As many water related disasters occur frequently around the world, proper assessment of future climate change impact on floods and droughts is essential. In this study, we focused on basin-scale climate change impact assessment as necessary information for studying adaptation measures on the basis of integrated water resources management. We used Meteorological Research Institute-Atmospheric General Circulation Model (MRI-AGCM) 3.2S (20 km grid super high resolution model) and a series of simulation methods for climate change analysis. We conducted a comparative study on changes in precipitation, flood discharge and inundation in the future during the wet and dry seasons for five target river basins in the Asian monsoon area. We found that regional precipitation outputs from the high resolution model in this study were in good agreement in the point of tendency of their changes in wet and dry monsoon seasons with the regional precipitation analysis in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of Working Group 1 (WG1) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2013). This study illustrated that the proposed methodology can make more detailed descriptions of climate change possible. The study also found the importance of basin-scale runoff and inundation analysis with downscaling especially for basins where floods occur for a short period, suggesting potential differences between flood change and precipitation change from General Circulation Model (GCM) outputs such as maximum 5-day precipitation index in a basin. As a result, this paper confirms the importance of basin-scale discharge and inundation analysis for climate change considering basin characteristics from the viewpoint of river management.


Low dimensional data representations are crucial to numerous applicatio ns in machine learning, statistics, and signal processing. Nonnegative matrix approximation (NNMA) is a method for dimensionality reduction that respects the nonnegativity of the input data while constructin g a low-dimensional approximation. NNMA has been used in a multitude of applications, though without com mensurate theoretical development. In this report we describe generic methods for minimizing g e eralized divergences between the input and its low rank approximant. Some of our general methods are even extensible to arbitrary convex penalties. Our methods yield efficient multiplicative iterative schemes for s olving the proposed problems. We also consider interesting extensions such as the use of penalty function s, non-linear relationships via "link" functions, weighted errors, and multi-factor approximations. We p r sent some experiments as an illustration of our algorithms. For completeness, the report also includes a brief literature survey of the various algorithms and the applications of NNMA.


This article introduces a successful reading program, Family Connections, for incarcerated parents and their children. A comprehensive review of the literature supports the need to implement prison programs from an ecological perspective, in which the needs of inmates and their families are considered. More specifically, the benefits of directing resources toward the establishment of reading programs in prisons and jails for inmates and their children are discussed. The Family Connections program is aimed at improving inmates' parental skills and attributes. The article also includes the viewpoint of the commander of a sheriff's department detentions bureau, the perspective of the executive director of the nonprofit organization that operates the program, and the practical steps involved in implementing such a program.


Objectives: The aim of the present study was to analyze patterns of Physical Activity (PA), concentrating on evaluating dietary patterns according with PA levels, in underweight/normal weight and overweight/obese (OWO) children across three geographical areas worldwide.
Methods: OBEY-AD is an international study enrolling 2720 children aged 3-11 years from school settings of metropolitan areas in South America (Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil), Europe (Italy, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Georgia), and Asia (India). Children underwent anthropometric assessment. Dietary patterns and lifestyle were investigated through a cultural specific investigation tool administered to children's parents.
Results: Most of underweight/normal weight and OWO children did physical activity at least once a week or every day. OWO children who did PA at least once a week and every day showed slightly better dietary patterns compared who did PA rarely. Regarding underweight/normal weight children, thosemore physically active were more likely to eat more frequently fruits (p-value<0.001), vegetables (p-value<0.001), and meat (p-value<0.001). However, they ate slightly more frequently fried food, sweet and salty snacks (p-value<0.001). Interestingly, parent's perception of a quality diet (in terms of pleasant family mealtimes and varied diet) seemed to influence PA in both OWO and underweight/normal weight children.
Conclusions: Interestingly, parental perception of healthy diet may result in better PA patterns. However, it should be further analyzed what it means for families the concept of "varied and healthy diet" in order to understand if it really corresponds to the one proposed by international guidelines.


Environmental context The treatment of extremely saline, high-strength wastewaters while producing electricity represents a great opportunity to mitigate environmental effects and recover resources associated with wastes from shale oil and gas production. This paper demonstrates that extreme halophilic microbes can produce electricity at salinity up to 3- to 7-fold higher than sea water. Abstract Many industries generate hypersaline wastewaters with high organic strength, which represent a major challenge for pollution control and resource recovery. This study assesses the potential for microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to treat such wastewaters and generate electricity under extreme salinity. A power density of up to 71mWm–2 (318mWm–3) with a Coulombic efficiency of 42% was obtained with 100gL–1 NaCl, and the capability of MFCs to generate electricity in the presence of up to 250gL–1 NaCl was demonstrated for the first time. Pyrosequencing analysis of the microbial community colonising the anode showed the predominance of a single genus, Halanaerobium (85.7%), which has been found in late flowback fluids and is widely distributed in shale formations and oil reservoirs. Overall, this work encourages further research to assess the feasibility of MFCs to treat hypersaline wastewaters generated by the oil and gas industry.


Abstract. It is well known that El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) causes floods, droughts in different regions of the Earth and the collapse of fisheries in the tropical Pacific, therefore forecasting of ENSO is an important task in climate researches. Variations in the equatorial warm water volume of the tropical Pacific and wind variability in the western equatorial Pacific has been considered to be a good ENSO predictor. However, in the 2000s, the interrelationship between these two characteristics and ENSO onsets became weak. This article attempts to find some plausible explanation for this. The results presented here demonstrate a possible link between the variability of atmospheric conditions over the Southern Ocean and their impact on the ocean circulation leading to the amplifying of ENSO events. It is shown that the variability of the atmospheric conditions upstream of Drake Passage can strongly influence ENSO events. The interrelationship between ENSO and variability in the equatorial warm water volume of the equatorial Pacific, together with wind variability in the western equatorial Pacific has recently weakened. It can be explained by the fact that the process occurred in the Southern Ocean recently became a major contributor amplifying ENSO events (in comparison with the processes of interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean in the tropics of the Pacific). Likely it is due to a warmer ocean state observed from the end of the 1990s that led to smaller atmospheric variability in the tropics and insignificant their changes in the Southern Ocean.


In recent decades, social scientists have shown that the reliability of eyewitness identifications is much worse than laypersons tend to believe. Although courts have only recently begun to react to this evidence, the New Jersey judiciary has reformed its jury instructions to notify jurors about the frailties of human memory, the potential for lineup administrators to nudge witnesses towards suspects that they police have already identified, and the advantages of alternative lineup procedures, including blinding of the administrator. This experiment tested the efficacy of New Jersey's jury instruction. In a 2×2 between-subjects design, mock jurors (N = 335) watched a 35-minute murder trial, wherein identification quality was either "weak" or "strong" and either the New Jersey or a "standard" instruction was delivered. Jurors were more than twice as likely to convict when the standard instruction was used (OR = 2.55; 95% CI = 1.37–4.89, p < 0.001). The New Jersey instruction, however, did not improve juror's ability to discern quality; rather, jurors receiving those instructions indiscriminatingly discounted "weak" and "strong" testimony in equal measure.


Attempts by writers and intellectuals in former colonies to create unique national cultures are often thwarted by a context of global modernity, which discourages particularity and uniqueness. In describing unstable social and political cultures, such "third-world intellectuals" often find themselves torn between the competing literary requirements of the "local" culture of the colony and the cosmopolitan, "world" culture introduced by Western civilization. In Zones of Instability, Imre Szeman examines the complex relationship between literature and politics by exploring the production of nationalist literature in the former British empire. Taking as his case studies the regions of the British Caribbean, Nigeria, and Canada, Szeman analyzes the work of authors for whom the idea of the"nation" and literature are inexorably entwined, such as Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, and V.S. Naipaul. Szeman focuses on literature created in the two decades after World War II, decades in which the future prospects for many colonies went from extreme political optimism to extreme political disappointment. He finds that the "nation" can be read as that space in which literature is thought to be able to conjoin two things that history has separated-the writer and the people.


The improvements to the A75 required the construction of a 204 metre long structure to carry a slip road on a ramp up to the Glasgow Road at Gretna. A reinforced earth solution was chosen for a 169 metre length of the structure, with the remaining, generally lower, section being constructed as a reinforced concrete cantilever wall. The reinforced earth section was up to 7.4 metres high, and comprised hexagonal shaped facing units and one of three types of reinforcement; plain galvanised steel strip, a polyethylene geogrid, or a coated polyester strip. A well graded sandy gravel, taken from a local borrow pit, was used as fill to the wall. No insurmountable problems were met during construction, and the structure was completed to time and budget. During construction the settlement of the footing to the wall was less than 10mm, and the outward movement of the face of the wall ranged up to 30mm. In the two years following the end of construction, further movements have been negligible. The total cost of the ramp structure was about #0.4M. The range in the cost of comparable sections of wall supported by the different reinforcements was less than 5 per cent. The finish to the reinforced earth wall is good and any combination of the facing unit and reinforcements should provide suitable for use at other sites. (A)


