The purpose of this study is to understand how the cultural aspects of organizational agility affect digital innovation capability. In the context of increasing demand for fast-paced digital innovation, organizational agility becomes strategically crucial for large incumbent companies to increase their competitiveness. The literature on organizational agility shows that incumbents, with their vast access to resources, still can have limited ability to innovate and respond to change. This is in sharp contrast to startups, who sometimes are impressively innovative despite their very limited resources. Sometimes the incumbents are even outcompeted and disrupted by startups because of their ability to embrace change, and rapidly seize new business opportunities. However, we know little about why some incumbents are not able to use their resources efficiently for digital innovation and why some smaller startups can transcend these resource limitations. In this context, we find that cultural aspects are especially crucial as enablers for organizational agility in digital innovation. We designed a comparative study to investigate the differences in the influence of culture on organizational agility; and how it hinders or enables digital innovation, at both incumbent firms and startups in the automotive industry. We applied a qualitative research approach and selected semi-structured interviews as our main research method. The Competing Values Framework was used as a tool to categorize different cultures that affect organizational agility, but also to identify how and when tensions between values supported or hampered the organizations' ability to innovate. Our findings show that, while a blend of Hierarchy and Market cultures inhibited the innovation capability, Clan and Adhocracy cultures promoted innovation. In our sample, the incumbents predominantly adhered to the first two cultures, while the startups typically belonged to the second group. The most successful startups were even able to create a combination of Clan and Adhocracy cultures — a concept we here term 'Agile culture.' This culture allowed them to reach a beneficial state of digital innovation growth. When it comes to the implications for research and practice, we found the need to analyze the role of culture for organizational agility; and how to utilize culture as an asset to enable digital innovation growth. One contribution is the identification of 'Agile culture' that is an amalgamation of Clan and Adhocracy culture. The value agile culture creates when applied, enables organizational agility, which can enhance digital innovation capability.


Voices of the Magi explores the popular Catholic musical ensembles of southeastern Brazil known as folias de reis (companies of kings). Composed predominantly of low-income workers, the folias reenact the journey of the Wise Men to Bethlehem and back to the Orient, as they roam from house to house, singing to bless the families they visit in exchange for food and money. These gifts, in turn, are used to prepare a festival on Kings' Day, January 6, to which all who contributed are invited. Focusing on urban folias, Suzel Ana Reily shows how participants use the ritual journeys and musical performances of the folias to create sacred spheres distinct from, yet intimately related to, their everyday world. Reily calls this practice "enchantment" and argues that it allows the folia communities to temporarily make the social ideals of mutual reciprocity and equality embodied in their religious beliefs a reality. The contrast between their ritual experiences and the daily lives of these impoverished workers, in turn, reinforces the religious convictions of these devotees of the music of the Magi.


Photograph of a monument honoring Dick Dowling in Sabine Pass Battleground Park. A statue of a man is on top of a marble pedestal that has three segments containing text. The center portion of the monument, beneath the statue includes a symbol with a star and laurel leaves at the top and text that says: "In memory of Lt. Richard W. Dowling and his men. Texas remembers the faithfulness and valor of her sons and commends their heroic example to future generations. Erected by the state of Texas, 1936." Additional text is in the segment on the right and the left segment is labeled "With Dowling Were" and contains a list of names.


A formal Ordovician–Silurian chitinozoan biozonation for western Gondwana is proposed. This palaeogeographic province includes South America, and was located in medium to high latitudes during Ordovician and Silurian times. Ordovician chitinozoans are known from northern Argentina, southern Bolivia, and Brazil. Silurian chitinozoans occur in Brazil, northern Argentina, southern Bolivia and southern Peru. No published information is available about Ordovician–Silurian chitinozoans from Ecuador, Colombia or Venezuela. Altogether more than 150 localities (including wells and outcrops) are included in this study, and 154 species have been encountered. A biozonation based on the first occurrence of critical chitinozoan species is introduced. Five biozones are defined in the Ordovician (zones of Desmochitina sp. gr. minor, Conochitina decipiens, Eremochitina brevis, Lagenochitina obeligis and Tanuchitina anticostiensis), and nine in the Silurian (zones of Belonechitina postrobusta, Spinachitina harringtoni, Pogonochitina djalmai, Margachitina margaritana–Salopochitina monterrosae, Angochitina echinata, Eisenackitina granulata, Fungochitina kosovensis and the subzones of Sphaerochitina solutidina and Desmochitina cf. D. densa). These biozones are compared with known graptolite, conodont, acritarch and spore zones from the same area, and chitinozoan zones on a global basis.


Reliable markers for brain maturation are important to identify neural deviations that eventually predict the development of mental illnesses. Recent studies have proposed topographical EEG-derived slow wave activity (SWA) during NREM sleep as a mirror of cortical development. However, studies about the longitudinal stability as well as the relationship with behavioral skills are needed before SWA topography may be considered such a reliable marker. We examined six subjects longitudinally (over 5.1 years) using high-density EEG and a visuomotor learning task. All subjects showed a steady increase of SWA at a frontal electrode and a decrease in central electrodes. Despite these large changes in EEG power, SWA topography was relatively stable within each subject during development indicating individual trait-like characteristics. Moreover, the SWA changes in the central cluster were related to the development of specific visuomotor skills. Taken together with the previous work in this domain, our results suggest that EEG sleep SWA represents a marker for motor skill development and further supports the idea that SWA mirrors cortical development during childhood and adolescence.


This paper investigates the effect of corporate governance quality on earnings management in Jordan. Using a panel data set of all industrial and service firms listed on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during the period 2009-2013; this paper provides evidence that earnings management is affected negatively by corporate governance quality. In particular; the results show that earnings management is affected negatively by overall categories of governance index represented by board of director, board meeting, Audit and nomination and compensation committee. Furthermore, results suggest that corporate governance quality has increased over time. Thus, its ability to constrain earnings management has also increased. It is recommended to industrial and service companies to boost their compliance with corporate governance code to improve the integrity and reliability of financial reports. This paper fills a gap in the literature by providing evidence about the effect of corporate governance quality on earnings management in Jordan as an emerging economy.


Accession to the East African Community ("EAC") offers many potential benefits for the Republic of South Sudan. For instance, access to ports in Kenya and regional transportation corridors could increase the competitiveness of South Sudanese products. EAC membership could also open up new regional and international markets for South Sudanese products and strengthen South Sudan's negotiating position vis-a-vis non-EAC countries. Moreover, EAC membership may result in knowledge transfer between EAC partner states and increased regional investment. This in turn could promote the development of better domestic infrastructure and generate significant welfare gains. South Sudanese participation in non-economic EAC cooperation programs could also enhance regional security, food security, and natural resource management.But EAC membership could also have detrimental effects. EAC members are expected to implement a variety of economic and non-economic programs, not all of which may be in South Sudan's interest. For instance, EAC policies like common external tariffs ("CETs") and common investment rules could constrain South Sudan's ability to implement trade and investment promotion policies. In addition, EAC membership may hurt South Sudanese consumers and entrepreneurs through elevated CETs on consumer goods and exposure to regional competition. Additionally, continued use of non-tariff barriers and political resistance in EAC partner states may prevent full realization of the potential positive benefits of EAC membership. Lastly, as seen in the case of the EAC-EU Economic Partnership Agreement, EAC membership could require South Sudan to make trade concessions to non-EAC countries.As South Sudan appears committed to pursuing EAC membership, it is now necessary to develop a considered negotiation strategy to maximize the potential benefits of integration and mitigate its negative effects. As demonstrated by the Rwanda case study in Part III, this strategy can be implemented through a multi-step process that focuses on determining the positive and negative impact of EAC membership on South Sudan's development and economy, educating local stakeholders, strengthening vulnerable sectors, and mitigating the negative effects of integration.


In this dissertation, we consider the problem of assigning spectrum to wireless local-area networks (WLANs). In line with recent IEEE 802.11 amendments and newer hardware capabilities, we consider situations where wireless nodes have the ability to adapt not only their channel center-frequency but also their channel width. This capability brings an important additional degree of freedom, which adds more granularity and potentially enables more efficient spectrum assignments. However, it also comes with new challenges; when consuming a varying amount of spectrum, the nodes should not only seek to reduce interference, but they should also seek to efficiently fill the available spectrum. Furthermore, the performances obtained in practice are especially difficult to predict when nodes employ variable bandwidths. We first propose an algorithm that acts in a decentralized way, with no communication among the neighboring access points (APs). Despite being decentralized, this algorithm is self-organizing and solves an explicit tradeoff between interference mitigation and efficient spectrum usage. In order for the APs to continuously adapt their spectrum to neighboring conditions while using only one network interface, this algorithm relies on a new kind of measurement, during which the APs monitor their surrounding networks for short durations. We implement this algorithm on a testbed and observe drastic performance gains compared to default spectrum assignments, or compared to efficient assignments using a fixed channel width. Next, we propose a procedure to explicitly predict the performance achievable in practice, when nodes operate with arbitrary spectrum configurations, traffic intensities, transmit powers, etc. This problem is notoriously difficult, as it requires capturing several complex interactions that take place at the MAC and PHY layers. Rather than trying to find an explicit model acting at this level of generality, we explore a different point in the design space. Using a limited number of real-world measurements, we use supervised machine-learning techniques to learn implicit performance models. We observe that these models largely outperform other measurement-based models based on SINR, and that they perform well, even when they are used to predict performance in contexts very different from the context prevailing during the initial set of measurements used for learning. We then build a second algorithm that uses the above-mentioned learned models to assign the spectrum. This algorithm is distributed and collaborative, meaning that neighboring APs have to exchange a limited amount of control traffic. It is also utility-optimal -- a feature enabled both by the presence of a model for predicting performance and the ability of APs to collaboratively take decisions. We implement this algorithm on a testbed, and we design a simple scheme that enables neighboring APs to discover themselves and to implement collaboration using their wired backbone network. We observe that it is possible to effectively gear the performance obtained in practice towards different objectives (in terms of efficiency and/or fairness), depending on the utility functions optimized by the nodes. Finally, we study the problem of scheduling packets both in time and frequency domains. Such ways of scheduling packets have been made possible by recent progress in system design, which make it possible to dynamically tune and negotiate the spectrum band [...]


