Most of the satisficing planners which are based on heuristic search iteratively improve their solution quality through an anytime approach. Typically, the lowest-cost solution found so far is used to constrain the search. This avoids areas of the state space which cannot directly lead to lower cost solutions. However, in this paper we show that when used in conjunction with a post-processing plan improvement system such as ARAS, this bounding approach can harm a planner's performance since the bound may prevent the search from ever finding additional plans for the post-processor to improve.The new anytime search framework of Diverse Any-Time Search addresses this issue through the use of restarts, randomization, and by not bounding as strictly as is done by previous approaches. Below, we will show that by using these techniques, the framework is able to generate a more diverse set of "raw" input plans for the post-processor to work on. We then show that when adding both Diverse Any-Time Search and the ARAS post-processor to LAMA-2011, the winner of the most recent IPC planning competition, the performance according to the IPC scoring metric improves from 511 points to over 570 points when tested on the 550 problems from IPC 2008 and IPC 2011. Performance gains are also seen when these techniques are added to Anytime Explicit Estimation Algorithm (AEES), as the performance improves from 440 points to over 513 points on the same problem set.


Resistance to the cyclohexanedione (CHD) herbicide sethoxydim was investigated in two UK Lolium multiflorum populations, Yorks A2 and PYL. Resistance screening experiments demonstrated a qualitative difference in the responses of the two populations to sethoxydim, suggesting that the molecular basis of resistance between them was different. After treatment, Yorks A2 plants were either alive (78% of sample tested) or dead (22% tested) but plants of the PYL population showed two further intermediate categories of response. The level of acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase) insensitivity directly correlated with the degree of resistance at the whole plant level, indicating that the molecular basis of resistance is associated with differences in ACCase sensitivity in each population. Direct sequencing of the carboxyl transferase domain of the ACCase gene showed that an Ile-418-Leu substitution in the L. multiflorum chloroplastic ACCase (GenBank accession number AY710293) confers resistance to sethoxydim in Yorks A2. This corresponds to amino acid residue 1781 in the Alopecurus myosuroides full ACCase sequence. This is the first report of this mutation in this L. multiflorum, which has also been reported in four other grass-weeds, including L. rigidum. However, no amino acid substitutions were found to be specifically associated with the resistant phenotypes in the PYL population and the molecular basis of resistance in this population remains to be resolved.


Abstract Teaching multicultural diversity as the mere acquisition of factual awareness based on intellectual and mastery learning may be leading to a false sense of competency. The purpose of this article is to present methods used by the author in teaching multicultural diversity (MCD). The pedagogy presented is based in part on multicultural education, adult education, and transformative learning theory. ********** This article is based on my teaching multicultural diversity (MCD) to adult students. The class examines social, emotional, and psychological impacts of oppression, discrimination, and racism related to ethnic and racial minority status. Marilyn Cochran-Smith's (2000) challenge to educators is descriptive of what I present here. She states that educators should unlearn racism by "interrogating racist assumptions that are deeply imbedded in the courses and curricula that we teach, owing our often unknowing complicity in maintaining existing systems of privilege and oppression, and grappling with our own failures to produce the kinds of changes we advocate" (p. 157). Teachers of MCD integrate self-awareness, critical reflection, and reconstruction of previous assumptions that will contribute to transformative learning via an experiential and process-focused approach. Teaching Approach and Philosophy According to transformative learning theory (Mezirow, 1991), our assumptions must be examined from alternative perspectives, critiqued, critically reflected upon, and changed. The changes are deeper than learning to master the material and the addition of new knowledge. Teaching MCD with a transformative approach is to go beyond achieving cognitive and intellectual changes. Brookfield (1990) refers to transformative learning occurring when what was once was thought permanent and stable was suddenly observed to be relative and situation specific. Emotionality, challenge, reflection, and unexpectedness as used by Brookfield are also critical elements in teaching MCD. Banks (1997) views teaching ethnic studies at a transformational level where students view issues from the perspectives of the ethnic groups being studied. I take this one step further and encourage students to participate in what they are studying. Oppression and racism is not something that affects others only, but is a reciprocal process whereby they are encouraged to focus on the consequences of oppression and racism for themselves. If students do not actively participate in such activities, then they are encouraged to explore how they benefit from past and current oppression and racism. In order for MCD to be effective at a transformative level the teacher needs to have the courage to teach sensitive material and issues about oppression, discrimination, and racism, as they really exist not only in society but also within the very institutions where the courses are taught. A decision needs to be made whether the course will be taught in an intellectualized and safe manner or whether one will bear with and push through discomfort and resistance in order to achieve learning at a significant and meaningful level. View From the Inside Out When considering effective teaching one needs to not only consider how one teaches the class, but also consider who the teacher is (Palmer, 1997). I am a Mexican American male--older than the students and originally from a lower American social and economic class. Although I have a doctorate degree and have managed to move into the middle class, I gradually reveal who I am by imbedding my own experiences within the topics of the MCD course. Presenting myself as a bicultural individual living in two cultures and having a perspective from inside the experiences of oppression and racism results in meaningful learning. I have found that the view from the inside out contributes significantly to learning about MCD. Process Preparation It is helpful and important for students to clearly understand the objectives of the class and what the class will be like. …


The paper aims to outline the author impact based on Lotka's Law using R. Lotka's Law is well known as "the inverse square law of scientific productivity." It states that the number of authors publishing a certain number of articles is a fixed ratio to the number of authors publishing a single article. The study found authoring patterns do not match to Lotka's Law. The study summarizes the results using ggplot2. While the study fail to support eminent literary authors productivity, future tests should use full data set, and avoid using samples or grouping as alternative. This is the first attempt to utilize R to employ Lotka's law using R.


In the development of safety-critical embedded systems, requirements-driven approaches are widely used. Expressing functional requirements in formal languages enables reasoning and formal testing. This paper proposes the Simplified Universal Pattern (SUP) as an easy to use formalism and compares it to SPS, another commonly used specification pattern system. Consistency is an important property of requirements that can be checked already in early design phases. However, formal definitions of consistency are rare in literature and tent to be either too weak or computationally too complex to be applicable to industrial systems. Therefore this work proposes a new formal consistency notion, called partial consistency, for the SUP that is a trade-off between exhaustiveness and complexity. Partial consistency identifies critical cases and verifies if these cause conflicts between requirements


Contributions to the quantitative civil war literature increasingly rely on geo-referenced data and disaggregated research designs. While this is a welcome trend, it necessitates geographic information systems (GIS) skills and imposes new challenges for data collection and analysis. So far, solutions to these challenges differ between studies, obstructing direct comparison of findings and hampering replication and extension of earlier work. This article presents a standardized structure for storing, manipulating, and analyzing high-resolution spatial data. PRIO-GRID is a vector grid network with a resolution of 0.5 x 0.5 decimal degrees, covering all terrestrial areas of the world. Gridded data comprise inherently apolitical entities; the grid cells are fixed in time and space, they are insensitive to political boundaries and developments, and they are completely exogenous to likely features of interest, such as civil war outbreak, ethnic settlement patterns, extreme weather events, or the spatial distribution of wealth. Moreover, unlike other disaggregated approaches, gridded data may be scaled up or down in a consistent manner by varying the resolution of the grid. The released dataset comes with cell-specific information on a large selection of political, economic, demographic, environmental, and conflict variables for all years, 1946–2008. A simple descriptive data assessment of population density and economic activity is offered to demonstrate how PRIO-GRID may be applied in quantitative social science research.


Much has been written about drug-taking during the nineteenth century, particularly in relation to opium. However, the early twentieth century has received considerably less attention, despite being a crucial period in the history of drug-taking within Britain. During 1916, the Defence of the Realm Act Regulation 40b made it an offence to supply or to possess particular drugs without authorisation. This was a fundamental shift in government thinking that presaged the modern era in which the legal status of particular drugs continues to be an issue of public debate. Previous research focused on changes in the law and analysed the relationships between key individuals and influential groups with an interest in drug control. In part, this reflects the significance of the decision to alter the law but also the lack of available evidence concerning drug-takers of the era. This study seeks to address this gap in understanding and develops a new perspective on drug-taking, that of the participants. The study developed an innovative and, at times, speculative approach to tracing drug-takers of that era. This led to the use of articles from The Times identified from systematic searches of The Times Digital Archive. These articles by their nature were mediated accounts of drug-related activity but no other source could offer such a range of drug-takers over the selected time period (1900-1922). Furthermore, the large number of articles identified meant that it was easier to detect press influences and take these into account when analysing their content. The wealth of information that emerged from the articles was beyond initial expectations and led to an additional piece of analysis concerning the geographical spread of drug-taking activity within the period. Although the evidence did not allow the development of many in-depth accounts as had been the intention at the outset, it did provide insight to particular aspects of drug-taking activity. For example, the collated information regarding female participants suggested specific behavioural traits that possibly made female consumers harder to detect compared to their male counterparts. Drug-taking among military personnel and the operation of supply networks were other aspects illuminated by the articles. An association emerged between military conflicts and increased drug-taking by military personnel. It indicated, too, that periods of conflict could have implications for domestic prevalence from the cessation of hostilities. Geographical analysis illuminated the supply networks both in terms of drug procurement and relationships between drug-takers within their areas of settlement. Furthermore, some of the areas associated with drug-taking during the early twentieth century remain linked to drugs in the present day raising questions about how and why specific areas might become drug hot-spots. Further research arising from this thesis would involve the replication of the method during the later period, 1923 to 1950. This period would allow the female narrative of drug-related activity begun by this thesis to be developed further and to establish whether the First World War was a unique period for female participation or whether their participation evolved. Similarly, considering the articles from this later period could help illuminate further the subsequent spread and operation of supply networks. Replicating the method would also test whether it is transferable to other periods or whether changes to reporting style made the method era specific.


