Women's Fashion Accessories examines the textual and visual representation of accessories in Iberian and Latin American cultural contexts ranging from the 1830s to the early 1900s. Drawing from gender studies, social anthropology, and cultural theory, I demonstrate how items of dress produced a symbolic arena in which cultural meanings and values were transformed and reshaped at both national and transnational levels. During this period, accessories reveal entire networks of negotiations and strategies that often involved significant issues of gender, race, class, and national identity on both sides of the Atlantic. Fashion objects were also metaphorical items in which the meaning of "modernity" in a peripheral context was negotiated, as well as a mechanism to debate the political and cultural approaches that would "modernize" Spain and postcolonial Latin America. This dissertation focuses on three essential pillars: 1) nationalism and the birth of Spanish-American nation-states, 2) the dissemination of journalistic and literary culture, and 3) the emergence of a fashion industry linked to consumption and economic growth. Of principal importance, middle-class women became active participants in the economy and expressed themselves through the consumption of certain fashionable items. I analyze these phenomena in Spain and Latin America, as well as their complex entry into modernity, by tracing the transnational circulation of accessories. Drawing from an interdisciplinary theoretical approach that connects a variety of disciplines in the humanities, my dissertation expands on recent debates in fashion studies, particularly those concerning clothing's role in the construction of modernity and reconfiguration of nineteenth-century gender and social roles. In the first chapter, I discuss how accessories designed in Paris helped articulate the evolving idea of "modernity" and reinforced its artistic expression. The second chapter covers Spanish mantillas and Argentine peinetones, both of which were employed to identify and polarize the ideological gap between political groups. In subsequent chapters, I consider accessories of Asian origins––Spanish mantones de Manila and Mexican rebozos––in relation to issues of national identity, race, and social class. Finally, I analyze the role of corsets within the changing position of femininity and female participation in the public sphere.


Presented here in a new and complete translation is the Japanese classic Okagami, an historical talc that mirrors a man's life and the times in which he lived. Dating from the late eleventh or early twelfth century, it focuses on Fujiwara Michinaga, the leading political figure in the great family that dominated the court during most of the Helan period. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


The use of mechanochemistry to prepare catalytic materials is of significant interest; it offers an environmentally beneficial, solvent-free, route and produces highly complex structures of mixed amorphous and crystalline phases. This study reports on the effect of milling atmosphere, either air or argon, on mechanochemically prepared LaMnO3 and the catalytic performance towards N2O decomposition (deN2O). In this work, high energy resolution fluorescence detection (HERFD), X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES), X-ray emission, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to probe the electronic structural properties of the mechanochemically prepared materials. Moreover, in situ studies using near ambient pressure (NAP)-XPS, to follow the materials during catalysis, and high pressure energy dispersive EXAFS studies, to mimic the preparation conditions, have also been performed. The studies show that there are clear differences between the air and argon milled samples, with the most pronounced changes observed using NAP-XPS. The XPS results find increased levels of active adsorbed oxygen species, linked to the presence of surface oxide vacancies, for the sample prepared in argon. Furthermore, the argon milled LaMnO3 shows improved catalytic activity towards deN2O at lower temperatures compared to the air milled and sol-gel synthesised LaMnO3. Assessing this improved catalytic behaviour during deN2O of argon milled LaMnO3 by in situ NAP-XPS suggests increased interaction of N2O at room temperature within the O 1s region. This study further demonstrates the complexity of mechanochemically prepared materials and through careful choice of characterisation methods how their properties can be understood.


This article focuses on the longitudinal evaluative strategies used in the development of a new teaching approach for a university course with high failure rates. The subject is compulsory for all first year engineering students at our university. The evaluation has been conducted as part of a process of developmental action research, and has focused on the cognitive and implementation theories represented in the course's instructional approach. It has been based on qualitative focus group, interview and questionnaire analyses, and quantitative pre-experimental, predictive and quasi-experimental studies. The research has been conducted over a twenty five year period to validate the theory on which teaching has been based, to establish effects of the intervention and to identify ongoing needs for the type of instruction offered in the course. Based on improvement in both spatial ability and pass rates, the materials used in the course have been published in workbook form.


A constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) is a problem to find an assignment that satisfies given constraints. An interesting approach to CSP is a repair-based method that first generates an initial assignment, then repairs it by minimizing the number of conflicts. Min-conflicts hill climbing (MCHC) and GSAT are typical examples of this approach. A serious problem with this approach is that it is sometimes trapped by local minima. This makes it difficult to use repair-based methods for solving problems with many local minima.

We propose a new procedure, EFLOP, for escaping from local minima. EFLOP changes the values of mutually dependent variables by propagating changes through satisfied constraints. We can greatly improve the performance of repair-based methods by combining them with EFLOP.

We tested EFLOP with graph colorability problems, randomly generated binary CSPs and propositional satisfiability problems. EFLOP improved the performance of MCHC and GSAT for all experiments and was more efficient for large and difficult problems.


Popkin, Jeremy D., ed. Media and Revolution. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995. 256 pp. $29.95. The pairing of the words "media" and "revolution" in a book title is exciting for those of us who ponder the political effects of mass communication. What better test is there of the media's power to threaten authorities, as the discontented dream and the satisfied feat, than their presence in the avant garde of attempts to upheave the political, social and economic order? As long as journalism history in the United States limited itself to occurrences on this continent, there was only one true revolution available to study (although the word "revolution" has been applied to everything from the ascension of Andrew Jackson to the arrival of the World Wide Web). And ours was an odd revolution at that, notably short on social and economic upheaval. Jeremy Popkin reports that some sociologists lately have even taken, rather harshly in my view, to excluding our expulsion of the Redcoats from their lists of great global revolutions. Two of the three journalism historians represented in this collection confine themselves to matters American (Owen Johnson, who writes about Czechoslovakia, is the exception). However, nine of the other ten contributors belong to a discipline more used to crossing borders--history--and eight of these historians find their revolutions overseas. The other contributor, a literature professor, is French and writes about events in 1789. This book, consequently, broadens considerably the material available to us as we attempt to establish the role of media in revolutions. As I have noted (rather wistfully since I have my moments of discontent), the absence of news has often proven more destabilizing than its presence, a fact which tends to undercut the reputation of news organs as rabble rousers. The storming of the Bastille in July 1789, after all, was spurred by false rumors, spread by word of mouth, and then was not even mentioned in the next issue of the Gazette de France. In succeeding weeks, the lack of reliable sources of information in the news-starved provinces contributed to similarly false and terrifying rumors-the "Great Fear"--which helped the French Revolution spread. This book will do little to restore the news media's reputation in revolutionary circles. "There have been at least four revolutionary periods in the history of Czechoslovakia," writes Johnson. "In none of them did the mass media play a dominant role. …


We consider an economy under a fixed exchange rate system, but with bounds (a minimum level or a band) on the real exchange rate. The international price of the tradable good is characterized by the continuous arrival of shocks that change its level. In a model with microfoundations, we investigate the effects of targeting the real exchange rate through nominal exchange rate changes that preclude the real exchange from trespassing the imposed bounds. A stochastic general equilibrium model with two goods and fixed non-tradable goods price level is developed. We analyze the cases in which a lower bound or a band on the real exchange rate is introduced. The general conclusion is that when bounds are established, then welfare effects can be expected, which are generated at the expense of the levels of consumption that go in the opposite direction than what the policy intended. This short-run effect is present even in the case the targeting policy is never exercised. This result is similar to the one we find in the target zones literature, in the sense that just the existence of this tolerance band changes the behavior of the economy. An interesting result is that, in the case in which home goods prices are fixed, the imposition of the band on the real exchange rate does not change its behavior within the band. However, this result is not true of other real variables in the economy. In other words, although the targeted variable within the band behaves identically to the case in which there are no bounds, the rest of the real variables in the economy behave differently, even if the targeted variable remains within the band and the escape clause is not triggered.


Using large, geographically representative surveys from the US and UK, we document variation in the percentage of tasks workers can do from home. We highlight three dimensions of heterogeneity that have previously been neglected. First, the share of tasks that can be done from home varies considerably both across as well as within occupations and industries. The distribution of the share of tasks that can be done from home within occupations, industries, and occupation-industry pairs is systematic and remarkably consistent across countries and survey waves. Second, as the pandemic has progressed, the share of workers who can do all tasks from home has increased most in those occupations in which the pre-existing share was already high. Third, even within occupations and industries, we find that women can do fewer tasks from home. Using machine-learning methods, we extend our working-from-home measure to all disaggregated occupation-industry pairs. The measure we present in this paper is a critical input for models considering the possibility to work from home, including models used to assess the impact of the pandemic or design policies targeted at reopening the economy.


The rhetoric of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member spokespersons at their meetings and through the press seems directed towards some form of economic rationalisation of production behaviour of member countries. Though the body of evidence from macroeconomists, in investigating OPEC market structure, is inconclusive in differentiating between cartel and competitive behaviour, their evidence does support strong "cooperation" among OPEC members. This paper investigates OPEC market efficiency rather than market structure. The efficient markets hypothesis at the weak-form level is tested. Regression analysis of level series weekly prices is also undertaken. The study demonstrates that conditions of weak-form efficiency, specifically in rational expectations and price error orthogonality, are violated in OPEC, World (All Countries) and US oil market prices. In addition, using regression and causality analysis it is evident that the driving forces of oil prices emanate from the OPEC market. This suggests that OPEC may manipulate oil supply (and therefore prices) through pre-agreed production levels.


