Latin America experienced an epochal cycle of revolutionary upheavals and insurgencies during the twentieth century, from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through the mobilizations and terror in Central America, the Southern Cone, and the Andes during the 1970s and 1980s. In his introduction to A Century of Revolution , Greg Grandin argues that the dynamics of political violence and terror in Latin America are so recognizable in their enforcement of domination, their generation and maintenance of social exclusion, and their propulsion of historical change, that historians have tended to take them for granted, leaving unexamined important questions regarding their form and meaning. The essays in this groundbreaking collection take up these questions, providing a sociologically and historically nuanced view of the ideological hardening and accelerated polarization that marked Latin America's twentieth century. Attentive to the interplay among overlapping local, regional, national, and international fields of power, the contributors focus on the dialectical relations between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary processes and their unfolding in the context of U.S. hemispheric and global hegemony. Through their fine-grained analyses of events in Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru, they suggest a framework for interpreting the experiential nature of political violence while also analyzing its historical causes and consequences. In so doing, they set a new agenda for the study of revolutionary change and political violence in twentieth-century Latin America.

Contributors

Michelle Chase

Jeffrey L. Gould

Greg Grandin

Lillian Guerra

Forrest Hylton

Gilbert M. Joseph

Friedrich Katz

Thomas Miller Klubock

Neil Larsen

Arno J. Mayer

Carlota McAllister

Jocelyn Olcott

Gerardo Renique

Corey Robin

Peter Winn


Animal tissue culture has been in existence for over a century and, for much of that time, has played a subsidiary role to that of other life sciences. However, the discipline has expanded rapidly over recent years and is now firmly established as a science in its own right. The main purpose of this study was to research the historical and modern development of animal tissue culture and to gain practical expertise in some of the basic techniques which are employed in a working tissue culture laboratory.

Tissue culture techniques were used to study the effects of substitution on the efficacies of three well known, commercially available dyes, methylene blue, toluidine blue-O and Victoria blue-BO. These dyes, exploited traditionally in industry for their powers as photosensitizers, have now attracted interest as possible agents in clinical photodynamic therapy (PDT). PDT is a novel treatment for both microbial and malignant disease. It combines the application of a photosensitizing drug with red light irradiation, in the presence of molecular oxygen, to induce a cytotoxic response in target cells.

The major proportion of the study examined the effects of methylation on the photocytotoxicity and dark toxicity of the phenothiazinium dyes, methylene blue and toluidine blue-O, against the mammary tumour cell line, EMT-6. The toxicities of the dyes and several derivatives were assayed using standard tissue culture techniques and the 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT') assay. Both I-methyl methylene blue and 1 ,9-dimethyl methylene blue exhibited increased photocytotoxicity, with concomitant higher dark toxicity, compared to methylene blue. A similar trend was found in the toluidine blue series, but with some variation. It would appear therefore, that, in terms of a clinical application, the methylated derivatives may hold greater promise than the parent compound itself.

In addition, the effect of amino substitution on the cellular uptake of the triarylmethane, Victoria blue-BO, was examined, also in the EMT-6 cell line. Victoria blue-BO and its derivative, MOVB, were extracted from cells using methanol and their intracellular concentrations determined spectrophotometrically at 612 nm and 622 nm respectively. Amino substitution reduced cellular uptake at lower concentrations, but at concentrations above 2.5 uM, uptake of MOVB was similar to that of the parent compound.

These results are important, but it must be remembered that, although animal tissue culture is a valuable tool for preliminary testing, cultured cells are not representative of similar cells in vivo, and cannot replace whole animal testing of potential drugs.


In Flast v. Cohen, 1 the Supreme Court held that taxpayers could bring suits challenging government expenditures alleged to violate the Establishment Clause. Flast was a pivotal decision implicating two of the most difficult areas of constitutional law, the volatile interplay of law and religion, 2 and the complex justiciability doctrines the Court uses to determine its jurisdiction under Article ΠΙ.3 In Flast the Court took up this task as part of its effort to harmonize two fundamental interests, the government's power to tax and spend for the general welfare on the one hand, and our individual right to religious liberty on the other.4 But Flast has proven deeply problematic, with two sitting Justices and prominent academics calling for its reversal.5The Court's most recent effort to deal with the troubled legacy of Flast is Arizona School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 6 in which the Supreme Court rejected a tax-payer challenge to a tuition tax credit that benefitted religious schools advanced under Flast.1 Although decided only last term, Winn has already been criticized as being inconsistent with Flast and the original understanding of the Establishment Clause.8I disagree. Quite the contrary, I believe that Winn puts the Supreme Court within reach of a comprehensive reform of its taxpayer standing doctrine that is both principled and consistent with the original understanding of the provision. For the same reason, I do not believe that Flast needs to be overruled in order to address the serious problems the decision has created; it simply needs to be limited along the lines suggested by Winn.In Winn, the Supreme Court recognized that in order to demonstrate standing under the Establishment Clause a taxpayer must be able to show a personal injury caused by the use of the taxing power; more specifically, that the government has used its taxing power to "extracft]" money from the taxpayer that is later used to support religion.9 Winn makes plain that a taxpayer cannot show the injury needed to support standing simply by pointing to a use of the taxing power that provides some generalized benefit to religious institutions. 10 Much needed reform of Flast can be achieved simply by employing the more refined focus used in Winn to isolate the precise spending of public funds that creates a taxpayer injury that is cognizable under the Establishment Clause.The Court should recognize that the type of spending that violates the Establishment Clause, creating the taxpayer injury cognizable under the Establishment Clause, is an extremely narrow category of expenditures that use public funds to support what the Court has called "inherently religious" activity. 11 In so doing, the Court will obviate the basis for taxpayer challenges to the vast range of spending programs through which government and religious entities cooperate to advance legitimate social goals. It will do so by recognizing that the Establishment Clause was not understood to bar spending programs that advance secular goals through providing funding to religious organizations, even if such spending provides a collateral benefit to religious institutions, and consequently, that such programs do not give rise to a taxpayer injury cognizable under the Establishment Clause. The Court has an historic reform of its precedent within reach.In Part I, I briefly sketch the original understanding of the Establishment Clause and show that it was not understood to prohibit spending programs that extended benefits to religious institutions providing general social welfare services. I argue that while the rationale for taxpayer standing in Flast is consistent with the original understanding of the First Amendment, the actual holding in Flast represented an historically unsupported and unsound expansion of claims that were cognizable under the Establishment Clause. 12In Part II, I survey Supreme Court cases entertaining challenges to spending programs that conferred some arguable benefit on religious entities from Flast through Mitchell v. …


This paper aims to offer a renovated reading of the role of habits within the epistemological question of the relationship between perception and conceptuality. Focusing on the Dreyfus-McDowell Debate , the paper proposes to conceive habits not as subjective modalities of experience, but rather as a paradigmatic notion for comprehending the intimate relationship between the allegedly separated spheres of perception and concepts. Hence, I will highlight how McDowell and Dreyfus employ the notion of habit, pinpointing that both authors think of habits as modalities de re , namely as subjective attitudes of living in our world. Referring to Classic phenomenology, in which habits represent a complex phenomenon, I will suggest reading the ambiguous nature of habits not as an aporia to resolve but to exploit. Instead of questioning if habits are conceptual or not, the paper suggests considering habits as a paradigmatic dimension of experience from which to start analysing the interconnection between concepts and perception.


This research aims to design a virtual classroom which is based on the concept of connectivism regarding the publication design principles, satisfaction study and achievement tests of students towards metacognition and learning potential of undergraduate students. Instruments used in the research : 1) a lesson on publication design principles including the content and teaching media through the Network Computer 2) questionnaire for opinions and suggestions of experts 3) questionnaire for opinions of learners, 4) an evaluation form for metacognition and learning potential, and 5) an evaluation of learning potential of students before and after learning. The samples used in this study were 40 first-year undergraduate students of Mass Communication Technology Faculty, Rajamangala University of Technology, studying in the second semester of 2013 academic year. The data were analyzed using the mean ( ), standard deviation (SD.), and T-Test. The results showed that: The satisfaction of students towards virtual classroom's design is at a high level by focusing on the ability of students to create their own knowledge using existing knowledge and enhance learning potential to be at a high level. Students learning through virtual classroom showed higher academic achievement than regular classroom with statistical significance at .05. The results of the analysis showed that students who had high score in the 4 metacognitive issues - awareness, cognitive strategy, planning, self-checking – also had high score in their learning achievement. Similar findings were also apparent with the 4 learning potential issues - learning readiness, effort, self-efficacy, worry – demonstrating that students who had high score in such issues also had high score in their learning achievement as well.


We derive the optimal contract in a two period costly state verification model with repeated loans, where in each period, the borrower invests in an identical project. We allow the borrower to switch lenders at the end of the first period. We show that while the second period optimal contract continues to be a standard debt contract, the optimal contract for the first project need not be. Regardless of the form of the first period contract, there is less monitoring in the first period and total monitoring costs are strictly lower, relative to a sequence of short term contracts. We illustrate our results assuming a uniform distribution for firm revenue and fixed monitoring costs. In particular, we show that either there is no monitoring in the first period or maximum possible amount consistent with the outside option is collected in the second period.