Traffic management systems have historically been limited to addressing the control of street signal lights. Algorithmic solutions to this problem have proved to be very restrictive, while expert system solutions have only shown valid results with small signal networks. None of these approaches has addressed the need for management of the overall transportation system of surface streets, interstate highways, public transportation, and emergency vehicle response. Georgia Tech has developed a distributed blackboard system designed for advance traffic management in large urban areas. Knowledge sources in the system address problems in traffic control, monitoring, congestion prediction, adaptive communication, and incident management. The knowledge sources exploit rule, frame, script, and neural network representations to solve individual traffic management problems that appear on the blackboard data structure. The resulting traffic management decisions are then implemented and evaluated through simulation.


Community development credit unions (CDCUs) have a long history of serving low-income and minority markets. They played an important role in the founding and leadership of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Coalition, which successfully advocated for the establishment of the CDFI Fund and has monitored and supported the CDFI Fund throughout its history. Yet, the role of credit unions in the CDFI movement is often overlooked. The term, "CDFI" is frequently understood by researchers and policymakers to mean CDFI loan funds, the unregulated institutions that dominate the ranks of institutions certified by the CDFI Fund. This working paper explains the critical role that CDCUs play in community development and examines their financial performance through the Great Recession.


The disputed position of Anthonotha gabunensis (Pellegr.) J.Leonard, whether it fits in Anthonotha or should be placed in Leonardendron, a genus of its own, is reviewed. Its actinomorphic flowers are aberrant, since the genus Anthonotha has zygomorphic flowers. Therefore it is transferred to Englerodendron that has similar actinomorphic flowers and up until now has been known by its single species E usambarense Harms from Tanzania. On the same grounds Anthonotha conchyliophora (Pellegr.) J. Leonard is also transferred to this genus. Leonardendron is synonymized under Englerodendron. A key to distinguish Englerodendron from related genera is provided as well as a key to the three species of the genus. Important characters of these species are depicted and the distributions of the two species from Lower Guinea are mapped.


Changes in the way customers shop accompanied by an explosion of customer touchpoints and fast-changing competitive and technological dynamics, have led to an increased emphasis on agile marketing. The objective of this paper is to conceptualize and investigate the emerging practice of marketing agility. Toward this end, the authors synthesize the literature from marketing and allied disciplines and insights from in-depth interviews with 22 senior managers. Marketing agility is defined as the extent to which an entity rapidly iterates between making sense of the market and executing marketing decisions to adapt to the market. It is conceptualized as occurring across different levels in organizations and shown to be distinctive from related concepts in marketing and allied fields. The authors highlight the firm challenges in executing marketing agility, including ensuring brand consistency, scaling agility across the marketing ecosystem, managing data privacy concerns, pursuing marketing agility as a fad, and hiring marketing leaders. The authors identify the antecedents of marketing agility at the organizational, team, marketing leadership and employee levels and provide a roadmap for future research. The authors caution that marketing agility may not be well-suited for all firms and all marketing activities.


To promote social consciousness and a sense of responsibility, educational proposals organised around the principles of technology-enhanced project-based language learning (Dooly & Sadler,2016) should engage students in a process of reflecting upon and responding to crucial social issues. Thus, in this paper we will present a project carried out by two groups of primary students who launched a solidarity campaign to collect money for four Syrian children living in a refugee camp in Greece. The project was implemented in a cross-disciplinary Arts and Crafts class taught through English and resulted in significant outputs in English (those addressed to the Syrian children) and in Catalan (those targeted at the local community). First, we outline the student-led project and then we analyse some fragments of student plurilingual practices during the project development that demonstrate their learning gains. Our findings reveal that our meaningful contextualised cross-disciplinary project favoured the natural integration of multiple skills, competences, and field knowledge form various disciplines while promoting a sense of social consciousness and empathy. First, it enabled children to put their plurilingual competence into play and take decisions regarding language choices to meet particular communicative objectives. Second, it contributed to the acquisition of 21st century knowledge, competence, and skills, while helping the learners gain social values. Third, it engaged learners in processes of problem solving, decision making and creative thinking that lead to the development of entrepreneurial competencies. To conclude we argue that when young learners are given responsibilities and opportunities to take up socially relevant challenges learning becomes meaningful for them and those around them.


The establishment of Oranga Tamariki, The Ministry for Vulnerable Children was supposed to end the perception that the law protecting vulnerable children and young people was crisis driven. The establishment of a stand-alone Ministry was to stabilise the law and improve outcomes for the most vulnerable. However, the law reform process to implement this change undermined rather than supported this effort. The method of reform, its intrinsic link with government ideology, close connection to previous reforms and the opposition to legislative amendments undermined the foundations the reform sought to lay. This paper suggests that the law reform process could have been better utilised as a vehicle with which to emphasise and accentuate the ultimate aims of the reform and assist in their successful implementation. The paper tracks various tensions in the reform process and suggests that these deficiencies permeate the law that has resulted. As such, the paper suggests the ultimate goal of the reform remains unrealised, not for lack of intention, but due to fundamental flaws in gaining support from key stakeholders. Because of this, the likelihood of future reform is high. The law reform process could have placated rather than enhanced this risk.


In the final book in the digital "BANK" series, Brett King tackles the topic of whether banks have a future at all in the emerging, technology embedded world of the 21st century. In 30-50 years when cash is gone, cards are gone and all vestiges of the traditional banking system have been re-engineered in real-time, what exactly will a bank look like? How will we reimagine a bank account, identity, value, assets, investments? Then stepping back from this vision of the future, King and his cadre of 'disruptors' and Fintech mafia chronicle the foundations of this new banking ecosystem today. From selfie-pay in China, blockchain in Africa, self-driving cars with their own bank accounts and augmented reality tech that informs the future design of banking systems, this proves once and for all that we're not in Wall Street anymore Toto. Bank 4.0 is what banking will become.


We are investigating techniques for supporting autonomous dialogue in interactive story telling. That is, instead of writing a script for every possible sequence of events, we would like to develop an approach in which story characters have more autonomy in deciding what to say when. We describe our current research on applying dialogue games theory to interactive story telling. We illustrate the theory by analyzing a segment of dialogue from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We conclude that this theory may be relevant to supporting autonomous dialogue in two respects. First, the set of possible dialogue moves at any point in story time is constrained in part by dialogue game conventions. Second, dialogue games can be exploited by the author to contribute to story telling effects.


This article argues that the African Union (AU) approach to peacebuilding, out of Africa's historical experience and lessons from the United Nations (UN), is comprehensive and holistic, but requires the existence of a legitimate government, a functional society and domestic parties for dialogue to begin. Without these conditions, the approach leads to extended peace enforcement rather than peacebuilding. Yet, whatever the conditions that prevail, peacebuilding in Africa has experienced limited success due to the failure to fundamentally transform the inherited post-colonial state, society and politics. The neo-colonial conditions helped to stall the achievement of lasting peace. The African experience with peacebuilding demonstrates a need for a more fundamental peace than is internationally the norm – a peace paradigm that hinges on the continued decolonisation of the African state and society in order to give rise to what may be called a decolonial peace.


This exploratory study provides an overview of the current landscape of online education in the fields of Master of Public Administration and Master of Public Policy (MPA/MPP) utilizing a dataset compiled from content analysis of MPA/MPP programs' websites and survey of 96 National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) affiliated institutions. Areas studied include the rationales for offering or not offering online education, concerns with technology, modes of online instruction, student services, faculty and staff demands and enrollment patterns. The primary goal stated for offering courses and degrees online is to reach more students. We found substantial diversity in teaching methods which suggests students and instructors alike are attracted to online education due to its flexibility. Surprisingly, we did not find any significant problems with technological concerns.


The aim of inverting artificial neural networks (ANNs) is to find input patterns that are strongly classified as a predefined class. In this project an ANN is inverted by an evolutionary algorithm. The network is retrained by using the patterns extracted by the inversion as counter-examples, i.e. to classify the patterns as belonging to no class, which is the opposite of what the network previously did. The hypothesis is that the counter-examples extracted by the inversion will cause larger updates of the weights of the ANN and create a better mapping than what is caused by retraining using randomly generated counter-examples. This hypothesis is tested on recognition of pictures of handwritten digits. The tests indicate that this hypothesis is correct. However, the test- and training errors are higher when retraining using counter-examples, than for training only on examples of clean digits. It can be concluded that the counter-examples generated by the inversion have a great impact on the network. It is still unclear whether the quality of the network can be improved using this method.