Background and objective: Sleep disorders, such as insomnia can seriously affect an individual's performance and even lead to psychological problems. Diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders require the collection of subjective and objective measures of sleep structure. Subjective measures are currently collected during face-to-face clinical consultations with a medical practitioner. Objective measures, obtained from polysomnographic (PSG) electrodes on the patient's body, are used to quantify sleep quality, specifically slow wave sleep (SWS) periods. In this work, we present an unobtrusive and ambulatory insomnia monitoring system which uses a single electro-oculograph (EOG) channel instead of a full PSG to identify SWS periods together with a mobile health application to collect subjective measures from patients. Method: Fig. 1 presents the architecture of our proposed system. It consists of three main components. The EOG sensing device records one EOG channel and wireless transmits it to the coordinator. The Coordinator (mobile phone) collects data from the EOG device and transmits it back to the clinical back-end. It also includes a mobile sleep diary application implemented on the Android OS to collect the subjective sleep assessment data from patients. The recorded data is time and date stamped and can be used for historical data analysis. The Clinical back-end consists of a database to store the received data and a server with a SWS classifier to assess sleep quality. Our SWS classifier is based on a simple rule based algorithm using spectral features extracted from several bands (alpha band (8 - 12 Hz), beta band (18 - 30 Hz) and delta band (0.5 - 4 Hz) with adaptive thresholds. We used EOG overnight sleep recordings from nine healthy subjects (18-64 years) to validate our SWS detector. Results: Our developed sleep diary was compared to existing sleep diaries applications. It was found to allow efficient handling of data with an improved layout and interface that enhanced user experience. Information collected through the diary also provided the clinician with better access to the required subjective data for an accurate diagnosis of insomnia. Our developed SWS detection algorithm was run on a testing group with 5 subjects and a validation group of 4 subjects. Sensitivity, specificity, relative observed agreement and Cohen's kappa coefficient values were computed and used to compare the output of the algorithm to the sleep experts' analysis. The agreement of our SWS detection method for the validation data was 90.0%, sensitivity 90.5%, specificity 89.9% and kappa value 0.74. Conclusions: Current PSG systems with multiple electrodes are inconvenient and uncomfortable for the user, resulting in modified sleep activity different from their normal night of sleep. Our work has shown that it is possible to reduce the complexity of the insomnia monitoring experience and still collect the required subjective and objective information needed to assist in insomnia diagnosis. Acknowledgement: The work was supported by NPRP grant #[5-1327-2-568] from the Qatar National Research Fund which is a member of Qatar Foundation. The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.


This research study is aimed at examining the concept of organisational climate in the context of Jordanian manufacturing companies. Organisational dimensions examined were: Structure, Responsibility, Reward, Risk, Warmth, Support, Standards, Conflict and Identity. In order to achieve the goals of the study, self administered questionnaires were distributed to a sample of 400 employees in Jordanian manufacturing companies. Usable questionnaires were obtained from a sample of 297 subjects. The research instrument was found to be reliable and its dimensions were independent of each other. Higher levels of Reward, Risk and Conflict and lower levels of Structure, Responsibility, Warmth, Support, Standards and Identity were found in Jordanian manufacturing companies.


Increasing global temperatures and a growing world population create the need to develop crop varieties that yield more in warmer climates. There is growing interest in expanding quinoa cultivation, because of quinoa's ability to produce nutritious grain in poor soils, with little water and at high salinity. However, the main limitation to expanding quinoa cultivation is quinoa's susceptibility to temperatures above ~32°C. This study investigates the phenotypes, genes, and mechanisms that may affect quinoa seed yield at high temperatures. By using a differential heating system where only roots or only shoots were heated, quinoa yield losses were attributed to shoot heating. Plants with heated shoots lost 60% to 85% yield as compared to control. Yield losses were due to lower fruit production, which lowered the number of seeds produced per plant. Further, plants with heated shoots had delayed maturity and more non-reproductive shoot biomass, while plants with both heated roots and heated shoots produced more yield from panicles that escaped heat than control. This suggests that quinoa uses a type of avoidance strategy to survive heat. Gene expression analysis identified transcription factors differentially expressed in plants with heated shoots and low yield that had been previously associated with flower development and flower opening. Interestingly, in plants with heated shoots, flowers stayed closed during the day while control flowers were open. Although a closed flower may protect floral structures, this could also cause yield losses by limiting pollen dispersal, which is necessary to produce fruit in quinoa's mostly female flowers. Significance Statement This study provides evidence that heating quinoa during flowering results in seed yield loss by lowering fruit production. Plants with low yield after heat treatment also matured more slowly, suggesting that quinoa may use a type of avoidance strategy to survive heat stress conditions. Genes differentially expressed under heat include genes involved in flower development and flower opening.


This article contributes to the research on the new geography of poverty by examining how low-income residents fit into the governmental patchwork that defines metropolitan America. Our analysis pays particular attention to two features of local governments: their size and their status as incorporated municipalities or unincorporated areas. Relying on Census data, we study these patterns for the five largest metropolitan areas in each of the five Census-designated regions of the country (25 metros total) from 1990 to 2012–2016. We show that the distribution of poor people across jurisdiction types, and their concentration in particular jurisdictions or places, has changed over time. In the older metros of the Northeast and Midwest, poverty grew in smaller secondary cities while it expanded in unincorporated areas in the South and in larger secondary cities in the West. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these shifts for studying local governance and poverty.


The importance of good reading habits cannot be over-emphasised. Reading enable individuals to acquire knowledge, information, skills, values and attitudes necessary for personal, family, community and national awareness and development. It is difficult for any nation to achieve economic development with poor reading habit among citizens. Good reading habits allow individuals to critically analyse and understand issues in the nation. Thus, a good reading culture unlocks the key to economic prosperity since knowledge is power. This study investigated the impact of school libraries on the reading habits of children. It compared two primary schools in Lusaka; one run by government and another privately owned. The objectives of the study were to assess the age at which pupils in private and government schools are introduced to the use of the library; the reading preferences of the pupils; the academic performance of the library users and the role of the school library in inculcating the reading habits. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. Data was collected by means of self-administered questionnaires and interview guides. 64 pupils from grade 1 to 4 and 8 teachers participated in the study bringing the total to 72 participants. The major findings are presented and include the age at which children are introduced to library use; types of reading materials children prefer; performance of library users and the role school libraries play in inculcating a reading culture in pupils. The paper concludes by recommending that government should employ qualified librarians to run the school libraries; harmonising library services with the school curriculum and the head teachers must ensure that there is collaboration between the class teachers and the librarian in implementation of reading programs in the school.


In this work, inefficient spectrum usage problem which will lead to spectrum scarcity in future communications has been addressed. According to Federal Communications Commission, spectrum sharing is a technique to efficiently utilize the spectrum. We analyse dynamic spectrum access concepts such as overlay spectrum sharing and underlay spectrum sharing. Our overlay and underlay analysis have been made with the use of five and eight state continuous time Markov chains respectively. We derive the steady state probability for these states and also calculate the throughput of the aforementioned spectrum sharing schemes with the use of Shannons channel capacity. In addition to that, specifically, we propose a hybrid spectrum access scheme which combines overlay and underlay spectrum sharing schemes and employ them to improve the system throughput by efficiently using the spectrum. Our approach, by using continuous time Markov chain, reduces the complexity in modelling the dynamics of primary and secondary user. We have also shown numerical results to validate the performance of the proposed scheme. Our scheme lays foundation for further works in the field, and our scheme could be enhanced in future works.


Of all the duties a law student encounters in the study of law, few will prove as bewildering as fiduciary duties. Whilst their core is supposed to be "relatively clear",1 the wider content of fiduciary obligations continue to elude us. Whilst we know that fiduciaries are expected to avoid unauthorised profits and conflicts of interests, whether any fiduciary duties exist beyond this core remains controversial. Beyond a few established categories of fiduciary relationships such as trustee and beneficiary, 2 director and company,3 agent and principal,4 partners, 5 and solicitor and client,6 it remains a mystery as to when fiduciary duties arise. This is problematic because "[i]t is not because a person is a 'fiduciary' … that a rule applies to him. It is because a particular rule applies to him that he is a fiduciary … for its purposes." 7 Whilst the latter problem of who is a fiduciary is a very real one, the former problem surrounding its content is by far the more acute of the two. Until we know what fiduciary duties the law subjects fiduciaries to, it should not be surprising that the courts will remain circumspect in determining who is a fiduciary outside the established categories.
The most contentious dispute surrounding the content of the fiduciary obligation in recent years lies in its proscriptive or prescriptive nature. Despite case law suggesting that the fiduciary obligation may be prescriptive,8 some courts9 and commentators10 fiercely defend the exclusively proscriptive nature of fiduciary duties. This article proposes that fiduciary duties operate at two levels. The most commonly encountered fiduciary duties are the proscriptive duties preventing conflicts and unauthorised profits. These duties are prophylactic in nature, operate at a subsidiary level and are sometimes said to be better characterised as disabilities.11 At the primary level, the search for peculiarly fiduciary duties is an exercise in futility as fiduciary accountability is invariably and inextricably associated with duties of a nominate or even particular character that apply differently to various categories of fiduciaries. Rather, if at all desirable, it is perhaps more sensible to distinguish fiduciary breaches from non-fiduciary breaches of these complex duties. It is fiduciary accountability at the primary level that the subsidiary proscriptive duties seek to support rather than any non-fiduciary form of accountability. In this sense, at the primary level, fiduciary accountability can be prescriptive. However, in its prescriptive form, as it is inextricably embedded within a complex and compound nominate duty, it is pointless to search for an independent prescriptive fiduciary duty.


