Develops a new framework for working in schools that helps educators make informed decisions about change at individual, classroom, curricular and school levels on behalf of gender equity. Addresses the issue of understanding the impact of education on the two sexes, and looks at responsibility for creating gender-fair environments, organising work and creating environments for learning. The book draws on a two-year study into the role that gender played as three Catholic high schools prepared to move from single sex to coeducation. It does not weigh the advantages of single sex against coeducative approaches, but studies gender in a setting where the particpants' consciousness of gender issues was heightened: faculty and administration were formally and informally discussing gender concepts and students were talking about male and female issues. The book shows that the combination of leadership, staff and curricular awareness, and an understanding of gender fair and gender affirmative practices can serve to improve institutional effectiveness and lead to higher levels of student achievement.


The study explored the effects of trans-fatty acids (TFA) on the antioxidant system and ATPase levels in liver and kidney of rats. Forty-eight healthy male Wistar rats of SPF grade were randomly divided into four groups according to their weight, which were control group, low dose TFA group, medium dose TFA group and high dose TFA group. The control group received 0.2 ml/kg corn oil once a day, while the TFA low dose group, TFA medium dose group and TFA high dose group respectively received 50, 100, 150 mg/kg/day trans-fatty acids, for 12 consecutive weeks. The tested chemicals were given by gavage. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), ATPase and the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) in the liver and kidney were determined. Compared with the control group, trans-fatty acids intake caused significant increase of MDA but reduction of the activities of SOD and GSH-Px (P<0.05) in liver and kidney, meanwhile, trans-fatty acids exposure caused a significant reduction of the activities of Na+ K+-ATPase, Mg2+-ATPase and Ca2+-ATPase (P<0.05) in liver and kidney. The results suggested that trans-fatty acid exposure can impair the antioxidant system and reduce the ATPase activity in liver and kidney of rats.


Abstract Apple Continuity protocols are the underlying network component of Apple Continuity services which allow seamless nearby applications such as activity and file transfer, device pairing and sharing a network connection. Those protocols rely on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to exchange information between devices: Apple Continuity messages are embedded in the pay-load of BLE advertisement packets that are periodically broadcasted by devices. Recently, Martin et al. identified [1] a number of privacy issues associated with Apple Continuity protocols; we show that this was just the tip of the iceberg and that Apple Continuity protocols leak a wide range of personal information. In this work, we present a thorough reverse engineering of Apple Continuity protocols that we use to uncover a collection of privacy leaks. We introduce new artifacts, including identifiers, counters and battery levels, that can be used for passive tracking, and describe a novel active tracking attack based on Handoff messages. Beyond tracking issues, we shed light on severe privacy flaws. First, in addition to the trivial exposure of device characteristics and status, we found that HomeKit accessories betray human activities in a smarthome. Then, we demonstrate that AirDrop and Nearby Action protocols can be leveraged by passive observers to recover e-mail addresses and phone numbers of users. Finally, we exploit passive observations on the advertising traffic to infer Siri voice commands of a user.


Abstract The unique properties of clays make them suitable for a large number of applications. Among the procedures that can be used to characterize clayey materials, the assessment of the abrasion and the abrasiveness index can be employed to predict the mechanical behaviour of clay samples. However, only a limited number of references to these testing procedures are available in the literature. Several Portuguese clayey samples were collected and the <63 μm fraction was analysed. The main clay minerals present are kaolinite, illite and smectite. The abrasiveness index depends on the granulometric and mineralogical compositions. A lower abrasiveness is induced by the presence of a high abundance of the <2 μm fraction, small mean particle size and a large phyllosilicate content. Kaolinite and illite show good correlation with the abrasiveness index, while smectite decreases abrasion.


The six essays of this symposium address different aspects of the meaning and legacy of the Magna Carta—"the Great Charter" in Latin. Although social scientists and legal scholars routinely describe the Magna Carta as foundational for concepts of justice and liberty, the charter itself is rarely assigned in political science classes or scrutinized by political theorists. The aim of the symposium is twofold: first, to affirm the document's historical rootedness and intellectual richness, and, second, to explore the ways in which the Magna Carta's text and reputation have informed the development of common law and modern politics. The Magna Carta was the product of times very different from our own, yet it continues to be cited by jurists and human rights activists around the globe. This symposium makes the case for why political scientists should take an interest in the Magna Carta, not just as a cultural icon, but as a durable political text.


The presence of cancer cells in effusions within the serosal (peritoneal, pleural, and pericardial) cavities is a clinical manifestation of advanced-stage cancer and is associated with poor survival. Tumor cells in effusions most frequently originate from primary carcinomas of the ovary, breast, and lung, and from malignant mesothelioma, a native tumor of this anatomic site. Unlike the majority of solid tumors, particularly at the primary site, cancer cells in effusions are not amenable to surgical removal and failure in their eradication is one of the main causes of treatment failure. In recent years, we have studied the biological characteristics of ovarian carcinoma, breast carcinoma, and malignant mesothelioma cells in effusions and compared it to their counterparts in primary tumors and solid metastases. Our data show that a large number of cancer-associated molecules, including cell adhesion proteins, proteolytic enzymes, growth factor receptors, signaling molecules, and transcription factors, are differentially expressed along tumor progression and have a different prognostic value, depending on the organ sampled. In ovarian carcinoma, several of these molecules are differentially expressed in primary diagnosis (prechemotherapy) and disease recurrence (postchemotherapy) specimens, reflecting the effect of disease progression and chemotherapy, and have different prognostic significance as function of disease progression. The findings presented in this review underscore the need to take into consideration the unique biology of cancer cells in effusions if patient-tailored molecular therapy is to become a successful treatment modality in these malignancies.


Vlasman, Brent A. M.S., Purdue University, May, 2010. Industry Perspectives on Reusable Launch Vehicle Technicians. Major Professor: David Stanley. Companies in the commercial space industry are developing a new generation of reusable launch vehicles (RLV). The Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) is working on creating a new generation of technicians, the RLV Aerospace Maintenance Technician (RAMT), who is capable of maintaining these new vehicles. However, the FAA/AST does not yet know the knowledge required of this technician in order to maintain this new vehicle type. This exploratory, qualitative study examined the subject area knowledge required of reusable launch vehicle technicians in the United States' sub-orbital commercial space industry. The study sought to answer the question, "What are important subject areas for the training of RLV technicians?" This was accomplished by interviewing subject matter experts from the companies developing sub-orbital RLVs over the telephone. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed for common themes using Strauss and Corbin's Grounded Theory, qualitative content analysis, and cross case analysis. This study found that important subject areas for the training of RLV technicians include: Rocket Propulsion, Aviation Maintenance, Electronics/Electrical Systems, Mechanical Systems, Engineering, Project Management, and Aerodynamics. Recommendations are made to develop an RLV curriculum based on these subject areas as a supplemental area of study for aviation maintenance training programs.


Abstract. Mountain research stations are advantageous not only for long-term sampling of cloud properties but also for measurements that are prohibitively difficult to perform on airborne platforms due to the large true air speed or adverse factors such as weight and complexity of the equipment necessary. Some cloud–turbulence measurements, especially Lagrangian in nature, fall into this category. We report results from simultaneous, high-resolution and collocated measurements of cloud microphysical and turbulence properties during several warm cloud events at the Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus (UFS) on Zugspitze in the German Alps. The data gathered were found to be representative of observations made with similar instrumentation in free clouds. The observed turbulence shared all features known for high-Reynolds-number flows: it exhibited approximately Gaussian fluctuations for all three velocity components, a clearly defined inertial subrange following Kolmogorov scaling (power spectrum, and second- and third-order Eulerian structure functions), and highly intermittent velocity gradients, as well as approximately lognormal kinetic energy dissipation rates. The clouds were observed to have liquid water contents on the order of 1 g m−3 and size distributions typical of continental clouds, sometimes exhibiting long positive tails indicative of large drop production through turbulent mixing or coalescence growth. Dimensionless parameters relevant to cloud–turbulence interactions, the Stokes number and settling parameter are in the range typically observed in atmospheric clouds. Observed fluctuations in droplet number concentration and diameter suggest a preference for inhomogeneous mixing. Finally, enhanced variance in liquid water content fluctuations is observed at high frequencies, and the scale break occurs at a value consistent with the independently estimated phase relaxation time from microphysical measurements.


Cameras for imaging in short and mid-wave infrared spectra are significantly more expensive than their counterparts in visible imaging. As a result, high-resolution imaging in those spectrum remains beyond the reach of most consumers. Over the last decade, compressive sensing (CS) has emerged as a potential means to realize inexpensive short-wave infrared cameras. One approach for doing this is the single-pixel camera (SPC) where a single detector acquires coded measurements of a high-resolution image. A computational reconstruction algorithm is then used to recover the image from these coded measurements. Unfortunately, the measurement rate of a SPC is insufficient to enable imaging at high spatial and temporal resolutions. We present a focal plane array-based compressive sensing (FPA-CS) architecture that achieves high spatial and temporal resolutions. The idea is to use an array of SPCs that sense in parallel to increase the measurement rate, and consequently, the achievable spatio-temporal resolution of the camera. We develop a proof-of-concept prototype in the short-wave infrared using a sensor with 64× 64 pixels; the prototype provides a 4096× increase in the measurement rate compared to the SPC and achieves a megapixel resolution at video rate using CS techniques.


