Since 2017, many U.S. cities have implemented taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to decrease consumption of sugary beverages and raise revenue. In this paper, we analyze household receipt data to examine the impact of SSB taxes on households' purchases of taxed and untaxed beverages in the four largest U.S. cities with such taxes: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; and Oakland, California. We estimate the impact of these taxes by comparing changes in monthly household purchases in the treatment cities to changes in one of two comparison groups: 1) areas adjacent to the treatment cities; or 2) a matched set of households nationally. We find that an increase in the beverage tax rate of 1 cent per ounce decreases household purchases of taxed beverages by 53.0 ounces per month or 12.2 percent. This impact is small in magnitude and consistent with a reduction in individual consumption of 5 calories per day per household member and eventual reduction in weight of 0.5 pounds. When we examine results separately by city, we find that the decline was concentrated in Philadelphia, where the tax decreased purchases by 27.7 percent. We do not find impacts of the taxes in the other three cities combined.


The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystems Studies (CREST) project (http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/) provides science that helps resource managers tasked with the stewardship of coral reef resources. Coral reef organisms are very sensitive to high and low water-temperature extremes. It is critical to precisely know water temperatures experienced by corals and associated plants and animals that live in the dynamic nearshore environment to document thresholds in temperature tolerance. This dataset provides underwater temperature data recorded every fifteen minutes from 2009 to 2015 at five off-shore coral reefs in the Florida Keys, USA. From northeast to southwest, these sites are Fowey Rocks (Biscayne National Park), Molasses Reef (Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, FKNMS), Crocker Reef (FKNMS), Sombrero Reef (FKNMS), and Pulaski Shoal (Dry Tortugas National Park). A portion of the dataset included here was interpreted in conjunction with coral and algal calcification rates in Kuffner et al. (2013).


Fourier velocity encoding (FVE) is an alternative to phase contrast imaging (PC). FVE provides considerably higher SNR than PC, due to its higher dimensionality and larger voxel sizes. Furthermore, FVE is robust to partial voluming, as it resolves the velocity distribution within each voxel. FVE data are usually acquired with low spatial resolution, due to scan-time restrictions associated with its higher dimensionality. FVE is capable of providing the velocity distribution associated with a large voxel, but does not directly provides a velocity map. Knowing the velocity distribution on a voxel is important for accurate diagnosis of stenosis in vessels on the scale of spatial resolution. Velocity maps, however, are useful for visualizing the actual blood flow through a vessel and can be used in different studies and diagnosis. In this context, this chapter deals with two aspects of the FVE MRI technique: acceleration and estimation of velocity map. First, are introduced six different acceleration techniques that can be applied to FVE acquisition. Methods such as variable-density sampling and compressive sampling. Then, is proposed a novel method to estimate velocity maps with high spatial resolution from low-resolution FVE data. Finally, it can be concluded that FVE datasets can be acquired in time scale compa- rable to PC, it contains more velocity information, since it resolves a velocity distribution within a voxel, and also provides an accurate estimation of the velocity map.


Direct torque control with space vector modulation (DTC-SVM) is one of the most popular methods in the case of permanent magnet synchronous motor drives due to its excellent torque-control capabilities. This method facilitates a very high torque-control dynamic performance which is an especially important requirement in the field of servoand robotic applications, thus making DTC-SVM a natural choice in these cases. In this article a novel Improved Modified DTC-SVM (IMDTC-SVM) method is presented and it is proven that this method has a very high overload-capability and is stable during overload-conditions, while the torque-control dynamics and the torque-ripple generated are practically identical with those of the classical DTC-SVM and the MDTC-SVM.


Abstract: Referendums have been portrayed as a favorite tool of populists and autocratic leaders. The empirical evidence, however, does not support this reading. The total number of plebiscites in dictatorships has fallen. Well-functioning constitutional constraints, rather than populist agitation, have been the driving forces behind many referendums in democracies. Further, where populist leaders have pushed for referendums, the resulting votes have not generally gone in their favor. The referendum has generally been a mechanism for strengthening democracy, a people's shield even when governments have attempted to wield it as a sword.


Are you a software developer? Do you manage software developers? Are you using scrum? Are you thinking of using scrum? Then you must have this book! Scrum is the most popular agile software development process in use today, but implementing it has proven difficult for many people. Dan and Doug wrote this book in order to help people with their implementations of Scrum. Both Dan and Doug have trained and coached thousands of people, most of whom are already using Scrum. In spite of the fact that they have read about Scrum, have been trained or coached in Scrum, and are using Scrum, their most common complaint is that they need help to do it right. And, Dan and Doug have found, many (if not most) of them need some help. This book is for them and others like them. This book is not an introductory text. Dan and Doug assume that those who read this book know, or think they know, something about Scrum. This book takes a deep, exploratory, look into the Scrum framework, and offers advice about how to think about it, and how to use it. Some of this advice is philosophical, some is pragmatic, some is practical, and some of it is controversial. The controversies happen because Dan and Doug are brutally consistent and true to the essence of Scrum. This book is not the result of an academic exercise; every suggestion or conclusion in this book is grounded in real-life issues they have encountered, and suggestions that they have made for teams and people they have coached or trained. This book contains both pragmatic advice and the philosophical underpinnings justifying that advice. Scrum is a development framework that is very demanding of its adherents. Scrum is easy to understand, but doing it successfully (one might even say right) is very difficult. Scrums out of the box process is just good enough to allow Teams, Organizations, and Individuals to develop software successfully while their process personalities are maturing and becoming more scrummish. Once their personalities have changed, then they can adapt Scrum for their own situations and realities. This book focuses on helping you become more scrummish and discusses some of the adaptations you will make as you mature.


In the last decade there has been a steady growth in the number of federally incarcerated people aging in prisons. These individuals have a long list of medical needs while they present a low risk to communities. However, this category of people tends to spend more time in prison than their younger counterparts and face difficulties in being released. Using original empirical data, as well as the existing literature, I argue that a high number of these individuals need to be released through a compassionate release mechanism. This article has two purposes. One is to show that compassionate release does not really exist in Canada. Section 121 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act — parole by exception — is the closest Canada has to release on humanitarian grounds, but it fails to fulfill this role. The second purpose is to argue that the lack of a functional compassionate release provision is unacceptable, particularly in the context of the increase among the prison population of medical conditions associated with aging. I maintain that a system which is not flexible enough to consider extreme post-incarceration circumstances of an offender, and does not allow for a modification of the place where individuals serve their sentence based on these circumstances, is disconnected from any medical, penological, humanitarian, or constitutional requirements. Finally, I provide a set of recommendations for the redrafting of section 121.


The well-known fixed-target-signal-to-interference-ratio (SIR)-tracking power control (TPC) algorithm provides all users with their given feasible fixed target SIRs but cannot improve the system throughput, even if additional resources are available. The opportunistic power control (OPC) algorithm significantly improves the system throughput but cannot guarantee the minimum acceptable SIR for all users (unfairness). To optimize the system throughput subject to a given lower bound for the users' SIRs, we present a distributed dynamic target-SIR tracking power control algorithm (DTPC) for wireless cellular networks by using TPC and OPC in a selective manner. In the proposed DTPC, when the effective interference (the ratio of the received interference to the path gain) is less than a given threshold for a given user, that user opportunistically sets its target SIR (which is a decreasing function of the effective interference) to a value higher than its minimum acceptable target SIR; otherwise, it keeps its target SIR fixed at its minimum acceptable level. We show that the proposed algorithm converges to a unique fixed point starting from any initial transmit power level in both synchronous and asynchronous power-updating cases. We also show that our proposed algorithm not only guarantees the (feasible) minimum acceptable target SIRs for all users (in contrast to the OPC) but also significantly improves the system throughput, compared with the TPC. Furthermore, we demonstrate that DTPC, along with TPC and OPC, can be utilized to apply different priorities of transmission and service requirements among users. Finally, when users are selfish, we provide a game-theoretic analysis of our DTPC algorithm via a noncooperative power control game with a new pricing function.


Honour killings in Sindh are result of backward attitudes, male-oriented suspicion, cultural customs and rural ecology. The perpetrators are male-dominated actors, usually husbands, brothers and fathers. The victims are excessively married females young ranging from ages twenty to thirty one. Pistol, gun and hatchet are the main methods of the killing. Honour killings are customarily prevalent in Upper Sindh. This study explores the causation and characteristics of honour killings in district Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan. Theoretically, people become violent when they are threatened and fearing that they are losing their selfworth(Toch,1993). The incidence could be controlled through mass awareness, attitudinal change, weapon control, community-oriented policing and women playing active role in Criminal Justice System.


Organisations are finding it increasingly more difficult to keep abreast with the pace of change. The continuous rise in the number of business opportunities and the increase in global competition require firms to combine internal and external learning processes to renew and reconfigure existing capabilities and knowledge to enable them to meet environmental demands and to innovate. This study aims to unravel the complex linkage between internal learning capacity and absorptive capacity and at exploring the joint effect of both knowledge generation processes on innovation capacity. This study also proposes innovation capacity as an antecedent of business performance. Using data from 952 industrial Spanish firms and the technique of structural equation modelling, we provide evidence on the joint effect of internal learning capacity and absorptive capacity on innovation capacity. We also show that innovation capacity acts as a catalyst for the effect of learning capacities on business performance.


