The spatial properties of gaps have an important influence upon the regeneration dynamics and species composition of forests. However, such properties can be difficult to quantify over large spatial areas using field measurements. This research considers how we conceptualize and define forest canopy gaps from a remote sensing point of view and highlights the inadequacies of passive optical remotely sensed data for delineating gaps. The study employs the analytical functions of a geographical information system to extract gap spatial characteristics from imagery acquired by an active remote sensing device, an airborne light detection and ranging instrument (LiDAR). These techniques were applied to an area of semi-natural broadleaved deciduous forest, in order to map gap size, shape complexity, vegetation height diversity and gap connectivity. A vegetation cover map derived from imagery from an airborne multispectral scanner was used in combination with the LiDAR data to characterize the dominant vegetation types within gaps. Although the quantification of these gap characteristics alone is insufficient to provide conclusive evidence on specific processes, the paper demonstrates how such information can be indicative of the general status of a forest and can provide new perspectives and possibilities or further ecological research and forest monitoring activities.


Andrographolide is a bicyclic diterpenoid constituent of Andrographis paniculata which is used extensively in the traditional medicine in Indonesia to treat inflammations. The structure of andrographolide contains an a-alkylidene r-butyrolactone moiety, two olefin bonds at C-8(C-17) and C-12(C-13), and three hydroxyls at C-3, C-19 and C-14. Andrographolide's structure lacks of aromatic ring, hence the iodination reaction of this compound is quite an interesting challenge to be investigated. Iodine atom was incorporated at vinyl position by indirect reaction. The reaction was divided into two steps, which was started by a bromination in non polar medium, then followed by iodination. It is shown that the principal reaction is the addition of bromine atom to an sp2 carbon atom of the vinyl group via electrophilic substitution. Bromination was carried out in chloroform solvent at room temperature to produce bromo-andrographolide. The iodination was applied further by using palladium triphenylphosphine catalyst. Positive charge iodine species was produced in situ with the addition of chloramine-T, an oxidizing agent, at 40 oC. 1H-NMR study shows that iodine attacked the C-12(C-13) vinyl bond which was confirmed by (1) the disappearance of proton chemical shift of C-12 at SH 6.86 ppm and (2) the change of proton chemical shifts of C-11 which shifted downfield at SH 2.74 ppm and 2.63 ppm, due to the deshielding effect of iodine.


© Cambridge University Press 2009. INTRODUCTION Many of the forms of violence committed under authoritarian regimes and during large-scale ethnic and civil strife target individuals for reasons such as their political activities, ethnicity, race, and religion. It is individual persons who find their most fundamental human rights violated when subjected to prolonged detention and torture, extrajudicial killings, disappearance, sexual violence, amputation, and forced recruitment and displacement. However, beyond individuals, these violations create communities of harm that include all of those people emotionally tied to the victims or in a relationship of codependency with them. Parents, partners, spouses, children, and siblings are often left both emotionally desolate and economically destitute. In other words, the violence affects not only the targeted individual but also his or her family members. A relevant question becomes, then, whether and how this fact has been or can be acknowledged in reparations initiatives. Clearly, determining the "family members" who, as such, are entitled to reparations depends on the definition of "victim," and that in turn depends on which violations are considered to be grave or gross violations of human rights that trigger reparations in the first place. Although both national nonjudicial reparations programs and international human rights adjudicatory bodies have thus far privileged violations of civil and political rights that in many contexts are disparately committed against men (such as disappearances, illegal detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing), many of those who could potentially be included - depending on whether the reparations scheme is sensitive to the impact of violence on the family and to the fact of human interdependency - are in fact women and children.


Title of Dissertation: THREE ESSAYS ON MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES: HEDGING INTEREST RATE AND CREDIT RISKS Jian Chen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2003 Dissertation directed by: Professor Michael C. Fu The Robert H. Smith School of Business This dissertation includes three essays on hedging the interest rate and credit risks of Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS). Essay one addresses the problem of how to efficiently estimate interest rate sensitivity parameters of MBS. To do this in Monte Carlo simulation, we derive perturbation analysis (PA) gradient estimators in a general setting. Then we apply the Hull-White interest rate model and a common prepayment model to derive the corresponding specific PA estimators, assuming the shock of interest rate term structure takes the form of a trigonometric polynomial series. Numerical experiments comparing finite difference (FD) estimators with our PA estimators indicate that the PA estimators can provide better accuracy than FD estimators, while using much lower computational cost. Using the estimators, we analyze the impact of term structure shifts on various mortgage products. Based these analysis, we propose a new product to mitigate interest rate risk. Essay two addresses the problem of how to measure interest rate yield curve shift more realistically, and how to use these risk measures to hedge the interest rate risk of MBS. We use a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) approach to analyze historical interest rate data, and acquire the volatility factors we need in Heath-Jarrow-Morton interest rate model simulation. Then we propose a hedging algorithm to hedge MBS, based on PA gradient estimators derived upon these PCA factors. Our results show that the new hedging method can achieve much better hedging efficiency than traditional duration and convexity hedging. Essay three addresses the application a new regression method on credit spread data. Previous research has shown that variables in traditional structural model have limited explanatory power in credit spread regression. We argue that this is partially due to the non-constancy of the credit spread gradients to state variables. We use a Random Coefficient Regression (RCR) model to accommodate this problem. The explanatory power increases dramatically with the new RCR model, without adding new independent variables. This is the first work to address the dependence between credit spread sensitivities and state variables of structural in a systematic way. Also our estimates are consistent with prediction from Merton's structural model. THREE ESSAYS ON MORTGAGE BACKED SECURITIES: HEDGING INTEREST RATE AND CREDIT RISKS


Weight gain has often been associated with olanzapine treatment, yet little is known about the influence of patient age or cumulative dose on olanzapine-associated weight gain. The first 118 participants in the National Institutes of Mental Health Study of the Pharmacotherapy of Psychotic Depression randomized clinical trial (Clinical Trials.gov Registration NCT00056472) completing at least 4 weeks of treatment with olanzapine were analyzed to determine the relationship between weight gain, age, and cumulative olanzapine dose. Younger (age 18–59 years) and older (age 60+ years) participants received open-label olanzapine and either sertraline or placebo for up to 12 weeks. Linear mixed effect regression modeling was used to determine the effects of age and cumulative olanzapine dose on weight gain, controlling for potential confounders. Age was observed to have a significant negative association with weight gain (P=0.01), even after controlling for differences in cumulative dose and baseline body mass index. Each 10-year increase in age was associated with a decrease in mean weight gain over 12 weeks of approximately 0.6 kg (95% confidence interval: 0.14–1.05 kg). Cumulative olanzapine dose was also significantly associated with weight gain (P<0.0001). Approximately 60% of completers of the 12-week trial experienced clinically significant weight gain (≥7% of baseline weight).


Objective: Biomaterials able to mimic the mechanical properties of vocal fold tissue may be particularly useful for furnishing a 3-dimensional microenvironment allowing for in vitro investigation of cell and molecular responses to vibration. Motivated by the dearth of biomaterials available for use in an in vitro model for vocal fold tissue, we investigated polyether polyurethane (PEU) matrices, which are porous, mechanically tunable biomaterials that are inexpensive and require only standard laboratory equipment for fabrication. Methods: Rheology, dynamic mechanical analysis, and scanning electron microscopy were performed on PEU matrices at 5%, 10%, and 20% w/v mass concentrations. Results: For 5%, 10%, and 20% w/v concentrations, shear storage moduli were 2 kPa, 3.4 kPa, and 6 kPa, respectively, with shear loss moduli being 0.2 kPa, 0.38 kPa, and 0.62 kPa, respectively. Storage moduli responded to applied frequency as a linear function. Mercury intrusion porosimetry revealed that all 3 mass concentrations of PEU have a similar overall percentage porosity but differ in pore architecture. Conclusion: Twenty-µm diameter pores are ideal for cell seeding, and a range of mechanical properties indicates that the higher mass concentration PEU formulations are best suited for mimicking the viscoelastic properties of vocal fold tissue for in vitro research.


OBJECTIVE
To determine long term outcomes of nonracing equines athletes treated for short incomplete proximal sagittal fractures of the proximal phalanx (SIPSFP1) by lag screw fixation.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective study.

SAMPLE POPULATION
Thirty-one horses.

METHODS
Medical records from horses with an SIPSFP1 (2008-2014) were reviewed. Long-term (≥12 months) outcomes were assessed with telephone interviews and clinical and radiographic examinations.

RESULTS
Warmblood was the predominant breed in cases included in the study. Among horses with long-term interview information, 27 of 31 returned to previous athletic activity level. In total, 15 horses with 19 fractures had clinical and radiographic assessment after a minimum of 12 months. Among those, nine of 15 horses were sound at the trot, and six of 15 were mildly lame. Complete radiographic healing was confirmed in six limbs, and the facture line was evident in 13. The position of the proximal screw was not associated with radiographic fracture healing or return to soundness.

CONCLUSION
Most horses treated for SIPSFP1 with lag screw fixation returned to previous activity levels, although radiographic fracture healing remained incomplete 12 months or more after surgery.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Lag screw fixation is a valid treatment for horses not used for racing that are experiencing an SIPSFP1 and results in a high rate of return to intended use, although complete radiographic fracture healing cannot be expected.


