The effects of chloride on the redox properties of an engineered binuclear heme-copper center in myoglobin (Cu(B)Mb) were studied by UV-vis spectroelectrochemistry and EPR spectroscopy. A low-spin heme Fe(III)-Cu(I) intermediate was observed during the redox titration of Cu(B)Mb only in the presence of both Cu(II) and chloride. Upon the first electron transfer to the Cu(B) center, one of the His ligands of Cu(B) center dissociates and coordinates to the heme iron, forming a six-coordinate low-spin ferric heme center and a reduced Cu(B) center. The second electron transfer reduces the ferric heme and causes the release of the coordinated His ligand. Thus, the fully reduced state of the heme-copper center contains a five-coordinate ferrous heme and a reduced Cu(B) center, ready for O(2) binding and reduction to water to occur. In the absence of a chloride ion, formation of the low-spin heme species was not observed. These redox reactions are completely reversible. These results indicate that binding of chloride to the Cu(B) center can induce redox-dependent structural changes, and the bound chloride and hydroxide in the heme-copper center may play different roles in the redox-linked enzymatic reactions of heme-copper oxidases, probably because of their different binding affinity to the copper center and the relatively high concentration of chloride under physiological conditions.


The most practical and suitable method for industrial production of methyl esters of palm oils with negligible free fatty acids (e.g. neutralized palm oil and refined, bleached and deodorized palm oil) is methanolysis of the glycerides catalyzed by sodium hydroxide. Several parts including the type of catalyst, oil/alcohol ratio, temperature, stirring speed and free fatty acids content, have been found to influence the transesterification of palm oil. Optimum reaction conditions were obtained with a molar ratio of methanol-to-oil at 10:1 and a reaction time of 7 min at ca. 65½C. The rate of reaction was optimized at a stirring speed of 150 rpm. The minimum amount of methanol required to achieve total conversion was 233% (excess methanol) (a methanolto-oil molar ratio of 10:1). The catalyst used should not exceed 0.5 mole kg -1 oil as otherwise it would cause solidification of the reaction mixture due to soap formation. For a large number of glyceride oils containing <5% free fatty acids, transesterification to methyl esters can be readily effected using additional sodium hydroxide to neutralize the free fatty acids. Glycerol from the transesterification process was purified from 80%-85% to more than 96% with a yield of not less than 75%.


In eastern Hungary during the summer of 1997, 17 natural grasslands holding Corncrakes were analysed to establish their general biodiversity and to compare them with neighbouring grasslands that lacked calling Corncrakes. The diversity of plants and birds on a small scale was measured through a series of plot and point counts, while the diversity at site level was measured by standardised counts of species richness per site for plants, butterflies and birds. Sites with Corncrakes did hold more plant, butterfly and bird species than the control sites. The small scale of the point and plot counts meant that we could not explain this difference, which may indicate that the effect was mainly caused by a more heterogeneous habitat structure at the Corncrake sites. This is supported by the fact that the number of indicator species of hedgerows, bushes and isolated trees, but not of indicator species of open grasslands, was higher at the sites with Corncrakes. Tree Pipit Anthus trivialis, Common Cuckoo Cuculus canorus were associated with the Corncrake, (Corn Bunting Emberiza calandra tended to be associated with Corncrake) while (Eurasian) Skylark Alauda arvensis and Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava tended to be commoner at the control sites. Corncrakes can be considered as a good umbrella species for the biodiversity of wet grassland habitats because the large and heterogeneous habitats suitable for this species also provide suitable niches for most other species of wet grasslands breeding in eastern Hungary.


Aim: Technology and the internet are new platforms to deliver information, to interconnect people and to offer interactive media. The potential of technology has been explored, in promising ways, for the treatment and prevention of different psychological disorders. Also, since several decades ago, the potential of video games for the treatment and prevention of psychological disorders has been explored with positive results. The main goals of this study were two: a) to design an online adventure video game as complementary tool in psychotherapeutic processes of adolescent women with symptoms of depression; b) to evaluate the acceptability by female adolescents of an online video game as a complementary tool in psychotherapy.
Methods: a) Design phase. The game design followed a user oriented iterative process. First, focus groups with teenage girls were conducted to obtained ideas for the video game story. The first prototypes were play tested with some girls. Besides, the video game design process was accompanied and reviewed by 5 psychotherapists. b) Pilot study. Therapist (5) invited patients (15) to play the game. After patients played the video game, they responded the online acceptability and game experience questionnaires. In the sessions that followed therapist and patients reflected on the relation of the video game and the patients' situation. Later, psychotherapists were interviewed to obtain their opinions about the experience.
Results: It was possible to design an adventure video game, sustained in psychological theory that provided a positive game experience for some depressive patients and that it was useful in the context of their psychotherapies.
Discussion: One of the most important contributions of this work is that the video game prototype and the experiences presented provide evidence that future developments and research on video games for mental health are worthwhile. This was a very simple game, a prototype that recognizes a future in which interactive devices and artificial intelligence will offer vast possibilities for education and mental health.
Keywords: Video game for mental health, interactive narratives, depression, psychotherapy with adolescents, psychoeducation.


Bioregionalism is an innovative way of thinking about place and planet from an ecological perspective. Although bioregional ideas occur regularly in ecocritical writing, until now no systematic effort has been made to outline the principles of bioregional literary criticism and to use it as a way to read, write, understand, and teach literature.The twenty-four original essays here are written by an outstanding selection of international scholars. The range of bioregions covered is global and includes such diverse places as British Columbia's Meldrum Creek and Italy's Po River Valley, the Arctic and the Outback. There are even forays into cyberspace and outer space. In their comprehensive introduction, the editors map the terrain of the bioregional movement, including its history and potential to inspire and invigorate place-based and environmental literary criticism.Responding to bioregional tenets, this volume is divided into four sections. The essays in the "Reinhabiting" section narrate experiments in living-in-place and restoring damaged environments. The "Rereading" essays practice bioregional literary criticism, both by examining texts with strong ties to bioregional paradigms and by opening other, less-obvious texts to bioregional analysis. In "Reimagining," the essays push bioregionalism to evolve--by expanding its corpus of texts, coupling its perspectives with other approaches, or challenging its core constructs. Essays in the "Renewal" section address bioregional pedagogy, beginning with local habitat studies and concluding with musings about the Internet.In response to the environmental crisis, we must reimagine our relationship to the places we inhabit. This volume shows how literature and literary studies are fundamental tools to such a reimagining.


First-order variations of eustatic charts (200–400 m.y.) are in agreement with our understanding of the geodynamic processes that control sea level. By extrapolation, second-order (10–100 m.y.) and third-order (1–10 m.y.) variations are also thought to follow the same rules. However, this assumption may be jeopardized by a closer examination of the Permian–Triassic example, for which climatic and tectonic eustasy fails to explain the variations of the eustatic charts. During this period, eustatic charts peak down to their lowermost Phanerozoic values and display second-order variations at rates of up to 3 m/m.y., which is inconsistent with the expected eustatic signal during the early fragmentation of the Pangean supercontinent and the late Paleozoic melting of ice sheets. Here, we review the possible mechanisms that could explain the apparent sea-level variations. Some of them do modify the eustatic sea level (ESL). In particular, dynamic deflections of Earth's surface above subduction zones and their locations with respect to continents appear to have been the primary controls of absolute sea level as the Pangean supercontinent formed and broke up. Other mechanisms instead only locally or regionally produced vertical ground motions, either uplifting continents or tilting the margins where the control points were located. We show that (1) the thermal uplift associated with supercontinent insulation and (2) the dynamic uplift associated with the emplacement of a superplume both give rates of sea-level change in the range of long-term changes of ESL. We also show that (3) the dynamic tilt of continental margins not only produces apparent sea-level changes, but it also modifies the absolute sea level, which in turn may end up in the paradoxical situation wherein fingerprints of ESL drop are found in the geological record during actual ESL rise. We conclude that second-order absolute sea-level changes may remain elusive for some time.


Extracted from text ... HISTORY AFTER APARTHEID: VISUAL
CULTURE AND PUBLIC MEMORY IN A
DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA
Annie E. Coombes
Durham and London: Duke University Press,
2003, ISBN: 0-822-3303-0601 (hardback);
ISBN: 0-822-3303-7250 (paperback)
Life changed greatly in South Africa in the 1990s,
so perhaps it is inevitable that a literary snapshot
of it, taken five or ten years ago, would appear
somewhat out of date today. This is the case with
the nonetheless engaging and enlightening book,
History After Apartheid, by Annie Coombes.
In her first, well-received monograph, Reinventing
Africa (Yale Press, 1994), Coombes wrote
about nineteenth-century Europe. She showed
how the exhibition ..