The research program Societies of Computation (SoC) at the IDE department of HK/R has been in operation since more than one year [ 11, [2]. The SoC framework takes a Multi Agent System (MAS) approach when addressing issues in open distributed computing. The results so far are very promising and will shortly be outlined below. Assessment of those results combined by results and ideas from the international research society as well as needs from enterprises are background material for our next phase. The goals and expected results from this phase is briefly discussed in following sections. The research group, performing activities in the SoC framework, has been formed during the first phase of the project, and has at present the following active members: Rune Gustavsson, professor and principal investigator, Hans Akkermans, professor at Twente University and guest researcher, Eric Astor, Ph.D., University of Lund, Olle Lindeberg, Ph.L., HK/R, Staffan Hagg, Ph.L., HK/R, Fredrik Ygge, MSc., HK/R and Sydkraft, Barcin Kozbe, M.Sc., Ericsson Infocom Christer Lundberg, M.Sc, University College of Kalmar, Bengt Carlsson, M.Sc., University of Lund Occasionally also other researchers at IDE are involved in shorter R&D activities conducted under the SoC umbrella. Applications developed in SoC have also been sources for several projects performed by undergra-duate students, during the fiscal year of 1994-95 about 12 person years, from several undergraduate programs. Those activities of the SoC program have mainly been performed within the center SIKT. SIKT, Society Information and Knowledge Technologies, is a recently formed center at HK/R. The key industrial partner up to this point has been Sydkraft AB. The project Intelligent Distribution Automation (IDA) at Sydkraft has been a valuable partner for developing applications and assessing results. Ronneby Energi AB (REAB) and Affarsverken i Karlskrona AB are also actively supporting our R&D. The project Communication and Distributed Computing for Efficient Management of Energy Systems, supported by governmental agencies, has been instrumental for introducing and assessing MAS technologies in the Swedish research society as well as to Swedish industry.


History has left us a classic image of western mining in the grizzly forty-niner squatting by a clear stream sifting through gravel to reveal gold. What this slice of Western Americana does not reveal, however, is thousands of miners doing the same, their gravel washing downstream, causing the water to grow dark with debris while trout choke to death and wash ashore. Instead of the havoc wreaked upon the western landscape, we are told stories of American enterprise, ingenuity, and fortune.The General Mining Act of 1872, which declared all valuable mineral deposits on public lands to be free and open to exploration and purchase, has had a controversial impact on the western environment as, under the protection of federal law, various twentieth-century entrepreneurs have manipulated it in order to dump waste, cut timber, create resorts, and engage in a host of other activities damaging to the environment. In this in-depth analysis, legal historian Gordon Morris Bakken traces the roots of the mining law and details the way its unintended consequences have shaped western legal thought from Nome to Tombstone and how it has informed much of the lore of the settlement of the West.


This study aimed at developing an integrated curriculum of art and culture and developing a model of evaluating art and culture learning at Junior High Schools (SMP). This study was a Research and Development study consisting of some stages, i.e. survey, designing instrument, testing the instrument, drafting the model of evaluating art and culture learning, limited and extended validation for the model, implementation, and analysis of the effectiveness of the model. This study made use the experimental method with pre-test and post-test. Data analysis was carried out using multilevel analysis. The results of the study are: 1) the development of integrated curriculum puts the emphasize more on the integration of learning material for art and culture subject rather than on the curriculum; 2) the appropriate evaluation model of learning art and culture should contain: Context, which is based on the previous competency and the school cultural environment, Learning Design, which is based on the descriptions of context and target; Implementation and Monitoring, which are carried out continuously; Product Measurement which includes the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective aspects; Decision Making, which is based on the product, and Recommendation in the form of learning that concerns imitation, creation, or originality


DNA methylation is important to establish a cell's developmental identity. It also modulates cellular responses to endogenous developmental stimuli or environmental changes. We designed an in vitro myeloid differentiation model to analyze the genetic and developmental contribution to methylome dynamics using whole-genome bisulfide sequencing and transcriptome sequencing. Using a recursive partitioning approach, we identified 34,502 differentially methylated regions (DMRs) associated with genetic background and/or developmental stimuli. Specifically, 23,792 DMRs (69%) were significantly associated with inter-individual variations, of which 82% were associated with genetic polymorphisms in cis. Notably, inter-individual variations further modified 57 of 212 (26%) developmental DMRs with transcriptomic responses. Our study presents a novel analytical approach to determine the bona fide genetic contribution embedded in outlier patterns of CpG-SNPs in individual methylomes. This approach can be used to study genetic and epigenetic mechanisms underlying differential responses to developmental stimuli, environmental changes, and inter-individual differences in drug responses.


Between 600 and 700 PhDs are awarded per year by Aix-Marseille University, in all disciplines - sciences, law, economics, medicine, arts, literature and human sciences. In compliance with legal deposit regulations, students are now required to submit their doctoral dissertations in electronic format. The shift from print to electronic had been decided upon by each of the three universities before they were merged in 2012. It led the Academic library in charge of cataloging doctoral theses and making them available to design a new workflow. The purpose of this presentation is to describe that workflow as well as the new tools which have been created and constantly improved since then:

1. Tools

The academic library (theses coordinator and STAR/STEP coordinator) and the IT department developed a dedicated website for submitting theses electronically which is connected to apogee (a student registering software), enabling doctoral students to fulfill the submission process all by themselves. The website is being made ever more user-friendly through regular improvements. We are about to complete a fourth upgrade. Some of the improvements are part of Aix-Marseille University digital master plan.

The PhD files are then exported through a webservice to the national platform STAR (signalement des theses, archivage et recherche) developed by ABES (Agence Bibliographique de l'enseignement superieur).

As is the case for all institutions working with STAR, the electronic files are then archived by CINES (Centre informatique national de l'enseignement superieur) and the metadata is available on theses.fr, as well as the full text, depending on the author's authorization.

2. Workflow

Several actors are involved in the legal deposit process, starting with the University administration that is responsible for supplying the defense date. This date triggers off the registration process for the PhD candidate. The PhD candidate needs to upload the file for his/her theses and fill in a form specifying whether the dissertation will be freely available on the internet or only through restricted access.

After the theses defense has taken place, the online approval from the PhD supervisor is required so as to ensure that the file meets all the requirements. Corrections may be requested and a second file has to be deposited. The supervisor's approval is the latest development that was added to the website for theses deposit in 2015.

Several library technical assistants are in charge of cataloging the theses in STAR, they complete the metadata which has already been imported from the University website for theses deposit and add the authorization for internet or intranet. There is a double check: the theses coordinator is in charge of proof-reading and validating the bibliographic record. After this final approval the record is available on theses.fr and SUDOC.


The issues involved in automating nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques are outlined. Attention is given to research focused on the application of machine learning techniques to the construction and maintenance of knowledge-based systems which are capable of evaluating the readings from nondestructive tests that have been performed on aircraft components. Preliminary results obtained from this research are described. In particular, the authors discuss the application of a symbolic machine learning algorithm, ID3, to the NDE problem. ID3 has been used by Douglas Aircraft to classify defects in sets of standard NDE reference blocks. Based on the preliminary results, a need for an improved method of distinguishing features in the test waveforms is identified. The authors also outline a feature extraction approach from pattern recognition, called scale-space filtering, which can be used to preprocess data for input into a classification algorithm such as ID3.<<ETX>>


We describe an approach for performing entity type recognition in heterogeneous semantic graphs in order to reduce the computational cost of performing coreferenceresolution. Our research specifically addresses the problem of working with semi-structured text that uses ontologies that are not informative or not known. This problem is similar to co reference resolution in unstructured text, where entities and their types are identified using contextual information and linguistic-based analysis. Semantic graphs are semi-structured with very little contextual information and trivial grammars that do not convey additional information. In the absence of known ontologies, performing co reference resolution can be challenging. Our work uses a supervised machine learning algorithm and entity type dictionaries to map attributes to a common attribute space. We evaluated the approach in experiments using data from Wikipedia, Freebase and Arnetminer.


