This paper describes an augmented reality (AR) multimodal interface that uses speech and paddle gestures for interaction. The application allows users to intuitively arrange virtual furniture in a virtual room using a combination of speech and gestures from a real paddle. Unlike other multimodal AR applications, the multimodal fusion is based on the combination of time-based and semantic techniques to disambiguate a users speech and gesture input. We describe our AR multimodal interface architecture and discuss how the multimodal inputs are semantically integrated into a single interpretation by considering the input time stamps, the object properties, and the user context.


Numerous processes take place in materials under the action of concentrated energy flows. The most important ones include heating together with the temperature misdistribution throughout the depth, probable vaporization on the surface layer, melting to a definite depth, and hydrodynamic flotation; generation of thermo-elastic waves; dissolution of heterogeneous matrix particles; and formation of nanolayers. The heat-based model is presented in an enthalpy statement involving changes in the boundary conditions, which makes it possible to consider melting and vaporization on the material surface. As a result, a linear dependence of penetration depth vs. energy density has been derived. The model of thermo-elastic wave generation is based on the system of equations on the uncoupled one-dimensional problem of dynamic thermo-elasticity for a layer with the finite thickness. This problem was solved analytically by the symbolic method. It has been revealed for the first time that the generated stress pulse comprises tension and compression zones, which are caused by increases and decreases in temperature on the boundary. The dissolution of alloying elements is modeled on the example of a titanium-carbon system in the process of electron beam action. The mathematical model is proposed to describe it, and a procedure is suggested to solve the problem of carbon distribution in titanium carbide and liquid titanium-carbide solution in terms of the state diagram and temperature changes caused by phase transitions. Carbon concentration vs. spatial values were calculated for various points of time at diverse initial temperatures of the cell. The dependence of carbon particle dissolution on initial temperature and radius of the particle were derived. A hydrodynamic model based on the evolution of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in shear viscous flows has been proposed to specify the formation of nanostructures in materials subjected to the action of concentrated energy flows. It has been pointed out for the first time that, for certain parameters of the problem, that there are two micro- and nanoscale peaks in the relation of the decrement to the wavelength of the interface disturbance.


We are very interested to read the paper by Bannan et al. [1] about the effect of alcohol withdrawal on blood pressure, plasma renin activity, aldosterone, cortisol and dopamine β-hydroxylase. It has been known for several years that alcoholic patients admitted to hospital for detoxification have a high prevalence of hypertension [2]. Their blood pressures return to normal after alcohol withdrawal symptoms have abated and they remain normal if they continue to abstain. Patients who resume drinking sustain a rise in blood pressure to their former high levels.


Bone mechanics and traditional implant materials cause a frequent problem for patients of total hip arthroplasty (THA): the bone becomes shielded from the loading. This will result in loosening of the implant, pain, and therefore revision surgery will take place to correct the issue. The current study, a methodology is developed for creating an innovative structural design that extracts volume in the shape of spheres from the samples, in order to focus solely on expected behaviour within the samples and bone. The design decreases extreme stresses carried by samples and pass them onto the remaining bone. Finite element analysis was applied to various models with different complex internal structures that contain hollow spheres close to surface. Moreover, compression test was applied to solid sample and the experimental case containing hollow spheres. This approach was to investigate the effects of spherical hollow structure near the side surface and its bonesample interface. The models containing hollow spheres have smaller young modulus and strength in comparison to the solid sample. The hollow spherical structures reduce the stress shielding and they transfer more stress onto the bone compared to the solid model. This approach also re-structures a hard material such as stainless steel to enhance osseointegration. The reduction of the young modulus and stress directly depends on the volume of the spheres in the models. However, there is a range defined for the volume that could be extracted from solid structure to achieve the most effective outcome.


This article describes arylene–ethynylene molecular wires with 7 nm long backbones and thiolated termini. Cyclic voltammetric studies in solution reveal that the reduction waves of the fluorene, 9-[(4-pyridyl)methylene]fluorene and 9-[di(4-pyridyl)methylene]fluorene units which are embedded in the conjugated π-systems endow these wires with n-doping characteristics. An x-ray crystal structure investigation of 2,7-diiodo-9-[bis(4-pyridinium)methylene]fluorene bis(tetrafluoroborate) 8 established that protonation occurs on both nitrogens of this unit. Self-assembled monolayers of the 7 nm wire 2 on gold substrates exhibit symmetrical current–voltage (I–V) characteristics when contacted by a gold scanning transmission microscope (STM) tip. The dipyridyl functionality of 2 served to obtain a rectifying junction in which the diprotonated cationic wire is the electron accepting component in combination with an adjacent anionic phthalocyanine as the electron-donating layer. This ionic Au–2H22+[CuPc(SO3−)4(Na+)n]2/(4−n) bilayer assembly exhibits rectification with current ratios of 15–50 at ± 1 V. This dramatic change in I–V characteristics upon simple chemical manipulation proves that the conductivity is a property of the wire molecules 2 in the junction. Ab initio calculations suggest that the molecular wires possess useful structural features which allow the conductance of the molecule to be altered by changing the properties of the side groups attached to the fluorene units.


In this study we investigate young children's knowledge of syntactic constraints on Noun Phrase reference by testing 30-month-olds' interpretation of two types of transitive sentences. In a preferential looking task, we find that children prefer different interpretations for transitive sentences whose object NP is a name (e.g., She's patting Katie) as compared with those whose object NP is a reflexive pronoun (e.g., She's patting herself). They map the former onto an other-directed event (one girl patting another) and the latter onto a self-directed event (one girl patting her own head). These preferences are carried by high-vocabulary children in the sample and suggest that 30-month-olds have begun to distinguish among different types of transitive sentences. Children's adult-like interpretations are consistent with adherence to Principles A and C of Binding Theory and suggest that further research using the preferential looking procedure to investigate young children's knowledge of syntactic constraints may be fruitful.


This report summarizes the results and conclusions generated by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sponsored Fire Protection Research Program at Sandia National Laboratories. Efforts conducted from the programs inception in 1975 through 1987 are discussed. The individual efforts are discussed within a framework based on specific areas of investigation. Early efforts are presented in the context of investigations of specific regulatory concerns. Later efforts are presented within the context of an integrated investigation of fire safety issues. This integrated approach considers the fire safety issue in terms of (1) source fire characterization, (2) detection and suppression system effectiveness, (3) room effects, (4) equipment response, and (5) room-to-room fire effects. The report provides a complete bibliography of reports and journal articles generated as a result of these efforts with a cross-reference listing of major reports to specific efforts. Among the topics investigated by various experimental efforts are the effectiveness of fire retardant cable coatings and cable tray fire barrier systems in the prevention of fire spread and fire induced damage, the effectiveness of suppression methods for cable tray fires, testing of cable penetration seals, transient fuel fire characterization testing, investigation of electrical cabinet and control room fires, equipment damageability testing, and large scale enclosure fire testing for the validation of computer fire simulation codes. Topics investigated as a part of analytical efforts include a review of the fire regulations which bear relevance to nuclear plants, investigation of the standards and strategies invoked in the design of various fire protection subsystems, the modeling of cable fire behavior, the identification of reported transient fuel sources, and the development of a fire occurrence data base.


Existing literature provides ample evidence on how people understand accountability in different contexts. However, little attention has been paid on the integration of various theoretical perspectives about understanding accountability for education service delivery. Discussing theoretical premises against the empirical evidence from the community schools of Nepal, this article explores common ground of various theoretical perspectives about understanding school actors' accountability. It provides a framework for understanding accountability by integrating the ancient principle of 'karma-yoga' and modern theoretical ingredients of structure-agency and knowledge-power. The article argues that both ancient and modern streams of theoretical perspectives are not mutually exclusive rather they share a common ground of process-based accountability which is embedded in broader concept of responsibility. Finally, the paper contributes to existing literature of accountability in education arguing that the school head's agency rather than working structure of the school played a significant role in creating an accountable space between the school head and other actors in the community school.


Measure plans are currently being developed for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by European water authorities. In Sweden, such plans include measures for good ecological status in the coastal ecosystem. However, the effect of suggested measures is not yet known. We therefore experimented with different nutrient reduction measures on land and in the sea, using a model system of two coupled dynamic models for a semi-enclosed bay and its catchment. The science question was whether it is worthwhile to implement measures in the local catchment area to reach local environmental goals, or if the status of the Bay is more governed by the water exchange with the Sea. The results indicate that by combining several measures in the catchment, the nutrient load can be reduced by 15%-20%. To reach the same effect on nutrient concentrations in the Bay, the concentrations of the sea must be reduced by 80%. Hence, in this case, local measures have a stronger impact on coastal water quality. The experiment also show that the present targets for good ecological status set up by the Swedish water authorities may be unrealistic for this Bay. Finally, we discuss when and how to use hydro-ecological models for societal needs.