A basic premise of inter-organisational research, from a number of different theoretical perspectives, is that selected organisations should work in harmony rather than competition with each other in order to enhance business success. From this perspective, a review of the literature reveals that three related topics are co-operation, coordination, and specific assets. Yet these constructs have not been examined together in empirical research. This study examines the relationship between these focal constructs and two antecedents (trust and commitment) and one consequent (satisfaction). As predicted, commitment leads to co-operation, coordination, and specific assets. Yet, only co-operation and coordination leads to satisfaction with the relationship. Although trust leads to co-operation, trust has a negative relationship with specific assets, which in turn, leads to lower levels of satisfaction with the relationship.


This study provides a summary of studies of user resistance to information systems
and identifies workaround activity as an understudied and distinct but related
phenomenon. Previous studies of resistance have categorised the majority of
incidences of non-compliance as resistance and have largely failed to address the
relationship between the motivation for deviation from procedure and the
associated workaround activity.
This study develops, through several iterations, a composite model of resistance and
workaround using data collected from two case study sites.
The data has been analysed according to established procedures and provides
support for the identification of four antecedent conditions. The final model
distinguishes two separate and distinct stages in resistant behaviours and provides
evidence of the application of this theory from the two case study settings.
Furthermore, the study recognises, with recourse to theory, that multiple
interpretations of these behaviours is probable in organisations and that ignorance
of these multiple interpretations may be a further antecedent condition
underpinning of non-compliant behaviour


Abstract: A study was undertaken to explore the perceptions of patients and their families undergoing day surgery

Methods: 145 patients and 100 carers from 2 different day surgery units were interviewed on three occasions: in pre-operative assessment clinic, 48 hours after surgery, and one month after surgery. Semi-structured interviews were conducted tape-recorded, transcribed and analysed

Results: Overwhelmingly the carers were highly satisfied with day surgery. However 32 patients raised some concerns. These centred mainly on the perceived lack of care after the patients were discharged. Only 9 carers reported negative experiences they had encountered on the day of surgery. 5 of these involved incidents related to the anaesthetic and four related to other unexpected events happening on the day of surgery,

 Conclusions Although this was a relatively small sample of patients further studies need to be undertaken to ascertain patients and carers responses regarding care after discharge. As the complexity of surgical procedures are set to increase it is important that patients have access to adequate support following discharge.


A close analysis of the specifically cinematographic procedure in Akira Kurosawa's "Dream" Crows reveals it as an articulated and insightful philosophical statement, endowed with general relevance concerning "natural" perception, phenomenological Erlebnis, mechanical image and aesthetic rapture. The antagonism between the Benjaminian lineage of a mechanical irreducibility of the cinematic image to anthropocentric categories, and the Cartesian tradition of a film-philosophy still relying on the equally irreducible structure of the intentional act, be it the one of a deeply embodied and enworlded counsciousness, in accounting for the essential structure of film and spectator (and their relation), i.e., the antagonism between the decentering primacy of the image and the self-centered primacy of perception, cannot be settled through a simple phenomenological shift from occularcentric, intentional counsciousness to its embodyment "in-the-world" as yet another carrier of intentionality. Still it remains to be explained what is it in the mechanical image that is able to so deeply affect the human flesh, and conversely, to what features in the human bodily experience is its mechanical other, the fascinating image, so successfuly adressing? It should be expected from the anti-Cartesianism of both the early and the late Merleau-Ponty the textual support for an approach to the essential condition of passivity in movie watching, that would be convergent with Benjamin. The chapter "Le sentir" in Phenomenologie de la perception will offer us the proper guide to elucidate what we are already perceiving and conceiving in Kurosawa's film, where the ex-static phenomenological body of the aesthetical contemplator "enters the frame" like the Benjaminian surgeon enters the body and like the painter — and always already like our deepest level of "sensing", previously to any act of cousciousness — "just looses himself in the scene before him". The Polichinello secret of cinema watching is nonetheless too evident to be seen, and that is where phenomenological description and reduction are still required.


Reed-Solomon (RS) coding and interleaving are usually combined to protect digital subscriber line (DSL) systems against impulse noise (IN) but introducing a long delay. It is proved that interleaving delay can be significantly reduced by error and erasure decoding (EED). This paper proposes an erasure marking technique to enhance the reliability of the erasure information in order to completely exploit the capability of EED for interleaving delay reduction. Selection of proper parameters for the proposed erasure marking technique is analyzed. Simulation results show that the proposed technique can guarantee efficient erasure marking and reduce the interleaving delay by a factor of two.


Modeling of the actuating element of the three axis galvanometer based actuator for Selective Laser Melting (SLM) additive manufacturing (AM) process is addressed in this paper. Dynamic behavior of the single axis galvanometer motor actuator is studied with physical considerations that improve basic linear and simplified existing models and extend the frequency domain validity of the proposed model. Optimal feedback and feedforward-type control structure synthesis is derived through a black-box identification of the actual industrial system for the models validation purpose. Responses of the developed models are compared to experimental data. Modeling errors coming from both the actuator behavior (angular position values) and the marking process qualities (marking and focusing planes geometrical parameters) are found to be sufficiently small to allow the developed simulator to be used as an entry point for future investigations on the the single axis motor and the complete three axis actuator system.


Radiation from electrical power lines leaks into the magnetosphere and stimulates strong very-low-frequency wave activity out to many earth radii. Observations in Antarctica show that wave activity induced by power lines tends to occur during the daytime when power consumption is high in the source region in eastern Canada. The wave frequency ranges from 1 to 8 kilohertz. This man-made wave activity may have significant effects on energetic electrons trapped in the earth's radiation belts.


Topologically ordered states are quantum states of matter with topological ground state degeneracy and quasi-particles carrying fractional quantum numbers and fractional statistics. The topological spin $\theta_a=2\pi h_a$ is an important property of a topological quasi-particle, which is the Berry phase obtained in the adiabatic self-rotation of the quasi-particle by $2\pi$. For chiral topological states with robust chiral edge states, another fundamental topological property is the edge state chiral central charge $c$. In this paper we propose a new approach to compute the topological spin and chiral central charge in lattice models by defining a new quantity named as the momentum polarization. Momentum polarization is defined on the cylinder geometry as a universal subleading term in the average value of a "partial translation operator". We show that the momentum polarization is a quantum entanglement property which can be computed from the reduced density matrix, and our analytic derivation based on edge conformal field theory shows that the momentum polarization measures the combination $h_a-\frac{c}{24}$ of topological spin and central charge. Numerical results are obtained for two example systems, the non-Abelian phase of the honeycomb lattice Kitaev model, and the $\nu=1/2$ Laughlin state of a fractional Chern insulator described by a variational Monte Carlo wavefunction. The numerical results verifies the analytic formula with high accuracy, and further suggests that this result remains robust even when the edge states cannot be described by a conformal field theory. Our result provides a new efficient approach to characterize and identify topological states of matter from finite size numerics.


Despite mounting evidence on the potential benefits of inbound open innovation, little is known about how firms purposefully manage inflows of knowledge. We investigate the use of two knowledge governance procedures—project management and knowledge matching—in collaborative inbound open innovation. Our findings suggest that, in addition to "knowledge-precursors," which the literature on open innovation and absorptive capacity has shown to be important for the integration of external knowledge, the firm's choice of knowledge governance matters for innovation performance.


This paper addresses the need to model recharge to groundwater systems at the scale of whole catchments. It looks at developing the right conceptual model of how water moves through a given landscape for both homogeneous and heterogeneous catchments. One-dimensional recharge models and three-dimensional recharge models are considered. Discussion of which recharge modelling approach to use take in consideration of the availability of data, the nature of the questions being asked, and the expertise of the investigators.


The construction lot U1/9 with "Altes Landgut" station is part of the extension of underground line U1 to the South from Reumannplatz station to Oberlaa station. The U1 will grow by 4.6 kilometres and five stations in forthcoming years. By 2017, it will be the longest underground line in Vienna (19.2 km). The Construction lot U1/9 consists of two app. 25 m and 30 m deep cut & cover shafts, two mined app. 120 m long platform tunnels, four mined single track running tunnels, several cross-passages and one emergency shaft. The tunnels are located below residential buildings, main roads and the very critical "Laaerberg Tunnel" of the A23 freeway. Main focus of the design of the sequential excavation method (NATM) for the tunnels was the minimisation of settlements and achieving high safety level. Prior tunnelling the buildings at surface and the Laaerberg Tunnel were improved partly regarding their structural capacity. The tunnels run mainly in the Miocene silt/clay layers which have a relatively homogeneous structure. They basically comprise of slightly sandy, grey, dark grey to grey-blue silts/clays, turning semi-solid to solid with increasing depth. A thick mixed layer of fine sand or sandy silt layers, 5 m thick on average, runs through the construction lot from approx. 20 m below ground level. It was necessary to pre-drain this layer by filter wells from surface. Extensive monitoring was foreseen to control the performance of the excavation works. The monitoring devices comprise bolt gauges for 3-D trigonometric shotcrete shell displacement measurements, surface settlement points, liquid levelling system on A23 tunnel, horizontal automatic inclinometers above the tunnel tubes underneath the A23 and in above the platform tunnel in places. The observed deformations during construction were within the predicted range.


