude oceans that observations suggest contribute to more intense tropical cyclones and coral bleaching; the amplified warming of high latitudes and the associated melting of ice that has been accelerating sea level rise and altering mid-latitude weather; and the projected reduction in the loading and cooling influence of sulfate aerosols, which has the potential to augment warming sufficient to trigger methane and carbon feedbacks. For each of these impacts, suitable scientific, technological, socioeconomic, and governance research has the potential to lead to tropospheric geoengineering approaches that, with a well-funded research program, could begin playing a moderating role for some aspects of climate change within a decade.


Scenarios can help remedy the most serious obstacle in the design process that is a chronic lack of knowledge of the application domain. Moreover, scenarios can be employed in analysis and design to serve both illustrating the context of an envisaged usage (user's perspective) and demonstrating the design proposal in terms of the intended usage (analyst's perspective). In contrasting both perspectives by means of a dialectic process a synthesis can be achieved that incorporates a shared understanding. Validation is a process to achieve such an understanding. The semantic structure of types of scenarios is investigated thus illustrating how a context of use analysis according to ISO 9241-11 can be exploited for validation purposes. The role of scenarios in usability engineering is contrasted with traditional concepts of systems analysis as an attempt to narrow the bridge between software engineering and usability engineering.


Research on the subterranean CO2 dynamics has focused individually on either surface soils or bedrock cavities, neglecting the interaction of both systems as a whole. In this regard, the vadose zone contains CO2‐enriched air (ca. 5% by volume) in the first meters, and its exchange with the atmosphere can represent from 10 to 90% of total ecosystem CO2 emissions. Despite its importance, to date still lacking are reliable and robust databases of vadose zone CO2 contents that would improve knowledge of seasonal‐annual aboveground‐belowground CO2 balances. Here we study 2.5 years of vadose zone CO2 dynamics in a semiarid ecosystem. The experimental design includes an integrative approach to continuously measure CO2 in vertical and horizontal soil profiles, following gradients from surface to deep horizons and from areas of net biological CO2 production (under plants) to areas of lowest CO2 production (bare soil), as well as a bedrock borehole representing karst cavities and ecosystem‐scale exchanges. We found that CO2 followed similar seasonal patterns for the different layers, with the maximum seasonal values of CO2 delayed with depth (deeper more delayed). However, the behavior of CO2 transport differed markedly among layers. Advective transport driven by wind induced CO2 emission both in surface soil and bedrock, but with negligible effect on subsurface soil, which appears to act as a buffer impeding rapid CO2 exchanges. Our study provides the first evidence of enrichment of CO2 under plant, hypothesizing that CO2‐rich air could come from root zone or by transport from deepest layers through cracks and fissures.


Background Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure that attracts special safeguards under common law for voluntary patients and under both current and proposed mental health legislation, for those receiving compulsory treatment. Aims To review patients' views on issues of information, consent and perceived coercion. Method Seventeen papers and reports were identified that dealt with patients' views on information and consent in relation to ECT; 134 'testimonies' or first-hand accounts were identified. The papers and reports were subjected to a descriptive systematic review. The testimony data were analysed qualitatively. Results Approximately half the patients reported that they had received sufficient information about ECT and side-effects. Approximately a third did not feel they had freely consented to ECTeven when they had signed a consent form. Clinician-led research evaluates these findings to mean that patients trust their doctors, whereas user-led work evaluates similar findings as showing inadequacies in informed consent. Conclusion Neither current nor proposed safeguards for patients are sufficient to ensure informed consent with respect to ECT, at least in England and Wales.


Current language technology is ubiquitous and directly influences individuals' lives worldwide. Given the recent trend in AI on training and constantly releasing new and powerful large language models (LLMs), there is a need to assess their biases and potential concrete consequences. While some studies have highlighted the shortcomings of these models, there is only little on the negative impact of LLMs on LGBTQIA+ individuals. In this paper, we investigated a state-of-the-art template-based approach for measuring the harmfulness of English LLMs sentence completion when the subjects belong to the LGBTQIA+ community. Our findings show that, on average, the most likely LLM-generated completion is an identity attack 13% of the time. Our results raise serious concerns about the applicability of these models in production environments.