The editors of the Harvard Law Review respectfully dedicate this issue to Professor David Westfall. Elena Kagan During the five decades David Westfall taught at Harvard Law School, he was many things to many people: a committed scholar, a generous colleague, a devoted friend. But when I think of David what strikes me most is his total dedication to students. David truly valued and enjoyed students, something I experienced firsthand when he taught me labor law some twenty years ago. Unfailingly gracious and deeply knowledgeable, he brought clarity and dry wit to complex legal issues. He was sometimes caustic but never unkind--intent on creating an atmosphere conducive to learning and inquiry. He was profoundly committed to the Law School and its students, as reflected in his choice to teach up through the last months of his life. His identity was that of a law teacher, and he stayed one until the end. One of the most remarkable things about David is how he seemed to grow younger with age. When the Law School created the new role of section leader and recruited faculty members who would set the tone of welcome and personal interest for eighty students in each year's entering class, David enthusiastically volunteered. During the last years of his life, he enjoyed terrific popularity in this role, easing students' introduction to the rigors of law school life. At a time when many of us would be contemplating retirement, David was a fixture at his section's social events--and he not only showed up, he had fun. He went well beyond the call of duty in his efforts to connect with students, hosting several smaller orientation dinners at his home (as opposed to the usual one large party on campus) and inviting students stuck in Cambridge over Thanksgiving to join him for the holiday meal. I'm told that his many evening soirees sometimes lasted well into the night. After his death, a number of students gathered money for a gift in his name and proposed that Section Six be named in perpetuity the David Westfall Section, a testament to the high regard in which they still hold their former teacher. The first year of law school can be intimidating, but David's warmth and down-to-earth attitude always put students at ease. So charmed were students by his deadpan wit that one of his sections compiled a book featuring David's off-the-cuff remarks in their first-year property class, such as this response to a student he'd called on who explained that he'd just been scratching his head: "Well, I expect that has prepared you to make your point." And this reply to a student who opined that a city's land development people weren't stupid: "Do you have direct evidence of that?" The light touch shown by such comments was at the heart of David's teaching. He gave law--and law school--a human face, and his students are the richer for it. In his half century at the Law School, David not only saw enormous change but also embraced--indeed sought out--change in his own life and career. After almost twenty years of teaching, having already established himself as a leading professor of trusts and estates, David took off in entirely new directions, developing expertise in the fields of family law and labor law. I have the greatest admiration for his decision to pursue this path. It demonstrates the curiosity and sense of adventure that he brought to so many things. Recalling her apprehensive first days at the Law School, one of David's students observed that "he helped us to take this place with a grain of salt and a smile." In fact, he did that for all of us. David Westfall was a wonderful teacher and a wonderful colleague whose contributions to Harvard Law School were many and enduring. He is--and will be--deeply missed. John H. Mansfield I was a student in David Westfall's first class at the Harvard Law School, fifty years ago. Property II, it was called. It was a very large class, almost two hundred I believe, held in Austin North. …


Lower crustal earthquakes are commonly observed in continental rifts at depths where temperatures should be too high for brittle failure to occur. Here we present accurately located earthquakes in central Ethiopia, covering an incipient oceanic plate boundary in the Main Ethiopian Rift. Seismicity is evaluated using the combination of exceptionally well resolved seismic structure of the crust and upper mantle, electromagnetic properties of the crust, rock geochemistry, and geological data. The combined data sets provide evidence that lower crustal earthquakes are focused in mafic lower crust containing pockets of the largest fraction of partial melt. The pattern of seismicity and distribution of crustal melt also correlates closely with presence of partial melt in the upper mantle, suggesting lower crustal earthquakes are induced by ongoing crustal modification through magma emplacement that is driven by partial melting of the mantle. Our results show that magmatic processes control not only the distribution of shallow seismicity and volcanic activity along the axis of the rift valley but also anomalous earthquakes in the lower crust away from these zones of localized strain.


Background and objectives Clinical signs and symptoms, radiographic changes and routine laboratory tests have indispensable roles in diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Nevertheless, a high degree of heterogeneity between RA patients and increasing options of treatment require the identification of objective criteria relevant for diagnosis and therapeutic stratification of patients. This study focused on global approaches in dissecting inflammation in RA including transcriptome analyses of synovial tissue, blood and bone marrow monocytes and proteome analyses of selected molecules in serum from long-lasting and early RA. Materials and methods Gene-expression profiling of synovial tissues, blood and bone marrow monocytes of RA and osteoarthritis (OA) patients were performed by Affymetrix microarrays. Based on transcriptome data, 28 molecules were selected for protein analyses by ELISA and multiplex immunoassays in sera from patients with long-lasting RA (n = 17) and OA (n = 16), early RA (n = 10) and healthy donors (n = 14). Results Transcriptome analyses of synovial tissues from RA and OA patients showed the most prominent differences between these two diseases and identified more than 1000 differentially expressed genes. More subtle differences were disclosed by gene-expression profiling of blood and bone marrow monocytes from RA and OA with 300 and 150 differentially expressed genes, respectively. From RA tissue- and cell-specific transcriptomes 28 genes were selected for protein analyses in serum from RA and OA patients including: chemokines (CXCL13, CCL18), adhesion molecules (VCAM1, ICAM1, E- and P-Selectins), enzymes (MMP3, A1AT), alarmins (S100P and S1008/9) and the soluble form of cell surface molecules (CD14, CD163). Out of 28 markers only 16 reached statistical significance to discriminate long-lasting RA from OA. A combination of 5 markers was able to correctly classify long-lasting RA. However, the same combination of markers identified only one-third of early RA patients. Conclusions Tissue- and cell-specific transcriptomes demonstrated the systemic nature of RA. Proteome analyses of serum from long-lasting RA patients confirmed transcriptome data and showed that molecular patterns determined by the combination of inflammatory and cell-specific markers are required for disease stratification. In early RA transcriptome data outperformed proteome data suggesting that focus on transcriptional alterations is more sensitive approach for disease management of early RA.


I focus in this essay on judicial review of administrative action, looking at the subject "from the inside, trying to make sense of lawyers' reasons and arguments as they are actually presented and defended". Rather than starting from the constitutional basis of judicial review and working backwards to practice, I start by identifying the core values revealed by the practice of administrative law and then work forwards to analyze how they influence the shape and trajectory of the law.My focus is on administrative law doctrine. I contend that administrative law in this sense is best understood by reference to several core values: the rule of law, good administration, democracy and separation of powers. I trace the contours of these values in Part II. These values inform doctrinal choices that courts make in the areas of process, substance and remedial discretion, a body of law considered in Part III. Occasionally they must be complemented by institutional considerations, discussed in Part IV, centering on the need to conserve scarce judicial resources but taking account also of the role of judges in the common law tradition. I take the time in this paper to discuss important areas of administrative-law doctrine and determine whether judicial decisions are influenced by a set of values. Identifying these values is a useful task. Explaining doctrinal rules and outcomes in particular cases is valuable, all the more so if common themes can be traced across very different areas of administrative law. A values-based framework is capable of accommodating the development of doctrine over time, an urgent matter given the rapid growth of the administrative state and legal constraints on it in recent decades. It may also help to account for convergence and divergence across the common-law world: Commonwealth countries have (largely) a common heritage, one which they treat in different ways, but (generally) in a fashion that is comprehensible to all common lawyers, not just the natives of a particular jurisdiction.


Non-charitable nonprofit organizations are important political players, and they operate with little regulation and behind a veil of anonymity. The customary regulators of these organizations − the IRS and the FEC − are paralyzed by scandal and dysfunction, and have done nothing to address the problem of dark money in politics spawned by the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. This article considers whether state nonprofit law can fill the gap left by federal tax and election regulators. It describes the efforts taken by California and New York to limit the influence of out-of-state anonymous money in state elections, and considers the policies that states might pursue in regulating politicking by nonprofits under their jurisdiction. This article argues that state nonprofit law regulation could be desirable if states are concerned with either (1) shielding charitable organizations from the taint of political nonprofits, or (2) protecting donors to social welfare organizations from unwittingly underwriting political activity. However, if states are primarily interested in equalizing political power, silencing out-of-state voices, or protecting voters from fraud, then state nonprofit law is a poor regulatory fit. While most demands for dark-money regulation focus on disclosing the identity of nonprofit donors, this article explains that the appropriate regulation depends on the policy that drives it. While it argues that states have legitimate nonprofit-law concerns and could experiment to pave the way for federal regulation, it ultimately concludes that state nonprofit law regulation is unlikely to have the scope or effectiveness necessary to address the problem created by Citizens United.