Too Much or Too Little An important task of the nervous system is to distribute information appropriately throughout the brain. The olfactory and gustatory systems of Drosophila provide good models for understanding these processes and the underlying mechanisms (see the Perspective by Su and Carlson). Lin et al. (p. 1338) mapped out the circuit that detects carbon dioxide (CO2), an important environmental and communication signal for fruit flies. Two distinct classes of projection neurons mediate avoidance of high and low concentrations of CO2, while a third class, comprising inhibitory neurons, shuts down the low-concentration pathway at high concentrations. In contrast to other basic taste qualities, salt is innately attractive at low concentrations, but aversive at high concentrations. The mechanisms underlying salt detection are poorly understood in any species mainly because of a lack of specific molecular tools. Zhang et al. (p. 1334) discovered that Drosophila uses two types of gustatory receptor neurons to distinguish between high and low concentrations of salt. One type is activated maximally by low salt and induces attractive feeding behavior. The other class of receptors is activated primarily by high salt and leads to avoidance behavior. Low or high concentrations of sodium chloride activate distinct receptor pathways and, hence, elicit attractive or aversive responses. [Also see Perspective by Su and Carlson] Below a certain level, table salt (NaCl) is beneficial for animals, whereas excessive salt is harmful. However, it remains unclear how low- and high-salt taste perceptions are differentially encoded. We identified a salt-taste coding mechanism in Drosophila melanogaster. Flies use distinct types of gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) to respond to different concentrations of salt. We demonstrated that a member of the newly discovered ionotropic glutamate receptor (IR) family, IR76b, functioned in the detection of low salt and was a Na+ channel. The loss of IR76b selectively impaired the attractive pathway, leaving salt-aversive GRNs unaffected. Consequently, low salt became aversive. Our work demonstrated that the opposing behavioral responses to low and high salt were determined largely by an elegant bimodal switch system operating in GRNs.


High density electrochemical energy storage is of central importance for mobile power applications. The relatively low energy density and high cost associated with the current approaches to electrochemical energy storage, including various battery and supercapacitor technologies, have been the main hurdles to its more widespread application. Herein we report a new family of silicide based anode materials for high energy density metal–air primary batteries. Several intrinsic features of silicide materials including high electron capacity, high conductivity and high operating voltage make them an excellent class of materials for very high density energy storage. We show that various silicide anodes (Mg2Si, TiSi2, CoSi2 and VSi2) can exhibit excellent electrochemical performance with unparalleled capacity in both thin films and bulk powder pellet forms. With further optimization, silicide materials can promise a new battery family with ultra-high anode capacity and can open up exciting opportunities for future mobile power applications.


This study examined the spatial patterns of vertebrate biodiversity, with an emphasis on mammals, in the Australian Wet Tropics biogeographic region over a range of spatial scales. Regional patterns of diversity were described on the basis of a review and collation of all available data on vertebrate distributions. The highest species diversity of vertebrates was found in sclerophyll habitats (approximately 388 species). Rainforest was considerably less species-rich with about 259 vertebrate species; however, regional endemism was much higher in rainforest (25%) than in the combined sclerophyll habitats (4%). Although there was no consistent latitudinal or altitudinal dine in diversity, there was a consistent turnover in the assemblage composition of vertebrates, both altitudinally and latitudinally. Habitat diversity at the landscape scale was consistently important in explaining the variance in patterns of species richness.

The number of regionally endemic species of vertebrates and the proportion of regional endemics present in each sub-region were both related to the geographic shape and area of sub-regional patches of rainforest. Shape had a more significant influence on regional endemism than area, while area had a stronger influence on species richness. These patterns were similar for all terrestrial vertebrate classes.

Mammal assemblages were examined in more detail: multivariate analyses suggested five different geographically separated rainforest mammal assemblages. The most diverse was found in the central uplands (Atherton Tableland) with a decrease in diversity to the north and south, and with decreasing altitude. The most diverse areas were characterised by large areas of rainforest with a rounder shape (low shape index), high annual rainfall, consistent rainfall in the dry season and a diversity of rainfall regimes.

The combination of rainforest area and shape explained most of the variance (r2 = 0.74) in the patterns of species richness of rainforest mammals. Various measures of habitat diversity were also dependent on area, and a similar degree of the variance in species richness (r2 = 0.78) was explained by using rainforest shape and habitat diversity variables (rainfall and vegetation diversity) and excluding area. This suggests that the effect of area on the patterns of species richness was primarily due to its positive influence on habitat heterogeneity. Analysis of the mammalian guild structure indicated that it was the number of species within guilds that most strongly affected patterns of species richness, although the number of guilds also had an effect. Most of the variance in species richness could be attributed to three guilds: arboreal folivores, small scansorial and small scansorial folivore-omnivores.

The results suggest that habitat heterogeneity and patterns of localised extinctions (species sifting) during historical contractions of the rainforest have been extremely important processes in determining regional patterns of vertebrate biodiversity in Australia's wet tropical rainforests.

An investigation of the local-scale patterns of mammal diversity was undertaken on the southern Atherton Tableland Spotlighting and live trapping were used to examine the relationships between the composition of the mammal assemblage and habitat structure over several spatial scales. The results showed that the structure of the mammal assemblages was closely correlated with vegetation structure. The presence or absence of specific guilds was related to vegetation complexity, although total species richness was not. Local species richness of ground-dwelling mammals was mostly a product of the spatial variability in assemblage structure (b diversity), which was related to the spatial variability in vegetation structure.

The effect of spatial scale is crucial to the understanding of the generality of processes which limit or promote biodiversity. Each spatial scale represents a nested hierarchy within the larger scales. The available species pool at a given spatial scale constrains the upper limit of species richness possible at the smaller scales while spatial patterns within a scale are determined by processes acting at that scale. This study examined patterns of diversity over a range of spatial scales and conceptual models are presented which describe the different spatial scales and the variety of processes which act at each spatial scale.


The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) identifies diffuse pollution as a long-term threat to water quality. Farming contributes significantly to this pollution. There is a clear need for mitigation measures and assessment of their efficacy. Accordingly, Demonstration Test Catchments (DTCs) have been established in England to test the effect of changes in agricultural practice on river water quality and ecology. However, the presence of groundwater in these hydrological systems implies a wide range of travel times for pollutants from source to receptor. Unless flow routes are better characterized, it will be difficult to gauge the success of control measures in the short term. Using 3D modelling and supplementary hydrochemical information, this study considers the hydrogeology of several sub-catchments in the Avon DTC, southern England. Data suggest that groundwater ages >25 years exist in parts of the catchments; clearly, observations like these must be used to judge the likely effectiveness of targeted control measures. The revealed hydrogeological complexity of the Avon catchment is unlikely to be unique, so the techniques described here should be applicable to other lowland river systems with moderate to high baseflow indices (>0.5). To support the WFD, groundwater conceptual models should inform the design of effective measures for diffuse pollution mitigation.


This thesis is a study which uses discourse analysis theory to analyze the coherence on the language used in comic strips. The writer wonders how the readers understand the meaning of `Smurf? in the comic strips which the `Smurf' words carry different meanings. Besides, the writer also wants to find out what is the intended meaning of `Smurf? in the comic strips. To limit the research activities the writer takes six pieces of comic strips taken from Smurf magazine in May and June edition, 1991, as her data. In analyzing the data the writer did several steps. First, she described the context of situation, by using the theory of Hyme?s Ethnography of Speaking. Second, she described the meaning of each dialogue in each comic strip based on Brown and Yule theories on Coherence concerning the two aspects of recognizing coherent texts, namely; the general socio-cultural knowledge (frame, scripts and schemata) and the inference. Third, she noted down all the intended meaning in `Smuff words that had been underlined. From the analysis, the writer finds out that the word `Smurf? in the comic strips is used to replace different vocabularies. Although the word `Smurf' is not used to replace particular words, there are some of them have the same meaning, like the words; make, fly, to do and surprise. Finally, the writer finds out that language and culture are interrelated. That?s why to convey the intended message from the comic strip, the readers have to know about social background knowledge and cultural background knowledge used in the comic strip. Since the Smurf comic strips used a lot of `Smurf words, the readers have to interpret the intended meaning by themselves. Without social background knowledge and cultural background knowledge the readers might end with misunderstanding or misinterpretation in reading the comic strip.


Although inflammatory bowel disease is associated with higher risk of colorectal cancer, the precise pathogenic mechanisms underlying this association are not completely understood. Prohibitin 1 (PHB), a protein implicated in the regulation of proliferation, apoptosis, and transcription, is decreased in intestinal inflammation. In this study, we have established a key function for PHB in mediating colitis-associated cancer. Wild-type and transgenic (Tg) mice specifically overexpressing PHB in intestinal epithelial cells were subjected to a classical two-stage protocol of colitis-associated carcinogenesis. In addition, wild-type and p53 null human cell models were used to assess PHB interaction with STAT3 and p53. Wild-type mice exhibited decreased mucosal PHB protein expression during colitis-associated carcinogenesis. Tg mice exhibited decreased susceptibility in a manner associated with increased apoptosis, p53, Bax, and Bad expression plus decreased Bcl-xL and Bcl-2 expression. PHB overexpression in wild-type but not p53 null human cells increased expression of Bax, Bad, and caspase-3 cleavage. In wild-type p53 cells, PHB overexpression decreased basal and interleukin-6-induced STAT3 activation and expression of the STAT3 responsive genes Bcl-xL and Bcl-2. PHB coimmunoprecipitated with phospho-STAT3 in addition to p53 in cultured cell lysates and colon mucosa. This is the first study to show interaction between PHB and STAT3 in vivo. In summary, our findings suggest that PHB protects against colitis-associated cancer by modulating p53- and STAT3-mediated apoptosis. Modulation of PHB expression in intestinal epithelial cells may offer a potential therapeutic approach to prevent colitis-associated carcinogenesis.


