This research investigated Kuwaiti parliament members' leadership behavior on Twitter by applying Bolman and Deal's (1984) leadership theory of framing. The study classified parliament members according to their political party affiliation-Islamists, independents, liberals, and populists party- and investigated the prevalence of four leadership frames through a content analysis of eight parliament members' messages on Twitter over a period of six months from June 15, 2011 to November 15, 2011. Results showed that, overall, the structural frame was the most commonly used frame among parliament members, followed by the political, symbolic, and human resource frame respectively. The use of frames depended on both the political group and the topic of issues. The Islamist group, liberal and populist party more often used the structural frame in their Twitter messages whereas the independent group more often used the political frame.


On an assignment to produce videos promoting Cross River gorilla conservation to indigenous communities in Nigeria and Cameroon, I invited community members to join me. I followed decolonising and feminist methodologies to develop a form of participatory video production, 'Folk Filmmaking', in which participants present their own accounts of wildlife, conservation, and environmental values by performing stories. Through the films, participants shared their knowledge as morality tales, providing contextual nuance to moral challenges, clarity on local concerns, and opportunities for better understanding of local conflicts with conservation. Most films use gorillas as a plot device but orient the moral issues not to the ape's plight but to communal struggles with challenges such as marginalisation, modernity, and corruption. The films do not say how best to conserve the last 300 Cross River gorillas but they help articulate indigenous values and show the challenges conservation must overcome. This paper shares an account of lessons learned during the project through continual, critical reflection on my process. It describes my methodology and the films produced then offers an analysis and evaluation of the project. It concludes with notes on the potential and pitfalls of participatory video in contexts of cross-cultural conflict over conservation.


The use of correlation between forecasts and actual returns is commonplace in the literature, often used as a measurement of investors' skill. A prominent application of this is the concept of the Information Coefficient (IC). Not only can IC be used as a tool to rate analysts and fund managers but it also represents an important parameter in the asset allocation and portfolio construction process. Nevertheless, theoretical understanding of it has typically been limited to the partial equilibrium context where the investing activities of each agent have no effect on other market participants. In this paper we show that this can be an undesirable oversimplification and we demonstrate plausible circumstances in which conventional empirical measurements of IC can be highly misleading. We suggest that improved understanding of IC in a general equilibrium setting can lead to refined portfolio decision making ex ante and more informative analysis of performance ex post.


Abstract Henry Steinhauer (born in 1782 at Haverfordwest, UK; died in 1818 at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA) was the son of a Moravian minister and teacher. He attended their Yorkshire school from 1789 and then trained for their ministry in Germany. He returned to teach at Fulneck from 1801 to 1811. Moravians particularly encouraged the study of, and participation in, music and natural history, and Fulneck school had a museum for the latter by 1795. At Fulneck Steinhauer came across the fossil plants found in nearby coal mines. By 1811 he was suffering from consumption. To improve his health he moved temporarily to London where he tried to encourage James Sowerby to undertake a 'Mineral Botany' project to parallel Sowerby's one on fossil shells, Mineral Conchology. Sadly, this failed to come to fruition. Next Steinhauer moved to Bath, where he became a disciple of the stratigraphic methods of William Smith. In 1814 he received a call to teach at the new world Moravian settlement of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, USA. He set off late in 1815 and there presented his only palaeobotanical paper to the American Philosophical Society in May 1817. This gave scientific descriptions of 10 species of English fossil coal plants and introduced valid binomial nomenclature for such fossils. His large collection of stratigraphically arranged fossils from all over England, and its detailed manuscript catalogue all predating his 1815 departure, survive in Philadelphia. His work has largely been lost sight of because of his early death and the tragic separation of this fine collection from its place of origin. He deserves to be better known.


The emergence of peace education as embodied in the context of peace studies, which emerged during the post-World War II ideological struggle between capitalism and Communism, the nuclear arms race pitting the United States against the former Soviet Union, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement in America, met with considerable criticism. There were many within and outside the academic community who argued that peace studies had very little to offer in terms of "real scholarship" and were primarily politically motivated. Some went so far as to insist that this new area of study lacked focus and discipline given the complexities associated with war and peace. It also became fashionable to attack those teaching and studying peace issues as anarchists, communists, and pacifists. They were ridiculed as subversives for challenging the hegemony of the U.S. military establishment. Over time all that would change as the early years of experimentation resulted in programs more rigorous in academic content and serious in focus. Although there are many who still question the viability of peace education/peace studies among schoolchildren and undergraduates, the historical record of the last fifty years or so provides a far different picture. It presents a progression of peace education/peace studies in our society today from an antidote to the science of war to a comprehensive examination of the causes of violence and related strategies for peace. The evolution of peace education in the United States since the 1950s is characterized by four developments: (1) disarmament schemes of international law in reaction to the horrors of World War II; (2) the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War; (3) response to President Reagan's ramping up the arms race in the 1980s; and (4) a holistic form of peace and justice studies marked by efforts on peer mediation, conflict resolution, and environmental awareness. Clearly, in the last fifty years, marked by debate and evolution, peace education—citizen-based and academically sanctioned—has achieved intellectual legitimacy and is worthy of historical analysis. Recommended Citation: Ian Harris and Charles F. Howlett, "Educating for Peace and Justice in America's Nuclear Age," Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum 1, 1 (2011): 20-51. Online Access: http://trace.tennessee.edu/catalyst/ Corresponding Author Information: Charles F. Howlett, firstname.lastname@example.com Malloy College Department of Graduate Education ©Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum University of Tennessee 914 McClung Tower Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0490 EDUCATING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE IN AMERICA'S NUCLEAR AGE IAN HARRIS AND CHARLES F. HOWLETT "Nationally the peace education movement is growing — some say surging — because of the continued failure of military solutions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the belief that alternatives to violence do exist."


The ABO blood group influences susceptibility to severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Recent evidence indicates that the protective effect of group O operates by virtue of reduced rosetting of infected red blood cells (iRBCs) with uninfected RBCs. Rosetting is mediated by a subgroup of PfEMP1 adhesins, with RBC binding being assigned to the N-terminal DBL1α1 domain. Here, we identify the ABO blood group as the main receptor for VarO rosetting, with a marked preference for group A over group B, which in turn is preferred to group O RBCs. We show that recombinant NTS-DBL1α1 and NTS-DBL1α1-CIDR1γ reproduce the VarO-iRBC blood group preference and document direct binding to blood group trisaccharides by surface plasmon resonance. More detailed RBC subgroup analysis showed preferred binding to group A1, weaker binding to groups A2 and B, and least binding to groups Ax and O. The 2.8 Å resolution crystal structure of the PfEMP1-VarO Head region, NTS-DBL1α1-CIDR1γ, reveals extensive contacts between the DBL1α1 and CIDR1γ and shows that the NTS-DBL1α1 hinge region is essential for RBC binding. Computer docking of the blood group trisaccharides and subsequent site-directed mutagenesis localized the RBC-binding site to the face opposite to the heparin-binding site of NTS-DBLα1. RBC binding involves residues that are conserved between rosette-forming PfEMP1 adhesins, opening novel opportunities for intervention against severe malaria. By deciphering the structural basis of blood group preferences in rosetting, we provide a link between ABO blood grouppolymorphisms and rosette-forming adhesins, consistent with the selective role of falciparum malaria on human genetic makeup.


Voluntary superannuation contributions provide a means for individuals to top-up their savings in a tax advantaged environment. In order to encourage voluntary contributions the government instituted the cocontribution scheme in 2003. Under the existing scheme, within a given financial year the government contributes up to a maximum of $500 when an individual on a low income makes a voluntary contribution of up to $1,000. Despite the apparent financial attractiveness of the scheme, participation among eligible persons is low. Reasons may include competing expenditure needs leading to a lack of sufficient funds for contribution, lack of trust in the system given regular changes to superannuation policy, and behavioural reasons including a short-term rather than long-term focus, procrastination from uncertainty and fear of regret, and loss aversion. In this paper we investigate another possible reason for low participation, namely poor financial opportunity cost. While an immediate 50% investment return may appear to be a 'no-brainer', for eligible individuals or families with mortgages, scheme participation may in fact not be optimal. We investigate the relative benefit of scheme participation versus reducing a mortgage, and conclude that while participation is sensible for those with short remaining mortgage terms, for those with longer mortgage terms the decision to participate may not be preferred unless one assumes generous long-term superannuation investment returns, or unless scheme participation is intended year on year for long durations.


The recent progress in Deep Learning methods in computer vision has resulted in improved Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). The goal of ADAS is not only to assist drivers, but also to alert them before dangerous driving maneuvers. ADAS often do not capture human motions to augment it into the driving context. In this work, we attempt to propose a system to track 3D motion of humans (especially drivers) inside a car using single RGB spherical camera. We use a CNN based 3D human pose tracking system to track driver and passengers poses. Finally, we illustrate accurate results in real-time on recorded driving scenes.


A revenue-neutral tax swap would improve Alberta's fiscal prospects, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In "The 8 Percent Solution: A Sensible Tax Compromise for Albertans," authors Colin Busby and Alexandre Laurin propose a change that would better equip Alberta's government to meet its longer-term fiscal challenges, which include plunging resource revenues and growing budget deficits.


