This article describes challenges faced by a team of interns and students working for a not-for-profit sister company of a private U.S.-based land development company planning to build a "sustainable city" in the Panamanian forest. Testing the contaminated water of a nearby village, the team demonstrated that residents have been living with water-related illness. Despite the indifference and conflicting aims of the parent company, potentially impactful social capital connections were made. The author reflects on these efforts within the critique of student "voluntourism." He also explores the role of social media in the production of narratives of sustainable development within the context of a poorly regulated land market. Keywords: water access and water-related illness; sustainable development; medical anthropology; public health; tourism; voluntourism; social capital; social media narratives


Real-time differential GPS is fundamentally limited by a) signal estimation errors, b) satellite ephemeris errors, c) propagation decorrelation errors, and d) local multipath errors. In this paper we address the latter two error sources. An understanding of these is needed to establish an error budget for any monitor station network that the U.S. Coast Guard would consider for a nationwide system.

To estimate these error sources, extensive two-frequency P-code and integrated Doppler data have been collected over 150 kilometer and 1500 kilometer baselines. A processing scheme is developed which employs both code and carrier observations. Applicable to real-time differential systems, as well as to post-collection data analyses, the estimation scheme treats multipath errors and carrier-code offsets as state-variables. The resulting Kalman filter yields the very precise carrier observation, corrected for carrier-code offset.

Day-to-day repeatability of multipath errors is illustrated. The decorrelation of ionospheric errors across short and long baselines is evaluated by combining the integrated Doppler estimation scheme with the standard two-frequency ionospheric measurement technique. Also discussed are the impact of multipath and ionospheric error sources on Differential GPS.


A transformation-optics wedge waveguide designed for the simultaneous collection and directional collimation of pulsed dipole radiation is described and tested with numerical simulation. Azimuthal compression of free space toward a narrow fan-shaped waveguide sector allows dipole pulse radiation in free space to be transformed into a directional non-dispersive pulse propagating within that sector. The collection and collimation ability of the proposed structure is compared with classical approaches using metallic wedge mirrors and parabolic mirrors, which inherently allow multiple internal reflections and thus generate significant pulse distortion and low light-collection efficiency. It is shown that the optical pulse generated by the dipole and propagated through the proposed transformation-optics waveguide maintains its original shape within the structure, and demonstrates enhanced optical power.


Barremian-Aptian shallow-water carbonate deposits (also known generically as Urgonian limestones) are found in several tectonic-structural units of the Carpathian area and its foreland: (1) the Bucovinic and Transylvanian nappes of the eastern Carpathians, with Urgonian limestones occurring in the Rarau, Haghimas and Persani mountains; (2) the Danubian Autochthon and the Getic Nappe of the southern Carpathians, with Urgonian limestones present in the Cerna Unit (autochthonous) and in the Dâmbovicioara, Vânturarita, Hateg-Pui and Resita areas (within the Getic Nappe); (3) the autochthon of the northern Apuseni Mountains (Bihor-Padurea Craiului Unit), and (4) Moesian Platform and southern Dobrogea. Some of these units have never (or only very poorly) been studied for their calcareous algae content. This study mostly concerns seven of these units: the Moesian Platform/southern Dobrogea, Hȧghimas, Persani, Dâmbovicioara, Vânturarita, and Resita areas, and the Padurea Craiului massif. From these seven areas, a total of 104 species of calcareous algae have been described (75 dasy-cladalean species, 15 halimedacean species, 9 gymnocodiacean species, 4 rhodophycean species, and one species of charophyte). Most of the taxa have been identified in the Resita-Moldova Noua area (a total of 77 species), followed by the Padurea Craiului (40 species), Haghimas (23 species), and southern Dobrogea-Moesian Platform (20 species) areas. The other four areas (Dâmbovicioara, Cerna-Vâlcan, Vânturarita and Persani) provided very scarce information (7, 6, 4 and 2 identified species respectively). The most common taxa are Salpingoporella muehlbergii and Salpingoporella pygmaea (as Salpingoporella exilis), followed by Anisoporella? cretacea. Comments on the correct taxonomic assignment of some species (e.g. Salpingoporella dinarica) that, in our opinion, do not occur within Romania, and some stratigraphic, paleoecologic and paleogeographic remarks are included.


Natural materials such as bone and tooth achieve precisely tuned mechanical and interfacial properties by varying the concentration and orientation of their nanoscale constituents. However, the realization of such control in engineered foams is limited by manufacturing‐driven tradeoffs among the size, order, and dispersion uniformity of the building blocks. It is demonstrated how to manufacture nanocomposite foams with precisely controllable mechanical properties via aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) growth followed by atomic layer deposition (ALD). By starting with a low density CNT forest and varying the ALD coating thickness, we realize predictable ≈1000‐fold control of Young's modulus (14 MPa to 20 GPa, where E ∼ ρ 2.8), ultimate compressive strength (0.8 MPa to 0.16 GPa), and energy absorption (0.4 to 400 J cm–3). Owing to the continuous, long CNTs within the ceramic nanocomposite, the compressive strength and toughness of the new material are 10‐fold greater than commercially available aluminum foam over the same density range. Moreover, the compressive stiffness and strength equal that of compact bone at 10% lower density. Along with emerging technologies for scalable patterning and roll‐to‐roll manufacturing and lamination of CNT films, coated CNT foams may be especially suited to multifunctional applications such as catalysis, filtration, and thermal protection.


Autoregressions of quarterly or annual aggregate time series provide evidence of trend-reverting output growth and of short-term dynamic adjustment that appears to be governed by complex eigenvalues. This finding is at odds with the predictions of reasonably parameterized, convex one-sector growth models, most of which have positive real characteristic roots. We study a class of one-sector economies, overlapping generations with finite life spans of L greater than or equal to 3, in which aggregate saving depends nontrivially on the distribution of wealth among cohorts. If consumption goods are weak gross substitutes near the steady state price vector, we prove that the unique equilibrium of a life cycle exchange economy converges to the unique steady state via damped oscillations. We also conjecture that this form of trend reversion extends to production economies with a relatively flat factor-price frontier, and we test this conjecture in several plausible parameterizations of 55-period life cycle economies.


The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.


We present the first independent empirical study on schedule bounding techniques for systematic concurrency testing (SCT). We have gathered 52 buggy concurrent software benchmarks, drawn from public code bases, which we call SCTBench. We applied a modified version of an existing concurrency testing tool to SCTBench to attempt to answer several research questions, including: How effective are the two main schedule bounding techniques, preemption bounding and delay bounding, at bug finding? What challenges are associated with applying SCT to existing code? How effective is schedule bounding compared to a naive random scheduler at finding bugs? Our findings confirm that delay bounding is superior to preemption bounding and that schedule bounding is more effective at finding bugs than unbounded depth-first search. The majority of bugs in SCTBench can be exposed using a small bound (1-3), supporting previous claims, but there is at least one benchmark that requires 5 preemptions. Surprisingly, we found that a naive random scheduler is at least as effective as schedule bounding for finding bugs. We have made SCTBench and our tools publicly available for reproducibility and use in future work.


Episodic future thinking allows humans to mentally simulate virtually infinite future possibilities, yet this device is fundamentally goal-directed and should not be equated with fantasizing or wishful thinking. The purpose of this fMRI study was to investigate the neural basis of such goal-directed processing during future-event simulation. Participants were scanned while they imagined future events that were related to their personal goals (personal future events) and future events that were plausible but unrelated to their personal goals (nonpersonal future events). Results showed that imaging personal future events elicited stronger activation in ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) compared to imaging nonpersonal future events. Moreover, these brain activations overlapped with activations elicited by a second task that assessed semantic self-knowledge (i.e., making judgments on one's own personality traits), suggesting that ventral MPFC and PCC mediate self-referential processing across different functional domains. It is suggested that these brain regions may support a collection of processes that evaluate, code, and contextualize the relevance of mental representations with regard to personal goals. The implications of these findings for the understanding of the function instantiated by the default network of the brain are also discussed.


Born in 1938, R. H. Miller was the oldest of four hearing boys with deaf parents in Defiance, Ohio, a small agricultural community. "Deaf Hearing Boy" is Miller s compelling account of the complex dynamics at work in his family, including the inter-generational conflicts in which he found himself, the oldest child of deaf adults (CODA), caught in the middle. In 1942, Miller s family moved to Toledo so that his father could find work. There, they fared well during World War II because his father worked in manufacturing as a member of Roosevelt s civilian army. Miller s mother loved urban life, where she and the family could immerse themselves in the Toledo Deaf community, especially at the Toledo Silent Club. The end of the war marked the end of prosperity for the Miller family. Returning soldiers displaced all of the deaf workers, who then had to scrape for a living. The Millers, close to destitution, returned to the family farm in Defiance. Miller depicts the return to farm life as one of tremendous hardship, both economically and psychologically. They lived off the land from hand to mouth. He also describes his grandparents distrust of his parents because they were deaf, and he writes candidly of his role as an unwilling agent in the misunderstandings between them. Miller also portrays the bias he endured in school and town. Parents of girlfriends would force their daughters to stop dating him for fear that his family s deafness would be passed down. In the early 1950s, Miller s grandparents sold the farm and his parents returned to industrial work. Miller excelled at school, and eventually left home for college and life in academia. His later reflections reveal a deep, abiding respect for his parents, despite his early difficulties. "Deaf Hearing Boy" presents an intimate depiction of a changing time for hearing and deaf Americans alike, when the family farm disappeared and the isolation of Deaf people also began to fade. In witnessing this transformation of society through his family s life, Miller adds an important chapter to the collective narrative of Deaf people, one made all the more poignant and vivid as told by their Deaf Hearing boy."