Achieving high Raman enhancement (SERS) that is relatively uniform over a large substrate area has been a major challenge in nanomanufacturing, as enhancement is localized around a plasmonic hotspot and hotspots are not usually spread uniformly over a substrate. Herein, we demonstrate a single-step, scalable method for the fabrication of Ag nanohole-based SERS substrates exhibiting ∼108 enhancement factors. The SERS enhancement of these substrates could be further augmented by approximately 4 times through interference effects involving an underlying SiO2 spacer of controlled thickness on the Si substrate, in agreement with FDTD simulations. Electrical activation by applying a short DC pulse across the Ag film and Si substrate resulted in ∼12% additional increase in the enhancement factor, while importantly the standard deviation of the signal across the 1 cm2 substrate decreased from 9.5% to 3.1%. Both these effects could be attributed to electromigration of the metal producing protrusions on the nanoparticle surfaces thus populating with the hotspots for high performance SERS. These relatively uniform and reproducible SERS-chips with high enhancement factors can potentially be used as highly sensitive multi-functional platforms for point-of-care diagnostics.


"In Africa and elsewhere, safety nets were promoted in the 1980s as a response to the (presumably short-term) adverse effects of structural adjustment. Though some safety nets had a developmental component, safety nets are still largely associated with the idea of a short-term buffer. "Social protection" is a newer term that incorporates safety net programs but also includes a role for renewed state involvement, emphasizes a longer-term developmental approach, includes social assistance and social insurance, and is often advocated as a right rather than a reactive form of relief. Social protection policy addresses not only programs aimed at reducing the impact of shocks and coping with their aftermath, but also interventions designed to prevent shocks and destitution in the first place. Most societies have private interhousehold, intrafamily, and intrahousehold transfers that promote resilience to shocks, mitigating their negative effects. However, in countries or communities where people are universally poor, there is less to share, particularly in times of shocks that affect all or many in the society (such as drought, floods, AIDS, or widespread structural unemployment) — which is precisely when the need for help is most critical." from Text


A computational theory of color transparency for color images containing X junctions is described. This theory is based on physical models of color transparency under conditions of additive or subtractive color mixture that describe the relationship among four colors at an X junction. Algorithms are derived for recovering transmittance and surface reflectance functions of a transparent medium from a set of sensor responses at an X junction. The algorithms are based on the ability to describe surface reflectance and transmittance functions by using a linear combination of orthogonal basis functions. We also address algorithms for determination of depth ordering of overlapping surfaces and the type of color mixture by checking the physical realizability of recovered functions.


A Hands-On Guide and Introduction to Quartz 2DOn Mac OS X, Macintosh developers depend on the graphics and imaging frameworks of the Core Graphics system to implement multimedia features in their applications. With Core Graphics Apple has answered the increasing demands of graphics developers with a powerful collection of tools, including Quartz 2D and Core Image. Quartz 2D is a modern drawing API with a powerful imaging model. Beginning with Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger, Quartz 2D replaces the QuickDraw® graphics library in legacy applications and provides the functionality developers need to take advantage of the latest hardware.Quartz 2D Graphics for Mac OS X® Developers is a hands-on guide and introduction to Quartz 2D. Differences between the interfaces and features of QuickDraw and Quartz 2D are making the switch challenging for developers. Through in-depth practical coverage, Mac developer and consultant Scott Thompson leads you smoothly through the transition and sets you on the path to developing cutting edge graphics in Core Image.Through this invaluable guide, you will learn how to Forge connections between Quartz 2D and graphics devices using CGContexts Simplify the drawing process using transformations Draw line art using path-drawing operations on Bezier paths Use pixel data to create images Import and export images from Quartz 2D with Image I/O and QuickTime Generate text and implement special text effects Draw in offscreen environments, such as CGLayers and offscreen bitmaps Create shadings and patterns Create PDFs from Quartz 2D drawings or import PDFs into your drawingsIf you depend on QuickDraw for your graphics needs, or are interested in a system that pushes the envelope in computer graphics, now is the time to make the switch to Core Graphics (Quartz 2D, Core Image). This is the book that walks you through that changei¾–step-by-step!The companion CD-ROM contains projects and source code covered in this book so you can run each sample. The samples demonstrate how to call Quartz 2D from both Carbon and Cocoa applications as well as from Mac OS X's Python scripting interface.


In many countries, members of parliament receive publicly funded allowances to communicate with the electorate. Some hope that ensuing parliamentary communication engages the people with politics and increases electoral participation. Others worry that such use of public funds might create an unfair advantage for incumbents and affect electoral results. Yet, the consequences of this practice remain unknown. Data from the UK House of Commons suggest that both the hopes and the worries are baseless: there is no evidence that parliamentary communication allowances increase electoral turnout or affect incumbents' vote share. If these allowances are not effective, both parliaments and their members might want to reconsider their use and usefulness.


Background: Red blood cells (RBCs) undergo a natural aging process occurring in the blood circulation throughout the RBC lifespan or during routine cold storage in the blood bank. The aging of RBCs is associated with the elevation of mechanical fragility (MF) or osmotic fragility (OF) of RBCs, which can lead to cell lysis. The present study was undertaken to identify RBC properties that characterize their susceptibility to destruction under osmotic/mechanical stress. Methods: RBCs were isolated from freshly donated blood or units of packed RBCs (PRBCs) and suspended in albumin-supplemented phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). In addition, PRBCs were separated by filtration through a microsphere column into two fractions: enriched with rigid (R-fraction) and deformable (D-fraction) cells. The RBCs were subjected to determination of deformability, MF and OF, moreover, the level of cell surface phosphatidylserine (PS) and the stomatin level in isolated RBC membranes were measured. Results: In the RBC population, the cells that were susceptible to mechanical and osmotic stress were characterized by low deformability and increased level of surface PS. The OF/MF was higher in the R-fraction than in the D-fraction. Stomatin was depleted in destroyed cells and in the R-fraction. Conclusion: RBC deformability, the levels of surface PS, and membrane stomatin can be used as markers of RBC fragility.


Mark Twain's Christian Science, his last major published work, is rarely read or examined within Twain scholarship. The book is generally considered to be weak, hastily written, and overly passionate, which has left it collecting dust on the shelf. Previous scholarly readings, however, have been mis-readings because Christian Science is surprisingly methodical and is significant to scholarship when studied within its late-nineteenth-century context. This dissertation provides a suitable reading of Christian Science by examining the book within the cultural confines in which it was composed. Christian Science first appeared to readers serially, which means nearly half its content was published in five articles prior to the appearance of the book. Four out of the five articles have never been republished or examined heretofore in Twain scholarship, and all five have considerable individual merit when read apart from Christian Science. Reading the articles prior to and in congruence with the book, however, as a late-nineteenth-century reader would have, demonstrates Twain's evolution of thinking, from which the new material in Christian Science makes a logical argumentative shift. The shift in direction, nevertheless, puts Twain into a structural quandary, which he must rectify by splicing and recasting the previously published material. The book, then, becomes entirely dependent upon a reading of the early articles for essential meaning. Altogether the Christian Science materials exemplify Twain's meticulous concern for form and for audience, which is contrary to general scholarly consensus about much of Twain's later writings. Reading Christian Science as a serial book also provides a detailed account of Twain's unique compositional process, which included not only reworked publications but collaboration with William D. McCrackan and Frederick W. Peabody. Christian Science undoubtedly tells a compositional tale unlike any of Twain's other books and adds much to current scholarly dialogue about the inseparability of form and content within Twain's later writings. URI http://hdl.handle.net/2104/8156


We probe the translational dynamics of the hydration water surrounding the macromolecular surfaces of selected polyelectrolytes, lipid vesicles and intrinsically disordered proteins with site specificity in aqueous solutions. These measurements are made possible by the recent development of a new instrumental and methodological approach based on Overhauser dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP)-enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This technique selectively amplifies 1H NMR signals of hydration water around a spin label that is attached to a molecular site of interest. The selective 1H NMR amplification within molecular length scales of a spin label is achieved by utilizing short-distance range (∼r−3) magnetic dipolar interactions between the 1H spin of water and the electron spin of a nitroxide radical-based label. Key features include the fact that only minute quantities (<10 μl) and dilute (⩾100 μM) sample concentrations are needed. There is no size limit on the macromolecule or molecular assembly to be analyzed. Hydration water with translational correlation times between 10 and 800 ps is measured within ∼10 Å distance of the spin label, encompassing the typical thickness of a hydration layer with three water molecules across. The hydration water moving within this time scale has significant implications, as this is what is modulated whenever macromolecules or molecular assemblies undergo interactions, binding or conformational changes. We demonstrate, with the examples of polymer complexation, protein aggregation and lipid–polymer interaction, that the measurements of interfacial hydration dynamics can sensitively and site specifically probe macromolecular interactions.