Little is known about the long-term consequences of grazing effects on microphytes. This study tested for density-dependent responses to grazer removal on the biomass (Chlorophyll a: 'Chla') and composition of natural high rocky-shore biofilms over a 7-month period. Gastropod snails Melarhaphe neritoides graze entirely within circular halos generated in biofilms surrounding their refuges. The experiment crossed 3 levels of original snail density per halo with 3 levels of grazing intensity (generated by 100%, 50% and 0% snail removal). Areas inside halos from which all snails had been removed sustained significantly higher Chla than never-grazed control areas outside the halos. This effect of grazing history was still present after 7 months, suggesting that past grazing had an enduring positive influence on biofilm biomass. Against expectation, Chla-biomass was not increased by removing snails, regardless of original grazer density. Half- and fully-grazed halos peaked to a higher Chla than ungrazed halos in spring. Grazing did not affect the presence of major biofilm taxonomic groups, although it did alter their relative contributions. Never-grazed areas were covered by thick biofilm detritus and had proportionally more filamentous cyanobacteria than grazed areas, which sustained abundant clusters of coccoid cyanobacteria and lichen within micro-pits inaccessible to snail radulae. The study shows that effects of grazing history are not exclusive to macrophytic systems. Grazers boosted the concentration of micro-autotrophs relative to non-Chla biofilm constituents, probably by removing an unproductive biofilm canopy and facilitating light and nutrient penetration for new growth.


Thermokarst lakes, a characteristic landscape element of the Arctic, are rarely found outside arctic situations. Here, a 30-yr photogrammetric monitoring series of a thermokarst lake in the Gruben area, Swiss Alps, is presented. The lake, situated in an environment of dead-ice remains and creeping permafrost, reached a final size of ca. 10,000 m² in area and 50,000 m³ in volume before it had to be drained artificially in 1995. Starting in the mid-1960s it grew with radial rates of ca. 1.5 to 5 m yr⁻¹. Nonlinear coupling of lake diameter and energy turnover led to accelerated area growth. The development of the lake was presumably driven by thermal convection of water. By a dynamic model of lake growth, we show that a change in climate conditions and/or the lake bottom topography could have significantly influenced the observed lake growth. The effective energy turnover used for ice-melt and subsequent lake growth was estimated to be in the order 10⁰ to 10¹ W m⁻².


SYNOPSIS: We investigate the impact of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5) on audit fees and audit quality. AS5 supersedes Auditing Standard No. 2 (AS2), and became effective for audits for accelerated filers for fiscal years ending on or after November 15, 2007. Using a large sample of accelerated filers subject to AS5, we find evidence that audit fees decrease upon the adoption of AS5. More importantly, even though AS5 adoption reduces audit fees for our test sample, we find no evidence of a decrease in audit quality. In summary, we document evidence that AS5 improves the efficiency of internal control audits. JEL Classifications: M41.


The major part of this dissertation (70%) is a work of fiction titled Seeing the Elephant: a novel set mostly in the Vietnamese Highlands in the period 1962-65. In 2009, Minh, a Vietnamese refugee who is recovering from cancer in Australia recalls memories of his work as a translator for Frank, a member of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV). The two men work closely together and, through their shared experiences, form a relationship that will have a lasting impact on both of their lives.

The thesis, Everything will always do nothing: Learned helplessness, trauma and the Vietnam War novel, argues that the concept of learned helplessness adds to the scope of what is currently perceived as traumatic response in literary theory, contributing to resolving the tension between literary trauma theory and the study of trauma within other academic disciplines. Learned helplessness is a condition that can affect trauma sufferers, leading to the belief that "no amount of effort can lead to success" (Eggen and Kauchak, 412). The thesis analyses several Vietnam War novels and examines the issues that are foregrounded by reading representations of trauma through the lens of learned helplessness. The thesis offers insights into the role that culture, gender and place play in traumatic representation. It also examines the role of silence in the text, not as a neurobiological symptom of trauma, but as an outcome of cultural censorship. Finally the thesis examines how, when the concept of learned helplessness is employed in literary analysis different representations of healing allow the analysis to move beyond abreactive, linguistic methods to encompass all behaviour that leads to the restoration of contingency.


This article responds to recent attempts to use democratic and republican principles as a basis for reforming copyright law. Taking the recent work of Neil Netanel as its text, the article begins by challenging the claim that media concentration necessarily reduces program diversity in a way that justifies reducing the duration and scope of copyright protection. An analysis of the theoretical and empirical literature on the economics of program choice reveals that the relationship between concentration and program diversity is more ambiguous than democratic theorists suggest. Whether concentration increases or reduces diversity depends on additional factors, such as the structure of viewer preferences, the availability of excess channel capacity, program costs, and the availability of direct viewer support in addition to advertising support. It is impossible to determine the impact of concentration on program diversity without analyzing these other factors. The article also challenges the claim that free speech principles support reducing the duration and scope of copyright protection. To reach this conclusion, democratic copyright theorists rely on an instrumental vision of free speech that values speech only to the extent that it supports democratic decisionmaking. This vision of speech will draw little support from those who view rights as moral constructs, or from those who value speech for its furtherance of other values. Furthermore, any democracy-centered approach must necessarily offer some standard for determining whether copyright is providing the degree and type of public discourse required by the body politic. The failure of democratic copyright theorists to specify a baseline of the amount and type of speech required by a properly functioning democracy makes it impossible to evaluate the propriety of any of the proposed copyright reforms.


In settings of incomplete information, we put forward (1) a very conservative -- indeed, purely set-theoretic -- model of the beliefs (including totally wrong ones) that each player may have about the payoff types of his opponents, and (2) a new and robust solution concept, based on mutual belief of rationality, capable of leveraging such conservative beliefs. We exemplify the applicability of our new approach for single-good auctions, by showing that, under our solution concept, a normal-form, simple, and deterministic mechanism guarantees -- up to an arbitrarily small, additive constant -- a revenue benchmark that is always greater than or equal to the second-highest valuation, and sometimes much greater. By contrast, we also prove that the same benchmark cannot even be approximated within any positive factor, under classical solution concepts.


We contribute to the nascent literature on the heterogeneity of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the relevance of firm characteristics for analysing the determinants of outward foreign direct investment (FDI). The focus is on the role of firm-level heterogeneity when MNEs decide on the share of ownership in foreign affiliates. We combine two firm-specific datasets on German MNEs with varying equity stakes in Indian affiliates. The impact of firm characteristics on ownership shares is assessed in the context of OLS and fractional logit models, controlling for industry and location characteristics. We show that the effect of several characteristics differs between the establishment of new affiliates by German MNEs and their engagement in already existing Indian firms. Most notably, the productivity of the German parents matters only for ownership shares in new affiliates.


Key Findings
1. Volunteers bring a range of skills that are useful for the police. Many want to use these skills; however, some want to explore volunteering opportunities that are new to them. A skills analysis of new volunteers will be highly useful, but some will want to do something completely different.
2. Motivations for volunteering vary, from wanting the join the Regulars through to just wanting to do something worthwhile. Managers need to be aware of these differences.
3. Most volunteers enjoy their time with the police and get a lot out of it; yet some feel underused or under-informed, a concern for volunteer retention.
4. Volunteers are generally complementary about their supervision and have good relations with other volunteers and with Regular officers.
5. Special Constables and PSVs see their role as being in support of Regular officers. Whilst this supporting role is important, so too are their roles in improving legitimacy, providing a 'bridge' between the regulars and communities, and in making the police more representative of communities.
6. PSVs generally see their role as quite different to the Regulars, and so when asked about PSVs potentially being given powers, most are against the idea.


Ever since Grotius first suggested that desire for esteem from the broader global community motivates States to comply with international law, identifying just how this desire effects compliance has proven illusive. The ability to harness the pull of international society is important to virtually all treaty formation and compliance. It is especially important in the area of human rights regimes where other compliance forces such as coercion, are rarely, if ever, used. Recent empirical evidence, however, suggests that human rights regimes are ineffective. Indeed, in many situations this evidence suggests that the human rights practices of States that ratify such treaties may actually worsen after ratification. The need to understand how, or whether, the pull of international society influences state behavior, thus, has never been greater. This Article provides an initial detailed model of the forces motivating human rights treaty creation and compliance by drawing on evolving expressive law literature. It begins by setting forth a need-reinforcement model that explains how normative pressure influences rational actors to alter their behavior and beliefs while seeking regard from other group members. Next, the Article applies this model to State treaty ratification and compliance, and describes how treaties exert expressive effects that lead rational States to change their behavior because of their desire to be part of and esteemed by the global community. The Article then demonstrates how an expressive theory harmonizes the contributions of divergent international law scholars into a more complete theory of why States enter into and obey international law. In doing so, it provides a framework from which regime design implications can be drawn.


The past two years have seen rapid development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) with the rise of a number of MOOC platforms. The scale of enrolment and participation in the earliest mainstream MOOC courses has garnered a good deal of media attention. However, data about how the enrolment and completion figures have changed since the early courses is not consistently released. This paper seeks to draw together the data that has found its way into the public domain in order to explore factors affecting enrolment and completion. The average MOOC course is found to enroll around 43,000 students, 6.5% of whom complete the course. Enrolment numbers are decreasing over time and are positively correlated with course length. Completion rates are consistent across time, university rank, and total enrolment, but negatively correlated with course length. This study provides a more detailed view of trends in enrolment and completion than was available previously, and a more accurate view of how the MOOC field is developing.


