CROCUS is a teaching and research zero-power reactor operated by the Laboratory for Reactor Physics and Systems Behaviour (LRS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Three new experimental programmes are scheduled for the forthcoming years. The first programme consists in an experimental investigation of mechanical noise induced by fuel rods vibrations. An in-core device has been designed for allowing the displacement of up to 18 uranium metal fuel rods in the core periphery. The vibration amplitude will be 6 mm in the radial direction (±3 mm around the central position), while the frequency can be tuned between 0.1 and 5 Hz. The experiments will be used to validate computational dynamic tools currently under development, which are based on DORT-TD and CASMO/S3K code systems. The second programme concerns the measurement of in-core neutron noise for axial void profile reconstruction. Simulations performed at Chalmers University have shown how the void fraction and velocity profiles can be reconstructed from noise measurements. The motivation of these experiments is to develop an experimental setup to validate in-core the method in partnership with Chalmers University. The third experimental programme aims at continuing the validation effort on the nuclear data required in the calculation of GEN-III PWR reactors with heavy steel reflectors. This is a collaboration with CEA Cadarache that extends the results of the PERLE experiments carried out in the EOLE reactor at CEA. Scattering cross sections at around 1 MeV will be studied separately by replacing successively the water reflector by sheets of stainless steel alloy and pure metals – iron, nickel, and chromium. Data will be extracted from the measured flux attenuation using foils in the metal reflector and from the criticality effects of these reflectors. In parallel to the three reactor experiments, we develop in-core detectors and measurement systems. Following the last development of a neutron noise measurement station in pulse mode, a second neutron noise station in current mode is being designed. In current mode the reactor can be used at higher power without dead time effects. It allows faster measurement time or lower results uncertainties. Finally, a joint development of a full new detection system based on chemical vapour deposited (sCVD) diamond has been started with the CIVIDEC instrumentation start-up company. A first prototype has been tested in November 2015 in CROCUS. One of the main purposes is to work on the discrimination of gammas, thermal and fast neutrons for demonstrating the interest of this detector type in a mixed neutron-gamma field.


Will a computer ever compose a symphony, write a prize-winning novel, or paint a masterpiece? And if so, would we be able to tell the difference? As humans, we have an extraordinary ability to create works of art that elevate, expand and transform what it means to be alive. Yet in many other areas, new developments in AI are shaking up the status quo, as we find out how many of the tasks humans engage in can be done equally well, if not better, by machines. But can machines be creative? Will they soon be able to learn from the art that moves us, and understand what distinguishes it from the mundane? In The Creativity Code, Marcus du Sautoy examines the nature of creativity, as well as providing an essential guide into how algorithms work, and the mathematical rules underpinning them. He asks how much of our emotional response to art is a product of our brains reacting to pattern and structure, and exactly what it is to be creative in mathematics, art, language and music. Marcus finds out how long it might be before machines come up with something creative, and whether they might jolt us into being more imaginative in turn. The result is a fascinating and very different exploration into both AI and the essence of what it means to be human.


We investigate the existence and sources of performance persistence for Australian equity funds, using monthly portfolio holdings data. We find significant persistence among outperforming rather than underperforming funds, which is primarily related to security selection skill, and is associated with growth‐orientated funds. Meanwhile, the relation between persistence and momentum is secondary and nuanced. Further, persistence largely derives from existing holdings, while subsequent active trading contributes only moderately positive returns for both outperforming and underperforming funds. We also find that persistence fades beyond 6 months and vanishes after 24 months. Our findings differ from those for U.S. equity funds and previous Australian studies, implying that persistence may vary with market context and its identification may depend on data availability.


The aim of this paper is to examine whether the Information technology (IT) capability of a bank can create economic value and competitive advantage. In contrast to previous research, which generally concentrated on the effects of IT investment on competitive advantage, this paper examines IT capability directly. Based on a sample of 15 banking firms, this paper investigates the effects of IT capability and human capital support on three firm-performance measures. The results demonstrate that human capital support contributes directly to performance of banking firms.


Through historical reviews and case studies, this research seeks to understand why some initially successful entrepreneurs failed in the economic boom of past decades. Among various factors contributed to their downfalls are a unique political and business environment, fragile financial systems, traditional cultural influences and personal characteristics. Notwithstanding that these factors should be further tested through empirical studies, those high-profile entrepreneurs are oblivious but essential actors in the grand theatre of China's economic transformation and their failures have contributed to the swift development of the Chinese entrepreneurship over the last 30 years.


This article explains the development, structure, and operation of the new Uniform Representation of Children in Abuse, Neglect, and Custody Proceedings Act, and it identifies some of the ongoing controversies in the child advocacy field that are relevant to particular policies underlying the Act. The Act requires all children's representatives, regardless of role, to inform the court of the child's expressed objectives if the child so desires, and the Act requires the appointment of a lawyer for every child who is the subject of an abuse or neglect proceeding. One area of controversy under the Act concerns the Act's inclusion of a 'best interests' option for children's lawyers, a role endorsed by the ABA in its 2003 Standards for Lawyers Representing Children in Custody Cases. This article contends that the best interests model is a necessary alternative for children's lawyers in order to provide meaningful representation for children of all ages and developmental levels. The best interests option is also necessary to meet the needs of the judiciary in particular cases, such as when a judge fears that a client-directed lawyer may not make a full evidentiary presentation. The Act thus takes a pragmatic approach to improving child representation while still endorsing some of the fundamental ideals advocated by children's lawyers.


textabstractIn distribution networks a supplier transports goods from a distribution center to customers by means of vehicles with limited capacity. Drivers will drive routes on which they visit multiple customers to make deliveries. Typically, deliveries are made regularly and a fixed schedule is maintained. A fixed schedule is beneficial for many operational purposes, as it for instance allows for easy planning of the packing of the vehicles at the distribution center, or it allows the customer to roster the delivery handling personnel. A fixed schedule is often reused to make weekly deliveries for a period of a year or longer.

However, at the moment of designing a schedule, the demand of the customers is usually unknown. Moreover, in most cases, demand of a customer will be different for each delivery. Therefore, it will be necessary to construct or adapt vehicle routes for each day of delivery, without deviating too much from the fixed schedule.

In this thesis several different views on a fixed schedule are explored. It addresses the need from practice to incorporate the uncertainty of demand in transportation models to increase the efficiency of transport. Innovative vehicle routing models are presented taking uncertain or varying demand into account. New algorithms using state-of-the-art methods are presented based on these models, to construct fixed schedules and vehicle routes. The algorithms make use of recent scientific advances in mathematical programming, specifically in the domain of vehicle routing.


Background/aims: To evaluate the efficacy of methotrexate (MTX) treatment for the periorbital findings in adult-onset xanthogranuloma (AOX). Methods: The medical records of three patients with AOX, with and without asthma, who were treated with MTX at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, USA were examined. Diagnosis of AOX was made by biopsy in all patients. The patients were evaluated between February 1998 and July 2006. All patients had failed prior medical and/or surgical treatment. MTX was administered at 10–20 mg/week with folate supplementation and a course of corticosteroids. Efficacy was assessed on the basis of improvement in skin discoloration, involvement of the visual axis and patients' report of inflammation. Results: All three patients were started on MTX, but one patient discontinued treatment after 3 weeks due to nausea. With follow-up as long as 3 years, the two patients who continued treatment lost the yellow discoloration of their skin, and they reported significantly less inflammation and ptosis after treatment. Oral corticosteroids could be reduced or discontinued. Conclusions: AOX is a rare, persistent disease that commonly involves the preseptal fat. MTX is a therapeutic option for this illness.


Geometry and texture resolution are two common system parameters of any modern volumetric 3D reconstruction pipeline. In tele-immersive applications, besides their apparent impact on the visual quality of the output 3D mesh, their absolute values implicitly influence the computational load of the whole tele-immersion pipeline from acquisition to 3D reconstruction, compression and transmission. Thus, tuning those parameters to an optimal combination has evident benefits. In this paper, we conduct a subjective experiment to assess the visual quality of textured human 3D-reconstructed meshes that are produced by a volumetric 3D reconstruction algorithm as a joint function of the geometry and texture resolution production parameters. The experiment is based on the forced choice pairwise comparison methodology on pre-rendered views of the real-time reconstructed meshes within the context of human performance capture. We analyze the pairwise comparison data and establish a ranking of the parameter space and, thus also, a mapping from the parameters to the subjective visual quality. The results of this study may be utilized to tune the parameters of the real-time 3D reconstruction pipeline, optimizing for the best balance between visual quality, bandwidth and overall performance.


We present our latest results on silicon photonics neuromorphic information processing based a.o. on techniques like reservoir computing. We will discuss aspects like scalability, novel architectures for enhanced power efficiency, as well as all-optical readout. Additionally, we will touch upon new machine learning techniques to operate these integrated readouts. Finally, we will show how these systems can be used for high-speed low-power information processing for applications like recognition of biological cells.


