In little over a decade, Open Educational Resources (OER) have opened up access to knowledge through hundreds of projects and open content repositories, open practices and, more recently, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC). However, OER lie at the heart of the Open Education movement, which advocates that communities and individuals should have access not only to repositories, but also to open technologies and methodologies. Since 2006, innovative OER initiatives such as OpenLearn (McAndrew et al., 2009) have been providing both open content and knowledge media environments (e.g. LabSpace by OpenLearn) for users to create their own open resources, courses and practices. Currently, it is possible to observe that an increasing number of open learning projects has been moving beyond the provision of repositories to offer social personalised platforms for collaborative open knowledge construction. These initiatives (e.g. OpenScout, 2010; weSPOT, 2013) offer opportunities for users to organise their social networks and co-create resources, courses, methodologies, inquiries and best practices.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the potential of online collaborative learning to support the development of 21st century skills. It draws upon an on-going virtual ethnography that aims to investigate colearning – collaborative open learning – with Open Educational Resources (OER) and social networks. The research focuses on COLEARN, an open research network constituted by communities of educators, students and researchers who have been participating in various OER projects, including OpenLearn (2006-2009) (Lane, 2012), OpenScout (2010-2012) (Okada, 2014) and weSPOT(2013-2015) (Mikroyannidis et al., 2012). A large data set that has been collected in the course of activities revolving around the creation of the book Open Educational Resources and Social Networks (Okada, 2013) is currently being treated. This project has been conducted for over four years and includes a variety of open digital data from multifaceted social settings in different platforms used during the coauthoring process of three editions of the book.

The process has involved 113 educators, students and researchers from thirty research groups in 21 different universities and 5 countries, who co-authored, initially, 30 chapters that draw upon their mainstream research. Each chapter was specifically designed to make it more reusable and understandable for a broader target audience. Amongst the activities develop ed, 7 open web conferences were organised with research groups responsible for each chapter, who discussed their work with readers on Facebook and FM webconference application. COLEARN's fieldwork includes both quantitative and qualitative sources. Thus, a variety of open digital data were co-produced from multifaceted social settings in different project platforms, such as digital productions, discussion forums, wikipage reflections, videoclips about the process, web-videoconferences, virtual focus groups, social media comments, social network dialogue and online surveys.


Stereotype threat can be experienced by anyone who belongs to a group whose status is made relevant by situational features. This study examined the impact of stereotype threat on international students studying in the United States. It was hypothesized that international students reminded that they will underperform on an outcome measure will do just that as compared to international students not so reminded. Thirty-six international students from a small northwest private university participated in the study. Participants were divided into control and experiment groups. Results indicated no significant differences in performance between the two groups. The results of this study are discussed within the framework of stereotype threat and suggest further studies regarding international students and this phenomenon.


Bioresorbable polymers have been widely investigated as materials exhibiting significant potential for successful application in the fields of tissue engineering and drug delivery. Further to the ability to control degradation, surface engineering of polymers has been highlighted as a key method central to their development. Previous work has demonstrated the ability of electron beam (e-beam) technology to control the degradation profiles and bioresorption of a number of commercially relevant bioresorbable polymers (poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA), L-lactide/DL-lactide co-polymer (PLDL) and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA)). This work investigates the further potential of e-beam technology to impart added biofunctionality through the manipulation of polymer (PLLA) surface properties. PLLA samples were subjected to e-beam treatments in air, with varying beam energies and doses. Surface characterization was then performed using contact angle analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Results demonstrated a significant increase in surface wettability post e-beam treatment. In correlation with this, XPS data showed the introduction of oxygen-containing functional groups to the surface of PLLA. Raman spectroscopy indicated chain scission in the near surface region of PLLA (as predicted). However, e-beam effects on surface properties were not shown to be dependent on beam energy or dose. E-beam irradiation did not seem to affect the surface roughness of PLLA as a direct consequence of the treatment.


In the current debate over the constitutionality of voter identification laws, both the Supreme Court and defenders of such laws have justified them, in part, as counteracting a widespread fear of voter fraud that leads citizens to disengage from the democracy. Because actual evidence of voter impersonation fraud is rare and difficult to come by if fraud is successful, reliance on public opinion as to the prevalence of fraud threatens to allow courts to evade the difficult task of balancing the actual constitutional risks involved. In this short Article we employ a unique survey to evaluate the causes and effects of public opinion regarding voter fraud. We find that perceptions of fraud have no relationship to an individual's likelihood of turning out to vote. We also find that voters who were subject to stricter identification requirements believe fraud is just as widespread as do voters subject to less restrictive identification requirements.


An advanced intercrossed line (AIL) is an experimental population that can provide more accurate estimates of quantitative trait loci (QTL) map location than conventional mapping populations. An AIL is produced by randomly and sequentially intercrossing a population that initially originated from a cross between two inbred lines or some variant thereof. This provides increasing probability of recombination between any two loci. Consequently, the genetic length of the entire genome is stretched, providing increased mapping resolution. In this way, for example, with the same population size and QTL effect, a 95% confidence interval of QTL map location of 20 cM in the F2 is reduced fivefold after eight additional random mating generations (F10). Simulation results showed that to obtain the anticipated reduction in the confidence interval, breeding population size of the AIL in all generations should comprise an effective number of > or = 100 individuals. It is proposed that AILs derived from crosses between known inbred lines may be a useful resource for fine genetic mapping.


This article gives an overview of our ongoing research on the processing and representation of light verb constructions. Light verb constructions consist of a light verb, which is semantically bleached, and an event nominal, which identifies the kind of event. Together the noun and the verb determine the structure of that event (the number of participants and their roles). Critically, in light verb constructions the canonical mapping from surface syntactic structure to event structure is disrupted. The present studies examine this phenomenon through the lens of language processing. We summarize several behavioral and neurolinguistic studies that show that the interpretation of light verb constructions relies on noncanonical mappings between syntax and semantics, while their syntactic structure is not different from non-light constructions.


Purpose: To analyze the impact of different uropathogenic microorganisms on various sperm parameters those are generally used to determine male fertilizing potential. Method: The standard strains viz. Serratia marcescens, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter aerogenes, Candida albicans, Proteus mirabilis, Streptococcus pyogenes, Klebsiella oxytoca were checked for their impact on sperm motility, viability, morphology, Mg++ ATPase activity and acrosome status of spermatozoa. Results: S. marcescens, K. pneumoniae, E. aerogenes compromised sperm motility via agglutination and C. albicans impaired motility without agglutination. Further, these strains could also reduce viability resulting in sperm death. These strains induced morphological defects in spermatozoa as evident by electron microscopic studies. Incubation of spermatozoa with these uropathogenic strains led to reduction in Mg2+ dependent ATPase activity and also resulted in premature acrosomal loss. On the other hand, P. mirabilis, S. pyogenes, K. oxytoca did not alter any of these parameters. Conclusion: It can be concluded from the present study that certain uropathogenic strains can induce detrimental effects on spermatozoon thereby reducing its fertilizing ability.


The objective of the study was to determine whether Washington State Department of Transportation's (WSDOT's) winter use of road anti-icer compounds on Highway 2 in Chelan County, Washington, is having an impact on the federally endangered plant species Hackelia venusta. A controlled study was performed in the outdoor facilities at the Center for Urban Horticulture-University of Washington. This study evaluated two road anti-icer formulae available to WSDOT in the 2000-2002 winter seasons by testing the effects of different anti-icer dilutions on plant and soil parameters. Since it was not feasible to use H. venusta in a controlled study during the time of implementation, two other species were used. One species, Mertensia platyphylla, is a phylogenetic relative and the other, Eriophyllym lanatum, is a non-related ecosystem associate. From the analysis, the authors were able to conclude that both road anti-icers begin to have detrimental effects by causing a decrease in aboveground biomass and survival on the two plant species examined when the concentrations reached 1 part anti-icer: 100 parts solution. Given the information obtained from the study's' results, more work is needed in order to better understand the implications of these results on the effects road anti-icer formulae have on H. venusta.


Respiratory activity is an important parameter for observation of human body activity. A normal adult has a respiratory rate of 12–15 breaths/min in normal conditions. Breath sensor based on non-contact Doppler detector allows for the measurement and detection and the absence of the breathing action, which may cause death in a few minutes. The monitoring and detection of some respiratory abnormality presents interest in certain situations (i.e. patients from intensive therapy, of newborn children and many others). The paper covers a new technical solution of the low-cost breath sensor, which consists of the microwave generator together with a resonant patch antenna. There is only one antenna for transmitting and receiving. The technical solution of the oscillator is based on a single FET transistor. The microwave oscillator may be tuned by change of the antenna dimensions. The solution presented here is designed for 2.4GHz (ISM band). The respiratory activity is mainly detected due to the motion of the body. The wave reflected by the moving body surface is mixed with the oscillating frequency by FET transistor junction. Filtering the low frequency signals gives a component that represents the Doppler frequency due to body surface motion. Next, it is processed with high a resolution analogue-digital converter and digitally filtered, and time-frequency analyzed as well. The processing enables the detection of the respiration rate with accuracy 1 beat/min or 0.016Hz. Signal processing in digital domain includes removal of DC offset and out-of-band noise. Experimental results confirm the possibility of using a microwave Doppler detector to measure and analyze respiratory activity signals. This method permits to measure the breathing rate period.


