School suspensions and expulsions are frequently used throughout U.S. schools as a form of discipline or behavior modification. However, for the last four decades, students of color have been disproportionately excluded from school compared to their White peers. To address this disparity, districts across the nation are now utilizing relationship building interventions such as restorative practices to repair broken relationships in the school community. Schools using restorative practices are generally able to significantly reduce the total number of suspensions; however, racial disparities often remain. Guided by ecological systems theory and critical race theory, this mixed-methods study examined factors that contributed to the persistent discipline-gap at a school implementing restorative practices. Data are drawn from interviews, training observations, classroom observations, instrument data, and pre-post intervention discipline data. As demonstrated in the literature, findings demonstrate an overall reduction in school suspensions during the intervention year. However, the discipline gap remained leaving Black males 1.7 times more likely and Black females 1.3 times more likely to be suspended compared to all other students. Within gender, Black females had three times the suspension risk making the Black female discipline gap greater than the Black male discipline gap. A contributing factor to this racial disproportionality was the race-neutral implementation of the intervention. As a race-neutral intervention, it did not account for the structural and interpersonal factors that sustain racial disparities. Further, findings suggest that punitive discipline policies and variable quality of intervention delivery conflicted with the relationship building aims of restorative practices. In all, an array of social, structural and implementation barriers impacted the intended delivery of the intervention. Implications for intervention research, policy, and school social work practice are discussed.


In this work we seek to identify what we see as a dysfunctional barrier in the development of environmentally and economically sustainable tourism at a local level. Changing shifts in tourism markets have led to the greater importance of sustainable tourism initiatives, which by their very nature will tend to have a locally oriented concept, as opposed to a national or international concept.The methodology used has been to apply the four case studies in such a way as to build evidence of the existence of critical success factors. In this way we seek to develop a general model for strategic evaluation. The case studies are examples of sustainable, heritage tourism operating outside major tourism destinations. We elaborate the view that top-down models tend to suffer from weakened impact, unfocused resourcing and diffusion of organizational energy at the point of delivery, due to the bureaucratic elements present in such models. Equally, bottom-up models tend to suffer from a lack of professionalism and expertise on the local level, where there is insufficient human capacity to address and resource the critical success factors and resolve them in strategic and sustainable manner.


In grappling with COVID-19, the world has been relearning many lessons—from second waves to the importance of mask wearing—from that neglected tutor, the great 1918 ('Spanish') influenza pandemic. For neurologists, 1918 produced an additional unforgettable lesson in postinfectious neuropathology as an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica left cohorts of institutionalised adults living with severe Parkinsonism into the 1970s and immortalised in Oliver Sacks' Awakenings. Mindful of this story, systematic efforts to capture and report neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19 were put in place at the outset of the pandemic and, in contrast to 1918, where a single syndrome predominated, a complex picture including intracerebral haemorrhage, infarction and inflammation is emerging. Our understanding of the links between inflammation, the brain and behaviour has a long and controversial history, particularly in relation to movement disorders. A causal role for H1N1 influenza in the Awakenings tragedy is widely assumed, although in fact the evidence is somewhat circumstantial. In the 21st century, we have the hotly debated, proposed phenomenon of paediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) whose advocates insist on an autoimmune aetiology for many phenomena (particularly obsessive–compulsive disorder and tics) more conventionally viewed as arising from a noninflammatory, polygenic predisposition. Such debates have a lineage back to the wellattested mass outbreaks of 'dancing mania' of the 14th– 17th centuries, where religious fervour was probably more important than postinfectious processes. Against this background, Heyman et al highlight their experience of a marked increase in referrals of young people with severe acute exacerbations of tics during the COVID-19 pandemic, an experience I and anecdotally others share. They strongly favour a functional aetiology for these cases, driven by the introcontrovertable mental health toll on young people of the pandemic and lockdown. If we are to avoid the arid mind versus body, psychology versus cytokines debates that have bedevilled this and related fields for so long, proponents on each side need to generate truly falsifiable hypotheses amenable to experimental testing. In this the 'functional' proponents have arguably had more success recently. For too long, functional diagnoses were seen as diagnoses of exclusion, a last resort when no 'medical' explanation could be found. Such negative framings are rightly criticised by advocates of inflammatory processes as potential sinkholes of medical ignorance. Equally importantly negative framings do not generate testable hypotheses. Increasingly, however, we see functional diagnosis as a process of positive recognition of characteristic features (such as the role of attention in maintenance of signs). In contrast, the PANS hypothesis is now arguably more lacking in truly falsifiable, testable, experimental predictions precisely because it in turn has been framed negatively as a diagnosis of exclusion. A key question for Heyman and others to address is 'why, specifically, tics?' The rather complex picture of post-COVID-19 neurology contrasts with the homogeneity of the encephalitis lethargica phenomenon. One might suggest that phenomenological homogeneity supports a biological process (consider Sydenham chorea) but as with the dancing mania phenomenon of the Middle Ages, 'social contagion' provides another mechanism, and the role of social media highlighted by Heyman et al suggests some directly testable hypotheses that could be the focus of further research in this latest twist in the long story of inflammation and the mind.


The purpose of this paper is to explore the gap between actual and desired decision domains as a potential factor affecting teacher participation in decision-making in Egyptian schools. In order to explore this gap, the study sets out to answer three questions: (1) what would a typology of school decisions look like in Egypt's secondary schools? (2) How do Egyptian teachers perceive actual decisions made in their schools? (3) What decision domains are most desired by Egyptian teachers? The study employed a qualitative, descriptive research approach based on individual, semi-structured interviews with a sample of 85 school teachers and senior and middle management members in nine general secondary schools in Damietta County, Egypt. School documents were also collected and analyzed. These included minutes of meetings of school boards and Boards of Trustees (BOTs). A typology of school decisions was developed which revealed the absence of significant decisions related to curriculum. Teachers' responses showed that they regarded school decisions as insignificant and irrelevant to their concerns, and that significant decisions are retained by central administrators. Desired decision areas were identified which included curriculum and student discipline policy. As this study is consistent with the current interest in decentralization and increased participation in Egypt's schools, it is hoped that the findings will be useful to educational policy makers as well as practitioners as they implement decentralization initiatives in Egypt. The findings may also have relevance and applicability to comparable secondary schools in other parts of the world.


The starting point for the study is concern for the quality of education available to the rural child in Lao PDR. Donor agencies are supporting the Government of Lao in education reform and the study explores how education policy becomes practice in one small, poor, socialist, country. Using a variety of research methodologies based in critical ethnography and including interviews and observations, the study explores some significant discourses that make up the discourse of donor supported education reform. A contention of the study is meanings and ultimately changed practice are generated in action and reaction between constituent discourses, at a number of levels and in a range of contexts. Attention is given to the use and impact of the concept, 'capacity development', in development aid and the study questions the inexplicit manner of its use and its negative connotation. Data inspection for this study is based in Fairclough's procedures for critical discourse analysis, with adaptation to the particular social, political, cultural and language contexts of Lao PDR. The procedure was found a useful tool for following policy into practice at classroom level. The study is also able to question how far either research or policy is emancipatory.


Collimator design is essential for meeting the requirements of high-precision telescopes. The collimator diameter should be larger than that of the target for alignment. Special supporting structures are required to reduce the gravitational deformation and control the surface deformation induced by the mounting force when inspecting large-aperture primary mirrors (M1). A ZERODUR® mirror 620 mm in diameter for a collimator was analyzed using the finite element method to obtain the deformation induced by the supporting structures and adjustment mechanism. Zernike polynomials were also adopted to fit the optical surface and separate corresponding aberrations. The computed and measured wavefront aberration configurations for the collimator M1 were obtained complementally. The wavefront aberrations were adjusted using fine adjustment screws using 3D optical path differences map of the mirror surface. Through studies using different boundary conditions and inner ring support positions, it is concluded that the optical performance was excellent under a strong enough supporter. The best adjustment position was attained and applied to the actual collimator M1 to prove the correctness of the simulation results. Article history: Received 24 November 2015 Revised 18 March 2016 Accepted 29 March 2016


The background to this work is a field study conducted at a Swedish fashion company. In this field study a number of problems were identified which then formed the basis for this study. Many of the company's problems relate to its sizes and crux of the problem is that the company has no measurement charts to use for product development. Measurement charts that could improve the company's work are body measurement charts, where body measurements for different sizes are specified, and grading measurement charts that show the dimensional difference between the various sizes. The purpose of this work has been to develop these charts of measurements for two different types of sizes that the company uses. By comparing three body measurements established by the company, to already existing measurement charts and standards a new measurement chart was developed. To verify the result garments where graded according to the new charts and then evaluated by fitting on the person with the right body dimensions for each size. Fittings showed good results as the garments suited all models, but it also shows the complexity of making the same garment fit several people


"The successful management of transgenic technology is likely to depend on the economic behavioral response of farmers to the regulated use of transgenic crops. A well-studied example is the widespread use of Bt-corn, in the United States, and elsewhere, to control the European Corn Borer, a major corn pest. The extensive use of Bt-corn has led to concerns about the emergence of insect resistance. The United States Environment Protection Agency addressed this potential problem by developing an insect resistance management strategy, based, in part, on complex mathematical models using detailed biological assumptions about the population genetics and life history of the European Corn Borer. However, seed companies and others have sometimes used simpler deterministic profit models to justify the economics of Bt-corn to potential growers. Therefore an over reliance, by regulatory agencies, on complex modeling approaches may obscure the likely economic behavioral response of farmers who rely on these less complex models. However, the determinants of adoption are numerous, profit being one of them. We develop a simple model for the spread of resistance based on the logistic growth equation and use it to investigate the effect of uncertainty on farmer decisions to plant Bt-corn and follow EPA management rules. The model results suggest that planting Bt-corn is an optimal strategy under the type of uncertainty assumed in the model and that short-term economic behavior is likely to lead to the Environment Protection Agency management rules not being followed. Our results add weight to existing work on this problem." Authors' Abstract