Plants and agricultural wastes with high degrees of fibrous content in form of lignocellulose compounds have been identified as main ingredient in composites, making them suitable for manufacturing of insulation boards and panels. Thus, several researches have succeeded in using these plants and agro waste fibres in developing renewable and environmentally friendly thermal insulation products. The aim of this study was to compare the performance of insulation boards made from leave and bark fibres of Pilios tigma thonningii L.in terms of density, water absorption, apparent thermal conductivity, specific heat and thermal diffusivity. The leave and the bark fibres were prepared in form of squared boards of 200 mm x 200 mm and thickness of 20 mm using natural ru bber latex as a binder. The fibre to binder ratio was varied with a composition of 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and 1:4. The LFB recorded densities between 528.6 kg/m 3 and 538.4 kg/m3 while in the BFB the densities are between 558.3 kg/m 3 and 711.8 kg/m 3 at various compositions. The Percentage water absorption for the LFB is between 36.51% and 12.03% while the BFB is between 25.02% and 13.23%. Similarly, the apparent thermal conductivity values for LFB are between 0.032096 W/mK and 0.040855 W/mK while that of the BFB are between 0.039439 W/mK and 0.043406 W/mK. The specific heat values of the LFB are between 2901.88 J/kg.K and 3656.48 J/kg.K and that of the BFB are between 2044.46 J/kg.K and 2512.61 J/kg.K while the thermal diffusivity is between 2.05E-8m 2 /s and 8.07E-9m 2 /s for the LFB and 1.57E-8m 2 /s to 2.68E-8m 2 /s for BFB. The boards recorded thermal properties that are comparable to those of the commercially available products with LFB performing consistently better than the BFB. Key words : Thermal Insulation, Leave fibres, Bark fibres, apparent thermal conductivity, Lignocellulose compounds, Fibrous content


I begin in the space between two epigraphs, both compelling and contradictory. Each invokes a different paradigm of wealth and waste. Why tell such contrary stories in the same breath? Both reveal something about the uncanny social worlds at their margins. My pur - pose here is to sketch out the possibilities for lives and livelihoods to persist, even flourish, in ambiguous everyday terrains where such competing economic imaginaries simultaneously hold currency.


Abstract Background: A 26-year-old, 59 kg female was administered morphine 10 mg during tonsillectomy, and 5 mg in the recovery room. She died 5 hours after the operation. Hypoxic cerebral injury, arising from morphine side-effects, was pronounced the cause of death, in spite of morphine being undetectable in blood. Recent pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling indicates that, after a single intravenous dose, maximum respiratory depression occurs after 1 hour and 40 minutes and persists for hours. Furthermore, respiratory depression is accompanied by airway obstruction, sleep potentiates respiratory depression and airway obstruction, pain stimulates breathing and antagonises respiratory depression, pain relief unmasks respiratory depression, and a slow breathing rate is uncommon. Methods: Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic simulations were used to estimate the time course of morphine effect-site concentrations in an "average" 59 kg female, and to calculate the degree of resulting respiratory depression. Results: Morphine effect-site concentrations approached dangerous levels for respiratory depression and persisted for hours, while plasma concentrations were undectectably low. Discussion: Court testimony indicates that additional factors contributed to the patient's demise. Respiratory depression was potentiated by pain relief following quinsy tonsillectomy, and by falling asleep. The airway was obstructed, as witnessed both by nurses and a fellow patient. In addition, nursing staff failed to recognise that snoring can indicate a dangerously obstructed airway. Conclusions: Dangerous respiratory depression often goes unrecognised in surgical wards. Strategies for improved safety include education of nursing and other staff regarding the following aspects of respiratory depression: (i) recognition of delayed and prolonged respiratory depression; (ii) noisy breathing indicates obstructed breathing; (iii) respiratory rate is an unreliable monitor of respiratory depression; (iv) training in airway management should be compulsory; (v) sleeping patients should be administered oxygen, and pulse oximetry monitoring should be done (especially at night); (vi) more local anaesthesia should be administered for postoperative pain; (vii) combination analgesic therapy (NSAIDs, paracetamol, ketamine, dexmedetomidine, gabapentin) should be utilised to reduce morphine requirements; (viii) high risk patients (e.g. elderly, obese, sleep-apnoea syndrome) should be identified; (ix) sedation scores should be recorded to detect obtunded patients. Morphine plasma concentrations do not reflect pharmacological activity.