: The problem of collaborative computing in the cloud environment has been well studied. Several approaches available to handle the issue of collaborative computing and still suffer to achieve higher performance in different QoS parameters. The performance of various simulation models has been analyzed for different parameters in this paper. To improve performance an efficient multi-attribute performance analysis model has been presented. The method first presents a collaborative content sharing strategy (CCSS) which maintains a dual copy of any resource in the cloud which has been accessed by different users. The method enforces an attribute-based update restriction (ABUR) algorithm which uses different keys to restrict malicious updating from different users. The public auditing has been enforced with ABUR and CCSS algorithms. The multi-attribute performance analysis model estimates various QoS parameters like throughput, completion, and public auditing on various simulation models of the cloud environment. A testbed is generated to simulate the performance of different cloud computing tools in a collaborative environment. The performance of simulation models has been measured and compared with the results of other models in detail.


Our study represents the first attempt to investigate whether board of directors' attributes have an impact on corporate tax planning in a developing country. Using a sample of 32 companies listed on the Tunisian stock exchange market from 2000 to 2007, results indicate that duality and diversity on the board of directors significantly influences tax planning. Duality exhibits a negative relation with effective tax rates. However, diversity on the board shows a positive association. We don't find relations between board size, independent directors and corporate tax planning. We contribute to the large literature on corporate tax planning by proposing that board's characteristics may have a substantial effect on reducing effective tax rates. We add a new angle to existing studies on corporate tax governance by involving board's diversity and sectorial effect. An implication of this study is that tax planning would be decreased by women's presence on the board of directors. In addition, tax incentives granted by the state to some sectors may improve tax strategies.


This paper presents a new linear optimal power flow model for three-phase unbalanced electrical distribution systems considering binary variables. The proposed formulation is a mixed-integer linear programming problem, aiming at minimizing the operational costs of the network while guaranteeing operational constraints. Two new linearizations for branch current and nodal voltage magnitudes are introduced. The proposed branch current magnitude linearization provides a discretization of the Euclidean norm through a set of intersecting planes, while the bus voltage magnitude approximation uses a linear combination of the L1 and the L norm. The proposed approach is compared to a nonlinear power flow for an unbalanced distribution system with fixed power injections. The obtained results showed errors of less than 4% for currents and 0.005% for voltages, demonstrating that satisfactory accuracy may be obtained using the proposed linearizations.


This paper provides a 3D ultrasound navigation system with a blood vessel network (BVN) reconstruction algorithm for microbubble delivery therapy, which manipulates microbubbles in blood vessel by acoustic radiation force of ultrasound, aiming to increase the efficiency of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and realize acoustic drug/gene delivery. To apply the technique in vivo, reconstruction of the BVN from 3D volume, such as bifurcation positions and flow direction, and visualization of the relative positions of the BVN and ultrasound field for microbubble manipulation are required. To address these issues, we have developed a 3D ultrasound navigation system to guide microbubbles in blood vessel. The novel navigation system consists of an ultrasound imaging device with a 2D array probe, an optical tracking device, a focused ultrasound transducer, and a Windows workstation with in-house navigation software. The system visualizes three-dimensionally both the BVN and the focal position of the transducer. When a 3D volume is acquired by an imaging device, the volume is automatically sent to the navigation system. Then, the system visualizes the volume and its bifurcations, which are estimated by 3D thinning processing. In this study, we examined the feasibility of the system by evaluating the guidance accuracy and microbubble induction rate. From the results, we confirm that microbubbles can be navigated by the system.


Poverty is widely understood to be a key factor that increases the propensity for individuals and households to be harmed by climatic shocks and stresses. This review explores recent literature at the nexus of climate change impacts, vulnerability, and poverty. Within this literature, poverty is increasingly recognized as a dynamic and multidimensional condition that is shaped by the interplay of social, economic, political, and environmental processes, individual and community characteristics, and historical circumstances. While climate change is never seen as a sole cause of poverty, research has identified numerous direct and indirect channels through which climatic variability and change may exacerbate poverty, particularly in less developed countries and regions. Recent studies have also investigated the effects of climate change on economic growth and poverty levels, formation of poverty traps, and poverty alleviation efforts. These studies demonstrate that climate change‐poverty linkages are complex, multifaceted, and context‐specific. Priority issues for future work include greater attention to factors that promote resilience of poor populations, a stronger focus on nonmonetary dimensions of poverty, investigation of the impacts of climate change on relative poverty and inequality, and exploration of the poverty impacts of extreme climate change.


Abstract:This essay examines Beacon Hill School, founded in 1927 by Bertrand and Dora Russell. I consider the roles of the school's two founders and the significance of the school as an educational and social experiment, situating its history in the context of the development of progressive education and of modernist ideas about marriage and childrearing in the first half of the twentieth century. Although Bertrand Russell played a crucial role in founding Beacon Hill, it was primarily Dora Russell's project, and it was exclusively hers from 1932 until the school ceased to exist in 1943.


Individual yarns within ropes can be subject to axial compression even though the rope as a whole is under tension. This leads to buckling in sharp kinks and then to failure by axial-compression fatigue after repeated cycling. An existing elastic theory, which applies to heated pipelines subject to lateral and axial restraint, predicts alternative modes of either continuous buckling or intermittent buckled zones alternating with slip zones. The mechanics of axially compressed yarns within ropes are similar, but the theory is extended to cover plastic deformation at hinge points. The predicted form of groups of sawtooth buckles, which curve at the ends of the zones into the slip lengths, is in agreement with observed effects. Numerical calculation gives quantitative predictions in agreement with experimental results, despite uncertainty about the correct values for bending stiffness and plastic-yield moment, depending on whether the yarns act as solid rods or freely slipping fibre assemblies.


For the first time, the Sunday Times bestseller Austerity Britain is available in one complete paperback volume. Coursing through Austerity Britain is an astonishing variety of voices - vivid, unselfconscious, and unaware of what the future holds. A Chingford housewife endures the tribulations of rationing; a retired schoolteacher observes during a royal visit how well-fed the Queen looks; a pernickety civil servant in Bristol is oblivious to anyone's troubles but his own. An array of working-class witnesses describe how life in post-war Britain is, with little regard for liberal niceties or the feelings of their 'betters'. Many of these voices will stay with the reader in future volumes, jostling alongside well-known figures like John Arlott (here making his first radio broadcast, still in police uniform), Glenda Jackson (taking the 11+) and Doris Lessing, newly arrived from Africa, struck by the levelling poverty of postwar Britain. David Kynaston weaves a sophisticated narrative of how the victorious 1945 Labour government shaped the political, economic and social landscape for the next three decades.Deeply researched, often amusing and always intensely entertaining and readable, the first volume of David Kynaston's ambitious history offers an entirely fresh perspective on Britain during those six momentous years.


In preparing to write this paper, I read again Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market , Perry Mehrling's The New Lombard Street: How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort and John Authers' The Fearful Rise of Markets: Global Bubbles, Synchronized Meltdowns, and How to Prevent Them in the Future. Bagehot, of course, was the Governor of the Bank of England when he wrote what Mehrling calls his "magisterial" treatise in 1873 on how a central bank must react to a financial crisis. Mehrling is an economist and an economic historian. Authers is a financial journalist. I begin this piece with the legal perspective on the definition of "bank" and follow with an analysis of Bagehot, Mehrling and Authers. As I explain, this analysis should have consequences for crisis prevention and crisis mitigation: I suggest that attempting to analyze the recent financial crisis in terms of the legal description of the various economic actors in the financial sector ("banks" as opposed to "shadow banks," for example) is not very helpful. Instead, the key issues for crisis prevention and mitigation are understanding (1) how credit intermediation works; (2) how in any particular period, that credit intermediation is accomplished; and, above all, (3) the effects of fear (also called "loss of confidence") on that process.


It is argued that we have a moral duty to create, and make available, advanced pharmacological agents to boost the happiness of those in the normal, i.e., the non-depressed, range of happiness. Happiness, conceived as a propensity to positive moods, is a quantitative trait with a sizeable genetic component. One means to boost the happiness of those in the normal range is to test the efficacy of antidepressants for enhancement. A second possibility is to model new pharmacologicals based on the genetics of the happiest amongst us, that is, the hyperthymic. The suggestion, in other words, is to "reverse engineer" the hyperthymic: to investigate what makes the hyperthymic genetically and physiologically different and then put what they have into pill form. To the ' Brave New World ' objection, that there is more to wellbeing than happiness and that taking happy-people-pills will require the sacrifice of these other aspects of wellbeing, it is countered that contemporary social science research supports the view that happiness promotes achievement in the 'higher' endeavors of humanity, including work, love and virtue. In other words, happiness promotes acquisition of traits valued by perfectionists. Those born with genes for hyperthymia, on average, tend to be doubly blessed: they are happier and achieve more than the rest of the population. Happy-people-pills are a means to allow everyone else to share in this good fortune. The paper seeks to rebut two further criticisms: that happy-people-pills will lead to emotional inappropriateness and inauthentic happiness. Finally, it is argued that depending on the view about the role of government in individual welfare, either government has a positive duty to develop happy-people-pills, or government has a duty not to interfere with private companies that seek to develop such pharmacological agents.