Purpose

This paper aims to investigate consumers' demand patterns for products with nutritional benefits and products with no nutritional benefits across processed healthy and unhealthy foods. This paper integrates price changes (i.e. increases and decreases) into a demand model and quantifies their relative impact on the quantity of food purchased. First, how demand patterns vary across processed healthy and unhealthy products is investigated; second, how demand patterns vary across nutrition-benefited (NB) products and non-nutrition-benefited (NNB) products is examined; and third, how consumers respond to price increases and decreases for NB across processed healthy and unhealthy foods is investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

Here, a demand model quantifying scenarios for price changes in consumer food choice behaviour is proposed, and controlled for heterogeneity at household, store and brand levels.

Findings

Consumers exhibit greater sensitivity to price decreases and less sensitivity to price increases across both processed healthy and unhealthy foods. Moreover, the research shows that consumers' demand sensitivity is greater for NNB products than for NB products, supporting our prediction that NB products have higher brand equity than NNB products. Furthermore, the research shows that consumers are more responsive to price decreases than price increases for processed healthy NB foods, but more responsive to price increases than price decreases for unhealthy NB foods. The findings suggest that consumers exhibit a desirable demand pattern for products with nutritional benefits.

Originality/value

Although studies on the effects of nutritional benefits on demand have proliferated in recent years, researchers have only estimated their impact without considering the effect of price changes. This paper contributes by examining consumers' price sensitivity for NB products across processed healthy and unhealthy foods based on consumer scanner data, considering both directionalities of price changes.


Objective: Compared with other myocardial enzymes like CK and CK-MB, this study investigates the theoretical basis of whether or not cardiac Troponin I can be used as a diagnostic index of dilated cardiomyopathy. Clinical significance of serum cTnI level of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and its mechanism are studied further.
Methods: Firstly, we detected serum cTnI, CK and CK-MB level of patients with DCM in hospital, then detected the change of serum cTnI, CK and CK-MB level of patients with DCM under different cardiac function levels and left ventricular ejections. Then, patients were divided into positive group when cTnI>0.05 μg/L and into negative when cTnI<0.05 μg/L. Each group consisted of 30 patients. We detected patients' left atrial diameter (LA), left ventricular end diastolic (LVED), left ventricular end systolic (LVES) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) by methods of echocardiography, and monitored cardiac arrhythmia with conventional ECG and 24 h dynamic electrocardiogram.
Results: Serum cTnI level of patients in DCM group was significantly higher than that of patients in control group (p 35% patients. There was no significant difference in patients' level of CK or CK-MB, indicating that cTnI level is better indicator for molecular diagnosis of patients with DCM. We further divided patients with DCM into positive and negative group by level of serum cTnI. Results demonstrated that cardiac function, LVED and LVES of patients in positive group were significantly higher than those of patients in negative group while LVEF was lower (p<0.05). Patients in the negative group were prone to ventricular arrhythmia while those in positive group were prone to atrial arrhythmia and intraventricular block.
Conclusion: Level of serum cTnI can be used as indicator for molecular diagnosis of patients with DCM. Increase of serum cTnI in patients with DCM indicates severe myocardial damage and unfavorable prognosis.


Abstract. Information about the 3D structure of understory vegetation is of high relevance in forestry research and management (e.g., for complete biomass estimations). However, it has been hardly investigated systematically with state-of-the-art methods such as static terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) or laser scanning from unmanned aerial vehicle platforms (ULS). A prominent challenge for scanning forests is posed by occlusion, calling for proper TLS scan position or ULS flight line configurations in order to achieve an accurate representation of understory vegetation. The aim of our study is to examine the effect of TLS or ULS scanning strategies on (1) the height of individual understory trees and (2) understory canopy height raster models. We simulate full-waveform TLS and ULS point clouds of a virtual forest plot captured from various combinations of max. 12 TLS scan positions or 3 ULS flight lines. The accuracy of the respective datasets is evaluated with reference values given by the virtually scanned 3D triangle mesh tree models. TLS tree height underestimations range up to 1.84 m (15.30 % of tree height) for single TLS scan positions, but combining three scan positions reduces the underestimation to maximum 0.31 m (2.41 %). Combining ULS flight lines also results in improved tree height representation, with a maximum underestimation of 0.24 m (2.15 %). The presented simulation approach offers a complementary source of information for efficient planning of field campaigns aiming at understory vegetation modelling.


FIR filters are commonly used digital filters which find its major application in digital signal processing. In conventional FIR filter, the input vector form is delayed by one sample and then multiplied with filter coefficients which are subsequently accumulated by the adders. The drawbacks due to this are high device utilization and high power consumption. In order to compensate these drawbacks, we propose a reconfigurable FIR filter using radix-4 multiplier. The major changes in the proposed system are radix-4 multiplier for multiplication and change in the basic architecture of the FIR filter. In this method, we combine all the input tap values having similar co-efficient values and then multiplying those with the respective co-efficient. The proposed design is simulated and synthesized using Xilinx. The proposed method is compared with the existing FIR filter. From the results, it is observed that our proposed method has got better results by having less number of occupied slices and low power consumption. The power analysis report of a 8-tap FIR filter using the proposed approach consumes 60µW at 25MHz, 110µW at 50MHz, 170µW at 75MHz and 220µW at 100MHz compared with the existing approach which was implemented on Spartan-3E. Additionally, the proposed design was also tested for n-tap FIR filter implemented in Virtex-4 FPGA and compared with the existing technique, which shows that our approach minimizes the number of slices occupied by the design and reduces the power consumption.


Polycystin-1 is a large transmembrane protein, which, when mutated, causes autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, one of the most common life-threatening genetic diseases that is a leading cause of kidney failure. The REJ (receptor for egg lelly) module is a major component of PC1 ectodomain that extends to about 1000 amino acids. Many missense disease-causing mutations map to this module; however, very little is known about the structure or function of this region. We used a combination of homology molecular modeling, protein engineering, steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations, and single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) to analyze the conformation and mechanical stability of the first ~420 amino acids of REJ. Homology molecular modeling analysis revealed that this region may contain structural elements that have an FNIII-like structure, which we named REJd1, REJd2, REJd3, and REJd4. We found that REJd1 has a higher mechanical stability than REJd2 (~190 pN and 60 pN, resp.). Our data suggest that the putative domains REJd3 and REJd4 likely do not form mechanically stable folds. Our experimental approach opens a new way to systematically study the effects of disease-causing mutations on the structure and mechanical properties of the REJ module of PC1.


Context. Supra-arcade downflows (SADs) have been frequently observed during the gradual phase of solar flares near the limb. In coronal emission lines sensitive to flaring plasmas, they appear as tadpole-like dark voids against the diffuse fan-shaped "haze" above, flowing toward the well-defined flare arcade.
Aims. We aim to investigate the evolution of SADs' thermal properties, and to shed light on the formation mechanism and physical processes of SADs.
Methods. We carefully studied several selected SADs from two flare events and calculated their differential emission measures (DEMs) as well as DEM-weighted temperatures using data obtained by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamic Observatory.
Results. Our analysis shows that SADs are associated with a substantial decrease in DEM above 4 MK, which is 1-3 orders of magnitude smaller than the surrounding haze as well as the region before or after the passage of SADs, but comparable to the quiet corona. There is no evidence for the presence of the SAD-associated hot plasma (> 20 MK) in the AIA data, and this decrease in DEM does not cause any significant change in the DEM distribution as well as the DEM-weighted temperature, which supports this idea that SADs are density depletion. This depression in DEM rapidly recovers in the wake of the SADs studied, generally within a few minutes, suggesting that they are discrete features. In addition, we found that SADs in one event are spatio-temporally associated with the successive formation of post-flare loops along the flare arcade.


Partially restricting access to objects enables system designers to finely control the security of their systems. We propose a novel approach that allows granting partial access at method granularity on arbitrary objects to remote clients, using proxy objects. Our initial approach considers methods to be either safe (may be invoked by anyone) or unsafe (may be invoked only by trusted users). We next generalize this approach by supporting Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for methods in objects. In our approach, a policy implementer annotates methods, interfaces, and classes with roles. Our system automatically creates proxy objects for each role, which contain only methods to which that role is authorized. This thesis explains the method annotation process, the semantics of annotations, how we derive proxy objects based on annotations, and how clients invoke methods via proxy objects. We present the advantages to our approach, and distinguish it from existing approaches to method-granularity access control. We provide detailed semantics of our system, in First Order Logic, to describe its operation. We have implemented our system in the Java programming language and evaluated its performance and usability. Proxy objects have minimal overhead: creation of a proxy object takes an order of magnitude less time than retrieving a reference to a remote object. Deriving the interface—a one-time cost—is on the same order as retrieval. We present empirical evidence of the effectiveness of our approach by discussing its application to software projects that range from thousands to hundreds of thousands of lines of code; even large software projects can be annotated in less than a day.


Optically active surfaces that can provide strong localization of electromagnetic fields at predefined points are desired for applications that require high spatial resolution and high sensitivity. Here, we examine the geometric influences on, and polarization dependencies of, electromagnetic near fields on the surface of an array of tailor designed, mesoscalic, silver-coated structures with threefold symmetry characteristics. For spatially resolved mapping of the electromagnetic near fields and examining the influence of polarization, we use a photoelectron emission microscope. We find that the investigated structures not only provide an increase of the near-field intensity at their boundaries, but also that the symmetry centers of the structures focus energy in a polarization dependent manner. Changing the polarization of the incident light enables the localization of near-field intensities without displacing the excitation. Hence we show that breaking of symmetry can provide controllable centers of "hot spots" for the basis of an improved design to gain more efficient surface structures.


