This study contributes to the contemporary debate about external citizen oversight (ECO) of police by taking up the challenge of assessing the extent to which such oversight agencies or their procedures are associated with lower levels of police misconduct. More specifically, the research consists of a case study of the Police Inspectorate of Kosovo (PIK), an example of 'holistic' ECO - i.e. an agency that combines a reactive (complaint investigation) function with a proactive (policy recommendation) function. It is the first such evaluation of police governance and oversight in Kosovo, employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Importantly, it adds to a small but growing body of research into the perceptions of police officers about the impact of ECO on police conduct. It triangulates documentary evidence - including legislation, procedures, PIK reports and statistical data – with primary data obtained through a questionnaire survey of junior-ranked police officers and semi-structured interviews with senior-ranked.

The findings reveal that the PIK meets the main criteria of ECO, as indicated in the literature. Although the documentary evidence fails to provide clear indications that PIK activity (or procedures) are associated with improved police conduct, the primary data offers evidence that there might be such a link. A significant proportion of over 500 questionnaire respondents expressed positive views about ECO, albeit also expressing positive views about police investigation of complaints. In conclusion, the study offers evidence of a link between ECO activity and improved policing conduct that warrants further investigation. It confirms the findings of other authors that future research into police perceptions ought to focus on fairness and process.


The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between social-structural characteristics and bias homicide across counties in the United States between the years 1990 and 2014. While there have been several notable studies on this topic, most have been conducted in single cities or at the state level, thus overlooking variations across community types for the broader United States. Moreover, scholars have failed to distinguish violent from non-violent bias crimes in their research. Drawing from several ecological theories of crime, this study seeks to contribute to the literature by asking (1) what are the structural predictors of the likelihood of bias homicide occurrences? (2) do these same structural predictors affect the number of incidents across those counties that experience multiple bias homicides? To answer these questions, data on bias homicide are derived from the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) and paired with social and structural variables from the U.S. Census Bureau. Results are discussed relative to the goals of understanding where fatal bias crimes are more likely to occur as a means of informing law enforcement and policymakers interested in preventing and responding to this form of crime.


Recently there has been growing interest in mindfulness-based cognitive–behavioral therapies in the field of disordered eating treatment as an alternative or as an adjunct to extant treatment. The aims of this review are to comprehensively identify, summarize and critically evaluate the available outcome evidence of mindfulness-based cognitive–behavioral therapies as treatments for a range of disordered eating concerns. This review suggests that mindfulness-based interventions, especially modified dialectical behavior therapy, seem to be promising treatments for bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and eating disorders with borderline personality disorders and substance use disorders. However, evidence is extremely limited on mindfulness-based interventions as treatments for anorexia nervosa. Limitations and future directions are also discussed in this review.


Aggressive scaling of the supply voltage reduces the energy needed for switching of standard CMOS devices. However, advanced CMOS technologies are facing two main problems that consequently lead to higher power consumption: the complexity of a further supply voltage reduction, and the rising leakage currents that directly affect the switching ratio between the ON and OFF states. At present, the available field-effect transistors (FETs) in the CMOS integrated circuits require at room temperature at least 60 mV of gate voltage to increase the current by one order of magnitude. Recent publications have highlighted the need for alternative devices providing better ON-OFF switching performance. Tunneling FETs are very promising devices to respond to the demanding requirements of future scaled silicon technology nodes. The paper reviews recent compact modeling of homojunction TFET devices.


Life-history theory predicts that small species will exhibit short life-spans and fast growth rates; however, previous studies indicate that a positive relationship between size and maximum age may not be universally applicable to coral reef fishes. Here, we investigate the growth and life-span of 5 small species of coral reef goby (family Gobiidae): Istigobius goldmanni, Asterropteryx semipunctatus, Amblygobius bynoensis, Amblygobius phalaena and Valenciennea muralis. All 5 species were relatively short-lived, with the oldest individual sampled ranging from 11 to 16 mo depending on species and sex. Rapid growth occurred over much of the size range of all 5 species and, in contrast to most reef fishes, relatively little or no time was spent at an asymptotic size. Patterns of growth were best described by a Broken Stick model for I. goldmanni, and by either a Broken Stick model or the von Bertalanffy growth function for the other 4 species. Summer-growing individuals had higher growth rates than winter-growing individuals, but this did not affect the overall patterns of growth. Sex-specific differences in growth were evident for I. goldmanni and A. semipunctatus, with males growing faster and attaining a larger maximum size than females. In contrast, there was no significant difference in growth between male and female A. bynoensis, A. phalaena and V. muralis. This pattern may be related to interspecific differences in intensity of sexual selection, mating system, and reproductive behaviour. Overall, the patterns of growth and life-span of these 5 small species conformed to traditional concepts of life-history theory.


Comparative Performance Analysis of Ordering Strategies in Atomic Broadcast Algorithms Xavier Defago, Andre Schiper, Peter Urban In this paper, we present the results of a comparative analysis of Atomic Broadcast algorithms. The analysis was done by using an analytical method to compare the performance of five different classes of Atomic Broadcast algorithms. The five classes of Atomic Broadcast algorithms are determined by the mechanisms used by the algorithms to define the delivery order. To evaluate the performance of algorithms, the analysis relies on contention-aware metrics to provide a measure for both their latency and their throughput. The results thus obtained yield interesting insight into the performance tradeoffs of different Atomic Broadcast algorithms, thus providing helpful information to algorithms and systems designers. keywords: distributed algorithms, atomic broadcast, total order, performance analysis, contention-aware metrics


We examine the early geological history of the southern Kerguelen Plateau (Indian Ocean) using ocean bottom seismometer (OBS), multichannel seismic (MCS), and Ocean Drilling Program data. Velocity-depth models in the sedimentary Raggatt Basin are constrained by near-range OBS data (refractions and reflections, including multiples and converted shear waves) and migrated MCS data. The models elucidate the significance of Lower Cretaceous lava flows, Albian to Coniacian/Santonian terrestrial and terrigenous sediment, and Maastrichtian and Paleocene seismic sequences. The Albian/Aptian basaltic basement complex consists of an upper and a lower series. The upper series is characterized by average Vp S of 4.6–4.7 km/s, an upward increase of intercalated terrestrial sediment and altered flowtops, and a concomitant decrease in flow thickness; the lower series is marked by average Vp S of 5.3–5.5 km/s, and contains thicker flows and less sediment. A volcanic center in the Raggatt Basin shows relatively low Vp S (3.7–3.9 km/s for the upper series, 4.7–4.9 km/s for the lower series), and dipping reflections on the Raggatt Basin's flanks are also recorded as refractions. Terrestrial and terrigenous sediment of the Raggatt Basin, immediately overlying basement, is characterized by a seismic low-velocity layer with Vp S ranging from 2.2–2.9 km/s and a thickness of >1100 m in the central basin. Nearby source regions (e.g., Banzare Bank and other elevated areas south of the basin) account for a terrestrial and terrigenous sediment volume of ?12,500 km3, deposited over ?20 m.y. The depocenter of the Raggatt Basin began shifting in Santonian to early Maastrichtian time, and concluded by early late Paleocene time.


Hoplia walterrossii is a species endemic to Molise, Southern Italy, with completely unknown ecology and virtually known only on the holotype, few additional specimens having been merely listed in a recent paper. Following the discovery of various new populations in the field and of old unpublished samples, we provide new information on ecology, phenology, distribution, and morphology, including the description of the female, so far unknown. H. walterrossii is associated to alluvial soils near the coast, and to lowland floodplains, with apparent tolerance for temporarily flooded areas. Adults are active for about one month, from early May to early June, and have been observed mostly on leaves of canes and on young poplars, never on flowers. An attempt of formal IUCN status assignment is provided, giving the species the "Endagered" status. Suitable habitats for H. walterrossii are small residual meadows and, in particular, wetlands which have been subjected to a recent strong reduction due to human activity. This process, that started centuries ago, is still in progress, in spite of the formal identification of these areas as sites of conservation concern.


Recent evidence from Pakistan points to significant pro-male bias within households in the allocation of education expenditures. This raises two important questions: Is less spent on enrolled girls than boys through differential school-type choice for the two sexes, for example through a greater likelihood of sending boys to fee-charging private schools? And, if indeed this is the case, are girls thereby condemned to lower quality schooling, on average, than boys? By asking these questions, this paper makes three contributions to the literature. Firstly, this is one of a very few studies in Pakistan to explore the question of the relative effectiveness of public and private schools despite there being an unprecedented expansion of fee-charging private schools in the last two decades. Secondly, unlike existing papers which focus on primary schooling, this study looks at potential learning gaps by school-type for students in their last year of middle school (grade 8), very near their transition to secondary schooling. Thirdly, it exploits unique, purposively-collected data from government and private school students and thus, in estimating achievement production functions, is able to control for a number of variables typically `unobserved` by researchers. The findings reveal that boys are indeed more likely to be sent to private schools than girls within the household, so that differential school-type choice is an important channel of differential treatment against girls. Private schools are also found to be of better quality - they are more effective than government schools in imparting mathematics and literacy skills. Girls lose out vis a vis boys in terms not only of lower within-household educational expenditures but also in terms of the quality of schooling accessed.