With millions of images shared online, privacy concerns are on the rise. In this paper, we propose an approach to image privacy prediction by dynamically identifying powerful features corresponding to objects, scene context, and image tags derived from Convolutional Neural Networks for each test image. Specifically, our approach identifies the set of most "competent" features on the fly, according to each test image whose privacy has to be predicted. Experimental results on thousands of Flickr images show that our approach predicts the sensitive (or private) content more accurately than the models trained on each individual feature set (object, scene, and tags alone) or their combination.


We investigated the physical mechanism of high-efficiency glass microwelding by double-pulse ultrafast laser irradiation by measuring the dependences of the size of the heat-affected zone and the bonding strength on the delay time between the two pulses for delay time up to 80 ns. The size of the heat-affected zone increases rapidly when the delay time is increased from 0 to 12.5 ps. It then decreases dramatically when the delay time is further increased to 30 ps. It has a small peak around 100 ps. For delay time up to 40 ns, the size of the heat-affected zone exceeds that for a delay time of 0 ps, whereas for delay time over 60 ps, it becomes smaller than that for a delay time of 0 ps. The bonding strength exhibits the same tendency. The underlying physical mechanism is discussed in terms of initial electron excitation by the first pulse and subsequent excitation by the second pulse: specifically, the first pulse induces multiphoton ionization or tunneling ionization, while the second pulse induces electron heating or avalanche ionization or the second pulse is absorbed by the localized state. Transient absorption of glass induced by the ultrafast laser pulse was analyzed by an ultrafast pump-probe technique. We found that the optimum pulse energy ratio is unity. These results provide new insights into high-efficiency ultrafast laser microwelding of glass and suggest new possibilities for further development of other ultrafast laser processing techniques.


The purpose of this study was to investigate whether, Information Systems Management (ISM), an Information Technology (IT) organisation within Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ CD), adopted the best practices in IT service management. IT Service Management entails ensuring that accurate IT services are delivered to the business at the right price and with the right level of quality, according to Young (2005). The notion of quality IT services is a concern for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development taking in to consideration that it has set a goal of modernising itself by implementing IT systems. The vision of the department is to make IT services such as email available to all employees. The vision will not be attained if these services are not always available. The literature study shows that IT organisations that implement IT Service Management deliver quality IT services to the users and business. ISM claims to be aligned with Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) service management practices but lacks some of the structural elements that should be in place. The department has raised concern around whether the processes that they have implemented will yield improved IT services. The research evaluated available documents in view of uncovering implemented processes. The results are steps for improving IT services at the DOJ CD. Firstly, it is recommended that ISM should rate each of the IT Service Management process according to its importance to the business, secondly to identify the relevant teams to manage identified processes, thirdly to make the DOJ CD a customer of ISM.


The objectives were to study the morphometry of lateral and medial tibial plateau in South Indian population. The study was performed using 73 dry cadaveric tibiae which were obtained from the gross anatomy laboratory of our institution. The antero-posterior length and medio-lateral breadth of the lateral and medial tibial condyles were measured. The data of the medial and lateral compartments, right and left sided tibiae were statistically analyzed and compared. The mean length and breadth of medial tibial plateau (± standard deviation) were 39.8 ± 3.8 mm and 26.7 ± 2.8 mm respectively. The same parameters for the lateral tibial plateau were 33.6 ± 3.7 mm and 26.1 ± 2.9 mm. For both length and breadth the dimensions were statistically lower for the lateral tibial condyle than the medial (p<0.05). Differences were not statistically significant between right and left sides except for the length of lateral tibial plateau, which was longer on the right side (p<0.05). The present study observed differences in the morphometric parameters between the lateral and medial tibial condyles and has provided additional information on the morphometric data of the tibial plateau which is important to the orthopedic surgeons.


Many computational problems in game theory, such as finding Nash equilibria, are algorithmically hard to solve. This limitation forces analysts to limit attention to restricted subsets of the entire strategy space. We develop algorithms to identify rationally closed subsets of the strategy space under given size constraints. First, we modify an existing family of algorithms for rational closure in two-player games to compute a related rational closure concept, called formations, for n-player games. We then extend these algorithms to apply in cases where the utility function is partially specified, or there is a bound on the size of the restricted profile space. Finally, we evaluate the performance of these algorithms on a class of random games.


The progressive damage in cross-ply laminates was modeled by discrete element method (DEM). A particle radius expansion method was used to account for thermal loading applied to cross-ply laminates in which nominal fibers were introduced in the 0° plies so as to achieve the anisotropic thermal expansion behaviors. A series of convergence and validation tests of both mechanical and thermal properties of the 0° plies with nominal fibers have been carried out in order to validate the method. The DEM results of interfacial stress distribution of cross-ply laminates under pure thermal loading and under coupled thermal/mechanical loading were compared with other theoretical predictions. Microstructure of 90° plies was also studied by the DEM model. Transverse cracking which was formed by the coalescence of micro cracks in matrix and at fiber/matrix interface has been observed in the modeling results together with the ply-ply delaminations. It was found that the DEM model can predict not only the stress distribution but also the progressive damage initialized from the constituent failure due to its multi scale nature.


Lignocellulosic materials among the alternative energy resources are the most desirable resources that can be employed to produce cellulosic ethanol, but this materials due to physical and chemical structure arranges strong native recalcitrance and results in low yield of ethanol. Then, a proper pre-treatment method is required to overcome this challenge. Until now, different pre-treatment technologies have been established to enhance lignocellulosic digestibility. This paper widely describes the structure of lignocellulosic biomass and effective parameters in pre-treatment of lignocelluloses, such as cellulose crystallinity, accessible surface area, and protection by lignin and hemicellulose. In addition, an overview about the most important pre-treatment processes include physical, chemical, and biological are provided. Finally, we described about the inhibitors enzymes which produced from sugar degradation during pre-treatment process and the ways to control this inhibitors. Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 5(1): 1-11


Under the guidance of Alison Wicks, Jessica Malpage and Karen Martin participated in the Berry Men's Shed one day a week for 6 weeks in 2008. The shed experience was part of international fieldwork organised by the University of Western Ontario, Canada at the Australasian Occupational Science Centre at the University of Wollongong, Australia. As they worked alongside the men on their own woodwork projects, Jessica and Karen observed that the shed enables members to socialize while being active and productive. They recognized that the shed is a place where men and women, from different backgrounds can gather to share tools and expertise, acquire new skills and contribute to their community. They also observed that mentoring and learning by doing were key characteristics of the Berry Men's Shed. The following commentary with quotes from the shed participants highlights the benefits of this community‐based, occupation‐focused program for older people. The accompanying photographs illustrate these comments.


We investigate active, electrically pumped coupled-resonator optical waveguides (CROWs) in the form of InP-InGaAsP Fabry-Perot resonator arrays. We discuss the fabrication of these devices and present measurements of the transmission spectra. The signal-to-noise ratio is found to be a strong function of wavelength and degraded rapidly along the resonator chain away from the input. Our results highlight a number of ingredients toward practical implementations loss-compensated and amplifying CROWs.


We conducted electrofishing surveys for adult and juvenile rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss in small (firstand second-order), warmwater tributaries of the Chattahoochee River, below Morgan Falls Dam, during winter 2004 and 2005 to document spawning. In 2004, we documented pre-spawning males and females in both streams surveyed. In 2005 and 2006, we found juveniles in two of five streams surveyed and prespawning adults in three of the five. This is the first documented instance of spawning by rainbow trout in this section of the river and an unusual occurrence in warmwater tributaries. The total contribution of recruitment from these systems to the rainbow trout population in the Chattahoochee River should be evaluated.


Re-activation of inactive business relationships has been given rather limited attention in the IMP literature. With this as a background the purpose of this thesis is to increase understanding of re-activation of previously inactive business relationships. This is done by applying a resource perspective. Through a single case study a focal relationship, consisting of a customer-supplier relationship, in the Swedish automotive industry was investigated in relation to an acquisition of a bankruptcy estate. The study focused on three different time-phases of the relationship (active, inactive & re-activation) and four interacting resources (relationships, business units, products & facilities).Based on our results we propose that a re-activation is: "when a business relationship changes from inactive to a mutual active resource exchange". Deliberately, this definition does not say much about how the focal re-activation will evolve. From our case it is possible to see that due to changes in the relationship, facility and product dimension, the focal relationship is not possible to restore to what it once was. Finally, this thesis proposes a revised and more nuanced model of re-activation where the re-activation process is divided into pre re-activation, re-activation and re-configured phase.


We have used the integral form of the conservation equations, to find a cubic formula for the drop size during in liquid sprays in coflow of air (air-blast atomization). Similar to our previous work, the energy balance dictates that the initial kinetic energy of the gas and injected liquid will be distributed into the final surface tension energy, kinetic energy of the gas and droplets, and viscous dissipation. Using this approach, the drop size can be determined based on the basic injection and fluid parameters for "air-blast" atomization, where the injected liquid is atomized by high-speed coflow of air. The viscous dissipation term is estimated using appropriate velocity and length scales of liquid–air coflow breakup. The mass and energy balances for the spray flows render to an expression that relates the drop size to all of the relevant parameters, including the gas- and liquid-phase velocities and fluid properties. The results agree well with experimental data and correlations for the drop size. The solution also provides for drop size–velocity cross-correlation, leading to computed drop size distributions based on the gas-phase velocity distribution. This approach can be used in the estimation of the drop size for practical sprays and also as a primary atomization module in computational simulations of air-blast atomization over a wide range of injection and fluid conditions, the only caveat being that a parameter to account for the viscous dissipation needs to be calibrated with a minimal set of observational data.