The tremendous success of cellular technology has fundamentally changed the way people communicate and prompted the evolution of a new multibillion dollar wireless communications industry. Linking service areas, wireless communications has altered the way business is conducted. For instance, with a laptop computer, a PCMCIA modem and a cellular phone, a real estate agent can contact his or her office and clients, check sales listings and arrange appointments while traveling. Field service and sales people can, from customer locations, access corporate databases to check inventory status, prepare up-to-the-minute price and delivery quotes, and cut orders directly to the factory. Two-way paging services allow a firm's workforce to stay in close contact, even when traditional wired communication services are not available. Hand-held hybrids of phone-computer-fax machines feed information to wireless communication networks, allowing an executive to make decisions while watching a little league baseball game.


This paper sets out to address the problem of just what, from the vast amount of research now available into the spoken language, can and ought to form part of the oral component of a second or foreign language course. Exemplification is principally based on spoken English from the British Isles, but reference is made, where appropriate, to other modern languages. Structural, interactive, generic and contextual constraints are discussed in terms of their implications for teaching, and a core set of features are highlighted. Some results of discourse analysis and conversation analysis are argued as better treated within the domain of cross-cultural studies, and other features of spoken language usually considered within the domain of discourse analysis are proposed for inclusion within the lexico-grammatical areas of the syllabus. Methodological implications are discussed in the final section, where it is argued that traditional 'presentational' approaches to language teaching need to be rethought and supplemented by more inductive- and language awareness based activities.


The Indianapolis Flux Experiment (INFLUX) aims to quantify and improve the effectiveness of inferring greenhouse gas (GHG) source strengths from downstream concentration measurements in urban environments. Mesoscale models such as the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model can provide realistic depictions of planetary boundary layer (PBL) structure and flow fields at horizontal grid lengths (Δ x ) down to a few km. Nevertheless, a number of potential sources of error exist in the use of mesoscale models for urban inversions, including accurate representation of the dispersion of GHGs by turbulence close to a point source. Here we evaluate the predictive skill of a 1-km chemistry-adapted WRF (WRF-Chem) simulation of daytime CO 2 transport from an Indianapolis power plant for a single INFLUX case (28 September 2013). We compare the simulated plume release on domains at different resolutions, as well as on a domain run in large eddy simulation (LES) mode, enabling us to study the impact of both spatial resolution and parameterization of PBL turbulence on the transport of CO 2 . Sensitivity tests demonstrate that much of the difference between 1-km mesoscale and 111-m LES plumes, including substantially lower maximum concentrations in the mesoscale simulation, is due to the different horizontal resolutions. However, resolution is insufficient to account for the slower rate of ascent of the LES plume with downwind distance, which results in much higher surface concentrations for the LES plume in the near-field but a near absence of tracer aloft. Physics sensitivity experiments and theoretical analytical models demonstrate that this effect is an inherent problem with the parameterization of turbulent transport in the mesoscale PBL scheme. A simple transformation is proposed that may be applied to mesoscale model concentration footprints to correct for their near-field biases. Implications for longer-term source inversion are discussed.


Such access to web applications is simple, but the constraints of user interaction in the browser execution environment can be relatively severe. Some modern browsers now incorporate enhanced interaction such as rich text (HTML) editing. Harnessing these built-in tools allows the web application developer to approach the sophistication of the high-response interaction expected of conventional, free-standing applications. This paper describes the design and implementation of a class of editor web applications that allows the user to construct whole web sites. While the top-level web site structure is fixed by templates, the contents of each page can be varied in an extremely flexible way to allow a wide range of page content. Designing and authoring web pages in this fashion raises specific user interface design issues which are discussed further. DotTegular is the web application built to allow shared editing of complete web sites. It has proved very capable of supporting a new class of software now being called search information management, the collecting, storing and restructuring of fragments of useful information, fraglets. The exact nature of the repository and data representation of fraglets is presented. Other possible uses and applications of DotTegular are discussed at the conclusion of this paper.


Introduction The End-of-Life Namaste Care Program for People with Dementia, challenges the misconception that people with dementia are a 'shell'; it provides a holistic approach using the five senses, which can provide positive ways of communicating and emotional responses. It is proposed Namaste Care can improve communication and the relationships families and friends have with the person with dementia. Previously used in care homes, this study is the first to explore the pioneering use of Namaste Care in people's own homes. Objective To develop initial programme theories detailing if, how and under which circumstances Namaste Care works when implemented at home. Design A qualitative realist approach following the RAMESES II guidelines was employed to understand not only whether Namaste Care has positive outcomes, but also how these are generated, for whom they happen and in which circumstances. Setting A hospice in the North East of England, operating in the community, through volunteers. Participants Programme theories were developed from three focus groups with volunteers implementing Namaste Care (n=8; n=8; n=11) and eight interviews with family carers (n=8). Results Four refined explanatory theories are presented: increasing engagement, respite for family carers, importance of matched volunteers and increasing social interaction. It was identified that while Namaste Care achieved some of the same goals in the home setting as it does in the care home setting, it could also function in a different way that promoted socialisation. Conclusions Namaste Care provides holistic and personalised care to people with both moderate and advanced dementia, improving engagement and reducing social isolation. In the present study carers often chose to use Namaste Care sessions as respite. This was often linked to their frustration of the unavoidable dominance of task-focussed care in daily life. Individualised Namaste Care activities thus led to positive outcomes for both those with dementia and their carers.


This study focuses on an evaluation of Hokkaido which is the northernmost and largest prefecture by surface area in Japan and particularly on two points: the rivalry between all kinds of land use such as urban land and agricultural and forestry land in various cities and their surrounding areas and the possibilities for forestry biomass in areas other than those mentioned above and grasps which areas require examination of the nature of land use control and guidance through conducting land use analysis at the district level using GIS (Geographic Information Systems). The results of analysis in this study demonstrated that it is essential to divide the whole of Hokkaido into two areas: those within delineated city planning areas and those outside of delineated city planning areas and to conduct an evaluation of each land use control. In delineated urban areas, particularly urban areas, it is essential to re-examine land use from the point of view of compact cities or smart cities along with conducting an evaluation of land use control that focuses on issues of rivalry between all kinds of land use such as urban land and agricultural and forestry land. In areas outside of delineated urban areas, it is desirable to aim to build a specific community recycling range based on forest biomass utilization by conducting an evaluation of land use control concerning the possibilities for forest biomass focusing particularly on forests within and outside of city planning areas. Keywords—Land Use Control, Urbanization, Forestry Biomass, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Hokkaido


This article discusses the use of video cameras in participant observation drawing on approximately 300 hours of video data from an ethnographic study of Swedish family life. Departing from Karen Barad's post-humanistic perspective on scientific practices, the aim is to critically analyse how researchers, research participants and technology produce and negotiate children's corporeal privacy. Ethnographic videotaping is understood as a material-discursive practice that creates and sustains boundaries between private and public, where videotaping is ideologically connected to a public sphere that may at times 'intrude' on children's corporeal privacy. The limits of corporeal privacy are never fixed, but open for negotiation; ethnographers may therefore unintentionally transgress the boundary and thus be faced with ethical dilemmas. The fluidity of privacy calls for ethical reflexivity before, during and after fieldwork, and researchers must be sensitive to when ethical issues are at hand and how to deal with them.


The 2015 Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) field campaign provided a wealth of intensive observations for improving understanding of interplay between the Great Plains low-level jet (LLJ), mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), and other phenomena in the nocturnal boundary layer. This case study utilizes PECAN ground-based Doppler and water vapor lidar and airborne water vapor lidar observations for a detailed examination of water vapor transport in the Great Plains. The chosen case, 11 July 2015, featured a strong LLJ that helped sustain an MCS overnight. The lidars resolved boundary layer moisture being transported northward, leading to a large increase in water vapor in the lowest several hundred meters above the surface in northern Kansas. A branch of nocturnal convection initiated coincident with the observed maximum water vapor flux. Radiosondes confirmed an increase in convective potential within the LLJ layer. Moist static energy (MSE) growth was generated by increasing moisture in spite of a temperature decrease in the LLJ layer. This unique dataset is also used to evaluate the Rapid Refresh (RAP) analysis model performance, comparing model output against the continuous lidar profiles of water vapor and wind. While the RAP analysis captured the large-scale trends, errors in water vapor mixing ratio were found ranging from 0 to 2 g kg−1 at the ground-based lidar sites. Comparison with the airborne lidar throughout the PECAN domain yielded an RMSE of 1.14 g kg−1 in the planetary boundary layer. These errors mostly manifested as contiguous dry or wet regions spanning spatial scales on the order of ten to hundreds of kilometers.


Is it possible that the soldiers of mass atrocities - Adolph Eichmann in Nazi Germany and Alfredo Astiz in Argentina's "Dirty War", for example - act under conditions that prevent them from recognising their crimes? In the aftermath of catastrophic, state-sponsored mass murder, how are criminal courts to respond to those who either gave or carried out the military orders that seem unequivocally criminal? This important book addresses Hannah Arendt's controversial argument that perpetrators of mass crimes are completely unaware of their wrongdoing, and therefore existing criminal laws do not adequately address these defendants. Mark Osiel applies Arendt's ideas about the kind of people who implement bureaucratised large-scale atrocities to Argentina's "Dirty War" of the 1970s, and he also delves into the social conditions that could elicit such reprehensible conduct. He focuses on Argentine navy captain Astiz, who led one of the most notorious abduction squads, to discover how he and other junior officers could justify the murders of more than ten thousand suspected "subversives". Osiel concludes that legal stipulations labeling certain deeds as manifestly illegal are indefensible. He calls for a significant change in the laws of war to preserve both justice and the possibility of dialogue between factions in such sharply divided societies as Argentina. Osiel's proposals have profound implications for future prosecutions of Pinochet's lieutenants, Milosevic's henchmen, the willing executioners of Rwanda and East Timor, and other perpetrators of state-endorsed murder and torture.


