Norway, previously an international frontrunner concerning reductions of transboundary air pollution, fell far short of its 2010 target for nitrogen oxides (NOx) under the 1999 Gothenburg Protocol. In this article I show that leading international compliance theories cannot explain much of this noncompliance. While little evidence supports the management school's explanations, Norwegian policies are also inconsistent with the enforcement school. Albeit too late to meet the deadline, Norway imposed a NOx tax in 2007. Moreover, the resulting emissions reductions were deeper than in a businessas-usual scenario, despite no international enforcement. That the NOx tax was imposed only after an environmentalist party gained considerable influence over NOx policies in 2005 supports an office-incumbent hypothesis. However, as emissions also declined significantly in many other European countries after 2005, the explanation is likely structural. One possibility is the deadline-pressure hypothesis: As the deadline approached, decision-makers considered emissions reductions to be more urgent than before.


Multivariate analyses are well known and widely used to identify and understand structures of ecological communities. The ade4 package for the R statistical environment proposes a great number of multivariate methods. Its implementation follows the tradition of the French school of "Analyse des Donnees" and is based on the use of the duality diagram. We present the theory of the duality diagram and discuss its implementation in ade4. Classes and main functions are presented. An example is given to illustrate the ade4 philosophy.


INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW Some of the issues that dominated, or at least held sway, in the neuropsychology of learning disabilities (LD) in the 1970s included: the definition of LD, whether there are reliable and valid subtypes of LD, whether and to what extent LD are related to cerebral dysfunction, and whether LD are related to types and/or degrees of psychosocial dysfunction (Rourke, 1975). It is clear that these issues are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they are intimately connected. We have made progress in examining these issues, but future challenges will be substantial. Definitions: General and Subtypal It has become clear that so-called "discrepancy" definitions of LD lack scientific credibility (Fletcher et al., 1989; Fletcher, Francis, Rourke, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 1992). One alternative is strictly neuropsychological definitions that my colleagues and I have proposed (e.g., Rourke, van der Vlugt, & Rourke, 2002). The following are our general definition and some elements of our specific subtypal definitions of LD. The definitions arise from the part of our research program during the last 40 years that has focused on delineating reliable and valid subtypes of LD. (For reviews of this work and the development of these definitions, see Rourke, 1985, 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995a, 1995b, 2000; Rourke & Conway, 1997; Rourke & Fuerst, 1992; Rourke et al., 2002.) General definition. LD are specific patterns (subtypes) of neuropsychological assets and deficits that eventuate in specific patterns of formal (e.g., academic) and informal (e.g., social) learning assets and deficits. LD may also lead to specific patterns of psychosocial functioning. These generalizations must be construed and evaluated within the context of particular historical and sociocultural contexts. Specific subtypal definitions. Of particular interest are two subtypes of LD that we have identified in a reliable and valid manner: nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) and basic phonological processing disabilities (BPPD). The NLD subtype (syndrome) is characterized by a specific pattern of relative assets and deficits in academic (well-developed single-word reading and spelling relative to mechanical arithmetic) and social (e.g., more efficient use of verbal than nonverbal information in social situations) learning, as well as specific, developmentally dependent patterns of psychosocial functioning. Generally, in children with NLD below the age of 4, psychosocial functioning is relatively typical or reflective of mild deficits. Following this period, emerging manifestations of externalized psychopathology are frequent; the child may be characterized as "hyperactive" and "inattentive." The usual course with respect to activity level is one of perceived "hyperactivity" followed by evident normoactivity and then hypoactivity with advancing years. By older childhood and early adolescence, the typical pattern of psychopathology is of the internalized variety, characterized by withdrawal, anxiety, depression, atypical behaviors, and social skill deficits. The BPPD subtype is characterized by a specific pattern of relative assets and deficits in academic (i.e., poorly developed single-word reading and spelling relative to mechanical arithmetic) and social (e.g., more efficient use of nonverbal than verbal information in social situations) learning. The neuropsychological profile and outcomes of this subtype of LD stand in marked contrast to those of NLD. For example, the misspellings of individuals who exhibit NLD are almost always phonetically accurate (Sweeney & Rourke, 1978), whereas the misspellings of persons with BPPD are most often phonetically inaccurate. Also, the neuropsychological assets and deficits of the BPPD subtype do not necessarily lead to any particular configuration of difficulties in psychosocial/adaptive behavior. For a more extensive description of the neuropsychological assets and deficits (definitions) of NLD, the interested reader is referred to Rourke (1989). …


Responses of biota to climate change take a number of forms including distributional shifts, behavioural changes and life history changes. This study examined an extensive set of biological records to investigate changes in the timing of life history transitions (specifically emergence) in British Odonata between 1960 and 2004. The results show that there has been a significant, consistent advance in phenology in the taxon as a whole over the period of warming that is mediated by life history traits. British odonates significantly advanced the leading edge (first quartile date) of the flight period by a mean of 1.51 ±0.060 (SEM, n=17) days per decade or 3.08±1.16 (SEM, n=17) days per degree rise in temperature when phylogeny is controlled for. This study represents the first review of changes in odonate phenology in relation to climate change. The results suggest that the damped temperature oscillations experienced by aquatic organisms compared with terrestrial organisms are sufficient to evoke phenological responses similar to those of purely terrestrial taxa.


The primary aim of this chapter is to look at how we relate to nonhuman behavior and to what extent we are willing or able to include it in our concept of performance. Given this aim, the chapter begins by focussing on the ambivalent way in which nonhuman animals figure in one of the prominent theories of performance: namely, Richard Schechner's 'broad-spectrum' account. Here, I draw from the definition of performance and its relation to the nonhuman as outlined by in his influential work Performance Theory (1977/2003). Schechner's landmark book was first published in 1977, though Schechner recalls that he had been working on its contents from the late 1960's onwards. Of particular relevance to our own concerns is that during this time, Schechner was reading Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and engaged with the work of ethologists such as Huxley, Lorenz and Eibl-Eibesfeldt – influences that can be felt throughout the final text. In what follows, I also make some brief, preliminary links between the broad-spectrum and the work of the contemporary French theorist Francois Laruelle, whose insistence on the need to expand our understanding of what counts as thought (from a non-standard philosophical perspective) has been recently shown to extend to a demand to rethink the relation between the human and nonhuman. Next, the chapter examines the emerging, interdisciplinary field of artistic practice known as 'interspecies collaboration', suggesting a link between these and what John Mullarkey calls 'complete anthropomorphism' (where anthropomorphism is no longer a pejorative term). Here, our interest lies in the notion of performance not only as a way of seeing – which would be to reassert the human tendency to focus on vision – but as a mode of existence or lived stance that can give the 'benefit of the doubt' to nonhuman life as we do, every day, in our relations with humans (Mullarkey 2012: 53). Can performance operate as a site in which those currently defined as human and nonhuman can open themselves to the affects of the other and develop a felt understanding of their continuity and difference? Can interspecies collaboration in particular open us up to new understandings of performance and, as such, to new concepts of the human as well? In summary, then, this chapter shows how the broad-spectrum thesis goes so far as to extend the definition of performance to allows animals in as performers – according to an openness or inclusivity that Schechner and others have retreated from in order to maintain an identity for the spectrum (ie. that the spectrum does not extend to infinity at both ends). As we shall see, that retreat comprises an exclusive gesture whereby the spectrum is re-centred on the human in an anthropocentrism that simultaneously serves to protect the broad-spectrum thesis. For Schechner, to allow the animal onto the spectrum whole-heartedly is to risk anthropomorphism. However, for us, following ideas from Laruelle and others, I argue that seeing the animal as performer is not necessarily a species of projective fantasy but can act on the very definition of performance and performer in a manner akin to gestures within recent non-standard philosophy. Just as such work aims at a complete or two-way anthropomorphism which expands the meaning of philosophical thought - not merely by projecting the human onto the nonhuman, but by mutating the meaning of both philosophy and the human – this chapter constitutes a preliminary step towards a complete anthropomorphism of performance.


Ti-Ta-X (X = Al, Sn, Zr) compounds are emerging candidates as high-temperature shape memory alloys (HTSMAs). The stability of the one-way shape memory effect (1WE), the exploitable pseudoelastic (PE) strain intervals as well as the transformation temperature in these alloys depend strongly on composition, resulting in a trade-off between a stable shape memory effect and a high transformation temperature. In this work, experimental measurements and first-principles calculations are combined to rationalize the effect of alloying a third component to Ti-Ta based HTSMAs. Most notably, an $\textit{increase}$ in the transformation temperature with increasing Al content is detected experimentally in Ti-Ta-Al for low Ta concentrations, in contrast to the generally observed dependence of the transformation temperature on composition in Ti-Ta-X. This inversion of trend is confirmed by the $\textit{ab-initio}$ calculations. Furthermore, a simple analytical model based on the $\textit{ab-initio}$ data is derived. The model can not only explain the unusual composition dependence of the transformation temperature in Ti-Ta-Al, but also provide a fast and elegant tool for a qualitative evaluation of other ternary systems. This is exemplified by predicting the trend of the transformation temperature of Ti-Ta-Sn and Ti-Ta-Zr alloys, yielding a remarkable agreement with available experimental data.


Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus In the emerging field of David Foster Wallace studies, nothing has been more widely cited in terms of understanding Wallace's literary project than two texts that appeared in the 1993 issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction. "E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction" and a lengthy interview with Larry McCaffery have been significant landmarks for critics Of his work in much the same way that T. S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" or Henry James's "The Art of Fiction" were for critics of those writers. Following Wallace's argument in "E Unibus Pluram," that the "postmodern irony" of such writers like Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo had infected United States culture at all levels, and especially the medium of television, much of the conversation regarding his fiction has revolved around irony and his sense of being a latecomer in relation to his postmodern forebears. Criticism approaching his work through the lens of "E Unibus Pluram" has been so prevalent that, one might be permitted to suggest, a "standard" reading of his fiction has emerged. Much of this criticism has been quite impressive, and the recent groundswell of work being done on Wallace since his untimely death in 2008 is in the process of forging new paths for understanding his contribution to American letters. But there has been a notable lack of attention paid to one of Wallace's more important self-critical moments in the interview with McCaffery, specifically when he discusses his early novella, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way," which appeared in the collection Girl with Curious Hair (1989): "My idea in 'Westward' was to do with metafiction what Moore's poetry or like DeLillo's Libra had done with other mediated myths. I wanted to get the Armageddon-explosion, the goal metafiction's always been about, I wanted to get it over with, and then out of the rubble reaffirm the idea of art being a living transaction between humans" (McCaffery 142, my emphasis). In a similar manner to how "Westward" explicitly targets John Barth's much anthologized short story "Lost in the Funhouse" (1968), the target of Wallace's comments to McCaffery were what Barth once called, in his own manifesto-like essay "The Literature of Exhaustion" (1967), the "apocalyptic ambience" surrounding the postmodern novel: [I]f enough writers and critics feel apocalyptical about [the novel], their feeling becomes a considerable cultural fact, like the feeling that Western civilization, or the world, is going to end rather soon. If you took a bunch of people out into the desert and the world didn't end, you'd come home shamefaced, I imagine; but the persistence of an art form doesn't invalidate work created in the comparable apocalyptic ambience. (The Friday Book 72) Referring at once to the persistence of eschatological discourse despite the failure of the prophesied apocalypse ever to arrive (that Norman Cohn famously wrote about in The Pursuit of the Millennium) and the claims about the novel's death, Barth arrives at a stunning insight, ff one imagines the disaster often enough, here implicating literature in the work of imagination that brings the disaster about, it becomes a considerable cultural fact. Wallace's first novel, The Broom of the System (1987), and "Westward" resist the imminence of this considerable cultural fact, attempting to find ways not to bring apocalypse, either projectively or literally, into the world. In beginning to define his own literary project, he was explicitly aware that he inhabited the untimely position of a Nietzschean latecomer in relation to literary postmodernism, a position that caused him to read American metafiction of the 1960s to '80s as a literature obsessed with its own end. In contrast to someone like, say, DeLillo--who ended White Noise (1985) with a group of suburban Americans perched on the edge of a "computerized nuclear pulse," an "ambient roar, in the plain and heartless fact of their decline" (325, 326)--Wallace had arrived at the end-of-the-world party after it was already over (though everyone was still standing around holding their drinks, wondering if they should go home). …


The goal of this study was to observe the foraging behavior of Eastern Gray Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) on the University of Maine campus. The study tested whether squirrels in a more urban setting followed the optimal foraging theory, or if rarity of a food type played a greater factor in food selection. The study also examined whether urban squirrel behavior mimicked that of wild squirrels when presented with a food type uncommon on campus, but common in other parts of Maine, specifically the acorns of the white oak tree (Quercus alba). In three different areas on the campus, squirrels were given a number of different food types: English walnuts (Juglans regia), Spanish peanuts (Arachis hypogaea), red oak acorns (Quercus rubra), white oak acorns, and sunflower seeds (Helianthus annuus). Data were collected on which food item was taken and if they chose to eat or cache the item they had chosen. An overall pattern of the order in which the squirrels took the food was then established. Nutritional content was then taken into consideration to see if the squirrels followed the optimal foraging theory and if their behavior correlated with wild squirrels. A chi-square test confirmed the significance of their behavior. It was found that in the face of novel food types, squirrels do indeed follow the optimal foraging theory, and are able to estimate the profitability of food items. They do indeed follow the natural behaviors of eastern gray squirrels found in less urban settings.


A total of 1848 flux observations of BD+13 218 are obtained by using the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) on board of the Coriolis satellite. The data reveal a significant cycle-to-cycle fluctuation in the pulsation period, indicating that classical Cepheid may not be accurate regardless of the specific points used to determine the O-C values. Eddington & Plakidis (1929) methods and random fluctuations in periods were studied. The present detailed O-C residuals for pulsating star BD+13 218 (P=2.8364 day) is studied. Pulsation frequencies and Fourier spectra are presented. By using the empirical relations for stellar structure we determined the parameters of BD+13 218, Teff = 5917.052±145.262,


Background: This study examined the relationships among activity choices, perceived health, stress, and life orientation (optimism-pessimism) in a general population of 675 healthy adults ranging in age from 18-91 years. The objective was to examine assumptions that occupational scientists and practitioners hold regarding the relationships among health factors and engagement in activities/occupations. Method: The study used four self-report measures, including a customized activity card sort that asked participants about both healthy and unhealthy activity patterns. Responses were then compared with the participants' perceptions of overall health, stress levels, and degrees of optimism and pessimism (life orientation). Results: Major findings confirmed that being engaged in more activities overall is aligned with more optimally perceived health, positive life orientation, and lower stress. However, participation in unhealthy activities negatively affected overall health, stress perception, and life orientation. The study also confirmed that women tend to have higher perceived stress than men and that caring for others is associated with more positive health ratings. Conclusion: The amount and type of activity participation appears to matter for even healthy individuals in terms of overall health, stress perception, and life orientation. This study confirms the importance of participating in a wide repertoire of activities and underscores the need for practitioners to ask clients about engagement in unhealthy activities as well as healthy ones. Comments To view a short evidence-based video about this article with the author, Barbara White, visit our partner, MedBridge, at: https://ojot.medbridgeeducation.com/breakouts/13-relationships-among-activity-choicesperceived-health-stress-and-life-orientation OJOT is excited to partner with MedBridge to offer online CEUs through Breakouts – short, evidence-based video interviews featuring OJOT authors. Click here to learn more about this unique opportunity for discussions on hot topics in OT by leading researchers.


The NSTP theory is a (philosophy of mind) semi-idealistic as well as semi-dualistic theory that the material universe, where some peculiar phenomena like quantum non-locality exist in, is exclusively a group of superhuman as well as non-superhuman thinking processes existing in the form of (non-spatial physical/material) feelings (i.e. states of consciousness). In computer terminology, it regards the (material) universe as a non-spatial computer, with hardware of (non-spatial) feelings and software of superhuman as well as non-superhuman thoughts/ideas, including those of space, which is then an illusive/virtual/merely apparent entity. The mere existence of the superhuman thoughts is responsible for the empirical (i.e. a posteriori) order in the non-superhuman ones. The theory, however, accepts the possibility of the reality of space, the space where the phenomena like quantum non-locality do not exist in. The theory is constituted of 6 axioms, 1 theorem, and 3 conjectures. The key strength and novelty in the theory lies in its axiomatic/self-evident foundation, its innovative semi-idealism and semi-dualism, and, in general, its road to idealism and dualism.


This paper investigates an unprecedented regulation measure in the housing
 market, reference pricing, with evidence from Shenzhen China. We use a
 unique panel dataset, obtained through questionnaires to real estate agents,
 to document the effects of the policy on the housing market. The hypotheses
 that trading volume and house price decrease are validated by the data,
 while the one that turnover time increases is not supported. We discuss
 potential mechanisms that may explain these effects. Meanwhile, we infer
 estate-level discount factors that are not public information. Based on
 these factors, we forecast reference prices for the subsequent year.
 Overall, this paper fills the gap in the field of reference pricing
 effects on the housing market.


