Received 15 May 2009; revised 4 August 2009; accepted 16 September 2009; published 7 January 2010. [1] An insightful link of model performance to the physical assumptions in general circulation models (GCMs) can be explored if assessment of radiative fluxes and cloud radiative effects go beyond those at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). In this study, we compare the radiative flux profiles (at surface, 500 hPa, 200 hPa, 70 hPa, and TOA) and cloud effect profiles (500 hPa, 200 hPa, and TOA) from HadGAM1, using Surface and Atmospheric Radiation Budget (SARB) data from Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) on the TRMM satellite over the tropics (30S–30N). Comparison at TOA reveals that HadGAM1 agrees well with CERES for mean cloud height but lacks in cloudiness. Comparing to its predecessor, HadAM3, HadGAM1 agrees better with observations in TOA LW cloud effects, net cloud effects, and the ratio of SW to LW cloud effects. Extending the comparison to multiple levels, we gain additional insight into the vertical differences in clouds: for clouds at heights below 500 hPa, HadGAM1 and CERES are in good agreement in terms of cloudiness, but HadGAM1 underestimates the average cloud height; for clouds between 500 and 200 hPa, HadGAM1 underestimates the cloudiness but overestimates the average cloud height; for clouds at heights above 200 hPa, HadGAM1 produces more clouds than in CERES. Stratifying the cloud effects by dynamic regimes, we find that HadGAM1 underestimates cloudiness and overestimates averaged cloud height in the convective regimes, but the opposite is true in the strong subsidence regimes.


The bestselling star of NO, DAVID! turns Christmas traditions upside down with laugh-aloud humor. Readers of all ages will vividly remember trying to peek at hidden gift packages; writing scrolls of wish lists to Santa; and struggling to behave at formal Christmas dinner parties. Always in the background, we know Santa Claus is watching, soon to decide if David deserves a shiny new fire truck or a lump of coal under the tree. From playing with delicate ornaments to standing in an endlessly long line for Santa, here are common Christmas activities--but with David's naughty trimmings. A surefire hit that is destined to be an annual classic.


Normal nerve conduction velocity values in 10 ponies were determined for sensory nerve fibers in the median and ulnar nerves. A percutaneous signal-averaging technique was developed and used. Medial and lateral palmar digital nerves on the abaxial surface of the proximal sesamoid bones were used as the sites for percutaneous stimulation, whereas recording sites included the medial and lateral palmar nerves just distal to the carpus and the median and ulnar nerves in the middle of the radius. Sensory nerve conduction velocities can be evaluated simply and clinically in the limbs of horses, using percutaneous signal-averaging techniques.


The Courgette or oyong (Luffa acutangula L. (Roxb)) is member of Cucurbitaceae mainly used as vegetable. Beside used as vegetables, courgette aslo used as keratolytic agent. This fact is supposed that this vegetables contain protease. This research is succeed to purified courgette's protease by four step. That was precipitate by 70% ammonium sulphate saturation, purification using DEAE cellulose ion exchange chromatography and gel filtration chromatography using sephadex G-100 and G-75. Purified courgette's protease had 81,922 U/mg for specific activity and 34 kDa molecular weight. This enzyme had the characteristic such as activated optimally at 37oC, pH 7 and 10 minute duration time. This enzyme activity can decrease by PMSF and H2O2, its remarkable that courgette protease is serine protease and had the thiol group in its structure. The ability to digest food proteins materials like boiled meat and boiled white egg by courgette protease proves that the courgette protease enzyme is could be used in enzyme replacement therapy in mild digestion problem.


Motivation: Web interfaces provide access to numerous biological databases. Many can be accessed to in a programmatic way thanks to Web Services. Building applications that combine several of them would benefit from a single framework. Results: BioServices is a comprehensive Python framework that provides programmatic access to major bioinformatics Web Services (e.g. KEGG, UniProt, BioModels, ChEMBLdb). Wrapping additional Web Services based either on Representational State Transfer or Simple Object Access Protocol/Web Services Description Language technologies is eased by the usage of object-oriented programming. Availability and implementation: BioServices releases and documentation are available at http://pypi.python.org/pypi/bioservices under a GPL-v3 license. Contact: firstname.lastname@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


UNLABELLED
The aim of the study was to assess the association between glycemic control understanding as a glycated haemoglobin level and indices of diabetic neuropathy.

METHODS
We evaluated 204 patients with diabetes (type 1 - 29; type 2 - 175). Glycated haemoglobin was determined using The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial/ National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program method. Evaluation of complaints from the lower extremities was based on the Neuropathy Syndrome Total Score questionnaire. We used a mono lament for evaluation of touch sensation (Semmes-Weinstein 5.07-10 g), a 128 Hz calibrated tune-fork for the vibration perception test, Tip-Therm to assess temperature sensation.

RESULTS
The mean glycated haemoglobin level was assessed on 8.53±1.87%. The mean Neuropathy Syndrome Total Score: 11.45±6.37. Decreased sensation of touch on both sides was determined in 30% of cases, decreased sensation of temperature in 59% and decreased sensation of vibration in 30%. For Neuropathy Syndrome Total Score and glycated haemoglobin the Pearson's correlation test was 0.00910 (p≈0.99), Spearman's rank correlation test was 0.00523 (p≈0.95). Persons with sensation deficits and neuropathy symptoms had not significantly higher (Neuropathy Syndrome Total Score, temperature sensation disturbances) and not significantly lower (vibration and touch) glycated haemoglobin level compared to patients without neuropathy.

CONCLUSION
There is no correlation between prevalence and advancement of sensorial neuropathy and current diabetes control in patients with long-term established diabetes.


Renaming is vital to software maintenance and evolution. Developers rename entities when their original names no longer fit their behavioral role within the program. This may happen if the entity's original name was of poor quality or if the system has evolved such that the original name needs to be updated to reflect some of this evolution. In the end, the reason for the rename ultimately falls under increasing understandability and comprehension. Because comprehension is so important, and identifiers are the primary way developers comprehend code, it is critical to understand empirically how and why identifier names evolve. Armed with an understanding of these two facets of identifier evolution, researchers will be able to train algorithms to recognize, recommend, or even automatically generate high-quality identifier names. We present an empirical study of how method, class and package identifier names evolve to better understand the motives of their evolution. The empirical validation involves a set of 524,113 rename refactorings, performed on 3,795 Java systems. In a nutshell, our findings demonstrate that most rename refactorings narrow the meaning of the identifiers for which they are applied. Further, we analyze commit messages to contextualize these renames.


The upcoming 5G specifications from 3GPP, to be available in 2018, will include LTE-Advanced Pro as well as a new 5G radio-access technology. This practical and very successful book, written by engineers working closely with 3GPP, gives insight into the newest technologies and standards adopted by 3GPP, with detailed explanations of the specific solutions chosen and their implementation in LTE, LTE-Advanced, and LTE-Advanced Pro, as well as providing a detailed description of the path to 5G and the associated underlying technologies. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the large extensions to LTE as introduced in 3GPP Releases 12 and 13 and the role of LTE in the upcoming 5G era. New to this edition includes updated content on: 4G and 5G Radio Access Spectrum for 4G and 5G Machine-Type Communication Device-to-Device Communication License-assisted Access Full-dimension MIMOSmall-cell enhancements, eIMTA, FDD+TDD aggregation, dual connectivity Requirements on and general structure of 5G wireless access, addressing the existing and new usage scenarios for 5GTechnical solutions for the new 5G radio-access technology The authors of this book all work at Ericsson Research and have been deeply involved in 3G and 4G development and standardization. They are leading experts in the field and are today actively contributing to the standardization of 4G and 5G within 3GPP. The leading book on 3GPP specifications for LTE, LTE-Advanced, and LTE-Advanced Pro covering up to and including Release 13, written by Ericsson engineers who are heavily involved in the development of 3GPP specificationsTen new chapters and coverage of all major features introduced with Release 12 and 13Two completely new chapters on 5G wireless access including a detailed description of the key technology components under development by 3GPP


Utilising pseudocapacitive lithium storage is one of the most effective methods to improve the rate performance. In this work, hydrogenated anatase TiO2 nanospindles with a carbon coating (H-TiO2@C) are synthesized using a facile hydrothermal process, followed by an annealing treatment of 506 epoxy resin coated TiO2 nanospindles in a H2/Ar atmosphere. The hydrogenation process can generate rich oxygen vacancies on the outermost surface of TiO2 nanospindles. When used as an anode material for LIBs, the H-TiO2@C electrode exhibits excellent cycling ability and rate performance. It delivers a high reversible capacity of 310 mA h g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 and 126 mA h g−1 at 1 A g−1. The pseudocapacitive contribution is as high as 63.9% as revealed by cyclic voltammetry. Such an excellent electrochemical performance can be ascribed to the synergistic effect of oxygen vacancies and the carbon coating for enhancing the pseudocapacitive effect. This work may provide a new strategy to effectively improve the pseudocapacitive properties of metal oxides.