Background High levels of cadmium exposure are known to cause emphysema in occupationally exposed workers, but little has been reported to date on the association between chronic environmental cadmium exposure and pulmonary function. Objective In this study we examined the association between pulmonary function and cadmium body burden in a subcohort of the Normative Aging Study, a community-based study of aging. Methods We examined 96 men who had cadmium measured in single 24-hr urinary specimens collected in 1994–1995 and who had one to three tests of pulmonary function between 1994 and 2002 (a total of 222 observations). We used mixed-effect models to predict pulmonary function based on individual 24-hr urinary cadmium output, adjusted for age, height, time elapsed from the baseline, and smoking status. We assessed effect modification by smoking status. Results Among all subjects, a single log-unit increase in baseline urinary cadmium was inversely associated with forced expiratory volume in 1 sec (FEV1) percent predicted [β = −7.56%; 95% confidence interval (CI) −13.59% to −1.53%]; forced vital capacity (FVC) percent predicted (β = −2.70%; 95% CI −7.39% to 1.99%), and FEV1/FVC ratio (β = −4.13%; 95% CI −7.61% to −0.66%). In models including an interaction between urinary cadmium and smoking status, there was a graded, statistically significant reduction in FEV1/FVC ratio across smoking status in association with urinary cadmium. Conclusions This study suggests that chronic cadmium exposure is associated with reduced pulmonary function, and cigarette smoking modifies this association. These results should be interpreted with caution because the sample size is small, and further studies are needed to confirm our findings.


The planetary boundaries framework proposes quantified guardrails to human modification of global environmental processes that regulate the stability of the planet and has been considered in sustainability science, governance, and corporate management. However, the planetary boundary for human freshwater use has been critiqued as a singular measure that does not reflect all types of human interference with the complex global water cycle and Earth System. We suggest that the water planetary boundary will be more scientifically robust and more useful in decision-making frameworks if it is redesigned to consider more specifically how climate and living ecosystems respond to changes in the different forms of water on Earth: atmospheric water, frozen water, groundwater, soil moisture, and surface water. This paper provides an ambitious scientific road map to define a new water planetary boundary consisting of sub-boundaries that account for a variety of changes to the water cycle.


The European Union is mired in the worst crisis it has seen for many decades. And the crisis does not stop at Europe's edge. It threatens to undercut the EU's ambitions to develop a coherent and active foreign policy, but it is also forcing European states to reevaluate their approach to security and defense. Richard Youngs examines the legacy of the crisis and what it will mean for the EU's international role. The fallout undermines the EU's foreign policy capacity and tarnishes its normative brand, compelling some member states to focus on realpolitik and their own national-level policies. But there are also signs of enhanced European cooperation, greater international ambition, and deepened commitment to the values of a liberal world order. Youngs details how the EU can craft an effective foreign policy strategy while confronting an internal economic crisis and a reshaped global order.


Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is a method of phase-contrast microscopy which quantifies the phase shift that occurs when light passes through an optically dense object. Machine learning relies on patterns and inference to study algorithms and statistical models with the goal of performing tasks without explicit instructions. QPI provides an enormous amount of information about cells. In the past, however, applying information obtained from QPI based cell profiling into practical translational solutions has been challenging due to limited access to analytical tools capable of making full sense of this data. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, however, suggest opportunities in applying QPI to medical diagnostics. This paper discusses how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantitative phase imaging can be used in medical diagnostics.


Botryosphaeriaceae species are important pathogens of grapevines so the effect of environmental conditions on sporulation from naturally infected Sauvignon blanc grapevines in two Marlborough vineyards was studied. Shoot lesions characteristic of Botryosphaeriaceae infection were marked on 24 grapevines in each vineyard for observation between September 2014 and April 2015. Pycnidia on the lesions oozed conidia during or soon after rainfall on five occasions at maximum air temperatures of 8.4—19.9˚C and relative humidities of 77—94.7%. Microscopic observation of the ooze showed conidia characteristic of either Neofusicoccum or Diplodia species in 67% and 50% of samples from Vineyard A and B, respectively. Sixty- nine colonies characteristic of Botryosphaeriaeae species were recovered after plating of conidial ooze and identified by DNA analysis as Diplodia mutila (39.1%), Neofusicoccum australe (30.4%), N. parvum (14.5%), N. luteum (5.8%), D. seriata (7.2%) and N. ribis (3.0%). All species have been reported previously as grapevine pathogens in New Zealand.


This paper explores how real-time data are made available as "open data" using municipal transit data as a case study. Many transit authorities in North America and elsewhere have installed technology to gather GPS data in real-time from transit vehicles. These data are in high demand in app developer communities because of their use in communicating predicted, rather than scheduled, transit vehicle arrival times. While many municipalities have chosen to treat real-time GPS data as "open data", the particular nature of real-time GPS data requires a different mode of access for developers than what is needed for static data files. This, in turn, has created a conflict between the "openness" of the underlying data and the sometimes restrictive terms of use which govern access to the real-time data through transit authority Application Program Interfaces (APIs). This paper explores the implications of these terms of use and considers whether real-time data require a separate standard for openness. While the focus is on the transit data context, the lessons from this area will have broader implications, particularly for open real-time data in the emerging 'smart cities' environment.


We analyze night-time near-infrared (NIR) images of Beta-Phoebe region obtained with the 1-μm channel of the
Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) onboard Venus Express. Comparisons with the results of the Magellan radar
survey and the model NIR images show that the night-time VMC images provide reliable information on spatial
variations of the NIR surface emission.
Here we consider if tessera terrain has the different NIR emissivity (and thus mineralogical composition) in com-
parison to the surrounding basaltic plains. This is done through the study of an area SW of Beta Regio where
there is a massif of tessera terrain, Chimon-mana Tessera, surrounded by supposedly basaltic plains. Our analysis
showed that 1-μm emissivity of tessera surface material is by 15 – 35 % lower than that of relatively fresh suppos-
edly basaltic lavas of plains and volcanic edifices. This is consistent with hypothesis that the tessera material is not
basaltic, maybe felsic, that is in agreement with the results of analyses of VEX VIRTIS and Galileo NIMS data. If
the felsic nature of venusian tesserae will be confirmed in further studies this may have important implications on
geochemical environments in early history of Venus.
We have found that the surface materials of plains in the study area are very variegated in their 1-μm emissivity,
which probably reflects variability of degree of their chemical weathering.
We have also found a possible decrease of the calculated emissivity at the top of Tuulikki Mons volcano which, if
real, may be due to different (more felsic?) composition of volcanic products on the volcano summit.


In a time when cattle herds grow continually larger the need for automatic methods to detect diseases is ever increasing. One possible method to discover diseases is to use thermal images and automatic head and eye detectors. In this thesis an eye detector and a head detector is implemented using the Random Forests classifier. During the implementation the classifier is evaluated using three different descriptors: Histogram of Oriented Gradients, Local Binary Patterns, and a descriptor based on pixel differences. An alternative classifier, the Support Vector Machine, is also evaluated for comparison against Random Forests.The thesis results show that Histogram of Oriented Gradients performs well as a description of cattle heads, while Local Binary Patterns performs well as a description of cattle eyes. The provided descriptor performs almost equally well in both cases. The results also show that Random Forests performs approximately as good as the Support Vector Machine, when the Support Vector Machine is paired with Local Binary Patterns for both heads and eyes.Finally the thesis results indicate that it is easier to detect and locate cattle heads than it is to detect and locate cattle eyes. For eyes, combining a head detector and an eye detector is shown to give a better result than only using an eye detector. In this combination heads are first detected in images, followed by using the eye detector in areas classified as heads.


As VLSI technology continues to improve, configurable hardware devices such as PLDs are progressively replacing many specialized digital integrated circuits. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are one class of such devices, characterized by their ability to be reconfigured as often as desired. Lately, FPGAs have advanced to the stage where they can host large computational circuits, giving rise to the study of reconfigurable computing as a potential alternative to traditional microprocessors. Most previous reconfigurable computers, however, have been ad hoc designs that are not fully compatible with existing general-purpose computing paradigms.
This thesis examines the problem of combining reconfigurable hardware with a conventional processor into a single-chip device that can serve as the core of a general-purpose computer. The impact of memory cache stalls, of multitasking context switches, and of virtual memory page faults on the design of the reconfigurable hardware is considered. A possible architecture for the device is defined in detail and its implementation in VLSI studied. With basic development tools and a full-fledged simulator, several benchmarks are tested on the proposed architecture and their performance compared favorably against an existing Sun UltraSPARC. Some additional experiences with the architecture are also related, followed by suggestions for future research.


This thesis explores the effects of status in the implementation of innovations in three empirical papers which investigate both the positive and negative impact of status –status of either the project leader, the project group, or the organization. We argue that every project member fulfills the role of champion in their project through their status. By analyzing a unique database of video game development projects compiled from three different sources, we uncover several important effects of status in the creation of innovations. In addition, we study several factors which moderate the relationship between status and innovation performance.

