Social learning is a rapidly growing field for empirical and theoretical research in economics. We encounter social learning in many economically important phenomena, such as the adoption of new products and technologies or job search in labor markets. We review the existing empirical and theoretical literatures and argue that they have evolved largely independently of each other. This suggests several directions for future research that can help bridge the gap between both literatures. For example, the theory literature has come up with several models of social learning, ranging from naive DeGroot models to sophisticated Bayesian models whose assumptions and predictions need to be empirically tested. Alternatively, empiricists have often observed that social learning is more localized than existing theory models assume, and that information can decay along a transmission path. Incorporating these findings into our models might require theorists to look beyond asymptotic convergence in social learning.


Trends and Causes of Congenital Anomalies in the Pleven Region, Bulgaria We describe the secular trend, pattern and causes of congenital anomalies (CAs) in the Pleven region, Bulgaria. The source of the data was the regional population-based registry of CAs using criteria according to EUROCAT recommendations. During the period 1988-2006, 47,622 births were surveyed. A total of 1,225 cases of CAs were ascertained, giving a total prevalence of 25.72 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 24.3 to 27.15 per 1,000 births. There was a significant increase in total prevalence from 17.76 per 1,000 births in 1988 to 29.40 in 2006 (χ2 test for trend = 5.03; p = 0.025). Congenital heart disease (4.3 per 1,000 registered births), nervous system anomalies (3.3 per 1,000 births), limb defects (2.5 per 1,000 births) and neural tube defects (2.0 per 1,000 births) demonstrated the highest prevalence. There was a significant upward trend in the prevalence of some specific anomalies: digestive system, tumors, gastroschisis and non syndromal dysmorphologic conditions. Genetic causes were identified in approximately 62% of all cases with CAs (chromosomal 8%, single gene defects 14%, multifactorial 40%). The secular trend and particular pattern of CAs in the Pleven region require some potential underlying contributing factors to be considered: case ascertainment and diagnostic methods, and some environmental factors. These data draw attention to the need of further regional epidemiological studies. The high proportion of genetic causes emphasize the role of genetic services as an integral part of preventive medical care.


Seismic isolation with energy dissipation is a technology that has been used in New Zealand since 1978 for bridges and buildings. During this period it has seen limited use, tending to be applied mainly to historically significant buildings, or buildings that have special functional requirements. Seismic isolation has the ability to significantly improve the seismic performance of existing buildings through a seismic retrofit, or to create new earthquake-resilient buildings. Both of these applications are of greater relevance throughout New Zealand following the Canterbury earthquakes. Consequently, the consideration of seismic isolation is no longer limited to those buildings at the top end of the Importance Level spectrum. This paper examines the broad technical issues associated with isolation and energy dissipation. It discusses the benefits and costs of seismic isolation, and presents guidelines for cost estimation at the feasibility stage of projects. We will explore the cost-benefits for building owners, and discuss whether base isolation can replace earthquake insurance for the building and its contents, and business interruption insurance.


A key player and an unrelenting obstacle in the Middle East peace process, Syria has long been a thorn in Washington's side when it comes to forging strategic alliances with powers in the region. But only after the events of 9/11 and Damascus's staunch opposition to the War in Iraq did the U.S. government begin a campaign to pressure President Bashar al-Asad's regime to change its policies and bring Syria into the Western political orbit. Author Andrew Tabler was both a witness to and participant in the events of this covert conflict. No other Western journalists or academics were based in Damascus during this entire period, and as co-founder of what was then Syria's only English-language publication, Tabler was not only watched and censored, but courted by the Syrian government in an attempt to influence his stories to the international community. He gained unique access to the upper echelons of power like no other journalist before him, even accompanying the Syrian president on a state visit to China. This book provides a rare glimpse into the machinations of one of the world's most baffling political systems. The book vividly captures Tabler's behind-the-scenes experiences as well as the story of Syria itself post-9/11 and Washington's attempts to craft a "New Middle East". Tabler's astute political analysis of the goings-on around him is seamlessly interwoven with a devastating critique of U.S. foreign policy. He examines the effects of the the Bush adminstration's strategy, asking what went wrong, what went right, and where Washington needs to go from here to deal with this volatile Middle Eastern country.


Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the effect of a cognitive, behavioral stress management module of Sudarshan Kriya (SK) and P on levels of serum cortisol and pain among the women suffering from advanced stage breast cancer. Materials and Methods: Participants (n = 147) were screened and randomized to receive standard care (n = 69) versus standard along with SK and Pranayam (P) intervention (n = 78) imparted in one 18 hrs workshop spread during 3 days. Participants were expected to practice it at home 20 min daily as adjuvant to standard pharmacological treatment for pain. Results: There was a significant difference in blood cortisol levels after 3 months of practice of SK and P. Mean blood levels in the intervention arm were 341.2 ng/ml against 549.2 ng/ml in the control arm (P ≤ 0.002). Pain perception in comparison to control arm reduced by 3 points in SK and P arm on 0-10 verbal scale of pain. Conclusion: SK and P is an effective intervention in reducing stress and pain among advance stage patients of breast cancer.


Abstract. More than a century of experiments have demonstrated that many features of natural rivers can be reproduced in the laboratory. Here, we revisit some of these experiments to cast their results into the framework of the threshold-channel theory developed by Glover and Florey (1951). In all the experiments we analyze, the typical size of the channel conforms to this theory, regardless of the river's planform (single-thread or braiding). In that respect, laboratory rivers behave exactly like their natural counterpart. Using this finding, we reinterpret experiments by Stebbings (1963). We suggest that sediment transport widens the channel until it reaches a limit width, beyond which it destabilizes into a braided river. If confirmed, this observation would explain the remarkable scarcity of single-thread channels in laboratory experiments.


Seismic images provide the best possible views of the earth below its surface; but, despite an 80 year history, they are still far from optimal. Today, the computer methods used to create such images are transitioning from a standard methodology (SM), which incorporates an evolved blend of physical theory and practical experience, to the very modern full-waveform inversion (FWI) that is much more firmly rooted in mathematical physics. However, this transition is hindered by insufficient low-frequency content in seismic data, by the inherently unknown seismic source waveform, by incompletely understood physics, and by the extreme computational effort required. As a consequence, SM is the dominant approach while FWI is rarely attempted outside of dedicated research labs. SM uses a sophisticated data processing sequence to create a reflectivity image of the subsurface. Then, incorporating well information, an inversion process converts the reflectivity image to earth properties such as impedance. FWI is a fundamentally iterative process that converges on an impedance model by minimizing the difference between real and predicted seismic data. FWI never creates a reflectivity image and does not use well control; while SM does not predict synthetic data and is not iterated. We will create a new class of seismic inversion methods that combines the most robust features of SM with most promising concepts from FWI. From SM, we will retain most of the data processing steps, the creation of a reflectivity image, and the matching to well control. In particular, matching to well control facilitates the source waveform estimation and provides the needed low frequency information. From FWI, we will incorporate the concepts of iteration, prediction of synthetic seismic data, and imaging of the data residual. The proposed approach, which we call IMMI (Iterated Modelling, Migration, and Inversion), will produce estimates of subsurface properties that both match measurements in wells and also predict most features in the recorded seismic data. Such estimates should be much more reliable than those presently achieved by SM. This will have significant benefits to resource exploration and to subsurface environmental studies.


Viscosity and thermal conductivity of HFC-134a have been calculated by means of equilibrium molecular dynamics (EMD). For the calculation of the transport properties by EMD, generalised Einstein equations were compared with Green-Kubo equations and the applicability of the former for engineering purposes was demonstrated. Even with the two-centre Lennard-Jones potential model, the calculated gaseous and liquid viscosities and thermal conductivities agreed with experimental data within 10%-20%, except for the gaseous thermal conductivity.


Objective: To examine the elements of capacity, a measure of organizational resources supporting program implementation that result in successful completion of public health program objectives in a public health initiative serving 50 communities. Design: We used crisp set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to analyze case study and quantitative data collected during the evaluation of the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program. Setting: CPPW awardee program staff and partners implemented evidence-based public health improvements in counties, cities, and organizations (eg, worksites, schools). Participants: Data came from case studies of 22 CPPW awardee programs that implemented evidence-based, community- and organizational-level public health improvements. Intervention: Program staff implemented a range of evidence-based public health improvements related to tobacco control and obesity prevention. Main Outcome Measure: The outcome measure was completion of approximately 60% of work plan objectives. Results: Analysis of the capacity conditions revealed 2 combinations for completing most work plan objectives: (1) having experience implementing public health improvements in combination with having a history of collaboration with partners; and (2) not having experience implementing public health improvements in combination with having leadership support. Conclusion: Awardees have varying levels of capacity. The combinations identified in this analysis provide important insights into how awardees with different combinations of elements of capacity achieved most of their work plan objectives. Even when awardees lack some elements of capacity, they can build it through strategies such as hiring staff and engaging new partners with expertise. In some instances, lacking 1 or more elements of capacity did not prevent an awardee from successfully completing objectives. These findings can help funders and practitioners recognize and assemble different aspects of capacity to achieve more successful programs; awardees can draw on extant organizational strengths to compensate when other aspects of capacity are absent.