This paper describes an investigation into the relation between the results of a newly developed test of deep word knowledge (DWK) and a series of other word knowledge tests as well as a writing task. The DWK consists of 63 items constructed along the following model: one stimulus plus 6 responses. Each stimulus belongs to one of five frequency classes. The responses are not less frequent than the stimulus word. Students are to pick out the responses which bear a relationship to the stimulus word. Dutch students studying French in their first, second and third year and 26 French 17-year-old high school pupils took the test. The result showed that it has a strong discriminatory power between the groups. The results of the DWK were compared to a broad word knowledge test administered to the first-year students and yielded a high and significant correlation. Comparison with another deep word knowledge test, based on the EURALEX French tests and administered to the third-year students, showed a smaller and non significant correlation. This lower correlation may be due to the greater homogeneity of the group of third-year students. The first- and third-year students did a written assignment, which was scored along a rough scoring model. A t-test showed that the third-year students performed significantly better than the first-year ones. Correlations between the scores of the deep word knowledge test and the writing task were found to be high and significant. This is mainly due to the correlation for the first-year students. The smaller correlation for the third-year group is possibly due to the greater homogeneity. Another explanation could be that the scores for writing for third-year students are more strongly influenced by factors other than word knowledge such as style, text structure and text markers, as well as more complex sentences. It could also be the case that the third-year students' texts show a lexical richness, including rare words, which is not covered by the DWK


In a situation with increasingly rapid changes in landscape mosaics, driven by large-scale forestry and future climate change, a number of epiphytic lichens are now becoming threatened. Many of these species are limited either by dispersal or the subsequent processes of immobilisation on the substrate and germination. Overcoming the bottleneck of dispersal and/or reproduction may therefore constitute a key factor in species conservation. The main aim of this thesis is to evaluate different strategies to optimise efficiency in restoration of populations of endangered epiphytic lichens in fragmented forest landscapes, with a special emphasis on the importance of habitat quality and transplantation techniques. The thesis includes the development of a modeling tool for habitat evaluation in relation to photosynthetic performance of individual species (III); exploration of underlying causes for habitat restrictions in hydrophilic lichens (IV); and identification of habitat and substrate characteristics that 1) are associated with high vitality in natural populations of hydrophilic lichens (II), 2) are beneficial for establishment during active transplantation of thallus fragments (I) or isidia (V), and 3) are beneficial for photosynthetic activity in adult thalli (III, IV). The occurrence of pronounced photosynthetic activation time lags among hydrophilic species, with full activity for some species being reached first 24 h after hydration, is reported for the first time in the present study and may be one of the physiological causes explaining habitat restrictions in rare hydrophilic lichens (IV). Using a dynamic water and activity model, we assessed the capacities of four hydrophilic (Bryoria bicolor, Lobaria amplissima, Platismatia norvegica and Usnea longissima) and a generalist species (Platismatia glauca) to rehydrate and activate photosynthesis by liquid water and humid air available in natural habitats (III). Simulations show that for three of the four studied hydrophilic species, species-specific PSII activation time lags can, in combination with microclimatic differences, control photosynthetic performance in a most dramatic manner (III, IV). The distribution patterns of hydrophilic lichens coincide very well with habitat features that generate high realised activity among the slowly activated species studied here (II, III, IV). Both close proximity to streams and the presence of turbulent water had a consistent strong positive impact on realised activity among the studied species (IV). The occurrence of activation time lags may explain both the higher abundances in oceanic core habitats, and the affinity for stream habitats and turbulent water displayed by marginal populations of suboceanic lichens such as P. norvegica (II). Further, we have shown that transplantations of fragments (using Evernia divaricata and Ramalina dilacerata) or isidia (using P. norvegica) can constitute a valuable tool for restoration of endangered lichen populations, and that both habitat characteristics (I) and the mode of transplantation (I, V) is of vital importance to fragment vitality. In Paper V, where isidia of P. norvegica were transplanted into six sites in the regions of Jamtland and Trondelag in Central Scandinavia, we have shown that preparation of transplant surfaces with an adhesive Ac-Di-Sol® solution may constitute a highly efficient tool for enhancing the outcome of restorative transplantations targeting epiphytic lichens (V). However, in order to enhance the possibilities for long-term viability and persistence of the population, it is essential that restoration efforts are concentrated to habitats and substrates that can be viewed as optimal for the species in question (I-V). The model developed in Paper III and used in Paper IV may provide a tool for identifying such suitable habitats. Further, this thesis highlights the importance of fringe populations for conservation of endangered suboceanic lichens in Scandinavia (II), and also underscores the importance of separating the processes of dispersal, immobilisation and establishment, when studying lichen distributional patterns (I, II, V).


This article aims at filling an important gap in governance literature. Most governance studies are board-focused and hardly differentiate between different types of non-profit organisations. Surveys on governance structures of independent grant-making foundations are almost non-existent in the current literature. Due to the heavy focus on boards, the roles of executive directors in governance are somewhat neglected. This article presents the results of a multiple case study research project with 12 grant-making foundations in Germany and Switzerland with chief executives as interview partners. Findings show that the roles of the board and the executive director in governance functions vary. Different patterns of foundation governance are evident. Based on a model developed by Saidel and Harlan (1998), we showcase four governance structures in grant-making foundations and use ideal-typical organisational charts for illustration. The results of this study shed light on the black boxes of foundations and inform practice and research alike.


ABSTRACT Speaker's sex has emerged as one of the most important social factors in the quantitative study of phonological variation. However, sex does not have a uniform effect on variables or even on variables that represent sound change in progress. This is because sex is not directly related to linguistic behavior but reflects complex social practice. The correlations of sex with linguistic variables are only a reflection of the effects on linguistic behavior of gender — the complex social construction of sex — and it is in this construction that one must seek explanations for such correlations. Sociolinguists generally treat sex in terms of oppositional categories (male/female), and the effects of sex on variation are generally sought in linguistic differences between male and female speakers. However, because gender differences involve differences in orientation to other social categories, the effects of gender on linguistic behavior can show up in differences within sex groupings. Data on sound changes in progress (the Northern Cities Chain Shift) among Detroit area adolescents show that gender has a variety of effects on variables and that the significance of gender in variation cannot be reduced to notions of male or female speech as "more or less conservative."


Repetition, particularly as employed in minimalist art, has been
contrasted to the poetic insofar as it is associated with notions such as
sameness and standardization, while the poetic is associated with
uniqueness and difference. In my work however, my aim is to express a
poetics of nature through the use of repetition.
Because of the centrality of repetition, minimal ism was the initial context
that informed the research. But while minimalists emphasized the
modular, which has connotations of standardization and mass production,
my interest resides in how repetition operates in nature where there is
never an exact replication.
The key artists within the research context are Carl Andre whose use of
the modular grid evokes a sense of environment; Claude Monet in
relation to his investigations of the nuance of changing light and
atmospheric conditions as manifested particularly in his water lily series;
Paul Klee's use of repetitive tree-like structures; Agnes Martin's
repetition of the horizon in her monochromatic paintings; Emily Kame
Kngwarreye's repetition of marks/gestures that draw on nature in her
paintings; and Vija Celmins' repetitions of marks and of oceanic and
inter-stellar motifs.
Correlations have been formed in the research between Gilles Deleuze's
understanding of repetition within Difference and Repetition and Gaston
Bache lard's definition of poetics within The Poetics of Space. I propose
that the similarity of the operations of repetition and poetics suggests they can be viewed as being related, and that the essential condition of the two
orders is mobility.
The three main aspects of nature that have been researched in relation to
mobility and repetition are: the wave and its dual characteristics within
water and light; growth, particularly leaf vein structures that appear
uniform but are unique; and time seen through cycles and evolutions in
nature.
My contribution to the field is in extending a dialogue in which repetition
is not mere replication of the same but arises out of the recognition of
difference within sameness.


Nitromethane (1) upon treatment with Carbon disulfide (2) under ice cold condition in presence of dry methanol/Potassium hydroxide gave dipotassium salt of nitroketene dithioacetal (3). Further treatment of dipotassium salt (3) with transition metal zinc furnished NKDA-Zn complex (4). The structure of the synthesized complex was characterised using UV, IR, 1H, 13C-NMR spectral, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) evidences. The electro-catalytic activity of the modified SPCE of NZ towards the detection of L-Met was carried out. The electrochemical behavior of the NZ/SPCE were examined using cyclic voltammetry, and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV).


Along with the rapid development of technology, the constant innovation and application of computer and information technology has information technology change humans' future lifestyles as well as induce comprehensive changes in humans' learning. Due to knowledge digitization, knowledge creation and update is fast that the acceleration and enhancement of learning effectiveness becomes the important issue concerned in global education development. Along with the population of digitization, information technology largely changes life and learning model. Applying experimental design model to the quasi-experimental research, total 188 business management students of universities in Fujian are preceded technology education with WebQuest. The experimental teaching is preceded 3 hours per week for 16 weeks (total 48 hours). Research results reveal 1. WebQuest would affect critical thinking psychology, 2. WebQuest would affect operation capability, 3. critical thinking psychology presents significantly positive effects on problem clarification in operation capability, 4. critical thinking psychology shows remarkably positive effects on effective interaction in operation capability, and 5. critical thinking psychology reveals notably positive effects on inductive inference in operation capability. According to the results, suggestions are proposed, expecting to help domestic technology education get into organizational and systematic development to further cultivate students' technology literacy.


In 2000, President Bill Clinton signaled the completion of the Human Genome Project at a cost in excess of $2 billion. A decade later, the price for any of us to order our own personal genome sequence--a comprehensive map of the 3 billion letters in our DNA--is rapidly and inevitably dropping to just $1,000. Dozens of men and women--scientists, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and patients--have already been sequenced, pioneers in a bold new era of personalized genomic medicine. The $1,000 genome has long been considered the tipping point that would open the floodgates to this revolution. Do you have gene variants associated with Alzheimer's or diabetes, heart disease or cancer? Which drugs should you consider taking for various diseases, and at what dosage? In the years to come, doctors will likely be able to tackle all of these questions--and many more--by using a computer in their offices to call up your unique genome sequence, which will become as much a part of your medical record as your blood pressure. Indeed, many experts are advocating that all newborns have a complete genome analysis done so that preventive measures and preemptive medicine can begin early in life. How has this astonishing achievement been accomplished? And what will it mean for our lives? To research the story of this unfolding revolution, critically acclaimed science writer Kevin Davies has spent the past few years traveling to the leading centers and interviewing the entrepreneurs and pioneers in the race to achieve the $1,000 genome. He vividly brings to life the extraordinary drama of this grand scientific achievement, revealing the masterful ingenuity that has transformed the process of decoding DNA and delivering the information it possesses to the public at large. Davies also profiles the future of genomic medicine and thoughtfully explores the many pressing issues raised by the tidal wave of personal genetic information. Will your privacy be protected? Will you be pressured, by insurance companies or by your employer, to get your genome sequenced? What psychological toll might there be to discovering you are at risk for certain diseases like Alzheimer's? And will the government or the medical establishment come between you and your genome? One thing that is not in question is that we are moving swiftly into the personalized medicine era, and "The $1,000 Genome "is an essential guide to this brave new future.