One aspect of English in Europe today, particularly in Britain, is the fact that many children with an L1 that is not English acquire English outside the home at a very early age. This paper focuses on the acquisition of English by young Chinese children who were born in China but moved to Britain at around one year of age. As such this paper addresses the underexplored area of early acquisition of a second language prior to age three. The analyses focus on lexical acquisition, the use of code-switching and early grammatical learning of English. The results are discussed in relation to a number of hotly debated issues in the literature on bilingual first and early second language acquisition.


E-DNA sensors, the electrochemical equivalent of molecular beacons, appear to be a promising means of detecting oligonucleotides. E-DNA sensors are comprised of a redox-modified (here, methylene blue or ferrocene) DNA stem-loop covalently attached to an interrogating electrode. Because E-DNA signaling arises due to binding-induced changes in the conformation of the stem-loop probe, it is likely sensitive to the nature of the molecular packing on the electrode surface. Here we detail the effects of probe density, target length, and other aspects of molecular crowding on the signaling properties, specificity, and response time of a model E-DNA sensor. We find that the highest signal suppression is obtained at the highest probe densities investigated, and that greater suppression is observed with longer and bulkier targets. In contrast, sensor equilibration time slows monotonically with increasing probe density, and the specificity of hybridization is not significantly affected. In addition to providing insight into the optimization of electrochemical DNA sensors, these results suggest that E-DNA signaling arises due to hybridization-linked changes in the rate, and thus efficiency, with which the redox moiety collides with the electrode and transfers electrons.


Abstract : We are motivated by the problem of bandwidth allocation to Internet users in DBS-based Hybrid Internet, where the Network Operations Center (NOC)- scheduler controls the amount of service provided to each user, by using packet scheduling and better management. Such a system exploits the ability of satellites to other high bandwidth connections to large geographical areas, and it delivers low-cost hybrid (satellite-terrestrial) high-speed services to interactive Internet users. In this system, it is important to reduce the delay that users experience.We analyze several bandwidth allocation policies at the Network Operations Center (NOC) of a DBS-based hybrid Internet network. We consider the problem of optimal scheduling of the services of interactive users in the DBS-based hybrid Internet con guration. We show that, for the interactive Internet users, the Most Delayed Queue First (MDQF) policy, which serves the queues starting with the most delayed queue, is providing the minimum delay, when compared with the Equal Bandwidth (EB) and Fair Share (FS) allocation policies. The MDQF policy is shown to be optimal with respect to a performance metric of packet loss due to queuing time constraints. The impact of the scheduling policies on the Hybrid Internet system's performance, is analyzed in the context of the interplay between the NOC queuing system (and its bandwidth allocation policies) and the underlying transport protocol (TCP), and we show the effectiveness of the MDQF policy in the presence of TCP congestion control algorithm. We also present simulations in which the Internet server sources send selfsimilar (


Highly electronegative low-density lipoprotein (LDL) L5 induces endothelial cell (EC) apoptosis, which leads to the development of atherosclerosis. We examined the effects of sesamol (1), a natural organic component of sesame oil, on plasma L5 levels and atherosclerosis development in a rodent model and on the L5-induced apoptosis of ECs. Syrian hamsters, which have an LDL profile similar to that of humans, were fed a normal chow diet (control), a high-fat diet (HFD), or a HFD supplemented with the administration of 50 or 100 mg/kg of 1 via oral gavage (HFD+1) for 16 weeks (n = 8 per group). Hamsters in the HFD+1 groups had reduced plasma L5 levels when compared with the HFD group. Oil Red O staining showed that atherosclerotic lesion size was markedly reduced in the aortic arch of hamsters in the HFD+1 groups when compared with that in the HFD group. In human aortic ECs, 0.3-3 μM 1 blocked L5-induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Further mechanistic studies showed that 1 inhibited the L5-induced lectin-like oxidized LDL receptor-1 (LOX-1)-dependent phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and activation of caspase-3 and increased phosphorylation of eNOS and Akt. Our findings suggest that sesamol (1) protects against atherosclerosis by reducing L5-induced atherogenicity.


This study focuses on the development of the visual art market that emerged concurrently with the new nation state of Indonesia. The emergence of former colonies to independent nation states is generally marked by cataclysmic events and Indonesia is no exception to this rule. From an Indonesian perspective there is general agreement that this period of dramatic change from 1945 to the present can be divided into three periods. First, the Old Order of Sukarno (1945-1966). Second, the New Order of Suharto (1966-1998). Third, the Reformation that covers the economic crisis of 1998 and the political changes up to the current period. This thesis describes the role of the individuals and institutions that have shaped the Indonesian art market within each period: art schools, galleries and museums, auction houses, collectors, kolekdol (art dealers), critics, curators and artists. The primary focus of the study is the period commencing in 1987 when the Indonesian visual art market boomed.


Technology Transfer, also called Transfer of Technology (TOT) and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of transferring skills,technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities.


Sulphur mustard is a chemical warfare agent, which was largely used during the World War One and in Iraq-Iran conflict. It may also be used as a chemical terrorism agent. Therefore, medical professions should have sufficient knowledge and be prepared for medical intervention of any such chemical attack. Sulphur mustard exerts direct toxic effects on the eyes, skin, and respiratory tract, with subsequent systemic actions on the nervous, immunologic, hematologic, digestive, and reproductive systems. It is an alkylating agent that affects DNA synthesis and thus, delayed complications have been considered since the World War One. Cases of malignancies in the target organs particularly in hematopoietic , respiratory, and digestive systems were reported. Common delayed respiratory complications include chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis, frequent bronchopneumonia, and pulmonary fibrosis, all of which tend to deteriorate with time. Severe dry skin, delayed keratitis, and reduction of natural killer cells with subsequent increased risk of infections and malignancies are also among the most distressing long-term consequences of sulphur mustard intoxication. However, despite extensive research that has been conducted on Iranian veterans during the past decades, major gaps continue to remain in the sulphur mustard literature. Immunological and neurological dysfunctions and the relationship between exposure to sulphur mustard and mutagenicity, carcinogenicity, and teratogenicity are important fields that require further studies, particularly on Iranian veterans with chronic health problems caused by sulphur mustard poisoning. There is also a paucity of information on the medical management of acute and delayed toxic effects of sulphur mustard poisoning, a subject that greatly challenges the medical professions. Iran J Med Sci 2009; 34(3): 155-171.


During gastrulation, physical forces reshape the simple embryonic tissue to form a complex body plan of multicellular organisms1. These forces often cause large-scale asymmetric movements of the embryonic tissue2,3. In many embryos, the tissue undergoing gastrulation movements is surrounded by a rigid protective shell4,5. While it is well recognized that gastrulation movements depend on forces generated by tissue-intrinsic contractility6,7, it is not known if interactions between the tissue and the protective shell provide additional forces that impact gastrulation. Here we show that a particular part of the blastoderm tissue of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum tightly adheres in a temporally coordinated manner to the vitelline envelope surrounding the embryo. This attachment generates an additional force that counteracts the tissue-intrinsic contractile forces to create asymmetric tissue movements. Furthermore, this localized attachment is mediated by a specific integrin, and its knock-down leads to a gastrulation phenotype consistent with complete loss of attachment. Moreover, analysis of another integrin in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster suggests that gastrulation in this organism also relies on adhesion between the blastoderm and the vitelline. Together, our findings reveal a conserved mechanism whereby the spatiotemporal pattern of tissue adhesion to the vitelline envelope provides controllable counter-forces that shape gastrulation movements in insects.


Abstract Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital components of our economies, but many struggle to perform the marketing prescribed theoretically for large organisations. In practice, marketing is performed in SMEs through an intrinsic customer orientation, which exhibits striking resemblances to customer relationship management (CRM) theory. This paper presents research evidence to help us understand the impact of Internet-based technologies (IBTs) on the CRM activities (that is e-CRM) of SMEs in Ireland. A quantitative approach (online survey questionnaire) was adopted and distributed to 1445 SMEs. Exploratory factor analysis uncovered eight distinct yet inter-related factors underpinning the practices and processes of e-CRM in SMEs. Briefly, findings illustrate that SMEs are performing e-CRM to varying extents, reaping a range of performance benefits and facing a range of challenges. It is true that SMEs are not adopting e-CRM per se, as described in the large organisation-biased literature, but they are adopting relatively simple IBTs to improve their customer communication and information management capabilities and thus to create competitive advantage in their own strategic way. The study adopts a strong managerial focus, where pertinent practical implications and recommendations around e-CRM are provided for SME owner-managers, helping to bridge the gap between theory and practice.