The Slaves' Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812. By Gene Allen Smith. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013. Pp. 257. Cloth, $27.00.)The 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, marked by documentaries, radio programs, and international conferences, sparked numerous reevaluations of the changing historiography of the war, both in social and military history. One point of discussion that emerged in forum after forum was the peculiar regional facets of the war, which seem to defy efforts to create a unified narrative.Studies of the conflict, and interpretations of it, vary considerably depending on whether it is viewed as a frontier war of Indian removal, a legacy of hostilities from the American Revolution, or a sideshow of the Napoleonic wars. In his book The Weight of Vengeance (New York, 2012), Troy Bickham notes a strong tendency to localize the study of the War of 1812, so that the Canadian campaigns, the Chesapeake, or naval actions alternately take center stage. Or, as Jeremy Black observes, "The War of 1812 is difficult to discuss clearly because it was a particularly disparate struggle and, therefore, without any central narrative. There were separate campaigns on the Canadian frontier ... as well as around Chesapeake Bay and its river system, and in the Gulf of Mexico."1 Or again, as J. C. A. Stagg notes in the introductory essay to The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent, "Successive generations of American and Canadian historians developed two parallel streams of historiography about the place of the War of 1812 in their national narratives, with little thought being given to the possibility that the streams might, or should, intersect."2Gene Smith's The Slaves' Gamble joins a number of other studies that avoid a regional perspective on the war by examining its impact on specific segments of the population. Smith opts for wide geographic and cultural coverage as he traces the significance of the war for free and enslaved people of color, and simultaneously illustrates how black soldiers, contrabands, and civilians fared during the war years. The work opens with an overview of the integration of men of color, both free and slave, into the fighting forces of colonial America and the early republic. Smith then covers the imperial borderlands of the United States (British to the north, Spanish to the south). The colonial inhabitants of these two areas lived in tense juxtaposition with their American neighbors, in part because the frontier areas provided Indian tribes with autonomy and land rights that impeded U.S. expansion; and in part because enslaved people had a chance at liberty if they could get across the international border. Besides this, both areas were hard-pressed to fill the ranks of their militia forces, creating opportunities for free blacks or fugitives from slavery to enlist.Drawing heavily on previous research, notably Jane Landers's Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana, IL, 1999), Smith shows how border tensions came to shape African American participation in the War of 1812 along the frontiers. This theme is then expanded to consider the place of black soldiers in overall British military strategy once war with the United States broke out. With personal stories drawn from memoirs, military correspondence, and other sources, Smith outlines the decisions confronting people of color in all the theaters of the War of 1812: service in the British or American navies, flight from the war zone, recruitment into the army, alliance with Native Americans. …


IMPORTANCE
Head-mounted displays for virtual reality (HMD-VR) may be used as a therapeutic medium in physical rehabilitation because of their ability to immerse patients in safe, controlled, and engaging virtual worlds.

OBJECTIVE
To explore how HMD-VR has been used in adult physical rehabilitation.

DATA SOURCES
A systematic search of MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and ERIC produced 11,453 abstracts, of which 777 underwent full-text review.

STUDY SELECTION AND DATA COLLECTION
This scoping review includes 21 experimental studies that reported an assessment or intervention using HMD-VR in a physical rehabilitation context and within the scope of occupational therapy practice.

FINDINGS
HMD-VR was used for assessment and intervention for patients with a range of disorders, including stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and Parkinson's disease.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
HMD-VR is an emerging technology with many uses in adult physical rehabilitation. Higher quality clinical implementation studies are needed to examine effects on patient outcomes.

WHAT THIS ARTICLE ADDS
We review existing research on how immersive virtual reality (e.g., using head-mounted displays) has been used for different clinical populations in adult physical rehabilitation and highlight emerging opportunities in this field for occupational therapists.


Aquaculture is currently playing, and will continue to play, a big part in boosting global fish production and in meeting the rising demand of fishery products. Capture fisheries production has levelled off and is no longer considered capable of sustaining the supply of fisheries products needed to meet the growing global demand. Tilapia is the common name for several species of cichlid fish inhabiting freshwater streams, ponds, rivers and lakes and less commonly in brackish water. Considered as an invasive species, tilapias are now of increasing importance in Aquaculture. Tilapia is the second most farmed fish world-wide and its production has quadrupled over the past decade because of its suitability for aquaculture, marketability and stable market prices. Native to Africa and Middle East, tilapias were introduced into over 90 countries for aquaculture and fisheries. Tilapia continued its rapid increase in global production. Recent production figures reported by various sources, our global production estimate for 2015 is 5,576,800 mt.  Tilapias are now one of the most widely introduced fish globally that has clearly emerged as a very promising group in aquaculture.


It is widely believed that globalization affects the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. To provide evidence for this, we analyze the effect of firms' exporting behavior on the elasticity of labor demand. Using rich, German administrative linked employer-employee panel data from 1996 to 2008, we explicitly control for self-selection into exporting and endogeneity concerns. In line with our theoretical model, we find that exporting at both the intensive and extensive margins significantly increases the (absolute value of the) unconditional own-wage labor demand elasticity. This is not only true for the average worker, but also for different skill groups. For the median firm, the elasticity is three-quarters higher when comparing exporting to nonexporting firms.


Correct and efficient measurements are vital to the understanding of materials properties and applications. This is especially so for magnetic materials for which in last twenty years, our understanding and use have changed dramatically. New or improved materials have been created and have reached the market. The Soft amorphous alloys, the Fe-based rare-earth magnets and the giant magnetorestrictive and magnetoresistive materials have all posed challenges to measurement. At the same time new digital measurement techniques have forced a change in laboratory and commercial measuring setups. A revision of measuring standards also occurred in the 1990s with the result that there is now a lack of up-to-date works on the measurement of magnetic materials. The basic objective of this work is to provide a comprehensive overview of the properties of the hard and soft magnetic materials relevant to applications and of thoroughly discussing the modern methodologies for employed in the measurement of these properties. The balance of these topics results in a complete text on the topic, which will be invaluable to researchers, students and practitioners in industry. It will be of significant interest not only to scientists working in the fields of power engineering and materials science but also to specialists in measurement who be able to easily find all the information they need. This work offers a comprehensive overview of the properties of the hard and soft magnetic materials. It provides applications and discusses thoroughly the modern methodologies for employed in the measurement of these properties. It provides the latest up-to-date works on the measurement of magnetic materials.


Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance of PET with the amyloid ligand Pittsburgh compound B (PiB-PET) to fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG-PET) in discriminating between Alzheimer disease (AD) and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Methods: Patients meeting clinical criteria for AD (n = 62) and FTLD (n = 45) underwent PiB and FDG-PET. PiB scans were classified as positive or negative by 2 visual raters blinded to clinical diagnosis, and using a quantitative threshold derived from controls (n = 25). FDG scans were visually rated as consistent with AD or FTLD, and quantitatively classified based on the region of lowest metabolism relative to controls. Results: PiB visual reads had a higher sensitivity for AD (89.5% average between raters) than FDG visual reads (77.5%) with similar specificity (PiB 83%, FDG 84%). When scans were classified quantitatively, PiB had higher sensitivity (89% vs 73%) while FDG had higher specificity (83% vs 98%). On receiver operating characteristic analysis, areas under the curve for PiB (0.888) and FDG (0.910) were similar. Interrater agreement was higher for PiB (κ = 0.96) than FDG (κ = 0.72), as was agreement between visual and quantitative classification (PiB κ = 0.88–0.92; FDG κ = 0.64–0.68). In patients with known histopathology, overall classification accuracy (2 visual and 1 quantitative classification per patient) was 97% for PiB (n = 12 patients) and 87% for FDG (n = 10). Conclusions: PiB and FDG showed similar accuracy in discriminating AD and FTLD. PiB was more sensitive when interpreted qualitatively or quantitatively. FDG was more specific, but only when scans were classified quantitatively. PiB slightly outperformed FDG in patients with known histopathology.


Prior researches on pro social behaviour have usually tried to assess pro social behaviour on two major contexts viz. pro social behaviour shown globally and situation specific pro social behaviour. On the basis of literature review, it is also seen that researchers have identified four types of pro social behaviour: altruistic pro social behaviour, compliant pro social behaviour, emotional pro social behaviour and public pro social behaviour. Whether concerned with types or with pro sociality, studies have shown individual differences in the pro social behaviour of adolescents. This paper attempts to find out if gender, religion or locality has any influence on the pro social tendency among adolescent students. Results of the study reveal that gender and locality significantly influence the pro social behaviour of adolescents whereas religiosity has influence on their pro sociality. Adolescents irrespective of their religion show prosociality.