INTRODUCTION The collapse of the housing and equity markets and the ensuing recession has led to the largest number of bank failures since the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008 through 2009, there have been 167 bank failures in the United States (FDIC Bank Failures, 2010). The purpose of this analysis is to examine the financial condition of banks during this recent financial crisis and determine whether there are key financial indicators that could signal potential failure. The seriousness of the financial crisis is described by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the 2008 Quarterly Report. FDIC-insured institutions reported a net loss of $32.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, a decline of $32.7 billion from the $575 million that the industry earned in the fourth quarter of 2007 and the first quarterly loss since 1990. Rising loan-loss provisions, large write-downs of goodwill and other assets, and sizable losses in trading accounts all contributed to the industry's net loss. More than two-thirds of all insured institutions were profitable in the fourth quarter, but their earnings were outweighed by large losses at a number of big banks (p. 1). The increase in bank failures that began in 2008 was largely precipitated by the collapse of the U.S. housing market. Falling home prices led to declines in securities tied to home loans forcing banks to take write-downs on their balance sheets. Falling home prices combined with losses in the stock and bond markets resulted in historic declines in household wealth. The U.S. officially entered into recession in December 2007. The financial crisis that began in early 2008 worsened the recession, making this not only one of the longest but also one of the most severe U.S. recessions since World War II. Real gross domestic product (GDP) declined at an annualized rate of 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2008, 6.4% in the first quarter of 2009, and 0.7% quarter of 2009. Real GNP returned to positive growth of 2.2% on an annualized basis for the third quarter of 2009 and 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009. (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2010). Because of the recession, bank failures continued with 130 failed banks in 2009 (FDIC Bank Failures, 2010). The current banking crisis is broad based and linked closely to defaults on residential real estate and small business loans. Smaller banks that were linked to construction, real estate development, and small businesses loans were most at risk. This current bank crisis is different from the bank crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s, which was largely linked to defaults in the commercial real estate, agricultural, and petroleum industries, and particularly in oil and agricultural producing regions. This paper investigates the financial indicators associated with recent bank failures. The number of predictor variables is limited to six for reasons of parsimony. Previous literature has addressed the topic of predicting bank failure; however, our model differs from previous studies in four important ways. First, our model is parsimonious, using only six financial indicators to predict bank failure. Second, our model uses logistic regression to weight the six financial indicators into a composite measure of failure. Third, we use data from the recent bank failures to develop our model. Fourth, we incorporate various costs of misclassifying banks as failed or not failed. The regression model results in a prediction of the likelihood of failure, which correctly classifies up to 98% of the sample as failed or not. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 1 describes the extant literature on failure in banks. Section 2 discusses the indicators associated with failure and the related hypotheses testing. The results of testing the failure model are analyzed in Section 3, and the Section 4 concludes the paper. …


A British barrister reflects on a recent High Court ruling that psychiatrists owe a less extensive duty of confidentiality to patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 than they do to other patients and that in some circumstances they have a duty to disclose their findings to the authorities. In the case at hand (W v. Egdell and others), a patient diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia after killing five people requested transferral to a medium security unit with a view to eventual release. The patient sought to suppress, on the grounds of confidentiality, a report sent to the hospital and to the Home Office, recommending against transfer, made by an independent, consultant psychiatrist. The High Court's decision accorded with common sense, but, Brahams concludes, raises questions of doctor liability and threatens to reduce the physician's duty of confidence whenever a patient appears to be a serious threat to his family or to the public at large.


The Hubbard model arises naturally when electron-electron interactions are added to the tight-binding descriptions of many condensed matter systems. For instance, the two-dimensional Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice is central to the ab initio description of the electronic structure of carbon nanomaterials, such as graphene. Such low-dimensional Hubbard models are advantageously studied with Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, such as Hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC). HMC is the standard algorithm of the lattice gauge theory community, as it is well suited to theories of dynamical fermions. As HMC performs continuous, global updates of the lattice degrees of freedom, it provides superior scaling with system size relative to local updating methods. A potential drawback of HMC is its susceptibility to ergodicity problems due to so-called exceptional configurations, for which the fermion operator cannot be inverted. Recently, ergodicity problems were found in some formulations of HMC simulations of the Hubbard model. Here, we address this issue directly and clarify under what conditions ergodicity is maintained or violated in HMC simulations of the Hubbard model. We study different lattice formulations of the fermion operator and provide explicit, representative calculations for small systems, often comparing to exact results. We show that a fermion operator can be found which is both computationally convenient and free of ergodicity problems.


This book examines systematically the underlying theory of evidence in Anglo-American legal systems and identifies the defining characteristics of adjudicative fact-finding. Stein develops a detailed innovative theory which sets aside the traditional vision of evidence law as facilitating the discovery of the truth. Combining probability theory, epistemology, economic analysis, and moral philosophy, he argues instead that the fundamental purpose of evidence law is to apportion the risk of error in conditions of uncertainty. Stein begins by identifying the domain of evidence law. He then describes the basic traits of adjudicative fact-finding and explores its epistemological foundations. This discussion identifies the problem of probabilistic deduction that accompanies generalizations to which fact-finders resort. This problem engenders paradoxes which Stein proposes to resolve by distinguishing between 'probability' and 'weight.' Stein advances the 'principle of maximal individualization' that does not allow fact-finders to make a finding against a person when the evidence they use is not susceptible to individualized testing. He argues that this principle has broad application, but may still be overridden by social utility. This analysis identifies allocation of the risk of error as requiring regulation by evidence law. Advocating a principled allocation of the risk of error, Stein denounces 'free proof' for allowing individual judges to apportion this risk as they deem fit. He criticizes the UK's recent shift to a discretionary regime on similar grounds. Stein develops three fundamental principles for allocating the risk of error: the cost-efficiency principle which applies across the board; the equality principle which applies in civil litigation; and the 'equal best' principle which applies in criminal trials. The cost-efficiency principle demands that fact-finders minimize the total cost of errors and error-avoidance. Under the equality principle, fact-finding procedures and decisions must not produce an unequal apportionment of the risk of error between the claimant and the defendant. This risk should be apportioned equally between the parties. The 'equal best' principle sets forth two conditions for justifiably convicting and punishing a defendant. The state must do its best to protect the defendant from the risk of erroneous conviction and must not provide better protection to other individuals. Regulating both the admissibility of evidence and its sufficiency, these principles explain and justify many existing evidentiary rules.


Low Health Literacy and Preoperative Instruction Compliance Among Patients Undergoing Surgical Procedures by Mariefel C. Paqueo MSN, Excelsior College, 2011 BSN, Liceo De Cagayan, 1991 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice Walden University November 2017 Abstract In addition to cancelations and delays of needed surgical procedures, serious or fatal complications can occur when patients with low health literacy do not comply with preoperative instructions. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to provide more insight about ways to decrease on cancelled and delayed surgical procedures in low health literacy patients' due to noncompliance with preoperative fasting instructions. The project was informed by the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, andIn addition to cancelations and delays of needed surgical procedures, serious or fatal complications can occur when patients with low health literacy do not comply with preoperative instructions. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to provide more insight about ways to decrease on cancelled and delayed surgical procedures in low health literacy patients' due to noncompliance with preoperative fasting instructions. The project was informed by the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance model (King, D. K., Glasgow, R. E., and Leeman-Castillo, B. (2010). The project question centered on whether health literate preoperative fasting instructions could decrease cancellations and delays of surgical procedures in low health literate patients. The project setting was conducted at a doctor's office. Interventions and changes to the preoperative instruction sheet were evaluated by using the preoperative communication checklist (POCC) which was developed for this project study. A 3-month pre-post POCC intervention design was used to evaluate changes in the numbers of cancelled and delayed surgical cases among 30 low health literate patients at a local community physician's office. The Newest Vital Sign which is a health literacy skill level assessment tool developed by Pfizer (2012), was used to assess patient health literacy. 30 (13 women and 17 men) who were aged 17-75 were enrolled. Pre-intervention, the and cancellation rate was 16.67%. Post intervention, there was a zero percent cancellation rate. This project has potential to produce positive social change by empowering patients with health literacy instructions for better understanding of what is being asked of them when having surgical procedures. This knowledge may result in better patient outcomes. Low Health Literacy and Preoperative Instruction Compliance Among Patients Undergoing Surgical Procedures by


Biorepository research has introduced significant challenges to biomedical informatics systems design and implementation. We take a best-of-breed system integrative approach to finding solutions to administer a biobank operationally, use a biobank scientifically and integrate clinical, specimen and genomic data. We introduce an electronic Honest Broker (eHB) and Biorepository Portal (BRP) open source project that, in tandem, allow for integration of data on the input and output while protecting subject privacy, a primary issue in research and healthcare informatics. Research data management systems like REDCap and our proprietary laboratory information management system (LIMS) are used as best-of-breed client systems and integrated with downstream genomic analyses. Taking this honest brokered system-client based, modular approach to biorepository research, we allow for data and specimens to be associated with a biorepository subject at any time point asynchronously, lowering the bar to develop new research projects based on scientific merit and having a future proofed specimen set for collaborative advanced genomic and tissue research yet to be established.