The surgical treatment with an effort for maximal cytoreduction is the most important therapeutic method in early and majority of advanced ovarian cancer. Most patients undergo an adjuvant chemotherapy based on a combination of platinum and taxane after primary cytoreductive surgery. Approximately 30% of patients with ovarian carcinoma have any of the signs of inoperability at the time of diagnosis. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is then initiated and followed by interval debulking surgery in case of a good effect of the treatment. The combination of surgical treatment and chemotherapy as an initial therapy of ovarian cancer achieves high curative responses. However, the recurrence, shortened disease-free interval (due to decreasing response to chemotherapy in subsequent treatment) and decreased 5-year survival are observed in more than 50% of patients in spite of a complete response to initial treatment. New methods in the systemic treatment of ovarian cancer are investigated for improving prognosis, prolonging progression free interval and overall survival of the patients with ovarian cancer. Recently, the targeted molecular biological therapy has achieved the most progress. Increasing knowledge of the internal molecular processes, the recognition of cellular receptors and the understanding of the transmission of information within the cell are the principles of use and success of biological treatment. The basic parts of targeted treatment are monoclonal antibodies and low-molecular-weight receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Hormonal therapy is used with relatively low response rate only in later stages of the systemic treatment of ovarian cancer.


Two hundred and forty pigs averaging 11.3 lb and 21 d of age were utilized to determine the effect of preweaning exposure to soybean meal on nursery performance. Pigs were derived from sows that were fed either a soybean meal basedor a corn gluten meal based-diet throughout gestation and lactation. Across sow treatments, pigs were stomach-infused with 6 g/d of soybean meal or placebo from d 5 to 9 of age. Treatment structuring prior to weaning allowed for comparisons between pigs immunologically sensitized to soy proteins and pigs nonsensitized to soy proteins. Nursery treatments allowed for a comparison between a diet containing known soy antigens (glycinin and beta-eonglycinin) and a diet that did not contain dietary antigens (milk protein). Thus, eight nursery treatments resulted based upon sow treatment (soybean meal vs corn gluten meal diets), stomach infusion (soybean meal vs placebo), and Phase I dietary treatment (soybean meal vs milk diets). Pigs were allotted by weight and sex within sow treatment by stomach infusion group. Pig weights and feed consumption were recorded weekly for the determination of average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), and feed efficiency (F/G). Sow treatment and infusion treatments did not cause differences in growth performance, allowing data to be analyzed for the main effect of nursery diet treatment. Phase I diets (1.4% lysine) were fed from d 0 to 14 post-weaning. During this time, ADG was increased by 18% in pigs fed a diet containing all milk protein. Average daily feed intake was decreased by 6% and F/G by 24% in pigs fed the soybean meal diet, compared to pigs fed the milk diet. Pigs fed a soybean meal diet during Phase I appeared to respond to the diet with a delayed transient hypersensitivity (DTH) to soy proteins. On d 14, all pigs were placed on a common (1.25% lysine) Phase II diet. This diet contained 22.7% soybean meal and 10% dried whey. Phase II performance was inverse to Phase I performance, with pigs fed a milk diet during Phase I having a 20% decrease in ADG, an 8% decrease in ADFI, and 14% poorer F/G than pigs fed a soybean meal diet during Phase I. These results suggest that the DTH response occurred during Phase II in pigs fed an all milk diet during Phase I. The magnitude of the DTH response was similar for pigs in both phases. The overall performance (d 0 to 35) indicated a 7% decrease in ADG, a 5% decrease in ADFI, with a 2% poorer F/G in pigs fed a milk diet during the Phase I period. These data indicate that pigs develop a tolerance to soy proteins within 2 wk post-weaning. Early-weaned pigs fed a diet devoid of soybean meal for 14 d will exhibit the same DTH response when placed on a corn-soybean meal diet as pigs fed a diet containing soybean meal immediately following weaning. This experiment also points out that prior infusion to soy protein is not necessary for a possible DTH response.; Swine Day, Manhattan, KS, November 21. 1991


This study aims to describe some of the phonetic variation and characteristics associated with the pronunciation of Northern Ireland English (NIE) in general and the English of rural southwest Tyrone (ERST) in particular. Vowel quality, i.e. the precise sound of the vowels used, expressed in acoustic terms, and vowel quantity, i.e. how long vowels are relative to each other and to surrounding consonants, are of central interest here. ERST vowels may be relatively short or relatively long, depending on factors that are not phonologically relevant in other varieties of English. Vowel shifts from Middle English are only partly carried through, leading to variation according to context and register. Exactly which or a number of possible vowel qualities a speaker chooses to use in a given situation can have sociophonetic significance. Some sounds are clearly stigmatized and can be selectively used or avoided by speakers to achieve desired effects.


Schedulability analysis for hard real-time systems requires bounds on the execution times of its tasks. To obtain useful bounds in the presence of caches, static timing analyses must predict cache hits and misses with high precision. For caches with least-recently-used (LRU) replacement policy, precise and efficient cache analyses exist. However, other widely used policies like first-in first-out (FIFO) are inherently harder to analyze. The main contributions of this paper are precise and efficient must- and may-analyses of FIFO based on the novel concept of static phase detection. The analyses statically partition sequences of memory accesses as they will occur during program execution into phases. If subsequent phases contain accesses to the same (similar) set of memory blocks, each phase contributes a bit to the overall goal of predicting hits (misses). The new must-analysis is significantly more precise than prior analyses. Both analyses can be implemented space-efficiently by sharing information using abstract LRU-stacks.


The main aim behind the design of rehabilitation robotic systems is to support disabled people in daily life situations as well as in the working environment. This requires the autonomous execution of different tasks. In order to achieve the ability of the robotic system to operate autonomously, the sensor system for the scene observation providing the necessary inputs for the manipulator control is essential. In this paper, the main emphasis is on the development and integration of the closed-loop controls at the visual sensory input level in order to increase the robustness of the vision-based system control. Moreover, the integration of additional sensors in order to support the vision system and to increase the reliability of the whole robotic system is discussed.


Stakeholders have been broadly described as those people or groups with an interest in the outcomes of the actions taken by others, which includes actions by commercial businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and those of all levels of government as well as their delegated representatives. In considering their role the types and classification of stakeholders has become increasingly important to the efficient management of the public policy planning process, particularly in the tourism industry with its very diverse stakeholder population. In recent decades research on stakeholders in public policy making has been described in detail (through studies of attributes, interests, and influences) and has sought to categorize stakeholders (especially in identifying who should be a stakeholder and who is a genuine stakeholder) to better manage the consultative process involved. Using the process of constructing a strategic plan for the government controlled ski resorts in the State of Victoria (Australia) which involved substantial involvement from the public, businesses, property lessees and skiing enthusiasts, this paper reviews the utility of currently used stakeholder classification schema from both a theoretical and practical viewpoint and posits that a better approach to understanding differences would consider the behavioural variations between the stakeholder groups as they participate in the consultative phases of the process. It concludes that public policy managers can improve their understanding of potential stakeholder responses and proactively engage these people and groups in the public policy planning process by understanding the impact of the outcomes and nurturing their different levels of involvement and on-going support. This can be expected to improve acceptance and support of final policy decisions that are made, especially when difficult compromises between alternatives are required.


Standing crib supports have been applied in underground mining programs to resist large roof movements and sustain highloads. The strength and deformation capability of these systems has been documented under both laboratory and field conditions. The parameter that has not been examined and is not well understood is the effect that a crib or other types of standing support has on the primary and secondary bolting systems. A crib support system with low system stiffness may allow large amounts of closure and deformation and cause the bolting systems to yield or even fail. Conversely, cribs or standing support that are too stiff may experience brittle or buckling failures, negating the advantage of the intrinsic supports previously installed. Utilizing a combination of field measurements and 3-dimensional finite element modeling techniques, the relationship between system stiffness and the subsequent performance of the installed bolting system is evaluated. Additionally, a simple method for calculating the combined system stiffness for standing supports, when using materials with different strengths such as steel, concrete, wood, etc., is presented.


This paper shows that US banks' increased geographic diversification is an important explanation for the decline of their liquidity buffers from 1976 to the 2008 crisis. Diversified banks also hold more illiquid small business loans, less liquid mortgages, and have higher net liquidity creation. During the crisis, however, better diversified banks hoard more liquidity. These results suggest that diversification increases liquidity risk-taking capacity in normal times, and that exploiting this advantage leaves banks more exposed to aggregate shocks.


The question of how law should respond to women who become pregnant, and whether to specially accommodate pregnancy or analogize it to other conditions, features prominently in virtually every area of sex equality law. In debates over women's equality in the workplace, for example, it has been the defining issue for the development of and debate over various models of equality in feminist legal theory. Until recently, however, the issue has been all but absent in debates and discussion about Title IX and its promise of sex equality in sports. This changed suddenly in 2007, when ESPN televised a program depicting the struggles faced by college athletes who become pregnant and risk losing their athletic scholarships. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights issued a policy letter interpreting Title IX to provide a strong set of rights to pregnant athletes, including the right to keep athletic scholarships. This article explores Title IX's approach to pregnancy discrimination and evaluates the cultural changes and legal choices that made this success possible. The article argues that by adopting an approach that draws from both "accommodation" and "equal treatment" models of equality, Title IX takes a blended approach that is preferable to either model in isolation. While the article contends that Title IX provides relatively strong protection for athletes who become pregnant, it concludes by examining some limitations on Title IX's ability to promote progressive social change on this and related issues of sex equality in sport.