The primary aim of pharmaceutical materials engineering is the successful formulation and process development of pharmaceutical products. The diversity of solid forms available offers attractive opportunities for tailoring material properties. In this context, pharmaceutical cocrystals, multicomponent crystalline materials with definite stoichiometries often stabilised by hydrogen bonding, have recently emerged as interesting alternative solid forms with potential for improving the physical and biopharmaceutical properties of a drug substance. There are, however, gaps in our understanding of the screening, scale-up and formulation operations required for effective use of cocrystals in drug product development. The objective of this thesis was to improve fundamental understanding of the formation mechanisms, solution behaviour and solid-state properties of pharmaceutical cocrystals. The solution chemistry and solubility behaviour of a diverse set of cocrystals were studied. It was found that the thermodynamic stability regions of the cocrystals and their components were defined by the phase solubility diagrams. Spray drying was introduced as a new method of preparing cocrystals; the formation mechanisms are illustrated. The cocrystals were more soluble than the respective drugs alone and the solubility-pH profiles were able to be predicted by mathematical models using a eutectic point determination approach. The cocrystal solubility was pH-dependent and could be engineered by the choice of coformers; this is valuable information for designing robust formulations. The solubility advantage of cocrystals was retained by the use of excipients that imparted kinetic and thermodynamic stability. The retention of drug-coformer association in processed cocrystals has been revealed, introducing a novel concept with potential implications for solid dosage form development. The final study demonstrated that the structure of the crystals and the particle engineering processes affected the solidstate and bulk particle properties of the cocrystals.This thesis contributes to the field of pharmaceutical science by advancing our understanding of crystallization processes and formulation development, thus enabling pharmaceutical cocrystals into drug products.


The most accepted payment mode is credit card for both online and offline in today's world, it provides cashless shopping at every shop in all countries. It will be the most convenient way to do online shopping, paying bills etc. Hence, risks of fraud transaction using credit card has also been increasing. In the existing credit card fraud detection business processing system, fraudulent transaction will be detected after transaction is done. It is difficult to find out fraudulent and regarding loses will be barred by issuing authorities. Hidden Markov Model is the statistical tools for engineer and scientists to solve various problems. In this paper, it is shown that credit card fraud can be detected using Hidden Markov Model during transactions. Hidden Markov Model helps to obtain a high fraud coverage combined with a low false alarm rate.


This report describes the regional geochemistry of groundwater from the Palaeogene aquifer
of the Thames Basin. The aim of the study is to assess the likely natural baseline chemistry of
the groundwater by identifying the dominant controlling processes. Data have been collected
from strategic sampling of 19 new groundwater samples, along with collation, from various
sources, of existing groundwater, rainfall, mineralogical and geochemical data.
The Palaeogene aquifer results from the cyclical deposition of shallow marine and coastal
sediments and comprises sand and clay layers which display large lateral and vertical
variation. This variation gives rise to localised regions of productive aquifer, and localised
geochemical variations. For these reasons the Palaeogene strata only provide minor aquifers
of regional significance. That said, these can be important when managing the water supply in
London and the surrounding urbanised areas.
The geological differences between formations within the Palaeogene strata mean that the
water type is generally a continuum between Ca-HCO3 type to Ca-SO4 type. Other differences
in groundwater quality caused by geological variation are evident in the minor and trace
element concentrations.
The main water quality problems are associated with oxidation of pyrite, which occurs
sporadically throughout the Palaeogene beds, and has the ability to produce acidic, hard,
metal-rich waters. In beds underlying the confining London Clay, this has occurred as a result
of anthropogenic groundwater extraction from the Chalk below. In beds above the London
Clay this process can occur entirely naturally, owing to a ready supply of oxygen and water.
In addition human impacts are mainly visible in the presence of indicator contaminants, such
as nitrate. The widespread presence and increasing concentrations of nitrate indicate the
extent to which the unconfined aquifer is influenced by modern farming practices or urban
pollution. Trace metals associated with the oxidation of pyrite within the aquifer (Fe, Ni, Co)
also affect the water quality. Whilst these are released as a result of natural geochemical
reactions, historic pumping regimes have also exerted an influence. Lead is found in elevated
concentrations (up to 13.3 μg L-1) in samples taken in close proximity to major roads, and it is
likely that these derive from the past usage of leaded petrol in motor vehicles.
While some of the groundwaters investigated in this study are of good inorganic quality, and
of a soft nature, there are many notable exceptions which contain elevated concentrations of
Fe, SO4, Ni and Co. The distribution of these is generally so sporadic that water quality would
be difficult to predict prior to drilling a borehole. It is recommended to drill into the
underlying Chalk for a groundwater source of more reliable quality and quantity.


This article questions the current situation for vocational acting training (VAT) in the UK. It aims to provide an update on the report into burgeoning provision of acting training (and the attempt to address subsequent high rates of actor unemployment) that was originally undertaken by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (CGF, 1975) in their publication entitled Going on the Stage. The article will suggest that the continued proliferation of VAT offered at tertiary level, allied to the dearth of career opportunities for graduates, means that the current training offer is not entirely fit for purpose. It will further propose that VAT requires a widening of the curriculum offer in order to provide meaningful vocational workplace readiness for course graduates at a time when, as Malcolm Sinclair, president of the British actors' union, Equity, acknowledges, 'there are too many actors and too few jobs' (in Clark, 2014a: 17). To address the question of VAT and employability in the UK, this article will reconsider the three questions initially posed in Going on the Stage (CGF, 1975: 7). These were: why is drama training necessary, to what extent do the present arrangements fall short of the ideal, and what should VAT entail? By re-posing these questions, this article will present the contemporary context of VAT, review the status of progression rates into employment, and propose a case for curriculum extension in light of the findings.


The bioactive sphingolipid sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) acts as a ligand for a family of G protein-coupled S1P receptors (S1PR1-5) to participate in a variety of signaling pathways. However, their specific roles in the neural retina remain unclear. We previously showed that S1P receptor subtype 2 (S1PR2) is expressed in murine retinas, primarily in photoreceptors and bipolar cells, and its expression is altered by retinal stress. This study aims to elucidate the role of S1PR2 in the mouse retina. We examined light responses by electroretinography (ERG), structural differences by optical coherence tomography (OCT), and protein levels by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in wild-type (WT) and S1PR2 knockout (KO) mice at various ages between 3 and 6 months. We found that a- and b-wave responses significantly increased at flash intensities between 400∼2000 and 4∼2,000 cd.s/m2 respectively, in S1PR2 KO mice relative to those of WT controls at baseline. S1PR2 KO mice also exhibited significantly increased retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and outer plexiform layer (OPL) thickness by OCT relative to the WT. Finally, in S1PR2 KO mice, we observed differential labeling of synaptic markers by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). These results suggest a specific involvement of S1PR2 in the structure and synaptic organization of the retina and a potential role in light-mediated functioning of the retina.


This paper presents Generative Adversarial Talking Head (GATH), a novel deep generative neural network that enables fully automatic facial expression synthesis of an arbitrary portrait with continuous action unit (AU) coefficients. Specifically, our model directly manipulates image pixels to make the unseen subject in the still photo express various emotions controlled by values of facial AU coefficients, while maintaining her personal characteristics, such as facial geometry, skin color and hair style, as well as the original surrounding background. In contrast to prior work, GATH is purely data-driven and it requires neither a statistical face model nor image processing tricks to enact facial deformations. Additionally, our model is trained from unpaired data, where the input image, with its auxiliary identity label taken from abundance of still photos in the wild, and the target frame are from different persons. In order to effectively learn such model, we propose a novel weakly supervised adversarial learning framework that consists of a generator, a discriminator, a classifier and an action unit estimator. Our work gives rise to template-and-target-free expression editing, where still faces can be effortlessly animated with arbitrary AU coefficients provided by the user.


Municipalities are often caught in the cycle of built-neglect-rebuild. For bridges, the solution is preventive maintenance: keep the bridges clean and painted, and they'll last forever. New York City has adopted this strategy with a program that will have all 1,424 bridges in first class shape by the year 2000. Costs are projected at $3 billion in capital funds and nearly $60 million in maintenance funds for each of the next 10 years. A newly appointed Bureau of Bridges will be fully funded within four years. In the first year, 12 bridges have been reopened, new inspectors hired and underwater inspections completed. It will cost the city about 10 times more in annual maintenance, but by 2000 total savings will be about one quarter of a billion dollars a year. The city's Department of Transportation made the preventive maintenance plan with the help of a consulting consortium made up of civil engineering professors from the local universities.


This study on effective use of school inputs in Uganda is intended to contribute to the policy debate on how to make the best use of available resources to improve learning outcomes. It comes at an opportune time in Uganda when there are increasing demands on the education budget, yet it is unlikely that substantial increases in the sector budget envelope will be provided given other competing national priorities, as well as the need for additional resources to finance post primary education and training. This report emphasizes: the need for a balanced focus on resource availability and use, because without appropriate use or management, resources may not lead to improved learning; helping teachers to effectively teach large classes; and the importance of investing more in in-service training focused on pedagogical practices than on training teachers to acquire academic qualifications. The study also points to the need to examine and include teacher effectiveness as key criteria for determining teacher remuneration. With regard to automatic promotion, this study, and indeed the general literature suggest that repetition tends not to work within the same context and the same teaching styles. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate the need to focus on school and classroom processes and better use of education resources focused on improvement of learning.


The Kirby-Bauer antimicrobial susceptibility test can be modified to provide students the
opportunity for enhanced learning by comparing their data and discussing the ramifications of their
results. The active learning helps students to identify and correct several common misconceptions.
The misconceptions addressed include: that the particular organism they tested will give invariable
results, that any culture of a species is identical to other cultures of that species, that
differences in technique will not be reflected in the experimental results, and that sensitivity
testing is not a necessary adjunct to appropriate treatment.