Brian Cooper. Ray Schalk: A Baseball Biography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. Paper, $29.95. Enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame are no less than thirteen pitchers and catchers who were batterymates at one time or another during their careers. It is a safe bet that only one author has written a pair of full-length biographies describing the lives and baseball careers of one such combo. The subject of Brian E. Cooper's latest work is Ray Schalk, long-time catching great for the Chicago White Sox. Cooper takes the diminutive, but fiery catcher from beginning to end in Ray Schalk: A Baseball Biography. In 2007, Cooper published a biography of Red Faber, the pitching teammate of Schalk and fellow Hall of Famer. The two met for the first time between the 1913 and 1914 baseball seasons as members of a White Sox contingent playing a series of games in preparation for a four-month, world-wide tour organized by Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox, and John McGraw, the irascible manager of the powerful New York Giants. Given the fact that Schalk and Faber played together for over fourteen seasons and became close friends for life, it seems fitting that Cooper should do the honors for both men in describing their illustrious playing careers. The tale of Raymond William Schalk begins in 1892 with his birth to German immigrants who had settled in Harvel, a small village in downstate Illinois. A few years later, the family moved to nearby Litchfield, where at fifteen Ray filled in as a catcher for a local semipro team, quickly establishing a reputation for toughness that far exceeded his small size and youthful appearance. By 1912, just four seasons later and one day short of his twentieth birthday, that reputation had boosted him into the professional ranks. After a brief stint with Milwaukee's American Association franchise, Schalk was traded to the Chicago White Sox. The amount paid for Schalk, estimated at fifteen thousand dollars and players, seemed like a lot for a youngster teammates likened to a batboy, but it proved to be one of Comiskey's greatest steals. The White Sox owner would not again require a regular catcher for well over a decade. Schalk, nicknamed "Cracker" by his teammates, remained in the major leagues for eighteen seasons, all but one with the White Sox, including a term as player-manager beginning in 1927 and extending into the 1928 season. Over the course of Schalk's career he established several records for catching durability. When he retired in early 1929 he held the career record for catching appearances. In 1920 he caught in a then-record 151 of his team's 154 games. That is quite a feat of stamina for a man who stood 5'9" and weighed 165 pounds. While crouched behind the plate he would deftly handle pitching staffs that helped the White Sox to one World Series victory in 1917 and the brink of another in the scandal-marred World Series of 1919. Author Brian Cooper takes us in chronological fashion through the scrappy catcher's life, peppering the story with news of the day culled from the many newspaper articles the author reviewed in researching the ballplayer's life. …


Solid-state drives (SSDs) are extensively used to deploy persistent data stores, as they provide low latency random access, high write throughput, high data density, and low cost. Tree-based data structures are widely used to build persistent data stores, and indeed they lie at the backbone of many of the data management systems used in production and research today.
 We show that benchmarking a persistent tree-based data structure on an SSD is a complex process, which may easily incur subtle pitfalls that can lead to an inaccurate performance assessment. At a high-level, these pitfalls stem from the interaction of complex software running on complex hardware. On the one hand, tree structures implement internal operations that have non-trivial effects on performance. On the other hand, SSDs employ firmware logic to deal with the idiosyncrasies of the underlying flash memory, which are well known to also lead to complex performance dynamics.
 We identify seven benchmarking pitfalls using RocksDB and WiredTiger, two widespread implementations of an LSM-Tree and a B+Tree, respectively. We show that such pitfalls can lead to incorrect measurements of key performance indicators, hinder the reproducibility and the representativeness of the results, and lead to suboptimal deployments in production environments. We also provide guidelines on how to avoid these pitfalls to obtain more reliable performance measurements, and to perform more thorough and fair comparisons among different design points.


"Science, not Silence", this is what over one million people demanded when they protested in over 600 cities worldwide on April 22th 2017. Initiated in the United States, scientists and associates set out in an era of perceived post-facticity to defend evidence-based facts against post-truth politics. However, what is the origin of such a March for Science, what idea of science did it represent and what is it, if anything, it forecloses? Referring to Michel Foucault, I intend to follow up these questions by (1) reconstructing the first month of the movement, (2) analysing its inner claim of a singular (search for) truth as well as (3) questioning this claim, focussing on an adverse category in their desired era of facticity: the affective.


There appears to be a rift between the theoretical and normative understandings of what reconciliation means and offers, and what people expect to happen in postconflict scenarios. Here we present a conceptual framework that captures the definitional diversity surrounding the concept of reconciliation and then operationalizes it in order to analyze responses from postconflict populations. The illustrative application of our framework to responses from a representative survey of 1,843 Colombian citizens reveals that people's convictions are just as diverse as scholars'. Nevertheless, significant proportions of respondents seem to understand reconciliation to be primarily a psychological and political process which aims to achieve the re-establishment of quotidian or day-to-day relations and cooperation; which should be preceded by the cessation of violence, dialogue, goodwill, and attitudinal and emotional change; and which should be accompanied by social welfare and security. It is noteworthy that understandings of reconciliation as a process mediated by justice, truth, and memory are scarce. The application of this framework will help to reveal differences between hopes and promises, and inform scholarly work and policymaking that is more realistically rooted.


The shifting trend of conventional to the electric drivetrain in automotive industries makes batteries become the most favorable energy storage. There are three types of battery cells that are commonly used for electric vehicles i.e., cylindrical cells, pouch cells, and prismatic cells. The use of active material such as lithium-ion in the battery of electric vehicles could bring some issues related to the safety field. For that reason, comprehensive research on battery failure analysis needs to be conducted. This paper reviews the recent progress of the use of battery cells in electric vehicles and some challenges which must be considered to assure their safety. There are a lot of studies on battery failure analysis, which mainly focuses on the appearance of a short circuit as the main cause of the thermal runaway event. Several proposals on predicting short circuits in the battery due to various loading are comprehensively discussed. Those research results can be considered to establish regulations in designing battery protectors.


Story Retell Narratives in Five School-Aged Children with Language Impairment Megan Bradshaw Deere Department of Communication Disorders, BYU Master of Science Many children identified with Language Impairment (LI) demonstrate difficulty comprehending and producing narratives. Their narratives are often structurally less complex and of overall poorer quality than those produced by their typically developing peers. These difficulties may negatively impact the academic and social success of children with LI. This thesis evaluates the performance of five school-aged children with LI on a story retell probe embedded within an intervention designed to address their social and emotional language abilities. During the 10-week intervention, participants completed a series of story retell probes using wordless picture books. The story stimuli were taken from the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument, which included six stories (divided into two story sets), elicited twice (12 total story retells). The production of story grammar (SG) categories was analyzed for each story retell. The results for each participant and SG category varied greatly, but all participants had difficulty producing the more complex SG elements. Although each participant demonstrated some improvement from the first retell to the second on at least one story, overall performance remained fairly stable over the 10-week period. Future research is needed to determine effective ways to support more complex story narratives in children with LI.


The work here describes the synthesis of tailor-made, porous, polymeric materials with elastic moduli in the range associated with mammalian brain tissue (0.1–24 kPa). Three new emulsion-templated porous polymer materials (polyHIPEs) were synthesised by thiol–ene photopolymerisation from hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA) and polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) crosslinkers and compared with a previously reported material prepared from trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA). The materials were found to have an average pore diameter of 30–63 μm and a porosity of 77% and above. PEGDA crosslinked materials at 80 and 85% porosity, when swollen in PBS at 37 °C, were found to have an elastic modulus of 18 and 9.0 kPa respectively. PEGDA crosslinked materials were also found to have a swelling ratio of 700% in PBS at 37 °C. PEGDA crosslinked materials had improved visible light transmission properties when compared to TMPTA crosslinked materials under a bright field microscope. All materials were shown via hematoxylin and eosin staining to support the infiltration and attachment of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs). HNPCs on all materials were demonstrated in short term 3D cultures to maintain a phenotype consistent with early neural lineage specification via immunohistochemical staining for the intermediate filament protein vimentin.


Today, legal controversies are tried in the court of public opinion as much as in any court of law. Corporate lawyers' traditional tendency, however, has been to attempt to isolate legal activities from public relations activities. Accordingly, when providing legal advice, they have viewed media considerations as separate. Historically corporate counsels' typical media strategy often consisted of no more than, "no comment." Given today's saturated media culture, this is no longer a viable strategy. Indeed, it appears that some corporate lawyers are adapting to the new media environment and attempting to help their clients manage the public relations impact of legal controversies. To date, however, there has been little systematic evidence gathered on the role corporate lawyers play in the court of public opinion for their clients' legal controversies and little sustained examination of the implications of these trends. The purpose of this project is to analyze: (1) how the court of public opinion impacts legal controversies of large, publicly traded corporations that have high demand for legal services; (2) how the general counsels of these corporations manage the intersection of public relations and law; and (3) what should be the corporate lawyer 's ethical obligations, if any, in this extra-judicial court. To investigate these questions, the author sent a questionnaire to all general counsels of the S&P 500 and conducted fifty-seven interviews with general counsels of S&P 500 corporations, law firm partners, and public relations consultants. The preliminary findings from this study will appear in two installments in the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. The first installment focuses on how the court of public opinion can impact legal controversies and how corporate attorneys currently manage legal public relations for their corporate clients. It argues that the court of public opinion is a real part of our justice system and that managing legal public relations (legal PR) is a legitimate and fundamental component of corporate legal services. It contends that the role corporate attorneys play in managing legal PR for corporate clients is at odds with the conventional view and that it is time to broaden our view of the corporate attorney's role in this arena. The second installment highlights examples of wrongdoing by corporate attorneys and contends that there is little oversight of lawyers' typical management of legal PR "behind the scenes." Because professional guidelines focus on lawyers' extrajudicial statements regarding matters that are adjudicated in a court of law, they put the spotlight on the wrong place and are therefore not relevant to the way corporate lawyers manage public relations. Moreover, these professional guidelines risk a race to the bottom - where lawyers' ability to spin is valued over their ability to provide effective legal advice that accounts for PR concerns and the corporation's long-term interests. Although the court of public opinion is an extra-legal decision-maker, it does not fit the traditional adjudicative proceeding paradigm. Therefore, the second installment contends that some level of advocacy may be appropriate in that alternate-court, but that corporate lawyers should still act in a socially responsible manner and counsel their clients to act that way as well. Ultimately, this Article recommends revised education methods and disciplinary rules to provide better guidance to lawyers as to how to ethically manage legal PR for corporate clients.


