See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information. 260 Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 106, No. 2, February 2018 ABSTRACT | This comprehensive review summarizes state of the art, challenges, and prospects of the neuro-inspired computing with emerging nonvolatile memory devices. First, we discuss the demand for developing neuro-inspired architecture beyond today's von-Neumann architecture. Second, we summarize the various approaches to designing the neuromorphic hardware (digital versus analog, spiking versus nonspiking, online training versus offline training) and discuss why emerging nonvolatile memory is attractive for implementing the synapses in the neural network. Then, we discuss the desired device characteristics of the synaptic devices (e.g., multilevel states, weight update nonlinearity/ asymmetry, variation/noise), and survey a few representative material systems and device prototypes reported in the literature that show the analog conductance tuning. These candidates include phase change memory, resistive memory, ferroelectric memory, floating-gate transistors, etc. Next, we introduce the crossbar array architecture to accelerate the weighted sum and weight update operations that are commonly used in the neuroinspired machine learning algorithms, and review the recent progresses of array-level experimental demonstrations for pattern recognition tasks. In addition, we discuss the peripheral neuron circuit design issues and present a device-circuit-algorithm codesign methodology to evaluate the impact of nonideal device effects on the system-level performance (e.g., learning accuracy). Finally, we give an outlook on the customization of the learning algorithms for efficient hardware implementation.


Many organizations are engaged in organizational change, adopting new management styles and new ways of working. Innovative workplace design is used to facilitate organizational change, to improve user satisfaction and labour productivity, and to lower facility costs. Although some research has been done into the use and experience of new offices, there is still a need for sound data about the real effects on organizational goals and employee satisfaction. For this reason, the Center for People and Buildings in Delft has developed an instrument for a diagnostic Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE). This tool has been tested in a number of case studies. This paper presents the structure of the tool and reflects on the usability of POE-data to indicate problems in the present situation, to evaluate the effects of design interventions, and to support future decisions in briefing, design and management of office buildings.


Among the century's main challenges, climate change and the need for energy sources diversification are of great importance. In this context, renewable energies undoubtedly have an important role to play. Photovoltaic (PV) electricity is especially well suited to face these energy challenges. It is now established that the low thin film photovoltaic panels production costs will allow, even in continental climate, to reach low electricity cost, providing easy installation, public acceptance and high reliability. However, architectural considerations are often neglected in the current integration of PV panels. Taking into consideration specific architectural aspects like the surface appearance and the colour of the PV modules can become the key for the successful development of new, well integrated solar systems. To achieve this goal, our team, within the Archinsolar [1] project framework, works on the development of new generation of photovoltaic elements based on silicon thin films technologies (amorphous and micromoph). These new elements will be ultra-reliable and manufacturable at a very low cost, allowing a good architectural integration, respectful of the environment, landscape and built environment.


The voltage- and Ca2+-activated, large conductance K+ channel (BK, maxi-K) is expressed in the collecting duct system of kidney where it underlies flow- and Ca2+-dependent K+ excretion. To determine if other Ca2+-activated K+ channels (KCa) may participate in this process, mouse kidney and the K+-secreting mouse cortical collecting duct (CCD) cell line, mCCDcl1, were assessed for TRPV4 and KCa channel expression and cross-talk. qPCR mRNA analysis and immunocytochemical staining demonstrated TRPV4 and KCa expression in mCCDcl1 cells and kidney connecting tubule (CNT) and CCD. Three subfamilies of KCa channels were revealed: the high Ca2+-binding affinity small-conductance SK channels, SK1and SK3, the intermediate conductance channel, IK1, and the low Ca2+-binding affinity, BK channel (BKα subunit). Apparent expression levels varied in CNT/CCD where analysis of CCD principal cells (PC) and intercalated cells (IC) demonstrated differential staining: SK1:PCIC, IK1:PC>IC, BKα:PC = IC, and TRPV4:PC>IC. Patch clamp analysis and fluorescence Ca2+ imaging of mCCDcl1 cells demonstrated potent TRPV4-mediated Ca2+ entry and strong functional cross-talk between TRPV4 and KCa channels. TRPV4-mediated Ca2+ influx activated each KCa channel, as evidenced by selective inhibition of KCa channels, with each active KCa channel enhancing Ca2+ entry (due to membrane hyperpolarization). Transepithelial electrical resistance (TEER) analysis of confluent mCCDcl1 cells grown on permeable supports further demonstrated this cross-talk where TRPV4 activation induce a decrease in TEER which was partially restored upon selective inhibition of each KCa channel. It is concluded that SK1/SK3 and IK1 are highly expressed along with BKα in CNT and CCD and are closely coupled to TRPV4 activation as observed in mCCDcl1 cells. The data support a model in CNT/CCD segments where strong cross talk between TRPV4-mediated Ca2+ influx and each KCa channel leads to enhance Ca2+ entry which will support activation of the low Ca2+-binding affinity BK channel to promote BK-mediated K+ secretion.


This paper describes our experiences using systemic functional linguistics to teach English in Australian educational settings over the last three decades. We suggest there is a continuum of approaches to describing language and highlight what we consider to be the significant affordances of a systemic functional grammar for English language teachers. With its dual emphasis on meaning and form, we argue that the model provides powerful tools for identifying curriculum priorities, for designing pedagogy and for assessing learners' accomplishments and needs. Most importantly, it offers a means of making language explicit to learners in the form of an accessible and flexible metalanguage (i.e. a language for talking about language). However, we also discuss some evolving and unresolved issues arising from our experiences in terms of curriculum, policy and professional support for teachers.


Robert Beckford explores the dialogue between two central institutions in African Caribbean life: the church and the dancehall. He highlights how Dub - one of the central features of dancehall culture - can be mobilized as a framework for re-evaluating theology, taking apart doctrine and reconstructing it under the influence of a guiding theme. Engaging with the social and cultural heritage that informs Christian African Caribbean culture, including the influence of slavery, Revival Christianity and working class Jamaican life, Black theology and music ranging from post-war Sound System to American Hip Hop, Jesus Dub is a detailed exploration of how throughout history, music and faith have been transformed in response to racialised oppression. Finally, Beckford demonstrates that dub style appears in the teachings of Jesus, and that Dub is a tool which can provide new ways of envisaging and practising spiritual gifts and financial giving, proposing a more inclusive theology for everyone.


The layer 4 neurones of the mammalian primary sensory neocortex comprise diverse functional components for the first stage of cortical sensory processing. Dual intracellular recordings of synaptically connected pairs of neurones with biocytin-filling were used to study intra-laminar layer 4 connections in adult cat and rat slices. Interestingly, all excitatory cells involved in intralaminar layer 4 connections were regular spiking despite burst firing cells comprising 37% of the population recorded. Neuronal morphology and synaptic properties were similar in both species, as were the probabilities of finding connections; 1 in 43 for pyramid to pyramid, 1 in 21 for pyramid to interneurone and 1 in 12 for interneurone to pyramid (cat and rat data combined). Pyramid to pyramid connections generated EPSPs 1.33 0.9mV in amplitude (mean SD), with rise times of 1.71 0.83ms and half width 14.67 7.1ms. All EPSPs recorded in excitatory cells and in parvalbumin immuno-positive interneurones exhibited depression, the second and subsequent EPSPs in trains being smaller in amplitude than the first. Fluctuation analysis indicated that this depression was presynaptically mediated. The interneuronal EPSPs recorded in this study, were briefer (rise times 0.63 0.26ms and half width 5.25 2.85ms) than those recorded in pyramidal cells. Two interneurones that were immuno-negative for parvalbumin received EPSPs that were facilitating, second and subsequent EPSPs in trains being significantly larger than the first. Again, fluctuation analysis indicated that this facilitation was presynaptically mediated. Possible branch point failure of axonal conduction, feed-forward inhibition and post-tetanic potentiation were observed at some excitatory connections in layer 4. In addition, novel evidence for electrical gap junctions between adult pyramidal cells was obtained in one dual recording in which current injections into an impaled layer 3 pyramidal cell elicited full action potentials and 'spikelets', both of which elicited EPSPs in a layer 5 pyramidal cell.


Pomalidomide, an analogue of thalidomide, developed as a third generation oral immunomodulatory antineoplastic agent used for the management of multiple myeloma refractory to both lenolidomide and bortezomib. It exerts a potential immunomodulatory effect in myeloma cells and T lymphocytes. We report a case of 67 year old male patient undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma presented with fever and cough. He was receiving pomalidomide 4 mg, once daily (OD). After taking pomalidomide he developed fever, cough, breathing difficulty and desaturation. He was tachycardiac and tachypenic, auscultation of chest revealed scattered crepts bilateral, ABG (arterial- blood gas) showed hypoxia and chest X-ray showed hilar opacities. MDCT (Multidetector computed tomography) pulmonology angiogram showed no pulmonary thromboembolism, consolidation involving both the lungs, bilateral minimal left pleural effusion and multiple collapsed thoracic vertebra with lytic lesions in all visualized bones. Most commonly reported hematological complaint was dose dependent bone marrow suppression presented by neutropenia, anemia and thrombocytopenia and most commonly reported non-hematological complaints were fatigue, weakness, constipation and back pain. The drug has been rarely known to cause pulmonary toxicity. We document a case report of pomalidomide related pulmonary toxicity in a patient with Multiple Myeloma and conclude that pulmonary toxicity is a potential adverse reaction of pomalidomide treatment and motivate physicians to remain aware of its clinical presentation. Key words: Immunomodulatory effect, Multiple myeloma, Pomalidomide, Pulmonary toxicity.