Undewater natural gas pipelines whose numbers and ages are increasing day by day can be punctured because of various reasons. In this study, nature of acoustic signals generated by leakages on pipelines is examined and a novel passive acoustic based system is proposed to detect the acoustic signals remotely, determine size of the leak hole and estimate approximate distance of the leakage. The method is examined by executing some numerical studies. In these numerical studies offshore part of Maghreb-Europe gas (MEG) pipeline which is still in use is used as an example. Obtained results revealed that the leakages can be detected from tens of kilometers. Localization of the leakage is also possible by combining proposed method with appropriate methods in literature.


Apart from bare imperatives and infinitival imperatives, Dutch features a third type, the participial imperative, with a syntax quite different from the other types. First we present an inventory of the properties of the participial imperative. It will turn out that (the core set of) these imperatives observe pragmatic restrictions (they are restricted to the here-and-now), semantic restrictions (having to do with temporal and locational specification; incompatibility with negation), syntactic restrictions (they instantiate a distinctive type of verb fronting), morphological restrictions (they tend to be particle verbs with the particle op ), and lexical restrictions (they comprise only 'go away' and 'look out' verbs). We will show that these imperatives contain the 'speaker-oriented particle (SOP)' op , fi rst discovered by den Dikken (1998) . We hold the presence of this particle responsible for most of the restrictions on these imperatives. We will argue that den Dikken's identifi cation of this SOP as being speaker-oriented should be modified to a speech-act orientation, i.e. it is oriented to the speaker and the here-and-now.


The electricity demand of power system and power market change with the development of economy, short-term electricity demand forecasting play a very important role in spot power Market. In this paper, the Ant Lion Optimizer (ALO) is introduced to improve the input weights and hidden-layer Matrix of extreme learning machine (ELM), after the parameters of ELM are optimized by ALO, then input nodes, hidden layer nodes and output nodes are determined, so an electricity demand forecasting model based on ALO-ELM combined algorithm is established. The proposed method is illustrated based on the historical load data of a city in China. The results show that the average absolute error of short-term load demand predicted by ALO-ELM model is 1.41, while that predicted by ELM is 4.34, it has shown than ALO-ELM algorithm is superior to the ELM and meet the requirements of engineering accuracy. Under the spot power market, accurately predicting the electricity demand trend and reducing the deviation of electricity expenditure have become an important means for the market players to make profits.


A method is described for the determination of the efficiency of spectrochemical buffers by using the differences in intensity values of the analytical lines of a group of elements contained in different matrices. By an analogous calculation, efficiency can also be determined using temperature index values. Efficiency values, in both cases, are given as numerical values. A study of five different cations was completed, and the results are given.


Energy harvesting sensor nodes (EHSNs) have stringent low-energy consumption requirements, but they need to concurrently execute several types of tasks (processing, sensing, actuation, etc.). Furthermore, no accurate models exist to predict the energy harvesting income in order to adapt at run-time the executing set of prioritized tasks. In this article, we propose a novel power-aware task scheduler for EHSNs, namely, HOLLOWS: Head-of-Line Low-Overhead Wide-priority Service. HOLLOWS uses an energy-constrained prioritized queue model to describe the residence time of tasks entering the system and dynamically selects the set of tasks to execute, according to system accuracy requirements and expected energy. Moreover, HOLLOWS includes a new energy harvesting prediction algorithm, that is, weather-conditioned moving average (WCMA), which we have developed to estimate the solar panel energy income. We have tested HOLLOWS using the real-life working conditions of Shimmer, a sensor node for structural health monitoring. Our results indicate that HOLLOWS accurately predicts the energy available in Shimmer to guarantee a certain damage monitoring quality for long-term autonomous scenarios. Also, HOLLOWS is able to adjust the use of the incoming energy harvesting to achieve high accuracy for rapid event damage assessment (after earthquakes, fires, etc.).


Weiss and Minear explore the problems associated with attempting to operationalize the evolving international humanitarian norm that civilians, regardless of location, are entitled to sustenance and medical assistance. In a host of recent civil wars in Africa, the attention of the international community has been drawn to the use of food deprivation by both governments and insurgents. The use of such deprivation has traditionally been part of the arsenals of warring factions, but the widespread and active mobilization of international public opinion against such tactics is relatively new. The authors argue that, while all historical situations are in some sense unique, Sudan is not so idiosyncratic that the lessons and the precedents cannot be replicated elsewhere to protect civilians caught between warring sides in civil wars.


THE TWO GOATS A CHRISTIAN YOM KIPPUR SOTERIOLOGY Richard J. Barry IV Marquette University, 2017 This dissertation draws on recent historical-critical research into ancient Jewish temple theology, the priestly book of Leviticus, and especially the Yom Kippur liturgy of Leviticus 16, to develop a more paradoxical interpretation of Christ's saving work for modern Christian systematic theology. Prompted by the pioneering research of Jacob Milgrom, there has been a surge in sympathetic interpretations of the priestly theological tradition, which has inspired fresh interpretations of the Levitical Day of Atonement. I argue that an adequate Christian theory of atonement must be attentive to both the overall "landscape" of Jewish biblical thought, and to the specific rhythm of the Yom Kippur liturgy, which clearly distinguishes the "work" of two goats—one elected to be a spotless sacrifice, the other called to bear the sins of Israel into the wilderness. Christian theology should observe this distinction within the united saving work of Jesus Christ. Yet modern interpretations of the cross often implicitly emphasize one "goat" or the other. For example, we find a "goat for the Lord" soteriology in the Anselmian satisfaction tradition, which has been beautifully rearticulated by David Bentley Hart; here Christ's spotless sacrificial obedience recapitulates creation done well. In the controversial "descent to hell" theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, on the other hand, there is a "goat for Azazel" soteriology; here Christ as the sin-bearing goat removes impurity to the furthest possible distance from the Father through his saving descent. By seeing Christ as fulfilling the work of both goats in his single act of cruciform love, the Catholic tradition can better draw on the ancient Jewish insight that atonement requires a unifying movement toward the center, to the holy of holies, as well as a removal of sin to the far periphery, the godforsaken exilic wilderness. This work is rooted in the conviction that, first, Christian theology should always honor, and remain in deep conversation with, its Jewish roots, and second, that advances in historical-critical research should be utilized to cultivate a modern theological interpretation of scripture, all in the service of a richer, more ecumenical understanding of the basic paradoxes of Catholic soteriology.


Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Stephanie Greco Larson. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. 384 pp. $35.00 pbk. In Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment, Stephanie Greco Larson has placed the spotlight on the portrayals of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans that have been found throughout the history of television, newspaper, and film. The book concentrates on four areas: Racial Minorities in Films and Television Entertainment, News Coverage of Racial Minority Mass Publics, News Coverage of Racial Minority Social Movements, and News Coverage of Racial Minority Candidates and Politicians. Each chapter presents a synopsis of the main themes/ portrayals followed by specific examples and then concludes with the role of alternative media as it relates to that particular topic. This approach provides structure for the reader and value for instructors who might consider using this book as a course text. All too often, however, the formula makes for a cumbersome read. Several chapters spend a disproportionate amount of discussion on racial and ethnic misrepresentations of the distant past. While these examples provide a historical framework, the number of pages devoted to them is counterproductive. Numerous times Larson points out that the social conditions that helped to foment Birth of a Nation or Gone with the Wind, for example, do not exist today. Thus, these images are left floating in space without a context to connect them to the present. Also problematic is Larson's reliance on a handful of well-known works when discussing the traditional stereotypes of African Americans. While this does provide synthesis, those who are familiar with books such as Donald Bogle's Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films and Jannette L. Dates and William Barlow's Split Image: African Americans in the Mass Media may find themselves wondering what Larson's book has to add. It's somewhat ironic that a book about bias is hindered by its own biases. Larson repeatedly points out that the media have a vested interest in promoting a certain point of view. It seems Larson does too. Larson promotes the alternative press as a panacea for all that ails the media. Indeed, every chapter ends with homage to the role of the alternative press in countering negative portrayals. Yet, all too often the book comes up short in trying to support this assertion. Many times, the discussion of the alternative press is merely a couple of paragraphs that often seem simply tossed in. …


With the help of the term Ungleichzeitigkeit the German philosopher Ernst Bloch tried to comprehend the emergence of Nazism. Bloch was not satisfied with the typical Marxist explanation that fascism can simply be understood as capitalism's last hope. Instead, he focused on dreams, wishes, and worldviews which seemed to be misplaced in the present and, thus, were ignored or considered as reactionary by the political left. Bloch demonstrated how the Nazis were able to exploit these Ungleichzeitigkeiten by addressing them in their propaganda. The objective of this paper is not only to introduce the notion of Ungleichzeitigkeit in its historical context but also to show in which ways this political term is reflected in the novels of Klaus Mann. As Mann, at first glance, may seem as a rather unexpected candidate for such an endeavour, the text starts with outlining the relationship Bloch and Mann had during the 1920s and 1930s. The paper ends with a brief look at today's Ungleichzeitigkeiten and their reflections in contemporary German literature.