In this paper, we propose a new supervised learning method for binary classification, named the pairwise Rayleigh quotient (PRQ) classifier, in which the nonlinearity is achieved by employing kernel functions. The PRQ classifier generates a Rayleigh quotient based on a set of pairwise constraints, which consequently leads to a generalized eigenvalue problem with low complexity of implementation. The PRQ classifier is applied in the original feature space for linear classification, as well as in a transformed feature space by employing the triangle kernel for nonlinear classification, to discriminate malignant breast tumors from a set of 57 regions in mammograms, of which 20 are related to malignant tumors and 37 to benign masses. Nine different feature combinations are studied. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed linear PRQ classifier provides results comparable to those obtained with Fisher linear discriminant analysis (FLDA). In the case of nonlinear classification, the PRQ classifier with the triangle kernel provides a perfect performance of 1.0 for all of the nine feature combinations evaluated in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve, but with good robustness limited to the setting of the kernel parameter in a certain range. We propose a measure of robustness to evaluate the PRQ classifier.


Task oriented dialog agents provide a natural language interface for users to complete their goal. Dialog State Tracking (DST), which is often a core component of these systems, tracks the system's understanding of the user's goal throughout the conversation. To enable accurate multi-domain DST, the model needs to encode dependencies between past utterances and slot semantics and understand the dialog context, including long-range cross-domain references. We introduce a novel architecture for this task to encode the conversation history and slot semantics more robustly by using attention mechanisms at multiple granularities. In particular, we use cross-attention to model relationships between the context and slots at different semantic levels and self-attention to resolve cross-domain coreferences. In addition, our proposed architecture does not rely on knowing the domain ontologies beforehand and can also be used in a zero-shot setting for new domains or unseen slot values. Our model improves the joint goal accuracy by 5% (absolute) in the full-data setting and by up to 2% (absolute) in the zero-shot setting over the present state-of-the-art on the MultiWoZ 2.1 dataset.


Although the effects of the coalescent process on sequence divergence and genealogies are well understood, the virtual majority of studies that use molecular sequences to estimate times of divergence among species have failed to account for the coalescent process. Here we study the impact of ancestral population size and incomplete lineage sorting on Bayesian estimates of species divergence times under the molecular clock when the inference model ignores the coalescent process. Using a combination of mathematical analysis, computer simulations and analysis of real data, we find that the errors on estimates of times and the molecular rate can be substantial when ancestral populations are large and when there is substantial incomplete lineage sorting. For example, in a simple three-species case, we find that if the most precise fossil calibration is placed on the root of the phylogeny, the age of the internal node is overestimated, while if the most precise calibration is placed on the internal node, then the age of the root is underestimated. In both cases, the molecular rate is overestimated. Using simulations on a phylogeny of nine species, we show that substantial errors in time and rate estimates can be obtained even when dating ancient divergence events. We analyse the hominoid phylogeny and show that estimates of the neutral mutation rate obtained while ignoring the coalescent are too high. Using a coalescent-based technique to obtain geological times of divergence, we obtain estimates of the mutation rate that are within experimental estimates and we also obtain substantially older divergence times within the phylogeny [Current Zoology 61 (5): 874–885, 2015].


The tropical bont tick, Amblyomma variegatum, is a tick species of veterinary importance and is considered as one of major pest of ruminants in Africa and in the Caribbean. It causes direct skin lesions, transmits heartwater, and reactivates bovine dermatophilosis. Tick saliva is reported to affect overall host responses through immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory molecules, among other bioactive molecules. The general objective of this study was to better understand the role of saliva in interaction between the Amblyomma tick and the host using cellular biology approaches and proteomics, and to discuss its impact on disease transmission and/or activation. We first focused on the immuno-modulating effects of semi-fed A. variegatum female saliva on bovine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and monocyte-derived macrophages in vitro. We analyzed its immuno-suppressive properties by measuring the effect of saliva on PBMC proliferation, and observed a significant decrease in ConA-stimulated PBMC lymphoproliferation. We then studied the effect of saliva on bovine macrophages using flow cytometry to analyze the expression of MHC-II and co-stimulation molecules (CD40, CD80, and CD86) and by measuring the production of nitric oxide (NO) and pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokines. We observed a significant decrease in the expression of MHC-II, CD40, and CD80 molecules, associated with decreased levels of IL-12-p40 and TNF-α and increased level of IL-10, which could explain the saliva-induced modulation of NO. To elucidate these immunomodulatory effects, crude saliva proteins were analyzed using proteomics with an Orbitrap Elite mass spectrometer. Among the 336 proteins identified in A. variegatum saliva, we evidenced bioactive molecules exhibiting anti-inflammatory, immuno-modulatory, and anti-oxidant properties (e.g., serpins, phospholipases A2, heme lipoprotein). We also characterized an intriguing ubiquitination complex that could be involved in saliva-induced immune modulation of the host. We propose a model for the interaction between A. variegatum saliva and host immune cells that could have an effect during tick feeding by favoring pathogen dissemination or activation by reducing the efficiency of host immune response to the corresponding tick-borne diseases.


This study analyses how different types of system-level (or 'landscape') structural reforms in higher education have been designed and implemented in selected higher education systems. In the 12 case studies that form the core of the project, the researchers examine reforms aimed at:• Increasing horizontal differentiation between different types of higher education institutions (for example reforms to introduce or modify the role of universities of applied science);• Increasing vertical differentiation through increasing or decreasing positional or status differences between higher education institutions (for example, reforms aimed at concentrating research in a limited number of universities) and;• Changing institutional interrelationships between higher education institutions (for example, through mergers, the formation of associations of institutions).In each case, the researchers set out to understand the origins and objectives of the reforms examined, the why they were designed and implemented, the extent to which they achieved their objectives and the factors affecting success or failure. The overall objective is to provide policy makers at the European, national and institutional levels with policy relevant conclusions concerning the design, implementation and evaluation of structural reforms


KUSSOVSKA, V., 2010. Crossability of euploid and monosomic Triticum aestivum lines with different ploidi Secale cereale. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 669-672 The influence of wheat genotype, their 1D, 3D, 4D and 5B chromosomes and ploidy degree of rye on crossability were studied. Several cultivars (cv.) from Triticum aestivum L. (2n=42) are included in the investigation: Chinese Spring (CS), its line with a mutation in Ph1 gene (CSph1), its monosomic lines by 1D, 3D, 4D and 5B chromosomes, Bezostaya 1 (B1), Rannaya 12 (R12) and their monosomic lines by 1D, 3D and 5B chromosomes. From the Secale cereale L. the following rye inbred lines were included: two diploid inbred lines (2n=14)Bulgarian Low Stem Rye (BLSR) and Lozen14 (L14); one tetraploid inbred line (2n=28)Vladimirovka (Vl.). The seed set depends on the wheat and rye parental genotypes, 1D, 3D and 5B wheat chromosomes and ploidy degree of rye. Chinese Spring cv. is characterized by the best crossability. The monosomy by 1D, 3D and 5B chromosomes in CS cv., causes decrease of the crossability with the three ryes inbred lines. The monosomy by 1D and 3D chromosomes decreases the crossability in B1 and R12 cvs. and the monosomy by 5B chromosome increases it. The rye ploidy level influences negatively the viability of the hybrids seeds. In the crosses with tetraploid rye were not obtained hybrids plants. Probably the reason is more in the higher genome and chromosome disbalance than in the crosses with the diploid rye.


Abstract The broad-clawed shrews (Soricomorpha: Soricidae: Cryptotis) encompass a clade of 5 species—Cryptotis alticolus (Merriam), C. goldmani (Merriam), C. goodwini Jackson, C. griseoventris Jackson, and C. peregrinus (Merriam)—that is known collectively as the Cryptotis goldmani group and is characterized by broadened forefeet, elongated and broadened fore claws, and broadened humeri. These shrews are distributed in highland regions from central Mexico to Honduras. Two broad-clawed shrews, C. goodwini and C. griseoventris, occur in southern Mexico and Guatemala and are presumed sister species whose primary distinguishing feature is the larger size of C. goodwini. In an investigation of variation within and between these 2 species, I studied characteristics of the postcranial skeleton. Statistical analyses of a variety of character suites indicate that the forelimb morphology in this group exhibits less intraspecific variation and greater interspecific variation than cranio-mandibular morphology, although most skull characters support groupings based on forelimb characters. Together, these characters define 4 distinct groups among the specimens examined. C. griseoventris is restricted to the northern highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, and C. goodwini occurs in the southern highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala. Herein, I describe 2 new species of broad-clawed shrews from the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, Guatemala.


