Received: February 02, 2019 Accepted: February 28, 2019 Published: March 31, 2019 Volume: 2 Issue: 2 DOI: 10.32996/ijllt.2019.2.2.27 The paper draws upon Wole Soyinka's play 'The Trials of Brother Jero' to explore the power dynamics within a discourse of power which has its foundations in suppression, poverty, deprivation and a formidable colonial past and where power is not restricted to any homogenous group but is rather conditioned by culture, feminism and sexuality and is thus perpetually changing in form and structure. The play is a harsh depiction of how the Yoruban ecclesiasts manipulate the gullible working class to exercise power and gain control over a small fishing community with the effect of creating power relations that are hinged on oppression and resistance and where power is constantly changing hands between the state and the subjects. The paper suggests a Foucauldian analysis of the play by exploring the concepts of 'bio power' and 'pastoral power' within a 'regime of truth' which accepts physical and psychological coercion by the religious authorities as an essential pre requisite to salvation and where religion is manipulated to dehumanize individuals into slavish followers who are in turn, menacing breeders of revolt and resistance and possess the power to dislodge and overpower any type of institutional authority. KEYWORDS


Abstraction is at the center of much work in Computer Science. It encompasses finding the right interface for a system as well as finding an effective design for a system implementation. Furthermore, abstraction is the basis for program construction, allowing programs to be built in a modular fashion. This talk will discuss how the abstraction mechanisms we use today came to be, how they are supported in programming languages, and some possible areas for future research.


The objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical explanation to some puzzling facts. While among American residents women, Mexicans tend to have higher fertility rates - a total fertility rate (TFR) of about 2.7 as opposed to a TFR of US born women of 2.0 - the fertility rate of Mexicans resident in Mexico is closer to the fertility rate in the US (natives) - 2.1. Other three observations are also puzzling. First, Mexican born women who migrated to the US participate more to the labor force than Mexican stayers; second, the participation rate of immigrants relative to US or Mexican stayers decreases with education; third, the gap between the fertility rate of Mexican stayers and immigrants increases with education. In this paper I propose an explanation of these facts based on selection. One novelty of this explanation is that it explicitly takes into account the human capital composition within households. I model their decision to migrate together with decisions on fertility, investments in children's human capital and time allocation to market and household activities, where household activities are primarily intended to increase the human capital of children. Households are heterogeneous in terms of human capital pairs and human capital enters as input in the human capital accumulation function of their children. The fertility cost is also heterogenous within the household, as it is assumed that women face a fixed time cost per child additional to the time cost that both spouses face for rearing their children. Households who decide to migrate face a loss of human capital, as they cannot adapt their education completely to the foreign market, while they gain from migration in terms of higher returns to human capital for current and future generations. The model proposed predicts that fertility is an increasing function of men's human capital and decreasing of women's. It also predicts that, generally, more educated couples tend to migrate more than lower educated ones. However, because of the loss of human capital faced by both spouses upon migration, they are both relatively less productive in market activity, although equally productive in household activities. This, by reducing the opportunity cost, shifts the allocation of resources towards child rearing and fertility. This implies that immigrants women have higher fertility than natives in Mexico and the US, and, given the correlation between the education of spouses, why this gap increases by education. The incentive to migrate is stronger when women are more educated than men. That is, conditional on men's education, it is more likely that couples migrate the higher is the education of their spouse. This is because, among immigrants women specialize more on child rearing and, given that at high levels of education the main driver of migration is children's accumulation of human capital, the selection in terms of education for women is stronger. This prediction has clear empirical foundations, looking at the distribution of education among immigrants couples women tend to be more educated than men, especially at higher levels of education.


Research Questions: 1. Are all the existing methods for estimating the obesity and overweight in school going children in India equally efficient? 2. How to derive more efficient obesity percentiles to determine obesity and overweight status in school-going children aged 7-12 years old? Objectives: 1. To investigate and analyze the prevalence rate of obesity and overweight children in India, using the established standards. 2. To compare the efficiency among the tools with the expected levels in the Indian population. 3. To establish and demonstrate the higher efficiency of the proposed percentile chart. Study Design: A cross-sectional study using a completely randomized design. Settings: Government, private-aided, unaided, and central schools in the Thrissur district of Kerala. Participants: A total of 1500 boys and 1500 girls aged 7-12 years old. Results: BMI percentiles, waist circumference percentiles, and waist to height ratio are the ruling methodologies in establishing the obese and overweight relations in school-going children. Each one suffers from the disadvantage of not considering either one or more of the obesity contributing factors in human growth dynamics, the major being waist circumference and weight. A new methodology for mitigating this defect through considering BMI and waist circumference simultaneously for establishing still efficient percentiles to arrive at obesity and overweight status is detailed here. Age-wise centiles for obesity and overweight status separately for boys and girls aged 7-12 years old were established. Comparative efficiency of this methodology over BMI had shown that this could mitigate the inability of BMI to consider waist circumference. Also, this had the advantage of considering body weight in obesity analysis, which is the major handicap in waist to height ratio. An analysis using a population of 1500 boys and 1500 girls has yielded 3.6% obese and 6.2% overweight samples, which is well within the accepted range for Indian school-going children. Conclusion: The percentiles for school-going children based on age and sex were derived by comparing all other accepted standards used for measurement of obesity and overweight status. Hence, augmenting BMI and waist to height ratio is considered to be the most reliable method for establishing obesity percentiles among school-going children.


In the field of tourism impacts research it is often assumed that certain characteristics of tourism are related to the nature and extent of tourism impacts on the destination's community well-being. However, a standard set of measures for tourism that allows comparison between destinations and facilitates the establishment of causal relationships between specific characteristics of tourism and associated impacts has not yet been established. Previously, Faulkner and Tideswell [Faulkner, B., & Tideswell, C. (1997). A Framework for Monitoring Community Impacts of Tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 5(1), 3 - 28] introduced a framework for monitoring social impacts of tourism, which identifies four facets of tourism in a destination: stage of tourism development, visitor-resident contact, types of visitors, and seasonality. A set of objective measures for those facets has been devised and tested on three tropical Australian regional communities. This paper reports on the process of developing this objective measures framework and collecting and analysing the available data. The study found that the devised framework allows for the identification of differences in tourism development at a regional destination level and classification of tourism destinations according to the type and degree of tourism development. The paper concludes by outlining future directions for research into the impacts of tourism.


ABSTRACT Public understanding of and support for GM foods in the U.S. are generally low and out of step with the scientific community, and particularly among those who identify as environmentalists. In order to communicate the scientific consensus on GM foods to these audiences, messages may need to be tailored to reduce reactance. We employ a messaging experiment that tests the potential for first-person narratives to link acceptance of the scientific evidence on climate change to the scientific evidence on GM foods among individuals high in environmental concern. Our study found that such messages were generally more effective than non-narrative messages or narrative messages without climate change information, and they were especially effective at conveying scientific consensus and influencing personal views on GM foods among those who identify as environmentalists, through reduced reactance. The results offer modest evidence of a theoretically driven, practical technique for communicating scientific consensus about GM foods in a way that can help reduce reactance in people who are especially likely to oppose GM foods.


Data generated in electronic format are voluminous in amount, as large generated data can be flexibly stored and accessed when needed by the users. Cloud computing has become the boon and emerging latest distributed computing technology which provides number of on demand services to the cloud users. This survey paper will be focusing more on the factors like security and disaster recovery aspects. The algorithm which will be proposed has two main objectives firstly providing highest security to the cloud users and secondly recovering of the data during natural destruction , paper also focus much on efficiency, time consumption to recover the data , data integrity, cost etc. Few of the recent techniques used for backup and security will be introduced giving a brief description on each of them.


From divide and rule policy in Nigeria, ethnicity, a product of misguided diversity result to socio-political exclusion implying subversion of democratic ethos and abuse of due process. Dissentience due to personal cleavage in any group constitutes threat to sustainable development. No sustainable development exists where collective sentiment in social movements as a pressure group to press for change is fractured by ethnicity. For instance, personal interest as against national interest has jeopardised justice disposal, resulting into indiscriminate use of court injunction in Nigeria. This paper explores the theoretical perspective on ethnicity and highlights the nature and importance of social movements in Nigeria's democratisation process. It promotes institutional due process, rule of law among persons and groups. People or group should develop at the pace there prefer. In this way, natural desire to compete and freely unite to advance development initiative and surmount security threat will arise not compelled. This paper argues further that behind sustainable development is institutional capacity building for due process and rule of law to accommodate social movements for social justice in Nigeria.