Engineering of higher plants for increased cold tolerance requires a chemical modification of membrane fluidity in both organelles and cytoplasm of plant cells. A small number of microorganisms use branched chain fatty acids as their membrane constituents to maintain membrane fluidity, instead of unsaturated fatty acids. One of the key enzymes facilitating synthesis of branched chain fatty acids in Bacillus subtilis 168s is the branched chain alpha-oxo acid decarboxylase. To examine the role of branched chain fatty acids in plants and the potential for low temperature tolerance, the A and B genes encoding the alpha and beta polypeptides, respectively, of the branched chain alpha-oxo acid decarboxylase were introduced into the genome of tomato plants. The mas promoters in the plant expression vector system facilitated the expression of the A and B genes. Transgenic plants were regenerated and shown to produce both the alpha and beta polypeptides. Comparative analysis of a small number of transgenic tomato plants and non-transformed control plants grown at 4oC showed enhanced cold tolerance in the transformed plants. These findings, if confirmed by a larger scale analysis, suggest a potential role for branched chain fatty acids as a protective mechanism for growth of plants under sub optimal temperatures. Physiological manifestations of environmental stress in plants often implicate cell membranes as the primary site of injury (Orvar et al. 2000). At low temperatures, a decrease


I. INTRODUCTION Answers to the questions asked in the practicum should indicate what actions FIXIT will have to take to reach the desired result-to obtain monetary funds-and include commentaries on the legislation regulating disputes. Before giving specific answers, certain comments should be made about the practicum. The situation described in the practical exercise requires more detail. First, it is necessary to determine who the parties might be to the contract concluded between ALIENA and DOMESTICA. With respect to the foreign party, it is logical to assume that it is a company with the rights of a legal entity. With respect to the Russian party, the following should be taken into account: according to the Russian Constitution (Constitution), the government of the Russian Federation exercises executive power in the Russian Federation.1 This is a collegial body that stands at the head of an integrated system of executive power in the country and, in accordance with the Constitution, exercises powers in economic matters.2 The government of the Russian Federation only acts, however, as a party to an agreement at the international level. The party that concludes a commercial contract with a private company is a federal executive agency, subordinate to the government of the Russian Federation and responsible to it for fulfillment of the tasks entrusted to this agency. In the situation we are considering, such an executive agency is most likely to be the corresponding federal ministry. We must assume that this will be the ministry of the economy or the ministry of defense. For this reason, in the conclusion of an agreement on the operation of a military installation between ALIENA and DOMESTICA (the parties to this agreement will naturally be the governments of these countries), it is advisable to state specifically which actual federal executive agency of DOMESTICA will act as a party to the maintenance contract. Second, it follows from the proposed situation that the law governing the legal relations between the parties shall be, according to the terms of the agreement, the national law of DOMESTICA-in our case, that of the Russian Federation. It is not sufficient, however, for the parties merely to determine the applicable law. Bearing in mind that the state is a party to the transaction, it is advisable for the agreement to stipulate which court will consider disputes arising from the contract. Here it is logical to assume that the court with jurisdiction over possible disputes will be the court of the Russian Federation. Economic disputes between legal entities, including foreign ones, come under the jurisdiction of the court of arbitration. In our situation, the parties may recommend including a provision in the agreement to the effect that "all disputes arising from the present contract shall be considered by the Court of Arbitration of the Russian Federation." The parties shall also have the right to specify precisely which court of arbitration of the Russian Federation shall be entitled to consider any dispute that might arise. If no specific court is designated, then the general principle of the plaintiff choosing the court will prevail; the plaintiff may choose the place of the defendant's locale (in our case, the corresponding federal ministry acting as a party to the transaction). Since Moscow is the seat of the federal ministries, the court to consider any dispute shall be the Court of Arbitration of the City of Moscow. Finally, in the situation under analysis, we proceed from the assumption that the parties to the contract are FIXIT, a foreign company with the rights of a legal entity, and DOMESTICA, a federal ministry and an executive agency of the Russian Federation. Disputes would be considered in the Court of Arbitration of the City of Moscow, which shall decide the dispute under Russian law. II. ANALYSIS OF THE PRACTICAL EXERCISE A. Regarding the Possibility of FIXIT Using Various Methods to Obtain Monetary Damages The following should be noted with respect to the disputed situation, in which FIXIT considers that it has the right to obtain additional funds, over and above those stipulated by the terms of the contract. …


Contaminated bed sediments of fresh water bodies have a potentiality of polluting and rendering the water unfit for aquatic life. Though Pakistan has banned on the use of Organochlorine and Nitrogen containing pesticides, but no proper attention is being paid on the continuous monitoring and assessment of these banned pesticides to make sure that these banned pesticides are not in practice. Levels of selected organochlorine and nitrogen containing pesticides residues were assessed in sediments collected from eighteen sampling sites of River Ravi and its tributaries by GC-ECD method. All sediments samples were found contaminated with varying concentrations of pesticides residues, however levels of pesticides were below the tolerance limits suggested in national and international standards. Endosulfan was the predominant organochlorine pesticide residue in all sediment samples, while Carbofuran was found in least amounts as compared with other pesticides. After Degh fall and After Hudiara nulla fall river sampling sites were found severely contaminated while, among tributaries Degh fall and Hudiara drain were found highly severely contaminated with DDT, DDE, Endosulfan and Carbofuran. Constant monitoring programs are needed to be initiated to reform the present situation. Key words: Sediments, Organochlorine, Endosulfan, Carbofuran, GC-ECD


Clinical studies often require understanding elements of a patient's narrative that exist only in free text clinical notes. To transform notes into structured data for downstream use, these elements are commonly extracted and normalized to medical vocabularies. In this work, we audit the performance of and indicate areas of improvement for state-of-the-art systems. We find that high task accuracies for clinical entity normalization systems on the 2019 n2c2 Shared Task are misleading, and underlying performance is still brittle. Normalization accuracy is high for common concepts (95.3%), but much lower for concepts unseen in training data (69.3%). We demonstrate that current approaches are hindered in part by inconsistencies in medical vocabularies, limitations of existing labeling schemas, and narrow evaluation techniques. We reformulate the annotation framework for clinical entity extraction to factor in these issues to allow for robust end-to-end system benchmarking. We evaluate concordance of annotations from our new framework between two annotators and achieve a Jaccard similarity of 0.73 for entity recognition and an agreement of 0.83 for entity normalization. We propose a path forward to address the demonstrated need for the creation of a reference standard to spur method development in entity recognition and normalization.


This research aims to discover the psychological effects of colors on individuals, using the students' union complex in a university campus. This building was chosen due to its richness in color variances. The research method is survey, and questionnaires were drawn up and distributed to an even range of students, comprising both international and local students; undergraduate and graduate. Questionnaires have been collected and analyzed to find out the effects different colors had on students' moods in different spaces of the students' union complex. This research would contribute to understand more about colors and how they affect our feelings and therefore to make better decisions and increase the use of spaces when choosing colors for different spaces to suit the purpose for which they are designed.


This course introduces fundamental principles and techniques of software development. Students learn how to write software that is safe from bugs, easy to understand, and ready for change.

Topics include specifications and invariants; testing, test-case generation, and coverage; state machines; abstract data types and representation independence; design patterns for object-oriented programming; concurrent programming, including message passing and shared concurrency, and defending against races and deadlock; and functional programming with immutable data and higher-order functions.

The course includes weekly programming exercises and two substantial group projects.


Despite their overwhelming capacity to overfit, deep neural networks trained by specific optimization algorithms tend to generalize relatively well to unseen data. Recently, researchers explained it by investigating the implicit bias of optimization algorithms. A remarkable progress is the work [18], which proves gradient descent (GD) maximizes the margin of homogeneous deep neural networks. Except the first-order optimization algorithms like GD, adaptive algorithms such as AdaGrad, RMSProp and Adam are popular owing to its rapid training process. Meanwhile, numerous works have provided empirical evidence that adaptive methods may suffer from poor generalization performance. However, theoretical explanation for the generalization of adaptive optimization algorithms is still lacking. In this paper, we study the implicit bias of adaptive optimization algorithms on homogeneous neural networks. In particular, we study the convergent direction of parameters when they are optimizing the logistic loss. We prove that the convergent direction of RMSProp is the same with GD, while for AdaGrad, the convergent direction depends on the adaptive conditioner. Technically, we provide a unified framework to analyze convergent direction of adaptive optimization algorithms by constructing novel and nontrivial adaptive gradient flow and surrogate margin. The theoretical findings explain the superiority on generalization of exponential moving average strategy that is adopted by RMSProp and Adam. To the best of knowledge, it is the first work to study the convergent direction of adaptive optimizations on non-linear deep neural networks


Over the past decade, additive manufacturing has resulted in significant advances towards fabricating anatomic-size, patient-specific scaffolds for tissue models and regenerative medicine. This can be attributed to the development of advanced bioinks capable of precise deposition of cells and biomaterials. The combination of additive manufacturing with advanced bioinks is enabling researchers to fabricate intricate tissue scaffolds that recreate the complex spatial distributions of cells and bioactive cues found in the human body. However, the expansion of this promising technique has been hampered by the high cost of commercially available bioprinters and proprietary software. In contrast, conventional 3D printing has become increasingly popular with home hobbyists and caused an explosion of both low-cost thermoplastic 3D printers and open source software to control the printer. In this work, we bring these benefits into the field of bioprinting by converting widely available and cost-effective 3D printers into fully functional, open source, and customizable multi-head bioprinters. We demonstrate the practicality of this approach by designing bioprinters customized with multiple extruders, automatic bed leveling, and temperature controls for approximately $400. These bioprinters were then used for in vitro and ex vivo bioprinting to demonstrate their utility for tissue engineering.


