The dispute between the United States and the European Union (EU) regarding the EU ban on meat imports treated with hormones raises the question: How should regulators respond to public fears that are disproportionate to the risks as evaluated by experts in risk assessment? If regulators cannot eliminate public fears through education, then there is some social benefit from regulations that reduce the feared risks and thereby reduce public anxiety and distortions in behavior flowing from that anxiety. These considerations imply that we cannot simply ignore public fears that technocrats would deem "irrational." On the other hand, there is the danger that special interests may seek to generate consumer anxiety and lobby for regulations that serve their interests. I explore an approach that takes public fears seriously as social costs but also treats them as endogenous variables. I use this framework to evaluate risk regulations in terms of economic efficiency and suggest that the danger of inefficient regulation is most acute when domestic industries promote or sustain fears regarding imported products. From this perspective, the World Trade Organization ruling against the EU in the hormones dispute, based on the risk assessment requirements in the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, may represent a reasonable approach to guarding against the danger of regulatory protectionism, understood broadly to describe inefficient regulations that the importing country would not have adopted but for the foreign nationality of the producers disadvantaged by those regulations.


We consider the problem of recovering an invertible $n \times n$ matrix $A$ and a sparse $n \times p$ random matrix $X$ based on the observation of $Y = AX$ (up to a scaling and permutation of columns of $A$ and rows of $X$). Using only elementary tools from the theory of empirical processes we show that a version of the Er-SpUD algorithm by Spielman, Wang and Wright with high probability recovers $A$ and $X$ exactly, provided that $p \ge Cn\log n$, which is optimal up to the constant $C$.


Idlers are widely used in synchronous belt drives in order to adjust the center distance and in order to increase the angle of contact. A meshing phase angle occurs when an idler is attached and this is thought to generate a transmission error. In the present study, a transmission error having a period of one pitch of the pulley was investigated both theoretically and experimentally for synchronous belt drives with an idler attached on the belt span. The experimental conditions were such that the speed ratio was one under a quasi-static condition and no load. The experimentally obtained transmission error that occurs due to the idler agrees closely with the computed result. In addition, changes in tooth load and frictional force have a greater influence than change in meshing phase angle on the magnitude of the transmission error. The magnitude of the transmission error is affected when the idler is moved in the direction normal to the bearing stand, and is unaffected when the idler is moved in the direction parallel to the bearing stand. Furthermore, when the diameter of the idler increases, the transmission error remains constant. However, when the diameter of the idler decreases, the transmission error increases.


Recently, a significant debate over the taxation of so-called "carried interest" in private equity funds has received much attention from scholars, the government, commentators, and the media. This debate has focused on whether private equity fund managers who earn a percentage of the returns generated by the fund should be entitled to preferential "capital gain" treatment on such returns. The primary concern in this debate revolves around whether managers are effectively being compensated for services normally taxed at higher rates while receiving the benefit of preferential rates reserved for capital gains. Proponents of reform point to the services being performed by the managers, while proponents of the current system point to the investment exposure to the underlying assets of the fund. In reality, however, both sides are partially correct: carried interest is "blended" in that it represents both a return to services and a return on capital. Since carried interest is blended in this manner, an analogy to either proves less than satisfying.The issue of blended labor/investment returns is not new to the tax laws, however. Historically, one way the law has attempted to address the issue was not by deconstructing such returns into constituent parts, but instead by imposing a "holding period" requirement. Under this approach, not all capital investments are created equal; rather, only capital investments held for an arbitrary period of time while bearing the risk of loss qualify for preferential rates. The current debate over the taxation of carried interest in private equity has failed to incorporate this element into the analysis, i.e., the role that holding period plays in denying preferential rates to blended labor/investment returns, such as carried interest. This Article will do so, concluding that, to the extent any reform of the taxation of carried interest within the existing framework of the income tax is appropriate, a better approach may be through the application of the holding period rules rather than through current proposals to either change the definition of capital gains or further complicate the partnership tax rules.


This paper analyzes the decision-making process for negotiating reparative contracts with offenders in a restorative justice model. Based on a content analysis of videotaped Community Reparative Board meetings with probationers in Vermont, this paper defines restoration as a core concept in restorative justice; examines how boards identify harm to victims and community; discusses how boards identify strategies to repair identified harm; addresses how repair often becomes a line item in reparative contracts; and offers interpretation for situations in which harm is not identified and/or not repaired.


INTRODUCTION
Critically ill patients typically develop a catabolic stress state as a result of a systemic inflammatory response (SIRS) that alters clinical-nutritional biomarkers, increasing energy demands and nutritional requirements.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the status of albumin, prealbumin and transferrin in critically ill patients and the association between these clinical-nutritional parameters with the severity during a seven day stay in intensive care unit (ICU).

METHOD
Multicenter, prospective, observational and analytical follow-up study. A total of 115 subjects in critical condition were included in this study. Clinical and nutritional parameters and severity were monitored at admission and at the seventh day of the ICU stay.

RESULTS
A significant decrease in APACHE II and SOFA (p < 0.05) throughout the evolution of critically ill patients in ICU. In general, patients showed an alteration of most of the parameters analyzed. The status of albumin, prealbumin and transferrin were below reference levels both at admission and the 7th day in ICU. A high percentage of patients presented an unbalanced status of albumin (71.3%), prealbumin (84.3%) and transferrin (69.0%). At admission, 27% to 47% of patients with altered protein parameters had APACHE II above 18. The number of patients with altered protein parameters and APACHE II below 18 were significantly higher than severe ones throughout the ICU stay (p < 0.01). Regarding the multivariate analysis, low prealbumin status was the best predictor of severity critical (p < 0.05) both at admission and 7th day of the ICU stay.

CONCLUSION
The results of the present study support the idea of including low prealbumin status as a severity predictor in APACHE II scale, due to the association found between severity and poor status of prealbumin.


Promising therapies are being developed or are in early-stage clinical trials that employ the use of alpha- and beta-emitting radionuclides to cure hematologic malignancies. However, these targeted radionuclide therapies have not yet met their expected potential for cancer treatment. A primary reason is lack of biodistribution, dosimetry, and dose-response information at cellular levels, which are directly related to optimal targeting, achieving a requisite therapeutic dose, and assessing the safety profile in normal organs and tissues. The current set of imaging tools, such as film autoradiography, scintigraphy, and SPECT/CT, available to researchers and clinicians do not allow the effective assessment of radiation absorbed dose distributions at cellular levels because resolutions are poor, measurement and analytical times are long, and the spatial resolutions are low-generally resulting in poor signal-to-noise ratios. Recently, new radiation digital autoradiography imaging tools have been developed that promise to address these challenges. They include scintillation-, gaseous-, and semiconductor-based radiation-detection technologies that localize the emission location of charged particles on an event-by-event basis at resolutions up to 20 µm FWHM for alpha and beta emitters. These imaging systems allow radionuclide activity concentrations to be quantified to unprecedented levels (mBq/µg) and provide real-time imaging and simultaneous imaging capabilities of both high- and low-activity samples without dynamic range limitations that plague traditional autoradiography. Additionally, large-area imagers are available (>20 × 20 cm2) to accommodate high-throughput imaging studies. This article reviews the various detector classes and their associated performance trade-offs to provide researchers with an overview of the current technologies available for selecting an optimal detector configuration to meet imaging requirement needs.


States producing gas and oil have long levied severance taxes at the point of extraction, commonly placing most revenues into general funds. These taxes have assumed new meaning in many states amid the expansion of gas and oil production accompanying the advent of hydraulic fracturing. We reviewed all major statutes and constitutional amendments related to severance taxes that were enacted at the state level during the first decade of the "shale era" (2005–14). There have been only modest adjustments in statutory tax rates and some evidence that states have attempted to reduce these rates, possibly in response to growing national production. In turn, there is also evidence that states have begun to pursue more targeted strategies for revenue use, including some expanded focus on responding to the negative externalities linked to drilling, expanded revenue sharing with localities, and increased long-term protection of resources through state trust funds.


Significance False memories can arise in daily life through a mixture of factors, including misinformation and prior conceptual knowledge. This can have serious consequences in settings, such as legal eyewitness testimony, which depend on the accuracy of memory. We investigated the brain basis of false memory with fMRI, and found that patterns of activity in the temporal pole region of the brain can predict false memories. Furthermore, we show that each individual has unique patterns of brain activation that can predict their own idiosyncratic set of false-memory errors. Together, these results suggest that the temporal pole may be responsible for the conceptual component of illusory memories. Recent advances in neuroscience have given us unprecedented insight into the neural mechanisms of false memory, showing that artificial memories can be inserted into the memory cells of the hippocampus in a way that is indistinguishable from true memories. However, this alone is not enough to explain how false memories can arise naturally in the course of our daily lives. Cognitive psychology has demonstrated that many instances of false memory, both in the laboratory and the real world, can be attributed to semantic interference. Whereas previous studies have found that a diverse set of regions show some involvement in semantic false memory, none have revealed the nature of the semantic representations underpinning the phenomenon. Here we use fMRI with representational similarity analysis to search for a neural code consistent with semantic false memory. We find clear evidence that false memories emerge from a similarity-based neural code in the temporal pole, a region that has been called the "semantic hub" of the brain. We further show that each individual has a partially unique semantic code within the temporal pole, and this unique code can predict idiosyncratic patterns of memory errors. Finally, we show that the same neural code can also predict variation in true-memory performance, consistent with an adaptive perspective on false memory. Taken together, our findings reveal the underlying structure of neural representations of semantic knowledge, and how this semantic structure can both enhance and distort our memories.


