ABSTRACT A challenge faced by many students is the loss of academic skills during the summer months. However, less attention is given to social and emotional needs during the summer. Thirty-five middle school students from low-SES homes participated in a summer program designed to improve verbal, academic, and youth development competencies. Three students in the program also participated in an intervention that used Hip Hop and Empowerment (HHE) and Therapeutic Beat Making (TBM) strategies to promote youth development and reduce elevated depressive and anxiety symptoms. Data were collected by questionnaires measuring Empowerment-based Positive Youth Development (EMPYD) indicators of Connection, Confidence, Competence, Caring, Character, Sense of community, and Active and engaged citizenship, plus well-being indicators of depression and anxiety. Results included improvements across all youth development indicators and depression and anxiety symptoms for the intervention participants. Using the Independent Samples Mann-Whitney U Test, a statistically significant decrease (worsening) between Time 1 and Time 2 measures of character were found for the non-intervention group. When comparing the intervention group to the non-intervention group at Time 2, statistically significant differences were found for improvements in character and depression and anxiety symptoms. This study suggests that a well-designed, research-based Hip Hop-integrated strategy may complement summer learning strategies and help improve mental health outcomes for low-income middle school youth. It is necessary to continue research that explores the efficacy of Hip Hop-based mental health interventions, and potential ways to mitigate social and emotional loss alongside academic loss in the summer months.


Consumer preferences for labeled products are often assumed to be exogenous to the presence of labels. However, the label itself (and not the information on the label) can be interpreted as a noisy warning signal. We measure the impact of "contains" labels and additional information about the labeled ingredients, treating preferences for labeled characteristics as endogenous. We find that for organic-food shoppers, the "contains" label absent additional information serves as a noisy warning signal leading them to overestimate the riskiness of consuming the product. Providing additional information mitigates the large negative signaling effect of the label.


The word length effect shows a connection between word length and working memory performance. Although the relationship between digit verbal length and digit span has been investigated between languages, it has not been investigated within a language. It was hypothesized that this effect can be shown as a connection between the prevalence of digits with two syllables and digit span score. The study examined the effect of amount of syllables on Norwegian digit span test scores by altering the prevalence of two-syllable digits using three conditions in a repeated measures design (N = 54). Results suggest that an elimination of two-syllable digits in a digit span test significantly reduced forward span test score (Cohen's d = 0.36), but had no effect on backward span scores. These results suggest that a balanced distribution of two-syllable digits in a forward digit span tests should theoretically increase the test's comparability and reduce language-related biases thus increasing the test's parallel-form reliability. A peak-span model is proposed to integrate the findings into previous research on the word length effect.


Application of Genome Reduction, Next Generation Sequencing, and KASPar Genotyping in Development, Characterization, and Linkage Mapping of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in the Grain Amaranths and Quinoa Scott M. Smith Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, BYU Master of Science The grain amaranths (Amaranthus sp.) and quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) are important seed crops in South America. These crops have gained international attention in recent years for their nutritional quality and tolerance to abiotic stress. We report the identification and development of functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) assays for both amaranth and quinoa. SNPs were identified using a genome reduction protocol and next generation sequencing. SNP assays are based on KASPar genotyping chemistry and were detected using the Fluidigm dynamic array platform. A diversity screen consisting of 41 amaranth accessions showed that the minor allele frequency (MAF) of the amaranth markers ranged from 0.05 to 0.5 with an average MAF of 0.27. A diversity screen of 113 quinoa accessions showed that the MAF of the quinoa markers ranged from 0.02 to 0.5 with an average MAF of 0.28. Linkage mapping in amaranth produced a linkage map consisting of 16 linkage groups, presumably corresponding to each of the 16 amaranth haploid chromosomes. This map spans 1288 cM with an average marker density of 3.1 cM per marker. Linkage mapping in quinoa resulted in a linkage map consisting of 29 linkage groups with 20 large linkage groups, spanning 1,404 cM with a marker density of 3.1 cM per SNP marker. The SNPs identified here represent important genomic tools needed for genetic dissection of agronomically important characteristics and advanced genetic analysis of agronomic traits in amaranth and quinoa. We also describe in detail the scalable and cost effective SNP genotyping method used in this research. This method is based on KBioscience's competitive allele specific PCR amplification of target sequences and endpoint fluorescence genotyping (KASPar) using a FRET capable plate reader or Fluidigm's dynamic array high throughput platform.


Nowadays, the concept of good governance plays a central role in debates in the area of social sciences in general and in the field of public administration in particular. The concept has been used frequently but often with quite different meanings and implications, moreover, one should underline the significant role of social participation in this concept as it involves citizens assessing their own needs and participating in local projects. Therefore, for social participation, transparency of government information is needed, as well as the inclusion of members in the decision-making process. Excluding the weak and powerless from decision-making is a cause of poverty because it denies them rights and creates unequal power relationships. This paper discusses a variety of meanings and different approaches to the role of social participation in the concept of good governance but its main focus is on the capacity of government to make and implement social participation policies and, thereby, develop knowledge based economies based on active participation of citizens and their well-developed bridging social capital.


The study of the polarization dynamics of two counterpropagating beams in optical fibers has recently been the subject of a growing renewed interest, from both the theoretical and experimental points of view. This system exhibits a phenomenon of polarization attraction, which can be used to achieve a complete polarization of an initially unpolarized signal beam, almost without any loss of energy. Along the same way, an arbitrary polarization state of the signal beam can be controlled and converted into any other desired state of polarization, by adjusting the polarization state of the counterpropagating pump beam. These properties have been demonstrated in various different types of optical fibers, i.e., isotropic fibers, spun fibers, and telecommunication optical fibers. This article is aimed at providing a rather complete understanding of this phenomenon of polarization attraction on the basis of new mathematical techniques recently developed for the study of Hamiltonian singularities. In particular, we show the essential role that play the peculiar topological properties of singular tori in the process of polarization attraction. We provide here a pedagogical introduction to this geometric approach of Hamiltonian singularities and give a unified description of the polarization attraction phenomenon in various types of optical fiber systems.


This article uses the case of R. v. Van der Peet to critically analyze the role of language in Section 35(1) of the Canadian Constitution in perpetuating asymmetrical power dynamics within the framework of colonialism. In defining which practices are protected in the form of Indigenous rights under Section 35(1), the courts have imposed a two-stage test called the Integral to a Distinctive Culture Test or Van der Peet Test. This test stipulates three criteria; the practice must: originate from "pre-contact", be "distinctive", and conform or "reconcile" with state sovereignty. This article demonstrates how these criteria hinder the development of Indigenous rights, restrict the scope of such rights, and marginalize Indigenous peoples in Canadian society. Analyzing the role of the deliberative wording of this constitutional order reveals a foundation for contemporary colonialism and oppression, whereby colonial power relations are facilitated and secured by antiquated, ethnocentric ideals upheld by the Judiciary. Exposing the illegitimacy embedded within the State's uninhibited, exclusive sovereignty directs this discussion to the suggestion that the State lacks the authority to grant Indigenous rights. This article concludes with the argument that, as the original inhabitants of this land, Indigenous Nations possess the inherent extra-constitutional right to self-determination that can only be achieved through self-affirmation.


A review is presented of the current knowledge of endohedral structures — fullerene molecules and carbon nanotubes with one or more atoms inside. Methods of synthesis and exploration of such structures are considered and the results obtained are discussed. The charge state and the geometrical position of atoms encapsulated inside the fullerene molecules and the chemical properties of the resulting endohedral compounds are analyzed. The recent development of methods for producing macroscopic quantities of such molecules in a pure form has resulted in the formation of a new area of research aimed at the determination of the characteristics and physical and chemical properties of matter consisting of endohedral fullerene molecules. The results of such investigations and prospects for further development in this field are analyzed.


In the summer of 1946, the most wide-open town in America is Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city of ancient, legendary corruption. While the pilgrims take the cure in the mineral-rich 142-degree water that bubbles from the earth, the brothels and casinos are the true source of the town's prosperity. It is run by an English-born gangster named Owney Maddox, who represents the New York syndicate and rules his empire like a Saxon lord while sporting an ascot and jodhpurs. But it is all about to be challenged. A newly elected county prosecutor wants to take on the big boys and save the city's soul (he also wouldn't mind being the next governor). He begins a war on the gambling interests and, knowing the war will be long and bloody, hires an ex-Marine sergeant, Earl Swagger, who won the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima, to run it. Swagger knows how to fight with guns as well as any man in the world. But he is haunted: the savage fighting he just barely survived and the men he left behind in the Pacific still shadow his mind, leaving a terrible melancholy. There are even darker memories: a murdered father who beat him mercilessly and drove a younger brother to suicide. And he's torn by his own impending fatherhood, as his wife, Junie, nears term. It isn't that Earl Swagger is afraid of dying; more scary still, it's possible that he yearns for it. The gangsters fight back, setting up a campaign of ambush and counterambush in the brothels, casinos and alleys of the City of the Vapors. Raids erupt into full-out combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns. The body count mounts. Meanwhile, the politics behind the war are shifting: Will the prosecuting attorney stick with his raiders orsell them out to curry favor with the state's political machine? Will Owney Maddox defeat the raiders but lose a personal battle against a cunning rival from the West who foresees a Hot Springs in the Nevada desert as the future franchise city of organized crime? But most important, will Earl Swagger survive yet another hard war, not merely with his body but also with his soul intact? Packed with page-turning action, sex, sin and crime, Stephen Hunter's "Hot Springs" is at once a relentlessly violent and deeply touching story.


The Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) is a five telescope package, which has been developed for the Solar Terrestrial Relation Observatory (STEREO) mission by the Naval Research Laboratory (USA), the Lockheed Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory (USA), the Goddard Space Flight Center (USA), the University of Birmingham (UK), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany), the Centre Spatiale de Leige (Belgium), the Institut d'Optique (France) and the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (France). SECCHI comprises five telescopes, which together image the solar corona from the solar disk to beyond 1 AU. These telescopes are: an extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI: 1–1.7 R⊙), two traditional Lyot coronagraphs (COR1: 1.5–4 R⊙ and COR2: 2.5–15 R⊙) and two new designs of heliospheric imagers (HI-1: 15–84 R⊙ and HI-2: 66–318 R⊙). All the instruments use 2048×2048 pixel CCD arrays in a backside-in mode. The EUVI backside surface has been specially processed for EUV sensitivity, while the others have an anti-reflection coating applied. A multi-tasking operating system, running on a PowerPC CPU, receives commands from the spacecraft, controls the instrument operations, acquires the images and compresses them for downlink through the main science channel (at compression factors typically up to 20×) and also through a low bandwidth channel to be used for space weather forecasting (at compression factors up to 200×). An image compression factor of about 10× enable the collection of images at the rate of about one every 2–3 minutes. Identical instruments, except for different sizes of occulters, are included on the STEREO-A and STEREO-B spacecraft.


The « War of Attrition » constituted one of the crises of the ongoing Arab-Israeli confrontation. From March 8th 1969 Arab revendications for restoration by Israel of the territories lost in 1967 took, under Egyptian direction and the urging of the Palestinian movement, the form of a limited armed conflict. We postulate that the evolution of this crisis depended not only on the capabilities of the belligerents nor on the intervention of the superpowers but also on the objectives of the principal actors. Analysis of these objectives confirms the radical nature of the hostility between Egypt and Israel and the both defensive and restitutory aspect of each country's goals. It emphasizes above all that the object of the crisis was basically the occupied territories dispute and that the cease-fire has left a legacy of heightened disaffection in comparison with the period preceding the crisis. Examination of the behavioral data enables the delimitation of not only the dyadic and polarized configuration of the confrontation but also the latter's context. The search for a purely interactional determination of behaviour leads one to put forward prudently that an increase in lsraeli coercion is related to deescalation while an aggravation of Egyptian belligerence produces the opposite effect. The latter being often preceded in Cairo by the articulation of negative objectives, one could conclude, provisionally, that the « War of Attrition » evolved according to a multivariate open model in which the objectives of Cairo determined the conduct of Israel subject to the intervening Egyptian behavioural variable.


The Universal Mobile Telecommunication systems are one of the emerging cellular phone technologies which are known as the 3G systems. It support the high speed data transfer, speech, web browsing, email, video telephony, multimedia and the audio streaming. These services are divided in to the classes depending upon the QoS requirements. With the development of these cellular networks, a major problem came up; it was the call handover from one cell to the other cell during an ongoing session without dropping the connection with the base station. A lot of techniques were developed and used to cope with this major issue. The user's movement is a dynamic process considering its location. This means that the mobile users can change its way any time with any speed, so there should be a mechanism and a way that the network should be aware of this process. For this purpose different types of handovers techniques are used which include soft, hard and softer handovers. The thesis work is about the investigation of different handovers in the 3G UMTS network which is the vital issue to the network to maintain the user's connection during in the ongoing session with the user's movement. The investigation is based on the UMTS QoS traffic classes. For this purpose the soft and the hard handovers techniques are analyzed in different scenarios implemented in the OPNET Modeler. To know and understand about the handover process between the Node B and the user equipment different statistics are calculated.


With their team of contemporary scholars, the editors present a thorough coverage of fundamental topics necessary for obtaining an up-to-date understanding of the biology of ferns and lycophytes. The book is organized into major topics that build from the individual and its biochemistry and structure, to genetics and populations, to interactions among individuals and the conservation of species, and concludes with perspectives on evolutionary history and classification. Each chapter is organized to review past work, explore current questions, and suggest productive directions for continued discoveries about these fascinating groups of organisms. Written for upper undergraduates, graduates and academic researchers, Biology and Evolution of Ferns and Lycophytes fills a major gap in biological, organism-level, evolutionary literature by providing a review of the biology and evolution of this important group of vascular land plants.


Network selection plays an important role in load balancing and radio resources management. In this paper, we use the evolutionary game theory to address the network selection problem in the constrained heterogeneous networks. An indication function is introduced into the payoff function to represent the punishment term. The population dynamics can be obtained by the replicator equations. A centralized population evolution algorithm is proposed to implement the evolutionary game. At last, the validity of our analysis and the proposed algorithm is verified by numerical results and Monte Carlo simulations.


An original concept is presented for the rehabilitation of concrete structures. The main idea is to use Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC) to "harden" those zones where the structure is exposed to severe environmental and high mechanical loading. All other parts of the structure remain in conventional structural concrete as these parts are subjected to relatively moderate exposure. This conceptual idea combines efficiently protection and resis-tance properties of UHPFRC and significantly improves the structural performance in terms of durability and life-cycle costs of the rehabilitated concrete structure. The concept is validated by means of four applications demonstrating that the technology of UHPFRC is mature for cast in-situ and prefabrication using standard equipment for concrete manufacturing.


The literature concerning the injection moulding of engineering
ceramics has been reviewed. This indicated that a number of
claims had been made for the successful use of different organic
binders during moulding and their removal prior to sintering.
However, many of the claims were not supported by detailed/exact
eScperimental evidence as to powder-binder compositions, moulding
conditions, moulded properties, debinding times/cycles, or
details of the structure and properties of the solid ceramic
bodies produced. From the available information it was clear
that there were few systematic and scientific investigations
concerning the understanding of each stage of the injection
moulding process.
The present research programme has been carried out in two
phases as follows. The first phase was concerned with the reinvestigation
and re-evaluation of binder systems claimed to be
successful for the injection moulding of alumina ceramics.
The binders re-investigated included the thermoplastic-based
binders such as polystyrene, polyacetal and atactic
polypropylene and the water-based methylcellulose (Rivers)
binder system. Alumina was chosen as the main powder to be
investigated due to its simple handling and, highest applications
amongst ceramic materials and on the basis that there is
incomplete published work for almost every step of the injection
moulding process. During the first stage of this work the
optimum properties such as powder-binder compositions, mixing
and moulding conditions, debinding properties, green and
sintered densities provided by each binder system were
determined. The results of these investigations showed that all
the previous (re-evaluated) binder systems had major limitations
and disadvantages. These included low volume loading (64 %
maximum) of the alumina powder resulting in rather low sintered
densities (96 % maximum-of theoretical density) and very long
debinding times in the case of the thermoplastic-based binders.
it ry low alumina volume loading (55 % maximum resulting in a 94
% . sintered theoretical density) and long moulding cycle time (-
5 min) along with adhesion and distortion problems during
demoulding occurred in the case of the water-based
methylcellulose binder system. Further work did not appear
worthwhile. The newly developed binder systems have been used with a number
of other powders such as zirconia, silicon nitride, silicon
carbide, tungsten carbide-6 weight % cobalt and iron-2 weight %
nickel, to establish- whether injection moulding is feasible.
Optimum properties such as powder volume loadings, mixing,
moulding, demoulding, moulded densities, debinding and some
sintered density results showed that these new binder systems
can also be used successfully for the injection moulding of
other ceramic and metallic powders, although a fuller evaluation
of the properties such as optimum sintered densities and
mechanical properties is required.