Psychological health is a result of the effective interplay between explicit and implicit attempts to regulate ones' emotions (Koole & Rothermund, 2011). Emotion regulation refers to processes that influence the intensity, the duration and the type of emotion experienced (Gross & Thompson, 2007). While explicit emotion regulation comprises effortful mental processes, implicit emotion regulation refers to processes that require no monitoring and terminate automatically (Gyurak, Gross, & Etkin, 2011).
In the present thesis, explicit and implicit strategies to regulate emotions were investigated. In Study 1, a well-established paradigm (Gross & Levenson, 1993) was adapted to examine the up- and down-regulation of positive and negative emotions using two different explicit emotion regulation strategies. To infer on the neurobiological correlates, blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) brain activity was recorded using functional magnetic resonance tomography. Furthermore, as a trait marker for the individual ability to regulate emotions, heart rate variability (HRV) was acquired during rest. In Study 2, implicit emotion regulation was examined. Therefore, a well-established fear extinction paradigm was compared to a novel approach based on the integration of new information during reconsolidation (Schiller et al., 2010). Autonomic arousal was measured via the skin conductance response during fear acquisition, fear extinction and after fear reinstatement. In Study 3, two dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies —worrying and rumination— were investigated. Excessive worrying and rumination are pathogenic characteristics of psychological disorders. Behavioral, autonomic and BOLD activity was recorded during worried and ruminative thinking as well as during neutral thinking.
The results showed that explicit emotion regulation was associated with modulated BOLD activity in the amygdala according to the regulation direction independent of the applied strategy and the valence of the emotion. In addition, increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity was observed during regulation compared to passively viewing emotional pictures. The findings are in line with previous research (Eippert etal., 2007; Kim H Ochsner etal., 2004) and support the key role of the dlPFC during the explicit regulation of emotions. Similarly, implicit emotion regulation was associated with a decreased autonomic fear response, which was sustained after fear extinction during reconsolidation. The findings underscore the notion, that this novel technique might alter the initial fear memory resulting in a permanently diminished fear response (Nader, Schafe, & LeDoux, 2000; Schiller et al., 2010). Dysfunctional emotion regulation was associated with increased autonomic activity and fear potentiated startle (during worry) as well as increased BOLD activity in the insula (during worry and rumination) and increased BOLD activity in the amygdala (during rumination). In addition, neural activity in brain areas associated with the default mode network was observed. These findings stress the preserved negative emotional activity and the self-referential nature of the examined dysfunctional strategies. The results of all three studies are integrated into a neuro-biological model of emotion regulation focusing on the interplay between subcortical and prefrontal brain areas.


Conical diffraction occurs when light is incident along the optic axis of a biaxial crystal. The light spreads out into a hollow cone inside the crystal, emerging as a hollow cylinder. The intensity distribution beyond the crystal is described using an adapted paraxial wave dispersion model. We show, experimentally and theoretically, how this results in a transition from conical diffraction for wavelengths at which the crystal is aligned to double refraction for misaligned wavelengths when using a white light source. The radius of the ring and location of the focal image plane (FIP) are also observed to have a wavelength dependency. The evolution of the conically diffracted beam beyond the FIP into the far field is studied and successfully described using a theoretical model.


A large variety of decision analytical frameworks has been used in climate change assessments in recent years to provide information for policy makers regarding the available strategic options, and associated gains and losses. Simultaneously, worries have mounted over implications of both climate change and climate mitigation for the broader concerns about development, equity and sustainability. The treatment of equity issues in climate change decision analysis and decision making is reviewed first. The overview finds a diversity of scientifically rigorous attempts as well as value-laden arguments in the social science literature. The ability of various decision analytical frameworks to treat equity concern in climate change analyses is assessed to reveal that, albeit to varying degrees, most approaches can incorporate equity issues in the analysis. A simple example of analysing climate policy implications of equity predicaments is presented by applying the so-called Tolerable Windows Approach.


Planetary Nebulae (PNe) are major contributors to the enrichment of the interstellar medium (ISM). Knots and filaments in the ionized gas images of PNe are common, if not ubiquitous. Additionally, it has been shown that molecular gas exists inside dense condensations within the ionized regions. The origins of these clumps are not known, though the suggested formation mechanisms fall into two main scenarios: (1) they form during the AGB phase; (2) they form as a result of the onset of the PN phase as the fast wind ploughs into the slower moving AGB wind. The currently favored model is that the knots are formed by the onset of the PN phase and then sculpted as the ionizing radiation penetrates deeper into the circumstellar envelope. We present preliminary results of a study which compares the morphologies of molecular and ionized gas emission in several PNe, covering a range of ages.


A simplified formulation of the harmonic reaction path Hamiltonian (RPH) approach is used to calculate mode specific tunneling splittings and stereomutation times in (CH3OH)-C-12 and (CH3OH)-C-13. The experimental torsional spectrum is very well reproduced, as well as the few known isotope shifts. The mode specific changes in tunneling splitting are investigated for the excitation of fundamentals and OH stretching overtones. Good agreement between experiment and the RPH model is obtained, except for excitations of modes which are perturbed by anharmonic resonances. The inverted tunneling splittings (E level below A) experimentally observed for the fundamental transitions of the CH-stretching modes nu(2) and nu(9) and of the CH-rocking mode nu(11) are shown to result from a pure symmetry effect and not from a breakdown of vibrational adiabaticity. Introducing a proper geometrical phase factor but retaining the adiabatic separation of the torsional dynamics yields calculated values of Delta(ν) over tilde (2)=-3.6 cm(-1), Delta(ν) over tilde (9)=-3.2 cm(-1), and Delta(ν) over tilde (11)=-8.2 cm(-1) that are in satisfactory agreement with experimental data. Negative tunneling splittings are also predicted for the asymmetric CH-bending modes nu(4) and nu(10) and the CH3-rocking mode nu(7). A smooth decrease of the tunneling splitting is calculated for increasing OH stretching excitation [Delta(ν) over tilde(nu(1))=6.2 cm(-1),...,Delta(ν) over tilde (6nu(1))=1.5 cm(-1)] in quantitative agreement with experiment [Delta(ν) over tilde(nu(1))=6.3 cm(-1),...,Delta(ν) over tilde (6nu(1))=1.6 cm(-1)]. The effect is shown to result in about equal parts from the increase of the effective torsional barrier and the effective lengthening of the OH bond. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.


Normative constructions of femininity in the UK are constructed around white, middle-class, and thin ideals for women (Francombe-Webb & Silk, 2016), serving to 'other' different productions of femininity. Tattooed women have historically been associated with working-class bodies. Class-based constructions shape the way that the tattooed body is read, with particular implications for how tattoos are seen as 'tasteful' and 'authentic' (DeMello, 2000). The intersection of tattooed bodies with factors such as class and gender serve as points of tension to unpack in regard to how women negotiate their feminine positions – tacky versus tasteful, common versus other, visible versus invisible. Using an intersectionally informed qualitative approach, this thesis explores the production of discourses both within the media, and from interviews with tattooed women. In the media analysis, 35 articles were selected following a systematic search. Tattooed feminine bodies are represented in varying ways: as transformative objects, as cautionary tales, and also as a fashion trend or artistic object, accessible and appealing to middle-class women. The discourses (re)produced within the media articles are congruent with previous research, linking tattoos with issues of mental health and wellbeing (Roberts, 2012) and working-class constructions of tattooed women as unattractive (Swami & Furnham, 2007). I interviewed fourteen tattooed women in total, using purposive sampling to speak to women from a variety of backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and employment positions. Discourse analysis (Parker, 1992) was drawn upon to explore how the women constituted themselves in talk, and what the function of these constructions were. Within the interviews, women simultaneously narrate tattoos as resistant objects that enable them to transgress ideals of the feminine body, and regulate the tattooed body through constructions of 'right' and wrong' ways to be tattooed. Women's accounts also articulated how tattoos are embodied, and also drew on a sense of tattoos as inscribing meaning on the skin. In their accounts, their talk about the tattooed feminine body intersected with other accounts of the feminine, as 'mother', as relational being, as 'professional'. The analysis demonstrates the importance of exploring the multiplicities in women's positionings. I conclude this thesis by considering the methodological and theoretical implications of the research. As a reflexive researcher, I have acknowledged how I as a tattooed woman, academic, researcher, and feminist have co-constructed the discourses produced and presented within the research. I argue that it is important to draw on reflexive accounts in feminist research, showing how the self has an impact on research (Wilkinson, 1988), allowing for further exploration of these positions. I also argue that this research contributes to how we understand gaze, regulation, and resistance. Tattooed bodies may subvert normative gendered expectations, but they also conform to and reinforce them in others, and are still positioned under the male gaze. The othering of tattooed women is done by reinforcing one's own position as a tattooed woman – regulating the body through the production of factors such as authenticity and taste. The thesis navigates the multiplicity of positionings for tattooed women, providing a point for future research to unpack.


The Prom is a game where the player manages the social life of a group of high school students and creates the situations from which dramatic, thought provoking or at least funny stories can unfold. The setting of The Prom involves a group of alternative high school kids (e.g. Emos, Goths, Geeks, etc.) and their dramatic lives as they prepare for the upcoming school prom. Through creating friendships, making people become enemies, controlling who gets to be in the "in" crowd and much more, the player can shape the social world of the characters. Each character has a distinct personality represented by interests (e.g. what bands they like), needs (e.g. a character may need to demonstrate a certain degree of dominance over others), traits (e.g. being a particularly jealous person), social networks (e.g. to what degree a characters like, are attracted to or respect one another) and social status (e.g. who is dating who).The social artificial intelligence system Comme il Faut (CiF) drives this gameplay experience by simulating per character needs and traits, social statuses, social networks, social history and most importantly to gameplay, the outcomes and effects of social games. CiF is a playable computational model of social interactions designed specifically to allow autonomous characters to play social games. By giving player controls to navigate a social, rather than physical, space, The Prom is being created to demonstrate how CiF and social games can create a practically limitless numbers of possibly compelling stories and gameplay.


