We demonstrate a general approach to characterize compositional heterogeneity in polymer thin films using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Polymer films with varying degrees of heterogeneity were prepared using a model chemically amplified photoresist where a photoacid catalyzed reaction-diffusion process results in the formation of methacrylic acid (MAA) rich domains. Within these domains, the carboxylic acid groups dimerize through hydrogen bonding. FTIR measurements of the relative fraction of hydrogen-bonded vs free carboxylic groups are used to quantify the degree of compositional heterogeneity. The FTIR data from compositionally homogeneous systems, statistical copolymers, and polymer blends follow the expected linear dependence of the relative hydrogen-bonded fraction with composition. For the chemically amplified photoresist system, the FTIR data deviate substantially from that of the homogeneous distribution. Furthermore, parameters describing the size of the heterogeneity can be determined from a solid sphere model of the deprotected regions catalyzed by the diffusing photoacid. The degree of the spatial heterogeneity varies with changes in the photoacid concentration, reaction conditions, and initial copolymer composition. Increased nonreactive comonomer content decreases the degree of heterogeneity by reducing the hydrogen-bonding efficiency, which is consistent with the dilution of MAA groups.


AIM
to test the validity, reliability and feasibility of using a modified version of Parkes' (1993) Bereavement Risk Index (BRI) and bereavement support protocol in an Australian home hospice care setting. In addition, the study aimed to explore what types of family members are most likely to experience a more difficult grief reaction.

DESIGN
a prospective, descriptive study was used. One hundred and fifty bereaved family members participated. Bereaved family members were classified as high, medium or low risk and received a structured bereavement support protocol based on their level of risk as measured by the BRI.

FINDINGS
results indicated that a shorter 4-item version of the BRI was more internally consistent than the longer version and demonstrated good predictive validity when correlated with outcome measures at 3 months following the patient's death.

CONCLUSION
the modified 4-item BRI demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity and was brief and simple to use. Nurses were able to use the instrument with minimal training and were able to adhere to a matched bereavement support protocol.


Articular chondrocytes descend from a distinct cohort of progenitor cells located in the embryonic joint anlagen, termed interzones. Their unique lineage might explain some of the problems encountered using chondrocytes of different lineages for articular cartilage tissue engineering. While it is well established that articular chondrocytes descend from interzone cells, the exact role the intermediate and outer layers of the interzone play in joint development and which specific articular structures they give rise to, remains equivocal. We hypothesize that new insights into the development of articular chondrocytes will further our understanding of how articular chondrocytes achieve and maintain their stable permanent chondrocytic phenotype. In this thesis, we have developed a technique to selectively harvest cells from the intermediate and outer interzone of mouse and horse as well as from the three equine articular cartilage zones in sufficient quantities for downstream microarray analysis and established the differential gene expression profile of the 2 interzone layers. The main findings of this thesis are as follows: 1) We recommend to harvest a minimum of 1 x 106μm2 of 13.5 days murine embryos and 3 x 106μm2 of 15.5 days murine embryos to obtain approximately 10 ng total RNA that can be used for linear T7-based amplification and subsequent microarray analysis. 2) Inflammatory pathways and functions were most prevalent in both the differential gene expression profile and the set of 25 genes most highly differentially up-regulated in the murine intermediate interzone. In the murine outer interzone, the 25 most highly differentially up-regulated genes play roles in cartilage matrix formation, chondrocyte differentiation (hypertrophy) and endochondral ossification. 3) At gestational day 40 the equine interzone is fully formed and consists of 3 morphologically distinct layers. 4) Laser capture microdissection of equine articular cartilage allows contact-free harvesting of zone-specific equine chondrocytes in sufficient quantities for microarray analysis from individual animals without need to pool samples. Taken together, the pathway analysis of the differentially expressed genes implies an important role for inflammatory processes in the interzone layers and hence in joint and articular cartilage development. The high representation of genes relevant to chondrocyte hypertrophy and endochondral ossification in the outer interzone suggests that the outer interzone undergoes endochondral ossification, leaving the intermediate interzone to form the articular tissues including cartilage. Further studies will be needed to look into the various pathways and genes found to be differentially expressed between the interzone layers in this study, specifically into the role of inflammatory pathways and genes in the interzone and to confirm this hypothesis


Abstract
The financial crisis made obvious the deficiencies in the standard macroeconomic models, which not only did not predict the crisis, but also said that such events could not occur. While it has long been known that markets are not in general efficient, for example with imperfect information, standard models focused on special cases where the consequent problems did not arise. When market imperfections were introduced, it was done in ways that were ad hoc and/or did not adequately explain deep downturns, such as the Great Recession. This article charts the failures of the standard model, and relates policy failures in the lead-up to the crisis as well as its management to that model's influence. The standard models focused on providing explanations of normal fluctuations, when what really matters is understanding what causes deep downturns, why shocks to the system get so amplified and why recovery from such events is so slow. (The standard models assumed that the economy was buffeted by exogenous shocks; most crisis shocks are, however, endogenous –'manmade'.) Four hypotheses are presented about how the structure of the economy changed (sometimes as a result of policy) in ways that increased the likelihood of a large crash with a slow recovery. Finally, the article explains why, in the current context, the policy prescriptions derived from standard models are likely to be misleading.

Policy Implications
• The focus of monetary policy before the crisis – keeping inflation low and stable – clearly did not suffice to maintain real stability. In the future, monetary authorities need to focus more on the factors that affect the stability of the financial system and credit supply. The deadweight losses associated with the slight misalignment of relative prices associated with low or moderate inflation are miniscule compared to the losses associated with a deep recession.
• Central banks have at their disposal, in addition to interest rates, a wide range of regulatory instruments. Had they employed these properly, the bubble that caused the current crisis could have been dampened, and the economic consequences of its breaking mitigated. While there may be some costs associated with the use of these instruments, these pale in comparison to the costs of not using them – as the costs of the downturn in the US mount into the trillions.
• This will necessitate paying more attention to the behavior of the banking system – including tight supervision and regulations, designed to prevent excessive risk taking and excessive interconnectivity, and to encourage banks to focus on lending, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises, which typically do not have access to capital markets. Credit availability may be as important as or more important than interest rates in determining, for instance, investment, especially for SMEs.
• It is not a surprise that this crisis followed on from financial market liberalization measures taken by the US in recent years; financial crises frequently follow such liberalizations. Globally, financial and capital market liberalizations enabled the 'made in America' crisis to spread all over the world.
• Inherent problems in securitization of home mortgages mean that governments should not count on the restoration of that market – unless it is underpinned with what should be viewed as unacceptable government guarantees. Rather, there should be a return to more traditional mortgage systems (bank based, or the Danish mortgage system).
• Fiscal policies can be an effective mechanism for reducing unemployment and restoring growth, even in the presence of moderate levels of national debt. Well-designed programs can simultaneously reduce the debt over the long run. By contrast, with interest rates near zero, the contractionary effects of austerity policies cannot be offset by looser monetary policies.
• Many of the models that became standard in macroeconomics did not incorporate features that allowed them to forecast the downturn (they suggested that such events could not occur), to take actions to prevent such downturns or to respond to the crisis once it occurred. Much of macroeconomics was incoherent – using one set of models, with one set of strong assumptions, to advocate for capital and financial market liberalization, and another set of models to respond to the crises that often follow on from such liberalizations. Models estimated in periods in which firms and households do not face financial constraints and excessive leverage and where central banks are able both to raise and lower interest rates easily do not necessarily provide adequate guidance for behavioral responses in the midst of a deep downturn such as the current one.
• While it is important to ascertain dynamic responses to current government policies, a wider range of responses needs to be incorporated. Extended periods of unemployment and underinvestment in education and infrastructure can impact future growth and productivity.


Fashion metaphors are used to explore the relationship between Deakin's 'Students Helping Students' strategy and its emerging 'Students as Partners' initiative. As the curtain is raised, the current 'tertiary trend' of Students as Partners is seen through a global lens. The Deakin Students Helping Students and Students as Partners collection is then paraded across the runway, at once unveiling savvy design and high-quality workmanship. A key feature of both Deakin's Students Helping Students and Students as Partners models is that they are expressions of a community of practice approach and of social learning theory, with some variations in texture and palette. This 'Absolutely Fabulous' show concludes that while both looks are based on a timeless, 'classic cut' approach to education that engages both students and staff, each trend adds colour, interest and appeal. Fashions in education are sometimes fleeting, sometimes fun, and they are sure to invigorate, refresh and challenge.


BackgroundOut of all chromosomal disorders, Down syndrome is the most common. Being a parent to a child with this contition comes with unique challenges and can be a life-changing experience, as the child will require special attention and interdisciplinary care throughout the life span. Limited research has been done regarding parents experiences of daily life with a child having Down syndrome, and this study is an attempt to contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon in general, and in Costa Rica in particular.AimThe aim of the study was to describe parent's experiences of daily life with a child having Down syndrome in Costa Rica.MethodA qualitative interview study with a semi-structure was used as approach together with qualitative content analysis. An inductive approach was used for the analysis. Six parents in San Jose were interviewed for the study.ResultParents' experiences of daily life with a child having Down syndrome in Costa Rica was associated with various aspects, some in general and some more specific. The general were positive and negative experiences, whereas the others were more focused on specific areas regarding the daily life and Costa Rica as a country.ConclusionParents in Costa Rica tend to have similar positive and negative experiences when comparing to other studies of this phenomenon. The findings suggest that Costa Rica is a country with deficiencies when it comes to the social, legal and educational system.