The quantification of fragmentation of particles advected by a fluid in a microchannel should be useful for the design and optimization of technology for drug delivery. In this work we use the Shannon entropy to evaluate the level of fragmentation in an analytical model of eroding particles advected by a creeping flow. We assume a particle to be made of primary fragments bound together. The erosion is the breakage of a primary fragment out of a given particle. Particles are advected by laminar flow and they disperse because of the shear stresses imparted by the fluid. The time evolution of the numbers of particles of different sizes is described by a set of coupled differential equations. Those equations are mathematically equivalent to the Bateman equations that govern nuclear radioactivity. We find, by solving these differential equations, the numbers of particles of each possible size as functions of time. Using the particle size distribution we compute the entropic fragmentation index which varies from 0 for a monodisperse system to 1 for an extreme polydisperse system. The time dependence of the index exhibits a maximum at some intermediate time as the system starts monodisperse (large size particle) and evolves through a polydisperse regime at intermediate times to a monodisperse (small size particle) at late times. An analysis of the spatial dependence of the fragmentation index reveals regions of the cross section that are not conductive to fragmentation.


The importance of pets in families, especially during major life stressors, is well documented. Research suggests links between pet ownership and intimate partner violence (IPV). This study explored abused women's decisions about pets when seeking help from a shelter. Interviews were conducted with 19 women who were pet owners. Using grounded theory methods, two patterns emerged surrounding abusers' treatment of pets, bonds to pets, women's decisions about pets upon seeking shelter, and future plans for pets. The presence of coercive control was central to these patterns. Women also discussed their experiences with and needs from shelter professionals and veterinarians with implications for practice.


There has been increased interest in reliable, non-intrusive methods of biometric identification due to the growing emphasis on security and increasing prevalence of identity theft. This paper presents a new biometric approach that involves an estimation of the unique oculomotor plant (OP) or eye globe muscle parameters from an eye movement trace. These parameters model individual properties of the human eye, including neuronal control signal, series elasticity, length tension, force velocity, and active tension. These properties can be estimated for each extraocular muscle, and have been shown to differ between individuals. We describe the algorithms used in our approach and the results of an experiment with 41 human subjects tracking a jumping dot on a screen. Our results show improvement over existing eye movement biometric identification methods. The technique of using Oculomotor Plant Mathematical Model (OPMM) parameters to model the individual eye provides a number of advantages for biometric identification: it includes both behavioral and physiological human attributes, is difficult to counterfeit, non-intrusive, and could easily be incorporated into existing biometric systems to provide an extra layer of security.


OBJECTIVES
We examined the association of racial discrimination and limited English proficiency with health-related quality of life among Asian Americans in California.

METHODS
We studied Chinese (n = 2576), Filipino (n = 1426), Japanese (n = 833), Korean (n = 1128), South Asian (n = 822), and Vietnamese (n = 938) respondents to the California Health Interview Survey in 2003 and 2005. We assessed health-related quality of life with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's measures of self-rated health, activity limitation days, and unhealthy days.

RESULTS
Overall, Asians who reported racial discrimination or who had limited English proficiency were more likely to have poor quality of life, after adjustment for demographic characteristics. South Asian participants who reported discrimination had an estimated 14.4 more activity limitation days annually than South Asians who did not report discrimination. Results were similar among other groups. We observed similar but less consistent associations for limited English proficiency.

CONCLUSIONS
Racial discrimination, and to a lesser extent limited English proficiency, appear to be key correlates of quality of life among Asian ethnic groups.


For many women the 1920s was a time of change after the pressures - and opportunities - of the First World War. For a number, war casualties meant a life of spinsterhood, which some turned to good account by enjoying their new independence. The current fashions, with their close-fitting dresses, cloche hats and cropped hair, emphasised this spirit of female emancipation, but it was 1918 before the vote was granted to women - and then only to those aged thirty or more. This book examines how women responded to the new challenges and the difficulties of those years, from the revival of the round of high society by the social elite, to the lives of the new middle-class professionals, and working-class women employed in the still-traditional milieu of factory and domestic service. Home life, the bringing up of children, and attitudes to family planning are investigated as are the widening leisure and political activities which some women could now afford. Drawing on family papers, contemporary publications and archive research, this book, complemented by a wealth of photographs, cartoons and other illustrations, presents a vivid picture of what women's lives were like during the period.


Mendelian randomization (MR) studies typically assess the pathogenic relevance of environmental exposures or disease biomarkers, using genetic variants that instrument these exposures. The approach is gaining popularity—our systematic review reveals a greater than 10-fold increase in MR studies published between 2004 and 2015. When the MR paradigm was first proposed, few biomarker- or exposure-related genetic variants were known, most having been identified by candidate gene studies. However, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are now providing a rich source of potential instruments for MR analysis. Many early reviews covering the concept, applications and analytical aspects of the MR technique preceded the surge in GWAS, and thus the question of how best to select instruments for MR studies from the now extensive pool of available variants has received insufficient attention. Here we focus on the most common category of MR studies—those concerning disease biomarkers. We consider how the selection of instruments for MR analysis from GWAS requires consideration of: the assumptions underlying the MR approach; the biology of the biomarker; the genome-wide distribution, frequency and effect size of biomarker-associated variants (the genetic architecture); and the specificity of the genetic associations. Based on this, we develop guidance that may help investigators to plan and readers interpret MR studies.


[1] The Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography (SCIAMACHY) satellite spectrometer provides detailed information on the nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) content in the planetary boundary layer. NO 2 tropospheric column retrievals of SCIAMACHY and its predecessor Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment are characterized by errors of the order of 40%. We present here a new SCIAMACHY tropospheric retrieval data set for the year 2003. The cloud free satellite observations are compared to surface measurements and simulations over western Europe performed with the regional air-quality model CHIMERE. The model has a resolution of 50 km similar to the satellite observations. For these comparisons, averaging kernels are applied to the collocated model profiles to remove the dependency of the comparison on a priori NO 2 profile information used in the retrieval. The consistency of both SCIAMACHY and CHIMERE outputs over sites where surface measurements are available allows us to be confident in evaluation of the model over large areas not covered by surface observations. CHIMERE underestimates surface NO 2 concentrations for urban and suburban stations which we mainly attribute to the low representativeness of point observations. No such bias is found for rural locations. The yearly average SCIAMACHY and CHIMERE spatial NO 2 distributions show a high degree of quantitative agreement over rural and urban sites: a bias of 5% (relative to the retrievals) and a correlation coefficient of 0.87 (n = 2003). On a seasonal basis, biases are smaller than 20% and correlation coefficients are larger than 0.75. Spatial correlations between both the model and satellite columns and the European Monitoring and Evaluation Program (EMEP) emission inventory are high in summer (r = 0.74, n = 1779) and low in winter (r = 0.48, n = 1078), related to seasonal changes in lifetime and transport. On the other hand, CHIMERE and SCIAMACHY columns are mutually consistent in summer (r = 0.82) and in winter (r = 0.79). This shows that CHIMERE simulates the transport and chemical processes with a reasonable accuracy. The NO 2 columns show a high daily variability. The daily NO 2 pollution plumes observed by SCIAMACHY are often well described by CHIMERE both in extent and in location. This result demonstrates the capabilities of a satellite instrument such as SCIAMACHY to monitor the NO 2 concentrations over large areas on a daily basis. It provides evidence that present and future satellite missions, in combination with CTM and surface data, will contribute to improve quantitative air quality analyses at a continental scale. Citation: Blond, N., K. F. Boersma, H. J. Eskes, R. J. van der A, M. Van Roozendael, I. De Smedt, G. Bergametti, and R. Vautard (2007), Intercomparison of SCIAMACHY nitrogen dioxide observations, in situ measurements and air quality modeling results over Western Europe,


: In a recent paper, Robert Hanna argues that Kant's incongruent counterparts example can be mobilized to show that some mental representations, which represent complex states of affairs as complex, do so entirely non-conceptually. I will argue that Hanna is right to see that Kant uses incongruent counterparts to show that there must be a non-conceptual component to cognition, but goes too far in concluding that there must be entirely non-conceptual representations that represent objects as existing in space and time. Kant is deeply committed to the thesis that no representation of a complex state of affairs as complex can be entirely non-conceptual. For Kant, all representations of complex states of affairs as complex (including those of incongruent counterparts) are conceptually structured. I present an interpretation of the Transcendental Aesthetic according to which Kant not only aims at Leibnizian and Newtonian accounts of space and time, but also Hume's. Hume's account fails to make representations of complex states of affairs sufficiently determinate. Kant offers an account later in the Critique that is meant to correct this failing by requiring that all representations of complex states of affairs as complex be conceptually (inferentially) structured.


Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from an human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-identical donor is currently the only proven curative treatment for chronic granulomatous disease. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation with alternative donors is associated with higher morbidity and mortality. Therefore, we performed in vitro fertilization and preimplantation HLA matching combined with female sexing for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in chronic granulomatous disease. Ethical and psychological issues were considered carefully. We used in vitro fertilization with X-enriched spermatozoa followed by preimplantation genetic diagnosis to identify female HLA-genoidentical embryos in a family in need of a suitable donor for their boy affected with severe X-linked chronic granulomatous disease. Two preimplantation genetic diagnosis cycles were performed in the family. In the second cycle, 2 HLA-genoidentical female embryos were transferred and a singleton pregnancy was obtained, resulting in the birth of an unaffected girl at term. Because of insufficient cell numbers in the cord-blood source, conventional hematopoietic stem cell transplantation had to be performed at 12 months of age of the donor and 5 years of age of the recipient and resulted in complete stable donor chimerism and immunologic reconstitution up to 25 months post–hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation after in vitro fertilization and combined female sexing and HLA matching offers a new and relatively rapid therapeutic option for patients with X-linked primary immunodeficiency such as chronic granulomatous disease who need hematopoietic stem cell transplantation but lack an HLA-genoidentical donor.


Motivated by the search for new observables in nonperturbative quantum gravity, we consider causal dynamical triangulations in 2+1 dimensions with the spatial topology of a torus. This system is of particular interest, because one can study not only the global scale factor, but also global shape variables in the presence of arbitrary quantum fluctuations of the geometry. Our initial investigation focuses on the dynamics of the scale factor and uncovers a qualitatively new behavior, which leads us to investigate a novel type of boundary conditions for the path integral. Comparing large-scale features of the emergent quantum geometry in numerical simulations with a classical minisuperspace formulation, we find partial agreement. By measuring the correlation matrix of volume fluctuations we succeed in reconstructing the effective action for the scale factor directly from the simulation data. Apart from setting the stage for the analysis of shape dynamics on the torus, the new setup highlights the role of nontrivial boundaries and topology.


A fundamental feature in successful coaching outcomes and athlete performance is rooted in the quality of the coach-athlete relationship which is impacted by coaches' way of being. This investigation examined whether perceived coach behaviour associates with the coach-athlete relationship quality and self-rated season performance among members from two South African male senior national para-sport teams  (n = 23, M age = 32.65). The predictive utility of coaches' perceived behaviour on the dyadic relationship quality and athletes' views on their own performance was also determined. Cross-sectional quantitative data were collected by means of the Coaching Behaviour Scale for Sport, Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire and a Likert-scale item recording athletes' subjective rating of perceived standard of performance for the respective competition season. The team members' reported fairly good standard of season performances and sound relationship standings with their involved head coaches who were seen to exhibit behaviours most illustrative of mental preparation, personal rapport, and competition tactics. Inferences drawn from the correlation analyses advised that particular adoptive coach behaviour in para-sport coaching appears to be a meaningful construct associated with the establishment and maintenance of relationships with athletes. Regression analyses also exposed coaches' competition strategy behaviour to be a significant predictor of complementarity in the coach-athlete relationship, which along with the noted positive correlations provide a good basis for further exploration in similar sport contexts.


Abstract. In the presence of snow, the bias in the prediction of surface albedo by many climate models remains difficult to correct due to the difficulties of separating the albedo parameterizations from those describing snow and vegetation cover and structure. This can be overcome by extracting the albedo parameterizations in isolation, by executing them with observed meteorology and information on vegetation structure, and by comparing the resulting predictions to observations. Here, we employ an empirical data set of forest structure and daily meteorology for three snow cover seasons and for three case regions in boreal Norway to compute and evaluate predicted albedo to those based on daily MODIS retrievals. Forest and adjacent open area albedos are subsequently used to estimate bias in top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcings (RF) from albedo changes (Δα, Open–Forest) connected to land use and land cover changes (LULCC). As expected, given the diversity of approaches by which snow masking by tall-statured vegetation is parameterized, the magnitude and sign of the albedo biases varied considerably for forests. Large biases at the open sites were also detected, which was unexpected given that these sites were snow-covered throughout most of the analytical time period, therefore eliminating potential biases linked to snow-masking parameterizations. Biases at the open sites were mostly positive, exacerbating the strength of vegetation masking effects and hence the simulated LULCC Δα RF. Despite the large biases in both forest and open area albedos by some schemes in some months and years, the mean Δα RF bias over the 3-year period (November–May) was considerably small across models (−2.1 ± 1.04 Wm−2; 21 ± 11%); four of six models had normalized mean absolute errors less than 20%. Identifying systematic sources of the albedo prediction biases proved challenging, although for some schemes clear sources were identified.


Putting it mildly, prostate cancer screening and treatment has been a contentious issue over the past year. With the recent US Preventative Services Task Force grade D recommendation to abandon routine PSA screening, pressing questions regarding the utility of populationwide PSA screening and the harms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment have continued to make national headlines. Determining whether PSA screening and subsequent treatment provides a survival benefit, in particular for men with low risk disease, has become of paramount concern to patients and urologists.


Abstract. Biological dinitrogen (N2) fixation provides the major source of
new nitrogen (N) to the open ocean, contributing more than atmospheric
deposition and riverine inputs to the N supply. Yet the fate of the
diazotroph-derived N (DDN) in the planktonic food web is poorly understood.
The main goals of this study were (i) to quantify how much of DDN is released
to the dissolved pool during N2 fixation and how much is
transferred to bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton, and (ii) to compare
the DDN release and transfer efficiencies under contrasting N2
fixation activity and diversity in the oligotrophic waters of the western
tropical South Pacific (WTSP) Ocean. We used nanometre-scale secondary ion
mass spectrometry (nanoSIMS) coupled with 15N2 isotopic
labelling and flow cytometry cell sorting to track the DDN transfer to
plankton, in regions where the diazotroph community was dominated by either
Trichodesmium or by UCYN-B. After 48 h, ∼ 20–40 % of the
N2 fixed during the experiment was released to the dissolved pool
when Trichodesmium dominated, while the DDN release was not
quantifiable when UCYN-B dominated; ∼ 7–15 % of the total fixed N
(net N2 fixation + release) was transferred to non-diazotrophic
plankton within 48 h, with higher transfer efficiencies (15 ± 3 %)
when UCYN-B dominated as compared to when Trichodesmium dominated
(9 ± 3 %). The pico-cyanobacteria Synechococcus and
Prochlorococcus were the primary beneficiaries of the DDN
transferred (∼ 65–70 %), followed by heterotrophic bacteria
(∼ 23–34 %). The DDN transfer in bacteria was higher
(34 ± 7 %) in the UCYN-B-dominating experiment compared to the
Trichodesmium-dominating experiments (24 ± 5 %). Regarding
higher trophic levels, the DDN transfer to the dominant zooplankton species
was less efficient when the diazotroph community was dominated by
Trichodesmium (∼ 5–9 % of the DDN transfer) than when it
was dominated by UCYN-B (∼ 28 ± 13 % of the DDN transfer). To
our knowledge, this study provides the first quantification of DDN release
and transfer to phytoplankton, bacteria and zooplankton communities in open
ocean waters. It reveals that despite UCYN-B fix N2 at lower rates
compared to Trichodesmium in the WTSP, the DDN from UCYN-B is much
more available and efficiently transferred to the planktonic food web than
the DDN originating from Trichodesmium.


An investigation of silicate weathering in a Minnesota mire indicates that quartz and aluminosilicates rapidly dissolve in anoxic, organic-rich, neutral- pH environments. Vertical profiles of pH, dissolved silicon, and major cations were obtained at a raised bog and a spring fen and compared. Profiles of readily extractable silicon, diatom abundance, ash mineralogy, and silicate surface texture were determined from peat cores collected at each site.

In the bog, normally a recharge mound, dissolved silicon increases with depth as pH increases, exceeding the background silicon concentration by a factor of two. Silicate grain surfaces, including quartz, are chemically etched at this location, despite being in contact with pore water at neutral pH with dissolved silicon well above the equilibrium solubility of quartz. The increasing silica concentrations at circum-neutral pH are consistent with a system where silicate solubility is influenced by silica-organic-acid complexes. Silica-organic-acid complexes therefore may be the cause of the almost complete absence of diatoms in decomposed peat and contribute to the formation of silica-depleted underclays commonly found beneath coal.