This theses consists of three chapters. In chapter one, firms collude in a lobby which takes the initiative of a game by transferring money to a regulator who is in charge of determining the industry size. Transfers are intended to influence the regulator to limit the industry size relative to the case of unregulated entry. The regulator's objective function weights both personal welfare and social welfare, with a greater weight on the former indicating a higher degree of selfishness and less concern about societal expectations. Chapter one investigates the effects of varying this weight as well as the effects of changes in the technology and the fixed cost. The model shows that corruption turns out to be non monotonic in the regulator's level of selfishness. This implies that higher level of the regulator's selfishness may, counter intuitively, end to lower corruption. The model suggests that in both the case of a very high cost technology and the case of a high fixed cost of entry, both corruption and social welfare are (1) lower in magnitude and (2) less sensitive to the regulator's level of selfishness. Therefore, lowering entry cost or marginal costs can increase corruption. Chapter two introduces the probability of apprehension which can punish both the regulator and the lobby for bribery. The model investigates the effect of implementing two policies: deregulation by means of lowering entry costs and deterrence by improving the detection technology. The results suggest that enhancing the detection technology may not necessarily decrease corruption. The effect of the detection technology on corruption might be different for different levels of the regulator's selfishness. In addition, reducing bureaucratic entry costs may only lead to an increase in social welfare and a decrease in corruption for a certain range of values for the regulator's selfishness. Hence, the regulator's type plays a key role in determining the economic outcomes. Chapter three presents a three-tier hierarchical model, comprising of three players: a politician, a regulator, and a lobby. The politician's problem is to optimize the combination of two policy reforms of deregulation and deterrence in order to maximize his chance of re-election, which is positively influenced by a modified measure of social welfare, in which producer versus consumer surplus can play asymmetric roles in increasing the re-electability of the politician. By letting the type of the politician and the regulator to be varied in a continuous range, the model enables us to have a more detailed picture of the comparative statics of changes in policymakers' type on outcomes of the model. An incumbent politician can be categorized into four different types: oligarchic, semi oligarchic, semi-populist and populist depending on the relative importance of producer as opposed to consumer surplus in increasing electability. Moreover, based on parameters of the model and namely the level of the politician's populism, the regulator may receive zero-bribe or positive-bribe, depending on his own selfishness type. The model shows that an increase in the regulator's selfishness may only harm semi-populist and populist politicians' chance of success, not that of oligarchic and semi-oligarchic politicians. Comparative statics of the model also show that the players' characteristics are of lower importance when parameters of the model lie in extreme values. Therefore, the regulator's level of selfishness has almost no effect on relatively highly populist or relatively highly oligarchic politicians. Policymakers of extreme values, whether the politician or the regulator, decides more independent of other parameters of the model. The model predicts that in two similar economies, the one with a higher level of the politician's populism may involve a wider range of regulators in the bribery process. Moreover, a politician with a higher level of populism is more sensitive to the level of the regulator's selfishness. Therefore, the type of the politician matters as it determines the sensitivity of other variables of interest to the regulator's type. Whether having a more populist politician in the office ends up in lower corruption or not, depends on other parameters of the model, namely the regulator's level of selfishness.


Young children with complex developmental difficulties are often referred for
assessment by multiprofessional groups run by health or education services.
The purpose of this research is to identify and describe the frameworks within
which such groups make their judgements and decisions in real work settings.
This study adopted an exploratory, multiple-case research design. It involved
two tertiary multiprofessional groups in London. Each assessed two preschool
children whose difficulties were suspected to lie within the autistic spectrum.
One group consisted of a paediatric senior registrar, a clinical psychologist and
a speech therapist working within a neurodisability centre attached to a
hospital (Site M); the other group was multi-agency, managed by an
Educational Psychology Service and included educational psychologists, a
psychotherapist and the deputy head of a special school (Site E). Each child
was assessed by all the professionals simultaneously in the presence of the
parents over a morning session. All discussions were audio-recorded. Postassessment
interviews were held with each participant. Data were subjected
to verbal protocol analysis and discourse and conversation analysis.
The major finding of the study was that professionals made use of four types
of interlinked decision-making frameworks, activated either concurrently or in
close alternation. Firstly, a common procedural framework included
hypothesis testing and diagnosis carried out in three cycles of decision
making, with varying characteristics related to the different institutional
contexts of each Site. Secondly, knowledge frameworks were mainly within
the 'disease' model at Site M, and the 'psychodynamic' and 'behavioural'
models at Site E. Thirdly, goal structures were related to which client and
purpose each assessment was intended to serve. Finally, negotiation
frameworks consisted of inter-professional collaboration and power-game
structures, and professional-parent interaction structures for negotiating the
bad news. These findings have implications for research on decision making
in assessment of children with disability, as well as for professional practice
and training.


Large herbivores are important drivers of ecosystem processes, affecting plant species richness and composition, primary productivity, habitat structure as well as nutrient cycling. Large herbivore activities may therefore have important indirect effects on other plants and animals in the same ecosystem. The effect of herbivore activity on ecosystem processes varies with habitat productivity, herbivore selectivity, herbivore density and may be modified by different wildlife management practices. Therefore indirect effects of herbivores may also vary with these factors. In this thesis, I focus on indirect effects of moose (Alces alces) on plants and animals in the boreal forest and how these effects are modified by moose density, habitat productivity and supplementary winter feeding of moose. I studied effects of moose density and habitat productivity on species composition, growth and reproduction in the field layer vegetation and on abundance and family richness of flower-visiting insects. I also studied effects of a gradient in moose density around supplementary winter feeding stations for moose on bird species richness, abundance and reproduction. Selective moose browsing on preferred species affected species composition in the field layer vegetation, increasing abundance and reproduction in unbrowsed plant species, and decreasing abundance and reproduction in browsed species. Moose browsing in the tree canopy increased light availability and flowering in the field layer as well as family richness of Hymenoptera at sites with high productivity. Moose winter browsing around supplementary feeding stations led to reduced species richness and abundance of insectivorous birds and birds nesting at browsing height. Furthermore, high moose densities led to lower reproduction and food availability for great tits (Parus major), and higher reproduction and food availability for pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca). Supplementary feeding stations for moose brought nutrients into the system and had a positive effect on species richness and abundance of insectivorous birds, and the size of insect prey. These results show that moose activity can have indirect effects on plants and animals through changed resource availability and habitat structure, and that these effects are modified by habitat productivity and supplementary feeding of moose.


Following the murder of his rival John Comyn on 10 February at Greyfriars in Dumfries, and the crisis this act incited, Robert the Bruce's inaugural ceremony took place at Scone in late March 1306. Much about this ceremony is speculative; however, subsequent retrospective legitimisation of the Bruce claims to the royal succession would suggest that all possible means by which Robert's inauguration could emulate his Canmore predecessors and outline his right to rule on a level playing field with his contemporaries were amplified, particularly where they served the common purpose of legitimising Robert's highly questioned hold on power. Fourteenth-century Scottish history is inextricably entwined in the Wars of Independence, civil strife and an accelerated struggle for autonomous rule and independence. The historiography of this period is unsurprisingly heavily dominated by such themes and, while this has been offset by works exploring subjects such as the tomb of Bruce and the piety of the Bruce dynasty, the ceremonial history of this era remains firmly in the shadows. This paper will address three key ceremonies through which a king would, traditionally, make powerful statements of royal authority: the inauguration or coronation of Bruce; the marriage of his infant son to the English princess Joan of the Tower in 1328, and his extravagant funeral ceremony in 1329. By focusing thus this paper hopes to shed new light on the 'dark and drublie days' of fourteenth-century Scotland and reveal that glory, dynastic majesty and pleasure were as central to the Scottish monarchy in this era as war and political turbulence.


David Ricardo (1817) provided a mathematical example showing that countries could gain from trade by exploiting innate differences in their ability to make different goods. In the basic Ricardian example, two countries do better by specializing in different goods and exchanging them for each other, even when one country is better at making both. This example typically gets presented in the first or second chapter of a text on international trade, and sometimes appears even in a principles text. But having served its pedagogical purpose, the model is rarely heard from again. The Ricardian model became something like a family heirloom, brought down from the attic to show a new generation of students, and then put back. Nearly two centuries later, however, the Ricardian framework has experienced a revival. Much work in international trade during the last decade has returned to the assumption that countries gain from trade because they have access to different technologies. These technologies may be generally available to producers in a country, as in the Ricardian model of trade, our topic here, or exclusive to individual firms. This line of thought has brought Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage back to center stage. Our goal is to make this new old trade theory accessible and to put it to work on some current issues in the international economy.


Metates are stone objects on which corn and other substancesa re ground with
hand-held stones called manos. Metates and manos have formed part of the
standard household equipment in the Americas ever since settled life began to
develop there in the 2nd millennium B. C.
In Lower Central America - and specifically within the area bounded by eastern
Honduras in the north and the Panama Canal in the south - prehispanic peoples
fashioned some of their metates in a highly individual manner, often with a display
of sophisticated and complex imagery both in form and decoration. They were
made in this distinctive way over a period of at least 1500 years prior to the arrival
of the Spaniards.
The aim of this study is to show that, in spite of their diversity, these metates
represent an unmistakable cultural trait which is particular only to the isthmian
region of Central America. It is proposed that, as such, the decorated metate can
serve as a diagnostic marker for essentially Lower Central American cultural
traditions in prehispanic times.
In earlier studies, many of these elaborately carved objects from Honduras,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama have been referred to variously as 'altars',
'thrones', 'ceremonial tables', and - sometimes - as 'metates'. In the course of
research for the present study it was found that the majority show traces of wear
from grinding and that they can therefore be classified as metates.
This thesis brings together material from the entire Lower Central American
culture area and presents a comprehensive corpus of decorated metates from
reported sites together with specimens available in museums and private
collections. Based on some 650 examples, a classification is proposed which hasbeen organized according to formal attributes and supplemented by a stylistic
analysis of recurring motifs and decorative patterns.
A chronological and geographical framework has been added with the help of
known data on decorated metates recovered from controlled excavations.