The first two studies focus on the position of social actors in the organizational status hierarchy. While these studies show that status provides several important advantages in the innovation process, they also uncover important negative-side effects of status which are more likely to occur in more innovative settings. The third study reveals that, for the same level of quality, high-status organizations are able to realize more advantages than their low-status counterparts. However, we also show that high-status organizations fail to realize all the potential benefits of their status when they invest in projects of great magnitude.

Together, our studies provide important insights into the effects of status and the dynamics of social hierarchies in the creation of innovations. By gaining a better understanding of the social side of innovations, both researchers and practitioners will be able to form a more complete picture of the social components of organizational competitiveness.


OBJECTIVES
Female bonobos (Pan paniscus) are characterized as highly affiliative and cooperative, but few studies have quantified the strength and stability of female intra-sexual relationships or explored how variation in social relationships influences cooperation. We measure female social preferences, identify causes of variation in preferences, and test whether variation in social preferences predicts food sharing or coalitionary support.

METHODS
Data were collected over 3 years from females in the Bompusa community at LuiKotale, DRC. We measured genetic relatedness and constructed social preference indices for party association, proximity, grooming, GG-rubbing and aggression. We identified preferred social partners based on permutation tests and measured stability using Mantel tests. We used factor analysis to identify inter-relationships between preference indices and used LMMs to test whether variation in social preferences was explained by relatedness, rank differences, having dependent young or co-residency time. We used GLMMs to test whether variation in social preferences predicted food sharing or coalitionary support.

RESULTS
All females had preferred non-kin partners for proximity, grooming or GG-rubbing, but only grooming preferences were stable across years. Association indices were higher among lactating females, and aggression was lower among females with longer co-residency times. The factor analysis identified one factor, representing proximity and GG-rubbing preferences, labeled behavioral coordination. Dyads with higher levels of behavioral coordination were more likely to share food.

CONCLUSIONS
Female bonobos exhibit stable, differentiated grooming relationships outside of kinship and philopatry. Females also exhibit flexible proximity and GG-rubbing preferences that may facilitate cooperation with a wider range of social partners.


Digitalization is creating a new model of industrial organization as online platform intermediate in multisided markets. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the platform paradigm provides a simple and useful framework to analyze the impact of digitalization on network industries. The first online platforms (searches and social platforms) disrupted content industries (music, newspapers, media, etc.) but as platforms proliferate, they are also disrupting industries with physical assets, such as accommodation. Disruption has reached network industries, and similar features emerge as they are all being "platformed." On the one hand, platform-based services are replacing traditional network industry services. This is the case of electronic mail and postal service and carpooling platforms and railways. On the other hand, platforms are commoditizing network industry services, as they become mere sides in multisided markets coordinated by a platform. This is the case of telecom services and over the top providers (WhatsApp, Skype, and YouTube) and, potentially, of isolated transport services and "Mobility-as-a-Service" platforms. Regulation is becoming a key consideration. First, there is a debate on whether platforms should be subject to the same regulatory obligations as traditional network players. Second, there is a debate on whether platforms should have access to network services under regulated terms. Overall, platforms are replacing former monopolists in the central role as coordinators of the sector.


Since December 2019, an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection causing COVID-19 disease has influenced the whole world Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors on type 2 pneumocytes in humans were determined as the entry for SARS-CoV-2 Receptor binding and subsequently endocytosis of ACE2 diminish the cell membrane expression and also the function of ACE2 ACE2 is an enzyme involved in bradykinin metabolism Lys-des-Arg9-BK occured with enzymatic cleaving of Lys-BK derived from low molecular weight kininogen is inactivated by ACE2 in tissues and it is a vasodilator agent having its own receptor named bradykinin B1 Non-metabolized Lys-des-Arg9-BK can be the reason for tissue vasodilation and increased vascular permeability in the patients with COVID-19 Increased bradykinin levels in patients with hereditary angioedema with C1-INH deficiency (C1-INH-HAE) do not cause increased SARS-CoV-2 infection or more severe disease Although SARS-CoV-2 infection does not result in increased bradykinin levels, it can increase Lys-des-Arg9-BK levels


During and following natural or man-made disasters, relief efforts have a long history of initially focusing on basic survival needs, then restoring community stability. Disaster mental health is a relatively new aspect of relief efforts, particularly in regard to children's needs. After reviewing objectives of major relief organizations and summarizing current research in light of practitioners' input, suggestions and resources are offered to strengthen cultural sensitivity in school-based disaster mental health services.


This paper reports on methods and results of an applied research project by a team consisting of SAIC and four universities to develop, integrate, and evaluate new approaches to detect the weak signals characteristic of insider threats on organizations' information systems. Our system combines structural and semantic information from a real corporate database of monitored activity on their users' computers to detect independently developed red team inserts of malicious insider activities. We have developed and applied multiple algorithms for anomaly detection based on suspected scenarios of malicious insider behavior, indicators of unusual activities, high-dimensional statistical patterns, temporal sequences, and normal graph evolution. Algorithms and representations for dynamic graph processing provide the ability to scale as needed for enterprise-level deployments on real-time data streams. We have also developed a visual language for specifying combinations of features, baselines, peer groups, time periods, and algorithms to detect anomalies suggestive of instances of insider threat behavior. We defined over 100 data features in seven categories based on approximately 5.5 million actions per day from approximately 5,500 users. We have achieved area under the ROC curve values of up to 0.979 and lift values of 65 on the top 50 user-days identified on two months of real data.


On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades--with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world. As prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union--weakened by infighting and economic turmoil--might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate. Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided--and haunted--American foreign policy ever since.


This paper introduces a new method to build linear flows, by taking the exponential of a linear transformation. This linear transformation does not need to be invertible itself, and the exponential has the following desirable properties: it is guaranteed to be invertible, its inverse is straightforward to compute and the log Jacobian determinant is equal to the trace of the linear transformation. An important insight is that the exponential can be computed implicitly, which allows the use of convolutional layers. Using this insight, we develop new invertible transformations named convolution exponentials and graph convolution exponentials, which retain the equivariance of their underlying transformations. In addition, we generalize Sylvester Flows and propose Convolutional Sylvester Flows which are based on the generalization and the convolution exponential as basis change. Empirically, we show that the convolution exponential outperforms other linear transformations in generative flows on CIFAR10 and the graph convolution exponential improves the performance of graph normalizing flows. In addition, we show that Convolutional Sylvester Flows improve performance over residual flows as a generative flow model measured in log-likelihood.


Objective--To describe the clinical and non-clinical factors which influence the waiting time from initial angiography to angioplasty. Design--Follow up of a random sample of 106 patients undergoing their first coronary angiography for whom a decision to revascularise by percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was made in 1991. The period between the date of angiography and the date of angioplasty and various clinical characteristics of patients were retrieved from medical notes in mid 1993. Patients were sampled from those investigated in the two Northern Ireland catheterisation laboratories in Belfast, which provide services for the whole of the province (population 1.5 million). Main measures--The dependent variable was the period between initial angiography and angioplasty, and the independent variables included age, sex, distance from cardiac catheterisation centre, referral source, characteristics of the clinical history, severity of angina, and anatomical extent of disease. Cox's proportional hazards analysis was used to derive a relative hazard, expressing the relative chances of revascularisation occurring at any time during follow up. Results--Of the 106 patients studied, 93 had had percutaneous transluminal angioplasty at follow up. The most important predictors of waiting time were the presence of severe angina (relative hazards 3.1(95 % confidence interval (95% CI) 1.4-6.8) and 2.7(1.2-6.2) for Canadian Cardiovascular grades III and IV v angina grade I angina), a recent history of myocardial infarction (relative hazard, 2.5(1.3-4.8), and whether or not the patient was economically active (relative hazard 0.6(0.4-1.0) for economically inactive v active patients). Although there was also an association with the relative deprivation of the area of residence of the patient it had no clear linear trend. Conclusions--Although waiting time for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was predictably related to the patient's clinical presentation, demographic factors may also be important in determining access to intervention. These factors clearly merit further study; ultimately, the evaluation of equity in a waiting time distribution may more properly be a societal rather than a clinical judgment.


Abstract The objective of this paper is primarily methodological. Using a new specification, we reanalyze the data on worldwide environmental quality investigated by Gene Grossman and Alan Krueger in their well-known paper on the environmental Kuznets curve (which postulates an inverse U-shaped relationship between income level and pollution). This new specification avoids using nonlinear transformations of potentially nonstationary regressors in panel estimation, which is a major unresolved econometric problem plaguing much of the existing literature. We furthermore draw conclusions from fixed effects estimation, which had eluded Grossman and Krueger. Our estimation results indicate the presence of an EKC for only six of the fourteen pollutants, whereas Grossman and Krueger find support for all but one pollutant.