What are some of the challenges and possibilities animating modern Canadian clinical and experiential learning in law? This question was the starting point for our research, which examined two sets of data. In the first part of this project, we analyzed available information on existing clinical and experiential learning programs in Canadian law schools. This data revealed a growing quantity and variety of programs across the country. We then held qualitative interviews with deans, professors, and clinicians across Canada regarding their views of clinical and experiential learning. While the interviews suggested that many of the same financial and curricular challenges that dominated early debates remain stubbornly entrenched, there are also significant promising views and practices. No longer regarded by most as a legal education outlier, clinical and experiential learning has come out of the curricular shadows and taken a prominent place in most law schools in Canada. Nuanced questions now dominate thinking around this generation of clinical and experiential learning. What is the role of community in the creation, decision making, and continuity of clinical programs? How can students balance an increasingly intensive set of learning, professional, and financial challenges? How can clinical and experiential learning be better aligned with the rest of the curriculum, and as accessible as possible? As all respondent law schools but one are expanding their clinical and experiential learning options, these and other questions will continue to animate programs in the foreseeable future.


Tracking position and orientation independently affords more agile maneuver for over-actuated multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) while introducing undesired downwash effects; downwash flows generated by thrust generators may counteract others due to close proximity, which significantly threatens the stability of the platform. The complexity of modeling aerodynamic airflow challenges control algorithms from properly compensating for such a side effect. Leveraging the input redundancies in over-actuated UAVs, we tackle this issue with a novel control allocation framework that considers downwash effects and explores the entire allocation space for an optimal solution. This optimal solution avoids downwash effects while providing high thrust efficiency within the hardware constraints. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first formal derivation to investigate the downwash effects on over-actuated UAVs. We verify our framework on different hardware configurations in both simulation and experiment.


This concluding chapter briefly reviews the different, sometime diametric, ways in which the literature conceptualizes urban gardening. It brings together enthusiastic approaches that understand urban gardening for its transformative potential to materialise new ideas of cooperation-based relations and sustainable urbanism, and critical approaches that analyse it as another form of greenwash and as another strategy of neoliberal development. The chapter then discusses how the different chapters in the book have come to terms with this gap of understanding urban gardening and the resolutions and new directions for understanding they offer. The chapter concludes with outlining the main contribution of the book to current and future understanding of urban gardening.


Bitcoin is a digital, decentralized, partially anonymous currency, not backed by any government or other legal entity, and not redeemable for gold or other commodity. It relies on peer-to-peer networking and cryptography to maintain its integrity. Compared to most currencies or online payment services, such as PayPal, bitcoins are highly liquid, have low transaction costs, and can be used to make micropayments. This new currency could also hold the key to allowing organizations such as Wikileaks, hated by governments, to receive donations and conduct business anonymously. Although the Bitcoin economy is flourishing, Bitcoin users are anxious about Bitcoin's legal status. This paper examines a few relevant legal issues, such as the recent conviction of the Liberty Dollar creator, the Stamp Payments Act, and the federal securities acts.


Historically, the main focus of the study of housing in advanced economies has been on houses that meet the accommodation needs of households: houses as the main residence of families. In recent decades there has been the growth in the numbers of houses used for purposes other than as a main residence, for example in the forms of the recent global spread of Airbnb and of foreign engagement in housing as an investment tool; alongside a set of 'for housing' houses (FHH) another, overlapping, set of 'not for housing' houses (NFHH) is emerging. The present paper begins by identifying four types of NFHH, and considers the significance of their growth. It argues that while the NFHH sector is relatively small it has large impacts, and these are such that they challenge housing researchers and policy makers to develop additional ways of looking at housing systems.


"Eloquently attests to the fact that teenage parenthood is a complex, multi-dimensional problem defying single-focused, easy solutions. . . . A 'must read' for program planners and policymakers."ooBernice Weissbourd, Family Focus"Bound to be of great value in the reconsideration of public policy toward teenage pregnancy in the United States."ooRobert H. Bremner, Professor Emeritus, Ohio State University"A very impressive collection of essays . . . intelligent, balanced, and imaginative."ooJoel F. Handler, School of Law, U.C.L.A.Teenage parenthood has been a newsworthy issue since the 1970s. The "epidemic of kids having children" led to demands for increased sex education and access to contraceptives. Despite major public and private efforts, rates of teenage pregnancy have not fallen significantly since the '70s. In fact, rates of teenage births have recently begun to rise. This lack of progress plus startling new evidence about the health and developmental consequences of early parenthood have touched off a fresh round of debate on the problem: Is teenage parenthood simply accidental or an intended alternative for disadvantaged teens who see no advantage in delaying childbirth? Do infant survival rates depend more on socioeconomic conditions than on the age of the mother? Do teen mothers necessarily end up with less education and more poverty than older mothers with the same socioeconomic background? The contributors to this interdisciplinary volume reexamine the assumptions underlying conventional approaches to teenage pregnancy prevention and reassess how the growing problem of early parenthood ought to be addressed in the coming decade. They consider the problem of early parenthood within the larger social context of prolonged transition from adolescence to independent adulthood in post-industrial society. They also look at how the institutional contexts of early parenthood differ historically, cross-nationally (in Korea and Sweden), and by class, race, and age in the United States. This collection of essays helps to clarify the interrelated problems of teenage pregnancy, single parenthood, and welfare dependency, and sharpens the focus of pregnancy prevention and family support policies for the 1990s.


BANGALORE enjoys the distinction of being called the IT capital of India. The city has become an attractive destination for all kinds of employment in the last three decades, enticing different classes of people from across India. The opportunities for work in the city have multiplied enormously due to its rapid growth and socio-economic transformation, driven especially by the IT (information technology) industry. Along with the global information technology industry, new kinds of jobs and modes of work (both 'formal' and 'informal') have emerged, especially in low-end support services such as hospitality, housekeeping, security and transport. The city's expanding service economy has attracted migrants from small towns and rural areas of Karnataka and different parts of India.

While the software services sector has dominated popular and academic discourses on the work culture of Bangalore, in this essay I focus on a different segment of the city's service sector and its diverse forms and modes of work, which are conspicuous but hardly discussed. Like work in the IT and ITES (IT enabled services) industries, the work culture I describe also revolves around digital technology, but of a different kind: the modest, yet the most desired media object of contemporary times – mobile phones. The workers who deploy this technology and their media practices are quite different from middle class engagements with digital technologies.


Classical metal oxide gas sensors are used to be operated at relatively high temperatures to achieve good sensitivity. So there is a strong need to develop a gas sensing platform that provides either low temperature or room temperature sensing, so as to reduce the power consumption. Keeping this in mind, in this work, we have proposed and fabricated an amorphous-Carbon/Silicon (a-C/Si) heterojunction based room temperature ammonia gas sensor. We have optimized the fabrication process flow for obtaining a stable a-C thin film on Si substrate with strong adhesion. Here, to develop the a-C film, we have used pyrolysis of negative photoresist material SU8, which also provides us with the added benefit of photo-patternability. One of the desired outcomes of the proposed work is to provide a reduced response and recovery time. Also, we have targeted to achieve a low limit of detection with high selectivity. Additionally, we have developed a readout circuit for chemiresistive sensors, where change in device resistance is used as a transduction principle for targeted analyte detection. The circuit is designed to meet the specification of the sensor, where the desired detection range extended up to a few hundred Mega ohms. The requirements of the system have been studied and implemented using Cadence. The prototype of the circuit has been designed and tested.


Increased speeds of PCs and networks have made media communications possible on the Internet. Today, the need for desktop videoconferencing is experiencing robust growth in both business and consumer markets. However, the synchronous delivery of high-volume media content is still a big challenge under a current heterogeneous Internet environment. In this paper, we present a multiparty videoconferencing system based on a peer-to-peer (P2P) solution. The contribution of our paper is twofold. On the one hand, we design an application-level multicast scheme which intends to tolerate the heterogeneity in videoconferencing applications. Design tradeoffs are analyzed and our decisions are made based on extensive experimentation. On the other, we design a five-layer architecture for implementing a multiparty videoconferencing system. This architecture makes a clear-cut distinction between different functional modules and therefore provides rich flexibility in feature adaptation. We believe that our work can be a helpful reference in other efforts on building desktop videoconferencing systems.


BACKGROUND
Medicare data indicate that black hemodialysis patients receive greater doses of erythropoietin (EPO) than white patients when achieving similar hemoglobin levels. We confirmed and evaluated this observed association between race and EPO dose.

STUDY DESIGN
Cross-sectional cohort study.

SETTING & PARTICIPANTS
Primary Medicare-insured white (57%) and black (43%) adult long-term hemodialysis patients treated by Fresenius Medical Care who received EPO from January 1 to 31, 2004 (N = 44,721).