The present and future challenges that humanity is facing regarding consumption and supply of energy constitute the context of this research. The technology in which we are interested is the fuel cell, mainly because of its high efficiency for the conversion of fuels into electricity and heat. More specifically, we considered solid-oxide and polymer electrolyte fuel cells. To take part in the reduction of the consumption of fossil fuels and of the emissions of greenhouse gases and of pollutants, fuel cells should first become a more attractive alternative technology. The finality of this study is hence to tackle remaining obstacles hindering their large-scale commercialization; namely, to reach a balanced and competitive combination of production cost, lifetime, and density of performance. The originality of this research lies in the simultaneous tackling of these challenges via the management of uncertainties during the design of fuel cell stacks. The approach is hence to take actions "upstream" rather than "downstream". Particularly, a novelty is to account for the effect of the manufacturing variability on the homogeneity of the performance and for the related risk of degradation, or even failure. We focus on dimensional tolerances of the parts whose function is to distribute the flows as homogeneously as possible into the fuel cell. The technical objective is to find a robust optimal solution, i.e., a solution which is optimal also in terms of a lowered sensitivity to imperfections, such as geometrical distortions. Besides, this research also deals with the challenges associated with the management of uncertainties in the context of combining optimization of geometries (design) and modeling based on computational fluid dynamics. Taken alone, these techniques were proven to be powerful tools of analysis and of synthesis. They are however computer intensive. When used together, the insight they can offer is even greater, but we face, even with today's high-performance computing infrastructures, the dilemma of accuracy versus tractability, which is even more problematic in the context of uncertainty management as will be shown. Therefore, efforts were dedicated to find ways to unravel this dilemma, in the prospect of achieving the optimization, under uncertainty, of the design of fuel cells. In particular, approximate models were investigated, notably reduced-order modeling and meta-modeling techniques. The results of this research relate to both methodology and technology. Among the methodological results, surrogate models are evaluated (tractability vs. accuracy). Guidelines are given for the management of uncertainties in this context, and for future researches. From a technological point of view, it was shown, first, that accounting for dimensional tolerances in the design of fuel cells is crucial. Then, the effect of these uncertainties were quantified, giving clearer insight on the best ways to deal with them. Last but not least, optimization of the design was carried out accounting for the uncertainties. Deterministic optima were compared with stochastic optima, revealing weaknesses of the former and potential for improvements of the designs when considering, quantitatively, the uncertainties. Last, and maybe more important, while conducting these investigations, we were able to raise numerous original (or re-formulated) questions, giving birth to novel tracks for improvements and to a fertile ground for further researches.


This paper presents an exhaust gas emissions prediction model for a turboprop engine depending on some performance parameters. Within this context, experimentally collected emissions data is used to develop a model in the adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system. For system identification in the adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system, grid partitioning is preferred as the clustering method, and the accuracy of the prediction model is acceptable to the best of the authors' knowledge. The root mean square error is found to be 0.12375, 4.7332, 0.081264 and 0.033515 for the emissions index prediction of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons, respectively.


Twenty-five years after it was dispatched, wild poliovirus is back and circulating widely in Israel but, surprisingly, there have been no cases. Like many other wealthy countries, Israel relies on the inactivated polio vaccine, or IPV, to protect against this crippling disease. Paradoxically, Israel's very high vaccination rate is what has allowed the virus to circulate silently for months.


The objective of this paper is to examine the importance of sediment diffusion relative to advection in bed load transport. At moderate bottom shear stress, water turbulence is too weak for picking up and keeping particles in suspension and so shallow water flows over erodible slopes carry sediment as bed load. Two deterministic frameworks are routinely used for studying bed load transport in sedimentation engineering and computational river dynamics. In equilibrium theory, the sediment transport rate is directly related to the water discharge (or bottom shear stress) independently of the intensity of sediment transport and the flow conditions (nearly steady flow as well as non-uniform time-dependent flow); embodied in the Exner equation, the bedload transport equation dictates bed evolution. In non-equilibrium (or non-capacity sediment transport) theory, sediment transport results from the imbalance between particle entrainment and deposition. Generally, sediment diffusion is included in none of these approaches. Based on recent advances in the probabilistic theory of sediment transport, this paper emphasizes the part played by particle diffusion in bed load transport. In light of these new developments, we revisit the concepts of adaptation length and entrainment rate, two essential elements in the deterministic non-equilibrium bed load theory. Using the shallow water equations, we ran numerical simulations of channel degradation and anti-dune development in gravel bed streams over steep slopes, which showed that sediment diffusion is as significant as advection in flume experiments. The predictive capability of deterministic models can thus be improved by including diffusion in the governing equations. We also present a versatile numerical framework, which makes it possible to use either deterministic or stochastic formulations of bed load transport.


In the last two years, CS as a school subject has gained a lot of atten- tion worldwide, although different countries have differing approaches to and experiences of introducing CS in schools. This paper reports on a study comparing current trends in CS at school, with a major focus on two countries, Germa- ny and UK. A survey was carried out of a number of teaching professionals and experts from the UK and Germany with regard to the content and delivery of CS in school. An analysis of the quantitative data reveals a difference in foci in the two countries; putting this into the context of curricular developments we are able to offer interpretations of these trends and suggest ways in which curricula in CS at school should be moving forward.


This paper reports on findings from a major New Zealand research project around staff perceptions of student evaluations of teaching. The main focus of this discussion is the insights that the research afforded into staff engagement with and use of student evaluations to inform their teaching practice and to improve student learning. The research data indicates that there is a gap between academics' relatively positive views of evaluation and their actual engagement with the process. A high percentage of academics, particularly at NZ universities, do not report engagement in dialogue or professional development activities around student evaluation. The use of evaluations in teaching tends to be individual, often isolated and unsystematic. This paper recommends some ideas for moving forward and argues for a cultural change that endorses, supports and rewards the systematic integration of student evaluations into teaching practice.


The Supreme Court's "Endorsement Test" for evaluating the constitutionality of government sponsored symbols, displays, and messages regarding religion is notoriously controversial and has engendered enormous scholarly attention. In addition to government "endorsement" of religion, however, the test also prohibits the government from sending a message of "disapproval" of religion. The disapproval side of the Endorsement Test has not been subject to almost any scholarly discussion, which is not surprising given that until recently the courts have had no reason to entertain, much less sustain, challenges to alleged government disapproval of religion. In the last few years, however, due to a variety of social and cultural phenomena, several cases alleging disapproval have made it to the federal courts. This, then, is a good time to begin consideration of what the disapproval portion of the Endorsement Test should prohibit. In this Article, I defend the idea that courts apply an "explicit negative reference" test to determine if the government has unconstitutionally disapproved of religion. After explaining and defending that test, the Article applies the test to the cases of alleged disapproval that courts have been asked to consider. The Article concludes by suggesting that the increasing importance of the disapproval portion of the Endorsement Test weighs strongly in favor of courts keeping the Endorsement Test despite the departure of its creator, Justice O'Connor, and the continued criticism leveled at it from courts and commentators.


Mifepristone (RU-486), a potent progesterone receptor antagonist and inducer of cytochromes P-450, is currently in use in Europe, particularly as a post-coital oral contraceptive. Soon it will be available in the United States, as well. Since progesterone has been implicated in the pathogenesis of acute attacks of porphyria, the use of RU-486 or related compounds might be considered in porphyric patients. However, as with other cytochrome P-450 inducers, RU-486 may have the ability to precipitate or exacerbate attacks of acute porphyria. The acute porphyrias in relapse are associated with an increase in activity of delta-aminolevulinic acid synthase, the first and normally rate-controlling enzyme in heme biosynthesis. We have used primary cultures of chick embryo liver cells to test the ability of RU-486 to induce delta-aminolevulinic acid synthase activity and mRNA, cytochromes P-450, porphyrin accumulation, and heme oxygenase. We found that RU-486, at concentrations observed in human plasma after a single oral dose, induced the mRNA and activity of delta-aminolevulinic acid synthase, both by itself and in the presence of deferoxamine, a potent iron chelator that inhibits ferrochelatase. RU-486 and deferoxamine together also produced significant accumulations of protoporphyrin. These results indicate that RU-486 may pose a risk in patients with known acute porphyria and should be used with caution. RU-486 increased the concentration of total cytochrome P-450, and the activity of erythromycin demethylase, an activity specifically catalyzed by cytochrome P-450 3A. Unlike several other porphyrogens (e.g. hydantoins, barbiturates), RU-486 does not produce accumulation of uroporphyrin or induction of heme oxygenase in chick embryo liver cells.