T-T-cell interactions involved in delayed hypersensitivity (DH) response have been studied by employing delayed foot pad assay to methylated human serum albumin in C57BL/6J mice. The DH response, one of the T-cell manifestations of cell-mediated immune response is suppressively regulated by T cells and such observation was based on studies of age-associated kinetics of foot pad reaction and effects of cell transfer and adult thymectomy on developing DH response. These suppressively regulatory T cells in DH have a life span of less than 4 wk and a constant derivation from the thymus is required. Such cells are numerous in the young mouse thymus and few in the spleen and thymus of old mice. On the one hand, the presence of a long-lived effector T- cell population was suggested in DH. These cells are numerous in the spleen and are low responders to phytohemagglutinin in vitro. It is assumed that these suppressive T cells interact with antigen-reactive cells at their proliferating stage by recognition of the iodiotypic difference through surface receptors. As in the case of graft-vs.-host and humoral response in vivo, three different subsets of immune competent cells participate in the DH response. These cells consist of one specifically antigen-reactive T cell, one suppressive regulatory T cell, and one bone marrow-derived cell, a macrophage that responds to a chemical mediator from sensitized effector T cells and that develops a DH skin lesion nonspecifically.


In recent decades, sustainable tourism has emerged as an alternative to traditional mass tourism approaches to tourism development, as the latter has struggled to cope with many detrimental impacts to the socio-cultural and natural environments and, indirectly, the broader tourism economy. Tourism is now embracing the principles of sustainability to safeguard and conserve the very resources on which it depends. Sustainable tourism development recognises the importance of the cultural and ecological resources of the local community, which are regarded as essential to achieving better socio-cultural and economic results. The available studies of socio-cultural impacts are mainly based on a Western perspective and there is a dearth of information about Islamic destinations from the socio-cultural angle. The aim of this research is to assess the potential for the development of culturally sustainable tourism in Kuwait, which fills a gap in knowledge. Although Islamic teaching and principles encourage people to travel as well as to be hospitable to guests, doubt exists that the development of tourism will only bring negative socio-cultural impacts for host communities. Islamic destinations have a lifestyle connected with Islamic traditions and cultural values that are often in conflict with the needs of tourism development and leisure activities, which are mainly geared to Western culture. However, tourism development is an effective tool of economic diversification for many Islamic countries, especially in oil-dependent economies, as it can generate substantial revenues through foreign exchange earnings and thereby enable countries to withstand economic fluctuations created by non-renewable crude oil resources. Kuwait is an example of an Islamic destination that depends on oil as the main source of income and it has a unique socio-cultural context that revolves around customs and traditions originating from Islamic religion and tribal roots. Therefore, a culturally sustainable tourism policy from an Islamic point of view, closely aligned to the socio-culture of the countries involved, is likely to be preferable to the host community. This study used a qualitative approach to explore the potential for the development of culturally sustainable tourism in Kuwait. The primary data were collected through face-to face semi-structured interviews. The findings illustrate that there is a potential for tourism development in Kuwait as there is acceptance of and potential for different types of tourism such as family, business and cultural tourism. Enthusiasm for tourism development relates to the potential to diversify the Kuwaiti economy and to create new jobs for locals, as well as to enhance the Kuwait image nationally and internationally. Additionally, analysis of the findings shows there is some enthusiasm for tourism development in Kuwait if it is appropriately tailored to the Kuwaiti socio-cultural context and if the government supports it. Unfortunately, the findings highlight that the Kuwaiti government attitude is negative generally; tourism is not prioritised, and legislation has not been developed to support tourism development. Furthermore, issues such as bureaucracy, corruption and the fear of the local community add more barriers to the potential for tourism to flourish in Kuwait. The study shows that there is potential for tourism development in terms of identifiable products and resources but the barriers to development outweigh the opportunities, with a key problem being indifference on the part of government. It is hoped that this study will help the Kuwaiti government and tourism stakeholders to rethink its approach to tourism as one of the diversification options; recommendations for practice are offered.


Partial agonist therapies for the treatment of nicotine addiction and dependence depend on both agonistic and antagonistic effects of the ligands, and side effects associated with other nAChRs greatly limit the efficacy of nicotinic partial agonists. We evaluated the in vitro pharmacological properties of four partial agonists, two current smoking cessation drugs, varenicline and cytisine, and two novel bispidine compounds, BPC and BMSP, by using defined nAChR subtypes expressed in Xenopus laevis oocytes and human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Similar to varenicline and cytisine, BPC and BMSP are partial agonists of α4β2 nAChRs, although BMSP produced very little activation of these receptors. Unlike varenicline and cytisine, BPC and BMSP showed desired low activity. BPC produced mecamylamine-sensitive steady-state activation of α4* receptors that was not evident with BMSP. We evaluated the modulation of α4*- and α7-mediated responses in rat lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) neurons and hippocampal stratum radiatum (SR) interneurons, respectively. The LGN neurons were sensitive to a very low concentration of varenicline, and the SR interneuron responses were also sensitive to varenicline at a submicromolar concentration. Although 300 nM BPC strongly inhibited the ACh-evoked responses of LGN neurons, it did not inhibit the α7 currents of SR interneurons. Similar results were observed with 300 nM BMSP. Additionally, the bispidine compounds were efficacious in the mouse tail suspension test, demonstrating that they affect receptors in the brain when delivered systemically. Our data indicate that BPC and BMSP are promising α4β2* partial agonists for pharmacotherapeutics.


Vocabulary is one of the important points of English learning. It is one of the language components and as a base of language. Hence, vocabulary building should be given to children. Teaching English vocabulary to young learners is not easy. Teacher must have many ideas. The introduction of the review of vocabulary items should be carried by means of instructional media (Wulandari: 2003)
The purpose of the study is to know the effectiveness of using different media to teach vocabulary to young learners. This research compares both the implementation of visual teaching media and audio teaching media.
The population of this research was all fifth year students of elementary school in SD Negeri Temas 1 and 2 Batu which consist one class from SD Negeri Temas 1 Batu and one class from SD Negeri Temas 2 Batu. This study is an experimental method because it was intended to know the better teaching
media to teach vocabulary to young learner. The writer divided them into two groups and both were experimental groups. The instrument of this study was vocabulary test using multiple choices. To find out whether or not there is significant difference between two groups, in the case of vocabulary achievement, ANOVA formula was used. The result of ANOVA computation, showed that the value of Significant was .000 and this value is lower than .050. It means that the alternative hypothesis was accepted. In other words, it can be stated that there was a significant difference score of using audio teaching media and visual teaching media in increasing the students' vocabulary mastery. Based on the result of two groups post test, mean score of using visual media is 76.52 and mean score of using audio media is 68.91. It can be concluded that teaching vocabulary using visual media is more effective than using audio media for the students especially for the fifth grade of elementary school. Taking into account of children's characteristics, such as like playing, easy remember and easy to forget, the researcher suggests that the English for Young Learners' teacher has to use teaching media to guide students' mindset. Therefore, the students will not think something in abstract. They will have an experience the real concept.


Based on gender, age, education level, online shopping, economic state, and level of development, this thesis discusses the kinds of electronic communication devices which are used in Arabic countries. Also, the internet, cellphone usage, and how electronic communication technology effect individual's lives in Arabic countries will be studied. As a developing Arabic country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is seeking to use the best methods of digital education. Spending on education technology in the UAE is one of the highest in the world. The UAE is constantly looking to better the educational system. The economy in UAE has developed into a modern state. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is another an Arab Kingdom in the Middle East. This research discusses the importance of the information and communication sectors in Jordan. These sectors, as well as telecommunications and technology, business banking, the internet and e-commerce solutions, online shopping, and communication centers are the fastest growing areas in Jordan. Finally, Saudi Arabia has the highest reserves of national oil in the world. Recently, Saudi Arabia has developed rapidly because of its oil exports, so quality of life for citizens has improved. The government has provided an inexpensive distribution of electrical power, which helps advance internet use. Also, the improvement of the living level, and the internet and cellular phones have entered into people's lives which bring more convenience to communicate in Saudi Arabia, especially in education.


Sarcasm is a sophisticated form of speech act widely used in online communities. Automatic recognition of sarcasm is, however, a novel task. Sarcasm recognition could contribute to the performance of review summarization and ranking systems. This paper presents SASI, a novel Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification that recognizes sarcastic sentences in product reviews. SASI has two stages: semi-supervised pattern acquisition, and sarcasm classification. We experimented on a data set of about 66000 Amazon reviews for various books and products. Using a gold standard in which each sentence was tagged by 3 annotators, we obtained precision of 77% and recall of 83.1% for identifying sarcastic sentences. We found some strong features that characterize sarcastic utterances. However, a combination of more subtle pattern-based features proved more promising in identifying the various facets of sarcasm. We also speculate on the motivation for using sarcasm in online communities and social networks.