This paper studies the relationship between the performance of a firm and the characteristics of its manager for private and public firms in Japan. We use a panel data of firms from 2006-2016 that covers over two-thirds of aggregate employment and is representative of the firm size distribution. We find that firm performance measures—size, growth, and sales per employee—are higher in firms with managers who are male, more educated, and whose self-reported hometown differs from the location of the firm he or she manages (migrant managers). We also find an inverted-U relationship between firm performance level and manager's age, and that growth rate declines with the manager's age. Firm performance first increases with age until middle age, after which it declines with age. However, managers with characteristics that are associated with good performance do not necessarily perform better in recessions: male and migrant managers cut back more on sales and employment during the 2008-2009 recession. These results hold even after controlling for firm characteristics such as industry, age, location, and family ownership. Our results are consistent with human capital and risk preference affecting the productivity of managers. They suggest that demographic shifts—aging, rising female labor participation and education attainment, change in migration patterns—may affect economic growth through the distribution of managerial productivity.


ABSTRACT Discontinuous outcrops of diamictite-bearing units exposed along the southern coast of Conception Bay, Newfoundland, are shown to be Neoproterozoic glacial deposits. These are equivalents of the Gaskiers Formation, a well-documented glaciogenic diamictite exposed on the southern Avalon Peninsula. A newly discovered 50-cm-thick cap limestone bed directly overlies these Varanger-age glacials and is the only bedded carbonate unit in a nearly 15-km-thick Neoproterozoic succession of volcaniclastic flysch and molasse deposits. The cap limestone contains a strongly negative carbon-isotope signature, which is believed to be primary and is similar to many cap carbonate beds deposited globally. Deposition of cap carbonate is a response to a sudden increase in shallow-seawater alkalinity. This postglacial isotopic signature has been interpreted as either (1) the result of oceanic turnover and mixing of alkaline, 13C-depleted deep water with surface water, (2) the sudden equilibration of a CO2-charged atmosphere after meltback of a snowball Earth, or (3) the near cessation of primary productivity in the oceans. The Newfoundland cap bed is a rare deep-sea example that may be the only known example from a volcanic terrane of an active orogenic belt. Carbonate clasts in the underlying diamictite also have highly negative isotopic signatures. Samples from one exposure of the cap bed show a stratigraphic shift in 13C from -6o/oo at the base to -1.5o/oo at the top. The initial shift from moderately to highly negative values recognized in Neoproterozoic cap carbonate beds from Australia and Namibia is not preserved in the Newfoundland cap bed. The minor thickness of the bed and its incomplete isotopic signature is likely due to deposition in an active tectonic setting among island arcs. This setting would have been characterized by high rates of subsidence, high accumulation rates of siliciclastic sediment, high equilibrium bottom slopes, and deep-water depositional environments. All of these factors may have contributed to a delayed initiation and short duration of carbonate deposition relative to other cap carbonate deposits worldwide. A high paleolatitude for Avalonia at this time may have also caused a shortened and delayed development of the cap carbonate bed.


Cochannel interference (CCI) is a major impairment in narrowband cellular systems. To increase the spectral efficiency of the narrowband systems, identical carrier frequencies are reused in distant cells. The interference rejection capability of the receiver determines this frequency reuse and is therefore critical. In this thesis, we propose an improved demodulation scheme, employing high-resolution frequency estimation techniques, for continuous phase modulated (CPM) signals in presence of CCI. Minimum shift keying (MSK), which is a special case of CPM, is a very popular modulation format around the world. Frequency detectors, such as the limiterdiscriminator permit the non-coherent demodulation of MSK signals. High-resolution frequency estimation appears as a very attractive alternative to the conventional noncoherent frequency detectors. The frequency estimation methods that we have studied are based on autoregressive modeling. The contributions of this thesis include the implementation of various demodulation schemes employing parametric frequency estimation. The use of the Viterbi algorithm as a nonlinear equalization technique to mitigate intersymbol interference is considered. We verified that the model-based sequence estimation schemes outperform the conventional non-coherent receivers for MSK with AWGN, flat fading, and CCI. Demodulator diversity is also investigated as a way to combat interference. An improved technique combining the proposed model-based receiver and the conventional coherent receiver is implemented and simulated in presence of CCI.


Title of Document: TAXONOMY AND ECOPHYSIOLOGY OF PSEUDO-NITZSCHIA IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY Anne E. Thessen, Ph.D., 2007 Directed by: Professor Diane K. Stoecker Marine Estuarine and Environmental Science Pseudo-nitzschia is a diatom genus known to produce the neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), which causes Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) and Domoic Acid Poisoning (DAP). Field studies were conducted in the Chesapeake Bay to determine which species were present, their toxicity and their spatial and temporal distribution. Strains were isolated from the Chesapeake Bay region and growth and toxin content were studied. The effect of rapid increases in light at low temperatures on toxin production physiology was investigated. Toxic Pseudo-nitzschia is present in the Chesapeake Bay; however, abundance and toxin production are highly variable. Six species of Pseudonitzschia were identified: P. pungens, P. calliantha, P. subpacifica, P. cuspidata, P. fraudulenta and P. multiseries. The most abundant species was P. calliantha. Pseudo-nitzschia abundances were associated with low temperature (2-21°C) and high salinity (6-32) and were highest in winter and spring. Compared to other diatom species, Pseudo-nitzschia abundances were low, rarely present above 1000 cells mL and they did not occur as monospecific blooms. Low Pseudo-nitzschia abundances and low, irregular domoic acid concentrations may partially explain the lack of documented toxic events in the Chesapeake Bay. Growth rate and toxin content of strains of Pseudo-nitzschia exposed to different nitrogen sources and irradiances varied significantly, even among strains of the same species isolated from the same water sample. Strain-level differences were responsible for most of the variability in growth rate and toxin content. Sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) rRNA matched morphological species definitions, but offered no explanation for the physiological variability. Populations of Pseudo-nitzschia in the mid-Atlantic coastal zone appear to be comprised of numerous ecotypes that require sorting in the future. The hypothesis that DA is produced as an energy modulation strategy when the light and dark reactions of photosynthesis are decoupled was tested by exposing exponentially growing P. multiseries to a rapid increase in irradiance at a low temperature. High light and low temperature conditions increased nitrate (NO3⎯) uptake, nitrite (NO2⎯) and ammonia (NH4) release and decreased DA production by the cells. These results could have important implications for natural populations of Pseudo-nitzschia at times of low temperature and high light fluctuations, such as during spring blooms and upwelling events. This thesis answered several questions about Pseudo-nitzschia populations in the Chesapeake Bay area and their ecophysiology, but raised many more. Physiological adaptations and biogeography of Pseudo-nitzschia and DA content of Chesapeake bivalves should be studied further to contribute to the development of predictive models for Pseudo-nitzschia bloom formation and toxin production. TAXONOMY AND ECOPHYSIOLOGY OF PSEUDO-NITZSCHIA IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY


When studying sensitive issues, including corruption, prejudice, and sexual behavior, researchers have increasingly relied upon indirect questioning techniques to mitigate such known problems of direct survey questions as underreporting and nonresponse. However, there have been surprisingly few empirical validation studies of these indirect techniques because the information required to verify the resulting estimates is often difficult to access. This article reports findings from the first comprehensive validation study of indirect methods. We estimate whether people voted for an anti-abortion referendum held during the 2011 Mississippi General Election using direct questioning and three popular indirect methods: list experiment, endorsement experiment, and randomized response. We then validate these estimates against the official election outcome. While direct questioning leads to significant underestimation of sensitive votes against the referendum, indirect survey techniques yield estimates much closer to the actual vote count, with endorsement experiment and randomized response yielding the least bias.


This paper models the historical default and prepayment behavior for subprime mortgages using data on securitized mortgages originated from 2000 to 2007. I find that more recently originated subprime loans are more likely to default, well ahead of their first mortgage rate resets, and less likely to prepay (i.e., refinance). This rise in mortgage defaults stems largely from unprecedented declines in house prices, along with slack underwriting and tight credit market conditions. I estimate a competing hazards model to quantify the effects of (1) house price appreciation, (2) underwriting standards, (3) mortgage rate resets, and (4) household cash flow shocks, such as job loss and oil price increases, on the likelihood of borrowers with subprime mortgages to default or prepay. Ultimately, I find that borrower leverage is one of the most important factors explaining both default and prepayment for borrowers with subprime mortgages. Then, using several different assumptions about the future path of house prices, I simulate potential trajectories for subprime mortgage defaults between 2008 and 2010. Further, I explore the short-term sensitivities of default and prepayment to house prices and various mortgage characteristics.


In the 1950s the term community care was associated with the movement of people with mental health problems from longstay institutions into the community. More recently,
however, the term has applied to services to a much wider range of groups including older people. The thesis is concerned with community care services for this group and in
particular, domiciliary care. It seeks to evaluate claims made in the White Paper: 'Caring for People' that its preferred model of community care can provide both increased service
effectiveness for consumers and cost control.

The thesis argues that community care policy was shaped by 'managerialist' assumptions and that improved performance could be delivered by organisational change, in particular the quasi-market and the use of managerialist techniques. Thus, the two phenomena of 'managerialism' and 'quasi markets' are conjoined, the latter offering to the former the possibility of competition between providers, which in turn is seen to provide greater user choice and value for money.