Abstract. We introduce a four-year (in 2006–2010) continuous data set of aerosol optical properties at Puijo in Kuopio, Finland. We study the annual and diurnal variation of the aerosol scattering and absorption coefficients, hemispheric backscattering fraction, scattering Angstrom exponent, and single scattering albedo, whose median values over this period were 7.2 Mm −1 (at 550 nm), 1.0 Mm −1 (at 637 nm), 0.15, 1.93 (between 450 and 550 nm), and 0.85, respectively. The scattering coefficient peaked in the spring and autumn, being 2–4 times those in the summer and winter. An exception was the summer of 2010, when the scattering coefficient was elevated to ~300 Mm −1 by plumes from forest fires in Russia. The absorption coefficient peaked in the winter when soot-containing particles derived from biomass burning were present. The higher relative absorption coefficients resulted in lower single scattering albedo in winter. The optical properties varied also with wind direction and time of the day, indicating the effect of the local pollutant sources and the age of the particles. Peak values in the single scattering albedo were observed when the wind blew from a paper mill and from the sector without local pollutant sources. These observations were linked, respectively, to the sulphate-rich aerosol from the paper mill and the oxygenated organics in the aged aerosol, which both are known to increase the scattering characteristics of aerosols. Decreases in the single scattering albedo in the morning and afternoon, distinct in the summertime, were linked to the increased traffic density at these hours. The scattering and absorption coefficients of residential and long-range transported aerosol (two separate cloud events) were found to be decreased by clouds. The effect was stronger for the scattering than absorption, indicating preferential activation of the more hygroscopic aerosol with higher scattering characteristics.


Milner and Goodale (1995, 2006) propose a model of vision that makes a distinction between 'vision for perception' and 'vision for action'. Regarding hemispatial neglect, they, somewhat contentiously, hypothesize that this disorder is better explained by damage to a high-level representational structure that receives input from the ventral visual stream, but not from the dorsal-stream. Consequently, they postulate that neglect patients should code spatial parameters for action veridically. Another strong claim of the model is that the dorsal stream's control of action is designed for dealing with target stimuli in the 'here and now', yet when time is allowed to pass and a reaction has to be made on the basis of a visual memory, the ventral stream is required for successful performance. One prediction from this is that neglect patients should be able to perform immediate actions, but should present specific impairments when the action is delayed.
In Part I of this thesis the pattern of spared and impaired visuomotor abilities in patients with neglect, as specifically predicted by the perception and action model (Milner & Goodale, 1995, 2006), was investigated. In Chapter 1, the performance of patients with and without neglect after right hemisphere stroke was compared with that of age-matched controls. Participants were asked to point either directly towards targets or halfway between two stimuli (gap bisection), both with and without visual feedback during movement. No neglect-specific impairment was found in timing, accuracy or reach trajectory measures in either pointing or gap bisection. In Chapter 2, I tested whether neglect patients would be unimpaired in immediate pointing, yet show inaccurate pointing in a condition where a delay is interposed between the presentation of the stimulus and the response signal. Similarly to Chapter 1, it was found that neglect patients showed no accuracy impairments when asked to perform an immediate action. Conversely, when pointing towards remembered leftward locations they presented specific accuracy deficits that correlated with neglect severity. Moreover, an initial voxel-based lesion-symptom analysis further revealed that these deficits were associated with damage to occipito-temporal areas which were also mostly damaged in the neglect group.
Furthermore, training of grasping the centre of rods (visuomotor feedback training) has been shown to improve neglect (Robertson, Nico & Hood, 1997; Harvey et al., 2003). It is postulated that by using the spared visuomotor abilities in these patients it is possible to 'bootstrap' their perceptual deficits through some 'dorsal-to-ventral recalibration'. Hence, in Part II the immediate and long-term effects of visuomotor feedback training were explored on neglect conventional measures, as well as in daily life tasks. I found that this technique improves neglect symptoms and crucially that these improvements were long lasting, as they were present even after 4-months post-training. Importantly, I also show that the training effects generalize to the patient's daily lives at follow-up. These findings are very encouraging for the rehabilitation of neglect as this condition has been shown to be the best single predictor of poor recovery after stroke and very difficult to treat.


Morphological characters and phylogenetic trees generated by analyses of segments of two mitochondrial genes cytochrome b and cytochrome c oxidase I support recognition of three new species of the 'Geophagus' brasiliensis species group from coastal basins of northeast Brazil. All new species were diagnosed by exclusive morphological characters and exclusive nucleotide transformations. Geophagusrufomarginatus sp. n., from the Rio Buranhém Basin, is distinguished from all other species of the group by dorsal-fin lappets with red edges, the presence of longitudinal series of small light blue spots between the anal-fin spines and rays, and non-denticulated gill-rakers; it is closely related to G.brasiliensis and G.iporangensis. Geophagusmultiocellus sp. n., from the Rio de Contas Basin, is distinguished from all other species of the group by having small pale blue spots with minute bright blue dots at their centres, that are often vertically coalesced to form short bars on the caudal fin. Geophagussantosi sp. n., from the Rio Mariana Basin, is distinguished from all other species of the group by having blue stripes parallel to the dorsal and anal fin rays on their longest portions. Geophagusmultiocellus and G.santosi belong to the same clade of G.itapicuruensis. The clade composed by the Rio Paraguaçu Basin species was recovered as the sister group of the other species of the 'G.' brasiliensis species group.


In this paper, a novel approach for joint power control and user scheduling is proposed for optimizing energy efficiency (EE), in terms of bits per unit energy, in ultra dense small cell networks (UDNs). Due to severe coupling in interference, this problem is formulated as a dynamic stochastic game (DSG) between small cell base stations (SBSs). This game enables capturing the dynamics of both the queues and channel states of the system. To solve this game, assuming a large homogeneous UDN deployment, the problem is cast as a mean-field game (MFG) in which the MFG equilibrium is analyzed with the aid of low-complexity tractable partial differential equations. Exploiting the stochastic nature of the problem, user scheduling is formulated as a stochastic optimization problem and solved using the drift plus penalty (DPP) approach in the framework of Lyapunov optimization. Remarkably, it is shown that by weaving notions from Lyapunov optimization and mean-field theory, the proposed solution yields an equilibrium control policy per SBS, which maximizes the network utility while ensuring users' quality-of-service. Simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves up to 70.7% gains in EE and 99.5% reductions in the network's outage probabilities compared to a baseline model, which focuses on improving EE while attempting to satisfy the users' instantaneous quality-of-service requirements.


ABSTRACT In the domain of IT benchmarking (ITBM), a variety of data and information are collected. Although these data serve as the basis for business analyses, no unified semantic representation of such data yet exists. Consequently, data analysis across different distributed data sets and different benchmarks is almost impossible. This paper presents a system architecture and prototypical implementation for an integrated data management of distributed databases based on a domain-specific ontology. To preserve the semantic meaning of the data, the ITBM ontology is linked to data sources and functions as the central concept for database access. Thus, additional databases can be integrated by linking them to this domain-specific ontology and are directly available for further business analyses. Moreover, the web-based system supports the process of mapping ontology concepts to external databases by introducing a semi-automatic mapping recommender and by visualizing possible mapping candidates. The system also provides a natural language interface to easily query linked databases. The expected result of this ontology-based approach of knowledge representation and data access is an increase in knowledge and data sharing in this domain, which will enhance existing business analysis methods.


The organizational structure of a new startup 'venture', including its business strategy, is strongly shaped by processes embedded within its developing e-commerce information system. An important question here and in general IS research is the role of individuals (agents) in the shaping and interpreting of both technological and organizational structures (structure). Various questions drawn from Giddens' (1984) structuration theory are used to highlight this agency-structure relationship, and initial results from an action research study within an e-commerce startup involved in developing an on-line "pop culture" magazine are described. Results indicate that at the outset, the e-commerce technology was shaped by two opposing groups within the organization, focused on the business-to-consumer market. Once the system was completed, however, the various agents perceived tremendous business-to-business possibilities in the software. Consequently, they initiated a process to alter their strategic focus, and transformed their organizational processes. Future research directions of this "dog wagging its tail," and "tail wagging the dog" story toward systems development practice and research, and Giddens' structuration theory are discussed. Implications for e-commerce practice and research are discussed.


The 'impact' of research has seen a dramatic rise up the UK's policy agenda in recent years. But what does 'impact' really mean? How do researchers and others respond to the new 'impact agenda' and how might we best plan, monitor and report on impact? This working paper attempts to provide answers to some of these questions by reviewing various understandings of 'impact' and describing the approach used by the ESRC STEPS Centre in its second five-year phase of funding. In particular, we draw on our experience of adapting and employing a down-scaled version of 'participatory impact pathways analysis' (PIPA) and reflect on its utility and potential as a tool for planning relatively small-scale social science/ interdisciplinary research projects conducted with partners in developing countries. In using PIPA, the STEPS Centre has adapted the idea of 'impact pathways' in line with its broader 'pathways approach', which focusses on complex and dynamic interactions between knowledge, politics and 'social, technological and environmental pathways to sustainability'. In this way, PIPA has been useful in articulating and exploring the potential impact of STEPS Centre projects: it has helped to map out the networks known to the researchers, appreciate different perspectives held by the team members and generate an understanding of the narratives, networks and policy processes under study. Although the possibility for detailed ex ante prediction of impact pathways is limited, using PIPA has helped teams to be ready to maximise communication and engagement opportunities, and to link research across different STEPS Centre projects and beyond. The working paper also describes how PIPA may be used iteratively in a way that enables reflexive learning amongst research teams. Lastly, we speculate on the ways in which PIPA may be further developed and used in ex post impact monitoring and evaluation into the future.