Despite some notable and rare exceptions and after many years of relatively neglect (particularly in the 'upper echelons' of IS research), there appears to be some renewed interest in Information Systems Ethics (ISE). This paper reflects on the development of ISE by assessing the use and development of ethical theory in contemporary IS research with a specific focus on the 'leading' IS journals (according to the Association of Information Systems). The focus of this research is to evaluate if previous calls for more theoretically informed work are permeating the 'upper echelons' of IS research and if so, how (Walsham 1996; Smith and Hasnas 1999; Bell and Adam 2004). For the purposes of scope, this paper follows on from those previous studies and presents a detailed review of the leading IS publications between 2005 to 2007 inclusive. After several processes, a total of 32 papers are evaluated. This review highlights that whilst ethical topics are becoming increasingly popular in such influential media, most of the research continues to neglect considerations of ethical theory with preferences for a range of alternative approaches. Finally, this research focuses on some of the papers produced and considers how the use of ethical theory could contribute.


The model is an application of the precautionary consumer saving model to the external debt policy of a small open economy. Let us assume that the welfare criterion of macroeconomic policy is the utility function of a representative infinitely living dynasty. This approach is in line with the intertemporal optimization model of the current account of Obstfeld-Rogoff [1995]. It is known that assuming differences in tastes or growth rates across countries imply unacceptably extreme long-run predictions in this model. We show that a model with uninsurable wage risks and precautionary behaviour leads to stable stationary indebtedness levels within the range of magnitudes observed in reality. Let us assume that the consumption function of the representative dinasty has the form of a CES function. The positive third derivative of this function and uncertainty together give rise to a precautionary behavior. As a result, countries who grow fast relative to their own time preference, will borrow, but their debt will be constrained by the risk that indebtedness implies. By similar reasoning, a patient or slow-growing country will lend but its lending will converge to an amount where the gained security that its reserves offer is equal to its opportunity cost. We parameterized the model assuming a drifting random-walk aggregate income with a standard error of 2%, a habit factor of 80% of the previous years income incorporated into the CES funtion, risk-aversion and time preference parameters taken from the literature, and found that typical indebtedness ratios observed in the world can be replicated as a policy outcome of our model, in contrast to deterministic models where the rate of the optimal indebtedness was in the range of 20-30 times GDP. The calculations are based on adaptation of the Taylor-series approximation of Skinner [1989]. A sensitivity analysis of the stationary solution to various parameters and various scenarios for effects of assumed shocks and consequences of catch-up growth paths for a converging country are calculated. In another section the problem is discussed whether the level of indebtedness can be considered a goal of macroeconomic policy and if it was a goal how could it be achieved. Let us assume agents with idiosynchratic uninsured wage risks. These risks are correlated but there exists an aggregate risk for the country as a whole. Aggregate risk has to be handled by macroeconomic policy. The optimum intertemporal consumption choice of the social planner (macro-policy maker) does not necessarily coincide with the sum of the optimal decisions of individual agents. Fiscal policy is the tool that creates consistency between the two. It is shown that the model with the parametrizations given above and a proportional income tax system implies that government debt nearly fully appears in external debt, i.e. Ricardian compensation is very close to 0. This means, that the fiscal tool is effective in enforcing the social optimum of indebtedness.


Effects of four light types, blue, green, white and red, as well as the incubation time were evaluated on culture growth and intracellular lipid and hydrocarbon production in Botryococcus braunii UTEX 2441. It was found that the microalga uses more efficiently the low energy photons to stimulate its cellular growth, and during the period of nitrogen deficiency, red light strongly influenced the microalga to synthesize high amounts of lipids and hydrocarbons. Compared with white light (control), red light significantly increased the specific growth rate, biomass productivity, photosynthetic efficiency, nitrogen consumption rate and lipids and hydrocarbons accumulation. At the end of the experiments, the lipid and hydrocarbon concentrations were 27% and 25%, respectively, by dried weight; 96% of the hydrocarbons produced were a mixture of the n-alkadienes C29H56 and C31H60. Results provide information of the combined effect of wavelength and nitrogen depletion over the intracellular lipid and hydrocarbon content, and the amounts in which they are produced, and suggests that the wavelength and incubation time are variables that can be used to manage the metabolism of biotechnological products in this alga.


. In this paper we present some rudiments of a generalized Wiman-Valiron theory in the context of polymonogenic functions. In particular, we analyze the relations between different notions of growth orders and the Taylor coefficients. Our main intention is to look for generalizations of the Lindel¨of-Pringsheim theorem. In contrast to the classical holomorphic and the monogenic setting we only obtain inequality relations in the polymonogenic setting. This is due to the fact that the Almansi-Fischer decomposition of a polymonogenic function consists of different monogenic component functions where each of them can have a totally different kind of asymptotic growth behavior.


In terms of acreage, forage is the number one crop in Virginia. The backbone of these forages has long been tall fescue (Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) S.J. Darbyshire). Knowledge of the plant species that make up a pasture and the relative amounts of each species present is important for interpreting potential animal performance. It is also important to know the relative amounts and types of weeds present and to monitor for the presence of poisonous plants or noxious weeds. An experiment was conducted in 2003 through 2005 to investigate botanical composition and yield of 'Lakota' prairie grass (Bromus catharticus Vahl.), 'Kentucky 31' endophyte-infected (KY31 E+), endophyte-free (KY31 E-), and 'Quantum' tall fescue (non toxic endophyte infected) under grazing by stocker steers. Forage botanical composition and yield were determined by clipping three 0.25-m areas per treatment replicate. Prior to harvesting, the canopy height within each quadrate was measured with a disc meter. In 2005, productive ground cover was assessed using visual evaluation techniques, point quadrat method, and digital imagery quantified with terrestrial remote sensing. Forages were established September 2002 and grazing was initiated in July of 2003. Experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications. Averaged over the three years the yield of KY31E+ was higher (p<0.05) than all other treatments. Lakota prairie grass had lower (p<0.05) yields than both KY31 E+ and Quantum tall fescue, however no yields did not differ between Lakota prairie grass and KY31 E. Our results showed a typical forage distribution curve for all the treatments. Early spring, summer, and fall productivity of Lakota prairie grass was less than all the fescues, thus did not extend the grazing season. Forage persistence was greatest for KY31 E+ and Quantum and lowest for Lakota when averaged over all years. Among sampling methods for ground cover, terrestrial remote sensing was the most accurate, compared with visual evaluation and point quadrat methods. For estimates of all yield indirect methods of assessment had high errors; however the plate meter calibrated by sward density seemed the least variable of the methods


A common way to analyse relationship between matrix of species attributes (like functional traits of indicator values) and sample attributes (e.g. environmental variables) via the matrix of species composition is by calculating community-weighted mean of species attributes (CWM) and relating it to sample attributes by correlation, regression, ANOVA or other method. This weighted-mean approach is used in number of ecological fields (e.g. functional and vegetation ecology, biogeography, hydrobiology or paleolimnology), and represents an alternative to other methods relating species and sample attributes via species composition matrix (like the fourth-corner problem and RLQ analysis). Here, I point out two important problems of weighted-mean approach: 1) in certain cases, which I discuss in detail, the method yields highly biased results in terms of both effect size and significance of the relationship between CWM and sample attributes, and 2) this bias is contingent upon beta diversity of species composition matrix. CWM values calculated from samples of communities sharing some species are not independent from each other and this lack of independence influences the number of effective degrees of freedom. This is usually lower than actual number of samples entering the analysis, and the difference further increases with decreasing compositional heterogeneity of the dataset. Discrepancy between number of effective degrees of freedom and number of samples in analysis turns into biased effect sizes and inflated Type I error rate in case that significance of the relationship is tested by standard tests, a problem which is analogous to analysis of two spatially autocorrelated variables. Consequences of the bias is that reported results of studies using rather homogeneous (although not necessarily small) compositional datasets may be overly optimistic, and results of studies based on datasets differing by their compositional heterogeneity are not directly comparable. I describe the reason for this bias and suggest guidelines how to decide in which situations the bias is actually a problem for interpretation of results. I also introduce analytical solution accounting for the bias, test its validity on simulated data and compare it with an alternative approach based on the fourth-corner approach.


In June 2018, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited—and, for the American labor movement, long-feared—decision in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. The decision is expected to have a major impact on public sector employee union membership, but could have further impact on public employees' speech rights in the workplace. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito's broad interpretation of whether work-related speech constitutes a "matter of public concern" may have opened the floodgates to substantially more litigation by employees asserting that their employers have violated their First Amendment rights. Claims that would have previously been unequivocally foreclosed may now be permitted. This Note proposes a test to allow courts to meaningfully respond to this influx of claims. By explicitly incorporating the "social value" of public employee speech into the Pickering balance test as a factor of equal weight alongside the existing factors—the individual employee's right to speech and the employer's interest in operating an effective workplace—courts can make meaningful sense of the doctrinal conflict Janus created while also respecting and promoting the unique role public employee speech plays in public discourse.


The integration of virtual-classroom systems into the arsenal of e-learning tools represents a major evolution in the landscape of modern distance education. For many courses, standard virtual learning environments (VLEs) provide only a foundation upon which to base a distance learning programme. However, synchronous live online-teaching software such as Microsoft Office Communicator and Adobe Connect allow educators to simulate a real-time classroom environment over the internet like never before. Since these tools are being used more and more within higher education, questions must be asked about how effective they ultimately can be in meeting student learning requirements. More importantly, what are the best practices to employ when conducting classes online in this way? This paper examines what basic requirements a virtual classroom tool should meet for higher education purposes with much reference to a variety of commercial brands available. Obstacles and restrictions that arise based on these requirements will be discussed in order to identify and overcoming them.