In previous work, we have shown how an ultrasound pulse-echo setup can be used to simultaneously measure particle velocity profiles and local solids concentration variations in solid/liquid particle suspensions. In this paper, we demonstrate a real-world case where the system is installed in a wet low-intensity magnetic separator, a process in which magnetic material is separated from gangue. The method was evaluated at LKAB's R&D facilities in Malmberget, Sweden, on one of their pilot scale separators. The results show that it is possible to detect changes in the flow velocity patterns and the local solids concentration, as the operational conditions of the separator are varied.


We investigate single CoFeB nanotubes with hexagonal cross section using dynamic cantilever magnetometry (DCM). We develop both an analytical model based on the Stoner-Wohlfarth approximation and a broadly applicable numerical framework for analyzing DCM measurements of magnetic nanostructures. Magnetometry data taken at 4.2 K show the presence of a uniformly magnetized configuration at high external fields with mu M-0(s) = 1.3 +/- 0.1 T and nonuniform configurations at low fields. In this low-field regime, comparison between numerical simulations and DCM measurements supports the existence of flux-closure configurations. Crucially, evidence of such configurations is only apparent because of the sensitivity of DCM to single nanotubes, whereas conventional measurements of ensembles are often obscured by sample-to-sample inhomogeneities in size, shape, and orientation.


Mind style is the term traditionally discussed in stylistics to refer to the linguistic features that project the peculiarities of characters' cognitive make-up. As stylistics mainly focuses on written forms, mind style has generally been discussed in relation to its textual manifestations although new research is emerging which is redressing this lack (Gibbons 2010; Norgaard 2010). When considering textual forms, scholars identify many and varied linguistic indicators as markers of mind style. In this chapter I look into the way both verbal and multimodal markers are exploited in Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love (1997) and its homonymous cinematic adaptation by Roger Michell (2004) to create particular mind styles. This chapter argues that tools traditionally discussed in stylistics can shed light on the way multimodal discourse functions and also that the inclusion of multimodal formats can refine existing stylistic frameworks and models.


Programming patterns for sequential file access in the .NET Framework are described and the performance is measured. The default behavior provides excellent performance on a single disk - 50 MBps both reading and writing. Using large request sizes and doing file pre-allocation when possible have quantifiable benefits. When one considers disk arrays, .NET unbuffered IO delivers 800 MBps on a 16-disk array, but buffered IO delivers about 12% of that performance. Consequently, high-performance file and database utilities are still forced to use unbuffered IO for maximum sequential performance. The report is accompanied by downloadable source code that demonstrates the concepts and code that was used to obtain these measurements.


Enlightened Nationalism provides the first synthesis in English of Prussian political culture from the Napoleonic era to the Revolution of 1848. Matthew Levinger challenges the conventional notion that Prussia lagged behind Western Europe in its political development, demonstrating that Prussian leaders embraced a distinctive program of political modernization in response to their country's defeat by Napoleon in 1806-1807. Building on the eighteenth-century tradition of enlightened absolutism, Prussian leaders attempted to unite a rationalized monarchy with a politically active "nation," thus mobilizing the populace to resist the French oppressors. The new culture of "enlightened nationalism" influenced the political theory and program of both liberals and conservatives in nineteenth-century Prussia. The book has important implications for understanding both subsequent German history and the history of nationalism in general. The author shows that the so-called authoritarian tendencies in Prussia's political culture resulted from its distinctive response to the challenges of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era, rather than from the persistence of premodern cultural or socioeconomic patterns. Likewise, by showing how nationalist activists drew on the cultural legacy of the Enlightenment, Levinger demonstrates that German nationalism cannot be understood as a uniquely pathological political phenomenon. Inspired by recent work exploring the role of discourse in historical change, the book analyzes how the word "nation" functioned in day-to-day debates and how this limited and shaped political options. Enlightened nationalism produced a mixed legacy: it promoted the reform of the education system, popular participation in local self-government, and administrative rationalization. But it also resulted in exaggerated fears of political dissent, reinforcing the authority of the monarchical state and inhibiting the formation of a vibrant system of parliamentary rule.


Contrary to Owen (2000), Hume's problem is, as has traditionally been supposed, a problem for the justification of inductive inference. But, contrary to tradition, induction on Hume's account is not deductively invalid. Furthermore, on a more modem conception of inductive or ampliative inference, it is a mistake to suppose that the proper construal of an argument explicating the supposed justification for such inferences should in general be non-deductive. On a general requirement for argument cogency that arguments should be suitably constructed so as to make it clear to the audience that the subject is justified, on whatever basis is cited, in regarding the hypothesis with whatever epistemic attitude the arguer purports to be so justified, arguments in general, fully explicated and properly construed, should be deductively valid. Hume's problem does not prevent such justification because his crucial argument establishes only that our basic assumptions cannot be justified, in the sense of being 'proven', or shown by non-question-begging argument to be just. It does not establish that our basic assumptions, properly explicated, are not just, or that they are not (at least to the satisfaction of most of us) clearly so. Nor does Goodman's 'new riddle' of induction pose a serious problem for the justification of our inductive inferences, as is still commonly suggested, since Jackson figured out the solution to the riddle thirty years ago. There is an analogous problem to Hume's for the provability of principles or claims of deductive inferability, and if my analysis of the proper construal structure of argument (in the natural sense) is correct, this will block Howson's (2000) proposed escape route. Nevertheless, as with the case of induction, the unprovability of basic claims and principles of deductive inferability does not bar their deployment in cogent justifications.


This study examines the ways in which urban context affects vehicle trip-generation rates across a variety of land uses. An establishment-intercept travel survey was administered at 78 establishments in the Portland, Oregon region during the summer of 2011. Data were collected from high-turnover (sit-down) restaurants (Mexican and pizza), 24-hour convenience markets, and drinking establishments. Combined with person-trip counts, vehicle-trip counts and built-environment data, a method to adjust Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) vehicle-trip rates to reflect a local community's context has been developed. Results from this study reveal a trend: for all land uses tested here, vehicle-trip rates decrease as neighborhood types become more urban. Comparisons between ITE trip-generation rates and vehicle-trip rates from this study indicate a need for a local adjustment for both convenience markets (open 24-hours) and drinking establishments. High-turnover (sit-down) restaurants are consistently predicted by the ITE methodology, but based on our findings we recommend a vehicle-trip rate adjustment to better match locally observed travel patterns. A model to adjust ITE's trip-generation rate for urban contexts was developed in this study. The key measure representing urban context is the average Urban Living Infrastructure (ULI) score from the Metro Context Tool within a half-mile buffer around establishments. ULI is a measure representing the density of retail and service establishments serving daily needs, and is highly correlated with other built-environment measures such as lot coverage, density and accessibility to transit. The model developed here has a good statistical fit and ease of use in an evaluation of new development. The approach is also useful in guiding plans as we have related the ULI measure to other planning-relevant, built-environment measures. The study findings are limited in a number of ways. The three land uses examined and the relatively small sample size limit the number of factors that could be accounted for in the statistical analysis. In addition, data collection was limited to the weekday, evening peak hour of the facility for each of the three land uses. The findings are localized and may not have broad applicability beyond the Portland region. Work planned for the immediate future includes validation of the method using data collected from additional sites in Portland and elsewhere, and analysis of site-level attributes that include parking, building orientation, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and other design features.


Contemporary research on civil war has largely dismissed the role of political and economic grievances, focusing instead on opportunities for conflict. However, these strong claims rest on questionable theoretical and empirical grounds. Whereas scholars have examined primarily the relationship between individual inequality and conflict, we argue that horizontal inequalities between politically relevant ethnic groups and states at large can promote ethnonationalist conflict. Extending the empirical scope to the entire world, this article introduces a new spatial method that combines our newly geocoded data on ethnic groups' settlement areas with spatial wealth estimates. Based on these methodological advances, we find that, in highly unequal societies, both rich and poor groups fight more often than those groups whose wealth lies closer to the country average. Our results remain robust to a number of alternative sample definitions and specifications.


The present work was aimed at developing and validating a highly sensitive analytical method to estimate
 the levels of monoamines from mice brain and to apply the developed method to assess the effect of
 escitalopram treatment on the levels of serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline in the mouse brain. Liquid
 chromatography-mass spectroscopy was optimized to achieve separation of selected neurotransmitters.
 Method validation was performed as per the ICH guidelines. Extraction of the neurotransmitters from
 mice brain tissue was optimized to achieve highest recovery. In vivo study involved behavioural profile
 assessment after 7 d pre-treatment with escitalopram and correlating the results with monoamines levels in
 their brain homogenate. Behavioural profiles showed a significant (p<0.05) change in all tested parameters.
 These values were in agreement with the significant rise in serotonin levels (p<0.05) seen on escitalopram
 treatment compared to vehicle control. Along with the elevation in serotonin levels, a significant increase in
 levels of dopamine and a mild increase in noradrenaline levels was observed due to the possible crosstalk
 between the neurotransmission pathways. Liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy method was
 developed and validated for estimation of brain neurotransmitters which revealed a crosstalk resulting in
 the elevation in levels of various monoamines after escitalopram treatment.