The high level of fossil fuel consumption globally is wreaking havoc on the global climate through the emissions of greenhouse gases. Against this backdrop, there have been calls from national and international stakeholders for a transition towards renewable energy (RE). However, the investment and adoption of renewable energy technologies especially, in developing countries have been woefully inadequate. Even though various policy and legislative instruments in support of RE development abound in Ghana, the contribution of RE to the energy generation mix is notably insignificant, due to constraints that limit high investment. Using the Political Economy Analysis (PEA) approach, this article examines the deficiencies in these policy strategies, and unravels the complexity as well as the alignments of interests of stakeholders regarding policies that could provide a more favourable investment in renewables in Ghana. The article recommends that Ghana's leaders champion those policies with the highest support across all stakeholders.


Forest fires create an increasingly severe and negative impact on ecosystem services such as carbon storage, climate balancing and water supply as a result of global warming threatening our planet. One of the steps to fight forest fires is to perform a risk assessment. Forest fire risk assessment allows the identification of locations at high risk of forest fire and estimate its sphere of influence. In this way, it provides decision-making support to the fire-fighting organization. The purpose of this study was to conduct a forest fire risk assessment in forests located in Bucak Forest Enterprise in Turkey that is vulnerable to fire at the first degree. In the study, the weights of the criteria that lead to fire risk were computed with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The risk classes of the criteria were exported to the raster layer of the Geographical Information System (GIS). The results showed that 25% of forests in Bucak region were at high risk, while 32% were at medium fire risk. We believe that the approach adopted in this study may contribute to forest fire risk assessments and risk mapping of Mediterranean forest ecosystems that have similar climate, topographic structure and vegetation.


Objective: Metastases of the vertebral column can be hyper vascular and may result in severe blood loss during surgery. Preoperative embolization is a technique to reduce the perioperative blood loss. A rare complication of preoperative embolization of spinal metastases is ischemia of the spinal cord. In this case report we present the occurrence of spinal cord ischemia after preoperative embolization of spinal metastases.
Methods: Case report.
Results: A 66-year old man with short lasting back pain and thoracic radicular pain resented at our neurosurgery department. Neurological examination revealed slight weakness of the left iliopsoas muscle, Medical Research Council (MRC) grade 4 and pathological plantar reflexes. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed metastases of the vertebral body at level L4 and T3. The primary malignancy was found to be a renal cell carcinoma of the left kidney. Corpectomy of T3 and L4 was preceded by preoperative embolization of the segmental arteries at level T2-T4 and L3-L5 on both sides. After embolization there was progressive loss of motor function and relatively limited loss of sensory function, ultimately resulting in complete loss of motor function. Urgent surgery with corpectomy on both levels and circumferential spondylodesis was performed without improvement of neurological deficit. Magnetic resonance imaging one day post-surgery revealed spinal ischemia at the level of T2 and T3.
Conclusions: Spinal cord ischemia is a rare, yet severe, complication of preoperative embolization of spinal metastases. Complications of embolization should be weighed against surgical complications in patients without preoperative embolization.


Abstract. Ice-sheet outlet glaciers can undergo dynamic changes such as the rapid speed-up of Jakobshavn Isbrae following the disintegration of its floating ice tongue. These changes are associated with stress changes on the boundary of the ice mass. We invert for basal conditions from surface velocity data throughout a well-observed period of rapid change and evaluate parameterizations currently used in ice-sheet models. A Tikhonov inverse method with a shallow-shelf approximation forward model is used for diagnostic inversions for the years 1985, 2000, 2005, 2006 and 2008. Our ice-softness, model norm, and regularization parameter choices are justified using the data-model misfit metric and the L curve method. The sensitivity of the inversion results to these parameter choices is explored. We find a lowering of effective basal yield stress in the first 7 km upstream from the 2008 grounding line and no significant changes higher upstream. The temporal evolution in the fast flow area is in broad agreement with a Mohr–Coulomb parameterization of basal shear stress, but with a till friction angle much lower than has been measured for till samples. The lowering of effective basal yield stress is significant within the uncertainties of the inversion, but it cannot be ruled out that there are other significant contributors to the acceleration of the glacier.


In the last years, point-based rendering has been shown to offer the potential to outperform traditional triangle based rendering both in speed and visual quality when it comes to processing highly complex models. Existing surface splatting techniques achieve superior visual quality by proper filtering but they are still limited in rendering speed. On the other hand the increasing availability and programmability of graphics hardware lead to the development of very efficient hardware-accelerated rendering methods. However, since no filtered splats are used, these approaches trade visual quality for rendering speed. In this paper, we propose a rendering framework for point-based geometry providing high visual quality as well as efficient rendering. Our approach is based on a two-pass splatting technique with Gaussian filtering, resulting in a visual quality comparable to existing software rendering systems. Using programmable graphics hardware we delegate all expensive rendering tasks to the GPU, thereby minimizing data transfer and saving CPU resources. The proposed system renders up to 28M mid-quality or up to 10M high-quality surface splats per second on the latest graphics hardware.


A light field is a 4D function representing radiance as a function of ray position and direction in 3D space. In this paper we describe a method for recovering gaps in light fields of scenes that contain significant occluders. In these situations, although a large fraction of the scene may be blocked in any one view, most scene points are visible in at least some views. As a consequence , although too much information is missing to employ 2D completion methods that operate within a single view, it may be possible to recover the lost information by completion in 4D-the full dimensionality of the light field. The proposed light field completion method has three main steps: Registration, initial estimation, and high dimensional texture synthesis and/or inpainting. At the registration stage, the set of images are shifted and re-projected so that the corresponding pixels from different images are aligned in the reconstructed light field. Following this, the estimation step uses a naive technique to fill-in parts of gaps using the available information from the multiple images. This serves as the initial condition for the next and last step, where the missing information is recovered via high dimensional texture synthesis and/or inpainting. These two steps of initial condition and completion are iterated. The algorithm is illustrated with real examples.


"[T]his handsomely-produced volume performs admirably as a series of introductions to sources, approaches, and the state of scholarship on major topics in Roman social history . . . Collections of essays come and go, but this one will stay in wide use. Each essay can stand alone but, tied together by the theme of dominance, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."---Donald Kyle, "Bryn Mawr Classical Review""This collection of essays is intended to serve as a coursebook for introductory lecture series on Roman civilization; the essays are concentrated on fundamental aspects of Roman society, and no prior knowledge of antiquity on the reader's part is assumed. . . . The book as a whole is entirely successful in its projected aim: an immense range of detailed information about antiquity is presented in readable and largely sophisticated discussion. . . . Increasingly we need to be able to suggest to our students reading that is introductory but also in-depth and challenging, and this book is one possible reading that we can offer."---Ellen O'Gorman, "Classical Review""Life, Death, and Entertainment" gives those with a general interest in Roman antiquity a starting point, informed by the latest developments in scholarship, for understanding the extraordinary range of Roman society. Family structure, slavery, gender identity, food supply, religion, and entertainment---all crucial parts of the Roman world---are discussed here, in a single volume that offers an approachable guide for readers of all backgrounds. The collection unites a series of general introductions on each of these topics, bringing readers in touch with a broad range of evidence, as well as with a wide variety of approaches to basic questions about the Roman world.The newly expanded edition includes historian Keith Hopkins' pathbreaking article on Roman slaves. Volume editor David Potter has contributed two new translations of documents from emperors Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian's letters document a reorganization of the festival cycle in the Empire and reassert the importance of the Olympic Games; the letter to Marcus provides the most important surviving evidence for how gladiatorial games were actually organized.Contributors to the volume include Greg S. Aldrete, Hazel Dodge, Bruce W. Frier, Maud W. Gleason, Ann E. Hanson, Keith Hopkins, David J. Mattingly, and David S. Potter.D.S. Potter is Professor of Classics and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, University of Michigan.D.J. Mattingly is Professor of Roman Archaeology, University of Leicester, and a Fellow of the British Academy.Cover illustrations: top left, Karanis Excavation, courtesy Kelsey Museum; bottom right, Monte Testacchio, courtesy David J. Mattingly; center, "Pollice Verso" by Jean-Leon Gerome, courtesy Phoenix Art Museum, Museum Purchase."


Despite much research investigating physical activity (PA) barriers for American women, the PA barriers experienced by overweight and obese working women remain largely unexamined. This preliminary investigation assessed the PA barriers, behaviors, and beliefs of 40 overweight/obese women with full-time desk jobs for the subsequent development and implementation of a tailored "healthy weight" wellness program. Based on qualitative and quantitative data analysis, the majority of participants weren't sufficiently active, citing motivation and time as their biggest perceived barriers. Statistically significant relationships were identified between BMI and barrier numbers, PA levels, PA enjoyment, and PA importance; as well as between PA levels and barrier numbers, PA enjoyment, and PA importance. An effective PA intervention should emphasize 300 minutes of PA a week, while incorporating evidence-based behavioral strategies (i.e., goal setting, self-monitoring, contingency management, social support, stimulus...