We consider a problem dealing with the efficient delivery of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to individual patients. IMRT treatment planning is usually performed in three phases. The first phase determines a set of beam angles through which radiation is delivered, followed by a second phase that determines an optimal radiation intensity profile (or fluence map). This intensity profile is selected to ensure that certain targets receive a required amount of dose while functional organs are spared. To deliver these intensity profiles to the patient, a third phase must decompose them into a collection of apertures and corresponding intensities. In this paper, we investigate this last problem. Formally, an intensity profile is represented as a nonnegative integer matrix; an aperture is represented as a binary matrix whose ones appear consecutively in each row. A feasible decomposition is one in which the original desired intensity profile is equal to the sum of a number of feasible binary matrices multiplied by corresponding intensity values. To most efficiently treat a patient, we wish to minimize a measure of total treatment time, which is given as a weighted sum of the number of apertures and the sum of the aperture intensities used in the decomposition. We develop the first exact algorithm capable of solving real-world problem instances to optimality within practicable computational limits, using a combination of integer programming decomposition and combinatorial search techniques. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on a set of 25 test instances derived from actual clinical data and on 100 randomly generated instances.


A procedure is described that allows one to solve the evolution equations in birefringent optical fibers by using repeated diagonalization. With this approach several practical problems are solved in a unified way. Included are evolution in twisted fibers, sinusoidally rocked fibers, and fibers with randomly varying birefringence. In the last case it is shown that a phenomenological model described by Poole and others applies to fibers whose axes of birefringence can take on any orientation.


To date, prostate cancer is the most common male cancer diagnosed in the United Kingdom. Our rudimentary knowledge of the aetiology and molecular pathways implicated in prostate tumourigenesis is probably responsible for its poor prognosis. To address this, a conditional transgenic approach was employed to investigate the role of the tumour suppressor Lkbl and the proto-oncogenes p-catenin and K-ras within the murine prostate. LKB1 is a tumour suppressor commonly mutated in Peutz-Jegher's syndrome (PJS), which predominantly predisposes to gastrointestinal hamartomas and various extra intestinal tumours. Using a conditional transgenic approach, recombination of a LoxP-flanked Lkbl transgene was mediated by the inducible Ah (p450 CYP1A1) promoter. Loss of Lkbl in un-induced AhCreLkb mice predisposed to prostate intra-epithelial neoplasia (PIN) within 2-4 months. Molecular analysis revealed that neoplastic foci had lost cellular polarity and showed enhanced PI3K/AKT and Wnt signalling pathway activity, ultimately leading to tumour growth. Loss of Lkbl did not result in activation of the AMPK/mTOR pathway, suggesting that a feedback mechanism suppresses mTOR in Lkbl deficient conditions. Study of disease progression in this model is limited owing to decreased longevity, which is thought to be caused by the development of bulbourethral gland cysts. Additional GU tract phenotypes were also observed in un-induced AhCre+LkbPl/J1 urethral glands and seminal vesicles and all Lkbl1 male mice were infertile. To address the problem of reduced longevity in the AhCre+Lkbl cohort, PBCre+Lkbl transgenic mice were derived. Here, Oe-recombinase expression is mediated by the composite rat Probasin promoter. All cohorts showed life-spans comparable to wild-type mice at 500 days. PBCre+Lkbl+/ prostates were normal, while mice developed low grade-PIN, demonstrating the hypomorphic nature of the Lkbl floxed allele. PBCre+Lkblm mice demonstrated atypical hyperplasia of the prostate, arguing a critical role for Lkbl levels in cancer initiation. Long-term Lkbl deficiency also predisposed to kidney abnormalities, preputial gland squamous metaplasia and PJS-linked phenotypes, including stomach hamartomas and Sertoli-cell-only syndrome at 500 days. To investigate the deregulation of Wnt signalling in the murine prostate, conditional transgenic mice carrying a dominant stable form of p-catenin in the prostate were generated (PBCre+Catnb*/lox(ex3)). At 3 months, males manifested PIN-like keratinised squamous metaplasia that advanced to adenocarcinoma by 6 months. No evidence for synergy was determined between Lkbl loss and activated P-catenin, although investigations were limited to PBCre*Lkbl*/Jl:Catnb*/lox(ex3) mice owing to a time constraint and partial embryonic lethality of Lkblm mice. Synergism between Wnt and Ras signalling has been well documented in many human cancers, including intestine, liver and kidney. To address the cooperativity of these pathways in the prostate, the PBCre transgenic line was employed to express an activated K-rasV12 mutation and a dominant stabilised form of p-catenin (PBCre+K- ras+/vl2 Catnb+/lox(ex3)). PBCre+K-ras+/v12 mice were predisposed to low grade-PIN at 16 months and demonstrated elevated MAPK signalling. Double mutants demonstrated rapid tumourigenesis to invasive carcinoma at 6 months, which displayed elevated Wnt and MAPK signalling. Further molecular analysis determined that activated K-ras and P-catenin synergise to facilitate prostate tumourigenesis by elevating the number of androgen receptor positive cells and upregulating Wnt targets, such as COX-2 and c-Myc. This evidence suggests androgen-independent tumour growth and presents a direct mechanism whereby tumour progression is accelerated via the canonical Wnt pathway. In summary, this thesis reports the first correlation between Lkbl loss and prostate neoplasia, and demonstrates synergy between Wnt and Ras signalling in murine prostate tumourigenesis. Together, these data provide a valuable resource for genetic based studies and establish the multi-step nature of tumourigenesis.


245 words Over the last 20 years, the world economy has induc e more competition and cooperation. To understand how cooperation is compl e entary to competition, the paper proposes to analyze both sides of the market economy: the competition side where agents compete with each other and the cooper ation side where agents need to cooperate with each other. Despite a rising economi c growth during the last thirty years, recent studies on happiness also show a gap between eco omic growth and life satisfaction (Eeasterlin, 1974, Helliwell, Layard a nd Sachs, 2016). This work seeks to study the conditions of a more inclusive economy al lowing individuals and organizations to reach better efficiency and happin ess. To realize this paradigmatic revolution, the paper suggests using the results of Shapiro and Stiglitz's efficiency wage theory for investigating necessary conditions for a more inclusive economy. In an inclusive growth, two aspects must be analyzed: the long run sustainable happiness and efficiency specialization for agents and countries and their short run daily happiness and efficiency. In the first part, the paper analyzes h ow recent world changes evolve to use a complexity theory (Le Moigne, 1995) which proposes qualitative inter-dependences between rationality and emotion for reaching rising efficiency. In the second part, the paper demonstrates how the individual strategies of the agents, led by the search for increasing happiness, may induce some long run inno vations for the whole society. In the last part, the paper proposes concrete short ru n actions for greater individual and collective happiness and efficiency.


"This book is too good to keep to yourself. Read it aloud with someone you love, then send it to a friend. But be sure to keep a copy for yourself, because you'll want to read it again and again." Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey Raney is a small-town Baptist. Charles is a liberal from Atlanta. And RANEY is the story of their marriage. Charming, wise, funny, and truthful, it is a novel for everyone to love. "A real jewel." RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH


In this paper we present a parametric model for audiovisual quality estimation in IPTV and similar services. The proposed model takes advantage of signal characteristics calculated at the sender (in particular related to levels of motion in the content), but is purely parametric on the estimation (i.e. it does not require peeking into the bitstream), which makes it suitable for large-scale real-time monitoring applications. In order to obtain the model, we followed the Pseudo-Subjective Quality Assessment (PSQA) methodology, and compared different kinds of statistical estimators, namely Multilayer Perceptrons (MLP) and Random Neural Networks (RNN).


New parodic genres have emerged across diverse forms of digital media. Sometimes these parodies take the form of mock "narratives of personal experience," with authors drawing on a range of discursive resources to perform particular identities and in doing so, to create texts written from imagined perspectives. In this article, I focus on parodies of user-generated product reviews on Amazon. For over a decade, Amazon users have contributed thousands of parodies of reviews written about real products. This analysis focuses on a sample from a data set of 100 parodic Amazon reviews written about five different products (which have become the targets of a large number of parody reviews), and demonstrates how authors perform self-disclosure to construct fictional personae. I demonstrate how these discursively-constructed narrative identities are central to the ensuing and improbable narrative events represented in the parodic texts.