Thousands of ichthyosaurs have been discovered from the rich Lower Jurassic deposits of the UK, with the majority collected from along the Lyme Regis-Charmouth area of the Dorset coast. Here, I describe a new leptonectid ichthyosaur, Wahlisaurus massarae gen. et sp. nov., based on a partial skull and an incomplete skeleton collected from the Lower Jurassic (Hettangian) of Nottinghamshire, England. Wahlisaurus can be referred to the Leptonectidae through the possession of an extremely slender and delicate snout, and a mandible shorter than the snout which produces an overbite. This referral is supported by a phylogenetic analysis. The new taxon is distinguished from other ichthyosaurs through a unique combination of characters and autapomorphies of the pectoral girdle including the presence of both a scapular-coracoid foramen and a large and roughly ovoid coracoid foramen. A coracoid foramen has only previously been reported in the Triassic ichthyosaur Cymbospondylus. The peculiar coracoid morphology further highlights the taxonomic utility of coracoids in ichthyosaurs. The aforementioned features demonstrate that W. massarae cannot be referred to any currently recognized leptonectid. Wahlisaurus is the ninth Lower Jurassic ichthyosaur genus to be recognized worldwide, and the fifth documented in the Lower Lias Group. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:EE500E11-66AB-43C8-BB59-F21654763241


Extracted from text ... PRESIDENT'S COMMENT
Dr Tjaart van der Walt
The municipal elections are finally over but the bickering about
service delivery is likely to linger. Irrespective of which party
you have voted for, acknowledgement must to be given to the
government's efforts for redirecting resources to previously disadvantaged
areas for the provision of basic services. They should proudly
boast about these achievements without sounding defensive, but
should be accountable for the deterioration of existing services.
Over the last decade millions of new households were linked to
water, sewer and electricity networks and hundreds of kilometres of
access roads were tarred. The costs ..


To realize a speech recognition system for our daily life, surrounding noise needs to be considered. Many studies have been done for parameters which are robust in a noisy environment. This paper presents a new parameter which is based on a psychoacoustical rule‐base model. First the spectral local peaks of formants are calculated as a basic parameter. By performing this operation frame by frame, the parameter can be represented in a three‐dimensional form like a spectrogram. The parameter is then modified by applying psychoacoustical rules to the sequence of peaks, corresponding to a so‐called ''auditory stream'' in a speech. The parameter modification utilizes the characteristics of the parameter such as the synchronous onset or offset, the continuity of sequential peaks, and so on. The efficiency of the proposed parameter is evaluated on an isolated word speech recognition system with various SNR. As a result, the improvement due to the proposed parameter is at least 4 dB in SNR for white noise, in com...


The photonic structures that cause the electric blue colour of some Morpho butterflies are desirable within industry. They have been reproduced on very small areas to produce prototype biomimetic structures, yet there is currently no technique to accurately manufacture these structures at a commercial level. Here, tissue and cell culture techniques are explored as a possible method of producing large quantities of the blue scales of Morpho peliedes. This represents the first attempt to culture the wing scales of a Morpho butterfly, and many problems were encountered. These could be remedied in future studies, but it is concluded that cell culture is probably not a viable technique to provide the Morpho structure for industry in the near future. However, tissue culture experiments revealed important results of scale development.


Abstract The mineralogy of the silt fraction of a 1.5 m-deep, well developed, intensely weathered, greyish soil profile from a toposequence on a tableland covered by agricultural crops in the upper valley of the Jequitinhonha river basin, Minas Gerais, Brazil, has been studied by X-ray powder diffraction, 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy at 298 K and 80 K, and vibrating sample magnetometry. Mössbauer data collected at room temperature indicated about 17 atom% of the iron content of the sample to be structural Fe2+ in phyllosilicates, which X-ray diffraction showed to be mainly halloysite and kaolinite. The magnetization curve also indicates the presence of a ferrimagnetic phase, tentatively identified by Mössbauer spectroscopy as maghemite (γ-Fe2O3). These findings support a pedogenetic model for this soil profile, by which the remaining Fe2+- bearing minerals were first formed under relatively anoxic palaeo-conditions of an intense hydric regime. Subsequent drier local conditions, due to a much improved drainage, favoured intensive weathering, leading to the presently developed Oxisol. Even under the more oxidative conditions, part of the Fe2+-containing phyllosilicates still remained in the profile, which is believed to impart the rather unusual greyish colour (Munsell 10YR 3/2) to this deep tropical soil.


In recent years, as the development of science and technology rapidly accelerated, science- and technology-based industries have emerged. Representative examples are the Information and Telecommunications (IT) industry in the late 20th century and more recently the BioTechnology (BT) and NanoTechnology (NT) industries. However, despite the emergence of science- and technology- based industries, industrial policy-makers have suffered difficulties in grasping exactly what kinds of science and technology they should manage. Therefore, in this research, I propose a method of linking science and technology with industry, by adopting the media wherethrough they are delivered. As the media for conveying science and technology, I make use of the scientific articles administered by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) and the patents registered in the US Patent Office (USPTO). In this way, I identified 750 journals and 84 US patent classes corresponding to the IT industry, 1779 journals and 7 patent classes corresponding to the BT industry and 483 journals and 16 patent classes corresponding to the NT industry. This research is meaningful in that it emphasized the importance and convenience of scientific articles and patents in formulating today's industrial policies and showed how to link science and technology with industry, by using the subject categories of the ISI and the patent classes of the USPTO.


the changes in the Foraminiferal assemblage across three Middle Turonian marl bands show a consistent pattern, with (a) very similar gross assemblage characteristics from the white chalk below and above the marls containing an approximately 60:40% planktonic:benthonic ratio, greater than 50% non-keeled morphotypes (within the planktonic assemblage) and with infaunal and epifaunal groups well represented but (b) from within the marls the assemblage is dominated by benthonics (30:70% p:b ratio), less than 20% non-keeled morphotypes (within the planktonic assemblage) and a benthonic assemblage dominated by the infaunal groups. Although there is evidence of some dissolution within the marls, with the pitting of the thinner test walls, we propose the changes in the assemblage are not due to large scale post mortem diagenetic process. But are most likely due to environmental changes within the chalk sea, possibly caused by the ephemeral introduction into the surface waters of volcanic ash.


Abstract. The ground-based Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) and NASA Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) routinely monitor clouds using zenith radiances at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Using the transmittance calculated from such measurements, we have developed a new retrieval method for cloud effective droplet size and conducted extensive tests for non-precipitating liquid water clouds. The underlying principle is to combine a liquid-water-absorbing wavelength (i.e., 1640 nm) with a non-water-absorbing wavelength for acquiring information on cloud droplet size and optical depth. For simulated stratocumulus clouds with liquid water path less than 300 g m −2 and horizontal resolution of 201 m, the retrieval method underestimates the mean effective radius by 0.8 μm, with a root-mean-squared error of 1.7 μm and a relative deviation of 13%. For actual observations with a liquid water path less than 450 g m −2 at the ARM Oklahoma site during 2007–2008, our 1.5-min-averaged retrievals are generally larger by around 1 μm than those from combined ground-based cloud radar and microwave radiometer at a 5-min temporal resolution. We also compared our retrievals to those from combined shortwave flux and microwave observations for relatively homogeneous clouds, showing that the bias between these two retrieval sets is negligible, but the error of 2.6 μm and the relative deviation of 22% are larger than those found in our simulation case. Finally, the transmittance-based cloud effective droplet radii agree to better than 11% with satellite observations and have a negative bias of 1 μm. Overall, the retrieval method provides reasonable cloud effective radius estimates, which can enhance the cloud products of both ARM and AERONET.