Polypyrrole (PPy) was chemically synthesised at two pH levels (pH = 2 and unadjusted pH, i.e. 6.6) using pre-formed carboxymethylcellulose-iron (CMC-Fe) complexes. The CMC-Fe complexes were prepared at a fixed CMC concentration, i.e. 5.5x10-5 mol/L, and with an increasing FeCl3 amount (from 4x10-3 to 5x10-2 mol/L). The quantity of iron bound to CMC was determined by the inductively coupled plasma (ICP-MS) method. In order to understand the interactions between CMC and iron, speciation of the systems was simulated by Phreeqc software. SEM analysis showed that, in some conditions (particularly at pH = 2), Py polymerised within the CMC-Fe complexes, forming particles with size ranging between 300 and 600 nm. In order to evaluate polymer electric conductivity, films were prepared by direct casting of the PPy-CMC-Fe dispersions with and without addition of film-forming CMC, and bulky PPy-CMC-Fe pellets were obtained by compression. Despite the different arrangement PPy-CMC-Fe particles in dry films, the amount of iron bound to CMC during the formation of CMC-Fe complexes was found to be the dominant parameter affecting polymer conductivity.


African American students are being re-segregated in today's public schools by their disproportionate placement in special education classes for the disabled pursuant to the Individuals With Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). At the same time, the overall number of children found disabled and entitled to special education under the Act has skyrocketed over the past decade, leaving special education classes with swollen roles and inadequate resources. Congress attempts to remedy this divisive dual eligibility crisis when it re-authorized the IDEA in 2004 by promoting an educational paradigm of individualized instruction in general education. The new IDEA seeks to "fix" special education by "fixing" general education through encouraging schools to provide students with a certain level of individualized instruction in general education before referring the child to special education. Congress recognized that general education must employ a certain level of specialized instruction in the classroom rather than resign today's diverse learners that require slight instructional modifications to special education with its attendant harms. This Article argues that the new IDEA will inevitably fail at preventing the over-identification of students as eligible, particularly African American students, because it adopts, but does not embrace, its new pedagogy. The educational paradigm of individualized instruction in general education, already utilized in many classrooms, cannot take root until specialized instruction is pried from the exclusive control of special education. This cannot be accomplished without revisiting the archaic and vague special education eligibility standards, which fail to produce uniform outcomes and permit unconscious bias and racism to influence eligibility determinations. This Article contends that the critical first step remedying special education's dual eligibility crisis is to restrictively define "special education" and who "needs" it to ensure that only truly disabled students with unique needs, rather than mere instructional casualties from a poor general education system, are found eligible for special education.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the efficacy of ginger to vitamin B6 in the treatment of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy.

STUDY DESIGN
A randomized double-blind controlled trial.

SETTING
The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration Medical College and Vajira Hospital.

SUBJECTS
Women with nausea and vomiting of pregnancy at or before 16 weeks of gestation, who attended the antenatal care clinic. The subjects requested anti-emetics, had no medical complications, non-hospitalized and were able to attend a one week follow-up visit. From November, 1999 to November 2000, 138 women participated and gave consent for the study.

METHOD
The subjects were randomly allocated into two groups to take either 500 mg of ginger orally or an identical 10 mg of vitamin B6 one capsule three times daily for three days. Subjects graded the severity of their nausea using visual analogue scales before treatment and recorded the number of vomiting episodes in the previous 24 hours and again during three consecutive days of treatment.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The change of nausea scores and the number of vomiting episodes during three days of treatment.

RESULTS
The 64 subjects in each group remained in the study. The demographic data were comparable in both groups. The ginger and vitamin B6 significantly reduced the nausea scores from 5.0 (SD, 1.99) to 3.6 (SD, 2.48) and 5.3 (SD, 2.08) to 3.3 (SD, 2.07) respectively, with p < 0.001. The mean score change after treatment with ginger was 1.4 (2.21), less than with vitamin B6, which was 2.0 (2.19) but with no statistically significant difference (95% CI -1.4 to 0.2, p = 0.136). The ginger and vitamin B6 also significantly reduced the number of vomiting episodes from 1.9 (2.06) to 1.2 (1.75) and 1.7 (1.81) to 1.2 (1.50) respectively, with p < 0.01. The mean number change after treatment with ginger was 0.7 (2.18), more than with vitamin B6, which was 0.5 (1.44) but with no statistically significant difference, (p = 0.498). There were some minor side effects in both groups such as sedation (26.6% vs 32.8%, p = 0.439), and heartburn (9.4% vs 6.3%, p = 0.510), a non-significant difference.

CONCLUSION
The nausea score and the number of vomiting episodes were significantly reduced following ginger and vitamin B6 therapy. Comparing the efficacy, there was no significant difference between ginger and vitamin B6 for the treatment of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.


Every colonisation and decolonisation process must of necessity be fraught with
antagonistic contradictions which may differ in terms of their character and depth (the
form) but not their essence. The class contradictions which were perhaps necessarily
hidden in the Zimbabwean decolonisation process - but which now have become more
open - need to be examined and laid bare by an objective social science. For, never is
a social system in a state of permanent rest. So, the constant motion, its driving force and its direction need to be understood and used for the continual and betterment of the condition of human existence. This essay which characterizes the post-independence state in Zimbabwe as a neo-colonial one par excellence, holds that the armed struggle for the independence of Zimbabwe was led by a militant nationalist petty bourgeoisie whose material objective was to set itself up as a local dominant bloc presiding over a capitalist
social economy dominated by imperialism. The question of a profound transformation of
the society - sometimes, many times, articulated in the discourses of these nationalists and some social scientists as "a socialist transformation" - was never seriously on the agenda.
The consequent Lancaster House Constitutional Conference of 1979, which brought about the Lancaster House Agreement, was simply the climax which started the "sealing" of an important class alliance that would ensure the reproduction of the heavily imperialist dominated socio-economic structure and that would demobilise any
popular-based attempt at a profound transformation of the society. This process - of course - is still fraught with deadly contradictions.


Mobile computing platforms, like smartphones and tablet computers, are becoming a commodity nowadays. The diversity and fast changing nature of these systems often makes it hard for developers to adapt their applications to the user's context. To simplify development a number of approaches have been suggested, which offer a context-middleware solution such that common functionality can be pooled into plugins and provided to applications. These extensions are then automatically installed if needed, thus enabling easier and faster development of complex applications. Furthermore, if the device changes, it often suffices to exchange the plugins for the applications to function correctly. However, mobile platforms like Android never expected integration in the sense that one application would dynamically host pieces of code from different vendors and allow access to other applications, since doing so basically circumvents many built-in security measures of the operating system. In this paper we analyze Ambient Dynamix, an advanced context-middleware solution, in detail. Hereby, we propose and evaluate security mechanisms to increase the security of Ambient Dynamix. We outline a system to verify the permissions an application requests against the actual Ambient Dynamix plugins it uses. In the following, we evaluate the use of static code analysis to ensure requested and used permissions by a novel method for lightweight on-device analysis. Finally, we propose a secure infrastructure to host, download and install third-party plugins. Our proposed security extensions significantly improve the user's security regarding third-party applications and considerably advance the area of secure mobile middleware.


The consequences of online participation for offline political engagement have been analyzed with contradictory expectations and results. On the one hand, the "slacktivism" perspective considers that online participation may satisfy citizens enough to prevent them from taking part in more demanding modes of action. On the other hand, the "spillover" perspective considers online engagement as a first experience that may boost ulterior offline participation. Using panel data from Spain we show that there are important positive spillover effects of different modes of online participation over offline engagement, including turnout and participation in demonstrations and strikes. The effects seem to be fairly persistent along time. Contrary to what the literature suggest, attitudes do not seem to mediate in this relationship.


Abstract China is a significant producer of kaolin with 2.1 Mt in 2002 representing 8.4% of the world's total of 24.9 Mt. The kaolin resources are widespread throughout the country and are varied in their origin, physical and chemical properties and morphology. The kaolin industry, compared to Europe and the USA, is fragmented with no single large company. In 2002, China was the world's largest producer of ceramics, particularly for sanitary ware and porcelain. Also, China is now the second largest producer of paper and paperboard in the world. The quality of kaolin and halloysite is suitable for ceramics with no need to import. However, the quality of existing paper/ board-coating clays is not up to the quality of imported material from Brazil and the USA and there is an urgent need to develop local resources to meet the present and future demands of the market.


This paper is concerned with the reorganization of biology at Berkeley, begun in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and now well along. Key to the initiation of change was the appointment of a Chancellor and Vice-chancellor who were committed to the changes, and the enlistment of outstanding biologists already at Berkeley to design the reform and carry it through. The paper raises the following questions: what led to the momentous changes in this leading research university; what actually happened as a result of the reform; what the key forces were that made the reform possible; and what, if anything, are the implications of the reform for other universities in the United States and in other countries.


Many Catholics do not know that canon law allows their bishop to impose taxes on the parishes in his diocese for diocesan needs. Under canon law, these diocesan taxes, sometimes called diocesan assessments, parish assessments, or quotas, must "be proportionate to [the parishes'] income." To a tax lawyer, the adjective "proportionate" describes a so-called flat tax, or a system that imposes the same tax rate on every taxpayer's taxable income. Canon law commentators, however, have consistently agreed that diocesan bishops can use a progressive tax, which in this context would impose a higher tax rate on parishes with larger incomes. This article argues that Catholic social teaching, including the U.S. Bishops' 1986 pastoral letter on the U.S. economy, should persuade the diocesan bishops in the United States to use progressive rates whenever they impose diocesan taxes and assessments under canon law. An early 2003 survey underlying this article gathered data from eighty-five of the 176 geographic dioceses in the United States. The survey results reveal that those bishops who impose diocesan taxes or assessments used flat tax rates almost four times more frequently than progressive rates. Given the survey's findings and Catholic social teaching on distributive justice, this article recommends a review of diocesan tax and assessment policies and practices across the United States. Where necessary or appropriate, the article respectfully urges certain changes in those policies and practices, especially the conversion to progressive tax rates. In essence, the bishops should practice what the Gospel, the universal Church, and they themselves teach.