Two key reports from the Audit Commission are analysed as exemplars of managerialism and community care. The connection between the reports and government policy is
discussed and the evidence presented in them for community care, as a cost containment policy, is scrutinised. The consumer effectiveness argument for community care is
examined by considering, in particular, the relationship between consumer choice and the market model of community care advocated in the Griffiths report: 'Community Care: Agenda for Action' (1988) and the White Paper: Caring for People (1989). It is argued that both the government proposals and much of the critical academic commentary fail to examine various underlying premises, in particular, the salience of 'choice' as a universally desirable objective.

The themes outlined above are explored in empirical work undertaken in the case study local authority. The consumer effectiveness issue is analysed with reference to a survey of
users of domiciliary care services. The survey is used to examine how far the assumptions made by both government and many academic commentators, with regard to user
satisfaction, correspond to those of users. The analysis questions these assumptions showing that 'consumerist' notions of choice of service are much less significant than
personal aspects of the service such as 'caring manner' and continuity of relation with carer. Cost control issues are examined by considering an example of 'value for money'
auditing in the authority. Analysis of this project suggests the difficulties which such exercises have in generating appropriate norms for service provision in domiciliary care.
The thesis concludes by relating the themes explored to current problems in community care policy, in particular the increasing significance of rationing and eligibility criteria.


Voltage stability is a security concern for modern power systems. It can be analyzed using detailed or equivalent models. In this paper a new approach is presented for voltage stability analysis using synchronized phasor measurement data. Simple equivalent models of the interconnected system and load side at a measurement point are estimated from the data, and then used for calculating PV curves and predicting the stability limit. Two different models are proposed, and compared based on the analyses performed on the event recordings from US western power system. Minimal modeling and formulation makes the method suitable for online calculations. The models are continuously updated to reflect the effects of different system components and changes


Teacher education is facing a number of challenges such as policy changes, funding issues, and teacher recruitment and retention. These challenges, whether on the national, state, district or school level, contribute to continued teacher shortages. Many school districts are faced with the conundrum of hiring under qualified individuals, leaving vacant positions open, or eliminating positions altogether. Thus, within all subject areas of education, a strong philosophical perspective needs to be developed to answer the question: Is alternative certification a solution to these problems or an alternative problem? This philosophical manuscript investigates the research related to alternative certification within education as a whole, career and technical education, and agricultural education. Research in education broadly indicates a lack of consistency within the current alternative certification pathways and a lack of consistent/positive influence on student outcomes within alternatively certified teachers. It is recommended that future research should investigate the impacts of various certification pathways on students. Furthermore, teacher certification pathways should be based upon solid evidence from research regarding what generates the best learning outcomes for students.


This paper presents data on the parenting practices and perceptions of middle-class parents in the domain of children's sport. Adopting a grounded-theory approach, the data were generated through 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with parents and children from eight different families. The findings in relation to parenting practices indicated that the parents were 'investing' in their children's sports participation earlier and more heavily than their parents had done with them, thus suggesting an intensification in the middle-class social reproduction process. The findings regarding parenting perceptions revealed that the parents felt they were better able and more inclined to invest in their children in general, and their children's sports participation in particular, as a consequence of several 'structural' and 'cultural' changes that have occurred over the past 30 years or so. Given recent research indicating the significance of socialisation in the family for sports participation rates (Birchwood, Roberts, & Pollock, 2008), this additional investment by parents may have profound implications. Indeed, if sports participation rates are strongly dependent upon the transmission of sporting cultures within families, and parents are increasingly enabled and inclined to invest the sporting cultivation of their offspring, it follows that overall sports participation rates will benefit. This may be a more or less significant part of the explanation for the substantial growth in sports participation from the 1970s.


The European Union's agenda in international trade negotiations includes an effort to secure the protection of their "geographical indications" (GIs) in foreign markets. If European officials have their way, a great number of common food and drink names will disappear from American grocery store shelves. American companies would have to make up new names for wines such as champagne, port, and sherry, and also for common cheeses such as parmesan, gorgonzola, and feta. Even such identifiers as "California champagne" and "parmesan-style cheese" would not be allowed.At the heart of Europe's approach to GI protection is the idea of terroir — that there is an essential nexus between a product's characteristics and the place it was made. When others use place names in a generic way, they are, in the European view, unfairly usurping the value created in that name by generations of local producers. Supporters claim that strong GI protection is needed to prevent fraud, ensure fairness, and promote economic development.In truth, Europe's approach to GI protection mainly serves to privilege traditional producers at the expense of consumer welfare and economic growth. The connection between quality and origin is often exaggerated by European policymakers, and the level of protection that GIs enjoy prevents the flow of accurate information to consumers. Moreover, by incentivizing traditional production patterns through communal rights, Europe's GI system directly reduces both innovation and competition in their own market.For its part, the U.S. government views Europe's position as a protectionist attempt to control the use of generic terms that correspond to European cities or regions where those products were first made. The United States has its own way of protecting GIs, but it does so, with some exceptions, through trademark law rather than a dedicated regulatory scheme. The consequence is that many European GIs are not protected.The United States should fight against Europe's attempt to spread its GI protections around the globe. This means, first, resisting efforts to expand the mandate for GI protection at the World Trade Organization. Second, the United States should, like it did in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, secure open markets for generically branded products within regional and bilateral agreements. Finally and most importantly, U.S. negotiators should make it clear that GIs will not be a subject for negotiation in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).


The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance attributes and investment characteristics of listed real estate companies vis-a-vis listed infrastructure companies. Utilising Bloomberg data, the paper investigates the inter and intra performance of the five largest global stock exchanges, namely New York, Tokyo, London, Shanghai and Hong Kong. A growing school of thought has emerged inferring that performance dynamics of real estate and infrastructure are inherently similar in composition but can be distinctly different in terms of outturn. Nonetheless, many fund managers have a propensity to 'group' real estate and infrastructure commodities within their alternative investment "basket" with little thought or consideration afforded to the idiosyncratic nature of the underlying assets driving performance. As such, one key question to ask is whether this "pooled rationale" is justified? Or should commodities linked to real assets (including real estate and infrastructure) be afforded special dispensation attributed to diversification potential and risk mitigation within the confines of a listed investment portfolio.Against the above contextual background, this paper attempts to shed empirical light on risk-return behaviour and diversification potential of infrastructure and real estate companies listed on the aforementioned international stock markets for the period of 2000-2016. To achieve this, we construct risk-adjusted return series (Sharpe Indices) for different major infrastructure sub-sectors (namely transport, utilities, renewable energy and telecommunication) and the real estate markets based on company-level data. A set of inter asset correlation matrices over different sub-periods are then developed to study the temporal dependence of returns between the sectors and across the five stock markets. Co-integration and Granger Causality models are devised to further explore the temporal dynamics of their interaction based on long-term cointegrating and lead-lag relationships.


Small-scale coastal fisheries can cause detrimental impacts to non-target megafauna through bycatch. This can be particularly true when high-use areas for such species overlap with fishing grounds, as is the case with hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) aggregations at lobster gillnet fishing sites in El Salvador and Nicaragua. We quantified hawksbill bycatch by partnering with local fishers to record data for 690 gillnet sets on rocky reefs at Los Cobanos Reef Marine Protected Area (2008-2009) and Punta Amapala (2012-2014) in El Salvador, and La Salvia (2012-2014) in Nicaragua. Based on 31 observed hawksbill captures, the mean bycatch-per-unit-effort (0.0022; individuals per set = 0.0450) and mortality (0.74) are among the highest reported for the species across fishing gear types and oceanic regions worldwide, and we conservatively estimate that at least 227 juvenile hawksbill captures occurred in lobster gillnet fishing fleets at our sites during the study. Estimated mortality for the 227 hawksbills -which could approach the 74% observed mortality of total captures- from interactions with lobster gillnet fisheries at these sites during the study period may constitute the greatest single source of human-induced in-water mortality for juvenile, sub-adult, and adult hawksbills in the eastern Pacific, and is of grave concern to the population. Based on our findings, we discuss neritic habitat use by hawksbills during their 'lost years' and offer recommendations for bycatch reduction strategies, including community-based efforts to enhance sustainable self-governance via the establishment of locally crafted conservationist norms and marine protected areas at important developmental habitat.


Fiscal considerations may shift governmental priorities away from environmental concerns: finance ministers face strong demand for public expenditures such as infrastructure investments but they are constrained by international tax competition. We develop a multi-region model of tax competition and resource extraction to assess the fiscal incentive of imposing a tax on carbon rather than on capital. We explicitly model international capital and resource markets, as well as intertemporal capital accumulation and resource extraction. While fossil resources give rise to scarcity rents, capital does not. With carbon taxes, the rents can be captured and invested in infrastructure, which leads to higher welfare than under capital taxation. This result holds even without modeling environmental damages. It is robust under a variation of the behavioral assumptions of resource importers to coordinate their actions, and a resource exporter's ability to counteract carbon policies. Further, no green paradox occurs—instead, the carbon tax constitutes a viable green policy, since it postpones extraction and reduces cumulative emissions.


This paper describes the design and motivations behind the Desert environment. The Desert environment has been created to demonstrate that the facilities typically associated with expensive data integration can be provided inexpensively in an open framework. It uses three integration mechanisms: control integration, simple data integration based on fragments, and a common editor. It offers a variety of capabilities including hyperlinks and the ability to create virtual files containing only the portions of the software that are relevant to the task on hand. It does this in an open environment that is compatible with existing tools and programs. The environment currently consists of a set of support facilities including a context database, a fragment database, scanners, and a ToolTalk interface, as well as a preliminary set of programming tools including a context manager and extensions to FrameMaker to support program editing and insets for non-textual software artifacts.