We study the evaporation and condensation of CO and CO_2 during the embedded stages of low-mass star formation by using numerical simulations. We focus on the effect of luminosity bursts, similar in magnitude to FUors and EXors, on the gas-phase abundance of CO and CO_2 in the protostellar disk and infalling envelope. The evolution of a young protostar and its environment is followed based on hydrodynamical models using the thin-disk approximation, coupled with a stellar evolution code and phase transformations of CO and CO_2. The accretion and associated luminosity bursts in our model are caused by disk gravitational fragmentation followed by quick migration of the fragments onto the forming protostar. We found that bursts with luminosity on the order of 100-200 L_sun can evaporate CO ices in part of the envelope. The typical freeze-out time of the gas-phase CO onto dust grains in the envelope (a few kyr) is much longer than the burst duration (100-200 yr). This results in an increased abundance of the gas-phase CO in the envelope long after the system has returned into a quiescent stage. In contrast, luminosity bursts can evaporate CO_2 ices only in the disk, where the freeze-out time of the gas-phase CO_2 is comparable to the burst duration. We thus confirm that luminosity bursts can leave long-lasting traces in the abundance of gas-phase CO in the infalling envelope, enabling the detection of recent bursts as suggested by previous semi-analytical studies.


SNPs in the first intron of FTO (fat mass and obesity associated) are strongly associated with human obesity. While it is not yet formally established that this effect is mediated through the actions of the FTO protein itself, loss of function mutations in FTO or its murine homologue Fto result in severe growth retardation, and mice globally overexpressing FTO are obese. The mechanisms through which FTO influences growth and body composition are unknown. We describe a role for FTO in the coupling of amino acid levels to mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 signaling. These findings suggest that FTO may influence body composition through playing a role in cellular nutrient sensing.


Emerging applications in areas such as bioinformatics, data analytics, semantic databases and knowledge discovery employ datasets from tens to hundreds of terabytes. Currently, only distributed memory clusters have enough aggregate space to enable in-memory processing of datasets of this size. However, in addition to large sizes, the data structures used by these new application classes are usually characterized by unpredictable and fine-grained accesses: i.e., they present an irregular behavior. Traditional commodity clusters, instead, exploit cache-based processor and high-bandwidth networks optimized for locality, regular computation and bulk communication. For these reasons, irregular applications are inefficient on these systems, and require custom, hand-coded optimizations to provide scaling in both performance and size. Lightweight software multithreading, which enables tolerating data access latencies by overlapping network communication with computation, and aggregation, which allows reducing overheads and increasing bandwidth utilization by coalescing fine-grained network messages, are key techniques that can speed up the performance of large scale irregular applications on commodity clusters. In this paper we describe GMT (Global Memory and Threading), a runtime system library that couples software multithreading and message aggregation together with a Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) data model to enable higher performance and scaling of irregular applications on multi-node systems. We present the architecture of the runtime, explaining how it is designed around these two critical techniques. We show that irregular applications written using our runtime can outperform, even by orders of magnitude, the corresponding applications written using other programming models that do not exploit these techniques.


This research proposes the Korean surface water supply index (KSWSI) which overcomes some limitations of the modified SWSI (MSWSI) applied in Korea and conducts probabilistic drought prediction using KSWSI. In this research, all hydrometeorological variables were investigated and four to six appropriate variables were selected for each sub-basin and probability distributions applicable for each variable were estimated. As a result of verifying KSWSI results, the accuracy of KSWSI showed better drought phenomenon in drought events than MSWSI. Moreover, the uncertainty quantification of KSWSI calculation procedure was also carried out using the maximum entropy (ME) theory. Estimating appropriate probability distributions for each drought component in the flood season is crucial because ME values and standard deviations of KSWSI are huge, implying that large uncertainty occurs in the flood season. It is confirmed that the accuracy of KSWSI may be affected by the hydrometerological variables selection, station data obtained, used data length, and probability distributions. Furthermore, monthly probabilistic drought predictions were calculated based on the ensemble technique using KSWSI. In 2006 and 2014 drought events, the accuracy of drought predictions using KSWSI was higher than those using MSWSI, demonstrating that KSWSI is able to enhance the accuracy of drought prediction.


ABSTRACT This paper challenges the common explanations that failures of external state-building and democracy promotion are the result of a lack of domestic capacity or a lack of domestic willingness against an externally set liberal agenda of state-building and democratisation. Studying political decision-making on a micro-level, we argue that both explanations fail to capture the multi-faceted motivations and interests of domestic actors that go beyond mere 'resistance' against externally induced liberal reforms. Rather, criticism of reforms might be rooted in ideas of social justice and claims to socio-economic security. Furthermore, these explanations tend to overlook the need for domestic elites to bargain with various domestic stakeholders. A case study of Croatian public administration reform illustrates that failure of externally promoted reforms remain an option when significant international resources are available for liberal state-building and the target of reform is a relatively mature bureaucracy.


The phenomenal growth of cryptocurrencies raises important questions about their footprint on the financial system. What role are traditional financial intermediaries playing in cryptocurrency markets and what drives their engagement? Are new nodes emerging? We help answer these questions by leveraging a novel global supervisory database of banks' cryptocurrency exposures and by synthesising a range of complementary data sources for other types of institutions. We find that major banks' exposures currently remain at very modest levels. Across countries, higher innovation capacity, more advanced economic development, and greater financial inclusion are associated with a higher likelihood of banks taking on cryptocurrency exposures. We show that substantial activity is concentrated in lightly regulated crypto exchanges. This "shadow crypto financial system" serves both retail and institutional clients, such as dedicated investment funds. An uneven regulatory treatment across banks and crypto exchanges and significant data gaps suggest that a proactive, holistic and forward-looking approach to regulating and overseeing cryptocurrency markets is needed. It should focus on ensuring a more level playing field with regard to financial services provided by established financial institutions and intermediaries in the emerging crypto shadow financial system by introducing more stringent regulatory and supervisory oversight for the latter. JEL classification: E42, G12, G21, G23, G28, O33.


To study the effect of management of legumes intercropping and methods of nitrogen application on sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) two research experiments were conducted at Farm of Arid Zone Research Institute, Ratta Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan during the year 1999-00 and 2000-01. In the first experiment, two different intercrops viz.mungbean (Vigna radiate) and guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba) were studied in three geometrical patterns of the base crop (sorghum). In the second experiment, four different levels of nitrogen (0.60, 90 and 120 kg ha-1) were evaluated with two different methods (soil application and foliar spray) of application on the growth characteristics and grain yield of sorghum. The experiments were planted on 22nd and 26th July during 1999 and 20000, respectively. Agronomic data recorded on different growth characteristics and grain yield of the crop, were analyzed statistically through the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and DuncanAƒÂƒA'¢AƒÂ'A'€AƒÂ'A'™s Multiple Range (DMR) test was employed to compute the significance of variance among treatment means

The data revealed that the Leaf Area Index (LAI) number of grains panicle-1 weight of grain panicle-1 grain and stalk yield and grain protein content of sorghum were maximumin the geometrical pattern of double row (30/90 cm) strip planting as compared to triple row (30/120 cm) strips and conventional planting of single rows (60 cm apart). The growing of legumes (mungbean and guar) as intercrops significanrly reduced the yield components (number and weitht of grains panicle-1) and grain yield of sorghum. But, the additional harvest obtained from the intercrops compensated more than the losses incurred in sorghum yield. The sorghum grain protein content was also increased with intercropping of both the legumes than sole sorghum. The highest LER of 1.55 and 1.56 was recorded in case of double row strips (30/90 cm) planting pattern of sorghum with two rows of mungbean as intercrops between 90 cm space of sorghum strips during 1999-00 and 2000-01 respectively. Similarly highest net income of Rs. 28137/50 and Rs. 26151/- with intrercropped between the double row (30/90 cm) strips of sorghum during 1999-00 and 2000-01 respectively. This suggested that the geometrical pattern of double row (30/90 cm) strips of sorghum with two rows of mungbean as intercrops between the 90 cm space might be the most efficient practice for optimum utilization of the available resources and maximizing the net income from the same piece of land as compared to monoculture and legume intercropping inconventional method of planting (60 cm apart single rows) and or in the ripple row strips (30/120 cm) planting of sorghum

The yield components and grain yield of sorghum were increased linearly and significantly up to the level of 90 kg N ha-1 but additional increment in nitrogen supply could not show any perceptible improvement in growth of sorghum.In case of method of application, soil applied nitrogen was found superior than foliar spray of it in all the traits of growth parameters and yield. On the basis of two years average data, the different levels of nitrogen 60,90 and 120 kg ha-1 applied through soil gave 26.09, 33.26 and 33.40 percent increase in LAI

L. erysimi was larger in size at 4 aphids per plant followed by 8 and 12 aphids per plant. The hind tibial length of female parasitoids was more at the lowest initial population denisity and vice versa. The male parasitoids were large-size on moderate aphid population density followed by low and high population densities. The percent was highest at 800 and minimum at 2400 aphids per brassica box with identical pattern for the percentage in adult emergence. The parasitoids took more time to develop on dense aphid populations followed by moderate and low ones. A strong relationship between aphids and female parasitoids exited in field as well as in pot experiments. The regression among different moisture levels, percent parasitism of D. rapae, row spacing by intercropping and aphidAƒÂƒA'¢AƒÂ'A'€AƒÂ'A'™s population densities was strongly affiliated with the second and third trophic levels in terms of body size


Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has been shown to be an effective technique for increasing the detection sensitivity in chemical and biological applications. SERS has a distinct advantage over normal Raman spectroscopy, with enhancements typically greater than 104 over the normal Raman signal; however, this advantage in sensitivity comes with a caveat: controlling the spectroscopic reproducibility and enhancement activity of metal nanostructured substrates can be difficult. We present a survey and subsequent data analysis performed on several nanostructured substrates designed for SERS, including silver and gold colloids, silver nanorods, gold nanoshells, and commercially manufactured gold nanostructures.