The chapter is part of a Point-Counterpoint (with Robinson, this volume), exploring the Limited Attention Capacity (LAC) and Cognition Hypotheses (CH) as alternative accounts of second language task performance. It starts by presenting five principles which underlie the LAC, covering memory and attentional functioning; the dimensions of performance; the role of research on task characteristics and conditions; the linkage with Levelt's model of speaking; and the notion of, and influences on task difficulty. Then a survey is presented of the empirical work that is relevant to the LAC, organised in terms of the stages of the Levelt Model. Next, the Cognition Hypothesis is described, particularly resource-directing and resource-dispersing features, and the hypothesis is critiqued, both in relation to the constructs of the model and in relation to relevant evidence. This leads to a comparison between the two approaches, regarding hinterland, regarding how influences on second language task performance are analysed, and regarding what the two approaches say, or do not say, about acquisition. Finally some suggestions are made as to how the two approaches may be brought into resolution, at least to some degree.


In this paper, two novel morphing parametric models for flat-to-V-type (FV) and for spoke-to-V-type (SV) Permanent Magnet (PM) synchronous machine configurations are introduced. A combined multi-objective design optimization method employing Design of Experiments (DOE) and Differential Evolution (DE) algorithms was developed and implemented. A Central Composite Design (CCD) approach combined with the Response Surface Method (RSM) was used to perform a sensitivity study from which the significant independent design variables were selected for the DE design optimization procedure. A computationally efficient-Finite Element Analysis (CE-FEA) technique was employed to evaluate the electromagnetic performance of the candidate designs. Three optimization objectives are concurrently considered for minimum material cost, power losses and torque ripple, respectively. The DE optimization results enable the systematic comparison of three interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor topologies: flat-type, generic V-shape and spoke, respectively. A discussion on the relative merits of each topology is included.


This article is based upon the 2003 24th Annual Charles H. Thompson Lecture at Howard University. It devotes attention to the nexuses between Ralph Bunche's scholarly publications and diplomatic speeches and their relationships to contemporary university plans and programs to address ongoing crises. In-depth interviews with a university chancellor and a president at two major public research universities-the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor-were undertaken in order to ascertain the current roles of universities as they directly and/or indirectly build upon Bunche's conceptual writings, policy perspectives, and higher education program implementation. Little could the parents of Ralph Johnson Bunche envision on August 7, 1903, that their newborn son would become one of the 20th century's foremost diplomats and world scholars. During the middle part of the 20th century, Ralph Bunche was internationally renowned as a Nobel Peace Laureate-the first person of color to achieve this distinction-for negotiating armistices between Israel and Arab states in 1949. Within this period, the Nobel Laureate was being investigated by the House Committee on Un-American activities for his alleged ties to the Communist Party and its endeavors in the United States. Simultaneously, Bunche's former colleagues from Howard University (such as historian John Hope Franklin) and students (such as psychologist Kenneth Clark) were preparing the historical, educational, psychological, and legal arguments for eliminating separate but equal public school systems for African Americans and European American students (Henry 1999; Keppel, 1995). Most Americans and many international scholars and policymakers are aware of the historical Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954-Brown vs. the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas-which declared that "separate but equal" were inherently unequal. During that same week in May 1954, the House Committee cleared Bunche of alleged ties to the Communist Party. A half-century later, numerous educational institutions and organizations are commemorating the Brown decision. Fifty years later, Bunche is now known primarily in select academic and diplomatic circles. To rectify this absent legacy and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bundle's birth, a national Centenary Committee (with Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush and United Nations secretary Kofi Annan as honorary chairs and co-chaired by a diplomat who held six ambassadorial posts, a knighted United Nations executive, and a university director emeritus of a Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies) is undertaking a careful portrait and dissemination of the diplomatic, international relations, public policy, and educational contributions of Ralph Bunche (Ralph Bunche Centenary, 2004). The Journal of Negro Education is devoting its spring 2004 issue to an exploration and analysis of Bunche's contributions to education and domestic and international diplomacy. This lead article provides a general overview of Bundle's life by explicating educational and policy contributions of Bunche particularly as they pertain to contemporary universities. Other scholars and diplomats devote detailed attention to his life via examinations of his original and lingering influences on progressive social movements, specific disciplinary frameworks (such as political science, race relations, public policy, and globalization), and diplomacy within the United Nations. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS To begin our conceptual examination, we build upon the historical, sociological, and political science literature by and about Bunche (Bunche, 1941; Henry 1999; Keppel, 1995; Urquhart 1993) and the nexuses between diplomacy and education (Amin, 1997; Clark, 1990; Lindsay 2003; Stromquist, 2002). Based upon tenets of these scholarly and diplomatic works, a salient overarching question is posited: What components of Bunche's scholarly and diplomatic skills may be used to facilitate contemporary college and university endeavors as they address pressing diplomatic and public policies after September 11th or ongoing crises in the Middle East and other hot spots? …