In Justice in Love, Nicholas Wolterstorff argues for a unique ethical orientation called "care-agapism." He offers it as an alternative to theories of benevolence-agapism found in Christian ethics on the one hand and to the philosophical orientations of egoism, utilitarianism, and eudaimonism on the other. The purported uniqueness and superiority of his theory lies in its ability to account for the conceptual compatibility of love and justice while also positively incorporating self-love. Yet in attempting to articulate a "bestowed worth" account of human dignity—in which dignity is given by divine love and respected in acts of justice—Wolterstorff leans on an unstable characterization of how love and the good are conceptually interwoven. As a result, his reader cannot be sure about the theoretical superiority of care-agapism. Moreover, Wolterstorff's attempt to value self-love and at the same time reject eudaimonism depends on a dubious interpretation of Augustine carried over from Justice: Rights and Wrongs, which itself further depends on a mischaracterization of the possible varieties of eudaimonism. This mistake is unfortunate because, on a closer reading of Augustine, one finds an agapistic account of eudaimonism that could have significantly helped Wolterstorff's overall account of the complementary relation of love and justice.


The milk protein, caseinomacropeptide (CMP), is a predominant breakdown product of casein in the human stomach, and may aid in the regulation of food intake. Using a human feeding study design, this project assessed the effects of CMP on satiety and satiation by measuring the amount of food consumed at meal times and through subjective motivation to eat questionnaires. The following beverage treatments were prepared: 0.4% CMP solution, 2.0% CMP solution, vehicle alone, and water containing colorant and clouding agent. Twenty male and 32 female adults were enrolled into the study using a Latin Square randomization. Treatment beverages and ad libitum lunches were consumed on four separate occasions at the Study Center. After lunch, subjects left the Study Center, and completed a standardized questionnaire every hour throughout the afternoon and evening to assess hunger and stomach fullness, and kept track of all food and beverages consumed. Under these experimental conditions, CMP had no effect on energy intake or weight of food consumed at lunch or for the remainder of the day. CMP also had no effect on subjective indicators of satiety. Intake of CMP before a midday meal has no effect on regulation of food intake over a short-term period.


We describe a system that mirrors a public physical space into cyberspace to provide people with augmented awareness of that space. Through views on web pages, portable devices, or on 'Magic Window' displays located in the physical space, remote people may 'look in' to the space, while people within the space are provided information not apparent through unaided perception. For example, by looking at a mirror display, people can learn how long others have been present, where they have been, etc. People in one part of a building can get a sense of the activities in the rest of the building, who is present in their office, look in to a talk in another room, etc. We describe a prototype for such a system developed in our research lab and office space.


Theory in spatial ecology has to steer a narrow and challenging course between the Scylla of oversimplification and the Charybdis of intractability. Until about 15 years ago, most of theoretical ecology was based on the mean-field paradigm, thus targeting well-mixed ecological systems. Although the underlying assumption of spatial homogeneity is violated for many, if not most, ecological populations and communities in the field, mean-field approaches appeared to be the only way forward. They even took center stage in certain areas, as in epidemiological systems (Bailey 1975; Anderson and May 1991), today recognized as typical examples of ecological processes for which space matters. It was only with the advent and ready availability of modern computer technology that explorations into critical effects of spatial heterogeneities became feasible (Levin 1974, 1976; Weiner and Conte 1981; Weiner 1982; Pacala and Silander 1985; Holsinger and Roughgarden 1985; Pacala 1986; Hogeweg 1988). Today, computer screens and journals abound with images of spatially extended simulations that have convincingly demonstrated that many predictions of classical ecological theory are inappropriate in the presence of spatially structured habitats or short-range ecological interactions.

Despite their value as counterexamples to mean-field predictions and their usefulness in exploring the emergence of macroscopic effects resulting from microscopic ecological mechanisms, simulation studies often remain inconclusive. Are the reported phenomena robust under changed ecological parameters? Where, among the noisy dynamics of individual-based and stochastic models, is the ecological signal? How many (usually timeconsuming) spatial simulations have to be run before reliable conclusions can be drawn? These questions remind us that only part of our ecological understanding is based on description: on top of this, we look for mechanistic explanations and for reliable generalizations from observations.


The wavelength dependence of the extinction coefficient in fog and haze is investigated using Mie single scattering theory. It is shown that the effective radius of drop size distribution determines the slope of the log-log dependence of the extinction on wavelengths in the interval between 0.2 and 2 microns. The relation between the atmospheric visibility and the effective radius is derived from the empirical relationship of liquid water content and extinction. Based on these results, the model of the relationship between visibility and the extinction coefficient with different effective radii for fog and for haze conditions is proposed.


In this paper, we first give a necessary and sufficient condition for convergence of P-iteration to a fixed point of continuous functions on an arbitrary interval and prove equivalence of P-iteration, Noor and SP-iteration. We also compare the convergence speed of Noor, SP-iteration and P-iteration. It is proved that the P-iteration con verges faster than Noor and SP-iterations. Moreover, we also present numerical examples for the P-iteration to compare with the Noor and SP-iterations.


There is increasing consensus that the existing system of production and consumption is ecologically unsustainable and inequitable. The global economy depends on the use of 60 billion tons of material resources and 500 exajoules of energy annually. It is these flows that are responsible for resource depletion, negative environmental impacts and social injustice in many developing countries where these resources are extracted. However, the bulk of these resources are used, consumed and disposed of as wastes within cities. More specifically, the way urban infrastructures are configured determines how these resource flows are conducted through cities. It follows that these flows could be reconfigured if existing urban infrastructures were retrofitted or new ones designed to ensure the more sustainable use of these resources in cities. The result would be a shift from unsustainable urbanism to a more sustainable urbanism. Inclusive and splintered urbanism are reviewed as dominant forms of unsustainable urbanism as a result of the way urban infrastructures are configured, while green urbanism and slum urbanism are reviewed as possible alternatives. A conception of 'liveable urbanism' is proposed as a way of thinking about urban development that restores ecosystems and promotes sufficiency.


Made-from-Bone: Trickster Myths, Music, and History from the Amazon. By Jonathan D. Hill. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Pp. xxii + 195, maps, photos, appendices, notes, glossary, index. $65.00 cloth, $22.00 paper.)The hero of this story is Made-from-Bone, Inapirikuli, the Wakuenai trickstercreator assembled from the finger bones of his slain father and entrusted by his Arawak community to defeat the forces of destruction, bring the world into existence through a process of musical naming, and establish channels for the proper conduct of human life, that is, for "the new people in the future world" (165). In tracing the exploits of Made-from-Bone through three cosmic ages, Jonathan Hill provides an accessible, entertaining, and informative portrait of this Amazonian society's cosmogony and manages to suggestively connect this corpus of Wakuenai mythic narrative to currents of history that have buffeted this transitional zone from pre-historical to modern times. An important dimension of the mythic narratives is their account of the origins of the pudali ceremonials, formerly rites of gift-exchange, now occasions for communal celebration; Madefrom-Bone often vivid accounts of the ceremonial life previously at the core of the Wakuenai ethos and more recently at the center of efforts to revitalize, reclaim, and repossess this constitutive ethos, much diminished in the rush to modernization promoted by agents of the Venezuelan state and by Protestant missionaries.The Wakuenai, known to the outside world as the Curripaco (9), are a group of five communities living along river headwaters in the Northwest Amazon where the nations of Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil meet. This book features twenty-one mythic narratives recorded by Hill and his Wakuenai associates in Venezuela during the 1980s and 1990s, presented in very readable English translations that feel somewhat removed from the source performance contexts. FIiIl had the good fortune to link up with a respected Wakuenai elder, Horacio Lopez Pequeira, during his initial fieldwork in the upper Rio Negro region of Venezuela in 1980; then, in 1991, when this master chanter and storyteller died, Hill continued working with his son, Felix Lopez Oliveiros, who had busied himself learning much of his father's repertoire. The twenty-one narratives are grouped into three sections: "Narratives from Primordial Times," "The World Begins," and "The World Opens Up." The task of ordering the corpus fell, as it often does, on the shoulders of the mythographer. Here, Hill worked collaboratively with Lopez Oliveiros, his primary Wakuenai partner, to establish a grouping that is "not a simple, linear chronology" but still "tends to move from earlier, undifferentiated times to later periods of cultural separateness" (xviii). (Did the mythographer also give the stories their titles, as often happens? We are not told.) Interspersed as framing around these three sets of narratives are a preface, an ethnohistorical and an elhnomusicological interlude, and an ethnological coda. The upshot is that Made-from Bone is both a collection of stories and a treatise on Wakuenai civilization; perhaps we should call it a thoroughly contextualized corpus of mythic narrative.In my classes on ethnopoetics at Indiana University (and in the interests of full disclosure, I mention that Jonathan Hill did study with me here), I encourage my students to keep an ethnopoetic scorecard, to ask themselves, with regard to any study of verbal performance: how much of the original texture and force are recoverable from this study? And, how transparent are the procedures of the scholar in producing this representation? Applying this test to Made-from-Bone produces mixed results and I think it worthwhile to examine these briefly in this review. Confining our vista to the book itself, one senses, as I previously stated, a considerable distancing from the spoken Wakuenai in the Rio Negro settlements. …


Smoke detection is a practical technology to protect people's lives and property. Traditional methods to detect smoke are usually based on human-crafted features, such as color, texture and shape. Although these methods do work in some cases, they are not always effective because color, texture and shape of smoke are diverse. In recent years, deep learning have achieved the most accuracy with more complex structures and more numerous parameters. However, the existing methods based on human-craft features are not accurate enough, and the ones based on deep learning often take too much computing resources. To improve the detection accuracy and reduce the computational cost, inspired by the aforementioned works, we propose a decoupled subnetwork to extract color and texture separately just following the procedure of the traditional human-crafted methods. The color sub-network, consisted of several 1× 1 convolution layers, tries to find the most suitable color model by nonlinear functions. The next sub-network, based on a series of depth-wise separable convolution layers, extracts texture features and assembles them into shape features. After integrating these features, the proposed network can comprehensively determine whether there is smoke or fire. Experimental results demonstrate that our network is compact, efficient and effective, and the decoupling trick offers a critical capability needed to catalyze widespread implementation.