Abstract. We identified a common and relatively frequent glitch in the light transmittance/reflectance measurement during thermal-optical analysis in the Sunset Laboratory bench top thermal-optical analyzer models. In the instrument studied, the glitch is observed for one in three punch analyses when using the default analysis parameters. The occurrence of this glitch can invalidate the split point and thus the OC and EC fractions and absolute quantities reported. The glitch was observed in data from at least three independent laboratories using different thermal protocols. We describe this glitch as a "discontinuity" (rapid increase or decrease occurring over a few seconds) in the laser transmittance or reflectance which happens relatively frequently and whose behaviour varies in amplitude, timing and direction. We use over 2,200 filter-punch analyses to expose the factors that contribute to the risk of such a discontinuity occurring. We demonstrate that these discontinuities are due to the movement of filter punches within the instrument, and can therefore be minimized by decreasing the blower speed of the instrument and, if possible, by ensuring a tighter fit of the filter punch in its holder (by testing different spoons). The decrease in blower speed has a negligible effect on the measured temperature program during analysis and is the single most effective way to reduce the risk of discontinuity occurrence. We recommend these modifications for all Sunset instruments.


The DNA bricks method exploits self-assembly of short DNA fragments to produce custom three-dimensional objects with subnanometer precision. In contrast to DNA origami, the DNA brick method permits a variety of different structures to be realized using the same library of DNA strands. As a consequence of their design, however, assembled DNA brick structures have fewer interhelical connections in comparison to equivalent DNA origami structures. Although the overall shape of the DNA brick objects has been characterized and found to conform to the features of the target designs, the microscopic properties of DNA brick objects remain yet to be determined. Here, we use the all-atom molecular dynamics method to directly compare the structure, mechanical properties and ionic conductivity of DNA brick and DNA origami structures different only by internal connectivity of their consistituent DNA strands. In comparison to equivalent DNA origami structures, the DNA brick structures are found to be less rigid and less dense and have a larger cross-section area normal to the DNA helix direction. At the microscopic level, the junction in the DNA brick structures are found to be right-handed, similar to the structure of individual Holliday junctions (HJ) in solution, which contrasts with the left-handed structure of HJ in DNA origami. Subject to external electric field, a DNA brick plate is more leaky to ions than an equivalent DNA origami plate because of its lower density and larger cross-section area. Overall, our results indicate that the structures produced by the DNA brick method are fairly similar in their overall appearance to those created by the DNA origami method but are more compliant when subject to external forces, which likely is a consequence of their single crossover design.


The age-old question "Why is the sky blue?" begins a quest through science, history, and art, from Aristotle and Newton through Goethe and Einstein. Children ask, "Why is the sky blue?" but the question also puzzled Plato, Leonardo, and even Newton, who unlocked so many other secrets. The search for an answer continued for centuries; in 1862 Sir John Herschel listed the colour and polarisation of sky light as "the two great standing enigmas of meteorology." In Sky in a Bottle, Peter Pesic takes us on a quest to the heart of this mystery, tracing the various attempts of science, history, and art to solve it. He begins with the scholars of the ancient world and continues through the natural philosophers of the Enlightenment, the empiricists of the Scientific Revolution, and beyond. The cast of characters includes Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Kepler, Descartes, Euler, Saussure, Goethe, Rayleigh, and Einstein; but the protagonist is the question itself, and the story tells how we have tried to answer it. Pesic's odyssey introduces us to central ideas of chemistry, optics, and atomic physics. He describes the polarisation of light, Rayleigh scattering, and connections between the appearance of the sky and Avogadro's number. He discusses changing representations of the sky in art, from new styles of painting to new pigments that created new colours for paint. He considers what the sky's night-time brightness might tell us about the size and density of the universe. And Pesic asks another, daring, question: Can we put the sky in a bottle? Can we recreate and understand its blueness here on earth? This puzzle, he says, opens larger perspectives; questions of the colour and brightness of the sky touch the secrets of matter and light, the scope of the universe in space and time, the destiny of the earth, and deep human feelings.


The 3rd heart sound (S3) is normally heard during auscultation of younger individuals, but it is also common in many patients with heart failure. Compared to the 1st and 2nd  heart sounds, S3 has low amplitude and low frequency content, making it hard to detect (both manually for the physician and automatically by a detection algorithm). We present an algorithm based on a recurrence time statistic which is sensitive to changes in a reconstructed state space, particularly for detection of transitions with very low energy. Heart sound signals from ten children were used in this study. Most S3 occurrences were detected (98%), but the amount of false extra detections was rather high (7% of the heart cycles). In conclusion, the method seems capable of detecting S3 with high accuracy and robustness


The ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines are reader-friendly introductions to the most important fields of knowledge in the liberal arts. Written by leading scholars for both students and the general public, they will be appreciated by anyone desiring a reliable and informative tour of important subject matter. Each title offers an historical overview of a particular discipline, explains the central ideas of each subject, and evaluates the works of thinkers whose ideas have shaped our world. They will aid students seeking to make better decisions about their course of study as well as general readers who wish to supplement their education. All who treasure the world of ideas and liberal learning will be motivated by these original and stimulating presentations.


This chapter examines youth media from a Scandinavian perspective, based on the results of a recent study about learning paths among young filmmakers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We deal specifically with how the film medium as a knowledge domain, or a field of practice, is represented through the discourses of young Scandinavian filmmakers. The chapter introduces three filmmakers and their submitted films. The analysis – which uses a social semiotic approach to communication and meaning making – is focused on their enclosed descriptions of a scene they felt satisfied with and their motivations for highlighting that specific scene. The aspects of the scene they point out are seen as representations of the film medium as a knowledge domain, based on certain assumptions about how the medium works and what can be regarded as marks of quality within the different aspects of filmmaking they focus on. As a background, a Scandinavian context for youth filmmaking is presented briefly.


Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the Western world and myocardial infarction is one of the primary facets of this disease. The limited natural self‐renewal of cardiac muscle following injury and restricted supply of heart transplants has encouraged researchers to investigate other means to stimulate regeneration of damaged myocardium. The plasticity of stem cells toward multiple lineages offers the potential to repair the heart following injury. Embryonic stem cells have been extensively studied for their ability to differentiate into early cardiomyocytes, however, the pathway has only been partially defined and inadequate efficiency limits their clinical applicability. Some studies have shown cardiomyogenesis from adult mesenchymal stem cells, from both bone marrow and adipose tissue, but their differentiation pathway remains poorly detailed and these results remain controversial. Despite promising results using stem cells in animal models of cardiac injury, the driving mechanisms behind their differentiation down a cardiomyogenic pathway have yet to be determined. Currently, there is a paucity of information regarding cardiomyogenesis on the systemic level. Stem cell differentiation results from multiple signaling parameters operating in a tightly regulated spatiotemporal pattern. Investigating this phenomenon from a systems biology perspective could unveil the abstruse mechanisms controlling cardiomyogenesis that would otherwise require extensive in vitro testing. WIREs Syst Biol Med 2011 3 666–680 DOI: 10.1002/wsbm.141


The LETR set out many recommendations and findings for legal education, such as the professional competencies required for legal practice, derived from Epstein and Hundert's Professional Competencies in Medicine. In response to this, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) published a Statement of Solicitor Competence, underpinned by a Statement of Legal Knowledge. Such competencies are to be assessed by way of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), which is intended to test both a candidate's legal knowledge (SQE 1) and their legal skills (SQE 2).
In addition, Recommendation 15 of the LETR report stated that "arrangements for periods of supervised practice should also be reviewed to remove unnecessary restrictions on training environments and organisations and to facilitate additional opportunities for qualification". Following the spirit of this recommendation, the SRA has confirmed that in future, work experience undertaken outside of a traditional training contract, including in a student law clinic, will count towards the required period of qualifying work experience (QWE).
This decision will of course be of interest to law schools, particularly those that already have some form of clinical programme where there is the potential for students to develop solicitor competences. However, a consideration must be made of the challenges that law schools may face if they choose to engage in QWE; and what practical considerations will they need to bear in mind if they decide to certify that the student has had the opportunity to develop the solicitor competences. Legal clinics, focused on the practical application of the law to real life legal problems, potentially present an opportunity for students to begin to develop their solicitor competences. However, the extent to which such competences are developed, and the consequences of signing off on QWE require further exploration.
Based on the presenters' experiences in a live client legal clinic, this paper will explore whether law clinics can offer QWE and the practicalities which will have to be considered if law schools wish to do so.


More and more, the ability to innovate can be considered as an explanatory factor in determining the long-term potential of firms to be competitive. Therefore, it is of increasing importance to understand the critical success factors behind notably radical product innovations. The present paper explores the yields and results in terms of a series of competitiveness indicators that domestic and foreign firms in the Basque Country obtain from technological collaboration practices. In particular, the study seeks to assess differences in the way these two groups of firms organize their technological partnerships (in terms of the geographical spread of partners with whom they cooperate and the purposes for which they deploy collaboration: for commercial or science/knowledge generation), and the comparative differences that stem from their respective practices. The study uses firm level data from the Euskadi Innovation Survey 2011, for firms located in the Basque Country. The paper finds that (a) technological collaborations comprising different types of partners have the greatest positive impact on innovation novelty, and (b) when looking at the firm's nationality, collaboration strategies developed by foreign firms have a higher impact on achieving novel innovation. We posit that the higher degree of product innovation we observe among foreign firms – as opposed to domestic firms in the Basque Country – relies on their ability to benefit from both inter-regional partnerships and commercial-based networks for the sake of innovation purposes.