Moyshe Nadir [Itskhak Reiz] had been editing and contributing to the humorous newspapers, Der yidisher gazlen, Der kibitser and Der groyse kundes [The Jewish Robber, The Kibitser and The Big Prankster] for several years when a three-volume collection, Humor un satire, appeared in New York in 1912, containing Nadir's earliest satires. Nadir wrote at least thirty of the sketches appearing in the collection, under the names Itskhok Rayz, Moyshe Nadir, Itskhak Ben-Meyer and Rinaldo; some of the other pseudonyms may be his as well. This fertile exuberance and clowning, even at the supposedly authoritative level of declaring authorship, reflects the young Nadir's cheerful, iconoclastic attitude towards the hybrid nature of the American Yiddish-speaking community at the time, and the complexities of writing for such a community. The audience for American Yiddish satire between 1905 and 1914 was an unprecedented mixture of rural peasants, urban workers, small shopkeepers, and radical intellectuals who had once been spread out across the old European continent and who therefore spoke numerous variant forms of Yiddish, but who were now crammed into the shared space of North American cities. Using laughter as a means of simultaneously criticizing and easing assimilation into American culture, Yiddish satirists writing for the new urban American audiences were attempting to fulfill diverse roles, including those previously played in European Yiddish folk culture by Purim players, trickster tales, and the badkhn's [wedding jester] parodies. But they also used laughter to teach the immigrant population and to guide them in their dealings with the complex problems of their newly adopted society. In Bakhtinian terms, the "ambivalent" laughter of folk satire, directed at Jews entering U.S. society, also reaffirmed their participation in it.(1) This article will discuss four of Nadir's early satires in relation to the two distinct traditions of Yiddish and American humor. It will explore how this immigrant literature represents and mediates the interrelation of the two cultures and how it contributes to the development of American Jewish identity within American popular culture. Jewish humor has been an especially successful contribution to American literary and popular culture; indeed, one study found that 80% of the most famous American comedians were Jewish (Janus). In contrast to the Hobbesian belief that humor is largely a matter of dominating and belittling the butt of the joke, Jewish humor, from Sigmund Freud onward, has often been viewed as being self-critical and therefore an indication of "self-hatred," or as "pseudo-masochism serving to deflect or deflate hostility, as internal corrective ... and as ironic reversal (victory through defeat, virtues out of supposed vices)" (Mintz 4). I would like to collapse these divergent definitions into the following: Laughter, even allegedy self-critical laughter, can be one of the most efficient and subversive forms of attacking one's oppressors. Laughing at yourself is laughing at others because the subtext is, "If I can laugh this hard at myself, imagine how loud I can laugh when I think of you." A strong parallel can be found within African American humorous folklore, in which the principal figure is "the weaker individual," who uses superior cleverness to "overcome stronger opponents," often through the use of satire (Cook 111). For many slaves, deception was the only successful form of resistance (Osofsky 26). In the modem era, the ability to turn Jim Crow laws into a joke, often through gallows humor, like Dick Gregory's definition of a Southern moderate as "a cat that'll lynch you from a low tree" (Watkins 502),(2) bears more than a passing resemblance to a similar tradition in Jewish humor that even allows one to joke about the charge of having crucified Jesus. This charge has resulted in centuries of persecution, torture, and death, yet one is able to joke: Little Gerda [says] to little Moishe: "I am no longer allowed to play with you. …


We are progressively approaching the physical limits of microcavity LEDs (MC-LEDs) for high brightness, high efficiency LEDs. They are promising high efficiency devices and they offer the very attractive prospect of full planar fabrication process. However, to compete with other high efficiency LED schemes, they need to approach or surpass the 50 % efficiency mark. We first explore the limits of planar MC-LEDs in both the GaAlInAsP and GaInAlN materials systems, and show that the single-step extraction limit is in the 40 % range at best, depending on the materials system used, with the largest part of the non-extracted light being emitted into guided modes. The waveguided light can itself be extracted by photon recycling, when the internal quantum efficiency is high. Otherwise, another extraction scheme for that light is provided by various photonic-crystal-assisted extraction schemes. Simple photonic crystals (PCs) appear to lack the omnidirectional extraction properties required. However, more rotation-invariant PCs like Archimedean tilings allow to obtain such extraction with added efficiencies already in the 10% range. We discuss the further improvements to such structures.


Author(s): Howell, Robert G. | Abstract: Extensive, urban development of hillside areas in Los Angeles County has created an undesirable human interface with coyotes (Canis latrans). Plentiful, readily available household garbage, pet foods, and water have spawned abnormal numbers of bold coyotes that have adopted residential properties and the human environment as ideal habitat. Consequently, at least six persons have been attacked, including the death of a three-year old child, during the past three years. Selective use of padded steel traps, shooting, and public education are presently being used in problem areas by the Agricultural Commissioner in an attempt to reindoctrinate these predators into returning to their natural habits.


The radiosity method models the interaction of light between diffuse surfaces, thereby accurately predicting global illumination effects. Due to the high computational effort to calculate the transfer of light between surfaces and the memory requirements for the scene description, a distributed, paraUelized version of the algorithrn is needed for scenes consisting of thousands of surfaces. We present several load distribution schemes for such a parallel algorithm which includes progressive refinement and adaptive subdivision for fast solutions of high quality. The load is distributed before the calculations in a static way. During the computation the load is redistributed dynamically to make up for individual differences in processor loads. The dynamic load balancing scheme never generates more data packets than the original algorithm and avoids overloading processors through actions taken by the scheme. CR


Climate warming and resource development could alter key Arctic ecosystem functions that support fish and wildlife resources harvested by local indigenous communities. A different set of global forces - government policies and tourism markets - increasingly directs local cash economies that communities use to support subsistence activities. Agent-based computational models (ABMs) contribute to an integrated assessment of community sustainability by simulating how people interact with each other and adapt to changing economic and environmental conditions. Relying on research and local knowledge to provide rules and parameters for individual and collective decision making, our ABM generates hypothetical social histories as adaptations to scenario-driven changes in environmental and economic conditions. The model generates projections for wage employment, cash income, subsistence harvests, and demographic change over four decades based on a set of user-defined scenarios for climate change, subsistence resources, development, and government spending. Model outcomes assess how scenarios associated with economic and climate change might affect the local economy, resource harvests, and the well-being of residents for the Western Arctic Canadian community of Old Crow, Yukon. The economic and demographic outcomes suggest implications for less quantifiable social and cultural changes. The model can serve as a discussion tool for a fuller exploration of community sustainability and adaptation issues.


Abstract The fate and physiology of individual cells are controlled by protein interactions. Yet, our ability to quantitatively analyze proteins in single cells has remained limited. To overcome this barrier, we developed SCoPE2. It lowers cost and hands-on time by introducing automated and miniaturized sample preparation while substantially increasing quantitative accuracy. These advances enabled us to analyze the emergence of cellular heterogeneity as homogeneous monocytes differentiated into macrophage-like cells in the absence of polarizing cytokines. SCoPE2 quantified over 2,700 proteins in 1,018 single monocytes and macrophages in ten days of instrument time, and the quantified proteins allowed us to discern single cells by cell type. Furthermore, the data uncovered a continuous gradient of proteome states for the macrophage-like cells, suggesting that macrophage heterogeneity may emerge even in the absence of polarizing cytokines. Parallel measurements of transcripts by 10x Genomics scRNA-seq suggest that SCoPE2 samples 20-fold more copies per gene, thus supporting quantification with improved count statistics. Joint analysis of the data indicated that most genes had similar responses at the protein and RNA levels, though the responses of hundreds of genes differed. Our methodology lays the foundation for automated and quantitative single-cell analysis of proteins by mass-spectrometry.


Abstract The study investigates correlates (i.e. demographics, personality, alcohol use and alcohol-related harm, alcohol expectancies, and mental health) of different alcoholic beverage preferences (i.e. beer/alcopops/cider, wine, and liquor/spirits). Data were collected by an online survey during fall 2016. Participants were invited to the survey based on participation in a former survey that was sent to students in Bergen, Norway, in fall 2015. The current sample consists of 5,217 participants. A multinomial regression analysis was conducted, where alcoholic beverage preferences comprised the dependent variable. Several correlates were associated with beverage preferences. For instance, being a woman and the personality trait conscientiousness were inversely related to a preference for beer/alcopops/cider while positively associated with a preference for wine. Preferences for wine or liquor/spirits were positively associated with depression and inversely related to anxiety. Conscientiousness as a personality trait might be a common factor in the relationship between wine preference and favourable health outcomes, and this trait should be controlled for in future studies. The current findings seem contrary to the assumed gender equality in Norway, where the strong association between sex and alcoholic beverage preferences suggests that traditional gender divisions prevail even in the current young and urban sample.


Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges of the magnificent civilizations in ancient history: Persia, Babylon, Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Their followers have learned how to survive foreign attacks and the perils of assimilation. But today, with the Middle East in turmoil, they face greater challenges than ever before. In Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, former diplomat Gerard Russell ventures to the distant, nearly impassable regions where these mysterious religions still cling to survival. He lives alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and others. He learns their histories, participates in their rituals, and comes to understand the threats to their communities. Historically a tolerant faith, Islam has, since the early 20th century, witnessed the rise of militant, extremist sects. This development, along with the rippling effects of Western invasion, now pose existential threats to these minority faiths. And as more and more of their youth flee to the West in search of greater freedoms and job prospects, these religions face the dire possibility of extinction. Drawing on his extensive travels and research, Russell provides an essential record of the past, present, and perilous future of these remarkable religions.