Shareholder primacy is the most fundamental concept in corporate law and corporate governance. It is widely embraced in the business, legal, and academic communities. Economic analysis and policy arguments advance a normative theory that corporate managers should maximize shareholder wealth. Academic literature invariably describes shareholder primacy as a "norm." But whether the concept is "law" is contested because, remarkably, we still do not have a coherent legal theory. Our understanding of a fundamental tenet of the field is flawed and incomplete. This article presents a positive legal theory of shareholder primacy. It answers the questions: Is shareholder primacy law? What form of law is it? How does it work? The core prescription to maximize profit is misunderstood as a social norm because it cannot be in the form of an enforceable rule, the framework of a board's fiduciary duty. Such form of law would be internally incoherent with the structure of corporate law. However, to influence behavior the concept of law is not limited to a rule‒sanction form. Pervasive judicial acceptance of a principle can legitimate a rule and thus impose a strong internal sense of obligation. This article conducts the first empirical study of case law discussing profit maximization for the period 1900 to 2016. It shows that shareholder primacy has become a Hartian obligation and a rule of law. The rule does not exist in a single locus duty, but instead is a filamentary principle that weaves through many other rules of corporate law and the architecture of the corporate and market systems. This article shows how the obligation, albeit unenforceable, is efficacious nonetheless.


In spite of the growing research concerning investor protection, the relation between investor protection and real investment by foreign multinationals is largely unexplored. Recognizing this relation, however, is especially important in light of the surge in cross-border activity in recent decades and the potential impact cross-border investment can have on a country's economic development. We find that U.S. multinational foreign investment is significantly greater both when shareholder protection is poor and when creditor protection is poor. Consistent with existing literature, our results suggest that U.S. firms have greater comparative advantages when local firms in poor investor protection countries either i) invest suboptimally due to agency problems or ii) have constrained access to debt capital. The increased investment by U.S. multinationals in poor investor protection countries is of particular interest, because it suggests an important way in which adverse outcomes related to poor investor protection may be mitigated.


In software engineering, technical documentation is one of the activities that play
an important role for the success of software projects. When developing software
systems a lot of time is spent not only implementing your own solutions into the
code but also understanding and maintaining the code solution produced by others.
However with an emerging agile community the priority and engagement in documentation
may stagnate and effort invested into those activities may to some extent
be considered inherently wasteful. Therefore, the current perception for many software
engineers may be that technical documentation is incomplete and not updated.
An important aspect of the issue of producing documentation is the motivation of
the developers who are responsible for its completion. A question that might be
asked is if documentation overall is an activity that the software community would
be better off without, or if it is a neglected activity with room for improvement.
For that reason this exploratory multiple case study aims to identify some of the
issues to shed some light on why technical documentation has got into such an unfavourable
position in the software industry. The study investigate the motivation
affecting software engineers when producing software documentation, how this motivation
evolves over time and why there is a difference compared to other activities
in the software industry.
The study consider prospect theory as an explanatory theory for how improvements
in outcomes are perceived in terms of value. In addition this study also analyses
how experiences are remembered and evaluated, as it relates to how excitement is
considered for similar tasks in the future. The study can affirm that software engineers'
motivation seems to be affected by excitement and value dimensions when
it comes to producing technical documentation. Additionally, in the long term, receiving
constructive feedback can improve the excitement and the perceived value
of writing technical documentation.
The study finally observes that developers to a higher extent seem intrinsically
motivated by the coding activity than the documentation activity, which the study
points out as a primary enabler for the difference in behaviour between the coding
and documentation activity.


How would a male gynecologist begin to know anything about a woman's orgasm? Easy. In my pre-operative counseling for hysterectomy I discuss sexuality, orgasm, and hysterectomy. And I tell my patient that a year later I'm going to ask her about it. But this is not a controlled scientific study, so before telling you what I am hearing, let's look at some real data.


This paper reports and analyzes the tonal patterns that emerge in South Kyengsang monosyllabic nouns that exhibit two well-known analogical changes in stem shape, one involving coronal obstruent codas and the other stems with an underlying cluster. By the first change, underlying and orthographic /nach/ 'face' inflects as nat, nach-ɨl (conservative) or nas-ɨl (innovative); and by the second underlying /talk/ 'chicken' inflects as tak, talk-ɨl (conservative) or tak-ɨl (innovative). We find that many such nouns with a high-low tonal pattern change to high-high when inflected with the segmentally innovative stem. We propose that this tonal change supports the model of Korean noun paradigms proposed in Albright (2008) and Do (2013) in which the citation form serves as the base for the construction of the suffixed forms. If the base is a neutralization site, then learners select the alternant in which they have the greatest confidence of scoring a correct hit when undoing the neutralization.


This paper presents preliminary findings from an analysis of interviews and file data on a sample of young people who had youth justice family group conferences in New Zealand in 1998. The file data were available on 616 boys and 117 girls and interview data were available from 302 boys and 59 girls. The file data describe the type of offending that occurred, responses to the offending and the reconviction history of the young people as adults. The interview data describe the young people's background and experiences while growing up, their life since the family group conference and, most importantly, their views of the family group conference. Data have been collected on the memorability of the conference, preparation for it, participation and involvement in it, and agreement with the conference decisions. The feelings of the young person about fairness, respect, remorse, shame, and whether or not they were forgiven and accepted as a person, were explored. The data here suggest that girls were less responsive than boys to restorative aspects of family group conferences, despite their lesser involvement in criminal offending. Some possible reasons for this paradoxical finding are discussed.


A unified design for a 1×2 beam splitter of dielectric rectangular transmission gratings under the second Bragg incidence is theoretically investigated for TE- and TM-polarized light. The empirical equations of the relative grating parameters (ratio of the absolute one to incidence wavelength) for this design are also obtained with the simplified modal method (SMM). The influences of polarization of incident light and relative grating parameters on the performance of the beam splitter are thoroughly studied based on the SMM and rigorous coupled-wave analysis. Two specific gratings are demonstrated with an even split and high diffraction efficiency (>94% for TE polarization and >97% for the TM counterpart). The unified profiles of the 1×2 beam splitter are independent from the incidence wavelength since the refractive index of fused silica is roughly a constant over a wide range of wavelengths, which should be promising for future applications.


In this essay, I argue that the rationales offered by the Singapore Government for restricting racial and religious hate speech are not only constitutionally unsound, but also not without serious moral and social costs. I start off identifying two main rationales offered for the existing restrictions, namely (1) the maintenance of public order, and (2) the promotion of an ethic of intercultural tolerance. These twin rationales are buttressed by a literalist (and flawed) judicial interpretation of the right of free speech under Article 14 of the Singapore Constitution. Drawing on hate speech decisions from the U.S., Canada and Europe, I advance a more faithful reading of Article 14 which affords greater constitutional protection for hate speech as 'political speech'. I next trace how the Singapore Government's regulation of hate speech is rooted in its avowedly Asian-style 'communitarianism'. The 'public order' and 'tolerance' rationales, however, fail to recognize that race and religion are constitutive aspects of our individual flourishing and self-respect, which hate speech attacks. The present legislative regime is therefore guilty of self-contradiction. Lastly, I sketch a different, victim-centred justification for Singapore's hate speech laws which is responsive to the profound injury inflicted upon individuals targeted by racial and religious vilification. This victim-centred perspective, it is suggested, finds a comfortable textual home in Article 152(1) of the Singapore Constitution, which requires the Government to care for the interests of racial and religious minorities in Singapore.


The BMJ 's editor in chief, Fiona Godlee, has criticised the Daily Mail newspaper for misleading readers by publishing a highly inaccurate article on the care of severely disabled newborn babies that was based on a personal view article in the BMJ .

The Mail article appeared on its front page on 29 November with the banner "Now sick babies go on the death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on the end-of-life plan."1

It claimed that the BMJ personal view, published anonymously on 1 November,2 was evidence that sick children in the NHS were being put on the Liverpool care pathway. It added, "The Mail can reveal the practice of withdrawing food and fluid by tube is being used on young patients as well as severely disabled newborn babies."

However, in a letter to the Mail , which had not been published when the BMJ went to press, Godlee pointed out that "the doctor who wrote the BMJ article does not practise in the UK. Nor does the article mention the Liverpool care pathway" (box).

The Daily Telegraph ran a similar news item that was based on the Mail 's story and that has been shared many hundreds of times on social media. However, that story has been deleted from the newspaper's website after a BMJ reader pointed out its inaccuracies, although the Telegraph has refused to post a retraction.