Edmund V. Cowdry's Problems of Ageing (1939), the first U.S. handbook in gerontology, spurred efforts to systematize and communicate data and hypotheses in a "discouragingly difficult field," as one of the volume's contributors put it. Researchers, educators, and practitioners subsequently published handbooks of aging to share basic concepts, norms, and metaphors—and eventually to construct theories.
 Compared to theoretical constructs that animate African American studies, paradigms that inform inquiries into sex and gender, and queer theory-building, research on aging is sustained by few evidence-based, methodologically robust, heuristic theories. No single construct yet seizes the gerontological imagination. Analyzing notable handbooks reveals that the modern history of ever-emerging gerontological theory building went through three phases.
 First, attempts to formulate Big Theories of Aging resulted in more disappointments than scientific advances. In the second phase, researchers on aging set more modest aims, often giving priority to methodological innovation, but failed to promote consilience in a data-rich, theory-poor arena. Psychological theories, pertaining to lifespan development, merit special attention in the third phase, because they proved useful to biomedical and social scientists doing research on aging.


Transport nneans movement of people or goods from one point
to another, or where the value might be greater. Transportation is a
derived demand which bridges the gap between two points.
Whatever activities to be performed will involve transportation. In
economic world, transport acts as a back bone whereby without it the
economic activities will be paralysed. As in an airline company ,other
than the aircraft operation, transportation is crucial to bring the crew to
and from the airport punctually to avoid any delay in aircraft departure.
This study will focus on the transport provision for both cabin crew
and technical crew, and also the role of Transport Department.
MAS will be moving its flying operation to KLIA Sepang by 1st
January 1998. Therefore, transport provision for the crew will be
affected because the base and the coverage have changed. Even
the existence of the MAS Transport Department is in uncertainty.
This study is conducted as a means to evaluate the importance of
providing transport service for the crew. Besides that, it will also look
at some proposed options regarding transport operations when move
to KLIA Sepang which is prepared by Transport Services Department.
Analysis is done to find out which option is the best to be adopted.


Data warehousing is an important topic that is of interest to both the industry and the knowledge engineering research communities. Both data mining and data warehousing technologies have similar objectives and can potentially benefit from each others methods to facilitate knowledge discovery.Improving Knowledge Discovery through the Integration of Data Mining Techniques provides insight concerning the integration of data mining and data warehousing for enhancing the knowledge discovery process. Decision makers, academicians, researchers, advanced-level students, technology developers, and business intelligence professionals will find this book useful in furthering their research exposure to relevant topics in knowledge discovery.


With the advent of virtualization and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), the broader scientific computing community is considering the use of clouds for their technical computing needs. This is due to the relative scalability, ease of use, advanced user environment customization abilities clouds provide, as well as many novel computing paradigms available for data-intensive applications. However, there is concern about a performance gap that exists between the performance of IaaS when compared to typical high performance computing (HPC) resources, which could limit the applicability of IaaS for many potential scientific users. Most recently, general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs or GPUs) have become commonplace within high performance computing. We look to bridge the gap between supercomputing and clouds by providing GPU-enabled virtual machines (VMs) and investigating their feasibility for advanced scientific computation. Specifically, the Xen hypervisor is utilized to leverage specialized hardware-assisted I/O virtualization and PCI passthrough in order to provide advanced HPC-centric Nvidia GPUs directly in guest VMs. This methodology is evaluated by measuring the performance of two Nvidia Tesla GPUs within Xen VMs and comparing to bare-metal hardware. Results show PCI passthrough of GPUs within virtual machines is a viable use case for many scientific computing workflows, and could help support high performance cloud infrastructure in the near future.


This thesis consists of four papers, presented in Chapters 2-5, on the topics of derivatives pricing and importance sampling for stochastic processes.In the first paper a model for the evolution of the forward density of the future value of an asset is proposed. The model is constructed with the aim of being both simple and realistic, and avoid the need for frequent re-calibration. The model is calibrated to liquid options on the S\&P 500 index and an empirical study illustrates that the model provides a good fit to option price data.In the last three papers of this thesis efficient importance sampling algorithms are designed for computing rare-event probabilities in the setting of stochastic processes. The algorithms are based on subsolutions of partial differential equations of Hamilton-Jacobi type and the construction of appropriate subsolutions is facilitated by a minmax representation involving the \mane potential.In the second paper, a general framework is provided for the case of one-dimensional diffusions driven by Brownian motion. An analytical formula for the \mane potential is provided and the performance of the algorithm is analyzed in detail for geometric Brownian motion and for the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross process. Depending on the choice of the parameters of the models, the importance sampling algorithm is either proven to be asymptotically optimal or its good performance is demonstrated in numerical investigations.The third paper extends the results from the previous paper to the setting of high-dimensional stochastic processes. Using the method of characteristics, the partial differential equation for the \mane potential is rewritten as a system of ordinary differential equations which can be efficiently solved. The methodology is used to estimate loss probabilities of large portfolios in the Black-Scholes model and in the stochastic volatility model proposed by Heston. Numerical experiments indicate that the algorithm yields significant variance reduction when compared with standard Monte-Carlo simulation.In the final paper, an importance sampling algorithm is proposed for computing the probability of voltage collapse in a power system. The power load is modeled by a high-dimensional stochastic process and the sought probability is formulated as an exit problem for the diffusion. A particular challenge is that the boundary of the domain cannot be characterized explicitly. Simulations for two power systems shows that the algorithm can be effectively implemented and provides a viable alternative to existing system risk indices.The thesis begins with a historical review of mathematical finance, followed by an introduction to importance sampling for stochastic processes.


Nostradamus' Opusucle is characterized by a strong presence of coordinating conjunctions and punctuation marks, which give it a highly developed structure in both linguistic and typographical terms, in contrast with his Centuries. This study of the co-occurrence of these two phenomena demonstrates that different linguistic levels are bounded by different combinations of signs. Coordination alone is limited to the shortest segments of the text; when combined with a punctuation mark, it may mark superior units, including sentences. Moreover, although punctuation alone marks the levels of demarcation of the text, it is only in combination with a coordinating conjunction that it can mark the intermediate unit that is the sentence.


ABSTRACT The paper articulates a model of urban governance, developed through emergent analysis of the rulers, methods, rules and logics evident in the practices of security governance in Hout Bay, Cape Town. Informed by the concept of hybrid governance, this grounded theorising draws on extensive fieldwork on security governance practices in a complex urban neighbourhood to present a model of multiple and sometimes contending forms of governance that include, but are not limited to, bureaucratic, market, developmental, network and informal governance. Our model emerges from a critique of top-down approaches to understanding governance that starts with the state, institutions and law, or approaches that primarily focus on formal partnerships between the state and business or other social partners. The view from above can miss important aspects of how residents are governed 'from below' and informally. Hence it is impossible to understand from the formal, and in advance of grounded research, exactly how many places in urban Africa are governed. Exposing the particular and local forms of governance in urban Africa can support improved forms of service delivery and citizen's experiences of living in their city. In addition, while our model may be relevant in other places, more important is the methodology of identifying the rulers and methods, but especially the rules and logics of practice, to surface the specific, and complex, forms of governance in an urban place.


Purpose

There is growing contestation between states and private actors over cybersecurity responsibilities, and its governance is ever more susceptible to nationalization. The authors believe these developments are based on an incomplete picture of how cybersecurity is actually governed in practice and theory. Given this disconnect, this paper aims to attempt to provide a cohesive understanding of the cybersecurity institutional landscape.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing from institutional economics and using extensive desk research, the authors develop a conceptual model and broadly sketch the activities and contributions of market, networked and hierarchical governance structures and analyze how they interact to produce and govern cybersecurity.

Findings

Analysis shows a robust market and networked governance structures and a more limited role for hierarchical structures. Ex ante efforts to produce cybersecurity using purely hierarchical governance structures, even buttressed with support from networked governance structures, struggle without market demand like in the case of secure internet identifiers. To the contrary, ex post efforts like botnet mitigation, route monitoring and other activities involving information sharing seem to work under a variety of combinations of governance structures.

Originality/value

The authors' conceptual framework and observations offer a useful starting point for unpacking how cybersecurity is produced and governed; ultimately, we need to understand if and how these governance structure arrangements actually impact variation in observed levels of cybersecurity.


Meta-learning enables algorithms to quickly learn a newly encountered task with just a few labeled examples by transferring previously learned knowledge. However, the bottleneck of current meta-learning algorithms is the requirement of a large number of meta-training tasks, which may not be accessible in real-world scenarios. To address the challenge that available tasks may not densely sample the space of tasks, we propose to augment the task set through interpolation. By meta-learning with task interpolation (MLTI), our approach effectively generates additional tasks by randomly sampling a pair of tasks and interpolating the corresponding features and labels. Under both gradient-based and metric-based meta-learning settings, our theoretical analysis shows MLTI corresponds to a data-adaptive meta-regularization and further improves the generalization. Empirically, in our experiments on eight datasets from diverse domains including image recognition, pose prediction, molecule property prediction, and medical image classification, we find that the proposed general MLTI framework is compatible with representative meta-learning algorithms and consistently outperforms other state-of-the-art strategies.