The objective of this research is to identify and quantify the motivations for organic grain farming in the United States. Survey data of US organic grain producers were used in regression models to find the statistical determinants of three motivations for organic grain production, including profit maximization, environmental stewardship, and an organic lifestyle. Results provide evidence that many organic grain producers had more than a single motivation and that younger farmers are more likely to be motivated by environmental and lifestyle goals than older farmers. Organic grain producers exhibited a diversity of motivations, including profit and stewardship.


This search includes the concepts of college students, suicide, and intervention/prevention. In keeping with the health equity focus of the review, terms related to potentially under-resourced college populations, such as nontraditional, commuter, foreign, international, or first-generation, were included. Terms for prevention were purposely kept broad to encompass a wide range of possible interventions.


This study aimed to observe the efficacy of 4-2-1 principle-guided Pan-Retinal Photocoagulation (PRP) for treating severe Non-Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy (NPDR). This multi-center, prospective, and non-comparative clinical study involved performance of PRP in 43 patients (43 eyes) with severe NPDR, who were diagnosed according to 4-2-1 principles, and were followed up for 6 months. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) tests, Colored Fundus Photography (CFP), and Fluorescence Fundus Angiography (FFA) were performed before and after PRP. Assessments were again performed in the 6-month followup to evaluate efficacy. The mean BCVAs before and after PRP were 59.91 ± 14.58 and 62.86 ± 15.41 letters, respectively (t=1.782, P>0.05). Thirty-nine eyes exhibited effective BCVA results (90.7%), 38 eyes exhibited effective CFP results (88.4%), and 36 eyes exhibited effective FFA results (83.72%); no statistically significant difference was found (χ2=0.19, P>0.05). Thus, 4-2-1 principle-guided PRP treatment was an effective approach in the absence of FFA. Using this approach, disease progression could be effectively controlled in the vast majority of patients with severe NPDR, preventing severe visual impairment.


As a result of technological progress ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) has created the so-called "digital divide". Some people are unable to individually respond to this progress, but the proper use of ICT can help them overcome this handicap. One of the possibilities is to create accessible and usable applications depending on the character and level of disability. In accordance with the European CertiAgri project, e-learning tools are used for integrating people with disabilities into the horticultural area. The paper specifically describes examples of simple teaching aids from the practical "green care" course, which focus on the skills of people with mental disabilities.


High Performance Computing (HPC) systems represent the peak of modern computational capability. As ever-increasing demands for computational power have fuelled the demand for ever-larger computing systems, modern HPC systems have grown to incorporate hundreds, thousands or as many as 130,000 processors. At these scales, the huge number of individual components in a single system makes the probability that a single component will fail quite high, with today's large HPC systems featuring mean times between failures on the order of hours or a few days. As many modern computational tasks require days or months to complete, fault tolerance becomes critical to HPC system design.
The past three decades have seen significant amounts of research on parallel system fault tolerance. However, as most of it has been either theoretical or has focused on low-level solutions that are embedded into a particular operating system or type of hardware, this work has had little impact on real HPC systems. This thesis attempts to address this lack of impact by describing a high-level approach for implementing checkpoint/restart functionality that decouples the fault tolerance solution from the details of the operating system, system libraries and the hardware and instead connects it to the APIs implemented by the above components. The resulting solution enables applications that use these APIs to become self-checkpointing and self-restarting regardless of the software/hardware platform that may implement the APIs.
The particular focus of this thesis is on the problem of checkpoint/restart of parallel applications. It presents two theoretical checkpointing protocols, one for the message passing communication model and one for the shared memory model. The former is the first protocol to be compatible with application-level checkpointing of individual processes, while the latter is the first protocol that is compatible with arbitrary shared memory models, APIs, implementations and consistency protocols. These checkpointing protocols are used to implement checkpointing systems for applications that use the MPI and OpenMP parallel APIs, respectively, and are first in providing checkpoint/restart to arbitrary implementations of these popular APIs. Both checkpointing systems are extensively evaluated on multiple software/hardware platforms and are shown to feature low overheads.


Next generation High-Speed optical packet switching networks require components capable of recognising the optical header to enable on-the-fly accurate switching of incoming data packets to their destinations. This paper experimentally demonstrates a comparison between two different optical header recognition structures; A passive structure based on the use of Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs), whereas the active structure employs Opto-VLSI processors that synthesise dynamic wavelength profile through digital phase holograms. The structures are experimentally demonstrated at 10Gbps. Performance comparison between the two structures is also discussed. These optical header recognition structures are attractive for multiwavelength optical network and applications.


There have been a significant number of reports suggesting that the Internet will radically change accepted business and customer relationships. The literature to date has focused on the phenomenon oftl1e Internet as well as more specific aspects such as its interactivity, how to market a Web site and security issues. There appears to be very little research on how consumer behaviour theories relate to the Internet. This study explored the extent to which the Internet is in the information search phase of the buying decision process, amongst Ir\emet literate consumers. A qualitative investigation using virtual focus groups was conducted. The study identified four ways in which consumers use the Internet to gather information. It also identified some of the characteristics of products for which participants used the Internet to gain information. Participants tended to use the Internet due to a mistrust of traditional retail iryformation sources. The results also indicate that they may use the Internet due to its convenience and its expanded universe. An expanded universe in this sense means having access to a larger range of products and services across different manufacturers. The results indicate that some consumers use the Internet for information about shopping products that have a high level of comparability, for which they rely on making factual not emotional decisions. The Internet itself appeared to be used quite extensively by the participants in the information search phase of the buying decision process. Participants indicated that they use the Internet as a sole information provider, a starting point infonnation provider, a Pack-up information provider and a final information provider. Internet Marketing Honourtlber,ls 20\r'Q_ ___________ __.o..,vuK.,Iawrawn_,Gcon,....


A microstructured falling film reactor was applied to the dye-sensitized photochemical conversion of 1,5-dihydroxynaphthalene to juglone. This continuous-flow microreactor enables the efficient contacting of a gas and a liquid phase in combination with external irradiation by high-power LED arrays offering various wavelengths. Two sensitizers were used for the photochemical in situ generation of singlet oxygen as key step in the synthesis of the natural product juglone. The photochemical process was investigated according LED wavelength, LED power, oxygen partial pressure, reactor architecture, substrate concentration and flow rate, and optimized to a conversion of X = 97% with 99% selectivity. Based on the experimental results process parameters like quantum efficiency, productivity and space time yield were calculated and used for the evaluation of the photochemically catalyzed synthesis of juglone in continuous-flow mode.


School leaders in Dutch secondary education feel themselves increasingly forced to initiate innovations, which often have consequences for teachers' pedagogical behaviour. This dissertation reports on the design and main results of six studies concerning current and desired teachers' pedagogical behaviour. In the first study an instrument was developed for measuring teachers' pedagogical behaviour. The concepts "behaviour" and "pedagogical" were delineated and their internal structure was specified. Based on scientific literature, national policy documents, the educational visions of six schools, and input from teachers, teachers' pedagogical behaviour could be classified into a number of task domains. Form this a questionaire was made, for both teachers and their students. Additionally in a second study a shorted version of this instrument was made and validated, resulting in 22 tasks (with 5 statements per task). Analyses showed that teachers' pedagogical behaviour varies individually to a high extent, also within the schools, and is not related with personal characteristics such as gender, age and experience. A third study was conducted into one task domain, namely giving feedback to students. The teachers showed to dispose of a broad repertoire and their behaviour was highly appreciated by their students. Their beliefs and intentions largely corresponded with recommendations in the literature but comparing students' performance with a standard got less attention. The fourth study was focussed on the task domain of assessing and marking students' work and the question was how such assessments might be instructive for the students. Again teachers' cognitions corresponded with the literature but in this case the teachers did not much involve their students in the assessment. The goal the fifth study was to map the similarities and differences between directions for desirable teacher behaviour from four sources: scientific literature, national policy documents, educational visions of four schools, and the beliefs and priorities of the different stakeholders at these schools. The visions showed to be not highly connected with scientific insights. The schools' visions were combinations of diverse concepts and were not very integrated and focused. From experiences with discussing the results of these studies on the schools, literature about innovation processes in schools, and a sixth study within one school, three important conditions for change and innovation came to the forefront and were elaborated: having a clear vision on the desired development, leading the change process, and being able to interpret and use data feedback. Dominating are three conclusions. First, the pedagogical behaviour varied highly individually between teachers and was not clearly related to their gender, age and experience. Second, teachers' cognitions and behaviour did not clearly differ between the participating more traditional and more innovative schools. Third, teachers made connections between tasks to a lesser extent than might be expected. For instance, for them feedback and assessment are different tasks and the summative aspect of the former (relating to standards) and the formative aspect of the latter (involving students) could not be observed often. This is not surprising because of the still less integrated character of the educational visions of the schools.