At the end of World War II, experts on both sides of the Atlantic believed that France was doomed to economic stagnation. French culture and institutions, they argued, inhibited the changes in economic structure that sustained growth would require. But in spite of these predictions and the occasional volatility of the world economy, the French economy grew rapidly. Only the Japanese, of the major economies, has grown faster, and by 1975 the French standard of living matched that of West Germany. Restructuring the French Economy looks at the four decades of the structural changes that fostered growth and explores explanations of why such changes occurred. Drawing on many and diverse primary materials, including government statistics, judicial decisions, and professional memoirs, Adams examines three different explanations of France's postwar economic success. The first downplays the extent of structural change during the surge of growth. The second emphasizes the importance of government policies to compensate for inadequate private initiative. The third suggests that European economic integration and French decolonization created enough market competition to push the private sector into its own restructuring. Adams stresses that if government initiatives worked well, they did so in an environment of strong market competition; if competition seemed to work wonders, it occurred only as a result of government actions. He also devotes considerable attention to the implications of his findings for U.S. policy concerning European protectionism and the health and growth of American industries.


Have you ever noticed the different ways that children respond to texts, and wondered why? Have you ever wanted to analyse how children think about a story and wished that you knew how to help them to think more deeply? This minibook describes some of the ways in which children respond to, and understand, texts. It has been written to help teachers recognise common but unbalanced reading responses and gives valuable advice about how to coach children to engage with stories in more effective and balanced ways. This short book will change the way that you think about reading. Read it and you will see the pupils you teach in a totally new way.


New polymeric silver (Ag) composites were prepared using polyethersulfone (PES) as polymer material, N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as solvent and polyvinylpyrollidone (PVP) of various molecular weight (MW) as organic fillers. Silver nitrate (AgNO3) was added by various loading in order to impart an antibacterial property to the composites. The miscibility of PES/Ag/fillers composites were characterized using TGA and any changes in chemical bonding were characterized using ATR-FTIR techniques. The XPS results showed high intensity in Eb(Ag3d) range of 378.1-378.5 and 372.2-372.5 for the highest Ag loading with PVP with the highest MW. This phenomenon had altered the hydrophilicity property of composites. In this study, composites have undergone a bacteria rejection test from E.coli suspension and a domestic waste sample. Composites with highest loading of silver and highest MW of PVP (PES-Ag2P360) was observed for significantly high bacteria rejection, log reduction value (LRV~3). Therefore, PES-silver nanocomposites is a potential membrane for bacteria removal, disinfection and maybe effective for overcoming biofouling problems.


Many governments within Australia actively support Masters Games with the expectation that such events generate significant economic benefits. However, while research demonstrates that 'non-local' participants provide greater economic value to the host region, little is known about this key participant category. In particular, previous Masters Games research has only briefly considered the influence of travel on participant motives. In order to address this gap in the literature, a qualitative investigation of the motives among non-local Masters Games participants was undertaken. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 non-local competitors prior to their participation in the 2005 Australian Masters Games. The data revealed that this category of participant may be particularly motivated by competition, extrinsic-achievement, socialising, camaraderie and athletic-identity. In addition, analysis revealed that the travel feature of this experience has a positive influence on the strength of each motive identified. These findings not only provide valuable information for Masters Games organisers but also contribute towards a better understanding of the competitive active sport tourist.


In this book one of America's most distinguished psychologists describes his experiences in helping people to discover the path to personal growth through an understanding of their own limitations and potential. What is personal growth? Under what conditions is it possible? How can one person help another? What is creativity, and how can it be fostered? These are some of the issues raised, which challenge many concepts of traditional psychology. Contemporary psychology derives largely from the experimental laboratory, or from Freudian theory. It is preoccupied with minute aspects of animal and human behaviour, or with the mentally ill. But there are rebels, of whom the author counts himself as one, along with Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May, who feel that psychology and psychiatry should be aiming higher, and be more concerned with growth and potentiality in man. The interest of such a psychology is in the production of harmoniously mature individuals, given that we all have qualities and possibilities infinitely capable of development. Successful development makes us more flexible in relationships, more creative, and less open to suggestion and control. This book, philosophical and provocative, summarizes Dr Rogers' experience.Non-technical in its language, it is not only for psychologists and psychiatrists, but for teachers and counsellors, religious and social workers, labour-management specialists and anyone interested in 'becoming'.


Systems Analysis and Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML, 5th Edition by Dennis, Wixom, and Tegarden captures the dynamic aspects of the field by keeping students focused on doing SAD while presenting the core set of skills that every systems analyst needs to know today and in the future. The text enables students to do SADnot just read about it, but understand the issues so they can actually analyze and design systems. The text introduces each major technique, explains what it is, explains how to do it, presents an example, and provides opportunities for students to practice before they do it for real in a project. After reading each chapter, the student will be able to perform that step in the system development process.


A Standardized Benchmarking Framework for RFMO Performance Annika Nordin Saltman Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Terrie Klinger School of Marine and Environmental Affairs Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) are intergovernmental regional fishery bodies or arrangements with authority to establish binding conservation and management measures for straddling fish stocks and fisheries on the high seas. The published literature has focused on the need for RFMOs to improve and strengthen their governance structures to promote successful management outcomes. Performance assessment has been identified as a means of achieving this objective. While some RFMOs have engaged in performance assessment, variation in the stated purpose of each assessment and in the evaluation frameworks used has led some to call for the development of a standard benchmarking framework that can be applied across all RFMOs. Notably, the utility of such a framework has been generally accepted without analysis of the potential obstacles to its creation. I explore the argument for the creation of such a standardized benchmarking framework. I find that despite expressed need for such a framework, organizational diversity across RFMOs creates barriers to development and implementation of standardized evaluations, suggesting the need for flexibility and diversity among frameworks. I conclude that obstacles to the creation of a single standard, comprehensive evaluation framework exist, and that the use of evaluation criteria appropriate for individual RFMOs may be more useful.


In her paper "Transnational Book Markets and Literary Reception in the Americas," Molly Metherd argues that the most diffuse products of transnational cultural production in the Americas come from mass media productions packaged for transnational audiences -i.e., Hollywood films, television shows, popular magazines, product advertisements -and that tend to homogenize messages, promote stereotypes, and simplify complex issues. However, another effort to make sense of shifting relationships in the Americas is coming from a group of US-American and Spanish American literary figures. In their fiction, criticism, journalistic work, and public statements, such authors have been responding to the covalence of American cultures and interrogating mass media messages. Metherd examines the emergence of this transnational publishing industry which offers the institutional structure for authors to reach out to hemispheric audiences and its impact and relates the said situation to Chilean author Alberto Fuguet. She explores how, in order to accommodate these changing markets, Englishand Spanish-language publishers have formed strategic partnerships and introduced new imprints often releasing works simultaneously in English and Spanish and promoting authors to a larger hemispheric readership through shelf placement, advertising and book tours. Molly Metherd, "Transnational Book Markets and Literary Reception in the Americas" page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 10.3 (2008):


Smart deformation and warping tools play an important part in modern day geometric modeling systems. They allow existing content to be stretched or scaled while preserving visually salient information. To date, these techniques have primarily focused on preserving local shape details, not taking into account important global structures such as symmetry and line features. In this work we present a novel framework that can be used to preserve the global structure in images and vector art. Such structures include symmetries and the spatial relations in shapes and line features in an image. Central to our method is a new formulation of preserving structure as an optimization problem. We use novel optimization strategies to achieve the interactive performance required by modern day modeling applications. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework by performing structure preservation deformation of images and complex vector art at interactive rates.


James M Reina Peer Coaching for History Teachers at Oakcrest High School 2004/05 Dr Dennis A. Hurley. Master of Arts in School Administration The purpose of this project was to evaluate the utilization of Peer Coaching as a tool for increasing teacher communication and promoting the sharing of methodology and content knowledge. Within a high-school setting, scheduling and multiple course-loads kept teachers from capitalizing on the greatest resource that surrounded them; each-other. This program allowed teachers to observe and be observed in a non-threatening, supportive environment outside the domain of supervisors and administrators. Originally designed to focus solely on the History Department, the study came to also include members of the English and Special Education Departments, who work with the history teachers through inclusion and cohort settings. Participating teachers were involved in pre-observation conferences, observations not lasting longer that one teaching period, and post-observation conferences to share their remarks and discuss their findings. Involved parties then completed a survey assessing the value of the process, made recommendations, and identified their desire for a personal interview. The process was consistently identified by participants as a positive step in evaluating performance and increasing communication among the staff. The next step would be to build a peer coaching model into the new-teacher development program and, with the assistance of supervisors, its inclusion as a best-practice tool throughout all departments.


Measurements of the photoluminescence emission spectra of 99.999 % purity gold, 99.9999 % purity copper, polycrystalline PbMo6S8 and single crystal YBCO were made for λex = 488 nm as a function of temperature (72 K < T < 300 K), time (t < 12 hours), excitation power (P < 120 mW) and position on the sample using a high sensitivity instrument which was designed, commissioned and calibrated for this study.

We present the first measurements of the photoluminescence emission spectra of gold and copper as a function of temperature which show peak photoluminescence emission intensity increasing by approximately a factor of two for gold and a factor of five for copper between 300 K and 79 K. Full width half maximum (FWHM) and peak photoluminescence emission wavelength showed no dependence upon temperature. The spectra compare well to published data and data modelled using theories presented in the literature.

Variable temperature measurements on the superconductors PbMo6S8 and YBCO in their normal state show peak photoluminescence intensity increasing by a factor of 1.5 between 300 K and 80 K for PbMo6S8 and a factor of 2 between 300 K and 131 K for YBCO. A decrease in FWHM of 20 - 30 nm is observed with no change in peak photoluminescence wavelength. Measurements for 99.99 % purity single crystal niobium, polycrystalline SnMo6S8 and single crystal DyBCO superconductors are also presented, however, these samples exhibited problems with oxidation, impurities or damage to the sample surface.