Waste and its proper management is a central environmental issue that is currently confronting countries around the world. Uncontrolled waste production and disposal can cause long-term environmental damage to air, water, land, and to the health of humans – most particularly children. Every year, approximately 5.2 million people, including 4 million children, die of waste-related diseases. In Israel, solid urban waste is disposed of primarily in landfills (85%), but the unrecognized Bedouin settlements in the Negev desert do not have access to regular waste disposal. This forces their residents to try and manage their waste themselves by incineration and other unofficial methods such as dumping and use of refuse pits, practices that are proving hazardous to the community's environment and to its health. Our study is part of an extensive project designed to encourage the use of alternative means of waste disposal and technologies for recycling and generating bio-gas and to provide Bedouin women with the knowledge of this technology along with its health benefits. While an earlier study was focused on the adult patterns and perceptions in dealing with environmental waste, this one focuses on those of the community's children, who are active participants in the disposal of domestic waste, and who are therefore also exposed to its hazards. The goal of this study is to develop an elementary school curriculum to provide students with the knowledge and cognitive skills to cope with environmental hazards that they are exposed to in their local environment with an emphasis on waste.


In this paper, the inextricable link between sustainable development and sustainability of the natural environment is pointed out and a heuristic for developing a unique operational definition of sustainable development is proposed. It is argued that if the international community is at all serious about achieving even a modest degree of global environmental sustainability and global sustainable development, determined efforts must be made to reduce consumption by the affluent; that science and technology, however advanced, can only help the process of global sustainable development in a limited way but cannot deliver it; and that moral and ethical education is needed to achieve global environmental sustainability by changing people's attitude to nature and the environment – from one of gross exploitation as at present to that of genuine concern and respect. To this end, a generic outline syllabus, including essential elements of moral philosophy, is proposed for the environmental education of undergraduate engineering students.


The data reveal that emerging markets do not differ from developed countries with regards to the variance of permanent TFP shocks relative to transitory. They do differ, however, in the degree of uncertainty agents face when formulating expectations. Based on these observations, we build an equilibrium business cycle model in which the agents cannot perfectly distinguish between the permanent and transitory components of TFP shocks. When formulating expectations, they assign some probability to TFP shocks being permanent even when they are purely transitory. This is sufficient for the model to produce "permanent-like" effects in response to transitory shocks. The imperfect information model calibrated to Mexico predicts a higher variability of consumption relative to output and a strongly negative correlation between the trade balance and output, without the predominance of trend shocks. The same model assuming perfect information and calibrated to Canada accounts for developed country business cycle regularities. The estimated relative variance of trend shocks in these two models is similar.


The methanolic extracts, infusions, decoctions and hydrosols of six plants were investigated for their total phenolic contents, antioxidant and antimicrobial activities: Mentha piperita (Peppermint), Thymus vulgaris (thyme), Melissa officinalis (lemon balm), Ocimum basilicum (basil), Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) and Salvia officinalis (sage) (Lamiaceae). Total phenolic contents were determined by Folin-Ciocalteu procedure and ranged from 111.03 ± 0.6 (sage methanolic extract) to 19.07 ± 0.0 mg (basil methanolic extract) gallic acid equivalent /g extract. The antioxidant activity was evaluated by two methods, DPPH and phosphomolybdenum assays. The decoction of rosemary showed the highest DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50 = 8.36 µg/mL). The methanolic extract of Peppermint showed the highest total antioxidant activity (241.85 ± 1.9 mg ascorbic acid equivalent /g extract) measured by phosphomolybdenum assay. The antimicrobial activities of herbs were tested against eight bacteria and two yeasts.


We consider the problem of fault-tolerant agreement in a crash-prone synchronous system. We present a new randomized consensus algorithm that achieves optimal communication efficiency, using only O(n) bits of communication, and terminates in (almost optimal) time O(log n), with high probability. The same protocol, with minor modifications, can also be used in partially synchronous networks, guaranteeing correct behavior even in asynchronous executions, while maintaining efficient performance in synchronous executions. Finally, the same techniques also yield a randomized, fault-tolerant gossip protocol that terminates in O(log* n) rounds using O(n) messages (with bit complexity that depends on the data being gossiped).


Strategies for global sustainability and growing the green economy must address current economic models driving today's unsustainable forms of globalisation. Technological innovation is needed to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, recycling and redesign industrial processes. More fundamental strategy levels need re-examining: policy models, assumptions, institutional inertia and cultural values fuelling today's drive toward increasing unsustainability. Conventional economic models still drive such unsustainability: the malfunctioning 'source codes' replicating traditional industrialism worldwide. This study reviews the current scientific debate about the unwarranted pre-dominance of economics in public and private decision-making; whether economics is a science or a profession and the demands by mathematicians, physicists and other scientists that the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economics be delinked from the original Nobel prizes. Scientific research on the human brain and ecosystems now refutes most of economics' core tenets. Multi-disciplinary policies and appropriate metrics beyond money coefficients are needed for steering societies toward sustainability and quality of life.


An accurate calibration of the JET neutron diagnostics with a 14 MeV neutron generator was performed in the first half of 2017 in order to provide a reliable measurement of the fusion power during the next JET deuterium–tritium (DT) campaign. In order to meet the target accuracy, the chosen neutron generator has been fully characterized at the Neutron Metrology Laboratory of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Teddington, United Kingdom. The present paper describes the measurements of the neutron energy spectra obtained using a high-resolution single-crystal diamond detector (SCD). The measurements, together with a new neutron source routine 'ad hoc' developed for the MCNP code, allowed the complex features of the neutron energy spectra resulting from the mixed D/T beam ions interacting with the T/D target nuclei to be resolved for the first time. From the spectral analysis a quantitative estimation of the beam ion composition has been made. The unprecedented intrinsic energy resolution (<1% full width at half maximum (FWHM) at 14 MeV) of diamond detectors opens up new prospects for diagnosing DT plasmas, such as, for instance, the possibility to study non-classical slowing down of the beam ions by neutron spectroscopy on ITER.


This book describes 83 theories of behaviour change, identified by an expert panel of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and economists as relevant to designing interventions. For each theory, the book provides a brief summary, a list of its component constructs, a more extended description and a network analysis to show its links with other theories in the book. It considers the role of theory in understanding behaviour change and its application to designing and evaluating interventions. This website includes a facility to make additions and amendments to the theory descriptions, lists of constructs and network analyses that can be incorporated into future editions. In due course, it will also include a database of the theories which can be searched according to the constructs used. This will be the result of current work which is mapping the constructs across theories, which is a formidable task given >1000 constructs and the work required to assess similarity and difference of construct labels.


In the interpretation of ecological relations problems of understanding frequently occur between scientists or experts
ABSTRACT educated in the West and the local population. As a basis for ecologically sound environmental planning, one that does not bypass the needs of the population, the ways the environment is perceived and evaluated must therefore also be elucidated. A line of research that sets itself the task of analyzing ethnospecific knowledge of the environment and the resulting behavior of traditional societies can be set within the context of geographical "man-environment" concepts, as well as within "studies in ethnoscience," in particular ethnoecological and classificatory approaches. Two examples of knowledge and evaluation of the natural environment are presented in the following: I) The soils in Gorkha from the perspective of the local population (Middle Hills of Nepal); II) Knowledge .and evaluation of the environment among the Chitawan Tharus: the example of the forests and grasslands (Rapti Dun, Churia Range).


The case of Iceland shows that linguistic variation and the formation of a multilingual community are not always seen as an enrichment for speakers that act in an increasingly globalized world, but sometimes suppressed by means of a rigid language policy. The negative attitude towards the use of a linguistic variety that does not conform to the established standard is intimately linked to the history of standardization and the social history of Iceland in general, both of which will be discussed in the present article. It will also be shown that language planning activities have not always been successful in suppressing linguistic variation and that the strictly monolingual policy that has been carried out in Iceland for centuries could not prevent the current development towards multilingual practices.


The development of a thermal imaging device which operates on the principle of differential evaporation (or condensation) of oil on a thin membrane is described. Section I,A summarizes the requirements of any thermal imaging method and develops the theory as applied to the particular case of the Evaporograph, emphasizing the consideration of scene temperatures near 20°C. It is shown that the greatest component of irradiance at the membrane is utilized in the evaporation of the oil layer. A presentation system which forms a visible image based on the phenomenon of light interference to detect differences in the thickness of the oil film is described. Theoretical calculations based on this system, assuming a reasonable minimum detectable thickness difference, indicate that a temperature difference of 1°C in the scene can be detected with an f = 2 optical system. Experimental results confirm this. The application of the Evaporograph to quantitative measurements is indicated. Section I,B describes experimental work on the three components of the Evaporograph, the infrared optical system, the transducer or cell, and the visual optical system. The two commercial models which have evolved from this work are described. These Evaporographs can detect a temperature difference of 1°C from a 20°C background and have a resolution of 10 lines per mm. Various applications are pictured and described.