In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the high-affinity phosphate transport system comprises the Pho84 and Pho89 permeases. The Pho89 permease catalyzes import of inorganic phosphate in a symport manner by utilizing Na+ ions as co-solute. We have addressed the functional importance of two glutamic acid residues at positions 55 and 491. Both residues are highly conserved amongst members of the inorganic phosphate transporter (PiT) family, which might be an indication of functional importance. Moreover, both residues have been shown to be of critical importance in the hPit2 transporter. We have created site-directed mutations of both E55 and E491 to lysine and glutamine. We observed that in all four cases there is a dramatic impact on the transport activity, and thus it seems that they indeed are of functional importance. Following these observations, we addressed the membrane topology of this protein by using several prediction programs. TOPCONS predicts a 7-5 transmembrane segment organization, which is the most concise topology as compared to the hPiT2 transporter. By understanding the functionality of these residues, we are able to correlate the Pho89 topology to that of the hPiT2, and can now further analyze residues which might play a role in the transport activity.


Neurodegenerative disorders are defined as hereditary and sporadic conditions which are characterized by progressive loss of structure or function of neurons in sensory, motor, and cognitive systems. Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and depression are well-known examples of neurodegenerative disorders. The World Health Organization estimates that, by 2040, neurodegenerative diseases will surpass cancer as the principal cause of death in industrialized countries. Despite various advances in the understanding of the diseases, pharmacological treatment by conventional medicine has not obtained satisfactory results. Therefore, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) can be a potential candidate for the preventative treatment of the disorders. The aim of this special issue is to demonstrate the clinical evidence and explore the acting mechanisms of CAM in treating neurodegenerative disorders.

Alzheimer's disease is a well-recognized neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive deterioration of cognitive function and memory. At present, there are no effective treatments that can stop or reverse the progression of the disease. Pharmaceutical interventions that aim to delay the deterioration of this disease have been extensively studied. Although cholinesterase inhibitors and an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist have been widely used for treating the syndromes of the disease, these drugs have not shown promising results and their uses are always limited by their undesirable side effects. In this special issue, several studies have shown that CAM can be useful for the management of the disease.

Although the pathological cause of Alzheimer's disease has not been fully understood, the deposition of beta-amyloid is believed to be one of the risk factors. Therefore, neurotoxicity induced by beta-amyloid is commonly used as a cellular or animal model of Alzheimer's disease. In this issue, an animal study showed that oral administration of Yi-Chi-Tsung-Ming-Tang (Table 1) ameliorated beta-amyloid injection-induced learning and memory impairments. Further investigation by biochemical analysis showed that the herbal decoction decreased amyloid accumulation and reversed acetylcholine decline in the hippocampus of the animals treated with beta-amyloid.

Table 1

Composition of herbal formulae.

There are two studies on cellular model of Alzheimer's disease with Flemingia macrophylla and Uncaria rhynchophylla, respectively. Beneficial effects of both medical herbs have been suggested for the management of Alzheimer's disease. By using bioassay-guided fractionation, rhynchophylline and isorhynchophylline have been identified as the active ingredients of Uncaria rhynchophylla. The neuroprotective effect of these chemical ingredients has been suggested to be mediated by inhibiting intracellular calcium overloading and tau protein hyperphosphorylation.

Depression is a chronic mental disorder clinically characterized by a pervasive low mood, loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities, low self-esteem, and a high suicidal tendency. Although the monoamine theory of depression has been extensively investigated, it is unable to fully explain the pathophysiology of depression. In recent years, a huge amount of evidences suggesting a causal relationship between the incidence of major depressive disorders and neurodegenerative processes such as the decreased neurotrophic factors, altered neuronal plasticity, neuronal atrophy, or destruction in the hippocampus and cortex has been published.

At present, there are several types of antidepressants available for pharmaceutical management of the disease including tricyclic antidepressants, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, noradrenergic reuptake inhibitors, serotonin, and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors. However, due to the multiple pathogenic factors involved in depression, many antidepressant drugs show low response rates and may cause adverse side effects such as cardiotoxicity, hypertensive crisis, sexual dysfunction, and sleep disorder. Therefore, a number of herbal remedies have been suggested to be safe, better tolerated, and efficacious antidepressants. In this issue, several research articles have shown that herbal prescriptions, including Shu-Yu-San, Kai-Xin-San, Baihe-Dihuang-Tang, and Danggui-Shaoyao-San (Table 1), are effective antidepressants on animal model of depression.

In this special issue, we have collected a couple of clinical studies on the application of CAM in treating neurodegenerative diseases. Although the scale of these studies is small, all of them have demonstrated a promising effect of CAM on neurodegenerative diseases. For example, a study of Toki-Shakuyaku-San (Danggui- Shaoyao-San in Chinese phonetic name), a six-herb Chinese medicine (Table 1), on patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease showed that treatment with Toki-Shakuyaku-San for eight weeks significantly increased regional cerebral blood flow in the posterior cingulate and tended to improve cognitive impairment in these patients. Another randomized clinical trial showed that Saffron (flower of Crocus sativus) supplement improved retinal flicker sensitivity in patients with early age-related macular degeneration and the beneficial effect of the herbal drug was extended over a 14-month follow-up study.

In this special issue, a large amount of evidences have shown that CAM can be an efficacious treatment for neurodegenerative disorders. However, a large-scale, double-blind, and placebo-controlled trial is still needed to demonstrate the clinical effect of CAM on these diseases.


Fibre-reinforced plates and shells are find- ing an increasing interest in engineering applications. Consequently, efficient and robust computational tools are required for the analysis of such structural models. As a matter of fact, a large amount of laminate finite el- ements have been developed and incorporated in most commercial codes for structural analysis. In this paper a new laminate hybrid assumed-strain plate element is derived within the framework of the First- order Shear Deformation Theory (i.e. assuming that par- ticles of the plate originally lying along a straight line which is normal to the undeformed middle surface re- main aligned along a straight lineduring the deformation process)and assumingperfect bondingbetween laminae. Thein-planecomponentsofthe(infinitesimal)strain ten- sor are interpolated and by making use of the constitu- tive law, the correspondingin-plane stress distribution is deduced for each layer. Out-of-plane shear stresses are then computed by integrating the equilibrium equations in each lamina, account taken of their continuityrequire- ments. Out-of-planeshear strains are finally obtained via the inverse constitutivelaw. The resulting global strain field depends on a fixed num- ber of parameters, regardless of the total number of lay- ers; 12 degrees of freedom are for instance assumed for the developed rectangular element. The proposed model does not suffer locking phenomena even in the thin plate limit and provides an accurate de- scription of inter-laminar stresses. Results are compared with both analytical and other finite element solutions.


It will be argued in this article that the EU Recommendation on common principles for collective redress might have limited impact on the field of competition law due to: several uncertainties regarding the legal standing in class actions; difficulties in their funding; and the risk of forum shopping with cross-border actions. Nevertheless, Belgium and Great Britain have recently introduced class actions into their national legal systems and addressed some of the difficulties which other Member States were experiencing already. It will also be suggested that the Portuguese model – the 'Popular Action' – and recent Portuguese practice may be considered an interesting example to follow in order to overcome some of the identified obstacles to private antitrust enforcement.


The primary task was to investigate and explain the source of blockage in an elbow (B2) and in other parts of the fuel supply unit recovered from the wreckage of a private airplane. A small clump of pollen associated with a disc-shaped gummy mass of plant fibers suggested that bees belonging to the family Megachilidae might have been responsible for accumulating these plant materials. Examination of other parts of the fuel control unit revealed three dead adult bees identified as Osmia gaudiosa Cockerell (Megachilidae) and a single dead individual of the genus Ashmeadiella (Megachilidae). A survey of the tubing of a heater that had been stored showed that 69% of its tubings and fittings contained nest material and other arthropod debris including those of Ashmeadiella meliloti (Cockerell) and Anthidium sp. (Megachilidae). Through SEM examination, a single branched hair partly embedded in the clump of pollen was matched with the postgenal hairs of an adult Ashmeadiella. These facts left no doubt that the B2 elbow mass was part of a nest of Ashmeadiella. This conclusion was consistent with the facts that the wreckage had been available to the bees for nesting during the entire time of the spring and summer nesting season, and that the plant materials (leaves of Sphaeralcea and pollen sources) were readily available near the storage yard during that time. Contamination of the wreckage by nesting bees was obviously a post-crash phenomenon. Plant materials as well as dead bees would have been consumed by the intense fire that accompanied the crash if they had been present before.


We introduce InverseFaceNet, a deep convolutional inverse rendering framework for faces that jointly estimates facial pose, shape, expression, reflectance and illumination from a single input image. By estimating all parameters from just a single image, advanced editing possibilities on a single face image, such as appearance editing and relighting, become feasible in real time. Most previous learning-based face reconstruction approaches do not jointly recover all dimensions, or are severely limited in terms of visual quality. In contrast, we propose to recover high-quality facial pose, shape, expression, reflectance and illumination using a deep neural network that is trained using a large, synthetically created training corpus. Our approach builds on a novel loss function that measures model-space similarity directly in parameter space and significantly improves reconstruction accuracy. We further propose a self-supervised bootstrapping process in the network training loop, which iteratively updates the synthetic training corpus to better reflect the distribution of real-world imagery. We demonstrate that this strategy outperforms completely synthetically trained networks. Finally, we show high-quality reconstructions and compare our approach to several state-of-the-art approaches.