ABSTRACT In order to provide a timely assessment of India's fulfilment of international obligations on religious freedom this article explores the nature and 'issue-salience' of different human rights 'pathologies'. It uses critical frame analysis of the corpus of civil society organisations' (CSOs) submissions to the third cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The findings reveal CSOs' concerns over the weakening of rule of law institutions and restrictions on civil society during the period under study. This has impacted upon the ability of human rights defenders to protect religious freedom. The civil society discourse also highlights a broad range of failings; including communal violence, police malpractice/ judicial shortcomings, discrimination, oppression and incitement. In contrast, the Government's UPR submission fails to acknowledge these issues. In conceptual terms, this disconnect suggests performativity and legitimation are a feature of the post-2014 NDA administration's framing of human rights. It appears to embrace civil society engagement and the promotion of religious freedom in a way that advances political legitimacy, whereas civil society accounts suggest otherwise and point to 'legitimation' – or a disjuncture between rhetoric and reality.


The authors have observed abnormal blood vessels, strongly suggestive of neovascular proliferation, arising from the retinal circulation and extending through the inner limiting membrane of the retina into the vitreous in five spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) rats with severe retinal dystrophy. The animals in whom these presumptive retinovitreal new vessels occurred were all 15 mo of age or older. The new vessels frequently demonstrated thinned and, rarely, fenestrated endothelium, abnormal intracellular junctions, increased numbers of endocytic vesicles, bizarre appearing pericytes, and highly abnormal basement membranes, features that have been observed in retinovitreal new vessels in proliferative retinopathies in humans. Unlike such new vessels arising from the human retinal circulation, however, those that we observed in dystrophic rat retinas were usually surrounded by proliferating retinal pigment epithelial cells within the retinal substance. Unlike the vessels, the pigment epithelial cells did not break through the inner limiting membrane of the retina to enter the vitreous. The pigment epithelial cells that made contact with the internal limiting membrane of the retina demonstrated apical and basal plasma membrane specializations that are typical of these cells in their normal anatomical location, while pigment epithelial cells migrating in cords through the neural retina lacked such specializations. This animal model may be of great value in understanding the mechanisms of retinal neovascularization.


Generation of abstract geometric art based on exact aesthetics, gestalt theory and graphic design principles CWI's research has a theme-oriented structure and is grouped into four clusters. Listed below are the names of the clusters and in parentheses their acronyms. Generation of abstract geometric art based on exact aesthetics, gestalt theory and graphic design principles ABSTRACT In this thesis artificial intelligence ideas are applied to the domain of fine arts and especially modern art. First, we take a closer look at avant garde art movements of the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. After that, we make an analysis of the knowledge on which this art movement is partly based by considering the fields of aesthetics, gestalt psychology and graphic design. Having formalised general ideas about what a well-formed painting should consist of, we then look at ways of incorporate these ideas in a model for generating a composition. We design a formal framework to which we map the domain concepts. Based on the framework, we make a top-down knowledge decomposition. To demonstrate how our ideas can be applied in a practical situation, we have implemented a prototype system. Theoretically, this system is split up into the front-end part, in which the actual output is generated, and the back-end part, in which artificial intelligence techniques are applied to the actual concepts of composing an artwork. The front-end is partly based on the multimedia generation system called Cuypers, which was developed at the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam. Cuypers was made to generate dynamic presentations and therefore generates XML, which subsequently is transformed into a desired format (XHTML, TIME, SMIL) using XSLT transformation stylesheets. Our system generates output in the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format, which is an XML based standard for vector graphics and animation. The back-end part is based on the formal ideas about art described above. It is implemented in Eclipse Prolog. Finally, we discuss the artistic significance of our results. We conclude this thesis by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the conceptual decisions, as well as suggesting directions for future research, including ideas for the evaluation of the generated compositions. ABSTRACT In this thesis artificial intelligence ideas are applied to the domain of fine arts and especially modern art. First, we take a closer look at avant garde art movements of the late 19th and first half of the 20th …


NETWORK-ON-CHIP (NoC) design is today at a crossroad. On one hand, the design principles to efficiently implement interconnection networks in the resource-constrained on-chip setting have stabilized. On the other hand, the requirements on embedded system design are far from stabilizing. Embedded systems are composed by assembling together heterogeneous components featuring differentiated operating speeds and ad-hoc counter measures must be adopted to bridge frequency domains. Moreover, an unmistakable trend toward enhanced reconfigurability is clearly underway due to the increasing complexity of applications. At the same time, the technology effect is manyfold since it provides unprecedented levels of system integration but it also brings new severe constraints to the forefront: power budget restrictions, overheating concerns, circuit delay and power variability, permanent fault, increased probability of transient faults. Supporting different degrees of reconfigurability and flexibility in the parallel hardware platform cannot be however achieved with the incremental evolution of current design techniques, but requires a disruptive approach and a major increase in complexity. In addition, new reliability challenges cannot be solved by using traditional fault tolerance techniques alone but the reliability approach must be also part of the overall reconfiguration methodology. In this thesis we take on the challenge of engineering a NoC architectures for the next generation systems and we provide design methods able to overcome the conventional way of implementing multi-synchronous, reliable and reconfigurable NoC. Our analysis is not only limited to research novel approaches to the specific challenges of the NoC architecture but we also co-design the solutions in a single integrated framework. Interdependencies between different NoC features are detected ahead of time and we finally avoid the engineering of highly optimized solutions to specific problems that however coexist inefficiently together in the final NoC architecture. To conclude, a silicon implementation by means of a testchip tape-out and a prototype on a FPGA board validate the feasibility and effectiveness


Following a commissioned review of Rothschild's corporate structure and client perception of the brand, the global branding consultancy Interbrand recommended a review/audit, and later, a redesign of Rothschild's publications for its main activity of corporate finance (including acquisitions, mergers, initial public offerings (IPOs) and launching of new companies). In 2002, Ashley designed and implemented the report including proposed visual direction for Rothschild's publications.

Ashley was again approached and subsequently commissioned to implement his proposed redesign. These publications are the major visual output for Rothschild. The redesign involved creating a large number of text pages including graphs, tables and complex diagrams for which he used a message-based design and message-based writing systems approach which he trademarked in 2002.

This approach consists of creating hierarchies of information and reducing the information down to the point of irreducible. This takes place at the text composition and editing stage, requiring collaboration between writer and designer. This collaboration is necessary as the designer needs to work closely with the writer so that the texts appear in the correct order. In the case of Rothschild, Ashley trained the writers in message-based writing so that when a reader scans a page the key points are transmitted and that by a closer reading more detail becomes apparent. More detailed reading yields even further information. Therefore readers with different amounts of time are all accommodated.

The research consisted working collaboratively with Rothschild's document writers to create message-based text to be used by the organisation's corporate finance personnel and to apply message-based design to the text. Key Images were converted in Microsoft PowerPoint for Rothschild's personnel to be able to communicate the new brand identity for internal training across Europe, Hong Kong, USA and Australia. A design and editorial manual explained all detailed technical points about the brand identity.


In this paper, a monotonic-increasing-thickness model (MITM) is proposed for designing cylindrically diffractive focusing micromirrors (DFMs) and cylindrically diffractive focusing micromirror arrays (arrayed DFMs). Based on rigorous electromagnetic theory and the boundary element method, numerical results reveal that focal properties of the designed DFMs are significantly improved through replacing the traditional equal-thickness model (ETM) with the proposed MITM, especially in the case of small f -numbers. In addition, the superiority of the MITM to the ETM is demonstrated in designs of the arrayed DFMs. For interference effect in the arrayed DFMs, we present new explanations.


Mice were primed with dinitrophenyl (DNP) (trinitrophenyl, TNP) coupled to thymus-independent (TI) or thymus-dependent (TD) carriers. B cells from these mice were transferred to irradiated recipients with T cells from keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH)-primed mice. After secondary immunization with DNP-KLH a significant DNP-specific IgG memory response was produced only by mice which received B cells which had been primed with TD antigens. TI antigens were unable to induce differentiation of B-cell precursors to IgG producing memory B cells but they did not suppress the induction of B-memory cells by TD antigens. The results indicate that TI antigens fail to activate a cell type which is required for the induction of memory B cells.


Understanding the dynamics of natural ecosystems in highly transformed landscapes is key to the design of regional development plans that are more sustainable and otherwise enhance conservation initiatives. We analyzed secondary forest and shrubland dynamics over 30 years (1985–2015) in a densely populated area of the Colombian Andes using satellite and biophysical data. We performed a land-cover change analysis, assessed landscape fragmentation, and applied regression models to evaluate the effects of environmental and geographical correlates with the observed forest transitions. Forest cover area increased during the 30 year-span, due mostly to forest regrowth in areas marginal for agriculture, especially during the first half of the study period. However, a high dynamic of both forest regrowth and clearing near urban centers and roads was observed. Soil fertility turned out to be a key correlate of both forest recovery and deforestation. Secondary forests, <30 years old represent the most fragmented component. Our findings reflect the complexity of the processes occurring in highly transformed and densely populated regions. Overall, this study provides elements for a better understanding of the factors driving land cover change near large urban areas, and raises new iideas for further research.