Key messagesThe monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of activities carried out for REDD+ in Mexico can shed some light on the challenges that could be faced when complying with the provisions of the Paris Agreement and the enhanced transparency framework (ETF) it establishes. Addressing the concerns presented by multiple stakeholders on several levels will contribute to highlighting transparency, in accordance with the ETF.National and subnational stakeholders should make an effort to officially clarify the objectives and scope of the National Monitoring, Reporting and Verification System (SNMRV); and of subnational stakeholder participation (institutional arrangements, times, inputs, outputs, roles, and responsibilities); and how to establish complementariness with other national and subnational monitoring initiatives.The experience and knowledge of subnational stakeholders can improve and enrich MRV in Mexico, since its efforts, interests and needs go beyond the simple monitoring of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that the SNMRV has performed so far.Long-term institutionalization should be ensured for REDD+ and the MRV system at the different government levels to overcome changes associated with political cycles and ensure the continuity of financial, technical and administrative efforts. Given that budget cuts have affected public administration in Mexico, more stakeholders and funding sources (private sector, academia, civil society, foundations) should support technical requirements for MRV and other monitoring initiatives.Interviewed national and subnational stakeholders valued the implementation of the national initiative for the reduction of forest emissions (IRE) through the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and the mechanisms to strengthen subnational stakeholders (such as the Governors' Climate and Forests Task Force, GCF), as well as opportunities to clarify questions on MRV procedures and empower the states for decision-making.


In September 2004 Toronto-based Noranda Inc., one of the world's largest producers of nickel and copper, and China Minmetals Corp., a state-owned Chinese company, announced exclusive talks regarding a potential 100 percent buy-out of Noranda. The proposed friendly takeover was expected to be valued at approximately $7.4 billion USD. The dynamic shifted, however, in mid-November when Noranda announced that the exclusivity period for negotiations had expired and would not be renewed. In early March 2005 Noranda expressed frustration at the continuing lengthy process, which was depressing its share value. At the time, Noranda owned 59 percent of leading Canadian nickel producer Falconbridge Limited. On March 9th it was announced that the boards of Noranda and Falconbridge had unanimously agreed to a merger that would be effected by a share exchange takeover bid by Noranda. The successful amalgamation was announced on June 30th and had the effect of ending Minmetals' interest, as purchasing the merged company would prove too costly. While this factual matrix is seemingly innocuous, Minmetals' proposed takeover of Noranda actually catalyzed an intense controversy that focused on substantive human rights concerns specific to the bidder. Had a final agreement between Noranda and Minmetals been reached, it would have required the approval of the Canadian government. For example, a finalized deal would have engaged Canada's foreign investment review process under the Investment Canada Act. The human rights concerns associated with Minmetals were considered to be of such salience that the federal government, acknowledging its own trepidation, surprisingly announced that these concerns would be taken into consideration during any governmental review of the takeover. Thus far, the proposed Minmetals bid has not been the subject of scholarly inquiry. I hope to offer a beginning point for discussion by exploring certain issues arising from the proposed transaction. This paper proceeds in three parts. The first provides the landscape of the Canadian foreign investment review process by discussing its recent historical background and delineating the mechanics of a proposed foreign investment. Following this is an overview of the human rights issues germane to Minmetals and the resulting public discourse. A puzzling disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality is revealed. Namely, despite the federal government's overtures, it appears that it actually has no legal basis for integrating human rights issues into the review process. Further, while Noranda publicly defended the proposed bid and was dismissive of the broader context at issue, it will be argued that this position was unfortunate and merits reconsideration. In that regard, the balance of the paper attempts to situate the Noranda-Minmetals conundrum within the context of directors' duties owed to the corporation. In particular, employing a progressive construction of the fiduciary duty and the duty of care, it is suggested that the preferred approach would have been for Noranda's board to have incorporated the human rights concerns into its consideration of the proposed bid and any actual bid that may have followed.


Compared with other mammals, reproduction is expected to be particularly costly for European badgers (Meles meles L.) since both the gestation and mating periods occur in the winter when the animals are inactive and feed little. This paper assesses the costs of breeding status in both male and female badgers, in terms of body condition, ectoparasite load, haematology and mortality. By the end of the lactation period (May), breeding females had suffered a marked loss in body condition, although there was no such cost associated with gestation. However, females regained the weight that they had lost by the autumn following lactation. Lactating two-year-olds experienced a higher age-specific mortality than those that did not breed, but there was no difference among older females. No costs of breeding status could be detected among males at the end of the spring mating period. However, breeding males sustained testicular activity later into the summer than non-breeders, and by the autumn they had acquired more bite wounds and become anaemic. This suggests that there was a physiological cost associated with extended testicular activity in breeding males.


This chapter of The No Shelf Required Guide to E-book Purchasing studies how a consortium of thirty-six academic libraries in Oregon took a collaborative, consortium-wide approach to e-book purchasing. The alliance reacted to the threat of individual library e-book purchases limiting resource sharing by creating several teams to investigate and develop a shared e-book program.


A comprehensive investigation of phase diagram, structural and electrical properties of pyrochlores in Bi2O3-ZnO-Nb2O5 ternary system was presented. A thorough and complete literature review was carried out in order to gather background information on bismuth zinc niobate (BZN) phases and related materials. Thus, a better understanding in the phase formation, research problems, electrical and thermal properties of the investigated materials and their potential application is achieved.

BZN pyrochlores and related materials were prepared via conventional solid state reaction at sintering temperatures ranging from 700 oC to 1200 oC using high purity oxides. Analysis and characterization were performed using a combination of techniques including diffraction, microscopy, spectroscopy, thermal analysis and physical property measurements. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used for phase identity and purity determination. Detailed analysis was carried out on single phase materials. The surface structure and morphology were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Structural analysis was carried out using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy and Rietveld refinement using neutron and X-ray diffraction data. Electrical properties were determined by a.c impedance spectroscopy in the frequency range of 5 Hz to 13 MHz and temperature range of ~28 oC to 850 oC. Differential thermal analysis (DTA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were employed to study thermal properties. Other analysis such as inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) and density measurement were carried out on selected samples.

A complete phase diagram including two solid solution areas for cubic and monoclinic phases in BZN ternary system has been constructed. The cubic pyrochlore solid solutions do not include the so-called ideal composition P, Bi3Zn2Nb3O14. It may be described in terms of two compositional variables: ZnO deficiency compared to P together with variable Bi: Nb ratio with general formula, Bi3+yZn2-xNb3-yO14-x-y: -0.11(1)  y  0.14(1) and –0.03(1)  x  0.31(1).

Selected BZN materials have been characterized by a.c impedance spectroscopy. These materials exhibited excellent dielectric properties: permitivity, e' = ~ 80-100, dielectric loss (tan δ) = ~ 0.002 - 0.009 and temperature coefficient, Tcc = ~ 400 ppm/oC, at ~28 oC in the frequency region of 1x105 Hz. Chemical doping was carried out in order to elucidate relative ability of cubic pyrochlore Bi3Zn1.84Nb3O13.84 to accommodate various dopants in forming new solid solutions and in the search for better performance materials. However, chemically doped BZN materials did not show extensive solid solutions limit or significant improvement in electrical properties.
In conclusion two structurally related phases i.e. cubic and monoclinic phases exist in the BZN ternary system. These materials display interesting electrical properties: the cubic phase, P has a large negative temperature coefficient of permittivity while the monoclinic phase, M has a positive value for the temperature dependency. Given the opposite signs of the temperature coefficients of these phases, it may be possible to make composites of P and M so as to achieve controllable or almost zero temperature coefficient of capacitance (TCC) values. In addition both of these phases have high dielectric constants. Hence, these materials have potential applications in high frequency multilayer devices including LC filters and low temperature, co-fired ceramic, LTCC system.


Genetic testing has become a vehicle through which basic constitutional relationships between citizens and the state are revisited, reaffirmed, or rearticulated. The interplay between the is of genetic knowledge and the ought of government unfolds in the context of diverse imaginaries of the forms of human well-being, freedom, and flourishing that states have a duty to support. This article examines how the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States governed testing for Alzheimer's disease, and how they diverged in defining potential harms, benefits, and objects of regulation. Comparison before and after the arrival of direct-to-consumer genetic tests reveals differences in national understandings of what it means to protect life and citizenship: in the United Kingdom, ensuring physical wellness through clinical utility; in the United States, protecting both citizens' physical well-being and freedom to choose through a framework of consumer protection; and in Germany, emphasizing individual flourishing and an unburdened sense of human development that is expressed in genetic testing law and policy as a commitment to the stewardship of personhood. Operating with their own visions of what it means to protect life and citizenship, these three states arrived at settlements that coproduced substantially different bioconstitutional regimes around Alzheimer's testing.


Active harmony provides a way to automate performance tuning. We apply the Active Harmony system to improve the performance of a cluster-based web service system. The performance improvement cannot easily be achieved by tuning individual components for such a system. The experimental results show that there is no single configuration for the system that performs well for all kinds of workloads. By tuning the parameters, Active Harmony helps the system adapt to different workloads and improve the performance up to 16%. For scalability, we demonstrate how to reduce the time when tuning a large system with many tunable parameters. Finally an algorithm is proposed to automatically adjust the structure of cluster-based web systems, and the system throughput is improved up to 70% using this technique.