Is Europe's immigration policy attractive? One of the priorities driving current EU debates on labour immigration policies is the perceived need to boost Europe's attractiveness vis-a-vis 'talented' and 'highly skilled' immigrants. The EU sees itself playing a role in persuading immigrants to choose Europe over other competing destinations, such as the US or Canada. This book critically examines the determinants and challenges characterising discussions focused on the attractiveness of labour migration policies in the EU as well as other international settings. It calls for re-thinking some of the most commonly held premises and assumptions underlying the narratives of 'attractiveness' and 'global competition for talent' in migration policy debates. How can an immigration policy, in fact, be made to be 'attractive' and what are the incentives at play (if any)? A multidisciplinary team of leading scholars and experts in migration studies address the main issues and challenges related to the role played by rights and discrimination, qualifications and skills, and matching demand and supply in needs-based migration policies. The experiences in other jurisdictions such as South America, Canada and the United States are also covered: Are these countries indeed so 'attractive' and 'competitive', and if so what makes them more attractive than the EU?On the basis of the discussions and findings presented across the various contributions, the book identifies a number of priorities for policy formulation and design in the next generation of EU labour migration policies. In particular, it highlights important initiatives that the new European Commission should focus on in the years to come.


In the past several years, determining the effectiveness of communications activities has become increasingly important both to communications professionals and to the greater business community. In 2004, the Communications Executive Council (CEC) conducted a survey of hundreds of chief communication officers in major corporations; 79 percent of the respondents stated they believed communication performance measurement was more important than it had been three years earlier. Survey respondents also ranked Measuring and Communicating Effectiveness of the Function as the second most important issue facing the communications industry. Not everyone in the communications industry views measurement in the same light, though. While some embrace the science of measurement as it relates to communications, others look at communications as an art outside the realm of formal measurement. Quotations from two corporate communications professionals illustrate this dichotomy: You can't manage what you can't measure. Everyone's looking for a seat at the table, and they ought to be looking at measurement for getting to the table and staying there. Bill Margaritis, SVP Worldwide Communications and IR, Fed Ex I cringe at the idea of return on investment because that sounds like what we do ought to be so predictable when it's not. Bill Nielsen, former Corporate VP of Public Affairs, Johnson & Johnson Despite the naysayers, however, most communications professionals are increasingly recognizing the truth in Margartis' words; without data on the effectiveness of their activities, communications professionals cannot gain the credibility they desire from senior management. In this article, we examine the importance of measurement to the communications industry, the insufficiency of measurement in communications, how communications professionals' measurement needs are changing, obstacles to meeting measurement needs, and the potential benefits from understanding the link between communications and business value, and, a new possible solution. This discussion is essential to understanding that the communications industry needs a way to add meaning to the data it already has; to link existing data to business outcomes; and to demonstrate that effective communications activities move organizations toward their business objectives. In many cases, companies do not require more or better measurement, only better use of existing measurement data. And once the communications industry has the ability to understand how its activities affect business outcomes, communications professionals can have a greater effect on business outcomes going forward rather than simply justifying what they have done in the past. To that end, we also discuss what we believe are the keys to measuring the contribution of communications activities.


Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) is a key non-invasive imaging technique for cancer diagnosis and tumor treatment assessment, reflecting Brownian movement of water molecules in tissues. Since densely packed cells restrict molecule mobility, tumor tissues produce usually higher signal (a.k.a. less attenuated signal) on isotropic maps compared with normal tissues. However, no general quantitative relation between DWI data and the cell density has been established. In order to link low-resolution clinical cross-sectional data with high-resolution histological information, we developed an image processing and analysis chain, which was used to study the correlation between the diffusion coefficient (D value) estimated from DWI and tumor cellularity from serial histological slides of a resected non-small cell lung cancer tumor. Color deconvolution followed by cell nuclei segmentation was performed on digitized histological images to determine local and cell-type specific 2d (two-dimensional) densities. From these, the 3d cell density was inferred by a model-based sampling technique, which is necessary for the calculation of local and global 3d tumor cell count. Next, DWI sequence information was overlaid with high-resolution CT data and the resected histology using prominent anatomical hallmarks for co-registration of histology tissue blocks and non-invasive imaging modalities' data. The integration of cell numbers information and DWI data derived from different tumor areas revealed a clear negative correlation between cell density and D value. Importantly, spatial tumor cell density can be calculated based on DWI data. In summary, our results demonstrate that tumor cell count and heterogeneity can be predicted from DWI data, which may open new opportunities for personalized diagnosis and therapy optimization.


Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a global imperative supported by governments, industry, and citizens alike. In 2000, the United Nations launched the Global Compact to encourage businesses to adopt socially responsible policies. In tandem, businesses became increasingly attentive to their social practices with the vast majority of executives declaring CSR important to their organization's success. Despite this increase in attention – which occurred among businesses of all sizes – the academic literature on CSR has focused almost exclusively on large, public companies. Ironically, the majority of businesses in the United States are small, private businesses suggesting the existing CSR field has overlooked a significant segment of business. To address this knowledge problem, this study analyzed pre-existing survey data from 3,005 small and medium enterprises (SME) located in the United States. This research first addressed the various types and levels of CSR by using factor analytic techniques to identify 22 organizational activities that corresponded to five areas of internal CSR and two areas of external CSR. Correlation coefficients and regression analysis were then used to determine the extent to which variation in these CSR activities could be explained by the 22 organizational characteristics identified in the data. The study results indicated that more than 99% of SMEs participated in some form of CSR, although participation rates varied from a low of 5% to a high of 92% for specific CSR activities. Organization size, as measured by number of employees, proved to be the most significant variable with a positive relationship to CSR activity. In addition, leadership characteristics such as longer tenure, a higher percentage of women executives, and more frequent executive-employee meetings were also found to have a positive relationship with CSR activity. Other characteristics including industry type and geographic region showed both positive and negative relationships with CSR. Overall, organization characteristics, including size, explained only 17% of the variation in CSR activity suggesting SMEs of all sizes can and do participate in CSR. It is hoped this study will provide practical data to further encourage SMEs in the United States to pursue CSR for the mutual benefit of business and society.


The growth of neointima and neointimal smooth muscle cells in baboon polytetrafluoroethylene grafts is regulated by blood flow. Because neointimal smooth muscle cells express both platelet-derived growth factor receptor-alpha and -beta (PDGFR-alpha and -beta), we designed this study to test the hypothesis that inhibiting either PDGFR-alpha or PDGFR-beta with a specific mouse/human chimeric antibody will modulate flow-induced neointimal formation. Bilateral aortoiliac grafts and distal femoral arteriovenous fistulae were placed in 17 baboons. After 8 weeks, 1 arteriovenous fistulae was ligated, normalizing flow through the ipsilateral graft while maintaining high flow in the contralateral graft. The experimental groups received a blocking antibody to PDGFR-alpha (Ab-PDGFR-alpha; 10 mg/kg; n=5) or PDGFR-beta (Ab-PDGFR-beta; 10 mg/kg; n=6) by pulsed intravenous administration 30 minutes before ligation and at 4, 8, 15, and 22 days after ligation. Controls received carrier medium alone (n=8). Serum antibody concentrations were followed. Grafts were harvested after 28 days and analyzed by videomorphometry. Serum Ab-PDGFR-alpha concentrations fell rapidly after day 7 to 0, whereas serum Ab-PDGFR-beta concentrations were maintained at the target levels (>50 microg/mL). Compared with controls (3.7+/-0.3), the ratio of the intimal areas (normalized flow/high flow) was significantly reduced in Ab-PDGFR-beta (1.2+/-0.2, P<0.01) but not in Ab-PDGFR-alpha (2.2+/-0.4). Ab-PDGFR-alpha decreased significantly the overall smooth muscle cell nuclear density of the neointima (P<0.01) compared with either the control or Ab-PDGFR-beta treated groups. PDGFR-beta is necessary for flow-induced neointimal formation in prosthetic grafts. Targeting PDGFR-beta may be an effective pharmacological strategy for suppressing graft neointimal development.


Deficit irrigation can play an important role in increasing water use efficiency (WUE) and reduced amount of irrigation. Deficit irrigation generally refers to fully irrigated crops where water is reduced or withheld during certain growth stages. In this study, a series of greenhouse and open field experiments were conducted using a deficit irrigation program on cucumber crops under drip irrigation during 2007–2010 growing seasons. The layout of the experiment was a completely randomized design with four replicates. Irrigation treatments consisted of five levels of ETc (30, 40, 60, 80, and 100% of ETc) in addition to traditional practice by farmers. At 60 and 80% treatments, deficit irrigation tested at different growth stages (development, med, and late stages of the growth) for a total of 14 treatments at each experiment. The maximum amount of water applied to the crop was 332 mm for the 100%ETc treatment while the minimum water applied was 100 mm for 30%Etc treatment, and 600 mm for traditional practice by the farmers in the region. The calculated ETc ranged from between 95 and 316 mm for the different treatments. The objective of the study was to determine the crop water requirements in both the open field and greenhouse and calculate crop response factor (ky) and WUE of cucumber crop using a deficit irrigation program at different stages of growth. Results indicated that a cucumber could stand the shortage of water during the growth and crop response (Ky) values ranging between 0.7 and 0.98. However, the amount of water used was much lower than that of the traditional method used by farmers in the region. Water use efficiency (WUE) and water productivity (WP) values increased when water amounts decreased with the exception of the traditional irrigation; these values decreased to 45.6 and 24 kg/m, respectively. The highest values at much stressed treatment 30% ETc.