PREDICTOR
White/black race.

OUTCOMES
Average weekly EPO dose.

MEASUREMENTS
Associations between race and baseline demographic and laboratory variables were evaluated by using logistic and linear regression models. Correlates of log-transformed weekly EPO dose were determined using linear regression models.

RESULTS
Black patients received 12.6% more EPO than white patients (95% limits, 10.9% to 14.3%; P < 0.001). This racial difference in EPO dose was observed across similar hemoglobin levels despite fewer catheters (P < 0.001) and fewer prior hospitalization events in black patients (P = 0.002). Black patients were younger and had larger body size and greater albumin and biointact parathyroid hormone levels, but lower equilibrated Kt/V and white blood cell counts (all P < 0.001). In the 95th percentile of EPO dose (those receiving > 60,000 U/wk), there was a greater proportion of black patients (6% of total black population compared with only 4% in all white patients; P < 0.001). The difference in EPO dose between black and white patients was modified by age and was significant at ages younger than 45 and 65 years or older.

LIMITATIONS
Observational study limited to white and black adult Medicare patients only, correlating with EPO doses from a single month, without adjustment for comorbid conditions.

CONCLUSIONS
Black patients were administered approximately 12% greater EPO doses than white patients while achieving similar hemoglobin levels. We identified variables that differed across race that may explain this difference, but they were either not actionable or presented limited opportunity for intervention. Additional studies are needed to define a physiological (or pathological) basis for these observations.


This piece sets out a framework for developing good practise in empowerment and participative learning for young people. The article arose from and informed the development of an on-going partnership with the National Writing Project, a US professional development organisation for teachers, leading to publication of Writing for a Change: Boosting Literacy and Learning through Social Action California: Josey Bass (2006), of which Jennie Fleming is an editor and author, aimed at building workers' capacity to empower young people in school. This has recently won the Association of Educational Publishers' 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award for Excellence in Educational Publishing.


This paper describes experiences in the development and testing of three distinct financial models to support farm forestry decisions involving non-traditional tree species in northern Australia and in the Philippines. A variety of options were examined with respect to model design, yield prediction, computing platform, forestry performance criteria and other features. Two of the models focus on the forestry enterprise in isolation, while the third evaluates forestry within the context of the overall farm business. It is found that choice of model design depends on the particular type of application intended and availability of financial data for this application. Some complementarities were gained in replicating features when progressing from one model to the next. Model construction and testing were challenging tasks requiring considerable funds and for two of the models proceeding over a number of years. Validation involved the gradual gaining of confidence in a model as it progressed through various versions. For the more complex models, greater effort in development of the user interface was found to be warranted. The models have proved more suitable for use by extension agents than individual landholders. Even with major resource inputs into model development, a number of desirable additional features can be identified.


In this paper I explore the question of what is unique and special about modern humans (homo sapiens) from the perspective of evolutionary anthropology and cognitive science. I frst give a brief overview of the evolution of the human brain. Then I discuss six candidates for what makes human cognition unique: (1) the ability to adopt a shared perspective (2) symbolic, analogical reasoning (3) a Theory of Mind (4) the creation of a symbolic 'niche' with shared cultural artefacts and norms (5) mental time travel (6) language. Most importantly, a comparison of the sociocognitive capacities and motivations of humans and other primates indicates that humans might possess a unique adaptation for cultural interaction, transmission and learning. This is already evident in infants and young children, who show unique abilities and motivations in the domain of sharing intentions, understanding joint commitments, and sharing attention and other psychological states.


This paper has presented the basis of one approach to addressing disability in developing countries. Community Approaches to Handicap in Development (CAHD) builds on the pioneering work done by others in the CBR field and presents a bridge between CBR and development. The brief rationale and examples included here represent only the skeleton of CAHD. More comprehensive descriptions and practical tools for implementation are available in the CAHD toolkit produced in 2001, developed by CBM International, Centre for Disability and Development and Handicap International.


Traditionally, fusion energy research has meant huge efforts like the $20 billion multinational ITER project and $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility. But that may be changing. In unassuming industrial units across North America, Europe, and elsewhere, small teams of scientists and engineers supported partly or entirely by private finance are working out novel approaches to fusion. Their goal: to design financially viable power reactors simpler and cheaper than the government-funded behemoths and to build them faster. Some of the new technologies look bizarre, but venture capitalists are convinced that each holds at least a slim chance of an enormous payoff.


Abstract We present here evidence for the existence of a citation advantage within astrophysics for papers that link to data. Using simple measures based on publication data from NASA Astrophysics Data System we find a citation advantage for papers with links to data receiving on the average significantly more citations per paper than papers without links to data. Furthermore, using INSPEC and Web of Science databases we investigate whether either papers of an experimental or theoretical nature display different citation behavior.


"Creating Community in Isolation: The History of Corpus Christi's Molina Addition, 1954-1970" examines the history of the Molina Addition in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas, and its serving district, the West Oso Independent School District, from 1954 to 1970. Specifically, this essay begins with an analysis of the elite-driven campaign to annex the blighted Molina Addition in September and October 1954. The city intended to raze the neighborhood and develop middle-class homes in place of the newly annexed neighborhood. Following the annexation of the Molina Addition, African American and ethnic Mexican residents initiated protracted struggles to desegregate and integrate schools that served their area, the West Oso Independent School District, as detailed in the chapter, "The West Oso School Board Revolution." The chapter examines the electoral "revolution" in which Anglo rural elites were unseated from their positions on the school board and replaced by African American and ethnic Mexican Molina Addition residents. The third chapter, "Building Mo-Town, Texas," focuses on residents' struggle to install indoor plumbing, eliminate pit privies, construct paved roads, and introduce War on Poverty grants to rehabilitate the neighborhood. This chapter also offers a glimpse into the social life of Molina youth during the 1960s.


Ozone air pollution is identified as one of the main threats bearing upon human health and ecosystems, with 25 000 deaths in 2005 attributed to surface ozone in Europe (IIASA 2013 TSAP Report #10). In addition, there is a concern that climate change could negate ozone pollution mitigation strategies, making them insufficient over the long run and jeopardising chances to meet the long term objective set by the European Union Directive of 2008 (Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008) (60 ppbv, daily maximum). This effect has been termed the ozone climate penalty. One way of assessing this climate penalty is by driving chemistry-transport models with future climate projections while holding the ozone precursor emissions constant (although the climate penalty may also be influenced by changes in emission of precursors). Here we present an analysis of the robustness of the climate penalty in Europe across time periods and scenarios by analysing the databases underlying 11 articles published on the topic since 2007, i.e. a total of 25 model projections. This substantial body of literature has never been explored to assess the uncertainty and robustness of the climate ozone penalty because of the use of different scenarios, time periods and ozone metrics. Despite the variability of model design and setup in this database of 25 model projection, the present meta-analysis demonstrates the significance and robustness of the impact of climate change on European surface ozone with a latitudinal gradient from a penalty bearing upon large parts of continental Europe and a benefit over the North Atlantic region of the domain. Future climate scenarios present a penalty for summertime (JJA) surface ozone by the end of the century (2071–2100) of at most 5 ppbv. Over European land surfaces, the 95% confidence interval of JJA ozone change is [0.44; 0.64] and [0.99; 1.50] ppbv for the 2041–2070 and 2071–2100 time windows, respectively.


The thirteenth meeting in a long-standing series of "Time-Resolved Vibrational Spectroscopy" (TRVS) conferences was held May 19th to 25th at the Kardinal Dopfner Haus in Freising, Germany, organized by the two Munich Universities - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat and Technische Universitat Munchen. This international conference continues the illustrious tradition of the original in 1982, which took place in Lake Placid, NY. The series of meetings was initiated by leading, world-renowned experts in the field of ultrafast laser spectroscopy, and is still guided by its founder, Prof. George Atkinson (University of Arizona and Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State). In its current format, the conference contributes to traditional areas of time resolved vibrational spectroscopies including infrared, Raman and related laser methods. It combines them with the most recent developments to gain new information for research and novel technical applications. The scientific program addressed basic science, applied research and advancing novel commercial applications.
The thirteenth conference on Time Resolved Vibrational Spectroscopy promoted science in the areas of physics, chemistry and biology with a strong focus on biochemistry and material science. Vibrational spectra are molecule- and bond-specific. Thus, time-resolved vibrational studies provide detailed structural and kinetic information about primary dynamical processes on the picometer length scale. From this perspective, the goal of achieving a complete understanding of complex chemical and physical processes on the molecular level is well pursued by the recent progress in experimental and theoretical vibrational studies.

These proceedings collect research papers presented at the TRVS XIII in Freising, Germany


The present report describe the results of screening analyses of the occurrence of "new" brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in environmental samples from the Nordic countries. The aim of the screening was to establish whether, and if then to what extent, the non-polybrominated diphenyl eters BFRs are present at detectable levels in the environment. If the substances subjected for screening are found in amounts which are potentially harmful for the environment this will be followed up on national level. The Nordic screening project is run by a project group with representatives from the National Environmental Research Institute, University of Aarhus Denmark, the Finnish Environment Institute, the Environment and Food Agency of Iceland, the Environment Agency of the Faroe Islands, the Norwegian Climate and Pollution Agency and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. The project is supported by the Nordic Chemicals Group and the Aquatic Ecosystems Group as well as the participating institutions. The chemical analyses have been carried out jointly by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL).