Voltage gated sodium channels (Nav) are transmembrane proteins responsible for action potential initiation. Mutations mainly located in the voltage sensor domain (VSD) of Nav1.5, the cardiac sodium channel, have been associated with the development of arrhythmias combined with dilated cardiomyopathy. Gating pore currents have been observed with three unrelated mutations associated with similar clinical phenotypes. However, gating pores have never been associated with mutations outside the first domain of Nav1.5. The aim of this study was to explore the possibility that gating pore currents might be caused by the Nav1.5 R225P and R814W mutations (R3, S4 in DI and DII, respectively), which are associated with rhythm disturbances and dilated cardiomyopathy. Nav1.5 WT and mutant channels were transiently expressed in tsA201 cells. The biophysical properties of the alpha pore currents and the presence of gating pore currents were investigated using the patch-clamp technique. We confirmed the previously reported gain of function of the alpha pores of the mutant channels, which mainly consisted of increased window currents mostly caused by shifts in the voltage dependence of activation. We also observed gating pore currents associated with the R225P and R814W mutations. This novel permeation pathway was open under depolarized conditions and remained temporarily open at hyperpolarized potentials after depolarization periods. Gating pore currents could represent a molecular basis for the development of uncommon electrical abnormalities and changes in cardiac morphology. We propose that this biophysical defect be routinely evaluated in the case of Nav1.5 mutations on the VSD.


An objective of natural Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is to enable humans to communicate with robots in the same manner humans do between themselves. This includes the use of natural gestures to support and expand the information that is exchanged in the spoken language. To achieve that, robots need robust gesture recognition systems to detect the non-verbal information that is sent to them by the human gestures. Traditional gesture recognition systems highly depend on the light conditions and often require a training process before they can be used. We have integrated a low-cost commercial RGB-D (Red Green Blue - Depth) sensor in a social robot to allow it to recognise dynamic gestures by tracking a skeleton model of the subject and coding the temporal signature of the gestures in a FSM (Finite State Machine). The vision system is independent of low light conditions and does not require a training process.


The 2015 General Election in the UK was the first to take place in the UK with Twitter as an important part of the social media landscape. This pilot project looked at 16 constituencies along England's South Coast in order to investigate what impact, if any, Twitter had had on the campaign and the result and to investigate the efficacy, or otherwise, of using Twitter as a tool for studying election campaigns in terms of candidate and local party activism. On the basis of an analysis of almost half a million tweets the analysis concluded that there appeared to be a correlation between the rate at which parties and/or candidates responded to incoming tweets and their relative electoral performance but this was not demonstrable for all parties (it applied in particular to Labour and UKIP candidates). In addition, high rates of reply also appeared to have a positive impact on constituency turnout figures. The findings are not yet conclusive but suggest that Twitter could be a good indicator of general levels of local party activism. The research also sought to understand how candidates used Twitter differently and established a number of candidate 'classifiers'. It also investigated the issues agenda that was dominating Twitter conversations during the campaign and found that Twitter's agenda was closer to the public's than was that of the national media. The research also monitored the regional and local media in the 16 constituencies and discovered that their issues agenda was closer still to the public's. Overall it is difficult to conclude that Twitter had a major impact on the election campaign.


In our paper we present how the Hungarian credit default swap (CDS) market functions, and indicate its position in the global credit derivatives markets. Our primary goals are to glean some information from the CDS spreads about Hungary's credit risk, and to determine the role of the Hungarian sovereign CDS market in different market periods, as well as its long-term relationship with other Hungarian financial markets. Our findings suggest that the Hungarian market has low liquidity compared to the average liquidity of credit derivatives markets. However, relative to the outstanding stock of Hungarian sovereign foreign currency bonds, the daily average turnover of the market and the outstanding stock of Hungarian sovereign CDS contracts at the end of 2007 were substantial, estimated to be around EUR 10-20 million and EUR 7-20 billion respectively. Even though the Hungarian sovereign CDS spread and foreign currency bond credit spread tend to move in tandem in the long run, the two rates may temporarily deviate from one another due to micro structural factors. Hungary's credit risk premium is primarily defined in the Hungarian sovereign CDS market, which means that any new information pertaining to Hungary's credit risk is captured in the CDS spreads first. In contrast, the Hungarian foreign currency bond market is not an effective market, given that foreign currency bond credit spreads merely adjust to the changes of CDS spreads afterwards. During particularly turbulent market periods Hungarian sovereign CDS spreads tend to rise higher than is fundamentally justified.


The objective of the Renewable Energy Development Project (REDP) is to increase the supply of least-cost electricity to Vietnam's national grid from renewable energy sources on a commercially sustainable basis and in an environmentally and socially sustainable manner. Negative impacts include: air and noise pollution, traffic, dust, vegetation removal of the reservoir and construction side, loss of forest, drainage, fuel storage and handling, solid waste management, impairment water quality, and impacts on fish and aquatic biota. Mitigation measures include: i) best practice, for fuel storage areas it's to locate them at least 100 meters away from any surface water bodies, avoid villages and any population centers; ii) avoid sitting subproject in forested areas, to the extent possible. Any trees removed as a result of construction must be reestablished after construction or compensated for at some other location; iii) after construction completion, soil will be restored to original location and re-vegetated; iv) wherever possible disturbance to ground areas shall be minimized and stabilized as quickly as possible. Drainage shall be controlled and redirected to avoid disturbed areas; v) all waste oils and lubricants shall be collected and recycled wherever possible. There should be no discharge or release of fuels, oils or lubricants to soil and water; vi) construction shall take place only during daytime hours; vii) dust control measures shall be implemented on all unpaved roads and construction surfaces, in dry and windy conditions; viii) minimize additional traffic movements on existing roads; ix) avoid tree cutting or economically productive lands wherever possible; and x) waste segregation measures shall be undertaken to maximize recycling and minimize the amount of solid waste for disposal.


This paper suggests a way of creating a distinctly Catholic economics education by integrating a social justice perspective into the curriculum through writings from Catholic Social Thought (CST). In so doing, we argue that students of economics will gain a more thorough understanding of the economics discipline. Moreover, a grounding in CST will help business and economics students better negotiate the conflicting view of markets they encounter in the "disconnect" between business courses and humanities/social science core courses. The thesis of the paper is that CST can be a useful mechanism by which to instill a social justice perspective in economics education and to motivate educators to be clear and complete in discussing assumptions that underlie economic theory. We explore reasons economics educators have been reluctant to use tools such as CST to inform their discussion of economic theory. We use the subdiscipline of welfare theory and in particular assumptions regarding the common good, preference satisfaction, and individual and social utility to distinguish between perspectives from CST and what is taught as modern economic theory. Finally we offer some simple curricular changes that can be accomplished with little cost, which can lead to three bold accomplishments: creating a distinctly Catholic economics education, improving students' understanding of their discipline, and diminishing the frustration and confusion students feel when they encounter disconnected messages about the effects of markets and the promotion of social justice.


In this article, we studied collaboration exercises (3LC) between the rescue services, ambulance services, and police force, which were developed to enhance learning and usefulness. The exercises' structure was based on identified deficiencies in previous collaboration exercises. The purpose was to test the exercise model in terms of learning and usefulness. Ten 3LC exercises were observed. A total of 65 semi-structured interviews were conducted (2011–2014) in connection with the exercises. The exercises contained across-boundary elements, seminars, and interactive documentation. The participants were given the opportunity to discuss, analyze, and critically reflect on their efforts. During the seminars, the individual actions were analyzed, which led to alternative strategies that were subsequently tested in a repeated exercise. Our results demonstrate that repetitive features and seminars during collaboration exercises promote learning toward an organic behavior and usefulness in the actual incident work.


There are two principal rationales for the charitable deduction. Depending upon choice of rationale, some tax reform changes are suggested and others are not. A base measurement rationale suggests eliminating the deduction for unrealized appreciation, keeping the benefit as a deduction and not a credit, not adopting caps or a nonitemizer deduction, and protecting the tax base by narrowing the class of organizations eligible to receive deductible contributions. A subsidy rationale, depending upon which strand is emphasized, might favor a more equitable tax benefit in the form of a credit or through caps or a nonitemizer deduction, and could lead to preferring some organizations over others. Both rationales are consistent with placing a floor under the deduction, and narrowing its scope. Present law presents a confusing mix of policies and priorities. Tax reform presents an opportunity to reconsider the role of the charitable deduction in the tax system and to act accordingly.