Using data from England and Wales, we test the hypothesis that legalizing abortion reduces crime. The timing of changes in crime rates in aggregate data is generally inconsistent with this hypothesis. Using panel data on recorded crime from 1983 to 2001, we are able to replicate the negative association between abortion rates and reported crime that J. J. Donohue and S. D. Levitt found for the United States. However, this association breaks down under the scrutiny of robustness checks and is not present when we examine data on convictions broken down by age. Overall, we find no clear, consistent relationship between abortion and crime in England and Wales.


Introduction Toril Moi noted that as early as 1971 Elaine Showalter (as quoted by Register: 1975) called on critics to examine the works of female writers in order to have a deep knowledge of their arts (p. 50). Also, there is a need to re-enfranchise women writers into the mainstream of academic curriculum through a fairer, non-sex biased, and more judicious appraisals of their work. This is what this paper intends to achieve as it examines the themes of Yoruba poems written by women and contend that the poems are essentially socio-political commentary which at the time of publication, pre-occupied Yoruba society, and Nigeria at large. Taking a broad look at Yoruba studies in general, few women are featured among writers in Yoruba language, and most especially in poetic writings. Nevertheless, this does not mean there are no thriving creative activities going on among Yoruba women (many reasons may be adduced to this lacking). First, it may be due to the pre-occupation of womenfolk with domestic affairs. And secondly, the observation of Stimpson in Benstock (1987) has captured some of the rationale behind this when she says: ... men have controlled history, politics, and culture. They have decided who will have power and who will not; which realities will be represented and taught, and which will not. In so doing, men have relegated women, as women, to the margins of culture, if not to silence and invisibility (p. 2). Although there are many African women writing in the English language medium, their writing in the Yoruba language medium is not as prolific, hence they are generally prominent in Yoruba oral poetry. Thus, the discussion in this paper will feature the following recurrent themes: women, men, and the state of the nation, health, morality and religion. Hence, I intend to examine these themes in the published poems of poets: Oluyemisi Adebowale in her two collections-Igba Lonigbaa Ka and Ewi Atata and Arinpe Adejumo in Ro oo re. The other poets, Olanike Raji, Bola Kolade, Moriike Adigun, Tutu Odunsi, Oluyemi Akande have their poems in male edited texts titled Wa Gbo. and Apero Ewi. And interestingly enough, the issue of gender in Yoruba literary study has only become popular in the last decades via the works of scholars like Oyesakin, Ilesanmi and Sheba. Wife, Mother, Caregiver and ... One of the favorite themes among female poets is about women as wife and mother and their importance which eulogizes women and their attributes in terms of their physical beauty, place in the family, hard work, and trustworthiness. Thus the poets analyze how society perceives women, and their overall importance in regards to the home, especially in childcare. And in this regard the poets appreciate the efforts of the mother on the child as Adejumo enumerates in 'Ere labo oja', Ise iya n se lori omo o see ro Ka foto Ka fogbe Aisun sise laise party (p. 51). (The efforts of the mother on the child cannot be enumerated Washing nappies Washing faeces ... Keeping vigil while not attending a party) In this case, the female poets admonish parents to lay good examples for their wards to follow as evident in Adebowale 'Won n wo yin' and Ateere loge', where indecent dressing by the females is condemned (Igba Lonigbaa Ka pp. 25-27; 44-48). Also, the danger in over-pampering the child is presented in the poem titled 'Bankemo' by Adebowale. She raises questions on the rationale for this and equally provides answers to the questions in the poems by pointing out that such mothers are only out to ruin their own future and the future of the child. Yet, her opinion and suggestions is that pampering and training should go together, and in the final construct, traditional practices of peer training and discipline for children should be adhered to in order to help the child. She thus says: Amo be e kemo tomo sedin . …


The Internet of Value based on Distributed Ledger Technology strives for a strictly decentralised organisation of interactivities between peers without any centralised platform or intermediary. The technology is disruptive because core elements of the current organisation of value exchange will change radically. This applies in particular to four areas: (1) Proof of identity of customers, of clients, of users, of patients and the associated handling of private data; (2) Recording, documenting and certifying transactions, the change of value and entrepreneurial success; (3) Organisation of the value exchange and the transfer of values and utilities; (4) Integration of ob-jects, of machines and of robots in communication and transaction processes.

Distributed Ledger Technology is therefore not an innovation which comes overnight. The diffusion period takes longer – probably years or a decade – as radical changes within society are needed before distributed and shared ledgers become standard. Many technological aspects are not yet fully developed, so that the DLT is currently still in experimental mode. But the cases of use so far already show that the tech-nology has the potential to revolutionize the nominal world of registration, certifica-tion, accounting and exchange of digital value and thereby enable completely new forms of collaboration and organization.


Automation in air traffic control may increase efficiency, but it also raises questions about adequate human control over automated systems. Following on the panel's first volume on air traffic control automation, Flight to the Future (NRC, 1997), this book focuses on the interaction of pilots and air traffic controllers, with a growing network of automated functions in the airspace system. The panel offers recommendations for development of human-centered automation, addressing key areas such as providing levels of automation that are appropriate to levels of risk, examining procedures for recovery from emergencies, free flight versus ground-based authority, and more. The book explores ways in which technology can build on human strengths and compensate for human vulnerabilities, minimizing both mistrust of automation and complacency about its abilities. The panel presents an overview of emerging technologies and trends toward automation within the national airspace system--in areas such as global positioning and other aspects of surveillance, flight information provided to pilots an controllers, collision avoidance, strategic long-term planning, and systems for training and maintenance. The book examines how to achieve better integration of research and development, including the importance of user involvement in air traffic control. It also discusses how to harmonize the wide range of functions in the national airspace system, with a detailed review of the free flight initiative.


This paper discusses a range of important mathematical issues arising in applications of a newly emerging stochastic-statistical framework for quantifying and mitigating uncertainties associated with prediction of partially observed and imperfectly modelled complex turbulent dynamical systems. The need for such a framework is particularly severe in climate science where the true climate system is vastly more complicated than any conceivable model; however, applications in other areas, such as neural networks and materials science, are just as important. The mathematical tools employed here rely on empirical information theory and fluctuation–dissipation theorems (FDTs) and it is shown that they seamlessly combine into a concise systematic framework for measuring and optimizing consistency and sensitivity of imperfect models. Here, we utilize a simple statistically exactly solvable 'perfect' system with intermittent hidden instabilities and with time-periodic features to address a number of important issues encountered in prediction of much more complex dynamical systems. These problems include the role and mitigation of model error due to coarse-graining, moment closure approximations, and the memory of initial conditions in producing short, medium and long-range predictions. Importantly, based on a suite of increasingly complex imperfect models of the perfect test system, we show that the predictive skill of the imperfect models and their sensitivity to external perturbations is improved by ensuring their consistency on the statistical attractor (i.e. the climate) with the perfect system. Furthermore, the discussed link between climate fidelity and sensitivity via the FDT opens up an enticing prospect of developing techniques for improving imperfect model sensitivity based on specific tests carried out in the training phase of the unperturbed statistical equilibrium/climate.


Partial monitoring is a general model for online learning with limited feedback: a learner chooses actions in a sequential manner while an opponent chooses outcomes. In every round, the learner suffers some loss and receives some feedback based on the action and the outcome. The goal of the learner is to minimize her cumulative loss. Applications range from dynamic pricing to label-efficient prediction to dueling bandits. In this paper, we assume that we are given some prior information about the distribution based on which the opponent generates the outcomes. We propose BPM, a family of new efficient algorithms whose core is to track the outcome distribution with an ellipsoid centered around the estimated distribution. We show that our algorithm provably enjoys near-optimal regret rate for locally observable partial-monitoring problems against stochastic opponents. As demonstrated with experiments on synthetic as well as real-world data, the algorithm outperforms previous approaches, even for very uninformed priors, with an order of magnitude smaller regret and lower running time.


The Critical Shear Displacement Theory (CSDT) was developed to determine the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams based on the different shear-carrying mechanisms (concrete in the compression zone, aggregate interlock, and dowel action). This research aims at extending the CSDT to Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) by adding the contribution of steel fibres. The model extension was developed based on formulations for the contribution of steel fibres to the shear capacity from the literature. With this extension to the CSDT, the shear strength of steel fibre reinforced concrete beams without stirrups could be estimated. An extensive database is developed from the literature in order to evaluate, compare, and analyse the shear capacity of SFRC beams. The analysis indicates that two models are capable of predicting the shear strength of SFRC beams with reasonable accuracy. The mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation are 0.9, 0.28, 0.31 and 1.1, 0.33 and 0.30 respectively. The main geometric variables of the steel fibres that influenced the shear strength are the length, diameter, and fibre type (hooked, crimped, and straight). From the comparison between the results in the database and the proposed extensions to the CSDT it is found that the critical shear displacement of Δcr = 0.025 mm, gives reasonable results for SFRC. As such, this proposed method can be used to estimate the shear strength of SDRC based on a mechanical model.