Corporate managers who face both strategic uncertainty and market uncertainty confront a classic trade-off between commitment and flexibility. They can stake a claim by making a large capital investment today, influencing their rivals' behavior; or they can take a "wait and see" approach to avoid adverse market consequences tomorrow. In Competitive Strategy, Benoit Chevalier-Roignant and Lenos Trigeorgis describe an emerging paradigm that can quantify and balance commitment and flexibility, "option games," by which the decision-making approaches of real options and game theory can be combined. The authors first discuss prerequisite concepts and tools from basic game theory, industrial organization, and real options analysis, bringing important materials and ideas together into a unified framework. They then present the new approach in discrete time and later in continuous time, beginning with the building blocks of the basic ideas and tools and culminating in richer theoretical analyses. Their presentation of continuous-time option games is the first systematic coverage of the topic and fills a significant gap in the existing literature. Competitive Strategy provides a rigorous yet pragmatic and intuitive approach to strategy formulation. It synthesizes research in the areas of strategy, economics, and finance in a way that is accessible to readers not necessarily expert in the various fields involved. The book will be of interest to scholars, students, and academically trained practicing managers interested in applying these ideas.


Abstract. Hundreds of wildfires in Northern California were sparked by lightning during the summer of 2008, resulting in downwind smoke for the months of June and July. Comparisons are reported for aerosol optics measurements in Reno, Nevada made during the very smoky month of July and the relatively clean month of August. Photoacoustic instruments equipped with integrating nephelometers were used to measure aerosol light scattering and absorption coefficients at wavelengths of 405 nm and 870 nm, revealing a strong variation of aerosol light absorption with wavelength. Insight on fuels burned is gleaned from comparison of Angstrom exponents of absorption (AEA) versus single scattering albedo (SSA) of the ambient measurements with laboratory biomass smoke measurements for many fuels. Measurements during the month of August, which were largely unaffected by fire smoke, exhibit surprisingly low AEA for aerosol light absorption when the SSA is highest, again likely as a consequence of the underappreciated wavelength dependence of aerosol light absorption by particles coated with non-absorbing organic and inorganic matter. Coated sphere calculations were used to show that AEA as large as 1.6 are possible for wood smoke even with non-absorbing organic coatings on black carbon cores, suggesting care be exercised when diagnosing AEA.


A type of extended line defect (ELD) with two pentagons plus an octagon as the basic unit is currently an experimentally available topological defect in the graphene lattice, which brings about some interesting modifications to the electronic properties of graphene. Within the framework of density functional theory (DFT), we perform a systematic calculation to clarify the role of the ELD in 3d-transition metal atom (TMA) adsorption onto the graphene surface. We find that, in contrast to the ordinary lattice position of graphene, the ELD presents a much stronger adsorption for the TMAs(Sc–Cu). Thus, the presence of ELD provides a feasible approach to pattern magnetic impurities onto the graphene surface in a controllable and self-assembled way. In addition, our calculation indicates that as the adatom near the ELD alters from Sc to Cu, the spin moment and the adsorption energy show intricate variations. By means of symmetry analysis, we establish a hybridization picture between the TMA orbitals and the pz orbital of graphene, by which these numerical results are reasonably explained. Finally, by calculating the electronic transport properties based on the DFT and nonequilibrium Green function technique, we find that when the electron tunnels through an ELD with Co or Fe adsorption, the maximum spin-filter efficiency can reach 85% and 97%, respectively, with a bias voltage less than 0.6 V. Therefore, these composite structures of graphene with TMA adsorbed by the ELD can be considered as a prototype of a spin-filter device.


IMPLICATIONS OF SWEDE MIDGE BIOLOGY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION MANAGEMENT ALTERNATIVES Braden G. Evans Advisor: University of Guelph, 2017 Professor Rebecca H. Hallett The swede midge, Contarinia nasturtii, is a significant pest of cruciferous crops in Canada and the United States. Though some control has been achieved with chemical pesticides, there is a need to evaluate alternative tactics for organic producers. The purpose of this study is to examine how C. nasturtii life history traits impact the potential success of alternative control tactics. The effect of temperature on three entomopathogenic nematode species, and one entomopathogenic fungus were investigated. Successful reproduction and infectivity were observed in all nematode species and a nematode-fungus combination generally caused highest mortality to all C. nasturtii life stages. The fungus suppressed emergence from soil in 2012 and all nematode treatments suppressed emergence in 2013 in broccoli fields. Biopesticides were evaluated for larval mortality and oviposition deterrence in the greenhouse, and damage symptoms in the field. In greenhouse trials, treatments resulted in significant reductions, with a greater proportion of reductions attributable to oviposition deterrence than larvicidal activity. Field trials showed the potential for biopesticides to reduce feeding damage; however, efficacy was dependent on C. nasturtii abundance. Insect exclusion fencing and planting dates were evaluated as tactics to reduce C. nasturtii damage through spatial and temporal avoidance. Fencing increased the number of marketable plants when plots were separated from fields infested with C. nasturtii by ~800 m, but no effect was observed with lower spatial separation. A survey of flight height produced observations of adults flying 240 cm above the soil, which is above the height of the fencing. Reduced damage was observed in late broccoli plantings and early cabbage plantings, while traditional planting dates suffered total yield losses. The population model MidgEmerge was evaluated for prediction accuracy of spring emergence, and sensitivity to temperature, rainfall, and model parameters. Predictions were early during hot, dry years, and late during cool, wet years. Temperature affected model output, but rainfall did not. Manipulating thresholds for 'diapause larva development temperature', and 'minimum temperature for pupal growth' resulted in changes to predicted emergence. Prediction by MidgEmerge potentially overstates the effect of temperature, and understates the effect of rainfall. Recommendations to improve model accuracy are provided.


Restorative justice encounters often bring together participants of differing races. The communication style of participants has a significant impact on such encounters. To date, the restorative justice literature has given little attention to the effect of cross-racial communication on the encounter process. This paper discusses this issue by exploring the risks and opportunities present when an individual from a traditionally marginalized race openly shares her experience of the crime with an individual from the dominant race. In order to draw these risks and opportunities into high relief, the author relies on a single example: a restorative justice encounter between a White victim and Black offender. This scenario is used to explore three major issues. First, the potential of restorative justice encounters to ease racial tension and ultimately perpetuate social justice is contemplated. Through storytelling, a participant voices her truth to the other participants, which may have a cathartic effect on the speaker, and an educational effect on the listener. Secondly, obstacles to effective cross-racial communication are considered, including the vulnerability of truth-telling, prejudice against certain linguistic styles, and manipulative manners of listening. Finally, practical techniques to remedy the obstacles identified in the second part are suggested. Though this paper is not intended to suggest that restorative justice is a panacea to racial conflict, the author argues that an appropriately facilitated cross-racial restorative justice encounter could do much to increase understanding between races and dismantle the prejudices of individual participants.


New Zealand Black and White F1 hybrid mice (NZB/W mice) spontaneously develop an autoimmune disease which provides us with a suitable animal model for Sjögren's syndrome. With increasing age, these mice develop foci of mononuclear cell infiltration in the lacrimal and salivary glands, which closely resemble the lesions seen in patients with Sjögren's syndrome. We studied the cell-mediated and antibody-mediated immune responses of NZB/W mice to lacrimal gland cells. Lacrimal gland acinar cells were isolated from 2-month-old NZB/W or BALB/c mice for the target of 51Cr-release assay. There was no statistically significant difference in the spleen cell-mediated cytotoxicity to lacrimal gland cells among NZB/W mice of different ages (2, 5, and 8 months old). With increasing age, on the other hand, we found a statistically significant increase in the titers of autoantibodies to lacrimal gland cells in NZB/W mice, while aged BALB/c mice did not develop such antibodies. Fractionation of pooled positive sera by gel filtration revealed that this cytotoxic activity was mostly recovered in the IgM fraction. The tissue absorption study showed that these antibodies cross-reacted with salivary gland and kidney.


Granite, bentonite, and starch were mixed with clinoptilolite zeolite to produce a modified zeolite. The modified zeolite was tested for its ability to absorb formaldehyde from air. The modified sample formaldehyde adsorption capacity was then compared with those of commercially available clinoptilolite, faujasite (Y), mordenite, and zeolite type A. Studies were focused on the relationships between the physical characteristics of the selected zeolites (crystal structure, surface porosity, pore volume, pore size) and their formaldehyde adsorption capacity. The removal of starch at high temperature (1100°C) and addition of bentonite during modified clinoptilolite zeolite (M-CLZ) preparation generated large pores and a higher pore distribution on the sample surface, which resulted in higher adsorption capacity. The formaldehyde adsorption capacities of M-CLZ, clinoptilolite, faujasite (Y), zeolite type A, and mordenite were determined to be 300.5, 194.5, 123.7, 106.7, and 70 mg per gram of zeolite, respectively. The M-CLZ, clinoptilolite, and faujasite (Y) crystals contained both mesoporous and microporous structures, which resulted in greater adsorption, while the zeolite type A crystal showed a layered structure and lower surface porosity, which was less advantageous for formaldehyde adsorption. Furthermore, zeolite regeneration using microwave heating was investigated focusing on formaldehyde removal by desorption from the zeolite samples. XRD, XRF, N2 adsorption/desorption, and FE-SEM experiments were performed to characterize the surface structure and textural properties the zeolites selected in this study.