Recent empirical research has found that interhousehold exchanges of goods and services are more frequent among Whites than among African Americans or Latinos. This study explores racial and ethnic differences in kin support and focuses on financial support that adult children receive from their parents. We decompose the observed group differences in the incidence of adult children's receiving assistance into those explained by behavioral patterns and those explained by resources. Contrary to earlier observations that financial support among poor, minority families is mostly to ease short-term crises, our results suggest that minority parents may be more concerned than White parents with the long-term effects of financial support for their children. When providing financial support, African American and Latino parents, more than White parents, favor adult children who acquire greater human capital resources (education and income). Key Words: African Americans, financial transfers, intergenerational support, Latinos, parents. One apparent conclusion from previous studies on racial and ethnic differences in kin support is that African Americans and Latinos are more likely to live in extended households than are Whites (Angel & Tienda, 1982; Hofferth, 1984). This difference in living arrangements has been the basis of numerous studies that emphasize the importance of kin networks among African American and Latino families. Studies based on ethnographic methods and small-scale surveys have argued for this premise (e.g., Hays & Mindel, 1973; Martin & Martin, 1978; Stack, 1974), and large-scale representative data have confirmed their findings (e.g., Aquilino, 1990; Hofferth, 1984). Recent studies, however, find that the interhousehold exchange of monetary and social support is more frequent among Whites than among African Americans or Latinos, although findings on group differences in some detailed aspects of interhousehold support are not yet conclusive. African American and Latino adult children are less likely than White adult children to receive financial and social support from their parents (Cox & Rank, 1992; Hogan, Eggebeen, & Clogg,1993; Hogan, Hao, & Parish, 1990; McGarry & Schoeni, 1995). It appears that the racial and ethnic patterns of interhousehold assistance vary according to the family context (such as different kin relationships and stages in the life cycle), as well as according to the type of support (e.g., Aytac & Waite, 1992; Eggebeen & Hogan, 1990; Hoyert, 1990; MacDonald, 1989; Silverstein & Waite, 1992; Waite & Harrison,1992). In particular, the lower likelihood of interhousehold kin support among African Americans and Latinos, compared with Whites, does not seem to hold for support for the aged. Among the aged, African Americans receive more informal support than do Whites, whether controlling for income and education or not (Mindel, Wright, & Starrett, 1986). Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Silverstein and Waite (1992) find that, controlling for economic and demographic characteristics, middle-aged African American women are less likely than middle-aged White women to provide instrumental support for noncoresiding relatives. After age 65, however, African American women are more likely to receive instrumental support and about as likely as White women to provide such support to noncoresiding relatives or friends. These findings seem to be consistent with the observations that older African Americans serve as an important resource for kin support and that they enjoy higher social status than their White counterparts (Gibson, 1986; Lubben & Becerra, 1987). A major research question in racial and ethnic comparisons of extended family living has been whether the higher prevalence of the extended family among African Americans and Latinos is a way of coping with economic difficulty or is a result of cultural preferences. …


Of the various interpretative resources on art that were available to the Victorian viewer, the catalogue had a particularly immediate connection to the objects it described and was carried into the gallery for words to be linked directly to images as eyes travelled between page and painting. Casually consulted, pored over, brandished, fumbled with, the catalogue is a ubiquitous element in depictions of nineteenth-century galleries and museums. This essay looks at how behaviour with a catalogue was used to characterise viewers and stratify the gallery crowd. The catalogue could represent the interface between the idea of institutional, printed knowledge and the interpretation of the individual. The image of the visitor who carefully followed his or her catalogue, relying on words to explain images, played into narratives of both educating and limiting the viewer, while responses mediated by a catalogue threw ideas of 'correct' taste into conflict with a concern for integrity. I go on to examine the possibility that annotation allowed gallery visitors to renegotiate this oppressive characterisation of the catalogue. As a case study I analyse a copy of the official catalogue for the 'Art Treasures' exhibition of 1857 that has been extensively written and drawn in.


This paper explores the volatility forecasting implications of a model in which the friction in high-frequency prices is related to the true underlying volatility. The contribution of this paper is to propose a framework under which the realized variance may improve volatility forecasting if the noise variance is related to the true return volatility. The realized variance is defined as the sum of the squared intraday returns. When based on high-frequency returns, the realized variance would be non-informative for the true volatility under the standard framework. In this new setting, we revisit the results of Andersen et al. (2011) and quantify the predictive ability of several measures of integrated variance. Importantly, the time-varying aspect of the noise variance implies that the forecast of the integrated variance is different from the forecast of a realized measure. We characterize this difference, which is time-varying, and propose a feasible bias correction. We assess the usefulness of our approach for realistic models, then study the empirical implication of our method when dealing with forecasting integrated variance or trading options. The empirical results for Alcoa stock show several improvements resulting from the assumption of time-varying noise variance.


The complexity of the multilevel European polity is not adequately represented by the singlelevel theoretical concepts of competing `intergovernmentalist' and `supranationalist' approaches. By contrast, empirical research focusing on multilevel interactions tends either to emphasize the uniqueness of its objects, or to create novel concepts ^ which are likely to remain contested even among Europeanists and have the e¡ect of isolating European studies from the political-science mainstream in International Relations and Comparative Politics. These di¤culties are bound to continue as long as researchers keep proposing holistic concepts that claim to represent the complex reality of the European polity as a whole. It is suggested that the present competition among poorly ¢tting and contested generalizations could be overcome if European studies made use of a plurality of simpler and complementary concepts, each of which is meant to represent the speci¢c characteristics of certain subsets of multilevel interactions ^ which could also be applied and tested in other ¢elds of political-science research. Four distinct modes of multilevel interaction in the European polity are described ^ `mutual adjustment', `intergovernmental negotiations', `joint-decision making', and `hierarchical direction' ^ and their characteristics are discussed by reference to the criteria of problemsolving capacity and institutional legitimacy.


Regression equations can be used to estimate the neutral detergent fiber (NDF) of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), assisting producers in decision making at harvest time. In New York State, where most alfalfa is grown in mixed stands with grass, there are no available models to estimate NDF. The objectives of this experiment were to develop equations for estimating total mixed stand NDF with an emphasis on producer useable equations based on easily obtainable data. Stands of first-cut alfalfa and grass (0.1–0.9 fraction grass) were sampled at two experimental sites and producers' fields in 19 New York counties during May and June 2004 and 2005. A range of plant measurements and environmental characteristics were recorded and used to develop prediction equations. For selection of two to five variable models using 899 data points, R 2 ranged from 0.89 to 0.94 and root mean square error (RMSE) ranged from 21.2 to 30.1 g kg−1 dry matter (DM). The most important explanatory variables were the fraction of grass and alfalfa height. Growing degree days and day of the year improved goodness of fit but were biased between years. Categorization of the grass fraction into 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, or 0.8 allows estimation without requiring species separations. Categorization decreased R 2 and increased RMSE but is a variable that could be more easily used by producers. Model validation found significant biases with some model estimates; however biases and prediction errors were small enough to suggest that the results are practically applicable to New York farms.


The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term (CBOLT) model uses dynamic micro-simulation for a representative sample of the population to analyze the aggregate and distributional effects of Social Security policy. In the model, overall mortality rates by age and sex are calibrated to match Social Security Trustees projections, and differential mortality (the difference in death rates across socioeconomic groups) is introduced using a combination of disability-specific mortality and a technique for the non-disabled developed by Lillard and Panis (1999). In this paper, the question of how differential mortality affects Social Security finances and progressivity is approached through sensitivity analysis using CBOLT. The model is solved using a range of assumptions about differential mortality, and the impact on various outcomes is assessed. In contrast to inferences in several recent studies, the results here suggest that differential mortality does not play a significant role in determining progressivity or system finances. It is true that socioeconomic differentials in death rates work counter to Social Security's statutory redistribution and make the system costs higher, but the effects are probably only of second-order significance.


Relatively little research exists estimating the marginal impacts of photovoltaic (PV) energy systems on home sale prices. Using a large dataset of California homes that sold from 2000 through mid-2009, we find strong evidence, despite a variety of robustness checks, that existing homes with PV systems sold for a premium over comparable homes without PV systems, implying a near full return on investment. Premiums for new homes are found to be considerably lower than those for existing homes, implying, potentially, a tradeoff between price and sales velocity. The results have significant implications for homeowners, builders, appraisers, lenders, and policymakers.


Body contouring surgery is worldwide accepted as one of the most successful esthetic surgeries. Lipectomy, liposuction, and buttock fat infiltration are among the most frequent procedures realized, but also, they are not free of complications as any other surgery. A strategy to overcome these complications is to provide the patient with a good perioperative care, to improve every aspect of recovery. The areas to be improved are nutrition, immunology, pain and inflammation, hemodynamics, early mobilization, patient education and communication, and leadership to evaluate if it is correctly been done. The implementation of these fast recovery strategies is the best approach for our patients, with cost-efficiency optimization, a better experience, and a high overall satisfaction during the whole process. It constitutes a paradigm shift from the traditional steps around the well-being of the patient. If all the areas are covered and improved, the patient should have a fast recovery and a good experience of the surgery.


ABSTRACT Coccidiosis is a common disease of camels, and camels are important for the economy of Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. Little is known regarding the prevalence of coccidian parasites in camels in Egypt. Fecal samples collected from the rectums of 200 camels at the Cairo slaughterhouse were processed using the sucrose flotation technique. Eimeria species oocysts were found in 38%. Three Eimeria species were identified: Eimeria cameli–like in 31%, Eimeria rajasthani in 18%, and Eimeria dromedarii in 14%. The morphology of E. rajasthani and E. dromedarii oocysts was identical to that in literature. However, there was great variability in size and structure among E. cameli oocysts; oocysts were 70–100 lm long and truncate to ovoid. Four morphotypes (types 1 to 4) were recognized. Types 1 and 2 oocysts had similar truncate ovoid shape and were dark brown, but their shape indices were different. Both types could be easily distinguished from type 3 (elongate ovoid and light brown). All oocysts were enclosed in a transparent outer covering (capsule), although this capsule was barely seen in types 3 and 4. An extension from the capsule situated in front of the micropyle, referred to as polar cap–like structure (PCL), was characteristic for types 1 and 2. The PCL of type 1 resembled the crown, while in type 2 it looked like a small thickening with a smooth top. The PCL was absent in types 3 and 4 oocysts. The latter was found only in a single oocyst. Experimental infections with E. cameli oocysts and molecular studies are needed to determine whether the monotypes described here are different species or strain variations or both.


We show a Lefschetz fixed point formula for holomorphic functions in a bounded domain D with smooth boundary in the complex plane. To introduce the Lefschetz number for a holomorphic map of D, we make use of the Bergman kernel of this domain. The Lefschetz number is proved to be the sum of the usual contributions of fixed points of the map in D and contributions of boundary fixed points, these latter being different for attracting and repulsing fixed points.