Mining injury statistics show that a significant number of back, neck, and head injuries are linked to exposure from vehicle vibration. Use of a suspension seat is a common way to isolate the vehicle operator from the adverse effects of vibration exposure. Thus, researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health1 - Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (NIOSH - PRL) performed laboratory studies on four passive and two semi-active seat suspension designs. These are typical of seat suspensions commonly found on large off-road heavy surface mining, construction and agricultural vehicles as either replacement or original equipment manufacturer (OEM) systems. One included a pneumatic (air bladder) spring mechanism. The fifth and sixth suspensions were a NIOSH magnetorheological (MR) semi-active damper design based on the pneumatic (air bladder) and one of the coil spring suspensions above. These suspensions were modified with a commercially available MR damper substituted for the OEM damper. These six seat suspension systems were tested and analyzed, for vertical vibration only, using the ISO 5007 Standard [1]. This paper describes the laboratory vibration tests using a MTS® shaker table and discusses the results obtained for the different suspension designs and highlights the rheonetic technology studied. Implications of the seat suspension designs relative to their capabilities for isolating vehicle operators from vibration exposure are discussed. Results for suspensions 1 through 3 showed frequencies of isolation from 2.1 to 3.0 Hz using the 40-kg (88-lb) mass and from 1.65 Hz to 1.8 Hz using the 80-kg (176-lb) mass. Suspension #4, in tests with only the 80-kg (176-lb) mass, showed an isolation frequency of 3.7 Hz. With the MR damper added to seat suspension #4, the peak transmissibility was lowered from 1.3 to 0.95 and showed a corresponding downward shift in frequency from 2.25 Hz to 1.4 Hz. In fact, the results for suspension #5 (the MR damper added to seat suspension #4), using test #3 conditions of the programmed control algorithm, showed isolation (attenuation of transmitted vibration) throughout the test frequency range from 1.0 to 6.0 Hz.© 2006 ASME


Abstract We describe the BinProlog system's compilation technology, runtime system and its extensions supporting first-class Logic Engines while providing a short history of its development, details of some of its newer re-implementations as well as an overview of the most important architectural choices involved in their design. With focus on its differences with conventional Warren Abstract Machine (WAM) implementations, we explain key details of BinProlog's compilation technique, which replaces the WAM with a simplified continuation passing runtime system (the "BinWAM"), based on a mapping of full Prolog to binary logic programs. This is followed by a description of a term compression technique using a "tag-on-data" representation. Later derivatives, the Java-based Jinni Prolog compiler and the recently developed Lean Prolog system refine the BinProlog architecture with first-class Logic Engines, made generic through the use of an Interactor interface. An overview of their applications with focus on the ability to express at source level a wide variety of Prolog built-ins and extensions covers these newer developments.


We present nanophotonic light harvesting crystalline silicon (c-Si) thin films on glass exhibiting ten-fold transversely quasicrystalline lattice geometry on 6 x 8 mm2 area. The c-Si architectures with a nearest neighbor distance of 650 nm are fabricated by nanoimprinting the desired quasicrystalline geometry into sol-gel coated glass substrates followed by Si deposition of 240 nm to 270 nm thickness, self-organized solid phase crystallization and selective chemical etching. Broadband absorption measurements on these quasicrystalline-structured c-Si architectures yield a very significant improvement in light trapping in the near infrared regime and an enhanced light coupling due to a graded index effect in comparison to the unstructured sample. The average value of maximum achievable short circuit current density jsc, max of solar cells with such quasicrystalline-structured c-Si absorber geometry (19.3 mA/cm2) is more than double in comparison to the jsc, max of unstructured planar films of the same thickness (9.3 mA/cm2) and remains stable for light incident angles up to 60°. In comparison to a 320 nm thick c-Si film on textured ZnO:Al substrate as widely used for light trapping in amorphous-microcrystalline Si thin-film photovoltaics, still a 65% increased jsc, max is observable for the presented quasicrystalline c-Si structures. The nanophotonic light trapping efficiency of these transversely quasicrystalline c-Si nanoarchitectures is among the highest values for experimentally realized structures, revealing their promising influence for broadband and isotropic light trapping for economically viable and efficient ultra-thin solar cells.


Asteroseismology is a promising tool to study Galactic structure and evolution because it can probe the ages of stars. Earlier attempts comparing seismic data from the Kepler satellite with predictions from Galaxy models found that the models predicted more low-mass stars compared to the observed distribution of masses. It was unclear if the mismatch was due to inaccuracies in the Galactic models, or the unknown aspects of the selection function of the stars. Using new data from the K2 mission, which has a well-defined selection function, we find that an old metal-poor thick disc, as used in previous Galactic models, is incompatible with the asteroseismic information. We use an importance-sampling framework, which takes the selection function into account, to fit for the metallicities of a population synthesis model using spectroscopic data. We show that spectroscopic measurements of [Fe/H] and [α/Fe] elemental abundances from the GALAH survey indicate a mean metallicity of log (Z/Z⊙) = −0.16 for the thick disc. Here Z is the effective solar-scaled metallicity, which is a function of [Fe/H] and [α/Fe]. With the revised disc metallicities, for the first time, the theoretically predicted distribution of seismic masses show excellent agreement with the observed distribution of masses. This indirectly verifies that the asteroseismic mass scaling relation is good to within five per cent. Assuming the asteroseismic scaling relations are correct, we estimate the mean age of the thick disc to be about 10 Gyr, in agreement with the traditional idea of an old α-enhanced thick disc.


In the South African War and its aftermath, wounded combatants and interned Boer civilians were the subjects of extensive transnational relief efforts. Focusing on the aid proffered by the British Red Cross Society, the pro-imperialist Victoria League and the rival Boer Home Industries scheme, this paper explores how gifts of time and material were invested with competing hopes and aspirations for Britain's role in South Africa. In this context food and hand-made textiles represented more than mere commodities. It also meant that, though expressing genuine sympathy and concern, benefactors did not share a 'humanitarian' ideal. These gifts brought undoubted comfort and saved life. They also provided new imaginative vistas on empire and war, and galvanised domestic political networks. But the implication of these numerous benevolent impositions was a lack of co-ordination and the privileging of relief workers' ethical commitments with little thought as to how these gifts would be received.


Background We investigated the relationship between 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET-CT) standardized uptake value (SUV) and 21-gene recurrence score (RS) in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer. Materials and methods One hundred sixty-seven patients were identified among those who underwent preoperative 18F-FDG-PET-CT and had RS. Maximum SUV was obtained from 18F-FDG-PET-CT; the cut-off point was 4. Results The continuous RS and SUV correlated positively (Pearson's R = 0.555; P < 0.001). An inverse correlation was found between progesterone receptor (PR) expression by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, and SUV (Pearson's R = -0.408; P < 0.001). Good agreement between dichotomized RS (<26 vs. ≥26) and SUV (<4 vs. ≥4) was observed in 137 of 167 patients (82.0%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 76.2–87.9). Among patients with low SUV, 114 of 115 (99.1% [95% CI, 97.4–100.0]) had tumors with lower RS (<26). Although 23 of 52 women (44.2% [95% CI, 30.7–57.7]) with high SUV had higher RS (≥26), all 13 women with high RS (≥31) had high-SUV tumors. Most cases with disagreements between SUV and RS (n = 30) were classified as high SUV/lower RS (n = 29). The discordant group had higher grade or elevated Ki67 expression (≥20%) compared with the low SUV/lower RS group (n = 109), but higher PR expression compared with the high SUV/higher RS group (n = 23). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that high SUV were associated with higher RS (≥26). Conclusions SUV, as a biologic parameter represented using a continuous variable, was found to associate with RS in ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Further studies may reveal the biology underlying the discordance between the markers.


This article is based on the two verses from the 3rd chapter known as "Advaita Prakaranam" (section of nonduality) of text called "Mandukya Karika" written by the author Gaudapada. At the beginning of the text Gaudapada tells, the problems which human beings have in the world (Samsara) are due to the perception of duality (subject-object duality). He says, the duality causes Samsara (problems in the worldly life) and nonduality (one without a second) is the freedom. Hence, "Advaita" (nonduality) is the freedom (Moksha) and duality (Dvaitam) is "Samsara" (Worldly troubles or bondage). According to Shankara's commentary on Gaudapada's texts, "no-mind" can be attained by constant practice of discrimination between the real and the unreal (repeated discrimination), all based upon reasoning. Gaudapada says "Amanibhava" (no-mind) means managing the mind or spiritualizing the mind. It means when a person realizes the truth about oneself as the "Existence, consciousness, Bliss" (The Absolute or Brahman) then, in the mind, there will be no more desiring or reaching out or grasping. When the mind finds nothing out there to grasp then it becomes a "nongrasping mind" (Agraham) that is called a "no-mind" state. This "no mind" state is referred to "freedom or liberation" from worldly suffering according to Advaita Vedanta Philosophy. This state of complete identity with nondual Brahman, arrived at as a result of discrimination and negation of phenomena, is the Vedantic conception of Samadhi (which is quite different from any mystical state described as Samadhi in the Yoga system).