ABSTRACT Graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized and used as a coagulant of rare earth elements (REEs) from aqueous solution. Stability and adsorption capacities were exhibited for target REEs such as La(III), Nd(III), Gd(III), and Y(III). The parameters influencing the adsorption capacity of the target species including contact time, pH, initial concentration, and temperature were optimized. The adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics were studied. The method showed quantitative recovery (99%) upon desorption using HNO3 acid (0.1 M) after a short contact time (15 min).


Abstract. Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) has recently emerged as a new treatment modality for cancer pain management that targets the cingulum (pain center in the brain) and has shown promise over radio frequency (RF)-based ablation, due to magnetic resonance image (MRI) guidance that allows for precise ablation. Since laser ablation for pain management is currently exploratory and is only performed at a few centers worldwide, its short- and long-term effects on the cingulum are currently unknown. Traditionally, treatment effects for neurological conditions are evaluated by monitoring changes in intensities and/or volume of the ablation zone on post-treatment Gadolinium-contrast T1-w (Gd-T1) MRI. However, LITT introduces subtle localized changes corresponding to tissues response to treatment, which may not be appreciable on visual inspection of volumetric or intensity changes. Additionally, different MRI protocols [Gd-T1, T2w, gradient echo sequence (GRE), fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)] are known to capture complementary diagnostic information regarding the patient's response to treatment; the utility of these MRI protocols has so far not been investigated to evaluate early and localized response to LITT treatment in the context of neuropathic cancer pain. In this work, we present the first attempt at (a) examining early treatment-related changes on a per-voxel basis via quantitative comparison of computer-extracted texture descriptors across pre- and post-LITT multiparametric (MP-MRI) (Gd-T1, T2w, GRE, FLAIR), subtle microarchitectural texture changes that may not be appreciable on original MR intensities or volumetric differences, and (b) investigating the efficacy of different MRI protocols in accurately capturing immediate post-treatment changes reflected (1) within and (2) outside the ablation zone. A retrospective cohort of four patient studies comprising pre- and immediate (24 h) post-LITT 3 Tesla Gd-T1, T2w, GRE, and FLAIR acquisitions was considered. Our quantitative approach first involved intensity standardization to allow for grayscale MR intensities acquired pre- and post-LITT to have a fixed tissue-specific meaning within the same imaging protocol, the same body region, and within the same patient. An affine registration was then performed on individual post-LITT MRI protocols to a reference MRI protocol pre-LITT. A total of 78 computerized texture features (co-occurrence matrix homogeneity, neighboring gray-level dependence matrix, Gabor) are then extracted from pre- and post-LITT MP-MRI on a per-voxel basis. Quantitative, voxelwise comparison of the changes in MRI texture features between pre- and post-LITT MRI indicate that (a) Gabor texture features at specific orientations were highly sensitive as well as specific in predicting subtle microarchitectural changes within and around the ablation zone pre- and post-LITT, (b) FLAIR was identified as the most sensitive MRI protocol in identifying early treatment changes yielding a normalized percentage change of 360% within the ablation zone relative to its pre-LITT value, and (c) GRE was identified as the most sensitive MRI protocol in quantifying changes outside the ablation zone post-LITT. Our preliminary results thus indicate potential for noninvasive computerized MP-MRI features over volumetric features in determining localized microarchitectural early focal treatment changes post-LITT for neuropathic cancer pain treatment.


Leverage score sampling provides an appealing way to perform approximate computations for large matrices. Indeed, it allows to derive faithful approximations with a complexity adapted to the problem at hand. Yet, performing leverage scores sampling is a challenge in its own right requiring further approximations. In this paper, we study the problem of leverage score sampling for positive definite matrices defined by a kernel. Our contribution is twofold. First we provide a novel algorithm for leverage score sampling and second, we exploit the proposed method in statistical learning by deriving a novel solver for kernel ridge regression. Our main technical contribution is showing that the proposed algorithms are currently the most efficient and accurate for these problems.


A number of studies have attempted to explain the cause of decadal variability in the tropical Pacific and explore its possible link to decadal variability in the midlatitude Pacific. To investigate some of the current theories of Pacific decadal variability, a linear, wind-driven model, designed to simulate only baroclinic wave dynamics, was forced with wind stress anomalies in the Pacific Ocean basin from 1945 through 1992. An analysis technique designed to isolate the decadal/interdecadal scale variability from interannual ENSO variability was performed on the model's thermocline depth anomaly (TDA). It was found that the temporal and spatial patterns of the observed tropical decadal sea surface temperatures are consistent with our modeled TDA. Furthermore, restricting the wind forcing to within 58 of the equator does not substantially alter the decadal/interdecadal variability of the equatorial region. The authors conclude that the observed decadal variability in the low-latitude Pacific is primarily a linear dynamical response to tropical wind forcing and does not directly require an oceanic link to the midlatitudes. The question of how tropical wind anomalies are generated is not addressed. In addition, it is shown that in model scenarios where the wind forcing is restricted to the western equatorial Pacific, the 1976‐77 climate shift is still clearly visible as a dominant feature of tropical decadal variability. The temporal decadal signal of the model-generated TDA is more pronounced during the eastern equatorial upwelling season (July‐September) than in the boreal winter. This is consistent with the observed seasonal bias in tracer and SST data from the eastern equatorial Pacific.


Vibration observation is a major application of digital speckle-pattern interferometry (DSPI), which is a variation on electronic speckle-pattern interferometry (ESPI). DSPI processes speckle patterns in a computer rather than with a frame grabber and analog electronics as in ESPI. A new method of observing vibration fringes is presented and compared with existing techniques as well as some variations on them. Fringe contrast and signal-to-noise ratio are used as a means of comparison since these quantities are dependent on the techniques used. This new technique involves continuously subtracting a reference frame containing only self-interference terms and no cross interference term from the time-averaged data frames of the vibrating object. This reference frame is created by vibrating a reference mirror at a high amplitude while the object is at rest. Comparisons of calculated fringe contrast with four other observation methods show that this method yields extremely good fringe contrast. Experimental results are shown for this new technique as well as for the most commonly used vibration-observation technique. These results show that the new technique is far superior to all the other methods for moderately unstable objects, which may slowly drift or deform in time.


Lesions of the fibrocartilaginous triangle of the carpus (FCTC) and lunatopyramidal (LP) instability are the most frequently treated situations involving ulnar instability of the wrist. Most publications to date have examined results obtain for the treatment of isolated lesions, few have reported associated injuries. Outcome could be better in terms of pain relief: 25–64% of pain-free results for the treatment of FCTC and unpredictable results for the treatment of LP instability. Considering the column theory proposed by Navarro-Taleisnik we have developed a concept based on fixation of the pyramidal and an adaptation of the Mayfield lines (where kinetic energy is considered exclusively on the ulnar side); we present here what we call the «peripyramidal ring lesion». In our series of surgical cases, pain-free outcome for combined ulnar lesions treated as FCTC lesions was achieved in 48% of cases. For cases treated as LP instability, the rate was 71.4%. Many combinations are underdiagnosed: pyramidal-median hamate, pyramidal-pisiform. By treating these combined lesions we have increased the rate of excellent results from 64% to 91% for FCTC and obtained 86% pain-free wrists for LP instability.


The authors used a discrete choice conjoint design to examine the relative contributions of previously identified contextual factors (clothing, looks, company, and comments) for eliciting instances of appearance-related self-consciousness in a sample of 250 female undergraduates. The findings revealed that individuals differed in their relative weighting of each of the four contextual factors. Latent class analysis identified two distinct response profiles: one group reported appearance-related commentary as most likely to trigger an instance of appearance self-consciousness, whereas a second group prioritized self-perceived level of attractiveness as most likely to prompt self-consciousness. On average, the looks-prioritizing group that had higher body mass index were more dissatisfied with their appearance, and felt greater social pressure to conform to appearance-related standards. The use of a discrete choice conjoint design also allowed the authors to investigate the interplay between situational- and trait-based variables in the elicitation of appearance self-consciousness. Their findings suggest that the negative effects of appearance comments and/or perceived unattractiveness on appearance self-consciousness may be offset by access to a friendship network. Furthermore, the finding that individuals differed in their responses to various contextual influences on appearance-related consciousness suggests that a one-size-fits-all model of the relationship between environment and appearance self-consciousness may underestimate the complexity of this relationship. The authors discuss the treatment implications of these findings, as well as the need for further research to ensure that other, relevant contextual factors have not been neglected.


Oncolytic herpes viruses show promise for cancer treatment. However, it is unlikely that they will fulfill their therapeutic potential when used as monotherapies. An alternative strategy is to use these viruses not only as oncolytic agents but also as a delivery mechanism of therapeutic transgenes to enhance tumor cell killing. The herpes simplex virus 1 deletion mutant HSV1716 is a conditionally replicating oncolytic virus that selectively replicates in and lyses dividing tumor cells. It has a proven safety profile in clinical trials and has demonstrated efficacy as a gene-delivery vehicle. To enhance its therapeutic potential, we have engineered HSV1716 to convey the noradrenaline transporter (NAT) gene (HSV1716/NAT), whose expression endows infected cells with the capacity to accumulate the noradrenaline analog metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG). Thus, the NAT gene–infected cells are susceptible to targeted radiotherapy using radiolabeled 131I-MIBG, a strategy that has already shown promise for combined targeted radiotherapy–gene therapy in cancer cells after plasmid-mediated transfection. Methods: We used HSV1716/NAT as a dual cell lysis–gene delivery vehicle for targeting the NAT transgene to human tumor xenografts in vivo. Results: In tumor xenografts that did not express NAT, intratumoral or intravenous injection of HSV1716/NAT induced the capacity for active uptake of 131I-MIBG. Administration of HSV1716/NAT and 131I-MIBG resulted in decreased tumor growth and enhanced survival relative to injection of either agent alone. Efficacy was dependent on the scheduling of delivery of the 2 agents. Conclusion: These findings support a role for combination radiotherapy–gene therapy for cancer using HSV1716 expressing the NAT transgene and targeted radionuclide therapy.


Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems play a fundamental role in maintaining acceptable thermal comfort and air quality levels. Model Predictive Control (MPC) techniques are known to bring significant energy savings potential. Developing effective MPC-based control strategies for HVAC systems is nontrivial since buildings dynamics are nonlinear and influenced by various uncertainties. This complicates the use of MPC techniques in practice. We propose to address this issue by designing a stochastic MPC strategy that dynamically learns the statistics of the building occupancy patterns and weather conditions. The main advantage of this method is the absence of a-priori assumptions on the distributions of the uncertain variables, and that it can be applied to any type of building. We investigate the practical implementation of the proposed MPC controller on a student laboratory, showing its effectiveness and computational tractability.


Inequality affects economic performance through many mechanisms, both beneficial and harmful. Moreover, some of these mechanisms tend to set in fast while others are rather slow. The present paper (i) introduces a simple theoretical model to study how changes in inequality affect economic growth over different time horizons; (ii) empirically investigates the inequality–growth relationship, thereby relying on specifications derived from the theory. Our empirical findings are in line with the theoretical predictions: Higher inequality helps economic performance in the short term but reduces the growth rate of GDP per capita farther in the future. The long-run (or total) effect of higher inequality tends to be negative.


An emerging field of study among evangelica ls goes by the name modern linguistics. Its terminology, self-appraisal, approach to language analysis, and relationship to traditional exegesis furnish an introduction to a comparison with grammatical-historical hermeneutics. Indispensable to an analysis of modern linguistics is a grasping of its preunderstanding—its placing of the language of the Bible into the same category as all human languages and its integration with other secular disciplines—and the effect that preunderstanding has on its interpretation of the biblical text. Its conflicts with grammatical-historical principles include a questioning of the uniqueness of the biblical languages, its differing in the handling of lexical and grammatical elements of the text, its differing in regard to the importance of authorial intention, its lessening of precision in interpretation, its elevating of the primacy of discourse, its elevating of the impact of stylistic considerations, and a questioning of the feasibility of understanding the text in a literal way. Such contrasts mark the wide divergence of modern linguistics from traditional grammatical-historical interpretation.


On March 26, 2018, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross determined that the federal government would use the 2020 decennial Census to ask every person in the country about their citizenship status. The decision was enormously controversial. The decennial Census appears in the sixth sentence of the Constitution, as the very first responsibility of the new federal government; many believed that the decision to add a question on citizenship, in this climate, could put the enumeration itself in jeopardy.

This piece is the first to interrogate the legal and political rationale of that decision, and its consequences for the theoretical basis of American representative democracy and for the tangible distribution of clout and cash. In Part I, it explores the likely impact of the decision, demonstrating that Secretary Ross's eleventh-hour intervention presents risks for the decennial enumeration that the Census Bureau itself had previously deemed intolerable, and which have only intensified in the current political climate. Part II turns to the proffered basis for this upheaval. It finds the decision essentially unjustified by the public rationale offered, and probes alternative rationales beyond the pretext that might better explain why the decision was made. Several of these alternatives concern the allocation of political power in the decennial apportionment and redistricting cycle to come; the piece closes by examining the decision's likely roots in a long-simmering and hotly contested fight over the nature of representation, quite likely to reemerge in the years ahead.


The premier form of Roman money since the time of the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), coins were vital to the success of Roman state finances, taxation, markets, and commerce beyond the frontiers. Yet until now, the economic and social history of Rome has been written independently of numismatic studies, which detail such technical information as weight standards, mint output, hoards, and finds at archaeological sites. In Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, noted classicist and numismatist Kenneth W. Harl brings together these two fields in the first comprehensive history of how Roman coins were minted and used. Drawing on literary and documentary sources as well as on current methods of metallurgical study and statistical analysis of coins from archaeological sites, Harl presents a sweeping overview of a system of coinage in use for more than a millennium. Challenging much recent scholarship, he emphasizes the important role played by coins in the overseas expansion of the Roman Republic during the second century B.C., in imperial inflationary policies during the third and fourth centuries A.D., and in the dissolution of the Roman Mediterranean order in the seventh century A. D. He also offers the first region-by-region analysis of prices and wages throughout Roman history with reference to the changing buying power of the major circulating denominations. And he shows how the seldom-studied provincial, civic, and imitative coinages were in fact important components of Roman currency. Richly illustrated with photographic reproductions of nearly three hundred specimens, Coinage in the Roman Economy offers a significant contribution to Roman economic history. It will be of interest to scholars and students of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as to professional and amateur numismatists.


An important consideration in health service delivery is ensuring that services meet consumer needs. Whilst nursing services in primary care have grown internationally, there has been limited exploration of consumer satisfaction with these services. This paper reports a descriptive survey that sought to evaluate consumers' perceptions of New Zealand practice nurses (PNs). One thousand, five hundred and five patients who received nursing services at one of 20 participating New Zealand general practices completed a survey tool between December 2010 and December 2011. The 64-item self- report survey tool contained the 21-item General Practice Nurse Satisfaction (GPNS) scale. Data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Internal consistency of the GPNS scale was high (Cronbach's α 0.97). Participants aged over 60 years and those of European descent were significantly less satisfied with the PN (P = 0.001). Controlling for these characteristics, participants who had visited the PN more than four times previously were 1.34 times (adjusted odds ratio 1.34 (95% CI: 1.06-1.70) more satisfied than the comparison group (up to 4 previous visits to PN). In addition to the further validation of the psychometric properties of the GPNS scale in a different setting, the study also revealed a high level of satisfaction with PNs, with increased satisfaction with an increased number of visits. Nevertheless, the lower levels of satisfaction with PNs in the older age group as well as those of European descent, warrants further examination. The study also highlights the need for PNs and consumers to discuss consumer's expectations of services and create a shared understanding of treatment goals.


Staggered wage contracts as short as 1 year are shown to be capable of generating the type of unemployment persistence which has been observed during postwar business cycles in the United States. A contract multiplier causes business cycles to persist beyond the length of the longest contract, and a diffusion of shocks across contracts causes the persistence to increase for several periods before diminishing. A persistence of inflation is also generated by the contracts. This persistence is represented as a reduced-form distributed-lag wage equation in which the lag coefficients have a pure-expectations component and an inertia component due to the overhang of outstanding contracts. Using rational expectations to separate these components suggests that aggregate demand may have a greater impact on inflation than the simple reduced-form estimates would indicate.


Exploring the concepts of an experiential education promotes transformative connections between the academic classroom and other domains of student life. Therefore, this research aims to discover the capacity that education has to change the world. It explores Jane Addams' work, her efforts to encourage democracy, and her educational philosophy that emphasizes learning from life experiences. Additionally, her philosophy of social ethics is intertwined with the writings of John Dewey, Charlene Haddock Siegfried, Ira Shor, and various other theorists. My analysis uses feminist and critical theory to formulate a learning foundation that fosters civic engagement for students and educators.


PLAIO is pleased to include links to these publications developed by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop). The guidelines (Cedefop, 2015) are written for individuals and institutions responsible for the initiation, development, implementation and operation of validation arrangements. They become even more important as countries face high adult and youth unemployment, individuals need career redirection, and as the European refugee crisis demands both social and economic integration. The overall goal of this work is "to develop and improve validation arrangements in Europe" (p. 6). The inventory (Cedefop 2014-2016) provides reports for individual European countries. References Cedefop. (2014-2016). European inventory on validation of non-formal and informal learning. Retrieved from http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/country-reports/european-inventory-on-validation Cedefop. (2015). European guidelines for validating non-formal and informal learning . Retrieved from http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/publications/3073 Cedefop. (2016). Monitoring the use of Validation of non-formal and informal Learning. Retrieved from http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/publications/4148 Note Special thanks to Cedefop for allowing us to share these resources with our readers.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether glycohemoglobin levels increase with age in both sexes and to determine the effect of BMI on this increment. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A cross-sectional survey of 4,580 healthy Chinese men and women, aged 20–85 years, was performed. All subjects who did not have identifiable diseases and who were not on medication known to influence glucose tolerance were recruited from participants at the preventive services of the National Cheng-Kung University Hospital. As an indicator of plasma glucose levels, glycohemoglobin was measured. The subjects were classified according to their age and BMI for both men and women, and any relationships with glycohemoglobin levels were evaluated. RESULTS In all the BMI groups divided into quartiles, glycohemoglobin levels increased with age. The largest elevation of glycohemoglobin was observed in the 45- to 54-year-old age-group, except in men with a BMI between the lowest and highest quartiles. The group with a BMI above the highest quartile had a higher glycohemoglobin than the group with a BMI below the lowest quartile in men aged < 54 years and women aged 35–64 years. Men had higher average glycohemoglobin levels than women < 55 years of age. CONCLUSIONS The age factor itself may cause an elevation in glycohemoglobin independent of other age-related factors in Chinese men and women, and there is a sex difference with a lower average glycohemoglobin level in women before menopause. Furthermore, BMI, but not a family predisposition to diabetes or leisure-time physical activity, affects this age-dependent increase in glycohemoglobin levels.