This paper explores the labor market and schooling effects of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, which provides work authorization to eligible immigrants along with a temporary reprieve from deportation. The analysis relies on a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the discontinuity in program rules to compare eligible individuals to ineligible, likely undocumented immigrants before and after the program went into effect. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we focus on youths that likely met DACA's schooling requirement when the program was announced. We find that DACA reduced the probability of school enrollment of eligible higher-educated individuals, as well as some evidence that it increased the employment likelihood of men, in particular. Together, these findings suggest that a lack of authorization may lead individuals to enroll in school when working is not a viable option. Thus, once employment restrictions are relaxed and the opportunity costs of higher-education rise, eligible individuals may reduce investments in schooling. JEL: J15, J61, J2, J3


Dialogue interpreting is a generic term covering a diverse range of fields of interpreting which have in common the basic feature of face-to-face interaction between three parties: the interpreter and (at least) two other speakers. The interaction consists of spontaneous dialogue, involving relatively short turns at talk, in two languages. It is usually goal-directed in the sense that there is some outcome to be negotiated. The studies in this volume cover several different fields: courtroom interpreting, doctor-patient interviews, immigration interviews, etc., and involve a range of different languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, More and Austrian Sign Language. They have in common that they view the interpreter as just one of the parties to this three-way exchange, in which each participant's moves can affect each other participant and thus the outcome of the event. In Part I, new research directions are explored in studies which piece together evidence of the ways dialogue interpreters actually behave and the effects of their behaviour. This is followed by two studies which discuss traditional interpreter roles - the 'King's Linguist' in Burkina Faso and the Oranda Tsuji, official interpreters employed in isolationist eighteenth-century Japan to ensure contact with the outside world. Finally, issues involved in training are the subject of two chapters relating to Austria and the UK. The variety of aspects and approaches represented in the volume - linguistic, cultural, pragmatic, historical - offer a rich and fascinating overview of the field of dialogue interpreting studies as it now stands.


Embryo biopsy performed in order to obtain a small amount of blastomeres needed for embryo sexing is an invasive method that damages the zona pellucida and therefore decreases the survival capacity of the embryo that is subsequently submitted to cryopreservation. The aim of the present study was to evaluate three biopsy techniques applied in bovine embryos according to their capacity to maintain embryo viability after cryopreservation. Three embryo biopsy techniques (needle, blade and aspiration) were applied on 120 bovine embryos divided into 3 batches (n=40) in order to harvest the blastomeres needed for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) embryo sexing. After the biopsy, the embryos were frozen/thawed using the one step method with ethylene glycol and then transferred into synchronized recipients. DNA was extracted from blastomeres and amplified using bovine Y-chromosome specific primers, in order to determine the sex of the embryo. The pregnancy diagnosis and the assessment of pregnancy rate were performed 30 days after transfer using an ultrasound scanner. There was a significant difference in pregnancy rates according to the biopsy method used: 55% for the needle biopsy, 45% for the aspiration method and 30% for the microblade technique. The accuracy of the PCR sexing method was comparable in all batches, and therefore was not influenced by the biopsy method. The needle method of embryo biopsy proved to be the most suitable as it yielded the highest pregnancy rates and can be successfully applied when harvesting blastomeres for embryo sexing.


This paper provides new evidence on what types of individuals are most likely to choose a defined contribution (DC) plan over a defined benefit (DB) plan. Making use of administrative data from the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) of Illinois, we study the decisions of nearly 50,000 new employees who make a one-time, irrevocable choice between a traditional DB plan, a portable DB plan, and an entirely self-managed DC plan. Because the SURS-covered earnings of these employees are not covered under the Social Security system, their choices provides insight into the DB vs. DC preferences of individuals with regard to a primary source of their retirement income. We find that a majority of participants fail to make an active decision and are thus defaulted into the traditional DB plan after 6 months. We also find that those individuals who are most likely to be financially sophisticated are most likely to choose the self-managed DC plan, despite the fact that, given plan parameters, the DC plan is inferior to the portable DB plan under reasonable assumptions about future financial market returns. We discuss both rational and behavioral reasons that might explain this finding.


The dynamics of light scattering by minerogenic particles in the upper waters of Cayuga Lake, New York, were characterized for the spring—autumn interval of 8 yr (1999–2006) at pelagic and nearshore sites with a scanning electron microscope interfaced with automated image and x‐ray analyses (SAX). SAX results were used to estimate the minerogenic scattering coefficient (bm) through Mie theory calculations. SAX—Mie supported a two‐component model for particulate scattering (bp) that included an organic component of scattering (bo), estimated from a bio‐optical model. The credibility of the bm estimates and the two‐component modeling approach was demonstrated through good closure of the modeling results with bulk values of bp (estimated from measurements of the beam attenuation coefficient at 660 nm). The average of the ratio bp : (bm + bo) was 1.03 (average relative error 19.4%). Two minerogenic particle types were important in regulating the dynamics of bm—clay minerals that increased in concentration in response to runoff events, and calcium carbonate precipitated mostly on small organic particles during short‐term late‐summer whiting events. bm was attributed to particles in the size range of 1–10 µm. Variations in bm dominated the overall variations in bp and Secchi disk depth; differences in bo explained well those observed in bp during dry weather intervals of low bm. Higher bm values, mainly associated with clay mineral particles, were observed at the nearshore site as opposed to the pelagic location; there was a positive linkage between these levels and tributary flow rate.


Dementia is a growing problem in the world; not only for those with the disease, but also for their families, friends, and caregivers. Adult day services can provide much needed respite for caregivers of people with dementia. This systematic review was devised to answer the question: what are the benefits of and how effective is adult day services as a form of respite for caregivers of persons with dementia? Searches for peer reviewed articles in SocINDEX, Social Work Abstracts, PsycINFO, and PubMed were performed using the terms "adult day services" or "adult day care" or "adult day health care" AND "caregiver respite" or "respite care" or "caregiver" or "carer" AND "dementia" or "Alzheimer's disease". After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, 10 articles remained and were reviewed. Seven themes emerged from the literature after review, and these included: 1) role overload, 2) care related stressors, 3) mood, 4) health, 5) relationships, 6) cost, and 7) symptoms management. These themes pointed to the benefits that caregivers gain from using adult day services as respite and suggest that adult day services can be an effective form of respite. Future research on this topic should include research regarding the impacts adult day services as respite can have on caregiver depression, economic status/stress, physical health, and caregiver's use of respite time. Adult day service agencies can use the findings from this research in order to provide services that can benefit caregivers the most.


Aims. The Rosetta space probe accompanied comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for more than two years, obtaining an unprecedented amount of unique data of the comet nucleus and inner coma. This has enabled us to study its activity almost continuously from 4 au inbound to 3.6 au outbound, including the perihelion passage at 1.24 au. This work focuses identifying the source regions of faint jets and outbursts and on studying the spectrophotometric properties of some outbursts. We use observations acquired with the OSIRIS/NAC camera during July–October 2015, that is, close to perihelion.
Methods. We analyzed more than 2000 images from NAC color sequences acquired with 7–11 filters covering the 250–1000 nm wavelength range. The OSIRIS images were processed with the OSIRIS standard pipeline up to level 3, that is, converted in radiance factor, then corrected for the illumination conditions. For each color sequence, color cubes were produced by stacking registered and illumination-corrected images.
Results. More than 200 jets of different intensities were identified directly on the nucleus. Some of the more intense outbursts appear spectrally bluer than the comet dark terrain in the visible-to-near-infrared region. We attribute this spectral behavior to icy grains mixed with the ejected dust. Some of the jets have an extremely short lifetime. They appear on the cometary surface during the color sequence observations, and vanish in less than some few minutes after reaching their peak. We also report a resolved dust plume observed in May 2016 at a resolution of 55 cm pixel−1, which allowed us to estimate an optical depth of ~0.65 and an ejected mass of ~2200 kg, assuming a grain bulk density of ~800 kg m−3. We present the results on the location, duration, and colors of active sources on the nucleus of 67P from the medium-resolution (i.e., 6–10 m pixel−1) images acquired close to perihelion passage. The observed jets are mainly located close to boundaries between different morphological regions. Some of these active areas were observed and investigated at higher resolution (up to a few decimeter per pixel) during the last months of operations of the Rosetta mission.
Conclusions. These observations allow us to investigate the link between morphology, composition, and activity of cometary nuclei. Jets depart not only from cliffs, but also from smooth and dust-covered areas, from fractures, pits, or cavities that cast shadows and favor the recondensation of volatiles. This study shows that faint jets or outbursts continuously contribute to the cometary activity close to perihelion passage, and that these events are triggered byillumination conditions. Faint jets or outbursts are not associated with a particular terrain type or morphology.


Abstract This study estimated technical efficiencies on rice farms in Osun State, Nigeria, and identified some socioeconomic factors, which influence productive efficiency. These technical efficiencies were estimated using the stochastic frontier production function approach applied to primary data. A translog production function was used to represent the production frontier of the rice farms. The study showed that the levels of technical efficiency ranged from 29.4% to 98.2% with a mean of 86.6%, which suggests that average rice output falls 13.4% short of the maximum possible level. Therefore in the short run there is scope to increase technical efficiencies on rice farms in the study area. The study also showed that these efficiencies are positively and significantly correlated with the application of traditional preparation methods, and with off-farm income.