The Speech or Debate Clause of the United States Constitution protects legislators from being questioned at trial about their legislative acts. This protection shields legislators from being prosecuted or sued based on those acts and also sometimes protects them from having to testify about those acts at trial. While this protection is important in certain circumstances to safeguard the independence and proper functioning of the legislature, it can also be problematic when plaintiffs need to prove an invidious legislative purpose to challenge a law. This is especially the case in the redistricting context, where the standards to analyze both racial and partisan gerry-mandering claims require information regarding legislative intent. Yet a close look into judicial interpretations of the Speech or Debate Clause, and the legislative privilege that stems from it, finds a conflicting set of opinions regarding when such protections should and should not apply. This confusion has made it difficult for courts to address legislative privilege questions properly and may lead courts to protect and uphold redistricting legislation more than is warranted. This Note surveys Supreme Court and lower-court Speech or Debate Clause opinions to develop a straightforward and consistent framework for addressing all Speech or Debate Clause disputes and then applies that framework to the questions that arise during redistricting litigation.


The Black–Scholes option pricing equation was a major intellectual achievement, both for academics and for practitioners, but it rests upon a variety of restrictive conditions on the option's payoff. More complicated structures are priced with numerical methods based on discretizing the state space in either a lattice framework or a discrete approximation to the fundamental partial differential equation (PDE). Both approaches use a fixed step size in the time dimension and converge asymptotically to the continuous-time solution as the step size goes to zero. But for many payoff structures, "asymptotically" entails an enormous number of calculations to achieve acceptable accuracy. Many techniques have been advanced over the years to speed up convergence for particular cases. The main problems with the standard numerical methods arise because of discontinuities in the option's payoff structure, such as the abrupt change in value when a knock-out option hits its barrier, that interact with the discreteness of the state space approximation. This article presents a powerful new approach that allows much greater flexibility in constructing the approximating lattice in time and price space, and therefore a potentially huge improvement in computational efficiency. The trick is to abandon the fixed time step and to treat the PDE as a fully coupled system that is solved simultaneously in both the price and time dimensions. As Zhu and de Hoog show, even with fixed time and price steps, this allows the approximation to retain much greater accuracy with larger step sizes than current methods. But the new approach allows the lattice to be structured much more flexibly so that more points can be placed in the regions that are critical for valuation, while leaving less dense coverage where it doesn't matter. In illustrative examples, the same degree of accuracy is achieved more than 10 times faster with the fully coupled system than with a normal Crank–Nicolson approach.


Davies, V, Thompson, KG, and Cooper, SM. The effect of compression garments on recovery. J Strength Cond Res 23(6): 1786-1794, 2009-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether wearing lower-body compression garments attenuate indices of muscle damage and decrements in performance following drop-jump training. Seven trained female and four trained male subjects undertook blood collection for creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), a mid-thigh girth measurement, and reported their perceived muscle soreness (PMS). A series of performance tests were then completed including sprints (5 m, 10 m, and 20 m), a 5-0-5 agility test, and a countermovement jump test. In a randomized crossover experimental design, separated by 1 week, subjects completed 5 × 20 maximal drop-jumps, followed immediately after exercise by either wearing graduated compression tights (CG) or undertook passive recovery as a control (CON) for 48 hours. CK, LDH, mid-thigh girth, and PMS were retested after 24 hours and 48 hours of recovery. The performance tests were repeated after 48 hours of recovery. Analysis of variance for repeated measures indicated that for female subjects, CK values were elevated after 24-hour recovery (p = 0.020) and a greater PMS was observed after 48-hour recovery in the CON condition (p = 0.002) but not for the CG condition. For all the subjects (n = 11), a greater PMS was observed after 48-hour recovery in the CON condition (p = 0.001) but not the CG condition. Significant increases in time were reported for 10-m (p = 0.016, 0.004) and 20-m sprints (p = 0.004, 0.001) in both the CON and CG conditions and for the 5-m sprint (p = 0.014) in the CG condition. All other parameters were unchanged in either condition. Data indicates that CK responses and PMS might be attenuated by wearing compression tights in some participants after drop-jump training; however, no benefit in performance was observed.


This article analyzes the causes and consequences of the nationalist party politics in Turkey by focusing on the rise of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). The article identifies three interrelated processes to explain the MHP's rising status in 1999. First, neo-liberal economic policies of the early 1980s generated the formation of new opportunity spaces in media, education, politics, and market. Second, these opportunity spaces, in turn, empowered ethnic and religious groups to demand recognition and reconfiguration of the state ideology. Third, the failure of the ideologically rigid Turkish state to cope with these new identity claims prompted the military-dominated state elite to define the Kurdish and Islamic identity claims as existential threats to the core values of the state ideology. Being in a coalition, the MHP has given up its identity to become respectful in the eyes of the governing ossified military-bureaucratic elite. One of the unexpected results of Turkey's April 1999 general elections was the serious erosion of the political center, a development that has grave implications for efforts to institutionalize the country's already weak democratic processes.' The two parties that emerged with the largest number of votes from the general elections, the Democratic Left Party (DSP), led by Bulent Ecevit, and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), led by Devlet Bahqeli, both espouse a militant and particularistic version of nationalism that is hostile to Turkey's diverse ethnic - primarily Kurds - and religious groups. By making stunning gains in central and western Anatolia, these nationalist parties won a combined total of 40 percent of the popular vote, became the two largest blocs in the parliament, and joined to forma coalition government.2 The DSP was created by veteran politician and current Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, but it is not so much a mass party as one dependent on his personal popularity and character. The success of the MHP, in contrast, is much more significant because it is a long-established party with branches throughout the country. Yet, prior to 1999, the MHP had not been able to attract more than a small fraction of the vote (see Table I below). How was it possible for this inexperienced party to more than double its share of the vote to 18% of the electorate, in effect persuading nearly one-fifth of Turks to support its nationalistic project? Although various explanations have been offered for this phenomenon,3 I believe that the MHP's rising status is an outcome of three complementary processes. First, the neo-liberal economic policies of the early 1980s generated the formation of new opportunity spaces in media, education, politics, and market. Second, these opportunity spaces, in turn, empowered ethnic and religious groups to demand recognition and reconfiguration of the state ideology. Third, the state establishment, mainly the military and civilian bureaucracy, reacted to these identity claims as security threats, and the securitization of Kurdish and Islamic identity claims further politicized the society. In effect, the MHP was able to benefit from an emerging socio-cultural polarization that primarily is along an ethnic (Kurdish vs. Turkish) and religious (Alevi Islam vs. Sunni Islam) axis.' For example, even though various groups in Turkey have been using new opportunity spaces created by the international media, the market, and education to assert their "identities," the Turkish polity that has evolved since Kemal AtatUrk created the republic in 1923 lacks a shared and absorbing social contract to cope with cultural diversity. As a result, supporters of the MHP, as well as the military, perceive the "new" identity claims as an "existential" threat to the state. It is not just internal forces that have reactivated a dormant Turkish nationalism preoccupied with security concerns. The MHP effectively tapped into popular views that regard external forces as being anti-Turk. …


The recent launch of spaceborne (TerraSAR-X, RADARSAT-2, ALOS-PALSAR, RISAT) and airborne (SIRC, AIRSAR, UAVSAR, PISAR) polarimetric radar sensors, with capability of imaging through day and night in almost all weather conditions, has made polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image interpretation and analysis an active area of research. PolSAR image classification is sensitive to object orientation and scattering properties. In recent years, significant work has been done in many areas including agriculture, forestry, oceanography, geology, terrain analysis. Visible light passive polarimetric imaging has also emerged as a powerful tool in remote sensing for enhanced information extraction. The intensity image provides information on materials in the scene while polarization measurements capture surface features, roughness, and shading, often uncorrelated with the intensity image. Advantages of visible light polarimetric imaging include high dynamic range of polarimetric signatures and being comparatively straightforward to build and calibrate. viii This research is about characterization and analysis of the basic scattering mechanisms for information fusion between PolSAR and passive visible light polarimetric imaging. Relationships between these two modes of imaging are established using laboratory measurements and image simulations using the Digital Image and Remote Sensing Image Generation (DIRSIG) tool. A novel low cost laboratory based S-band (2.4GHz) PolSAR instrument is developed that is capable of capturing 4 channel fully polarimetric SAR image data. Simple radar targets are formed and system calibration is performed in terms of radar crosssection. Experimental measurements are done using combination of the PolSAR instrument with visible light polarimetric imager for scenes capturing basic scattering mechanisms for phenomenology studies. The three major scattering mechanisms studied in this research include single, double and multiple bounce. Single bounce occurs from flat surfaces like lakes, rivers, bare soil, and oceans. Double bounce can be observed from two adjacent surfaces where one horizontal flat surface is near a vertical surface such as buildings and other vertical structures. Randomly oriented scatters in homogeneous media produce a multiple bounce scattering effect which occurs in forest canopies and vegetated areas. Relationships between Pauli color components from PolSAR and Degree of Linear Polarization (DOLP) from passive visible light polarimetric imaging are established using real measurements. Results show higher values of the red channel in Pauli color image (|HH-VV|) correspond to high DOLP from double bounce effect. A novel information fusion technique is applied to combine information from the two modes. In this research, it is demonstrated that the Degree of Linear Polarization (DOLP) from passive visible light polarimetric imaging can be used for separation of the classes in terms of scattering mechanisms from the PolSAR data. The separation of these three classes in terms of the ix scattering mechanisms has its application in the area of land cover classification and anomaly detection. The fusion of information from these particular two modes of imaging, i.e. PolSAR and passive visible light polarimetric imaging, is a largely unexplored area in remote sensing and the main challenge in this research is to identify areas and scenarios where information fusion between the two modes is advantageous for separation of the classes in terms of scattering mechanisms relative to separation achieved with only PolSAR.