Objective: The objective of this work was to evaluate the behavior of Acid Violet 43 pigment shampoos and conditioners formulations and when applied to hair through 10 formulations. Method: 10 formulations were developed, these being 5 shampoos and 5 conditioners. Among 5 shampoos, 4 were pigmented in different concentrations and 1 served as control. In the same way it was done for the conditioners, being 4 conditioners pigmented in different concentrations and 1 conditioner for control. The samples were subjected to organoleptic and physicochemical characterization for 15 days, being evaluated appearance, color and odor, behavior after centrifugation, determination of pH, viscosity and foam content (for shampoo). Result: The samples showed satisfactory results in the tests, because their organoleptic and physicochemical characteristics remained stable throughout the analysis period. As for the behavior of the pigment on hair shaft, hair samples were bleached and washed with the formulations developed. Prewash and post wash solutions (wash water) were prepared at the same concentrations and were also read in a spectrophotometer at 570 nm. For white, the depigmented products were used. It was observed that both the shampoos and the conditioners deposit pigment in the wires, however we verified by visual analysis that the conditioners are more effective. Conclusion: The wicks were also subjected to moisture content tests to verify if pigment interfered with the deposition of water in hair. Key words: Acid violet 43, Bleaching, Semi-permanent hair dye, Hair dye.


The purpose of this work is to investigate the efficiency of numerical nonlinear solution procedures when applied to the static analysis of cable supported structures. Gradient and relaxation methods are developed and compared with existing nonlinear solution techniques. In order to obtain a more general picture of the performances of the above methods, stiffness methods with Newton Raphson iterative schemes have also been included in the comparative study.

Chapter 1 examines the behaviour and characteristics of cable supported structures and investigates the analytical requirements for static analysis. A state of the art of numerical solution techniques used to analyse these structures is presented. An extensive review of published work in relation to the analysis of single unstiffened cables, dual cables and cable networks is also presented.
Chapter 2 approaches the solution of the structural problem through total energy formulations. Three basic energy formulations are discussed with particular emphasis given to the total potential energy formulation. The principles of the unconstrained minimization method are considered and different search techniques for approximating the minimum are discussed. Expressions for the gradient vector of the total potential energy are obtained and the tangent stiffness matrix is evaluated as the matrix of the second partial derivatives of the total potential energy formulation. Different scaling techniques are reviewed and the effects of the termination criterion used, for different methods of analysis, on the final accuracy of the methods is also discussed.

In Chapter 3 there is an extensive theoretical treatment of gradient methods for the nonlinear solution of structural problems. Particular emphasis is given to the conjugate gradient algorithm and the modifications proposed by various investigators since it first appeared in 1952. A number of one dimensional linear searches are studied which approximate the minimum along the p direction and determine the scalar parameter a for the next iteration. And extensions of the conjugate gradient algorithm for the evaluation of the scalar parameter e, as proposed by Sorenson and Polak and Ribiere are discussed, Finally, the memory gradient method which employs a two dimensional linear search for a simultaneously evaluation of a and e is also presented.

Chapter 4 examines the efficiency of the methods discussed in Chapter 3 when applied to the nonlinear solution of a number of test problems. The problems are selected to have varying numbers of degrees of freedom and the respective stiffness matrices to have differing condition numbers in order to study the response of the methods for different structural characteristics. The Fletcher and Reeves method with Davidon's linear search with a cubic equation to approximate the minimum, Stanton's algorithm for bracketing the solution and the regular falsi-bisection algorithm to approximate the minimum, a combined algorithm of Davidon and Stanton's techniques, Buchholdt's method, Polak and Ribiere's algorithm, Sorenson's version, the memory gradient method and a number of linearized conjugate gradient algorithms are developed and their convergence characteristics are compared. The effects of scaling and reinitialization are also studied.

In Chapter 5 there is a theoretical investigation of relaxation methods and in particular the dynamic relaxation and the successive overelaxation methods. A rigorous examination of the characteristic properties of dynamic relaxation is carried out. The method is treated as a standard eigenvalue problem for error vectors and expressions for the iteration parameters are developed with respect to the minimum and maximum eigenvalue of the current stiffness matrix. A theoretical comparison of a number of pure iterative methods is performed and relationships between the iteration or scalar parameters of the conjugate gradient method, the dynamic relaxation method, the jacobi semi-iterative method, and the Tchebycheff methods, are established. This suggests that all these methods in fact belong to the same family of methods called "three term recursion formulae". A combined conjugate gradient and Tchebycheff type method is also studied. A method for the automatic evaluation of the dynamic relaxation parameters is developed by the author which can guarantee convergence for almost any arbitrary initial estimate of the minimum and maximum eigenvalues of the current stiffness matrix. The concept of using kinetic energy damping instead of viscous damping in the dynamic relaxation iterative process is also examined. Finally, the successive overelaxation method is modified to be applicable to the nonlinear analysis of structural problems, and two ongoing processes for automatic evaluation of the optimum overelaxation parameter w , proposed by Carre and Hageman, are also examined.

Chapter 6 is devoted to a theoretical and numerical investigation of the problem of finding the minimum and maximum eigenvalues of a symmetric matrix. The power method, the steepest descent method, the conjugate gradient method, and the coordinate relaxation method, are among the techniques examined and compared in this Chapter. Several other modifications to the initial conjugate gradient algorithm are also studied, including the modification proposed by Fried for the evaluation of the scalar parameters and the one proposed by Geradin. An orthogonalization process is also applied to alleviate the dependency of the convergence of the method on the initial approximation for the final eigenvector.

In Chapter 7 numerical studies of the relaxation methods discussed in Chapter 5 are performed. Alternative forms of the dynamic relaxation methods with an "a priori" evaluation of the iteration parameters (using one of the methods discussed in Chapter 6), with automatic adjustment of the relaxation parameters based on the method developed in Chapter 5, and with the incorporation of kinetic damping, are applied for different test problems. Techniques to avoid the occurrence of instability of the method, when the current maximum eigenvalue of the iteration matrix becomes greater than the estimated maximum eigenvalue, are also developed and compared. Finally, the efficiency of the successive overelaxation method, with both constant and adjustable relaxation parameters is examined and compared with the efficiency of the dynamic relaxation method.

In Chapter 8 a review of methods operating through the formulation of the overall stiffness matrix is carried out. The efficiency of these methods is dependent on both the method employed to perform the linear solution when this is necessary and the nonlinear technique used to approximate the nonlinear equilibrium position in each iteration. A compact store elimination scheme, proposed by Jennings, is studied in conjunction with the Gaussian elimination procedure. Three different classes of nonlinear techniques are discussed together with the area in which each one has proved to be more suitable.

Chapter 9 performs a general comparative study of the convergence characteristics of the best methods from each classification {gradient, relaxation and stiffness methods}, and examines the advantages and disadvantages involved in the application of the methods to the nonlinear elastic analysis of cable supported structures with members being allowed to slacken. The computer time required to obtain a certain degree of accuracy, the storage requirements and the cost involved are all examined and compared in an effort to select the most suitable method for each particular class of problem.

In Chapter 10 the ultimate load carrying capacity of cable structures is studied, with members being allowed to slacken and with the inclusion of nonlinear stress-strain relationships. Two different solution procedures are employed: the stiffness method with or without the compact store elimination scheme in conjunction with Newton Raphson iteration, and Stanton's conjugate gradient algorithm. The convergence of the methods are tested for different values of the termination parameters and load increments. A continuous stress-strain curve as proposed by Jonatowski is used and provision for the cable members to reload following a different path is also included. Finally, Chapter 11 reviews the general conclusions resulting from the experience gained from the theoretical and numerical treatment of the methods discussed in this work, together with suggestions for further research.


This study describes key aspects of global chemistry-transport models and their impact on stratospheric tracer transport. We concentrate on global models that use assimilated winds from numerical weather predictions, but the results also apply to tracer transport in general circulation models. We examined grid resolution, numerical diffusion, air parcel dispersion, the wind or mass flux update frequency, and time interpolation. The evaluation is performed with assimilated meteorology from the "operational analyses or operational data" (OD) from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). We also show the effect of the mass flux update frequency using the ECMWF 40-year re-analyses (ERA40). We applied the three-dimensional chemistry-transport Tracer Model version 5 (TM5) and a trajectory model and performed several diagnoses focusing on different transport regimes. Covering different time and spatial scales, we examined (1) polar vortex dynamics during the Arctic winter, (2) the large-scale stratospheric meridional circulation, and (3) air parcel dispersion in the tropical lower stratosphere. Tracer distributions inside the Arctic polar vortex show considerably worse agreement with observations when the model grid resolution in the polar region is reduced to avoid numerical instability. The results are sensitive to the diffusivity of the advection. Nevertheless, the use of a computational cheaper but diffusive advection scheme is feasible for tracer transport when the horizontal grid resolution is equal or smaller than 1 degree. The use of time interpolated winds improves the tracer distributions, particularly in the middle and upper stratosphere. Considerable improvement is found both in the large-scale tracer distribution and in the polar regions when the update frequency of the assimilated winds is increased from 6 to 3 h. It considerably reduces the vertical dispersion of air parcels in the tropical lower stratosphere. Strong horizontal dispersion is not necessarily an indication of poor wind quality, as observations indicate. Moreover, the generally applied air parcel dispersion calculations should be interpreted with care, given the strong sensitivity of dispersion with altitude. The results in this study provide a guideline for stratospheric tracer modeling using assimilated winds. They further demonstrate significant progress in the use of assimilated meteorology in chemistry-transport models, relevant for both short- and long-term integrations.