Atherosclerosis is a disease that narrows, thickens, hardens and restructures a blood vessel due to substantial plaque deposit. In the Carotid Artery, the decision to treat using endarterectomy and stenting is determined by the velocity as measured by Doppler flow in the common Carotid Artery. The measured Doppler velocity as compared with the contra-lateral side has been correlated with the degree of stenosis. In some patients, the Doppler velocity after stenting is equivalent to or higher than before treatment. The hypothesis we are testing is that higher velocity measured after stenting may be due to the decreased compliance of the artery wall at the stent region. Geometric models of blood flow through an idealized carotid artery of different types and several degrees of constriction ranging from 0% to 100% were modeled. The overall objective of this paper is to create a computational model with pulsatile flow and walls with physiological compliance. The pressure variations in the compliant stenotic artery are subjected to prescribed pulsatile waveform. The computational simulations were performed in which the physiological flow through compliant axisymmetric stenotic blood vessel (carotid artery) was solved using commercial software COMSOL. COMSOL multiphysics[1] is used to solve this challenging problem involving fluid-structure interaction. Here we have demonstrated comparisons of the centerline velocities V0=0.40 m/s and V55=0.53 m/s with stenosed rate 0% and 55% respectively with the fluid-structure interaction and their velocity profiles under the physiological flow conditions in the compliant stenotic artery. With these values, flow prefers to avoid the stenosed region which causes additional load on the section with the stenosis. Therefore the structure seemed to translate marginally towards the stenosed section at bifurcation junction. Huge compliance mismatches though, would not be desirable especially due to greater deformations experienced by the arterial walls which affected the centerline velocity.


Notoriously, state-building is a key enterprise in regard of addressing the international conflicts throughout the globe. The consolidation of peace associated to it is intimately connected with the institutionalization of liberal ideas in structuring realms such as the political, the economical and the social spheres. Departing from Foucauldian concepts such as dispositif, government, discipline and biopolitics, this paper aims to critically analyze the post-conflict state-building practice. In a first moment, the paper delineates how peace was operationalized during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods. In a second moment, it will present the Foucauldian conceptual tools that enables the (re)problematization of the state-building practice as a post-conflict normalizing dispositif, rather than merely a conflict-resolution tool.


Commercial banks' share of loans to businesses and households has declined significantly over the past two decades. Many banks have responded by expanding their production of fee-based financial services. This study describes trends in noninterest and fee-based income in commercial banks since 1984, and examines the relationship between these trends and banking cost efficiency. Cost efficiency estimates are generated using a multi-product, thick cost frontier approach that controls for the impact of fee-based activities on banks' costs of production. The results suggest that banks producing relatively large amounts of fee-based services have been more cost-efficient than their peers over the past decade. This cost advantage tends to be small, however, and does not appear to significantly enhance profitability. There are anomalous results for banks that derive over 30 percent of their income from fee-based activities, but the anomalies may be caused by differences in the production technologies that are not adequately captured by the cost model. The analysis demonstrates that simple accounting-based cost ratios, as well as multipleoutput cost models that include only balance sheet items as outputs, may significantly understate cost efficiency at banks that derive a large percentage of their income from fee-based activities. Disclaimer


Interpreting and translation are increasingly provided in the public sector via large-scale outsourced framework contracts (Moorkens 2017). In the UK, one of the largest recent framework agreements for interpreting and translation was introduced between 2016 and 2017 in critical contexts for justice, including the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the police. These agreements involve new types of collaboration between new partners and agents in the delivery of interpreting and translation, who each have different aims, expectations, standards and working methods. This contribution examines these emerging complex collaborations, and is the result of a rare type of complex collaboration between academic researchers, framework contract-holders and managers, interpreters and translators, language service providers, professional associations, and users of translation and interpreting services, within the Transnational Organised Crime and Translation (TOCAT) project. The article reports on original research conducted during the TOCAT project, and outlines and evaluates some novel, complex and ethically challenging 'translaborations' in police settings. The collaborations discussed are complex because of the range of parties and actors involved and because of the challenging content and settings in which the police rely on interpreting and translation. 'Translaboration' is used here to encompass multiple evolving collaborations between different providers and users of interpreting and translation, policy makers, trainers and researchers. Important questions of translation quality and ethics in the management of large-scale framework contexts for public service delivery are raised.


"The Eugenics Movement in North Carolina" places North Carolina into the social, political, and legal context of the movement in the United States that resulted in the sterilization of more than thirty thousand people from the 1920s through the 1960s. We sketch the social and political arguments that were mobilized to support sterilization, as well as the arguments judges developed alongside these arguments from the 1910s through the 1930s. State courts slowly accepted sterilization until the United States Supreme Court's decision in 1927 in Buck v. Bell. Then courts and legislatures around the United States more readily accepted it, even as legal scholars expressed reservations about sterilization. North Carolina was one of those states that embraced sterilization. The machinery of the state went into facilitating sterilization. The Eugenics Board of North Carolina, the state board in charge of reviewing petitions from public health officials for sterilization, produced pre-printed forms to facilitate the approval of sterilization. They presided over the petitions and routinely granted the vast majority of them. The few sterilization orders that were challenged in court were also routinely upheld.For nearly two decades, until the United States' entrance into World War II, sterilization was broadly accepted by courts. But the United States Supreme Court's decision in Skinner v. Oklahoma in 1942 began to turn the tide against sterilization, as did unease with a procedure that was reminiscent of what was happening in Germany during the War. Yet, even after Skinner v. Oklahoma and after World War II ended, as the rest of the nation began to abandon sterilization, sterilizations continued in North Carolina.We conclude with a discussion of the recent legislation in North Carolina to provide modest payments to the victims of the state's sterilization program. In particular we discuss the design of a payment regime and how the legislature can justify payments for this concentrated episode of state infringement on personal liberty. And we suggest that the North Carolina legislation may provide a model for future legislative action aimed at payments for people sterilized involuntarily in other states.


OBJECTIVE
To compare in a pilot study the effect of two physical therapies, the Mensendieck system (MS) and body awareness therapy (BAT) according to Roxendal, in fibromyalgia patients and to investigate differences in effect between the two interventions.

METHODS
Twenty female patients were randomized to either MS or BAT in a program lasting 20 weeks. Evaluations were tender point examination and questionnaires, including visual analog scales (pain intensity at worst site, muscular stiffness, evening fatigue, and global health), Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Quality of Life Scales, Arthritis Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES), and disability before, immediately after, and at 6 and 18 months follow-up.

RESULTS
The BAT group had improved global health at 18 months follow-up, but lower results than the MS group. The MS group had improved FIQ, ASES other symptoms, and pain at worst site at 18 months follow-up.

CONCLUSION
In the present pilot study, MS was associated with more positive changes than BAT.


Abstract In the recent legislative elections the Democrat Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) was by far the most successful. Support for other major secular-nationalist parties fell significantly, as did that for the Islamic parties as a group. Two new parties led by former generals also performed relatively poorly. At the time of writing SBY seemed the likely winner of the forthcoming presidential election, supported by running mate Boediono, the former governor of Bank Indonesia. Indonesia's performance during the global financial crisis has been vastly better than during the Asian financial crisis, and superior to that of most other countries in the region. Output growth remained positive through Q1 2009, although there were signs of heightened caution within the business community. Deft monetary policy saw inflation decline significantly, with little negative impact on output growth or the banking sector. Much of the earlier declines in the financial markets had been reversed by mid-June. Successful management of exchange rate policy in late 2008 and early 2009 raises the question whether Indonesia would fare better with a more genuinely floating exchange rate and a much lower level of international reserves. Economic outcomes during the SBY administration fell well short of the president's 2004 election campaign promises, but were comparable with those under former president Megawati, reflecting the great policy similarities of the two regimes. A key feature of the presidential election campaign has been the use of the term 'neo-liberal' to attack one's opponents. It has been implied that those following 'neo-liberal' policies favour the business sector and foreigners over the people, whereas the real issue is what types of policies are more likely to benefit the Indonesian people as a whole. The debate provides the opportunity potentially to resolve long-standing disagreements as to the relative efficacy of free market- and interventionist-type policies. Public sector accounting reform is an important aspect of efforts to improve governance. Newly introduced accounting standards require a shift to double-entry accounting, and away from the single-entry system inherited long ago from the Dutch. This requires the listing of government entities' assets and liabilities in a balance sheet, and should lead to far greater accuracy in government financial reporting. In turn, this has the potential to be a powerful anti-corruption instrument. But progress is significantly limited by a severe shortage of accountants in the public sector, and by dysfunctional personnel management practices.


This volume contains the proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Fixed Points in Computer Science which took place on 24 March 2012 in Tallinn, Estonia as an ETAPS-affiliated workshop. Past workshops have been held in Brno (1998, MFCS/CSL workshop), Paris (2000, LC workshop), Florence (2001, PLI workshop), Copenhagen (2002, LICS (FLoC) workshop), Warsaw (2003, ETAPS workshop), Coimbra (2009, CSL workshop), and Brno (2010, MFCS-CSL workshop).
Fixed points play a fundamental role in several areas of computer science and logic by justifying induction and recursive definitions. The construction and properties of fixed points have been investigated in many different frameworks such as: design and implementation of programming languages, program logics, and databases. The aim of this workshop is to provide a forum for researchers to present their results to those members of the computer science and logic communities who study or apply the theory of fixed points.