Journalists at the Mail did not ask the BMJ for permission to …


It is now a part of conventional wisdom that both China and India are emerging economic, political and even military powers in the 21st century. Terms such as "BRIC" and "Chindia," and phrases such as "not China or India, but China and India" have entered popular discourse and policy discussions. Such terms imply a synergistic relationship between China and India--an implication that belies the tension that has characterized Sino-Indian relations for centuries. My view is less sanguine than many others' about the prospects of their relations. Relations between the two countries will be fraught with difficulties and will likely remain fragile. Conflict and competitiveness are deeply rooted in historical and structural causes, while forces for harmony are more contingent on political will cultural understanding and careful policy management. There are several areas in which their relations can go wrong. At a fundamental level, the two countries are in an economically competitive, not a complementary, relationship with each other. Their economic and social endowments are similar (as compared with China/U.S. or India/U.S.). India and China offer very different lessons about economic policies and growth. This is not to suggest that the two countries are headed toward an inevitable collision, but to identify the urgency of carefully managing their relations and nurturing trust and goodwill on both sides. ********** One of the most memorable terms that has emerged together with the emergence of China and India as economic powers is "Chindia." The credit apparently goes to Jairam Ramesh, who, as the Indian minister of state for environment and forests, gave the concept an apparent official imprimatur, (1) Premier Wen Jiabao also emphasized the complementary aspects of Sino-Indian relations in his 2010 trip to India. He had some tangible proof--the trip resulted in commercial agreements valued at $16 billion. (2) Beneath these official pleasantries, however, there are some underlying tensions. According to press reports, the Chinese delegation sought help from the Indian government to clamp down on what the Chinese viewed as excessively negative coverage of China in the Indian press--a request the Indian government politely declined on the grounds of press freedom. (3) Zhang Yan, the Chinese envoy to India, was quoted as saying that "China-India relations are very fragile and very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair. Therefore, they need special care in the information age." (4) The idea of "Chindia" conjures the image of two fast-growing Asian giants united by their common challenges and their recent economic success. The term suggests that these commonalities are sufficiently powerful to overcome the weight of history--most notably, the Sino-Indian War of 1962. In fact, Zhang Yan's assessment of Sino-Indian relations is more accurate than those offered in official speeches by Jairam Ramesh and Wen Jiabao. Deep historical and structural forces will keep cooperation between the two countries at bay, and forces for harmony are more contingent upon political will, cultural understanding and careful policy management. It is not the claim here that the two countries will inevitably head toward collision. Rather, it is my contention that relations between the two countries will be fraught with difficulties and are, and will likely remain, fragile in the sense that Zhang Yan conveyed. Increased engagement between China and India has brought the border issues back to the fore rather than relegating them to the dustbin of history. Both countries claim sovereignty over two pieces of territory. One is Aksai Chin, located in the Indian province of Kashmir or the Chinese province of Xinjiang. The other is referred to as Arunachal Pradesh by India and South Tibet by China. In 1987, the two countries came close to another clash, but things calmed in 1993 when the two countries signed a treaty to ensure peace over disputed areas and introduced an interesting concept called the Line of Actual Control (LAC). …


This paper features an analysis of the effectiveness of a range of portfolio diversification strategies, with a focus on down-side risk metrics, as a portfolio diversification strategy in a European market context. We apply these measures to a set of daily arithmetically compounded returns on a set of ten market indices representing the major European markets for a nine year period from the beginning of 2005 to the end of 2013. The sample period, which incorporates the periods of both the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and subsequent European Debt Crisis (EDC), is challenging one for the application of portfolio investment strategies. The analysis is undertaken via the examination of multiple investment strategies and a variety of hold-out periods and back-tests. We commence by using four two year estimation periods and subsequent one year investment hold out period, to analyse a naive 1/N diversification strategy, and to contrast its effectiveness with Markowitz mean variance analysis with positive weights. Markowitz optimisation is then compared with various downside investment optimisation strategies. We begin by comparing Markowitz with CVaR, and then proceed to evaluate the relative effectiveness of Markowitz with various draw-down strategies, utilising a series of backtests. Our results suggest that none of the more sophisticated optimisation strategies appear to dominate naive diversification.


The urgent drive for vaccine development in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic has prompted public and private organisations to invest heavily in research and development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Organisations globally have affirmed the commitment of fair global access, but the means by which a successful vaccine can be mass produced and equitably distributed remains notably unanswered. Barriers for low-income countries include the inability to afford vaccines as well as inadequate resources to vaccinate, barriers that are exacerbated during a pandemic. Fair distribution of a pandemic vaccine is unlikely without a solid ethical framework for allocation. This piece analyses four allocation paradigms: ability to develop or purchase; reciprocity; ability to implement; and distributive justice, and synthesises their ethical considerations to develop an allocation model to fit the COVID-19 pandemic.


ABSTRACT Agriculture on the fringes of cities across the Global North is increasingly perceived as making an important contribution to urban sustainability. As Australian cities continue to expand and encroach on their peri-urban peripheries, there is rising concern about loss of farmland to housing. Such concerns are especially urgent in the Sydney Basin, due to population growth, and topographical and land-use constraints. Accounting for the Basin's farmlands, however, remains opaque, not unrelated to difficulties in acquiring reliable data on the area and value of Sydney's agricultural industries. The problem is not simply that there are no data available but rather that the nature of existing data is (often hotly) contested. Critical questions for urban planners therefore remain unanswered, including: is peri-urban agriculture as important as advocates suggest? Are metropolitan food supplies under threat? If peri-urban farmland is important, what should be done to preserve it? In collating and analysing existing Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and non-ABS data on Sydney agriculture between 1992 and 2011, we outline the need for more reliable and consistent longitudinal data to enable better planning for Sydney's farmland into the future. Notwithstanding limitations of available data sources, our findings reveal trends in Sydney Basin agriculture that invite debate on many assumptions about the nature of peri-urban agriculture. These findings emphasise the importance of geographically specific, evidence-based analysis as a basis for planning for peri-urban agriculture.


Objective-To determine whether lead adjustment formulas for correcting QT dispersion measurements are appropriate in patients after myocardial infarction. Design-Retrospective analysis of QTc dispersion measurements in 461 electrocardiograms (ECGs). Data are presented as uncorrected QTc dispersion "adjusted" for a number of measurable leads and coefficient of variation of QTc intervals for ECGs in which between six and 12 leads had a QT interval that could be measured accurately. Patients-Patients were drawn from the placebo arm of the second Leicester Intravenous Magnesium Intervention Trial. Some 163 patients who subsequently died and an equal number of known survivors had ECGs recorded on day 2 or 3 of acute myocardial infarction. ECGs were also available in 135 of these patients from at least 1 month postinfarct. Results-The most common lead in which a QT interval measurement was omitted was aVR (n = 176), the least common lead was V3 (n = 13). The longest QTc interval measured was most usually in lead V4 (n = 72) and the shortest in lead Vi (n = 67). As the number of measurable leads decreased there was a small, nonsignificant increase in QTc dispersion from 12 lead to eight lead ECGs (mean (SD) 100 (35.5) v 109-5 (47.9) ms). Lead adjusted QTc dispersion (QTc dispersion/square root of the number of measurable leads) showed a large, significant increase when the number of measurable leads decreased from 12 to eight (28.9 (10.3) v 38-7 (16.1) ms, P < 0.001). A similar trend was seen for coefficient of variation of QTc intervals (standard deviation of QTc intervals/mean QTc interval 64-3 (2-19) v 8-45 (3.94)%, P < 0-001). Conclusions-Lead adjustment formulas for QT dispersion are not appropriate in patients with myocardial infarction. Large differences in lead adjusted QTc dispersion are produced, dependent on the number of measurable leads, for very small differences in QTc dispersion. It is recommended that QT dispersion is presented as unadjusted QT and QTc dispersion, stating the mean (SD) of the number of leads in which a QT interval was


This thesis was conducted with the main objectives (i) to calculate costs of mastitis and cost-efficiency of mastitis management measures and (ii) to acquire insights in the economic decision behaviour of dairy farmers with respect to mastitis management. Animal health economics is a decision supporting science, based on a decision making function of evaluating and choosing between alternative strategies on animal diseases. The potential economic importance of diseases such as mastitis is not uniform across farms, regions or countries, and control measures justified in one context may not be economically worthwhile in another. The average costs of mastitis were calculated as €77 per year per cow present on the farm under quota situation. Most of the farmers (72%) underestimated the costs of mastitis on their farm. The main reason for this underestimation was that farmers underestimated production losses caused by cows with an elevated somatic cell count. The costs of mastitis as calculated by the farmers varied between €17 and €200 per cow per year on farm level. It was found that farms that have a comparable incidence of clinical mastitis and bulk tank somatic cell count may have different costs of mastitis. Because decisions are often based on the perception of a problem, farm specific cost calculations can help to give a better insight in the magnitude of the decision. This can improve the adoption rate of advised management measures. Decisions are not only based on economic parameters or other quantified characteristics. Mastitis management is known as one of the fields where farmer decision making often deviates from recommendations based on rational standard-economic models and is often contrary to advices given by veterinarians and other advisors. Farmers can have different motivations to decide on the implementation of management measures to improve the udder health situation on the farm. It is necessary to understand the important motivators of dairy farmers to be able to successfully transfer knowledge and technology to the dairy farm. The tools developed in this thesis can provide support in economic decisions, which can improve the motivation of a farmer to improve mastitis management. In general, farmers prefer to invest in short or long term investments, rather than to invest in extra labour or in changing routines. The large variation in preferences between farmers showed the importance of including this information in farm specific decision support. Not every farmer can earn money by improving the udder health situation by adopting new management measures, but many can. Clear differences between the costs and benefits of management measures exist for different farm situations. The results of this thesis have contributed to our understanding of the decision making process of dairy farmers regarding mastitis management.