Topics in Applied Physics is a well-established series of review books, each of which presents a comprehensive survey of a selected topic within the area of applied physics. Edited and written by leading research scientists in the field concerned, each volume contains review contributions covering the various aspects of the topic. Together these provide an overview of the state of the art in the respective field. Topics in Applied Physics is addressed to all scientists at universities and in industry who wish to obtain an overview and to keep abreast of advances in applied physics. The Managing Editors are open to any suggestions for topics coming from the community of applied physicists no matter what the field and encourage prospective book editors to approach them with ideas. 2015 Impact Factor: 0.889


Stereo positioning is a important content for Spaceborne SAR imagery mapping, which is still lack of investigation depend on exterior orientation elements. In this paper, we firstly introduced the Range-Coplanarity (R-Cp) geometric imaging equation and its character for radar imagery, compared the difference and relationship between R-Cp and R-D model, and build stereo positioning rigorous model for spaceborne SAR imagery based on the R-Cp equation, satellite orbit, and pose refinement model. Then separate taking TerraSAR-X images in mountainous terrain observed from same and opposite side-looking direction as test data, we presented the initial attitude value acquirement method for TerraSAR-X image after moving compensation, analyzed stereo positioning precision according to amounts and spatial distributions of GCPs and lengths of baseline between SAR antennas, and also compared the precision with R-D model. the proposed stereo positioning model avoids SAR signal imaging parameters during the geometric processing, with one GCP it could improved the plan and height precision from (17.9m,29.2m) to (10.3m,6.1m) in the test of opposite side-looking direction images, and even had a better accuracy than R-D model when more GCPs were used, which indicate that R-Cp model have a potential application in spaceborne SAR image stereo positioning.


Children get irritable, restless and excited in response to pain. Most children predict the pain induced by injection and prevent it by non-conformist behavior associated with anxiety before injection. They usually spend a lot of time to accept the injection. Thus, the present study aims to evaluate of the effect of distraction in the two groups of inflating the balloon and mother's arms on the pain of venipuncture in children aged 6 -3. This study was conducted in a cross-sectional way.Sampling was performedin an available and random manner from all children admitted to the pediatric ward (44 patients) of Peymanieh hospital of Jahrom. Data tools consisted of three questionnaires: demographic questionnaire, the scale of pain behavioral study in children and numerical scale to assess pain. Information was conducted by descriptive statisticsindicators such as percentage and mean and paired T tests. Mann-Whitney test results showed that there was no significant difference between blowing up balloons group and mother's arm groupin terms of the scale of pain behavioral study and numerical scale to assess pain(p-value> 0.05). Performing Distraction program reduces pain resulting from medical procedures in children.


The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) was created under the Bangsamoro Organic Law (RA 11054 ) which was signed into law in March 2019. One key feature in this law is the creation of a BARMM block grant which is intended to help resource the new autonomous region which will replace the ARMM. In practical terms, setting up BARMM will hinge critically on the amount of financing it can mobilize — as well as the public finance management architecture which will serve as the governance system for BARMM's finances. This brief article seeks to contribute to the discussions on operationalizing the block grant mechanism by briefly reviewing the international literature on the practice of block grant financing. It will also revisit the legislative discussions on the BOL — specifically on the block grant — in order to reveal some of the intended parameters underpinning this tool. Moving forward, both the national government agencies (notably the DBM) and their BARMM counterparts will need to tackle some key operational questions regarding the block grant. In lieu of answers at this stage, our note outlines some of these questions for immediate deliberation.


This study aims to examine the relationship between competitive advantage and firm performance in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The dominant theories in strategic management views competitive advantage as firm performance but the opposition claims that it is a firms' capability to acquiring superior performance. The latter claims that competitive advantage could lead to firm performance but many other factors might alter the relationship. Previous studies have examined the impact of competitive advantage on firm performance but not on SMEs. The analysis on the 365 set of usable data collected from the SME owner-managers using questionnaire survey shows that differentiation has positive impact on firm performance but with relatively lower impact compared to previous studies. Lower cost is found to have negative effect on customer retention but the effect is not significant. Based on the findings of the study, SMEs are advised to construct their competitive advantage around differentiation.


This paper uses the Ricardian approach to examine how farmers in 11 countries in Africa have adapted to existing climatic conditions. It then estimates the effects of predicted changes in climate while accounting for whatever farmer adaptation might occur. This study differs from earlier ones by using farmers' own perceptions of the value of their land. Previous research, by contrast, has relied on either observed sale prices or net revenues, sometimes aggregated over geographically large tracts of terrain. The study also makes use of high resolution data describing soil quality and runoff. Furthermore, it tackles the challenges involved in modeling the effect of climate on agriculture in a study that includes countries in the northern and southern hemispheres, as well as the tropics. The study confirms that African agriculture is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Even with perfect adaptation, regional climate change by 2050 is predicted to entail production losses of 19.9 percent for Burkina Faso and 30.5 percent for Niger. By contrast, countries such as Ethiopia and South Africa are hardly affected at all, suffering productivity losses of only 1.3 percent and 3 percent, respectively. The study also confirms the importance of water supplies as measured by runoff, which, being affected by both temperature and precipitation, may itself be highly sensitive to climate change.


Arctic energy development has massive potential in helping meet world energy needs and in promoting sustainable Arctic development. At the same time, the Arctic is largely inhabited by Indigenous peoples and has special environmental vulnerabilities that can contribute to impacts on Arctic Indigenous peoples. Norms of consultation with Indigenous peoples thus have a particular importance in Arctic contexts. This Article examines this very much under-studied issue. It seeks to make an innovative contribution to understanding best practices on consultation appropriate to Arctic-specific contexts, considering evolving national and international law norms of consultation. Part II of the Article carries out a comparison of existing implementations of international norms of consultation in countries across the Arctic region. Part III distills best practices on consultation from both evolving national and international law, including both in the Arctic states but also in other states whose practices can shed light. Part IV examines unique Arctic circumstances and develops a set of categories for Arctic-specific consideration of consultation. Part V ties together the best practices and the impact categories of Part IV and seeks to comment on the existing state practices discussed in Part II, signalling directions in which different states might consider shifting so as to best respect consultation norms. The underlying aim of the Article is to offer practical recommendations that facilitate Arctic energy development in responsible ways, thereby furthering its long-term acceptability and potential.


This study analyses Algeria's foreign policy under the leadership of President Chadli Bendjadid from February 1979 until January 1992. Its aim is to investigate the extent of continuity and/or change in Algeria's foreign policy during this period. The central finding of this thesis is that "change within continuity" best describes what characterised Algeria's foreign policy under the post-1979 leadership.
This thesis is divided into two parts. The First Part is composed of four chapters. Chapter One relates theoretical approaches. It examines whether or not there is a satisfactory approach that can be applied for our case study. In the same chapter, the making of Algeria's foreign policy is scrutinised through the identification and topological analysis of the key factors in the conceptualisation and implementation of Algeria's foreign policy. It also uncovers who makes Algerian foreign policy. Chapter Two identifies the guiding principles behind the formulation of Algerian foreign policy. In this chapter, reference to the FLN's past diplomatic activities is reviewed as it serves to provide a significant understanding of the context within which the fundamental principles of the policy pursued by contemporary Algeria were shaped, defined and set as the official framework for Algeria's foreign policy. Chapter Three deals with Algeria's foreign policy behaviour from 1962 to the end of 1978. A clear understanding of post-1979 Algerian foreign policy needs to rest on a review of how Algeria's foreign policy was determined and implemented in the years preceding this period and what were the dominant issues of the country's foreign policy at the time of Bendjadid's appointment.

The Second Part comprises three chapters. It considers Bendjadid's leadership by exploring a number of issues/areas that came to be the focus of his government's external policy. Chapter Four relates to Algeria's policy towards it proximate neighbouring countries -Morocco-Tunisia-Libya-and the more distant Mashreq. This chapter suggests that the Western Sahara remained the central thrust of Algeria's Maghreb policy, just as it had been in the last years of Houari Boumediene's tenure (1975-1978).


Telomeres are the specialized structures at the end of linear chromosomes and terminate with a single-stranded 3′ overhang of the G-rich strand. The primary role of telomeres is to protect chromosome ends from recombination and fusion and from being recognized as broken DNA ends. This protective function can be achieved through association with specific telomere-binding proteins. Although proteins that bind single-stranded G-rich overhang regulate telomere length and telomerase activity in mammals and lower eukaryotes, equivalent factors have yet to be identified in plants. Here we have identified proteins capable of interacting with the G-rich single-stranded telomeric repeat from the Arabidopsis extracts by affinity chromatography. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis indicates that the isolated protein is a chloroplast RNA-binding protein (and a truncated derivative). The truncated derivative, which we refer to as STEP1 (single-stranded telomere-binding protein 1), binds specifically the single-stranded G-rich plant telomeric DNA sequences but not double-stranded telomeric DNA. Unlike the chloroplast-localized full-length RNA-binding protein, STEP1 localizes exclusively to the nucleus, suggesting that it plays a role in plant telomere biogenesis. We also demonstrated that the specific binding of STEP1 to single-stranded telomeric DNA inhibits telomerase-mediated telomere extension. The evidence presented here suggests that STEP1 is a telomere-end binding protein that may contribute to telomere length regulation by capping the ends of chromosomes and thereby repressing telomerase activity in plants.