As of October 2011, in the context of the TARGET2 payment system, the Bundesbank had accumulated a total claim of 465 billions € on the rest of the Eurosystem, that is on the other National Central Banks of the euro zone and the ECB. The growing claims of the Bundesbank and, to a lesser extent, the National Central Banks of Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland, are the counterpart of growing liabilities of the distressed peripheral countries of the euro area. Since the beginning of these crises the rising claims of the Bundesbank correspond to rising liabilities of the National Central Banks of Ireland, Greece and Portugal, and recently Italy and Spain.The central bank of the Eurozone is in fact a set of several institutions known as the Eurosystem. It is composed of the European Central Bank and all the 17 National Central Banks of the member countries. Cross border payments between banks of different countries of the euro area are conducted through a system known as TARGET2. Through this payments system banks can transfer to each other claims on the National Central Banks, known as "central bank money" or "reserves". Through TARGET2, each cross border transaction between countries belonging to the Euro area gives rise to a gross claim of a National Central Bank on another National Central Bank. Indeed the National Central Bank of the country of the "paying" bank needs to borrow claims on the National Central Bank of the country of the "receiving" bank, in order to transfer these claims to this bank. The National Central Bank of the country of the "paying" bank has thus to borrow reserves from the National Central Bank of the country of the "receiving" bank, before transferring the property of these reserves to this "receiving" bank At the end of each day, the claims or liabilities of National Central Banks on or to each other are netted and replaced by a net claim or a net liability of each National Central Bank on or to the Eurosystem. These daily net claims or liabilities are added to the cumulated TARGET2 balances of each National Central Bank built up since the launch of the euro. Until 2007, the current account deficits of the peripheral countries of the Euro area were compensated by net capital inflows. Since 2008 however, the banks of Germany and other core countries are reluctant to lend to the banks of the peripheral countries, which also experience huge capital outflows. the growing imbalances of TARGET2 accounts are caused by a sustained reversal of capital flows. Net capital outflows now add to the structural imbalance of the current account of peripheral countries, due to a lack of competitiveness. the balance of payments imbalances of the distressed countries benefit from a kind of monetary funding by the Bundesbank.If the euro zone broke up, the Deutsche Bundesbank could incur enormous losses on its TARGET2 related claims on the Eurosystem. In such a scenario, the Bundesbank should be recapitalized by the German government, at the expense of the German taxpayer. Even without a breakup of EMU, the Bundesbank should bear 30% of the potential losses of the distressed countries' National Central Banks loans to their banks which lack good quality assets to provide as collateral.


Initially, the main efforts of the Islamic State in the Syrian civil war aimed to gain territories in Syria and Iraq for the establishment of the Caliphate, but after very striking early successes which attracted enormous numbers of foreign fighters, it lost a significant portion of the conquered territory. Instead of focusing on efforts to keep and regain the lands lost, it launched a series of attacks abroad in Paris and Brussels which intensified Western involvement in the Syrian Civil War. This change at first seems unreasonable. However, if one considers the nature of the Islamic State's apocalyptic commitment the decision makes more sense. A difference between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State on the timing of the apocalypse helped break up their relationship and has produced several violent battles between them resulting in many casualties.


How do people make music - and how does this activity relate to the policies of governments and the music industry? What is the relationship between live music and music we hear on the radio, or in music videos? How has the digital revolution affected music-making in industrialised and in developing nations? In Media Policy and Music Activity, Krister Malm and Roger Wallis look in depth at the relationships between policies governing the output of the music media and music activity in society. A practical base in case study material is combined with a broad theoretical framework for understanding the music media.


The one-month confinement (or doing the month, DM) for post-partum women is a tradition that has been practiced for millennia in Chinese society. Tedious preparations and numerous procedures of DM incur high transaction costs when purchasing the service from the market. To assure the practice of DM without interruption, which might endanger the health of postpartum mothers and newborn babies, the service of DM has always taken place at home. As an economy becomes more industrialised and urbanised, the opportunity cost of practicing home-made DM increases as female labour participation rises and the nuclear family becomes popular. An opportunity window opens up for outsourcing DM services. To entice expectant mothers to 'buy' the DM service rather than to 'make' it for themselves, entrepreneurs need to make quality measurements simple and cheap, to eliminate or reduce identity risks, and to minimise the need for specific investments. The ongoing progress of globalisation offers various opportunities for entrepreneurs to exploit institutional differences, as can be witnessed in the recent prevalence of extending the DM practice to birthing trips to the USA in order to gain citizenship.


This datasheet on Khaya anthotheca covers Identity, Overview, Associated Diseases, Pests or Pathogens, Distribution, Environmental Requirements, Uses, Management, Further Information.


In the design of narrowband multi-antenna systems, a limiting factor is the amount of channel state information (CSI) available at the transmitter. This is especially evident in multi-user systems, where the spatial user separability determines the multiplexing gain, but it is also important for transmission-rate adaptation in single-user systems. To limit the feedback load, the unknown and multi-dimensional channel needs to be represented by a limited number of bits. When combined with long-term channel statistics, the norm of the channel matrix has been shown to provide substantial CSI that permits efficient user selection, linear precoder design, and rate adaptation. Herein, we consider quantized feedback of the squared Frobenius norm in a Rayleigh fading environment with arbitrary spatial correlation. The conditional channel statistics are characterized and their moments are derived for both identical, distinct, and sets of repeated eigenvalues. These results are applied for minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation of signal and interference powers in single- and multi-user systems, for the purpose of reliable rate adaptation and resource allocation. The problem of efficient feedback quantization is discussed and an entropy-maximizing framework is developed where the post-user-selection distribution can be taken into account in the design of the quantization levels. The analytic results of this paper are directly applicable in many widely used communication techniques, such as space-time block codes, linear precoding, space division multiple access (SDMA), and scheduling.


We study the problem of answering k-hop reachability queries in a directed graph, i.e., whether there exists a directed path of length k, from a source query vertex to a target query vertex in the input graph. The problem of k-hop reachability is a general problem of the classic reachability (where k = ∞). Existing indexes for processing classic reachability queries, as well as for processing shortest path queries, are not applicable or not efficient for processing k-hop reachability queries. We propose an index for processing k-hop reachability queries, which is simple in design and efficient to construct. Our experimental results on a wide range of real datasets show that our index is more efficient than the state-of-the-art indexes even for processing classic reachability queries, for which these indexes are primarily designed. We also show that our index is efficient in answering k-hop reachability queries.


International audience

 While online crowdsourced text transcription projects have proliferated in the last decade, there is a need within the broader field to understand differences in project outcomes as they relate to task design, as well as to experiment with different models of online crowdsourced transcription that have not yet been explored. The experiment discussed in this paper involves the evaluation of newly-built tools on the Zooniverse.org crowdsourcing platform, attempting to answer the research question: "Does the current Zooniverse methodology of multiple independent transcribers and aggregation of results render higher-quality outcomes than allowing volunteers to see previous transcriptions and/or markings by other users? How does each methodology impact the quality and depth of analysis and participation?" To answer these questions, the Zooniverse team ran an A/B experiment on the project Anti-Slavery Manuscripts at the Boston Public Library. This paper will share results of this study, and also describe the process of designing the experiment and the metrics used to evaluate each transcription method. These include the comparison of aggregate transcription results with ground truth data; evaluation of annotation methods; the time it took for volunteers to complete transcribing each dataset; and the level of engagement with other project elements such as posting on the message board or reading supporting documentation. Particular focus will be given to the (at times) competing goals of data quality, efficiency, volunteer engagement, and user retention, all of which are of high importance for projects that focus on data from galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Ultimately, this paper aims to provide a model for impactful, intentional design and study of online crowdsourcing transcription methods, as well as shed light on the associations between project design, methodology and outcomes.


Link to the film: https://vimeo.com/95709554 The physical materiality of workplaces and spaces is easily overlooked and taken for granted as something that is just there, as a backdrop of other, more important issues. In its simplest form spaces and places lead in very explicit ways: we follow corridors, climb stairs, open doors and cannot walk or talk through the walls. Selfservice restaurants, streets, paths, airports and other public spaces lead people, too. The documentary film Leadership in Spaces and Places asks the question "how do spaces and places perform and construct leadership?" The film was shoot in twelve different locations, ranging from Microsoft and a real estate agency to a church, a theatre and a historic dry-dock. In each of the places the question was: How do places lead? Today, leadership is not only attached to persons, but also to physical materiality: spaces, places, buildings, cities, materials and artefacts. People seem to know what to do even when there is no one telling them what to do. Places and spaces have that effect. Examples of questions we came across in these various spaces: What kind of images children might attach to a closet door that is left open when they go to bed? Can physical architecture in a church lead people's emotions? How does the physical space in theatre, like stage and green room, affect an actor? Building a traditional wooden ship, what does a ship-builder pay attention to? What kinds of values are attached to preserving an old service elevator? What leads an urban explorer to visit deserted, abandoned houses?