Many natural listening environments face the auditory system with a jumble of overlapping sound‐producing events, from which it must recover separate descriptions of the individual sounds (auditory scene analysis). Its most basic method is ''primitive'' auditory grouping, a pre‐attentive process that analyzes the incoming signal into components and then uses certain acoustic relations among them to link them into sets that later‐acting recognition processes will prefer to treat as coming from separate events. Components (or features) will be linked when they exhibit relationships to one another that would be very improbable had they actually come from unrelated events. The evidence for grouping, derived from different relations, is allowed to compete and collaborate, in the linking of subsets of components or features. In a mixture, the listener tends to hear these subsets as distinct but overlapping sound sequences, each with its own properties. The perceived qualities that can be affected by this organi...


School climate describe the environment that affects the behavior of teachers and students at the classroom. Elements of the school climate such as the building and its arrangements reflect the children, their needs, and their educational accomplishments. Some of these elements, however, have not received much attention in studies about the academic performance in Primary Education. This paper describes the relationship between environmental conditions in the classroom (e.g., lighting, isolation, order, cleanliness,…) and the academic performance of the students. This study analyses 248 Primary Education classrooms from nine countries of Iberoamerica using a 4-level Multilevel Model. The following information sources were used in this study: i) Classroom guide observation completed by researcher. ii) Standardized test to Math and Language learning. iii) Questionnaire to classroom teachers, pupils and their families. The results of this study highlight the strong influence of the order and cleanliness on the academic performance of the students.


Recent research shows that the cultural remnants of a more distant past were more faithfully preserved in sub-Saharan Africa than in the societies further north. Striking parallels between extant African cultures and written (as well as oral) testimonies concerning ancient Near Eastern societies can be detected. It becomes clear that in the period preceding the textual evidence of the Middle Ages, African societies were not isolated or self-contained, but that instead they took part on various levels in global exchange. Historians are inclined to attach considerable importance to written sources, while they tend to disregard the stories that are orally transmitted. Lange (and others) disregard the present trend of research (i.e. an African perspective of the African past) and adopt a comparative perspective which leads to the conclusion that the oral traditions which trace the origin of some African states or cultures to the ancient Near East are basically correct.


BACKGROUND
Laparoscopic appendectomy (LA) can be used as a training model for the start of the independent experience of young residents. We tried to evaluate whether LA is a risk factor for patients when it is done by novice surgeons during the different steps of their training.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
A retrospective study of all the patients who underwent LA in our department between 2000 and 2008 was conducted. The patients were operated on by novice surgeons, chief residents, and senior surgeons. Preoperative variables were compared, as well as surgical outcomes and complications.

RESULTS
During the study period, 477 LA, were performed on 320 women and 157 men, with a mean age of 39 years. In 11 cases (2.3%), the operation was converted. No difference was found in preoperative patient status. There was no difference between groups in the rate of accurate preoperation diagnosis, in comparison with the pathologic report. The rates of conversion, postoperative complications, and negative appendectomies were similar between residents and seniors. These findings were also found in a subgroup analysis, in which we compared each group.

CONCLUSIONS
There is no additional risk in a LA done by a resident, whether a chief or a novice. LA is a good model for training young surgeons in laparoscopic surgery: It enables the young surgeon to engage and lead a real case and does not imbue any risk upon the patient.


The Republic of Zambia is rich in mineral resources, such as zinc (Zn) and lead (Pb), and mining is a key industry in Zambia. A previous study of Pb pollution in Kabwe, one of the main mining areas, found that soil was contaminated with high levels of toxic metals over a substantial area. In the present study, the authors focus on toxic metal pollution in cattle, one of the most important domestic animals in Zambia. Blood samples from cattle in Kabwe and a control area (Lusaka) were tested for toxic metal content. They also measured mRNA expression of metal‐responsive proteins and cytokines in white blood cells using real‐time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. In the present in vitro study, The authors cultured peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from cattle, exposing them to Pb acetate for 24 h and analyzing mRNA expression of metal‐responsive proteins and selected cytokines. Lead concentrations in cattle blood from Kabwe were significantly greater than those from Lusaka, as were the mRNA expressions of metallothionein‐2 (MT‐2), tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ), interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β), IL‐6, and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). The present in vitro study demonstrated that Pb exposure led to an increase in the expressions of MT‐2, TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and iNOS, similar to those found in vivo. These results indicate the possibility of immune system modulations in cattle from the Kabwe area. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012; 31: 2300–2305. © 2012 SETAC


Children's Centres are a relatively new development. There is little published research available about their impact on improving outcomes for children and their families and about the role of the educational psychologist (EP) in Children's Centres. This thesis describes an action research project that was run in Children's Centre in the North East of England. The project explored the use of a drop-in service that was offered to parents and carers attending the Children's Centre. An EP provided this service and the purpose of the drop-in was for parents or carers to be able to speak confidentially to an EP about concerns or issues in connection with any aspect of their child's development or behaviour. The drop-in service was run intermittently over a two-year period and approximately forty parents and carers attended. Data to inform the research aims and questions were collected using a variety of approaches including: semi-structured interviews, records of discussions, questionnaires, research diary, audio and video recordings. The audio recording was analysed using thematic analysis and the other data were analysed by using patterning to look for themes or issues from the various data collected. Reflective discussions during the action research process facilitated opportunities for triangulation and respondent validation. The drop-in evolved from one where the EP waited for parents to visit them in a designated room to one where the EP attended the groups run by the Children's Centre staff. The latter model increased the uptake of the service. Another important factor in parents' engagement with the service was identified by staff at the Children's Centre. This was the need to develop trust between the parent and the EP. Although, initially, the service was for parents, the staff at the Children's Centre requested access to the drop-in service. A solution focussed framework was found to be a useful tool to guide the structure of the drop-in. A wide range of topics were brought to the drop-in reflecting Sheppard's et al's (2007) discussion about the types of issues upon which the parents were seeking support when they attended Children's Centres. The study acknowledges that the drop-in is only one type of service that might be provided by an EP and that generalisations to other Children's Centres might not be appropriate or necessary. However, the study demonstrates the way in which an action research methodology helped to develop a service based around the needs of the community, and facilitated the provision of a drop-in service that was valued by parents and staff in the Children's Centre.


We determine wind‐wave properties and estimate the wave exposure along the entire shore of Lake Überlingen, a subbasin of Lake Constance, using a third‐generation spectral wave model (SWAN), and compare results to field data on surface waves at three different sites and to predictions from a simple fetch‐based model (FETCH). Forcing the models with local wind data measured at a meteorological station in the center of Lake Überlingen provides better simulation results than a spatially resolved wind field obtained from the numerical weather system of the Consortium for Small Scale Modeling (COSMO). Because wave diffraction is considered in SWAN but not in FETCH, SWAN provides on average higher wave heights than FETCH and agrees better with observations for waves with heights above 0.15 m. Wave exposure, that is, the frequency of occurrence of wind waves with heights above 0.15 m, varied substantially between different sites along the shore even at small spatial scales. Although the general pattern of wave exposure was similar for simulations with SWAN and FETCH, the model results differed at specific sites, especially at bays and headlands, and also with respect to the absolute values for wave exposure and its variation between sites. Simple fetch models may be insufficient to reliably quantify the spatial variability of wave exposure at small spatial scales, and complex wave models such as SWAN may be required even in medium‐size lakes.


The unique combination of superb spatial resolution, wide-area coverage, and deep depth of the optical imaging from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru Strategic Program is utilized to search for dual quasar candidates. Using an automated image analysis routine on 34,476 known Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars, we identify those with two (or more) distinct optical point sources in HSC images covering 796 deg2. We find 421 candidates out to a redshift of 4.5 of which one hundred or so are more likely after filtering out contaminating stars. Angular separations of 0.″6–4.″0 correspond to projected separations of 3–30 kpc, a range relatively unexplored for population studies of luminous dual quasars. Using Keck I/Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and Gemini-N/Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer, we spectroscopically confirm three dual quasar systems at z < 1, two of which are previously unknown out of eight observed, based on the presence of characteristic broad emission lines in each component, while highlighting that the continuum of one object in one of the pairs is reddened. In all cases, the [O iii]λ5007 emission lines have mild velocity offsets, thus the joint [O iii] line profile is not double-peaked. We find a dual quasar fraction of 0.26 ± 0.18% and no evidence for evolution. A comparison with the Horizon-AGN simulation seems to support the case of no evolution in the dual quasar fraction when broadly matching the quasar selection. These results may indicate a scenario in which the frequency of the simultaneous triggering of luminous quasars is not as sensitive as expected to the cosmic evolution of the merger rate or gas content of galaxies.