The first of at least nine bow shock crossings observed on the inbound pass of Voyager 2 occurred at 98.8 Jupiter radii (RJ) with final entry into the magnetosphere at 62 RJ. On both the inbound and outbound passes the plasma showed a tendency to move in the direction of corotation, as was observed on the inbound pass of Voyager 1. Positive ion densities and electron intensities observed by Voyager 2 are comparable within a factor of 2 to those seen by Voyager 1 at the same radial distance from Jupiter; the composition of the magnetospheric plasma is again dominated by heavy ions with a ratio of mass density relative to hydrogen of about 100/1. A series of dropouts of plasma intensity near Ganymede may be related to a complex interaction between Ganymede and the magnetospheric plasma. From the planetary spin modulation of the intensity of plasma electrons it is inferred that the plasma sheet is centered at the dipole magnetic equator out to a distance of 40 to 50 RJ and deviates from it toward the rotational equator at larger distances. The longitudinal excursion of the plasma sheet lags behind the rotating dipole by a phase angle that increases with increasing radial distance.


In this study, the authors focused on a short-trip rideshare system including nonmonetary rewards supported by other-regarding preferences of altruistic drivers in a village community. A methodology for simulating various mechanism designs of the short-trip rideshare system was developed. Using numerical simulation, the authors studied ways to improve the sustainability of the system by providing informational guidance. As a result, they showed that a higher number of rideshare pairs were sustained by messages that shaped the expectations of driver candidates about the success of ridesharing. From their numerical example, the authors concluded that the conveyance of informational guidance by a system operator, which induced each driver candidate to take action towards their delayed matching in place of failure, was reasonable roughly three times out of ten to promote system sustainability from the perspective of both the number of rideshare pairs and the welfare level of all participants.


'Fire mosaics' are often maintained in landscapes to promote successional diversity in vegetation with little understanding of how this will affect ecological processes in animal populations such as dispersal, social organization and re‐establishment. To investigate these processes, we conducted a replicated, spatiotemporal landscape genetics study of two Australian woodland lizard species [Amphibolurus norrisi (Agamidae) and Ctenotus atlas (Scincidae)]. Agamids have a more complex social and territory structure than skinks, so fire might have a greater impact on their population structure and thus genetic diversity. Genetic diversity increased with time since fire in C. atlas and decreased with time since fire in A. norrisi. For C. atlas, this might reflect its increasing population size after fire, but we could not detect increased gene flow that would reduce the loss of genetic diversity through genetic drift. Using landscape resistance analyses, we found no evidence that postfire habitat succession or topography affected gene flow in either species and we were unable to distinguish between survival and immigration as modes of postfire re‐establishment. In A. norrisi, we detected female‐biased dispersal, likely reflecting its territorial social structure and polygynous mating system. The increased genetic diversity in A. norrisi in recently burnt habitat might reflect a temporary disruption of its territoriality and increased male dispersal, a hypothesis that was supported with a simulation experiment. Our results suggest that the effects of disturbance on genetic diversity will be stronger for species with territorial social organization.


This paper introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence. A double-indexed process is said to be cross sectionally weakly dependent at a given point in time, t, if its weighted average along the cross section dimension (N) converges to its expectation in quadratic mean, as N is increased without bounds for all weights that satisfy certain 'granularity' conditions. Relationship with the notions of weak and strong common factors is investigated and an application to the estimation of panel data models with an infinite number of weak factors and a finite number of strong factors is also considered. The paper concludes with a set of Monte Carlo experiments where the small sample properties of estimators based on principal components and CCE estimators are investigated and compared under various assumptions on the nature of the unobserved common effects.


As a challenge to those who do not give much credit to reflecting on sociology as a science, this essay stresses the import of metatheoretical considerations. Aft er all, what is known as postmodern discourse is scarcely a little more than metatheorizing and the phenomenon of the so-called "crisis of sociology" cannot be comprehended without some metatheoretical premises. Knowledge about knowledge should therefore form a special field of inquiry and enjoy its relative autonomy. In this article, the place for metasociology is delimitated by the account of the development of the general science of science. While the prefi x "meta-" originally came from linguistics as a way to differentiate a proposition about an object of science from a proposition about science itself, the history of metatheorizing can be traced back to ancient philosophy. Hence, the most important sources of inspiration for this intellectual activity are epistemology and the philosophy of science. A crucial moment in their development was the so-called "crisis in physics" that carried over to social sciences and spawned many contemporary trends such as the multicultural approach to sociology and the radical stance of methodological anarchism. The major philosophical orientations that have most directly addressed the questions about the scientific knowledge have been neopositivism and analytical philosophy on one hand, and phenomenology on the other one. No claims about metasociology can be made without being acquainted with at least the elementary positions in this exchange of ideas that took place in the philosophy of science. Metasociology, itself divided into metatheory and metamethodology (or general methodology), makes up an integral part of the science of science.


There are 51 selections in this book, and none of them addresses directly the subject of teaching writing. Yet all of them consider "how we make sense of the world" - how we learn and know. Reading these selections by artists, philosophers, and scientists, we discover that our own questions about knowing are perennial ones - that they have long troubled and fascinated others involved in the business of making meaning.This book is meant to guide that discovery, and to help sustain and embolden us in a common philosophical enterprise: reclaiming the imagination. Berthoff's selections scintillate, individually and collectively. She draws from many sources, among them Rudolf Arnheim, Kenneth Burke, Susanne Langer, L.S. Vygotsky, I.A. Richards, Alfred North Whitehead, W.H. Auden, C.S. Peirce, Owen Barfield, Walker Percy, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Clifford Geertz, Jane Addams, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Paul Klee, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ingmar Bergman, and Doris Humphrey.


Abstract. Climate geoengineering proposals seek to rectify the Earth's current and potential future radiative imbalance, either by reducing the absorption of incoming solar (shortwave) radiation, or by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and transferring it to long-lived reservoirs, thus increasing outgoing longwave radiation. A fundamental criterion for evaluating geoengineering options is their climate cooling effectiveness, which we quantify here in terms of radiative forcing potential. We use a simple analytical approach, based on energy balance considerations and pulse response functions for the decay of CO2 perturbations. This aids transparency compared to calculations with complex numerical models, but is not intended to be definitive. It allows us to compare the relative effectiveness of a range of proposals. We consider geoengineering options as additional to large reductions in CO2 emissions. By 2050, some land carbon cycle geoengineering options could be of comparable magnitude to mitigation "wedges", but only stratospheric aerosol injections, albedo enhancement of marine stratocumulus clouds, or sunshades in space have the potential to cool the climate back toward its pre-industrial state. Strong mitigation, combined with global-scale air capture and storage, afforestation, and bio-char production, i.e. enhanced CO2 sinks, might be able to bring CO2 back to its pre-industrial level by 2100, thus removing the need for other geoengineering. Alternatively, strong mitigation stabilising CO2 at 500 ppm, combined with geoengineered increases in the albedo of marine stratiform clouds, grasslands, croplands and human settlements might achieve a patchy cancellation of radiative forcing. Ocean fertilisation options are only worthwhile if sustained on a millennial timescale and phosphorus addition may have greater long-term potential than iron or nitrogen fertilisation. Enhancing ocean upwelling or downwelling have trivial effects on any meaningful timescale. Our approach provides a common framework for the evaluation of climate geoengineering proposals, and our results should help inform the prioritisation of further research into them.


Few historians are bold enough to go after America's sacred cows in their very own pastures. But Michael Zuckerman is no ordinary historian, and this collection of his essays is no ordinary book. In his effort to remake the meaning of the American tradition, Zuckerman takes the entire sweep of American history for his province. The essays in this collection, including two never before published and a new autobiographical introduction, range from early New England settlements to the hallowed corridors of modern Washington. Among his subjects are Puritans and Southern gentry, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Spock, P. T. Barnum and Ronald Reagan. Collecting scammers and scoundrels, racists and rebels, as well as the purest genius, he writes to capture the unadorned American character. Recognized for his energy, eloquence, and iconoclasm, Zuckerman is known for provoking--and sometimes almost seducing--historians into rethinking their most cherished assumptions about the American past. Now his many fans, and readers of every persuasion, can newly appreciate the distinctive talents of one of America's most powerful social critics.


Our study deal with the teaching coaches process, applied to the adapted sport field, concretely to the wheelchair tennis of top level. From the literature revision and the collect of the expert opinion, we have designed a formative program in order to optimize the verbal behaviour coach during the training sessions. Concretely, we focus our research about the first information that the coach sends previously to each skill, and about the feedback gave after the execution by the player. The research design had three phases, the first one without the participation of the researcher, the second one where the researcher had a meeting with the coach to analyze everything succeded into the training session, and the third phase where the researcher recorded, only, the training session. Our research has been developed as a study of cases, with three coaches of players integrated into the national wheelchair tennis team, and related to the results we have contrasted the efficacy of the program about the coach verbal behaviour, increasing the number of first information with higher quality, and also the number of feedback, suggested by the experts as the most quality. KEY WORDS: Coaches formation, verbal behaviour; formative program, wheelchair tennis.