The implementation of Revenue Management (RM) techniques in non profit performing arts organizations presents new challenges compared to other sectors, such as transportion or hospitality industries, in which these techniques are more consolidated. Indeed, performing arts organizations are characterized by a multi-objective function that is not solely limited to revenue. On the one hand, theatres aim to increase revenue from box office as a consequence of the systematic reduction of public funds; on the other hand they pursue the objective to increase its attendance. A common practice by theatres is to incentive the customers to discriminate among themselves according to their reservation price, offering a schedule of different prices corresponding to different seats in the venue. In this context, price and allocation of the theatre seating area are decision variables that allow theatre managers to manage these two conflicting goals pursued. In this paper we introduce a multi-objective optimization model that jointly considers pricing and seat allocation. The framework proposed integrates a choice model estimated by multinomial logit model and the demand forecast, taking into account the impact of heterogeneity among customer categories in both choice and demand. The proposed model is validated with booking data referring to the Royal Danish Theatre during the period 2010-2015.


Abstract. As a primary flux in the global water cycle, evapotranspiration (ET) connects hydrologic and biological processes and is directly affected by water and land management, land use change and climate variability. Satellite remote sensing provides an effective means for diagnosing ET patterns over heterogeneous landscapes; however, limitations on the spatial and temporal resolution of satellite data, combined with the effects of cloud contamination, constrain the amount of detail that a single satellite can provide. In this study, we describe an application of a multi-sensor ET data fusion system over a mixed forested/agricultural landscape in North Carolina, USA, during the growing season of 2013. The fusion system ingests ET estimates from the Two-Source Energy Balance Model (TSEB) applied to thermal infrared remote sensing retrievals of land surface temperature from multiple satellite platforms: hourly geostationary satellite data at 4 km resolution, daily 1 km imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and biweekly Landsat thermal data sharpened to 30 m. These multiple ET data streams are combined using the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM) to estimate daily ET at 30 m resolution to investigate seasonal water use behavior at the level of individual forest stands and land cover patches. A new method, also exploiting the STARFM algorithm, is used to fill gaps in the Landsat ET retrievals due to cloud cover and/or the scan-line corrector (SLC) failure on Landsat 7. The retrieved daily ET time series agree well with observations at two AmeriFlux eddy covariance flux tower sites in a managed pine plantation within the modeling domain: US-NC2 located in a mid-rotation (20-year-old) loblolly pine stand and US-NC3 located in a recently clear-cut and replanted field site. Root mean square errors (RMSEs) for NC2 and NC3 were 0.99 and 1.02 mm day−1, respectively, with mean absolute errors of approximately 29 % at the daily time step, 12 % at the monthly time step and 0.7 % over the full study period at the two flux tower sites. Analyses of water use patterns over the plantation indicate increasing seasonal ET with stand age for young to mid-rotation stands up to 20 years, but little dependence on age for older stands. An accounting of consumptive water use by major land cover classes representative of the modeling domain is presented, as well as relative partitioning of ET between evaporation (E) and transpiration (T) components obtained with the TSEB. The study provides new insights about the effects of management and land use change on water yield over forested landscapes.


Distance learning is not a new subject, but recently it has come in vogue again. With the advent of new educational and training technologies augmented by the Internet, distance learning is a viable option in meeting the needs of today's learning-hungry, but time-pressed students. The growing amount of literature on Internet instruction has examined several questions, including course design (Porter 1997, Cooper 2000), student and faculty assessment (Ryan 2000, White 2000), and quality control (Lezberg 1998, Terry 2000). However, few articles have addressed the important issues of enrollment and attrition. The purpose of this paper is to examine enrollment and attrition rates associated with online courses, based on the experience of a regional MBA program that has been offering instruction over the Internet for three years. Background In many ways the college in this study, West Texas A&M University (WT), is a typical example of a mid-sized college. It is the primary source of university education, research, and service for its region. Annual student enrollment is approximately 6,500. The Texas panhandle region has a relatively low population density, making the campus an ideal school for Internet instruction. For this reason, the University has been encouraged to act as a pioneer school in online education for the Texas A&M University System. The College of Business is an accredited member of the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP). In 1997, the College of Business initiated an Internet-based option in portions of their MBA program. The 200 students in the program can complete all essential courses on campus and/or in the Internet mode. Students enrolled in an online course are assessed a nominal distance education fee of $75 to recoup some of the costs of technical support, but all other tuition fees are the same across the two instructional modes. To date, 15 different graduate business courses have been offered on the Internet. During the spring of 2000, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) positively reviewed the online business program at WT. This study focuses on enrollment and attrition rates for the 15 graduate business courses offered on campus and over the Internet during the past three years. The business disciplines covered include accounting, economics, finance, business statistics, computer information systems, management and marketing. All 15 courses were offered at least once in both the campus- and Internet-based formats during the study period, and the same professor taught each course, regardless of instruction mode. Every effort is made to provide consistent methods, procedures, and materials in both the traditional and Internet-based instruction formats. Learning materials, including textbook information, detailed lecture notes, and supporting articles, are distributed in class or posted on the course Web site, depending on instruction mode. For the purpose of this study, enrollment and attrition rates are calculated on the basis of the first class day instead of the traditional twelfth class day, because the primary objective is to assess enrollment and retention for online courses. Hence, the enrollment and attrition rates presented in the next section are higher than the official twelfth class day numbers, but capture all students interested in online courses, even those deciding to drop the course within the first two weeks of instruction. Enrollment and Attrition Rates for Online Courses Bringing education to students via the Internet has the potential to benefit students and significantly increase the enrollment of an institution. Student benefits associated with Internet instruction include increased access to higher education, flexible location, individualized attention from the instructor, less travel, and increased time to respond to questions posed by the instructor (Matthews 1999). The increase in educational access and convenience to the student should benefit the enrollment of an institution by tapping the time- and geographically-constrained learner. …


Bioenergy has been globally recognized as one of the sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. An assured supply of biomass feedstocks is a crucial bottleneck for the bioenergy industry emanating from uncertainties in land-use changes and future prices. Analytical approaches deriving from geographical information systems (GIS)-based analysis, mathematical modeling, optimization analyses, and empirical techniques have been widely used to evaluate the potential for bioenergy feedstock. In this study, we propose a three-phase methodology integrating fuzzy logic, network optimization, and ecosystem services assessment to estimate potential bioenergy supply. The fuzzy logic analysis uses multiple spatial criteria to identify suitable biomass cultivating regions. We extract spatial information based on favorable conditions and potential constraints, such as developed urban areas and croplands. Further, the network analysis uses the road network and existing biorefineries to evaluate feedstock production locations. Our analysis extends previous studies by incorporating biodiversity and ecologically sensitive areas into the analysis, as well as incorporating ecosystem service benefits as an additional driver for adoption, ensuring that biomass cultivation will minimize the negative consequences of large-scale land-use change. We apply the concept of assessing the potential for switchgrass-based bioenergy in Missouri to the proposed methodology.


A previous study suggests that U.S. Senators trade common stock with a substantial informational advantage compared to ordinary investors and even corporate insiders. We apply precisely the same methods to test for abnormal returns from the common stock investments of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives. We measure abnormal returns for more than 16,000 common stock transactions made by approximately 300 House delegates from 1985 to 2001. Consistent with the study of Senatorial trading activity, we find stocks purchased by Representatives also earn significant positive abnormal returns (albeit considerably smaller returns). A portfolio that mimics the purchases of House Members beats the market by 55 basis points per month (approximately 6% annually).


The frequency sensitivity of hearing in the grey swiftlet, Collocalia spodiopygia, was determined by neuronal recordings from the auditory midbrain (MLD). The most sensitive best frequency response thresholds occurred between 0.8 and 4.7 kHz, with the upper frequency limit near 6 kHz. Spectral analysis of echolocation click pairs revealed energy peaks between 3.0 and 8.0kHz for the foreclick, compared to 4.0-6.0 kHz for the principal click. The relationship between good hearing sensitivity and click energy peaks in the swiftlet extends about an octave higher than it does in the oilbird (Steatornis caripensis).


The increasing size of modern field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) allows for ever more complex applications to be mapped onto them. However, long design implementation times for large designs can severely affect design productivity. A modular design methodology can improve design productivity in a divide and conqueror fashion but at the expense of degraded performance and power consumption of the resulting implementation. To reduce the dominant power dissipation component in FPGAs, the routing power, methodologies have been proposed that consider data communication between modules during module formation and placement on the FPGA. Selecting proper mapping region on target FPGAs, on the other hand, is becoming a critical process because of the heterogeneous resources and column arrangements in modern FPGAs. Selecting inappropriate FPGA regions for mapping could lead to degraded performance. Hence, we propose a methodology that uses communication-aware module placement, such that modules are mapped by selecting the best shape and region on the FPGA factoring the columnar resource arrangements. Additionally, techniques for module locking and splitting have been proposed for deterministic convergence of the algorithm and for improved module placement. This methodology exhibits nearly 19% routing power reduction with respect to commercial CAD flows without any degradation in achievable performance.