ABSTRACT Following a series of technological breakthroughs and the proliferation of new, cloud-based media, listening in the 21st century has become dynamic, fragmented, interactive and distributed. Contemporary audiences are typically expected to traverse (big) music databases and, employing several overlapping interfaces, to resynthesize, rather than to merely access, content. On this construal, new ways of both experiencing and thinking about music have been laid out. This article attempts to sketch the "big music" phenomenon, discussing its genesis, outlining its implications and, finally, suggesting a typology for the classification of its carrier media.


A century ago, captains of industry and their allies in government launched a social experiment in urban America: the abandonment of mass transit in favor of a new personal technology, the private automobile. Decades of investment in this shift have created a car-centric landscape with Dickensian consequences.

In the United States, motor vehicles are now the leading killer of children and the top producer of greenhouse gases. Each year, they rack up trillions of dollars in direct and indirect costs and claim nearly 100,000 American lives via crashes and pollution, with the most vulnerable paying a disproportionate price. The appeal of the car's convenience and the failure to effectively manage it has created a public health catastrophe.

Many of the automobile's social costs originate in individual preferences, but an overlooked amount is encouraged—indeed enforced—by law. Yes, the United States is car-dependent by choice. But it is also car-dependent by law.

This Article conceptualizes this problem and offers a way out. It begins by identifying a submerged, disconnected system of rules that furnish indirect yet extravagant subsidies to driving. These subsidies lower the price of driving by comprehensively reassigning its costs to non-drivers and society at large. They are found in every field of law, from traffic law to land use regulation to tax, tort, and environmental law. Law's role is not primary, and at times it is even constructive. But where it is destructive, it is uniquely so: Law not only inflames a public health crisis but legitimizes it, ensuring the continuing dominance of the car.

The Article urges a reorientation of law away from this system of automobile supremacy in favor of consensus social priorities, such as health, prosperity, and equity.


1. Sixteen rabbits received either a normal or a high cholesterol diet over an 80-day period. 2. Diastolic blood pressure remained unchanged in each group. 3. Progressive suppression of plasma renin activity and concentration without change in renin substrate occurred in animals receiving the high cholesterol diet. 4. Kinetic studies excluded the mediation of enzyme inhibitors in this response and made probable a true suppression of renin secretion. 5. Commonly recognized influences seemed not to account for the findings and the possibility is raised of a dependence of renin secretion upon serum cholesterol. The effect occurs at the level of serum cholesterol found in man.


The notion of semi-abelian category as proposed in this paper is designed to capture typical algebraic properties valid for groups, rings and algebras, say, just as abelian categories allow for a generalized treatment of abelian-group and module theory. In modern terms, semi-abelian categories are exact in the sense of Barr and protomodu-lar in the sense of Bourn and have nite coproducts and a zero object. We show how these conditions relate to \old" exactness axioms involving normal monomorphisms and epimor-phisms, as used in the fties and sixties, and we give extensive references to the literature in order to indicate why semi-abelian categories provide an appropriate notion to establish the isomorphism and decomposition theorems of group theory, to pursue general radical theory of rings, and how to arrive at basic statements as needed in homological algebra of groups and similar non-abelian structures.


Hybrid dynamic systems include both continuous and discrete state variables. Properties of hybrid systems, which have an infinite state space, can often be verified using ordinary model checking together with a finite-state abstraction. Model checking can be inconclusive, however, in which case the abstraction must be refined. This paper presents a new procedure to perform this refinement operation for abstractions of hybrid systems. Following an approach originally developed for finite-state systems [11, 25], the refinement procedure constructs a new abstraction that eliminates a counterexample generated by the model checker. For hybrid systems, analysis of the counterexample requires the computation of sets of reachable states in the continuous state space. We show how such reachability computations with varying degrees of complexity can be used to refine hybrid system abstractions efficiently. Examples illustrate our counterexample-guided refinement procedure. Experimental results for a prototype implementation indicate significant advantages over existing methods.


A complementary DNA fragment of the human DNA topoisomerase II gene was cloned into a T7 expression vector and overproduced in Escherichia coli. Rabbit polyclonal antibodies were raised against the recombinant topoisomerase II polypeptide which corresponds to the C-terminal one-third of human topoisomerase II polypeptide. Using the antiserum, DNA topoisomerase II levels were measured by immunoblotting human lymphocytes following phytohemagglutinin (PHA) stimulation. Our results showed that the intracellular topoisomerase II but not the topoisomerase I level increased in parallel with the entry of cells into proliferation. At least a 100-fold increase in topoisomerase II was observed at 50 h after PHA stimulation. As topoisomerase II levels increased upon PHA stimulation, DNA damage induced by teniposide (VM26) increased in parallel, as measured by both DNA synthesis inhibition and chromosomal aberrations. However, the damage induced by camptothecin also increased upon PHA stimulation, while the level of topoisomerase I remained relatively constant. Our results suggest that, in addition to cellular contents of topoisomerases, the state of cell proliferation is another important determinant of drug action.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between tissue oxygen saturation (StO2) and oxygen delivery index (DO2I). Oxygen delivery index is product of two factors arterial oxygen content (CaO2) and cardiac index (CI). In this study the relationship between DO2I and StO2 was evaluated by manipulating both of these factors independently. In phase one of the study, CaO2 was altered by manipulating the fractional inspired oxygen (FiO2) concentration. Anesthetized dogs were evaluated at both high (0.40 and 0.95) and low (0.15 and 0.10) FiO2 sequences. In phase two of the study, CI was altered by manipulating the volemic state. Anesthetized dogs were evaluated at hypovolemic, normovolemic and hypervolemic states. In each phase dogs were instrumented for thermodilution cardiac index (CI) and sartorius muscle StO2. Data collected included hemoglobin concentration, heart rate (HR), MAP, CI, StO2. Arterial oxygen content and DO2I were calculated at each time point. Data analysis included Pearson's correlation and mixed model ANOVA (p < 0.05). In both phases one (r = 0.97; p = 0.0013) and two (r = 0.97; p = 0.005) there was a strong correlation between StO2 and DO2I. Under the conditions of this study, there was a strong correlation between StO2 and DO2I, suggesting that StO2 may be used to estimate the adequacy of oxygen delivery in dogs.


We present, for the first time, the design of two antennas for the terahertz photomixers that have reconfigurable operation frequency or reconfigurable input impedance as an alternative to the state-of-the-art high-impedance, narrow band or low-impedance, wide-band antennas. Both antennas have folded-dipole structures, which inherently have high radiation resistances, and the dimensions of the antennas are modified in the horizontal and vertical dimensions by means of ideal switches, changing the operation frequency of the antenna or the input impedance of the antenna at a given operation frequency. We also propose a real-life solution for the ideal switches for the antennas, namely miniature Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) switches, which have an area of 10 um × 10 um and is, to the best of our knowledge, the smallest MEMS switch reported in the literature. The first antenna is capable of operating at three different frequencies of 200, 400, and 600 GHz, whereas the input impedance of the second antenna can be adjusted between 4 kΩ and 7.5 kΩ at an operation frequency of 385 GHz. The proposed antennas can also be used as a photoconductive antenna for the terahertz frequency band.


1. The photopic spectral sensitivity of the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus was obtained behaviourally using the optomotor response as the index of sensitivity. Our experiments were designed to determine whether spectral sensitivity was affected (i) by the sex of the fish, and (ii) by season. 2. In females γmax occurred at approximately 510 run. and 594 nm. In males the corresponding values were 502 nm. and 594 nm. Thus there appears to be a small but consistent difference of the order of 10 nm. between the shorter wavelength peaks of males and females. 3. In males the spectral sensitivity appears to remain virtually unchanged throughout the year. By contrast, during the summer months when reproductive activity is highest, the optomotor threshold for females at the red (594 nm.) end of the spectrum is considerably lower than the corresponding threshold value for males. This difference between the sexes disappears during winter months when reproductive activity is at a minimum.


Phytoremediation is a green technique used to restore polluted sites through plant-initiated biochemical processes. Its effectiveness, however, depends on the successful establishment of plants in the contaminated soil. Soils that are contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), especially low molecular weight, mobile PAHs such as naphthalene pose a significant challenge to this. Plant roots growing in these soils exhibit changes to their structure, physiology and growth patterns.

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) roots grown in sand contaminated with either petroleum crude oil (10.8g total extractable hydrocarbons kg-1 sand dw) or naphthalene (0.8g kg-1 sand dw) exhibited a temporary inhibition in elongation with accelerated lateral growth (p<0.01), whilst also showing a deviation from the normal root orientation responses to gravity. Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) revealed that the stele in the contaminated roots was located much further away from the root epidermis, because the cortex was larger (p<0.001) due to the cells being more isodiametric in shape. Once past the initial acclimatisation period of 2.5-3.0 months, no visual differences were observed between control and treated plants, but the root ultrastructural modifications persisted.

The fluorescent hydrophobic probe "Nile red" was applied to the epidermis of a living root to mimic and visualise the uptake of naphthalene into the root through the transpiration stream. The root sections were also stained with 0.1% (w/v) berberine hemisulphate in order to stain Casparian bands. Overlaying images obtained with the use of Texas red HYQ filter (wavelength 589-615nm) and UV illumination (wavelength 345-458nm) revealed the presence of passage cells in the endodermis and uptake of Nile red into protoxylem vessels beyond the endodermis of control roots. On the other hand, the path of Nile red was blocked at the endodermis of naphthalene- treated roots. The cell walls in the endodermis of naphthalene-treated roots were prominently thickened (p<0.001) and lacked passage cells. The treated roots also possessed a well-formed exodermis (p<0.01). The results suggest that the well-formed endodermis lacking passage cells, the well-formed exodermis as well as the increased cortex zone provided an effective barrier to the flux of hydrophobic xenobiotics towards the inner core of the roots, if previously exposed to the contaminants.