The rate of adaptive evolution depends on the rate at which beneficial mutations are introduced into a population and the fitness effects of those mutations. The rate of beneficial mutations and their expected fitness effects is often difficult to empirically quantify. As these 2 parameters determine the pace of evolutionary change in a population, the dynamics of adaptive evolution may enable inference of their values. Copy number variants (CNVs) are a pervasive source of heritable variation that can facilitate rapid adaptive evolution. Previously, we developed a locus-specific fluorescent CNV reporter to quantify CNV dynamics in evolving populations maintained in nutrient-limiting conditions using chemostats. Here, we use CNV adaptation dynamics to estimate the rate at which beneficial CNVs are introduced through de novo mutation and their fitness effects using simulation-based likelihood–free inference approaches. We tested the suitability of 2 evolutionary models: a standard Wright–Fisher model and a chemostat model. We evaluated 2 likelihood-free inference algorithms: the well-established Approximate Bayesian Computation with Sequential Monte Carlo (ABC-SMC) algorithm, and the recently developed Neural Posterior Estimation (NPE) algorithm, which applies an artificial neural network to directly estimate the posterior distribution. By systematically evaluating the suitability of different inference methods and models, we show that NPE has several advantages over ABC-SMC and that a Wright–Fisher evolutionary model suffices in most cases. Using our validated inference framework, we estimate the CNV formation rate at the GAP1 locus in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to be 10−4.7 to 10−4 CNVs per cell division and a fitness coefficient of 0.04 to 0.1 per generation for GAP1 CNVs in glutamine-limited chemostats. We experimentally validated our inference-based estimates using 2 distinct experimental methods—barcode lineage tracking and pairwise fitness assays—which provide independent confirmation of the accuracy of our approach. Our results are consistent with a beneficial CNV supply rate that is 10-fold greater than the estimated rates of beneficial single-nucleotide mutations, explaining the outsized importance of CNVs in rapid adaptive evolution. More generally, our study demonstrates the utility of novel neural network–based likelihood–free inference methods for inferring the rates and effects of evolutionary processes from empirical data with possible applications ranging from tumor to viral evolution.


Adoption of measures to prevent loss of water in many cases is cost-effective. In order to illustrate the magnitude of infrastructure problems of large cities, a test case infrastructure study for the City of Buffalo water system has been conducted. The objectives of the study are to evaluate the Buffalo water system, to identify the problem areas, to suggest possible alternative solutions, to estimate costs to rehabilitate the system and to make a financial and institutional analysis to determine the magnitude of shortfall. This study examines a number of alternatives for upgrading the City of Buffalo Water Distribution System and estimates a range of capital costs between 171 million and 312 million in 1980 dollars. The financial analysis was performed assuming that the improvements would be phased throughout a 30-year planning period and financed with 15-year bonds at current rates.


Projects implemented as part of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol will have the dual mandate of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to sustainable development. Basic agreement on core elements was reached in 2001, including the decision to allow afforestation and reforestation projects. However, it is not yet clear what rules will address social concerns. Many types of projects could potentially contribute to local livelihoods and ecosystem restoration, as well as to carbon emission offsets, including those using natural forest regeneration, agroforests, improved forest fallows and agroforestry. Averted deforestation projects with multiple-use forestry, though not eligible in the first CDM period, could be reconsidered in the future. Such projects can be designed to rigorously meet CDM criteria for carbon impact, additionality, leakage and duration. If suitably targeted, they can be cost-effective for investors in terms of production costs. Some, however, may have higher transaction costs. Proactive efforts are needed to enable community-based CDM forestry projects and local land uses to compete effectively in carbon trading markets with projects managed by large-scale operators. The CDM should require mandatory social impact assessments, harmonise the CDM with social principles of other global conventions, promote measures to reduce transaction costs and explicitly include assisted natural regeneration and forest rehabilitation in the definition of afforestation and reforestation. Most developing countries will require policy action to establish the enabling conditions for forest carbon projects to contribute on a large scale to local livelihoods, integrate CDM projects within national development frameworks, attract investors, establish social criteria, secure local rights and promote support services for local people. Cost-effective project design requires attention to local participation, transparency, suitable compensation mechanisms, strategies to reduce transaction costs and risks and extend the scale of projects, and to enhance profitability of land uses.


Abstract. Between April and June 2013 fluxes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured in a Scots pine and Norway spruce forest using the eddy covariance (EC) method with a proton transfer reaction time-of-flight (PTR-TOF) mass spectrometer. The observations were performed above a boreal forest at the SMEAR II site in southern Finland. We found a total of 25 different compounds with exchange and investigated their seasonal variations from spring to summer. The majority of the net VOC flux was comprised of methanol, monoterpenes, acetone and butene + butanol. The butene + butanol emissions were concluded to not originate from the forest and, therefore, be anthropogenic. The VOC exchange followed a seasonal trend and the emissions increased from spring to summer. Only three compounds were emitted during the snowmelt while in summer emissions of some 19 VOCs were observed. During the measurement period in April, the emissions were dominated by butene + butanol, while during the start of the growing season and in summer, methanol was the most emitted compound. The main source of methanol was likely the growth of new biomass. During a 21-day period in June, the net VOC flux was 2.1 nmol m−2 s−1. This is on the lower end of PTR-TOF flux measurements from other ecosystems, which range from 2 to 10 nmol m−2 s−1. The EC flux results were compared with surface layer profile measurements, using a proton transfer reaction quadrupole mass spectrometer, which is permanently installed at the SMEAR II site. For the major compounds, the fluxes measured with the two different methods agreed well.


This paper estimates the effect of early exposure to toxic waste on academic achievement. We analyze longitudinal information from individuals attending primary and secondary schools in Arica (northern Chile). Between 1984 and 1989, the city received more than 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals containing high concentrations of lead, arsenic, and mercury. We implement difference-in-differences and reduced-form models to document robust relationships between residential and school proximity to the polluted area and academic performance. We find that attending a school 1 kilometer farther away from the polluted area significantly increases math and language scores by 0.09 and 0.07 standard deviations, respectively. Finally, we use georeferenced blood tests and administrative records on labor income to estimate that children living in the area could lose up to US$60,000 over the course of their lifetime as a result of their early life exposure to toxic waste.


Rodeo people call their sport "more a way of life than a way to make a living." Rodeo is, in fact, a rite that not only expresses a way of life but perpetuates it, reaffirming in a ritual contest between man and animal the values of American ranching society. Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence uses an interpretive approach to analyze rodeo as a symbolic pageant that reenacts the "winning of the West" and as a stylized expression of frontier attitudes toward man and nature. Rodeo constestants are the modern counterparts of the rugged and individualistic cowboys, and the ethos they inherited is marked by ambivalence: they admire the wild and the free yet desire to tame and conquer. Based on extensive field work and drawing on comparative materials from other stock-tending societies, "Rodeo" is a major contribution to an understanding of the role of performance in society, the culturally constructed view of man's place in nature, and the structure and meaning of social relationships and their representations.


This paper discusses FORTRAN optimizations that the user can perform manually at the source code level to improve object code performance. It makes use of descriptive examples within the text of the paper for explanatory purposes. The paper defines key areas in writing a FORTRAN program and recommends ways to improve efficiency in these areas.


We present a systematic comparison between neural network (NN) architectures for inference of AC-OPF solutions. Using fully connected NNs as a baseline we demonstrate the efficacy of leveraging network topology in the models by constructing abstract representations of electrical grids in the graph domain, for both convolutional and graph NNs. The performance of the NN architectures is compared for regression (predicting optimal generator set-points) and classification (predicting the active set of constraints) settings. Computational gains for obtaining optimal solutions are also presented.


The exhibition Revisions offers a unique opportunity to see the development of Lalla Essaydi's ideas as they pertain both to her personal history and to the greater story of Moroccan women. Through analysis of the various collections on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, this review traces the patterns of history and ideology Essaydi incorporates into her images. The exhibition in Washington enables visitors to connect concepts that have evolved over time in Essaydi's work; this review forges these connections and begins a discussion of their importance to the greater field of Arab women artists.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Congenital dyserythropoietic anemia type II (CDA-II) is an autosomal recessive condition, whose manifestations range from mild to moderate. Its exact prevalence is unknown. Based on a recently established International Registry of CDA-II (64 unrelated kindreds), a high frequency of CDA II families living in South Italy became evident.

DESIGN AND METHODS
The aim of this study was to define the haplotypes of the CDA II kindreds living in Southern Italy based on markers D20S884, D20S863, RPN, D20S841 and D20S908. These markers map to 20q11.2, within the interval of the CDAN2 gene that is responsible for CDA II. Next, we looked at these markers in kindreds from other regions of Italy and from other countries, with special attention to families having ancestors in Southern Italy.

RESULTS
Evaluation of the geographic distribution of the ancestry of Italian CDA-II patients clearly demonstrated the unusually high incidence of this condition in Southern Italy. Our statistical calculations and linkage disequilibrium data also clearly demonstrate a strong association of the markers of chromosome 20 with the disease locus in our sample. Almost all the regions defined by the markers here used is in disequilibrium with the disease. Combining the data from the Italian sample together with those obtained from the non-Italian ones, we can restrict the area of highest disequilibrium to that defined by markers D20S863-D20S908.

INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Despite the presence of this linkage disequilibrium the search for a common haplotype failed. This could suggest that the mutation was very old or that it occurred more than once on different genetic backgrounds.


This study examined a case of GeoMapApp-based assessment to investigate a learning progression for middle school students' understanding of geoscience content and geocognition (spatial, temporal, and retrospective reasoning and system thinking). A 2-year GeoMapApp-based assessment process was administered along with a double-round of the construct modeling approach. Based on the measurement of Rasch analysis, the geocognition learning progression was described in terms of data-driven level, meaning-acquiring level, knowledge-constructing level, and complex reasoning with geocognition level. The geocognition learning progression developed in this study had significant implications in terms of the progress variables integrating geoscientific reasoning practices with geoscience content and the perspective on learning with adopting work-with-it view. While this content is applicable in all regions, it is especially helpful for science teachers in the Asia-Pacific region to understand geocognition learning progressions to improve teaching and better support students to understand local geological environments in terms of plate tectonics.