The Peake and Denison Block located in the far north east of South Australia offers a rare geological window into the basement of the dominantly buried northern Gawler Craton Proterozoic basement. The relative position of the Peake and Denison Block is an important location in the context of plate reconstruction models as it represents an interpreted marginal domain. Detrital geochronology of the Peake Metamorphics indicates three distinct depositional sequences were deposited over a 60 Myr period between 1800 and 1740 Ma. The earliest volcano-sedimentary sequence of the Peake Metamorphics was deposited at ~1800 Ma sequence followed shortly after by a second depositional event at ~1780 Ma and a third at ~1740 Ma. The two earliest sequences preserve detrital zircon populations that indicate they may share a common protolith ancestry with similarly aged sequences in Mt Isa's Western Fold Belt. Following a depositional hiatus a third sequence of volcanics and sediments were deposited at ~1740 Ma which may have sourced material from either locally reworked earlier sequences of the Peak Metamorphics or alternately the more distant Arunta Region of Northern Australia. Sediment deposition is interpreted to have been halted by basin inversion associated with the onset of the Kimban Orogeny at ~1710 Ma which produced at least three deformation events. This period of orogenesis was characterised by an early extensional fabric which was later refolded by two orientations of folding, accompanied by Upper Amphibolite facies metamorphism. Regional geophysical analysis indicates Kimban orogenesis extensively affected the Northern Gawler Craton and was proceeded by at least seven additional periods of faulting, shearing or folding. Preliminary geophysical analysis of the region to the south of the traditional margin of the Mt Isa Block appears to indicate the presence of a deeply buried continuation of the North Australia Craton. Multidisciplinary analysis inclusive of structural, chronological and geophysical observations indicate the Peake and Denison Block may represent the translocated southern margin of the North Australian Craton. It is envisaged the Peake and Denison Block was detached, rotated and finally reattached during the latter part of the Proterozoic.


Introduction The problem of drawing the line between science and religion may be considered a subset of a wider problem in the philosophy of science: the demarcation (or boundary) problem. This is the general problem of drawing the line between science and non-science (most importantly, pseudoscience). But, can we draw the line between science and religion? For some religious believers, things are not always that clear-cut and it can be difficult to tell the characterizations of science and religion apart. For example, consider popular notions like: science is a secular or humanistic religion, science is a hostile materialistic or mechanistic faith, and/or science is just a theory or belief system. To be sure, areas exist where theistic religion and modern science are clearly not compatible, but demarcation for the defender of the faith may get blurred. This may be especially the case when the religionist dismisses or discredits reasoning and critical thinking, is armed with a characterization that confuses science with scientism, adopts a too narrow vision of what knowledge is, and/or argues that science and religion must be compatible because key aspects of modern science are based upon (or have something in common with) religion. Furthermore, passion (or commitment) born out of doctrinal certainty (or religious imperialistic ideology) may also motivate individual or dominant faith to blur the line between science and religion. In such cases, religious faith may seek to uncompromisingly extend the rule or influence of a body of alleged spiritual truths proposed (or dictated) to direct the beliefs, expectations, and actions of others. Yet such individual or dominant faith may be founded on false beliefs based on a misguided identification of causation, beliefs that are not falsifiable, and/or beliefs that are not physically (and logically) possible. Accordingly, in this essay I provide some overriding reasons why modern science is not a religion, faith, and/or just a theory or belief system. Like A Dog Chasing Its Own Tail To be sure, one cannot, on pain of contradiction, reason against demarcation, yet appeal to it by reasoning that different disciplines require different methods of analysis or evaluation--suggesting that the progress sought in this discussion cannot be achieved by appealing to reason because religion governs its own separate domain by faith and is, in this sense, immune from rational analysis or evaluation. For, in the sense that religion is an attempt to try to argue and/or invoke method to determine or make known the truth about what is (e.g., via scriptural reference or interpretation, metaphysical claims, metaphor, or analogical reasoning), there is the need to analyze or evaluate its arguments by crossing the different domains. Moreover, by refusing to conform to logic one cannot, on pain of contradiction, sidestep the reality that method itself implies a logically ordered way of accomplishing something--as the detailed procedures and techniques that suggest order characteristic of a particular discipline or field. Religion, then, is also not immune from the logical analysis or evaluation of its procedures and techniques. (1) It does one no good to dismiss logical analysis or evaluation and/or material evidence (i.e., argument and/or supporting evidence), since to argue against the truth or correctness of the logical principles of reasoning amounts to adopting a position that makes reasoning theoretically impossible. For ... the laws of logic are embedded in our thinking and our language ... (2) So, for instance, the skeptic (or person refusing to conform to logic) cannot, on pain of contradiction, hope to persuade by presenting the argument (possibly critiquing logic as a blatantly absolutist enterprise) that all rules are oppressive, logic is a set of rules, so logic is oppressive (3)--that is, one cannot use logic to reject (or defeat) logic. …


Increasing globalization has spread invasive marine organisms, but it is not well under- stood why some species invade more readily than others. It is also poorly understood how species' range limits are set generally, let alone how anthropogenic climate change may disrupt existing species boundaries. We find a quantitative relationship that determines if a coastal species with a benthic adult stage and planktonic larvae can be retained within its range and invade in the direc- tion opposite that of the mean current experienced by the larvae (i.e. upstream). The derivation of the retention criterion extends prior riparian results to the coastal ocean by formulating the criterion as a function of observable oceanic parameters, focusing on species with obligate benthic adults and planktonic larvae, and quantifying the effects of iteroparity and longevity. By placing the solutions in a coastal context, the retention criterion isolates the role of 3 interacting factors that counteract down- stream drift and set or advance the upstream edge of an oceanic species' distribution. First, spawning over several seasons or years enhances retention by increasing the variation in the currents encoun- tered by the larvae. Second, for a given population growth rate, species with a shorter pelagic period are better retained and more able to spread upstream. And third, prodigious larval production improves retention. Long distance downstream dispersal may thus be a byproduct of the many propagules often necessary to ensure local recruitment and persistence of a population in an advective environment.


In recent years Azorean fishermen reported the presence of the smalltooth sand tiger shark, Odontaspis ferox (Risso, 1810), a very rare demersal shark species, associated with insular shelves and slopes, with occasional incursions into shallow waters and of poorly known biology and ecology. There are fourteen new records of this species, between 1996 and 2014, captured by spearfishing, harpoons, hand lines, or entangled in fishing gear in the Azores. These records were analysed and complemented with fishermen interviews, providing new locations and new biological data for this species. Also, specimens photographs were studied and post-mortem analysis were carefully carried out in one individual. This species is rare and captured only as bycatch in shallow waters. More detailed information on this species is critically needed in order to assess its conservation status and implement management guidelines. Bycatch statistics are crucial in this respect.


The introduction of Protestantism into the Middle East by American missionaries in the nineteenth century met with limited success while the responses and internalizations of local converts proved incredibly diverse. The two resultant theological descendants are Palestinian Christian Zionists and Palestinian Liberation Theologists. The article provides a short history of these two movements and highlights influential voices through interviews and media analysis. This article argues that hybrid religious identifications with nation and place has transcended, in some cases, political struggle for territory.


This article provides an overview of the current use of biotechnology to produce human health products and short-term estimates of the number and types of these products that are likely to reach the market by 2015. Relevant health products include biopharmaceuticals, experimental therapies (e.g. cell/tissue engineering and gene therapy), small molecule therapeutics, diagnostics, bioinformatics (including DNA sequencing and pharmacogenetics), functional food and nutraceuticals, and medical devices. The analysis of current use is based on regulatory approval data and the current literature and includes a comparison of the additional therapeutic value of biopharmaceuticals compared to small molecule pharmaceuticals. The short-term estimates of the number and types of products that are likely to reach the market by 2015 are based, where possible, on an analysis of quantitative data on clinical trials. For several other products, including functional foods and nutraceuticals, it is not possible to make short-term estimates due to a lack of reliable data. While the biopharmaceutical share of all pharmaceuticals reaching the market is expected to remain very close to historical levels, biotechnology is expected to be used in the discovery, development, manufacturing, and/or prescribing of nearly all new drugs by 2015. In addition, the use of biotech based diagnostics (especially genetic testing), bioinformatics, and pharmacogenetics is likely to increase. In some cases, these technologies will be used to improve the safety and efficacy of clinical trials, to personalise prescribing practises, and to reduce adverse drug reactions.