A New York Times Notable Book of the Year Fifty years after Michael Harrington published his groundbreaking book The Other America, in which he chronicled the lives of people excluded from the Age of Affluence, poverty in America is back with a vengeance. It is made up of both the long-term chronically poor and new working poor--the tens of millions of victims of a broken economy and an ever more dysfunctional political system. In many ways, for the majority of Americans, financial insecurity has become the new norm. The American Way of Poverty shines a light on this travesty. Sasha Abramsky brings the effects of economic inequality out of the shadows and, ultimately, suggests ways for moving toward a fairer and more equitable social contract. Exploring everything from housing policy to wage protections and affordable higher education, Abramsky lays out a panoramic blueprint for a reinvigorated political process that, in turn, will pave the way for a renewed War on Poverty. It is, Harrington believed, a moral outrage that in a country as wealthy as America, so many people could be so poor. Written in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, in an era of grotesque economic extremes, The American Way of Poverty brings that same powerful indignation to the topic.


Since their discovery in the late 1980s, Bessel beams have found their way into many disciplines, including optical tweezing and precision drilling. Researchers are now looking to these light beams as a means of transferring data. But first they must load them with information and then unravel the encoded messages they carry.


In Italy, the transition from adolescence to adulthood has lately increased. There is disagreement about whether this is a healthy adaptation to current socioeconomic conditions or a sign of excessive dependency and insecure anxious attachment (Flett, Endler, & Besser, 2009; Maione & Franceschini, 1999; Scabini & Cigoli, 1997; Scabini & Marta, 1996). We present a study of 1570 Italian undergraduates at the University of Padova, exploring relations between: living choice; attachment style; religious, spiritual, and personal beliefs; civic and moral disengagement; and perceived happiness. Living on one's own was associated with avoidant or secure attachment, being more engaged in society, and stronger personal and spiritual beliefs. Both living with parents and in other living situations was associated with anxious attachment, weaker personal beliefs but stronger religious beliefs, greater civic and moral disengagement, and greater unhappiness. Regardless of living arrangements, anxious attachment was related to civic and moral disengagement, weaker personal beliefs, and greater unhappiness. Insecure avoidant attachment was instead related to civic and moral disengagement and weaker religious and spiritual beliefs.


This article provides a historical overview of the 2008-2009 cholera pandemic in Zimbabwe. Its main hypothesis is that this outbreak revealed serious health status implications that were not unconnected with a malfunctioning economic and governmental order. The epidemic, of pandemic proportions, has deep-seated historical roots in the country's economic meltdown. Furthermore, it is linked to the exclusion of local municipal authority from its traditional water-governance role. The article discusses the epidemic and evaluates the country's disaster preparedness, bearing in mind that this outbreak was by no means the first in Zimbabwe. At the policy level, sanitary reforms were vital in view of the lukewarm government response to what was a very real national state of emergency. Drawing on an array of United Nations (UN), Red Cross, Ministry of Health and media perspectives on the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the article focuses on the debate about the erosion of what was a good health system in Africa and the degeneration of a previously sound water, health and sanitation infrastructure.


Background Agro-industrial waste from tropical environments could be an important source of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) with probiotic potential. Methods Twelve LAB isolates were isolated from pineapple silages. The species identification was carried out considering 16S rRNA and pheS genes. Experiments to evaluate the probiotic potential of the isolates included survival under simulated gastrointestinal environment, in vitro antagonistic activity (against Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes), auto-aggregation assays, antibiotic susceptibility, presence of plasmids, adhesiveness to epithelial cells, and antagonistic activity against Salmonella in HeLa cells. Results Lacticaseibacillus paracasei, Lentilactobacillus parafarraginis, Limosilactobacillus fermentum, and Weissella ghanensis were identified. Survival of one of the isolates was 90% or higher after exposure to acidic conditions (pH: 2), six isolates showed at least 61% survival after exposure to bile salts. The three most promising isolates, based on survivability tests, showed a strong antagonistic effect against Salmonella. However, only L. paracasei_6714 showed a strong Listeria inhibition pattern; this isolate showed a good auto-aggregation ability, was resistant to some of the tested antibiotics but was not found to harbor plasmids; it also showed a high capacity for adhesion to epithelial cells and prevented the invasion of Salmonella in HeLa cells. After further in vivo evaluations, L. paracasei_6714 may be considered a probiotic candidate for food industry applications and may have promising performance in acidic products due to its origin.


The full potential of Langmuir Blodgett (LB) Technology will only be realised in
the development of sensors, such as coated metal electrodes, if the problems related to film
stability in an aqueous environment can be overcome. To this end, the ac admittance
technique has been applied to characterise LB films of Barium Stearate and Poly-ButylMethacrylate,
deposited onto platinum, copper and aluminium electrodes immersed in a
range of electrolytes. Cyclic voltammetry was used as a complementary characterisation
technique for the coatings on platinum.
Equations were derived to relate the measured cell admittance to the equivalent
circuit parameters. Approximations to these equations, valid for limited frequency ranges,
enable parameter estimates to be made from the double log plots of capacitance and loss
against frequency. The admittance data was analysed in terms of an equivalent circuit
model adapted from the work of Macdonald (1952,1971,1973,1974,1976,1985). This
treatment enables the electrical measurements to be related to the electrical double layer,
electrolyte and deposited film and represents the first attempt to characterise LB films in
this way. The equivalent circuit model was rigorously applied to the characterisation of
i) PCB electrodes spin coated with PVC and ii) sputtered copper electrodes coated with
Barium Stearate using the LB Technique.
Several processes are found to contribute to the molarity, electrolyte and time
dependent changes in coating admittance. For example, ionic uptake leads to an increase
in coating admittance which can introduce a marked frequency dependent dispersion. For
less stable coatings, film reorientation and desorption and changes in the oxide of the
metal electrode can also affect the measured admittance. LB films of PBMA deposited
onto platinum were sufficiently stable for immobilising electroactive species. Valinomycin
incorporated in an LB film of PBMA and deposited onto platinum exhibited a reversible
tt [K+] dependent conductance.


When, if ever, can a public secondary school in the United States legally discipline a student for the content of a personal website, a Facebook post, a text message, or an email that the student created or transmitted from an off-campus location? The U.S. Supreme Court has never addressed the issue, and the lower courts have split on it, providing a number of different answers to the question. In answering this question, this Comment distinguishes between two kinds of off-campus internet speech: (1) threats or incitements to violence that are never protected by the First Amendment in any context ("true threats"), and (2) other kinds of speech that the First Amendment would protect if the speaker were an adult in a public forum. This Comment argues that there should be limits on school disciplinary authority over both of these kinds of speech. Threats or incitements to violence serious enough to fall outside the scope of constitutional protection may always subject a speaker to criminal punishment. Therefore, this Comment argues that students should not additionally be subject to school discipline for such unprotected speech unless the speech has some connection (a "sufficient nexus") to the school. This rule has the advantage of allowing schools to discipline students for threats related to the school while also preventing school authority from a limitless extension into matters so unrelated to the school that they should only be handled by authorities. In contrast to its position on unprotected "true threats," this Comment argues that schools should never be allowed to discipline students for off-campus internet speech that would be protected by the First Amendment if it occurred outside the school context. In cases involving speech that occurred at school, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District and its progeny, that schools may discipline students for speech that causes "substantial disruption" to school activities. But this Comment argues that, since Tinker and its progeny were designed specifically for the school setting, the school speech rules articulated in Tinker and its progeny should never be applied to off-campus speech. Although others have made that argument, this Comment goes further by attempting to clearly define when speech occurs on campus and when it occurs off campus. It argues that speech that is originally created or transmitted off campus may only be considered on-campus speech if it is intentionally (re)communicated by the student while he or she is on campus. It further argues that the Spence v. Washington test for communicative conduct should be used to decide if internet speech was intentionally communicated on campus. This Comment concludes with a discussion of how the rule it proposes should apply in specific situations that schools are likely to face in the future.


The fungus Rhizopus is frequently used for fermentative production of lactic acid, but little is known about the mechanisms or proteins for transporting this carboxylic acid. Since transport of the lactate anion across the plasma membrane is critical to prevent acidification of the cytoplasm, we evaluated the functionality of two lactate-proton symport paralogs, LacA and LacB, from R. delemar. Both of these proteins showed significant ancestral homology to bacterial lactate permease with 46-50% identity to similar homologs from the genus Burkholderia. Based on qPCR, the highest level of expression in Rhizopus for the lacA gene was on complex medium containing pyruvate, while lacB transcript was barely detected with all of the tested culture conditions. A Saccharomyces cerevisiae jen1 deletion strain lacking the ability to transport monocarboxylates was restored for growth on lactate and pyruvate with the expression of LacA. Expression of the LacB in this same strain did not confer the ability to grow on either carbon source. LacA expression also allowed active transport of L‑[ 14C(U)]-lactate into yeast cells and this accumulation was inhibited by the proton uncoupler carbonyl cyanide p-(trifluoromethoxy) phenylhydrazone. Translation fusions with GFP showed that LacA accumulates primarily in the plasma and vacuolar membrane, while LacB is dispersed throughout the cytoplasm. These results indicate that the Rhizopus LacA is a functional lactate symport that is probably involved in uptake of pyruvate or lactate, while the physiological role of LacB is unknown.