In this thesis, advanced interference management techniques are designed and evaluated for largescale wireless networks with realistic assumptions, such as signal propagation loss, random node distribution and non-instantaneous channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). In the first part of the thesis, the Maddah-Ali and Tse (MAT) scheme for the 2-user and 2-antenna base station (BS) broadcast channel (BC) is generalised and optimised using the probabilisticconstrained optimisation approach. With consideration of the unknown channel entries, the proposed optimisation approach guarantees a high probability that the interference leakage power is below a certain threshold in the presence of minimum interference leakage receivers. The desired signal detectability is maximised at the same time and the closed-form solution for the receiving matrices is provided. Afterwards, the proposed optimisation approach is extended to the 3-user BC with 2-antenna BS. Simulation results show substantial sum rate gain over the MAT scheme, especially with a large spatial correlation at the receiver side. In the second part, the MAT scheme is extended to the time-correlated channels in three scenarios, in which degrees of freedom (DoF) regions as well as achievability schemes are studied: 1) 2-user interference channel (IC) using imperfect current and imperfect delayed CSIT; 2) K-user BC with K-antenna BS using imperfect current and perfect delayed CSIT; 3) 3-user BC with 2-antenna BS using imperfect current and perfect delayed CSIT. Notably, the consistency of the proposed DoF regions with the MAT scheme and the ZF beamforming schemes using perfect current CSIT consents to the optimality of the proposed achievability schemes. In the third part, the performance of the ZF receiver is evaluated in Poisson distributed wireless networks. Simple static networks as well as dynamic networks are studied. For the static network, transmission capacity is derived whereby the receiver can eliminate interference from nearby transmitters. It is shown that more spatial receive degrees of freedom (SRDoF) should be allocated to decode the desired symbol in the presence of low transmitter intensity. For the dynamic network, in which the data traffic is modelled by queueing theory, interference alignment (IA) beamforming is considered and implemented sequentially. Interestingly, transmitting one data stream achieves the highest area spectrum efficiency. Finally, a distance-dependent IA beamforming scheme is designed for a generic 2-tier heterogeneous wireless network. Second-tier transmitters partially align their interferences to the dominant cross-tier interference overheard by the receivers in the same cluster. Essentially, the proposed IA scheme compromises between enhancing the signal-to-interference ratio and increasing the multiplexing gain. It is shown that acquiring accurate distance knowledge brings insignificant throughput gain compared to statistical distance knowledge. Simulation results validate the derived expressions of success probabilities as well as throughput, and show that the distance-dependent IA scheme significantly outperforms the traditional IA scheme in the presence of path-loss effect.


A volcanosedimentary succession of the Mlynowiec-Stronie Group (MSG) in the Orlica–Śnieznik Dome (OSD), the Sudetes, NE Bohemian Massif underwent multiple folding and shearing during the Variscan Orogeny. In the sheared domains, there are less deformed pods in which rocks preserve better records of metamorphic events prior to the regional temperature peak. In one such pod, near Gniewoszow on the western limb of the dome, marbles enclosed by massive amphibolites occur. In these rocks, zoned plagioclase with actinolite and epidote inclusions and zoned amphibole grains allowed recognition of three mineral assemblages and three P-T stages at: (1) 310°C/3–4 kbar, (2) 480–500°C/10.5 kbar, (3) 500–530°C/6–6.5 kbar, based on isopleth intersections and checked against conventional thermobarometry. These define a steep clockwise P-T path and a geothermal gradient of 17°C/km before peak conditions were attained, which suggests subduction of the metavolcano-sedimentary rocks (Stronie Formation of the MSG) on the western limb of the OSD, with a transient yet discrete higher pressure episode. Mineral relicts capable of demonstrating a higher pressure event are scarce in the supracrustal rocks of the dome, mainly because they became more thoroughly equilibrated and obliterated during the temperature peak at mid-amphibolite facies conditions and the  subsequent ubiquitous greenschist facies overprint.


Section 28.90.020 of the Alaska Statutes provides that in prosecutions for drunk driving, "if an offense described under this title requires that a chemical test of a person's breath produce a particular result, and the chemical test is administered by a properly calibrated instrument approved by the Department of Public Safety, the result described by statute is not affected by the instrument's working tolerance." This provision appears to prohibit the defense from calling into question the accuracy of a breath test by introducing evidence of uncertainty inherent in the testing procedure. The statute is problematic because due process requires that defendants be permitted to challenge the evidence presented against them. Moreover, there is a strong argument that basing conviction on a single breath sample that is within a known margin of error is a per se violation of due process, as it bases guilt or innocence on a purely fortuitous result. This Article examines the issues with Alaska's statute and proposes using multiple breath tests as a simple, cost-effective solution to this potential abuse of due process.


Aim Although Mexican Cactaceae are a significative component of Mexican flora and have a relevant economic and ornamental value, the knowledge of the environmental factors characterising their niche is still quite incomplete. This study was aimed at defining the potential distribution and ecological niche of Thelocactus species. Methods Climatic and environmental variables constraining the distribution of Thelocactus species were identified by means of environmental niche models (ENM) and ordination techniques, and used to generate potential distribution maps. The constructed ENMs were compared to assess the similarities of the ecological niche of Thelocactus species and to know if they share the same ecological niche space. Results The distribution of Thelocactus species was mostly limited by a combination of two environmental factors, isothermality and precipitation of wettest quarter. The null hypothesis of the niche equivalency test was rejected for all paired comparisons between all Thelocactus species except between the pair Thelocactus leucacanthus-Thelocactus hastifer. The results of the niche similarity tests were quite varied, for some species pairs the niche similarities were higher than expected by chance, for others the null hypothesis was rejected, while in other species pairs niches were more similar than expected by chance, but only in one direction. Main conclusions The differences in habitat requirements were well documented by the significative differences in the niche ecological space as shown by the equivalency test, while the high percentage of niches that were more similar than expected by chance suggest a high degree of niche conservatism among Thelocactus species. The spatial predictions could serve to improve field design sampling to discover new populations, while niche characteristics could be relevant for improving preservation actions and guiding reintroduction programs for a better conservation of Thelocactus species.


research project "Ocean Prediction Through
Observations, Modeling and Analysis" sponsored by the Physical Oceanography
Program of the Office of Naval Research under Program Element 61153N


It is nearly a quarter century since H. L. Beales produced his notable article on "The Great Depression." Since then a great deal of work has been done on that period, especially by economists and statisticians, so that it is now possible to make a fuller assessment of the changes in Britain's economic position during those years. Most of this work has been in the form of specialized articles and books covering longer periods, on such subjects as national income, investment, or terms of trade, and there appears to be a need for some attempt at synthesis, especially as the various interpretations put forward are not always in agreement and are sometimes contradictory. It would be impossible, of course, in a mere article, to settle all the theoretical problems suggested by the facts or to resolve all the divergencies of opinion, but it is worth while to draw the evidence and opinions together in an effort to get a general picture.


Despite China's claims of a foreign policy of 'peaceful rise'/'peaceful development' and of seeking a 'harmonious world', and despite its economic openness and active participation in economic multilateralism, China's neighbours continue to be concerned about the overall direction and intent of Beijing's security policies. These concerns are particularly heightened by China's rapid military modernization of the past couple of decades. The announcement in 2010 that China considered its territorial claims in the South China Sea a 'core interest', can be seen as a setback to its regional diplomacy, so diligently crafted over the years and drove its Southeast Asian neighbours to seek closer engagement with the US. This article argues that the contradictions evident in China's neighbourhood foreign policy reflect its continuing search for a model of international relations that can balance its domestic interests such as the need for political stability, including regime stability, on the one hand and its external ambitions for a decisive role in regional affairs, on the other.


Information is going everywhere. It is bleeding out of the Internet and out of personal computers, and it is being embedded into the real world. Mobile devices, networked resources, and real-time systems are making our interactions with information constant and ubiquitous. Information is becoming pervasive, and products and services are becoming parts of larger systems, many of these emergent, complex information-based ecosystems where participants are co-producers and where relationships between elements, channels and touchpoints are messy and non-linear. Still, by and large, within the area of informatics and information systems we teach management and design as if they were linear processes where cause and effect are easily ascertained and a solution readily provided. Could we try something different? How would that work and what results could it produce in terms of both learning outcomes and student satisfaction? This paper details the approach we followed and the early results we achieved in introducing business and informatics students to entrepreneurship and innovation through a holistic approach in the 2-year Master in IT, Management and Innovation at Jonkoping International Business School (JIBS), in Jonkoping, Sweden.