Artificial immune systems have been proven to be efficient in pattern recognition, data clustering and data classification. The proposed method is a novel artificial immune classifier called aiCLS based on aiNET. Artificial immune network (aiNET) is an efficient data analysis and clustering algorithm capable of clustering simple datasets through complex ones. Hidden capabilities of aiNET for supervised learning were significantly considered by aiCLS. The proposed method takes a local optimization approach to classification problem. It generates local optimum cells to recognize any given training antigen. Concatenation of these cells results in a global optimum classifier. The novelty of aiCLS has been discussed from both computational and immunological aspects. From the computational aspect, aiCLS is a fast one-shot learner algorithm with regard to the proposed "iterative clonal selection". From the immunological aspect, aiCLS introduces a novel clonal suppression method called "dissimilarity proportional clonal suppression (DPCS)", which increases data reduction and convergence to local optimum for any given antigen. DPCS alters convergence through a greedy suppression, which takes antibody-antigen affinity into account. The experimental results show that aiCLS outperforms artificial immune recognition system (AIRS) on UCI benchmark datasets in both classification accuracy and data reduction.


ABSTRACT Antarctica is recognized as being geopolitically and scientifically important, and as one of the regions with the greatest potential to affect and be affected by global climate change. Still, little is known in practice about how climate change will be handled within the main governance framework of the continent: the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS). Using qualitative interviews, participant observations and policy document analysis, this paper explores the perspectives of Chilean scientific, political and non-governmental actors regarding the implications of climate change for the current Antarctic governance framework. Results corroborate a misalignment of the climate change agenda and the ATS, stemming from the divergent views displayed by a wide network of actors. From the interviews, two predominant visions emerge: (i) climate change as an opportunity, where actors recognize the role of Antarctica in regulating global climate and stress greater opportunities to conduct Antarctic-based climate change research, the need for strategic international collaboration, and the reinforcement of Chile's position in Antarctica through science; (ii) climate change as a burden where actors acknowledge climate change as a global problem, largely external to Antarctica, express disbelief regarding the effectiveness of local actions to tackle climate change and do not associate with climate change governance. The study concludes that climate change may become a dividing, rather than a unifying, field of action in Chilean Antarctic governance, reinforcing previously existing geopolitical tendencies.


Business transactions between companies are more and more executed by a flow of well-defined electronic business documents. The resulting inter-organizational business processes are often realized by concepts known from service-oriented computing. Exchanging a business document corresponds to a service call and the input/output of the service calls commonly follows a certain business document standard. However, these standards typically present the superset of all required elements used in any business context. In a specific context (in a specific industry, in a specific geopolitical region, etc.) the input/output is adjusted to this context by constraints on the generic structure. Accordingly, a specific service is always used in a specific context. It follows that it is important to define the business context of a service (in a structured format). For this purpose we have developed the Business Context Ontology model (BCOnt). In this paper we elaborate on the theoretical concepts and the underlying algorithms as well as on their implementation in practice.


BACKGROUND
With improvements in pediatric care and technology, more young adults (YAs) with life-limiting conditions (LLCs) are surviving into adulthood. However, they have limited expectations to live beyond the first decade of adulthood. This study describes the monumental efforts required for YAs with LLCs to achieve their goals in an abbreviated life.

OBJECTIVES
The experiences and aspirations of YAs with LLCs to achieve their goals are relatively unknown. This report focuses on their experiences of living with uncertainty and its impact on achieving developmental goals.

DESIGN
This study is one component of a larger descriptive study using an innovative bulletin board focus group to examine life experiences of YAs with LLCs.

RESULTS
YAs with LLCs share the aspirations and goals of all YAs. Some participants demonstrated a striking capacity to navigate system barriers and achieve their goals, whereas others "got stuck" resulting in lost opportunities. Successful personal life investments were possible if resources were made available, coordinated, navigable, and responsive to new and special requests. Transformative changes to health, social care, and community services are necessary to support their YA ambitions.