Light weight engineering and composite technologies are key strategies in modern product development in mechanical engineering as well as in biomedical applications, where innovation is driven by novel material concepts and surface functionalities. Designed or customized surface properties by advanced coating technologies are an important discipline in this context. Ceramic, metallurgical and cermet layers can be manufactured in a most appropriate way by high energetic thermokinetic deposition techniques like plasma spraying, electric arc and last not least by supersonic flame spraying (HVOF). These technologies perform high deposition rates, high flexibility to use various materials and their combinations and applications in micro to macro scale products. The final properties of the coatings and layer composites do not just depend on the properties of the combined materials but, as in the case of ceramic coated light metals, are distinctly affected by the occurring residual stresses and their interaction with operational load stresses. With respect to the complex geometries of most components, their dimensional and positional tolerances a further strong influence of the robot kinematics of the plasma or HVOF torches during coating manufacturing is observed. By combining the expertise in materials and manufacturing engineering coatings and composites with high performance and reliability can be achieved. This is shown in the development of functionally coated cylinder liners and crankcases for ultra light weight engines as well as for ceramic coated bioinert and biodegradable substrates in medical surgery. It will be shown that cast engine block bores can be directly coated by using an automated HVOF process, obtaining improved coating results. The internal coating process by hypersonic flame spraying is a superior technological alternative to the APS process for high quality cylinder liner and engine crankcase applications. The applications of such ceramic and cermet coatings are not limited to automotive and biomedical applications, i. e. for wear and friction properties or biomedical compatibility, but can be used for tailored thermophysical, electrophysical or catalytic properties in various technical systems.


Outpatient clinics* from many different departments cope with the problem that they have to slot in
both new patients and follow up patients. In this project a method was developed to find the
strategy that best optimizes the scheduling for these outpatient clinics. The method was applied to a
selection of clinics from the Ophthalmology Department of the University Hospital of Wales, but kept
as generic as possible.
It needs to be started with determining the demand on the system. If the available historic data
provides enough information, forecasting methods can be used. The best forecasting method for the
specific time series needs to be determined. For the time series used in this project the best
forecasting method turned out to be Holt's Linear Exponential Smoothing. Unfortunately in our
situation there was not enough data available to be sure of previous demand. Because of
governmental targets however, new patients have recently been prioritized. Thus the historic
appointment data for new patients only could be accurate as historic demand and forecasting could
be used on only new patients.
In case historic data does not provide enough information, a simulation, based on follow up
structure, can be used to determine demand. This simulation was developed and carried out for our
specific situation. An average monthly demand of 213 patients requesting an appointment was
found, 45 new patients and 168 follow up patients. If forecasting new patient's demand was possible,
this can be used as a part of the input for this simulation.
To be able to find the best allocation of capacity slots between new patients and follow up patients
an optimization, minimizing total waiting time, can be carried out. Applying this optimization method
for our situation provided us with an optimal allocation of 44 slots for new patients and 161 slots for
follow up patients a month.
Finally, the capacity can be implemented in the earlier mentioned simulation. This way, it can be
analysed what happens to waiting times if the capacity is divided between new patients and follow
up patients. In our situation it was concluded that the waiting times were distributed very unfairly.
To make it fairer the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board can try a couple of solutions. It can be
chosen to alter the optimal distribution of slots. This means total waiting time will increase but the
waiting times can be distributed in a fairer way. If increasing total waiting time is not a possibility it
can be chosen to increase total capacity. A new allocation of capacity can be determined by applying
the optimization.
The final capacity simulation can also be used to analyse the influence of other factors. In this project
specific attention has been paid to the influence of dividing capacity over time. The waiting times
with the current weekly master schedule for our situation were generated. It was concluded that in
particular new patient waiting times can be decreased significantly by changing the weekly master
schedule.


Pro JPA 2 introduces, explains, and demonstrates how to use the new Java Persistence API (JPA). JPA provides Java developers with both the knowledge and insight needed to write Java applications that access relational databases through JPA. Authors Mike Keith and Merrick Schincariol take a handson approach to teaching by giving examples to illustrate each new concept of the API and showing how it is used in practice.All of the examples use a common model from an overriding sample application, giving readers a context from which to start and helping them to understand the examples within an already familiar domain. After completing the book, you will have a full understanding and be able to successfully code applications using JPA. The book also serves as a reference guide during initial and later JPA application experiences. Hands-on examples for all the aspects of the JPA specification, based on the reference implementation of this specification A special section on migration to JPA Expert insight about various aspects of the API and when they are useful Portability hints to provide increased awareness of the potential for nonportable JPA code What youll learn Get started with enterprise applications using JPA 2. Get up to speed with ObjectRelational Mapping and Entity Manager. Learn and use queries and the query language (JP QL). Employ advanced ObjectRelational Mapping techniques. Use XML mapping files and learn other advanced techniques. Package and deploy your Java persistence applications. Test your Java persistence applications. Migrate your Java persistence applications. Who is this book for? The book generally targets enterprise and persistence developers who fall in one of three categories: Those who are new to persistence; we will present some background information and introduce these readers to the basic persistence concepts to bring them up to speed. Those who know and/or use existing ORM persistence products such as Hibernate or TopLink. Those who have already used JPA and want to learn about the new features that JPA 2 introduces, or have a good reference book to turn to when they develop JPA applications. In general, we assume that the reader is knowledgeable with Java, SQL, and JDBC, and has a little knowledge of J2EE About the Apress Pro Series The Apress Pro series books are practical, professional tutorials to keep you on and moving up the professional ladder. You have gotten the job, now you need to hone your skills in these tough competitive times. The Apress Pro series expands your skills and expertise in exactly the areas you need. Master the content of a Pro book, and you will always be able to get the job done in a professional development project. Written by experts in their field, Pro series books from Apress give you the hardwon solutions to problems you will face in your professional programming career.


This paper uses two principal examples to argue that experimentalist research paradigms in empirical literary research can be suggestive but that results are not easily extrapolatable to actual real world literary reading events, particularly where, as with free indirect discourse (fid), the phenomenon to be investigated is demonstrably complex, multifaceted and highly contingent. More broadly, the paper raises the issue of whether in fact most literary reading is not typically as complicated as fid, in which case complementary or alternative research approaches may be needed. I close by advocating more nuanced qualitative or ethnographic approaches which respect the complexity of the phenomena under investigation to achieve better understanding, even at the possible expense of seductively neat graphs, tables and statistics. As van Peer suggests in my opening epigraph, empirical research at its best can be highly suggestive. My argument is simply that we need always to remember that what we think of as empirical research should not be limited to experimentalist paradigms. The empirical literary research community will be able to say more useful things about fid and the wider complexities of literary reading by complementing more experimentalist work with more contextually sensitive investigations, to the mutual benefit of both.


This Article reviews the history of the mail fraud statute and the provisions early relationship to protecting the mails from misuse. It then analyzes the Supreme Court's contradictory opinions that have sought to explain the relationship between the fraudulent scheme and the mailing. The Article evaluates the effect of Congress's two most recent amendments to the statute: first, a new statute that in large part overturned the Supreme Court's restrictive interpretation in McNally of the scheme to defraud element by the adoption the right of honest services provision; second, a 1994 amendment that sheds the last vestige of limitation on the mail fraud statute to protect the integrity of the mails. The Article addresses important interpretive issues that courts should consider in determining how far Congress intended to extend federal jurisdiction over fraudulent schemes. I recommend the proper scope of federal jurisdiction for fraudulent schemes involving the use of interstate carriers that comports with the language chosen by Congress in expanding the statute. I conclude that Congress has effectively enacted the Federal Fraud Statute without debate or even consideration of the need for such a provision.


I provide evidence that analysts whose earnings forecast revisions showed signs of greater exaggeration in the past make recommendation changes that lead to lower abnormal returns than their peers. Interpreting stock recommendations as a forecast of future abnormal returns, I show that this evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that analysts who typically exaggerate or overstate the weight of their private information when issuing forecasts also do so when making recommendations. I also show that past earnings forecast provide incremental information about analysts' recommending behavior beyond that contained in past recommendations.


For decades the Baltic Sea has been subject to eutrophication due to heavy anthropogenic nutrient loads on the aquatic ecosystem. Quantitative projections of its effects require an understanding of its driving mechanisms, i.e., the hydrodynamics that are responsible for the physical transport and mixing and the biogeochemical nutrients pathways within the algal ecosystem and between the particulate and dissolved phases in the water and in the sediments. A simple basin-scale hydrodynamic framework is set for the Gulf of Finland to test different descriptions of the biogeochemical transformations and determine the most robust modelling strategy. A recently developed criterion to determine the occurrence of anoxic events, based on the amount of fresh carbon detritus in the sediments is implemented in comparison with the classical criterion based on the oxygen concentration in the bottom water. Time-averaging of the hydrodynamics over larger than daily intervals is proved to hinder the capture of rapid mixing events jeopardizing irremediably the water quality simulation. The new carbon based criterion for anoxia shows a better dynamic response and is less sensitive to the model's internal parameters. An internal source in the sediments correlated to the amount of fresh detritus, to represent the release of iron-bound phosphorus is confirmed as a versatile modelling assumption.