AIM: Although 1 week of continuous wearing time (CWT) is recommended for extended wear soft contact lenses (EWSCL), there have been few studies concerning the appropriateness of this or other CWTs. The current study was undertaken to examine the effect of various CWTs on the cornea by observing the corneal epithelium. METHODS: Specular microscopy was used to evaluate corneal epithelial changes induced by EWSCL in 19 myopic patients (24.0 (SD 6.7) years), divided into four groups: CWT of 0, 1, 3, and 6 days. RESULTS: The initial mean cell area was 628.2 (13.4) micron2. After 6 months this was 629.3 (28.6) micron2 for daily wear (ns), and 660.0 (40.9) micron2, 727.7 (49.6) micron2 (p < 0.01), and 815.5 (67.2) micron2 (p < 0.01) for CWT of 1, 3, and 6 days, respectively (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that the corneal epithelium changes proportionally with the CWT; the shorter the CWT, the better the epithelial morphology. This suggests that the CWT for EWSCL be minimised, so as to reduce the potential risk of contact lens related problems.


In several countries the economic crisis has again confronted homeowners with the risks of their ownership. Price-increases are not self-evident. The uncertainty of the costs of home ownership has increased. We will present a stochastic model by which the costs and risks of home ownership will be determined simultaneously. The costs of home ownership consist of two components: the difference between the buying price plus transaction costs at the start of the occupation period and the selling price at the end of the occupation period; and the home ownership related cash flows during the occupation. An important risk factor is the difference between the expected price-increase of the house and the uncertain actual price development during the occupation period. Other risks are for instance the uncertainty of the inflation influencing maintenance and the uncertainty of the future costs of refinancing the debt. We will determine those risks with a stochastic analysis, also taking into account the correlation between house price increases, inflation and the interest rate. The levels of the costs are amongst others dependent on the amount of own funds invested in the house and the length of the occupation period in the house. We show that just looking at the volatility of house prices underestimates the true risk of owner occupation, especially for longer occupation periods and with high initial loan-to-value ratios.


Ion-exclusion high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to measure poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) in Rhizobium japonicum bacteroids. The products in the acid digest of PHB-containing material were fractionated by HPLC on Aminex HPX-87H ion-exclusion resin for organic acid analysis. Crotonic acid formed from PHB during acid digestion was detected by its intense absorbance at 210 nm. The Aminex-HPLC method provides a rapid and simple chromatographic technique for routine analysis of organic acids. Results of PHB analysis by Aminex-HPLC were confirmed by gas chromatography and spectrophotometric analysis.


I aim to discuss a recent rise in the number of artists and artists groups who are setting themselves up as some form of variation of an educational model, i.e. as an Institute, a Faculty, a Museum, a Department or even a University. I will suggest how this may impact upon the ongoing debates about the art school, its survival (or indeed demise) and its challenges.
Projects such as my own Institute of Beasts (Dutton and Swindells) , suggest a slight
subversion. In effect, where artist-teachers may have rubbed up against the institution from within and encouraged students to do the same, in the age of extreme institutionalization and hyper-instrumentalisation this playful/ironic approach may no longer be possible. Instead the artist- student- teachers are taking the 'mantle' of the institution and occupying its linguistical and rhetorical frameworks instead of its architecture, and by doing so, are attempting to unraveling and explore what might be meant by an institution in the first place.

This may have profound possibilities within the 'walls' and traditions of the art school where, the power of the institution becomes not only something 'lessened' but also something existing 'in quotes', thus empowering both staff and students to occupy and produce the 'institution' on their own terms. By creating and inhabiting these equivalents, in effect by inhabiting institutional terminology, change may take place from within. Students and staff no longer attend the institution, but attend to it by inhabiting it.
The art educational institutions may have no alternative but to 'listen' to art/practice or dismiss it from the curriculum entirely.
I will outline of what could be described as an attempt at a form of reverse interpellation and possible neutralisation of the neo-liberal educational project by using other examples of artists' projects, such as Inga Zimprich's Faculty of Invisibility, Wysings Art Centre's The Department of Wrong Answers, Anton Vidolke's Night School or The University of Incidental Knowledge and in which the nomenclature of the educational/research institution of knowledge production is often inhabited by production of different and less quantifiable sort.


High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. However, there is limited knowledge on specific causal genes and pathways. To better understand the genetics of blood pressure we genotyped 242,296 rare, low-frequency and common genetic variants in up to ~192,000 individuals, and used ~155,063 samples for independent replication. We identified 31 novel blood pressure or hypertension associated genetic regions in the general population, including three rare missense variants in RBM47, COL21A1 and RRAS with larger effects (>1.5mmHg/allele) than common variants. Multiple rare, nonsense and missense variant associations were found in A2ML1 and a low-frequency nonsense variant in ENPEP was identified. Our data extend the spectrum of allelic variation underlying blood pressure traits and hypertension, provide new insights into the pathophysiology of hypertension, and indicate new targets for clinical intervention.


It is known that the essential ingredients of a Lisp-style unhygienic macro system can be expressed in terms of advanced hygienic macro systems. We show that the reverse is also true: We present a model of a core unhygienic macro system, on top of which a hygiene-compatible macro system can be built, without changing the internals of the core macro system and without using a code walker. To achieve this, the internal representation of source code as Lisp s-expressions does not need to be changed. The major discovery is the fact that symbol macros can be used in conjunction with local macro environments to bootstrap a hygiene-compatible macro system. We also discuss a proof-of-concept implementation in Common Lisp and give some historical notes.


Optimal fixed-route conventional bus (CBS) and flexible-route subscription bus (SBS) systems are compared. The average cost, including operator and user costs, is defined as the objective function to be minimized. The decision variables are route spacing and vehicle size in CBS, but service area and vehicle size in SBS. The systems serve probabilistic demand that varies over a 10-h operating period with high demand in the morning and afternoon peak hours. Passengers are assumed to have nonadditive value of time. Average cost per trip is calculated for a numerical example designed to compare the suitability of a particular service under various demand conditions. For this particular example, the CBS provides the lower-cost service. However, the operator can further reduce the cost of daily operation by providing the CBS service in periods of high demand and operating the SBS during off-peak periods. In general, the threshold value of demand at which one system is more cost-effective than another is readily calculated. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to show the effect of varying model parameters on the objective functions and the decision variables.


This paper describes the progress of an interdisciplinary project that aims to develop a general sonification software environment. The approach taken is interdisciplinary; a number of target sciences form an integral part of the work process. Within the first year, we have made good progress in some areas, while others have turned out to be more difficult. We describe the project background, the work done so far in the target sciences, the general software framework, and what we have learned about the interdisciplinary work process.


CONTEXT
Clinical trials demonstrating increased risk of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer among women randomized to hormone replacement therapy have increased interest in other therapies for menopausal symptoms. Dietary supplements containing isoflavones are widely used as alternatives to hormonal therapies for hot flashes, but there is a paucity of data supporting their efficacy.

OBJECTIVE
To compare the efficacy and safety of 2 dietary supplements derived from red clover with placebo in symptomatic menopausal women.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of menopausal women, aged 45 to 60 years, who were experiencing at least 35 hot flashes per week. The study was conducted between November 1999 and March 2001 at 3 US medical centers and included women who were recently postmenopausal (mean [SD], 3.3 [4.5] years since menopause) experiencing 8.1 hot flashes per day. Women were excluded if they were vegetarians, consumed soy products more than once per week, or took medications affecting isoflavone absorption.

INTERVENTION
After a 2-week placebo run-in, 252 participants were randomly assigned to Promensil (82 mg of total isoflavones per day), Rimostil (57 mg of total isoflavones per day), or an identical placebo, and followed-up for 12 weeks.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
The primary outcome measure was the change in frequency of hot flashes measured by participant daily diaries. Secondary outcome measures included changes in quality of life and adverse events.

RESULTS
Of 252 participants, 246 (98%) completed the 12-week protocol. The reductions in mean daily hot flash count at 12 weeks were similar for the Promensil (5.1), Rimostil (5.4), and placebo (5.0) groups. In comparison with the placebo group, participants in the Promensil group (41%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 29%-51%; P =.03), but not in the Rimostil group (34%; 95% CI, 22%-46%; P =.74) reduced hot flashes more rapidly. Quality-of-life improvements and adverse events were comparable in the 3 groups.

CONCLUSION
Although the study provides some evidence for a biological effect of Promensil, neither supplement had a clinically important effect on hot flashes or other symptoms of menopause.


The MIT Encyclopedia of the Japanese Economy was the first English-language encyclopedia to cover all major aspects of Japan's postwar economy. The second edition has been fully revised and expanded, and includes previously unpublished data as well as coverage of recent developments in the economy. The definitional entries concisely explain major economic concepts and include translations of Japanese economic terms and cross references to the longer topical essays. The 180 topical essays cover banks, financial systems, major industries, corporate groups, management practices, labor unions, international trade and investments, government economic policies, and more. They also include comprehensive statistics, American and Japanese views on economic relations between the two countries, and suggestions for further reading. A new index contains names of major companies.


Did we surprise our teachers who had niggling doubts about the picayune brains of small black children who reminded them of clean pickaninnies on a box of laundry soap? How muddy is the Mississippi compared to the third-longest river of the darkest continent? In the land of the Ibo, the Hausa, and the Yoruba, what is the price per barrel of nigrescence? Though slaves, who were wealth, survived on niggardly provisions, should inheritors of wealth fault the poor enigma for lacking a dictionary? Does the mayor demand a recount of every bullet or does city hall simply neglect the black alderman's district? If I disagree with your beliefs, do you chalk it up to my negligible powers of discrimination, supposing I'm just trifling and not worth considering? Does my niggling concern with trivial matters negate my ability to negotiate in good faith? Though Maroons, who were unruly Africans, not loose horses or lazy sailors, were called renegades in Spanish, will I turn any blacker if I renege on this deal?