ABSTRACT This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political economy framework, in combination with a political sociology-driven approach to policy instruments. The analysis draws on two data sources: four White Papers and 37 in-depth interviews with top-level politicians, policy-makers and stakeholders, conducted between September 2017 and February 2018. The findings indicate that 'scandalisation' of Norway's below-expected PISA results and promotion of standardised testing as a neutral device contributed to the relatively abrupt adoption of national testing in the early 2000s. The increasingly dominant policy discourse equalising education quality and learning outcomes led to the institutionalisation of TBA, developed to ensure equity and quality standards in a decentralised education system. Increased visibility, benchmarking and administrative control are identified as key mechanisms in putting pressure on local actors to re-orient their behaviour. The study provides original insights into the drivers, expectations and strategies underlying TBA in a social democratic institutional regime.


OHE Research Paper 19/02 - The combination of rising drug costs in the US and increasing financial stress for individual patients has triggered intense national concern. One target has come under particular scrutiny - rebates. This paper describes how alternatives to the current US rebate system offer potential risks or disadvantages as well as potential benefits. It outlines the evidence presented to date, and the key questions that still need to be answered. Rebates are a key negotiating tool for payers and help produce a lower "net" price for drugs that can help reduce the overall costs of drug spending. But for many years the PBM business model has included a revenue stream gained by retaining a percent of the absolute rebate amount they return to plan sponsors. The effect of rebates in lowering net prices may reduce plan sponsor costs and therefore help moderate the cost of insurance premiums for all plan members. However, some plan sponsors have suggested that the profitability of the rebate model provides an incentive for PBMs to prioritize high-rebate drugs that might not have the lowest net cost for the plan sponsor. All would agree that higher list prices hurt many patients who need ongoing drug treatment, since the increase in the use of co-insurance and of high-deductible plans has meant that rising numbers of patients are required to pay their out-of-pocket share for drug coverage in relation to the list price, not the negotiated rebate price. There are three major alternative options to the current rebate model. The first two options represent rebate "reform" and may be implemented separately or, as many have argued, combined, but it is important for policy makers to consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of each element separately. The third option would involve eliminating rebates and moving exclusively to a system of upfront discounts. Taking stock of the options for alternative rebate models, each with its own potential advantages and disadvantages, most stakeholders in the health care system realize that some form of change to the current paradigm of rebates is both needed and inevitable. But the way forward is fraught with risk and uncertainty, with deep trade-offs between short-term feasibility and long-term goals evident at every step. In preparing the paper the authors undertook a focused literature review and evaluated the written responses to the HHS Blueprint on drug pricing from key stakeholders, including all participants in the ICER membership program. Ten interviews were conducted covering PBMs, public and private payers, manufacturers, academics, benefit consultants, and trade associations. An earlier version of this White Paper was sent out as a pre-read for the ICER members Policy Summit. This version of the paper takes account of the discussion at that meeting. Please cite this report as - Cole, A., Towse, A., Segel C.S., Henshall, C., Pearson, S.D. Value, Access, and Incentives for Innovation - Policy Perspectives on Alternative Models for Pharmaceutical Rebates. Institute for Clinical and Economic Review and the Office of Health Economics. Available [here]( https://www.ohe.org/system/files/private/publications/Cole%20et%20al.%20%20ICER%20OHE%20White%20Paper%20on%20Rebates.pdf).


In the UK, a significant proportion of energy consumption is associated with buildings, with the single highest sector being housing. Due to this high proportion of energy consumption, it is important to focus on household energy use in order to meet the national energy reduction targets. Whilst measures such as the Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) have been introduced to help homeowners identify how they can improve energy performance of their properties, there have been criticisms as to their effectiveness. To understand how further improvements could be made on energy consumption, a preliminary study was carried out on 10 households using thermal imaging to highlight energy loss to homeowners and subsequently ascertain the impact it had on their perceptions as opposed to the EPCs alone. The findings of this study were promising indicating that in many cases, the use of thermal imaging alongside EPCs had a much greater impact on user perceptions. This paper presents findings from a larger sample size conducted in the Round Hill residential area of Brighton. The area has approximately 1000 homes and the sample selected is representative of the overall household types of the community. Thermal imaging was conducted and presented to occupiers in addition to interviews to identify user perception of thermal efficiency in their properties. Unlike the preliminary study, financial constraints were found to have little influence on how householders perceived energy use and thermal efficiency. Householders believed in improving their properties but living in a conservation area meant they had many restrictions on how much they could change. As part of community engagement, recommendations from the findings of this study will be disseminated to the Round Hill community and other similar areas in city of Brighton and Hove with similar construction methods in order for residents to make useful improvements to thermal efficiency of their dwellings.


From Horn Book review: "Water's vital role in the life of our planet is vividly portrayed in a crisp, economical text that cultivates respect for the environment. The water cycle is examined, along with the ways in which waves, rivers, and glaciers shape the Earth. Striking, often full-page color photographs will engage the imagination of young readers."


This project was established to (1) support and develop a recently established academic program in ornithology and avian conservation (the only such effort in Puerto Rico); (2) employ mist netting, color banding census, stable isotopic analysis, light-level geolocators and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) (for Northern Waterthrushes (Parkesia noveboracensis) techniques to establish links between breeding and wintering populations of migratory songbirds that nest in North America and winter, or stop over in Puerto Rico; and, (3) establish a longterm monitoring program for migratory and year-round resident species of terrestrial birds that utilize secondary coastal dry forest and mangroves in and around the area of the Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (JBNERR). The project includes undergraduate and graduate student research focusing on long-distance migratory and interhabitat movement, habitat quality, and social structure of migrants and nesting residents, and promote and enhance the academic and professional development of ornithology and citizen science in Puerto Rico. We collected feather samples for stable isotope analysis and mtDNA analysis. Analysis of our first replicate of feather samples and comparison to the new feather isotope atlas for North America have already provided noteworthy results. For ground foragers (Northern Waterthrushes (Parkesia noveboracensis), Ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapillus)), we found statistical differences overall between the isotopic signatures of wing (P1) and tail (R1) feathers, and discrepancies did occur between specific Isotopic Region assignments of individuals. Similar results were found for canopy foragers, Yellow Warblers ((Setophaga petechia), Prairie Warblers (Setophaga discolor) and Bananaquits (Coereba flaveola)), and there was statistical significance overall between wing and tail feather isotopic signatures of these species. Results also indicate that some individuals continued molting during migration and even upon arrival in Puerto Rico. Some individuals of the canopy foraging species displayed feather isotopic signatures indicative of the marine/mangrove environment, and about 13% of Yellow Warblers sampled appear to be migrants rather than local residents.


E-business success is a consequence of the precise combination of four elements: leading-edge technologies, long-term business strategies, the entrepreneurial capacity to implement these strategies (by using the technologies), and aligning people behavior inside and outside the organization.From a functional perspective, e-business, that is companies conduct business electronically with regards to their clients, suppliers and partners. This activity is integrated with the internal systems of the firm such as logistics, operations and finance. For example, Amazon not only markets and sells online but also integrates its sales systems with its internal systems in real-time. This enables the company to invoice and update the order status of their clients as well as to work with a vast logistics network of partners who ultimately manufacture and dispatch the products to consumers. This success relies on a strong customer-centric organizational culture.


A multilevel approach to the design of DC-free line codes is presented. The different levels can be used for different purposes, for example, to control the maximum accumulated charge or to guarantee a certain minimum distance. The advantages of codes designed by this method over similar codes are the improved run-length/accumulated-charge parameters, higher transmission rate, and the systematic nature of the code construction. The multilevel structure allows the redundancy in the signal selection procedure to be allocated efficiently among the different levels. It also allows the use of suboptimal staged decoding procedures that have performance/complexity advantages over maximum-likelihood decoding. >


In 1999, the Headwaters Forest Reserve was established in Humboldt County after more than 20 years of community activism, negotiations, and litigation. The 'last stand' of unprotected, privately-owned old growth redwood had finally been safeguarded, though many on the North Coast felt that the final deal fell far short of what was needed to protect the watershed's ecological functioning. This article uses academic and journalistic research, supplemented by oral histories, to make three main points about the North Coast 'post deal.' One, forest management practices in the region have evolved to be more consistent with the practices of ecological forestry. Two, the emergence of a restoration-based economy has come to partially fill the void left by the exit of the extractive economy. And three, Headwaters Forest itself has evolved from a site of contention to one of collaboration. The piece argues that the 'owls vs. jobs' framework never quite fit the Headwaters saga, and ultimately concludes that despite its geographic isolation, threats to North Coast forest ecosystems are inimically connected with global forces like climate change that intersect with local, place-based advocacy efforts.


The escalation of self-destructive acting out in adolescence is viewed as a compulsive repetition of traumatic or repeated microtraumatic events. These traumatic events, which occurred during early childhood, are or were linked to the absence of the object and the subsequent sense of emptiness that was experienced. The different functions of compulsive repetition are then discussed in the context of identity search and borderline pathology during adolescence. Finally, the author discusses the mental work required of the therapist when working with adolescents presenting these types of issues, particularly when speech cannot be used for intersubjective communication.