This thesis aims to provide a semantic account of belief ascriptions of the form 'A believes that S'. It begins with a detailed discussion of Saul Kripke's famous 'Puzzle about Belief, and tries to unearth a fundamental but rarely explicitly articulated assumption that gives the steps of the derivation of Kripke's Puzzle their intuitive plausibility. The assumption can be roughly stated as follows: belief ascriptions report on some single ontologically prior mental state which grounds the truth of a true ascription. A response to one form of Kripke's Puzzle is suggested at the end of this discussion. Several apparently diverse kinds of response to Kripke's Puzzle are critically evaluated and are found to be unsatisfactory. Many of the problems with these responses are traced to the fact that they are built upon the assumption that I suggest is at the heart of Kripke's Puzzle. The beginnings of a positive account of the semantics of belief ascriptions are given. The account gives a central role to the fact that the truth-value of a belief ascription depends on elements of the conversational setting in which it occurs. It is suggested that belief ascriptions are essentially answers to questions asked by an audience who has specific interests and makes specific assumptions about the agent and the setting of the ascription. The interests of the audience and the background assumptions that she makes are two- distinct sources of the context-sensitivity of belief ascriptions. The account makes no appeal to any kind of inner mental representations, but instead says that the truth of an ascription depends in a complex way on the agent's dispositions and capacities to do, say, think, and feel certain things. The thesis ends with a discussion of the de dicto/ de re distinction, and suggests that the distinction does not provide the most useful way of understanding belief ascription. It is argued that truly de re ascriptions are probably very rare, and that this does not therefore mean that most ascriptions are de dicto.


The fifth generation (5G) of mobile technologies will increase the speed of data transfer and improve bandwidth over existing fourth generation (4G) technologies, in turn enabling new military and commercial applications. 5G technologies are expected to support interconnected or autonomous devices, such as smart homes, self-driving vehicles, precision agriculture systems, industrial machinery, and advanced robotics. 5G for the military could additionally improve intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems and processing; enable new methods of command and control (C2); and streamline logistics systems for increased efficiency, among other uses. As 5G technologies are developed and deployed, Congress may consider policies for spectrum management and national security, as well as implications for U.S. military operations.


The actin cytoskeleton is a potentially vulnerable property of cancer cells, yet chemotherapeutic targeting attempts have been hampered by unacceptable toxicity. In this study, we have shown that it is possible to disrupt specific actin filament populations by targeting isoforms of tropomyosin, a core component of actin filaments, that are selectively upregulated in cancers. A novel class of anti-tropomyosin compounds has been developed that preferentially disrupts the actin cytoskeleton of tumor cells, impairing both tumor cell motility and viability. Our lead compound, TR100, is effective in vitro and in vivo in reducing tumor cell growth in neuroblastoma and melanoma models. Importantly, TR100 shows no adverse impact on cardiac structure and function, which is the major side effect of current anti-actin drugs. This proof-of-principle study shows that it is possible to target specific actin filament populations fundamental to tumor cell viability based on their tropomyosin isoform composition. This improvement in specificity provides a pathway to the development of a novel class of anti-actin compounds for the potential treatment of a wide variety of cancers. Cancer Res; 73(16); 5169–82. 2013 AACR.


UNLABELLED
Objexctive. The objective of this study was to investigate the wound healing effects of n-3 fatty acids and to identify factors that stimulate wound healing.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Four-week-old male Wistar rats were subjected to full-thickness skin wounds and assigned to 3 experimental diet groups (an n-3 fatty acid-fortified diet, a diet with a 1:3 ratio of n-3 to n-6 fatty acids, and an n-6 fatty acid-fortified diet). Intergroup comparisons were conducted for the changes in wound areas, the number of days to wound healing, and blood cytokines, blood hydroxyproline, and blood chemistry test values on the day before and after wound healing.

RESULTS
The number of days to wound healing in the n-3/n-6 fatty acid group (18.4 ± 1.8 days) was significantly shorter than in the n-3 fatty acid-fortified diet (21.6 ± 1.6 days) and n-6 fatty acid-fortified diet groups (21.9 ± 1.8 days). This suggests that the n-3/n-6 fatty acid diet stimulates wound healing (P < 0.05). Changes in wound area, however, were not significantly different. The n-3 fatty acid-fortified diet was found to have potent immunopotentiating and anti-inflammatory effects in the group receiving this diet, as evidenced by total blood lymphocyte count and plasma levels of interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) and sialic acid on day 1 after wounding. The plasma hydroxyproline concentrations noted in the groups with a diet containing n-3 fatty acids indicate that this fatty acid type stimulates wound healing.

CONCLUSIONS
Findings suggest that n-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory and immunopotentiating effects, and are beneficial in the wound healing process, particularly during early inflammation. .


Recent losses reported from the so-called sub-prime category have brought renewed scrutiny of the investment practices employed across the Australian local government sector. Currently, different prudential investment standards apply: an anomalous situation which suggests legislative reform is needed to introduce standardised portfolio management practices that can deliver optimal economic outcomes for communities. Any reform of investment governance within the sector, however, must be cognisant of the broader imperative of addressing the financial sustainability of the sector. Following recent investment debacles in the sector - and in the context of the rhetoric of cooperative federalism - this paper argues that uniform investment powers should be promulgated across the Commonwealth, and the local government sector empowered to develop appropriate investment objectives which feature a centralised funds management model.


Universities are knowledge-based organisations. They are using knowledge as a key resource and for competitive advantage. Knowledge management practices seems to be suitable for universities because they possess the conducive environment and systems. This study sought to assess the extent to which KM was practiced at the universities and the mechanisms and initiatives implemented to promote KM processes at the universities. The study adopted the survey and mixed method research approach to collect data from 118 respondents from three universities in Ghana (public, private and professional). Questionnaires (consisting of blend of closed and open-ended questions) were used to collect primary data. The study established that despite the high presence of knowledge management processes (acquisition, creation, sharing and retention) at the universities, the practice was more effective at the private university than the professional and public universities respectively. These KM processes improved efficiency, effectiveness, decision-making capabilities. However, the absence of trust, openness and collaboration; difficult access to technology; and lack of support and mechanisms to promote informal discussions between staff and management of the universities negatively affected KM processes.


It is demonstrated that the variation in demographic, economic and cultural macrodynamics of the world over the last ten millennia can be accounted for in a very accurate way by very simple mathematical models. It is shown that up to the 1970s the hyperbolic growth of the world population was accompanied by the quadratichyperbolic growth of the world GDP and these are very tightly connected processes, actually two dimensions of one process propelled by the nonlinear second order positive feedback loops between the technological development and demographic growth. The suggested approach throws a new light on our understanding of globalization processes. Against the background of the mathematical models discussed in the article, the fact that the world population growth followed the hyperbolic pattern in the 10 – 1 millennia BCE indicates that the majority of the world population already functioned within a single system in that period. A few millennia before CE the World System covered only a small portion of the Earth landmass but already at that time it encompassed the majority of the world population. In the 3 millennium BCE, with the diffusion to East Asia of major Middle Eastern technological innovations which led to a radical growth of the carrying capacity and, hence, population in this part of the world, the World System incorporated East Asia, and by the end of the 1 millennium BCE the overwhelming majority of the world population lived just within the World System. Thus, most of the world population got 'globalized' many millennia before 'the century of globalization', though the World System had only encompassed the whole of the Earth landmass in the 2 millennium CE.


This article argues that the classified evidence procedures in the Military Commissions Act of 2009 are a flawed solution to the problems posed by classified information in military commissions. On paper, they are superior to procedures in the Classified Information Procedures Act or the Military Rules of Evidence, but they are forever flawed because of three irreparable defects in the military commissions. First, the detainees are still monitored and treated as active sources of intelligence in the War of Terror, thereby generating an endless flow of new classified information to be processed. Second, many detainees cannot adequately defend themselves without disclosing classified information pertaining to their own interrogations or those of other witnesses. Third, serious separation of powers issues exist because all parties involved with decisions to declassify, disclose, or admit into evidence classified information are part of the Executive Branch. Executive Branch intelligence agencies, therefore, exercise a disproportionate influence over information flow in military commissions that they would not be able to exert in an Article III court.


Portegijs E, Sipilä S, Rantanen T, Lamb SE: Leg extension power deficit and mobility limitation in women recovering from hip fracture. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2008;87:363–370. Objective:After hip fracture, muscle strength and power remain persistently poor, especially in the fractured leg. This study explores whether asymmetrical leg extension power (LEP) deficit affects mobility in women after proximal femoral fracture (PFF). Design:In this observational study, LEP of both legs, 10- and 50-foot walking speed, and stair-climbing speed were measured in 43 women, aged 73–96, at 1 and 13 wks after surgical repair of PFF. Asymmetrical LEP deficit was calculated as (fractured/(sum both legs)) × 100%. Results:Between weeks 1 and 13 after PFF surgery, LEP increased in the fractured and nonfractured legs by 100% and 30%, respectively. Asymmetrical deficit was reduced from 28.5 ± 10.2% to 40.4 ± 8.6%. Linear regression analyses showed that poorer LEP of the nonfractured leg at week 1 correlated significantly with slower walking (beta > 0.525, P < 0.001) and stair-climbing speed (beta > 0.349, P < 0.016) and predicted poorer mobility 12 wks later (beta > 0.354, P < 0.020). Large asymmetrical LEP deficit was cross-sectionally associated with slow stair-climbing speed (beta > 0.343, P < 0.018) at weeks 1 and 13, but not with walking speed. Conclusions:Higher LEP of the nonfractured leg predicted better recovery of mobility after PFF. Larger asymmetrical LEP deficit correlated with limitation in climbing stairs—a more challenging mobility task where fluent performance requires unilateral force production.