This case study tests the significance of leadership, party identification, religious orientation, political economy, and sociological and demographic factors in the legislative and presidential choices of voters in the new Indonesian democracy. Data were obtained from four national opinion surveys conducted by the authors following parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2004 and the two-round presidential election in 2004. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of our data confirm the significance of leadership and party ID and the nonsignificance for the most part of other variables tested, including religious orientation, long the most popular explanation for the Indonesian case.


We extend the spectrally resolved two-beam coupling technique for measurements of cubic nonlinearities of materials to include higher-order nonlinearities. The governing equations of the extended technique are derived and applied to the analysis of the experimental measurements. We report the observation of saturation of the cubic optical nonlinearity of several glasses. Fifth- and seventh-order nonlinearities are required to account for the measured nonlinear phase shifts. The observation of saturable nonlinear indices accompanied by only moderate nonlinear absorption will be relevant to some applications.


Dynamic binary translation (DBT) translates binary code from one instruction set architecture (ISA) to another (same or different) ISA at runtime, which makes it very useful in many applications such as system virtualization, whole program analysis, system debugging, and system security. Many techniques have been proposed to improve the efficiency of DBT systems for long-running and loop-intensive applications. However, for applications with short running time or long-running but with few hot code regions such as JavaScript and C# applications in web services, such techniques have difficulty in amortizing the overhead incurred during binary translation.

To reduce the translation overhead for such applications, this paper presents a general persistent code caching framework, which allows the reuse of translated binary code across different executions for the same or different applications. Compared to existing approaches, the proposed approach can seamlessly handle even dynamically generated code, which is very popular in script applications today. A prototype of the proposed framework has been implemented in an existing retargetable DBT system. Experimental results on a list of applications, including C/C++ and JavaScript, demonstrate that it can achieve 76.4% performance improvement on average compared to the original DBT system without helper threads for dynamic binary translation, and 9% performance improvement on average over the same DBT system with helper threads when code reuse is combined with help threads.


Luce Irigaray's Elemental Passions could be read as a response to Merleau-Ponty's article "The Intertwining—The Chiasm" in The Visible and the Invisible. Like Merleau-Ponty, Irigaray describes corporeal intertwining or vision and touch. Counteracting the narcissistic strain in Merleau-Ponty's chiasm, she assumes that sexual difference must precede the intertwining. The subject is marked by the alterity or the "more than one" and encoded as a historically contingent gendered conflict.


Abstract. Center for Geographic Information Science, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences,Academia Sinica (GIS center), Coordinate short-, medium-, and long-term operations of multidisciplinary researches focusing on related topics in the sciences and humanities. Based on the requirements of multi-disciplinary research applications, sustain collection and construction of sustaining and unifying spatial base data and knowledge and building of spatial data infrastructure. Since the 1990s, GIS center build geographic information platform: "Time and space infrastructure of Chinese civilization" (Chinese Civilizationin Time and Space, CCTS) and "Taiwan History and Culture Map" (Taiwan History and Culture in Time and Space, THCTS) . the goal of both system is constructing an integrated GIS-based application infrastructure on the spatial extent of China and Taiwan, in the timeframe of Chinese and Taiwanese history, and with the contents of Chinese and Taiwanese civilization. Base on THCTS, we began to build Cultural Resources GIS(CRGIS, http://crgis.rchss.sinica.edu.tw/ ) in 2006, to collect temples, historic Monuments, historic buildings, old trees, wind lions god and other cultural resource in Taiwan, and provide a platform for the volunteers to make for all types of tangible, intangible cultural resources, add, edit, organize and query data via Content Management System(CMS) . CRGIS collected aggregated 13,000 temples, 4,900 churches. On this basis, draw a variety of religious beliefs map-multiple times Temple distributions, different main god distributions, church distribution. Such as Mazu maps, Multiple times temple distributions map (before 1823, 1823-1895,1895-1949,1949-2015 years) at Taijiang inner sea areas in Tainan. In Taiwan, there is a religious ritual through folk activities for a period ranging from one day to several days, passing specific geospatial range and passes through some temples or houses. Such an important folk activity somewhat similar to Western parade, called " raojing " , the main spirit is passing through of these ranges in the process, to reach the people within bless range, many scholars and academic experts's folk research are dependent on such spatial information. 2012, GIS center applied WebGIS and GPS to gather raojing activities spatial information in cooperation with multi-units, aggregated seven sessions, 22 days, 442 temples had pass through . The atlas also published named "Atlas of the 2012 Religious Processions in the Tainan Region" in 2014. we also applied national cultural resources data form relevant government authorities, through the metadata design and data processing(geocoding), established cultural geospatial and thematic information ,such as 800 monuments, 1,100 historic buildings and 4,300 old trees data. In recent years, based on CRGIS technology and operational concepts, different domain experts or local culture-ahistory research worker/team had to cooperate with us to establish local or thematic material and cultural resources. As in collaboration with local culture-history research worker in Kinmen County in 2012, build Kinmen intangible cultural assets - Wind Lion God ,set metadata and build 122 wind lion god 's attribute data and maps through field survey, it is worth mention such fieldwork data integrity is more than the official registration data form Kinmen National Park, the number of is wind lion god more than 40; in 2013,we were in cooperation with academic experts to establish property data and map of the theatre during the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan, a total of 170 theatres ; we were in cooperation with Japanese scholars, used his 44 detaile field survey data of sugar refineries during the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan ,to produce a sugar refineries distribution map and extend to a thematic web( http://map.net.tw/ ) [The Cultural Heritage Maps of Taiwan Suger Factories in a Century]site according to CRGIS independent cultural concept. Deployment and operation of the CRGIS, the meaning is not only build the thematic GIS system ,but also contain these concepts: Open Data, Wikipedia ,Public Participation, and we provide an interactive platform with culture resource data and geospatial technology. In addition to providing these reference material for local culture education, local cultural recognition, but to further cooperate with scholars, academic experts , local culture-history research worker / team, accumulated rich record of the past, research results, through the spatial database planning, data processing(ex. geocoding), field survey, geospatial materials overlapping, such as nesting geospatial technology to compile the cultural information and value-added applications.


Countries around the world provide various forms of legal recognition for same-sex relationships. In the UK, legal recognition for same-sex relationships first became available in 2005 with the introduction of civil partnership (CP) which remained the only option until 2014 when same-sex civil marriage legislation was passed in England, Wales and Scotland. In a context of heated debate and speculation, this thesis contributes to emerging literature on individual's experiences of legal forms of same-sex relationship recognition by exploring how CP is experienced, given meaning, and situated biographically. The thesis draws on personal narratives elicited through qualitative life story interviews with 28 men from across the UK. Interviews covered the life course, but were thematically focused around CP to provide insight into: motivations for entering CPs; experiences of planning, constructing, and participating in CP ceremonies and celebrations; and meanings and impacts of becoming and being civilly partnered. The resulting co-constructed narratives were systematically analysed using narrative methods. Minority stress theory, along with other relevant theories and concepts, were employed to further illuminate, analyse, and interpret participants' narratives. Two generational core-narratives were identified in participants' biographical accounts. Older participants told stories of struggle and resilience, and younger participants told new narratives of normality. Despite some generational differences, all participants reported experiences consistent with minority stress, including coping and resilience mechanisms, arising from their gay social identities which remain subject to residual stigma. Participants' accounts of CP revealed that becoming and being civilly partnered was largely, but not wholly, a positive experience which can be understood in terms of the overarching, and overlapping themes of citizenship, normativity and well-being. With regard to citizenship, participants welcomed the legal rights and recognition of CP which was seen to offer varying forms and degrees of equality. In terms of normativity, some participants reported that CP confirmed their perceived normality while others thought it was a normalizing process granting them normative identities. Furthermore, while some engaged in, or were compelled to engage in, arguably normative marital practices, others felt they were resisting these. Regarding well-being, becoming and being civilly partnered seemed to mitigate minority stress and contribute to well-being. Overall, the knowledge generated from the personal narratives presented in this thesis enriches debates, contributes broadly to the social sciences literature, and provides new perspectives on, and representations of, gay men's identities, lives, and relationships.