Aim/Purpose This qualitative study was conducted to illuminate the under-researched aspect of doctoral students' career decision-making by examining their internal cognitive processes based on the Cognitive Information Processing (CIP) theory. Specifically, this study compared doctoral students' career decision-making from two career groups, those pursuing the professoriate versus those pursuing careers beyond the professoriate. Background Due to PhD workforce supply-demand imbalances in academic job markets and to a growing interest in careers outside academia around the world, an increasing number of doctoral recipients have pursued careers beyond the professoriate, which are considered non-traditional career paths in doctoral education. While a growing number of studies have investigated these changing trends, it remains limited to fully capture more introspective domains of the career choice processes. Given that the career decision-making experience is highly individualized, it is critical to explore doctorate students' own narratives about career decision-making. Methodology Individual structured interviews were conducted with 30 doctoral students from a public research-oriented university in the United States. Employing Directed Content Analysis, two researchers developed the initial coding categories based on the guiding theory, CIP theory, and deductively analyzed the data to identify emerging major themes. What Matters to Doctoral Students When Making a Career Choice? 616 Contribution Findings from the study highlight the core factors that influence doctoral students' career choices across fields, which allows developing centralized career resources and support systems at the institutional level. Specifically, findings pointed to different approaches for doctoral students to (re-)assess their career choice while providing implications for institutions, academic departments, and individual stakeholders such as faculty advisor and doctoral students, to develop systematic career support in this changing academic job market. Findings Data analysis uncovered three core factors impacting doctoral students' career decision making, which are (1) roles of the first-hand experience in career confirmation/shift; (2) dissimilar career readiness status by group; and (3) impact of personal career values. Recommendations for Practitioners Both institutions and academic departments could reassess the culture and value of career development and refine co-curricular activities to offer adequate professional development opportunities in doctoral training to develop career support systems aligned with students' diversified career needs and interests. As time and first-hand experiences are identified as critical factors facilitating their career progress, doctoral students may want to proactively seek diverse opportunities to gain first-hand experience in and outside campus. Recommendations for Researchers Researchers could continue similar research in other universities and countries where similar concerns exist. These studies would help fully clarify common influential factors on career choices of doctoral students across fields. Impact on Society Considering the realities of doctoral students' diversified career interests and career outcomes, institutes of higher education should make intentional efforts to broaden the definition of "successful" PhD career outcomes, which ultimately helps break the prevailing myth that doctoral students or recipients who pursue careers beyond the professoriate, called nontraditional or alternative career paths, are considered as failures or incompetent. Future Research Future research should consider examining diverse doctoral student populations such as early-stage doctoral students to discover additional factors influencing their career decision-making. The authors also recommend cross-cultural studies in other countries where similar career concerns exist, such as the U.K. and the Netherlands, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how doctoral students' career decisions are made.


Endmember mixing analysis (EMMA) is often used by hydrogeochemists to interpret the sources of stream solutes, but variations in stream concentrations and discharges remain difficult to explain. We discovered that machine learning can be used to highlight patterns in stream chemistry that reveal information about sources of solutes and subsurface groundwater flowpaths. The investigation has implications, in turn, for the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere. For example, CO2-driven weathering of silicate minerals removes carbon from the atmosphere over ∼106-year timescales. Weathering of another common mineral, pyrite, releases sulfuric acid that in turn causes dissolution of carbonates. In that process, however, CO2 is released instead of sequestered from the atmosphere. Thus, understanding longterm global CO2 sequestration by weathering requires quantification of CO2versus H2SO4-driven reactions. Most researchers estimate such weathering fluxes from stream chemistry, but interpreting the reactant minerals and acids dissolved in streams has been fraught with difficulty. We apply a machine-learning technique to EMMA in three watersheds to determine the extent of mineral dissolution by each acid, without pre-defining the endmembers. The results show that the watersheds continuously or intermittently sequester CO2, but the extent of CO2 drawdown is diminished in areas heavily affected by acid rain. Prior to applying the new algorithm, CO2 drawdown was overestimated. The new technique, which elucidates the importance of different subsurface flowpaths and long-timescale changes in the watersheds, should have utility as a new EMMA for investigating water resources worldwide.


'Wellcome History' is an easy and regular channel of communication between all Wellcome historians. It aims to be an informal, user-friendly centre of debate.


A longitudinal study of three discrete online public access catalog (OPAC) design enhancements examined the possible effects such changes may have on circulation and resource sharing within the automated library consortium environment. Statistical comparisons were made of both circulation and interlibrary loan (ILL) figures from the year before enhancement to the year after implementation. Data from sixteen libraries covering a seven-year period were studied in order to determine the degree to which patrons may or may not utilize increasingly broader OPAC ILL options over time. Results indicated that while ILL totals increased significantly after each OPAC enhancement, such gains did not result in significant corresponding changes in total circulation.


Real-time estimations of current and future traffic states are an essential part of traffic management and traffic information systems. Within the Mobile Millennium project considerable effort has been invested in the research and development of a real-time estimation system that can fuse several sources of data collected in California. During the past year this system has been adapted to also handle traffic data collected in Stockholm. This paper provides an overview of the model used for highways and presents results from an initial evaluation of the system. As part of the evaluation process, GPS data collected in an earlier field-test and estimations generated by the existing system used by the TMC in Stockholm, are compared with the estimations generated by the Mobile Millennium system. Given that the Mobile Millennium Stockholm system has not undergone any calibration, the results from the evaluation are considered promising. The estimated travel times correspond well to those measured in the field test. Furthermore, the estimations generated by the Mobile Millennium system can be regarded as superior to those of existing traffic management system in Stockholm. The highway model was found to perform well even with a reduction in the number of sensors providing data. The findings of this study indicate the robustness of the Mobile Millennium system and demonstrate how the system can be migrated to other geographical areas with similar sources of available data.


We present 6.5 years of eddy covariance measurements of fluxes of methane (FCH4) and carbon dioxide (FCO2) from a flooded rice paddy in Northern California, USA. A pronounced warming trend throughout the study associated with drought and record high temperatures strongly influenced carbon (C) budgets and provided insights into biophysical controls of FCO2 and FCH4. Wavelet analysis indicated that photosynthesis (gross ecosystem production, GEP) induced the diel pattern in FCH4, but soil temperature (Ts) modulated its amplitude. Forward stepwise linear models and neural networking modeling were used to assess the variables regulating seasonal FCH4. As expected due to their competence in modeling nonlinear relationships, neural network models explained considerably more of the variance in daily average FCH4 than linear models. During the growing season, GEP and water levels typically explained most of the variance in daily average FCH4. However, Ts explained much of the interannual variability in annual and growing season CH4 sums. Higher Ts also increased the annual and growing season ratio of FCH4 to GEP. The observation that the FCH4 to GEP ratio scales predictably with Ts may help improve global estimates of FCH4 from rice agriculture. Additionally, Ts strongly influenced ecosystem respiration, resulting in large interannual variability in the net C budget at the paddy, emphasizing the need for long‐term measurements particularly under changing climatic conditions.


This paper describes the share of investment in fixed capital and working capital financed by retained earnings using a harmonized dataset from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. The sample includes firms across countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Descriptive statistics are presented for the share of purchases of fixed assets financed with internal funds or retained earnings, the share of working capital financed with internal funds, the ratio between internal funds used for purchasing fixed assets and sales, and annual purchases of fixed assets (as a proportion of annual sales). Also presented are stylized facts exploring how these variables differ by country, firm size, firm age, registration, sector of activity, and ownership. It is found that internal funds are extensively used to finance both purchases of fixed assets and working capital, particularly by smaller firms located in countries with less developed financial markets. Investment in fixed assets represents about 7. 5 percent of sales in the region and is significantly higher among larger and registered firms.


As historically acknowledged in the Reasoning about Actions and Change community, intuitiveness of a logical domain description cannot be fully automated. Moreover, like any other logical theory, action theories may also evolve, and thus knowledge engineers need revision methods to help in accommodating new incoming information about the behavior of actions in an adequate manner. The present work is about changing action domain descriptions in multimodal logic. Its contribution is threefold: first we revisit the semantics of action theory contraction proposed in previous work, giving more robust operators that express minimal change based on a notion of distance between Kripke-models. Second we give algorithms for syntactical action theory contraction and establish their correctness with respect to our semantics for those action theories that satisfy a principle of modularity investigated in previous work. Since modularity can be ensured for every action theory and, as we show here, needs to be computed at most once during the evolution of a domain description, it does not represent a limitation at all to the method here studied. Finally we state AGM-like postulates for action theory contraction and assess the behavior of our operators with respect to them. Moreover, we also address the revision counterpart of action theory change, showing that it benefits from our semantics for contraction.


Electric stimulation was performed on the motor cortex of the human brain in 30 cases of epileptics and then histological investigation was made on the removed specimen of the brain. The extent of the center for the upper limb was relatively wide and the extent of the center for the lower limb was hardly discovered by electric stimulation. In the center of the upper limb, the extent for fingers was the widest and responded by the lowest voltage, then following order of the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder joint. The area anteriorly close to the Rolandic fissure, even if without any motor response to electric stimulation, had mostly the giant pyramidal cells of Betz, especially the area close to the midline had always bigger Betz cells. The gyri anteriorly distant from the Rolandic fissure, even if with motor response to electric stimulation, hardly had the Betz cells. No Betz cells were observed in the responded area of the area 6 and posterior to the Rolandic fissure. From these results the theory seems to be not reliable that the motr response caused by electric stimulation is due to the Betz cells.