CONCLUSIONS
This study gave voice to those who were previously unheard and demonstrates the monumental hurdles YAs with LLCs face to achieve their goals. A palliative approach to care can mitigate unnecessary hardships and support their goals.


Compensation measures are a new method for handling impact on cultural heritage in land use planning. The idea with compensation measures can be understood as an extension of the polluter pays principle. Today, compensation measures are mainly used when natural environments are damaged by development, but it is also possible to use compensation measures when a project results in negative impact on cultural heritage. However, there is a lack of experience in using compensation when it comes to the latter. In our work as heritage consultants, we have experienced difficulties in implementing compensation measures in projects and assignments. Since 2013, we have organised a research project dealing with compensation measures and cultural heritage; aiming towards a new practice and better use of planning instruments. With this paper, we want to share our results from four case studies where development impact on cultural heritage has led to discussions about, and implementation of, compensation measures, find patterns in the use of compensation measures in planning processes. The results show an uncertainty in understanding compensation as a concept. This is due to an absence of practice dealing with compensation measures; cultural heritage values are not addressed in a proper way in negotiations over land access. Several instruments for compensation measures in planning processes can actually be found in the law and land use of the Swedish planning system, but they are not being used properly, which results in a negative impact on the cultural heritage. After two years of analysing and discussing our case studies in workshops and conferences, we have concluded that there is a strong need for clarifying planning instruments and for developing a professional practice dealing with compensation measures.


Interpretation of three-dimensional (3D) seismic data from the northern part of central Saudi Arabia allowed mapping of the Permo-Carboniferous Unayzah Formation's aeolian sand deposits and fluvial channels. These types of depositional environments have been associated frequently with better reservoir-quality sandstones within Saudi Arabia. The depositional setting of the Unayzah reservoirs can be highly variable and range from glacial, to lacustrine, to meandering fluvial, to aeolian, to braided stream. Seismic amplitude data were instrumental in mapping a truncation of the upper Unayzah reservoir against the overlying Pre-Khuff Unconformity. The use of seismic attributes, such as coherence and curvature, indicated the existence of faulting and a fluvial channel network at the top of the Unayzah Formation. The integration of well and seismic amplitude data, via acoustic impedance inversion, revealed the direction of potentially higher porosity fairways within the channel system. The structural and depositional architecture depicted in this study is being appraised through drilling of an exploration well.


Transcription factors can be activated in various ways. One way that cells control their activity is by sequestering these proteins outside of the nucleus, denying them access to the promoters that they bind. In some cases, transcription factor activation involves cleavage to allow nuclear translocation. Andréasson et al. report that in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, receptor-activated proteolysis is the mechanism by which amino acid sensing leads to stimulation of amino acid uptake through the Ssy1-Ptr3-Ssy5 (SPS) pathway. Two cleavage events occur in the SPS pathway: autoproteolysis of Ssy5, a protein associated with the transmembrane amino acid receptor Ssy1, and stimulated cleavage of Stp1 and Stp2, the transcription factors activated in response to amino acids. Andréasson et al. show that Ssy5 interacts with Stp1 and that a fusion construct containing the region of Stp1 required for processing was cleaved when expressed in yeast exposed to leucine. Yeast deficient in Ssy5 did not cleave the Stp1 fusion construct. When an N terminally hemagglutinin-tagged form of Ssy5, which was constitutively active, was coexpressed with Stp1 in S. pombe, which lacks any orthologs of the SPS system, Stp1 was efficiently cleaved. Because tagging Ssy5 on the N terminus resulted in constitutive activation, the authors created a C terminally tagged form and found that the prodomain remained associated with the catalytic domain after cleavage. Using an internally tagged form of Ssy5, the activity of which was regulated by amino acids, the authors showed that the abundance of the prodomain diminished during a 30-minute exposure of the yeast to leucine. The authors suggest that Ssy5 autoproteolysis serves as a priming event and that upon detection of amino acids by Ssy1, an inhibitory interaction between the cleaved prodomain of Ssy5 and the catalytic domain of Ssy5 is alleviated, which allows Ssy5 to cleave Stp1, promoting nuclear translocation and transcriptional activation. They dub this mechanism of proteolytic activation "receptor-activated proteolysis" (RAP). C. Andréasson , S. Heessen, P. O. Ljungdahl, Regulation of transcription factor latency by receptor-activated proteolysis. Genes Dev. 20, 1563-1568 (2006). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Gene postulation has been the most widely used technique to determine the presence of particular rust resistance genes in lines of small grains. It applies the principles of gene-for-gene specificity to determine the most probable race-specific resistance genes present in host lines. As the numbers of lines, resistance genes, and races increase, postulation based on visual comparisons of infection types becomes more complex and laborious, and errors may occur. A computer program was developed to facilitate identification of race-specific leaf rust (Lr) genes in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Seedlings of 116 contemporary lines of soft red winter wheat and 24 Thatcher isolines (each Thatcher isoline with a single Lr gene) were inoculated with 22 races of Puccinia triticina. Infection types were recorded on the standard 0 to 4 scale where infection types 3 and 4 were considered high (line was susceptible; race was virulent) and others were low (line was resistant; race was avirulent). Based on the gene-for-gene concept, lines susceptible to a particular race cannot have an Lr gene for which the race is avirulent. For each line, step 1 of the program summarized results from races that were virulent on the line to definitively exclude Lr genes from the line, and this exclusion resulted in a relatively short list of Lr genes that could be present. Step 2 of the program utilized data from races that were avirulent on the line, and the output listed the low infection types produced on the line and the isolines with Lr genes that were not excluded in step 1. Of these Lr genes, a gene was considered present if the low infection type produced on the line by one or more races matched the low infection type on the corresponding isoline. Otherwise, the gene was considered possibly present. Epistatic effects of one or more Lr genes prevented definitive inclusion or exclusion of genes considered possibly present. If the low infection type produced on the line was lower than that on any of the isolines listed in step 2, then the line was considered to have an unidentified Lr gene; i.e., a gene that was not in the set of 24 isolines. This program facilitated the objective and accurate postulation of Lr genes and could be adapted to other host-pathogen systems.