Ischemia and denervation of EDL muscle of adult rat induce a large central zone of degeneration surrounded by a thin zone of peripheral surviving muscle fibers. Muscle regeneration is a complex phenomenon in which many agents interact, such as growth factors and heparan sulfate components of the extracellular matrix. We have shown that synthetic polymers, called RGTA (as regenerating agents), which imitate the heparan sulfates, are able to stimulate tissue repair when applied at the site of injury. In crushed muscles, RGTA were found to accelerate both regeneration and reinnervation. In vitro, RGTA act as protectors and potentiators of various heparin binding growth factors (HBGF). It was postulated that in vivo their tissue repair properties were due in part to an increase of bioavailability of endogenously released HBGF. In the present work, we show that ischemic and denervated EDL muscle treated by a unique injection of RGTA differs from the control after 1 wk in several aspects: 1) the epimysial postinflammatory reaction is inhibited and the area of fibrotic tissue among fibers is reduced; 2) the peripheral zone, as measured by the number of intact muscle fibers, was increased by more than twofold; and 3) In the central zone, RGTA enhances the regeneration of the muscle fibers as well as muscle revascularization. These results suggest that RGTA both protects muscle fibers from degeneration and preserves the differentiated state of the surviving fibers. For the first time it is demonstrated that a functionalized polymeric compound can prevent some of the damage resulting from muscle ischemia. RGTA may therefore open a new therapeutic approach for muscle fibrosis and other postischemic muscle pathologies.—Desgranges, P., Barbaud, C., Caruelle, J.‐P., Barritaoult, D., Gautron, J. A substituted dextran enhances muscle fiber survival and regeneration in ischemic and denervated rat EDL muscle. FASEB J. 13, 761–766 (1999)


This thesis is about the work and organisation of local religious congregations in England. It focuses on the congregation of two religions- Christianity and Judaism; that is, on 'churches' and 'synagogues'.
In Chapter One, the study is positioned within the academic field of social policy and
administration. Chapters Two, Three and Four review literature on the historical and
societal context within which churches and synagogues operate, the role of religious
functionaries and organisational features of congregations. Four organisational themes
cutting across denominational and religious boundaries are identified: purposes and
goals; roles and role relationships; organisational change; and denominational
institutions.
Chapter Five develops an approach for an empirical study and gives an account of
fieldwork in an inner-city Roman Catholic church; a black-led Pentecostal church in
an industrial town; an Anglican church on a housing estate; and a suburban Reform
synagogue. Organisational features of the four case congregations are presented in
Chapter Six.
In the following four chapters the organisational issues which arise in the
Congregations are described and analysed. Chapter Seven presents the perceived
Issues in congregations around setting and implementing goals. Chapter Eight looks
at clerical roles and Chapter Nine at the roles of lay employees and volunteers.
Chapter Ten discusses organisational change, the links between congregations and their denominational institutions, and organisational structures.
Finally, in Chapter Eleven, the study findings are drawn together and re-examined
in the light of the earlier literature. The way in which the case studies elucidate and
develop knowledge about the work and organisation of congregations is discussed.
It is suggested that further progress towards the development of theory on
congregation organisation could be made by conceptualising congregations as
voluntary organisations.


Ongoing public concern over declining water quality at Lake Tahoe, California‐Nevada (USA) led to an investigation of wind‐driven nearshore sediment resuspension that combined field measurements and modeling. Field data included: wind speed and direction, vertical profiles of water temperature and currents, nearbed velocity, lakebed sediment characteristics, and suspended sediment concentration and particle size distribution. Bottom shear stress was computed from ADV‐measured nearbed velocity data, adapting a turbulent kinetic energy method to lakes, and partitioned according to its contributions attributed to wind‐waves, mean currents, and random motions. When the total shear stress exceeded the critical shear stress, the contribution to overall shear stress was about 80% from wind‐waves and 10% each from mean currents and random motions. Therefore, wind‐waves were the dominant mechanism resulting in sediment resuspension as corroborated by simultaneous increases in shear stress and total measured sediment concentration. The wind‐wave model STWAVE was successfully modified to simulate wind‐wave‐induced sediment resuspension for viscous‐dominated flow typical in lakes. Previous lake applications of STWAVE have been limited to special instances of fully turbulent flow. To address the validity of expressions for sediment resuspension in lakes, sediment entrainment rates were found to be well represented by a modified 1991 García and Parker formula. Last, in situ measurements of suspended sediment concentration and particle size distribution revealed that the predominance of fine particles (by particle count) that most negatively impact clarity was unchanged by wind‐related sediment resuspension. Therefore, we cannot assume that wind‐driven sediment resuspension contributes to Lake Tahoe's declining nearshore clarity.


We explored the effects of regime shifts (drastic changes usually observed in marine ecosystems, corresponding to climatic variability) in a terrestrial system focusing on a key event that occurred in 1976-77. We used data on the gray-sided vole Clethrionomys rufocanus (Sundevall, 1846) from 89 time series covering 31 yr (1962-1992), recorded in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan, where both cyclic and non-cyclic populations occur. Wavelet analyses demonstrated a clear shift of dynamic patterns in the mid-1970s, presumably resulting from the Aleutian Low Pressure (as measured by the Aleutian Low Pressure Index). The vole populations exhibited erratic fluctuations until the mid- 1970s, and then changed their pattern to cyclic fluctuations at a 4 yr interval. The structure of density dependence changed during the regime shift. Although the strength of direct density dependence was similar, delayed density dependence became stronger after the shift. Altogether these findings suggest that changing climate may affect the ecological interactions among voles, predators and resources.


"Double the Numbers" explores policies that are likely to serve as building blocks in any "next phase" of education reform that tackles the dual problems of high school completion and postsecondary access and success. Only 25 percent of the U.S. high school students complete any college degree. Among African American youth, only 18 percent earn a baccalaureate by age twenty-nine. For Hispanic Americans, the figure is a mere 10 percent. The United States urgently needs to address this problem. For reasons of intellectual and professional opportunity, economic efficiency, and social equity, the nation must do a better job of preparing young people not only to enter college, but also to earn credentials that are key to professional and economic success. "Double the Numbers" highlights emerging strategies--at state, district, and school levels--for improving postsecondary outcomes. High schools pose special challenges in this regard: how to motivate older adolescents in school settings; how to overcome the rigidities of high school schedules and routines; how to prepare students for smooth transitions to postsecondary learning and success. This book explores policies that are likely to serve as building blocks in any "next phase" of education reform that tackles the dual problems of high school completion and postsecondary access and success. The contributions from many of the leading figures in education reform, such as Kati Haycock, Robert Schwartz, and Marc Tucker, address these issues from a number of distinct perspectives. The authors propose changes in the designs fo high schools and colleges--innovations that could overcome the discontinuities, perverse incentives, and inflexibilities of existing educational institutions. They focus on state policy because to double the number of students attaining postsecondary credentials within a decade will require aggressive innovation by states. Finally, they consider how oppoortunities and outcomes vary by race, ethnicity, and gender, and they look at the implications of these variations for policy and practice.


Understanding the Mediterranean rangelands degradation trends is a key element of mitigating their vulnerability and enhancing their resilience. Climate change and its inherent effects on mean temperature and the precipitation variability can regulate the magnitude, frequency and duration of droughts and aridity with a profound effect on ecosystem productivity. Here we investigate the effects of climate change to project the development of vegetation in the Mediterranean rangelands by (i) estimating the relative Standardized Precipitation Index and a modification of the United Nations Environment Programme Aridity Index to classify climate variability, and (ii) modelling vegetation response to climate using the Food and Agriculture Organisation crop–water production function. Climate model data are obtained from nine general circulation models under Relative Concentration Pathways 2.6 and 8.5 of the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. After correcting climate model data for biases, results for two 40‐year future study periods are compared with the baseline period 1961–2000 within a domain that includes the European Mediterranean. We show that a gradual but robust increase of aridity and drought frequency is estimated for most of the Mediterranean region, impacting rangeland vegetation yields. Projected drought and aridity disturbances may well represent permanent shifts to a warmer and more frequently dry status. This alternative stability of climatic pressure lies outside the limits of ecosystem resilience and may indicate that in some cases vegetation will either adapt to the new conditions or be succeeded by more water‐stress tolerant species. Results raise concerns about the fate of the Mediterranean rangelands and the effectiveness of mitigation measures. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


This article justifies Abney's DP Hypothesis from a point of view internal to Basque grammar. The author reviews Abney's arguments and adapts them to Basque, devoting special attention to proper names and personal pronouns. Two separate sections discuss (a) the relevance of the NP/DP distinction in three constructions (vocatives, complex predicates and predicate nominals), and (b) the language internal evidence for further functional projections (Q and Num), based on quantification data and DP-internal number agreement. Finally, the author proposes that doubly determined noun phrases with initial demonstratives (only found in Western Basque) should be analyzed in the light of the DP Hypothesis.


Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by atypical social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviors; such traits are continuously distributed across nonclinical and clinical populations. Recently, relationships between ASD traits and low-level multisensory processing have been investigated, because atypical sensory reactivity has been regarded as a diagnostic criterion of ASD. Studies regarding an audiovisual illusion (the double-flash illusion) reported that social communication difficulties are related to temporal aspects of audiovisual integration. This study investigated whether similar relationships exist in another audiovisual illusion (the stream-bounce effect). In this illusion, two visual objects move toward each other, coincide, and pass each other, and the presentation of a transient sound at their coincidence induces a dominant perception that they bounce away from each other. Typically developing adults were recruited to perform experimental trials involving the stream-bounce effect. We measured their ASD traits using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient. The total quotient score was not related to any behavioral measurements of the effect. In contrast, for participants with higher difficulty in communication, the greatest magnitude of the stream-bounce effect occurred when the presentation timing of the sound tended to follow the visual coincidence. Participants with higher difficulty in imagination also showed the greatest magnitude of the effect when the presentation timing of the sound preceded that of the visual coincidence. Our findings regarding the stream-bounce effect, along with previous findings regarding the double-flash illusion, suggest that atypical temporal audiovisual integration is uniquely related to ASD sub-traits, especially in social communication.