Psychology and the Construction of the 'Normal Family' in Postwar Canada, 1945–60, investigates the manner in which psychological discourse constructed notions of the normal postwar family in Canada. Despite pronouncements to the contrary, Gleason argues that psychologists' discussions of what constituted the normal family were shaped by and reflected their social values, and not so-called objective, scientific concerns. In psychological discourse, normal families were those that conformed to the idealized expectations constructed by the psychologists themselves. These expectations reflected the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon middle-class point of view that dominated postwar Canadian society. Through its specialized discourse, psychology compared, differentiated, hierarchized, homogenized, and excluded families and individuals. Together these techniques constituted its 'normalizing power.'  The study seeks to understand the role of professional social scientists in shaping the private experience of ordinary Canadians and the political uses to which the concepts of social scientific rhetoric are put. Gleason suggests that social scientists endowed with the power to influence social convention determined acceptable ideas about the family and family life. This raises important questions about the political motivation of this expert intervention into the private lives of Canadians.


The 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sydney Brenner (UK),H. Robert Horvitz (US)and John E. Sulston (UK) "for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death." Cell death is a fundamental aspect of embryonic development, normal cellular turnover and maintenance of homeostasis (maintaining a stable, constant environment) on the one hand, and aging and disease on the other. This volume addresses the significant advances with the techniques that are being used to analyze cell death. *Provides the necessary, trusted methods to carry out this research on the latest techniques. Once researchers understand the molecular mechanisms of the apoptotic pathways, they can begin to develop new therapies *Presents key methods on studying tumors and how these cancer cells evade cell death *Eliminates searching through many different sources to avoid pitfalls so the same mistakes are not made over and over


Most empirical models of dynamic games assume the discount factor to be known and focus on the estimation of the payoff parameters. However, the discount factor can be identifed when the payoffs satisfy parametric or other nonparametric restrictions. We show when the payoffs take the popular linear-in-parameter specification, the joint identification of the discount factor and payoff parameters can be simplified to a one-dimensional model that is easy to analyze. We also show that switching costs (e.g. entry costs) that often feature in empirical work can be identifed in closed-form, independently of the discount factor and other specification of the payoff function. Our identification strategies are constructive. They lead to easy to compute estimands that are global solutions. Estimating the discount factor permits direct inference on borrowing rate. Our estimates of the switching costs can be used for specification testing. We illustrate with a Monte Carlo study and the dataset from Ryan (2012).


Purpose of the article: Regional development includes qualitative changes in economy (e.g. in production, investments, employment) as well as qualitative changes (regarding the structure of economy and society, changes in the environment). The research of regional development is important and necessary in order to make appropriate decisions at the regional and local level. The main purpose of the article is comparative analysis of districts in the Lesser Poland Voivodship in the area of economic, social and ecological development.
 Scientific aim: The scientific aims of paper are verifying the hypothesis concerning eco-development and forecasting the level of regional development in districts of Lesser Poland Voivodship.
 Methodology/methods: In the research of regional development the quality index of economic, social and ecological development has been proposed which has been calculated on the basis of a certain aggregation of the results of the Principal Component Analysis made on the correlation matrix of standardised variables being the components of the index. Forecasts of the regional development level in districts were calculated with the use of different econometric models as linear model, exponential model, or power model.
 Findings: The findings prove that the Lesser Poland Voivodship is characterised by considerable disproportions in regional development. The most favourable conditions for economic and social development are in the districts with large city agglomerations as well as extensive municipality infrastructure and transport infrastructure. The presented results demonstrate that the majority of districts have not exhibited a constant tendency to changes in the positions in successive ranking lists in terms of the economic, social and ecological development. The positions occupied by most districts are generally stable and have not changed considerably in the examined period.
 Conclusions: The research has confirmed the negative interdependence between the level of socioeconomic development and ecological development. Thus, it was not possible to verify positively the concept of eco-development expressed in keeping balance between the economic, social and ecological system.


The objective of this study was to determine low-seam mine worker exposure to various postures as they pertain to job classifications and job tasks. Sixty-four mine workers from four low-seam coal mines participated. The mine workers reported the tasks they were required to complete and the two postures they used most frequently to perform them. They were provided with a schematic of postures from which to select. The two postures reported most frequently were identified for each task along with the job classification of the workers performing the tasks. Of the 18 tasks reported, over two thirds were performed by at least two different job classifications and over one third were performed by four or more job classifications. Across tasks, the postures used appeared to vary greatly. However, when grouped by job classification, the most frequently reported posture across all job classifications was kneeling near full flexion. Operating the continuous miner was associated with frequent squatting and was likely used because it affords great mobility, allowing operators to move quickly to avoid hazards. However, for environments with a restricted vertical height such as low-seam mining, the authors recommend squatting be avoided as data demonstrates that large amounts of femoral rollback and high muscle activity for the extensors when performing lateral lifts in this posture. Kneeling near full flexion was reported as the most frequently used posture by all job classifications and was likely due to the fact that it requires the least amount of muscle activity to maintain and has reduced pressures at the knee. However, the authors recommend this posture be avoided when performing lateral lifting tasks. Like squatting, kneeling near full flexion results in increased femoral rollback and may increase the stresses applied to the meniscus. Unlike lateral lifting, maintaining a static posture results in knee loading and muscle activity such that the mine worker should consider kneeling near full flexion and sitting on their heels. Although kneeling near full flexion is associated with injuries, there are benefits to this posture that are realized when statically kneeling (minimal muscle activity, allows worker to maintain an upright torso in low heights, and decreased loading at the knee). However, cartilage is avascular and nourished by synovial fluid. Therefore, one should frequently rotate between postures, assuming a more upright kneeling posture when possible and frequently fully flexing and extending the knee allowing nutrients to


The uses and functions of game music in everyday life
The premise of this article is the idea that games and their music do not only relate to playing, but are also part of people's musical practices outside of the actual gameplay situation. However, so far very little research has been done on the meanings of game music outside of gaming. In this study, we aim for a broader understanding of people's relationship with game music by examining how game music is used outside of the context of gaming. The empirical analysis of the article is based on two datasets collected in Finland. The primary material consists of written stories (N=183) about personally meaningful game music memories. In addition to this, we use survey data (N=785) concerning people's activities with their favorite game music outside of the game. In the study, we investigated (1) how varied and common the activities of using game music are, (2) what different types of game music use can be discerned, and (3) what psychological functions of game music are disclosed in the personal stories.
According to both datasets, musical practices with game music in people's everyday life were common. The ways of using game music were also diverse. In general, digital games appear to be a viable resource for engaging in musical practices and acquiring musical experiences. Through cluster analysis, three different types of game music use were outlined from the survey answers: performing/reproducing, reminiscing and appreciating the game experience, which refer to preferences for interacting with game music. Regarding the functions of music, the results imply that the functions of music documented in music psychology literature (mood management, aesthetic pleasure, self-enhancement, memory connection, social bonding) are well suited for analyzing the personal meanings of game music. In all, from the results, it can be established that the aesthetic value of game music for people, at least to some extent, seems to be conditioned by the gameplay experience, even if the music is separated from gaming.