The SEM images of naphthalene-treated as well as crude oil-treated roots showed partial collapse in the cortex zone, presumably due to water stress, but the treated plants withstood drought stress better than the control plants.

The underlying physiological changes responsible for the adaptive responses of tall fescue to the exposure to naphthalene contamination were studied through metabolic profiling of plant roots and shoots. The results indicated synergistic interactions between sugars or sugar- like compounds and phenolic compounds may assist to create an integrated redox system and contribute to stress tolerance in naphthalene-treated tall fescue. The signal for a compound speculated to be indole acetic acid (IAA) was either subdued or absent in the tissues of naphthalene-treated tall fescue, suggesting the existence of a detoxification mechanism/ defence pathway in the treated plants. The ultra-structural and molecular modifications, resulting from PAH stress enabled tall fescue to resist tougher challenges.


The aim of this study is to revise and update the strategy and action plan for the EWEC as a means of consolidating planning and programming activities by government authorities and development partners. It differs from the 2001 strategy and action plan in three ways. First, it shifts the vision of the corridor to the socio-economic development of the subregion with a poverty-based focus, linked closely to the other corridors and transport routes at the interchange, border and gateway nodes, as well as secondary and feeder roads offering access to markets for rural communities. Second, it focuses the action plan on a relatively few high-profile initiatives that have direct links to key strategic areas in private sector, social, environmental and multi-model transport development. Finally, it broadens the sector coverage to those of private sector, social and environmental development, while maintaining trade and investment, agriculture and agro-industry, tourism and infrastructure as core development areas.


The 1996 welfare reform led to sweeping changes to the central cash safety net program for families with children. Along with other changes, the reform imposed lifetime time limits for receipt of cash welfare, effectively ending its entitlement nature for these families. Despite dire predictions, previous research has shown that program caseloads declined and employment increased, with no detectible increase in poverty or worsening of child well-being. We reevaluate these results in light of the severe 2007-09 recession. In particular, we examine how welfare reform has altered the cyclicality of the response of caseloads and family well-being. We find that use of food stamps and noncash safety net program participation have become significantly more responsive to the economic cycle after welfare reform, rising more when unemployment increases. By contrast, we find no evidence that cash welfare for families with children is more responsive, and some evidence that it might be less so. We find some evidence that poverty increases more with increases in the unemployment rate after reform, and none that it increases less. We find no significant effects of reform on the cyclical responsiveness of food consumption, food insecurity, health insurance, household crowding, or health.


This manuscript describes a global regression analysis of near-infrared (NIR, 900-1300 nm) transient absorptions (TA) of colloidal CdSe quantum dots (QDs) photoexcited to their first (1S(e)1S(3/2)) excitonic state. Near-IR TA spectroscopy facilitates charge carrier-resolved analysis of excitonic decay of QDs because signals in the NIR are due exclusively to absorptions of photoexcited electrons and holes, as probe energies in this region are not high enough to induce absorptions across the optical bandgap that crowd the visible TA spectra. The response of each observed component of the excitonic decay to the presence of a hole-trapping ligand (1-octanethiol) and an electron-accepting ligand (1,4-benzoquinone), and comparison of time constants to those for recovery of the ground state bleaching feature in the visible TA spectrum, allow for the assignment of the components to (i) a 1.6 ps hole trapping process, (ii) 19 ps and 274 ps surface-mediated electron trapping processes, and (iii) a ∼5 ns recombination of untrapped electrons.


In recent years, there has been an increasing number of papers showing how parasitism and pollution can interact with each other in aquatic organisms. In addition to synergistic negative effects of both stressors, there are also indications of antagonistic interactions. The latter are related to the reduction of pollutant levels in infected hosts compared with uninfected conspecifics. As reduced pollutant concentrations are usually correlated with less adverse effects, it might be advantageous to be infected if hosts are confronted with environmental pollution. On the other hand, possible pathological effects might reduce a potentially beneficial effect of parasites. There are also examples, however, which show that parasites may enhance toxic effects of pollutants by interfering with host-protection mechanisms. In these cases, a parasitosis would have exclusively negative effects on the physiological homeostasis of their hosts. This presentation summarizes the current knowledge on interactions between parasites and pollutants with respect to their effects on the host's health.


Unresponsiveness to therapy remains a significant problem in the treatment of cancer, also with the new classes of cancer drugs. In my laboratory, we use functional genetic approaches to identify biomarkers that can predict responsiveness to targeted cancer therapeutics; drugs that specifically inhibit molecules or pathways that are often activated in cancer. Nevertheless, it remains poorly explained why a significant number of tumors do not respond to these therapies. We aim to elucidate the molecular pathways that contribute to unresponsiveness to targeted cancer therapeutics using a functional genetic approach. This will yield biomarkers that may be useful to predict how individual patients will respond to these drugs. Furthermore, this work may allow the development of drugs that act in synergy with the established drug to prevent or overcome drug resistance. To identify biomarkers that control tumor cell responsiveness to cancer therapeutics, we use multiple complementary approaches. First, we use genome wide loss-of-function genetic screens (with shRNA interference libraries) in cancer cells that are sensitive to the drug-of-interest to search for genes whose down-regulation confers resistance to the drug-of-interest (resistance screens). In addition, we use shRNA screens with a low dose of the drug to screen for genes whose inhibition enhances the toxicity of the cancer drug (sensitizer screens). As a third approach, we use gain of function genetic screens in which we search for genes whose over-expression modulates drug responsiveness. Once we have identified candidate drug response biomarkers in relevant cell line models, we ask if the expression of these genes is correlated with clinical response to the drug-of-interest. For this, we use tumor samples of cancer patients treated with the drug in question and whose response to therapy is documented. In a fourth and distinct approach we perform high throughput sequencing of the "kinome" (some 600 genes) of tumor samples to identify connections between cancer genotype and drug responses. Examples of these approaches to identify biomarkers of response to different cancer drugs will be presented.


Doolen examines the interrelationship between transnationalist ideology and the African American experience in Martin Delany's novel Blake; or, The Huts of America. In the antebellum struggle against slavery and racism, abolitionists considered fiction less effective than more factual narrative forms. However, Doolen argues that Martin Delany uses the novel form to identify how the fictions of white supremacy established the terms and categories of U.S. historiography. Recognizing that white-authored histories helped maintain the institutions of slavery, Delany attempts to remove African Americans from a nationalist discourse that automatically referred their appeals for racial justice back to a failed white revolutionary project. Doolen argues that the transnational shift that structures Blake-a movement between the United States and Cuba-constituted Delany's rejection of American Revolutionary time and space. By the time of the novel's abrupt ending, Delany had developed a hemispheric context for black liberation that cannot be traced back to the eighteenth-century corruptions of American republicanism. Finally, Doolen makes a case for Blake's literary complexity by emphasizing the nuanced relationship between novelistic and historical writing. In the process, Doolen challenges the standard chronology of African American literary history in which abolitionism's political, rhetorical, and formulaic constraints supposedly hindered the development of a fictional tradition prior to Emancipation.


There has been a heightened interest among U.S. government agencies to fund cybersecurity workforce development. These efforts include offering universities funding for student scholarships, funding for building capacity in cybersecurity education, as well as sponsoring cybersecurity competitions, games, and outreach programs. This paper examines the effectiveness of cybersecurity competitions in educating students. Our study shows that though competitions do pique students' interest, the effectiveness of this approach in producing more high quality professionals can be limited. One reason is that the knowledge barrier to compete in these competitions is high. To be successful, students have to be proficient in operating systems, application services, software engineering, system administration and networking. Many Computer Science and Information Technology students do not feel qualified, and consequently this reduces participation from a wider student audience. Our approach takes aims at lowering this barrier to entry. We employ a hands-on learning methodology where students attend lectures on background knowledge on weekdays and practice what they learn in weekend workshops. A virtual networking environment is provided for students to practice network defense in the workshops and on their own time.


Saint Augustine famously "wept for Dido, who killed herself by the sword," and many later medieval schoolboys were taught to respond in similarly emotional ways to the pain of female characters in Virgil's Aeneid and other classical texts. This book takes readers into the medieval classroom, where boys identified with Dido, where teachers turned an unfinished classical poem into a bildungsroman about young Achilles, and where students not only studied but performed classical works. The book opens by examining teachers' notes and marginal commentary in manuscripts of the Aeneid and two short verse narratives: the Achilleid of Statius and the Ilias Latina, a Latin epitome of Homer's Iliad. It focuses on interlinear glosses—individual words and short phrases written above lines of text that elucidate grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, but that also indicate how students engaged with the feelings and motivations of characters. Interlinear and marginal glosses, which were the foundation of the medieval classroom study of classical literature, reveal that in learning the Aeneid, boys studied and empathized with the feelings of female characters; that the unfinished Achilleid was restructured into a complete narrative showing young Achilles mirroring his mentors, including his mother, Thetis; and that the Ilias Latina offered boys a condensed version of the Iliad focusing on the deaths of young men. Manuscript evidence even indicates how specific passages could be performed. The result provides a surprising new picture of medieval education and writes a new chapter in the reception history of classical literature.