Franciscan history has been a very disputed field of study due to the practical consequences which its comprehension promotes. This article tries to study the process that leads to a new standard in the Franciscan view of its own origins during the twentieth century, and especially after the Second Vatican Council. The institutional analysis is applied to show the intimate link between history and institution, and the need for a new historical understanding in order to promote a new institutional order. Such a conclusion leads to a new critical approach to the entire process of re-definition of Franciscan identity in the last decades.


bell hooks has made the insightful remark "images that of race and representation have become a contemporary obsession," yet "little progress is made if we transform images without shifting paradigms, changing perspectives, ways of looking" (4-7). This essay argues that Toni Morrison brings together the art of story-telling and questions of race in a decisively political and ethical relationship centered in a language of felicity and liberation. Morrison's use of suppressed popular communicative forms - visual, oral, musical, and more - is, as Trudier Harris has pointed out, an integral part of her uncovering "discredited" knowledge.(1) While this reactivation of local memories is certainly among Morrison's cultural objectives, it is the grounding of her outlook in a "race-specific yet race-free prose" that molds a literary form to the exigencies of racial difference: "My vulnerability," she says, "would lie in romanticizing blackness rather than demonizing it; vilifying whiteness rather than reifying it" (Playing x-xi). In Morrison's narrative project, these cautious remarks take shape in two principal ways: She both dis-articulates African American experience from its place in a system of negative associations in the cultural imaginary of what she terms the American "Africanist" discourse, and she re-articulates the concept of black American experience around the diversity, not the homogeneity, of its historical forms. In what follows I will elaborate on these points, first, in the context of the new cultural politics of difference, drawing on Morrison's criticism itself with regard to her own positionality as a black woman writer, and, second, in the act of her narrative writing, which participates not only in an historical struggle among subaltern communities but also in forging a new non-hegemonic realm of being and meaning. Morrison, I will argue, negotiates a very complex matrix of reality in which the articulation of antagonistic or contradictory elements becomes the very possibility of opening up a new space of cultural practice. To give the past a different reading, to represent black American experience not simply as it has been measured by dominant norms but as it has emerged in terms of a multi-leveled and differential struggle over meaning and subjectivity since slavery, involves a re-invention of tradition and of dominant language tropes. Positioning herself in the tradition of African American writing, Morrison states that for her - "a writer who is black and a woman" - writing fiction is "very different" in that, more than the authors of slave narratives did in the past, she is interested in "how to rip that veil drawn over 'proceedings too terrible to relate.' The exercise is also critical for any person who is black, or who belongs to any marginalized category, for, historically, we were seldom invited to participate in the discourse even when we were its topic" ("Sites" 110). First, where the tradition of slave narratives is concerned, Morrison is attentive to silences and gaps in these narratives. She is concerned with things unsaid or unsayable in those narratives of struggle, with how a particular sexual economy and masculinity underpinned the writings of black authors, and with these writers' inability to mine the recesses of memories deemed shameful. We may note in passing the scene in The Bluest Eye in which Pecola is raped by her father, though this scene is related to an earlier one in which the latter was exposed to ridicule by two white men who happened to run into him while he was having his first sexual experience as a boy. Morrison is, in other words, offering a new kind of cultural positioning that is more attentive to black women and their role in the larger racial struggle, Cornel West is right to point out that the recent decisive move toward a new cultural politics of difference has been made more powerful by "the black diasporan womanist critique," which has led to the end of "the innocent notion of the black essential subject" (Keeping Faith 19). …


Angioedema and urticaria often constitute a challenge in daily clinical practice. They may either co- -occur or present as independent conditions. They are characterized by a complex pathomechanism, and their symptoms may be triggered by diverse factors. These differences are crucial for developing a successful treatment regimen. Both conditions may have an allergic origin (immunoglobulin [Ig] E and non-IgE-related), usually induced by histamine, or a nonallergic one, such as bradykinin-mediated angioedema in patients with C1 inhibitor (C1-INH) deficiency or angioedema induced by certain drugs (eg, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors). Currently, we distinguish 5 types of nonallergic angioedema: hereditary angioedema (HAE) due to C1-INH deficiency, acquired angioedema (AAE), and angioedema induced by the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, all of which are mediated by bradykinin, as well as pseudoallergic angioedema and idiopathic angioedema. Bradykinin-mediated angioedema (eg, laryngeal angioedema) may be life-threatening because of resistance to corticosteroids and antihistamine drugs. C1-INH concentrates are the drugs of choice in the treatment of HAE and AAE. In recent years, some new drugs have been introduced in the treatment of bradykinin-mediated angioedema, such as bradykinin B2-receptor antagonist, icatibant, and kallikrein inhibitor, ecallantide, which allow to improve treatment outcomes.


INTRODUCTION
Remarkable strides have been made in controlling the HIV epidemic, although not enough to achieve epidemic control. More recently, interest in biomedical HIV control approaches has increased, but substantial challenges with the HIV cascade of care hinder successful implementation. We summarise all available HIV prevention methods and make recommendations on how to address current challenges.

DISCUSSION
In the early days of the epidemic, behavioural approaches to control the HIV dominated, and the few available evidence-based interventions demonstrated to reduce HIV transmission were applied independently from one another. More recently, it has become clear that combination prevention strategies targeted to high transmission geographies and people at most risk of infections are required to achieve epidemic control. Biomedical strategies such as male medical circumcision and antiretroviral therapy for treatment in HIV-positive individuals and as pre-exposure prophylaxis in HIV-negative individuals provide immense promise for the future of HIV control. In resource-rich settings, the threat of HIV treatment optimism resulting in increased sexual risk taking has been observed and there are concerns that as ART roll-out matures in resource-poor settings and the benefits of ART become clearly visible, behavioural disinhibition may also become a challenge in those settings. Unfortunately, an efficacious vaccine, a strategy which could potentially halt the HIV epidemic, remains elusive.

CONCLUSION
Combination HIV prevention offers a logical approach to HIV control, although what and how the available options should be combined is contextual. Therefore, knowledge of the local or national drivers of HIV infection is paramount. Problems with the HIV care continuum remain of concern, hindering progress towards the UNAIDS target of 90-90-90 by 2020. Research is needed on combination interventions that address all the steps of the cascade as the steps are not independent of each other. Until these issues are addressed, HIV elimination may remain an unattainable goal.


Landscape change and altered host abundance are major drivers of zoonotic pathogen emergence. Conservation and biodiversity management of landscapes and vertebrate communities can have secondary effects on vector-borne pathogen transmission that are important to assess. Here we review the potential implications of these activities on the risk of Lyme borreliosis in the United Kingdom. Conservation management activities include woodland expansion, management and restoration, deer management, urban greening and the release and culling of non-native species. Available evidence suggests that increasing woodland extent, implementing biodiversity policies that encourage ecotonal habitat and urban greening can increase the risk of Lyme borreliosis by increasing suitable habitat for hosts and the tick vectors. However, this can depend on whether deer population management is carried out as part of these conservation activities. Exclusion fencing or culling deer to low densities can decrease tick abundance and Lyme borreliosis risk. As management actions often constitute large-scale perturbation experiments, these hold great potential to understand underlying drivers of tick and pathogen dynamics. We recommend integrating monitoring of ticks and the risk of tick-borne pathogens with conservation management activities. This would help fill knowledge gaps and the production of best practice guidelines to reduce risks. This article is part of the themed issue 'Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications'.


Entrepreneurial Intention was intensively examined within the research on entrepreneurship, but the results were diverse. The research was mostly focused on a non-engineering student. The inspiration for this paper was provided by (Law & Breznik, 2017) and (Karabulut, 2016) and its main goal is to determine the factor that pushes undergraduate students towards success in business and allows them to develop their entrepreneurial intention. This research is intended to ascertain the impact of innovativeness (Innov) and need for achievement (Nach) on entrepreneurial intention based on attitude towards entrepreneurship show among vocational high-school students having an extended curriculum in engineering. The examined sample was composed of 338 students of vocational high school (SMK) in an Indonesian District offering some extended courses in engineering. The adopted research methodology was of descriptive and correlational nature, with a quantitative method and a path analysis utilizing Lisrel 9.30. It was found that the need for achievement (Nach) and innovativeness (Innov) exert some significant indirect influence on entrepreneurial intention based on the attitude towards entrepreneurship, while the need for achievement (Nach) has lower direct influence on entrepreneurial Intention.