Proponents of the resource‐based view of strategic management have argued for processes that align organizational knowledge resources to business strategy. In this view, competitive advantage accrues from accelerating organizational learning and non‐appropriable knowledge. An empirical approach known as socialization counters theories of both institutionalization and "strategic alignment." Socialization enables knowledge strategy through values leadership and practice‐led process. Based on organizational structuration, socialization creates enduring, flexible process structures constructed by practice participants. Socialization results in sustainable processes, uniquely configured to business strategy, and more enduring and resilient than adopted or published process structures. Values leadership orients participants toward the goals, meaning, and value of organizational knowledge. Socialized business processes are non‐transferable, driven by strategic intent, and oriented to enduring organizational values that protect process integrity. A socialization approach integrates practice‐level internal knowledge networks to support business processes and strategy, leveraging knowledge more effectively than institutionalization approaches.


Field-based coordination has been proposed as a model for coordinating collective adaptive systems, promoting a view of distributed computations as functions manipulating data structures spread over space and evolving over time, called computational fields. The field calculus is a formal foundation for field computations, providing specific constructs for evolution (time) and neighbor interaction (space), which are handled by separate operators (called rep and nbr, respectively). This approach, however, intrinsically limits the speed of information propagation that can be achieved by their combined use. In this paper, we propose a new field-based coordination operator called share, which captures the space-time nature of field computations in a single operator that declaratively achieves: (i) observation of neighbors' values; (ii) reduction to a single local value; and iii) update and converse sharing to neighbors of a local variable. We show that for an important class of self-stabilising computations, share can replace all occurrences of rep and nbr constructs. In addition to conceptual economy, use of the share operator also allows many prior field calculus algorithms to be greatly accelerated, which we validate empirically with simulations of frequently used network propagation and collection algorithms.


The price paid by society because of unreasonable medical negligence claims cannot be ignored. While medical malpractice systems in the country are exorbitantly costly, they are also inefficient. This impacts directly on access to healthcare, a basic human right in the country as enshrined in section 27 of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of South Africa (SA). Practising defensive medicine, irrespective of the sector in which healthcare is delivered, has now become the norm, with the focus being not just patient health and best interests, but also that of safeguarding against possible medical malpractice liability, thereby increasing unnecessary clinical and diagnostic procedures. The unequivocal situation is that currently the fear of lawsuits holds hostage practitioners' options and preferences for delivery of ethically exercised care to their patients, leading to frustration and dissatisfaction both to practitioners and patients. Moreover, a culture of blame is also now pervasive.


Dynamic forces induced by hydraulic transients are traditionally associated with structural consequences, however attention should also be given to water quality implications. Conceptually the dynamic forces due to hydraulic transients could mobilise adhered particles and release hazardous material into the bulk water, potentially causing public health and economic problems. This paper presents a set of controlled and systematic experiments that conclusively prove, for the first time, the ability of valve closure transients to mobilise an adhered particle where steady state conditions cannot. This is a significant finding as there is a net decrease in flow, hence pseudo steady state shear stresses, yet the dynamic forces are greater than the initial conditions. Future work will aim to deepen this new understanding of the impact of transients on water quality in Drinking Water Distribution Systems.


The white-naped mangabey Cercocebus lunulatus is severely threatened by logging, mining, and hunting. In the last decade, wild populations have been confirmed in just three forested areas in Ghana and a handful of sites in neighboring Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso. Sightings of this species were recently reported in a fourth area in Ghana, the Cape Three Points Forest Reserve, a forest patch in western Ghana, 60 km from the nearest recorded wild population, which is in the Ankasa Conservation Area. We deployed 14 camera traps across 21 different locations throughout the reserve, with the intention of confirming the presence of this species. Images of the white-naped mangabey were captured at four locations, consolidating recent evidence for a fourth sub-population of this species in Ghana and providing only the second-ever photograph of a wild member of this species in the country. We observed evidence of numerous illegal anthropogenic activities in the reserve, which threaten these mangabeys, and we make recommendations for the protection of the reserve, essential for the conservation of this highly endangered species.


Satellite images are being used in many fields of research. One of the major issues of these types of images is their resolution. In this paper, we propose a new satellite image reso- lution enhancement technique based on the interpolation of the high-frequency sub bands obtained by discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and the input image. The proposed resolution enhance-ment technique uses DWT to decompose the input image into different sub bands. Then, the high-frequency sub band images and the input low-resolution image have been interpolated, followed by combining all these images to generate a new resolution-enhanced image by using inverse DWT. In order to achieve a sharper image, an intermediate stage for estimating the high-frequency sub bands has been proposed. The proposed technique has been tested on satellite benchmark images. The quantitative (peak signal-to-noise ratio and root mean square error) and visual results show the superiority of the proposed technique over the conventional and state-of-art image resolution enhancement techniques.


This work is concerned with a study of certain phenomena related to the performance and design of distributors in gas fluidized beds with particular regard to flowback of solid particles. The work to be described is divided into two parts. I. In Part one, a review of published material pertaining to distribution plates, including details from the patent specifications, has been prepared. After a chapter on the determination of the incipient fluidizing velocity, the following aspects of multi-orifice distributor plates in gas fluidized beds have been studied: (i) The effect of the distributor on bubble formation related to the way in which even distribution of bubbles on the top surface of the fluidized bed is obtained, e.g. the desirable pressure drop ratio ?PD/?PB for the even distribution of gas across the bed. Ratios of distributor pressure drop ?PD to bed pressure drop at which stable fluidization occurs show reasonable agreement with industrial practice. There is evidence that larger diameter beds tend to be less stable than smaller diameter beds when these are operated with shallow beds. Experiments show that in the presence of the bed the distributor pressure drop is reduced relative to the pressure drop without the bed, and this pressure drop in the former condition is regarded as the appropriate parameter for the design of the distributor. (ii) Experimental measurements of bubble distribution at the surface has been used to indicate maldistribution within the bed. Maldistribution is more likely at low gas flow rates and with distributors having large fractional free area characteristics (i.e. with distributors having low pressure drops). Bubble sizes obtained from this study, as well as those of others, have been successfully correlated. The correlation produced implies the existence of a bubble at the surface of an orifice and its growth by the addition of excess gas from the fluidized bed. (iii) For a given solid system, the amount of defluidized particles stagnating on the distributor plate is influenced by the orifice spacing, bed diameter and gas flow rate, but independent of the initial bed height and the way the orifices are arranged on the distributor plate. II. In Part two, solids flowback through single and multi-orifice distributors in two-dimensional and cylindrical beds of solids fluidized with air has been investigated. Distributors equipped with long cylindrical nozzles have also been included in the study. An equation for the prediction of free flowback of solids through multi-orifice distributors has been derived. Under fluidized conditions two regimes of flowback have been differentiated, namely Jumping and weeping. Data in the weeping regime have been successfully correlated. The limiting gas velocity through the distributor orifices at which flowback is completely excluded is found to be indepnndent of bed height, but a function of distributor design and physical properties of gas and solid used. A criterion for the prediction of this velocity has been established. The decisive advantage of increasing the distributor thickness or using nozzles to minimize solids flowback in fluidized beds has been observed and the opportunity taken to explore this poorly studied subject area. It has been noted, probably for the first time, that with long nozzles, there exists a critical nozzle length above which uncontrollable downflow of solids occurs. A theoretical model for predicting the critical length of a bundle of nozzles in terms of gas velocity through the nozzles has been set up. Theoretical calculations compared favourably with experiments.


This is the third paper in the invited collection. Maloney highlights commonalities and divergences between two of Code's works, Epistemic Responsibility (1987) and Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location (2006), focussing on three concepts: epistemic responsibility, which is central and common across both works; cognitive interdependence which is common to both works, but undergoes a major transformation in Ecological Thinking; and advocacy, which is entirely absent from the discussion in Epistemic Responsibility. Code's work intersects with aspects of the work of two other thinkers—Miranda Fricker's hermeneutic injustice and Mikhail Bakhtin's creative understanding. Advocacy as it emerges in Ecological Thinking must include a dialogical process with the other that leads both to and from greater self-understanding if it is to do the work of destabilizing dominant modes of knowing; further, advocacy is both necessary for, and can only happen within, epistemic community.