The physical characteristics of surface roughness observed on first-stage high-pressure turbine vanes that had been in service for a long period were investigated in this study. Profilometry measurements were utilized to provide details of the surface roughness formed by deposits of foreign materials on different parts of the turbine vane. Typical measures of surface roughness such as centerline average roughness values were shown to be inadequate for characterizing roughness effects. Using a roughness shape parameter originally derived from regular roughness arrays, the turbine airfoil roughness was characterized in terms of equivalent sand-grain roughness in order to develop an appropriate simulation of the surface for laboratory experiments. Two rough surface test plates were designed and fabricated. These test plates were evaluated experimentally to quantify the heat transfer rate for flow conditions similar to that which occurs on the turbine airfoil. Although the roughness levels on the two test plates were different by a factor of two, both surfaces caused similar 50 percent increases in heat transfer rates relative to a smooth surface. The effects of high free-stream turbulence, with turbulence levels from 10 to 17 percent, were also investigated. Combined free-stream turbulence and surface roughness effects were found to be additive, resulting in as much as a 100 percent increase in heat transfer rate.


Early Eocene adakitic volcanic and granitoid rocks are widespread in the Eastern Pontides of NE Turkey, providing significant constraints for the early Cenozoic tectonomagmatic evolution of the region. These adakitic rock units exhibit relatively high Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios, but low Y and Yb values, similar to modern adakites generated by partial fusion of a subducted oceanic slab. They also have high K2O and low MgO contents, and show moderately enriched ISr and low ϵNd(t) isotopic signatures. Our trace element modelling suggests that these adakitic magmas were generated from partial melting at low pressures of a garnet-bearing amphibolitic source in the continental lower crust. This lower crustal melting resulted from slab break off-induced asthenospheric upwelling and related magmatic underplating beneath the Eastern Pontides. We interpret this melting event and the adakitic magmatic activity as a syn- to post-collisional process involving early Cenozoic collision of the Pontide and Anatolide–Tauride continental blocks. The geochemical and tectonic constraints presented here indicate that early Eocene adakitic magmatism in the Eastern Pontides did not result from partial fusion of a subducted oceanic slab, but instead represent continental-type adakite formation.