The problem of oscillating lifting surface of finite span in subsonic compressible flow is reduced to an integral equation. The kernel of the integral equation is approximated by a simpler expression, on the basis of the assumption of sufficiently large aspect ratio. With this approximation the double integral occurring in the formulation of the problem is reduced to two single integrals, one of which is taken over the chord and the other over the span of the lifting surface. On the basis of this reduction the three-dimensional problem appears separated into two two-dimensional problems, one of them being effectively the problem of two-dimensional flow and the other being the problem of spanwise circulation distribution. Earlier results concerning the oscillating lifting surface of finite span in incompressible flow are contained in the present more general results.


Captions are a central component in image posts that communicate the background story behind photos. Captions can enhance the engagement with audiences and are therefore critical to campaigns or advertisement. Previous studies in image captioning either rely solely on image content or summarize multiple web documents related to image's location; both neglect users' activities. We propose business-aware latent topics as a new contextual cue for image captioning that represent user activities at business venues. The idea is to learn the typical activities of people who posted images from business venues with similar categories (e.g., fast food restaurants) to provide appropriate context for similar topics (e.g., burger) in new posts. User activities at businesses are modeled via a latent topic representation. In turn, the image captioning model can generate sentences that better reflect user activities at business venues. In our experiments, the business-aware latent topics are effective for adapting to captions to images captured in various businesses than the existing baselines. Moreover, they complement other contextual cues (image, time) in a multi-modal framework.


A carefully selected collection of essays by the most renowned specialist in terminology in France, now published in English. The chapters deal with the origins of terminology, theoretical issues, social aspects, neologisms and evolution, lexicology and lexicography, applied issues, description and control, standardization and terminology in Le Grand Robert . It contains the revised and translated chapters of Rey's famous La Terminologie — noms et notions and other recent articles in English. This book is essential reading for terminology theorists and practitioners and will serve as elementary reading in Terminology training. It includes a complete bibliography of Alain Rey's writings.


This article focuses on formation of environmental policy in different periods in Lithuania. The purpose of the article is to analyze main steps of development environmental policy. Some researchers keep opinion that the beginning of environmental policy started in the interwar period. Meanwhile more environmental specialists are following position that in this period had been not founded any specialized environmental institution and the roots of environmental policy cannot be in the interwar years. Actually development of environmental policy started after Second World War in the soviet period when Nature Conservation Act has been adopted and State Nature Protection Committee, and some environmental protection agencies had been founded. The beginning of modern environmental policy started in the beginning of re – establishing of the Independent Republic when Sate Environmental Protection Department has been founded and Environmental Protection Act has been adopted. The adoption of the State Environmental Protection Strategy and the National Environmental Protection Strategy are main current strategic instruments to develop modern environmental policy in Lithuania. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.18.1.23127


Great Britain & Reza Shah: The Plunder of Iran, 1921-1941, by Mohammad Gholi Majd. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001. xiii + 386 pages. Notes to p. 412. Sel. bibl. to p. 414. Index to p. 429. About the author. $59.95. Reviewed by Michael P. Zirinsky The title of Mohammad Gholi Majd's book, Great Britain & Reza Shah: The Plunder of Iran, 1921-1941, encapsulates his thesis: Britain invaded Iran in 1918 for its own nefarious purposes, placed Reza Pahlavi in power, and encouraged him to loot the country; in 1941, deciding that Reza Shah was too transparently their agent, Britain again invaded and replaced Reza Shah with his son. Majd's book is largely based on US diplomatic records, preserved at the National Archives. Its greatest strength lies in extensive quotations from these records. Unfortunately, Majd has not compared American diplomatic accounts with other primary sources, including Iranian ones. Unfortunately as well, Majd fails to provide context for British actions in Iran. By European standards, Iran before 1914 was chaotic: government was weak; tribes and notables worked with foreigners as easily as with the ruling Qajars; cities were small and isolated, but often experienced riots, frequently caused by food shortages; unrest was channeled by authorities into violence against religious minorities, in the manner of Russian pogroms or American race riots. Iran's ability to remain nominally independent in the face of these pressures owes a good deal to its physical isolation, as well as to Tehran's skill in playing powers against each other. Nevertheless, foreign influence grew. This disordered situation became much worse during World War I. Iran could not defend itself against invasions by Ottoman, Russian, British, German, and French forces. Foreign governments worked with whomever they could, encouraging civil war. Movement of armies and peoples disrupted agriculture, and famine and epidemic disease killed a quarter of the Iranian people before order was restored. After the war, Iran was transformed. Reza Pahlavi seized power with British help in 1921; he crowned himself king in 1926 with the approval of foreign powers, most of the 'ulama', and most Iranian progressives; and he abdicated in 1941 under pressure from both Russia and Britain. During Reza's rule internal security improved. Iran's population grew, and cities were rebuilt in the Western style. Centrally controlled military forces and bureaucracy transferred power to Tehran, which thus was able to collect taxes. A national system of public education was established, including schools for boys and girls and the University of Tehran. Contacts between Iran and the outside world became more frequent. Despite this transformation, Iran again fell to foreign occupation during World War II. Rather than maintaining strict neutrality in 1939-1940, as did Turkey, Reza Shah's government became increasingly pro-German. In June 1941, Germany attacked its Soviet ally, and in August of that year Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran in turn. Reza's vaunted army, on which half the government budget had been spent since 1921, evaporated, and the country celebrated his removal from the throne. …


The paper analyses the patterns of agricultural productivity in Tunisian agriculture during
the period 1981-2007. To undertake this analysis we examined own and cross price
elasticities of different production factors using a translog production function which
provides a convenient framework for analysing output reaction to changes in prices.
Moreover, a regression approach was used to test the hypotheses that government-funded
research, development and extension (RD&E), private and investment, terms of
trade, and share of irrigated area are significant determinants of total factor productivity
(TFP) in the agricultural sector.
We found significant negative cross-price elasticities between labor and capital
suggesting that agricultural policies in the form of subsidies for agricultural machinery
could be introduced without negatively affecting the agricultural labor
force. Our results indicate that agricultural productivity experienced moderate annual
growth between 1981 and 2007. Over the whole period, land and capital were
found to be the most important contributors to productivity, followed by agricultural
inputs and livestock, while labor was the least significant single contributor.
The findings show that TFP growth was the result of investments in the agricultural
sector, with the use of intensive irrigated production systems and the adoption of
new production technologies.


Caper is an important plant because of its high adaptability to marginal agriculture fields that are not suitable for agricultural crops. Different parts of caper such as roots, fruits, flowers and buds can be used to increase the inhabitant's income. The goal of this research is to determine germination rate and percentage of caper according to different duration of cold stratification (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 days) treatments. Cold stratification procedures under greenhouse condition were applied for eliminating seed dormancy to find the most suitable germination conditions because the presence of seed dormancy causes difficulties in seedling production. The seed germination started and stopped 21 and 57 days after sowing, respectively. While the highest germination percentage (46.6%) was obtained in seeds that were cold stratified for 60 days, the lowest germination percentage (3.6 7%) was determined in control seeds.


Arsenic (As)
poisoning in water due to natural minerals or industrial pollution is a
critical global problem that threatens the health and life of billions. Current
arsenic removal techniques involving chemical reaction, ion exchange, or
membrane processes can be expensive, inaccessible or infeasible for
underdeveloped regions or remote areas. Here, we demonstrate that using a so-called
directional solvent extraction (DSE) process, arsenic ions in water can be effectively removed without the need of a membrane
or chemical reaction, and this process promises to utilize very low temperature
heat (as low as 45 oC). We have tested feed water with different arsenic
concentrations and arsenic ions in different forms (As-III and As-V) commonly
found in nature. It is demonstrated that DSE using decanoic acid as the
directional solvent can purify contaminated water to meet the drinking water
standard (arsenic concentration < 10 parts per billion, ppb), and the
arsenic removal efficiencies are higher than 91% for As-III and 97% for As-V.
Moreover, DSE can remove As-III
directly without the need of pre-oxidation, which is required in most of the
state of art techniques. DSE can potentially lead to effective arsenic removal
technologies with low resource settings that are suitable for remote and underdeveloped
regions, which are impacted by arsenic poisoning the most.


Analysis of spatio-temporal data has become critical with the emerge of ubiquitous location sensor technologies and applications keeping track of such data. Especially with the widespread availability of low cost GPS devices, it is possible to record data about the location of people and objects at a large scale. Data visualization plays a key role in the successful analysis of these kind of data. Due to the complex nature of this analysis process, current approaches and analytical tools fail to help spatio-temporal thinking and they are not effective when solving large range of problems. In this work, we propose an interactive visualization tool to support human analyst understand user behaviors by analyzing location patterns and anomalies in massive collections of spatio-temporal data. The tool that we developed within this work combines a geovisualization framework with 3D visualizations and histograms. Tool's effectiveness in exploratory analysis is tested by trend analysis and anomaly detection in a real mobile service dataset with almost 1.5 million rows.