A parameter of an econometric model is identified if there is a one-to-one or many-to-one mapping from the population distribution of the available data to the parameter. Often, this mapping is obtained by inverting a mapping from the parameter to the population distribution. If the inverse mapping is discontinuous, then estimation of the parameter usually presents an ill-posed inverse problem. Such problems arise in many settings in economics and other fields in which the parameter of interest is a function. This article explains how ill-posedness arises and why it causes problems for estimation. The need to modify or regularize the identifying mapping is explained, and methods for regularization and estimation are discussed. Methods for forming confidence intervals and testing hypotheses are summarized. It is shown that a hypothesis test can be more precise in a certain sense than an estimator. An empirical example illustrates estimation in an ill-posed setting in economics.


LiveJournal is a social network journal service with focus on user interactions. As for many other online social networks, predicting potential friendships in the LiveJournal network is a problem of great practical interest. Previous work has shown that graph features extracted from the graph associated with the network are good predictors for friendship links. However, contrary to the intuition, user data (e.g., interests shared by two users) does not always improve the predictions obtained with graph features alone. This could be due to the fact that features constructed from a large number of user declared interests cannot capture the implicit semantic of the interests. To test this hypothesis, we use a clustering approach to build an interest ontology, and explore the ability of the ontology to improve the performance of learning algorithms at predicting friendship links, when interest-based features are used alone or in combination with graph-based features. The results show that ontology-based features can help improve the performance of several machine learning classifiers (in particular, random forest classifiers) at the task of predicting links in the LiveJournal social network.


In many processes it is important to have automatic control in the modern life. For example, PLC systems are using for machine control, water pressure and flow are able to be controlled by DDC program, even a car can be driven by computer. In this article, author will turn our focus on the control system for fermentation tank. The fermentation tank that produces methane is considered as clean and recycle energy source. It is widely used in house, electronic power machine and vehicle around the world. However, its reaction temperature and output concentration control are usually hard to detect without automation system. In this study, the problem is focused to combine fermentation tank and automatic control system in laboratory testing. In this paper, author will be able to use PIC (Peripheral Interface Controller) microcontroller to solve this problem and automatically control the methane tank output methane gas with certain concentration, which could be used as energy source. The temperature and concentration sensors that are chosen as input data of the controller and corresponding algorithm were performed on the PIC. They will be used to realize the composition and thermal state measurement. With those information, the valves of material and water control can be controlled in methane tank. Limited by the experiment equipment and methane reaction tank system, the controller was just tested in the laboratory environment instead of practical application. The test result shows that the controller has its capability to automatically control the stable output of methane gas. In the test, water and material valves are controlled automatically open or close after monitoring temperature and concentration information of the gas in the tank.


The present investigation describes a novel measurement technique used to determine both velocity and diameter of transparent spherical particles, mainly droplets and gas bubbles. We have developed a special receiving optical system that acquires the interferential image without any losses due to the overlapping of neighbouring fringes. The system enhances the spatial resolution by compressing the circular image with fringes into a linear image while maintaining the information of the fringe spacing, which is related to the particle diameter. The compression simplifies and ensures the detection of the interferograms in the digitized image. The image provides both the location and the size of particles simultaneously. The velocities of individual particles are obtained by capturing sequential images of interferograms with double-pulsed illumination. The technique was examined with the measurement of monodisperse droplets and estimated with a resultant error of less than 3% for arithmetic mean diameter.


Multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 1 (MEN1) is an autosomal dominantly inherited disease, which is described as an association of tumors mainly in endocrine organs, including pancreas and adrenal glands. Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are the most common cause of death in MEN1 patients. More than one third of the MEN1 patients also develop enlargement of the adrenals. MEN1 is caused by a germline mutation of MEN1 gene, a tumor suppressor gene that is located on the human chromosome 11. As noticed, the MEN1 related tumors often develop prior to inactivation of both wild type alleles, indicating MEN1 haploinsufficiency. In this thesis, I utilized a conventional Men1 mouse model that has the phenotype mimicking the human MEN 1 traits, in order to investigate MEN1 tumorigenesis in endocrine pancreas and adrenal glands. The microvascular aberrations contributing to development and maintenance of PNETs were characterized. The increased vascular density of PNETs developed in the Men1 mice was paralleled by an early and extensive redistribution of pericytes within endocrine tissue. These morphological alterations were supported by fine-tuned variations in expression of several angiogenic regulators (VEGF, FGF and PDGF) and were further potentiated by hypoxia. Vascular reactivity and blood perfusion of tumor arterioles were significantly altered in response to glucose and L-nitro-arginine methyl ester.Investigation of adrenals from10-month-old Men1 mice showed 681 proteins in mass spectrometry data sets, in which 52 proteins were commonly found in the Men1+/+ and Men1+/- adrenals, and the differential expression between the genotypes reached significant levels. Prdx3, catalyzing the reduction of oxidative stress to cell survival, is one of the overexpressed proteins. Some proteins belonging to the PPARα pathway, e.g. ACLY were also overexpressed. Subsequent microRNA (miRNA) profiling analysis of adrenals from the same age group revealed 31 miRNAs whose expression was significantly altered in comparison between the genotypes. The tumor suppressor miRNAs, miR-486, miR-330 and miR-214, were significantly downregulated in Men1+/- adrenals. The latter, miR-214, is known to inhibit ACLY expression. This finding was in concordance with the proteomic analysis. The oncogene miRNAs, miR-132 and miR-494, were significantly enhanced in the Men1+/- adrenals. Gene ontology analysis demonstrated overrepresentation of the miRNA-targeted genes that are involved in nucleic acid metabolism, vasculature development, angiogenesis, and transcription. Together, these finding after validation in humans may be exploited to improve MEN1 cancer treatment.


Background and Objectives Opsoclonus-myoclonus-ataxia syndrome (OMAS) is a rare disorder of the nervous system that classically presents with a combination of characteristic eye movement disorder and myoclonus, in addition to ataxia, irritability, and sleep disturbance. There is good evidence that OMAS is an immune-mediated condition that may be paraneoplastic in the context of neuroblastoma. This syndrome may be associated with long-term cognitive impairment, yet it remains unclear how this is influenced by disease course and treatment. Treatment is largely predicated on immune suppression, but there is limited evidence to indicate an optimal regimen. Methods Following an international multiprofessional workshop in 2004, a body of clinicians and scientists comprising the International OMS Study group continued to meet biennially in a joint professionals and family workshop focusing on pediatric OMAS. Seventeen years after publication of the first report, a writing group was convened to provide a clinical update on the definitions and clinical presentation of OMAS, biomarkers and the role of investigations in a child presenting with OMAS, treatment and management strategies including identification and support of long-term sequelae. Results The clinical criteria for diagnosis were reviewed, with a proposed approach to laboratory and radiologic investigation of a child presenting with possible OMAS. The evidence for an upfront vs escalating treatment regimen was reviewed, and a treatment algorithm proposed to recognize both these approaches. Importantly, recommendations on monitoring of immunotherapy response and longer-term follow-up based on an expert consensus are provided. Discussion OMAS is a rare neurologic condition that can be associated with poor cognitive outcomes. This report proposes an approach to investigation and treatment of children presenting with OMAS, based on expert international opinion recognizing the limited data available.


First thought to orchestrate exclusively leukocyte trafficking, chemokines are now acknowledged for their multiple roles in the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation, and survival. Dysregulation of their normal functions contributes to various pathologies, including inflammatory diseases and cancer. The two chemokine receptor 3 variants CXCR3-A and CXCR3-B, together with their cognate chemokines (CXCL11, CXCL10, CXCL9, CXCL4, and CXCL4L1), are involved in the control but also in the development of many tumors. CXCR3-A drives the infiltration of leukocytes to the tumor bed to modulate tumor progression (paracrine axis). Conversely, tumor-driven changes in the expression of the CXCR3 variants and their ligands promote cancer progression (autocrine axis). This review summarizes the anti- and pro-tumoral activities of the CXCR3 variants and their associated chemokines with a focus on the understanding of their distinct biological roles in the tumor microenvironment.