Climatic risks are a major challenge for rural communities, especially those whose livelihoods directly depend on agriculture. Weather extremes affect crop productivity not only through the direct relationship between weather variables and yields, but also through the negative effects of such shocks on farmers' investment behavior. In particular, smallholder farmers are vulnerable partly because they are predominantly located in the tropics where exposure to climate variability is high, but also because they lack the resources and the capacity to properly cope with risks. Agricultural insurance is one possible solution, but for long formal crop insurance remained unavailable in most developing countries. Institutional constraints, including high transaction costs, the spatially correlated nature of agricultural risks, and classical issues of information asymmetry, discouraged insurers from offering agricultural insurance contracts.
Recently there have been efforts to change this situation through the development and provision of weather index insurance (WII) contracts. A WII contract is advantageous because the insurer relies on an objectively measured weather variable that is correlated with farm losses but which cannot be manipulated through farmers' actions. Usually indexes used in WII are measured at the aggregate level, minimizing issues of moral hazard and adverse selection into insurance programs. Moreover, the insurer is saved from having to assess losses on each insured farm, an aspect that cuts down administrative costs. In turn, if the WII contracts are well designed, insured farmers can benefit because of relatively affordable insurance premiums and faster claim payments in case of a devastating weather event.
Despite these potential benefits, demand for the piloted WII products has generally been low. Farmers' preferences have rarely been analyzed; hence it may be that existing WII contracts are not sufficiently tailored to the needs of smallholder producers. Understanding the main obstacles from the farmers' perspective can help in improving the design and implementation of WII schemes. Furthermore, WII initiatives are usually intended to contribute towards poverty reduction in the long run. However, very little empirical evidence is available in the literature on the economic and social impacts of existing WII programs. To address the mentioned knowledge gaps, in this study two research objectives are pursued, each one representing one of the main chapters of this dissertation.
The first objective relates to farmers' preferences for WII. We combine data from a survey and a discrete choice experiment (DCE) conducted in Kenya to analyze farmers' experience with an existing WII program and preferences towards specific improvements in WII contract design attributes. Specifically, the DCE included price and non-price attributes related to proximity to weather stations, rainfall thresholds, insurer transparency, and group rather than individual contracts. Kenya is an interesting setting for the study because farmers there already had some experience with WII. In particular the so-called Kilimo Salama program has been in existence since 2009, providing index-based crop insurance products in different parts of the country. For the analysis we use a mixed logit model that accounts for preference heterogeneity given that farmers may not always portray similar preferences.
Results indicate that the existing WII contracts are probably too expensive from farmers' point of view. This could be one reason why insurance demand remains low. Besides affordability, many smallholder farmers do not fully understand how the insurance functions. Transparent provision of information on realized rainfall measurements and threshold levels would improve farmers' willingness to pay for insurance. Mechanisms that improve the effectiveness of WII contracts, such as increasing the number of weather stations, are also valued by farmers, but not to the same extent as frequent communication. In addition, offering WII contracts to groups – rather than individual farmers – could be a promising avenue for achieving more widespread uptake of WII among smallholder farmers. Group contracts could reduce transaction costs. They could also offer important platforms through which farmers can learn and better understand the complexities of index insurance contracts. The second research objective pursued in this dissertation relates to the effects of WII adoption on input use and crop productivity. Weather risk has been shown to affect the usage of productive inputs including fertilizers and modern seed technologies. Risk-averse farmers are usually reluctant to use external inputs, when rainfall and temperature uncertainties are too high. However, because of this tendency of avoiding risks, they also forego potential yield gains that they could realize if they utilized more external inputs. Using randomized field experiments, a few recent studies have analyzed whether the provision of WII can improve investments in riskier but more productive technologies. Unlike these previous studies, we use observational data from a survey of smallholder farmers, analyzing the effects of actual participation in the Kilimo Salama WII Program in Kenya. For the analysis we utilize a treatment regression model with instrumental variables. Empirical results reveal a significant increase in the use of fertilizer and improved seeds as a result of adopting WII. Further analysis also indicates a significant improvement in maize productivity, which mainly comes from the increase in fertilizer application. The results emphasize that WII is indeed one mechanism for promoting productivity growth, however, this potential is not yet fully realized, because only a small proportion of farmers has so far participated in the WII Program.
 Overall, the study concludes by stressing the need to educate farmers about novel index insurance products that they may not be familiar with. Although some training is currently being provided as part of Kilimo Salama, this has to be intensified to inform farmers on potential benefits and limitations of the WII products. For this it may be useful to harmonize insurance trainings with public agricultural extension, so as to improve the effectiveness of the training interventions. Strengthening producer groups and encouraging farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange within group networks are also other ways to improve the rate of insurance uptake. WII is definitely not a silver bullet for productivity growth in the small farm sector; however, providing effective WII contracts jointly with other support services may contribute positively to the well-being of risk-prone farming communities.


The current thesis aimed to evaluate and extend research into children's interpretation of violations of physical laws of causality. A central question of this thesis was: what factors might govern children's scepticism versus credulity with respect to magical causality? Specifically, why are some children more easily fooled than others? Study 1 provided evidence of age differences in children's beliefs with respect to mental- physical causality. Older children (11-12-year-olds) were more sceptical about the efficacy of wishing than younger children (4-5 and 6-7-year-olds). Moreover, older children were less likely than younger children to claim that mental processes can directly affect the physical world. Subsequent studies in the thesis focused on various factors that might contribute to individual differences in children's interpretation of a conjuring trick (i.e. an event that ostensibly involved a violation of object permanence). Study 2 found that 4-6-year-olds made a distinction between real magic and tricks, but that direct social influence in the form of repetitive questioning influenced children's offered verbal causal explanations. In contrast, Study 3 found that the majority of 9-11-year-olds interpreted the demonstration as a trick, had a clear understanding of conjuring as trickery and were less likely to conform to experimenter pressure in the form of repetitive questioning. Study 4 results suggested that 4-6-year-old children's verbal responses are a true representation of beliefs as evidenced by verbal judgments correlating with behavioural reactions. However, an indirect social influence in the form of a visual clue that hinted at trickery influenced level of verbal scepticism. Furthermore, children's level of social confidence was linked to their level of active exploration. The final two studies in the thesis offered support for individual differences in children's responses that may be related to theory of mind ability. Study 5 found a link between 4-6-year-olds' level of advanced theory of mind and responses, as well as an age-related increase in scepticism. Study 6 found a link between 5-71⁄2-year-olds' first-order theory of mind and understanding of trickery that was not affected by age. It was, therefore, concluded that young children's acknowledgement of trickery and level of scepticism about magical events is not characterized by a simple age-related developmental influence. Importantly, socio-cognitive skills may play a role.


Objectives
Increase of elderly people, dementia and cognitive decline has been already one of the social problems all over the world. There are a lot of risk factors including dietary composition. Several studies have reported the importance of protein for maintaining brain functions in the elderly, but the details are not well understood. To clarify the relationship between protein intake and brain function in the elderly, we evaluated the effect of low protein diet on cognitive function and psychiatric symptoms in aged mice.

Methods
Male mice at 60 weeks of age were fed a control diet (NPD; casein 20%) or a low protein diet (LPD; casein 5%). To evaluate neurobehavioral abnormality, we performed the elevated plus maze task (Day 64) and Passive avoidance task (conditioning: Day 66, evaluation: Day 67). Cerebral cortex tissues and plasma were measured for free amino acid concentration by LC-MSMS method, and monoamine concentration in cerebral cortex was measured by HPLC method.

Results
In the Passive avoidance task, LPD group decreased the time to keep staying in the light box and the rate of individuals entering the dark box during the test period. In the elevated plus maze task, LPD group significantly increased in the number of entry and staying times in open arm. In addition, total travel distance was significantly increased. Moreover, LPD decreased the concentration of not only amino acid in plasma and cerebral cortex but also neurotransmitter such as Glutamate, GABA, Aspartate, Glycine, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin.

Conclusions
We found that long-term intake of low-protein diet occurred memory loss and anxiety like behavior in elderly mice. Intracerebral neurotransmitters are mainly synthesized from amino acids, which is transferred from blood, within the brain. Therefore, behavioral change observed in LPD group might be induced by the decrease of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Funding Sources
Ajinomoto Co., Inc.


Based on a Native American folk legend, this wonderful book tells the story of how Bear lost his tail. Beautiful, original illustrations bring the story to life. It features easy-to-read text, with fun comprehension puzzles at the end. It is a charming addition to the "Usborne First Reading" series, developed in consultation with Alison Kelly, Principal Lecturer and reading specialist at the University of Roehampton.


Type-I diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is a chronic degenerative disease with complications which can be devastating. There is an increasing body of research suggesting that prevention of IDDM by the avoidance of cow's milk and by the supplementation of niacinamide may be possible. This article will explore this research. The course the disease takes also may not be inevitable. Modification of diet and lifestyle factors as well as a comprehensive program of nutritional and botanical supplementation may help prevent the complications often encountered, such as neuropathy, retinopathy, nephropathy, microand macroangiopathy, and cataracts. This article will review the research on specific nutrients, botanicals, dietary and lifestyle factors, and their application in type-I diabetes. (Alt Med Rev 1997;2(4):256-281)


Regular health care during pregnancy, birthing and the postnatal period is recommended for improving maternal and neonatal outcomes and accessing such care has become a common expectation for Australian families. Studies have highlighted the relative safety of birthing in rural hospitals even though these units are typically associated with low volumes of deliveries. Yet, in Queensland, the location and number of public maternity units shows a clear trend towards centralisation of services. During 1995-
2005, 43% of Queensland public maternity units closed, with the remaining units predominantly located in coastal and more populated locations. The closure of rural maternity units is not restricted to Queensland: the National Rural Health Alliance estimated 130 rural maternity units had closed across Australia throughout the decade 1996-20065. Growing numbers of closed rural maternity units raises considerable questions regarding the care accessed by rural residents. This paper presents findings from research
conducted in north Queensland which examined the impact of health policy on an issue that is of central importance to rural communities—access to birthing services.

A multi-dimensional understanding of access to maternity services was adopted in this study, a view which goes beyond measuring access only in terms of geographic distance. Gulliford et al have provided a constructive discussion of the multifaceted nature of access, particularly the differentiation between 'having access' and 'gaining access' to health care. Having access implies that a person has the
opportunity to use a health service if they need or want it. This type of access is often measured in terms of doctors or hospital beds per capita and is dependent on the provision, and geographical allocation of resources, as well as the actual configuration of the network of health services. The authors draw attention to Mooney's proposition that equal costs in using a service (eg costs of care, costs of travel, lost work) indicates equal access to services. On the other hand, gaining access to health care can be complicated by a variety of barriers including those of a personal nature (eg patients recognising their need to access health care); financial (that is, costs to be borne by the potential patient) or organisational (eg waiting lists).