In this paper, we present a novel methodology to obtain imitative and innovative postural movements in a humanoid based on human demonstrations in a different kinematic scale. We collected motion data from a group of human participants standing up from a chair. Modeling the human as an actuated 3-link kinematic chain, and by defining a multi-objective reward function of zero moment point and joint torques to represent the stability and effort, we computed reward profiles for each demonstration. Since individual reward profiles show variability across demonstrating trials, the underlying state transition probabilities were modeled using a Markov chain. Based on the argument that the reward profiles of the robot should show the same temporal structure of those of the human, we used differential evolution to compute a trajectory that fits all humanoid constraints and minimizes the difference between the robot reward profile and the predicted profile if the robot imitates the human. Therefore, robotic imitation involves developing a policy that results in a temporal reward structure, matching that of a group of human demonstrators across an array of demonstrations. Skill innovation was achieved by optimizing a signed reward error after imitation was achieved. Experimental results using the humanoid HOAP-3 are shown.


Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) growers want information about alternative planting configurations to reduce seed, technology, and other production costs. We evaluated the impact of solid and 2 x 1 skip-row configurations on net returns for cotton grown in 25-, 76-, and 102-cm rows based on yield and fiber quality data from an experiment in adjacent nonirrigated and irrigated fields at Milan, TN. Price differences for fiber quality were calculated using USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service spot prices. Effects of planting configuration on fiber quality were not significant or small relative to row spacing effects. Price discounts for fiber qualitywere larger in stripper-harvested 25-cm rows than in spindle-picked 76- and 102-cm rows under irrigation. Skip-row cotton provided similar or larger net returns relative to solid-planted cotton for 25- and 76-cm spacings for base lint prices from 84 to 136? kg ―1 . For 76-cm rows, equivalent yields for solid and skip-rows and seed, technology, and harvest cost savings were enough to justify skip-rows. Technology and harvest costs did not vary with planting configuration for 25-cm rows, but seed cost savings and equivalent yields were enough to justify skip-rows. Skip-row cotton had a lower net return than solid-row cotton in 102-cm rows because savings in seed, technology, and harvest costs were not enough to offset lower yields. Producers interested in skip-row cotton should consider rows spaced 76-cm or less to maximize net returns.


We present a new approach to developing fast and efficient knowledge representation systems. Previous approaches to the problem of tractable inference have used restricted languages or incomplete inference mechanisms -- problems include lack of expressive power, lack of inferential power, and/or lack of a formal characterization of what can and cannot be inferred. To overcome these disadvantages, we introduce a knowledge compilation method. We allow the user to enter statements in a general, unrestricted representation language, which the system compiles into a restricted language that allows for efficient inference. Since an exact translation into a tractable form is often impossible, the system searches for the best approximation of the original information. We will describe how the approximation can be used to speed up inference without giving up correctness or completeness.

We illustrate our method by studying the approximation of logical theories by Horn theories. Following the formal definition of Horn approximation, we present "anytime" algorithms for generating such approximations. We subsequently discuss extensions to other useful classes of approximations.


The power of big data and their applications are evident through the enormous attention they have received over the past few years, with the majority of the research focusing on solving technical and business problems. However, the challenge remains on how to harness the potential of big data in order to come up with innovative solutions on various societal problems. Big data have the potential to change the way that entrepreneurs as well as the other stakeholders of a social ecosystem take decisions , and develop new paths to create social innovation by taking data-driven decisions. Nonetheless, there is limited understanding on how social ecosystems need to change to embrace the advancement that big data entail. There is a need to institutionalize innovation through big data and social entre-preneurship, and examine how to successfully exploit big data towards achieving social good and sustainable change. We suggest building on the current state of the art, and go beyond it by merging and extending the findings with insights from the different stakeholders involved in the social innovation process. Further, we propose developing and testing a framework of best practices, that will be used as a roadmap by interested parties to successfully employ big data for social innovation, through the development of prototype applications which will clearly showcase the impact of big data on addressing societal challenges. This position paper concludes with research questions and challenges for future studies in the area.


In recent years, there has been growing interest in examining the relationships among management control systems, business strategy and firm performance. In this study, the interactions of management control systems and strategy with their impact on firm performance are examined with an empirical analysis, based on the data from 94 manufacturing firms from the top 500 in Turkey in 2014. The results support the postulate that high interaction between interactive control system (ICS) and differentiation strategy (DS) is associated with high firm performance and that high interaction between diagnostic control system (DCS) and cost leadership strategy (CS) is associated with high firm performance.


Here we analyze solar activity by focusing on time variations of the number of sunspot groups (SGs) as a function of their modified Zurich class. We analyzed data for solar cycles 20–23 by using Rome (cycles 20 and 21) and Learmonth Solar Observatory (cycles 22 and 23) SG numbers. All SGs recorded during these time intervals were separated into two groups. The first group includes small SGs (A, B, C, H, and J classes by Zurich classification), and the second group consists of large SGs (D, E, F, and G classes). We then calculated small and large SG numbers from their daily mean numbers as observed on the solar disk during a given month. We report that the time variations of small and large SG numbers are asymmetric except for solar cycle 22. In general, large SG numbers appear to reach their maximum in the middle of the solar cycle (phases 0.45–0.5), while the international sunspot numbers and the small SG numbers generally peak much earlier (solar cycle phases 0.29–0.35). Moreover, the 10.7 cm solar radio flux, the facular area, and the maximum coronal mass ejection speed show better agreement with the large SG numbers than they do with the small SG numbers. Our results suggest that the large SG numbers are more likely to shed light on solar activity and its geophysical implications. Our findings may also influence our understanding of long-term variations of the total solar irradiance, which is thought to be an important factor in the Sun–Earth climate relationship.


This paper describes the results of research focussed on the different effects of in-line coagulation (FeCl3), towards the operation of semi-dead-end UF for drinking water and process water production starting from surface water. In this research, firstly the effects of the use of FeCl3 on the formed cake were studied, by both direct and indirect measurements. Using the ESEM technique (environmental scanning electron microscopy), which enables one to make pictures of wet samples, we observed that cake thickness was much higher upon use of FeCl3 (20 instead of 2 μm). As a result, the cake porosity was calculated to be much higher with than without coagulant use (93% instead of 37%). From the stability (nonincreasing) of the starting transmembrane pressure (TMP) in the successive filtration cycles, upon semidead-end operation, it was concluded that cake layer was less prone to adhere to the membrane surface when using coagulant. This is even more emphasized once the dosing is stopped, as a consequence the TMP rises very steeply under difficult circumstances, such as; high flux rates, high water recovery rates, and the use of membranes made from polymers with high adsorption properties. Secondly, indirect effects of the use of coagulant on filtration behaviour were investigated. Thus, it was found that TMP increase in the filtration cycle was much lower, due to depth filtration in the formed high-volume cake, and TMP was much more stable over a long time. These observations were in good agreement with found higher cake porosity. Moreover, it was observed that due to the use of a coagulant, the influences of membrane polymer nature and membrane structure disappeared, cleaning action could be postponed and cleaning aggressiveness could be lowered. In addition, water recovery and flux rate could be increased, and influence of seasonal water quality variations could be better faced. Finally, it was found that the treatment of surface water with high DOC content (e.g. 10 mg DOC/l) was enabled.


Today's driving simulators are used in vehicle research and design as well as in training. However, most simulators are not convincing because the degree of realism is not adequate. To achieve greater realism, a simulator must include autonomous vehicles in the environment. To accomplish this the autonomous vehicles must incorporate some form of reasoning. One traditional approach is to implement the decision model with a large finite state machine (FSM) that given the current state and the input it yields an appropriate response. Context Based Reasoning (CxBR) is a new method of reasoning that reduces the size and response time of the traditional method by limiting the decision model to be appropriate only in a particular context. One will then use the appropriate model based on the current context. The intent of this research is to use the CxBR approach to develop a system that produces an interactive traffic model that behaves autonomously and intelligently and to show that this model is effective, computationally efficient and developed with relative ease.