ABSTRACT One of the prominent alternating direction implicit (ADI) schemes for numerically pricing financial options, the modified Craig–Sneyd scheme, is put to test for its reliability and efficiency for solving non-trivial problems with empirical market data. The Heston equation for pricing foreign exchange options of European style, a two-dimensional convection–diffusion–reaction equation with a mixed derivative term, is numerically solved for various parameter values observed in the market by employing the said scheme. Numerical stability and convergence issues of this scheme is compared with another popular Hundsdorfer–Verwer ADI scheme. From among a total of 56 options on 8 currency pairs, it is observed that some interesting ones for which the so-called Feller condition is strongly violated, create additional computational challenges. Suggestions on successful implementation of the MCS scheme are made in order to tackle these challenging test cases.


BACKGROUND: Spontaneous supratentorialintracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) has a high morbidity and mortality and places a significant burden on health and social services.The role and timing of operative neurosurgical intervention remain controversial and the practice and timing of surgery continue to be haphazard. METHODOLOGY: Our study was a descriptive study conducted at Civil hospital Karachi, Pakistan. Sample size was calculated. The sampling technique of our study was non probability. The data was collected and analyzed using spssvs 17. Data was observed for any descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: There were 38 males (63.3%) and 22 females (36.7%). The mean age of patients was 52.7 years. 36 patients (60%) had right hemispheric hemorrhage while 24 patients (40%) had left hemispheric hemorrhage. 48 patients (80%) had typical putaminal hemorrhage while 6 (5%) patients had subcortical and 6 (5%) occipital bleed. Regarding the improvement of neurological status, 16 patients (26%) were able to perform daily activities. 9 patients (15%) were able to take care of themselves at home while 07 patients (11%) required partial care. 10 patients (16%) were vegetative and 18 (30%) patients died. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed that early evacuation of large hematoma resulted in short ICU and short hospital stay, less postoperative complications and overall good functional recovery particularly in middle aged and younger patients with non dominant hemispheric hemorrhage therefore early surgical intervention definitely has the role in the management of extensive intracerebral hemorrhage.


Rhetorical questions (henceforth RQs) often express a premise in a logical argument. Although the use of RQs in arguments has been widely noted, the modes of reasoning underlying the arguments have not received sufficient attention. The present study investigates argumentative RQs in the prose dialogue in Genesis through Kings in the light of pragmatic argumentation theory. Two logical forms, modus tollens and denying the antecedent, are identified as accounting for the majority of arguments expressed by RQs. The first type is generally intended to deductively establish its conclusion, while the second, formally invalid form is used presumptively to challenge the addressee to justify his position. There is also a presumptive variety of the modus tollens argument, which is based on a subjective premise. Both modus tollens and denying the antecedent have similar linguistic representations and can be effective means of refusing directives.


Worldwide, approximately 100,000 patients have undergone stereotactic radiosurgery for a variety of intracranial lesions, of which brain metastases represent the most common treatment indication. This article summarizes the major issues surrounding the management of brain metastases, and also analyzes 21 independent reports of Gamma Knife- or linear accelerator-based radiosurgery, representing over 1,700 patients and more than 2,700 lesions. Variable reporting in the studies precludes a definitive, rigorous analysis, but the composite data reveal an average local control rate of 83% and median survival of 9.6 months, both of which are comparable to results in recent surgical reports. The most important prognostic factors for survival appear to be fewer than three lesions, controlled extracranial disease, and Karnofsky performance score (KPS). The exact impact of dose has not been clarified, but a dose-response relationship, especially for > or = 18 Gy, is emerging. The role of whole-brain radiotherapy remains unresolved. It may enhance local control but does not convincingly improve survival and, in some series, is associated with an increased risk of late complications. Chronic steroid dependence and increased intracranial edema do not appear to be common problems. This is an opportune time for the completion of ongoing randomized trials to validate these observations.


Spencer Dimmock has produced a convincing restatement, defence and update of Robert Brenner's influential work on the origin of capitalism in England. The book productively engages with many Marxist and non-Marxist critics of the so-called 'Brenner Thesis', and presents fresh secondary and primary evidence in favour of it. This review sketches the theoretical background of Brenner's intervention, summarises Dimmock's take on Brenner, and comments on a few notable contemporary critiques of Brenner's general framework which are not explicitly engaged with by Dimmock.


The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse from May 1 to July 31, 2008, in Areia county, Paraiba State, PB, Brazil, in order to evaluate the effects of irrigation water salinity on initial growth of the passionfruit seedlings in non-saline substrate with and without bovine biofertilizer. The treatments were distributed in a completely randomized design, with three replications and twelve plants per plots, in a factorial arrangement 5 x 2 x 2, corresponding the former to the levels of salinity in the irrigation water: 0.5; 1.0; 2.0; 3.0 and 4.0 dS m -1 , in soils with and without bovine biofertilizer applied at two moments (25 and 65 days after seedling emergence). The growth of the seedlings and the soil electrical conductivity were evaluated at the end of the experiment. The biofertilizer was diluted in a low saline water at a 1:1 ratio and was applied once two days before sowing, corresponding to 10% of the substrates volume. The increase in water salinity inhibited the growth in height of plants, leaf area and root length, but always to a lesser extent in the treatments with bovine biofertilizer. The increase in electrical conductivity of the irrigation water elevated the soil salinity, independently of the addition of biofertilizer.


The size distribution of cities in many countries follows some broadly regular patterns. Any good theory of city size distributions should (i) be able to account for this regularity, but also (ii) rely on a plausible economic mechanism and (iii) be consistent with other fundamental features of cities like the existence of agglomeration economies and crowding costs. Unlike the previous literature, the model proposed here satisfies these three requirements. It views small innovation-driven technological shocks as the main engine behind the growth and decline of cities. Cities grow or decline as they win or lose industries following new innovations. Formally, this is achieved by embedding the qualityladder model of growth developed by Grossman and Helpman in an urban framework.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to determine whether unemployment and alcohol consumption were associated with different types of crime in Trinidad and Tobago.

METHODS
This study made use of secondary data from the Central Statistical Office of Trinidad and Tobago for the period 1990-1997. Pearson product moment correlations and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used to identify significant predictors of crime.

RESULTS
Unemployment accounted for 69.2% of the variance for serious crimes. Beer available for home consumption explained 64% of the variance for minor offenses, and both unemployment and beer available for home consumption accounted for 92.2% of the variance for minor crimes.

CONCLUSIONS
This study provides information that is potentially useful for developing public policies for unemployment and for the sale of beer for home consumption, both of which are associated with crime in Trinidad and Tobago. Reductions in beer available for home consumption-a major public health concern-would significantly reduce the occurrence of minor offenses in this country. Further research is needed on the relationship between unemployment and crime.


Second-order maximum-entropy models have recently gained much interest for describing the statistics of binary spike trains. Here, we extend this approach to take continuous stimuli into account as well. By constraining the joint second-order statistics, we obtain a joint Gaussian-Boltzmann distribution of continuous stimuli and binary neural firing patterns, for which we also compute marginal and conditional distributions. This model has the same computational complexity as pure binary models and fitting it to data is a convex problem. We show that the model can be seen as an extension to the classical spike-triggered average/covariance analysis and can be used as a non-linear method for extracting features which a neural population is sensitive to. Further, by calculating the posterior distribution of stimuli given an observed neural response, the model can be used to decode stimuli and yields a natural spike-train metric. Therefore, extending the framework of maximum-entropy models to continuous variables allows us to gain novel insights into the relationship between the firing patterns of neural ensembles and the stimuli they are processing.


Feature modeling systems usually employ a boundary representation (b-rep) to store the shape information on a product. It has, however, been shown that a b-rep has a number of shortcomings, and that a cellular model can be a valuable alternative. A cellular model stores additional shape information on a feature, including the faces that are not on the boundary of the product. Such information can be profitably used for several purposes. A major operation in each feature modeling system is boundary evaluation, which computes the geometric model of a product, i.e. either the b-rep or the cellular model, from the features that have been specified by the user. Because it has to be executed each time a feature has been added, removed or modified, its efficiency is very important. In this paper, boundary evaluation for a cellular model is described. Subsequently, its efficiency is compared to the efficiency of boundary evaluation for a b-rep, on the basis of performance measurements and considerations for both. It turns out that boundary evaluation for a cellular model is in fact more efficient than for a b-rep, which makes cellular models even more attractive as an alternative for b-reps.