ABSTRACT The term piracy once referred simply to crimes at sea but now also refers to widespread crimes by which intellectual property is copied and sold or given away through electronic networks and in kiosks, shops and flea markets. Countries such as the U.S.A., whose origins were based on technology piracy, are now the most protective. Companies that were once sued for infringement are now suing others. Piracy is cited as a source of income for criminal and extreme political groups. Cultural appropriation of traditional herbs, songs and art is not easily combated. Fake drugs and airline parts create safety issues that are not encountered with pirated books or DVDs. Some scholars and legal experts have called for abandoning copyright or have proposed alternative schemes for intellectual property.


Abstract : In this study, the subsurface storage and transport of a Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL) was studied using a numerical model. Recent studies have found evidence that cracks can exist in low permeability layers within aquifers, and that a significant mass of DNAPL can be stored within those cracks. In this research, we simulate the effect of DNAPL in the low permeability cracks on contaminant plume evolution and persistence. A key parameter governing fate is the rate of DNAPL dissolution. In this study, we model the dissolution rate as both a constant and as a function of time, using parameters applicable to a real world site. We find that when the dissolution rate varies with time, significantly more DNAPL persists in the low permeability zone and downgradient plume concentrations remain higher for longer than when the rate is modeled as constant. Furthermore, we found that DNAPL and plume persistence are very dependent on the parameters used to simulate source dissolution, which further depend on both DNAPL source and site characteristics, pointing to the need for good source zone characterization.


14% discount on a subscription to the complete series, please contact us via "mailto:email@example.com">email@example.com. The Syntax of Dutch will be published in at least seven volumes in the period 2012-2016 and aims at presenting a synthesis of the currently available syntactic knowledge of Dutch. It is primarily concerned with language description and not with linguistic theory, and provides support to all researchers interested in matters relating to the syntax of Dutch, including advanced students of language and linguistics. The volume Adjectives and Adjective Phrases discusses the internal make-up as well as the distribution of adjective phrases. Topics that will be covered include: complementation and modification of adjective phrases; comparative and superlative formation; the attributive, predicative and adverbial uses of adjective phrases. Special attention is paid to the so-called partitive genitive construction and the adverbial use of past/passive participles and infinitives. For the table of contents, please click here


Hypothalamic CRH neurons that control ACTH secretion from the pituitary gland have secretory terminals in the external zone of the median eminence (ZEME). These neurons can coproduce vasopressin (AVP), a neuropeptide that potentiates the ACTH releasing effects of CRH. Recently, we found increased AVP production in adult rats weeks after single exposure to a stressor, which may play a role in event-induced stress disorders. Here, we describe the long-term changes in the HPA axis of adult male rats following a single exposure to a stressor, the cytokine interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta). The effects on storage and release of AVP and CRH were established by quantitative immunocytochemistry, the effects on ACTH and corticosterone responses by radioimmunoassay. Single administration of IL-1 beta (5 micrograms/kg i.p.) induces a delayed (at least 4 d) and a long-lasting (at least 3 weeks) increase of vasopressin (AVP) stores in CRH terminals of the ZEME without affecting the CRH stores, and a marked increase of the fraction of CRH terminals that costore AVP. Eleven days after IL-1 beta administration, a second IL-1 beta challenge causes a marked depletion of the AVP stores in the ZEME within 2 hr, which is not seen in rats treated with vehicle 11 d earlier. This is accompanied by twofold higher ACTH and corticosterone responses, as compared to those in vehicle pretreated rats. IL-1 beta-pretreated rats also showed increased ACTH and corticosterone responses to electric footshocks. We conclude that transient activation of the HPA axis by a single administration of IL-1 beta induces a delayed and long-lasting hyperproduction, hyperstorage, and hypersecretion of AVP from hypothalamic CRH neurons that results in hyperresponsiveness of the HPA axis to subsequent stimuli.


Aquatic plants contribute to maintaining key functions and related biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems, and to provide the needs of human societies. The way the ecological niches of macrophytes are determined by abiotic filters and biotic ones is considered. A simple, broadly applicable model of the distribution of growth forms according to abiotic filters is proposed. The consequence for the dynamics of plant communities and the main threats to macrophyte occurrence and diversity are discussed. Key concepts: Macrophytes contribute to maintaining key functions and related biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems, and to provide the needs of human societies. Most aquatic species are phylogenetically descended from terrestrial plants that have later adapted to aquatic life. Water plants are usually poorly lignified, as water preserves plants from gravitational stress, and are characterized by the presence of aerenchyma, which increases oxygen flux from shoots to roots, and by a large leaf surface, together with a thin cuticle, which increase contact with water and carbon uptake. Macrophyte dispersal relies partly on water drift, and thus on seed buoyancy and on the ability of plants to break themselves up and regrow from broken dispersed fragments, and partly on endozoochory by animals (mainly birds). In freshwater ecosystems, the production, community composition and life-history traits of macrophytes are governed by the availability of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous. Water movements (waves, flow velocity) tend to select streamlined or prostrate growth forms, and contribute to the dispersal of seeds and vegetative propagules. Moderate disturbances (by floods or drawdowns) decrease biotic interactions in aquatic plant communities and as a consequence favour biodiversity and decrease successional rate. Free-floating and tall species with floating leaves are the most competitive for light, and usually dominate macrophyte communities when nutrient levels in the water are sufficiently high. In the framework of global change, eutrophication of freshwaters, together with decreases in natural disturbance regimes in river floodplains, increases in groundwater abstraction and the increase of temperature may all contribute in decreasing macrophyte biodiversity by favouring competitive and invasive species, to the detriment of ruderal, stress-tolerant poorly competitive ones.


Introduction: The aim of present study was to investigate the effects of moderate intensity exercise training on depressive and inflammatory markers in post-menopausal women. Methods: Forty healthy postmenopausal women (55.1± 3.51 years) volunteered to participate in this study. The study design and its potential risks and benefits were fully explained before providing written informed consent, and approved by the human health committee of Urmia University, IRAN. At resting, the subjects were randomly assigned to one of the exercise (n=20) or control (n=20) groups. The exercise group performed aerobic exercise training (60%-70% MHR) 30-45 min/day, 3 times a week, for 12 weeks. Psychological symptoms were measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Perceived Stress Scale and the Self-reported loneliness score. Blood samples were collected before and after 12 weeks exercise training for measuring of CRP and interleukin-6 (IL-6). Blood was collected after a 12h overnight fast. To avoid circadian variations fasting blood samples were drawn between 0800h and 0900h. In the exercised subjects, blood samples were collected at least 24h after the last bout of exercise. Mean changes from baseline to 12 weeks were calculated and compared with groups by paired t-test. Differences between groups were determined by analysis of co variance (ANCOVA) for continuous variables. Association between inflammatory variables and psychological variables were examined using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: There were significant differences in the Psychological symptoms of perceived stress (p= 0.001), depression symptoms (p= 0.001), and loneliness scores (p= 0.001) in the exercising group. Significant declines were observed in IL-6 (p= 0.001) and CRP (p= 0.001) in the exercise group after 12 weeks of aerobic exercise training when compared with the control group. Cortisol did not show any significant difference over time (p=0.84). Conclusion: Our results show that aerobic exercise training with moderate intensity attenuates inflammatory markers and psychological symptoms in post-menopausal women. 1. Research Center for Sport and Physical Activity, Faculty of Sport Sciences and Physical Education, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.


Nursing assessment, planning, interventions, and evaluation play a major role in the successful respiratory management of infants and children following cardiac surgery. A thorough understanding of the anatomy, physiology, treatment, and nursing assessment and care of these patients is necessary for complete and speedy postoperative recoveries. This article has attempted to highlight the major points in providing optimal levels of nursing care to these challenging patients.


The aim of this study is to increase understanding about the causes of dysphoria, depression and anxiety by identifying the psychological factors that predict the development or protect the individual from developing mental health problems. A quantitative study, it is conducted over a period of a year and utilises a 3 wave observational longitudinal cohort design to investigate the relationship between the psychological variables and processes leading to mental health or ill health in a community group of female undergraduate students (N=183). Data is collected at 6 montly intervals for a period of a year from 183 female students. The participants are first year undergraduate students at a college of higher education. Characteristics from the students are collected using a battery of paper and pencil self report questionnaires in a group administration for the first wave of data and two postal questionnaires for follow up.

Conceptual models are developed and tested statistically using structural equation modelling to explore the relationship between the elements identified for each model retrospectively and prospectively over a period of 12 months. Longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses are conducted for anxiety and depression separately. The elements of the models include positive and negative life events and protective and vulnerability factors for depression and dysphoria.

Results from the cross-sectional and logitudinal analysis demonstrate that psychological factors have a significant effect on the development of depression and anxiety, with illness provoking factors explaining between 33-55% of the variance of depression in longitudinal analyses and 59-42% of the variance in cross-sectional analyses. They explain 45-57% of the variance in anxiety in longitudinal analyses and 28-50% in cross-sectional analyses. Health enhancing factors explain 18-19% of the variance in deprssion in longitudinal analyses and 47-49% of the variance in cross-sectional analyses. They explain 15-20% of the variance in anxiety in longitudinal analyses and 12-=20% of the variance in cross-sectional analyses.