The ability to accurately predict irradiation damage in reactor vessel materials is important for assuring structural integrity of vessels. The present irradiation damage trend curves in Regulatory Guide 1.99, Revision 2 were based on statistical regression analyses of an EPRI irradiated steel database containing approximately 151 shift data points for plates and 65 shift data points for welds and the NRC 177 data points database. Due to data scatter, the accuracy of the correlations is characterized by the observed (i.e., actual-predicted) mean residual error which was determined to be 17 F (9 C) for plates and 28 F (16 C) for welds. New data have been gathered since the fundamental database used in developing the original Regulatory Guide 1.99, Rev. 2 correlations. These new data have been included in the EPRI PREP4 database, and hyperbolic tangent curve-fits were performed on all Charpy V-notch data. A calculation of the 30 ft-lb (41 J) shifts was also performed to establish an expanded database for monitoring embrittlement trends. These new shift data values were compared to the Reg. Guide predictions, and mean residual errors calculated for weld and base materials. The results are presented here for comparison to the 2-sigma margin terms usedmore » in Regulatory Guide 1.99, Revision 2 which are intended to bound the actual measured data.« less


Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, and a host of politicians from all over the UK political spectrum have expressed outrage at the atrocities committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. But further out of the public eye is the very real threat that the country's fragile peace agreement between the North and South could unravel into war- largely over division of natural resource wealth. Avery Hancock questions whether the UK should encourage investment in the country's oil sector when the stakes are so high.


Although Pay for Success (PFS) contracts have received widespread attention in the United States and abroad, there is nothing fundamentally new about governments paying for outcomes. Performance clauses in construction contracts are common, and the Department of Defense has procured services using performance-based contracting for years. Many state and local governments now use performance clauses in their procurement of human services, for example by providing bonuses to contractors administering job training programs based upon the number of clients who obtain and/ or retain jobs. What makes recent PFS initiatives distinctive is that they are focused not simply on creating additional financial incentives for contractors to produce better outcomes, but more broadly on overcoming the wide set of barriers that are hindering the pace of social innovation. For sure, these barriers include a lack of performance focus and outcome measurement, but they also include political constraints that prevent government from investing in prevention, the inability of nonprofits to access the capital needed to expand operations, and insufficient capacity to develop rapid and rigorous evidence about what works. In some of these new models, the amount of performance risk shifted from taxpayers to those on the hook for producing the outcomes is much greater than under traditional performance contracts, requiring the participation of socially-minded investors to make the projects feasible.


Recent waves of social protests have brought a renewed interest in the notion of political legitimacy. The increasing adoption of party regulation as a means to secure legitimacy, however, leads to several paradoxes. One such paradox is the fact that those who establish the rules about political parties are representatives of the political parties themselves. Despite this existing contention, the relationship between political legitimacy and party regulation has received little scholarly attention. Addressing this relationship, our special issue brings together articles that seek to answer questions about the potential and actual effects of legal rules. Drawing on rich empirical evidence, the underlying message of the contributions is that while rules are important, they do not give the whole story. After presenting the research included in the volume, we emphasise that regulation in itself does not necessarily promote political legitimacy. Therefore the adoption of additional rules, whether to constrain or liberate party behaviour, is not sufficient to legitimise those in power. Rather, we argue that the more important factor to consider is that of implementation.


Virtualization is becoming widely deployed in servers to efficiently provide many logically separate execution environments while reducing the need for physical servers. While this approach saves physical CPU resources, it still consumes large amounts of storage because each virtual machine (VM) instance requires its own multi-gigabyte disk image. Moreover, existing systems do not support ad hoc block sharing between disk images, instead relying on techniques such as overlays to build multiple VMs from a single "base" image.
 Instead, we propose the use of deduplication to both reduce the total storage required for VM disk images and increase the ability of VMs to share disk blocks. To test the effectiveness of deduplication, we conducted extensive evaluations on different sets of virtual machine disk images with different chunking strategies. Our experiments found that the amount of stored data grows very slowly after the first few virtual disk images if only the locale or software configuration is changed, with the rate of compression suffering when different versions of an operating system or different operating systems are included. We also show that fixed-length chunks work well, achieving nearly the same compression rate as variable-length chunks. Finally, we show that simply identifying zero-filled blocks, even in ready-to-use virtual machine disk images available online, can provide significant savings in storage.


Background: Malignant diseases represent one of the most important worldwide morbidity and mortality causes. In Romania, the number of new cancer cases is 78800/year and the number of cancer deaths is 48300/year. In Galati County the number of oncology patients under observation is continuously increasing, ranging from 11426 cases in 2008 to 17083 cases in 2017. Methods and materials: We are presenting psycho-oncology reactions manifested by an oncology patient during his evolution from pre-therapeutic evaluation, to diagnostic set-up, treatment and further evolution. Anxiety and depression prevalence among oncology patients vary in very large limits, function of malignant site, but also, within the pale of the same disease, the highest incidence of depression being in patients with breast, lung, colorectal, head and neck cancers. In the specialty literature the following influence factors for psychological and psychiatrically reactions are mentioned: age, neoplasia sites, emotional, psychological status, and depressive status prior to cancer diagnostic. Psychic reactions are various and variable from one patient to another, progressing from denial, revolt, anger, sadness, anxiety to depression and suicidal tendencies. Taking into consideration that depression BRAIN – Broad Research in Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience Volume 10, Special Issue (June, 2019), ISSN 2067-3957 78 symptoms are overlapping with those given by neoplasia itself and with toxicities of the oncologic treatment, the evolution of depression is complicated. Conclusions: The polymorphism of psycho-oncology reactions manifested on the entire route of malignant diseases requires psychological counseling in all disease stages. Efficient communication with the oncologic patient, psychological counseling of patient, of their family, of medical staff and group therapy can be achieved only with specialized personnel employed in oncology centers: psychologist, psychiatrist, social assistant, and priest.


International linkages between interest rates in different currencies are strong, and ultra-low rates have become a global phenomenon. This paper compares how interest rates in advanced economies and in emerging economies are conditioned by two global benchmarks - the Federal funds rate at the short end and the "world" real interest rate at the long end. Real equilibrium policy rates (the natural rate) have fallen in many countries, and short-term rates worldwide have been further depressed by many years of the US policy rate close to zero. Nevertheless, changes in the Federal funds rate have less effect on longer-term rates, and thus on financing conditions, than is often supposed. The decline in the world long-term rate since 2008 has been driven almost entirely by a fall in the world term premium (negative in nominal terms since mid-2014). The world short-term rate expected over the long run has fallen only modestly over the past seven years or so, and is now just over 2% (compared with around 4% pre-Lehman).


In 1921, Harry Herbert Pace founded a highly influential record company, the Pace Phonograph Corporation, in Harlem, New York. Pace both initiated and operated the famous Black Swan label, which was one of the first to enable black musicians to record music in their own style. Many famous black artists, such as Ethel Waters, Fletcher Henderson, the Harmony Five and Alberta Hunter made their early appearances on the Black Swan label. In its heydays of 1921-1922, the company was the most successful Afro-American-owned business of its time. Several factors leading to the company's demise after its initial success and rapid growth can be identified. In addition to economic and technological factors, it is likely that poor management accounting, underestimation of overheads, under capitalization and 'ad hoc' decision making all led to financial distress. Racial prejudice and discrimination also played a crucial role. By today's standards, the company's fall in 1924 would have been easily foreseen, but in the business climate of the 1920s, better management may have been no more successful in keeping the company afloat. Nevertheless, today's recording industry, particularly in the field of jazz, owes much to the pioneering work of Harry Pace and the Black Swan label.


New Zealand and Australia share a propensity to create new words and hypocoristic forms of existing words by adding - ie and - o suffixes (among others) to a base which is usually monosyllabic. While the creation of new words is driven by the need to refer quickly to new things, the creation of hypocoristic alternatives is driven partly by the desire to identify with a group's particular way of talking. The distribution of hypocoristic forms is similar across both countries, except for the greater use of the - o ending in Australia, especially in naming occupations and in fishing. Across different semantic domains there is a greater range of suffixes to be found in proper names (personal, geographic and institutional) than in common nouns.


This investigation is concerned with the design and performance of a flat solar air heater in which air flows perpendicular from a vented transparent cover through a porous absorber plate. The design phase involves a stability analysis to determine the critical distance (maximum allowable distance) between the absorber and transparent plates, for suppressing convection currents, under a variety of environmental and operating conditions. These results are expected to be useful to designers of solar collectors. In addition, the thermal performance of this solar heater at its optimum design conditions was computed for a wide range of system parameters illustrating the contributions of conduction and\ radiative modes of heat transfer. The results indicate that best operating efficiency can be obtained when running the collector with mass flow rate, m > 40 Kg/m2 hr.


The credibility of standard instrumental variables assumptions is often under dispute. This paper imposes weak monotonicity in order to gain information on counterfactual outcomes, but avoids independence or exclusion restrictions. The outcome process is assumed to be sequentially ordered, building up and depending on the information level of agents. The potential outcome distribution is assumed to weakly increase (or decrease) with the instrument, conditional on the continuation up to a certain stage. As a general result, the counterfactual distributions can only be bounded, but the derived bounds are informative compared to the no-assumptions bounds thus justifying the instrumental variables terminology. The construction of bounds is illustrated in two data examples.