The activation of T helper (Th) cell subsets plays an important role in the human immune system. Uncontrolled Th1 and Th2 responses lead to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, respectively. The identification of agents that modulate the Th1/Th2 cytokines is therefore essential for controlling these diseases. We recently reported that polysaccharopeptide (PSP) from Coriolus versicolor exhibited ciclosporin‐like activities to control aberrant T lymphocyte activation. Here, we compared the properties of PSP with ciclosporin on cell proliferation, CD25+ expression, secretion of Th1/Th2 cytokines and activation of mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK)p38 and signal transducers and activators of transcription 5 (STAT5) on T cells. The data show that PSP alone suppresses the proliferation of activated T cells. PSP exhibited similar and additive inhibitory effects to ciclosporin to suppress activated T cell proliferation, Th1 cytokines and reduce CD3+/CD25+ cell expression, but not Th2 cytokine expression, which helps the cytokine balance shift towards Th2 dominance. These suppressive actions of PSP involved the MAPKp38 and STAT5 pathways. These findings refine our understanding of the effects of PSP on T lymphocytes and its adjuvant properties with the immunosuppressant ciclosporin for possible control of autoimmune diseases.


Root research methods are often tedious, labor intensive, and prone to large variability. Minirhizotron technology has the potential to greatly enhance root research capabilities, but quantifying minirhizotron data is very time consuming. This note presents new software that allows rapid, accurate measurement of root length from digital images-Root Measurement System (RMS). In addition to measuring root lengths and diameters, RMS records number of roots in an image and calculates their total volume, total surface area, and length density. Ten untrained RMS users averaged 654 ± 42 s to measure the length of a 24 mm s-shaped line 10 times. The standard error of the mean for repeated length measurements was <0.1 mm for all but one of the operators. In a subsequent test with 10 different operators having various levels of experience, operators averaged a total of 2324 ± 213 s to measure the lengths and diameters of 10 images of pseudo roots made from wires. There was no significant difference among operators for total length measured, but operators did differ in lengths apportioned among 0.1-mm-diam. classes. For minirhizotron images collected in a field study, an experienced operator could analyze from 17 to 38 images h -1 depending on number and length of roots in the images. With its speed, accuracy, and versatility, RMS offers the possibility to analyze sufficient numbers of minirhizotron images to allow detection of treatment effects in field research.


The problem of economic operation of an electrical power system is suffering from combinatorial explosiveness. Moreover the problem is distributed in nature, overwhelmed by human factors because of the fact that present day systems are spanned at very large areas. Most of the data that is transferred to the system control office is mainly useful for stability and control purposes alone, while there is a lot of data, generated by various parts of the system that can be utilized effectively for improving the economic operation but at present is lying dormant.

This thesis is addressed towards a comprehensive solution of the problem in the light of three crucial factors mentioned above. Instead of using the conventional SCADA system to transfer the data in the form of unrelated telemetry signals, techniques are developed to keep the data in distributed client server databases, where each unit of data bears a particular specified relationship with the rest of the system. Processes are developed to transform this data into information and send the database transaction over the WEB to share the distributed computing for economic operation. Several processes are identified and a higher level process map of the system operation is developed. Expert system methodology is used to couple the symbolic and numerical knowledge in the processes for better insight and management of human factor.

A mathematical model is developed that represents the situation in a thermal power station running on multiple fuels. The Thermal Plants Status Development Process that has been implemented in a client-server database system for thermal power stations uses this model to infer the current status of the system. The process takes into account the human factors affecting the dynamicity of fuel cost characteristics of thermal units, and sends the transaction over the WEB, to the system control office, containing the parameters needed for economic operation. A 24 hour simulation is carried out for three thermal units having a total capacity of 1200 MW, using gas fuels from four different gas fields. The simulation recorded a net send out of 22,298.0 MWh of energy while the results show a saving in the fuel cost ranging from 0.6 Million Rupees (1$ = Rs. 60 approx) to 5.5 Million Rupees per day over the current practice. Real practical data, required for the development of various models of the thesis is obtained from Gas Thermal Power Station Guddu, which is one of the major thermal power stations in the Pakistan Electric Utility System.

A portion of this work is the basis of the eight research publications. The author himself participated for presenting a paper in 38th International Universities Power Engineering Conference, Upec03, Sep-01 to Sep-03 2003, in Thessalonica, Greece, and for the second paper in IASTED, International Conference on Power and Energy Systems, EuroPES 2003, Sep-03 to September 06 2003 Marbella, Spain. Another paper has been accepted, for publication in IASTED, International Journal of Power and Energy System, Calgary, Canada.


The aim of this research is to study 'potential absorptive capacity' (PAC) and 'realised absorptive capacity' (RAC) concepts within Thai SMEs in the 'low-medium-tech' (LMT) sector. This research has two main objectives: 1) to explore Thai dessert SMEs' motives and knowledge domains in relation to inbound open innovation (OI) access, and 2) to understand the effect of search breadth and search depth, local search experience, and innovation capability on PAC and RAC.

A mixed methods approach with an exploratory design was employed in this research. It was based on a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews. The 14 sets of interview data were gained from three agencies: Thai dessert SMEs, government agencies responsible for the promotion of technology and innovation in Thai SMEs, and a large company possessing one production line for an innovative Thai dessert product. The thematic analysis findings revealed three key motives engaging Thai dessert SMEs in the inbound OI access in support of new product development (NPD): brand building, product quality, and improvement. Significantly, the findings also revealed that internal factors (employee and technology management) and the type of OI practice (openness) were two key elements that Thai dessert SMEs engaged with, along with the motives. Using a quantitative approach with a survey of 211 Thai dessert SMEs, the findings of structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis revealed that search breadth was positively related to PAC, but was not found to relate to RAC. On the other hand, search depth was found to positively relate to RAC but was not found to relate to PAC. In addition, the effects of innovation capability and local search experience were examined. The findings revealed that local search experience through frequent searching in the oriented-knowledge domain significantly influenced the PAC, while there was no moderating effect of innovation capability on the relationship between the RAC and new product performance because the linear relationship of RAC and new product performance was found to be non-significant.

This research contributes to the existing literature in three ways. Firstly, it advances the research on absorptive capacity by linking the concept of PAC and RAC with two distinct dimensions of search: search breadth and search depth, which corresponds to organisational learning, namely exploration learning and exploitation learning, respectively. To the researcher's knowledge, this is the first study examining the effects of search breadth and depth on PAC and RAC. Secondly, it contributes to the research on absorptive capacity by examining the moderating role of innovation capability in the relationship between RAC and new product performance. Prior research has never before examined the interaction effect of innovation capability and RAC on new product performance. This is potentially the first study examining this interaction effect. Thirdly, the study contributes to the knowledge of the implementation of inbound OI, in particular within the context of low-medium-tech (LMT) SMEs. To date, studies regarding inbound OI access of low-medium-tech SMEs are scarce. This research bridges this gap in knowledge by providing qualitative evidence of motives and knowledge in inbound OI access.


In Britain, the shift from the ideology of homeownership into one of homeownership-based welfare
has been sustained by homebuyers being regarded as investors. Homeowners are expected to create a synergy
between the owned house seen as a space of shelter, place of home and increasingly, an investment vehicle and
an object of debt. Drawing on 80 interviews with owner-occupiers and national data on house prices and
mortgages, we examine the way in which the meanings of home meanings are negotiated through the subjective
calculation of the financial costs and gains of homebuying. We explore homebuyers' debt amnesia, their
miscalculation of gains and their disregard of inflation. However homebuyers' financially unsophisticated
understanding of the asset-home arises less from book-keeping complexities or difficulties in pricing the
emotional domain of the home, but rather by them instinctively considering the alternative cost of a rented space
of shelter. From this financial perspective and given affordability, homebuying illustrates a misleading
ideological notion of choice.


This paper suggests that when the phenomenon of standards and standardization is examined from the perspective of organization studies, three aspects stand out: the standardization of organizations, standardization by organizations and standardization as (a form of) organization. Following a comprehensive overview of existing research in these three areas, we argue that the dynamic aspects of standardization are under-represented in the scholarly discourse. Furthermore, we identify the main types of tension associated with standardization and the dynamics they generate in each of those three areas, and show that, while standards and standardization are typically associated with stability and sameness, they are essentially a dynamic phenomenon. The paper highlights the contributions of this special issue to the topic of standards as a dynamic phenomenon in organization studies and makes suggestions for future research.


A system that can produce informative summaries, highlighting common information found in many online documents, will help Web users to pinpoint information that they need without extensive reading. In this article, we introduce sentence fusion, a novel text-to-text generation technique for synthesizing common information across documents. Sentence fusion involves bottom-up local multisequence alignment to identify phrases conveying similar information and statistical generation to combine common phrases into a sentence. Sentence fusion moves the summarization field from the use of purely extractive methods to the generation of abstracts that contain sentences not found in any of the input documents and can synthesize information across sources.


This report has been produced to detail the research and development of a medical and home automation project, known herein as RapidARM.