Homeschooling through the public school system is a relatively new trend in education. This qualitative study focuses on the experiences of six families participating in public school homeschooling programs in British Columbia, Canada. (Parents were interviewed and the interviews were recorded with transcripts becoming the primary data for this research.) Parents' motivations for homeschooling through the public system, rather than homeschooling on their own, are centered on financial advantages, in terms of refunds, and on support and guidance from trained teachers. Parents perceive public school classrooms negatively. Lack of attention to individual learning styles, large class-sizes, grade-aged groupings, teacher style, and negative socialization in and outside of the classroom are common criticisms. Conclusions of the study include suggestions for teachers and program organizers. The wider community, including different aged children, mentors, and elders are commonly viewed as unused resources.


ABSTRACT In 2010, the G20, in cooperation with major international organisations, launched a comprehensive effort – here labelled the infrastructure push – to promote infrastructure investments around the world. Using selected transnationalised elements from historical materialism, this is explained as a transnational state initiative to secure general material conditions for capitalist growth in a manner that is profoundly shaped by power relations. The infrastructure problem was allowed to grow during neoliberalism because of the hegemony of finance; the push is a result of and reflects a weakening of finance and strengthening of industrial interests in the transnational power bloc, as well as a strengthening of the emerging economies. This potential hegemonic project has gained the support of the global labour movement, while also has been subject to serious criticism from civil society organisations, speaking for the most vulnerable subaltern social forces. The empirical analysis also shows that the transnational state in this policy area works as a flexible, networked cooperation of G20 states and leading international organisations in ongoing dialogue with non-state actors, especially transnational business. In this cooperation, the international organisations have a relatively autonomous role in line with a historical materialist understanding of state apparatuses.


For all the celebrated brilliance of the Framers, the Constitution betrays deep moral failings we would never countenance today. These failings, such as the original Constitution's overt racism and abidance of slavery, made their way into the document because the drafters and ratifiers represented a narrow, privileged, homogeneous slice of the American population. The Framing excluded others—such as women, racial minorities, and those with fewer assets—due to their diminished social station. This bare fact is profoundly troubling, yet in some respects irremediable. Its implications are also surprisingly evasive. Some feminist and critical race scholars have highlighted the problem of constitutional exclusion in powerful fashion. Constitutional scholars have typically interpreted (and rejected) that objection as a challenge to the democratic or popular legitimacy of the Constitution, or as a general, perhaps amorphous concern that the Framing "contaminated" the Constitution or otherwise alienates systemically disadvantaged groups.

This Article offers a novel, broad and consequential interpretation of the problem of constitutional exclusion. It argues that concern about exclusion is, first and foremost, a concern about inequality, and more specifically a concern about the preclusion of racial minorities, women, and less wealthy Americans, as moral inferiors, from playing a role in laying the legal and political cornerstones of our Republic. Inequalities reinforced through subsequent constitutional adjudication—and the substantive disadvantages that persist in the life outcomes of members of excluded groups—take on a particularly sharp form when understood as compounding constitutional exclusion. Reframing the problem in this way reveals the basis for its persistence.

Understood as a problem of inequality, constitutional exclusion also highlights a commonly shared but generally hidden assumption: that the law—and the Constitution in particular—should inspire us morally. This hidden assumption about law's moral role is a central feature of virtue jurisprudence, a burgeoning theoretical approach that analyzes the law primarily in terms of its relationship to the individual virtues (like courage and wisdom) of those it governs. The Article thus argues that our increasing recognition of the significance of constitutional exclusion, once properly defined, betrays an underappreciated affinity for virtue jurisprudence.

Finally, the Article illuminates how exclusion-as-inequality poses an especially serious challenge to originalism, particularly when viewed through the lens of virtue jurisprudence. Originalism urges the resolution of constitutional questions by appeal to a temporally-fixed, original understanding of the Constitution, and it is the preferred methodology of a significant proportion of the federal judiciary. It is therefore a prominent approach that seeks to entrench rather than jettison certain inequalities embedded in the Constitution, sapping the power of the Constitution to model virtue for the public. The tension between virtue jurisprudence and originalism is of significant theoretical importance because virtue jurisprudence is especially popular among scholars with originalist inclinations. Scholars drawn both to originalism and to virtue jurisprudence therefore face a serious dilemma concerning which to select.


ABSTRACT A significant body of empirical studies demonstrates sizable national border effects in foreign trade of Canadian provinces throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This paper revisits and expands the scope of the border effects analysis by estimating the border effect in trade with US states as well as countries in the European Union (EU) and the G-20 using more recent data from 2001–10. Furthermore, we perform the Blinder–Oaxaca nonlinear decomposition to decompose the border effects into various components, including the transaction costs, the tariff and non-tariff measures, and the unexplained component. Results from the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood model show that, compared to existing estimates from the 1980s and 1990s, the size of the border effect in trade between Canadian provinces and US states has declined. The border effects for Canada–EU and Canada–G-20 bilateral trade flows sit at somewhat elevated levels. About a third of the border effects in overall trade with EU and G-20 countries can be attributed to the variables related to transaction costs in foreign trade. While the significance of tariffs has declined, the prevalence of non-tariff measures seems to be on a rise. That said, we find that the welfare-changing measures combined – tariff and non-tariff measures – play a limited role in explaining the border effects in comparison with the role of transaction costs and the unexplained component.


This paper charts the steps taken and possible ways forward for the University of Warwick in its approach to research data management, providing a typical example of a UK research university's approach in two strands: requirements and support. The UK government approach and funding landscape in relation to research data management provided drivers for the University of Warwick to set requirements and provide support, and examples of good practice at other institutions, support from a central national body (the UK Digital Curation Centre) and learning from other universities' experiences all proved valuable to the University of Warwick. Through interviews with researchers at Warwick, various issues and challenges are revealed: perhaps the biggest immediate challenges for Warwick going forward are overcoming scepticism amongst researchers, overcoming costs, and understanding the implications of involving third party companies in research data management. Building technical infrastructure could sit alongside and beyond those immediate steps and beyond the challenges that face one University are those that affect academia as a whole. Researchers and university administrators need to work together to address the broader challenges, such as the accessibility of data for future use and the reward for researchers who practice data management in exemplary ways, and indeed it may be that a wider, national or international but disciplinary technical infrastructure affects what an individual university needs to achieve. As we take these steps, universities and institutions are all learning from each other.


The Research Committee of the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) sponsored a lecture by Dr. Michael L. Mark during the 2008 OMEA Conference. Professor Mark presented an enlightening discussion of historical events and trends, and their relationship to the field of music education. This summary highlights key topics from his lecture. Many readers are familiar with the texts Contemporary Music Education and A History of American Music Education, often required reading for those studying music education. The Graduate Research Forum at the 2008 OMEA Professional Development Conference provided the opportunity to experience an enlightening lecture and question-and-answer session with the author, Dr. Michael L. Mark. Organized in a linear format according to selected topics, Mark highlighted connections between trends in American history and trends within the field of music education. He asked the group to think of the history of the United States as a colorful tapestry containing different threads, of which music education history was one essential part. Agrarian Society: Utilitarian Music Utilizing a PowerPoint presentation with numerous visual and musical examples, Mark began the examination through the lens of agrarianism and its relationship to American cultural life. Many people lived in rural areas and musical practice was unrefined by European standards. "It usually violated the rules of traditional harmony...the melody was in the tenor with two harmony voices above the tenor." Music of this era was mostly religious and included The Bay Psalm Book (1639) and The New England Psalm Singer (1770). Mark used the listening example of Chester by William Billings and placed it within the European context as being popular in the time of Haydn and Mozart. Amity, a fuguing tune by singing schoolmaster Daniel Read, was played to demonstrate the influence of the Singing School movement. It was composed as an imitation of European practice, but the composer had no formal study in European theory. Another important movement during this era was shape-note singing. A contemporary example of shape-note singing was Amazing Grace, as performed by the congregation of the Old Regular Baptist Church in Jeff, Kentucky. A later movement of this era was Sacred Harp Singing. A slide displaying an embroidery piece from 1876 depicted a visual rendering of a Sacred Harp Sing. The listening example, a later, more refined performance of Amazing Grace, highlighted the impact of solmization on the improved quality of singing compared to earlier times. The Industrial Revolution: Increased 'Sophistication' The Industrial Revolution brought many changes to American culture. "By 1830 [the industrial revolution] had transformed American cities into manufacturing centers that brought workers from rural areas into the cities." The changes influenced music education. "The fast-growing middle and upper classes demanded a higher level of American culture." Lowell Mason (1792-1872) was an advocate for replacing American music with music based on European models. Traditional American music came to be seen as old-fashioned. In Boston, Mason achieved tax-supported music education within the public schools in 1838. Wild Wood Flowers is an example of music employed to persuade the school board to approve music as a permanent subject for study in the Boston City Schools. The song is based on a European model, which Mark critiqued as "bland, insipid, and boring" when compared to the previous American music. Arguments based on the work of Swiss theorist Pestalozzi helped to convince the board of the moral, physical, and intellectual benefits of music. Also convincing was the notion that music in European styles was "scientific, meaning modern and improved." Mark noted that these arguments seem familiar to music education advocates today. Evolving Beliefs and American Music Mark proposed that American beliefs continued to evolve and were influenced by a diverse group of thinkers. …