A change detection algorithm is applied on a three year time series of ASAR Wide Swath images in VV polarization over Calabria, Italy, in order to derive information on temporal soil moisture dynamics. The algorithm, adapted from an algorithm originally developed for ERS scatterometer, was validated using a simple hydrological model incorporating meteorological and pedological data. Strong positive correlations between modelled soil moisture and ASAR soil moisture were observed over arable land, while the correlation became much weaker over more vegetated areas. In a second phase, an attempt was made to incorporate seasonality in the different model parameters. It was observed that seasonally changing surface properties mainly affected the multitemporal incidence angle normalization. When applying a seasonal angular normalization, correlation coefficients between modelled soil moisture and retrieved soil moisture increased overall. Attempts to account for seasonality in the other model parameters did not result in an improved performance.


With little to no parallel data available for programming languages, unsupervised methods are well-suited to source code translation. However, the majority of unsupervised machine translation approaches rely on back-translation, a method developed in the context of natural language translation and one that inherently involves training on noisy inputs. Unfortunately, source code is highly sensitive to small changes; a single token can result in compilation failures or erroneous programs, unlike natural languages where small inaccuracies may not change the meaning of a sentence. To address this issue, we propose to leverage an automated unit-testing system to filter out invalid translations, thereby creating a fully tested parallel corpus. We found that fine-tuning an unsupervised model with this filtered data set significantly reduces the noise in the translations so-generated, comfortably outperforming the state-of-the-art for all language pairs studied. In particular, for Java $\to$ Python and Python $\to$ C++ we outperform the best previous methods by more than 16% and 24% respectively, reducing the error rate by more than 35%.


Guided longitudinal-acoustic modes, which give rise to Brillouin gain, are theoretically clarified for a single-mode fiber with a GeO2-doped core and pure-silica cladding. Longitudinal-acoustic L0m modes are found from the theoretical analysis to interact with the electromagnetic field of the HE11 mode. Brillouin-gain spectra are measured for clarifying the theory. A few gain peaks in the Brillouin-gain spectra are successfully explained by taking account of the phase-velocity characteristics of the L01, L02 and L03 modes guided in the GeO2-doped core region. Furthermore, Brillouin frequency shifts per unit dopant concentration for GeO2 and F are experimentally obtained to confirm the dispersion characteristics of the guided acoustic modes. The evaluated frequency shifts per unit dopant concentration are 107 and 356 MHz/mol% for GeO2 and F, respectively, at a wavelength of 1550 nm.


Workers face a common dilemma when exercising their right to strike. For the worst-off workers to go on strike with some reasonable chance of success, they must use coercive strike tactics like mass pickets and sit-downs. These tactics violate some basic liberties, such as contract, association, and private property, and the laws that protect those liberties. Which has priority, the right to strike or the basic liberties strikers might violate? The answer depends on why the right to strike is justified. In contrast to liberal and social democratic arguments, on the radical view defended here, the right to strike is a right to resist oppression. This oppression is partly a product of the legal protection of basic economic liberties, which explains why the right to strike has priority over these liberties. The radical view thus best explains why workers may use some coercive, even lawbreaking, strike tactics.


Study of impact problems has important applications in the branch of engineering. In impact problems, the primary design objective is to ensure that the engineering structures do not fail catastrophically when subjected to short duration impact loads. Due to impact, high magnitude of stress waves travel inside the continuum. Material experiences large plastic strain and high temperature rise on the impacting face. A three-dimensional, large deformation, thermo-elasto-plastic, dynamic, contact, finite element formulation is developed to study the effect of strain rate and temperature on the deformation and stress fields in the Taylor rod impact problem. It is found that the equivalent plastic strain gets over-predicted to a significant extent if the effect of the strain rate is not included in the formulation.


CONTEXT
Peripheral neuropathy is common in persons infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) but few data on symptomatic treatment are available.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficacy of a standardized acupuncture regimen (SAR) and amitriptyline hydrochloride for the relief of pain due to HIV-related peripheral neuropathy in HIV-infected patients.

DESIGN
Randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial. Each site enrolled patients into 1 of the following 3 options: (1) a modified double-blind 2 x 2 factorial design of SAR, amitriptyline, or the combination compared with placebo, (2) a modified double-blind design of an SAR vs control points, or (3) a double-blind design of amitriptyline vs placebo.

SETTING
Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (HIV primary care providers) in 10 US cities.

PATIENTS
Patients with HIV-associated, symptomatic, lower-extremity peripheral neuropathy. Of 250 patients enrolled, 239 were in the acupuncture comparison (125 in the factorial option and 114 in the SAR option vs control points option), and 136 patients were in the amitriptyline comparison (125 in the factorial option and 11 in amitriptyline option vs placebo option).

INTERVENTIONS
Standardized acupuncture regimen vs control points, amitriptyline (75 mg/d) vs placebo, or both for 14 weeks.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Changes in mean pain scores at 6 and 14 weeks, using a pain scale ranging from 0.0 (no pain) to 1.75 (extremely intense), recorded daily.

RESULTS
Patients in all 4 groups showed reduction in mean pain scores at 6 and 14 weeks compared with baseline values. For both the acupuncture and amitriptyline comparisons, changes in pain score were not significantly different between the 2 groups. At 6 weeks, the estimated difference in pain reduction for patients in the SAR group compared with those in the control points group (a negative value indicates a greater reduction for the "active" treatment) was 0.01 (95% confidence interval [CI], -0.11 to 0.12; P=.88) and for patients in the amitriptyline group vs those in the placebo group was -0.07 (95% CI, -0.22 to 0.08; P=.38). At 14 weeks, the difference for those in the SAR group compared with those in the control points group was -0.08 (95% CI, -0.21 to 0.06; P=.26) and for amitriptyline compared with placebo was 0.00 (95% CI, -0.18 to 0.19; P=.99).

CONCLUSIONS
In this study, neither acupuncture nor amitriptyline was more effective than placebo in relieving pain caused by HIV-related peripheral neuropathy.


Segmentation of the vertebrate body occurs in a regimented process involving discrete somite patterning. Frequently, Notch mutations disrupt the segmentation process, but just what the normal function of Notch is remains unknown. Jiang et al. exploited the observation that somite development occurs faster in warmer temperatures and subjected opposite sides of developing Zebrafish to warm and cool temperatures. Their observations revealed that the expression of deltaC (a ligand for Notch) in developing somites occurred in cycles and that phase patterns in somite development also occurred cyclically. Additionally, deltaC expression in the presomitic mesoderm of somitogenesis mutants was dysregulated in adjacent cells, suggesting that synchronous expression of deltaC was lost. Nonetheless, oscillations still occurred, suggesting that Notch signaling (through DeltaC) is required for maintaining synchronous oscillations in adjacent cells, but not required for individual cell oscillation. Jiang, Y.-J., Aerne, B.L., Smithers, L., Haddon, C., Ish-Horowicz, and Lewis, J. (2000) Notch signaling and the synchronization of the somite segmentation clock. Nature 408: 475-479. [Online Journal]


Stratigraphic, geochemical and mineralogical characterization of pyroclastic deposits on the Gronau West Nunatak of East Greenland indicates that both alkaline and basaltic tephras occurred during the eruption of flood basalts associated with the opening of the North Atlantic ocean in the early Tertiary. Within the exposed section of Gronau West Nunatak, c. 1 km thick representing c. 1.6 Ma, 17 of the horizons are phreatomagmatic basaltic tephras. Near the top of the section, an alkaline tuff was dated at 53.8±0.3 Ma by 40Ar/39Ar method. This tuff contains a distinctive mineralogy (sanidine, Mg-katophorite, aegirine) and geochemistry (melt inclusion compositions, and trace and rare earth element abundances) that indicate it was erupted from the Gardiner melanephelinite-carbonatite volcanic complex located 175 km to the SE, which was active from c. 55 to 52 Ma. The alkaline tuff can be correlated to age-equivalent, compositionally similar alkaline pyroclastic horizons reported in North Atlantic sediment cores and in outcrops in Northern Europe, making it an important regional time-stratigraphic marker. This study indicates that North Atlantic explosive volcanic events were prevalent, regionally widespread, and originated in East Greenland during continental rifting, suggesting the need for reappraisal of the impact of North Atlantic volcanism on climate change during the early Tertiary.


The World Conservation Union (IUCN) plays a global leadership role in defining different types of protected areas, and influencing how protected area systems develop and are managed. Following the 1992 World Parks Congress, a new system of categorizing protected areas was developed. New categories were introduced, including categories that allowed resource extraction. Since that time there has been rapid growth in the global numbers and size of protected areas, with most growth being shown in the new categories. Further-more, the IUCN has heralded a 'new paradigm' of protected areas, which became the main focus of the 2003 World Parks Congress. The paradigm focuses on benefits to local people to alleviate poverty, re-engineering protected areas professionals, and an emphasis on the interaction between humans and nature through a focus on the new IUCN protected area categories.The purpose of this paper is to examine critically the implications of the new categories and paradigm shift in light of the main purpose of protected areas, to protect wild biodiversity. Wild biodiversity will not be well served by adoption of this new paradigm, which will devalue conservation biology, undermine the creation of more strictly protected reserves, inflate the amount of area in reserves and place people at the centre of the protected area agenda at the expense of wild biodiversity. Only IUCN categories I–IV should be recognized as protected areas. The new categories, namely culturally modified landscapes (V) and managed resource areas (VI), should be reclassified as sustainable development areas. To do so would better serve both the protection of wild biodiversity and those seeking to meet human needs on humanized landscapes where sustainable development is practised.