Background. The ability to predict defect-prone software components would be valuable. Consequently, there have been many empirical studies to evaluate the performance of different techniques endeavouring to accomplish this effectively. However no one technique dominates and so designing a reliable defect prediction model remains problematic. Objective. We seek to make sense of the many conflicting experimental results and understand which factors have the largest effect on predictive performance. Method. We conduct a meta-analysis of all relevant, high quality primary studies of defect prediction to determine what factors influence predictive performance. This is based on 42 primary studies that satisfy our inclusion criteria that collectively report 600 sets of empirical prediction results. By reverse engineering a common response variable we build a random effects ANOVA model to examine the relative contribution of four model building factors (classifier, data set, input metrics and researcher group) to model prediction performance. Results. Surprisingly we find that the choice of classifier has little impact upon performance (1.3 percent) and in contrast the major (31 percent) explanatory factor is the researcher group. It matters more who does the work than what is done. Conclusion. To overcome this high level of researcher bias, defect prediction researchers should (i) conduct blind analysis, (ii) improve reporting protocols and (iii) conduct more intergroup studies in order to alleviate expertise issues. Lastly, research is required to determine whether this bias is prevalent in other applications domains.


Vehicle accelerations may feed through the human body, causing involuntary limb motions which may lead to involuntary control inputs. This phenomenon is called biodynamic feedthrough (BDFT). Signal cancellation is a possible way of mitigating biodynamic feedthrough. It makes use of a BDFT model to estimate the involuntary control inputs. The BDFT effects are removed by subtracting the modeled estimate of the involuntary control input from the total control signal, containing both voluntary and involuntary components. The success of signal cancellation hinges on the accuracy of the BDFT model used. In this study the potential of signal cancellation is studied by making use of a method called optimal signal cancellation. Here, an identified BDFT model is used off-line to generate an estimate of the involuntary control inputs based on the accelerations present. Results show that reliable signal cancellation requires BDFT models that are both subject and task dependent. The task dependency is of particular importance: failing to adapt the model to changes in the operator's neuromuscular dynamics dramatically decreases the quality of cancellation and can even lead to an increase in unwanted effects. As a reliable and fast on-line identification method of the neuromuscular dynamics of the human operator currently does not exist, real-time signal cancellation is currently not feasible.


Political scientists use the concept of legitimacy to assess the rightfulness of political rule. Their research can approach legitimacy from two perspectives: When taking a normative approach, political scientists develop and justify their own evaluation of the rightfulness of political arrangements. When taking an empirical approach, they study how other people—such as political elites or citizens—evaluate the rightfulness of political rule.
 Both approaches have been used in research on the European Union. Scholarly discussions that approach the EU's legitimacy from a normative perspective revolve around the question of which standards of rightfulness are appropriate for the EU. These depend largely on how the EU polity is conceptualized: as a technocratic regulatory agency, an intergovernmental organization, a federation, a demoi-cracy, or a system of multilevel governance. Since the EU is hybrid polity that possesses elements of each of these models, and is therefore difficult to classify, no consensus has emerged in this debate.
 Scholarship that approaches the EU's legitimacy as an empirical phenomenon examines political attitudes and discourses in European society, asking whether, and why, societal actors treat the EU as legitimate. A diverse set of research methods—including public opinion surveys, content analysis of different kinds of texts, and qualitative interviews with citizens—have been applied to shed light on this question. While this research has not provided clear evidence of a "legitimacy crisis" of the EU, it does show that many Europeans relate to the EU with a sense of diffuse unease and skepticism, in part because they find it opaque and difficult to understand.


James Baldwin might be imagined as reaching his greatest level of popularity within this current decade. With the growth of social media activist movements like Black Lives Matter, which captures and catalyzes off a Baldwinian rage, and the publishing of works directly evoking Baldwin, his voice appears more pronounced between the years of 2013 and 2015. Scholars in Baldwin studies, along with strangers who were turned into witnesses of his literary oeuvre, have contributed to this renewed interest in Baldwin, or at least have been able to sharpen the significance of the phenomenon. Publications and performances highlight Baldwin's work and how it prefigured developments in critical race and queer theories, while also demonstrating Baldwin's critique as both prophetic and "disturbingly" contemporary. Emerging largely from Baldwin's timelessness in social and political discourse, and from the need to conjure a figure to demystify the absurd American landscape, these interventions in Baldwin studies follow distinct trends. This essay examines the 2013–15 trends from four vantages: an examination of a return, with revision, to popular work by Baldwin; identifying Baldwin's work as a contributor to theoretical and critical methodology; Baldwin and intertextuality or intervocality; and a new frontier in Baldwin studies.


Over the course of more than four decades the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project, a major and ongoing data-gathering enterprise in the social sciences, has compiled data that continues to be accessed heavily in scholarship on conflict processes. ICB holdings consist of full-length qualitative case studies, along with an expanding range of quantitative data sets. Founded in 1975, the ICB Project is among the most visible and influential within the discipline of International Relations (IR). A wide range of studies based either primarily or in part on the ICB's concepts and data have accumulated and cover subjects that include the causes, processes, and consequences of crises. The breadth of ICB's contribution has expanded over time to go beyond a purely state-centric approach to include crisis-related activities of transnational actors across a range of categories. ICB also offers depth through, for example, potential resolution of contemporary debates about mediation in crises on the basis of nuanced findings about long- versus short-term impact with regard to conflict resolution.


Schedulers found in contemporary operating systems try to maximise the throughput and the responsiveness perceived by the user. In this thesis a scheduler policy is introduced which not only tries to fulfil those objectives but also takes the order of task execution into consideration. By keeping strict priority scheduling or by loosening priority restrictions this policy enables the system developer to define a criteria which then affects the order of the schedulers queue. This new scheduler policy is called Double-sorted Scheduling (DSS). This work uses DSS to extend an existing policy called Process Cruise Control (PCC) which exploits information from embedded hardware monitors to adjust the CPUs core frequency at context switches to the optimal frequency of the next task. PCC allows energy savings of up to 22%. DSS additionally tries to eliminate unnecessary frequency adjustments by ordering tasks according to their optimal frequency. DSS and PCC were implemented within the Linux kernel on the Intel XScale architecture. Evaluations show that the addition of DSS to the PCC environment results in less frequency adjustments. With this approach, not only the time, but also the power, lost due to unnecessary frequency adjustments is reduced.


Introduction: Microcrystalline cellulose is one of the cellulose derivatives widely used in the pharmaceutical industry as an excipient in the manufacture of tablets. Unfortunately, most of these filler materials are still largely imported. On the other hand, Indonesia has huge potential to generate microcrystalline cellulose from agricultural waste or weeds such as oil palm empty fruit bunch and water hyacinth. The purpose of this study was to find a potential cellulolytic mold and raw material for preparation of microcrystalline cellulose by enzymatic hydrolysis. Method: The potential cellulolytic mold was obtained from rotted oil palm trunk, and alpha cellulose was prepared by digesting raw material powder by the alkaline condition. Cellulase enzymes are obtained through extraction from the cellulolytic mold and used to treat alpha cellulose at a concentration of 2, 6 and 10 % v/v, respectively. Then, the resulted microcrystalline cellulose was identified by SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) and compared with reference Avicel pH 101. Results: The results showed that crude enzyme of isolated mold has better activity than Trichoderma reesei enzyme, which produced a lower concentration of glucose. Conclusion: Based on the comparison of crystal morphology and diffractogram pattern, water hyacinth has a great potential which showed crystalline characteristic similar to microcrystalline cellulose reference (Avicel pH 101).. Key words: Water hyacinth, Microcrystalline cellulose, Cellulase, Trichoderma reesei.