Health enhancing and illness provoking characteristics for depression and anxiety are identified in this study. They include enduring personality characteristics, cognitive styles and coping strategies and act as predictors for mental health outcomes or mediate or moderate the relationship between predictors and mental health outcomes.


There is an increasing interest to use computer games for non-traditional education, such as for training purposes. For training education, simulators are considered as offering more realistic learning environments to experience situations that are similar to real world. This type of learning is more beneficial for practicing critical situations which are difficult or impossible in real world training, for instance experience the consequences of unsafe driving. However, the effectiveness of simulation-based learning of this nature is dependent upon the learner's engagement and explorative behaviour. Most current learner evaluation systems are unable to capture this type of learning. Therefore, in this paper we introduce the concept of game interaction state graphs (GISGs) to capture the engagement in explorative and experience-based training tasks. These graphs are constructed based on rules which capture psychologically significant learner behaviours and situations. Simple variables reflecting game state and learner's controller actions provide the ingredients to the rules. This approach eliminates the complexity involved with other similar approaches, such as constructing a full-fledged cognitive model for the learner. GISGs, at minimum, can be used to evaluate the explorative behaviour, the training performance and personal preferences of a learner.


The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently and adamantly held that patents do not require patentees to use or commercialize their inventions. Rather, patents simply grant inventors the right to exclude others from using or producing their inventions. That exclusive right, once granted, cannot be taken away because of a right holder's failure to work the patent. Great societal harm results, however, when patentees fail to commercialize their patents or deliberately and strategically suppress technologies purely for financial gain. This Comment argues that utilizing compulsory licensing to combat patent nonuse and technology suppression can help to better achieve the primary goal of the Intellectual Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Compulsory licensing that compensates inventors through reasonable and marketplace-based royalty rates will ensure that inventors continue to develop and disclose their research and discoveries to the public. Furthermore, by weakening intellectual property rights on a limited scale, Congress can ensure that patents are made available to the highest-value users who can best use these patents to achieve efficient societal innovation and progress. This Comment therefore questions why patentees are not required to at least make good faith efforts to practice their patents.


The nutrient environment experienced by planktonic microorganisms is patchy at spatiotemporal scales commensurate with their motility (µm – cm), and the efficiency with which chemotactic microbes can exploit this heterogeneous seascape influences trophodynamics and nutrient cycling rates in aquatic environments. Yet, methodological limitations have largely prevented direct examinations of microbial behavior within heterogeneous microenvironments. We used soft lithography to fabricate a microfluidic‐based chemotaxis assay to study the foraging response of aquatic microbes to diffusing microscale nutrient patches. The transparency, biocompatibility, and simplicity of microfluidic devices make them ideally suited for microbial ecology studies. A microinjector was used to create a 300 µm‐wide nutrient band, simulating a pulse release of solutes. The chemotactic response of microbes to the diffusing patch was measured at the population and single‐cell level. In contrast to traditional chemotaxis assays, this technique permits the assessment and quantification of chemotaxis toward a potential attractant in real time, enabling rapid screening of multiple chemicals. Furthermore, detailed information on chemotactic behavior can be obtained by tracking individual organisms. Here, we applied this microassay to study the chemotactic behavior of a range of aquatic microorganisms, including three marine bacterial isolates, a species of phagotrophic flagellate, and a species of phytoplankton. Each organism exhibited a rapid chemotactic response to a variety of chemical compounds, suggesting that many marine microbes are adapted to life within patchy microenvironments. The chemotaxis assay described here was found to be a flexible platform for studying both the specific case of microbes foraging within patchy habitats and as a broadly applicable tool for rapidly assessing and quantifying microbial chemotaxis.


For many years, as a direct result of international governmental concern, the nuclear power industry has been at the forefront of industrial safety. This text represents a cross-disciplinary look at the human factors developments in this industry, with wider applications for the entire industrial sector. Technical, psychological and social aspects of industrial safety come under the scrutiny of scientists and engineers from an array of different backgrounds. The contributors are international safety scientists from the USA, Japan and Europe, and their chapters deal with a variety of issues: from theoretical aspects of applicable cultural models, to reviews of actual safety performance in specific plants.


Degenerative joint diseases including osteoarthritis (OA) and low back pain due to intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration are common clinical entities in both humans and companion dogs, posing a large psychosocial and economic burden on society. In this dissertation, a novel treatment strategy based on local and controlled release of locally delivered anti-inflammatory drugs for OA and disc disease was investigated and translated towards the veterinary bedside. In this respect, the inflammatory character of OA and low back pain was investigated, and it appeared that in dogs, as in humans, degeneration of the IVD is driven by pro-inflammatory mediators such as PGE2. Moreover, there seemed to be a striking difference in OA susceptibility and inflammatory response in cartilage and synovial tissue of normal and short-legged (chondrodystrophic) dogs; on a joint level the former seems to be more sensitive to inflammatory-driven degenerative processes than chondrodystrophic dogs. To investigate the disease-modifying effects of the sustained release of the anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib, preclinical animal models were employed first. Herein, we demonstrated that intra-articular application of biodegradable celecoxib-loaded microspheres was able to inhibit subchondral bone changes and synovial inflammation associated with OA. In line with this, in canine patients suffering from OA, a single treatment with celecoxib-loaded microspheres led to improved pain-related behaviour and synovial inflammation for over two months. A pilot study assessing the clinical effect of the controlled release of the corticosteroid triamcinolone acetonide showed similar favourable results in companion dogs suffering from OA. Furthermore, local sustained celecoxib release inhibited inflammation and prevented progression of IVD degeneration both in vitro and in vivo. Intradiscal celecoxib was subsequently applied in canine patients suffering from low back pain. Preliminary results showed favourable effects for this application as well. For dogs suffering from low back pain due to end-stage intervertebral disc disease not amenable to the aforementioned therapeutic strategy, surgical stabilisation of the lumbosacral spine with pedicle-screw rod fixation demonstrated good to excellent results in medium to long-term follow-up of a cohort of canine patients. Altogether these results provide a proof-of-concept that serves as a basis for further translation of local injection of controlled release platforms loaded with anti-inflammatory drugs from bench to the (veterinary) bed side for the treatment of early and medium stage osteoarthritis and low back pain.


Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) from Streptomyces aureofaciens was purified and denatured in 6 M urea. Denaturation led to complete dissociation of the enzyme into its inactive monomers, 98% loss of the enzyme activity, about 30% decrease in the protein fluorescence and a 10 nm red shift in the emission maximum. Dilution of urea-denatured enzyme resulted in regaining of the enzyme activity and the native protein fluorescence. The renatured enzyme was indistinguishable from the native enzyme based on a number of enzymological and physicochemical criteria. Regaining of the protein fluorescence occurred immediately after diluting the denatured enzyme and before reactivation started. The reactivation process was also monitored by measuring the accessibility of histidine residues toward diethylpyrocarbonate modification. As the reactivation proceeded, less histidine residues were able to be modified. Nicotineamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD + ), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP + ) and glucose 6-phosphate stimulated the reactivation rate at different degrees. It seemed likely that specific ligands stimulated reactivation by binding to an inactive form of the enzyme leading to a different pathway of refolding. The data are consistent with a model for enzyme renaturation and reactivation in which NAD + and NADP + pull the enzyme toward different conformational structures.


This brief examines two contrasting policy options: the implementation of zero deforestation commitments by the private sector and a complete moratorium on the expansion of large-scale oil palm plantations, and compares them to a situation without policy action.
 The zero deforestation commitments and the moratorium on large-scale oil palm plantations expansion could reduce cumulative deforestation by 25% and 28%, respectively, compared to a situation without policy action. They could also cut greenhouse gas emissions from land use and land-use change by 13% and 16%, respectively, over the period 2010-2030.
 Even under the zero-deforestation and moratorium scenarios, Indonesia is projected to increase palm oil production between 124%-97% over 2010-2030, which is partly due to higher production originating from smallholders.
 Both measures – the zero deforestation commitments and a moratorium of future large-scale oil palm plantations expansion – would be especially beneficial to limit future deforestation in Indonesia in a context in which global demand for palm oil is expected to keep increasing.
 Foresight tools can equip stakeholders and policy makers with data and information to allow for evidence-based policy making. This will permit planning for reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, and finding options acceptable to all stakeholders involved.


In this article I posit that mandatory arbitration serves to neutralize a class of business risks rarely considered by those who want to eliminate it. Business entities enter into business relationships based on the best available current information about those with whom they do business. Unfortunately, that information can degrade over time due to undisclosed evolving circumstances thereby leaving the business entity at a distinct disadvantage. In other words, asymmetrically-held information can create "new" risks, risks that weren't anticipated when the original relationship came into being. These "new" risks are particularly pronounced in situations involving consumer credit, employment and franchises. And for the most part they are uninsurable. For those providing credit the risk involves the deterioration of credit worthiness; for an employer it involves morale and business interruption; and for the franchiser it involves the reputation of the franchise. Once discovered, survival requires a business entity to search for any and all measures to defuse the "new" risk and restore the equilibrium. Mandatory arbitration is one such measure because by design it is flexible, cost efficient and speedy. Mandatory arbitration makes it possible for the business entity to quickly secure an award with relief appropriate to the circumstances. It not only levels the playing field but it acts as a partial substitute for insurance because it transfers the impact of the "new" risk away from the business entity. Congress is currently considering amendments to the Federal Arbitration Act that would ban mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts for consumer credit, employment and franchises. The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 fails to take into account the market driven need for self help measures such as mandatory arbitration. This article looks at the role asymmetric information plays from the perspective of the business entity and at the potential impact that the proposed reforms are likely to have on the commercial environment.