A non-collaborative coexistence mechanism for wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) and bluetooth (BT) systems based on dynamic packet fragmentation is proposed in this work. The basic idea is to adapt the packet length of Wi-Fi in the MAC layer such that the fragmented packet has a better chance to survive the interference from the nearby BT devices. We first develop an analytical model that specifies the information required by the Wi-Fi MAC layer to decide the best fragmentation strategy. Then, this model is extended to analyze the throughput and transmission delay of the Wi-Fi device. The analytical model is validated by computer simulation. Furthermore, it is demonstrated by simulation results that the proposed coexistence mechanism improves the performance of Wi-Fi in throughput and transmission delay significantly while relatively smaller performance improvement is observed for BT.


The Internet is a worldwide connection of thousands of computer networks. All of them speak the same language, TCP/IP, the standard protocol. The Internet allows people with access to these networks to share information and knowledge. Resources available on the Internet are chat groups, e-mail, newsgroups, file transfers, and the World Wide Web. The Internet has no centralized authority and it is uncensored. The Internet belongs to everyone and to no one.Paper published with permission.Compilation Copyright © 2018 ASME


The subject of this article is the vicious public dispute between Southey and Byron—the well-known argument that centred on the two poets' Visions of Judgment. Precipitated by Southey's call for censorship of immoral literature and punishment of "Satanic" authors, the dispute was won—according to twentieth-century critics—by Byron, whose devastating parody undermined the credibility of Southey's political poetry. It has long been understood that the dispute was about more than personal enmity, that what was in question was literature's relationship to power and its proper role in the body politic. What has received less attention is the fact that the dispute concerned not only the domestic scene (literature's relationship to Church and State in Britain) but also the widening sphere of empire. It is my intention to focus on the imperial sphere in what follows so as to reveal that Southey and Byron were arguing in and for a new context. They were setting out rival models of colonialist and Orientalist poetry for an age in which empire was being expanded and imperialism redefined. These models include two long poems that scholars have hitherto failed to relate to the poets' dispute—Byron's The Island (1823) and Southey's Tale of Paraguay (1825). Both these poems look different when we understand their place in the poets' contest to make their own colonialist representations of native peoples prevail over the hearts and minds of the British public.


In his paper, "Vargas Llosa's La Ciudad y los perros and the European Novel of Adolescence," John Neubauer investigates Mario Vargas Llosa's 1962 novel about cadets in a military school located just outside of Lima, Peru. The life of a gang (the dogs) in the city and on the premises is described from constantly changing perspectives. Neubauer's article looks at Vargas Llosa's work in terms of features one finds in narratives about adolescents in European literatures around 1900 and where these texts can be read with three main foci found in them. Thematically, the texts focus on the city and urbanity and on the problematics of the concept and workings of peer groups while stylistically the texts show their authors' experimentation with new narrative forms. John Neubauer, "Vargas Llosa's La Ciudad y los perros and the European Novel of Adolescence" page 2 of 5 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 3.2 (2001):


The growth, electronic structure and doping of the semiconductor InN has been explored and analysed. InN thin films were grown by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. The significance of the relative fluxes, substrate temperature and buffer layers was explored and related to the electrical and structural properties of the films. An exploration of the effect of active nitrogen species on InN films found that excited molecular nitrogen was preferred for growth over atomic and ionic species. An optimised recipe for InN was developed incorporating all explored parameters. The bandgap of InN was explored using the techniques of optical absorption, photoluminescence and photoconductivity. All three techniques identified a feature near 0.67 eV as the only dominant and reproducible optical feature measurable from InN thin films. No evidence for any optical features above 1 eV was discovered. The effect of the Burstein-Moss effect is discussed and the debate over the relative impact of the effect is related to problems with precisely measuring electron concentrations. Photoluminescence from mixed phase InN films containing significant zincblende content is presented, with tentative evidence presented for a zincblende band gap near 0.61 eV. Native defects within InN were studied by near edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy. Nitrogen related defects were found to be unlikely candidates for the high as-grown n-type conductivity. The most likely candidate remains nitrogen vacancies. Ion implantation was shown to cause substantial damage to the InN lattice, which could not be fully repaired through annealing. The limitation on annealing temperatures may limit the use of implantation as a processing tool for InN. Mg was shown to exhibit great promise as a potential p-type dopant. Photoluminescence from Mg doped films was found to quench at high Mg concentrations, consistent with a depletion region near the surface. The potential dilute magnetic semiconductor In1−xCrxN was explored. All of the In1−xCrxN films were found to be ferromagnetic at room temperature and exhibited saturated magnetic moments of up to 0.7 emu/g. An interesting correlation between


A theoretical analysis is made of the possible range and accuracy of speckle displacement measurement in double-exposure speckle photography. It is shown that the condition of marginally possible fringe reading and the accuracy of the measurement of speckle displacement in pointwise reading of a doubly recorded specklegram are determined by the degree of correlation between the two recorded speckle patterns and the number of speckles illuminated by the reading beam. Specifically, the fringe reading is possible only if γ>2/N, and the statistical error δd of the measured speckle displacement is ηωx{(1/N)|7 + 4[(1 − γ2)/γ2]|}1/4, where γ is the degree of similarity between the two correlated speckle patterns, N is the number of speckle grains probed by the reading laser beam, and ηωx is the mean radius of curvature of a speckle grain at its peak. Also, it is shown that strain on the object surface introduces an additional systematic error ∊0 · d0/2, where ∊0 is the surface strain and d0 is the measured displacement vector of the speckles.


The model for anisotropic crystal growth on a substrate covered by a mask material with a periodic series of parallel long trenches where the substrate is exposed to the vapor phase is developed. The model assumes that surface diffusion and deposition flux are the main mechanisms of the growth, and that the three key surface quantities (energy, mobility and adatom diffusivity) are anisotropic with either fouror six-fold symmetry. A geometrical approach to the motion of crystal surface in two dimensions is adopted and nonlinear evolution equations are solved by a finite-difference method. The model allows the direct computation of the crystal surface shape and the study of effects due to finite mask thickness. As in experiments, lateral overgrowth of crystal onto the mask is found, as well as comparable crystal shapes; the anisotropy of the surface mobility is found to play the dominant role in the shape selection. The amount of the overgrowth and the shapes can be effectively controlled by orienting the fast and slow growth directions with respect to the substrate. r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.


Published 20 years ago, the first edition of History of Psychotherapy (1992) is still considered the most comprehensive and authoritative resource on the subject. Building on the success of its predecessor, this new edition provides timely updates to reflect both the continuity and change in psychotherapy and features additional theory, research, practice, and training. Focusing on critical turning points, 78 eminent authors examine the impact of social, cultural, and economic factors on the development of psychotherapy. Each chapter highlights the historical roots, current manifestations, and future directions of the field. New to this edition are discussions on the emergence of multiculturalism, neuroscience, couples therapy, pharmacotherapy, spirituality and religion, and specialized research centers. Scholarly but engaging, comprehensive but accessible, this updated classic will prove ideal for students, practitioners, and libraries alike.


We suggest a new approach, which is applicable for general statistics computed from random samples of univariate or vector‐valued or functional data, to assessing the influence that individual data have on the value of a statistic, and to ranking the data in terms of that influence. Our method is based on, first, perturbing the value of the statistic by 'tilting', or reweighting, each data value, where the total amount of tilt is constrained to be the least possible, subject to achieving a given small perturbation of the statistic, and, then, taking the ranking of the influence of data values to be that which corresponds to ranking the changes in data weights. It is shown, both theoretically and numerically, that this ranking does not depend on the size of the perturbation, provided that the perturbation is sufficiently small. That simple result leads directly to an elegant geometric interpretation of the ranks; they are the ranks of the lengths of projections of the weights onto a 'line' determined by the first empirical principal component function in a generalized measure of covariance. To illustrate the generality of the method we introduce and explore it in the case of functional data, where (for example) it leads to generalized boxplots. The method has the advantage of providing an interpretable ranking that depends on the statistic under consideration. For example, the ranking of data, in terms of their influence on the value of a statistic, is different for a measure of location and for a measure of scale. This is as it should be; a ranking of data in terms of their influence should depend on the manner in which the data are used. Additionally, the ranking recognizes, rather than ignores, sign, and in particular can identify left‐ and right‐hand 'tails' of the distribution of a random function or vector.