Not since Robert McNamara has a secretary of defense been so hated by the military and derided by the public, yet played such a critical role in national security policy - with such disastrous results.Donald Rumsfeld was a natural for secretary of defense, a position he'd already occupied once before. He was smart. He worked hard. He was skeptical of the status quo in military affairs and dedicated to high-tech innovations. He seemed the right man at the right time - but history was to prove otherwise.Now Dale Herspring, a political conservative and lifelong Republican, offers a nonpartisan assessment of Rumsfeld's impact on the U.S. military establishment from 2001 to 2006, focusing especially on the Iraq War - from the decision to invade through the development and execution of operational strategy and the enormous failures associated with the postwar reconstruction of Iraq.Extending the critique of civil-military relations he began in "The Pentagon and the Presidency", Herspring highlights the relationship between the secretary and senior military leadership, showing how Rumsfeld and a handful of advisers - notably Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith - manipulated intelligence and often ignored the military in order to implement their policies. And he demonstrates that the secretary's domineering leadership style and trademark arrogance undermined his vision for both military transformation and Iraq.Herspring shows that, contrary to his public deference to the generals, Rumsfeld dictated strategy and operations - sometimes even tactics - to prove his transformation theories. He signed off on abolishing the Iraqi army, famously refused to see the need for a counterinsurgency plan, and seemed more than willing to tolerate the torture of prisoners. Meanwhile, the military became demoralized and junior officers left in droves."Rumsfeld's Wars" revisits and reignites the concept of "arrogance of power," once associated with our dogged failure to understand the true nature of a tragic war in Southeast Asia. It provides further evidence that success in military affairs is hard to achieve without mutual respect between civilian authorities and military leaders - and offers a definitive case study in how not to run the office of secretary of defense.


People learn more from new information when it leads to favorable future outlooks and thus can maintain optimism despite conflicting evidence. In two studies (N=20 and 26), we investigated whether this optimism bias in belief updating is self-specific by modifying a recently introduced learning paradigm. In each trial, participants had to estimate the probability of experiencing a negative future event, were then presented with the population base rate of that event, and were subsequently asked for a second, updated estimation. In half of the 88 trials with varying events, estimations were made for oneself, in the other half for a similar other. We tested whether the updates (differences between the first and second estimates) following undesirable base rate were lower than those following desirable base rates, and whether this difference was greater for self relative to other. In both studies, the overall results support the presence of a self-specific optimism bias in belief updating. However, taking into account trait optimism (TO) as a moderator variable revealed that this was the case only in participants with high TO, whereas those with low TO showed optimistic belief updating for both self and other. In Study 2, we additionally controlled for possible misclassifications of base rate desirability. Taken together, the optimism bias in belief updating was demonstrated by a selective neglect of unfavorable information. A self-specifi ci nfluence of this bias in individuals with high TO may ultimately cause the impression of a more positive future outlook relative to others. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher's web-site.


OBJECTIVES
Occupational therapy literature describes various independent living programs developed by occupational therapists and at times documents their effectiveness, yet none of the literature reviewed examined the involvement of occupational therapists in independent living programs.

METHOD
Directors of independent living programs in the United States were surveyed to ascertain their use of occupational therapists, to discover which disciplines were providing traditional occupational therapy services (e.g., daily living skills, assistive device provision, etc.) in these programs, and to identify which types of independent living programs were more likely to use occupational therapy services.

RESULTS
Less than half of the 96 responding independent living programs (46%) reported using occupational therapy services, and those programs that did provide occupational therapy services did so at a minimal rate. The programs that employed occupational therapists offered traditional occupational therapy services more often than those with no occupational therapists, but frequently, occupational therapists were not the providers of these traditional occupational therapy services. Chi-square analyses indicated that an independent living program's use of occupational therapy services was significantly affected by the type of facility (p = 0.05), the primary funding source (p = 0.04), and the program's practices regarding the hiring of professionals without disabilities (p = 0.04).

CONCLUSION
Possible reasons why occupational therapists are not employed more by independent living centers are discussed and recommendations for change are provided.


With the proliferation of mobile devices and hearing devices, including hearing aids and cochlear implants, there is a growing and pressing need to design algorithms that can improve speech intelligibility without sacrificing quality. Responding to this need, Speech Enhancement: Theory and Practice, Second Edition introduces readers to the basic problems of speech enhancement and the various algorithms proposed to solve these problems. Updated and expanded, this second edition of the bestselling textbook broadens its scope to include evaluation measures and enhancement algorithms aimed at improving speech intelligibility. Fundamentals, Algorithms, Evaluation, and Future Steps Organized into four parts, the book begins with a review of the fundamentals needed to understand and design better speech enhancement algorithms. The second part describes all the major enhancement algorithms and, because these require an estimate of the noise spectrum, also covers noise estimation algorithms. The third part of the book looks at the measures used to assess the performance, in terms of speech quality and intelligibility, of speech enhancement methods. It also evaluates and compares several of the algorithms. The fourth part presents binary mask algorithms for improving speech intelligibility under ideal conditions. In addition, it suggests steps that can be taken to realize the full potential of these algorithms under realistic conditions. Whats New in This Edition Updates in every chapter A new chapter on objective speech intelligibility measures A new chapter on algorithms for improving speech intelligibility Real-world noise recordings (on accompanying CD) MATLAB code for the implementation of intelligibility measures (on accompanying CD) MATLAB and C/C++ code for the implementation of algorithms to improve speech intelligibility (on accompanying CD) Valuable Insights from a Pioneer in Speech Enhancement Clear and concise, this book explores how human listeners compensate for acoustic noise in noisy environments. Written by a pioneer in speech enhancement and noise reduction in cochlear implants, it is an essential resource for anyone who wants to implement or incorporate the latest speech enhancement algorithms to improve the quality and intelligibility of speech degraded by noise. Includes a CD with Code and Recordings The accompanying CD provides MATLAB implementations of representative speech enhancement algorithms as well as speech and noise databases for the evaluation of enhancement algorithms.


ABSTRACT  What does anthropology have to offer for making sense of the events that have come to be known as the "Arab Spring"? In this article, I use this question to organize my discussion of the prominent scholarly conversations occurring in cultural anthropology for the year 2011. The topics I consider in this review are the critical study of secularism and liberalism; affect, intimacy, and care as registers of politics and economy; space, place, and time; and indigeneity. I will suggest that last year's publications, while by no means anticipating such revolutionary transformations, do offer us a rich body of conceptual approaches and methodological innovations for productively engaging the emergent conceptual and worldly horizons being associated with the "Arab Spring."[secularism and liberalism, affect, place, indigeneity, Arab Spring]


The new defined degrees in our university follow the recommendations of the European Higher Education Area (Bologna Declaration). Among these recommendations, our teaching work should be focused on student work and learning student process. That is why our proposal is devoted to achieve a more active classes supported by the continuous work of the students.
We propose our students to solve certain exercises and once they have thought them, we show the resolution in video format (along with a PDF file). The whole activity is performed in our complementary virtual course that uses Moodle platform. We believe that the resolution in this format is well received by this generation of students who are immersed since childhood in new IT technologies. The use of this material can be understood in several ways, we have chosen the one in which the resolution is made in a LATEX format and the use of CAMTASIA allows animating the resolution by means of a voice-over.
We also propose the holding of examinations via Internet that take place outside faculty timetable, at home. These are quizzes that evaluate the progress of knowledge on a continuous learning (about a review every 3 weeks). These tests are performed through Moddle, helping us in various aspects of teaching. The most straightforward purpose is as an evaluation tool, but they can also be used as a learning tool. In the last case the questions need to be completed with more information to guide the student to reach the correct answer.
At any case, we consider these tools a good way to motivate the student and to improve the quality of the learning of our students.


Drinking, smoking, and drug use are symbolic behaviors for young people, often involving a claim for adult status, and set against a "social clock" of expectations about appropriate behavior for a given age. Use is set in a social world of youth sociability, which young people strive to control themselves. Hence, it is difficult to prevent or delay use through adult-run institutions such as schools. Youth-oriented prevention initiatives succeed best when in tune with general social trends, so that youth cannot so easily feel hypocritically singled out. Regulatory approaches that apply to all have had some success in limiting and shaping youthful use and problems. Well-evaluated trials of efforts to insulate youthful use from harm are needed.


Bottom up governance. Self-organization. These are among the most talismanic virtue-words of modern political discourse. Yet the reality is that in politics, self-organization is rare, being hard to initiate and even harder to sustain. As Oscar Wilde once complained about socialism, it requires too many evenings. Governance as we tend to know it depends primarily on hierarchical institutions, or on close coordination within small groups. True partnerships, conversations among engaged equals, do not seem to scale. Indeed, whether one believes the fundamental problem to be something about the economics of group formation, the iron law of oligarchy, or something in between, experience demonstrates repeatedly that the problem of group self-organization, not to mention self-governance, is all too real both in politics and other walks of life. Enthusiasts of modern communications have not been slow to point out the ways in which the Internet (and the cell phone) change the ways in which all types of groups form and communicate. For example, Internet-based 'social software' drastically lowers the cost of group formation and offers at least the potential of tools that may make group self-governance more practicable. While this optimism is valuable and may some day be realized, the current reality falls far short of the ideal and seems likely to do so for the foreseeable future. This paper suggests that existing institutions could be harnessed to grow the tools and nurture the conditions that promote self-organization of groups and democratic decentralized self-governance. I identify eight specific governmental policies that could usefully be adopted in any relatively wealthy liberal democracy to promote the formation of groups and assist them once they are formed: (1) Democratizing access to communication by ensuring that the communications infrastructure is widely deployed, inexpensive, and of suitable quality. (2) Enact legal reform (if not already in place) to prevent cyber-SLAPP lawsuits. (3) Apply competition law aggressively to markets for communications technologies in order to ensure that no software or hardware maker can exert control over citizens' means of communication. (4) Provide reliable data, and act as honest archivist. (5) Assist those who desire aid (but only them) to fight spam and other forms of discursive sabotage. (6) Ensure that Meetup-like services are available at low (or no) cost (if demand for these key services proves to be elastic as to price) and subsidize facilitative technologies, such as group decision-making software. (7) Enact a digital workers rights policy including a component that encourages digital or even physical meetings. (8) Provide a corps of subsidized online neutrals to settle non-commercial disputes among members of virtual communities.