Using a comparative analytical approach to the phenomena of honor, guilt, and absolution in The Oresteia and The Godfather trilogies, this essay investigates both ideology's compelling force in determining social relations and the distinct rhetorical strategies used in two different cultures to support these relations. The concept of ideology has been the target of formidable detraction of late by critics who maintain that the term has been appropriated by so many different discourses that it is now little more than a fashionable, but empty, signifier. Responding to such trends, Terry Eagleton adopted the strategy of using "end of ideology" prognostications as a subtext for writing his Ideology: An Introduction, which represents his history and defense of the term's value. Similarly, David Hawkes begins his recent Ideology by arguing for the concept's continued relevance, "especially at a time when political and philosophical developments have cast significant doubt on the use and value of this concept" (xi). One might also argue that the concept of ideology continues to be a profitable and practical locus of critical attention, particularly in the context of comparative literary study. Comparative ideological readings provide an interdisciplinary theoretical approach to literatures produced across nations and across historical periods, from which we may better understand late 20th-century Western culture by comparing it to cultures past. Two "classic" trilogies that serve well to illustrate the importance of a comparative ideological approach to literary study are Aeschylus's Oresteia and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather; in each of these dramas, the tension hinges on a dilemma in which the respective protagonists are forced to negotiate a nearly identical conflict that appears both inescapable and impossibly contradictory. Of Orestes's dilemma, Hugh Lloyd-Jones writes: "If he...fail[s] to avenge his father, the Erinyes would have [to pursue] him for his failure; since he does avenge him, they pursue him for the killing of his mother" (91). In Coppola's trilogy, when Michael Corleone learns that his brother, Fredo, has cooperated with Michael's enemies, he orders Fredo's murder to protect the Corleone family; but killing a brother is a direct assault on the ideal, and the very structure, of the family. Both of these situations place a character's sense of honor, which is rooted in his respect for the filial blood-line, into direct conflict with the guilt that will follow the very action that he believes is required to protect honor. Yet whereas Orestes's guilt seems entirely absolved by the time we come to the end of Aeschylus's trilogy, at the end of Coppola's trilogy Michael Corleone dies, psychologically destroyed by guilt. My purpose in the following essay is to account for this discrepancy in outcome by elucidating the process whereby a text's material conditions of production determine the text's rhetorical expression and stabilization of such ideological phenomena as honor, guilt, and absolution. To do so, I will first conjoin the materialist notion of ideology associated with Louis Althusser's structuralist Marxism with those post-structuralist considerations that discuss the role of figural language in literary signification. Then, drawing the connection between certain material features of 5th-century Athenian civilization and the form of ideology in Aeschylus's text, I will show how Aeschylus establishes his text's ideological authority by manipulating a metaphoric rhetoric in which words correspond directly to a divine exterior referent, whereas, because Coppola is writing under late capitalist material conditions that are characterized by definitive crises of ontological and linguistic reference, he has no recourse to this divine exterior referent and must instead construct his text's ideological authority on a synecdochic rhetorical strategy designed to conceal a material absence, not to signify a material presence. …


This essay explores the involvement of the women of Bennett College in the student-led sit-in movement that was launched in Greensboro, North Carolina in February 1960. On 24 February 2003, Dr. Johnetta B. Cole at a book talk at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture with co-author Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall of Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women's Equality in African American Communities, mentioned that there has been very little research on the women of Bennett College who participated in the student-led sit-ins in the early 1960s. (1) This essay will examine the student participants in the movement and the theories of organization that help to provide explanations for these protest activities. Within the context of the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, background information on the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, will be presented. In addition, the significance and impact of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in general and the student-led sit-ins in particular on the evolving social consciousness in the African American community will be assessed. (2) When the United States Supreme Court made its unanimous ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case on 17 May 1954, legal segregation in public education became unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. (3) Civil Rights attorney Constance Baker Motley in Equal Justice Under the Law: An Autobiography, declared that the Brown decision "ushered in the greatest period of social upheaval since the Civil War" as the hopes and expectations of thousands of southern African Americans in particular were raised. (4) Expectations centered on the elimination of all Jim Crow practices because many believed that this would allow African Americans to enjoy the full rights and privileges of their U.S. citizenship. The launching of the Greensboro student-led sit-ins in 1960 represented a new phase in the social upheavals associated with the Civil Rights Movement. GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA On 1 February 1960, four male North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (NCA & T) students walked into the F. W. Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina, "purchased school supplies and sundry items," then proceeded to the lunch counter and took seats to wait for service. (5) The act of taking a seat at the lunch counter and requesting service represented an act of defiance aimed at the South's Jim Crow laws and practices that defined the nature of social interactions between whites and African Americans in the South. (6) The city of Greensboro was established as the county seat of Guilford County in 1808, and was "a center of antislavery activity, a way station of the Underground Railroad, and a gathering place for Quakers." (7) Also considered a city of the "New South," Greensboro was considered by some to be "free of old prejudices and ideally prepared to lead the region toward new levels of prosperity and enlightenment." (8) Therefore, given its reputation, there was the expectation among African Americans that following the Brown decision there would be little difficulty in the movement towards desegregating the schools and other public facilities. Unfortunately, it was not until 1971 that the Greensboro public school system was desegregated. (9) By 1960 Greensboro was home to five colleges; two HBCUs and three traditionally white institutions (TWIs). (10) The two HBCUs were Bennett College, a private college for women, and NCA & T, a public, coeducational institution. Bennett College was founded under the auspices of the Methodist Church, initially for the purpose of educating male and female students. Bennett first accepted students for collegiate study in 1920, forty-seven years after its founding, and in 1926 began admitting only female students. Among the more than one hundred HBCUs, only four were dedicated solely to the education of African American women. …


The family Carabidae is of particular interest not only due to its great specific diversity but also due to the geophilic nature of many of its members, which makes them good bioindicators of soil characteristics. The diversity of the epigean Carabidae is relatively well studied. However, there are no robust data on the presence of these beetles in hypogean habitats of non–karstic substrate and, therefore, without the development of caves. In the present study, we sampled the mesovoid shallow substratum (MSS) at various sites in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, with the aim of characterising the Carabidae hypogean fauna. Among many other organisms, we collected 12 species of Carabidae. Of these, despite being known from epigean/edaphic habitats, Leistus (Leistus) constrictus Schaufuss, 1862, Nebria (Nebria) vuillefroyi Chaudoir, 1866, Trechus (Trechus) schaufussi pandellei Putzeys, 1870, and Laemostenus (Eucryptotrichus) pinicola (Graells, 1851) are consistently reported from MSS habitats, albeit with certain differences as regards their occupation of subterranean spaces. The species from forest–dwelling (thermophilous) lineages, T. (T.) schaufussi pandellei and L. (E.) pinicola, presented a higher prevalence in subsoil cavities at lower altitudes, whereas those from orobiont (psychrophilic) lineages, L. (L.) constrictus and N. (N.) vuillefroyi, predominated in subsoils at higher altitudes. As regards the presence of these four species during their different life cycle stages, we found that N. (N.) vuillefroyi was present and abundant as both larval (in the three preimaginal stages) and imago stages, showing the most evident trend towards an hypogean lifestyle. In contrast, for the other three species, only one of the two stages showed a high presence on hypogean habitats. The facultative hypogean capabilities of N. (N.) vuillefroyi and L. (L.) constrictus calls into question the protected status conferred on both species when it was thought that they were exclusively epigean.


Objectives To describe contraceptive risk and compensatory behaviour, using condoms or emergency contraception (EC), in young people in education aged 16–24 years. Design Cross-sectional study. Subjects A total of 1135 students aged 16–24 years. Setting Educational establishments in and around London, UK. Results Seventy-six percent of women and 55% of men reported having experienced sex either without contraception or when a condom split or came off. Most participants (or their sexual partners) who reported such risks had compensated by using EC at least once (72% women, 55% men) but only a minority had compensated on each occasion of risk (37% women and 22% men). Of the oral contraceptives users the majority (83%) had experienced a pill 'problem' and the majority of these participants had compensated for such problems by using condoms (79%). Fewer than half of the women who experienced pill problems (45%) compensated by using condoms on each occasion. Less than a quarter (23%) of those who experienced pill problems but did not compensate by using condoms ever compensated by using EC. Conclusions This study demonstrates high levels of primary contraceptive risk and low levels of consistent compensatory condom or EC use. The findings suggest that there would be large increases in EC use and repeated use if all primary contraceptive risks were followed by compensatory action. Interventions to increase contraceptive use should focus not only on initiation of contraception use but acknowledge that risks do happen and promote both continuing use and compensatory behaviour.


Optically active small-molecular trisazobenzene derivatives are explored that allow facile photo-induced fabrication of holographic volume gratings which are unusually stable over time compared to structures based on other small-molecular organic compounds. The origin of this favorable characteristic of such architectures is investigated with three compounds that structurally differ only in the length of an alkyl spacer positioned between the molecular core and the active azobenzene chromophores. Species comprising spacers of sufficient length, and that exhibit a latent liquid-crystalline phase, feature efficient formation of stable, ordered domains in which the three side groups orient perpendicular to the polarization of the inscribing light beam. It is demonstrated that molecular order in these domains can be significantly improved by annealing at temperatures between the glass transition temperature and the clearing point of the specific compounds. This phenomenon allows combining the highly desirable processing characteristic of relatively short holographic writing times with small molecules in the fabrication of stable volume gratings, the latter feature so far having been reserved predominantly for polymeric species.


Commissioned by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for use in United Methodist doctrine/polity/history courses. Runyon sets Wesley's own discussion of the "way of salvation" in the larger context of Christian doctrine, beginning with the Creation (and the Fall) and moving through the drama of salvation towards its eschatological fulfillment in the "new creation" of all things. "This is for me the Wesley book at the end of the century, with new perspectives for the next millennium. Reliable in historical research, brilliantly written, it offers the social witness of John Wesley for today's crises. Professor Runyon gives a coherent picture of Wesley's theology for the Christian oecumene and far beyond. I am very grateful for this book."--Jurgen Moltmann The New Creation has been translated into 5 languages: Korean, Portuguese, Russian, German, and Spanish."