RapidARM is primarily a health monitoring and alert system that autonomously calls for help if a user suffers with a cardiac emergency. The service continuously monitors the users heart rate activity through a smart watch application, and a smart phone application performs actions based on these readings when compared with heart rate parameters set by the user on initial setup. The service also functions as a smart-home hub in which a user can interact with common electrical devices in their home without the need to do so manually. This includes controlling lighting, television, radio and heating. The service also automatically unlocks the users' front door in the event of an emergency. The mobile application UI provides functions to instantly launch a call to the emergency services or to a selected contact, while also displaying an overview of the most recent heart rate activity to the user.

The system has been designed to automatically call the emergency services when it detects heart rate conditions that are deemed outside of the acceptable parameters, allowing a brief period for the user to interrupt the call. The heart rate parameters are configurable, based on the individual health requirements of the user, as advised by their doctor. User data is used to create an audio file that is saved to their device, and in the event of a trigger, this file is played to the emergency services when an automatic call is evoked. During an emergency trigger, the phone will display the users' identification details and medical history while also unlocking their front door.

RapidARM is built using an android mobile device, an Android Wear smart-watch, a RaspberryPi development board, and the Firebase API to provide authenticated user accounts and profile data, as well as saving a record of all events triggered within the system. This database exists in the cloud and can be accessed through the mobile application or through a web browser. An instance of the database is also stored within the mobile application itself for use when a network connection is not available. Events and data changes within the system occur in real-time, and a Raspberry Pi device and 8-channel relay board are used to receive control messages from the cloud and to interact with the users' home based these control messages.

Valuable contributions to the project were made by Professor. Richard Costello and Dr. Abir Alsaid including forming baseline figures for upper and lower safe heart rates, and in gauging the benefits of such a system with patients. Surveys completed by the contributors have been attached in the appendix.

Through research into the possible user base for the system conducted using data from the Census report 2011, It was identified that over 900'000 people above the age of 65 currently live alone in Ireland. Also highlighted in the research was the number of disabled people living in Ireland, at over 590'000 in the same 2011 report.

Throughout testing, the system has been shown to address the problem consistently and reliably, providing a history of heart activity for the user to examine in the form of an events list, graphs and charts of data gathered from the smart-watch. Feedback was received on possible improvements during the usability testing and the results of this are contained in this document. RapidARM has been shown to provide a lifeline to the user who would otherwise be incapable of calling for assistance.

Research has been conducted into viable alternative options within the space and these have been evaluated to identify possible strengths, weaknesses or opportunities for the RapidARM project.


This paper aims to show how the mathematical content of Hilbert's Axiom of Completeness consists in an attempt to solve the more general problem of the relationship between intuition and formalization. Hilbert found the accordance between these two sides of mathematical knowledge at a logical level, clarifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for a good formalization of geometry. We will tackle the problem of what is, for Hilbert, the definition of geometry. The solution of this problem will bring out how Hilbert's conception of mathematics is not as innovative as his conception of the axiomatic method. The role that the demonstrative tools play in Hilbert's foundational reflections will also drive us to deal with the problem of the purity of methods, explicitly addressed by Hilbert. In this respect Hilbert's position is very innovative and deeply linked to his modern conception of the axiomatic method. In the end we will show that the role played by the Axiom of Completeness for geometry is the same as the Axiom of Induction for arithmetic and of Church-Turing thesis for computability theory. We end this paper arguing that set theory is the right context in which applying the axiomatic method to mathematics and we postpone to a sequel of this work the attempt to offer a solution similar to Hilbert's for the completeness of set theory.


We tested the hypothesis that wolves are reducing local browse intensity by white‐tailed deer, thus indirectly mitigating the biotic impoverishment of understorey plant communities in northern Wisconsin. To assess the potential for such a top‐down trophic cascade response, we developed a spatially and temporally explicit model of wolf territory occupancy based on three decades of wolf monitoring data. Using a nested multiscale vegetation survey protocol, we compared the understorey plant communities of northern white cedar wetlands found in high wolf areas with control sites found in low wolf areas. We fit species–area curves for plant species grouped by vegetation growth form (based on their predicted response to release from herbivory, i.e. tree, seedling, shrub, forb, grass, sedge or fern) and duration of wolf territory occupancy. As predicted for a trophic cascade response, forb species richness at local scales (10 m2) was significantly higher in high wolf areas (high wolf areas: 10.7 ± 0.9, N = 16, low wolf areas: 7.5 ± 0.9, N = 16, P < 0.001), as was shrub species richness (high wolf areas: 4.4 ± 0.4, N = 16, low wolf areas: 3.2 ± 0.5, N = 16, P < 0.001). Also as predicted, percentage cover of ferns was lower in high wolf areas (high wolf areas: 6.2 ± 2.1, N = 16, low wolf areas: 11.6 ± 5.3, N = 16, P < 0.05). Beta richness was similar between high and low wolf areas, supporting earlier assumptions that deer herbivory impacts plant species richness primarily at local scales. Sampling at multiple spatial scales revealed that changes in species richness were not consistent across scales nor among vegetation growth forms: forbs showed a stronger response at finer scales (1–100 m2), while shrubs showed a response across relatively broader scales (10–1000 m2). Synthesis. Our results are consistent with hypothesized trophic effects on understorey plant communities triggered by a keystone predator recovering from regional extinction. In addition, we identified the response variables and spatial scales appropriate for detecting such differences in plant species composition. This study represents the first published evidence of a trophic cascade triggered by wolf recovery in the Great Lakes region.


This letter proposes a limited feedback-based selfish linear precoding (SLP) strategy for downlink two-user MIMO systems. In the proposed strategy, each user selfishly chooses the other user's precoding matrix which minimizes its capacity loss. The proposed SLP strategy has two advantages comparing with traditional linear precoding strategies. First, SLP improves the system capacity by resisting interference more effectively. Second , the computing complexity of transmitter is reduced since the base station needs not to calculate precoding matrix. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of SLP on system capacity improvement comparing to limited feedback block diagonalization (LFBD) algorithm, especially when feedback bits are insufficient.


We introduce an application of a mobile transient network architecture on top of the current Internet. This paper is an application extension to a conceptual mobile network architecture. It attempts to specifically reinforce some of the powerful notions exposed by the architecture from an application perspective. Of these notions, we explore the network expansion layer, an overlay of components and services, that enables a persistent identification network and other required services. The overlay abstraction introduces several benefits of which mobility and communication across heterogenous network structures are of interest to this paper. We present implementations of several components and protocols including gateways, Agents and the Open Device Access Protocol. Our present identification network implementation exploits the current implementation of the Handle System through the use of distributed, global and persistent identifiers called handles. Handles are used to identify and locate devices and services abstracting any physical location or network association from the communicating ends. A communication framework is finally demonstrated that would allow for mobile devices on the public Internet to have persistent identifiers and thus be persistently accessible either directly or indirectly. This application expands IP inter-operability beyond its current boundaries.


Cristina Rossetti9s "Goblin Market" has received over the past two decades a remarkable amount of attention from literary critics who have approached the poem from a variety of perspectives: Marxist, feminist, biblical, and even biographical. Many of these critical articles are too concerned, however, with their own theoretical paradigms to provide more than a narrow perspective on the place of "Goblin Market" as both central to and representative of Rossetti9s verse as a whole. Instead of beginning with such a norrow perspective, this essay argues for a return to the actual language and structure of the poem itself as a means of exploring its central themes. Most specifically, it examines Rossetti9s use of the list in "Globin Market" as indicative of the poet struggling to resolve her intense Tractarianism with both her love of nature and her tendency toward a Pre-Raphaelite embracing of detail and abundance. Such an analysis of the forces that shaped Rossetti the poet is essential for an understanding not only of "Goblin Market" but of her poetry as a whole. Thus, this analysis does not reject all other critical approaches; rather, it attempts to subsume them into a less narrow, hopefully more fruitful perspective from which we may view Rossetti9s poetry as she herself perhaps did. Only through such an approach can we arrive at the central themes of temptation and moral discernment, especially as present in a symbolic and seductively diverse natural world, that Rossetti explores at the very crux of "Goblin Market."


Written by one of the leading authors in the field, this text provides a student-friendly approach to graph theory for undergraduates. Much care has been given to present the material at the most effective level for students taking a first course in graph theory. Gary Chartrand and Ping Zhang's lively and engaging style, historical emphasis, unique examples and clearly-written proof techniques make it a sound yet accessible text that stimulates interest in an evolving subject and exploration in its many applications. This text is part of the Walter Rudin Student Series in Advanced Mathematics.


Abstract:Across Europe and many other parts of the world, traditional parties of the left seem to be in terminal decline. While there are many reasons for this, we argue that the most important was the left's shift to the center on economic issues during the late twentieth century. Although this shift made some sense in the short-term, over the long-term it had deleterious, perhaps even fatal, consequences: It watered down the left's distinctive historical profile; rendered socialist and social-democratic parties unable to take advantage of widespread discontent over the fallout from neoliberal reforms and the 2008 financial crisis; created incentives for parties to emphasize cultural and social rather than economic or class appeals; and undermined the representative nature of democracy. The shift in the left's economic profile, in short, deserves center stage in any account of its decline. Moreover, this shift and its consequences have been crucial to the rise of a nativist, populist right and to the broader problems facing democracy today in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as other parts of the world.