Although it is destined for the personal-jurisdiction canon, the Supreme Court's 8-1 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court does little to clarify that notoriously hazy doctrine. It does, however, significantly alter the balance of power in complex litigation. Bristol-Myers is a landmark because it makes both mass-tort class actions and mass joinders impracticable in almost any state courts outside of the defendant's home states. With federal courts already hostile toward class actions, if plaintiffs want to aggregate, they will have to do so on the defendant's terms: either on the defendant's home turf or in federal multidistrict litigation (MDL). Faced with this choice, we believe that most plaintiffs will turn to MDL. The result will be the culmination of a trend toward the federalization of mass-tort litigation in MDL, which has grown to make up an astonishing one-third of the federal docket. In this paper, we examine why Bristol-Myers will have this effect and explain how MDL's hybrid structure facilitates centralized mass-tort litigation in federal courts, even as the Court's restrictive view on personal jurisdiction prevents similar aggregation in state court. MDL cuts this Gordian knot by formally adhering to the vision of vertical and horizontal federalism underlying both diversity jurisdiction and Bristol-Myers, while also paradoxically undermining that vision in service of mass resolution. What will result is centralization of even more power over mass-tort litigation in the hands of the MDL judge and lead lawyers that judge selects to run the litigation — a prospect that comes with both opportunities and risks.


Sustainability and resilience have become indispensable parts of the contemporary debate over the built environment. Although recognised as imperatives, the complexity and the variety of interpretations of sustainability and resilience have raised the necessity to again rethink their notion in the context of the built environment and to reframe the state-of-the-art body of knowledge. The book Sustainability and Resilience: Socio-Spatial Perspective so begins with the exploration of the broadest conceptual frame-of-reference of issues related to sustainability, and the re-establishment of the connection between the built environment and the conditions that are vital to its functioning, primarily in relation to energy, land use, climate, and economy. Subsequent discussion on resilience as a term, approach, and philosophy aims to conceptualise an interpretation of key resilience concepts, explain relationships and links among them, and propose the classification of resilience as applicable to the context of urban studies. By studying the processes of transition of the built environment, the book then reveals a coherent formula of 'thinking sustainability + resilience' aimed at improving the ability to respond to disruptions and hazards while enhancing human and environmental welfare. The necessity to integrate the two approaches is further accented as a result of a deliberative discourse on the notions of 'social sustainability', 'sustainable community', and 'socio-cultural resilience'. The potential of measuring sustainable development and urban sustainability on the basis of defined social, human, and, additionally, natural and economic values is presented though an overview of different wellknown indicators and the identification of a currently relevant tangible framework of sustainable development. Correspondingly, the role of policies and governance is demonstrated on the case of climate-proof cities. In this way, the consideration of approaches to sustainability and resilience of the urban environment is rounded, and the focus of the book is shifted towards an urban/rural dichotomy and the sustainability prospects of identified forms-in-between, and, subsequently, towards the exploration of values, challenges, and the socio-cultural role in achieving sustainability for rural areas. In the final chapters, the book offers several peculiarised socio-spatial perspectives, from defining the path towards more resilient communities and sustainable spaces based on a shared wellbeing, to proposing the approach to define community resilience as an intentional action that aims to respond to, and influence, the course of social and economic change, to deliberating the notion of a 'healthy place' and questioning its optimal scale in the built environment. The study of sustainability and resilience in this book is concluded by drawing a parallel between environmental, economic, and social determinants of the built environment and the determinants that are relevant to human health and well-being.


The present study aimed at the aetiological diagnosis of skin tumours of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in the Czech Republic. A total of 33 roe deer specimens showing skin masses were sampled for histopathology, virus detection and identification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and deoxyribonucleic acid sequence (DNA) analysis, and to investigate fibropapillomaassociated levels of metallothionein, zinc and oxidative stress in 2012 and 2013. Ticks (Ixodes ricinus) and deer keds (Lipoptena cervi) were also collected and pooled from sampled game specimens. Ticks found on dogs in hunting grounds under study were pooled into another sample. Skin tumours, ranging from 2 to 10 per inspected specimen and 2 to 5 cm in size, were classified as fibropapillomas by histopathology. All 33 viral-infection-suspected skin samples from roe deer in South Moravia and South Bohemia were PCR positive. The nucleotide sequences of PCR products were 100% homologous to the Western roe deer papillomavirus 1 isolate CcPV-1. Ticks and deer keds from positive roe deer and ticks from dogs were PCR and DNA sequence positive for the roe deer papillomavirus. Viral DNA was also demonstrated in one blood sample from a roe deer female. Differences in metallothionein, zinc, taurine and electrochemical index among samples from lesions and normal skin of affected roe deer and negative controls from papillomavirus-non-infected animals were non-significant. While we have demonstrated circulation of specific roe deer papillomavirus in the Czech Republic that results in multiple fibropapillomatous skin tumours, many ecological and epidemiological issues of this wildlife disease still remain unanswered.