The optimal setting of the initial weights, learning rate, and gain of the activation function, which are key parameters of a neural network, influencing training time and generalization performance, are investigated by means of a large number of experiments using ten benchmarks using high order perceptrons. The results are used to illustrate the influence of these key parameters on the training time and generalization performance and permit general conclusions to be drawn on the behavior of high order perceptrons, some of which can be extended to the behavior of multilayer perceptrons. Furthermore, optimal values for the learning rate and the gain of the activation function are found and compared to those recommended by existing heuristics.


This article examines interpretations of the free democratic basic order (FDBO) in South Korea regarding the task of unification. The interpretation of the FDBO is a central issue in discussions around unification, because actors are bound by it in a fundamental sense, and also because conceptually it has the potential for bringing together the two Koreas in a peaceful and democratic way. The article first investigates the historical context in which the specific introduction and change of the FDBO in the constitution and other closely related legal norms occurred. Secondly, the article examines the diverging definitions of the contents and application of the FDBO with respect to unification by reviewing related Constitutional Court decisions as well as authoritative legal scholarship that comments on the matter.


Revelations of organised abuse by men of Asian heritage in the United Kingdom have become a recurrent feature of international media coverage of sexual abuse in recent years. This paper reflects on the similarities between the highly publicised 'sex grooming' prosecutions in Rochdale in 2012 and the allegations of organised abuse in Rochdale that emerged in 1990, when twenty children were taken into care after describing sadistic abuse by their parents and others. While these two cases differ in important aspects, this paper highlights the prominence of colonial ideologies of civilisation and barbarism in the investigation and media coverage of the two cases and the sublimation of the issue of child welfare. There are important cultural and normative antecedents to sexual violence but these have been misrepresented in debates over organised abuse as racial issues and attributed to ethnic minority communities. In contrast, the colonialist trope promulgating the fictional figure of the rational European has resulted in the denial of the cultural and normative dimensions of organised abuse in ethnic majority communities by attributing sexual violence to aberrant and sexually deviant individuals whose behaviours transgress the boundaries of accepted cultural norms. This paper emphasises how the implicit or explicit focus on race has served to obscure the power dynamics underlying both cases and the continuity of vulnerability that places children at risk of sexual and organised abuse.


The dispersion experienced by a signal in a slow light system leads to a significant pulse broadening and sets a limit to the maximum delay actually achievable by the system. To overcome this limitation, a substantial research effort is currently being carried out, and successful strategies to reduce distortion in linear slow light systems have already been demonstrated. Recent theoretical and experimental works have even claimed the achievement of zero-broadening of pulses in these systems. In this work we obtain some physical limits to broadening compensation in linear slow light systems based on simple Fourier analysis. We show that gain and dispersion broadening can never compensate in such a system. Additionally, it is simply proven that all the linear slow light systems that introduce a low-pass filtering of the signal (a reduction in the signal root-mean- square spectral width), will always cause pulse broadening. These demonstrations are done using a rigorous shape-independent definition of pulse width (the root-mean-square temporal width) and arguments borrowed from time-frequency analysis.


This study presents a systematic optimization procedure to generate slow light with large group index, wideband, and low dispersion in an ellipse-hole photonic crystal waveguide. The group index, bandwidth, and dispersion can be tuned efficiently by changing the orientation of the ellipse holes in the first row and a longitudinal hole position shift of the third row. Under a constant group index criterion of ±10% variation, the corresponding bandwidths of the flat band reach are 13.5, 9.4, 7.8, and 6.1 nm around 1550 nm when the group indices are approximately the constants 46, 63, 78, and 100, respectively. A nearly constant group index–bandwidth product of 0.39 was achieved for all cases. Low-dispersion slow-light propagation was confirmed by studying the relative temporal pulsewidth spreading with the two-dimensional finite difference time-domain method.


When the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa achieved independence in rapid succession starting with Ghana in 1957, there were high hopes for the region. A group of outstanding leaders would inspire to bring a new era to a sub-continent long suffering from colonial exploitation and developmental neglect. What has happened since has been disappointing: whilst standard economic theory predicts a convergence in economic outcomes, with those countries with lower per capita incomes growing faster than those with higher, there has been divergence, particularly for Sub-Saharan Africa, with incomes per capita in the region stagnating over 1960-2000 (as the gains of the first two decades of that period were wiped out in the next two) and poverty increased when in the rest of the world per capita incomes more than doubled and in some of the most successful developing countries increased four-fold or more (see the figures in Section II). Only the few years before the global economic crisis of 2008 brought respite to this picture of gloom for Africa, as annual growth soared to some 6% during 2006 and 2007, with only the East and South Asian regions exceeding it by a significant margin, but even this period of optimism appears fragile and built on soaring resource prices as much as anything else. This naturally raises the question: Why has the economic growth performance of SubSaharan Africa (hereinafter Africa) been so disappointing and more to the point, what are the policy options for reversing that trend? What are the possibilities and policies for Africa to achieve sustained, rapid economic growth and associated structural transformations and begin to catch-up?


This study aims to evaluate indications, complications and surgical technique in the endonasal endoscopic approach to orbital tumor resection. In this retrospective review, 11 patients who admitted and underwent endoscopic orbital surgery were reviewed. Demographics, preoperative and postoperative eye examination, and size and imaging characteristics of the tumours were tabulated. The endonasal approach was selected for tumors located nasal to optic nerve and in medial-inferior orbit to orbital apex. Under general anaesthesia, ethmoidotomy was performed with the aid of endonasal endoscope. The lamina papyracea was then fenestrated and through that opening, the intraorbital tumor was isolated and removed. If necessary, an auxiliary transcaruncular incision was made to facilitate the exposure. An en bloc removal of tumors was achieved in all cases. Pathological examination has confirmed that 9 patients had cavernous haemangioma, 1 patient had schwannoma and 1 had dermoid cyst. The dimension of tumors ranged from 15 × 12 × 10 mm3 to 24 × 23 × 16 mm3. Four tumours were located nasal to the muscular cone and 5 tumors were in the muscle cone, 1 tumor in the medial rectus. After operation, the best-corrected visual acuity improved in 3 patients, with a full recovery of visual field defects. Two patients had impaired visual acuity. Three patients had transient limitation of ocular movements. Abduction and adduction remain restricted in 1 case, respectively. Combination of endonasal endoscopy and orbital surgery technique can improve safety and efficacy in the transethmoidal resection of medial or inferior orbital tumours or orbital apex tumours.


Background & Aim: Osteoporosis is an important clinical and public health problem through its association with age-related fractures. Compared to women, much less is known about what factors determine age-related bone loss in men. The aim of the work presented in this thesis was to examine the impact of the main steroid hormones, (sex hormones & vitamin D), lifestyle factors and prior fracture on bone health in middle age and elderly men in Europe. Methods: Data presented in this thesis was derived from two large multicentre observational studies: the European Male Ageing Study (EMAS) and the European Prospective Osteoporosis Study (EPOS). In EMAS 3,369 men aged between 40 and 79 years were recruited from 8 European centres for participation in a study of male ageing. They completed a postal questionnaire which included questions concerning lifestyle and were invited to attend for quantitative ultrasound (QUS) of the heel, from which the parameters broadband ultrasound attenuation (BUA) and speed of sound (SOS) were obtained, a questionnaire including measures of physical activity, assessment of physical performance and a fasting blood sample from which the bone markers serum N-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (P1NP) and crosslinks (?-cTX), total testosterone (T), total oestradiol (E2) and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) were measured. Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) of the hip and lumbar spine and peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) of the radius at the distal (4%) and midshaft (50%) sites was performed in a subset of two centres. In EPOS, 6,656 men and 7,203 women aged 50 years and over were recruited from population registers in 32 centres. Subjects completed an interviewer administered questionnaire that included questions about previous fractures. Subjects were followed prospectively for a median of 4 years to determine the new occurrence of fractures. A subsample of subjects had bone mineral density measurements performed.Key Results: Based on data from EMAS, free T and both free and total E2 were positively related to the QUS parameters BUA and SOS, while SHBG concentrations were negatively associated. Total and free E2 were negatively associated with ?-cTX though not P1NP while PTH was positively associated with both ?-cTX and P1NP. Higher levels of both bone markers were significantly associated with lower QUS parameters and lower DXA-assessed bone density at the total hip and lumbar spine. 25(OH)D was negatively while 1,25(OH)2D positively associated with bone parameters. Higher levels of physical activity and lower physical performance were associated with both higher BUA and SOS. Smoking was associated with lower QUS parameters, while there was a U shaped association with frequency of alcohol consumption. A recalled history of any childhood fracture or forearm fracture was not associated with either bone mass in later life or an increased risk of fracture in men as well as women.Conclusion: Steroid hormones, particularly oestrogen & vitamin D are associated with bone health in middle age and older men. Modification of lifestyle, including increasing physical activity and stopping smoking may help optimise bone strength and reduce the risk of fracture in men. In assessment of future fracture risk a history of childhood fracture does not appear to be important.