Making dictionaries is a vital aid to completing a full grammatical analysis of a language, particularly if the dictionary requires the specification of the part of speech for each entry. English (or "universal") parts of speech may not be relevant in all languages, as can be shown by structural comparisons of "adjectives" in San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec vs. Chickasaw and of "adpositions" in San Lucas Quiavini Zapotec (and Mixtec) vs. Chickasaw. Each language will present its own structurally determined inventory of parts of speech, relevant for its own grammatical facts. Thus, discovering the actual parts of speech of a language is a critical part both of dictionary making and of grammar writing. These aspects of linguistic analysis are crucially interconnected.


In this paper a new approach to factor vector autoregressive estimation, based on Stock and Watson (2005), is introduced. Relative to the Stock-Watson approach, the proposed method has the advantage of allowing for a more clear-cut interpretation of the global factors, as well as for the identi.cation of all idiosyncratic shocks. Moreover, it shares with the Stock-Watson approach the advantage of using an iterated procedure in estimation, recovering, asymptotically, full effciency, and also allowing the imposition of appropriate restrictions concerning the lack of Granger causality of the variables versus the factors. Finally, relative to other available methods, our modelling approach has the advantage of allowing for the joint modelling of all variables, without resorting to long-run forcing hypotheses. An application to large-scale macroeconometric modelling is also provided.


There is a growing interested in Latin America for preserving and developing the rich urban heritage of the region. Communities are pressing governments for more action and supporting the allocation of funds to these uses. The article argues that the sustainable conservation of urban heritage sites require: putting the heritage assets to uses for which a demand exists and the involvement of all social actors in their most efficient capacity and in accordance with their best interests. Only by putting the preserved assets to uses with social or market demand the conservation effort will become sustainable as the users will have incentives to operate and maintain them. Furthermore, urban heritage conservation cannot be tackled through the uncoordinated action of individual actors. The success of the coordination effort depends on the efficient allocation of the costs, benefits, and risks involved in urban heritage preservation among the actors that are best suited to take them or have the greatest interest in doing so given the potential returns: profits in the case of real estate investors, better relations with the community in the case of private philanthropies, and votes in the case of elected officials. The leadership of the public sector is essential to encourage the involvement of other interested groups or individuals and to channel public and private funding to the most efficient uses: private real estate capital to finance income-generating projects, private philanthropy to conserve monuments, and public resources to upgrade public spaces, urban facilities and infrastructure.


Thin films (3–6 μm) of poly-(methyl methacrylate) and benzildimethylketal were deposited from solutions in methyl methacrylate or styrene. The formation of refractive-index changes (Δn) by illumination with 366-nm light was studied over a large concentration range of ketal. For low concentrations benzildimethylketal acts mainly as a photoinitiator inducing Δn patterns via polymerization of the residual monomer. In the region of higher ketal contents the Δn formation is caused presumably by a photochemical reaction of benzildimethylketal. After thermal development and fixing, refractive-index changes up to 5 × 10−2 could be obtained.


This study investigates the effect enclosure on some soil characteristics in two different climates; include semi-arid climate (Incheh boron region) and Cold climate of semi-humid (Chahar bagh) in Golestan province. In order to do soil sampling by the systematic-random methods, 5 transect were used in each areas and Physical and chemical properties were measure. T-test method was used in order to compare the soil parameters of same depths. Principle component analysis (PCA) and the data ratio percentage changes were used to understand the role of climate and determine the most important factors that are affected by enclosure and climate. The result of PCA showed that the most important factors that affected by enclosure and climate and cause to separate sites are Organic carbon, Nitrogen, EC, Caco3 and clay. Results showed that temperature cause to enclosure have the maximum effect in Incheh boron on Organic carbon and Nitrogen with aigen value (-0.994) and (-0.910), respectively, and cold climate cause to enclosure have maximum effect in Chahar bagh on EC, caco3 and clay with aigen value of (0.989), (0.982) and (0.987), correspondingly. According to same enclosure duration, it seems Mountainous area and cold and freezing have a greater impact on soil properties rather than Rainfall, and subsequently cause to reduce soil changes in this region, so Chahar bagh region needs more time for


Daniel Moulthrop, Ninive Clements Calegari, and Dave Eggers, Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers (New York: The New Press, 2006), 355 pages, hardcover, $25.95. Although some idealize and others demean the work of teachers, few people outside the field fully understand what it really means to teach. Misconceptions about teaching influence the ways that Americans think about the profession. One of the manifestations of this enduring disconnect between the American public and the professionals who teach is the low salaries teachers receive. This is the main issue that Moulthrop, Calegari, and Eggers tackle in this thorough and valuable ethnographic study of the lives of teachers, their daily struggle to make ends meet, and what it means to teach This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


INTRODUCTION
Lifelong preservation of tooth in a healthy state is the ultimate goal of dentistry. Premature loss of primary teeth is common due to caries, dental trauma or other causes. As the primary teeth are the best space maintainers, teeth with infected pulps should be retained until exfoliation, whenever possible.

AIM
The purpose of this in vivo study was to evaluate and compare the efficacy of different obturating methods used in primary teeth.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Forty one patients aged four to nine years with a total of 60 teeth were selected. Out of the 60 teeth, 32 were primary mandibular first molars and 28 were primary mandibular second molars, the sample was randomly divided into three groups. Disposable syringe, lentulo spiral and past inject were used for obturation. Postoperative evaluation was done for; quality of canal obturation, presence of voids using postoperative radiographs following obturation of teeth. The data were analysed to assess the success rate of the three methods used for obturation using Chi-square test.

RESULTS
Among the three groups of the study, past inject exhibited the maximum number of optimally filled canals. Maximum number of underfilled canals was found with lentulospiral, and the maximum number of overfilled canals was seen with disposable syringe. Least number of voids was observed in canals filled with the past inject technique and disposable syringe.

CONCLUSION
The results suggest that the most successful technique for obturation of primary teeth was past inject.


In this thesis the geometrically exact 3D shear-flexible beam model is discretized with the Lagrangian and the NURBS basis functions, and has been used as a basis to develop a family of locking-free NURBS-based elements. This beam model has no restrictions with respect to the size of displacements, rotations and deformations, and is thus well accommodated for large deformation analyses. In the C 0-continuous Lagrange element, numerical locking is overcome by reduced integration. However, for the higher continuous NURBS elements, there exists at the present time no element-by-element Gaussian quadrature rule which effectively alleviates locking. Instead, by a patch-wise approach a selective reduced integration rule has been proposed, and the resulting elements are free for transverse shear and membrane locking. The performance is evaluated on a range of numerical tests and compared to the conventional reduced integration rule. For comparison, also the standard Lagrange interpolated elements have been tested in parallel.


Langebaanweg is a world renowned, richly fossiliferous Miocene/Pliocene bone assemblage on the West Coast of South Africa. Despite considerable palaeontological investigation of the biodiversity of the site, few studies have been conducted on the bone diagenesis. This study examines the petrography of fossil bones and teeth in relation to the host sediment matrix. The Langebaanweg bonebed is variably matrix- and clast-supported, containing abundant gravel-size bone and phosphorite clasts in a quartzose sand matrix with minor amounts of peloidal phosphate grains and kaolinitic clay. The bimodal size distribution of clasts and sand matrix indicates a mixture of beach, fluvial and aeolian sources, consistent with a riverine or aquifer-fed waterhole palaeoenvironment proximal to the sea. Both macro- and microfaunal bones exhibit a range of surface colours (cream/brown through dark orange/brown to black) indicative of secondary mineral precipitation (including manganese) and some show physical damage from trampling. Three phases of bone diagenesis are recognised; an early, rapid transformation of bone (bioapatite) to mineral carbonate hydroxylapatite, an apatite cementation phase and a single, late growth of infilling Mn-rich alteration material. Except for rare burnt bones, bones and teeth mostly preserve fine histological detail. Despite differences in secondary mineral burden and physical deformation (trampling), diagenesis is fairly uniform within the deposit. The excellent bone preservation, and the fact that the deposit has not been reworked is important for depositional models. The classic Palaeo-Berg River fluvial depositional model is challenged in this paper by an alternative possibility that the deposit was an aquifer-fed, near coastal waterhole.