To consider the measurable variations in biopharmaceuticals we use mass spectrometry and systematically evaluate three lots of Herceptin®, two mAb standards and an intact Fc-hinge fragment. Each mAb is examined in three states; glycan intact, truncated (following endoS2 treatment) and fully deglycosylated. Despite equivalence at the protein level, each lot of Herceptin® gives a distinctive signature in three different mass spectrometry analyses. Ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) shows that in the API, the attached N-glycans reduce the conformational spread of each mAb by 10.5 – 25 %. Hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) data supports this, with lower global deuterium uptake in solution when comparing intact to the fully deglycosylated protein. HDX-MS and activated IM-MS map the influence of glycans on the mAb and reveal allosteric effects which extend far beyond the Fc domains into the Fab region. Taken together these findings, and the supplied interactive data sets could be used to provide acceptance criteria with application for MS based characterisation of biosimilars and novel therapeutic mAbs.


This survey presents an overview of the autonomous development of mental capabilities in computational agents. It does so based on a characterization of cognitive systems as systems which exhibit adaptive, anticipatory, and purposive goal-directed behavior. We present a broad survey of the various paradigms of cognition, addressing cognitivist (physical symbol systems) approaches, emergent systems approaches, encompassing connectionist, dynamical, and enactive systems, and also efforts to combine the two in hybrid systems. We then review several cognitive architectures drawn from these paradigms. In each of these areas, we highlight the implications and attendant problems of adopting a developmental approach, both from phylogenetic and ontogenetic points of view. We conclude with a summary of the key architectural features that systems capable of autonomous development of mental capabilities should exhibit


Young children perform well on a wide range of tasks involving the attribution of goals/desires. For instance, two- and three-year old children are told that a boy wants to find his rabbit, which is in one of two locations. If the puppet fails to find the rabbit in the first location, children predict that he will look in the second location; if the puppet finds the rabbit in the first location, however, children predict that he will not look in the second location (Wellman and Woolley 1990).
Although there is plenty of evidence that children can reason about other people's desires, the origins of this ability is still very much unknown. In one study, Repacholi and Gopnik (1997) studied 18-month old children in a food-request procedure in which they asked whether the children could correctly understand people's desires by predicting specific reactions to desired/undesired objects. The children saw the experimenter express disgust as she tasted one kind of food, and happiness as she tasted a different kind of food. They were then asked to give the experimenter some food. The children correctly gave her the food towards which she had expressed positive affect. This led researchers to conclude that the children not only inferred that another person held a desire, but they also recognized how desires relate to emotions.
More recently, researchers have looked at the origins of other people's mental states in even younger infants using visual attention measures. For instance, Woodward (1998) has presented results that indicate that 12-month-old infants detect goals. The origins of subjective desire, however, is still an open question.
Here we proposed to start addressing the issue of subjective desire in young infants. In this task, thirty-two 10- and 11-month-old infants are familiarized with two scenarios. In (1), infants see the experimenter express disgust towards cracker/broccoli ('yuk'), and in (2), infants see the experimenter express happiness towards broccoli/cracker ('wow'). After the familiarization phase, the infants are then tested in one of two outcomes, the experimenter has a neutral expression and either grabs the broccoli, or the cracker. Parental reports on infants' preferences are obtained to check their behavior against their performance in the task. If the infants have a psychological understanding of subjective desire, then they will expect the experimenter to grab the food towards which she expressed positive affect; if, on the other hand, the infants only have a behavioral understanding of desire, then they will be unable to determine the object of the experimenter's desire because no specific cues are provided in the test phase. They will tend to respond egocentrically, and give the experimenter what they themselves like.
Preliminary results reveal that 10- and 11-month-old infants will look longer when the experimenter grabs the object towards which she expressed disgust. Data collection continues. Further steps towards the characterization of such ability are discussed.


This paper is a review of the classical Moebius–Lie geometry and recent works on its extension. The latter considers ensembles of cycles (quadrics), which are interconnected through conformal-invariant geometric relations (e.g. "to be orthogonal", "to be tangent", etc.), as new objects in an extended Moebius–Lie geometry. It is shown on examples, that such ensembles of cycles naturally parameterise many other conformally-invariant families of objects, two examples–the Poincare extension and continued fractions are considered in detail. Further examples, e.g. loxodromes, wave fronts and integrable systems, are discussed elsewhere.

The extended Moebius–Lie geometry is efficient due to a method, which reduces a collection of conformally invariant geometric relations to a system of linear equations, which may be accompanied by one fixed quadratic relation. The algorithmic nature of the method allows to implement it as a C++ library, which operates with numeric and symbolic data of cycles in spaces of arbitrary dimensionality and metrics with any signatures. Numeric calculations can be done in exact or approximate arithmetic. In the two- and three-dimensional cases illustrations and animations can be produced. An interactive Python wrapper of the library is provided as well.


Leguminous plants form symbiotic relationships with rhizobial nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, which set up residence in nodules in the roots of host plants. Nodulation results from a signal transduction pathway induced in the roots of legumes by rhizobial signals called Nod factors. Two reports by Ané et al. and Lévy et al. define genes from the leguminous plant Medicago truncatula involved in the earliest steps of nodulation. One of the genes likely encodes a calcium- and calmodulin-dependent protein kinase, and the other a ligand-gated cation channel. Thus, calcium signaling appears to be critical for the establishment of a successful plant-microbe symbiosis. J.-M. Ané, G. B. Kiss, B. K. Riely, R. V. Penmetsa, G. E. D. Oldroyd, C. Ayax, J. Lévy, F. Debellé, J.-M. Baek, P. Kalo, C. Rosenberg, B. A. Roe, S. R. Long, J. Dénarié, D. R. Cook, Medicago truncatula DMI1 required for bacterial and fungal symbioses in legumes. Science 303, 1364-1367 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text] J. Lévy, C. Bres, R. Geurts, B. Chalhoub, O. Kulikova, G. Duc, E.-P. Journet, J.-M. Ané, E. Lauber, T. Bisseling, J. Dénarié, C. Rosenberg, F. Debellé, A putative Ca2+ and calmodulin-dependent protein kinase required for bacterial and fungal symbioses. Science 303, 1361-1364 (2004). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Here's the story of how a handful of young Americans, fighting with improvised equipment, commanded the air against superior enemy forces and won! Written by a radio operator who served as a member of the AVG (American Volunteer Group) throughout their existence, this fascinating, intimate story of General Claire Lee Chennault's "Flying Tigers" is loaded with original photographs and numerous first-hand accounts from the author's personal diary. It's all here - the whole story of how the AVG shot down over 650 Japanese plane using obsolete P-40s and a communications network that covered China with a protective "umbrella." This ground based radio network (in which the author operated) kept the pilots so well-informed of enemy air activity that they were seldom surprised by Japanese attacks. Enjoyable to read, this memoir will give you a taste of the "local flavor" of life in China while under Japanese attack. You'll find a musing anecdotes and accurate descriptions of the author's duty as a radio operator as well as the wartime activities of other AVG member. Now, the complete story of the AVG - the deadliest, most efficient group of fighter pilots and support personnel ever assembled - is brought to life again through original photographs and behind the scenes descriptions! Robert M. Smith was a sergeant-air mechanic first class for the U.S. Air Force when the recruiters arrived on base looking for volunteers for the Chinese Air Force. He was discharged from the Air Force and went to China to join the American Volunteer Group, "THe Flying Tigers." When the AVG disbanded in July, 1942 he re-enlisted as a technical sergeant and retured to China with the Army Airways Communications System. Presently he is the treasurer and on the executive committee of the American Volunteer Group Association.


We present a fast automatic text detection algorithm devised for a mobile augmented reality (AR) translation system on a mobile phone. In this application, scene text must be detected, recognized, and translated into a desired language, and then the translation is displayed overlaid properly on the real-world scene. In order to offer a fast automatic text detector, we focused our initial search to find a single letter. Detecting one letter provides useful information that is processed with efficient rules to quickly find the reminder of a word. This approach allows for detecting all the contiguous text regions in an image quickly. We also present a method that exploits the redundancy of the information contained in the video stream to remove false alarms. Our experimental results quantify the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithm and show the strengths and weaknesses of the method as well as its speed (about 160 ms on a recent generation smartphone, not optimized). The algorithm is well suited for real-time, real-world applications.


We present a multiview registration method for aligning range data. We first align scans pairwise with each other and use the pairwise alignments as constraints that the multiview step enforces while evenly diffusing the pairwise registration errors. This approach is especially suitable for registering large data sets, since using constraints from pairwise alignments does not require loading the entire data set into memory to perform the alignment. The alignment method is efficient, and it is less likely to get stuck into a local minimum than previous methods, and can be used in conjunction with any pairwise method based on aligning overlapping surface sections.


Law and economics scholars do not normally identify Adam Smith as an important figure in the field. However, his Lectures on Jurisprudence contain a wealth of insights and analytical techniques that law and economics scholars of the late 20th century would repeat. This paper argues for Smith's place in law and economics, identifying some of his most important arguments and emphasizing their contributions to legal theory. It also argues that economic arguments play a central role in Smith's theory of justice. Indeed, Smith's jurisprudence provides an important bridge between his moral and economic theories.