The paint and surface treatment processes in automotive paint shops are characterized by multiphase and free surface flows, multiphysics interactions, multiscale phenomena, and large moving geometries. The current version of the software for simulation of spray painting developed at the Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre relies on measurements of droplet size distributions and velocity profiles below the applicator that can be used as input to the simulations. This thesis discusses techniques that can be used to reduce the need for costly and complicated measurements by performing detailed simulations instead.
 Surface tension plays an important role during breakup as it acts to stabilize the droplets. On the small scales of droplets from 1-100 μm in diameter it is a strong force yet localized to the interface between the droplet and the surrounding medium. It is therefore crucial to have control over the interface and to this end a novel method for reconstructing the interface of the droplet is proposed. The method relies on approximation by Radial Basis Functions using a technique that enables the omission of small length scale structures in order to obtain a smooth representation that is suitable for numerical discretization. Droplet size distributions have been simulated with the Taylor Analogy Breakup model. A modification taking the large viscosity of the paint into account is introduced to the model and it is applied to the case of rotary bell spray painting commonly used in automotive industry. Results show that the model is able to capture the overall shape of the size distributions, as well as the local spatial dependencies on the size distributions where large droplets are typically found further away from the center. By gaining a better understanding of the physical conditions close to the paint applicator the need for costly and complicated measurements is decreased. Having access to tools for fast and efficient simulation of the spray painting processes would be advantageous, since such tools can contribute to reduce the time required for introduction of new models, reduce the cycle time, reduce the environmental impact, and increase quality.


Oil contamination has been one of the most common environmental pollution due to its threat to both human health and ecosystems. It is difficult for the application of conventional chemical analysis to detect oil contamination in-situ, estimate bioavailability and rapidly assess the environmental risk. In this study, two bioreporters were employed for the rapid and direct detection of oil content and genotoxicity in a cutting oil contaminated site in China. Acinetobacter baylyi ADPWHalk and ADPWHrecA are chromosomally-based bioreporter for the detection of alkanes and genotoxicity separately. The reporter gene cluster luxCDABE enabled cells to express bioluminescence in the presence of contaminants. Calibration curve of bioreporter response to oil in the soils illustrated a log-log linear relationship between oil content and bioluminescence expression, indicating that whole cell bioreporter can be used as a semi-quantitative analysis method to estimate the oil contamination. The oil contamination in soils detected by ADPWHalk (5760 and 1090 mg/kg) were comparable with those obtained by GC/MS (7070 and 1490 mg/kg). Furthermore, the genotoxicity bioreporter ADPWHrecA showed that the ecological genotoxicity of the soil samples were equivalent to 33-36 mg mitomycin C per kilogram soils. The results suggested that bioreporter sensing could be a rapid, simple, low-costly and in-situ detection method with unique ability for the detection of toxicity and bioavailability, and it can be a useful and complementary tool to chemical analysis.


8,5′ cyclopurine deoxynucleosides (cPu) are locally distorting DNA base lesions corrected by nucleotide excision repair (NER) and proposed to play a role in neurodegeneration prevalent in genetically defined Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) patients. In the current study, purified recombinant helicases from different classifications based on sequence homology were examined for their ability to unwind partial duplex DNA substrates harboring a single site-specific cPu adduct. Superfamily (SF) 2 RecQ helicases (RECQ1, BLM, WRN, RecQ) were inhibited by cPu in the helicase translocating strand, whereas helicases from SF1 (UvrD) and SF4 (DnaB) tolerated cPu in either strand. SF2 Fe-S helicases (FANCJ, DDX11 (ChlR1), DinG, XPD) displayed marked differences in their ability to unwind the cPu DNA substrates. Archaeal Thermoplasma acidophilum XPD (taXPD), homologue to the human XPD helicase involved in NER DNA damage verification, was impeded by cPu in the non-translocating strand, while FANCJ was uniquely inhibited by the cPu in the translocating strand. Sequestration experiments demonstrated that FANCJ became trapped by the translocating strand cPu whereas RECQ1 was not, suggesting the two SF2 helicases interact with the cPu lesion by distinct mechanisms despite strand-specific inhibition for both. Using a protein trap to simulate single-turnover conditions, the rate of FANCJ or RECQ1 helicase activity was reduced 10-fold and 4.5-fold, respectively, by cPu in the translocating strand. In contrast, single-turnover rates of DNA unwinding by DDX11 and UvrD helicases were only modestly affected by the cPu lesion in the translocating strand. The marked difference in effect of the translocating strand cPu on rate of DNA unwinding between DDX11 and FANCJ helicase suggests the two Fe-S cluster helicases unwind damaged DNA by distinct mechanisms. The apparent complexity of helicase encounters with an unusual form of oxidative damage is likely to have important consequences in the cellular response to DNA damage and DNA repair.


Despite a quarter century of "nation building," most African states are still driven by ethnic particularism--commonly known as "tribalism." The stubborn persistence of tribal ideologies despite the profound changes associated with modernization has puzzled scholars and African leaders alike. The bloody hostilities between the tribally-oriented Zulu Inkhata movement and supporters of the African National Congress are but the most recent example of tribalism's tenacity. The studies in this volume offer a new historical model for the growth and endurance of such ideologies in southern Africa.


An eclectic set of tissues and existing data, including purposely collected samples, spanning 1997-2006, was used in an ad hoc assessment of hybridization and introgression of farmed wild Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in the small Loch na Thull (LnT) catchment in north-west Scotland. The catchment is in an area of marine farm production and contains freshwater smolt rearing cages. The LnT S. salar stock was found to be genetically distinctive from stocks in neighbouring rivers and, despite regular reports of feral farm S. salar, there was no evidence of physical or genetic mixing. This cannot be completely ruled out, however, and low level mixing with other local wild stocks has been suggested. The LnT population appeared underpinned by relatively smaller effective number of breeders (Neb ) and showed relatively low levels of genetic diversity, consistent with a small effective population size. Small sample sizes, an incomplete farm baseline and the use of non-diagnostic molecular markers, constrain the power of the analysis but the findings strongly support the LnT catchment having a genetically distinct wild S. salar population little affected by interbreeding with feral farm escapes.


This paper is part of the author's work on determining the irreducible factors of sparse (toric) resultants of composed polynomials. The motivation behind this work is to use the factors for efficient elimination of variables, by sparse resultant computation, from composed polynomials. Previous works considered the sparse (toric) resultant of polynomials having arbitrary (mixed) supports composed with (i.e. evaluated at) polynomials having the same (unmixed) supports and of polynomials having the same (unmixed) supports composed with polynomials having arbitrary (mixed) supports, resp. Here, we consider the sparse resultant of linear polynomials having arbitrary (mixed) supports composed with polynomials having arbitrary (mixed) supports, also called "linearly combined polynomials", (under a natural assumption on their exponents). The main contribution of this paper is to determine the irreducible factors, together with their exponents, of the sparse resultant of these linearly combined polynomials. This result essentially generalizes a result by Gelfand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky factoring the sparse resultant of unmixed dense linear polynomials composed with polynomials with unmixed supports. It is expected that this result can be applied to eliminate variables from linearly combined polynomials with improved efficiency.


Introduction Unexplained chest pain is potentially attributable to gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) or oesophageal motility disorders. Reflux chest pain may occur without heartburn. We explored the response of unexplained chest pain to proton pump inhibitor (PPI) therapy in randomised clinical trials (RCTs), differentiating patients with and without objective evidence of GORD. Methods PubMed and Embase were systematically searched for RCTs that reported chest pain response to PPIs in patients who had had pH-monitoring and/or endoscopy to differentiate GORD-positive from GORD-negative subpopulations. Heterogeneity among studies was assessed using the Cochran Q and I2 statistics, and a fixed effect model was applied. Possible publication bias was assessed by Egger's test. Results Six RCTs met the inclusion criteria. All used 24 h pH monitoring and/or endoscopy to define GORD-positive patients and improvement in chest pain to define response (five used ≥50%; one used ≥20%). The therapeutic gain of >50% improvement with PPIs relative to placebo was 56–85% in GORD-positive and 0–17% in GORD-negative patients. The RR of >50% improvement in chest pain with PPI versus placebo was 4.3 (95% CI 2.8 to 6.7; p<0.0001) for GORD-positive and 0.4 (95% CI 0.3 to 0.7; p=0.0004) for GORD-negative patients. Concomitant heartburn varied among trials from being an exclusion criterion to being essentially concordant with GORD-positive status. Conclusions Unexplained chest pain in patients with endoscopic or pH-monitoring evidence of GORD tends to improve, but not resolve, with PPI therapy, whereas GORD-negative patients have little or no response. Heartburn was a poor predictor of whether patients with chest pain were GORD-positive or GORD-negative by objective testing.