The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of different doses of vitamin E supplemented into the diet on erythrocyte osmotic fragility and some biochemical parameters. Sixty broilers were randomly divided into four groups of 15 each (one control and three experimental groups). Experimental groups (D1, D2, D3) were fed with a diet supplemented with 100, 200 and 300 ppm of vitamin E respectively. The plasma vitamin E level, and other blood parameters, of all the test subjects were measured in the fifth and seventh week of the study. The plasma vitamin E level of D2 and D3 experimental groups in the fifth week, and the plasma vitamin E level of all three experimental groups in the seventh week of the study increased statistically when compared to the control group. Erythrocyte osmotic fragility of all three experimental groups decreased significantly by the fifth and seventh weeks of the study in comparison with the control group. No significant difference in plasma cholesterol, triglyceride, total protein, ALP (alkaline phosphatase), Ca (calcium), P (phosphorus), AST (aspartate aminotransferase) or ALT (alanin aminotransferase) was found between control and experimental groups by the fifth and seventh weeks. Only the ALP level of all groups decreased statistically by the seventh week of the study in comparison to the fifth week.


Padmaja Shaw reviews "Community Radio Policies in South Asia" by Preeti Raghunath. Raghunath applies "deliberative policy ecology approach" to study how policy frameworks evolved in four South Asian nations, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Raghunath argues that the "deliberative policy ecology approach" is rooted in emancipatory politics that brings in the stakeholders at the bottom of the policy food chain. Raghunath's intricate map of policy formulation in post-colonial societies is an engaging revelation of the continued contradictions between the developmentalist instincts of the state and the push of grassroots voices to claim their legitimate space in decision making.


Native-English speakers generally appreciate a certain amount of supportive feedback from their listeners. However, occasionally, a positive listener response actually causes the speaker to become threatened and revert to floor-saving measures. Speakers whose first language is not English may be at a disadvantage when involved in interactions with native-English speakers because they may not be equipped with the tools to exercise conversational power, if they wish to do so. Consequently, with the goal of creating educational materials that can be easily used in English Language Teaching (ELT), this thesis examines instances of listener support which are not appreciated by the speaker. For my corpus, I pulled 69 conversations from a popular American reality TV show, The Real World. These conversations were selected because of the presence of floor-saving strategies in the wake of seemingly benign listener commentary. I adopt a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach with multimodal elements aimed at exploring issues of power in the struggle for conversational dominance inherent in the act of listener talk and speaker rejection of this support. These issues were exposed when I watched the video excerpts repeatedly and responded to questions set out in my framework for analysis. In this thesis, I first examine the terminology used to describe listener talk and control of the conversational floor. I propose more opaque terms, Active Listening Attempt (ALA) and, for instances in which the speaker reacts negatively to the ALA, I propose failed ALA. Moreover, I propose that the non-verbal also be considered as a "turn." In the second section of this thesis, I find that "statement ALAs" are the most threatening to speakers. Moreover, surprisingly, I determined that the person who speaks the most is not always the holder of the conversational power and the listener's intention may have no impact the success of his/her ALA whatsoever. In the third section of this thesis, I focus on the impact gender may have on the failure of an ALA. Specifically, I find that female speakers display greater conversational defensiveness, even in conversations with other females, than males. In the final section of my thesis, I propose some implications for ELT pedagogy.


How do we, as management researchers, develop novel theoretical contributions and, thereby, potentially break new ground in management studies? To address this question, we review previous methodological work on theorizing and advance a typology of the reasoning processes that underlie theoretical contributions and significant advances in management studies. This typology consists of various types of analogical and counterfactual reasoning, ranging from focused thought experiments aimed at prodding existing theory in the direction of alternative assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses to more expansive efforts for inducing new theoretical models and alternative explanations. Applying this typology, we detail the mechanisms behind the formation of novel theoretical contributions and illustrate the currency of our typology through a review of 24 major theoretical breakthroughs in management studies. We conclude the paper by discussing the implications of this typology for our collective efforts in building, elaborating, and expanding theory in management studies.


This paper reviews the factors that will determine the shape of financial markets under EMU. It argues that financial markets will not be unified by the introduction of the euro. National central banks have a vested interest in preserving local idiosyncracies (e.g. the Wechsels in Germany) and they might be allowed to do so by promoting the use of so-called tier two assets under the common monetary policy. Moreover, a host of national regulations (prudential and fiscal) will make assets expressed in euro imperfect substitutes across borders. Prudential control will also continue to be handled differently from country to country. In the long run these national idiosyncracies cannot survive competitive pressures in the euro area. The year 1999 will thus see the beginning of a process of unification of financial markets that will be irresistible in the long run, but might still take some time to complete.


This study utilizes the Regression, Exponential Smoothing, Census X-ll and Box-Jenkins techniques to simulate the historical time series on selected livestock and crop prices and quantities in Louisiana. The data period covered was from 1972 through 1983 for the monthly time series, and from 1924 through 1983 for the annual time series. The price and production situation for the selected time series was also reviewed for the period 1972-1983. The variability among and within the selected time series was also evaluated. The methodology in this study provided a blend of economic and statistical frameworks. The economic framework provided the medium for explaining how the time series components trend, seasonal, cyclical and irregular contribute to the overall variation in any given time series. The statistical framework reinforced the economic framework quantitatively. It was evident from the review of the agricultural situation in Louisiana for the period 1972-1983 that both cyclical, seasonal and irregular factors have changed with the general trend underlying the agricultural series considered in this analysis. It was also found that over the years, livestock prices in Louisiana have had a larger relative variation than crop prices except for sweet potatoes. Among the crops, soybean prices were the least variable. By utilizing some measures of accuracy statistics to evaluate the ex-post forecast estimates generated by the forecasting techniques, it was found that the Box-Jenkins technique consistently out-performed the other techniques. For seasonal adjustment purposes, the Census X-ll and exponential smoothing provided better seasonally adjusted estimates than the regression procedure. However, in both the seasonal adjustment and forecasting evaluations, unique contributions were realized from each technique, for some of the selected time series. Combined forecasting provided the minimum mean squared error estimates for at least 94 percent of the monthly and annual data studied.


This thesis investigates the extent to which Thai national culture can be used to explain students' behaviour. In addition to exploring the cultural and social aspects of the classroom community, it also takes into account the importance of understanding the way students perceive their reality and as a consequence ethnographic research techniques are utilised. The research was carried out at a provincial university in Thailand, with a focal group of forty English major students. Two ethnographic research methods, namely classroom observation and interviews, were used in the research. While the classroom observations were carried out to describe the characteristics of the classroom and identify salient patterns of students' behaviours in the classroom, the interviews were conducted with the intention of allowing students to reflect on their own patterns of behaviours. The classroom observation not only showed the physical characteristics of the classroom, but also identified the teacher-student and student-student patterns of behaviour. These social aspects of the classroom revealed that while some student behaviour coincided with Thai national cultural characteristics, other patterns of behaviour deviated from commonly held beliefs about Thai students' behaviour. Pair and group interviews were then conducted to give students a chance to reflect on their interactions and their disruptive behaviour in class. While students' interviews offered insights into several personal issues, such as students' reasons to study English at the University, their transitions from high-schools to university and their self-perception, their accounts really highlighted the importance of the social interactions and relationships on their behaviour in the classroom. Social interaction, in the form of relationships with teachers, peer pressure, or peer reaction had, from the perspective of the students, significant explanatory force; these were strategically viewed and evaluated by students as the factors guiding their behaviour.
Although this thesis aims to explore the influence of Thai culture on students' behaviour, it became clear during the research that unless students were made conscious of cultural influences, they were mostly unaware of the possibility that Thai culture might affect their behaviour. Because this thesis relies on the emic view of the students, the lack of students' verbal support for the influence of Thai culture on their behaviour makes the answer to the research question inconclusive. This leads to a discussion of the level of analysis students used when asked to interpret their behaviour and whether students viewed their behaviour at the social or cultural level.
The study both highlights the significance of social interaction and context, and also distinguishes between a large culture and small culture paradigm. While the large culture approach views culture as essentially a feature of ethnic, national, and international groups, the small culture approach views culture as part of any social grouping. By seeing the classroom as a small culture and allowing students to explain their own behaviour, the research gains deeper insights into the students' world and their construction of their realities, the significance of which is explained and developed.


Over the past several years, distribution utilities have invested heavily in installations of "smart-meter" advanced metering initiative (AMI) systems. Among the anticipated benefits of these systems, utilities with smart-meter deployments are generally able to quickly assess which portions of their systems are operating normally and which customers are experiencing an outage. Projects at multiple utilities have focused on integrating AMI information, along with traditional supervisory control and data acquisition data sources, into utility distribution management systems to improve situational awareness on distribution feeders. Despite the clear benefits each of these systems offer, their ability to provide utilities with broad awareness of events affecting the health and status of the distribution system is limited, and often reactive in nature. This paper presents never-before-published cases observed in real-world field trials, detailing how integration of waveform analytics into utility operational practice leads to improved situational awareness.