Being in control of requirements in building projects is vital, since it helps securing the often small profit margins and the reputation of the responsible company. Hence this research aims to introduce requirements management to the construction industry. By means of case study and action research conducted at a Danish construction syndicate producing sandwich elements made from High Performance Concrete and insulation materials it is demonstrated that requirements management successfully can be used in construction. Since requirements management as of today has not found its use in this industry, yet, success is here defined as an accomplished and accepted implementation of requirements management processes that are used by the relevant project members in their daily work and where the benefits of implementing requirements management outweighs the cost of invested resources. Furthermore it is argued that when running technology development, product development, product platform development, and a portfolio of building projects at the same time the use of requirements management is advantageous and an intelligent way of structuring requirements is needed. This article also demonstrates that the application of requirements management with gain can be extended to cover entire life cycles as e.g. the life cycle of a building. This is done by proposing a requirements structure that attempts to consider future events. The proposed structure is divided into the areas: company, technology, product platform, and building and covers all encountered types of requirements, e.g. functional (defines what a system is supposed to do), non-functional (defines how a system is supposed to be), technical, organizational, and even personal requirements. As a result the conducted research clearly shows that requirements management can be applied to the construction industry. At the same time it also becomes obvious that it is necessary to open doors to further research looking into not only using requirements databases & processes especially designed for the construction industry but also the training of key personnel in requirements management, and how the introduction of requirements management can impact the construction industry and their customers in the long run.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Carbonates and evaporites of Paleogene-age form the shallow-aquifer rocks that mantle most of Qatar, including the Paleocene and Lower Eocene Umm er Radhuma, and the Middle Eocene Rus and Dammam Formations. Nearly complete 10-cm-diameter rock cores have been recovered from boreholes in central and northern Qatar to depths of greater than 120 m. A 40-m section of exposed Rus and Dammam Formation from a cave in central Qatar (Misfer Cave) was also described. Assessment of aquifer quality in these rocks was undertaken through core and thin-section description, quantitative mineralogical determination (X-ray diffraction), as well as core-plug porosity, permeability, and pore-throat (mercury-injection capillary pressure) measurements. Our work shows that the rocks from central Qatar can be separated into four depositional intervals: 1) m-scale fining-upward cycles of fossiliferous open-marine deposits with clay-rich caps (Umm er Radhuma), 2) fine-grained stromatolite-bearing, restricted shallow-marine deposits (uppermost Umm er Radhuma), 3) m-scale bedded marginal-marine gypsum deposits intercalated with thin shallow marine carbonate and clay deposits and capped by rooted and microcodium-bearing surfaces (Rus Formation), and 4) open-marine carbonates overprinted by karst processes (Dammam). Aquifer storage capacity and hydraulic conductivity are mostly a function of diagenetic features, and in spite of the lack of any evidence of significant burial, the diagenesis of these rocks is complex. The Umm er Radhuma and the Rus carbonates are almost completely dolomitized, whereas the Dammam is only partially dolomitized, with the amount of dolomitization varying both laterally and vertically. Best aquifer quality in central Qatar, based both on core plug data and well spinner tests, can be found in coarsely-dolomitized intervals that lack clay (lower Umm er Radhuma). Finer and clay-bearing dolomitized rocks have storage but lower hydraulic conductivity (upper Umm er Radhuma). Both gypsum-rich rocks and depositional limestones (which are generally mud-bearing) have lower porosity and permeability (Rus and Dammam). In central Qatar the effect of karst overprinting is variable, generally leading to lower matrix porosity and permeability due to clay translocation from above, but large vugs are also observed at exposure surfaces. The borehole in northern Qatar was located within a karst collapse feature (doline) that is characterized by internal drainage. Based on satellite images, the collapse feature, likely reflecting the presence of deeper karst is approximately 1 km in width. Sediment tentatively interpreted as a cave deposit, and composed mainly of dolomite silt, has been observed in this core at depths of greater than 60 m below the surface. This fine-grained material intercalates with courser breccias that are interpreted as collapsed country rock. The impact of karstification on country rock matrix properties (porosity and permeability) is still to be determined. Whereas the rocks from northern Qatar are still under investigation, they are distinct from the central Qatar equivalents in that they lack any bedded evaporites. This leads to the prediction that the shallow aquifer in northern Qatar will be less compartmentalized than in central Qatar. The elemental makeup of waters from different stratigraphic intervals in both boreholes are being compared to help understand how the central and north shallow Qatar aquifers contrast.


Since the adoption of the current Consumer Credit Directive 87/102/EC in 1986, the EU consumer credit market has changed significantly in terms of size and structure. Although amendments were introduced in 1990 and 1999, the Directive no longer addresses the needs of the market. Cross-border lending in the EU has been estimated to be only 2 to 5% of total EU lending, partly owing to variations in the applicable legislation across member states. The reason for the persistent legal differences is that the current regulatory model is based on a minimum harmonisation approach (together with the rules of Art. 5 of the Rome Convention) and national regulators have different views about consumer protection. To move towards greater consistency, the Commission sought to change the regulatory approach from minimum to total harmonisation in its proposed new Consumer Credit Directive. Yet this regulatory method presents several difficulties. The EU legislative process is too long and rigid for a fast-changing market. Further, member states do not wish to lose regulatory powers on issues that may need rapid adaptations to meet social or economic needs. This paper argues that one way forward is to draw from the experience of the strategies used to achieve integration of EU financial markets and adapt it to the field of consumer credit. A variation of the Lamfalussy approach, in which comitology procedures are used in the legislative process, would radically improve the regulatory process for consumer credit. By involving the member states to a greater extent and allowing for quick adaptations, such an approach would ultimately lead to a greater level of market integration.


The future of low‐lying reef islands has been the subject of international concern, scientific debate, and media interest in the last decade. As a result of sea‐level rise, atoll islands are expected to become increasingly unstable and to be susceptible to potential depopulation by the end of the 21st century. Some have suggested that sea‐level rise has already resulted in widespread erosion and inundation of atoll islands. Here, we analyze the physical changes in over 200 islands on 12 atolls in the central and western Pacific in the past few decades when sea level in the region increased at rates three to four times the global average. Results show little evidence of heightened erosion or reduction in island size. Instead island shores have adjusted their position and morphology in response to human impacts such as seawall construction and to variations in climate–ocean processes. These changes are reviewed and the role of sea‐level rise is evaluated. The implications of this analysis are addressed in two parts. First, we consider the proposition that future sea‐level rise will destabilize atoll islands to such an extent that their inhabitants will be forced to migrate offshore. And second, we identify a series of new challenges relating to risk reduction and adaptation policy for atoll island governments, international agencies, and island communities. These require a substantial shift away from the present adaptation paradigm of external migration and focus on the persistence of atoll islands and in‐country solutions. WIREs Clim Change 2015, 6:445–463. doi: 10.1002/wcc.350


The issues surrounding civil disobedience have been discussed since at least 399 BC and, in the wake of such recent events as the protest at Tiananmen Square, are still of great relevance. By presenting classic and current philosophical reflections on the issues, this book presents all the basic materials needed for a philosophical assessment of the nature and justification of civil disobedience. The pieces included range from classic essays by leading contemporary thinkers such as Rawls, Raz and Singer. Hugo Adam Bedau's introduction sets out the issues and shows how the various authors shed light on each aspect of them.


OLAOYE, G. and I. OGUNLADE, 2006. Farmers' response to stem borer control adoption trials in three local government areas of Abia state, Nigeria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 12: 797-802 Maize stalk borer is an indigenous African moth that has larvae that bore into grasses with thick stem. It is a pest of maize, which has the tendency of reducing production by 10 12 percent. This study analyzed farmers' response to adoption of stem borer resistance varieties as a complementary crop management practice in three local government areas of Abia State, Nigeria. Specifically the study examined the socio-economic characteristics of farmers cultivating maize who were involved in the trials. It described the seasonal cultivation of maize by the farmers and investigated colour preference of stem borer resistance open pollinated maize varieties. A total of one hundred and fourteen maize farmers were randomly sampled for this study. Interview schedule was used to elicit information from the respondents. Data were analyzed by using frequency count and percentages. The result showed that 52.6% of the farmers were females, 45% of the farmers in Umuahia North cultivated more of early maize while 52% of their counterpart from Umuahia South cultivated late maize. About 85% used NPK fertilizer to boost maize yield and used seeds from previous harvest to plant, 72.8% preferred while maize which they put into various uses. The study concluded that farmers have positive response to the adoption trials. It suggested a gender free program for maize farmers in the area with intensive education or the importance of yellow maize and method of preserving seeds for further productions.


This paper proposes structural analyses for several nominal reiteration constructions (NN) in Modern Hebrew which function as adverbials. The properties and distribution of these patterns indicate an interaction of nominal distinctions (number and mass/count denotation) with Aktionsart, suggesting that reiteration is derived through the insertion of the same lexical element twice into a regular syntactic structure, rather than involving specialized morphological derivation. Although all three constructions share a pluralizing semantic effect, it is argued that the notion of iconicity does not capture the intricacy of their interpretive properties. The proposed analysis ties these Hebrew constructions to related phenomena attested cross-linguistically, both reiterative and non-reiterative.


This article describes a method of developing physician education materials using analysis of domestic violence patient experiences and patients' descriptions of their experiences. The process began with interviews of 21 domestic violence survivors, focusing on what they wanted to teach physicians. Qualitative analysis of these interviews identified 4 main themes regarding what survivors wanted physicians to understand about life in an abusive relationship: that domestic violence is universal, that it is more than just physical assaults, that it is all about power and control, and that it affects the entire family. Because what survivors wanted from physicians differed depending on where they were in their abusive relationships, recommendations were developed for each of 5 common situations: when a patient may not yet recognize the abuse, when s/he may not be ready or able to disclose the abuse, when s/he chooses to remain in an abusive relationship, when s/he is seeking care for an acute assault, and when s/he has left the relationship but not yet healed. Interview excerpts representing each of the identified themes are used to create a 30-minute educational documentary. A written companion guide covers the traditional aspects of domestic violence education. In teaching about domestic violence or other health problems where it is difficult for physicians to understand their patients intuitively, an educator's most important role may be to direct learners to listen to the experience and wisdom of patients.


Do publishers and editors of scholarly journals view theses and dissertations that are readily available on the Internet and through convenient Web browsers as prior publications? This has been a topic of discussion for well over a decade in the ETD community, not only of concern to graduate schools and libraries but also among research faculty and their graduate students. At the same time that a growing number of universities worldwide are requiring ETDs and making the research and scholarship of their graduate students publicly available, many faculty advise their students to restrict online access to their theses and dissertations due to concerns about future publication options. This paper reports on the 2011 survey results of journal editors' and university press directors' attitudes toward online theses and dissertations. This data and the open-ended comments from the survey respondents indicate support for open access to ETDs.