In 1999, the Chesapeake Bay Program completed a survey of existing data on chemical contaminants and the potential for bioeffects in 38 tidal river systems of Chesapeake Bay.
This review led to the identification of 20 areas for which there were insufficient data to adequately characterize the potential for contaminant bioeffects on the Bay's living
resources. The goal of the present study was to estimate the current status of ecological condition in five of these areas and thus help to complete the overall toxics inventory for the Bay. These five systems included the Chester River, Nanticoke River, Pocomoke River, Lower Mobjack Bay (Poquosin and Back Rivers) and the South and Rhode Rivers. This study utilized a Sediment Quality Triad (SQT) approach in combination with additional water-column contaminant analysis to allow for a "weight of evidence"
assessment of environmental condition. A total of 60 stations distributed among the five systems, using a probabilistic stratified random design, were sampled during the summer of 2004 to allow for synoptic measures of sediment contamination, sediment toxicity, and benthic condition. Upon completion of all analyses, stations were assigned to one of four categories based on the three legs of the triad. Stations with high sediment quality had no
hits on any of the three legs of the triad; those with moderate quality had one hit; those with marginal quality had two hits; and those with poor quality had hits for all three legs of the triad. The Pocomoke River had by far the largest proportion of the total area (97.5%) classified as having high sediment quality, while the Rhode/South system had the highest proportion (11.4%) classified as poor. None of the stations in the Chester River, Nanticoke River, and Lower Mobjack Bay systems were classified as poor. More
than 65% of the area of each of the five systems was classified with high to moderate sediment quality. The Rhode/South system had 30.4% of total area classified with
marginally to severely poor quality. The results of this study highlight the importance of using multiple indicators and a "weight of evidence" approach to characterize
environmental quality and the potential bioeffects of toxic contaminants.


Recent financial crises, whose effects have been particularly severe in developing countries, have led to a wide-ranging debate on international financial reform. This debate has had to confront the implications of the huge growth of international capital movements, one of whose consequences has been the increased "privatization" of external financing for developing countries. The paper begins with surveys of major features of the post-war evolution of the system of governance of the international financial system and of the principal trends in capital flows to developing countries during the past three decades. These set the stage for a selective review of appropriate policy responses to international financial instability, with the main focus on proposals for remedying structural and institutional weaknesses in the global financial architecture through such means as greater transparency and improved disclosure, strengthened financial regulation and supervision, more comprehensive and even-handed multilateral policy surveillance, and bailing in the private sector by arrangements for orderly debt workouts. In view of the continuing absence of effective measures at the global level for dealing with financial instability, the paper puts special emphasis on the maintenance by developing countries of national autonomy regarding policy towards capital movements.


This study examines the state of communications in the process of collection of requirements between the Secretariat of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) of the Government of Cundinamarca and the municipalities of the department, through surveys and interviews with stakeholders and comparative analyses based on the current technical quality standards and variables of the global communication model. The data analyzed suggest that the strategies and instruments of the communication and quality area in the revised process have very little impact, as evidenced by the low levels of knowledge on the technological offer and interaction with stakeholders. Setting off from the global project management model and the systemic analysis approach, recommendations are made to the ICT Secretariat's requirements collection process, thereby enabling it to strengthen its institutional offer and effectively meeting the needs of the target population.


The tragic devastation that followed Hurricane Katrina was largely the result of governmental negligence. Although the ineptitude of federal, state and local authorities in the aftermath of the hurricane has been well-chronicled, less attention has been paid to the shoddy construction, inspection, and maintenance of the levee system; a system that failed under the stress of a low-level hurricane. Drawing on authoritative engineering reports that reviewed problems with the levees, this article concludes that the system's failure was principally the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers, abetted by state and local failures. Thus, the federal government bears responsibility to the citizens of New Orleans whose lives were lost or shattered after Katrina. Notwithstanding this fault, those injured or killed by Katrina have received little from the government. Federal disaster relief, available in all cases following a declaration of disaster, has been the principal - and inadequate - remedy. In contrast, the families of those killed by the terrorist acts of September 11 received generous payouts, in many cases totaling millions of dollars, from general revenue. These payments were made in spite of the government's likely lack of substantial fault in the events leading up to September 11. This article argues that the difference in treatment cannot be justified by recourse to any principle of justice. Government does have an obligation to come to the assistance of disaster victims, but this obligation is constrained by the requirement of distributive justice, which mandates that the welfare of all citizens be taken into account. Thus, even the heartbreaking events of September 11 should have triggered no more than typical FEMA relief efforts. Matters are more complicated, though, where government itself is to blame for a tragedy, as was to a great extent true in the case of Katrina. In that case, one can argue that the government should pay the victims for the same reasons that we require private defendants to pay for injuries they cause innocent victims (plaintiffs): the imperatives of corrective justice, which treat the parties as a closed set and require one to pay the other to redress an imbalance that culpable conduct creates. But the government, of course, is not a private "party," and it is therefore impossible to "close off" its assets from those of everyone else. Thus, although it seems clear that Katrina victims have a better claim to government compensation than did the victims of September 11, it does not follow that the government should simply pay out in the same way that tort plaintiffs would be compensated. The article argues for a creative middle ground: Government should not restrict itself to disaster payments, but should stop short of full tort compensation. Flexibility and attention to changing developments, and a "long tail" approach to improving the lives of Katrina's victims, are the best solutions to a theoretically and practically difficult problem.


This article explains the dynamics of the "path-breaking" evolution in the corporate governance of Russia's big private businesses since Putin rose to power in 2000, based on the discursive institutionalism. For the goal, it pays attention to several political factors such as Putin's state bureaucracy and tax reform, economic recovery, and newly rising coherent elite groups, which constructed statism. Due to these factors, the Russian state could be empowered in both ideational and material dimensions, and the power relations between the state and businesses also transformed significantly. Under the hegemonic domination of Putin's statism, as a result, owner-managers began to reinterpret the problem of corporate governance and spontaneously accepted prominent foreign shareholders, though they were subject to supervision and constraint by the outside owners. These behaviors were caused more by political incentives of owner-managers than by economic interests, because the external owner would increase the costs of which the offensive state must pay in the instance of arbitrary threats to businesses. The existence of prominent external shareholders itself could protect the assets of oligarchs and legitimize their political statuses. In other words, changes in the interests and strategies of ownermanagers who collided with the empowered state, which "attacked" and confiscated big private businesses through nationalizing them, consequently brought about changes in corporate governance toward the "Anglo-Saxon model." Keywords: Discursive Institutionalism, Statism, Nationalizing, Corporate Governance, "Anglo-Saxon Model," Authoritarian Empowered State, Putin, Big Businesses, Owner-managers (Oligarchs), Multinational Investors Introduction This article aims to explain the dynamics of the "path-breaking" evolution that has taken place in the corporate governance of Russia's big private businesses1 since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000. This paper focuses on the unique political economic contexts rather than limiting its view to economic efficiency in order to examine how conversion of big businesses was brought about. Since the mid-1990s when the shift in the political economic system was in full swing along with neoliberal reforms and privatization, big Russian businesses attracted attention. A research conducted in 2002 showed that eight oligarchs controlled 85 percent of the country's top 64 businesses. According to Sakwa (2004: 190-191), the share of big businesses remained undiminished even during Putin's term. Big businesses used to concentrate on speculative action of "virtual economy" to accumulate financial assets in the 1990s but switched their main business areas to "real economy" after 2000. In addition, amendments to the laws concerning corporate governance have been made in favor of the "Anglo-Saxon shareholder-oriented model" (Rodionov and Skaletsky, 2002; Porshakov, 2004; Roberts, 2004). Big-scale product market regulations in Russia continue to be managed politically through patrimonial connections because the state is still the major coordinator of the national economy with extensive public ownership of assets. Nonetheless, since the later part of Putin's first term, only large private businesses have shown a real shift toward the "Anglo-Saxon model" beyond the legal changes.2 In fact, individual "majority shareholder-managers" (owner-managers) have few incentives to make Initial Public Offering (IPO) or sell stakes to others or to voluntarily change corporate governance to the "Anglo-Saxon model" in countries like Russia where owner-managers are still thriving and the state-controlled range remains very wide. Rather, the corporate governance type in big businesses had been more closely related to the "German model" right after the post-Soviet reform. Then, what caused the "new phenomena," a patterned conversion in the corporate governance of some big private businesses in Russia during this period? …


GRIGOROVA, S., M. NIKOLOVA, D. PENKOV and V. GERZILOV, 2014. Egg yolk lipids change in Japanese quail given Tribulus terrestris extract. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 20: 1472-1476 The objective of the current research was to study the change of yolk lipid fractions in the eggs of Japanese quails (Coturnix coturnix japonica) given different doses of the Bulgarian product Vemoherb T (dry extract from the herb Tribulus terrestris). A total of 52 female and 16 male Japanese quails of Pharaon breed, at the age of 44 days were randomly divided into four groups – control and 3 experimental (13 female and 4 male in each). All groups were fed ad libitum the same compound feed. Tribulus terrestris was added to the quails' drinking water in the following daily doses: 4mg/kg body weight for a period of 10 weeks (Ist group); 10mg/kg body weight during the first fife weeks of the experiment (IInd group); 10mg/kg body weight for a period of 10 weeks (IIInd group). The following indices of egg yolk were determined at the end of the experiment: total lipids – by Bligh and Dyer (1959); phospholipids – by Bartlett (1975); total cholesterol content – by Shoenheimer-Sperry (1950) and fatty acid composition – using the "Perichromm" gas chromatograph. The content of total yolk lipids in IIIrd experimental was significantly higher compared to the other two treated groups (P 0.05). The values of total yolk phospholipids were unaffected by addition of different doses TT extract. There was statistically proven decrease of total cholesterol content in the yolk of all experimental groups relative to control group (P < 001 for Ist and IInd experimental groups and P < 0.001 for IIIrd experimental group). Third experimental group unlike the other groups had higher concentration of linoleic acid (P < 0.05).