Introduction Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a rare condition that can be associated with sudden cardiac death. The predictors of mortality in patients with HCM have not been well studied. Objectives The aim of this study is to investigate the predictors of mortality in patients with HCM from a large sample of hospital admissions. Methods Anonymous information on patients with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, co-morbidities and procedures attending large multi-ethnic general hospitals in Manchester, United Kingdom in the period 2000–2013 was obtained from the local health authority computerised hospital activity analysis register using ICD-10 and OPCS coding systems. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 20. Results Out of 1,221,216 patients admitted, there were 253 patients with HCM. The mean age of 55.8 years ± 18.8(S.D) with 63.2% male patients VS 36.8% female patients. The main co-morbidities were Hypertension (86;34.0%), Atrial Fibrillation (69;27.3%), Heart Failure (27;10.7%), Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (24;9.5%), Ventricular Tachycardia (16;6.3%), Defibrillator Implant (16;6.3%). A multi-nominal logistic regression model accounting for variations in age, sex and ethnic group showed that only Atrial Fibrillation (RR3.8;C.I1.7–8.1) and Heart Failure (RR5.0;C.I1.9–13.5) are significant predictors of mortality (p < 0. 05). Conclusion We have shown that Atrial Fibrillation and Heart Failure are significant predictors of mortality in patients with HCM from a large hospital based sample in the UK. This reflects the known complications of HCM affecting mortality. However, it is surprising that Defibrillator implantation does not confer improved mortality. Our improved understanding of these predictors will guide clinicians to focus on these high risk groups to improve clinical practice and outcomes in patients with HCM.


National civil discourse is intricately tied to a unique epistemology – the theory of knowledge and resulting methodologies – of American journalism. The rise of digital technology platforms in a democratic society has resulted in an unprecedented battle for the hearts and minds of a pluralistic people. While the spectrum and veracity of individual opinion appears to have reached its extremes, reliable and truthful sources are rapidly disappearing in the digital age. During the early 20 century, the American press engaged in a rich dialogue within communities and was recognized as a stimulator of public debate. However, a shift soon occurred: The professional journalist attempted to fill the role of the "expert." This phenomenon in the industry marked the beginning of a media reputation soiled by entertainment and consumerism. The evolution of the press has shaped public understanding of facts, and the resulting gravitational pull toward highly subjective versions of truth can arguably be an unfortunate characteristic of modernity.


Megaregional trade negotiations have become the subject of heated debate, above all in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In this article, I argue that the justice of the global order suffers from its institutional fragmentation into regime complexes. From a republican perspective, which aspires to non-domination as a guiding principles and idea of global justice, regime complexes raise specific and important challenges in that they open the door to specific forms of domination. I thereby challenge a more optimistic outlook in regime complexes, which paints a positive normative picture of regime complexes, arguing that they enable the enhancement of democracy beyond the state and, consequently, have the potential to reduce the democratic deficit in global governance. By drawing attention to how regime complexes reinforce domination-related injustice, this article contributes an original perspective on megaregionals and to exploring the implications of global justice as non-domination.


The purpose of this paper is to discuss about the uses of knowledge media technologies to promote open learning in online communities. The "openness" movement has been opening up new opportunites for e-learning such as free access to information, cooperative production, collaborative learning, and broad sharing. Open educational resources and freeware innovative tools provide new strategies for people to learn and work together. The project openlearn developed by OU – UK aims to disseminate widely high quality learning materials and tools for engaging online communities to learn, reconstruct and share knowledge around the world. Openlearn created in platform Moodle integrates three knowledge media technologies: MSG for instant messaging; Flashmeeting for web videoconference and Compendium for knowledge mapping. These three tools can be used to foster online communities for open learming. Teachers, students and researchers can find new peers and keeping in contact. Through knowledge maps they can select relevant network of information, interpret content, reconstruct and share meanings.


Networked control systems under certain cyber attacks are analyzed. The communication network of these control systems make them vulnerable to attacks from malicious outsiders. Our work deals with two types of attacks: attacks on the network nodes and attacks on the communication between the nodes. We propose a distributed scheme to detect and isolate the attacks using observers. Furthermore, we discuss how to reduce the number of observer nodes while maintaining the coverage of the entire network. The results are applied to two classes of networked control systems: a network running the consensus protocol and a power network defined by the linearized swing equation. Sufficient conditions for the existence of the proposed attack detection scheme are provided for the first class of systems. For the second class, we provide a necessary condition for the existence of the proposed detection scheme.


We report directional single mode emission in an InGaAsP semiconductor microcavity laser, which is composed of a circle and an isosceles trapezoid. When exciting a whole cavity, the laser generates a single mode without hopping in two directions over a wide range of continuous injection currents. In the emission spectrum, it is confirmed from the equidistant mode spacing that a scar mode becomes a single lasing mode above the lasing threshold. A numerical analysis of the boundary element method shows that the far-field pattern of the resonance agrees well with that of the experiment.


This article explores how our attachment to nature is formed in our early love relationships and draws on ideas from psychodynamic theory and contemporary research in developmental psychology to explore the development of the self, the importance of attachment, how "splits" have formed between self and nature as a protection against vulnerability, and potential ways forward in dealing with this. The article argues that at the heart of our current ecological crisis are fundamental problems of dependency and vulnerability, resulting for many in an ambivalent attachment to nature. Understanding the complex ways in which humans react to intimacy as a result of early attachment is central to the project of ecopsychology and the ways in which people can help understand and shift the nature of their relationships, both to the planet and with each other. The article concludes by looking at evidence for a securely attached "ecological self" and the potential for developmental models to promote this.


The fact that many of the scales developed in English are translated requires much analysis in order to ensure equality of the scale in terms of culture and language. This assessment gains more importance with increasing language and cultural differences between the source country (where the scale was developed) and the target country. Additionally, there can be differences likely to affect the validity and reliability of the scale, even in cultures that are very similar in terms of level of development, social life, or values. Despite all these difficulties, the use of the adapted scale saves time, increases the generalization capacity of the data collected, and allows scholars to research the similarities and differences between the societies where the measurements are carried out. Also, valid and reliable tools contribute significant findings to measuring the outcomes of nursing care. However, two important questions need to be analyzed carefully before an adaptation is performed. The first question is whether or not the planned adaptation of the scale is truly necessary. The second question is whether or not the suggested scale for adaptation is really the best tool. How people express emotions, thoughts, and behaviors vary between societies. Therefore, any necessary changes should be made during the scale adaptation by taking into account the variable structure. The steps to be followed in the adaptation process are reduced to the following stages through the refinement of many studies by the World Health Organization (World Health Organization [WHO], 2017). These stages are as follows: translation, expert committee assessment, back translation and pilot application. At each stage, there are points that require attention and are presented in the manuscript. This article aims to present information for providing equality of a scale that was adapted into Turkish not only linguistically, but also culturally and conceptually.


Economic theory predicts that home ownership should have a negative effect on risk-taking in financial portfolios. However, empirical work has not found a strong relationship between housing and portfolios. We identify two reasons for the divergence between the theory and data. First, it is critical to distinguish between home equity wealth and mortgage debt, as they have opposite-signed effects on portfolio choice. Second, it is important to isolate variation in home equity and mortgage debt that is orthogonal to unobserved determinants of portfolios. We estimate a model that permits home equity and mortgage debt to have different effects on portfolio shares. We isolate plausibly exogenous variation in home equity and mortgages by using differences across housing markets in average house prices and housing supply elasticities as instruments. Using data for 60,000 households, we find that increases in property value (holding home equity constant) reduce stockholding significantly, while increases in home equity wealth (holding property value constant) raise stockholding. Our estimates imply that the stock share of liquid wealth would rise by 1 percentage point – 6% of the mean stock share – if a household were to spend 10% less on its house, holding fixed wealth. We conclude that housing has substantial impacts on portfolio choice, as theory predicts.


During the damage evolution of bonded joints, different modes of failure can be detected. These modes include pure modes (Mode I, Mode II, Mode III) or their combinations (Mixed-mode) according to the type and the direction of loading. Some scientifically validated test methods are commonly used to obtain the fracture toughness by loading under pure Mode I, Mode II and their Mixed-mode. Some test methods were established to obtain the fracture toughness by loading under pure Mode III, however further research is required. The aim of this work is to clarify the mode ratio of a tubular lap joint under torsional loading and then to propose a method to determine the cohesive and damage parameters of this joint. The presumed mode of failure is Mode III, or Mixed-mode with a predominance of Mode III. Emphasis is placed on the widespread applicability of the obtained results for similar specimens loaded under similar modes.


It is found that data placement on the networked nodes of a cluster based on the shared-nothing architecture (SNA) should align in the physical (i.e. spatiotemporal) space for most geoscience Big Data analysis systems in order to minimize data movements and thus achieve optimal performance and efficiency. This is due to the fact that data analysis in geosciences predominantly requires spatiotemporal coincidence. If individual datasets are considered separately in their placement on the cluster nodes, these systems often have to move data between nodes when an analysis involves two or more datasets. In this paper, we first report our discoveries from a data placement alignment experiment with two Big Data technologies, SciDB and Spark+HDFS, and then elucidate some of the far-reaching implications of this discovery.