The aim of this chapter is to report the study of a novel liquid-vapour separator-incorporated gravity-assisted loop heat pipe (GALHP). This involves a dedicated conceptual formation, thermo-fluid analyses, and computer modelling and experimental validation. The innovative feature of the new GALHP is the integration of a dedicated liquid vapour separator on top of the evaporator section, eliminating the potential entrainment between the heat pipe liquid and the steam stream, while addressing the inherent ' dry-out ' problem exhibited in the traditional GALHP. Based on this recognised novelty, a dedicated steady-state thermal model covering the mass continuity, energy conservation and Darcy equations were established. Under the specifically defined operational condition, the proposed GALHP has more evenly distributed axial temperature profile. The effective thermal conductivity in the proposed GALHP was 29,968 W/C m. It is therefore concluded that the novel heat pipe could achieve a significantly enhanced heat transport effect. The results derived from this research enabled characterisation of the thermal performance of the proposed GALHP and validation of the developed computer simulation model. The research will enable design, optimisation and analysis of such a new GALHP, thus promoting its wide application and achieving efficient thermal management.


When "Daily Telegraph" correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to cover Africa in 2000 he quickly became obsessed with the idea of recreating H. M. Stanley's famous expedition - but travelling alone. Despite warnings that his plan was 'suicidal', Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a rucksack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots. Making his way in an assortment of vessels including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a campaigning pygmy, he followed in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurers. Butcher's journey was a remarkable feat, but the story of the Congo, told expertly and vividly in this book, is more remarkable still.


We investigate the interplay of language skills and immigrant stocks in determining bilateral FDI out-stocks of OECD reporting countries. Applying a Poisson panel estimator to 2004-2011 data, we find a robust positive effect of bilateral immigrants on bilateral FDI – provided that residents of the two countries have few language skills in common. We find a similar effect for immigrants from third countries that speak the language(s) of the FDI host country, making them potential substitutes for bilateral migrants. Our findings suggest that immigrants facilitate outgoing FDI through their language skills, rather than through other characteristics like cultural familiarity.


In recent years, Western military powers have experimented with both weaponizing existing life forms and designing robotic weapons that mimic existing life forms. These efforts have been accompanied by a discourse of what future warfare will be like. Weapons contractors have released visions of this future on YouTube, television documentaries have popularized scenarios of biowarfare, and films have pushed these narratives to the limits of science fiction. As such, the discourse of "biomimetic warfare" is no longer contained in conversations among military theorists. This essay argues that these rhetorics constitute a redefinition of the boundaries of "war." The essay takes inspiration from Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's notion of an emerging "military-vital complex," or a military that concerns itself with the biopolitical in Foucault's sense of the word. That is, the vision of the bio-mimetic military signals a profound public redefinition of war away from localized forms of punishment and destruction and toward a version of war war imminent to the lifeworld and concerned with life's patrol, maintenance, and production.


Detailed 3-D structures of Trans-Pacific Asian dust transport occurring during 5–15 May 2007 were investigated using the NASA/CALIOP vertical-resolved measurements and a three-dimensional aerosol model (SPRINTARS). Both CALIOP and SPRINTARS dust extinctions showed a good agreement along the way of the transport from the dust source regions across North Pacific into North America. A vertically two-layered dust distribution was observed over the northeastern Pacific and North America. The lower dust layer originated from a dust storm generated in the Gobi Desert on 5 May. It was transported at an altitude of around 4 km MSL and has mixed with Asian anthropogenic air pollutants during the course of transport. The upper dust layer mainly originated from a dust storm that occurred in the Taklimakan Desert 2–3 days after the Gobi dust storm generation. The upper dust cloud was transported in higher altitudes above the major clouds layer during the Trans-Pacific transport. It therefore has remained unmixed with the Asian air pollutants and almost unaffected by wet removal. The decay of its concentration level was small (only one-half after its long-distance transport crossing the Pacific). Our dust budget analysis revealed that the Asian dust flux passing through the longitude plane of 140° E was 2.1 Tg, and one third of that arrived North America. The cases analyzed in this study revealed that, while the Gobi Desert is an important source that can contribute to the long-range dust transport, the Taklimakan Desert appears to be another important source that can contribute to the dust transport occurring particularly at high altitudes.


Homelessness may be both a cause of and one of the more extreme outcomes of poverty. Governments at all levels have a variety of tools to combat homelessness, and these strategies have changed dramatically over the past quarter century. In this paper, we catalog the policy responses, the existing literature on the effectiveness of these strategies, and the major gaps that need to be addressed in future research. We focus on studies from randomized controlled trial evaluations and the best quasi-experimental designs, and discuss outstanding questions that can be addressed with these same methods.


BACKGROUND
With prolonged life expectancy and more frequent use of biological prostheses, an increasingly higher proportion of patients are undergoing aortic valve replacement (AVR) after previous sternotomy. We critically appraised the quantity and quality of evidence to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of the minimally invasive (MIrAVR) versus conventional (CrAVR) approaches for reoperative AVR.

METHODS
Electronic searches were performed using six databases from their inception to April 2014. Relevant studies utilizing a MIrAVR were identified. Data were extracted and analyzed according to predefined clinical endpoints.

RESULTS
Four single-arm and seven comparative observational studies including a total of 441 MIrAVR patients were included for quality assessment, data extraction and analysis. In-hospital mortality ranged from 0-9.5%, and was similar between the MIrAVR and CrAVR groups (RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.39-1.54; P=0.46). Stroke rates ranged from 2.6-8% and were also similar between the two cohorts. The rates of pacemaker implantation, renal failure and reoperation for bleeding were not significantly different between the two groups. There were no reports of myocardial infarctions in the included studies. No significant difference in hospital stay was observed for the MIrAVR versus CrAVR group.

CONCLUSIONS
The current literature suggests that MIrAVR has similar efficacy and mortality outcomes compared to CrAVR without compromise to myocardial protection or hospitalization duration. It appears to be a valid alternative option for patients requiring reoperative AVR.


Several studies have analyzed the relationship between coffee consumption and mortality, but the shape of the association remains unclear. We conducted a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies to examine the dose-response associations between coffee consumption and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and all cancers. Pertinent studies, published between 1966 and 2013, were identified by searching PubMed and by reviewing the reference lists of the selected articles. Prospective studies in which investigators reported relative risks of mortality from all causes, CVD, and all cancers for 3 or more categories of coffee consumption were eligible. Results from individual studies were pooled using a random-effects model. Twenty-one prospective studies, with 121,915 deaths and 997,464 participants, met the inclusion criteria. There was strong evidence of nonlinear associations between coffee consumption and mortality for all causes and CVD (P for nonlinearity < 0.001). The largest risk reductions were observed for 4 cups/day for all-cause mortality (16%, 95% confidence interval: 13, 18) and 3 cups/day for CVD mortality (21%, 95% confidence interval: 16, 26). Coffee consumption was not associated with cancer mortality. Findings from this meta-analysis indicate that coffee consumption is inversely associated with all-cause and CVD mortality.


Bargaining results emerge from the interplay of strategic options and social preferences. For every bargaining game, however, the advantage of a player having certain preferences in terms of negotiated equilibrium revenues might differ. We explore the hypothesis that preferences change according to the players' strength combination. Simple 1×1 bargaining experiments from the literature are discussed, and 2×2 as well as 2×3 assignment market experiments with possible renegotiations are investigated. The assumption that players adopt preferences for two to five roles, defined by strength combinations of the two bargainers, explains the experimental results better than individually constant preferences.


In this new full-length study of Jane Rule's life and work, Marilyn Schuster argues that Rule's novels provide a way of "writing and reading lesbian" that resists and subverts dominant discourses of gender and sexuality-both those of mainstream culture and of political and sexual subcultures. From her earliest novel, Desert of the Heart (1964), Rule's fiction has provided a challenge to the concept of a fixed identity and to the identity politics founded on such a concept. Incorporating all of Jane Rule's early work-including unpublished manuscripts, letters, magazine and newspaper columns, as well as fan mail she received-Schuster also draws on interviews, conversations, and personal encounters with the author to elicit the ways in which Rule interrogates the meanings and politics of sexuality, the relationship between sexuality and language, and the stakes of communities in individual claims on identity. Passionate Communities is a thorough, engaging, and long-overdue study of an important voice in lesbian literature and gay and lesbian politics.