Continual learning (CL) is a setting in which an agent has to learn from an incoming stream of data during its entire lifetime. Although major advances have been made in the field, one recurring problem which remains unsolved is that of Catastrophic Forgetting (CF). While the issue has been extensively studied empirically, little attention has been paid from a theoretical angle. In this paper, we show that the impact of CF increases as two tasks increasingly align. We introduce a measure of task similarity called the NTK overlap matrix which is at the core of CF. We analyze common projected gradient algorithms and demonstrate how they mitigate forgetting. Then, we propose a variant of Orthogonal Gradient Descent (OGD) which leverages structure of the data through Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Experiments support our theoretical findings and show how our method reduces CF on classical CL datasets.


ABSTRACT The complex symbiotic relationship between corals and their dinoflagellate partner Symbiodinium is believed to be sustained through close associations with mutualistic bacterial communities, though little is known about coral associations with bacterial groups able to fix nitrogen (diazotrophs). In this study, we investigated the diversity of diazotrophic bacterial communities associated with three common coral species (Acropora millepora, Acropora muricata, and Pocillopora damicormis) from three midshelf locations of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) by profiling the conserved subunit of the nifH gene, which encodes the dinitrogenase iron protein. Comparisons of diazotrophic community diversity among coral tissue and mucus microenvironments and the surrounding seawater revealed that corals harbor diverse nifH phylotypes that differ between tissue and mucus microhabitats. Coral mucus nifH sequences displayed high heterogeneity, and many bacterial groups overlapped with those found in seawater. Moreover, coral mucus diazotrophs were specific neither to coral species nor to reef location, reflecting the ephemeral nature of coral mucus. In contrast, the dominant diazotrophic bacteria in tissue samples differed among coral species, with differences remaining consistent at all three reefs, indicating that coral-diazotroph associations are species specific. Notably, dominant diazotrophs for all coral species were closely related to the bacterial group rhizobia, which represented 71% of the total sequences retrieved from tissue samples. The species specificity of coral-diazotroph associations further supports the coral holobiont model that bacterial groups associated with corals are conserved. Our results suggest that, as in terrestrial plants, rhizobia have developed a mutualistic relationship with corals and may contribute fixed nitrogen to Symbiodinium.


This paper looks back at a 1963 United Nations seminar on police and human rights to consider the hopes that were held for the event, the course of its deliberations, and observe the scope of debate around its outcomes at that time. Introduction On 12 May 1963, Australia's leading scholar of jurisprudence and international law, Professor Julius Stone of the University of Sydney's Law School, delivered a broadcast on ABC Radio, 'Australia looks to the world: the police and the people'. His comments were occasioned by his recent attendance at the United Nations Seminar on the Role of the Police in the Protection of Human Rights, held in Canberra. Stone had attended the Seminar as an observer representing the International League for the Rights of Man. Stone asked rhetorically why an international meeting dealing with issues such as police arrests, wiretapping, police interrogation of suspects and universal fingerprinting was related in any way to the United Nations and international affairs. He answered in two ways. At one level there was a need to address gross violations of human rights which had grave international repercussions. He cited egregious provisions of the South African Government's apartheid legislation; and the brutality of police in Alabama in dealing with black Americans demonstrating for recognition of their human rights. From another perspective, in the 20th century the importance of human rights of men and women had been the focus of international laws and treaties. These were the contexts for the 1963 UN Seminar. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved at the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The Declaration has become a symbol of that organisation's aspirations. Its enactment into binding institutional and governing norms has been a prolonged process, and continues. For one recent historian of human rights in the post-war world, the first two decades of the United Nation's life were a record of failure. It was not the United Nations, argues Samuel Moyn, but the social movements emerging from the disillusion of the Cold War years, that enlivened human rights as a contemporary political agenda. Yet these were also years in which the organisation institutionalised a commitment to advancing human rights when it established a Division dedicated to the issue. The 50th anniversary of the Canberra UN Seminar on the Role of the Police in the Protection of Human Rights offers a compelling opportunity to reconsider the emergence of human rights as a norm shaping criminal justice principles and practice since the Second World War. The event was unprecedented and its agenda potentially explosive. The institutional and political constraints on the advancement of the human rights agenda in such a forum nevertheless proved formidable. Looking back from 2013 we have the advantage of hindsight in appraising this unusual event. We also face the challenge of understanding its limitations. In the account that follows we consider the hopes that were held for the UN Seminar, the course of its deliberations, and observe the scope of debate around its outcomes at that time.


Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories -- such as "the people" -- that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital."


With increasing investor interest in low-volatility equity strategies comes a need for greater scrutiny of different methodologies used to achieve low-volatility exposure. In an earlier article, the authors investigated the analytical differences between a variety of approaches to constructing low-volatility portfolios. In this article, the authors turn their attention to the empirical differences between common approaches to low volatility. They find that a traditional optimizer-based approach to building low-volatility portfolios has large sensitivities to the risk inputs used in the process. In fact, using the same portfolio construction methodology but changing the risk inputs even slightly can lead to large differences. The magnitude of this sensitivity should give investors pause; even across risk inputs in which differences are valid, variations persist and can be harmful to portfolio performance. The authors show that there are other, more robust, ways of achieving low-volatility portfolios without this input sensitivity (e.g., risk balancing) and suggest that investors should consider this lack of input sensitivity as a valuable characteristic in low-volatility investing. TOPICS: Volatility measures, exchanges/markets/clearinghouses, risk management Key Findings • Using an optimizer to gain exposure to the low-volatility anomaly/premiums subjects the portfolio construction process to input sensitivity, which can lead to wide variation in results. • Input sensitivity affects not only the portfolio's sector and stock positioning but also its risk exposures. This variation in risk exposures can lead to very different outcomes for investors. • There are more robust ways to gain exposure to the low-volatility anomaly/premiums, and the authors show that a risk-balanced approach not only captures the anomaly/premiums well but does so under different risk model assumptions.


Over Antipode's 40 years our role as academics has dramatically changed. We have been pushed to adopt the stance of experimental researchers open to what can be learned from current events and to recognize our role in bringing new realities into being. Faced with the daunting prospect of global warming and the apparent stalemate in the formal political sphere, this essay explores how human beings are transformed by, and transformative of, the world in which we find ourselves. We place the hybrid research collective at the center of transformative change. Drawing on the sociology of science we frame research as a process of learning involving a collective of human and more-than-human actants—a process of co- transformation that re/constitutes the world. From this vision of how things change, the essay begins to develop an "economic ethics for the Anthropocene", documenting ethical practices of economy that involve the being-in-common of humans and the more-than-human world. We hope to stimulate academic interest in expanding and multiplying hybrid research collectives that participate in changing worlds.


In the second half of the twentieth century, the number of international courts and tribunals available to help settle transnational disputes exploded. During the same period, there was also a proliferation of research in social choice theory that illustrates a range of ways that the aggregation of preferences and judgments can create inconsistent results. This research has become an increasingly important tool for legal scholars who seek to understand the strategic constraints that shape judicial decision-making. One important insight gained from this scholarship is the existence of the "doctrinal paradox." The doctrinal paradox shows that under certain conditions, the decision-making processes of multi-member courts can be indeterminate because the outcomes of cases change based on the way that the judges choose to aggregate their judgments. In other words, the same distribution of opinions among a panel of judges may result in either party A or party B winning a particular case, depending on the method that the judges use to reach a final decision. The doctrinal paradox thus not only creates outcomes that may appear logically incoherent, but since it results in decisions that are at tension with the precedent they create, it also threatens the integrity of the development of law more broadly.This Article is the first to explore the important implications that the doctrinal paradox has for international adjudication. To do so, we have undertaken one of the first efforts to compile comparative data on the decision-making procedures and dissent rates of international courts. By coupling this information with insights from international relations and international law, we argue that there are unique features of international courts and tribunals that affect the causes and consequences of the doctrinal paradox. Specifically, since international courts are uniquely vulnerable to having their decisions ignored by litigants but still provide an essential avenue for the development of the corpus of international law, the impact of paradoxical decisions can be magnified. We also discuss examples where the doctrinal paradox can arise and has arisen during the course of international adjudication. Finally, we argue that the designers of international legal institutions should explicitly consider the tradeoffs associated with maintaining flexible policies versus adopting a fixed judgment aggregation mechanism.


This article analyzes a reform proposal that would preclude bias in clinical trials used to test drugs that is inherent in the current system where the pharmaceutical firms sponsoring the drug designs the clinical trial and selects the researchers who will conduct the research. Under the current approach manufacturers can frame the research in a way that biases the result. Moreover, organizations that perform the research depend on the pharmaceutical firm sponsor for their income, an arrangement that fosters dependency corruption. The reform proposal would remove all drug firm influence on the design and conduct of clinical trials used to decide whether to allow marketing of a drug. A federal agency would select the researchers to design and conduct the phase II and III clinical trial, or the clinical trial would be conducted by an independent government agency. The pharmaceutical firm that wished to market the drug would be required to finance the clinical trial. Between the late 1950s and 1980s, reformers and congressional leaders championed variations of this proposal, but pharmaceutical industry opposition blocked its enactment and so the federal government pursued alternative strategies, which have proved ineffective. By the mid-1990s, scandals prompted several leaders in drug policy and research to again advocate legislation to require independent drug testing. The paper concludes by the discussing difficulties that will arise in implementing this proposal and how these can be overcome.