Provenance and sediment distribution have been investigated in the Minnamurra estuary and the adjacent shelf in NSW, Australia. Heavy mineral assemblages in the sand fractions (63-250 f.lm) of 110 surficial sediment samples were assessed using microscopic and microprobe analyses. In addition to the dominant opaque minerals, twelve translucent heavy mineral species were identified. The translucent assemblage is dominated by pyroxene, zircon, tourmaline and hornblende. Statistical cluster analysis of heavy mineral percentages in the surficial sediments revealed the existence of five mineralogical facies: the upper fluvial part of the estuary, the Minnamurra spit and elevated inner sand terrace, the estuary inlet and inner part of the inner-shelf, a combined group consisting of the outer part of the iriner-shelf and the midestuary (Rocklow Creek), and the mid-shelf facies. The main factors that control the distribution of the surficial sediments and their contained heavy minerals are transport and hydraulic sorting processes, together with minor coastal erosion. This can be seen clearly on the shelf area with denser heavy minerals concentrated in shallow water deposits whereas the lighter platy heavy minerals become more prominent in the deeper water lower energy areas. The mid-estuary facies is a mixed zone that has a similar heavy mineral assemblage to the outer part of the inner-shelf; possibly resulting from reworking of marine-influenced sand sheets in the Rocklow Creek catchment. The Minnamurra spit (aeolian dune) and elevated inner sand terrace facies is distinctive with its high concentration of total heavy minerals, resulting from winnowing by wind and storm wave influences. The heavy mineral assemblage also identifies multiple sources. The occurrence of heavy minerals from non-local source rocks reflects reworking of quartz sand from the outer-shelf to the inner-shelf and coastal environments during the post-glacial marine transgression. These minerals were originally derived from the Precambrian craton in southeastern and central Australia, and from the Lachlan Fold Belt. The fold belt would have contributed both reworked older grains of ultrastable heavy minerals as well as some primary minerals from the igneous rock units. Fluvial and coastal erosion of the locallatite units and their associated volcaniclastic sedimentary succession has liberated pyroxene and epidote to the Minnamurra estuary and shelf. Fluvial erosion of a Mesozoic tinguaite (containing aegerine augite) and the Tertiary basalts at Robertson (containing titanaugite) have added to the mineralogical complexity, especially in the upper fluvial portion of the estuary.


Using observations from aircraft, surface stations and satellite, we comprehensively evaluate multi-model simulations of carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3) in the Arctic and over lower latitude emission regions, as part of the POLARCAT Model Inter-comparison Project (POLMIP). Evaluation of eleven atmospheric models with chemistry shows that they generally underestimate CO throughout the Arctic troposphere, with the largest biases found during winter and spring. Negative CO biases are also found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, with multi-model mean gross errors (9-12%) suggesting models perform similarly over Asia, North America and Europe. A multi-model annual mean tropospheric OH (10.8 ± 0.6 × 105 molec cm−3) is found to be slightly higher than previous estimates of OH constrained by methyl chloroform, suggesting negative CO biases in models may be improved through better constraints on OH. Models that have lower Arctic OH do not always show a substantial improvement in their negative CO biases, suggesting that Arctic OH is not the dominant factor controlling the Arctic CO burden in these models. In addition to these general biases, models do not capture the magnitude of CO enhancements observed in the Arctic free troposphere in summer, suggesting model errors in the simulation of plumes that are transported from anthropogenic and biomass burning sources at lower latitudes. O3 in the Arctic is also generally underestimated, particularly at the surface and in the upper troposphere. Summer O3 comparisons over lower latitudes show several models overestimate upper tropospheric concentrations. Simulated CO, O3 and OH all demonstrate a substantial degree of inter-model variability. Idealised CO-like tracers are used to quantitatively compare the impact of inter-model differences in transport and OH on CO in the Arctic troposphere. The tracers show that model differences in transport from Europe in winter and from Asia throughout the year are important sources of model variability at the Barrow. Unlike transport, inter-model variability in OH similarly affects all regional tracers at Barrow. Comparisons of fixed lifetime and OH-loss idealised CO-like tracers throughout the Arctic troposphere show that OH differences are a much larger source of inter-model variability than transport differences. The concentration of OH in the models is found to be correlated with inter-model differences in H2O, suggesting it to be an important driver of differences in simulated concentrations of CO and OH at high latitudes in these simulations. Despite inter-model differences in transport and OH, the relative contributions from the different source regions (North America, Europe and Asia) and different source types (anthropogenic and biomass burning) are comparable across the models. Fire emissions from the boreal regions in 2008 contribute 33, 43 and 19% to the total Arctic CO-like tracer in spring, summer and autumn, respectively, highlighting the importance of boreal fire emissions in controlling pollutant burdens in the Arctic.


Considered the most abundant organism on Earth, at a population approaching 10 31 , bacteriophage mediate interactions with myriad bacterial hosts that has for decades been exploited in phage typing schemes for signature identification of clinical, foodborne, and waterborne pathogens. More recently, this basic premise of phage/host specificity has been advanced via phage-mediated signaling elements that indicate when a phage/host infection event has occurred, thereby providing a very simple and rapid means for bacterial recognition. We have, for example, linked the bacterial bioluminescent (lux) response to phage/host infection using quorum sensing chemical synthesis as a signaling intermediary. This permits facile light-based sensing of E. coli O157:H7 at concentrations as low as 1 cfu/ml. With the concurrent ability to nanointerface reporter assays onto integrated circuit microluminometers, the potential exists for the development of phage-based sentinel microchips that can function as environmental monitors for multiplexed recognition of biological agents in air, food, and water.


In this paper, we address the problem of learning the structure of Gaussian chain graph models in a high-dimensional space. Chain graph models are generalizations of undirected and directed graphical models that contain a mixed set of directed and undirected edges. While the problem of sparse structure learning has been studied extensively for Gaussian graphical models and more recently for conditional Gaussian graphical models (CGGMs), there has been little previous work on the structure recovery of Gaussian chain graph models. We consider linear regression models and a re-parameterization of the linear regression models using CGGMs as building blocks of chain graph models. We argue that when the goal is to recover model structures, there are many advantages of using CGGMs as chain component models over linear regression models, including convexity of the optimization problem, computational efficiency, recovery of structured sparsity, and ability to leverage the model structure for semi-supervised learning. We demonstrate our approach on simulated and genomic datasets.


Gastro-intestinal parasites are a major cause of production loss in New Zealand livestock, and the continuing development of anthelmintic-resistant strains represents a significant threat to the future New Zealand agricultural economy. This has led to an increased interest in alternative (non-chemotherapeutic) controls, including potential application of the nematode-trapping fungi Duddingtonia jlagrans and Arthrobotrys oligospora. These species are capable of reducing the number of free-living stages of trichostrongylid nematodes developing in faeces, following oral administration or the addition of fungal material to faeces. However, high spore mortality through the gastro-intestinal tract currently limits the development of a commercial product, even for the robust chlamydospores of D. flagrans. The potential to reduce spore mortality by applying a protective coating to the spores was investigated, and an in vitro rumen simulation bioassay was used to quantitatively evaluate and compare the survival of D. jlagrans and A. oligospora spores in a series of experiments. These experiments revealed that unprotected D. jlagrans chlamydospores were superior to A . oligospora conidia in their ability to withstand the debilitating effects of rumen fluid. However, the survival of A. oligospora was improved by integration into a biopolymer formulation. Dried D. jlagrans chlamydospores were more resistant to a simulated rumen environment than freshly harvested chlamydospores, and exposure to water as an incubation medium was less detrimental than rumen fluid to the survival of both fresh and dried D. jlagrans chlamydospores. The application of a stearic acid coating to dried D. jlagrans chlamydospores failed to improve spore survival in either a simulated rumen environment, or efficacy during subsequent in vivo testing. However, as the application of a biopolymer formulation successfully improved the survival of A. oligospora conidia, it is likely that similar formulations may be successfully applied to other fungal species. These results highlight the potential for development of formulations containing multiple species of nematophagous fungi, including the application of fungal species that were previously unsuitable due to very high spore mortality.


Development teams who work with others need to be aware of what everyone is doing in order to manage the risk of taking on dependencies. Using newsfeeds of software development activities mined from software repositories, teams can find relevant information to help them make well-informed decisions that affect the success of their endeavors. In this paper, we describe the architecture of a newsfeed system that we are currently building on top of the Codebook software repository mining platform. We discuss the design, construction and aggregation of newsfeeds, and include other important aspects such as summarization, filtering, context, and privacy.


Purpose of review To review laparoscopic access systems, insertion techniques, and the risks of complications associated with their use. Recent findings Access devices usually comprised an external cannula and a removable sharp pyramidal trocar for penetration of the abdominal wall, and were nearly universally positioned following establishment of a pneumoperitoneum. However, it is apparent that such devices and techniques contribute to patient morbidity through visceral and vascular injury, as well as incision-related complications such as dehiscence and hernia. There exist alternative approaches to positioning insufflation needles and the initial cannula, which may reduce the incidence of vascular and visceral injury particularly in the face of previous abdominal surgery. Inserting the initial cannula after minilaparotomy is associated with a reduced risk of vascular injury, but visceral complications still occur. Some new access instruments may reduce the risk of some complications associated with 'blind entry', and although not all seem to be effective in this regard, a set of blunt-tipped devices now exist, which are surprisingly easy to position and may limit the risk of injury while significantly reducing the size of the myofascial defect in the abdominal wall. Port site metastasis is a relatively newly recognized complication of oncological surgery and is a concern, but further investigation is required to determine whether such metastasis is related to a change in clinical outcome. Summary The incidence and spectrum of access-related complications is greater than previously perceived. Newer devices and modifications in technique may reduce the incidence of such adverse events.