"Antennas in Matter" provides both an introduction to and a comprehensive description of the properties of antennas and probes embedded within or near material bodies such as the earth, the ocean, or a living organism.The theory and application of antennas designed to transmit and receive information between points above the earth's surface are for the most part well understood. This book presents a full treatment of a sequence of research that has become increasingly important in recent years--the use of "underground antennas" for communication with miners and subway trains and for the geophysical exploration of the earth's crust; "underwater antennas"; "antennas embedded in or near living organisms" for biomedical and diagnostics in tissue and layered media with electromagnetic properties as diverse as those of fat, muscle, and bone.The book has been designed to serve a dual purpose: the first and third parts, covering fundamentals and measurements, form a self-contained introduction for undergraduates and researchers in geophysics and bioengineering; the second part provides a detailed presentation of the theory for graduate students and researchers in electrical engineering and physics. The approach integrates analytical, numerical, and experimental methods for the solution of a variety of problems involving antennas and electromagnetic wave propagation in or near matter.


Abstract New data are presented on the classic growth structure at Sant Llorenç de Morunys (NE Ebro Basin, Spain). During the late Eocene to Oligocene thick alluvial-fan gravel sediments accumulated principally by repetitive sub-aerial mass flow (cohesionless debris flow and fluidal sediment flow) events, with smaller volumes of fan-stream flows. Subaerial, high-viscosity (cohesive) debris flows contributed comparatively small volumes of sediment to the succession. These sediments constructed a complex architecture of conglomeratic and sandstone-bearing lithosomes that were affected by stratal thickening and erosion across a growth fold pair and genetically related internal unconformities, which formed a long-lived thrust-related structure in the immediate footwall of the SE Pyrenean mountain front. Four periods of evolution for the Sant Llorenç growth structure are defined on the basis of distinctive stratigraphical architecture. These describe a gross evolution from onlapping to overlapping growth strata, related to the ultimate demise of growth folding. In detail complex erosional and offlapping events punctuated the growth history, which shows extreme variation parallel to the axis of the structure. Patterns of palaeoflow were highly complex, showing distinct axial and transverse directions relatable to growth fold evolutionary periods. Palaeocurrents are considered to have been deflected and diverted by surficial differential subsidence and areas of relative uplift and erosion generated by fold growth. The complexity of sediment dispersal is compounded by variables intrinsic to alluvial fan environments. The Sant Llorenç de Morunys growth strata provide information on how sediments are reorganized by syndepositionally-growing structures and on the nature of sediment distribution between external fold-and-thrust belts and foreland basins.


In the end of summer 2012, the town of Nove, (located near Bassano del Grappa in Northeast Italy and a famous centre of ceramic production) hosted the exhibition Forward Archeologies/Archeologia del Divenire. The works by the New York artist Steven Montgomery were displayed in the beautiful setting of the old Mulino Pestasassi mill. In Italy there are amazing venues to present artwork.


How should we understand the federal government's response to the financial crisis? The government's team, largely staffed by investment bankers, pushed the limits of its statutory authority to authorize an ad hoc series of deals designed to mitigate that crisis. It then decided to seek comprehensive legislation that, as it turned out, paved the way for more deals. The result has not been particularly coherent, but it has married transactional practice to administrative law. In fact, we think that regulation by deal provides an organizing principle, albeit a loose one, to the government's response to the financial crisis. Dealmakers use contract to avoid some legal constraints, and often prefer to focus on arms-length negotiation, rather than regulatory authorization, as the source of legitimacy for their actions, though the law does provide a structure to their deals. They also do not always take the long view or place value on consistency, instead preferring to complete the latest deal at hand and move to the next transaction. In this paper, we offer a first look at the history of the financial crisis from the fall of Bear Stearns up to, and including, the initial implementation of the Economic Emergency Stability Act of 2008. We analyze in depth each deal the government concluded, and how it justified those deals within the constraints of the law, using its authority to sometimes stretch but never truly break that law. We consider what the government's response so far means for transactional and administrative law scholarship, as well as some of the broader implications of crisis governance by deal.


Several relaxations of envy-freeness, tailored to fair division in settings with indivisible goods, have been introduced within the last decade. Due to the lack of general existence results for most of these concepts, great attention has been paid to establishing approximation guarantees. In this work, we propose a simple algorithm that is universally fair in the sense that it returns allocations that have good approximation guarantees with respect to four such fairness notions at once. In particular, this is the first algorithm achieving a (φ−1)-approximation of envy-freeness up to any good (EFX) and a 2/φ+2 -approximation of groupwise maximin share fairness (GMMS), where φ is the golden ratio. The best known approximation factor, in polynomial time, for either one of these fairness notions prior to this work was 1/2. Moreover, the returned allocation achieves envy-freeness up to one good (EF1) and a 2/3-approximation of pairwise maximin share fairness (PMMS). While EFX is our primary focus, we also exhibit how to fine-tune our algorithm and improve further the guarantees for GMMS or PMMS.Finally, we show that GMMS—and thus PMMS and EFX—allocations always exist when the number of goods does not exceed the number of agents by more than two.


A Study of Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Sorbent Particles Nagendra Krishnamurthy This dissertation presents a detailed account of the study undertaken on the subject of heat and mass transfer phenomena in porous media. The current work specifically targets the general reactiondiffusion systems arising in separation processes using porous sorbent particles. These particles are comprised of pore channels spanning length scales over almost three orders of magnitude while involving a variety of physical processes such as mass diffusion, heat transfer and surface adsorptiondesorption. A novel methodology is proposed in this work that combines models that account for the multi-scale and multi-physics phenomena involved. Pore-resolving DNS calculations using an immersed boundary method (IBM) framework are used to simulate the macro-scale physics while the phenomena at smaller scales are modeled using a 'sub-pore modeling' technique. The IBM scheme developed as part of this work is applicable to complex geometries on curvilinear grids, while also being very efficient, consuming less than 1% of the total simulation time per timestep. A new method of implementing the conjugate heat transfer (CHT) boundary condition is proposed which is a direct extension of the method used for other boundary conditions and does not involve any complex interpolations like previous CHT implementations using IBM. Detailed code verification and validation studies are carried out to demonstrate the accuracy of the developed method. The developed IBM scheme is used in conjunction with a stochastic reconstruction procedure based on simulated annealing. The developed framework is tested in a two-dimensional channel with two types of porous sections – one created using a random assembly of square blocks and another using the stochastic reconstruction procedure. Numerous simulations are performed to demonstrate the capability of the developed framework. The computed pressure drops across the porous section are iii compared with predictions from the Darcy-Forchheimer equation for media composed of different structure sizes. The developed methodology is also applied to CO2 diffusion studies in porous spherical particles of varying porosities. For the pore channels that are unresolved by the IBM framework, a sub-pore modeling methodology developed as part of this work which solves a one-dimensional unsteady diffusion equation in a hierarchy of scales represented by a fractal-type geometry. The model includes surface adsorptiondesorption, and heat generation and absorption. It is established that the current framework is useful and necessary for reaction-diffusion problems in which the adsorption time scales are very small (diffusion-limited) or comparable to the diffusion time scales. Lastly, parametric studies are conducted for a set of diffusion-limited problems to showcase the powerful capability of the developed methodology.


Traditionally, network security (firewalls to block unauthorized users, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)?to keep attackers out, Web filters to avoid misuse of Internet browsing, and antivirus software to block malicious programs) required separate boxes with increased?cost and complexity. Unified Threat Management (UTM)?makes network security less complex, cheaper, and more effective by consolidating all these components. This book explains the advantages of using UTM and how it works, presents best practices on deployment, and is a hands-on, step-by-step guide to deploying Fortinet's FortiGate in the enterprise.?

Provides tips, tricks, and proven suggestions and guidelines to set up FortiGate implementations
Presents topics that are not covered (or are not covered in detail) by Fortinet's documentation
Discusses hands-on troubleshooting techniques at both the project deployment level and technical implementation area

Table of Contents

Foreword Introduction Part I: General Introduction Chapter 1: Introduction to Unified Threat Management (UTM) Chapter 2: FortiGate Hardware Platform Overview Chapter 3: FortiOS Introduction Part II:?UTM Technologies Explained Chapter 4: Connectivity and Networking Technologies Chapter 5: Base Network Security Chapter 6: Application Security Chapter 7: Extended UTM Functionality Chapter 8: Analyzing Your Security Information with FortiAnalyzer Chapter 9:?Managing Your Security Configurations with FortiManager? Part III: Implementing a Security (UTM) Project Chapter 10: Designing a Security Solution Chapter 11: Security on Distributed Enterprises/Retail (UTM Goes Shopping) Chapter 12: Security on Financial Institutions (UTM Goes to the Bank) Appendix A: Troubleshooting the Project Appendix B: Troubleshooting Technically


Abstract Various approximations involving computer simulation, and the ab initio assumption of a suitable probability distribution prior to simulation, have been suggested in the literature for determining the critical crack spacing at saturation in the substrate plastic straining test for films or coatings on metallic substrates, i.e when the detachment of films from substrate occurs. An experimental investigation of silicon modified DLC films on steel substrates (304 stainless and mild steel) has employed a simple statistical procedure which reveals a very good match between the saturation crack spacing frequency distribution and the two parameter Weibull distribution function. This allows faster determination of the mean crack spacing distribution and eliminates the need for a further computer simulation stage in the analysis as is currently adopted in the literature. The approach reported is simpler and is applicable to the treatment of crack spacing frequency distributions matching other probability functions.


Mechanistic insight into a C–H hydroxylation reaction catalysed by [(Me3tacn)RuCl3] has been obtained using desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (DESI-MS) to identify reactive intermediates and to determine the fate of the starting metal complex. Our studies provide direct evidence for the formation of a high-valent dioxo-Ru(VI) species, which is believed to be the active oxidant. Other unexpected Ru-oxo intermediates, however, have been identified and may also function as competent hydroxylating agents. Mass spectral data that substantiate putative mechanisms for catalyst arrest and highlight reactivity differences between [(Me3tacn)RuCl3] and the corresponding tribromide adduct are also described.