[1] Decades of interplanetary measurements of the solar wind and other space plasmas have established that the suprathermal ion intensity distributions (j) are non-Maxwellian and are characterized by high-energy power law tails (j ∼ E−κ). Recent analysis by Fisk and Gloeckler of suprathermal ion observations between 1–5 AU demonstrates that a particular differential intensity distribution function emerges universally between ∼2–10 times the solar wind speed with κ ∼ 1.5. This power law tail is particularly apparent in downstream distributions beyond reverse shocks associated with corotating interaction regions. Similar power law tails have been observed in the downstream flow beyond the termination shock by the Low Energy Charged Particle instrument on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Using kappa distributions with internal energy, density, and bulk flow derived from large-scale magnetohydrodynamic models, we calculate the simulated flux of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) produced in the heliosheath by charge exchange between solar wind protons and interstellar hydrogen. We then produce simulated ENA maps of the heliosheath, such as will be measured by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer Mission (IBEX). We also estimate the expected signal to noise and background ratio for IBEX. The solar wind suprathermal tail significantly increases the ENA flux within the IBEX energy range, ∼0.01–6 keV, by more than an order of magnitude at the highest energies over the estimates using a Maxwellian. It is therefore essential to consider suprathermal tails in the interpretation of IBEX ENA images and theoretical modeling of the heliospheric termination shock.


The error rate of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRp) affects the mutation frequency in a population of viral RNAs. Using chikungunya virus (CHIKV), we describe a unique arbovirus fidelity variant with a single C483Y amino acid change in the nsP4 RdRp that increases replication fidelity and generates populations with reduced genetic diversity. In mosquitoes, high fidelity CHIKV presents lower infection and dissemination titers than wild type. In newborn mice, high fidelity CHIKV produces truncated viremias and lower organ titers. These results indicate that increased replication fidelity and reduced genetic diversity negatively impact arbovirus fitness in invertebrate and vertebrate hosts.


To date, however, there has been relatively little academic discussion about how EPA and other federal agencies can achieve environmental justice. In addition, most legal academic literature has focused either on simply identifying the legal issues associated with race and environmental law or on developing a litigation strategy for remedying "environmental racism." None of the legal academic literature has focused on the benefits of using an administrative framework to define or develop sustainable solutions to the distributional inequities of environmental laws. The purpose of this Article is to explain the benefits of pursuing an administrative model for change. Unlike other legal academic pieces, this Article does not focus exclusively on the presence of distributional inequities or on private litigants' judicial remedies for distributional inequities. Rather, it accepts that distributional inequities are present and it offers a broader, holistic, front-end approach to the administration of environmental laws with the goal of creating a framework which federal agencies can use to both achieve and maintain environmental justice. This Article is divided into three parts. First, it briefly discusses the history of the environmental justice movement and of historical political responses to distributional issues associated with the environment and human health. The second part of the Article describes the problems with relying exclusively on litigation as a mechanism for achieving environmental justice. Finally, this Article presents the theoretical basis for pursuing administrative solutions to the inequitable distribution of environmental hazards.


In Deserving Citizenship Ricky van Oers analyses the reasons for introduction and effects of citizenship tests in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.


Post-war Sierra Leone faces a deep deficit in the supply of basic public goods which is detrimental to quality of life and remains a risk factor for future conflict. The government, under substantial donor influence, seeks to address this deficit through democratic decentralization. However, evidence of the link between decentralization and improved public goods provision remains weak. I approach the
public goods deficit from a different angle; rather than assuming that an imported solution is needed, I consider what can be learned from existing patterns of public
goods provision.
At the core of this study is a comparison of 'success versus failure' in local public goods provision in the city of Makeni, with the aim of understanding key dynamics that lead to divergent outcomes. While I set out to focus on cases of public goods provision led by two main categories of local government actors — elected councils and chiefs — I found that it in all four cases, citizens played a substantial role. I therefore analyze the cases as instances of coproduction of public goods.
I find that coproduction is an important means of maintaining a basic supply of local public goods when state capacity is weak. With this in mind, I draw on the case study evidence to develop a set of propositions about the conditions under which coproduction is more likely to succeed in contemporary Sierra Leone. These propositions are suggestive of an alternate institutional approach to addressing the public goods deficit—one that is based on the development of workarounds for key obstacles rather than institutional overhaul. However, coproduction is no 'magic bullet'; it has troubling implications for social equality and the development of state capacity over the longer term and thus judgements about the desirability of
coproductive arrangements are likely to involve complex trade-offs.


OBJECTIVES
Stimulant medications appear effective at restoring simple alertness and psychomotor vigilance in sleep deprived individuals, but it is not clear whether these medications are effective at restoring higher order complex cognitive capacities such as planning, sequencing, and decision making.

DESIGN
After 44 hours awake, participants received a double-blind dose of one of 3 stimulant medications or placebo. After 45-50 hours awake, participants were tested on computerized versions of the 5-Ring Tower of Hanoi (TOH), the Tower of London (TOL), and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST).

SETTING
In-residence sleep-laboratory facility at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

PARTICIPANTS
Fifty-four healthy adults (29 men, 25 women), ranging in age from 18 to 36 years.

INTERVENTIONS
Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 stimulant medication groups, including caffeine, 600 mg (n=12), modafinil, 400 mg (n=12), dextroamphetamine, 20 mg (n=16), or placebo (n=14).

MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS
At the doses tested, modafinil and dextroamphetamine groups completed the TOL task in significantly fewer moves than the placebo group, and the modafinil group demonstrated greater deliberation before making moves. In contrast, subjects receiving caffeine completed the TOH in fewer moves than all 3 of the other groups, although speed of completion was not influenced by the stimulants. Finally, the modafinil group outperformed all other groups on indices of perseverative responding and perseverative errors from the WCST.

CONCLUSIONS
Although comparisons across tasks cannot be made due to the different times of administration, within-task comparisons suggest that, at the doses tested here, each stimulant may produce differential advantages depending on the cognitive demands of the task.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether multiple sclerosis (MS) and infectious mononucleosis (IM) share common HLA associations.

DESIGN
A prospective cohort study was conducted from October 1, 1999, through September 30, 2003.

SETTING
University of Edinburgh Richard Verney Health Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland.

PATIENTS
Participants included 179 individuals who underwent asymptomatic Epstein-Barr virus seroconversion and 175 patients who developed IM.

INTERVENTION
Genotyping for 5 classical HLA loci (HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-DRB1, and HLA-DQB1).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Diagnosis of IM and allele frequency.

RESULTS
Allelic analysis showed that HLA-DRB1*01:01 was significantly associated with the development of IM (odds ratio, 3.2; P < .001). Patients with IM and HLA-DRB1*01:01 had a lower Epstein-Barr virus viral load compared with those without the allele (median, 783 vs 7366 copies/10(6) peripheral blood mononuclear cells; P = .03).

CONCLUSION
HLA-DRB1*01:01 is protective against developing MS; thus, a common genetic basis between IM and MS is not supported.


Organisations are systems designed to serve customers. To excel at meeting customer needs, an organisation must constantly improve processes. This paper aims to explore a potential problem of the size of groups or teams, which is presumably too large, therefore, preventing teamwork or collective learning, and to a certain extent neglecting the relationships among group members (attraction or propensity, repulsion and indifference). We established that there are deviations in terms of interpersonal relationships between the production and service sectors in the studied enterprise. The results showed that the interpersonal relationships in smaller groups were better, which in turn means that there are greater opportunities to acquire new knowledge. We proposed a model which helped to improve teamwork in the studied enterprise and provided suggestions in terms of improving staff management, which is closely related to a continuous improvement of the quality of operations.


The purpose of this paper is to describe the EHIS Method© (Entrepreneurship Human Interactions Skills), an innovative entrepreneurship teaching and learning method developed and used at the Entrepreneurship course at Portucalense University (UPT), a private higher education institution in Portugal. EHIS Method© draws on insights from the recent literature on entrepreneurship education and is applied to teach Entrepreneurship in several study programs at UPT, such as Psychology, Social Education, Tourism, Economics, Law, Management, Informatics, Management and Information Systems and Hospitality Management. The students are grouped into teams and challenged to develop an entrepreneurship project, which consists of four different steps: (1) the idea discovery/generation; (2) from the idea to the business model; (3) from the business model to the business plan; (4) from the business plan to the preparation of the application to the Net UPT (business incubator of UPT). Throughout the EHIS Method©, students have to successfully go through a variety of assessment elements, held at different times, encompassing different activities and skills and involving different types of evaluators: (a) teachers/mentors; (b) university professors and (c) potential investors.