It is interesting that plants can eventually acclimate fully in response to low temperatures in the absence of inductive photoperiods (67). This suggests that there is more than one route to resistance or more than one ignition key to start the machinery. In either case, the ability of plants to acclimate in response to more than one environmental stimulus provides adaptive flexibility which enhances survival potential.


With the prevalence of web and cloud-based services, there is an ever growing
requirement on the underlying network infrastructure to ensure that business critical traffic is continually serviced with acceptable performance. Networks must meet
their performance requirements under failures. The global scale of cloud provider
networks and the rapid evolution of these networks imply that failures are the norm
in production networks today. Unplanned downtime can cost billions of dollars, and
cause catastrophic consequences. The thesis is motivated by these challenges and
aims to provide a principled solution to certifying network performance under failures. Network performance certification is complicated, due to both the variety of
ways a network can fail, and the rich ways a network can respond to failures. The
key contributions of this thesis are: (i) a general framework for robustly certifying
the worst-case performance of a network across a given set of uncertain scenarios. A
key novelty is that the framework models flexible network response enabled by recent
emerging trends such as Software-Defined Networking; (ii) a toolkit which automates
the key steps needed in robust certification making it suitable for use by a network
architect, and which enables experimentation on a wide range of robust certification
of practical interest; (iii) Slice, a general framework which efficiently classifies failure
scenarios based on whether network performance is acceptable for those scenarios,
and which allows reasoning about performance requirements that must be met over
a given percentage of scenarios. We also show applications of our frameworks in synthesizing designs that are guaranteed to meet a performance goal over all or a desired percentage of a given set of scenarios. The thesis focuses on wide-area networks, but
the approaches apply to data-center networks as well.


The electrocardiographic change associated with ischaemia is typically ST segment
depression which is usually most prominent over the left chest wall. The position of
the ST depression does not predict the ischaemic territories in the myocardium or the
involved coronary arteries.
To evaluate the source of ST depression, a sheep model of subendocardial ischaemia
using partial coronary artery ligation coupled with atrial pacing was developed.
Ischaemia was induced initially in either the left anterior descending coronary artery
or the left circumflex coronary artery territory and subsequently in the territory of the
other vessel. The ischaemic regions were documented by a fluorescent microsphere
technique. During ischaemia potentials were mapped simultaneously from the
endocardium and the epicardium. The distributions of epicardial potentials from
either ischaemic source were very similar (0.77±0.14, P<0.0001), both showing ST
depression on the free wall of the left ventricle, and no association between the ST
depression and the ischaemic region. At the same time, the endocardial ST elevation
was directly associated with the region of reduced blood flow. Insulating the heart
from the surrounding tissue with plastic increased the magnitude of epicardial and
endocardial ST and QRS potentials and decreased the potentials from limb leads,
implying that the ST depression arises from current paths within the myocardium
rather than external. Increasing the percent stenosis of a coronary artery increased
epicardial ST depression at the lateral boundary and resulted in ST elevation starting
from the ischaemic centre as ischaemia became transmural. These results suggest
that the major source of ECG changes is the lateral boundary between ischaemic and
normal territories. This postulate was supported by the spatial flow distributions
which showed a sharp lateral flow change but a gradual transmural flow transition.
In conclusion, ST segment depression can not distinguish an ischaemic region even
from the epicardium. The ischaemic source does relate spatially to the endocardial
ST change but not to the epicardial ST change. The current paths during
subendocardial ischaemia must be in the myocardium and probably originate from
the injury current which flows at the lateral boundary. These effects are not
explained by conventional ECG theory but they do explain why body surface ST
depression does not localise cardiac ischaemia in humans.
The electric and pathophysiologic basis of remote ST depression occurring with ST
elevation during acute myocardial infarction remains controversial. To explore the
possible mechanism of such ST depression, different sizes of myocardial infarction
were produced. The epicardial and endocardial ST potentials were measured and
correlated with regional myocardial blood flow measured by fluorescent
microspheres. Epicardial ST distributions showed that occluding a small vessel
produced the expected ST elevation over the infarcting region with little ST
depression over the noninfarcting region, whereas either the occlusion of the left
anterior descending coronary artery or the left circumflex coronary artery resulted in
a powerful electrical dipole with ST elevation over the infarcted region and ST
depression over the noninfarcted region. Examination of fluorescent microsphere
delivery into the tissues showed that with smaller infarcts the flow remained
unchanged in the noninfarcted region (1.09±0.19 to 1.12±0.15, P>0.05). With large
infarcts there was approximately a 30% flow reduction in the noninfarcted region
which directly correlated to the perfusion pressure drop (r=0.82, P<0.001). These
findings suggest that ST depression reflects extensive infarction and is associated
with reduced perfusion of the noninfarcted myocardium. The reduced perfusion may
have a significant reversible role in the poor prognosis of these patients.


In this work sampled-current voltammetry performed on a series of aryldiazonium, diaryliodonium, and triarylsulfonium salts allows the determination of the reduction potential of aryl radicals in acetonitrile. Specifically, this is accomplished by measuring the number of electrons consumed in the reduction process as a function of the applied potential. For the phenyl, 4-bromophenyl, and 4-nitrophenyl radicals the reduction potential is found to be -0.91 ± 0.06, -0.90 ± 0.10, and -0.98 ± 0.06 V vs. SCE, respectively. Furthermore, from measurements on an extended series of substituted compounds, it is concluded that the substituent effect on the reduction potential is small, which can be explained by the σ nature of the aryl radical as evidenced from theoretical calculations. At the same time this yields a mean value for the reduction potential of the aryl radical of -0.87 V vs. SCE. Determination of the intrinsic barrier and the standard potential from the data obtained are more uncertain, since it is unknown to which extent the competing reference reaction, the electrochemical grafting reaction, is affected by the applied potential. From calculations using density functional theory the intrinsic barrier for the reduction of the phenyl radical is determined to be 0.32 eV.


Ultrasound is a real-time image modality enabling the analysis of tendon dynamics for the diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome. Automatic tendon displacement quantification algorithms based on speckle tracking generally suffer from underestimation due to stationary background present in the tendon region. We propose an improved quantification method using singular value decomposition (SVD) filtering to suppress the clutter. The accuracy of our improved speckle tracking (IST) method was validated against a ground truth and compared to the accuracy of our original block matching (OBM) algorithm and commercial tissue tracking (CTT) software. The methods were evaluated in experiments involving six human cadaver arms. The ground-truth displacements were generated by tracking metal markers inserted in the tendons. The relative displacement errors with respect to the ground truth for IST were 12 ± 16.9%, which was significantly lower than for OBM (19.7 ± 20.8%) and for CTT (25.8 ± 18.4%). These findings show that SVD filtering improves the tendon tracking by reducing underestimation due to clutter.


The Chesapeake Bay Model development project has as it goal the development of a comprehensive model of eutrophication in the estuary. It is a mass balance model that relates the inputs of nutrients to the growth and death of hytoplankton and the resulting extent and duration of the hypoxia and anoxia. The aim is to identify and quantify the causal chain that begins with
nutrient inputs and ends with the dissolved oxygen distributions in space and time. The modeling framework is based on a mass balance of the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silica, and dissolved oxygen in the bay. It requires a detailed specification of the transport that affects all these components and the kinetics that describe the growth and death of phytoplankton biomass, the nutrient cycling, and the resulting dissolved oxygen distribution in the bay and estuaries. A critical component of the model is the role of sediments in recycling nutrients and consuming oxygen. This report presents the formulation and calibration of a sediment model which quantifies these
processes within the context of mass balances in the sediment compartment.


It is often assumed that ventilation of the atmospheric boundary layer is weak in the absence of fronts, but is this always true? In this paper we investigate the processes responsible for ventilation of the atmospheric boundary layer during a nonfrontal day that occurred on 9 May 2005 using the UK Met Office Unified Model. Pollution sources are represented by the constant emission of a passive tracer everywhere over land. The ventilation processes observed include shallow convection, turbulent mixing followed by large-scale ascent, a sea breeze circulation and coastal outflow. Vertical distributions of tracer are validated qualitatively with AMPEP (Aircraft Measurement of chemical Processing Export fluxes of Pollutants over the UK) CO aircraft measurements and are shown to agree impressively well. Budget calculations of tracers are performed in order to determine the relative importance of these ventilation processes. Coastal outflow and the sea breeze circulation were found to ventilate 26% of the boundary layer tracer by sunset of which 2% was above 2 km. A combination of coastal outflow, the sea breeze circulation, turbulent mixing and large-scale ascent ventilated 46% of the boundary layer tracer, of which 10% was above 2 km. Finally, coastal outflow, the sea breeze circulation, turbulent mixing, large-scale ascent and shallow convection together ventilated 52% of the tracer into the free troposphere, of which 26% was above 2 km. Hence this study shows that significant ventilation of the boundary layer can occur in the absence of fronts (and thus during high-pressure events). Turbulent mixing and convection processes can double the amount of pollution ventilated from the boundary layer.