We study variational problems with volume constraints, i.e., with level sets of prescribed measure. We introduce a numerical method to approximate local minimizers and illustrate it with some two-dimensional examples. We demonstrate numerically nonexistence results which had been obtained analytically in previous work. Moreover, we show the existence of discontinuous dependence of global minimizers from the data by using a Γ-limit argument and illustrate this with numerical computations. Finally we construct explicitly local and global minimizers for problems with two volume constraints.


The impact of national legislative frameworks on the higher education sector's contribution to technological innovation is heavily disputed. This paper argues that legislative frameworks may stimulate the development of local practices for the management and exploitation of intellectual property (IP), which in turn determine the level of academic patenting. We present case studies of two comparable universities in each of four selected European countries with different histories of national IP legislation. A within-country analysis shows that a wider range and earlier development of local IP management and exploitation practices are accompanied by higher levels of academic patenting, and that increasing similarity of IP practices is associated with decreasing differences in patenting outputs. A preliminary cross-country analysis reveals an expansion in and increasing similarity of practices for IP management and exploitation in countries with different national IP framework histories. We conclude that adopting Bayh-Dole-like legislation may trigger the development of local IP practices, which stimulate patenting. However, it is not always sufficient and definitely not always necessary. The study concludes with some policy recommendations.


Hundreds of peptides can be synthesized by automated parallel synthesizers in a single run. In contrast, the most widely used peptide purification method – high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) – only allows one-by-one processing of each sample. The chromatographic purification of many peptides, therefore, remains a time-consuming and costly effort. Catch-and-release methods can be processed in parallel and potentially provide a remedy. However, no such system has yet provided a true alternative to HPLC. Herein we present the development of a side-reaction free, reductively cleavable linker. The linker is added to the target peptide as the last building block during peptide synthesis. After acidic cleavage from synthetic resin, the linker-tagged full-length peptide is caught onto an aldehyde-modified solid support by rapid oxime ligation, allowing removal of all impurities lacking the linker by washing. Reducing the aryl azide to an aniline sensitizes the linker for cleavage. However, scission does not occur at non-acidic pH enabling wash out of reducing agent. Final acidic treatment safely liberates the peptide by an acid-catalysed 1,6-elimination. We showcase this first-in-class reductively cleavable linker system in the parallel purification of a personalized neoantigen cocktail, containing 20 peptides for cancer immunotherapy within six hours.


IT-Business alignment is an imperative process in the success of any business to use the competitive advantage of the information technology. In this work, influence of contextual information on IT-Business alignment has been studied. For this purpose, a conceptual model has been proposed which considers the IT-Business alignment model and national culture as contextual information. For alignment model, strategic alignment maturity model (SAMM) by Luftmann has been used while Hofstede's model has been followed for the analysis of national culture. Conceptual model considers the 6 maturity assessment elements and analyzes them in the perspective of 4 national cultural factors. Survey methodology has been employed with questionnaire technique to compute the SAMM elements. National cultural scores have been obtained from the empirical study of Hofstede. Empirical results of SAMM elements and cultural factors have been used to support the analysis of the conceptual model.


Objective: Many recent policies focus on socioeconomic inequities in availability of healthy food stores and restaurants. Yet understanding of how socioeconomic inequities vary across neighbourhood racial composition and across the range from rural to urban settings is limited, largely due to lack of large, geographically and socio-demographically diverse study populations. Using a national sample, the authors examined differences in neighbourhood food resource availability according to neighbourhood-level poverty and racial/ethnic population in non-urban, low-density urban and high-density urban areas. Design: Cross-sectional data from an observational cohort study representative of the US middle and high school-aged population in 1994 followed into young adulthood. Participants: Using neighbourhood characteristics of participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Wave III, 2001e2002; n1⁄413 995 young adults aged 18e28 years representing 7588 US block groups), the authors examined associations between neighbourhood poverty and race/ethnicity with neighbourhood food resource availability in urbanicity-stratified multivariable linear regression. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Neighbourhood availability of grocery/ supermarkets, convenience stores and fast-food restaurants (measured as number of outlets per 100 km roadway). Results: Neighbourhood race and income disparities were most pronounced in low-density urban areas, where high-poverty/high-minority areas had lower availability of grocery/supermarkets (b coefficient (b)1⁄4e1.91, 95% CI e2.73 to e1.09) and convenience stores (b1⁄4e2.38, 95% CI e3.62 to e1.14) and greater availability of fast-food restaurants (b1⁄44.87, 95% CI 2.26 to 7.48) than low-poverty/low-minority areas. However, in high-density urban areas, highpoverty/low-minority neighbourhoods had comparatively greater availability of grocery/ supermarkets (b1⁄48.05, 95% CI 2.52 to 13.57), convenience stores (b1⁄42.89, 95% CI 0.64 to 5.14) and fast-food restaurants (b1⁄44.03, 95% CI 1.97 to 6.09), relative to low-poverty/low-minority areas. Conclusions: In addition to targeting disproportionate fast-food availability in disadvantaged dense urban areas, our findings suggest that policies should also target disparities in grocery/supermarket and fast-food restaurant availability in low-density areas. INTRODUCTION National, state and local policies increasingly focus on improving availability of healthy foods in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Expectations that such policies will improve diets in low-income and race/ethnic minority populations stem from evidence that inequitable access to healthy foods may underlie differentials in diet quality, obesity and To cite: Richardson AS, Boone-Heinonen J, Popkin BM, et al. Are neighbourhood food resources distributed inequitably by income and


The dependence on the overexpression of a single oncogene constitutes an exploitable weakness for molecular targeted therapy. These drugs can produce dramatic tumor regression by targeting the driving oncogene, but relapse often follows. Understanding the complex interactions of the tumor's multifaceted response to oncogene inactivation is key to tumor regression. It has become clear that a collection of cellular responses lead to regression and that immune-mediated steps are vital to preventing relapse. Our integrative mathematical model includes a variety of cellular response mechanisms of tumors to oncogene inactivation. It allows for correct predictions of the time course of events following oncogene inactivation and their impact on tumor burden. A number of aspects of our mathematical model have proven to be necessary for recapitulating our experimental results. These include a number of heterogeneous tumor cell states since cells following different cellular programs have vastly different fates. Stochastic transitions between these states are necessary to capture the effect of escape from oncogene addiction (i.e., resistance). Finally, delay differential equations were used to accurately model the tumor growth kinetics that we have observed. We use this to model oncogene addiction in MYC-induced lymphoma, osteosarcoma, and hepatocellular carcinoma.


Should works resulting from research that has been substantially subsidized by the United States Federal Government be protected by copyright, or immediately enter the public domain? The Public Access to Science Act (PASA) would place these works in the public domain in the same manner as works prepared by government employees. This paper evaluates the merits of the legislation by placing the question of the appropriate copyright treatment of federally subsidized works within an historical perspective, taking into account the underlying purposes of copyright policy as well as the changes that have taken place in field of scholarly publishing since Congress last considered the issue in 1976. The regulatory environment and practices of the major federal funding agencies are reviewed, showing that agencies have failed to utilize their broad discretion over the treatment of funded works, resulting in an over-protection of works as the default rule. The paper considers how the balancing of interests that has historically informed copyright policy should be applied to works that have been federally supported; it will review and assess the initial reactions to PASA from the point of view of various stakeholders including the commercial publishers, non-commercial publishers, universities, authors and researchers, and library associations; and it will consider whether the PASA's purposes might be accomplished through other mechanisms. The conclusion is reached that works resulting from extramural research that has been substantially subsidized by the Federal Government should enter the public domain in the same manner as works resulting from intramural government research undertaken by federal employees, and that PASA provides a straightforward mechanism for reaching this result.


The success of populist parties in the 2014 elections for the European Parliament suggests that pro-Russian narratives are working their way into the institutional corridors of the EU. This policy brief will attempt to identify these narratives expressed by MEPs from the European National Front (ENF), European United Left – Nordic Green Left (GUE-NGL) and Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) groups inside the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). Their general voting behaviour has been studied elsewhere.1 Here, this general pattern will be re-examined with additional emphasis on specific narratives delivered during the procedure of tabling amendments to a number of Russia-related parliamentary reports voted in AFET. The analysis of these parliamentary amendments provides additional evidence to substantiate the claim that European populism demonstrates a remarkably coherent pro-Russian stance, which includes positions propagated by Russian information warfare.


The burden of the welfare state may be analysed from an economic as well as a more normative perspective. This paper attempts to do both things. By the use of the case of Sweden the expansion and the costs of the welfare state is described, partly in international comparison, and explained, largely in terms of unintended consequences. Special attention is given to the effects of taxes. Next, the concept of dignity is explicated and used to evaluate the Swedish welfare state. The overall conclusion is that the burden of the welfare state is high indeed, both in economic terms and from the perspective of human dignity. Consequently, if we want to promote economic efficiency, growth and dignity the size of the state should be radically decreased.