In this paper we investigate the current state of work regarding alignment of Business, Architecture, Process, and Organisation (BAPO) perspectives in a software product development context. We planned to do that by conducting a systematic literature study to capture the state of the art in alignment of BAPO in software development. But, as it turned out we found that almost no substantial information is available about the alignment of BAPO in software development. Thus, based on the available literature and a small qualitative study, we defined a conceptual model of the alignment of BAPO including five levels of alignment that can be used as a basis for future empirical studies.


Ephrem of Nisibis is unique among patristic authors for having
authored a commentary on Tatian's gospel commonly known as the
"Diatessaron." In this article I examine Ephrem's corpus to
determine what evidence exists for his knowledge and use of gospel versions beyond that of Tatian, most especially the fourfold, or separated gospel. I point out that Ephrem, in keeping with Greek and Latin authors, occasionally used poetic imagery for the fourfold gospel, and, moreover, that he knew at least the Synoptic genealogies and the Johannine prologue as distinct texts. It is undeniable, therefore, that he knew of and to some degree used the separated, fourfold gospel, even if this remained slight in comparison with his reliance upon Tatian's version. Furthermore, on six occasions Ephrem refers to an unspecified "Greek" gospel version. Previous scholarship has almost universally interpreted these passages as
references to a separated gospel in Syriac, but I argue that these are best taken as references to an actual Greek version, and may well be allusions to a Greek edition of Tatian's work. Ephrem's usage of multiple gospel versions suggests that at this point in the Syriac tradition, the concept of 'gospel' was fluid and more undefined than would be the case in the fifth century when attempts were made to restrict its sense to the fourfold gospel.


Abstract The single-crystal elastic properties of Fe-bearing wadsleyite with 1.93 wt% H2O (Mg1.634Fe0.202H0.305SiO4) have been determined by Brillouin scattering. At ambient conditions, the aggregate bulk and shear moduli (KS0, G0) of this wadsleyite are 156.2(5) and 98.0(3) GPa, respectively. Compared to the corresponding anhydrous wadsleyite, 1.93 wt% H2O lowers KS0 and G0 by 8.1% and 9.3%, respectively. High-pressure measurements up to 12 GPa show that the pressure derivative of the bulk modulus, K′S0 = 4.8(1), is similar to that of the anhydrous Fe-wadsleyite with reported values of 4.6-4.74, but the addition of H2O increases the pressure derivative of the shear modulus, G0′ from 1.5(1) to 1.9(1). This contrasts with the G0′ of Fe-free wadsleyite, which is the same within uncertainty for the hydrous and anhydrous phases. As a result, both the compressional- and shear-wave velocities (vP, vS) of hydrous Fe-bearing wadsleyite are about 200(±24) m/s slower than anhydrous Fe-bearing wadsleyite at transition zone pressures.


In their opening reflection on Open Access (OA) in this special section, Fuchs and Sandoval (2013) argue the current policy debate on Open Access publishing is limited by a for-profit bias which blinds it to much of the most innovative activity in Open Access. They further argue for a refocusing of the policy debate within a public service, commons based perspective of academic knowledge production. I pick up these themes by looking at another key term, sustainable publishing, in an effort to contextualize the policy debate on OA within the broader context of the privatization of the university. From this perspective, the policy debate reveals an essential tension between top-down and bottom-up cultures in legitimizing knowledge. This is a tension that has profound implications for scholarly practices mediated through digital networked communications.  Explicitly acknowledging this fundamental tension gives additional insight into formulating strategies for maintaining an academic culture of free and open inquiry. I suggest that the frame of resilient communications expresses the dynamic nature of scholarly communications better than that of sustainable publishing, and that empowering scholars through practice-based OA initiatives is essential in broadening grass roots support for equitable Open Access amongst scholars.


The electric utility industry is undergoing unprecedented changes in its structure worldwide. With the advent of an open market environment and competition in the industry, and restructuring of the industry into separate generation, transmission, and distribution entities, new issues in power system operation and planning are inevitable. One of the major consequences of this new electric utility environment is the greater emphasis on reliability and secure operation of the power system. This paper examines the impact of restructuring on power system dynamic analysis. It specifically addresses issues related to transient stability analysis and small-signal stability analysis. Four major topics to examine the effect on the nature of studies conducted are considered. These topics are: (1) system adequacy and security, (2) system modeling data requirements, (3) system protection and control, and (4) system restoration. The consequences and impact of each of these topics on the nature of the studies conducted are examined and discussed. The emphasis on greater reliability has led to a clearer enunciation of standards, measurements, and guides in some countries. These requirements will result in: (1) more measurements on existing systems, (2) rigorous analysis of transient stability and small-signal stability to determine operating limits and plan systems, (3) greater emphasis on studies to verify coordination and proper performance of protection and controls, and (4) development of a detailed plan for system restoration in the case of wide-spread outages.


The focus of this study is on guided fantasy; a technique which is increasingly used in educational and psychotherapeutic situations. The potential coherence of guided fantasy is examined by establishing the degree to which the elements of various guided fantasy experiences are perceived as being similar.

Two forms of guided faintasy are examined:
(a) A situation in which an individual subject is relaxed, with closed eyes and he is given a theme to begin the fantasy journey. The subject describes the fantasy aloud and the experimenter acts as a guide, using a non-directive mode of intervention.

(b) A group form of guided fantasy in which the subjects are relaxed, with closed eyes, and a script of the fantasy journey, with long pauses, is read to the group.

The elements of fantasy were evaluated using the subjects' personal constructs, except in the case of one group study where Cattell's sixteen personality factors were used. All of the individual subjects, the two group analyses and the individuals within the groups produced significant organizations of fantasy experience. This provides a basis for discussion of guided fantasy in terms of its meaningful structure. This is relevant to the consideration of interpretation, the possibility of sub-personalities and the ideas of overdetermination and condensation.

NB. This ethesis has been created by scanning the typescript original and contains some inaccuracies. In case of difficulty, please refer to the original text.


The advertising industry has recently witnessed proliferation in native ads, which are inserted into a web stream (e.g., a list of news articles or social media posts) and look like the surrounding nonsponsored contents. This study is among the first to examine native ads and unveil how their effectiveness changes across serial positions by analyzing a large-scale data set with 120 ads. For each ad, the authors use separate "natural experiment" studies to compare the ad's performance as its serial position varies. Subsequently, they conduct a meta-analysis to generalize the results across all studies. The results reveal vastly asymmetric effects of native ad serial position on publishers' metrics (click-based) versus advertisers' metrics (conversion-based). As serial position lowers (i.e., from rank 1 to a lower rank), there are only modest changes in publishers' metrics, but drastic reductions in advertisers'. This pattern is unique to native ads and has not been indicated by prior research on ad serial position. Moreover, the authors show the moderating effects of audience gender and age. The findings provide new and timely implications for researchers and marketers.


Abstract Iverson et al. (2004) used estimates of the homing rate for molting adult Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus) in Alaska to draw inferences about population structure. Homing rates, defined as one minus the ratio of birds recaptured elsewhere to those recaptured at the original banding site, were high (0.95–1.00) for males and females. Iverson et al. (2004) concluded that these high rates of homing are indicative of demographic independence among molting groups separated by small distances (tens to hundreds of kilometers) and that conservation efforts should recognize this fine-scale population structure. We re-examined their use of the homing rate, because their assumption of equal detection probability across a wide sampling area could have led to an upward bias in their estimates of site fidelity. As a result, we are hesitant to agree with their conclusion of high adult homing to molting areas and that molt-site fidelity is evidence for demographic independence. Our hesitancy stems from the fact that little is known about juvenile and adult movements within and among years, breeding area origins, and the variation of demographic parameters (e.g., survival and productivity) among molting groups. Furthermore, population genetic data of these molting groups suggest gene flow at both nuclear and mitochondrial loci. Such mixed messages between demographic (i.e., banding) and genetic data are increasingly common in ornithological studies and offer unique opportunities to reassess predictions and make more robust inferences about population structure across broad temporal and spatial scales. Thus, we stress that it is this broader scale perspective, which combines both demography and genetics, that biologists should seek to quantify and conservation efforts should seek to recognize.


Large amounts of dried whey (86% of concentrate mix, 60% of total dry matter intake) were fed to four Holstein steers in place of corn and soybean meal in the control diet to evaluate the extent and site of lactose digestion in the ruminant's digestive tract. Diet dry matter was 70% as concentrate mix and 30% as corn silage fed for ad libitum consumption as a total mixed ration. Samples of rumen contents from steers fed dried whole whey contained more butyrate, less propionate, and less ammonia than from steers fed the control diet. Digestibilities of the whey diet were higher for ash and tended to be higher for energy and organic matter and digestibilities of acid detergent fiber and cellulose tended to be lower. Steers were sacrificed at the end of the feeding period, and intestinal tissue, and rumen, intestinal, and cecal contents were sampled for lactase analyses. No lactose was in rumen or small intestine, indicating virtually complete digestion. Lactase activity of intestinal tissue was greatest in the proximal third of the small intestine with little activity in the distal third of the small intestine regardless of diet. Lactase activity per gram tissue protein was similar for both treatment groups throughout the small intestine. Lactase activity of intestinal contents was similar for both treatments; it was greatest in the duodenum and lowest in the ileum and large intestine. Cattle have the capability to consume large amounts of dried whey without digestive disorders or reduced rates of gain.