Sharing encompasses "all activities and processes of distributing what is ours to others for their use and receiving or taking something from others for our use" (Belk 2007, 126). Following Belk (2013), we distinguish between non-market and market-based sharing systems and adopting Hazan and Shaver's (1987) three attachment style model, show that consumers' attachment styles determine their likelihood to participate in such sharing systems. We suggest that basic relational dynamics of relationships should construct the basis of consumer relationships with sharing communities. Whereas non-market based sharing economies involve interdependence and opportunities for intra-community friendship and closeness (Ozanne and Ballatine 2010), market based economies are centered on self-interests. Anxious individuals are at ease with closeness. However, they worry about being rejected. As anxious individuals lack self-esteem, they constantly seek to gain acceptance and validation from others (Bartholomew and Shaver 1998). We propose that anxious consumers view non-market based sharing systems as a way to boost self-esteem as such sharing settings provide consumers with a sense of belonging and connectedness (Ozanne and Ballatine 2010). Avoidant consumers, on the other hand, view others as untrustworthy and prefer to distance themselves from others. Commercial nature of market based systems provides avoidant consumers with a means to enhance trust (Morgan and Hunt 1995). Thus, H1: There will be an interaction between attachment style and sharing system. Such that while anxious consumers' likelihood to use a non-market based system is higher than a market based system, avoidant consumers' likelihood to use a market based system is higher than a non-market based system. H2: For anxious consumers, the effect of sharing system on likelihood to use is mediated by self-esteem. For avoidant consumers the effect of sharing system on likelihood to use is mediated by trust. Sharing in all forms include some form of previous contact of another user. Mauss (1972) define contagion as physical contact with the mediation of objects and places, suggesting that there is a transmission of essence from a source to a target when an object changes hands. The essence exchanged could be physical, mental, or moral in nature (Newman & Dhar, 2014). Contagion theory includes the possibility of transfer of positive qualities (Argo, Dahl, & Morales 2008). Sharing of previously touched objects is seen as an indicator of close relationships (Miller et al. 1998). Drawing from previous research on positive contagion, it is postulated that as contagion level increases, the sense of connectedness will attenuate. It is suspected, however, that this effect will only be observed among anxious individuals as those are the ones who look for belonging and connectedness. Formally, hypothesis is, H3: There will be a significant interaction between attachment styles (secure and anxious) and contagion level (high and low). Only for anxious consumers, high levels of contagion will lead to greater likelihood to use non-market mediated services. Study 1 We employed a 2 (attachment: anxious vs. avoidant) x 2 (non-market based vs. market based) between subject experimental design on randomly assigned 386 participants. We followed Bartz and Lyndon (2004)'s procedure to manipulate attachment styles. Results We performed a regression on likelihood to stay with sharing system type (market based and non-market based), attachment styles (anxious and avoidant) and their interaction. Confirming H1, the results show a significant two-way interaction between sharing type and attachment styles. Anxiety-primed participants' likelihood to stay in non-market based home-sharing system is significantly higher than avoidance primed participants (p< .01). Study 2 2(attachment: anxious vs. avoidant) x 2(non-market vs. market) between subject experimental design was employed on randomly assigned 247 participants. Results Using Hayes (2013)'s Conditional Process Analysis, results suggest that attachment styles impact likelihood to participate in sharing systems. For anxious consumers, non-market based sharing systems have a self-esteem enhancing role. On the other hand, for avoidant consumers, market based sharing systems provide trust, impacting such individuals' likelihood to participate in such settings. Study 3 We employed 2(attachment: anxious vs. secure) x 2(contagion level: high vs. low) between subject experimental design was employed. Results A moderation analysis of Hayes (2013) were performed on likelihood to wear with contagion level, attachment styles and their interaction. Model confirmed the main effect of contagion level and moderation role of anxiety (F(3,149)=2.9064, p< .05). More importantly, in slope examination, results showed that the slope was significant only anxious participants (B=-.8278, t=-2.06, p<.05, CI:1.62,-.03). H3 is confirmed


Arabic-Afrikaans Literature at the Cape Tuan Guru – the first official imam at the Cape – used Malayu as the medium of instruction in the Dorp Street madrasah (Muslim religious school) which he established at the end of the 18th century. This changed in the middle of the 19th century when Cape Dutch was adopted as the language of instruction. While the children were familiar with this language they could not read the Latin script since they were barred from attending the public schools. Cape Muslims could, however, read the Arabic script which they had to learn for liturgical purposes though they could not speak Arabic. To overcome this conundrum, numerous scholars and teachers began to translate Arabic texts into Cape Dutch and then transcribing these in the Latin script. These "readers" came to serve as official textbooks in the madrasahs at the Cape. This article traces the development of this genre of literature which came to be known as Arabic-Afrikaans, comments on manuscripts that were identified by Adrianus van Selms, Achmat Davids and Hans Kähler and highlights the daunting challenge of transcribing Afrikaans phonetically in the Arabic script.


For a long time the Supreme Court of the United States has assumed that the government has a compelling interest in protecting children from non-obscene, sexually explicit speech. In addition, the Court has also held that radio and television broadcasting receive less First Amendment protection than other forms of media such as cable and satellite television and the internet. These holdings have led the Federal Communications Commission to try and censor non-obscene indecency and invectives from the airwaves and also generated numerous attempts by Congress to censor the internet to protect our children. This article argues that there is no substantial evidence demonstrating that children are seriously harmed by non-obscene sexually explicit speech, and therefore the government does not have a compelling interest in keeping children away from such speech. In addition, the original rationale for the Court's decision that broadcasting receives less First Amendment protection than other media, i.e., that broadcasting is uniquely pervasive inside the home, is no longer true and the Court should therefore find that television and radio broadcasters should receive the same First Amendment protections as other media. This article concludes that, in light of the fundamental principle of First Amendment law that the government is not allowed, absent a compelling interest, to censor speech because of the message and/or potential harm it conveys, unless and until there is substantial evidence that non-obscene constitutionally protected speech harms our children, the decision about how our children should be raised and what speech they can hear should be made by parents and teachers not by the state.


Land condition monitoring information is required for the strategic management of grazing land and for a better understanding of ecosystem processes. Yet, for policy makers and those land managers whose properties are situated within north-eastern Australia's vast Great Barrier Reef catchments, there has been a general lack of geospatial land condition monitoring information. This paper provides an overview of integrated land monitoring activity in rangeland areas of two major Reef catchments in Queensland: the Burdekin and Fitzroy regions. The project aims were to assemble land condition monitoring datasets that would assist grazing land management and support decision-makers investing public funds; and deliver these data to natural resource management(NRM) community groups, which had been given increased responsibility for delivering local environmental outcomes. We describe the rationale and processes used to produce new land condition monitoring datasets derived from remotely sensed Landsat thematic mapper (TM) and high resolution SPOT 5 satellite imagery and from rapid land condition ground assessment. Specific products include subcatchment groundcover change maps, regional mapping of indicative very poor land condition, and stratified land condition site summaries. Their application, integration, and limitations are discussed. The major innovation is a better understanding of NRM issues with respect to land condition across vast regional areas, and the effective transfer of decision-making capacity to the local level. Likewise, with an increased ability to address policy questions from an evidence-based position, combined with increased cooperation between community, industry and all levels of government, a new era has emerged for decision-makers in rangeland management.


Oral leukoplakia is a predominantly white lesion of the oral mucosa that cannot be clinicopathologically characterized as any other definable lesion. Any oral site may be affected by leukoplakia, the most common sites being buccal and alveolar mucosa, floor of the mouth, tongue, lips, and palate. To date there is no evidence of effective treatment of oral leukoplakia that may prevent recurrence. This case report describes a new surgical technique using a bilaminar connective tissue graft in the treatment of oral leukoplakia. During the regular periodontal recall visit, the clinical diagnosis of gingival leukoplakia at the maxillary left sextant was established in a 45-year-old patient. Histopathologic analysis suggested reactive hyperkeratosis. The patient agreed to a new surgical treatment of the lesion. Under local anesthesia a 20-mm-long bilaminar connective tissue graft was interposed between the affected tissue and the bone. Healing was followed by the disappearance of the white lesion within the borders of the underlying graft. Five years after therapy, the treated area remained intact, with no clinical sign of recurrence.


In the Mediterranean area, water scarcity represents a critical issue due to the increasing water demand related to the population growth and the expansion of urban and industrialized areas. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) may be an effective alternative water supply solution to deal with water scarcity in order to reduce non-potable water needs. The reliability of RWH systems is greatly affected by the intensity and the temporal distribution of rainfall events. The purpose of the present study was to identify the optimal tank capacity, in terms of water saving efficiency, of a RWH system installed to supply water for toilet flushing, garden irrigation and both uses with reference to a single-family house in a residential area of Sicily (southern Italy). A water balance simulation of the rainwater storage tank was performed to define the tank release rule. The optimal capacity of the RWH tank was evaluated considering three different catchment surfaces, namely 100, 200 and 300 m 2 . Results showed that, in some areas of the region, the system could be able to provide significant water savings, even with the installation of collecting tanks of less than 10 m 3 , thus ensuring important environmental and economic benefits to the householders.


Alfalfa (Medicago saliva L.) breeders have made substantial progress in recent years to develop cultivars with resistance to Aphanomyces root rot (ARR, caused by Aphanomyces euteiches), yet data showing the agronomic benefits of this resistance under natural field conditions are limited. Two trials were seeded into naturally infested soils with alfalfa cultivars ranging from susceptible to highly resistant to ARR. The trials provided a test of the hypothesis that ARR-resistant cultivars would provide improved performance. In one test, the combination of high rainfall during the 4 wk following seeding on a soil with a slow percolation rate led to a severe outbreak of ARR, with symptoms typical of a syndrome commonly observed in commercial alfalfa fields in Kentucky, Under these conditions, the ARR-resistant cultivars provided dramatically improved seedling health, yield, and persistence. Cultivars having a resistance (R) or high resistance (HR) rating provided the most consistent performance. In the other test, a near-normal rainfall amount on a deep soil with good internal drainage led to moderate disease pressure. In that case, the ARR-resistant cultivars exhibited a slight improvement in seedling health, but yield trends were not as clear as in the former trial. Based on these findings and previous research, we conclude that the use of cultivars with R or HR ratings to ARR may solve a common stand-establishment problem in spring-seeded alfalfa in Kentucky.