A method is proposed for deriving the form of a turbulence-distorted wave front from Shack–Hartmann data by modeling the polychromatic imaging process in detail. In this way a higher order of reconstruction is possible than by methods that use only the barycenters (centers of gravity) of the individual spots. Simulations are presented showing the possible gains for a range of conditions of turbulence and photon flux. When photon noise is negligible the residual phase errors are approximately three times smaller than what is achievable by use of only the barycenters. The choice of functions for representing wave-front distortions is also considered with regard to the quality of the reconstruction obtained and to numerical efficiency.


Toll-like receptors (TLRs) have been implicated in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. We examined the function of TLR3 in glucose metabolism and type 2 diabetes–related phenotypes in animals and humans. TLR3 is highly expressed in the pancreas, suggesting that it can influence metabolism. Using a diet-induced obesity model, we show that TLR3-deficient mice had enhanced glycemic control, facilitated by elevated insulin secretion. Despite having high insulin levels, Tlr3−/− mice did not experience disturbances in whole-body insulin sensitivity, suggesting that they have a robust metabolic system that manages increased insulin secretion. Increase in insulin secretion was associated with upregulation of islet glucose phosphorylation as well as exocytotic protein VAMP-2 in Tlr3−/− islets. TLR3 deficiency also modified the plasma lipid profile, decreasing VLDL levels due to decreased triglyceride biosynthesis. Moreover, a meta-analysis of two healthy human populations showed that a missense single nucleotide polymorphism in TLR3 (encoding L412F) was linked to elevated insulin levels, consistent with our experimental findings. In conclusion, our results increase the understanding of the function of innate receptors in metabolic disorders and implicate TLR3 as a key control system in metabolic regulation.


Based on a longitudinal case study, we aim to understand how serial entrepreneurs can foster the development of born-global ventures. We consider a born-global start-up as the final stage of the learning process for a serial entrepreneur, advancing propositions regarding the importance of prior entrepreneurial experience for born-global venture creation and growth. We suggest that the serial entrepreneur's previous entrepreneurial experiences could substitute for the lack of knowledge, opportunity recognition and social networks of a born-global start-up. Thus, we recognize the necessity of a shift in the unit of analysis, from born-global start-up to a global serial entrepreneur, suggesting to follow a dynamic approach when the born-global start-up issue is discussed.


In construction site, many of building materials and structural members are moved and positioned by the crane operator. Due to the limitation of eyesight of a crane operator, it is not possible to place the precise position. Especially, nowadays, PC construction and prefabricated construction need a precise positioning system to reduce construction time and increase construction accuracy [1]. Vision-based 6-DOF estimation system can provide the relative position between two construction members in real time. Since the sizes of general construction members are normally more than 3m, displacement information about only one spot is not enough as the linear error is proportional to the distance from where the angular error occurs. Therefore, the multiple vision sensor approach will be effective to estimate an overall displacement of large construction member. One module consist of pair of camera and planar marker. We assume that this system will be applied for PC slab construction or replacement construction for repair. Two cameras are installed in the shear pockets on both ends of the PC slab whose width is about 10 m and the corresponding markers to cameras are installed the support beam where PC slab is supposed to be placed. Each datum from each sensor module will be transmitted to main computer using wireless technology and fused by Monte Carlo Localization (MCL) algorithm by which optimal pose information is estimated. doi: 10.12783/SHM2015/53


HIV / AIDS is leaving millions of children orphaned and living in situations of acute vulnerability. The idea that growing numbers of children orphaned by AIDS could pose a serious threat to individual and communal security in some African countries has gained substantial currency over the last five years. Consequently, few discussions on the effects of HIV / AIDS now fail to mention the seemingly common-sense connection between rising numbers of impoverished orphans and increasing levels of crime and conflict.
This connection is generally presented as a neat, linear relationship. Is this the case? Do children orphaned by AIDS represent a unique threat to security and stability or do they pose a predominantly humanitarian problem? Are there factors that may make a difference in determining the ultimate impact of the epidemic for both parentless young people and society? This paper explores these questions in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.


The problem of disabilities is growing all over the world. Nevertheless, some progress has been made since the year 1981 was proclaimed International Year of Disabled Persons. In 2001 people living with disabilities accounted for 5% of the South African population. Because of their disabilities or the perception society has regarding their potential, this population is mostly economically inactive. This study assesses the relationship between disabilities and the adverse socio-economic impacts. Both descriptive and logistics regression models are used to understand the problem by exploring the data of the 2006 South African General Household Survey. The overall people living with disabilities and aged 15–49 years is estimated at 1742 (961 males and 780 females), when exploring people with disabilities findings reveal that the Western Cape Province's disabled are mostly affected by physical disabilities (40%). People living with disabilities are 3.5 times (p < 0.01) more likely to suffer from illness/injuries (flu, tuberculosis (TB) and severe cough, diarrhea, blood pressure and HIV/AIDS) than others. Therefore, the study aims to contribute to a better condition of people living with disabilities in South Africa by informing and possibly changing the public perception about them.


Extracted from text ... 46
CONGRESS REPORT
The SA Heart 2003 Conference was held in Cape Town
from 24 to 28 October 2003, at the newly opened Cape
Town International Convention Centre. The theme of the
conference was heart failure: prevention, control and
repair. Various interest groups, societies and individuals
involved in cardiovascular health care and research contributed
to putting together the programme for the meeting.
The wide variety of groupings contributed to a programme
which covered a wide range of topics for cardiovascular
medicine. I concentrated on the one day in the programme
which seemed to have particular relevance to general practice. ..


In 2009, commercially exploitable reserves of oil were found in the Albertine Lakes Basin in Uganda. Along with a number of new oil exporters, Uganda now faces the challenge of using the new resources to advance its development agenda, while avoiding the corrosive effects oil often has on governance. This paper considers the tradeoffs and potential impact of alternative uses of the oil rent. It argues that alternative approaches towards absorbing rents should be judged from two perspectives – the direct impact on growth and living standards, and the indirect effect on governance. The Ugandan authorities favor using the oil revenues to build much-needed infrastructure; while this could have very large benefits, evidence of Uganda's already deteriorating governance and mounting corruption raise questions about its capacity to wisely invest the oil revenues. This paper considers an alternative—distributing oil rents to the population through cash transfers—as a potential tool to mitigate some of the governance risks associated with oil revenues by giving Ugandan citizens a stake in their own resource wealth, and considers the strengths and limitations of such an approach.


I elicit causal effects of spousal observability and communication on financial choices of married individuals in the Philippines. When choices are private, men put money into their personal accounts. When choices are observable, men commit money to consumption for their own benefit. When required to communicate, men put money into their wives' account. These strong treatment effects on men, but not women, appear related more to control than to gender: men whose wives control household savings respond more strongly to the treatment and women whose husbands control savings exhibit the same response. Changes in information and communication interact with underlying control to produce mutable gender-specific outcomes. (JEL D13, D14, J12, J16, O15)


Time-of-flight (TOF) cameras are becoming increasingly popular for many mobile applications. To obtain accurate depth maps, TOF cameras must emit many pulses of light, which consumes a lot of power and lowers the battery life of mobile devices. However, lowering the number of emitted pulses results in noisy depth maps. To obtain accurate depth maps while reducing the overall number of emitted pulses, we propose an algorithm that adaptively varies the number of pulses to infrequently obtain high power depth maps and uses them to help estimate subsequent low power ones. To estimate these depth maps, our technique uses the previous frame by accounting for the 3D motion in the scene. We assume that the scene contains independently moving rigid objects and show that we can efficiently estimate the motions using just the data from a TOF camera. The resulting algorithm estimates 640 × 480 depth maps at 30 frames per second on an embedded processor. We evaluate our approach on data collected with a pulsed TOF camera and show that we can reduce the mean relative error of the low power depth maps by up to 64% and the number of emitted pulses by up to 81%.


Despite growing academic interest in refugees and international humanitarian responses, the influx of refugees from the Central African Republic into eastern Cameroon, ongoing since 2005, has received little attention in scholarship or even in popular media. Though we know much about what can go wrong in large-scale, politicized refugee crises, less is known about how the refugee response works in more "everyday" refugee situations to effectively address the needs of refugees and their host communities. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted among humanitarian NGOs during a semester in Cameroon, I examine the implications for the host country of the routinized response to a relatively straightforward refugee crisis. I argue that the situation in eastern Cameroon contributes much to our understanding of how the international community can better assist refugees around the world. My analysis of this response has yielded three key insights. First, a professionalized international refugee regime has responded using best practices built on experience, which suggests a cultural shift toward evidence-based approaches to humanitarian interventions. Second, integration of refugees into local communities has benefits that extend beyond the humanitarian space in which refugee services are administered. These benefits impact Cameroon's processes of nation-building. Third, this nation-building reinforces Cameroon's position as a state within the international community, fitting it more firmly into what scholar Liisa Malkki calls the "national order of things."