Using an illuminating method that challenges the popular notion of Romanticism as aesthetic escapism, Theodore Ziolkowski explores five institutions--mining, law, madhouses, universities, and museums--that provide the socio-historical context for German Romantic culture. He shows how German writers and thinkers helped to shape these five institutions, all of which assumed their modern form during the Romantic period, and how these social structures in turn contributed to major literary works through image, plot, character, and theme. "Ziolkowski cannot fail to impress the reader with a breadth of erudition that reveals fascinating intersections in the life and works of an artist.... He conveys the sense of energy and idealism that fueled Schiller and Goethe, Fichte and Hegel, Hoffmann and Novalis...".--Emily Grosholz, The Hudson Review "[This book] should be put in the hands of every student who is seriously interested in the subject, and I cannot imagine a scholar in the field who will not learn from it and be delighted with it".--Hans Eichner, Journal of English and Germanic Philology "Ziolkowski is among those who go beyond lip-service to the historical and are able to show concretely the ways in which generic and thematic intentions are inextricably enmeshed with local and specific institutional circumstances".--Virgil Nemoianu, MLN


Merv was the first World Heritage Site in Turkmenistan to be designated, the site comprises early city-sites, religious or sacred buildings including the Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar dating from the 12th century, and a shrine to honour the eminent 12th century Sufi scholar Hodja Yusup Hamadani which is a notable focus of pilgrimage. The aim of the paper is to determine a preliminary profile of visitors to a site which has historic and cultural significance for some and is a venue of shrine pilgrimage for others and review the respondent's assessment of the management of a visitor attraction where tribal traditions and Islamic beliefs and practices are a key consideration for visitors and site managers. The preliminary conclusions support are that following more than 100 years of Russian/Soviet colonisation the Turkmen Sufi inspired form of Islam integrated into a tribal society remains vibrant for an as yet undetermined percentage of the Turkmen nation.


Coo Coo Charles Darwin was fascinated by the domestic rock pigeon and used this dramatic example of diversity within a species to communicate his ideas about natural selection. Many derived traits in domestic pigeons converge on ecologically and evolutionarily relevant traits in wild species. Shapiro et al. (p. 1063, published online 31 January; see the cover) sequenced the genome of the domestic rock pigeon (Columba livia), along with those of 36 breeds and two feral accessions and its sister species, the hill pigeon (C. rupestris). The results reveal the underlying genetics of the head crest and suggest that all crested breeds may have originated from a single mutational event. From Piazza San Marco to Trafalgar Square, pigeons have captured the attention of tourists from around the world. The geographic origins of breeds and the genetic basis of variation within the widely distributed and phenotypically diverse domestic rock pigeon (Columba livia) remain largely unknown. We generated a rock pigeon reference genome and additional genome sequences representing domestic and feral populations. We found evidence for the origins of major breed groups in the Middle East and contributions from a racing breed to North American feral populations. We identified the gene EphB2 as a strong candidate for the derived head crest phenotype shared by numerous breeds, an important trait in mate selection in many avian species. We also found evidence that this trait evolved just once and spread throughout the species, and that the crest originates early in development by the localized molecular reversal of feather bud polarity.


In the specialized literature, researchers can find a large number of proposals for solving regression problems that come from different research areas. However, researchers tend to use only proposals from the area in which they are experts. This paper analyses the performance of a large number of the available regression algorithms from some of the most known and widely used software tools in order to help non-expert users from other areas to properly solve their own regression problems and to help specialized researchers developing well-founded future proposals by properly comparing and identifying algorithms that will enable them to focus on significant further developments. To sum up, we have analyzed 164 algorithms that come from 14 main different families available in 6 software tools (Neural Networks, Support Vector Machines, Regression Trees, Rule-Based Methods, Stacking, Random Forests, Model trees, Generalized Linear Models, Nearest Neighbor methods, Partial Least Squares and Principal Component Regression, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, Bagging, Boosting, and other methods) over 52 datasets. A new measure has also been proposed to show the goodness of each algorithm with respect to the others. Finally, a statistical analysis by non-parametric tests has been carried out over all the algorithms and on the best 30 algorithms, both with and without bagging. Results show that the algorithms from Random Forest, Model Tree and Support Vector Machine families get the best positions in the rankings obtained by the statistical tests when bagging is not considered. In addition, the use of bagging techniques significantly improves the performance of the algorithms without excessive increase in computational times.


Las Abejas formed as an organization in 1992 as a indigenous, Catholic, pacifist organization, working for peace and indigenous rights in Chiapas, Mexico. This group is in solidarity with the Zapatistas who uprose against the government in 1994. The 22nd of December 1997, 45 of the members of Las Abejas were killed by a paramilitary group while fasting and praying for peace. This incident came to be known as the Acteal massacre. This study explores Las Abejas' active pursuit for justice after the Acteal massacre. It examines their conception of justice and their concrete ways of acting to obtain justice in their communities. Their understanding of justice is analyzed in light of restorative justice theory. The study is based on documents by the head board of the organization as well as on interviews with people who work or have worked with Las Abejas in different ways. Las Abejas conception of justice, which they refer to as "The Other Justice" will be viewed as based on their identity as a resistance movement, which is grounded in their indigenous, religious, pacifist and global identity. Four elements appeared as essential in their conception of justice after the Acteal massacre: justice as a form of punishment, as truth, as in need for autonomy and as a structural issue.


AIM
This study demonstrates the effect of academic nurses' perceptions of ethical work climate on their organizational citizenship behaviour.

BACKGROUND
Establishing healthy relationships in organizations and ensuring organizational effectiveness depend on workers' perception of organizational ethics and voluntary behaviours that improve their organizations.

METHODS
This study was conducted with 644 academic nurses working in public institutions of higher education that offer nursing education at the undergraduate level in Turkey. The data were collected using a sociodemographic characteristics form, the Ethical Climate Scale and the Organizational Citizenship Behaviour Scale. The data were evaluated using statistical software. Approvals for the study were obtained from the institutions and their ethics committees, and the participants' consent was obtained.

RESULTS
This study found there was a significant relationship between academic nurses' perception of ethical work climate and their organizational citizenship behaviour. Ethical work climate based on social responsibility had the most effect on organizational citizenship behaviour.

CONCLUSIONS
Academic nurses' perceptions of ethical work climate affect their organizational citizenship behaviour.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING POLICY
Academic nurses should act in accordance with the laws and both professional and personal moral codes in the work environment, take into account team and institutional interests, be aware of their social responsibilities and be efficient. In this way, they can provide an ethical work environment and be a good organizational citizen based on volunteering and courtesy, thinking about team members, acting with advanced task awareness and supporting the development of the organization.


On 13 June 2019, INRA delivered a study commissioned by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and the Ministry of Agriculture concerning the carbon storage potential of soils in France.  Using a novel methodology, the study was able to evaluate this potential by estimating the implementation cost, region by region, in terms of a 4 ‰ goal. The 4 per 1000 Initiative for Food Security and Climate was launched during the UN Climate Change Conference held in Paris in 2015.


Methane oxidation by pure cultures of the methanotrophs Methylobacter albus BG8 and Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b was inhibited by ammonium choride and sodium nitrite relative to that in cultures assayed in either nitrate-containing or nitrate-free medium. M. albus was generally more sensitive to ammonium and nitrite than M. trichosporium. Both species produced nitrite from ammonium; the concentrations of nitrite produced increased with increasing methane concentrations in the culture headspaces. Inhibition of methane oxidation by nitrite was inversely proportional to headspace methane concentrations, with only minimal effects observed at concentrations of>500 ppm in the presence of 250 μM nitrite. Inhibition increased with increasing ammonium at methane concentrations of 100 ppm. In the presence of 500 μM ammonium, inhibition increased initially with increasing methane concentrations from 1.7 to 100 ppm; the extent of inhibition decreased with methane concentrations of > 100 ppm. The results of this study provide new insights that explain some of the previously observed interactions among ammonium, nitrite, methane, and methane oxidation in soils and aquatic systems.


We used modeling to predict the energy and cost savings associated with the air-based, hybrid membrane-biofilm reactor (hybrid MfBR). This process is obtained by replacing fine-bubble diffusers in conventional activated sludge with air-supplying, hollow-fiber membrane modules. Evaluated processes included removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD), combined COD and total nitrogen (TN) removal, and hybrid growth (biofilm and suspended). Target concentrations of COD and TN were based on high-stringency water reuse scenarios. Results showed reductions in power requirements as high as 86%. The decrease mainly resulted from the dramatically lower air flows for the MBfR, resulting from its higher oxygen-transfer efficiencies. When the MBfR was used for COD and TN removal, savings up to US$200/1,000 m(3) of treated water were predicted. Cost savings were highly sensitive to the costs of the membrane modules and electrical power. The costs were also very sensitive to membrane oxidation flux for ammonia, and the membrane life. These results suggest the hybrid MBfR may provide significant savings in energy and costs. Further research on the identified key parameters can help confirm these modeling predictions and facilitate scale-up.


Recovery principles are currently guiding the transformation of mental health practice and policy in the United States (Anthony, 2000; Davidson et al., 2005; Davidson et al., 2006; Ralph & Corrigan, 2007). Although principles of recovery have become the focus of mental health care reform, they have just begun to enter the forensic system (Hillbrand & Young, 2008). This is important because the forensic state hospital population has experienced a significant growth, reportedly approximating 50 % of all beds in given states, while the general civil state hospital population continues to decline (Salzer et al., 2006). Furthermore, Hillbrand and Young (2008) suggest that instilling hope is an essential treatment goal in forensic settings. The purpose of this study is to provide qualitative and survey research designed to examine and operationalize how recoveryoriented services have been implemented by program directors and staff as well as the challenges that may exist in forensic settings. A QUALITATIVE STUDY v