In this paper, we introduce Worldlikeness, a web-based tool for collecting and sharing cross-linguistic wordlikeness judgments (nonce word acceptability judgments) to facilitate typological psycholinguistic research. Typological psycholinguistic research is essential since crucial factors affecting language processing vary across languages, but these factors often too confounded to tease apart by comparing just two languages at a time. This type of research is nevertheless difficult since it requires testing many speakers from each language, using materials designed with the help of expert native speakers. Worldlikeness aims to make typological psycholinguistics more feasible, by providing tools for separate groups of experimenters to design experiments with text, audio, images, and video for individual languages, collect judgments and reaction times online, and crucially, share their data with each other for typological analysis. We show that Worldlikeness successfully replicated Mandarin wordlikeness judgments collected using traditional lab-based software, and report its first use in a cross-linguistic study collecting wordlikeness judgments from bilingual speakers of Mandarin and Southern Min. This working paper is available in University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: http://repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/ vol23/iss1/4 U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 23.1, 2017 Worldlikeness: A Web-based Tool for Typological Psycholinguistic Research Tsung-Ying Chen and James Myers*


Abstract:  Vitamin A (VA) deficiency causes over 600000 deaths per year, mostly of young children or pregnant women. Populations prone to VA deficiency obtain about 82% of their VA from plant sources that are rich in pro-VA carotenoids such as beta-carotene. Orange-fleshed sweet potatoes (OFSP) are an especially good source. We evaluated OFSP carotenoid concentrations, bioaccessibility, and cooking and storage, then used this to estimate the amount of OFSP needed to supply 100% of VA for people at risk for deficiency. The grams/day of OFSP needed to meet VA requirements varies with age and sex, and with the amount of beta-carotene in the OFSP. Amounts ranged from 6 to 33 g/d (0.02 to 0.13 cups/d) for a 3-y-old child with marginal VA status; to 68 to 381 g/d, (0.27 to 1.49 cups/d) for a lactating woman with good status. These are amounts that can be eaten on a daily basis. The amount of OFSP needed to supply the VA requirement to all of the 208.1 million people most in danger of VA deficiency for 1 y is 2.1 to 11.7 million metric tons, or 2% to 11% of current world sweet potato production. The most important factor influencing the effectiveness of sweet potato for preventing VA deficiency, by far, is the variety of sweet potato used. Fat in the diet is also important. We conclude that OFSP could prevent VA deficiency in many food-deficit countries—if OFSP were substituted for white, cream, yellow, or purple sweet potatoes.


ABSTRACT Compared to the burgeoning literature on the determinants of penal policies in various Western countries, and compared to criminology in general, the comparative study of policing is an underdeveloped area of research. We acknowledge the practical and theoretical difficulties of such an approach, but we defend its main benefits. Studying policing comparatively allows for a better knowledge of national systems, an understanding of basic concepts such as centralisation, and a stronger recognition of the diverging and converging trends in policing policies at a global level. Traditional comparisons of national models considered policing systems in broad categories (Anglo-Saxon vs. continental European, for example). Here, we suggest rather that models need to be broken down into their elementary components and main organisational features (degree of centralisation, mechanisms of oversight and others).


This is the first study to deal with Greek mathematics from the viewpoint of cultural history. Mathematics, and especially the teaching of mathematics, did not proceed in isolation, but developed along lines parallel to the development of general literate culture.


Nocturnal transpiration constitutes a significant yet poorly understood component of the global water cycle. Modeling nocturnal transpiration has been complicated by recent findings showing that stomata respond differently to environmental drivers over day- vs. night-time periods. Here, we propose that nocturnal stomatal conductance depends on antecedent daytime conditions. We tested this hypothesis across six genotypes of Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh. growing under different CO2 concentrations (ambient vs. elevated) and exposed to contrasting temperatures (ambient vs. heat wave) for four days prior to the night of measurements, when all plants experienced ambient temperature conditions. We observed significant effects after the heat wave that led to 36% reductions in nocturnal stomatal conductance. The response was partly driven by changes in daytime stomatal behavior but additional factors may have come into play. We also observed significant differences in response to the heat wave across genotypes, likely driven by local adaptation to their climate of origin, but CO2 played no effect. Stomatal models may need to incorporate the role of antecedent effects to improve projections particularly after drastic changes in the environment such as heat waves.


During the early years of sound, both major studios and independent producers were faced with a series of difficult issues involving foreign language distribution. Through an examination of the substantial coverage devoted to cinema in La opinión, a Spanish language newspaper published in Los Angeles, the author charts the major trends in local Spanish language film exhibition and provides an overview of the discursive environment that shaped the reception of such films. In this context, Spanish language Hollywood films are seen to have facilitated the decline of Spanish language theater in Los Angeles, challenging the authority of elite and middle class cultural authorities and their control over Spanish language entertainment in the city. The paper argues that cinema must be considered alongside a broader and more diverse array of cultural practices, particularly in terms of the relationship between mass culture and national and/or ethnic identity.


This study traces the history of the Atlanta Urban League, a major southern affiliate of the National Urban League, from its founding in 1920 to the end of the 20th century. It shows how the Atlanta Urban League adhered to the primary functions of the national Urban League Movement by studying and planning solutions to community problems and, where possible, to offer preventative measures to deal with them before they became acute. But the study also demonstrates several unique features of the Atlanta Urban League, including the production of scholarly monographs on educational, housing and health needs for African Americans in Atlanta that resulted in reforms in the Atlanta Public Schools; increased and improved housing for blacks; and a private hospital for middle and upper income black Atlantans. Notably, the Atlanta Urban League had one of the first female executives of an Urban League affiliate and was one of the first affiliates to face possible disaffiliation for seeming to gear some of its policies to appease segregationists in order to receive local funding. The work is a major contribution to the growing literature on African American parallel institutions that permitted blacks to survive and progress as well as demonstrate independent action and leadership in the Jim Crow South.


Since AAPM Report No. 33 on Diagnostic Radiology Physics staffing is more than 20 years old, the Diagnostic Work and Workforce Study Subcommittee (DWWSS) of the Professional Council was formed to conduct a new study and update the data. The intent of the DWWSS study has two goals. First, it wanted to assess the number of FTE diagnostic physicists needed to support the QC, acceptance tests, radiation safety and other clinical functions for various imaging modalities, such as: CT scanners, MRI units, angiography rooms, ultrasound units, nuclear medicine imagers and other equipment. For example, the preliminary results indicate that the median annual physics support for one CT scanner is 0.007 FTE or 12.6 hours per unit. Second, the study wanted to provide an estimate of the cost of these physics services in terms of a fraction of a dollar per patient examination performed. For example, the cost for physics support of CT would be $0.27 for each CT procedure. This information would be similar to the Abt study conducted in Radiation Oncology. Radiation therapy physicists have utilized the Abt studies to generate re-imbursement for physics services and to justify financially the cost of their work efforts. Appropriate recognition for physics efforts in Diagnostic Radiology has never been properly quantified nor appreciated. With all the current and future changes occurring in healthcare, the information from the DWWSS survey could be important to the future of diagnostic physicists. Although diagnostic physicists are involved with many other activities such as teaching of residents and research, information about the clinical equipment support effort could be used to assess diagnostic physics staffing needs. The goals of the DWWSS study and the preliminary findings will be presented.

OBJECTIVE
1. Present the goals of the DWWSS Diagnostic Physicist Survey.2. Present potential benefits to the AAPM members from this survey.3. Present findings from the preliminary analysis of the survey.


Evolutionary models (e.g genetic algorithms, artificial life) are emerging as an important new tool for geographic information systems for a number of reasons. First, they are highly appropriate for modelling geographic phenomena; second, geographical problems are often spatially separate (broken down into logical or regional problems), and evolutionary algorithms can exploit this structure; and finally, the ability to store, mainipulate, and visualize spatial data has increased to the point that space-time attribute databases can be easily handled. This book is proposed to serve as a guide to the evolutionary modelling of spatial phenomena.


This article presents an analysis of the most viewed YouTube videos under the labels "old age", "older age" and "senior citizens". As powerful sources that transmit cultural information which either perpetuates or undermines cultural stereotypes at a worldwide level, channels of information such as YouTube offer a valuable glimpse at those images of ageing and old age which are shared and consumed by nowadays viewers. This study offers a semiotic analysis based on the representations of older people as well as the contexts in which they appear taking into account previous studies which focused on the representation of older people in media. The results reveal a broadly positive representation of older people, with the majority of the videos portraying a counter-stereotypic image of this age group. This overall trend represent an interesting and destabilizing path that strengthens the efforts against ageism and age discrimination in our societies.


Inflow Control Devices (ICD) have been successfully used in hundreds of wells around the world during the last decade and are now considered to be a mature well completion technology. This work is dedicated to the methodology of making following three decisions with respect to ICD application: 1. Selection between ICD and Interval Control Valves (ICV), the other advanced completion technology. 2. Identification of whether particular well is likely to benefit from ICD. 3. Quantification of the anticipated positive effect. Design of an advanced completion for a particular field application often includes feasibility studies on both ICV and ICD. The choice between these two technologies is not always obvious and the need for general methodology on making this choice is recognised by the petroleum industry. In this dissertation ICD has been compared against the competing ICV technology with particular emphasis on issues such as uncertainty in the reservoir description, inflow performance and formation permeability. The methodology of selection between ICD and ICV is proposed. The benefits of ICD application can, by and large, be attributed to reduction of the following two effects detrimental to horizontal well performance: • Inflow profile skewing by frictional pressure loss along the completion (heel-toe effect). • Inflow variation caused by reservoir heterogeneity. Frictional pressure drop along the completion is an important design factor for horizontal wells. It has to be taken into account in order to secure optimum reservoir drainage and avoid overestimation of well productivity. Many authors have previously addressed various aspects of this problem, but an explicit analytical solution for turbulent flow in wellbore has not so far been published. This dissertation presents such a solution based on the same assumptions as those of previous researchers. New method to quantify the reduction of inflow imbalance caused by the frictional pressure loss along a horizontal completion is proposed. The equation describing this phenomenon in homogeneous reservoir is derived and two solutions presented: an analytical approximation and a more precise numerical solution. Mathematical model for effective reduction of the inflow imbalance caused by the reservoir heterogeneity is also presented. The trade-off between well productivity and inflow equalisation is a key engineering issue when applying ICD technology. Presented solutions quantitatively addresses this issue. Their practical utility is illustrated through case studies.