Microalgae are a possible source of bio-oil, for example renewable biodiesel. Micro algae gives higher production capacity per area than any other oil producing crop (Chisti 2007). To become competitive with fossil fuel, the bio-oil production must be efficient and cheap. An algae production pilot plant has been running for two years at the site of Nordic Paper Backhammar mill in mid Sweden. The purpose is to develop a competitive production process for bio-oil. The challenge is to achieve an economically competitive process that includes, gaining high production rate even though Sweden is a comparably dark and cold country. The solar radiation is strong enough for algae growth in at least eight months of the year. Radiation inhibition that will be found in other countries closer to the equator can be avoided at this location. However, the low temperature will slow the production rate down during four of these eight months. The possibility to use the excess heat to prolong the growth season is therefore the mayor benefit of growing algae close to a pulp and paper mill. Another benefit is the closeness to the carbon dioxide rich exhaust gas from the recovery boiler. This pilot plant consists of one 25m2 raceway pond and eight smaller pools. The microalgae Scenedesmus Dimorphus is grown in wastewater from the mill. The pools are all covered with a plastic tent to maintain a carbon dioxide rich atmosphere above the surface. However the pulp and paper mill effluent is low in nutrients. The aim with this study is to find efficient and cheap nutrients for algae production, close to the pulp and paper mill site. Tested nutrients were: the pulp and paper mill effluent, bio-sludge from the pulp and paper mill wastewater treatment plant, digester reject from a close by municipal treatment plant and digester reject from algae residue anaerobic digestion. The residues are collected after the bio-oil has been extracted. In order to see if the nutrients are available for the microalgae Scenedesmus dimorphus, have the different nutrients been tested in small-scale 100 ml growth trials. Scenedesmus Dimorphus was also used in the pilot plant. Cost and energy were used to evaluate the different nutrient sources tested. Algae residues from the pilot plant were anaerobically digested in batch tests to produce the algae digester reject. The biogas potential was determined as input for the evaluation. Costs for transportation and decreased cost for energy and chemicals in the municipal wastewater treatment plant were included to evaluate the municipal digester reject. Nutrients from all tested sources, except the one from the bio-sludge, were available for microalgae growth. The concentrations of nutrients were to low in the pulp and paper wastewater to enable growth in one batch. The both rejects contain high concentrations of nutrients. The transportation costs made the municipal reject less suitable. The algae residues will give 250 nml3 methane/gVS. The contribution of energy in form of biogas is almost as large as the energy of the bio-oil. Therefore gave the reject from anaerobically digested algae residues the best results. An efficient system can be algae grown in pulp and paper wastewater complemented with recirculate nutrients from the energy recovery of the residues from the bio-oil production.


Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a collection of chronic, immune mediated disorders of the gastrointestinal track, characterized by relapsing and remitting disease activity. Despite our growing understanding of risk factors associated with developing disease, we still lack understanding of the impact of disease complications and how to best avoid complications with preventive care. Two known complications of IBD include the increased predisposition to Clostridium difficile infection and the increased risk of non-melanoma and melanoma skin cancers. This thesis aims to (1) define the long-term impact of Clostridium difficile infection on IBD patients after accounting for patients' inherent risk of infection, (2) evaluate the rate at which IBD patients access dermatologic preventive care for skin cancer screening, and (3) model the cost-effectiveness of melanoma screening strategies in the IBD patient population.

We found that Clostridium difficile infection was significantly associated with more steroid and antibiotic exposure, elevated inflammatory markers, increased disease activity, worse quality of life, and increased healthcare utilization in the year of infection. During the year after infection, patients in the Clostridium difficile group continued to have increased exposure to Clostridium difficile targeted antibiotics and other systemic antibiotics, while having more clinic visits, telephone encounters, and a five-fold increase in healthcare charges.

We determined that 21% of IBD patients utilized dermatology from 2010-2016, and 2.6% of patients had at least one total body exam for skin cancer screening. Between 8% and 11% of patients recommended by gastroenterology preventive care guidelines visited dermatology each year, suggesting only a small proportion of IBD patients recommended for screening obtain dermatologic care.

Finally, we used a Markov model to estimate intervention costs and effectiveness of melanoma screening in the IBD population. We found screening for melanoma in IBD patients was more effective, but expensive. Among model variations, screening every other year was the most cost-effective strategy.

In conclusion, the dissertation reveals the long-term impact of infection among IBD patients, the underutilization of dermatologic preventive care, and provides a cost effectiveness model to inform the development of skin cancer screening programs in IBD.


1. Recent legislation in California, USA, has restricted traditional open-field burning of rice straw residues, leading farmers to adopt alternative methods of straw disposal such as post-harvest flooding of rice fields. These changes may benefit wildlife because winter-flooded fallow rice fields provide foraging habitat to migratory waterfowl. In turn, the foraging activity of waterfowl may help to increase rice straw decomposition, providing a reciprocal benefit to farmers. We examined the effects of waterfowl foraging activity on straw decomposition and nitrogen mineralization following rice harvest in a fallow flooded soil.

2.  Experimental plots (25 m2) were established on a silty clay soil and were subjected to two post-harvest treatments: wet-rolled or untilled. Mallard ducks Anas platyrhynchos were placed in one-half of the experimental plots, following a split-plot design, for a 3-week period, at a density equivalent to 33 birds ha−1 over a season of 180 days to approximate regional abundance data.

3.  Waterfowl foraging activity increased residual surface straw decomposition by 78% in untilled plots and 18% in wet-rolled plots compared with the respective unforaged plots. Average straw diameter in foraged plots was reduced to one-third that of unforaged plots.

4.  Waterfowl foraging and field tillage reduced nitrogen (N) concentrations in the surface straw residue remaining at the end of the winter fallow period. Below-ground organic residue was not affected by waterfowl foraging, indicating that ducks did not incorporate the straw. There were no apparent additions of carbon (C) or N to the soil as a result of waterfowl activity.

5. We conclude that waterfowl foraging can substantially increase straw decomposition in flooded, fallow, rice fields. Accordingly, rice producers should consider agronomic practices that attract waterfowl, such as winter flooding, to maximize the decomposition of rice straw residue. At the upper end of regionally observed waterfowl densities (at or near 33 birds ha−1 season−1) waterfowl foraging activity may alleviate the need for autumn tillage. Shallow flooded rice fields will also provide important winter habitat to migratory waterfowl, aiding wetland management and conservation efforts in the Central Valley of California.

6. These results provide an example of how a mutually beneficial solution can be achieved that provides needed waterbird habitat while concomitantly alleviating an agricultural problem.


For the purpose of production scheduling, open-pit mines are discretized into three-dimensional arrays known as block models. Production scheduling consists of deciding which blocks should be extracted, when they should be extracted, and what to do with the blocks once they are extracted. Blocks that are close to the surface should be extracted first, and capacity constraints limit the production in each time period. Since the 1960s, it has been known that this problem can be cast as an integer programming model. However, the large size of some real instances (3--10 million blocks, 15--20 time periods) has made these models impractical for use in real planning applications, thus leading to the use of numerous heuristic methods. In this article we study a well-known integer programming formulation of the problem that we refer to as C-PIT. We propose a new decomposition method for solving the linear programming relaxation (LP) of C-PIT when there is a single capacity constraint per time period. This algorithm is based on exploiting the structure of the precedence-constrained knapsack problem and runs in O (mn log n) in which n is the number of blocks and m a function of the precedence relationships in the mine. Our computations show that we can solve, in minutes, the LP relaxation of real-sized mine-planning applications with up to five million blocks and 20 time periods. Combining this with a quick rounding algorithm based on topological sorting, we obtain integer feasible solutions to the more general problem where multiple capacity constraints per time period are considered. Our implementation obtains solutions within 6% of optimality in seconds. A second heuristic step, based on local search, allows us to find solutions within 3% in one hour on all instances considered. For most instances, we obtain solutions within 1--2% of optimality if we let this heuristic run longer. Previous methods have been able to tackle only instances with up to 150,000 blocks and 15 time periods.


The occurrence of organic-walled microfossils is reported for the first time from the Neoproterozoic Port Nolloth Group, Gariep Belt (southern Namibia). Acritarchs assigned to Bavlinella faveolata occur in the Hilda Subgroup below the younger of two glaciogenic diamictite units (Numees Formation) within the Port Nolloth Group. The microfossil assemblage in the overlying upper Holgat Formation, above the Numees Formation, is characterized by low diversity (six species), dominance of Soldadophycus bossii, and absence of acanthomorphic or large sphaeromorphic acritarchs. The agglutinated foraminifer Titanotheca also occurs in the Holgat Formation. Combined with available chemostratigraphic data and Pb–Pb ages, this microfossil assemblage indicates an upper Ediacaran age of around 555 Ma for the Holgat Formation. Virtually identical microfossil assemblages, negative-to-positive δ13 C trends,87Sr/86Sr values between 0.7080 and 0.7085, as well as Pb–Pb carbonate ages, make it possible to correlate the Holgat Formation with the Buschmannsklippe Formation (Witvlei Group, central Namibia), the Kombuis Member (Cango Caves Group, southern South Africa) and the uppermost Polanco to lowermost Cerro Espuelitas Formation (Arroyo del Soldado Group, Uruguay). Based on these data, the underlying Numees Formation, the age of which has been only loosely constrained so far and subject to considerable debate, can now be assigned to the c. 580 Ma Gaskiers or the possibly younger (< 570 Ma) Moelv glacial event. The Numees glacial event may be represented in the uppermost Nooitgedagt Member (Cango Caves Group, South Africa) and the lower Barriga Negra formations (Arroyo del Soldado Group, Uruguay), characterized by a negative δ13C excursion and a strong sea-level drop. If this correlation is confirmed, lack of glacial deposits there might have implications for the palaeogeographic extent of upper Ediacaran glaciations. Our preliminary studies show that acritarch biostratigraphy can make a significant contribution to unravelling the stratigraphy of Neoproterozoic glacial deposits, especially when combined with C and Sr isotopic data.


AIMS
Coronary artery calcium score (CACS) is a strong predictor of major adverse cardiac events (MACE). Conversely, statins, which markedly reduce MACE risk, increase CACS. We explored whether CACS progression represents compositional plaque volume (PV) progression differently according to statin use.