In light of evidence that the Internet, participatory media, and online communities are increasingly central to civic and political life, this article investigates online political discourse as a context of youth civic development. Drawing on a national survey of 2,519 youth, ages 15 to 24, we find that exposure to conflict in online discourse is common. Nearly half of youth report witnessing conflict online, although fewer participate directly in these exchanges. We find that youth who are most involved in online political discussions or who get news through online participatory media are more likely to encounter such conflict. In addition, experiences with conflict vary by type of online community: Greater involvement in interest-driven online communities is associated with greater involvement in online conflict, while involvement in friendship-driven communities is not. Finally, we examine youths' normative reactions to online conflict and discuss implications for youth civic engagement and development.


The digital era has brought about huge transformations in the map itself, which to date have been largely conceptualised in spatial terms. Novel objects, forms, processes and approaches have emerged and pose new, pressing questions about the temporality of digital maps and contemporary mapping practices: in spite of its implicit spatiality, digital mapping is strongly grounded in time. This collection brings time back into the map, taking up Doreen Massey's critical concern for 'ongoing stories' in the world; it asks how mapping enrols time into these narratives. Maps often seek to 'freeze' and 'fix' the world, looking to represent, document or capture dynamic phenomena. This collection examines how these processes are impacted by digital cartographic technologies that, arguably, have disrupted our understanding of time as much as they have provided coherence. The book consists of twelve chapters from experts in the field. Each addresses a different type of digital mapping practice and analyses it in relation to temporality. Cases discussed range from locative art projects, OpenStreetMap mapping parties, sensory mapping, Google Street View, to visual mapping, smart city dashboards and crisis mapping. Authors from different disciplinary positions consider how a temporal lens might focus attention on different aspects of digital mapping. This kaleidoscopic approach demonstrates a rich plethora of ways for understanding the temporal modes of digital mapping and the interdisciplinary background of the authors allows multiple positions to be developed and contrasted."


Simulation is a powerful tool that can be utilized to measure and improve the performance of healthcare systems, such as the Emergency Department (ED). Simulation models were developed in this research to evaluate the performance of the normal operation of a specific ED. The study uses simulation to develop two models. The first model represents normal operations for an ED used as a case study. The second model represents the operations of the ED during disaster times. Real data was collected from the ED and used to check the validity of the simulation model for normal operations. The original model was modified to simulate several scenarios for disaster recovery plans. The impact of different scenarios generated during unusual conditions for all models were analyzed. These models only considered activities performed inside the ED which starts with the patient registration and ends when the patient is either discharged or admitted into the hospital. Hospitals regularly develop and revise their disaster recovery plans. However, the objective of these plans is to maximize the readiness of the ED and their facilities to enable them to carry out an unusual load created in the event of a disaster. The authors used an ED as a case study to set a procedure to develop several scenarios. The performance of the ED is evaluated under these conditions with the objective to maximize the ED readiness, maximize the patient throughput by minimizing the patient flow time.


This memorandum proposes a simple mechanism for enabling basic delay tolerant networking with off-the-shelf MANET routing protocols - with the objective being to enable trading off slightly longer data delivery delays against resilience to a temporary lack of connectivity between a router and the ultimate destination of an IP datagram. As part of testing the benefit of said mechanism, an extreme network mobility model is proposed, entitled the "PopUp model": a router appears in the network, and operates normally - then may disable and disappear from the network to appear later elsewhere. Observed to cause severely degraded performance for MANET routing proto- cols, this model is used for testing the proposed mechanism in OLSRv2-routed MANETs. The proposed mechanism shows to vastly increase the data deliv- ery ration, with reasonably low increases in delays and control traffic overhead incurred.


A long with the development of global market demands, higher education institutions must also continue to make creativity and innovation  so that the quality of learning increases,  so that the graduates produced  have a high competitiveness.  To  realize  the  human  resources  that  have  competitiveness  required  the  development  of  self- lecturers. Many  factors can affect the self-development  of  lecturers. This study  was conducted  with the aim  to analyze the influence of work ethic and commitment  to self -development  of lecturers  at Pekalongan  Univ ersity (Unikal).  In  this  study,  the  use  of  work  ethic  variables  and  commitment  to  analyze  the  influence  of  self - development.  This research  uses multiple  regression  analysis  method.  Data  obtained  from questionnaires  that have been  inputted online by students  in academic information  system (SIAKAD)  and assessment  conducted  by Institute of Unique Quality  Assurance  (LPMU). The  results of this  study  indicate that  work ethic variables  and commitment   variables   together  significantly   influence   the  self -development   of   lecturers.   Low  learner   self- development  can be improved by encouraging work ethic variables and commitment  variables.


The study presented in this article is based on empirical material from a survey among leaders from 19 of the 20 incest centres in Norway, as well as interviews with 13 workers from one of these centres. The Norwegian incest centre movement started in the mid 1980s and seems to be a Norwegian phenomenon. The research question in this study is: What signifies the work done within Norwegian incest centres? The study reveals that these non-governmental institutions understand child sexual abuse as a violation of dignity and that they place emphasis on working with dignity when they deal with victims of child sexual abuse and their families. They see themselves as a supplement to professional therapeutic institutions. They place emphasis on meeting victims of child sexual abuse and their families with the working principle of help to self-help and by being fellow human beings. All of the centres place emphasis on dealing with a violated dignity with security, intimacy, love, belonging, recognition, and respect. The study also shows that 43 per cent of the workers in these centres have themselves experienced child sexual abuse, and that their acknowledgement of previous indignity has given them a self-knowledge that helps them in their work with dignity in the Norwegian incest centres.


The paper analyses the performance of unemployment benefit systems in a searchtheoretic framework. The criteria of evaluation comprise the alleviation of poverty and the reduction in income inequality, whilst the diversity of opinions about these is taken into account. Also, the trade-off between the attainment of social objectives and work incentives is examined.


Accurate program planning for populations most at risk for HIV/STI acquisition requires knowledge of the size and location where these populations can best be reached. To obtain this information for sex workers operating at 137 hotspots in the central business district (CBD) in Nairobi, Kenya, we utilized a combined mapping and capture-recapture enumeration exercise. The majority of identified hotspots in this study were bars. Based on this exercise, we estimate that 6,904 male and female sex workers (95% confidence intervals, 6690 and 7118) were working nightly in the Nairobi CBD in April 2009. Wide ranges of captures per spot were obtained, suggesting that relatively few hot spots (18%) contain a relatively high proportion of the area's sex workers (65%). We provide geographic data including relatively short distances from hotspots to our dedicated sex worker outreach program in the CBD (mean<1 km), and clustering of hotspots within a relatively small area. Given the size covered and areas where sex work is likely taking place in Nairobi, the estimate is several times lower than what would be obtained if the entire metropolitan area was enumerated. These results have important practical and policy implications for enhancing HIV/STI prevention efforts.


Polymer gel dosimeters have been proved as a useful tool in the verification of treatment planning for three-dimensional radiation therapy. The degree of radiation-induced polymerization (DP) is a function of absorbed dose, and it can be determined in macro-scale by several imaging modalities, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical computed tomography, and computed tomography (CT). In this study, we determined the DP for the polymer gel dosimeter in micro-scale by texture analysis on scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The irradiated n-NIPAM gels with absorbed doses of 5 to 20 Gy delivered by the linear accelerator were freeze-dried and sliced. The SEM images were acquired at magnification of 50×, 500 ×  and 3500× , respectively. Four image texture indices, including the entropy, contrast, energy and homogeneity, were estimated from the grey level co-occurrence matrix of each SEM image. The relationships between the radiation dose and texture indices were determined. The SEM images with 500× and 3500× magnification showed significant changes in morphological features of the irradiated gel. The r2 of the linear fitting from 3500× SEM images was 0.8194 (entropy), 0.6024 (contrast), 0.7681 (energy), and 0.9978 (homogeneity), respectively. We conclude that the texture analysis on SEM images is a feasible method to estimate the dose response of the polymer gel dosimeter.


The systemic movement of Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in cucumber plants was analyzed. The structure that is translocated and its putative interactions with phloem components were analyzed in phloem exudate (PE) samples, which reflect sieve tubes stream composition. Rate zonal centrifugation and electron-microscopy analyses of PE from CMV-infected plants showed that CMV moves through sieve tubes as virus particles. Gel overlay assays revealed that CMV particles interact with a PE protein, p48. The amino-acid sequence of several tryptic peptides of p48 was determined. Partial amino-acid sequence of p48 showed it was a cucumber homolog of phloem protein 1 (PP1) from pumpkin, with which p48 also shares several chemical properties. PP1 from pumpkin has plasmodesmata-gating ability and translocates in sieve tubes. Encapsidated CMV RNA in PE samples from infected plants was less accessible to digestion by RNase A than RNA in purified CMV particles, a property that was reconstituted by the in vitro interaction of purified CMV particles and protein p48. These results indicate that the interaction with p48 modifies CMV particle structure and suggest that CMV particles interact with the cucumber homolog of PP1 during translocation in the sieve tubes.