This paper develops a novel and highly efficient numerical algorithm for the gap risk-adjusted valuation of leveraged certificates. The existing literature relies on Monte Carlo simulations, which are not fast enough to be used in a market-making environment. This is because issuers need to compute thousands of price updates per second. By valuing leveraged certificates as multi-window barrier options, we explicitly model random jumps that occur at known times, such as between the exchange closing and re-opening. Our algorithm combines the one-day transition probability with Simpson's numerical integration rule. This yields a backward induction scheme which requires a significantly coarser spatial and time grid than finite-difference methods. We confirm its robustness and accuracy through Monte Carlo simulations.


Objective: A family of myogenic regulatory factors, including MyoD and myogenin, guide myogenesis and neuromuscular synapse formation. Myogenin gene expression is activated by MyoD, and one of myogenin's functions is to activate gene expression of the acetylcholine receptor (AChR) at the neuromuscular synapse. Motor neurons release agrin as they near skeletal muscle fibers in development, which drives the clustering of existing AChRs to the site of neuromuscular synapse formation. We have previously demonstrated that continuous exposure to antibody to MyoD or myogenin decreases agrin-induced AChR clustering in C2C12 skeletal muscle cell culture. Our objective was to more specifically establish how MyoD and myogenin interact in development. Methods: C2C12 cell cultures were exposed to experimental manipulations including antibodies to MyoD and myogenin, and myogenin morpholino. Endo-Porter was used to enhance cell uptake of experimental manipulations. AChR clustering assays were performed to assess the effect of antibody or morpholino on agrin-induced AChR clustering. Western blots were performed to assess myogenin gene expression after antibody or morpholino exposure. Results: The results reported here demonstrate that exposure as short as eight hours for antibody to myogenin can decrease agrin-induced AChR clustering in myotubes. We have previously demonstrated that some experimental manipulations reduce myogenin gene expression concurrent with a decrease in agrin-induced AChR clustering. The current results establish more specifically how MyoD and myogenin interact in neuromuscular synapse formation by demonstrating that exposure to antibody to MyoD reduces myogenin gene expression concurrent with a decrease in agrin-induced AChR clustering. Conclusion: These results suggest that MyoD is essential for agrin-induced AChR clustering through a mechanism that includes activation of myogenin gene expression, leading to activation of AChR gene expression, and ultimately production of an appropriate level of AChR for agrin-induced AChR clustering and neuromuscular synapse formation.


This tutorial introduces manufacturing applications of simulation through four illustrative example applications. These examples illustrate the additional understanding of system behavior gained by the use of simulation models. Individuals using simulation should use a structured process in applying simulation. The second example illustrates this structured process. The examples also illustrate the use of both stochastic and deterministic variables in modeling manufacturing systems.


Micromorphology samples from Cotiga Mound (ca. 2100 yr B.P.) reveal distinct microstructures associated with mound construction and post‐construction pedogenesis of the mound materials. The interface between layers of basketloads displays sharp, irregular contacts with little to no evidence of pedoturbation, suggesting rapid construction. Evidence of clay and iron translocation, along with well‐preserved charcoal fragments containing identifiable cell structure, were observed in samples collected from hearth features. Both the prepared surface and associated central burial feature at the base of the mound have a complex microstructure, characterized by charcoal layers and zones of clay accumulation, along with microstratification in the prepared surface. Clay translocation, formation of a complex void network, and ironmanganese accumulation were the dominant pedogenic processes that modified the completed mound. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


Over eighty-five thousand Americans are currently on the national wait list to receive kidneys, livers, hearts or other human organs due to the failure of their own. Sadly, over half of these people will die while waiting for the miracle of life to arrive. This tragedy is not due to unavailability of potential organs, but rather the reality that most suitable organs are taken to the grave with their owners instead of donated to those whose lives hang in the balance.Some scholars have suggested a legalized market for human organs in response, but morality and distributive justice concerns have made such a solution unlikely. We must therefore consider ways to incentivize organ donation far more effectively than the law does today. We could allocate organ priority based on one's own willingness to donate, or offer tax breaks and driver's license fee discounts to those who sign organ donor cards. If any form of monetary inducement runs afoul of federal law, we should consider presumed consent statutes as well as facilitating "paired organ exchanges" between strangers that involve no financial consideration at all. In sum, if we do not act aggressively to improve America's organ donation law and procurement policy, tens of thousands will pay for our failures with their lives.


Cloud computing is a promising paradigm able to rationalize the use of hardware resources by means of virtualization. Virtualization allows to instantiate one or more virtual machines (VMs) on top of a single physical machine managed by a virtual machine monitor (VMM). Similarly to any other software, a VMM experiences aging and failures. Software rejuvenation is a proactive fault management technique that involves terminating an application, cleaning up the system internal state, and restarting it to prevent the occurrence of future failures. In this work, we propose a technique to model and evaluate the VMM aging process and to investigate the optimal rejuvenation policy that maximizes the VMM availability under variable workload conditions. Starting from dynamic reliability theory and adopting symbolic algebraic techniques, we investigate and compare existing time-based VMM rejuvenation policies. We also propose a time-based policy that adapts the rejuvenation timer to the VMM workload condition improving the system availability. The effectiveness of the proposed modeling technique is demonstrated through a numerical example based on a case study taken from the literature.


The natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans were compared for their genetic structure. A total of 114 gene-protein loci were studied in four mainland (from Europe and Africa) and an island (Seychelle) populations of D. simulans and the results were compared with those obtained on the same set of homologous loci in fifteen worldwide populations of D. melanogaster. The main results are as follows: (1) D. melanogaster shows a significantly higher proportion of loci polymorphic than D. simulans (52% vs. 39%, P<0.05), (2) both species have similar mean heterozygosity and mean number of alleles per locus, (3) the two species share some highly polymorphic loci but they do not share loci that show high geographic differentiation, and (4) D. simulans shows significantly less geographic differentiation than D. melanogaster. The differences in genetic differentiation between the two species are limited to loci located on the X and second chromosomes only; loci on the third chromosome show similar level of geographic differentiation in both species. These two species have previously been shown to differ in their pattern of variation for chromosomal polymorphisms, quantitative and physiological characters, two-dimensional electrophoretic (2DE) proteins, middle repetitive DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Variation in niche-widths and/or genetic "strategies" of adaptation appear to be the main causes of differences in the genetic structure of these two species.


The red and white banners of Lebanon's anti-Syrian protests in the spring of 2005 were a testament to the transformational power of the Arab media revolution. Without al-Jazeera and the new constellation of Arab satellite broadcasters, it is unlikely there would ever have been a "Cedar Revolution," as a Bush Administration official quickly dubbed the spontaneous protests that ended Syria's 29-year military presence in Lebanon. However, television did not drive out the Syrians, any more than it gave birth to some new form of Lebanese democracy. TV cannot alone create change. It is an agent of change—more specifically, a tool used by the architects of change. Arab television is providing a level of cover to those who seek democratic change and it may even be supplanting at least some of the traditionally more bloody battlefields of the Middle East by allowing confrontations to play out through the camera rather than the gun. Yet an emerging corporate feudalism, in which the majority of semi-independent media outlets are owned by individuals who are part of, or close to, the ruling families of the region, means that red lines still exist which constrain journalists and limit the pace of change.


In the context of the financial crisis, many projects of bank levies have emerged. Yet, there is very little evidence on the incidence of bank taxes and, hence, it is not clear who will bear the burden of the new taxes. In this paper, we investigate the ability of banks to shift corporate income taxes to their clients and we consider whether tax incidence is influenced by market competition and banks' market power. Our sample consists of 1,411 European commercial banks over the period 1992-2008. To measure competition we rely on a large number of indicators, such as banks' market share, the Herfindhal index, the Lerner index and the Panzar and Rosse h-statistic. We find that even in uncompetitive markets banks are not able to shift corporate income taxes to their customers. Our results contradict earlier papers that find a significant pass-through, and we argue that previous studies suffer either from endogeneity problems or from the wrong specification of the tax burden.


At the recent conference on ethics,* organised by the Association of Law Societies, the Black Lawyers Association and the National Association of Democratic Lawyers with the assistance of the Bureau for Occupational Ethics at the University of Pretoria, it was suggested that in order to assist attorneys in dealing with ethical questions, a regular column of questions and answers should be published in De Rebus. The editor has agreed to this column and the editorial committee has requested me to be responsible for it. The success, or otherwise, of this column will depend on the participation of practitioners. First, it is necessary that practitioners send in their questions.**