At the heart of the 1996 South African Constitution is a new vision of citizenship. The Constitution is premised on the eradication of apartheid separation and provisions for a shared humanity. Bearing in mind an authoritarian history and a systematic denial of voice to the majority of people, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission entrenched the right to speak and the recognition of a shared humanity as factors in our shared public life. But questions about who is a South African, who belongs and who has the right to speak and criticise erupt frequently in the media as themes alongside issues of great public importance being debated. There is also a steady increase over the years since 1994 in protest action, which could be considered a demand by citizens to be heard. These protests have provoked violent response from state agents, thus undermining ordinary South Africans' sense of their ability to affect political processes. We ask whether these features of our public life are indicative of a crisis in citizenship in a post-authoritarian, "new" democracy and what mediated modes of practising citizenship, apart from casting votes, are available to South Africans and whether these have value in deepening democracy. The article explores the relationship between the media and the emergence of new forms of citizenship in democratic South Africa by providing a brief overview of various notions of citizenship before illustrating how these notions find manifestation in contemporary South Africa.


Measurements of competition and facilitation between plants often rely upon intensity and importance indices that quantify the net effect of neighbours on the performance of a target plant. A systematic analysis of the mathematical behaviour of the indices is lacking and leads to structural pitfalls, e.g. statistical problems detected in importance indices. We summarize and analyse the mathematical properties that the indices should display. We review the properties of the commonly used indices focusing on standardization and symmetry, which are necessary to avoid compromising data interpretation. We introduce a new family of indices 'Neighbour‐effect Indices' that meet all the proposed properties. Considering the commonly used indices, none of the importance indices are standardized, and only RII (Relative Interaction Index) displays all the required mathematical properties. The existing indices show two types of symmetries, namely, additive or commutative, which are currently confounded, potentially resulting in misleading interpretations. Our Neighbour‐effect Indices encompass two intensity and two importance indices that are standardized and have different and defined symmetries. Our new additive intensity index, NIntA, is the first of its kind, and it is generally more suitable for assessing competition and facilitation intensity than the widely used RII, which may underestimate facilitation. Our new standardized importance indices solve the main statistical problems that are known to affect Cimp and Iimp. Intensity and importance with the same symmetry should be used within the same study. The Neighbour‐effect Indices, sharing the same formulation, will allow for unbiased comparisons between intensity and importance, and between types of symmetry.


A fully-coupled effective stress method of analysis incorporating an elastic-plastic constitutive model specifically designed for modelling sand behaviour was used to numerically simulate shake table experiments on piles in laterally spreading soils. Details of numerical procedures including modelling of stress-strain behaviour of sand, identification of the initial stress state and 3-D dynamic analysis of the soil-pile system are presented in this paper. Primary objective of the simulation was to assess the accuracy of the 3-D analysis in predicting the response of the pile foundation and to identify parameters that are critically important for successful numerical simulation of lateral spreading experiments. The computed response is compared to that measured in the test and key features of the behaviour of the ground, foundation piles and sheet pile wall are discussed. Keywords—3-D effective stress analysis, lateral spreading, liquefaction, piles, shake-table test


This research identifies and examines the circumstances and processes surrounding the migration and racialisation of doctors from the Indian subcontinent to Britain. Theoretically the research will critically evaluate several current debates within sociology and reconstructs a different set of criteria to that which has until recently governed investigations into racism.

The research argues that the concept of 'race' is an ideological construction with no analytical role to play in the investigation of racism and discrimination. The real object of analysis is the development and reproduction of racism as an ideology within specific historical and material conjunctures determined by the uneven development of capitalism. Within this context a full explanation of the migration and racialisation of doctors from the Indian subcontinent requires not only an examination of the post-war era, but also an investigation of the origins of that migration and racialisation during the pre-1945 period when India was the subject of British rule.

A great deal of contemporary research on migration and racism, has tended to concentrate on unskilled and semi-skilled migrant labour. This study will focus on the neglected area of the 'professions', through an investigation of doctors from the Indian subcontinent and their relationship with the British 'professional' occupation of medicine. Through the exegesis and critique of the 'sociology of professions', the research will demonstrate that doctors from the Indian subcontinent represent a racialised fraction of the new middle class.

The main question surrounding the analysis of the relationship between Indian doctors and the British 'professional' occupation of medicine as 'gatekeepers' of the occupation, will focus on the relationship between professionalism and racism. The research will contend that the content of professionalism does not merely define certain occupations as 'professions', but more importantly, professionalism like racism is an ideology. Professionalism not only operates to justify and legitimate the supposed special status of medicine, but it also reinforces racist exclusionary practices in a 'sanitised' form within the occupation.

This provides the research with the rare opportunity of analysing the nature and content of two ideologies operating within the same arena: the relationship between racism and professionalism. This will illustrate that the racism which black migrant 'professional' labour is subject to, does not only operate in a functional way for capitalism in providing labour for the less desirable specialisms of medicine, but also operates through the mediation of the occupation of medicine to help reproduce the 'professional status' of the occupation.


In survival analysis, deep learning approaches have been proposed for estimating an individual's probability of survival over some time horizon. Such approaches can capture complex non-linear relationships, without relying on restrictive assumptions regarding the relationship between an individual's characteristics and their underlying survival process. To date, however, these methods have focused primarily on optimizing discriminative performance and have ignored model calibration. Well-calibrated survival curves present realistic and meaningful probabilistic estimates of the true underlying survival process for an individual. However, due to the lack of ground-truth regarding the underlying stochastic process of survival for an individual, optimizing and measuring calibration in survival analysis is an inherently difficult task. In this work, we i) highlight the shortcomings of existing approaches in terms of calibration and ii) propose a new training scheme for optimizing deep survival analysis models that maximizes discriminative performance, subject to good calibration. Compared to state-of-the-art approaches across two publicly available datasets, our proposed training scheme leads to significant improvements in calibration, while maintaining good discriminative performance.


INTRODUCTION The premise of this Symposium is unabashedly radical: to imagine a new law of parentage focused exclusively on the needs and interests of children. Participants were invited to set aside questions of political feasibility and the constraints of settled law in asking how the law should assign parentage if its only goal were to maximize the welfare of children. The notion is radical because, traditionally, parentage law has been driven significantly by the needs and interests of adults - a sense of the natural entitlement of genetic parents, for instance, or society's desire to protect marriage or enable the orderly transfer of wealth between generations. One need only recall parentage law's historical treatment of non-marital children - classifying them asfilius nullius, or the child of no one - to appreciate the point.1 Even more strikingly, perhaps, the invitation expressly assumes a governmental control over the question of parentage that would strike many as alien. In its foundational case recognizing constitutional protection for family privacy, after all, the Supreme Court described the idea that government might reassign parentage in order to advance its own vision of child welfare as resting on "ideas touching the relation between individual and State . . . wholly different from" our own.2 And, yet, the invitation to think creatively and expansively about the meaning of legal parentage is extremely timely. Judges and legislators around the country are wrestling with the question as never before.3 The easy certainty of DNA testing and the fluidity of modern childrearing arrangements have combined to test fundamental assumptions about the meaning of kinship between adults and children.4 And, in responding to the challenge, some courts have opened the door to the idea of assigning parentage based directly on a judicial determination of a child's best interests.5 Accordingly, the work of crafting an explicitly "child-centered" parentage law is not solely a matter of academic interest; it is already the real- world occupation of at least some judges and lawyers. The question that I take up in this article is whether the toe-hold that "best interests" parentage has established in American law can be sustained against objections that it violates the fundamental constitutional rights of traditional parents. In other words, is it constitutional to premise legal parentage on a governmental finding of a child's "best interests"? The answer that I come to is that, perhaps not surprisingly, it depends. Part I of the Article sketches the context in which the question now arises: the breakdown of traditional parentage law - in which legal parentage was tied closely to clear markers relating to blood, marriage, and adoption - and the emergence of judicial interest in mediating conflicts among competing parental figures by resort to a child's best interests. Part ? considers whether substantive due process protection for family privacy limits the state's power to pick and choose among the competing claimants. It concludes that, notwithstanding recent suggestions of an essentially plenary state power to redefine parental status, the Constitution likely does confer a privacy right to parental identity on at least some individuals. Finally, in Part G?, I consider whether the privacy right to parental identity might be overcome based solely on a governmental assessment of a child's best interests. In my view, the answer is to be derived not from a rigid application of strict constitutional scrutiny, but from a more nuanced evaluation of the competing public and private interests at stake. Such an evaluation, I conclude, suggests that states enjoy considerable latitude to reorient parentage law in a child-centered direction. At the same time, any law that would defy widely shared social expectations in withholding parentage must be justified by something more compelling than a bare "best interests" showing. …


Typical synthesizers only provide controls to the low-level parameters of sound-synthesis, such as wave-shapes or filter envelopes. In contrast, composers often want to adjust and express higher-level qualities, such as how "scary" or "steady" sounds are perceived to be. We develop a system which allows users to directly control abstract, high-level qualities of sounds. To do this, our system learns functions that map from synthesizer control settings to perceived levels of high-level qualities. Given these functions, our system can generate high-level knobs that directly adjust sounds to have more or less of those qualities. We model the functions mapping from control-parameters to the degree of each high-level quality using Gaussian processes, a nonparametric Bayesian model. These models can adjust to the complexity of the function being learned, account for nonlinear interaction between control-parameters, and allow us to characterize the uncertainty about the functions being learned. By tracking uncertainty about the functions being learned, we can use active learning to quickly calibrate the tool, by querying the user about the sounds the system expects to most improve its performance. We show through simulations that this model-based active learning approach learns high-level knobs on certain classes of target concepts faster than several baselines, and give examples of the resulting automatically- constructed knobs which adjust levels of non-linear, high- level concepts.