For the Balinese, the whole of nature is a perpetual resource: through centuries of carefully directed labor by generations of farmers, the engineered landscape of the island's rice terraces has taken shape. According to Stephen Lansing, the need for effective cooperation in water management links thousands of farmers together in hierarchies of productive relationships that span entire watersheds. With unusual clarity and style, Lansing describes the network of water temples that once managed the flow of irrigation water in the name of the Goddess of the Crater Lake. Based on a system of power relations so subtle as to be completely overlooked by colonial administrators, the practical role of the temples was unnoticed until the advent of the "Green Revolution" of the 1970s. Lansing shows how the water temples then lost control of cropping patterns, a series of ecological crises developed, and the bureaucratic model of irrigation control was shown to be hopelessly over-simplified. Today the ancient system of water temples is threatened by development plans that assume agriculture to be a purely technical phenomenon. Using the techniques of ecological simulation modeling as well as cultural and historical analysis, Lansing argues that the material and the symbolic form a single complex--a historically evolving system of productive relationships that is the true unit of analysis. The symbolic system of temple rituals is not merely a reflection of utilitarian constraints but also a basic ingredient in the organization of production.


In my master's thesis and exhibition entitled Formal Elements Wearable Jewelry I explore the creative influences that inspire me to work in this medium. Texture surface line and movement contribute to a personal experience with materials and their natural qualities. These formal qualities when translated into wearable jewelry captivate and challenge our perception of what jewelry means. They create a visual dynamic and sustain the interest of the human eye. In my work I often use traditional materials such as gold silver copper steel both semi-precious and precious stones and explore their formal qualities. These qualities are heightened by their movement when worn. By the juxtaposition of positive and negative spaces and relief rough and polished surfaces I create an emotional connection by the wearer to the jewelry she or he is wearing. I was greatly inspired by travel to Italy while an ECU student. Motifs and images of the Spanish steps in Rome medieval towns city walls and window railings are translated and feature heavily in my recent body of work. Thus travel and movement are most closely intertwined in this work in both formal and conceptual terms. Organic forms deriving from formal and mental landscapes and my intrinsically sculptural sensibility is at the heart of all my work and is seen in the fluidity and movement I try to convey in sculpture for the body. I want the wearer and jewelry to become conjoined so the act of wearing the jewelry initiates a performance maybe by fantasy or the activation of a necklace or bracelet by the slightest move of the wearer.


The probability density function (PDF) of the ocean surface slope can be estimated from the code-correlation waveform of reflected GPS signals. Anisotropy in this PDF is found to correspond to the local near surface wind direction, suggesting the ability to resolve this direction using scattered signals from two or more GPS satellites. A two-stage estimation process was applied to sets of waveform data collected from an airborne delay-mapping GPS receiver. First, an isotropic normal distribution was assumed for the PDF. The mean square slope (MSS) was fit to the measured waveform data for each satellite independently. Differences between the MSS estimates from two satellites at different azimuths were observed. In the second step, a bidirectional normal PDF was used with MSS constrained to that obtained in the first step, and an assumed value was given for the ratio of upwind to crosswind slopes. The direction of the principal axes was then varied to minimize the total residuals for both satellites. The results were compared with buoy recordings of the local wind direction.


Crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter are becoming increasingly popular, allowing project creators to raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year. However, only one out of two Kickstarter campaigns reaches its funding goal and is successful. It is therefore of prime importance, both for project creators and backers, to be able to know which campaigns are likely to succeed.
 We propose a method for predicting the success of Kickstarter campaigns by using both direct information and social features. We introduce a first set of predictors that uses the time series of money pledges to classify campaigns as probable success or failure and a second set that uses information gathered from tweets and Kickstarter's projects/backers graph.
 We show that even though the predictors that are based solely on the amount of money pledged reach a high accuracy, combining them with predictors using social features enables us to improve the performance significantly. In particular, only 4 hours after the launch of a campaign, the combined predictor reaches an accuracy of more than 76% (a relative improvement of 4%).