Hurricane Katrina was a "disaster" both "natural" and "social." The storm destroyed a major American city that, like most American cities, was already the site of great inequality and vulnerability. It also dramatically put to the test both the logistical capabilities and the political responsibilities of national, state, and local governmental institutions. The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans is an important collection of essays on the dynamics of "remaking New Orleans" and the limits of that effort. We have thus asked a diverse group of political scientists to review the book, and at the same time to treat it as an opportunity to reflect on two related questions: 1) What are the most important economic, cultural, and political dimensions of the crisis precipitated by Katrina, both for New Orleans and for US cities more generally? 2) What resources does political science as a discipline possess to help us understand these issues, and can political science as a discipline do a better job on this score?—Jeffrey C. Issac, Editor


Proximal policy optimization (PPO) is one of the most popular deep reinforcement learning (RL) methods, achieving state-of-the-art performance across a wide range of challenging tasks. However, as a model-free RL method, the success of PPO relies heavily on the effectiveness of its exploratory policy search. In this paper, we give an in-depth analysis on the exploration behavior of PPO, and show that PPO is prone to suffer from the risk of lack of exploration especially under the case of bad initialization, which may lead to the failure of training or being trapped in bad local optima. To address these issues, we proposed a novel policy optimization method, named Trust Region-Guided PPO (TRGPPO), which adaptively adjusts the clipping range within the trust region. We formally show that this method not only improves the exploration ability within the trust region but enjoys a better performance bound compared to the original PPO as well. Extensive experiments verify the advantage of the proposed method.


Little empirical research has identified what drives companies to voluntarily report employee-related information. Ullmann's three-dimensional stakeholder theory model is applied as a framework to analyse associations with corporate employee-related disclosures. Measures are developed to estimate stakeholder power, strategic posture and economic performance associated with employee-related disclosures. Results indicate that employee-related disclosures increase with more employee share ownership, employee concentration, the quality of corporate governance, employee recognition in corporate mission statements, adverse publicity about employees and economic performance measured by profit per employee.


The federal government plays an indispensable role in preparing special education personnel to become teacher educators in higher education. The 2011 Special Education Faculty Needs Assessment study documents a continued supply–demand imbalance of special education faculty. It also documents effectiveness and impact of the Office of Special Education Program's leadership (doctoral) preparation initiative. To prevent diminished academic improvement for students with disabilities, recommendations are provided to strengthen the federal role as the nation moves forward to abate a pending special education faculty of unprecedented magnitude. A rationale and strategy for continued federal investment during challenging budget times are presented.


Senior managers have become aware that the management of the information system portfolio of their organisation can ultimately lead to success or failure. The successful selection of mission-critical information systems begins with an understanding of the external and internal business environment and of the technological environment. Many organisations have failed to reap the benefits of their IT investments because they never achieved the required level of integration and cohesiveness between business and IT. The resultant information systems fail to meet the business requirements of the organisation because system requirements are either ill-scoped or the selection process they followed is not business driven. In this paper, the case of Bord Gais Eireann is used to examine the process of selection of a mission-critical system. The paper outlines the specificities of such IS projects and their implications for project management. As a conclusion, the paper puts forward a process model outlining how the integration of business and IT can be achieved to ensure the successful completion of selection stage of IS projects involving the purchase of mission-critical off-the-shelf packages.


Time-location sampling (TLS), also called time-space sampling or venue-based sampling is a sampling technique widely used in populations at high risk of infectious diseases. The principle is to reach individuals in places and at times where they gather. For example, men who have sex with men meet in gay venues at certain times of the day, and homeless people or drug users come together to take advantage of services provided to them (accommodation, care, meals). The statistical analysis of data coming from TLS surveys has been comprehensively discussed in the literature. Two issues of particular importance are the inclusion or not of sampling weights and how to deal with the frequency of venue attendance (FVA) of individuals during the course of the survey. The objective of this article is to present TLS in the context of sampling theory, to calculate sampling weights and to propose design-based inference taking into account the FVA. The properties of an estimator ignoring the FVA and of the design-based estimator are assessed and contrasted both through a simulation study and using real data from a recent cross-sectional survey conducted in France among drug users. We show that the estimators of prevalence or a total can be strongly biased if the FVA is ignored, while the design-based estimator taking FVA into account is unbiased even when declarative errors occur in the FVA.


This thesis examines the temporal and spatial distribution of solar radiation above and beneath lowland, upland and montane rainforest in the wet tropics region of northeast Queensland. Because solar radiation or light is regarded as the major limiting resource in rainforests, an attempt is made to quantify light availability to tree seedlings and saplings growing in characteristic micro-environments, such as within the understorey beneath an intact canopy, within treefall gaps of varying sizes and configurations, and across the rainforest-open forest boundary (ecotone).

Several hypotheses concerned with solar radiation in relation to rainforest structure and function are presented. Among these, it is suggested that prevalent cloud cover in the wet tropics region will reduce the incidence of sunflecks in the understorey, but a lower canopy density will facilitate higher levels of background diffuse radiation available to plants in the understorey. It is also hypothesised that reduction in photosynthetically active radiation by cloudiness decreases productive capacities of montane rainforests compared with lowland rainforests in the study area. Another hypothesis proposes that it is naive to consider only gap size and latitude as the main factors affecting light availability within tree fall gaps and associated vegetation dynamics.

To test the various hypotheses, direct and indirect methods have been used to measure light availability within the characteristic rainforest micro-environments. The direct measurements have been made with radiometric and photometric sensors, and this thesis includes construction details for a purpose-built photometric sensor. The indirect measurements have been made with hemispherical (fisheye) canopy photographs, and this is considered as the first attempt to model light availability above and beneath rainforest canopies under a range of sky conditions. This was achieved by combining the well-known manual technique for determining direct and diffuse site factors beneath vegetation from fisheye photographs with the computerised Sky-Canopy-Gap-Irradiance (SCANGIR) Model presented in this thesis. The same model is also used to demonstrate the effects of latitude, topography and sky conditions on light availability within hypothetical rainforest gaps and clearings.

The results of computer simulations have shown that latitude has a profound effect on the availability of direct light in treefall gaps and that this effect may explain the general decrease in regional rainforest diversity from tropical to temperate eastern Australia. It was shown that at 400 South, the latitude corresponding with temperate rainforest, there is theoretically no time of the day throughout the year when direct light reaches the centre of small-to-Iarge treefall gaps, except on moderately steep north-facing slopes. It is proposed that the combined effects of latitude and topography on the availability of direct light will have an enormous influence on rainforest function, particularly gap-phase dynamics.

The results of field measurements within the understoreys of lowland, upland and montane rainforests have shown that daily solar radiation levels are 2- to 5-times higher than those reported for equatorial rainforests. Field surveys within upland and montane rainforest have shown that sunfleck activity is very limited because of the cloudy trade-wind coast climate, and this suggests that sunflecks play only a small role in the annual carbon balance of these forests. This thesis also presents the results of what is regarded as the first measurements of light availability in the understorey of a tropical rainforest before and immediately after a tropical cyclone. On the basis of 20 fisheye photographs it was shown that potential light levels increased by 60% following slightto- moderate canopy damage caused by the cyclone, and that such a change would undoubtedly have implications for the ecophysiology and dynamics of tree seedlings and saplings growing in the understorey.

It was found that seasonal changes in light availability within small and large treefall gaps in lowland and upland rainforests in the study area are greater than those found within similar treefall gaps in equatorial rainforests. Results of modelling light availability within several treefall gaps have shown that seasonal variations in direct light in small and large elliptical gaps that are orientated east-west are greater than those found for the exact same gaps orientated north-south. It was also found that there are order-of-magnitude differences in light availability across the range of small-to-large tree fall gaps, and this undoubtedly controls the microclimate and ecophysiology of tree seedlings and saplings growing in these gaps.

The study of light availability within a montane tropical (cloud) forest in the study area has shown that reduction in photosynthetically active radiation by cloudiness does not appear to limit the rates of photosynthesis for plants growing in gap and understorey micro-environments because median light levels are much higher than known light compensation points reported for understorey plants elsewhere. These results lend support to the Transpiration Theory as the main reason for the lower primary productivity of cloud forests.

The study of light availability across the rainforest-open forest boundary has shown that towards the rainforest end of the transition zone (ecotone), light conditions are similar to those experienced within small treefall gaps in rainforests, while towards the open forest end of the ecotone, light conditions are similar to those experienced within large treefall gaps. It is argued that understanding the light availability continuum and associated plant responses across the ecotone are essential for conservation and management of remaining rainforest in the study area because a substantial portion remains as small, isolated patches.

The methods and results presented in this thesis have other implications for management of remaining rainforest and also for reforestation of degraded land formerly occupied by rainforest. It is suggested that the SCANGIR Model and gap theory could be applied by forest managers to promote the eventual dominance of disturbed sites by shade-tolerant (primary) tree species. The SCANGIR Model has numerous applications in both selective and strip clear-cut timber harvesting techniques, whereby 'ideal' light conditions for regeneration of useful shade-tolerant tree species could be achieved by felling trees in a particular direction or altering the width and orientation of the clearcut strips in accordance with latitude, forest height and local topography.