A remarkable cause-marketing (CM) strategy has emerged in the marketplace: businesses promise to donate an identical product for each product sold (i.e., a "one-for-one" promotion). Yet despite prosocial tendencies, consumers hesitate when uncertain about others' preferences, which poses the question of whether one-forone promotions are perceived to meet recipients' preferences. Five experiments (one field experiment and four laboratory experiments) reveal that the efficacy of in-kind, one-for-one promotions varies as a function of product type. Specifically, one-for-one promotions enhance purchase intentions for utilitarian products but undermine purchase intentions for hedonic products. Moreover, this difference is due to certainty regarding recipients' utilitarian preferences and uncertainty regarding recipients' hedonic preferences. Importantly, hedonic products' backfiring effects are attenuated when recipients' preferences are perceived as homogeneous or the recipient is familiar to the donor. Collectively, these findings emphasize the importance of consumer inferences regarding recipients' preferences in determining the efficacy of CM promotions that leverage in-kind benefits while elucidating the role of product type in the effectiveness of these promotions.


Complex ethical situations, such as end-of-life medical treatment disputes, occur on a regular basis in healthcare settings. Healthcare ethics committees (HECs) have been a leading dispute resolution forum for many of these conflicts. But while the function of HECs has evolved from mediation to adjudication, the form of HECs has not evolved to adapt to this expanded and more consequential function.HECs are typically multidisciplinary groups comprised of representatives from different departments of the healthcare facility: medicine, nursing, law, pastoral care, and social work, for example. HECs were established to support and advise patients, families, and caregivers as they work together to find solutions for delicate circumstances.HECs generally have been considered to play a mere advisory, facilitative role. But, increasingly, HECs have been playing a decision making role. Both in law and in practice, state governments and healthcare facilities have been giving HECs more authority to adjudicate conflicts and more responsibility for making treatment decisions. For example, HECs sometimes make decisions on behalf of incapacitated patients with no friends or family. Other times, HECs adjudicate medical treatment disputes between providers and the patient or patient's family.Unfortunately, HECs are not up to this task. They are not ready to evolve from being mere advisers to being deciders. HECs are overwhelmingly intramural bodies. That is, they are comprised of professionals employed directly or indirectly by the very same institution whose decision the HEC adjudicates. But a lack of neutrality and independence is not the only problem. HECs typically also lack sufficient diversity, composition, training, and resources. Consequently, HECs make decisions that suffer from risks of corruption, bias, carelessness, and arbitrariness.In prior published work, I have argued that the adjudicatory authority of HECs be relocated to a multi-institutional HEC. Thereby, no single institution's HEC would have a controlling voice in the adjudication of its own dispute. A multi-institutional HEC preserves the expertise and extrajudicial nature of HECs. But in contrast to an intramural HEC, a multi-institutional HEC possesses better resources, a greater diversity of perspectives, and the neutrality and independence required by due process.In this Article, my primary objective is not to further articulate this or any other solution. Instead, the objective of this Article is to further articulate the problem. As the power of HECs grows, concern over HEC fairness grows. There is a direct and positive correlation between the power of HECs and the importance of developing a fairer dispute resolution mechanism that better accords with procedural due process. In short, because we are giving HECs more authority, we must demand more accountability.


We study the small oscillations of a pendulum completely filled by a viscoelastic fluid, restricting ourselves for the fluid to the simpler Oldroyd model. We establish the equations of motion of the system. Writing them in a suitable form, we obtain an existence and unicity theorem of the solution of the associated evolution problem by means of semigroup theory. Afterwards, we show the existence and symmetry of the spectrum and prove the stability of the system. We show the existence of two sets of positive real eigenvalues, of which the first has infinity, and the second a point of the real axis, as points of accumulation. Finally, we specify the location of the possible nonreal eigenvalues.


Over the last decade, impact investing has become an increasingly-discussed topic in the realms of both business and public policy. Impact investors are motived by a desire to advance social or environmental goals and an intuition that pursuing two goals at once - investment returns and social or environmental returns - is more effective than keeping them separate. This article reviews the recent history of impact investing, addresses some of the issues confounding the nascent field, and offers a few definitions that might bring more rigor and clarity to what remains, as yet, a simultaneously confusing and promising investment strategy.


This thesis examines the uneven development of trade union activity among hospital nurses in Britain between 1910-1976, within a 'situated' materialistic perspective on union growth. It is argued that both professionalism and unionism developed as a result of the decay of traditional nursing ideology in its home base of the voluntary hospital, and the failure of its proponents to win total hegemony in areas where nursing reform spread, notably the asylums, workhouse infirmaries and private nursing. In explaining these developments due emphasis is given to both material changes in the labour process and the influence of 'subjective' predispositions that are the result of prior and continuing orientations, and of the extent to which wider economic and political conditions are favourable. Thus, the expansion of the medical division of labour in the 'acute-oriented' voluntary hospitals, involving the delegation of more tasks to subordinates, encouraged the development of professionalism; while in private nursing the attempt to realise the value of nursing as a commodity was the key material influence. However, in both instances the social background of recruits was also influential in determining that 'professional strategies of occupational closure would be the favoured 'solutions' to problems caused by material changes. Thepartial success of professionalism in achieving the 1919 Nurses Registration Act was influenced by the temporarily favourable political and economic situation.

Trade unionism arose out of the contradictions with traditional nursing ideology and the failure of professionalism to solve them fully. These contradictions were most intense in those sectors where work was of lower status, like the asylums and workhouse infirmaries, and where the social background of recruits would also incline them to be more inclined towards trade unionism. Changes in the tempo of popular struggle are also shown to have had an important influence on the development of trade unionism. Successive chapters follow the unfolding of these contradictions, ideological responses and wider influences through to the 1970's, where it is argued that, despite continuing differences, there has been some convergence between the apparently competing strategies of professionalism and unionionism. The relative importance of the purported'proletarianisation' of the nursing labour force, is also assessed.


The problem of "the color line," W.E.B. Du Bois's ever-present polemical theme, is at the core of this novel of sensual love, radical politics, and the quest for racial justice. Originally published by Harcourt Brace and Co. in 1928, Dark Princess was one of two novels written by Du Bois. Toward the end of his life he ranked it as his favorite of all his works. For the fantastical storyline, heavy with propagandist overtones, Du Bois depicts 1920s America as a racist nation primed for radical protest and terrorism. Matthew Townes, the protagonist, is a medical student expelled because his race bars him from the required course in obstetrics in a white hospital. Self-exiled in Berlin after his political idealism is corrupted, Townes falls in love with Princess Kautilya, daughter of a maharajah, and joins the international team she heads in which people of color unite against white imperialism. Du Bois recounts their quest for liberation in a whites-only world that overwhelms their passionate love and separates them. Du Bois concludes the novel with the birth of their son--proclaimed as the Maharajah of Bwodpur and "Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds." The reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune found "amidst much pure romance and preciosity of style there are rich deposits of straight sociology [as well as] interesting and revealing reading [for] the white reader who has yet few ways of looking into the many closed chambers of Negro life or of seeing into the dilemmas of the intellectual Negro mind and heart."


We consider the problem of occupancy estimation in buildings using available environmental information. In particular, we study the problem of how to collect data that is informative enough for occupancy estimation purposes. We thus propose an application-oriented input design approach for designing the ventilation signal to be used while collecting the system identification datasets. The main goal of the method is to guarantee a certain accuracy in the estimated occupancy levels while minimizing the experimental time and effort. To take into account potential limitations on the actuation signals we moreover formulate the problem as a recursive nonlinear and nonconvex optimization problem, solved then using exhaustive search methods. We finally corroborate the theoretical findings with some numerical examples, which results show that computing ventilation signals using experiment design concepts leads to occupancy estimator performing 4 times better in terms of Mean Square Error (MSE).


As in most industries, in health care, information is a competitive asset, and we expect that health care providers may have incentive to protect their information from competitors. This study aims to understand how this incentive to protect information may be a barrier to the development of a health information network. Health information networks are designed to facilitate electronic information sharing across health care providers. The electronic exchange of health information is widely considered a promising tool to improve quality, costs, and efficiency of health care. Federal and state governments have invested over $30 billion dollars to support the development of health information networks and electronic health information sharing. However, uptake has been slow suggesting that barriers to adoption exist. We first develop a model of firms' decisions to enter a health information network given this potential loss of competitive advantage. Guided by implications of the model, we conduct a two part empirical analysis to test for evidence that providers may be reluctant to join a health information network out of competitive concern. First, we conduct a national hospital-level analysis. Second, we construct a novel data set to conduct a physician-level analysis focused on New York state. In both analyses, we find supporting evidence that competitive pressure may be a barrier to entry by health care firms. We discuss implications for policy and network design given our findings.