The paper considers the estimation of sensitivity of the method of active monitoring of changes in the elastic characteristics in the Earth's interior crust zone. The model of the Earth's crust-mantle system in the form of a layer in a half-space with different velocity values of elastic waves is presented. The mathematical statement of the problem is done in the approximation of the wave equation. It is assumed that a vibrational source is a point and a harmonic one with a constant oscillation frequency and the zone of changes of the characteristics in the medium is spherical. The wave field in the medium is calculated in the ray approximation. The wave field variations in the medium and at the free surface are determined for the case of insignificant velocity changes in the spherical region by calculating a beam pattern of a fictitious 3D source in diffraction approach. As a result of the modeling, the sensitivity of the active monitoring method with harmonic vibrational signals is estimated. The relation between the quantitative changes in the amplitudes and phases of the oscillations recorded at the surface, the geometry and location of the zone of changes in the medium, and the magnitude of changes in the elastic characteristics are determined.


This thesis in the field of condensed matter theory is concerned with various correlated exotic states in different materials. The topic selection is three-fold, covering aspects of graphene, heavy fermion compounds and high-temperature superconductors. In Part I, a symmetrically biased graphene bilayer is considered, which is discussed to host an exciton condensate. It is shown that in the continuum limit an oddly-quantized vortex in this condensate binds exactly one zero mode per valley index of the bilayer. Intervalley mixing occurring in the full lattice model slightly splits the zero modes in energy. This result is supported by an exact numerical diagonalization of the lattice Hamiltonian for a finite-size system. Such a vortex binds an irrational fraction of "axial" charge and obeys fractional exchange statistics. Part II is concerned with heavy fermion materials and discusses the consequences of a momentum-dependent hybridization between the conduction band and the localized electrons, especially in the case where the hybridization function has nodes in momentum space. Such a situation is motivated by experiments, and is in contrast to the commonly studied local hybridization. In the low-temperature regime a highly anisotropic Fermi liquid evolves, for which thermodynamical and optical properties are studied. We find that thermodynamics is dominated by the heavy quasiparticles present in the antinodal direction in momentum space, where the hybridization is strong, while transport is dominated by the behavior of light, nodal quasiparticles. Based on a mean-field approximation, we furthermore study the phase competition between Kondo screening and ordering phenomena induced by intermoment exchange. According to our findings, it is greatly influenced by the interplay of symmetries of the order parameters in momentum space. The results are applicable to CeCoIn5 and other related heavy fermion compounds. Part III discusses the recently observed quantum oscillations in the underdoped regime of cuprates and advertises a new mechanism that requires only finite segments of a Fermi surface to exist. Such a situation is indicated by angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies, which exhibit so-called Fermi arcs in the normal state of cuprates. We consider a BCS-like model in the vortex state with a pairing gap producing such Fermi arcs. By exact diagonalization of the gauge transformed real-space Hamiltonian it is shown that the density of states at the Fermi level exhibits an oscillatory behavior.


In recent decades the world has experienced the rise of so-called 'low intensity conflicts'. Unlike conventional wars these very bloody armed conflicts are no longer the affair of state governments and their armies. In their place appear police-like armed units,security services and secret services, groups and organizations of religious, political and social fanatics ready to resort to violence, 'militias', bands of mercenaries, or just gangs of thugs, led by the condottiere of the 21st century, consisting of militant charismatics, militia 'generals', 'drug barons' and 'warlords' of various kinds. They conduct wars in which the soldiers no longer wear uniforms and there is no meeting of armies in open battle. The armed organizations fight in urban agglomerations and in difficult, inaccessible regions. The combatants fight for religion and quasi-religious ideologies, for the 'rights of the people' or 'national liberation', for power, gain, and booty, and above all for recognition. For the practice of peace, this kind of war has far-reaching consequences. In this book the authors examine various paths to peace and reconciliation in low intensity conflicts. They look at processes of peace making from South Africa and the North of Mali to Indonesia and South East Asia. Common to most studies is that they stress the particular local contexts of peace making tied to the highly localized nature of most low intensity conflicts. The logic of peace has become a logic of local and regional power. The articles shed new light not only on ways and chances of interventions by the international community but also on the role of nongovernmental organisations in violent conflicts.


Access to abortion services in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is extremely restricted. Women have few options beyond traveling abroad and paying out of pocket to undergo an abortion. In the United Kingdom, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks and is largely free of cost under the National Health Service. While Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, laws legalizing abortion do not apply, and abortion law has not changed since 1861. In 1983, the Republic of Ireland passed an amendment to its constitution equating the life of a mother with the life of an unborn fetus. Since then, several high-profile court cases were brought to the European Court of Human Rights, which has slowly expanded abortion access in the country.


This study assessed the value of glyphosate in the South African agricultural sector with focus on the 2012/13 agricultural season. Glyphosate is the most used herbicide in South African and in 2012 more than 23 million litres of glyphosate was sold at an estimated value of R641 million. Glyphosate is a highly effective broad spectrum herbicide and the only herbicide on the market with a systemic mode of action. Glyphosate is considered to be, based on numerous scientific studies environmentally and toxicologically safe when used according to label instructions. Glyphosate is marketed under more than twenty trade-names in SA and is extensively used in the timber, horticulture, sugar and viticulture industries. The main users of glyphosate in SA are however maize, wheat and soybean farmers and in 2012 these farmers used 65% of all glyphosate sold in SA. Making use of 'with and without glyphosate' scenario comparisons the assessment showed that glyphosate is immensely valuable to the agricultural sector. In monetary terms and depending on rather conservative yield assumptions the value of glyphosate in the maize sector was estimated to be between R525 million and R2.203 billion in 2012 with genetically modified herbicide tolerant and stacked gene maize farmers enjoying the biggest benefit. Assuming a yield loss of 10% in a withoutglyphosate scenario for only farmers who make use of herbicide tolerant maize varieties, the value of glyphosate is estimated at R1.328 billion. Glyphosate's value for wheat farmers was estimated to be between R123 million and R485 million with the higher adoption usage rate (75%) and 10% potential damage scenario presenting a realistic value estimation of R335 million for the 2012 season. Soybean farmers making use of conservation tillage practises value glyphosate highly and under a withoutglyphosate scenario stand to lose between R148 million and R693 million with the most probable value estimated at around R412 million. Adoption of conservation tillage practises have increased considerably in SA since the introduction of glyphosate tolerant soybeans in 2001 and maize in 2003. Implementation of different degrees of reduced tillage practises have brought about substantial environmental benefits not only infield (soil) but also in the decreased emission of greenhouse gasses. The study showed that by using glyphosate instead of mechanized weed control, maize and soybean farmers (and wheat farmers to a lesser extent) where able to save about 23 million litres of diesel with a yearly CO2 emission equivalent of 12 thousand average cars. Determining the socio-economic impacts of glyphosate us in SA requires a larger and more in-depth assessment. However, the majority of the surveyed large-scale farmers planting HT maize and soybeans indicated the ease of weed control and management as the main benefit. A study of smallscale HT maize adopting farmers also showed the ease of weed control to be a major benefit with especially female household members being able to spend less time doing arduous manual weeding. The confirmed immense value glyphosate has as a production tool in the South African agricultural sector serves as backdrop to the problem of weed resistance to glyphosate. Worldwide 31 weed species have been reported to be resistant to glyphosate. Three of the 31 reported glyphosate resistance weeds occur in South Africa and resistance has been proven in parts of the Western Cape. With increased adoption of glyphosate tolerant crops and increased sector wide use of glyphosate due to its environmental safety, relative affordability and efficacy, responsible use and stewardship have become even more vital to preserve glyphosate's value for the future.


New IDEA Act or the New Illegal Deduction Elimination Act Amends the Internal Revenue Code to deny a tax deduction for wages and benefits paid to or on behalf of an unauthorized alien. Extends to six years the period for assessing and collecting underpayments of tax due to deductions claimed for wages paid to unauthorized aliens. Directs the Commissioner of Social Security and the Secretaries of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Treasury to jointly establish a program to share information that may lead to the identification of unauthorized aliens. Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to provide taxpayer identity information to the Commissioner of Social Security and the DHS Secretary on employers who paid nondeductible wages to unauthorized aliens and on the aliens to whom such wages were paid. Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to: (1) make permanent the E-Verify Program for verifying the employment eligibility of alien workers, (2) apply such program to current employees in addition to new hires, (3) establish a rebuttable presumption that employers who participate in the E-Verify Program and obtain confirmation of identity and employment eligibility have not violated hiring requirements under such Act, and (4) allow employers participating in the E-Verify Program to make a conditional offer of employment pending final verification of the identity and employment eligibility of the job applicant.


Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an experimental demyelinating disease of rodents. In (PL/J x SJL) F1 mice, it is induced by immunization with the myelin basic protein peptide Ac1-11. Ac1-11 [4A], a myelin basic protein peptide analog with a single amino acid substitution, (i) binds to class II major histocompatibility complex molecules and stimulates encephalitogenic T cells in vitro better than Ac1-11, (ii) is nonimmunogenic and nonencephalitogenic in vivo in (PL/J x SJL)F1 mice, (iii) prevents EAE when administered before or at the time of immunization with Ac1-11, and (iv) prevents EAE when administered later, near the time of disease onset. Initial studies suggest that Ac1-11 [4A] does not prevent EAE by competitive inhibition or by activation of regulatory cells. Thus, substitution of a single amino acid in a myelin basic protein peptide confers the capacity to prevent rather than induce EAE, even after peptide-specific encephalitogenic T cells have been activated.