The European Application Home Alliance (TEAHA) is a global project addressing networked home control applications, consumer electronics and A/V networked devices. It currently provides a central gateway that offers Service Discovery (SD) and interconnects different technologies in a secure way. With the advent of Microsoft's .NET Framework an increasingly large number of devices are becoming .NET enabled. Devices ranging from portable Smartphone's, organizers, tablet PCs to full-blown computers are now including .NET technology. Microsoft's .NET offers programming language and OS independency, the latter due to the efforts of the open-source community. TEAHA's support for .NET technology must therefore not be neglected, as it is a valuable addition to the long list of supported technologies. In order to compose a design that enables secure interaction between .NET and TEAHA devices, only communication protocols are used that are supported within both frameworks. After several protocols have been reviewed (including .NET Remoting, Web Services and Sockets), the UPnP SD protocol is considered to be the most suitable protocol; UPnP is supported on both frameworks through the UPnP OSGi bundle and Intel UPnP .NET stack. Seeing that regular UPnP does not provide authentication or encryption, the concept of Security Modules (SMs), and an authenticated version the Diffie-Hellman (DH) key exchange protocol were introduced to enable secure UPnP communication. The adapted SM provides several service hooks that are attached and integrated within the UPnP bundle and UPnP stack. Depending on the security settings the SM intercepts incoming and outgoing messages and applies cryptographic processing. Moreover, if the SM is implemented in hardware, protection against cloning is offered while resource-restricted devices are relieved from intensive encryption and authentication processing. The resulting design based on the UPnP SD protocol, SM concept and STS Key Exchange Protocol offers transparent and secure communication with policy enforcement between .NET and TEAHA devices and service. Furthermore, the design relies on open internet and non-propriety standards and software, and offers support for both action and event driven service interaction. Seeing that policy enforcement, and conversion of service requests and responses is entirely handled by the central TEAHA gateway, the design is considered to be limited in terms of scalability. The increase of the number of connected TEAHA and UPnP devices will eventually require expanding the resource capabilities of the central TEAHA gateway or by distributing the service load amongst additional TEAHA gateways.


The aim of this study was to determine the effect of melatonin on thioacetamide (TAA) induced liver fibrosis in rats. The antifibrotic effects of melatonin were assessed by determining activity indirect markers of fibrosis: aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (AP), and proinflammatory cytokines: interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin-1beta (IL-1β), tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). Parameters of oxidative stress: oxidised glutathione (GSSG), reduced glutathione (GSH) and presaged activity of paraoxonase 1 (PON-1), an antioxidative enzyme were determined. Inflammatory changes and fibrosis extent were evaluated histologically. Experiments were carried out in Wistar rats. Animals were divided into 4 groups: I - controls, water ad libitum for 12 weeks, group II - TAA, 300 mg/L ad libitum for 12 weeks, III - melatonin, 10 mg/kg b.w. intraperitoneally (i.p.) daily for 4 weeks, IV - TAA, 300 mg/L ad libitum for 12 weeks followed by melatonin, 10 mg/kg/b.w. i.p. daily for 4 weeks. Results of serum determinations demonstrated significantly lower activity of AST, ALT and AP in the group receiving TAA followed by melatonin compared to the group receiving only TAA. Immunoenzymatic findings on effect of melatonin on concentration of proinflammatory cytokines confirmed these data. Biochemical examinations in liver homogenates revealed statistically significant improvement (concentration of GSH increases and concentration of GSSG decreases) in animals with TAA-induced liver damage receiving melatonin. Moreover, the activity of PON-1 toward phenyl acetate and paraoxon was increased in liver homogenates and serum in the group receiving TAA followed by melatonin compared to the TAA group without melatonin treatment. Microscopic evaluation disclosed inhibitory effects of melatonin on inflammatory changes and extent of liver fibrosis.


Customer relationship management (CRM) is a combination of people, processes and technology that seeks to understand a company's customers. It is an integrated approach to managing relationships by focusing on customer retention and relationship development. CRM has evolved from advances in information technology and organizational changes in customer‐centric processes. Companies that successfully implement CRM will reap the rewards in customer loyalty and long run profitability. However, successful implementation is elusive to many companies, mostly because they do not understand that CRM requires company‐wide, cross‐functional, customer‐focused business process re‐engineering. Although a large portion of CRM is technology, viewing CRM as a technology‐only solution is likely to fail. Managing a successful CRM implementation requires an integrated and balanced approach to technology, process, and people.


There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. "Check your privilege," the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung. "Check your privilege," they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world.


From a family systems perspective, the psychological nature of genetic counseling brings to the surface past, present and future family issues for consideration. The manner in which families deal with this information is influenced by interactional patterns that may inhibit or allow emotional processing.

Keywords:

psychological framework;
consultation;
family system;
emotional processing


This briefing reviews some of the recent developments relating to the management of registered sex offenders in Scotland. It focuses on processes of information sharing between responsible authorities and third parties, deemed necessary as part of an overall risk management strategy. It then explores the Community Notification Pilot which has the potential to extend and enhance these processes and in so doing may provide greater public reassurance, build public confidence, increase public involvement in the protection of children, and generate increased intelligence relating to registered sex offenders.


Thermally driven slope flows are ubiquitous in nature and play a major role in regulating local microclimates in valleys, glaciers and ice-sheets. They control in large part surface momentum, heat and moisture fluxes, and their effects must therefore be accounted for in weather prediction and climate models. Due to the interplay between shear and buoyancy in generating and destroying turbulence, the thermal and hydrodynamic boundary layers that characterizes slope flows are very shallow, with turbulent motions of reduced size, when compared to those populating neutral and convective boundary layers, posing serious difficulties in terms of computational resolution and modeling requirements. Not surprisingly, therefore, considerable effort has been devoted in designing parameterizations, for use in larger scale models. In this direction goes the current work, where we use direct numerical simulations (DNS) to determine the vertical profiles of momentum and buoyancy eddy diffusivities, for pure slope flows over smooth surfaces. Mean flow profiles from one-dimensional models are then compared against DNS results at various sloping angles and results will be discussed.


We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate whether stress ulcer prophylaxis with histamine-2-receptor antagonists or antacids reduces mortality in critically ill patients. It appears that sucralfate results in a lower incidence of nosocomial pneumonia than either antacids or histamine-2-receptor antagonists. With respect to mortality, strong trends favored sucralfate over both antacids and histamine-receptor antagonists.


When discussing vocabulary, a distinction is often made between size of vocabulary (number of known words) and depth of knowledge (how well those words are known). However, the relationship between the two constructs is still unclear. Some scholars argue that there is little real difference between the two, while regression analyses show that depth typically adds unique explanatory power compared to size alone. Ultimately, the relationship between size and depth of vocabulary knowledge depends on how each is conceptualized and measured. In an attempt to provide an empirical basis for exploring the size–depth relationship, this critical synthesis identifies studies that contain measures of both size and depth. Based on a number of different conceptualizations of depth, various patterns emerged. For higher frequency words and for learners with smaller vocabulary sizes, there is often little difference between size and a variety of depth measures. However, for lower frequency words and for larger vocabulary sizes, there is often a gap between size and depth, as depth measures lag behind the measures of size. Furthermore, some types of word knowledge (e.g., derivative knowledge) seem to have generally lower correlations with size than other types.


Some cross-cultural psychologists have shown differences in cognition between Eastern and Western cultures, described as holistic versus analytic (H-A) systems of thought. It is widely assumed that Buddhism has contributed to holistic cognition. This thesis explores holistic thought among Western Buddhists by integrating methods and theories mainly from cross-cultural and social psychology, but also the cognitive anthropology of religion. H-A reasoning among Buddhists, Anglicans and Secular-Humanists in the UK is investigated in a main experiment, providing good backing for hypothesised H-A group differences. Moreover, it supports a hypothesis about the effect of meditation on the categorisation of visual stimuli and strength of holistic beliefs. However, only explicit H-A measures are subject to religious context effects, as evident in their association with religiosity, the religious self-concept and religious integration. Inducing a Buddhist context through religious priming does not result in a holism shift. A follow-up study (2) uses pictorial primes and shows an interaction effect between priming condition and strength of Buddhist self-concepts on holistic beliefs. Study 3 clarifies religious versus secular differences that were found for the grouping measure used in Study 1 in a correlational design with measures of independence- interdependence, religious identification as well as attraction to Buddhist and Secular- Humanist ideas. It indicates that both self-selection and learning effects may account for secular vs religious H-A differences. The last experiment (Study 4) further develops so-called 'tolerance of contradictions' (TC) as an aspect of H-A cognition and introduces the cognitive anthropological concept of counterintuitive (Cl) beliefs. As expected, results show that religious groups have a higher tolerance of Cl. Furthermore, compared to normal or bizarre concepts. Cl content reduces TC only among secular individuals, and to some degree Anglicans, but has no such effect on Buddhists. Implications for cross-cultural psychology, the psychology of religion as well as the interdisciplinary field of 'cognition and culture' are discussed.