Sequences represent a large class of fundamental objects in Computer Science sets, strings, vectors and permutations are considered to be sequences. Distances between sequences measure their similarity, and computations based on distances are ubiquitous: either to compute the distance, or to use distance computation as part of a more complex problem. This thesis takes a very specific approach to solving questions of sequence distance: sequences are embedded into other distance measures, so that distance in the new space approximates the original distance. This allows the solution of a variety of problems including: Fast computation of short sketches in a variety of computing models, which allow sequences to be compared in constant time and space irrespective of the size of the original sequences. Approximate nearest neighbor and clustering problems, significantly faster than the naive exact solutions. Algorithms to find approximate occurrences of pattern sequences in long text sequences in near linear time. Efficient communication schemes to approximate the distance between, and exchange, sequences in close to the optimal amount of communication. Solutions are given for these problems for a variety of distances, including fundamental distances on sets and vectors; distances inspired by biological problems for permutations; and certain text editing distances for strings. Many of these embeddings are computable in a streaming model where the data is too large to store in memory, and instead has to be processed as and when it arrives, piece by piece. The embeddings are also shown to be practical, with a series of large scale experiments which demonstrate that given only a small space, approximate solutions to several similarity and clustering problems can be found that are as good as or better than those found with prior methods.


In Bloom , an Internet-based earth-art-work, minute movements of the Hayward Fault in California are detected by a seismograph, transmitted continuously via the Internet, and processed to generate an evolving field of circular blooms. The size and position of each bloom is based on real-time changes in Earth's motion, measured as a vertical velocity continuously updated from the seismometer. The horizontal position of blooms is based on time, and their vertical position is based on magnitude of the second derivative or rate of change. Large movements create large blooms; small jitters create tiny buds. This essay presents several stills from the Bloom project, and an essay on the work and its creator, Ken Goldberg.


With the advent of the information age and the gradual breakdown of physical and legal barriers between nations, the differences in the type and scope of protection of information-based products from country to country becomes a matter of increasing concern to the legal community. The near dominance of Japan and the United States in computer and information-based products, especially computer software, and the already strong mutual economic dependence of the two countries will necessarily lead to steadily increasing exchange of intellectual property related to new technologies. Moreover, both countries have chosen copyright law as the primary vehicle for the legal protection of information-based products. Consequently, and understanding of the similarities and differences in copyright law between the two countries becomes a matter of increasing concern. This article undertakes a study of the fundamental concepts of copyright protection under Japanese law and compares them to related concepts under the copyright law of the United States. Those concepts involve the nature of the works protected (including requirements for originality, creativity, and novelty), the scope of protection (including the idea/expression dichotomy and its relation to the nature of the work), proof of infringement, and fair use defenses. This article begins with an introduction to the relevant provisions of the Japanese Copyright Law, along with the corresponding provisions of the United States Copyright Act. Then it continues with an analysis of the reported cases in Japan that have interpreted the Japanese statutory provisions or similar provisions of earlier statutes. This case analysis is comprehensive, in that the authors have attempted to uncover all reported cases in Japan whose factual holdings are relevant to the fundamental conceptual topics under consideration. Where appropriate for comparative purposes, the article also discusses the case law in the United States.


Abstract This paper, based on an empirical analysis, compares students' attitudes and performance for a graduate Financial Management course, which was taught through two different modes (online and traditional) of course delivery. In an attempt to overcome the shortcomings of other studies comparing different modes of education, this study designed a similar learning environment for both online and traditional groups. Over three semesters a questionnaire, addressing four major criteria or indices (Web utility, interactivity, learning experience, and overall satisfaction) that captured nineteen attributes (variables), was distributed to both groups. After computing the indices and analyzing the collected data, the study concluded that there is no significant difference between the two groups of students' attitudes and performance. Introduction Instruction involves the development and communication of knowledge through a viable medium. The medium around which teaching/learning has transpired has undergone a variety of changes in form over the years, from home schooling to traditional classroom (face-to-face) to distance education and its new form, computer mediated communication (CMC), known as the "virtual" classroom. In a traditional medium (classroom setting), instruction is accomplished through lecturing and interaction of students/students and students/faculty. However, recently with technological advancements in computing and the advent of the Internet, computers as a mere instructional tool are being transformed to a medium through which the instruction is being delivered. It is observed that the application of computers in instruction has resulted in a more active involvement of students in their own learning. Barr (1990), in support of this notion, in his discussion of educational reform, states that learning should be more "independent, individualized, interactive, interdisciplinary, and intuitive", and that computer-based classrooms support such learning. The rise of online course offerings by colleges around the world has created both excitement and skepticism among students, educators, administrators, employers, and government officials for different reasons. Based on a survey 1 by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, the use of asynchronous Internet-based technologies in teaching has grown from 22 percent of institutions in 1995 to 60 percent of institutions in 1997-1998. The survey also points to a 33% rate of growth, within the same time period, among the higher educational institutions offering courses through distance education. A revolution in higher education is in the making. Naturally, such dizzying growth in online course offerings breeds controversy. Among the hotly debated issues concerning the quality of learning are whether: 1. The extent of learning that normally takes place in a traditional classroom could be replicated online; and 2. Virtual classrooms allow the same amount of interactivity as their traditional counterparts. Currently, online classes are taught in different formats. Some classes integrate a bulletin board and email on a Web page through which assignments are communicated to students. Students are required to use the email or bulletin board to explicate their completed assignments, pose their questions, and most importantly interact with one another. Other virtual courses offer online external links and assignments plus computer chat rooms on a real-time basis. This allows students to discuss group projects among each other, or get together with the instructor at designated times and discuss their questions and progress in the course. Some traditional classes also supplement their courses with Web-based resources. In either case, online capabilities have produced a pedagogical side benefit as a result of greater accessibility to the instructors and course contents, and the vast resources of the Internet. …


In this article I contrast the first Australian anti-discrimination law case with the most recent direct discrimination case of the High Court of Australia in order to demonstrate that the progressive potential of Australian anti-discrimination laws has diminished rather than grown over the past 30 years. In contrast to the first decision, the High Court in the case of Purvis v New South Wales (Dept of Education and Training) (2003) 217 CLR 92 significantly narrowed the approach for direct discrimination generally, by granting respondents free reign to identify the relevant comparator in the action. With this freedom respondents are able to avoid a finding of any different treatment, a prerequisite for a finding of direct discrimination. This approach makes clear that our direct discrimination laws are underpinned by a formal rather than substantive model of equality, and are thus limited in their capacity to eliminate all but a small subset of discrimination and able to do little more than promote procedural fairness. All citizens are ostensibly permitted to participate in education and work and other public realms of life, but our laws do little to enable the participation of those who don't fit the norm of benchmark man. During this same 30 year period the regulatory framework of Australian anti-discrimination laws have changed little, leaving victims of discrimination and equality advocates to rely upon an individualised, victim driven approach to promote equality. By limiting the scope of direct discrimination, one of the central planks of the weak regulatory framework, Purvis lends further weight to calls for regulatory reform. Given the persistence of discrimination and inequality in Australia despite 30 years or so of anti-discrimination laws, it is time we considered taking a serious look at our discrimination laws to identify ways in which they could be made more (rather than less) effective.


Inquiry learning is a pedagogical approach that focuses on the processes and skills required to conduct research. It is a pedagogical approach that has been demonstrated to have positive learning outcomes. McMaster University has been committed to this form of learning for more than ten years in three of the faculties on campus (i.e., Humanities, Science and Social Sciences). This commitment has been in the creation of stand-alone, small class size first year inquiry classes. The current research, involving document analysis of 545 course outlines from the Faculty of Social Sciences demonstrates that inquiry learning is concentrated in first and fourth year primarily with modest amounts in second and third year courses. Results reveal cross-discipline variation. Some disciplines exhibit higher levels of inquiry (i.e., Social Work, Labour Studies and Political Science) than others (i.e., Gerontology, Geography and Anthropology). Although inquiry was more likely to occur in small classes there were examples of inquiry learning in classes with more than 250 students.


Mississippi residents were surveyed to determine their perceptions surrounding the The Food Factor brand. The Food Factor is a weekly Extension mass media program that communicates research-based information about food, nutrition, diet, and healthy lifestyles. A researcher-developed survey instrument was used to collect information using Qualtrics. The sample consisted of a representative sample of 404 Mississippi residents over the age of 18. Nonprobability quota sampling was used to examine population segments related to sex, Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic populations, and other racial demographic segments. The respondents were asked about their use and awareness of The Food Factor, where they were split into viewer and non-viewer categories. Viewers were asked about their viewing frequency, perceptions and skills learned related to watching The Food Factor, and their nutrition-related behaviors. Non-viewers were also asked about their perceptions of The Food Factor between branded and non-branded The Food Factor episodes. This study found the The Food Factor brand lacked brand recognition and recall. However, the respondents had a slightly positive perception of the brand. Overall, this study could not conclude that branding of the episodes was making a difference in non-viewers' perceptions, despite the fact that many previous studies have identified branding as an important strategy in social marketing. Recommendations include a consistent and increased use of the brand, such as subtitles or logos, and future research on the use of branding in social marketing program, social marketing in Extension, and the role of branding in mass media programs.


We consider a Kullback-Leibler-based algorithm for the stochastic multi-armed bandit problem in the case of distributions with finite supports (not necessarily known beforehand), whose asymptotic regret matches the lower bound of \cite{Burnetas96}. Our contribution is to provide a finite-time analysis of this algorithm; we get bounds whose main terms are smaller than the ones of previously known algorithms with finite-time analyses (like UCB-type algorithms).