Two interesting features which remain unexplained from this work include a variation in photoluminescence emission intensity over < 12 hours with a period of ~400 minutes for gold and copper and a continuous decrease in intensity for niobium, SnMo6S8 and YBCO and an increase in photoluminescence emission intensity by a factor of 4 at low temperatures in PbMo6S8, SnMo6S8 and YBCO.


This book examines key issues connected with the distribution of personal wealth in the UK. It studies why wealth is now such an important factor in social differences and public policy. It presents the most recent information on current wealth inequalities and a detailed discussion of trends in the distribution of wealth. It uses newly available data to compare wealth inequalities in the UK with the USA, Canada, and Sweden. It uses longitudinal data, which track the same people over time, to examine trajectories in wealth accumulation over the decade to 2005 and inequalities in inheritances over the same period. It looks at how parental wealth levels and people's asset-holdings early in adulthood affect outcomes later in their lives. The final part looks at the way in which policies towards wealth-holding developed historically, and the contradictory ways in which a wide range of public policies relate to people's wealth levels, including through taxation, means-testing, and the encouragement of saving, and discusses what the key issues for policy towards wealth and wealth inequalities now are. Personal wealth in the UK totalled L5.5 trillion by 2010 (L9-10 trillion if occupational pension rights are included). Inheritance flows are now equivalent to 4 per cent of national income each year. All households in the wealthiest tenth have more than 75 times the wealth of any of those in the bottom tenth. Absolute differences in wealth levels have increased substantially over the last 15 years, so wealth differences represent many more years of income than in the past. This makes them of great importance to life chances. This makes the book highly relevant for public policy, but also for academic and student understanding of a crucial dimension of social difference. As well as bringing together existing information on the area, the book contains considerable new analysis on wealth inequality, inheritance, and their impacts, drawing on work which is at the forefront of recent research. Contributors to this volume - John Hills John Hills and Francesca Bastagli Frank Cowell Francesca Bastagli and John Hills Eleni Karagiannaki and John Hills Abigail McKnight and Eleni Karagiannaki Howard Glennerster John Hills and Howard Glennerster John Hills and Howard Glennerster


We characterise the set of dominant strategy incentive compatible (DSIC), strongly budget balanced (SBB), and ex-post individually rational (IR) mechanisms for the multi-unit bilateral trade setting. In such a setting there is a single buyer and a single seller who holds a finite number k of identical items. The mechanism has to decide how many units of the item are transferred from the seller to the buyer and how much money is transferred from the buyer to the seller. We consider two classes of valuation functions for the buyer and seller: Valuations that are increasing in the number of units in possession, and the more specific class of valuations that are increasing and submodular.Furthermore, we present some approximation results about the performance of certain such mechanisms, in terms of social welfare: For increasing submodular valuation functions, we show the existence of a deterministic 2-approximation mechanism and a randomised e/(1 − e) approximation mechanism, matching the best known bounds for the single-item setting.


The majority of people in developing nations rely on untreated or minimally treated surface and shallow groundwater sources which are prone to faecal contamination. This study evaluated the utility of EC 3M™ Petrifilm™ and sanitary inspection forms (SIFs) as tools to assess 47 water sources and identify hazards of contamination in two rural Ugandan villages (90% were surface sources). Water samples were cultured on EC 3M™ Petrifilm™, which are intended for the enumeration of E. coli and total coliforms following 24 h incubation at 37°C. Isolated bacteria were cultured on MacConkey agar and identified using standard biochemical tests, while selected isolates were verified by sequencing 16S rRNA genes. From 105 Petrifilms, 110 presumptive E. coli were isolated and identified to genus level. However, only 33 presumptive E. coli isolates from 14 water sources (representing 27 distinct strains as determined by PFGE) were confirmed E. coli. The other presumptive E. coli isolates were identified as Citrobacter, Enterobacter, Proteus, Salmonella and Yersinia species. SIFs used an adapted survey designed for urban water sources of Uganda. The form yielded an SIF score based on binary data and characterized potential sources of contamination. SIF scores alone offered little information to distinguish between contamination levels of surface water sources, but the information collected in the surveys could be used to identify ways to improve sources. The results of this study suggest that the use of sanitary surveys may assist in identifying potential pollution sources that may be targeted to protect water sources. Bacterial monitoring using EC 3M™ Petrifilms™ may be effective for the screening of relative levels of contamination of source waters, including surface sources.


INGALLS, DAVID S., SR. (28 Jan. 1899-26 Apr. 1985), the U.S. Navy's only WORLD WAR I flying ace, was born in Cleveland to Albert and Jane (Taft) Ingalls. He enlisted in the 1st Yale Naval Aviation Unit when the war started. Ingalls graduated from Yale in 1920 and from Harvard University with a law degree in 1923. From 1923-27, Ingalls was a member of SQUIRE, SANDERS & DEMPSEY in Cleveland, leaving the firm to serve as state representative. In 1932, Ingalls returned to Cleveland, where Mayor HARRY L. DAVIS appointed him welfare director; however he resigned in 1935 when Davis refused to install x-ray equipment in the City Hospital. During the 1940s, Ingalls was involved in the military and aviation industries. In 1954 he became president and publisher of the Cincinnati Times-Star, resuming his law practice in Cleveland in 1958. In World War I Ingalls flew Sopwith Camels, shooting down 4 enemy planes and 3 aerial balloons, receiving the British Distinguished Flying Cross and U.S. Distinguished Service Medal. In 1929, Pres. Hoover appointed him assistant secretary of the Navy for aeronautics. He returned to active duty in WORLD WAR II and in late 1942 was chief of staff for the Air Ctr. Commander Forward Area on Guadalcanal, awarded the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit. In 1983 he was inducted into the Natl. Aviation Hall of Fame. Ingalls married Louise Harkness in 1922; they had 5 children: DAVID S. INGALLS, JR., Edith (Vignos), Louise (Brown), Anne (Lawrence), and Jane (Davison). Ingalls married Frances W. Wragg in 1978. He died in his CHAGRIN FALLS home and was buried in Hot Springs, Va. David S. Ingalls Papers, WRHS.


The Opalinus Clay in Northern Switzerland has been identified as a potential host rock formation for the disposal of radioactive waste. Comprehensive understanding of gas transport processes through this low-permeability formation forms a key issue in the assessment of repository performance. Field investigations and laboratory experiments suggest an intrinsic permeability of the Opalinus Clay in the order of 10-20 to 10-21 m2 and a moderate anisotropy ratio 25 nm. The determined entry pressures are in the range of 0.4-10 MPa and exhibit a marked dependence on intrinsic permeability. Both in situ gas tests and gas permeameter tests on drillcores demonstrate that gas transport through the rock is accompanied by porewater displacement, suggesting that classical flow concepts of immiscible displacement in porous media can be applied when the gas entry pressure (i.e. capillary threshold pressure) is less than the minimum principal stress acting within the rock. Essentially, the pore space accessible to gas flow is restricted to the network of connected macropores, which implies a very low degree of desaturation of the rock during the gas imbibition process. At elevated gas pressures (i.e. when gas pressure approaches the level of total stress that acts on the rock body), evidence was seen for dilatancy controlled gas transport mechanisms. Further field experiments were aimed at creating extended tensile fractures with high fracture transmissivity (hydro- or gasfracs). The test results lead to the conclusion that gas fracturing can be largely ruled out as a risk for post-closure repository performance.


The Supreme Court will hear the King v. Burwell case, in which the plaintiff argues that the ACA prohibits payment of premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions to people in states without state-managed Marketplaces. We estimate that a victory for the plaintiff would increase the number of uninsured by 8.2 million people and eliminate $28.8 billion in tax credits and cost-sharing reductions in 2016 ($340 billion over 10 years) for 9.3 million people. With lower cost individuals leaving the market, average nongroup premiums in 34 states would increase by 35 percent, affecting those purchasing inside and outside those Marketplaces.


We propose an atomic filter configuration with large tunability based on selective optical-pumping-induced anisotropy. Theoretical simulation shows that the filter structure, by using a counterpropagating pump, can achieve higher transmission and a narrower passband than that using a copropagating pump due to the elimination of Doppler broadening. In addition, the filter's tunability over 100 GHz via Aulter–Townes splitting and filtering characteristics is analyzed.


BACKGROUND
Ginkgo biloba is a natural medicine used for cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. The objective of this review is to explore the effectiveness and safety of Ginkgo biloba in treating mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

METHODS
Electronic search was conducted from PubMed, Cochrane Library, and four major Chinese databases from their inception up to 1(st) December, 2014 for randomized clinical trials on Ginkgo biloba in treating mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease. Meta-analyses were performed by RevMan 5.2 software.

RESULTS
21 trials with 2608 patients met the inclusion criteria. The general methodological quality of included trials was moderate to poor. Compared with conventional medicine alone, Ginkgo biboba in combination with conventional medicine was superior in improving Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores at 24 weeks for patients with Alzheimer's disease (MD 2.39, 95% CI 1.28 to 3.50, P<0.0001) and mild cognitive impairment (MD 1.90, 95% CI 1.41 to 2.39, P<0.00001), and Activity of Daily Living (ADL) scores at 24 weeks for Alzheimer's disease (MD -3.72, 95% CI -5.68 to -1.76, P=0.0002). When compared with placebo or conventional medicine in individual trials, Ginkgo biboba demonstrated similar but inconsistent findings. Adverse events were mild.