The river Meuse is the second largest river in the Netherlands and is characterized by strong variations in its discharge. From a government point of view there is a particular interest in discharge levels with return periods in the order of 1000 years, far beyond the length of the observed discharge record (several decades). Traditionally, these extreme quantiles are estimated by fitting extreme value distributions to observed maxima, which are then extrapolated upto the return period of interest. However, such strong extrapolation induces a large uncertainty in the estimated quantile. Moreover, the discharge record might be inhomogeneous due to changes in the river basin. As an alternative, a methodology has been developed which is based on the resampling of meteorological data for the basin in combination with hydrological modelling. The resampling algorithm is used to synthesize long-year sequences of spatially varying daily precipitation and temperature for the river basin and is based on the concept of "nearest-neighbours". It is capable of reproducing several characteristics of the data crucial for the simulation of extreme multi-day precipitation events, such as spatial correlation of daily precipitation and temperature, persistence and variance as well as the correlation between precipitation and temperature. One of the major advantages of this algorithm is that it is entirely "data-driven" and does not rely upon assumptions about the underlying distribution or correlation structure of the data. Since the generated sequences consist of values from the original data only and therefore cannot exceed the highest data value, something which is sometimes seen as a somewhat unrealistic limitation. To examine to what extent this limitation affects the simulation of discharge extremes, a modified resampling algorithm was tested on the Ourthe subbasin using historical meteorological data. The modified algorithm is based on nearest-neighbour regression and allows for the exceedance of the largest historical daily precipitation in a simulation by recombining a conditional expectation and a sampled residual. Though the algorithm produces daily amounts well outside the range of historical values, the effect on the distribution of simulated discharge extremes on the Ourthe was very small. vii To assess the changes of these discharge quantiles related to climate change, this methodology was applied to the output of regional climate models (RCMs) for the control climate (1961-1990) and the SRES-scenario A2 (2071-2100). To compensate for systematic differences in the mean and variance between the RCM run for the control climate and observations in the Meuse basin, the synthesized sequences were subjected to a nonlinear bias correction. This type of bias correction allows for the mean and variability of daily precipitation to be adjusted simultaneously, which turned out to be indispensable for the realistic simulation of extreme discharge events. It was observed that the changes in the extreme quantiles of multi-day precipitation and discharge in the winter half-year (i.e. the flooding season) are to a large extent determined by the global climate model (GCM) which drives the RCM at its lateral boundaries. One of the two used GCMs leads to a decrease in the relative variability of the modelled winter precipitation. This decrease largely compensates the effect of the increasing mean precipitation on the extremes. As a result, the RCM simulations driven by this GCM show a slight decrease of the quantiles at intermediate return periods and only a slight increase of those at long return periods. In the simulations driven by the other GCM the relative variability of precipitation hardly changes and the extreme quantiles roughly increase proportionally with the mean precipitation. Resampling data from RCMs combined with hydrological modelling proves to be a suitable instrument to obtain more insight in the changes of rare discharge extremes of rivers like the Meuse. The biases in the mean and variability of RCM precipitation and their correction deserve careful consideration. In particular for the study to extreme precipitation events, changes in precipitation variability are as important as changes in the mean. In the flooding season these changes are primarily determined by the driving GCM. The model uncertainty in the changes of such extreme events is therefore best represented by an ensemble of modelruns, driven by different GCMs.


The Sterkfontein Caves has an 80 year history of yielding remarkable evidence of hominin evolution and is currently the world's richest Australopithecus-beafing site. Included in Sterkfontein's hominin assemblage is StW 573 ('Little Foot'). Discovered in the Member 2 deposit in the Silberberg Grotto, StW 573 represents the most complete Australopithecus skeleton yet found. Because of its importance to the fossil hominin record, the geological age of Little Foot has been the subject of significant debate. Two main hypotheses have been proposed regarding the formation and age of Member 2 and by association StW 573. The first, proposes that Member 2 formed relatively rapidly, starting to accumulate at around 2.8 million years ago and that the unit is isolated to the Silberberg Grotto - the underlying chambers and passages forming later. The second proposes that Member 2 formed slowly, its accumulation starting before 3.67 million years ago and that the deposit extends into the Milner Hall and close to the base of the cave system. Both assume a primary association between StW 573 and Member 2, although which sediments in the Silberberg Grotto are associated with Member 2 has also been questioned. Recently a third alternative hypothesis questioning the association of StW 573 to Member 2 sediments proposed a 'two-stage burial scenario' in which sediments associated with StW 573 represent a secondary and mixed-age deposit reworked from a higher cave. The stratigraphic and sedimentological implications of these hypotheses are tested here through the application of a multiscale investigation of Member 2, with reference to the taphonomy of the Little Foot skeleton. The complete infilling sequence of Member 2 is described and depositional units are tracked across all exposures of the deposit in the Silberberg Grotto and into the Milner Hall. Facies development follows patterns characteristic of colluvially accumulated taluses with 30-40° angles of repose developing coarser distal facies. Sediments are generally stratified and conformably deposited in a sequence of silty sands eroded from well-developed lateritic soils on the landscape surface. Voids, clasts and bioclasts are organized consistently across and through Member 2 according to the underlying deposit geometry, indicating a gradual deposit accretion with no distinct collapse facies evident, no successive debris flow accumulation, and only localized intra-unit post- depositional modification. The stratigraphy and sedimentology of Member 2 supports a simple single-stage accumulation process through which Member 2 partially fills the Silberberg Grotto and extends into the deeper chambers and passages of the Sterkfontein Caves. Through this work we demonstrate at multiple scales the primary association between the sediments of Member 2 and the StW 573 'Little Foot' skeleton.


Rebates from infant formula manufacturers to State agencies that administer the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) support over one-quarter of all WIC participants. However, concerns have been raised that WIC and its infant formula rebate program may significantly affect the infant formula prices faced by non-WIC consumers. This report presents findings from the most comprehensive national study of infant formula prices at the retail level. For a given set of wholesale prices, WIC and its infant formula rebate program resulted in modest increases in the supermarket price of infant formula, especially in States with a high percentage of WIC formula-fed infants. However, lower priced infant formulas are available to non-WIC consumers in most areas of the country, and the number of these lower priced alternatives is increasing over time.


In September 2007, Americans Jenna Cook and her daughter, Pia, arrive in Wapendeza Village, Kenya. On the heels of her divorce, Jenna is returning to where she taught in the Peace Corps in fifteen years ago. Jenna and Pia are staying with Jenna's old friend, Winston, at his property on the beach. Winston's property, The Mangrove, serves as a job for several dozen workers from the surrounding village who cook, clean, and garden. Jenna teaches at Wapendeza's primary school, where she befriends a young student, Moni.Moni is twelve years old. Her sister, Vivian, is fifteen, and has been dating a local pikipiki driver who is much older. Moni's mom, Mercy, has been dealing with illness for a while and her health continues to decline. When Jenna realizes that Moni's family is struggling, she begins bringing them food and clothes.In the meantime, Pia spends more time around Martin, a boy a few years her senior who works at The Mangrove. The two begin seeing each other romantically.Kenya is approaching historic elections that will, in a matter of months, rip apart villages along tribal lines and displace hundreds of thousands of people. Fliers circulate in Wapendeza Village (partly the doing of Martin's best friend, Ebechi, who works for the incumbent president's campaign office in the village), and campaign vehicles drive through regularly. Moni's family and most of those she spends time around, including Martin, are Kikuyu, the tribe of the incumbent president. Winston, however, and some others in the village, are supportive of the other candidate.After staying with her boyfriend away from home for a particularly long time, Vivian is kicked out altogether. The girls' mother's condition worsens, and she ultimately passes away.Disagreements between Winston and his staff over politics grow more and more tense. Martin steals a gun from a locked closet in Winston's banda so Moni's family can protect themselves from targeted violence against Kikuyus.As the elections come, Jenna takes Pia to Tsavo National Park to camp. Martin drives them, and Jenna finds out that he and Pia are in love, a fact she does not take well. When they return, Kenyan elections have finished running, and the incumbent president has been declared the winner to much controversy. The village is erupting in spirited arguments, and Winston is more furious than ever. The gun that Moni's family had has been stolen from their house.A letter arrives for Jenna and Pia; Pia's father believes it's no longer safe for his daughter to stay in Kenya and is insistent that she come home immediately. Pia is furious, believing she's being punished for her relationship with Martin. On the day before Pia is set to leave, she sneaks out of The Mangrove to spend time with Martin at his house. Ebechi finds them and says that her mother is looking for her, and that they must be getting back immediately. As the three walk back to The Mangrove, they encounter Arman, a village Luo at odds with Ebechi. When an argument erupts between the two, Arman shoots Ebechi with the stolen gun, and he dies at Pia's feet.In the aftermath, Pia does not make her flight home, much to the horror of her father. There are village riots centered on the injustice of Ebechi's death, and the school building is lit on fire. Jenna and Winston are some of the first responders and must choose between using the fresh water stored in tanks that is supposed to get the village through the dry season to put out the fire, or let the school burn and save the water.The women in this story—Jenna, Pia, Moni, Vivian, and Mercy—all deal with difficult relationships with men, overcoming reliance and abuse to grow more independent. Vivian and Pia, the same age, serve as parallels to one another. Pia and Moni both grow up over the course of the story, adopting adult responsibilities. Vivian grows closer to her family, and Jenna ultimately grows closer to her daughter. In the aftermath of historic corrupt elections that changed the course of Kenya's government, the women become their own leaders.


Studies have been carried out to determine the characteristics of a three-coordinate digital autocollimator under laboratory conditions. The results of the studies confirmed that the proposed autocollimator can efficiently determine the angular strains of large objects of the type of the primary mirror of a radio telescope.