Sixty-four years ago, the Supreme Court decided SEC v. W.J. Howey, crafting a definition for one form of security, known as an investment contract. The Supreme Court's definition of investment contract in Howey is flexible, consistent with the Congressional approach to defining the broader concept of what constitutes a security. This choice of adopting a flexible definition for investment contract is not without cost, and raises the specter of inconsistent interpretation and/or application by the lower courts that threatens to undermine the utility of the Howey test itself as a trigger for investor protection. The intentional breadth and adaptability of the definition of investment contract necessarily leads to complex and fact-intensive judicial inquiries in the application thereof, and allows the possibility of inconsistent results between and among the various courts engaging in such inquiries, creating the possibility of similarly-situated litigants winding up with dissimilar outcomes. Examples of these disparate outcomes are present in a number of industries, including the viatical settlement industry. Viatical settlements are a form of "asset-backed securities" under which purchasers buy the right to receive death benefits under life insurance policies from policyholders. These days, the very words "asset-backed security" may cause the public to recoil in horror, thinking of the sub-prime mortgage debacle and Bernard Madoff being led off in handcuffs while his devastated victims sob on the evening news. But not all asset-backed securities are problematic, and when undertaken legally and ethically, these interests can be solid investment vehicles, providing needed liquidity to the capital markets. As the financial markets continue to grow and innovate, new forms of asset-backed securities will likely be created, and the potential for inconsistent treatment of similarly-situated investors in these asset-backed securities arguably increases, prompting the question explored herein of whether the definition of investment contract in the Howey test is too flexible to further the underlying legislative intent of the federal securities laws to protect investors through mandatory disclosure and anti-fraud liability. At present, investors and issuers can have no certainty as to the absolute parameters of the test or how any given court will articulate or interpret the definition of investment contract. The test has been burdened by judicially-imposed nuances, as judges try to give meaning to the Supreme Court's words, and as a consequence, has triggered uneven applications. This Article challenges the Howey test in light of today's increasingly complicated and volatile securities markets, focusing on whether the underlying legislative goals of the federal securities laws are still met by the Howey test, as currently construed by the courts. The Article ultimately concludes that the benefits of the flexibility of the Howey test outweigh the costs in terms of dissimilar results for similar investments and that the uneven applications of the Howey test by courts should be considered necessary collateral damage acceptable in light of the significant protections still triggered by the Howey test.


Electro active textile fibers are key components in smart and interactive textile applications. In our previous study, we produced poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) coat edviscose fibers by using oxidative chemical vapordeposition (OCVD) technique. We tried FeCl3 as oxidant and found optimum reaction conditions at which better electrical as well as mechanical properties of conductive fibers could be achieved.


Modeling, rendering, and animating realistic machines with Blender 3D Walk through the complete process of building amazing machinesModel and create mechanical models and vehicles with detailed designsAdd advanced global illumination options to the renders created in Blender 3D using YafaRay and LuxRenderCreate machines such as a handgun, a steam punk spacecraft, and a transforming robot In Detail Blender 3D provides all the features you need to create super-realistic 3D models of machines for use in artwork, movies, and computer games. Blender 3D 2.49 Incredible Machines gives you step-by-step instructions for building weapons, vehicles, robots, and more.This book will show you how to use Blender 3D for mechanical modeling and product visualization. Through the pages of the book, you will find a step-by-step guide to create three different projects: a fantasy weapon, a spacecraft, and a giant robot. Even though these machines are not realistic, you will be able to build your own sensible and incredible machines with the techniques that you will learn in this book along with the exercises and examples.All the three sections of this book, which cover three projects, are planned to have an increasing learning curve. The first project is about a hand weapon, and with that we can image a small-sized object with tiny details. This first part of the book will show you how to deal with these details and model them in Blender 3D.In the second project, we will create a spacecraft, adding a bit of scale to the project, and new materials and textures as well. With this project, we will be working with metal, glass, and other elements that make the spacecraft. Along with the object, a new space environment will be created in the book too.At the end we have a big and complex object, which is the transforming robot. This last part of the book will cover the modeling of two objects and show how you can make one transform into the other. The scale and number of objects in this project are quite big, but the same principles as in the other projects are applied here with a step-by-step guide on how to go through the workflow of the project. What you will learn from this book? Learn the tools and options to use YafaRay to render your imagesArrange a three-point light system, which produces light for renderings where a single object is the main focus of the imageCreate a steam punk spacecraft with minute detailing and more UV Mapping techniques to add extra realism to the modelUse Edge Modeling to create, place, and shape different sections and then connect them together to create a base modelProduce cables and wires by using a combination of curves and surfacesMake use of textures to generate shadows and the impression of depth in modelsMake an object look old by adding dust to its textureUse, set up, and create combustion flares with particles in Blender 3DSet up composite nodes, and create glare and glow effects with themCreate a photorealistic space environment for the spacecraft with stars and planets using vertices and Halo materials, and add textures to themCreate a curve, and make any type of object use this curve as a path for animation in BlenderConstruct an amazing robot that can change its shape and transform itself into a military vehicle Approach This book presents practical tutorials and focuses on fun projects. It contains a lot of serious training material, but is presented in a fun and entertaining way. Who this book is written for? This book targets game designers/developers, artists, and product designers who want to create realistic images, 3D models, and videos of machines. You are expected to have experience with basic Blender operation, as the book is not a 'getting started' tutorial.


The Abstract is essential. It should be printed on a separate page (up to 200 words; any abbreviations must be explained) and structured as follows: Background: Rationale and purpose of the study. Methods: How the study was performed (samples and/or population, procedures, analytical methods). Results: The main findings with specific data and their statistical significance, when applicable. Conclusions: A succinct interpretation of the data presented. Abstracts of Reviews: Should be divided into the following subsections: Background, Summary and Key Messages. The Background should provide a brief clinical context for the review and is followed by the Summary, which should include a concise description of the main topics covered in the text. The Key Messages encapsulate the main conclusions of the review.s of Reviews: Should be divided into the following subsections: Background, Summary and Key Messages. The Background should provide a brief clinical context for the review and is followed by the Summary, which should include a concise description of the main topics covered in the text. The Key Messages encapsulate the main conclusions of the review. Text: The following are typical main headings used in the text: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Abbreviations must be defined where first mentioned in the abstract and the main text. Footnotes: Avoid using footnotes in the text. When essential, they are numbered consecutively and typed at the bottom of the appropriate page. In the tables, footnotes are indicated by superscript numerals. Acknowledgments and funding: This section (when appropriate) should list all sources of funding for the research presented in the manuscript, and substantive contributions of individuals for assistance with the research or manuscript (authors are responsible for en-


Large quantities of oily wastewaters can be generated from the activities and processes in the petroleum industry which draining of these effluents not only pollutes the environment but also reduces the yield of oil and water. Therefore, development of treatment processes for petroleum industry wastewaters is vital in order to prevent serious environmental damage and provide a source of water for beneficial use. Reverse osmosis (RO) can be the most common membrane process used for desalination from oily wastewater and can produce water suitable for reuse at the petroleum industry. In this study, the application of RO technology for the petroleum industry wastewater treatment in different laboratory, pilot, field, and industrial scales have been reviewed. In addition, membrane fouling control, performance efficiency, treatment system configurations, pretreatment methods, quality of treated water, and economic issues have been investigated. With mixtures as complex as petroleum industry wastewaters, membrane fouling becomes a significant hurdle to implement the RO-based purification system. Operating the system within the critical flux range or adding chemicals, and/or pretreatment can usually control membrane fouling. Salt rejection of RO membranes can be 99% or higher.


********** He discovered early on that people will put up with almost anything under the guise of archeology. Kent Flannery, 1982 What other scholarly activity has the panache of field archaeology? The airplane trips to exotic places, a dusty mound, the bustle of workers and wheelbarrows, neat square holes in tan earth yielding wreckage of lost civilizations or the occasional human limb. Good research is done in the Canadian Arctic and New Jersey, but the beloved excavations are in arid climates--long vistas, dry trenches, spicy food, good tans. Big is good, a big mound, a large city, a long record. Archaeologists' public image is second to none--the romantic movie hero, the John Noble Wilford write-up in the New York Times, a borrowed nuclear submarine to survey the floor of the Mediterranean, all earning adulation from the nine-to-fiver scrunched down in the next seat on the airplane. The costume alone is worth time on the cross in graduate school: a neocolonial big hat, epaulets and flap pockets on the shirt, and maybe beige pants with a tool belt like the Construction Worker wears in the Village People. ARCHAEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY Archaeology and geography aren't quite separate disciplines. (1) Work in the two fields can be very similar--with similar research questions, similar evidence, similar models, similar field methods. Similar scholarship is pursued about human use of the land, about patterns of economic and social activity, about ecological and subsistence enterprises, about cultural variation from place to place and time to time, and about the general mechanics of culture. Many of the skills that make good physical geographers are important to field archaeologists: spatial perception, three-dimensional visualization, drafting, and a fondness for the concrete. Even the tools are shared--shovel, transit, Munsell soil-color book, geographic information systems. Geography and archaeology are clearly kindred fields. But what kind of kin are they? Siblings, perhaps? With unspoken shared values, siblings can be highly cooperative and communicate efficiently. Once a project has begun, perhaps marital metaphors are the best: mutually dependent and complementary--and maybe darkly combative. Or is the kinship too often parent and child, between the archaeologist--principal investigator and the geographer-consultant? My experience has been that collaboration with archaeologists can be delightful or frustrating or both, like many family activities (Figure 1). (2) Geographers should recognize the great strength that comes from the balance between the two fields--archaeologists' well-developed sense of time, geographers' strong sense of place and space; archaeologists' minute focus, geographers' regional view; archaeologists' predisposition to see human agency behind the characteristics of the natural world, geographers' readiness to see the influence of nature on human activity--and geographers should be aware of the contrasts and conflicts that derive from these same differences. At its best the symbiosis is powerful. Numerous archaeological projects have benefited from the contributions of geographers (for example, Butzer 1976; Roberts 1998), and many others could benefit, though this is not the venue where that argument needs to be made. For having explored the surface widely, physical geographers can often recognize soil horizons, surface processes, minor landforms, depositional structures, and earth materials that are novel to archaeologists. Geographers are used to looking at larger pieces of the landscape than are archaeologists, and to seeing connections between distant locales and events. Geographers benefit, as well, from working with archaeologists. Environmental geographers get to see landscapes that have evolved rapidly under the influence of humans, that have been excavated into clear and well-dated sections--some horizons are known to the day of the week--and with cultural markers like shards or lithics spread across the landscape to correlate widely spread sections. …