Drawing on original historical research, this article provides the most comprehensive view to date of the birth of the modern movement to prohibit the unauthorized practice of law. Focusing on the work of bar associations in Illinois and New York in the late 1800s and early 1900s, this article chronicles how newly formed bar associations began to curb the unauthorized practice of law. Their efforts eventually led to a well-established state constitutional law principle that state courts, not state legislatures, have the power to define the practice of law and who can practice law. This power currently has a significant impact on exploring alternative ways to increase access to justice. Unlike other areas, such as health care, state legislatures cannot create new categories of licensed professionals to provide legal services in order to increase access to legal services. At the time that bar associations began to address the unauthorized practice of law, this exclusive power of state courts was not well-established. In fact, as the research in this article demonstrates, early bar associations initially saw state legislatures as appropriate partners to define the practice of law and help them curb the unauthorized practice of law. The exclusion of legislatures came later. Examining this history raises the question of whether the exclusion of legislatures is mandated by separation of powers, or whether they were excluded because, pragmatically, courts were a better partner for promoting lawyers' self-interests. If the latter, then the current power of the state courts can and may become an artifact of history.


Objective Comparison of conventional Penetrating Keratoplasty (PKP), posterior mushroom PKP and Descemet's Stripping Automated Endothelial Keratoplasty (DSAEK) regarding overall graft survival of primary corneal transplants for Fuchs´ endothelial dystrophy (FED), best spectacle-corrected visual acuity (BSCVA) and astigmatism. Methods Single centre study using prospectively collected data from the national database for follow-up of corneal transplants. Main outcome parameters: 10 years graft survival, astigmatism at 24 months, pre- and post-operative BSCVA. Results In total, 721 cases were included: PKP, n = 171; posterior mushroom PKP, n = 91; and DSAEK, n = 459. There was no significant difference in graft survival between PKP, posterior mushroom PKP and the DSAEK technique (log-rank test, P = 0.12). The overall post-operative BSCVA improvement in all treatment groups was significant (paired t-test, P<0.001). Pre-operative BSCVA was better for the DSAEK group (0.68 ± 0.41 logMAR) as compared to the PKP (0.89 ± 0.53) and posterior mushroom PKP group (0.90 ± 0.58); ANOVA, P<0.001. After 24 months, BSCVA was significantly better for the DSAEK group (0.25 ± 0.26 logMAR) compared to the PKP (0.35 ± 0.29) and posterior mushroom PKP group (0.41 ± 0.42); ANOVA, P<0.001. A significant difference in astigmatism was found (median test, P<0.001) between the DSAEK (1.7 ± 1.1 D), PKP (4.6 ± 2.7 D) and posterior mushroom PKP group (4.5 ± 3.3 D). The significantly lower DSAEK-induced astigmatism was confirmed by vector analysis. Conclusion There was no difference in graft survival and BSCVA improvement between conventional PKP, inverted mushroom PKP and DSAEK in this study. The significantly lower changes in astigmatism, wound stability and faster visual rehabilitation with DSAEK surgery are favourable aspects of this technique. The benefits of posterior lamellar keratoplasty warrant earlier intervention, which may contribute to preserve better vision for a prolonged period of remaining lifetime.


By the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window-shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened …'. Frankenstein is the most celebrated horror story ever written. It tells the dreadful tale of Victor Frankenstein, a visionary young student of natural philosophy, who discovers the secret of life. In the grip of his obsession he constructs a being from dead body parts, and animates this creature. The results, for Victor and for his family, are catastrophic. Written when Mary Shelley was just eighteen, Frankenstein was inspired by the ghost stories and vogue for Gothic literature that fascinated the Romantic writers of her time. She transformed these supernatural elements an epic parable that warned against the threats to humanity posed by accelerating technological progress. Published for the 200th anniversary, this edition, based on the original 1818 text, explains in detail the turbulent intellectual context in which Shelley was writing, and also investigates how her novel has since become a byword for controversial practices in science and medicine, from manipulating ecosystems to vivisection and genetic modification. As an iconic study of power, creativity, and, ultimately, what it is to be human, Frankenstein continues to shape our thinking in profound ways to this day.


Sinusitis refers to an inflammatory condition involving the four paired structures surrounding the nasal cavity. In Unani system of medicines according to the father of medicines Buqrat [Hippocrates] the nasla is the condition in which the nasal mucosa gets inflamed and always associated with excessive nasal discharge, while zukam is a nazla of nasal mucosal lining. It is estimated that 6 to 13 percent of children will have had one case of acute sinusitis by the age of three years. It is the 5th leading diagnosis for which antibiotics are prescribed. In USA the prevalence of sinusitis is estimated to be 14 percent of the global population. Most of the Unani scholars have given both extrinsic [external environmental factors] and intrinsic [factors with in human body] responsible for sinusitis. The important causes of sinusitis are allergic rhinitis and viruses [rhinovirus, parainflunza virus and infulnza virus]. Pain on respected sinus sites headache and postal nasal drip are major symptoms. The main stay of treatment for acute sinusitis is symptomatic relief and analgesics. Line of treatment in Unani medicines should be started with Izale sabab, ilaj bil ghiza, Ilajbil tadbeer and then ilaj bil dawa.


Extractor-type cleaners are used on cotton stripper harvesters and in seed cotton cleaning systems in the ginning process to remove large foreign material such as burs and sticks. Early research indicated that the. shape of the grid bars used in extractors may influence the performance ofthese machines but studies were not conducted to specifically address this issue. The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of grid bar cross sectional geometry on extractor per formance with regard to foreign matter removal, seed cotton loss, and fiber quality preservation. A laboratory-screening test was used to evalu ate nine experimental grid bar geometries along with a conventional round grid bar geometry in twenty-eight machine configurations. Total for eign matter removal and seed cotton loss were influenced by machine configuration. Machine configurations that removed the most total for eign matter also had the highest seed cotton loss. Machine configuration had no effect on HVI fiber quality parameters and a minimal effect on AFIS fiber quality. The results indicate that foreign matter removal and seed cotton loss increase as the open space between grid bars increases. Find ings suggest that total foreign matter removal and seed cotton loss can be improved for field cleaners using grid bars with a flat approach and angled relief installed around the bottom saw cylinder.


Diseases that result from infection are, in general, a consequence of specific interactions between a pathogenic organism and the cells. The study of host-pathogen interactions has provided insights for the design of drugs with therapeutic properties. One area that has proved to be promising for such studies is the constituted by carbohydrates which participate in biological processes of paramount importance. On the one hand, carbohydrates have shown to be information carriers with similar, if not higher, importance than traditionally considered carriers as amino acids and nucleic acids. On the other hand, the knowledge on molecular recognition of sugars by lectins and other carbohydrate-binding proteins has been employed for the development of new biomedical strategies. Biophysical techniques such as X-Ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy lead currently the investigation on this field. In this review, a description of traditional and novel NMR methodologies employed in the study of sugar-protein interactions is briefly presented in combination with a palette of NMR-based studies related to biologically and/or pharmaceutically relevant applications.


The present study aims to investigate how was the journey of the athletes from Rio Grande do Sul state, who participated in the Olympic Games (OG) of 1920, from the beginning of their sports career, crossing through the participation of the athletes in the 1920 OG, until their return home, after the event. For that, reports from newspapers circulating in the state were analyzed, as well as in Rio de Janeiro, capital of Brazil at that period. The sources revealed that, in Rio Grande do Sul, shooting was among the first sports practices to be insert into clubs, notwithstanding, it was responsible to impelling the creation of Shooters Associations. Two shooters who took part in the 1920 OG came from clubs of Rio Grande do Sul and, although characterized by the unpredictability of their traveled paths, perhaps, the participation and conquest of medals in this edition of the OG was the greatest moment in the sports life of these Olympic shooters.


John Wesley Hohfeld has lost one audience and gained another within the century since he published his seminal Fundamental Legal Conceptions. Hohfeld originally conceived of his work as an aide to lawyers and law students. And law faculties initially embraced him with ardor. Over time, however, law faculties have lost interest in Hohfeld, and moral philosophers have taken their place, such that it is difficult to read widely today regarding the ethics of war and self defense without coming across supportive references to Hohfeld. Unfortunately, moral theorists too often invoke Hohfeld for propositions that he explicitly disavowed. Using Uwe Steinhoff and other commentators as foils, I discuss several of the most common errors that moral and legal commentators make about Hohfeld.


In an often-discussed scene of Gravity's Rainbow, elite members of "the corporate Nazi crowd" (164) attending a seance circa 1930 ask the ghost of Walter Rathenau about the future of the corporate-dominated world economy. Rathenau replies that wisdom in this matter is gained by considering two key issues: '''what is the real nature of synthesis?'" and '''what is the real nature of control?''' (167). In these words, Rathenau describes the corporate world as a constellation of commercial and human aggregates with the same degree of complexity and unnaturalness as synthetic polymers. Indirectly, he also defines the psychological profiles of the human beings who inhabit the novel–the persona of Pynchon's engineers, managers, military researchers and intelligence operatives. Indeed, since the inception of the corporate economy about a hundred years ago, social scientists and business ideologues have assumed that control–the art of "thriving on chaos," as 1980s business guru Tom Peters puts it–must be the keystone of a manager's personality. Corporate leaders, business analyst Michael Porter contends, have to learn "strategy formulation under uncertainty" (qtd. in Cannon 93). In this essay, I wish to highlight how central this model of the corporate personality is in Gravity's Rainbow. To some extent, I deal with Pynchon's mapping of the post-Second World War economy as if it were a manual of industrial psychology–a typology of the rituals and strategies adopted by characters whose lives are defined by corporate ideology, whether they align themselves on this economic pattern or develop oppositional practices against it.