What constitutes a history? Is this term to be restricted to the works of recognized historians? Or can information about the past gained through dreams, spirit possession rituals, or dancing performances also count as histories? Instead of dismissing such productions as "myth" or "religion," Charles Stewart contends in Dreaming and Historical Consciousness that our definition of history must be widened. This move is crucial in a global setting where alternative historical practices require appreciation as systems of thought rather than rejection as inferior types of knowledge. Villagers on the Greek island of Naxos have long experienced dreams of saints directing them to dig up buried objects. These dreams impelled the villagers to become both archaeologists and historians striving to uncover a past that would alter their future. Dreaming and Historical Consciousness elucidates these dreams of the past-present-future in terms of local cosmology and theorizes them as existential expressions of the struggle for agency. This ethnography of historical consciousness offers new insight into how people imagine the past, consciously and unconsciously, in daily life.


The aim of the study is to analyze the influence of combination of pyrimidine and 3-hydroxypyridine derivatives — xymedon and mexidol, in comparison with kardioxane on the myocardial bioelectric activity and arterial pressure level in rats with Walker-256 carcinoma at the doxorubicin and paclitaxel chemotherapy. Material and Methods. Experiments have been carried out on 100 Wistar female rats of weight of 150-250 grams. Doxorubicin and paclitaxel were administered intraperitoneally in a dosage of 4mg/kg and 6mg/kg respectively on the 11th day of experiment. Xymedon (100mg/kg) and mexidol (50mg/kg) were administered separately and in combination with each other, starting with the 11th day of experiment for 10 days. Kardioxane was injected in the dosage of 80mg/kg 20 min before cytostatics. We estimated a myocardial bioelectric activity and arterial pressure level changes on the 11th and 22d day of the experiment. The results. Xymedon and mexidol combination has limited the development of myocardial electrical instability comparable to kardioxane action. This combination has prevented the appearance of metabolic changes of ischemic genesis in the heart more efficiently than kardioxane. Xymedon and mexidol have normalized QT interval dispersion corrected by heart rate less efficiently than kardioxane. Conclusion. The combination of xymedon and mexidol has reduced cardiotoxicity of antitumor therapy more efficiently than the separated use of these medicines or the use of cardioxane.


Australia's vibrant but largely-invisible history of international solidarity dates from the time of colonial occupation in 1788. The first documented experiences featured Irish political prisoners deported as slave labour to Australia—"convicts" in colonial terminology—linking up with Aboriginal warriors fighting native extermination to wage a guerrilla war against their common enemy, the land-hungry English colonialists. Three iconic episodes capture this popular rebellious tradition: the Eureka Stockade, a miners' uprising at Ballarat against the colonial government in 1854, which flew the Southern Cross flag later adopted by construction unions, the republican movement and solidarity brigades to the Cuban Revolution; popular rejection of military conscription and refusal to fight for British imperialism in World War I; and Australia's provision of one of the largest per capita contingents in the International Brigade which fought for the Republic against fascism during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Against that background, the transition to solidarity struggles fought at the political rather than military level came readily to the Left, once the Arctic winds of military dictatorship began to freeze the decolonization and socialist projects in much of Latin America, in the wake of US-sponsored military coups in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), and Chile (1973).


We use SDSS+GALEX+Galaxy Zoo data to study the quenching of star formation in low-redshift galaxies. We show that the green valley between the blue cloud of star-forming galaxies and the red sequence of quiescent galaxies in the colour-mass diagram is not a single transitional state through which most blue galaxies evolve into red galaxies. Rather, an analysis that takes morphology into account makes clear that only a small population of blue early-type galaxies move rapidly across the green valley after the morphologies are transformed from disc to spheroid and star formation is quenched rapidly. In contrast, the majority of blue star-forming galaxies have significant discs, and they retain their late-type morphologies as their star formation rates decline very slowly. We summarize a range of observations that lead to these conclusions, including UV-optical colours and halo masses, which both show a striking dependence on morphological type. We interpret these results in terms of the evolution of cosmic gas supply and gas reservoirs. We conclude that late-type galaxies are consistent with a scenario where the cosmic supply of gas is shut off, perhaps at a critical halo mass, followed by a slow exhaustion of the remaining gas over several Gyr, driven by secular and/or environmental processes. In contrast, early-type galaxies require a scenario where the gas supply and gas reservoir are destroyed virtually instantaneously, with rapid quenching accompanied by a morphological transformation from disc to spheroid. This gas reservoir destruction could be the consequence of a major merger, which in most cases transforms galaxies from disc to elliptical morphology, and mergers could play a role in inducing black hole accretion and possibly active galactic nuclei feedback.


Green hydrogen can decarbonize transportation, but also help to integrate variable renewable energy sources if its production is sufficiently flexible in time. Using an open-source co-optimization model of the power sector and four supply chains for hydrogen at filling stations, we find a trade-off between energy efficiency and temporal flexibility: for lower shares of renewables and hydrogen, more energy-efficient decentralized electrolysis is optimal. For higher shares of renewables and/or hydrogen, more flexible centralized hydrogen supply chains gain importance as they allow disentangling hydrogen production from demand via storage. Liquid hydrogen emerges as particularly beneficial, followed by liquid organic hydrogen carriers and gaseous hydrogen. Centralized hydrogen supply chains can deliver substantial power sector co-benefits, mainly through reduced renewable surplus generation. Energy modelers and system planners should consider the flexibility characteristics of hydrogen supply chains in more detail when assessing the role of green hydrogen in future energy transition scenarios.


Routes for the synthesis of racemic myo-inositol
1,2,4,5-tetrakisphosphate
DL-Ins(1,2,4,5)P4
5ab and the chiral antipodes D- and
L-myo-inositol
1,2,4,5-tetrakisphosphate 5a and 5b, respectively, are described. For
the synthesis of racemate 5ab,
3,6-di-O-benzoyl-1,2:4,5-di-O
-isopropylidene-myo-inositol 7ab is prepared in two
steps from myo-inositol. The ketals are hydrolysed
under acidic conditions to give
DL-1,4-di-O-benzoyl-
myo-inositol 8ab. Phosphitylation of compounds 8ab using
chloro(diethoxy)phosphine in the presence of base, followed by oxidation
and a three-step deprotection strategy, gives
DL-Ins(1,2,4,5)P4
5ab.The chiral tetrakisphosphates 5a and 5b are synthesized using a
different route. The 4,5-isopropylidene group of
DL-3,6-di-O
-benzyl-1,2:4,5-di-O-isopropylidene-myo
-inositol 13ab are selectively removed under mild acidic conditions
to give diol 14ab. p-Methoxybenzylation at the
4,5-positions followed by acid hydrolysis of the
cis-isopropylidene ketal affords
cis-diol 16ab. Selective coupling of
(S)-(+)-O
-acetylmandelic acid with diol 16ab at the equatorial hydroxy group
provides two diastereoisomers 18 and 19, which are separated by
chromatography. Basic hydrolysis of the individual diastereoisomers
provides the enantiomers 16a and 16b. Acidic hydrolysis gives
D- and
L-3,6-di-O-benzyl-
myo-inositol 20a and 20b, respectively. Phosphitylation and
oxidation of tetraols 20a and 20b gives the fully blocked derivatives,
which are deprotected to give tetrakisphosphates 5a and 5b,
respectively. The absolute configuration of compound 20a is established
by a chemical method.
DL-1,2:4,5-Di-O
-isopropylidene-myo-inositol 12ab is coupled to
(S)-(+)-O
-acetylmandelic acid to give a mixture of bis-esters 26 and 27 and
crystallisation of the mixture of diastereoisomers affords pure isomer
27. Basic hydrolysis gives the pure enantiomer 12a (for which the
absolute configuration is known) and benzylation followed by acid
hydrolysis gives tetraol 20a with the same physical properties as
compound 20a prepared by a different route described previously.
D-Ins(1,2,4,5)P4
5a is a potent mobiliser of intracellular Ca2+
ions in permeabilised platelets, while
L-Ins(1,2,4,5)P4
5b is inactive.


Reprint of the original Latin text Tentamina semiologica, sive quaedam generalem theoriam signorum spectantia (1789), edited, translated and with an Introduction by Robert E. Innis The 33 sections of this classic text by Hoffbauer have a twofold focus: a descriptive inventory of signs, and a comparison of the expressive and cognitive powers of different sign systems. Using his sign typology as a point of departure, Hoffbauer inquires into the elements of matter and form both necessary and adequate to arrive at a definition of the sign. His purpose in doing so is to present his own version of a general sign theory after pointing out significant errors and weaknesses in the characteristicae universalis of Leibniz, Becher, Toennis, Kalmar, etc. Against the background of criticism of the contemporary deductive sign theories of Lambert, Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Daries, Wilkins, Kircher and others, Hoffbauer's general semiology gives shape to an outline of a deductive-hypothetical theory of signs. In this historical perspective, Hoffbauer's semiology is of outstanding importance and provides the opportunity to think through once again central and permanent problems of the general science of signs.