The objective of this paper is to present a survey of trade issues in agriculture from the perspective of developing countries. Developing countries are a large percentage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, and agriculture is critical for their economic growth, poverty alleviation, food security, and environmental sustainability. First, this paper identifies trends in production, consumption, and trade of food and agriculture over the last decades. Some of the significant developments include the emergence of oilseeds and fruits and vegetables as the main exports from developing countries, replacing traditional exports such as sugar, coffee and cocoa. The trends also show a worsening of developing countries' net trade position due in part to income growth and population pressures, but also to economic policies in general, and trade policies in particular, both in developing and industrialized countries. Second, this paper focuses on some of the main development issues linked to the WTO agricultural negotiations. The objective is to align the different legal components and subcomponents of the negotiations under the Agreement on Agriculture, with developing countries' final objectives of sustainable economic growth, poverty alleviation, and food security. This paper concludes that the problems for developing countries are not legal constraints under the AoA, but the lack of financial and human resources and institutional capabilities. To link negotiations to their development goals, developing countries must consider the issue of funding. Finally, developing countries, most of which have embarked in unilateral liberalization over the last decade, should ask that the higher levels of protection in industrialized countries be reduced first.


We present reliable adaptive service-driven efficient routing (muRACER), a routing protocol suite based on a novel service-oriented design for sensor-actuator networks where nodes expose their capabilities to applications as a service profile. A node's service profile consists of a set of services (i.e., sensing and actuation capabilities) that it provides and the quality-of-service (QoS) parameters associated with those services (delay, accuracy, freshness, etc.). muRACER uses an efficient service-aware routing approach that aggressively reduces downstream traffic (from the sink to the network's nodes) by translating service profiles into efficient paths for queries. To support QoS, muRACER dynamically adapts each node's routing behavior and service profile according to the current context of that node, i.e., number of pending queries and number and type of messages to be routed. Finally, muRACER improves end-to-end reliability through a scalable reputation-based approach in which each node is able to locally estimate the next hop of the most reliable path to the sink. Service- and context-aware reliable routing enhances the network's efficiency and effectiveness (satisfaction of applications' QoS requirements). We implemented muRACER on top of TinyOS and conducted several experiments that confirmed muRACER's ability with regard to each of its design objectives.


An important part of ethics consists in the attempt to find a theoretical framework for the sincere moral discourse of ordinary people; to present, if possible, a consistent account of the ways in which such terms as "good," "right," "duty," "obligation" are used in moral contexts. It is surprising that it should ever have been thought possible to account for such utterances as expressions of emotion. For the most part nothing could be less like the sighs, groans, shouts, and chuckles with which we normally express emotion than are our assertions about right and wrong, good and bad; these are usually the outcome of careful consideration and they are almost invariably expressed in cognitive terms. That is, we describe ourselves as "thinking out what we ought to do," "coming to a conclusion as to what is right," "knowing the difference between right and wrong," "recognizing our obligations," "seeing our duty." When we do employ "emotive" words in these contexts it is almost always for the purpose of expressing anger or remorse or disgust with regard to our own moral lapses or those of others. Moral utterances, in short, have all the appearance of being statements of fact, and statements, moreover, which cannot be made in other than moral terms.


Progress in diagnostic radiology and pathology during the past decade has changed the approach to diagnosis of mediastinal masses. Diagnosis by CT-guided needle biopsy (CTNB) has replaced open biopsy and mediastinoscopy, CTNB of mediastinal masses is accurate, reliable and safe. It is done under local anesthesia, in ambulatory patients and is tolerated well. Between July 1987 and April 1997 we performed 67 biopsies in 63 patients aged 6-86 years; 33 were women (average age 40.8 years) and 30 men (average age 38.3 years). 57 of 67 biopsies were core biopsies for histologic examination and 10 were cytologic biopsies. In this report we concentrate on the 57 core biopsies. 41 of the biopsies were diagnostic; in 3 of them no evidence of malignancy was found. In 38 of the biopsies a tumor, malignant or benign, or an inflammatory process was diagnosed. In 24 of the biopsies the diagnosis was lymphoma. In 16 there was not enough material for diagnosis. We repeated the biopsy in 4 of the latter due to high suspicion of malignancy and reached a diagnosis in all 4 of them. In 6 the diagnosis was reached only on operation. The biopsies were from all compartments of the mediastinum. There were no complications such as pneumothorax or bleeding, except for 1 case of mild hemoptysis. In conclusion, CTNB of mediastinal lesions is accurate, safe and relatively cheap. In 72% a diagnosis was reached in the first attempt and a second attempt raised the diagnostic rate to 79%. We believe that CTNB should be the first step in tissue diagnosis of mediastinal masses, including those under high suspicion of lymphoma.


A method for validating expert systems, based on psychological validation literature and Turing's "imitation game," is applied to a flexible benefits expert system. Expert system validation entails determining if a difference exists between expert and novice decisions (construct validity), if the system uses the same inputs and processes to make its decisions as experts (content validity), and if the system produces the same results as experts (criterionrelated validity). If these criteria are satisfied, then the system is indistinguishable from experts for its domain and satisfies Turing's "imitation game." The methods developed in this paper are applied to a human resource expert system, Personal Choice Expert (PCE), designed to help employees choose a benefits package in a flexible benefits system. Expert and novice recommendations are compared to those generated by PCE. PCE's recommendations do not significantly differ from those given by experts. High inter-expert agreement exists for some benefit recommendations (e.g. Dental Care and Long-Term Disability) but not for others (e.g. Short-Term Disability and Life Insurance). Insights offered by this method are illustrated and examined.


This Article explores the need for an increase in inter-interdisciplinary legal scholarship, suggesting that legal scholars from different traditions and backgrounds need to sit down at the same table and start talking to one another. The author presents an argument in favor of an integrated model of legal scholarship in which norms of intellectual modesty and cooperation fuel the development of interdisciplinary work. He develops a functional hierarchy which allows scholars to start with the first, threshold question, then work down to the operational details as they carefully consider our accumulated learning about why and how people actually act. After explaining the various functions in the hierarchy, he explains that the vision of the hierarchy creates a structure within which vigorous, highly interactive, and highly productive conversations can take place. Finally, the author concludes that the unifying theme of legal scholarship — multifaceted learning about social governance — offers legal academics a golden opportunity to break out of their silos and engage one another.


African Studies, Center for As a National Resource Center for African Studies, the mission of the center is to promote excellence in teaching and research on Africa in all the disciplines at the University of Florida. The Center for African Studies also disseminates knowledge about Africa to the wider community through an integrated outreach program to schools, colleges, community groups, and businesses. Website (https://africa.ufl.edu/)


Eulenspiegel, the weekly humor periodical of the German Democratic Republic, prints considerable satire directed toward the United States. The essay examines the extent of that material, its major themes, and its basic techniques. The satire provides satisfying contrast to domestically directed satire, which addresses far less serious problems, and contributes to the general propaganda campaign. The predictability and repetitiousness of the material, however, greatly reduces its satiric quality and effectiveness.


A systematic and comprehensive introduction to the study of nonlinear dynamical systems, in both discrete and continuous time, for nonmathematical students and researchers working in applied fields. An understanding of linear systems and the classical theory of stability are essential although basic reviews of the relevant material are provided. Further chapters are devoted to the stability of invariant sets, bifurcation theory, chaotic dynamics and the transition to chaos. In the final two chapters the authors approach the subject from a measure-theoretical point of view and compare results to those given for the geometrical or topological approach of the first eight chapters. Includes about one hundred exercises. A Windows-compatible software programme called DMC, provided free of charge through a website dedicated to the book, allows readers to perform numerical and graphical analysis of dynamical systems. Also available on the website are computer exercises and solutions to selected book exercises. See www.cambridge.org/economics/resources