Introduction: Readiness to quit smoking - a pattern of attitudes, intentions, and behaviors that reflect a likelihood of engaging in cessation activities—is a useful heuristic for understanding smoking disparities based on sexual orientation. This study examined demographic, tobacco-use patterns, psychosocial and cognitive factors associated with readiness to quit among gay and bisexual male smokers. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted as part of a larger Tobacco Elimination and Control Collaboration (Q-TECC) initiative in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Readiness to quit was measured by a composite score created from four variables (motivation to quit, importance of quitting, plan to quit, and confidence in quitting) (alpha=.87, M=3.42, SD=.96, range 1-5). Results: The sexual minority smokers in the sample ( N=208; M=33 years) were racially/ethnically diverse. Latino men had significantly lower levels of readiness to quit compared to African American and White men. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to explore the relative contributions of sociodemographic, tobacco-use patterns, psychosocial and cognitive factors on Readiness to Quit. In the final model, the following variables were associated with readiness to quit scores: Latino ethnicity, fewer quit attempts, positive expectancies for the beneficial effects of smoking, and lower perceived importance of smoking as an important LGBT health issue. None of the psychosocial factors were associated with readiness to quit. Discussion: Readiness to quit scores were largely predicted by modifiable attitudes, behaviors, and expectancies. Study findings have implications for improving outreach and awareness and for the development of effective treatment approaches.


Scientific and technological innovations have become increasingly important as we face the benefits and challenges of both globalization and a knowledge-based economy. Still, enrolment rates in STEM degrees are low in many European countries and consequently there is a lack of adequately educated workforce in industries. We believe that this can be mainly attributed to pedagogical issues, such as the lack of engaging hands-on activities utilized for science and math education in middle and high schools. In this paper, we report our work in the SciChallenge European project, which aims at increasing the interest of pre-university students in STEM disciplines, through its distinguishing feature, the systematic use of social media for providing and evaluation of the student-generated content. A social media-aware contest and platform were thus developed and tested in a pan-European contest that attracted <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$> {{700}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> participants. The statistical analysis and results revealed that the platform and contest positively influenced participants STEM learning and motivation, while only the gender factor for the younger study group appeared to affect the outcomes (confidence level – <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\text{p}}< .05$</tex-math></inline-formula>).


Note: The production of this paper, the series of interviews and the roundtable discussion in The Hague were supported by the Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law through its Knowledge Management Fund, as well as through own contributions by LSE IDEAS and the Institute for Economics & Peace. The authors are very grateful for the support and inputs of Dr. Mary Martin, Dr. Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic and Alice Bryant of the London School of Economics. Any feedback, questions or suggestions can be sent to the authors: email@example.com or email@example.com. This discussion paper has been written at the request of LSE IDEAS. It aims to review current knowledge and practices around ESG impact measurement in more Fragile and Conflict-affected Settings (FCS) including the barriers and opportunities for applying new social impact assessment guidance that would contribute to responsible and sustainable business conduct. The paper features a novel approach that clarifies the material issues relevant to the social impact by small and large companies operating in FCS using the concepts of Human Security and Positive Peace and how they help to identify and measure contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors attempt to show the additional benefits of the use of the new measurement approach in terms of other and more valid results it will yield in comparison with existing approaches. The paper is providing an outline of this new approach that will form the basis of a guidance for businesses.


Optical, electrical and structural properties of ZnO grown via grown via PLD and VPT were examined. Both growth techniques were successful in producing nanostructured
ZnO with thin films also produced with PLD. An epitaxial relationship to the substrate was found for all materials. A temperature-stepping growth process was identified as beneficial to overall material quality. Good quality nominally un-doped material with sharp near band edge (NBE) emission was achieved, demonstrating a FWHM of 1.9meV, compared to 0.7meV for single crystal samples. VPT and PLD
nano-strucutres displayed a characteristic PL features due to the surface exciton, SX. Doped ZnO demonstrated p-type conductivity, with carrier concentrations as high as
4.10*16 cm−3 under illumination for N-ZnO. P-ZnO displayed a fast-decaying photoconductive effect. High concentrations of dopant were found disadvantageous to crystalline and optical quality, but evidence of ABX emission was observed with as much as 2.5 wt% of dopant. Li and Bi were also employed as dopant sources but neither produced evidence of a p-type film.


For future divertor studies on TCV measurements of electron temperature and density and their spatial gradients along open flux surfaces will be of major interest. A Thomson scattering system is proposed for this purpose, which takes advantage of the good access via horizontal ports on three vertical levels. The modular design of the existing Thomson scattering diagnostic on TCV offers the possibility to modify it for simultaneous measurements in the main plasma and in the divertor region using the same laser. Arranging for a second passage of the laser beam at a radial position shifted towards the inside, measurements can be made along the open flux surfaces between the X point and the outer divertor strike point. The optical system is designed to share the camera lens with the existing system. After installation of additional fiber bundles and another set of filter spectrometers, the system will be capable of measuring temperature and density at ten selected locations in the divertor zone with a resolution in the vertical direction of 15 mm. Using numerical simulations, a set of interference filters has been selected to cover the range from 100 to 5 eV. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)53601-0].


Computing the k dominant eigenvalues and eigenvectors of massive graphs is a key operation in numerous machine learning applications; however, popular solvers suffer from slow convergence, especially when k is reasonably large. In this paper, we propose and analyze a novel multi-scale spectral decomposition method (MSEIGS), which first clusters the graph into smaller clusters whose spectral decomposition can be computed efficiently and independently. We show theoretically as well as empirically that the union of all cluster's subspaces has significant overlap with the dominant subspace of the original graph, provided that the graph is clustered appropriately. Thus, eigenvectors of the clusters serve as good initializations to a block Lanczos algorithm that is used to compute spectral decomposition of the original graph. We further use hierarchical clustering to speed up the computation and adopt a fast early termination strategy to compute quality approximations. Our method outperforms widely used solvers in terms of convergence speed and approximation quality. Furthermore, our method is naturally parallelizable and exhibits significant speedups in shared-memory parallel settings. For example, on a graph with more than 82 million nodes and 3.6 billion edges, MSEIGS takes less than 3 hours on a single-core machine while Randomized SVD takes more than 6 hours, to obtain a similar approximation of the top-50 eigenvectors. Using 16 cores, we can reduce this time to less than 40 minutes.


Presents a methodology for evaluating graphics recognition systems operating on images that contain straight lines, circles, circular arcs, and text blocks. It enables an empirical comparison of vectorization software packages and uses practical performance evaluation methods that can be applied to complete vectorization systems. The methodology includes a set of matching criteria for pairs of graphical entities, a set of performance evaluation metrics, and a benchmark for the evaluation of graphics recognition systems. The benchmark was tested on three systems. The results are reported and analyzed in the paper.


Emerging possibilities for creating and studying novel plasma regimes, e.g. relativistic plasmas and dense systems, in a controlled laboratory environment also require new modeling tools for such systems. This motivates theoretical studies of the kinetic theory governing the dynamics of plasmas for which both relativistic and quantum effects occur simultaneously. Here, we investigate relativistic corrections to the Pauli Hamiltonian in the context of a scalar kinetic theory for spin-1/2 quantum plasmas. In particular, we formulate a quantum kinetic theory for the collective motion of electrons that takes into account effects such as spin–orbit coupling and Zitterbewegung. We discuss the implications and possible applications of our findings.


Detection and localization of ground targets in the region between the transmitter and the receiver in bistatic radar is difficult due to strong interference from surface clutter and the direct transmitter signal. We have simulated fast-time (using channels of an array antenna and range bins) and slow-time (antenna channels and radar pulses) STAP (Space Time Adaptive Processing) and find that fast-time gives better interference suppression in this region. We also see that fast-time STAP is useful for all four cases of stationary/moving radar and stationary/moving target and that slow-time STAP with moving radar is useful for both stationary and moving target.


Starting from the assumption that creole languages present an opportunity for testing hypotheses on the evolution of complexity in language, we examine the number of markers used to construct relative clauses, more specifically in relativization on subjects. On the basis of a sample of 52 creole languages, we show that such languages more often than not have simply marked relative clause constructions, encoded by no more than one relativization marker. This typological result stands out as particularly significant if we view it against the background of non-creole languages, for which we have been able to identify cases with up to five relativization markers. Keywords: Relative clause; creole languages; language contact; language evolution


The purpose of this study was to investigate influential factors for women who decided to participate in the women-only fitness club, Curves, with a qualitative research method. The qualitative data was collected with the semi-structured interview and analyzed based on the grounded theory approach using the concepts of self-presentation and the sport/exercise identity theory. The results indicated that there were five influential factors for interviewees to participate in Curves, such as 1) fears of men's eyes toward them in a mixed fitness club, 2) disgust for sweaty smell and body odor of men in a mixed fitness club, 3) the image incongruity between them and typical participants' of mixed fitness club, 4) the all fixed exercise program in Curves, and 5) the necessary time of the exercise program, less than 30 minutes, in Curves. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.


Performance evaluations are critical for quantifying algorithmic advances in reinforcement learning. Recent reproducibility analyses have shown that reported performance results are often inconsistent and difficult to replicate. In this work, we argue that the inconsistency of performance stems from the use of flawed evaluation metrics. Taking a step towards ensuring that reported results are consistent, we propose a new comprehensive evaluation methodology for reinforcement learning algorithms that produces reliable measurements of performance both on a single environment and when aggregated across environments. We demonstrate this method by evaluating a broad class of reinforcement learning algorithms on standard benchmark tasks.


Extracted from text ... I
6 Management Today April 2005
Ken Blanchard is a management and leadership consultant,
the author of many books including the One Minute series and
an international speaker. He spoke at an Institute of International
Research conference in Johannesburg recently.
"When I talk about being a servant
leader in organisations, I'm not suggesting
you die for your people. But
you might want to listen to them once
in a while or praise them, encourage
them and help them win. But remember,
the servant aspect of leadership
only begins when vision, direction and
goals are clear. It emphasises that
leaders ..