I. INTRODUCTION Over the last several decades, America has seen an ongoing conflict between advocates of gay rights and supporters of traditional religion.1 This conflict, one of many fronts in the "culture war," as it has sometimes been called,2 has raged in many different contexts through the years.3 In the political arena and in the courts, religion and the gay movement have battled intensely over issues such as treatment of homosexuality in public schools, portrayal of homosexuality in media,4 and, more recently, gay marriage and the adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples.5 Because the conflict involves differing views about some of the most fundamental societal ideals and values,6 local governments have sometimes felt the need to step into the debate. Such involvement presents particularly difficult questions in trying to balance the free-speech interests of the government with the First Amendment protections afforded religious institutions.7 On June 3, 2009, in Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights v. City of San Francisco,8 the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed the question of whether a San Francisco city resolution denouncing a Vatican order not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples was forbidden under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Applying the Lemon test, an analysis commonly used by courts in Establishment Clause cases, the Ninth Circuit found that the resolution passed constitutional scrutiny, despite Catholic League's contention that the city was expressing disapproval of Catholicism in violation of the Constitution.9 This Note will argue that the Ninth Circuit incorrectly decided the case by applying an inherently problematic test, conducting an outcome-driven analysis, and ignoring the correct standard of review. In so doing, the court has arguably sacrificed its required neutrality. This Note will analyze the Ninth Circuit's decision in Catholic League and explain how the court's neutrality was compromised. Part II of the Note presents a summary of the facts and procedural history of the case. Part III then provides some context for the issues involved by discussing the background First Amendment Establishment Clause jurisprudence leading up to the Ninth Circuit's decision. Part IV describes the Ninth Circuit's reasoning and decision in Catholic League in detail, and Part V analyzes that decision to explain how the Ninth Circuit went wrong. Finally, Part VI offers a brief conclusion. II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY In March of 2006, the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco adopted a non-binding resolution concerning the Catholic Church's position against adoptions of children by same-sex couples.10 The resolution, entitled "Resolution urging Cardinal Levada to withdraw his directive to Catholic Charities forbidding the placement of children in need of adoption with same-sex couples," aimed harsh language at both the Vatican and Prefect Cardinal William Levada, who was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican.11 Passed in response to a then-recent directive from Cardinal Levada instructing the Archdiocese of San Francisco that Catholic social services agencies should not place children in need of adoption with gay or lesbian couples,12 the full text of the resolution read as follows: Resolution urging Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households. WHEREAS, It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great City's existing and established customs and traditions such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need; and WHEREAS, The statements of Cardinal Levada and the Vatican that "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households," and "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children"13 are absolutely unacceptable to the citizenry of San Francisco; and WHEREAS, Such hateful and discriminatory rhetoric is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors; and WHEREAS, Same-sex couples are just as qualified to be parents as are heterosexual couples; and WHEREAS, Cardinal Levada is a decidedly unqualified representative of his former home city, and of the people of San Francisco and the values they hold dear; and WHEREAS, The Board of Supervisors urges Archbishop Niederauer and the Catholic Charities of rhe Archdiocese of San Francisco to defy all discriminatory directives of Cardinal Levada; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urges Cardinal William Levada, in his capacity as head of rhe Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican (formerly known as Holy Office of the Inquisition), to withdraw his discriminatory and defamatory directive that Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco stop placing children in need of adoption with homosexual households. …


Speed is integral to the successful performance of individuals and teams in most sports. Knowledge of the ways in which high-performance athletes train to develop this quality is highly sought after. Strength Training for Speed is a one-stop resource for coaches and athletes looking to enhance sprinting speed through effective strength training methods. The latest scientific research is used to underpin training solutions presented within this book, which includes strength programmes followed by full international-level athletes. The scope of applicable content will be of particular interest to coaches, athletes and students. Boasting a library of over 100 exercises and a series of example periodised plans, readers will learn how to devise effective strength training programmes for any athlete from the recreational to elite performer. Strength Training for Speed covers: Fundamental anatomy and physiology of sprinting; How to elicit the key physiological adaptations necessary for improving strength, power, and ultimately speed; Biomechanics of sprinting during the acceleration and maximum velocity phases; How to design individual strength training sessions; The periodisation of strength training for speed development.


Organic geochemical and stable isotope investigations were performed to provide an insight into the depositional environments, origin and maturity of the organic matter in Jurassic and Cretaceous formations of the External Dinarides. A correlation is made among various parameters acquired from Rock-Eval, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry data and isotope analysis of carbonates and kerogen. Three groups of samples were analysed. The first group includes source rocks derived from Lower Jurassic limestone and Upper Jurassic " Lemes" beds, the second from Upper Cretaceous carbonates, while the third group comprises oil seeps genetically connected with Upper Cretaceous source rocks. The carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios of all the carbonates display marine isotopic composition. Rock-Eval data and maturity parameter values derived from biomarkers define the organic matter of the Upper Cretaceous carbonates as Type I-S and Type II-S kerogen at the low stage of maturity up to entering the oil-generating window. Lower and Upper Jurassic source rocks contain early mature Type III mixed with Type IV organic matter. All Jurassic and Cretaceous potential source rock extracts show similarity in triterpane and sterane distribution. The hopane and sterane distribution pattern of the studied oil seeps correspond to those from Cretaceous source rocks. The difference between Cretaceous oil seeps and potential source rock extracts was found in the intensity and distribution of n-alkanes, as well as in the abundance of asphaltenes which is connected to their biodegradation stage. In the Jurassic and Cretaceous potential source rock samples a mixture of aromatic hydrocarbons with their alkyl derivatives were indicated, whereas in the oil seep samples extracts only asphaltenes were observed.


Fibronectins are a class of cell-adhesion proteins produced from a single gene. The soluble plasma form is synthesized by hepatocytes and the insoluble cellular form by fibroblasts and other cell types. The proteins possess multiple binding domains for macromolecules including collagen, fibrin and heparin along with at least one cell-binding domain. Cellular as well as plasma fibronectins are dimers of similar but not identical polypeptides. Their differences are the result of internal amino acid sequence variability due to alternative RNA splicing in at least three regions (ED-A, ED-B and III CS). We have been studying this polymorphism at the protein level in plasma fibronectin (pFn). Cathepsin D-digested pFn applied to a heparin-agarose column and eluted with an NaCl stepwise gradient (0.1 M, 0.25 M and 0.5 M) released two polypeptides (75 kDa and 65 kDa) in the 0.5 M-NaCl peak. Immunoblots with monoclonal antibodies IST-2 (specific for the C-terminal heparin-binding domain) and AHB-3 (specific for the III CS domain) suggest that both peptides contain the C-terminal heparin-binding (Hep-2) domain, but that only the larger fragment possesses the III CS region. These two polypeptides (75 kDa and 65 kDa) were digested with trypsin, and the resulting peptides were analyzed by fast-atom-bombardment mass spectrometry and compared with the known cDNA-derived peptide sequence. Peptides that were unique to the III CS region were further characterized by micro sequence analysis. The 75 kDa fragment is derived from the A-chain and contains the III CS region (89 amino acid residues) along with the C-terminal heparin-binding (Hep-2) domain and the fibrin-binding (Fib-2) domain. A single galactosamine-based carbohydrate group was detected at Thr-73/74 of the III CS region present in the 75 kDa fragment. The 65 kDa fragment is derived from the B-chain and lacks the entire III CS region but does contain the Hep-2 and Fib-2 domains.


In this paper, we study the problem of answering visual analogy questions. These questions take the form of image A is to image B as image C is to what. Answering these questions entails discovering the mapping from image A to image B and then extending the mapping to image C and searching for the image D such that the relation from A to B holds for C to D. We pose this problem as learning an embedding that encourages pairs of analogous images with similar transformations to be close together using convolutional neural networks with a quadruple siamese architecture. We introduce a dataset of visual analogy questions in natural images, and show first results of its kind on solving analogy questions on natural images.


Stem cell‐based approaches offer great application potential in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine owing to their ability of sensing the microenvironment and respond accordingly (dynamic behavior). Recently, the combination of nanobiomaterials with stem cells has paved a great way for further exploration. Nanobiomaterials with engineered surfaces could mimic the native microenvironment to which the seeded stem cells could adhere and migrate. Surface functionalized nanobiomaterial‐based scaffolds could then be used to regulate or control the cellular functions to culture stem cells and regenerate damaged tissues or organs. Therefore, controlling the interactions between nanobiomaterials and stem cells is a critical factor. However, surface functionalization or modification techniques has provided an alternative approach for tailoring the nanobiomaterials surface in accordance to the physiological surrounding of a living cells; thereby, enhancing the structural and functional properties of the engineered tissues and organs. Currently, there are a variety of methods and technologies available to modify the surface of biomaterials according to the specific cell or tissue properties to be regenerated. This review highlights the trends in surface modification techniques for nanobiomaterials and the biological relevance in stem cell‐based tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 32:554–567, 2016


There is a broad range of theoretical proposals regarding the implementation of the feature-copying or feature-matching operation that must lie behind the phenomenon of agreement in natural language. A particularly current subtopic in this broader landscape of theoretical debate concerns whether features in a single bundle can get their values from independent targets— the 'All-or-nothing' question (Bejar 2008). In this preliminary investigation, data from Hiaki DPs illustrate a case in which features on a single X° are valued by separate controllers, and raise locality issues for theories of concord and agreement.