In the legal profession, understanding — or at least, formal analysis — of humor and its impact is in its infancy. Lawyers and judges are not trained to use or understand humor, although all would acknowledge that humor, cringe worthy or otherwise, is by no means unknown in the practice of law. But for most intents and purposes, we pretend that humor is not part of legal culture. When humor is addressed in the law school or professional advocacy context, for example, it typically gets short shrift: don't try to be funny. Resources on judicial opinion writing, in particular, generally advise that humor is inappropriate, and commentators on judicial humor have offered similar, mostly negative, assessments. Despite this advice, humor, while not widespread, is an ever-present aspect of the body of judicial opinions, an aspect that periodically attracts attention. One of the best-known recent examples is Gonzalez-Servin v. Ford Motor Co., an opinion by Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit. Multiple counsel in the case had, in Judge Posner's view, ignored "apparently dispositive precedent" when presenting arguments. Unsatisfied with a mere holding, however, Judge Posner not only verbally compared the tactic to an ostrich burying its head in the sand, but also inserted two photographs into the opinion: one of an ostrich burying its head in the sand, and immediately following, one of a man dressed in traditional "attorney" attire burying his head in the sand. Legal newsletters and blogs picked up on Judge Posner's opinion, but they were not the only sources to do so. The general press (the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune) did as well. And such treatment was for an opinion addressing an issue that was not a matter of public interest-forum non conveniens. Judge Posner does not stand alone in his use of humor. There are even some indications that judicial use of humor in opinions is increasing. And in our era of rapid and widespread electronic communication, public awareness of this humor also appears to be increasing. In light of the evidence of continued use of humor in the face of advice and commentary largely counseling against its use, a reassessment of judicial humor seems warranted.An additional reason for reassessment at this time comes to us from recent developments in the field of social science, which offers sophisticated tools for the job. In the last few decades, social scientists have greatly expanded the study of humor's role in our society. Their theories offer new tools to assess judicial humor, to bring together the perspectives of earlier commentators on judicial humor, and to offer more comprehensive guidelines for judicial humor than have previously been offered. The intent of this article is not to suggest that humor is always, or even often, appropriate in judicial opinions. But social science tells us that, despite the bad name humor has justly acquired based on its use in certain opinions, it may be possible for humor to be used appropriately, and even helpfully, in certain instances.


Many problems in machine learning involve data sets in which each data point is a point cloud in R D . A growing number of applications require a means of measuring not only distances between point clouds, but also angles, volumes, derivatives, and other more advanced concepts. To formulate and quantify these concepts in a coordinate-invariant way, we develop a Riemannian geometric framework for point cloud data. By interpreting each point in a point cloud as a sample drawn from some given underlying probability density, the space of point cloud data can be given the structure of a statistical manifold – each point on this manifold represents a point cloud – with the Fisher information metric acting as a natural Riemannian metric. Two autoencoder applications of our framework are presented: (i) smoothly deforming one 3D object into another via interpolation between the two corresponding point clouds; (ii) learning an optimal set of latent space coordinates for point cloud data that best preserves angles and distances, and thus produces a more discriminative representation space. Experiments with large-scale standard benchmark point cloud data show greatly improved classification accuracy vis- ´ a-vis existing methods. Code is available at https://github.com/seungyeon-k/SMF-public.


In X-ray tomography, a three-dimensional image of the interior of an object is computed from multiple X-ray images, acquired over a range of angles. Two types of methods are commonly used to compute such an image: analytical methods and iterative methods. Analytical methods are computationally efficient, but in many applications, they produce reconstructions that are not accurate enough for further analysis. More accurate reconstructions can be obtained by using (regularized) iterative methods, but these can have computational costs that are too high to be used in practice. In this thesis, new reconstruction methods are developed that combine the analytical and algebraic approaches, resulting in methods that are as computationally efficient as analytical methods, but with a reconstruction accuracy of iterative methods. Analytical methods allow for changing their filter without increasing the needed computation time. We use this freedom in filter choice to develop new filter-based reconstruction methods, which are based on the analytical FBP method with specific filters. The filters can be defined and computed in different ways, and can depend on the acquisition geometry, the scanned object, and/or a separate pre-computing step. Several filter-based methods are introduced in this thesis and reconstruction results are compared with other popular methods.


Encounters between networked information technologies and law tend to be framed as examples of what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. For example, some argue that networked information and communication technologies are technologies of freedom, able to help human civilizations solve all of our most pressing problems— if only the law will stop undermining technology's potential and either get with the program or get out of the way. Others assert that it is information technology that fatally undermines the rule of law—that unbreakable encryption and untraceable alternative currencies will plunge society into chaos, or that unaccountable and fundamentally nonhuman artificial intelligences spell the end for antiquated models of social control and regulation. Whether any of those inspiring or doom-laden predictions will come to pass is beyond our ability to know, but their premises are wrong. Networked information technologies inevitably will alter, and are already altering, the future of law but not because there is any single, irresistible arc of technological progress. The reason, rather, is very nearly the opposite: information technologies are highly configurable, and their configurability offers multiple points of entry for interested and wellresourced parties to shape their development. For similar reasons, law is not an immovable object. Legal institutions are not fixed, Archimedean points around which modes of economic development shift and cohere. They are arenas in which interested parties struggle to define what constitutes "normal" economic or government activity and what qualifies as actual or potential harm, and they are also human-created artifacts whose form and function are not preordained. For some time now, political economies in the developed world have been undergoing a transformation from industrial to informational


In this article, the concept of "liberal democracy" and its implications for biotechnology such as human genetic engineering will be examined. Liberal democracy is characterised by a number of features, some of which has extensive repercussions on biotechnology, especially concepts such as the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, political freedom for all people and autonomy and libertarianism. Advocates of human genetic engineering for purposes other than the healing of genetically transmitted diseases often appeal to these features in the quest for its legalisation. I will examine whether the attributes of liberal democracy would indeed justify the use of this type of biotechnology and if yes, what a possible theological response would be, drawing on the political theology of Jurgen Moltmann.


Although the plight of the poor and Christian benevolence is a topic often discussed in scientific and popular literature, the existing research is not nearly enough to address the many complicated issues surrounding the subject. Many reasons for this sad state of affairs may exist, one being the lack of the necessary skills to apply biblical and economic principles in order to make a marked difference. This article presented a biblical perspective on the caring of the poor and suggested a few contextual principles for pastoral counselling. Forces were joined with economic insights and the experience of Local Economic Development to empower the church to make a substantial difference to the plight of the poor. This approach could give structure to efforts that often achieve very little in terms of lasting results.


Although Ghana has made significant progress in the establishment and consolidation of democratic politics since 1992, the vexatious issue of the use of scarce public resources to support political party activities remained unresolved. Using quantitative data an attempt is made in this study to examine the views of Ghanaians on the arguments for and against state funding of political parties. The data for the study was obtained through survey of 1600 self-declared cardholding and 200 self-declared non-card holding members of the seven political parties that contested the 2012 general elections. Convenience and stratified sampling procedures were deployed for the selection of the respondents. The study results indicated that rich individuals with a mean score of 4.41 and standard deviation (SD) of 0.77 form the most predominant funding source for political parties in Ghana. Again, the least funding sources were the state or government funds and dues from ordinary party members which obtained a mean score of 2.71 and SD of 1.71; and a mean of 2.93 and SD of 1.38, respectively. The study conclusions were that, in Ghana, few rich individuals are the major financiers of political parties. Ghanaians are divided and ambivalent on the question of state funding and, those who oppose across-the-board state funding policy outnumber those who support the idea. Likewise, support for state funding of political parties in Ghana is predominant and strongest among party executives and the smaller political parties. It is recommended that funding from both private and state sources require strong and effective regulation regime by the establishment and implementation of disclosure and transparency policies and laws.


Matsaganis, Matthew D., Vikki S. Katz, and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, (2011). Understanding Ethnic Media: Producers, Consumers, and Societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. pp. 314. Press theory can be complex: Who does or should the press serve? What informs it? What sustains it? What goals drive it? In a classic essay published 1918, Hilaire Beloc, the Catholic apologist, described the press as capitalist in origin, evolution, and effect. Beloc wrote of "the evil of the great modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble hands." In the same breath, he offered "its correction by the formation of small independent organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last" (p. 1). That "correction" may have emerged nearly a century later in the form of a colorful ethnic press. Today in the United States live 57 million "ethnic adult" consumers who patronize some 3,000 ethnic media outlets, according to New America Media, a San Francisco-based advocacy group. Ethnic-specific programming represents the "fastest growing sector of American journalism" because of the quickly diversifying demographic profile of many urban areas. It offers a counterweight to what critics such as Noam Chomsky and Robert McChesney have observed: that America's mainstream press is positioned to apologize for the plutocracy of a few media Goliaths, rather than to speak for any underdog. In the complex milieu of press theory do Matsaganis and his fellow authors situate the ethnic press. But two quick observations: First, the book presents, for the most part, a study of media, not press. To this reviewer, "media" suggests that the authors envisaged an institutional role that includes entertainment and socialization compared to "the press," an institution of politics that tends to either operationalize a Meiklejohnian selfrule or advance the state. Second, the term "ethnic" is loaded in many ways. Using the term can reflect a patronizing attitude in neo-dominant culture toward older and local traditions. It can connote a distinction, and hence exclusion, of the local in cuisine, clothing, and festivity from the presumed sophistication of an emerging mainstream. Ethnic can mean, as Merriam-Webster offers in its first definition, "heathen," who is an "unconverted" or "uncivilized or irreligious person." In this book, the authors do well to eschew stereotypical judgment. They "define ethnic media broadly to include media by and for (a) immigrants, (b) ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities, as well as (c) indigenous populations across different parts of the world" (p. xiii). They offer a succinct explication of that definition in chapters 1 and 2, emphasizing geographic context, roles of ethnic media, and a quick historical overview of the ethnic press in Europe, America (including Native American and Chinese press), and Mexico. The book offers a rich smorgasbord of discussion, covering immigrants' media, minorities' media, audience trends, ethnic media organizations, and policy development. Its eleven chapters and 314 pages present, ...a far-reaching review and analysis of how ethnic media affect ongoing negotiations of self-identity, perceived lines of division between "us" and "others," and how the production and consumption of ethnic media affects the character of the larger media and societal landscape (p. xiii). It presents the ethnic press, mostly in America but also in Mexico, France, and Canada, as not only a reflection but also a catalyst of societies that are rapidly heterogenizing by race, language, and national origin. The book includes twenty-five pages of references, six pages of author index, and fourteen pages of subject index. In addition to old-fashioned tables, attractive graphic elements jazz up the pages. A very useful "chapter objectives" section precedes every chapter, and thoughtful sections titled "summary," "study questions" (or "case analysis questions"), and "notes" conclude every chapter. …