This paper investigates to what extent income growth in the Chinese provinces is linked to growth and income levels in neighboring provinces. We find that the rate of income growth in a province is positively related to income and growth in neighboring provinces. However, we find no evidence of such positive interdependence between growth in rich coastal provinces and their immediate inland neighbors. This suggests that there has been little synchronization in economic growth rates between these regions, and/or that the immediate hinterland of the coastal growth centers might have been bypassed as China's manufacturing sector has migrated westward.


Awareness and recognition of domestic violence in Australia is increasing. In 2014, the Victorian Government appointed Fiona Richardson as the first Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Australian domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty, whose 11-year-old son Luke was killed by her husband, was named 2015 Australian of the Year. Also, a Special Taskforce chaired by Former Governor-General Quentin Bryce has been formed to conduct an extensive review of domestic violence in Queensland and legislative reforms have been implemented that adopt a broader concept and definition of domestic violence which include psychological harm. Despite these developments, the ability of healthcare professionals to detect domestic violence – a pre-requisite to the proper functioning of these laws in practice – is limited in various ways. This article provides an overview of existing legislation that proscribes domestic violence and explores current methods used by practitioners to detect domestic violence. It then examines the duty of HCPs to report instances of domestic violence and explores the methodology behind early warning detection for victims experiencing acute or chronic psychological harm. Finally, the article explores the implications of recent legislative amendments and difficulties faced by HCPs. It then discusses adaptive methods to assist HCPs in practice to ultimately prevent domestic violence.


We introduce a concept of content-based landscape retrieval (CBLR). Our CBLR system retrieves morphometrically similar landscapes from a large DEM thus acting as a search engine for landscapes. The system works on the principle of query-byexample, a reference landscape is given and the system outputs a map showing degree of similarity between a reference and all the other local landscapes across the spatial extent of the DEM. Landscape is defined as pattern of landform elements. A DEM is converted into a map of landform elements using the geomorphons method. The core of the CBLR is the similarity function between two landscapes that encapsulates a degree to which their patterns of landform elements correspond to each other. The search relies on exhaustive evaluation of similarity using an overlapping sliding window approach. In the featured case study we use our method to delineate a spatial extent of the characteristic landscape formed by the end moraine associated with the latest glaciations across the country of Poland. Good agreement is found between the region delineated by our method and a range of end moraine manually delineated from geomorphic, geological, and paleogeographical information. The CBLR can be implemented as a GeoWeb application and serve as a rapid and convenient tool for exploration of very large DEM datasets.


China's growth, along with its increasing integration with world markets through WTO accession, abolition of Multifiber Arrangement (MFA) quotas, and reduced trade barriers with ASEAN, is expected to have significant effects on the structure of regional production and trade. Through bilateral trade growth as well as through competition with China in global markets, Southeast Asia's resource-abundant economies will become more intensive in natural resource-based exports and much less so in low-end, labor-intensive manufacturing such as garments. Both these effects will tend to increase demand for natural resources, one through a direct product market effect, the other by driving down the price of a complementary input, low-skill labor. A question that then arises is how these trends will interact with the other major phenomenon currently sweeping through Southeast Asia, namely decentralization. With reduced national government power and little or no accountability at the local level, the potential for disastrous rates of resource exploitation is high. If sufficiently severe, the combination of increased demand for natural resources and diminished constraints on their could expose the region to reduced rates of economic growth, a variant of the "natural resource curse" argument, which maintains that resource-abundant economies grow more slowly than others.


Education is one of the main priorities for both past and present global development goals, and making sure access is granted to all children is vital. However, when looking at education for children with disabilities, access is not as easily provided as for their non-disabled peers. In Cambodia, children with disabilities have a strong legislative protection despite low enrolment rates. This thesis looks further into how, and why children with disabilities in Cambodia are not in school. The empirical results based on an ethnographic study suggest that structural violence, which is violence operating indirectly through institutions and structures in society, obstructs access to education through the mechanisms of social exclusion, oppression and lack of agency. The obstructing forces are deeply rooted in the structures of the Cambodian society and physical barriers are linked to attitudinal barriers where the presence of disability causes stigmatisation that breed discrimination and exclusion. This thesis adds violence as a variable of interest when it comes to looking at development from the perspective of disability studies.


Actin remodeling has emerged as a critical process during synapse development and plasticity. Thus, understanding the regulatory mechanisms controlling actin organization at synapses is exceedingly important. Here, we used the highly plastic Drosophila neuromuscular junction (NMJ) to understand mechanisms of actin remodeling at postsynaptic sites. Previous studies have suggested that the actin‐binding proteins Spectrin and Coracle play a critical role in NMJ development and the anchoring of glutamate receptors most likely through actin regulation. Here, we show that an additional determinant of actin organization at the postsynaptic region is the PDZ protein Baz/Par‐3. Decreasing Baz levels in postsynaptic muscles has dramatic consequences for the size of F‐actin and spectrin domains at the postsynaptic region. In turn, proper localization of Baz at this site depends on both phosphorylation and dephosphorylation events. Baz phosphorylation by its binding partner, atypical protein kinase C (aPKC), is required for normal Baz targeting to the postsynaptic region. However, the retention of Baz at this site depends on its dephosphorylation mediated by the lipid and protein phosphatase PTEN. Misregulation of the phosphorylation state of Baz by genetic alterations in PTEN or aPKC activity has detrimental consequences for postsynaptic F‐actin and spectrin localization, synaptic growth, and receptor localization. Our results provide a novel mechanism of postsynaptic actin regulation through Baz, governed by the antagonistic actions of aPKC and PTEN. Given the conservation of these proteins from worms to mammals, these results are likely to provide new insight into actin organization pathways. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 2009


Glaciers are sensitive to climatic variation and a particular developing area of investigation is in the field of "cryoconite", referring to dustlike residues which form on the glacier surface. Cryoconite absorbs the Sun's shortwave energy, accelerates ice melt and because of the localised distribution of dust creates localised melting which is highly spatially variable. There is therefore a need to quantify the detailed topographic surface of ice and measure its variability through time. This paper describes the use of close range photogrammetry to reconstruct the glacier surface at the sub-centimetre or micro scale, an approach which may allow the relationship between cryoconite and ice surface properties to be explored over either space or time. The field campaign was conducted at Midtre Lovénbreen, Svalbard (78.88° North 12.08° East), during the summer of 2010 and executed using simple equipment and procedures. A simple and ageing Nikon 5400 5 MP camera was used to acquire all imagery, proving sufficiently robust for the challenging field environment. The camera was handheld approximately 1.6 m above the ice surface, providing an oblique perspective. Images were acquired at three different camera/object distances, each generating coverage occupying three different areas. All imagery was processed using the commercial photogrammetric package PhotoModeler Scanner, generating threedimensional point clouds consisting of many thousands of XYZ coordinates, each colour-coded. It had been feared that lack of texture in the ice surface combined with differing specular reflections in each image would compromise the DEM generation process. Results were better than expected, although DEM quality proved to be variable depending on ice cleanliness and more significantly, the degree of obliquity of the image pairs. Despite these differences, digital close-range photogrammetry has proven to be a useful technique to reconstruct the glacier's surface to sub-centimeter precision. Moreover, the method is providing glacial scientists with new data to examine the relationship between cryoconite, ice surface roughness and melt processes.


The Loma Prieta earthquake produced bewildering arrays of surface fractures of all possible modes in the epicentral area. Preliminary reports of the fracturing, though, suggested that there was no evidence of right-lateral surface slip above the fault as it is defined seismically. Through detailed mapping of selected localities along the San Andreas and Sargent faults, however, we have been able to show that strands of the San Andreas and Sargent faults ruptured to the surface with right-lateral-northward thrust components of slip in amounts of 10 to 20 cm.


We have identified those molecular descriptors differentiating four auxins, four cytokinins and four gibberellins. DRAGON software (version 5.5, 2007) and CambridgeSoft ChemOffice (version 12, 2010) including ChemDraw and Chem3D were used to calculate 212 molecular descriptors. Only 49 descriptors showed statistically significant differences among auxins, cytokinins and gibberellins. Of them, the most important differences can be described as follows. Gibberellins contain terminal tertiary C (sp3), terminal quaternary C (sp3), ring secondary C (sp3), ring tertiary C (sp3), and ring quaternary C (sp3) that are not present either in cytokinins or auxins. Gibberellins are also relatively rich in terminal secondary C (sp3) and 10-membered rings which are absent in cytokinins. Cytokinins have 10 times more nitrogen atoms than auxins but this atom is not present in gibberellins. Auxins have 10 times more substituted benzene C (sp2) and 5 times more benzene-like rings than cytokinins but these structures are not in gibberellins. Regarding the numbers of unsubstituted benzene C (sp2), auxins average 4.50, cytokinins 1.25 but they are absent in gibberellins. A dendogram was generated using data of those molecular descriptors with statistical significant differences (49). The three groups of regulators were correctly classified in three independent branches. The procedure described here may help identify new chemical compounds with potential uses as plant growth regulators.