The Loess Plateau of China (LPC) is suffering from the impacts of overexploitation of groundwater, leading to a decline in the regional water table. This is compounded by relatively recent large‐scale transformation of land use, which may impact groundwater recharge and threaten future water quality from intensive nitrogen fertilizer application. Understanding the regional unsaturated water flow and nitrate travel time in the deep vadose zone is crucial for the sustainable management of the LPC groundwater system. We develop here a regional‐scale model that exploits an extensive database of soil properties derived from recent intensive soil profile sampling over the LPC, together with climate, vadose zone thickness, and land use data. The model solves the Richards equation and a conservative solute transport model using a multiple 1D column approach. A comparison between model simulations and observations at five sites reveals good model performance. Application over the LPC indicates that areas with dense irrigated agricultural land use contribute significantly to groundwater recharge. By using land use cover information from 1975 to 2008, simulations reveal that the transition from agriculture to forest and grassland accounts for a small reduction of the total annual recharge (6.1%). Modeled nitrate travel times through the deep unsaturated zone range between decades and centuries; however, recent loading of anthropogenic nitrate is expected to reach the aquifer in the near future under irrigated areas or where the vadose zone is relatively thin. The model simulations provide valuable information for assessing future vulnerability of groundwater resources over a regional scale.


Quantum stochastic calculus has become an indispensable tool in modern quantum physics, its effectiveness being illustrated by recent developments in quantum control which place the calculus at the heart of the theory. Quantum statistics is rapidly taking shape as an intrinsically quantum counterpart to classical statistics, motivated by advances in quantum engineering and the need for better statistical inference tools for quantum systems.This volume contains a selection of regular research articles and reviews by leading researchers in quantum control, quantum statistics, quantum probability and quantum information. The selection offers a unified view of recent trends in quantum stochastics, highlighting the common mathematical language of Hilbert space operators, and the deep connections between classical and quantum stochastic phenomena.


Abstract. Alkylaminium sulfates originate from the neutralisation reaction between short-chained amines and sulfuric acid and have been detected in atmospheric aerosol particles. Their physicochemical behaviour is less well characterised than their inorganic equivalent, ammonium sulfate, even though they play a role in atmospheric processes such as the nucleation and growth of new particles and cloud droplet formation. In this work, a comparative evaporation kinetics experimental technique using a cylindrical electrodynamic balance is applied to determine the hygroscopic properties of six short-chained alkylaminium sulfates, specifically mono-, di-, and tri-methylaminium sulfate and mono-, di-, and tri-ethyl aminium sulfate. This approach allows for the retrieval of a water-activity-dependent growth curve in less than 10 s, avoiding the uncertainties that can arise from the volatilisation of semi-volatile components. Measurements are made on particles > 5 µm in radius, avoiding the need to correct equilibrium measurements for droplet-surface curvature with assumed values of the droplet-surface tension. Variations in equilibrium solution droplet composition with varying water activity are reported over the range 0.5 to > 0.98, along with accurate parameterisations of solution density and refractive index. The uncertainties in water activities associated with the hygroscopicity measurements are typically  0.9 and  ∼  ±1 % below 0.9, with maximum uncertainties in diameter growth factors of ±0.7 %. Comparison with previously reported measurements show deviation across the entire water activity range.


This special issue had its origins in a workshop on criminal law and criminalisation which we co-convened, and our law schools co-hosted, in 2017. That workshop was the fourth in what has become an annual event in Australia (starting with a Sydney Law School-hosted event in 2014 (see Crofts and Loughnan 2015)). These workshops came into being because of a recognised gap in the Australian scholarly environment: a place for criminalisation scholars to share, discuss and receive feedback on their work (see also Anthony and Croft 2017; Henderson 2016).
To access the full text of the guest editor's introducton to this special issue on 'Hidden Criminalisation—Punitiveness at the Edges', download the accompanying PDF file.


Face-to-face communication is a highly dynamic process where participants mutually exchange and interpret linguistic and gestural signals. Even when only one person speaks at the time, other participants exchange information continuously amongst themselves and with the speaker through gesture, gaze, posture and facial expressions. To correctly interpret the high-level communicative signals, an observer needs to jointly integrate all spoken words, subtle prosodic changes and simultaneous gestures from all participants. In this paper, we present our ongoing research effort at USC MultiComp Lab to create models of human communication dynamic that explicitly take into consideration the multimodal and interpersonal aspects of human face-to-face interactions. The computational framework presented in this paper has wide applicability, including the recognition of human social behaviors, the synthesis of natural animations for robots and virtual humans, improved multimedia content analysis, and the diagnosis of social and behavioral disorders (e.g., autism spectrum disorder).


A major limitation of thermal therapies is the lack of detailed thermal information needed to monitor the therapy. Temperatures are routinely measured invasively with thermocouples, but only sparse measurements can be made. Ultrasound tomography is an attractive modality for temperature monitoring because it is noninvasive, non-ionizing, convenient and inexpensive. It capitalizes on the fact that the changes in temperature cause the changes in sound speed. In this work we investigate the possibility of monitoring large temperature changes, in the interval from body temperature to -40°C. The ability to estimate temperature in this interval is of a great importance in cryosurgery, where freezing is used to destroy abnormal tissue. In our experiment, we freeze locally a tissue-mimicking phantom using a combination of one, two or three cryoprobes. The estimation of sound speed is a difficult task because, first, the sound is highly attenuated when traversing the frozen tissue; and second, the sound speed to be reconstructed has a high spatial bandwidth, due to the dramatic change in speed between the frozen and unfrozen tissue. We show that the first problem can be overcome using a beamforming technique. As the classical reconstruction algorithms inherently smooth the reconstruction, we propose to solve the second problem by applying reconstruction techniques based on sparsity.


Antimicrobial peptides are small peptides encoded by genes. The research area of antimicrobial peptides has attracted intense attention in recent years because "their potential use in the cure of infectious diseases caused by pathogens that have become counteractive to traditional antibiotics" (Boman 1994). There exist huge amount of antimicrobial peptides research articles and this number is continuously increasing. Although some biomedical databases, such as PubMed, have been well established, they provide only query-based information retrieval and end-users need to manually find out relevant information from thousands of retrieved articles. The objective of this paper is to apply one of the text mining techniques, document clustering, which groups similar documents into clusters, to text documents collected from PubMed using keyword "antimicrobial peptides". The results of our work can help researchers to discover meaningful groups of antimicrobial peptides articles in an efficient manner.


At room temperature, multiphoton absorption- (MPA-) induced photoluminescence in ZnO strongly driven by a femtosecond (fs) near-infrared laser is studied. Two-photon absorption and three-photon absorption are proved to be responsible for the intense luminescence, when the wavelength of the fs excitation laser is above and below the half-bandgap of ZnO, respectively. Strong MPA absorption in ZnO is unambiguously evidenced by the interferometric autocorrelation measurements of the luminescence signal.


ABSTRACT This article examines the economic impact of the Pirates major league baseball franchise on the Pittsburgh region, defined as Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Washington, and Westmoreland counties, by running two simulations using the 1994 Pittsburgh REMI Model to assess the impact of the Pirates on the local economy. Effects on the local economy are estimated based on the negative impact that would result from the Pirates leaving the Pittsburgh region. The Pittsburgh REMI Model is used to compute the indirect and total impact this would have on the local economy. In the first scenario, money that is currently used by the city and county governments to support the Pirates at Three River Stadium is returned to local taxpayers by lowering personal taxes in Allegheny County. In the second scenario, the money that is used to support the team is redirected by local government and is used to increase spending for other local public goods and services. INTRODUCTION Much controversy currently exists in the City of Pittsburgh as to what the real impact of the Pirates is on the local economy and whether or not the amount of financial assistance the team currently receives from local government and the construction of a new, publicly-financed, $240 million baseball-only stadium can be justified. In the past, a number of reports have been written to analyze the economic impact of the Pirates on the region. A quick look at three of these reports is in order before proceeding with the main analysis of this article. In the past, most reports on the economic impact of the Pirates on Pittsburgh found that the team had a substantial positive economic impact on the region. However, there have been serious flaws in the methods used in these reports, causing them to seriously overstate the actual impact of the team. In his report, Malloy (1979) estimated that the Pirates attracted $33 million in new economic activity into the region annually. He arrived at this amount by estimating the amount of spending by local and visiting fans at the Pirates' home games and on game-related activities and then by applying a multiplier effect to yield his results. However, Malloy counted all games and related expenditures, including those by local residents. In doing so, he ignored the impact of substitution effects on the local economy, i.e., a dollar spent to see a ball game by a local resident is a dollar he won't be able to spend elsewhere. Moreover, Malloy treated local, preexisting money the same as new money from outside the region by applying the multiplier effect to local expenditures as well as to money flowing in from non-residents. As a result, he greatly overstated the impact of the Pirates on the region. In 1995, graduate students from the Carnegie-Mellon University Heinz School for Public Policy released a study recommending a new baseball-only stadium be built for the team because it would yield substantial revenues for local governments as well as generate significant economic growth Apllebaum et al., 1995). This study found the impact of the Pirates to be $52.9 million in the City of Pittsburgh and $93.6 million for the MSA. However, this study suffered from the same fatal flaws as Malloy's study by generously overestimating the amount of spending made by the team locally on supplies, etc. When all of the appropriate corrections are made to this report, the actual impact of the Pirates on the region falls between $15 and $24 million (Haulk, 1995:11). In his 1995 paper, Haulk examined the competitive state of the Pirates relative to other major league franchises and estimated the total net flow of money into the region generated by the Pirates and found that past reports had greatly overstated the magnitude of the impact that the team had on the local economy. Controlling for local substitution effects and team expenditures outside the region and using a multiplier of magnitude 1. …