CONCLUSION
Ginkgo biloba is potentially beneficial for the improvement of cognitive function, activities of daily living, and global clinical assessment in patients with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease. However, due to limited sample size, inconsistent findings and methodological quality of included trials, more research are warranted to confirm the effectiveness and safety of ginkgo biloba in treating mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.


In Aversion and Erasure, Carolyn J. Dean offers a bold account of how the Holocaust's status as humanity's most terrible example of evil has shaped contemporary discourses about victims in the West. Popular and scholarly attention to the Holocaust has led some observers to conclude that a "surfeit of Jewish memory" is obscuring the suffering of other peoples. Dean explores the pervasive idea that suffering and trauma in the United States and Western Europe have become central to identity, with victims competing for recognition by displaying their collective wounds.She argues that this notion has never been examined systematically even though it now possesses the force of self-evidence. It developed in nascent form after World War II, when the near-annihilation of European Jewry began to transform patriotic mourning into a slogan of "Never Again": as the Holocaust demonstrated, all people might become victims because of their ethnicity, race, gender, or sexuality-because of who they are.The recent concept that suffering is central to identity and that Jewish suffering under Nazism is iconic of modern evil has dominated public discourse since the 1980s.Dean argues that we believe that the rational contestation of grievances in democratic societies is being replaced by the proclamation of injury and the desire to be a victim. Such dramatic and yet culturally powerful assertions, however, cast suspicion on victims and define their credibility in new ways that require analysis. Dean's latest book summons anyone concerned with human rights to recognize the impact of cultural ideals of "deserving" and "undeserving" victims on those who have suffered.


Investigation of Transfer Length, Development Length, Flexural Strength and Prestress Loss Trend in Fully Bonded High Performance Lightweight Prestressed T-Beams Adil J. Nassar Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2002 Supervisor: Dr. Thomas E. Cousins Encouraged by the performance of high performance normal weight composite girders, Virginia Department of Transportation has sought to exploit the use of high strength lightweight composite concrete (HSLWC) girders to achieve economies brought about by the reduction of dead loads in bridges. Transfer Length measurements conducted on two AASHTO Type IV HSLWC prestressed girders, resulted in an average transfer length of 17 inches, well below the AASHTO and ACI guidance. Two girders composed of HSLWC AASHTO Type II girders and a 48" x 8" normal weight 4000-psi concrete deck were produced. The HSLWC Type II girders were cast of concretes with a compressive strength of 6380 psi and unit weight of 114 pcf. Full scale testing of the girders was conducted to evaluate development length and flexural strength in HSLWC composite girders. Embedment lengths of five, six and eight feet were evaluated. Tests indicated a development length of about 72 inches, marginally below the ACI and AASHTO stipulation. Four of eight strands in the girders showed general bond failure nevertheless, the tested girders exceeded their theoretical flexural capacity by 24 to 30 percent.


Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of diabetic morbidity with more than 10% of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients dying before they are 40 years old. This study utilized Akita mice, a murine model with T1DM progression analogous to that of humans. Diabetic cardiomyopathy in Akita mice presents as cardiac atrophy and diastolic impairment at 3 months of age, but we observed cardiac atrophy in hearts from recently diabetic mice (5 weeks old). Hearts from 5 week old mice were analyzed with a rigorous label-free quantitative proteomic approach to identify proteins that may play a critical role in the early pathophysiology of diabetic cardiomyopathy. Eleven proteins were differentially expressed in diabetic hearts: products of GANC, PLEKHN1, COL1A1, GSTK1, ATP1A3, RAP1A, ACADS, EEF1A1, HRC, EPHX2, and PKP2 (gene names). These proteins are active in cellular defense, metabolism, insulin signaling, and calcium handling. Further analysis of Akita hearts using biochemical assays showed that the cellular defenses against oxidative stress were increased, including antioxidant capacity (2-3-fold) and glutathione levels (20%). Immunoblots of five and twelve week old Akita heart homogenates showed 30% and 145% increases in expression of soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH (gene name EPHX2)), respectively, and an approximate 100% increase in sEH was seen in gastrocnemius tissue of 12 week old Akita mice. In contrast, 12 week old Akita livers showed no change in sEH expression. Our results suggest that increases in sEH and antioxidative programming are key factors in the development of type 1 diabetic cardiomyopathy in Akita mice and reveal several other proteins whose expression may be important in this complex pathophysiology.


The distribution of butyltin (BT) compounds in sediments of the Kaohsiung Ocean Disposal Site (KODS) was investigated in this study. The sediment samples which collected from nine disposed stations and two reference stations in the KODS in 2009 and 2010 were analyzed for monobutyltin (MBT), dibutyltin (DBT), and tributyltin (TBT). Experimental readings showed that in 2009 the concentration of total butyltins ( �BTs) varied from 0.3 to 1.5 ng Sn/g dw for disposed stations, and 2.6 ng Sn/g dw only reference stations, for which most of BTs came from TBT. Whereas 2010 the BTs concentration varied from 0.3 to 69.3 ng Sn/g dw for disposed stations, and 0.4 to 2.2 ng Sn/g dw for reference stations, for which most of BTs came from TBT. Referring to the TBT-contaminated sediment classification, the sediment samples collected from disposed stations in 2010 could be classified as moderately to highly contaminated, and disposal site in 2009 could be classified as uncontaminated. On the other hand, when referring to the Oslo and Paris (OSPAR) biological effects of assessment, the TBT concentration within the sediment samples of disposed stations in 2010 might affect benthos but not necessarily responded for females to be sterile, and in 2009 of the biological response caused by TBT concentrations was below the environmental assessment criteria for the disposal site.


Supporters of GM agriculture have had a long row to hoe in achieving public acceptance for the safety of this important technology. Controversy has surrounded the foundational technology of recombinant DNA methods, the application of genetic engineering to crop plants and livestock, the safety of GM "Frankenfoods" as sources of human and animal nutrition, the potential environmental threats posed by the possible development of GM "superweeds," and the corporate control over GM agriculture exercised by a relatively small number of agricultural companies armed with vast financial resources and powerful patent portfolios. Nevertheless, as exemplified by the United States and Canadian Supreme Court cases, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, J.E.M. v. Pioneer Hi-Bred, Monsanto Canada v. Schmeiser, and Monsanto v. Geertson, the law, and the society it reflects, have finally managed to accommodate the important technology of GM agriculture. However, a new paradigm in biological science — synthetic biology — has begun to remake the face of GM agriculture. Synthetic biology seeks to purge biology of some of its fundamental inefficiencies through the rigorous application of engineering principles. Rather than tinkering around the edges, biological engineering would remake living organisms from first principles, and employ standard parts to make qualitatively new biological devices and systems. Traditional arguments that GM crops and livestock are simply slightly-modified versions of their conventional counterparts may no longer be either appropriate or accurate in the face of synthetic biological approaches to engineering new plants. Moreover, both synthetic biology and do-it-yourself biology ("DIYbio") seek to shift biological research and development out of traditional laboratories and the hands of credentialed biologists, and, instead, allow any interested and motivated user to become a research biologist, biotinkerer, or synthetic biological engineer. Home and community laboratories are already springing up at a rapid rate, and farm laboratories are sure to follow, as participation in this new, open, and democratized movement burgeons. In short, large numbers of individual and collaborating users, spread over many small and local laboratories, are beginning fundamentally to reengineer genes, cells, organisms, and systems composed of organisms or their substituent parts. The comfortable acceptance of GMOs at which society has only recently begun to arrive may soon be misplaced in the face of both fundamentally new scientific approaches and the democratization of innovation. The results for agriculture may be beneficial: enhanced rates of agricultural innovation through new biological approaches and wide participation. Moreover, synthetic biological agriculture ("synagriculture") may prove to be as safe as GM agriculture or even conventional agriculture. However, assumptions about current GM crops and livestock may not easily apply to synthetic versions, nor may the current paradigm of GM regulation be possible when innovation becomes atomized among millions of farmers. Some of the "settled" legal issues surrounding GM crops and livestock may have to be revisited as new perceived or actual threats and benefits arise. One irony may be that the same patent system that has so often been criticized in the past for providing agricultural companies with too much control over farmers may soon represent one of the most effective methods for monitoring and regulating GM agricultural innovation. Although some farmer innovators may eschew patent coverage for their agricultural inventions, others may opt to seek patent protection for their innovative new synthetic crops and livestock. Because the USPTO will have to examine any new GM crop inventions prior to issuing letters patent, disclosures to the USPTO synthetic biological inventors who opt for patent protection may become a vital centralized locus for monitoring and regulating otherwise highly-decentralized synagricultural innovation. New methods of biological engineering and new models of user, collaborative, and open innovation are soon to affect the trajectory of GM agricultural innovation. Even if such changes turn out to be salutary, they will be changes nevertheless. To ensure that society receives the full benefits of open and democratized synthetic biological innovation in crops and livestock, it would be well and wise for the law to prepare itself to reexamine the brave new world of synagriculture with brand new eyes.