Though mandatory to be pursued, improved energy efficiency is not the only target to reach. The quality of energy has to be assessed as well. Most of the overall energy use in residential building is for low temperature heat, i.e. temperatures relatively close to the outdoor conditions. From a thermodynamic point of view, this is a degraded form of energy with low potential to be converted into work. On the other hand energy demand is mostly met with high quality energy, such as electricity and natural gas. There is a mismatch between supply and demand, which is not clearly shown by the sole energy analysis. Target of this thesis is to analyze the energy use in buildings from the point of view of its quality, to provide effective theoretical and calculation tools to investigate this mismatch, to assess its magnitudo and to propose improvements aiming at a more rational use of the energy. The idea behind the quality is clarified with the concept of exergy. The potential for improvement in space heating is shown. In no heating system the overall exergy efficiency is above 20%, with fossil fuels. Using direct electricity heating results in exergy efficiency below 7%. Most of the household appliances processes have low-exergy factors but still are supplied with electricity. This results in poor exergy efficiencies and large exergy losses. Systems are poorly performing because little consideration is explicitly given to energy quality. Policies to lower the energy demand, though vital as first step towards an improved use of energy, should not neglect the exergy content. The problem is then shifted to find suitable supplies. Electricity can be exploited with low exergy losses with high-COP heat pumps. Use of fossil fuels for heating purposes should be avoided. District heating from cogeneration and geothermal proves to be a suitable solution at the building level. The issues connected to its exploitation forces to shift the boundary layers of the analysis from the building level to the community level. A rational use of energy should address the community level. The system boundaries have to be enlarged to a dimension where both the energy conversion and use take place with reduced energy transportation losses. This is a cost-effective way to avoid the waste of the exergy potential of the sources with exergy cascade and to make it possible the integration of with renewable sources. Exergy efficiency of the buildings is a prerequisite for a better of energy in this field.


Least squares method (LSM) is an accurate and rapid method for solving some analytical and numerical problems. This method can be used to estimate the average reservoir pressure in well test analysis. In fact, it may be employed to estimate parameters such as permeability (k) and pore volume (Vp). Regarding this point, buildup, drawdown, late transient test data, modified Muskat method, interference test, and other methods are equivalent to a separable least squares problem. The main advantage of LSM in the well testing problems is that the results would be confident and no trial and error is required. Furthermore, the given method requires a short time. The fast rate of convergence and high accuracy of the LSM are demonstrated through two examples. The current study concerns a modified Muskat method. The results of LSM combined with the modified Muskat method are compared with the other iterative and qualitative methods. The preliminary numerical results with both simulated and field data suggest that the method be capable of producing smooth interpretable estimates of reservoir parameters from data.


Individuals with complex communication needs (CCN) who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to communicate in school and community activities often have paraeducators [1] as communication partners. For individuals who use AAC, successful communication often depends upon their personal skills as well as the skills of their communication partners. Because the skills of communication partners are critical, and can be taught, a review was conducted to identify the effect of teaching paraeducators to provide appropriate communication supports for individuals using AAC using studies that included data for both paraeducators and individuals with CCN. Studies were analyzed using the recommendations from the Communication Partner Instruction Model (Kent-Walsh & McNaughton, 2005). Findings from seven studies suggest that communication partner training to paraeducators can have positive outcomes for the communication behaviors of both paraeducators and individuals using AAC. Implications for practice and future research directions are addressed. [1] For the purpose of this article the term paraeducator refers to personnel who support individuals with disabilities in educational, vocational, and human service organizations. Paraeducators carry out plans designed by teachers or human service professionals. In the literature paraeducators are also referred to as paraprofessionals, educational assistants, instructional assistants or aides, program staff, carers, etc.


When Reclaiming the American Dream was first published in 1965, a New York Daily News editorial called it "dynamite between book covers" and compared its potential influence to that of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Two years later, George Gallup said the book had sparked "the most dramatic shift in American thinking since the New Deal." Robert Bremner, the leading historian of the American philanthropic tradition, later listed the publication of Reclaiming the American Dream as one of the important events in the history of American philanthropy. Cornuelle was the first observer since Tocqueville to see America's unparalleled machinery for voluntary social action in large, bold terms-not just as a useful adjunct to government, but as an essential alternative to it. Reclaiming the American Dream was the first book to sketch the full dimensions of the nation's voluntary sector, give it a name (the independent sector), explain its unfamiliar metabolism, and imagine its enormous unused potential for defining the central problems of an industrial society accurately and acting on them effectively. In a new, highly personal afterword, Cornuelle explains why the effort he led to organize ambitious substitutions of voluntary action for governmental responsibility failed, and why now, more than thirty years later, it has begun to succeed. Annunziata's introductory essay discusses the book's neglected status as a classic. "Refreshingly free of cant and rancor," he writes, "its voice was authentic, appealing and inclusive-the voice of the limited government tradition but with a human face...Published in the midst of an absence of intellectual curiosity and widespread indifference even among scholars, Richard Cornuelle's work helped to shape a new intellectual climate of awareness and receptivity to the voluntary, independent sector."


Driving is a complex task that requires the ability to receive sensory information, process the information, and to make proper, timely judgments and responses. Older drivers or drivers suffering brain pathologies may have deficits in their driving ability (motor, visual, cognitive or perceptual) and these deficits may lead to reduced driver fitness and increased accident probability. These particularities of impaired driver's behaviour and safety characteristics make the assessment of their driving ability a very challenging task especially regarding driver distraction. Driver distraction is estimated to be an important cause of vehicle accidents. Especially in the elderly and people with brain pathologies, because of the degradation of cerebral function, they may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of distraction; however, relatively few studies have examined the effect of cerebral diseases on distracted driving behaviour. The objective of this research is the analysis of two basic driving behaviour and safety parameters reaction time and accident probability of drivers with cognitive impairments due to various brain pathologies, in combination with invehicle distraction, using a driving simulator. An interdisciplinary research team of civil engineers, neurologists and psychologists is carrying out an experiment with three assessments for healthy and impaired drivers: a medical/neurological assessment, a neuropsychological assessment and a driving simulator task. The driving scenario examined concerns driving in rural area, with and without in-vehicle distraction (conversation with passenger and mobile phone use). The brain pathologies examined include early Alzheimer's disease (AD), early Parkinson's disease (PD), and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). 140 participants (out of which 109 have some brain pathology) have completed the experiment. A statistical analysis was carried out by means of mixed generalized linear modelling (mixed GLM) and the results suggest that there are significant differences in the driving performance and safety of healthy drivers and drivers with cognitive impairments. Impaired drivers appear to react significantly slower at unexpected incidents than the healthy ones and are more likely to be involved in an accident. More specifically, AD and PD drivers seem to have the longest reaction times among the examined group. The mobile phone use seems to have a statistically significant negative effect on both reaction time and accident probability, especially in the AD participants. Finally, effects of conversation with passengers are less pronounced, although several differences in driving behaviour and safety of impaired drivers are identifiable.


Abstract The palynoflora from the Lavanttal Basin is characterised by a diverse spectrum of conifers. Their pollen is mostly well preserved allowing for high taxonomic resolution. Most coniferous taxa belong to the Pinaceae (Abies, Cathaya, Cedrus, Keteleeria, Larix, Picea, Pinus and Tsuga) and the Cupressaceae (Cryptomeria, Glyptostrobus and Sequoia), but pollen of Sciadopityaceae (Sciadopitys) is also occuring. The presence of these conifer taxa supports previous suggestions based on sedimentological and palynological observations that the sediments of the Lavanttal Basin accumulated in a lowland/wetland environment. Many of the taxa described in this paper had a wide, mostly Northern Hemispheric distribution, occupying swamps, river plains, deltas, hummocks and also better drained habitats located near to the main areas of sedimentation during most of the Cenozoic. Modern relatives of most of the fossil taxa prefer ample precipitation, suggesting that during the Middle Miocene (Sarmatian), the Lavanttal area received plenty of rainfall; there is no indication of a seasonal climate with a drought period. In general, the conifer taxa identified here are suggestive of a warm-temperate climate.


This review discusses the outlook for electric power generation in the U.S. covering both traditional fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. Environmental policy, technology and economics combine with the advantages and disadvantages of each electric power source to drive the direction of the industry. Coal, while sensitive to carbon emissions regulations, will likely continue to play a large role; natural gas use will continue to be dependent on supply and price; nuclear power has the potential to grow, but requires new plant construction for the first time in 30 years; and despite projected growth in renewable energy sources (particularly for wind), changes in policy would be required to have renewable energy become a significant contributor to the electric power generation mix.


Market research is an indispensable part of an organization's ability to understand market dynamics. Over the past 20 years, data collection and analysis through Knowledge Discovery through Databases (KDD) has arisen to supplement the traditional methods of surveys and focus groups. Market Basket Analysis is a discipline of KDD that identifies associations between commonly purchased items. As social media use has grown, link shortening companies help users share links in a constrained space environment and, in exchange, collect data about each user when a link is clicked. This research applies market basket analysis techniques with graph mining to shortened web link data to identify communities of co-visited websites to help analysts better understand web traffic for a geographic area during a time range. Patterns within clusters of web domains regarding hardware platforms, operating systems, or referral sources are then identified and used to gain a better understanding of a geographic area.