The social and religious order in Morocco is still based on such values as the honour and good name of the family wherein premarital female sexuality is proscribed and an intact hymen is irrefutable evidence of a successful family upbringing. Using data from the 2006-2008 ECAF qualitative survey, this article shows that the combined effects of economic crisis (reducing young men's access to the labour market and their ability to support a family) and more widespread access to education (particularly for girls) have delayed age at marriage and encouraged the development of premarital sexuality. Unmarried people live out a continual tension between their emotional and sexual aspirations, and the need to observe the social and religious norms that hold extra-marital sexuality to be deviant. As sexual behaviour is increasingly perceived as an individual experience, so each young person engages in a sort of "cultural improvization" made possible because sexual behaviour is not directly observable and social control is weakening amid rapid social change. The practice of non-penetrative sex is an innovative "arrangement" between the genders that enables them to contravene the ban on premarital sexuality and yet comply with the key requirement of female virginity.


Abstract:
Dying Swans and Dragged Up Dames consists of an exhibition of 20 to 30 large photographs interrogating imagery and authenticity of dance photography as represented in expressions of agility, ability, age and gender.

The photographs which are parodies of iconic dance images, where the abilities and aesthetic pleasures of youthfulness on display are displaced by those of Mark Edward, overweight and in drag. Athleticism is replaced and displaced by age, with a body beyond its prime and therein lies the ruse: the tragic image of corporeal decline which highlight the temporality of the performing body. The parodic images were produced with a sense of queer play and campness, but the intention is not to subvert or disrupt the originals, the camp parody itself is a homage to the tenets of modern dance. Photography contains the memories of the originals, yet it also serves to document the evolution of bodies beyond their dancing age.

The photographs represent iconic images of dance from modern dance and traditional ballet, which are reinterpreted and 'queered'. The academic enterprise of queering is one which disrupts traditional thinking, and in terms of dance, this project disrupts representations of the pioneers of modern dance. Therefore, the images include dancers such as Moira Shearer, Martha Graham, Rudolf Nureyev, Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova.


Although rates of intergenerational mobility are the same in the United States and Europe today, attitudes toward redistribution, which should reflect those ratesat least in partdiffer substantially. An examination of the differences in mobility between the United States and France since the middle of the nineteenth century, based on data for both countries that permit a comparison between the socioeconomic status of fathers and that of sons throughout a period of thirty years, demonstrates that the United States was a considerably more mobile economy in the past, though such differences are far from apparent today.


Aims Targeting the stem cell properties of tumor-initiating cells is an avenue through which cancer treatment may be improved. Before this can be achieved, so-called 'cancer stem cell' (CSC) models must be developed and characterized in specific malignancies. Methods In this study, holoclone formation assays were used to characterise stem-like molecular signatures in prostate cancer (PCa) cells. Results LNCaP and PC3 parent cells were capable of responding to stem cell differentiation morphogen retinoic acid (RA), suggesting the presence of inherent stem-like properties. LNCaP cells, which represent early, androgen-responsive disease, formed holoclones after twenty six days. PC3 cells, which represent advanced, metastatic, castration-resistant disease, formed holoclones after only six days. Holoclones displayed decreased expression of RA-genes, suggesting a more immature, less differentiated phenotype. Gene and microRNA arrays demonstrated that holoclones downregulated a number of stem cell differentiation regulators while displaying enhanced regulation of G2 to M transition and the mitotic spindle checkpoint components of the cell cycle. PC3 holoclones displayed pronounced downregulation of known regulators of osteoblast differentiation from mesenchymal stem cells and Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition. Conclusions Our results suggest that some PCa cells retain the ability to transition to a more immature state in which differentiation and metastatic mechanisms are suppressed. The highlighting of osteoblast differentiation regulators in this mechanism is particularly notable, considering the propensity of PCa to metastasise to bone.


This study examines culture and personality differences in student reports of the likelihood that they would post various types of information on their Facebook profiles. As predicted those high on conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability proved significantly less likely to report posting problematic content (e.g., substance abuse, sexual content) on their profile. Those who scored high on Compulsive Internet Use indicated a greater likelihood to post such profile information. Consistent with our expectations, our cross-cultural analysis revealed that US students were more inclined than German students to post problematic information to their Facebook site. Implications of these results and recommendations for future research are discussed.


Canadian cinema comprises a corpus of work that is not easily unified by a recognizable national style or a singular mode of production. The unruliness in the identity of Canadian cinema, including the imprecise distinction between popular and art cinema, has contributed to the ongoing difficulty of attaching critical definitions to it. This dissertation argues that the films made between 1972 and 1992, during the burgeoning discourse on Canada as a multicultural nation, represent narratives of difference. In the cinema of this period, anxieties around sexuality, immigrant identity and cultural imperialism are highlighted. A selection of films emblematic of the conflict between multiculturalism and popular culture in Canada have been selected for analysis in this thesis. The critical tensions in these films are examined by using melodrama as an analytic method. As a mode of expression in film, literature, stage productions and television, melodrama is a discourse of cultural conflict and contradiction. It also straddles the distinction between popular and art cinema. As a film and cultural theory, and as a critical method of analysis, therefore, melodrama illuminates Canadian cinema and exposes it as an exemplary site for constructing national subjectivity. Melodrama functions as an intervention into the various models of Canadian subjectivity that have been produced in film spectatorship and theorized in film criticism.


Flowing across his pages, the Mississippi River inextricably winds itself through Mark Twain's canon. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that my image of Clemens, my Mark Twain, is as a personification of his beloved river. Twain draws his readers to the water's edge, seduces readers to stare into his depths, and reflects the achievements and failings of humanity. Furthermore, like the Mississippi River, Twain embeds himself in the American psyche.


Introduction D URING the typical 30-s microgravity flight maneuvers of the NASA KC-135 aircraft, it is essential that pitch and power requirements are strictly adhered to in order to provide a laboratory space within an aircraft that is free of inertial accelerations. Thrust must precisely offset drag, which at first diminishes, then increases with passage through the apex of the parabola. During the maneuver, the pitch angle of the aircraft changes from approximately +45 deg to a -45 deg, causing a torque at every station except at the aircraft's center of mass.


In Videodisc Veritas: Interactive Video at Harvard Law School Two law students are watching a drug bust on a TV monitor. A police officer holds a gun on a woman who's screaming. "You can't hold me! I don't even live here!" Suddenly, the TV screen freezes when one of the students punches a key on an adjoining computer to object to the police officer's action. The computer's screen then springs to life with text that reads: "The officer's detention of the woman is legal. The police need not make a particular determination of any kind in order to justify the detention." After they read a screenful of text elaborating on the rule governing detention, a keypress returns students to the video drug bust. This is interactive video, adapting the action and realism of a drug bust to teach the Constitutional implications of search and seizure. Law students traditionally learn the law of search and seizure and the Fourth Amendment in a large lecture hall dominated by a professor of criminal law. The search-and-seizure videodisc, a friendly, graphic electronic tutor that is also informative, challenging and entertaining, has begun to supplement many criminal-law lectures. Search and Seizure is the latest title in the growing library of videodiscs for law students and practicing lawyers. Now being used to over 70 law schools and increasing number of law firms, most of the lessons are produced by the Harvard Law School Interactive Video Project, while others are in production at Wake Forest and Stanford law schools. Videodiscs on the law are distributed commercially by Veralex, an affiliate of the Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company in Rochester, N.Y. In the age of information technology, the law remains faithful to the printed word, harnessing the computer primarily for its prodigious word processing and database capabilities. Because print-bound lawyers lack experience with computer-generated graphics and other visual information which they consider frivolous, interactive video in legal education has been slower to develop than in such inherently visual disciplines as medicine, the sciences, and mathematics. If words are to lawyers as blueprints are to architects, how, then, can the medium of interactive video contribute to legal educational and training? "This stuff teaches skills," explains attorney Tim Hallahan, founder to the Harvard Law School Interactive Video Project and now videodisc producer for Stanford Law School. "Most of what is taught in law school and outside is the substance of law: what is negligence, what is medical malpractice, what is burglary? You can read about them, you can hear a lecture on them, but to learn how to conduct a trial, argue a motion, negotiate a settlement or interview a client, requires seeing others performing those skills, and then you have to do it yourself. What we're trying to do with [interactive video] is provide the next best thing to doing it yourself." Introducing Interactive Video Introducing interactive video at Harvard Law School has been a six-year process. The Harvard Law School Interactive Video Project evolved from a visionary single lawyer (Hallahan) experimenting with interactive videotape, to a small team of creative professionals and students producing for commercial distribution. The first eight lessons pressed to videodisc taught basic evidence by asking students to place themselves in the courtroom and press a key to raise an objection. A judge appeared on the video screen and asked, "What is the basic of your objection, counsel?" whereupon the computer screen offered several choices, followed by detailed explanations of both the correct and incorrect answers. At the end of the lesson, students have the opportunity to view missed objections. Recently, the relevant Federal Rules of Evidence were added in hypertext to further enhance the lessons. New lessons employ new design configurations to compare negotiation strategies, teach client interviewing skills, and modify a search warrant. …