Over the last few years, hydrated nickel oxide or hydroxide has gained interest as an electrochromic materiall. It has many important features. First it shows a transparent to bronze coloration which is suitable for a number of architectural, vehicle and aerospace glazing applications. This material is stable in an alkaline environment and colors and bleaches at potentials below 1.0V and below the oxygen and hydrogen evolution potentials. It can be deposited by a wide range of processes, including anodic and cathodic electrodeposition, r.f. and d.c. sputtering, vacuum evaporation, chemical vapor deposition, and solgel processes. In this work we will discuss films made chiefly by anodic electrodeposition. Some of the best characteristics are seen in films made by electrodeposition. The properties of films made by other deposition processes will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Much of the electrochemical knowledge about hydrated nickel oxide comes from studies of metallic nickel electrodes used in batteries. The study of hydrated nickel oxide based electrochromic devices is just emerging, and so far very few devices have been reported2-4. Some of the work by my group on nickel based devices will be outlined later in this chapter.


Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water, Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose, While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter Tells to the night-star her tale of woes. When shall the swan, her death-note singing, Sleep, with wings in darkness furl'd? When will heav'n, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit from this stormy world? Sadly, oh Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping, Fate bids me languish long ages away; Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping, Still doth the pure light its dawning delay. When will that day-star, mildly springing, Warm our isle with peace and love? When will heav'n, its sweet bell ringing, Call my spirit to the fields above?1


Disturbances are key drivers of plant community composition, structure, and function. Plant functional traits, including life forms and reproductive strategies are critical to the resilience and resistance of plant communities in the event of disturbance. Climate change and increasing anthropogenic disturbance are altering natural disturbance regimes globally. When these regimes shift beyond the adaptive resilience of plant functional traits, local populations and ecosystem functions can become compromised. We tested the influence of multiple disturbances, of varying intensity and frequency, on the composition and abundance of vascular plant communities and their respective functional traits (life forms and reproductive strategies) in the wet sclerophyll, Mountain Ash Eucalyptus regnans forests of southeastern Australia. Specifically, we quantified the effect of the type and number of disturbances (including fires, clearcut logging, and salvage logging) on plant community composition. We found that clearcut and salvage logging and the number of fires significantly influenced plant community composition and functional traits. Specifically, multiple fires resulted in lower populations of species that depend on on-site seeding for persistence. This includes the common tree species Eucalyptus regnans, Pomaderris aspera, and Acacia dealbata. In contrast, clearcut and salvage logged sites supported abundant on-site seeder species. However, species that depend on resprouting by surviving individuals, such as common and keystone "tree ferns" Dicksonia antarctica and Cyathea australis, declined significantly. Our data have important implications for understanding the relationship between altered disturbance regimes and plant communities and the respective effects on ecosystem function. In a period of rapid global environmental change, with disturbances predicted to increase and intensify, it is critical to address the impact of altered disturbance regimes on biodiversity.


Food security is a complex issue, linked to availability and access
to food, malnutrition in the population, economic development,
environment, and local and global trade. Malnutrition hinders healthy
growth and proper development of the human immune system affecting
neurological and cognitive development especially in children. Protein calorie malnutrition is a major nutritional problem in many developing
countries. Considering the projected increase of world population to 9
billion by 2050, it is a huge challenge to meet the food and nutritional
security of the growing world. Grain legumes are an important part of
Afro-Asian diet and major providers of protein and calories in this
region. Grain legumes are considered to be a good source of protein,
carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and other compounds that have
significant nutritional arid health-related benefits which would very
effectively address both malnutrition and food insecurity problems.
Under the climate change scenario, there is an urgent need to diversify
the cropping pattern by promoting cultivation of grain legumes due to
their adaptation to different regions and climates. Important legumes
that form a part of our daily diet in various forms include peas, beans,
lentils, chickpea, pigeonpea, soybean, and groundnut. In this chapter
we have briefly highlighted the global trade and economics-related
aspects; and nutritional composition of important food legumes.


Background and Aims
Conventional follow-up of teenagers with inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD] is done during scheduled outpatient visits regardless of how well the patient feels. We designed a telemonitoring strategy for early recognition of flares and compared its efficacy with conventional follow-up.

Methods
We used a multicentre randomized trial in patients aged 10-19 years with IBD in clinical remission at baseline. Participants assigned to telemonitoring received automated alerts to complete a symptom score and send a stool sample for measurement of calprotectin. This resulted in an individual prediction for flare with associated treatment advice and test interval. In conventional follow-up the health check interval was left to the physician's discretion. The primary endpoint was cumulative incidence of disease flares. Secondary endpoints were percentage of participants with a positive change in quality-of-life and cost-effectiveness of the intervention.

Results
We included 170 participants [84 telemonitoring; 86 conventional follow-up]. At 52 weeks the mean number of face-to-face visits was significantly lower in the telemonitoring group compared to conventional follow-up [3.6 vs 4.3, p < 0.001]. The incidence of flares [33 vs 34%, p = 0.93] and the proportion of participants reporting positive change in quality-of-life [54 vs 44%, p = 0.27] were similar. Mean annual cost-saving was €89 and increased to €360 in those compliant to the protocol.

Conclusions
Telemonitoring is as safe as conventional follow-up, and reduces outpatient visits and societal costs. The positive impact on quality-of-life was similar in the two groups. This strategy is attractive for teenagers and families, and health professionals may be interested in using it to keep teenagers who are well out of hospital and ease pressure on overstretched outpatient services.

Trial registration
NTR3759 [Netherlands Trial Registry].


The purpose of this research is an analysis of the static and dynamic stability of the Modular Airplane System (MAS). The MAS is designed to perform suborbital space flights. The concept assumes that two tailless vehicles bonded together form a conventional aircraft where the wing of the second one is used as the horizontal tail of the whole system. The CFD calculations, and the stability and control derivatives were conducted by the PANUKL package, which uses a low order panel method for the aerodynamic analysis. The analysis of the static and dynamic stability was performed by the SDSA package. Only the selected part of the MAS mission was investigated. The results that will be presented have been divided into three parts: static stability, longitudinal dynamic stability and lateral dynamic stability.The MAS has a few possible applications. The first one is a suborbital space tourism flight. Moreover, it can be used as a lunching vehicle for micro satellites or as a testing platform for new space technology to improve their TRL level. Finally, in the far future, it could be used as a fast point-to-point travel system.The paper presents the results of the static and dynamic stability of a unique aircraft configuration which consists of two tailless vehicles. The research focuses on a situation where the vehicles are just before separation and their mass is similar. Moreover, the influence of the second vehicle's position with respect to the first one is included.


This paper is intended to serve several related purposes. First, it is to persuade policymakers and the public in both the United States and the United Kingdom that it is in their respective national interests to enter into a comprehensive bilateral trade and investment agreement. Specifically, the goal is to establish that the type of agreement that will have the greatest positive effect on the economies of both countries is one that removes border barriers and behind-the-border barriers to trade across all sectors of both economies without exception. Second, this paper is intended to provide the intellectual foundation for what limited-government, free-market supporters would consider the ideal free trade agreement (FTA). Third, and ultimately, the objective is to produce the text—the specific language, terms, and provisions—of an FTA that would be more "liberalizing" than any other FTA in the world, and that would be attractive and open to other countries to join.<br>


More young people are participating in organised sport, due to growing physical activity promotion programmes. This may increase the risk of injury in adolescents. The rate of injury in football, in particular at a professional level has increased. There is a lack of literature in Scottish youth football in different aspects of sports injuries. There is a need in sports medicine for a static and dynamic standing balance and proprioception tests to quantify balance ability in adolescents. Although there are many studies focussing on the risk of falls in the elderly there are few studies of balance and measures of proprioception and muscle strength in young and adolescent sports participants.
Young football players were selected as the target population of these studies, because of the growing number of young participants in this popular sport, as well as the vulnerability of this group to sports injury during their growth.
Knee injuries commonly occur during sports activity. The consequences of ACL injury, in particular, are more serious and costly compared to the injuries of other joints. Football players suffer from an increased of knee injuries. In various stages of rehabilitation of the injured athlete after ACL injury a sensitive method of evaluation is required to identify neuromuscular impairment.

This thesis reflects the results of four studies on different aspects of sports injury. The first study, the retrospective epidemiology section, looked at the prevalence of sports injury in youth football players, using a self administered questionnaire as the data collection instrument. The focus of the research was football related injuries, which happened during the season 2002-2003. The subjects of this study were 221 young Scottish football players aged between 12 and 19 years old.

The second or reproducibility study was designed to examine whether the results from one of the main equipment tools utilised in this study were reproducible and consistent. This part of the study aimed to determine the test-retest reliability of one tester dynamic unipedal and bipedal balance in two groups of youth football players and young active adults. A group of healthy active adults (over 19 years old) participated in the first part and a group of younger adults (under 19 years old) participated in the second part of the reproducibility study.

The extension to the second study was designed to compare balance and strength in professional and non-professional players and non-football players.


This report presents an algorithm for accurate recognition of text on a business card, given an Android mobile phone camera image of the card in varying environmental conditions. First a MATLAB implementaton of the algorithm is described where the main objective is to optimize the image for input to the Tesseract OCR (optical character recognition) engine. Then a simplified reduced-complexity implementation on the DROID mobile phone is discussed. The MATLAB implementation is successful in a variety of adverse environmental conditions including variable illumination across the card, varied background surrounding the card, rotation, perspective, and variable horizontal text flow. Direct implemntation of the MATLAB algorithm on DROID proved time-intensive, therefore, a simplified version was implemented on the phone.