We describe the design and implementation of Photobox, a device intended to be used over many years, which occasionally prints a randomly selected photo from the owner's Flickr collection inside of a wooden chest. We describe and reflect on how engaging in the design of this slow technology [5] led to some unexpected challenges and provoked us to re-think approaches to making technologies that are intended to be used over long time scales and which might act infrequently. We also reflect on how living with the device during the implementation phase led to unexpected insights. We conclude with implications for research and practice in the slow technology design space.


This paper aims to describe the importance of psychological capital and innovative personality development for the creation of a sustainable educational ecosystem. References are made to some relevant Malaysian education policies. In principle, psychological capital and innovative personality are intertwined and inseparable, and the context of educational development in Malaysia is no exception. Numerous policies have been developed by the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. What is profoundly important after every policy development is its effective implementation. Policy analysis is another initiative. This paper aims to investigate psychological capital as a component of holistic human capital that needs to be developed. The innovative personality profile is briefly described. The role of the education sector, and the progress towards the development of a sustainable education ecosystem, finally conclude the paper. The main emphasis is on training and policy enlightenment.


Summary form only given. Over the last fifty years, lithium niobate (LSTbO/sub 3/) and lithium tantalate (LiTaO/sub 3/) ferroelectrics have emerged as key materials for electro-optics and nonlinear optical devices. Many of these applications require microengineering ferroelectric domains into diverse shapes and length scales. However, until recently no direct probing techniques have been used to study these domain processes in situ. Recently, key breakthroughs have been made in the real-time video observation of the nucleation and growth dynamics of ferroelectric domains under external fields using Electro-Optic Imaging Microscopy (EOIM). The EOIM exploits the electro-optic effect in the material to create a refractive index contrast at a domain wall under external electric fields, which is then optically imaged. We present the direct real-time tracking of the motion of a single domain wall in lithium tantalate and lithium niobate and the measurement of domain wall mobilities and energies associated with the walls.


PURPOSE: To investigate the pragmatic skills of students with autistic spectrum disorders during interaction with their teachers, in regular classrooms of public schools. METHODS: Fourteen students with autistic spectrum disorders, both male and female, with ages between three and eight years (mean=5.9; SD=1.8), participated in the study. As part of the procedure, classroom situations were filmed for the analysis of the children's pragmatic aspects of communication, using the Pragmatic Protocol. Data were statistically analyzed using Wilcoxon, Friedman, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman tests, with a significance level of p<0.05 and, in some cases, p<0.01. RESULTS: In average, the number of communicative acts expressed per minute by the teachers (3.4 acts/minute) was superior (p<0.05) to the number presented by the students with autistic spectrum disorders (2.7 acts/minute). The students demonstrated prevalence in the use of the gestural communication mean, with an average of 36.2 occurrences, and of less interactive communicative functions, with an average of 24.1 occurrences. Moreover, there was positive correlation between students' and teachers' acts/minute (p=0.01). It was also observed that age and level of education did not present correlations with communication establishment in the dyads. CONCLUSION: It was possible to identify deficits and abilities of students with autistic spectrum disorders in regular classroom, and to confirm the teacher's influence on the communicative performance of these students. These data may contribute to further explain existing gaps in the literature, and to base therapeutic and educational interventions in the autistic spectrum disorders.


This paper demonstrates the importance of wildlife in the portfolio of environmental income in the livelihoods of poor rural communities living adjacent to a national park. The results show that wealthier households consumed more wildlife products in total than relatively poor households. However, poorer households derive greater benefit from the consumption of wildlife resources than wealthier households. Excluding wildlife compromised the relative contribution of environmental resources while at the same time increasing the relative contribution of farm and wage income. Environmental income had more impact in terms of poverty reduction in the lower income quintiles than in the upper quintiles. Wildlife income alone accounted for about 5.5% reduction in the proportion of people living below the poverty line. Furthermore, wildlife income had an equalizing effect bringing about a 5.4% reduction in measured inequality. Regression analysis suggests that the likelihood of belonging to a wealthier category of income increased with an increase in environmental income. As expected, household wealth significantly and positively affect environmental income generated by households. This seems to suggest that wildlife-based land reform also needs to empower poor households in the area of capital accumulation while imposing restraint on capital investments by well-off households.


This work exploits the decoupled double synchronous reference frame PLL (DDSRF-PLL) as an effective method for grid synchronization of WT's power converters in the presence of transient faults in the grid. The DDSRF-PLL uses a dual synchronous reference frame and a decoupling network to effectively separate the positive- and negative-sequence voltage components in a fast and accurate way. Excellent behavior of the DDSRF-PLL is demonstrated experimentally. Once sequence components of the faulty grid voltage are properly identified several algorithms computing current references are developed. Additionally, different power delivery strategies to ride-through grid faults are discussed and simulations results are presented. As a conclusion, it will be demonstrated that certain control strategies ensure a stable operation of the front-end inverter while the grid voltage is supported by means of injection of instantaneous reactive power at the same time.


Computational models for cross-species translation could improve drug development Generalizing results from animal models to human patients is a critical biomedical challenge. This problem is a key cause of the large proportion of failures encountered in moving therapeutics from preclinical studies to clinical trials (1). Direct translation of observations in rodents or nonhuman primates (NHPs) to humans frequently disappoints, for reasons including discrepancies in complexity and regulation between species. Because the experiments required to understand disease biology to the degree required for ascertaining effective treatments cannot be performed in human subjects, translation from animals to humans is necessary—and needs to be improved. Systems biology and machine learning (ML) can be used to translate relationships across species. Instead of attempting to "humanize" animal experimental models, which is possible to only a limited extent, greater success may be obtained by humanizing computational models derived from animal experiments.


In this paper, we employ a registry of legal insider trading for Dutch listed firms to investigate the information content of trades by corporate insiders. Using a standard event-study methodology, we examine short-term stock price behavior around trades. We find that purchases are followed by economically large abnormal returns. This result is strongest for purchases by top executives and for small market capitalization firms, which is consistent with the hypothesis that legal insider trading is an important channel through which information flows to the market. We analyze also the impact of the implementation of the Market Abuse Directive (European Union Directive 2003/6/EC), which strengthens the existing regulation in the Netherlands. We show that the new regulation reduced the information content of sales by top executives.


Since organisations are expanding geographically the need for global applications has become extensive. This work examines how a global support organisation should be organised, with respect to communication and technical aspects, when providing support for a global application to a user organisation. This work has been accomplished through a literature study and an interview study. The result from the investigation shows that a decentralised support organisation is superior to some extent. Specially when it comes to communication but both the literature and the respondents claim that communicating with people from different countries with different languages is something you get used to over time. It is however not superior to implement too many sites since it is expensive to have several support centres. The conclusions of this work are that the literature claims that decentralisation is the approach to have if the infrastructure is in place, the respondents however, believe that it is too expensive to decentralise too much.


Purpose: All-ceramic restorations are widely used in esthetic dentistry. Various materials have been used to improve ceramic core strength, but it is unclear whether they affect the opacity of all-ceramic systems. The aim of this study was to compare the translucency of 9 all-ceramic system core materials at clinically appropriate thickness.Materials and methods: A 360-degree round deep chamfer preparation for the all-ceramic crown was made for a maxillary right first molar tooth as the dental model. Coping of 0.5mm thickness were fabricated by Empress Esthetic (ETC1, EOC1, EO1, EO2), Empress2 (50) (IVOCLAR VIVADENT), Procera AllCeram, Procera AllZirkon (Nobel Biocare), LAVA (3M ESPE), and DentaCAD Systeme (Hint-Els). Abutments were made by black wax and white wax. Spectrophotometric measurements were made by a spectrophotometer. The final color of the central part of the buccal surface was measured and the L*a*b* color space was used to obtain the color values. Contrast ratios were calculated from the luminous reflectance (Y) of the specimens with a black (Yb) and a white (Yw) backing to give Yb⁄Yw with CIE illuminant D65 and 2-degree observer function (0.0=transparent, 1.0=opaque).Results: Contrast ratio in order of most translucent to most opaque were as follows: EO2 .41, EO1 .43, ETC1 .43 , EOC1 .44, Empress2 .50, AllCeram .63, AllZirkon .74, LAVA .76, DentaCAD.80. There was no significant difference(p<.05) between the AllZirkon, LAVA, DentaCAD or ETC1, EOC1, EO1, EO2.Conclusion: Within the limitations of this in-vitro study on 9 all-ceramic core systems, a significant range of translucency was identified across specimen groups.


Direct numerical simulation of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations is used to study flows where laminar boundary-layer separation is followed by turbulent reattachment forming a closed region known as a laminar separation bubble. In the simulations a laminar boundary layer is forced to separate by the action of a suction profile applied as the upper boundary condition. The separated shear layer undergoes transition via oblique modes and Λ-vortex-induced breakdown and reattaches as turbulent flow, slowly recovering to an equilibrium turbulent boundary layer. Compared with classical experiments the computed bubbles may be classified as 'short', as the external potential flow is only affected in the immediate vicinity of the bubble. Near reattachment budgets of turbulence kinetic energy are dominated by turbulence events away from the wall. Characteristics of near-wall turbulence only develop several bubble lengths downstream of reattachment. Comparisons are made with two-dimensional simulations which fail to capture many of the detailed features of the full three-dimensional simulations. Stability characteristics of mean flow profiles are computed in the separated flow region for a family of velocity profiles generated using simulation data. Absolute instability is shown to require reverse flows of the order of 15–20%. The three-dimensional bubbles with turbulent reattachment have maximum reverse flows of less than 8% and it is concluded that for these bubbles the basic instability is convective in nature.