Aquaculture is a fast-growing segment of the world food economy and a leading vector of aquatic invasive species in the United States and abroad. Surprisingly, little national or international oversight exists even for deliberate introductions of exotic species in aquaculture. The authors of this
 Policy Forum
 propose a policy agenda on exotic introductions as aquaculture expands that includes scientific risk assessment for all nonnative introductions and single-agency oversight for the prevention, containment, and monitoring of ecologically harmful species.


We report on the real-space observation of resonant frequency splitting in a high-Q waveguide-coupled silicon-on-insulator microdisk resonator. Phase sensitive near-field analysis reveals the stationary nature of the two resonant states, and spectral investigations clearly show their orthogonality. These measurements emphasize the role of the coupling waveguide in this splitting phenomenon. The symmetry of the two stationary whispering gallery modes is clearly observed and is found to follow the axial symmetry of the waveguide-coupled microdisk as it has been reported by earlier theoretical predictions.


POLISH ANTI-TERRORISM LEGISLATION. SELECTED ASPECTSTerrorism is, undoubtedly, a threat to Poland's security, which is why the state needs to undertake actions with regard to many aspects of its anti-terrorist policy, beginning with legislation and ending with information and education. An important step in the strengthening of Poland's anti-terrorist security was the adoption of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 10 June 2016. When applied in a responsible manner by the relevant agencies, the Act can be an effective tool in the fight against terrorism. Importantly, it can be used to launch pre-emptive actions effectively preventing terrorist activities within the territory of the Republic of Poland. However, it should be noted that this piece of legislation is to be used only to protect the citizens against terrorist attacks. It cannot, therefore, be used for purposes other than anti-terrorist actions.


The relationship between two things if one is another originator or creator, called causality. Although this concept is not specified to Medical Sciences and Epidemiology, the importance of this issue is more highlighted in the field of epidemiology. Causation is the most basic concepts in empirical sciences and is still under discussion because it is dependent on the basis of any scientific laws without acceptance something cease causality is impossible. With the increasing development of science as well as epidemiology, causality has found a broader concept and its application in analytical studies and logical interpretation of the results of this type of study, has a wider dimension. Due to developing new epidemiology courses at medical universities and increase the number of students, it is felt to talk more about the causality concept. In this review causality concepts in the humanities is overviewed, its history is briefly described, the causality of Medical Epidemiology and also Islamic religion is considered, then the causality framework, and models to interpret the conventional causality will be discussed.


In this bold work, of broad scope and rich erudition, Richard Miller sets out to reorient the philosophy of science. By questioning both positivism and its leading critics, he develops new solutions to the most urgent problems about justification, explanation, and truth. Using a wealth of examples from both the natural and the social sciences, "Fact and Method" applies the new account of scientific reason to specific questions of method in virtually every field of inquiry, including biology, physics, history, sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, and literary theory. Explicit and up-to-date analysis of leading alternative views and a wealth of examples make it an ideal introduction to the philosophy of science, as well as a powerful attempt to change the field. Like the works of Hempel, Reichenbach, and Nagel in an earlier generation, it will challenge, instruct, and help anyone with an interest in science and its limits.For the past quarter-century, the philosophy of science has been in a crisis brought on by the failure of the positivist project of resolving all basic methodological questions by applying absolutely general rules, valid for all fields at all times. Professor Miller presents a new view in which what counts as an explanation, a cause, a confirming test, or a compelling case for the existence of an unobservable is determined by frameworks of specific substantive principles, rationally adopted in the light of the actual history of inquiry. While the history of science has usually been the material for relativism, Professor Miller uses arguments of Darwin, Newton, Einstein, Galileo, and others both to undermine positivist conceptions of rationality and to support the positivists' optimism that important theoretical findings are often justifiable from all reasonable perspectives.


This paper analyses the locomotion of a finite body propelling itself through a viscous fluid by means of travelling harmonic motions of its surface. The methods are developed with application to the propulsion of ciliated micro-organisms in mind. Provided that the metachronal wavelength (of the surface motions) is much smaller than the overall dimensions of the body, the flow can be divided into an oscillating-boundary-layer flow to which is matched an external complementary Stokes flow. The present paper employs the envelope model of fluid/cili a interaction to construct equations of motion for the oscillating boundary layer. The final solution for the propulsive velocity is obtained by application of the condition of zero total force on the self-propelling body; alternatively, if the organism is held at rest, the thrust it generates can be computed. Various optimum propulsive velocities for self-propelling bodies and optimum thrusts for restrained bodies are analysed in some simple examples. The results are compared with the relatively sparse observations for a number of microorganisms.


The identification of cancer drivers is a major goal of current cancer research. Finding driver genes within large chromosomal events is especially challenging because such alterations encompass many genes. Previously, we demonstrated that zebrafish malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are highly aneuploid, much like human tumors. In this study, we examined 147 zebrafish MPNSTs by massively parallel sequencing and identified both large and focal copy number alterations (CNAs). Given the low degree of conserved synteny between fish and mammals, we reasoned that comparative analyses of CNAs from fish versus human MPNSTs would enable elimination of a large proportion of passenger mutations, especially on large CNAs. We established a list of orthologous genes between human and zebrafish, which includes approximately two-thirds of human protein-coding genes. For the subset of these genes found in human MPNST CNAs, only one quarter of their orthologues were co-gained or co-lost in zebrafish, dramatically narrowing the list of candidate cancer drivers for both focal and large CNAs. We conclude that zebrafish-human comparative analysis represents a powerful, and broadly applicable, tool to enrich for evolutionarily conserved cancer drivers.


This work presents ZnO nanorods coated multimode optical fiber sensing behavior in response to ethanol solution. The sensor operates based on modulation of light intensity which arises from manipulation of light interaction with the ambient environment in sensing region. For this purpose, two steps are experimentally applied here; etching and then coating fiber with ZnO nanorods to provide stronger evanescent waves causing an enhanced interaction. Long length of fiber (15 mm) was etched uniformly and then well-ordered ZnO nanorods were grown hydrothermally on the core of optical fiber. Fiber coated with ZnO demonstrated an enhanced sensing performances such that response time decreased to 0.6s, linearity increased to 97% and sensitivity improved. Applicable features of the proposed device such as fast response time and high linearity make it favorable candidate for fiber optic sensing applications.


When formal institutions are unfavorable for the development of a free market economy, one reaction in many countries is a spontaneous development of informal economies. This study analyzes the conditions for the informal sector to emerge in a transition country, to wit, Albania. The consequences of these conditions are reflected in the various appearances of the informal sector in this country, only two of which are analyzed in this paper. These are the occurrence of financial pyramid schemes and street vending. The analyses are based on the existing scarce evidence with respect to both aspects of the informal sector in Albania. These two examples provide evidence of the importance of the informal sector in a country in transition. This study concludes that overall, the negative implications dominate the positive ones, and argues that the informal sector should be formalized. Finally, it recognizes that this formalization can only be done in an environment with the relevant and efficient institutional framework and enforcement mechanisms.


Background Over a decade after the landmark 'Born too Soon' report, preterm birth remains a leading cause of under-five mortality. Addressing its global burden is key to meeting United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3; to end preventable deaths of newborns and children by 2030. We conducted a landscape analysis to explore the types of organisations addressing preterm birth, highlight the scope of interventions and initiatives, and identify gaps and opportunities for shared learning. Methods We combined google searches with citation searching, and opinion of experts in child health, to identify the major global stakeholders working to improve outcomes of preterm birth, with evidence of activity since 2012. We conducted a thematic analysis and narrative synthesis of key stakeholder websites to categorise their functions and priorities, and the types of interventions they were implementing. Results A total of 38 key organisations and 28 interventions were derived from the searches. Organisations were thematically grouped into knowledge sharing (n = 15), knowledge production (n = 12), funders (n = 6), legislation and advocacy (n = 15), implementer (n = 14) and network organisations (n = 11).  Interventions covered a wide scope of functions including education (n = 11), research (n = 10), resources (n = 7), legislation (n = 2), and health systems (n = 2) interventions. The majority of global stakeholders were funded from and headquartered within high-income settings. Discussion There is scope for significant learning across global stakeholders, in particular to support carers in low-resource settings.  Further opportunities for impact include a need for community-based initiatives and whole systems approach that address the long-term needs of preterm babies and their families, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) settings. Greater knowledge production and funding from LMICs is needed to create contextually relevant resources and address implementation challenges.


Intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in computer science, A Second Course in Formal Languages and Automata Theory treats topics in the theory of computation not usually covered in a first course. After a review of basic concepts, the book covers combinatorics on words, regular languages, context-free languages, parsing and recognition, Turing machines, and other language classes. Many topics often absent from other textbooks, such as repetitions in words, state complexity, the interchange lemma, 2DPDAs, and the incompressibility method, are covered here. The author places particular emphasis on the resources needed to represent certain languages. The book also includes a diverse collection of more than 200 exercises, suggestions for term projects, and research problems that remain open.