The appealing features of Cloud computing have been fueling its integration in many sectors; economy, industry and education. Thus, it become widely used for personal services and for entertainment. Since the arrivals of this paradigm and the providing of services through Internet, information technology live a radical shift in its adoption. The financial benefits and the informatics features of Cloud Computing makes it a necessity to maintain the development of many sectors, as well as education. However, its security weaknesses are the major barrier for its adoption. Over the years, the IT and financial needs of the university keep speedily growing with the increasing number of students. To overcome its requirements, university is called to adopt the Cloud Computing technologies. We propose in this paper a design of a private IaaS Cloud adopted for the university IT infrastructure. Also we propose two solutions to improve its security; especially the isolation of data in the IaaS Cloud, and the isolation of networks within the university by adopting the Tree-Rule Firewall approach.


This article raises some methodological questions related to data collection in connection with Norwegian Anglicism studies. Specifically, it queries the extent to which results from methodologically divergent studies can be used for comparative purposes, such as estimating the rate of impact of English influence on the Norwegian vocabulary, something which represents an important foundation for present-day language policy. Questions that are raised and discussed concern the unit of investigation itself and types of criteria used to identify Anglicisms: the factors of age and degree of establishment, the type and size of the source material, and the treatment and presentation of data. The article concludes that some methodological problems may be alleviated in the future by using computerized research corpora.


By the time of his death, Daniel Thambyrajah Niles (1908–1970) was among the most well-known Christian leaders in the world. Niles, a Methodist born in Ceylon (later, Sri Lanka), quickly rose to national and international prominence through his work locally, nationally, and internationally. Niles's theology, which reflects aspects of both Wesleyanism and Barthianism, emerges from a pneumatological vision of the church as the family of God. Although he was a prominent figure in the global ecumenical movement, Niles openly criticized Western cultural practices that permeated Christian churches and missionary work in the middle of the twentieth century. He contended against the widespread distrust of majority world churches and their local leadership. Niles maintained that the Holy Spirit calls Christian churches to participate in matters of national concern and to offer visible witness to the nations through the proclamation of the gospel.


Abstract Objective: Colonoscopy with biopsy sampling is often performed to detect collagenous colitis (CC) and lymphocytic colitis (LC) in patients with chronic non-bloody diarrhea. However, the diagnostic yield is low and incurs high costs. Fecal calprotectin (FC) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) indicate intestinal inflammation in ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). In CC, elevated fecal levels of eosinophil protein X (EPX) and eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) have been reported. We aimed to evaluate if F-EPX, F-ECP, FC, and F-MPO could predict the diagnostic outcome in patients with chronic non-bloody diarrhea referred to colonoscopy. We also evaluated serum (S) EPX and ECP in this regard. Methods: Of 67 included patients, 63 (94%) underwent colonoscopy with biopsy sampling. Fecal EPX, F-ECP, FC, F-MPO, S-EPX, and S-ECP were analyzed. Results: Diagnostic outcome: normal: n = 46 (73%), CC: n = 9 (14%), LC: n = 4 (6%), UC: n = 2 (3%), CD: n = 2 (3%). Higher levels of F-EPX and F-ECP were found in CC compared to a normal diagnostic outcome (p = 0.01). No change was noted in any of the fecal markers in LC. When all of the fecal markers were normal the probability of a normal diagnostic outcome was 92%. We found no differences in S-EPX and S-ECP between the groups. Conclusion: Elevated F-EPX and F-ECP could predict CC. None of the fecal markers predicted LC. Serum-EPX and S-ECP are not useful for the diagnosis of CC, LC, UC, or CD. With normal levels in all of the analyzed fecal markers, there is a low probability of a pathologic diagnostic outcome.


The 2009 report issued by the National Academy of Science, "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward," highlighted many of the shortcomings of forensic science as it is currently being presented in criminal and civil courts across the country. To a lesser extent, the report addressed the shortcomings of prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, who receive, interpret, (or attempt to interpret) and utilize forensic science. With the current system "inadequate to the task of curing the documented ills of the forensic science disciplines" (NAS Report "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward" (2009) at 85), the system needs to change. This article offers a review of the changing legal landscape and calls for raising the competence bar for practitioners in the criminal justice system through imposing minimum standards for legal practitioners who handle forensic science in court.


Context: Given the acknowledged need to understand the people processes enacted during software development, software repositories and mailing lists have become a focus for many studies. However, researchers have tended to use mostly mathematical and frequency-based techniques to examine the software artifacts contained within them. Objective: There is growing recognition that these approaches uncover only a partial picture of what happens during software projects, and deeper contextual approaches may provide further understanding of the intricate nature of software teams' dynamics. We demonstrate the relevance and utility of such approaches in this study. Method: We use psycholinguistics and directed content analysis (CA) to study the way project tasks drive teams' attitudes and knowledge sharing. We compare the outcomes of these two approaches and offer methodological advice for researchers using similar forms of repository data. Results: Our analysis reveals significant differences in the way teams work given their portfolio of tasks and the distribution of roles. Conclusion: We overcome the limitations associated with employing purely quantitative approaches, while avoiding the time-intensive and potentially invasive nature of field work required in full case studies.


Global geomagnetic field models can be used to study the dynamics of the core, aid satellite operation and make global digital navigation possible – from smartphones to guided drilling. While current models capture the long-period and large-scale features and variations of the core field well, it is often difficult to represent the poorly understood small-scale and rapid behaviour of the field, thus making prediction difficult. The mantle and crust filter small-scale spatial and temporal features originating in the Earth's core, and field sources external to the Earth contaminate the observations we have. Geomagnetic jerks represent the most rapid observed variations of the internal field, on the scale of months to years.

We investigate the occurrence and spatiotemporal characteristics of jerks in ground observatory data and a recent global field model, during the Swarm era. Previous reports suggest that global models show regions of high secular acceleration associated with the 2014 jerk and that expressions of this might be seen at European observatories post-2014. We find limited evidence of a jerk in European observatories around 2014, but do find globally widespread evidence, and our models of this signal are in agreement with independent field models. We also find evidence of a new jerk, after the 2014 event, in observatory data.

In response to these events we show the impact on early, and potential future, discrepancies between International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) predictions and observations in the period of 2015-2020 as a result of the unpredictable, non-linear secular variation of jerks now known to have occurred. With the 2014 jerk occurring during / immediately after the data collection period for IGRF-12 and a subsequent jerk occurring shortly after release, we highlight the deviation from observations, the comparable performance of both simple and complex predictive models and the importance of utilising the ability to regularly update field models. This is likely to remain the case until the rapid dynamics of the core are better understood.


A full system level analysis, design, and realization of frequency-modulation / continuouswave (FMCW) RADAR is presented in this thesis. RADAR technology has been around for over half a century, and has found itself in a wide range of applications effecting every day life. As such, there are many possible system level tradeoffs that can be made when designing a sensor for a specific application. This paper will focus on designing a sensor for a hybrid electric vehicle powertrain control unit, as part of a new application in fuel economy improvement. The system level analysis will derive a full baseband signal analysis model, and examine some of the commonly used modulation schemes. Next, a method for tuning the modulation waveform properties to optimize the sensor specifically for the application requirements is presented. Finally a system level realization is proposed to produce synchronous and streamlined processing of the signals, while providing flexibility to tune the implementation as suggested during the modulation waveform optimization. As a proof of concept, a hardware prototyping platform was designed and built to allow acquisition of real signals which are to be fed into a signal processing algorithm. The signal processing algorithm to decode the measurement results can then be developed effectively using real data. Some of the measurement results obtained with the prototyping platform and system optimizations suggested within this thesis are presented to verify the analysis and modeling performed.


We propose a deep learning method for event-driven stock market prediction. First, events are extracted from news text, and represented as dense vectors, trained using a novel neural tensor network. Second, a deep convolutional neural network is used to model both short-term and long-term influences of events on stock price movements. Experimental results show that our model can achieve nearly 6% improvements on S&P 500 index prediction and individual stock prediction, respectively, compared to state-of-the-art baseline methods. In addition, market simulation results show that our system is more capable of making profits than previously reported systems trained on S&P 500 stock historical data.


Abstract. Recent research suggests that under certain temperature and relative humidity conditions atmospheric aerosol may be present in the form of a glassy solid. In order to understand the impacts that this may have on aerosol–cloud interactions and atmospheric chemistry, knowledge of water diffusion within such aerosol particles is required. Here, a method is described in which Raman spectroscopy is used to observe D2O diffusion in high-viscosity aqueous solutions, enabling a quantitative assessment of water diffusion coefficients, Dwater, as a function of relative humidity. Results for sucrose solutions compare well with literature data at 23.5 ± 0.3 °C, and demonstrate that water diffusion is slow (Dwater ~5 × 10−17 m2 s−1), but not arrested, just below the glass transition at a water activity of 0.2. Room temperature water diffusion coefficients are also presented for aqueous levoglucosan and an aqueous mixture of raffinose, dicarboxylic acids and ammonium sulphate: at low humidity, diffusion is retarded but still occurs on millisecond to second timescales in atmospherically relevant-sized particles. The effect of gel formation on diffusion in magnesium sulfate solutions is shown to be markedly different from the gradual decrease in diffusion coefficients of highly viscous liquids. We show that using the Stokes–Einstein equation to determine diffusion timescales from viscosity leads to values which are more than 5 orders of magnitude too big, which emphasises the need to make measurements of diffusion coefficients. In addition, comparison of bounce fraction data for levoglucosan with measured diffusion data reveals that even when particles bounce the diffusion timescales for water are a fraction of a second for a 100 nm particle. This suggests a high bounce fraction does not necessarily indicate retarded water diffusion.