Eight new species and one new record of Elasmopus Costa, 1853 are described from Australian waters including the extended offshore territories of Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Indian Ocean), Christmas Island (Indian Ocean), Ashmore Reef (Timor Sea), Norfolk Island (Tasman Sea) and Lord Howe Island (Tasman Sea). Range extensions are reported for seven described Australian species. Twenty-three species are now known from Australian waters. Elasmopus arafura sp. nov., E. carteri sp. nov., E. hyperopia sp. nov., E. leveque sp. nov., E. mcluerensis sp. nov., E. otus sp. nov., E. shepherdi sp. nov. and E. woodjonesi sp. nov. are described herein.


The conditional moment closure (CMC) method has been successfully applied to various non-premixed combustion systems in the past, but its application to premixed flames is not fully tested and validated. The main difficulty is associated with the modeling of conditional scalar dissipation rate of the conditioning scalar, the progress variable. A simple algebraic model for the conditional dissipation rate is validated using DNS results of a V-flame. This model along with the standard k–ϵ turbulence modeling is used in computations of stoichiometric pilot stabilized Bunsen flames using the RANS-CMC method. A first-order closure is used for the conditional mean reaction rate. The computed non reacting and reacting scalars are in reasonable agreement with the experimental measurements and are consistent with earlier computations using flamelets and transported PDF methods. Sensitivity to chemical kinetic mechanism is also assessed. The results suggest that the CMC may be applied across the regimes of premixed combustion.


In this paper, the mechanical properties of locally available Gmelina arborea, Parkia biglobosa and Prosopis africana timbers from forest in Idah town in North-Central part of Nigeria were investigated to compare their physical and mechanical properties as well as their suitability for structural use. Laboratory tests were carried out on the timber samples obtained from the timber types under investigation in accordance with BS 5268 [1] to determine some of the physical and mechanical properties of the timber types. The properties tested included: bending strength, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, and shear strength. Others included compression strength, moisture content and density. The results obtained showed that the three timber types investigated are hardwood. Prosopis Africana had the highest mechanical and physical properties closely followed by Parkia Biglobosa. Gmelina Arborea ranked third in the results of these properties obtained. The results obtained show that the timber types are hardwood of higher strength classes (between strength classes D30 – D70) when compared with Table 8 of BS 5268 The F-values and p-values obtained from the ANOVA of the physical and mechanical properties tests carried out on the timber types showed that the compression strength, bending strength, modulus of elasticity, shear strength and density have no difference within the three timber types investigated except for the moisture content which revealed that there is significant difference in moisture within the group of the tested timber types. Gmelina arborea, Parkia biglobosa and Prosopis africana obtained from Idah (NorthCentral Nigeria) are therefore suitable for structural use in the construction industry.


Bauhinia species are known to have hypoglycemiant and antioxidant activities. Here, hydro-ethanolic leaf extracts from Bauhinia forficata subsp. pruinosa and Bauhinia variegata , collected in a Pampa biome region of Brazil, were investigated to characterize their chromatographic profile, flavonoid content and in vitro antioxidant activity (TBARS and DPPH assays). The extracts were obtained from dried and fresh leaves. The total flavonoid content was assessed by spectrophotometric determination, and the results ranged between 572.08 and 1,102.99 μg mL^−1. Moreover, flavonoids were more predominant in B. variegata than in B. forficata subsp. pruinosa . HPLC analysis detected a complex profile of phenolic compounds, being the flavonoid kaempferitrin founded B. forficata subsp. pruinosa ; in addition, other kaempferol and quercetin derivatives were present. In vitro antioxidant assays demonstrated a different behavior depending on the species, leaf treatment and extract concentration. In general, B. variegata extracts obtained from fresh material presented higher antioxidant potential, which can be attributed to the predominance of flavonoids in their chemical composition.


. A simultaneous geometric embedding ( SGE ) of two planar graphs G 1 and G 2 with the same vertex set is a pair of straight-line planar drawings Γ 1 of G 1 and Γ 2 of G 2 such that each vertex is drawn at the same point in Γ 1 and Γ 2 . Many papers have been devoted to the study of which pairs of graphs admit a SGE, and both positive and negative results have been proved. We extend the study of SGE, by introducing and characterizing a new class of planar graphs that makes it possible to immediately extend several positive results that rely on the property of strictly monotone paths. Moreover, we introduce a relaxation of the SGE setting where Γ 1 and Γ 2 are required to be quasi planar (i.e., they can have crossings provided that there are no three mutually crossing edges). This relaxation allows for the simultaneous embedding of pairs of planar graphs that are not simultaneously embeddable in the classical SGE setting and opens up to several new interesting research questions.


The everyday intimacies of friendship and flirting are not typically exploredin hook-up app research, nor is there much reflection on the intimacies of researching these media. This paper considers flirting and friendship as practices and methods that broaden the scope of current hook-up app research. We ask what these intimacies can produce to expand research approaches (and thus knowledge) of hook-up apps. As users and researchers of these apps, we consider negotiations of flirting and friendship between researchers and research partici- pants by exploring what it means to research with intimacy. Attention is given to the connections, conversations, and intimate encounters within hook-up research that are mostly absent from existing presentations of research findings. We sug- gest that greater attention to peripheral and intimate communication between researchers and participants can offer valuable methods for queering otherwise stabilised ways of knowing, using, and researching these platforms. Adding to the queer ethnographic tradition, we demonstrate how a processual and affective approach to hook-up app use encourages researchers to make visible our connec- tions to the media we research, and how these connections relate to the intima- cies that hook-up apps foster.


We exploit naturally occurring variation in the existence, closeness, and dissemination of pre-election polls to identify a causal effect of anticipated election closeness on voter turnout in Swiss referenda. Closer elections are associated with greater turnout only when polls exist. Examining within-election variation in newspaper reporting on polls across cantons, we find that close polls increase turnout significantly more where newspapers report on them most. This holds examining only "incidental" exposure to coverage by periodicals whose largest audience is elsewhere. The introduction of polls had larger effects in politically unrepresentative municipalities, where locally available information differs most from national polls.


A mathematical model of hydrological simulation quasi-3D is described. The model is suitable to simulate the hydrological behaviour in flat land considering interactions between the surface zone, vadose zone (UZ) and saturated zone (SZ). The space domain is discretized in layers of surface and underground cells. In each cell, the model can quantify state variables dynamically (interception, surface storage, UZ and SZ storages) and exchange flows (evapotranspiration, infiltration, surface and groundwater flows, flow through constrictions). This aptitude of connecting surface and groundwater hydrology enables the model to predict changes in the hydrological process due to human activities at basin scale as well as long term impacts. In this paper results of the application and calibration of the model for the Luduena Stream System (Santa Fe, Argentina) are described. The model was run to evaluate the hydrological effects that arise out of four extensive irrigation scenarios in the Luduena Stream basin. The simulation is done for a period of twenty years. The considered scenarios are as follows: #0 corresponds to the present situation in the basin, for which the model was calibrated; #1, #2 and #3 are three hypothetical scenarios where the soil moisture levels are 60%, 75% and 90% of the field capacity, respectively. It is demonstrated that scenario #1 does not have great consequences for the hydrological process and does not contribute to groundwater vulnerability. The results for scenario #2 present important consequences for the hydrological process of the real system. An increment in the recharge of the aquifer is found, modifying the groundwater table, with higher impact in low areas. The vulnerability to the contamination processes rises considerably towards the basin head. For scenario #3, the hydrological process has a very significant variation, not only for the mean and extreme hydrological values but also for the space patterns. The groundwater level is greatly increased reaching a situation of high vulnerability in terms of contamination processes. From these results, we conclude that scenarios #2 and #3 are unfeasible as far as sustainable irrigation is concerned. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) © 2007 WIT Press WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Vol 104, River Basin Management IV 457 doi:10.2495/RM070431


Tuberous sclerosis complex is an autosomal dominant disorder that often causes refractory seizures. The presence of multiple lesions makes it difficult to identify a single lesion responsible for the epilepsy. Our purpose is to assess the single-voxel proton spectroscopic findings of the tubers in 11 children with tuberous sclerosis complex. Prior to age 4 years, all of the patients had presented with epileptic seizures and multiple bilateral tubers in magnetic resonance images. Single-voxel proton spectroscopy was performed from the tubers especially showing epileptogenic activity using both the long and short echo time and in 14 controls. The results were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test. Compared with the control group, the spectroscopic findings of tubers were characterized by decreased N-acetylaspartate to creatine ratios (1.43 ± 0.33 ; P < .001) in both the long and short echo time spectra, increased choline to creatine ratios (0.91 ± 0.082; P < .05), and myo-inositol to creatine ratios (0.97 ± 0.19; P < .01) in the short echo time spectra. A lactate peak was detected in the regions corresponding to an epileptic focus on electroencephalography in six patients. Single-voxel proton spectroscopy could be a useful noninvasive method to evaluate epileptogenic tubers. ( J Child Neurol 2005;20:517-522).