The goal of the proposed work was to analyze the aerodynamic performance of a Skydio 6 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as a supplementary tool for bridge girder inspections. The use of UAVs has become more attractive due to their ability to gather critical information in less time and at a lower cost when compared to traditional bridge girder inspection techniques. In pursuit of this goal, the present work presents aerodynamic performance evaluation results via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of a Skydio 2 UAV for bridge girder inspection. The study is implemented using the commercially available CFD solver, ANSYS FLUENT (v. 19). The evaluation study utilized an unstructured tetrahedron meshing technique throughout the numerical analysis, with a standard k-epsilon turbulence model. The Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) model was also used to model the rotation of the propellers toward their local reference frame at 6000 revolutions per minute (RPM). This paper presents the numerical modeling methodology as well as a discussion of parametric results. The parametric results presented show reliable moment coefficient and thrust making the Skydio 2 UAV suitable for bridge inspection.


Herbarium ZAGR of the Faculty of Agriculture (Zagreb) is the youngest registered herbarium in Croatia. Currently the collection has estimated from 7.500 to 10.000 herbarium sheets of vascular plants, especially rich in specimens from the Adriatic part of Croatia, Balkan territories and other Mediterranean areas. Currently the ZAGR collection has 1275 plant taxa and covers 25% of Croatian national flora. The families with the largest number of herbarium specimens are Poaceae, Fabaceae and Asteraceae. A total of 1655 herbarium sheets are digitalised and are accessible online throughout ZAGR Virtual Herbarium database http://herbarium.agr.hr/. The particular interest of ZAGR collection are 26 type specimens of recently described new taxa to science from Croatia, Albania and Greece. Of important value in ZAGR herbarium are specimens of rare and endemic plants (435 sheets) out of which 101 belong to endemic taxa, which is 26% of total recorded Croatian endemic taxa. In total 1254 sheets of weed taxa and 31 invasive species are stored in herbarium. ZAGR collection contains more than 100 sheets of different specimens of agricultural important traditional and modern cultivars.


Human coronaviruses (hCoVs) have become a threat to global health and society, as evident from the SARS outbreak in 2002 caused by SARS-CoV-1 and the most recent COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Despite a high sequence similarity between SARS-CoV-1 and -2, each strain has a distinctive virulence. A better understanding of the basic molecular mechanisms mediating changes in virulence is needed. Here, we profile the virus-host protein–protein interactions of two hCoV nonstructural proteins (nsps) that are critical for virus replication. We use tandem mass tag-multiplexed quantitative proteomics to sensitively compare and contrast the interactomes of nsp2 and nsp4 from three betacoronavirus strains: SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and hCoV-OC43—an endemic strain associated with the common cold. This approach enables the identification of both unique and shared host cell protein binding partners and the ability to further compare the enrichment of common interactions across homologues from related strains. We identify common nsp2 interactors involved in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca2+ signaling and mitochondria biogenesis. We also identify nsp4 interactors unique to each strain, such as E3 ubiquitin ligase complexes for SARS-CoV-1 and ER homeostasis factors for SARS-CoV-2. Common nsp4 interactors include N-linked glycosylation machinery, unfolded protein response associated proteins, and antiviral innate immune signaling factors. Both nsp2 and nsp4 interactors are strongly enriched in proteins localized at mitochondria-associated ER membranes suggesting a new functional role for modulating host processes, such as calcium homeostasis, at these organelle contact sites. Our results shed light on the role these hCoV proteins play in the infection cycle, as well as host factors that may mediate the divergent pathogenesis of OC43 from SARS strains. Our mass spectrometry workflow enables rapid and robust comparisons of multiple bait proteins, which can be applied to additional viral proteins. Furthermore, the identified common interactions may present new targets for exploration by host-directed antiviral therapeutics.


Judicial confirmations are often the subject of political debate. Recently, much of the discussion has focused on the Trump administration and Republican senators' success in nominating and confirming federal judges. Irrespective of this success, however, consistently growing caseloads over the years continue to overburden many federal district courts, leading to unnecessary cost and delay. This essay surveys the current judicial capacity crisis in many district courts and Congress' struggles to resolve it. It then turns to short-term solutions that courts have used to alleviate their expanding burdens and highlights the federal courts' most successful short-term solution: the federal magistrate judge system. This essay then introduces the origins and modern structure of the federal magistrate judge system and argues that, until Congress is able to pass substantive judgeship legislation, an ambitious expansion of this program would best serve struggling district courts.


In this paper, a case study is presented in which an early prototype of a decision-support system was integrated in the process of investigating patients with suspected dementia and evaluated. The aims were to capture and model the complex target activity for the purpose of knowledge acquisition and formalization, and qualitatively evaluate the system's compliance with reasoning and work processes as part of the development of a decision-support system for the domain. The results show that contextual factors such as local routines in clinical practice motivate further development of the support integrated in the system for establishing preliminary diagnoses in the investigation process.


We study the online bicriteria load balancing problem in this paper. We choose a system of distributed homogeneous file servers located in a cluster as the scenario and propose an online approximate solution for balancing their loads and required storage spaces upon placements and deletions. By placement (resp. deletion), we mean to insert a document into (resp. remove a document from) a server system. The main technique is to keep two global quantities large enough. To the best of our knowledge, the technique is novel, and the result is the first one, in the literature. Our result works for any sequences of document placements and deletions. For each deletion, a limited number of documents are reallocated. The load and storage space bounds are 1.5 to 4 times those in the best existing result for sole placements. We refer sole placements to those placement algorithms that do not allow any reallocation and replication. The time complexity, for each operation, is O(logMN), where M is the number of servers, and N is the number of existing documents in the servers, plus the reallocation cost for document deletion. The price for handling document deletion is almost totally reflected by the reallocation cost, and the higher bounds of load and storage spaces, while the O(logN) additive term in the time complexity serves as the remainder.


This paper examines Robert E. Lucas's views on the relationship of macroeconomics to real world economic phenomena, and on Keynes's place in its history, suggesting that these stem from a particular and debatable understanding of how the subdiscipline has evolved. It considers some implications for today's awkward economic facts of aspects of Keynes' General Theory, not so much its speculations about the role of psychology and social conventions in the economic decisions of individual agents recently highlighted by Akerlof and Shiller (2009) however, as its insights into the influence of the monetary system on the coordination of these decisions, along lines later extended by Clower (1965) and Leijonhufvud (1968). It concludes that the questions about co-ordination that Keynes addressed, not to mention some of his answers, are well worth revisiting. JEL Classifications, B22, B31, E12, E13, E32


To date, there has been no formal study of the statistical cost of interpretability in machine learning. As such, the discourse around potential trade-offs is often informal and misconceptions abound. In this work, we aim to initiate a formal study of these trade-offs. A seemingly insurmountable roadblock is the lack of any agreed upon definition of interpretability. Instead, we propose a shift in perspective. Rather than attempt to define interpretability, we propose to model the \emph{act} of \emph{enforcing} interpretability. As a starting point, we focus on the setting of empirical risk minimization for binary classification, and view interpretability as a constraint placed on learning. That is, we assume we are given a subset of hypothesis that are deemed to be interpretable, possibly depending on the data distribution and other aspects of the context. We then model the act of enforcing interpretability as that of performing empirical risk minimization over the set of interpretable hypotheses. This model allows us to reason about the statistical implications of enforcing interpretability, using known results in statistical learning theory. Focusing on accuracy, we perform a case analysis, explaining why one may or may not observe a trade-off between accuracy and interpretability when the restriction to interpretable classifiers does or does not come at the cost of some excess statistical risk. We close with some worked examples and some open problems, which we hope will spur further theoretical development around the tradeoffs involved in interpretability.


An interview in two sessions with Steven C. Frautschi, professor of theoretical physics in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. Dr. Frautschi discusses his family background and his early years in Madison, Wisconsin. He recalls matriculating, age 16, at Harvard, where his advisor was J. H. van Vleck; graduating in 1954 with an AB in physics, entering Stanford after a year spent bicycling around Europe on a Harvard traveling fellowship. At Stanford, under Sidney Drell, he and James Bjorken worked out the theory for an experiment being conducted by Nobel laureate Burton Richter. After receiving his PhD in 1958 he spent a postdoctoral year at Hideki Yukawa's Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, followed by a two-year postdoctoral stint at UC Berkeley, where he worked with Geoffrey Chew on Chew's "bootstrap" theory of strongly interacting particles and with Stanley Mandelstam on Regge poles. To Cornell in 1961. Invited to Caltech by Murray Gell-Mann; 1962 paper with Gell-Mann and Fred Zachariasen on Regge poles. Joins Caltech faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 1962. Comments on the teaching of physics at Caltech in the early sixties; Gell-Mann and Richard P. Feynman; Gell-Mann's interest in linguistics.

Discusses his "statistical bootstrap" theory of the early 1970s for newly discovered strongly interacting particles. Discusses his 1982 paper in Science on the entropy of the observable universe. Discusses his work for The Mechanical Universe television project. Nine years as executive officer for physics, beginning in 1988; comments on the physics core curriculum and "take-home" labs. Comments on his work as master of student houses beginning in 1997, on the gradual "professionalization" of student affairs, and on his encouragement of the performing arts at Caltech.


Enzymes that proceed through radical intermediates have a rich chemistry that includes functionalisation of otherwise unreactive carbon atoms, carbon-skeleton rearrangements, aromatic reductions, and unusual eliminations. Especially under anaerobic conditions, organisms have developed a wide range of approaches for managing these transformations that can be exploited to generate new biological routes towards both bulk and specialty chemicals. These routes are often either much more direct or allow access to molecules that are inaccessible through standard (bio)chemical approaches. This review gives an overview of some of the key enzymes in this area: benzoyl-CoA reductases (that effect the enzymatic Birch reduction), ketyl radical dehydratases, coenzyme B12-dependant enzymes, glycyl radical enzymes, and radical SAM (AdoMet radical) enzymes. These enzymes are discussed alongside biotechnological applications, highlighting the wide range of actual and potential uses. With the increased diversity in biotechnological approaches to obtaining these enzymes and information about them, even more of these amazing enzymes can be expected to find application in industrial processes.