In this paper, we propose a research direction that will allow the harnessing of human computation to be included in mainstream video games. Human computing resources are vastly different and superior in some cases compared to traditional computing machines. Previous findings in this domain showed that humans playing FoldIt, a protein folding video game, created new solutions to the problem that were previously unknown. Successes like these suggest that harnessing human computation through games can provide the world with a new computation resource, but existing games in this domain tend to be built around the problem. This means a large population of game players remains unharnessed. We, however, hypothesize that focusing research efforts on the synergy of understanding isomorphing problems, identifying problem solving behavior in mainstream video games, and an understanding of real-world problems is a direction that will allow us to merge harnessing human computation into these mainstream games.


The main aim of this project was to investigate the possibility of manufacturing 3D parts of
polyamide (nylon or PA) 6 by inkjetting its monomer caprolactam (CL). The principle of this
process was similar to the other rapid prototype (RP) and rapid manufacturing (RM)
processes in which a 3D part is manufactured by layer on layer deposition of material. PA6
was used as the thermoplastic polymer in this work because of its good properties and also
because PA6 can be produced by heating its monomer (i.e. plus catalyst and activator) in a
short time. Two polymerisation mixtures of CL-catalyst (mixture A) and CL-activator
(mixture B) are intended to be jetted separately using conventional jetting heads and
polymerise shortly after heating.
Anionic polymerisation of CL (APCL) was investigated in the bulk and on a smaller scale.
Sodium caprolactamate (CLNa and C10) and caprolactam magnesium bromide (CLMgBr)
were used as catalysts and N-acetylcaprolactam (ACL) and a di-functional activator (C20)
were used as activators. The influence of polymerisation conditions was investigated and
optimised. These were catalyst-activator concentration, polymerisation temperature and the
influence of the polymerisation atmosphere. The physical properties (monomer conversion,
crystallinity, and viscosity average molecular weight) of PA6 samples produced using each
catalyst-activator combinations were measured and compared. Small scale polymerisation
was carried out using a hotplate, by hot stage microscopy and using differential scanning
calorimetry (DSC). The influence of heating strategy on small scale polymerisation was
studied using DSC. The polymerisation mixture compositions were characterised using
rheometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), and optical microscopy to investigate their suitability in jetting for using the available
jetting heads.
It was shown that the combination of CLMgBr-ACL resulted in fast polymerisation which
was not sensitive to moisture. The C10-C20 combination resulted in fast polymerisation with
the best properties in a protected environment (nitrogen); however, the polymerisation was
affected by moisture in air and the properties of polymer produced and rate of polymerisation
decreased in air. Polymers produced using CLNa-ACL had the poorest properties and
polymerisation did not occur in air. Material characterisation showed that micro-crystals of
CLMgBr existed in CLMgBr-CL mixture at the jetting temperature (80oC) which were too
large to be jetted. However, the mixture of C10 in CL could be partially jetted. The activator
mixtures had similar properties to CL and were easily jetted. Drop on drop polymerisation was carried out by dripping droplets of mixtures A and B (at 80oC) on top of each other on a
hotplate at the polymerisation temperature. Small scale polymerisation in a DSC showed that
the monomer conversion increased with increase in polymerisation temperature from 140oC
to 180oC and decreased from 180oC to 200oC. The crystallinity of the polymer produced in
the DSC decreased with increase in polymerisation temperature. Hot stage microscopy
produced evidence for simultaneous polymerisation and crystallisation processes on heating.
Small scale polymerisation in an oven and analysed by DSC showed that increasing catalystactivator
concentration resulted in increasing monomer conversion and decrease in
crystallinity. Monomer conversion also increased with increase in polymerisation temperature
and polymerisation time. Comparison between small scale and bulk polymerisations shows a
good agreement between the two polymerisation rates. This shows that the polymerisation
mechanism did not change significantly when the quantity of materials was reduced to less
than 20mg. Finally, the polymerisation was carried out in a DSC after jetting C10-CL and
C20-CL mixtures into a DSC pan using a jetting system, which was made in another work.


In 2000, homeownership in the United States stood at an all-time high of 67.4 percent, but the homeownership rate was more than 50 percent higher for non-Hispanic whites than for blacks or Hispanics. Homeownership is the most common method for wealth accumulation and is viewed as critical for access to the most desirable communities and most comprehensive public services. Homeownership and mortgage lending are linked, of course, as the vast majority of home purchases are made with the help of a mortgage loan. Barriers to obtaining a mortgage represent obstacles to attaining the American dream of owning one's own home. These barriers take on added urgency when they are related to race or ethnicity. In this book Stephen Ross and John Yinger discuss what has been learned about mortgage-lending discrimination in recent years. They re-analyze existing loan-approval and loan-performance data and devise new tests for detecting discrimination in contemporary mortgage markets. They provide an in-depth review of the 1996 Boston Fed Study and its critics, along with new evidence that the minority-white loan-approval disparities in the Boston data represent discrimination, not variation in underwriting standards that can be justified on business grounds. Their analysis also reveals several major weaknesses in the current fair-lending enforcement system, namely, that it entirely overlooks one of the two main types of discrimination (disparate impact), misses many cases of the other main type (disparate treatment), and insulates some discriminating lenders from investigation. Ross and Yinger devise new procedures to overcome these weaknesses and show how the procedures can also be applied to discrimination in loan-pricing and credit-scoring.


Banking systems have rapidly grown to a point where for many countries bank assets amount to multiples of GDP. As a consequence, government's capacity to provide stability-enhancing fiscal guarantees against systemic crises can no longer be taken for granted. As regulation of dynamic financial markets will inevitably be imperfect, prudent governments need to adjust other facets of macroeconomic policy in order to mitigate financial instability. A precautionary approach to fiscal policy, leading to moderate levels of public debt relative to GDP over the medium term, is essential for the credibility of government promises to support the financial system, as well as the broader economy.


Recordings of dynamic holograms with microsecond relaxation times under the action of nanosecond laser pulses are obtained in composites on the base of a novel class of liquid crystals (LCs) in ionic metal-alkanoates. Holographic parameters and relaxation characteristics are measured for doped lyotropic ionic LC, for sandwichlike cells (consisting of a dye layer and a layer of the lyotropic ionic LC), and for colored ionic smectic glasses. The structure of the materials is investigated by use of the small-angle x-ray technique. The mechanism of resonance nonlinearity in photosensitive centers and mechanisms of the grating erasure connected with a charge transport in the ionic conductive LC matrix are discussed.


This thesis deals with the study of shallow PN junction formation by dopant diffusion from Spin-On Glass (SOG) for future deep sub-micron BiCMOS technology. With the advantages of no transient enhanced diffusion and no metal contamination, diffusion from highly doped SOG (also called spin-on dopant - SOD) is a good technology for shallow junction formation. In this thesis, diffusion of impurities from SOD into Si and polysilicon on silicon structure has been studied. This shallow junction formation technique using SOD has been applied in realisation of two important devices, i.e. high frequency bipolar transistor and deep sub-micron elevated source/drain MOSFET.


This classic text has proven its worth in university classrooms and as a tool kit in research--selling over 40,000 copies in the United States and abroad in its first edition alone. Users have included undergraduate and graduate students of economics and business, and students and researchers in political science, sociology, and other fields where regression models and their extensions are relevant. The book has also served as a handy reference in the "real world" for people who need a clear and accurate explanation of techniques that are used in empirical research.Throughout the book the emphasis is on simplification whenever possible, assuming the readers know college algebra and basic calculus. Jan Kmenta explains all methods within the simplest framework, and generalizations are presented as logical extensions of simple cases. And while a relatively high degree of rigor is preserved, every conflict between rigor and clarity is resolved in favor of the latter. Apart from its clear exposition, the book's strength lies in emphasizing the basic ideas rather than just presenting formulas to learn and rules to apply.The book consists of two parts, which could be considered jointly or separately. Part one covers the basic elements of the theory of statistics and provides readers with a good understanding of the process of scientific generalization from incomplete information. Part two contains a thorough exposition of all basic econometric methods and includes some of the more recent developments in several areas.As a textbook, "Elements of Econometrics" is intended for upper-level undergraduate and master's degree courses and may usefully serve as a supplement for traditional Ph.D. courses in econometrics. Researchers in the social sciences will find it an invaluable reference tool.A solutions manual is also available for teachers who adopt the text for coursework.Jan Kmenta is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Statistics, University of Michigan.


Legal norms may forbid, require, or authorize a particular form of behavior. The law of contracts, for example, informs people how to enter into agreements that will bind both sides, and from this we establish legal requirements on how they should behave. In public law, legal standards provide authority to legislators and executive officials to set standards for citizens, and also give judges the authority to decide disputes by applying and interpreting governing standards. This book focuses on how courts decide what is legally forbidden or authorized, and how context shapes their decisions. The problem, it argues, is that we do not, and never have, agreed on all the details of the standards United States judges should employ—like everyone else, judges have different ideas of what constitutes good common sense. Moreover, circumstance regularly throws up hurdles. For instance, what should a judge do if the text of a statute does not fit the intention of the legislators, or if someone has obviously and mistakenly omitted a necessary item from a will or contract? Different judges react in different ways. Acknowledging that courts will never agree upon a uniform approach to applying norms and interpreting the law, the book's aim is to provide a capacious model for approaching hard cases sensibly in both public and private law. The book also serves as a guide to the major forms of legal interpretation for non-lawyers.