The treatment of wastewater using algal cultures has
been researched and developed since 1950. The High Rate
Algal Pond (HRAP) is the most efficient of this type of
treatment, particularly for nitrogen removal. However,
the main problem with the HRAP is the high level of
organic suspended solids in the treated wastewater.
Furthermore, nutrients released from the lysis of algal
cells may give rise to eutrophication in the receiving
water. A laboratory-scale experiment was carried out using
the HRAP in the company of anaquatic plant,
waterhyacinth Eichhornia crassipes, as an integrated
system to remove nitrogen from wastewater. The dominant
algal species used was Chlorella vulgaris.
Twenty runs in t he bat ch mode were operated under
the conventional HRAP and the HRAP - waterhyacinth combination system. Three runs were operated in the
continuous mode using the HRAP - waterhyacinth system with
50% surface area coverage and 3 different retention times
(3 days, 6 days, and 9 days). Comparison of the conventional HRAP and the HRAP waterhyacinth system for treating diluted raw wastewater
from rubber latex concentrate processing revealed better
nitrogen removal efficiency by the HRAP-waterhyacinth
system. Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen in the treated wastewater
was 23% lower in the HRAP with waterhyacinth than that in
the normal HRAP. Significant reduction of suspended
solids was also recorded. Total Suspended Solids of the
effluent in the HRAP-waterhyacinth system was generally
less than 50mg/L wherea sit was greater than 450mg/L in
the conventional HRAP.


Summary 1. Recent efforts to understand how the patterning of interaction strength affects both structure and dynamics in food webs have highlighted several obstacles to productive synthesis. Issues arise with respect to goals and driving questions, methods and approaches, and placing results in the context of broader ecological theory. 2. Much confusion stems from lack of clarity about whether the questions posed relate to community-level patterns or to species dynamics, and to what authors actually mean by the term 'interaction strength'. Here, we describe the various ways in which this term has been applied and discuss the implications of loose terminology and definition for the development of this field. 3. Of particular concern is the clear gap between theoretical and empirical investigations of interaction strengths and food web dynamics. The ecological community urgently needs to explore new ways to estimate biologically reasonable model coefficients from empirical data, such as foraging rates, body size, metabolic rate, biomass distribution and other species traits. 4. Combining numerical and analytical modelling approaches should allow exploration of the conditions under which different interaction strengths metrics are interchangeable with regard to relative magnitude, system responses, and species identity. 5. Finally, the prime focus on predator‐prey links in much of the research to date on interaction strengths in food webs has meant that the potential significance of nontrophic interactions, such as competition, facilitation and biotic disturbance, has been largely ignored by the food web community. Such interactions may be important dynamically and should be routinely included in future food web research programmes.


One of TCP's critical tasks is to determine which packets are lost in the network, as a basis for control actions (flow control and packet retransmission). Modern TCP implementations use two mechanisms: timeout, and fast retransmit. Detection via timeout is necessarily a time-consuming operation; fast retransmit, while much quicker, is only effective for a small fraction of packet losses. In this paper we consider the problem of packet loss detection in TCP more generally. We concentrate on the fact that TCP's control actions are necessarily triggered by inference of packet loss, rather than conclusive knowledge. This suggests that one might analyze TCP's packet loss detection in a standard inferencing framework based on probability of detection and probability of false alarm. This paper makes two contributions to that end: first, we study an example of more general packet loss inference, namely optimal Bayesian packet loss detection based on round trip time. We show that for long-lived flows, it is frequently possible to achieve high detection probability and low false alarm probability based on measured round trip time. Second, we construct an analytic performance model that incorporates general packet loss inference into TCP. We show that for realistic detection and false alarm probabilities (as are achievable via our Bayesian detector) and for moderate packet loss rates, the use of more general packet loss inference in TCP can improve throughput by as much as 25%.


The aim of this thesis is to provide an insight into the effects of user age on interactions with smartphones and tablets applications. The study considered two interaction methods to investigate the effects of user age on the usability of smartphones and tablets of different sizes: 1) eye-movements/browsing and 2) touch-gesture interactions. In eye movement studies, an eye tracker was used to trace and record users' eye movements which were later analysed to understand the effects of age and screen-size on browsing effectiveness. Whilst in gesture interactions, an application developed for smartphones traced and recorded users' touch-gestures data, which were later analysed to investigate the effects of age and screensize on touch-gesture performance. The motivation to conduct our studies is summarised as follows: 1) increasing number of elderly people in our society, 2) widespread use of smartphone technology across the world, 3) understanding difficulties for elderly when interacting smartphones technology, and 4) provide the existing body of literature with new understanding on the effects of ageing on smartphone usability.
The work of this thesis includes five research projects conducted in two stages. Stage One included two researches used eye movement analysis to investigate the effects of user age and the influence of screen size on browsing smartphone interfaces. The first research examined the scan-paths dissimilarity of browsing smartphones applications or elderly users (60+) and younger users (20-39). The results revealed that the scan-paths dissimilarity in browsing smartphone applications was higher for elderly users (i.e., age-driven) than the younger users. The results also revealed that browsing smartphone applications were stimulus-driven rather than screen size-driven. The second study was conducted to understand the difficulties of information processing when browsing smartphone applications for elderly (60+), middle-age (40-59) and younger (20-39) users. The evaluation was performed using three different screen sizes of smartphone and tablet devices. The results revealed that processing of both local and global information on a smartphone/tablet interfaces was more difficult for elderly users than it was for the other age groups. Across all age groups, browsing on the smaller smartphone size proved to be more difficult compared to the larger screen sizes.
Stage Two included three researches to investigate: the difficulties in interacting with gesture-based applications for elderly compared to younger users; and to evaluate the possibility of classifying user's age-group based on on-screen gestures. The first research investigated the effects of user age and screen size on performing gesture swiping intuitively for four swiping directions: down, left, right, and up. The results revealed that the performance of gesture swiping was influenced by user age, screen size, as well as by the swiping orientation. The purpose of the second research was to investigate the effects of user age, screen sizes, and gesture complexity in performing accurate gestures on smartphones and tablets using gesture-based features. The results revealed that the elderly were less accurate, less efficient, slower, and exerted more pressure on the touch-screen when performing gestures than the younger users. On a small smartphone, all users were less accurate in gesture performance – more so for elderly – compared to mini-sized tablets. Also, the users, especially the elderly, were less efficient and less accurate when performing complex gestures on the small smartphone compared to the mini-tablet. The third research investigated the possibility of classifying a user's age-group using touch gesture-based features (i.e., gesture speed, gesture accuracy, movement time, and finger pressure) on smartphones. In the third research, we provide evidence for the possibility of classifying a user's age-group using gesture-based applications on smartphones for user-dependent and user-independent scenarios. The accuracy of age-group classification on smaller screens was higher than that on devices with larger screens due to larger screens being much easier to use for all users across both age groups. In addition, it was found that the age-group classification accuracy was higher for younger users than elderly users. This was due to the fact that some elderly users performed the gestures in the same way as the younger users do, which could be due to their longer experience in using smartphones than the typical elderly user.
Overall, our results provided evidence that elderly users encounter difficulties when interacting with smartphones and tablet devices compared to younger users. Also, it was possible to classify user's age-group based on users' ability to perform touch-gestures on smartphones and tablets. The designers of smartphone interfaces should remove barriers that make browsing and processing local and global information on smartphones' applications difficult. Furthermore, larger screen sizes should be considered for elderly users. Also, smartphones could include automatically customisable user interfaces to suite
elderly users' abilities to accommodate their needs so that they can be equally efficient as younger users.
The outcomes of this research could enhance the design of smartphones and tablets as well the applications that run on such devices, especially those that are aimed at elderly users. Such devices and applications could play an effective role in enhancing elderly peoples' activities of daily lives.


The study focused on assessing the impact of employee training on their job satisfaction
and retention at the Kenya Medical Research Institute. The target population was the
employees who had completed training in the past 4 years. The study was carried out
within three KEMRI collaborating centres namely; Walter Reed Project, Centre for Disease
Control and KEMRI-Kenya Department of Defense. These collaborating centres operate
entirely under KEMRI policies and mandate. The study sought to find out why despite the
fact that training of employees is expected to yield to increased job satisfaction and
retention, the rate of staff turnover after acquiring the required training is still high within
the centres. The study sought to unearth the reasons behind the staff leaving and therefore
identify what the institute is currently not fulfilling within the expectations of the staff after
the training compelling them to exit.
To effectively address the issue, the researcher came up with the following objectives: -
1. To determine how training relates to employee job satisfaction and retention
2. To establish the factors contributing to staff retention or turnover after acquiring training
in KEMRI
3. To explore the possible solutions that KEMRI could adopt to minimize or eradicate
employee exit after training.
The researcher administered questionnaires with both open-ended and closed-ended
questions as an avenue of data collection. After data collection analysis was done using
frequency distribution tables, charts and graphs.


Background: A sellar spine is a bony spur protruding anteriorly from the central portion of the dorsum sellae. Its etiology is an ossified notochordal remnant of the cephalic end of the notochord. It is presumed to be a congenital malformation based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of sellar spine in a 4-year-old boy. A sellar spine should therefore be detectable at birth with or without ossification, and the posterior pituitary lobe should be displaced. Methods and Results: Here we review the literature and report the first case of typical sellar spine in an 8-year-old girl who presented with precocious puberty, but her MRI taken at age 4 months for a febrile convulsion did not show a sellar spine or posterior pituitary lobe deformation. T1-weighted sagittal images at 8 years old showed a bony structure protruding anteriorly from the central portion of the dorsum sellae. The length of this lesion was 3.8 mm on computed tomography (CT) scanning at 9 years old, and it elongated to 4.7 mm on CT at 12 years old. Conclusions: Based on the present case, we speculate that the sellar spine would be too small to detect early in development and would grow in size after birth. In this case, a sellar spine and precocious puberty were potentially associated due to deformation of the growing pituitary gland.