While the last version of iMovie gave moviemakers the ability to capture and edit widescreen High Definition Video (HDV) from the new generation of camcorders, iMovie 6 is all about the ease of moviemaking itself. iMovie 6 includes five professionally designed themes with backgrounds, motion graphics, titles, and effects that act as building blocks for your projects. You can preview transitions and stunning new video effects--such as time-lapse video--in real time using the full screen. Or edit audio and add sound effects with a new built-in sound studio. For presenting your movie, Magic iDVD offers easy-to-use themes, including new widescreen options. Whether you're a professional or an amateur moviemaker, this is amazing stuff. But if you want to learn the full capabilities of these applications, Apple documentation won't make the cut. Instead, iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual is the ideal third-party authority that covers all of these changes through an objective lens. This witty and entertaining guide from celebrated author David Pogue details every step of iMovie 6 and iDVD production. The book shows you how to:Work on multiple iMovie projects at once and drag & drop clips among themOutput your creation to a blog, its own web page, or as a video podcast with iWebUse "Magic iMovie" to import your video and make a movie for youIntegrate with other iLife programs to use songs, photos, and an original soundtrackAnd a whole lot moreFrom choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto DVDs, posting it online, or downloading it to an iPod, iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual zooms right in on the details in a clear, concise, and understandable manner. The book also provides a firm grounding in basic film technique so that the quality of your video won't rely entirely on magic.


A minutiae-based template is a very compact representation of a fingerprint image, and for a long time, it has been assumed that it did not contain enough information to allow the reconstruction of the original fingerprint. This work proposes a novel approach to reconstruct fingerprint images from standard templates and investigates to what extent the reconstructed images are similar to the original ones (that is, those the templates were extracted from). The efficacy of the reconstruction technique has been assessed by estimating the success chances of a masquerade attack against nine different fingerprint recognition algorithms. The experimental results show that the reconstructed images are very realistic and that, although it is unlikely that they can fool a human expert, there is a high chance to deceive state-of-the-art commercial fingerprint recognition systems.


Abstract The authors reflect on their ongoing dialogue about connections between drawing in the practice of art and in the practice of mathematics. They show how visualizing relational connections in mathematical diagrams can be used to contextualize aspects of Heath's drawings. The account provides a sequence of loops, reflecting on drawings where relational marks coexist with those in which they do not. Diagrams are the vehicle for this dialogue across the disciplines of art and science, acting as boundary objects supported by a common visual vocabulary of loops, connections, change over time, negative space, and a shared interest in exploring ideas through the physicality of practice.


The contributing scholars in this volume take up some of the most hotly contested issues in intellectual property, as revealed in their commentaries on a set of intriguingly ambivalent cases. This Foreword gives the perspective of a "real" (as in real estate) lawyer on these edgy IP materials. The cases and commentaries raise a number of questions: What is IP all about, anyway? Is it money? self-expression? vanity? The cases suggest all of the above. And what does it mean to be at the "edge"? One edge means in or out of IP, as in the debates about fashion. Another edge refers to borders between one IP domain or another, as in the slippage between patent and trade secret. Still another edge is "edgy," especially the way in which parody slips the knife in its targets. But big question that dominates these commentaries revolves around the way that social and legal institutions can structure, encourage, or discourage innovation.A late draft of this Foreword may be found at the website of the University of Arizona, Rogers College of Law, Faculty Profiles, Carol M. Rose (complete publication list).


We consider a model with two countries, two commodities and production factors, labour and environment. The countries first choose their environmental standards and then the equilibrium market allocations are determined. We study a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium of this game for two types of environmental problems: regional and international. We examine effects resulting from the transition from autarky to free trade and show that regulating interference with supply and demand may have a positive effect on environmental standards. In particular, a transfer of commodity from one country to the other can increase welfare and raise environmental standards in both countries.


BACKGROUND At one-hundred twenty-two articles published, the open access journal Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements ( Tremor ) is growing its readership and expanding its influence among patients, clinicians, researchers, and the general public interested in issues of non-Parkinsonian tremor disorders. Among the characteristics that set the journal apart from similar publications, Tremor is published in partnership with the library-based publications program at Columbia University's Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS). DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM The production of Tremor in conjunction with its editor, a researching faculty member, clinician, and epidemiologist at the Columbia University Medical Center, has pioneered several new workflows at CDRS: article-charge processing, coordination of vendor services, integration into PubMed Central, administration of publication scholarships granted through a patient-advocacy organization, and open source platform development among them. Open access publishing ventures in libraries often strive for lean operations by attempting to capitalize on the scholarly impact available through the use of templated and turnkey publication systems. For CDRS, production on Tremor has provided opportunity to build operational capacity for more involved publication needs. The following report introduces a framework and account of the costs of producing such a publication as a guide to library and other non-traditional publishing operations interested in gauging the necessary investments. Following a review of the literature published to date on the costs of open access publishing and of the practice of journal publishing in academic libraries, the authors present a brief history of Tremor and a tabulation of the costs and expenditure of effort by library staff in production. NEXT STEPS Although producing Tremor has been more expensive than other partner publications in the center's portfolio, the experiences have improved the library's capacity for addressing more challenging projects, and developments for Tremor have already begun to be applied to other journals.


Competent larvae of intertidal invertebrates have to migrate toward shore for settlement; however, their migration through the surf zone is not understood. We investigated larval transport mechanisms at a rip‐channeled beach. Because tracking larvae in the surf zone is infeasible, we used a three‐dimensional biophysical model to simulate the processes. The coupled model consists of a physical module for currents and waves, and a biological module for adding larval traits and behaviors as well as Stokes drift to Lagrangian particles. Model calculations were performed with and without onshore wind forcing. Without wind, wave‐driven onshore streaming occurs in the bottom boundary layer outside the surf zone. With onshore wind, onshore currents occur near the surface. In the surf zone, offshore‐directed rip currents and compensating onshore‐directed currents over shoals are formed in both no‐wind and wind cases. In the biological module, neutral, negative, and positive buoyant particles were released offshore. Additionally, particles either sank in the presence of turbulence or not. Two scenarios achieved successful onshore migration: Negatively buoyant larvae without wind forcing sink in the turbulent bottom boundary layer and are carried onshore by streaming; positively buoyant larvae drift toward shore in wind‐driven surface currents to the surf zone, then sink in the turbulent surf zone and remain near the bottom while transported shoreward. In both cases, the larval concentration is highest in the rip channel, consistent with field data. This successful result is only obtained if turbulence‐dependent sinking behavior and Stokes drift are included in the transport of larvae.


Twenty-seven Cenomanian planktonic foraminiferal species are described and some 60 specific names included in their synonymy. These species are from North America, Europe, and an Atlantic core N. of the Bahama Islands. Evidence of the planktonic Foraminifera suggests a Cenomanian (rather than Turonian) age for the N. Texas Eagle Ford group, an Eagle Ford (rather than Woodbine) age of the entire eastern Gulf subsurface Atkinson formation, and a mid to late Cenomanian (rather than Albian or early Cenomanian) age for the "Franciscan" strata at New Almaden, California. The family Rotaliporidae Sigal 1958, is recognized as distinct from the Globorotaliidae, and has been enlarged to include the subfamilies Hedbergellinae and Rotaliporinae. The Rotaliporidae have a geologic range from Hauterivian to Maestrichtian. The Planomalinidae Bolli, Loeblich and Tappan is recognized as of family rank, having been elevated from subfamily status by Sigal (1958), and the family Schackoinidae Pokorny, 1958, is also recognized as distinct from the Hantkeninidae and has a geologic range from Aptian to Maestrichtian. The Globorotaliidae and Hantkeninidae thus are of Cenozoic occurence.


Accurate and reliable flood forecasting plays an important role in flood control, reservoir operation, and water resources management. Conventional hydrological parameter calibration is based on an objective function without consideration for forecast performance during lead-time periods. A novel objective function, i.e., minimizing the sum of the squared errors between forecasted and observed streamflow during multiple lead times, is proposed to calibrate hydrological parameters for improved forecasting. China's Baiyunshan Reservoir basin was selected as a case study, and the Xinanjiang model was used. The proposed method provided better results for peak flows, in terms of the value and occurrence time, than the conventional method. Specifically, the qualified rate of peak flow for 4-, 5-, and 6-h lead times in the proposed method were 69.2%, 53.8%, and 38.5% in calibration, and 60%, 40%, and 20% in validation, respectively. This compares favorably with the corresponding values for the conventional method, which were 53.8%, 15.4%, and 7.7% in calibration, and 20%, 20%, and 0% in validation, respectively. Uncertainty analysis revealed that the proposed method caused less parameter uncertainty than the conventional method. Therefore, the proposed method is effective in improving the performance during multiple lead times for flood mitigation.