Post apocalyptic literature is frequently environmental in nature, or explores significant ecological impacts. These affect the surviving human and nonhuman populations, and are characterised by scale. While some of the apocalypses of science fiction literature are limited to the destruction of a single species – as occurs, for instance, in P.D. James' The Children of Men – others, such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, illustrate an environmental collapse that destroys entire ecosystems.
Human response to apocalypse occurs on both an individual and a communal level, but that response, within the literature, tends to focus more often on social or economic consequences. However, the ability of humans to further shape their natural environment tends to be heightened in environmental apocalypse, as compromised ecologies become ever more vulnerable to human activity. The ability of humans to function as ecological actors, as shapers of surviving ecologies, is therefore not only a fundamental – if frequently underexplored – part of that narrative, but it also indicates potential pathways for real-life response to ecological apocalypse.
Notable, in the post-apocalyptic narratives explored in this paper, is how the impact of human behaviour on environment is dependent on apocalyptic scale. The construction of refugia, the realignment of surviving communities to sustainable practices, and the increasingly destructive human presence on ecologies incapable of reclamation contrasts with, for example, the increasing nonhuman biodiversity that can follow the widespread destruction of the human population.


Background: Road traffic trauma is a leading cause of death and disability in persons aged below 45 years. It has a global distribution, but its incidence and impact are greatest in low- and middle-income countries. Establishing pattern of injuries arising from traffic collisions and the outcome of such injuries helps to plan interventions effective in reducing the incidence, mortality and morbidity from road traffic crashes (RTCs). Methods: Data of patients presenting with injuries from RTCs from a trauma registry which was prospectively developed from a dedicated trauma centre based in south-south region of Nigeria were collected and analysed. Descriptive and inferential statistics of data of patients with injuries resulting from traffic collisions from the trauma registry seen between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2012 were generated and presented. Results: During the study period, 61,820 (65.6%) patients presented with injuries resulting from RTCs. Majority of the patients were males aged between 20 and 40 years. Most of the patients (n = 51,620, 83.5%) presented after 1 h of the incident. Only about 5.2% (3215) of the victims were brought to the hospital by some type of ambulance. Majority of the patients had of injury involving the exterior in 77% (n = 47,601) and the extremities in 23.5% (n = 14,500) of the cases, respectively, but mortality was <1%. Conclusion: RTCs contributed significantly to the trauma burden in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Delayed presentation, and improper transportation methods of injured victims to hospitals, may have contributed to poor outcome of some of the injuries.


In this paper the optimal consumption strategy of an investor who owns a fixed sized risky project is studied. The cash flows generated by the risky project follow an arithmetic Brownian motion, and the investor earns interest on cash reserves. The short– rate may be stochastic, and the time horizon may be finite. This results in a family of Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman variational inequalities that include PDEs whose solutions must be approximated numerically. To do so an finite element approximation and a time marching scheme are employed.


This casebook uniquely compares the law of Latin America to that of Europe, as well as the United States while introducing students to the richness and diversity of the Latin American legal tradition through cases, legal documents, and commentaries. This carefully designed book allows students to see the law in action and guides them through entire judicial decisions, demonstrating how litigation unfolds and how a different legal culture operates. It is currently the only cases and materials publication devoted to Latin American law and the issues that arise in concrete litigation south of the border.


Seasonal variation in occurrence is a common feature of many diseases, especially those of infectious origin. Studies of seasonal variation contribute to healthcare planning and to the understanding of the aetiology of infections. In this article, we provide an overview of statistical methods for the assessment and quantification of seasonality of infectious diseases, as exemplified by their application to meningococcal disease in Denmark in 1995-2011. Additionally, we discuss the conditions under which seasonality should be considered as a covariate in studies of infectious diseases. The methods considered range from the simplest comparison of disease occurrence between the extremes of summer and winter, through modelling of the intensity of seasonal patterns by use of a sine curve, to more advanced generalized linear models. All three classes of method have advantages and disadvantages. The choice among analytical approaches should ideally reflect the research question of interest. Simple methods are compelling, but may overlook important seasonal peaks that would have been identified if more advanced methods had been applied. For most studies, we suggest the use of methods that allow estimation of the magnitude and timing of seasonal peaks and valleys, ideally with a measure of the intensity of seasonality, such as the peak-to-low ratio. Seasonality may be a confounder in studies of infectious disease occurrence when it fulfils the three primary criteria for being a confounder, i.e. when both the disease occurrence and the exposure vary seasonally without seasonality being a step in the causal pathway. In these situations, confounding by seasonality should be controlled as for any confounder.


Title of Document: INFANT SPEECH-IN-NOISE PERCEPTION AND LATER PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS SKILLS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY Sarah E. Stimley, Master of Arts, 2008 Directed By: Associate Professor Rochelle Newman, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences While differences have been found in the ability of infants on a variety of speech perception skills including speech perception in the presence of background noise, the implications of these differences on later language skills are currently unknown. This study examines the relationship between a specific measure of infant speech perception in noise and later phonological awareness outcomes. In order to test this relationship, individuals who participated in Newman's (2005) study on infant speech perception in the presence of background noise were administered a battery of language, phonological awareness, and intelligence tests. Scores from these tests were analyzed to see if performance differences existed between those who had performed well as infants in the original study and those who had not. No significant differences between these two groups were found on the phonological awareness measures. Potential reasons for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. INFANT SPEECH-IN-NOISE PERCEPTION AND LATER PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS SKILLS: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY


This article argues that there are legal and economic justifications for extending the principle of "responsibility for granting abusive loans" from private law to a general principle of international law and, as such, that it can and should be applied to matters of sovereign insolvency. Employing this rationale, the article develops concrete legal and economic reasons and mechanisms by which the financial losses that any sovereign insolvency imposes on creditors should be distributed among them. In particular, the article takes the position that loans granted to states without following the most elementary prudential guidelines with regard to the analysis of credit risk, and with the intention of taking unfair advantage at expenses of the other creditors, should be totally or partially subordinated to those not classified as abusive in the case of sovereign bankruptcy. While the effects of this principle mostly coincide, in practice, with those of the 'first-in-time rule', it is argued that insolvent sovereigns and creditors must respect this criterion when proposing, negotiating and agreeing a restructuring.


We investigate a compressive sensing framework in which the sensors introduce a distortion to the measurements in the form of unknown gains. We focus on blind calibration, using measures performed on multiple unknown (but sparse) signals and formulate the joint recovery of the gains and the sparse signals as a convex optimization problem. We divide this problem in 3 subproblems with different conditions on the gains, specifically i) gains with different amplitude and the same phase, ii) gains with the same amplitude and different phase and iii) gains with different amplitude and phase. In order to solve the first case, we propose an extension to the basis pursuit optimization which can estimate the unknown gains along with the unknown sparse signals. For the second case, we formulate a quadratic approach that eliminates the unknown phase shifts and retrieves the unknown sparse signals. An alternative form of this approach is also formulated to reduce complexity and memory requirements and provide scalability with respect to the number of input signals. Finally for the third case, we propose a formulation that combines the earlier two approaches to solve the problem. The performance of the proposed algorithms is investigated extensively through numerical simulations, which demonstrates that simultaneous signal recovery and calibration is possible with convex methods when sufficiently many (unknown, but sparse) calibrating signals are provided.


Rural regions are often seen as key sources of urban water supply, creating pressure for reallocation and potential hotspots of competition for water between cities and agriculture. How effective and equitable is reallocation from rural to urban regions, and what have we learned from the global experience? This synthesis report examines the drivers, processes, politics, and outcomes of reallocation based on a review of the literature and insights from four in-depth case studies where governments have reallocated relatively large volumes of water from rural to urban regions: Melbourne, Australia; Mokopane, South Africa; Monterrey, Mexico; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. The findings suggest that water reallocation can play an important role in regional development. However, reallocation projects have also been controversial because of distributional conflicts regarding who wins and loses. The concept of benefit sharing, long applied to transboundary river basin management, offers a framework for designing effective and equitable reallocation processes, shifting the focus from dividing the water to sharing the benefits among rural and urban regions. The report identifies seven key lessons for realizing the potential of reallocation and limiting the risks.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the treatment effects of fixed functional appliances (FFAs) in treated versus untreated Class II patients by means of lateral cephalometric radiographs.

SEARCH METHODS
Unrestricted electronic search of 18 databases and additional manual searches up to October 2014.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Prospective randomized and non-randomized controlled trials reporting on cephalometric angular measurements of Class II patients treated with FFAs and their matched untreated controls.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Skeletal, dental, and soft tissue cephalometric data were annualized and stratified according to the time of evaluation in effects. Following risk of bias evaluation, the mean differences (MDs) and 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with random-effects models. Patient- and appliance-related subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses were performed with mixed-effects models.