Information literacy and skills in Internet searching are important for teachers. There exists a large body of literature on information literacy in schools and universities and there are many guidelines and standards on information literacy. Little has, however, been published on information literacy training for teachers per se. Even less has been written on information literacy training for townships and rural communities in developing contexts where teachers may face special challenges. This article will argue that information literacy training for teachers in such communities can benefit from tailored planning influenced by Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Development (ICT4D) literature and taking into account factors such as relationship-building with a committed community; adaptation of the definition and standards for information literacy; and selecting appropriate methods and theories to support ongoing research. These suggestions came out of an United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) funded initiative by the Departments of Informatics and Information Science (University of Pretoria) to train teachers in information literacy in a township area close to Pretoria, South Africa.


In this exploratory paper we consider a robust approach to decisional problems subject to uncertain data in which we have an additional knowledge on the strategy (algorithm) used to react to an unforeseen event or recover from a disruption. This is a typical situation in scheduling problems where the decision maker has no a priori knowledge on the probabilistic distribution of such events but he only knows rough information on the event, such as its impact on the schedule. We discuss a general framework to address this situation and its links with other existing methods, we present an illustrative example on the Shortest Path Problem with Interval Data (SPPID) and we discuss a more general application to airline scheduling with recovery.


A distinct subfield of international relations, IPE, has emerged over the last thirty years, largely in the pages of International Organization. IPE began with the study of international political economy, but over time its boundaries have been set more by a series of theoretical debates than by subject matter. These debates have been organized around points of contestation between specific research programs, reflecting fundamental differences among the generic theoretical orientations in which these research programs are embedded. The fate of specific research programs has depended on their ability to specify cause and effect relationships and to operationalize relevant variables. Scholarship in IPE has become more sophisticated both methodologically and theoretically, and many of its insights have been incorporated into policy discussions. Past points of contestation, including those between realism and its liberal challengers and between various conceptions of domestic structure and international relations, help us to understand recent debates between rationalism and constructivism.


The synthetic estrogen 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2) is an endocrine disrupting compound of concern due to its persistence and widespread presence in the aquatic environment. Effects of developmental exposure to low concentrations of EE2 in fish on reproduction and behavior not only persisted to adulthood, but have also been observed to be transmitted to several generations of unexposed progeny. To investigate the possible biological mechanisms of the persistent anxiogenic phenotype, we exposed zebrafish embryos for 80 days post fertilization to 0, 3, and 10 ng/L EE2 (measured concentrations 2.14 and 7.34 ng/L). After discontinued exposure, the animals were allowed to recover for 120 days in clean water. Adult males and females were later tested for changes in stress response and shoal cohesion, and whole-brain gene expression was analyzed with RNA sequencing. The results show increased anxiety in the novel tank and scototaxis tests, and increased shoal cohesion in fish exposed during development to EE2. RNA sequencing revealed 34 coding genes differentially expressed in male brains and 62 in female brains as a result of EE2 exposure. Several differences were observed between males and females in differential gene expression, with only one gene, sv2b, coding for a synaptic vesicle protein, that was affected by EE2 in both sexes. Functional analyses showed that in female brains, EE2 had significant effects on pathways connected to the circadian rhythm, cytoskeleton and motor proteins and synaptic proteins. A large number of non-coding sequences including 19 novel miRNAs were also differentially expressed in the female brain. The largest treatment effect in male brains was observed in pathways related to cholesterol biosynthesis and synaptic proteins. Circadian rhythm and cholesterol biosynthesis, previously implicated in anxiety behavior, might represent possible candidate pathways connecting the transcriptome changes to the alterations to behavior. Further the observed alteration in expression of genes involved in synaptogenesis and synaptic function may be important for the developmental modulations resulting in an anxiety phenotype. This study represents an initial survey of the fish brain transcriptome by RNA sequencing after long-term recovery from developmental exposure to an estrogenic compound.


Homophily based on observables is widespread in networks. Therefore, homophily based on unobservables (fixed effects) is also likely to be an important determinant of the interaction outcomes. Failing to properly account for latent homophily (and other complex forms of unobserved heterogeneity, in general) can result in inconsistent estimators and misleading policy implications. To address this concern, I consider a network model with nonparametric unobserved heterogeneity, leaving the role of the fixed effects and the nature of their interaction unspecified. I argue that the outcomes of the interactions can be used to identify agents with the same values of the fixed effects. The variation in the observed characteristics of such agents allows me to identify the effects of the covariates, while controlling for the impact of the fixed effects. Building on these ideas, I construct several estimators of the parameters of interest and characterize their large sample properties. The suggested approach is not specific to the network context and applies to general two-way models with nonparametric unobserved heterogeneity, including large panels. A Monte-Carlo experiment illustrates the usefulness of the suggested approaches and supports the large sample theory findings.


A field study investigated the ongoing use and effectiveness of self-regulation strategies for improving mood and the effects of a mood-regulation intervention. Thirty trainee teachers used pocket computers to complete ratings of their mood and their use of mood-regulation strategies every 2 hr during 2 weeks of a school placement. Cognitive distraction was the most frequently used strategy, but behavioral diversion and cognitive reappraisal were associated with the greatest improvements in reported mood. Neither avoidance nor venting was associated with mood improvements. Concurrent mood, mood awareness, and activity predicted the use of different regulation strategies. Half of the participants were instructed to use engagement strategies and the other half diversion strategies during the middle 6 days of the study. The engagement group reported significantly higher levels of cheerfulness during this intervention.


Building and studying 3D representations of anatomical structures, such as the brain, plays an important role in modern biology and medical science. While 3D imaging methods such as MRI and CT have been widely applied, 2D imaging methods such as optical microscopy typically generate images with much higher resolution. In this thesis I describe how to construct a high-resolution 3D atlas of the mouse brain from 2D microscopic images. In particular, I focus on using computer graphics techniques, such as image registration to correcting tissue distortions and polygonal modeling to build surfaces representing the partitioning of anatomical regions. The methods are being applied to construct a high-quality polygonal atlas of an adult mouse brain from 350 histological tissue sections. While the resulting brain atlas will contribute to a larger project of building a spatial database of gene expressions over the mouse brain, the methods described in this thesis are well suited for the general purpose of building polygonal atlases of arbitrary anatomical structures from tissue sections.


A novel region based 3D semantic mapping method is proposed for urban scenes. The proposed Semantic Urban Maps (SUM) method labels the regions of segmented images into a set of geometric and semantic classes simultaneously by employing a Markov Random Field based classification framework. The pixels in the labeled images are back-projected into a set of 3D point-clouds using stereo disparity. The point-clouds are registered together by incorporating the motion estimation and a coherent semantic map representation is obtained. SUM is evaluated on five urban benchmark sequences and is demonstrated to be successful in retrieving both geometric as well as semantic labels. The comparison with relevant state-of-art method reveals that SUM is competitive and performs better than the competing method in average pixel-wise accuracy.


We study the problem of coalitional manipulation---where k manipulators try to manipulate an election on m candidates---for any scoring rule, with focus on the Borda protocol. We do so in both the weighted and unweighted settings. For these problems, recent approximation approaches have tried to minimize k, the number of manipulators needed to make some preferred candidate p win (thus assuming that the number of manipulators is not limited in advance). In contrast, we focus on minimizing the score margin of p which is the difference between the maximum score of a candidate and the score of p. We provide algorithms that approximate the optimum score margin, which are applicable to any scoring rule. For the specific case of the Borda protocol in the unweighted setting, our algorithm provides a superior approximation factor for lower values of k.Our methods are novel and adapt techniques from multiprocessor scheduling by carefully rounding an exponentially-large configuration linear program that is solved by using the ellipsoid method with an efficient separation oracle. We believe that such methods could be beneficial in other social choice settings as well.


Amplification and rearrangement of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene are characteristics of many types of tumors. One class of EGFR mutations, EGFRvIII, is characterized by an in-frame deletion resulting in a truncated external domain of the receptor. EGFRvIII was first identified in a subset of gliomas and has since been found in some non-small cell lung carcinomas and breast carcinomas. mAbs specific for this variant form of EGFR but unreactive with the wild-type EGFR have been reported from our laboratory. This study further characterizes three of these antibodies. We determined, via radiolabeling techniques and immunofluorescence microscopy, that, after cell binding in vitro, the anti-EGFRvIII-specific mAbs internalize at 37 degrees C. Furthermore, subsequent to internalization, the antibodies were processed intracellularly, presumably by lysosomal degradation. We also examined the use of an alternative radiolabeling procedure that uses nonmetabolizable radio-iodinated tyramine cellobiose. Our results show that the tyramine cellobiose labeling method allows for greater tumor cell retention of radiolabel in vitro (76% for tyramine cellobiose and 27% for Iodo-Gen after 24 h). Paired-label biodistribution studies in athymic mice indicate that anti-EGFRvIII mAb L8A4 localizes specifically to EGFRvIII-expressing tumor xenografts with a maximum of 34.3 +/- 7.6% injected dose/g when labeled using tyramine cellobiose compared with a maximum of 14.9 +/- 4.3% injected dose/g using Iodo-Gen; similar results were obtained with mAb H10. These results suggest that the anti-EGFRvIII mAbs may serve as potential carriers for radioconjugate- and immunotoxin-based therapies for tumors expressing EGFRvIII.