MRI is emerging as a promising modality for monitoring carotid atherosclerosis. Multiple MR contrast weightings are required for identification of plaque constituents. In this study, eight MR contrast weightings with proven potential for plaque characterization were used to image carotid endarterectomy specimens. A classification technique was developed to create a tissue‐specific map by incorporating information from all MR contrast weightings. The classifier was validated by comparison with micro‐CT (calcification only) and with matched histological slices registered to MR images using a nonlinear warping algorithm (other components). A pathologist who was blinded to the classifier results manually segmented digitized histological images. The sensitivity of the classifier, as determined by pixel‐by‐pixel comparison with the pathologist's segmentation and micro‐CT, was 60.4% for fibrous tissue, 83.9% for necrosis, 97.6% for calcification, and 65.2% for loose connective tissue. The corresponding values for specificity were 87.9%, 75.0%, 98.3%, and 94.9%, respectively. In conclusion, multicontrast MRI was successfully used in conjunction with a supervised classification algorithm to identify plaque components in endarterectomy specimens. Furthermore, this methodology will provide a framework for comparing different classification algorithms, and determining which combination of MR contrasts will be most valuable for in vivo plaque imaging. Magn Reson Med 50:1199–1208, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


The ruler in the Indic States of Southeast Asia was seen not as the "head of state" but as the center or navel of the world. Like polities, persons and houses were and are viewed as centered spaces (locations) where spiritual potency can gather. Shelly Errington explores the politics of constituting and maintaining such centered socio-political spaces in a former Indic State called Luwu, which lies in South Sulawesi (Celebes), Indonesia. The meaning of political life and the ways its cultural forms were and are sustained depend on locally construed ideas of "power" or spiritual potency and "the person," which the author explores in detail. She views the polity neither as a frame in which political actors pursue advantage nor as a structure for extracting wealth but as a hierarchical system of signs ultimately backed by force--but force which was not fully centralized and whose import must be understood within ideas about spiritual potency widespread in the region. Although focused on Luwu, the book's theoretical scope is wide, and it ranges comparatively over a broad geographical area, making a contribution to ethnographic, historical, and regional studies as well as to the study of politics in nonsecular societies. Part One traces how the person, the house, and the polity are constituted symbolically in everyday practices as centered spaces. Part Two examines how centers can be de-centered, while Part Three explores the structure that tended to hold centers together in Luwu and other Indic States. The introduction and the three conclusions (each of the three being broader than the last in comparative scope) locate the author's views with respect to other current theoretical approaches to power and culture. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


IDA is an autonomous software agent whose task is to assign a sailor to a new tour of duty at the end of the old. Her task input is most often initiated by an email from the sailor; thereafter she acts completely autonomously. The task requires IDA to access databases, to deliberate, to perform complex constraint satisfaction, and to negotiate with the sailor in natural language. IDA's architecture and mechanisms are motivated by a variety of computational paradigms and implement a number of cognitive models including the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness. IDA is able to interact in depth with sailors in a relatively complex real-world environment involving job requirements, Navy policy, location, travel, training, dates, costs, preferences, etc. Here we briefly describe the IDA technology and her interactions as a case study of the interaction of sophisticated software agents with humans.


This thesis analysed the modern trends in soccer performance, with specific reference to the physical and technical performance of matches played in the English Premier League (EPL) between 2006-07 and 2012-13. Following previous literature, the thesis analysed whether performance could be predicted through performance stability calculations. This section of the research highlighted the highly variable nature of the sport and suggested the minimum number of matches required for an accurate assessment of performance, particularly for low frequency variables (number of tackles performed, number of times tackled, shots) was less than effective. An alternative method to calculate performance benchmarks, the thesis looked into the coefficients of variation associated between matches, expanding previous assessments on physical performance and expanding this knowledge into technical variables. To follow on from this initial study, the thesis introduced findings on the interaction of physical and technical parameters to ascertain whether correlations existed between physical and technical match performance and whether formulae could be generated to aid predicting future performance. The conclusion from these studies suggests predicting performance through previously suggested means and using physical data to estimate technical performance are unsupported. Instead a possible solution would be to use coefficients of variation to calculate benchmarks around a typical performance. As a result this would provide coaches and support staff set boundaries that players should achieve during games. In addition these boundaries should inform and aid the development of training regimes providing players with the baseline required. The final studies in this thesis charted the evolution of physical and technical
iii
performance parameters and the potential causes for any changes found, using the evidence from the earlier studies to ascertain whether evolution had occurred beyond the level of variability or whether changes in performance could be attributed entirely to variability. These studies found large increases in both physical and technical performance parameters across all outfield positions; nevertheless the causes of these changes in performance are unclear. One hypothesis was that the number of non-UK players now performing in the EPL have driven changes in match performance and resulted in greater technical quality. These results indicated trivial to small differences between UK and non-UK players in 2006-07, although by 2012-13 these small differences had all but disappeared. Thus suggesting the different numbers between UK and non-UK players could have influenced the changes in performance although there appears to be other factors driving the evolution.
The results from this thesis can be used in the physical and technical preparation of players, providing them with the baselines required to compete at the level required. In addition this information is valuable for both medical staff at clubs as well as for the recruitment of future players, providing both with concurrent information on modern match performances. The results also provide suggestions for future research proving researchers need to be cautious when analysing data across a number of seasons. Following on from this series of studies, future research could analyse the most effective means for providing this information to coaches and other staff at professional clubs in order to maximise the application.


We investigate the temperature dependence of the Yb valence in YbMn6Ge1.8Sn4.2 and YbMn6Ge1.6Sn4.4 using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiments. Yb is found to be in an intermediate valent state in the whole investigated temperature range (10-450 K). We thus prove that the unusually high magnetic ordering temperature of Yb (∼60 and 90 K for x=4.2 and 4.4, respectively) involves an intermediate valent Yb, an unprecedentedly observed phenomenon. Further, an anomalous increase in the Yb valence is observed upon cooling. A scenario is proposed to explain this unusual behavior. It is based on the presence of magnetically ordered Mn moments and on an Anderson Hamiltonian with a Zeeman term modeling the magnetic interactions.


Books Berman, Evan M., West, Jonathan P., and Bonczek, eds., The Ethics Edge, Washington, D.C.: International City/County Management Association, 1998. This International City/County Management Association (ICMA) publication has assembled articles that provide new insights on values in government and the public administration profession. Ethics shape and define the nature of public professions. Managers and employees who are informed by ethics have an added "edge" because they are more likely to know the right thing to do, to undertake those actions, to justify actions on the basis of professional and moral criteria and to protect themselves against being blindsided by allegations of ethical impropriety. Along with the traditional types of ethical challenges confronting managers today are government reform strategies, rising cynicism among citizens, and the challenges of community building. Donahue, John D., The Privatization Decision, New York: Basic Books, 1989. Soft cover, $18.50. The decision whether to delegate a public duty to a private organization depends on whether it is possible to structure efficient arrangements in a manner that enforces accountability on those who act on behalf of their fellows. Privatization can be effective where appropriate organizational architecture is in place. The measure of that architecture is how well it deters opportunism and irresponsibility and promotes faithful stewardship. The more precisely a task can be specified in advance and its performance evaluated after the fact, the more certainly contractors can be made to compete; the more readily disappointing contractors can be replaced (or otherwise penalized); and the more narrowly government cares about ends rather than means, the stronger becomes the case for employing profit-seekers rather than civil servants. The author demonstrates these generalizations through a series of "cases and cautionary tales". The privatization decision ultimately depends on precise specifications, the presence of competition, and a carefully drawn public organizational process. The same desire to maximize profits that results in greater efficiency also motivates the private institution to exercise political influence so it is romantic to believe that a private organization pursuing public goals, without competition and without market tests, will lead to greater efficiency. Hodge, Graeme A., Privatization: An International Review of Performance, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Soft cover, $28.00. Since the mid-seventies, writers in numerous countries have studied contracting out and the sale of government enterprises. Hodge has done a meta-analysis of hundreds of these studies on the basis of five "performance dimensions": economic performance, the social dimension (service impacts as well as employment and other impacts), and the performance of privatization in terms of democratic process issues, legal issues, and political issues. Where possible, he utilizes quantitative measures, but draws on qualitative measures particularly in the case of legal and political issues. Among his findings are that the average cost savings differ markedly by service sector, that service quality is relatively unaffected by contracting out, and that the presence of competition is more important than whether the work is contracted out to the public or private sector. Privatization is more problematic when one or more of the five performance dimensions are ignored. The book concludes with a thorough bibliography on privatization throughout the world. Kettl, Donald F, Sharing Power: Public Governance and Private Markets, Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institution, 1993. Hard cover, $38.95. In the flush of enthusiasm to make government work better, reformers from both left and right have pushed to turn as many functions as possible over to the private sector, and thereby allow market competition to instil efficiency and choice. …


Studies that have examined patients' health‐related quality of life have consistently shown improvements following intensive and effective treatments over relatively short follow‐ups. However, little is known of the longer‐term effects of treatment on patients. As part of a study in southwest London, United Kingdom, all patients having a current leg ulcer were examined (n=113) and those who were able completed the Nottingham Health Profile (n=95) and were then followed up at 24 and 48 weeks. The patients had a mean age of 76±13 (SD) years, with 60 (63.2%) being women. Before the study, the ulcer had been present for a median of 8 months (range 0.5–144), and a median area of ulceration of 4.0 cm2 (range 0.5–171.5 cm2). After 24 weeks, there was a significant improvement in pain (mean difference [d]=9.6, p=0.002), which was true for both the 41 patients with ulcers present (d=10.07, p=0.013) and the 43 patients whose ulcers had healed (d=11.46, p=0.047). However, after 48 weeks, these improvements had been reduced in both groups (healed ulceration d=5.76, unhealed patients d=6.41). Energy, which had improved after 24 weeks in the patients whose ulcers, had healed (d=11.46), deteriorated in both patient groups after 48 weeks (healed=−5.67, unhealed=−13.43). Mobility status was maintained with healed ulceration (d=1.05) but deteriorated with unhealed ulceration (d=−13.19). The positive effects of treatment on health‐related quality of life may not be sustained over time. This may be a consequence of the general deterioration in the health status of these elderly patients as they age.