Current high-throughput gene expression experiments have a straightforward design of examining the gene expression of one group or condition relative to that of another. The data is typically analyzed as if they represent strictly intracellular events, and often treats genes as coming from a homogeneous population. Although intracellular events are crucial to nearly all biological processes, cell-cell interactions are often just as important, especially when gene expression data is generated from heterogeneous cell populations, such as from whole tissues. Cell-cell molecular interactions are generally lost in the available analytical procedures and as a result, are not examined experimentally, at least not accurately or with efficiency. Most importantly, this imposes major limitations when studying gene expression changes in multiple samples that interact with one another.
In order to addresses the limitations of current techniques, we have developed a novel systems-based approach that expands the traditional analysis of gene expression in two stages. This includes a novel sequence-based meta-analytic tool, AbsIDconvert, that allows for conversion of annotated features using an interval tree for storing and querying absolute genomic coordinates for comparison of multi-scale macro-molecule identifiers across platforms and/or organisms.
In addition, a systems-based heuristic algorithm is developed to find intercellular interactions between two sets of genes, potentially from different tissues by utilizing location information of each gene along with the information available in the secondary databases in the form of interactions, pathways and signaling.
AbsIDconvert is shown to provide a high accuracy in identifier conversion as compared to other available methodologies (typically at an average rate of 84%) while maintaining a higher efficiency (O(n ∗ log(n)). Our intercellular interaction approach and underlying visualization shows promise in allowing researchers to uncover novel signaling pathways in an intercellular fashion that to this point has not been possible.


In this paper we derive a frequency selective extrapolation method for three-dimensional signals. Extending a signal beyond a limited number of known samples is commonly referred to as signal extrapolation. We provide an extrapolation technique which enables to estimate image areas by exploiting simultaneously spatial and temporal correlations of the video signal. Lost areas caused by transmission errors are concealed by extrapolation from the surrounding. The missing areas in the video sequence are estimated conventionally from either the spatial or temporal surrounding. Our approach approximates the known signal by a weighted linear combination of 3-D basis functions from spatial as well as temporal direction and extrapolates it into the missing area. The algorithm is able to extrapolate smooth and structured areas and to inherently compensate motion and changes in luminance from frame to frame.


Aspergilus flavus is the most common seed born fungus that deteriorates the seed quality and minimizes the export value of rice all over the world. As the excessive use of chemicals worldwide has proved lethal environmentally so the present study was carried out to evaluate different organic extracts against fungal growth and their effects in improving the germination percentage of infested rice seeds. The experiment was carried out in-vitro using four different concentrations (2, 4, 6, 8%) of organic extracts as compared to control in a completely randomized design and all the data was subject to statistical analysis. Regarding mycelial growth, higher concentrations of plant extracts were significantly better as statistical results revealed that the organic extracts of Neem and Brassica were proved better and comparative to each other followed by activity of Diver (Mineral Oil), Onion and Garlic extracts. Similarly, the performance of Brassica and Neem extracts were recorded better regarding improvement in germination percentage of infested rice seeds as compared to Diver, Onion and garlic extracts. Hence we suggest avoiding the dangerous chemicals and use the organic extracts to manage the particular fungus efficiently and safely.


Marina Vidas: Representation and reception. Women in the Copenhagen Bohun Hours. Ms. Thott 547 4o This article presents and analyzes depictions of women in the Copenhagen Bohun Hours (Copenhagen, Royal Library, Ms. Thott 547 4o), an exquisitely illuminated fourteenth-century English manuscript, made for a young female member of the Bohun family, and focuses on meanings images could have had for their primary viewer. The representations which are examined are of: the book owner, the Virgin Mary, shown on nine of the fully illuminated folia, St. Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, Job's wife, a group of nuns as well as of three mothers who appear in the bas-de-pages. Firstly, it is argued that the painted portrait of the book owner is flattering in its presentation of the subject's beauty, status and character. Attention is drawn to the fact that in her portrait, the book owner resembles the Virgin shown on the same folio. Secondly, it is suggested that the representations of the armorials of the heiress's natal family, dominant in the manuscript, are evidence of pride in her noble lineage and her succession to the family titles as countess in her own right while the arms of the crown, depicted on her surcoat in her portrait and on one of the fully-illuminated folios, proclaim her royal connections. Thirdly, representations of holy women are discussed and it is suggested that they offered the viewer a variety of relevant role models and experiences to admire, inspire, and imitate. It is also proposed that some of the tales and scenes in the bas-de-pages could have had a cautionary purpose. Finally, it is observed that there is a substantial interest not only in individual women but a more general preoccupation with women's relationships with the divine, with children and with other women.


After the original contributions of Hasegawa and Wakatani (HW), basic two-field models such as the modified and balanced Hasegawa-Wakatani (BHW) models improve the understanding of plasma edge turbulence. The recent two-field flux-BHW model provides an improved treatment for the balanced electron dynamics on magnetic flux surfaces. The Hasegawa-Mima (HM) model offers another simplified one-field characterization of the zonal flow–drift wave interaction mechanism. A major restriction in the original HM model is the lack of intrinsic instability which is essential to maintain drift wave turbulence and plasma transport. We overcome this limitation by linking this model with the two-field HW equations with drift instability while keeping the simplicity in the one-field balanced formulation. A systematically derived unstable forcing is introduced to the modified HM model mimicking the role of the inherent instability near the low resistivity limit, where the unstable branch of the HW solution gradually becomes aligned with the HM potential vorticity. Detailed numerical experiments are performed to test the skill in the one-field model with unstable forcing. It is shown with qualitative and quantitative agreement that the one-field modified HM model is able to replicate the typical drift wave and zonal flow interacting procedure under a more analytically tractable framework. The insight gained from the simple model analysis can also offer guidelines for the development of model reduction methods for more complicated systems.After the original contributions of Hasegawa and Wakatani (HW), basic two-field models such as the modified and balanced Hasegawa-Wakatani (BHW) models improve the understanding of plasma edge turbulence. The recent two-field flux-BHW model provides an improved treatment for the balanced electron dynamics on magnetic flux surfaces. The Hasegawa-Mima (HM) model offers another simplified one-field characterization of the zonal flow–drift wave interaction mechanism. A major restriction in the original HM model is the lack of intrinsic instability which is essential to maintain drift wave turbulence and plasma transport. We overcome this limitation by linking this model with the two-field HW equations with drift instability while keeping the simplicity in the one-field balanced formulation. A systematically derived unstable forcing is introduced to the modified HM model mimicking the role of the inherent instability near the low resistivity limit, where the unstable branch of the HW solution gradually becomes...


ARTICLE INFO Appropriate estimation of the reliability index is important to evaluate the failure probability in structural reliability analysis. Therefore, some methods such as: HL-RF and the Gradient method have been developed and commonly used to determine the reliability index of structures. In this paper, a new method is proposed for determining of the reliability index which is formulated using the nonlinear conjugate gradient method. First, the new iterative method was presented and then, efficiency and robustness of the proposed method were investigated using several examples. Accurate convergence and iterations of the new iterative algorithm were compared with the previous methods such as: the Hasofer-Lind approach, Gradient method, stability transformation method (STM) and Mont Carlo simulation, for examples. The results indicate that the proposed method is more robust than the old first order reliability methods i.e. the HL-RF and Gradient method. So that, this old methods were not converged for some examples but, the proposed method was converged for all problems. On the other hand, the results of proposed method are accurate and as similar as the STM but more efficient and was converged with less number of iterations in comparison with the STM.


During October 2005, the Competition Tribunal heard evidence on the proposed merger between two large oil companies, Sasol Oil (Pty) Ltd and Engen Ltd. During the hearing it emerged that major aspects that would determine the outcome of the matter were: Potential foreclosure; Demand growth rates of white fuel; and Logistics. The aim of this paper is to examine how the Tribunal dealt with the issue of potential foreclosure, by examining the expected growth rates of white fuels. The Tribunal had to consider the extent to which foreclosure in the oil industry would be profitable. This depended partly on expected growth rates in the demand for petrol and diesel. It will be argued that although there was conflicting evidence on this point, a proper analysis of economic variables such as expected economic growth rates, petrol demand elasticities and income elasticities, provided sound reasons for the Tribunal to prohibit the merger.


When CEOs think about the supply chain, it's usually to cut costs. But the smartest leaders see supply chain and sourcing for what they can be: hidden tools for outperforming the competition. Steve Jobs, upon returning to Apple in 1997, focused on transforming the supply chain. He hired Tim Cook—and the company sped up the development of new products, getting them into consumers' hands faster. The rest is history.

 Across a range of industries, once-leading companies are in trouble: Walmart, IBM, Pfizer, HP, and The Gap to name a few. But others thrive. While competitors were shutting stores, Zara's highly responsive supply chain made it the most valued company in the retail space and its founder, the richest man in Europe. The success of TJX, Amazon, Starbucks, and Airbus, is fueled by supply chain and sourcing. Showcasing real solutions, The Supply Chain Revolution will:

 Improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue

 Make alliances more successful

 Simplify and debottleneck the supply chain

 Boost retail success by managing store investment

 Drive excellence

 Technology is disrupting business models. Strategies must change. The Supply Chain Revolution flips conventional thinking and offers a powerful way for companies to compete in challenging times.