Pestiviruses are known to exist in ruminants worldwide; however in Sudan, sparse work has been published. This study is aimed at investigating the existence of pestivirus, particularly bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) in small ruminants in Sudan through the detection of its antibodies in sheep and goat sera. A total of 424 sheep and 209 goat sera were collected from different localities in Sudan representing north, east, west, central and southern parts of the country. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), seroprevalence of pestivirus in sheep was found to be 39.1% while in goats it was 14.8%, in sheep the highest percentage of positives (70.2) was found in Kassala and AlAzazi (47.6%) at the east then Darfur in the west (46.7). In goats highest seroprevalence (28.6) was detected in sera collected from Rabak at the center, then River Nile (23.5) in the northern part of the country. This is the first report on the detection of pestivirus antibodies in small ruminants in Sudan.

 Key words: Pestivirus, antibodies, small ruminants, Sudan.


Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have been successfully applied to the problem of policy imitation in a model-free setup. However, the computation graph of GANs, that include a stochastic policy as the generative model, is no longer differentiable end-to-end, which requires the use of high-variance gradient estimation. In this paper, we introduce the Modelbased Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (MGAIL) algorithm. We show how to use a forward model to make the computation fully differentiable, which enables training policies using the exact gradient of the discriminator. The resulting algorithm trains competent policies using relatively fewer expert samples and interactions with the environment. We test it on both discrete and continuous action domains and report results that surpass the state-of-the-art.


Higher education today faces many challenges with less financial support from the government, rising tuition costs, and the greater public questioning the value of degrees earned. The increase of forprofit universities entering the market has added to these challenges by increasing the competition for student enrollment. Institutions everywhere are looking at alternative methods for increasing enrollment, meeting student needs, and providing high-quality and relevant programs that lead to increased degree completion and greater possible employment after graduation. One method rising to the forefront of postsecondary educational practice to help meet these demands is performance-based education. While performance-based education has been consistently implemented into K–12 systems and vocational education for decades, it is now increasing its visibility and support with InnovatIons In teachIng adults 88 89 postsecondary institutions all across the United States. This chapter will review the reasoning behind this increase of performance-based education, how it can benefit both the consumer and institution, and how it can provide students the skills and knowledge to increase their ability to positively impact the workforce environment.


Our previous studies suggested that synthetic octacalcium phosphate (OCP) enhances bone regeneration more than hydroxyapatite (HA). However, the molecular mechanisms to induce osteogenic phenotype in osteoblast by OCP have not been identified. OCP tended to convert into an apatite structure in vivo and in vitro, and its process was accompanied by calcium consumption from the surrounding solution and the release of phosphate ions into the solution at a physiological condition. The present study was designed to investigate whether the dissolution of ionic products of OCP affects on proliferation and differentiation of mouse bone marrow stromal ST-2 cells in vitro. The number of cells treated with OCP-conditioned medium was slightly decreased in comparison to that of control at day 7. On the other hand, the level of alkaline phosphatase activity increased in OCP-conditioned medium. These results demonstrated that OCP is capable of inducing osteoblastic cell differentiation in ST-2 cells.


Financial institutions labeled Too Big To Fail (TBTF) are those whose insolvency could shake the foundations of our economy. This paper presents a history of the government bailout doctrine which has become a blank check for economic giants. Eight recent examples of the doctrine's invocation are compared with three recent examples of government refusal to follow TBTF. Nineteen financial conglomerates that recently participated in "stress testing" can easily be identified as eligible for TBTF. Recognizing the cost of TBTF, reviewing the FDICIA fix in federal legislation that did not fix the problem of TBTF, analyzing the role of systemic risk and economic bubbles in TBTF, reconsidering the desirability of financial industry consolidation, and recommending steps to address the moral hazard issues arising from market expectations regarding TBTF lead to the conclusion that with vision and resolve, Congress can end TBTF and protect our financial system from key mistakes of the past. This article makes the case for ending TBTF bailouts by reducing the size and interconnectedness of large financial conglomerates. Potential mechanisms to accomplish that end include: (1) Imposing size caps that limit continued expansion of financial conglomerates through internal growth and acquisitions; (2) Ending government-assisted acquisitions that allow the largest institutions to grow even larger – at public expense; (3) Reinstating true fire-walls between banking and commerce; (4) Returning to meaningful anti-trust enforcement; (5) Immediately initiating reform measures such as increased capital for large institutions, subordinated debt requirements that enhance market discipline, enhanced systemic risk monitoring and regulation, and better advance planning for liquidating large complex financial institutions; and (6) As a longer term measure, commissioning a carefully researched report on how to most effectively divide the existing conglomerates into manageable component parts that will no longer be Too Big To Fail. Ending TBTF will be no easy task. Yet, the costs of doing nothing to address the problem have proven to be devastating.


ABSTRACT
 Mites (Arachnida: Acari) are one of the most diverse groups of organisms associated with bark beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae), but their taxonomy and ecology are poorly understood, including in Canada. Here we address this by describing the diversity, species composition, and host associations of mesostigmatic and oribatid mites collected from scolytines across four sites in eastern Ontario, Canada, in 2008 and 2009. Using Lindgren funnel traps baited with &agr;-pinene, ethanol lures, or Ips pini (Say) pheromone lures, a total of 5,635 bark beetles (30 species) were collected, and 16.4% of these beetles had at least one mite. From these beetles, a total of 2,424 mites representing 33 species from seven families were collected. The majority of mite species had a narrow host range from one (33.3%) or two (36.4%) host species, and fewer species had a host range of three or more hosts (30.3%). This study represents the first broad investigation of the acarofauna of scolytines in Canada, and we expand upon the known (worldwide) host records of described mite species by 19%, and uncover 12 new species. Half (7) of the 14 most common mites collected in this study showed a marked preference for a single host species, which contradicts the hypothesis that nonparasitic mites are typically not host specific, at least locally. Moreover, host records from the literature and those of this study together suggest that at a global scale, bark beetle mites have a broad host range, while at a local scale many species are host specific.


ABSTRACT Background: Paratonia causes severe movement dysfunction in late stage dementia. Passive Movement Therapy (PMT) is often used to decrease high muscle tone, but the efficacy has never been shown. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of PMT on muscle tone after two and four weeks of treatment. Methods: This study comprised a multicenter single-blinded RCT. Nursing home residents with dementia (according to the DSM-IV-TR criteria) and moderate to severe paratonia were randomly assigned to either a PMT or control group. The PMT group received PMT three times a week over four weeks. The control group received no PMT. The primary outcome was the severity of paratonia as measured by the Modified Ashworth scale (MAS). Secondary outcomes were clinical change (Clinical Global Impression; CGI), caregiver's burden (modified patient specific complaints; PSC), and level of pain during morning care (Pain Assessment Checklist for Elderly with Limited Ability to Communicate, Dutch version; PACSLAC-D). All outcomes were assessed at baseline and after two and four weeks. The MAS, PACSLAC-D, and PSC data were subjected to multilevel mixed linear analysis, and the CGI data to cross-tabulation χ2 analysis. Results: One-hundred-and-one patients from 12 Dutch nursing homes participated in the study; data from 47 patients in the PME group and 54 controls were analyzed. Patients receiving PMT performed no better in paratonia assessments, nor on CGI, PSC, or PACSLAC-D, than controls in two and four week's time. Conclusion: PMT has no beneficial effects and should therefore not be recommended as an intervention in severe paratonia. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN43069940


We consider an online vector balancing question where T vectors, chosen from an arbitrary distribution over [−1,1] n , arrive one-by-one and must be immediately given a ± sign. The goal is to keep the discrepancy—the ℓ∞-norm of any signed prefix-sum—as small as possible. A concrete example of this question is the online interval discrepancy problem where T points are sampled one-by-one uniformly in the unit interval [0,1], and the goal is to immediately color them ± such that every sub-interval remains always nearly balanced. As random coloring incurs Ω(T 1/2) discrepancy, while the worst-case offline bounds are Θ(√n log(T/n)) for vector balancing and 1 for interval balancing, a natural question is whether one can (nearly) match the offline bounds in the online setting for these problems. One must utilize the stochasticity as in the worst-case scenario it is known that discrepancy is Ω(T 1/2) for any online algorithm. In a special case of online vector balancing, Bansal and Spencer [BS19] recently show an O(√nlogT) bound when each coordinate is independently chosen. When there are dependencies among the coordinates, as in the interval discrepancy problem, the problem becomes much more challenging, as evidenced by a recent work of Jiang, Kulkarni, and Singla [JKS19] that gives a non-trivial O(T 1/loglogT ) bound for online interval discrepancy. Although this beats random coloring, it is still far from the offline bound. In this work, we introduce a new framework that allows us to handle online vector balancing even when the input distribution has dependencies across coordinates. In particular, this lets us obtain a poly(n, logT) bound for online vector balancing under arbitrary input distributions, and a polylog (T) bound for online interval discrepancy. Our framework is powerful enough to capture other well-studied geometric discrepancy problems; e.g., we obtain a poly(log d (T)) bound for the online d-dimensional Tusnády's problem. All our bounds are tight up to polynomial factors. A key new technical ingredient in our work is an anti-concentration inequality for sums of pairwise uncorrelated random variables, which might also be of independent interest.