Abstract. This paper introduces a dynamic Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen (LHM) productivity indicator that takes into account the adjustment costs of changing the level of quasi-fixed capital inputs. Being additively complete in the dynamic sense, the LHM indicator is decomposed into contributions of outputs, variable inputs and investments in dynamic factors. Moreover, we decompose the LHM indicator into technical change, technical inefficiency change and scale ineffi-ciency change using an investment-, output- and input-direction. Employing a nonparametric framework, the empirical application focuses on the dairy sector in South West England over the period 2001 − 2014.


The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of two methods in writing
dialogue journals, pen-and-paper as conventional tools, in contrast to e-mail as
online tool, on writing performance in terms of content, language, vocabulary,
language use and organization as well as writing anxiety. Measurement of writing
performance was based on the ESL Composition Profile developed by Jacobs,
Zinkgraf, Wormuth, Hartifel and Hughey (1981) and writing anxiety was measured
by using the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) from Cheng
(2004).
Forty two ESL students in their third semester took a course called "Computer
Applications in TESL" participated in the study. Based on their expository writing grades obtained in the previous semester as well as race and gender; they were
randomly assigned into two groups 1) e-mail dialogue journal writing and, 2) penand-
paper dialogue journal writing. For the first session to obtain pre-test writing,
all students were given topics to write and had to complete a pre-test writing
anxiety questionnaire. Both groups received two different treatments. Participants
in the e-mail dialogue journal group were asked to write dialogue journals to their
secret pals by using e-mail while the participants in the pen-and-paper dialogue
journal group, wrote their dialogues via pen and paper. Both groups kept
corresponding dialogue journals in the class for a seven-week period. After going
through seven weeks, post tests were conducted.
All data were analyzed using SPSS to answer the hypotheses in the research.
Independent-sample t-test and paired-sample t-test were utilized to compare two
groups in terms of writing performance and writing anxiety. Results of the data
analysis when two groups were compared showed that there is a significant
difference between groups in terms of the overall writing performance and
language use. However, the results for other components of writing performance;
content, organization, vocabulary and mechanics as well as writing anxiety did not
show statistically any significant difference between groups. The results for each
group when pre and posttest overall writing performance were compared showed
that there is a significant difference between groups i.e. participants in both groups
have improved their writing performance due to using dialogue journals.
Meanwhile, in terms of writing anxiety, paired sample t-test result showed there is
no significant difference between pre and posttest writing anxiety for both groups.


Responsive Regulation is a popular regulatory theory across a broad array of disciplines. The influence of Responsive Regulation on tax administration has greatly increased over the past decade, producing a theory of "Responsive Tax Administration." This work has proven powerful in the United States, causing scholars to advocate remodeling the tax compliance system under a Responsive Tax Administration framework. Extensive, scholarly focus on related areas of tax compliance research, such as reciprocity and service, has supplemented these calls for reform. The Internal Revenue Service ("Service") has remodeled the important large business tax compliance sphere under the influence of Responsive Tax Administration and the related research. Despite this crucial remodeling, there has been little critical analysis of this application of Responsive Tax Administration to the United States large business sector. In this Article, I begin the overdue task of critiquing the application of Responsive Tax Administration to the United States large business sector by using the case-study of the Compliance Assurance Process ("CAP"). CAP is a revolutionary, pre-audit initiative that the Service has signaled may be the way of the future for large business tax administration. CAP finds its academic support in Responsive Tax Administration and is consistent with part, though, importantly, not all, of Responsive Tax Administration theory. In this Article, I argue that CAP problematically leverages faith in the perceived transformative powers of Responsive Tax Administration programs to reduce accountability at the very time when increased accountability is needed, fails to use penalties meaningfully, potentially reducing transparency and resulting in a "test drive" effect for taxpayers that may undermine sound tax administration, and creates self-selection bias problems. I suggest potential solutions to each of these problems. More generally, the analysis provides a first step toward an overdue broader critique of the application of Responsive Tax Administration to United States large business. I argue that the particular problems with CAP result from a failure to appreciate adequately the potential weaknesses of Responsive Tax Administration theory and an overemphasis on the persuasive aspects of the theory in practice. While the innovative nature of Responsive Tax Administration theory may have much to offer, we need some more realism about its potential limitations.


Height-for-age (HA) and weight-for-age (WA) of children are standard measures to study the determinants of stunting and short-term underweight. Rather than studying these indicators separately, this paper looks at their interaction and therefore at the dynamics of height and weight. Considering HA a child's health stock and WA nutritional investment, we develop an overlapping generations model. The main features of the model are self-productivity of health stocks and the dynamic complementarity between past health stocks and contemporaneous nutrition. We test the model's predictions on a Senegalese panel of 305 children between 0 and 5 years over three periods. To control for endogeneity and serial correlation we employ di fferent GMM methods. We find evidence of self-productive health stocks and that child health produced at one stage raises the productivity of nutritional inputs at subsequent stages. Our results indicate that child health is quickly depleted and needs constant updating. Simulations based on our estimates show that a positive nutritional shock during the first six months of life is essentially depleted at the age of 2. Consequently, sustainable development and nutrition programs have to be long-term and yield higher returns if they reach babies in the early months of infancy.


The Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature and The International Wizard of Oz Club organised this national conference, 'Oz: The Books', at California State University's Fresno campus. Graham Rawle, invited as a keynote speaker, delivered a lecture on how he created his illustrated reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's original 1900 classic tale.

"In my books I'd never illustrated anyone else's text before, but I was particularly drawn to The Wizard of Oz. It's a wonderful story – a deceptively simple tale that has incredible psychological depth so it works on a number of levels. Dorothy's journey is really about a personality that's trying to become complete. At its core it holds an important life lesson: that the things we yearn for or the qualities we think we lack are already a part of us, but we invariably need to go on the journey to make this discovery.
The original story is richly populated with strange and wonderful characters not featured in the classic 1939 film: the Dainty China people, ornament-size folk made from porcelain who are prone to breakages, and the Hammer Heads, armless fighters with extendable necks and hard, flat heads. These have rarely, if ever, been depicted before so it was a great opportunity to bring them to life, as well as reinterpreting the more familiar characters.There are extra scenes, as well as back story that reveals the origin of the Winged Monkeys, how the Tin Woodman came to be made of tin, and how the Emerald City only appears green because its inhabitants are made to wear green tinted spectacles.
I've been faithful to the original text, but my own way of thinking inevitably comes through. In my version, Dorothy's dog Toto is a push-along toy on wheels. It may seem like a glib decision, but it tells us something about Dorothy's view of reality. And it's funny, because in the book, he doesn't really do anything. When Toto is ready to go to sleep, they just tip him over on his side."


In the current context of the globalization of science, excellence is most often associated with internationalization and assessed through high-impact "international" (English-language) publications. Taking Russian economic science as a case study, this paper argues that the strategies of internationalization of national disciplinary fields are primarily determined by the parameters of the global economics itself. My analysis of the Russian publications in economics covered by Web of Science demonstrates that the very repertoire of international publication strategies of Russian authors is determined by the transnational system of communication in economics. Economics papers from peripheral nations are essentially assigned to regional or "area studies" periodicals, which do not belong to the core of the discipline. Publication in top economics journals requires a specific "international" competency usually obtained through doctoral training at Anglo-American or equivalent PhD programs and generally implies a delocalization of research objects and questions. In English, extended summary in Russian.


In Paul and The Restoration of Humanity in Light of Ancient Jewish Traditions, Aaron Sherwood questions the assumption of universalism in Pauline thought, demonstrating that relevant Pauline traditions depict a particularly Israelite restoration of humanity that perhaps plays a generative role in Paul's theology, mission, and apostolic self-identity.


Multimodal language analysis is an emerging research area in natural language processing that models language in a multimodal manner. It aims to understand language from the modalities of text, visual, and acoustic by modeling both intra-modal and cross-modal interactions. BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) provides strong contextual language representations after training on large-scale unlabeled corpora. Fine-tuning the vanilla BERT model has shown promising results in building state-of-the-art models for diverse NLP tasks like question answering and language inference. However, fine-tuning BERT in the presence of information from other modalities remains an open research problem. In this paper, we inject multimodal information within the input space of BERT network for modeling multimodal language. The proposed injection method allows BERT to reach a new state of the art of $84.38\%$ binary accuracy on CMU-MOSI dataset (multimodal sentiment analysis) with a gap of 5.98 percent to the previous state of the art and 1.02 percent to the text-only BERT.