METHODS AND RESULTS
From a prospective multinational registry of consecutive patients (n = 2252) who underwent serial coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) at a ≥ 2-year interval, 654 patients (61 ± 10 years, 56% men, inter-scan interval 3.9 ± 1.5 years) with information regarding the use of statins and having a serial CACS were included. Patients were divided into non-statin (n = 246) and statin-taking (n = 408) groups. Coronary PVs (total, calcified, and non-calcified; sum of fibrous, fibro-fatty, and lipid-rich) were quantitatively analysed, and CACS was measured from both CCTAs. Multivariate linear regression models were constructed for both statin-taking and non-statin group to assess the association between compositional PV change and change in CACS. In multivariate linear regression analysis, in the non-statin group, CACS increase was positively associated with both non-calcified (β = 0.369, P = 0.004) and calcified PV increase (β = 1.579, P < 0.001). However, in the statin-taking group, CACS increase was positively associated with calcified PV change (β = 0.756, P < 0.001) but was negatively associated with non-calcified PV change (β = -0.194, P = 0.026).

CONCLUSION
In the non-statin group, CACS progression indicates the progression of both non-calcified and calcified PV progression. However, under the effect of statins, CACS progression indicates only calcified PV progression, but not non-calcified PV progression. Thus, the result of serial CACS should be differently interpreted according to the use of statins.


Abstract. By recreating a range of geologically relevant concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in the laboratory, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the vital effects in both carbon and oxygen isotopes of coccolith calcite of multiple species relates to ambient DIC concentration. Under high DIC levels, all the examined coccoliths exhibit significantly reduced isotopic offsets from inorganic calcite compared to the substantial vital effects expressed at low (preindustrial and present-day) DIC concentrations. The supply of carbon to the cell exerts a primary control on biological fractionation in coccolith calcite via the modulation of coccolithophore growth rate, cell size and carbon utilisation by photosynthesis and calcification, altogether accounting for the observed interspecific differences between coccolith species. These laboratory observations support the recent hypothesis from field observations that the appearance of interspecific vital effect in coccolithophores coincides with the long-term Neogene decline of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and bring further valuable constraints by demonstrating a convergence of all examined species towards inorganic values at high pCO2 regimes. This study provides palaeoceanographers with a biogeochemical framework that can be utilised to further develop the use of calcareous nannofossils in palaeoceanography to derive sea surface temperature and pCO2 levels, especially during periods of relatively elevated pCO2 concentrations, as they prevailed during most of the Meso-Cenozoic.


This paper presents a broad overview of economic and social trends in Honduras since 2006, including the years following the military coup of June 2009. It finds that economic inequality in Honduras has increased dramatically since 2010, while poverty has worsened, unemployment has increased and underemployment has risen sharply, with many more workers receiving less than the minimum wage. While some of the decline was initially due to the global recession that began in 2008, much of it is a result of policy choices, including a decrease in social spending.


This study explored learning styles from both individual and cultural perspectives using web-based instruction for high school students as the context. Two web-based instructional systems teaching the same concept and theory of the Global Positioning System (GPS) were developed, each of the instructional systems accommodating different media attributes such as text, audio, and animation. To explore the role of learning styles as individual and cultural attributes, two ethnic groups, European-American (EA) and African-American (AA), were selected as the participants of the study. The Felder-Solomon Learning Style Questionnaire (FSLSQ) was used to measure the individual learning style. Questionnaires administered within a focus group setting were used to measure understandability, motivation, excitement, and ease-of-use for the two different interface designs. As results, AA students preferred a web-based tutorial designed with interface design guidelines that were compatible with their cultural learning preferences. It was observed that no learning style dimensions differed significantly between the two ethnic groups. Also, active and visual learners reported benefit from the AA-based instructional system, which employed multimedia elements such as animation and sound effects involving a greater amount of human-computer interaction.


This thesis presents new and archive X-ray, optical and ultraviolet observations of
cataclysmic variables, and discusses the results obtained in the context of the relationship
between the physical and spectral components visible. It concentrates on the eclipsing
dwarf nova OY Carinae, which has been observed both in superoutburst and quiescence.

Optical 'wide B' band light curves were obtained at the end of the 1994 superoutburst
and on the decline. Eclipse mapping of these light curves reveals an accretion disc with a
considerable physical flare (~ 10'). These are the first maps of a disc in the superoutburst
state that clearly show such flaring. Contemporaneous X-ray observations were obtained
with the ROSAT HRI. No eclipse of the X-ray flux was detected, a similar result to
that obtained from the EXOSAT observations of the 1985 superoutburst by Naylor et al.
(1988), supporting the case for the existence of a coronal component source for the X-rays
in high accretion rate systems.

Later ROSAT observations of OY Car in quiescence are presented. A 1994 PSPC
observation allows constraints to be placed on the quiescent X-ray spectrum. OY Car
returns similar values for the temperature of the emitting gas and the emission measure
as its fellow eclipsing systems. It is difficult, however, to reconcile the column density
inferred from the X-ray observation with that found from HST ultraviolet observations.
A column density of nH = 10 22 cm 2 , found in the 'iron curtain' study by Horne et al.
(1994), is not compatible with the X-ray spectrum.

New optical photometry, obtained during quiescence in 1998, is used to update the
orbital ephemeris of the system. A further ROSAT HRI light curve, obtained in quiescence
with good phase coverage, is presented. It displays an eclipse of the X-ray flux, detected
at the 13o level, which is coincident with the optical eclipse of the primary and suggests
that the region of X-ray emission is comparable in size to the white dwarf. This confirms
that the boundary layer region is visible in OY Car in quiescence, and, in common with
similar systems, implies that the boundary layer is the source of the X-ray flux during
periods of low mass accretion. The general picture of the X-ray emission from CVs, which
has been built up from observations of different objects using different satellites, has thus
been confirmed for the first time for the same object using the same satellite.

The fact that the quiescent boundary layer can be seen, and that the soft X-ray flux is
not extinguished, together suggest that the 'iron curtain' may be variable and connected
to the accretion. The thesis also explores for the first time the effect a 'warm absorber'would have on the X-ray spectrum and the deduced column densities of high inclination
CVs in quiescence.

The application of synthetic spectral analyses to ultraviolet observations of CVs is extensively
reviewed, with particular emphasis on the spectral components observed. White
dwarf model atmospheres and synthetic spectra are generated using TLUSTY and SYNSPEC,
and those IUE spectra of cataclysmic variables where the white dwarf can be seen
are modelled using a X2 fitting routine. White dwarf synthetic spectra veiled by an 'iron
curtain' are also calculated and applied to JUE archive observations of OY Car and similar
systems. The resulting independently estimated white dwarf temperatures are compared
with published values and with temperatures obtained from the application of different
model atmosphere codes. The column density found by Home et al. (1994) is confirmed.
IUE archive observations of U Gem show a similar cooling time (~ 30 days) to more recent
HST observations. It is shown that the major source of systematic error in estimating the
white dwarf temperature from ultraviolet observations is uncertainty in the masses of the
white dwarfs.

The final Chapter shows how scheduled (simultaneous) HST and ASCA observations
of OY Car in quiescence will be used to place further constraints on the temperature of the
emitting gas and the column density, and how the techniques developed for the ultraviolet
modelling can be applied to the HST data. Future (accepted) XMM observations of
UX UMa1, to constrain spectral components in the high mass accretion rate regime, are
also discussed.


The Enterococci are a resilient collection of species, found in the human intestine, river sediment and even certain cheeses. Human infection by this genus is dominated by E. faecalis and E. faecium. Vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) are associated with higher mortality rates over non-VRE strains. Enterococci can utilise the highly efficient pheromone responsive plasmid (PRP) system to transfer plasmid DNA between cells. Plasmid containing donor cells respond to small peptide pheromones (7–8 amino acids) and transfer plasmid DNA to pheromone-producing plasmid-free recipient cells. PRP can encode antibiotic resistance (including vancomycin) and virulence enhancing factors. Investigation into the PRP system between donor and recipient E. faecalis environmental isolates has indicated a 40 % decrease in PRP transfer in colder environments. Additionally, PRP efficiencies under other conditions, including in presence of synthetic pheromone peptides, have been calculated. Future assays will utilise pheromone imitative fluorescently labelled synthetic peptides to visualise the pheromone binding receptor (PrgZ) on the E. faecalis donor cell membrane. Later experiments will focus on varying the synthetic pheromone amino acid composition so to interfere with the PRP system machinery, with the aim of reducing PRP transfer efficiency or preventing PRP transfer completely.


'Resemblance', as featured in allegorical, analogical, and other figurative modes of expression, is often considered to be at the heart of discourse and understanding in the sixteenth century. Although this is undoubtedly true in Marsilio Ficino's Neoplatonism or Henry Cornelius Agrippa's occult philosophy, Michael Randall notes that 'difference' also shows itself as an important element in many literary works of the early French Renaissance. In 'Building Resemblance', Randall examines the complex development of analogical imagery linking the imperfect human to the perfect divine in the poetry and prose of Jean Molinet and Jean Lemaire de Belges, two official historiographers working at the court of Burgundy, and in the novels of Francois Rabelais. In many of these texts, human beings understand their world not only through its resemblance to an invisible ideal but also through empirical analysis of contingent phenomena. Randall identifies a movement from Molinet's works featuring a conflicted relationship of resemblance and difference to Lemaire's, in which resemblance flourishes, and finally to Rabelais's 'Quart Livre', in which the principle of difference triumphs. All of these works, he argues, bear witness to the struggle between the paradigm of resemblance and that of difference, which would come to characterize the discourse of the modern era. In its use of noncanonical authors such as Molinet and Lemaire and in its contextualization of these authors in the works of other little-known writers, 'Building Resemblance' offers a compelling new portrait of French Renaissance literature.