Social media have provided new opportunities to consumers to engage in social interaction on the internet. Consumers use social media, such as online communities, to generate content and to network with other users. The study of social media can also identify the advantages to be gained by business. A multidisciplinary model, building on the technology acceptance model and relevant literature on trust and social media, has been devised. The model has been validated by SEM-PLS, demonstrating the role of social media in the development of e-commerce into social commerce. The data emerging from a survey show how social media facilitate the social interaction of consumers, leading to increased trust and intention to buy. The results also show that trust has a significant direct effect on intention to buy. The perceived usefulness (PU) of a site is also identified as a contributory factor. At the end of the paper, the author discusses the results, along with implications, limitations and recommended future research directions.


We study the light refraction behavior at the entrance surface of the width-disordered one-dimensional waveguide array. As compared to the case in a uniform periodic waveguide array, anomalous refraction behavior is observed for the eigenmodes in the first band of the disordered waveguide array. The transverse propagation velocities of the eigenmodes in the first band are dramatically suppressed and the light is tightly confined around and propagates along the initially exciting waveguides. This may provide an effective method for beam coupling and collimation in the disordered photonic lattices.


Fingerprinting is a widely used technique among the networking and security communities for identifying different implementations of the same piece of networking software running on a remote host. A fingerprint is essentially a set of queries and a classification function that can be applied on the responses to the queries in order to classify the software into classes. So far, identifying fingerprints remains largely an arduous and manual process. This paper proposes a novel approach for automatic fingerprint generation, that automatically explores a set of candidate queries and applies machine learning techniques to identify the set of valid queries and to learn an adequate classification function. Our results show that such an automatic process can generate accurate fingerprints that classify each piece of software into its proper class and that the search space for query exploration remains largely unexploited, with many new such queries awaiting discovery. With a preliminary exploration, we are able to identify new queries not previously used for fingerprinting.


Wastewaters from the milk rooms of dairy farms are rich in phosphorus (P) and in some parts of Finland, particularly in the rural north, they may locally account for a large proportion of the P load on watercourses. In this study, we tested the treatment of milk room wastewaters with ferric sulphate liquid (trade name Kemwater PIX-115) in batch experiments and on a practical scale at two farms. The concentration of dissolved reactive P (DRP) could be decreased by > 90% with relatively small amounts of the chemical (40 l/kg of reduced DRP); other P forms required higher doses. In the farm scale experiments, the chemical was dosed with an automatic pump, and the precipitate was separated 1) with straw/sandbed filtration on a farm with 35 cows, and 2) by sedimentaton on a farm with 70 cows. The systems were not very expensive to construct (6200 or 2500? per farm and 177 or 36? per cow, respectively). In this study, separation by sedimentation was more effective in reducing total phosphorus from the wastewater than filtering.


Most sore throats with which patients present in the pharmacy are viral in origin. Only approximately one in 10 are due to a bacterial infection. It is not possible to tell the difference between a viral and a bacterial throat infection without performing a throat swab and culture. Sore throats are often associated with symptoms of a cold. In many cases, a sore throat is the first indication that a person is getting sick. However, streptococcal (bacterial) throat infections are more likely in children and require antibiotic therapy. Nonetheless, most sore throats are self-limiting and resolve within a few days without any treatment.


On May 25, 2016, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in partnership with HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research, the NYU Furman Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, hosted the Research Symposium on Gentrification and Neighborhood Change. This summary report highlights important research findings, policy implications, and examples of local efforts to promote equitable outcomes for gentrifying neighborhoods that were discussed at the symposium.


Undergraduate psychology students were shown a videotape of eight eyewitnesses, four of whom were instructed to respond truthfully, and four to respond deceptively, in their descriptions and photo identification of a target person. In addition to being truthful or deceptive, the eyewitnesses were accurate or inaccurate in their photo identifications of the target. The students rated each eyewitness on their accuracy of testimony, honesty, competence, confidence, and credibility, and also indicated which verbal and nonverbal cues guided their ratings. Students were not able to objectively detect deception and accuracy of identification significantly better than chance. However, subjective beliefs regarding characteristics suggestive of honesty and deception in eyewitnesses, and accuracy and inaccuracy of eyewitness identification, were significantly differentiated. Although eyewitnesses may be trustworthy, credible, and accurate in their descriptions and identification of a perpetrator, they also can be deceptive because of an unwillingness to be involved, a distrust of the police and the justice system, and/or fear of possible retributions from the suspect or his/her friends. Deception has been defined as to "knowingly transmit(s) a message intended to foster a false belief or conclusion by the receiver" (Burgoon, 1994, p. 359). In interactions with suspects, eyewitnesses, and complainants, law enforcement professionals are charged with the difficult and critical task of identifying deception and accuracy. The objectives of this investigation were to explore different subjective indicators of deception and accuracy of identification, and to determine if university students could differentiate between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses, and truthful and deceptive eyewitnesses, based upon their observations and interpretations of verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Researchers have shown substantial interest in the investigation of verbal and nonverbal correlates of deception (e.g., Ekman, O'Sullivan, Friesen, & Scherer, 1991; Hartwig, Granhag, Stromwall, & Andersson, 2004; Watkins & Turtle, 2003). However, with the exception of studies by Parliament and Yarmey (2002) and Yarmey (2003), there has been limited attention given to experimental investigations of deception in eyewitness identification. Most experimental studies on the detection of deception have involved laboratory investigations of the ability of participants to discriminate between truthful and deceptive statements and the interpretation of body language. With some exceptions, such as American Secret Service agents, Federal officers, and clinical psychologists (Ekman & O'Sullivan, 1991; Ekman, O'Sullivan, & Frank, 1999), most people are relatively poor in making such discriminations. Accuracy levels rarely exceed 60% when chance alone accounts for 50% accuracy (Ekman, 1996; Vrij, 2000). Although not always the case, analyses of verbal and nonverbal behaviour show that liars in contrast to truth tellers tend to make more self-references, have higher-pitched voices, take longer pauses in their speech, have more speech hesitations or filled pauses (e.g., ers, uhms, ahs), and use fewer words in total to communicate (Stiff & Miller, 1986; Vrij, Edward, & Bull, 2001; Zuckerman & Driver, 1985). Meta-analyses on nonverbal differences between truth tellers and liars have demonstrated relatively few objective cues to deception (De Paulo, Lindsay, Malone, Muhlenbruck, Charlton, & Cooper, 2003). For example, research suggests that liars make fewer foot/leg and hand/arm movements, and fewer postural shifts and self-manipulations such as rubbing ones hand on the leg than truth tellers (De Paulo et al., 2003; Vrij, 1994). If anything, liars are more likely to be still rather than show an increase in body movement (Mann, Vrij, & Bull, 2002; Vrij, Edwards, Roberts, & Bull, 2000). Furthermore, in contrast to the long held belief held by both police agencies and lay persons, the avoidance of eye contact or gaze-aversion is not a reliable indicator of deception. …


Expert guidance for building an information communication and technology infrastructure that provides best in business intelligence Enterprise performance management (EPM) technology has been rapidly advancing, especially in the areas of predictive analysis and cloud-based solutions. Business intelligence caught on as a concept in the business world as the business strategy application of data warehousing in the early 2000s. With the recent surge in interest in data analytics and big data, it has seen a renewed level of interest as the ability of a business to find the valuable data in a timely and competitive fashion. Business Intelligence Applied reveals essential information for building an optimal and effective information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure. * Defines ICT infrastructure * Examines best practices for documenting business change and for documenting technology recommendations * Includes examples and cases from Europe and Asia * Written for business intelligence staff, CIOs, CTOs, and technology managers With examples and cases from Europe and Asia, Business Intelligence Applied expertly covers business intelligence, a hot topic in business today as a key element to business and data analytics.


This report makes a series of adjustments to the most common measure of U.S. productivity growth (i.e., non-farm business sector) as well as to measures of wage growth, to determine the extent to which lagging wages can be blamed on weak productivity growth vs. income redistribution. Weak wage growth between 1973 and 2006 has generally been attributed to a redistribution of income from typical workers to higher paid workers. However, the report shows that, along with a redistribution of income, lagging wage growth has also been caused by slow productivity growth.


The opening chapter introduces this book's approach as well as the institutional development of the presidency and its organizational structure. Chapters 2 through 6 provide an extended discussion of the institutional presidency, first examining the working relationships of the White House with Congress and with the media, and then looking at policy-making in differing policy areas. In each of these five chapters, Kessel introduces the actors on the White House staff or in cabinet departments or agencies. He then considers their activities, looking at those common throughout the institutional presidency - those specific to the task, such as negotiation in foreign policy, coping with business cycles in economics, and handling projects and patronage in dealing with Congress. In the final two chapters, Kessel asks what presidents have been able to accomplish. In Chapter 7, he evaluates, for each contemporary president, examples of policy success, failure, and mixed results. He broadens the analysis in his concluding chapter to examine larger patterns of presidential accomplishment. His conclusion: all presidents have mixed records, but in the aggregate, presidents succeed more often than they fail by a factor of 3 to 2.