We examine the effects of institutional investors' credit supply uncertainty (CSU) in the corporate bond markets on the capital structure of the firm. We measure CSU as the bondholders' investment horizon, based on the idea that the shorter the investment horizon of investors, the higher the issuer's refinancing risk, i.e., the risk of not being able to roll over its maturing debt due to investors' credit supply uncertainty. We find that high CSU leads to lower leverage and lower probability of issuing bonds in the next period. High CSU, on the other hand, increases the firm's probability of issuing equity and borrowing from banks in the next period. Moreover, these effects are concentrated in firms whose bond investor base is more prone to credit supply imbalances, as measured by investor geographical concentration, herding propensity, and local bond preference. These findings suggest that the financial fragility arising from supply-based (as opposed to demand-based) factors have significant effects on the capital structure of the firm. While the positive effect of CSU on bank borrowing implies that issuers can substitute away from bonds into bank loans in times of high CSU, this substitution occurs only for firms whose bank relationships are nonexclusive. In contrast, CSU does not affect bank borrowing decisions of firms with exclusive bank relationships. Together, our findings suggest that investors' bond supply uncertainty and segmentation of the credit markets (bonds vs. bank loans) are important drivers of corporate financing policy and capital structure even for established firms with access to public bond markets. JEL classification: G1, G2


In a high-speed signal transmission system that uses transformer coupling, there is a need to provide increased transmitted signal strength without adding active components. This invention uses additional transformers to achieve the needed gain. The prior art uses stronger drivers (which require an IC redesign and a higher power supply voltage), or the addition of another active component (which can decrease reliability, increase power consumption, reduce the beneficial effect of serializer/deserializer preemphasis or deemphasis, and/or interfere with fault containment mechanisms), or uses a different transformer winding ratio (which requires redesign of the transformer and may not be feasible with high-speed signals that require a 1:1 winding ratio). This invention achieves the required gain by connecting the secondaries of multiple transformers in series. The primaries of these transformers are currently either connected in parallel or are connected to multiple drivers. There is also a need to split a receive signal to multiple destinations with minimal signal loss. Additional transformers can achieve the split. The prior art uses impedance-matching series resistors that cause a loss of signal. Instead of causing a loss, most instantiations of this invention would actually provide gain. Multiple transformers are used instead of multiple windings on a single transformer because multiple windings on the same transformer would require a redesign of the transformer, and may not be feasible with high-speed transformers that usually require a bifilar winding with a 1:1 ratio. This invention creates the split by connecting the primaries of multiple transformers in series. The secondary of each transformer is connected to one of the intended destinations without the use of impedance-matching series resistors.


Over 20 million Indians do not live in India, either as people of Indian origin (PIOs) or non-resident Indians (NRIs). This paper looks into the double diaspora situation of Indians who are descendants from indentured labourers in the Fiji islands but who, due to the political situation in Fiji, decided to migrate to New Zealand. The data come from a series of interviews conducted with first and second generation Fiji Indians in Wellington, New Zealand. The focus is on the discursive construction of identity in this double diaspora situation, particularly the role that 'place' plays in this process. The key concept investigated is that of HOME. Taking a dictionary definition as its starting point, the analysis of the interview data shows that none of the places construed as HOME as part of their identity is unproblematic for the community. In particular, the meaning components 'ancestral home', 'country of origin' and 'country of residence' contribute to the dynamic social realities of different members of the community. The data also reveal that there is an additional meaning component not included in the dictionary definition, namely the idea of the 'colonial country as cultural home'.


We propose Distributional Concavity (DC) regularization for Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), a functional gradient-based method that promotes the entropy of the generator distribution and works against mode collapse. Our DC regularization is an easy-to-implement method that can be used in combination with the current state of the art methods like Spectral Normalization and Wasserstein GAN with gradient penalty to further improve the performance. We will not only show that our DC regularization can achieve highly competitive results on ILSVRC2012 and CIFAR datasets in terms of Inception score and Fréchet inception distance, but also provide a mathematical guarantee that our method can always increase the entropy of the generator distribution. We will also show an intimate theoretical connection between our method and the theory of optimal transport.


This article explores the historical development of common-practice musical style and how that development might connect to the cognition of key within the history of Western European tonality. First, musical corpora of 19 composers were divided into three-chord progressions, and these progressions were tallied. The chord tallies were used for a cluster analysis and for measurements of inter-corpus cross entropy. The cluster analysis divided the corpora in ways that conform to historical and stylistic intuitions, and inter-corpus cross entropy was found to correlate with the years separating the corpora. These findings show that the chronological distance between two musical corpora seems to predict compositional similarity and that chord-progression norms are connected to specific historical situations. In order to model how these changes might affect the cognition of musical key, a corpus-sensitive key-finding algorithm was used to decode key within a famous example of musical ambiguity, the opening of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony. Each corpus-trained model created a slightly different key interpretation, suggesting that historically situated models of tonal cognition might indeed interpret the same stimulus differently.


We measure the repo funding extended by money market funds (MMF) and securities lenders to the shadow banking system, including quantities, haircuts, and repo rates by type of underlying collateral. We find that repo played only a small role in funding private sector assets prior to the crisis, as most repos are backed by Treasury and Agency collateral. Repo with private sector collateral contracts during the crisis, but the magnitude is relatively insignificant compared with the contraction in asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP). While relatively small in aggregate, the contraction in repo particularly affected key dealer banks with large exposures to private sector securities, which then had knock-on effects on security markets, and led these dealer banks to resort to the Fed's emergency lending programs. We also find that haircuts in MMF-to-dealer repo rise less than the dealer-to-dealer or dealer-to-hedge fund repo haircuts reported in earlier papers. This finding suggests that the contraction in repo led dealers to take defensive actions, given their own capital and liquidity problems, raising credit terms to their borrowers. The picture that emerges from these findings looks less like a traditional bank run of depositors and more like a credit crunch among dealer banks.


The goal of the present study was to devise a means of representing languages in a perceptual similarity space based on their overall sound structures. In Experiment 1, native English listeners performed a free classification task in which they grouped 17 diverse languages based on their sound similarity. A similarity matrix of the grouping patterns was then submitted to clustering and multidimensional scaling analyses. In Experiment 2, an independent group of native English listeners sorted the group of 17 languages in terms of their distance from English. Taken together, the results of the two experiments provide the basis for developing predictions regarding foreign-accented speech intelligibility.


The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) global land surface temperature (LST)/emissivity products supply daily, 8-day, and monthly global temperature and narrowband emissivity data. This article uses these products to calculate the surface long wave radiation of natural objects such as sand, soil, vegetation, etc., based on the Planck function and the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The results show that using the narrowband emissivity of a single band instead of the broadband emissivity results in large errors of up to 100 W m?2 of the calculated long wave radiation. A method to calculate broadband emissivity in the entire TIR spectral region from the narrowband emissivities of the MODIS bands (29, 31, and 32) in the thermal infrared region is proposed. Using the broadband emissivity, the surface long wave radiation could be calculated to an accuracy better than 6 W m?2 in the temperature region of 240–330 K, with a standard deviation of 1.22 W m?2, and a maximum error of 6.05 W m?2 (not considering the uncertainty associated with the MODIS LST/emissivity products themselves). The satellite estimated broadband emissivity was compared with 3-year (January 2001 to December 2003) ground-based measurements of emissivity at Gaize (32.30°N, 84.06°E, 4420 m) on the western Tibetan Plateau. The results show that the broadband emissivity calculated from MODIS narrowband emissivities by this method matches well the ground measurements, with a standard deviation of 0.0085 and a bias of 0.0015.


Fishery discards in the Belgian part of the North Sea are a source of food for Herring Gulls Larus argentatus and Lesser Black-backed Gulls L. fuscus. To understand the importance of discards for local L. argentatus and L. fuscus populations, single-item discard experiments were performed at four offshore distances from the gullery of the Port of Zeebrugge, at four different stages of the breeding season (May to August 2011). We compared flock composition during discarding with the distribution of Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, with respect to offshore distance from the colony as reflected by an 11-year (2002–2013) dataset of standardised ship-based surveys. Consumption of discards depended on the type of fish that was discarded, but prey selectivity by adults was reduced during the chick rearing stage. A generalised linear mixed model identified the number of scavengers following the vessel, the proportion of adults and of Herring Gulls in the flock and the frequency of food robbery events interacting with the stage of the breeding season as affecting the variation in flatfish consumption. Shifts in scavenger flock composition and discard consumption between stages of the breeding season are likely linked to variation in food requirements of the gull population along the season and to dispersal patterns towards the end of summer. Nutrient requirements of breeding adults peak during the chick rearing stage, making this a key period in terms of dependence of the breeding parents on discarded fish as food source.


Foreign direct investment (FDI)—whether mergers and acquisitions or "greenfield" ventures built from the ground up—is generally thought of as reflecting decisions based on long-run factors. Conventional wisdom on capital flows holds that FDI inflows are "good flows," while assessments of portfolio and other flows are more ambiguous. When considering restrictions on capital flows, the first reaction of researchers and policymakers is to want to exclude FDI inflows. Blanchard and Acelin find that FDI flows measured in the balance of payments are actually quite different from this depiction of FDI. Their analysis reveals that FDI inflows and outflows are highly correlated, even at high frequency and using different methodologies, and that FDI flows to emerging-market economies appear to respond to the US monetary policy rate, even at high frequency. Based on these findings they reach two conclusions. First, in many countries, a large proportion of measured FDI inflows are just flows going in and out of the country on their way to their final destination, with the stop due in part to favorable corporate tax conditions. Second, some of these measured FDI flows are much closer to portfolio debt flows, responding to short-run movements in US monetary policy conditions rather than to medium-run fundamentals of the country. Both these conclusions have implications for how researchers and policymakers should think about capital controls and the exclusion of measured FDI from such controls.