RESULTS
Nine studies were included (244 patients; mean age: 13.5 years and 174 untreated controls; mean age: 12.8 years) reporting on cephalometric effects directly after the removal of FFAs. FFAs were found to induce a small reduction of SNA angle (MD = -0.83 degree/year, 95 % CI: -1.17 to -0.48), a small increase of SNB angle (MD = 0.87 degree/year, 95 % CI: 0.30-1.43), and moderate decrease of ANB angle (MD = -1.74 degree/year, 95 % CI: -2.50 to -0.98) compared to untreated Class II patients. FFA treatment resulted in significant dentoalveolar and soft tissue changes. Several patient- or appliance-related factors seem to affect the treatment outcome. Long-term effectiveness of FFAs could not be assessed due to limited evidence.

CONCLUSIONS
According to existing evidence, FFAs seem to be effective in improving Class II malocclusion in the short term, although their effects seem to be mainly dentoalveolar rather than skeletal.


The support for generic programming in modern object-oriented programming languages is awkward and lacks desirable expressive power. We introduce an expressive genericity mechanism that adds expressive power and strengthens static checking, while remaining lightweight and simple in common use cases. Like type classes and concepts, the mechanism allows existing types to model type constraints retroactively. For expressive power, we expose models as named constructs that can be defined and selected explicitly to witness constraints; in common uses of genericity, however, types implicitly witness constraints without additional programmer effort. Models are integrated into the object-oriented style, with features like model generics, model-dependent types, model enrichment, model multimethods, constraint entailment, model inheritance, and existential quantification further extending expressive power in an object-oriented setting. We introduce the new genericity features and show that common generic programming idioms, including current generic libraries, can be expressed more precisely and concisely. The static semantics of the mechanism and a proof of a key decidability property are provided.


The United Nations (UN) designated 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, recognizing that an estimated 500 million family farms, involving over 2 billion people, play a key role in food production and consumption worldwide. It is thus an opportune time to encourage a shift in tackling global hunger—from a "food security" focus to an agenda that promotes "nutrition security" instead. The drive to reduce hunger in the world has largely relied on crops such as wheat and rice that provide calories. But an increase in calories alone is not good enough. Improved diets and good health require bolstering nutrition.


Spaceborne synthetic aperture radars (SARs) exhibit the appealing imaging feature of very high spatial resolution (on the order of meters). At frequency above C-band, the atmospheric effects, and particularly the signature of precipitating clouds, cannot be neglected on both amplitude and phase received signal. The impact of precipitation on SAR slant-view imagery is due to a combination of surface and volumetric backscattering, coupled with path attenuation and with a significant dependence on frequency, polarization, and spatial distribution of hydrometeors. The actual spatial resolution (on the order of hundreds of meters) of these effects is larger than the SAR nominal one due to the random nature of the moving distributed atmospheric target. This paper is devoted to the numerical forward modeling of SAR response at X-, Ku-, and Ka-bands due to precipitating clouds in order to better understand the physical correlation between SAR echo and precipitation. To this aim, a high-resolution mesoscale atmospheric numerical model is used to extract the 3-D distribution of liquid and ice hydrometeors. A detailed sensitivity analysis of SAR backscattering is carried out with respect to hydrometeor columnar and slant water contents, relative contribution of volumetric and surface scattering, incidence angle and ground inhomogeneity, polarimetric observables, and frequency scaling signatures. The numerical results show that the slant-view of SAR observations plays a determinant role and the use of a multifrequency polarimetric SAR may be very useful to characterize precipitation effects and, to a certain extent, retrieve its content at very high spatial resolution.


This book examines North Korea's nuclear diplomacy over a long time period from the early 1960s, setting its dangerous brinkmanship in the wider context of North Korea's military and diplomatic campaigns to achieve its political goals. It argues that the last four decades of military adventurism demonstrates Pyongyang's consistent, calculated use of military tools to advance strategic objectives vis à vis its adversaries. It shows how recent behavior of the North Korean government is entirely consistent with its behavior over this longer period: the North Korean government's conduct (rather than being haphazard or reactive) is rational – in the Clausewitzian sense of being ready to use force as an extension of diplomacy by other means. The book goes on to demonstrate that North Korea's "calculated adventurism" has come full circle: what we are seeing now is a modified repetition of earlier events – such as the Pueblo incident of 1968 and the nuclear and missile diplomacy of the 1990s. Using extensive interviews in the United States and South Korea, including those with defected North Korean government officials, alongside newly declassified first-hand material from U.S., South Korean, and former Communist-bloc archives, the book argues that whilst North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns have intensified, its policy objectives have become more conservative and are aimed at regime survival, normalization of relations with the United States and Japan, and obtaining economic aid.


Abstract We estimate intentional and unintentional herding in the dry-bulk, ocean-going segment that spans from August 1998 to January 2020 and measure how this can impact vessel orders. As the results suggest, while intentional herding has a large effect on the orders of the newbuilding vessels, the impact is very short-lived. On the contrary, unintentional herding, related to common environmental factors, has a smoother but more time persistent effect on the newbuilding vessels. The findings suggest that the key players in the market do not only affect the dry-bulk market with their decisions but also the logistics trade and ultimately the world economy. Thus, the inclusion of the dry bulk key shipowners by the policymakers in the discussions before reaching an important decision could minimise the volatility of the overall sector.


The emerging field of biometric authentication over the Internet requires both robust person authentication and secure computer network protocols. This paper presents investigations of vocal biometric person authentication over the Internet, both at the protocol and authentication robustness levels. As part of this study, an appropriate client-server architecture for biometrics on the Internet is proposed and implemented. It is shown that the transmission of raw biometric data in this application is likely to result in unacceptably long delays in the process. On the other hand, by using data models (or features), the transmission time can be reduced to an acceptable level. The use of encryption/decryption for enhancing the data security in the proposed client-server link and its effects on the transmission time are also examined. Furthermore, the scope of the investigations includes an analysis of the effects of packet loss and speech coding on speaker verification performance. It is experimentally demonstrated that whilst the adverse effects of packet loss can be negligible, the encoding of speech, particularly at a low bit rate, can reduce the verification accuracy considerably. The paper details the experimental investigations conducted and presents an analysis of the results.


This thesis raises the issue of quality in E-commerce websites and addresses
methodologies and approaches to standardize their assessment. The thesis blends the
knowledge of academic research with the opinions and insights from experts and
practitioners in the field to provide a comprehensive view of the issues and their
remedies.
The most experienced and successful E-commerce companies are beginning to realize
that key determinants of success or failure are not merely a web presence or a low price
but delivering a high quality website. Recent research shows that price and promotion
are no longer the main draws for customers to make a decision on a purchase. More
sophisticated online customers would rather pay a higher price to a provider with high
quality service.
Given that the establishment of an E-commerce website is mainly a software
development effort; there are several standards that apply in governing the quality of
such development. There seems to be an almost overwhelming abundance of quality
standards that lead to a high level of cynicism and skepticism surrounding them and the
eventual lack of use. Furthermore, no standard can directly predict the quality a website
under development is going to achieve.
Past approaches concerning the quality of E-commerce websites emphasize usability
standards using techniques like feature inspection and collecting data about end-users'
opinion by questionnaires. These methods provide important feedback and their results
can be utilized as a useful background for future work, however, they do not contribute
directly to a dynamic model that enables forecasting. The study of quality in the domain
of the Internet in general, and E-commerce in particular, poses new challenges as
technology evolves, including methods and metrics for estimating, managing quality
during the product life cycle and quality-of-use measurement.
The solution proposed by this research is to use a Bayesian Belief Network model. This
model provides a consistent and practical approach to assessing the quality of the website. The assessment can be carried out before the completion of the website
development, thus, providing insight on the trend and direction for correction and
improvements. It can also be carried out on completed and operational work, providing
analysis of areas for improvement. The model should be relatively quick and practical
in providing an overall comprehensive assessment with root-cause analysis that would
lead to corrective measures to improve the quality of the E-commerce website.
In this research idioms were applied in realizing a complete Bayesian Belief Network
model. The conclusions are measured against comparative assessment to validate the
practical benefits of the work accomplished. The WebQual method was utilized to
validate the "belief" established by the model.


The right to an equal and fair trial regardless of wealth is a hallmark of American jurisprudence. To ensure this right, the government pays attorneys to represent financially needy clients. In the U.S. federal court system, indigent defendants are represented by either public defenders who are salaried employees of the court or private attorneys, known as Criminal Justice Act (CJA) attorneys, who are compensated on an hourly basis. This study measures differences in performance of these types of attorneys and explores some potential causes for these differences. Exploiting the use of random case assignment between the two types of attorneys, an analysis of federal criminal case level data from 1997-2001 from 51 districts indicates that public defenders perform significantly better than CJA panel attorneys in terms of lower conviction rates and sentence lengths. An analysis of data from three districts linking attorney experience, wages, law school quality and average caseload suggests that these variables account for over half of the overall difference in performance. These systematic differences in performance disproportionately affect minority and immigrant communities and as such may constitute a civil rights violation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Radha Iyengar Harvard University Center for Government and International Studies 1730 Cambridge Street, Room 408 Cambridge, MA 02138 and NBER firstname.lastname@example.com


Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy. Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called "the economy" and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East.In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy - the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order. In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.