Diarization Mireia Diez, Lukas Burget and Pavel Matejka Nowadays, most speaker diarization methods address the task in two steps: segmentation of the input conversation into (preferably) speaker homogeneous segments, and clustering. Generally, different models and techniques are used for the two steps. In this paper we present a very elegant approach where a straightforward and efficient Variational Bayes (VB) inference in a single probabilistic model addresses the complete SD problem. Our model is a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, in which states represent speaker specific distributions and transitions between states represent speaker turns. As in the ivector or JFA models, speaker distributions are modeled by GMMs with parameters constrained by eigenvoice priors. This allows to robustly estimate the speaker models from very short speech segments. The model, which was released as open source code and has already been used by several labs, is fully described for the first time in this paper. We present results and the system is compared and combined with other state-of-the-art approaches. The model provides the best results reported so far on the CALLHOME dataset. Cite as: Diez, M., Burget, L., Matejka, P. (2018) Speaker Diarization based on Bayesian HMM with Eigenvoice Priors . Proc. Odyssey 2018 The Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop, 147-154, DOI: 10.21437/Speaker Odyssey.2018-21.


My collaboration with Gillian Wearing (2003-present) has been to develop new approaches for integrating digital technologies into archival recreation of period textiles/clothing from documentary photographs, resulting in digital print replication of period textiles for her photographic pieces.

Digital textile printing is now commonplace for producing sample lengths and short runs of fabric for the fashion and interiors industry and recreating archive designs. In this case however, no original artwork exists as a starting point, and I begin with historical archive textile research using materials and reference libraries to establish textile types and colourways to achieve a credible result.

These are combined with visual "clues" from documentary material supplied. For example, in one piece the original dress was made from "Courtelle", a branded acrylic fibre popular in the 1970s, but which is still in limited production. A supplier was traced to Spain, but unfortunately the knit construction was unsuitable and so a viscose jersey was used to simulate the surface qualities and drape of the original.

The significance of this approach is in the accurate recreation, rather than sourcing approximate period textiles and clothing, to enhance the veracity of the artistic work.

Three pieces have been created to date, including the "Album" show at Maureen Paley (October 11-November 23 London 2003), and most recently, "Family History", a Video piece commissioned by the UK Film Umbrella, exhibited at Maureen Paley, London 10 October-19 November 2006.

The work I develop remains as part of the artist's archive, and may be exhibited to accompany the photographic or video as part of the exhibit.


Rule of Power or Rule of Law? assesses U.S. compliance with nine treaties addressing some of the most urgent global security threats, ranging from proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to global climate change. The study documents the value of those treaties, but concludes that the United States, in an echo of the nineteenth century idea of Manifest Destiny, is undermining each of them, preferring instead to set itself above the law and relying mainly on its own military and economic might.


This research utilizes imbibition experiments and X-Ray tomography results for modeling fluid flow in naturally fractured reservoirs. Conventional dual porosity simulation requires large number of runs to quantify transfer function parameters for history matching purposes. In this study empirical transfer functions (ETF) are derived from imbibition experiments and this allows reduction in the uncertainness in modeling of transfer of fluids from the matrix to the fracture. The application of ETF approach is applied in two phases. In the first phase, imbibition experiments are numerically solved using the diffusivity equation. Usually only the oil recovery in imbibition experiments is matched. But with the advent of X-ray CT the spatial variation of the saturation can also be computed. The matching of this variation can lead to accurate reservoir characterization. In the second phase, the imbibition derived empirical transfer functions are used in developing a dual porosity reservoir simulator. The results from this study are compared with published results. The study reveals the impact of uncertainty in the transfer function parameters on the


Abstract Based on the available experimental data for total cross section, nonelastic cross section, and elastic scattering angular distribution of n + 32,natS, a set of neutron optical potential parameters is obtained. The complete sets of nuclear data for n + 32,34S < 20 MeV are calculated. These sets include cross sections, angular distributions of elastic scattering, energy spectra and/or double-differential cross sections of all emitted particles, and gamma production data (production cross sections and multiplicity, energy spectra) in all kinds of reactions. The calculated results are generally in good accordance with experimental data and are compared with JENDL-3.3.


Factor Analysis is a statistical method that seeks to explain linear variations in data by using unobserved latent variables. Due to its additive nature, it is not suitable for modeling data that is generated by multiple groups of latent factors which interact multiplicatively. In this paper, we introduce Tensor Analyzers which are a multilinear generalization of Factor Analyzers. We describe an efficient way of sampling from the posterior distribution over factor values and we demonstrate that these samples can be used in the EM algorithm for learning interesting mixture models of natural image patches. Tensor Analyzers can also accurately recognize a face under significant pose and illumination variations when given only one previous image of that face. We also show that Tensor Analyzers can be trained in an unsupervised, semi-supervised, or fully supervised settings.


Adolescent identity attracts much interest in the research community, however the
majority of existing studies conceptualise it as a global construct with minor
examination of its content. The present research focuses on a snapshot of domainspecific
identities: political, religious and occupational, viewed as complex constructs,
and examines them in various dimensions. First, the developmental stages of global
identity as theorised by Erikson and Marcia are critically contrasted with domainspecific
identities. Second, the analysis of the content of adolescents' identities reveals
different values, attitudes and beliefs, which were used in a cluster analysis to identify
distinct identity types. Thirdly, gender and context differences of developmental stages,
content and types of adolescents' identities are considered. The context of Greek
Cypriot society, specifically, the ecological systems of the politics of partition, the
strong Greek Orthodox faith and the contradictions of tradition and
modernisation/Europeanization are used to understand the role of the environment in
adolescents' identities.
In a cross-sectional survey, 1,038 Greek Cypriot adolescents (449 males and 589
females, mean age 16.8) completed part of the Extended Objective Measure of Ego-
Identity Status, which assesses identity developmental stages in both global and
domain-specific identities. They were also asked to write three answers to three
questions of the type "Who Are You?" in each of the referred identity domains. This
valuable textual data was analysed by using both variable and person-centered
approaches.
The results suggest that the identity of adolescents does not always develop
synchronously across its domains, thus, the presentation of only global identity conceals
the complexity of identity as a multi-faceted concept. This was especially evident in the
analysis of the content of political, religious and occupational identities that revealed
interesting and varying elements, as well as meaningful and heterogeneous identity
types. The significance of identity content and its use in the understanding of adolescent
identity is highlighted. Gender and context are integral parts of the developmental
stages and the content of adolescents' identities.


The concept of open access to legal knowledge is at the surface a very appealing one. A citizenry that is well informed about the law may be more likely to comply with legal dictates and proscriptions, or at a minimum, will be aware of the consequences for not doing so. What is less apparent, however, is whether an open access approach to legal knowledge is realistically attainable without fundamental changes to the copyright laws that would recalibrate the power balance between content owners and citizens desiring access to interpretive legal resources. A truly useful application of open access principles would require adoption of compulsory licensing regimes with respect to proprietary legal resources, and significant government subsidies as well. Because affluent individuals today are both more likely to gain access to information and more likely to have the resources to use it, this Article concludes that the open access construct currently does little to actually empower access to legal information in any significant way.


A hypergraph is Sperner if no hyperedge contains another one. A Sperner hypergraph is equilizable (resp., threshold) if the characteristic vectors of its hyperedges are the (minimal) binary solutions to a linear equation (resp., inequality) with positive coefficients. These combinatorial notions have many applications and are motivated by the theory of Boolean functions and integer programming. We introduce in this paper the class of $1$-Sperner hypergraphs, defined by the property that for every two hyperedges the smallest of their two set differences is of size one. We characterize this class of Sperner hypergraphs by a decomposition theorem and derive several consequences from it. In particular, we obtain bounds on the size of $1$-Sperner hypergraphs and their transversal hypergraphs, show that the characteristic vectors of the hyperedges are linearly independent over the reals, and prove that $1$-Sperner hypergraphs are both threshold and equilizable. The study of $1$-Sperner hypergraphs is motivated also by their applications in graph theory, which we present in a companion paper.


Attention has been paid to the significance of the non-farm sector in the rural Indian economy since the early 1970s. The importance of earnings from secondary non-farm occupations is not well documented. In this paper an attempt is made to assess the contribution of the nonfarm sector across population quintiles defined in terms of average per capita income. The correlates of employment in the non-farm sector and the direct impact of a growing non-farm sector on agricultural wage rates in rural India have also been examined. The study is based on rural data from 32,000 households belonging to 1765 villages across all parts of India collected by the National Council of Applied Economic Research in 1993-94. Analysis shows that non-farm incomes account for a significant proportion of household income in rural India with considerable variation across quintiles and across major Indian states. Education, wealth, caste, village level agricultural conditions, population densities and other regional effects influence in determining the access to non-farm occupations. Direct contribution of the nonfarm sector to poverty reduction is possibly quite muted as the poor lack the assets. It has also been found that the growth of certain non-farm sub-sectors is strongly associated with higher agricultural wage rates. The analysis presented in this study suggests that the policy makers seeking to maximise the impact of an expanding non-farm sector on rural poverty, should concentrate on two fronts. First, efforts should be focused on removing the barriers to the entry of the poor into the non-farm sector. This involves improving the educational level in rural areas. Second, the policy makers should note the strong evidence of an impact on agricultural wages of the expansion in rural construction employment. [WP No. 81]